cavalier973
Hero
I have been going back and reading the Core Rules, and am really having a good time doing it. The following thoughts are kind of random....
The Core DM Guide is superior in every way to the Essentials DM Book, excepting for the updated skill challenge rules (which, if one has the PDF of the core DMG has the updated rules).
For a small example, in each book's section on the Town of Fallcrest, area 1 is "The Tower of Waiting", and the descriptions are identical. However, the DMG (core) has a box that has a "DM's Tip" that one of the prisoners held there was a princess that cavorted with devils, and that a small dungeon could be designed for the players to investigate strange goings on there. The DMB (Essentials) gives no such tip.
The DMG has extended rules for traps and diseases, for building random dungeons, for building monsters, for artifacts--all of which are missing from the DMB (the latter tome does have some of those rules, but they are truncated, in my estimation).
The Core DM Guide is superior in every way to the Essentials DM Book, excepting for the updated skill challenge rules (which, if one has the PDF of the core DMG has the updated rules).
For a small example, in each book's section on the Town of Fallcrest, area 1 is "The Tower of Waiting", and the descriptions are identical. However, the DMG (core) has a box that has a "DM's Tip" that one of the prisoners held there was a princess that cavorted with devils, and that a small dungeon could be designed for the players to investigate strange goings on there. The DMB (Essentials) gives no such tip.
The DMG has extended rules for traps and diseases, for building random dungeons, for building monsters, for artifacts--all of which are missing from the DMB (the latter tome does have some of those rules, but they are truncated, in my estimation).