Essential Essentials

[rjfTrebor]

Nope. The Essentials line is closed at the 10 products that encompass it.

There is a lot of support in HoS for the builds in Heroes of the Fallgotten Kinglands, but the Essentials line is pretty narrowly-defined.

-O

it's a book that caters primarily to essentials, therefore it is an Essentials book. it's defined by it's content, not a single word printed on the cover.

also, the term "Essentials" is a term to describe a design style and not really that first line of products.

the whole "10 products and done" thing has been forgotten basically, for the rest of 4e's life we'll be seeing essentials style builds. another aedu class would really surprise me.

 

[Obryn]

it's a book that caters primarily to essentials, therefore it is an Essentials book. it's defined by it's content, not a single word printed on the cover.

also, the term "Essentials" is a term to describe a design style and not really that first line of products.

the whole "10 products and done" thing has been forgotten basically, for the rest of 4e's life we'll be seeing essentials style builds. another aedu class would really surprise me.

You're redefining a lot of terms here for your own purposes.

It's all well and good that you want to use your idiosyncratic definition of "Essentials," but there's a perfectly well-defined definition already that's not even a little controversial.

-O

 

[rjfTrebor]

You're redefining a lot of terms here for your own purposes.

It's all well and good that you want to use your idiosyncratic definition of "Essentials," but there's a perfectly well-defined definition already that's not even a little controversial.

-O

where have you been for the last year? even wotc employees use the term in the same way i do.

in a recent announcement they themselves even said "the sorcerer and barbarian will be getting essentialized" or something to that effect.

 

[Grabuto138]

Ok so my players and I got into 4th edition over the summer. We loved it. We picked up the players handbook 1-3 and most of the power books. Before I consider purchasing some of the essential books (heroes of forgotten lands, heroes of shadow ect.) I wanted to know if it was actually worth buying. My players and I have had no problem with the rules or building characters in the original phb's and the essentials books at a very brief look seem to be very simplified. I just wanted to know what the differences between the books are and If they are worth purchasing.

Don't get hung up on the "essentials" description. Today a former druid had mad fun playing a Tri-keen slayer fighter. The party was a Mul battlerage fighter, halfling cunning rogue, Genasi taclord, Human (essentials) enchanter mage, and said slayer. The essentials classes integrate seemlessly (as I have experienced on many occasions.) Honestly, I think they integrate better than the psionic classes.

In my experience, and I speak only for myself, the essentials classes work just fine with the rest of the game and the "core/essentials" divide is much adu about nothing. Every book gives you more options. This includes the essentials books.

If your players use the DDI, I think the best policy is just let the players use whatever, limited by your campaign restrictions for flavor. If not, the essentials books are a good value with some good options. They are not, however, fundamentally different or disruptive. If you are willing to accept the PH3 there is no reason to reject the "essentials" books.

 

[Obryn]

where have you been for the last year? even wotc employees use the term in the same way i do.

in a recent announcement they themselves even said "the sorcerer and barbarian will be getting essentialized" or something to that effect.

That's way different from calling HoS an Essentials book.

-O

 

[mneme]

@Obryn : No, HoS isn't an Essentials book--it's a New Splat, not a New Core. The correct designator would be "post-Essentials book".

That said, given the tone of the OP's query, it's not unreasonable to lump the post-Essentials books in with Essentials for this purpose.

 

[The Little Raven]

also, the term "Essentials" is a term to describe a design style and not really that first line of products.

The Essentials line is defined by two key characteristics.

1. Evergreen. They will remain in print so long as the edition remains in print.
2. The foundation. This means that all future books will assume these are the books you have and no more (very deliberately niche books aside).

Heroes of Shadow is not an evergreen product, and future books will not assume that you have it. Therefore, while it supports Essentials-style design philosophy, it is not an Essentials book.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The compendium is great. It's a very good form factor, and having all the rules in one place is fantastic. The monster vault gives a nice wide selection of monsters, as well as rules updates for old ones.

The classes are good too. The most important thing is that they give an option for the less mechanically inclined. Essential martial characters are basically hard to mess up: unless you do wierd things like try to have a 6 str fighter, it's really difficult to end up with a mechanically inferior character. Great for someone who just wants to say "I hit it with my sword". At the same time the essential casters retain their higher level of complexity (they're pretty much the same as the pre-essentials classes).

I'd heartily recommend you ignore this nonsense about book X or Y being essentialised and how that's destroying the game or something. Essentials classes impact that sort of thing a lot less than, say, the PHB3 with psionics did (magic items in essentials books still work for non-essentials characters, whereas most psionic items requrie power points to fuel, for instance).

 

[rjfTrebor]

The Essentials line is defined by two key characteristics.

1. Evergreen. They will remain in print so long as the edition remains in print.
2. The foundation. This means that all future books will assume these are the books you have and no more (very deliberately niche books aside).

Heroes of Shadow is not an evergreen product, and future books will not assume that you have it. Therefore, while it supports Essentials-style design philosophy, it is not an Essentials book.

it's a book that so heavily features "essentials-style" content that only the most pedantic of people would leave it out of any discussion on "the essentials books"

while it may not be from the essentials line it's still an essentials book.

 

[Gargoyle]

Yay, sub-edition wars!