Gabe (Penny Arcades) take on Essentials Red Box

[MrGrenadine]

...I'm sorry, I can't get outraged over logical changes that from everything I understand can only improve the game.

Quite so. But I think the debate--and in some few cases, outrage--about Essentials, and 4e in general, is predicated on whether or not the changes are in fact improvements.

From the small glimpses I've seen about Martial powers, feat organization, and even the magic missile...I'd say yes.

 

[Aegeri]

Quite so. But I think the debate--and in some few cases, outrage--about Essentials, and 4e in general, is predicated on whether or not the changes are in fact improvements.

I absolutely agree with you in some ways, even if I fundamentally disagree with some of what you write next so I can understand your original point. I think the Knight and Slayer are absolutely awful. I can't understand why I want them or why Wizards have made them like that. At the same time, there are more than enough people on this forum who think they're a great idea and want to play them. I mean, I'm a DM and I don't play 4E at all (sadly ) so in reality what they do with classes like the knight will barely effect me. I know if I did play 4E I would never go near those classes with a 10 ft pole, but I won't stop anyone who wants to play one in my games.

So that's where I basically have the same opinion (albeit on hearsay, not direct experience and that's a fundamental difference) about the changes to things like martial classes. So long though as they keep making a diverse array of classes and support older ones still (EG don't just write them out of the game) I am fine with the changes to essentials - in fact I see some as required even.

The other thing is, IMO they should be making every change essentials makes to the core rules available for free. Nobody should have to pay for 'errata' and I agree with those who say that is what essentials does feel like, regardless of if I think it improves/ruins 4E forever. So if they do that I will feel a lot happier about it as well.

 

[LuckyAdrastus]

The only really anti-essentials posters I know of are fairly rabid 4E fans. So much so that they don't want to see it change. More generally, you can criticize WotC or particular game elements and not be anti-4E. In fact, you may be doing that because you are pro-4E.

Take your other points, how could the anti-4E crowd even know about most of these things? If they are posting on it, they ain't that anti-4E.

If they tell you that 4E sucks and they are playing Pathfinder, then they might be anti-4E. But there is no way they give a flying about the DDI status of the assassin.

Obviously, my previous post paints the anti-essentials posters with a wide brush. Partially, that is for humor's sake, and I therefore appeneded an "IMHO." (Because internet abbreviations clearly matter ).

So, to be clear: it is entirely possible to be anti-Essentials and not be anti-4e.

However, it is my experience that if you look through most of the threads, you find the same people repeatedly taking the anti-4e, anti-WotC line from one complaint to the next. It'd be rude and inappropriate for me to name names, but if you look to some of the regular anti-4e posters from the WotC General Discussions forums (the ones who get accused of being sock-puppets for each other) you'll see this pattern, for example.

You make a good point that is it odd to see these anti-4e posters spending so much time reading about, studying about, and posting about 4e. However, I don't think this means they should be counted as fans of 4e. They may simply like being troublesome, or they may secretly like 4e but can't admit it to themselves ("no, I can't like this, it's too much like WoW, and it isn't cool to like that!"). Who knows what secrets lie in the hearts of the anti-4e crowd? I'm just judging their posts.

 

[Gradine]

I wonder if people have the same discussions about computer games, like WoW or Diablo, that do regular updates to add new options, tweak existing ones, etc. Ie, "Man, just call it WoW 2, if you're changing Hunters so much!" "Runes!? That's some crazy Diablo 2.5 nonsense."

A few months back they added the option (I repeat, option) to respec characters to Diablo 2. The message boards went INSANE. Many old Diablo grognards were decrying Blizzard for turning Diablo 2 into a "n00b" game and that they were trying to turn their beloved game into Diablo 3. Some even started talking about how they were just going to "stick-with-Diablo-1-thank-you-very-much." I'm pretty sure there were a few "2.5" cracks thrown in for good measure. The parallels are pretty much obvious.

Basically, every time something changes (even if it's just an addition of new options, which by all accounts is what Essentials is) there will be plenty of outcry of the They Changed It Now It Sucks variety.

The one legitimate concern of the "4.5" crowd, in my opinion, is the worry that WotC will love Essentials more than we do, and that future products will fall in lock-step with Essentials design philosophy as opposed to "traditional" 4e design philosophy. Personally, I don't see that happening.

We don't have to worry about our favorite powers being errata'd Essentials-styles or our favorite classes being completely eliminated from the game. This sadly isn't as absurd a worry as it sounds because the Magic Missile errata set a dangerous precedent, but as Essentials moves forward do you really see that happening to any other power? Magic Missile was an iconic spell and they couldn't rightly have two different powers with the same name, so you can almost understand why they did that, but what else would they change for those same, or any other reasons? I really can't think of anything.

No, I think all we're going to see is more options. And options are not changes.

 

[MrGrenadine]

No, I think all we're going to see is more options. And options are not changes.

But from what I've read, there are other changes as well--Feat organization, for one. So I think the questions that we're all going to be answering for ourselves are: how do you define "change" vs. "option", and how many changes would it take, (or how large would a change have to be), to tip the scales to an "updated edition"?

The subjectivity of these conclusions means we're going to be debating this forever. Even if WotC decides to call D&D "4.5" in two years, we'll still debate it, because some people will steadfastly believe that its STILL just 4e.

So it goes.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Re: feat reorganization

But from what I've read, there are other changes as well--Feat organization, for one.

We can all at least agree that reorganizing feats doesn't constitute a change, right? After all, if I give you a web page with a table listing all the feats in the game, and let you reorganize the table by several different headings (Attack/Defense/Tier/Multiclass/etc.), you haven't created a new table when you do reorganize the table. You've just sorted that single table.

That's all that they're doing with the feat reorganization, as far as I can tell.

 

[Scribble]

But from what I've read, there are other changes as well--Feat organization, for one. So I think the questions that we're all going to be answering for ourselves are: how do you define "change" vs. "option", and how many changes would it take, (or how large would a change have to be), to tip the scales to an "updated edition"?

I'm not sure I'd really say the feat change is that big of a change really... It's kind of one of those "big changes" with minimal effects.

From what I read they're organizing them better to make them easier to find, and removing a restriction.

So net effect on your already built character will be.. well nothing.

Sure you COULD have taken that feat earlier if the rules had been in effect, and maybe it will no longer be the best optimization the rules allowed, but nothing is invalidated about it.

It would be a bigger change if they went the opposite way and added more restrictions to feats. Then Characters would need to be rebuilt in order to even be "legal" for play.


The same is true I say for the change in monster damage/hps and such. Nothing is invalidated about the old monsters. They're still as effective as they ever were. You might never use them because you have better options now- but there wasn't a change to the rules that made the monsters suddenly drop in effectiveness... They just weren't as effective as they could have been to begin with.

Same thing for the racial bonuses to stats. It's not a change that invalidates your previous character- it just adds options for future character builds.


In addition there are only a small number of rules that I would consider consisting of the "edition." These are the rules that everyone uses no matter what their class or build, or if they're a player or DM.

So while true the feat change falls into this territory- since it's not a change that forces you to rebuild to stay legal, I'd say it just constitutes additional options, and not a new edition.

 

[MrGrenadine]

We can all at least agree that reorganizing feats doesn't constitute a change, right? After all, if I give you a web page with a table listing all the feats in the game, and let you reorganize the table by several different headings (Attack/Defense/Tier/Multiclass/etc.), you haven't created a new table when you do reorganize the table. You've just sorted that single table.

That's all that they're doing with the feat reorganization, as far as I can tell.

But doesn't the removal of tier requirements significantly alter characters development as they level up? And you could keep the level requirements in your game, but its not really presented as an option--its presented as "this is how feats work now".

I mean, for someone like me, who likes to see what a level 1 character will look like at level 20 and 30, that seems like a pretty big change, (and one that I, for one, love).

 

[Stumblewyk]

But doesn't the removal of tier requirements significantly alter characters development as they level up?

Not if they can take what is effectively the same feat, with a different name, 10 levels before they qualify for it in the next tier.

They've already effectively made that change, albeit via power creep, in many cases. The only difference, is that they're now admitting that fact.

It boils down to: "Over time, our exceptions-based system has made Feat Restriction X redundant in many cases, so we're removing it. You can already take Paragon-level feats in the Heroic tier due to power creep, so why should we bother preventing you from taking Paragon Tier feats before level 11?"

That's not equivalent to "We're eliminating level-based feat restrictions."

Now...if you want to argue that the above means 4e has *already* evolved into something approaching a 4.5e, that's something else entirely, and you might be on to something.

(That's a lot of "somethings", I know. Sorry.)

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

(Emphasis mine.) Yep! ("Brilliant" IMHO also.)

Re: getting past level 2: The parents could download the free version of the Character Builder that contains the rules for Level 3; and they could go to a FLGS and sneak a peek into the PHB1 to see how many HP are required for Level 4, which does not require any new "powers" text.
Those same parents might easily "be on the hook almost immediately to buy them rules to get them past level" 4, however. . . .

Picky... picky... picky...

I think you know what I meant, though.

In any case, I haven't met a 10 year old in years who wouldn't be clamoring for more options 10 minutes after we finish our first game.

So, to be clear: it is entirely possible to be anti-Essentials and not be anti-4e.

However, it is my experience that if you look through most of the threads, you find the same people repeatedly taking the anti-4e, anti-WotC line from one complaint to the next.

Meh. I'm doggedly pro-4e, neutral on WotC, and lukewarm on essentials. I don't fit in a simple box, but that's not really allowed. The minute I post a slightly negative stance on something as specific as a single Essentials rule, people jump out of the woodwork to accuse me of being a 4e hater, a "4e grognard", or anti-corporate... sometimes all 3 in the same post, which is some serious linguistic ju-jitsu. On the other hand, when I say something positive about Essentials, people jump out of the woodwork to accuse me of being a corporate tool, insufficiently old skool, and all kinds of other nonsense. People who read and respond to the post in its entirety are vanishingly rare. Frequently, they'll quote a single sentence out of context and misread it entirely.

The content of a post is largely irrelevant unless you're very well known in the community. People read enough of a given post to see what "side" you're on and assume they know where you stand from there. There is no room for subtlety of thought or complicated positions in most of these threads.