Oh wow. Countdown to Essentials

[bagger245]

I doubt that classes in the line designed for newbies would have more complicated rules like augmentation...

I was thinking the same thing..

 

[Mengu]

There are a lot of elements of 4e that presuppose the existing power system. I'm not really that thrilled to have basic assumptions about how PCs work suddenly changing. Its going to be problematic. It is especially an issue for designers of material going forward, which is now going to have to be constrained by TWO sets of assumptions. It was hard enough to design a feat that wasn't either useless or broken before, its going to be 2x that hard now and much that would have been possible will now be unbalanced with the new stuff and vice versa. I don't think these systems will be as compatible as people seem to think.

Every new class and build option introduced to the game already poses these challenges. Psionics brought in a whole new set of (arguably unnecessary) complexities. And there are lots of small interactions that may or may not have been intended, the whole debacle with off-hand damage without attacking that was introduced with whirler barbarians, stacking swarm druid resistance with regular resistances, etc. Prior to PHB3, you could have made options that boost basic ranged attacks without too much worry about overpowering a class, but now with a whole class based on basic ranged attacks, you have to be more careful. Design space shrinks with every new option introduced, because that option used some other section of the design space.

I don't really think there is a way around this, it's just something designers will have to be vigilantly aware of. How much faith you have in that awareness is a different question of course.

I don't really want characters who operate on different parameters either. But I think healing surge mechanic, and utility powers and item powers that are still daily resources may be sufficient to keep the feeling of a daily limit on a character's abilities intact. I have a much bigger problem with the power point mechanic, than I might with this new elimination of daily powers for a build, but it will depend on how they implement it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Every new class and build option introduced to the game already poses these challenges. Psionics brought in a whole new set of (arguably unnecessary) complexities. And there are lots of small interactions that may or may not have been intended, the whole debacle with off-hand damage without attacking that was introduced with whirler barbarians, stacking swarm druid resistance with regular resistances, etc. Prior to PHB3, you could have made options that boost basic ranged attacks without too much worry about overpowering a class, but now with a whole class based on basic ranged attacks, you have to be more careful. Design space shrinks with every new option introduced, because that option used some other section of the design space.

I don't really think there is a way around this, it's just something designers will have to be vigilantly aware of. How much faith you have in that awareness is a different question of course.

I don't really want characters who operate on different parameters either. But I think healing surge mechanic, and utility powers and item powers that are still daily resources may be sufficient to keep the feeling of a daily limit on a character's abilities intact. I have a much bigger problem with the power point mechanic, than I might with this new elimination of daily powers for a build, but it will depend on how they implement it.

Well, like I've said, I think they can make perfectly good classes that don't use daily powers. Its possible the game would work better without dailies in general. Maybe not for all classes but in any case the concept itself is perfectly OK with me.

And yes, the design space does get more constrained with each new class or build, to some extent. Still, as long as the new stuff is very similar to the old stuff that isn't a huge factor. What I see happening though with significantly different class mechanics is you'll end up with ghettos. Powers designed for a daily-less fighter will not work properly with a PHB1 style fighter and thus may well carry a 'such-and-such build only' restriction. Same with feats. In the case of items it's hard to say exactly what you would do. I suspect items in general will mostly fall into the "this item really isn't useful for an Essentials character" sort of situation. As I say, technically one system and with a LOT of overlap but various ghettos.

Anyway, the die is cast at this point. There's no use worrying about it. I doubt I'll bother with Essentials for my games in the foreseeable future though. For established players it doesn't seem to me we really need this kind of thing.

 

[fanboy2000]

If it's new and different vs. old and simplified, I am very interested.

I agree. Old and simplified wouldn't have interested me either. Actually, I thought that Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms were going to be more like the the * Power books. New powers and feats + the info needed to create a character. This is a lot different from that.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I still use my PH 1 as my primary rules reference when working on those books.

If he's using his PH 1 without the [-]errata[/-] rules updates, that would explain a lot....

*rimshot*

 

[Smoke Jaguar]

I haven't purchased any books yet.

Should I wait until this comes out to buy any books or should I go with PH1-3 and MM1-3?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I haven't purchased any books yet.

Should I wait until this comes out to buy any books or should I go with PH1-3 and MM1-3?

If you can stand waiting, I say wait. Essentials is designed specifically as an entry into D&D, and will probably serve you better as such.

That is, assuming you're starting fresh. If you are joining a long time group, I'd suggest borrowing their stuff and buying the books you'll be using in play. For example, if you look through their books and like the Druid, buy PHB2 and Primal Power.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I haven't purchased any books yet.

Should I wait until this comes out to buy any books or should I go with PH1-3 and MM1-3?

Hard to say. If you are going to run a game in the fall you might want to go with Essentials. If you're going to be playing in some existing games then you probably want some of the existing 4e books. Its hard to say exactly what it will be like mixing stuff, I'm sure it will WORK, its just hard to say what that will look like.

I guess if I didn't need to buy into 4e right away I'd be tempted to wait and see what the new stuff looks like before I decided. It will be a while, but not TOO long.

 

[Zaukrie]

I just went from "no way I'm buying" to, "dang, I might now be buying and spending money" on this. Sounds interesting. What I'd really like is clerics that are different by deity....but I can do that on my own.

 

[Victim]

Only if they got to keep their dailys. Imho, it's the dailys (and the daily utilities) where wizards really shine.

Prismatic Burst seems really good for the wizard compared to 13 encounters from other controllers. In general, wizard encounters seem pretty good once you get past the level 3s.