Excerpt: Paragon paths (merged)

[AverageCitizen]

I have this terrible fear that this is multi-classing in 4e.

Other than that, everything looks really awesome.

I do hope there's more non-combat abilities. In my games information is better than platinum, and my players almost always have a few who specialize in information gathering. Not to say they can't fight, which I think fits well in 4e, as everybody fights, but some investigation related abilities would be nice.

We'll have to see how the skills go down I guess.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I would like to start a petition to rename "Arcane Riposte" to "I Slap You With My Lightning Hands", please.

Loving the article - full of lovely crunchy goodness!

 

[OakwoodDM]

I have this terrible fear that this is multi-classing in 4e.

I'm pretty sure you have nothing to fear in that respect. The schedule of Excerpts (shown in a different thread on ENWorld) includes one a week from now entitled 'Multiclassing'. I doubt they'd put out an excerpt simply saying "See the Paragon Paths article". They may get a few complaints if they did.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Have I missed something? Do you HAVE to take a paragon path? There's no option not to? It's either multiclass or paragon path?

Pinotage

That's correct - but there is no downside to having a paragon path, unlike a Prestige Class. You still gain ALL of the powers that you would do without it, rather than substituting them.

 

[Minigiant]

My guess is about 20 paths in the phb

1 for each class (8)
1 for each power source (3)
4 bonus role paths (striker, leader, etc..)
2 or 3 racial paths (arcane archer, dwarven defender)
2 or 3 proficiency/style paths (melee, ranged, spell, healer)

So and elf fighter might have access to

Fighter path (kensai)
Elf/Half-elf/Eladrin path (arcane archer)
Martial controller path (master thrower)
Generic Melee path (????)

or multiclass

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That's correct - but there is no downside to having a paragon path, unlike a Prestige Class. You still gain ALL of the powers that you would do without it, rather than substituting them.

Actually, I think that's not entirely correct. This is just me guessing and speculating, but I think if you would take the Heroic Level Advancement and extrapolate it to Paragon levels, and then compare to the actual Paragon levels, I suspect you will notice some spots in your advancement where you learn the Paragon Path powers, where the extrapolated Paragon levels would imply a new class-related power.
So in way, you're "losing" something. But everybody loses the same and gets compensated with Paragon abilities.

Oh, I don't just have to speculate - I could use the excerpts!
If you look at the "Power per Class Level" table from the Tiers excerpt, you'll see that characters gain not only better, but also more powers over the course of the Heroic tier. At Paragon and Epic tiers, this advancement stops, and you gain only additional abilities per day/encounter due to your Paragon/Epic paths.

But you still continue improving your class powers. But the number of powers you know does not increase any more.

 

[Pistonrager]

That's correct - but there is no downside to having a paragon path, unlike a Prestige Class. You still gain ALL of the powers that you would do without it, rather than substituting them.

not quite... it says you can multiclass instead.

 

[tec-goblin]

Thoughts:
Wow, I'm amazed at how compact Paragon Paths are. I guess we'll be seeing a lot of them.

It's not as compact as it seems. I mean, we don't have the daily powers, nor the full encounter/minor power text, nor the flavour text, nor the sample npc (that we'll soon see in the sourcebooks) etc. I can easily see how it can get 4 pages long without starting stating the obvious.

Huh, you can do multiclass stuff instead of taking a Paragon Path. Hopefully this doesn't preclude multiclassing before Level 10.

Yes, I hope too there's some limited form with feats etc.

 

[Ondo]

I think there is some confusion going on between Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies due to our lack of familiarity with 4E.

I believe the Paragon Paths (11th-20th) are class specific and we'll see 3-4 of them per class in the PHB. While the Epic Destinies (21st-30th) are each open to several classes, we may only see a dozen or so of these in the PHB.

That's not what is causing the confusion. Races & Classes specifically said that they were planning 12 Paragon Paths, each aimed primarily at two classes, so each class led to three paths.

Obviously that's changed.

 

[Xanaqui]

The paladin paragon path is amazing... saving throw rerolls for all allies, allies immune to charm and fear, using an action point weakens all adjacent enemies. Crazy!

Note that their abilities require them to be adjacent to the ones they're affecting. That's a big deal (at least on the ally side) in prior editions, at least if the GM uses creatures with area effects or creatures that can move through or around the "front line".