More Essentials teasers

[Bungo_Underhill]

What does the Hammer Feat do?

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

What does the Hammer Feat do?

From the post 1 link:

"Bludgeon Expertise: +1 feat bonus to attack rolls with hammers and maces. In addition, any time you push with a weapon attack using a mace or hammer, you gain a +1 feat bonus to that push."

 

[chitzk0i]

Paladins - I'm hanging out to find out what's happening with them. The Knight looks a good alternative however.

The Paladin is in the second Essentials player book which comes out next month. Look for previews to start after this book comes out.

 

[shamsael]

Does the battle guardian attack kill minions?

It is not stated as: "on a miss the attack deals damage", but "on a miss it still takes damage"... I wonder if that was intentional...

And here you have the reason, why you don´t dump strength (completely) and take melee training... the defender stance seems to help being sticky here.
The only thing i am worried about: the knight is not sticky, because just taking the normal move action to escape seems strictly better than shifting or attacking.

The alternate human racial feature seems quite nice... about as powerful as the elven one, maybe better but without the effect of turning any roll into a possible hit...

I like the bludgeon expertise feat. I guess it will increase with level, but the rider will make it more useful than versatile expertise for only weapon users, and of course, it is not as boring as the other feat.

Thanks for the spoilers

Battle Guardian plus Defend the Line is not quite as good as the fighter's combat superiority but seems like a decent substitute for the standard fighter's mark plus Combat Superiority.

We still haven't seen the rules for Shield Finesse.

 

[SupremeBadgerLord]

The Paladin is in the second Essentials player book which comes out next month. Look for previews to start after this book comes out.

Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms doesn't release until Nov.

 

[RodneyThompson]

The "Game Train" sounds like it started when one of the bean counters said "We need to come up with a way to cut travel costs."

Hawkeye

Wow, how cynical can you get? The game train was our idea, and it was FREAKING AWESOME. We did nothing but play D&D and Castle Ravenloft for two straight days, watched beautiful American scenery the entire time, and got to relax and not have to worry about anything. It was great, and I'm doing it again next year for sure.

 

[The Little Raven]

Battle Guardian plus Defend the Line is not quite as good as the fighter's combat superiority but seems like a decent substitute for the standard fighter's mark plus Combat Superiority.

We still haven't seen the rules for Shield Finesse.

Remember one key thing... Combat Superiority's attack is usable once per round (immediate interrupt), while Battle Guardian's attack is usable once per turn (opportunity action). The knight could get a ton of attacks from it (all beefed up by their stances and whatever MBA stuff they have), while the regular fighter will always just get one.

 

[abyssaldeath]

Remember one key thing... Combat Superiority's attack is usable once per round (immediate interrupt), while Battle Guardian's attack is usable once per turn (opportunity action). The knight could get a ton of attacks from it (all beefed up by their stances and whatever MBA stuff they have), while the regular fighter will always just get one.

Um, Combat Superiority is the fighter's OA mechanic. You are thinking of Combat Challenge.

Combat Superiority = +WIS to hit OA that stops movement
Combat Challenge = II melee basic attack when an adjacent marked enemy attacks someone other than you or shifts.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Wow, how cynical can you get? The game train was our idea, and it was FREAKING AWESOME. We did nothing but play D&D and Castle Ravenloft for two straight days, watched beautiful American scenery the entire time, and got to relax and not have to worry about anything. It was great, and I'm doing it again next year for sure.

I would so love to be part of something like that. (I prefer traveling by train, but given how long most such trips take, combined with how expensive sleeping cars are, I can rarely afford it.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

OK, lets look at Battle Guardian carefully. It triggers when an enemy attacks your allies or shifts while under your Defender Aura. That's pretty much identical to Combat Challenge, EXCEPT it can happen every turn. CS is replaced by the more effective OAs do to MBAs being boosted. As far as we know now this means the Knight can't halt the movement of an enemy like a PHB fighter can with CS, BUT we don't know what all stances exist, so this may not actually be entirely true. They do have both a more effective alternative to CC and just in general a more effective mechanic than marking.

Looks to me like overall the Knight may be slightly less sticky than a PHB figher, but he's going to punish harder, at least potentially. Remember, he can also pull a few other tricks like dropping Power Strike on an OA. With more of these free action attacks I can easily see the knight turning into a pretty nasty punisher. He could well be sticky enough simply because you for the love of Kord do NOT want to experience his OA.