mhh maybe the “NEW” dnd is more Plug n Play as Pen n Pencil?
thxs for the article

Which is good and bad. More ppl will have access to a solid game, without having to have a stellar DM. The system is also much faster, and after play testing a bit, flows well.

My concern is that this will hurt the storytelling and roleplay skills that a “deeper” system brings out. Characters no longer move feet, they move squares…you can “respec” your skills as you level. I forsee a lot of group degenrating into number crunching stackers like we see in the MMO world.

For my upcoming 4th edition group, I’ll def be putting restriction and RP behind these tables and skills. I’ll also use the faster combat system to take emphasis off number crunching and add more description to combat.

Fixed, thanks.

I’m curious to see how the game actually plays PnP. The overt molding of the combat system to mirror readily noticeable MMORPG tropes is jarring to me in MMORPGs – I can’t even begin to imagine how obnoxious it would be in a PnP game.

I’m all for cross-fertilization between CRPGs and PnP RPGs. I guess I just don’t like it when the features crossing over are the ones I despise.

The question is, am I curious enough to actually dedicate a session of excellent PnP gaming to testing just how much I hate this new edition of D&D?

I have yet to re-norm my expectations for what is a worthwhile spell. 3d6 still looks really lousy. Maybe it will be better if I become more familiar with how hard it is to drop monsters.

They’ve added implements as spellcaster weapons, so having a magical holy symbol if you’re a cleric or a better want if you’re a wizard actually matters; on top of that, wizards can choose what type of implement they specialize in, and it has a minor but useful game effect. For that matter, while fighter weapon choice kind of mattered previously, it’s right up in the front of concerns now, with they type of weapon you like using determining what abilities you’re probably going to want to take.

I don’t like that they released with so few classes, even though I understand why they did. I know that there’s several coming down the pipe shortly, the first being the swordmage in the Player’s Guide to the Forgotten Realms. It’s an odd choice, given that I’d think getting the more familiar classes in earlier would have a higher rank; in particular, there’s druids all over the Forgotten Realms, so I have no idea how they’re going to skirt that.

On the DM side, I’ve run one of the demos and found it to be a much more pleasant experience than 3e. It all seemed to run much more smoothly, and that’s after only having played a couple of demos as a player. I’m glad that they’ve put more fluffy stuff in the DMG, because that’s, arguably, the harder side of DMing. I also like their default setting assumptions. The kind of safe and developed world that you see in FR and even, to a lesser extent, Greyhawk are gone, and replace with a “points of light” setting. Villages, towns, and cities are relatively safe places in a sea of dark and dangerous forests, ruins, mountains, and caves. Traveling more than a day outside of town is very dangerous, and adventurers coming into a new town are likely to have the whole town coming out to ask for help with their troubles. It’s very wild west, and very much like the way D&D started out.