Yeah. Expertise was a feat tax that was just too powerful and too bland. Solution? Make it inconsistently more powerful depending on the weapon group, so it'll be less bland.Now, what does frustrate me about the simplified classes is that they did nothing to cut down on the real option bloat - feats. Picking one of a dozen powers is trivial compared to picking one of hundreds of feats.
They're both inconsistent with the core design and imbalanced. I suppose the Psionic classes were a somewhat-botched attempt at varying the AEDU structure without sacrificing balance, while the E-classes (the martial E-classses and the Mage, at the opposite extremes) were a successful attempt at edging back towards caster supremacy (5e of course, being far more successful in that regard).For real, the power point classes - especially the Psion - are much worse-designed than the simplified E-Classes.
Yeah, Expertise should have just been rolled into the character math. (The upside is that it gives you one less feat you need to actually think about!)Yeah. Expertise was a feat tax that was just too powerful and too bland. Solution? Make it inconsistently more powerful depending on the weapon group, so it'll be less bland.
...OK, maybe [MENTION=15684]Imruphel[/MENTION] has a point.
I haven't found too many balance issues with the simplified E-classes; we have a Thief in my Level 30 game that's still sailing along juuuust dandy. (Having a passive always-on Stealth of 46 probably helps, mind you, but...)They're both inconsistent with the core design and imbalanced. I suppose the Psionic classes were a somewhat-botched attempt at varying the AEDU structure without sacrificing balance, while the E-classes (the martial E-classses and the Mage, at the opposite extremes) were a successful attempt at edging back towards caster supremacy (5e of course, being far more successful in that regard).
It helps that they were mostly Strikers. The Striker role is very straightforward. I have Pixie Thieves and a Hexblade in an epic level campaign, the Theives were noticing a lack of 'bring it' options when everyone else was unloading (they usually just backstab away, so it's SoP, not A game), so I made sure they got some nice item dailies they could pull out. The Hexblade has been perplexed by what he feels is somewhat un-even advancement and recently even a 'dead' level. I'm not sure what's up with that, I don't see it, in theory...I haven't found too many balance issues with the simplified E-classes; we have a Thief in my Level 30 game that's still sailing along juuuust dandy.
It's an unsuccessful design, but it's still spamming, a degenerate mode of play, which is exactly what the daililess E-classes do, by successful design.But with the Psion... It's really terrible that their optimal behavior is to spam Dishearten Aug 2. Which you get at Level 1 and never change out.
Heh. If you toss the Expertise feat taxes and Essentials feats in general, PC numbers 'fall behind' the monsters at very high level - and those stat-scaling bonuses/penalties from leaders/controllers more than make up for it when it counts. It was a delicate dance that Expertise &c disrupted early and was never quite brought back in step.A lot of this can - IMO - be solved by removing anything that gives another +/- [stat mod] to a d20 roll and changing it to a fixed number. The target numbers are already fixed relative to level, so why should the bonus or penalty need to scale?
Save penalties, OTOH, definitely needed a lid kept on them, for the most part. (Near auto-success/failure on a single save due to a stat-mod leader buff or controller debuff doesn't sound bad - the problem was when you could extend a penalty like that into a protracted lock-down.) I'm sure the psion would have gotten fixed up like the Orbizard was, if WotC hadn't gotten allergic to errata in the run of Essentials.Any 4.5e should have fixed this. )
I disagree with the categorization you've used.
ONLY the softcover material is 'Essentials'. All the hardcover books which came after them (plus I guess BOVD which is admittedly not a hardcover, but its a pretty minor book too) may be 'influenced' by Essentials and often provide options for use WITH Essentials you cannot say that they ARE Essentials material. There's a lot in them that really doesn't relate to Essentials. Also, since the Wizard (Mage) really doesn't follow any specific design concept of Essentials and a LOT of later stuff is wizard options, that kinda means the impact of Essentials in any design sense is even more limited.
Frankly I think 'core' 4e simply offered too many picky little options for players to have to sift through. Its not JUST that there are 1000's of feats and powers (actually 10's of thousands, but who's really counting) but it requires some real delving into the game to see how to accomplish a lot of builds.
E-classes simply got it wrong by going too far in the other direction, where they did go too far as in Slayer. Some classes are not so bad, like the Warpriest stuff, which simply lacks enough options. In essence they simply went too far the other way, and even then failed to do so consistently (where is the simple wizard?).
Post-Essentials material, while uneven, often hit a pretty decent middle point. The HotEC sorcerer variant is pretty nice for instance.
Essentials was both too shallow and too big a set of changes. It abandoned 4e material that should have been extended, fuddled with things that worked fine, and changed things in ways that weren't really improvements for the most part. Where it DID improve, it was too much at the expense of what came before.
In terms of playing them though, I would never try to draw a line. I think if you're working on some sort of 'heatbreaker' then you need to consider ALL the different things that 4e brought to the table, pick and choose, and then bend them to your needs.
Yeah, Expertise should have just been rolled into the character math. (The upside is that it gives you one less feat you need to actually think about!)
I haven't found too many balance issues with the simplified E-classes; we have a Thief in my Level 30 game that's still sailing along juuuust dandy. (Having a passive always-on Stealth of 46 probably helps, mind you, but...)
But with the Psion... It's really terrible that their optimal behavior is to spam Dishearten Aug 2. Which you get at Level 1 and never change out. Once you're throwing a -8 or so onto the enemy's attack roll, you might as well just have an at-will AoE stun effect.
A lot of this can - IMO - be solved by removing anything that gives another +/- [stat mod] to a d20 roll and changing it to a fixed number. The target numbers are already fixed relative to level, so why should the bonus or penalty need to scale? Any 4.5e should have fixed this. (You know, there's an idea for a solid house rule. Change it to a fixed +/-4 if it's linked to your primary stat, or +/-3 if it's a secondary stat.)
In the beginning, it provided a useful conceptual design space for any ability that transcended a single race or class. At a minimum, they needed a place to make ritual casting and various weapon and armor proficiencies available to classes that didn't start with them.So here is a general question. Do you think that 4E needed feats to begin with? Obviously they used the feat system to compensate for math issues, but if they would have play-tested enough to fix these things from the start, do you think the game benefited by having feats in there?
Hm, good question. Yes and no.So here is a general question. Do you think that 4E needed feats to begin with? Obviously they used the feat system to compensate for math issues, but if they would have play-tested enough to fix these things from the start, do you think the game benefited by having feats in there?