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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MrMyth" data-source="post: 5503218" data-attributes="member: 61155">Yes... and I'm guessing that almost entirely revolved around formatting rather than actual content or design of the material. In other words, had nothing to do with compatability, and everything to do with a simple change in how the material is presented. In other words, completely inconsequential to the argument at hand.   Multiclassing for Essentials is a serious issue - and one WotC plans to address, notably.  Even so, though, that doesn't change your claims. In fact, let's take a real close look at what the actual difference is.  I have the PHB, but not PHB2 or FRPG. I get Arcane Power. In it, I find material that supports Swordmages, Bards and Sorcerers, which are of no use to me. But wait! You claim that it is, since I can multiclass into them!  And this is true. And it gets me access to feats and paragon paths based on those classes, as well as the ability to power-swap for encounter and daily powers. Of course, many of those feats and paragon paths will be useless to me without the actual class features, which I don't get access to.  I have the PHB, but not HotFK/HotFL. I get Heroes of Shadow. In it, I find material that supports Essentials builds, which are of no use to me. But wait! Some of that material is.  Specifically, I can still get access to the feats and paragon paths for them by multiclassing into their base classes. Of course, many of those won't be useful without the specific build features from Essentials, which I don't get access to. And I can indeed power swap, or even take directly, encounter and daily powers provided in the book - the ones you dismiss as simply being 'backwards compatability' rather than 'new content and support'.  You can't have it both ways. You can't simultaneously claim that Arcane Power provided support for the PHB, since a Wizard could multiclass Swordmage and power-swap for Int-based Encounter and Daily powers, but that Heroes of Shadow doesn't provide support despite providing Encounter and Daily powers without any power swapping feats required.  What other points? The only other primary sentence I cut was: "Yes, you can use some of the stuff for the older core, but the focus is now on the new and shiny Essentials (like) stuff."  Which... is pretty much just the same sort of claim I'm already addressing. Yes, it provides lots of content for the new shiny Essentials stuff. It also provides plenty of content for earlier material. Just like Arcane Power provided a bunch of content for Swordmages, Bards and Sorcerers from newer books, but also provided content for Wizards and Warlocks from the PHB.  Now, if you feel this approach in general is flawed - which is to say, every splatbook should only directly support one prior product, rather than the range of 4E content up to that point - you are free to feel that way. Though I think that would be a terrible approach for the game as a whole.  But nothing is happening here that didn't happen with splatbooks previously. At least, that we have seen thus far - the book could come out, and the sections for the cleric and wizard could just be filled with pictures of WotC employees laughing at us, and the Essentials content come with disclaimers that non-Essentials Wizards and Clerics take damage every time they use a power designed for Mages or Warpriests.  But... that seems unlikely. And absent something that extreme, the differences between Heroes of Shadow and Arcane Power are pretty much entirely a matter of formatting and presentation, and nothing more.</blockquote>

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