Well, I love the fighter, but that just makes me even more excited by the extra options essentials added.
The hanful of Knight & Slayer utilities that a Fighter can actual take? Or be further beefed-up, 'must have' Expertise feats?
If I want to play 1e I'll play it, but that doesn't scratch my "add some simplicity and retro-awesome to 4e" itch in any way shape or form.
Why not? Is 1e not simple? It is undeniably retro. There's also 2e and 3e and Pathfinder. Nothing could easily be simpler and more retro than a pre-Unearthed-Arcana 1e AD&D Fighter.
People who want a Slayer or a Thief don't necessarily want to play 3.5. They just want a simple class where they can swing a sword at the bad guys
If you want to play a Slayer or Thief, you don't want to play 3.5 - you want to play AD&D. Play an AD&D Fighter, and you will, indeed, have a simple class where you just swing a sword at the bad guys. If you want to play a Knight, yeah, 3.5 would be better.
They also don't necessarily think martial classes should be inferior to arcane classes, or have any ulterior motives.
See, I can't deny that claim without being terribly unfair to the handfull of people who might genuinely just want to play a simplistic martial character, yet can't find anyone playing AD&D. But, I will say that there is no shortage of those who /do/ think martial classes should be inferior to arcane classes, and /do/ claim to want a 'simpler' or 'retro' feel to the game, with the ulterior motive of restoring that superiority. WotC has post-Essentials D&D headed back in that direction, whether it's in honest response to such claims, or for ulterior motives of their own (no, not making money, that motive is right up front).
But in that case, you couldn't have a place for both an AEDU Fighter and a Slayer at the same table, both using the 4e rule set.
Kamikaze Midget said:
I think some Essentials detractors have it in their head that Martial Dailies are somehow a prerequisite to having class balance.
The underlying class structure the 4e used did provide a foundation for class balance. In prior eds, all-daily-power casters were balanced against all-unlimitted-use fighter-types, by making the limitted-use spells very powerful. The result was not a balanced game. Not even close. 4e achieved a much higher degree of class balance, becaus every class had about the same proportion of unlimitted, encounter, and daily resources. If the campaign leaned towards 'short' days where dailies could have disproportionate impact, well, everyone had dailies. If the campaign leaned towards grueling days and long grindy combats where at-wills were used much more often than not, well, everyone had at-wills. An elegant solution to a difficult balancing act. There was need to balance an at-will against a daily - only dailies vs dailies and at-wills vs at-wills.
Essentials decided that balance was less important than differentiation, and stripped it's martial classes of dailies, beefing up their at-will abilities in return. As a result, Essentials does not deliver the same degree of class balance as 4e. I'd be surprised if it was as bad as prior eds, but it can't help but fail to equal 4e in that regard. At the D&D Encounters tables, the martial classes, while boring, put in solid performances. They have their beefed-up basic-attack-enhancing at-wills, front loaded, while the daily classes each have but a single daily to answer that advantge. At high Heroic, when other classes have 3 dailies, and dailies are consistently used in every encounter, it's unlikely that will hold true. Again, this isn't just a gaffe - it delivers the retro feel: fighters being strong at first, and rapidly falling to a 'meat shield' support role, and casters being weak at first, but slowly growing into ever greater power. Anyone who wanted that feel need only have dusted off an older version of D&D, but that didn't stop them from crying loud and long about 4e, and 'defecting' to Pathfinder in retaliation.
