So fourth edition has officially descended, and the nay-sayers are out in droves. Why did they even bother making 4e? Are they just looking for another source of income? I won’t spend a dime on 4e – I’ve already invested hundreds of dollars on 3.5!

Reading through the blogs and articles from game testers, designers, and the research team at wizards, it was clear they had many goals when designing fourth edition (and, yes, I’m sure making money was one of them – it is a company after all). Reading through some of the articles, designers had the goals of:

  • Discarding or changing rules that were never used due to confusion or complication.
  • Making each level of play fun, balanced, and manageable, and to keep high-level characters as entertaining, controllable, and as easy to create as low-level characters
  • Having levels play in similar manners – a 15th level character should not be so bogged down as to slow the game to a halt. A 15th level character has more powerful abilities, not necessarily 80 more abilities. How daunting was it for a 15th level cleric to prepare spells from a list of what was probably close to 200 choices?
  • Ensuring that each class has abilities that are entertaining, interesting, and can be used in a variety of ways so that characters always have something to do in combat.

So if any of these goals do not match what you would want in a role playing system then, yes, you may not enjoy fourth edition. However, I encourage you to read on…

Dungeons and Dragons 4e is focused on the story – not the skills, spells, and magic items. Players are not forced to take feats that they don’t want just to get to abilities that they do want. Skill challenges allow for the occasional ‘flub’ of a social interaction without making the NPCs riot. Characters can try new combat moves rather than say, “wait, what is step six of maintaining a grapple that will lead to a pin?”

One of the best changes is that characters now have a real chance of surviving first level – and have a little fun doing it! Gone are the one encounter days. You know, you’ve just finished breakfast when suddenly an arrow from an orc manages to bury its way into the kidney of the wizard, scoring 12 points of damage. The cleric moves to him and spontaneously casts cure light, raising his friend’s total to -2. Next round he casts again, bringing him to full as the other members of the party slay the orc. The cleric thanks his god, heals the fighter who bravely charged into battle, and then realizes he has used all his first level spells in his first eighteen seconds of action. Oh well, it is 9:45 in the morning - time to sleep!

I am curious how many times a day a low level cleric did not spontaneously cast cure spells? Healing surges, at will powers, and letting the cleric ‘cure’ you with a minor action all are positives. Short rests are good as well.

Undoubtedly the most fun change is that Fourth edition characters always have something to do. There is the resource management of daily powers, but fighters can do more than just ‘walk up to the enemy and swing’, and wizards can do more than ‘delay because I need to save my spells’. This, again, gives the game more enjoyment. And there are so many creative ways to use the powers. Already someone in my group used his rogue ability to throw someone down a pit.

Death rules have much more drama as well – nobody, not even the DM, knows when an unconscious PC will send his spirit off. Gone are the days of, “well we have at least four rounds until he’s at -10, so instead of healing him I think I’ll attack again…” Players know they have at least two rounds to live, but beyond that is anyone’s guess. Plus, the fact that the saving throw death count doesn’t reset until after a rest means you’ll want to get that fallen comrade up again as quickly as possible.

All of these improvements make a better game because it makes the game more entertaining. Characters won’t spend round after round ‘delaying because they don’t have anything better to do’ or hearing ‘nope, you are still paralyzed.’ Short of their PC being turned to stone or dead, a player is always in the game. There is drama in the game again. And there is story telling.

Way back in 2000, when Third Edition first came out, there were cries of foul: ‘this isn’t really DnD anymore.’ said the nay-sayers back then. After all, how can you have a Dungeons and Dragons game that allows a 20th level dwarven paladin to stand next to a 20th level dwarven sorcerer? Never mind the fact that the classes make no sense; demi-humans can’t reach 20th level, can they? And clerics that can use swords? And that human is multi-classed! That is just wrong… and how can he have an armor class of 18? On top of all of this, there are only three saving throws and only one experience chart! Outrageous! I am SO going to house rule that stuff out!

Insert ‘rolling to hit for magic missile, four defense scores, and no barbarians’ into the 3e version of the rant above.

Yet through all of the controversy, DnD is alive and still kicking hard. Wizards does not release sales information, but Fourth Edition has been officially out for less than a week, and major online retailers are already sold out. The gift set is ranked in the top five in books on Amazon (hopefully everyone ordered through dragonavenue’s link!) and is in the top twenty at Barnes and Noble (and my guess is it would have been higher there as well, but like Amazon they sold out quickly.) The game continues to grow, and Wizards continues to meet the demand. Many people will hold out (as many did when 2e became 3e) but that is also one of the beauties of this game. Nobody will put a gun to your head to change systems. If you have a group that loves the old rules, stick with them. You have your books and nobody is taking them away.

After all, no matter what edition you love, it is all about dice rolling, cracking old jokes, quoting Monty Python, and dropping evil enemies. What can be more fun?