Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Uller" data-source="post: 5450018" data-attributes="member: 413">I started a thread a month or two ago about introducing my son to D&D with Essentials.  I'm a long time gamer stretching back to OD&D (still have the "blue" basic book, first printings of the 1e DMG, PHB, MM and Deities and Demigods...the one with Elric et al...and core books from every other edition)...I decided to start 4E with the essentials since they seemed aimed at introducing new gamers to the hobby rather than the core books.  So far we have played through the Twisting Halls adventure in the starter kit...I am very pleased with 4E so far.  The Essentials line seems a good way for potential casual gamers to get hooked.  I feel I can run a campaign on free/downloadable content fairly indefinitely at our rate of playing a 2-3 hours per week with minimal work (previously I've always run home-grown campaigns and only used published adventures for inspiration...but at this point in life I have no time for writing my own stuff).However...a couple things I've noticed and would appreciate any comments/guidance:1) Character Builder - I really like the "beta" version of the character builder I found...it has some things I don't like (such as it doesn't give details on sneak attack beyond doing "extra damage" without mentioning how much...) but it seems indispensable in that it prints out all your powers for you complete with attack bonuses, damage, etc...we tried making a character out of Essentials books and found it very cumbersome due to the sheer number of powers that had to be recorded in someway.  When we make a character with the character builder we found it very helpful to not cut out the power cards...just leave them all on one sheet.  That way they are all visible at a glance to the player.  I would love to have the full version of the character builder but right now I have no plan to subscribe to DDI indefinitely just to be able to use it...(I realize there are ways around that but don't want to go there either)2) Essentials Characters - Since we have the Essentials books and access to the character builder we are noticing some differences between PHB and Essentials characters.  The Ranger and the Cleric jumped out at me first.  Character builder has no mention of "domains" for clerics and has Turn Undead available as an encounter power.  The Essentials Cleric has no Turn Undead and pushes clerics into Storm or Sun domains....Rangers in Character builder seem much more beefy...They have Hunter's Quarry allowing them to fulfil the striker role much better and there is mention of a companion beast (although without the PHB I have no idea what this is).  My son is playing an Essentials Ranger (Hunter)...his most used power is clever shot which he uses to knock foes prone so the rogue can deal sneak attack/backstab damage.  This has become boring and almost comical...at the end of the twisting halls adventure (SPOILER!) he kept knocking down the hulking zombie every round...silly....All and all, essentials characters (without Character Builder support) seem cumbersome and somewhat ineffective.Other 4E comments:  I'm very found of much of 4E.  It love how the wizard class works for the most part except there doesn't seem to be a mechanism for adding new spells to your spell book except via leveling (maybe there is in the core books).  Healing surges, death and dying and that they took out much of the intsa kill/save or die type effects (a trend started in 3e).  There are some things along those lines I've found disappointing...such as there doesn't seem to be rules for becoming infected by lycanthropy...but there seems to have been room left for DMs to add that if they want a darker/grimmer feel to the game.  I like that every character has access to powers that can change the course of a battle, every character always has something important to do and often has to make decisions that are meaningful in combat...My son has learned quickly that he can't just sit there and attack over and over with a basic attack.  He has to move in thoughtful ways and decide what power to use next.Some things I don't like:  As a DM I find some things in published adventures troubling...I guess I am missing something within the rules or perhaps monsters don't necessarily follow the rules...(SPOILER!)  For instance at the end of the Twisting Halls adventure, the party had destroyed the skeletons, managed to isolate Malereth from the zombie and were finally getting to attack Malereth...The fighter had saved his big daily power for just this moment...then missed on the swing because his target (4th level mage with no armor and no magical protections mentioned anywhere in his stats) had an AC of 18.  What?  How?  He has a dex of 16 (+3) and +2 from his level...shouldn't that make it 15?  My son had rolled a 17...since I couldn't find a justification for the 18 AC beyond maybe that the author just wanted to make the enemy mage tougher I ruled a hit.  The wizard got off one more blast from his staff taking two PCs down to 0hp before being finished off...I've noticed a lot of that within the monster vault and other adventures...monsters having various stats and abilities that seem beyond their level.    Not a huge thing...I'm an experienced DM and can make adjustments on the fly to keep things interesting but minorly annoying.I do regret not just buying the core books...as an experienced gamer, I find the essentials just give a taste of what you can do but don't go deep enough...for example, the monster vault has young and elder dragons, no metalic dragons...giants are likewise sparse...the DM book doesn't have tables of magic items...during our game I modfied an encounter and wanted to award treasure...I followed the advice to roll the treasure and came up with (among other things) a 3rd level magic item but no way to determine what that was.  With the character books it feels like I don't have access to the full range of powers (especially wizard spells).  However, my son is currently having a blast so I think the Essentials hit their mark of making the game accessible to new players without overloading them with options.  I've started a lunch time group at work too...maybe once the Virtual Gaming table is up to speed I'll subscribe to DDI, but for now I think I have enough books and enough adventures to run a game for a long time (I still have H1, Reavers of Harkenwood, Cairn of the Winter King along with a few other downloadable adventures to run...probably enough for several months of gaming)Thoughts?  Advice?Thanks</blockquote>

Verification