Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition
June 6, 2008 will be remembered as the day everything changed.
By dorks living in their parents’ basement.
Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition was released on the 6th and I’m officially on board with it. Though previewed in a way with Star Wars SAGA Edition, Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition brings the game into the 21st Century by keeping what worked with previous editions as well as taking what works with the mechanics of video game RPGs. If hugely popular games like World of Warcraft can take from Dungeons & Dragons (as just about every video game RPG has), then I see nothing wrong with Dungeons & Dragons doing the same in reverse. If the system works, use it.
What people familiar with previous editions will immediately notice is the lack of skills. 3rd Edition had some 40 skills to speak of. 4th Edition only has 17. While this seems like a big change all they really did was combine several skills into one skill. 3rd Edition skills like Climb, Jump, and Swim are all contained within the 4th Edition skill Athletics. Additionally, there are no more skill ranks to worry about any longer. Sort of. In 3rd Edition there were skill points to spend every level. A “class skill” cost you one point per rank and a “cross-class skill” cost two points per rank. What you have now are trained and untrained skills. Every class has their own skills and you get to choose from a list of those skill to be trained in. Trained skills get a +5 modifier to rolls. Untrained skills get no such benefit. Additionally, in lieu of spending skill points every level, all skills automatically go up one rank every two character levels gained. A character can get trained in more skills than those provided for in their class by using a feat.
I like this change because it seemed to me most people dumped their skill points into class skills anyway so the system does the work for you. And you don’t have to worry about certain skills going without ranks because every skill gets that bump every two character levels. This ensures that should you need to use a skill you don’t normally care for you won’t be too hard up.
Fortitude, Reflex and Willpower saves are all treated like Armor Class - a single target number to tie or exceed. In 3rd Edition you had to roll a D20 and add your modifier for these saves. The system now gives you the average of that roll (10) as part of your score. And as with skills, these saves go up by one every two character levels.
Hit Points have changes as well. Before it was a roll (as determined by your class) plus your Constitution modifier per level but now it’s a set number at each level as determined by your class. I, for one, am grateful for this change. I always seemed to roll low with this and typically played a class where Constitution was something I couldn’t sacrifice a high score for. So while the rest of the party is livin’ large with 60 HP or something, I, the mighty paladin, was hiding behind rocks with my lowly 34 HP. It was sad and made my character a liability for the party. If you’re going to get boned by a roll let it be something temporary, like an attack roll, or a skill roll. Not something as permanent as an HP roll.
And since we’re talking about hit points I should mentioned something new to the game: Healing Surges.
A healing surge is your character’s ability to regain hit points. Based upon class, a character has a finite number of healing surges they can use in a day. Healing surges regain 1/4 of your character’s total hit points. You can use these as many times as you like per day up to your total allowed. And extended rest (8 hours of sleep) replenishes all spent healing surges. The only time you can’t use healing surges like they’re going out of fashion is when engaged in battle. Once per battle (called “encounter”) you may use an ability called Second Wind. All characters can use it. In game terms it allows your character to use a healing surge to heal themselves and it grants you a +2 to all your defenses until the start of your next turn. Using Second Wind counts as a standard action. Using it means you choose to forgo your attack this turn in favor of taking a defensive posture and catching your breath.
There are abilities that other classes have that can allow a character spend a healing surge during an encounter without it counting as that character’s Second Wind. The cleric’s Healing Word power is one such example.
One last new thing that ties into hit points is the Bloodied status. Bloodied simply means you’ve lost half or more of your total hit points. There’s no penalty when becoming bloodied, it just means that additional effects can come into to play. Certain races, classes, and monsters can only do some things when they themselves are bloodied or when they attack a bloodied opponent.
Next up are powers. Every class has them. No more do you simply swing away at the baddies with your longsword, doing 1d8 damage. Now every class as At-Will Powers (powers they can use as often as they like and each class only has four), Encounter Powers (powers that can only be used once per encounter) and Daily Powers (powers that can only be used… well… daily). There are other types of powers too that each class has but I don’t understand them just yet and a 1st level character doesn’t have access to them. I think.
Each class had their own list of powers from the three groups specifically mentioned above to choose from each level. The paladin, for example, has four At-Will Powers (they actually called At-Will Prayers for this class) to choose from. They must choose two. So, instead of attacking with their 1d8 damage dealing longsword every round, they could instead choose to use the At-Will Prayer “Valiant Strike” which does 1x the damage of their base melee weapon plus their strength modifier.
The base damage for melee and ranged weapons must be known because melee and ranged powers don’t do damage themselves. Also, a wizard might decide to gank someone with a knife at some point instead of using a power or something. They might go all Oz on a kobold one day. Who knows.
Feats remain unchanged from what I can see.
Overall I enjoy what Wizards of the Coast has done with Dungeons & Dragons in this 4th Edition. There are, of course, detractors but change always has them. I’m not saying they’re right. But neither am I saying they’re wrong. There are still groups that play 1st and 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons. They neither right nor wrong for doing so. They’re free to have fun whatever way they wish. Wizards of the Coast doesn’t have a police force that will confiscate their old books.
That has been made public.
There can never be a definitive edition of Dungeons & Dragons. This edition owes as much to the previous editions as the 1st Edition owed to miniature war games. And for those that say 4th Edition feels too much like an MMO, I say what’s wrong taking from the MMO world what works? As much as the 1st Edition of Dungeons & Dragons was a revolutionary design, it was also a product of its time. Times have changed and Dungeons & Dragons, if it wants to stay relevant and attract new blood, must change as well.
Millions of people play MMOs and video game RPGs. This market exists because of Dungeons & Dragons. Most of these gamers have never played a paper-and-pencil RPG, if they’ve heard of Dungeons & Dragons at all. Their experience with the mechanics of MMOs and video game RPGs should be embraced; not scorned. As much as Dungeons & Dragons has informed their hobby, I see nothing wrong with their hobby informing mine.
They are our funny looking distant family. They speak differently than us, using words like “mobs,” and “spawn-camping,” but they mean well. And who knows, maybe they have some wisdom to share with us that they’ve learn during their long journey in the wilderness, ignorant of their roots and true heritage.
It sounds… almost Biblical.
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27 comments
If hugely popular games like World of Warcraft can take from Dungeons & Dragons (as just about every video game RPG has)
Except for Fallout and Fallout 2 which took from GURPS…. OK, mom’s yelling at me to clean out the basement.
And GURPS took from Dungeons & Dragons.
[…] nothing wrong with Dungeons & Dragons doing the same in reverse. If the system works, use it. read more | digg […]
I don’t care who stole from who. D&D is super lame. Not saying WoW is cool, it’s lame too (seriously.. people spending years of their lives advancing an online character?), just D&D’s concept is about as useful as a Seinfeld drinking game. Kinda fun for about 20 minutes until everyone is blasted out of their minds.
Kevin
Here’s an image I stumbled upon yesterday that you might appreciate.
http://www.ratemyeverything.net/image/5003/0/Hope.ashx
I’m always rather amused by people who attack things like video games or roleplay games. As if these activities are in some ways less useful than, say, watching sports, hanging out in bars, bowling, playing softball, playing chess, watching movies, or any of the myriad other activities people do with their free time. Indeed, it is self-evident that things like video games and roleplay games are active engagements of the imagination, unlike, say, watching TV (which is what 90%+ of the population does with 90%+ of its free time).
Oh, I should add practicing martial arts to that. At least for more than 99% of those who actually take martial arts classes, they’re doing something with absolutely no practical value whatsoever in the modern world (the 1% exception is for the rare few who actually do get attacked in a way that makes such skills useful, or work in a field where they may have to use it like the occasional cop).
John, you might want to rethink that not useful idea. There have been a number of studies that have indicated that role-playing and similar type games tend to have a number of positive social and personal effects. From assisting people with depression, increasing creativity, to teaching group problem solving. I will also admit that there can be the dark side to it as well, as shown in other studies, a possible slight increase in alienation for instance (Though this one I semi-discount, since it showed the increase as being between the gamers and the non-gaming control group, and not between the gamers themselves…sub-cultures usually have a slight alienation feeling.)
As for 4th ed…. I bought it, looked it over, has some decent ideas, but not for me. I’ll continue with 3.5 and GURPS until I get my system to a point I feel its ready for playing. I might look into Pathfinder when Paizo releases it as well. (3.5 modified.)
I’m not a big fan of D&D, but I like some things I’ve seen in 4th Edition. Then again there are things I liked in 3rd and 3.5… and AD&D and… I guess if I ever sat down and played a campaign in them my opinion would change. I can’t remember if I ever played 3E, and AD&D 2nd Edition is a fuzzy memory of "Uh, maybe once or three times…"
Sadly the games I like don’t seem to survive in the market. Battletech and its roleplaying games (though I never got to play the 3rd edition) have almost negligible presence among the people I know/game with. Renegade Legion (and its roleplaying game) is so very 1992. The game I’ve been helping develop will never be marketable and design by committee moves at such a glacial pace I doubt we’ll ever get past our current beta stage.
I’ve always wanted to play a game of Sorceror (looks genius) or Unknown Armies (absolutely fantastic from what I can tell) but I’ve never gotten the chance.
I’m starting to ramble, so I’ll stop.
(I would have put a million links to all these games in my post, but I don’t want to get caught in the spam trap again.)
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hehe.. I’m not going to ‘rethink’ anything. If you like to sit around and tell your friends that you’ve designed a Dark Elf Mage who’s rolled a 12 for 400 AOE damage and want to cast a level 10 ‘penis of the inflate’ spell go ahead. But don’t tell me it’s better or even equal to martial arts or other physical activities.
Never got into Battletech, just didn’t enjoy it enough. Renegade Legion on the other hand, I loved the ground combat wargame for. The RP aspect of it never played though.
For space combat, Silent Death is my favorite.
Silent Death? BoardGameGeek tells me a little about it, but I have to confess I’ve never heard of it until now.
Edit: Presumably JohnDakota similarly looks down on Chess players - except for the Extreme Contact Chess League’s players, but we all can’t be fortunate enough to live near a licensed Thunderdome.
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Presumably Elisha likes to assume what I think. Maybe she fancies herself a mind reader, maybe she just has nothing better to do. I tend to believe the latter since she never seems to have anything productive to post.
Again, in this thread I didn’t say anything about chess. I specifically wrote about D&D, WoW and other similiar activities. Elisha, maybe you’d like to assume I was talking about reading a book, maybe some writing, or painting, or photography. Those aren’t physical activities either. Let’s just assume I"m a football jock and anything that doesn’t require bone crushing manlyness isn’t worthy. Or maybe you can stop being such a dork Elisha and just deal with what I’ve actually written as oppose to inventing things to disagree with.
Well, you haven’t written much of anything worth responding to, John, such as demonstrating how any other activity is superior. I find that most martial arts geeks enjoy the physical aspects of their chosen time-wasting activity, and derive useful mental benefits. But other than the physical conditioning aspects, which you can even get with things like yoga, there’s not much there to impress, and plenty of martial artists who are basically preening self-obsessed assholes.
Choose your own time-wasting activity as you please, but lose the superiority complex. It’s unbecoming.
D&D came too late for me. I played simulation games, primarily board games from companies like Avalon Hill, then SPI. They were primarily war games, but also included strategic games on things like railroads or shipping.
When I came across D&D, I was already in college, with far too many competing demands on my free time. But I enjoyed–on a theoretical level–the amount of detail the games offered. By the time I got my first Apple ][, I started writing programs to deal with what I considered to be an inordinate amount of bookkeeping. Good for programming skilz in BASIC and Assembly, but not anything I wanted to do for a living.
Now, I still like the games, but definitely prefer them shifted to computer platforms. War games, like the free Steel Panthers: World at War (a 425MB download, if you’re interested) still compel interest. I enjoy WoW to some extent. And almost any game designed by Sid Meyers is fun to play.
D&D, to me, seems as old fashioned as medieval scribes copying texts in scribbly little books. But I’ve a very low boredom threshold. I realize not everyone agrees with that.
Dean,
I was going after Elisha because she has a pattern of inferring things I’ve never said.
Secondly, just because I think D&D and WoW are lame/wastes of time doesn’t mean I think I’m superior to the person who plays it. I just think those games are lame. I’m sure you think all kinds of activities are wastes of time. Particularly the activities of dieting and exercise come to mind. Does that mean you think you’re superior to people who diet and exercise? I hope not. It’s the same with me and my opinion of D&D/WoW.
God you people are touchy here. and btw.. I don’t have to be ‘becoming’ here. I’m not trying to find a date or make long term friends.
I figured the Extreme Contact Chess League bit would show I was being not entirely serious. :p
(If anyone wants to invent such a sport, let me know… I figure we can get televised on Spike or Sci-Fi Channel.)
Elisha Feger’s last blog post..Random Aria Thought
I used to play D&D heavily, I started with the red box (back when D&D and AD&D were two separate products. Anyone recall the Immortals box set? :), during grade school IIRC. I maintained my gaming up till college, playing 2nd Ed at the time (and enjoying the expansions like Dark Sun, Ravenloft, etc). However near the tail end of college, Magic The Gathering came out and basically obliterated D&D. I havent played Magic since leaving college either, so in a sense I am ready to come full circle again and give 4th Ed a shot. (there was a 3.5 Ed? wtf?)
I did try a lot of board games too - I remember Talisman very fondly, and there was also the Star Trek Starship Combat Simulator which kicked all kinds of ass. And in college we were heavily into Illuminati, whose second edition was still playable but we preferred the original.
Like John Burgess I started out with the A-H simulation and strategy games but I played first edition D&D more than 30 years ago. Based on Kevin’s description it sounds as though in the latest they’ve eliminated some of the excessive complexity that’s creeped in over the years.
Yeah, there was a 3.5E. I’m not clear on all the changes - not an interest of mine - but apparently they fixed a lot of ‘bugs’ as it were.
On the topic of Magic, I gave that up years ago… Still have my cards, though they’re all tourney-illegal these days. The constant influx and outflux of ‘legal’ cards to drive sales is maddening. I don’t understand why people put up with that behavior, but it’s still a fun game to play with friends.
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned any White Wolf games so far. Maybe that’s for the best. :p
Elisha Feger’s last blog post..Random Aria Thought
Hey, I have a fondness for White Wolf. Vampire: The Masquerade and Hunter: The Reckoning were two of my favorite RPGs. The new World of Darkness looks interesting but I don’t know anyone who plays. I am excited about Hunter: The Vigil.
Scott,
That picture now resides within my hard drive.
And my heart.
I haven’t touched the game in almost a quarter century, but there are far worse ways of wasting time than AD&D.
Play is a very important part of the lives of children, and as some of us are finding as we get older, in adulthood as well. The mental skills one has to develop and employ to play AD&D and many video games aren’t wastes of time in the same way that Sudoku and Crossword puzzles aren’t either.
Role-playing encourages creative problem solving and teamwork. Role-playing games force you to deal with people you might not otherwise hang out with and work with them achieving common goals.
How the hell is that a waste of time?
Kevin D., the man has now posted four comments on a topic he’s sure is a waste of time. Show him some pity, please. He has no life.
4th Ed went in the completely wrong direction for me to have any interest in it whatsoever. I’m a huge RPing nerd, but I love the storytelling, not the rules. Games like the 3rd ed GURPS are simple (unless you want them to be), and that works for many groups.
For my money, the best system currently available is BURNING WHEEL.
[…] at DW has a nice summary of what’s changed in the new 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons. I really am eager to give this a shot - I used to play D&D heavily, […]
Nice summary. I wish WOTC would provide a nice summary of the changes for experienced players. I don’t read every sentence of the new material in depth and things like not rolling for hit points surprised me. I had to dig around in the books to confirm that was the case.
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