Initial Reaction of 4th Edition
written by Donat P. Fevre
June 16th, 2008 · 8 Comments
Gah, where did the time go?! I didn’t even realize it was Monday already. >_<
Sorry for the delay in today’s post everyone.
Anyhow, I have had the chance to pick up the core books of 4th Edition last week. I’ll admit, the cover art is pretty. I guess that’s something Wizards of the Coast will generally get right. 
As for the actual game system…
Wow, it’s really different. When creating a character, you basically get NO penalties to anything unless you rolled a low ability score. So no penalties on ability scores or anything because of a race or class you choose. While it may make it easier to bring new people into the fold, I think it may make things a bit more unbalanced.
But then, as far as balancing goes, it seems that every single race is over-powered. Everyone gets a +2 bonus to two ability scores except for humans, who get to choose one ability score that gets the +2 bonus.
So far, it seems like 4th Edition may be a power-gamer’s paradise. And I’m not fond of power-gamers at all. So it appears that it may be more difficult to create encounters that are actually challenging, aside from just throwing more monsters and etc. at the players.
Some of you may have noticed a conversation I’ve been having with LokyCat in the comments of the List of Reviews for 4th Edition. It seems like he’s been trying to get into and even like 4th Edition, but it’s just too foreign compared to what 3rd Edition was. Feel free to click the link to head over to the post, and scroll down to the comments to read his full thoughts on the matter.
Anyways, I’m sorry again for not getting a post up sooner today. I guess with so much happening at once time just kind of flew right on by. 
Topics: D&D General
Here are my initial thoughts after reading 2/3 of the PHB.
It seems that they decided to make starting characters more powerful to help survivability at low levels.
Reading on, the power scale definitely is far less than what was available in 3.x. Most characters are going to be very similar in power to one another.
Take skills for example, every character rolls at least d20 + Level/2 + Stat Bonus to determine their result. If they are trained, then add +5.
BAB is essentially gone. Now attacks are resolved by using a similar formula: d20 + Level/2 + Stat Bonus. So in theory a Wizard and a Fighter wielding a club could have about the same chance to hit an opponent (given similar STR).
I am not even bothering with running the game. I dislike playing 4E and if I don’t like playing a system I am not going to enjoy running it.
you should take notice of two things that i feel balance the power, No Base attack rate of 1 to 1, and no ranks in skills. Everything in the game rises at 1 point per two levels. So after first level the seeming power is really nothing. for instance difficult skill checks run in the range of 20 to 22 for first level characters, also there are like no bonus for attack roles. If i have a STR of twenty that is a +5 to my attack, +3 for a good weapon, +1 for fighter class ability, and that is it. That of course is the best fighter at level one. That is a +9 so a 21-23 AC starts to really kill and remember they only go up a point on attack every even level so those ACs are still valid for three levels. I went through the MM and even a little Koblod can take three hits, or two crits and everything in between, except for the Minion monster but then they have numbers. Point is i looked at it first and went whoa, but the numbers look very easy to play with.
You should take notice of two things that i feel balance the power, No Base attack rate of 1 to 1, and no ranks in skills. Everything in the game rises at 1 point per two levels. So after first level the seeming power is really nothing. for instance difficult skill checks run in the range of 20 to 22 for first level characters, also there are like no bonus’ for attack roles. If i have a STR of twenty that is a +5 to my attack, +3 for a good weapon, +1 for fighter class ability, and that is it. That of course is the best fighter at level one. That is a +9 so a 21-23 AC starts to really kill and remember they only go up a point on attack every even level so those ACs are still valid for three levels. I went through the MM and even a little Koblod has good HP and can take three hits, or two crits and everything in between, except for the Minion monster but then they have numbers. Point is i looked at it first and went whoa, but the numbers look very easy to play with.
First, as a gamer for over 25 years, I have to admit that while I didn’t find the 2nd Edition all that compelling, I fell head-over-heels in love with the 3.5! Second, the 4th edition from the moment you open the PHB resembles a table-top video game more than D&D ~ it appears as though another company completely ‘ripped off’ Wizards of the Coast, attempting to author a D&D-like game without any real need for rules. Finally, I’ve run one solo campaign and another 3-player campaign, starting with the original AD&D rules to date, having had no difficulty converting the characters to 3.5 4th Edition, I’m sorry, but the changes contained therein are too much for this old gamer.
At the wizards boards, the “power gamers” seem to think that 4e is harder to optimize. http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1044787
I am a fairly new player to D&D. I love 3.5 and had a look at the 4th ED manuals.
Am I missing something here?
It seems more like Elder of scrolls then D&D, where there is no real multi classing as everyone is part of a single ‘class’ with slightly a different focus to other characters at low levels only because of your creation choices - if you want to learn to cast spells, its as simple as practicing.
I also noted that wizards only versatility came from their feat selection, not spell choice.
I have to disagree with your view that 4th Edition is like the Elder Scrolls series.
In the Elder Scrolls, there really aren’t any classes whatsoever. The whole class selection system is really there just to get your character started. You can actually master every single skill there is, and max out your ability scores, despite where you originally put your character’s focus during character creation. Additionally, you can cast any damn spell you want, just as long as your skills and ability scores allow it, and it’s easy to crank those up.
With D&D, no matter what edition, once you choose a class, you’re pigeon-holed into it. You can only work on other skills if they’re at least cross-class skills, and even then they’ll never be better than your class skills. You’re also greatly limited to what feats you can take as well. Also, you’re limited to what kinds of powers/spells/etc. your character can use.
As far as wizards go in D&D, traditionally their versatility came from the fact that they can learn every single arcane spell that exists. All they need is a bunch of thick spellbooks, and scrolls or other people’s spellbooks to copy spells into his/her spellbook. In 4th edition, though, it doesn’t seem to be quite as possible to learn just about every spell under the sun, since from what I’ve managed to learn, spellbooks are meant for rituals. But every single class can learn rituals, since there’s a feat that unlocks it for a class that doesn’t initially have that capability.