Essentially speaking, I’m going back to basics…

I am undecided. I ordered the rule compendium and will check it out. To be honest I am thinking about giving up on 4e for a while and playing some Savage Worlds, assuming I can get the group to go along with it. We are in paragon now, and combats are taking longer than ever. Each session is just too repetitive. I am curious to see if the new rules though will do anything for my current impression of the game.

I’m trying it all out. So far I’m buying in it’s not a huge overhaul of the system like most of us thought it was going to be. It’s just a different way of looking at classes and how they play. The core rules are all still the same.

Unless we suddenly have to stop playing all the previous races and classes I see no problems.

I will likely pick up the Essentails (just like I did the Red Box) to read through and see what it is all about (what did or didn’t change) but I think my games are going to stay based on the PHBs and already published 4e stuff for a while… I don’t feel like I’ve exhausted the PHBs at all, heck, I feel like I’ve hardly touched on the psionic stuff, nobody has played a minotaur or shardmind, and I haven’t yet unleashed any wilden trackers on my group, so I’m not ready for a reboot… that said, I will try to play in at least some of the Encounters that are planned around the Essentials line if time permits. – Josh

Already bought the Red Box, Heroes and Compendium.

The Red Box is as it should be, a great entry point for complete newbies. It’s how I got started and I’m glad they brought it back.

The Heroes book, is absolutely a new Players Handbook. I have no idea why they called it Heroes of the Fallen Lands. They should have titled it Players Handbook Essentials or Players Handbook Classic. The only difference between it and the original PHB is the class race design philosophy. The further confusing point is that the “new” philosophy seems more built to appeal to lapsed players, rather than new ones. It seems to address the complaints about the classes all feeling the same. Obviously, those complaints can’t be coming from people who’ve never played the game before.

Anyway, having said that, I like the products. I like the price points and I even like the new builds presented.

I’m an old schooler and the fact that 4E design pretty much REQUIRED the use of minis and a grid was always a bit bothersome to me. I think the new Essentials builds get us closer to a point where combat with minis and a grid may actually be feasible. I’d still likely use a grid for the really epic setpiece battles, but for delves and skirmishes, random encounters, I’d probably not bother with the battle mat or dungeon tiles. It’s just SO much gear to bring to game night, between the minis, the tokens, the power cards, the condition cards, the battle mat, the bla bla bla. I’d like to play with just graph paper and my notes, like the good ol’ days. But with the new more balance rules. 🙂

Since by the end of november I should start a new campaing I plan to use essentials as a basis since we are all old timer 🙂

For me and my group, there was a definite need for Essentials. But groups and players needs vary.
I don’t agree it’s designed simply because of slowing core book sales. There’s no evidence of that whatsoever.

And the rules changes are mostly improvements that would have occurred regardless of Essentials. Obviously a publisher wants to sell products. But they can do this by making products that appeal to varying customer bases, which is simply smart.

I too am going to try to go back to basics with Essentials. The latest classes have been so complicated that my regular players (all both of them 🙂 ) have become more and more disconnected with them.

I think WoTC has really nailed it with the essential line. Just as people start feeling overwhelmed with the abundance of choice, they step up with a baseline set of classes for new and old players.

JesterOC

@Mattaui,

Most of the rules “changes” in Essentials aren’t changes at all, but rather printed and codefied errata. Changes in the rules that actually DID occur, were generally being used with or without Essentials.

For example, new races introduced in PHB3 have an optional racial stat bonus. Instead of races getting a +2 to two stats, races now get a +2 to 2 of 3 stats, making races more versatile. This change occurred in PHB3 but many comments incorrectly attribute this change to essentials.

The biggest valid point of contention on essentials is the fact that class power progression has changed for some new builds. Other than a few outlier classes (Psionics), most every class in 4E has a similar power progression, meaning you get to choose a specific power (attack or utility) at a specific level. Now, in the case of a couple (not all) Essentials builds, that power progression has changed. Instead of the usual attack powers you could choose at certain levels, you a given certain powers (stances in the case of fighters) at level 1 that do not necessarily change. At each level where you would normally choose a new attack power, you basically get a stat increase to the existing powers/stances.

This does a couple of things.
1. It simplifies player choice (in building the character)
2. It streamlines combat options.

Why this is good:
-New players are not inundated with choices. After 5 power books and endless DDI power updates, new PC creation is tedious at best and mind-numbing at worse. DDI subscription is a near requirement for players who want to make the most of their builds. Then once you make a character, the learning curve can be steep in utilizing the powers you’ve chosen. Essentials built PCs build faster and play smoother, sooner.
-Lapsed players complaints of homogenized classes and feel are addressed. In traditional 4E, a complaint was that a fighter plays too similarly to a mage, or a druid for example, as they all deal with powers the same, creating a resource management metagame that is identical for all classes that didn’t exist in previous editions

Why this is bad:
-Traditional 4E design has changed moving forward. 4E stalwarts fear that their classes of choice will eventually cease to be supported and fall prey to insidious power creep, leading to newer class builds being more powerful then previous versions. Some argue this has already happened in PHB2 and PHB3
-One of the beauties of 4E design was it’s builtin balance and equality among classes. The 4E ruleset and power curve, being identical for nearly all classes meant that many problmes of past editions were fixed. Every class runs out of steam at about the same point.

I think this about sums it up, but I’m sure you’ll get more answers and even better answers eventually.

Thanks, I couldn’t tell if my answer was clear or if I was only confusing the issue further. 🙂

And yes, I agree they are quite well balanced overall. I think they did a great job of that. Some people complain that the new builds will continue going strong in longer encounters while the traditional builds will run out of steam (powers) earlier, but honestly, the number of rounds required for this to make a difference is too great for it to be a real concern. And, considering that most groups tend to rest between combats to regain encounter powers, I would argue that the tradition classes, in normal usage, are still marginally more powerful (which is totally fine).

I think the issue of future power creep could be noticeable given a long enough time period and a complete lack of support for early builds (although I’m personally doubtful this will be the case), but even with that consideration, I don’t think it would ever come even remotely close to the amount of imbalance seen in previous iterations of the game even in day 1 classes.

I’m not going to argue with Jeremy, but I’ve found quite the opposite. I’ve had nothing but good luck with the WotC modules (except the Dark Sun intro mod which was not very good) as well as the plethora of 3rd party adventures. My players have loved everything I’ve thrown at them with very little rewrite necessary. And I can’t imagine any of my players ever being “pissed” when they print their characters over errata. Really? Pissed about Errata? Strange.

And if you are a DDI subscriber, there are literally dozens of free PDF adventures, adventure paths, and adventure locations and just tons of fantastic content released regularly. I can’t imagine playing enough that I’d be able to consume so much content. Having said that, I’m an old schooler and D&D was almost always prefaced as being something designed for the more creative types, with published modules meant more for the time challenged players, rather than as a mainstay of play for most groups. Or at the most, as kickoff points and side stories for homebrew campaigns. At least that’s how I’ve always seen it.

Every gamer needs a game and I’m glad Jeremy has found his. Thats why variety exists. Personally, I could never play Pathfinder, since it’s based on 3.5 which is, to my mind, the worst existing incarnation of D&D. It took 4E to get me back to the hobby I had left years ago.

Certainly, I’ve never intimated that 4E is perfect. No game is perfect for every player. RPGs in particular have huge hurdles in how they are perceived by individuals. 4E is however, a very versatile game. To MY mind, it brings the game back to the elegant simplicity that made AD&D such a joy to play. 2E started to wander away from that, more toward a simulation and 3.5 was heavily influenced by simulationist design, which I found terrible in practice. Obviously some people like it and that’s great. For them, I’m thrilled that Pathfinder took the torch. I’m just glad that D&D is more concerned with fun again.

There are several things I’d change about 4E were I able. However, I’m certain those changes would break the game for more people than it would improve it for. It’s easy for us to say this should change or that should change but it’s incredibly difficult to see what the true ramifications of those changes would be for a fanbase as diverse as that of D&D (and I’m sad to say, as curmudgeonly) , which is why I generally don’t make those types of complaints. Plus, D&D is designed as a game where pretty much every rule, even every convention is optional and meant as a guide on the way to fun. They openly offer that anything that hinders fun for you or your group should be summarily changed. This is what I find so wonderful about the game. It adapts to so many styles.

EverRaven is right. Errata doesn’t necessary even FIX anything. I’ve read a lot of it. And it’s word changes, restatements, and the like to improve clarity, even just to correct a typo. I would go so far as to say a MAJORITY of errata is for clarification purposes rather than fixing a broken design. Errata, at it’s core, shows the designers are constantly pushing the game and seeing where it has issues or where disagreements arise. It also shows they’re listening to the fans.

Lastly, with regard to errata, in this day and age where electronic delivery is so easy, there are very few reasons NOT to issue errata regularly. In previous editions, errata required printing something, distributing something, etc. In many cases it was a value equation that went something like “Is it worth it to errata this?” In most cases, due to what it would cost to actually issue a fix, the answer was no. Now that wizards has a pretty robust online toolset and community, that value equation has changed. Therefore it makes more sense to errata smaller thing that would have gone ignored in previous editions.

To hold up the volume of Errata in 4E as some indicator of the edition having problems is misinformed at best.

For me Essentials have shed a new and better light on character creation. I really like the way the Essentials products guide you through not just your mechanics but also your background and overall character concept. One of the pitfalls of 4E and DDI is that it’s too easy to rely on the character builder. This makes some players very lazy at character creation. One of the things that pleased me about the Red Box character creation was the feeling that your character concept comes before the rules. I will be very interested to see what happens with DnD after the Essentials line is all published, as its a core 10 part line of products it’ll be interesting how WoTC adventures handle the new classes. Something as simple of the PH1 fighter having his mark and the Essentials knight having his aura will create an interesting choice for DMs.

When 4e came out, I purchased the 3 core books, Keep on the Shadowfell… and pretty much never played the game (I’m a extremely infrequent RPer).

Lately, a friend and I have had a hankerin’ to run some 4e dungeon encounters. Nothing fancy, just create some 4e characters with our PHBs and do some combat (ala the D&D Encounters events or Dungeon Delve book).

Simultaneously, the Essentials line is being released, but I’m reticent to spend any money on it. I haven’t gotten much use out of my original books yet! But then I hear about 115 pages of errata? Hmmm. Well, if we’re not min-maxing, do I really need to take that errata into consideration? I could probably ignore it and everything else published on DDI? If we’re just running basic combat, do I *really* need to get the latest set of the rules?

Regardless, I hope we get the chance to find out soon. (btw, it was the new Castle Ravenloft boardgame that got us thinking about this)