D&D 4e, a few comments on the PHB.
Jun. 29th, 2008 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreFirst of all, I've noticed a trend in commentary on the new edition. It seems that the more involved with D&D a poster has been over the past few decades, the more vehement they are in rejecting 4th Edition. Since I last played D&D regularly when it was called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and the PHB had a bunch of guys trying to steal a jewel from an idol's eye sockets, I don't have this problem. I ignored second edition, read but never played 3/3.5, and am coming back to D&D now because I am due for a midlife crisis and I can't afford a Corvette.
So, onward. I picked the books up at Borders and they look good. The art is well done, overall, with nice splash pages for each chapter and incidental art where needed. Gone is the odd-colored pages and tiny font of 3/3.5. The text is clear, and laid out in an easy to read manner. Tables are plentiful, but many could used keys attached to them. A couple of times I was reading a table and had to burrow into the rules to find a meaning for a symbol or column.
After the usual "what is a RPG" nonsense, we get into character creation. Shockingly for us old farts, rolling dice is now an optional method of creation, and the "3D6 and play what you rolled" school has vanished. Instead, there are a couple of point build systems for characteristics. I've over two minds here... on the one hand, some of my best characters in the old days were ones that had less than stellar stats or one glaringly deficient characteristic. It gave me a chance to play a limited character, which is always fun. (Ask me about my Int 18, Wis 4, mage sometime.) Fantasy literature is full of heroes who aren't smart, are klutzy as hell, or have health problems (Elric, anyone?) On the other, this game is clearly set up for epic heroes who will eventually change the world, and characters who are more Aragorn or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser level would be better suited for the genre.
One huge change comes in alignment. Gone is the old Good/Evil and Law/Chaos matrix. We now have Lawful Good, Good, Evil, Chaotic Evil, and Unaligned. Wow. I'd really, really like to know the logic chain that led to leaving two and only two alignments with the Law/Chaos modifier. Why not just Good/Unaligned/Evil? We also now have three tiers of power: Heroic (levels 1-10) Paragon (levels 11-20) and Epic (levels 21-30). when a character enters a new tier, they get additional benefits (the Paragon Path and Epic Destiny.) This is a nice touch, and I like that at Level 30 the campaign is supposed to end.
Next come the races. Gone are the Half-orc and the Gnomes. Good riddance. I never saw a gnome played for anything other than comedic value. And half-orcs, while interesting, tended to be used as Barbarians almost exclusively. In their place, we have the Dragonborn and the Tiefling. The former are dragonmen, the later humans from a fallen empire that made deals with infernal forces and show it. Not sure if I'll use either in my games, although putting the Tiefling in Egypt might make sense...
The old High/Wood Elf dichotomy is back with the introduction of the Eladrin. Eladrin are you typical snooty Seelie wannabes. They're supposed to be rare, living on the edges of our reality, so you can be sure that every single party will have one. At least. Because they can teleport during combat. Seriously. Good old-fashioned Elves still walk around (boring!) but when walking can ignore difficult terrain.
Halflings are finally cut loose from the Tolkien "hobbit" mold. These halflings are nomads, described as traveling marshes and rivers (in my game, I'll probably also make them gypsy like, traveling in caravans of brightly-painted wagons.) They are also ridiculously lucky. These changes I like.
But onto the classes! Monks? Gone! Barbarians? Gone! Sorcerers? GONE! We're back to the classic Fighter, Ranger, Wizard, Cleric, Paladin, and Rogue, with two really fun additions. The Warlord class has been described as "the combat cheerleader." They're military leaders, and their powers enhance the combat abilities of their allies! This is a great idea, IMNSHO. The other new class is the Warlock, a magic-using character who gets his powers from a pact sealed with some force (astral, fey, or infernal) another nice addition to the game.
A new touch is the concept of Powers. Every class gets them, under different names. These are effects that you can use At Will, once per Encounter, or Daily. A fighter might have a mighty strike that allows him to rip two enemies, while the mage can cast Magic Missiles every turn of combat. Many of these powers aid your allies while harming the foe, like the Warlord's Wolf Pack Tactics power that lets an ally move one square out of turn. Most combat spells are now listed as powers for the magic-using classes (Non-combat spells are Rituals, and have different rules and take longer.) Yes, this means that the Vancian concept of forgetting spells is dead and buried! There are still limitations (Fireball is a daily power, so you can throw it once.. choose wisely!) but over all this opens up the options for combat a great deal.
Skills have been simplified. Each class has a set of skills, and you chose a set number to be trained in. You get a permanent +5 on skill checks for those skills. Skills are broad, such as Athletics covering climbing, jumping, swimming, etc. Anyone can try a skill (and gets the usual bonuses of half current level and the appropriate characteristic modifier. Feats are still around, but are far less prominent than in 3rd Edition. Mostly they seem to fill the void between Powers and Skills.
After the chapter on equipment and magic items, and one on adventuring, we get to combat. Well organized, terms defined early and often, important concepts in text boxes, lots of "example of play" images... very nice. I'll need to test it, of course, but the basic combat sequence looks very straight forward and streamlined. They take care of the basics first, then get into all the fun special cases like "my halfling bullrushes the Ancient White Dragon!"
I found the concept of "healing surges" and "second wind" to be interesting. In short, characters can heal themselves in combat! This goes back to the old saw about Hit Points being more than flesh and blood, representing endurance, luck, skill, and the like. These rules reinforce that idea, since you can now take a breather and be ready to dive back into things! I may make a house rule that the Hit Points derived from the Constitution score are physical, and healing surges can't fix those. So, if you have Con 14 and 26HP, a healing surge could only add a maximum of 12 lost HP. If you're down to 8HP, those other six are actual stabs/cuts/bruises that need a cleric's attention. Does that make sense? Anyone still reading this?
The final chapter is Rituals, and as I mentioned earlier, this is where most of the non-combat spells ended up. Unlike the spells classified as Powers, these spells have material components, long casting times, and have greater effects. I like placing them here.
So, what do I think? With a few minor quibbles, I like it. I don't like that the combat system is freaking married to squares (anybody remember hex maps?) I find the Tieflings and Dragonborn annoying. And I think that any group is going to need practice in understanding how to use their powers effectively.
Next up, the Dungeon Master's Guide
So, onward. I picked the books up at Borders and they look good. The art is well done, overall, with nice splash pages for each chapter and incidental art where needed. Gone is the odd-colored pages and tiny font of 3/3.5. The text is clear, and laid out in an easy to read manner. Tables are plentiful, but many could used keys attached to them. A couple of times I was reading a table and had to burrow into the rules to find a meaning for a symbol or column.
After the usual "what is a RPG" nonsense, we get into character creation. Shockingly for us old farts, rolling dice is now an optional method of creation, and the "3D6 and play what you rolled" school has vanished. Instead, there are a couple of point build systems for characteristics. I've over two minds here... on the one hand, some of my best characters in the old days were ones that had less than stellar stats or one glaringly deficient characteristic. It gave me a chance to play a limited character, which is always fun. (Ask me about my Int 18, Wis 4, mage sometime.) Fantasy literature is full of heroes who aren't smart, are klutzy as hell, or have health problems (Elric, anyone?) On the other, this game is clearly set up for epic heroes who will eventually change the world, and characters who are more Aragorn or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser level would be better suited for the genre.
One huge change comes in alignment. Gone is the old Good/Evil and Law/Chaos matrix. We now have Lawful Good, Good, Evil, Chaotic Evil, and Unaligned. Wow. I'd really, really like to know the logic chain that led to leaving two and only two alignments with the Law/Chaos modifier. Why not just Good/Unaligned/Evil? We also now have three tiers of power: Heroic (levels 1-10) Paragon (levels 11-20) and Epic (levels 21-30). when a character enters a new tier, they get additional benefits (the Paragon Path and Epic Destiny.) This is a nice touch, and I like that at Level 30 the campaign is supposed to end.
Next come the races. Gone are the Half-orc and the Gnomes. Good riddance. I never saw a gnome played for anything other than comedic value. And half-orcs, while interesting, tended to be used as Barbarians almost exclusively. In their place, we have the Dragonborn and the Tiefling. The former are dragonmen, the later humans from a fallen empire that made deals with infernal forces and show it. Not sure if I'll use either in my games, although putting the Tiefling in Egypt might make sense...
The old High/Wood Elf dichotomy is back with the introduction of the Eladrin. Eladrin are you typical snooty Seelie wannabes. They're supposed to be rare, living on the edges of our reality, so you can be sure that every single party will have one. At least. Because they can teleport during combat. Seriously. Good old-fashioned Elves still walk around (boring!) but when walking can ignore difficult terrain.
Halflings are finally cut loose from the Tolkien "hobbit" mold. These halflings are nomads, described as traveling marshes and rivers (in my game, I'll probably also make them gypsy like, traveling in caravans of brightly-painted wagons.) They are also ridiculously lucky. These changes I like.
But onto the classes! Monks? Gone! Barbarians? Gone! Sorcerers? GONE! We're back to the classic Fighter, Ranger, Wizard, Cleric, Paladin, and Rogue, with two really fun additions. The Warlord class has been described as "the combat cheerleader." They're military leaders, and their powers enhance the combat abilities of their allies! This is a great idea, IMNSHO. The other new class is the Warlock, a magic-using character who gets his powers from a pact sealed with some force (astral, fey, or infernal) another nice addition to the game.
A new touch is the concept of Powers. Every class gets them, under different names. These are effects that you can use At Will, once per Encounter, or Daily. A fighter might have a mighty strike that allows him to rip two enemies, while the mage can cast Magic Missiles every turn of combat. Many of these powers aid your allies while harming the foe, like the Warlord's Wolf Pack Tactics power that lets an ally move one square out of turn. Most combat spells are now listed as powers for the magic-using classes (Non-combat spells are Rituals, and have different rules and take longer.) Yes, this means that the Vancian concept of forgetting spells is dead and buried! There are still limitations (Fireball is a daily power, so you can throw it once.. choose wisely!) but over all this opens up the options for combat a great deal.
Skills have been simplified. Each class has a set of skills, and you chose a set number to be trained in. You get a permanent +5 on skill checks for those skills. Skills are broad, such as Athletics covering climbing, jumping, swimming, etc. Anyone can try a skill (and gets the usual bonuses of half current level and the appropriate characteristic modifier. Feats are still around, but are far less prominent than in 3rd Edition. Mostly they seem to fill the void between Powers and Skills.
After the chapter on equipment and magic items, and one on adventuring, we get to combat. Well organized, terms defined early and often, important concepts in text boxes, lots of "example of play" images... very nice. I'll need to test it, of course, but the basic combat sequence looks very straight forward and streamlined. They take care of the basics first, then get into all the fun special cases like "my halfling bullrushes the Ancient White Dragon!"
I found the concept of "healing surges" and "second wind" to be interesting. In short, characters can heal themselves in combat! This goes back to the old saw about Hit Points being more than flesh and blood, representing endurance, luck, skill, and the like. These rules reinforce that idea, since you can now take a breather and be ready to dive back into things! I may make a house rule that the Hit Points derived from the Constitution score are physical, and healing surges can't fix those. So, if you have Con 14 and 26HP, a healing surge could only add a maximum of 12 lost HP. If you're down to 8HP, those other six are actual stabs/cuts/bruises that need a cleric's attention. Does that make sense? Anyone still reading this?
The final chapter is Rituals, and as I mentioned earlier, this is where most of the non-combat spells ended up. Unlike the spells classified as Powers, these spells have material components, long casting times, and have greater effects. I like placing them here.
So, what do I think? With a few minor quibbles, I like it. I don't like that the combat system is freaking married to squares (anybody remember hex maps?) I find the Tieflings and Dragonborn annoying. And I think that any group is going to need practice in understanding how to use their powers effectively.
Next up, the Dungeon Master's Guide
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Date: 30 Jun 2008 08:57 (UTC)