4th Edition Demo
 

So, the group I play D&D with every week tested the demo for 4th edition tonight. At the gaming store we play at, we are the only regular D&D group, thus they wanted to test it out on us. I played a female dwarven fighter. And the other pre-made characters we had were a halfling rogue, dragonborn paladin, human wizard and an elven cleric.

Anyone else tried it?

I'm pretty indifferent about it. At first level, I was already up to 31 HP. But, we fought a mob of first level kobolds, minions with a massive 1 HP, with the superiors up to 36 HP. That was pretty crazy. Oh, and no more feet measurement, it's all in "squares" which I think is pretty ridiculous.

I had some insane "at-will" melee attacks, including reaping strike, and cleave. Otherwise, the fighter was pretty basic, nothing too out of the ordinary. They deal a lot of damage.

The cleric is pretty different however, because everyone has the possibility to heal, called surging, which is pretty helpful. We found that the cleric was pretty complicated, probably the most complicated of the classes we played. The cleric is now the "leader" of the group, while the defenders are now the paladin and fighter.

Some things, like the attacks, have been seriously complicated, but the skills have been simplified, much like 2nd edition. We all felt as though we were playing a video game, rather than role-playing, kind of like WOW. I feel it's based more on roll-playing vs. role-playing, but I could be wrong, it was just a demo.

Our group will probably stick to 3.5 for now, I think we've all agreed on that.

Kobolds with 36 HP?! Odd.

A swarm of those little fuckers takes long enough to kill when they only have 4!

Yep, we spent 2 hours fighting 13 of them...

That's ridiculous....

I'm going to the world game day the 1st weekend in June. I play with 2 groups, one will be changing to 4th Ed and the other plans on sticking with 3.5 at least for now. I went ahead and order the 4th Ed books through Amazon for $66, so I guess I'm commited.

I just torrented 4th edition and it makes more sense as you read the Players Handbook and the DM Guide. Actually, it seems like a lot of fun, and we might switch to it, at least temporarily.

First, I must reiterate the fact that you are the hottest D&D player I know! :p

Now, on to the important stuff... what was your overall thought about 4e? I seem to feel that Wizards has slowly been hosing D&D over time. Frankly, I'm a big AD&D guy, and prefer the original AD&D ruleset (not the basic D&D set from the 70's, but the first hardcover AD&D rulebooks from the early 80s). I was not a HUGE fan of 2e, but it was alright. 3 and 3.5 were underwhelming, imo. Maybe I just miss TSR?! Anyways, I'm curious about 4e, but I don't really play anymore so it's mostly just to see what people think.

Meh. Ive been reading the 4th ed books. Looks like they wanted to get the clerics and MUs more involved, so more healing and more constant damage from the spellcasters. I agree with the poster, they have turned it into a video game. Its pen and paper WOW. I would rather fight 8 2nd edition kobolds with crossbows and a fortified postition, than wade thru a bunch of 1hp ones to fight the boss. But then Im old and crotchety.

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.

I'm going to miss the Monk. I'm sure he's off contemplating the nature of The Planes in the woods some where while perfecting his technique :)

One thing that I did enjoy from everyone's new power's is that everyone will be dishing out tons of damages at higher levels, where as in the past, the 15th level (insert spell caster here) rolling everyone's dice collection to deal damage for the round where the Fighter delt 1d8+X.

Another pro, is that the damage per attack doesn't scale very high per attack. At most, I saw powers that did 8 or 9 dice of damage.

Critical hits are more frightening now that gobs of extra dice are added from magic items and feats.

And yes, it does feel very video game-ish. Mostly since we pen and paper players are a dieing breed, and DnD will live on through BioWare's next installment of Neverwinter Nights or another online game.

I'll be waiting for my copy of The Player's Handbook from Amazon next week.

I never liked the idea of mixing eastern and western culture (knights and samurais) so the missing monk is a good thing in my opinion. The one thing I dont like is how they have two heavy AC melee classes, Warlord and Fighter. The Warlord could easily have become the Bard (which I wish was in the core class book). I'm glad they finally made Rangers better, and made spellcasters more interesting. I might actually try a Wizard/Warlock now.

They also gave trolls and ogres a new look which is tons better than the old forms.

I liked that a lot too.

Nono, not overwhelming... UNDERwhelming... as in not as interesting. I think they are trying to create rules for too many potential scenarios, taking too much out of the hands of the GM and/or forcing more "house rules" to have the classic D&D feel. Feats were a nifty development, but outside of that, I really just prefer AD&D.

Played in the world-wide game day Saturday and I liked what I saw. I played the wizard and having Magic Missile to cast each round without the fear of running out of spells is very nice even with the roll to hit. The warrior has some nice abilities as well and the guy playin the rogue out damaged everyone (like a rogue should) with his abilities. My impression was it has been simplified, but I was handed a pre-generated character sheet so have not created yet I get the books today so need to dig in and see if my initial impression is correct or not..

Anyone else subscribed to the Penny Arcade/PVP Online 4th Edition podcast on wizards.com?


(nerdiest sentence ever?)

Haha, I'm not and it was! :p But I do love me some Penny Arcade...

Pretty hilarious to listen to them playing.

I loved "Jim Darkmagic".

Played it again tonight, for real this time.

I actually like it. My tiefling ranger was doing some insane damage, but our DM made it really fun. He included a ton of non combat encounters which I'm really impressed with. You get XP for role-playing with NPC's and doing skill checks. I really liked that.

The RP and skill XP is a nice change, my group always went for combat over RP (talking our way out of a situation...nah...).

Got my books last night and I'm looking at a tiefling warlock as my first char although the roguey types do great damage too..

One of the guys I play with went and bought the books.....

I'm still a little worried about it, but we're trying it out Sunday.

We'll see how it goes.