Essentials: why the hate?

[babinro]

Lack of Build Options - People want to dismiss this as a reason but it really is the only reason I don't care for essentials.

Once one player in my group plays a Vampire class, there is almost no reason for another to ever play it again (aside from Role Play variations). Alternatively, we could have an entire party comprised of a Spear Fighter, Full Blade Fighter, Brawler Fighter, Craghammer Fighter and Two-Weapon Fighter and they'd all play somewhat unique.

Essentials classes lack direct feat support preventing me from further expanding what that class excels in. I can choose from a dozen or more Fighter specific feats to further specialize my class, but I cannot do anything of the sort with my Vampire.

I should note that I would never ban essentials from my table...such things are just silly. Let a player play what they want. That said, I personally get a ton of enjoyment from D&D via character building and learning what works and what doesn't. Non-essentials classes let me try out at-wills and retrain ones that don't meet my strategy to something that does. I can continue to best play the character I envision rather than stick to the one someone else feels I should play.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Simply put, I did not like what Essentials did to my 4E. But no problem, I am ignoring Essentials just fine, thanks.

 

[whearp]

Ironically to the sentiment of the original post, I run essentials almost exclusively. Core 4e is great for its unified structure, sure, but it wasn't as scalable in difficulty as the essentials stuff. I like having the essentials options so I can bring in a complete newbie friend and make him a greatsword slayer. He doesn't have to remember a bunch of powers or class abilities... he just hits things until they are dead. A DM must always be mindful about how various sources will affect a game, but I don't feel like the essentials stuff changes that much... also, my players don't feel the need to break my games.

That said, I have to agree that essentials hate is just a knee-jerk emotional reaction. It is only natural to oppose the new/different thing... especially when you're a geek like we gamers are.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

... and feinting trick is just a waste...

It has its uses - specifically, on a human thief with Sly Flourish as their extra at-will, high Charisma, and the Flash of the Blade feat. Together, when you make an at-will Sly Flourish attack and don't have CA, you get to add Cha mod damage twice AND still get to add Sneak Attack. You miss out on the extra +2 to hit from CA on your attack bonus, but Thieves are already stupid accurate.

And because they get replacements rather than dailies, knights are still good over a five or six encounter day when the fighters have run out of steam.

I've noticed this to be true of all Essentials martial classes. Both fighter variants, thieves, and both rangers can just keep going and going and going.

This has led me to conclude the biggest contributing factor to the 15 minute adventuring day now is the existence of Daily powers, especially at low-level. I've been playing around with several different methods of eliminating the problem, but so far, nothing has worked as well as I'd hoped.

 

[talok55]

Well 4E is kind of the "anti-D&D" edition, and Essentials is more like previous "more D&D" editions, so I can see how 4E fans would rail against it.

 

[Herschel]

You should start a counter movement by banning essentials-hate in your games.

Maybe even take it a step further and just ban haters.

I hate this idea.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well 4E is kind of the "anti-D&D" edition, and Essentials is more like previous "more D&D" editions, so I can see how 4E fans would rail against it.

A broadside for your first post? Pretty ambitious!

I'll just say that, while I agree that 4Ed doesn't feel like D&D to me, this site has had a lot of issues with snarkyness & vitriol re: 3.5Ed vs 4Ed, so the mods take a dim view of such. Fair warning.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Frankly I have no idea Kzach. If you go back to previous editions where there were magazine articles and 'splat' books (like 1e UA) that were basically game-breakingly different in power level than the core material and which you likely had no heads up about at all without having a copy of the book, AND the rules were not all that transparent, it made some kind of sense.

Nowadays? It is really just ahem waving. Look at the player's sheet, EVERYTHING they can do is there spelled out in black and white clear as day, and you can pretty well extrapolate from what's there to what will happen at the table. There are very few surprises. The worst that your going to run into is some guy coming in with a PC that is fairly innocent at level one and can be seriously cheesed out later on down the line. Even if you have every book though you won't necessarily know that right off, and I don't care what subset of 4e you restrict people to they can still optimize and the result is still pretty similar.

So, objectively? There's rather little point to banning stuff or bossing players about styles of character they should be using. Personally I'm pretty turned off by that kind of behavior just in general and don't bother to waste my time on games like that unless there's something mighty compelling about it or there is some really specific reason why some material should be left out of a given game because of genre conventions or something like that. Presumably in those cases the players know about it going in and they've bought into the concept. I guess I can see where you might pick up into an ongoing game and find out they don't use certain stuff after the fact. That wouldn't classify as a hate issue though, just different tastes or goals.

Anyway, table rules are pretty much the prerogative of the house, so it is hardly ever worth complaining about them.

 

[Kzach]

Well 4E is kind of the "anti-D&D" edition, and Essentials is more like previous "more D&D" editions, so I can see how 4E fans would rail against it.

This is one of the reasons why I'm liking E-classes a lot. Whether factually accurate or not, I *FEEL* like the E-classes are just more like previous editions classes. When playing them, the thief FEELS like a thief, the mage FEELS like a mage, etc. I never get that sense with AEDU classes.

I'm not saying that AEDU classes are bad because of this, just that they're much different in how they play at the table (to me) than how an E-class plays and that, on the whole, I prefer the E-class experience because of that nostalgia hit I get.

One thing I've also encountered is this seeming need to be different. I often find I'm criticised for wanting to play a dwarven fighter who likes to brawl and get drunk. I know it's a cliche. I still like and enjoy playing it, though, and yet others won't play it even if they've never played it before, just because other people have done it before them. I get that E-classes don't have as much flexibility as their AEDU counterparts, but I just don't see this as a bad thing and that again, it's a hearkening back to an older edition feel.

 

[Hungry Like The Wolf]

It depends on your philosophical disposition but most hatred comes from a recognition that something is bad and that individuals urge to violently wipe it's defiling presence off the face the planet!

The reasons for people thinking essentials is bad are probably as numerous as the people. The urge to react violently to bad things? Well, that's a time honored cognitive internet response.

I don't play with essentials classes mainly because I like the same-y-ness of core 4E. Although, the stuff essentials released for monsters and magic items should be incorporated into every game.

Then again, I don't hate essentials so maybe that's neither here nor there.