Essentials - calling a spade a spade

[Mercurius]

I've been on a few-month hiatus from all things RPG-related, including playing, reading these boards, and paying attention to the RPG industry in general, so forgive me if all of this has been discussed ad nauseum already. I've just spent the last half hour or so investigating this "D&D Essentials" creature that's arrival is imminent; I had heard of it previously, not long after it was announced earlier in the year, but since then much more information is available. And from what I've gathered in my admittedly brief investigation, an impression has formed and that is: let's call a spade a spade--this is D&D 4.5E, folks.

If I am wrong, how am I wrong? How is this not 4.5? And if it is, how is WotC rationalizing it when they clearly said that there would be no 4.5?

All that said, I'm pre-ordering the box set. From what I can gather it stream-lines 4E and tidies up some of the mess. I'm not opposed to 4.5, but let's just call it what it is: a simplified, streamlined core 4th edition from which everything else is secondary and optional. If I'm right about my impression, this is the modular model I think WotC should have followed from the beginning of 4E.

 

[Solvarn]

Not racist

Just to clear the air because I'm *sure* this will come up:

The term "calling a spade a spade" derives from an ancient Greek expression: "to call a fig a fig, a trough a trough". This is first recorded in Aristophanes' play The Clouds (423 B.C.), was used by Menander and Plutarch, and is still current in modern Greek. "to call a spade a spade"

Anyway, it is 4.5E. The only difference is that more of an effort is being made to update previous material to be compatible with the new design philosophy. This new design philosophy would have continued through into future materials regardless of how they were packaged.

In my opinion, if you are an Insider subscriber, it is a win-win for you. You still get your stuff, but the books are cheaper so if you decide you want one at the table it is more in your price range.

The only people really losing out on this are the people that really love the quality of the hardcover books. They are nice books, but they are pricey. I think this move is pretty good overall.

There are a lot of complaints about books being outdated, but that happened anyway with errata. I sold almost all of my older hardcover books because errata made so much of it inaccurate. How many AV items changed? How much stuff in the PHB?

Here is what makes it 4.5E in my opinion: if you are using the books as written without errata, and you purchase a new book, there may be some significant power creep in the new material and some of it may not make sense if it revolves around errata'd rules. Even if you do much more rigorous playtesting, things sneak through. You can't patch books, you can only errata them.

 

[fanboy2000]

Frankly, I'm not sure it matters what we call it, within reason. I'm not suggesting that's ok to call D&D Essentials a sandwich.

Seriously, isn't AD&D 1e really just D&D 2e? (I've actually met people who called it that. Every time one of my early 3e DMs he talked about his old campaigns, he called AD&D 1e 'second edition'. He told me that he never played AD&D 2e.) What about AD&D 2e? Isn't that really AD&D 1.5? And what about 3e? Isn't 3e really AD&D 3e, not D&D 3e?

And what about all those editions of D&D? Depending on how you want to count, D&D has had a lot more that 4 editions.

Come to think of it, D&D Sandwich is starting to sound plausible.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

It's purely a marketing distinction.

I think that WOTC learned from 3.5 that it was a bad marketing idea even if it was good for the game. Thus they are trying very hard to reassure people that the sky is in fact not falling.

Plus they do not plan to get rid of the PHBs, just provide another options that works equally well.

 

[fanboy2000]

It's purely a marketing distinction.

I think that WOTC learned from 3.5 that it was a bad marketing idea even if it was good for the game. Thus they are trying very hard to reassure people that the sky is in fact not falling.

I gotta say, 3.5 was the dumbest name they could have come-up with. I remember when they announced it in Dragon, everyone was like "3.5? Really?"

What was wrong with 3e Revised?

 

[MrMyth]

And from what I've gathered in my admittedly brief investigation, an impression has formed and that is: let's call a spade a spade--this is D&D 4.5E, folks.

If I am wrong, how am I wrong? How is this not 4.5? And if it is, how is WotC rationalizing it when they clearly said that there would be no 4.5?

Well, the reason I don't consider it equivalent to the 3.0 -> 3.5 transition is... it doesn't really replace anything.

When 3.5 came out, if I wanted to have the current versions of the PHB, DMG, MM, I needed to pick up the 3.5 versions. I needed to update existing characters. I needed to eventually upgrade splatbooks to their 3.5 equivalent (Sword and Fist replaced by Complete Warrior, for example.)

With Essentials... I'm getting more options, but my PHB isn't becoming out of date. I could play a PHB Wizard specialized in using Wand, or an Essentials Wizard specialized in Illusions - but both are designed to sit at the same table and play alongside each other.

And if I ignore Essentials entirely, almost nothing changes for existing characters. They get more options, yes - but, for the most part, that's no different than any other new release.

The actual changes required for existing characters are pretty small - wizards have some Encounter powers improved (by doing things on a miss). Magic Missile gets updated. One feat we know of receives some pretty small errata (Melee Training). A few other feats or powers may receive slight clarification in how they work. That's... not that much to deal with.

All the other changes are largely additive in nature. PHB races will have more options for their ability score bonuses. Classes have some new builds to choose from. New feats will be available, organized slightly differently than before. DMs have new options for distributing magic items, and new advice for using DCs.

As opposed to having a class suddenly change armor proficiencies, skills, hitpoints, or more fundamental changes to weapon size, damage reduction, monster formulas, magic item levels, or sweeping changes to many key spells.

So... yeah. 3.5 was a much bigger change, and more than that - it was a revision, clearly stated up front, that presented new rules versions of the rules you already have. Essentials provides new options, and a new starting point for incoming players, but isn't overwriting anything that came before it - or if it does, is doing so on a much, much smaller scale.

For me, this is much closer to the 3.5 PHBII, which I seem to recall was a book of new options for races and classes, and some updated guidance on how certain spells (like polymorph spells) worked. Sure, you had Druid builds that worked completely different from the standard PHB Druid... but the existence of the new build didn't invalidate the old.

Same thing we've got here.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

It has been discussed a lot, but the discussion is still interesting

One of the major goals of Essentials is to allow retailers an easy product line to always have in stock.

In previous editions, this has been the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual. If you were to run 2nd Edition D&D, you'd start with those three books. If you were to start with 4th Edition, you'd start with those three books.

What WotC is saying now is, if you want to start playing D&D, the 10 Essential products is what you want to start with. Not the 4th Edition PHB, DMG, and MM. Presented in those 10 essential products are new rules for the races and new builds for Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, Warlock, Paladin, Ranger, and Druid.

So, we've got a new set of products to serve as the base-line for the game. These products present new builds for the various races and classes in the game. In my opinion, this makes the essentials product a new edition to the game similar to the 2nd Edition Skills and Powers and 3.5.

 

[ExploderWizard]

If I am wrong, how am I wrong? How is this not 4.5? And if it is, how is WotC rationalizing it when they clearly said that there would be no 4.5?

You are wrong because nobody will know exactly when the 4.5 event occured until after the release of 5E.

So much errata, tweaking, redesigning/correcting is flowing into 4E right now that we honestly won't be able to note the halfway mark until the spinner stops spinning.

 

[Xyxox]

You are wrong because nobody will know exactly when the 4.5 event occured until after the release of 5E.

So much errata, tweaking, redesigning/correcting is flowing into 4E right now that we honestly won't be able to note the halfway mark until the spinner stops spinning.

I think it is more of a function of getting close to a 5E rather than actually having a 5E. IIRC, the release of revised PHB and DMG along with various Player's Options books were referred to as 2.5 as early as 1997.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

And hence I begin anticipating the day when books become obsolete and the game is simply allowed to evolve as needed via patches to a digital database.

All this hair-splitting about what does and doesn't constitute a new edition has actually made me wish for the demise of books. May you all grow warts in irritating places.