I decided a few weeks ago that weekend posts would be experimental in nature. This is where I would test out new concepts or potential series, a writing workbench so to speak.
This week, I’m posting a review of a product a friend of mine read and I interviewed him on it. I’m calling this an Inter-review!
The Capsule Review
Forgotten Heroes: Famg, Fist and Song by Goodman Games is a D&D 4e companion book that features 4 Core classes that were not in Wizards of the Coast’s Players Handbook: The Barbarian, the Bard, The Druid and the Monk.
All presented in a thoroughly professional, high quality manner in a 90 page PDF.
Those who have bought the new principles of simplified mechanics of D&D 4e class designs may feel that the classes are overly complicated by charts, too numerous options and voluminous prose of the product.
On the other hand, fan of the previous edition who feel uncomfortable/unimpressed with the way things are done in the newest edition and/or that decry the loss of favorite character classes will likely find what they are looking for in this product.
The classes are very well written and organized in a style reminiscent of D&D 3.X. The apparent depth of treatment of class options and description can definitively meet the needs of those who want/have to play D&D 4e but are still on the fence about the new design paradigm.
Where you can find the Book:
The Inter-review
A few weeks ago, I got a copy of Goodman Game’s Forgotten Heroes from Tavis Allison, one of the authors (and one of the RPG writers that sneaked in one of my Gen Con Pathfinder games). While I was initially supposed to write a full fledged review of it, I realized that being a D&D 4e Dungeonmaster almost exclusively, I was not all that qualified to evaluate Character Classes.
That why I turned to my good friend and 4e Scholar Yan. He’s a software engineer and he’s quite the amateur game designer, I value his input in my games a lot! He accepted to go over the book and answer a series of questions.
Let’s start shall we?
The Book Overall
If you were asked to choose a character class to play in an upcoming D&D 4e game, would you play one from this book?
When compared to the Player’s Handbook, this book is not all that innovative. It mostly stayed within the confines of the PHB’s design space. The most innovative class is the Bard at the level of the songs the player can choose. The monk also shows some interesting originality. The other two can basically be mapped to existing classes.
Based on that, and since I have not yet played all PHB classes yet, I would not play one from Forgotten Heroes in my next game. Maybe later, I’d try the druid since there are few controller PCs.
The Barbarian
What struck you the most about the class? What’s your gut feeling about it?
The barbarian is a fighter that uses animal totems, either Eagle, Wolf or Bear.
Each totem shapes how the barbarian’s powers function, although I have had trouble seeing the differences between the Wolf and Bear totem paths. Both seem to do the same thing, but based on a different abilities. This seemed to be an unnecessary complexity.
As for powers, mechanically speaking, most of them were reminiscent of the fighter.
What did you like about the class?
This class is the first one to allow a character built on Constitution. For example, one ability allows you to switch your Dex/Int bonus to defenses with your Con bonus and several attacks allow to use the Con Bonus to Damage. That makes it an interesting concept for people who want to play high HP characters and not lose on the STR vs Con trade of a melee character.
What did you dislike about the class?
Some powers are written so that game mechanics are used only to portray the power’s flavor with no significant game effect. For example, one power allows you to push an opponent 2 squares then making the barbarian charge the target. This creates apparently necessary intermediate manipulation of miniatures just to provide a +1 bonus to attack.
Interviewer’s Aside: I pointed out that such a power is actually versatile, allowing both pushing an opponent, possibly into a battlefield hazard, and then allowing an attack with a bonus. He agreed, saying that you can hunt for subtleties he initially missed in the powers, but the way they were worded felt to be too complicated to him… He mentioned that clear templating of powers seemed to be missing.
Another such power allows a Barbarian to chuck his melee weapon at a target and then charge it, drawing another weapon. The power also allows the barbarian to pick up the thrown weapon as a free action. The thing is, a barbarian will either have a two-handed weapon in hands at that point, or have a Shield and Melee weapon.
Huh, which hand takes the thrown weapon again?
Hmmm…
The Bard
What struck you the most about the class? What’s your gut feeling about it?
It’s a character that uses musical instrument to accomplish various feats of power. The use of instrument augments powers with added effects. It is an interesting and innovative take on the 4e class model, however it comes at the price of numerous tables that must be during play, which is a clean break with current 4e thinking of using power cards and not having to open the books while playing.
Interesting class, too complex is Yan’s take on it. (It bears mentioning that Yan prizes simplicity of design over breadth of features, making him a less than ideal customer for the product)
What did you like about the class?
The innovation brought by the different effects each song bring to a power or to allies. They are all built on the same model of affecting people within 5 squares of the Bard, like giving an ally a buff, allowing a save roll or allow to move an ally.
They are all relatively minor effects that combine with attacks to increase flexibility of all bardic powers. It’s a fresh take on the power and makes it very interesting.
What did you dislike about the class?
The complexity of using tables and multiple cross-referencing to link an instrument’s effect to a power. This causes a lot of page flipping and slows down the game’s pace. The decision tree approach to fitting a number of songs to a given power precludes the use of power cards (or would make them more complex).
The Druid
What struck you the most about the class? What’s your gut feeling about it?
The Druid is a controller like the wizard. In fact it’s a wizard whose powers have been re-fluffed to be based on nature themes. It’s an interesting alternative to the wizard since there’s only one controller class available in the Player’s Handbook.
It also has an animal companion, that plays out much like the wizard’s flaming sphere spell, which is also an innovation at this point of the game’s life cycle.
What did you like about the class?
It’s a nature-themed controller that sufficiently different from the wizard to be worth playing. The powers, while similar are still rather varied.
The character has 2 main builds, Control or Damage. The control elements are mostly plant-based while the damage-dealing powers tend to be, predictably, elemental in nature.
What did you dislike about the class?
The wild-shape element added to the class does not, mechanically speaking, feel like wild shape and is somewhat disappointing. It remains unclear how transformation works, if you took the night vision transformation, that’s what you get without clearly defining if just your eyes change or if you are now shaped like a night predator.
This vagueness permeates the application of the Wild Shape ability. Does the druid lose his ability to use weapons? What happens to his equipment?
The Monk
What struck you the most about the class? What’s your gut feeling about it?
(Yan Sighs) It is an interesting class but there’s a barrier to entry in regards to it that prevents full appreciation of its possibilities. While it aimed at trying to emulate all forms of Western/Eastern martial artists, there’s a lot (and he meant a LOT) of complexities in that class to achieve that.
For instance, the list of weapon allowed to the monk is a hodgepodge of specific weapon in order to build a custom weapon list that hits the Martial Artist concept square on. Instead of making a straight list of weapons (like A D&D 1e), the class description lists each category of weapons and brings out what weapons from each category is allowed.
(At that point Yan starts to Rant a bit) It’s like they took everything from the Players handbook and created a series of Powers and Feats all over the spectrum to allow the possibility of creating any marital artist that a player would want! While a good idea, the execution makes this class the furthest one from 4e’s philosophy of straightforward roles and builds and is headache inducing .
It’s a ninja, Samurai, Kung-fu monk! You name it, it can do it!
Aside: Again, I see this not so much as a problem. Yan, who’s a fan of black box design, hates this kind of heavy, all encompassing way of creating a class. He’d rather just play Gurps. Players who dislike 4e’s blackbox design could very well be enchanted by the way the class allows such flexibility of character builds.
What did you like about the class?
There are a lot of excellent ideas in the class. Had the authors decided to focus on one or 2 builds of a martial arts monastery order and develop them fully, the class would have been more appealing from a 4e design standpoint.
There’s enough material in there to make it in two different classes.
Still, there’s a lot of cool stuff you can do with weapons, the presentation of different styles is rich and engaging. In fact the fluff is so well written that to creates an incentive to play the class…
What did you dislike about the class?
…However, the rules to bring about a character as described in the fluff is convoluted and complex beyond belief. In order to understand the class to build a character, you need to study the class features, the powers and the feat since they are all intimately related. You need to make an extra effort and choose carefully to make the character as playable/effective as the other 4e classes (Chatty: again, more in line with D&D 3.x).
The fluff promises, but the crunch does not deliver.
Yan: It’s just too (bleep)ing much!
Chatty: Mwa HA HA HA! I’m so quoting you on this, the only English part of the interview!!
Chatty’s Conclusion
After having spoken with Yan and Tavis, I got the feeling that the authors were restrained by the design space established by the Core rules at the time of writing this supplement. They decided not to invent a Primal power source or push the boundaries of design to let their product live regardless of future WotC products.
Thus, the book has definitive appeal for players who miss these classes and don’t want to wait for WotC to give out their own version. It also is a good choice for people who long for some of 3.5’s feel and breadth of choices while still being able to play 4e and follow the same Class feature/powers/feat path of the new game.
Post Scriptum:
If you like this type of review, let me know!
You are a D&D 4e-compatible publisher that would like to have their product reviewed like this? Feel free to contact me and send me a PDF copy at chattydm@chattydm.net. I don’t guarantee I’ll pick it up, but I will choose my review out of the material that was sent to me.
Special thanks for Yan who had to wade through a book in less than one week so I could interview him.
I like the format of this inter-review. Very clever, easy to read, and very informative. More like this, please.
I’m kind of disappointed, but I understand their design constraints and wanting to follow the established 4e format. Sadly, I think this product is destined for the bin when the “official” 4e stuff for these classes comes out. Had they been more bold and just cut loose, this product might have had longer legs as an alternative to the “official” classes.
That said, I’d like to see them do alternative versions of the existing 4e classes. If it really gives it more of a 3.x feel, then let’s see goodman Games’ version of the fighter, cleric, etc. for 4e.
Berin Kinsmans last blog post..RinCon Report: Friday
@Berin: Thanks for the kudos, you just made Yan’s day! We will explore this format further for sure. Possibly with Martial Powers coming out soon.
I think that Goodman Games’ thing is to take new current stuff and make them feel like they were from previous editions. I think there’s a market for that and thye definitively should keep taping it! This whole 3,5 flavored 4e thing might not have been intentional… I bet it’s because it was written by 3.5 veteran so close to 4e’s release. But it’s got potential… even if I don’t currently care much for it.
So, overall it’s 4e-compatible, and I don’t see any complaints about powers being on the wrong scale for their type and level. But it’s not really in line with the 4e “simplicity” philosophy. Good to know; I’ll probably take a pass. I’m running 4e to have something different from 3.x, so the new philosophy is what I’m looking for.
Ian Prices last blog post..Character Development: External
I really like the inter-review format! It’s awesome to see different takes on the material, and the way that guides the review to focus on the areas where opinions differ. I’m reminded of experiments with expert witness testimony in court cases: instead of having one expert testify for the prosecution and another speak for the defense, the jury listens to both experts have a conversation, which highlights areas of agreement and disagreement.
@Chatty: If Goodman’s thing is to make 4E feel like older editions, we didn’t get the memo! Our mandate was just to make these four classes available to Fourth Edition players. Perhaps because the omission of these classes from the core PHB was a talking point in the edition wars, our book does tend to get seen through that filter (e.g. Nathan Collins’ staff review at RPGnow). The emphasis on Forgotten Heroes’ 3.5ness is slightly painful for me, given how often I lugged my weatherbeaten AD&D PHB to our development meetings, but we were certainly aware that most players were going to be used to the 3E versions and there was a constant tension between wanting to be faithful to OD&D roots and wanting to include stuff that wasn’t originally part of the archetype, like the barbarian’s rage ability.
@Berin: I think the usefulness of the book after PHBII becomes available will rest on two things. First, it looks like there’ll be enough difference in approach that some folks will prefer our take – if you want your barbarians to be defenders, for example, Forgotten Heroes’ version (or the Advanced Player’s Guide savage warrior) is still going to appeal to you. Second, the fact that we did “color inside the lines” means that it’ll be easy to mix and match, so that you could treat our book as a sourcebook of alternate powers and class features to combine with the PHBII or APG. (That’ll be less true for classes that do go outside the lines, e.g. the way the barbarian puts striker bonus damage inside each power instead of making it a modular class feature like every other striker.)
@Ian: The very fact that I’m suggesting to a kit-bash approach to customizing class features and power lists probably means that I’m guilty of a love of complexity, as charged!
@Tavis: Complexity is no bad thing, but it’s a turn-off in something for use with 4th edition. Shadowrun 3rd Edition is horrendously complex, and also one of my favorite systems ever. I like different play-styles at different times, and some styles don’t mix well. “Simple” is the core style of 4th ed to me, and by definition can’t really mix with much, or it’s not simple anymore.
@Ian: Sure, makes sense. And I should say that even if my personal bent is to trade simplicity for customization – I do the same thing with house rules when I play OD&D – our design goals for the book were to make things as simple and elegant as we could. If we didn’t always hit that mark, that’s not the worst thing that could be said about one of the first products for a new edition! (Avoiding the kind of mistakes seen in early 3E third-party books was also a major design goal, and it’ll probably take more hindsight to tell whether we succeeded.) Amazon says the second book in the Forgotten Heroes series, Death’s Champions, will be available in April 2009, and we’re working on a third one now; hopefully some trend towards more efficient simplicity will be evident 🙂
@Tavis: Thanks for chiming in and for the Kudos. Never easy to write a review when you know one of the authors. At least that format put the burden on Yan 🙂 What I really liked about it is that it combined Yan’s strength (Analysis and Design) with mine (Synthesis and Writing).
As for my comment on Goodman’s 4e with a 3e feel, I assumed it was unintentional, but its still an interesting side effect. Don’t take my 3.x reference painfully. The thing that 3.x and 4e have different is exactly what was in your 1e PHB! For many that part of the old game should have stuck around!
I’m looking forward to your next products!
@Chatty: Yes, that is an advantage of the inter-review format: I automatically attributed all negatives to the evil Yan – presumably you will dock him some XP next session for his treachery – and assumed that all positives were due to your benevolent intervention. Harmony thus prevails!
While we’re throwing kudos around, I should testify that playing in the aforementioned Pathfinder Society game at Gen Con was indeed awesome & it was an honor to be in your self-proclaimed last 3.5 game ever.
Yeah I’m E-vil 😉
Mouhahaha!
Nothing personal Tavis. I’m of the mentality that good and honest criticism goes a long way.
That and the fact that my work consist most of the time off finding inefficiencies in our codes. I tend to do the same thing with anything in which I can see the design intent.
Love the format!
Sounds like an intriguing product… makes me feel like writing classes all over again 😛
Eric Maziades last blog post..Light Character Sheets (training wheels for kids)
@Tavis: And I return the Kudos for being such a cool player that helped move the story ahead, in spite of the now infamous “Seacat incident”!
@Yan: That was a great experiment, we have got to do this again!
@Eric: Thanks Eric, I think we stumbled on something nifty here.