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I will add my voice to the other reviewers who seem to think WoTC is trying to make D&D more appealing to the younger gamers whose idea of gaming involves a computer and hundreds of other players. Some of the character abilites, while cool and interesting, seemed too "video-gamey" for my tastes. While they may appeal to someone who spends hours playing Everquest or World of Warcraft, the concept may not appeal to those of us whose idea of gaming is sitting around a table with a few friends on a Saturday night.
There is also the emphasis on dungeon titles and use of miniatures since most of the rules refer to positioning and spaces. Encourages people to buy more products, I suppose.
Since I like to end things on a positive note, I'd like to start with what disappointed me about 4th edition.
First there is the writing style of the book itself and the consistant use of second person. Come on WoTC-gamers are reasonably intelligent people! Please don't insult our intelligence. If I didn't know any better I would think they hired a 10 year old to write the book. I can only read phrases like "You swing your sword" or "You cast a spell" so many times before I want to toss the book in the trash.
In another example of how WoTC dumbed-down the game (and how they seem to be making D&D more familier for the computer gamer crowd), the equipment section lists stuff as "head slot" items, "hand slot" items, etc. Really? My character's boots of striding and springing go on his feet? Good thing they put that in there otherwise I might have had my character put those boots on his ears!
WoTC REALLY screwed up the alignment system. I thought the 9 different alignments in previous editions worked just fine. Now there's only five: Lawful Good, Good (essentially Neutral and Chaotic Good combined), Chaotic Evil, Evil (Neutral Evil and Lawful Evil combined), and unaligned. While I can live with the idea that NG/CG and LE/NE can be played in more or less the same fashion, the idea that Lawful Neutral, true Neutral, and Chaotic Neutral are essentially the same point of view is just plain stupid.
I don't understand why they eliminated four of the 3E classes, especially after all the changes the bard went through, brining back the monk and barbarian, and the fact that the sorcerer was a new class. I suppose if I want to play them I'll have to fork over $35 more for a future book. I also don't understand why they essentially axed multiclassing as it was done in 3E. Personally, I feel that is one of the few things 3rd edition got right.
While the formatting is better than 3E, there is one minor complaint I have here. At the start of each chapter there is an awesome picture of characters doing the things characters do. However, one third of the picture is on one page and the rest is on the other. Makes it hard to appreciate the artwork, especially since it is some of the best D&D art I have ever seen.
My final major beef with 4E is they got too "rule-happy." Gone are the fluid mechanics of earlier editions where a GM was free to interpret situations as he or she saw fit. Like 3E there are all sorts of rules, rules, rules! Early on the book lists three basic rules for D&D: 1) Simple rules, many exceptions 2) Specific beats general and 3) Always round down.
While the third rule is pretty much a given, the other two basicly imply that the GM should keep his rulebooks handy because sooner or later he's gonna have to look something up.
One of the many new rules is a character's bloodied value (half max HP) When the character reaches his bloodied value it may allow him to use certain skills; likewise some powers only work against bloodied characters. Yea-another thing to keep track of!
However, despite my complaints, I don't think 4th edition is entirely a lost cause. On the positive side, I will say that there is a great deal of options open to characters. I like the concept of at-will powers, which I think benefits spell casters the most. Few things stink more for low level mages than running out of spells and having to sit back and be useless. The paragon paths are pretty cool too. So with a few house rules and tweakings, 4E should be fun to play.
The artwork is top-notch. I wasn't much for the 3E artwork. It wasn't bad (better than I could ever do), it just didn't evoke the feeling of epic adventure that the artwork of earlier editions did. Fourth's artwork re-kindles the spirit of dragon-slaying and dungeon crawling. Hopefully WoTC keeps these artists for future releases.
So, in conclusion, I would like to give this advice to any old schoolers like myself picking up this product. Don't approach this as another edition of D&D; approach it like this is an entirely different game altogether.
Personally, I wish WoTC would have kept the same basic ideas as 3E and improved that system's weak points instead of re-vamping it all together. I think it would have been better for the customers if WoTC made the relationship between 3E and 4E the same as the relationship between 1E and 2E: make the new edition similar enough to the previous edition that the two systems can be used together if the players so desire. All and all, 4E brings some new ideas to the game, but is far from the gaming Nirvana I hoped it to be.
