Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Battery-powered ... fighter?

I'm not sure what I think of this "power source" idea. It might make sense for the spellcasters, as a way for them to remain viable as spellcasters (contrary to what Griff wants to see), but I don't see the need for the fighter types.

The draw of the fighter classes over the spellcasting classes has always been that they don't run out. They may not have the fanciest attacks (though grappling, tripping, stunning, tripping, disarming, etc. are all interesting at times), but they keep on going. The spellcasters got to zap whole groups at a time, a few chosen times, and then let the "meat shields" step in and clean up. Is there a need to have either extra abilities that are available from this power source, or to limit their existing abilities down to a power source? To me, this sounds like the fighters are going to have more abilities than before, and so we should now expect even more from the spellcasters, or their older "infinite" set of abilities are being limited, which means their power-sourced abilities better be impressive indeed to make these classes at all desirable.

The other interpretation is that the power source would be used for feat-like abilities -- in which case, what are feats for? Or if they're used for skill-like actions, what are skills for? Unfortunately, these last two Design & Development articles have been complete teasers, giving us nothing but tidbits to rant or rave about. I'm wary, but until we seen a hands-on example of these power sources, I won't rule it out quite yet.

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