i guess i will have to focus on having fun and doing new and different things i couldn't before!
I don't see how halving the modifier addition to damage is even a huge nerf. so at 28 con i am only getting 4 instead of 9, big deal.
it's kind of annoying, sure, but being angry about it ain't fixing anything.
I wasn't in any way advocating that 300 DPR was the only way to play? The point was to show how far this game can be pushed and thus how pointless the nerf to melee training was. Anyhow, the real issue with essentials is it actually makes the game more complex for most of the classes its trying to change up, its taking a huge chunk of time (10 books) from making real content, and it is trying to make 4e into 3.5 when we have Pathfinder for the people who want an up to date 3.5.
I'd also throw in that it's going to be seriously frustrating to me and certainly others if someone actually tries to play one of these essentials characters in a non-casual campaign that's meant to last for any real amount of time considering how pitifully weak these characters are in comparison to real ones. Dead weight in a party means the monsters have to be tougher, without any real benefit to the party. Even a bad regular character makes these essentials clerics and fighters look ridiculous.
Man, assassins and warlocks already exist I don't know what you're mad about
What do they have to do with anything?
They're the current HURF DURF CANT HAVE DEAD WEIGHT IN THE PARTY classes last I remember.
Do you mean they're bad, or so powerful they override weaker characters?
I've seen Warlocks wreak shit up. Assassins, being an online exclusive class, I haven't seen a lot of play. Those I have seen played have been played poorly, whether because of player ineptitude or IC ineptitude.
(Derp the randomly generated Minotaur Assassin, who spent most of the encounter wielding a squealing pig as an improvised weapon.)
Yeah warlocks along with warden have always been the source of the hardcore cheese, not really attracted to either of those. Assassin just needs to be overhauled or something, it's so lame. What the hell are shrouds? Anyhow, I'm not really a powergamer, but dead weight in a party does matter to me since I generally play in 3 person parties.
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Huh, I take that back then, I didn't know warlocks got better.
Then again I hadn't seen one played since before Arcane Power.
Huh, I take that back then, I didn't know warlocks got better.
Then again I hadn't seen one played since before Arcane Power.
There's a lot of bullshit you can do with them, but I don't really get into their shit since it's very specific, and I like breaking characters myself rather than just copying off the charop forum. A lot of it is multi-classing/hybriding oriented though, so it might not be immediately obvious with Warlock alone.
They're like Warlock Curses only they stack and go away when activated.
Assassins are pretty under-supported but since they are getting published next year in that Heroes of Shadow or whatever it's called, I'll bet you they'll get some tweaking/overhaul and get tuned up for the release of that. Frankly more interested in seeing the other classes in the book though because Assassins are low on my list of Interesting Striker Classes.
And while the comic is about D&D we also have a thread here in SE++ to talk about D&D so maybe we should move D&D talk not related to Essentials over there.
They're like Warlock Curses only they stack and go away when activated.
Assassins are pretty under-supported but since they are getting published next year in that Heroes of Shadow or whatever it's called, I'll bet you they'll get some tweaking/overhaul and get tuned up for the release of that. Frankly more interested in seeing the other classes in the book though because Assassins are low on my list of Interesting Striker Classes.
I understand how they work, I've played Assassin very briefly. But what I'm saying is; fluff wise, trying to wrap my head around what shrouds are, or how they hurt people is beyond me. It's the lamest of all the rob rogues of their feature rip-offs.
Take a listen to this podcast where the people who made this talk about how the primary motivation was as a marketing device. They also talk about how they feel fighters should be the "training wheels" class and that they don't want them drawing attention from the casters in the parties who should be the stars. They also say they'll be overwriting existing powers just for the essentials classes to avoid confusion like how they did with magic missle, and when the interviewer offers the sane suggestion that they should instead give them different names they use the excuse that they want to avoid confusion.
Oh, by the way, they also mention they had essentials planned from the start. Eugh.
I'm REALLY dreading the ass-reaming that all the fun epic tier feats will receive when they break off tiered feats. I guess I'll never get to play with the mastery feats.
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Its the idea of "Study your target and find their weak points before attacking", just not very well implemented and given a dumb supernatural effect.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
One thing that's interesting is that Gabe got a copy of the Red Box and presumably played it with his PCs. I am interested to see what his impressions were, given he didn't say anything more on Twitter. I'm dying to see the newspost as a result.
Oh thank Tiamat, only ten essentials books ever. I was expecting to have a fit listening to part 2 of this podcast since part 1 enduces a murderous rage, but they confirmed that essentials dies off after the 10 books.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
Essentials doesn't really change that much. It presents some "easier" classes to play and makes three major rulings:
Magic item creation
Wizard encounter powers gaining miss effects
Races gain a fixed stat and a choice (ala Changelings, PHB3 races)
Noting that on the third one I have been saying for MONTHS that the races would be changed to match PHB3. As for classes mentioned earlier:
Warlocks are excellent now. They have tons of support, excellent control powers and just have caught up to everyone else. This is without even needing to use Eldritch Blast/Strike charging cheese or whatever else.
Assassins are the underpowered class and this is because they frankly haven't had a lot of support. I imagine heroes of shadow that adds the necromancer and hexblade will include some new options for the assassin that will hopefully give them a good boost.
Essentials class power level isn't known. While I think the Knight could be crap, the Slayer has a lot of potential actually and might actually just be a good all round "Hit things until they die" striker. The mage looks perfectly solid to be honest and so is the cleric - nothing wrong with these classes at all.
Really, my biggest concerns are them fucking up cleave because of cleave aura like they did with MM. And I really don't want to see how all the awesome epic feats are going to get butchered by the removal of tiers. Also, that change is going to lead to people taking those powers before taking really important feats like expertise first. Then again, I think they should get rid of expertise/focus and implement it another way.
For the record, I don't use cleave for its base version. 1W+STR push 2+ knock prone, RBA that doesn't provoke OAs push 2+knock prone, mark both, and immobilize both if I land it again.
(If I wanted I could take it a step further and go hybrid seeker (instead of barb) and make it at will double at wills! Really would suck if they killed off cleave, despite how much it sucks without breaking it.)
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
Cleave isn't changing and neither are most of the original fighter powers. Actually the original fighter won't be eliminated from the game at all, otherwise the recently released Dark Sun arena fighter build looks awfully silly to be getting rid of 3-4 whole weeks before essentials.
Epic feats aren't changing either. They are making some feats irrelevant because essentials has better ones, but even so some like the epic defense feats are relevant. Essentials for example has superior will, which is a scaling bonus to will that provides an effect granting a saving throw to daze/stun. It's really good, but has a stat requirement of 15 wis/cha. So some classes will still prefer the previous epic will, which while it doesn't scale has no requirement and provides the same bonus. This is pretty good design and IMO, organizing feats by what they do and not tier is far superior. Not to mention having their effects scale instead of multiple feats is just better design as well.
We'll know for sure when it comes out, but until then all the blatant panic is just a waste of time and energy. What we can do is criticize the incredible PR botchup that Wizards has done here and their absolute failure to properly explain what essentials is.
I think the NAD feats are probably just going to be "this bonus increases to 2 at 11" etc.
Anyhow, I think this whole line is pointless. My girlfriend has never played D&D before the campaign we're in and she's currently playing (with some guidance from me) Druid, alongside Artificer and Shaman, probably one of the hardest classes to play in the game, with absolutely no problem and having plenty of fun.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I think the NAD feats are probably just going to be "this bonus increases to 2 at 11" etc.
Um, no they aren't.
Superior will is +2/+3/+4 and you can make a save against daze/stun at the beginning of your turn, even if they normally wouldn't allow a save.
Superior Fort/Reflex work the same, but we don't know what their bonus property is. So they're more substantial than that. The core difference other than scaling is they are available from level 1 and require a moderate stat requirement to get.
Anyhow, I think this whole line is pointless. My girlfriend has never played D&D before the campaign we're in and she's currently playing (with some guidance from me) Druid, alongside Artificer and Shaman, probably one of the hardest classes to play in the game, with absolutely no problem and having plenty of fun.
I think the NAD feats are probably just going to be "this bonus increases to 2 at 11" etc.
Anyhow, I think this whole line is pointless. My girlfriend has never played D&D before the campaign we're in and she's currently playing (with some guidance from me) Druid, alongside Artificer and Shaman, probably one of the hardest classes to play in the game, with absolutely no problem and having plenty of fun.
You're girlfriend had someone to bring her into the fold though (Namely you and your group.) The essentials are an attempt to reach out to new players who don't have that kind of "lifeline" so to speak.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Hmph, other power sources stepping on martial resolve's toes I see.
Martial resolve is strictly better actually, plus will still work with epic will and epic will is more limited. The advantage to epic will is the defensive bonus and the ability to save against effects you ordinarily couldn't save against.
This essentials thing sounds neat but how much does it cost? If it's just as expensive as regular 4E then meh.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
This essentials thing sounds neat but how much does it cost? If it's just as expensive as regular 4E then meh.
Actually the price is reasonably low so that you can get into the hobby fairly cheaply. Plus unlike normal 4E, the Red Box is designed to have everything you need so you can start playing without having to invest a lot of money.
Actually the price is reasonably low so that you can get into the hobby fairly cheaply. Plus unlike normal 4E, the Red Box is designed to have everything you need so you can start playing without having to invest a lot of money.
My only real gripe with it is that come next year they're updating all the class powes and feats to bring them into line with the change in thinking that's happening with Essentails. That meaning, if you don't want to change anything all of WoTC nice online tools become useless to you because you disagree with their take on the errata. *shrugs*
This essentials thing sounds neat but how much does it cost? If it's just as expensive as regular 4E then meh.
Actually the price is reasonably low so that you can get into the hobby fairly cheaply. Plus unlike normal 4E, the Red Box is designed to have everything you need so you can start playing without having to invest a lot of money.
In that case it actually is pretty intriguing.
Gotta ask my local store when a translated version might arrive - My biggest problem with D&D and RPGs in general is finding people who can read English well enough to understand the rules.
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I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
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Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Keep in mind, the boxset only supports levels 1-3 and a tiny handful of classes. You'll have to buy another box set to get the rest of the updated class rules. Or use DDI.
Wait, from what I found on Google there are supposed to be different versions and one of them is 320 pages with everything you need to start playing up to level 30.
Or do I have to buy the lvl 1-3 version first?
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I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
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Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
Wait, from what I found on Google there are supposed to be different versions and one of them is 320 pages with everything you need to start playing up to level 30.
Or do I have to buy the lvl 1-3 version first?
Well, it will have all the core rules. Combat, and all that jazz. Really once you have that box, 90% of the rest of the stuff is with the Character Builder software and DDI. You don't really have to buy anything more. Just pay the ~$10 a month for a DDI subscription. And you don't need to do that all the time either. Just say once every few months to update your copy of the Charcter Builider and the Monster Builder.
They have a Rules Compendium coming out shortly after Essentails (part of the same line) that would fill in the rest of the stuff you'd need. So, it's your call. But if you factor in all the other boxsets they're talking about for the Essentails line, if you wanted everything class/rules wise in print it's not really all that much of a savings vs just getting the core three books. Except the core 3 have been errata to heck and back now...so ya.
Me personally? Dumping my books and just getting the Rules Compendium and doing everything using their online tools from this point.
With the poorly run encounters groups in the area and semi forced to get a certain book in order to learn to play better I am kind of disapointed in D&D4. But then I am looking forward to Deathwatch. I am curious about Essentials and what it does besides being a 4.25
I still haven't tried 4th edition. The people that I know that have the books say it's bad.
It's quite good. It makes crawling around a dungeon and smacking shit a lot more fun than it used to be.
Some people don't like it because it doesn't have a rule set for making a Gnomish carpenter that solves all his problems through the clever use of his 5 craft skills over the course of two hours.
I don't really understand people getting their knickers in a twist over Essentials. It's just some new, totally optional additions to the existing game. If you don't like them, don't use them. Gamers always act like WotC is going to break into their house and destroy their old books.
I don't really understand people getting their knickers in a twist over Essentials. It's just some new, totally optional additions to the existing game. If you don't like them, don't use them. Gamers always act like WotC is going to break into their house and destroy their old books.
That's just it. Some of these changes are more than optional. It's BIG STUFF, at least in game rules wise. Magic items are no longer limited to daily use, but now have a rarity scale. Fighter at-wills are becoming a base attack modifier, skill challenges use the DMG2 model now, the PHB 2 stealth rules are folded in, class builds no longer hold to the 1-class to 1-role mechanic. Etc, etc. And next year, via the DDI all the previous materal is going to be errataed to be in line with these changes.
They might argue it's not an edition change, but it has enough going on to qualify as one. And no, WoTC will happily sell you the old books, but when they no longer sync with DDI they're basically fluff and useless mechanics at that point. Argueably WoTC is handling this change as gradually as they can towards the benefit of the DMs and players, but it's still an irritation. Especially from something billed as "Just an entry level product" from the last GenCon.
As a entry level product Essentails is great because of the way it's written. D&D redesigned from the ground up so new players are eased into more advanced options. But from people with existing games who invested quite heavily in their previous printed product..well, it's either be up to date with DDI or have issues with Event Games in store, RPGA, new players who come in via Essentals. Etc, etc.
But you're right. If they don't want to use it, they don't have too. But they have to deal with the side effects.
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Tossrocktoo weird to livetoo rare to dieRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
The Cycle, Part One:
The Cycle, Part Two:
Sure, Gabe called him retarded, but it looks like Tycho's research paid off.
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Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
God, I forgot about these old comics. I think Tycho's breakthrough was during Gabe's picking up of Disgaea.
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(Derp the randomly generated Minotaur Assassin, who spent most of the encounter wielding a squealing pig as an improvised weapon.)
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Then again I hadn't seen one played since before Arcane Power.
There's a lot of bullshit you can do with them, but I don't really get into their shit since it's very specific, and I like breaking characters myself rather than just copying off the charop forum. A lot of it is multi-classing/hybriding oriented though, so it might not be immediately obvious with Warlock alone.
They're like Warlock Curses only they stack and go away when activated.
Assassins are pretty under-supported but since they are getting published next year in that Heroes of Shadow or whatever it's called, I'll bet you they'll get some tweaking/overhaul and get tuned up for the release of that. Frankly more interested in seeing the other classes in the book though because Assassins are low on my list of Interesting Striker Classes.
And while the comic is about D&D we also have a thread here in SE++ to talk about D&D so maybe we should move D&D talk not related to Essentials over there.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I understand how they work, I've played Assassin very briefly. But what I'm saying is; fluff wise, trying to wrap my head around what shrouds are, or how they hurt people is beyond me. It's the lamest of all the rob rogues of their feature rip-offs.
Take a listen to this podcast where the people who made this talk about how the primary motivation was as a marketing device. They also talk about how they feel fighters should be the "training wheels" class and that they don't want them drawing attention from the casters in the parties who should be the stars. They also say they'll be overwriting existing powers just for the essentials classes to avoid confusion like how they did with magic missle, and when the interviewer offers the sane suggestion that they should instead give them different names they use the excuse that they want to avoid confusion.
Oh, by the way, they also mention they had essentials planned from the start. Eugh.
http://thetome.podbean.com/2010/08/06/tome-gencon-special-design-and-dev-seminar-part-1/
I'm REALLY dreading the ass-reaming that all the fun epic tier feats will receive when they break off tiered feats. I guess I'll never get to play with the mastery feats.
Magic item creation
Wizard encounter powers gaining miss effects
Races gain a fixed stat and a choice (ala Changelings, PHB3 races)
Noting that on the third one I have been saying for MONTHS that the races would be changed to match PHB3. As for classes mentioned earlier:
Warlocks are excellent now. They have tons of support, excellent control powers and just have caught up to everyone else. This is without even needing to use Eldritch Blast/Strike charging cheese or whatever else.
Assassins are the underpowered class and this is because they frankly haven't had a lot of support. I imagine heroes of shadow that adds the necromancer and hexblade will include some new options for the assassin that will hopefully give them a good boost.
Essentials class power level isn't known. While I think the Knight could be crap, the Slayer has a lot of potential actually and might actually just be a good all round "Hit things until they die" striker. The mage looks perfectly solid to be honest and so is the cleric - nothing wrong with these classes at all.
For the record, I don't use cleave for its base version. 1W+STR push 2+ knock prone, RBA that doesn't provoke OAs push 2+knock prone, mark both, and immobilize both if I land it again.
(If I wanted I could take it a step further and go hybrid seeker (instead of barb) and make it at will double at wills! Really would suck if they killed off cleave, despite how much it sucks without breaking it.)
Epic feats aren't changing either. They are making some feats irrelevant because essentials has better ones, but even so some like the epic defense feats are relevant. Essentials for example has superior will, which is a scaling bonus to will that provides an effect granting a saving throw to daze/stun. It's really good, but has a stat requirement of 15 wis/cha. So some classes will still prefer the previous epic will, which while it doesn't scale has no requirement and provides the same bonus. This is pretty good design and IMO, organizing feats by what they do and not tier is far superior. Not to mention having their effects scale instead of multiple feats is just better design as well.
We'll know for sure when it comes out, but until then all the blatant panic is just a waste of time and energy. What we can do is criticize the incredible PR botchup that Wizards has done here and their absolute failure to properly explain what essentials is.
Anyhow, I think this whole line is pointless. My girlfriend has never played D&D before the campaign we're in and she's currently playing (with some guidance from me) Druid, alongside Artificer and Shaman, probably one of the hardest classes to play in the game, with absolutely no problem and having plenty of fun.
Um, no they aren't.
Superior will is +2/+3/+4 and you can make a save against daze/stun at the beginning of your turn, even if they normally wouldn't allow a save.
Superior Fort/Reflex work the same, but we don't know what their bonus property is. So they're more substantial than that. The core difference other than scaling is they are available from level 1 and require a moderate stat requirement to get.
Essentials isn't going to change that.
You're girlfriend had someone to bring her into the fold though (Namely you and your group.) The essentials are an attempt to reach out to new players who don't have that kind of "lifeline" so to speak.
Martial resolve is strictly better actually, plus will still work with epic will and epic will is more limited. The advantage to epic will is the defensive bonus and the ability to save against effects you ordinarily couldn't save against.
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And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Actually the price is reasonably low so that you can get into the hobby fairly cheaply. Plus unlike normal 4E, the Red Box is designed to have everything you need so you can start playing without having to invest a lot of money.
My only real gripe with it is that come next year they're updating all the class powes and feats to bring them into line with the change in thinking that's happening with Essentails. That meaning, if you don't want to change anything all of WoTC nice online tools become useless to you because you disagree with their take on the errata. *shrugs*
In that case it actually is pretty intriguing.
Gotta ask my local store when a translated version might arrive - My biggest problem with D&D and RPGs in general is finding people who can read English well enough to understand the rules.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Or do I have to buy the lvl 1-3 version first?
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Well, it will have all the core rules. Combat, and all that jazz. Really once you have that box, 90% of the rest of the stuff is with the Character Builder software and DDI. You don't really have to buy anything more. Just pay the ~$10 a month for a DDI subscription. And you don't need to do that all the time either. Just say once every few months to update your copy of the Charcter Builider and the Monster Builder.
They have a Rules Compendium coming out shortly after Essentails (part of the same line) that would fill in the rest of the stuff you'd need. So, it's your call. But if you factor in all the other boxsets they're talking about for the Essentails line, if you wanted everything class/rules wise in print it's not really all that much of a savings vs just getting the core three books. Except the core 3 have been errata to heck and back now...so ya.
Me personally? Dumping my books and just getting the Rules Compendium and doing everything using their online tools from this point.
It's quite good. It makes crawling around a dungeon and smacking shit a lot more fun than it used to be.
Some people don't like it because it doesn't have a rule set for making a Gnomish carpenter that solves all his problems through the clever use of his 5 craft skills over the course of two hours.
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THAC0 goes up.
Armor class goes down.
That's just it. Some of these changes are more than optional. It's BIG STUFF, at least in game rules wise. Magic items are no longer limited to daily use, but now have a rarity scale. Fighter at-wills are becoming a base attack modifier, skill challenges use the DMG2 model now, the PHB 2 stealth rules are folded in, class builds no longer hold to the 1-class to 1-role mechanic. Etc, etc. And next year, via the DDI all the previous materal is going to be errataed to be in line with these changes.
They might argue it's not an edition change, but it has enough going on to qualify as one. And no, WoTC will happily sell you the old books, but when they no longer sync with DDI they're basically fluff and useless mechanics at that point. Argueably WoTC is handling this change as gradually as they can towards the benefit of the DMs and players, but it's still an irritation. Especially from something billed as "Just an entry level product" from the last GenCon.
As a entry level product Essentails is great because of the way it's written. D&D redesigned from the ground up so new players are eased into more advanced options. But from people with existing games who invested quite heavily in their previous printed product..well, it's either be up to date with DDI or have issues with Event Games in store, RPGA, new players who come in via Essentals. Etc, etc.
But you're right. If they don't want to use it, they don't have too. But they have to deal with the side effects.
The Cycle, Part Two:
Sure, Gabe called him retarded, but it looks like Tycho's research paid off.