Should Power Source have greater meaning?

[Kzach]

Since 4e's introduction, I've been mightily underwhelmed by the impact of power sources. To me, they mean virtually nothing and are entirely redundant. If WotC decided to eliminate power sources entirely, I doubt I'd notice. The issue is further blurred by the introduction of dual-power source classes.

So, my question is, should power sources have greater meaning within the system?

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes.

 

[KidSnide]

Since 4e's introduction, I've been mightily underwhelmed by the impact of power sources. To me, they mean virtually nothing and are entirely redundant. If WotC decided to eliminate power sources entirely, I doubt I'd notice. The issue is further blurred by the introduction of dual-power source classes.

I think that WotC did an OK (but hardly great) job at giving power sources their own flavor. The prevalence of radiant power in the divine power source is an obvious example, as is the dominance of weapon attack powers in the martial power source. Most of the primal classes have a transformation theme, and psionic classes... umm... well, the divine power source is a good example.

Where WotC fell down is failing to use power sources as a basis for creating in-game reality. This week's Rule of Three mentions this by saying that they should have allowed multiple classes to use some of the same powers, thereby giving the power an in-game reality. That reality should really be associated with power source. To the extent Paladins and Barbarians use powers that just whack something hard with a big sword, those powers should be martial powers regardless of where the classes' other powers come from.

This failing is also in the loss of many useful in-game descriptors. If there is a magical effect, you should be able to determine if it's an arcane effect and do something about it. I understand why they moved away from monsters that cause characters to suck for a whole combat (e.g. constructs and sneak attack; fire sorcerers and red dragons), but they went way too far. It makes sense that there are spells and effects that specifically target or resist arcane magic (or divine magic, or psionic magic, etc...). Removing source-based benefits and weaknesses from the game is too high a price. Dispel magic should work on magic, not on zones (chosen, I take it, on the theory that most zones are magical).

That they left these keywords off so many monsters is just an example of their failure to consider the in-game reality. Shouldn't a hobgoblin warcaster have "arcane" as a keyword on its spells? I assume it's not there because it doesn't really matter to run the monster in combat and they wanted to avoid unnecessary clutter. That's all well and good, but I think the point at which you look at a monster and say "it doesn't matter whether this monster is an arcane caster or a primal caster", you have seriously lost your grounding in the game fiction.

-KS

 

[Gryph]

I think they missed an opportunity to have a pool of powers that available to all classes that shared a power source. The last rule of three column says as much, IIIRC.

On the other hand, I like classes as fictional/mythological archtypes and I'm not convinced that power source is an appropriate descriptor for an archtypical character.

So I guess my answer would be, they should have done more with them or left them out altogether.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think you need at least three independent dimensions to provide reasonable variety in a manageable set of constructs. The intersection of class + role + power source could have been one way to do this. By mapping classes from role and power source in dependent ways, they threw away the main design value in having role and power source as explicit game constructs. (Even so, both still have some value as design parameters, and role also still has value as a marker for what the class is best at. This part is only a "failure" in the sense that settling for a field goal is not getting a touchdown.)

Of course, it might be that class is not a good thing to make independent, since it is the core structure in D&D. So a better option might have been role + power source + feat. Or role + power source + feat + skills. But however it was done, you would need something tangible and substantial, attached to role and power source, that move with those things, independent of other choices.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

So I guess my answer would be, they should have done more with them or left them out altogether.

Yeah, I could go either way myself. If PSs are taken further, a few classes should really be reassigned; ranger to primal for example. And while we're at it, either reassign monk to martial or give them power points. 'Cause ya know, they're supposedly psionic.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I liked the power sources because they gave us new classes that I think are really cool. I like the Avenger, the Warlord, the Warlock, the Invoker, the Shaman... and without having the power source concept to inform the designers that they needed more sourced classes in order to have enough to fill out the 'Power' splatbooks... there's no guarantee we ever would have seen any of them.

I think the biggest problem to the power source concept was the decision to ditch the 'Ki' source... not because I think the 'Ki' source was a great idea... but because it basically resulted in such tenuous ties to power sources for most of the class in the Player's Handbook III. Putting Monk as a Psionic without actually giving him Augments was pointless. Making runes a function of the Divine source for no real reason was pointless, especially considering the Runepriest also didn't use the Channel Divinity functionality like the other Divine classes did. And recreating the Ranger as a Primal (like it probably should have been in the first place) resulted in a superfluous Seeker class that no one cared about because the Ranger was virtually the same except for role. Not to mention that because Divine and Primal had already had their Power splatbooks... there was no opportunity for additional material for either of those classes to get made. So you had three classes that supported the power source ideal... and three more classes that barely did.

You couple that lackluster PHIII with the Essentials 'reboot' of classes (which as was mentioned made the sources even more distant from function by doing cross-sourced classes) and you get what used to be an actual fluff-driven conceptual distinction between classes even further away than they started with.

I think had they done with PHIII was we all thought they were going to do... 4 Psionic classes, 2 Ki classes, and 2 Shadow classes (followed the following year with 4 Elemental classes, 2 more Ki classes, and 2 more Shadow classes), the power source concept would have remained in a much stronger position.

 

[drothgery]

Yeah, I could go either way myself. If PSs are taken further, a few classes should really be reassigned; ranger to primal for example. And while we're at it, either reassign monk to martial or give them power points. 'Cause ya know, they're supposedly psionic.

I'd agree on reassiging some classes to different power sources, but really I'd leave the ranger as martial; Rangers very rarely actually cast spells or otherwise used the more magical elements (other than the animal companions that were more hinderance than help) of the class in earlier editions in my experience.

Really, I think I'd kill off the primal power source and shift both monks and druids to divine. Monk are often tied to D&D religions despite class features modeled off of martial arts film characters, while druids were divine casters in every pre-4e version of D&D. That lets you fill out the grid for divine with traditional D&D classes (monk/striker, paladin/defender, cleric/leader, druid/controller).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sources do make the game more consistent and better organized, but I agree they're under-utilized.

Ideally, I think, Powers should be by source instead of class. There's often a lot of duplication or near-duplication of mechanics in powers of different classes. Powers by source would at least quarter the number of powers needed.

Of course, class features would then have to do all the lifting for role support, and that hasn't been done well for controller, as yet. Something like Metamagic could work, though.

 

[FireLance]

I think there is some scope for shared powers or shared benefits. Turn undead, for example, could be a shared Divine power, and extra hit points could be a benefit that Primal characters could select.

Right now, this could be done by making a theme for each power source, but I suspect it will be difficult to come up with unique new powers. We might have to end up errata'ing some existing powers to be shared ones.

Another thought I had, after reading one too many posts about why some people don't like healing surges, is to tie the hit point recovery mechanic to the power source. Instead of having a common "second wind", the hit point recovery action is different for each power source, and "healing surges" would be the number of times per day that action can be used.

For example, the Divine Power source could have cure personal wounds, and the effect of using that power would be actual hit point recovery. The Martial power source could have adrenaline surge, and instead of recovering hit points, a martial character spends one Adrenaline Reserve (a healing surge) and gains Adrenaline Points (AP). AP fuction as HP, and any time you lose HP, you lose AP first. The total number of HP + AP is capped at a PC's full normal HP because the more wounded he is, the more adrenaline is generated to compensate. Narratively, a Martial character with 2 HP and 46 AP is badly wounded, covered in nicks, scratches and bruises and running on almost pure adrenaline.