The Essential Knight

[weiknarf]

I am smelling a whole lot of stuff about Essentials.

Tell me this, when is Arcane Power 2 coming out?

If it isn't, tell me why the hell I'm supposed to believe that Essentials isn't 4.5e?

The developers feel that the increasing number on the sourcebooks is a barrier due to new players feeling they are missing something crucial by not having the previous versions.

In the podcast they said the material in Essentials could have been Player's Handbook 4 but they decided to go a different route because of the above concern.

From reading these threads they probably should have went with the DMG3/PHB4 model.

They may go back to Arcane/Primal/Divine etc. but I bet Arcane Power 2 with be Heroes of the Arcane (or something like that).

 

[Tony Vargas]

A question:

Who are these beginners, who in this day and age of nerditry, have not played a portable game system tactics game, or WoW, or any one of dozens of games that are far, far more complicated than a 1st level 4e character? I haven't met a beginner in recent years who couldn't grok the basic tactics involved in at-will, encounter, and daily powers, particularly the low level ones.

I recently ran a game for an old friend (longtime avid gamer), his wife (longtime casual gamer), 13yo daughter (inevitably exposed to gaming), and daughter's friend (also 13, had never gamed). All the characters were pre-generated.

The adults had trouble with their characters - a fighter and ranger - becaue they were quite different from what they expected, the differences in the rules from earlier editions also threw them or caused them some disapointement here or there. The girls had no trouble, and the completely new-to-gaming one played her 4th level teifling /wizard/ perfectly well, quickly picking up on the idea of at-will, encounter, and daily powers and deciphering the Character Builder's 'power cards' with no trouble.


4e is already a sytem that is newbie friendly. Essentials might be even slightly easier for the newb, though it may also give them trouble when they try to move on to the rest of the system. But the impression I get is that it's mostly about packpeddling a bit on some of the more dramatic changes made to the classics in 4e, and thus maybe winning back a few of the old timers.

 

[Solvarn]

The developers feel that the increasing number on the sourcebooks is a barrier due to new players feeling they are missing something crucial by not having the previous versions.

In the podcast they said the material in Essentials could have been Player's Handbook 4 but they decided to go a different route because of the above concern.

There are so many 4e books out that people feel lost?

Ok, so Essentials is 4.5e. Class builds modified and shaken up with the addition of past errata corrections.

It's a lot different than 3.5e, they have a more robust web presence and can update a lot of stuff online. I don't really buy books anyway, I use the Character Builder, so I'm not their target audience anyway.

Some honesty would be nice though.

 

[weiknarf]

Ok, so Essentials is 4.5e. Class builds modified and shaken up with the addition of past errata corrections.

If you say so.

"Class builds modified and shaken up with the addition of past errata corrections." sounds like what they've been doing all along.

I guess I don't see how the addition of the Knight, the Warpriest, and the Mage equals the change from 3.0 to 3.5.

 

[mkill]

If it isn't, tell me why the hell I'm supposed to believe that Essentials isn't 4.5e?

Well, it is 4.5, minus the part where you throw away your old PHB, MM and DMG because they are outdated.

 

[The Little Raven]

If Essentials were marketed as D&D Starter or D&D Basic, I would have no problem, because it would be understood as a system for people just getting into the game that's a little bit simpler and easier to use.

/facepalm

I dunno about you, but I think something is marketed as a starter when it has the words "Starter Set" in big white letters on a bright red box.

As it is, the intent seems to be to produce regular products with support for both systems, but I have no desire to pay full price for a book that's half-filled with another system I won't use.

It's one system.

Ultimately, Wizards correctly observed in the past that having multiple editions of the game out simultaneously split the fan base and was not as profitable. They also realized the problem of introducing radical changes to an edition before the fanbase feels that the edition has had its natural life cycle. With Essentials, they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. Just saying it's not "4.5" doesn't make it so, when the changes are arguably more intense than the 3.5 ones were from 3.0. Just saying that it won't split the fanbase doesn't make it so when there are two different sets of classes that do the same thing in radically different ways, and when support is going to be split between them.

And that's why they're not making multiple editions. Again, this is 4e. PERIOD. End of statement.

3.5 made my 3.0 ranger obsolete. Essentials does not make any previous class or build obsolete. That's a huge difference.

That's a perfect encapsulation of why I'm so disappointed.

I can understand being disappointed when you obviously don't have the facts straight.

I see a year full of products that I have no interest in because D&D is veering off an a weird beginner/oldschool/CCG boardgame tangent. I liked 4E so much specifically because it rejected that stuff. And a CCG boardgame is an abomination of Lovecraftian proportions.

I wasn't aware that the three months between September and December constituted an entire year.

And this whole "it's veering off into a wierd CCG boardgame tangent" is incredibly rich, since the game is IDENTICAL to how it is now, except it comes in a boxed set that a new player can sit down and start playing immediately (as opposed to making sure he has the three core books, dice, and friends). If the game wasn't a Lovecrafting CCG boardgame abomination before with its use of 1" grids and power cards, then I fail to see how repackaging it for beginners does.

Wow, this all makes it sound like a basic starter set...

 

[Dan'L]

(I wished all classes (except the mage) would start with more or less predertimined at wills and encounters and choices should be made during the game and while levelling up.

To be fair, every class has had this since PHB1. Each class has a section where they outline first level builds with predetermined At-wills, encounter, daily, feat, and class options specified as good starting points.

-Dan'L

 

[fanboy2000]

And this whole "it's veering off into a wierd CCG boardgame tangent" is incredibly rich, since the game is IDENTICAL to how it is now, except it comes in a boxed set that a new player can sit down and start playing immediately (as opposed to making sure he has the three core books, dice, and friends). If the game wasn't a Lovecrafting CCG boardgame abomination before with its use of 1" grids and power cards, then I fail to see how repackaging it for beginners does.

To be fair, I think he was responding to my mention of Gamma World, and the fact that between now a January, Wizards is releasing two boardgames.

 

[ExploderWizard]

As to the "4E is too hard for some people" theory... honestly, the easier systems are great for people just getting into the game, especially if it's some kids in junior high that have never had exposure to a real gaming group before. But if I had someone in my group that couldn't grasp 4E after repeated sessions, I'd think about not gaming with them. The system isn't hard. If they can't figure out that 2d8 is more than 1d8, they probably won't be able to understand the story that we're trying to tell anyway.

And what of someone does grasp 4E very well but decides that for whatever reason he/she doesn't really need hundreds of pages of material just to go adventure, kill things, and take their stuff. I remember our games from junior high and even though we were kids, we had a great time and were certainly a "real" gaming group. There are plenty of reasons besides being "too hard" for someone to prefer another style of system.

Also, not everyone playing has the time or inclination to become a full time gamer nut. Being greeted by an elitist attitude doesn't help matters either.

 

[Saeviomagy]

That's the point. Fighter stances are damn good and if the Knight can take them there is absolutely no reason not to. They will lose all their at-will stances, but who cares: their stances are unlikely to be anywhere near as good as an automatic 1[W] damage or many of the other awesome stances fighters get already.

Fighter stances are damn good assuming that you want to stay in them for an entire combat and won't need them next combat. They have limitations.

My point was that you were stating that unless they got an automatic 1[w] damage stance at will, then their stances were always going to be worse than those of a fighter. I provided multiple ways other than that in which they might be better. To be honest I'm not sure why I bothered: it's a pretty obvious point.

Regardless: there are drawbacks to daily stances, and if the knight has a stance with a lesser, but similar effect that's at-will, then it's obviously going to be better in some situations and worse in others.