WalterKovacs
First Post
When 4e first came out, the goal was to start over as, from a business perspective, 3.5 was getting harder and harder to sell to new people. A new edition means reselling the core products, which is where most of the money is made, and lowering the barier to entry while also creating opportunity for creativity (nothing like a blank canvas).
From the beginning, they knew the initial market would be existing players, and former players, people that already had experience with the product, etc. What then occured was a few years of "extended playtesting" that mostly catered to those that bought in at the start of 4e. They learned from initial mistakes, fixing things like the stealth rules, V based class design, limited racial stat modifiers, skill challenges, monster design, attack/defense scaling, etc ... with most of the kinks worked out, now was a good time to try to expand the player base again. In order to do so, a new "core" set of books were developed. The Essential lines are cheaper (per book) and while useful to existing players, are also accessible to new players. The targets here are those that initially rejected 4e (by offering them classes that more closely resemble older editions) and to completely new players (by offering, much like with the initial PHB, a simplified menu of options to reduce the overwhelming sense of option overload).
Essentials does have aspects of a new edition/half edition reboot in that it attempts to address the overwhelming ammount of options that have accumulated by offering class builds that ignore many of those options. Unlike most splat books, which it is for the most part, it includes all the rules for building the characters, and most of the relevant rules for playing it, while normally the book has a "you need the PHB to play this game, this book is not enough" type ad on it.
However, unlike actualy edition jumps/half editions, it isn't just a case of "we fixed the rules, now we are going to reprint everything to reflect those changes". They've been changing the rules all along, put the updates into whichever books were coming out at the time, and in the character builder, etc. So, many players were playing with the rules changes as they came along. Instead of it being one big chunk, it was rolled out over time.
Now, they COULD have reprinted all the old books with the new updates and forced people to either rebuy what they already own (and make new players have to buy several books to get the 'full rules') or they could put all the rules stuff into one book (the rules compendium) and then just put class stuff into other books, which can be built around themes so that players know what they are buying. If you want the rules, book X. You want to know about one of these five classes, book Y. And, the class compendium book seems to be a big part of this. While it is the class 'part' of reprinting the PHB (Which with the errata and updates would make it part of the 4.5 PHB basically) it also contains the rules on how to combine elements of the Essential builds with the old builds and how to multiclass with essential builds, etc ... basically making the Essentials not just a parallel option that works next to non-Essential characters against 4e monsters, but that are able fully integrate with mixing and matching elements.
From the beginning, they knew the initial market would be existing players, and former players, people that already had experience with the product, etc. What then occured was a few years of "extended playtesting" that mostly catered to those that bought in at the start of 4e. They learned from initial mistakes, fixing things like the stealth rules, V based class design, limited racial stat modifiers, skill challenges, monster design, attack/defense scaling, etc ... with most of the kinks worked out, now was a good time to try to expand the player base again. In order to do so, a new "core" set of books were developed. The Essential lines are cheaper (per book) and while useful to existing players, are also accessible to new players. The targets here are those that initially rejected 4e (by offering them classes that more closely resemble older editions) and to completely new players (by offering, much like with the initial PHB, a simplified menu of options to reduce the overwhelming sense of option overload).
Essentials does have aspects of a new edition/half edition reboot in that it attempts to address the overwhelming ammount of options that have accumulated by offering class builds that ignore many of those options. Unlike most splat books, which it is for the most part, it includes all the rules for building the characters, and most of the relevant rules for playing it, while normally the book has a "you need the PHB to play this game, this book is not enough" type ad on it.
However, unlike actualy edition jumps/half editions, it isn't just a case of "we fixed the rules, now we are going to reprint everything to reflect those changes". They've been changing the rules all along, put the updates into whichever books were coming out at the time, and in the character builder, etc. So, many players were playing with the rules changes as they came along. Instead of it being one big chunk, it was rolled out over time.
Now, they COULD have reprinted all the old books with the new updates and forced people to either rebuy what they already own (and make new players have to buy several books to get the 'full rules') or they could put all the rules stuff into one book (the rules compendium) and then just put class stuff into other books, which can be built around themes so that players know what they are buying. If you want the rules, book X. You want to know about one of these five classes, book Y. And, the class compendium book seems to be a big part of this. While it is the class 'part' of reprinting the PHB (Which with the errata and updates would make it part of the 4.5 PHB basically) it also contains the rules on how to combine elements of the Essential builds with the old builds and how to multiclass with essential builds, etc ... basically making the Essentials not just a parallel option that works next to non-Essential characters against 4e monsters, but that are able fully integrate with mixing and matching elements.