Quote from: Thanlis;377689No, it does not.

Does to me.

Quote from: Benoist;377690Does to me.

Me too.

Quote from: Benoist;377690Does to me.

Nuh-uh.

Quote from: Fifth Element;377694Nuh-uh.

Does SO!

I only see current 4e players buying these Essentials line, mostly for the dungeon tiles. If the new builds are in the DDI, then many won't buy the book. I don't see Essentials catering to the old D&D players since they would already made a decision to go 4e or not. As for new players, they had a starter set before and I don't remember hearing it being a hit with newbies.

Even if a new player buys into Essentials and got the 2 books, he will want new classes and races just like the core line. What will he have to do? Invest into the hardbacks or just get DDI? I think once the 10 Essentials product comes out, it won't be that much of a hype and people will just continue to look forward to the usual splat books.

Quote from: ggroy;377667Even if they're trying to do that as their primary purpose, wonder how they're going to bring it to the attention of such customers.  For example, are they going to make tv commercials advertising 4E Essentials on cable channels like Nickelodeon, Spike, Syfy, etc ....?  Or are they going to be selling these books in the toy section of Wal-Mart or Toys R Us?

The stated intent is the latter. No idea if we'll see commercials or not, although that would be pretty telling. The D&D Starter Set is in Toys R Us now, so I'd assume the new sets will be there at the least.

I got my 3.0 core books at Wal*Mart. Wal*Mart doesn't carry the 4e books in stores, although they'll sell them to you online. A change there would be significant.

Re: phasing out powers -- yeah, I've speculated on that too. Removing powers entirely seems like a hard sell to the core audience. What they could do really easily: set up campaign definitions in the Character Builder, such that you can set a character to be legal in, say, D&D Essentials. Such a character would be flagged as house-ruled if you used material outside the D&D Essentials line.

I say it'd be easy because the Character Builder already includes such functionality. I.e., I can set it to use the LFR character creation rules, and it'll filter out Dragonmark feats. (By which I mean it'll still show them to me, but I'll get a little alert if I select them.) Adding new campaign files is easy; you can do hand-built ones if you want to limit the material for your own campaign. Which is kind of funny given that everyone thinks WotC wants every campaign to use all the source material.

Quote from: Thanlis;377695Does SO!

Oh no you di'n't!

Quote from: Benoist;377678Regardless of the rules' particulars, the Essentials line in effect fulfills the same marketing role as 3.5 did: to basically re-sell the core rules to the D&D audience...

I think they're actually hoping to sell Essentials to the Pathfinder, 3.5, 3e, AD&D, OD&D, and retro-clone audience. I'm sure many current 4e players will pick them up, but...

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;377738I think they're actually hoping to sell Essentials to the Pathfinder, 3.5, 3e, AD&D, OD&D, and retro-clone audience. I'm sure many current 4e players will pick them up, but...

Seanchai

Agreed. At least partially.

Do you think Essentials will have anything remotely resembling Skill Challenges?

Quote from: winkingbishop;377741Do you think Essentials will have anything remotely resembling Skill Challenges?

Why wouldn't they? Skill challenges are merely a use of the existing skill system.

You know, I was thinking about this last night, aren't the technology flowcharts in Gamma World 1e a little like skill challenges?.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;377753Why wouldn't they? Skill challenges are merely a use of the existing skill system.

Well, they might not deem them appropriate for the "beginner's box" or whatever role Essentials ultimately turns out to be.  And, like we discussed in the other thread: The original rules as printed had bad math and, even post-errata, a lot of people still choose to use their own system instead of the 'fix'.  So I'm wondering if they'll modify Skill Challenges again or just hand-wave them away for their basic set.

Well, They might explain them a bit differently but all skill challenges are is a way to conduct non-combat scenes using skills and grant XP for it. The skill system is going to be there, so I don't see why challenges wouldn't be included.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;377753Why wouldn't they? Skill challenges are merely a use of the existing skill system.

They also happen to suck, depending on who you ask (old schoolers, in particular).