New Essentials Builds!

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, you aren't the only one that has speculated that Tony. I pretty much said it from day one that we first saw the Thief. Honestly I find it messy and annoying. What do you now tell the player that wants to blow things up with fire? Well, you COULD play a PHB1 Wizard with THIS pyromancy add-on, or a Mage with this other one, or a Dragon Sorcerer, or ... It is like the game has gone into its own navel and just keeps spitting out variations of the same thing over and over now.

I'm all for staff builds, but then AGAIN we had MP2 fighting style stuff, wasn't that supposed to present the framework for that? Or was it Themes? Or just the heck what? And why is it my Barbarian can't use this? Oh, yeah, because he's not an ESSENTIALS Barbarian... GAAAHHHH!

Honestly I think this kind of thing will do more damage to the game in the long run than anything Essentials can do to help it.

 

[nookiemonster]

How much damage is the 10th level zone feature going to do, anyway? It lasts for only one turn and cannot AFAIK be extended, and it's doing CON modifier damage, which at 10th level will be what, 3 or 4 points of damage? So it's a big threat to minions, a negligible threat to 10th level monsters, and probably a nil issue for most player characters.

Wizard fire attacks seem to concentrate on pure damage. They typically do more damage than other attacks, but they don't impose conditions other than ongoing damage (as far as I know). They also tend to target everybody. So any fire-based wizard is going to do best in a party which lacks a striker or in-your-face melee characters. In such a party, I think the 10th-level "zone" feature is good. If I'm playing a mage in a party which does have melee guys, I'm sending that mage to Charm school to impose dazed/stunned/etc on the monsters.

 

[MrMyth]

I think we have the same target in mind, but different expectations of what is solid and flavorful.

Fair enough. Mechanically, the staff allows characters to combine benefits from the realms of dual-wielding, reach, shields, etc. At the cost, basically, of +1 proficiency compared to a long-sword. Now, that's significant, but I think there are interesting options being presented here, and new builds being allowed for. Even if there are better options out there, previously you couldn't really have a staff-wielding rogue or halfling. Just by presenting those options, you've allowed those character concepts to exist.

They aren't necessarily stronger than existing options, but they allow for capable characters that fit concepts people want to play. They may not satisfy the builds you want, and I can respect that, but clearly they are offering something useful to some gamers out there, and thats a good thing.

 

[MrMyth]

I'm all for staff builds, but then AGAIN we had MP2 fighting style stuff, wasn't that supposed to present the framework for that? Or was it Themes? Or just the heck what? And why is it my Barbarian can't use this? Oh, yeah, because he's not an ESSENTIALS Barbarian... GAAAHHHH!

Honestly I think this kind of thing will do more damage to the game in the long run than anything Essentials can do to help it.

Really? I mean, keep in mind - Dragon has had plenty of articles focused on support for whatever the 'hot product' is. That doesn't mean all content going forward will be Essentials only. And note that all the feats in the Staff article can be used by non-essential rogues, clerics, etc.

We've had plenty of focused articles in the past. This is no different, and trying to make it somehow a new issue because of Essentials just seems to require ignoring a lot of what has come before.

You can have an article that provides support for multiple builds (new and old) without any design issues. You can also have ones that present something new or support a very strict focus. The articles on familiars didn't mean that only arcane classes would be supported from there on out. These articles don't mean only Essentials will be supported from here on it. I can't stop anyone from worrying that will be the case, but I'd strongly recommend waiting until we're actually past the Essentials rush before coming to any conclusions or making any dire predictions about the future of the game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You can have an article that provides support for multiple builds (new and old) without any design issues.

I don't think so. It would have to be limitted to utilities and feats that don't key off class features. That's a restrictive design requirement - I'd call it an 'issue.'

It's not that we're concluding that these articles prove that 4e is being abandonned in favor of Essentials. It's just that it was very clear, before, that supporting both the 4e and Essentials Fighter & Rogue builds would require a separate materials for each - because they were so mechancially distinct. The Pyromancer article, while cool (no ironic pun intented), illustrates that the same issue may well aflict all classes that get Essentials builds, even if they can (like the Mage) share powers with 4e builds. That indicates nothing about what the future will hold, it just illustrates the range of possibilities. It's not just the 4e martial builds and STR Cleric that theoretically might be 'orphanned' depending upon the game's future direction.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

the strength cleric was orphaned before that:

exactly 1 cleric paragon path uses strength as its main attribute (ok, strength clerics should have high wisdom too...)

and I personally don´t consider 2 articles that follow up on the release of new mechanics to be any indicatrot of any direction... when you look up older releases, you will notice, that other books also immediately were supported with dragon articles...

and i like those 2 articles... short, flavourful and spot on...

 

[Klaus]

Yeah, you aren't the only one that has speculated that Tony. I pretty much said it from day one that we first saw the Thief. Honestly I find it messy and annoying. What do you now tell the player that wants to blow things up with fire? Well, you COULD play a PHB1 Wizard with THIS pyromancy add-on, or a Mage with this other one, or a Dragon Sorcerer, or ... It is like the game has gone into its own navel and just keeps spitting out variations of the same thing over and over now.

I'm all for staff builds, but then AGAIN we had MP2 fighting style stuff, wasn't that supposed to present the framework for that? Or was it Themes? Or just the heck what? And why is it my Barbarian can't use this? Oh, yeah, because he's not an ESSENTIALS Barbarian... GAAAHHHH!

Honestly I think this kind of thing will do more damage to the game in the long run than anything Essentials can do to help it.

I'm a firm believer that there should always be more than one way to achieve an archetype.

 

[MrMyth]

I don't think so. It would have to be limitted to utilities and feats that don't key off class features. That's a restrictive design requirement - I'd call it an 'issue.'

We've seen plenty of feat heavy articles before. We've also seen articles, like the recent one on gnomes, that included one power for each of a variety of classes.

Why is it hard to accept they could easily do the same thing with Essentials content? Have an article for Rogues with feats for various builds, some for the Artful Dodger, some for the Thief, some open to all rogues. With some new powers alongside new tricks.

It's just... we've seen tons of articles like this already. But as soon as Essentials is mentioned, people don't think it can happen. I don't see why.

Indeed, in these very articles, we've seen the opposite - the Staff articles includes feats for divine characters, rogues, small characters, all of which can be taken by Non-Essentials characters. The lack of generic staff feats wasn't because they would have been impossible to add, but because the author of the article felt they weren't needed, felt that the Tempest build plus Staff Expertise could already support staff fighters, and thus made a design decision not to include any.

The restrictions of Essentials vs Non-Essentials had nothing to do with it.

It's not that we're concluding that these articles prove that 4e is being abandonned in favor of Essentials. It's just that it was very clear, before, that supporting both the 4e and Essentials Fighter & Rogue builds would require a separate materials for each - because they were so mechancially distinct. The Pyromancer article, while cool (no ironic pun intented), illustrates that the same issue may well aflict all classes that get Essentials builds, even if they can (like the Mage) share powers with 4e builds. That indicates nothing about what the future will hold, it just illustrates the range of possibilities. It's not just the 4e martial builds and STR Cleric that theoretically might be 'orphanned' depending upon the game's future direction.

The Pyromancer article presents an entirely new school for the Mage. That's very different from simply providing support for the Mage - you can easily have an article that presents powers that both the Mage and all earlier Wizard builds can make use of.

Again, I can see the concerns that articles will only support Essentials content, though I think that sort of judgement should probably wait until after the Essentials release is over. But claims that it isn't possible to produce support for both Essentials and pre-Essentials material... there is no truth to that, and these articles certainly aren't proof for that sort of claim.

 

[andarilhor]

I really liked this new builds, but became worried about one thing: How we use that material into the non-essential fighter and the non-essential wizard?

As I have said in another thread: I really want to see some official WotC words about how to use the essential classes features on the the core classes.

I am worried about we'll never see another article or other material to non-essential classes anymore...

 

[Nork]

How much damage is the 10th level zone feature going to do, anyway? It lasts for only one turn and cannot AFAIK be extended, and it's doing CON modifier damage, which at 10th level will be what, 3 or 4 points of damage? So it's a big threat to minions, a negligible threat to 10th level monsters, and probably a nil issue for most player characters.

I really doubt it will be doing 3 or 4 points of damage at level 10 under usual circumstances.

Blaster wizards pretty much want to start with 13 dex and 13 wis to get the feats they pretty much need to function and to get the epic crit feat naturally. Especially if they want to function properly from day one instead of spending an entire tier or more of a campaign waiting.

So you are realistically looking at 1 or 2 points of damage at level 10,

If they shave their starting int down to 16 before applying modifiers, they might get +2 to that damage to reach the 3 or 4 damage range, but at the cost of -1 to hit, -1 to damage rolls. Which is a pretty significant hit.

Overall, I'd expect for most pyromancers that they will be doing 1 or 2 points of damage with the zone at 10. Which since that is really all you need to burn minions, ought to work out fine.