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I'm starting this thread give a place for everyone to list errors within the new Red Box as they find them. I've found a few making my first character just now (human Fighter) and I'm sure there are more sadly...
1) Marring an otherwise perfect character sheet is the absence of Passive Insight and Perception. This is only compounded when in the Solo adeventure it tells the new player to "fill in this section".
2) As a Fighter it tells you early on that you have two Stances, Poised Assault and Battle Fury. Later on when it tells you have power called Power Strike it says to write it down with Bastion of Defense and Battle Fury... Bastion of Defense is not in Red Box...
__________________ An articulate soul trapped in an inarticulate shell
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Last edited by YourSwordIsMine; 1st September 2010 at 03:55 PM..
Step 8 (Fighter): it tells you to fill in a Constitution of 14 regardless of your race. Later in step 56, when assigning Racial modifiers, it mentions that Dwarves and Halflings already received a +2 to their Constitution, but this was not the case.
Another possible issue with Step 8: it tells you to add your CON mod to your melee attack's damage. Now, this could just be a class feature of the Essentials fighter that we haven't seen yet, but from what we know at this point, a Fighter's MBA shouldn't get STR and CON to damage.
Step 37 (Cleric): The sample attack bonus it provides doesn't add up. It assumes a Wisdom of 18 and a modifier of +4 for the examples. At the bottom of page 13 it tells you that your weapon modifier is 2 + WIS, which makes sense because you're using a mace. But in the sample, it says you're using a Sword (which has a +3 modifier). And even if we assume that the example made a switch of gear, it STILL gets the total wrong, giving the Cleric a +8 to hit-- a mighty +4 proficiency bonus! Following the text will give the player the correct information here, it's just the example graphic that causes confusion. Oh, and the attack bonus and weapon type are both fixed (to +6 and "mace", respectively) later on in step 39.
Step 21 (Wizard): Same issue as Step 37-- the text accurately says your AC is 10+INT (which is either +3 or +4, depending on your race), but the example gives a final AC of 15.
None of these is a problem for an existing player to fix, but I can see them causing confusion for newbies.
Last edited by captainspud; 28th August 2010 at 03:43 PM..
In the sections for rogues and wizards (who aren't wearing heavy armor), it says something along the lines of "If you're an elf, your speed is 7. Otherwise, your speed is 6."
This implies that dwaves have speed 6... which I'm petty sure is a mistake rather than an intentional change.
__________________ Still excited about 4th edition!
'If there steady paycheck in it, Krusk rage against anything you say.' - this post
"Premier" gaming stores have them on sale as an early release.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thalionalfirin
A Premier gaming store is one deemed by WotC. Those stores actively support Wizards by hosting gaming events... Magic tournaments, LFR, D&D Gamedays, etc. In recognition of this, they are allowed to sell certain Wizards products before the street release date... in effect, before the online stores like Amazon.
I don't know if there is a list of stores like this anywhere online. You may want to contact your local game store to see if they're selling Essentials already.
This is only for true game stores. Retailers such as Borders and Barnes and Noble wouldn't be a premier store.
Mostly correct. There are levels of Premiere Stores: Gateway, Core, and Advanced. Only Core and Advanced level Premiere Stores are getting the D&D products early. Most of the stores running D&D Encounters are Core level or above. So check WotC's site under events to find stores running Encounters near you.
The Rogue appears to be cocked up too. Take a look here.
Was that ever verified? Couldn't it just be that the Essentials preview was out of date and the stuff in the Red Box is correct and will also be reflected in Heroes of the Fallen Land?
That wouldn't be the first outdated preview. In fact, I think that very same preview references Power Strike, which is clearly a cut-and-paste error from a Fighter preview.
EDIT: Ok, I have the Red Box in hand, and downloaded the Game Day characters. The two Game Day rogues use the Tricks from the preview, which are not in the Red Box. So, some potential outcomes are:
1) The Game Day characters could have been built with outdated info and HotFL will match the Red Box
2) HotFL could have Tricks as well as Red Box style powers
3) The Red Box could be outdated.
I'm coming around to #3--that the Red Box is outdated--because attack powers that grant movement in addition to your normal Move action is a fairly advanced concept.
__________________ no witty sig at this time
Last edited by Reaper Steve; 30th August 2010 at 03:02 AM..
Reason: Bought the Red Box and compared it with GD pregens
Another possible issue with Step 8: it tells you to add your CON mod to your melee attack's damage. Now, this could just be a class feature of the Essentials fighter that we haven't seen yet, but from what we know at this point, a Fighter's MBA shouldn't get STR and CON to damage.
this is a problem because in the Slayer Excerpt on Wizard site it says:
Level 1: Heroic Slayer
Although other warriors might focus on defense or fancy maneuvers, you have trained from your first day of combat to cut your foes down without mercy.
Benefit: You gain a bonus to the damage rolls of weapon attacks. The bonus equals your Dexterity modifier.
now maybe this is because the Red Box is overly simplified but....
Further evidence of the Red Box not being as current as the rest of the Essentials (assuming that the rest of Essentials will be published with the 6 July errata):
DM Book, pg.16: The Prone entry states that flying creatures safely descend a distance equal to their speed before falling. The 6 July PHB errata got rid of the safe descent part.
Nothing huge, I know, but enough indicators are popping up to make me think the Red Box was off to the printers before the last round of errata and Essentials decisions were complete. No big deal to me... as long as the Rules Compendium and Heroes books reflect the most current errata.
It was pointed out to me that magic missel changes to one or two targets, auto hits, counts as ranged basic, but is missing the line that includes damage bonuses from magic impliments to damage. We're wondering if this is intentional. The Magic staff card still says that the modifier is to damage rolls. Perhaps they are planning to change that? OR the messed up and left out the line on the power card, or they are just planning to swap the bonus damage from implements in exchange for a second taget?
I posted this at WotC's boards, but figured why not post it here too. I agree and disagree that this is a good release. I think it could have been an EXCELLENT release for new players, with a few adjustments. One of those as already stated, is something to make the character creation easier after the first time going through. It's easy enough to make a character, but after a couple times it starts being a pain. Even a simple short summary that runs down what options you have as a character. As such I even made one for when I use this set to introduce others. I'll post it onto this, though it won't make much sense to those who haven't read it I imagine...those who know 4e can make sense of a lot of it, but it still won't give them the intricate nuts and bolts beyond a simple spoiler.
If there is a problem with the summary, I'll edit it out (when I read here next, or someone else can mod it if they have the ability)
Okay, looked over the Starter set...and...I'm in shock slightly. It's NOT GEARED towards newbies really. It is...but it isn't. Let me explain.
It has a really good introduction in the Player's Book, or what you should read first. That's a good thing. It has the new player start reading through a choose your own adventure. This is a VERY GOOD idea and a VERY GOOD WAY of introducing roleplaying to someone brand new to the game.
However, there the problems start. It appears as if someone forgot some basic editing...at least from my read through of it. It isn't just misspelled words. I have plenty of those, which you'll notice in this post. I even have a ton of grammar errors. I can understand that, and normally don't mind the minor mistakes in any of the Books WotC has put out. These are a little more than minor. For example, the fighter may NEVER learn what his Constitution score is. There is a portion in the book where it asks you to make a roll. If you hit you go to a section which explains your Constitution score. If you miss, you NEVER go to that section...EVER.
In addition, it tosses around terms such as 1d4, 1d8 casually as if a reader should know what that means automatically. I know what it means, but how about some youngster with no prior experience in this...they may just look at that and try to figure out what it's telling them!
The biggest complaint I have other than that, is that it's made for creating one character only. If your character dies, you have to go read through the ENTIRE BOOK AGAIN just to create a new character. This may be fun the first four or five times you go through it, but after that, it's going to get tedious.
They advertise Heroes of the Fallen Lands in the DMB (Dungeon Master's Book) and that's acceptable, but if they don't have a way to create characters on your own...then your still stuck reading through the Player's Book every time you want to play.
That's a pretty BIG slap for the Essentials line, in my eyes. Not that great.
Furthermore, there is no real comprehensive list of the powers. This could be a bonus, or a minus.
Instead of a listing in the book, you get some cardstock that's perforated into cards. These are like the powercards that you can buy, but for the characters in the set. All your powers are written out this way. You are given a few of the power abilities in the book for you basic start, but after that you have to search through the cards to find your power. You then take the power card to learn what you can do.
Some will find that a great idea and think it's the greatest thing since sliced Pie. I'm not too fond of this by itself. I'd rather have a list in the book from which players can copy their character powers onto something else first. I wouldn't mind if they had BOTH a list in the book, and the cards, but I don't like the idea of cards only. This is only a personal preference though, and some will REALLY like it.
Another gripe is they discuss Initiative and initiative modifiers, but really don't discuss how you get it. That's not all that great. As it's written without that information, the monsters will almost always have the advantage of initiative. Not as bad as somone never figuring out what their Constitution is (unless of course they cheat and start reading the choose your own adventure as a book straight through instead of turning to the relavent section), but still, kind of irksome.
A little editing would have shown these problems on the first read through. I noticed them on my first perusal of the book. Maybe I'm blind and didn't notice these things in the book, even after going back and trying to find them...which could be possible, but if I'm not blind, I kind of find it appalling such obvious things would be missing.
On the bright side, I think the choose your own adventure format is excellent in introducing players...but they may have a few obstacles in getting through it.
The DMB on the otherhand is excellent. They have a ton of information in it, all crowded into one book which will basically allow a DM to create as many adventures as they desire. It allows characters to advance up to level 2, and though no XP is given, tells them that they can advance to level 3 even.
It covers all the essentials not covered in the PHB, from skills, to combat, to adventure design, and more. It also has a lot of encounters to get your hands wet, and then a nice little monster manual at the back. It's like they had two different writers. One for the PB, and one for the DMB. The DMB is superior in EVERYWAY to the PB. I would rate the DMB excellent and it saves the set.
With this set, people can create character after character after character, and keep playing for a while. If people can get through the character creation, I would rate this as the best introductory set since the 3.5 Black Dragon Basic set. It's a very good set overall, and can allow people to play for hours, days, weeks, months, etc. with just this set alone.
That said, it will take some dissecting for the new players to understand things at times, especially those items explained in the PB.
The items that come with it, are the aforementioned PB and DMB, 4 character sheets, a large map, 56 tokens, with 12 character tokens, 5 action point tokens, 36 (different monsters on front and back) monster tokens, and 3 large tokens representing a black dragon, a white dragon and what I think is a horse with a zombie, gelatinous cube, and Dire wolf on the back of those three tokens.
You get 6 black dice with whhite numbers.
Seven cardstock sheets perforated with 9 cards apiece (for a total of 63 cards, some of the cards are treasure cards however)
A piece of paper the size of an index card with a code for your free solo adventure.
And finally a sheet advertising the essentials line with the Dungeon Master's Kit, the Rules Compenium, the Dungeon Tiles, and the Monster Vault.
So that's the preview for you who haven't gotten it, or those just visiting looking for more information.
Finally, I'm posting an Aid to character creation and some essential stuff that SHOULD have been included in the set. Note, this is ALL abbreviated overall, but should be understood easily by someone who has actually read the PB in the starter set. If it is too much, I suppose Wizards could take out that part, but as I said, it's just an abbreviation and will be useless overall to someone who doesn't have the set...and for those who already know the rules well, it won't be of any use. For many of the items, such as the powers, they are MORE FULLY explained on your powercards, this list is just a reminder of what you are looking at when creating your character. Your powercards are the items that you need to use to get the full information. The same goes for some of the other information.
I would hope that Wizards would actually create a support page. They can even take the stuff I've typed out here and modify it (I haven't really checked over the spelling or grammar) and post it on the site somewhere for new players to grasp some of the ideas better, as well as having an easier time making their second or third character. The first time is fun reading through the adventure...after that....
NOTE: the card has the redemption code necessary to download the adventure, just going to the URL above will not allow you to download it. (That is, if it resolved correctly.)
NOTE: the card has the redemption code necessary to download the adventure, just going to the URL above will not allow you to download it. (That is, if it resolved correctly.)
The card also says you can't redeem it until September 7.
I really like the idea of a thread for tracking errata to the Red Box. I'm glad I'm not the only person that noticed that Dwarves appear to have lost their CON bonus, and that there's no place for Passive Perception/Insight.
Can a mod please clean up all the non-errata rants from this thread?
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