I've written here before, I think, about the disappointment I felt when Chronicle Volume III came out and there was no mention specifically about the Lich King actually being an entity out of the Shadowlands - not created by Kil'jaeden, but taken and used by him.
The book simply said that he made the armor, stuck Ner'zhul's spirit in there, and set him to work. Given that the Scourge are my favorite Warcraft villains, it felt underwhelming for them to simply remain a byproduct of the Burning Legion - just another failed scheme by the demons.
So I was very happy to hear that that lore is, in fact, getting expanded upon in Shadowlands. Sure, Kil'jaeden might have bound Ner'zhul to that armor, but even if he did make it, he had to go to the Shadowlands to do so.
We got some lore with the announcement of the expansion, but it's very fragmentary and thin - I think we're going to get much bigger stuff revealed some time early next year as the beta comes near.
We know that there is a major evil called the Jailor (or Jailer, if you prefer that spelling.) He seems to be malevolent, and he has pointedly been shown only in Shadow, and even appears to be bound by chains similar to the ones that Sylvanas used against Bolvar in their fight. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that, while these chains might bind him, they also represent his own power.
Is the Jailor Mueh'zalla? I think that's possible, though it begs the question. We barely know what Mueh'zalla is, so giving the Jailer another name doesn't tell us a whole lot. It would mean that the Trolls know about him, but given that the Jailer is feared across the Shadowlands as a kind of afterlife boogeyman, it wouldn't be that hard to imagine that those who travel between the material world and the Shadowlands, such as Bwonsamdi, could spread that knowledge to mortals. His being Mueh'zalla only tells us that there's a name that people use to refer to him. That being said, it also gives him the epithet "Father of Sleep," which links him to certain Ilgynoth prophecies and also suggests a connection to, perhaps, the Emerald Dream?
Another big question that could be answered involves Odyn's eye. Much like his Norse myth equivalent, Odyn gives his eye in exchange for great knowledge, though Odyn's is specifically the necromantic magic required to create the Val'kyr. We're only told that he gave his eye to a powerful entity in the Shadowlands.
Now, we're primed to believe that such a being must be evil. After all, Odyn's a dick (a well-intentioned but egotistical, arrogant, and utterly callous dick) and this sort of bargain is usually struck with dark and evil beings (though I believe in the Norse myth it's done with the relatively benign Mimir.)
So was the Jailor the entity that he gave his eye to?
It would make some sense, except perhaps it doesn't.
The Val'kyr are, it would seem, a kind of imitation of the Kyrians. Kyrians are from Bastion, the afterlife of faithful service, and the Kyrians are basically a race of angel-people. If Val'kyr are Warcraft's Valkyries, that makes sense that they'd be connected, as Valkyries are kind of sort of a Norse equivalent for angels. While the Kyrian Covenant might be disturbed by the perversion of their system, it also seems that if Odyn were to learn how to make bootleg Kyrians, it ought to be here that he did so.
Maybe the biggest hole in all of this is that we're told that no one until us has escaped the Maw, the Jailor's domain and possibly prison. Is the Domination Forge, where Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination were created, in the Maw? If so, how did anyone get them out? And furthermore, did Sylvanas escape it first? And then, can the Jailor communicate out of it enough to make deals?
During BFA, we've heard talk about the "Hand of Valor" being some entity that even Eyir considers beyond her scope of power, and that this was what determined Vol'jin should become what he is - a Loa, maybe. Is the Hand of Valor the Arbiter? Or one of her instruments/servants?
Finally, we're told that the machinery of death is broken, and that we're at a point where every soul, whether it deserves to or not, is being sent to the Maw. Is that a new phenomenon, simply caused by Sylvanas' shattering of the Helm of Domination? Or has it been going for a while, and is the mystery of this phenomenon going to be part of the expansion's mystery?
Monday, December 16, 2019
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Pulling the Trigger on My Ravnica Campaign
I've sent out invites to players for my Ravnica campaign.
It's a little nervous-making, doing so, given that I haven't really started a big, ongoing campaign since the very first one I started four years ago. That campaign is still technically on, but given that we only had 4 or 5 sessions over the last year, I wanted to get this one going to hopefully be a more regular game.
So far, a couple of players have started to sketch out their characters, and I've decided to officially invite people months ahead of time (our first game is scheduled for March 2nd) so that we can work on figuring out characters ahead of time.
Characters will begin in relative isolation - the premise is that some time between Dragon's Maze and Guilds of Ravnica, the severely understaffed Office of the Guildpact has reached out to the guilds to send them recruits to help perform the duties of the Guildpact while Jace is busy. There's about five hundred people working there for a city of I believe 800 billion (Ravnica's supposed to be about the size of the moon, and I estimated it has a density comparable to New York City, and just did some math.)
There's going to be a background arc-plot, but I've intentionally left the early adventures largely separated. Indeed, there will be several different major villains with their own schemes that may or may not be connected to the campaign's big bad.
I've created villains in each guild, and my hope is to establish the morally grey atmosphere of Ravnica in the early sessions - yes, the Boros Legion is led by angels, but their self-righteousness can allow them to excuse heinous behavior if they feel it's "just," and a group like the Cult of Rakdos, so frightening and horrific, might also serve as a loving home for the weird goth kids who don't fit in with their family.
Obviously, as with any D&D campaign, we're playing in the DM and players' version of the world, and I'm trying to emphasize the humanity across all of Ravnica, while also providing otherworldly and terrifying monsters for people to fight.
This is a far bigger group than I'm used to DMing, but the intention is that there will be enough players that we can be missing over half of them and still play.
We're, of course, months away from the actual game, and I'm trying not to do too much planning in advance, but I'm very excited for it to start.
It's a little nervous-making, doing so, given that I haven't really started a big, ongoing campaign since the very first one I started four years ago. That campaign is still technically on, but given that we only had 4 or 5 sessions over the last year, I wanted to get this one going to hopefully be a more regular game.
So far, a couple of players have started to sketch out their characters, and I've decided to officially invite people months ahead of time (our first game is scheduled for March 2nd) so that we can work on figuring out characters ahead of time.
Characters will begin in relative isolation - the premise is that some time between Dragon's Maze and Guilds of Ravnica, the severely understaffed Office of the Guildpact has reached out to the guilds to send them recruits to help perform the duties of the Guildpact while Jace is busy. There's about five hundred people working there for a city of I believe 800 billion (Ravnica's supposed to be about the size of the moon, and I estimated it has a density comparable to New York City, and just did some math.)
There's going to be a background arc-plot, but I've intentionally left the early adventures largely separated. Indeed, there will be several different major villains with their own schemes that may or may not be connected to the campaign's big bad.
I've created villains in each guild, and my hope is to establish the morally grey atmosphere of Ravnica in the early sessions - yes, the Boros Legion is led by angels, but their self-righteousness can allow them to excuse heinous behavior if they feel it's "just," and a group like the Cult of Rakdos, so frightening and horrific, might also serve as a loving home for the weird goth kids who don't fit in with their family.
Obviously, as with any D&D campaign, we're playing in the DM and players' version of the world, and I'm trying to emphasize the humanity across all of Ravnica, while also providing otherworldly and terrifying monsters for people to fight.
This is a far bigger group than I'm used to DMing, but the intention is that there will be enough players that we can be missing over half of them and still play.
We're, of course, months away from the actual game, and I'm trying not to do too much planning in advance, but I'm very excited for it to start.
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Repelling Blast and Mad Max in Hell
In my weekly Descent into Avernus game, my Warlock finally had a chance to unleash the potential of his Eldritch Invocation, Repelling Blast.
Repelling Blast is one of those things that looks sort of innocuous at first - each time you hit with Eldritch Blast, you can choose to push the target back 10 feet. But when you consider the implications, this can be profound.
First off, the pushback does not involve any sort of Strength saving throw. It just happens if you hit the target at or above their armor class. You could be fighting a Kraken and push it back 10 feet (I'd say you could do this to a Tarrasque, but their reflective scales would just bounce the attack back at you.)
Second, this happens every time it hits. Unlike the closest equivalent cantrip, Firebolt, Eldritch Blast is broken up into multiple attacks. In many ways, an EB-wielding Warlock is more akin to a Ranged-combat Fighter, only they get a fourth attack at level 17, not having to wait until 20. That helps in a lot of other ways - using Hex, for instance, gives you an extra d6 of damage on each hit, and if you have Agonizing Blast, you're adding your Charisma modifier to the damage of every strike.
So, by level 5, when you're attacking twice per cast, if you hit both times, you push them back a full 20 feet.
There are many ways that this guaranteed - or at least unresistable - pushback can be a lifesaver.
One use is to save a squishy character. If your Wizard or Sorcerer is stuck in melee with some heavy-hitter and they don't have the action economy to take the disengage action, you can knock these monsters loose to give your ally a chance to run.
Naturally, you can also use this to force creatures into environmental hazards.
The story that inspired me to write about this was in my Descent into Avernus game. After descending from the sort of secondary starting zone to the plains of Avernus itself, we got ourselves an Infernal War Machine - a jury-rigged Mad-Max-style wheeled vehicle. Not long after we started traveling across Avernus, we were attacked by a much bigger War Machine with several lycanthropes. (Our DM did confess she nerfed the fight by removing several enemies given that only three players of a usual seven showed up tonight - it's the holidays.)
The thing is, with a bunch of Wererats clinging to the top of their war machine, I was perfectly positioned while our Barbarian took the wheel to knock these little rat-dudes off their vehicle. While the DM gave them Dex saves to grab back onto the vehicle, I was able to knock one clean off.
What didn't come up (we wanted to keep their vehicle intact so we could steal it, and we did!) was that even if I had hit the vehicle, I could have pushed that entire Huge or Gargantuan monstrosity (ok, technically a construct) up to 20 feet a turn as well. Even with a damage threshold that might have negated some of the damage, Repelling Blast says nothing about having to do damage for it to work (though it probably assumes most things will take damage from a spell that does Force damage.)
Warlocks are, of course, a sort of odd class - working more like a weapon-fighter than a pure caster, despite having access to the highest level spells. But this is one of those great bits of utility that they never run out of that makes the class feel really potent.
Repelling Blast is one of those things that looks sort of innocuous at first - each time you hit with Eldritch Blast, you can choose to push the target back 10 feet. But when you consider the implications, this can be profound.
First off, the pushback does not involve any sort of Strength saving throw. It just happens if you hit the target at or above their armor class. You could be fighting a Kraken and push it back 10 feet (I'd say you could do this to a Tarrasque, but their reflective scales would just bounce the attack back at you.)
Second, this happens every time it hits. Unlike the closest equivalent cantrip, Firebolt, Eldritch Blast is broken up into multiple attacks. In many ways, an EB-wielding Warlock is more akin to a Ranged-combat Fighter, only they get a fourth attack at level 17, not having to wait until 20. That helps in a lot of other ways - using Hex, for instance, gives you an extra d6 of damage on each hit, and if you have Agonizing Blast, you're adding your Charisma modifier to the damage of every strike.
So, by level 5, when you're attacking twice per cast, if you hit both times, you push them back a full 20 feet.
There are many ways that this guaranteed - or at least unresistable - pushback can be a lifesaver.
One use is to save a squishy character. If your Wizard or Sorcerer is stuck in melee with some heavy-hitter and they don't have the action economy to take the disengage action, you can knock these monsters loose to give your ally a chance to run.
Naturally, you can also use this to force creatures into environmental hazards.
The story that inspired me to write about this was in my Descent into Avernus game. After descending from the sort of secondary starting zone to the plains of Avernus itself, we got ourselves an Infernal War Machine - a jury-rigged Mad-Max-style wheeled vehicle. Not long after we started traveling across Avernus, we were attacked by a much bigger War Machine with several lycanthropes. (Our DM did confess she nerfed the fight by removing several enemies given that only three players of a usual seven showed up tonight - it's the holidays.)
The thing is, with a bunch of Wererats clinging to the top of their war machine, I was perfectly positioned while our Barbarian took the wheel to knock these little rat-dudes off their vehicle. While the DM gave them Dex saves to grab back onto the vehicle, I was able to knock one clean off.
What didn't come up (we wanted to keep their vehicle intact so we could steal it, and we did!) was that even if I had hit the vehicle, I could have pushed that entire Huge or Gargantuan monstrosity (ok, technically a construct) up to 20 feet a turn as well. Even with a damage threshold that might have negated some of the damage, Repelling Blast says nothing about having to do damage for it to work (though it probably assumes most things will take damage from a spell that does Force damage.)
Warlocks are, of course, a sort of odd class - working more like a weapon-fighter than a pure caster, despite having access to the highest level spells. But this is one of those great bits of utility that they never run out of that makes the class feel really potent.
Saturday, December 7, 2019
Artificers of Ravnica
Yes, I'm obsessing a bit about Artificers.
Introduced in Eberron: Rising from the Last War, Artificers are the newest D&D class. Given that Ravnica is now an official D&D setting, though, and mentioned in the Green blurb "Artificers of Other Worlds," I thought I'd speculate on where you might find Artificers in Ravnica, and possibly other Magic planes.
Indeed, Artificers are profoundly important to Magic's lore. Urza, the greatest and most important Planeswalker in the game's lore (at least for the first decade or so) was an Artificer (though I think I'd have put him as having 20 levels of Wizard on top of 20 levels of Artificer - remember that Planeswalkers were basically gods back then.)
Looking specifically to Ravnica, it's very obvious that one guild in particular feels like the place for Artificers: the Izzet League.
Called out explicitly in the Eberron book, the Izzet, as essentially magical engineers and experimentalists, naturally would have tons of Artificers in their employ.
However, thinking about the Character Creation chapter in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, I thought I'd speculate on which guilds might also make use of them.
Guilds do, after all, cooperate with one another sometimes to provide services to one another.
First, stepping more into Magic's gameplay mechanics, we should talk about Artifacts and colors. Artifacts in Magic are cards that represent anything that was constructed or built to serve as a tool, weapon, or other kind of artificial useful item (though things like buildings are usually treated as lands instead.) Artifacts are typically colorless, meaning anyone can use them, but some colors tend to be more destructive toward artifacts (Green and Red, usually) while others often have synergy with them (Blue, primarily.)
The Izzet League is the Red and Blue guild, which in a way works perfectly - they love to build artifacts but also blow them up. Naturally, I think any flavor of Artificer could work perfectly in the Izzet League.
There are three other Blue Guilds - the Azorius Senate (Blue and White,) the Simic Combine (Blue and Green) and House Dimir (Blue and Black.) Each of these could, I think, make use of Artificers.
First off, my favorite guild, House Dimir. The Dimir already have some proprietary technology in the form of a Spy's Murmur, which is essentially an earpiece radio to talk to other agents. I could see a Dimir Artificer working quite well as a kind of technologically advanced assassin. Having expertise in all manner of tools would be useful not just to build traps and hidden compartments in a room, but also to be able to disassemble weapons.
Despite arguably being the loudest of Artificer subclasses, I actually think that the Artillerist makes a lot of sense for a kind of magical sniper, who could set up their turret in advance of a target coming into view and firing it from a hidden position.
Moving on, the Azorius are known to use Homunculi as office assistants, and given their tendency to try to enforce the law on the streets, I could see an Azorius Arrester who fights with their intellectual guile backed up by a hulking Steel Defender being a very good fit - meaning a Battle-Smith could work quite well for them.
Meanwhile, the Simic are all about seeing the results of various things on biological specimens, which to me screams Experimental Elixirs and the Alchemist subclass. You could even flavor your alchemy as using mutagenic agents - the effects being temporary mutations in the subject.
Moving outside of the Blue guilds, I could imagine Artificers finding homes in several other guilds as well.
For much the same reason the Azorius would like Battle-Smiths, I could see the Boros doing the same, with a strong emphasis on their smithing abilities to outfit and arm the Legion. A Rakdos Artificer might be a master of Pyrotechnics - perhaps an Artillerist - who builds fireworks displays (and actual artillery, perhaps aimed at the audience) for Rakdos shows. The Gruul would probably really not like Artificers in general, but you could play one as a sort of... um, how do I put this... Eco terrorist? Using technology to blow up buildings?
The point is, Artificers would be very much at home in Ravnica, with its quasi-modern magical technology similar to Eberron. Given that I'm planning on running a Ravnica campaign next year, I'm hoping some of my players consider the class.
Introduced in Eberron: Rising from the Last War, Artificers are the newest D&D class. Given that Ravnica is now an official D&D setting, though, and mentioned in the Green blurb "Artificers of Other Worlds," I thought I'd speculate on where you might find Artificers in Ravnica, and possibly other Magic planes.
Indeed, Artificers are profoundly important to Magic's lore. Urza, the greatest and most important Planeswalker in the game's lore (at least for the first decade or so) was an Artificer (though I think I'd have put him as having 20 levels of Wizard on top of 20 levels of Artificer - remember that Planeswalkers were basically gods back then.)
Looking specifically to Ravnica, it's very obvious that one guild in particular feels like the place for Artificers: the Izzet League.
Called out explicitly in the Eberron book, the Izzet, as essentially magical engineers and experimentalists, naturally would have tons of Artificers in their employ.
However, thinking about the Character Creation chapter in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, I thought I'd speculate on which guilds might also make use of them.
Guilds do, after all, cooperate with one another sometimes to provide services to one another.
First, stepping more into Magic's gameplay mechanics, we should talk about Artifacts and colors. Artifacts in Magic are cards that represent anything that was constructed or built to serve as a tool, weapon, or other kind of artificial useful item (though things like buildings are usually treated as lands instead.) Artifacts are typically colorless, meaning anyone can use them, but some colors tend to be more destructive toward artifacts (Green and Red, usually) while others often have synergy with them (Blue, primarily.)
The Izzet League is the Red and Blue guild, which in a way works perfectly - they love to build artifacts but also blow them up. Naturally, I think any flavor of Artificer could work perfectly in the Izzet League.
There are three other Blue Guilds - the Azorius Senate (Blue and White,) the Simic Combine (Blue and Green) and House Dimir (Blue and Black.) Each of these could, I think, make use of Artificers.
First off, my favorite guild, House Dimir. The Dimir already have some proprietary technology in the form of a Spy's Murmur, which is essentially an earpiece radio to talk to other agents. I could see a Dimir Artificer working quite well as a kind of technologically advanced assassin. Having expertise in all manner of tools would be useful not just to build traps and hidden compartments in a room, but also to be able to disassemble weapons.
Despite arguably being the loudest of Artificer subclasses, I actually think that the Artillerist makes a lot of sense for a kind of magical sniper, who could set up their turret in advance of a target coming into view and firing it from a hidden position.
Moving on, the Azorius are known to use Homunculi as office assistants, and given their tendency to try to enforce the law on the streets, I could see an Azorius Arrester who fights with their intellectual guile backed up by a hulking Steel Defender being a very good fit - meaning a Battle-Smith could work quite well for them.
Meanwhile, the Simic are all about seeing the results of various things on biological specimens, which to me screams Experimental Elixirs and the Alchemist subclass. You could even flavor your alchemy as using mutagenic agents - the effects being temporary mutations in the subject.
Moving outside of the Blue guilds, I could imagine Artificers finding homes in several other guilds as well.
For much the same reason the Azorius would like Battle-Smiths, I could see the Boros doing the same, with a strong emphasis on their smithing abilities to outfit and arm the Legion. A Rakdos Artificer might be a master of Pyrotechnics - perhaps an Artillerist - who builds fireworks displays (and actual artillery, perhaps aimed at the audience) for Rakdos shows. The Gruul would probably really not like Artificers in general, but you could play one as a sort of... um, how do I put this... Eco terrorist? Using technology to blow up buildings?
The point is, Artificers would be very much at home in Ravnica, with its quasi-modern magical technology similar to Eberron. Given that I'm planning on running a Ravnica campaign next year, I'm hoping some of my players consider the class.
Do I Want My Good Dragon Boy to Become a Little Steampunk?
For about a year, we've had a home game in which I've played Jax Sardare, a Blue Dragonborn Eldritch Knight Fighter (with a Sage background.)
He is, along with the group's Paladin, one of the tanks of the group. I've got a +1 shield, Splint Mail (Plate is SO EXPENSIVE, guys) and the defensive fighting style, which currently has his AC up to 21, and he has Shield to cast if anything actually hits him (he also has Absorb Elements to deal with Fireballs and such.)
Now, I've always liked the idea of a Battlemage - a heavily-armored battlefield warrior who can call upon arcane magic - mechanically it's something you can often find in Paladins, but I like the arcane, wizard-y flavor of this version better.
I really can't complain too much about the Eldritch Knight, which has proven to be quite the juggernaut and capable of dishing out a decent amount of damage. (He's level 6, so I'm looking forward to leveling up so he can get War Magic and thus Booming Blade for 2d8+4 and then strike again for 1d8+4 - and of course also looking forward to the next level so I can cap his strength.)
I think the character could be perfectly viable sticking with EK all the way to 20 (if we were ever to get there.) The character's backstory would also make it make sense for him to multiclass into Wizard at some point, as he'd always had ambitions to be more of a master of magic than just a fighter.
Of course, the Artificer has come along to distract me with its new hotness, and so now I'm contemplating multiclassing into that instead or as well (I could, of course, possibly go with a Fighter/Artificer/Wizard build.)
Jax currently has 18 Strength, 14 Intelligence, and 14 Constitution, so he meets the requirements for all the multiclassing and can also happily wear the heaviest of armors.
There's also a question of what his ultimate role for the group is.
I've really played him mostly as the group's tank, focusing on making him unhittable (our DM seems to crit me with shocking regularity, which my more paranoid imaginings suggest she's frustrated at all the Shielding I do, which by this point gives him an effective AC of 26, and thus fudges things, though I don't actually believe that.) Of course, with a +0 to both Wisdom and Dex, there are certainly some vulnerabilities he has (really hoping our Paladin hits 6 soon so I can stand next to him for his beautiful aura.)
So Jax is there to be the immovable object, and admittedly, multiclassing into anything is probably not going to make him tankier.
For one thing, Artificers have a lower hit die and Wizards' are even lower - I'm giving up effectively one or two max HP for every level I put in those respective classes.
The other thing that makes me hesitate is that Fighters get additional Ability Score Improvements. I've used two of these so far, but there are 5 more for me to take, which would allow me to potentially get my CON or INT up to 20 and the other up to 18, or of course I could get some Feats (resilient Wisdom feels like a useful one, and Warcaster feels almost mandatory - Booming Blade as an opportunity attack? Isn't that nasty? That's what, 4d8+4 damage immediately, and more as I level up?)
If I were to MC into Wizard or Artificer, there are only 5, and only 3 I'd have access to given my existing 6-level investment into Fighter. Naturally I think I'd wait until I had 8 levels of Fighter so I could get by 3rd Fighter ASI, which would leave 3 from the other classes. So six, or rather three left. So Strength is maxed and then I could either bump both INT and CON to 16 and get Warcaster or favor one or the other.
Now, let's talk spells and features.
EKs are "Third Casters," I believe, and so I was never going to get super powerful spellcasting. If we assume I'm going to 8 in Fighter, that gives me only two levels as a caster (I could get 3 if I put another level into the class, but that might not be so useful just for spells.)
If we put the next twelve levels into playing a Wizard, the total "Spellcaster" level would be 14, which would mean I could eventually have 7th level spells, but never 8th or 9th.
The real benefit, I think, of going Wizard is that I could get a Spellbook, which would allow me to swap out spells much more easily (even with a single-level dip) especially given that all my EK spells are Wizard spells anyway. 12 levels of Wizard would also mean getting all but the final Arcane Tradition feature, and no Signature Spells. Ritual Casting could also be very nice.
Given that the character was originally built to be a kind of "Time Cop," enforcing the proper timeline (though we're nowhere near that tier of play just yet,) I think having advanced spellcasting could be very good, and something like Divination (Portent is pretty darn powerful, folks) would be quite good.
Of course, my focus is already very Strength-based, and I only have a +2 to Intelligence. Granted, I could focus on a lot of spells that don't care about spellcasting ability, but it does hobble things a little. I'd need to either spend every ASI to get Int to 20 (which means no Warcaster) or resign myself to not quite maxing out his spells (unless we come across those books that raise your skills.)
Now, let's say we go Artificer. Again, assuming we get to 8 in Fighter, that leaves 12 levels of Artifcer, which means by level 20, we're an 8th level spellcaster. This gives us only 4th level spells, which is where EKs cap out anyway, so that might be notable - there's no real advantage in terms of spellcasting here. If I were to just immediately go into Artificer, forgoing War Magic and my level 8 ASI, I could get 14 levels of Artificer and thus be a 9th level spellcaster, with 5th level spells (again, right at 20, mind you.) Now, this would get us plenty of cool Artificer abilities, including Magic Item Savant (5 attuned items and no restrictions on what you can attune to) and all of their Arcane Infusions.
It's interesting.
We'd also have to consider which subclass to go for. Going Battle-Smith feels the most natural for a melee-fighter, but on the other hand, the ability to use Intelligence for attack rolls is less exciting when you already have 18 or potentially 20 strength, likewise the Extra Attack feature. So the only real benefit of the Battle-Smith is getting smite-like spells and the robot buddy (which, to be fair, is pretty darn cool.)
I could go Alchemist, which would give me some healing capabilities, but with a Cleric and a Paladin in the party, I'm not sure how much we really need that.
As an Artillerist, we'd get some bigger ranged nukes, and given that our only ranged arcane caster is a Warlock (great single-target damage, a bit more limited for AOE) that might be something we could use.
Now, what about mix-and-matching?
First off, what in the Figher would I be missing? The extra ASIs are definitely nice.
Eldritch Knights also get some cool things, like Arcane Charge (which allows them to teleport after they use Action Surge.) And Indomitable feels pretty important to deal with nasty abilities that require saving throws.
The additional extra attacks seem really fun, though perhaps with War Magic that's less important (Booming Blade is going to level up regardless of what classes I pour levels into, so while multiple attacks from the weapon are going to be better thanks to the additional Strength bonuses, by 17 I will be doing 4d8+5 and then 1d8+5 if I hit with both Booming Blade and the War Magic bonus attack. So that's 32.5 mix of slashing and thunder on average versus 38 slashing with four attacks at level 20. (Yes, the Booming Blade will also do an additional 4d8 thunder if the target moves, but that has never happened - it seems to work more as a deterrent than a real damage source.))
Of course, the loss of health is also a bit sad.
So right now, I'm thinking that this build just might not be right for the character I'm playing. I think a dip into Wizard might work out, and with three levels of Wizard I'd get up to 5th level spells, not to mention a Spellbook and Ritual Casting.
I think we've got some time before I really need to make this decision (or possibly ask a friendly DM to let me re-do some of my leveling. It is a home game after all, and if Matt Mercer was willing to let Travis bump up his Strength to 13 so Fjord could become a Paladin, maybe I can do something similar!)
While I love the idea of a Steampunk battlemage (he even has some steampunk goggles already!) I think this does not quite fit the character I've created. Oh well.
Still, it makes me really want to try something in another game.
He is, along with the group's Paladin, one of the tanks of the group. I've got a +1 shield, Splint Mail (Plate is SO EXPENSIVE, guys) and the defensive fighting style, which currently has his AC up to 21, and he has Shield to cast if anything actually hits him (he also has Absorb Elements to deal with Fireballs and such.)
Now, I've always liked the idea of a Battlemage - a heavily-armored battlefield warrior who can call upon arcane magic - mechanically it's something you can often find in Paladins, but I like the arcane, wizard-y flavor of this version better.
I really can't complain too much about the Eldritch Knight, which has proven to be quite the juggernaut and capable of dishing out a decent amount of damage. (He's level 6, so I'm looking forward to leveling up so he can get War Magic and thus Booming Blade for 2d8+4 and then strike again for 1d8+4 - and of course also looking forward to the next level so I can cap his strength.)
I think the character could be perfectly viable sticking with EK all the way to 20 (if we were ever to get there.) The character's backstory would also make it make sense for him to multiclass into Wizard at some point, as he'd always had ambitions to be more of a master of magic than just a fighter.
Of course, the Artificer has come along to distract me with its new hotness, and so now I'm contemplating multiclassing into that instead or as well (I could, of course, possibly go with a Fighter/Artificer/Wizard build.)
Jax currently has 18 Strength, 14 Intelligence, and 14 Constitution, so he meets the requirements for all the multiclassing and can also happily wear the heaviest of armors.
There's also a question of what his ultimate role for the group is.
I've really played him mostly as the group's tank, focusing on making him unhittable (our DM seems to crit me with shocking regularity, which my more paranoid imaginings suggest she's frustrated at all the Shielding I do, which by this point gives him an effective AC of 26, and thus fudges things, though I don't actually believe that.) Of course, with a +0 to both Wisdom and Dex, there are certainly some vulnerabilities he has (really hoping our Paladin hits 6 soon so I can stand next to him for his beautiful aura.)
So Jax is there to be the immovable object, and admittedly, multiclassing into anything is probably not going to make him tankier.
For one thing, Artificers have a lower hit die and Wizards' are even lower - I'm giving up effectively one or two max HP for every level I put in those respective classes.
The other thing that makes me hesitate is that Fighters get additional Ability Score Improvements. I've used two of these so far, but there are 5 more for me to take, which would allow me to potentially get my CON or INT up to 20 and the other up to 18, or of course I could get some Feats (resilient Wisdom feels like a useful one, and Warcaster feels almost mandatory - Booming Blade as an opportunity attack? Isn't that nasty? That's what, 4d8+4 damage immediately, and more as I level up?)
If I were to MC into Wizard or Artificer, there are only 5, and only 3 I'd have access to given my existing 6-level investment into Fighter. Naturally I think I'd wait until I had 8 levels of Fighter so I could get by 3rd Fighter ASI, which would leave 3 from the other classes. So six, or rather three left. So Strength is maxed and then I could either bump both INT and CON to 16 and get Warcaster or favor one or the other.
Now, let's talk spells and features.
EKs are "Third Casters," I believe, and so I was never going to get super powerful spellcasting. If we assume I'm going to 8 in Fighter, that gives me only two levels as a caster (I could get 3 if I put another level into the class, but that might not be so useful just for spells.)
If we put the next twelve levels into playing a Wizard, the total "Spellcaster" level would be 14, which would mean I could eventually have 7th level spells, but never 8th or 9th.
The real benefit, I think, of going Wizard is that I could get a Spellbook, which would allow me to swap out spells much more easily (even with a single-level dip) especially given that all my EK spells are Wizard spells anyway. 12 levels of Wizard would also mean getting all but the final Arcane Tradition feature, and no Signature Spells. Ritual Casting could also be very nice.
Given that the character was originally built to be a kind of "Time Cop," enforcing the proper timeline (though we're nowhere near that tier of play just yet,) I think having advanced spellcasting could be very good, and something like Divination (Portent is pretty darn powerful, folks) would be quite good.
Of course, my focus is already very Strength-based, and I only have a +2 to Intelligence. Granted, I could focus on a lot of spells that don't care about spellcasting ability, but it does hobble things a little. I'd need to either spend every ASI to get Int to 20 (which means no Warcaster) or resign myself to not quite maxing out his spells (unless we come across those books that raise your skills.)
Now, let's say we go Artificer. Again, assuming we get to 8 in Fighter, that leaves 12 levels of Artifcer, which means by level 20, we're an 8th level spellcaster. This gives us only 4th level spells, which is where EKs cap out anyway, so that might be notable - there's no real advantage in terms of spellcasting here. If I were to just immediately go into Artificer, forgoing War Magic and my level 8 ASI, I could get 14 levels of Artificer and thus be a 9th level spellcaster, with 5th level spells (again, right at 20, mind you.) Now, this would get us plenty of cool Artificer abilities, including Magic Item Savant (5 attuned items and no restrictions on what you can attune to) and all of their Arcane Infusions.
It's interesting.
We'd also have to consider which subclass to go for. Going Battle-Smith feels the most natural for a melee-fighter, but on the other hand, the ability to use Intelligence for attack rolls is less exciting when you already have 18 or potentially 20 strength, likewise the Extra Attack feature. So the only real benefit of the Battle-Smith is getting smite-like spells and the robot buddy (which, to be fair, is pretty darn cool.)
I could go Alchemist, which would give me some healing capabilities, but with a Cleric and a Paladin in the party, I'm not sure how much we really need that.
As an Artillerist, we'd get some bigger ranged nukes, and given that our only ranged arcane caster is a Warlock (great single-target damage, a bit more limited for AOE) that might be something we could use.
Now, what about mix-and-matching?
First off, what in the Figher would I be missing? The extra ASIs are definitely nice.
Eldritch Knights also get some cool things, like Arcane Charge (which allows them to teleport after they use Action Surge.) And Indomitable feels pretty important to deal with nasty abilities that require saving throws.
The additional extra attacks seem really fun, though perhaps with War Magic that's less important (Booming Blade is going to level up regardless of what classes I pour levels into, so while multiple attacks from the weapon are going to be better thanks to the additional Strength bonuses, by 17 I will be doing 4d8+5 and then 1d8+5 if I hit with both Booming Blade and the War Magic bonus attack. So that's 32.5 mix of slashing and thunder on average versus 38 slashing with four attacks at level 20. (Yes, the Booming Blade will also do an additional 4d8 thunder if the target moves, but that has never happened - it seems to work more as a deterrent than a real damage source.))
Of course, the loss of health is also a bit sad.
So right now, I'm thinking that this build just might not be right for the character I'm playing. I think a dip into Wizard might work out, and with three levels of Wizard I'd get up to 5th level spells, not to mention a Spellbook and Ritual Casting.
I think we've got some time before I really need to make this decision (or possibly ask a friendly DM to let me re-do some of my leveling. It is a home game after all, and if Matt Mercer was willing to let Travis bump up his Strength to 13 so Fjord could become a Paladin, maybe I can do something similar!)
While I love the idea of a Steampunk battlemage (he even has some steampunk goggles already!) I think this does not quite fit the character I've created. Oh well.
Still, it makes me really want to try something in another game.
Artificer Gameplay Impressions
A week and a half ago I got a chance to play an Artificer during a one-shot. My usual Adventurer's League Descent into Avernus game wasn't playing the day before Thanksgiving, so those of us who were still in town decided to come into the store anyway and do an all-Warforged party.
We played at level 8, which of course means we didn't get quite all of the big class features. But here's the general sense I got of the class:
I was playing a Battle-Smith, which meant I was doing some pretty standard physical combat. It was nice to be able to use Intelligence for weapon attacks, and it makes me think that the "Hex Warrior" feature that Hexblade Warlocks get really ought to be a part of Pact of the Blade instead (at least the part where you use Charisma for weapon strikes.)
The DM gave us all some magic items to start off with, and I got a Laser Pistol and a +1 shield, sadly relegating the Musket I had built to my bags, but putting my medium-armor-wearing Warforged at a whopping 22 AC (between some +1 Half Plate with +2 - actually +3, but medium armor - Dex, which got me to 18, the Warforged bonus that put me at 19, and the +1 shield bumping it to 22) with a hand free to shoot the pistol, which I then infused with Repeating Shot, so it was a +1 Laser Pistol (which deals 3d6 Radiant on hit.)
Combat-wise, the Artificer has a couple of tricks. One trick I absolutely forgot to use was Flash of Genius, which lets you, as a reaction, give an ally (or yourself) a bonus to a saving throw or... I think ability check or attack roll equal to your Intelligence modifier (mine was 5 by level 8.) As a Battle-Smith, you also have your Steel Defender, which has frightening low AC (15) that can't be boosted, but can attack foes if you use a bonus action to tell it to and also has a reaction that can impose disadvantage when an adjacent ally is attacked - which I did, actually, remember to use.
Because you can use Mending to heal your Defender (as well as your turret if you're an Artillerist,) you can basically assume that if you have a couple minutes between fights you'll always get these guys to full before a fight breaks out. Oh, and they can also heal themselves and other constructs.
The Steel Defender (or Turret) are probably the most notable things for two of the three Artificer subclasses, and Alchemists can take the Homunculus infusion to have their own in-combat pet.
Spell-wise, I had some fun with Heat Metal when we were facing a powerfully-armored Githyanki (it was basically a Spelljammer game,) though it was hard to pass up using my Laser Pistol to attack.
I'd say that in-combat, the class sort of surprised me in how normal it felt.
However, outside of combat, I think Artificers are going to be very exciting for any campaign that makes use of downtime. As a Warforged Artificer with the Izzet Engineer background (not being an AL game I strove to use as many disparate sources as possible) I had proficiency (and thus expertise) in seven different types of artisan's tools.
If ever you wanted to supply your party with armor, weapons, mechanical contraptions, and potions, holy crap is this the class for you. Hell, an Artificer NPC could be a huge ally to the party even if they don't get into the fight, as you can infuse items with various magical enchantments. I imagine that the more traditional, permanent enchantments would also be something they can do with downtime, but the relative ease of making any weapon into, say, a +1 magic weapon, is pretty damn useful while on the road. (Especially because if your Fighter finds a magic sword, you can just end the infusion on their old one and infuse the Monk's staff instead.)
While I enjoyed playing the class, I actually think this is a class that might be a lot more fun to play over the course of a whole campaign, being the sort of Donatello to your party's Ninja Turtles.
The fact that they're a half-caster means that their spells are not going to get into the crazy stuff that pure casters get. In fact, I think your subclass is going to very dramatically affect your spell choices, not only because each one gets an expanded spell list of always-prepared spells (kind of a best-of-both-worlds between Warlocks and Clerics' domain spells.) Artillerists, for instance, will get things like Fireball (though later than Wizards and Sorcerers) while Battle-Smiths will get various smites.
I'll confess that I have less of a strong sense of the Alchemist as a subclass, but it seems like you'll be able to play a fairly effective healer/buffer.
The Artificer is going to fit nicely into any group, a bit like the Bard, and also like the Bard, can fill various roles.
We played at level 8, which of course means we didn't get quite all of the big class features. But here's the general sense I got of the class:
I was playing a Battle-Smith, which meant I was doing some pretty standard physical combat. It was nice to be able to use Intelligence for weapon attacks, and it makes me think that the "Hex Warrior" feature that Hexblade Warlocks get really ought to be a part of Pact of the Blade instead (at least the part where you use Charisma for weapon strikes.)
The DM gave us all some magic items to start off with, and I got a Laser Pistol and a +1 shield, sadly relegating the Musket I had built to my bags, but putting my medium-armor-wearing Warforged at a whopping 22 AC (between some +1 Half Plate with +2 - actually +3, but medium armor - Dex, which got me to 18, the Warforged bonus that put me at 19, and the +1 shield bumping it to 22) with a hand free to shoot the pistol, which I then infused with Repeating Shot, so it was a +1 Laser Pistol (which deals 3d6 Radiant on hit.)
Combat-wise, the Artificer has a couple of tricks. One trick I absolutely forgot to use was Flash of Genius, which lets you, as a reaction, give an ally (or yourself) a bonus to a saving throw or... I think ability check or attack roll equal to your Intelligence modifier (mine was 5 by level 8.) As a Battle-Smith, you also have your Steel Defender, which has frightening low AC (15) that can't be boosted, but can attack foes if you use a bonus action to tell it to and also has a reaction that can impose disadvantage when an adjacent ally is attacked - which I did, actually, remember to use.
Because you can use Mending to heal your Defender (as well as your turret if you're an Artillerist,) you can basically assume that if you have a couple minutes between fights you'll always get these guys to full before a fight breaks out. Oh, and they can also heal themselves and other constructs.
The Steel Defender (or Turret) are probably the most notable things for two of the three Artificer subclasses, and Alchemists can take the Homunculus infusion to have their own in-combat pet.
Spell-wise, I had some fun with Heat Metal when we were facing a powerfully-armored Githyanki (it was basically a Spelljammer game,) though it was hard to pass up using my Laser Pistol to attack.
I'd say that in-combat, the class sort of surprised me in how normal it felt.
However, outside of combat, I think Artificers are going to be very exciting for any campaign that makes use of downtime. As a Warforged Artificer with the Izzet Engineer background (not being an AL game I strove to use as many disparate sources as possible) I had proficiency (and thus expertise) in seven different types of artisan's tools.
If ever you wanted to supply your party with armor, weapons, mechanical contraptions, and potions, holy crap is this the class for you. Hell, an Artificer NPC could be a huge ally to the party even if they don't get into the fight, as you can infuse items with various magical enchantments. I imagine that the more traditional, permanent enchantments would also be something they can do with downtime, but the relative ease of making any weapon into, say, a +1 magic weapon, is pretty damn useful while on the road. (Especially because if your Fighter finds a magic sword, you can just end the infusion on their old one and infuse the Monk's staff instead.)
While I enjoyed playing the class, I actually think this is a class that might be a lot more fun to play over the course of a whole campaign, being the sort of Donatello to your party's Ninja Turtles.
The fact that they're a half-caster means that their spells are not going to get into the crazy stuff that pure casters get. In fact, I think your subclass is going to very dramatically affect your spell choices, not only because each one gets an expanded spell list of always-prepared spells (kind of a best-of-both-worlds between Warlocks and Clerics' domain spells.) Artillerists, for instance, will get things like Fireball (though later than Wizards and Sorcerers) while Battle-Smiths will get various smites.
I'll confess that I have less of a strong sense of the Alchemist as a subclass, but it seems like you'll be able to play a fairly effective healer/buffer.
The Artificer is going to fit nicely into any group, a bit like the Bard, and also like the Bard, can fill various roles.
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Eberron: Rising From the Last War's Level 1 Adventure is a Step Up from Krenko's Way
Caveat: I've only read these two adventures, though I've seen a bit of the new Eberron one played by Saving Throw in "Dark Lanterns" on the official D&D Youtube channel - only the first episode, though.
I love the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. Admittedly, I was always going to be a little biased toward it given my love of Ravnica as a setting for Magic: the Gathering, but I also think they came up with a lot of interesting ways to make the Guilds really central to a D&D campaign. I've been champing at the bit to run a game set there (with plans to start one sometime next year.)
As a sort of introduction to Ravnica, the book contains a relatively short level 1 adventure called Krenko's Way (presumably a play on Carlito's Way, the crime movie.) In it, players are sent after Krenko, an escaped goblin gang leader.
While this does bring in the urban-adventure theme to Ravnica, it always felt a little flat to me. The Guilds play, at best, a supporting role in the adventure, which really feels a bit more like just tracking down a gang of troublesome goblins. Sure, goblin gangs in Ravnica are a thing, but it seems that if you're going to be introducing Ravnica to new players, you want the Guilds to play a central role in that introduction.
I'll admit that that's a difficult proposition, given that it would be hard to do all ten guilds in an adventure designed just for level 1 characters. So it might be that they were painted into a bit of a corner.
However, Forgotten Relics, the one they provide in Eberron: RFTLW, seems to nail the setting's tone in a similarly brief adventure - something you could probably fit into one or two sessions (maybe more depending on how into RP your players are.)
And to be fair, I think that this is in part because Eberron is defined more by tone than Ravnica is. Ravnica can certainly have its Noir or Conspiracy thriller genre stuff, but only if you're focusing on, for example, House Dimir. A story about the Selesyna is probably going to be very different in tone than one about the Rakdos. It is that clashing of tones and personalities that gives Ravnica its own unique feel.
Meanwhile, Eberron starts with tone - pulpy adventure, whether that be detective stories, westerns, or Indiana-Jones-style capers.
Forgotten Relics hits a number of important aspects of the setting. Starting off as a noir story, you're sent by a member of the Sharn city guard (Sharn being the biggest city in Eberron) to go find a Warforged friend of hers. You eventually find out that Warforged veterans are being exploited by a gang in the city that also kidnapped the son of an important member of one of the Dragonmarked Houses. After finding the kid, you are sent to track down major player in the gang responsible for all of this, which ends with a fight on top of a moving train.
So yeah, that's some real pulp adventure.
There's a ton of potential for weary cynicism but also opportunities for characters who retain a sense of empathy to do some good in the world.
Plus, you get your players fighting on top of a train at level 1.
Did I mention you fight on top of a train?
Anyway, I'm pretty eager to run this at some point. I'm also pretty excited that it (as with nearly anything from Eberron) could easily fit in my homebrew setting with a few proper-noun changes.
I love the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. Admittedly, I was always going to be a little biased toward it given my love of Ravnica as a setting for Magic: the Gathering, but I also think they came up with a lot of interesting ways to make the Guilds really central to a D&D campaign. I've been champing at the bit to run a game set there (with plans to start one sometime next year.)
As a sort of introduction to Ravnica, the book contains a relatively short level 1 adventure called Krenko's Way (presumably a play on Carlito's Way, the crime movie.) In it, players are sent after Krenko, an escaped goblin gang leader.
While this does bring in the urban-adventure theme to Ravnica, it always felt a little flat to me. The Guilds play, at best, a supporting role in the adventure, which really feels a bit more like just tracking down a gang of troublesome goblins. Sure, goblin gangs in Ravnica are a thing, but it seems that if you're going to be introducing Ravnica to new players, you want the Guilds to play a central role in that introduction.
I'll admit that that's a difficult proposition, given that it would be hard to do all ten guilds in an adventure designed just for level 1 characters. So it might be that they were painted into a bit of a corner.
However, Forgotten Relics, the one they provide in Eberron: RFTLW, seems to nail the setting's tone in a similarly brief adventure - something you could probably fit into one or two sessions (maybe more depending on how into RP your players are.)
And to be fair, I think that this is in part because Eberron is defined more by tone than Ravnica is. Ravnica can certainly have its Noir or Conspiracy thriller genre stuff, but only if you're focusing on, for example, House Dimir. A story about the Selesyna is probably going to be very different in tone than one about the Rakdos. It is that clashing of tones and personalities that gives Ravnica its own unique feel.
Meanwhile, Eberron starts with tone - pulpy adventure, whether that be detective stories, westerns, or Indiana-Jones-style capers.
Forgotten Relics hits a number of important aspects of the setting. Starting off as a noir story, you're sent by a member of the Sharn city guard (Sharn being the biggest city in Eberron) to go find a Warforged friend of hers. You eventually find out that Warforged veterans are being exploited by a gang in the city that also kidnapped the son of an important member of one of the Dragonmarked Houses. After finding the kid, you are sent to track down major player in the gang responsible for all of this, which ends with a fight on top of a moving train.
So yeah, that's some real pulp adventure.
There's a ton of potential for weary cynicism but also opportunities for characters who retain a sense of empathy to do some good in the world.
Plus, you get your players fighting on top of a train at level 1.
Did I mention you fight on top of a train?
Anyway, I'm pretty eager to run this at some point. I'm also pretty excited that it (as with nearly anything from Eberron) could easily fit in my homebrew setting with a few proper-noun changes.
Monday, November 25, 2019
New Unearthed Arcana Brings Psionic Subclasses to Fighters, Rogues, and WIzards
Man, Wizards of the Coast is really pumping out a lot of these UA subclasses, aren't they? Makes you wonder if they're planning something like a new Xanathar's-like book.
Which I will certainly purchase immediately if it's announced.
While we've just gotten a single subclass per class in the latest round of UAs, having hit all 12 (though with the Artificer we're at 13 now - they might want to wait for some feedback on the three subclasses for that one before adding more) this time we're getting three that are tightly themed together. To be fair, we've gotten a number of Psionic-themed subclasses in those earlier UAs - like for the Monk and the Sorcerer - but it looks as if they're really focusing in on it. Is a Dark Sun sourcebook in the works? Or just another PHB supplement?
The Psychic Warrior is a Fighter subclass. Given that the Fighter is a very physical class, this subclass is largely themed around the telekinetic aspects of Psionics. The features here are a mix of offense and defense, including a very powerful one at level 3 that, if you choose the defensive option, allows you to subtract a d10 (later a d12) from damage that you or an ally takes as a reaction. There's psychic damage to be had, knocking people back and down with psychic blasts, and you also learn Mage Hand, can make it invisible, and can even shove people around with it.
The Soulknife is a Rogue subclass. This one allows you to manifest psychic blades - not only giving you non-physical damage early on, but also letting you potentially assassinate people without leaving any visible wounds. While I think you can come up with a number of heroic versions of this subclass (Jeremy Crawford suggests a Psylocke-like superhero) I also think that an NPC assassin of this subclass could make for a really interesting and scary villain (or of course you could play as an antihero or reformed villain.) You can also go invisible, in a way that suggests that you're basically editing yourself out of peoples' perception. House Dimir absolutely uses this kind of rogue.
Finally, we have the Arcane Tradition of Psionics, a Wizard subclass. The real headliner here is the ability to take a "Thought Form" where you become a kind of incorporeal avatar of your own mind, which has various benefits, including, eventually, the ability to fly.
In addition, this UA comes with a list of spell suggestions for psionic characters - pointing to spells that fit thematically with the type of magic. This also includes a few new spells, as well as two feats - Telekinetic and Telepathic.
Which I will certainly purchase immediately if it's announced.
While we've just gotten a single subclass per class in the latest round of UAs, having hit all 12 (though with the Artificer we're at 13 now - they might want to wait for some feedback on the three subclasses for that one before adding more) this time we're getting three that are tightly themed together. To be fair, we've gotten a number of Psionic-themed subclasses in those earlier UAs - like for the Monk and the Sorcerer - but it looks as if they're really focusing in on it. Is a Dark Sun sourcebook in the works? Or just another PHB supplement?
The Psychic Warrior is a Fighter subclass. Given that the Fighter is a very physical class, this subclass is largely themed around the telekinetic aspects of Psionics. The features here are a mix of offense and defense, including a very powerful one at level 3 that, if you choose the defensive option, allows you to subtract a d10 (later a d12) from damage that you or an ally takes as a reaction. There's psychic damage to be had, knocking people back and down with psychic blasts, and you also learn Mage Hand, can make it invisible, and can even shove people around with it.
The Soulknife is a Rogue subclass. This one allows you to manifest psychic blades - not only giving you non-physical damage early on, but also letting you potentially assassinate people without leaving any visible wounds. While I think you can come up with a number of heroic versions of this subclass (Jeremy Crawford suggests a Psylocke-like superhero) I also think that an NPC assassin of this subclass could make for a really interesting and scary villain (or of course you could play as an antihero or reformed villain.) You can also go invisible, in a way that suggests that you're basically editing yourself out of peoples' perception. House Dimir absolutely uses this kind of rogue.
Finally, we have the Arcane Tradition of Psionics, a Wizard subclass. The real headliner here is the ability to take a "Thought Form" where you become a kind of incorporeal avatar of your own mind, which has various benefits, including, eventually, the ability to fly.
In addition, this UA comes with a list of spell suggestions for psionic characters - pointing to spells that fit thematically with the type of magic. This also includes a few new spells, as well as two feats - Telekinetic and Telepathic.
Saturday, November 23, 2019
Should We Be Concerned About the Lack of a New Class in Shadowlands?
Every odd-numbered X.0 patch has given us a new class in WoW. 1.0 obviously brought in the original nine. Then we got Death Knights in 3.0, Monks in 5.0, and Demon Hunters in 7.0 (the latter quite literally, as you could actually play your DH before the expansion proper came out.)
So color me somewhat surprised that we did not see any new class announcement with the Shadowlands features trailer. Indeed, while the premise and setting of the expansion seems profoundly cool, I'll confess that, until we have a better sense of how big a deal Covenants are going to be, the trailer felt a little thin (though you could also argue that a "going back to basics" approach to WoW in terms of how many new mechanics are in place could be a shot in the arm for the game.)
I think it was either Taliesin from Taliesin & Evitel or Matt Rossi from Blizzard Watch who made a good point: it's not clear that WoW itself needs a thirteenth class. But it might be that Shadowlands does.
Legion, as an example, was a great expansion. There was tons to do, and I'm sure some players just briefly touched a DH to check it out but then moved on. But there's something really exciting about adding a new class to the game. Even if you're not playing it (my Monk was never one of my top alts) it's sort of exciting to see them added to the mix. During Legion I got a certain rush when I was on a DPS character and we got a Demon Hunter tank (when they understood the way the class worked, like maybe use Demon Spikes instead of saving all your Pain for Soul Cleave...)
The last expansion we got in which there was no new class and no new races was Warlords of Draenor, which I think most players consider the nadir of WoW (I'm sure some will consider BFA to be that. I'll confess that while I feel less motivated to play this expansion than I did Warlords, I think that's in part due to outside things. While the Azerite system has been a train wreck, I really cannot toss out all of BFA, which introduced some really cool ideas and an interesting story - even if it's a story whose plot I wish were resolved already.)
Now, I don't think we can assume that just because it lacks races and a class that Shadowlands will be another Warlords. Warlords had three major problems going for it:
The first is that Garrisons did basically the opposite of what players wanted them to do. We wanted a highly-customizable player housing that was mostly a reward in itself - where we might be able to earn new ways to decorate it and show off what our characters would want in a home. Instead, we got something deeply mechanical and with practically zero cosmetic customization, which also seemed to solve a bunch of problems that the designers then needed to create (like the one-a-day profession reagents.)
The second is that there just wasn't as much content. For a normal expansion, Hellfire Citadel should have been the "midway raid," like Tomb of Sargeras or the Eternal Palace were in the subsequent expansions. Blizzard had apparently wanted to turn out the next expansion in a year, which, given how big Legion was, was a pretty naive goal to have. So instead, we just got less of Warlords and were left sitting with that for a very long time.
The third is that the whole reason for the very, very convoluted story was, in theory, to have us deal with these figures of Warcraft's past, but we chewed through the eponymous Warlords so quickly that we never really got a chance to get any personality from any of them, other than "this Orc is an aggressive jerk." There could have been a lot of interesting nuance and maybe even shifting loyalities to this story, but instead it was basically the heroes of Azeroth versus the testosterone brigade. And then, a jarring shift in which Grom just recognizes that we're the good guys and fights alongside us and we just go "ok, sure, all that genocide and destruction is fine now that you're a good guy."
For Shadowlands, we just don't really know what to expect, storywise. Because at this point we only have the barest idea of a premise. The major players we know are Sylvanas, the Jailor, Bolvar, and the Arbiter. Presumably there will be important characters amongst the various Covenants, but how they interact and how familiar faces like Jaina, Thrall, Khadgar, and Lor'themar will play into this story remains totally unknown.
It also remains to be seen how the mechanics develop over time. Personally, I hope they kind of nail the Covenants on the first go, and instead of further complicating them, they can do "horizontal" expansion by adding new Soulbinds or, potentially, even new Covenants if they bring in new zones. However, what's more likely is that they'll just find new wrinkles in the system for us to keep track of as the patches come out, similar to Artifacts and Azerite.
In terms of classes, I'm very curious to see what the "unpruning" looks like. If they bring back two-handed Frost for DKs I'll be very happy indeed (though I will say that I've been enjoying Unholy a lot more since the Legion-era changes. I just prefer my Frostwyrm blue!)
Still, I do feel a certain remorse. I realize that a Necromancer would be stepping on a bunch of other classes' toes (Warlock and Death Knight mainly) but it would have been cool to A: add a dark-themed healing class and B: add a new ranged spec for the first time in 15 years.
It does also make me wonder about future classes. Should we take this to mean that Blizzard just doesn't want to do more classes? Or does this instead just mean that the old, predictable schedule of their every-four-years release is no longer valid? By the end of Shadowlands, we'll have gone six years without a new class.
So color me somewhat surprised that we did not see any new class announcement with the Shadowlands features trailer. Indeed, while the premise and setting of the expansion seems profoundly cool, I'll confess that, until we have a better sense of how big a deal Covenants are going to be, the trailer felt a little thin (though you could also argue that a "going back to basics" approach to WoW in terms of how many new mechanics are in place could be a shot in the arm for the game.)
I think it was either Taliesin from Taliesin & Evitel or Matt Rossi from Blizzard Watch who made a good point: it's not clear that WoW itself needs a thirteenth class. But it might be that Shadowlands does.
Legion, as an example, was a great expansion. There was tons to do, and I'm sure some players just briefly touched a DH to check it out but then moved on. But there's something really exciting about adding a new class to the game. Even if you're not playing it (my Monk was never one of my top alts) it's sort of exciting to see them added to the mix. During Legion I got a certain rush when I was on a DPS character and we got a Demon Hunter tank (when they understood the way the class worked, like maybe use Demon Spikes instead of saving all your Pain for Soul Cleave...)
The last expansion we got in which there was no new class and no new races was Warlords of Draenor, which I think most players consider the nadir of WoW (I'm sure some will consider BFA to be that. I'll confess that while I feel less motivated to play this expansion than I did Warlords, I think that's in part due to outside things. While the Azerite system has been a train wreck, I really cannot toss out all of BFA, which introduced some really cool ideas and an interesting story - even if it's a story whose plot I wish were resolved already.)
Now, I don't think we can assume that just because it lacks races and a class that Shadowlands will be another Warlords. Warlords had three major problems going for it:
The first is that Garrisons did basically the opposite of what players wanted them to do. We wanted a highly-customizable player housing that was mostly a reward in itself - where we might be able to earn new ways to decorate it and show off what our characters would want in a home. Instead, we got something deeply mechanical and with practically zero cosmetic customization, which also seemed to solve a bunch of problems that the designers then needed to create (like the one-a-day profession reagents.)
The second is that there just wasn't as much content. For a normal expansion, Hellfire Citadel should have been the "midway raid," like Tomb of Sargeras or the Eternal Palace were in the subsequent expansions. Blizzard had apparently wanted to turn out the next expansion in a year, which, given how big Legion was, was a pretty naive goal to have. So instead, we just got less of Warlords and were left sitting with that for a very long time.
The third is that the whole reason for the very, very convoluted story was, in theory, to have us deal with these figures of Warcraft's past, but we chewed through the eponymous Warlords so quickly that we never really got a chance to get any personality from any of them, other than "this Orc is an aggressive jerk." There could have been a lot of interesting nuance and maybe even shifting loyalities to this story, but instead it was basically the heroes of Azeroth versus the testosterone brigade. And then, a jarring shift in which Grom just recognizes that we're the good guys and fights alongside us and we just go "ok, sure, all that genocide and destruction is fine now that you're a good guy."
For Shadowlands, we just don't really know what to expect, storywise. Because at this point we only have the barest idea of a premise. The major players we know are Sylvanas, the Jailor, Bolvar, and the Arbiter. Presumably there will be important characters amongst the various Covenants, but how they interact and how familiar faces like Jaina, Thrall, Khadgar, and Lor'themar will play into this story remains totally unknown.
It also remains to be seen how the mechanics develop over time. Personally, I hope they kind of nail the Covenants on the first go, and instead of further complicating them, they can do "horizontal" expansion by adding new Soulbinds or, potentially, even new Covenants if they bring in new zones. However, what's more likely is that they'll just find new wrinkles in the system for us to keep track of as the patches come out, similar to Artifacts and Azerite.
In terms of classes, I'm very curious to see what the "unpruning" looks like. If they bring back two-handed Frost for DKs I'll be very happy indeed (though I will say that I've been enjoying Unholy a lot more since the Legion-era changes. I just prefer my Frostwyrm blue!)
Still, I do feel a certain remorse. I realize that a Necromancer would be stepping on a bunch of other classes' toes (Warlock and Death Knight mainly) but it would have been cool to A: add a dark-themed healing class and B: add a new ranged spec for the first time in 15 years.
It does also make me wonder about future classes. Should we take this to mean that Blizzard just doesn't want to do more classes? Or does this instead just mean that the old, predictable schedule of their every-four-years release is no longer valid? By the end of Shadowlands, we'll have gone six years without a new class.
Friday, November 22, 2019
Homebrewing a Warcraft-Style Shaman for 5E: Should It Even Be Done?
WoW is probably the first really standard class-based, multiplayer RPG that I played. I'd played Quest for Glory back in the day - a Sierra adventure series in the style of King's Quest but with RPG elements and three classes to choose from, but which really leaned more toward the Adventure style than the RPG style.
The WoW Shaman is one of two nature-based classes in the game. The other, the Druid, is a more classic D&D-style class, and has some of the D&D Druid's iconic themes, like its animal forms, calling upon moonlight, and with its thematic focus on a connection to nature.
The Shaman, however, is tied to nature in a different way. While the Druid's focus is life and natural life - as well as a sort of secondary theme of celestial elements like the sun, moon, and stars - the Shaman is tied much more to the primordial elements and has a secondary theme of being tied also to ancestral spirits.
In D&D 5E, there are a number of classes that fill similar roles:
The Druid, of course, in D&D, is more versatile than the WoW Druid (to be fair, all classes are) and has access to a lot of the same elemental spells that the Shaman has. Indeed, even Wizards get things like Lightning Bolt.
I'd argue that Tempest Clerics actually might be the closest to Shamans thematically, as both a spiritual class and one that focuses on storm-themed magic. Meanwhile, the Storm Herald and Ancestral Guardian Barbarians both play into Shaman themes as well.
So from the outset, there is an argument to be made that the Shaman can already be recreated to a certain extent in 5E already, either by taking one of these classes or blending them through multiclassing.
But, for the sake of argument and the sake of an exercise, let's say that we want to make a Shaman as something separate from the Druid or Cleric (which I'd say are the two closest in nature.)
First, we should take a look at the defining themes and iconic abilities the Shaman has. We're going to be looking at the breadth of WoW history, as certain themes (you'll be able to tell which one in particular pretty easily) have been de-emphasized over the years.
Totems:
Totems are really the iconic thing Shamans put on the battlefield. Not only did it give them a niche as the people who put up stationary things as an ability, but it also played into the four-elements theme of the class.
Imbued Weapons:
Another thing that doesn't actually exist anymore was the Shaman ability to imbue weapons with certain powers. It was fun as a low level-player to have your little glowing weapon enchants long before the levels you'd actually get legit enchantments. And things like Windfury could also be very powerful effects.
Ghost Wolf:
While not the kind of combat-shapeshifting ability that Druids got, Ghost Wolf was a flavorful way to get across the battlefield or to travel before you got a mount.
Reincarnate:
The ability to self-rez is massive, and would really set the class apart in a lot of ways.
Four Elements:
This is at the core of the Shaman class, though admittedly it might be a little harder to emphasize in D&D rules. Even the modern Shaman often struggles to get each spec using all four - Enhancement and Elemental only opt in to use Frost spells rotationally.
Mystical Otherworldliness:
Admittedly something less emphasized in the abilities themselves, Shamans are lore-wise very aware of the spirit world, and thus I think it would make sense for them to have some kind of planar theme - probably focused on the Inner Planes.
With those elements in mind, I'm trying to think of how to build the class.
First off, I think that all Shamans are going to be pure casters. We should have a subclass that allows for melee characters as well as ranged casters and healers. The thing is, do we want to go the artificer route and really pigeonhole each subclass into those roles? Or should we build them to be a little more flexible?
I'm thinking we'll want one true melee subclass, which will get an extra attack and access to martial weapons. This subclass will probably focus on, or perhaps have exclusive access to, the weapon buffs.
Separating out the casting-focused subclasses, I think we could have one really focus on the spiritual side of things, while the other is more of an elementalist.
Flavorwise, I think that all Shamans are going to have some kind of Vision-quest theme, and so we can call the subclasses Vision of X.
To give the melee subclass a distinct identity beyond its mechanics, we should also come up with a lore theme. I think that it should be focused on honoring ancestors, perhaps Vision of Triumph.
The others I think would be Vision of the Primordial and Vision of Spirits.
Next, I think we would put these sub classes at level 3, with the flavor of a Shaman going through a Vision Quest as a rite of passage.
I think the Shaman would have proficiency in simple weapons, shields, and probably light and medium armor. Vision of Triumph would get Martial weapons, but I can't decide if they should also get Heavy armor. Something to mull over.
I'd also want to add a couple new spells - like a ranged Lightning or Thunder-based cantrip.
The spellcasting ability is an interesting question: Shamans in WoW sort of treat with elemental sprits, which I could see being a Charisma-based casting ability. On the other hand, they're also supposed to be attuned to the forces of nature, which makes Wisdom the more appropriate option. Wisdom would make it easier for them to multiclass with Druids, Clerics, and Rangers, but maybe that would feel redundant? (Of course, if it does, the class itself might be redundant.)
I think Wisdom is probably the right call here.
Anyway, I think this is a good start. I'll see what I come up with.
The WoW Shaman is one of two nature-based classes in the game. The other, the Druid, is a more classic D&D-style class, and has some of the D&D Druid's iconic themes, like its animal forms, calling upon moonlight, and with its thematic focus on a connection to nature.
The Shaman, however, is tied to nature in a different way. While the Druid's focus is life and natural life - as well as a sort of secondary theme of celestial elements like the sun, moon, and stars - the Shaman is tied much more to the primordial elements and has a secondary theme of being tied also to ancestral spirits.
In D&D 5E, there are a number of classes that fill similar roles:
The Druid, of course, in D&D, is more versatile than the WoW Druid (to be fair, all classes are) and has access to a lot of the same elemental spells that the Shaman has. Indeed, even Wizards get things like Lightning Bolt.
I'd argue that Tempest Clerics actually might be the closest to Shamans thematically, as both a spiritual class and one that focuses on storm-themed magic. Meanwhile, the Storm Herald and Ancestral Guardian Barbarians both play into Shaman themes as well.
So from the outset, there is an argument to be made that the Shaman can already be recreated to a certain extent in 5E already, either by taking one of these classes or blending them through multiclassing.
But, for the sake of argument and the sake of an exercise, let's say that we want to make a Shaman as something separate from the Druid or Cleric (which I'd say are the two closest in nature.)
First, we should take a look at the defining themes and iconic abilities the Shaman has. We're going to be looking at the breadth of WoW history, as certain themes (you'll be able to tell which one in particular pretty easily) have been de-emphasized over the years.
Totems:
Totems are really the iconic thing Shamans put on the battlefield. Not only did it give them a niche as the people who put up stationary things as an ability, but it also played into the four-elements theme of the class.
Imbued Weapons:
Another thing that doesn't actually exist anymore was the Shaman ability to imbue weapons with certain powers. It was fun as a low level-player to have your little glowing weapon enchants long before the levels you'd actually get legit enchantments. And things like Windfury could also be very powerful effects.
Ghost Wolf:
While not the kind of combat-shapeshifting ability that Druids got, Ghost Wolf was a flavorful way to get across the battlefield or to travel before you got a mount.
Reincarnate:
The ability to self-rez is massive, and would really set the class apart in a lot of ways.
Four Elements:
This is at the core of the Shaman class, though admittedly it might be a little harder to emphasize in D&D rules. Even the modern Shaman often struggles to get each spec using all four - Enhancement and Elemental only opt in to use Frost spells rotationally.
Mystical Otherworldliness:
Admittedly something less emphasized in the abilities themselves, Shamans are lore-wise very aware of the spirit world, and thus I think it would make sense for them to have some kind of planar theme - probably focused on the Inner Planes.
With those elements in mind, I'm trying to think of how to build the class.
First off, I think that all Shamans are going to be pure casters. We should have a subclass that allows for melee characters as well as ranged casters and healers. The thing is, do we want to go the artificer route and really pigeonhole each subclass into those roles? Or should we build them to be a little more flexible?
I'm thinking we'll want one true melee subclass, which will get an extra attack and access to martial weapons. This subclass will probably focus on, or perhaps have exclusive access to, the weapon buffs.
Separating out the casting-focused subclasses, I think we could have one really focus on the spiritual side of things, while the other is more of an elementalist.
Flavorwise, I think that all Shamans are going to have some kind of Vision-quest theme, and so we can call the subclasses Vision of X.
To give the melee subclass a distinct identity beyond its mechanics, we should also come up with a lore theme. I think that it should be focused on honoring ancestors, perhaps Vision of Triumph.
The others I think would be Vision of the Primordial and Vision of Spirits.
Next, I think we would put these sub classes at level 3, with the flavor of a Shaman going through a Vision Quest as a rite of passage.
I think the Shaman would have proficiency in simple weapons, shields, and probably light and medium armor. Vision of Triumph would get Martial weapons, but I can't decide if they should also get Heavy armor. Something to mull over.
I'd also want to add a couple new spells - like a ranged Lightning or Thunder-based cantrip.
The spellcasting ability is an interesting question: Shamans in WoW sort of treat with elemental sprits, which I could see being a Charisma-based casting ability. On the other hand, they're also supposed to be attuned to the forces of nature, which makes Wisdom the more appropriate option. Wisdom would make it easier for them to multiclass with Druids, Clerics, and Rangers, but maybe that would feel redundant? (Of course, if it does, the class itself might be redundant.)
I think Wisdom is probably the right call here.
Anyway, I think this is a good start. I'll see what I come up with.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
The Irony of 5E's Campaign Setting Releases
In theory, all the D&D settings take place within the same multiverse.
The "Great Wheel" cosmology places worlds like Oerth (Greyhawk), Krynn (Dragonlance), and Toril (Forgotten Realms) all in the same Prime Material Plane, separated into different "cosmic spheres" but still ultimately in the same physical reality. That means each of them is also affected by the various other planes - the Feywild and Shadowfell, and the Outer Planes like Limbo, Mechanus, the Abyss, and Mount Celestia.
Ironically, however, the two official Campaign Setting books that have come out for 5th Edition do not fit within that same cosmos.
First off: Ravnica's exceptionalism is to be expected - created originally (and continuing as) a setting for Magic: the Gathering, Ravnica naturally has to be tied to the whole Magic multiverse (which used to be canonically called "Dominia," but that's a term they probably haven't used in twenty years. The primary plane in Magic, Dominaria, is "Song of Dominia" because it was at the center of that multiverse.)
Given the, I think, canonicity of the Acquisitions Incorporated games, it would seem that it is, technically, possible to travel from the Great Wheel cosmos to the Magic multiverse, but requires crossing the Far Realm (something I did to allow my friend's level 18 half-orc sorcerer to get there for a one-shot.)
The Far Realm, in fact, works pretty well as a catch-all to link fictional universes. Because it is essentially "outside the outside," you could argue that the Far Realm is just one name for the most alien place imaginable. Indeed, my own D&D setting is technically in its own pocket away from the Great Wheel (largely because I wanted to make up my own outer planes.)
Eberron is in an odd position, though.
Created at a time when there was not the same desire to link all D&D setting together in this way, Eberron has its own planes, which work very differently than the Great Wheel. They aren't linked to alignment in the same way, and elemental planes are not all that distinct from the planes of fiends and celestials.
Eberron is, of course, one of the most popular D&D settings, but it does strike me as kind of funny that they've only done two non-Forgotten Realms setting books and neither has the same cosmology as FR.
Personally, I'd like to see something very outlandish for the next 5E setting book (which, you know, take your time - Rising from the Last War just came out two days ago.) I'm hoping for Ravenloft, Spelljammer, or Planescape, none of which take place in the Prime Material Plane.
Still, particularly if it is Spelljammer, I do wonder if we'll get some fleshing-out of rules on how to travel from one of these setting to another. In theory, I believe just normal physical teleportation allows you to go from one world in the Prime Material to another, but given that Eberron is isolated thanks to the Dragon Above and Ravnica's in a whole other multiverse, I wonder if you could really do a 5th Edition Spelljammer setting yet. Yes, Ghosts of Saltmarsh technically took us to Greyhawk, but that was certainly not a full campaign setting book.
The "Great Wheel" cosmology places worlds like Oerth (Greyhawk), Krynn (Dragonlance), and Toril (Forgotten Realms) all in the same Prime Material Plane, separated into different "cosmic spheres" but still ultimately in the same physical reality. That means each of them is also affected by the various other planes - the Feywild and Shadowfell, and the Outer Planes like Limbo, Mechanus, the Abyss, and Mount Celestia.
Ironically, however, the two official Campaign Setting books that have come out for 5th Edition do not fit within that same cosmos.
First off: Ravnica's exceptionalism is to be expected - created originally (and continuing as) a setting for Magic: the Gathering, Ravnica naturally has to be tied to the whole Magic multiverse (which used to be canonically called "Dominia," but that's a term they probably haven't used in twenty years. The primary plane in Magic, Dominaria, is "Song of Dominia" because it was at the center of that multiverse.)
Given the, I think, canonicity of the Acquisitions Incorporated games, it would seem that it is, technically, possible to travel from the Great Wheel cosmos to the Magic multiverse, but requires crossing the Far Realm (something I did to allow my friend's level 18 half-orc sorcerer to get there for a one-shot.)
The Far Realm, in fact, works pretty well as a catch-all to link fictional universes. Because it is essentially "outside the outside," you could argue that the Far Realm is just one name for the most alien place imaginable. Indeed, my own D&D setting is technically in its own pocket away from the Great Wheel (largely because I wanted to make up my own outer planes.)
Eberron is in an odd position, though.
Created at a time when there was not the same desire to link all D&D setting together in this way, Eberron has its own planes, which work very differently than the Great Wheel. They aren't linked to alignment in the same way, and elemental planes are not all that distinct from the planes of fiends and celestials.
Eberron is, of course, one of the most popular D&D settings, but it does strike me as kind of funny that they've only done two non-Forgotten Realms setting books and neither has the same cosmology as FR.
Personally, I'd like to see something very outlandish for the next 5E setting book (which, you know, take your time - Rising from the Last War just came out two days ago.) I'm hoping for Ravenloft, Spelljammer, or Planescape, none of which take place in the Prime Material Plane.
Still, particularly if it is Spelljammer, I do wonder if we'll get some fleshing-out of rules on how to travel from one of these setting to another. In theory, I believe just normal physical teleportation allows you to go from one world in the Prime Material to another, but given that Eberron is isolated thanks to the Dragon Above and Ravnica's in a whole other multiverse, I wonder if you could really do a 5th Edition Spelljammer setting yet. Yes, Ghosts of Saltmarsh technically took us to Greyhawk, but that was certainly not a full campaign setting book.
Tool, Warforged Artificer
My Adventurer's League Descent into Avernus game is not officially meeting next week, but given that many of us will still be in LA for Thanksgiving, we're doing a sort of "off the books" game, and I've decided to try to incorporate as many non-AL-legal sources as I could (sadly, I think I only got two in.)
I'm playing a Warforged Artificer who is... a member of the Izzet League on Ravnica!
Because I was given the express instruction to come up with a dumb Warforged name, I'm going with "Tool," because between being Warforged, an Izzet Engineer, and an Artificer, I have, unless I screwed up at some point, a full seven artisan's tool proficiencies. This guy is a walking Swiss Army Knife, and can use Thieves' Tools, Smith's Tools, Alchemy Supplies, Woodcarver's Tools, Glass Blower's Tools, Tinker's Tools, and I think one more I can't remember.
I've already gotten approval to use Firearms, and as such I decided to go Battle Smith, as the most martial of the Artificer classes. Given that we're starting at level 8, I figure he's had enough time to construct a Musket (I figured limiting myself to Renaissance-era firearms would balance things decently) and he's taken the infusion that gives you a +1 ranged weapon that generates its own ammo.
What I need to figure out (or might just do on my own) is see if I can use the expanded Izzet Spell list.
Granted, as a Battle Smith, you're really going for more of a Paladin or Ranger-like build. Artillerist is more for playing a pure caster (and Alchemists are, I think, a decently viable healer.)
The Battle Smith has the following features that let you play a "no guilt" melee/caster hybrid:
You get access to Martial weapons (hello Maul for melee.)
Like Hexblade Warlocks, you get to use your spellcasting ability in place of Strength or Dexterity for your weapons (and unlike Hexblades, this simply applies to any weapon you're wielding.)
You have a robo-buddy who can impose disadvantage once a round on attacks against you.
So what I now have is a guy in half-plate that has been given a +1 infusion, thus granting 18 AC, plus my Steel Defender, which can keep me from taking too many hits. Oh, and I also have a weapon infusion that, in addition to giving his maul +1 to hit and damage, also lets him potentially blind foes that hit him.
For spells, I've gone basically all utility - which to be fair, is mostly what Artificers have anyway. Grease, Faerie Fire, See Invisibility, Enlarge/Reduce, and such are what I'm bringing.
I cannot wait to take this character out for a spin.
I'm playing a Warforged Artificer who is... a member of the Izzet League on Ravnica!
Because I was given the express instruction to come up with a dumb Warforged name, I'm going with "Tool," because between being Warforged, an Izzet Engineer, and an Artificer, I have, unless I screwed up at some point, a full seven artisan's tool proficiencies. This guy is a walking Swiss Army Knife, and can use Thieves' Tools, Smith's Tools, Alchemy Supplies, Woodcarver's Tools, Glass Blower's Tools, Tinker's Tools, and I think one more I can't remember.
I've already gotten approval to use Firearms, and as such I decided to go Battle Smith, as the most martial of the Artificer classes. Given that we're starting at level 8, I figure he's had enough time to construct a Musket (I figured limiting myself to Renaissance-era firearms would balance things decently) and he's taken the infusion that gives you a +1 ranged weapon that generates its own ammo.
What I need to figure out (or might just do on my own) is see if I can use the expanded Izzet Spell list.
Granted, as a Battle Smith, you're really going for more of a Paladin or Ranger-like build. Artillerist is more for playing a pure caster (and Alchemists are, I think, a decently viable healer.)
The Battle Smith has the following features that let you play a "no guilt" melee/caster hybrid:
You get access to Martial weapons (hello Maul for melee.)
Like Hexblade Warlocks, you get to use your spellcasting ability in place of Strength or Dexterity for your weapons (and unlike Hexblades, this simply applies to any weapon you're wielding.)
You have a robo-buddy who can impose disadvantage once a round on attacks against you.
So what I now have is a guy in half-plate that has been given a +1 infusion, thus granting 18 AC, plus my Steel Defender, which can keep me from taking too many hits. Oh, and I also have a weapon infusion that, in addition to giving his maul +1 to hit and damage, also lets him potentially blind foes that hit him.
For spells, I've gone basically all utility - which to be fair, is mostly what Artificers have anyway. Grease, Faerie Fire, See Invisibility, Enlarge/Reduce, and such are what I'm bringing.
I cannot wait to take this character out for a spin.
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Eberron: Bestiary
Eberron: Rising from the Last War has a fair number of new monsters and creatures to fill out your encounters.
Again, suggesting some similar sensibilities between myself and the creators of this setting, there are a large number of Aberrations. The Daelkyr are subterranean lords of aberrations - while there are six listed, only two get full stat blocks, but you might be able to homebrew some based on them. Belyyshara is tied to Beholders - appearing as a sort of older woman with a halo of eyeballs, this is actually a terrifying Great Old One-like entity that has many Beholder-like abilities. Drynn, similarly, looks like a humanoid man but can manifest various tentacles and has a number of Mind Flayer-like abilities. Both are CR 22, offering decent "campaign boss" options.
In addition, the Quori are a different sort of Aberration, coming from the plane of dreams. These are essentially living Nightmares, and are allied with the "Inspired," which are humans who have taken these beings into themselves. Excellent villains, especially if you have any Kalashtar party members, who are basically like the Inspired but who are bonded to a benevolent dream creature.
Of note, there are a fair number of very high-CR monsters here, many of which are specific legendary creatures. There are also generic stat blocks for NPCs from the new Eberron races.
While a lot of this is tied into the lore of the setting, you can easily loot a lot of these if you're looking for some new things. In particular, I like the Radiant Idol - which is basically a fallen angel - and the Undying, which are good-aligned undead animated with energy from the Positive Plane.
Also, there is a fun template for Living Spells, which allows you to take damaging Evocation and Conjuration spells and turn them into monsters that you can fight (or potentially employ?)
Finally, one that really excites me is the Warforged Colossus. Notably, the Colossus is also considered an adventure location. Most of these are thought to be inactive ruins that can be explored like a derelict Jaeger from Pacific Rim, but if you come across one that still works... make sure you stay on its good side because these things are CR 25.
Aside from actual new monsters and stat blocks, I really like the way that Eberron treats its creatures. While in other settings, Gnolls or Beholders would always be dangerous evils, here they can potentially be just people, and potentially allies. Notably (and I might cover this in a future post) in the very Noir-ish level 1 adventure they provide (which, having run neither, feels more interesting than Krenko's Way in Ravnica) they have the party assaulted by a group of criminal gnolls, but shortly thereafter, a civilian gnoll comes to aid them if they get attacked, just as a good samaritan bystander.
This book is massive, and I've jumped around a little. I've got a ton more to read, but so far I'm really enjoying it.
Again, suggesting some similar sensibilities between myself and the creators of this setting, there are a large number of Aberrations. The Daelkyr are subterranean lords of aberrations - while there are six listed, only two get full stat blocks, but you might be able to homebrew some based on them. Belyyshara is tied to Beholders - appearing as a sort of older woman with a halo of eyeballs, this is actually a terrifying Great Old One-like entity that has many Beholder-like abilities. Drynn, similarly, looks like a humanoid man but can manifest various tentacles and has a number of Mind Flayer-like abilities. Both are CR 22, offering decent "campaign boss" options.
In addition, the Quori are a different sort of Aberration, coming from the plane of dreams. These are essentially living Nightmares, and are allied with the "Inspired," which are humans who have taken these beings into themselves. Excellent villains, especially if you have any Kalashtar party members, who are basically like the Inspired but who are bonded to a benevolent dream creature.
Of note, there are a fair number of very high-CR monsters here, many of which are specific legendary creatures. There are also generic stat blocks for NPCs from the new Eberron races.
While a lot of this is tied into the lore of the setting, you can easily loot a lot of these if you're looking for some new things. In particular, I like the Radiant Idol - which is basically a fallen angel - and the Undying, which are good-aligned undead animated with energy from the Positive Plane.
Also, there is a fun template for Living Spells, which allows you to take damaging Evocation and Conjuration spells and turn them into monsters that you can fight (or potentially employ?)
Finally, one that really excites me is the Warforged Colossus. Notably, the Colossus is also considered an adventure location. Most of these are thought to be inactive ruins that can be explored like a derelict Jaeger from Pacific Rim, but if you come across one that still works... make sure you stay on its good side because these things are CR 25.
Aside from actual new monsters and stat blocks, I really like the way that Eberron treats its creatures. While in other settings, Gnolls or Beholders would always be dangerous evils, here they can potentially be just people, and potentially allies. Notably (and I might cover this in a future post) in the very Noir-ish level 1 adventure they provide (which, having run neither, feels more interesting than Krenko's Way in Ravnica) they have the party assaulted by a group of criminal gnolls, but shortly thereafter, a civilian gnoll comes to aid them if they get attacked, just as a good samaritan bystander.
This book is massive, and I've jumped around a little. I've got a ton more to read, but so far I'm really enjoying it.
Eberron: Rising From the Last War - the Artificer
My copy of Eberron arrived about an hour ago and I've been reading through it. This thing is a thick tome, and while some of the content is covered by the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, there have certainly been some significant changes - notably, the Warforged no longer have subraces and their integrated protection feature has been seriously nerfed (though possibly buffed if you're tier 4 and getting a bunch of +3 armor and +3 shields.)
Anyway, while there's a ton here that interests me (Eberron is probably the "mundane reality" D&D setting that speaks the most to my own sensibilities) obviously, if you've read this blog for my World of Warcraft musings, you'll know I freaking love it when RPGs add new classes.
The Artificer feels, at a glance, like the ultimate toolbox class. It shares that category with the Wizard, and while the latter has access to higher level spells and a broader array of magical abilities, the Artificer is going to be very customizable on the go. You can swap out your Cantrips!
Here's Artificers in a nutshell:
They're half-casters like Paladins and Rangers, except they get spells at level 1 and have Cantrips. But it's not just that: they also have a lot of non-spellcasting abilities that allow them to really customize their loadout each day.
First, at level 2 you gain the ability to infuse nonmagical items with magic. You pick a number of infusions to learn, and you learn several more as you level up. Then, you can turn a certain number of items into magic items (the magic lasts until a little after you die, or until you go one past your limit on infused items, at which point the oldest infusion fades.)
You also eventually get the ability to put 1st and 2nd level spells into non-magic objects that can then be used by anyone - maybe you give your Barbarian or Rogue or other character who's harder to put down a nice "Cure Wounds" staff should you or your Cleric be knocked out. These also don't count against your spell slots, so you effectively get more spells to cast.
One thing I adore about the class is the implication that you are not casting spells in the typical way - you have to use a spell focus, but that spell focus is a set of artisan's tools - meaning that you can effectively flavor your artificer as carrying a giant set of devices that each cast different spells - I'm just imagining how I would flavor, say, my "Fireball tosser."
Also, if you want to steal this class for Ravnica, holy crap do these guys fit in with the Izzet League.
Interestingly, there's also an optional rule that says that if your setting uses Firearms (described in the DMG) Artificers start out proficient with them. (And the "Repeating Weapon" infusion makes it very easy if firearms are extremely rare, as the weapon will generate its own magical ammo.)
Artificers also get to attune to additional magic items (and their infusions let them get more of those even if the DM is being stingy with them.) At level 20, they get a bonus to their saving throws based on how many items they have attuned to them, which at that point can be up to 6.
The three subclasses for Artificers are Alchemists, Artillerists, and Battlesmiths.
Alchemists have a great deal of healing ability, and focus on acid and poison damage. You can create what is effectively a random helpful potion every day, and as you level up, this potion will get additional bonuses. And of course, there are other benefits.
Artillerists' big feature is that they can summon turrets that fire upon enemies (or bolster allies.) Basically, if you want to make Torbjorn from Overwatch, this is your subclass. You'll also get some bonuses to your spell damage.
Battlesmiths' signature feature is that they can create a Steel Defender - basically a robotic pet that will make all those Beast Master Rangers very jealous. If Alchemists have enhanced healing capabilities and Artillerists can nuke things from afar, Battlesmiths have a tankier feel, getting martial weapons and having their pet, which has, essentially, the Protection fighting style.
All subclasses come with a set of spells that you always have prepared and don't count against your prepared spells, which means that you're going to have a ton of options available to you.
The Artificer feels very different from existing classes, and while I think it might be a little complicated for a new player (this ain't a Champion Fighter) I think players who like versatility will really enjoy this one.
Anyway, while there's a ton here that interests me (Eberron is probably the "mundane reality" D&D setting that speaks the most to my own sensibilities) obviously, if you've read this blog for my World of Warcraft musings, you'll know I freaking love it when RPGs add new classes.
The Artificer feels, at a glance, like the ultimate toolbox class. It shares that category with the Wizard, and while the latter has access to higher level spells and a broader array of magical abilities, the Artificer is going to be very customizable on the go. You can swap out your Cantrips!
Here's Artificers in a nutshell:
They're half-casters like Paladins and Rangers, except they get spells at level 1 and have Cantrips. But it's not just that: they also have a lot of non-spellcasting abilities that allow them to really customize their loadout each day.
First, at level 2 you gain the ability to infuse nonmagical items with magic. You pick a number of infusions to learn, and you learn several more as you level up. Then, you can turn a certain number of items into magic items (the magic lasts until a little after you die, or until you go one past your limit on infused items, at which point the oldest infusion fades.)
You also eventually get the ability to put 1st and 2nd level spells into non-magic objects that can then be used by anyone - maybe you give your Barbarian or Rogue or other character who's harder to put down a nice "Cure Wounds" staff should you or your Cleric be knocked out. These also don't count against your spell slots, so you effectively get more spells to cast.
One thing I adore about the class is the implication that you are not casting spells in the typical way - you have to use a spell focus, but that spell focus is a set of artisan's tools - meaning that you can effectively flavor your artificer as carrying a giant set of devices that each cast different spells - I'm just imagining how I would flavor, say, my "Fireball tosser."
Also, if you want to steal this class for Ravnica, holy crap do these guys fit in with the Izzet League.
Interestingly, there's also an optional rule that says that if your setting uses Firearms (described in the DMG) Artificers start out proficient with them. (And the "Repeating Weapon" infusion makes it very easy if firearms are extremely rare, as the weapon will generate its own magical ammo.)
Artificers also get to attune to additional magic items (and their infusions let them get more of those even if the DM is being stingy with them.) At level 20, they get a bonus to their saving throws based on how many items they have attuned to them, which at that point can be up to 6.
The three subclasses for Artificers are Alchemists, Artillerists, and Battlesmiths.
Alchemists have a great deal of healing ability, and focus on acid and poison damage. You can create what is effectively a random helpful potion every day, and as you level up, this potion will get additional bonuses. And of course, there are other benefits.
Artillerists' big feature is that they can summon turrets that fire upon enemies (or bolster allies.) Basically, if you want to make Torbjorn from Overwatch, this is your subclass. You'll also get some bonuses to your spell damage.
Battlesmiths' signature feature is that they can create a Steel Defender - basically a robotic pet that will make all those Beast Master Rangers very jealous. If Alchemists have enhanced healing capabilities and Artillerists can nuke things from afar, Battlesmiths have a tankier feel, getting martial weapons and having their pet, which has, essentially, the Protection fighting style.
All subclasses come with a set of spells that you always have prepared and don't count against your prepared spells, which means that you're going to have a ton of options available to you.
The Artificer feels very different from existing classes, and while I think it might be a little complicated for a new player (this ain't a Champion Fighter) I think players who like versatility will really enjoy this one.
Friday, November 15, 2019
Non-Mortals and the Shadowlands
Despite being closer to WoW's "Outer Planes" than its Shadowfell, the Shadowlands are nevertheless distinct from them.
Here's what we know:
When a mortal dies in the Warcraft cosmos, their soul goes to Oribos, the city at the center of the Shadowlands. There, it goes before the Arbiter, an eternal and ultra-powerful entity that can, in an instant, determine what sort of person that soul was in life.
The Arbiter then sends that soul on to an appropriate realm of the Shadowlands. The zones we're going to see in the expansion are five of those realms, but Blizzard has been very explicit in saying that there are many more - which both frees them up to add more to this location and also to create more Shadowlands lore.
The Shadowlands, as Bolvar tells us in the features trailer, are infinite. But they are also limited in the sense that they are there only for mortals. The Shadowlands is a plane of death, but one of the intriguing elements to it is that while this is, yes, Death with a capital D, it's not all dark torment and menacing skeletons. There is beauty and peace to be had here, because after all, there are good places for the dead to go as well.
Indeed, one of the realms we'll be seeing, Ardenweald, is not even a permanent home for the dead - it's there to prepare souls for reincarnation or rebirth, and to send them back to the land of the living with new life.
In the Demon Hunter starting experience - specifically the Mardum part of it - if you die (which might happen as a part of quests, as you need to either sacrifice a fellow Demon Hunter or yourself to open a portal, and obviously you should choose yourself) Illidan will comment that you actually have a demonic soul, which means that you can't truly die (unless you're in the Twisting Nether, presumably.) While this is a justification for a mechanic that already has an alternate justification for other player characters, it's interesting.
Knowing more about the Shadowlands, we know that Demons to not go here after death. They, of course, go back to the Twisting Nether. But if killed there, it seems as if they simply cease to exist.
Most demons we've encountered are former mortals. Kil'jaeden was an Eredar (which is what the Draenei truly are) and Xavius was a Night Elf. It seems likely that Felguards, Succubi, and Imps were probably all once mortal races that were corrupted by the Burning Legion or perhaps pre-Sargeras demons. But if a single individual in the span of a decade or two can have their soul turned into a demonic one, one imagines that this process easily could have taken hold in demonic races.
I suspect that when we go to the Shadowlands, we're really only going to encounter the living and the undead. I don't know how all the entities within the realms will count - I imagine there will be variety for the sake of variety - but it would make sense for everything there to count as undead.
The thing is: we also know that, while not destined for the Shadowlands, some demons must have been able to get there.
The Lich King was the creation of Kil'jaeden. He tore Ner'zhul's body apart and planted his soul in a suit of armor, which was capped off by the Helm of Domination. And we now know that Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination (and possibly the rest of the armor, but those pieces were the really important ones) were created in the Shadowlands.
Did Kil'jaeden actually go there, then? (I may be misremembering things - it might have been a group of Nathrezim who did so, but that leaves the same questions.) Naturally, we're going to be seeing Demon Hunters entering the Shadowlands, but given the way that the veil between worlds was shattered, that makes sense. After all, the Living aren't meant to be going there, but we'll all be making our way. In fact, only the Forsaken and the Death Knights really seem like they should be capable of entering unimpeded.
I do wonder to what extent Ny'alotha is related to the Shadowlands. The Shadowlands have sort of functioned as an opposite to the Emerald Dream, but the recent reveals about it suggest that they're much bigger than the Dream. That being said, I've often wondered if Ny'alotha is something like the Shadowlands equivalent of the Nightmare - an afterlife for the Old Gods, which explains why Ilgynoth went there. (On the other hand, Ilgynoth died in the Nightmare, which might connect Ny'alotha there instead.)
The Jailor appears to be some entirely new lore figure - unrelated to the Old Gods or to Sargeras. On the other hand, we know so very little about him that it really remains to be seen. After all, when we went to Pandaria, what appeared to be totally new lore stuff turned out to be deeply tied to the Titans and Old Gods.
On the other other hand, though (the first hand?) Pandaria was ultimately just another continent that had been isolated for ten thousand years. The Shadowlands is a whole new plane of existence, beyond anything we've seen in WoW before.
It does make me wonder, though. Consider the Bridenbraid quest line in Icecrown from Wrath. Unable to free his body from the Scourge plague, we ultimately call upon A'dal and the other Naaru to carry his soul into the Light. I know this quest is from over a decade ago, and likely a lot of this lore had yet to be established. But did the Naaru effectively steal him away from his proper afterlife? And if they did that for him, why not take figures like Uther?
When looking at the Shadowlands in terms of its villainous threats, it's easy to distinguish between the various bad guys and say that demons and Old Gods are not going to be much of a thing there. But what about the "good" guys? The Wild Gods, for example, seem to rejuvenate in Ardenweald. But is that just because they're on the same life-death spectrum? How do the Titans, and for that matter, their Titanforged creations, interact with the Shadowlands? And do the Naaru come there?
How porous is the Shadowlands for "planar outsiders?" We're told that Oribos is filled with soul-traders and travelers. Are they just traveling in between the various Shadowlands or are they from yet more exotic parts of the Warcraft multiverse?
Warcraft lore might be getting way, way bigger in Shadowlands. But that means there are a lot of new questions to ask.
Here's what we know:
When a mortal dies in the Warcraft cosmos, their soul goes to Oribos, the city at the center of the Shadowlands. There, it goes before the Arbiter, an eternal and ultra-powerful entity that can, in an instant, determine what sort of person that soul was in life.
The Arbiter then sends that soul on to an appropriate realm of the Shadowlands. The zones we're going to see in the expansion are five of those realms, but Blizzard has been very explicit in saying that there are many more - which both frees them up to add more to this location and also to create more Shadowlands lore.
The Shadowlands, as Bolvar tells us in the features trailer, are infinite. But they are also limited in the sense that they are there only for mortals. The Shadowlands is a plane of death, but one of the intriguing elements to it is that while this is, yes, Death with a capital D, it's not all dark torment and menacing skeletons. There is beauty and peace to be had here, because after all, there are good places for the dead to go as well.
Indeed, one of the realms we'll be seeing, Ardenweald, is not even a permanent home for the dead - it's there to prepare souls for reincarnation or rebirth, and to send them back to the land of the living with new life.
In the Demon Hunter starting experience - specifically the Mardum part of it - if you die (which might happen as a part of quests, as you need to either sacrifice a fellow Demon Hunter or yourself to open a portal, and obviously you should choose yourself) Illidan will comment that you actually have a demonic soul, which means that you can't truly die (unless you're in the Twisting Nether, presumably.) While this is a justification for a mechanic that already has an alternate justification for other player characters, it's interesting.
Knowing more about the Shadowlands, we know that Demons to not go here after death. They, of course, go back to the Twisting Nether. But if killed there, it seems as if they simply cease to exist.
Most demons we've encountered are former mortals. Kil'jaeden was an Eredar (which is what the Draenei truly are) and Xavius was a Night Elf. It seems likely that Felguards, Succubi, and Imps were probably all once mortal races that were corrupted by the Burning Legion or perhaps pre-Sargeras demons. But if a single individual in the span of a decade or two can have their soul turned into a demonic one, one imagines that this process easily could have taken hold in demonic races.
I suspect that when we go to the Shadowlands, we're really only going to encounter the living and the undead. I don't know how all the entities within the realms will count - I imagine there will be variety for the sake of variety - but it would make sense for everything there to count as undead.
The thing is: we also know that, while not destined for the Shadowlands, some demons must have been able to get there.
The Lich King was the creation of Kil'jaeden. He tore Ner'zhul's body apart and planted his soul in a suit of armor, which was capped off by the Helm of Domination. And we now know that Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination (and possibly the rest of the armor, but those pieces were the really important ones) were created in the Shadowlands.
Did Kil'jaeden actually go there, then? (I may be misremembering things - it might have been a group of Nathrezim who did so, but that leaves the same questions.) Naturally, we're going to be seeing Demon Hunters entering the Shadowlands, but given the way that the veil between worlds was shattered, that makes sense. After all, the Living aren't meant to be going there, but we'll all be making our way. In fact, only the Forsaken and the Death Knights really seem like they should be capable of entering unimpeded.
I do wonder to what extent Ny'alotha is related to the Shadowlands. The Shadowlands have sort of functioned as an opposite to the Emerald Dream, but the recent reveals about it suggest that they're much bigger than the Dream. That being said, I've often wondered if Ny'alotha is something like the Shadowlands equivalent of the Nightmare - an afterlife for the Old Gods, which explains why Ilgynoth went there. (On the other hand, Ilgynoth died in the Nightmare, which might connect Ny'alotha there instead.)
The Jailor appears to be some entirely new lore figure - unrelated to the Old Gods or to Sargeras. On the other hand, we know so very little about him that it really remains to be seen. After all, when we went to Pandaria, what appeared to be totally new lore stuff turned out to be deeply tied to the Titans and Old Gods.
On the other other hand, though (the first hand?) Pandaria was ultimately just another continent that had been isolated for ten thousand years. The Shadowlands is a whole new plane of existence, beyond anything we've seen in WoW before.
It does make me wonder, though. Consider the Bridenbraid quest line in Icecrown from Wrath. Unable to free his body from the Scourge plague, we ultimately call upon A'dal and the other Naaru to carry his soul into the Light. I know this quest is from over a decade ago, and likely a lot of this lore had yet to be established. But did the Naaru effectively steal him away from his proper afterlife? And if they did that for him, why not take figures like Uther?
When looking at the Shadowlands in terms of its villainous threats, it's easy to distinguish between the various bad guys and say that demons and Old Gods are not going to be much of a thing there. But what about the "good" guys? The Wild Gods, for example, seem to rejuvenate in Ardenweald. But is that just because they're on the same life-death spectrum? How do the Titans, and for that matter, their Titanforged creations, interact with the Shadowlands? And do the Naaru come there?
How porous is the Shadowlands for "planar outsiders?" We're told that Oribos is filled with soul-traders and travelers. Are they just traveling in between the various Shadowlands or are they from yet more exotic parts of the Warcraft multiverse?
Warcraft lore might be getting way, way bigger in Shadowlands. But that means there are a lot of new questions to ask.
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Races of Ravnica
It's a ways off, and I have yet to finalize who, exactly, is playing, but some time next year I am planning on starting a Ravnica campaign, designed specifically to allow adults with complex schedules to not have to be there every week.
But there is one issue that I figured it would be good to figure out ahead of time: Races.
Ravnica is, after all, its own world. And while it shares a lot of traits with D&D settings, there are some exceptions.
For example, one of the most iconic races you'll find in D&D is Dwarves, who date back to the kind of holy quadfecta established by Tolkien - Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings. But Magic, for a while, including when Ravnica was introduced, had kind of put the kibosh on Dwarves.
A big part of that was due to the color pie. Dwarves were historically Red creatures, largely due to their propensity for living in mountains. But Red is also the color of passion and chaos, and Dwarves are usually depicted as quite lawful and staid. Because Goblins fit the "red creature" bill much better, they tended to dominate as the default red humanoid creature type.
Dwarves have started to come back in more recent sets (likewise Orcs, who fit Red perfectly but I think mostly had a bit too much of an overlap with Goblins) but when Ravnica came out, Wizards of the Coast felt that Dwarves didn't really fit - they were really white creatures that lived in red environments.
In Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, there are a few playable races listed: Humans, Elves, Half-Elves, and Goblins make up the standard D&D ones that were published elsewhere (most in the PHB, but Goblins came in Volo's Guide to Monsters.) Then you got Minotaurs and Centaurs, which exist in D&D but not typically as playable characters, and then you got Magic-specific creatures: Vedalken, Loxodon, and Simic Hybrids - the last of which isn't really a creature type. Instead, cards with such beings are often "Merfolk Elf Mutant" or "Vedalken Crab Mutant." (Actually, Merfolk were only introduced to Ravnica in the Return to Ravnica block, because like Dwarves, Merfolk were generally phased out at a time when they didn't think it made sense for aquatic people to fight on land - until someone had the rather obvious idea of making Magic Merfolk amphibious and bipedal.)
These are the races that are officially allowed in Ravnica as a setting.
But a lot of my players have expressed interest in playing, for example, Dwarves or Halflings.
So first off, I've expanded the race options to cover races that are clearly present in Ravnica. Simply re-skinning things, we've got Merfolk available as a re-skin of the Triton (which, frankly, is basically a Merfolk as seen in Magic anyway.) Next, Viashino are easily represented by the Lizardfolk (again, that's pretty much what they are already.)
The third race I added is Vampires. Now, this is a bit more of a stretch. I've based them off the Ixalan Plane Shift article's Vampires, but divided the race into two subraces - Blooddrinkers and Minddrinkers, as those two are clearly delineated in Ravnica. The one little hiccup is that the player race is still considered humanoid while the monster statblock is Undead. I think that shouldn't be too much of an issue, but I might need to make up some lore reason for this.
That basically covers all the standard humanoids that are depicted in Ravnica. But what about other D&D races?
I'm a little torn here. My own setting is very liberal in terms of playable races - I've always been happy to justify people playing what they want. But Ravnica, being an official setting, is one I wonder about being more strict toward.
On the other hand, however, Ravnica is also a city whose population has to be in the trillions. If we assume Ravnica's surface area is even a quarter of the size of Earth's, the level of urban density means that the numbers would be utterly staggering. The population density of the Earth is about 15 people per square kilometer. The population density of New York City is 10,194 per square kilometer. New York is 783.8 square kilometers. The earth's is 510.1 million square kilometers.
So if we assume that Ravnica has the same population density of New York (which it appears to,) a Ravnica the size of the earth would have 5,199,959,400,000 people (that's 5.2 trillion.) So Ravnica, if it is as big as Earth, has the population of about 675 Earths.
That's a lot of people.
And for that reason, I think it's totally reasonable for there to be some populations that we just didn't see depicted on cards.
So even if I want to fight hard to make sure that it feels like Ravnica - I don't want anyone talking about growing up in the wilderness or living in some isolated monastery far from the city - I think we can allow for other D&D races to find themselves in Ravnica.
Dwarves, for instance, would probably be very at home in the Boros Legion. Rock Gnomes would probably fit in very nicely with the Izzet League. Orcs make perfect sense in the Gruul Clans (as well as the Boros, actually.)
I think the key will be to ensure that players still buy into the idea of the Guilds and how their membership within a guild is a core to their character's identity.
And that everyone's a city person.
But there is one issue that I figured it would be good to figure out ahead of time: Races.
Ravnica is, after all, its own world. And while it shares a lot of traits with D&D settings, there are some exceptions.
For example, one of the most iconic races you'll find in D&D is Dwarves, who date back to the kind of holy quadfecta established by Tolkien - Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings. But Magic, for a while, including when Ravnica was introduced, had kind of put the kibosh on Dwarves.
A big part of that was due to the color pie. Dwarves were historically Red creatures, largely due to their propensity for living in mountains. But Red is also the color of passion and chaos, and Dwarves are usually depicted as quite lawful and staid. Because Goblins fit the "red creature" bill much better, they tended to dominate as the default red humanoid creature type.
Dwarves have started to come back in more recent sets (likewise Orcs, who fit Red perfectly but I think mostly had a bit too much of an overlap with Goblins) but when Ravnica came out, Wizards of the Coast felt that Dwarves didn't really fit - they were really white creatures that lived in red environments.
In Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, there are a few playable races listed: Humans, Elves, Half-Elves, and Goblins make up the standard D&D ones that were published elsewhere (most in the PHB, but Goblins came in Volo's Guide to Monsters.) Then you got Minotaurs and Centaurs, which exist in D&D but not typically as playable characters, and then you got Magic-specific creatures: Vedalken, Loxodon, and Simic Hybrids - the last of which isn't really a creature type. Instead, cards with such beings are often "Merfolk Elf Mutant" or "Vedalken Crab Mutant." (Actually, Merfolk were only introduced to Ravnica in the Return to Ravnica block, because like Dwarves, Merfolk were generally phased out at a time when they didn't think it made sense for aquatic people to fight on land - until someone had the rather obvious idea of making Magic Merfolk amphibious and bipedal.)
These are the races that are officially allowed in Ravnica as a setting.
But a lot of my players have expressed interest in playing, for example, Dwarves or Halflings.
So first off, I've expanded the race options to cover races that are clearly present in Ravnica. Simply re-skinning things, we've got Merfolk available as a re-skin of the Triton (which, frankly, is basically a Merfolk as seen in Magic anyway.) Next, Viashino are easily represented by the Lizardfolk (again, that's pretty much what they are already.)
The third race I added is Vampires. Now, this is a bit more of a stretch. I've based them off the Ixalan Plane Shift article's Vampires, but divided the race into two subraces - Blooddrinkers and Minddrinkers, as those two are clearly delineated in Ravnica. The one little hiccup is that the player race is still considered humanoid while the monster statblock is Undead. I think that shouldn't be too much of an issue, but I might need to make up some lore reason for this.
That basically covers all the standard humanoids that are depicted in Ravnica. But what about other D&D races?
I'm a little torn here. My own setting is very liberal in terms of playable races - I've always been happy to justify people playing what they want. But Ravnica, being an official setting, is one I wonder about being more strict toward.
On the other hand, however, Ravnica is also a city whose population has to be in the trillions. If we assume Ravnica's surface area is even a quarter of the size of Earth's, the level of urban density means that the numbers would be utterly staggering. The population density of the Earth is about 15 people per square kilometer. The population density of New York City is 10,194 per square kilometer. New York is 783.8 square kilometers. The earth's is 510.1 million square kilometers.
So if we assume that Ravnica has the same population density of New York (which it appears to,) a Ravnica the size of the earth would have 5,199,959,400,000 people (that's 5.2 trillion.) So Ravnica, if it is as big as Earth, has the population of about 675 Earths.
That's a lot of people.
And for that reason, I think it's totally reasonable for there to be some populations that we just didn't see depicted on cards.
So even if I want to fight hard to make sure that it feels like Ravnica - I don't want anyone talking about growing up in the wilderness or living in some isolated monastery far from the city - I think we can allow for other D&D races to find themselves in Ravnica.
Dwarves, for instance, would probably be very at home in the Boros Legion. Rock Gnomes would probably fit in very nicely with the Izzet League. Orcs make perfect sense in the Gruul Clans (as well as the Boros, actually.)
I think the key will be to ensure that players still buy into the idea of the Guilds and how their membership within a guild is a core to their character's identity.
And that everyone's a city person.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Toragar, Minotaur Ranger
We had a sort of session zero last night (with a short introduction) to our Tomb of Annihilation game last night. With other players picking Artificer, Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard, I decided we could use a beefy tank character, and so I picked one of the three options I had been looking at - a Ranger.
Yes, Rangers are often... ranged characters who focus on Dexterity, but instead, I'm going to be focusing on a dual-wielding strength-based build. And mostly for aesthetics but also because the stats are good, I went with the Minotaur race from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. (If Joe Manganello can do a Minotaur PC in the Forgotten Realms, so can I.)
First, the build:
We rolled stats, but while I had no negatives, I only had one +2 and a couple +1s and +0s (before racial stat bonuses,) so I invoked our house rule and took the standard array, dumping Charisma. So he's starting with +3 Strength, +3 Constitution, and the +1s to Wisdom and Dexterity, with a +0 to Intelligence and -1 to Charisma.
I do realize, of course, that Rangers, especially Strength rangers, actually need a lot of stats to be high (Dex only needs +2 to max out medium armor, though.) And on top of that, I'm going to want to take the Dual Wielder feat probably as soon as I can.
So:
The plan is to go with two weapon fighting as his fighting style, which allows the offhand strike to add the damage bonus from Strength.
He's currently got four axes - two handaxes and two battleaxes, the latter he'll have to wait for the feat to start using. (He's also got a bunch of javelins for ranged situations.)
The idea then, is that, after level 5, he'll be hitting twice with his main hand battleaxe and once with his off-hand, each hit doing 1d8+3... but wait! There's also Hunter's Mark, which will make it 1d8+1d6+3. That means an average of 11 damage per hit, and thus 33 per turn (assuming all attacks hit.)
Now, he'll also be going Gloomstalker. This has a number of effects. First, it makes choosing a race without Darkvision feel less like a self-handicapping, as Gloomstalkers get Darkvision (and if you're a race that already has it, you get a longer range on it.) But you also get a bonus that could be insane: if you're in darkness, you are invisible to creatures that rely on Darkvision to see you. So as long as the lights are out, you're just invisible, but you can see everyone. It's like the Warlocks' Darkness/Devil's Sight combo but just as a ordinary subclass feature.
The one problem is that our party is: Myself, the minotaur, a Tortle, a Firbolg, and Air Genasi, and a Human. So yeah, we're probably going to be producing light. This might be more powerful situationally than be overpowered given this group.
Conceptually, I'm playing this character as the classic Rambo-style 80s action hero - a veteran of a deeply traumatic and poorly-executed war who went out to the woods to live out a life of solitude only to be called back into action by his superiors. Part of his look is a bandana that he wears on his head (which Heroforge actually has!)
For now I'm leaning into the cliche of it, but as I develop a real backstory, I'll try to figure out some of the nuances.
That said, this is Tomb of Annihilation, so I'm also definitely going to try getting too attached to this character.
Naturally, like any big commitment to a character, I'm feeling a bit of "grass is greener" remorse. One of the other characters I was thinking of playing was a Druid, and I figured it would be fun to play a full caster. But I also think that this should hopefully have some insane damage output. He won't have very high AC, but I'm hoping that with a d10 hit die and +3 to Con he'll at least be a little hard to kill (if I can get him one more point of Dex and up to 4 for the dual wielder feat, he'll have 17 AC. And then with Half Plate I could get that up to 18. 15 at level 1 is respectable.
We haven't had any combat yet, so it'll be at least a session before we hit level 2, but I figure I should start planning out spells now. Obviously, Hunter's Mark is first. But given that we have a Chef (the Tortle Artificer is a Cook Guild Artisan) and I can hunt, we might not want much for food, so Goodberry might not be necessary. (I hope I can pick up a Component Pouch before we leave Port Nyanzaru or else my spells will be limited.)
Yes, Rangers are often... ranged characters who focus on Dexterity, but instead, I'm going to be focusing on a dual-wielding strength-based build. And mostly for aesthetics but also because the stats are good, I went with the Minotaur race from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. (If Joe Manganello can do a Minotaur PC in the Forgotten Realms, so can I.)
First, the build:
We rolled stats, but while I had no negatives, I only had one +2 and a couple +1s and +0s (before racial stat bonuses,) so I invoked our house rule and took the standard array, dumping Charisma. So he's starting with +3 Strength, +3 Constitution, and the +1s to Wisdom and Dexterity, with a +0 to Intelligence and -1 to Charisma.
I do realize, of course, that Rangers, especially Strength rangers, actually need a lot of stats to be high (Dex only needs +2 to max out medium armor, though.) And on top of that, I'm going to want to take the Dual Wielder feat probably as soon as I can.
So:
The plan is to go with two weapon fighting as his fighting style, which allows the offhand strike to add the damage bonus from Strength.
He's currently got four axes - two handaxes and two battleaxes, the latter he'll have to wait for the feat to start using. (He's also got a bunch of javelins for ranged situations.)
The idea then, is that, after level 5, he'll be hitting twice with his main hand battleaxe and once with his off-hand, each hit doing 1d8+3... but wait! There's also Hunter's Mark, which will make it 1d8+1d6+3. That means an average of 11 damage per hit, and thus 33 per turn (assuming all attacks hit.)
Now, he'll also be going Gloomstalker. This has a number of effects. First, it makes choosing a race without Darkvision feel less like a self-handicapping, as Gloomstalkers get Darkvision (and if you're a race that already has it, you get a longer range on it.) But you also get a bonus that could be insane: if you're in darkness, you are invisible to creatures that rely on Darkvision to see you. So as long as the lights are out, you're just invisible, but you can see everyone. It's like the Warlocks' Darkness/Devil's Sight combo but just as a ordinary subclass feature.
The one problem is that our party is: Myself, the minotaur, a Tortle, a Firbolg, and Air Genasi, and a Human. So yeah, we're probably going to be producing light. This might be more powerful situationally than be overpowered given this group.
Conceptually, I'm playing this character as the classic Rambo-style 80s action hero - a veteran of a deeply traumatic and poorly-executed war who went out to the woods to live out a life of solitude only to be called back into action by his superiors. Part of his look is a bandana that he wears on his head (which Heroforge actually has!)
For now I'm leaning into the cliche of it, but as I develop a real backstory, I'll try to figure out some of the nuances.
That said, this is Tomb of Annihilation, so I'm also definitely going to try getting too attached to this character.
Naturally, like any big commitment to a character, I'm feeling a bit of "grass is greener" remorse. One of the other characters I was thinking of playing was a Druid, and I figured it would be fun to play a full caster. But I also think that this should hopefully have some insane damage output. He won't have very high AC, but I'm hoping that with a d10 hit die and +3 to Con he'll at least be a little hard to kill (if I can get him one more point of Dex and up to 4 for the dual wielder feat, he'll have 17 AC. And then with Half Plate I could get that up to 18. 15 at level 1 is respectable.
We haven't had any combat yet, so it'll be at least a session before we hit level 2, but I figure I should start planning out spells now. Obviously, Hunter's Mark is first. But given that we have a Chef (the Tortle Artificer is a Cook Guild Artisan) and I can hunt, we might not want much for food, so Goodberry might not be necessary. (I hope I can pick up a Component Pouch before we leave Port Nyanzaru or else my spells will be limited.)
Monday, November 11, 2019
Stealing the Power of Death
It's funny, about Val'kyr.
When we were first introduced to the idea of Val'kyr, it was purely in the context of the Scourge.
The Vrykul underwent two transformations. First, the Curse of Flesh afflicted them, transforming them from ageless constructs of metal and stone into beings of flesh and blood. The Vrykul civilization lasted long enough after this to develop a distinct culture, separate from the Titanforged one that they had started with. Thanes and Kings arose, and there was a sort of Vrykul diaspora across the seas. The Vrykul were already around, of course, by the time of the Sundering, and the Curse of Flesh obviously came before that event. So that suggests that the Vrykul witnessed the destruction of ancient Kalimdor.
We've seen the Vrykul show up in a few regions, though most are on the eastern side of Azeroth. Northrend was clearly their primary home, with settlements ranging from Howling Fjord to Storm Peaks to Icecrown. We found Vrykul in Stormheim on the Broken Isles as well, apparently a group that had followed Odyn in his departure from Ulduar. We also know that some branch of their culture went to the islands that would come to be called Kul Tiras and became known as the Drust. It's not clear why they took this separate name (Blizzard was a little coy with their origins until more recently.) And while those like Gorak Tul consider their people to have all died out following the conquest of the land by Kul Tiras, the towering, bulky build of the Kul Tirans (at least the playable ones) suggest that, in fact, it's far more likely that many intermarried with the humans and produced mixed offspring.
But that brings up this second transformation, and it's the reaction to that that led to the vrykul becoming pawns of the Scourge. King Ymiron, convinced that their people were cursed after they gave birth to what we would now recognize as ordinary humans, elected to have his people sleep under stasis for thousands of years - to wait out the curse and presumably hope that the Titans would return to fix everything.
Of course, the Titans were busy being sort of dead and imprisoned in Antorus by that point. Instead, what came was the Lich King and the Scourge.
As players, having sort of Viking-themed giants to fight made some kind of undead equivalent to the Valkyries sort of thematically fitting. The Lich King convinced the Vrykul that he was a Death God (which... might not have been exactly a lie) and used the Val'kyr to create a kind of vetting process to empower his most elite champions. The Vrykul, reawakened after all these years, basically built their new culture around impressing the Lich King enough to be chosen as one of his elite Ymirjar.
The Val'kyr would continue to play a significant role in the story moving forward. Nine of them chose to serve Sylvanas, ostensibly to be free of the Lich King's control. And it was really after they joined Sylvanas that the Banshee Queen started transforming from problematic antihero into full-on villain.
Still, at the time, the story was really just that these were some undead vrykul women whom the Lich King had empowered to raise people from the dead.
Legion (and Chronicle, which came out shortly beforehand) threw us the first huge curveball in this story.
After meeting a number of Titan Keepers themed after the Norse Pantheon, it was perhaps funny that there wasn't any real clear equivalent to Odin (I think back then I had thought Hodir might have been it, though then I later realized there is also a Hodir in Norse myth.) In Legion, we met Odyn and discovered that the entire ritual - of Vrykul warriors proving themselves and being judged by the Val'kyr to be raised as elite warriors beyond death - was stolen by the Lich King from Odyn. It was Odyn who had discovered this power (and we're going to get to that part) to create Val'kyr, and thus he was able to create an army of his legendary Valarjar. The pieces were all in place, and now it makes perfect sense that the Vrykul would key into this practice when the Scourge woke them up - they'd already known about it.
Somehow, the Lich King had usurped Odyn's position in this process and tradition, but the end result was not entirely dissimilar.
But here's the thing:
Odyn didn't invent it either.
We knew even as of Chronicle that Odyn had only gained this power by journeying into the Shadowlands and meeting with a mysterious figure to whom he gave his eye in exchange for knowledge. The whole "trading his eye for knowledge" thing is straight out of Norse myth, though what that knowledge contained and to whom he traded it are quite different.
Odyn's actions were then totally heinous - he forced Helya to become the first Val'kyr against her will, essentially both murdering and enslaving his adopted daughter. Odyn might not be Arthas, but he is not a good person.
It's really odd, though, to think about the idea of appropriation and perversion. After all, the Scourge was all about perverting the sacred into the profane. And it looks very much like the creation of the Ymirjar was a perversion of the creation of the Valarjar. But the Valarjar were already a profanity in their own way. Helya would go on to create her own profane version of the system in stealing the souls of the Vrykul to create her Kvaldir (who are, oddly, not considered undead for some reason.)
There are some major questions to be asked, and that look like they could be answered, in the upcoming Shadowlands expansion. We have yet to know who Odyn gave his eye to. We know that the Kyrians of Bastion - the heavenly realm of the Shadowlands where souls who dedicated themselves to service live on in light and righteousness - are somehow related to the Val'kyr, perhaps as sort of inspirations or prototypes.
So was it here that Odyn learned how to make the Val'kyr? That seems like it's probably only partially true. One imagines that a place like Bastion would not promote the kind of perversion of death as Odyn created it. After all, while it's a benign and good place, Bastion is still a place of death magic, and as the place where the souls of the selfless go, they would probably not be happy about someone diverting those souls.
Which suggests to me that some more sinister entity was probably helping Odyn as part of a plot against the Kyrians - stealing their power and ways for this entity's own ends, and likely using Odyn as a pawn.
Now, setting the Val'kyr aside, we also know that Maldraxxus had a deep connection to the Scourge. We have yet to learn a ton about this place or its Necrolords covenant, but the aesthetics of Maldraxxus are extremely reminiscent of the Scourge. It is said that it was from here that the Scourge drew much of its power and even forces. While obviously most of the Scourge was made up of the people it had killed, I'd assume this means that its ghostly spirits - those that had nothing to do with Azeroth's dead - were drawn from here.
And so I wonder, then, if this power was also stolen.
We know Kil'jaeden put Ner'zhul's spirit into the armor that would be the first Lich King (I wouldn't be shocked if they retconned it to really just be the Helm of Domination that held the Lich King.) We don't know how a demon - a being of Fel that, while once mortal, was no longer bound for the Shadowlands once it became a demon - managed to get there, or what kind of deals, manipulations, or strategies he employed to forge the Helm or Frostmourne (I could be misremembering - it might have been some Nathrezim who did the actual forging, but the scenario remains.) Kil'jaeden was obviously very powerful, but I do wonder if perhaps he also had to make some kind of a deal. Maybe a deal to... steal some of the power of another important covenant.
We know that the Jailor is the big bad of the Shadowlands expansion (unless Sylvanas takes over that role.) So it might be coy not to simply say that the Jailor could be the one who is helping others steal these powers of death.
But given that we know next to nothing about the Jailor - basically, that he's an incredibly powerful entity from the Maw that the rest of the Shadowlands treats like the bogeyman, and that Sylvanas has been working with him since the end of Wrath of the Lich King - it's really interesting to consider what his M.O. is.
If he is both the being that taught Odyn to make Val'kyr and the one who helped Kil'jaeden create the Lich King, that suggests that he likes to help beings from outside the Shadowlands steal its power.
To what end?
Well, that's a very open question. But it is remarkable to see that he's already helped weaken two of the Covenants in this way. Is it possible that he's doing the same with the Venthyr and the Night Fae?
And is it possible that we've already seen some of the results?
I think Shadowlands has the potential to be one of those expansions that brings together a ton of very long-running plots and connect them in ways we wouldn't have suspected.
With WoW's multiple, unrelated big bads, there is always a chance for the major evil powers to step on one anothers' toes. I don't think it's likely that the Jailor has anything to do with the Void Lords or Old Gods, and I suspect his only potential connection to the Burning Legion was making a deal with Kil'jaeden (and man, there's a negotiation between very powerful figures.) Still, not only are we going to have a chance to talk to characters who have been long dead, but we might also discover things we hadn't really thought about for a while suddenly getting picked up again. Like Ephial!
Or, Mueh'zalla!
When we were first introduced to the idea of Val'kyr, it was purely in the context of the Scourge.
The Vrykul underwent two transformations. First, the Curse of Flesh afflicted them, transforming them from ageless constructs of metal and stone into beings of flesh and blood. The Vrykul civilization lasted long enough after this to develop a distinct culture, separate from the Titanforged one that they had started with. Thanes and Kings arose, and there was a sort of Vrykul diaspora across the seas. The Vrykul were already around, of course, by the time of the Sundering, and the Curse of Flesh obviously came before that event. So that suggests that the Vrykul witnessed the destruction of ancient Kalimdor.
We've seen the Vrykul show up in a few regions, though most are on the eastern side of Azeroth. Northrend was clearly their primary home, with settlements ranging from Howling Fjord to Storm Peaks to Icecrown. We found Vrykul in Stormheim on the Broken Isles as well, apparently a group that had followed Odyn in his departure from Ulduar. We also know that some branch of their culture went to the islands that would come to be called Kul Tiras and became known as the Drust. It's not clear why they took this separate name (Blizzard was a little coy with their origins until more recently.) And while those like Gorak Tul consider their people to have all died out following the conquest of the land by Kul Tiras, the towering, bulky build of the Kul Tirans (at least the playable ones) suggest that, in fact, it's far more likely that many intermarried with the humans and produced mixed offspring.
But that brings up this second transformation, and it's the reaction to that that led to the vrykul becoming pawns of the Scourge. King Ymiron, convinced that their people were cursed after they gave birth to what we would now recognize as ordinary humans, elected to have his people sleep under stasis for thousands of years - to wait out the curse and presumably hope that the Titans would return to fix everything.
Of course, the Titans were busy being sort of dead and imprisoned in Antorus by that point. Instead, what came was the Lich King and the Scourge.
As players, having sort of Viking-themed giants to fight made some kind of undead equivalent to the Valkyries sort of thematically fitting. The Lich King convinced the Vrykul that he was a Death God (which... might not have been exactly a lie) and used the Val'kyr to create a kind of vetting process to empower his most elite champions. The Vrykul, reawakened after all these years, basically built their new culture around impressing the Lich King enough to be chosen as one of his elite Ymirjar.
The Val'kyr would continue to play a significant role in the story moving forward. Nine of them chose to serve Sylvanas, ostensibly to be free of the Lich King's control. And it was really after they joined Sylvanas that the Banshee Queen started transforming from problematic antihero into full-on villain.
Still, at the time, the story was really just that these were some undead vrykul women whom the Lich King had empowered to raise people from the dead.
Legion (and Chronicle, which came out shortly beforehand) threw us the first huge curveball in this story.
After meeting a number of Titan Keepers themed after the Norse Pantheon, it was perhaps funny that there wasn't any real clear equivalent to Odin (I think back then I had thought Hodir might have been it, though then I later realized there is also a Hodir in Norse myth.) In Legion, we met Odyn and discovered that the entire ritual - of Vrykul warriors proving themselves and being judged by the Val'kyr to be raised as elite warriors beyond death - was stolen by the Lich King from Odyn. It was Odyn who had discovered this power (and we're going to get to that part) to create Val'kyr, and thus he was able to create an army of his legendary Valarjar. The pieces were all in place, and now it makes perfect sense that the Vrykul would key into this practice when the Scourge woke them up - they'd already known about it.
Somehow, the Lich King had usurped Odyn's position in this process and tradition, but the end result was not entirely dissimilar.
But here's the thing:
Odyn didn't invent it either.
We knew even as of Chronicle that Odyn had only gained this power by journeying into the Shadowlands and meeting with a mysterious figure to whom he gave his eye in exchange for knowledge. The whole "trading his eye for knowledge" thing is straight out of Norse myth, though what that knowledge contained and to whom he traded it are quite different.
Odyn's actions were then totally heinous - he forced Helya to become the first Val'kyr against her will, essentially both murdering and enslaving his adopted daughter. Odyn might not be Arthas, but he is not a good person.
It's really odd, though, to think about the idea of appropriation and perversion. After all, the Scourge was all about perverting the sacred into the profane. And it looks very much like the creation of the Ymirjar was a perversion of the creation of the Valarjar. But the Valarjar were already a profanity in their own way. Helya would go on to create her own profane version of the system in stealing the souls of the Vrykul to create her Kvaldir (who are, oddly, not considered undead for some reason.)
There are some major questions to be asked, and that look like they could be answered, in the upcoming Shadowlands expansion. We have yet to know who Odyn gave his eye to. We know that the Kyrians of Bastion - the heavenly realm of the Shadowlands where souls who dedicated themselves to service live on in light and righteousness - are somehow related to the Val'kyr, perhaps as sort of inspirations or prototypes.
So was it here that Odyn learned how to make the Val'kyr? That seems like it's probably only partially true. One imagines that a place like Bastion would not promote the kind of perversion of death as Odyn created it. After all, while it's a benign and good place, Bastion is still a place of death magic, and as the place where the souls of the selfless go, they would probably not be happy about someone diverting those souls.
Which suggests to me that some more sinister entity was probably helping Odyn as part of a plot against the Kyrians - stealing their power and ways for this entity's own ends, and likely using Odyn as a pawn.
Now, setting the Val'kyr aside, we also know that Maldraxxus had a deep connection to the Scourge. We have yet to learn a ton about this place or its Necrolords covenant, but the aesthetics of Maldraxxus are extremely reminiscent of the Scourge. It is said that it was from here that the Scourge drew much of its power and even forces. While obviously most of the Scourge was made up of the people it had killed, I'd assume this means that its ghostly spirits - those that had nothing to do with Azeroth's dead - were drawn from here.
And so I wonder, then, if this power was also stolen.
We know Kil'jaeden put Ner'zhul's spirit into the armor that would be the first Lich King (I wouldn't be shocked if they retconned it to really just be the Helm of Domination that held the Lich King.) We don't know how a demon - a being of Fel that, while once mortal, was no longer bound for the Shadowlands once it became a demon - managed to get there, or what kind of deals, manipulations, or strategies he employed to forge the Helm or Frostmourne (I could be misremembering - it might have been some Nathrezim who did the actual forging, but the scenario remains.) Kil'jaeden was obviously very powerful, but I do wonder if perhaps he also had to make some kind of a deal. Maybe a deal to... steal some of the power of another important covenant.
We know that the Jailor is the big bad of the Shadowlands expansion (unless Sylvanas takes over that role.) So it might be coy not to simply say that the Jailor could be the one who is helping others steal these powers of death.
But given that we know next to nothing about the Jailor - basically, that he's an incredibly powerful entity from the Maw that the rest of the Shadowlands treats like the bogeyman, and that Sylvanas has been working with him since the end of Wrath of the Lich King - it's really interesting to consider what his M.O. is.
If he is both the being that taught Odyn to make Val'kyr and the one who helped Kil'jaeden create the Lich King, that suggests that he likes to help beings from outside the Shadowlands steal its power.
To what end?
Well, that's a very open question. But it is remarkable to see that he's already helped weaken two of the Covenants in this way. Is it possible that he's doing the same with the Venthyr and the Night Fae?
And is it possible that we've already seen some of the results?
I think Shadowlands has the potential to be one of those expansions that brings together a ton of very long-running plots and connect them in ways we wouldn't have suspected.
With WoW's multiple, unrelated big bads, there is always a chance for the major evil powers to step on one anothers' toes. I don't think it's likely that the Jailor has anything to do with the Void Lords or Old Gods, and I suspect his only potential connection to the Burning Legion was making a deal with Kil'jaeden (and man, there's a negotiation between very powerful figures.) Still, not only are we going to have a chance to talk to characters who have been long dead, but we might also discover things we hadn't really thought about for a while suddenly getting picked up again. Like Ephial!
Or, Mueh'zalla!
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Cosmic Horror in the Sky: My Latest D&D One-Shot
While we were not able to finish the adventure due to my roommates both having gotten about three hours of sleep last night, tonight our regular DM for our Sunday game was out so I put together a one-shot.
Giving my players four "genre" options for D&D adventures, between "Cosmic Horror," "Airship Shenanigans," "Western," and "Post-Apocalytpic," I got votes for the former two, and so decided to combine the them.
The party finds themselves aboard The Futurist, a new luxury airship that they're taking down to a city where they are hoping to be hired for an "Excavation Company" to plunder ancient ruins for advanced technology.
However, little do they know, their would-be employer has actually been manipulated by Ilithid, who seek to send a supernatural beacon to a particular point in the sky where a rift into the Far Realm can be opened.
The party hobnobs (and plots to rob) some of the well-to-do passengers until, at dinner, the captain is found dead. Despite showing no signs of injury, his death is mysterious.
Indeed, what they will eventually discover (or kind of have already) is that the captain's actually been dead for a while, and that the "body" they discovered was actually the projection of a horrible aberration called an Oblex (found in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes) that had been severed.
We didn't get to finish the game (players needed to roll up new characters, which ate into the time) but they actually stumbled into the final boss as their first fight, and I'll say this: an Adult Oblex (CR 5) is pretty tough on a group of five level 3 characters, at least when the players are rolling pretty garbage attacks.
Still, with the exception of one pulled punch (using Hold Person on just one target, as opposed to several, which the Oblex can,) the thing finally went down after the rogue landed a critical hit.
The party really only just discovered the aberrant nature of the threat aboard, but while they might think the problem is solved, there remain a few issues: namely, several Oblex spawn that have started eating other passengers and crew members, as well as Goliath being puppeted by an Intellect Devourer. I'll probably give them a short rest, though, after the grueling fight they just went through.
But even with all the monsters dealt with, they have to deal with the fact that the ship is still heading toward the rift, and wouldn't you know, but that Goliath man has gone up and sabotaged the navigational controls on the bridge!
I love genre-bending in D&D. My previous one-shot was a wild west showdown against a crew of outlaws led by a barbed devil. This time, we've had an Agatha Christie murder mystery that very quickly transformed into an H. P. Lovecraft story.
Giving my players four "genre" options for D&D adventures, between "Cosmic Horror," "Airship Shenanigans," "Western," and "Post-Apocalytpic," I got votes for the former two, and so decided to combine the them.
The party finds themselves aboard The Futurist, a new luxury airship that they're taking down to a city where they are hoping to be hired for an "Excavation Company" to plunder ancient ruins for advanced technology.
However, little do they know, their would-be employer has actually been manipulated by Ilithid, who seek to send a supernatural beacon to a particular point in the sky where a rift into the Far Realm can be opened.
The party hobnobs (and plots to rob) some of the well-to-do passengers until, at dinner, the captain is found dead. Despite showing no signs of injury, his death is mysterious.
Indeed, what they will eventually discover (or kind of have already) is that the captain's actually been dead for a while, and that the "body" they discovered was actually the projection of a horrible aberration called an Oblex (found in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes) that had been severed.
We didn't get to finish the game (players needed to roll up new characters, which ate into the time) but they actually stumbled into the final boss as their first fight, and I'll say this: an Adult Oblex (CR 5) is pretty tough on a group of five level 3 characters, at least when the players are rolling pretty garbage attacks.
Still, with the exception of one pulled punch (using Hold Person on just one target, as opposed to several, which the Oblex can,) the thing finally went down after the rogue landed a critical hit.
The party really only just discovered the aberrant nature of the threat aboard, but while they might think the problem is solved, there remain a few issues: namely, several Oblex spawn that have started eating other passengers and crew members, as well as Goliath being puppeted by an Intellect Devourer. I'll probably give them a short rest, though, after the grueling fight they just went through.
But even with all the monsters dealt with, they have to deal with the fact that the ship is still heading toward the rift, and wouldn't you know, but that Goliath man has gone up and sabotaged the navigational controls on the bridge!
I love genre-bending in D&D. My previous one-shot was a wild west showdown against a crew of outlaws led by a barbed devil. This time, we've had an Agatha Christie murder mystery that very quickly transformed into an H. P. Lovecraft story.
N'zoth, Ny'alotha, and the Setting Up Villains
It's a catch-22.
Because World of Warcraft is designed to basically last forever, with a new expansion coming out every two years, they need renewable villains.
In the early expansions, when I don't think Blizzard had a sense of how much of a perpetual motion machine this thing was, they were killing off major lore figures left and right. BC saw Kael'thas, Vashj, and Illidan all die (Kael'thas briefly got better, Illidan did much later on.) Wrath had us tear through Malygos, Yogg-Saron, Kel'thuzad (a second time - and we didn't find his phylactery that time,) Anub'arak and Arthas himself.
Obviously, enemy recycling was not a totally new practice, but Cataclysm in particular made two of its five raids sort of sequels to Vanilla raids with the same final boss. Nefarian was resurrected (and he brought back his sister Onyxia!) and Ragnaros came back as well. But even Cataclysm was burning through established lore figures. Ragnaros met his final end (until they say it wasn't final) and we also saw Cho'gall and Deathwing killed.
Mists of Pandaria really broadened the lore, giving us new figures like Lei Shen and the Sha. And they even saved its final boss to appear in the next expansion. But Warlords and Legion both did a bit of "boss recycling," or if not boss recycling, then at least villain recycling, having us face off against Gul'dan's alternate universe doppelganger and fighting Kil'jaeden once again (to be fair, they were pretty explicit about his surviving the Sunwell raid.)
The thing is, with all these villains coming back for us to fight them again (and given that we're going to the land of the dead in Shadowlands, don't be surprised if some major villains are familiar faces,) it has gotten to a point where we can't always trust whether something is dead or not.
And a ton of that confusion has surrounded the Old Gods.
For one thing, it seemed early on that if the Old Gods were killed, Azeroth would die - she couldn't take another wound like the one she suffered after the destruction of Y'shaarj. Thus, a lot of players have assumed that by defeating C'thun and Yogg-Saron, we weren't really killing them so much as injuring them. These things, after all, are meant to be utterly enormous - it's implied that Yogg-Saron's mass stretches underneath all of Northrend - and even if we fought the "head," their alien biology could easily suggest that there's plenty left to regenerate.
I do think there is a problem also in the way that players perceive themselves. There's a mentality that "if we were able to fight it, it can't have been all that powerful." The thing is, player characters in WoW have been essentially "tier 4" characters (this is a D&D term representing, for example, spellcasters having the most powerful spells in the game, and is generally when you start traveling between planes and fighting gods) since Burning Crusade. At some point, you just have to accept that we adventurers are utter badasses.
And yet, given how persistent the Old Gods have been in the background of Warcraft lore, it also feels weirdly anticlimactic for us to actually be done with them.
Theoretically, defeating N'zoth in Ny'alotha will mean that all the Old Gods on Azeroth are dead.
Why does that feel bad?
I think a big part of it is the build-up, but also the lack thereof. Let me explain:
N'zoth was first introduced conceptually to us in Cataclysm. He was mentioned in the Dragon Soul dungeon journal and some of the bosses mentioned him. C'thun and Yogg-Saron were both introduced in the same expansion where they died, while N'zoth is something they've been talking about for about a decade. Likewise Ny'alotha.
Despite being referred to as the "weakest" of the Old Gods, it's also implied that that referred strictly to his physical strength and the size of his armies. The implication is that N'zoth was always scheming, always actually controlling things behind the scenes, and was always willing to play low status with the other Old Gods in order to achieve his ends (he's very House Dimir, for you Ravnica fans.)
And that means that N'zoth is the Old God that seems to have the most personality. Frankly, in the Azshara Warbringers short, I've also thought that N'zoth's slick "I like deals" voice (which is closer to voice actor Darrin DePaul's real voice) is his true one. (Actually, in general I dislike how they made Yogg-Saron's voice into a generic screaming monster. C'thun's super-creepy whispers feel way more appropriate for an eldritch abomination.)
It is tough, to be fair, to do a big build up to a character whose whole deal is manipulating things behind the scenes. The whole point, after all, is for you not to realize that he's been behind things.
The problem, though is that now N'zoth feels as if he's kind of tacked on to this expansion. And that feels like a wasted opportunity given how interesting a villain he should be.
Here's the thing: BFA's story is a bifurcated mess. I know it's always a danger to suggest that you, an audience member, know how a plot should have been written, but let me pitch you an alternative:
N'zoth should have been the one behind this war. He should have been the one manipulating it behind the scenes. He should have corrupted people in the inner circles of the Alliance and Horde to drive the war forward. We should have spent much of the war campaign discovering the plotting behind the scenes like some kind of conspiracy thriller, and at the end of 8.2, we should have come to the shocking realization that this war has all been serving N'zoth's purposes - maybe mining all that Azerite (and destroying it, given how we seem to be making explosives out of the stuff) has weakened the World Soul's defenses enough that N'zoth is finally able to make his final push to corrupt her.
And that would create great urgency for the final raid, in which we race to kill N'zoth before he can fulfill his ancient mission.
And given that it's N'zoth, he might have some contingency plan in place (to be fair, that could still be true.)
We know almost nothing about the Jailor in the Shadowlands, but it feels as if he's actually doing the sort of things that I'd have expected N'zoth to do. I'm super excited to go to death world and everything, but it does feel as if N'zoth is getting short shrift, even if he's the first Old God to be the final boss of an expansion.
Because World of Warcraft is designed to basically last forever, with a new expansion coming out every two years, they need renewable villains.
In the early expansions, when I don't think Blizzard had a sense of how much of a perpetual motion machine this thing was, they were killing off major lore figures left and right. BC saw Kael'thas, Vashj, and Illidan all die (Kael'thas briefly got better, Illidan did much later on.) Wrath had us tear through Malygos, Yogg-Saron, Kel'thuzad (a second time - and we didn't find his phylactery that time,) Anub'arak and Arthas himself.
Obviously, enemy recycling was not a totally new practice, but Cataclysm in particular made two of its five raids sort of sequels to Vanilla raids with the same final boss. Nefarian was resurrected (and he brought back his sister Onyxia!) and Ragnaros came back as well. But even Cataclysm was burning through established lore figures. Ragnaros met his final end (until they say it wasn't final) and we also saw Cho'gall and Deathwing killed.
Mists of Pandaria really broadened the lore, giving us new figures like Lei Shen and the Sha. And they even saved its final boss to appear in the next expansion. But Warlords and Legion both did a bit of "boss recycling," or if not boss recycling, then at least villain recycling, having us face off against Gul'dan's alternate universe doppelganger and fighting Kil'jaeden once again (to be fair, they were pretty explicit about his surviving the Sunwell raid.)
The thing is, with all these villains coming back for us to fight them again (and given that we're going to the land of the dead in Shadowlands, don't be surprised if some major villains are familiar faces,) it has gotten to a point where we can't always trust whether something is dead or not.
And a ton of that confusion has surrounded the Old Gods.
For one thing, it seemed early on that if the Old Gods were killed, Azeroth would die - she couldn't take another wound like the one she suffered after the destruction of Y'shaarj. Thus, a lot of players have assumed that by defeating C'thun and Yogg-Saron, we weren't really killing them so much as injuring them. These things, after all, are meant to be utterly enormous - it's implied that Yogg-Saron's mass stretches underneath all of Northrend - and even if we fought the "head," their alien biology could easily suggest that there's plenty left to regenerate.
I do think there is a problem also in the way that players perceive themselves. There's a mentality that "if we were able to fight it, it can't have been all that powerful." The thing is, player characters in WoW have been essentially "tier 4" characters (this is a D&D term representing, for example, spellcasters having the most powerful spells in the game, and is generally when you start traveling between planes and fighting gods) since Burning Crusade. At some point, you just have to accept that we adventurers are utter badasses.
And yet, given how persistent the Old Gods have been in the background of Warcraft lore, it also feels weirdly anticlimactic for us to actually be done with them.
Theoretically, defeating N'zoth in Ny'alotha will mean that all the Old Gods on Azeroth are dead.
Why does that feel bad?
I think a big part of it is the build-up, but also the lack thereof. Let me explain:
N'zoth was first introduced conceptually to us in Cataclysm. He was mentioned in the Dragon Soul dungeon journal and some of the bosses mentioned him. C'thun and Yogg-Saron were both introduced in the same expansion where they died, while N'zoth is something they've been talking about for about a decade. Likewise Ny'alotha.
Despite being referred to as the "weakest" of the Old Gods, it's also implied that that referred strictly to his physical strength and the size of his armies. The implication is that N'zoth was always scheming, always actually controlling things behind the scenes, and was always willing to play low status with the other Old Gods in order to achieve his ends (he's very House Dimir, for you Ravnica fans.)
And that means that N'zoth is the Old God that seems to have the most personality. Frankly, in the Azshara Warbringers short, I've also thought that N'zoth's slick "I like deals" voice (which is closer to voice actor Darrin DePaul's real voice) is his true one. (Actually, in general I dislike how they made Yogg-Saron's voice into a generic screaming monster. C'thun's super-creepy whispers feel way more appropriate for an eldritch abomination.)
It is tough, to be fair, to do a big build up to a character whose whole deal is manipulating things behind the scenes. The whole point, after all, is for you not to realize that he's been behind things.
The problem, though is that now N'zoth feels as if he's kind of tacked on to this expansion. And that feels like a wasted opportunity given how interesting a villain he should be.
Here's the thing: BFA's story is a bifurcated mess. I know it's always a danger to suggest that you, an audience member, know how a plot should have been written, but let me pitch you an alternative:
N'zoth should have been the one behind this war. He should have been the one manipulating it behind the scenes. He should have corrupted people in the inner circles of the Alliance and Horde to drive the war forward. We should have spent much of the war campaign discovering the plotting behind the scenes like some kind of conspiracy thriller, and at the end of 8.2, we should have come to the shocking realization that this war has all been serving N'zoth's purposes - maybe mining all that Azerite (and destroying it, given how we seem to be making explosives out of the stuff) has weakened the World Soul's defenses enough that N'zoth is finally able to make his final push to corrupt her.
And that would create great urgency for the final raid, in which we race to kill N'zoth before he can fulfill his ancient mission.
And given that it's N'zoth, he might have some contingency plan in place (to be fair, that could still be true.)
We know almost nothing about the Jailor in the Shadowlands, but it feels as if he's actually doing the sort of things that I'd have expected N'zoth to do. I'm super excited to go to death world and everything, but it does feel as if N'zoth is getting short shrift, even if he's the first Old God to be the final boss of an expansion.
Tier Sets and Class Identity
We didn't get tier sets in BFA.
After an expansion in which one's class was central to the experience of the game, with three true raid tiers complete with class-themed sets as well as an Order Hall set (which, to be fair, was just downgraded versions of the Challenge Mode dungeon sets from Mists, except of course the Demon Hunters') it was kind of a rude shock to find that BFA would not have any class-themed sets.
Instead, we got what will ultimately amount to four raid armor sets - one for each armor type for Uldir, Dazar'alor, Eternal Palace, and Ny'alotha.
Now, not to sell Blizzard short, we also got heritage armor sets for all the allied races as well as, by 8.3, six of the pre-established races, as well as the Warfront sets.
Still, I think I'm not alone in being pretty underwhelmed by the sets - specifically the raid sets - this expansion.
And here's an area where the question of flavor versus mechanics comes into play.
I understand why they didn't do tier sets - with three pieces of gear that traditionally have made up three of your five set pieces taken up by Azerite armor, it wouldn't make sense to throw that stuff on top of tier set bonuses.
Sure, Azerite Armor wound up being a cumbersome system (and a classic example of design for design's sake, rather than for compelling gameplay) but with it in place, there wasn't really much of a space to do set bonuses.
But frankly, that's never what I really liked about tier sets.
Different raids have given us different takes on our classes. In Wrath, despite having four raid tiers (though I think these days they would have made Trial of the Crusader into a "minor raid") we only got two brand-new tier sets, given that Naxxramas really just updated the original tier 3 sets (crazy to think that the original Naxx was only three years earlier, roughly) with the obvious exception of the Death Knight's set, which was original. And of course because Trial of the Crusader technically gave each class its own models (and very different models depending on your faction) but really just did alternate color schemes for classes within the same armor type.
Still, I think that the two totally original and specific paladin sets from that expansion, tiers 8 and 10, really showed what you could do with class-themed tier sets.
Tier 8 is one I'd love to see updated with modern 3-dimensionality and textures. It makes you look like some kind of walking titan-made furnace. It's one of my favorite paladin sets and the only reason I don't use it for transmog is that it's just kind of dated (I'm also not really crazy about the "plate skirt" look they often give Paladins.) But it feels inextricably linked to Ulduar as a raid with its futuristic magitech feel.
Tier 10, though, is grim. I always thought it was a shame the set wasn't called Ashbringer, and instead has the rather dull name "Lightsworn," because it literally depicts skulls that have been shattered and are now on fire. Paladins, after all, are the ones with a steely resolve to fight evil, and that resolve allows them to channel the light to smite their foes. Tier 10 felt perfect for Icecrown, not only because of this undead-smiting look, but also because it actually looked very warm to wear (not just because of the fires in the shoulderpads and helmet) and I've always assumed Icecrown is like 50 below zero at its warmest.
But despite how profoundly different these both look (though both have that plate skirt thing) they both feel very right for a paladin.
And so I think that's a fun challenge: what does a paladin set look like in this context?
Now, shortcuts have been taken many times in the past. Legion, like Wrath, did an update of a tier set, taking the tier 6 sets and upgrading them to modern graphical standards (tier 6 for paladins is what I think of as the definitive paladin set, and the only thing that frustrates me about the new version is that you can't really naturally get a mix of the blue and the gold unless you go for the Mythic version, which then does weird things with the helmet and shoulders.)
I think one of the things the game often struggles with is that sense of class identity. Regardless of whether you're playing a classic good guy class like a Paladin or Druid or if you're playing a dark class like a Warlock or Death Knight, the story remains the same, and you wind up being the same basic mercenary who will kill anyone for a new pair of pants.
At the end of the day, though, I think the reason I care about class tier sets is that it gives us variety. I like when my Rogue and my Demon Hunter look really different.
But speaking of Demon Hunters:
When they first announced BFA wouldn't have class sets, they said that they'd already done enough variations on what, for example, a Warlock set could look like. That's all well and good for the classes that have been there since day one, but Demon Hunters only ever got the three tier sets. I guess we should be grateful they're still making Warglaives and not just forcing DHs to wield swords or axes like a common Rogue, but still, I'm sure that there are other angles on the Demon Hunter's armor (and to lesser extents Monks and Death Knights) that haven't been explored.
The set bonuses are fun. But I also see how they're sort of obsolete in the era of artifacts and that kind of new mechanic.
But I'm much more interested in the art and look of class sets. I'd like to see them return, please.
After an expansion in which one's class was central to the experience of the game, with three true raid tiers complete with class-themed sets as well as an Order Hall set (which, to be fair, was just downgraded versions of the Challenge Mode dungeon sets from Mists, except of course the Demon Hunters') it was kind of a rude shock to find that BFA would not have any class-themed sets.
Instead, we got what will ultimately amount to four raid armor sets - one for each armor type for Uldir, Dazar'alor, Eternal Palace, and Ny'alotha.
Now, not to sell Blizzard short, we also got heritage armor sets for all the allied races as well as, by 8.3, six of the pre-established races, as well as the Warfront sets.
Still, I think I'm not alone in being pretty underwhelmed by the sets - specifically the raid sets - this expansion.
And here's an area where the question of flavor versus mechanics comes into play.
I understand why they didn't do tier sets - with three pieces of gear that traditionally have made up three of your five set pieces taken up by Azerite armor, it wouldn't make sense to throw that stuff on top of tier set bonuses.
Sure, Azerite Armor wound up being a cumbersome system (and a classic example of design for design's sake, rather than for compelling gameplay) but with it in place, there wasn't really much of a space to do set bonuses.
But frankly, that's never what I really liked about tier sets.
Different raids have given us different takes on our classes. In Wrath, despite having four raid tiers (though I think these days they would have made Trial of the Crusader into a "minor raid") we only got two brand-new tier sets, given that Naxxramas really just updated the original tier 3 sets (crazy to think that the original Naxx was only three years earlier, roughly) with the obvious exception of the Death Knight's set, which was original. And of course because Trial of the Crusader technically gave each class its own models (and very different models depending on your faction) but really just did alternate color schemes for classes within the same armor type.
Still, I think that the two totally original and specific paladin sets from that expansion, tiers 8 and 10, really showed what you could do with class-themed tier sets.
Tier 8 is one I'd love to see updated with modern 3-dimensionality and textures. It makes you look like some kind of walking titan-made furnace. It's one of my favorite paladin sets and the only reason I don't use it for transmog is that it's just kind of dated (I'm also not really crazy about the "plate skirt" look they often give Paladins.) But it feels inextricably linked to Ulduar as a raid with its futuristic magitech feel.
Tier 10, though, is grim. I always thought it was a shame the set wasn't called Ashbringer, and instead has the rather dull name "Lightsworn," because it literally depicts skulls that have been shattered and are now on fire. Paladins, after all, are the ones with a steely resolve to fight evil, and that resolve allows them to channel the light to smite their foes. Tier 10 felt perfect for Icecrown, not only because of this undead-smiting look, but also because it actually looked very warm to wear (not just because of the fires in the shoulderpads and helmet) and I've always assumed Icecrown is like 50 below zero at its warmest.
But despite how profoundly different these both look (though both have that plate skirt thing) they both feel very right for a paladin.
And so I think that's a fun challenge: what does a paladin set look like in this context?
Now, shortcuts have been taken many times in the past. Legion, like Wrath, did an update of a tier set, taking the tier 6 sets and upgrading them to modern graphical standards (tier 6 for paladins is what I think of as the definitive paladin set, and the only thing that frustrates me about the new version is that you can't really naturally get a mix of the blue and the gold unless you go for the Mythic version, which then does weird things with the helmet and shoulders.)
I think one of the things the game often struggles with is that sense of class identity. Regardless of whether you're playing a classic good guy class like a Paladin or Druid or if you're playing a dark class like a Warlock or Death Knight, the story remains the same, and you wind up being the same basic mercenary who will kill anyone for a new pair of pants.
At the end of the day, though, I think the reason I care about class tier sets is that it gives us variety. I like when my Rogue and my Demon Hunter look really different.
But speaking of Demon Hunters:
When they first announced BFA wouldn't have class sets, they said that they'd already done enough variations on what, for example, a Warlock set could look like. That's all well and good for the classes that have been there since day one, but Demon Hunters only ever got the three tier sets. I guess we should be grateful they're still making Warglaives and not just forcing DHs to wield swords or axes like a common Rogue, but still, I'm sure that there are other angles on the Demon Hunter's armor (and to lesser extents Monks and Death Knights) that haven't been explored.
The set bonuses are fun. But I also see how they're sort of obsolete in the era of artifacts and that kind of new mechanic.
But I'm much more interested in the art and look of class sets. I'd like to see them return, please.
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