D&D 4E Essential 4e: Heroes of the Forgotten Lands

[Baumi]

Thanks for all the Snippets!

I have a question too .. is the spellbook feature of the Mage the same as for the other Wizards or is it different (for example does it only count for dailies or utilites/encounter Powers too)?

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Thankyou so much for taking the time to answer our questions.

Someone commented on the Mage being weaker than a PHB Wizard. First thing is the Mage has Tome of Readiness built in according to information given up thread. Secondly the Mage will be taking existing wizard implements. Enchanters still rock with Crystal Orbs for example.


So the Red Box rogue's inclusion of at-will attack powers is wrong?

 

[Primal]

If you're a brand new player and you're told that this book is the "on-ramp" to the game, why would you want to play the missing "core fighter" given that you would have no way of knowing it even exists until you later encountered another player with a PHB.

As I posted, I was primarily talking from the viewpoint of a gamer who didn't originally embrace 4E but would like to do so now; and to me it's pretty evident that 'Essentials' is not aimed for us. I know enough of 4E to know how it works, I can honestly say that based on what I've read, I'd vastly prefer the updated "classic" 4E.

I cannot say how the 'Essentials' will go over with total newbies without any exposure to tabletop RPGs, but my not-so-objective opinion is that if I were a total newbie, I'd still rather buy those big, colorful core rulebooks than 2 boxed sets and 2 digest-sized paperbacks. If I had any doubts ("Wait... there's these boxed sets and then there's this whole collection of bigger supplements... which of these contain the game rules?") I'd ask the staff at my FLGS; if they said that 'Essentials' is a new, simplified expansion (and that's what it is... an expansion that overlays the core rules) I'd grab the core books. If I *did* buy the 'Essentials' and later on learned there are "real" core rules for the game, I'd be pretty angry.

However, if there would be an 'Essentials' supplement containing the core classes and rituals, I'd probably see this in a different light.

The book covers levels 1 through 30. There are no paragon and epic feats because feats no longer have tiers as prerequisites. One Epic Destiny is included in the book and presumably a second Epic Destiny will be in HFK.

My source for this information is this very thread which you do not seem to have read.

And you seem to have missed my post in which I admitted being wrong about this.

Hmmm... I *really* wonder how well 'Essentials' characters actually will interact "classic" characters; not just because the class design is radically different, but also because 'Essentials' characters have access to feats earlier than their core counterparts. Likewise, there might be some confusion with superior weapons and implements, or 'Essentials' PCs getting different kind of magic items (swords that shoot lightning bolts). And well do "older" powers, paragon paths, epic destinies and feats work for 'Essentials' PCs? Could some of them be abused? Yeah, the core mechanics are essentially the same, but some of these revisions and tweaks make me doubt it won't be as seamless as it first sounds.

 

[Jools]

Once again Primal I don't think you really understand what Essentials is in relation to the earlier material. I don't think the purpose of this thread is to explain to you what Essentials is and I suspect that people here would appreciate if you asked your questions in one of the many threads here explicitly created for that purpose.

Secondly, thanks once again Fiery Dragon, you're a superstar!

 

[Jools]

Polearm: Polearms are reach weapons mounted at the end of long hafts. All polearms have a second weapon group, such as axe or spear.

(No polearm expertise, guess you have to get it covered under the secondary weapon group)

That being said, the only polearm listed in this book is longspear.

I'm guessing those feats and weapons will be in the 2nd Essentials player book, they gotta save something for that one.

So, no multiclass feats in this one I take it then?

 

[Primal]

MAYBE if you ask nicely to Wizards people they can make a D&D Primal edition

no really I think this is a good starting point for playing 4th edition, the class are different build than the ones in previous book so it's not a big deal, if you really want all of 4th edition you have just to buy everything (and I can testify you that you will need a lot of space on the bookshelves....) and print out the various update

but I would start with essentials, rituals is just a list of power how to read them is in Rules compendium so you could just take the famous 1 month subscription print all the rituals from the character builder in a nice format and there you are

Well, they *have* named a power source after me, haven't they?

Seriously, how much extra money does it really cost to have an in-house AD redo the layout with revisions for every printing? Paizo does it, along with many other publishers. And as I've stated a few times, I want the whole shebang with the classic versions of each class, superior weapons, rituals, core magic items and whatnot.

And I cannot believe that I'd be the only guy who wants to see the core rules brought up to date with a new printing. It's not just those guys who were "naysayers" or "sitting on the fence" when 4E came out and would now want to try the "classic" 4E; I'd guess that more than a handful of 4E fans have books that have become worn in use (esp. due to using a pencil/marker for revisions and errata). How about those GURPS/RQ/Dread/Ars Magica/Etcetera fans (veteran gamers) who would now like to play 4E?

Yeah, 'Essentials' may be a better fit for total newbies, but then again that was never an issue for me; rather, I pointed out that WoTC is missing out on those who want to play with the "classic" rules and classes, because for them 'Essentials' may easily be either too simplified and "specialized" or they just don't want to pay for "non-errated" books and print out and mark down hundreds of pages of changes. As I've posted, if WoTC doesn't want to invest in reprinting the core rules, one solution might be to release one or two extra supplements in the product line to cover the "classic" stuff.

 

[Oxente]

Fiery Dragon, I would very much appreciate if you cold tell us the new Fighter stances for both builds (in the same manner you did for the Thief Tricks), as well as the Combat Readiness and Weapon Mastery class features (Knight) and the Might Slayer class feature (Slayer). My players are hitting level 5 next week, and one of them (his character just died) wants to try rolling one of the Essential Fighter builds. We got all the other bits of info from different sites / excerpts, and with these features he will be able to play a full Knight or Slayer. Thank you so much in advance! And thank you for being so polite as to answer our (not-so-polite-sometimes) questions!

 

[Primal]

Once again Primal I don't think you really understand what Essentials is in relation to the earlier material. I don't think the purpose of this thread is to explain to you what Essentials is and I suspect that people here would appreciate if you asked your questions in one of the many threads here explicitly created for that purpose.

Secondly, thanks once again Fiery Dragon, you're a superstar!

Well, I initially *hoped* that 'Essentials' would also contain the updated classic 4E classes, but it's become apparent that they're just a simplified and somewhat revised expansion set of the 4E rules that overlays the earlier material. How well the books actually interact with the core rules remains to be seen, although I'm a bit doubtful that it won't work that smoothly in practise ("What? Your guy already has Paragon level feats?!? How come?" and "Come again? You are wielding something called a 'Superior Weapon'? And *how* many extra dice your Vorpal weapon gets on a crit? Errr... that's not how it works per the 'Essentials' rules which we're using in this group.") .

But, you're correct... my comments and critique should be posted on other threads.

 

[Reaper Steve]

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION:
Magic Missile: "One target" or "One or two targets?"

I hope the former, because in my Red Box game last night the mage blasted through about half of the 16 kobolds (increased from published amount to accomodate 6 players) by himself without ever rolling a die.

 

[drothgery]

Hmmm... I *really* wonder how well 'Essentials' characters actually will interact "classic" characters; not just because the class design is radically different, but also because 'Essentials' characters have access to feats earlier than their core counterparts.

Umm... non-Essentials characters will have access to all the feats in HotFL and HotFK (unless they specifically require an Essentials class feature as a prerequisite). If a feat changed in the Essentials books, then it's changing everywhere.