The Essentials Fighter

[I'm A Banana]

Free for all to judge worthy or unworthy, as is their wont!

Check this noise:

As a fighter, you make most of your attacks using basic attacks. Some classes rely primarily on class-specific attack powers, whereas you typically make basic attacks enhanced by your fighter stances and other class features and powers.

They look much simpler, but still crazy effective, and I love the "when you hit, do something extra" mechanic so much. It all seems to make sense from a "by your own muscle and steel!" angle!

I am getting more and more pumped for this stuff...

 

[MrMyth]

It is interesting. On the one hand, it looks like it will be much farther afield from the standard class designs than even Psionic classes were, and much harder to trade elements with standard builds (as the Essentials Wizard and Cleric seem able to do.)

On the other hand, this is actually how I've long felt 4E should have been designed from the start - rather than needing hundreds of powers for each class, instead having access to various 'modifications' and 'upgrades' that you could use to boost your basic attacks. So I'm interested to see it in action, and I like the approach I'm seeing thus far!

 

[ExploderWizard]

Not enough info yet on how all the features work to see how it stacks up to the regular fighter but it looks interesting. No feat tax to get plate armor for a fighter is a good start.

 

[Scribble]

It is interesting. On the one hand, it looks like it will be much farther afield from the standard class designs than even Psionic classes were, and much harder to trade elements with standard builds (as the Essentials Wizard and Cleric seem able to do.)

I think though that's part of the design goal though.

You start with the "easy" fighter, and don't even worry about things like multi-classing, or power swapping. (Or very rarely do.)

It is what it is.

There will probably be other fighter builds that have more leniency, and you can always take the original gangsta... err fighter, if you really get into the nitty gritty power swapping stuff.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Huh.

This might warrant further investigation in the future.

 

[Neonchameleon]

We're discussing this on the 4e forum here

 

[MrMyth]

I think though that's part of the design goal though.

You start with the "easy" fighter, and don't even worry about things like multi-classing, or power swapping. (Or very rarely do.)

It is what it is.

There will probably be other fighter builds that have more leniency, and you can always take the original gangsta... err fighter, if you really get into the nitty gritty power swapping stuff.

I'd still like the option to be there. And from Mearls comments in another thread, it sounds like it might be - you may be able to choose to trade out certain class features to regain access to encounter power choices or the like. As long as it all remains balanced, I'm a fan of that - having the simple option for those who are solely looking for that, and having the choice of trying out some of these new elements without giving up completely on broader options.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I'm paraphrasing myself from another thread, but I don't think this is actually "simpler." At all.

It's more like older D&D, and therefore reads as simple to most of us, but it's actually very fiddly and less straightforward.

You're keeping track of which modifiers are pre-applied, attacking, and also choosing whether or not to apply further modifiers. How is this simpler than choosing from a suite of powers?

You have a smaller list of things to choose from, but to do it right you have more to track. You have to remember which auras and stances apply and also make extra decisions at the time of attack, i.e. whether to apply "Power Strike" (least evocative name EVAR, incidentally). I've worked in developmental and cognitive psych, and my instincts are telling me that the naive subject is going to have lower performance on the "Playing the Essentials Knight" task than on the original "Play a 4e Fighter" one. This version eats more cognitive resources, easy, unless they've left out some incredible way of tracking this stuff for you.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm paraphrasing myself from another thread, but I don't think this is actually "simpler." At all.

I think it's "simpler," but that doesn't mean it still isn't a little fiddly in certain places.

That's somewhat the nature of 4e's tactical combat grid. You can only be so simple.

That's also just because choosing options (which this fighter certainly lets you do!) is pretty key to engagement, too.

This isn't an "I just swing my sword" answer. This is a "I swing my sword to do X, then I swing my sword to do Y, and then I swing my sword to do Z" thing.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

But, they got rid of a little fiddliness in choice of attack and replaced it with a lot of remembering and fiddliness every time you have to attack.

That may be easier for some people, but it's going to be harder for others. And I think they're making it harder for the people they should be targeting: young gamers.

EDIT:
I think the overall complexity is the same or very possibly greater, but the semantics have changed and the location of the complexity is different.

Instead of "I use Reaping Strike" you say "I swing my sword." This sounds simpler. But is it? When you used "Reaping Strike" you had a listing right there of what effects occur. There isn't anything to track. But now that you're swinging your sword, you have to remember which modifiers apply, and instead of having them written down right under "Reaping Strike" you have to find them scattered all over whatever happens to be active in terms of stances/modifiers/whatever-we-haven't-seen-yet.