Essentials: Druid Preview Is Up!

[Lord_Blacksteel]

The weapon damage boost looks new to me. Do we have another class where you just flat do more damage with certain weapons? Rogues and Rangers have the feats to boost their bonus damage and there are feats to boost damage with particular weapons but it's a pretty nice bump that a staff goes from a d8 to a d12 just because you're a summer sentinel druid - no feat cost, no special circumstances like opp attacks - it's just always on.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Just a note:

wilderness knacks could be an overarching primal class feature.

Hunter Ranger also has them.

I like what they are doing...

(Although i don´t really see why the sentinel is a druid... it could as well be a ranger subclass that is pure primal...

I guess it is just fluff and we will see

 

[The Human Target]

Pardon me while I pick my jaw up off the floor here for a moment.

.


This is EXACTLY what I wanted the druid to be originally. If the druid had been this when we were rolling our classes in my D&D 4e game right now, I'd had have been a Wilden Druid.

This is an AWESOME preview.

Ya shoulda just been a shaman.

 

[The Little Raven]

This one being a leader might mean that they can't use druid powers from the phb2.

Nope. It can take anything from the Druid class that it qualifies for, just like the Slayer can take anything from the Fighter class that it qualifies for, despite being a Striker.

However, without Beast Form, it can't use any of the Beast powers the PHB2 druid has.

 

[CovertOps]

(Although i don´t really see why the sentinel is a druid... it could as well be a ranger subclass that is pure primal...

I guess it is just fluff and we will see

Power Sources have always been "just fluff". The difference here is class features and role. [Martial] Ranger is a striker and [Primal] Druid is a leader.

 

[Klaus]

I know. But I don't think of tigers when I think of winter and vice versa.



Much better

Or they could take a page from Malazan and have the Tiger of Summer?

Gruntle FTW!

 

[TerraDave]

The weapon damage boost looks new to me. Do we have another class where you just flat do more damage with certain weapons?

Rogue with the shurikan. Thief gets a +2 to damage with light blades, hand crossbows, shortbows, and slings.

 

[BobTheNob]

The whole "Will the pet use the masters action economy"? Of course he will!

We cant honestly believe that WOTC, who has a proven record of paying alot of attention to blanace issues (the last years worth of errata was like a breath of fresh air for stomping on game destroying cheese) has spent so much time to create essentials only to "Whoops : We created a leader that hits harder than a striker!"

To believe otherwise is to draw a conclusion from preview which we know has alot of information missing from it.

So on the one hand we have the "its will use the characters action economy" which makes sense, is balanced and consistent with established practice, and the "It will have its own initiative" which doesnt make sense, unbalances everything and has no existing precedent what-so-ever, and we only speculate is possible because a line was missing from a preview!

I know which one I would bet WOTC will go with

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

Rogue with the shurikan. Thief gets a +2 to damage with light blades, hand crossbows, shortbows, and slings.

That's a good point. Maybe it's balanced by having to share actions with the animal. I think when you get into (for example)the powers that do 3W or 4W it's going to start looking pretty good throwing 3d12 than say a 3d6 +2 like a similar thief attack would.

It's probably not that big a difference - other leaders can take 2-handed d12 weapons - it just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me for the class. Druid-as-ass-kicker for a long time now has meant shapeshifting, not swinging a big stick. It should be fun for a player who wants a more direct approach.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The whole "Will the pet use the masters action economy"? Of course he will!

We cant honestly believe that WOTC, who has a proven record of paying alot of attention to blanace issues (the last years worth of errata was like a breath of fresh air for stomping on game destroying cheese) has spent so much time to create essentials only to "Whoops : We created a leader that hits harder than a striker!"

To believe otherwise is to draw a conclusion from preview which we know has alot of information missing from it.

So on the one hand we have the "its will use the characters action economy" which makes sense, is balanced and consistent with established practice, and the "It will have its own initiative" which doesnt make sense, unbalances everything and has no existing precedent what-so-ever, and we only speculate is possible because a line was missing from a preview!

I know which one I would bet WOTC will go with

Thanks for inspiring me with such confidence Bob, SURELY WotC never pulls a giant boner! I mean you know, Rain of Steel really WAS balanced. Battlerage Vigor too! Only nitpickers complained about them, it was really OK

I HOPE you are correct. Honestly I don't believe it. There's no mention of action economy or any callout on that at all. That COULD be an oversight, but personally I don't think it is. I think all the grognards hated the "unrealistic" shared action pool and this being the totally 100% retro worship sub-edition guess what we're going to get? The good old totally unbalanced 3e Druid ala 4e! Really, I wouldn't bet on it, but when HotFK drops just remember that I called it

On the issue of choice how can anyone say the new Druid represents anything like any amount of choice? You have Spring -> Wolf or Summer -> Bear and that's it, your weapon choice is pretty well made for you, there are NO companion options at all, etc. It is a very impoverished class from the standpoint of any reflavoring or even variations from one campaign to another.

The PHB2 Essentials rehash book CANNOT come too soon. lol.