Forgotten Heroes: Fang, Fist, and Song

[Tavis]

Now that it's preview has made the Coming Soon page, I wanted to start a thread to talk about this book of "forgotten" 4th Edition classes - the barbarian, bard, druid, and monk, which are the respective brainkids of Brian Cortijo, Greg Tito, Eytan Bernstein, and myself. We're proud of the book and excited to talk about it - as you'll notice, some of us are listed as playtesters in the 4E PHB, so there's been a lot we haven't been able to talk about for a long time & may be predisposed to babble now that the veil of silence is lifted!

Inspired by the DCC's "Remember the good old days..." mission statement, we tried to approach these classic classes with the proper reverence for tradition. At the same time, as one of the first 3rd party products for 4E, we wanted to seize the opportunity for mechanical innovation that's compatible with & balanced against the PHB classes, but also expands new design spaces to reflect the feel of these old-school archetypes.

Here are some crunchy new-school teasers:
- The barbarian has a class feature that lets them function as a defender without being encased in heavy armor. If you're been looking for a way to play a nimble warrior who's not a tin can, the barbarian might be the 4E martial class for you!
- Bardic songs and bardic knowledge give them flexibility about which benefits they grant to allies - if you want to grant an ally a bonus to AC, for example, you'd have several different powers that could let you do so, and a different bard might have different leader buffs to offer his party.
- Druids have wildshaping and an animal companion, abilities that we thought were essential to the class and worked really hard to represent while avoiding the complaints that people had in 3E.
- Monks have four at-will stances that let them choose each round whether they want to emphasize wary defense, fluid movement, ground-fighting, or trying to defuse a conflict.

And here's a bit of campaign inspiration that ought to be familiar to faithful readers of the AD&D Player's Handbook. This is one of five tables in the introduction, which cover such things as rolling your own campaign-world-altering apocalypse and creating adventure hooks around the conflict between the goals of the book's new classes. This one sketches ways that members of each class might conflict with their own class hierarchy (and is more nicely formatted in the book):

Barbarian
When You Are - Seeking to achieve an objective that requires gathering a horde of warriors, or standing in the way of such a horde’s goal.
You Must Challenge - Influential tribal hetmans, or the barbarian currently leading the horde.
Sample Contest - Three rounds: boasting, drinking, and wrestling.

Bard
When You Are - The creator of a legendary performance that inspires jealousy among influential members of your bardic college.
You Must Challenge - The Dean or Chancellor
Sample Contest - Competing performances judged by the Seelie Court.

Druid
When You Are - An Initiate of the 9th Circle
You Must Challenge - The Archdruid, and then the Great Druid
Sample Contest - Find the grove of power, drive out its previous tenant.

Monk
When You Are - A Superior Master
You Must Challenge - Three Masters of Dragons: the Green, the Red, and the White.
Sample Contest - Duel on a monastery rooftop during a hurricane.

[xredjasonx]

I'll be picking this up for sure. My dm is a little worried that these may not hold up to the Players Handbook 2 versions, but I'm not as worried as I know you guys put out some pretty solid stuff. How do you think they will be different/similar?

[Tavis]

Eytan has been doing a ton of writing for WotC recently, including (I suspect) some stuff for the PHBII. But he's been annoyingly responsible about not mixing the streams, so he hasn't seen their version of the druid (since that's the class he did primary design for) and has refrained from telling us about how they're doing things differently on our other classes. And some of that caution must have rubbed off, since I got in the habit of not reading previews of the PHBII or even checking out fan versions of these classes so that I could be sure we hadn't been influenced by anyone's ideas. Except, of course, those of Gygax, Arneson, the mythological and literary sources they drew from, and everyone who's contributed to the development of these classes within the D&D tradition prior to 4E!

So I'm afraid I don't know how they'll compare to other 4E implementations of the same archetype, although if you give me a rundown of what we know about the PHBII versions I could use that to point out where our approaches differ.

I can say that we strove for a balance between being faithful to the original OD&D/1E versions of these classes, and including things that were introduced in 3E and are now the basis for most players' vision of what the class is like. For example, there was a lot of debate about whether rage should be included in the barbarian's class features, since that's not part of the original AD&D Unearthed Arcana barbarian. We wound up giving barbarians a rage ability, but it's less central to the class, making them closer to the wilderness-roving survivalist Gygax described than the frothing berserker that 3E popularized. I briefly argued for keeping Gygax's crazy restrictions on at what level barbarians could use magic weapons or even associate with spellcasters, but I was overruled

[Eytan Bernstein]

I'll be picking this up for sure. My dm is a little worried that these may not hold up to the Players Handbook 2 versions, but I'm not as worried as I know you guys put out some pretty solid stuff. How do you think they will be different/similar?

I think we went in quite a different direction with the druid. We do have wildshape, but it isn't the primary focus of the class. I've heard (and in this instance, I speak with no insider knowledge), that WotC is planning to focus more on shapeshifting than what we did. I wanted our druid to do the classic things people like - animal companion, wildshape, and nature manipulation (plants, animals, elements, weather). I've since heard more about WotC's bard, and while I can't tell you anything about it, I can say that we went in a completely different direction.

[xredjasonx]

Thanks for the responses, I'm totally psyched for it now! It's cool, that you guys worked to keep these classes true to the original, and seemingly went in a different direction than the PH2 versions. Keep up the hard work!

[StickPerson]

First off let me say that I’m stoked that you guys are doing these forgotten heroes guide books. Also I should mention that Goodman is my third party publisher of choice for D&D and I’m so glad you guys are on board with 4th edition.

I DM and use Aereth as our campaign setting (love it) and use DCC's as our adventure's of choice (currently making our way through Legacy of the Savage Kings). We just converted to 4th edition and a couple players had to compromise a bit in the conversion of their PC's. One in particular was playing a halfling shadowcaster from WoTC's Tome of Magic. He ended up just being a wizard (we already had a halfling warlock) and it just doesn't seem like his character is anything like what it was under 3.5 rules. That being said I'd like to see some kind of illusion/shadow based controller type of class made available.

In fact playing off the post-apocalyptic theme from the first hero book, perhaps you could play on the fact that the apocalypse made separation between the planes and "real world" much less stable, allowing for heroes aligned from the 4E cosmology.

Here is something just off the top of my head to illustrate my idea...

Chaos Champion (Elemental chaos), a defender in touch with the elemental chaos, bathes himself in its protective energies while also using it to clobber his foes.

Feywild Assassin (Feywild), a stealthy striker who can slip in and out of the feywild with ease to give her an advantage in delivering devastating attacks.

Astral Channeler (Astral sea), a leader who channels the power of the astral sea to give aid and comfort to allies.

Shadow Illusionist (Shadowfell), a controller who is master of shadow magic and illusion.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to what you guys come up with.

[mightyjules]

Waoo,how cool is that please!All the missing classes collected in one single book.Even the monk is there.My favorite class!Thank you sooo much! Now I can be finally happy that the 4th Edition is out. And since even Rob Heinsoo is not allowed to work on the "Oriental Adventures" it would have taken years to have a new official monk class (probably 2010).Heirs to 3rd party publishers and screw WOTC!

There some things I´d like know if you don´t mind:

Monk:

- How did you guys solve the point that monks generally don´t wear armor?Do they now?Robes or wholebody G-Strings ?
- What about the unarmed damage?Is it improving like the old class?How many times?@ Paragon and Epic?
- What about being the best "savingthrower"?Guess not anymore eh?
- Abilityscores anyone?Still Wis,Dex and Strength?Would be quite lame if so.That was one of the biggest problems the monk
had in 3.5. like the Paladin.Often even 32 Points where not enough for good monk
- Is Unarmed damage higher than the damage from monk weapons?If not why should I buy one?For tripping?

General:

- Will there be feats,weapons and special magic items for all classes?
- How many pages fluff will each class have? 4E is not really doing a good job in those terms in my opinion.
- Are there implements written how the classes fit in Eberron and Fearun?

Just curios

So far, would be nice to get at least some answers,

Take care Jules

[mightyjules]

Oh, is there an international realesedate yet besides October?

[Tavis]

In fact playing off the post-apocalyptic theme from the first hero book, perhaps you could play on the fact that the apocalypse made separation between the planes and "real world" much less stable, allowing for heroes aligned from the 4E cosmology.

I like the idea of a planar heroes book - unless the GSL gets substantially revised we couldn't use specific names like the Feywild, but the general concepts you sketch could certainly work & they're ones I'd like to play for sure!

[Tavis]

- How did you guys solve the point that monks generally don´t wear armor?Do they now?Robes or wholebody G-Strings ?

Monks can wear enchanted cloth armor - most of the things you can imagine as a mage's robes can also be visualized as a martial artist's gi or kimono. But their AC comes mostly from a stance - round to round, they can choose a defensive posture (boost AC) or a fluid posture (boost movement), or two other stances.

- What about the unarmed damage?Is it improving like the old class?How many times?@ Paragon and Epic?

Monks have options that let their unarmed attacks stack up against other martial weapons in terms of proficiency bonus and base damage, with a feat that puts it in the range of a superior weapon. Damage increases through powers, with level 30 powers doing 7[W] - but the base W doesn't increase. Even though I love the way the AD&D monk wound up doing d20 damage with each of their multiple hits, it woudn't play nicely with 4E multiclassing.

- What about being the best "savingthrower"?Guess not anymore eh?

+1/+1/+1, like a paladin. In defensive posture and with a balanced build, though, I've seen monks achieve a "cant-touch-me-ness" that feels true to prior editions.

- Abilityscores anyone?Still Wis,Dex and Strength?Would be quite lame if so.

Dex is primary, since my basic concept was more martial arts than mystic. Wis and Str are the secondary attributes for the kick-boxer and grappler builds, respectively; a monk with good scores in both secondaries thus has strong Fort, Ref, and Will.

- Is Unarmed damage higher than the damage from monk weapons?If not why should I buy one?For tripping?

You can build a monk to be a weapon master, a purely unarmed fighter, or a mix. Weapons give you some cool basic options, like reach, and there's usually at least one weapon-specific power to choose at each level, like "sweeping pole", that either requires or works well with a weapon. My favorite example of weapon-specific powers are ones that let you throw or break the weapon in your hand; watching HK action films, I felt like the defining characteristic of a Jackie Chan or Jet Li wasn't that they never used weapons, but that they used a lot of different ones in a single fight, often because they'd shatter the one they just had over an enemy's head!

- Will there be feats,weapons and special magic items for all classes?

You bet!

- How many pages fluff will each class have? 4E is not really doing a good job in those terms in my opinion.

We took the PHB as our model, and provided a similar amount of "fluff" text in the same categories. We each certainly have more concepts, descriptions, designer's notes, etc. that didn't make it onto the page. If there's specific kinds of fluff you'd like to see, let us know - we'd love to write it if we can show there's demand!

- Are there implements written how the classes fit in Eberron and Fearun?

Brian and Eytan are both Forgotten Realms experts, but the GSL prohibits publishing stuff for campaign worlds WotC owns, and without a fan site policy I'm not sure we could even post our own ideas or encourage you to do so! Making it easy to fit the classes into the specifics of your campaign was a major goal, though, so conversion to those core D&D worlds should be a snap.

So far, would be nice to get at least some answers

I'm happy to provide! Sorry not to have done so sooner, and that I don't know anything more about release date than you do.

[mightyjules]

What about the Stunning strike,Quivering palm and recistences ?Does he still have those in a way? Prestige classes are in as well?

[mightyjules]

Hmm, Amazon says 8th of October.So it will be in England on the 15th of October?Oh I gotta ask another question.Will the monk later be able to have all stances active at the same time?I´m mean with feats or utility's?

What my my questions dude?Are you asking your Chief of Marketing what information you are allowed to publish ?I bet!

[goodmangames]

Don't rely too much on Amazon's dates... they're not always right. Once this puppy goes to the printer I can quote you more exact dates, but for now the US release date is around "late October."

[mightyjules]

Does this mean that the book won´t be available before November in the UK?

[goodmangames]

Well, certain UK distributors use freight forwarders and often get the books at nearly the same time as US stores, so the UK date might not be that different from the US date. As we get closer I will be able to give more exact dates.

[Tavis]

Will the monk later be able to have all stances active at the same time? I´m mean with feats or utility's?

No, but that's a good idea for a feat (probably paragon-level). Add it yourself, and/or let the Director of Marketing know how much you'd like to see a book or PDF of extra feats and other supplemental materials for these classes

[mightyjules]

Will the monk later be able to have all stances active at the same time? I´m mean with feats or utility's?

No, but that's a good idea for a feat (probably paragon-level). Add it yourself, and/or let the Director of Marketing know how much you'd like to see a book or PDF of extra feats and other supplemental materials for these classes

Hello Mister Marketing,i would very much like to see a supplemental book for these classes especially for monk as you might all ready know.Something the like: The Quintessential Monk (Advanced Tactics) from Moongoose Publishing.

But i cannot believe that you designers haven´t thought about putting stances together for Epic and Paragon feats?This is SO obvious! Since Forgotten Heroes will not be published before November.Why don´t you add it then?!I work in a game publisher in the UK so don´t tell me it not possible unless it all ready scheduled for printing.Which I seriosly doubt when you see the quote of this Goodman Guy:).

Or do you skip it for another compendium to the best economic result.?

[Tavis]

Or do you skip it for another compendium to the best economic result.?

Nothing in the GSL says "in order to be compatible with Fourth Edition, each book must be left purposefully incomplete so that gamers are forced to buy more stuff". (And personally, I'm not convinced that this was really the reason that some previously-core classes are not in the PHB. I know from experience that doing things like wildshaping or unarmed/unarmored combat requires breaking new ground, and I can certainly see the 4E design team wanting to get the classes that lay the foundation out first and wait for a supplement to do the ground-breaking classes so that there's more time to work on these unusual ones.)

Seriously, we really didn't think of combining stances! You should give yourself more credit for coming up with a good idea that wasn't obvious. During development I was focused on balancing the stances against one another, so that switching from this one to that would be an interesting trade-off. My thinking was thus on a different track & I would have had to switch gears to come up with an insight that seemed easy to you.

[mightyjules]

So does this mean you will be adding it before it goes to printing?

If you like more advice just look the Tomb of Battle: Book of the 9 Swords.Dual Boost,Insightful Strike are quite good for the monk.You could also let the monk know new at will stances at certain levels as utilities.

You wrote the monk has 4 at will stances at 1st level.At Level 11th he can combine two and at 21st he can combine all 4 as free action.Also you might want to add a cool finishing when the monk changes from one to another.

It would also make sense that at Paragon and an Epic stances will improve very much.

You could hire me as an rules consultant for the monk if you like .I love this class!

[Tavis]

I'm pretty sure the text has already passed into a too-late-to-change step of the process. However, what better way could there be to demonstrate your qualifications for hire as a creator of monk rules than to write up & post the feats you describe?

[mightyjules]

I think i will need to see the big picture of the monk class from Forgotten Heroes to write my ideas here.Could you send me a free pdf please?

[fathead]

Alright...I admit that I only skimmed this thread, but I have a specific question - is there anything in the book relating how to handle the multiclass feat for these classes? We've just started a campaign, and I have a feeling that some of these classes will be of interest to my players.

If there isn't anything, I suspect it will be pretty easy to add...

[Tavis]

Yep, there's lots of stuff you can use in an ongoing campaign without starting new PCs. There are multiclass feats for each of the new classes (two for the monk, each granting a different one of the monk's abilities). There are feats that are useful to characters of other classes, like weapon style feats that let you use certain weapons more effectively (a more flavorful but otherwise balanced alternative to taking a weapon proficiency feat). And, once your campaign reaches that point, there are paragon paths that might let existing PCs grow into a different aspect. Oh, and new magic items too!

[mightyjules]

Soo,you moved the Book to November then?You´re not re-designing the monk,are you?I mean in terms of giving him at a certain level all stances to be available at the same time?!

Quote me please if I´m wrong.I want my nickname to be in the very good idea credit page.

[mightyjules]

Is the cover actually a placeholder or the final one?Doesn´t look like it.When will we see the final one?Before the release?