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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5517102" data-attributes="member: 996">Options have been stripped from all martial characters in Essentials.  Essentials is intended to be played as an introduction to the game - without the prior material that has those options - and the only current, still WotC-run organized play, D&D Encounters, is Essentials-only (though, happily, many Essentials DMs ignore that).So, yes, there has been some stripping of options.  The old options exist, but they are marginalized as far as the current-and-going-forward version of the game is concerned.The Slayer, for instance is on par with the AD&D fighter in terms of complexity.  It chooses a stance, occassionally piles on Power Strike damage, and then just hits stuff - hard, thanks to it's striker damage bonus.  The 1e fighter, basically just picked a weapon (often from quite a few he was carrying around) and hit stuff (hard, thanks to his percentile STR), too, it also dealt with rule complexities that have long since been ironed out (weapon vs AC adjustment, detailed encoumbrance, plusses-that-lower-your-AC-which-is-good, mechanically wierd overbearing & grappling rules, assigning your shield and DEX bonuses to AC against specific enemies, and on and on).  Clearly not.  Likewise, you still have any 3.5 or AD&D books that delivered exactly the simplistic martial/complex caster dynamic that Essentials has battered 4e into a symblance of.  So why did you need Essentials?  One thing we've been going in circles on is the bit about options 'still existing.'  People don't like the changes in Essentials.  They're told, "don't worry, the old options are still there - but, people wanted these 'new' options."  Well, those new options aren't new, they're old-fashioned, they play like 3.5 and AD&D.  If I have no right to complain about the direction of Essentials because the old stuff is still there, then, by the same token, the folks who wanted that 'new' (retro) direction, and whined long and loud about hating 4e and defecting to Pathfinder, had no right to ask for it in the first place, because they could've just kept playing 3.5!So, clearly, since they /were/ able to complain and get what they were after, 'the old stuff is still there' is not a valid dismissal of complaints about the current game.  Really, when you think about it, this is a 4e discussion group.  We're not here if we want to play an older version of the game.  We're either here because we liked what 4e was delivering, or because we didn't and wanted to change it.  Why?   Why is it not enough to play a past version of the game that was the way you liked?  Why did people make Pathfinder the #2 RPG, instead of just continuing to play 3.5?  Clearly, there is something commonplace within gamer psyches that wants the latest & greatest, or wants to be part of the 'supported' community.  Maybe it's about some sort of nerdish elitism or sense of belonging?  I don't know.  When I examine my own feelings on it, there's really an almost accademic component to it.  I'm fascinated by games, rules, and game design, and have definite opinions about it...  But, I also have an emotional reaction to the treatment of martial archetypes within the system.  They were 'downtrodden' for so long time, and finally were granted parrity after 34 years of being 'meat shields' and high-hp magic-item-platforms.  It just seems tragic to reverse that gain.  (Prior to 3e, I exclusively played casters, because they actually offered something of interest - even if the wierd Vancian casting didn't really model any caster archetype I cared for; when 3e opened up /some/ options for the martial archetype, it was amazing, there were these much more iconic heroic archetypes that were actually /viable/ as characters.  OK, barely viable, if enthusiatically powergamed alongside indifferently-played casters, but still, there was finally something there.  There was a sense that a fighter could be more than just a meat shield. It's funny, the cleric also got something like that, only the pendulum swung too far, from 'heal bot' to 'CoDzilla.'  4e finally put the martial archetypes were they belonged - on even footing with the other, now formally defined, sources.  And the cleric, likewise was freed from it's 'healbot' steroetype, and finally balanced.  Quite an accomplishment, 4e, when you think about it.  Hey, it's not all bad: Essentials may have made the Fighter back into a meat shield, but at least it hasn't made the Cleric back into a healbot.)</blockquote>

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