Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition

Grab your dice and get ready to roll! Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition has arrived. Don’t forget the Mountain Dew and cheese balls. (I hate the guy who shows up and never brings anything.) Wizards of the Coast has finally released this much anticipated update, with a whole new system that has changed everything from the classes to the monsters you face. The combat system is much faster, and the social and skill systems have been revised.

Let’s get down to the grim and gritty combat. In 4th edition, combat is much different . While you still see your fighters on the front line, you might also notice a rogue or wizard nearby. Fighters who traditionally did the most damage in combat now take a back seat to some other classes. Before a fighter could simply charge in and kill everything that moved, now they must be more cautious. As we found out early in our first game, a fighter without his abilities isn’t quite as fun. Characters can now become “bloodied’ as well which gives you access to new powers and limits the use of others.

Social systems have undergone quite a change as well. Now you roll initiative! What? HUH? Initiative outside of combat? I’m not joking, and it’s really awesome! Finally characters who don’t just chop off heads can truly make a difference. Several classes have a new skill called streetwise which governs your knowledge of what is going on in the city. This is where you might see the warlord in one of the new classes really shine. A fighter who is also a leader, what a concept! Social situations can now drastically change a quest as well determining whether the town helps you or hurts you.

Skills have also been given the once over. The game now focuses more on skill groups rather than the individual skills themselves. This will be very frustrating to some players while refreshing to others. It is now much harder to make a unique character since skills are handled in a broader stroke. However, now a fighter only has to level one skill group rather than 3 different skills, which definately takes away some of the redundancy of the game.

Some of the races have had their last hurrah as well. We no longer have half orcs and gnomes. They have been replaced by dragonborn and tiefling. Another thing to go out the window is negative ability modifiers. Now we see two bonuses to stats (unless you are human then it’s just one). Everyone is going to notice some basic stat improvements. These allow players to be somewhat overpowered, so DM’s be careful and watch those players closely.

All and all, even with some mixed reviews, players should get ready because Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition is here to stay!

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