Essentials - calling a spade a spade

[AbdulAlhazred]

I just don't understand the purpose of the whole 'debate'. If it floats someone's boat to go around shouting "It's 4.5!!!!" then whatever, but it seems like a rather pathetically lame way to get one's jollies. At best it's silly, at worst it's a deliberate attempt to yank other people's chains. Either way it adds nothing to anything. The game is exactly the same no matter what it is called. I could care less what people call it. The sum total of the entire effect of the whole debate is to crowd the forum with useless threads debating a point so utterly pointless that it has no point at all.

 

[Mercurius]

Perhaps it got missed so I'll ask again. Among those that say Essentials = 4.5 which of the following is true:

1. 3.0 is to 3.5 as 4.0 is to essentials so I should get rid of my PHB because it's no longer valid.
2. It's just more errata and features, but my PHB is still valid (for the most part - errata aside)

I'm trying to make sure I'm objecting to the correct premise.

As far as I can tell, #1 is not true. But it isn't really an either/or; at what point, for example, does errata accumulate to such an extent to require a revised edition? My impression is that Essentials serves a few purposes:

1) It is a newly packaged gateway into 4E for newbies.
2) It collects, collates, and consolidates all existing errata.
3) It tweaks a few rules here and there.

Whether we call that "4.5" is entirely a matter of how we are using the term "4.5." If people take issue with it being too extreme, how about 4.3? Or 4.24 as someone suggested? It doesn't matter to me and I am not out to get WotC on this one, although I do find the whole dynamic interesting. At the least we can say that "Essentials" is not just #1 above--it is also 2 and 3, and maybe more (we don't really know yet).

I am not saying that WotC is Evil and money-grubbing (if they are that is beside the point and not something I particularly care to discuss). If anything I think the same arguments that people have been making about Essentials could have been made about 3.5: It is only as apocalyptic and life-changing as one allows it to be. 3.5 might have invalidated previous rule books, but did it? One could still play 3.0 and buy 3.5 and use them with very little adjusting. At the least it did not invalidate 3.0 game play, just as 3E didn't invalidate 2E, etc. Any DM with a bit of creativity and time and energy can adapt any edition-specific material to their edition of choice.

Two things.

1) Just because you say something is something, doesn't mean it is. Your perception is not more true than anyone else's.

2) Go away.

1) Thanks for a recap of College Freshman Mentality 101. That is the biggest non-statement in the book: "But that's just your personal opinion, no more valid than anyone else's." Yeah, and so is yours, and his and hers....can we move on with the conversation, please? By equalizing everyone's opinion you basically just wipe the slate clean and allow the very same conversation to take place, yet with the re-affirmation that everything we say is just our opinion, no more valid than anyone else's. Or do we need to deconstruct it ad infinitum?
2) Got up on the wrong side of the bed today?

 

[Mercurius]

Also, I'm not bummed because I do like almost every change I've seen to date.

Exactly. To put it another way, "change is good if it is good change."

 

[Jhaelen]

I would say you're wrong, and here is why: (I didn't read the entire thread, so this might have been covered.)

One of the biggest reasons is nothing is being "replaced."

Yes, but no
Adding new options can de-facto replace old options without explicitly saying so.

If there's an old feat 'A' that grants a +1 bonus to X, and they add a feat 'A+' that grants a +2 bonus to X, they have effectively replaced the old feat 'A'.

It's something they've already done before Essentials, though.

 

[shamsael]

If I am wrong, how am I wrong? How is this not 4.5? And if it is, how is WotC rationalizing it when they clearly said that there would be no 4.5?

Science is based, in part, upon the idea that you can not prove a negative, you can not prove that something does not exist, and you can not prove that X is never Y.

Demanding that people prove you are wrong in order to validate their own opinions runs completely contrary to everything modern thought and sensible reason is based upon and does not further your argument in the slightest in the eyes of anyone.

Yes, but no
Adding new options can de-facto replace old options without explicitly saying so.

If there's an old feat 'A' that grants a +1 bonus to X, and they add a feat 'A+' that grants a +2 bonus to X, they have effectively replaced the old feat 'A'.

It's something they've already done before Essentials, though.

I would hope they would at least give 'A+' slightly higher prerequisites than 'A."

 

[darjr]

As far as what a new player should pick up, it depends. New to gaming? The box set. New to 4e? I'd probably lean towards the PHB1.

But that's just me. And without having seen the box set or the other essentials yet.

 

[Scribble]

Quite frankly, there will be so many rules corrections by the point all of the essentials-influenced changes make it into the updates that I will be completely unable to both use the Character builder away from the table, and only use my books at the table, because I will not be able to trust my recollection of what's changed and what hasn't. (I don't have to remember every change - as long as I can remember if something has changed.)

I think it's two separate things though.

I guess it would be valid to say with the amount of "errata" put out, the game has veered into 4.5 territory... But I dunno if I would still agree. All the versions of the game had errata, and probably could have had much more.

I also don't know if I agree a lot of the errata are inspired directly by essentials. Chicken and egg thing.

Did essentials prompt the errata, or is essentials working with the already planned errata in mind? (They say the second option, I get the feeling it's a little of both.)

Either way, Essentials is still not 4.5. It's NOT a re-release of a revised version of the game. It's more class builds, combined with another on-ramp into a game that already exists (albeit existing with a lot of errata.)

 

[Scribble]

Yes, but no
Adding new options can de-facto replace old options without explicitly saying so.

If there's an old feat 'A' that grants a +1 bonus to X, and they add a feat 'A+' that grants a +2 bonus to X, they have effectively replaced the old feat 'A'.

It's something they've already done before Essentials, though.

Yes, but no right back atcha.

That's why I said they've already indicated the new builds are being balanced against the old builds.

It's not designed as a if you don't use the new stuff you're at a disadvantage. It's built with a choose whichever build resonates with you best mindset.


(Will they always get it right? Probably not, humans are falable. And will we constantly argue whether they did or not? Probably... Enworlders love to argue. )

 

[Mercurius]

Science is based, in part, upon the idea that you can not prove a negative, you can not prove that something does not exist, and you can not prove that X is never Y.

Demanding that people prove you are wrong in order to validate their own opinions runs completely contrary to everything modern thought and sensible reason is based upon and does not further your argument in the slightest in the eyes of anyone.

Ugh. I don't even know why I'm responding to this, but...1) What does science have to do with discussing Essentials? 2) I am not "demanding" anything, and 3) I am not trying to "further an argument."

You--and some others in this thread--are being needlessly reactive, at least to my posts. I think you are projecting a position or attitude onto me that I just don't feel and am not expressing or advocating.

Again, and for the last time: I am not bashing WotC, nor am I trying to "make an argument" or trash or argue for or against any edition over another. I am merely interested in discussing Essentials and the dynamics of editions, revisions, half-editions, and so forth. My only "argument," if you must, is that Essentials is--to put it in The Angry DM's words--"4.something." It isn't 5E but it is "something" other or more than just 4E. Why is this a problem? I don't see it as one.

 

[keterys]

For clarity, was Martial Power 4.something? How about that big errata that changed Bloodclaw and Battleragers a year and a half ago?