Hat's off to WotC for...

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

I went nearly a year without purchasing a WotC product (or even seriously considering a purchase). However, in the past two months WotC has turned out two products that I am dearly in love with. Hat's off to them for their excellent work.

Hat's off to WotC for their excellent revival of Dark Sun. It captures the feeling of the game world perfectly, restores the setting to it's high point, and oozes cool.

Hat's off to WotC for the bold step with Essentials. It captures a more classic feel to the game that really appeals to me. They took bold steps in class design (melee basic attack martial characters, new roles for classes) and updated racial design for the classic races. Plus the artwork in the book is top notch.

What are you taking your Hat Off to WotC for?

 

[yesnomu]

Dark Sun as well--and I'm enjoying Scars of Mirrodin, if that counts. M11 was also a lot of fun.

 

[Camelot]

I've never played Dark Sun before 4e, but the Campaign Guide introduced many things into the game that I really love. Themes are the best! The new races are awesome, and I love the possibility of arcane defiling, even in a core game. Plus the Creature Catalog has the first ever level 1 solo!

 

[Dice4Hire]

I am kind of hte opposite. I bought a lot this last year, up to essentials #1 and Dark Sun, but do not see myself buying much in the next year.

Most of my purchases in the next few months will likely be books I did not buy the first time around.

 

[Terramotus]

I am kind of hte opposite. I bought a lot this last year, up to essentials #1 and Dark Sun, but do not see myself buying much in the next year.

Most of my purchases in the next few months will likely be books I did not buy the first time around.

I agree. I love Dark Sun, but won't be touching Essentials, ever. Hopefully the rumors will be incorrect and Essentials won't be the new path going forward. I would hate to put an end to my purchasing of 4E products only 2 years in.

 

[Camelot]

Whether or not Essentials is good, the original design is good too, and I want to see a mixture of Essentials and "old" stuff in the future.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

Dark Sun definately wins it for me!

 

[SkullThrone]

I agree that they've been kicking out some great source books, but every module I pick-up requires extensive re-work to fit it into a campaign. Either the whole thing is hinged on poor hooks that they assume the player will blindly take, or they've serious flaws in the encounter planning that make little or no sense...If someone knows of a good one please toss it out there.

 

[corwyn77]

I went nearly a year without purchasing a WotC product (or even seriously considering a purchase). However, in the past two months WotC has turned out two products that I am dearly in love with. Hat's off to them for their excellent work.

Hat's off to WotC for their excellent revival of Dark Sun. It captures the feeling of the game world perfectly, restores the setting to it's high point, and oozes cool.

Hat's off to WotC for the bold step with Essentials. It captures a more classic feel to the game that really appeals to me. They took bold steps in class design (melee basic attack martial characters, new roles for classes) and updated racial design for the classic races. Plus the artwork in the book is top notch.

What are you taking your Hat Off to WotC for?

Well, if by classic you mean dull and repetitive if you aren't a caster and by bold design you mean instilling a new system which clashes with the rest of the game and is difficult to integrate (multiclassing, hybrids, 'fixing' melee training when it wasn't broken pre-essentials).

I've been playing a slayer for a few weeks now for Encounters. It certainly does it's job dealing damage fairly well. However, it's tactically quite boring. Run up, whack something, repeat. Compared to other strikers (even the essentials thief) it has virtually no options, utterly lacks mobility, has no way to extricate himself out of a unwanted combat. I'm sure the simplicity will appeal to a certain subset of gamers but I got bored pretty quick. As well, the options in the character creation end are similarly limited.

I picked up the Rules Compendium to have all the current rules in one place (and even then I'm disappointed that Rituals aren't included, so I still need a phb at the table) but the player's books seem rather lackluster, aside from the power creep feats.

I do like Dark sun though.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Myself, I like some essentials stuff (the Thief and Knight are both, IMHO, superior implementations of their original classes), but not too fond of the other essential classes.

That said, I LOVE the rules compendium. Reading through it, its like they've been following all the arguments here regarding the basic rules and tweaked the rules to resolve them. I love it!