D&D Fourth Edition comments…

I just got back from southern France, and lo and behold, the D&D Fourth Edition core rulebooks were awaiting me.

I've leafed through them, and my first impression is… well, "mixed" I think is the best way to put it.

First, a disclaimer: I've never used the official D&D "lore" in my campaigns, other than as inspiration and occasional cameos, with the exception of the Planescape setting which pretty much defines the cosmology in my worlds, right down to Sigil and Her Serenity. So I don't really care what happens to that; I'm interested in the mechanics -- the skills, feats, magic, classes, races, loot, and what have you.

So here are some initial impressions; if there's interest in this thread, I'll expand on them later.

First off, there are some things that look quite promising.

For example, I like the way character classes and development paths are structured as "roles." In particular, I like the additional mechanics that encourage cooperative gameplay. The Warlord class can do some really nifty stuff to direct the flow of combat and give allies an edge, for example, which makes a "Commander" role much more meaningful.

I also like the way the attack/defense mechanic has been simplified and clarified: everything is an [Ability] attack on a [Type] defense. So, for example, a cleric's spell would typically be a Wisdom attack against a Fortitude save, or a barbarian's axe swing would be a Strength attack against an Armor Class defense. Similarly, I think it makes a lot of sense to structure Stuff Players Can Do into things they can do (a) at will, (b) once per encounter, or (c) once per day. This is a very simple, understandable matrix into which you can plug just about everything.

Okay, so what don't I like?

The main thing I don't like is that this is an extremely inflationary upgrade.

Player ability scores go up like crazy, they gain feats, exploits, powers, and what have you like cookies and are allowed to "retrain" them very flexibly, and, most damningly, some ability scores have become interchangeable: for example, the Int and Dex are now interchangeable for determining the AC bonus, as are Str and Con for Fortitude bonus. Not only this doesn't make sense; it also makes it way too easy to min-max.

The second thing I don't like is that there's a fine line between simplifying something in order to make it work better, and plain ol' dumbing it down… and 4th ed. appears to cross that line a bit too often.

Two examples: alignment and spellcasting.

Re alignment. One of the best things about D&D was the alignment compass -- it structured a player's ethos and connected it to the entire cosmology; a player's actions and intentions would cause ripples that resonated all across the multiverse. The planes and powers of Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil helped give the whole shebang meaning. That's all gone. Now we only have Lawful Good, Good, Evil, Chaotic Evil, and Unaligned. How this can turn into anything other than a linear continuum between Really Really Good and Really Really Evil I don't understand.

Re spellcasting. Spells have now been put into the same framework as the other stuff characters can do, "at will," "once per encounter, or "once per day." This has erased the distinction between sorcerers and wizards, which was another of my favorite things D&D too. Now all wizards are like sorcerers, except they can only use each daily/encounter spell they know once, up to the number allowed for their character level. This is less flexible and IMO less interesting than the previous system.

There's similar stuff going on elsewhere -- skills, for example, have been dumbed down too. Now they're determined by your character class; the only thing you can do about them is take an extra +5 bonus on them by tagging some as "trained." Meh.

Finally, there's a bunch of stuff about which I'm still pretty much agnostic. For example, 3d ed. style multiclassing has be done away with. Instead, it's possible to take "multiclass feats" -- that is, use some of the feats/exploits/whatnot that you're granted to take similar things from other classes; there are some restrictions that structure this type of "multiclassing" -- you can only get the more powerful powers by taking the less powerful ones first, that sort of thing. I don't know how this will work out in practice; it could be that it gets rid of some of the clearly illogical loopholes in 3d ed. while retaining much of its flexibility, but it could also be that it straitjackets you into your base class rather uncomfortably.

Overall, I get an uncomfortable feeling that D&D 4th ed. has evolved into a similar direction as many mainstream cRPG's recently -- more spectacular pyrotechnics, more phat lewt, simpler, easier to understand mechanics, but less freedom and flexibility. Until v3.5, I felt like I owned the game -- the rules gave me a framework for simulating whatever the hell kind of gameplay I wanted. With v4, I get a feeling that the ruleset is locking me into a specific type of gameplay -- high-magic, highly structured, monty-haul powergaming, to be precise. And that, IMO, is a shame.

But as stated, these are first impressions only -- perhaps my feelings will change as I delve deeper into the books.