So... despite not being interested in it during the year long build up hype, I found myself purchasing the D&D4 game this past weekend. Not only did I purchase it, but I read both the PHB and DMG and played the game (actually DMed) this past Sunday. And not only that, but I really enjoyed it. It may just be a case of infatuation with the new and shiny, but here are some of my impressions.
I really want to say something about the books themselves. They aren't the prettiest books I've ever seen, but they make up for it in utility, instructional, and inspirational value. I found the print comfortable to read and the rules well written. While the books could be organized a bit better, I haven't had much problem finding the things I'm after. And even if the book isn't as attractive as something like Dark Heresy, I really like the art, much of which seems to be channelling the late Keith Parkinson's Everquest art. That's not a bad thing. Overall, the books have been a joy to work with. They fit the needs of gaming very well.
The next thing which impressed me was character creation. The only randomness in character creation now is your attribute scores, and even that randomness is optional. Everything is about choice. Each character class has nice lists of powers to select from. It reminds me very much of character building in City of Heroes. You pick your powers and build as you advance. The whole thing is very simple to do. I made up three characters to act as party members in the game I ran, and my player had no problem at all creating his Dragonborn Fighter. Best of all, these characters struck us as being mechanically interesting to play.
Since I was the GM, I had to create the scenario for my player and his three henchmen to go through. In this regard, I found the new rules for creating encounters to be the best I have ever seen in any RPG, ever. It's very simple on the face of it. The GM decides the XP value of the encounter. He then uses that XP total to buy monsters and traps for the encounter, just as if he were buying an army in Heroscape or Mage Knight. When I saw it, I was completely floored that no one had ever done this exact thing before. It was so obvious, and worked so well. In no time at all, I was designing a well balanced 5 area dungeon stocked with diabolical defenders, traps, and precious loot.
Initially, I was a bit afraid of the monsters in the game. I saw low level monsters, some with 50 hit points. I wondered how the hell PCs could hope to face such toughness. I wondered if the designers of D&D4 had been talking to Kevin Siembieda and decided to create nothing but overly tough enemies for hopelessly long grindy combat. Then we started playing and my fears evaporated. The characters had so much more power than I had given them credit for in my read through. Things were still a bit slow paced, but they never seemed hopless or irritating.
In fact, I was very impressed with a massive change to how D&D works. In all previous editions, 1st level characters have little to no staying power. They could handle one or maybe two encounters if they pushed it before they had to call it a day, rest and heal. Yet, the 4 character party my player ran in D&D4 managed to go through 5 encounters and still had enough juice to keep on going for a few more. Beginning level D&D finally feels like heroic exploration instead of a constant reminder of how bad 1st level characters suck.
As a whole, we played the game more like a version of the old Milton Bradley Heroquest, or Descent: Journeys in the Dark, but we also did a fair bit of role playing and storytelling. The system entirely got out of our way when we performed our dramatics, and when we wanted to hack skeletons and goblins, it provided a rich combat experience.
Our favorite moment was when the Cleric blasted a Skelton with his Turning ability. The light of Bahamut shot out from his Holy Symbol as he commanded the dark creation to "Begone!" The purity of good struck the vile undead so hard, it went flying back, and crashed into a pit... directly in front of the very pissed off Dragonborn Fighter. The Dragonborn shattered the foul thing.
Bahamut works in sometimes less than mysterious ways.
Tags: D&D4
