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I'm curious- what do you all think of the new book?
It's an interesting mix of support for Essentials classes and older classes, with the new classes being written up more in Essentials style, in my mind. As far as a product, I like it- even the Vampire class, which I hadn't expected to. So far, Dark Sun has been my favorite supplement, but this book is up there, for me.
I'm curious- what do you all think of the new book?
It's an interesting mix of support for Essentials classes and older classes, with the new classes being written up more in Essentials style, in my mind. As far as a product, I like it- even the Vampire class, which I hadn't expected to. So far, Dark Sun has been my favorite supplement, but this book is up there, for me.
Necro- and nethermancy mage schools look great, but I don't like the races at all. I'll still buy it, though.
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"... Emirikol sought Zahrimahn, his former mentor, and killed the man spectacularly in a public duel, declaring , "So it goes with any who dare mark Emirikol with their paltry shadow powers!" Then, Emirikol summoned a steed of shadow and began his legendary flight from the city, during which he killed all who opposed him with shadowy rays and fire."
They had me at Emirikol! Wow, if that didn't bring back memories of my favorite 1st ed DMG artwork (And the great and much-missed D.A. Trampier.)
I liked the fluff. I'm iffy about the class options (glanced, not read) and I am highly disappointed that the Vampire is a class, instead of a theme. I was also disappointed that they didn't go so far as to add the hybrid options and feats for it and the other classes.
The Shade in particular - one of my favorite races - comes out extremely subpar with poorly chosen racial features, a difficult to use racial power, and an unnecessary -1 surge.
The M:tG player in me says this is a dead give away that the race is broken. Time will tell, I suppose, but I'd keep an eye out for the Shade on char-op boards.
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Yeah, I was also surprised by the balance rationale for the Shade's loss of a healing surge, especially since that seemed to be a new direction for racial design in 4E. The racial ability seems useful in some specific niche situations- maybe in a round where you spend an AP, for example, and you just really had to have concealment for some reason- but it's not nearly as universally useful as many racial abilities. It really seems like the Shadar-Kai makes a better Shade than a Shade, IMHO.
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Everything I've seen of the fluff, flavor and background have impressed me.
I've been real happy with the fluff.
I have to admit that I am not as pleased with the classes.
Essentials has taken the wide-open of 4E and forced you down an optimization path. Here's what I mean:
The Blackguard:
- At level 1, you get one choice in your character, and that one choice is defined by your vice (fury or destruction). There's only one at-will available per vice, so you only get one choice.
- At level 5 you get a daily power. This is not limited to the Blackguard option and is, in my opinion, the first real choice you get that makes your blackguard different than mine.
- At level 6 you get a utility power. Again, wide open to all paladin utility powers, leve 6 and below.
- At level 9 you get another open daily power.
- At level 10 you get another open utility power.
Aside from the vice choice, you really don't get a difference to make your blackguard different from mine until level 5. While you do have the options of different abilities and feats, your blackguard and mine will be almost identical up to level 5. Then, you get some option, again at six, and then at 9 and 10. So basically, by the time you get to level 10, you've made 4 choice differences that could customize your blackguard. Compare that to a regular paladin, who gets options at almost every single level. At level 1, my paladin can be completely different from your paladin in abilities, feats and powers.
This is a trait of the Essentials line, where you are channeled down a very specific path. I don't hate it, but I will admit that I'm not happy with the direction. 4E opened up the horizons of gaming for me, and now it's busy trying to herd everything back up again.
Essentials has taken the wide-open of 4E and forced you down an optimization path.
...
This is a trait of the Essentials line, where you are channeled down a very specific path. I don't hate it, but I will admit that I'm not happy with the direction. 4E opened up the horizons of gaming for me, and now it's busy trying to herd everything back up again.
I'm happy to see WotC taking this route. As Mike Mearls points out in this article, characters used to be defined in play, not on their character sheets.
I like optimization and character building as much as the next guy, but when we sit down at the table I want to see characters - not stats and options.
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I'm happy to see WotC taking this route. As Mike Mearls points out in this article, characters used to be defined in play, not on their character sheets.
I like optimization and character building as much as the next guy, but when we sit down at the table I want to see characters - not stats and options.
Just in case you might be thinking this way (and nothing says you are, I just want to make sure there's no confusion on this) I am the very last person who is a min-maxer. My recent experience with the Virtual Table proved this when I'm running what I think are regular encounters (IAW the DMG encounter building) and the online players (who are all Pala-Locks, Slayers or Druid Sentinels with a passive perception of 24, and somehow manage to have almost five dump stats) just mow through them in seconds.
I fail to see why my PHB1 paladin, who has options and choices I make for him based on his background and story fluff, can't ALSO be defined by how I play him. Especially when my selections support the way I play him (IE my paladin might be a very pacificistic paladin, with more of the healy-protecty stuff, and your paladin might be very smitey, with more of the crunchy-stompy stuff.)
The key of course is that both of us can play an Essentials paladin two different ways, as you prefer. I just feel that PHB-style characters lend greater lattitude to do so by having more options. In the above example, I don't have the option to choose healy-stuff most of the time. Most of the time I have to choose the stompy-stuff, because I have no options. Again, I do have an option at level 1, between A and B, and then at 5,6,9 and 10 I have other options that are wide open. I just prefer the opportunity to have options at levels 1-10 (minus 4 and 8, the non-power levels).
The most important thing in the end however is that I don't find my preferences the "right" way to play, nor your preferences the "wrong" way to play. It's just, to me, 4E represented a lot of freedoms. It forced me to accept the "everything is core" aspect, and forced me as a DM to become more like Eberron ("If it's in D&D, it's in Eberron"). I've enjoyed that imancipation. Now, I see someone putting the shackles back on and it makes me nervous.
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I like having more focused and easier to use classes. I like having the original ones with plenty of options and ability to customize characters.
I would like to see them both supported going forward. Heroes of Shadow... somewhat does that. It provides new powers that PHB1 Paladins, Wizards and Clerics can certainly use.
However, as noted, the new content - all the new classes and builds - are very limited in design. I'm fine with that for now, and that isn't to say I don't like those classes - but I'd hate to see that format become the only design approach used by WotC.
And of course Matt says in five words what I needed a hundred to do. That's the point for me as well - I'd just hate to see that format become the only one.
Perfectly summed up, sir. See you tonight!
However, as noted, the new content - all the new classes and builds - are very limited in design. I'm fine with that for now, and that isn't to say I don't like those classes - but I'd hate to see that format become the only design approach used by WotC.
This is the crux of my issue.
Essentials style classes are fun as a psionics-esque style experiment. I do not want them to become the norm.
I haven't seen the book yet (it hasn't made it to my FLGS) but I like builds to be tight. Blackguard isn't a new class, it's a build for Paladin. Paladin already has a ton of powers to choose from at each level. I don't see the problem with a new build having a tight set of powers that match its theme to complement the pages of powers we already have for the class.
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Blackguard isn't a new class, it's a build for Paladin. Paladin already has a ton of powers to choose from at each level. I don't see the problem with a new build having a tight set of powers that match its theme to complement the pages of powers we already have for the class.
The Blackguard I quoted here is an example of the new character classes added, and is only intended to be representative of the new design direction. Regardless of "class" or "build" (a lesson in semantics), it follows the Essentials design philosophy. None of these builds really supplements a class as much as it rewrites the class to a new style. It's fine that you like that style. I however, have a preference for a more open design style, such as was presented in the Player Handbooks and Power books.
However, as noted, the new content - all the new classes and builds - are very limited in design.
Regardless of "class" or "build" (a lesson in semantics), it follows the Essentials design philosophy. None of these builds really supplements a class as much as it rewrites the class to a new style.
There is a difference between a class and a build. A build changes some of the initial class features, but still selects from the pool of powers available to the class.
Are you saying that the blackguard can't choose Martyr's Blessing or Sacred Circle for their level 2 Utility power? Or do they not even get a level 2 Utility power?
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There is a difference between a class and a build. A build changes some of the initial class features, but still selects from the pool of powers available to the class.
Are you saying that the blackguard can't choose Martyr's Blessing or Sacred Circle for their level 2 Utility power? Or do they not even get a level 2 Utility power?
Correct. At Level 2 you get, regardless of which Vice (re: build) you select, you get Vice's Reward.
Here's your level 1 powers/options:
Dark Menace (BG only)
Dread Smite (BG only)
Shroud of Shadow (BG only)
Spirit of Vice (BG only, determined by which vice you took)
Vengeance Strike
Vice at-will Power
You'll note that, out of all of that, nowhere do I have the option to select a level 1 Paladin at-will.
Here's another amusing aspect: Blackguards are alignment-restricted. I'm not saying that they SHOULDN'T BE, but after all the discussion that paladins should NOT be alignment-restricted and ... bang, right back where we started from, just on the other side.
Domination: Unaligned or Evil
Fury: Good, Unaligned, Evil, Chaotic Evil
This is the crux of my issue.Essentials style classes are fun as a psionics-esque style experiment. I do not want them to become the norm.
Here I agree with you, though my real problem with them is in terms of play balance. Especially in the fact that they are the most clear example of what appears to be the point where WotC no longer really attempts to keep their classes balanced against each other (could be wrong here but I don't recall seeing any update 'for balance reasons' since Essentials was released). If they have abandoned this, and one of Mike Mearls Legend Lore articles hints this way by stating more or less 'The DM is the best option for play balance at the table', then I'm very sad to see it go as I felt that WotC was doing good work in trying to keep the game balanced and it was in fact working at my home game where the resident munchkins where failing to ruin it for the rest of the party due to an inability to make totally overpowered characters.
What really frustrates me was I felt that they had gotten reasonably close to their initial design goal of making so that you could build a combat fighter or a 'diplomacy' fighter and the diplomacy fighter was not quite as good in combat as the 'combat' fighter but was close enough that they could both be on the same team and the diplomacy fighter would meaningfully contribute in combat. What I'm seeing at this point is essentially that this is just no longer so. I felt this was a stunningly good element of 4Es design because it allowed players to take 'flavour' options purely for role playing purposes and you might not be the best combatant at the table but so long as your contributions where meaningful its not that big a deal.
This slow shift away from play balance is not just Essentials fault but Essentials is the most egregious example of the issue and also the point where I loose all hope that WotC might fix the issue - Essentials martial characters can't (reasonably) be fixed - the very core of their design principles means that they can always be munchkinized.
Here's another amusing aspect: Blackguards are alignment-restricted. I'm not saying that they SHOULDN'T BE, but after all the discussion that paladins should NOT be alignment-restricted and ... bang, right back where we started from, just on the other side.
This is also following the bit from the Essentials Paladin. It offers two virtues which have their own alignment restrictions. (Virtue of Sacrifice: Lawful Good; Virtue of Valor: Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned)
I actually like the division of alignment here, although another of my friends thins that it was a mistake to bring it back into the class.
You could, ah.... just ignore the alignment restrictions and do whatever you want. I've never felt the great need to stick 100% with the rules and if something doesn't fit a specific flavor or the idea of your character then change it. Obviously the alignment requirement is there for fluff (how can a Domination Blackguard be good?) but fluff can be easily re-written.
About the issue of minimal choices, there's more to a character than just power selection that separates one from another. First, take in the account of Backrounds and those choices are numerous. Then play-style and "feel" as I'm sure two Blackguards aren't going to be Role-played exactly the same way. Then you add in weapons differences and trained skills, and maybe one picks up Rituals.... See, the differences are there you just have to flesh out the character more is all.
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You could, ah.... just ignore the alignment restrictions and do whatever you want. I've never felt the great need to stick 100% with the rules and if something doesn't fit a specific flavor or the idea of your character then change it. Obviously the alignment requirement is there for fluff (how can a Domination Blackguard be good?) but fluff can be easily re-written.
About the issue of minimal choices, there's more to a character than just power selection that separates one from another. First, take in the account of Backrounds and those choices are numerous. Then play-style and "feel" as I'm sure two Blackguards aren't going to be Role-played exactly the same way. Then you add in weapons differences and trained skills, and maybe one picks up Rituals.... See, the differences are there you just have to flesh out the character more is all.
You're pretty much preaching to the choir at this point - we all know this. This is more a design methodology discussion about the values and constraints between the two styles (PHB or Essentials) than it is a "WotC ruined my game" discussion.
As to the alignments on Paladins - basically for decades a good portion of the gaming population has been lambasting the failure of the lawful good paladin, and how horrid that concept is, etc etc etc. With 4E, the class finally went to wide open, and was generally heralded as a thing of magnificence, even if the grognards (self included) muttered in our corners that we were still gonna make ours LG. The fact that we're backpeddaling is curious.
In fact, the more I observe the Essentials line, the more it feels like an "Ooops. We're sorry. Here, let's reset everything back as close to the 3.5 design as we can. Ignore the 4.0 materials we've printed so far - in fact, once the books are sold you won't even see them any more."
"In fact, the more I observe the Essentials line, the more it feels like an "Ooops. We're sorry. Here, let's reset everything back as close to the 3.5 design as we can. Ignore the 4.0 materials we've printed so far - in fact, once the books are sold you won't even see them any more."
And if the above is true, that is where the mistake lies in my own opinion. 4E by nature, and to it's benefit, places limits on character advancement in regards to powers, feats, etc. But was open to allowing broader choices, like alignment, to fit your character concept.
So where essentials many not offer the debt of choices available in the PHB and supplements, it would be a mistake to pigeon hole a class; including alignment. Or in other words, they already worked out a framework that works, so all they had to do is fine tune essentials to make each class more distinct in references to older games, but at the same time not limiting choices available per previous books.
But that goes back to the core argument of does the player base really understand the direction WOTC is headed, or more importantly do they know?
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But that goes back to the core argument of does the player base really understand the direction WOTC is headed, or more importantly do they know?
Bingo.
I guess in the end the only thing we've ever had is "wait and see." As I've said before I'm not doing the "ooooh - the sky is falling!", but I think it isn't necessarily wrong to draw conclusions from the direction the material is taking me. As always, I have the CHOICE of including Essentials-based materisl or not, and I don't worry about Chris Perkins and Mike Mearls busting in my door at any time (though how cool would that be?). I just hope that Essentials isn't going to be the only design frame supported, but I'm pretty sure evidence points that way, and truly DID make Essentials the ".5" of this edition.
Just in case you might be thinking this way...I'm happy to see WotC taking this route. As Mike Mearls points out in this article, characters used to be defined in play, not on their character sheets.
I like optimization and character building as much as the next guy, but when we sit down at the table I want to see characters - not stats and options.
I guess I should clarify this a bit. Keep in mind that all of this is strictly personal preference.
I absolutely love rolling new characters, and I think everybody does. The problem for me is that when you introduce a huge number of options, as is the case in 3E and to a somewhat lesser extent in 4E, rolling a character becomes a game in and of itself.
I am not disciplined enough to not min-max; therefore I prefer fewer character options, so I'm not tempted to min-max and I'm more likely to focus on role-playing.
I recently flipped through Mouseguard, and I really liked a few of the ideas therein. Of relevance here is that the character blocks were very small, less than half of the block (half a dozen items) was mathematical statistics, and the bulk of it was characterization (character mannerisms, goals, social circle and background, etc.)
I haven't had a chance to flip through the essentials books yet, but they sound like a step in the right direction for me.
There is a difference between a class and a build. A build changes some of the initial class features, but still selects from the pool of powers available to the class.
Are you saying that the blackguard can't choose Martyr's Blessing or Sacred Circle for their level 2 Utility power? Or do they not even get a level 2 Utility power?
Correct. At Level 2 you get, regardless of which Vice (re: build) you select, you get Vice's Reward.
Having now seen the book, I see how it is presented that way. On the other hand, all it takes to convert it to a more traditional build PHB style is to ignore the xp chart at the front. That is certainly how I plan on using the material.
I guess I should clarify this a bit. Keep in mind that all of this is strictly personal preference.
I absolutely love rolling new characters, and I think everybody does. The problem for me is that when you introduce a huge number of options, as is the case in 3E and to a somewhat lesser extent in 4E, rolling a character becomes a game in and of itself.
I am not disciplined enough to not min-max; therefore I prefer fewer character options, so I'm not tempted to min-max and I'm more likely to focus on role-playing.
I recently flipped through Mouseguard, and I really liked a few of the ideas therein. Of relevance here is that the character blocks were very small, less than half of the block (half a dozen items) was mathematical statistics, and the bulk of it was characterization (character mannerisms, goals, social circle and background, etc.)
I haven't had a chance to flip through the essentials books yet, but they sound like a step in the right direction for me.
The problem, and I keep gripping about it, is that if your prone to min maxing its the fewer more reliable powers in Essentials that are really the way to go (for those classes that have a few reliable powers). Its hard to min-max characters made out of encounter and daily powers because each power is use only once. Even if you aimed to do big things on a charge sometimes taking the charging power would mean being forced to take one of the weaker options available for that level. On the other hand in Essentials your basic attack is a pretty good at will - it can be relied on never to change so its easy to just load every feat, magic item, utility power. etc. into doing that one thing but having it do obscene things when it happens...which should be every single round because the power is an at-will.
In other words in Essentials its easy to make a character that says 'When I charge' I get this bonus and that bonus and another bonus from over here and then use abilities that let you shift 3 or more every round so that you can always charge every turn. With the older format it was harder to find powers that where both good and let you charge and nearly impossible to find an ability that would let you shift 3+ every single round - a few times sure but not perpetually.
The problem, and I keep gripping about it, is that if your prone to min maxing its the fewer more reliable powers in Essentials that are really the way to go (for those classes that have a few reliable powers). Its hard to min-max characters made out of encounter and daily powers because each power is use only once. Even if you aimed to do big things on a charge sometimes taking the charging power would mean being forced to take one of the weaker options available for that level. On the other hand in Essentials your basic attack is a pretty good at will - it can be relied on never to change so its easy to just load every feat, magic item, utility power. etc. into doing that one thing but having it do obscene things when it happens...which should be every single round because the power is an at-will.
In other words in Essentials its easy to make a character that says 'When I charge' I get this bonus and that bonus and another bonus from over here and then use abilities that let you shift 3 or more every...
I haven't had a chance to flip through the essentials books yet, but they sound like a step in the right direction for me.
I guess I need to redact that part of my statement...
The problem isn't really with Essentials, but rather with some existing options beforehand which gave significant benefits to basic attacks since they were rarely the core of a character.WotC has already addressed several of the worst offenders, and the others only really crop up at paragon or epic levels. And, even then, are no worse than many other builds.
As it is, Essentials builds aren't any more unbalanced than anything else out there. Can you optimize them? Sure. On the other hand, doing so is a bit less of a burden on you, and I find that they are generically strong enough out of the gate that it is much easier to focus on options that suit your concept without feeling like you are passing up other necessary choices.
Essentials did boost the power level of feats, as a whole, which I'm not a fan of. That, I think, is the worst offense. But the builds themselves? I don't think they cause any problems along these lines.
My issue in this regards stems mainly from my feeling that the overpowered build is also a very basic build. If some one has come up with an exploit that involves a two forced teleports that bounces a bad guy back and forth for infinite damage the fix is simple. Disallow one of the powers and the exploit vanishes and the character doing it returns back to the power level it had prior to the introduction of the exploit.
With the Essentials characters there is no real way to easily control for their power - its not usually an exploit but instead simply piling mechanical benefits onto one consistent attack until its overpowered. There is no obvious fix I can see to resolve this either. With most issues its possible to just change how good one or a few powers are and the gimmick that is being used that is overpowered comes back into control (whether WotC will do this or not is another matter - but at least they could) while its not really possible to do this with the Essentials Martial classes. Scaling back their basic at wills gimps the characters out of the gate meaning that they are now only playable by those that know how to optimize them back up to snuff (the opposite of what WotC wants with such simple classes), their benefits come from the liberal application of more mundane feats and magic items and every class is effected is such feats or magical items are, across the board, reduced in power.
With most of the other examples of play balance problems one could always hope that WotC would get around to fixing it and, at least as often as not, they did. Here I don't see how the problem can ever be fixed. The solution that fixes these characters works at cross purposes with the basic intent of the characters themselves or requires that the entire game be rebalanced. Maybe my larger concern is that we also begin to see WotC VIPs like Mike Mearls (in one of the :egend Lore articles) making arguments along the lines that the DM is really the only person who can effectively adjudicate play balance which makes me worry that WotC has, to some degree, abandoned the concept of play balance and returned to the bad old days of 3.5 where they pumped out infinite options and just let the players try and sort out what to do with all the play balance issues that constantly cropped up. This frustrates me because I felt that 4Es emphasis on play balance was really one of its best features and, lately, that seems to have broken down or at least become much less of a priority.
I'm a bit disappointed that the new design standard seems to be E.
At the same time, it's a bit of a relief to not want any of WotC's new products.
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My issue in this regards stems mainly from my feeling that the overpowered build is also a very basic build.
And let me give an example along this line.
I choose to make a Fighter (Slayer). The entire build is based off of the basic attack with stances that modify it. Now here is where I get to break the build, just on that fact alone.Contrary to initial thoughts, Strength is now a fighter’s dump stat. Taking Melee Training: Ability, I can substitute another ability for Strength when doing basic attacks. Want to maximize STR and HP? Put a 20 (18 plus +2 bonus) in Con, take Melee Training: Con, and I get the bonuses to my attacks, to my HP, and to my FORT save! Wow! A gaming Trifecta! Now, understand there are limitations to the Melee Training feat (I believe you only get half the stat bonus for your damage roll – I’m not home to check it right off the bat), but that sure is a sweet way to go, and completely bypasses the At-Will/Encounter/Daily system that usually requires you to be balanced in two or three of your abilities (IE Str attack +Con Bonus Damage or something like that).
I also want to address the “It’s not overpowering” comments with the following observations: There are three classes I routinely see while working the VT that way overshadow the rest of the party routinely – those are the Essentials Fighter (Slayer), Druid (Sentinel), and the PHB Paladin-Warlock hybrid. I’ve also had a person comment that I’m playing my PHB cleric all wrong, and I can get twice the amount of healing if I convert to the War Priest (and he sent me a build to prove it).
Again, nothing here is doom and gloom. I'm still going to play 4E and have fun, just as Deinol is going to adjust the rules and play his way and have fun. In the end, that's what's important. But I do want to say that I'm not sure Mr. Mearls and I are on the same sheet of paper when it comes to the game, and I'm not all that happy about the change in direction.
I'm sure if you play some more you'll find some people using charging Thief cheese but it works the same way as the slayer more or less. Charge, Charge and charge some more then stack everything into those charges.
The blow out in play balance basically forces everyone into optimization. The very idea that we could make 'diplomacy' fighters that where still worthwhile in combat gets left behind (and that was one of the best ideas they came up with in 4E IMO). Its existence also significantly damages the utility of the VTT itself because it starts to get difficult to design adventures for people on the other side of the world if you don't know whether a few, some or almost all the players will be using cheese. Worst yet any newbie who wanders in is about to get a pretty rude shock when it turns out that they made a character without reading the entire 40 page Clerics Handbook thread on the optimization section and then built their cleric to specs.
Meanwhile, on a personal level, my group just fractured into the acrimonious factions over who is 'ruining' the game because the optimizers in the party have finally found their panacea in the Essentials builds. Now either the DM has to step in and make (highly disputed) ruling that some players are engaged in bad wrong fun or tell other players that their weak ass builds just won't cut it any more and they need to understand that D&D is all about combat and picking nothing but powerful combat classes/feats/powers is the only way we can survive in a game whose lethality needs to be jacked up like mad just to slow the players down - or, alternitivly the DM can just leave things the way they are and follow the DMGs guidlines and and have it so the players whipe the floor in every encounter (Unlikely - all the players will be complaining to the DM if that happens).
We have pretty much returned to everything that was wrong with 3.5 in terms the problems of optimization at this point with no possible way out of the mess that I can see.
My way out is "No E classes." :)
I agree with Jeremy whole heartedly. I also try Tequila's simple "No E class" resolution, and thought that would be enough. As I was led to believe, there would only be 10 E books. Now, the first accessory to come out after essentials, that my wife would want me to buy, seems to cater more to the style I left behind with 3.5.
It seems that in the urge to attract the players that didn't make the conversion to 4th, they are willing to alienate the ones that did. It's the imbalance and optimization overload that I got sick of in the first place.
My group all like the offline character builder, so we're pre-essentials completely. Consequently this 'solution' may not work as I imagine it, but it seems to me the problem is likely to arise from essentials characters using the various boosts to at-will/basic attacks which were not that great pre-essentials.
Is it possible (and reasonable) to insist that players choose one path or the other? If you play an essentials character you can't use the pre-essentials feats/options and vice versa.
My group all like the offline character builder, so we're pre-essentials completely. Consequently this 'solution' may not work as I imagine it, but it seems to me the problem is likely to arise from essentials characters using the various boosts to at-will/basic attacks which were not that great pre-essentials.
Is it possible (and reasonable) to insist that players choose one path or the other? If you play an essentials character you can't use the pre-essentials feats/options and vice versa.
Works fine for pre-essentials characters I suspect but the feats etc. are often reprinted in the actual Essentials books so this would not solve the play balance issue in Essentials itself. In fact I don't think anything really solves the problem in Essentials. At its most basic level the whole thing rests on pumping everything into your one attack and I can't easily see how that's reasonably controlled.
Works fine for pre-essentials characters I suspect but the feats etc. are often reprinted in the actual Essentials books so this would not solve the play balance issue in Essentials itself. In fact I don't think anything really solves the problem in Essentials. At its most basic level the whole thing rests on pumping everything into your one attack and I can't easily see how that's reasonably controlled.My group all like the offline character builder, so we're pre-essentials completely. Consequently this 'solution' may not work as I imagine it, but it seems to me the problem is likely to arise from essentials characters using the various boosts to at-will/basic attacks which were not that great pre-essentials.
Is it possible (and reasonable) to insist that players choose one path or the other? If you play an essentials character you can't use the pre-essentials feats/options and vice versa.
I didn't realize the essentials books included the pre-essentials feats as well. I kind of assumed they would have adjusted their feat assumptions in line with the increased use of at-wills..
But claiming that Essentials is broken? That anything about it is inherently more powerful than what came before?
It just isn't true.
Essentials builds tend to be easier to create, yes, and more inherently optimized. This mainly means they are more effective at the first few levels. They actually tend to fall behind beyond that point, since their options grow fewer in the form of encounter powers.
I don't really see how this is possible. The whole method of optimizing them seems to be about stacking ever more benefits onto your basic attack. At 1st level there are few places to get those benefits from. You need resources in terms of magic items/feats/prestige class abilities in order to just keep stacking up the points, especially if we are going to be getting to some place that could reasonably be called game breakingly optimized. If, out the gate, your character has +3 better chance to hit then mine and does an extra 6 points of damage on average that is pretty good but probably not really that noticeable - we can certianly play together anyway. Where its really noticeable is when your build is 'realized' at 12th and you have been able to extend that difference to Something really big like an extra +8 to hit compared to my attack rolls and 2.5 times the damage.
But even there... I think it may be more perception than actual fact. I mean, go ahead, build your tricked out Knight... and I'm confident if I toss together a casual Fighter diplomat, the differences in combat effectiveness will be fewer than you think.
I'm increasingly skeptical of this. I mean you could probably build a kind of optimized Fighter that also has a good diplomacy but that seems to miss what I'm saying and, I feel, it misses what I thought Design and Development was going for with the original philosophy - which was I could do my own thing and my buddy could chase combat modifiers and we'd both have a good time, he'd be better then me at combat but it'd be reasonably close.
As it stands I have a cleric with a back up 'plan' of acting as a pinch hitter for the group when necessary. The problem has become that I have, what I think is a moderately reasonable (if not really great) +13 to hit at this point while my charging rogue friend gets a whopping +23 to hit. Worse yet if I do land something with an encounter power I'm doing 2d10+7ish for an average of 18 points of damage and my friends damage ratio runs about 65 for the first hit, 55 for the second and 45 for all hits after that.
Its one thing for player A to not be quite as good as player B in combat - we new that from the get go but to pull this off the range of each players bonus to attack needs to be kept within some reasonable range, probably within about +5 really and damage for the better combatant should be maybe 50% again is good or we could stretch this to around double the other guys damage. As it stands I don't even know why I bother to roll, If I need a natural 20 to hit he makes a hit on an 11 or up, damage output is 2.5 times mine even when we are comparing some of my better attacks to his worst. Seems to me we are straight back at the point where if I'm being challenged my friend is falling asleep from boredom while if he is being challenged I'm cowering and hoping they don't notice me, I'll never hit them and even if I did they'd not really notice.
I'm a bit skeptical about this just being because Essentials is new. Now its possible I just missed out on all the ways it was possible to optimize the older classes, but I really got the impression that, while this sort of optimization existed pre-essentials it was mainly the domain of what amounted to exploits. Also I distinctly remember a period when my friend had to get the DM to allow him to rebuild practically every month because his new build based on everything that was broken in Martial Handbook or whatever the new supplement was had now been nerfed back to some rational place. In other words there where at least some broken combo's in most of the new books...but WotC made a point of fixing them, or so it seemed to me. Here it seems to me that we have had Essentials for some significant time and there is no real sign that there is any plan to fix the issues...worse yet it actually looks like its both not really possible to fix the problem (without going against everything that Essentials was supposed to achieve with these simple builds) and also that the importance of play balance is being scaled back in terms of 4E philosophy.
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Many classes can get away with focus on a single ability score, or two at most. We already have classes which can be based around Con directly!
Okay - I'm going to agree that you CAN base a character off of one stat. That being said, PHB characters tend to stress three abilities, with the third usually appearing as an odd buff from time to time, in the power stats. So, while I most certainly CAN base my paladin purely off Str, it does limit my abilities to add CHA temp HP, or WIS bonus to damage, etc.
What I think you're missing, however, is that the feat Melee Training: X effectively doubles an ability score. It's not that you're focusing on STR, its that you're focusing on STR AND CON at the same time with no penalty.
Also, direct experience says that Essentials characters remain "preferred" until well into Paragon tier, and almost into Epic.
I certainly don't mind your not agreeing, but my own direct experience with the VT and these characters (which completely took me by shock) says something different.
As it stands I have a cleric with a back up 'plan' of acting as a pinch hitter for the group when necessary. The problem has become that I have, what I think is a moderately reasonable (if not really great) +13 to hit at this point while my charging rogue friend gets a whopping +23 to hit. Worse yet if I do land something with an encounter power I'm doing 2d10+7ish for an average of 18 points of damage and my friends damage ratio runs about 65 for the first hit, 55 for the second and 45 for all hits after that.
Just so I understand you correctly, the character that you are comparing to your friend's rogue is a cleric? That has been somewhat normal in my groups for the couple of years. Controllers, leaders, and defenders all doing low damage along with the other effects their classes/roles grant and the damage optimized striker just dealing more damage than the rest of the party combined.
What I think you're missing, however, is that the feat Melee Training: X effectively doubles an ability score. It's not that you're focusing on STR, its that you're focusing on STR AND CON at the same time with no penalty.
I believe it noted it before, but I just wanted to reiterate it here that the penalty in this case (beyond the expenditure of a feat) is losing out on some damage. With the Melee Training feat you would be dealing half your Constitution modifier in damage as opposed to your full Strength modifier.
I mean, what bonus does the Thief get to hit compared to a regular rogue? +1 to hit via charging? Backstab gives +3, but is limited use... and doesn't compare to missing out on multiple attacks or inflicting conditions.My point isn't to say that you need to be optimized to keep up with the Thief, though. My point is that optimization existed well before the Thief came along.
What is the Essentials character doing at level 12 that gets them +8 to hit ahead of your character? And is it really tied to being Essentials, or is it something a similar optimized non-Essentials character could do as well?
You make a compelling argument and I'm reasonably convinced of your contention. Still it seems to me that pre-Essentials lining up the necessary powers, feats, etc. to make this good was, if not impossible, much more difficult - and hence more common. If I want to make a charging rogue, for example, then I need to find a bunch of powers that work well with charges and then I have to figure out how I'm going to break contact and charge again next round while still insuring that I have CA. Its the reliability of the Essentials builds that makes them so powerful. I suspect that its this reliability that makes various kinds of pre-Essentials Paladins extremely popular as well, that marking mechanic can be depended on to work except in extremes and so its a reasonable way to just pile on the riders and modifiers. In essence something that already seemed to be developing into a problem in the case of the Paladin was then ported to a bunch of classes in Essentials...should not have happened - especially with the classes and roles that got this element.
But lack of conditions, multi-attacks, areas, buffs, debuffs, etc... these are a pretty big deal.
I agree that they can be powerful - some very powerful. However they are also a lot easier to deal with, nixing power X at your table is usually an easy fix while changing how the Essentials builds work is not.
Furthermore as potent as these buffs/debuffs etc. are there is a lot of room here for the DM to get creative in dealing with the issue. Raw damage output is in many ways the worst offender for the DM because there is little that really counters it (except lots of minions) - in the end the baddies die when their hps run out and if a player relies just on high accuracy and putting out shocking amounts of damage there is little maneuver room for the DM.
This is especially concerning with strikers. The overpowered Paladin (and I mean within reason - I don't mean some really insane cheese here) is less of a problem at the table then the overpowered striker because, to do his thing he still has to race around trying to tie up baddies. The DM can introduce lots of good excitement just by varying the location of the threats enough that the group is freaking out trying to figure out how to get the tank between them and the threats. In essence CODzilla may have been broken in 3.5 but it was one of the less problematic elements simply because, when push came to shove, it was still the player that drew the short straw that had to play the cleric.
I agree with the philosophy you want - the ability to have the average character and the optimized character still in the same field, and both able to contribute meaningfully to a combat even if one was more effective than the other. I agree that was a good approach for 4E, and one that is has fallen away from somewhat. But I don't think Essentials has anything to do with it.
You may be right to some significant degree that what I see as an Essentials problem was, in fact, something that was already a problem and its more a case that I am just noticing it now. But even if it is true that the problem existed pre-Essentials my complaint does not completely go away. If nothing else we have a case here of elements of class design that are already proving problematic becoming part of newer classes.
I mean I sure don't know what your team mate is doing with the Battle mind and I agree that what your describing is the worst of all possible worlds. At least with the Battlemind though there is some hope that they will fix the problem. I don't see how that is even possible with the Slayer and Thief. Beyond that we can always hope that whatever it is that they did wrong with the Battlemind is not touted as the next great thing in whatever PHB4 looks like.
What exactly are the issues you think need to be fixed with Essentials? The ability to focus on a single stat is completely not a problem, not in any build. The benefits for basic attacks, mentioned above, bear looking at, but are hardly omnipresent. And tricked out charging builds have been around for quite a while anyway.
The consistency is generally the problem. Its a problem exacerbated by the fact that the problematic feature is something as atomic to the game as raw hp damage (because there is little the DM can do to mitigate its downside at his table) and that its coming from the strikers (If the mage is too powerful the rest of the players in the group still have a job...defend the mage!).
All that said at least half of my unhappiness stems from the fact that Essentials itself appears to be built in a manner that makes fixing the problems really difficult compared to fixing almost any other class. It also seems straight out short sighted to create such classes without seeming to realize the problem at their core, finally its the scaling back on two elements of 4E that I felt were exceptionally worthwhile - the attention paid to play balance and errata and the idea that a none combat build can play in the same party as a combat build.
Just so I understand you correctly, the character that you are comparing to your friend's rogue is a cleric? That has been somewhat normal in my groups for the couple of years. Controllers, leaders, and defenders all doing low damage along with the other effects their classes/roles grant and the damage optimized striker just dealing more damage than the rest of the party combined.
That is a big part of my problem, yes, and its the 'more damage then the rest of the party combined (actually we don't have it quite that bad) element that is really at the core here, we expect strikers to do more damage...just not this much more damage.
Hi Jeremy. It's not uncommon to see a well designed Striker do significantly more damage than other character types, and different tiers as well as different character build strategies can exasperate this. I don't see that as a problem, and while I don't have direct in-play experience with the Essentials line, nothing I've read makes me worried about them being too powerful.
In fact, my players and I all think they are under-powered, at least in Epic Tier (which is where we're playing now). The main reason is that the PC's in my group are basically always rolling at least two d20's per round, often more (multiple attacks, and/or re-rolls etc), and critting on 19-20, so 50-60 damage per turn is low for any character... We actually started a leaderboard for most damage per round at 22nd level, and they are now 26th level - every character has been on that board at least once, and it started at 235 hp of damage, and is now at 682 total damage inflicted in one round (on multiple enemies, of course). I think my players also view the Essentials line as just a bit too boring for them - they all love the level of complexity they get out of their PHB-style characters, which gives them plenty of options to chose from each round.
Anyway, in my experince (as DM of a campaign that's gone from 6th to 26th level now, over about 2 years of play), Leaders do the least damage by far, but that's the way they are built, they are designed to buff their party and/or de-buff the enemies, while the other PCs do most of the work in kill their enemies.
If someone was worried their Leader wasn't doing enough damage compared to the strikers etc, I'd say "play a leader/striker hybrid" - we had two of these when we had 5 players (one was a Str-Cleric/Barbarian, the other a Dex-Cleric/Ranger), and they are both great characters that gave their players lots of fun, as well as helping out the others.
If someone was worried their Controller or Defender wasn't doing enough damage compared to the strikers, I'd say they are probably playing the wrong kind of defender for their taste (too defensive), or they are not making the most of the other benefits that come with them (e.g. rituals, greater powers flexibility, better skills for a Wizard; uber AC, hp and surges for a Defender, etc). Every striker I can think of has at least one weak spot - that's the way they have always been, right from earlier editions with the "glass cannon" rogue...
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What I think you're missing, however, is that the feat Melee Training: X effectively doubles an ability score. It's not that you're focusing on STR, its that you're focusing on STR AND CON at the same time with no penalty.I believe it noted it before, but I just wanted to reiterate it here that the penalty in this case (beyond the expenditure of a feat) is losing out on some damage. With the Melee Training feat you would be dealing half your Constitution modifier in damage as opposed to your full Strength modifier.
Right - I mentioned it myself but didn't have the specifics.
So, I place 18 in Con, and +2 racial bonus. This gives me max To-Hit benefit, Max Con benefit, but only a +2 to Damage rolls. That's pretty big to me. Brutal weapon and Vicious Stance (if I'm thinking rightly - again, no book) and I can overcome that -2 pts pretty fast.
One thing is certain: You can definitely optimize. It doesn't matter the source, optimization is there. Always has, been, always will be. I'm just thinking Essentials Optimized gets much more for it than non-Essentials. I also think that, even not optimized, Essentials characters by and large have more oomph than PHB characters.
I guess the best illustration for this is the golf course. PHB characters have to tee off at the men's tee line, while Essentials characters are teeing off at the ladies' line. A shorter distance to the cup, and an easier go of it. Importantly, we're all playing golf, and the game isn't ruined by any means. I just don't like seeing fellow dudes teeing off at the ladie's line when I'm all the way back here ...
I guess the best illustration for this is the golf course. PHB characters have to tee off at the men's tee line, while Essentials characters are teeing off at the ladies' line. A shorter distance to the cup, and an easier go of it. Importantly, we're all playing golf, and the game isn't ruined by any means. I just don't like seeing fellow dudes teeing off at the ladie's line when I'm all the way back here ...
I agree in principle, but I'm not certain that is the case with these Essentials classes. While there are numerous ways to get more power for a basic attack, I believe that losing normal encounter and daily powers may not be worth it. Thinking of rogues, there are a number of powers that I recall that gave exceptional penalizing effects on the target. One in particular was a rogue daily that knocked the target unconscious for a short period of time. I actually think that the conditions that the non-essentials classes could inflict were often more devastating and better to optimize with than just pure damage (exceptions for whole lot of damage).
I guess the best illustration for this is the golf course. PHB characters have to tee off at the men's tee line, while Essentials characters are teeing off at the ladies' line. A shorter distance to the cup, and an easier go of it. Importantly, we're all playing golf, and the game isn't ruined by any means. I just don't like seeing fellow dudes teeing off at the ladie's line when I'm all the way back here ...I agree in principle, but I'm not certain that is the case with these Essentials classes. While there are numerous ways to get more power for a basic attack, I believe that losing normal encounter and daily powers may not be worth it. Thinking of rogues, there are a number of powers that I recall that gave exceptional penalizing effects on the target. One in particular was a rogue daily that knocked the target unconscious for a short period of time. I actually think that the conditions that the non-essentials classes could inflict were often more devastating and better to optimize with than just pure damage (exceptions for whole lot of damage).
I think they found a nice balance... give a martial essentials class to a new player or someone who didn't put too much thought in optimizing, and they will seem almost overpowered and do very nice damage out of the box.
However as Blaze stated, they have deficiencies when it comes to non-damage effects... which is also an advantage in many cases because it removes the handling of the lots of fiddly until-the-end-of-your-next-turn effects...
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Finally got a copy and I'm rather fond of the book over all, if for no other reason then the flavor it adds for options.
Looking over things though, it feels like, at first glance, most of the classes look essential-like. I know the Blackguard is supposed to be in some regard but the others are throwing me off but that might be due to the layout I'm using to seeing in the PHB 1 and 2.