Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition

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Player's Handbook
Player's Handbook 2
Should have been the Player's Handbook, ended up being the cover art for Dungeon Delve
Dungeon Master's Guide
Monster Manual

System

The fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the grand daddy of RPGs.

Basics

Nearly every roll consists of making a single D20 roll, plus a modifier, against a target number. Saving throws have been replaced with Defenses that work like AC; the term 'Saving Throw' is now used to refer to a roll to recover from a durational effect.

Character Generation

Chargen is simplified compared to 3rd Edition (although still time consuming) - skills are all-or-nothing, you either have training in them or you don't. Each character gains a selection of Powers which can be used at will, once per encounter, or once per day, in ascending order of power. These abilities often consist of an attack plus some special effect, such as knocking someone prone, setting them on fire, or moving yourself or your opponent. There are also five possible alignments, none of which have much effect on gameplay any more: Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil and Chaotic Evil. So all you chaotic good drow rip-offs are gone.

Races

The character races in the PHB are:

In addition to the races in the PHB, the following player races are in the MM and other sourcebooks: (all of them are "LA +0", to put things in 3.5 parlance):

Character races in the PHB 2 are:

Classes

Character classes in the first PHB consist of:

4e Classes table
  Leader Defender Striker Controller
Martial Warlord Fighter Ranger
Rogue
Divine Cleric Paladin Avenger Invoker
Arcane Bard
Artificer		 Swordmage Warlock
Sorcerer		 Wizard
Primal Shaman Warden Barbarian Druid
Psionic Monk Psion
Seeker
  • Cleric (Role: Leader, Power Source: Divine)
  • Fighter (Role: Defender, Power Source: Martial)
  • Paladin (Role: Defender, Power Source: Divine)
  • Ranger (Role: Striker, Power Source: Martial)
  • Rogue (Role: Striker, Power Source: Martial)
  • Warlock (Role: Striker, Power Source: Arcane)
  • Warlord (Role: Leader, Power Source: Martial)
  • Wizard (Role: Controller, Power Source: Arcane)

Classes from the second PHB are:

  • Avenger (Role: Striker, Power Source: Divine)
  • Barbarian (Role: Striker, Power Source: Primal)
  • Bard (Role: Leader, Power Source: Arcane)
  • Druid (Role: Controller, Power Source: Primal)
  • Invoker (Role: Controller, Power Source: Divine)
  • Shaman (Role: Leader, Power Source: Primal)
  • Sorcerer (Role: Striker, Power Source: Arcane)
  • Warden (Role: Defender, Power Source: Primal)

Classes in other books include:

  • Artificer (Role: Leader, Power Source: Arcane)
  • Swordmage (Role: Defender, Power Source: Arcane)
  • Monk (Role: Striker, Power Source: Psionic)
  • Psion (Role: Controller, Power Source: Psionic)

Gameplay

Gameplay is divided into encounters. The GM selects monsters and traps up to a total experience value as recommended for the size of the party, and the encounter plays out as a tactical miniatures game. Non-combat encounters consist of "skill challenges", where skill checks (sometimes of multiple types) are made in sequence. XP is awarded for non-combat challenges and quests, as well as for combat encounters.

Each character can take one standard action (such as an attack), one move action, one minor action, and any number of free actions per turn. Each character also gets one immediate interrupt or immediate reaction per round, which may be used outside of the regular turn order. Generally each character will use their standard action to make use of an attack power. Characters are highly specialised as noted above, and fit into MMO-style combat roles of controller (lockdown/AoE), defender (tank), leader (buffer/healer), striker (DPS).

Characters level up from level 1 to 30; with the scope of the game changing every ten levels. At level 30 characters are expected to undergo some form of apotheosis.

Setting

The setting of 4e is highly generic and designed to give the DM a relatively blank canvas to paint on. This default setting consists of a wild medieval landscape in which isolated human and demihuman communities ('Points of Light') struggle to survive after the fall of a greater empire. This provides an explanation for the large areas of wilderness and many ruins for monsters to hide in, and the need for adventurers as opposed to more regulated militias. Which doesn't make any Goddamn sense, but okay.

The Planescape cosmology, present in 2e and 3e, has been removed, and a much vaguer "Astral Sea" cosmology has been put in its place.

The DMG contains an extensive section explaining the tropes of the setting and how they might be used, and also suggesting ways in which the DM can deviate from them to make the setting his own.

D&D 4e on /tg/

The reaction of some fans.

Since its announcement 4e has been a source of controversy and trolling on /tg/. Its supporters consider it to have made D&D simple and fun. Its critics have numerous objections to the system and setting, often referring to it as 'shit twinkie' (with the implication that they had been expecting a certain type of D&D goodness and sorely disappointed by what was actually delivered.)

It is virtually guaranteed that any 4e thread will descend into trolling within the first dozen replies.

Criticism

Some of the criticisms leveled at 4e include:

  • The powers themselves are very cookie-cutter in nature, as most rely on a number of stock effects (such as "Slide", "Slow", "Stun", "Spend a healing surge", etc.)
  • The fluff descriptions of the powers are incomprehensible. The world-fluff is also generally silly - even if some argue it is actually unnecessary to pay attention to the core fluff at all it still feels like a bad writer's fantasy heartbreaker. Examples also include the infamous Bear Lore check which requires an unusually high Nature Knowledge check to know that bears use their claws to attack. Give that one a second to settle before you continue reading.
  • Characters are too durable, reducing the fear of death and TPK. On the other hand, a series of playtest combats carried out by Touhoufags show that a party that knows what it's doing and uses group tactics well will cut through encounters several levels higher than themselves like a hot knife through butter.
  • Lack of content and rules to cover various situations are rationalized with "OH YOU JUST LET THE DM COME UP WITH AN AD-HOC SOLUTION AND WING IT." This wasn't any less viable in any other edition, but now this is somehow played off as a strength.
  • The skill challenge system, which was supposed to cover non-combat action sequences, was completely broken as-published, to the point that difficulties were inverted (in many cases it was impossible to accrue four successes before two failures on a complexity 1 skill challenge, while it was often nearly impossible to fail a high-complexity skill challenge), and the published examples of negotiation made Fighters completely useless in skill challenges because their lone class social skill, Intimidate, generated automatic failures (which was completely against the intention of the skill challenge rules). The mechanics have since been errataed into a more usable form.
  • Some feel that the decrease in rules, while welcomed, didn't go far enough. Some people wanted to open up the DMG and see "BULLSHIT IT." Many people want to pay hundreds of dollars for books with no content. Afterall, that's what "streamlined" is, right?
  • Overreliance on unimaginative 'adjectivenoun' naming conventions, for instance: Darkleaf Armor: Darkleaves from the gravetrees of the Shadowfell give this armor its protective properties..
  • Lack of non-combat content such as crafting. This criticism partially refers to the reduced skill list and partially to the fact that the greatest focus of the game are obviously the Powers which are largely combat-oriented. The "Adventurer's Vault" item supplement that came out adds to the strength of this argument; it reads like a WoW item encyclopedia.
  • Fragile system: play like the devs or break the game.
  • The Mongol dilemma--soldiers on horseback can defeat a number of the game's monsters by virtue of the monsters not having decent ranged attacks.
  • Giving a flying monster a bow breaks the game.
  • Blatantly obvious RNG-sodomizing powers that were somehow overlooked.
  • Various broken abilities that demonstrate a lack of playtesting and/or willful disregard for legitimate concerns (Orbizard, Demigod epic destiny, rangers soloing Orcus, and so on).
  • Complete lack of internal consistency: assuming a dynamic world in which NPCs are cognizant (and thus not static "mobiles" to kill for XP and loot) causes the game to break down.
  • The entire economic system is a clusterfuck of not-sense-making.
  • Vastly dissociated mechanics: how do I describe what's going on in a way that makes sense? Too many powers cripple the ability to narrate a cohesive scene outside of a completely metagame interpretation.
  • Daily powers for non-casters. "I can only swing for 6[W] + Strength damage once per day!"
  • Entire armies of high-level minions die in a sandstorm.
  • Healing surges; cartoon-character healing.
  • A lack of diversity and interesting classes caused by the standardization of all powers and classes.
  • Classes based on mechanics rather than fluff + mechanics. (Stat combos are not classes. "Does damage" is not a class concept.)
  • Shoehorning the game into hackan 'n' slashan mode.
  • Use of Dungeons and Dragons terms in 4e abilities that don't make any sense. Examples: The 'Sleep' spell doesn't put anything to sleep in 4e terms, 'Disintegrate' doesn't disintegrate, spells and rituals named after characters, even though there is no way to research spells and rituals, among others.
  • Elimination of iconic spells, class features, and whole classes in the name of balance--try playing an enchanter, summoner, or necromancer in Core 4e. Try playing a druid in Core 4e. Or a ranger with an animal companion. Or a witch with a familiar. Or a bard. Or a monk. (EDIT: Actually most of these classes have been deferred to other books [sold separately] rather than outright eliminated. Good news is they're all considered 'core,' as though the term still had meaning.)
  • Exception-based design wanking, plus shit like the four different "evil eye" variations. Includes ability interaction and "How the hell do I adjudicate this?"
  • Usage of page 42 to replace actual rules.
  • HP bloat resulting in grinding and "padded sumo" at higher levels
  • Solo encounters suck--they're boring grindfests.
  • Ritual system is retarded.
  • Instead of eliminating the 15-minute workday, the devs put everyone on the 15-minute workday schedule.
  • Swathes of poorly-written and vaguely-worded mechanics.
  • Everyone playing the same class is generally superior to everyone playing a different class.

See also

External Links

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