Question about Essentials

[Cunning Witch Angus]

I've been looking into the essentials stuff lately and I have to say I find it a lot more interesting. There is more lore and the melee classes have more utility I think. That and Necromancy school for wizards....that's all I'm going to say.

Anyway: The rogue I was just looking at. Now I know that this book shows just one path of the rogue (much like the PH1 showed that you could be a Trickster Rogue or a Brawling Rogue, EDnD shows that you can be a Thieving Rogue). However, the paragon path's prerequisite is that you have to be the Thief to get it. Personally I think that is a bit silly, what if I want to paragon into a Master Thief and not pick up the other Thief features? The way I see it is that a Rogue IS a Thief.

On the nature of powers in Essentials. I was talking to someone that uses essentials all the time and he told me that you can still use all the other powers that are given in the other books. Does that mean that as you level you can choose to pick up a daily power or not as a Fighter? Because frankly the Daily Powers for a Fighter are really unrealistic. Oh, you missed a huge swing attack and now you are useless! USELESS! Until you rest for 6 hours.

Comments?  

[Arc Vembris]

Wizards just released a number of feats originally intended for Class Compendium that allow for multiclassing from Essentials classes to standard builds and back.

There are a number of Paragon Paths that require a specific build option to qualify for If it says you need to be a Thief then yeah, you have to be a Thief. It doesn't describe what you may or may not do with your day, it's the title of the class.  

[joe-dude667]

I dislike essentials. I think it's because I've been playing 4E since literally the day it came out though. I mean since it first came out, they've kept bringing out new feats, powers races, classes. So you can tweak your character so much, to make it perfect for what you want them to be. Essentials you pick this class, you are now that class. It feels so limiting. Like I recently had a look through the latest Shadowfell book (forget the name), and I really like how they've done the Vampire, though I'll never play it because 1: The reason I said before with the linear levelling and; 2: because they've done it in such an abstract way it barely feels like a 4E character. Essentials are the 4.5 in my eyes.  

[Virulent Lover]

Essentials is 4.5e in feel, I agree but for the casual player the essential classes are extremely nice and only a few are at all lacking, specifically the Vampire and the Binder, off the top of my head.

Mage's are quite nice, Warpriests are spot on for melee clerics and as far as powers you can alternate between essentials/non essentials to some extent.

If WotC decides to disgard the non-essentials classes completely it will be a darn shame.

The Shadowfell book was rather nice, outside of the Shade/Vamp... >_>

My one big issue is a lot of the PHB3 non psionic classes got the short end of the stick, as far as material for them. Runepriest has the smallest encounter power selection in the game, iirc and Seeker has the worst encounter power selection in the game. emo  

[SporkMaster5000]

Virulent Lover

Essentials is 4.5e in feel, I agree but for the casual player the essential classes are extremely nice and only a few are at all lacking, specifically the Vampire and the Binder, off the top of my head.

I actually like the binder because a few minor tweaks and it can be made to fit the mold of the original pact warlock. If i wanted to play one or had a player run one in my game i'd really rather it follow that mold than the essentials style path.

Speaking of, I think that's my biggest issue with essentials, is that they need multiclass-style feats to change between the original builds and the essential builds for the same class. The 4e phb had a nice big table of how to level a character with everything the same regardless of class or race or anything. then psionics came along and proved they could tweak that and still have it work. then for essentials they just decided no, we're going to make every class its own thing so it's really hard to use this fighter's features with the original fighter, and that's okay. The people at wizards keep talking about how modular the essentials stuff is, but it basically boils down to the fact that you can pick powers from wherever. That's a really finite view of modularity, and its not even accurate since they make half the class features into powers that don't synch up in any reasonable way with the original class's features.  

[Virulent Lover]

SporkMaster5000

I actually like the binder because a few minor tweaks and it can be made to fit the mold of the original pact warlock. If i wanted to play one or had a player run one in my game i'd really rather it follow that mold than the essentials style path.

Speaking of, I think that's my biggest issue with essentials, is that they need multiclass-style feats to change between the original builds and the essential builds for the same class. The 4e phb had a nice big table of how to level a character with everything the same regardless of class or race or anything. then psionics came along and proved they could tweak that and still have it work. then for essentials they just decided no, we're going to make every class its own thing so it's really hard to use this fighter's features with the original fighter, and that's okay. The people at wizards keep talking about how modular the essentials stuff is, but it basically boils down to the fact that you can pick powers from wherever. That's a really finite view of modularity, and its not even accurate since they make half the class features into powers that don't synch up in any reasonable way with the original class's features.

As far as how the Binder is made, it's decent, but it's powers are rather horrid, and you can make a better controller from the Warlock class than a fully optimized binder could ever be.

I'd say about half of the class features of each essentials class are unavailable to original classes, while everything with a level be it a level 4 utility, for instance, can be poached by the original classes by using their level 6 utility slot.  

[Mackie the Knife]

My one complaint about the Mage is that you are forced to choose a second school. I would prefer to have the option of gaining additional specialization bonuses instead.  

[Rain Yupa]

I've glanced at Essentials stuff. I know how people say they should be cross-compatible with regular 4th ed. But they just don't... well, they don't FEEL like it. I'd be fine playing either Essentials or 4e, but not any combinations of the two.

I picked up Heroes of Shadow, hoping that there would be something that resembled more of the original 4e aspect of the game; I was disappointed that it did not.

But hey, I grabbed the FR razz G while I was at it today. stare  

[Arc Vembris]

Wizards has gone on the record stating that they have not abandoned the original style of classes and they will have further support for them in the future, including expanding on the Runepriest and Seeker. From my very limited experience, and from reports I've heard form other DMs, mixing Essentials and standard classes within a game is mechanically kosher. Mixing an Essential/standard class within a character is a bit trickier.

Hey what? Rain might finally allow swordmages in his games! 2008-me jumps for joy!  

[Virulent Lover]

If it's a pure essentials game, I can see not allowing past things, but if you're going to mix the two, essentials needs the extra support that the past classes provide, at least in my opinion.  

[joe-dude667]

Arc Vembris

Hey what? Rain might finally allow swordmages in his games! 2008-me jumps for joy!

I lol'd.  

[Keith Valken Lionheart]

Arc Vembris

Wizards has gone on the record stating that they have not abandoned the original style of classes and they will have further support for them in the future, including expanding on the Runepriest and Seeker. From my very limited experience, and from reports I've heard form other DMs, mixing Essentials and standard classes within a game is mechanically kosher. Mixing an Essential/standard class within a character is a bit trickier.

Hey what? Rain might finally allow swordmages in his games! 2008-me jumps for joy!

I HOPE that happens soon. Seeker is one of my favorite classes, and it's sorely lacking in options.