I have to say calling the DS book a splatbook is absolutely hilarious. If that's what qualifies as a splatbook I don't know what's going on anymore.
On the topic of essentials. I don't really understand all the crying. I understand it from the perspective that it is taking development time away from what has been the normal 4E structure for 2+ years. Beyond that I really, really don't. Because honestly, all their doing is changing the framework a class can have and making it more diverse.
That's not why people dislike 3.5. No one ever cites the fact that the classes are all over the place in abilities they gain, feats, spells, whatever as a problem with 3.5. At least I've never seen that as a complaint. I'd much rather have variety in class framework than the perception of balance given by the traditional 4E model.
In addition, how many feats are there for let's say the fighter? How many powers? Certainly there are enough to last decades. Heaven forbid wizards should stretch their brains and create new class structures using the 4e blueprints. Classes that don't break the game or even separate themselves except because they're labeled 'essentials'.
I would really like to know what the reaction would be if these builds were presented in 'Martial Power 3'. I feel there'd be much much less resistance.
I was apprehensive about Essentials, but I also thought the Power splatbooks were coming a bit too quickly early in 4E's life cycle. I didn't really think that publication frequency for crunch was sustainable. I stopped buying splatbooks after the first (Arcane Power for me) and instead focused my buying on books that contained significant (to me) content that I couldn't get on DDI: DMG2, MM2/3 (monster lore), AV2 (vehicle and alchemy rules), Eberron PG (more alchemy), and both Dark Sun books.
Prerelease and shortly thereafter, I had a few problems with Essentials:
- It added more support for the "standard" classes when what 4E really needs is more support for undersupported classes. Tried building a Runepriest lately? A Battlemind? Since WotC does not have infinite resources, oversupporting Fighters necessarily implies undersupporting something else, and that's exactly what happened.
- Essentials builds are mostly incompatible with the other class builds. The Executioner's poisons are cool, but since they de facto replace daily powers, why not allow other Assassin builds to take them in place of a daily? Part of the appeal of 4E is the flexibility of individual classes when they receive sufficient crunch support; why hamstring that by releasing incompatible builds?
- On that note, it's impossible to pick up an Essentials class feature by making a hybrid or multiclass character. So the Essentials builds aren't just incompatible with other builds of the same class, they're also incompatible with the rest of the classes.
- The purist in me felt like Essentials added cruft to what I thought was the cleanest and most consistent ruleset D&D had seen. (Not the least complex, obviously.) The psionic power source was a great example of how to add interesting crunch while minimizing cruft; I felt the piecemeal approach of Essentials added too much cruft (namely, lots and lots of special rules for each build of each class) without adding enough interesting crunch. The sacrifice didn't seem worth it.
I'd hoped that some of these problems would be addressed. Thankfully, we're seeing a bit more content for undersupported classes via DDI. I remain hopeful that some Essentials options will be made available to non-Essentials characters, since that should be feasible to implement.
Also, when I read through the Essentials builds, some of my complaints turned out to be not quite as pronounced. The Thief, Knight, and Executioner all brought new and interesting things to the table and are builds I'd consider trying out. Probably not for a long campaign, since my characters are often hybrids (and sometimes multiclassed hybrids >_< ), but there's definitely some interesting crunch there that was worth bringing into the game.
So on the whole I'm neutral on Essentials now that it's out. I certainly like the idea of an updated set of evergreen books, and I bought the Rules Compendium and Monster Vault. I've been very happy with both, although I wish the MV contained some guidance on what information to reveal with skill checks alongside its expanded monster lore.
But we seem to have gotten into a "worst of both worlds" situation now. Content for both regular and Essentialized 4E is being drastically scaled back, but it looks like we also aren't getting more cool stuff in the historical 4E format (like the Dark Sun books). I'm hoping the content calendar will be updated with another couple of releases, although I don't think we need to get all the way back to the fast release schedule we saw in the first couple of years of 4E.
