December Playtests: Druid, Invoker, AV2, and Mercykillers! (merged)

[Caliber]

Lawful evil jailers, IIRC, with cool red armour.

Cheers


Richard

I thought the Harmonium packed the weird red armor?

 

[Plane Sailing]

threads merged

 

[Cadfan]

I don't think ShapeShifting and Spellcasting need to be mutually exclusive. They might be, but don't have to be. If the druid class has both as class features to choose between, I could see taking Shapeshifting and then still being able to select some Druid spells as powers.

Shapeshifting and spellcasting don't HAVE to be mutually exclusive. I just think they will be. There's enough design space in shapeshifting to support an entire class. If you add nature magic to it, you end up with a class that doesn't do as much shapeshifting as it could, because shapeshifting powers that overlap wtih the nature magic are redundant.

Far easier to keep them (at least mostly) separate.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I think if they bring back the Factions they will exist like they did before with their philosophical opinions, etc. But they probably won't be tied down too alignment or past-Planescape history. There could very well be a history of stuff in 4e Sigil that exists in previous Planescape, but that probably be the extent.

I personally if this is the case am quite looking forward too it. I would like to see the Factions become separate from alignment and have it simply be they have developed their own views of the universe and such not because their respecting some overarching alignment system.

 

[Verys Arkon]

I like the playtest articles as much as anyone, but December's editorial calendar seems too heavily weighted toward playtests, and not enough other content. I think limiting it to one per month would be better balance, or at least don't replace other Dragon content with the extra playtest articles.

I would also like to see more about how the playtests are going. The recent "News" blurb about the ongoing Barbarian was interesting, and I'd like to see more like this. Maybe as a Design and Development article.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I personally if this is the case am quite looking forward too it. I would like to see the Factions become separate from alignment and have it simply be they have developed their own views of the universe and such not because their respecting some overarching alignment system.

Alignment was important to half of the factions, and none of the alignments they were ever tied to was on the good and evil axis. If there was one thing that factions did, it was ignore the impact of good and evil.

And in regards to the PS continuity most of it happened completely in Sigil, not much of what happened in the metaplot outside on the planes ever had much of an impact inside of Sigil. Therefore it's pretty easy to use much of the old continuity for Sigil even with the "World Axis" cosmology of 4e.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm still trying to figure out if Sigil's Mercykillers are back or if Faction War will be ignored for MotP 4E, which I find very very interesting.

My guess is, given the fact that most PS fans aren't a huge fan of FW, they'll either be doing a retcon (that never happened except maybe in your campaign!) or they'll be doing a fast-forward (hundreds of years later, it's as if FW never happened!).

I'm more likely to believe the former. 4e has separated with the "sucky parts" of earlier editions, and FW is definitely considered a "sucky part" of Planescape, largely because it is credited with killing the setting.

That's not an entirely fair view of FW, but whatever. I'll be excited if they retcon it out.

 

[Fifth Element]

Here's the public relations problem for them. Basically, gamers online are a bunch of obnoxious spazzes.

Siggable.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Another adventurer's vault so soon?

Also, the Adventurer's Vault keeping "pace" with PHB's might be a good idea. As you get more classes and races ... you'll want new equipment that works well for each of them. The main expansion system seems to be a PHB, a MM, an Ad Vault, the campaign guide and player's guide and eventually a "X Power" book for each power source as they get at least 4 classes in the source (PHB II gives 4 primal and rounds up arcane and divine). So it seems like a generally solid concept in terms of timing things out. There's some other DM stuff, like the "idea" books to help in focussing campaigns onto certain themes, like planes, dragons, etc ... but the stuff that is "for players" looks to be the PHB's, the AV's, the player's guides and the "X Power" books ... so it helps the players know what to look for and what to expect.

 

[yesnomu]

I like the playtest articles as much as anyone, but December's editorial calendar seems too heavily weighted toward playtests, and not enough other content. I think limiting it to one per month would be better balance, or at least don't replace other Dragon content with the extra playtest articles.

I would also like to see more about how the playtests are going. The recent "News" blurb about the ongoing Barbarian was interesting, and I'd like to see more like this. Maybe as a Design and Development article.

...You are a terrible person. Playtests are the best things ever, and this is a great spread. Wizards, do not listen to this crazy person.

Begrudgingly, I'll admit I'd like more articles on the results of playtests, like official revisions of both classes so far for people playing them.