Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook: Arcane, Divine, and Martial Heroes (Roleplaying Game Core Rules) [Hardcover]

Rob Heinsoo (Author), Andy Collins (Author), James Wyatt (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 6, 2008

The first of three core rulebooks for the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons® Roleplaying Game.

The Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game has defined the medieval fantasy genre and the tabletop RPG industry for more than 30 years. In the D&D game, players create characters that band together to explore dungeons, slay monsters, and find treasure. The 4th Edition D&D rules offer the best possible play experience by presenting exciting character options, an elegant and robust rules system, and handy storytelling tools for the Dungeon Master.

The Player's Handbook presents the official Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game rules as well as everything a player needs to create D&D characters worthy of song and legend: new character races, base classes, paragon paths, epic destinies, powers, more magic items, weapons, armor, and much more.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast; 4th edition (June 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786948671
• ISBN-13: 978-0786948673
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.8 x 11.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (280 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Gaming

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

756 of 821 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars 4th Edition: Pulling back from the complexity of 3.5 June 7, 2008

By Jeff Hershberger

Format:Hardcover

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! Read more ›

43 of 48 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars A Different Beast July 30, 2008

By D. Springer

Format:Hardcover

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. Read more ›

47 of 55 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars 4th Edition is a very bad thing January 27, 2010

By emyln

Format:Hardcover

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. Read more ›