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1 year ago ::
Mar 11, 2012 - 11:17PM
#11
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Date Joined:
Mar 11, 2012
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Yes! Great responses. Hope my questions aren't a bother. I found a red box for the essentials. Should I pass on this? Pretty pricy too!
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1 year ago ::
Mar 11, 2012 - 11:20PM
#12
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Date Joined:
Mar 11, 2012
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My bad. I don't think it's part of the essentials.
You guys have helped a ton. I really appreciate it and hope me and my buddies can pick this up and play for many of hours. I want my girlfriend to enjoy it too as she enjoyed my homebrew game. And it's not to say she's not as smart as I, therefore can't learn, i fear she won't have the patience I do.
One more question, there's a rules compendium for the essentials. Should I pass on this?
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1 year ago ::
Mar 12, 2012 - 5:50AM
#13
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Yes! Great responses. Hope my questions aren't a bother. I found a red box for the essentials. Should I pass on this? Pretty pricy too!
Red Box is an introductory product. It lets you play a couple of classes and races for 2 levels and gives you a sort of solo adventure/character generation, plus some dice and whatnot. It was basically designed as a 'ready-to-go' intro so that you can crack it open and play a bit right away. Good thing to buy for kids. I think they're a bit hard to find now though. In any case RB doesn't have anything unique in it, once your PCs are ready for 3rd level you just go buy Essentials Heroes of books etc. If you're already sold on playing D&D it isn't really needed.
The Essentials Rules Compendium reproduces rules that are also found in Heroes of books and the DMK. It is most useful for people that have PHB1 because it contains all the updated general rules. There's nothing in it you really NEED if you have the other Essentials books. I find it convenient, but I also never bothered to get the DMK since I have all the core books. So, yeah, you probably don't need it, though as a quick reference it isn't bad.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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1 year ago ::
Mar 12, 2012 - 5:56AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2011
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I would pick up the Rule Compendium, it is a digest format soft cover so its easy to carry around and has all the rules, errata'd and up to date. It is an excellent book and is cheap compared to most D&D books. Also if you are starting with new players, the two essentials "Heroes of ..." books might be better than the PHB's because of a simpler presentation of classes. If you want to move to more content, consider a DDI subscription. It gets you the Character Builder, online compendium, monster generator, Dungeon, and Dragon. Having the character builder is about like having all the PHB's plus the classes, feats, backgrounds and themes from the various setting books and Dragon without having to buy all the books. Another great feature of the Monster Vault and DM's Kit that weren't mentioned was that both come with cardboard tokens that can be used inplace of mini's and each has a doublesided fold out map that goes with the enclosed adventure. Good luck, TjD
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1 year ago ::
Mar 12, 2012 - 9:32AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Mar 11, 2012
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Very cool. Thanks for the responses. Still undecided about the rules compendium. I won't be needing to carry it around. And if I've got all the info already don't need. But if it's presented with more common rules in an easy to read fashion I might get it. Maybe I'll start with everything else suggested and if I'm having trouble I'll order one. Thx for everything. Hopefully one day I can find a group around here too.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 12, 2012 - 11:59AM
#16
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Date Joined:
Mar 31, 2011
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I was pursuaded to go the Essentials route at the beginning, and while not a bad option, I ended up getting the core books anyway and use them almost exclusively now. I don't really follow the errata as there is a lot of it and can't be bothered to go through it all.
In my opinion, the Red Box is an excellent starter set. It is cheap, comes with an adventure, dice, tokens, maps, instructions, power cards. Basically, eveything you need to start playing . But it all stops when you reach level 3 and you then need to get the core books or the Essential books and create a whole new character.
What I would suggest is get the three core books PHB1 DMG1 and a MM (probably 3 as it is highly regarded. I don't have it so I can't comment, but you don't really need the first one as it is basically a list of monsters and their stats. PHB1 and DMG1 are needed as they have the rules of the game in them).
As for an adventure the first published 4e one 'Keep On The Shadowfell' is available as a free download PDF on the Wizards site. Not played it yet, but it's free so why not go ahead and get it? DMG1 has a short dungeon crawl at the end which is alright for learning the crunch. And if you get the Red Box, the adventure in there is also okay.
I've been toying with the idea of getting a erasable mat for a while. It is cheap and can be found in loads of places and you can draw your maps on there and wipe them off afterwards. I've got a few dungeon tiles and they're also good, but can get pricey. A screen is not necessary, but the official ones have a load of information on the reverse that you can quickly glance at during a session, so it is useful.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 12, 2012 - 12:25PM
#17
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Date Joined:
Mar 11, 2012
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What's errata?
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1 year ago ::
Mar 12, 2012 - 2:26PM
#18
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What's errata?
Updates that come out after things are published. In this day of easy digital distribution WotC has been quite liberal with updating in-print material. The errata (really more than just errata, but that's a good name for it) for PHB1, MM1, and DMG1 runs to a good 30 pages or so. Much of it is just minor fixes for powers and whatnot that corrects things that were a little too good or didn't quite work the way they were intended.
Also when they put out Essentials they revised the wording of a bunch of the core rules somewhat. Most of the changes aren't major, but they did heavily revise the rules for hiding for instance. The original printed rules work fine though. You may just find a few powers are a decent amount better or worse than others, and a really clever player can optimize their character a bit more than would be ideal. Starting players aren't likely to cause that kind of problem (and you can always download the errata document and thwart them if they do, lol).
Having a Rules Compendium does mean less reference to the errata if you use it.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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1 year ago ::
Mar 12, 2012 - 2:47PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Mar 11, 2012
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Cool.
Still not entirely sure what the Rules Compendium is exactly.
I'm assuming it's just a quicker reference to rules.
I did find a wicked deal at a local store, so I think I'm going to pick up the 4 essentials, and order the rules compendium online as it's only $13 on the american amazon.
Really appreciate all the help. Really looking forward to playing.
Hopefully I'll get the hang of DMing without any playing experience :D
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1 year ago ::
Mar 12, 2012 - 4:03PM
#20
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Date Joined:
Mar 11, 2012
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So, next question, once I've purchased the dm kit, the monster vault, the and the two essential heroe's of books, where do I start?
Start reading the DM kit book?
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