Heroes of the Feywild Speculation

[Klaus]

Back to "old style": there *has* been support for PH stuff. Heroes of Shadow has new Cleric and Wizard powers, which work whether you're playing a PH or E version of the class, plus Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies and feats. And of course, the Themes in this month's Dragon work for everyone.

 

[Camelot]

Let's get back on topic. I was looking through the product list and noticed that the Neverwinter Campaign Setting is coming out before Heroes of the Feywild. We know that the bladesinger, which I believe is a swordmage subclass, will be in Neverwinter. Could this mean that we'll see some bladesinger support in Feywild or perhaps another swordmage subclass?

 

[Aegeri]

Back to "old style": there *has* been support for PH stuff.

Tangentially, yes they did.

I'd like to see when a published book acknowledges a class outside of the Wizard/Cleric/Warlock and then I'll believe you have a point. Like say, tangible and actual support for the Runepriest, Seeker, Artificer, Sorcerer, Monk, Psion or just about anything post-PHB actually that wasn't reprinted in some way in the initial "Heroes of" books.

When something that actually needs support gets it (the first three of the above list in particular), then I'll agree they have. When the next book turns out to be yet more wizard (mage really) and cleric (warpriest really) builds and probably yet another bloody warlock, then count me firmly unimpressed at wizards "pre-essentials support".

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

Could this mean that we'll see some bladesinger support in Feywild or perhaps another swordmage subclass?

Sure, the Feywild has strong connections to the Arcane power source, so I'm expecting support for virtually all arcane classes. (Sorry, Aegeri.*) There's also the possibilty that the bladesinger has been moved to Heroes of the Feywild, but we won't know until we hear something from the horse's mouth, probably in Ampersand or the previews.

* Regarding the wizard support.

 

[RangerWickett]

actual support for the Runepriest, Seeker, Artificer, Sorcerer, Monk, Psion or just about anything post-PHB actually that wasn't reprinted in some way in the initial "Heroes of" books.

Heh. Whereas I would love to see an 'Essential'-esque basic-attack-using monk with stances, a bard with variable song auras, and a basic-attack-using barbarian with non-Daily-Power rages. Such a design would make better flavor-sense to me.

Psions and Runepriests (and Ardents and Battleminds) suffer from a design that is too focused on fiddly mechanical bits with minimal flavor to explain what the hell is going on. Why is my attack causing the enemy to take a -2 penalty to opportunity attack rolls if I spend a power point, but grants my allies a bonus to charge attacks if I spend 2 power points?

So I'd rather see those classes redesigned so they have more flavor (maybe in Heroes of the Far Realm?), rather than just adding new powers to them.

And I think sorcerers have TONS of options already.

 

[Aegeri]

If they actually supported swordmages, sorcerers and artificers with the Feywild book I would be amazed. But that won't happen. We'll probably get two or so new wizard schools, they'll find some way to hammer in a Cleric in there somewhere and of course we'll get ANOTHER Feypact Warlock/Hexblade (because good god, we don't have enough of those). Another completely on rails essential like AEDU class of some sort, which is probably as well thought out as wet tissue paper is sturdy. Then maybe some kind of bladesinger striker like build of the swordmage, which again builds itself like every essentials striker. That last one is kind of awesome sounding if they do go that direction and do it well though (assuming that we get an essentials Swordmage build in Neverwinter of course).

I mean it could be totally awesome and not be exactly what is easily predicted, but sadly I doubt it. At least if the book does have the Winter/Autumn sentinel druid builds that would be quite awesome (minding I know there are some people who hate the sentinel due to their lack of wildshape).

But I really have to agree with noodle fish mice, that the fact essentials has decided to pretty much not acknowledge anything that came before (unless it is a parent class of something in essentials of course, eg PHB classes and the druid) means that if it doesn't exist in essentials: You can forget future books supporting it (or so it would appear). This means that books giving support to anything other than a very limited subset of classes published pre-essentials is pretty much going to be the norm. This wouldn't annoy me half as much, if there were any indications that DDI was going to actually come through with supporting pre-essentials classes well instead of books.

It would be absolutely 100% delightful if I was wrong on this. Unfortunately, I have the really bad feeling I won't be. Looking at reactions to this book and Elemental Heroes Handbook, I haven't seen much excitement at all about them. So it would appear that Wizards needs to impress with this book and it's really important. I just hope what they do with it works and works really well.

I think sorcerers have TONS of options already.

Sorcerers actually could really use some paragon paths that give them a huge amount of striker OOMPH to them. Not a controller secondary role, but actually really improving their quality as strikers. They have a few, for example the Storm Sorcerer PP is excellent but not enough. A couple of really good general and open Sorcerer PPs that focus on dealing damage would be more than welcome. There was a good reason a lot of Sorcerers were MC Rogue and abusing Daggermaster pre-errata. This is a separate issue though in fairness!

I just feel completely flabbergasted when I read stuff like this. Granted, I'm a DM, so the changes in Essentials haven't really affected me, but when I read for example the druid subclass (sentinal) in Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, it just feels so much richer thematically.

I don't really feel that much myself, because a lot of it is IMO entirely wasted and repetitive descriptions of individual powers. The actual class itself is really great and I love it: I wouldn't want the player in my Eberron game to replace his sentinel because I enjoy how the character works in play immensely. But some of the mechanics are poorly thought out with combined attack scaling horribly to "almost useless" territory at paragon/epic (I have to make a decision on what to do about this eventually). I would love a book to have a power swap for it, so you could dump combined attack for something like furious howl, letting the sentinel druid make an attack and then the pet to "howl" boosting his allies in a burst or something (improving enabling). Especially if they insist on ensuring the pets damage scales miserably.

I like more explanation and detail on classes; I actually really hate the extra space spent per power on extra fluff. I just don't see the point of it whatsoever. I would far rather see more interesting power choices added instead. This is actually one thing I really dislike about the essentials format immensely.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

Psions and Runepriests (and Ardents and Battleminds) suffer from a design that is too focused on fiddly mechanical bits with minimal flavor to explain what the hell is going on. Why is my attack causing the enemy to take a -2 penalty to opportunity attack rolls if I spend a power point, but grants my allies a bonus to charge attacks if I spend 2 power points?

Now I'm not familiar with the power in your example, but I've played an ardent (and had a blast) and I have to disagree that the class has minimal flavor. Ardents manipulate emotions (consciously or unconsciously, controlled or not) to achieve their effects, and the flavor text in Psionic Power is a good read to get a feel for the class, IMO. I've found the ardent's flavor to be great for roleplaying an unusual character. The psionic halos on the other hand can be somewhat silly IME, so I downplayed them.

Regarding the mechanics I haven't found the ardent to be fiddly in play (up to the end of the heroic tier). The runepriest seems to be fiddly on paper to me, but I haven't played one, so I can't really compare. Since you mentioned the other Power Point-using classes, is it the psionics system with its different augments that seems fiddly to you?

 

[Aegeri]

Runepriests are the most super fiddly class ever and are very hard to get to grips with initially. They can be very rewarding to play. I still regret the fact the only runepriest I ever saw in play got ganked by a shadow (which as the DM of that game was actually my doing as well, in fairness nobody realized he was dead for an entire turn until it dawned on us I'd just dropped him to negative bloodied). But such is DnD.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

Runepriests are the most super fiddly class ever and are very hard to get to grips with initially. They can be very rewarding to play.

Sadly I haven't seen one in play yet. Super fiddly? I might give it a try then if I were to be in a slightly odd mood.

I still regret the fact the only runepriest I ever saw in play got ganked by a shadow (which as the DM of that game was actually my doing as well, in fairness nobody realized he was dead for an entire turn until it dawned on us I'd just dropped him to negative bloodied). But such is DnD.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think a lot of the problem with support for the older classes is simply that for many of them there's not a heck of a lot more design space left that hasn't been examined, and in some cases more than once. The under supported classes are one area, and some minor broken builds could certainly be fixed (swarm druid, ruthless ruffian). That certainly could amount to a fair number of articles, and I'm sure they could wedge in a few more things here and there, but often I suspect they're just looking at things and seeing that there's a huge amount of stuff that can be added with a lot of the Essentials stuff.

And I do think they look at Essentials to a certain extent on its own. This seems quite clear with the Binder, where someone using the PHB1 Warlock isn't going to see a lot of point in using it, but as an addition to the Essentials lineup it makes a lot more sense. You have Hexblade as the up close melee build and Binder as the standing back summoning and controlling build. Binders do seem to have an issue with their damage feature and came out on the weak side, but there's nothing inherently wrong with the class concept and it can be made to work. Maybe we'll see something on DDI there, or some kind of errata/update.