The Essential Knight

[mkill]

I dig it. This is exactly the type of class that I would suggest to a new player who has never played an RPG before: No fiddly bits, but still effective at kicking monster butt.

In short, it's exactly as they announced.

And dyed in the wool powergamers with 15 years of RPG experience like me will still play the PHB fighter.

Which is exactly as they announced (I start to notice a pattern here)

If you want an analogy, the PHB Fighter is a Ral Partha miniature: it looks great, if you have the equipment and the skill to paint it. The Essentials Fighter is prepainted plastic: Unwrap and you're ready to go.

Both do the job, both appeal to different people.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I'm not entirely certain that the class is as cut-and-dry and some people are assuming it is. I'm not even certain this will be a "simpler" class to play; there seem to be a lot of fiddly bits to it for a "new" player to deal with. I certainly think it's less straight-forward than, "I blast monsters with spells! BOOM!" I do think it's more strictly defined and therefore perhaps less flexible than the PHB Fighter, but it's a fallacy to translate that as simplicity.

 

[Aegeri]

I dig it. This is exactly the type of class that I would suggest to a new player who has never played an RPG before: No fiddly bits, but still effective at kicking monster butt.

I entirely disagree. It uses an aura for one thing for marking, which should be fairly easy to remember but has a distinctly different mechanic to normal marking. It requires the PC to constantly remember they have to switch their "stance" in combat to get other effects. So if he wants to cleave he needs to remember to have switched his stance, which I say to that good luck if you're dazed. Speaking of dazed, the knight might end up getting cut off from all their at-will stance powers so are stuck with doing whatever it was they did last turn (minor action activate each stance). Let's hope you're not marking a creature that dazes when you're in its aura (eg: Mad Wraith). Better enjoy whatever stance it is you're using for the rest of the combat or until it dies!

A new player also has to remember some of his powers will be interrupts, minor actions and free actions (potentially) so that he can effectively add them to his MBAs. Also has to keep constant track of what stance he's using as well.

How is this "easier" for a new player than 2 at-wills for hitting things, an encounter that hits things slightly harder and a daily power that hits things slightly harder again?

It's equally as fiddly in an entirely new direction.

 

[samursus]

As a quick note, I don't think this is necessairly the way classes will start to be developed. Only if Essentials did very well, and the community cried out en masse that they wanted all future classes to be handled this way, would it happen.

Incidentally, I don't see a ton of new classes coming out anyways.

 

[samursus]

A new player also has to remember some of his powers will be interrupts, minor actions and free actions (potentially) so that he can effectively add them to his MBAs. .

I don't think this is a safe assumption at all, from the changes we have seen so far.

 

[Aegeri]

I don't think this is a safe assumption at all, from the changes we have seen so far.

Yes it is. The first encounter power showed is basically a free action interrupt, when you hit with an attack add another 1[W]. Given that, many of their powers may be about adding things to a MBA when they hit or similar. If that's the case remembering the triggers of these powers is going to be pretty relevant. I would think that's the style of this class from what we've seen. Not to mention you should go back and read the stances, all of which are minor actions to change stance if you didn't notice.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I actually do understand this concept, but you've missed the core point that this is how classes will be designed from here on out.

I didn't miss it. I just don't assume it means what you assume it means.

First, they said Essentials will inform game design moving forward. They didn't say that they would utterly abandon everything else.

Second, even if every class moving forward is designed like the Essentials classes, I still don't see how that impacts the existing classes. After PHB, and two Martial Powers books, what were the odds that we were going to see huge amounts of new fighter builds/options anyway? Seriously, how does one affect the other? I'm not being snarky, I'm honestly not seeing it.

And as far as how multiclassing and hybrids and power-swapping and all that work... We don't know. We probably won't know until the rules come out in full. Sure, it's fair to wish they'd said more about it. I kind they had, myself. But getting upset about how it might go, when we truly have no indication one way or the other, just strikes me as a little silly.

 

[Aegeri]

Seriously, how does one affect the other? I'm not being snarky, I'm honestly not seeing it.

It's how future classes - not the old ones - will be designed that will matter here. While I like alternative class structures - I am a fan of both the mage and the domain cleric they've presented - I don't like it being too whacky. Too whacky produces unpredictable results at times (EG psionic classes that use PPs). At the same time there is good whacky, like the Monk who is an interesting and fun class to play - yet has quite a different interpretation on the power system.

Change is a very good thing, but sometimes it can also be absolutely terrible for the game as psionics shows us. I feel massive changes like this fighter design, given such things are informing how later classes will be designed I feel deserve something to put it all in context. Reading this, I'm very leery of it being either completely useless or somehow exploitable with existing classes to be potentially game breaking.

I'd just like to think we don't get carried away with essentials and future classes, throwing the baby out with the bath water entirely. It is telling to me that the three power point using psionic classes are the worst balanced in 4E at the moment. There is good logic behind the systems use of at-will/encounter/daily powers for everyone. When it's changed I'd really like to see more how it fits together, so we don't end up with another Psion (Mind Thrust + Dishearten for thirty levels... GO). Poor at low levels and absolutely game breaking by epic when their scaling mods break over the +7 range.

Otherwise we'll all be back here in sixth months arguing about all the errata to books again.

Edit: I understand your point, I really do. But you need to understand my point that we're looking at the future of how 4E will be designed. I like new options even if I don't even play 4E, but I do run three campaigns. New options mean new player character concepts and builds, which make different monsters more interesting and such forth. This is a great thing. At the same time, I'm not so keen on entirely abandoning core parts of the system to do it (encounter/daily powers). I like the mage and cleric, because they change things around but keep a familiar enough structure. The knight changes everything around and I'm really unconvinced it's for the best.

For the most part, 4E has pretty solid balance between its classes with some spikes and some dips. In general though there isn't a single class that is nonviable and I've ceased micromanging any class in 4E. I let people play what they want and the system 90% of the time takes good care of them - without my micromanagement of powers/feats except in rare cases. That's a true triumph as a system, at least until Psionics was released in PHB3. Right now any Psionic class that gets a single low level at-will power that scales poorly (EG Lightning Rush and Mind Thrust) becomes far more powerful or even game breaking by epic. This is because the power point system is deeply, chronically flawed and doesn't work. For the first and only time in 4E, I've had to micromanage three classes and think about rewriting for myself an entire system (Power Points) to bring spamming of low level "at-will" augment 2s down by epic tier.

It's not my idea of fun and not why I enjoy 4E.

I will keep ragging on Psionics all the time until I get my point across. Psionics are broken because they completely dismantled part of the encounter/daily system for them. At low levels they perform okay, but once they get the PP to turn an encounter power into an at-will some become broken or far more effective than if they take a higher level power (Battleminds with Lightning Rush for example, is a night and day difference as a defender).

They weren't successful the first time they abandoned the set encounter and daily system all classes share. I need to be convinced when I see classes like this that also abandon the encounter and daily system it isn't another Psionics level mistake. You can say I might be "upset" here, but I'm more just very cautious and really wanting to see a lot more information to be convinced this is a good idea.

 

[Stalker0]

Good thing they didn't do that, then.

One more time... This is in addition to the existing fighter builds. Not instead of. The knight has exactly zero effect on the fighter as it already stands; it merely adds a much simpler option for those who want it.
.

I generally agree with this point; the new builds don't automatically take out the old ones.

That said, there is one effect this class can have on other fighter builds. Because the knight does not have daily powers...that's less incentive to put out new dailies for fighters in general.

If I put out new wizard dailies, both the wizard and mage can use them. With fighter dailies, the new class is left out.

Still, overall the new classes do not spell doom and gloom for the old ones.

 

[mkill]

@Aegeri: There is a one-line quote that the Essentials line will influence future class design. However, nobody knows what this means yet, except Mike Mearls and the other designers. I guess it means we'll see subclasses on every new class from now. However, that is as much speculation as everything else. Maybe we should hire some Kremlinologists from the CIA to tell us more. Or relax and wait until we see the first new post-Essentials class.