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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
What was the big difference between 4e and "essentials"?
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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7450737" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>AEDU stands for At-Will, Encounter, Daily, Utility. There's nothing about the AEDU system that necessitates each character to have the same number of each type of power at the same levels, that's just how 4e classes happened to be designed up until the PHB 3. So, while Essentials variants of previously existing classes <em>were</em> structured entirely differently than their pre-essentials counterparts, AEDU was not the thing that changed. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Essentials may have been a mistake, but it definitely wasn't back peddling from the original design goals of 4e. As [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] pointed out, it was actually closer to the original design goals of 4e. It's just that by the time it came out, most of the 4e fandom was already invested in the pre-Essentials design.</p><p></p><p></p><p>While I agree that pre-essentials 4e and post-essentials 4e are both great and best kept separate, I wouldn't necessarily label Essentials as the "basic" version of the more "hardcore" 4e. It was marketed that way, but that was one of the many mistakes that were made with Essentials.</p><p></p><p>To answer your question, [MENTION=23]Ancalagon[/MENTION], Essentials was basically 4.5e, branded as 4e lite, and touted as back-compatible with 4.0e. As much as I love it, it was a complete and utter marketing debacle.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7450737, member: 6779196"] AEDU stands for At-Will, Encounter, Daily, Utility. There's nothing about the AEDU system that necessitates each character to have the same number of each type of power at the same levels, that's just how 4e classes happened to be designed up until the PHB 3. So, while Essentials variants of previously existing classes [I]were[/I] structured entirely differently than their pre-essentials counterparts, AEDU was not the thing that changed. Essentials may have been a mistake, but it definitely wasn't back peddling from the original design goals of 4e. As [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] pointed out, it was actually closer to the original design goals of 4e. It's just that by the time it came out, most of the 4e fandom was already invested in the pre-Essentials design. While I agree that pre-essentials 4e and post-essentials 4e are both great and best kept separate, I wouldn't necessarily label Essentials as the "basic" version of the more "hardcore" 4e. It was marketed that way, but that was one of the many mistakes that were made with Essentials. To answer your question, [MENTION=23]Ancalagon[/MENTION], Essentials was basically 4.5e, branded as 4e lite, and touted as back-compatible with 4.0e. As much as I love it, it was a complete and utter marketing debacle. [/QUOTE]
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What was the big difference between 4e and "essentials"?
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