Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Review (Part 2)

While I was in front of the camera, I decided to follow-up on my initial "wait and see" attitude when it came to the new edition of D&D. It's been several game sessions into my new campaign, so here are my initial observations on the topic.

Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who grew up old-school when it comes to role-playing games.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• dungeons
• dragons
• wizards
• coast
• review
• roleplaying
• rpg

[ThamiorX]

Nice review. I like 4e but would rather play 3.5 any day. The only thing that gets me, it how Wizards of the coast seem to be putting 3.5 down now. Like it wasn't really all that great a game to begin with and they have this new shinny goof 4e D&D game that you should play.

[Eshlar]

I'm one of the people who can safely say "I do not fear change". I've started with Classical D&D, tried AD%D1st, went through the whole AD&D2nd and 2.5 era, and found my way to D&D3 and 3.5. In all those changes, I hardly had any problem adapting and, in fact, 3.5 still is my favorite version (with some homebrew changes, though).

The 4th edition is the ONLY one I can't play. It's... not a RPG anymore. It's some sort of wargame. Good wargame, yes, but extremely disappointing as a RPG.

[YuriPRIMEpoland]

And to my former comment I am more about inbalance than forced equality. Like If you read about wizards in novels of Salvatore or Greenwood - you know they are top-tiers motherfuckers who play doctor Manhatan at some point. They need to go through shit-tier first though, but the time they traded playing useless slob for half a game now pays off.

[TheHuntress144]

this is 100% accurate

[inlife9]

I finally bit the bullet & tried 4e. I am old school. After playing a bit. 4e, with both it's good > bad aspects turned out to be a lot of fun to play. Every player gets into the game, and gets to shine. It's not a perfect system, none are, but it is good times. I will be playing 4e instead of 3.5 now. I am glad I was challegended by a young guy in the LGS to try it.

[014matt]

i think i understand what wizards of the coast are doing. they're trying to make the game more appealing to younger people, the stupid teenagers that run if anything has math in it. they're simplifying it and making it more balanced so teenagers and young adults, who are very self-centred, don't feel cheated cuz the person next to them has a better character than their's. it's all so that way DnD will have a future, so people will be playing in 20 years.

[TheJediGuru]

I agree with alot of this, but a few things rub me the wrong way. Most of these issues you have can be solved with a good DM running the game. I'm a DM, and would NEVER let a player start off with best armor. i almost always throw my players into a dungeon buckass naked and they have to earn it themselves. Also I have my players roll their scores, which is a feature in Phb1. so not all characters are the same, and i disagree otherwise.

[doombybbr]

2nd rule of DMing if you are NOT getting characters with seriously low hp then you are doing something wrong

[doombybbr]

the skill challenges should only require a single check on the STUPID(and weak) guards, if they aren't stupid diplomacy will fail and they will still be there, you can always kill them anyways.

[doombybbr]

oh... 1st rule of DMing, if your players have enemies that are easy, throw in a hard one, also if they are really good players, they still get similar xp as it should be based on amount of challange.

[doombybbr]

also knocking on doors is a 5 second thing

[Langsorigingaleia]

Since I started on 4th edition I decided to revisit this review and I have to agree with a lot of points Spoony is making here. Although I do like that Wizards have spells that they can repeatedly cast. I also like that all the classes have the same frame to work with but they also gotta come up with more spells that do effects. It feels to me that every class only do damage and some minor effect instead of dazing, stunning and the like.