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<blockquote data-quote="occam" data-source="post: 5522602" data-attributes="member: 39815">As you've said yourself, the Essentials books were designed to be the new onramp to D&amp;D. Where did you think that onramp would go? Of course the stated requirements going forward would reference HotF* and the Rules Compendium. That doesn't address the utility of the product for those who only have earlier 4e books.Ah, but now you're backing away from what you've said before, which included &quot;...this book offers nothing but a few pages of fluff material about the Shadowfell, and very little else.&quot;, and (on the Neuroglyph Games site) that this book &quot;was designed entirely as a D&amp;D Essentials book, and does not have any purely Traditional 4E content in it at all!&quot;, and that &quot;WotC has made it clear that it no longer has plans to support new products for Traditional D&amp;D&quot;, and, in response to WotC folks saying that the book would contain support for &quot;Core&quot; D&amp;D players, that &quot;I am particularly angry at having been blatantly lied to by Wizard of the Coast.&quot;. Those are not statements that support what you just said in the paragraph above; they imply that if you didn't buy either of the HotF* books, that Heroes of Shadow is completely useless to you.I can appreciate that you may not like the design of the some of the classes in the HotF* books, and in this book, but your wording in this review, and in your blog commentary, was lacking in that nuance. It was absolutist, and serves only to contribute to what is, IMO, a pretty nonsensical conflict. If you don't like those classes, don't play them. If you're the DM and you really don't like them, don't let your players choose them, either.Ask this question: If you didn’t buy any of the Essentials products, what could you use from this book? Almost everything. AFAICT, other than the warpriest Death domain and the two new mage schools, this entire book is directly playable by someone who owns only the Player’s Handbook.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="occam, post: 5522602, member: 39815"] As you've said yourself, the Essentials books were designed to be the new onramp to D&D. Where did you think that onramp would go? Of course the stated requirements going forward would reference HotF* and the Rules Compendium. That doesn't address the utility of the product for those who only have earlier 4e books. Ah, but now you're backing away from what you've said before, which included "...this book offers nothing but a few pages of [i]fluff[/i] material about the Shadowfell, and very little else.", and (on the Neuroglyph Games site) that this book "was designed entirely as a D&D Essentials book, and does not have any purely Traditional 4E content in it at all!", and that "WotC has made it clear that it no longer has plans to support new products for Traditional D&D", and, in response to WotC folks saying that the book would contain support for "Core" D&D players, that "I am particularly angry at having been blatantly lied to by Wizard of the Coast.". Those are not statements that support what you just said in the paragraph above; they imply that if you didn't buy either of the HotF* books, that [i]Heroes of Shadow[/i] is [i]completely useless to you[/i]. I can appreciate that you may not like the design of the some of the classes in the HotF* books, and in this book, but your wording in this review, and in your blog commentary, was lacking in that nuance. It was absolutist, and serves only to contribute to what is, IMO, a pretty nonsensical conflict. If you don't like those classes, don't play them. If you're the DM and you [i]really[/i] don't like them, don't let your players choose them, either. Ask this question: If you didn’t buy any of the Essentials products, what could you use from this book? Almost everything. AFAICT, other than the warpriest Death domain and the two new mage schools, this entire book is directly playable by someone who owns only the Player’s Handbook. [/QUOTE]

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