Canonfire!

Wed Feb 11, 2009 12:45 pm 4e Closes The Loop On Player Races & Classes

4e Closes The Loop On Player Races & Classes... about mid year.

If you are bothered by Dragonborn, Teiflings and such then the official races that were available in 1e will be available with the release of the PH2 in March 2009.

PH2 will also fill in the classes that are missing, except the Monk. The good news is a beta test version of the Monk will be available around May or June to DDI subscribers. The finalized version will be released in 2010 in the PH3.

So, if you want to run Greyhawk al la 1e-3e in 4e here are the sources:

Races:
Dwarf PH1
Elf PH1 (Wood Elves)
Gnome PH2
Halfling PH1
1/2 Elf PH1
1/2 Orc PH2
Human PH1

Additional Races:
Devas PH2 (Assimar)
Dragonborn PH1
Drow FRPG
Eladrin PH1 (Grey/High Elves)
Genesi FRPG
Goliaths PH2
Tieflings PH1
Warforged Dragon Mag
Note: You can play some of these races from the MM1, but they don't have full support in feats and some abilities may change.

Classes:
Bard PH2
Barbarian PH2
Cleric PH1
Druid PH2
Fighter PH1
Monk PH3/Beta
Ranger PH1
Paladin PH1
Sorcerer PH2
Wizard PH1

Additional Classes
Artificer Dragon Mag
Avenger PH2
Invoker PH2
Swordmage FRPG
Warden PH2
Warlock PH1
Warlord PH2

I am already planning my move to 4e based on these lists. I have been using 4e monsters (slightly modded) in my 3.5 campaign and I am finding the encounter building system to be faster and saner... I can build encounters in 1/4 to 1/2 the time I was in 3e and I can pay attention to more fluffy stuff instead.

Plus I can scale the encounters better for my 8 players. I will probably loose some of them when I switch but such is life.

Saracenus

Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:08 pm

The discussion on development of the Gnome and 1/2 Orc for PHB at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20090206 was kind of interesting to me. Not sure I like it yet, but still kind of interesting to see where they're going with it. I'm still kind of taken aback by the attitude that "no human would every willingly mate with an orc", but everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.

I totally agree on how easy it is to come up with encounters. Saracenus, have you used the Encounter Builder at WotC at all?

Thu Feb 12, 2009 7:08 pm

Scott,

I haven't used it yet. I have used the monster builder to customize some monsters. This is the first time I have used the 4e monsters in my 3.5 game. It was one of the best encounters I have run with a large group and the first time my min/max boys and girls have been seriously challenged.

~~Saracenus

Fri Feb 13, 2009 5:21 am

I'm converting the Age of Worms and some LG adventures to 4e as I go. I'm hoping that someone will convert GDQ for me in due course. Luckily none of our pcs were abolished races or classes and npcs are easy to blag so we just converted the pcs and carried on.

I'm actually looking forward to seeing some Greyhawk fans attempts at major npcs. Variation in the abilities of famous npc wizards and clerics will be very interesting.

Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:36 pm

Thanks for the posts guys, it's good to see for those of us who are interested in using 4e to run games set in GH.

I too am looking forward to seeing what people come up with.

nematode

Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:44 am

Shifters look perfect to seed into Wolf and Tiger nomad tribes as special 'chosen' ones, especially with the new shamanistic primal powers. Shamans themselves look fine. Gnomes are very cool. Building an old school gnome illusionist wizard will actually be a lot of fun. Goliaths are meh. Bung them into Esmerin in the Lortmils maybe. Not well suited to the Crystalmist range, but the Rakers range might work, possibly the mountains near the Yeomanry too.

Deva are really interesting, although like dragonborn, I don't really see them making an appearance in any great fashion. We're not going to be seeing towns of Deva in the Flanaess, although some mountain striongholds might work.

Not sure how druids and wardens will fit together. It seems to me that the great druids would be better suited to the warden class (whose transformations looks more impressive to the masses) with druid multiclass. I'd be interested to see what people think.

The invoker and avenger classes would be good additions to bung in some of the many monasteries around Oerth. I never liked the proliferation of monks, which should generally be restricted to the Baklunish West and the Scarlet Brotherhood (culturally at least - the class powers themselves might be reflavoured but they won't be trained in monasteries).

Quite a bit of potential overall.

Sat May 16, 2009 8:49 pm

Sun May 17, 2009 5:21 am

Was it Beltander? I might be misremembering.

Sun May 17, 2009 8:22 pm

Beltander it is! And each year happy little gnomes descend on the village to hold a feast in remembrance of when the werebears saved them from a horde of orcs! This just typifies why I love Greyhawk.