The Effect of D&D Essentials on Frameworks

[Veggiesama]

I had a moment to check out D&D Essentials at the FLGS, and the changes seemed... erm... underwhelming. I guess someone assumed that rather than improving choices, new players liked even less choices (one build/kit per class, Expertise feats now more powerful and more mandatory, etc).

Criticisms aside, I haven't delved too much into Essentials, because the not-so-F manager at the FLGS asked me not to read the book in his bookstore.

To someone who knows more than me: are there any significant changes to the core game (along the lines of the PHB3's power points or PHB2's alternate stats for Armor Class) that our MapTool frameworks should adapt to?

[Thanlis]

Nope; I can't think of anything that isn't already covered. Fighters rely more heavily on stances, which modify melee basic attacks, but there's nothing mechanically different.

[Rumble]

Nope, none in particular. The stances modifying MBA and RBA are pretty trivial - I handled it by having the stance, when activated, modify the Melee Basic Attack and/or Ranged Basic Attack power directly (by adding damage, adding an effect, or whatever). Though power design varies across frameworks, that general approach should account for pretty much any of the martial classes and their "basic attacks modified by powers" approach.

It might be worth looking at the rules for things like condition durations and so forth. I know my frameworks already don't quite match the RAW on that (specifically on the issue of having multiple, different sources of the same ongoing damage active at the same time), but I'm not going to fix it because...frankly...it's too hard.

[Alhazred]

There are however a lot of minor details of rules that have changed between 4e and Essentials. Rogues for instance now get SA once per round vs once per turn. The basic DC table and damage table have changed a fair amount. It is still a bit unclear actually about the damage table exactly how that works with "Page 42" since it no longer is broken up into 6 columns.

There are going to be tweaks with class features as well. Mage spellbook for instance works differently than the old Wizard one.

All of this stuff is FAIRLY minimal impact, though one area that might need looking at are the new implement rules. It might be nice to be able for instance in Rumble to designate a weapon as also acting as an implement, which you pretty much can't do right now.

None of it is going change basic stuff, and some like doing away with the item daily use rules actually are simpler, but there's going to be a lot of going through details to make sure stuff still conforms here and there.

[Rumble]

There are however a lot of minor details of rules that have changed between 4e and Essentials. Rogues for instance now get SA once per round vs once per turn. The basic DC table and damage table have changed a fair amount. It is still a bit unclear actually about the damage table exactly how that works with "Page 42" since it no longer is broken up into 6 columns.

There are going to be tweaks with class features as well. Mage spellbook for instance works differently than the old Wizard one.

All of this stuff is FAIRLY minimal impact, though one area that might need looking at are the new implement rules. It might be nice to be able for instance in Rumble to designate a weapon as also acting as an implement, which you pretty much can't do right now.

None of it is going change basic stuff, and some like doing away with the item daily use rules actually are simpler, but there's going to be a lot of going through details to make sure stuff still conforms here and there.

I will have to update the sneak attack code, but as far as a weapon acting as an implement - it should mostly work, since the Implement keyword should just tell the framework to only get the enhancement bonus and other bonuses, and skip proficiency and so forth. Effectively, any enchanted weapon could act as an implement (actually, technically, every weapon is also an implement since the only thing that really matters for those purposes is the contents of the Main Hand and Off Hand enhancement, feat, and misc. bonus properties).

Whether the item is treated as an implement or a weapon is based on the keywords assigned to the power being used.

Is this not how it is working?

[JonathanTheBlack]

Sneak Attack is now once per turn, not once per round. That means a Rogue with multiple attacks can use Sneak Attack multiple times during the same round. Warlords granting attacks, opportunity attacks, and such.

[Rumble]

Sneak Attack is now once per turn, not once per round. That means a Rogue with multiple attacks can use Sneak Attack multiple times during the same round. Warlords granting attacks, opportunity attacks, and such.

Oh, yeah, I'm on top of that change - I already have that disabled now (there was one place that checked to see if sneak attack was available). It's not released yet, but it's fixed. The weapon-as-implement thing is what I was addressing, and as far as I know, if you change the keyword of the power it will pull in the expected values.

[Guy Dude]

Offhand the only thing people mentioned about Essentials that sounded particularly interesting was the Defender Aura

It might be nice to be able for instance in Rumble to designate a weapon as also acting as an implement, which you pretty much can't do right now.

Isnt this kind of important for Swordmages? Since their sword is an implement.

[Rumble]

Offhand the only thing people mentioned about Essentials that sounded particularly interesting was the Defender Aura

It might be nice to be able for instance in Rumble to designate a weapon as also acting as an implement, which you pretty much can't do right now.

Isnt this kind of important for Swordmages? Since their sword is an implement.

Yeah, but as far as I can tell, it works fine. Alhazred mentioned it but I'm not sure what problems he's running into.


Note: I accidentally edited your post, Guy Dude - Veggie and I have moderator permissions here, and they put the darned edit and quote buttons right next to each other. Hopefully, I restored it to its original form. My apologies!