Dungeons and Dragons Core Rulebook Gift Set, 4th Edition

Wizards RPG Team
$54.59 via Amazon

People who have brought this wrote:

PROS:

- Balanced and simplified.
- Mostly logical and intuitive.
- Plenty of variety and options.
- Faster paced than previous versions, which increases the fun factor.

CONS:

- UNREALISTIC HIT POINTS SYSTEM. I've always disliked the unrealistic way that D&D handles hit points. It never made sense that a high level, but 70 year old human wizard, can survive a building falling on him (or that a low level thief trying to guillotine the old Wizard's throat with a heavy battle axe while the Wizard sleeps). Meanwhile, a muscular fighter in his 20s would die instantly in these two scenarios just because he's 1st level. I've heard all the "logic" behind D&D hit points, but it still insults everyone's intelligence and demands a bit too much fantasy in such scenarios. It's a pity WotC didn't correct this design flaw to something like the Alternity system. In that system your hit points are based on your Constitution, and it barely goes up as you gain experience. The only way to protect yourself in Alternity was to get heavy armor, which absorbs damage. Still, I can live with the HP flaw.

- UNREALISTIC HEALING SURGES. In 4e, your character can instantly boost his hit points by 25% of his maximum value. If his max HP is 100, then, when he has only 3 HP left, he can magically jump to 28 HP. Oh, and he can do this several times a day. C'mon. Yes, the previous system was flawed: you had to have many potions of healing and/or a generous Cleric in the party. However, the concept of a healing surge just feels too much like a video game. The idea that characters can heal massive injuries in seconds and climb out of death's door without any magic or divide intervention is a bit too much fantasy for me.
One solution would be to do away with surges and just give characters far more hit points. However, this opens another can of worms.
Therefore, my house-rule is a kludgey solution, but it helps add a touch of "fantasy realism" to this new healing surge feature that I simply find hard to swallow.
Alt-Rule: At the start of his adventuring life, each hero obtains a divine amulet that effectively gives the same healing surges, but the power comes from their deity via the amulet. As long as they don't piss off their deity, the amulet continues to work. Each character comes up with a story of how they got their amulet. Wizards and Clerics can make their implements their "amulets." If they lose their amulet, they can get a new one from their house of worship, although it would be more interesting to have them go on a challenging quest to find a replacement amulet. It's not a great solution, but I can stomach it more than the standard 4e rule, which has us believe that the heroes have this innate ability to heal themselves quickly. In D&D, it seems easier to believe that such a healing ability would come from an artifact, not from an innate ability.

- DEATH HAS LOST ITS STING. It's not only relatively easy to Raise Dead, but it's super easy to recover from it (just achieve 3 milestones and you're as good as new). In short, in 4e the fear of death is nearly gone. In old D&D, you would permanently lose one point of Constitution with each resurrection and there was a percentage chance that you wouldn't even be able to be resurrected. When you combine surges with easy resurrections, characters can now truly laugh at the face of death.

- COMBAT IS STILL TOO COMPLEX AND TIME-CONSUMING. They've come a long way at simplifying combat and they deserve credit for that. However, I still dislike that a single battle can take up an hour of gaming to complete. Although you lose detail and realism as you speed up a combat system, I wouldn't mind paying that price. I'm into roleplaying, not rollplaying. If I want nonstop die rolling, I'd just play a wargame with loads of miniatures. In a gaming session, combat still occupies roughly 75% of the gaming time. Although that might be an improvement from 85%, it's still way too high. I wish the combat system were even more simple and faster.
Possible simplifications: get rid of opportunity attacks and forbid the "targeting" or "cursing" of an enemy (which results in the annoying task of keeping track of them). Consider having AC cover all defenses (thereby eliminating the 3 other defense stats). Have the damage be automatically determined based on how much you exceed the "to hit" goal. All these ideas are radical, but there must be a way to speed up combat without totally giving up realism.

- SKILL SYSTEM NEEDS WORK: Characters should be able to laser focus on a skill and become insanely good at it if they are willing to pay the price (i.e., not be that good at lots of other skills). Unfortunately, 4E forces players to spread out their training. You get 5 points when you initially train in something, but from then on, you can't purposely train more on one skill to improve it disproportionately to your other skills. You improve moderately everywhere. This is boring and adds little to game balance. If I give 50 skill points to a character and say, "Spend it as you will" (with a few basic limitations), then it would be just like how players assign points to their ability scores during character creation. The balance would still basically be there (i.e., every 10th level character has x many skill points to dole out), but players would enjoy greater skill specialization.

TO MOST CRITICS:

The main gripe that 4e critics have is that they dislike the lack of flexibility of 4e. It's easy to criticize, so let's all put our game designer hat on for second.

Let's rate a game on 1-100 scale, in terms of the variety of characters you can make. Let's say 3e gave you the capacity to make characters that were anywhere from a 50 to 95. In comparison, 4e lets you make characters anywhere from 75 to 85.

Result? One has more flexibility; the other has more balance.

(Let's not quibble about the numbers I picked, just follow the logic.)

Therefore, you can't have it both ways: you can't have more options AND more balance. The more bells and whistles you put in, the less balance you'll get. The more balance you strive for, the fewer options you must give the players. There's no way around this, from a game design perspective. As you pull down one lever, the other goes up.

Moreover, those who complain about 4e's "lack of options" are overreacting. First, you have plenty of Races to choose from (dozens if you include supplements). Second, you have plenty of classes to choose from (even more if you include supplements). You can specialize. You want an illusionist? Just pick powers/spells that emphasize illusions. Not enough? Invent some. Finally, you can always add color by roleplaying the character anyway you want.

However, all these options may not be enough for some. That's when you can toss out the rulebook and start making new rules! You want variety? You hate all the balance in 4e? Then make all players roll their ability scores instead of having them choose a standard array of scores. With die rolling, you'll get some who are quite powerful, while others are quite weak.

You hate how everyone has a power that causes 6d6 of damage? Give one or two characters a magic weapon that causes 12d6. Or better yet, one that causes 1-100 HP of damage. Now that's fun and random. You pull the trigger and it might not even kill an orc. Other times it takes down a dragon. How's that for spicing things up? If 4e is too boring and balanced for you, it's easy to spice it up.

In short, 4e is just a framework. Its default settings are balanced. And it's about time too! D&D has always suffered from being unbalanced. Wizards were always painfully weak at low levels and painfully strong at high levels. Fighters always got more boring as they went up in levels. It's great that all the classes and races are finally are in sync.

Finally, the old rules were too complex. Sure, if you've played D&D for as long as I have, they're don't seem complicated. However, try explaining them to a novice. You can do it, but 4e is much easier. (It's still not super easy though.)

CONCLUSION:
For those that value the roleplaying and teamwork aspects of D&D, you'll love 4e because its rules are streamlined and simplified from previous versions. That translates into:

* Less time looking up and debating the rules and more time roleplaying.

* Less time rolling dice in complicated combat and more time roleplaying.

* More balanced characters, which leads to more equal contribution and teamwork.

There's still a MYRIAD of options to choose from. Frankly, I'm still overwhelmed. In 4e you can play a Bugbear, Doppelganger, Drow, Githyanki, Githzerai,Gnoll, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Kobold, Minotaur, and even an Orc! And people say there is not enough variety or options? Please!

If you want even more options, then bend the rules as much as you want, just like people did in all the other previous editions of D&D.

I've been playing D&D since its the late 1970s. 4E is part of the evolution toward logic and balance. Yes, 3e was more flexible, but it was also less balanced than 4e.

Since 4e still has plenty of flexibility, I'd rather not trade in game balance to get even more options. I value balance and simplicity for the sake of more roleplaying and fairness. Power gamers and min-maxers will probably disagree with me. However, for the rest of us who like roleplaying and balance, D&D has taken a big step in the right direction.

Now if it could just further streamline combat (by forgoing some realism and detail), improve the skills system, and make death scary again, then this RPG would get 5 stars.

P.S. That 5 star RPG is extinct. It's called Alternity.

All three 4th Edition core rulebooks in one handsome slipcase.

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.

This gift set provides all three 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons core rulebooks (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual) in a handsome slipcase that looks great on any bookshelf.