What is this I don't even

[SparqMan]

I just took a spin through my first Essentials character in the CB.

I appreciate the attempt to streamline, but for a group of new players I suspect it would be more confusing to have each player advancing in different ways, compared to knowing that at X level everyone picks a new feat.

 

[WalterKovacs]

I just took a spin through my first Essentials character in the CB.

I appreciate the attempt to streamline, but for a group of new players I suspect it would be more confusing to have each player advancing in different ways, compared to knowing that at X level everyone picks a new feat.

The feats and stat bumps still come at the same places. There are other exceptions (like powers at different levels, or 'encounter power' levels either giving extra uses or boosting the effectiveness of the 'repeated' encounter power, etc.), but most are at least pretty similar.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I just took a spin through my first Essentials character in the CB.

I appreciate the attempt to streamline, but for a group of new players I suspect it would be more confusing to have each player advancing in different ways, compared to knowing that at X level everyone picks a new feat.

Feats and stat bumps - and, I think, utilities - still come at the same levels. It's attack powers and features that are mixed up.

But, yes, it is a /lot/ easier, as a DM, to explain what 'everyone' gets at level-up under 4e than under Essentials. It's also easier to jump from one class to another in 4e than in Essentials, where the classes are more starkly different, mechanically. Two ways in which Essentials fails as a teaching version of or 'on ramp' for 4e. Essentials aparently needed to be a lot of things, as well, like an apeal to nostalgia for lapsed players who pine for the more complicated/less-balanced prior eds. A very tough balancing act, it's remarkable the design team came as close to meeting all the demands on Essentials as they did.