Last week, with comics on the brain, we asked what kind of comics you read. 62% of you read Webcomics, possibly because they’re great, possibly because they’re free. Second at 48% are mainstream comics that you can pick up in most comic stores (and some book stores.) Third are the indie/self-published fans are at 30%. Only 15% of you don’t read any comics at all, which is awesome that the number is so low, but we’ll convince you to pick them up yet!
After a short delay, the playtest preview of the Barbarian is out now (go check it out, I’ll wait.) After looking through the Advanced Player’s Guide and seeing some classic character options hit print again, I’m feeling a bit nostalgic. As much as I love 4e, I forgot how hard it is to be near the beginning of the edition lifecycle and desparately want more options to be in print. The APG made me want to follow up my last campaign with an epic level epilogue, and there are plenty of other ideas I’d love to revisit, were the book to be out (and were I to have enough time and players to do all of this!)
It is in the frame of mind that I ask…
[poll id=”96″]
Many of these are expected in books in the next year or so, but hopefully they’ll be plenty of surprises as well!
And I kindly ask that if you want to complain that X thing you like wasn’t in the core book that you instead comment on, oh, pretty much any RPG messageboard out there, in an attempt to keep the discussion on target here. Also, feel free to talk about the Barbarian too!
I miss Bards…
Reverend Mike´s last post: Superheroes? BAH! The Villains Are Where It’s At!
For the classes, races and psionics, it’s easy enough to adapt 3.x rules and I’m homebrewing an animal companion ruleset just now.
I am looking forward to more build options and campaign settings, because while I have enough time to adapt rules, I don’t have enough time to come up with a complete setting 😉
Hammer´s last post: The Hand of Kelemvor: Session 1 – The Anti-Session
I miss monks, enough so that I came up with my own version. Which reminds me, I have to get to the latest revision…
I’m most looking forward to the new druids and bards–mainly because I’m a big Forgotten Realms fan and those classes are so integral to that setting.
MONKS.
Definately MONKS.
jonathan´s last post: Around the Blogs…
I love the synergy between the warforged and the frenzied berserker:
“When you roll a death save, you can take the better of your die roll or 10 as the result. You still die at your negative hit point total.” from the warforged entry and “Effect: You are dying, but you don’t fall unconscious until you fail a death saving throw” from the berserker’s Deathless Frenzy power.
I voted other because what I’m really looking forward to is more monsters, especially at low levels. Sure, it’s easy to whip up your own, but other people’s monsters , when done well, tend to inspire encounter ideas, which are this DM’s lifeblood 🙂
Thanks for all the comments, everybody!
First, for the record, I voted for Psionics. I just have a weak spot for them. The first D&D product I bugged my parents to buy for me was the 2e Complete Psionicists Handbook.
Rev: Are you sure?
Hammer: It’s interesting, because I feel the opposite! I’d much rather spend mental effort to create settings than rules. And that’s coming as a mechanics guy most of the time.
Scott & Jonathan: Check out the APG and compare, I think the “Martial Artist” is a really neat take on it, and there’s always good stuff to steal from. Plus I’m trying to get ahold of another 3PP product with a 4e Monk.
Christopher: I haven’t seen that in the 4e Realms, but if you’re running it with the old setting material, I could see that.
Pekka: Good catch! It already seemed like a good fit with +2 Str and +2 Con. Plus I have a bitching Warforged Barbarian mini.
Linnaeus: Yeah, I guess I was mainly looking at this from a player’s perspective, but as a DM I definitely want to see more monsters. I’ve heard some good things about Manual of the Planes for that.
http://abutterflydreaming.com/4e-monk-project/
But i just noticed that Scott already posted here… well – there’s the link to his version of the monk.
jonathan´s last post: Extending Gygaxian Naturalism II
Lol…even in that case, I miss bards…the last one I played especially, most notable for using his crossbow only once (to great effect) and cutting a purple worm in half with a wall of force…what fun that was…
I was quite disappointed by the loss of the Bard, personally. I know that the Warlord is bard-like, but they even simplified the social skills until it looked like the bard might never return in his old capacity.
I might end up buying their expansions (or DnDi for the playtest article) just to see if the bard will ever come back. Until then, I will just have to play a rogue who thinks he is a bard / swashbuckler.
Prince of Cats´s last post: Munch, munch, munch.
I LOVE the barbarian build. The temporary HP/extra attack mechanics fit in perfectly to incentivize attacking non stop. The sheer damage dealing capacity of the class is just great. I think barbarian infused parties will get the pleasure of seeing ‘pin the spear in the barbarian’ where the monsters just dump everything they can against the ‘stand around and slug it out’ striker while the party pumps all their surges/heals into keeping the beast up.
Excellent first look!
I voted for new campaign settings, because I actually run Eberron and because I’m really looking forward to Dark Sun (I’m pulling for it to be the third setting released by WotC). That being said new races was a close second. Can’t wait untill PHII is released and we have a full write up on Shifters (the MM version is cool, but needs help).
I also miss bards (can’t make my iconic ubiquitous NPC without those rules, unless I design him as a monster, lol!)
I would say that races, magic items, equipment, monsters and assorted setting stuff is very easy to homebrew in 4th edition.
At most, creating a new race in 4th edition consists of balancing a few abilities with the existing races, creating an encounter power and maybe a couple of feats.
However designing a whole new class in 4th edition is a lot more difficult than before… Not only you have to design balanced class abilities and over 40 different powers, all of them balanced according to level… But you also have to design them with the defender/striker/leader/controller stuff in mind!
So please, give me extra classes and class variants…
Speaking of which, I was very happy to know of the upcoming Two-Weapon Fighter but, could we also get a Big-Weapon Ranger? It would be the best option for those wanting to play the Katana+Trenchcoat guy (or any other light armor, big weapon type of character, like a spear-wielding ranger)
Amphimir the Bard´s last post: Rusia, Georgia y la hegemonía de la OTAN
Amphimir: Excellent point! It hadn’t occurred to me that doing classes is just plain more work than most of the other options…
For your Katana Trenchcoat guy, you could make the case to use the Barbarian. Big weapon, lightly armored.
I agree with the MainEvent, I think the new rules for the Barbarian are pretty awesome. I can’t wait to see some new stuff like this for the Martial classes in mid-November when Martial Power comes out!
As such, I voted for new options for existing classes because it’s closer than Spring 2009. 😀