I think the Warlock is actually pretty hard to play effectually. An archery ranger, on the other hand, can be built to be reasonably effective and pretty simple - Twin Strike, enhanced Twin Strike for encounter powers, and dailies with no zones, conjurations or other stuff that engages complex mechanics.
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D&D 5E Essentials: More like 3.9e than 4.5e (link inside)
- Thread starter ppaladin123
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Well, if you play 4th edition and you're perfectly happy with it the way it is, you are not the target audience for the Essentials. (A)
Of course WotC will not complain if you buy the book anyways. A sale is a sale. But if you read the book and don't like it, remember that (A) applies.
Also, it sounds like all feats, powers etc. that will be published until around 2015 (announcement of 5th edition) will be compatible with standard 4th edition PHB characters. I just don't get what you're worried about.
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fanboy2000
Adventurer
I don't think thats true. I think that Wizards is counting on people who enjoy 4e the way it is now to buy the Essentials. Why? Because I think Wizards knows that most of their customers like variety. RPGs are built on variety, different races, different classes, different campaign settings, optional rules, and just plain old choice in general.
I think Wizards is counting on that love of variety to drive the Essentials line. Sure, it's "aimed" at new players but I think that it's often the case that stuff aimed at new players attracts old ones.
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A
amerigoV
Guest
I second that. Philsophically, 3.x is much crunchier on the build side than older editions, but if you played any other version of D&D, it was not all that much different in "feel of play". A fighter banged on stuff, wizards flung MM, Web, Fireball, and Invis, Clerics healed, and Rogues burgled (although they got a significant combat upgrade in 3.x with sneak attack happening most of the time).
4e seems much easier just to build a PC (more like 2e kits). It may not be optimized, but you go in DDI, pick a few powers that sound cool and you are off and running. In play, the game is much different than older versions, especially if you do not understand that role and the class in 4e may not align to older version conventions. For example, Magic Missile is a staple in all other editions, but is a bad wizard spell since it is not a controller spell but a weak striker spell.
Strikers are the class you get to the new players to get the hang of the rules - just point and blast. Strikers are the new fighters
Hmm. I'd probably say that new players are the primary target, existing players who like any new content are the secondary target, and nostalgic gamers who will like the approach of a Red Box and more 'old school' elements are the tertiary target.
WotC would like any or all of these people to buy their product. But elements that might appeal to one group may have taken a backseat to elements that will appeal to a second group. Those who enjoy the game as it is and don't want 'simplified' elements? You are Group 2, and your desires have been placed below those of Group 1, for whom simplified elements are a plus.
When the Essentials launch is finished, and WotC returns to other products, Group 2 will almost certainly return to being their primary target for sales.
Vyvyan Basterd
Adventurer
I think they started with this appraoch but then realized new players are too much of an unknown and are too risky to market to directly. It seems to me the focus has switched to primarly existing players who like any new content, with a secondary target of lapsed gamers (with the heavy nostalgia tags we've seen), and the tertiary target now being new gamers. The product has taken such a turn from the initial concept that many of us who play 4E here went from thinking the product near useless to now being an interesting addition to the game.
Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
A perception problem develops in the mass market, however. If a class rewards skillful play with higher performance, the difference between average user and skilled user is increasingly dichotomous. If top end performance is approximately the same, but one class makes it really easy to get top end performance and the other makes it really hard....
Games like WoW have had this problem. For example, at one point, playing a mage was very straightforward, but playing a warlock was complex. Most people playing a mage could do decent damage, and there weren't a lot of ways for skilled players to rise above. The best mage player was only a few percentage points away from very mediocre players. The warlock, on the other hand, did very poor damage for most players, but skilled players were amazing.
Was it fair, however, to require such a high level of skill to play a warlock to the same level of effectiveness as a trained monkey could do with a mage? On the other hand, was it fair to skilled mage players for them to have no way to stand out above middling ones? Once you're dealing with a large player base who communicate with each other via internet forums and the like, these will become a concern.
Thac0 the Barbarian
Explorer
Value for new players
I must admit, as a lapsed D&D player (just prior to the transition to 3E) who is looking to get my current friends involved in role-playing, the essentials line seems like a wonderful idea. I think that many people forget how daunting the hundreds of pages of rule books involved in playing the game post basics era can be. If you have passed through the editions and understand the basic fundamentals of the universe even radical changes (such as the change from 3.5 to 4E) can be relatively well absorbed. Or alternatively, if you are a new player who is joining an established and experienced group of supportive players you can be walked through it relatively well. But minus those aproaches, the sheer variety of options availible in 4E, set against the backdrops of rules which can be confusing without a broad contextual experience of the system to draw upon an be quite overwhelming [or so my wife says when I try to get her to play].. For those players, it sounds like the essential line is ideal.
If WotC is truly going to seek to preserve D&D as a passtime, it must be possible for those people who have no experience with tabletop RPGs but who are intrigued by the concept to be able to get products that allow them to play. This is what the old red box series allowed so many people to do, which has thereby helped the tabletop RPG hobby exist through today, despite all of it's competition from electronic sources.
I must admit, as a lapsed D&D player (just prior to the transition to 3E) who is looking to get my current friends involved in role-playing, the essentials line seems like a wonderful idea. I think that many people forget how daunting the hundreds of pages of rule books involved in playing the game post basics era can be. If you have passed through the editions and understand the basic fundamentals of the universe even radical changes (such as the change from 3.5 to 4E) can be relatively well absorbed. Or alternatively, if you are a new player who is joining an established and experienced group of supportive players you can be walked through it relatively well. But minus those aproaches, the sheer variety of options availible in 4E, set against the backdrops of rules which can be confusing without a broad contextual experience of the system to draw upon an be quite overwhelming [or so my wife says when I try to get her to play
].. For those players, it sounds like the essential line is ideal.If WotC is truly going to seek to preserve D&D as a passtime, it must be possible for those people who have no experience with tabletop RPGs but who are intrigued by the concept to be able to get products that allow them to play. This is what the old red box series allowed so many people to do, which has thereby helped the tabletop RPG hobby exist through today, despite all of it's competition from electronic sources.
Thornir Alekeg
Albatross!
I'm not a WoW player, so please forgive me if I'm off-base here, but can this really correllate to D&D? In WoW your skill and success is compared with other players in the game world. There is a benchmark that allows somebody to get annoyed that the little snit playing the simple mage is ranked higher than them.
For most D&D players that comparison isn't made. I don't compare my skill with my wizard PC to the other player in my group running a fighter and delclare myself to be the superior player. Likewise, I don't talk about how my wizard was able to complete the "Return to the Expedition at the Keep by the Mountains of Doom" adventure and get annoyed that another person was also able to complete the same adventure using a simpler, less skill-intensive wizard build.
All I care about is that I am enjoying playing my PC and having fun playing with my gaming group.
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Insight
Adventurer
In WoW parlance, each D&D game would be on its own "server". Therefore, yeah, the comparisons to other players, outside your own "server", may not be relevant to you.
There is, however, in video games a constant debate about how much "skill" should be involved in success. And this varies from game to game. WoW "skill" may not translate well to games like Halo. D&D "skill" has much more to do with understanding how everything fits together and very little to do with rolling dice or moving your character around the battlemat.
In the end, ease of learning the game (or lack thereof) is a valid barrier to entry and something a company like WotC needs to consider.
There is, however, in video games a constant debate about how much "skill" should be involved in success. And this varies from game to game. WoW "skill" may not translate well to games like Halo. D&D "skill" has much more to do with understanding how everything fits together and very little to do with rolling dice or moving your character around the battlemat.
In the end, ease of learning the game (or lack thereof) is a valid barrier to entry and something a company like WotC needs to consider.
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