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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scribble" data-source="post: 5264794" data-attributes="member: 23977">Imaro: I'm obviously not in a position of superior knowledge or anything but, here's how I'd answer your questions based on my own readings.Seems like the idea behind the "essentials" branding is "These are 10 products that a store needs to keep in stock in order to ensure anyone who wants to start playing D&D can find whatever the game calls for."What it feels like is a game designed for people who want to play like a "core only" game.If they buy those books, they have all of D&D (essentially. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> )   Not that I think they're planning to stop making add on source books... but Essentials seems like it's designed to stand on it's own. Everything we've seen so far leads me to believe no. This is because while they created new class constructs that function in different ways, the underlying system that is 4e is unchanged. 4e seems to be designed almost as two parts. The first is the underlying system... Stuff like how a basic attack functions, what armor class means, hit points, second winds, conditions... The basic stuff that people have in common, and would be effected by if it was changed.The second part is layered on top... These elements are self contained interactions with the base elements. The "exceptions" they always talk about. Changing them effects only the element itself, or at most the person using it. It's not designed to change the base rules everyone works with.For instance an at-will power that lets you shift more then 1 square doesn't change how many squares someone else gets to shift- Only how many you can.The new classes we've seen so far only seem to add new stuff to the second layer. It seems to be designed to create another avenue to get into the game. This one being better designed to guide you through the game more easily. The two from what we've seen can (and are designed to) function side by side (but see the previous comment on how I think Essentials is designed to stand on its own.) I would say yes and no... No for reasons stated above... Yes in that it adds another layer of design they can use when making more stuff for us. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Instead of simply making characters that all get at-wills, encounter, and dailies they can choose to do so, or do something else. It's weird that they said that in that post. Maybe they didn't realize how much of an effect the changes they made would have? The difference I see here is they've said you can use the stuff you already have without any updating to "make it like essentials."If you have a PHB I Wizard and an Essentials Wizard in the same party they're designed to be balanced to each other from the start.Using an essentials class along side of an original class doesn't force me to change anything to maintain balance.When 3.5 cam about there were changes that rippled though the game... Like damage resistance for instance.  When they changed that, suddenly a class that was using say a certain magic sword could no longer fucntion properly, because it now needed another type of weapon.Suddenly a ranger was no longer balanced against another ranger.The same isn't happening here. Anyway those are my thoughts at least! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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