Player's Options: Speculation

[frogged]

There's been a lot of discussion about what the 2011 title Player's Option's: Heroes of Shadow might reveal about the future of 4e releases. Does it mean that WotC is ending the Player's Handbook series, or perhaps just (pointlessly?) renaming it? What effect will this have on the _ Power series? Well I doubt anyone outside of WotC has any real answers for us, and we probably aren't going to hear anything definitive from them until GenCon. The latest Ampersand Special article, however, may have given us a few hints.

The Player's Handbook series, with the exception of pure rules elements required to play the game, has been composed of newly published races and classes along with the supporting content for those new races and classes (paragon paths, epic destinies, magic items, rituals, etc.). The _ Power books have simply given additional content for previously existing classes and races centered around a singular power source.

Player's Options maybe something of a third line, which introduces new races and classes alongside new content for existing classes (and races?). With that content extending past the natural limits of the _Power series by branching out across power sources:

Products coming out after the Essentials, including such exciting titles as Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow, work with all Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game products. Just started with the Essentials? No problem! Add shadow-based powers to your storm warpriest with no fuss or bother. Got a battle cleric built with Player's Handbook and enhanced with Divine Power and a couple of feats from Essentials? No problem! It’s all D&D, so it’s all compatible! Everything we’re producing in 2011 and beyond works with both Essentials and non-Essentials products—because they all work together! They’re all Dungeons & Dragons!

I have no way of knowing whether the Player's Options series will replace the Player's Handbooks or _ Power books or if they are even intended to occupy the same design space, but there does appear to be clear differences between the three. It's quite possible that all three series could continue on, filling three different roles.

It's also possible that Heroes of Shadow doesn't really contain any new classes at all, simply named builds (ie Mage or Warpriest) for existing classes. Necromancy is a Wizard school after all...

 

[Camelot]

I really hope you're right, except for the last paragraph.

Having three lines of books would be interesting, but I do think that there won't be any more Player's Handbooks. They're publishing fewer and fewer new races, which removes a whole chapter of the hypothetical PH4. They're running out of general feats, making the feat chapter very thin. If they published PH4, it would be half the size of the other PHs. That's why I think they're switching to these Player's Options, which are smaller and paperback.

Publishing new material for old classes is a possibility. It could be like secondary power sources: a wizard who takes some shadow powers is Arcane primary, Shadow secondary. This is a very real possibility, as we have seen a paragon path for the warlord (in either FRPG or MotP, I forget) that has powers with the shadow keyword instead of the martial keyword.

Going even further, maybe they'll start publishing more of these Options books for the other power sources. Martial dabbling in divine, Primal dabbling in psionic, it would be really cool and greatly expand the game, allowing for characters to have two power sources without need for multiclassing. It would make character possibilities very versatile, and that is awesome.

I really hope they have new classes in there, though. We need a necromancer, a blackguard, a witch, whatever, we need shadow classes. I would also really hope to see new player races of the evil inclination, like goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, and hopefully some new ones too. It would be cool to run a monster campaign; misfits trying to fight for good when they're shunned for supposedly being evil. But, I digress.

All in all, I can't wait for Heroes of Shadow.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm of the opinion that the PHB series is at an end. As you said there's just not a lot more core subsystem, feat, and race type material that needs to be added to the game. Players have a HUGE number of options right now. With the bulk of all the classes that are likely to be produced also already out there I suspect they were just not able to pull together enough really good quality new material to fill out an entire PHB4. On top of that my suspicion is that they really do intend to put out all future books in a trade paperback format.

Given those two factors and the fact that the game has hit a refresh with Essentials I suspect they've taken the opportunity to make some changes to the overall format of releases. Instead of having Power books and PHBs we'll just see Player Options books from now on. Those can incorporate both new options for existing classes/builds and totally new stuff more easily. They don't have to worry so much about what has to go in what type of book and having enough stuff to fill out a book with a very specific theme. Instead whatever new stuff is ready to roll out can just go into the next PO book when its ready. Its faster and since honestly most players want it all anyway I think the current scheme is a bit overly elaborate and doesn't do much for people.

The other thing is, if they're going to want to rerelease improved versions of all the stuff in all the power books and PHBs eventually anyway there's not so much reason to break it up as they did before. With a different distribution of content you're more likely to get people to buy the new books as they probably have a mix of stuff that overlaps old stuff and brand new stuff.

Of course its quite possible they WILL release certain types of hardback books still. I could see the general supplements ala Draconomicon still coming out in hardback. There probably aren't a vast number of those left to do anyway. I mean what more do we need, a Feywild book, a Shadowfell book, and really not much else, maybe a Nine Hells book and/or a Far Realms book. Casual players probably won't buy those things much anyway and the real core 4e audience will like having them hardbound.

 

[frogged]

Having three lines of books would be interesting, but I do think that there won't be any more Player's Handbooks. They're publishing fewer and fewer new races, which removes a whole chapter of the hypothetical PH4. They're running out of general feats, making the feat chapter very thin. If they published PH4, it would be half the size of the other PHs. That's why I think they're switching to these Player's Options, which are smaller and paperback.

I'm not sure that I can agree with this. You do have a point that the number of races in each PHB has been steadily declining. It's true that the PHB3 had only 4 new races, but it isn't hard to imagine WotC being able to maintain that number for at least a few more PHB's. There are, after all, a lot of untapped races from previous editions (though many were considered "monstrous").

As for your point about general feats, I must disagree. There were 39 heroic tier feats in PHB1 which were associated with neither a race nor class. In PHB3 there were 35 general heroic feats, which hardly seems "very thin". While the number of "general" feats is less comparable outside of the heroic tier, the total number of all feats in PHB3 is greater than that of PHB1 (173 vs 161). It's also hard to imagine that WotC could run out of new feat ideas when the largest source of feats, by far, is dragon magazine, which continues to publish new feats monthly.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm of the opinion that the PHB series is at an end.

I think it's likely we won't see PHB4, considering that 'Players' Options: Heroes of Shadow' seems to include the majority of what I would have suspected to be in PHB4.

Yesterday, I was discussing a couple of directions WotC could have gone when creating 4e, but didn't. E.g. thinking back, I had been wondering how many powers would be shared by several classes. As it turned out the answer was zero.

I've been wondering if it wouldn't have been a better idea to create a number of 'basic powers' that were available to every class (or every class of a certain role or power source) and a smaller number of class-specific powers.

The blurb sounds a bit as if it was possible to simply exchange class powers with some from a different source. I don't quite believe it, though. It probably just means you can multiclass into a shadow source class.

 

[Klaus]

If a power source comes along that warrants entirely new classes, a couple of new races and the feats and powers to expand on them, I think it could be included in a PH4.

The PH3 was mostly about the Psionic power source, after all.

 

[WalterKovacs]

My guesses:

(a) Player's Options may be smaller, and softcover like the Essentials, so thus differentiating it from the PHB books
(b) Related to (a), PHB3 basically had Psionics ... plus Hybrid Classes, Skill Powers, and a couple of non Psionic classes. If you cut out the 'extra' stuff, and just had the Psionic stuff, it would have been a more Player's Options type thing.
(c) PHB2 and PHB3 both had some stuff directly connected to earlier books. PHB2 had the racial paragon paths for PHB1 races while PHB3 had the hybrid classes which referenced the classes from previous books.
(d) Essentials is meant to make the game new gamer friendly. Just like many movies shy away from numbering their sequels to avoid scaring away potential new viewers, they might not want to have players picking up the game, and then seeing a number 4, which may cause them to skip the book thinking they'd need 1-3 to make use of it, etc.
(e) After backgrounds, hybrid classes and skill powers ... there aren't many new "universal" mechanics that would need to be added. Perhaps some generic versions of the Dark Sun's theme mechanic would fit into a PHB4 book, but it could just as easily show up piecemeal in other books with themes tied to each book's themes. Alternatively, they could just save themes for Dragon Magazine, as it can fit into their goal of having tie-ins to their existing books.

EDIT: After looking a bit at one the articles, the Player's Option book seems to basically be a combination of what would have been the power sources intro in a PHB book and the X Power book that would inevitably follow. This way it consolidates it into a single book, perhaps with fewer builds and powers overall, but it puts them all in one place.

 

[Dice4Hire]

If a power source comes along that warrants entirely new classes, a couple of new races and the feats and powers to expand on them, I think it could be included in a PH4.

The PH3 was mostly about the Psionic power source, after all.

I would have to agree here. We still have the elemental power source, right?

 

[Aplus]

I think the book just looks like new builds - probably the essentials-esque builds where you just choose that build as-is and it isn't really meant to be customized. The necromancer sounds like a build for a wizard or warlock, and the hexblade seems to me it could easily be a reskinned swordmage (although I'm not sure if they would use a FR class).

 

[Klaus]

I would have to agree here. We still have the elemental power source, right?

I dunno. Slapping "Elemental" on the keyword line doesn't necessarily make a class different from a number of arcane and primal classes. The point is, the source has to feel different to warrant such a development, like psionic was.

I could see a technological power source for a steampunk setting.