By: Wizards RPG Team Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Wizards of the Coast Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 320 Publication Date: June 06, 2008 Release Date: June 06, 2008
Product Description: The first of three core rulebooks for the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game. The Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game has defined the medieval fantasy genre and the tabletop RPG industry for more than 30 years. In the D&D game, players create characters that band together to explore dungeons, slay monsters, and find treasure. The 4th Edition D&D rules offer the best possible play experience by presenting exciting character options, an elegant and robust rules system, and handy storytelling tools for the Dungeon Master. The Players Handbook presents the official Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game rules as well as everything a player needs to create D&D characters worthy of song and legend: new character races, base classes, paragon paths, epic destinies, powers, magic items, weapons, armor, and much more.
Where do I begin? First let me say that I have been playing D&D since the second printing of the D&D Basic boxed set. I have adapted easily, if somewhat reluctantly to all the different versions throughout the years, except this monstrosity. Let me be clear this is NOT a Dungeons and Dragons Roleplaying game book. This is a tactical miniatures-based wargaming book that attempts to be a paper version of a Computer RPG, that is being peddled under the D&D brand name. This may appeal to eight to ten year olds, but I doubt it. Time will tell. I predict that the 4th Edition will soon be relegated to the bargain bin.
Much clearer than 3.5 So far I must say that I am very pleased with the new Player's Handbook. The material is easy to understand and easy to locate. While I am sad that some of my favorite classes from 3.5 won't be released until PHB2 comes out next year, I am very impressed with what they have done with the classes included in this book. The feeling of each class is still there with less complication. The paragon and epic tiers are much easier to understand and work far better than prestige classes in my opinion, and they still allow characters to retain their starting class. I haven't tried out the multi-classing feats yet myself but they do look pretty good.
The artwork's nice I say this because that's the only thing good about the 4th edition. The new rules are literally computer RPGs in table top form, and the computer game they got it from wasn't all that good.
The races are akward (dragonborn), redundant (eladrin) and lacking (Where are the gnomes? The asimar?). Character classes are flavorless (or should I say "balanced") losing everything that made them a fighter, cleric, wizard, and thief. Now they are all the same "thing" just with different names with similar powers and abilities.
Did they streamline the rules at least one may ask? Well of course they did! They streamlined it to the point that it's no different from an oversimplified table top wargame, eliminating any room for characterization or customization! D & D is now a very linear hack and slash MMORPG that throws off that troublesome burden called IMAGINATION. Now that's progress for ya!
Well maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon who can't see the fact that 4th edition was tailored for those generations brought up on World of Warcraft and Everquest. "These people have the attention span and mental capacity of a gnat!" Pleads the poor WOTC staffer. "We can't stress their brains too much or they'll explode!"
Fine, you need to make a buck I understand.(But it does say something about the generations of today and its FRIGHTENING.) What I cannot forgive is the blatant greed that is infused in the new D & D. You see I'm one of those guys who couldn't wait to get the new rule book or campaign setting because I saw them as more icing for an already delicious cake.
What we have now is a stale pastry that needs a whole lot of extras to just make it palatable. 3.5, 3rd ed. and all the way down to D & D basic were complete games in themselves that allowed people to let their fantasies run wild. The fourth edition on the other hand is deliberately incomplete and made to box people in, forcing them onto one path, which the good people at WOTC know will become very old, very fast. And that's where the "essential" supplements come in, each of them promising to extricate you from the mind numbing blandness which is the Core Rulebooks. For a price of course.
Gygax must be spinning in his grave.
On a final note, when's the Pathfinder RPG coming out?
Not Dungeons and Dragons 4e is an excellent miniature game. It's Heroquest without the cardboard. If that's what I wanted, I would be thrilled. However, I wanted D&D. 4e is an utter failure in that regard.
A great update to the system This book is the meat and potatoes of the new system. My favourite classes and race from the previous edition are missing from it, but I wouldn't knock even a half star off the rating for it as the system itself is just that much of an improvement.
The system draws inspiration and concepts from ye olde BECM D&D rules, as well as AD&D. And it unmistakably evolved from the d20 rules at the core of 3rd Edition. While the rules are very simple, from a tactical standpoint they offer a certain complexity of action and combat movement that moreso than any other edition begs for the use of miniatures (or a suitable substitute). Normally I would find that to be a drawback, but again the rules are just overall so much better that I don't mind.
If I could rate to the half-star, I might knock off a half a star for the formatting. The classes' by-level abilities are essentially like sawed-off spell lists for each class, and they're printed with each class in a sort of run-together fashion that seems a bit chaotic. And the index is a bit anemic.
And as for any reviews comparing the system to video games, or decrying it as the destruction of D&D - take into account that such things were said about 3rd Edition as well.
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