Preview: December and Beyond

[AntlerDruid]

If the Necromancer will indeed be a specialist instead of a separate class, then I hope they get cool "specialist" abilities as the other Mage specialists. I do also like they will have access to all the wizard feats.

On the flip side, I do hope there are more Shadow source classes like the Shadowcaster they had in 3.5 so the assassin isn't the lone Shadow class.

I also hope there are more assassin powers in the book as most of the current assassin powers are kinda "meh" to me.

I love the idea of the shadow summons staying around longer than an encounter!

I would also like to see some "life draining" powers where you do damage but gain hps or temp hps - maybe a Life Drainer Shadow theme?

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I'm a little conflicted.

On the one claw, I think "Necromancer" is a pretty distinct archetype from "Wizard." Likewise, "Dark Knight" is a distinct archetype from "Paladin." So those archetypes, I think, are "worthy" of their own class. If also-rans like Runepriests, Seekers, and Ardents can get coverage, certainly they are worthy of the treatment.

This is the claw I would tend to disagree with, to borrow your phrase. Call me an old-fashioned grognard if you will, but even if a Necromancer is distinct from a wizard, it's not distinct enough to be worth a whole new class with its own set of rules, feats, and support.

Like you point out later on in your post, they get a lot more mileage out of the essentials sub-class architecture. Love it or hate it, they just got some things right in 2e, and this is one of them. There are a pile of "classes" in 4e that should have just been different builds under the umbrella of another class within its power source. Invoker comes to mind, as do the ones you mention. There are others.

Don't get me wrong, I might hate this book too, but until I read it, I am withholding all criticism or praise. Even then, it might look awful on paper but play really well. In fact, that was my entire experience with 4e. In the end, I hated 3.x, and 4e looked like more of the same, maybe worse, but one of my gaming group made me try it before we dismissed it outright in favour of something else, and lo and behold, I ended up really liking it. I learned my lesson there.

 

[Aegeri]

To be honest I wouldn't be disappointed these aren't full classes. Being builds of other classes has the option of getting support that is for those classes that you can use. On the other hand, being its own class has the huge chance of being absolutely rubbish and then languishing in complete doom with absolutely no support. Being a Mage build and the Blackguard getting access to the Paladins general feat support is a good thing.

Bear in mind the "also-rans" of 4E classes mentioned are because they have utterly no support and have been left to die.

 

[McTreble]

Words cannot express my disappointment at the Heroes of Shadow preview, but I'll try anyway....Ugh. They took the power source with the best fluff and ruined it by reducing it to a sticker to be applied the classes of other power sources.

I am beyond disappointed.

Really? I'll ignore the snap judgement for now, but rather focus on your rampant hyperbole in this situation. It's crap like this that makes me want to abandon the internet completely.

 

[Zaukrie]

Kind of hard for them to get my money if they don't actually release any products.

 

[I'm A Banana]

This is the claw I would tend to disagree with, to borrow your phrase. Call me an old-fashioned grognard if you will, but even if a Necromancer is distinct from a wizard, it's not distinct enough to be worth a whole new class with its own set of rules, feats, and support.

Well, I think it's sort of a judgement call. You could make a Necromancer very distinct from a normal wizard. All 200 powers of dark doomy drainy undead-army-raising power and might. For mechanics, perhaps making them a Leader and give them a "when an enemy dies, give an ally some bonus" kind of mechanic, and a healing word that is only used after draining HP or whatever. Could be really stellar.

But you don't really have to. And if you don't, you do gain more compatibility with existing and future products. And WotC does have a trend of saying "Here's some cool new mechanic, lets build a class around it, and flavor will follow!" that leads to more classes then you probably want.

But if you DO, you can make the "Necromancer" the ultimate undead-draining-creepy badass, the representative for the archetype. Which can be cool.

I mean, if we were boiling down to raw "only what you need," we'd just have four classes corresponding to the four roles. But that wouldn't be very very awesome, IMO.

Anyway, this is just me saying that I'm willing to give 'em a chance like this. There's more than enough options to pull out a dang fine Necromancer without needing its own special class.

They didn't give us an Illusionist class or an Enchanter class or a Summoner class, either. They're all wizards.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I'm really disappointed, but it looks like I have to mark another book of my to-buy list.

I really hope there are SOME books for me to buy next year.

I know the Abby will be tops of the to-buy list.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Every new release will be either 'Essentialized' or at least tainted by the Essentials products.

Unless Freelancers write articles focusing on the _true_ 4e class builds for Dragon, future support for them will most likely be nil.

I remember when I said this on RPG.net and they were like, "No, essentials is a limited line release product. It'll all go back after it's done."

 

[Dice4Hire]

To clarify a bit:

What I wanted to see was themes, PPs, feats and such that use shadow, not essentialized builds of classes. I'm really disappointed they are going this route.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

We likely won't see any core themes besides DS until June when Heroes of the Heroic Tier (or whatever it's called) sees the light of day.

I could be wrong, maybe themes will make it into Heroes of Sword and Spell, but I won't count on it.

I wanted to see more than just 3 spell schools in HotFL, especially since a 4th was hinted in the Redbox (Transmutation).

It sucks, but so it goes.