So this chapter has its own intro/summary here, as opposed to the previous summary back on the into page. Again there's a refusal to distinguish moral and physical heroism, and there's a brief mention about incorporating character motivation mechanically.
Monster Hordes
Okay, so these are rules for mowing down large amounts of chaff enemies more easily. If you are a Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger, they kick in on enemies at least 8 CR below you. If you're a Rogue, Cleric, or Druid, they kick in on enemies at least 10 CR below you. Wizards and Sorcerers are specifically barred from participating. As is par for the course, no mention is made of any other base classes (though the pattern's easy enough to extrapolate from), but more importantly no mention is made of multiclass characters. I have no idea which level of access a Fighter/Wizard is intended to be allowed to use.
These rules also only apply when the characters use 'physical weapons rather than spells.' Given that several spells are physical weapons...
Seriously, I think I'm just going to have to stop pointing out every time this book is too lazy to fill in even the most immediate and obvious gray areas. It's fucking everywhere, it's a saturation.
So, what's the actual meat? Against stuff that qualifies as chaff to you, your attacks do not miss on a natural 1, your hits always deal at least enough damage to drop them to -1, and for every five points your attack roll exceeds the AC of your target, you hit another piece of chaff (and can remove your victims from anywhere in a contiguous group that you threaten at least one of). Finally, on any turn you use an attack action on any chaff, you can move into (and through) spaces occupied by chaff as if they weren't there (still drawing attacks of opportunity), even displacing any of them if you end your move in a space they occupied. This totally stacks with all extra attack shenanigans like the Rapid Shot chain or the Cleave chain. Ranged attackers still need to spend ammo for each target they kill, and Crossbow users who don't Rapid Reload need not apply.
And while that's obviously going to result in some hilarious weed-whacker impressions, I honestly don't know if it's an improvement to the game. As a power-up for martial-types it's not obviously bad, though there's always the chance that the Cleric will highjack it. I don't know if the different CR cutoff is enough to make the difference. I also don't know if it cuts in soon enough for anybody to care at all; does even a Fighter really care about Warrior 1 Orcs at level 8 (or Barbarian 10 orcs at level 18)? Like, even to the extent that a giant pile of them might impede his movement toward a real enemy?
Heroic Traits and Action Dice
Okay, this section goes beyond unclear into outright contradictory.
The short version is that as a PC (or major NPC) you have a number of Heroic Traits which are personal motivations for you. Taking action toward these motivations gives you Action Dice, which are a resource you can spend on fulfilling these motivations. If you work against or flagrantly ignore your motivations, you get a penalty. So far, so fairly standard.
How many Heroic Traits do you get? Well, one section says that you get one at level 1, and another one at every level. Another section says that 'as a rule of thumb, a character cannot have more than three heroic traits at any one time.'
What does an appropriate Heroic Trait look like? Well, it lists and explicates six guidelines to keep in mind, including self-sacrifice, danger, attainability, responsibility, and goodness (or evilness for villains). But the last guideline is 'specificity,' where it says:
Which is fine except that in the wrap up of the segment, almost immediately after all that, it says:This point is open to DM interpretation, but heroic traits are not an excuse to gain a bonus in every situation imaginable. A vague goal such as 'fight evil' is not an acceptable trait. A better goal names a specific villain, a village or city, or a single person.
So even text under the same sub-sub-heading is arguing with itself. The book has six writers and I don't know who wrote what, but I would bet money that the heroic trait section was contributed by Mearls. It is exactly the sort of first draft resource management crap he loves to get published.A heroic trait can be something as simple as a one-word trait, such as 'generous.'
I like the concept, I think it's great to actually support PCs running around with 'protect Princess Buttercup' and 'kill the Six-Fingered Man' on their sheets. It would be great if someone had written rules for that instead of almost writing them.
New Feats
There are 15 feats, and 7 of them are named 'Hero's <insert noun here>.' Even more of them are too sad to comment on.
There is the hilarious Divine Smite metamagic feat, which for 'only' +2 adjustment lets you have a spell only affect targets of a specific alignment. Commence checking for enemies Pyro-style and trolling the Paladin with illusions only they can see.
New Prestige Classes
Celestial Herald: Bard prestige classes with half casting progression make baby Jesus cry.
Divine Healer: It's a full-casting class with an extra ability every level. Sounds like it could be worthwhile, right? Well, unfortunately it also comes with a code of conduct that includes never seeking to harm a living being. It's not as bad as the BoED Vow nonsense, because it doesn't constrain your friends at all. It also only counts intentional violations, but it is super harsh because you immediately lose all Divine Healer abilities and can never level as a Divine Healer again, and atonement is never mentioned. The abilities are underwhelming as well, mostly involving piddly boosts to your heal amounts and 1/day extra healing effects. It does have one interesting ability in Share Life Force, which is a 1/day the DH loses 1d4 levels and their touch-range friend gains 1d4 levels (both effects for 1 round/level). It seems like it could enable some wonderfully dramatic scenes, except that using it would cause the pace of play to hit a brick wall.
Hospitaler: This is ostensibly a class about being a field medic who also hits people without killing them. It also does so without ever referencing subdual damage, which is kind of impressive. It's a medium-BAB fighting class with abilities that are mostly complete bullshit, except that its level 3 ability, Crippling Blow, is insanely deadly; when you make an attack, you can strike to cripple instead of wound - the attack is gimped, with only Dex bonuses to attack counting, so ranged or Weapon Finesse. If you hit, choose Str, Dex, or Con(!!!) and make a Heal check with a DC of 20+target's chosen stat - if you succeed, your attack does ability damage to that stat. And that's supposed to be a less lethal option? Especially since some poorly edited stuff at the end strongly implies you still actually also do normal damage with this attack? Sure, you have to cheese out your Heal bonus, but whatever. The later abilities actually get kind of cool (although not good). At level 9, killing someone provokes an attack of opportunity from you; at level 10, you can 'take back your healing' to SoD people you've previously healed.
Knight Crusader: This guy is basically the Paladin as a Prestige class for a fighter-type with no Divine casting. Sure, you have to have burned a bunch of your extremely limited skill points on Knowledge (Religion), and your spell list doesn't have any Cure effects on it, and you start off casting a level behind a straight Paladin. Your casting actually catches and passes a Paladin's, and you get at least one class feature per level to boot. Your Divine Favor is called Fanatic Will and is a straight +2 so you don't even care what your Charisma is. You get a pile of bonus feats off the fighter list that someone forgot to put 'must fulfill the prerequisites' on, so load up with Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting and all that jazz. Hell, you even get a version of Barbarian Rage (usable only against evil enemies). It's all so butch you might even forget you're still only a martial character for a few rounds.
Okay, I need a break. There's like 8 more of these things.
