This review comes nearly two months after release due to the nature of the product. Unlike a video game, you cannot enter god mode cheats to speed through the game. After two months of play testing Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition thoroughly we’ve finally come to our conclusuions

Pen and Paper role-playing has been on life support for quite a few years. Videogames, card games, and table top miniatures were sucking the life out of traditional role-playing for years . The last editions were already a move in the right direction away from the ridged rules of 2nd edition. 3.5 Edition greatly expanded upon the amount of material more than any edition prior. 3.5 Eventually got to the point that you could create a character that could do absolutely anything provided you thought out that characters advancement ahead of time. However 3rd edition was plagued with game balance both early and late in a character’s levels 5-14 were the sweet spot. Upon hearing about the release of Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition and the many changes to be made in the game there were high hopes for the gaming genre.

The game was promoted to be balanced at all levels and that character advancement past lvl 20 was an integral part of the game. New races were said to be brought in, new classes, and the prestige class would no longer be an option but an integral part of character advancement. Combat was promised to be more streamlined and miniatures which were once optional were now integrated into the game. With options like computer based character/adventure software and a card based encounter system it was promised that much of the monetary out of the pen and paper RPG was alleviated in the hopes of attracting new players to a dieing gaming format. But we are getting ahead of ourselves……we will be running a 3 part review of the core D&D books starting with the Player’s Handbook. So with out further ado…let’s begin.

Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook

Price:

In short you will find the books $5 more than previous core rulebooks. While $5 doesn’t seem like much I think it is the wrong direction for Wizards to take in making the game more accessible and with the current economic downturn in the U.S may not have been a smart choice. To play the game with the bare minimum you need $120 in books. To say nothing of the miniatures, cards, paints, DM screen, software, etc that is a lot of money. That is price of two videogames. Throw in the other costs and you could instead field an entire army in a much more action oriented table top battle game or build a tournament worthy deck of the card game of your choice. Not a good starting argument for why one should try out a pen and paper RPG.

Craftsmanship:

One of the nice things about Dungeons & Dragons is that the core books have always been hardback books. Not only does this increase the durability of the product, but gives the feeling that you truly opening a book of lore to divine its secrets. It is no different this time around. While we are no paper experts the pages do feel slightly thinner than last edition.

The art work is hit or miss. Some of the pictures are really well drawn others are only so so. The one thing that is missing from the art work is the reoccurring characters and captions. The grammar, spelling, and rule errors really stand out this edition. One in particular is a high level ability that gives big enhancements to your enemies instead of you party as intended. In 3^rd edition I noticed few such errors in the whole series let alone the core rule books. Another noticeable missing element is fluff text. Some times there is only one or two sentences that describe a power/spell/ or magic item. This removes the reading the rule books for entertainment element of Dungeons & Dragons

Character Creation:

This aspect of the game hasn’t changed you still have multiple options in how you go about creating your characters ability scores. You’ve got a point system, simply assigning numbers to each stat or the tried and true dice rolling. One of the complaints about last edition was the fact that your characters sweet spot in levels was 5-14. How they went about fixing this is simply making first level 4^th edition characters the equivalent to 4^th or 5^th level in 3^rd edition D&D. There are things that have changed though.

You no longer role for hit points, instead each character class is allotted the same amount of hit points depending on class and you gain additional a fixed number of hit points each level. This takes a lot of the randomness out of the game. If you face off against a given foe you can accurately guess how many hit points it has, it also removes game play elements that come with the dice roll. No longer will you play Gary the 18 strength, 17 hit point fighter. While not a bad thing in terms of game play it does add a generic element to Dungeons & Dragons, one that increases as you explore the game.

Races:

Gone are the Half Orc and Gnome. In there place are the Tiefling, Dragon Born, and Eladrin. These were often used races in the 3^rd edition. Being that 4^th edition 1^st level is effectively 4^th level in 3^rd edition opens up the doors to more interesting races. I question the choice of Eladrin as they are almost identical to elves with elements of the Kalashtar from Eberron mixed in. Where as Elves are fey creatures of the material world. Eladrin are Fey creatures from the fey world. Put simply they are elves from space. The other choices are not too bad, but with the increase of starting power it would have been nice to see something more provocative like Thri-kreen or something new added to the mix. Every race including humans comes with special abilities and stat increases.

Classes:

Out with the old in with the new. The Barbarian, Mage, Monk Specialist wizard, Bard, and Druid are gone. In there place we get the Warlock, Warlord, The warlock always made a better contrast to the wizard than the mage class so it’s inclusion is good. The warlord class seems to be the “We ran out of ideas” class. It is clear that its intended purpose is that of a group buff party member but it isn’t that interesting.

You can now level your character to 30.You also must take a paragon path once called prestige class upon reaching tenth. No big deal really since the prestige classes in the last edition made a character much more interesting. Epic levels have also been integrated into the core rules. This is a good thing considering they were poorly served in earlier editions.

Gone is multi-classing. Only someone who carefully planned every step of their characters development could successfully pull it off in 3^rd edition, it is totally gone from 4^th edition. In its place are multiclassing feats which allow you to take one power/ability/etc from one class and use it. Often this ability is watered down to the point of uselessness. It’s pretty disappointing that Wizards chose to do away with multiclassing rather than make it more interesting and accessible.

Class Abilities:

This has its own category due to the complexity (or lack there of) and the dramatic change to the way Dungeons & Dragons is played. First every class is a cleric. Every class has what’s called healing surges that allow you to instantly gain back 25% of your hit point base. This wouldn’t be all that bad except you can do this 6 or more times between rests. Even though the cleric enhances the parties healing abilities above and beyond this it totally removes the base need for a cleric in the group. Further more, most classes also have a paladins smite type of targeting ability as well. This is the ability to pick a single target out of a group of enemies and do special attacks/extra damage/etc to that foe. This increases the generic feel of the game exponentially but the worse is to come.

Every character can casts spells. Of course they are not called spells for every class the name varies. Prayers, Exploits, Spells doesn’t matter they all function exactly the same only the names differ. Sure some classes spells are more touch range than others and some classes produce more effects than others but they are all spells. For instance the fighter has an “exploit” that allows him to do damage even if he misses his attack roll. How the hell does that happen if he is attacking with a weapon and not a spell? But that’s not all.

Combat elements, multiple attacks, feats, spells, class abilities from all the 3^rd edition books have been looted to flesh out every class’s spell list. Gone are multiple attacks in their place is an ability that does additional damage and the fluff text says it is a multiple attack. Even spells have been drastically changed. No longer do you have a certain allotment of spells or the ability to memorize one more than once. Everything functions on the At-Will, Once-per-encounter, Daily use rate. No more memorizing lightning bolt 4 times for 4 spell slots you have. Once you cast it once per encounter you then have to find another damage dealing spell for the wizard to remain relevant in combat. Combine this with all that was mentioned above and you have one extremely generic and monotonous game.

It is obvious why this is done. This was done to make the game more accessible to new players. However it shortens the interest of players as they soon discover that playing one class is largely like playing any other aside from a few nuances. Wizards really dropped the ball here. Instead of stream lining or rehashing all the various elements of Dungeons & Dragons they instead created a single simple game play element and stuffed everything inside of it.

Feats and Skills:

This has largely remained unchanged. Skills no longer have rankings, instead they are trained or untrained. Feats have been redone in so much as ones that could be turned into the class “Spells” have been done away with. A new addition is the divine feat. The divine feats were your granted powers from your chosen god in 3^rd edition given a cost.

Items:

This is an area of the game that has been left mostly untouched. Although the magic item section from the 3^rd edition Dungeon Masters Guide is now in the Player’s Handbook. Fluff text is even more minimalistic than 3^rd edition. With magic items now being in the Player’s Handbook, one wonders what is in the Dungeon Masters Guide that is compelling enough to spend $40 on. Magic items now only sell for 1/5^th their going price and mundane items for nothing. So when you’re adventuring it plays much like an MMO if it’s not hard currency and if you can’t use it, leave it on the ground.

Adventuring and Combat:

With the loss of so many game play elements to the class “spells” combat is very simplistic. Miniatures have been fully integrated with the new edition combat rules and really that is for the better. The additional cost is going to turn off new comers though. Without going into great detail the new rules are adequate if unimaginative.

Final Thoughts:

When Dungeons & Dragons 4^th Edition was announced it was expected that the game would become more free form more open to creating the most unique character you could come up with. Expanding upon what all the 3^rd Edition books started. Instead what was handed out was a very ridged class system with few options and simple game play/combat. While the rules are very accessible to the new player the price is a put off. You can easily spend $200 on all the proper items needed to play a campaign properly. That’s not exactly a “Try it out” price. Dungeons & Dragons 4^th Edition Player’s Handbook seems to be written by a group of people that love World of War Craft and power playing. It has a very MMO feel which is probably the point but it has a higher cost and a more limited socializing environment. If anyone can remember Dungeons & Dragons in the 80’s it was divided into two game play types. Basic and Advanced. Dungeons & Dragons feels very much like the basic rules of yore. I’m not going to pigeon hole the entire edition based off of one book, but it is very hard to see game play becoming more interesting given the core rules.