Is essentials basically...

... builds with features and powers that focus around Basic Attacks?

For the first time I have really sat down and looked at all of the essential builds within the 3 key essential corebooks and it seems like each one is a combination of features that focus around using Melee Basic Attacks with other bonuses and mini-powers that make up for the lack of at-will, encounter and daily powers you lose.

I guess this is to make things easier for non-hardcore players to get into the game since they have only 1 action to take (Basic Attack) and the game buffs that action bit by bit as they go along.

I am not commenting on this being a good or bad thing, personally it isnt for me as the fun of my characters come into the intervwoven complexity of their character whereas essentials seem to take us back to previous editions where it was :

DM : Jeff, what is Balastar the Dwarf doing this turn
Jeff : Well he is a fighter... so he hits the enemy
(next round)
DM : Jeff, your turn
Jeff : He hits the enemy in front of him
(next round)
DM : Jeff?
Jeff : Hits, enemy, in front
DM : (nods at Jeff)
Jeff : (lifts his head up from his copy of Dragon Magazine to tap the enemy mini in front of his character on the head)

I thank Moradin that these days are gone and we have some real flavor to our attacks but essentials seems to be taking us back to that.

I am sure it is WotC's way to try and ease new players into the game more, talking to my wife in the car yesterday she was asking me questions about what I do when playing D&D and after explaining it a few times she still wasn't getting it, I kept saying "You need to watch me play it" or "There are videos on Youtube of people playing, watch those and you will get it" but it highlighted something to me that we forget a lot of the time.

D&D is an exclusive club with a very steep learning curve that those of us who have played for many years take for granted and some of reason a lot of our family, friends or partners don't want to get involved in playing is because aside from it looking a bit silly (a bunch of grown men talking to each other in strange accents and playing with little toy soldiers) it seems quite complicated... you only need to look at the library of books some players bring to each session to get that.

No, even with simplified builds, you ar not back to those days. enough to do from level 1. IMHO still too much.

A hunter ranger has a lot of choices:

Which aspect
Which power
Two or three choices within each power
Which enemy

So a new player will still be overwhelmed.

A Slayer, the most simple class has still enough choices, usually straight forward for experienced players, still difficult enough for beginners.

UngeheuerLich said:

No, even with simplified builds, you ar not back to those days. enough to do from level 1. IMHO still too much.

A hunter ranger has a lot of choices:

Which aspect
Which power
Two or three choices within each power
Which enemy

So a new player will still be overwhelmed.

A Slayer, the most simple class has still enough choices, usually straight forward for experienced players, still difficult enough for beginners.

Click to expand...

OK

I don't think WotC has taken away all of the fun, there is still plenty to do but I do think they have taken a lot of the worry about creating a good build.

Most players who love to create characters will think forward to what the character will be at 30th level and before they even pickup a sword they already know what Paragon and Epic path he will take and what is 29th lvl Daily is going to be.

Not everyone does this mind you but I like many players just sit at the character builder and come up with interesting new build ideas and can spend hours doing this.

This is taken away with essentials because once you decide what you want to be, the decision making is taken away from you and you are just left to play the game. When you level you are told what happens to your character, you don't have to decide what you want to do.

This is good for some people and especially those new to the game but it just surprised me about how much more simplistic the essentials builds are compared to normal D&D builds whilst thankfuly still having enough meat to keep you interested.

The answer to your question is: yes, no, maybe.

wlmartin said:

... builds with features and powers that focus around Basic Attacks?

Click to expand...

No. Essentials only returns the martial classes to the basic attack ghetto. It doesn't put anyone else there. Even the Bladesinger, which does use basic attacks, also has some real powers.

For the first time I have really sat down and looked at all of the essential builds within the 3 key essential corebooks and it seems like each one is a combination of features that focus around using Melee Basic Attacks with other bonuses and mini-powers that make up for the lack of at-will, encounter and daily powers you lose.

Click to expand...

Then you haven't gotten to the Mage, yet. Same AEDU as 4e, and then some, with a bonus at-will, spellbook for encounters as well as dailies, /and/ better powers.

essentials seem to take us back to previous editions where it was :

DM : Jeff, what is Balastar the Dwarf doing this turn
Jeff : Well he is a fighter... so he hits the enemy
(next round)
DM : Jeff, your turn
Jeff : He hits the enemy in front of him
(next round)
DM : Jeff?
Jeff : Hits, enemy, in front
DM : (nods at Jeff)
Jeff : (lifts his head up from his copy of Dragon Magazine to tap the enemy mini in front of his character on the head)

I thank Moradin that these days are gone and we have some real flavor to our attacks but essentials seems to be taking us back to that.

Click to expand...

Yeah. Well, some folks aparently have been pining for those good ol' days.

I am sure it is WotC's way to try and ease new players into the game more

Click to expand...

Meh. I run demo games at conventions, and when there's someone curious about the game, I'm the sort that steps up and runs it to give them a feel for it. I'm just saying, I've seen more than a few genuinely new players who have never tried a TT RPG in their lives. They have no problem learning 4e - especially the kids. They just soak it in like a sponge.

It's returning players who balk at 4e. The gamed a lot back in the day, but not for a while. They remember highlights, they remember specifics, they have stories about how great their old characters were - they tell you how experienced they are, putting some of their ego on the line. Then they go "but I'll start easy - with a Fighter." Then they see that the Fighter has powers - and their brains explode.

(have you ever tried to get exploded brain off of a battlemat? Me neither, I'm speaking figuratively.)

Seriously, though, that seems to be a major stumbling block for the old-schoolers. They 'know' that the figher is supposed to be simple (but it hasn't been since 3.0 hit the shelves), they 'know' that fighters just hit stuff and maybe move to get 'high ground' or finagle some other even-older-school wargaming bonus (but, now they have spell).

It'd just be 'learning curve,' you have to un-learn a little of the primitive game you last played 10 or 20 years ago in order to learn the shiny new one. But, like I said, above, ego has become involved. No, they're not having trouble, 4e is 'stupid,' because 'fighters are casting spells,' and you lose another one.

Essentials really handles that problem (and, honestly, no other). Every lapsed AD&Der I've demo'd essentials for has grocked it immediately - because he started with a 'simple fighter,' and his expectations of simplistic boredom while he got to know the rules were met.

Yay.

D&D is an exclusive club with a very steep learning curve that those of us who have played for many years take for granted

Click to expand...

It is a big fat geek club, yeah. (uh, a big fat club, not a club for... oh, nevermind)

Yes, some games have steep learning curves. Champions! for instance, was my favorite game for a lotta years, but it took a full year of playing and building dozens of characters to master, so it was always a little harder to find someone to play it compared to D&D (or, later, Storyteller). D&D was never the hardest game to figure out how to play, in a basic sense, with a little help - it was complex, filled with synergies and 'traps,' and hard to 'master,' though. 4e was loads easier to learn than earlier eds. There was a lot less cross-pollenating 3.5-style 'system mastery' required to build a decent character, and all the classes used similar enough mechanics that playing one class gave you some grounding to play another. 'Power Cards' - to someone who doesn't expect to have to piece together his options and modifiers from several different parts of his sheet - are very intuitive. Roles gave you a clue how to put together a party, and how to play yours in a contributing way.
You could almost call pre-E 4e 'slick.'

Tony Vargas said:

No. Essentials only returns the martial classes to the basic attack ghetto. It doesn't put anyone else there. Even the Bladesinger, which does use basic attacks, also has some real powers.

Then you haven't gotten to the Mage, yet. Same AEDU as 4e, and then some, with a bonus at-will, spellbook for encounters as well as dailies, /and/ better powers.

Yeah. Well, some folks aparently have been pining for those good ol' days.

Meh. I run demo games at conventions, and when there's someone curious about the game, I'm the sort that steps up and runs it to give them a feel for it. I'm just saying, I've seen more than a few genuinely new players who have never tried a TT RPG in their lives. They have no problem learning 4e - especially the kids. They just soak it in like a sponge. 4e was loads easier to learn than earlier eds. There was a lot less cross-pollenating 3.5-style 'system mastery' required to build a decent character, and all the classes used similar enough mechanics that playing one class gave you some grounding to play another.

It's returning players who balk at 4e. The gamed a lot back in the day, but not for a while. They remember highlights, they remember specifics, they have stories about how great their old characters were - they tell you how experienced they are, putting some of their ego on the line. Then they go "but I'll start easy - with a Fighter." Then they see that the Fighter has powers - and their brains explode.

(have you ever tried to get exploded brain off of a battlemat? Me neither, I'm speaking figuratively.)

Seriously, though, that seems to be a major stumbling block for the old-schoolers. They 'know' that the figher is supposed to be simple (but it hasn't been since 3.0 hit the shelves), they 'know' that fighters just hit stuff and maybe move to get 'high ground' or finagle some other even-older-school wargaming bonus (but, now they have spell).

It'd just be 'learning curve,' you have to un-learn a little of the primitive game you last played 10 or 20 years ago in order to learn the shiny new one. But, like I said, above, ego has become involved. No, they're not having trouble, 4e is 'stupid,' because 'fighters are casting spells,' and you lose another one.

Essentials really handles that problem (and, honestly, no other). Every lapsed AD&Der I've demo'd essentials for has grocked it immediately - because he started with a 'simple fighter,' and his expectations of simplistic boredom while he got to know the rules were met.

Yay.

Click to expand...

Ah, I see - It is good to hear others thoughts on essentials...
I have yet to play any however one of our group has started to play one and I think for the type of player she is and a change from her fighter this should be a bit better for her

For me, one aspect of Essentials that I appreciate is that the flavor is somehow more emotionally satisfying to me (I do recognize that this is subjective and it may not be so for everyone). I like it that thieves and hunters can gain combat advantages through movement or by adopting an aspect of the wild instead of rolling everything into at-will attack powers.

My own homebrew Essentials-style paladin also doesn't use at-will prayers. Instead, he invokes battle blessings (mechanically, stances) that enhance his ability to make basic attacks. Flavor-wise, it probably doesn't make much of a difference whether the paladin is calling out to his god for divine blessings once in a while or every round, but somehow, the former is more in line with my idea of how a paladin should fight.

wlmartin said:

This is taken away with essentials because once you decide what you want to be, the decision making is taken away from you and you are just left to play the game. When you level you are told what happens to your character, you don't have to decide what you want to do.

This is good for some people and especially those new to the game but it just surprised me about how much more simplistic the essentials builds are compared to normal D&D builds whilst thankfuly still having enough meat to keep you interested.

Click to expand...

I think "Taken away" is an odd choice of words there. Taken away implies an outside force removing them. Rather, when you select an Essentials Martial build, you've made the decision not to get dailies later. Just like when you pick an old Fighter, Psionic Power Points weren't taken from you, you decided to play a class that doesn't get them.

Pentius said:

I think "Taken away" is an odd choice of words there. Taken away implies an outside force removing them. Rather, when you select an Essentials Martial build, you've made the decision not to get dailies later. Just like when you pick an old Fighter, Psionic Power Points weren't taken from you, you decided to play a class that doesn't get them.

Click to expand...

Taken away was a poor choice of words
What I meant was that by choosing essentials you are giving yourself a lot less to think about at Character Creation and Level Up.

I don't personally like the idea of all the decisions one gets when they level up unavailable and instead someone telling me what my character will be. I am aware there isnt a choice otherwise when it comes to choosing one of these essential builds but the creativity of building my character and seeing the choices I make evolve with him/her means I wouldnt myself decide on an essentials character however I do see the appeal when others who don't want to or have the lack of D&D understanding / knowledge to choose for themselves.

Still, though, it isn't really someone telling you what your character will be. It's just making more decisions at the initial character creation as opposed to making them along the way. It's like a value meal at a fast food restaurant. If I order one, the establishment isn't forcing me to take fries and a coke instead of onion rings and a milkshake. I had the option of getting whatever I wanted, but I chose the value meal.