D&D Essentials (First Impressions)
So I'm finally reading through D&D Essentials. I'm currently in two 4th edition D&D games and one D&D 3.5 game. I have not played Pathfinder although I understand they're introducing a Summoner class, so I may try and ask to play that in some pickup game sometime.
Anyway this is about D&D Essentials, the newest Dungeons and Dragons product to be released. To give you the product tag line, D&D Essentials is the series of products that game store owners should always keep on their shelves, regardless of what Wizards of the Coast releases. It follows the release of the D&D Red Box, which is an introductory set of D&D, ment for solo or small group play for completely new players, teaching them how to play D&D.
I admit when heard about Essentials, I was apprehensive. I thought perhaps it was a D&D 4.5 only two years after 4th edition released. That it was hear to replace 4th edition. WotC was decent at releasing information saying that no, this wasn't going to be a 4.5. What they were not good at communicating, to me, was what position this product line fits in. And honestly after reading the books, I understand how hard it is to describe where these products fit. Personally I would place it between the Red Box and 4th edition core books. Except that there are certainly aspects of the Essentials line that "advanced" 4th edition players will want to try out. I'll try and explain further in my impressions below.
This post is not going to be a full review but instead my initial impressions of the two primary products of the Essentials line currently released: D&D Essentials: Rules Compendium, and D&D Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands.
First Impression
So the Essential line of books aren't typically sized gaming books. They're actually the size of trade paperback books. Making them an annoying addition to my gaming book shelf, but very attractive for traveling with the books. It is also likely designed to be appealing to non-gamers, who now see a normal looking book. The books are fairly cheap, although overall you'll probably spend the same amount of money on buying all of the Essentials products than you would PHB, DMG, and MM set. Maybe even more.
D&D Essentials: Rules Compendium
So in my personal opinion this book is what WotC should have released back in 2008. One of the primary complaints about D&D Player's Handbook was that it presented everything as a dictionary and not as a guide. It didn't teach the game, it taught you the rules. Which was okay for old hands but horrible for new hands. Even most old hands I knew felt that the PHB is a very hard read. Like reading an encyclopedia or a dictionary with very little fluff. Some people also complain that it is a hard to find rules. I actually completely disagree. the PHB is an excellent reference source. I believe it was written as being a reference book in mind. Rules are stated once, clearly, in their own sections, and the index and glossary are well flesh out. Each class is presented in a template format with a certain number of pages given for description, then a certain number of pages for powers. This is awesome for game play, horrible for learning.
The Rules Compendium, on the other hand, is written as a guide book. Everything is explained in great detail step by step. Multiple pages are taken to explain classes. Each class ability has a paragraph explaining it before the rules are given, which includes tactics and how it interacts with other possible rules. The guide very much holds the reader's hand BUT, for the old hands who don't want anyone feeling up their digits, the layout of the book is such that one can easily pick out the rules from the fluff. And in that way the book acts like a reference guide and perhaps, in a small way, a better the PHB.
Of course the real way the Rules Compendium wins out over the PHB is the fact that it is a compendium of all the rules published to date, up to date. This includes rules added in PHB2 and PHB3. It also includes all the rules presented in the DMG1 and DMG2, and any extra rules added from the power books. It really is a one stop source, at least for the moment. WotC will likely continue to issue errata for the Essentials line, just like it has for the rest of it'd products.
D&D Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands
Now if you're looking for new an interesting content, this is the book for you. This book, unlike the PHB or any book like it, is really a book that has everything you need to play four classes from first to thirtieth level. And when I mean everything I mean mostly everything. This includes world setting information, the four basic D&D classes Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, and Cleric, rules for skill challenges and encounters, rules for experience and magic items. That means that this book actually repeats a lot of rules from the rules compendium. Now there are not really enough rules to know how to run a game of dungeons and dragons but it is certainly enough for running the characters. I find this a very interesting route to take, it also very much lends itself towards the 'lets help the new player' design decision they have.
So if the book is class centric, what about the classes? Well Essentials offers a new take on 4th edition classes. The concept of builds is taken to a new level in Essentials, rather than being just a 1st level kind of thing, each class has a different kind of build through all the levels. Each build spells out what powers or special abilities you learn at each level. Yes. Special abilities. Classes now have special abilities, that are not powers, that they learn past level one. Plus the usual powers and there is usually a choice of powers to select from. These classes aren't the cookie cutter template of pure 4th edition characters but the rules do state that, at least for the purposes of powers, you can opt to choose a power from a 4th edition (or Red Box) book of equivalent level. And vice versa, a pure 4th edition character is allowed to select powers from the Essentials line.
I was excited about the possibilities of this when I heard about it and so far, I've read three of the four classes and they did not let me down. Each class has at least one build. The cleric has Warpriest. The Fighter has Knight and Slayer. The Rogue has Thief. And each classes's "special abilities" really add a new level of flavor and play style. For example the fighter's builds at-wills are no longer attacks, but instead stances which provide certain bonuses to your basic melee attack. This means at any point in time you need to decide what stance to take in order to maximize your next strike. The Thief's at-wills are actually move powers which grant some kind of special move maneuver, with an additional bonus to any basic melee attack you make.
Honestly it feels like the designers took a step back and looked at 4th and 3.5, listened to some of the naysayers and some of the hooters, and actually came out with a new 4th edition system that has some of the older elements of 3.5 but still keeps all the improvements of 4th edition.
I actually feel like if they had presented this as a whole new edition, I would have eventually accepted it. As is, they instead decided to slide it in as a intermediate edition between their new beginner's box, and 4th edition. I actually find myself hoping that they will release new 4th edition products which fall more in line with Essential's design paradigms.
In 4th edition, magic items got a major overhaul. Magic items now had levels, and the cost of a magic item was standardized by its level. However there was a game balance issue that required addressing. Some magic items provided daily powers which were very powerful, and if a character simply loaded down on magic items that granted a new daily power, they quickly became excessively powerful. The solution was to create an inherent limit by the character, in that you can only use 1 daily magic item power a day. This usage scaled as you leveled to twice at eleventh level, and three times at twenty first level. In addition, you gained a use every milestone. This was made more confusing when you realized each daily power on a magic itemw as a daily power, so it could only be used once a day, regardless of how many 'charges' your character had.
Essentials fixes this by removing the character daily item usage rules and instead categorizing magic items into common, uncommon, and rare. This puts an onus on the GM to keep track of magic items and not give players too many uncommon and rare magic items and therefor unbalance them. In addition the rules for selling and identifying magic items are slightly different based upon rarity.
I consider this to be a major improvement that I will be happy to implement in my games. One thing that I have found interesting, which has cemented in my mind that Essentials is not a new version, is how many magic items they have presented in both the rules compendium and the Fallen Lands book. Barely a handful, compared to PHB1, much less PHB2, 3, and the adventure's vaults. This means that if you were to try and play a Essentials only game, you're select of magic items is extremely limited. (Of course you have no monster manual, so it's not a complete game anyway).
So the only thing left to worry about I believe, is D&D Insider. One of the best parts of 4th edition D&D, although it failed in its initial mission, and it perhaps succeeded too well with it's character generator. I am curious to see how the character generator will handle the Essential's rule sets. Whether the errata released for 4th edition based upon Essentials will be mandatory (except for removing books from the campaign settings are per normal), or if it will be a setting that you turn on and off similar to spell scars and inherent bonuses. Unfortunately we'll have to wait to find out as the software update has been delayed until next month.
So those are my first impressions of Essentials. Now I really want to try out some of the classes! Ironically I just made a new character for one of my 4th edition games, but Essentials came out just a little too late.
Anyway this is about D&D Essentials, the newest Dungeons and Dragons product to be released. To give you the product tag line, D&D Essentials is the series of products that game store owners should always keep on their shelves, regardless of what Wizards of the Coast releases. It follows the release of the D&D Red Box, which is an introductory set of D&D, ment for solo or small group play for completely new players, teaching them how to play D&D.
I admit when heard about Essentials, I was apprehensive. I thought perhaps it was a D&D 4.5 only two years after 4th edition released. That it was hear to replace 4th edition. WotC was decent at releasing information saying that no, this wasn't going to be a 4.5. What they were not good at communicating, to me, was what position this product line fits in. And honestly after reading the books, I understand how hard it is to describe where these products fit. Personally I would place it between the Red Box and 4th edition core books. Except that there are certainly aspects of the Essentials line that "advanced" 4th edition players will want to try out. I'll try and explain further in my impressions below.
This post is not going to be a full review but instead my initial impressions of the two primary products of the Essentials line currently released: D&D Essentials: Rules Compendium, and D&D Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands.
First Impression
So the Essential line of books aren't typically sized gaming books. They're actually the size of trade paperback books. Making them an annoying addition to my gaming book shelf, but very attractive for traveling with the books. It is also likely designed to be appealing to non-gamers, who now see a normal looking book. The books are fairly cheap, although overall you'll probably spend the same amount of money on buying all of the Essentials products than you would PHB, DMG, and MM set. Maybe even more.
D&D Essentials: Rules Compendium
So in my personal opinion this book is what WotC should have released back in 2008. One of the primary complaints about D&D Player's Handbook was that it presented everything as a dictionary and not as a guide. It didn't teach the game, it taught you the rules. Which was okay for old hands but horrible for new hands. Even most old hands I knew felt that the PHB is a very hard read. Like reading an encyclopedia or a dictionary with very little fluff. Some people also complain that it is a hard to find rules. I actually completely disagree. the PHB is an excellent reference source. I believe it was written as being a reference book in mind. Rules are stated once, clearly, in their own sections, and the index and glossary are well flesh out. Each class is presented in a template format with a certain number of pages given for description, then a certain number of pages for powers. This is awesome for game play, horrible for learning.
The Rules Compendium, on the other hand, is written as a guide book. Everything is explained in great detail step by step. Multiple pages are taken to explain classes. Each class ability has a paragraph explaining it before the rules are given, which includes tactics and how it interacts with other possible rules. The guide very much holds the reader's hand BUT, for the old hands who don't want anyone feeling up their digits, the layout of the book is such that one can easily pick out the rules from the fluff. And in that way the book acts like a reference guide and perhaps, in a small way, a better the PHB.
Of course the real way the Rules Compendium wins out over the PHB is the fact that it is a compendium of all the rules published to date, up to date. This includes rules added in PHB2 and PHB3. It also includes all the rules presented in the DMG1 and DMG2, and any extra rules added from the power books. It really is a one stop source, at least for the moment. WotC will likely continue to issue errata for the Essentials line, just like it has for the rest of it'd products.
D&D Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands
Now if you're looking for new an interesting content, this is the book for you. This book, unlike the PHB or any book like it, is really a book that has everything you need to play four classes from first to thirtieth level. And when I mean everything I mean mostly everything. This includes world setting information, the four basic D&D classes Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, and Cleric, rules for skill challenges and encounters, rules for experience and magic items. That means that this book actually repeats a lot of rules from the rules compendium. Now there are not really enough rules to know how to run a game of dungeons and dragons but it is certainly enough for running the characters. I find this a very interesting route to take, it also very much lends itself towards the 'lets help the new player' design decision they have.
So if the book is class centric, what about the classes? Well Essentials offers a new take on 4th edition classes. The concept of builds is taken to a new level in Essentials, rather than being just a 1st level kind of thing, each class has a different kind of build through all the levels. Each build spells out what powers or special abilities you learn at each level. Yes. Special abilities. Classes now have special abilities, that are not powers, that they learn past level one. Plus the usual powers and there is usually a choice of powers to select from. These classes aren't the cookie cutter template of pure 4th edition characters but the rules do state that, at least for the purposes of powers, you can opt to choose a power from a 4th edition (or Red Box) book of equivalent level. And vice versa, a pure 4th edition character is allowed to select powers from the Essentials line.
I was excited about the possibilities of this when I heard about it and so far, I've read three of the four classes and they did not let me down. Each class has at least one build. The cleric has Warpriest. The Fighter has Knight and Slayer. The Rogue has Thief. And each classes's "special abilities" really add a new level of flavor and play style. For example the fighter's builds at-wills are no longer attacks, but instead stances which provide certain bonuses to your basic melee attack. This means at any point in time you need to decide what stance to take in order to maximize your next strike. The Thief's at-wills are actually move powers which grant some kind of special move maneuver, with an additional bonus to any basic melee attack you make.
Honestly it feels like the designers took a step back and looked at 4th and 3.5, listened to some of the naysayers and some of the hooters, and actually came out with a new 4th edition system that has some of the older elements of 3.5 but still keeps all the improvements of 4th edition.
I actually feel like if they had presented this as a whole new edition, I would have eventually accepted it. As is, they instead decided to slide it in as a intermediate edition between their new beginner's box, and 4th edition. I actually find myself hoping that they will release new 4th edition products which fall more in line with Essential's design paradigms.
In 4th edition, magic items got a major overhaul. Magic items now had levels, and the cost of a magic item was standardized by its level. However there was a game balance issue that required addressing. Some magic items provided daily powers which were very powerful, and if a character simply loaded down on magic items that granted a new daily power, they quickly became excessively powerful. The solution was to create an inherent limit by the character, in that you can only use 1 daily magic item power a day. This usage scaled as you leveled to twice at eleventh level, and three times at twenty first level. In addition, you gained a use every milestone. This was made more confusing when you realized each daily power on a magic itemw as a daily power, so it could only be used once a day, regardless of how many 'charges' your character had.
Essentials fixes this by removing the character daily item usage rules and instead categorizing magic items into common, uncommon, and rare. This puts an onus on the GM to keep track of magic items and not give players too many uncommon and rare magic items and therefor unbalance them. In addition the rules for selling and identifying magic items are slightly different based upon rarity.
I consider this to be a major improvement that I will be happy to implement in my games. One thing that I have found interesting, which has cemented in my mind that Essentials is not a new version, is how many magic items they have presented in both the rules compendium and the Fallen Lands book. Barely a handful, compared to PHB1, much less PHB2, 3, and the adventure's vaults. This means that if you were to try and play a Essentials only game, you're select of magic items is extremely limited. (Of course you have no monster manual, so it's not a complete game anyway).
So the only thing left to worry about I believe, is D&D Insider. One of the best parts of 4th edition D&D, although it failed in its initial mission, and it perhaps succeeded too well with it's character generator. I am curious to see how the character generator will handle the Essential's rule sets. Whether the errata released for 4th edition based upon Essentials will be mandatory (except for removing books from the campaign settings are per normal), or if it will be a setting that you turn on and off similar to spell scars and inherent bonuses. Unfortunately we'll have to wait to find out as the software update has been delayed until next month.
So those are my first impressions of Essentials. Now I really want to try out some of the classes! Ironically I just made a new character for one of my 4th edition games, but Essentials came out just a little too late.