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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5269440" data-attributes="member: 996">I don't think it's the directness of the answer that's at issue, but it's plausibility.  There has been a lot of errata issued against the PH.  It's not being re-printed with that errata.   All the general rules in the PH /will/ be re-printed, with errata, in the Essentials Compendium.  That's not technically obsoleting or replacing the PH.  It's skating awefully close to it, though, and it wouldn't take much for WotC to find out, when they've sold out their back stock of PHs that they were 'mistaken' about that claim.Now, when I say the claim is maybe not that plausible, I'm not saying it's an outright malicious lie, nor that it's certainly false.  But, it might later turn out to be 'mistaken' - and there's a lot of space between a malicious lie and an honest mistake for whatever the real intent was.  Ultimately, the precise intent doesn't matter.  They're a business, their intent is to try to attract as many customers as they can, while pleasing most of them, and alienating as few as possible.  They may or may not succeed, but even if they fail, it doesn't mean they were /intentially/ sticking it to some segment of the fan base.Yes, rules have been changed and there are sub-classes that are functional replacements for existing builds.  The Mage and Wizard are perfectly compatible, it's true - the Mage is just a Wizard with a different set of class features, all the Mage's powers are aparently getting a Wizard level X tag, which means they can  be swapped out.  A build with new features is not too revolutionary - a bit radical, at worst.The Warpriest and Cleric are less so.  The Cleric is a split-primary STR/WIS class, the Warpriest is pure WIS, and a clear functional replacement for the Cleric STR build.  The WIS Cleric builds are compatible with the Warpriest, the STR build is effectively 'orphaned.'The Knight and Theif are so different from the Fighter and Rogue as to be replacement /classes/ rather than replacement builds.  There's virtually no compatibility between them.  At most, they'll be able to swap around utilities - if their other utilities have levels, that is.Now, the PH is still going to be available to buy, but what does an Essentials customer get out of buying it?  A bunch of rules already in the compendium, some outmoded builds for classes already in the compendium - and a couple of 'new' (old) classes.  The Warlord is a great class, but I doubt it'd justify buying a PH to someone whose waited this long to get into the game because the entry-level price of the first 3 core books was intimidating.In effect, books that have /some/ of their material reprinted in Essentials will have become more expensive (for what you get), and material from those books /not/ reprinted is likely to be 'orphaned,' like the STR Cleric, and slowly disapear from the game unless eventually re-printed in a later product.The Essentials will lead to DDI subscriptions is probably the best hope for the classes being 'left behind.'  And, actually, that's not a terrible model.  Subscribe to DDI and get the occult content that was too cool to put in Essentials, and only the 'old timers' know about.  If you can give someone a sense that they've 'missed out' on something, it can be quite the little motivator.</blockquote>

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