Can Essentials and Non-Essiantals Characters Mix?

[Gabe]

So I'm running a mostly 'Core' campaign using classes from PHB1 and PHB2. The fighter in my group got his hands on Heroes of the Fallen lands and wanted to re-make his Dwarf Fighter as a Slayer which I said was fine and he re-did and what have you.

My question being, are there any known problems with essentials and non-essentials characters mixing in the same game? Are my PHB1 characters going to feel underpowered compared to a Dwarf Slayer and want to re-roll essentials characters too?

Sorry if this should be posted in the stickied thread, I figure there are multiple opinions on this matter though and that opinion would play an important role in the decision.

Thanks~

[Ashdate]

So I'm running a mostly 'Core' campaign using classes from PHB1 and PHB2. The fighter in my group got his hands on Heroes of the Fallen lands and wanted to re-make his Dwarf Fighter as a Slayer which I said was fine and he re-did and what have you.

My question being, are there any known problems with essentials and non-essentials characters mixing in the same game? Are my PHB1 characters going to feel underpowered compared to a Dwarf Slayer and want to re-roll essentials characters too?

Sorry if this should be posted in the stickied thread, I figure there are multiple opinions on this matter though and that opinion would play an important role in the decision.

Thanks~

Aside from a few minor exceptions, Essentials and Non-Essentials classes mix just fine. As an example, in my group I've got a PHB1 fighter and cleric, an Essentials Mage (Wizard), and an Essentials Berserker (Barbarian).

The one exception is the classes in the Heroes of Shadow book, as they are all wildly considered to be weak.

Essentials characters feel powerful, but the original PHB classes have a lot more potential. The best way I can put it is that if you picked powers and feats randomly for both a PHB Fighter and an Essentials Slayer, the Slayer character is likely to come out stronger. If you optimize both however, the PHB Fighter is going to come out on top power-wise.

[Kurald Galain]

My question being, are there any known problems with essentials and non-essentials characters mixing in the same game?
Characters of the following classes are likely to feel underpowered starting from the upper heroic levels: seeker, bladesinger, hunter, binder, knight, cavalier, sentinel, both kinds of assassin, blackguard, and vampire.

Generally speaking, building a 4.0 character is more dependent on player skill, since there are more choices you need to make. 4.4 simply makes a number of those choices for you already.

[obryn]

They work together fine. Been doing it for years.

[Airk]

Essentials characters have very different optimization curves; If you make a slayer, and don't do anything super stupid with your stat points, and remember to take your feat-tax feats, you're pretty much going to be an effective striker. If you make a Warlock (or even a Ranger or Rogue) and don't 'do your homework' to find out the best way to get synergy out of your build, you may end up being a pretty crummy striker. On the flipside, if you optimize the crap out of your ranger/rogue/warlock, you'll be significantly more powerful and/or versatile than the Slayer, even if the Slayer player optimizes to heck and back, because they have fewer choices.

That said, there's nothing that keeps the classes from working effectively together - essentials classes can be excellent choices for players who don't want to 'do the work' on coming up with a really effective build. I think the only thing you really need to worry about (aside from the aforementioned 'weak' classes) is players who suck at optimization but want to play non-essentials classes. It's possible to make an absolutely terrible Warlock if you're not VERY careful.

[Yakk]

There are poor essentials era classes:
binder, bladesinger, sentinel, vampire

There are mediocre essentials era classes:
hunter, executioner, knight, cavalier, blackguard, hexblade

There are "overly simple" essentials era classes:
slayer, thief, scout

All essentials era classes are playable at level 1, some (without heavy optimization) fall off as you gain levels. Poor classes are classes that both fall off in power (without optimization), and lack access to heavy optimization options (to bring them back above "baseline") barring "commoner optimization" (optimization that would work if you are a commoner class, a class with no class features or powers, just feats).

There are poor original era classes:
seeker, shaman, assassin

There are mediocre original era classes:
druid, runepriest

There are "overly simple" original era classes:
All power point psychic classes (which reduce to at-will with light augment spamming)

However, at low levels of optimization, a randomly built essentials character will be on-par or ahead of a random PHB era character.

[Kurald Galain]

There are poor original era classes:
seeker, shaman, assassin
Shaman, really? Please elaborate.



There are "overly simple" original era classes:
And let's not forget the Ranger :smallbiggrin:

[Yakk]

Shaman? An entire build has the AC of a turnip. Its healing mechanism spreads healing out without increasing the total, making it among the worst healers among leaders. Its powers tend to be weak and diffuse buffs.

The spirit companion can be used for world geometry shinanigans, but there are a myriad of conjurations that other classes can get that are just as good or better. Understanding how it works is sufficiently complex that I've never seen it played the same way twice in a game.

Primal, in general, has significantly less feat support that Divine, Martial and Arcane get.

One of the best uses for a Shaman is to multiclass Shaman for another furry pseudo-pet, and then spend a second feat for a (weak) healing word power per encounter (the only leader where per-encounter words can be poached).

The leaders to match up to include the Cleric and Warlord and Bard. I suppose if you compare it to the Ardent, Sentinal Druid and Runepriest it may look better.

Possibly my problem with the Shaman is disappointment: it has one of the neater 4e-new concepts for a class, and it did not deliver.

[Kurald Galain]

"One of the sub-builds is bad" doesn't count; that goes for a lot of classes. That said, looking back over five years of playing 4E, I don't recall a single instance of a shaman being effectively played. So yeah, it matches my experience that the class doesn't work well.

That said, in my region almost every single leader is a warlord, or sometimes a bard. Most people consider clerics to be boring, and ardents/runepriests just to have awkward fiddly mechanics. I don't think I've heard anyone opine about shamans, which in itself tells you something.

[Airk]

"One of the sub-builds is bad" doesn't count; that goes for a lot of classes. That said, looking back over five years of playing 4E, I don't recall a single instance of a shaman being effectively played. So yeah, it matches my experience that the class doesn't work well.

I'm one of those weird people who likes to try builds and see how they work out, but I've never even managed to put together a shaman build that 'felt' good on paper.



That said, in my region almost every single leader is a warlord, or sometimes a bard. Most people consider clerics to be boring, and ardents/runepriests just to have awkward fiddly mechanics. I don't think I've heard anyone opine about shamans, which in itself tells you something.

Clerics don't have to be boring. They have INSANE support for pretty much whatever they want to do at this point (like most of the Player's Handbook classes, actually, but doubly so because they got a ton of support FROM Essentials stuff.) Radiant Blaster clerics can still have ridiculous ability to heal. You can also practically play them as controllers. Or, I guess, you can do the super boring Pacifist build, but that's your own damn fault, no party that knows what it's doing needs that much healing. (Healing is, in fact, something you can have too much of, unlike damage.)

[Gabe]

Thanks for the awesome replies and explenations guys, really appreciate it.
So I'm no longer worried about the slayer being OP, but none of my players are particularly into optimising their classes for maximum output, so I'm sure the slayer will appear to be pretty middle of the road along with the rest of the party.

Also, as my paerty are very loathe to optimise their roles, is it a good idea for me to talk to the rogue about going for an essentials thief? though, having said that, the player for that character seems to largely be bored of the game whenever we play. But I guess that's a seperate issue all together.

[Kurald Galain]

Clerics don't have to be boring. They have INSANE support for pretty much whatever they want to do at this point
I completely agree. It's only recently that I started to build clerics, and they have some very cool options. This actually started when I noticed my "ban list" for 4E had quite a number of cleric powers on it that I hadn't actually seen in practice, so I decided to build a cleric to see if it was actually that bad (hint: it's not :) )

[Kurald Galain]

Also, as my paerty are very loathe to optimise their roles, is it a good idea for me to talk to the rogue about going for an essentials thief?
Rogues aren't hard to optimize, they're mostly about how good you are at getting combat advantage using decent tactics. Thieves simply have at-will powers that say "you have combat advantage now", so if the player is already bored, he'll most likely fall asleep with a thief character :smallbiggrin:

[Gabe]

so if the player is already bored, he'll most likely fall asleep with a thief character :smallbiggrin:

Hah, fair enough then. I'll not bring the conversation up then. I do however think I'll have to have a chat with them about what they do or don't want to do.

The person in question needs reminding that its a D20 to actually attack and where to look on their character sheet for the bonuses to hit, I would expect that after the 3rd maybe 4th session you'd be used to what your character can do and how to play the game but because of their apprehension to learn their character and the game in general that persons turn is usually spent with all the other players telling the rogue where to go and what to do :/

[Yakk]

Give Thief a try.

The flow of the slayer/knight/thief essentials characters is simpler, in that you make one decision at a time.

Thief:
1) you decide if/how you are going to move (from your move tricks). (Note that some(many?) of these tricks can be used without actually moving, just burning the action)
2) You pick something to attack.
3) You use backstab if you want to kill it quickly (you usually do).
4) You roll a d20, and see if you hit.
5) You roll your damage.

The slayer is a slight bit easier (in that you use power attack *after* you hit), reducing the decision load by 1 step.

[obryn]

Recommend an Elementalist.

Elementalists are the "point and click" characters. Thieves can - played correctly - be really interesting, especially when you get into maneuvers which grant climb speeds and whatnot.

Elementalists, on the other hand, are ideal for players who don't know their bum from a hole in the ground. They require very little involvement or attention, yet can fulfill their Striker role very competently.

-O

[Airk]

Rogues aren't hard to optimize, they're mostly about how good you are at getting combat advantage using decent tactics. Thieves simply have at-will powers that say "you have combat advantage now", so if the player is already bored, he'll most likely fall asleep with a thief character :smallbiggrin:

Yeah. Rogues are more a question of not taking bad powers/feats than of actually taking good ones, if that makes sense. Every rogue level has a couple of 'trap' powers, by which I mean "Powers that might sound good, but which are actually pretty bad." But as long as you can (mostly) avoid those (and retrain out of them if you discover they're not good) then rogues are pretty easy to build decently. They DO require a bit more attention to what's going on than some other striker builds though (Notably sorcerer, ranger and uh, probably elementalist, though I've never played one.)

[windgate]

My opinion on Yakk's classifications (just because i feel like it :p )

There are poor essentials era classes:
binder, cavalier (unless you can use your mount 24/7) bladesinger, , vampire

There are mediocre essentials era classes:
hunter, executioner, blackguard, hexblade, sentinel

There are "overly simple" essentials era classes:
slayer, thief, scout, knight, (knight can be decent if you mitigate forced movement somehow)

Not Sure:
Berserker?

Back to the topic at hand. Someone already stated the one of the major differences between essentials and original classes is that the essentials are harder to make poorly but lack the potential of the original classes. That would be my response as well.

The classes can mix. If you you use essentials for the newer players, it can offset their comparison to the "power gamer" characters. the high char'oped character will do better, but the newer player wont feel like dead wieght and can freely make choices they want.

Removing themes and using "Inherant bonuses" instead of magic items bring things even closer together.

Slayers, Thieves and Scouts can gain a base class encounter power with the "martial cross-training" feat. Maybe give that out as a bonus feat once they have figured out their character some?

Elementalists do have a lot of flexibility despite their limitations. They only have a handful of at-wills buty can tweak those powers in combat with encounter resources (really fond of air Elementalist, Lyrander Wind Rider + Mark of Storm....)

[Dan Arcueid]

Not Sure:
Berserker?


From what I've seen the berserker does a decent job. It's something of a hybrid fighter berserker without the hybrid. That and at least with the berserker you still have access to all the barbarian powers and it actually works well with the original class's powers.

As for the others i feel the ones that have hybrid options at least help a bit with some interesting builds. I kinda feel like some of these classes just all need hybrid options like scout and bladesinger and just have them work like the executioner hybrid with the melee basic sillyness.

As it is i feel like the essentials classes are extra restrictive as you can't dilittente or multiclass powers swap like scout and others; or at the very least they seem to take extra effort into make sure you can't ride other powers on their striker mechanics.

I don't think there's a problem with having them in your party, there's just few that interest me because of their lack of options.

[Ashdate]

I have a Berserker in my group; the class works well. It essentially trades their Rampage and build choice (i.e. Rageblood, Thaneborn) for the defender aura + punishing attack, +2 AC (when not raging), and a minor build option.

Otherwise, they can choose from the normal list of Barbarian powers from the PHB2 and Primal Power, which still include some powerful choices such as Curtain of Steel and Storm of Blades, plus all the powerful Daily stances. Alternatively, instead of the daily stances, they can use some of the meaty daily powers from HotF such as Life-Ending Strike and Feral Rampage.

They'll never hit the insane burst damage of a Rageblood Barbarian, but they're very solid Strikers. They are mediocre Defenders mind you, but the class is more or less designed to tie enemies up for the first two rounds, before entering into a rage and switching to a Striker. So no complaints from me.

[ghost_warlock]

really fond of air Elementalist, Lyrander Wind Rider + Mark of Storm....

Just wanted to note that this combo works just as well for any of the other elementalist types, particularly fire. All you have to do is take Arcane Admixture (thunder) a couple of times, pick up Resounding Thunder, and you're golden.

A tiefling fire elementalist who admixes thunder, has the Infernal Prince theme, Hellfire Blood, Incendiary or Accurate dagger, and Lyrandar Wind-Rider almost auto-hits with every attack and deals massive damage even before taking into account the Spellfury feats, Dual Implement Spellcaster, Shard of the Fiery Depths, etc.

[Kurald Galain]

Not Sure:
Berserker?

It my experience it works well enough as a striker, but not at all as a defender. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you're clear on your expectations.

[obryn]

I dunno; the Paragon-tier Berserker in my own group did quite a good job as a Defender. Their Mark punishment hurts a lot, and they're rather insanely survivable. He did take a lot of powers which concentrated on the Defender-ish side of things, mind you - like the Daily that turns your Defender Aura into an Aura 2 - but he was quite capable.

-O

[Dan Arcueid]

I dunno; the Paragon-tier Berserker in my own group did quite a good job as a Defender. Their Mark punishment hurts a lot, and they're rather insanely survivable. He did take a lot of powers which concentrated on the Defender-ish side of things, mind you - like the Daily that turns your Defender Aura into an Aura 2 - but he was quite capable.

-O

From what i've seen also the class really just depends on what you focus into. Generally if built right you can have some decent AC going on with one with usually some decent other defenses. And the aura as it punishes whatever shifts or attacks someone else basically allowing them to have the fighter mark in an aura.

Like you said it kinda matters how you build yourself, ignore pain can be pretty nice in the right scenarios.

For extra fun i once build one that dumped a few extra points into charisma, multiclassed vampire and because it was both martial and primal i was open to those feats. So basically Primal Vampire + Durable puts you at 6 surges daily, +1 per encounter from Primal Vampire when you use a primal encounter power, +1 per encounter when first bloodied from martial vampire, along with regeneration. If you can get a theme with a martial encounter attack power that's +1 surges also.

The damage wasn't as amazing if i had focused more into it because it was a little more spread out but it did a decent job staying alive and keeping stuff in place while still being a credible threat.

[Tokuhara]

As someone currently in a game with an Essentials PC (originally 2, but the DM through a Fortune-Telling scene with a Deck of Many things that resulted in the Blackguard getting +2 to 1 score, Me getting the same and 50k experience, and a moderate Wondrous Item making me the highest level PC in the group of 2 level 3's, 3 level 4's, and me at 14th, and the Tiefling Assassin drawing the trifecta of Fool, Idiot, and Void), our Dark Elf Fire Elementalist can hold his own, even getting 4 kills in the encounter that followed (6 Shadow Wolves and a Werewolf, his being half of the wolves and getting the killing blow on the werewolf). That said, is he as good as a Wizard or Sorcerer? Nope (I can build a Wizard with 3 At-Wills, 1 Encounter/level, 2 Dailies/Level, and 2 Utilities/level). Does he do his job? Effectively.

From my experience, Essentials PCs and "Classic" PCs can coexist so long as the Essentials PCs are built with an understanding that sooner or later, the Classic guys will grow to greater heights in the long-run.

Seeing as how our 7th man is building a level 4 (my level isn't included in the "party average" level for new PCs), I am interested, judging from our party being 3 Strikers, a Defender, a leader, and me (a hybrid who's more leader than defender, but can flip-flop if needed), we desperately need a spell-chucker, although the player isn't interested in being a classic Controller (Wizard/Warlock/Invoker/Druid).

[Gabe]

Right, I might have to have a word with him and say that he'll drop off late game purely because everyone else has more options. I'm pretty sure he's enjoying slayer at the moment anyway. He's being buffed by a Paladin and a Warlord and gets flanking bonuses from the rogue in the party so he /can/ hit hard.

Another question along the same vein of essentials characters, can essentials characters take Paragon Paths from their non-essentials counterparts? IE: Can a slayer, at level 11, choose to become a swordmaster? Or does he have to become a Paragon Slayer?
I have a feeling I know the answer, but just wanting to double check~

[Ashdate]

Essentials Characters can absolutely take other Paragon Paths.