OK so awhile back there were some of discussing the repercussions and playability of the release of 4th Ed.
Having actually played it (well run it as a DM) I have to say I'm not too impressed. I was excited when it came out I had faith in WoC but this was a sad disappointment.
Firstly the book layout, I've been playing D&D for awhile, so have most of my players and since 2nd Ed the book layout has been the same. By this I mean same information in the book is in the same place from edition to edition. Made things nice and easy to find. Not anymore, now you have little notes, for this information go to chapt. 12 - meanwhile chapter 12 sends you to chapter 4 which is the one that just told you to go to chapt 12 and really the information you want is in chapter 7. It's as though they've taken the chapters of the books thrown them up in the air and just picked them up and bound them together without looking at coherency or continuity from one chapter to the next.
They've also removed two of the base races, gnomes and half-orcs, which have been there since the beginning (or close to) no explanation for why these races are gone they just are. To replace them we have Dragonborn (taken almost word for word from one of the 3.5 expansions) Tieflings (something with the blood of an evil outsider in it's ancestry) and Eladrin (in this case basically spellcaster elves). That's right no balance there, you can play an evil outsider but not a good outsider (Aasimar).
As for the classes, clerics are now virtually useless thanks to the addition of healing surges. A healing surge (every character gets one) means that at some point throughout each encounter eachcharacter can elect to heal themself, no potion of components necessary it's now an innate ability. Rangers and rogues have some incredible powers, which means they look over powered next to everyone else and fosters resentment in the rest of the party. Barbarians and Bards are just gone along with Sorcerors, instead you get Warlocks (wizards working with dark magic) and Warlords (a fighter with some leadership abilities)
There are also no skill points - you get some passive abilities which are meant to replace them but you have no way of improving those abiltiies witout changing your original stats (dex, str, con, cha, wis, int).
Now I could deal with all of that but what I am really hating is the combat system which was meant to be so much smoother then that of 3.5. There are no saves, instead the person who is casting the area of effect spell has to roll an attack against the targets save. Means a heck load more work for me as a DM and alot less rolling for my players until they get to the level where the wizard can start casting some aoe stuff.
They seem to have taken a good working system and dumbed it down. This version of D&D is not aimed at the same group that 3.5 was instead it seems to be aimed at kids because it's alot easier to convince a kid to spend Mum and Dads money then to convince an adult to go and shell out the $100 + in books for a new system.
Personally I won't be surprised when they announce that there are loopholes in 4th Ed and bring out 4.5 they've even set up for it already. Direct from the 4th Ed Players Handbook
Maybe my views will change as I told my players we'd play this Ed for a few months before we make any major decisions. But thus far WoC have lost a big bit of the faith I had in them previously, I'm now going to be examining everything they publish with a little more scepticism.Quote:
Future volumes of the Players Handbook will introduce additonal classes
