I think Oko might have thrown the gauntlet down there.

We should have a go at giving 4th edition a new name, that way we get to poke fun at it with a new name and don't have to suffer the indignity of calling it 'D&D 4th edition'

EDD4?

Essentially Dead & Destroyed 4th? Eddie, for short ...

My sister, Dragon Mistress, Dmed a 4th game yesterday at the local game store. Because she did, she was able to buy the three basic books and half off which was about 56 dollars. I bought them just to fake a look and really see what was going on. Yes, we did roped in Oko to play the game with us as well.

In the game I played and Elduron (elf) wizard. Now why in heck did they change the names of elves and nothing else. She had about 5 cantrips to use at will. Magic Missile was one spark that did 2d4 + Int. bonus dmg as one of them but it is no longer automatically hits. Opponents got to save with the will defense. Will defense on most opponents was over 13 so I had my Int bonus + d20 to try to over come them so I need a 10 or above to hit. That is something like a will save but you don't throw any dice, it is a calculated number--no ups, no extras. One cantrip was Mage hand that could move 20 pounds, Ghost sound, Light lasts 5 minutes) and a couple more "cantrips" to use at will.

Besides the at will spells I had two encounter spells and one daily spell of which my spellcaster who had 18 Int had two spells to choose from but only got one a day. Acid arrow a daily spell did 2d8 damage that opponents could save from and extra "splash damage to adjacent target friend and foe. for 1d8 + Int Bonus. For anyone hit by Acid arrow original traget or adjacent I had to keep rolling on in successive round until I failed to overcome their will or whatever defense roll it was on and then dmg. stopped.

Now she actually had decent hit points for a first level character most fighter had about 28 at first level I had 22 and an armor class (but noting was listed), again I don't know how it was figured there wasn't anything listed on the character sheet. Skills seem to be something like old first edition but all I had was a name and number some were plain number and some were + number but low everyting from+2 init to +11 History and Arcana, so I can't tell you anymore than that yet.

Character sheet wss simple one sided sheet spells or special abilities were on back. No place for money, experience and only simple listing of names of equipment, no encumbrances that I found. I had one feat which was strang, It listed as stealth training. GO figure that one out.

Clerics do not have Turn undead as a special ability thought they have a encounter spell that affects one undead if I remember correctly--which means they can only use it once a battle. I did not get a good sense of what all the cleric had he mostly fought. Though one spell put a mark on a foe and another player who went to hit it got a + to hit. There was not bless for hte whole group. just for one player to hit that creature he marked.

Dwarf fighter's great ax did 1d12 damage +5 (his Str. Bonus was 4) so I don't know where the other point came form. you can crit on 12 and he had a High crit that added a extra d12 on top of normal double damage for a whopping 3d12 + 10 possible of damage, No wonder hit point were so high at fist level. He could still kill most players with an average crit hit.

Every character had healing surges, that was the strangest thing. Even my mage could heal herself 6 times a day for 5 points each time. Some wimpy non-RPGer idiot sat on the design team and said, "We can't have characters killed, they won't have fun." Geesh!!

This is a placeholder for my disgust at this system.

1) The overall feel of the game is far more high fantasy. Characters get more spells each level, receive more comic-book style supernatural powers, and the new races introduced are also relatively outlandish. The one that particularly stands out is a draconian style spin-off, now presented as one of the core races, which can breath fire at 1st level.

2) There’s been a continuation of the same sort of power creep we’ve seen over past editions. Characters of the same level can take and deal more damage than they could back in 3.5. None of the races listed in the PHB or DMG have any disadvantages listed, and they all enjoy a bonus of +2 to two attributes, along with one or more unique racial advantages.

3) The game mechanics are far more unified. Attack rolls, saves, and proficiency checks all work on the same mechanic.

4) Healing Surges. As Brianna mentioned, these seem a bit lame. The basic idea seems to be that a character can suffer a sword wound, stop for an action to take a breather, and then keep going as though nothing had happened. Predictably enough, most monsters don’t get to enjoy this advantage, which seems pretty much a one-sided bonus for player characters to use against their enemies.

5) Magic rituals are now far more firmly entrenched in the game mechanics, they even have their own chapter in the PHB. I’m not quite sure how these work in play, but it seems to fit the genre quite nicely.

6) There are now only five alignments: Lawful Good, Good, Evil, Chaotic Evil and Unaligned. Following the suggestions in the PHB this would mean that PCs only have the choice between two alignments, which seems a bit dull. Most of the gods that you’d associate with the former neutral alignments are now listed as “unaligned”.

7) Instead of Feats, characters receive special abilities every few levels in play. These are divided into three tiers, for the levels 1-10, 11-20 and 21-30 and work to funnel characters into particular career paths as they advance in level. These powers can be “at will”, “once per encounter” or “once per day”. Some of these abilities are tied to different character races.

Overall it seems like a fairly decent streamlining of the rules from 3rd edition for dungeon-crawl style games, if you like that kind of thing. There are a few tweaks here and there which made me smile (such as the kobold rogue in the MM which is able to push other kobolds into the way of incoming attacks as a special ability) but a lot of the other changes just seem seriously odd.

It’s a major overall from the 3rd edition rules, and a lot more re-balancing and streamlining has gone on. There isn’t anything much wrong with the rules as such, they’re just not tailored towards the sort of games which interest me. Here’s happy to stick with 2nd edition or the nwod for another five years, or whenever 5th edition comes out.

Vorrioch Wrote:
6) There are now only five alignments: Lawful Good, Good, Evil, Chaotic Evil and Unaligned. Following the suggestions in the PHB this would mean that PCs only have the choice between two alignments, which seems a bit dull. Most of the gods that you’d associate with the former neutral alignments are now listed as “unaligned”.

7) Instead of Feats, characters receive special abilities every few levels in play. These are divided into three tiers, for the levels 1-10, 11-20 and 21-30 and work to funnel characters into particular career paths as they advance in level. These powers can be “at will”, “once per encounter” or “once per day”. Some of these abilities are tied to different character races.
I see they have decided to turn their "creative" and "free choice" game has become super linear. They want to make this into a videogame? Fine by me. But if they expect me to buy this and play with fewer choices they need some serious help.

I've said it before. 4e appears to be a horrible mistake.

Well although I don't mind this becoming a general thread about 4th ed, it was originally supposed to be about the 4th edition version of the Forgotten Realms campaign.

So on that topic, I do have something to say. Unfortunately it does contain a spoiler for anyone that is reading or intends to read The Lady Penitent trilogy (a series of FR novels). So I'll leave a spoiler space.

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Okies, well the news is that Eilistraee is dead too, so all drow now only have one deity and that is Lolth. The justification by the likes of Rich Baker (one of the 4th. ed. FR campaign designers) is that they wanted drow to be a villainous race.

But somehow I don't buy that.

If that's the case why have a picture of Drizzt on the cover of the new FR campaign setting? Why kill off every NPC in the whole campaign (or very nearly so) except for a certain drow ranger? And more to the point, why have drow as a core race in the 4th edition PHB if they're supposed to be a villainous race?

The way I see it, 4th edition is all about stripping away any complexities or subtleties that may have been there in the D&D universe. You're supposed to be either good or evil. Play a stereotypically evil drow with a big leather whip, or a stereotypically good drow with a big panther companion.

It's all an effort take the roleplaying out of D&D. In future a session will look like this:

DM: Ok you see a room..
Player: I search it!
DM: Wait I hadn't finished. You see a room and in it there is...
Player: I draw my crossbow and shoot it!
DM: Let me finish! You see a room and in it there is a person wearing..
Player: I press the 'talk' button!

...or something like that.