Player's Handbook 3 preview: Cloth Armor becomes playable!

A character using Cloth Armor in D&D 4E is a rare occurrence. Right now, there are only two kinds of cloth-wearing PCs: those who are forced to do so because of their class features, like Avengers and Monks, and those who are waiting to level up and grab Armor Proficiency (Leather). The truth is that the upgrade from Cloth to Leather armor is one of the best conceivable uses for a feat slot, rivalling even the almighty Expertise (and arguably even better, at Heroic Tier). Because of this, dresses, robes and vestments have banished from the wardrobes of most adventurers, as even Wizards go around wearing leather jackets. Thankfully, Player's Handbook 3 is going to put an end to this madness, by allowing players to remain unarmored without incurring in significant mechanical penalties. Let's see how this will happen.

Remember how the Brawler Fighter from Martial Power 2 was sneakily previewed in a FAQ page? Well, it appears that they liked the trick, because they are doing it again with Player's Handbook 3. This time, we are shown a simple heroic feat called Unarmored Agility. It has no requirements, and grants you a +2 bonus to AC as long as you are wearing cloth. This is, very conveniently, just as good as Leather Armor Proficiency, and has three major implications for the game: a change in aesthetics, the redeeming of an entire magic item category, and an unexpected AC boost for certain strikers.

The aesthetic change

Wizards, Sorcerers and Psions are no longer punished for wearing their iconic robes. Hooray! Sure, we could (and did) use Leather for the mechanics while saying that our character was dressing as we liked, but this is the real deal. I'm glad this has changed.

The forgotten treasures

There is quite a bit of space in both Player's Handbooks and Adventurer's Vaults devoted to Armor enchantments available solely for Cloth - I counted around 40 of them, and this will surely increase with PHB 3. Most of this space was as good as blank before, but now it will actually be of some use. I'd recommend to take a look at these books (or the Compendium, of course), because there are some real jewels waiting to be uncovered. Among my favourites are the extremely cool Robe of Eyes, the incredibly useful Shimmering Armor and the almost broken Bloodthread Armor.

AC Inflation (and erratas undone)

Avengers and Monks rejoice, for you have just gained 2 extra points of AC. Which is very odd in the case of avengers, since they just lost a similar amount a few months ago. In that occassion, I commented the following: "The Armor of Faith class feature has been changed to work only in Cloth Armor, removing the potential for ridiculously high AC ".

Well, I guess this change gives them back the potential for ridiculously high AC. Admittedly, this cuts 2-3 points off the maximum defense score that could be achieved through extreme optimization and feat investments, because upgrading to Hide Armor is no longer feasible. On the other hand, Bloodthread Armor will partially compensate for that, making the AC cap (getting hit on 20s only) dangerously close for bloodied, epic Avengers.

With the new feat, even an 'innocent', non-optimizing Avenger is going to have impressive defenses:

Level 1 Avenger, 18 Dexterity or Intelligence, Unarmored Agility: AC 19 (N18)

A *normalized AC* of 18 is equivalent to Scale Armor and a Heavy Shield, and other than investing a single feat, this character is not sacrificing anything - and certainly not the ability to wield a massive two-handed weapon. An additional feat (*Improved Armor of Faith*) brings this on par with Plate + Shield, or even better at Paragon and beyond.

Let's see a more extreme scenario, though:

Level 30 Avenger, starting 18 Dexterity or Intelligence, Unarmored Agility, Improved Armor of Faith, weapon with the 'defensive' property, +6 Starweave Bloodthread Armor, Demigod Epic Destiny and two-weapon Defense: AC 52 (N21), or 54 (N23) while bloodied.

It is virtually impossible for a defender character to match these results. And I'm pretty certain that you could get an extra point or two, with enough optimizing. This character, while bloodied, would be just 2 points below the cap (N25), which is a real nightmare for most monsters. This just feels wrong. Maybe Improved Armor of Faith should be changed into a flat +1 bonus, rather than a scaling one.

What about monks? It will depend on the feat selection they get. If there is anything like "Improved Unarmored Defense", I'm afraid they will also outperform shielded defenders on the AC department - otherwise, they will be more or less at their level.

Level 1 Monk, 20 Dexterity, Unarmored Agility: AC 19 (N18)

Overall, I can't say I'm happy with the way Unarmored Agility interacts with these classes. On the other hand, I do like what it does for casters with robes. I think those in charge of Errata should definitely be keeping an eye on the following items:

- Improved Armor of Faith

- Bloodthread Armor

- Any monk feat enhancing Unarmored Defense.

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November errata: Adventurer's Vault, Avengers, and a lot more!

It had been a while since the last rules update (the brief, but excellent july errata), and some of us were starting to think that issuing errata was no longer considered a priority for Wizards. Nothing farther from the truth! Last week, and coinciding with the monthly DDI update, they released a truly massive errata changing well over a hundred rules issues for almost every book between Player's Handbook and Divine Power.

Some of these were merely typos or minor stuff such as missing keywords, but there is also a whole lot of very significant concerns that have been fixed, including some of the most broken magic items in the game, and fundamental changes in the gameplay of classes such as Avengers, Barbarians, Swordmages and Warlocks. It's impossible to comment on all of it - the whole errata document, including previous updates, now covers a whopping 58 pages, but I'll talk about the highlights. Also, I have compiled a list of changes for each book, which I provide at the end of the article.

1- Adventurer's Vault.

AV is the book that is changed the most, both in number and significance of the changes. The most striking one is probably the complete overhaul to the rules of double weapons, which were way too good, particularly in the hands of Tempest Fighters and Rogues. The new ruling now treats each end as a separate weapon with different keywords - among other things, not all of them count as off-hand anymore. Also, a new keyword 'Stout', has been defined to allow some of them to count as two-handed (which is no longer the default assumption). Finally, the weapons themselves have been adjusted - For example, the infamous Double Sword has a reduced damage die and loses the Heavy Blade keyword, whereas the Double Axe is no longer Defensive.

Apart from that, there are lots of revised magic items, including well-known offenders such as Reckless and Bloodclaw weapons. Most items causing saving throw penalties have been weakened, too, though a few are still missing. Other notable changes include preventing Ritualist Ring from granting discounts to item creation, and stopping reagents from working with at-will powers.

2- Avenger

This is a change that will affect almost every Avenger character out there, as Armor Proficiency (Leather) is no longer a valid feat choice. The Armor of Faith class feature has been changed to work only in Cloth Armor, removing the potential for ridiculously high AC scores (well above those of any Defender class) at Epic Tier. A well deserved fix, in my opinion, since the class' defenses and HP are quite good even without Leather.

3- Barbarian

The first of the Barbarian fixes is a small one: Halflings and Gnomes can now be Barbarians! These races' inability to wield two-handed weapons ruled out most PHB2 at-will powers from that class, but these have been modified so that versatile weapons wielded two-handed are a valid option. Not that they will make particularly powerful builds, but at least they will be possible.

The second fix is balance-related, as it consists on weakening the two strongest encounter powers of the class (and, it could be argued, the whole game). Storm of Blades and Hurricane of Blades were multiattack powers capable of dealing absurd amounts of damage. This change leaves Hurricane of Blades as a bit too good to my taste, but tolerably so. Storm of Blades, on the other hand, seems very reasonable to me now.

4- Swordmage

The silly rule about losing your Swordmage Warding when you were knocked out has been removed, which makes a lot of sense. Although it didn't come up too often, that was an annoying drawback for a class that didn't really deserve it. As another minor boost, the Ensnaring Aegis feature from Arcane Power (as well as any other Aegis that may appear in the future) is now compatible with the feats Double Aegis and Total Aegis, which is a good thing because they are almost essential for high level Swordmages.

5- Warlock

If there is a thing I always hated about the Warlock class, it was its complete inflexibility regarding your selection of at-wills, once you had chosen your pact. There is a change in this rule update that is a small step in the right direction, in this regard: the power Eldritch Strike, which was published as a power card handed out with the Player's Handbook Heroes minis, has been errata-ed so that it can now be taken instead of Eldritch Blast. The power itself is a bit weird, in that it is a melee weapon attack (and a basic one, to boot) on an otherwise completely ranged, implement class. But anything that gets rid of Eldritch Blast is good, in my book.

With this, I have barely scratched the surface of the update, but you can probably have an idea of the most relevant modifications. I strongly recommend to take a look at the whole thing, but you should be warned that it is not a light reading by any means. I don't know how useful it will be, but below you can see a list of all the changes made, for each book.

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