The End of 4e D&D.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Well, you do have to give them credit for the sheer audaciousness of their bullshit. Then again, every edition of AD&D prior to 3e had a set of revised rules released as an optional supplement (Unearthed Arcana for 1e and the Player's Option books for 2e). However, they didn't stop printing the old core books when those supplements came out.

But WotC has an advantage when trying to pitch BS on 4e's behalf. AFAICT, the 4e customer base consists of 4rries, Josh, and Lago (and maybe a couple of Denners I've forgotten about). Since they're selling mostly to a core group of unquestioning fanboys, they can get away with so much more.

[RandomCasualty2]

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.

Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing. They're not simplifying or improving the rules at all. Despite all the problems with crap like combat healing, general lack of tactics and multi-attack powers... they're fixing none of that.

Basically, the Essentials line is a watered version of the PHB4 and a reprint of shit you already have. To make matters worse, it's classes are nerfed down to what appears to the level of the PHB2 bard. All except for combat healing which remains as uber as ever for some reason, despite being one of the most game destructive things out there.

I could really understand if they wanted to reboot 4E. 4E has a lot of decent promise in concept, but the numbers are fucked to all hell. What it really needs is a reboot.

This half-assed way is not going to accomplish anything.

[Red_Rob]

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.

Did I miss something, or do Tome feats not work that way?

[CatharzGodfoot]

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.

Did I miss something, or do Tome feats not work that way?

I think he actually means PF combat feats.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Red Rob:

I meant as in each individual tome feat (stance) gives you a variety of level-appropriate options rather than bonuses (which is the problem with 4E feats).

[TheFlatline]

Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing. They're not simplifying or improving the rules at all. Despite all the problems with crap like combat healing, general lack of tactics and multi-attack powers... they're fixing none of that.

Basically, the Essentials line is a watered version of the PHB4 and a reprint of shit you already have. To make matters worse, it's classes are nerfed down to what appears to the level of the PHB2 bard. All except for combat healing which remains as uber as ever for some reason, despite being one of the most game destructive things out there.

I could really understand if they wanted to reboot 4E. 4E has a lot of decent promise in concept, but the numbers are fucked to all hell. What it really needs is a reboot.

This half-assed way is not going to accomplish anything.

It'll accomplish one thing. Instead of being able to play the game with 3 or 4 books, it sounds like they're setting up so that you have to buy all 10. I can spend 70 bucks these days on a slipcase with the core 3 4th edition books, or I can buy what seems to be 4 or 5 Essentials products at 20-30 bucks a pop and spend more money to get essentially the same stuff.

That is, of course, if I understand Wizards right, and they are offering a couple classes, a bit of DM rules, and some monsters in each red box, ensuring that you need all the different red box versions to actually have the full range of options and rules. Then to play past like 5th level you're going to need at least one more rulebook, and so on and so forth.

It seems like they're taking a Magic The Gathering approach to tabletop, and granulating the ruleset as fine as they can so they can charge 20 bucks for each piece that you need.

[Username17]

The Essentials products are... well... a lot of them aren't very essential. They aren't even books. There is:

• The base box.
• The Monster Vault
• The first player expansion with half the classes and races.
• The second player expansion with the other half.
• The DM Kit
• The Rules Compendium

Then there are other things that count as being Essentials products but no one in their right minds would consider them as such: A dice box, and three dungeon tiles sets. What's interesting is that in the catalog, they keep changing their minds about what is or is not an essentials product in the first place. For example, right now there are only seven items listed as Essentials products, because the Rules Compendium is currently listed as being "Core Rules", the Dungeon Dungeon Tiles don't even exist, and the dice box is back to being a "D&D Accessory".

All in all, their mantra of "ten essential products" is not even DOA, because that would imply actually arriving somewhere. They currently have five books or boxes that have the Essentials tag on them in the catalog and two sets of dungeon tiles. That's not ten products even on a good day. I don't know what they think they are doing.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

It'll accomplish one thing. Instead of being able to play the game with 3 or 4 books, it sounds like they're setting up so that you have to buy all 10. I can spend 70 bucks these days on a slipcase with the core 3 4th edition books, or I can buy what seems to be 4 or 5 Essentials products at 20-30 bucks a pop and spend more money to get essentially the same stuff.

Which really makes no sense, because it assumes that people liked 4E. Why they're trying to bleed more money off of what is effectively a failed product is beyond me.

I could really see a M:tG approach if D&D was doing well, or if they did it on launch, but creating a 4.5 that's more expensive than 4.0 when 4E wasn't even received well just seems stupid.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Hey, Bane.

I know you're out there, you dumbass. I see yourself getting hammered on the you-know-who boards on this topic.

You honestly should've known better than to pick a fight with them without having a smoking gun. Because without it, you're going to get into a neverending fight over people in denial who have just enough plausible deniability to hold onto their beliefs.

Your line of argument that because D&D Essentials exists it means 4E is dying is... pretty weak. First of all, people on that thread are claiming with some credibility that it's not really 4.5E because it's supposed to be backwards compatible. If you want something more substantial, then compare the class previews of the D&D Essentials Fighter/Wizard/Cleric to the 4E Fighter/Wizard/Cleric. Then compare the 3.0E Ranger/Monk/Bard (The 3 most changed classes) to the 3.5E Ranger/Monk/Bard. Note which upgraydde had a bigger paradigm shift. Hint, it's the 4E. Anyway, when you do that you can at least claim that the change from 4E to Essentials is bigger than from 3.0E to 3.5E. And even though I still state that 3.5E is more backwards compatible than what Internet wisdom says... you're trying to appeal to Internet wisdom. So there's that.

But even if you do that the best you can do is just prove that the WotC folks are lying out of their naughty asses when they say that the material is backwards compatible. You still haven't proved the original point of that thread, which would be that 4E is a financial failure. At best you would have shown that WotC thinks that their core product would get an injection of sales juice by substantially changing things, which of course in the face of fan denial doesn't mean a whole lot.

So because I love you sexually, that is here is some circumstantial evidence that will help you prop up your case some more.

• Search for Titanium Dragon and millions. I don't know where the thread is and I don't feel like looking for it. That thread is probably the strongest action item on our list for why 4E is a pile of baloney. It's so strong that it destroys fanboy credibility.
• Doom at one point posted an Origins list, which showed 4E behind in tables over the other editions.
• Like I just mentioned, WotC feels the need for a change in the first place.
• WotC canceled several projects like the character visualizer and the tabletop program--which they fucking advertised in the Monster Manual.
• Videogame lineup. At this point in the game 3E had Neverwinter Nights and Pool of Radiance in the wings. Where's 4E's videro game?
• D&D canceled several of its book translations overseas. Take a look in the 'who is left to rebuild the D&D franchise' thread for hogarth's post. They stopped the Spanish and German translations in December 2008.

But after all that it's just circumstantial evidence. And while the stuff enough to get a life-or-death conviction in a court of law, in a court of fanboyism you will need something stronger. Still, don't worry about Internet Correctness forever evading your deserving hands. People will get what's coming to them. And when that day comes you'll be able to bask in the smug glow of righteous rightness. Not that it'll affect your badass quotient. That's always going to be super-negative. Because you know how your board is.

So relax guy.

(edited to remove references to another board, because I really don't want to start an interboard fight )

[Username17]

I don't know where the thread is and I don't feel like looking for it. That thread is probably the strongest action item on our list for why 4E is a pile of baloney. It's so strong that it destroys fanboy credibility.

It's in the Dark Sun thread. That's where I went from feeling that I had a difference of opinion with 4rries to realizing that they were as a species completely incapable of admitting mistakes, backing down from a fight, or responding to evidence in a coherent fashion.

Seriously, Titanium Dragon, the highest ranked 4rry on the planet decided to make the argument that since "millions" of books is composed of "hundreds of thousands" of books, that court documents saying that WotC had sold "hundreds of thousands" really meant that they had sold "millions".



-Username17

[TOZ]

Man, I still laugh at that, everytime.

'Hundreds of thousands.'

[Ganbare Gincun]

Seriously, Titanium Dragon, the highest ranked 4rry on the planet decided to make the argument that since "millions" of books is composed of "hundreds of thousands" of books, that court documents saying that WotC had sold "hundreds of thousands" really meant that they had sold "millions".

War is peace, ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Frank, why did you post that shit?

Now my head hurts and my penis is all shrivelly.

[Doom]

I still look back on that with nothing but confusion...and amusement.

[Roy]

I don't know where the thread is and I don't feel like looking for it. That thread is probably the strongest action item on our list for why 4E is a pile of baloney. It's so strong that it destroys fanboy credibility.

It's in the Dark Sun thread. That's where I went from feeling that I had a difference of opinion with 4rries to realizing that they were as a species completely incapable of admitting mistakes, backing down from a fight, or responding to evidence in a coherent fashion.

Seriously, Titanium Dragon, the highest ranked 4rry on the planet decided to make the argument that since "millions" of books is composed of "hundreds of thousands" of books, that court documents saying that WotC had sold "hundreds of thousands" really meant that they had sold "millions".



-Username17

Dude, it took you that long?

[Username17]

Some guy apparently found a copy of a 2nd printing PHB1 in a big box store, sandwhiched between a group of 1st printing PHB1s.

So... the later printings exist, but they are rare and hard to find. Also, they didn't get any errata. My guess is that they were very small print runs by the company made for marketing purposes. When Slavicsek said they were doing their third printing, they were actually doing a third printing - but it was very small and made for the purposes of claiming that they had done a third printing.

The vast majority of books they send out are still first printings, which leads me to believe that those extra books were pointless from a "we need more books" standpoint.

-Username17

[Just another user]

Seriously, Titanium Dragon, the highest ranked 4rry on the planet decided to make the argument that since "millions" of books is composed of "hundreds of thousands" of books, that court documents saying that WotC had sold "hundreds of thousands" really meant that they had sold "millions".



-Username17

And if I remember correctly (no way I'm reading that trainwreck of thread again) he said that they used that expression on purpose because 'hundred of thousands' sound higher than 'a million'.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Yep. He said exactly that.

[RandomCasualty2]

And if I remember correctly (no way I'm reading that trainwreck of thread again) he said that they used that expression on purpose because 'hundred of thousands' sound higher than 'a million'.

If they really wanted to make it sound like a big number, they'd say they sold over NINE THOUSAND.

[Ferret]

Essentials Rogue class, the Thief, offered for your review:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.aspx ... p/20100730

sneak attack dice look low; they gave him cleave...?

[sake]

Essentials Rogue class, the Thief, offered for your review:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.aspx ... p/20100730

sneak attack dice look low; they gave him cleave...?

The thing people have been bitching about is that the thief's sneak attack is once a turn instead of round now.

At least they can use bloody bows out the gate now with out feat taxes to do it.

There's been jokes that Essential Rouges and Fighters combined with a 4E Warlord are basicly an unstoppable engine of destruction... so expect massive nerfs to the lazy warlord build in the next errata.

[Crissa]

What's a turn and what's a round? In 3e they were the same?

-Crissa

[Username17]

What's a turn and what's a round? In 3e they were the same?

-Crissa

The round is everyone's turn, one after another. The turn is your character's Move, Minor, and Standard actions, plus their Saving Throws (which we will call a "recovery phase" even though it doesn't have a name in 4e), and their other accounting steps (such as "end of turn" effects an "beginning of turn" effects).

Or at least, that's what it was in 4e. The Essentials Rogue uses the word "turn" indiscriminately for both concepts. I don't really know what the fuck they are talking about.

The big question is whether you can sneak attack on attacks of opportunity and other triggered attacks, since those happen on other creatures' turns. I couldn't say, because they don't seem to be using "Turn" consistently.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

So I'm wondering how much D&D Essentials is going to split their marketbase.

Essentials, from what we've seen, is a much larger change than 3.0E-3.5E. If they have some of the 4E fans mad about the Essentials changes and ending up being hold-outs in addition to the 3E hold-outs, I don't see how the new edition is going to last longer than two years.

[Psychic Robot]

Essentials, from what we've seen, is a much larger change than 3.0E-3.5E.

How do you mean, exactly? From what I've seen, Essentials is basically what would happen if Unearthed Arcana were made Core.