World Famous Comics: Martial Power: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (D&D Rules Expansion)
Martial Power: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (D&D Rules Expansion)
By: Wizards RPG Team Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Wizards of the Coast Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 160 Publication Date: November 18, 2008 Release Date: November 18, 2008
Product Description: New options for fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords.
This tome focuses on the martial heroes: characters who rely on their combat talents and keen wits for survival.
This book provides new archetypal builds for the fighter, ranger, rogue, and warlord classes, including new character powers, feats, paragon paths, and epic destinies.
Martial Power is the first of a line of player-friendly supplements offering hundreds of new options for D&D characters.
Martial Power Suppliment This book is just a suppliment to the combat aspect of d&d. In the 159 pages it contains new powers and paragon paths for all the martial classes; (i.e.) Rouge, fighter, ranger, warlord. It also gives new build options for the classes. New feats are incuded in the back for all the Players Handbook one races and classes that are meant for martial classes but includes Genasi and Drow from the Forgotten Realmes book.
Over all the book is small and only gets used when leveling or creating a character, but the powers, paths, and feats are much beatter than that of the Players Handbook.
Hold off I bought this book before I fully realized what an awful system 4e is. I highly recommend that you just play with the core books for a while until you are comfortable with the combat rules. Then you may realize that the system is not (or perhaps is) for you. Everyone in my gaming group has sold their 4e books. I was the only one foolish enough to buy this book, trying beyond reason to *like* the new system, before realizing we were just playing a game of Advanced D&D Miniatures.
I should say that the reason I think 4e is awful is because I'm looking for something a little more immersive. It was actually fun for a short time because the combat system was interesting. If you liked DDM, I have no doubt that this will be a good book for you. As a roleplayer, it just wasn't my thing.
filler free book-o-options Look I'm not gonna lie to you people. I bought this book for pure crunchy player options. Its not that I'm a power gamer, my games are very story centric, but lets face it after 15 years of playing DnD do I really want to pay for chapters on "how do fighters/rangers/thieves fit into your game?", or reams of random premade dungeons or strongholds like in many previous class splat books? Hell no i don't want to pay for that nonsense, and if this is the new dirrection of 4th ed I wont have to unless i want to. Frankly this fact alone is enough to give this book four stars out of shear joy of lack of filler content. But seriously, whats in this filler free volume is actually pretty sweet to. Tons of interesting ways to set your character apart. Yes, you could always do this with roleplaying (and lord knows if you dont your missing the point), but lets face it, its always nice to have rules that help reflect/express your characters background, style, and personality. It has a pretty large selection feats, powers, and paragon paths for all the martial characters, personal faves include the blade banshee paragon path, the pole arm based warlord path, and the coolest epic destiny ever-the godhunter. I was a bit let down by the beast companion rules for rangers though, as i felt they are needlessly complex (I'm still not sure I get them lol.)
Not THAT impressive I thumbed through the book a few times and saw a well organized supplement. But there was some big bouloxes that I might want to point out. For one thing the warlord class? The very name is absurd. That is a title of a person who EARNED it. Also I don't know to many people who would aspire to play drow characters for very long. They are marginal at best and I fail to see why the big fascination with them by Wizards. They are dangerous yes, but not exactly 'center stage' races. Dragon born? Tieflings? Supperflous and unbalancing at best. Though the powers are truly wonderful I don't know to many times that characters/campaings held out long enough beyond perhaps the 12th or maybe 20th level at BEST. Getting up in levels is very tough and ardous at a certain point and most would probably like to move on to another campaing or character after playing the character for so long. Wizards seems to be impressed with themselves at making this supplemeant. 4.0 came out a bit too soon. The supplemeant is worth looking into if your characters happen to go up in levels that are higher up and the time has been put in. I strongly,vehemently disagree that rouges are 'martial' in some sort of way. They do fight, but not in the sense of toe-toe as the term martial might suggest. The rouges are a class all their own and should be addressed in another supplemeant, imo. They are sneaky and dangerous from the 'shadows'. They are goal oriented and don't particularly enjoy standing up to a big mean monster, bady. They just want to get the job done and get out. Isn't that what 'rouges' do? But there is some interesting options for rangers that are in 'exotic' range. There are some options for longer ranged fighters. ENough there to give your long range fighters a boost, but long range fighters often find themselves quickly meeled and in need of hand2hand options. If you find yourself actually playing for a while and using true 'martial' types then you might want to check this book out, but for pete's sake, don't pay full price for it.
Martial Power As usually, following the new edition of the D&D, flood of expansions is hitting the market, covering the area left uncovered by the core books. Martial Power is designed to give more options for those classes that use "martial power" as their power source - meaning fighters, rangers, rogues and warlords. They are given more options in powers, feats and archetypes in their advancement paths. Essentially, while there is always feeling that something more could have been introduced, it does it's job pretty well. One thing that had the feeling of somewhat lacking was equipment section - some more options in it would have been nice.
Overall, impression is good - poligraphy, as always, is on high level, price is apropriate for the hobby book and artwork, provided you like the style is fine.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
