Jenna

If you think 3rd edition is overwhelming, 4th edition will probably be even worse.

There's a lot of pros and cons.

Cons: I think elves are taking over the racial group. There's no longer gnomes, or half orcs, instead they added a few, one of which I find kind of ridiculous, the Eladrin. While I think they look cool, they're just a version of elves. So basically, elves are more "nature" beings in this edition, and the Eladrin are kind of "high elves" in a way, they embrace civilization more. Why did they do this? I think it's because they got rid of the druid class. So now there's Eladrin, Elves, half-elves AND halflings. Which leads to another thing, they got rid of a few classes, including the sorcerer, druid, monk, and bard. I think bards are some of the best to really role-play, and I think this book is definitely based more on roll-playing than role-playing. They go into a lot more detail in the DM Guide about how to set up fights for the DM, which is nice, but pretty much means a lot of fighting will be going on, which is good, but I get sick of just going from room to room, fighting and getting XP, then going on. I want some character interaction. I also feel that character creation is a little less personal in 4th edition. Everyone has a role, you're either a defender, a leader, a controller or a striker. Paladins and Fighters are no long leaders (and to think of a Paladin not being a leader is REALLY hard for me) they're the defenders. The Warlord (new class), is basically the leader, and main fighter, along with the Cleric. There's no longer any special schools of magic for wizards.

Pros: A few things have been simplified, much like 2nd edition. The skills are now a lot shorter and more grouped (thievery includes pick pocketing, sleight of hand, disable trap, etc.) Which I think is pretty nice because the 3rd edition list was rather overwhelming. Also, they now have specific paragon paths for higher level characters, which are actually REALLY cool. Some new cool races include the Tiefling, which basically is a human with demonic characterists (tail, and horns), and the dragonborne. And I'm pretty interested in the warlock, who deals with arcane magic, but to be honest, I haven't read a lot about them quite yet. Another thing that I like is that you are able to up your ability scores a little more often. I always thought it was odd in 3rd edition that you kept getting better and leveling up, but your ability scores stayed relatively the same for awhile. There's less languages, which I happen to like because it got overwhelming in 3rd edition. And each time you level up you get some pretty unique stuff, which I think is pretty cool. Also, the combat attacks are much more intricate, which can be a good or a bad thing I suppose. That's the part that reminds me of a video game.