A Look Ahead - 2019 Producer's Letter

[K_9]

Thanks for the update and the plans ahead Sev. If keep on the borderlands is anything similar to WPM I look forward with anticipation.

Exciting to hear re Knight of the Chalice is in the works along with Epic Destiny stuff and a new class!

What I am keen to know though are basically 2 things, Wizards and overall spell pass. Are there any plans to update Pale Master and Archmage this year, as some of the items in both trees are badly dated and have been neglected compared to all other classes have had enhancement tree updates. Secondly are their any plans for a spell pass (divine / arcane etc)? Again this is something the players have been asking out on for some time. I appreciate a spell pass if in the works could be tagged into Epic Destiny tweaks, but it would be good to know.

Keep up the good works! Thanks

[mr420247]

Knight and other variants seem more like prestige then an actual class

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

There's this nifty official (3.5 D&D) Tiefling that gets +2 Intelligence and +2 Dexterity but get this.... -2 Charisma. It would be the perfect race for implementing intelligence to hit and damage in the racial enhancement tree!

[Andu_Indorin]

Pitiful. Absolutely pitiful.

[Indubitably]

Speculation time!
I suspect spirit shaman is likely though due to...
...the new racial variant which I think will be Talenta halflings - again in the anniversary stream, there were mentions of visiting other areas in Eberron & also mention of dinosaurs. Talenta halflings are nomads who ride dinosaurs & if there's another iconic added too it'd probably be a Talenta halfling barbarian as one of the only remaining f2p classes available plus it'd certainly fit with the lore. Also, having the spirit shaman class becoming available at the same time as introducing those tribal nomads would fit too.

A well thought out, reasoned guess. And The Dev mentioning halfling mounts... but not saying much... doesn't mean WE ride mounts. I think your on to something, I hope your right.

If I had my way, I would like the dev team to produce something like a Necromancer. Imagine the Pale Master extracted from the Wizard tree and given its very own class. The idea of using negative energy to heal and use multiple forms is unique enough to have its own class. They could take the various types, Zombie, Vampire, etc. and give them unique trees. I would love to target dead enemies, bring them to life, and make them do as I command them. Muwhahaahaaa! On the flip size, it wouldn't be hard to give the Wizard a new tree in exchange.

I love this idea. PM is such a dramatic change for an enhancement tree. Normal wizards don't normally have undead/shroud forms. It would be easy to flesh it out into it's own class. Give it a tree for negative spellcasting, combat & defense, and shrouds... or some such. Likewise, wizards have plenty of options for additional trees. But sadly I think it's unlikely.

TIME for my own ridiculous idea. This idea centers around Devs being lazy and heavily copy+pasting...

BLAKCKGUARD
With warlocks, they've shown they will embrace non-good classes (sorta), and with warlock... I don't THINK they will go the psion, a very familiar 'off-caster' step again. But then again, Devs have been known to surprise. "What could be more unpredictable than more of the same?"

This class would be easy to make...
Base the class off the paladin... but make everything "evily"
- Give them the Assassin tree from rogues. Change it to focus on 2 handers (remove INT and weapon prof), change assassinate to execute, etc etc...
- Give them the Pale Master tree from Wizards. Scale down the spell casting / power a bit, add a few more meleeish things or summon boosts for undead!!!!
- Give them the Sacred Defender tree from Paladins... make it evily instead.
Standard 1-4 level spells for fighter types... could do 6. Include all that undead goodness (control,summon,destroy) and a few negative, poison and shadow effects. Maybe even Invis?
Add a bit of backstab and give them an innate undead shround... keep it bare bones... no bonuses past basic undead traits... shroud of the skeleton!

Who am I kidding... Welcome Psion, original release Warlock 2.0. Nerfs once everyones bought it.


All kidding aside. Glad there will be a new class added. Glad you are overhauling Epic Destinies... they feel so.... dilapidated.

[MacRighteous]

Snip - ...We don’t feel it would B2 early to talk about it, so we’re pleased to announce that Keep on the Borderlands.... - Snip
Sev~

I see what you did there

You're fired

[Cookiegum]

additional work to Knight of the Chalice

This is the best news since RL. About time!

New class? Hope it is a melee for once and you give the whole thing a proper pass. But let's be honest, we know you guys hate melee

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

When will I be able to purchase Sharn or at least find out how much it will cost?

[MacRighteous]

I'm going to guess that the new Heroic sub race will be a Grey Dwarf with an Iconic counterpart starting with 1 level of the new class, which will be some sort of Melee Axe Specialist with Psionic-like SLAs. This will be released in an update that features a new adventure pack set in the Underdark.

Who am I kidding? We all know it will be a game breaking Draco-Chromatic Kobold Shaman!!! (Draco-Chromatic Kobold being a sub race of Dragonborn.)
Whelp - maybe not... But i do think Sneezy, Doc and the gang needs some love. They been DDO's forgotten step children too long.

[Memnir]

Racial Variant: Kalashtar (human)
New Class: Psionic something

[Oliphant]

when in March tho?

[DaveyCrockett]

Can't wait!

[Cadveen]

Please update the Palemaster tree prior to creating new classes. I have been waiting for these fixes so I can begin playing nonstop again!

[The_Human_Cypher]

I'm just gonna leave this here.

https://youtu.be/aG62IS8cvt4?t=546

It's a Psionicist.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Psionicist

[janave]

//ON

Expansion + Race + Uni Tree + Class + Module Pack seems like a DECENT amount of new stuff for a year to me.

Quality > Quota.

Gleaning from the DNT TBD entries overflowing into live, the area is about x2 as big as the biggest ever so...


//OFF

Please update the Palemaster tree prior to creating new classes. I have been waiting for these fixes so I can begin playing nonstop again!

What is wrong with them specifically?

The ones I am occasionally running with make the rest of us look silly in R7 and above content :P.

[Veltamore]

New class = fun!
Epic destinies = really good - hope get better synergy for artificers for example. Probably other classes as well.
racial variant - decent
I hope that new lowbie area will be open for reaper? so you could play as hard/easy you want? -) Classical adventures is always nice. Loved wpm
Great you do an adventure pack for Sharn after- my only sadness with awesome Ravenloft, i want more quests in that setting!


Had hoped for some major system revamp (better inventory-64-etc) Everything good but that had made it great in my book.


Thanks for the info!

Agreed Better inventory and system revamp would be nice.

[noinfo]

New class = fun!
Epic destinies = really good - hope get better synergy for artificers for example. Probably other classes as well.
racial variant - decent
I hope that new lowbie area will be open for reaper? so you could play as hard/easy you want? -) Classical adventures is always nice. Loved wpm
Great you do an adventure pack for Sharn after- my only sadness with awesome Ravenloft, i want more quests in that setting!


Had hoped for some major system revamp (better inventory-64-etc) Everything good but that had made it great in my book.


Thanks for the info!

Nice summary
For me
New class= waste of time having to TR more, worst thing 3rd ed ever did was move away from kits in 2nd edition back to the first edition of lets have a class for everything! Trees are the best solution and would prefer to see more universal ones that maybe just needed some pre req to get.
Epic Destinies= yes! they long needed an overhaul
Racial Variants= yes! variation that does not need additional grind but would rather modification happen through Trees instead- Update Drow seriously 32pt build not the 28 pt ones and give them an iconic.
Races: for the most part is just another grind to keep my racial completionist but maybe there would be something in the new one that will make the below 30 experience less like hell but with Tiefling it will be unlikely :-)
A Pack like WPM? I really hope not, that wasteland in the 12 was the worst use of Dev time this year. All epic quests introduced should be level 30+ do what you like with the non epic parts but don't give us that wasted area again please.

[Indubitably]

Nice summary

A Pack like WPM? I really hope not, that wasteland in the 12 was the worst use of Dev time this year. All epic quests introduced should be level 30+ do what you like with the non epic parts but don't give us that wasted area again please.

That is very much a person opinion, which is very much not shared by everyone.
Granted if you have capped your epic past lives, I can see why your going to either be on the 1-20 racial hamster wheel or farming rXP and mythical/reaper items at legendary. But for those that haven't, or like to take their heroic buidls to 30 before TR'ing (or are working on iconics)... They need to go from 20 to 30.

And not everyone enjoys running the same low-level epic quests each time and/or doing the daily 2x Von3, Spies, Wiz-King, TTT, etc to 30.
Considering the inflation of itemisation atm... there is a terrible gap of GOOD epic items pre lvl28/29.

[Cadveen]

//ON

Expansion + Race + Uni Tree + Class + Module Pack seems like a DECENT amount of new stuff for a year to me.

Quality > Quota.

Gleaning from the DNT TBD entries overflowing into live, the area is about x2 as big as the biggest ever so...


//OFF




What is wrong with them specifically?

The ones I am occasionally running with make the rest of us look silly in R7 and above content :P.

You are correct that a wizard is still viable/powerful but most of the palemaster tree is useless, which most of us who enjoy playing wizards would like to weed out the useless enhancements.

Why does the warlock have a finger of death SLA but the palemaster tree has non-meta neg energy? Pets are underwhelming.

Although not mentioned previously in the arcane tree it costs more than any other class to increase magic points. You would think it would be the least for an archmage. The pinnacle of magic mastery?

[ilhares]

Guessing Psionics for the class no idea what else it could be

DDOCast 460 they brought up wanting to do it, with the soulknife/psiwarrior as the melee option or a psion for the caster approach.

It *would* fit with the mention of an alternate racial variant, they could bring in the Elan without any real trouble at all, since they're basically just psionic humans (even if they didn't necessarily begin life that way).


I don't think that's what we'll get, but it'd be interesting. Were it up to me, I'd have a team working on the entire psi side of things so it could all be dropped in as a significant expansion at one time. Add 2-3 races, 6-8 classes (or fewer classes, but with more variation via the enhancements). Being able to manifest and customize a psionic weapon (probably via toggles, like Arcane Archer imbues) would be fantastic.