The End of 4e D&D.

[Data Vampire]

While I'm here, the product catalog on the WotC site now extends into the first three months of 2011.

Speaking of the new Fighter for a moment, the Knight's Aura doesn't stack with marking, but it doesn't say that it doesn't stack with itself.

Effect: You activate an aura 1 that lasts until you end it as a minor action or until you fall unconscious. While in the aura, any enemy takes a –2 penalty to attack rolls when it makes an attack that does not include among its targets either you or an ally of yours who has this aura active. Marked enemies are not subject to this aura.

[A Man In Black]

Unlike a stance, which can be a problem for every, single, encounter.

Most 4e stances are encounter-long dailies.

Effect: You activate an aura 1 that lasts until you end it as a minor action or until you fall unconscious. While in the aura, any enemy takes a –2 penalty to attack rolls when it makes an attack that does not include among its targets either you or an ally of yours who has this aura active. Marked enemies are not subject to this aura.

Which means it stacks, so that if there are three fighters around him and he whacks a wizard, it's at -6. However, there's no penalty if he whacks a fighter.

[Data Vampire]

Which means it stacks, so that if there are three fighters around him and he whacks a wizard, it's at -6. However, there's no penalty if he whacks a fighter.

Someone took it to a whole party which wouldn't work.

Also I found this in the errata.

"If auras overlap and impose penalties to the
same roll or game statistic, a creature affected
by the overlapping auras is subjected to the
worst penalty; the penalties are not cumulative."

So it definitely wouldn't work that way.

[TheFlatline]

Something I read in that preview article that grinds my gears is the mention that there are "10 products" which essentially make up the core of D&D Essentials. Remembering that D&D Essentials is a few booklets in each box, and that the core classes, monsters, and rulesets are scattered across the different boxes, I feel like I'm fucking buying booster packs again, only I probably know the content of the booster packs.

That's an absurdly high number of products to expect someone to buy to have a comprehensive setting of rules. This is kind of smelling to me like a way to get more cash out of the core line of books.

Also, to nitpick, it says it's compatible with *all* previous dungeons & dragons products. That would mean it's 3.5 compatible too.

[Koumei]

Also, to nitpick, it says it's compatible with *all* previous dungeons & dragons products. That would mean it's 3.5 compatible too.

Think bigger. It's compatible with OD&D.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Stances can be very swingy for an encounter, and never go wrong when they 'go off'. So, always a problem, always around, never to be stopped.

Then stances should either be At-Will or people should have enough that they can use a stance every encounter. I prefer the first, since it's less writing and thus crap on a character sheet.

I'm not saying they shouldn't exist, but there should be at least a tiny bit of strategy to them, or something that can go wrong, or a way to stop them...

The game is complicated enough as it is.

All I'm saying is that stances should be like Tome feats where you can select from an array of them but you can only use one at a time. If you want to prevent people from cycling through them too fast, you can put an activation time or a cooldown time on then.

[ScottS]

While I'm here, the product catalog on the WotC site now extends into the first three months of 2011.

They added that Heroes of Shadow thing (Mar 11) within the past few days. (That would be the first release after Aug 10 that doesn't have the Essentials tag, although there's other weirdness afoot, such as it having its own unique "Player's Options D&D Game Supplement" category, as well as an abnormally large page count.)

[hogarth]

They added that Heroes of Shadow thing (Mar 11) within the past few days. (That would be the first release after Aug 10 that doesn't have the Essentials tag, although there's other weirdness afoot, such as it having its own unique "Player's Options D&D Game Supplement" category, as well as an abnormally large page count.)

I gather they're now splitting books into Essentials (i.e. "core" books) and Options (i.e. "splat" books). The page count is presumably larger than normal because the page dimensions are smaller (i.e. paperback size rather than hardcover size).

[Username17]

Is it just me, or is:

"Player's Options: Heroes of Shadow" a lot more like "Player's Essentials: Heroes of the Forgotten Land" than it is like a 4e title?

-Username17

[Roy]

Is it just me, or is:

"Player's Options: Heroes of Shadow" a lot more like "Player's Essentials: Heroes of the Forgotten Land" than it is like a 4e title?

-Username17

Is that a 2nd edition book?

[hogarth]

Is it just me, or is:

"Player's Options: Heroes of Shadow" a lot more like "Player's Essentials: Heroes of the Forgotten Land" than it is like a 4e title?

-Username17

But Frank, it is a 4E title. The "Essentials" and "Options" stuff is 4E and always will be.

On a related note, we've always been at war with Eastasia.

[Username17]

The Essentials stuff is 4.5. The only way it counts as not involving rules changes to 4e is that they are issuing errata to 4e books to bring them in line with Essentials. The word "essentials" is actually pretty weird, my guess is that it was chosen to confuse the matter over people saying "4E" (4th edition) and "4E" (4th, Essentials variant).

Player's Options: Heroes of Shadow will be precisely as compatible with the 4e PHB as Complete Warrior was compatible with the 3e PHB. Well, maybe less.

-Username17

[hogarth]

The Essentials stuff is 4.5.

Well, duh.

The only way it counts as not involving rules changes to 4e is that they are issuing errata to 4e books to bring them in line with Essentials. The word "essentials" is actually pretty weird, my guess is that it was chosen to confuse the matter over people saying "4E" (4th edition) and "4E" (4th, Essentials variant).

The word "Essentials" is the term they're using instead of "core rulebook". The "everything is core" mantra was confusing, mostly because it was a sham.

Do you really think they're going to continue to issue errata to 4E books (after December, say)?

[ScottS]

The only way it counts as not involving rules changes to 4e is that they are issuing errata to 4e books to bring them in line with Essentials. The word "essentials" is actually pretty weird, my guess is that it was chosen to confuse the matter over people saying "4E" (4th edition) and "4E" (4th, Essentials variant).

The word "Essentials" is the term they're using instead of "core rulebook". The "everything is core" mantra was confusing, mostly because it was a sham.

They're just upping the implicit sense of urgency/necessity... From "Core" to "Really, Really Core" (i.e. Essentials), soon to be followed by the "You Must Buy This Or Raptor-Jesus Will Eat All The Puppies" product line.

[Username17]

At this point, 4rries have become a perverse form of Poe's Law. It is no longer possible to differentiate between people making impassioned defenses of the actual WotC party line and people making fun of them. This, for example, is a real argument being put forward by an actual 4rry:

The main reason that Essentials isn't a new edition is because there's nothing to it. It's like saying "Players Handbook 2 is a new edition." or "the Icewind Dale dungeon tiles are a new edition"

Yes, I'm sure the other versions of the Wizard aren't going away.

I think what's confusing is some people are talking about power changes and multi-classing and those are separate things. I highly doubt Essentials will include multi-classing details at all. By the time someone gets to the point where they want to multiclass they'll be out of Essentials territory.

We will probably see changes to more spells. We'll also see more spells in general (Arc Lightning, Beguiling Strands, and Hypnotism aren't even in the builder yet).

It loooks like if you really had yourself hung up on the old version of Magic Missile, you might as well take Arc Lightning as it does just about the same thing (range 20, attacks reflex, does 1d6+int mod). The trade off between 2d4 and 1d6 is you can attack more than one target with Arc Lightning.

Yes, there are seriously people out there saying that the rules are not changing because you can use different powers out of the new books now that your old powers have been removed from the character builder. That is their actual argument.

Do you really think they're going to continue to issue errata to 4E books (after December, say)?

That is a very good question. My assumption is that any 4e material from before Essentials is going to get marginalized as quickly as possible. If past activities are any indication, it likely involves some heavy handed nerfings getting handed out. But yeah, I can't imagine them giving a fuck about anything from 4e (Open Beta) by Q1 of next year. I imagine that PHB1-3 errata will basically cease altogether in the near future.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

I picked up a copy of 4th edition's PHB less than a year ago, and it states it's a first printing from 2008. Not definitive, and I may have just gotten an old book, but it's more evidence that the print runs were probably just exact reprints if they even existed.

[CCarter]

Is it just me, or is:

"Player's Options: Heroes of Shadow" a lot more like "Player's Essentials: Heroes of the Forgotten Land" than it is like a 4e title?

-Username17

But Frank, it is a 4E title. The "Essentials" and "Options" stuff is 4E and always will be.

On a related note, we've always been at war with Eastasia.

Ze Game Will Remain Ze Same.

Everyone knows OD&D is a cheap ripoff of 4e D&D created by Paizo back in the early 70s. I'm sure it'll say that somewhere in the reprint of the Red Box.

[A Man In Black]

Think bigger. It's compatible with OD&D.

Nah, bigger than that. It's compatible with Dragon Strike, this D&D coloring book I have from 1982 with a short CYOA story in it, and the Apple IIe version of Curse of the Azure Bonds.

[NineInchNall]

Someone has to say it: Nah, it's the biggest possible. It's compatible with your mom.

[areola]

http://www.mananation.com/exclusive-wiz ... ons-books/

[Doom]

Sure would like to see an official announcement of this newsiness story.

[hogarth]

http://www.mananation.com/exclusive-wiz ... ons-books/

The blindingly obvious passes for news these days?

[Crissa]

And exclusive, apparently.

-Crissa

[areola]

Well it's not exactly hard to believe it. With the Rules Compendium taking over as the de facto rules bible, PHB1 classes are all translated to Essentials save the warlord and Monster Vault updating the iconic monsters found in MM1, why not?

[Username17]

Well it's not exactly hard to believe it. With the Rules Compendium taking over as the de facto rules bible, PHB1 classes are all translated to Essentials save the warlord and Monster Vault updating the iconic monsters found in MM1, why not?

For some reason I don't understand, the current party line is that Essentials is not a new edition, or even a half-edition like 4.5. According to that party line, I don't know why we are supposed to want to purchase it for money. It's weird.

But the 4rries of course take the party line as marching orders, so they are out there assuring us that not only are the core books not discontinued (which they clearly are), but that the next printing will be fully errataed and totally compatible with the Essentials material. Like I said, it's weird. If that was actually true, why would people buy the Rules Compendium, the Monster Vault, or the new DM's box at all?

It's totally obvious at this point that there won't be a second printing of any 4e book (except apparently the PHB2), and that any copies you find of absolutely any 4e book anywhere are simply unsold copies from the initial release. The Essentials line is an attempt to reboot the franchise, an attempt to restart the game as something successful that people actually buy until it is gone and they can print more of to sell more copies. But that really doesn't fit with the narrative that the 4rries or even the designers want to tell. They have been spinning a narrative of 4e already being a success. So starting over just 2 years in gives the show away.

Since saying that 4e is financially unsuccessful is tantamount to leveraging profound insults at the feet of 4rries, they cannot bring themselves to consider the possibility lest they be cast out of the 4vengers. So they need to come up with different narratives where 4e proper will stay with us for years or decades and Essentials is somehow an exciting addition that will bring in new players and also is not a meaningful change that won't keep 4e from moving forward essentially unchanged. I tell you, trying to believe that would make my head explode.

-Username17