Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Dragoncat Apr 22, 2010 12:40:00	Over time, the particular build choice has mattered less and less for any given class.  These days, most powers do not have contingent rider effects based on build, instead they use attribute scores to decide their specialties.  In a way, this is a very good thing, because it gives all the builds more options, not preventing them from taking a worthwhile power linked to another's theme. But over time, I assert that the Suggested Options tab has become a waste of space. Why?  Because it takes up more room than the build options themselves. Take, say, the Runepriest.  It's two paths, Defiant Word and Wrathful Hammer, take up a quarter of a page, combined.  Yet the Suggested Options take up an entire half page, plenty of room for new material.  The Battlemind's Suggested Options take up a little bit less, about 2/5s of a page, yet their class feature choice takes up only seven lines.  The same pattern repeats with the Monk and the Ardent, and only the controllers (who have powers based on their build choice, and therefore take up more space) approach equal space devoted to Suggested Options and build choices. And what do the Suggestions actually provide?  Every single one reads like this: -One sentence of vague flavor. -Put points into your primary attribute! -Put points into the secondary attribute related to your build. -Use the rest for decent defenses or the other secondary attribute. -Take powers that use the secondary attribute's bonus. This is repeated, once again, for the other build, with the only change being a replacement of the flavor sentence and swapping the two secondaries. Half a page spent consulting Captain Obvious.  These suggestions are incredibly basic, and not remotely useful in comparison to the amount of space they require.  Anyone who has read the system even once should realize that having a high primary attribute is a good thing, and anyone choosing a feature that relies on Intelligence should know that having a high Intelligence would help with that.  Moreover, since every single suggestion is basically the same format, you can copy/paste the logic of a single suggestion to any of the others. So why waste the space? Half a page is enough room to provide more class features or at-will powers.  The two-build-choices-per-class limit is arbitrary, and if the Suggested Options were removed, classes could start with more to be competitive right from the start (although this would, of course, be more burdensome with playtesting).  Alternatively, half a page is exactly the amount of room taken up by four at-will powers, allowing far more diversity for one of the most fundamental aspects of a class. The Suggested Options grow useless with even the tiniest sliver of system mastery.  By comparison, eight at-wills per class or more build options would provide a tangible, lasting benefit, allowing the class to have more competitive variety at its initial release.  Ergo, why waste the space regurgitating obvious information, instead of putting it to better use?
#2 Johnathan_Vagabond Apr 22, 2010 12:49:19	Overall I agree, but I think the suggested builds are there to help new gamers.
#3 areola Apr 22, 2010 12:52:34	You can just imagine how much pages these suggested options are in the Essentials books.
#4 ax_kidson Apr 26, 2010 22:10:16	I kinda miss the character ideas they were in both players 1 and 2 but weren't in three? I liked that Random name class and some adventure ideas
#5 Sea-Envy Apr 27, 2010 1:54:03	At least PHB3 dropped the sample PCs from the races. And all the PHB classes gave a human only feat suggestion for human bounus feat tricking some newbies into thinking thats what you had to do. Oh and Devoted Cleric was not captin obvious but captin dumb as a rock "make STR tertiary" "take STR base Healing Strike as your lv1 encounter"