>One thing I think we have to be conscious of is people reading
>this who don't know the basics of why certain things are good.
> In retrospect, I did this somewhat with the invoker writeup
>draft that's up... i.e., sure you can freeze your surroundings
>with conglaciation, but why do I care?
>
>In the context of this, for example, do I care if I can break
>someone's bones or make them bleed? Why is that good? Or,
>why is it better than something else that sounds good? We all
>know this stuff and take it for granted.

I considered that as well and here was/is my thinking: this is a class page, the point of which is to entice a player to want to play this class as opposed to any other (at least while he/she is reading this one, obviously they should feel that same pull when they read every one of the class pages), and to me what makes someone want to play something is not the detail of why X skill is good, but rather how cool it sounds. Sure, I can say "You can use your skill to make someone's str drop 5 points and dex three points, which will reduce dual wield weight and inventory capacity" but that's not going to lure me into a fantasy playing game character nearly as much as "You can bleed him like a stuck pig or shatter his bones with your big crushing mace!"

By keeping the skill names in the text, as we discussed, it allows the reader, if he/she wants, to go look at it a bit more, and follow the chain to things like strength loss, weight, dex, etc. But if they don't want to, they've seen and read something here that makes them want to try it out. I think the focus should be on something being cool, not on why it's useful in the game in any detailed way.

That being said, I intend on finding some time tonight to revise according to your comments and my replies, looking for a happy medium. Nobody else really replied so I don't have much else to incorporate.

If I have time over the weekend I might take a stab at a first draft for the shaman class. I'd do paladin but I've only played shield and while I know enough about the two handers to probably get something out, I don't want to write about it if I don't have recent first-hand experience.