D&D 4E Inquiry: How do 4E fans feel about 4E Essentials?

[Charlaquin]

Jein. It could be played alongside the rest of 4e, but it couldn't really be played "great alongside the rest of 4e" without quite a large amount of errata that plagued a lot of the early releases, especially until the math got fixed.

Sure. Overreliance on errata was a pretty pervasive 4e problem.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Retailer here. The trouble with Essentials is that they tried to do three things at once, which confused the audience:

1) Its main reason for existing (and the name) was because they were trying to create a product that could be stocked and ordered by stores that didn't understand D&D. They wanted to branch out from our FLGSs to Target, Walmart, etc. where they needed the staff to understand what they needed to have in-store in order to stock "Dungeons and Dragons". Hence, "D&D Essentials" (This is also why they made it cheaper softcovers and box-sets).

2) All 4e classes were equally complex to play, so they wanted to create some "beginner" subclasses that were a bit easier, AND at the same time answer the criticism that 4e classes played too "samey".

AND

3) They wanted to do a few math-fixes. Early 4e monsters were often a bit of a slog to fight. Too high defenses, too low damage output. I once played in a fight that took 20 rounds, in which the monsters barely damaged any of us, and yet we had a hard time killing them! (Booooring!) They implemented some MUCH better monster design (4e monster design was very good - it just needed some tweaking). Unfortunately, they also threw in some math-fixing feats, that were so good that pretty much everyone took them, making them the very worst of "feat-tax"es.

So they tried to do too much with one product, and confused the existing audience while not quite managing to build the new one it was looking for.

Personally, I really liked Essentials, but it drove a sword into an already bloodied edition and dropped it to zero HP.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

My first time starting a thread...be gentle.

I am currently active in the Survivor: D&D Edition thread on the forum and have observed that while there are plenty of participants in said thread who like 4E I have yet to see a single upvote for 4E Essentials. I never played either version of 4E, have only a cursory knowledge of 4E and know nothing about Essentials.

So, 4E devotees, what were the changes made in Essentials that you dislike?

If there are any fans of Essentials actually out there, what were the changes that you DID like?

NOTE: I am genuinely curious about this topic and have ZERO interest in starting any kind of intra edition flame war, so please lets try to keep things civil.

4.0 fan here. I mainly GMed.

All 4.0 PCs had the AEDU structure. Then Essentials came out, and some Essentials characters didn't have this structure any more. The knight (Essentials fighter) didn't have daily powers, but the mage (Essentials wizard) did, and was basically a new version of the wizard with miniscule differences. The fighter and wizard (E-versions) were no longer balanced with each other (nor was the knight balanced with the original 4e wizard), and now I had to deal with the 5 minute day problem. (Because 4.0 had daily powers, the 5 minute day problem technically existed there too, but it affected each PC equally. This was much easier to handle on the GM side.)

Essentials also contributed to class bloat. 4.0 had bloat too, but Essentials "had" to create new subclasses for each class. Did we really need four types of rangers? Two with magic and two without? If you wanted to dual-wield Dex-based short swords and not use magic, there still wasn't a ranger for you.

5e is running into this problem, at least from what I see written on the forums. The wizard needs long rests to restore powers. The fighter needs short rests to restore most powers. The warlock needs... I don't know, I haven't seen one in play.

Late 4e had way better monster math, and the math fix feats (which were from Essentials) but I don't think they constituted a new half-edition. I cheerfully used Monster Vault (Essentials) monsters with PH1 PCs.

 

[Charlaquin]

1) It's main reason for existing (and the name) was because they were trying to create a product that could be stocked and ordered by stores that didn't understand D&D. They wanted to branch out from our FLGSs to Target, Walmart, etc. where they needed the staff to understand what they needed to have in-store in order to stock "Dungeons and Dragons". Hence, "D&D Essentials" (This is also why they made it cheaper softcovers and box-sets).

That explains so much.

 

[Charlaquin]

The warlock needs... I don't know, I haven't seen one in play.

Mostly short rests. They get a much smaller number of spell slots than other casters, but they automatically scale to the highest level they can cast, and recover on a short rest. Though they also get lots of cantrips, and can also get a small number of once per day abilities. They’re basically an AEDU class in disguise.

 

[HammerMan]

4.0 fan here. I mainly GMed.

All 4.0 PCs had the AEDU structure. Then Essentials came out, and some Essentials characters didn't have this structure any more. The knight (Essentials fighter) didn't have daily powers, but the mage (Essentials wizard) did, and was basically a new version of the wizard with miniscule differences. The fighter and wizard (E-versions) were no longer balanced with each other (nor was the knight balanced with the original 4e wizard), and now I had to deal with the 5 minute day problem. (Because 4.0 had daily powers, the 5 minute day problem technically existed there too, but it affected each PC equally. This was much easier to handle on the GM side.)

where I did not have such a problem I can totally see that. The slayer and the knight could go much longer then most 4e classes without a long rest..

 

[Undrave]

1) It's main reason for existing (and the name) was because they were trying to create a product that could be stocked and ordered by stores that didn't understand D&D. They wanted to branch out from our FLGSs to Target, Walmart, etc. where they needed the staff to understand what they needed to have in-store in order to stock "Dungeons and Dragons". Hence, "D&D Essentials" (This is also why they made it cheaper softcovers and box-sets).

I think they've done that better with the box sets this edition.

 

[Undrave]

Which precluded Warlords too.

Oh yeah, I forgot that part! They took away our martial healing!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My first time starting a thread...be gentle.

I am currently active in the Survivor: D&D Edition thread on the forum and have observed that while there are plenty of participants in said thread who like 4E I have yet to see a single upvote for 4E Essentials. I never played either version of 4E, have only a cursory knowledge of 4E and know nothing about Essentials.

So, 4E devotees, what were the changes made in Essentials that you dislike?

If there are any fans of Essentials actually out there, what were the changes that you DID like?

NOTE: I am genuinely curious about this topic and have ZERO interest in starting any kind of intra edition flame war, so please lets try to keep things civil.

IMO, Essentials 4e is an improvement on pre-Essentials 4e. It still didn't quite get to where it needed to, which would have been a more fluid choice between ever more powers and more passive features and use of one power more times, but it got a hell of a lot closer.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think this was mostly a marketing fail. While Essentials played great standalone, it also played great alongside the rest of 4e. But the marketing couldn’t decide if it was a beginner’s set, or an add-on to 4e, or a 4.5e, or “fixing” 4e, or what.

Exactly. I had E classes and PHB classes for several years at the same table, without any problems of any kind coming from mixing the two.