Fourth edition D&D really got a bum rap. The game was very different from its predecessors and many didn't like the feel of the game compared to what they were used to. I absolutely understand this complaint and made it myself many times. But over the course of a 2 year campaign and a couple of shorter arcs, I started to really figure things out. Now, after a multiyear campaign in 5E, my group has decided to return to 4E.
So, about the book and the game. The book is well built and sturdy. The binding is strong and the text and fonts and design are grade A. This is a book for people who enjoy reading. It is clear and easy on the eyes, with plenty of quality original artwork. Just based on the layout and design, it is by far my favorite PHB of all the D&D hardbacks. It is beautiful. The 1st editions are classics and I love them to this day, but the information flow and layout is simply not very good. The text is very dense and there is not enough artwork IMO. The 2nd edition books were quirky with very limited color (just blue, with a few full page full color pieces throughout(. They maintained the strange 3 column layout that was a holdover from the Mentzer Basic softcovers and modules. Something that actually worked well on a small 32 page booklet but felt strange in a full size hardback. Third edition was an abomination of visual design. Horrible fonts printed over parchment like pages with lines and sigils and all manner of nonsense in the background made every page an impossible chore to read. The covers were hideous and lets be frank, the spines on the 2E, 3E and 5E books are just ugly. The spines on the 4E books are glorious. I own almost all the books across every edition, being a collector, and the 4E books are a sight to behold on my shelves.
As for the content. We get the core races and most of the core classes one would expect. The only ones notably absent are the Barbarian and Druid, and perhaps the Gnome. All of which were introduced in PHB2 (along with the Primal power source). Extras for this edition PHB 1 include Tieflings and Dragonborn as well as Warlords, a class built to lead others in battle, to help inspire and empower other characters with their charismatic words and impressive actions.
We also get all the combat rules, feats, magic items, a simplified skill system and the biggest portion of the book, and probably the most controversial, the "powers". The designers of 4E, I think, made an honest effort to address many complaints about D&D that had existed since the early days of the original game, complaints like wizards start too weak and get too powerful. Like the complaint that fighters don't get enough interesting things to do and eventually just carry the casters gear. That multiclassing was breaking the game. That DM prep was out of control and things like balancing an encounter took hours at higher levels and still was hit or miss. Nevermind whether or not these complaints were legitimate, they existed, were common and even pervasive at the time.
To address this, they made some major changes to the core system. And killed a few sacred cows along the way. If you had ever made these complaints, you were probably happy. If you hadn't, you might see this new edition as solving problems that didn't exist. And even if you were open minded you would eventually admit that the solutions of these problems lead to some problems of their own.
Early in 4th edition (and certainly in this PHB), we see all the classes have a similar structure. You get to pick similar numbers of "powers" (which are really just mechanical abilities of your class) at the same points in the level progression. This enabled a natural power balance among the classes, solving a huge complaint from earlier editions. The casters no longer necessarily ran off and left the Fighters holding their gear. Advancement was now consistent between classes. 3rd edition had started down this path with a unified XP table for all classes. Something that also chapped the hides of traditionalists.
As for skills, gone are skill points. You no longer had that granular control over an elaborate list of skills that included all sorts of esoteric game elements that might never come into play. Replacing it was a much simplified list of skills that could be either trained or untrained and that improved automatically with level. Some will miss the granularity. Others will welcome not having a host of skills that never saw the light of day. The skills include things like Perception, Insight, History, Religion, Thievery, Streetwise, Athletics, Acrobatics, Arcana and Endurance.
Another big change was to saving throws. In early editions of the game, there were 5 categories of saving throws, like vs. Spells, Petrification, or Death Ray. In 3rd edition, these were consolidated down to Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. 4th edition took it a step further and turned them into defenses. So instead of someone doing something that causes you to save against these numbers, now, your enemy would attack you and roll against these defense scores, much the same way the enemies roll against armor class. So instead of having your AC and 5 or 3 Saves. You simply had 4 defense scores. Each one being the target of a various subset of attack types. Saving throw as term still survived as something you did to remove a debilitating condition such as being dazed, or slowed, or poisoned. You would do this at the end of your turn, or continue being subject to the debilitating condition. Also, saves are used to avoid certain things, like being pushed over a cliff or while unconscious to determine if your condition worsens or gets better. In all these cases, the roll requires a 10 or better on a D20. It's basically a "one last chance" roll in these cases.
Monster design took a dramatic shift back to earlier editions. In first edition, monsters were kind of their own thing. They often had their own rules and mechanics, some elaborate and often based on existing rules structures. But frequently they were completely unique. This made monsters mysterious but also someone painful to learn and run. You needed to do a lot of reading to run a monster correctly making pickup games harder. 3rd edition attempted (in its "unification or death" design goals) to unify monster design by forcing it to exist within the exact same rules structure as players. This sounds great on paper but lead to some of the most elaborate and difficult to manage monster blocks of any game I've played. Trying to add classes to monsters and choose their spell lists and determine what that would do to their challenge rating, was maybe the worst part of 3rd edition. The complaints were pervasive and many people would simply stop playing at level 10-15 due to the challenge involved in running those games. 4th edition made a goal of making it easier on DMs, making prep quick and painless and making running the game smooth and simple. They largely succeeded but failed on several fronts. Monster blocks are a godsend. Everything you need to run the monster fits in their stat block. No more looking up spells to run a monster. No more monsters having lists of abilities that will never see the light of day. Creating balanced encounters (or easy or hard) was so simple as to require no math whatsoever. Just pick out the same number of monsters at the save level of your players and you're good to go. Add more levels to make it harder, remove levels to make it easier. From -4 to +4 for super easy to super hard.
So what went wrong? Well, a lot depending on who you talk to. Some will say the feel of the game changed. It wasn't D&D anymore. Some will say they miss some of the options they had before. Some will say the game feels to much like a video game. Some will say the classes having similar structure makes them too "samey". Some will complain the combats take too long. Some complain that too much power was taken from the DM. Some will say the characters are now super powered and its harder to tell more simple gritty stories, rather that something akin to D&D Supers. There is some truth to all these complaints. But a diligent gamer can overcome almost all of them, and find a game that is fun, fast, simple and feels like D&D did decades ago.
If you like tactical challenges and a combat heavy game experience, 4E might just be perfect for you. If you like the mechanics to take a backseat to story, 4E can accommodate you nicely. If you want a game that is obviously derived from its forbears, you may be disappointed. This is really a ground up redesign. Many of the elements share little more than a name with their predecessors.
In closing, I think this is a good game, deserves the title of Dungeons & Dragons and history will view it as an important excursion into the unknown that may have failed but was successful in many ways. In its firey ashes we found 5E which seems to be a grand success, but in many ways has rejected some of the advances of 4E. While this was probably a commercial necessity, it is also somewhat unfortunate. But, thankfully, they kept many of the successful innovations of 4E. DM prep is still pretty simple, the monster blocks are still much better than 3E and the game still has a clean and elegant presentation throughout.
If you like 5E or even 1E D&D and want something a little different with some elements that really make the game stand out, I highly recommend taking a look.
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