D&D 4E Essentials, questions from someone trying out 4e again

[Layander]

My group played 4e from before the books came out, when all we had was keep on the shadowfel, we had a lot of fun learning the new system, but we didn't play constantly at the time so progress was a bit slow. We were starting thunder spire when phb 2 came out.
This was the beginning of the end for my group. One player noticed the races were more designed around certain classes to make them more powerful than starting ones, also turns out the monsters above 6th level in monster manual 1 had bad math. Players started getting overwhelmed when I bought a new book jog options every time we played, each book making the players more and more superior to the monsters in the modules I was running. And pyramid of shadows, partway through the first floor, no one wanted to play it ever again.
I talked them into trying a new game not a mod starting back at level 1 and once phb 3 was issued, and the group got to level 7 it died and has never been resurrected.
I bought essential books today because my local gaming store changed their 1/2 price 4e books sale to a 1/4 price 4e sale so I got all of essentials for 20 dollars.
Y

I might be wrong, I have read the books for like 3 hours so far, that's all of my experience. What do you think here.

There are a few questions I have I want to ask, this is a friendly forum, no fighting please. I want to try 4e again fighting with me and calling my idea of fun stupid would turn me off of the game not make me see that your way is superior.

So,
1. Is the power level actually stable
2. Is it hard to run essential style only content
3. The cleric, and wizard only have 2 and 3 magic specialties, are there ways of adding more domains and schools with out tilting the game to the direction I have seen before
4. The game seems to level fairly quickly from my experiences, while we didn't have much time to play back then, we all felt a little odd gaining 3 levels in 1 dungeon that is only 2 levels deep.


Do you have any other constrictive ideas to help our group get into DnD now if we want, classes to feel unique (my players complained pre essentials characters felt a bit to similar) options to be present but not so abundant no one knows whats in the game, and allows the game to keep its challenge with out work arounds I read about before (ie, always double the exp budget to make encounters more appropriate for the characters). I appreciate all the help. Thank you.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

There are a few questions I have I want to ask, this is a friendly forum, no fighting please. I want to try 4e again fighting with me and calling my idea of fun stupid would turn me off of the game not make me see that your way is superior.

So,
1. Is the power level actually stable

Generally. More stable than previous editions.

2. Is it hard to run essential style only content

No, it's not hard as Essentials has versions of most of the base classes now. Only the warlord seems entirely unserved. Having said that, the Essentials war priest is quite ... limited. No ranged attacks, ever.

3. The cleric, and wizard only have 2 and 3 magic specialties, are there ways of adding more domains and schools with out tilting the game to the direction I have seen before

Cleric specialties are "smaller" than wizard specialties. Adding new cleric domains would have less impact on the game than adding wizard specialties. Wizard powers tend to be more complicated, so be really careful about adding new schools...

4. The game seems to level fairly quickly from my experiences, while we didn't have much time to play back then, we all felt a little odd gaining 3 levels in 1 dungeon that is only 2 levels deep.

If you like that, fine. (Players often do.) If not, note that you're supposed to give out treasure at a certain rate compared to the XP rate. Use the inherent bonus rules to dodge much of that problem.

Do you have any other constrictive ideas to help our group get into DnD now if we want, classes to feel unique (my players complained pre essentials characters felt a bit to similar) options to be present but not so abundant no one knows whats in the game, and allows the game to keep its challenge with out work arounds I read about before (ie, always double the exp budget to make encounters more appropriate for the characters). I appreciate all the help. Thank you.

My experience with Essentials is actually pretty limited, mainly just Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms/Fallen Lands. The knight and thief are really well done.

Decide for yourself what you will limit before starting, and if your players use the Character Builder, instruct them on how to limit options. There's a trick to it, but as someone who has never used it I can never remember it.

 

[Layander]

So I just opened heroes of the fey wild and it looks like its entirely a non essentials style book. Am I wrong there? I see that they use the subclasses like essentials but stick to the old aedu system for every class and loose the this is what you get at each level part. Am I wrong?

 

[Obryn]

So I just opened heroes of the fey wild and it looks like its entirely a non essentials style book. Am I wrong there? I see that they use the subclasses like essentials but stick to the old aedu system for every class and loose the this is what you get at each level part. Am I wrong?

You're neither wrong nor right.

Each class in Heroes of the Feywild is self-contained. They also profit from previously-released books, particularly PHB2. But the Berserker acts kind of like a Knight before it Berserks, and the Skald uses melee at-wills for just about everything. And the Guardian druid has set Dailies. So there's some features from the Essentials classes, and some from outside it.

Best advice I can give is, "Don't get hung up on it." Use the classes you like, don't use the classes you don't, and just be reassured that no classes released by WotC so far will break your game.

-O

 

[S'mon]

On 4e speed of advancement - if you find it's too fast for your preference, it's ok to halve XP awards. I know with 3e I went over to a "bit more than half XP" approach that worked well, giving a level about every 5 5-hour sessions.

Personally I have not had much problem with advancement rate in 4e, progression is more incremental than in 3e, and currently I only play fortnightly for 3 hours a session; we advance about every 3 sessions, 9 hours of play, or 6 real weeks. If you are playing 5 hours weekly and are going through lots of balanced encounters, advancement can be very fast.

If you do use reduced XP, the long WoTC adventures won't work well, but you can use lots of short ones like the Dungeon Delve 3-encounter delves, or the shorter adventures in Dungeon magazine. I think 4e works best with short, punchy adventures anyway.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You might find this thread helpful:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/314827-playing-essentials-only.html

 

[Rechan]

Gaining a level is 13 encounters. If you're gaining 3 levels in 1 dungeon, you're having 33 encounters? That's... that's too many encounters in one dungeon unless it's a MEGA dungeon like Undermountain. Trim down the encounters in the dungeon.

I'd also point out that you can just toss Xp entirely and say "You level up when I think it's appropriate/time to level up". I prefer this method, but I know people like tracking XP, etc.

 

[S'mon]

Gaining a level is 13 encounters. .

13 encounters was in 3e. In 4e it's 10 at-level encounters, if you have no other XP source. In reality, with quest XP, skill challenges, over-level encounters, and optionally DMG2 roleplay XP, it's more like 6 encounters per level.

 

[Kzach]

No, it's not hard as Essentials has versions of most of the base classes now. Only the warlord seems entirely unserved. Having said that, the Essentials war priest is quite ... limited. No ranged attacks, ever.

They make up for that by being super awesome everywhere else though.

 

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

If you want more variety in the Warpriest, check out the Neverwinter Campaign Guide. It has 4 more domain builds for the Warpriest, each one tied to a FR deity, but easily adaptable to a different campaign setting.

The Corellon domain has powers that can be used with melee or ranged weapons, making a pretty good bow-priest. The Torm domain feels similar to a Warlord to me, albeit a very magical one, with the True Strike power granting a +4 bonus to an allies' attack as a standard action. I've used the Oghma domain to make a bard-like cleric before Heroes of the Feywild came out.