Do you plan on using the familiar rules in Arcane? Or create new realms based powers for the Vestige Pact? Build a fighter with two weapons?
I figure that since these are coming out, it might help to see if people want to use these books or even buy them for a Realms campaign. Or have something which could help them if they do buy and use them. I have pre-order Arcane Powers and I am planing to pick up Divine powers. I may also pick up Martial and Primal, once I have the money and have looked at the PHB2.
So what are your thoughts and your opinions?
News Builds for Fighter/Ranger/Rogue/Warlord
Fighter: Tempest (2-weapons) and Battlerager (barbarian like fighter, lost of temperary hit points)
Rangers: Beastmaster (gain animal companion with eight out of the box and suggestion to change type of animal and use their MM stats, beast-linked powers)
Rogue: A blunt weapons build with a new keyword for attacks (Rattling, which provides and effect), lots of new powers
Warlord: Resourceful and Bravura both give new effects when ally spends and action point and new powers.
Powers: A few at will utilities, 'gambling powers (enemy does one thing so you can do something much better), race based powers, more shiled based and other weapon based powers
Paragon Paths: Twelve for each of teh four classes, with some overlap. Also race and class specific ones like Drow and Genasi from FRPG. More flavour text, refering to legends and famous heroes.
Feats: New feats for each tier, focusing on more options for different builds, races or both. Racial ones tie into a racial characters core power like Eldarin getting teleportation based ones.
More multiclassing feats, both in place of initial ones and paragon multiclassing.
Epic Destinies: Ten ranging from mudane sounding Beastlord to epid Godhunter.
Aided by the Critical-hits review by The Game
[b]Excerts:
Polearm Master:[/b]
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081013a
Eternal Defender
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081017a
Beastmaster Ranger
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081020a
Feral Spirits
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081024a
Aerialist Rogue
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081027a
Daring Acrobat
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081031a
Bravura Presence
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081103a
Flameborw Commander
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081107a
-With "powers", weapon techniques and such are a dime a dozen, so those can all easily be used. Racial powers, there's lots of those as well, on Faerûn, with so many races and such.
-With Epic Destinies...They're as varied as Prestige Classes, so you'd have to see each on on a case-by-case basis to see if the setting already has something like them, or if they need to have new information created to insert them in.
Beastmaster, nothing specific that I can think of.
They are just rangers with an animal companion.
a: ambidextrous fighting( forget what it says, being able to fight with 2 weapons at once is twf, being able to fight with a weapon in either hand, and to use a at will power is not straight up twf)
b: the archery route
c: beastmaster: nothing special here.....
anyway, as for how to realms-ifing the core books; well, I'm not sure that wold be a problems, since none of the paths in there are specific to anysetting, a few to races.
so... trails off in thought, and dinner time
-Hmm...Two-Weapon Fighters and (Dwarven) Battleragers, we've already got those. Beastmaster, nothing specific that I can think of. Rogues using blunt weapons, already got those. Warlord, I don't even know what that stuff means.
-With "powers", weapon techniques and such are a dime a dozen, so those can all easily be used. Racial powers, there's lots of those as well, on Faerûn, with so many races and such.
-With Epic Destinies...They're as varied as Prestige Classes, so you'd have to see each on on a case-by-case basis to see if the setting already has something like them, or if they need to have new information created to insert them in.
An interesting idea is that of "Gambling" keyword. This could work well for a Martial/Arcane/Divine/Primal person who has Tymora as a patron. Like attacking a foe and then expecting it to attack. If it attacks X occurs, while it it doesn't Y or nothing happens. Seems to fit Tymora, Besheba or Tyche.
I would have to see it first then.
A beastmaster/Arcane familiar could have a realms animal in replacement and what would occur if that happens.
They are just rangers with an animal companion.
-True.
-There's nothing specific about Rangers with Animal Companions, then. Off the top of my head, I can think of two Rangers who had animal companions- the protagonist from Lost Library of Cormanthyr, whose name escapes me, that had some kind of "electric bat", and Montolio, Drizzt's teacher, who had an owl and/or a bear, so they already exist in the setting, if not the rules until now.
I was just wondering (and I'm not trying to be a dick or anything), is this neccessary?
I know this is something we all loved to do in 3e, and Eytan even made a living at it (writing those Realmslore articles), but wasn't the purpose of 4e to have ''setting neutral' rules that could be dropped in anywhere?
Their goal of "One Rules to rule them all" was admirable, so I'm just wondering if its not working out.
In fact, nothing in PHB II is setting specific either and requires specific Faerunian lore. Everything more or less just works and does not assume any setting with only very very very VERY few exceptions.
Drizzt has his kitty.
I was just wondering (and I'm not trying to be a dick or anything), is this neccessary?
I know this is something we all loved to do in 3e, and Eytan even made a living at it (writing those Realmslore articles), but wasn't the purpose of 4e to have ''setting neutral' rules that could be dropped in anywhere?
Their goal of "One Rules to rule them all" was admirable, so I'm just wondering if its not working out.
I figure that the Core Rules are the cheese, onions, peppers, and etc to be in the Realm's eggs omelutte. The trick is which of the ingredients to use and how to mix it with the eggs (and what kind of eggs? Chicken? Duck? Aligator?).
It is taking the new rules and making them fit better with the realms with more flavour text. Like how people on these very boards have been trying to fit Warforged with previous Realms lore like Lantan....
I know this is something we all loved to do in 3e, and Eytan even made a living at it (writing those Realmslore articles), but wasn't the purpose of 4e to have ''setting neutral' rules that could be dropped in anywhere?
-That's a good analogy. Using the presented material to make "new" Class Chronicles entries and such, for those new materials.
Divine Power is supposed to contain new rules for Domains, so here is where the Realms can really take charge. Primal Power... I got nothng.
Bel
Drizzt has his kitty.
I was just wondering (and I'm not trying to be a dick or anything), is this neccessary?
I know this is something we all loved to do in 3e, and Eytan even made a living at it (writing those Realmslore articles), but wasn't the purpose of 4e to have ''setting neutral' rules that could be dropped in anywhere?
Their goal of "One Rules to rule them all" was admirable, so I'm just wondering if its not working out.
About the last bit, I believe it is working fine. IMO (which could be wrong..., Hvulpes is mainly looking to add flavor to a lot of the material to make it feel a part of the Realms.
However, I think the OP said something about some new powers etc. Perhaps the thought is that, for instance, some paragon paths could me closely tailored to a particular region and that replacing a power/granted ability with one more closely tailored to a particular region would give it a 'closer' feel.
For instance, and again I don't have my Martial Power handy..., it might be possible to take a warlord paragon path and mix it with some of the barabarian paragon path (in the to be released Primal Power) or orc racial paragon path to create an orc warlord paragon path similar to the orc warlord (did I get the right title?) from (I believe...) Races of Faerun.
Of course, an orc warlord would normally be only an NPC... But, perhaps any number of the warlord paragon paths could be individualized to closely fit a number of regions if one so chose: commander of the guard for Waterdeep, Luruar, Amn, Sembia, Netheril, etc.
Another possibility, going back to NPCs and monsters is the template technique introduced in the DMG. There are templates for each of the classes (fighter, wizard, etc.) which add some of the powers/abilities of the class to a monster in order to give it a little flair and make it a more difficult encounter. (For instance it bumps a regular non-minion up to an elite.) This is also done with some monster templates such as (I think...) vampire and lich. Some templates could be created to add to monsters listed above.
For instance we could create an orc warlord template which, when added to an elite monster, would create a solo monster. So, we could take a basic orc chieftain from the monster manual, level 8 soldier (leader) (I think...) and add a class template to make it elite (representing special training such as that received to be a Zhent soldier before making his own way after a defeat of a zhent stronghold ny adventurers...) or create an orc warlord template and add it.
Then, we could add a second template (I think that is the requirement...) to create a solo. For instance, take an orc chieftain, add a battlerager fighter template, and then add a tailored orc warlord template on top to give a loose approximation of O'bould. If you make the creature about 15th level, then according to the rules, you would have a solo creature capable of taking on a party of 15th level characters. But, the creature would likely have cohorts around it so in fact it would probably fit into an encounter with a level of about 18 to 20.
So, I think that is the way to go. We could create templates to be added to monsters that are tailored to the FR. For instance, the Martial Power book introduced new fighter types: Battlerager and Tempest to supplement the One-handed Weapon and Two-handed Weapon fighter types. The DMG introduced monster templates based upon te original (the latter listed) but there are none for those brought out in the Martial Power book. That would fit right in the Running the Realms section.
Another thing, is the following:
Can anyone name some region specific (from previous splatbooks or novels) concepts that could be incorporated into the 4th edition Forgottrnn Realms as paragon paths? For instance, the Jordain (spelling?, again from memory) Despite Halruaa being annihilated I believe there is a good possibility that some of their training could have been passed on as an order or through mentor individuals. Or, perhaps the former magehounds could have changed their training to track down and destroy spellplague victims or any problems resulting from the spell plague.
Just a few thoughts.
Can anyone name some region specific (from previous splatbooks or novels) concepts that could be incorporated into the 4th edition Forgottrnn Realms as paragon paths? For instance, the Jordain (spelling?, again from memory) Despite Halruaa being annihilated I believe there is a good possibility that some of their training could have been passed on as an order or through mentor individuals. Or, perhaps the former magehounds could have changed their training to track down and destroy spellplague victims or any problems resulting from the spell plague.
Lets see...
Aglarondan Griffonrider - Aglarond
Cultist of the Shattered Peak - Netherese Empire
Fang of Sseth - Najara
Glorious Servitor - Old Mulhorand or the Returned Abier area there now (Tymanther-something)
Hoardbreaker - Silver Marches
Luiren Marchwarden - Luiren
Maquar Crusader - Shining South
Master of the Yuirwood - Aglarond
Nar Demonbinder - Nar, Demon-lands
Orc Scout - Kingdom of Many-Arrows
Peerless Archer - Silver Marches, Western Heartlands, The North
Raumathari Battlemage
And there are some I've created here that deal with specific areas such as Silverymoon, Thay, Evereska, and Rasheman.