Player's Handbook 2: I haz it

[davethegame]

Can you give a brief overview of what's in the book?

Classes, Races, Paragon Paths (for both Races & Classes), Epic Destinies, Backgrounds, Feats, Rituals, Magic Items (mainly to support the new classes), and some minor rules clarification stuff.

Barb AC issue fixed?

I'm only vaguely aware of the issue, but I can tell you that they don't get their Con to AC as some have suggested, but they do get an AC bump.

How are shifters handled? Multiple options like the genasi? How many?

2 Shifters, the ones from the MM, but they get new stuff to play with. Their paragon path is especially vicious.

Is weapon expertise still around? Implement expertise?

Yep.

Are the decent feat options for builds that use implement powers? PHB focused on martial and had far better feats for weapons and melee . . .

Do they have any better feats for existing arcane casters (who were pretty poorly done by in PHB1 and haven't had their own splatbook like martial heroes with extra stuff yet)?

I think these are similar questions. Yep, there are new feats for any arcane casters, similar to stuff like "Burning Blizzard" but with more flavor to the different damage types. Not a lot, though.

What's the deal with the Bard rituals? Are they realy just rituals that only bards can use? Or is there something else to that?

They have "Prerequisite: Bard", and I don't see any way around it, so yeah, Bard only.

Could you give the names of the Gnome racial feats, and a general idea of what they do?

There are feats to increase their stealthy nature, and to give them more "magic trick" options.

I was curious about the Stealth updates (on DDI they show it in the table of contents preview at the end of the book)... are these major changes to how stealth works, or just some minor updates, etc

I believe these are the same changes that were in the errata, but I'd have to pick through them to be sure. They look similar.

Be back in a bit to answer more.

 

[Drakhar]

Any new weapon types or is just new magic weapons?

 

[Irda Ranger]

Did anything make you spit Diet Coke or clench your fist and shout "You incompetent fools!! What were you thinking!?!?"

 

[davethegame]

I don't want this to sound mean, but don't you think that the above sentence is a little problematic? You want us to buy it, and you feel strongly obliged to the company that gave you a pre-release version of it. This can clearly color your own judgements.

I suppose we could just ask you yes/no questions about what the book does and does not include, but I guess I'm not sure what your intent is.

I assume most of them will be fairly objective questions and answers (like the ones above) and I take my journalistic ethics very seriously, and always have on Critical Hits.

 

[davethegame]

Any new weapon types or is just new magic weapons?

No new weapon types. I was hoping for the El Gabong Guitar of Smashing or the Combat Drums of Smiting, but no such luck.

Did anything make you spit Diet Coke or clench your fist and shout "You incompetent fools!! What were you thinking!?!?"

I must be doing it wrong, I rarely have that reaction to any game book anymore. Since it's mostly rules there's not much to react against, but if I had to pick something, I was a bit disappointed at the lack of pudgy/hardy gnomes or anything to go with them.

 

[Kez Darksun]

How do the Avenger's and the Sorcerer's damage dealing capabilities seem to stack up compared to the other strikers? Also, you mentioned on your site an Avenger power in the Epic tier that wowed you. Were there any similar Avenger powers that stood out for you in the Heroic & Paragon tiers? (General descriptions of the powers & not crunch, of course...)

 

[Zsig]

Since noone asked:

What's the general feeling you got from flipping through the book?

The art? Is it good/bad? Comparable to? Are there any recycled art in the book?

What can you tell us about the concept of the races and classes presented in the book? I mean, by now we all know for sure what they are and such, but how do they look like, the fluff and etc?

What's your personal opinion regarding the book overall? Is it up to expectations? Better? Worse?

Any particular noticeable flaw/typo/inconsistence/whatever you noticed already?

Thanks for taking the time and doing this Dave!

 

[Tuft]

Roughly what kind of things does the Bard-specific rituals do? Are they party-buffers, or problem-solvers?

 

[Zsig]

Sorry for the double post, but I imagine this will go fast, and it won't happen again.

Some less generic questions:

-Are there any material in there to support other classes and races from previews books such as feats (besides Versatile Master half-elves, of course), and paragon paths (besides the racial paragon paths)?

-How awesome are the Deva?

-Tell us about the rules updates.

 

[Wimwick]

Do you notice any sort of power creep between the PHB2 classes and what's available in the Core PHB?