Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition

Thanks again for the text snippet
Now it’s really looking as a new edition more than and “Advanced 3.5 with Book of Nine Swords”

I’m a bit worried about that “All or nothing” approach to skills… and that fixed amount of hp… well, we’ll argue about it when it’ll become official!

If theyre doing what I think theyre doing, theyre making everything less random and more tactical, which sounds like a good thing to me, but we will see how well implemented it is. I would be wiling to bet that the con bonus applies at every level still, not just first, so the hits are still variable, just not random.

I’m not really thrilled that they seem to be taking away much of the randomness. That does make the game alot better, it’s a social game for friends, not a competitive arena.

Also what’s with every movement value being calculated in squares, my friends and i have rarely if ever bothered to use a hex pad or some such, preferring just a few models from our various warhammer armies. We did try out using squares but it makes the game too rigid and inflexible.

From what i’ve read so far there seems to be enough to say that we’ll likely to continue using 3.5 with perhaps some adjustments from 4.0.

Im curious about those atacks that deal damage and are aimed at will defense or Reflexes defense…
will armor give some damege reduction or some like that because if they do not… its gonna suck to wear full armor!!!
I dont see logical that you can skip somebody’s protection by attacking the will…

Hit points are one of those areas that is very important and too random. I welcome removing them from randomness.

I’m a bit apprehensive about the language used. It sounds like characters have been pigeon holed into certain roles and I don’t think a role-focused approach to the game mechanics is a positive idea. It forces groups to become structured and favours characters who abide by constricting norms.

And the apparent reduction of randomness (if such turns out to be the case) only encourages competitivness. I am sure I am not the only one who finds the idea of ‘statistically competitive roleplay’ as bizarre and a bit creepy.

Awesome! I’ve played a bit of 4thEd already and every class looks balanced and useful, so when you get stuck in battle everybody has something to do. The game is challenging but not because your weak or useless.

An AC bonus based on chrisma?
Don’t make sense to me.
Dex. all the way.

AC based on CHA is no more different than the AC based on Wisdom of the Monk class. I think I like that option, and like the static base HP/level, as rolling a few 1’s for level is crippling by mechanic, not by play style.

As for tumble and backstab being once an encounter…. I’ll hold judgement. Looks a little like they’re going to a paper/rock/scissors logic for character balance.

Actually it’s INT that gives a bonus to AC and CHA that gives a bonus to Will Defence. Since CHA has come to represent power of personality it makes sense to be used as a bonus to Will Defence. And INT for AC does make some sense.

Wow making a point buy system for stats and fixing hps…. is it just me or is this gonna be a huge munchkin fest?

Less of a munchkin fest than you think, I suspect… Sure, you’ll get people trying to min/max, but it looks like things are more balanced overall. Point buy systems for stats gets ’round the guy who somehow always rolls four or six eighteens for stats, and the max for hit points per level. The fixed HP per level looks good, actually. (My current character is rather hobbled by several two’s rolled for HPs. My dice hate me.) I like the different defenses, it’s very logical that wearing full plate won’t do much to defend you from, say, a fireball or a dagger from behind. (If you’ve never worn armor, there ARE places a blade will slip thorugh nicely and hurt like heck!) Movement in squares I like, especially with some of the online stuff they’re featuring. We do use a grid mat, makes it a lot easier to visualize who’s where doing what to who, and quashes a lot of the guys who decide they have to be everywhere doing everything.

I hope this isn’t final. I was really hoping for the Rogue to be able to use the rapier. In the Characters and Classes preview book, it said they would make the Rogue like the Swashbuckler. I assumed it would have the rapier as well.

I think Rapiers will count as Light Blades, which I think rogues are proficient in. They just get an extra +1 to attack when they use daggers.

If I recall correctly, Sneak attack is once per round, not once per encounter.

As someone who has been playing DnD since 2nd edition I gotta say this looks like butt. It really looks like they’re taking even more options out than they did between 2nd and 3rd.(in these older rules a rogue could use a rapier as long as they took the profficiencies/skills for it) Again it looks like they’re trying to dumb the game down for the lowest common denominator. I understand SOME of the changes they made between 2nd and 3rd to make combat go faster or to simplify saving rolls, though I didn’t like how they did it and this looks just plain silly. Why doesn’t WOTC just go ahead and do what it seems theyre trying to do and turn DnD into a card game, with class cards and items and quit trying to pretend they’re doing anything else. I won’t be picking this edition up, I like having the options afforded by the older rules. And I’m sorry, maybe elitist, but if you’re not capable of figuring out wtf THAC0 is or what feats/skills to choose to create the character you want to play chances are i won’t be able to sit at a table for a few hours with you anyways.

Flashfyr3… I’ve also been playing since AD&D 2nd Ed. and I’m actually very happy to see the 4th Ed. changes. I’ve played a single session of 4th Ed. and loved it. You can still take proficiencies in other weapons via feats like in 3rd Ed., but their class features prevent people from using Sneak Attack with Greatswords, Greataxes,and other things that should not be possible. Seriously, are you really going to sneak up behind someone with an axe the size of yourself and hit them in a vital spot? Weapons that large aren’t capable of precision attacks (aside from decapitation), much less finding a gap in the armor to strike at the flesh beneath. The weapon requirements for skills are pretty generous, imho, as they go by weapon type like “light blade,” “heavy blade,” “axes,” etc.

The class Power feature in 4th Ed. is actually a really nice touch. It’s a bit limited at this point, but 3rd Ed. was FAR more limited when it was first released.

Plus, the rules in the books are always just guidelines. The DM has the final say in what is allowed and what isn’t. If some things don’t suit you, see if they can be bent to suit you. If a player comes to me asking if I can tweak something around for them and it’s a reasonable request, I rarely refuse. Just because the game is overall more structured doesn’t mean you cannot use house rules to add flavor, they are just trying to make the game easier for beginners to start playing.

I tend to focus on RPing in pen and paper RPGs more than the combat system, and the players in my campaigns enjoy them because regardless of what role you might have in combat, you can always RP however you’d like. If you feel limited with 4th Ed., it’s because of the people you are playing with, not the system.

Looking for a little help with character creation. What does 1[w] and whatnot mean? And how do I determine my passive perception and passive insight mods?

1(w) is 1 x Weapon damage… Such as

Torturous Strike
Using a dagger, 1d6 you do 2(w) + dex or STR if your a brutal rog. That means 2d6 + Dex so about 2- 12 Damage and + 4 damage with 18 dex.

I played 4th edition for the first time this month. I was apprehensive going in, but the DM insisted we would all love the new rules. Well I hated it, it is not Dungeons and Dragons. Even through all the reincarnations over the years the game basically still stayed for the same intensive purposes D&D. Being the good sport I am, I played it again just to give it another try and it only confirmed I hate the game even more. It is not dungeons and dragons. As others have said, the randomness is almost completely gone, and it really resembles nothing more than a video game now. After all these years Dungeons and dragons has finally been destroyed, not by time, not by apathy or lack of interest but greed and trying to make a game for the NO ATTENTION SPAN generation. I QUIT!

My RPG group just started a 4.0 campaign, heavy RP with a good amount of combat, as usual for us. So far, i’m having a hard time finding anything I truly hate about it. When 4.0 was first announced, I swore I’d never touch it (not even with a ten-foot pole). I kept this attitude up for the past few months, consistently arguing that “4.0 will kill DnD” and “Everything’s been dumbed down to be like an MMORPG”.

Well, my DM finally convinced me to give it a shot, since he’d gotten the books as a gift. We got the group around the table around noon on saturday, made our characters, and started our homebrew campaign around 2 PM.

It was 4 AM before we knew it. Time had flown by as we trawled through our DM’s dungeons. And I realized, as we packed up our dice and went our separate ways for the day, that I had managed to have an amazing time. Sure, a few things weren’t perfect… But can you really expect perfection from the initial release? There’s already errata (fixes to various things in the rulebooks) on WoTC’s site, and it’s solved a few of the more specific issues.

So, to everyone still hesitant about this edition… Just give it a try. It might look restrictive, but I’ve found it to be a fantastic break from the over-expanded 3.5 edition.

Give it a chance.

I was honestly excited when the rules came out. Now that I’ve read the .pdfs on the web before buying, I’m darn glad I did.

There is a huge difference between simplifying a system through intelligent abstraction and simplifying a system by illogically limited player choices.

Example: spellbooks.

What exactly makes one of my old spells disappear if I add a third spell to my spellbook? Is there some cosmic committee on Magical Fair Play that constantly monitors wizard’s spellbooks to enforce a fetish with the number two?

There are numerous examples of this type of rule, that have no logical basis in our real world OR in the game world of the characters, that have been enacted simply out of a desire to enforce fair play. Yeah, it makes it a better game, but it makes it a worse RPG.

The more unbelievable restrictions there are on players or their characters, the tougher time the DM will have making his or her world believable as a whole. That’s the whole point of RPGs – immersion.

These are RPG rules, these are BOARDGAME rules or CARDGAME rules. If you want to play tactical miniatures, this is your baby. If you want to have a believable world to play around in, you had best leave your grasp of logic at the door.

I am a careered DM. I i haven’t played to many characters. Before i even began writing my first adventure i read the DMG from cover to cover. It was a little insulting. I spent a decent amount of money to get one forth the content diluted with “advice” by filling page upon page of explaining to me that i can make a more exciting adventure if i give a room detail or add a specific “classification” of terrain into a room. This classification does nothing for game play. they have spent multiple pages of this small expensive book explaining a classification of a room’s description. It is milk. they took my game, cut it with 3/4 MMO and is currently trying to convince me to buy Players handbook 1 through 4 at $35 a pop to get the same information i can get out of one half of a previous editions book. And the emphasis on tactics is horrid. Players often pick there character because it is capable of fulfilling fantasies that they themselves can not. So now rather than have a warrior character who’s battle wisdom outweighs his players thus giving him bonuses in combat through haggard experience player is limited to personal knowledge of game tactics. Meaning theoretically if you have a player that is no good at battlefield tactics, his character will always be inferior to a character with equal stats who’s player knows how tactics works and how to get the most of it. The complexity is being lowered through denial of options for your character and brutal assassination of rich character classes that were previously in other editions. And i don’t care how much you deny it. it is odd that the Eladrin (blood elves) just pop out of no where as a race along with the Tiefling a “horned race” moving to the forefront to get a firm grasp on the warlock class.
Also i have seen a post in every thread where someone referencing how they are teaching this edition to there children which is wonderfully. But the same way people put soft cushions on all the hard corners of there room WOTC has put soft cushions on all the hard edges of the game. I also plan on handing down D&D through my family. But this just confirms that the game has been simplified and modified into a board game.
I understand the business sense in what WOTC has done. Look at it this way. 4th edition isn’t D&D. It is a completely different game WOTC has made when they found out Blizzard wanted to much money to give them license rights to make a WOW RPG/Board Game hybrid, which would have added new revenue to the business. 3.5 is the last D&D edition made and we simply have to wait for the new editions release announcement.
If WOTC wanted to make a WOW board game they should have just paid the royalties to Blizzard and made one. But don’t despair. 2nd edition made something close to 10 years before it was replaced by 3rd. We will just be forced to treat 4th edition as our “Vista” and wait until WOTC gets back on track.
I do not play on buying any more than the Players handbook and DMG that I already bought. Not on the basis that it isn’t D&D or that it is a bad game. Just the fact that it is clear through the distribution of information that they intend for me to spend one hundred dollars to get the most basic of basic information to run a game. Then intend to charge me $35 and feed me bit by bit more information. And i am sorry it was a wonderful game and is currently ok. But WOTC has drastically overestimated its worth. And I will simply not pay.

this is going to be a bit disjointed..be forwarned….Ok…so I’ve played D&D since before it was D&D. Yes I still have my copy of Chainmail. I have watched the game grow and change over the decades from a mini based war game to it’s current incarnation. I must say I’m not thrilled. I was a little hesitant about 3.0 but it was still a good update. The Mechanics were better (no more DM screen needed to quickly figure out THACO on the fly for 5 players and 10 monsters). Even if some of the balance was lost. But now it’s just Munchkin. I agreed to play a few games to try it out before passing judgement but was sorry the moment I started reading the PHB. I elected to create a Tiefling Paladin and started with a 20+ CHA and still had decent scores in my other stats…(so why would a paladin be any other race but Tiefling?) I had an ability that allowed me to mark a foe and thus force him to attack me (sounds a bit WoWish) and if he didn’t he would take damage every round. the “Elves” teleport at will (or once per encounter but then unless the game is just one big combat session that resets pretty quickly…and non combat situations…well lets just see our little “elf” rogue ever getting locked in jail). Special powers that players can use “at will” “per round” or “per encounter” Munchkin munchkin munchkin.
(I seem to recall WOTC releasing this game several years ago under a different name several years before they bought TSR…it flopped btw). The combat was easy…not the mechanic…the actual combat. four 3rd lvl characters and our DM wound up throwing large groups of monsters with several at 6th lvl before we even started breaking a sweat. Before that we were taking 4-1 odds almost faster than we could roll the dice. From what I can tell there’s no reason for the Tiefling to be any other class but Paladin, “draconian” to be any other class but fighter…etc. Not planning on buying any of the books…especially not if I have to buy the equivilant of the library of congress just to get the basic info. This would be an ok game for entry level RPG’ers…but to stick the D&D name on it just to try to sell it to the existing players? Should have made it a seperate game…or maybe like the old “basic D&D” of yore and used the race/power shtick for a setting source. Or maybe you did with 3.5 what you did with Magic…you threw so many suppliments out so fast that you ran out of ideas and the only way to keep making money was to do a whole new “edition” and drastically change everything. BTW thats why WizKids “Mageknight” died. New boosters every month that made the last booster obsolete..then start a new edition and rapid fire several years worth of material out in just a few months…. Looks like your following that model with 4.0. Sorry…I’ll stick with 3.5…it wasn’t the best edition but it was still D&D

Well a full plate wont help much for one thing to get full plate from a rogue needs 4 feat and a con of 15 in the 4th ed thats alot of sacrifice and a rogue with the right feats can kill a Paladin in full plate in a round alot of attacks of the rogue targets Reflex making full plate rather useless and dex really helps alot for AC example level one Full Dex Roque 10+3leatherarmor +5dex=18 FullPlate dude= 10+8full plate =18 and the roque attack and damage is base on Dexterity. requirement to get a full plate is str:15 con:15…it would be more use in a Dex:20 and (Str:16 or Cha:16) the the new point system can allow u to have more than 2 20’s…..full plate for a roque it belong to the scrappy

Rapier vs Dagger
(Rogue)

Dagger Free dmg 1d4 attack +3+1=+4
Rapier Feat dmg 1d8 attack +3
Shortsword free dmg 1d6 attack +3

Which is better

My group is currently running both a 3.5 campaign and a 4.0 campaign. The reason behind this is simply because each version has its own strengths and weaknesses, and they are two entirely different games. I find that 4.0 simply requires a different style of DMing. The DM needs to have a solid understanding of what each of the players can do. A good DM can use this information to make some interesting encounters based around the capabilities of the characters. This is also true in almost every table-top RPG out there, but it is even more so in 4.0.

Still, I have to say that I prefer 3.5 due to the level of non-combat tools that it gives players and the fact that the multi-class system is much more logical.

For any players to want to really have fun with 4.0, try making a character of an uncommon race/class combinatiion. My group still talks about how awesome my Goliath Bard was. I also ind that these combos lend themselves well to making a truly unique and interesting character who will stick with your fellow players in the years to come. This is the trick to making 4.0 interesting and fun for you and everyone else. Optimization just sucks the life out of your character.
And no, I’m not saying to purposely make your character useless. That Goliath Bard was frighteningly capable in battle. I had a blast just designing him. All it takes is a little creativity and ingenuity.

anyway in 3.5 i observe there is only 2 kind of class the wizard and the cleric any other class where junk wizard can kill almost anthing with its feat maximize empoer and stuff while the cleric can out melee almost any warrior beccause of it buff plus it heals….now tell me which is more munckins. in 3.5 roque can out kill anyone but easily killed fighters can out last most but kills slow, wizard can cause the entire dm plan to chaos but he is still abit slow on the killing part and cleric can heal and buff but not quite effective without his buddies in 4th ed

In short a level 20 3.5 wizard can make the entire death eater and voldimorph piss in fear(well made and geared) while a level 30 wizard of 4th ed can hardly beat voldi alone much less the rest of the death eaters now then tell me who is munckin

rogue=massive dps:)