What is this I don't even

[Blue]

These Essentials guys look declawed, in terms of balance. They just look weak all around. Sure they're losing flexibility of Stuff to Do and Stuff to Choose From... but what are you gaining by giving that flexibility and options up? It just looks like a Regular character that chooses to just use Atwills and Dailies.

Where's the payoff (or balancing factor), mechanically?

Mechanically they are on par with per-Essentials characters. To talk strikers for a second: you can't eek out quite as much on the high end, especially novas, but in general they are very reliable at doing great DPR round after round. And it's much harder to build a bad essential character. The other essential characters I've seen have been about the same for their role - more consistent/less bursty, reasonably on par. (Though I haven't seen paragon or epic play for any of them yet.)

You're not going to handicap yourself mechanically either way and they play well together in parties. If you want to go 4e core or 4e essentials for your PC to me depends more on your play style. More straightforward character design and play - go essentials. More choices both at the table and off, go core.

The biggest balance difference that I can make as a generalization is that Essentials always seem to bring their "A" game while core classes sometimes take it easy (use no dailies, etc) and then at other times open up a can of whoopie on a really hard encounter spending lots of them.

I'm playing a Runepriest in one game, arguable one of the more complex and finicky classes mechanically and loving it, but if that character dies my replacement PC might be a Sentinel, the essentials druid leader who's very straightforward.

 

[Samir]

Where's the payoff (or balancing factor), mechanically?

The essentials classes typically have a lower ceiling, but a much higher floor. While it's quite easy to build an awful character with an original class, it's rather difficult with an e-class. "Trap" options are almost nonexistent and most e-feats are very useful. For example, the Slayer (e-striker and Fighter subclass) has very accurate, very powerful melee basic attacks and can easily keep pace with your average optimized striker.

In general, e-classes are simpler to build, easier to play, and more consistent quality-wise.

 

[Obryn]

But how on earth are these balanced with regular stuff? I mean, I would assume that if they're doing the same At-Wills all the time (with the occasional Daily tossed in), then their At-wills are going to be rather powerful. The Cavalier of Valor's At Wills are the same as a PHB1's At Wills. But the PHB1 Paladin is stronger - he gets the same at-Wills as well as all the other stuff.

These Essentials guys look declawed, in terms of balance. They just look weak all around. Sure they're losing flexibility of Stuff to Do and Stuff to Choose From... but what are you gaining by giving that flexibility and options up? It just looks like a Regular character that chooses to just use Atwills and Dailies.

Where's the payoff (or balancing factor), mechanically?

I think you'd need to see one in play. They're actually pretty remarkably well-balanced; they can play with the big boys just fine.

Take the Cavalier. You have the same number of powers, actually. It may not look like it, because the format is weird, but it's a fairly potent class. For the flexibility trade-off, you get off-level bonuses on occasion.

They can definitely keep pace through Heroic and Paragon, but I haven't heard enough about Epic tier yet.

-O

 

[the Jester]

I can't speak to the other E-classes, but there is both a 'classic style' wizard and an Essentials mage in my campaign, and their effectiveness is definitely on par with each other (though the mage is much more focused on moving enemies and the tome wizard is more focused on KABOOM).

 

[WalterKovacs]

Let's say we have two characters who are pregens. 1 is a Cavalier, 1 is a PHB1 Paladin. Therefore, the "Simpler made" aspect doesn't matter. They both have the same amount of dailies/utilities.

Cavalier has no encounter powers.
PHB1 Does.

A cavalier does have encounter powers, Holy Smite. They just happen to modify their at-will powers instead of it being a seperate power unto themselves. This does automatic damage (even if you miss) and if it hits, it dazes (which is a pretty solid effect for an encounter power)

At 3 and 13, when a paladin gets another encounter power, the cavalier gets another use of his 'only' encouter power. At 7, 17 and 27, all uses of Holy Smite improve.

Technically speaking, the cavalier doesn't get a daily at level 1 (he gets them at the other levels normally). Instead he gets Righteous Radiance, an encounter utility power which lets him be a better defender.

Most of the other class features are variations meant to simplify thing in play. Instead of having to maintain your divine challenge, you just have an aura that you leave on and effects everyone adjacent to you. Instead of having lay on hands, you can take the Spirit of Sacrifice build and have a 1/ecounter ability to use your second wind as a minor to do the equivalent of lay on hands.

Some of the classes actually lose out on dailies (the martial characters) but they do get some solid options, but none actually lose out on encounter powers (the only one would be the Executioner Assassin, who has a single "nova" damage boosting encounter power which increases in damage every time they would normally get another encounter power).

 

[OnlineDM]

As the other posters have said, I think you've missed the fact that ALL of the Essentials classes DO have encounter powers. They might not CHOOSE an encounter power, but they have them, and they're of similar "oomph" to pre-Essentials encounter powers. Often times, as they reach 3rd level or 7th level they'll simply be allowed to use their 1st-level encounter power more times per battle, but they still get just as many.

The only difference that might need clarifying is that certain builds (Slayer, Knight, Thief, Hunter, etc.) don't get daily attack powers, but they get something else in their at-wills that makes up for this (bonus accuracy or damage, generally).

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, I've not looked at any of the Essentials lines. I took a break from D&D. I see the Heroes of Shadow in a bookstore, I pick it up, and I'm... completely at a loss.

HoS is not technically an Essentials book, but, it builds exclusively upon classes from Heroes of the Fallen Land and Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdom (both Essentials books). If you don't have both of these, most of the stuff in it won't make much sense.

Where are the encounter powers? Do you net get one at 1st, 3rd, 7th, etc?

What the heck is going on here.

Starting with PH3, the designers began deviating from the basic structure of 4e classes. Before, a class would always have features and at-will powers up-front, then gain utilities and addtional encounters and dailies at specific levels. PH3 psionics tweaked that just a bit with PPs instead of encounter attack powers. Essentials goes much further. Some classes lack dailies, some get powers at different levels, some have no choice of what powers they get at certain levels, and all get class features spread out over their level progression.

Also, the Character Builder has gone from an off-line client implementation to an on-line-only one.

If you liked the consistency and class balance of 4e, I'd reccomend cutting off things at the PH3 (that is, not using psionics classes, at all). Simply standardizing on the last release of the off-line CB you have (assuming you didn't make the mistake of 'upgrading') is also a workable cut-off.

 

[SteveC]

The important point is that, starting with Essentials, and going forward, the rules for classes in the PHB no longer apply. I suppose you might even go so far back as to the PHB III with the psionic classes, but they were at least described in the context of using the PHB class rules as the basis.

For the classes in Heroes of Shadow (and going forward, one presumes) the assumption is that the point of entry is the "Heroes of the..." books and not the PHB. As a result, new rules apply. For now, each class is an island unto itself: complete rules for it's development can be found in the class itself.

The classes from the previous books are at the same approximate power level to classic PHB design, they're just created with different assumptions in mind.

As I haven't read Heroes of Shadow yet, I wonder if it has any explanation as to how the classes work differently than what you would expect if you are coming from the original core books. Can anyone comment about that?

 

[Rechan]

Thanks folks for explaining.

I knew the E-classes were less complex, (the 3e Wizard to the 3e Fighter), but I was reading it as the 3e Fighter vs. a 3e Warrior (the fighter without bonus feats).

It's nice to see that the E-classes are consistent numbers. I was suspicious. For instance the Warlock's boon only working on targets adjacent that die/or that the warlock kills. So it's not going to trigger as often as a cursed target dieing regardless of who slays it. The Warlock only doing 2+ damage - that's on the low end vs. 1d6.

I considered the Divine Challenge vs. Aura to be a wash (both have their benefits), and I didn't notice that Smite gets better at level 7!

Having seen players new to 4e just goggle at all the choices, these are certainly perks. I know people who would have benefited from the e-classes, bucking at the whole "I want to just do variations of the same thing every round".

One thing that really warms the valves of my heart is that they've filled the various grids with these builds/subbuilds. Someone on the board here was complaining about a lack of a heavy-armored Striker, and now we have two. (Now if only there was a ranged Divine Striker or a ranged Defender* that I know of).

*Yes yes I know "That's a controller"; I still think it works.

 

[Rechan]

The important point is that, starting with Essentials, and going forward, the rules for classes in the PHB no longer apply. I suppose you might even go so far back as to the PHB III with the psionic classes, but they were at least described in the context of using the PHB class rules as the basis.

Wait. Do you mean the PHB class rules are null and void? THey're no longer valid?

What do you mean rules don't apply to PHB classes?