Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am sure by now that this review will be a rehash of what others have said, but I have never felt so moved to write a review, so I am just going to go with it. For starters, I have been either a player or a DM for over 15 years. I started in 1st edition and easily made the transition to the 2nd edition. I was really excited about the changes to the game mechanics that came with the 3rd edition. I never bought 3.5 because it seemed like a money-making scheme, but the point I am making is that I have loved this game throughout all of its various incarnations. Therefore, I was looking forward to 4th Edition. I had heard that there would be more character customization from the ground up (sort of like Skills and Powers) and that it would be structured something like the new Star Wars Saga Edition. I was intrigued at the notion and very excited to see the outcome. I cannot express to you how disappointed I was at the result. I agree with previous reviewers that this is not DND, and it is not a good system for roleplaying. I'll just give an itemized rundown: How do I hate thee, 4th Ed? Let me count the ways 1. The book is cheaply made, so cheaply made that the ink comes off the pages if you rub it too hard. 2. Of the limited races available, three are related to elves. That's overdoing it a little bit, no? Also, not only is the "dragonborn" simply a silly idea that panders to power gamers, they look laughable. And the idea that they would have a breath weapon as opposed to a bite or a claw attack is absurd. Since they were adding the tiefling anyway, how about the aasimar? And as for a monster class, they could have done something better than the dragonborn. They already have with the half-orc. 3. The classes lost are not worth the classes gained. Who ever heard of DND without druids and bards? Instead, what did we get, the Warlord? Please! What place does a tactical leader have in a roaming band of adventurers? Frankly, with the people I play with, if somebody "ordered" one of their PC's to attack, I don't think it would be the NPC that would be getting the smackdown. Warlords are for military and tactical units, not loosely confederated treasure hunters. 4. It doesn't matter what you play, the characters end up the same. Your warrior class characters end up having the same armor class and damage potential as your arcane class characters. It's like they are all fighters who just do different types of damage. The classes are sort of like 1% and 2% milk--sure, the composition is slightly different, but they pretty much taste the same. BOOOOORRRRING! 5. The skills have been simplified to an alarming degree, again making characters homogeneous. I've personally never talked to a player who wants LESS options for making their character, so I'm not sure what the purpose was of that. 6. The alignment system desperately needs a revamp and always has (either that or needs to be eliminated entirely), but the revamp they did made the system even more nonsensical. They have removed most of the choices, so once again, the characters are the same. 7. I never really liked prestige classes because you have to spend time at lower levels making choices for skills, feats, etc. that you may not really want to get the prestige class you want, but this game makes a player's choices even more limited because you get shoehorned into a very small number of character paths. 8. Multiclassing is destroyed in this edition. What's the fun in THAT? And again, because of this, characters end up all looking the same. 9. I have no issue with the use of miniatures and maps in games, I use them when I run, but the requirement that they must be used smacks of a marketing ploy to me. I can't wait to see how many "must have" dungeon tile, game mat, and miniature sets come out after this. 10. Finally, my problem with this edition is that it doesn't seem to show any regard for DND players, those of us that have supported and loved this game for over 30 years. It seems to be attempting to attract an audience of video game enthusiasts with a faster pace and a dumbed-down presentation, as if to imply that people who play games like WOW are too stupid to understand anything more detailed(which is incredibly insulting). I think it is a huge mistake. I think that video gamers who don't already play RPG's will continue to play video games, and I think DND lovers will continue to play DND--3rd and 3.5 edition, that is. I think as a tactical miniatures game this edition is fine. But they already made one of those, so I see this edition having limited appeal. What a shame. But not all that unexpected from a company that is owned by Hasbro.