Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms
Essentials: Druid
Imagine a world of bold warriors, mighty wizards, and terrible monsters. Imagine a world of ancient ruins, vast caverns, and great wild wastes where only the bravest heroes dare to tread. Imagine a world of swords and magic, a world of elves and goblins, a world of giants and dragons. This is the world of Dungeons & Dragons. You take on the role of a legendary hero—a vigilant druid, a resolute paladin, a versatile ranger, or a charismatic warlock. In today’s excerpt from the forthcoming Players Essentials book, Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, we preview the druid.
The Sentinel Kit for the Druid brings back the Druid's animal companion at the expence of Wild Shape. The Primal Guardian feature is present… indicating this is an evolution of the Guardian Druid to the point that it no longer changes shape at all, but instead casts evocations, uses weapons, and has an animal companion all based on a which season of the year they revere most.
Talk about this Essentials preview here.
The biggest surprise for me is not the pet, it's not the lack of wild shape, it's not the one at-will (well, the pet's attack is basically your second at-will), it's not the leader role (that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone by now), it's not the focus on weapon attacks (but that is surprising nonetheless). What *is* the biggest surprise to me is the lack of encounter powers. The Combined Attack occupies the same niche as Sneak Attack and Power Strike in that you get it at first level, and at the other encounter levels (3,7, so on) you get Improved Combined Attack. It seems that it packs quite a whollop! I'm hoping that the rest of the features work together enough to make up for the feel that encounter powers give to the non-essentials druids.
I really like the Acolyte of the Natural Cycle feature, which is very close to the Domain feature of the essentials clerics. It seems to have great flavor with the weapon choices and pets. I am giddily looking forward to the Druid of Autumn, hoping it has some reaping harvest of the souls type doom and gloom. Maybe a bird of prey as it's pet? I don't know.
Overall from what they've shown us, I think it has good potential.
the sentinel also really has me wondering about the new racial stats. currently, dwarves, muls and wildens are best suited for the sentinel.
I've always seen Dwarves as a very primally reverent race. But remember, You don't need both ability scores to be optimal. Dwarves wanted that Strength just be be good with being Fighters – to have the Primary Score. But who else have Wisdom?
Elves, Minotaurs, Devas, Kalashtar, Shardminds, Githzerai, Shifters, Humans all are adept as Druids.
We have 5 races that MIGHT or MIGHT NOT have Wisdom come HotFK. My guesses:
Dragonborn – Unlikely. Constitution seems more likely, whether they're playing up more Bards and Battleminds or more Fighters and Warlords for this warrior-race than the Warpriest and Sentinel.
Drow – Likely. Drow Clerics and Paladins are iconic, and I can't help but think some people might refluff the Sentinel's Wolf of Spring (along with the Scimitar-prof it comes with) into a Black Panther…
Half-Elf – Possible. Insight is key for Half-Elves.
Half-Orc – Possible. Nature Orcs are thematic in a lot of media, and were much grieved to miss out on optimal Wardenhood when Half-Orcs first arrived on-scene.
Tiefling – Unlikely. Nothing screems Wisdom in the Tiefling. Constitution or Dexterity would long come before Wisdom for the race.
They strangely didn't address that here like they usually do. The pet seems to have all the usual rules for summons except that it doesnt say anything about actions.
Intiative: Same as Yours also doesn't help much.
If it gets its own turn, AND you have that encounter power, how is this class not a striker?
Also, we can now see that hexblades wear chainmail (which suggests they might be Cha/Con rather than Cha/Int or Con/Int), that the scout is probably not a dual-wielding 'twin strike' build (the artwork shows a two-handed axe and a throwing axe), and that the cavalier will probably be Strength-based (since she's a half-orc - the only way it might be Cha-based is if the new half-orc stats are Str+Dex/Cha, which seems rather unlikely).
Let's assume starting with 18/16 and eight increases:
Druid's animal:
26 Wis = +8
24 Con = +7
Fix = +5
Total= 2[W]+20
Normal character:
26 Ability = +8
Enhancement = +6
Focus = +3
Armslot = +6
Total = 2[W]+23
So it's still +3 advantage, right? No, it's +3 after the normal guy had to spend a feat slot and used one of his uncommon item slots.
They should scrap the fixed bonus and simply make the power of the druids magic items strengthen his magical animal companion. Thus it would be 2[W]+15 at level 30 and if the druid wants it to be higher he has to get Iron Armbands of Power like anyone else who wants more damage.
Second: why is this a druid subclass and not a ranger subclass? It is so unlike any druid build we've seen before (it has nothing mechanically in common with one, being a different role, using weapons, not wildshaping, having a companion) and so like the beastmaster ranger I wonder why they decided to make this a "druid". Not that the overclass is relevant for much: all it means is that the sentinel will have fewer useful feats (because so many 4e druid feats are wildshape related)
Wisdom-Constitution was always the Guardian Druid and Swarm Druid ability scores, and it was suggested by many for the Summoner Druid as well, since +Con means beefier Summons.
I've always seen Dwarves as a very primally reverent race. But remember, You don't need both ability scores to be optimal. Dwarves wanted that Strength just be be good with being Fighters – to have the Primary Score. But who else have Wisdom?
Elves, Minotaurs, Devas, Kalashtar, Shardminds, Githzerai, Shifters, Humans all are adept as Druids.
We have 5 races that MIGHT or MIGHT NOT have Wisdom come HotFK. My guesses:
Dragonborn – Unlikely. Constitution seems more likely, whether they're playing up more Bards and Battleminds or more Fighters and Warlords for this warrior-race than the Warpriest and Sentinel.
Drow – Likely. Drow Clerics and Paladins are iconic, and I can't help but think some people might refluff the Sentinel's Wolf of Spring (along with the Scimitar-prof it comes with) into a Black Panther…
Half-Elf – Possible. Insight is key for Half-Elves.
Half-Orc – Possible. Nature Orcs are thematic in a lot of media, and were much grieved to miss out on optimal Wardenhood when Half-Orcs first arrived on-scene.
Tiefling – Unlikely. Nothing screems Wisdom in the Tiefling. Constitution or Dexterity would long come before Wisdom for the race.
i agree with you that any race with a boost to wisdom is fine for this build/subclass, assuming, of course, that wisdom is the primary stat for the sentinel. in my prior post, i was speaking more in terms of perfect stat alignment. i wonder which races will wind up with a wis/con option. personally, i am hoping for goliath, although i do not feel especially optimistic about that.
also, i agree with you about each one of the hotfk races.
Well this sentinel looks a lot like what the original 3e druid was intended to be. A support caster with a furry friend to join in the battle. (This was ruined by wildshape in 3e being complete and total hax)
So in 4e they've split it up. The Core druid gets what became the core concept of the druid, a wildshaping beast caster. The sentinel focuses on the iconic image they were going for in 3e, a defender of the natural world with odd symbolic weapons and an animal companion.
The animal companion already get's a +3/5 build in for lacking an enhancement bonus, why does it also need what's basically a striker damage feature?
(...)
So it's still +3 advantage, right? No, it's +3 after the normal guy had to spend a feat slot and used one of his uncommon item slots.
Well, it looks like the companion won't get extra crit dice, which add up quite a bit at higher levels. Also, the druid's weapon attacks would be slightly more accurate, and benefit from expertise, item bonuses, and whatnot. I'd say the companion puts up decent numbers, but has very little potential for damage increases
than that sux
So, so far, we don't know how it operates in play, all we know is that it has interesting weapon proficiencies, two implement types and that it doesn't have encounter powers like the warpriest or the mage. It has an animal companion that seems to do damage, and it has some hunter qualities, and plain stated dailies. Really, since it has no at-wills stated, what does it actually do?
Does it shoot spells? Does it hit things with a stick? And apart form the obvious Healing Word leader power, how it does accomplish being a leader? Is it going to be a good leader?
The other previews I remember did a good job at painting how a class did it's job, you saw how the fighter more or less works out, and I don't remember the thief, but the mage was pretty good at showing being a mage. I sort of just want the books already.