Is essentials basically...

[wlmartin]

Still, though, it isn't really someone telling you what your character will be. It's just making more decisions at the initial character creation as opposed to making them along the way. It's like a value meal at a fast food restaurant. If I order one, the establishment isn't forcing me to take fries and a coke instead of onion rings and a milkshake. I had the option of getting whatever I wanted, but I chose the value meal.

You are always limited in the choices you make with a character. You can't have every power or every feat since you still need to select things as you go along that you are restricted by however I do feel there is more restriction in essentials builds.

It is a personal opinion I suppose.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

... builds with features and powers that focus around Basic Attacks?

For (some at least) martial classes, yes. For other classes, not so.

It is basically widening the spectrum of how classes can be built and are still "compatible"/"balanced" with D&D 4.

The mage gets more complex, the figher gets simpler. That's how things have been "traditionally". Some people like it, some don't.

At first I was pretty much opposed to the Essential classes. It seems ill-thought and trying to put back the genie in the bottle, so to speak. But after some time, I appreciated the real motivation. Widening what classes can do. That some of this widening means character classes I don't care for - well, that doesn't change that the basic idea or the implementation are sound.

But even the Essentials Fighter, Rogue and Ranger variants still have a little more complexity. You still pick feats, and you still have to think on when to use your powers. (The powers are just less complex and not very varied.)

 

[Raikun]

You are always limited in the choices you make with a character. You can't have every power or every feat since you still need to select things as you go along that you are restricted by however I do feel there is more restriction in essentials builds.

It is a personal opinion I suppose.

It's handled very well though. Essentials is basicly a streamlining of things after a couple years of seeing the game at work and figuring out what needs fixed. (IMO, Essentials is how 4e should have been released in the first place...it just plays so much better.)

And it's really only a few classes that end up more "limited" in options than the original 4e. Some classes like the Thief end up with basicly 5 at-will powers instead of being forever limited to 2 at-wills like the Rogue. (But handled so that it's still easy and streamlined to play compared to the Rogue.)

Stuff like the Slayer is very streamlined into being pretty one-dimensional, but still has some options...but it's appeal is that no matter what options you chose, it'll work, unlike original 4e which you could 'optionize' your character into being near useless.

 

[Kinneus]

Which aspect
Which power
Two or three choices within each power
Which enemy

Would you seriously want to play a build that doesn't let you choose which enemy to attack? There's simplicity, but then there's just auto-pilot. If you get much simpler than the Slayer, then you're not really even playing the same game anymore.

 

[SlyDoubt]

Wow you sound like you had a really interesting group and DM there OP.

What you're talking about is one version where the rules describe what is happening and one where the players describe what is happening. 4E allows players not to actually think very hard about the scene. They can essentially play it like final fantasy tactics and it 's still got flavor because the flavor is built into the rules.

I could replace exactly what you described but with 4E fighter powers instead. Does that make it any more exciting if the player doesn't actually care?

This also treads close to the idea that all classes should be equally complex. I don't think they should be. I think it's excellent for players to have the option of playing the easy to understand and use fighter on up to wizard or cleric. If someone is new to the game I want them to understand the basic concepts before they get hung up on the details of why they should choose an orb mage over a wand mage.

A class like Slayer will teach someone the most important concepts of 4E/D20. Next time they're making characters or even in the same campaign, maybe they'll decide to try a ranger or druid, someone with more complex decisions to make. I think that's 100% how it should be. Essentials lowers the bar considerably from 4E and also adds that quality of varying play difficulty; it's an excellent choice.

4E has too many choices to be made. So many that it is simply overwhelming. Especially when the choices are often very slight differences in your actual class function. By comparison the powers in Essentials are less but much more different from each other. Essentials is definitely where 4E should have begun. We wouldn't have been ready for it and the uproar would have been much louder but I think things would have panned out much more smoothly from that foundation.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think "Taken away" is an odd choice of words there. Taken away implies an outside force removing them. Rather, when you select an Essentials Martial build, you've made the decision not to get dailies later.

Taken away relative to 4e, sure. When you decide what 4e class to play, you can do so by thinking of a concept - a character from fiction, an archetype or whatever - and picking a class that's close. So, if you want to play a little guy who waves a wand around and shouts questionable latin, you play wizard, if you want to play a heroic warrior who leads men into battle, you play a warlord. Whatever you go for, each class is reasonably contributing and balanced accross a wide variety of play styles - and some are only a little harder than others.

If you aproach Essentials the same way, the wand-waver is likely a Mage - the closest thing Essentials boasts to a complex/difficult class - and the heroic warrior probably a Knight (not quite as dead-simple as a Slayer, but close). Relative to 4e, the guy who's playing a Knight instead of Warlord /did/ have his dailies 'taken away.' Because Essentials lays down the law that if you want to play a non-caster, you /must/ play the simplest classes (if you want to wave that wand, you better be up for picking twice as many powers as anyone else, and prepping half of them each day).

 

[Pentius]

Yeah, but that assumes that you're playing essentials separate from the rest of 4e. Now, I'm sure there are groups doing that, whether by choice or simply by not having any other books, but WotC has made it fairly clear, iirc, that the two are not intended to be played as separate games.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yeah, but that assumes that you're playing essentials separate from the rest of 4e. Now, I'm sure there are groups doing that

Yep, every Wednesday at game shops everywhere.

whether by choice or simply by not having any other books,

Essentials is the 'evergreen' vanguard of the line going forward. It's the intended 'on-ramp' for new players.

but WotC has made it fairly clear, iirc, that the two are not intended to be played as separate games.

They've made it quite clear that Essentials is meant as a suplement to 4e for established players, and an introduction to 4e for new ones. WotC's assumption seems to be that Essentials will be played by itself, but 4e won't be played without Essentials. Organized play seems to conform to that assumption.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Would you seriously want to play a build that doesn't let you choose which enemy to attack? There's simplicity, but then there's just auto-pilot. If you get much simpler than the Slayer, then you're not really even playing the same game anymore.

For some characters it is a much more meaningful choice than for others. A controller may chose not to focus on the main target to bring it down faster but instead focus a different enemy to prevent him from joining melee.

The slayer´s targeting is much more straight forward.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Taken away relative to 4e, sure. When you decide what 4e class to play, you can do so by thinking of a concept - a character from fiction, an archetype or whatever - and picking a class that's close. So, if you want to play a little guy who waves a wand around and shouts questionable latin, you play wizard, if you want to play a heroic warrior who leads men into battle, you play a warlord. Whatever you go for, each class is reasonably contributing and balanced accross a wide variety of play styles - and some are only a little harder than others.

If you aproach Essentials the same way, the wand-waver is likely a Mage - the closest thing Essentials boasts to a complex/difficult class - and the heroic warrior probably a Knight (not quite as dead-simple as a Slayer, but close). Relative to 4e, the guy who's playing a Knight instead of Warlord /did/ have his dailies 'taken away.' Because Essentials lays down the law that if you want to play a non-caster, you /must/ play the simplest classes (if you want to wave that wand, you better be up for picking twice as many powers as anyone else, and prepping half of them each day).

Fact is, that you need simpler classes for players who don´t want the burden of playing the optimizing minigame...

I really would like grandmaster training anchored in the core essential rules as a way to specialize your character in play.
Actually I would like to see the mage not chosing encounters and dailies. The good old find a magebook and learn those spells was much more appealing, as the character "creation" IMHO should happen in game, not at the drawing board.

So in a perfect world, not only the Slayer would be simple, but the mage also. And you would be able to get grandmaster training encounter and dailies for your martial chars and a spellbook from which you can memorize your encounters and dailies as a mage.

Maybe some signature moves like power strike and some more at-wills for mages and a signature encounter and daily spell... but none otherwise.

In this world, the mage would have to spend his resources for his magical versality and the fighter could spend resources for martial training. Back to the old days in a way, but balanced because of the design principles of 4e.