Essentials : What to Use and What to Lose? Can of Worms

[Igwilly]

Which is one of the many things I don’t like in 5e: Magic is easy, powerful, frequent, safe, pretty much everyone has it and there’s no strategy or planning associated with it.
I eventually gave up on 5e. It does have some nice things, but… Just nope.

Well, getting back on topic:
I usually solve the Essentials problem with an easy fix: treat as a different edition. You either are playing 4e Classic – which goes up to Essentials – or you are playing 4e Essentials. I know both are considered compatible, but I just cannot stand the difference in design at the same game.
And since Monster Manual 3, I always make my own monsters, anyway. Or use MM1 monsters but modified to the new statistics – and buffing them up on necessity. I even fixed much of Solo monsters had – they are certainly scary in my games.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I usually solve the Essentials problem with an easy fix: treat as a different edition. You either are playing 4e Classic – which goes up to Essentials – or you are playing 4e Essentials.

That's fair, and y'know, the on-line CB does differentiate between Essentials characters and anything-goes characters.

 

[Garthanos]

And they can move, cast, and move. Say behind cover.

One of the elements I have noticed particularly while working on a martial controller concept or two has been that battlefield maneuverability is something martial types explicitly need... as part of status quo with mages.

It is part of how they create the area effect impact. So a controller rogue might have a power like

"Cut on the run which slows doing minor damage to a series of enemies he shifts past, for a full move number of squares."

A controller Knight might bash through and knock down and slide target one square,
targets are each enemy he moves through the squares of this turn. He might get bonus armor classs to evade opportunity attacks of course as that is more fightery.

These ideas are geared around it but even in general I think movement is a balancing factor that makes martial concepts balance better.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's fair, and y'know, the on-line CB does differentiate between Essentials characters and anything-goes characters.

Except of course it just isn't at all a clean break, because everything post-Essentials is a sort of mixture of the two approaches. Nor are the E-classes really themselves entirely clearly fish or fowl. You have the Mage, which is a fairly minor variation on the PHB1 Wizard. You have the WarPriest, which is a somewhat deeper update and one could say simplification of the PHB1 Cleric, BUT without the more dubious economy and balance implications of the Knight, Thief, Scout, and Slayer. The post-Essentials books also have a lot of interesting material, and again it doesn't cleanly follow some "this is different and inimical to classic 4e design" pattern. The Blackguard, Necro/Nethermancer, Berserker, Witch, Elementalist, and Assassin (and really the Vampire too if you think about it) are mostly pretty close to classic 4e in design, with a few minor E-isms and a couple experimental ideas thrown in. Its not at all clear there's any reason to throw out these classes, nor the Cavalier either for that matter (and I've probably missed one or two, the Sentinel is debatable).

Beyond that the streamlining and simplification of feats certainly mostly doesn't hurt the game, though obviously a lot of the old feats are ALSO pretty handy, so again its kind of like you don't really want to exclude either set. Essentials does also simplify some things like armor in a good way.

You really can't call them different games, and while its obviously FEASIBLE to just cut off your game and not allow anything after some specific point, like Psionic Power probably, even that doesn't work perfectly because DM-facing books continued to be released that are highly desirable, like MV, MV:ttNV, etc. And you REALLY do want MV, the monsters are SO much better designed. Its not just damage output, not by a long shot.

 

[Garthanos]

I usually solve the Essentials problem with an easy fix: treat as a different edition

I admit to being a bit of a glutton for punishment as I like some of the flavors and elements from essentials. I want to save anything I can reasonably.

 

[Garthanos]

The post-Essentials books also have a lot of interesting material, and again it doesn't cleanly follow some "this is different and inimical to classic 4e design" pattern. The Blackguard, Necro/Nethermancer, Berserker, Witch, Elementalist, and Assassin (and really the Vampire too if you think about it) are mostly pretty close to classic 4e in design, with a few minor E-isms and a couple experimental ideas thrown in. Its not at all clear there's any reason to throw out these classes, nor the Cavalier either for that matter (and I've probably missed one or two, the Sentinel is debatable).

Yes and I even like Pixies...

 

[Igwilly]

I admit to being a bit of a glutton for punishment as I like some of the flavors and elements from essentials. I want to save anything I can reasonably.

Me too, but I would like to simplify things. I’ll already deal with the math – expertise feats and such – and I like to create my own monsters, so it’s best for me to just choose one of them and go.
When I DM 4e Classic, probably the only thing missing (in terms of concepts) is the Shadow power source, but we can live with that – and not everyone likes Heroes of Shadow, either. I actually never DM’ed 4e Essentials, and would like to do that in a near future: in that case, I want to really experiment with Essentials on its “pure” form.

 

[Garthanos]

Wasn't there friendly fire effects which were added/adjusted for the mage in essentials Tony mentioned Fountain of Flame any others off the top of your heads?

I think as an act of "tradition" I could change this to affect any creature.

 

[Garthanos]

Which is one of the many things I don’t like in 5e: Magic is easy, powerful, frequent, safe, pretty much everyone has it and there’s no strategy or planning associated with it.
I eventually gave up on 5e. It does have some nice things, but… Just nope.

I too haven't been tempted beyond the nope stage, but I remember some fun bits from the Next previews.

Reminds me of some of the essentials/post essentials materia.... interesting ideas burried by poor implementations and a core design paradigm that abandons the best of 4e.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Which is one of the many things I don’t like in 5e: Magic is easy, powerful, frequent, safe, pretty much everyone has it and there’s no strategy or planning associated with it.
I eventually gave up on 5e. It does have some nice things, but… Just nope.

This reminds me of something.

I was talking to the author of BLUHOLME, a clone of Holmes Basic (which was the first rule set I actually bought and DMed). One of the interesting things I'd forgotten about those rules: Wizards (Magic Users), can make scrolls starting at level 1, but their books are huge and non-portable. So if you're a wizard, you MUST go back to your base of operations to memorize spells, although you can spend resources to increase your spell load somewhat via the scrolls (which basically encourages bringing along some of the utility and niche spells that you'd just abandon for another Magic Missile otherwise).

Its a rule that might work pretty well in 5e (Holmes doesn't actually restrict clerics, but they don't even get a spell until level 2 and the rules were never extended beyond 3rd level so it was kind of moot). You could use this rule, and make clerics use a temple too, and that would definitely make them think twice before casting. They'd still have cantrips, but IMHO that isn't really a big problem given how large hit point totals are in 5e and the limited damage a cantrip can do. There'd still be the question of how to limit Warlocks and Sorcerers, as they're flavored as more inherent casters, but I'm sure something can be devised.

Anyway, its a bit off-topic, but you reminded me of it.