So over on DDI the team at WotC has given us a playtest of the mulitclass and hybrid options for some of the classes presented in the first Essentials books, as well as the classes from Heroes of Shadow.
And if you don’t care to read much further - they’re great. Of course there is always some tweaking that needs to be done. Those tweaks come after the jump!
First lets get a breakdown of the article, as it’s pretty lengthy, then I’ll delve into the issues I see with the rules presented.
The article opens up with a great picture of a hybrid vampire (maybe a warlord vampire?) wielding a flail. I only mention this because I’m sure that image is almost exactly what most players thought about when a Vampire class was announced. Then there comes the crunch I’ll give my rundown of the highlights:
Executioner and OAssassin: The R&D team took care of the number one gripe I hear when people talk about the Executioner: “It’s not enough shadow for me!” Well now you can mix and match your Executioner and OAssassin abilities to taste with the Executioner Guild option for the OAssassin and the new class feature Master of Shrouds for the Executioner. The new Guild allows the OAssassin to pick up the Assassin’s Strike power and loose out on their other Encounters - an interesting trade. And the new class feature allows an Executioner to get more shadowy by replacing Attack Finesse with the Assassin’s Shroud class feature.
Past all that, there is a handful of feats (a small handful mind you) that allow you to multiclass into Executioner and pick up some poison uses instead of dailies and to tack on some extra d8s once per encounter. Solid.
Hybrid: The hybrid option for the executioner gives your character 2 at-wills from your guild and a slower progressing Assassin’s Strike power. You also get the extra d6’s that tack onto your MBA’s and Assassin powers. Pretty standard stuff. However, the Executioner (and many of the subclasses) have a restriction that I have mixed feelings about. It says that when you choose Executioner Hybrid you cannot then choose another Assassin class as your second hybrid option. I’ll talk more about this in my feedback section though.
Vampire: The multiclass option I’ve heard most folks go on about wanting is actually kinda interesting. It also takes up a pretty sizable amount of space in this article. First there is the Vampirism Multiclass feat that gives your character the Child of Night class feature with a few restrictions - namely the mechanical bonuses. It also gives you Blood is Life and Enduring Soul. Basically all the ingredients needed to dress your character up as a blood sucking monster. The most interesting thing about it though is that it also messes around with your character’s healing surge total, but what it does exactly is a bit misty...I have some issues with the phrasing of that part of the feat - but that’s for the feedback section! Past that it gives a bunch of feats that pair up with the other power source you’ve picked up - like the Arcane Vampire feat that adds Charisma mod to damage if you spend a healing surge, or the Divine Vampire that allows you to use your healing powers to instead take healing surges from your allies. In addition, all of these feats allow you to steal a healing surge 1/encounter when you hit with a power from your non-vampire class.
Sounds fun.
Warlock: The warlock got some interesting feats that allow any warlock (from any of the subclasses) to pick up a pact blade from your pact. So you can take the Icy Skewer if you’re a fey pact Warlock from the PHB, or you could pick up the Scourge of Exquisite Pain with your Gloom pact binder. The best part? You also get the associated at-will power for that weapon without having to give anything up for it (other than the feat of course).
There’s a whole lot more to this article (yay for content!) but I’m not going to go over the whole thing!
Feedback:
I haven’t actually used any of this content in game, so all of this is going to be speculative from reading the article. I hope to be able to use some of this soon, and then be able to provide my feedback to WotC from that.
Firstly, I dislike that each hybrid section places a specific hybrid restriction. I agree with the idea that you shouldn’t be able to make an Assassin | Executioner but I don’t know if it needs to be specified in the write up of the hybrid entry for that character. If I’m not mistaken in the rules of the hybrid system you cannot take the same class twice (ie you couldn’t hybrid a Bard | Bard or a Fighter | Fighter that would just be silly) so why is it that it needs to be said that I cant be an Assassin | Executioner specifically in the entry to the hybrid? At most, a sidebar or a small section at the beginning of the article titled “A note on Subclasses” or something would be fine for those players that immediately think about “breaking” the system with such shenanigans. By specifying this in each hybrid entry, WotC further reinforces the idea that the Executioner/Blackguard/Sentinel/etc are not actually a subclass, but are instead completely different classes with arbitrary reasons for not mixing with other classes. I say remove the restriction and add an overall note like “Subclasses count as their progenitor class for the purpose of choosing hybrid classes.”
Now on to the Assassin stuff, which I mostly loved. However, I feel the Practiced Killer Multiclass feat could do with a prerequisite or two. Perhaps a Dex of 13 would suffice? Maybe even a skill training? I dunno, just not everyone should be able to pick up the Executioner.
As to the Vampire stuff, I have some issues with the wording of the Vampirism feat. It says “In addition, reduce the healing surges granted by your class to 2.” Does that mean that you now have a total of 2 healing surges? Which is what I think it means. Or does it mean that you now get 2 + Constitution Modifier? Which could also be an interpretation. I am of the thought that because you gain the Enduring soul and the Blood is Life class features for this feat, removing all but 2 of your healing surges makes sense. But a clarification either way would be nice.
Also on the Vampire, the Blood Thirst feat allows the character to swap out an encounter power for blood drinker. The issue I see here is that blood drinker only keys off hitting an enemy with a vampire melee at-will attack power. First of all that’s a pretty narrow trigger to begin with, but given to a non-vampire the power becomes useless. I guess you could give up the feat slots (because they have no use with a vampire) so you can paragon multiclass and gain an at-will. Or else you could be a half-elf I’d suppose. Either way, I’m sure that wasn’t the point of the feat. Adding “You may use the blood drinker power after hitting with a melee basic attack, or with a melee at-will power from your class.” would fix this issue in my opinion.
I also dislike the secondary effect of the Martial Vampire feat, because I just don’t see it being used that often. I guess it does make your character a bit tougher - but compared to the utility of the Psionic Vampire feat, or the static bonus of the Primal Vampire feat it just seems to fall flat. Perhaps adding “Once per encounter, while you have regeneration granted by the Enduring Soul class feature, you may spend a healing surge to add your Constitution modifier to your regeneration.” or perhaps “Once per encounter, after you hit an enemy with a martial exploit you may spend a healing surge to deal extra damage equal to your Charisma Modifier.” Something.
I have mixed feelings about the Warlock feat “Pact Blade Manifestation” because, to me, it now feels like the lines between the Warlock and the Hexblade have really blurred. But on the other hand, I love blurred lines in most cases! For whatever reason, I just feel like this particular blurring is a bit much, because the pact blade was the Hexblades whole shtick - and suddenly any warlock can summon one up. A small complaint I guess.
My last remark is this: Why the &*@# does the Sentinel hybrid get a fully functional animal companion when the Beast Master Ranger’s hybrid animal companion gets negatives? It isn’t as if the Ranger’s beast companion is that much better than the Sentinel’s (as far as I can tell). I agree that the animal companion shouldn’t have to suck, so I expect errata to the Hybid Ranger. ‘Nuff said.
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