Waiting for the Seeker

[RyvenCedrylle]

No, it's not up yet, so I can't claim first credit for it. I did notice that the Dragon Magazine cover page has changed and lists this:

Player's Handbook 3 Debut: The Seeker

By Robert J. Schwalb and Stephen Radney-MacFarland
The next class from Player's Handbook 3 is here, exclusively on D&D Insider! Learn about the seeker, an archer who controls the battlefield through the mystical powers granted by her connection to the divine.

So.. if the Avenger is Batman, are we about to get the Green Arrow? Maybe Onyx or one of the Speedys?

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

So.. if the Avenger is Batman, are we about to get the Green Arrow? Maybe Onyx or one of the Speedys?

I'm thinking more like the Great Ten's Celestial Archer.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Man, I hope this is the first PHBIII class I want to play. The last ones did nothing for me.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

For Seeker, I was 80% sure of Divine and had an inkling(40%) it would involve a bow. I also thought it might be a non-bow leader, or some sort of striker bow or otherwise. Controller never entered my mind. I do remember that the Githzerai writeup mentioned Githzerai as a good fit for Seeker. Divine Archer kind of screams Dex/Wis after all, the assumed flavor really fits the Githzerai as well. On WotC's forums, there is talk about anime/eastern influences on the creation of this concept, Inuyasha gets mentioned. Also speculation about Seeker being another reassigned Ki class.

 

[Wik]

All I'm thinking of is The Who, when I hear the class name.

YouTube - The Who-The Seeker

 

[Shroomy]

I wish I still had the link (I'm at work), but last night someone posted a link to a website that described how archery was important in Shintoism, so there may be realword inspiration for this class.

 

[JPL]

Although this sounds interesting, it's also a strange and narrow niche. "Ranged divine controller" doesn't necessarily conjur up a broad range of character builds, at least to me. I sort of felt that way about swordmages, too, but gish classes have deep roots in this game . . . "Zen archer" will likely be a starting point for this class, but where do you go from there? And why not make it psionic?

 

[Rechan]

Although this sounds interesting, it's also a strange and narrow niche. "Ranged divine controller" doesn't necessarily conjur up a broad range of character builds,

1) Archer clerics were really popular in 3e.

2) There is a real call for divine archers. A lot of people on the boards complain how they want to play a cleric or a paladin who uses a bow, but the only class that uses a bow competently is the Ranger (or magically now, bard and artificer have those builds), so that they'd have to Multi-class to use said Bow, and only the ranger powers would work well.

3) Back before the PHB was launched, and a little after that, folks were calling for a Martial Controller. One of the possibilities was an archer who did the 'storm of arrows' thing, etc. This might do that, but explain it in more reasonable fashion with Divine.

So it's filling a desired niche (archer cleric), adds someone who can use bows to the game, adds a controller who uses a weapon, adds a niche that was popular in 3e.

As a side note, the bow is the deity's weapon for the Silver Flame in Eberron. And Archery has some greek connotations too, I would think.

I personally would have liked a ranged variant of the Avenger - basically a Laser cleric who does striker stuff, like an Exorcist. This will do fine, though.

 

[Klaus]

Although this sounds interesting, it's also a strange and narrow niche. "Ranged divine controller" doesn't necessarily conjur up a broad range of character builds, at least to me. I sort of felt that way about swordmages, too, but gish classes have deep roots in this game . . . "Zen archer" will likely be a starting point for this class, but where do you go from there? And why not make it psionic?

Elven archer priests.

Clerics of Sehanine and Melora.

Kagome and Kykyo from the Inu Yasha anime.

 

[vagabundo]

Nothing wrong with filling out niches - even if they don't have a broad amount of builds. I suspect that the PHBs will have more trouble with this as time goes on.