Windjammer
Adventurer
3.5e/Pathfinder fans do you like essentials?
If not why is that?
Do you still prefer 3.5/Pathfinder?
If so, why?
The moment Essentials hit the shelves, I put my Pathfinder campaign on hold. We sold off our books, scraped our characters, and immediately started a new campaign. We never looked back, we've been truly blessed since, and here's why. This is our story, and may it be repeated by others until the end of times.
First of all, the Essentials books are beautiful. Glossy covers, full scale hardcovers, and tons of money spent on the art budget alone... These books are not just awesome games, they are any bibliophile's wet dream. I'm ashamed I ever settled for those flimsy things Paizo calls 'books' - sheesh.
Next, what we missed about 4th edition when it came out was the lack of customization - the variability of the classes, and the ton of support for all the classes. Where was my half-droid/drow ranger 5/arcane archer 2/hierophant 7? Conversion impossible? You gotta be kidding! Well, thankfully and truly, Essentials really freed up 4E's classes of yesteryear. No more locked class progression! Tons of support books!! Brilliant online-support it. You name it, WotC put all its heart and energy behind the new wave. They even released a whole book on magic items - a blessing hitherto withheld to previous editions - right out of the gate, this making it ever easier to outfit the new classes. Essentials seemed like 4E, except done right!
Next up was DM'ing support. Building your own stuff and customizing one's monsters, now here's something we never did in 3E. That 4E had rules for that seriously miffed us. Glad to see it gone, just like 3E!
And finally, to top it all off, adventure support. When 4E was released, WotC put out this H-P-E series which spanned all 30 levels of play. Ridiculous - who wants to play full campaigns?!? The whole point with 3E was that it was unplayable beyond level 10, so we rebooted our campaigns regularly, often by level 5 (if not earlier). And then Essentials came out, and it was like the guys at WotC finally listened to people like us! Who'd want to play a Kingmaker or a Carrion Crown (I'm ashamed to even mention these amateurish efforts) when you can play six heroic tier adventures, choose among three heroic tier setting expansions, and pick heroic tier monsters from two splats - and enjoy many, many more heroic tier products yet to come?
From top to bottom, start to finish, Essentials hauled in the masses, converted the defected, and made 4E the stunning success it is today. And best of all - it even feels more like 3E than 3E itself!
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