Essentials line and Compendium, does this mean I can start over?

I haven't adopted 4e, it just didn't pull at me enough to buy in as a player. Yet I did hold hope it would eventually hit me that I did buy a bunch of 4e books in case I finally had that epiphany on how I could enjoy playing it. It never hit, though I'm again hoping Dark Sun may be what lure me into playing.

That said, among my 4e books I do have the PHB 1 & 2, MM 1 & 2, DMG 1.

Does the Essentials line and the Compendium mean I can ditch (sell) some of those books and start over? Should I if I would rather have the books intended to lure the newbie (which is what 4e makes me feel like I am sometimes) than the long timer.

Getting rid of books? *twitch*

From what I can gather, you could buy the Essentials line (or selected products in it) and quite happily play D&D 4e from 1st to 30th level without needing any other book.

That said, there is material in the earlier books that isn't reprinted in the Essential line: many powers for classes, a bunch of feats, a lot of monsters, and the advice for the DM in the DMG.

The two lines should complement each other, and you can use material from either in the same D&D game.

Whether or not D&D Essentials is enough to make you like D&D 4E is unknown, but personally I prefer having more books not fewer. The older books wouldn't be necessary to play 4E, but I'd hate to not have them!

Cheers!

That's the thing, I don't want to get rid of any book if it will have rules or options not present in Essentials and Compendium. But if the older books are going to become like the Miniature's Handbook, where (most) classes, rules, spells, items, etc. got reprinted somewhere else, then I'm apt to ditch the old right now.

I've lost shelf space in the past couple years and I just don't have room for books I won't need.

But if there are going to be options which will only ever be in the Core books, then it settles whether might hold them a bit longer it seems.

Eric Anondson said:

That's the thing, I don't want to get rid of any book if it will have rules or options not present in Essentials and Compendium. But if the older books are going to become like the Miniature's Handbook, where (most) classes, rules, spells, items, etc. got reprinted somewhere else, then I'm apt to ditch the old right now.

I've lost shelf space in the past couple years and I just don't have room for books I won't need.

But if there are going to be options which will only ever be in the Core books, then it settles whether might hold them a bit longer it seems.

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It has been said that design takes mostly from PHB1 even in 2011.. and the Essentials lines are new builds/etc designed to tkae the class back to basics, the "4e shiny" versions of the classes still exist and wont be in those same books.

that said, things like the Monster Manual 1, although they contain the only copy of those monsters, may be okay to sell if only because monster design has changed so much between mm1-mm2-mm3 that running a lot of mm1 monsters is probably a bad idea.

They really should come up with an "MM1.5" if only because they dont want to 'copy' the monsters into more mms..

Keep the PHB１ it has player character builds/powers/feats etc entirely exclusive to it. Ditch that MM and DMG though, the math has changed somewhat since they were first released.

webrunner said:

It has been said that design takes mostly from PHB1 even in 2011.. and the Essentials lines are new builds/etc designed to tkae the class back to basics, the "4e shiny" versions of the classes still exist and wont be in those same books.

Click to expand...

But what about the Compendium's classes? Or despite saying it includes the complete Core rules, does the Compendium not include the rules for the classes?

Eric Anondson said:

But what about the Compendium's classes? Or despite saying it includes the complete Core rules, does the Compendium not include the rules for the classes?

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"Core rules" means, as I understand it, just that--the rules. How to play, how the system works, combat, etc.

It does not--again, as I understand it--contain the specifics. Classes, powers, etc. Those are in the various players books: the PHBs, the campaign settings, the "Heroes of" books, etc.

If you sell your PHB and whatnot, you will be getting rid of stuff that does not appear in any other books.

Eric Anondson said:

But what about the Compendium's classes? Or despite saying it includes the complete Core rules, does the Compendium not include the rules for the classes?

Click to expand...

Rules Compendium are the combat rules, how the keywords work, etc.

Essentials line -- will have races and classes and such. the dm stuff too for monsters.

You could, in theory, run games with just the above.

PHB - will have the original class builds (giving you alternate options for your cleric/fighters/etc than what is available in the essentials line). it's up to you if you want the extra options (extra options are always good, but not necessary)

the DMG and MM -- as someone else said, I don't think you'll hurt yourself at all by trading these two out.. you'll get what you need repeated (and updated) via the essentials and compendium.

Mouseferatu said:

"Core rules" means, as I understand it, just that--the rules. How to play, how the system works, combat, etc.

It does not--again, as I understand it--contain the specifics. Classes, powers, etc. Those are in the various players books: the PHBs, the campaign settings, the "Heroes of" books, etc.

If you sell your PHB and whatnot, you will be getting rid of stuff that does not appear in any other books.

Click to expand...

The only thing that bothers me about this is the sheer size of the Compendium. All of the 'core rules' of 4e can fit in about 40 pages of hardback. Even accounting for the smaller size of a paperback how could Compendium need to be 320 pages if this is all it contains? Its just too big. 'Fluff' books aside even all the mechanics in every other book in the game would be hard pressed to come to 320 pages unless this 'reference work' is VERY wordy. It seems like it almost has to contain a certain number of the 'enumerated elements' of the game (feats/powers/items/rituals/etc). It certainly is at the same time too small to contain player information (and it would be terribly redundant). I'm still quite unclear on what exactly is in this book!

More generally the OP could certainly get rid of his existing books. The question is will he regret it later? He's not going to find any of the existing class builds from PHB1&2 in Essentials. I'd guess they will not reappear anywhere ever again either in their current forms.

DMGs? Well, they are really as much advice and ideas and discussion of how the game is played as anything else. If you like them, keep them, they'll never 'go out of style' and the small amount of crunch they contain may get somewhat out of date but is still usable since most of it has to do with how you build your setting/encounters etc. and is really guidelines.

Personally I never dispose of D&D books. I've never sold or given away any of mine. Years later you suddenly find they're handy. Heck I still refer to 1e books from time-to-time.

I believe, PHB 2 have the best classes available in it.

I hope there will be PHB 1,2 and 3 revised editions announced at Gen CON, which just contain all erratas in it up to now.

This would be the best move, as This will sync both lines (which is necessary if they want 100% compatibility for beginners that don´t know about updates)

Then both can be updated simultaneously. All start from the same point of development. And nothing warrants to call essentials 4.5, as both are essentially the same, no big changes, just minor updates (even if they change single powers dramatically)