3.5e/Pathfinder fans tell me what you think about essentials

[Greg K]

In my opinion, regarding Essentials

While there are some changes that I like (e.g, Thief's weapon proficiencies and some racial abilities:
a. the decision was wrong to release the Heroes of the [x] books like they did. Too much duplicated material between the books. The space taken up by duplicate material could have been put to better use.

b.. Overall, I dislike several of the Essential classes. For example, I don't like that Raise Dead is built into the Warpriest

c. Despite thinking CAGI needed a change, I don't like the change that was made.

d. Still doesn't fix most of my issues with 4e.

With 3e, as someone mentioned, I get a flexible core system that does what I want. Furthermore, between Unearthed Arcana and several third party products, I can easily tweak the game to do what I want. I can even draw from Pathfinder the few things I do like it about it.

 

[SteveC]

I doubt you're going to get too much in the way of helpful answers here, since the ship has largely sailed with the online community.

For what it's worth, though, I was able to sell several people on trying 4E with Essentials, since it reintroduced characters that were simple and generic to play. I think it's important that it brought back a style of character that was largely missing from the game. Was it worth the cost of annoying the base? Time will tell, I suppose.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I had hopes for Essentials - not for me, but rather that it would bring in some new blood to the hobby.

But... it seems like it has failed in that regard.

I still think that as an introduction it had an attractive price point, but I heard bad things about the part that I had the highest hopes for - the Red Box.

Not sure what they can do at this point, the folks who like 4e havee 4e, the folks who don't have Pathfinder or one of the OSR games. Or, heck (hack??) Hackmaster.

I am hoping (daydreaming) that the Pathfinder Beginner's Box is wildly successful, and that WotC buys a clue from that success and redoes the Red Box as something that people want.... I want my cake, and let you have your cake too. (But my cake is better - it has whipped cream frosting....)

The Auld Grump, and jimmies, too!

 

[BryonD]

I doubt you're going to get too much in the way of helpful answers here, since the ship has largely sailed with the online community.

There's really no difference between the online and meat space communities on this issue. I've no doubt you sold a few people, and I know some "online" people saw essentials as good progress as well.

But, by and large, the ship has simply sailed for a lot of people. period.

I'm not saying that a great number of people don't love 4E. But, of those who didn't the numbers who were swayed by essentials is pretty negligible, not zero, but negligible. (And that is before you count the cost of the base that was annoyed by it, as you referenced. )

 

[Stormonu]

I already had tried 4E, and a handful of books (PHB1-3, DMG, MM1-2) when Essentials came out.

I was hoping that Essentials would swing around 4E to what I was looking for. I grabbed the red box, monster vault and The Slaying Stone and we tried the other Essential products from friends willing to loan them.

Unfortunately, it turned out not to be what I was looking for; combat still dragged without halving monster HP, power effects still had WTF moments, rituals were pretty much gone (unless you had the old books), and the WotC adventures were still strings of unrelated encounters with no other way to solve them than by combat.

 

[delericho]

I like Essentials. I especially like the format of the Essentials softcovers, and the way it was set out as a limited line. If I were to buy back in to 4e, it would be as an Essentials-only game.

But...

They really botched things when they cancelled the magic items book. They've finally got around to fixing it, but it's too late.

Also, my 4e DM(s) made it clear that they would be considering Essentials as "just another option". For me, that loses a lot of the benefit of Essentials - cutting through the option bloat.

And, frankly, Essentials is 4e. Although it addresses some of what I don't like about 4e, it doesn't tackle the fundamental underlying issues. (I suspect those probably can't be dealt with, short of a new edition.)

So, while it's a valiant attempt, and while it does have some aspects that make it really attractive, Essentials doesn't do enough to bring me back into the 4e (buying) fold.

(Oh, and I'll echo a comment from up-thread - the new Red Box was a terribly missed opportunity. Really disappointing.)

 

[Jhaelen]

In essence, Essentials is not different. I have seen nothing in it that would lead a person that doesn't like 4e to like Essentials.

And even worse, as a person who likes 4e, I don't care about Essentials. It's nothing but a _failed_ attempt to create a D&Dv3.9 to appeal to the customers WotC lost when moving on from 3.5.

 

[TerraDave]

oh I am not that annoyed any more...though I can still be pretty base.

Lets rehash. Essentials (and specifically the Heroes of books, the other couple of books were actually pretty usefull to existing 4E DMs, but have nothing to do with list below or this thread) was supposed to "solve" various problems with 4E:

*No obvious class(es) for beginers
*Lack of mechanical variety across classes
*Verisimilitude breaking "magic" powers for "non-magical" classes
*Lack of certain classic options, or such options being lost in some supplement somewhere (ie illusionist type wizards)
*No obvious entry point to "everything is core" 4E.

So that is the theory...but as essentials gave, so did it takeaway, and especially if the reference point is 3.5 or PF...In a sense, there is really no match between what one would say PFs strongpoints are and essentials. As has been noted already several times above.

But lets have another example. Take the last *. Want to play Pathfinder, you buy one book. Its really obvious which book it is. And its loaded. (actually they are now complicating things, but thats another story). Want to play 4.E...what do you buy again?

 

[Dice4Hire]

I am a 4E player who plays 3.5 and would play Pathfinder if he could find a group and is not interested in essentials but may allow it in his next campaign anyway.


There, solved.

A round of applause is sufficient, thank you.

 

['Arry]

Umbran's comment pretty much nailed why I won't play Essentials.

I still play 3.X as I have houseruled and tweaked it to do what I want it to do. I didn't feel like spending money on Pathfinder.