Another preview has been released and with it we get to take another look at what WotC has in store for the future. I genuinely liked what I saw in the Invoker preview; the Druid preview… not so much. Alright then, let’s shake hands and meet the Warden.
Role: Defender. You are sturdy and resilient, and you can assume bestial or treelike forms to destroy your foes. Depending on your choice of class features and powers, you lean toward either controller or striker as a secondary role.
Power Source: Primal. You are a primal champion, a guardian of the natural world and custodian of all living things.
Key Abilities: Strength, Constitution, Wisdom
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide; light shield, heavy shield
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military melee, simple ranged
Bonus to Defense: +1 Fortitude, +1 Will
Hit Points at 1st Level: 17 + Constitution score
Hit Points per Level Gained: 7
Healing Surges per Day: 9 + Constitution modifier
Trained Skills: Nature. From the class skills list below, choose three more trained skills at 1st level.
Class Skills: Athletics (Str), Dungeoneering (Wis), Endurance (Con), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Nature (Wis), Perception (Wis)
Class Features: Font of Life, Guardian Might, Nature’s Wrath
Oh, and before anyone starts wondering whether or not they’re going to release the hounds on me for pasting this, relax. This info is available to anyone who wanders by the class preview page, whether you’re a subscriber or not.
The primary stats, and the powers and features detailed in the rest of the class preview, mean that Wardens will all be focusing on their STR score, and either their CON or WIS score. The weapon and armor proficiencies are nothing special. Grab some hide, a shield and a khopesh and you’re set.
Notice anything unusual about the HP? That’s right, this guy gets more of it at level 1 than any other class. Since CON is an important stat for one of this class’ builds, I’m betting that we’ll be seeing several Warforged, Orc and Minotaur wardens. Eighteen CON at first level translates into a whopping 35 HP… most impressive. Toughness may very well be your first-level feat as a Warden. I mean, who can say no to 40 HP at level 1 (and 10 HP healing surges)? Fortunately the Warden’s HP progression and defense bonuses are nothing unusual, but let’s investigate the class features.
First on the list is Font of Life. A better name would be Font of GODLIKE. Suppose that some jerk hits you with a status effect that can be ended by a saving through, so you’re going to take some damage on your next turn, or maybe you’ll be slowed or something. Doesn’t matter. As soon as your next turn rolls around, before the status effect comes into play, you get to save against it. If you make the save, it’s all good. You shake off that slowness or you don’t take that damage or what-have-you. Oh, what happens if you fail the throw? Well, you suffer the effect as normal but you still get your normal saving throw at the end of your turn. You get TWO saving throws per turn as a warden, one of which can cure what ails you before it ails you!
So far, this is looking nuts. Moving right along, we come to the option: Guardian Might. This one should look familiar to those of you who raged with me at the druid’s option-feature. You get to choose between Earthstrength and Wildblood — these both affect your AC and your Second Wind in different ways. Earthstrength allows you to use your CON modifier in place of your DEX or INT modifier while wearing non-heavy armor, while Wildblood does the same for your WIS modifier so regardless of what two ability scores you’re going to be focusing on (STR(+CON or +WIS)) you’re going to have decent AC so long as you wear hide or leather armor. The second-wind alteration is where things get a little more interesting. Earthstrength gives you a bonus to your AC equal to your CON modifier until the end of your next turn, while Wildblood gives all enemies marked by you a penalty to their attacks (which do not include you as a target) equal to your WIS modifier until the end of your next turn. And you thought the decision to choose CON over WIS would be an easy one. OK, it probably still is (CON), but we should wait until we can see all of the powers for the class before making that decision.
I just mentioned marking in the previous paragraph. The Warden is a defender, so he should get a marking mechanic: Nature’s Wrath. Thanks to this feature, a Warden can mark any number of enemies adjacent to himself once per turn as a free action. No attack required. The mark lasts until the end of the Warden’s next turn. The Warden also gets two at-will class features (both of them, not a choice of one or the other at character creation), Warden’s Grasp and Warden’s Fury. “Fury” allows a warden to smack a dude that had the poor judgment to attack someone other than him (causing the poor sap to give combat advantage to the entire party for a round), while “Grasp” is simply ridiculous. Here, get a look at this…
Warden’s Grasp
Warden Feature
Spectral vines clutch at a foe that has attacked your ally, impeding your enemy’s movement.
At-Will; Primal
Immediate Reaction Close burst 5
Trigger: An enemy marked by you that is within 5 squares of you makes an attack that does not include you as a target
Target: The triggering enemy in burst
Effect: You slide the target 1 square. The target is slowed and cannot shift until the end of its turn.
Notice something missing there? An attack roll is missing. Now some of you are pointing out the part that says “end of its turn,” as though this made the power any less amazing. Let me spell it out for you… I’m the warden, right? Some dude within 5 squares of me (marked by me) attacks my buddy. I immediately interrupt this attack action and slide him a square, slowing him and denying him any shifting until the end of his turn. Well, he’s just used a standard action (which I negated) and is now outside of attack range. If he hadn’t used his move action to get into melee with my party member, then he can use his move action and get back into range. Next turn, he gets his attack unless I can mark him again. Oh, here’s another thing that I just noticed is missing: a limitation on the number of times per encounter (or even per-round, for that matter) that this power can be used (note- I’ve been corrected on this feature; see the comments for more).
That covers all of the class features. I don’t care much to go into detail about the at-will, encounter or utility powers. There’s nothing special about them: it’s a list of powers not unlike what you’d expect a fighter to have available with the PHB+Martial Power combination. The daily powers are at least a little interesting, though. All of the level one daily powers listed in this preview are minor actions that involve the Polymorph keyword and are not actual attacks in themselves. Here, let me show you one:
Form of the Fearsome Ram
Warden Attack 1
You become mightier and faster, manifesting the horns and hooves of a ram. Your attacks push your foes around the battlefield, and you can make another attack to push a foe and knock it prone.
Daily; Polymorph, Primal
Minor Action Personal
Effect: You assume the guardian form of the fearsome ram until the end of the encounter. While you are in this form, you gain a +2 power bonus to speed and a +2 bonus to charge attack rolls. In addition, when you hit a target with an at-will attack, you push the target 1 square. If the attack already pushes the target, the distance of the push increases by 1 square.
Once during this encounter, you can make the following weapon attack while you are in this form.
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Effect: Before the attack, you shift your speed.
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. Fortitude
Hit: 2[W] + Strength modifier damage, and you push the target 3 squares and knock it prone. You then shift into a space that must be adjacent to the target.
Miss: Half damage, and you push the target 1 square. You then shift into a square the target vacated.
It’s kind of like the barbarian’s Rage daily powers with a bit of the Druid’s wild shape feature thrown in for good measure. I like it, but I haven’t seen any of the daily powers beyond this preview, and there’s probably going to be something that’s just plain nuts in there.
After seeing this class preview and the druid class preview, I think it’s safe to say that WotC has forgotten all about power-creep. They’ve made it obsolete and replaced it with a power-stampede. Now, it’s possible that the ridiculousness of the Druid and Warden is a necessary evil now that Martial Power has been released and Arcane Power and Divine Power are on the horizon. Everyone should be equally ridiculous by the end of 2009.
Addendum: I really shouldn’t review things while so sleepy. Know how I said the at-will and encounter poweres were nothing extraordinary? I was wrong! Thorn Strike is an at-will power that deals [1W]+STR damage and pulls the target one square on a successful hit. The kicker is that its range is defined as “melee 2.” It has reach built-in! This is so going to be a top choice for the half-elf dilettante feature.
4 Comments
This is my first time reading your opinions, as such it’s my first time responding. I was looking for opinions on the recently previewed Warder and this came up in Google. I will say off the bat that I find your opinion harsh and more than a little “knee-jerk.”
“Some dude within 5 squares of me (marked by me) attacks my buddy. I immediately interrupt this attack action and slide him a square, slowing him and denying him any shifting until the end of his turn.”
The power is an immediate reaction. This means that your buddy gets hit and then you pull the guy off of him. This is a less effective means of defending than, say, hitting the guy.
“Oh, here’s another thing that I just noticed is missing: a limitation on the number of times per encounter (or even per-round, for that matter) that this power can be used.”
PHB page 268. There is a limitation on the amount of immediate actions you get per round.
I also found nothing exceptional about the powers other than the dailies. They seem mostly reasonable creep-wise and fun fluff/flavor-wise.
In regards to “Font of Godlike:” I feel that one extra saving throw isn’t a horrible thing for someone with two poor defenses, both of which are likely to be attacked by status effects. The Warden has sacrificed damage potential for survivability, is that really a bad thing in a class whose role is “Defender?”
Thanks for pointing out the Immediate Reaction (rather than Interrupt) bit on Warden’s Grasp, and the limitation on the number of immediate actions a person can take. I’ll probably edit in a notice to read the comments section.
I wouldn’t say that the warden sacrifices damage potential for survivability, however. Strength is one of the warden’s primary attributes, and he can’t do much in the way of defending if he can’t hit anything. The warden gets two saving throws per turn, one of them before the effect can impede/harm him. Characters usually don’t get something like that until they reach the Paragon tier. This isn’t bad for a defender, it’s very good. Too good, even.
As for his reflex and will defenses being poor (I’m assuming those were the two you were talking about?): the dailies can augment one of the two defenses, and if a warden should value WIS over CON then he will have good FORT and WILL, while relying on his dailies and shield to pick up the slack on reflex defense.
I won’t deny that I’m a harsh person when it comes to 4e. I jumped on the bandwagon when it first came out, loved it, then began to wish it were more like SW SAGA edition. Since I can’t get in on any of those games, I either play Dark Heresy or sit through games of 4e with incompetent people who take 3 to 6 minutes deciding which one of their six powers to use.
1. I can understand your frustrations with 4e. When my local game first started up combats took us about 2 hours. We set up limitations on how long you had to deliberate on your actions and things became much more streamlined.
I’m also in a Dark heresy game and have loved it thus far. It’s been a bit frustrating recently as we’re doing a social/espionage mission and my Psyker isn’t exactly subtle.
The problem I’m having at the moment is we play our game like a resource pool for an Inquisitor. We’ve each got 2 PCs and the Inquisitor builds a team around the mission. For some reason XIV (Angry Paranoid Voidborn Psyker) was sent instead of Tauron (Kind, gentle social Noble Arbitrator).
Back to 4e: it seems to me like people will primarily pick Con based Wardens, which would lead to a poor Will and Reflex defense.
When I said “lower damage potential” I didn’t mean in the amount of enemies they’ll hit, but in how hard they’ll hit them. Note that just one of the encounters does more than 1[W] damage.
Mike Mearls said that we’d look at PHB 2 classes and think them shinier than the PHB classes. Thus far that’s been the case with most things we’ve seen (Druid excluded). He also said that we’ll see pretty quickly that they’re not as over-powered as they look. We’ve had a play test barbarian in our party for the last 2ish months and have begun to notice that very thing with him.
I think in the end the new classes won’t be “better” they’ll just be “different.” But that’s just my $.02
I haven’t been following much of what Mearls has said, but I’m pretty sure his remark about the “shininess” of PHB2 classes (excepting the Druid) is accurate. I’ve playtested the barbarian on two occasions now and it’s a mostly solid class.
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[...] power source – the Warden and Sorcerer classes make that clear. (As written, by the way, the Warden will be ridiculously powerful if it’s not subject to a massive overhaul before publication.) This may not be a bad thing. [...]