: My Personally Compiled Class and Power Pack

[CrimsonHawk]

THE CLASS AND POWER PACK

This post assumes you have access to the core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition plus the Advanced Player's Guide from Expeditious Retreat Press.

THE CLASSES
The Lancer (Martial Controller), by FF6Shadow
The Sentinel (Arcane Defender), by FF6Shadow
The Necromancer (Arcane Leader), by TheLordWinter (WIP)
The Egoist (Psionic Defender), by GreatFrito (WIP)
The Soulknife (Psionic Striker), by GreatFrito (WIP)
The Telepath (Psionic Leader), by GreatFrito
The Shaper (Psionic Controller), by GreatFrito

WHY THIS PACK?

When the 4th Edition Player's Handbook was released, one factor that struck everyone, both lovers and haters, was the lack of some classic classes. While such timeless wonders like the cleric, the fighter, the rogue, and the wizard made the cut, others like the barbarian, the bard, the druid, and the monk did not. Worse yet, Wizards of the Coast did not intend on “correcting that mistake” until nearly a year after the publication of the original books.

Of course, both fans and third-party publishers scrambled to correct the oversight. Fans such as MalcolmN, Saric, PigKnight, and Stormonu had already rendered onto us fully functioning write-ups of the druid, bard, barbarian, and monk (respectively) long before Expeditious Retreat Press had released the Advanced Player's Guide and Goodman Games had released Forgotten Heroes: Fang, Fist, and Song.

With the release of either of those books, the missing classes from 3E have now been professionally published (ignoring the purists who will wait diligently for the second PHB to be published in March). However, for some people, it's still not enough.

For some, symmetry is a luxury they would like to have. If one were to set up the 4th Edition PHB classes into a grid, power sources to one side and class roles to the other side, it would look something like this:

          Defender   Striker   Leader    Controller
Martial   Fighter    Ranger    Warlord   ---
                     Rogue
Divine    Paladin    ---       Cleric    ---
Arcane    ---        Warlock   ---       Wizard

Now, add in the classes from the Advanced Player's Guide (renamed for their old-school analogies, for the sake of brevity), the grid now looks something like this:

          Defender    Striker   Leader    Controller
Martial   Barbarian   Ranger    Warlord   ---
          Fighter     Rogue
Divine    Paladin     Monk      Cleric    Druid
Arcane    ---         Warlock   Bard      Illusionist
                                          Wizard

Granted, this is a fine and wonderful variety of concepts for players to play around with. But get someone with a mild case of OCD to look at the list and they might twig at the empty spaces for Martial Controller and Arcane Defender. Of course, if one brings official Wizards of the Coast campaign material into the mix, the Arcane Defender slot could be filled using the swordmage class. But it's my philosophy to not go down that road of legal madness.

Instead, I'll tap into the boundless resources of ENWorld and WotC's own Gleemax message boards. Fans have created wonderfully playable classes, even amongst the ones that the Advanced Player's Guide covers. For this pack, however, I picked classes that would fill the gaps in the grid. To this end, I turn to the talented FF6Shadow, who brings us a Martial Controller, the Lancer, and an Arcane Defender, the Sentinel (shortened from Sorcerous Sentinel).

          Defender    Striker   Leader    Controller
Martial   Barbarian   Ranger    Warlord   Lancer
          Fighter     Rogue
Divine    Paladin     Monk      Cleric    Druid
Arcane    Sentinel    Warlock   Bard      Illusionist
                                          Wizard

Ah, much better! Now all of the holes are filled. Even those players and DMs who are obsessed about symmetry can rest assured all bases have been covered.

But, wait. There's more!

Not content to leave well enough alone, I bring in a wonderful new vision for the necromancer to bring us a second arcane leader done by TheLordWinter (to fill the artificial vacuum left behind from me not using the artificer class currently being playtested in Dragon Magazine). And finally, I bring in GreatFrito, who has pioneered a fan-version of the psionic power source. Love it or hate it, psionics are a part of D&D history all the way back to 1E. And GreatFrito's works are well received and needed.

So, finally, the grid looks like this:

          Defender    Striker     Leader        Controller
Martial   Barbarian   Ranger      Warlord       Lancer
          Fighter     Rogue
Divine    Paladin     Monk        Cleric        Druid
Arcane    Sentinel    Warlock     Bard          Illusionist
                                  Necromancer   Wizard
Psionic   Egoist      Soulknife   Telepath      Shaper

Now, if this doesn't fill the needs of a well-rounded group of adventurous souls, I'm not sure what will.

To save us all from a lot of headache, I've simply included links to the original documents released by FF6Shadow, TheLordWinter, and GreatFrito, rather than try to reformat everything all over again. I hope this will be more convenient if the classes are ever updated by their authors.

----------
Dale W. Robbins
Author, Artist, Procrastinator

 

[TheLordWinter]

Currently I am writing the last term paper I need to for my current grad. school trimester. Once that is finished, I intend to finish up the Paragon level and Paragon Paths for the Necromancer. After getting that out of the way, I have intentions of statting up the Monk as a Martial Controller, a quite different variant from the Strikers that we've seen so far.

Also, added from Wizards themselves is the Swordmage, an Arcane Defender featured in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide. So while still very short on first party controllers, we now have a defender and striker of each stripe, and are just short an arcane leader ('though you could count the Artificer featured in Dragon Magazine, I'd be weary of adding it just yet since it's no longer available freely and only featured half of the total class).

 

[CrimsonHawk]

Well, throwing in the official work, you'd be right. But, in compiling this list, I willfully chose to forego the swordmage and the artificer (and the WotC barbarian and bard, for that matter). The Advanced Player's Guide classes, along with your, FF6Shadow's, and GreatFrito's works, fit too neatly together in my grand scheme of things to do otherwise.

As far as your time table, I understand. I mean, I haven't had to do graduate or even undergraduate work, so I don't have a full appreciation of the pressures you're feeling right now. But I do understand that you have a firm grasp of what your priorities are and I respect that. Get your finals and term papers done, sit down and relax for as long as you need, then get back to the Necromancer with a rested mind. We'll all benefit from that in the long run.