The book is misleadingly named, as only one new class is introduced for the Divine and Primal power source each. Instead, the focus is clearly on the Psionic power source, which introduces four new classes to the table: The Ardent, a leader who uses psionic magic to psychically influence the tide of battle; the Battlemind, whose psionics allow him to gain the tactical advantage that a defender requires; the Monk, a striker who uses harnesses psionic power to achieve total mobility and the Psion, a controller who brings down her foes through telekinetic assaults or psychic attacks.
The first thing you should know about the Psionic classes is that they introduce several new mechanics. The Psion, Ardent and Battlemind make use of power points – the quantity of which depends on a character’s level and is replenished after a short or extended rest – to augment their psionic powers, and have no encounter powers to speak of, save for some utility powers. Instead, they have a host of at-wills that can be boosted by these power points. For example, a Level 7 at-will called Ego Crush, allows a Battlemind to deal 1[W] + Constitution damage, and denies his target the ability to gain combat advantage until the end of his next turn. When boosted, it can be used as an opportunity attack or when maxed out, deals double damage against each enemy within a close burst.
All in all, the Psionic classes are exciting new choices for players. My only real misgiving is that it continues the trend in 4th Edition towards more book keeping. Between healing surges, daily item powers, encounter powers and daily powers and class features, there are already plenty of exhaustible resources to track without adding power points into the mix. Granted, previous editions had a disproportionate balance of resource tracking: fighters worried about little more than their next attack while wizards fumbled through reams of paper and post-it marked rulebooks to track casting times and mark spells to learn and memorize. Still, the Psionic classes are probably recommended for more experienced players. Thankfully, they aren’t just designed to be exotic for the sake of it, and are great additions to the game.
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traitor! You burn in the 4th layer of hell!
Looking over the players handbook I was impressed with some aspects and also a little disappointed with others.
Races:
In my opinion half the races presented in this handbook were a great addition while the other half were not up to par. Since starting gaming many years back I have had many players ask me if they could play a minotaur, but it being a EL8 didn't allow them to until far into the campaign. The addition of this race and the gith were good. The Shard-whatever and the wilden-leaf/stick people were to a bit of a stretch, they just seemed strange and weird (not that their abilities or stats were bad).
Classes:
Overall not bad, some were interesting. There's much controversy in my gaming groups about whether or not the monk should be psionic... I see both arguments so I guess I just don't really care either way.
The addition of the hybrid characters was to me awesome. It in a way brought back multi-classing... At least I feel it's closer to multi-classing from 3.0/3.5.
If you like Psionics then you should get this, otherwise I wouldn't pick it up. There are two other classes, the Monk and the Runepriest but they don't make up for the lack of useful (to me) material. Plus, unlike previous editions where at least the feats could be of some use to other classes, Psionics and the powers of the Monk are basically their own system and non-transferable.
The races presented (gith, minotaur, shardmind, wilden) are all HIGHLY fantastic and may be of interest to those raised on a diet of WoW and Harry Potter, but if you're more of a Tolkien and George RR Martin mindset they will have little appeal.
I've playtested the psion and the seeker already (again, from D&DI pre-release content) and they work really well. The seeker is an arcane archer, like from 3e. It's not at all like a ranger who specializes in bows. (sorry). Being able to make arrows or thrown weapons explode, slow, immobilize, daze, and grant combat advantage is great. Couple that with an at-will that lets you choose an elemental damage type for your ranged weapon strike, AND a buch of abilities to shift away, or fire up close w/o granting combat advantage and it's a pretty kick ass class. Basically a gun-slinger. A dual hand crossbow build should come along as a paragon path, hehe. The psion has a lot of versitility, and regains power points with a short rest. So, they are balanced dispite not having encounter powers. There's a first level daily that even lets you dominate (sort of) you can make a creature throw a basic attack against another creature adjacent to it. it's vs. will, so...making a zombie slam the deathlock whight that re-animated it was an awesome thing in our 1st level group.
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