Divine Power Class Review: Invokers Are Now Malificent
OMG is it...!!? No. Not a lightsaber.
As I set out to review the additional class options I didn’t cover in last week’s Divine Power review, I realized there might be someone better than I to explain how the invoker has changed — someone who’s spent some time playing the old invoker. So today’s invoker review comes to us via Gavin O’Brien, who sits across from me each week at our 4E table. Oh, and the invoker? Way awesomer now.
When we last left the invoker class, back in Player’s Handbook 2, it failed to stand out, a bottom rung controller with a sprinkling of so-so leader or ineffective striker, depending on the player’s covenant choice. With the new Covenant of Malediction class option and the number of burst, blast and multi-target powers throughout the new Divine Power supplement, the fine folks at Wizards of the Coast have essentially repaired the class. Not only is the new covenant a solid option, but the new powers allow for a more interesting and effective controller even if you continue to prefer the other covenants. Finally, if you had an idea for an invoker paragon path, chances are it is one of the dozen included in this book.
Malediction (Wiktionary tells me the word means “curse,” and cursing at the D&D table is just fine by me): the manifestation of this new covenant allows a push to the target of your encounter or daily powers, and only serves to enhance the invoker’s control by foiling your enemy’s tactical positioning. The added effects of encounter powers accessible through selecting this class option run the gamut. Increased burst sizes, penalties to saving throws, or severe damage for attacking your allies, the Covenant of Malediction focuses on control by making things difficult for your enemies. This happens to be my favorite kind of control.
Many of the new invoker powers possess the sacrificial aspect found throughout Divine Power. I completely buy into the concept of the power your character wields taking a toll on him. If it allows him to access effects slightly stronger than normally allowed at a given level, even better. While I’d be reluctant to use a power that pulls enemies next to me while granting everyone else combat advantage, taking 5 damage to pack a punch and push 3 enemies off a cliff sounds just fine. Also of note are the fantastic numbers of close burst and blast powers now available. Two of the three Covenants focus on Constitution and the class gets chain armor proficiency out of the gate. Might as well make the most of that survivability by getting all up in your enemy’s grill.
As far as the new at-wills go, none are overwhelmingly great or overpowered, but they provide options, which is generally a good thing. Also, they target either Will or Reflex, two defenses generally easier to hit than Fortitude, which half of the Player’s Handbook 2 at-wills target. It is useful to examine the domain feats associated with each invoker at-will to improve the usefulness of your chosen power. For example, Hand of Radiance combined with the Moon domain makes you the best friend of classes with powers that target the Reflex defense. There likely will be more domains created for Dragon issues, and we can never have enough options to make divine classes more versatile and powerful.
I’ll finish up with a few comments about the new paragon paths. I could easily go into a diatribe about how there really are too many pages devoted to them and how six pages of powers and six paths would be more useful than a dozen paths total. But I won’t.
There are some very solid paragon paths available to invokers of all types, not the least of which is Stonecaller. This path does everything a good controller is supposed to do by making things very difficult for your enemies. Constant tremorsense and the encounter ability to interrupt forced movement and grant a healing surge is a generous bonus. Another bonus is the numerous jokes available around the Stonecaller’s daily attack power, jokes I could probably make here, but I think I’ll save them for my gaming session this week [It’s called Black Obelisk of Doom, what’s so funny about…ooohhhhhhh… Ed.].
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July 28th, 2009 11:42 AM
I’ve got to say, I feel like they’ve gone down the wrong path with Paragon Paths…the same “wrong path” they ended up on towards the end of 3.5 with Prestige Classes. Listen, make them GENERIC! If my Warlock wants to be a Blood Mage…let him! Mix it up a little! With the new Paragon Paths, they are often even MORE specialized, requiring that you be a specific race or even a specific path (fey pact, orb wizard, whatever). Wrong move, WotC.
July 28th, 2009 12:30 PM
I fel your pain… but I also see where this design choice is coming from. The most “generic” PPs are supposed to be in the core books (or PHBII for the Invoc, since that’s where the class premered). But the Powers books are adding new options that are often designed to fix something specific, or make it cool. for example, exapnding on racial powers in ways that let you say your fey pact powers, or dragonborn breath weapon or -whatever- has grown strong, but doesn;t give you a game advantage since it does so as your PP where you were going to get new powers anyway.
For example, I think the Inner Dragon PP in Martial Power is great, even though it is limited to a specific race/class combination.
July 29th, 2009 7:16 PM
At least with class-based ones, you can take a multi-class feat & qualify; I’d feel better if there were similar “Elf friend” or “Hell-touched” feats that would do the same for other races.
July 29th, 2009 8:12 PM
I agree, mordicai. The feat Deva Heritage, from Dragon 374, goes just shy of saying “you qualify as a Deva for feats and paragon paths limited to that race.” Heck, even the background options during character creation have “Birth – Among Another Race”. It would be so easy to say that you qualify as that race for meeting prerequisites. I thought I remember WotC stating they wanted to do away with things like race and alignment restrictions in 4e.