Ignorant questions about Essentials

[Andramelech]

When I look at the essentials discussions on these boards it's all about rule adjustments and topics I don't understand yet. These are more broad type questions:

Can you play 4E without the core books if you buy the essentials line? I don't mean get by, but I mean will you have all the rules you need? If you wanted to host an official RPGA game at a convention, with a bunch of picky anal nerds, would you be kosher?

If these are just extra class options, why isn't this martial power 3 or something, or players handbook 4? Why did they make some new line of books and call them "essential". It seems as though the essentials would be the core books only. The core books are usually the essential ones to have, and everything else is extra.

Is the "essentials" name inaccurate? If you were going to give these an honest name what would it be? 4.5, extras, PH4, (martial, primal, divine, arcane) version x, replacement classes, or something else?

I realize that wotc doesn't want to have anything that says 4.5 on it. People have said that essentials is 4.5 in disguise. Are these just replacement classes? If you use the essentials line, do you not use the old wizard, fighter etc?

So say you own the whole line of books. You have a player that wants to be a wizard. Do you even show him the wizard in the PH? Would you only use the old PHs for classes not covered by the essentials line? Would they be weaker or out of date somehow?

Could you imagine this wizard maybe wanting to be a generic PH wizard even though he has the essentials option? Is the new wizard a choice or a replacement?

With past incarnations of the game there's always a point at which the new material coming out seems unnecessary to me. I like shiny new things, but what I like more is having a complete system. It seems that 4e has come to that point with me with this essential line. It's as if the essentials name should really be "non-essentials", with everything up to that point being actually essential.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

When I look at the essentials discussions on these boards it's all about rule adjustments and topics I don't understand yet. These are more broad type questions:

Can you play 4E without the core books if you buy the essentials line? I don't mean get by, but I mean will you have all the rules you need? If you wanted to host an official RPGA game at a convention, with a bunch of picky anal nerds, would you be kosher?

You will have all the rules you NEED to run games. Essentials by itself has all the core RULES of the game. It doesn't have all of the content from earlier player books like PHB1. The class builds that are provided don't cover all the options available in the 3 PHBs and the various Power books. It does have a set of classes that are intended to give you all you need to play. You could run an RPGA game assuming nobody in the game decided to use say a Warlord. That being said realistically you probably can handle these other classes OK as long as you can have a look at a complete character sheet with power cards and such. You won't be missing any rules you need, just the details of specific powers and class features that class uses. DDI would be pretty helpful too.

If these are just extra class options, why isn't this martial power 3 or something, or players handbook 4? Why did they make some new line of books and call them "essential". It seems as though the essentials would be the core books only. The core books are usually the essential ones to have, and everything else is extra.

You'd really have to ask WotC about that. From what they have said they feel that the existing 4e books were difficult for a new player to pick up and start playing with. Some people didn't like the way some of the classes were designed, etc. Essentials IS "just an update" effectively but it is a cheaper and quicker way to get into the game and has classes that the designers apparently think will work better for new players.

Is the "essentials" name inaccurate? If you were going to give these an honest name what would it be? 4.5, extras, PH4, (martial, primal, divine, arcane) version x, replacement classes, or something else?

I realize that wotc doesn't want to have anything that says 4.5 on it. People have said that essentials is 4.5 in disguise. Are these just replacement classes? If you use the essentials line, do you not use the old wizard, fighter etc?

So say you own the whole line of books. You have a player that wants to be a wizard. Do you even show him the wizard in the PH? Would you only use the old PHs for classes not covered by the essentials line? Would they be weaker or out of date somehow?

No, they won't be weaker or out of date. They will be SLIGHTLY different. Most of the stuff that is added or slightly changed in Essentials is available to PHB players. If a PHB wizard wants to use an at-will wizard power from Essentials he can.

Could you imagine this wizard maybe wanting to be a generic PH wizard even though he has the essentials option? Is the new wizard a choice or a replacement?

Well, technically the new wizard is an option, assuming you have the PHB as well. A player could certainly run either one. There isn't going to be a huge difference however. A player might decide to use the older class because some specific class features appeal to them, etc. Generally speaking using the newer classes should be fine. In the case of other classes like say Fighter there is a more substantial difference. Some players may well really want to play the PHB fighter, others may really want to play the Essentials fighter. They work somewhat differently and probably appeal to different people. At least in theory they should be pretty comparable though.

[qouote]With past incarnations of the game there's always a point at which the new material coming out seems unnecessary to me. I like shiny new things, but what I like more is having a complete system. It seems that 4e has come to that point with me with this essential line. It's as if the essentials name should really be "non-essentials", with everything up to that point being actually essential.[/QUOTE]

Well, you really don't need Essentials, no. OTOH you didn't absolutely need PHB2 either. It is really up to you and the people you play with which material you want to use. You can pick and choose. The nice thing is adventures and supplements and such going forward should pretty much be usable with whatever material you pick. Unlike 3.5 where a lot of core rules changed in incompatible ways nothing in Essentials really invalidates any of the existing stuff. Some people will argue this endlessly, but 4e is one consistent game. It just has a couple of sets of books you can use to play it that give you different variations for player options.

 

[yesnomu]

1. The full set of the Essentials (Heroes X, Monster Vault, DM thingy) should be enough to run a game with. Close to every rule is in the Rules Compendium as well.

2. Essentials is trying to be a partial reboot, is how I read it. They want a new starting point for people to get into the game, and part of that is adding new builds that hew closer to older editions (fighters who mostly just hit things, wizard schools of magic). They exist completely separately from the PHB and Power lines (in fact, neither is even mentioned in Heroes of the Fallen Lands), to try I guess to reduce what players think they'll need to play.

3. Eh. Very few rules have changed, so this isn't 4.5. It's really just more classically-designed versions of the old classes. I'd call it 4e: Classic Edition or something--but I am no marketer.

4. No.
-The Slayer and Knight are almost completely worse than the base Fighter without dailies and encounters--their only advantage is their simplicity. (They really run out of gas at epic, it's just sad.) The Slayer in particular is pretty awful, considering that the base Fighter can push near-striker level damage while still defending.
-The new rogue build is fun but has no off-turn or minor action attacks, not to mention that all rogues now SA 1/turn, so they're likely worse as well.
-Warpriests appear very locked into power choices for not much gain, although they're certainly the best melee cleric so far. I would play them over a battle cleric, but that's not my favorite type of cleric anyway.
-The mage is the closest to being "strictly better" than the base wizard, getting an encounter power spellbook and some fun bonus features in exchange for ritual casting and implement mastery. On the other hand, the way I read it, they are locked into one paragon path, which is alright but not spectacular. This is the closest, but I still might go base wizard for the flexibility of PP options/free rituals.

5 & 6. Are they a new player? If so, the mage is presented more simply, without a barrage of options like Arcane Power and the like. Otherwise, I'd show them both types, and they could pick which they liked more. There are still advantages to the PHB wizard.

Older classes are absolutely not outdated. In fact, if you like the older classes, most of the Essentials classes will probably be too simple for your tastes. I'm playing a Shaman now, and wouldn't consider dropping it for anything other than a Mage--and probably not that either.

 

[Andramelech]

Okay, so here's how I understand it now. Wotc said "We need something to make it easier to get people into the game that goes beyond the red box. These books will be cheaper, but not feature as many classes or races as the PH. While we're at it let's change the classes up a bit, and update some rules so owners of the PHs might feel like they have to buy it too. We'll call it essentials, instead of basic d&d."

 

[yesnomu]

Okay, so here's how I understand it now. Wotc said "We need something to make it easier to get people into the game that goes beyond the red box. These books will be cheaper, but not feature as many classes or races as the PH. While we're at it let's change the classes up a bit, and update some rules so owners of the PHs might feel like they have to buy it too. We'll call it essentials, instead of basic d&d."

I'd say it was more like, "Hey, our product line is getting pretty intimidating, and most of the people we think we can still hook are 3.5 and older fans. Let's make a new product that can stand alone with new class builds they might relate to more, and that still offer new options so that our current customers will want to buy them."

 

[InspectorHound]

There's also some 'business practical' reasons. WotC was running into problems with their 'big box' retailers (Barnes & Noble, for example) where they weren't consistently stocking the 'core books' - for example, they'd have PH3 and PH2 but maybe not PH1. And DMG2 but not DMG1. So a beginning player showing up at B&N would not really know what to buy as their very first books and would miss out on the core rules.
So this way, a B&N that wants to support D&D but doesn't want to know or care which of the many, many supplements are 'the right' ones to have on hand, can just stock the 10 Essentials products and never worry again.

 

[LuckyAdrastus]

Re: you question on whether "Essentials" is a good name for the line, I think "beginner's" or "starter's" might be a more accurate name, based on what we've seen so far. However, "Essentials" sounds more cool, so I imagine that's why they went with that title.

There is also a "classic" or "nostalgia" element to the material, though I'm not sure what word combines "classic/nostalgia" with "begginer's/starter's?" Perhaps "Essentials" was the right choice?

 

[caudor]

Re: you question on whether "Essentials" is a good name for the line, I think "beginner's" or "starter's" might be a more accurate name, based on what we've seen so far. However, "Essentials" sounds more cool, so I imagine that's why they went with that title.

There is also a "classic" or "nostalgia" element to the material, though I'm not sure what word combines "classic/nostalgia" with "begginer's/starter's?" Perhaps "Essentials" was the right choice?

True. As a long time player, it was the nostalgia part that first got me interested in Essentials. Clerics with domains? Wizards with schools? All cool

I think the names of the books are a little confusing...Heroes of the Forbidden...uh, Forgotten...what was that?

 

[LuckyAdrastus]

I think the names of the books are a little confusing...Heroes of the Forbidden...uh, Forgotten...what was that?

I think the word is "Farbrengen." I hear the Matzo Ball soup is excellent.

(Yeah, in-joke about 1% of the forum might get).

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

While we're asking ignorant questions:

You *can* use existing feats with Essentials stuff, right?

Brad