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D&D 4th Ed.

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42:
Since it has now been officially released, thoughts?

My inititial scanning of the books tells me that it is a very different game than what has come before. It feels a lot more like WoW and a lot less like original D&D. There is a greater emphasis on combat and less focus on non-combat situations, which is a little disappointing to me. However, I've heard from play-testers that may not be entirely true. Many say non-combat situations actually run a lot smoother and have more variety now.

Fellfrosch:
Personally, I happen to believe that non-combat stuff does not require a whole lot of rules: you just talk to people, and maybe every now and then you make a bluff check. 4E went to great lengths to simplify everything, including combat, social interaction, travel, down time, and so on. I'm very impressed overall.

Spriggan:
I think I'm most disappointed with Wizard's attempts to take out as much of the randomness as they can, I think if they could have removed dice from the game completely they would have and just made attacks auto hit and miss and damage a set value.

There's no random treasure, every time you play you're supposed to get the exact same amount

There's no reason to roll for attributes since the rules state if you get better then what you can generate via the point system the GM should make you re-roll or the GM should just change your attributes to something more in like with what everyone else has.

There are a lot of skill checks that are either you can do them or you cant and there's no rolling involved.

Eagle Prince:
The rules are a lot different than 3rd edition.  The changes between 3.0 and 3.5 are almost trivial comparing 3.5 to 4th edition.  Even comparing it to Star Wars Saga, SWS is a lot closer to 3.5/d20 Modern than 4th edition.  Speaking of Saga, that game has been a blast so far.

I played a couple pre-made adventures.  It's fun... but more fun?  No.  Faster combat?  No.  Faster character creation?  It took us over 3 hours to make a 9th level dwarf fighter... so no, not faster.  Some of the rules are also counter-intuitive.  AC/Reflex is the best of Dex or Int?  Um, okay.  Fortitude is best of Str or Con?  What??  Open Lock DCs, 20 "heroic", 30 "paragon", 35 "epic"... what the hell does that even mean?  I get I'm going against harder locks at epic level, but explain it the way you did in 3.5, show DCs for poor locks, average locks, good locks, etc.  Not some metagame "epic lock" DC.

So its a fun game, but so far I couldn't say its a better game.  Some things are better, but some things are worse.  Supposedly it was going to be more "balanced" too, but clerics and wizards can still be gods (literally) at high levels.  They always were more powerful than fighters, they still are.  Nuff said.

42:
The more I read, the more 4th edition seems like Orginal D&D (before 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 3.5). Multiclassing is basically gone and each class is limited to just a few options. The classes are more strictly confined. And noncombat has taken a backseat again.

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