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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
4e needs a Definitive Guide
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6368354" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>I don't mean to provoke any of the old '4.5e wars' silliness, but honestly in the case of the people that are against calling Essentials the basic core 4e recommendation are you thinking about this in the right way? Sure, YOU may not love the E-classes and find it a less interesting (or whatever) set of classes and hate the exclusion of certain rules and material, but think of it from the standpoint of someone reading the recommendation. You don't know what their ultimate preferences are, maybe they would love the Essentials material, but even if they share your opinion in the end the guide is just supposed to give them a basis for getting into the game. For THAT purpose, Essentials really is quite good. You can pick up most parts of it for bargain prices or used for very cheap and its still a GOOD game that has all the 4e goodness. I'm not a die-hard Essentials fan, I liked the non-Essentials stuff a LOT, but for a group of players that lack access to DDI and are just starting having only 20-30 GOOD feats to wade through and a small number of items, cleaned up armor rules, fixed and errated general rules, and a good workable subset of material is gold.</p><p></p><p>So, I think its worth thinking about, personal play preferences aside, a guide should be written with maximum benefit to the reader in mind, not promoting one or another of the various subgroups of 4e players agendas and preferences. Honestly if its not Essentials then what? The original core 3 books? Even then you want MV and RC, which at best imposes a bit of confusing overlap in the core rules where RC updates the PHB1 and the DMG1 with its borked SC rules and replaced DC charts and such. From a clarity standpoint I'm not sold. The PHB1 classes are all classics as well, but some of them are almost unplayably wonky without supplements. Its hard for me to recommend an unvarnished PHB1 Paladin or Warlock as a good option and even the cleric's two builds are a bit of a piece to absorb right off the bat. Their Essentials counterparts are quite a lot more basically playable.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 6368354, member: 82106"] I don't mean to provoke any of the old '4.5e wars' silliness, but honestly in the case of the people that are against calling Essentials the basic core 4e recommendation are you thinking about this in the right way? Sure, YOU may not love the E-classes and find it a less interesting (or whatever) set of classes and hate the exclusion of certain rules and material, but think of it from the standpoint of someone reading the recommendation. You don't know what their ultimate preferences are, maybe they would love the Essentials material, but even if they share your opinion in the end the guide is just supposed to give them a basis for getting into the game. For THAT purpose, Essentials really is quite good. You can pick up most parts of it for bargain prices or used for very cheap and its still a GOOD game that has all the 4e goodness. I'm not a die-hard Essentials fan, I liked the non-Essentials stuff a LOT, but for a group of players that lack access to DDI and are just starting having only 20-30 GOOD feats to wade through and a small number of items, cleaned up armor rules, fixed and errated general rules, and a good workable subset of material is gold. So, I think its worth thinking about, personal play preferences aside, a guide should be written with maximum benefit to the reader in mind, not promoting one or another of the various subgroups of 4e players agendas and preferences. Honestly if its not Essentials then what? The original core 3 books? Even then you want MV and RC, which at best imposes a bit of confusing overlap in the core rules where RC updates the PHB1 and the DMG1 with its borked SC rules and replaced DC charts and such. From a clarity standpoint I'm not sold. The PHB1 classes are all classics as well, but some of them are almost unplayably wonky without supplements. Its hard for me to recommend an unvarnished PHB1 Paladin or Warlock as a good option and even the cleric's two builds are a bit of a piece to absorb right off the bat. Their Essentials counterparts are quite a lot more basically playable. [/QUOTE]
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