Heroes of Shadow Table of Contents

[Neverfate]

If anyone can help me out on this one, I'm almost sure I read somewhere that Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond will have some player content. I need to find the source where I read/heard that. If anyone knows or can find it, that'd be helpful. I'd assume, if there is player content in the book, it would be the Shadar-Kai.

Also, if we do not see them in the "Racial Ability Scores" in Dragon later this month, then we know they are lurking in another book!

 

[AntlerDruid]

I am alittle disappointed there will only be 2 pages of feats considering all the new "sub-classes" and races that are to appear in this book.

Also no rituals

 

[Ryujin]

I am alittle disappointed there will only be 2 pages of feats considering all the new "sub-classes" and races that are to appear in this book.

Also no rituals

Realistically, there are only two races in the book that will need additional feat support. Revenants have the ability to gain feat support from their origin race. Vampires are a class, so they similarly will be able to draw from their origin race for feats.

And if they gave you everything now, there would be nothing to sell to you in the future.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Realistically, there are only two races in the book that will need additional feat support. Revenants have the ability to gain feat support from their origin race. Vampires are a class, so they similarly will be able to draw from their origin race for feats.

And if they gave you everything now, there would be nothing to sell to you in the future.

I think they've just plain decided to ramp back the proliferation of feats a LOT. 2 pages is a reasonable amount though, enough for 15-20 feats. They might also split feat support for races to their own sections.

I'm also pretty disappointed at the thought that invoking shadow power would have NO ritual magic of any kind associated with it???!!!!! Even if you have a gripe with the ritual system you really gotta admit that rituals + shadow is a pretty natural thing.

Come on Mike, I know there weren't rituals per-se in 1e, but really...

 

[Ryujin]

I think they've just plain decided to ramp back the proliferation of feats a LOT. 2 pages is a reasonable amount though, enough for 15-20 feats. They might also split feat support for races to their own sections.

I'm also pretty disappointed at the thought that invoking shadow power would have NO ritual magic of any kind associated with it???!!!!! Even if you have a gripe with the ritual system you really gotta admit that rituals + shadow is a pretty natural thing.

Come on Mike, I know there weren't rituals per-se in 1e, but really...

I'd like to see more rituals also, but the truth is that there's already a wealth of them available. There were several rituals released in the "Open Grave" book and many others can easily be reflavoured. Another inconvenient truth is that you and I, people who like rituals, seem to be in the decided minority.

 

[mudlock]

I just assumed that "Shade" would be PC-term for Shadar-Kai; kind of like how Doppelganger becomes Changeling.

(And isn't there Shade=Shadar-Kai precedence in Forgotten Realms?)

 

[Badwe]

I'm pretty excited about this book, but then I was excited about the books that got canned as well.

I think there's some legitimate concern from the anti-essentials folks. My group is not anti-essentials per-se but we have been going in this campaign for longer than the existence of essentials, and a lot of the stuff is just plain incompatible. So, for example, if they make mostly powers that key off of mage schools, my pre-E wizard can't take any of those powers.

Of course, we just invited a new player and since we were high level and he had never played 4e before (just 3.5) i encouraged him to make an essentials martial character, so now we have a mix.

Ultimately, if a hardcover is going to be successful, well-recieved, and actually SELL, it has to have some things for everyone. This means essentials and non-essentials stuff, and stuff that works equally well with both.

That being said, there are some pretty obvious shortcomings: no shadar-kai, no shadow themes, and no rituals. I'm wondering if the table of contents was meant to ferret out good candidates for the first wave of dragon articles but... lately it seems like they're having a hard enough time keeping up with a month worth of standard content much less supporting a book.

 

[Neverfate]

I just assumed that "Shade" would be PC-term for Shadar-Kai; kind of like how Doppelganger becomes Changeling.

(And isn't there Shade=Shadar-Kai precedence in Forgotten Realms?)

The Shade race was previewed last month and are in fact their own race and decidedly underpowered as their racial is a standard and they have a racial penalty to # of surges ( -1 surge). Though it was just preview material.

There's still likely a Shadar-Kai adjustment hiding somewhere. Either in another book or this weeks planned Dragon article that gives stat adjustments to all player races.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I think there's some legitimate concern from the anti-essentials folks. My group is not anti-essentials per-se but we have been going in this campaign for longer than the existence of essentials, and a lot of the stuff is just plain incompatible. So, for example, if they make mostly powers that key off of mage schools, my pre-E wizard can't take any of those powers.

This is not correct. Your pre-E Wizard can take any Wizard power (s)he likes, including the ones in HoS with the Nethermancy or Necromancy keywords (which will likely be all of them). At worst, those powers will have a keyword that your Wizard will ignore. They will otherwise be fully compatible with PHB Wizards.

While it is true that your Wizard cannot specialize in a school of magic (such as Nether- or Necromancy), as that is a class feature of the Mage, but nothing is stopping you from slotting any of the new Wizard powers (as in Powers).

 

[mudlock]

if they make mostly powers that key off of mage schools, my pre-E wizard can't take any of those powers.

They'll be riders, surely. But that doesn't mean you *can't* take them. I've often played characters who took powers from the "wrong" sub-class.

And as previously mentioned, Martial Power was worse in this regard. A non-beastmaster ranger really *can't* make any use of beast powers.