Well I'm currently wrapping my grubby mitts and grubbier mind around the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, a roleplaying game that has been with me through every phase of my roleplaying "life" to date.
There's been some outcry about this edition, as there was when 2nd Ed became 3rd and indeed when 3rd was refined as 3.5. Hell there was probably an outcry when 1st edition was replaced by first, but that was firmly before my time, so I shall not speak of it here.
For what it's worth, I've loved the game in all it's iterations. When second became third, I was deeply impressed with the clean simplicity of the core mechanic. They removed 90% of the need to reference tables When 3.5 came along, it worked as a nice tidying of the rules. Still very much in the spirt of 3E, but different enough to merit the change in numbers.
And now 4th Edition is upon us. As befits a new edition, the mechanics are a leap beyond the 3rd Edition.
It's a kind of Magic?
The first and most obvious change is the magic system. Previously spellcasters (and particularly the Wizards) started as the weakest players. They had the ability to cast only a couple of spells a day and had the tendancy to die as soon as a monster coughed in their general direction. It was a carry-over from a series of novels by Jack Vance that I confess I never read, but it's been given unnatural life in D&D games now for over 30 years.
Now wizards (and indeed all the classes) have specific allotments of powers. They have some that can be used at will, some that can be used once per encounter, and some that can be used once per day. For fans of dress-wearing arcanists, you'll be glad to know you can actually use Magic Missle as trivially as another class might swing a sword or shoot an arrow.
Staying with casters, Clerics, previously the healing machines in parties have been given new abilities that let them mix it up in the middle of action. They have powers that let them heal allies as they strike enemies. As they gain in levels they gain the ability to boost their allies attacks with their powers as well.
Class Pride
Every class in the game has been given a "role" which in flavor reminds me of my time playing MMOs. Fighters and Paladins are "Protectors" who wear heavy armor and focus the attention of enemies on them. Computer RPGers will know this kind of role as the "Tank". Clerics and the new Warlord class are "Leaders" bringing buffs and healing to the group whilst dealing damage on the front line of battle. Rogues, Rangers and Warlocks are "Strikers", who specialise in doing large amounts of damage to a single target and Wizards are "Controllers", who deal damage to groups of enemies simultaneously.
The definition of "roles" in this way allowed the developers to allow a more consistant balance between classes. In previous iterations, the Warrior-type classes usually start strong and end up falling behind the caster classes, who displayed the inverse of this power curve, going from liabilities to engines of destruction.
The classes are now slightly more confined than 3E players might remember. Multiclassing has been changed significantly. Now, you can only multiclass at 10th level by switching class (reminiscent of 2nd Ed's Dual-classing), or by taking certain multiclass feats, which give you limited access to the abilities of one other class.
Gone also are the Prestige Classes. In their place, at 10th level all players (save those who choose to dual-class) can pick a Paragon path, which is a class-specific form of prestige class, with powers that emphasise one of the classes aspects. The Paladin for example can choose to become an Astral Weapon, which focuses on damage dealing, a Justicar, which focuses on tanking or a Hospitaler, which focuses on healing.
Back to the board
Worked into these rules is a much greater reliance on grids and minitures. The Rogue, for instance, has many abilities that let them move enemies a certain amount of squares, and the area-effect abilities of the Wizard are listed in terms of the number of squares they affect. Yes, there is a D&D minatures game, and many are suggesting a cynical attempt by Wizards of the Coast to get more people buying their stuff by making minatures integral to the game.
I'm going to call bullcrap on that. There's photocopiable grid paper in the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide and minatures can really be anything, my group regularly uses chess pieces and I've read an engrossing playthrough of the first 4E module with Lego minifigs. The return to tactical combat is something I'm really looking forward to trying, but Wizards is in no way "forcing" you to buy their minatures or maps.
Summary
All in all, I like what I've read in this edition and I'm looking forward to giving it a go when my gaming group next convenes. Of course there's some things I'll miss about 3E/3.5E (no more Half-Orcs or Barbarians *sniff*), but it definately looks like a fun game.
