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dwarf74 posted:I have a few as well. I was one of them, to be honest. I enjoyed essentials a LOT, with the very big caveat that I enjoyed it *with access to the pre-e content*. Its slightly simpler character building and play decisions just hit the right level of complexity for me, where they focussed more on the tactical movement game of 4e, which was good, than the power-choice game, which I didn't find as interesting. I played Slayers, Blackguards, Berzerkers, Hunters (indeed, I wrote the guide on Hunters), and Knights that I can recall, and had varying levels of positive fun with all of them. Slayers are good, Knights and Berzerkers can be great, Hunters and Blackguards are a lot less good and my Hunter transitioned to a regular Ranger at about level 16. I played my Knight right through til 30 and had great fun all the way. I definitely don't think they were a pinnacle of good design generally though, and I particularly objected to (and still object to when it comes up in other systems) the 'choose from this range of options at levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20' or whatever, where the range of options doesn't... actually improve... at higher levels, so you take the best one at level 1, get used to using it, then... ignore the remaining ones for the most part except for the very situational occasions when they're just marginally better. E-martial stances, to an extent powerpoint psionic class powers, and then in 5e, things like sorcerer metamagic options, it's always the same issue. Just... put some better options in at later levels for goodness sake.
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Aug 18, 2020 16:40
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One of my players loved the Scout, and another was rocking with the Elementalist.
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Aug 18, 2020 17:39
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My Lovely Horse posted:If Essentials delivered that I'm convinced it was largely by accident because it was conceived and designed as the Make D&D Great Again update. And it still equates the "I hit it" classes with martials ("the class your cousin can play") while the arcanes get complex options, which is its own kind of gatekeeping bullshit. I said this pretty much between Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms and Heroes of the Elemental Chaos. Heroes of the Elemental Chaos on the other hand introduced the "I burninate it" class in the Elementalist which is every bit as simple as the simple martials. And I'm not arguing about intent but results. Sodomy Hussein posted:It's not really about gatekeeping, it's that I don't think the Essentials classes accomplish the goal of being "simple" very well. I agree 4E has lovely amounts of pain points for analysis paralysis and I've seen it shut down peoples' brains, and people forgetting to add in one or more of their many modifiers until the end of their turn was common at my tables. I've never seen analysis paralysis from players of the knight, the slayer, the hunter, the scout, the cavalier, the hexblade, the thief or the elementalist even when players of all those classes except the cavalier and thief were prone to analysis paralysis with classic 4e classes. For some people breaking how you attack up from who you are going to attack keeps both decisions small enough that they don't suffer analysis paralysis. That said most of the rest of Essentials was a bit meh. The Mage was a power-boost for the wizard even if Pyromancers and Nethermancers are more inspiring than staff wizards and orb wizards. The Essentials Cleric should have been the start of an interesting idea, with premade character builds that knowingly selected thematically rather than optimally and then gave bonuses to close the gap - but they never followed through on this. The Essentials Sentinel just didn't scale. From the splatbooks Feywild's Skald and Berserker were both interesting and fun and the sort of things we should have seen from late era splatbooks, mixing up the formulas, while the protector was sufficiently meh as the spellslinger druid that I'd forgotten it existed. The Witch on the other hand - we didn't need more wizard archetypes. Heroes of the Elemental Chaos gave us the Shi'ar as Yet Another Wizard - and the Elementalist, which was gold. Heroes of Shadow was the turkey of the bunch - the Binder is pure crap, the Executioner is worse in that it looks interesting but just really doesn't scale. The Vampire doesn't scale - but I was able to pretty much fix that in a single line of house ruling (the Blood Drinker power doing 1d4 damage rather than 1d10 extra damage, meaning that it gets your damage bonuses lets it scale). And the Blackgard doesn't scale. That said the School of Nethermancy was a good idea. Oh, and Neverwinter's Bladesinger looks awful but is pretty decent in play at least in Heroic tier. So yeah. I'll agree with the idea that most of what Essentials delivered was by accident and the worst book (Heroes of Shadow) has Mike Mearls' name as the lead of course. But that doesn't mean that it didn't deliver. I'll forgive a lot of mediocrity in return for adding the Slayer, Knight, Thief, Scout, and Elementalist to the game and by doing so making it easier for more people to actually enjoy things. Also for all I love the 4e Monk class, I'll say that Essentials had a better hit rate than the PHB3.
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Aug 18, 2020 19:34
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Vampire also made for an interesting hybrid class option. I really like how the vampire/rogue worked out with the martial vampire feat.
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Aug 18, 2020 19:51
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Vampires were a really cool idea that suffered from being abandoned immediately after being born, because they definitely could've used a couple more paragon paths / options. A de-Essentialized vampire would be rad as gently caress.
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Aug 18, 2020 20:24
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Vampires were a really cool idea that suffered from being abandoned immediately after being born, because they definitely could've used a couple more paragon paths / options. A de-Essentialized vampire would be rad as gently caress. Same with Runepriests. Super awesome but since they came out post Divine Power and immediately before Essentials I think they got a single Dragon magazine article with some new class options for them.
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Aug 18, 2020 20:38
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Runepriests suffered MASSIVELY from the Rune feats just... almost universally sucking, and those being basically the only thing that distinguished them mechanically from STR clerics. And nothing at all distinguished them flavour wise. The only real thing 4e lacked from a design perspective was a DEX primary leader, which would have been an interesting niche, but it had like... 8 wizards, 6 clerics... It's almost like you could tell where the focus of the designers was in later years.
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Aug 18, 2020 22:58
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A starting regular 4e character who's looking at a battlefield has four choices of power to use: At-Will 1, At-Will 2, Per-Encounter, Daily. A starting Slayer or equivalent looking at a battlefield has two choices of power to use: At-Will 1, At-Will 2. Then, on a hit, they can choose whether to use their Per-Encounter or not. This multiplies out to, as well, four choices, but part of the decision-making is backloaded so as to happen after you've already made your attack. A good version of 5e might have given us a fighter who picks between two or three at-will attacks and then, on a hit, gets to choose whether to put their back into it and deliver a per-encounter or per-day level of killing power. But, alas...
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Aug 18, 2020 23:21
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thespaceinvader posted:Runepriests suffered MASSIVELY from the Rune feats just... almost universally sucking, and those being basically the only thing that distinguished them mechanically from STR clerics. And nothing at all distinguished them flavour wise. Also a DEX primary defender. DEX primaries in general were a bit lacking, but I guess that's mostly because DEX was a god-stat on a level others weren't, and both a leader and a defender which could max DEX and get max init and max AC would have been challenging to balance I guess. CON primaries were similarly lacking, but striker and defender both got done. All this goes to say DTAS.
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Aug 18, 2020 23:51
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Can’t Half-Elf’s do Dex Primary shenanigans for E-Classes in Paragon?
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Aug 19, 2020 00:51
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Ferrinus posted:A starting regular 4e character who's looking at a battlefield has four choices of power to use: At-Will 1, At-Will 2, Per-Encounter, Daily. Slight addendum. A starting regular 4e character who's looking at a battlefield has four choices and (possibly) four targets for sixteen choices all being made in one gulp. Possibly more with powers that attack multiple targets. A starting slayer looking at a battlefield has a choice as to whether to change their stance at the start of their turn - and some of them just sit permanently in the +to hit or +damage stance. Then which of the four targets to attack. Then whether to deliver a power strike. It's all broken up into bite-sized chunks, and there are not even any "Hit them both" options.
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Aug 19, 2020 00:54
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One nice thing about 4e is you didn't need a X-primary class since all the classes got to attack the same with their at-wills and there were double-keyed NADs. Yeah, some dex-primary options would have been nice, but in another edition you'd want that dex primary to pair with crucial features like a ranged basic attack and reflex saves or something, when in 4e it's just dex-to-AC and hybrids.
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Aug 19, 2020 00:55
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neonchameleon posted:Slight addendum. A starting regular 4e character who's looking at a battlefield has four choices and (possibly) four targets for sixteen choices all being made in one gulp. Possibly more with powers that attack multiple targets. Eh, "sit permanently in the +to hit stance" is equivalent to having a favorite at-will, which lots of characters playing normal classes do - does a ranger really choose between Twin Strike and whatever else 95% of the time? It's still choosing which of two powers to use, even if the choice is obvious or so opaque as to be uninteresting. I actually think a +hit stance AND a +damage stance were a really lousy move on the devs' part, because depending on how the math shakes out you could have players choosing the +damage stance (to do damage, right?) but actually reducing their expected DPR compared to what the accuracy stance would have offered! I should also note that the elementalist sorcerer enjoying this level of simplicity is pure propaganda, because they do have to choose between a menu of powers completely ahead of time and, likely as not, carefully pan an AoE over the map until the maximum number of enemies are lighting up to boot.
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Aug 19, 2020 01:05
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Ferrinus posted:Eh, "sit permanently in the +to hit stance" is equivalent to having a favorite at-will, which lots of characters playing normal classes do - does a ranger really choose between Twin Strike and whatever else 95% of the time? No - but sitting permanently in + to hit among other things affects charges and attacks of opportunity. quote:I should also note that the elementalist sorcerer enjoying this level of simplicity is pure propaganda, because they do have to choose between a menu of powers completely ahead of time and, likely as not, carefully pan an AoE over the map until the maximum number of enemies are lighting up to boot. "Carefully pan the AoE map" is somewhat overstating things when the AoE map is only 3 squares by 3 squares. It's slightly more complex than a slayer that's not doing a lot of stance-dancing, but less so than classic AEDU.
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Aug 19, 2020 01:45
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neonchameleon posted:No - but sitting permanently in + to hit among other things affects charges and attacks of opportunity. Yeah, but so does having the Combat Superiority class feature (or using a per-encounter or daily stance). Same number of choices if you're restricting yourself to at-will attacks. quote:"Carefully pan the AoE map" is somewhat overstating things when the AoE map is only 3 squares by 3 squares. It's slightly more complex than a slayer that's not doing a lot of stance-dancing, but less so than classic AEDU. It's 3x3 with an extra adjacent square and might be proceeding to impose forced movement or something like that. I've played an Elementalist and it's extremely as complicated if not more so than playing a regular character, except that you don't have a Daily in your back pocket. The main point I want to make here is that it doesn't do the thing the Slayer does - you can't save some of your decisions for after your attack roll. Like a regular character, you're looking at a full hand of power cards and choosing which one (or two, depending on how you want to count it) to play.
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Aug 19, 2020 01:49
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Essentials classes are either far too simplified and boring; or exactly as complicated as regular characters; or actually somehow more complicated depending on the rhetorical needs of the argument in question. They have schroedingers complexity.
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Aug 19, 2020 02:16
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dwarf74 posted:Essentials classes are either far too simplified and boring; or exactly as complicated as regular characters; or actually somehow more complicated depending on the rhetorical needs of the argument in question. Or there might be more than one Essentials class and different descriptors apply to different ones?
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Aug 19, 2020 02:51
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thespaceinvader posted:Also a DEX primary defender. DEX primaries in general were a bit lacking, but I guess that's mostly because DEX was a god-stat on a level others weren't, and both a leader and a defender which could max DEX and get max init and max AC would have been challenging to balance I guess.
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Aug 19, 2020 02:51
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Or there might be more than one Essentials class and different descriptors apply to different ones?
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Aug 19, 2020 04:03
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Halloween Jack posted:I mean, STR is objectively the worst ability score. They could merge it with CON but that would mess up the 6 score, 3 save layout. But hey, then we could go back to the vaunted 5 saves. It's time for another 'if I was making a heartbreaker' post huh? If I was making a heartbreaker I'd just go down to 3 stats: tough, quick, smart. Or, Fort, Ref, Will, if you prefer.
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Aug 19, 2020 09:24
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reminds me of the dual-stat Wis/Cha classes that just get turboshafted by the game's mechanics.
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Aug 19, 2020 14:17
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Kurieg posted:reminds me of the dual-stat Wis/Cha classes that just get turboshafted by the game's mechanics.
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Aug 19, 2020 14:43
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joining in a game of D&D for the first time and the DM is running 4e. I'm planning on going tiefling bard. I have no idea if this is good or not.
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Aug 22, 2020 11:50
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You've got a Charisma+ species playing a Charisma-based class. You're going to be fine.
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Aug 22, 2020 13:59
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Mr. Maggy posted:joining in a game of D&D for the first time and the DM is running 4e. I'm planning on going tiefling bard. I have no idea if this is good or not. Here's how to make a working 4E character: pick a class and a build. Pick a species that has +stat to the class primary stat and ideally the build secondary. Pick the powers that match the build. Congrats, you're 80% of the way to optimal play.
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Aug 22, 2020 14:20
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Mr. Maggy posted:joining in a game of D&D for the first time and the DM is running 4e. I'm planning on going tiefling bard. I have no idea if this is good or not. The best and worst thing about the 4e bard is that one of their at will attack spells is Vicious Mockery and it does hit point damage. You don't have to take it - but if you want one of your two basic attack types to be to insult bad guys until they'd rather cry than fight this is the class for you. One of your other options is Staggering Note that drives the enemy backwards and gives one of your allies a free swing at the target (although normally you don't take both because you want a melee attack as your backup). The main downside is juggling weapons and implements.
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Aug 22, 2020 19:49
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neonchameleon posted:The best and worst thing about the 4e bard is that one of their at will attack spells is Vicious Mockery and it does hit point damage. You don't have to take it - but if you want one of your two basic attack types to be to insult bad guys until they'd rather cry than fight this is the class for you. One of your other options is Staggering Note that drives the enemy backwards and gives one of your allies a free swing at the target (although normally you don't take both because you want a melee attack as your backup). my first feat choice was to cross class into swordmage to help with that which seemed smart to me and I did go with Vicious Mockery and Staggering Note
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Aug 23, 2020 00:27
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Mr. Maggy posted:my first feat choice was to cross class into swordmage to help with that which seemed smart to me Yeah, that's a strong choice. Using a heavy/light blade as an implement helps with weapon/implement upkeep and switching, and it also opens up Intelligent Blademaster for an MBA option.
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Aug 23, 2020 00:38
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Ferrinus posted:Eh, "sit permanently in the +to hit stance" is equivalent to having a favorite at-will, which lots of characters playing normal classes do - does a ranger really choose between Twin Strike and whatever else 95% of the time? It's still choosing which of two powers to use, even if the choice is obvious or so opaque as to be uninteresting. I actually think a +hit stance AND a +damage stance were a really lousy move on the devs' part, because depending on how the math shakes out you could have players choosing the +damage stance (to do damage, right?) but actually reducing their expected DPR compared to what the accuracy stance would have offered! I mean that’s because Twin Strike is kinda OP. It’s one where the designers didn’t quite appreciate just how much better an extra attack is than most other bonuses.
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Aug 23, 2020 00:45
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Lemon-Lime posted:Here's how to make a working 4E character: pick a class and a build. Pick a species that has +stat to the class primary stat and ideally the build secondary. Pick the powers that match the build. Congrats, you're 80% of the way to optimal play. Honestly I don’t like the “pick a species that has these bonuses” bit, species should be a flavor choice. You can get fine stats without it.
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Aug 23, 2020 00:47
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Maxwell Lord posted:Honestly I don’t like the “pick a species that has these bonuses” bit, species should be a flavor choice. You can get fine stats without it. They're not a flavour choice in 4E, they're a mechanical character option like any other, and you absolutely need an 18 in your primary and 16 in your secondary for the maths to work out properly, which is not something you can do if you don't have racial modifiers to stats that actually matter to your class and build. The "flavour choice" is that you can just as easily refluff your species in 99% of cases.
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Aug 23, 2020 00:56
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Sometimes, cool racial bonuses and feat synergies and whatnot can make up for having an 18 instead of a 20 in primary, but even then, you definitely want to get a +2 at least into your secondary.
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Aug 23, 2020 01:12
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Lemon-Lime posted:They're not a flavour choice in 4E, they're a mechanical character option like any other, and you absolutely need an 18 in your primary and 16 in your secondary for the maths to work out properly, which is not something you can do if you don't have racial modifiers to stats that actually matter to your class and build. The "flavour choice" is that you can just as easily refluff your species in 99% of cases. That would make it a pretty bad game if players are punished for taking something that’s not an optimal stat combo. Thought 4e was supposed to be well balanced without trap options.
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Aug 23, 2020 01:21
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Maxwell Lord posted:That would make it a pretty bad game if players are punished for taking something that’s not an optimal stat combo.  hot take you made like five years ago?
girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Aug 23, 2020 |
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Aug 23, 2020 01:34
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You can, theoretically, play a Dragonborn Wizard, and do ok. However, it will mean that in order to hit the math breakpoints that the game is designed around you will need to spend a lot more ability points into getting your INT score up to acceptable levels (i.e. 18), and as a result your secondary stats will suffer. There are still traps that you can fall into in D&D4, however they are far fewer and far less punishing usually than in previous and future editions. However, the one thing that does exist as a trap is determining ability scores, and that is mostly as a side effect of the math being incredibly tight. Every +2 that you don't take to your primary stat is a 5% accuracy hit over your entire character's career.
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Aug 23, 2020 01:41
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the whole "if your secondary stats fall behind you suck" thing isn't accurate anyway; they're certainly not equally important to every class and spec either way the lack of stat caps is a bigger problem with racial ability scores Baku fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Aug 23, 2020 |
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Aug 23, 2020 01:55
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Maxwell Lord posted:That would make it a pretty bad game if players are punished for taking something that’s not an optimal stat combo. So I guess that stats in your world should be utterly meaningless then. Because everyone in every game is "punished" for sub-optimal choices. And a trap option isn't just a bad option. Int 9 for a wizard is a bad decision in any edition of D&D - but it's screamingly obvious it's bad so it is not a trap. It clearly marks itself as a bad choice. A trap option is something like the 3.X Toughness feat that gives you 3 extra hp. It presents itself as a good choice - but isn't. 4e as written was balanced round a 16 in your primary stat at first level. As played 18 is the baseline.
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Aug 23, 2020 01:59
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Maxwell Lord posted:That would make it a pretty bad game if players are punished for taking something that’s not an optimal stat combo. Well through the magic of class features and at-wills usually being pretty nice you are generally less hosed having a fighter with 2-4 less strength than expected in 4th ed than you are in other editions though sooooo. I mean, a friend of mine ran a kobold arena(? The one where you get huge improvised bonuses and free extra weapon profs) fighter and they ended up generally more "useful" than my "picked the right racial stats" half-orc in 5th ed, even though that's a funhaver campaign where my friend gave me a bullshit swiss army magic weapon. Because optimal stats won't save you compared to lacking mechanical backing to discourage the GM from falling into the "I just feel it is more logical for these hook horrors to spend the whole fight on the ceiling and reach past you to smack the cleric. Yes, I know you are reach stabbing them with the maul that can transform in into a pike or battleaxe" pit again.
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Aug 23, 2020 02:01
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neonchameleon posted:So I guess that stats in your world should be utterly meaningless then. Because everyone in every game is "punished" for sub-optimal choices. Well right, but you don't need the right racial bonus to get a 16 or even an 18, those are in the arrays. Like, I agree, the game communicates clearly that you should put your best score in your class builds' primary stat (and it's kinda rare to end up with stats where you don't have at least one 16 unless you either go with one of the broadest arrays or screw up with point buy.) What it doesn't say is that you need to align your choice of character race in order to get an 18 or better. That's something the player base has generally found works better but it's not required to have a character who will fare well in the system/not be completely outclassed by everyone else. All I've been saying on this is that D&D 4 is a well balanced game where it's pretty hard to make a "bad" character- you kinda have to try. That doesn't mean charop isn't a thing but it's more optional than it was in 3rd.
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Aug 23, 2020 02:17
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Maxwell Lord posted:I mean that’s because Twin Strike is kinda OP. It’s one where the designers didn’t quite appreciate just how much better an extra attack is than most other bonuses. It's an extreme example, but I think it's actually pretty common for a character to default to a "bread and butter" at-will. Consider a fighter with Reaping Strike and Luring Strike, for instance. Sure, you'll use Luring Strike if you need to Slide 1 your target for some reason, but by default you're gonna throw the one that does miss damage because that's free real estate.
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Aug 23, 2020 03:04
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