D&D 4E Essential 4e: Heroes of the Forgotten Lands

[pemerton]

It isn't in a PDF...yet. I believe you'll see that the Updates for October will, in fact, be HUGE as it erratas all the old feats to use the Essentials wordings, all the old Wizard powers to have new keywords, effects on a miss, and just to change the powers that are different.

Here's hoping . . .

 

[vagabundo]

It isn't in a PDF...yet. I believe you'll see that the Updates for October will, in fact, be HUGE as it erratas all the old feats to use the Essentials wordings, all the old Wizard powers to have new keywords, effects on a miss, and just to change the powers that are different. Probably, there will be a couple subtle changes to the rules as well to go with all the Essentials stuff.

You sure about this? I'm not even sure what that means. Do you mean that the feats will be reorganised into sections? Or that the prereq of tier will disappear?

 

[Aegeri]

You sure about this? I'm not even sure what that means. Do you mean that the feats will be reorganised into sections? Or that the prereq of tier will disappear?

Tier prereqs will not disappear as far as I know, what will change is that feats are not organized by tier anymore and are organized instead by what they do. So if you think "I want to attack better" then you look under attack feats, instead of spending about two million years sorting through crap to find something you want.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You sure about this? I'm not even sure what that means. Do you mean that the feats will be reorganised into sections? Or that the prereq of tier will disappear?

By the looks of it:
- Tier is no longer a prerequisite.
- Feats that were similar but were simply higher tier (like the various defense boosters) now are available from the start - with the low bonus, but scale by tier.
- Feats are organized into more "goal-oriented" categories, like "I want something to buff defense" or "I am going for a quick-themed character".

I think it looks neater this way. You also avoid some of the stupid retraining shuffle that goes on when you move between tiers. ("Oh, I still got that +2 feat bonus to defense X feat, but now there is that +4 feat bonus feat.")

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

You sure about this? I'm not even sure what that means. Do you mean that the feats will be reorganised into sections? Or that the prereq of tier will disappear?

I think this is true for feats in the future. What I was referring to is the fact that Weapon Focus apparently has a new wording in Heroes of the Forgotten Lands than it does in the PHB1, so it'll be in the errata. Melee Training has different wording in the book than it does in PHB2, so it'll see errata.

The article in Dragon Magazine a short while ago, however, made it clear that any feat that doesn't have the same name won't affect old feats. It appears that a feat that gives +2 to will that can only be taken at 11th+ level isn't replaced by one that gives +1 to will(+2 at 11th, +3 at 12th), therefore it got a different name and won't give errata to the old version.

I disagree, but that seems to be their opinion.

 

[vagabundo]

Hmmm three slightly different answers. Anyway, My interest in this months update grows.

I've had the 'dumstruck by the wall of feats' effect when creating some characters with the Char Builder. So the new organisations is welcome. I did - initially - like the tier requirement, but on reflection it was only because it broke up the wall of feats somewhat.

BTW the new dwarf article seems to have the new feat format and it is awesome. It is the first time I've genuinely been entertained while reading a list of feats. I would normally just gloss over the list, but now the feats themselves led to character ideas.

 

[Aegeri]

All three of us are right. Tier isn't going to be a prerequisite going forward over having a scaling effect - as far as I know. They might decide otherwise depending on their mood of course and the feat in question. Mostly tier prerequisites will exist in previous feats that aren't replaced (of which there are far too many to simply errata unless the October update will be absolutely bananas). Majoru is also correct, lots of the new feats are scaling and demolish things that already existed before. The original rubbish that the scaling feats replace isn't going to be removed (as far as I know, Wizards could surprise us there). So we'll end up with a few of those old feats still cluttering up the CB and similar.

What I hope for is much better QA of feats before publication. Don't publish trap feats and don't just duplicate complete crap. I think their change in organization is going to help immensely. Authors can look through the feats, find what is relevant and then just base new feats on those. This should be significantly better than the current system.

Edit: Fiery Dragon, I've discovered something from another forum that seems new. Does the book describe the "grabbed" condition? I am very curious if you can confirm for me if the grabbed condition no longer ends when you can't make OAs (Like when you're dazed or hit by winged horde?).

 

[thalmin]

I've discovered something from another forum that seems new. Does the book describe the "grabbed" condition? I am very curious if you can confirm for me if the grabbed condition no longer ends when you can't make OAs (Like when you're dazed or hit by winged horde?).

Grabbed is in there. It ends if the grabber is subjected to an effect that prevents it from taking actions, or if the (grabbed) creature ends up outside the range of the grabbing power or effect.
Also, Grab is now a Basic Attack Power (page 27) at-will standard action, minor to sustain.

 

[Zaran]

I called it 4.24 a while ago, how right was I?

I actually like calling it 3.9 . I'm really itching to see the october update to errata and see what all that will change. I have a feeling that most of our pre-essentails characters will change and mostly with a small boost. I seriously doubt there will be many nerfs as people will blame essentials for destroying their character.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

when I want to annoy people with the number of this update I use