Why all the brouhaha about the Essentials?

[Tony Vargas]

I haven't gone too deeply into Essentials, but I'm wondering if an Essentials fighter, for example, is mainly just a pre-built 4E fighter. They both basically do the same thing, but the standard 4E fighter has more options, more maneuvers (powers) to choose from. An interesting question would be: Could we build or "mimic" an Essentials character with Character Builder and the existing 4E rules?

The Essentials Warpriest is closest to being a 'pre-built' 4e class (WIS Cleric), though it has plenty of it's own powers, so you could't just mimic it with a pre-Essentials Cleric. You could, however, take a Warpriest and trade out it's pre-chosen powers to get close to a pre-Essentials Cleric, and a WIS Cleric that took Warpriest powers could be very close ot a warpriest. Warpriest powers are pre-chosen based on a single player choice of 'Domain.' It's a good apraoch, it makes chargen and level up easier, without flatly taking away options as was done with the fighter. If there were a similar STR build in Essentials, the Cleric would even be 'fully supported' by Essentials.

The Mage is also pretty miscible with the 4e Wizard, they can swap out powers and such. But there are some differences that seem to amount to the Mage just plain being a bit better.

The Knight could be closely mimicked with a Fighter. For instance, a Knight might have one stance that pushes the target and lets him move into the target's square (Hammer Hands) and another that lets him do damage to a second target when hitting a primary (Cleaving). A PH1 Fighter could do the same things with Tide of Iron and Cleave at-will attack powers. Similarly, the Knight punishes adjacent enemies for attacking his friends, and the Fighter does something similar by 'marking' enemies he attacks. So, functionally, they're quite similar. An Orc hit by Hammer Hands on one round and Tide of Iron the next wouldn't be able to tell you which was the Knight and which was the Fighter from that, alone. But, they deliver similar functionality with starkly different mechanics that can't be 'swapped' the way Cleric & Warpriest prayers or Mage & Wizard spells can be.

The Knight and Slayer certainly /could/ have been done like Warpriest, with exploits pre-selected based on weapon choice, for instance.

 

[WalterKovacs]

I'm not entirely sure, but when I hear about Essentials being a new philosophy for character building I don't see it so much as "all classes will now be built this way" but instead that "we don't have to make all classes in the mold of: at-will at 1, encounter at 1/3/7 ..., daily at 1/5/9, utility at 2/6/10, etc, etc, etc ..."

Even the psionics were basically the same with at-wills with enhancements in the same places as encounter powers.

If all classes were built exactly like they were in Essentials, it would be limiting and boring, etc... of course the same can be said if they kept being built like they wer in PHB I. So, while I'm not sure, I hope the philosophical shift means they are just more willing to try new ways to build classes.

The essential assassin, for example, has both the martial MBA "thing" going for it, and the single encounter power that replaces your choice of encounter powers (although, in this case, it is always a single power instead of a repeated power like the rogue/fighter get). It has the at-will extras that rogues and fighters got, although these ones are actual attacks instead of stances/moves. The most interesting part for me though was the daily powers that were made "logical" with the whole poison thing. It justified the concept of the 'martial daily power' by tying it into a pseudo alchemy recipe design.

And, in the big picture, the wizard and cleric are just trading some class features for others, but they still have at-will/encounter/daily/utility power structures, and since they have associated level numbers they can use all the existing content. So, even in an "essentials only" type of universe, they are still using the original class structure, they just have other ways to build characters as well, instead of "one size fits all" approach.

EDIT:

As far as the martial classes and compatibility goes:

(a) An essential fighter (rogue, assassin) can make use of older utility powers, feats, paragon paths and epic destinies that reference fighters.
(b) A non-essential fighter (rogue, assassin) can make use of the new utility powers (there are no feats in the essential book that specifically reference a class, however some of the dragon stuff from the staff fighter article, for example, coulde be used, such as the feats.)
(c) This isn't the first time there have been limiting class builds, although these are more limiting than before. Any ranger power that uses a beast companion is useless for any other build of ranger, for example. Two-weapon fighting powers for barbarians and fighters generally only work for one build (they can be used for others, but those classes are generally built around two-handed weapons or shields).

If anything, especially in terms of the rogue and the fighter, the new builds are a way of providing, on the one hand, new options for those classes, but on the other hand, not adding to the massive bloat of options that already exist for those classes. There has already been 2 martial powers, the fighter got yet another build in the Dark Sun book, not to mention they've been receiving Dragon support from day 1 as well. As two of the most supported classes in 4e, having builds that don't have access to the massive amounts of encounters and dailies available means they may be different while most builds of rogues, for example, will have a lot of the same power options. Knockout, for example, is pretty much useful for every build of rogue.

 

[Zaran]

The way I see it, WotC put out Essentials not only to get new and retired players but also to show us that listened to our criticism of the game and put out new versions of the "classic" characters to try to appease that criticism.

The problem I have is this doesn't help my current characters and I have no wish to change them to eCharacters. For example, when 4e came out I remember saying " I can't make a Dex fighter!" but when Martial Power came out I made a tempest and was happy. Yeah, his Strength is his main stat but I don't think of him as a he-man type character. But now with Essentials we can make a fighter that has Dex for his main stat. Only problem is I want to be able to do more than just basic attacks. I fell in love with all the stances fighters get and it fits my characters concept of constantly learning new styles. The eFighter is just too simple for me.

Now, you may ask, does Essentials bother me? No. As long as we still get more support for stuff that has come out before Essentials. It's when I read stuff like the eAssassin article and the Pyromancer article when I start to worry that we will see the support split between the two or, even worse, focused on eVersions of the classes. Everything I see about WotC is that they lack the manpower to do what it takes to support both systems. And I do think there are two systems. As long as they keep putting the word Essentials in front of everything there are two. Half the Staff Fighter article is useless to non-eClasses.

If they would also revise the issues the non-eClasses had as they are hyping the Essentials versions I think they would not get as much criticism. And again, I think this is because they have no manpower. Because of that issue, they fear telling us too much of the future in case they miss a deadline, and they can't work on more than one project.

I do think that all the rage over Essentials will eventually get us a better game because I do not think they will abandon the pre-eClasses. They will eventually put the 4 guys they have working on Essentials on other projects and we'll finally get support back to the full game.

 

[erleni]

But now with Essentials we can make a fighter that has Dex for his main stat. Only problem is I want to be able to do more than just basic attacks. I fell in love with all the stances fighters get and it fits my characters concept of constantly learning new styles. The eFighter is just too simple for me.

I'm on the same line. My fav class is the Assassin (the "core" one) and I was expecting from the Essential Assassin article some stuff that I could use too, but basically nothing is interesting there for a non-essential character. By the way the Assassin is completely lacking support (and it needs it) as the class is expanded only via very short articles (and mainly submitted by fans). WotC promised support for the class and I still hope Heroes of Shadow will help, but I'm losing faith that this will happen.

 

[MrGrenadine]

You don't seem to understand, it's not that WotC is sitting on a bunch of core rulebook inventory that isn't moving. It's moving but at a rate that the current inventory will cover for some period of time. Even if the Essentials books had advertisements and references all over for the core books they wouldn't stimulate demand such that current inventory would run dry any time soon. WotC is comfortable with the sales rate of the core books and their inventory.

This is interesting--you seem to know a lot about the business situation over at WotC, their strategies and, perhaps more importantly, their feelings about their strategies. Where do you come by your information? Sorry if I should know this already, but are you a WotC employee?

 

[giant.robot]

This is interesting--you seem to know a lot about the business situation over at WotC, their strategies and, perhaps more importantly, their feelings about their strategies. Where do you come by your information? Sorry if I should know this already, but are you a WotC employee?

No I'm not a WotC employee but I do know a little bit about the publishing industry. In publishing there's some basic truths regarding production limitations, inventory, and cost structures; being aware of those can inform you about the actions of publishers. When WotC then makes comments and takes a particular action I feel comfortable saying "it looks like they're doing X and Y". I'm not going to claim I know for sure they're doing X and Y but my experience tells me they are. It's for similar reasons that I'll go ahead and suggest that WotC feels a particular way about things. They talked a lot at GenCon about their Essentials strategy and inventory of core rulebooks and the like. I have some amount of confidence saying that WotC feels comfortable with their inventory and sell through rates based on these comments.

I seems to me you were trying to be snarky and likely hoped to out a secret WotC employee. Unfortunately for you I'm no secret WotC employee spreading (mis?)information on the internet. You can take everything I've said with a grain of salt just like you would any other rube on the internet.

 

[Quickleaf]

The Mage is also pretty miscible with the 4e Wizard, they can swap out powers and such. But there are some differences that seem to amount to the Mage just plain being a bit better.

I actually wish the spellcasters had been more simplified! You don't hear that on these boards everyday The Essentials seem a great way to introduce kids, significant others, ESL students, casual gamers, players with learning disabilities, and even hardend gamers dropping into a high-level campaign. Requiring greater rules mastery for new players who want to throw fireballs seems goofy if you're trying to widen the net of D&D players. Maybe the warlock will be the Essentials "easy mode" caster? As a tangent some sort of Essentials - 4e Core bridging product makes a lot of sense, at least with advice along the lines of "Like your slayer fighter? Ready for more options? Try the barbarian! The same two handed blood and grit you love, this time with deep-seated anger issues and psychadelic spirit buddies!"