Essentials - First Impressions of the product line - I feel claustrophobic!

[gourdcaptain]

I REALLY dislike the layout of Heroes of the Fallen Lands (and the name). The most unforgivable sin, though, is interleaving paragon path abilities with class abilities. Seriously? There's also the annoying gap between the block listing HP, surges, and proficiencies, and the crunch. I understand the usefullness of the advice for new players, but seriously, they couldn't have put it in a different chapter?

Also, the repitition of "You gain stats at this level" had me wondering if in future products they would remind you every time you got a feat or extra HP when you leveled.

My first impression after looking through the book font and layout wise was that Wizards had taken a 200 page book and made it fit 360 pages.

 

[Mercurius]

OK, thanks all - I feel better now!

 

[nookiemonster]

This is actually an interesting idea. It'd be part art book, part RPG reference. Probably less monsters in the book, but with kickass art...

Hmmm...

A coffee table monster? I guess a Mimic could be trained to do that.

 

[Klaus]

A coffee table monster? I guess a Mimic could be trained to do that.

If the mimic is masquerading as a coffee machine, I sure as hell ain't drinking that coffee!

Ewwww!

 

[imredave]

One of the thing my wife noticed first whas that without the lay flat binding, and the smaller page format you are looking at much less space. I estimated its about a quater the amount of printed material viewable at one time. Hence, your feeling of claustrophobia. That being said its better indexed than the old rules and contains most of the key DM information from both the numeous playes handbooks and dungeonmaters guides. I am using it as lightweight rules refence for rules disputes.

 

[Dire Bare]

I love the idea of the Rules Compendium, but I'm also realizing I'm not a fan of the small footprint, one-column, large type, extra wordy format.

I also just recently picked up the DC Adventures RPG from Green Ronin, and that book has a format smaller than a typical RPG book, but larger than the Essentials books, roughly 7 x 11. I'm really enjoying this format! It feels smaller and more compact, but allows for two columns and more info per page, resulting in a tighter book. Green Ronin also uses a normal sized typeface, which is nice.

I'm also becoming not much of a fan of the separation between the Rules Compendium and Heroes of the Fallen Lands. Next time WotC comes out with their starter/essentials products, I'd love to see a 7x11 Player's Handbook with all the rules (a la the RC) plus character creation and the basics for the four standard races (human, elf, dwarf, halfling) and classes (wizard, fighter, rogue, cleric). Couple this with a chunky "red box" starter set that includes basic and streamlined (but not different) rules for the basic four races/classes through the heroic tier.

 

[Phat Lute]

I too was somewhat pleased by the prospect of a portable Rules Compendium... I don't think that I'd want character building information in that same format, though.

And I have to say... even though I'm not a fan of the Essentials changes, I'm getting no end of gleeful entertainment from the fact that it seems that half the Internet can't remember the titles of the books. Every time someone references a "Heroes of" I see something different... I think my favorites were on RPG.net: "Heroes of the Fragrant Regions" and "Heroes of the ****ed Area".

Back to the drawing board?