Combining essentials and the PHB.

[Palegreenpants]

Hey everyone.

I've been DMing for about a year, and I'm just starting to get into this "Essentials" stuff.
I've noticed that the rules from Essentials seem different than in the PHB.
(I've got two PHBs, each seems the same)

How do you people combine the rules? The Essentials just give me a headache to be honest, but there seems to be a lot of cool new content in them!

I don't have the RulCom yet by the way!

Any help would be awesome.

[DeltaEmil]

Technically, the rules used in the Essentials line is the updated rules with errata implemented (more or less). That makes them official. It's up to you and your group how much you're willing to incorporate corrections and balancing adjustment from the creators of the game (WotC) into the rules set you already own.

If you don't play in tournaments and/or the special D&D encounter session that is played in some gaming stores, they do not become a priority for you.

Keep in mind that all errata can of course be seen for free on the officials D&D-homepage.

[Kurald Galain]

How do you people combine the rules?
Yes, there is a rather long list of differences. You can start by downloading the (lenghty) errata, but unfortunately that doesn't cover everything.

But you could simply poach the classes and powers while sticking to the 4.0 rules. It depends on what you're looking for. There's not a whole lot of useful powers and feats for older classes, but there are numerous new classes (or subclasses) that play differently.

[Mando Knight]

There's not a whole lot of useful powers and feats for older classes,
The feats. The feats. Implement Focus (freaking finally), the new Expertise feats, the better defense feats, the Superior (NAD) feats. There might not be numerically a lot of them, but the good feats from those books are good.

Personally, I think the balance of the new classes are swingier and the optimization band a little narrower in general due mostly to a lack of options (and in the case of the Vampire, WotC going for getting the flavor of the abilities down seemingly without caring making it a competitive class...), but overall should not stick out too badly in (what I consider) a fairly normal, moderate-optimization group.