D&D 4th Edition – List of Reviews
written by Donat P. Fevre
June 9th, 2008 · 25 Comments
So D&D 4th Edition core books have been released on Friday, and Game Day was held in select locations on Saturday. But how good is 4th Edition?
Admittedly, I haven’t been out to grab the core rulebooks yet myself. When I finally do, I’ll be sure to read them and run a quick game so I can give you all my own opinions about it. But until then, I figure I’ll share some opinions I’ve found around the net.
First off, there’s the general information about 4th Edition to be found on EN World. If you’re just looking for more generic information, I think you can find what you need there.
But of course, I’m sure you want actual reviews! There seems to be a mix of positive and negative reviews, which is interesting. So here are a few to tickle your curiosity:
- AICN World Exclusive: Massawyrm Has Played Dungeons And Dragons 4th Edition!!
- New D&D Rolls a 20 for Playability
- D&D 4th Edition Experience
- 4th edition D&D – a review
- 4E Test Drive (And some comments on Paizo’s forums!)
- Review: D&D 4th Edition
From the looks of it, beginners love 4th Edition because of how much easier it is. However, veterans seem to have a dislike for it, though they can see how it can be good because of how easy it can be to learn.
However, I think the buck may stop at the newly launched Gnome Stew, headed by Martin Ralya of Treasure Tables fame!
With the kind of authority that I would consider Martin Ralya to have, I would put some heavy weight on his opinion. Perhaps 4th Edition isn’t quite like the D&D of old, but if it’s a lot of fun for everyone involved and it encourages more roleplaying than fiddling with rules, then I’m all for it.
Though 4th Edition is brand-spanking new, I still think that 3.5 is still going to be relevant for quite some time. I’ve noticed in one of the reviews that Paizo is still creating material for 3.5, and even expanding on it (I’ve found one comment calling it more like 3.75 Edition).
Overall, it seems like a manner of taste. if you’re a glutton for rules, I’d say stick with 3.5. But if you prefer ease of play, and being able to get newcomers into it quickly, easily, and have fun, 4th Edition may be the better way to go. 
Topics: D&D In the News
The Game Day dungeon and dragon fight was just not enough for me to make an opinion.
As it stands I don’t like the new system, I don’t like the character builds and character progression I see in the PHB and in game play is more like a miniatures game then a RPG. I just duos not “feel” like D&D.=/
This Friday we are running the Keep on the Shadowfell module with our own characters instead of the premade characters. The GM is making some changes to the story to have a bit more rollplaying. I am still giving it chance and tring to keep an open mind.
It’s definitely very different from what we’ve come up to know as D&D. I haven’t gotten too far in the Player’s Handbook, but it seems like it’s easy to create an over-powered character.
I’ve noticed how every race gets a bonus to two ability scores (humans can choose one ability score to get the bonus), with absolutely no penalties to other ability scores. And whenever a player can increase his/her character’s ability score from leveling, they choose two ability scores to raise. And then there’s every ability score getting raise every ten levels!
I do actually like how skills are simplified, as it means less fiddling with the rules. It’s at least more streamlined. However, I’m rather disappointed that there are no longer skill points involved. Training a skill gives you a permanent +5 bonus to that skill, and other than that, it’s dependent on your actual level.
So yeah, I think for me it just comes down to it being too easy to make over-powered characters. And I don’t like over-powered characters.
Actually high level characters and monsters are underpowered. Combat will take hours as players nickel and dime a dragon with 1500 hp. Luckily the dragon is only doing small amounts of damage so the players won’t be in real danger.
Try to make a 20th level character that can do more than 50 hp damage in a round in 4th edition. Now imagine fighting a dragon with over a 1000 hp.
That is going to be a long battle.
I think that you might not like the skills after you make a character. In Star Wars Saga the skills are great, they are simplified and there is still variety. In 4E they over simplified the skills, to the point that there is not variety.=/
I made a Barbarian, Fighter, Rouge, and Ranger…they all seem so alike They all have more or less the same abilities just named differently.
I am playing a Wizard this Friday, after I finished the character I came to the the same conclusion as the skills, the raped the wizard by over simplified the wizard class to the point that for the exception of the basic class features (Cantrips) is the same as the Rouge or a Ranger.=/
I will not doubt have fun with my gaming group but I’m not feeling optimistic about the system. Hopefully I will be wrong about 4E and will want to play it again.=)
I have to say I hate the new D&D. =*(
I really wanted to like this system but after building characters(almost every class and race combination) and playing the game, it just duos not feel like D&D. Is a shadow of D&D, It feels like a video game version of D&D.
Is not D&D, is something els trying to be D&D.
This will be like when D&D 2E came out, people were unhappy, so unhappy that they looked for other gaming systems…hell if it was not for 2E I would have never discovered GURPS, ShadowRun, StarWarsD6, DeadLands, ext. Anyhow, when 2E came out there were plenty of people that liked it but for the most part, most people were unhappy and disliked the new edition.
My Prediction is that history will repeat it self, it will bring a new era of Table Top Gaming, people will want to look for other systems or maybe create a system there very own.
Interesting, as I had actually started with 2nd Edition myself, and remember enjoying it even though some aspects of it were confusing (I never really understood the whole proficiency system).
However, I have very much enjoyed 3rd Edition. I was a bit disappointed with 3.5 Edition, but I think it was just because of the changes they’ve made from what it used to be. There’s also the fact that very few of the official books got updated to 3.5.
4th Edition is definitely VERY different. But since I haven’t actually played it still, I’m still withholding my final judgment on it.
I totally agree – having played from the red box basic set to 1E and up. I am amazed that WOTC’s brilliant decision was to release D&D 3E as an MMO, minus the PC. As far as I can tell, they want you to now assign characters to your standard MMO tank, healer, cc, range/melee dps roles (with new and clever names like controller and defender). This in itself isn’t a bad thing, but I feel after reading it I am disturbed that they seemingly want people to play it like an MMO.
Here’s a clue – TTRPGs are NOT MMOs! For a start, they don’t have to be about combat. In fact, none of my memorable gaming experiences have involved combat – they have involved puzzle solving, adventure, and above all ROLE-PLAYING. Then again, with Blizzard raking in 2 billion a year in subscriptions, you can’t help but feel like WOTC has a 2×4 in their collective pants re the thought of drawing in even part of the MMO crowd.
So what you get is 200 odd pages about daily/encounter/at-will powers, skills, and feats, which basically boil down to how to chop someone’s tits off before they do the same to you. I’d say that 99% of your readership will correctly imply that this is what the game is all about.
So what is missing – perhaps anything to do with creating a story! Rather than trying to fit people into roles such as healer/dps/tank, why not try something new and original and try to think about character roles in stories – the main protagonist/hero, anti-hero, sidekick, love interest, comic relief, etc. I’d rather see something focused on what goes into a good story than yet another edition that presents revised game mechanics for the same old powers and how I can use them to push miniatures around a table for 3 hours.
I was enthusiastic about getting the new books, and i’ve been playing the game avidly since the 1st edition.
For the most part, i’ve given every edition a try, always approaching it as a new game and not as an improvement of the old. Its interesting that I always had a way to make it fun for me and my players. With all the system changes, I took it in stride and dove in to explore the possibilities.
1st and 2nd had a feel to them, like a classic fantasy novel. It felt like true fantasy. I have fond memories of them.
3rd edition and 3.5 didn’t have that feeling. The art was more flashy, the monster descriptions were more brief, and so on. SO, It was up to me to bring about that old-style feeling in play, and I was able to do it with a bit of work. A lot of times I even relied on 2nd edition material for detailing monster ecologies and things.
I love 3rd, it’s wonderful, and it runs so nicely (though keeping a balanced game is harder).
Half-way through the 4th edition book, I put it down. I didn’t even finish it. I mean, I WANT TO LIKE IT, but there seems to be no flexibility at all.
So, every single rogue is a striker now? Every fighter is a defender? With abilities that they can use every round?
But my biggest complaint is the spell-casting classes. I am accustomed to having virtually THOUSANDS of spells available to give my players, that do TONS of different and unique things. They could scry in a dungeon pool, reverse gravity, stop time, create invisible mansions on extrademensional planes of existence, ect.
Seems now everything is for combat, which is only one part of a beautiful fantasy world to explore.
I’ll preface this and mention that I haven’t RPG’d in over 10 years. I used to play DnD2e (and 1e prior) all the time, I still have a silo full of books/supplents/at least 8 years of old dragon magazines. A buddy of mine, who has never played an RPG, just bought the PHB and DMG 4e and has given me the bug to play again. So I borrowed the PHB and set off to create a character this week.
I cannot believe how homoginized every class/race combination feels, not to mention everyone is a super-hero with their at-will *powers*
The most hard hit – or at the least, the most I feel is missing – is in the cerics/wizards with the new spell system.
Some of my fondest memories from 2e when creating a cleric was choosing your deity + spheres of influece for spell choice; Or creating a wizard and choosing the school of magic for my spells. Both really helped flesh out what made them unique, it added to my ability to role play them.
Not to mention choosing an awesome kit within that class to further define the character and give you an edge right out of the gate… Now you have to wait till level 11 to choose a path (I guess that’s like a kit?) but WAY later in your career.
…also, why would a cleric and a wizard both be able to cast the same rituals as they do in 4e?
Everything seems so combat orientated, my initial take is it looks like a tactical minuatures game with bouts of roleplaying sprinkled in.
BUT I am going to give 4e a chance and reserve final judgment until then.
I have to put this first. I like the new face of D&D.
I like 3.5 a little more, since the rules were more all-encompassing. They gave rules for everything instead of just combat and action-related challenges. 3.5 allowed us to do anything at any time and have a few guidelines for doing it in a relatively organized manner.
That said, 4th edition incinuates combat. It has character roles and power levels, not unlike several popular MMORPGs I could name. Frankly the whole thing feels like someone stuffed D&D into a MMORPG system and dropped the unneeded numbers. The monsters have aggro, for godsakes!
The combat is not overpowered, but dynamic, since every monster is comparably powerful to the PCs. A 1st level dwarven fighter, for instance, has about 30 HP, and there are 1st level monsters in the MM that have anywhere from 15 to 35 HP.
The auxiliry spell system (for non-combat magic) has been “streamlined” as well. Combat spells are in class powers, while non-combat spells are rituals that any cleric or wizard can learn. I prefer this to the horribly limited daily spell system, as it allows the party to be without the evangelism of a cleric and still have cleric rituals, or anot party who sadly lacks a wizard to perform the bigger wizard “utility” spells.
One thumb up to the new system, and a constructive note to Wizards to leave MMORPGs to the MMORPGs and get us back to the stuff we’ve loved for years.
I think that the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons has the late, great Gary Gygax turning in his grave. New edition has been soo dumbed down that i had to put down the Players Handbook and leave the bookstore. D&D is about creating a world of challenge, risk and fantasy. And yes playability is a definite need but do we have to turn this time honored masterpiece have to be geared to every Ritalin rattled, GED holding, under-achiever on the Material Plane? D&D used to mean something. it meant dignified portrayals of your alter ego in the form of the dark necromancer, the mighty barbarian, and the eccentric Gond worshipping Gnome Artificer. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Let the newbies start with the 1st edition and progress through to the 3.5 edition, the last edition to uphold the standards of TSR.
“The new D&D is too rule intensive. It’s relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game. It’s done away with the archetypes, focused on nothing but combat and character power, lost the group cooperative aspect, bastardized the class-based system, and resembles a comic-book superheroes game more than a fantasy RPG where a player can play any alignment desired, not just lawful good.” Source
Given that Gygax actually said this of 3rd Edition, it makes me actually wonder what he thinks of 4th Edition. Would he really be happy about it being so simplified? Or would he pissed off that it was basically made into a generic MMO?
But then, taking a closer look at his quote, may he is rolling in his grave after all. With alignments having been merged a bit, very small skill list, and excessive focus on combat, there seems to be hardly any RP value left. But again, I still have to withhold my final judgment of it, since I’m still struggling to read even through the PHB, and still have yet to even play with this new system.
Remember Basic DnD from the 1980s? This is like that, except that BDnD was supposed to get you to buy ADnD. This is just out there – its a combat miniatures systesm, designed from the ground up to be a computer game. I’ll take the “broken, unbalanced” first edition over this nerf-fest any day. Why? Because 1st Ed was.. oh what’s the word? Fun.
well gents. let me say this… there’s this thing called role playing… you act, dance, sing, qoute poems or riddles, use minitures or what ever tickles your fancy to get accross what the machanics of the game dont have room for.
Ive played every version of dungeons and dragons from 1e (with first edition, rapiedly recalled lawsute pending set) all the way up to 4e and I have to tell you 4e is the best its ever been. Oh shure the systems only been out a couple of months and new expansions for wizards warriors and prests are on there way, and yet some people wine that they cant do blah blah anymore.
the simple fact of why 4e and not continue 3.5? Is realy easy… They beat that horse to death. with each new expansion the question became, how can i min max and power game this week george? admit it it was getting stale and not only that there was little continuity between things from one book to the next. dont thing Im bashing 3.5 though because it was SOOOOO much better then 2nd or 1st ed’s “well mmmm mmu Mr. DM sir can I uhh….” DM -”No! your disintigrated”
4e mmorpg ness that everyone keeps talking about, yeah um I dont see it. Ive been runing since release every weekend and guess what… 10 encounters the whole time… the rest role play, why? cause I know how to dm. asides from me every other dm i know runs the same thing dungeon crawl, Ive been runing story mystery adventure discovery /scocial interaction with the occasionaly villan poking around- and my players love it, infact it seems every time i run 4e someone brings a buddie and my game is getting massive.
the 4e at will powers are mostly basic attacks(the equivelent of) with some minor MINOR effect, whoo Im super man now! I might deal 2 damage to your buddie.
the abillity scores wont get out of controll if you notice this: POINT BUY IS STANDARD.
now for you folks who like to power game and cheat by saying you rolled an 18 when you realy rolled a 7 arnt going to like that but tough. point buy allows you to build a reasonable charicter and custiomize there strengths and weaknesses to some thing you can role play and enjoy while slaying the local dragon or… orphan…age…yeah…
and clerics and wizards have pritty much always had there prayers and spells the same, the just varyed in damage and in flavor txt. show me a 3.5 cleric with the fire domain that cant cast flame sphear and i will show you a lyer
over all Id say 4e is the best thing since sliced bread and waffles.
I agree
Roleplaying is roleplaying, a simpler system opens up the game a little for a better experence.
Not that it doesn’t have it’s faults, but it not bad, it’s a good change that we will just have to get used too
I was hestitant to get into 4th editon for cost reasons, I mean I already spent hundreds of dollars on older books and that system was great and didn’t need “fixing” or “improving” but when I saw how different 4th edition was I got intrigued and did get into it. It’s like a completely different game but with all the stuff I loved about older versions of D&D – the flavor of the race and classes, feats, skills, ability modifiers, ACs.
There was enough familiarity there that the game still felt enough like D&D, only a version that was new and exciting.
I’m a little disappointed at the wizard spell selection but the arcane book hasn’t come out yet, besides, how often did a wizard run out of spells at 1st level and just suck? In 4th edition you can feel like a wizard at all levels with your at-will Magic Missiles and the rituals and cantrips.
It absolutely does feel like an MMO with the character roles of healer, tank, etc but it also makes player groups more cohesive and cooperative.
As far as role-playing or playing different alignments etc, there is nothing in 4th edition different from 3rd, 2nd, and 1st editions that would prohibit or discourage you from doing so. How much any of that happens is up to the individual DM. Yes, most of the powers are combat oriented but there were a glut of powers in 3rd edition that rarely got used and make better sense as rituals now.
4th edition is an exciting blend of old D&D, MMO, and miniatures game. Just because it is radically different doesn’t make it less fun. I like it better than any version of D&D so far but if my players want to play 3.5, I have those books too. There’s no reason that someone can’t love 3.5 and 4th edition as they play like different games in many respects.
[...] some significant changes in mechanics from the previous edition of Dungeons and Dragons. There are a lot of good reviews of the core rules, but seeing as this is a blog about writing fantasy fiction, I wanted to take a different [...]
Well, as the time goes on, people seems to prefer 3.5 more and more.
http://www.google.com/insights/search/?hl=en-US#cat=622&q=D%26D%204%2CD%26D%203.5%2CD%26D%204th%2Cd%26d%203%2Cpathfinder&date=7%2F2007%2029m&cmpt=q
To give you an idea of where I’m coming from, I run a 4th ed game and play a pc in another, Ive run and played 3.5, original AD&D, and basic set (pink box). I started with around 1981.
I also run a regular Cthulhu game, among other things, which is 98% RP. A couple nights ago we had an overnighter, during which there was a -single round- of gunfire, and the rest of it was roleplay. The players were freaking out for a solid 6 hours and loved it. I bring this up because you can have 4th ed games that are just as immersive, combat isn’t what makes a game great, it is up to the DM to make it happen.
I like 4th ed because it provides a simple, basic framework, allowing the DM to spend more time creating great roleplaying encounters and less time on the mechanics of combat. You can take a pog combat system and run a great RP session based on it – many LARPs use rock-paper-scissors – the combat system is not what makes RP.
And yes, 4th ed works so well with miniatures/ battle mats that you would be a fool not to use them with it. As someone who never got too into minis that worried me quite a bit before I began playing it. Now I love it.
Good points about some of the wizard stuff that’s gone. However, the framework is there to do everything you used to. If your DM doesn’t have that kind of imagination.. sorry but other ones do.
Thanks for the google chart btw. Of course the release of 4th ed would spark interest in D&D in general, no surprise there. So many people have 3.5 and have poured $ into it, it would make sense they’d get back into what they know. The value in the chart however is in combining the two lines – after 4th ed, interest in D&D in general has more than doubled.
Hi there !
It’s been 2 years since D&D4 was published and I still can’t find the fun in it. I personnally see very much where the MMO feeling is : it’s everywhere.
3.5 wasn’t perfect. But over the time I tweaked it and simplified it, I’ve thrown away big chunks of stodgy rules, created and modified races and classes, feats and spells.
But hey, the point of Wizards isn’t really to please old time gamers like us. They already got our cash (and they won’t have mine with that 4th E). They have to touch a new target, which seems obvious : MMO players. And they can get a lot of money with over 50 books already out and the fact that the game is a lot harder to play without miniatures (another thing I don’t like… I’ve tested it but it takes half the imagination, besides the cost).
What I fear is that young player will be fed munchkin-oriented material and lose the taste of real RPing…
And if it wasn’t enough for me not to buy anything 4E, with the licence restriction many third-party editors dropped their products, including one that I like a lot : Midnight.
So what I do since 2008 is creating what I need myself (I’ve always been kind of a DIY DM) and continue the game with a system that I find more flexible and customisable.
Maybe I’ll check the 5th edition when it’s published…
Im a 2nd gen Dnd player and My parents had a large group untill the QLD floods and every one hated, especialy the mages and wizard players, the fourth edition So do I, just mostly combat Not worth it.
I actually DM a 4e game, I started out with it so for some time thats all I knew. I don’t have tons of money so it is hard for me to get to many books at once. Well anyways a guy named Dan came and started me how to DM better (Im still kinda new), he introduced the other versions and now I play with a combination of multiple versions. I find the rules that make the game the most fun. Right now I am running a game that encorporates 3e, 3.5, 4e, and some homebrew stuff but its just fun.
I played 1st edition for over 10 years, then dabbled a bit in 2nd editon. I tried 4th for the first time this week, I know I will probably get flamed for this, but….. IMO, 4th edition isn’t even D&D, or as I like to call it, AD&D.
I’ve already had a strong distaste for wizards of the coast, and this just backed up my opinion that they ruined the game. Some friends are huge fans of 4th, I’m not. It is now a table top version of world of warcraft. I’m not saying the game is bad, but please don’t call it D&D. It’s not.
4th Edition certainly isn’t for everyone. I know my initial opinion of it was that they had made it too similar to WoW. You might want to try 3rd Edition, which may be more to your liking.
I have finally played 4th Edition for myself recently, and I’ll admit that I’ve actually enjoyed it. It seems to make it easier to get away from the mechanics and actually focus on roleplaying.
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