Ahahaha. Everybody on the WotC site is flipping out. They posted the latest Rule-of-Three, talking about the Bladesinger.
And the dev guy said they gave the Bladesinger Wizard Encounter powers as Daily powers so that he could be a tough melee fighter and still be able to cast Fireball.
Only, Fireball is a Wizard Daily and Bladesingers have no access to it.
What was involved in the decision to give the bladesinger wizard encounter powers as dailies, and how are these powers balanced when compared to normal daily powers?
The key factor in the design of the bladesinger was that they have always been wizards in the history of the game. They cast fireball, they use wands, and so on. The trick was how to be true to that history while at the same time giving the bladesinger space to also be a phenomenal melee fighter, which is the other part of the class’s story. That meant giving up some of the wizard class’s power in order to gain power as a melee combatant. We looked at the wizard’s spells, and the most iconic spells, such as fireball, were encounter powers. We didn’t want to give those up, so that left dailies, where a lot of unusual and less iconic effects live, as the obvious place to cut. A lot of folks seem to see that as gutting the class’s power, but it needs to be considered in light of the class’s output over the course of a day and not just in a single encounter. When you do that, you can see that the bladesinger easily makes up for the loss of daily powers with bladesong and other class elements that allow the bladesinger to stack effects and actions. They lose the wizard’s fragility, gain melee dominance, achieve versatile control, and still feel like wizards when they cast wizard spells and use wizard implements. More to the point, we think that they feel like traditional bladesingers.
They should just wait a few years, "revise" the core material (read: print the updates) and rerelease the game as 4th Edition Revised, with both a Basic and Advanced line. Core becomes Advanced, Essentials becomes Basic.
Honestly 4e has been a mixed bag. There's been some awesome stuff, and some miserable stuff. I think a lot of the trouble they're having is with how "live" everything. Weekly content releases online. Playtesting stuff going up online. That sort of thing. Errata/updates was never a problem for my group back in 2e and 3.X, but that's because we just houseruled everything that seemed stupid, by consensus.
That or the thing was so broken it could only be avoided, not fixed.
But with 4th edition, they were so committed to routine updates and what not that they set themselves up, and now they're having trouble maintaining that online "live" presence, and it's hurting them in the eyes of fans who don't remember better.
Well, they came in promising all these neat online things, going to be giving away all this content, and trust us guys, this is going to be the best ever.
and for a while it seemed like they were going to be able to pull it off. around the time the essentials line game out they pulled support on several things, magazine content dropped in both quantity and quality and it's just been a crap shoot. It's starting to get good again, slowly, but since it's a paid service people are kind of upset. Look at the online builder. It's terrible. and its a paid service. but if they all back out then support dies entirely and that's worse.
I am annoyed at the online builder requiring a subscription, but I can see where they're coming from. Plus I've learnt a whole lot putting characters together "manually" with sheets on myth weavers so that's something. Speaking of which
And all that software they were hyping back when they released the core books? The stuff that was supposed to make playing with people online so much easier and totally awesome? And it would be out soon, no really, trust us you guys?
Oh, hey, you're right. They FINALLY released the virtual table.
Unfortunately for them, I've already moved on to Pathfinder. Which is a shame, because I really liked the actual mechanics and classes of 4E; it's the only edition where I actually have a lot of fun playing a cleric.
the essentials stuff also isn't bad, just some of it is rather plain. but slayer is a devastating striker. as is the hex blade. but the knight is a pretty boring defender.
Posts
Like he's melee, but can also use the pew pew magic stuff.
This makes me happy. because nerds are horrible.
No, they italicized Fireball.
Bold emphasis mine.
Not that I'm ever gonna even look at Bladesinger stuff.
Unless they ever do a PHB4 and he's in there, then I will.
a non essentials thing then.
Because my nerddom started in Warhammer and if it's one thing Warhammer nerds hate more than anything.
It's change.
It would be glorious.
I'd be willing to give WotC the benefit of the doubt if there wasn't precedent for them completely screwing up rules in actual book releases.
That or the thing was so broken it could only be avoided, not fixed.
But with 4th edition, they were so committed to routine updates and what not that they set themselves up, and now they're having trouble maintaining that online "live" presence, and it's hurting them in the eyes of fans who don't remember better.
and for a while it seemed like they were going to be able to pull it off. around the time the essentials line game out they pulled support on several things, magazine content dropped in both quantity and quality and it's just been a crap shoot. It's starting to get good again, slowly, but since it's a paid service people are kind of upset. Look at the online builder. It's terrible. and its a paid service. but if they all back out then support dies entirely and that's worse.
Yeah.
That didn't happen.
Also i understand why it's subscription only. It's just shit.
I would not pay money for it ever.
Unfortunately for them, I've already moved on to Pathfinder. Which is a shame, because I really liked the actual mechanics and classes of 4E; it's the only edition where I actually have a lot of fun playing a cleric.
The latter is quite tempting hmm
never gunna happen, i like prancing too much.
I'm mostly going to pick based on what other people do. so if you do helf battlemind, i might do somethign not helf.
Uh no dad! I swear, I'm just holding onto it for a friend! Really!
Yes, yes i do.
you would.
Ah I'm not too picky, really it's down to a coin flip between Helf and Goliath.
I will go