Dnd Essentials

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Has anyone played with this yet? Just saw Spoony's vlog where he runs some of the changes adn likes a lot of them.
Where I'm coming from is that I basically really don't like 4th edition and its focus on combat, all the classes basically playing the same, and streamlining- over focus on balance. However the people I'm about to start an online game with are non-Dnd playersand would be better with the more streamlined 4th ed than all the crazy shit I'd throw at them in 3.5.
So I was thinkihng about checking this out as a potential system for us. Any thoughts?

[Jagos]

I'm starting to like 4th edition after reading a lot on it.

I'm more a casual person and when we have a monster fight, I get relegated to the background if someone is more powerful than I am. I kind of notice that 3.5 is all about min-maxing. A lot more than 4th edition.

I can be a rogue-type ranger that's specialized at long range or I can be a buffing cleric who is really weak but makes it extremely difficult for enemies to get to me, by pissing in their cheerios. Add to the fact that this new cleric can seriously just make all of his party x2 stronger and you have a lot more choice in what you want to be.

There's a lot more team building with the streamlining than one person solving the problem of killing everything with fire (and let's face it, my group had a LOT of fire stuff to kill people with in 3.5...)

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Eh 3.5 is more about free form that minmaxing. It really dependson your DM. In 3.5 you can make a lot wider range of classes- like my last character was min-maxed but his maxing was in diplomacy and business because he was a ruthless profiteer who could barely fight and was mostly a pacifist.
In 4th you can't make super game-breakers but you can't make different characters- like everything is combat orientated and all the classes approach things basically the same way- the fighter and the wizard are basically the same with only cosmetic differences.
Apparentely essentials fixes a lot of this whichis what I want I'm asking.

[Meister]

You mainly get combat rules in 4E books because combat needs firmly set rules about what abilities do and don't do. Everything that isn't combat is usually handled in free-form roleplay. Bob the bard doesn't need a perform skill because you can say "oh and Bob also plays the violin really well" and pretty much any effect Bob can have on the environment with his violin-playing can be resolved using other skills and mechanics.

You're describing a diplomat and businessman who can barely fight; in 4E you could play a bard with a Diplomacy focus who charms people into doing business on his terms, and who pleads with attackers not to hurt him, making them stop in their tracks for long enough so his friends can engage them and remove the threat. A popular build is the pacifist warlord, a character who never even makes any attack rolls at all, but instead inspires his teammates only by his presence on the battlefield.

Since you're mentioning fighters and wizards it's a common complaint among 4E players about Essentials that it's a step back from a very good thing 4E did, which is make the Fighter a class that has more options than round after round of "I hit it with my sword" while the wizard kills half an army in six seconds and then drops the undead lich general in one hit. From what I've seen Essentials wizards stay more or less on the same power level as in regular 4E while fighters become a class with few special attacks, i.e. losing Encounter and Daily powers, but gaining the ability to modify their basic attacks - if that's what you're after Essentials is going to set you up.

I wonder where you're getting the idea that the only differences between fighter and wizard are cosmetic because I have a fighter and a wizard in my 4E group and after watching them for close to a year now their approaches in combat could honestly not be anymore different. The fighter will close in on an enemy and keep him from attacking his teammates, while the wizard will stay in the back and change the battlefield to put the enemy at a disadvantage. If the wizard tried to charge forward and engage an enemy directly she'd die. The fighter would be completely ineffectual if he'd try to hang back and change the battle conditions.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

You mainly get combat rules in 4E books because combat needs firmly set rules about what abilities do and don't do. Everything that isn't combat is usually handled in free-form roleplay. Bob the bard doesn't need a perform skill because you can say "oh and Bob also plays the violin really well" and pretty much any effect Bob can have on the environment with his violin-playing can be resolved using other skills and mechanics.

The problem with this is that the Dnd world doesnt'work like that. Like half of being a shady businessman was using crazy magics to help out (whereas non-combat magics is pretty much non-existant) and extraordinary abilities (which agian are all combat focused). I want to play supernatural businessman who can do things that I can't, youreally can't do that in 4th ed. Their is more to non-combat than just talking.
Another character I played was a non-combat wizard who had a vast array of spells based on information gathering and charming and conjuration. Again things likethat are lost. Even non-magical characters could had super-human abilities.
In addition the challenge of such a character is that my combat is crippled because I have to use what I could use for combat abilities instead goes into non-combat. Whereas in 4th ed my super diplomat is going to be good at combat. Like in 4th ed games I've tried to build more pacifisitc characters but you can't because the abilities are 95% combat and it strains my belief and my abiliity to make a character if I have to take super fighting skills that he shouldn't know. Andthis ways just an example, the variance is completely gone and if you want to make a character who is not at all a combatant you are buggered.
Also this doesn't affect me as much but non-combat rules are useful for people are less-experienced/good at roleplaying. Like somebody who is really charismatic by nature but wants to play a non-charismatic character or vice versa can be aided by non-combat rules. I just find a combat focus very very limiting when that's not how all Dnd games are played. We play quite combat-lite so we don't need that many ombat rules.

You're describing a diplomat and businessman who can barely fight; in 4E you could play a bard with a Diplomacy focus who charms people into doing business on his terms, and who pleads with attackers not to hurt him, making them stop in their tracks for long enough so his friends can engage them and remove the threat. A popular build is the pacifist warlord, a character who never even makes any attack rolls at all, but instead inspires his teammates only by his presence on the battlefield.

Again I've tried such charactes, they are loaded with combat skills- even if not directly they are still encouraging people to kill.

Since you're mentioning fighters and wizards it's a common complaint among 4E players about Essentials that it's a step back from a very good thing 4E did, which is make the Fighter a class that has more options than round after round of "I hit it with my sword" while the wizard kills half an army in six seconds and then drops the undead lich general in one hit. From what I've seen Essentials wizards stay more or less on the same power level as in regular 4E while fighters become a class with few special attacks, i.e. losing Encounter and Daily powers, but gaining the ability to modify their basic attacks - if that's what you're after Essentials is going to set you up.

I wonder where you're getting the idea that the only differences between fighter and wizard are cosmetic because I have a fighter and a wizard in my 4E group and after watching them for close to a year now their approaches in combat could honestly not be anymore different. The fighter will close in on an enemy and keep him from attacking his teammates, while the wizard will stay in the back and change the battlefield to put the enemy at a disadvantage. If the wizard tried to charge forward and engage an enemy directly she'd die. The fighter would be completely ineffectual if he'd try to hang back and change the battle conditions.

Firstly there are only about 4 different roles in combat, about4different outlays and you pick one of them and live with it.
And my point about wizard/fighter is that they feel the same- eachturn the wizard uses a power, each turn the fighter uses a power- they have the same mechanics, they have the same build, the only difference is what dice you roll in the end and how many people you affect. That is to me cosmetic.
Fighting at range/fighting in close combat is not really a difference in class.

This is not really the intention this thread was supposed togothough, I'm more looking for reviews/opinion on essentials mainly cause we can have the 3 vs 4 argument all day.
As clarify more, I'm planning to run a combat-lite game becase that's how we like to play, I've heard that Essentials is somewhat less combat focused and more variance in characters- which is what I'm really looking for or should I just abandon this effort?
What I'm really looking for is more variety with powers basically- like more powers that are non-combat and more ways to use powers instead of hitting people effectively.

[Jagos]

Since you're mentioning fighters and wizards it's a common complaint among 4E players about Essentials that it's a step back from a very good thing 4E did, which is make the Fighter a class that has more options than round after round of "I hit it with my sword" while the wizard kills half an army in six seconds and then drops the undead lich general in one hit. From what I've seen Essentials wizards stay more or less on the same power level as in regular 4E while fighters become a class with few special attacks, i.e. losing Encounter and Daily powers, but gaining the ability to modify their basic attacks - if that's what you're after Essentials is going to set you up.


Kinda want to add to this:

I play a Ranger in 3.5 right now. The problem was that the wizard took the Vaarsuvius (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0657.html) approach to things. He always won also, rendering my long range effectiveness basically moot. In the end, while I'm wise cracking and making jokes, I am a back up back up medic because the Fighter hits and hurts everything, the wizard hits it before I get in range and if my turn does come I'm barely doing damage if the DC of the creature is DC 10 or above.

It took a while to get things in order, but it's a lot better when even a ranger is on par with a wizard with spells and gets a chance.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Well that is one of the major advantages of 4th ed, it's a lot more balanced- 3.5 was broken as shit. Especially rangers- they were weakas crap.

For those avoiding reading my rant:
Basically I'm looking for opinions/reviews of Essentials- my main focus is on low-combat gameplay and I wouldliek 4th ed but wit hmore out-of-combat powers forthe classes- if essentials better able to provide?

[Meister]

You are looking for non-combat options in the powers when you should be looking in the rituals. Rituals will set you up with all the charming magic and divination you're going to get out of the system, and that's quite a bit.

I don't know what to tell you about the classes because saying 4E classes are all the same because they all use powers is exactly like saying 3.5 classes are all the same because they all have a base attack bonus and roll d20s.

Anyway, actual advice - Essentials is basically supposed to be 4E for beginners and while it may be closer to 3.5 in some aspects but it still has the four roles, the power using every turn and everything you don't like about the combat system, so if you're absolutely sure that's not for you, you might be better off playing 3.5. If you're completely new you're going to learn either system quickly enough.

e: also I think I remember reading ritual support is actually very toned down in Essentials, and if that's true you'd be better off with regular 4E because I can't stress enough how rituals are the way to go for non-combat options in 4E.

e: editing this post again just to stress rituals once more

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Thanks, that what I was lookign for.
I did look into rituals in 4th ed but they just feel very tacked on and not intergrated well eough- pretty much a seperate system like tacked on. Not for me.

I guess I'll have to stick with 3.5 then, it's just much harder to learn than 4th- particular ly if you using any expansions. Like that is the best thing abotu 4th, it's very user friendly and focused.

[Meister]

In addition the challenge of such a character is that my combat is crippled because I have to use what I could use for combat abilities instead goes into non-combat. Whereas in 4th ed my super diplomat is going to be good at combat. Like in 4th ed games I've tried to build more pacifisitc characters but you can't because the abilities are 95% combat and it strains my belief and my abiliity to make a character if I have to take super fighting skills that he shouldn't know. Andthis ways just an example, the variance is completely gone and if you want to make a character who is not at all a combatant you are buggered.
4E does assume that everyone will get into a fight sooner or later and will be able to handle themselves. If you make a character who is literally not at all a combatant, the orc is going to smash their head in and move on to the next adventurer. If you're more interested in using the game rules to simulate a certain environment, yeah, 4E isn't going to be the system for you.

That said: your character knows exactly as much about combat and fighting tactics as you describe, no matter how many combat powers are written down on your sheet. Mechanics and flavour are strongly divorced from each other in 4E. One character might swiftly sidestep to avoid an enemy's attack and mock his inability to hit him, sending him into a brief rage that influences his accuracy, while another might, like I said, cower and retreat and plead with the enemy not to hurt him, and do it so effectively that the enemy is briefly confused and won't be able to attack as well as usual for a moment, and both characters would do this using the exact same power (Vicious Mockery, Bard). Your super diplomat doesn't have to be good at combat, he can just as well be good at talking and influencing people with subtle magic - but conveying that is your job, the mechanics can be the same.

Again I've tried such charactes, they are loaded with combat skills- even if not directly they are still encouraging people to kill.
See above, and also note that it's been a hard rule from the start that if you reduce an enemy to 0 HP, you decide what happens to him and whether you kill him or just knock him unconscious. By the rules you have full control over this. If you never want to kill anything, you won't. If you want you can describe other outcomes, like "the enemy drops his weapon and submits" or "the dire bear has had enough and retreats." 4E gives players a certain amount of narrative control.

Hit points are also not necessarily representative of your injury status, but simply of your ability to remain in the fight. If you do 16 damage with a sword, you might just go straight past the enemy's armor and open a nasty wound, or you might give him just a small cut, but move so efficiently past his defenses that he realizes "oh shit, this guy could do some nasty stuff to me if he really wanted to put his mind to it" and gets cold feet. Either way, you're moving him towards the status of "unable to fight any more." Again, it's all in the description.

Firstly there are only about 4 different roles in combat, about4different outlays and you pick one of them and live with it.
And my point about wizard/fighter is that they feel the same- eachturn the wizard uses a power, each turn the fighter uses a power- they have the same mechanics, they have the same build, the only difference is what dice you roll in the end and how many people you affect.
There is so much more to class differences than this that I don't know where to begin. I guess if you look purely at the mechanical side of things you're not going to have much fun in 3.5 either - you could in fact say much the same about it. Each turn the wizard uses a spell, each turn the fighter makes an attack. There's no point in having separate wizard and cleric classes because they both use spells and many of them are available to both classes anyway. And for both of them spells have the same mechanics, too.

Don't take me the wrong way here, I'm not telling you to play 4E goddamn it it's the way to go now, and there are things that other systems do better - non-combat conflict resolution, probably - , I really just like 4E for what it is and want to clear up what I see as misconceptions.