Anyone who has taken my character creation survey has seen the question
“For the feel of my character, I want my power to come from:”
This is actually an outside the box approach to “Power Sources”, a concept used in DND 4th edition to delineate where a character’s strength blossoms out of. While this is initially introduced by me as simply thematic, there is a little more depth to it than that, as it will also determine, to some degree, your primary stats, and several interesting feats end up being reliant on your power source, often ones that interact with your race.
Originally, there were supposed to be 10 power sources over the lifecycle of DND4e, but by the time sunset hit, we got 5 and a smidge.
Originally we were supposed to have:
Martial
Arcane
Divine
Nature
Psionic
Shadow
Elemental
Fey
Ki
The original players handbook introduced 3 power sources in mid 2008. In the end, over the course of the 2 and a bit years of releases, we got 25 classes spanning 5 power sources, with a single class from a 6th. While DND Essentials took up the mantle of the DND4e legacy in late 2010, and ran until 2013, it focused more on condensing errata rules and information of the core 4e, and granting more build options to make it more accessible to new players (players of other editions that never made the jump to 4e from 3.5, and those that eventually turned to Pathfinder instead).
On my sheet, the power source question has 5 options, each relating to one of the 5 major power sources.
| Power Source | Reference | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Martial | Myself | My body, my strength, my physical training, and my weapon, hone me into a titan. |
| Acane | Magic | See? I’ve got my magic wand and my magic powers, and my magic spells right here. |
| Divine | My Faith | My faith is my strength, regardless of what I do, and the divine spark is within me |
| Primal | Nature | I am in tune with the land, the animals, the plants, and they grant me life |
| Psionic | My mind | Centered body and mind together, I can make things happen with my will alone |
| The only source I didn’t include was Shadow, as it only has one class, Assassin. For new players, I often leave off Psionic as well, as the system varies from the base mechanics of 4e balance. |
For the four power sources we didn’t really get, their power was supposed to come from:
Shadow - ties with the darkness of the Shadowfell
Elemental - Raw power of the Elemental Chaos
Fey - ties with the power of the FeyWild, more than a fey pact warlocks patron
Ki - Spirit based source, but was ultimately scrapped, instead tying the monk into psionics
It is worth noting there were eventual additions to the existing classes of the Elemental Subtype, in the later released DND Essentials. Rather than full classes though, it simply introduced subclasses which used those class options.