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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shamsael" data-source="post: 5592904" data-attributes="member: 56453">I have to disagree completely, though I'm sure you knew in posting that this is a polarizing topic.Compatibility: very few changes to the system were actually brought on by essentials.  Almost everything new with the system came from errata in the months leading up to it.  As far as characters, I prefer, even as a DM, to think of characters as black boxes.  What goes on inside the box, that is what resources they manage or howmtheir powers work, is irrelevant as lomg as the output, how fast the character moves, the damage it puts out and the effects it applies on other characters, is on par with other characters.  I feel that essentials satisfies this.Optional: While our first true post-essentials suppliment, Heroes of Shadow was heavily weighted on essentials style content over classic content, there is still a bunch of new powers for the wizard, cleric and paladin.  The comparison between essentials and 3.5 is unfair.  3.5 changed fundamental aspects of the system which would make it impossible for a table to contain players using both 3rd and 3.5: size and facing was altered to remove non-square monsters, feats were drastically changed, classes were altered to shift the levels at which powers were gained, damage reduction was reworked...Essentials did not fundamentally change any rules that would invalidate PHB (errata had been doing that for years).  Feats were not changed, rather feats were added.  Classes presented in essentials are no more or less powerful than classic classes, and changes made offered truely alternative interpretations without obsoleting, invalidating or branding too powerful or weak those that came before.  The only true change I can think of is the upgrade to sneak attack.New Players: I would absolutely not mention PHB1 to a new player as a good introduction to the game.  Once they'd learned the game with Heroes of the F---, I'd point them at the FREE erratad versions of te original classes, and toward PHBs 2 and 3, the setting Players' Guides, Martial/Arcane/Divine/Etc Power if they were interested in different types of characters.</blockquote>

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