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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Essentials : What to Use and What to Lose? Can of Worms
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7082209" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>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). </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7082209, member: 82106"] 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. [/QUOTE]
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