Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As a preface, I don't hate 4ed D&D. I just think that it is a step backwards from 3rd Edition D&D in a lot of ways: 1) Loses a lot of iconic D&D flavor. Dwarves can no longer see in the dark, Liches can no longer paralyze with a touch (and don't really cast spells), Lycanthropes no longer spread lycanthropy via bites (instead they spread a different and even less balanced disease), Magic Missiles can miss, Vampires are no longer affected by sunlight (they just lose regeneration), Angels are no longer good, Devils and Demons are totally different (and even more confusing to tell apart than ever before), Eladrins are elementals, they messed up a lot of D&D's background -- Pelor is now the God of Agriculture and no longer accepts Lawful Good clerics, there's no more Bytopia or the other cool planes to visit, and elves are now faeries. 2) Simplified - but oversimplified. They thought that having 9 alignments was too complicated. So what did they do? Kept the law/chaos good/evil system, but just disallowed certain combinations. You can play a LawfulGood Paladin (or a Chaotic Evil one now, for that matter), but not a Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil character. In my opinion, the alignments they disallowed were the most interesting to roleplay. Ask yourself -- is it really simpler to keep a system and then cut holes in it that you can't play? Likewise, they simplified the skill system (by and large in a good way), but added a penalty to all physical skills if you're wearing armor. This is all well and good, except the system is so oversimplified now, it means that if you're wearing full plate and get bitten by a wererat, you now take a penalty on your "saving throw" against disease, because the "save" is a Constitution based skill. Simplification = good. Oversimplification = bad. 3) WOTC makes characters now, not you. The best advance from 2ed to 3ed D&D was that people could now build their own characters. No longer were you bound to play a kit or class that WOTC made, players could make their own: you could make a Fighter 1 / Rogue 1 / Wizard 18 if you felt like it. It was a powerful system, and one which WOTC believes was too "scary" for people, so they reverted back to the pre-2ed days. Essentially, they pre-roll some classes for you, and then you get to pick from a limited menu of options at each level. Even still, if you're a "fighter" at 1st level, you're a fighter at 30th, with the "paragon paths" and "epic destinies" providing a certain amount of additional customization. 4) Multiclassing is non-existent. Multiclassing was another area that WOTC felt was too "scary" for players, so they removed it. The 4ed system for multiclassing instead more closely resembles the Arcane Disciple feat from 3ed -- it allows classes to gain a certain number of spells and powers from other classes. However, you never actually can become a member of the other class. When I tried making three character concepts in 4ed D&D I was thrown up against this wall in two of them -- the system just isn't powerful enough to carry out the builds I wanted. 5) 4ed has three elf races but no half-orcs. With only eight core races, did we really need three options for playing elves? 5) Mistakes. 4ed needed more work before publishing. The multiclassing rules allow PCs to take class-specific feats from the class they "multiclass" into. However, if you read through the 20 or so class-specific feats in the PHB, only *two* of them can actually be taken by multiclass players, because the feats nearly all require class abilities from the class which *you can't get -- ever -- from multiclassing*. From a balance perspective, people have already broken 4ed with Cascade of Blades and Seal of Binding. (The other comment on here is wrong -- they really are that broken.) With either of these abilities, you can essentially kill anything in 4ed D&D. A 30th level 4ed character, using nothing but the PHB can perfectly solo Orcus 1) Without taking a single point of damage, and 2) Kill him dead on the first round of combat. Read WOTC's boards if you want the details, but the point is, 4ed is in many ways less balanced than even the wild-and-wooly 3ed. 3ed's version of Cascade of Blades, Avalanche of Blades, was more balanced and couldn't do that trick. 4ed isn't all bad. The skills and rituals are pretty good, and the system should be fun to play overall. The reason I'm giving it 2 stars is not because it's a bad roleplaying system, but because they're calling this new roleplaying system D&D, when they've 1) Regressed a lot from 3ed, choosing simplicity over the ability for players to have fun making their characters and 2) They've taken out a huge number of the tropes that made D&D D&D. Vampire lords running around in daylight shooting magic missiles that miss at Dwarves who don't mine any more since they can't see in the dark just doesn't seem very D&Dish to me.