Instant Interrupts, Auto-regenerating fighters, well-hidden Vancian magic system in the form of "at-will", encounter and daily powers (Unfortunately applied to all classes now), abilities that after you use them once per encounter you just forget how to use them until you take a 5 minutes rest, and a very similar format of Magic: the Gathering on every power listed. Yes, the combat system was throughly cleaned from 3.5 (Grapple, for instance), but the system now looks like something you should play online. About the only thing I was not expecting to see and didn't make it was a rule where you have to tap your character sheet. And "5 star reviewers", are you getting paid to write down "designers' own words" reviews or is it just me that your text look like pre-4e preaching? Sacred cows... how quaint.

There's no middle of the road reviews on this one. People either love it or they can't stand it. I ran my first session of it yesterday, and our gaming group had a blast. It still felt like we were playing dnd, and there is just a much room for story and rp as ever. Our belittling warlord was a testament to that. He knew how to get a fallen soldier back on his feet.

I do admit that the books are heavy on crunch and lower on fluff, but these are the core rule books, and crunch is what I want in core rule books. If I want a lot of fluff, I'll open up my classic monsters revisited. As it turns out I can still use all the good stuff in there with my 4E game. How weird.

It works. It fixes everything that was wrong with 3E. The books are beautiful. And yes, it's still D&D.

No soul? The players provide the soul, the rules provide the mechanics.

Characters lose their uniqueness? The powers all look alike? Yeah, right. A fighter with Comeback Strike is a completely different animal than one with Villain's Menace. And how does any of his powers "feel alike", say, a Ranger's Split the Tree, a Paladin's Radiant Delirium or a Rogue's Blinding Barrage? And that's just at level 1. All the classes still do what they did in 3E, except now they get a new option every level. How can that feel more limited? If you call it a Tactical Feat, it's da bomb, but if you call it a power, it's a board game? Please...

The life sucked out of it? Tell that to my jaded group of players who had the time of their life fighting half a dozen kobolds.

No roleplay in the game? That's hilarious. Do you need the core rules to roleplay? Or would you rather have imaginative players and adventures filled with RP opportunities? How much RP was there in the 3E core books anyway? That's what I thought.

I don't care if anyone else plays this game and I'm not trying to convince anyone to switch. But please, judge these books for what they are and leave your preconceived notions (MMORPG wannabe etc) out of it.

Bottom line: it's a great game. 'Nuff said.

After only 3 years of selling D&D 3.5, Wizards of the Coast has delivered the new edition of 4E with much fanfare, rejoicing, and for some, sorrow. Unfortunately, in their effort to deliver an "upgrade" to the system, they have turned D&D into an action movie; all special effects but no soul. Much like a Michael Bay movie, the bright flash of the system rules the show, not the creative power of the players. Gone are the nearly limitless possibilities of character creation, instead replaced with a collection of "powers" for all classes, designed with the specific intent to make everybody "special" and "powerful" from the get-go. Characters lose a lot of their uniqueness, and the system rewards a very cut-and-dry boardgame style of play, instead of the free-form design of the previous editions. In playing the game I felt like all the fun had been sucked out of the room to be replaced with something foreign and frankly not enjoyable.

Sure, the game looks great, but behind that glossy cover and bright pictures is a product of over engineering and unneeded changes to a system that may have had its flaws, but did not deserve this kind of treatment. The very nature of how the game was released, and the extent of the changes made only leaves a further sour taste in my mouth and a response of "what's the point, why not just continue to play what I enjoy and save my money to spend on Paizo products!"

While my complains of the game are extraordinary negative, they all revolve around the fact that this is not D&D - it is a fancy board game with $100 of manuals that (according to WotC) will be upgraded regularly with further expansion packs...I mean splatbooks for everything from the missing races, the further "powers". I really wanted to like 4E, I went to my first 4E experience with a level of excitement I'd not had while gaming in years. I left feeling like somebody kicked my dog. If the future of gaming is really here with 4E, I'd rather find a time-machine.

These are wonderful rulebooks and just the welcome and refreshing change that the market leader in roleplay should be making.

Wizards have struck gold with a wonderful new system which at last ties everything together and flags the start of the roleplay of the future. Beautiful art, creative and balanced character classes, a wonderful monster manual, with new treatments on all the old favourites.

The only disappointment is that favourite classes and races are missing - monks, druids and gnomes - but there are some new ones in their place, which I am sure will go down well.

It is a shame that many can't see past their own wallet with these new rules. This is not a rehash , this is the future of roleplay. Whilst some will harp on how wonderful 3.5 is or how they like the Pathfinder tweaks, others will move on to a much more enjoyable and broad-based game.

Congratulations!

I cant believe that people still buy this crap. Wizards is just making money off all the suckers that buy this s&&@. Use your IMAGINATION! Why do you continually need a company to tell you how to play D&D? The rules were set over a decade ago. STOP buying this garbage and play the game. If you need an additional rule create it yourself. Use your IMAGINATION! D&D has gotten really pathetic. They make these NEW rules additions to squeeze money out of you. Wizards is a company. They are in it for the money! They HAVE to come out with these books reagardless if there is a need for them in order to stay profitable. Wake up!!! Ten years from now there will be a rules set 11.0 because morons keep buying this crap.

I totally agree with Nullcron.
The company should be called Wlizard, it's just another Diablo II style game but pen&paper. It looks as though they did not have any writers, or they were just bored to imagine a new world or new spells,rules,gods,races,classes etc. and just made some changes in the existing game to make it even more "Gaaah"-friendly. Since when are Tieflings a main race, you uber-imba-power-players? It seems that the DM has an even smaller role than in 3rd. There is no roleplay in the game, from 2nd Advanced D&D it's now just D&D.
Like Nullcron, I will wait for some noob-computer-geeky-roleplaywannabes to sell their old 3.5ed books at really low prices.

D&D finally kills the sacred cows that were holding it back. Gone are nonsense alignments, pointless class restrictions, and 200 pages of spells that you'll never see or use. The fat is trimmed and what's left is a game that's fun to play, and easier then even to run.

In general, I was not disappointed playing my first game of 4th Edition, but then I had low expectations and neither was I impressed with it.

Overall, the game delivers on its promises:
- characters all build the same (very minimally) and play the same (from a small selection of abilities)
- certain "powerful" abilities have been toned down
- combat rounds are shorter but you get more turns in one combat (because monsters and PCs have large quantities of hp)

If you read the 4th Edition previews and thought "this is what D&D needs" then you will not be disappointed - it delivers as promised.

If you read the previews and thought "not for me" then feel affirmed, because 4th Edition doesn't add anything to the game that make it worth changing editions.

And if you have no clue about 4th Edition, then give it a try. At the very worst, you will have some fun roleplaying and killing monsters for a few hours. At best, you might like the game.

**1/2 stars as Advanced D&D.
**** stars as Basic D&D.

It is over simplified and over priced. It is combat oriented only and all powers or spells are all too similar. It seems to want to simulate an online MMORPG but falls way too short for that as well. Characters have too few abilities and the abilities are too limited in their effect to be diverse. Some races and classes are not included anymore. The one thing I was looking forward to was the 3D online part but even that is too expensive. For $10 a month I might as well be playing a real MMORPG. My only guess for the new direction is to get new players who play online in some way or another, and introduce them to table top. Then sucker them in to buying one new book after another, that makes up for the limited scope the first books cover. I can only hope that the fan boys, who think Wizards can do no wrong, sell their 3.5 stuff to used book stores so I can rake them in at a cheap price. In my discussion with others on the 4.0 D&D all veteran gamers agree that it sucks. The DM's Guide does not ever talk about spells. If it outlined ways to make new spells the game would be better. I feel like it is a new Lego set and all the pieces are glued together. The one good thing about the game is the Monster Manual. They have been created with multiple power levels so they will last longer as a viable encounter. They talked about extending the sweet spot for spell casters. Well that is easily done with things like wands, scrolls, rods and staffs. Sorry, I was really hoping for better.