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D&D Essentials: Is it worth it?

Raikiri no KrisRaikiri no Kris Registered User regular
edited October 2010 in Critical Failures
I've been playing D&D 4th edition for about 6 months now, and I'll be running my own campaign in about a months time. I have the core rule set and monster manual 2+3, but now I've seen this D&D Essentials line which has got me wondering if its actually worth buying. From what I've gathered its just 4th edition streamlined with the extra rulings from dungeon and dragon thrown in but without any major changes (chances are I'm probably wrong).

Does anyone here have any of the D&D Essentials stuff? I'd really like to know what it's like compared to the regular 4th edition stuff and if it's worth buying.

Raikiri no Kris on

Posts

  • DarianDarian Yellow Wizard The PitRegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    You might want to see what they have to say in the main 4E discussion thread.

    Darian on
  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    I think you've got Essentials slightly wrong. The CLASSES are different and designed to be less complicated but end up at around the same power level.

    Compare how a Knight and a Fighter apply defender penalties. Any enemy next to a Knight is effectively marked. Any enemy a Fighter attacks is marked. Sounds like the Knight is flat out better, right? Except the Fighter can mark people further away with a reach/ranged weapon, can mark less than everybody around him if he is starting to get overwhelmed and so on.

    The Knight is simpler to play but the Fighter offers a higher level of control and can do things the Knight can not. That extra control might be a bunch of knobs the player will never touch or an integral feature of the class, depends on the player.

    Vanilla 4th is like a really nice audio set up where you can adjust everything. Levels, balance, automatic fuzzy logic that varies with the input.

    Essentials is like a damn nice audio player where you just push play and things sound good. They could sound better but a lot of people do not want to spend the time on making it so, they want to push play and hear music (or crush monster heads to step back from the analogy.)

    But yeah, the main D&D thread would be a better place for this.

    DevoutlyApathetic on
    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
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