Justinian's+Highly+Insightful™+Review+of+4th+Edition

It's here
I came home to find a packaging from amazon that closely mirrored the 3.5 box release. I opened it with some excitement and some reservation; I'd been at a borders earlier that day and had sneaked a (very cursory for me) peek into its pages. I started, of course, with the player's handbook. this will be somewhat rambling and not entirely organized, but I promise it's worth it, unless you can go to the store and decide for yourself.

=PHB=
 * New language** The first, and frankly, positive, step came from the universalization of language. Attacks are checks of Strength vs. AC; spells are checks of Int vs. Reflex/etc. and so on.  I'd like to mention a very good, bouncy point right away, in terms of formatting: spells are //right next to the class description//.

Now, We'd heard that saves were going passive, to become some kind of AC for saves, that much was expected. What wasn't, however, was the mind-blowing idea of trashing skill ranks, caster level checks, and BAB all at once. (see below)

To answer what anyone that hasn't looked up from their feet, or simply needs reminding, spells, attacks, and powers are now distilled into neat little card-sized boxes with fancy keywords like 'encounter' 'burst 5' and 'move action.'

So, for example, the fighter can choose a 1st-level power called 'cleave' which is at-will, takes a standard action. It reads as 'strength vs. AC.' you do (weapon)+STR mod to a hit enemy, and half to an adjacent one (or something simple like that)  What a brilliant and obvious idea that we should have gotten YEARS ago. This leads into


 * No more iterative multiple attacks** clouds of attacks were boring and ineffective past the first few and slowed down the game while the fighter tallied off his damage and then the DM had to calculate resistances and DR for a slew of hits. Now, the fighting classes have cool moves, that can occasionally make them attack more than once, but in special and tactical ways that give the fighter some feeling of tactical fun.


 * HackRipoff™** at first level PCs are getting a sizeable 'kicker' to hp. For example, fighters get 15+CONmod for HP.  This teams up with an ability called 'healing surge' which is now the primary limiter for how much adventuring in a day.  More below.


 * Healing surges:** Dying will get even harder in **4th**™ edition. When reduced to 0 or below, healing magic heals you from 0 and pumps you from there.  Healing comes in one basic flavor, 1/4 of your HP, from what I've seen.  You can do this 1/encounter to yourself, and clerics can cause you to do it with a power.  there's a limit to the number of times a day by class (e.g., fighters do this 9+CONmod/day).  Thus, even with healing magic, there's a point at which the party calls it quits...that said, it's no longer called 'sleep,' but instead 'short rests' and 'long rests.'  basically, you can take these, which allow additional healing surges to be eaten up.  I believe the long rests begin a new notional 'day.'

While there is a good action for grappling that does, in fact, beat the old way hands down (though it was never all that bad to begin with...) But I don't see a disarm action, for example. I also see phrases, 'the battle grid is everything,' 'you are not allowed to sell mundane armor and shields,' 'expect treasure every few encounters,' and a slew of things of that ilk. If you think //Spoiled Players Syndrome// was bad in 3.x, you've only scraped the surface. The tone in the PHB is one of...PnP MuMmORPuGer, just like we all feared. But...this is somewhat offset by the DMG.
 * The answer is, you can't.**


 * Sacred cows That are dead and will piss(ed) (me)you all off:**
 * Alignment is almost gone. It is now five vanilla-coated flavors: lawful good, good, unaligned, evil, Chaotic evil.  Seeeeriously.  The nine-slice pie of the outlands, the whole schtick of the city of sigil, and also one of the best shorthands (for those who understood it) is now gone.  I can't say the new version sucks...but...I'm just oldschool enough to think it's not for me, and would retcon back the old ways, at least for a few years.
 * Multiclassing is...well, I've leafed with some diligence and I can't seem to find it...oh, wait, it's in the //feats// chapter...basically, you have a primary class. In order to get anything like a multiclass, you must sac 4 feats (pick power from other class, etc., and at 10th level, you can start choosing weak(er) powers from the second class.  Basically, the theme there is //Multiclassing: don't do it.//
 * Vancian casting. Yes, it's gone, forever.  Instead, //all// classes have a set of 'powers' that are Tome of Battle-like, with frequencies of (at will) (1/encounter) and (daily)

Well, we really want you to buy the PHB II next year, so...theres no:
 * Very, very Missing**
 * Gnome
 * Barbarian
 * Druid
 * Fighter with Archery Specialty (for that matter ranged attacks for anyone except rangers and casters) //(yes, everyone (you) can still shoot an xbow, just without anything special happening.)//
 * Gith Archetype. No magely fighters or fighterly mages.
 * Monk

=DMG= Believe it or not, this was the most innovative and best of the trilogy. there are *gasp* lots of actual, new, good ideas in here. Funny thing is, the mechanics aren't really necessary of a 4th edition, merely a good supplement. I'd say, about 1/2 of this book would make a good 3.5 supplement for noncombat challenges, giving good mechanics and guidelines for them that have been lacking since D&D was **//Invented//**. If you don't read what's below, read this: **DMG 4th shatters the noncombat experience borders once and for all**
 * DM Heartbreakers** and sort of lame besides: (actually...these could be good but my oldskool shreds say 'nonono'
 * Magic Items in the PHB
 * Attacks (shots, swings, etc) that do damage when they miss. (this may sound absurd, but think of all the spells that are save-and-half; this is merely comeuppance for fighting classes.

Somehow, the tone on the DMG is like the difference between night and day. Perhaps it's more of the 'audience targeting research' we keep hearing about. They realize that DMs are old diehards and people that like to keep things going their way, and perhaps wrote it with that in mind...

The content on encounter design and noncombat xp, and the advent of some means for dispensing quest xp. wow.

The advice section

 * But** then there are flinches. There's an outright declaration that it's okay for some players to just sit, watch the game, and throw their dice when poked.  This is considered a 'player type.' WHAT!!!?!?!?!??!  I, as DM, do not want to be told that it's okay for PCs to phone in their play.  Sure, there are active and less active players...


 * flipside:** the section on player types has fairly insightful advice on how to leverage each gamer archetype out of their shell into something more like a full-fledged roleplayer. Perhaps this section is merely acknowledging the elephant in the room: that game tables have drifted into a collection of pretty easily identifiable archetypes...and we need to act more like roleplayers, but it'll take some therapy.