Picked up the Red Box today!

[Mindseye]

I picked up the Red Box today at my FLGS (They are a premier store.) My group has been more of a Pathfinder group lately, but I think the Red Box is a really interesting product.

As far as marketing to nostalgic old D&Ders, this looks like a nice product to me. The Player's Book, as you may have heard, is almost like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book meets character creation manual. The DM's Book gives the rules basics and a short adventure. It definitely reminded me of the old school boxes.

Maybe I'm too easy to please when it comes to remembering when I started, but my daughter sat down and looked through it and was interested enough that I'm thinking about putting her name on it and running the adventure for her.

 

[Mircoles]

Well, let us know how it goes if you run an adventure for her.

 

[nedjer]

I picked up the Red Box today at my FLGS (They are a premier store.) My group has been more of a Pathfinder group lately, but I think the Red Box is a really interesting product.

As far as marketing to nostalgic old D&Ders, this looks like a nice product to me. The Player's Book, as you may have heard, is almost like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book meets character creation manual. The DM's Book gives the rules basics and a short adventure. It definitely reminded me of the old school boxes.

Maybe I'm too easy to please when it comes to remembering when I started, but my daughter sat down and looked through it and was interested enough that I'm thinking about putting her name on it and running the adventure for her.

Go for it

 

[Retreater]

I picked up a Red Box this morning at a LGS. I just opened it and skimmed the contents. My impressions so far (from a non-4E player):

It looks okay. I don't think it will win back any disenfranchised players.

It's not the Second Coming of 4E. It's not the dramatic shift away from 4E that some would have you believe the Essentials line will be. It looks like there will still be grindy combats (my biggest beef with 4E.)

All that said, I'm not a complete hater. I've been trying to get my wife into RPGs since we first started dating about 12 years ago. This is the first product that I think she might get into (the Pathfinder Core Rules were too daunting for her).

This can be a good introduction to the game for new players. Particularly the character generation solo adventure. (I haven't really looked through the adventure in the DM's book too closely, but it looks pretty typical for a 1st level adventure.)

The power cards are a little more flimsy than I expected. They definitely won't hold up for repeated uses. (Thankfully using DDI can remedy this.) The counters and tokens are of better quality and likely can be reused.

The dice are servicable, but are not of the quality of Zocchi dice.

The physical dimensions of the box are thicker than the original Basic box. However, don't let that fool you: there is a cardboard insert taking up most of the empty space in the box.

I don't know if a lot of others on here already have the boxed set. I'll try to answer questions as I can.

Retreater

 

[Dausuul]

What are the new class designs like? Very curious to hear how they've evolved in Essentials. Obviously there's not going to be a big list of powers, but what about class features?

 

[Retreater]

What are the new class designs like? Very curious to hear how they've evolved in Essentials. Obviously there's not going to be a big list of powers, but what about class features?

Now that I've got the books beside me, I'll try to answer. Bear in mind that I don't have a lot of experience with 4E, so I don't know how valuable my comparisons will be.

To answer your question directly, I don't think any class features are listed. It discusses skill and feat selections. There are cards for attack and utility powers. No class features from what I can tell.

Retreater

 

[Retreater]

A Discussion of the New Powers

First, the wizard feels like a controller from 1st level - unlike in the PHB1. Everything effects conditions on the battlefield, with the exception of Magic Missile (which in hindsight doesn't seem to fit with the new 4E concept of arcane controller, but oh well, nostalgia wins here.)

I'm disappointed with the rogue build. Unless I've missed it, there's no sneak attack. [EDIT: I did miss it; it's buried in the text of the Choose Your Own Adventure.] There's a backstab encounter ability which grants a paltry +3 to hit against an opponent you have combat advantage against. Strangely, this rogue build doesn't seem as much a striker as a martial controller who shifts and slides his opponents (and himself) around the battlefield. Maybe that was the goal? At this point I see no point from a combat encounter perspective to chose a rogue over a fighter. (As you've probably already read, the backstab is the only encounter power for the rogue; everything else is At-Will.)

The fighter build is lame, but definitely constructed with the newbie in mind. You get two At-Wills to choose from and a single Encounter Power. The At-Wills basically allow to to choose +1 to hit or +2 to damage. The encounter is the ability to basically double your damage once per encounter following a successful hit. Not too much exciting there.

The Red Box definitely errs on the side of the wizard, giving many more exciting options for powers to that class. The other classes are very ho-hum. I guess this change was to oversimplify the martial classes while making the wizard a little more esoteric and confusing like in the olden days.

Retreater

 

[Retreater]

A Discussion of the Adventure in the DM Book

Wow. This is not too good. I'm not complaining about its simplicity, which I think is necessary for an intro product, but it's the sloppy construction and editing that get to me, as well as the violation of encounter guidelines.

First, in what could be the first or second encounter a new DM ever runs, the Tactics paragraph mentions attack powers that aren't in the monster's stat block. That is confusing.

There's a very complicated trap/puzzle room involving a chess puzzle. (Complicated for me because I know nothing about chess - and I would guess to your average new gamer as well.) It does a terrible job explaining things, even getting the names of the pieces wrong on several instances, referencing pieces that aren't there in the setup of the encounter, etc. To make matters worse, if there aren't any chess players in your group, they will beat their heads against the wall in frustration as their characters' hit points are widdled away. It is unwinnable without knowledge of chess. (This one will have to be excised from the adventure or replaced with another encounter if I am to run the adventure.)

I would've liked advice for a DM to tone down the challenges of the adventure. For example, if you're playing with 2-3 players instead of the 4 recommended, remove 100 XP worth of monsters from each encounter. (I know the rules but new DMs may not.)

A lot of the encounters include fights with soldiers and brutes of 4th level. This will lead to long, grindy combats. Particularly when the striker rogue can't deal sneak attack [EDIT: He can deal +2d6 once per round as usual; I didn't see this on the first read through.) and the striker fighter can - at best - deal only a bonus +2 damage per attack.

(I thought we were told to stay away from high level brutes to avoid boring combats?)

Retreater

 

[Retreater]

Production Values and Layout

First, the books themselves are not softbound or paperback like you might expect. Instead, they are of the same consistency and binding as the individual adventure booklets in WotC published adventure modules (such as Keep on the Shadowfell.) You will not be able to revisit these in 25 years like you do the books in the original Red Box.

The layout is not great. A lot of the rules are in the DM's book, such as rules for healing, death and dying, charging, flanking, etc. This is not in itself terrible, but a lot of key rules are smushed into the text of a lengthy paragraph, with no discernable indiactor of its importance. For example, the "three failed death saves" rule is just casually thrown in a sentence in the middle of a random paragraph.

Honestly, I don't think that a person completely new to the hobby who wants to learn how to play a game in 30-60 minutes would be able to pick up the basics of the rules by skimming through these manuals ... which I thought was supposed to be the goal of this product.

Retreater

 

[Retreater]

Overall opinion: If you're an experienced 4E player, save your money for the other Essentials books coming out later this month. If you're curious about 4E, download the test drive rules and the Character Builder demo and work it out on your own from the Wizards site for free.

Sadly, I can't recommend the red box whole-heartedly for any gamer. While there is some nostalgiac value for those lapsed gamers who look back fondly on the 1983 set, I don't think that this is the entry product to bring them back into the fold. Nor do I think that this will bring back 3.x players.

It makes me wonder who the target audience for this product is.

What is worthwhile about it: diehard 4E fans can preview new builds and powers a couple of weeks before the other Essentials books are released; a handful of okay combat encounters; a set of polyhedral dice; counters and tokens; an awesome box with Larry Elmore's nostalgiac art. If this is worth $20 to you, then by all means pick this up.

Retreater