The WoW/D&D Book Seems Very Ambitious: Lineages and "Hero Subclasses"

 I've been looking up interviews with designers on the WoW/D&D crossover book, and this one with James Wyatt gave us a lot more exciting and interesting details.

Hero Subclasses:

The Demon Hunter and Death Knight are being presented in the WoW book as subclasses for the Ranger and Paladin, respectively. Hearing that, I'd been a bit worried about how well that would really get the vibes and flavor of those classes across. While I think that the base classes they're attached to are fairly appropriate (I could imagine Demon Hunters as using the Warlock base class, but you'd need to force them to go Pact of the Blade somehow) subclasses can be somewhat limited in how much they change how someone plays the game.

The approach, however, to how WoW classes are represented in D&D is something that Wyatt touched on, saying that the approach varies from class to class. Mages of all three specializations are basically Evoker Wizards, but he says that they'll list suggested spells to take and even have new feats to support the playstyles associated with those specs.

But when it comes to these Hero Classes, while details are sparse, the idea is that you need to start the character at 3rd level to play one, and that the third-level features the subclasses have will go back and make some changes to 1st and 2nd level features from those base classes. The impression I get is that these subclasses will be more dramatically different than other subclasses - naturally, a Beast Master Ranger fits perfectly with the Beast Mastery Hunter from WoW, but a Demon Hunter is a totally separate class in WoW. If this subclass then makes more extensive changes to how the Ranger actually works, it might help differentiate itself more while still making use of the existing Ranger framework.

Sadly, we don't really have details on how this will work. My first guess is that Ebon Blade Paladins might do Necrotic damage instead of Radiant with their Divine Smite (maybe changing its name - perhaps Rune Strike?) But the potential is there for more extensive changes as well.

Lineages:

So, I'd assumed the path of least resistance for the way they handle playable species. And in fairness, some of the options will be 1:1 with the D&D ones. Wyatt mentioned that D&D Orcs and WoW Orcs are basically the same, so if you want to play an Orc who lives in the suburbs of Orgrimmar, you can just use the option from the Player's Handbook.

However, it appears that they're not going the simplest route on all of these. I'd assumed that the Night Elves would simply be re-skinned Wood Elves, and that the Blood Elves would be re-skinned High Elves. But evidently, they'll be including lineages for all five WoW Elf peoples - the Night Elves, Blood Elves, Void Elves, Nightborne, and the High Elves (curious to see if that one does just use the PHB version). In WoW, you can only play two kinds of Trolls, the Darkspear or Zandalari, but evidently there will be other options, like Forest Trolls (basically the Amani) and then perhaps the Ice Trolls (Drakkari,) Desert Trolls (Farraki) and Jungle Trolls (Gurubashi, though technically the Darkspear are from this lineage as well).

He mentioned specifically that the Draenei will have four lineages: "Exodar" Draenei (kind of the default) and Lightforged Draenei, both of which are playable in game. Then, you can play as a Man'ari Eredar (former demons who have rejoined their Eredar kin after the defeat of the Burning Legion, which is available just as a cosmetic option for standard Draenei in WoW) and finally the Krokul/Broken, who have been part of the Draenei people since they were introduced in Burning Crusade (2007) but have never been playable.

Regarding humans, they expect you to simply use the PHB version of the Human, but they're adding new Origin Feats to reflect different national backgrounds. I assume we'll at least get ones for Stormwind and Kul Tiras (the two playable humans in WoW, unless you count the werewolf-like Worgen and the Undead, both of which are former humans).

While the recent Lupin from Ravenloft: Horrors Within certainly could stand in for the Worgen, apparently the Worgen in this book will be an original species, though Wyatt described them as being based on the framework of the Shifter from Eberron, but narrowed down to exclusively wolf-themed features.

I believe Tauren were also mentioned, with lineage options for Taunka. Presumably, they'll include the Highmountain Tauren and possibly the Yaungol.

    The more I learn about this book, the more impressed I am at the high ambition it seems to reflect. This doesn't seem like a "let's just tweak things barely enough to make it fit in D&D's rules," but seems to be a really radical reimagining how how 5.5's rules work to best emulate the WoW feel.

My big criticism of D&D's direction over the course of much of 5E is that it could stand to be bolder. In other interviews, I've seen them talk about how they might bring ideas designed for this WoW book into the broader 5.5 systems, and that makes me excited that this will be far more than a corporate-synergy-friendly cash-grab, and might actually wind up being one of the most important books in 5.5.