Indoctrinating Kids to Devil Worship
Ar Kayon:
So I bought the Red Box thinking it was the old school game. Turned out to be a trick by those 4th edition fuckfaces. Alright, whatever - I was only going to play the game with my 9 year old niece anyway.
Got the dice, check.
Tokens, check.
Dungeon Map, check.
Rules...wtf?
I started the pre-made initiation quest to get her acclimatized to the system. It worked remarkably well: she learned what her stats and skills were for, and ended up making a female elf fighter with a great axe and pink hair. She also intuitively understood that adventurers are supposed to blindly accept quests from random strangers. And she really enjoyed slaying a goblin and then trying to intimidate it into giving her info.
This is great and all, but where the hell are all the rules to actually play the damn game for real??
So now I’m at the book store, and found all these DnD essentials products for 20 bucks. However, there’s like 6 products, and they’re all “essential”. I’m not spending 120 bucks for this shit - I would ideally like the least amount of things to functionally play the game.
Any advice, guys?
Phil K.:
The D&D Essentials line is something the D&D community is torn about. Calling it essentials implies that it is necessary when, in fact, it is not. An entire playgroup can get the 4E D&D experience for about $70 - $90.
Anyway, I haven't seen a Red Box's insides so I don't know what's in it. As far as the rule books are concerned, there are two "Heroes" books. Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms and Heroes of the Fallen Lands. Those are books for players; they have classes, feats, etc. All the crunchy bits players need to make a character and enjoy the game. Each book has different classes; one has clerics, fighters, rogues and wizards. The other has druids, paladins, rangers and warlocks. You'll only need one of these and they're each $20.
The Rules Compendium is the most up-to-date printed version of all the rules in 4E; this is something a play group should have on hand, especially if no one has the core Player's Handbook from 2008. This is another $20.
Then there's the Monster Vault. This is probably the product that is most interesting for the person running the game. $30 gets you nice die-cut tokens of dozens of monsters and all their stats. I plan on picking this up at some point. $30 (or $20 from Amazon)
If you want to create interesting environments and 3D dungeons, you can pick up a dungeon tiles master set. They can be put together to create modular 3D terrain. Completely optional and another $20.
Basically, the bare minimum to play is a Heroes book ($20). For more clear rules arbitration, add a Rules Compendium. For some nice visual materials, add Monster Vault and/or dungeon tiles.
-Phil
PS - Been playing 4E since it came out; haven't done a bunch of Essentials but enough to know what is and isn't necessary.
Chris_Chinn:
Hi Ar Kayon,
Quote
I’m not spending 120 bucks for this shit - I would ideally like the least amount of things to functionally play the game. Any advice, guys?
Heroes of the Fallen Land is basically the new Player's Handbook. It has the 4 classic classes, and most the basic rules to actually play. I think you can probably get EITHER the DM's Kit OR the Rules Compendium, since there's a lot of overlap. And then the monster book, naturally.
4E's rules are the same between core 4E & Essentials- so if you find used 4E core books, you can get those and intermix as necessary.
Chris
Ar Kayon:
I can see how I might easily develop an addiction to this shit. I fucking love tiles, cuz I never had them in my pre-teen 2nd edition days. And I could never find proper figurines - I know they sell official ones too.
Alright, so I'm thinking along the lines of:
Heroes of fallen lands (clerics, fighters, rogues, wizards)
Rules compendium
Monster vault
and Dungeon tiles
Crap. That's 80 bucks. Will that support play up to level 15?
Phil K.:
That takes play through all 30 levels.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page