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Here is what is being posted from Hungary again about the Wizards Present: Classes & Races book from WotC boards byway of ENWorld.
"First of all bear in mind that the book reflects the state of the art as of Aug 2007, before the announcement. It still has May as the release date. It is full of fluff and art. Sometime a whole page is just a picture, so don’t expect longish text. There is no mechanic, just a few mentions that hint at mechanics.
Ability scores
Ability score adjustment have a net positive benefit (i.e. not of the type -2 / +2). I think that it will be a flat +2 most of the time. In the entry for dwarves it says that the charisma penalty is gone, thus they might have +2 Con, and that is all.
Races
Each race seems to have a clear “homeland”. Dwarves live in mountains, elves in forests. Now they come up with something for all major races. Humans are tied to plains, Halfling to rivers (swamps and marshes), Dragonborn to deserts (at least their great empire were in desert).
I will list a favoured class. As we know, mechanically it is not the favoured class of 3.x, but they admit, that some races are better at being certain classes. The “favoured class” is not listed as such, I inferred it from the text.
Human
They will remain the flexible, adaptable race as in 3.x.
Their negative personality flaw is corruptible (I don’t think it is mechanic, just fluff or the basis of some racial feat).
The text mention that humans never give up, and try thing again-and-again; this can be a racial characteristic (allow retry in some cases).
Each of them know how to handle at least one weapon (fluff or ability?).
Their homeland is the plains. Horses are important to them.
Favoured class: They fit to all classes equally well (or at least more or less equally well, the text is not that clear hear).
Dwarf
Resilient industrious folks.
One of their racial feat allow a second “second wind”.
They no longer have darkvision, only low light vision (most races will have only normal vision).
Favoured class: Fighter
Eladrin
They are the magical high elves. Both elves and eladrins were elves, but one preferred magic and stone, while the other nature and the woods.
One of their racial feats allows them to briefly enter Feywild and reemerge at another place, making a short teleport (was hinted at one of the playtest report, right?).
Favoured class: Wizard
Elf
Favoured class: Ranger
Dragonborn
Dragonborn are kin to dragon, they are egg laying (so why on Earth do females need a halter?). They are a strong race with martial incline. I think dragonborn replaces half-orc as the main damage dealing race.
At higher level they can choose racial feat that gives them breath weapon or wings.
Probably have claw attack.
Favoured class: warlord
Halfling
Now they admit, that the main source of inspiration for the 3.x halfling is the kender. We suspected it all along. They are still the lucky, bit thievery race as they were. Added their liking for rivers and boats (and thus being a merchant and wandered).
Favoured class: Rogue
Tiefling
Lots of fluff, but really not so much crunch. I never played them, so I don’t know how they were in 3.x. Their look is rather unified now.
Favoured class: Warlock"
"Warforged is mentioned. Apart from the core races (human, elf, eladrin, thiefling, dragonborn, dwarf and halfling) gnome, drow, celestial (aasimar) and warforged is mentioned for a paragraph or two.
A high elf is a high elf. Most races have a little on origin, history, culture and society. Humans got more space because their status is not so clear. A dwarf is a stereotype (a bearded, small human with a gruffy attitude). Humans are variable, thus there is more musing on them. All in all I found it well writen and they worth the extra pages.
Elves really had 2.5 or so pages. Most have 2-3, except for humans. Take into note that there is a lot of art in the book. Full page art mind you. Cool art I have to add.
Gnome were neither elves nor dwarves, but a little bit of both. Lacked focus.
Dwarves and halfling are a bit taller now. They are right, an average halfling were akin to a 3 years old (I have a daughter of that age) and it is just hard to imagine for people. Dwarves are a bit taller too (given the trend dwaves will be 6-8' be 6th edition...).
Dragonborn are a true breeding race that has nothing to do with humans. They are lizards (egg laying). They were never a half race.
Tiefling on the other hand can breed with humans. The result is always a thiefling. I won't give away fluff from the book, but it is great! But their grandparent are definitely not demons, they are thieflings. As for their distant past ancestry, but and read the book.
They said that back then when they designed 3rd, they felt that kenders are cool, but a bit too comic/not serious enough. So halfling (in 3rd and in 4th also) have some of the personality of kenders but they are a serious race. The focus is rivers.
[Tieflings are]Unified in the sense, that they are not the son/daughter of a myriad of devils/demons with wastly different appearance. They are a race, not a collective name for something. They pass for humans from a distance. The text says that they have a small hord extending from their brow and a narrow tail. As they grow in power these thing get more pronounced. In the arts they have very pronounced tail and horn.
...while elves live in the forest in wooden houses (probably), eladrin built cities in the Feywild.
Strange as it is, as half-elves get mentioned from the announcement of 4th edition, but there is nothing in the book about them."
"Here again I start with a disclaimer. The book present the state of the art as of Aug 2007. There could be changes.
Unified progression of defense, BAB and saves. A 10th level character will have +5 of those (thus +0.5 / level). Even at 1st level classes can significantly alter the base value. Class abilities modify them further.
Cleric
All classes will get some self-healing power (already known). Cleric enhance the self-healing capabilities of nearby allies.
Bigger spell will be rituals (raise the dead for example). Rituals are different from spells (as of how I do not know).
Summoning spells are removed along with alignment specific ones (at least for now).
Fighter
You chose to fight with a two-handed weapon or a weapon+shield. Other abilities build on this choice. I hope this will be changed, how would two-weapon fighting figure to this?
Powers can be divided into assault, defense and control. Assault is best suited to two-handed weapons, and ephasize offense and damage. Defense is about higher AC and such things. Control hinder and constrain the enemy (IMHO trip for example).
Some stunt a better if carried out with a specific weapon. Hammer are perfect for stunning opponents, while great swords for cleave.
The role as a defendes admittedly means that you are to defend the wizard and allow the thief to flank. I'm not happy with that. The fighter should be the primary damage dealer, not the rogue or the wizard...
A fighter feat allows Dex to be added to AC even when wearing hvy armor.
Fighters can keep monsters focused on them, by having bonuses on opportunity attacks and by following enemies. They guard allies by "battlefield control".
An example of at will power is the defensive strike. If you hit, you get bonus to AC against this foe.
Per encounter: dance of steel (just the name is given)
Per day: great surge which is a powerfull attack combined with some healing of yourself.
Psi will appear sometime and it will be a different power source. They design arcane and divine magic so that psi can fit in. Power over mind will be the main (or a flagship) feature of psi, thus charms are going to be nerfed (the avoid too much overlap)."
"These classes are mentioned is 3-4 paragraphs, it is not a confirmation that they are going to be in the PHB, just that they were experimenting with them (for some, like the paladin, warlord and the ranger, we know that they are going to be in the PHB).
Paladin: Still have smite ability but there are more types of smites (different form of attacks). Paladins and fighters are both defenders, but paladins rely on divine powers. There are evil paladins.
Ranger: Nothing more that we already know. Some scoutish abilities focus on movement, good with a bow.
Sorcerer: Make it more distant from the wizard. They barely control their spells, but unleash enough energy every time that some remains around them. For example after a fireball, they are cloaked in fire which sears enemies nearby.
Swordmage: An arcane defender with magic shields and armor, flaming sword and some self-bluff abilities.
Warlord: A martial leader, with the ability to buff and control over battlefield positioning.
Barbarian: The ability to rage is the centerpiece ability of this class. There are different rages. There is a mention of a “lightning panther strike” that allow movement and multiple attack. Barbarians are more feral, and bite attack was mentioned
Druid: Their spellcasting takes second seat. The primary ability is wildshape, which they can do a lot more often, but only shapes they have picked (like spells). They have some nature related spell to canst when in humanoid form.
Bard: Gets it power from otherwordly patrons (?). Its powers focuses on illusions and confusions, so that enemies hinder themselves. They can also inspire their allies.
Monk: Still in the design stage, but it will be a mobile striker."
And now no one else will need to buy it. :D
So, let me get this straight. Gnomes lacked focus because they were too much like elves crossed with dwarves, but the fact that eladrin were elves, as were elves, but eladrin became "not elves," thus proving that they aren't a subrace, is more focused?
And halflings being kender without a sense of humor is more focused that letting them actually be halflings?
I did like the comment about female dragonborn wearing halters. It reminds me of the whole gnolls with multiple mammary glands picture a few years back . . . biology lesson . . . a species that lays eggs usually isn't milk producing, thus lacking breasts, and mammals generally don't have multiple sets of breasts unless they regularly give birth to three or more young at a time.
Hmm. I'm still on the fence about the whole thing. There's stuff I like, there's stuff I don't like (races being the major "don't like" thing). Very "Magic: The Gathering" with the home terrain stuff, which kind of bothers me. It seems like there will be a lot of Iron Heroes influence, so that's probably what anyone should look at for an idea of what 4th edition will be. I'm not really a fan of these "self healing" powers that non-divine casters get.
Seems very Diablo 2 inspired, with the various "skill trees". It seems like they're constraining your feat options quite a bit.
(And I liked the Unapproachable East female gnoll illustration; I can imagine hyena people giving birth to litters of gnoll pups. But that's me.)
Well, this is a mixed bag for me. Things I love and things I could care less about. So far, I think I am leaning just slightly to the "Liking it" side.
Very interesting. I like what they're doing to combat and the classes, but a lot of these ideas are taking D&D into some wild, uncharted waters. It seems like they're pulling in all kinds of ideas from online games, card games, cartoons and other game systems.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Self healing doesn't worry me so much, if it tops out at half HP. Then I see it as an adrenalin surge.
Dragonborn, meh. I've been using the Dracha for a while now as a 'dragonborn' Not sure I like them as a 'core' race though.
Tieflings as a race? Hate 'em. give me my planar misfits.
Eladrin? While I'm happy to see planetouched elves, not as a core race though.
All in allI might beat up 4e and take its stuff for 3e.
This so does not sound like the D&D I know: A great ruleset that can be used with many different worlds without a fuss.
But now 2 kinds of elf races, cleptomaniac halflings, weird dragonthings and weird demon-children, and races that reinforce cliche and have their "favoured terrain" built in are the core, thus being more or less forced upon everything (back in the good old days of 3e, you could just say that race X is actually not what the PHB says, but, say, a riverfaring people, change a couple of skill bonuses, and you were good to go. Now you have to design a new race because you have to replace a two dozen abilities that only work for the sneaky thief race.
I also really don't like that they define a fighter as someone who either uses a two-handed weapon or sword-and-board. That means we need a completely different class to properly play someone with two weapons - or just one weapon and a free hand.
I have to say that I grow less and less hungary for news like this.
And I think more and more that if Paizo wants to use 4e for Golarion, they have to bend over backwards to get it to fit.
And I think more and more that if Paizo wants to use 4e for Golarion, they have to bend over backwards to get it to fit.
More like a circus-performer pretzel, I think. I doubt if it will be possible to retro-engineer Pathfinder at all given how much is changing, and how radically.