Power Sources (2020)

As I teased at the end of the last post, today we're going to discuss which power sources each class will have access to.

First, I should qualify that some of these might be limited to specific subclasses of a given class, but I just want to do a broad overview for now:


Arcane:
Knowledge Skills: Arcana, Dungeoneering, Religion
Archetypes: Psionic, Skald
Domains: Divination, Enchantment
Classes: (11 total)
Acrobat, Cleric, Paladin
Sage, Rogue, Bard, Occultist, Spellbinder
Druid, Guardian, Adventurer

Divine:
Knowledge Skills: Royalty & Nobility, Medicine, Religion
Archetypes: Avenger, Runepriest
Domains: Devotion, Life
Classes: (8 total)
Acrobat, Fighter, Cleric, Paladin, Warlord
Sage, Bard, Spellbinder

Martial:
Knowledge Skills: History & Geography, Animal Handling, Local
Archetypes: Brute, Soldier
Domains: Leadership, War
Classes: (13 total)
Acrobat, Fighter, Cleric, Paladin, Warlord
Rogue, Bard, Spellbinder
Druid, Guardian, Ranger, Adventurer, Barbarian

Primal:
Knowledge Skills: Wilderness Survival, Animal Handling, Medicine
Archetypes: Elementalist, Scout
Domains: Blood, Stone
Classes: (11 total)
Acrobat, Fighter, Warlord
Sage, Rogue, Occultist
Druid, Guardian, Ranger, Adventurer, Barbarian

Shadow:
Knowledge Skills: Streetwise, Dungeoneering, Local
Archetypes: Revenant, Vampire
Domains: Death, Trickery
Classes: (11 total)
Acrobat, Fighter, Paladin
Sage, Rogue, Bard, Occultist, Spellbinder
Guardian, Ranger, Adventurer



Distribution:
I did try and "balance" out the utilization of each power source. However, as you can see, the 3rd slate does not get access to Divine; as I've mentioned before, most of the stuff going on with that power source doesn't really jive with this slate of classes, particularly with the Religion and Medicine skills being available from other (better suited) power sources.

I think each slate has always had 2 primary power sources. So I decided to make those available to all classes within those respective slates, which necessitated moving some other power sources off of certain classes. With the History and Geography knowledge skills having been combined into one, plus the already existing overlap with Primal (i.e. Animal Handling) it seemed like giving all of the classes on the 3rd slate access to the Martial power source was the right thing to do.

The Acrobat is the closest thing to a blank slate out of its class category (arguably, out of all of the classes) so I decided to give them free choice in their power source, to flavour however you'd like -- which is made a little easier since the category they happen to be in is the "skill specialist" category. I've always seen this class as the main stand-in for the 4e Avenger (Divine) as well as Executioner (Shadow), but also a simplified Ranger (Primal), as well as an obvious place for an "arcane archer"-type character; all of that would also seem to help with the justification.


Flavour:
At times I had considered moving Shadow off of the Paladin class, but it just wouldn't feel right, so long as Blackguard remained one of the Paladin subclasses; taking Martial off of the Sage (i.e. off the Monk subclass) was also something I went back and forth on, but as the design space of power sources expanded in the direction it has, keeping it made less and less sense. On the topic of the Monk, I think Divine seems like a natural fit; the Bard in 3.5 having all knowledge skills on their class skill list, made me want them to have access to this (rare) power source; Spellbinder is sort of taking on its own unique flavour, and Divine as a power source for the Swordmage subclass is a part of that growth.

Rogue being split into Assassin and Sorcerer subclasses makes for a similar case, with Primal being meant for Sorcerer, Martial being meant for Assassin, and their other two power sources being meant for both. The presence of the Shadow power source for classes of the 3rd slate is meant for a more "city-focused" versions of the Guardian (specifically the Warden subclass), Ranger, and Adventurer. I didn't give Bard the Primal power source, since Skald is meant to function as the "Primal Bard" (as it is in 4e's Heroes of the Feywild... sort of.)

Fighter and Warlord are given a bit of room to stretch out, since they would otherwise end up sort of narrowly focused. I particularly like the idea of a Runepriest Fighter, or a Primal-flavoured shamanistic Warlord. I also like the Primal power source on the Sage class, as sort of a "Brown Wizard"-style character. I've often felt bad about limiting Barbarian as much as it is in this regard, but nothing else really seemed to fit; hopefully their subtypes will help do them justice.



A Bridge Too Far?
As you can pretty clearly see, not every Domain or Archetype is a fit with every class, under each power source. This is why these character subtypes remain partially a function of class (or at least class category) rather than purely a function of power source. That being said, I know there will still be some imperfections, as with any time an entirely new framework is presented. I guess this is all to say: "I apologize in advance if you get hyped about one of the possible combos laid out here, and it ends up getting axed," because this is an absolute possibility.

So!
15 classes, 5 power sources, 10 archetypes, and 10 domains. It's going to be tough, but I'll try my best to get these things all playing together nicely -- and limiting subtypes by another metric besides just power source is meant to help facilitate that. Hopefully this all converges together just right, and makes power sources a meaningfully hefty part of the designs, and of character customization.

...

Blog Update
Just one minor thing I want to touch on here:
Historically, I've taken a break in July; I think I will try and take the whole month off from blogging this time, so that I can settle down and focus on going heavy into the writing and design work. Assuming I take December off this year as well, that means 8 months of posting in 2020, for a total of 24 posts this year. That's down from 30 in both 2017 and 2018, but I still feel its a good number; if work continues on into 2021, I will probably use this year's schedule for that.

Next post is due on Friday, May 15th -- check back then!