Editing Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (section)

==D&D Essentials==
'''D&D Essentials''', also known as '''D&D 4.5''', was a marketing ploy/systems update that came into being during the final few years of 4th edition's life. Officially released as an attempt to make a more "newbie friendly" version of 4e, and/or to appeal to players more comfortable with older editions of D&D. The system failed to do either and is widely considered amongst 4e's fanbase to have basically signed the edition's death warrant.

Essentials first appeared as a pair of [[Player's Handbook]] equivalents; "Heroes of the Fallen Lands" and "Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms", each of which offered a recap of the standard set of rules, including some errata, as well as new "simplified" versions of several pre-existing 4e classes; these [[variant class]]es consisted of the [[Warpriest]] (variant [[Cleric]]), [[Knight]] (variant [[Fighter]]), [[Slayer]] (variant [[Fighter]]), [[Thief]] (variant [[Rogue]]) and [[Mage]] (variant [[Wizard]]) in the Fallen Lands splat, and the [[Sentinel (D&D)|Sentinel]] (variant [[Druid]]), [[Cavalier]] (variant [[Paladin]]), [[Hunter (D&D)|Hunter]] (variant [[Ranger]]), [[Scout (D&D)|Scout]] (variant [[Ranger]]) and [[Hexblade]] (variant [[Warlock]]) in the Forgotten Kingdoms splat. Later supplements included the [[Protector |Protector]] (variant Druid), [[Skald]] (variant [[Bard]]), [[Witch]] (variant Wizard), and [[Berserker]] (variant [[Barbarian]]) from the Feywild Splat, the [[Elementalist]] (variant [[Sorcerer]]), and [[Sha'ir]] (variant Wizard) from the Elemental Chaos splat and the [[Blackguard]] (variant Paladin), [[Binder]] (variant Warlock), and Executioner (Variant [[Rogue#Assassin|Assassin]]) from the Shadow splat. 

All of these classes tweaked the class formulas in different ways, but the basic approach of cutting down the options and removing the potentially overwhelming array of powers that the older [[AEDU System]] classes had presented remained universal. Caster classes like the [[Mage]] and [[Warpriest]] tended to be slightly more complex than martial characters like the [[Knight]] and [[Slayer]], who tended to particularly shun the old way of doing things to focus on stances and at-will powers. Additionally, the writing method would change from the clear but impersonal "manual-like" methodology of the 4e classes to a more "natural language" style.

So, what went wrong? Several things.

Firstly, Essentials was initially marketed as a side-line; promises were made to players that the Essentials classes would consist of just their two debut books and the rest of 4e would remain in business as usual. But this turned out to be a great big lie. Books that were promised, such as the [[Nentir Vale]] gazetteer, were cancelled. Books that fans had been waiting on were replaced with more books full of Essentials content, in the form of the Heroes of Shadow, the Feywild and the Elemental Chaos trilogy. [[Dragon Magazine]] likewise focused on new Essentials-related crunch content. This left fans feeling betrayed. In addition to this, organized play sessions hosted by WoTC would ''only'' play with these, making a lot of the stuff they released completely useless. 

Secondly, and just as importantly, the Essentials classes were... well, let's be blunt; they were crap. In contrast to their predecessors, the Essentials classes were unbalanced as all hell; the best of them were strong in the Heroic tier but fell behind at higher levels, whilst most just could not match up to the power of a 4e class. Their dearth of powers made them, frankly, one-note and boring by comparison. And that's not getting into their individual flaws, such as the [[vampire]] and its status as a Striker that burned up its own [[Healing Surge]]s as a resource. This led to a considerable backlash from 4e fans, since they found the Essentials classes to be so much more badly designed than their predecessors.

Finally, it was really a doomed idea to begin with; those who disliked 4e were not any more inclined to try Essentials, since it still relied on the "videogamey" concepts of powers to begin alongside the "miniature wargaming" concept of tactical positioning and battlefield manipulation, while the revisions alienated actual fans of 4e as it negated what actual strengths the game had.

So, Essentials was a trainwreck that crashed into the station and leveled the whole place, forcing Wizards to throw out the baby with the bathwater. It caused a marked drop in 4e's sales, making it the first point where [[Pathfinder]] actually began to outsell 4e, and soon after 4e was cancelled and replaced with [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]]. Which, if you look closely, does look an awful lot like Essentials under the hood...

In fact, it bears mentioning that WotC themselves seemed to realize that Essentials was shaping up to be a disaster, with both "Heroes of the Feywild" and "Heroes of the Elemental Chaos" releasing new classes that were more the 4e equivalent of 3e's [[Variant Class]]es than completely new classes like the "first generation" Essentials classes, but it was too little, too late.