Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook: Roleplaying Game Core Rules, 4th Edition

I've been doing D&D and other roleplay games for many years now and I have to say I love the changes Wizards has made for this version. I really didn't care for 3rd edition, and never touched 3.5 because of all the minor details that had to be taken care of to do a simple task. This version has completely overhauled all this and made the game enjoyable to play again. A few years ago I wrote my own rpg game based off rules from all the different games I have played, and have scrapped that for 4th ed. I love how they decreased the skill list, grouping many like ablities together, and created powers for each class to add some creativity and imagination to combat.

The Players Handbook is a great starting point for new players or those looking to get into D&D for the first time, but to actually run a game you will at least want The Dungeon Masters Guide and The Monsters Manual.

Tis the season for yet another edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game. I have been playing D&D since the old classic Basic/Expert etc then switched to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition. Now we have hit 4th edition of the game. Each edition has brought changes some editions brought more changes some editions just brought superficial changes...

4th edition is a complete change and overhaul of the game. None of the earlier editions changed the game so much. Some people love the changes some do not (for myself, after all the editions I have been through I have realized that I just enjoy RPG's particularly D&D) D&D whatever the edition, has always been standard all other RPG's are compared to.

As for this edition of the rules it has its strengths and weaknesses. After having played a couple games of 4th ed. it has been fun. What more can you ask of a game from that?

One important note: There has been errata posted for the players handbook, dungeon masters guide and the monster manual as well as the DM screen. Make sure to check out the TSR/wizards of the coast website under D&D products and download the corrections and rule changes that have been released after this product was published.

I think this takes you to the updates

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/updates


In short if you want to play D&D 4th edition you are going to have to get the players handbook so go ahead and get it ya know you want to :) .

I've read the rules to so-called "4th Edition D&D" and this, as many have pointed out is not really D&D. This is WoW fraudulently posing as D&D.

I can't say I'm surprised since Hasbro bought Wizards of the Coast. For those who don't know - Hasbro is, simply put, the evil empire of the game world. They are a corporation - their duty (not just goal) is to extract as much money from customers as possible, as they are obviously doing with this premature, dumbed-down, and incomplete release of a new edition of D&D. If you don't believe me, look at what they did when they bought the amazing gaming company, Avalon Hill - they fired all of the gamemakers immediately. Now, nearly all of the new, great games are coming from Germany.

It feels to me as though younger players will take to 4e and older players will stick to 3.5e from what I have read and seen.

My comments are general - I have only read the books, not played. I have spent too much money on books and too much time converting my adventures to change to 4e, especially with 4.5e right around the corner.

My main gripe isn't even with the rules changes but with the changes in the milieux. This world and multiverse is not D&D to me. D&D is alignments and spells and the Planes in the Great Wheel. Demons and dragons are monsters, not teammates. The tragedy of the Drow is that they are lost evil elves, not fey.

At my local store, there is NO interest in 4e at all, apart from the initial curiosity - all campaigns played there are 3.5.

To the 4e players, I wish you well. But there was no need for this radical change and my regular 3.5 group and I are soooo happy to keep on playing as we have been for the past eight years.

You cannot have any more of my money, WOTC. Well, except for D&D minis! ;)

I like that the 4th edition series of books look like text books. Most of the 3.0/3.5 books added a "yellowing" or worn look to the pages to make them seem like ancient tomes, but for me that just cluttered the pages and reduced the contrast between the print and the background to such an extent that it slowed reading and made skimming more difficult. It was just one major, pointless headache. As a DM, what I want from my books is information presented in a way that I can quickly process, like a text book. I like black text on a white background so I can skim the text faster when looking for something.

Now "yellowing" or artificially aging things like handouts for players is fine because that is usually for things like maps or illustrations, or text that is not longer than a couple of pages. But when I have a dozen gaming sourcebooks to skim through, each 200 to 400 pages in length, all of that artificial yellowing and aging just gets in the way unnecessarily.

And if artificially yellowing and aging pages of gaming sourcebooks is such a good thing, why don't all fantasy novels do the same thing? One can read a medieval fantasy novel that consists of black text with white or off-white background and still be immersed in the setting. So why clutter up gaming sourcebooks with artificial yellowing and aging? It is completely unnecessary and counter-productive. So I really like the clean and clear appearance of the black text on white background of the 4th edition books.

That said, I am not yet sold on 4th edition and all of the crazy super-powers available to characters. Maybe 4th edition should be re-named "Legion of the Superheroes" (of course out-of-control feats and prestige classes in later 3.5 books was also super-heroish). I also don't like how lots of the attacks/powers of one character class are so similar in effect to the attacks/powers of other classes, just given different wow-sounding names.

Still, I like a few things about 4th edition, for example giving mages a few more things to do at low levels is nice, and the concept of one-hit minions is neat for setting up battles with hordes. Some may say those two examples are "super-heroish" too, but I am not saying I like the extent of all of the additional things mages (and for that matter other classes) can do in 4e, and as for battles with hordes of minions, that can be controlled by the DM so it is a once-in-a-while thrill for the players and not a constant super-heroish occurrence in every encounter.

So 3/5 stars for now. If I can figure out a way to house-rule away the generic super-heroishness of 4th edition, maybe I will up it to 4/5.