As for the shadowfell and feywild, I just want them to stick around, whatever happens.
More sex and gender equality and racial equality shouldn't even be an argument--it should simply be an assumption for any RPG that wants to stay relevant in the 21st century.
I like how the Underdark book kind of collapses all the Underdarks into one, with the idea that the boundaries are especially thin under the earth. Lends itself well to the idea that the majority of ghosts and gnomes are popping up from under the earth.
As for Shadow, Assasin's, and Class, I feel that after the classic core classes, most things should be handled by themes, prestige paths, and background so that we don't see as many orphaned classes twisting in the wind.
I loved kits back in 2E, but they weren't baked into the system, so they tended to veer around a lot. I think a lot of the desire for "multiclassing" can be handled with themes, since a lot of these are throwing a little specific magic at an existing class. Shadowdancer and Arcane Archer are examples.
Here is what I mean regarding this particular thread.
People like to write Assassin on their character sheet, but hate to agree on what an Assassin is.
Which in my mind makes it bad for a theme, so I would make it a Background. Giving you access to Stealth skills primarily and done.
Giving a diverse set of shadow, martial, and other options. Background Class Theme examples:
Is the Assasin martial or shadow magic?:
Assasin Rogue Shadowdancer (martial takes theme powers to be more spell like )
Assasin Rogue Poisonmaster (martial uses themes starting poison feature than sticks to accuracy rogue powers)
Is the Ninja a Rogue or a Monk?
Assasin Monk Ninja (Our order has trained you your whole life to be a living weapon)
Assasin Rogue Ninja (For this task a more subtle approach is required)
Is that all an Assasin can be?
Assasin Cleric Zealot of the Raven Queen (Knock Knock, I'm hear to read you your last rights)
Assasin Druid Wolfwere (look my queen, an adorable puppy some how snuck into our bedroom OH GOD IT'S TURNING INTO A WOLF OF GIGANTIC SIZE OW OW OW OW)
--------------------------------
And a bonus of this is you can more easily have an Assassin themed campaign if you want (with a fully diverse party that can still all sneak around together)
As for the shadowfell and feywild, I just want them to stick around, whatever happens.
I never even saw the fluff that the shadow realm is connected if anything shadow should be a excellent defense against it:
Sorry Ghto'thog the Unspeakeable I can't look upon you and let my sanity fly away, the room is too dark for me to see you as anithing but a outline in which I can shoot my crossbow
Remember guys we go in and I cast the illusion anybody who has the head of a bunny or the paws kill it with fire if you see a 10 meter tall bunny though run for your lives.
About the assassin obviously any PC worth his salt will be able to kill for money, but if the designers do their work properly a academic (wizard) or theologian (cleric) or protector of the wild (druid) shouldn't in the course of their career luck into a 2 spell combo which makes them the best at assassination ever and then have 100+ spells left over for whatever they want.
If a knowledgeable young man in-setting wants to devote his career to killing people with magic his first choice should be Scholomance not Hogwarts or Fantasy Vatican (ok maybe Vatican but only he's a Avenger).
I like how the Underdark book kind of collapses all the Underdarks into one, with the idea that the boundaries are especially thin under the earth. Lends itself well to the idea that the majority of ghosts and gnomes are popping up from under the earth.
I very much liked that, myself, and I was suggesting that people make the underdark a connection between the three worlds before whichever book it was that actually did it officially (manual of the planes, maybe? I don't remember, wherever the torog story was first introduced). I thought the torog story wasn't the best way to do it - as with most of the mythological lore of core 4e I found it to be rather blunt and boring... but I was still glad to see it done. Parties getting kidnapped by drow or otherwise trapped in the underdark only to find themselves in the feywild or shadowfell when they got back to the surface, or vice versa - wandering into the shadowfell or feywild through some weak place between the worlds, and needing to find an underdark map to find their way home, there's a lot of room for cool adventures that way.
As for Shadow, Assasins, and Class, I feel that after the classic core classes, most things should be handled by themes, prestige paths, and background so that we don't see as many orphaned classes twisting in the wind.
That's a fair opinion, and some concepts I could see it working well for. I could easily see a poisoner theme, or a shadowdancer advanced theme, that taken together or independently on a rogue could build an assassin-like or ninja-like character.
At the same time, though, the majority of what a character does round by round, especially in combat, will pretty much have to revolve around its class, won't it? At which point, backgrounds and themes are great for adding some flavor, but they aren't going to do all that much for mechanical gameplay variety, which is much more the purview of classes. Again, compare the shaman to the fey beast trainer. Here we see the idea of a pet-using character as a class and as a theme, and while they both work, and certainly the theme can be applied to more different classes, only the shaman really works the pet into how it functions on a round by round basis. This is why I myself would rather see, for example, the necromancer (or at least a necromancer) as a separate class, rather then just a 'theme' bolted onto other characters.
You also run into the issue of 'advance themes' if you're trying to represent a concept with too many complex aspects to just give to anybody at level one. Which is a cool idea, but I don't like it for fundamental character concepts, because then you have players waiting around for six or more levels before they're allowed to play the characters they wanted to play in the first place.
I think there are certainly some shadow concepts that I'd prefer to see as themes. Undead characters, for instance. I could see revenant or vampire or deathknight or lich as themes or advanced themes, stapling a few thematic abilities to whatever a class already does. But some shadow concepts I'd rather see baked into a character from the beginning, worked into how the character functions, how they interact with other pcs, npcs, and enemies, on a fundamental, round by round bases. Some sort of necromancer (when I play such a character, I want their undead pet or pets to be worked into how they function from the bottom up!) or shadowcaster/beguiler (the 'sneak attack damage on a fireball' characters you get from multiclassing rogue and wizard, even with patch PrCs/themes like Arcane Trickster just don't cut the mustard, here).
Having separate classes also helps define characters by what they can't do. Part of why wizards never felt like they covered more specialist concepts well to me was that they could do anything. Why restrict yourself to a few thematic spells when you could get the best spell of any concept at any level? In 3e and earlier, how could you maintain thematic focus when basically every spell of every enemy wizard you ever beat was basically just added to your ability set?
This is one of the many reasons that I want the Assassin to be a full class in Next. I'd love it to have options for the shadow walking mystic assassin (complete with options to make it feel like a ninja), and Covenent Agent (PP) style Holy Assassin characters, that mix divine wrath with shadow power.
Me too. And I call dibbs on the Assassin's Handbook should the class come to life.
Don't call dibs on handbooks before classes exist, that's bad luck. I remember calling dibs on a necromancer handbook, and then Heroes of Shadow. Also, from some of the designer discussions, D&D next may have such modular rules that no two D&D groups will ever be playing the same game, making character optimization as we know it pointless and impossible. I can see it now...
"The Shadowblade gets a lot of skills, unless your DM doesn't use the skills module. Also you get the shadow step power, which is very useful, but if your DM doesn't use the advanced combat module, it's not as useful, since you don't need to worry about opportunity attacks anyway. Of course, if you aren't using one of the two miniatures combat modules, it's basically mechanically pointless, although it's still nice to have thematically. Below is a list of suggested feats, in case your DM is using feats, but keep in mind that the mechanical value of any of them may range from useless to fantastic depending on what rules of the game your given campaign uses."
etc etc.
There will probably be enough consistency to make some form of optimization and guide writing possible, but I wouldn't exactly bet the farm on it.
Don't call dibs on handbooks before classes exist, that's bad luck. I remember calling dibs on a necromancer handbook, and then Heroes of Shadow. Also, from some of the designer discussions, D&D next may have such modular rules that no two D&D groups will ever be playing the same game, making character optimization as we know it pointless and impossible. I can see it now...
"The Shadowblade gets a lot of skills, unless your DM doesn't use the skills module. Also you get the shadow step power, which is very useful, but if your DM doesn't use the advanced combat module, it's not as useful, since you don't need to worry about opportunity attacks anyway. Of course, if you aren't using one of the two miniatures combat modules, it's basically mechanically pointless, although it's still nice to have thematically. Below is a list of suggested feats, in case your DM is using feats, but keep in mind that the mechanical value of any of them may range from useless to fantastic depending on what rules of the game your given campaign uses."
etc etc.
There will probably be enough consistency to make some form of optimization and guide writing possible, but I wouldn't exactly bet the farm on it.
This makes me think of programming, and including 11.000 libraries to get one program to work which wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to ask permission and doublecheck with your boss for every line of code.
Don't call dibs on handbooks before classes exist, that's bad luck. I remember calling dibs on a necromancer handbook, and then Heroes of Shadow. Also, from some of the designer discussions, D&D next may have such modular rules that no two D&D groups will ever be playing the same game, making character optimization as we know it pointless and impossible. I can see it now...
"The Shadowblade gets a lot of skills, unless your DM doesn't use the skills module. Also you get the shadow step power, which is very useful, but if your DM doesn't use the advanced combat module, it's not as useful, since you don't need to worry about opportunity attacks anyway. Of course, if you aren't using one of the two miniatures combat modules, it's basically mechanically pointless, although it's still nice to have thematically. Below is a list of suggested feats, in case your DM is using feats, but keep in mind that the mechanical value of any of them may range from useless to fantastic depending on what rules of the game your given campaign uses."
Don't call dibs on handbooks before classes exist, that's bad luck. I remember calling dibs on a necromancer handbook, and then Heroes of Shadow. Also, from some of the designer discussions, D&D next may have such modular rules that no two D&D groups will ever be playing the same game, making character optimization as we know it pointless and impossible. I can see it now...
"The Shadowblade gets a lot of skills, unless your DM doesn't use the skills module. Also you get the shadow step power, which is very useful, but if your DM doesn't use the advanced combat module, it's not as useful, since you don't need to worry about opportunity attacks anyway. Of course, if you aren't using one of the two miniatures combat modules, it's basically mechanically pointless, although it's still nice to have thematically. Below is a list of suggested feats, in case your DM is using feats, but keep in mind that the mechanical value of any of them may range from useless to fantastic depending on what rules of the game your given campaign uses."
Don't call dibs on handbooks before classes exist, that's bad luck. I remember calling dibs on a necromancer handbook, and then Heroes of Shadow. Also, from some of the designer discussions, D&D next may have such modular rules that no two D&D groups will ever be playing the same game, making character optimization as we know it pointless and impossible. I can see it now...
"The Shadowblade gets a lot of skills, unless your DM doesn't use the skills module. Also you get the shadow step power, which is very useful, but if your DM doesn't use the advanced combat module, it's not as useful, since you don't need to worry about opportunity attacks anyway. Of course, if you aren't using one of the two miniatures combat modules, it's basically mechanically pointless, although it's still nice to have thematically. Below is a list of suggested feats, in case your DM is using feats, but keep in mind that the mechanical value of any of them may range from useless to fantastic depending on what rules of the game your given campaign uses."
Don't call dibs on handbooks before classes exist, that's bad luck. I remember calling dibs on a necromancer handbook, and then Heroes of Shadow. Also, from some of the designer discussions, D&D next may have such modular rules that no two D&D groups will ever be playing the same game, making character optimization as we know it pointless and impossible. I can see it now...
"The Shadowblade gets a lot of skills, unless your DM doesn't use the skills module. Also you get the shadow step power, which is very useful, but if your DM doesn't use the advanced combat module, it's not as useful, since you don't need to worry about opportunity attacks anyway. Of course, if you aren't using one of the two miniatures combat modules, it's basically mechanically pointless, although it's still nice to have thematically. Below is a list of suggested feats, in case your DM is using feats, but keep in mind that the mechanical value of any of them may range from useless to fantastic depending on what rules of the game your given campaign uses."
The assassin is Rob Schwalb's favourite class so I hope he'll not let us assassin-lovers down.
And optimization within boundaries is much more interesting, even if more difficult. Your example was great to read.
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true">About the assassin obviously any PC worth his salt will be able to kill for money, but if the designers do their work properly a academic (wizard) or theologian (cleric) or protector of the wild (druid) shouldn't in the course of their career luck into a 2 spell combo which makes them the best at assassination ever and then have 100+ spells left over for whatever they want.
If a knowledgeable young man in-setting wants to devote his career to killing people with magic his first choice should be Scholomance not Hogwarts or Fantasy Vatican (ok maybe Vatican but only he's a Avenger).
At which point he should be an avenger/warlock with the Vatican High Priest theme, of course.
Anyway, I think we agree that there should be a full suite of options which require specialized training and dedication to learn and master, representing a "class" of persons who are the master of assassination.
Rather than just a suite of feats that make you better at stabbing things in the dark.
This is one of the many reasons that I want the Assassin to be a full class in Next. I'd love it to have options for the shadow walking mystic assassin (complete with options to make it feel like a ninja), and Covenent Agent (PP) style Holy Assassin characters, that mix divine wrath with shadow power.
Me too. And I call dibbs on the Assassin's Handbook should the class come to life.
I look forward to it.
More sex and gender equality and racial equality shouldn't even be an argument--it should simply be an assumption for any RPG that wants to stay relevant in the 21st century.
From my side I think that designers should first determine if in their vision Shadow and Necromancy are connected at all. In 4e there's a deep connection due to the Raven Queen residing in the Shadowfell but in 5e it may be different. In previous editions necromancy was tied to the negative energy plane while the Demiplane of Shadow was a separate entity.
Personally I prefer the 4e approach as it gives a dark, creepy edge to Shadow characters and settings (Gloomwrought and Beyond is a great product), but does not tie automatically Death and Shadow (as you can be connected to the Shadowfell but not the Raven Queen.
I think there's room for some Shadow classes, like the Assassin (4e version) and the Necromancer and would like to see them as separate classes and not as themes on another one, but first of all we'll have to see how the 5e engine works in terms of feats and powers/spells/whatever. For example the shadow assassin could be a theme over the rogue class. Take the rogue, add to it Shade Step and Shadow Form via feats and make a list of shadow powers that you can unlock by having some prerequisites (say Shade Step and Shadow Form) and you can build a reasonably good shadow assassin out of a rogue, eliminating the awkward Shroud mechanic and keeping the flavour.
