Thoughts on the 4th Edition

Disclaimer 1: I’ve only just started reading the books. I’m only writing and responding to what I have read so far. Treat this as a work in progress.

Disclaimer 2: This is just my opinion.

Disclaimer 3: For technichal reasons our current campaign is staying in 3.5. Our next campaign will probably utilize the Black Company Campaign setting rules, although it might use some of the 4E rules too. Still working on it.

Player’s Handbook

• The book has wonderful artwork. It’s also a pleasure to read – much easier on the eye than the 3.5 and 3.0 PHB (bigger font, less text, and no distracting background)
• Alignments are nice. I still forsee problems there. Players have a tendency to screw with alignment all of the time. Alligence (d20 Modern) might be a better choice for some DMs and players. But players that have played with alignment for years will find it easy to adjust to the “new” definitions and new players won’t have problems learning it. This feature can be imported with little effort to 3.5 games, to cut down on some of the alignment arguments.
• Roles: Assigning each class a role is very WOW flavoured for me, but it’s also a good idea. It allows DMs to control character creation, making sure that the players don’t step on each others toes. How much it will actually work will probably still depend on individual builds and player play styles, but it’s nice that roles are clear from the start. If you aren’t utilizing roles in the 3rd edition, I highly recommend them (but don’t use the 4th edition roles).
• The “Personality” section (p.23-24) and the “Background” section (p.24) is absolutely priceless. It’s short, focused, aimed at helping the player to play a character and the DM to develop that character, minimalist and yet complete. Both experienced and novice players in any edition could and should use these sections when creating a character and when playing a character.
• Languages: there are less languages available and also less languages known to each character (you start with 2-3 and can learn more by expending feats). This should open new possibilities for DMs – misunderstanding are great for both humour and tension.
• Retraining: It’s now part of the basic mechanism. This concept was first introduced in the PHBII and it should cut down on the “Boy does my character suck, I’m building a new one” syndrom. Since the basic mechanism supports retraining, DMs should consider extremely limiting whole character changes (especially since it seems hard for anyone to really suck at this game).
• The characters begin the game as heroes. That’s going to be a big problem to some DMs, adventures and Campaign Settings (Ebberon, for instance). I have, though, already seen some house ruling on this point that still allows for the “I’m just a poor farm hand” story that so many DMs and players love. I’m still not sure about this point – need to read more on how it’s done. It will work fine, I think, with the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, as the characters there really are “adventurers” (that’s what they do for a living) anyway.
• Character Sheet: nicely built, obviously keyed for quick combat and encounter resolution. Very nice explanations.
• Races:
  • General thoughts:
    • The “Play a X if you want…” are insulting to the intelligence of the readers, no less. The only thing worth reading there is “to be a member of a race that favours”, which is the recommendation that replaces the “favoured class”. This is a good move in my opinion – giving room for more player control and versatility.
    • Speed is given only in squares, reinforcing the widely vocalized opinion that this game is more battle mat and board game oriented. We’ll see how it develops, though.
    • Sample adventurers are given for each race. That’s a nice move that will help new players and help veteran players figure out the flavour of the new races.
    • The “Race Characteristics” is also a good move that will help players roleplay their character, or DMs to easily change the character’s flavour if they want without changing too many stats.