Heroes of the Elemental Chaos

Sorry that Ive been gone for a while, Ive just been at a loss for things to talk about lately. Heres a review of the newest release for 4th edition. Heroes of elemental chaos

Heroes of the Elemental Chaos
Player's Option D&D Game Supplement
RPG Staff
Masters of fire and earth. Lords of air and water. This tome is the definitive sourcebook for creating and playing characters with ties to the Elemental Chaos and the primordial beings that dwell there. It shows how the elements can influence heroes of the natural world and presents elemental-themed character options for players.
In addition to discussing elemental power and presenting new character themes with strong story hooks, this book includes new class builds -- including the elementalist and the sha'ir -- and new feats and paragon paths designed to tie existing characters more closely to the Elemental Chaos.
Item Details 
Item Code: 356170000 Release Date: February 21, 2012 Series: Player's Option D&D Game Supplement Format: Hardcover Page Count: 160 Price: $29.95 ISBN: 978-0-7869-5981-5

Given the player focus of this book, I wasn't exactly expecting much in the way of DM elements beyond, perhaps, Hero of the Feywild's interjections. While it doesn't quite have the same charm as the Feywild supplement had, I thoroughly enjoyed what flavor was offered. The comprehensive list of primordials and choice explanations provide me with quite a lot in a small package: a headless titan wandering the chaos seeking to reunite with his severed head, which is entombed by the gods and jibbers all sorts of blasphemy and primeval magic for anyone to steal. Or how about the progenitor hydra who was utterly smashed to smithereens by Kord and whose entrails have slowly been collected by his remaining followers over the last age and fed in hopes of him regenerating. Great stuff, in my opinion. I also very much like the elemental companion rules in here, which have a symbiotic bend, actually housing inside a PC and offering two kinds of benefits. That has a TON of potential for reflavoring.


Character option wise, I was most interested in the Elementalist, which gives us an Essentials sorcerer; the elemental Monk options, which give us Benders ala Avatar (and a creative player could easily take it the rest of the way through his descriptions); and the Sha'ir, which I still wish was another sorcerer build, but like it or not Wizards are the go to for all magic, and their wealth of spells is the only reason I'm not completely sore over the topic. They use elemental familiars to great affect. There's also options for barbarians, warlocks, druids, but nothing really leaped out at me as brilliant. I thought the magic items and boons were pretty nice, as well.


Overall, I think this book is good in so far as being a player supplement, but many of us want more information on the Primordials. This book would have been great as a year 2 supplement in 4e's sadly shrinking life, not a year 3.5 product. I also believe this book should have been released in tandem with something juicy for DMs. Plane Below was nice, but more of an overview of everything in the maelstrom. Give me the specifics of the primordials and their prisons, cults and loyal servants, plots and secrets, give me all sorts of material I can work with and thus better integrate the player material.


I give Heroes of the Elemental Chaos a 4/5, because I do see plenty of material I and others will be using, I am a sucker for the primordials to begin with.