The Gaming Den

Posted: **Sun Jul 11, 2010 2:43 am**

WotC Trevor wrote:One of the first ideas behind Essentials was to change D&D in a way that was easier for new players to get at. This covers the marketing, repackaging, and simplifying some stuff that a lot of people here have touched on.

So this evolved into pulling out the rules and putting them in their own book, giving a small slice of 1-2 levels in the Starter Set/Red Box, a DM Kit with tokens and such, and a couple class/race books for players. With that basic idea, we also needed to make sure that we had something awesome to offer current players. And that's where the old classes/new builds thing comes into play.

And seriously, new builds is what I would liken the crunchy bits in the Essentials players books to. You've got the basic PH1 Fighter, you've got the battlerager, and then you'll have the Essentials fighter build. You have the Bow/Two weapon ranger, you have the beast ranger, and you have the Essentials ranger. The rules for playing the game don't change (beyond adding the rules updates into the compendium), and a party could easily have an Essentials build rogue right along side a Brawny Rogue from PH1 - that is, assuming the party wanted two melee strikers.

So there's my take on Essentials, and hopefully that mesh's with what you already know about it because... well... I'm really saying the same things that have already been said. As to rumors and speculation, this is the interwebz so I definitely expect to see people spinning up ideas of what they think Essentials is and isn't, but we'll be giving out more information as we get closer to the Essentials release. Next time will be a bit on the Compendium (as Mike pointed out) and once that's up we'll have more about the next tidbit).

Posted: **Sun Jul 11, 2010 3:51 am**

Psychic Robot wrote: Things went downhill from that point onward. Eventually, he left.

And nothing of value was lost.

Posted: **Sun Jul 11, 2010 12:56 pm**

A Man In Black wrote:You know the crowning moment of ENW patheticness? A mod telling off people in the thread, and locking it.

Even if he is telling off trolls, Christ, keep your cool or do it with no comment. Locking a thread for the last word just makes you look like a tool.

-edit-

Unless fbmf locked this thread here and called me a dick. That'd be kind of awesome.

I'm not arguing with you about the lameness of said action, but I will send that an Admin did that about 4-5 years ago which resulted in me leaving the forums. I'm still waiting for the email reply that Morrus said would come if I talked to him privately about it.

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 4:35 pm**

The Essentials - Wizard preview is up: The Mage

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... p/20100716 (no registration required)

Sadly, I don't know enough about 4e wizards to even know what changed, although Mages still receive at-will/encounter/daily abilities. They are limited to 3 schools of magic: Enchantment, Illusion, and Evocation.

Magic Missile is given to every Mage, and they choose between Arc Lightning (1 or 2 target, DD), Beguiling Strands (single target, damage+move target), or Hypnotic Gaze (Single Target, forces target to attack 2nd target of your choice at +4 or forces the target to move)

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 5:47 pm**

Wow.... the Mage is just a totally crippled version of the wizard.

Seriously, beguiling strands? Do like 5 damage to someone and push them 3 squares?

What the fuck... don't they realize yet that the minor battlefield shifts are totally useless since your enemy just uses a move action and is back in the fray having lost nothing? That shit would be nice in 3.5, since you can stop full attacks with it, but it sucks balls in 4E, because you're not using your move action for anything anyway.

The damage is pitifully weak on pretty much everything. Honestly it seems like they just want the mage to spam magic missiles the whole combat.

Apparently instead of realizing that people wanted combats that were over quicker, they saw the 4E bard and some of the other god awful low damage classes and decided they wanted to make everyone like that.

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 6:20 pm**

So like I predicted, in order to make D&D Essentials work at all:

1) They're going to have to ban 'old' version of classes from interacting with the newer ones. Which goes quite a bit further than just making 4.5E, since even in 3.5E you could still play Sohei and Shamans alongside the updated classes without too much of a hiccup.

2) They're going to have to go on a nerf-spree for errata for 4E very shortly before or into when Essentials comes out.

3) They're going to go on a massive power-creep orgy for Essentials very shortly into the lifecycle. That's not that big of a stretch, because 8 months of new content into 4E gave the classes a massive power boost. Until they went all nerf-happy. But still, the point is that it's possible.

4) They're just going to pretend like nothing's wrong with their current setup and backhandedly call people who play oldstyle Wizards and Rangers and Druids fucking munchkins out of one end of their mouth while the other end says that things are balanced.

That said, I'm glad that they're splitting the Wizard/Mage's schools up to make them more thematic. Not that it really matters in 4E, since the powers are so bland that it doesn't make a difference in the first place, but even in that edition Wizards were/are pretty much the Swiss Army Knife class.

And to be fair I could see myself picking up the Hypnotism power for my wizard's third At-Will if I was playing a 'regular' 4E game. Some monsters have some pretty bitching melee basic attacks.

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 6:50 pm**

Actually, on second thought, you could also just use the Hypnotism power to continually charm and make one of your party members attack on your behalf at a hefty bonus. You could even have them automatically fail their will save, too.

I don't want to hear about how twinky that shit is, because Sakura did exactly that in her first real fight.

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 6:56 pm**

Actually, Lago, you can double the damage output of your buddy using Hypnotism at lvl 1, since the target uses a free action to make the attack at +4 - so it wouldn't stop a monster from attacking your buddy with his voluntary action, but you can give your melee buddy a free extra attack every round at +4 (barbarian and other twohander guys, I'm looking at you).

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 6:58 pm**

Can you voluntarily fail a Will Defense? I don't even know.

-Username17

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 7:28 pm**

I don't see the hypnotism being so good, since it require two rolls and it doesn't take away the monsters actual action. About all I really can see is having a PC with a deliberately abysmal will defense to take advantage of it.

FrankTrollman wrote:Can you voluntarily fail a Will Defense? I don't even know.

I don't think so. I don't recall any 4E mechanic for voluntarily failure. 4E defenses aren't even a roll that the defender makes. At most you could simply make your stats so your defense is crap.

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 7:40 pm**

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Wow.... the Mage is just a totally crippled version of the wizard.

Seriously, beguiling strands? Do like 5 damage to someone and push them 3 squares?

What the fuck... don't they realize yet that the minor battlefield shifts are totally useless since your enemy just uses a move action and is back in the fray having lost nothing? That shit would be nice in 3.5, since you can stop full attacks with it, but it sucks balls in 4E, because you're not using your move action for anything anyway.

Exactly what I've said the entire time! Sandpaper Tangoing is not any more interesting than standing still and full attacking, it's just more tedium for the same end effect.

'Shift one square' even would be useful in 3.5. Then you 5 foot step back and if they don't have reach they can't full attack you... which is almost the same as negating their action entirely for a round. But in 4.Fail, no one fucking cares.

The damage is pitifully weak on pretty much everything. Honestly it seems like they just want the mage to spam magic missiles the whole combat.

Apparently instead of realizing that people wanted combats that were over quicker, they saw the 4E bard and some of the other god awful low damage classes and decided they wanted to make everyone like that.

Don't you know? Grind = content.

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 7:58 pm**

They really need to nail down some actual rules for that sort of thing. It happens time and again that one of my players wants to move a character.

"Can I bull rush him? Can he make himself easier to hit?"...I make 'em roll, high is good, but would love hear some actual rules for 4e on this topic.

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 8:02 pm**

Why wouldn't you be allowed to voluntarily accept the effect of an attack?

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 8:24 pm**

RandomCasualty2 wrote:I don't see the hypnotism being so good, since it require two rolls and it doesn't take away the monsters actual action. About all I really can see is having a PC with a deliberately abysmal will defense to take advantage of it.

Some monsters have ridiculously good melee basic attacks, though, like getting 6 (or more) attacks, being able to stun a foe on a hit, dominating them, doing massive amounts of damage on a critical, so on.

If I was limited on At-Wills, it wouldn't be the first two that I picked (assuming I was playing a 'regular' 4E wizard) but it would definitely be a third.

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 8:27 pm**

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Some monsters have ridiculously good melee basic attacks, though, like getting 6 (or more) attacks, being able to stun a foe on a hit, dominating them, doing massive amounts of damage on a critical, so on.

Oddly enough, there was a Paragon tier Warlock feat printed in Dragon that let you forgo dealing curse damage in exchange for compelling the target to make a melee basic attack (no movement beforehand).

When they released the Dragon compilation the feat disappeared, and I'm pretty sure it didn't make it to compendium--it had been errata'd out of existence before it was officially ratified, or something, presumably because somebody decided it was too powerful for exactly this reason.

Yet they think giving the same ability as an at-will to mages is totally cool?

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 8:29 pm**

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Some monsters have ridiculously good melee basic attacks, though, like getting 6 (or more) attacks, being able to stun a foe on a hit, dominating them, doing massive amounts of damage on a critical, so on.

You sure about that? Most monster basic attacks are pretty weak. Things like hydras can only make a bunch of attacks by using a non-basic power. Advanced affects like domination and stun tend to be encounter or recharge.

On the other hand, I've only ever read the MMI, so I may just be behind the times...

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 8:36 pm**

Yup. Check the MM2 and beyond, especially the bullshit monsters made for modules.

The monsters in the MM1 have pretty shitty basic attacks, yes--there are a couple of good ones like the chuul and the ghoul who do stuff like immobilize on a hit, but the really good stuff comes at higher levels and in the other monster manuals.

RC2 wrote: What the fuck... don't they realize yet that the minor battlefield shifts are totally useless since your enemy just uses a move action and is back in the fray having lost nothing? That shit would be nice in 3.5, since you can stop full attacks with it, but it sucks balls in 4E, because you're not using your move action for anything anyway.

To be fair, RC2, thunderwave was a powerful At-Will at higher levels because you could push several monsters outside of move range, especially with the help of some magical items. Very nice in combination with dazing / slowing / immobilizing / prone / blinding, but as Pixels pointed out since most monsters have weak At-Wills just forcing melee brutes to charge instead of using some of their better At-Wills worked out very nicely.

You didn't even need to be all that careful with the At-Will at higher levels (especially with just the basic book) because of the padded sumo effect and wizards having similar defenses to other classes.

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 9:02 pm**

Lago PARANOIA wrote: To be fair, RC2, thunderwave was a powerful At-Will at higher levels because you could push several monsters outside of move range, especially with the help of some magical items. Very nice in combination with dazing / slowing / immobilizing / prone / blinding, but as Pixels pointed out since most monsters have weak At-Wills just forcing melee brutes to charge instead of using some of their better At-Wills worked out very nicely.

Well I've never played 4E very high so a lot of the paragon and epic craziness escapes me. Speaking from heroic tier play, I can say that pushing and slowing almost never really did anything the group cared about. immobilizing was good, but honestly you could just immobilize it and shift away and get the same effect as immob + push most of the time. And that had the benefit of requiring only one attack.

About the best use of thunderwave I saw was readying an action for a monster to get in melee range and then thunderwaving him, which was still really only effective at denying an action if two more squares of movement could stop him from reaching you, or would force him to charge. Most of the time though, it was useless.

Now I haven't followed 4E monsters much, I took a quick look at the MM2, saw that monster damages were still really low and just never bothered with it beyond that. Really until they make monsters actually do some damage that can put a dent into the crazy combat healing that parties have, especially at high levels, 4E just isnt' an interesting game for me.

4E low level is ironically the most interesting 4E gets for me since the combats are a decent length and people's individual attacks are impactful. At higher levels it's just too grindy.

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 10:49 pm**

Probably it is nothing weird for 4e but I find interesting that with hypnotism you can make a monster attack itself.

Also I'm not familiar with 4e but when power's target is "a creature" it means the caster can use it on himself?

Posted: **Fri Jul 16, 2010 11:51 pm**

By the way, in amongst all the smack talk, we should probably give credit where credit is due. The Wizard's spell preparation system didn't really make any fucking sense with the whole ability replacement thing that 4e wanted you to do. Now that each class is freed from the universal ability progression, the Wizard is itself free to get an ability progression that actually works with the abilities they have.

The Essentials Wizard never has spells overwrite other spells. Spells simply accumulate, and each day they have a number of slots and each slot has to be filled with a spell from a different level. That is a much clearer way of handling that, and has the added advantage of actually working as the authors apparently intend for it to without relying on convoluted errata and shit.

Of course, now that they've abandoned the universal ability progression, the multiclass feats don't make any sense. But they didn't "work" in the traditional sense before hand, so only a minor loss.

-Username17

Posted: **Sat Jul 17, 2010 2:06 am**

In the first quasi-nerf of 4.5, they've already made a "oh crap, we missed that" response saying Hypnotic Gaze can't be used on allies.

I suppose you could still use it to trigger marks and such things though. I'm sure they'll take care of that once they notice it as well.

I wonder if they'll remember that Evoker/War Wizards will still need actual control powers or if it will just be more shitty DD+a push/pull/slow crap.

Posted: **Sat Jul 17, 2010 2:44 am**

Oh crap, yeah, that could be used to trigger opportunity attacks from fighter's mark and stuff...they really need to do something about 'interrupt on interrupt' maneuvers. Combat with my level 16 players is insane. Every class, by that level, has at least 1 encounter power interrupt, so every round (for at least the first three or four rounds), every monster move, my players have to decide if any and how many players and in what order they're going to interrupt. I can hardly reach for a monster without cringing.

And the fact that they haven't even freakin' playtested it enough to consider using it on allies? Jeeeeeeeez.

Posted: **Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:21 am**

In the first quasi-nerf of 4.5, they've already made a "oh crap, we missed that" response saying Hypnotic Gaze can't be used on allies.

Have I mentioned how much I really, really hate WotC's current policy of playtesting things through the Character Optimization boards?

I did? Well, have I mentioned how much I fucking hate how WotC balances powers by going 'lol no' even if the objection makes no sense outside of an MMORPG simulate?

I did? Well, fuck you.

Posted: **Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:28 am**

Also, even more fail, I just saw the actual post about the power:

"I believe that power has actually been changed to target enemies only, as per the final round of playtesting. The book is going to print tomorrow, and the final playtesting changes were entered today. Bill wrote this article last week.

Mechanically, it actually works out fine (you have to hit the fighter, then the fighter has to hit the monster), but there was a fair amount of confusion among playtesters about how to handle attacks against allies. By the rules, the wizard must make an attack roll, but that didn't feel intuitive to many players. A number of groups assumed that the fighter could allow the attack to hit. So, we made the change to make things clearer and better match the design intent."

So you can't actually allow an attack to hit you in 4E... I never actually knew that and it makes even less sense than 4E normally does.

Posted: **Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:45 am**

So they actually had playtesting, and it took them to the 'final' round to consider the possibility that it might be cast on an ally?

And rather than freakin' get some dang rules for attacking allies, they change the power. It seems like there's all sorts of silliness possible if you can attack allies (especially monsters attacking other monsters, which nukes at least one bard power, and can greatly weaken the effects of wall of fire), so they really need some rules there, beyond the 'you cain't'.

Sigh.

The Gaming Den

The End of 4e D&D.