New Classes in Progress

Well, Jetse's posting, I suppose I should make an appearance too ^^

I'm currently working on a couple of new classes - I quite like designing classes for 4th Edition, it feels a lot more straightforward than it did in 3rd. There is a few reasons there:

• 3rd Edition, some classes do feel like there is consideration made for what the class gets when - for example, the Swashbuckler class (findable in Complete Warrior) is very frontloaded, has considerable powers in their higher levels, and it seems like in compensation, its middle levels are barren.
  
  In 4th Edition, classes seem to be aimed at the 'now', which makes things far easier to work with, and there is a tight structure for what sort of things a class gets when. This and the Niche design of 4th are a really handy combination for class design.
  
  
• 4th Edition classes have defined roles, which while 'restricting', thats actually really handy for designing a class. You say to yourself "this is a striker", and you know, based on the other striker classes, where this needs to be in terms of power.
  
  
• 4th Edition has one unified system for class abilities (well, there is also the "class features", but they are not nearly as extensive in quantity). This makes many things really, really straightforward.
  
  For example, one class I'm homebrewing is a Martial Artist - a striker specialising in unarmed combat. For designing his "at-will" damage dealer (he has several, but I notice the ranger and rogue tend to have a 'key' power for this). I can see immediately what this power needs to be like, by looking at the key at will damage dealers of these classes.

For those interested (though I'm pretty sure just jetse and qwillion ever look at this ^^), the classes I'm whipping up are Druid, Barbarian, Martial Artist, the Witch (Jetse's had a strong hand in this one), and a fencing based defender.