Essentials - calling a spade a spade

[Lhorgrim]

If you don't update stealth, there will be confusion too. At my table, the rule is that I run with the latest errata. At your table, do as you please but make sure your players know in advance what you are doing.

This is where things like the Rules Compendium become something I will very likely buy. It's a touchstone point for rules with the errata already integrated, it's affordable, and it's totally optional for any of my players. If you were a player at my table and wanted to play with your original 4E PHB... I'd say welcome to the game, just make sure you have read the errata. Still, not a new edition because I play a 4E rogue, and guess which book I find my characters class information in?

I'm with you on the errata. The only errata that came to mind while I was typing the post was Magic Missile. That's where I'm trying to categorize Essentials. I want to play the up to date rule set. Do I have to get Essentials to do that, or will any rule changes be in the collected errata file?

I want to take a "wait and see" on Essentials, but I want to be able to play in your game with my original books and the errata. As long as I can do that I'm cool. I may get the Compendium just to have the up to date rules and not have to keep carrying around a sheaf of errata pages.

 

[ExploderWizard]

How you feel about Essentials being 4.5 depends on how you feel about errata. To use a software analogy:

Is Windows XP (Service Pack 3) still Windows XP?

D&D 4e is being continually patched like software and every little errata is like 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.0.3, but no matter how many patches you add on the new IS STILL COMPATIBLE with the old. Did we get new options? Yes. Did we get new feats? Yes. Did we get new class builds? Yes. At what point do you consider those new options or "patches" to be a "new version"?

Each update and patch is a "new" version just as with software. Past the first printings the first content changes we got made it .X

My point is that we can't call essentials "4.5" because we don't know where in the lifecycle this edition is right now. It is simply 4.X and the current value of X is unknown.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Essentials will *add* to core mechanics, rather like any other splatbook, but not replace the core books. So, this is not 4.5 in the same way PHB II was not 4.5, and in the same way that Arcane Power was not 4.5, and so on.

Jupp, that's pretty much why Essentials isn't a 4.5e or 4e Revised to me: It's not obsoleting any previous material.

3.5e made your old books wrong, Essentials won't touch my PHB1. Errata is something else for me, mainly because it's free and does not necessitate the purchase of anything in order to keep compatible with new material released.

In other words: 3.5e was annoying, because in order to get the full use of, say, Complete Divine or Magic Item Compendium, I needed to ditch my 3.0 books and get the 3.5 corebooks.

Not so with Essentials - if I want to buy Heroes of Shadow or the Nentir Vale gazetteer... they'll just work fine with my PHB1. Errata (which is free) aside, no extra purchase required.

Cheers, LT.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So we now have to call essentials essentials, as they are totally different things than errated rulebooks?

Look different, have a different size and totally different content? Lets wait until new core books are printed, and player options: arcane etc. replacing every build in arcane power... then we can speak of 4.5... not before that. Oh, and 4.5 MM3 and 4.5. players guide to fearun,,,

 

[bagger245]

For me, its not 4.5 by these questions:

1) What's new? Answer: new classes (albeit sharing names and such with old classes), new feats, new powers. Its not that different from PHB2 or Martial Power.

2) what old material has been changed? Not much. Errata has been included, Wizards got some love. DC's maybe got refigured here and there. Not remotely enough for a '.5' in my book.

3) What hasn't changed? How you play the game! You still get a standard, move, minor. Status effects, power usuage, skills, skill checks, attributes, defenseses, weapons, alignment, charging rules, no change. The rules haven't changed. Classes, feats, powers etc. aren't rules. You can mod classes, powers,feats until your hair falls out, but if the rules stay the same its still 4e.

4) How does old play with new? It should all work. Also, power balance is promised not to have changed. Old is just as powerful as new. Old works with new on all levels. New will merge with old soon enough, and they will be indistinguishable.

If any thing denotes edition change its the errata, and even with all the errata, i feel safe saying we've barely hit 4.07e. That's not worth worrying about.

Thats my take on it. 3.5 hit those four questions very differently in my mind, so calling essentials 4.5 doesn't make sense.

Was 3.5 so different from 3.0 that you considered it a different edition? From your list, 3.5 hits all those exactly.

1) New class remake like the bard and ranger.
2) Besides some new feats and changes to problematic spells, what else was changed?
3) Does 3.0 really play differently from 3.5 or Pathfinder for that matter?
4) Slap on updated DR mechanics for the old monsters and you can play em in 3.5. It's the same with 4e MM1 and MM3, both were built differently but still compatible and you just needed to tweak MM1 monsters a little.

Does anybody here agree that the design of Essentials is better than old 4e? Can you say the same with 3.5 vs 3.0?

Now the main argument that people say Essentials isn't 4.5 is due to backward compatibility. Has anyone play 1e and 2e before? They were very compatible. We all know why WOTC wanted to update all 3.0 material to 3.5, simply for us to rebuy them. At least in 4e they didn't want to invalidate our old books, but then again, look at Melee Training and Magic Missile, changes have to be made in order to be compatible. Can anyone even play PHB1 without rules update, not typos/clarification (there's a difference), and maintain 100% compatibility?

 

[mneme]

bagger: nobody arguing that they've changed the rules: they've changed the rules. But pointing to Essentials and saying that it's a watershed misses the mark.

The big issue that isn't there re 3 vs 3.5 is that unlike 4 vs 4.eratta, 3.5 discontinued support for all 3.0 material. By comparison, in 4, there's been continuing support for all 4th edition material -- something that was never true even -within- versioned editions in 3rd edition (for instance, we keep getting new Swordmage options and feats, and new Artificer options, new Genasi options -- not to mention options for new classes that -don't- appear in world-specific books.

Whereas in 3rd edition, as people will recall, until very late in the game (Complete Mage), you basically didn't get any support for classes that weren't in the PHB. Sure, you -could- play a scout, spellthief, etc -- but you wouldn't be getting the support a rogue, paladin, or wizard got.

So even if you (not incorrectly) say "this isn't the same game they printed in the PHB", it doesn't really matter the way it mattered when all the 3.0 splatbooks were discontinued and left unsupported in the wake of 3.5; companies producing 3rd party material for 3.0 were hosed with leftover product, etc.

 

[Mercurius]

Thanks for the replies, all--a lot to chew on. I can certainly agree that Essentials--as far as I can tell--is not 4.5 in the way that 3.5 was 3.5, but it seems a bit more than just a re-formatting or a new splat book. Hey, nothing wrong with that! As I said, I'll buy it--it is pre-ordered on Amazon Prime--and it seems like it is doing stuff that I've wanted to have seen done.

Oh, and how about a warning ahead of time - be rude, obnoxious, or edition-warring at your peril.

Was this directed at me? If so, I don't get it--how was I being rude, obnoxious, or edition-warring?

 

[Ahrimon]

It sounds like the biggest problem is that the essentials aren't just one thing.

The rules compendium is all the rules from the PHB and DMG rolled into one book with all of the errata. Including some errata that they're putting in at the same time.

The DM's kit is a good chunk of the rules plus a bunch of neat stuff like tokens and an adventure to get the ball rolling.

Then you get the heroes of series that are nothing more than splat books with new build options.

But put it all together and some people see 4.5. I see nothing more than what we've seen with PHB II & III and errata.

 

[Mercurius]

Another way to put it, from what I've gathered, is Essentials is how 3.5 should have been, namely backward compatible. With a game as complex as D&D there is just no way that you aren't going to want to revise things as you go along - not only because of the fact that playtesting for six months (or whatever) cannot catch every glitch, but innovations come along, improvements that simply must be integrated. But where (we can hope) Essentials will be getting it right is by being compatible with everything before and after it 4E-wise.

 

[MerricB]

Assuming Wizards run true to form, the biggest difference about Essentials is that free update documents will have all the changes to powers & the rules.

That didn't happen with 3.5e. Indeed, due to the nature of the changes, it pretty much couldn't happen.

Cheers!