D&D 4E Core 4E vs. Essentials

[Tony Vargas]

I'm wondering if you're confusing Themes and Backgrounds, because it sounds like you're talking about Backgrounds, here.

Some Themes were packaged with a Background benefit, you could take the Theme benefit, or that of one of your Backgrounds.

I dunno, man - I still haven't seen balance issues while mixing and matching all kinds of classes*. As I mentioned upthread, I don't make a distinction in my own games. Each class is its own thing; take the one you like.

There's all sorts of player/DM system-mastery and style factors that can mitigate against seeing a balance issue. There are folks still convinced 3.5 was balanced.

* Other than the Bladesinger, which was just terrible no matter which way you slice it. Binder and Vampire may be terrible too, but I have never seen either in play.

I've seen all three. I saw a Vampire do quite well /in Lair Assault/, so at least it could be optimized. And the Bladesinger I was playing alongside in the first Neverwinter Encounters season rocked - at least, he did alongside a Warlord, and as a Striker, not a Controller. And one player had a load of fun with a Revenant Binder. Mostly fun with it being a Revenant and comically sinister ("'Alignment? On the advice of my attorney: 'Unaligned").

That some of the E-classes were off balance-wise (mostly imbalanced low, the Wizard sub-classes, particularly the Mage, arguably high), is not to suggest they were anywhere near as imbalanced as in other editions. Essentials introduced some Tier 4 classes to keep the poor, under-supported Seeker & Runepriest company, and maybe edged the Wizard up into Tier 2.

But the ... let's see ... Thief, Scout, Hunter, Berserker, Knight, Hexblade, and Champion have all been great, and their players have had a good time with them.

Over what levels, and in what circumstances, though. IMX, the cracks show at higher levels, and when the party has run up against some very challenging encounters where everyone had to bring their 'A game,' and the daililess types discovered they didn't have anything to bring, just the same stuff they did every encounter - after that, I made sure they just happened to find an item or few with really nice dailies...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Basic numbers feats are a big fat no. Feats should always be differentiating a character. If your system needs feats to provide basic numbers, those numbers should be provided in ways that differentiate the character.

How would you differentiate a character who is unique because they're way better at finding traps, or identifying ancient runes, or farming, than you would otherwise expect given their experience and natural ability?

 

[Obryn]

There's all sorts of player/DM system-mastery and style factors that can mitigate against seeing a balance issue. There are folks still convinced 3.5 was balanced.
...
Over what levels, and in what circumstances, though. IMX, the cracks show at higher levels, and when the party has run up against some very challenging encounters where everyone had to bring their 'A game,' and the daililess types discovered they didn't have anything to bring, just the same stuff they did every encounter - after that, I made sure they just happened to find an item or few with really nice dailies...

This is throughout the entire 1-30 Zeitgeist campaign (currently at level 30, Adventure 13; Hexblade and Thief are party members. Others are Warden, Fighter, Warlord, Barbarian, Artificer) and a 1-19 Dark Sun campaign. Before that one, e-Classes weren't a 'thing' yet.

Note that this is a mid-op party, though, which is what I consider the 4e sweet spot. Judicious feat and power selection, but effectively no item selection. I'm using inherent bonuses combined with item rarity and have been seeding the Zeitgeist-specific items over the course of the campaign, and just having them power up when it's time. I can believe that a high-op party would see greater differences, but I'm also glad I'm not running a high-op party.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is throughout the entire 1-30 Zeitgeist campaign (currently at level 30, Adventure 13; Hexblade and Thief are party members. Others are Warden, Fighter, Warlord, Barbarian, Artificer).

Not familiar with the Zeitgeist AP. The hexblade in my campaign (currently 24th) has been fine, he's only recently come up against some levels where he's left wondering "why did I bother to level?" Thieves are also involved, and did not have a Warlord to help them out. Given my experiences playing a Warlord alongside e-Classes, it might've made a real difference. In addition to making sure there were some nifty items to give them a minor nova capacity, I've also been sure to involve them in RP and have plenty of skill challenges where their skills are useful (including, probably, making Thievery a little too useful, and accrobatics a little too interchangeable with Athletics) - it also helps that they finally deviated from HotFL and took Epic Destinies, that's another thing to play off of (if they'd taken PPs instead of the defaults that might've helped, too).

Note that this is a mid-op party, though, which is what I consider the 4e sweet spot. Judicious feat and power selection, but effectively no item selection.

I've had quite the range of system-mastery skills in this campaign, several casuals who don't optimize at all, a solid started-in-3.5-optimizer, and an literal rules lawyer (he left the group when he got a job at an out of town law firm). The optimized hexblade doesn't stand out as OP, the ruleslawyers optimized Scout did do more damage than the Thieves, but really didn't do much of anything else.

I'm using inherent bonuses combined with item rarity and have been seeding the Zeitgeist-specific items over the course of the campaign, and just having them power up when it's time. I can believe that a high-op party would see greater differences, but I'm also glad I'm not running a high-op party.

IMX, heavily-optimized 4e characters are rarely disruptive. The strikers may do noticeably more damage, or the healer keep the party topped off consistently, but for the most part the impact is not beyond the pale. Even OP wizards don't outright blow the game out of the water, though one optimized wizard was notorious for taking a 15 minute turn...

 

[Obryn]

Not familiar with the Zeitgeist AP. The hexblade in my campaign (currently 24th) has been fine, he's only recently come up against some levels where he's left wondering "why did I bother to level?" Thieves are also involved, and did not have a Warlord to help them out. Given my experiences playing a Warlord alongside e-Classes, it might've made a real difference. In addition to making sure there were some nifty items to give them a minor nova capacity, I've also been sure to involve them in RP and have plenty of skill challenges where their skills are useful (including, probably, making Thievery a little too useful, and accrobatics a little too interchangeable with Athletics) - it also helps that they finally deviated from HotFL and took Epic Destinies, that's another thing to play off of (if they'd taken PPs instead of the defaults that might've helped, too).

Yeah, the Thief took a few kind of iffy turns (Yakuza theme, Master Infiltrator PP, but then Thief of Legend Epic Destiny, which is just bonkers and awesome; the L30 capstone is crazy).

Between the Thief, the Hexblade, and the Barbarian, the Warlord has been kept very happy all campaign.

I do hate the dead levels in these classes' progressions, though, for the record. Hexblade had a few recently, as did the Thief. IIRC, everyone got to swap a daily, except her, and she got ... +1 to damage. This is legitimately how she wants it, though.

One distinguishing feature of my group breakdown, though, is the lack of any Controllers. Again, I am okay with this. I've had plenty over the years, and even a few earlier this campaign, and I view controllers' effects on the flow of combat mostly negatively when compared to how interestingly Defenders fill a similar niche.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yeah, the Thief took a few kind of iffy turns (Yakuza theme, Master Infiltrator PP, but then Thief of Legend Epic Destiny, which is just bonkers and awesome; the L30 capstone is crazy).

Sounds cool.

Between the Thief, the Hexblade, and the Barbarian, the Warlord has been kept very happy all campaign.

I do hate the dead levels in these classes' progressions, though, for the record. Hexblade had a few recently, as did the Thief. IIRC, everyone got to swap a daily, except her, and she got ... +1 to damage. This is legitimately how she wants it, though.

One thing 5e clearly tried to do was avoid dead levels in class charts - the only thing I don't care for about that was moving ASIs/Feats onto the charts, and treating them as class features when MCing. (Actually, I guess one thing 5e and Essentials both did very pointedly was to have class/level tables for every class, in the first place - in 4e you didn't really need them.)

One distinguishing feature of my group breakdown, though, is the lack of any Controllers. Again, I am okay with this. I've had plenty over the years, and even a few earlier this campaign, and I view controllers' effects on the flow of combat mostly negatively when compared to how interestingly Defenders fill a similar niche.

For some time now my group has lacked a Defender. I had two regulars, one playing a Weaponmaster, one a Berserker, and they both, within a year or so, moved out of town (one all the way to N.Dakota). No one stepped into the defender niche after that. At times it's been nothing but strikers (pixie rogues, a hexblade) and controllers (two Wizards & a Hunter) - made for a different sort of dynamic. The remaining leader, back from hiatus, is a Skald.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

For the record, I highly approve of Mr. Vargas editing my statements in my previous post (sorry I can't quote effectively from my phone for easier reference). The emphasis gave greater clarity in my implying words. Thank you. You're hired. Thumbs up.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That said, the Core design was born of rigid consistent structure and balance with the goal of ensuring every player at the table would have the same an enjoyable experience regardless of character choices. Maybe not always successful, but the intent was there.

More successful at achieving class balance than D&D has been before or since, FWIW (we are talking a very low bar).

For the record, I highly approve of Mr. Vargas editing my statements in my previous post (sorry I can't quote effectively from my phone for easier reference). The emphasis gave greater clarity in my implying words. Thank you. You're hired. Thumbs up.

This may be the first time ever "fixed that for you" actually did.

 

[MwaO]

First, I think the plan was to sink 4e so that its fans would go to the next edition, and then WotC and the big guy come out as heroes.
It may seems weird, but thinking a little back, it's clear that the changes they made weren't to please 4e fans.
Also, Mearls actually made a mistake and told the following information: he was already planning 5e by late 2010. Which is when Essentials was released. The rest just follows it.

Here's maybe a better way of looking at it - sometimes, someone is told to do X, when they'd really rather do Y. So instead of going full steam into X, they kind of do X and set things up so Y seems like a good option. Not necessarily even deliberately. Essentials did a few of those things - didn't fix the math, but used it as design space - feats were so good that basically everyone had to have 2-3 of them by 11th, which is most of the game for many tables - i.e. boring. The Essentials books repeatedly printed a 'how to play the game' for half the book in every book. Making it look like a money grab.

Legends & Lore made it reasonably clear too that 4e was an afterthought - Bounded Accuracy used an example that didn't work at all in Next, surveys repeatedly ignored 4e for things from previous editions, etc...So even if he wasn't consciously doing it, it was where their heads were anyway.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I'm wondering if you're confusing Themes and Backgrounds, because it sounds like you're talking about Backgrounds, here.

You're right, that was a total brain fart on my part.

My distaste for themes is based on things already mentioned: Another package of doohickeys for new players, one more axis of optimization for veterans, and no clear necessity to bring them in.