Dungeons & Dragons Essentials

[Deleted]

While not the re-release a lot of us have been hoping for, WotC has (apparently) decided to jump on the "Rules-Lite" bandwagon & offered us this little box for a September release:

wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/244660000

Yes, it's an introductory boxed-set for 4E - but because it includes character creation, a stripped-down game mechanic, as well as dice, I've gotten the OK from the missus to pre-order with both anticipation & a degree of caution.

EDITITED: Link

[Finarvyn]

Seems like I read somewhere that it's only designed to cover levels 1-2. Also interesting that their advertisement shows a placeholder copy of the Mentzer Basic rules cover. It will be interesting to see if that is the actual cover art used.

I'm thinking about ordering one anyway. I really would like to enjoy 4E.

[Deleted]

I would love to see the boxed set support a few more levels. I will probably buy it just so I can see for myself what v4.x is all about without the big dollar buy in of purchasing a bunch of hard bound books.

[tavis]

Feb 7, 2010 10:46:57 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I really would like to enjoy 4E.

Following the success of chgowiz's S&W game for new-schoolers like Phil Menard and Dave Chalker last year, I'd like to organize a 4E game for old-schoolers at this year's Gen Con. Who'll be there & interested in such a thing?

[Finarvyn]

I'm about 50% sure I'll be there, unless that happens to be the week of our "family vacation".

If such a game were to happen at GenCon I'd like to be a part of it. The best thing would be if we could create a "house" doc which would thin down the 4E rules to a point where us old-schoolers can comprehend it.

Actually, that could be a fun project for these boards. (I could open up a password-protected OS4E rules development section and a few of us could play with it there, if there were some folks actually interested in this idea.)

[Haldo Bramwise]

Feb 7, 2010 21:55:19 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I'm about 50% sure I'll be there, unless that happens to be the week of our "family vacation".

If such a game were to happen at GenCon I'd like to be a part of it. The best thing would be if we could create a "house" doc which would thin down the 4E rules to a point where us old-schoolers can comprehend it.

Actually, that could be a fun project for these boards. (I could open up a password-protected OS4E rules development section and a few of us could play with it there, if there were some folks actually interested in this idea.)

That is a cool idea! It is what I had hoped this D&D Essentials was supposed to be...

[Deleted]

I would have liked to see a 1-5 level sweep (even 1-3 would have been OK), but it's pretty clear now that I'll have to extrapolate on my own from levels 1-2.

I'm not planning to buy any of the expansions for the "Essentials" line, preferring to see what I can do with just the "basic" box. Hopefully, it'll be a lot!

[geordie]

Feb 8, 2010 10:37:22 GMT -6 @oltekos said:

I would have liked to see a 1-5 level sweep (even 1-3 would have been OK), but it's pretty clear now that I'll have to extrapolate on my own from levels 1-2.

I'm not planning to buy any of the expansions for the "Essentials" line, preferring to see what I can do with just the "basic" box. Hopefully, it'll be a lot!

Excellent, the boldest most old school answer yet - make it your own game.

[vladtolenkov]

Ostensible they've introduced this line because employees at bookstores don't know what to tell customers to buy first to start playing D&D. If that's a problem they're having then this seems like a good idea.

I'll likely pick this up as I'm a bit of a sucker for boxed sets. I'm a bit disappointed it only goes to 2nd lvl, but that's still around 20 encounters in 4E which is a month of solid play if you're playing weekly.

It looks like the Essentials line will give you a D&D game with more limited classes, races, and powers but I thinks its supposed to be playable up to lvl 30 if you buy the two expansions.

They've also done something devious to attract folks who are already playing 4E: the character builds in the game are new ones that are optimized differently than what's in the core books. So there's new stuff there even if you're already playing. I'm not sure that alone will be enough to get those folks to buy the Essentials stuff.

[Haldo Bramwise]

Feb 9, 2010 12:20:05 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

Ostensible they've introduced this line because employees at book
It looks like the Essentials line will give you a D&D game with more limited classes, races, and powers but I thinks its supposed to be playable up to lvl 30 if you buy the two expansions.

That's what I am hoping, but I really couldn't tell from the descriptions if it was just 4e re-packaged or re-tooled to be more "traditional."

[verhaden]

Well, if you're going to strip down a game, I think it's best to start with a character sheet.

4E Character Sheet

I made this character sheet after 4E came out, though I've never played the game. There's a lot of information here, and I think this level of mechanical crunch is an anathema to the style of gaming we prefer here.

So...where do you guys want to start the controlled forest fire?

Skills is a prime place to lay down the gasoline first.

[vladtolenkov]

verhaden wrote:

I made this character sheet after 4E came out, though I've never played the game. There's a lot of information here, and I think this level of mechanical crunch is an anathema to the style of gaming we prefer here.

So...where do you guys want to start the controlled forest fire?

Skills is a prime place to lay down the gasoline first.

I'm SURE somebody's already tried to strip 4E down over at EnWorld or RPG.net, but if you guys want to get into this. . .

One thing you could do is preselect/pre-build all the powers so that classes follow a simple track rather being customizable. That would be more like earlier editions: i.e. you're a Ranger you're 8th level now you get THIS new ability.

The new Gamma World game is supposed to be a stripped down version of 4E. The designers claim you can make a Gamma World character in 15 minutes. So it'll be interesting to see how they strip it down.

[coffee]

Feb 7, 2010 10:46:57 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I really would like to enjoy 4E.

I keep thinking I'd like to enjoy 4E. But whenever I do, I'm reminded (this time by kids at a convention) that people who play 4E want to brag about their character build. And how they can do things nobody else can, because they have X power or Y build or whatever.

And I don't understand a word of it. Nor am I sure I want to.

Now, bragging on your character is as old as roleplaying itself. I'm not edition-bashing here (I played a lot of 3E where you got exactly the same thing).

The thing is, it's a game I love, but it's been translated into a whole new language. And if I'm going to learn a new language, I'd prefer it be Japanese or French.

So I think I'll stick with OD&D through AD&D (1e). They know me there and I already speak the language.


edit: Sorry 'bout that; I forgot to set Curmudgeon Mode to 'off'.

[tavis]

On bragging about your build: I agree that an important consequence of 3 and 4e's turn towards rule-definition is that it makes it possible to compare player skill on the optimized-PC yardstick. In the old days, bragging about your 18/00 strength and your passel of vorpal swords meant only "I cheat and my DM is a softie." Mechanical systems allow you to assert "I am a better player than you because my PC does more damage per round than yours." People get upset about "broken" character options because making an overpowered option available betrays the promise that system mastery is the only route to PC superiority.

Re: skills, a 4e skill check is d20 plus ability modifier plus a host of character build choices: most commonly +5 for trained, but also +2 for race, +2 for feat, +1 or 2 from magic items, etc. I think the best old-school way to do this is to replace skills with ability checks (player and DM agree on which ability governs what the PC is trying to do), and skill bonuses with character concept (the DM gives a +5 if it clearly seems like something a PC of that class is trained to do, the player can argue for a bonus if their concept supports it, usually a couple of points).

[dwayanu]

Skills rules are pretty negligible. I mean, I loathe "skill challenges", but they are not a mandatory part of play. Rules for target numbers ("DCs") can be helpful, but it's not as if eyeballing them is likely to be a big problem.

At first or second level, you're not talking a lot of powers and feats -- even in terms of the total from which to select.

But even if you dump those completely -- which would be awkward, not only because some of those are the main spells of spell-casters (as opposed to rituals) -- you've still got the combat rules that take up 30 pages in the PHB.

Yes, it's bigger type than the Metamorphosis Alpha rulebook. No, it is -- maybe -- not quite as complex as Champions. It's still a whole other game than OD&D, with a whole mess of new jargon. (And some stuff gone missing, such as hit dice.)

[geoffrey]

Feb 9, 2010 15:42:38 GMT -6 coffee said:

I keep thinking I'd like to enjoy 4E. But whenever I do, I'm reminded (this time by kids at a convention) that people who play 4E want to brag about their character build.

If it takes me more than 15 minutes to roll-up a character, I just can't get into it. I hate generating PCs. For me, it's a necessary evil.

I understand that the new Arduin Eternal has pretty complex character generation rules. That's too bad. Arduin Eternal is the sort of game I'd like to like.

I think it would be so cool if WotC would put out a 4th Edition D&D boxed game that's marketed towards CASUAL gamers. Gary had a great quote in one of his "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" columns in which he contrasted those who play games with those who live them.

I'm sure that there are people who would enjoy playing D&D for an hour or two once a month or so. But time-consuming character generation would kill that. "Can't we just play? Do we really need to spend 45 minutes just getting ready? I have to get to work!"

Imagine a radically stripped-down 4th Edition D&D boxed set that went up to level 5 or level 10, with a 64-page rulebook, and character generation that takes only 5 or 10 minutes. I'd seriously consider buying that.

[tavis]

Feb 15, 2010 22:40:16 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

character generation that takes only 5 or 10 minutes. I'd seriously consider buying that.

I'm starting to seriously consider selling it! I have no interest in being a publisher, and I think we should take the lead of Pathfinder (or any number of OSR projects) and do the development in the open, but I do think that the end result would be something people like us would want to buy & that WotC's Essentials is not going to deliver. And I don't think "Red Box" is trademarked or use-limited under the GSL...

Here's how I'd suggest doing fast character creation:

Roll 3d6 in order (or your fave variant thereof).

Write in your starting ability bonus for each score. +1 for one standard deviation above (a roll of 13+ if I recall), +2 for two (16+). For 4E compatibility I'd recommend giving -1 only for two standard deviations below, or having roleplaying/imagined penalties for bad scores rather than mechanical ones.

Choose your class. Rolled ability scores will make you slightly better at one class than another (more so than OD&D, less so than vanilla 4E; sort of like AD&D). My first thought was requisite ability scores, but that's lame and time-consuming; instead maybe glance at a table showing "if you have a high (x) you might want to be a (y), especially if you also have a high (p) or (q)".

Choose your "sub-class" or "specialization" (this being our less-painful term for what 4E calls build). In vanilla 4E this is a flavor choice/suggestion, but for us it's a proxy for point-buy spending for ability scores. When you look at the text for each build, e.g. avenging paladin vs. protecting paladin, it tells you which scores should be your first, second, and third highest. Add a +3 to your ability bonus for the first, +2 for the second, and +1 to the third.

The end result will be comparable to a point-buy 4E character, who should have a 16-20 (+3 to +5) in their primary ability and a 12-16 (+1 to +3) in their secondary and tertiary. I think that 4E PCs will be more likely to be strong in their class abilities and average or weak in others, while rolled PCs using this system will be more likely to have organic strengths in other areas.

Note that 4E PCs also get +1 to two ability score bonuses (e.g., a +2 to the score itself) from their race; we might want to allow something similar, perhaps making it more flexible (choose two different scores to get this bonus on) to avoid racial straitjackets and time-consuming "which one is best" decisions.

These ability bonuses would be the basis of skill checks (with the concept-based "training" bonuses I described before), attack rolls, and defenses, just as in 4E. They'd be much more old-school, though, in that choosing your class would be the biggest element, random rolls would be less important, and there'd be no point-buy "build" decisions.

Last step would be to choose spells for caster types and martial styles for non-casters; these last would be a few special powers, similar in complexity to the choices you make to make an OD&D caster.