The new PHB2 has a bunch of character classes, including the druid. The druid can shapeshift into a goat, and gains special powers for doing so!

Ok, it's actually any animal form. But it COULD be a goat!

Druids don't seem to have any healing- they are a "controller", not a "leader".

The barbarian is still there- his special powers are called "evocations".

I lack the expertise to figure out if the new classes are more, less, or the same power level as the original 4ed classes. Many look cool, like the avenger. It also introduces a bunch more races, including the gnomes, who were officially left out of the first book as a publicity stunt I guess.

There's still no monk, and there's still no ninja.



I'm really surprised at the lack of these two at this point- these are real world concepts, and it's not like they are tight on ideas here. Many of the classes require quite a bit of text to guess what they are (Invoker- a sort of divine priest offensive caster, Sorcerer, not much like the 3ed one).

There's also a second book out that gives more options to the original PHB1 martial classes, like rangers, rogues, fighters. Presumably they could make that book about five more times now, two to finish off the PHB classes and three for the PHB2 classes.

I have three of the books so far- DMG, PHB, PHB2. I haven't run anything with them yet, and don't plan to yet- but at some point someone will do something in 4ed, and I'll have no problems being some shadowstepping divine emo warrior for a few sessions I think.