4th edition, The fantastic game that everyone hated.

[Neonchameleon]

The production model that says there's only so many powers/magic items books that can be put out and around the time PHB3 had plant-men, archer-priests and sentient crystal, the well had been tapped dry too quick?

In part. We already had 19 classes before the PHB 3, and most of them covered a lot of ground. Thinking of the AEDU classes produced after the PHB 3 we have: In Essentials: The Hexblade. Fits much better with the limited options Essentials model. The Warpriest. A cleric for all practical purposes. The Sentinel. Let's not go there. The Mage. A slightly tweaked and polished wizard. The Cavalier. A paladin - better fluff but orthodox. After Essentials: The Vampire. Very linear and a subversion of a number of major 4e elements (mostly healing surges) The Executioner. Not orthodox AEDU as only one encounter power. The Blackguard. A striker-Paladin. No reason it couldn't have been produced pre-Essentials. The Binder. A Warlock that sucks harder. Neither rhyme nor reason. The Beserker. A hybrid defender/striker (defender until it gets mad) The Skald. A tweaked Bard. No major reason to be a separate class. The Bladesinger. Definitely not orthodox AEDU. Whatever the silly wizard variant was in HoEC All the AEDU classes post PHB 3 either somehow subverted the AEDU structure or some other major structure (the defender/striker barbarian or the weird vampire healing surges) or were only minor tweaks on existing classes. And 4e has more feats than WotC produced for 3.5.

4e had a lot of potential material, but I'd say 90% of it would have been fluff, and that didn't sell too well. For every copy of Manual of the Planes that sold, 10 copies of Heroes of the Elemental Chaos sold. The Char-builder was flooded with feats, powers, rituals and magic items. There was still things that could have sold, but I wager they wer setting-based (atop the ones you mentioned, why not a Sigil book? A Ravenloft one? More Realms and Eberron stuff?)

A Sigil Book is something I'd have wanted before the #@%& Faction War. A Sigil book with a rollback replacing the Birthright book, possibly. Ravenloft doesn't fit 4e that well thematically. And with two books for Eberron and three (counting Neverwinter) for the Realms, we've enough Realms stuff to be very usable without being overwhelming. Too much fluff can be a problem.

When Essentials was released, I heard a vocal minority that proclaimed It was a betrayal to 4e's design (ADEU classes, etc). However, I was generally under the impression Essentials was well received and even welcomed for its revisions. Color me genuinely surprised that Essentials was hated by the 4e community.

It wasn't hated. As the splatbooks and redone Monster Manual it was, it was well received eventually. The thought it would be the new direction for 4e on the other hand was scary. We don't want the "Mages can do anything, Fighters are just dumb brutes who hit stuff and have no narrative control" back. The slayer adds to the game. The thought they'd even consider dropping the Weaponmaster is anathema to most 4e fans. Fluffy, effective fighters with control over their environment and tactical decisions for the people who are on the sharp end tactically is something we like. Wizards being worse at roguery than rogues is something we like - and Essentials even managed to walk that back a lot.

Again, not having bought it; I was under the assumption the RC had the rules, while the Player books only had races, classes, skills, feats and powers. You needed the RC to run combat, for example.

Nope. The Player books have the PHB rules. The Rules Compendium amongst other things has some basic magic item treasure tables.

Granted, DDi saves WotC the cost of printing many books (including a few apparently finished). I think saying 3e is responsible for google seaches to drop is akin to saying 4e caused D&D Minis to go belly up. Correlation doesn't imply causation.

No. But the correlation is there. And DDI gives WotC money even when they are producing nothing.

 

[Obryn]

When Essentials was released, I heard a vocal minority that proclaimed It was a betrayal to 4e's design (ADEU classes, etc). However, I was generally under the impression Essentials was well received and even welcomed for its revisions. Color me genuinely surprised that Essentials was hated by the 4e community.

No, it was pretty much a vocal minority. And that minority has shrunk even further, by and large, as time has gone on. More or less, when Heroes of the Feywild had stuff for pre-Essentials classes, it was clear that WotC hadn't abandoned the earlier books - which was the major fear.

-O

 

[pemerton]

The Sentinel. Let's not go there.

What's wrong with the Sentinel? I haven't looked at it very closely.

 

[Jhaelen]

When Essentials was released, I heard a vocal minority that proclaimed It was a betrayal to 4e's design (ADEU classes, etc). However, I was generally under the impression Essentials was well received and even welcomed for its revisions. Color me genuinely surprised that Essentials was hated by the 4e community.

Well, I for once definitely hated Essentials when it was published. The previews and reactions to them and the books themselves led me to refuse to look at the books themselves for a long time (~ 2 years). In our group the original 4e was very well received and the fact that every class consisted of exactly the same building blocks (ADEU) was one of its biggest boons. One of players who'd never considered playing anything but a fighter in 1e to 3e suddenly discovered he loved playing a wizard!
I slowly got around on some of the Essentials books, e.g. the Monster Vault (despite the high amount of re-hashed material) but I still dislike the majority of the Essentials classes and the revised layout that mars every book released after.
I mean what's the purpose of the double fluff for every power and feat? And did really anyone feel the new, repetitive presentation of classes with their integrated paragon paths was anything but more confusing and verbose than the original?
I also hated (and still hate) the half-size paperbook format - luckily that was only temporary.

 

[pemerton]

I mean what's the purpose of the double fluff for every power and feat? And did really anyone feel the new, repetitive presentation of classes with their integrated paragon paths was anything but more confusing and verbose than the original?

Completely agreed. The double fluff is just crap, especially because there's often confusion and sometimes contradiction. And the paragon path stuff is hideous to make sense of.

I personally prefer the MM1 and MM2 flavour text to MM3 and the MV, too. (Though MV stats are excellent.)

I also hated (and still hate) the half-size paperbook format

Whereas this I quite liked.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I never minded the half sized monster books, but not for anything else.

 

[Neonchameleon]

What's wrong with the Sentinel? I haven't looked at it very closely.

On the underpowered side, combat's extremely boring. The beast companion falls behind in terms of damage fairly rapidly (not ranger animal companion fast but still fast enough). Which means you have one functional at will. You also have only one (repeated) encounter power (Druid swings and beast attacks).

On the overpowered side, perception. The Druid is wisdom-primary, with perception on the druid's skill list. The beast companion's perception is equal to the druid's plus two. So for perception checks you're rolling once at very high for the druid (+10 or so at first level), and again at two higher. (I've once seen a first level druid with a perception of +14, and +16 for his wolf; wis 20 Elf with the Wasteland Wanderer feat). I don't mind any active skill being taken to stratospheric levels; it just gives the PCs more chances to get entertainingly in trouble. But passive defensive abilities through the roof cut a lot of tension.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

And did really anyone feel the new, repetitive presentation of classes with their integrated paragon paths was anything but more confusing and verbose than the original?
I also hated (and still hate) the half-size paperbook format - luckily that was only temporary.

I thought the new presentation of the classes or the integrated PPs was a little confusing at first and it was needlessly verbose but for me that was easy to excuse because the content is very solid. I'm currently playing an earth Warpriest and I love it!

That said, I too loathed the half-sized paperback format. I was so pleased they went back to the larger hardcovers.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Completely agreed. The double fluff is just crap, especially because there's often confusion and sometimes contradiction. And the paragon path stuff is hideous to make sense of.

I personally prefer the MM1 and MM2 flavour text to MM3 and the MV, too. (Though MV stats are excellent.)

The double fluff should have been cut. Instead there should have been a two page spread on how to read or visualise a power. Tying in what pushes do, what the effects mean, and the works. As for flavour text between the MM1 and MV, it depends why you are reading. The MM1 presents the flavour text in case you had already decided to use the monster in question. MV does a much better job of selling you why to use it in the first place.

 

[pemerton]

The MM1 presents the flavour text in case you had already decided to use the monster in question. MV does a much better job of selling you why to use it in the first place.

Maybe - I'm not sure about this. (The MM flavour text for goblins is pretty awesome in my view - 4e is the first edition where I've favoured goblins over orcs rather than vice versa.) But anyway, it's Worlds & Monsters that I turn to to learn why I'm using a particular creature!