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Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook

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4th edition D&D = Different.

That fact alone would have spawned endless teeth gnashing from loyalists of prior versions - but what differences are we talking about? How different is it?

In a word: very.

4th edition is a sea change in the core rules that is easily on par with the change from 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition.

Start with the thematic changes:
The core races have changed. Humans, Halflings, Elves, Half-Elves and Dwarves are back - they've just been supplemented with three new races. Dragonborn (dragonmen), Eladrin (magical fey of the wood) and Tiefling (humanoids with an otherworldly taint).

Classes from 3.0 and 3.5 have been dropped from this volume (There is no druid, monk, bard, or barbarian). These classes are promised in future Player's Handbooks. Not the most auspicious beginning.

Thematic changes like this are easy to spot - but are perhaps the least important changes in the game. I dislike the concept of Dragonborn ("Dragon-anything" is a label I feel makes its subject seem cartoonish and clichéd), but as a GM - I can easily fix this. In my world Dragonborn will be lizardmen, with a backstory that I choose. I take the rules and make them my own.

The WotC game designers have clearly tried to shift the game mechanics towards customized character development: (a rules buffet, so to speak) - so anyone who wants to have a druid could achieve a reasonable facsimile of powers and rituals and achieve the rest thematically.

Many will have a problem with this - but I frankly don't. Being able to mix and match classes in 3.5 was a radical shift (and a brilliant one) and the re-thinking of that model that occurs in 4th Edition provides more options, not less.

The artwork (particularly the book's cover) will come in for a large amount of abuse - but again, this is such a minor issue. Quality artwork is important for RPG (imagery is the lifeblood of storytelling), but any one picture will have those who love it/hate it. So long as the majority of the art isn't bad (like the schlock in 2nd edition) any gamer is free to switch to pictures they *do* enjoy.

Again, thematic changes will get a lot of attention, but any GM is free to re-imagine any theme that they have a problem with.

On to Rules:

This is where the true sea change is. Any discussion of what is happening in 4th edition can be boiled down to this:

4th edition wants to simplify things and speed up your gaming sessions.

3rd edition and 3.5 attempted to create flexibility and lots of independent rulesets (feats, prestige classes). This was good - but the complexity inherent in this model caused a lot of problems. When scalable feats collided with spells and class abilities - often the only guidance the GM would have is the precise language in the rulebook. Is a charge an attack action? No, it is a full round action that allows you to attack - and so on.

I sincerely believe that 3rd edition was superior to 2nd edition, but I never had as many rules disputes when I played 2nd edition.

4th Edition was clearly intended to address this issue.

Base attack bonus tables? Gone. You get a bonus of half your level, rounded down, to pretty much anything you do (as well as to many stats, like your AC). The advantage of this is twofold - it's easy to remember and it always scales.

All attacks are now attacks: be they claw, sword or spell - the character will roll a die, add their modifiers up and try to hit a defense number. This streamlines combat spells, since instead of a saving throw, you will have a passive defense number that your opponents will try to beat. One roll, from the attacker - always.

This kind of symmetry will allow players to better remember what to do. I'm a target, I do nothing. I'm attacking, I roll.

The combat round has gotten an overhaul, as well. Characters are now allowed to perform the following in a round: A standard action, a move action, a minor action, and any number of free actions. These labels exist in a hierarchy, so the character can forgo a standard action to take an additional use of a lesser action.
Standard actions are the big actions (attack, use a power, etc). Move actions are exactly what you'd think. Minor actions include readying a weapon or maintaining a spell effect. Free actions are virtually unlimited (drop something, speak, etc).
The groupings are intuitive- and the initial adjustment aside - this structure will add some real clarity to the always problematic question of "what can I do in a round?"

Now the biggest shift of all: Powers
All 3rd edition/3.5 casters get weaker and less useful every time they cast a spell, resulting in the entire party needing to stop and camp just to get their magic back.
If the party had an early morning encounter that was intense enough - the caster would spend the rest of the day "empty" and pretty much useless.

4th edition tackles this issue head on. Character have powers that can be used once per encounter. Meaning: no matter how many encounters your spell caster has in a day, they will have something to contribute.

This is brilliant. A real slap-the-forehead moment, even for gamers who (like me) have been playing for decades. Once per encounter powers are scaled to not be show stoppers - but they scale as you get more powerful.

Powers that refresh for encounters are supplemented with powers that are refreshed after an extended rest (much like old times). The difference is that the rest need only be 6 hours long, which fits better with the model of dungeon crawls and treks in the wilderness.

Spells weren't the only resource PCs needed to hole up and replenish. The other one was Hit Points. The old healing model was: everyone gets a pittance for resting, and then the healers burn magic to *really* fix people. This system exacerbated the previous problem of spellcaster depletion. Caster rests, uses all their spell slots to heal other PCs - and is useless for the rest of the day.

Now - everyone can heal by themselves. Every PC has a healing reserve - a set number of times they can heal 1/4th their total hit points. In combat, most PCs are allowed to do this only once - magic and special abilities can increase this.

This seems weird for lots of reasons, but it will free players to pursue action instead of good places to rest. Clerics can still be healers, without being straitjacketed to the role. This is good, really good news for gamers. Parties will still have to hole up and rest, but healing reserves and encounter based powers will ensure that they will never be completely out of options.

And powers aren't just for spellcasters! This, too seems weird - but warrior types are given abilities called "Exploits." These are essentially special moves that enhance the warriors martial abilities. Call them magic or call them tricks their guild master taught them - they are expended in the same way as powers - and the advancement model ensures they will scale better than 3.5's feats.

The last big change to magic is the creation of Ritual Magic. Rituals are spells that take too long to cast in combat (10 minutes or more) but have long lasting, or purely utilitarian effects: summon mounts, scrying, etc. Moving these abilities out of the realm of combat with casting times decreases the likelihood that their effects will collide with combat rules in unforeseen ways. As a GM - I like this a lot. Players will still get creative, but when combat is ongoing - I hate to stop and figure out if a utility spell like Prestigitation can have an effect on combat.

There are many other changes:

-Three tiers of level advancement, each containing 10 levels - entering any new tier affords you new powers and development paths. Each tier contains powers scaled to that tier - no more feat free-for alls.
-Skills have been (mercifully) simplified so that there is better parity among PCs of the same level (The bonus follows the same format of 1/2 level + bonuses). You either are trained in a skill, or you are not. Training nets you a flat +5 bonus. (Gone is the insanity of 3.5 where a level loss had you searching prior versions of your character to reset your skill levels. Remember what INT drain did to skills? the horror!)

There is a lot to like here. The long suffering DMs of 3.5 will finally get some speed back into their game. It will be an adjustment, but the goals of this system are admirable.

That said, I have three gripes.
One is just a personal bias. 3rd edition required miniatures for combat in all but name. 4th edition codifies miniatures. The idea of a purely "in your head" encounter is a rapidly fading memory for gamers like me. Sometimes, you just want to do a combat on the fly, without figures and without maps. WotC has clearly come down on the side of precise tactics - and I truly wish they'd made more accommodations for DMs who don't like to map every improvised encounter site.

Second - while the 4th edition PH's index is merely lacking; its glossary is non-existent. In books of this size - a one page index is just inadequate. To be fair, the books explain any terminology as it is introduced *very* well, but any player who needs to know what a term means would have an easier time scanning a glossary than the entire rulebook.
(DnD Insider claims to have many features to simplify things - but online access has not been the hallmark of my gaming sessions. This may change - but a good, frequently-updated glossary should be available for download on their website.)

Lastly, the unpardonable yet unavoidable aspect of 4th Edition: It is so near the release of 3.5 - and has so many changes that it cannot help but spawn a 4.5 edition in the near future. I was a playtester for 4th edition, so I know they've gotten a number of kinks out of it. But there is no way playtesters and designers got it all. Like every other edition, players will find the weak spots of the new system and eventually rules will get revised.

There is such a thing as buyer's fatigue. I've bought every ruleset since the Expert Set, and having invested deeply in 3.5, I am being asked (along with every other 3.5 player) to start over - again.

I like the rules - and I obviously love the game - but there is a limit to the number of times a game can switch rulesets. If 4.5 comes out in the near future and we are yet again asked to pitch our (still like new) rulebooks in favor of the latest products - I suspect I will not be the only DM to slam on the brakes.

There, rant over.

Game on!

I don't mind at all that WotC has sacrificed some sacred cows to make the system more streamlined. I don't mind that you have to roll to hit with magic missile. I don't mind that you have to use miniatures, or a battlegrid. I don't mind that the game is more combat-oriented.

I do mind that the game just feels boring.

Sure, I can make a Dragonborn fighter and an Eladrin wizard. But they don't do anything spectacularly different. Except that the wizard is, for some magically unknown reason, unable to whack anything with his staff. All of the powers that they've added essentially boil down to XdY + Ability modifier damage, and if you're lucky, a 1-turn status effect.

I give great praise to WotC for making the classes blanaced. It's very difficult (if not impossible) to push your character off the RNG completely. The problem is that they made everything too balanced, so that no one does anything particularly flavorful.

Not only that, but the character you make is essentially straight-jacketed into one of the two (and sometimes three) predetermined character archetypes that are presented. Taking a power from a different character build is inefficient, because it takes a different attribute to use, which you probably don't have as high.

I don't care if my wizard impales people with ice spikes or burns them with fire, because there's functionally no difference. Defenses against particular damage types are so few and far between that you can do the same thing with the same spell, over and over again.

The elite and solo monsters that are presented are a joke. They have anywhere from 2x-5x the amount of HP a normal monster should have, and have an extra 10%-25% chance to end any effect on them every turn. Considering that combat against normal enemies takes forever, you spend all of your encounter and daily powers against the enemy, and then sit there and grind away at its massive amount of health with your piddly at-will abilities, which do precisely jack squat in the long run.

The rituals are dumb. All of them are assigned a cost. It takes 10% of your level-equivalent character wealth to detect a secret door. The rituals themselves are interesting, but I'd rather save up for the 3,000,000 gp required for a better sword (yeesh) than pay 5,000 gp every time I want to teleport.

It seems like the playtesters didn't go past about level 10. Magic items are ridiculously expensive. The higher-level encounters just don't add up with the math the designers used. And you're chokeheld to even fewer options the higher you go.

Overall, the system is great for a one-shot weekend thing. But if you want to make a long-running campaign, stick to one of the other editions.

When I first heard about 4th edition I was quite excited. I couldn't wait to get my hands on all the brand new shiny rules. I read all the updates about the new races and classes from Wizards of the Coast online, and I thought "hmmm a little bit strange that they seem to be making so many changes, but they still sound like great ideas". When the books finally came out, I bought my copies right away, and read through them. At first I was confused by the fact that the new game was COMPLETELY new. There was basically nothing left of the old editions in 4th edition. It was a totally new game. Strange, I thought, but I ignored that little voice telling me to be wary and went ahead and started up a game with some of my friends, all D&D 3.5 players who had also been waiting for the new edition to come out... all except for one friend who refused to play because he hated the new changes. I tried to explain that they weren't changes as much as it was a whole new game, but he said that was even worse. I ignored his opinions, but now in hindsight, he was absolutely correct.

As we played the game, at first we thought the game was a blast. It was fun having special "powers" as a fighter, and being able to use spells over and over again, but as the weeks progressed we started to notice some things as we reached higher levels (I think that 12th was the highest level anyone in our group reached). We weren't really enjoying the game like we did the first few times when it was still new, and 2 players started making excuses not to show up at the game, and 1 other player though he came to the game every time, constantly expressed an interest in going back to 3.5 or playing a totally different system. Essentially everyone was bored with 4th, and after having only played for about a month and a half. We'd had 3.0 and 3.5 games that had lasted years without players leaving or expressing boredom. No one was looking forward to the next game session and no one really cared about their characters. We played a few more times, but then agreed to quit and started a new 3.5 game, but we decided to use only the 3 core books of 3.5 (PHB, DMG, and MM) to see if we became as bored with it as quickly as we did with 4th. Needless to say, that game is still going (but we did allow one player to use a prestige class from complete mage).

Overall, while 4th edition seemed fun at first, we quickly realized that character building choices, such as feats and powers mattered very little in the long run. It was almost impossible to build an interesting and unique character. Even the classes bled together, despite having different powers. The only element of the characters that seemed unique was the race, but still every character of the same race seemed the same, and if "you didn't play enough different characters to know if they can be unique or not" is your counter argument, then you would be wrong as far as I'm concerned. We played 2 times a week for almost 2 months, and with 3 complete parties wiped out by assorted "balanced encounters" each of us played at least 4 characters.

Which brings me to another point that I haven't seen many people mention; the increasesd lethality of this edition. Our DM started with a module (keep of the shadowfall or something like that) and we were killed (one person escaped) by a group of kobolds. We chalked it up to inexperience with the new system, and tried to use better tactics next time. We made it through to the end of the module but were almost wiped again by the final encounter (2 people out of 5 died, but only 1 person was left actually conscious when the bad guy died). We figured that maybe the module was just designed to be a meat-grinder style adventure so the DM started planning his own game with encounters balanced according to the DMG. Two games later our party was wiped out completely (no one escaped) by an elite solo monster that was supposedly a balanced "boss" encounter for our party level. After this another player wanted to DM for a while, so we started new characters but at the same levels as our last characters. It went pretty good for a while, but then one player stopped showing up to games, for various reasons, and then some number of games after that (i think it was about 2 levels since we started over, I can't really remember) our party was TPKed again. In between the start over and the TPK 2 people had died in isolated situations but those seemed normal at the time. Even though we were TPKed the DM said that we'd "been captured" and we had to fight our way out of prison, which was kind of fun, but it felt fake and undeserved.

When 4th edition info first started to appear on the internet, there was talk of characters being "pumped up" with hit points and that this would increase early level survivability. It turns out the opposite is actually true. The characters have more HP but so do the monsters; unbelievable numbers of HP in some cases. Fights seem to drag on and on as the players swing and do minor amounts of damage to the creatures massive HP scores which are in every case but "minions" equal to or greater than the players HP scores. Minions on the other hand may seem like a good idea; monsters that can be used as a howling horde of weaklings, but die quickly. However, in practice they take the fun out of the battle. When you hit a minion it feels like a "gimme", like patting a little kid on the head and saying "good job! you hit the ball!" (straight to the firstbaseman). They all have one hit point and die from a single hit, but they feel very gratuitous, almost pointless. Not only are they simply an annoyance, but they deprive the player the fun and excitement of scoring a critical hit for maximum damage, or even of rolling for damage at all. Very disappointing.

I could go on detailing other oddities of play experience that our group encountered, but other reviews listed here have pointed them out over and over, and in greater detail than I really care to, mainly because I simply don't care anymore. 4th edition was an opportunity for WotC to fix and update the previous edition, but instead, judging by the final product, the only thing they truly ever intended to update was the company's stock price (Oooh, he made a joke about Wizards only being out to make a profit! Get him! Nerd Rage!). They created a detailed but boring board game, from which I am sure they will make quite a bit of money off of those fooled by the brand label still attached to this unrecognizable edition. I plan to recoup some of what I gave to Wizards by selling my books back to the local game store, since in just a couple of months I've had my fill of 4th edition.

People call 4th Edition many things- a World of Warcraft ripoff, a simplification of 3rd edition, a moneygrab by Wizards of the Coast considering D&D 3.5 was released not so long ago... but the one thing that most people are calling this is "different".

For long-time fans, here's a list of some basic things you'll need to come to terms with to start playing basic 4th edition: You have to roll to hit with Magic Missile (yes it can miss now); There is no Bard, Monk, or Druid (though these are promised in PHBII- see the moneygrab comment); No classes get any ability minuses anymore, only pluses (Elves have average Constitution, Halflings have average Strength); Wizards and all classes for that matter in fact now have at-will powers they can use without depleting their spells or powers per day.

Long-time D&D fans instantly scoff at a few of the above points (rolling for Magic Missile just seems intuitively wrong), but hey- it's a new edition. Every new edition means new mechanics, so let's go along with it- until you lean just how changed the mechanics are.

All of the rules, all of the combat, and all of the encounter information is all provided in terms of a square combat grid. Essentially, Wizards is shortchanging free-form players and pushing combat requiring miniatures. It's entirely possible to play a game without using a grid and miniatures, but you'll probably wind up doing more on-the-fly conversions than ever to make it happen. Many players are already using miniatures anyway, so this might seem great for them, but even then the flavor makes it seem more like you're playing a generic strategy game instead of D&D. Change the flavor text a bit and the rules could easily read "This power lets you move your tank two spaces to the left regardless of physical barriers" or "The Knight piece can only travel in the four cardinal directions". There's just no more real-world feel like "Fireball can travel up to 100 feet before exploding and damaging a 25-foot radius".

All of the characters have tons of at-will, per-encounter, and expendable refreshers that add up to players having more varied options than ever before in combat, especially at first level. This seems exciting, but anyone who's ever seen an MMO (like World of Warcraft) will quickly see exactly what this adds up to- combat is rarely going to be about just rolling a d20 and waiting for an attack to come out, and it's going to be more than ever about choosing from a list of fairly pre-fab powers to attack the enemy with. Even if you're just a "simple" Fighter, you still have access to a list of powers at first level that make a plain attack pretty useless. In the end, this does make for more involving combat, but the combat that comes out is tremendously different from previous editions (and again, tremendously more like a lot of MMOs out there).

The final shift I'll mention here is the shift away from "utility" powers and entirely toward combat powers, and I don't want to beat a dead horse, but that's again very MMO-like. Every class has a ton of new powers, but read between the lines and you'll see virtually all the powers involve damaging enemies. Wizards can't, for example, use a spell to create a rope when the party needs one. Nor can they use a spell to help their Rogue woo over a crowd when he gives a speech at a banquet (technically you can write powers called Rituals for this, but the basic spell list doesn't have this flexibility). Most of what they can do is apply Force damage, Elemental damage, or more Force damage. If you were to divide Wizard powers into direct attack spells and everything else, you'd find nearly all their powers are the exact same thing: "Deal X (choose type) damage to target". This same trend applies to every class in different ways.

So in the end, I'm left with a conundrum. I want to play D&D because I love the game that D&D has always been, even though the game has had some glaring flaws in every release. This edition has done a lot to address the flaws of previous releases, but in the process it creates something that just doesn't feel very much like D&D. Maybe the game that's in here is a really good one, but I'd feel a lot better if the cover said "d20 Fantasy Game" instead of masquerading around as a new edition of D&D. My suggestion is to look up some of the free sites out there that have produced try-before-you-buy quickstart intros to 4th edition, or find a friend who's bought it and see it firsthand. I can't recommend outright jumping into this edition to anyone.

The 4th edition D&D is a completely different beast than the 3.5 version or earlier versions. It has several significant advantages, but also what I consider to be very significant weaknesses

First the advantages:
1) Combat is streamlined, quick and effective.
2) Every character class has its own special powers to make it interesting. Every level of advancement gives new powers.
3) The new skill system is a significant improvement, giving a good range of activities in a simple to use format.
4) Spellcasters having at-will powers eliminates a major weakness
5) Game balance is clearly a major objective. All character classes seem to be roughly equally powerful - and assigning appropriate opposition is straightforward.


Then the disadvantages:
1) Character classes are combat platforms. They define how you fight. However, it seems that all the non-combat flavor of the classes has been nearly eliminated.
2) Other than skills and a handful of rituals, there is almost nothing in your character class for activities other than immediate combat. Duration of powers is extremely short, usually only a single round.
3) Character classes are rigid - characters are able to select from only a small number of options in character creation/advancement. It seems clear that to have a different type of fighter, you need to pick a different character class (and thus buy a new book).
4) Many rules make no sense in defining a game world, but only exist to enforce game balance or speed up that next combat. Concepts like Mooks, unlimited healing surges after combat, transforming magic items to "dust", or the odd cavalry limitations imposed in the game seem silly.

Overall, the game can be fun, but is clearly designed for gamers that prefer combat heavy games.

I bought the books when they were first released. After after 3 campaigns ranging from level 1 - 15, there are some VERY big issues with 4th edition.

You can read about all the improvements that have been made, like class balance and streamlined system. But that's all shine on the new system. There are huge fundamental flaws with 4h edition.

1) After playing a while, it makes no difference if you play a Wizard or a Barbarian or whatever class. Each has basically the same number of encounters, dailys etc. The concept of wizards having spells vs Warriors having abilities is moot. It boils down to dailys, encounters, at-wills powers. And the damage die is basically the same (give or take). The "wonder" of casting a fireball into a room, or casting Prismatic Spray is gone. The awe of seeing a dual wielding ranger with Scimitars does not exist in 4th edition.

2) Magic Items are a huge joke. Buying a book on magical items used to be a treat where players could drool over items they hoped their characters would eventually purchase. Wands of Magic Missile, Staff of Power, Sword of Wishes all add wonder to the game. Now even if your DM gave you an artifact at level 1, trust me when I say that you will NOT be impressed. At level 1-10 you can only use a magic item once a day (or per extended rest). This makes magic items... not very magical. Even having potions suck, besides there are only a handful of potions you can purchase and none are very good, especially at higher levels.

I literally spend 75% of my character creation/leveling trying to find a magical item in my price range or level range that has an actual benefit aside from giving me a +1 to hit/dmg or increasing my AC by 1.

3) Role playing. Drow dual wielding rangers, Undead ArchMages that rule entire nations, a cleric who refuses to shed blood, or even a mage that specializes in Illusions or Summoning, just about all such iconic characters can no longer be built. Not with the new 4th edition system. After a few campaigns, all of them start to look just like the previous character class you picked. Mage #1 took Magic Missiles as his At-will, Mage #2 took Ray of Frost - difference is minimal.

Those are my pet peeves about 4th edition, there are certainly more faults for example rituals/Scrolls which... I simply do not see a reason for.

Many might disagree with me but the more 4th Edition you play, the more obvious its flaws become. Especially with regards to Magic and Spellcasting.

I purchased the Dungeons and Dragons 4E Player's Handbook a little over a year ago and have played as part of an on-going campaign for some time before I decided to create a review for it. At first, I was somewhat excited when I heard about the changes that they were making, and being that 3/3.5 was a pretty good system, I was sure that they were only fixing weaknesses on the older system and shoring up strengths. Being that this is pretty much an entirely new game and experience, I decided to postpone any judgement until I had a good while to digest the changes and see how I truly felt about.

As far as the book itself goes, I must say that I am somewhat disappointed with the quality, especially the artwork. The artwork does not stir the imagination, or fill you with curiosity and wonder, as good fantasy art should. Here's a little story to better illustrate my point: I am a fan of Magic: the Gathering as well, since 1995, and the artwork in that game has done nothing but get better and better as time has went on. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the artwork in the DND 4E PHB. The prints themselves are full-color and frequently placed, but the quality of the artwork itself is terrible. I think they cut back on artist's commissions to attempt to scale back the cost, and it definitely shows. Look at any print in this book, and then look at just about Magic: the Gathering card from any of the recent sets since 2008. Heck, compare this to the last PHB, 3.5E. You will likely notice a huge difference in the quality of art. Moving on. The binding for this book is somewhat shoddy as well. I am a devout bibliophile and go out of my way to protect my books, but after less than a monthly of weekly 4 hour gaming sessions, the spine was cracked and pages were falling out. I have never had to worry about book spines with any previous PHB, and I was shocked at how early the damage showed, and how increasingly worse the spine has become. The typefont is quite large, and there is a lot of white space, and it seems like they could have definitely cut down on the PHB by about 15-20% of pages, by using a smaller typefont and better utilization of white space.

As far as what the current edition has gotten right, I will say that older editions of Dungeons and Dragons employed a whole lot of needless symmetry (alignments come to mind, and most definitely the Inner and Outer Planes). I like the fact that they streamlined the alignments somewhat, and actually reinforces something that I've put into practice in my games for some time: that the vast majority of adventurers are simply Neutral, as in they don't particularly care for morals. And in most games of mine, I totally scrapped the planar system that was considered canonical, and substituted something of my own creation. I can honestly say that I enjoy the new planar system employed by the 4E PHB, and it is a fresh start. I like the inclusion of Warlocks as well. The very idea of the Warlock class is interesting and I'm glad to see them included.

For the rule system: the World of Warcraft references and analogies are everywhere, so I will do my best to avoid them. One thing I would like to stress is that the races watered down. There is little to nothing written about the various races and their culture, fashions, traditions, values, nothing. I find the character suggestions on each race page to be vaguely insulting, as a matter of fact. "Play a dwarf if you want to play someone who is tough." I'm paraphrasing here but you get the gist. Some of the most iconic characters in fantasy are the ones who completely break the mold. This book seems to want to only reinforce the stereotypes pushed on each fantasy race, and that is simply boring. I especially didn't like the idea of the Dragonborn. I find them to be too fantastical and their breath weapon ability seems to be too out of the norm from what the rest of the humans and demihumans can do. One thing I will give WOTC: At least they didn't try to implement a Vampire PC race in order to capitalize on the Twilight Saga's current success, and for that, I thank them.

I find the mix of classes to be odd as well, with the inclusion of the warlord especially, finding that class especially out of place. I have a hard time imagining some tactical leader leading a band of only 3 or 4 adventurers. In the iconic fantasy RPG party (warrior, wizard, priest and rogue), I think it's funny to imagine some guy in the back barking out orders to such a small group. Also, they took a lot away by assigning types and roles to each class. Yes, while a fighter is Martial and a Defender, a fighter is so much more than that. I think that the concept of roles (defenders, strikers, controllers and leaders) is something that has been present in the game (unnoticed) going back through all it's various iterations, and therefore really doesn't need to be specified and expanded upon. Fleshing it out in the manner that they did really takes away a lot of the mystique with FRPGs in general. Overall, I would have to say that there is little or no distinction between the classes themselves, whereas before there was tons to distinguish the different classes. I played a fighter, while my two buddies played a wizard and a rogue. More often than not, it was myself who took out the big critters with one stroke of the sword, when that is apparently supposed to be the rogue's new job. The wizard could take brutal hits with no problem, and that doesn't seem very wizard-like to me. So I don't know, it just all kind of seemed the same to me.

The last point I would like to make. I feel that WOTC did myself and a lot of other fans a huge disservice by not releasing just ONE core PHB, and ONE core DMG, and ONE core MM. The part I loved about older editions was that I was able to show up at any gaming table, with just one book, the PHB, and make almost any kind of character I wanted, no problem. But with this book, I can only choose from 8 classes, and 8 races, while supposedly there are 22 core classes and 17 core races that are available in the second and third installments of the core PHB. I think it's ridiculous that they expect us to shell out so much money just to play the core version of the game. I know that it's a business, and it's their company, but it's my money as a customer. If they want to keep customers, they need to do what they did in the past and release just one core set, not what is essentially three core sets.

Overall, I must say I was a little disappointed, in both the presentation, the quality, and the execution of the game system therein. If this is supposed to be an improvement over previous editions, I would say that it has obviously failed, even though it does have some good points.

I've been playing D&D since I was 13, so about 7 years now, and it's a unique game. Why? Because it takes place in your head. The rules have always been there to help your keep your imagination on track. When I explain D&D to my friends I tell them that it's amazing because absolutely anything can happen. Any strategy you think of, you can implement. And I think that's the main draw of D&D. It's absolutely open-ended.

But 4th edition does a great deal to destroy that.


Here's what's good about 4th edition:

--Having Daily, Encounter, and At-Will powers is a spectacular idea. It makes tons of sense to recharge some powers at different time increments. It's a great idea.


--Gaining Something at every level definitely serves to make the game more exciting, and in 4th edition, any level you don't gain a power, you at least get a feat.


--Making races matter more is good. Races now have no downsides, and you can take racial feats as you advance, so your race continues to affect you.


--Combining a lot of the skills seems like a good idea. No need to have so many.


--Making everything an attack may or may not be good, but it's definitely simpler. Spells are now an attack that goes something like Intelligence vs. Reflex. You make an attack based on intelligence vs. their reflex defense.


So those things might all be good, but there are so many bad things that I'm definitely going to keep playing 3.5. I'm not trying to dissuade you from fourth, I just think they've made a completely different game that I'm not personally as interested in.

Here's what's bad:


--Spells are gone. There, I said it. Vestiges and memories of spells remain, but for all intents and purposes they're gone. WOTC has pretty much made all classes identical in an attempt to make the game easier to play, and in order to do that, they had to make spellcasters like fighters. Basically all classes get powers (you pick from three or four at each level that you gain them), and those powers are usually some sort of battle ability, though some are for puzzle solving. Spellcasters get powers just like any other character. Fireball is an attack that affects a certain amount of space and does 3d6+Int mod damage. That's right, 3d6. Not 1d6/level. Spells are just a basic attack that don't improve an don't do anything interesting. Basically, warriors now make attacks that do X[Weapon] damage, and spellcasters attack too.


--Before, D&D was about imagination. We would cast stone to mud spells to weaken bridges to defeat enemies. We would polymorph mice to attack enemies. We'd teleport people off cliffs. It was all about coming up with the coolest strategies possible. Now you can't do that because there's only a couple abilities, and what they do is set in stone.


--Feats are pretty worthless. Whereas before you could create a cool character build with feats, using them to give your character an interesting combination of abilities, now they are just basic boosts. Almost every feat just gives you some bonus to something instead of cool abilities that allow you to do something special.


--There aren't even that many character builds available. In fact, each class comes with 2 suggested ways to build your character. Two! Just think how many different types of sorcerers and fighters you used to be able to make. Now, with the limited number of powers, there are very few options.


--The way saves work is ridiculous. There are a bunch of abilities that do something interesting, like a rogue can grab someone and immobilize them until that person saves. Here's the thing: saving is a 50/50 chance. It's not based on the rogue's strengths or skills or even your strength's or skills. You roll a d20, and a 10-20 makes you save. That's it.


--The game is pretty much an advanced strategy board game. About half of the abilities now allow you to shift position or slide opponents. The biggest part of the game is tactically positioning yourself and your enemies. You hit them, get to shift one square and slide them 4 squares. It's just about planning our where people end up. Where's the imagination in that?


Here's what should have happened:


--Keep spells, but make them at-will, encounter, or daily. Change their power to reflect how often you can cast them.


--Keep charts of what you gain when you level, but have racial charts as well, so you gain racial abilities as you go.


--Improve the fighting classes (rogue and ranger included) just like version 4 did, by giving them cool abilities as they level up.



In Conclusion, 4th edition came up with a lot of good fixes, but rather than applying them to 3.5 to create a spectacular game with lots of strategy and imagination, they created a new game, one that is purely tactical. This is a game for those who simply want to roll the dice and move the pieces, not spend all your time thinking about how it works or how cool a certain strategy would be.

I am sure by now that this review will be a rehash of what others have said, but I have never felt so moved to write a review, so I am just going to go with it. For starters, I have been either a player or a DM for over 15 years. I started in 1st edition and easily made the transition to the 2nd edition. I was really excited about the changes to the game mechanics that came with the 3rd edition. I never bought 3.5 because it seemed like a money-making scheme, but the point I am making is that I have loved this game throughout all of its various incarnations.

Therefore, I was looking forward to 4th Edition. I had heard that there would be more character customization from the ground up (sort of like Skills and Powers) and that it would be structured something like the new Star Wars Saga Edition. I was intrigued at the notion and very excited to see the outcome.

I cannot express to you how disappointed I was at the result. I agree with previous reviewers that this is not DND, and it is not a good system for roleplaying. I'll just give an itemized rundown:

How do I hate thee, 4th Ed? Let me count the ways
1. The book is cheaply made, so cheaply made that the ink comes off the pages if you rub it too hard.
2. Of the limited races available, three are related to elves. That's overdoing it a little bit, no? Also, not only is the "dragonborn" simply a silly idea that panders to power gamers, they look laughable. And the idea that they would have a breath weapon as opposed to a bite or a claw attack is absurd. Since they were adding the tiefling anyway, how about the aasimar? And as for a monster class, they could have done something better than the dragonborn. They already have with the half-orc.
3. The classes lost are not worth the classes gained. Who ever heard of DND without druids and bards? Instead, what did we get, the Warlord? Please! What place does a tactical leader have in a roaming band of adventurers? Frankly, with the people I play with, if somebody "ordered" one of their PC's to attack, I don't think it would be the NPC that would be getting the smackdown. Warlords are for military and tactical units, not loosely confederated treasure hunters.
4. It doesn't matter what you play, the characters end up the same. Your warrior class characters end up having the same armor class and damage potential as your arcane class characters. It's like they are all fighters who just do different types of damage. The classes are sort of like 1% and 2% milk--sure, the composition is slightly different, but they pretty much taste the same. BOOOOORRRRING!
5. The skills have been simplified to an alarming degree, again making characters homogeneous. I've personally never talked to a player who wants LESS options for making their character, so I'm not sure what the purpose was of that.
6. The alignment system desperately needs a revamp and always has (either that or needs to be eliminated entirely), but the revamp they did made the system even more nonsensical. They have removed most of the choices, so once again, the characters are the same.
7. I never really liked prestige classes because you have to spend time at lower levels making choices for skills, feats, etc. that you may not really want to get the prestige class you want, but this game makes a player's choices even more limited because you get shoehorned into a very small number of character paths.
8. Multiclassing is destroyed in this edition. What's the fun in THAT? And again, because of this, characters end up all looking the same.
9. I have no issue with the use of miniatures and maps in games, I use them when I run, but the requirement that they must be used smacks of a marketing ploy to me. I can't wait to see how many "must have" dungeon tile, game mat, and miniature sets come out after this.
10. Finally, my problem with this edition is that it doesn't seem to show any regard for DND players, those of us that have supported and loved this game for over 30 years. It seems to be attempting to attract an audience of video game enthusiasts with a faster pace and a dumbed-down presentation, as if to imply that people who play games like WOW are too stupid to understand anything more detailed(which is incredibly insulting). I think it is a huge mistake. I think that video gamers who don't already play RPG's will continue to play video games, and I think DND lovers will continue to play DND--3rd and 3.5 edition, that is.

I think as a tactical miniatures game this edition is fine. But they already made one of those, so I see this edition having limited appeal. What a shame. But not all that unexpected from a company that is owned by Hasbro.

I've been an absolutely RABID fan of Dungeons and Dragons in all of its incarnations since about 1980. I had all of the 1st edition and 2nd edition books, 3.0 represented a big change for me, but I grew to like it - and then 3.5 really fixed some of the bugs in 3.0 making it one of the most modular and enjoyable systems I'd ever seen.

When the 4th edition of D&D was announced, it seemed premature. When the video of the presentations about 4th edition hit YouTube, I was intrigued - a lot of what I seeing sounded very promising. I began to let myself get excited about the new edition, then I read one of the preview books - and began to get nervous, but I figured, hey, this is just a preview - they'll work out the bugs. After all, version 3.0/3.5 had a few clunky spots, but if you worked through those, BAM, you had an amazingly well oiled machine, right? Then I get the 4th edition rulebooks. Wow, talking about a head shot. We have "new Coke" in game form.

First, I believe it is entirely misguided for WotC to try to turn D&D into a MMO, yet that's effectively what they've done. The various classes are too homogenous, their roles are too rigidly defined, all of the powers and abilities have to work on a square grid. While this certainly "simplifies" and "streamlines" the system, it's effectively thrown the baby out with the bathwater as there's no "system" left. Gone are perennial favorites like the Druid, bard, and monk, and we get the warlord???

Character races are also subjected to castration, no half-orcs, no gnomes, but hey we get tieflings and dragonborn??? Alignment has gone from a tapestry of various viewpoints and world views to a system that works fine as long as your mentality doesn't branch beyond the 3rd grade level. Spellcasters have less power options and abilities than the characters in any game of Diablo II, and Diablo II does them better.

Don't get me wrong, there are some interesting ideas out there - the Heroic, Paragon, and Epic tiers are a neat idea, but even they seem to be executed poorly - prestige classes in 3.5 did a far better job of doing the same thing.

I sincerely hope that 4th edition is improved as additional supplements are released, but I'm not holding my breath (and I AM holding my dollars until I see evidence of improvement). At this point I see 4th Edition as an interesting game of below average depth and quality. I fear Gary Gygax is rolling over in his grave to see the "Dungeons and Dragons" name on it.