Aww, that hurts. I want you to know that I never posted the Faux Song & Silence or the Faux Tome & Blood to mislead, but rather because I had heard rumors already and was only slightly impressed; I wanted to present other ideas to show how different designers would go about making a similar product.
But anyway, I do have some legitimate rumors for Masters of the Wild. No, these aren't lies.
New Rules:
For Wildshape, most of the weaknesses in Polymorph Other/Wild Shape are addressed, like exactly whether you get a Cheetah's sprint ability or if you can cast spells if you Wild Shape into a parrot. There is an optional rule presented to allow 'basic' Exceptional Abilities while Wild Shaped, like blindsight while in bat form or Scent while in dog form, but these abilities aren't normally available for some hairbrained reason.
Of course there are also more detailed rules for wilderness lore and animal empathy checks, plus a refreshingly in-depth examination of different wilderness habitats and how they affect combat, tracking, hiding, moving silently, and even certain side-effects of spells (summoning a water elemental in a tundra gives the elemental the [cold] descriptor, whereas earth elementals summoned in the ocean are huge masses of sand that magically swim through the water toward their targets. From deserts to jungles, deciduous forests, sewers, under the sea, atop high mountains, or even in stalagmite-riddled caverns, Masters of the Wild provides rules to make PCs pay much more attention to the living, active world around them.
Feats:
You may notice that a lot of these feats are reprints, either from the Monster Manual or Sword & Fist. Makes you wish you could have more feats for your character.
- Animal Control
- Animal Defiance
- Blindsight
- Brachiation
- Clever Wrestling
- Create Infusion -- have oranges of healing instead of potions; lots of 'flavor' (heh heh heh)
- Destructive Rage
- Dragon's Toughness
- Dwarf's Toughness
- Extend Rage
- Extra Favored Enemy
- Extra Rage
- Extra Wild Shape
- Fast Wild Shape
- Faster Healing
- Favored Critical
- Giant's Toughness
- Greater Resiliency
- Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
- Improved Flight
- Improved Swimming
- Instantaneous Rage--an almost-useless feat that lets you start your rage at any time, even on someone else's turn.
- Intimidating Rage
- Multiattack
- Natural Spell
- Off-Hand Parry
- Plant Control
- Plant Defiance
- Power Critical
- Proportionate Wildshape
- Resist Disease
- Resist Poison
- Resistance to Energy
- Scent
- Shadow
- Snatch
- Speaking Wildshape
- Supernatural Blow
- Wingover
Prestige Classes:
This is the most prestige-class intensive class book so far, which is unsurprising because it has to cover three different classes at once. The classes included runs the gamut from wilderness masters, hermits, great warriors, and relentless city detectives.
Animal Lord--Mostly just extra animal companions, animal friendship at will. Animal Lords are never attacked by wild animals; only trained ones can attack them, and even then must succeed will saves or else seek another target.
Bane of Infidels--A rangerly prestige class that acts as guardian of a wilderness shrine.
Blighter--Think of the 2nd edition Dark Sun Defiler, and you have a blighter.
Bloodhound--The ultimate tracker, they can accurately predict the routes of their quarry, and thus are great at laying ambushes or moving ahead of the group they pursue. Also, if you really want to tell how much a horse was carrying by the tracks it leaves, this class is for you. They are a font of knowledge about the creatures and foes of the world, but don't focus on any one species. Really, this is what the ranger class should've been originally.
Deepwood Sniper--An Elven class which at high levels gains blindsight 500' when in thick woods. They are so attuned to nature, they gain fire arrows through the woods at targets they can't even see. The forest parts just barely to let their blows fly through.
Exotic Weapon Master--A really fifth wheel of the book, I suppose it fits with rangers and their 'exotic' style of two-weapons. They don't have much powers other than using any weapon they find. Exotic Weapon Masters get bonuses if they do original things with their weapons.
Eye of Gruumsh--This same class was presented in Dragon Magazine a couple months back.
Foe Hunter--A surprisingly well-inspired class that focuses on the ranger's favored enemy ability. Sure, there are tons of "monster"-hunter classes out there, but this one covers almost all the possible bases. Very flexible.
Forsaker--A prestige class for Druids who have abandoned the desire to preserve nature and betrayed their druidic order, Forsakers are aimed at destroying animal and plant foes. One of their more useful abilities is to force wildshaped druids back to their normal form.
Frenzied Berserker--A prestige class for multiclass druid/barbarians, who use their spells to strengthen themselves even further into rage.
Geomancer--Rather than simply a mage who uses earth spells, the geomancer links with a huge area of land and draws power from it, but must keep traveling to new lands to discover new power sources. It's a nice way to convert the Magic: the Gathering concept of tapping mana into D&D. The type of spells they are based on the lands they are bonded to.
Hexer--A classic hermit/witch class, the hexer is just good at a variety of curses, but doesn't have much else.
King/Queen of the Wild--This class could have been called "King of the Rock," or something similar. It's for wilderness warriors who can defeat any contender who comes into the area they are king or queen of.
Oozemaster--A sort of fungal, mushroomy, oozy druid prestige class that has many powers based on decay and disease.
Shifter--Shifters are better at wildshaping than normal druids, and eventually gain a permanent shapeshift ability that lets them assume the form of nearly any living creature as a free action. Gains bonus feats for some of those wildshape feats.
Tamer of Beasts--A very placid druid or ranger, the tamer of beasts can teach animals tricks as if they had an intelligence score of 5 or higher, so you could tell your pet wolf to, "Sneak out the back door, howl a couple times around front to cause a diversion, then meet me at the old oak by the city wall. Oh, and bring me a rabbit to eat."
Tempest--Like a raging storm, a tempest crashes down upon those before him and leaves rubble in his wake. What's more frightening than a barbarian warrior who can fly and fling lightning bolts?
Verdant Lord--Remember in 2nd edition where they had stuff like the 'archdruid' and such, so there could only be one 16th level Druid in the world? Well, the verdant lord is that druid, the spellcaster who is truly in tune with nature. Life springs forth wherever he steps, and the wilderness obeys his will.
Watch Detective--For more urban rangers (works good for rogues too), the watch detective is kind of like Sherlock Holmes. Hmph. You never saw Holmes fighting with two scimitars, did you?
Windrider--Windriders specialize in taming and riding beasts that can fly. This class actually works great for paladins who want a griffon mount or something similar.
Spells: The main thrust of the spells in this book are to give more options for using animal companions and to further blur the line between human form and animal form, like
aspect of wolf, which grants a few wolf-like powers while retaining your normal form. For Rangers, they added a
wildshape spell that is just like Polymorph, only it only lets you become a normal animal. Seems like a fair addition.
For the Frenzied Berserker, they have some unique spells that can only be cast while in rage. For the Hexer they have a few new types of curses.
New monsters: The book presents a new type of creature, 'legendary,' which is apparently even more dangerous than a 'dire' animal of the same type.
Roleplaying: What it's like to be a woman of the wilderness living in an urban setting, how to deal with outsiders to the woodlands, and how people from certain climates tend to look at the world. They give examples that use Greyhawk names, but clearly are based in the real world, like how certain arctic tribes (much like Eskimos) are so used to the cold that they don't mind the weather. Everything is so harsh, that giving is considered normal, and very little is considered individual property. Desert people have limited resources, and so tend to be wary of outsiders, while woodland peoples are often outgoing and willing to share.
As I said above, these aren't lies. I posted what I really did know, and then . . . um, well, I speculated a little. But since I don't know what the truth is, I don't know whether I'm right or not. It's only a lie if I
knowingly tell a falsehood, and everything I posted above is grounded in at least a grain of truth.
