Players Handbook 3

I realize I'm late to the game here, but it took me a while to actually look through the Player's Handbook 3 and play around with the new builds in the Character Builder. I still haven't looked closely at a few of the classes, but I've seen enough to know that the PHB3 is not quite as big a release as the PHB2.

Races: Githzerai, Minotaur, Shardmind, Wilden

We seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Not only are there only four, but they're a bit too exotic for a PHB, in my opinion. None of these are races you expect to see walking around town, or serving beer at the local tavern. But then that's one of the big differences between the tone of 4e as opposed to previous editions. D&D used to be about ordinary people who were destined for greatness, farmers and apprentices who only became heroes after doing great deeds and earning experience points. But Fourth Edition is about people who were exceptional to begin with, people who stood out from the crowd even before the first play session. I'm okay with that, but it turns some players off.

Of the new races, I really don't see myself trying any of them out. I can see Minotaurs appealing to the same people who play brutish Dragonborn, Half-Orcs, and Goliaths. The other three appear to have been added just to fit the new classes. The Shardmind seems especially alien to me; I just don't know how someone would roleplay one. It's hard enough to think through your motivations when you're playing a Dragonborn, but I can't even imagine the wants and desires of a creature made of animated crystal.

Classes: Ardent, Battlemind, Monk, Psion, Runepriest, Seeker, Hybrid

Well, we finally got the Monk, and we'd been needing that for a while. I like what they've done to the class, giving them both moves and attacks in their powers. I really want to try one sometime.

The new Psionic classes are very different. The biggest change is the "Power Point" sytem - instead of encounter powers, you get a certain number of PP per encounter. (C'mon, WOTC, think about the potential abbreviations before you name things.) The PP can be used to augment your At-Wills, to make them as powerful as Encounter powers. It's a lot more versatile than normal Encounter powers, because you can either spend 1 PP to make your At-Will a little bit more powerful, or 2 PP to make it a lot more powerful. So if you have 2 PP per encounter, basically you can use two mediocre Encounter powers that battle, or 1 really good Encounter power instead.

Since the Psionic power source is the PHB3's big thing, they had to make sure they had at least one Psionic class for each battle role. So whether you prefer Controllers, Strikers, Leaders, or Defenders, there is something Psionic you can try out. Personally I'd like to try the Battlemind. They're the second 4e class to use CON as their primary stat (the other being certain Warlocks), but they have the same armor proficiencies as Fighters. So they get high AC and a lot of hit points right off the bat. Plus their marking system is pretty neat - They can damage adjacent marked enemies who attack the Battlemind's allies, and they get to shift with their marked foe as an immediate reaction to the foe's shifting.

The Hybrids are complicated but interesting, and combinations range from useless to potentially gamebreaking. A lot of really creative combinations could come from this, and there's a few I'm hoping to try sometime. I'll give them a blog of their own.

Skill Powers

One of my favorite things in the PHB3 is the skill powers. These are utility powers that can be taken by any class, as long as they're trained in a specific skill. I used to hate the choices of utility powers, as a lot of them are worthless to me. So this is a nice way to give us more options.

A lot of them are kind of useless unless you're in a completely roleplay-based campaign. For example, they might let you reroll certain skill checks, or let you roll one kind of check in place of another. Meh. Some of them have been done before for specific classes, but are now available to anyone who trains in a certain skill. For example, Graceful Maneuver is a level 6 Acrobatics power that lets you shift half your speed, which is similar to the Rogue Level 2 power Tumble.

My favorites are the ones for Endurance and Heal, as they can give any class a little bit of healing. I'll likely make sure all my characters are trained in at least one of those from now on. One really neat one is the Level 2 Endurance Daily power Invigorating Presence, which allows you to give nearby allies 10+(CON mod) temporary hitpoints when you use your second wind. There's also Third Wind (Endurance Daily 6) which lets you spend a healing surge as a minor action, Physicians Care (Heal Encounter 6) which lets you or an ally spend a surge, Reactive Surge (Endurance Encounter 6) which lets you spend a healing surge as an immediate reaction to being bloodied, Miraculous Treatment (Heal Daily 16) which heals an ally without spending a surge, and so on.

In a pinch, almost character could fill in for the party healer. So in addition to Hybrids and Multiclass feats, we now have a third way to dabble in another role.

Feats

The PHB3 does include some new feats, but most of them are just extras for the new races and classes. There is one interesting feat that's been the source of a lot of debate on the D&D forums. Versatile Expertise is like taking Weapon Expertise and Implement Expertise at the same time. You can choose one weapon group and one implement group, and you get an attack roll bonus when using either. With two feats for the price of one, why would anyone still take Weapon or Implement Expertise? Some say that the feat is broken, giving an unfair advantage to implement users. Other say it's a math fix, helping the classes who unfairly had to take more feats to be as effective as their allies. And still others say we're reading the feat incorrectly, and that it's not nearly as powerful as it first sounds.

Wrap-Up

There's also some new items, but nothing really big to report. Overall, this was the least interesting of the PHB series to me, and I hope they don't feel the need to release a PHB4. Now that we have the Monk - the last missing "core" class - there's just no need for more. If they want to make more playable monster classes, like goblins or kobolds, I'd rather they make that a book in itself. Actually, a whole book dedicated to playable monsters would actually be kind of interesting. But I can't imagine where else the PHB series could possibly go.

D&D Player's Handbook II

Note: This post has been moved here from my other blog.

The PHB2 was released a couple of weeks ago. It has 8 new classes and 5 new races, as well as some new feats, paragon paths, equipment, rule updates, etc.

I feel it's the perfect companion to the first PHB. To be honest, I was buying it mostly for the Bard, which was one of my favorite classes in previous editions. But looking through it, I'm finding all sorts of things I want to try. I think my next character might end up being a Razorclaw Shifter Druid who favors cat forms. I see at least three feats my existing characters might take later, and the new racial paragon paths are pretty cool.

There's a section on Backgrounds, which was probably added for those people who thought the PHB1 didn't have enough roleplay rules. I applaud their efforts, but I don't think this will satisfy the detractors. Basically, it lists a lot of suggestions for various races and character types, giving you a jumping-off point to write your character's backstory. To encourage a fleshed-out background, you get a bonus to a skill associated with that background (with your DM's approval). Other bonuses (like an extra language) might also be allowed. I like the idea, but it's not what I was expecting, and it's definitely not what some of the complainers were hoping for. Most of the roleplay griping I've heard was about the lack of occupation-specific skills like sailing or crafting. The PHB2 doesn't add any new skills into the mix; it only gives bonuses to the existing skills.

Personally I'd have preferred if they'd listed a lot of possible former occupations and hobbies - blacksmithing, jousting, basket-weaving, etc - and allowed you to add a bonus to skill rolls associated with that action, if that specific action came up in the story. You could only pick a certain number, and they would have to be listed in the "background" section of your character sheet before the first time you play the character. Plus there could be rules about related skills... if you were once a bootmaker, the DM might give you +5 if you're specifically trying to make or repair boots, but he also might rule +2 if you're trying to repair some leather armor.

I would have liked something like that, but even that's not really needed. Any DM worth his salt will already give a player some advantage in a jousting tournament, if it's been previously established that the character did a lot of jousting growing up. And any decent player who claims his character was once a professional informant in the seedy parts of town, already took "Streetwise" as one of his skills when rolling up his character. So yeah, it's not what I would have come up with, but at least they're trying to reward well-written characters.

Wizards of the Coast is owned by Hasbro, which may be why they've been trying to promote a more family-friendly image lately. Half-Orcs were not included in the first PHB, because it was difficult to discuss their parentage without including some unsavory elements. While some Orc/Human romances have probably happened now and then, it was generally understood that many Half-Orcs were the result of rape, and Hasbro didn't like that. Well, the Half-Orcs are finally back in, but their backgrounds have changed a little. Half-Orcs are now a full-blood race. So now if you're a Half-Orc, most of the time it's going to be because both of your parents were Half-Orcs. At first I hated the idea, but it's grown on me.

For one thing, I've never liked half-anything being called a race. I would rather they had just listed full-blood races, then added a chapter on possible pairings and the stat changes they would entail. Secondly, the PHB2 still gives "First Generation Half-Orc" as an option, so players who specifically want mixed parentage are still allowed to do so. So everybody wins.

The Half-Orcs also are also more marketable this time around. They are no longer automatically ugly and stupid. They're just taller humanoids with greyish skin and tusks. Going by the book's art, they're actually fairly attractive. You can still make yours a dumb brute if you want (and in previous editions, you could design your Half-Orc smart and attractive, it was just harder), but the "brainless tank" stereotype is no longer assumed. Besides, if you really want to play a big brute, Goliaths are the new Half-Orcs.

Gnomes are back as well, and also a bit changed. I've never played a Gnome in previous editions, so I could be way off here, but they've always struck me as silly-looking eccentric tinkerers. Going by the art in the PHB2, they're a lot more attractive now, looking like half-sized elves. They still work best as magic users, but fast-talking rogues would probably work well too.

The new race I'm most interested in is the Shifter. They're basically werewolves/weretigers without the lycanthropy. Your facial features are a bit doglike or catlike, and you are very in tune with your base instincts - perfect for the new primal classes. My only problem is that I'd really love a Shifter who uses only her claws and teeth, but there aren't any unarmed melee classes. There's rumors of Monks in next year's PHB3, but Monk's carry a lot of excess baggage that I wouldn't wish on an animalistic character. But like I said above, I'm thinking of making a Shifter Druid, and staying in my beast form a lot. That should be fun.

The only race I really don't get is the Deva. These are basically earthbound angels who are driven to glorify the gods. Okay, leave it to me to miss the point of something religion-related, but I'm just not sure how these fit in. I'm sure they added them to complement the new Divine classes, but I just can't imagine these characters being common enough to make it into a PHB. IMO, they should have done like the Genasi and included them in one of the other splat books.

Now the classes... Barbarians aren't much changed from 3rd (well, as much as anything from 3x to 4e can be considered unchanged). They're still just a more brutal version of the fighter. High damage, low armor - because sometimes the best defense is to slaughter your foe before he gets a hit in.

The Bard is very different, and I don't know if I'll like playing them, but I will try. They do make sense for the 4e system. One of the most noticeable elements of 4e is the "roles" system, and a party works best when it has at least one character filling each role. Granted, this was the case long before 4e, and for most other RPGs as well, but 4e is especially difficult if you don't have a well-rounded party. Fourth Edition is hard to play solo, and Bards will have the hardest time fighting by themselves. Bards have always been support characters, and now more than ever, every move a Bard makes benefits one of his party members. Which means that every party will be glad to welcome a Bard into it. Just don't let him wander off alone.

The Druid is a bit different; they really concentrated on the Wildshape ability. You can build your Druid with an emphasis on your humanoid form or your animal form, and it probably feels like a completely different class depending on which one you favor. You can either play your Druid like a nature-based Wizard, casting spells from a distance. Or you can use your animal form to claw your opponent's face off. Changing shape is a minor action, so you can shift, move, and attack in the same turn. That's going to be fun.

Sorcerer is kind of neat. I never liked how Wizards and Sorcerers felt in 3x, because they were basically the same class, but with a different philosophy towards spell memorization. But 4e Sorcerers really look unique. I love the spells with random elements (mostly dailies) - when calculating your damage, you roll an additional d6 that determines whether the spell also paralyzes, shocks, burns, blinds, etc. It's almost like gambling. I've never really been into the pure magic classes, but I may give this one a try. A Dragonborn sorcerer sounds like fun.

The rest of the classes don't interest me, but I haven't looked at them that closely yet. The Avenger strikes me as being another type of Paladin. The Shaman reminds me of the Beast Master version of the Ranger, except with a Native American "spirit animal" theme. The Warden also reminds me of Rangers, except dealing with mountains instead of trees. And I'm not sure what to make of the Invoker yet.

The new feats are nice. A lot of them are made to go along with the new classes, but there's some good ones for the original classes as well. Of course each new class has a selection of Paragon Paths, but the book also contains some race-related Paragon Paths as well. My favorite is the Dragonborn one - it makes your breath weapon more useful and lets you grow wings. There's also sections on new equipment and rituals, some of which is specifically designed for the new classes.

In short, it's not just another splat book, IMO. It's not indispensible, but it is a lot more useful than most of the other supplemental books.