The love has gone ?

[brewdus]

With all the talk of core vs. essentials, it sounds like Wizards is kicking themselves in the shin again! Where do they get their marketing research from? Oh yeah, Hasbro, who seems to have no clue about the FRPG niche market!

 

[the-golem]

With all the talk of core vs. essentials, it sounds like Wizards is kicking themselves in the shin again! Where do they get their marketing research from? Oh yeah, Hasbro, who seems to have no clue about the FRPG niche market!

Forgotten Realms Player's Guide?

...


Oh, wait.

I'm not anti-Essentials... I'm just anti-people-who-are-overly-dismissive-of-anti-Essentials-people's-concerns, if that makes any sense.

Yes, yes it does. In fact, I'm in the same boat with you. I know Essential characters can be fun to play. Still, I like my o4E stuff better. When I first learned D&D back in 2002/3, just months before 3.5 came out, it was like love at first site. Not having played a tabletop RPG before, I was ... confused. I never quite understood why magic users had all these cool spells and abilities, and my fighter basically just got to swing a sword. A lot.

So, when they introduced 4E, I was ecstatic. "Finally!" I said. An RPG that gives classes their own unique abilities. It was exactly how I envisioned my D&D experience should be. Not only do I attack, but the attacks actually DO stuff.

Then 4E essentials came out. My fighter, it seemed, was relegated to the same simple attack as was pre-4e. A closer inspection revealed that this wasn't really the case, but somehow Essentials leaves me feeling underwhelmed.

 

[the-golem]

Oops, double post.

 

[WalterKovacs]

But... that's me. That's my bag o' issues. Others might love the simplicity, and they should go ahead and play them. Essentials characters work fine alongside 'old-style' 4e characters. But still, I feel like it's a little disingenious to say "If you don't like Essentials options, then don't use 'em. No problem!" There is a problem when the Essentials options are straight up better than the 'old-style' options. Those of us that prefer the old style will be left in the dust as Essentials options bloat up.

Then again, outside of the newest options (runepriest and seeker), most of the old styles have bloated up so much it will take a very long time for Essentials to catch up.

It's pretty clear now that we're not going to see a 'fix' for a Warlock. The poor PHB1 Star Pact Warlock is a mess. Do you split Cha/Con so you can use all your powers? Well, be prepared to have absolutely horrid AC for your entire adventuring career. Do you sacrifice Con to go Cha? Sure, if you don't mind one of your two at-wills being completely and utterly useless to you. Go straight Con? Eh... better read a few levels ahead to make sure you have good, flavorful Con-based options open to you at every level. This is in addition to the usual warlock problems of doing sub-Striker damage, supposedly compensated by being a good "single-target Controller" (the benefits of a good "single-target Controller" kind of fall apart when you can stun in a blast 3 as an Invoker at level 1... but I digress).

They aren't as good a striker as other strikers, or as good a controller as other controllers, but they are somewhere in the middle. They ARE getting an update, they are going through all the PHB classes and doing a sort of "all errata so far, and a bit more" articles, basically using the stuff that would have been in the class compendium and putting it up in Dragon magazine. There was a hint that one thing it may do is update curse damage to be more like the rogue's sneak attack (change it to per turn vs. per round).

And, what can they do that they haven't already? They got support in Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Arcane Power and Dragon Annual. They do lack some options (i.e. an easy way to get heavy armor for con/cha build, or a cha based at-will for star locks) but over time they have at least made a con focused starlock possible with tons of powers (and they always have the option of dabbling, the powers are only labelled for flavor reasons unless they have rider text explicitly linking it to a pact for added benefit), especially since they have a con based paragon path, not to mention the ones available to all warlocks.

On top of all that, they've recently put the new racial flex stats, so that there are PC races with Con/Int available.

I've heard the Hexblade is pretty bad, but I somehow doubt that it's worse off than the Star Pact Warlock. And now in Heroes of Shadow they'll be getting a Gloom Pact*. Who knows, maybe it'll fully eclipse the "old-style" Warlock.

I'm assuming you are referring to the Binder. The gloom pact for the hexblde will provide more of the same as the other hexblades had ... some utilty powers and daily powers that are strikery and some should not require an implement. Since in both cases the striker damage is seperate from the powers, they should be usable by both [outside of any that require the weapon to use ... but hexblades seem to restrict those to the encounter and at-will powers other characters couldn't take anyway].

The binder is a controller build for the warlock, and from what I've heard, has encounter powers that any (non-hexblade) warlock can take. As a controller, that would mean these powers lean in that direction, giving an old school warlock the option to be even more controllery instead of more strikery.

We don't know yet, but there is a good chance the binder will also be charisma based, which does mean that Con based warlocks probably won't see much in the way of support going forward. We'll have to wait and see what comes of the "Class Compendium"-esque articles.

Of course, this is a slippery slope argument, with all the flaws inherent in it. I'm just saying that the constant refrain of "If you don't like Essentials, don't use it!" is irritating, because it's implying that if we don't prefer Essentials, we can happily ignore it and everything will be the same. Until... you run a game with a Hexblade and a poor, poor 12 AC Star Pact Warlock in the same party. It's hard to ignore it when it's right in your face, outshining in you in every category and receiving a steady drip of support even though your chosen iteration of the Warlock has been sitting in the back of the class, waiting patiently for its teeth to come in, since pretty much Day 1.

Of course, they had a lot of time to fix the warlock, and they didn't. Having a new/better Warlock might mean they aren't going to fix the old warlock ... but considering they didn't fix the old warlock when they had the chance, it's assuming they would have got around to it if not for Essentials. Since book 2, they already seemed to have figured out they made mistakes. They never really corrected for dual attack stat classes. Ranger is probably the closest to ok, but it did get two martial power books, and lots of powers could be used for either build, effectively increasing the number of options available to either class. Despite including more powers, builds and options in power books and Dragon, they never fixed it. It's quite possible that they never would have, barring a complete reboot.

I'm not anti-Essentials... I'm just anti-people-who-are-overly-dismissive-of-anti-Essentials-people's-concerns, if that makes any sense. I think it's fair to say that, yes, Essentials is receiving more attention than "old style" stuff. Asking "When are we going to see more support for the old-school stuff?" is a legitimate question to ask. Unfortunately, my guess is probably never. Right now, Essentials is new, and they'll likely want to develop it to the point where it has at least half as many options as "vanilla" 4e. Since it took us years to get to this level of content for "vanilla" 4e, I imagine it'll take a while before Essentials is essentially filled in enough to begin focusing on old school 4e once again. And, frankly, by that time, WotC might seriously be considering a 5e.

Of course, the same could be said of anything else. When they put out PHB3 with psionic stuff, they focused on psionic stuff for a while, and weren't rushing to do PHB material again. The X Power books only started to go onto a second cycle with Martial Power 2, and it's possible that as a result, they didn't see a big demand for Arcane Power 2 or Divine Power 2.

The question of when they are going to focus on the old stuff again is fair, but it's a bit unreasonable to assume that, if not for Essentials, they would have finally figured out what needed to be done to fix all their old mistakes. Or even that their next step would be not to build upon the newest classes with the least support, but instead of focus on the oldest classes with the most support.

What I'd -really- like to see is some sort of errata that basically eliminates all the obsolete "trap" choices. Powers, generally speaking, are fun and numerous without getting unreasonable, but we have ridiculous feat bloat. Some, like Human Perseverance, are just plain outlcassed now, making them utterly useless. I'd like to see the "utterly useless" feats basically errated out of the game. I think you could seriously cut down on like 100 feats this way.

While some should probably be cut out [like paragon defenses which is entirely replaced by the Essential version which is avaiable at heroic tier and scales with tier, giving a greater benefit in all ways], there are going to be some people who have reasons for liking their subpar choices. And in the case of the stuff that should be replaced, they are left mostly so as not to render someone's existing character illegal because the feat he has no longer exists, and he needs to get ddi, or purchase the new book to access that feat, etc.

Consider if their solution was that the starlock was a trap, so they just errata'd it out of the game. While traps are bad in terms of requiring a level of rules mastery to make new players, the whole idea of Essentials is to give a trap free option for players. Some people like rules mastery, and by not eliminating the old stuff, they still have access to it. With lots of options comes options that are better than others. The alternative is a narrow list of good options ... as presented in the Essentials books.

Anyway, that was a long, rambling mini-rant. To answer the OP's original question, though, I'd say: "I hear you, but don't hold your breath. Remember the Star Pact Warlock." Besides, we have enough options for vanilla 4e as it is (with the possible exception of a few classes, like the Seeker and Runepriest, and with the horribly-implemented magic item rarity). The only old-school support we frankly need (as opposed to just wanting real bad) is the cutting away of redundancies, like the feat issue I mentioned above. Or maybe a little warning label for the Star Pact Warlock.

Yeah, basically this. The old stuff is still getting indirect support to some extent, and considering the amount of support it already has, adding more to it probably won't solve any problems they didn't solve yet. Still, thhey have said that with the upcoming Class Compendium articles they'll not just be compiliing errata or adding new stuff on top of the old, but actually changing some of the older stuff, hopefully improving it. Heck, they could give a lot of the star pact powers the sorceror king's pact treatment and make them con or cha to attack powers. They might also give them hide and chainmail prof like the hexblade gets, etc.

[Also, speaking of AC issues ... the shaman could use some help in that regard as well].

 

[the Jester]

Their DDI stuff really burnt me out on their company and to be honest even though I really like Essentials the abrupt break in their release schedule has kind of broken my habit of buying their stuff.

For me it's more the lack of any good content that I might use coming out over the last few months. Then again, I've picked up the Plane Below and Psionic Power, so maybe it's good- they are giving me a chance to catch up on some items I've wanted to buy but have always had something more interesting first.

 

[Incenjucar]

For me it's more the lack of any good content that I might use coming out over the last few months. Then again, I've picked up the Plane Below and Psionic Power, so maybe it's good- they are giving me a chance to catch up on some items I've wanted to buy but have always had something more interesting first.

Yeah, I've been doing this myself. Picked up Primal Power last night, ordered Psionic Power, and I may grab the copy of Arcane Power at the local used book store.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Got DMG 2 and MM3 and don´t regret it... but i use it to complement my essentials collection. (Not that I don´t endorse the pre essential class design... i do. I was sad when the hero builder book was cancelled along with multiclass and rituals.)

when the lost chapters are online in DDI, i am a very happy person!

 

[Istar]

We really won't know the true direction of 4E for awhile... all the books coming out anytime soon were before any real customer response to Essentials could come about. Additionally, they very recently changed the heck out of the way they're dealing with DDI and the magazines, and pulling multiple books from the future catalog. Considering the backlash, there's a real chance that they'll try to change things to a more medium point, but it's going to take a long time for that to show due to the length of development cycles.

My advice is to enjoy what you have, because pre-Essentials 4E was fantastic, take that which you enjoy from Essentials (there's no reason to be close-minded about them even if you don't care for the trend), and don't build your hopes up too high for future content - you don't NEED it to continue having amazing games, after all. If the books that come out after now don't have what you want, learn to embrace homebrew and 3rd party support.

Whatever you do, don't let this introduce bitterness and spite into your heart as some do. There's no malice at play, simply an unfortunate difference of opinions between fans, and the ever-looming realities of business.

Okay good points.

What they could do to make some profit, is to re-release all the pre-essentials handbooks, since they are finished meddling with them, FULLY edited versions.
There are 7 people in our group who are all 40 something professionals and wouldnt mind paying to get real books we can rely on.