Garthanos
Arcadian Knight
I thought the hunter brought something interesting to the table.
D&D 4E Inquiry: How do 4E fans feel about 4E Essentials?
- Thread starter LoganRan
- Start date
GMforPowergamers
Legend
it was okay, I was just weirded out by the fact that it wasn't as cool as phb1 ranger
cavalier973
Hero
I played in an Encounters session using an Essentials warpriest. It was awesome. There was a mix of non-E and E classes, seven or eight of us, if I remember right.
my character was all over the battlefield, throwing down the daily right off the bat (because it gave his companions a bonus to all defenses), then handing out saving throws and pulling people from the brink of death. It was almost like Gandalf racing back and forth, keeping the team working. You know, like a boss.
When people say they don’t like Essentials, they mean the character classes mostly. The monster vaults are well regarded, and the adventures (Reavers of Harkenwold, Madness of Gardmore Abbey) are higher rated than some of the early core adventures.
One of the problems with the Essentials classes is that they aren’t as effective at their jobs as the core classes, especially as they advance in level. The Slayer and Knight can’t be as good defenders as the Great Weapon fighter or the Guardian fighter (the slayer is primarily a striker anyway). The thief can’t deal as much damage as the rogue.
on the other hand, the Warpriest gets heavy and light shield proficiencies; the Knight gets plate armor proficiency, plus the shield finesse feat. The Hexblade gets chain mail proficiency.
As for the lore, it seems to me pretty much the same, except for the addition of the Chaos Scar. Also, Hammerfast in the core DMG doesn’t have the whole “ghost” motif.
the biggest gripe I have against essentials is that the rituals have been disappeared.
my character was all over the battlefield, throwing down the daily right off the bat (because it gave his companions a bonus to all defenses), then handing out saving throws and pulling people from the brink of death. It was almost like Gandalf racing back and forth, keeping the team working. You know, like a boss.
When people say they don’t like Essentials, they mean the character classes mostly. The monster vaults are well regarded, and the adventures (Reavers of Harkenwold, Madness of Gardmore Abbey) are higher rated than some of the early core adventures.
One of the problems with the Essentials classes is that they aren’t as effective at their jobs as the core classes, especially as they advance in level. The Slayer and Knight can’t be as good defenders as the Great Weapon fighter or the Guardian fighter (the slayer is primarily a striker anyway). The thief can’t deal as much damage as the rogue.
on the other hand, the Warpriest gets heavy and light shield proficiencies; the Knight gets plate armor proficiency, plus the shield finesse feat. The Hexblade gets chain mail proficiency.
As for the lore, it seems to me pretty much the same, except for the addition of the Chaos Scar. Also, Hammerfast in the core DMG doesn’t have the whole “ghost” motif.
the biggest gripe I have against essentials is that the rituals have been disappeared.
Garthanos
Arcadian Knight
Well it was an attempt at being a "partially" martial controller I give it creds for that
Garthanos
Arcadian Knight
The Slayer needs compared to the Ranger I think not the fighter. They are both easy to play striker models. But yes not scaling well is one of the complaints about essentials class design.
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Vaalingrade
Legend
Yeah, the Slayer was the answer to a number of (dubious) complaints: Fighters with dailies, 'simple' classes' and in this case, Fighters not being Strikers.
Many people picked 'this class has a name and I have expectations' as their hill to die on and they wanted the Fighter to be a DPS class first and foremost despite The game shipping with two martial strikers already, Martial as a power source having secondary Striker and Defender Elements across all classes, and Martial Power delivering a TWF DPS Fighter.
But that wasn't enough. The core fighter had to be a Strike with no dailies and as little mechanical complexity or by gum there would be Abyss to pay.
Many people picked 'this class has a name and I have expectations' as their hill to die on and they wanted the Fighter to be a DPS class first and foremost despite The game shipping with two martial strikers already, Martial as a power source having secondary Striker and Defender Elements across all classes, and Martial Power delivering a TWF DPS Fighter.
But that wasn't enough. The core fighter had to be a Strike with no dailies and as little mechanical complexity or by gum there would be Abyss to pay.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Or…people wanted a simple fighter that didn’t require tracking marks.
Deekin
Adventurer
They did something similar to one of those! In Player's options- Heros of the Elemental Chaos!
The Elementalists Sorcerer was about as close as they've come to making dead simple caster. The Elementalists gain no encounter or daily
attack powers from their class, but instead rely on at-will attack powers that have additional effects activated with the elemental escalation power.
You get Elemental Bolt as an AT-Will attack, along with another at-will power determined by your chosen elemental type. You unlocked two more at wills at 9 and 19.
They you get Elemental Escalation as the magical equivalent of Power Strike, usable 1/encounter, with extra uses unlocking at 3, 7 and 13.
Then, after that? All you get is utility powers, which are a solid mix of encounter and daily powers, in addition to the ones in the PHB 2.
I want(ed) to like Essentials, but most of the classes just aren't fun for me. And in practice I found that switching Powers for Stances was even more confusing for my rules-challenged player (he converted his Warlord to Knight - this did not help. Even with the spreadsheets). Personally I really like AEDU-for-all design and the original 4e PHB classes. I'm playing a 4e PHB Fighter right now and loving it.
cbwjm
Seb-wejem
It's not like the original 4e fighter went away, the knight and the slayer were just different options for those that wanted it and for many of us, we preferred them. Or in my case, I would have preferred them. If I got into a 4e game now, I'd probably run a slayer.
