D&D Essentials is the new consolidated line of Dungeons and Dragons books for the 4th edition. This is a fully compatible add-on to 4th edition not a sneaky way to put a 4.5 Edition into print. If you are a long time player (or just own the players handbook) these new books aren't going to make your collection of 4E books out of date
What Wizards has in mind is that these condensed line of core books with new class builds will allow new players to have a solid core line of books to start playing D&D with. Then they can expand into the rest of 4th edition D&D easily later on. What does this mean for experience players? It means there are new books coming out with different builds that you can add to your existing or new campaigns. Yes there are New Fighters, Wizards, Clerics and Rogues in the book Heroes of the Fallen Lands but the fighters for example are new classes called Knight and Slayer so while they fill the same defender role as the old fighter they are different builds.
For New players what this means is that they can pick up a soft cover book for $20 and get started in D&D as a player rather than the bigger classic hardcover which sells for $35 if they so choose. Combine this new character creation book with the new Rules Compendium which basically has all 4th edition rules that aren’t character creation specific in one small easily stored book and a new player has pretty much everything they need to play (sans dice) for $40. Or alternatively an experienced player can now play the game easily with his/her character sheet and the Rules Compendium if they are separated from their carload, bookshelf, or insert other storage manner of books for any reason.
The new DM’s kit includes a nice set of tokens, a DM screen, a two part adventure and a handy DM book. This is basically the DM’s guide with a bunch of extra goodies that can be used by experienced players or a good second chapter for new players after they run the Red Box to get acquainted with the game. The tokens are printed on a high quality cardboard (think Fantasy Flight quality if you play board games.) and represent all of the creatures in the adventure.
The Red Box is back! An Ad Campaign you may have seen on face book, TV, Google, you tube or a hundred other places. The classic look of the first edition D&D Red Box now contained a 10 encounter first time adventure for new players. There is a book to help completely new players create a first level character with a choose your own adventure style feel to it. The Adventure is very well done though some of the encounters are a bit tough, we actually had a total party kill our first time through on one of them with an experienced group running through it. But it was good fun.
The only real downside to the Red Box is they give a few powers to go up to Second Level but don’t really help you level up much, and you basically have to remake characters from essentials (or elsewhere) to play further. It’s possible to do the same build without too much modification but it would have been useful if they made the transition easier to more adventures.
Finally they have released a new “permanent” set of Dungeon Tiles for adventures. What this means is they are going to reprint this one for a long time rather than just letting it run out and players losing access to the tile set like previous sets. This is a “double” set or master set which has more than twice as many titles as old releases and selling for $20.00 (rather than 11.95 like the single last set). If you are a fan of the Dungeon Tiles this new set is fantastic or if you are just getting started with your own dungeon building tools this is a great place to start. Personally I am an addict for D&D titles and D&D miniatures so I have at least one copy of each of the last 10 tile sets or so. I think this might be the best “base” set for getting started that has ever been released.
Monster Vault which isn’t released yet as I write this blog entry is going to be the next Monster Manual but it will contain every Monster in the entire book in a well made cardboard token(flip for bloodied creature). I was able to see an advance copy of this fine product at a Distribution Conference in September. Not only do you get tokens for every creature but there were 8 numbered Goblins! So you can actually run Full fledged encounters with all these nifty tokens. This is going to be an awesome product and if I personally didn’t already own 12 drawers full of D&D miniatures (a far too massive collection for anyone’s good.) I would be even more excited about this product. As it is, Demoing D&D and playing it out of a single small box is now possible with this line of products.
Wizards of the Coast has done a fine job with this new side but fully compatible line of D&D 4th edition products. It has given new players an easier way into D&D and offers plenty of variety for already invested fans of the D&D 4th edition system.
Items discussed in this article are the new Essentials Line including
D & D Fantasy Game Starter Set (Red Box) Retail $19.95
Heroes of the Fallen Lands $19.95
Dungeons & Dragons Rules Compendium $19.95
Dungeon Master’s Kit $39.95
Dungeon Titles Master Set: The Dungeon 19.95
Coming out soon (article written October 26th 2010)
Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms $19.95
Dungeon Tiles Master Set: The City $19.95
Dungeon Tiles Master Set: The Wilderness $19.95
Monster Vault $39.95
You can pick all these great books up at Dragon Port Games & Comics in Duluth Mn.
http://www.dragonportgames.com
