Essentials - calling a spade a spade

[Doug McCrae]

Like 3.5 there are new versions of old classes and monsters but, unlike 3.5, the underlying rules remain the same so Essentials and Original Flavor 4e are 100% compatible. As I understand it, anyway.

 

[CovertOps]

The argument about Essentials being 4.5e is only important to two groups of people who need to either prove or disprove that "WotC are liars." The beauty is that no evidence seems to budge either group at all.

All I'm trying to prove is how disingenuous the 4.5 crowd are. Two years of errata and suddenly THIS MONTHS errata is somehow 4.5.

 

[Jack99]

In terms of WoTC said there would be no 4.5, how exactly did that happen? Did the corporation merge all of its employees into one body, or did one speaker, who may not even be with the company, say that?

Le Rouse did. No quote handy atm, but you can find it with a little digging.


As for this discussion, I suggest we compromise and call it 4.24. 4.25 would be average, but since I am a better negociater, we will end up with 4.24.

 

[Lhorgrim]

I honestly don't know if Essentials is 4.5. I'm not sure exactly what Essentials is supposed to be. I thought it was a "starter" line to get people involved in D&D, but the backward compatibility with Standard 4E seems to blur the line.

The rules changes I've heard about for Essentials (4Ee?) seem like errata in some cases and new rules in others. So it sort of sounds like a splat book with core rules updates.

The question for me is how much of each, and can I ignore it? I can ignore splats, but I may not be able to ignore updates. The whole idea behind rules is to make sure everybody is playing the same game, so if I don't update Magic Missile in my game and you sit down at my table there is bound to be some confusion.

I guess the basic question for me is, how much errata/updating can be done to a system before it would be considered a revision? I'm just going to trust WotC on this one and let them decide when they've altered the rules enough to call it 4E Revised.

 

[Festivus]

The question for me is how much of each, and can I ignore it? I can ignore splats, but I may not be able to ignore updates. The whole idea behind rules is to make sure everybody is playing the same game, so if I don't update Magic Missile in my game and you sit down at my table there is bound to be some confusion.

If you don't update stealth, there will be confusion too. At my table, the rule is that I run with the latest errata. At your table, do as you please but make sure your players know in advance what you are doing.

This is where things like the Rules Compendium become something I will very likely buy. It's a touchstone point for rules with the errata already integrated, it's affordable, and it's totally optional for any of my players. If you were a player at my table and wanted to play with your original 4E PHB... I'd say welcome to the game, just make sure you have read the errata. Still, not a new edition because I play a 4E rogue, and guess which book I find my characters class information in?

 

[Dungeoneer]

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.

I'm curious as to how you think that new options for character classes constitutes new rules.

As others have said, WotC has been introducing pretty classes and builds with substantial deviations from the PHB baseline since pretty much right after the PHB came out. Most notably with Psionics in the PHB3 who don't have encounter powers as such and who gain At-Wills as they level.

Maybe you feel that a radical enough new class design DOES constitute a '4.5 edition'. That's a subjective call. But it's important to remember that when 3.5 was released it was different enough that it basically required you to repurchase the core books, and that 3e characters were not compatible with 3.5. Meanwhile you can still bring your 4e PHB to the game and use your Brutal Scoundrel rogue effectively in a party with Essentials characters.

In my mind the line to '4.5' is crossed when the original core books simply become incompatible with the current rules and classes and purchasing new books is required. That hasn't happened yet.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

All I'm trying to prove is how disingenuous the 4.5 crowd are. Two years of errata and suddenly THIS MONTHS errata is somehow 4.5.

Okay, yes some of you don't care about WotC, some of you just care about the fact that SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG!!!!

xkcd: Duty Calls

 

[Umbran]

If I am wrong, how am I wrong? How is this not 4.5?

My understanding is thus:

3.5 core rulebooks changed some of the core mechanics, and replaced the old core.

Essentials will *add* to core mechanics, rather like any other splatbook, but not replace the core books. So, this is not 4.5 in the same way PHB II was not 4.5, and in the same way that Arcane Power was not 4.5, and so on.

You will be able to play a 4e character, basically or entirely unchanged in rules, next to an Essentials character. Or so we are told.


Oh, and how about a warning ahead of time - be rude, obnoxious, or edition-warring at your peril.

 

[mneme]

Regarding "new class features past first level" -- that's the PHB -- Sneak Attack nad Healing features getting a bump with tier. Oh, and Wizards (and others) getting new free rituals as they level up. Those are what the new "class features past first level" replaced -- and they're not significantly different from them.

Having classes with no dailies -is- a big philosphical change (though, again, not an edition-level change), except that really, that's just an extension of what was already there. Sure, everyone has the same number of dailies, and encounters (except for psionic characters). But the wizard, barbarian, warden, and most avengers want to drop a daily in every encounter and go down substantially in ability (less for the Avenger, who mostly wants to spread out dailies because the buffs are nice and encounters don't last that long, while most wizards, barbs, and particularly wardens want exactly one daily per encounter) once they're out of dailies; they drop a lot in effectiveness, whereas rangers often don't bother using dailies at all, and can afford to save them for when a stance or marginal increase in effectiveness is worthwhile.

Having a class, then, that -never- uses dailies just isn't that much of a change. Really, the big shift going into 4e was the uniform resource requrements making it easier to build multiclassing (and later, hybrid) rules. They managed to come up with rules for multiclassing into and out of psionic classes; I'm curious as to what they'll come up with regarding the new martial classes.

 

[mneme]

some of you just care about the fact that SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG!!!!http://xkcd.com/386/

Isn't that the reason for most of the non-spam posts on the net?