4th edition D&D Miniatures rules released today at WotC.

Haven't finished reading through it, but some observers on EN World have pointed out that there is no longer a penalty for diagonal movement, there is good and evil but no lawful or chaotic, and there is no sign of damage reduction.

Some new things: Bloodied. Opportunity attacks. Shift (5' step). Follow ups (Multiple attacks are now called followups and they only get a followup if they hit with the first one).

When reading it, remember that DDM in 3.5 was much different than D&D. (Reroll init every round, hp in increments of 5, etc)

I'm planning on giving it a read when I get home. My gaming group might be interested in playing DDM 4E.

Haven't finished reading through it, but some observers on EN World have pointed out that there is no longer a penalty for diagonal movement,

Huzzah. We've been using hexes for years just to avoid that dumb diagonal movement thing. :)

there is good and evil but no lawful or chaotic,

Baby steps. Halfway there!

"Zip, Zip, Zip! There is no good or evil, right or wrong. We've evolved beyond such things. Besides, evil spelled backwards is *live,* and we all want to do that, right?"

and there is no sign of damage reduction.

I kinda like DR, but the new paradigm appears to be less overall attacks, but more individually damaging attacks. (No more 20th level Ranger with 8 attacks that do little individually, just one big attack with phat damage.) DR would be useless under the new paradigm.

Some new things: Bloodied.

Ooh. A damaged condition that impedes / impairs the wounded person *before* they drop to 0 hit points? This could be verra nice... One of Mutants & Masterminds better additions to the d20 concept. Much less all-or-nothing.

DM "Your Barbarian take 49 hit points! How many does he have left?"
Player "One. I full attack."
DM "I might as well have missed completely..."

Opportunity attacks.

A useful mechanic for battlefield control. It can be misused, but I definitely prefer it to the alternative (mobs running with impunity past the fighters to get to the squishy casters).

Shift (5' step). Follow ups (Multiple attacks are now called followups and they only get a followup if they hit with the first one).

Heh, I imagined that multiple attacks weren't gonna be *completely* gone. But it's an interesting step in the right direction.

No additional penalty for diagonal movement?

Gee, I guess people failed to realize that 1/1/square root of two really does mean that the best thing to do under a rule like that is move diagonally as much as possible. Screw this. I'll move to a gridless map and use a tape measure at this point.

...that there is no longer a penalty for diagonal movement...

Well, chess has no diagonal penalties and it's still fun, yet this still bothers me.

Counting more for diagonal movement causes more problems than it solves.

In my campaigns I did away with counting additional for diagonals a long time ago and have not suffered even the slightest from it. In fact, it's only helped move the game along.

I actually have immense problems with eliminating diagonal penalties: While previously, "bursts" where a bit strange in places, but generally at least roughly spherical, now either you have square bursts, or need to use some kind of template for each size with no way to derive it from the rules themselves - or need another rules system for distance calculation which is incompatible with the movement rules.

No additional penalty for diagonal movement?

Gee, I guess people failed to realize that 1/1/square root of two really does mean that the best thing to do under a rule like that is move diagonally as much as possible. Screw this. I'll move to a gridless map and use a tape measure at this point.

No, there still is this 1 - 1.5 movement rule. It is updated in the unoffical errata.

Factions:
Civilization (Blue)
Borderlands (Red)
Wilderness (Green)
Underdark (Purple)

With Good/Evil sub factions.

Is it just me, or did they make this more like Dreamblade/Hecatomb by breaking it into four factions that are each vaguely aligned with a Magic color?

Waitaminit... New rules? You mean you guys are serious about this "4E" thing? Crap, I thought it was just a practical joke or something...

[/bad_joke]

I have to add it's terrible they eliminated routing and command. That's a huge piece of strategy they removed.

I'm really interested to see how these new rules turn out in actual play.

I find it odd that there will really be no tactical advantage to not moving anymore (besides avoiding opportunity attacks).

This will not be the same game at all

there is no longer a penalty for diagonal movement

Nice, so I can increase my effective movement by always moving diagonally. That is SWEET!

[Above statement is ironic, yet is not meant to insult the new rules.]

No, there still is this 1 - 1.5 movement rule. It is updated in the unoffical errata.

It's a bit worrying that something this basic got missed and had to be errata'd.

Picture the scenes in clubs, stores and conventions, as games are stalled with cries of "No, really. You can't DO that!" every turn.

Thanks for the tip on mini rules.

That said, I would caution against deriving too much insight on 4.0 from these mini rules.

Factions:

Civilization (Blue)
Borderlands (Red)
Wilderness (Green)
Underdark (Purple)

With Good/Evil sub factions.

Is it just me, or did they make this more like Dreamblade/Hecatomb by breaking it into four factions that are each vaguely aligned with a Magic color?

It's just you.. :-)

In the previouse version of the game we had alinments as our factions, however now that alinements are much more limited to those are are really good and really evil we need a new way to break down all the creatures. Using where they come from and where they live i find is an interesting way to do it.