Quick red box/essentials question

[hopeless]

The new Red box

I think that with the basic box covering only levels 1-3 we should get to see the first few levels of at least a couple builds per main class. I don't think it will (or should have to) include everything from a larger scope product.

Last I heard I thought it covered 1st to 2nd level only?

 

[erf_beto]

well, there are "contradictory" sources on the level range... When we first heard of the red box, it said levels 1-2, and that has been the widespread notion since. Then after some nerd rage, someone from wizards said they would make it 1-3 (dont remember who, where and when), but I'm not sure that's official. Amazon says it's 1-3, but that phrase is omited on the wizards catalog page.

 

[shmoo2]

well, there are "contradictory" sources on the level range... When we first heard of the red box, it said levels 1-2, and that has been the widespread notion since. Then after some nerd rage, someone from wizards said they would make it 1-3 (dont remember who, where and when), but I'm not sure that's official. Amazon says it's 1-3, but that phrase is omited on the wizards catalog page.

This Ampersand article from July 2 gives the level range as 1-2.

 

[Mercule]

I'm fairly sure that the Heroes books and the Compendium are all you need from the player side of things, though you'll need to get monsters from somewhere.

Really? Bummer. I was kind of hoping that the Compendium included the new "base builds" of the classes and the Heroes books were over and above that -- more akin to Martial Power 3 + Arcane Power 2 + Divine Power 2 (I think those would be the right numbers).

We aren't gaming, at the moment, but I was planning on buying the Compendium if it was the complete baseline book. I'm not buying two books for a game I may never play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Really? Bummer. I was kind of hoping that the Compendium included the new "base builds" of the classes and the Heroes books were over and above that -- more akin to Martial Power 3 + Arcane Power 2 + Divine Power 2 (I think those would be the right numbers).

We aren't gaming, at the moment, but I was planning on buying the Compendium if it was the complete baseline book. I'm not buying two books for a game I may never play.

Well, it is kind of hard to say what the exact breakdown is going to be. My guess is that with the Heroes of books and the Compendium you will have all of the basic 'rules' of the game. Couple that with a Monster Vault and you will have AFAICT the equivalent of the PHB1 and MM1, but that doesn't mean you would have the equivalent of a DMG, which appears to be the 256 page book that comes with the DM's kit. Arguably you don't actually HAVE to have a DMG to play 4e and might well not really HAVE to have a DM's Kit either, you'll just be lacking a lot of information about how to run a game. If the Compendium is really complete then you'd have any actual rules that are in the DM's Kit book. Then its a question of what is a rule? Is the chart of treasure parcels a rule? There's a lot of stuff like that which you might not have.

It is also unclear how much overlap the Heroes of and DM's Kit book have with the Compendium. Is everything in the Compendium also in some of the other books? What exactly is in the DM part of the starter kit? We just don't really have sufficient information to know what books contain what information and how much or little of it is recapitulated and where.

I can only suggest the answers are actually only going to be had once we see the books or at least hear from people who get preview copies.