So, how many are avoiding Essentials?

[babinro]

I'm interested in the Heroes books for further options on classes. However, I'm not set on a purchase yet. It feels incomplete in terms of options.

It is quite possible that I'll be done with purchasing 4e books going forward. However, the material released prior to Essentials should give me years of fun gameplay so long as those around me continue to show interest.

 

[Walking Dad]

Some threads and arguements should simply be ignored because their premise is so obviously maligned from the truth and essentially nonsense.

Bolded by me.


Nice wordplay. Any relevance to this thread?

 

[Jhaelen]

Nice wordplay. Any relevance to this thread?

Nah, of course not - because I never post in such threads, either

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

Message Deleted

 

[Xyrlove Woodsoul]

I was very skeptical of Essentials at first, but a lot of the feats and powers have been "fixed" in Essentials; so our group just reconfigured their charaters with some of the new feats and powers. I agree that Essentials and regular 4ed are one in the same, especially, in that the defense and expertise feats continue to be feat taxes (ha), and for someone who frequents the optimization boards a lot I notice that most of the Essential and HotFL stuff is rated much higher than the normal 4ed stuff- Almost all of it. I also notice that some of the erratta that I've been using is actually rules in Essentials. So that's a little confusing. In all, I tool box things; I use some Essential feats and some of the powers. I really don't like the classes in Essentials though. Many of them seem too arcade-like, or something, to me- they don't give me the DnD "vibe."; and yet, some do intrigue me, like the martial Assassin and the Enchanter. I see Essentials as a more casual thing than normal 4ed. I don't think there is a compatability issue, but i do notice that the tone of the two are not the same. Sort of like the difference between golf, and put-put golf. Both are cool. One is just more complex than the other.

 

[Sunseeker]

Against my better judgement(and current funds) I picked up Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms today. I gotta say, it's not bad. It's well written, a little more portable due to the smaller size, and some of the changes are good. I would still use it as a variant, not a replacement for the existing material though.

 

[bbbmmmlll]

Against my better judgement I bought three of the Essentials books. I think I spent about 20 minutes looking at each and for the most part I couldn't find anything that was useful or interesting. Mostly lots of duplicate information from the 4E books. The new classes were lackluster. Maybe they are helpful for first time players, but is a level one 4E character that difficult to make and play? One of my players has the rules book and we found it difficult to look up information. I'm also not a fan of the smaller format. I like to lay my books open, especially the monster books, and this format doesn't lend itself to this. The tokens are nice, but we have a ton of minis.

I think I'm done with DnD. The new CB changes and the Essentials mess rubbed me the wrong way by making the game more work, forcing me to deal with two rule sets and strongly encouraging me to pay to play. I abruptly ended my campaign last Thursday. Players had advanced from 1st to 17th. I'm playing in a game and once it ends I'm done.

I happily embraced 3.5 and 4E, but sadly Essentials just doesn't improve the game for me.

 

[Votan]

I'm interested in the Heroes books for further options on classes. However, I'm not set on a purchase yet. It feels incomplete in terms of options.

It is quite possible that I'll be done with purchasing 4e books going forward. However, the material released prior to Essentials should give me years of fun gameplay so long as those around me continue to show interest.

I kind of go the opposite way; 4E was rapidly feeling like it was too complicated in character construction for me (feats, powers, classes). Options are good but they can be overwhelming when you try to apply them all. So I liked the essentials approach to classes. I was also favorably impressed with the fluff in the book -- the people who wrote it obviously want to give new players hooks to try and integrate role-playing into their sessions.

They were very good books (and, before I bought them, I really wanted to dislike them).

 

[ourchair]

I've noticed all the Essentials threads on here and I am wondering how many of us are still playing ordinary 4th Ed with no intention of going over.

I don't, and no one in my group does. We came to 4E from SW saga, a natural step. We've also invested quite a bit of time and $$$$ in 4E, and see no reason not to continue with things as they are. And we're also in the middle of a big campaign, why change horses midstream?

4E is not something we are completely satisfied with, particularly those of us who have played older editions, so all these changes seem a little...much.

I don't see Essentials as something distinct from 4th Edition, since as far as I as a DM am concerned, it just means my players have the option of using different classes.

Oh sure, they're introducing concepts like magic item rarity, random treasure parcels, various changes to basic DCs and new floating modifiers to race stats and new feats.

But otherwise, the way I run my game hasn't changed (I still don't follow the parcel system, I don't make use of rarities and skill DCs are higher than recommended) so it's really a non-issue for me.

 

[Walking Dad]

...

Oh sure, they're introducing concepts like magic item rarity, random treasure parcels, various changes to basic DCs and new floating modifiers to race stats and new feats.

But otherwise, the way I run my game hasn't changed (I still don't follow the parcel system, I don't make use of rarities and skill DCs are higher than recommended) so it's really a non-issue for me.

Yes it isn't more different than Pathfinder from D&D 3.5...