Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5455175" data-attributes="member: 87792">I disagree.  When I look at a new character class, my question is always the same.  "What does this allow me to play that would previously not have been easy (or even possible)?  Power source is ... secondary to expanding what I can do. With that said, I consider that in the PHB3, one of the classes kicks ass and takes names (the Monk - who expands the game by doing things that no one else does in a way that no one else does), two of the classes shouldn't exist because the concepts fit too neatly into existing classes (the Seeker should be a Ranger (possibly an Essentials Hunter) and the Ardent/Empath should be a Bard).  The other three are interesting but deeply flawed - I don't get the use of the Battlemind and how it differs conceptually from a fighter or warden, runepriests seem cool but alas are fiddly, and have a problem that it's rune of destruction, all the way, and psions who can do just a few things but do them very well differ from other controllers but alas are extremely broken. This means that entirely independently of the Ki source, the PHB 3 had for me one hit, three that range from partial hits to near misses, and two wide misses in terms of new classes.  And Hybrids are also partial hits.  I'm not buying a PHB for one good class.   Compare this to the PHB2.  Invoker.  Bard.  Shaman.  Druid.  Barbarian.  Avenger.  Warden.  Sorceror.  There is not one single class in that book that I wouldn't be more than happy to play for a little while (I'd get bored with the sorceror after a handful of sessions, but that's not because it's a bad class) and not a single class I haven't seen played at least once - by comparison the only PHB3 class I've seen played was the Monk.  There are arguments for saying that Sorcerors, Barbarians, and Wardens lack distinctiveness from Wizards, Fighters, and Fighters respectively - and had we had slayers, knights, and invokers from the start this might have had a stronger case.  In short the class that is to me the best class in the PHB3 would only be a contender in the PHB2, and any of the other five would be a challenger for worst PHB2 class (although the ardent wouldn't be such a problem if it was new with the bard rather than having the bard already claiming much of that conceptual territory). I wouldn't care if you called the monk, seeker, runepriest, and [whatever] the ki power source or even the awesome power source.  They still wouldn't give me what I want to see.  Which is expanding what can be done with the game.</blockquote>

Verification