The Fourth Edition

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I actually just started playing 4th edition - first time I’ve played AD&D since high school, back when 2nd ed was in vogue. I like it in terms of rules. 4th edition generally seems much more streamlined, even if it does strongly resemble an MMO (which is not bad in and of itself).

I’m not a huge fan of 4th edition cosmology, though it doesn’t especially bother me. As far as I’m concerned, Planescape was the high water mark for Dungeons & Dragons, but I prefer the 4th edition planes to the watered down Great Wheel used in 3rd. Anyway, it seems like every campaign setting has its own variant, so that’s hardly a huge deal.

What I do miss are the sections on Society/Culture and Ecology that used to be in the 2nd edition Monstrous Manual. Those really added a lot of character, making it feel like some kind of fantasy anthropology text. The 4th edition books only really offer monsters as tactical encounters. Then again, I think a lot of DMs use homegrown campaigns, so I can understand why WotC was reluctant to go through the trouble.

Also, Eberron (which is actually a 3rd edition creation) is easily my favorite campaign setting outside of Planescape. I’m a sucker for anything with noir overtones.

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I checked out another 4th Edition book the other day, the (new version of) The Manual Of The Planes, which is basically a travelogue to the various dimensions of the D&D Multiverse.

Now I understand many of the changes from the original setting; this an entirely new setting, that just happens to reuse many of the names and concepts of the original but has its own “mythology”. The reason there’s an Elemental Chaos instead of several Elemental Planes is because that’s whats left of the universe in its original form before beings called Primordials used most of it to create The World (the dimension where the regular campaigns take place) though it was the gods of the Astral Plane who finished the job, in fact kicking out the Primordials, who remain a threat to this day- nice setup, though I’d only use a Primordial as a foe in a VERY high level campaign. I admit this makes sense, though I still miss the old Elemental Planes where everything was made of a single element. Oh, and the Abyss has been relocated to the Chaos, as well- and turned into an actual giant vortex that sucks everything inside, with the demons acting as its agents of destruction. Nice. The demons still have a war going on with the Devils (though its on currently on hold), which you’d think would be pointless now that their territories don’t overlap.

One thing that bothers me about this book- and the new edition in general- is how full of, well, purple prose they are. They spend a lot of time describing things in terms of how they look, feel, etc., and giving out impressions from the natives or legends that may or may not be true. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, it’s like reading a fantasy novel- but when I’m reading a D&D book, I like to be given the facts first and clearly, with the prose left for later. Still, the book makes for a wonderful read, and if I could spend the 30$ or so that it costs right now I’d buy it. The art is also good and it includes new monsters, items, and other things to expand your campaigns. I particularly liked how certain godlike beings who had been in D&D for decades but had never actually “done” anything (like the Demon Prince Orcus) have finally had epic stuff attributed to them. I recommend it.

Next time I go to the store, I plan to check out either the Monstrous Manual or the Eberron Campaign setting.

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The monster Manual is pretty good from the perspective of someone who hasn’t played any previous games before hand. It has a full list of monsters, with the cover art belonging to the strongest monster in the book (Orcus on MM1, some wierd, mutant monkey thing in MM2)

the book’s monsters have stats for each monster, organised in groups (kobolds, goblins, demons etc.) and each specific monster has its own tactic during battle (thought this can be ignored when playing in a game) they have lore and back ground, in the form of how much information you can give a player if they do a specific check.

At the back of the book, there is a list of certain monster races that can be used as PC races, and they give the gameplay stats for each (Kobold Paladin? yeah, you can do that… wouldn’t be a very good one, but it works).

Wilfredo can probably go into more detail with that. I’m suffering from a headache today T_T.

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The monkey thing is Demogorgon, one of Orcus’ rivals.

Certainly the layout of the Monstrous Manual is very convenient, and I’m not faulting its design. I just wish it spent more time exploring things other than combat. Still, given that many people make up their own campaigns, and because monsters behave differently in many official settings, I don’t really blame WotC for sticking with combat.

25

Hey, guess what?

Psions are part of Player’s Handbook 3! I guess it had to happen sooner or later, I would think that they were part of the same power source as the Monk. Considering the layout of the sources, I’d say that there would be two more classes for the same source to fill the gap. Any thoughts on what would fill the two remaining gaps for this source?

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Psionics has always been a funny thing to include in D&D. I remember going “WTH, why do fantasy monsters have telepathic powers?” when I first read the original Monster Manual. Of course, even from the start D&D was never a straight Tolkienese fantasy, since they included things like dinosaurs in the monster books. And in fact, the way they eventually integrated Psionics in the campaign was pretty good. I particularly liked the history of the Githyanki and the Githzerai and how it tied to the Mindflayers, and I’m glad to see it still takes place in the 4th Edition universe.

As for Psionic classes? I remember there being some opposition to it in the beginning, arguing that Psionics was just as powerful as magic but didn’t have its limitations. Still, eventually there were whole books on psionics, and it was one of the fundamental elements of the “Dark Sun” setting.

So yeah, it’s about time Psionics made it back to the game. Can’t tell you much about what roles they should have, as we didn’t have those definitions in the old days (is this one of those “MMORPG elements” that people keep saying the 4th Edition has?)

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I was talking with a friend of mine and one of the things he says he enjoys most about 4E as far as monstars go is that they are much easier to scale to match the players’ level.

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OK, I checked the 4th Edition monster manual today (or rather, the FIRST of the current monster manuals, there’s two editions out already!)

Destron mentioned how the Manual features mostly game data and not enough background material. This is mostly true. Although every entry contains “lore roll results” which tell the GM what to tell his players what they will know about the monsters depending on their skills (such as religion) which is interesting and helpful. Still, most monsters get very little explanations of their origins and goals. This is probably so they can be fit more easily into individual campaigns. Still, if there were more background material the book would make a more fun read as the older versions were (in this sense, it’s the contrary of the Manual of the Planes, which has too much prose!)

For GMs however, the book is incredibly helpful: not only it lists all the classic D&D monsters (and LOTS of them!) it gives variations of each, as well as combat data, and even typical encounter group composition, in case you don’t know which monsters should hang out together. It even has a table which lists the monsters by encounter level, which helps to know which monsters to use according to your players’ level! About the only thing I didn’t like much were the monsters’ stat sheets, but that’s probably because I’m used to the older ones. I also think that the monster variations had too many “colorful” names, as if the writers were being paid for coming up with the most flowery names. :stuck_out_tongue:

As for the monsters themselves, I noticed there are lots (and I mean LOTS) of new undead! And I thought I’d seen all the variations of ghosts and zombies possible already. :smiley: Strangely, while the the Nine Lords of Hell were mentioned, and all their devil minions were described, they themselves were not, which is odd because one demon prince (Orcus) was. Maybe their descriptions weren’t ready at the time the book was published. (There are a few Archdevils in the Manual of The Planes, but again, not the full nine.)

Angels also appear here. Not that they weren’t in D&D before (though not called under that name) but before they were always good, and now their alignment depends on the deity they serve. So… all Demons and Devils are evil, but not all angels are good? Doesn’t seem fair.

In fact, I noticed that there are almost no good monsters anymore; even unicorns are now “unaligned” (neutral.) That’s a pity. I understand that the main functions of monsters is to, well, be fought and defeated by the players, but I liked it when you were supposed to help some of them as well, and have more than hack-and-slash in the adventures, you know? Oh well, maybe in later volumes.

The art is the same as in the other books so far: good, though I find it kinda, I dunno, rough in the edges? Or maybe too heavily inked. At least it’s in full color, on that it beats nearly all the previous monster manuals.

Overall, reading the monster manual was very interesting. I’ll check the other one next time I’m at the bookshop.

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A lot of the extraplanar entities got switched around for 4th Edition. I’m not sure how much you remember of the 2nd Edition cosmology, but the Eladrins (who are now a player race) used to be chaotic good angels (generally referred to as Celestials). I think the idea was to take two popular archetypes of elves (nature lovers vs. magic users) and separate them into distinct races. Personally I think they worked well as a single race, variety makes things interesting after all, but it’s not a big deal.

Another big change is with the Archons, who were once lawful good Celestials! While the core idea of the Eladrin in 4th stays true to the 2nd and 3rd Edition versions, the Archons are completely different. Again, I prefer the old 2nd Ed. version, but that’s entirely subjective on my part. In the context of 4th Ed., the new Archons work out pretty well.

Are they now calling all Fiends demons and devils? I actually liked Tana’ri and Baatezu myself. I believe that TSR changed demons and devils to Tana’ri and Baatezu to avoid accusations of occultism. This was back in the D&D scare of the '80s, when a lot of people thought it was some satanic ritual game that taught you how to cast actual spells, or something. Daemon might have become Yugoloth, but I’m less certain about that.

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I remember the previous D&D cosmology pretty well, in fact I still have a lot of those books, which I bought to read them, my friends and I never actually got to play a Planescane campaign (we drifted apart after high school; too bad, I was looking to play it.) And yes, I remember the Eladrin as Celestials and was surprised to see them “demoted” to a player race, but as you said that was probably to give those people who wanted their “Elves” to be more than humans with pointy ears what they wished. The Archons are an even bigger change, the only thing they have in common with the originals is the name, they’re now elemental warriors, which is OK, since we still have Angels, even if not all of them are good-aligned.

And yeah, the renaming of the fiends was very likely done to avoid using “demonic” names (never mind that anyone with EYES and half a brain could tell what they were supposed to be!) And yes, the Daemons (which btw were invented by the game, to fill in the logical niche between the Lawful Devils and the Chaotic Demons) were renamed yugoloth. I think they still exist in 4th edition, but not as a specific race, for example the Mezzodaemon is now a Devil. Since the outer planes of this version no longer have a “Wheel of Alignments” concept anymore, I guess it doesn’t matter.

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OK, I read the second Monster Manual today. It’s pretty much the same as the first- same format, same art (seriously, what is it with ALL the D&D books now being illustrated by the same guy? Are they going for a “house style” or just saving money on artists?) Which is good because the first Manual was pretty good too. I do have some comments, though:

First of all, I noticed that the vast majority of the monsters in this volume were actually 4th edition versions of old D&D monsters. There weren’t as many new monsters as in the first manual. You’d think that it would be the other way around, with the first book containing the “classic” monsters and the second one new ones. Then again, to most new players the majority of these monsters will be new anyway, so it’s no big deal.

On the other hand, I noticed that, once again, most of the formerly good-aligned monsters have been changed to “unaligned”- even the Metallic Dragons, whose very purpose is to counterbalance the Evil dragons! That’s really sad; there used to be so much material on good monsters on earlier editions. In fact, I noticed that these Manuals focus a LOT on evil monsters- the Devils and Demons are among the few ones that get an extended background. Don’t get me wrong, it’s interesting stuff- I like how, for example, Demogorgon now has TWO personalities, one for each head, and is allied with Dagon, the First Demon Lord. But one gets the impression that the universe is very lopsided, with so many evil or dangerous monsters and very few heroes to defend it. Even the stars- yes, THE STARS!- are evil now!

The only good monsters in the second book are The Devas, who used to be the “angels” in the previous versions and still are, kinda, except now they’re bound to the Material Plane while the new, not-always-good Angels have taken their places among the gods. And even the Devas have some members who have turned to evil!

I’m starting to wonder if this is being done to fit in with the “Eberron” campaign, which I hear is pretty dark, or if they’re just imitating the style of the Warhammer MMORPG. (That would explain the huge number of hulking, spiked armored monsters, a WH staple.)

In fact, I think I’ll read the Eberron book on my next trip to Border’s. I’ll let you guys know what I think then.

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Thank you all for posting this has all been helpful

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OK, finally read the Eberron Sourcebook today. Here are my opinions:

First of all: it turns out that the player-related info- the Eberron-specific PC classes and such- is in ANOTHER BOOK. Why?? I get that this book is meant for the Dungeon Masters and should not be read by the players, but having to buy TWO books for the campaign, when the basic D&D sets you back 100$ already, is absurd. They could just have told the DM to photocopy the pages the PCs were meant to see and give the copies to his players. WAY less expensive.

OK now, on to Eberron itself: I understand that this setting was created before the 4th Edition, and this is just an update. It is NOT the “official” setting for D&D, though people can be forgiven from getting that impression since it’s the only such setting out right now.

Eberron itself is mostly like your typical D&D world, except for the following details:

  • The sky has 12 Moons and a ring like Saturn’s!! Must make for a very impressive night sky. :wink:
  • Steampunk-type “technology”, such as trains and robots, exists, though they’re really all powered by magic. Crystals known as “dragonshards” are found all around the world, and are used to create magic items. They’re in fact the main source of the economy.
  • Apparently, the fate of The Entire Universe is dictated by “The Prophecy”, sort of a set of cosmic rules that is literally written On The World Itself! Bits and pieces are scattered everywhere, from small rocks to ENTIRE LANDS (those can only be read from on high, ala the Nazca lines.) Even if you find a piece of the prophecy, you still need to have the means to understand it. As you can imagine, a LOT of characters are trying to learn as much as they can about it so they can manipulate the world. However, as of yet, no one has found all the pieces. Who “wrote” the prophecy is a mystery as well. You’d think it was gods, except-
    -Eberron has NO GODS! Oh, it has religions, and plenty of them. But from what I could gather, none of them are worshiping actual gods. Some are based on misinterpreted legends, other worship beings like demons or spirits. Even in the history of how The World was created, no gods seemed to be involved (though it may be that they have been forgotten). Apparently however Eberron HAS priests with magical abilities, though it might be that they’re granted by other beings, or even gained from the background magic due to sheer faith (I’ve seen that concept in other D&D books.) This in turn brings about the next problem…
    -Eberron seems to have NO major force of good!! None of the good gods are real, and the major source of good priests and paladins, the Church of the Silver Flame, apparently also produces its fair number of good-justifies-the-means fanatics. In fact, of all the major NPCs listed in the book, not a single one was good. Not. A. Single. One. They were all either Unaligned (neutral) or evil. This might be intentional, since the book specifically establishes that Eberron is a “Noir Fantasy” setting. The only major heroes in the world seem to be the player characters… and that’s assuming that you ARE playing them as good! Note, this doesn’t mean that Eberron cannot be used as a more traditional setting- nothing stops a DM from saying, “The gods ARE real”. Or “The Silver Flame IS trustworthy”. Or creating his own Major Good NPCs. But taken as it is, I would feel (as a player) that I couldn’t fully trust anybody else in the world.
    -On the other hand, there are menaces aplenty. The Aurum is a secret society of rich people- this world’s version of the Mafia. The dragons manipulate events from the shadows, as they believe that only they should have access to the Prophecy (the other races are too immature to them). And the Scions of Dust are servants of the demons who once ruled the world, who are trying to find a way to release their imprisoned masters! There are other dangers as well, but those are the major ones.
    -Some people are born with “dragonmarks” that give then natural bonuses to certain types of magics or skills. They seem to appear mostly within the 12 Major Houses of the setting (which is the cause of their influence) though some do appear among commoners. Even the dragons have no idea why the dragonmarks started appearing among the humanoid races.

Eberron’s history:
Now, this part IS very interesting. It looks like someone looked at all the classic races and monsters of D&D, factored in their powers and longevity, and figured out how such a world might evolve socially. Nice work!

First came the dragons (don’t ask me from where.) Three in particular where godlike in power, and the struggle between them killed them, but also created the land, the sky and the underdark (the subterranean world) as well as all the other races. (This part might just be a myth. Or maybe the first three Dragons were actually gods.)

Demons ruled most of the world, except the continent ruled by dragons. The dragons joined forces with the coatls (winged snakes) and they managed to bind all the great demon lords (in a forbidden continent) though the couatls were virtually wiped out in the process, and the dragons retreated to the shadows.

The giants then ruled the world, enslaving all other races. Until a war with abominations from another universe left them weak enough for their slaves to revolt.

Then, during the “Age of Monsters”, believe it or not, the GOBLINS had a major empire! Even the Orcs, who were part of it, seemed to have been reasonably civilized. But another invasion of alien creatures again collapsed their Empire. By this time, humans and Elves had come to prominence, in their own continents, though it would be the former Goblins’ continent that would become this world’s melting pot and the official setting of the Eberron campaign.

Then came the 100 years war. Started by 5 nations that could not decide which one should rule, the war only ended when a mysterious cataclysm, The Mourning, happened- a gray mist that killed EVERYONE in one of the nations, causing the rest to stop fighting to try to find out what happened. Nobody knows if the Mourning was caused by a divine retribution or a superweapon gone out of control. The default Eberron campaign assumes that the war ended only a year before the characters start adventuring. Investigating the disaster’s cause is only one possible goal.

In general, I found the Eberron setting to be fairly interesting. As I said, my only problem is the lack of a fully trustworthy good force for the PCs to ally with. But that can be fixed. Unless of course the PCs like playing in such a setting. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Eberron is bad- I’ve seen far darker D&D settings (Ravenloft, for one.) what I’m not forgiving them for is not having included the PC material in ONE book. Things are expensive enough these days, you know.

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I checked out another 4th Ed. book yesterday: The 2nd Player’s Handbook. Why the second? Well, from what I saw the first has reinventions of the original stuff (the basic races and classes, such as Elves and Wizards) and so (presumably) the second one contained brand new stuff. I was partly right; it also had races (like Gnomes) and Classes (like Druids) that had long been D&D mainstays, but for some reason were left out of the first book. Still, none of it is vital to a campaign; it can all be considered optional. It’s still interesting stuff, tho.

There are five new races here: Devas, Goliaths, Gnomes, Half-Orcs and Shifters.
-Devas are the servants of good gods; in earlier editions they were thinly disguised versions of Judeochristian angels; for some reason, they have been reinvented in this edition as a race of immortals, bound to the World to fight evil. They can be killed, but they will just re-form in some holy place later- though with only scant memories of their previous life. In fact the effects of having had hundreds of lives is basically their main gimmick. They look human with colored skin patterns. Overall a pretty-looking, interesting race to play, though it might too mystical or nice for some players.
-Goliaths are simply tall humans (8’ tall) with stonehard skin. The text says they have peeble-like growths of bone over their bodies, but the pictures I saw of them didn’t show them (artist error?) They have a basically barbarian culture, where “survival of the fittest” is law.
-Gnomes used to be just skinny, slightly more magical Dwarves; the new version is more like small elves. They are refugees from the Feywild, the dimension of fairies. The picture in the book also gives them some really weird eyes, but the description in the text doesn’t mention that, so it might be an error (I hope so… it makes them looks creepy.)
-Half-Orcs is another race from earlier editions. They used to be, not a true race on their own, but just the offspring of humans and orcs (ugh.) However they now seem to be an actual race that just looks like humans with Orcish features. Though they may be descended from Orcs; even they are not sure. So basically they are big, ugly humans with a tribal culture. If the Goliaths are too weird for you, play these.
-Shifters are descended from humans that had lycanthropy. Which basically means they are humans with catlike or doglike features; they cannot change into full beasts, but they do look more animalistic when they go berserk. There’s two types, the Longtooth (canines) and Sharpclaw (felines.) These are basically for furry fans. (Just kidding!)

The eight new Classes are:
-Avengers, priests that fight in the name of their gods (basically, Paladins, but they don’t have to be good.)
-Barbarians, fighters who specialize in berserking in battle.
-Bards, wizards who use music for their spells.
-Druids, priests of nature itself rather than the gods.
-Invokers, priests specialized in destructive magic.
-Shamans, priests who worship spirits.
-Sorcerers, wizards with innate magic rather than learned spells.
-Wardens, warriors specialized in defense.

Of these, the Barbarian, Bard, Druid and Sorcerer are from previous editions. There are changes, of course. There’s a new Power Source, “Primal Power” which comes from the spirits of the world rather than energy of the universe (Arcane magic) or from the gods (Divine Magic). It’s basically Shamanism; Barbarians, Druids and (of course) Shamans use it.

Is it me, or is there some redundancy here? As you can see most of these classes can be considered just variations on existing ones. Is something like a Warden justified? Why not just use fighters? What’s the difference between a Druid and a Shaman? Unfortunately in order to tell I would need to actually read the book thoroughly, as their descriptions (especially of the Spells) are pretty long. The book however looks like a fun read and I WOULD have bought it, if it did not cost 35$ (+ local taxes.) Uhh, some other time.

Oh, the book also contains new options, such as new “paths” for high-level characters (including the classes and races in the first book.) I admit I had fun in my mind mixing and matching Races and Classes as I read the book. It also has varied artwork (unlike other 4th Edition books, which usually have art from only one artist) and all of it is good (and in full color!) Overall, it IS a good, fun product, and I think I might buy it some day (when I can afford buying D&D books again) and if you can afford an extra Player’s Handbook for your campaign, I think you’ll like it too.

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Because wardens are hardier than warriors and force monsters to focus on them because if they don’t, the warden gets an immediate interrupt attack on the offending mob. Warriors can only mark the targets they attack, wardens can mark anything that is adjacent to them. Wardens get multiple saving throws per turn.

Wardens own, hth.

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As said before, the only difference in each class is the power source. All of them, bar Martial (which lacks a controller) have one of each class to call their own. For each power source, the classes have different uses, but are generally the same. For example, Divine characters are more devoted to healing themselves and others while they fight, while Arcane ones are meant to hinder their enemies so they are easier to kill. Other than that, it’s simply a character background choice.

Story wise, Avengers are meant to be holy assassins of a sort, with their abilities and practices being condemed by followings around the world(s) simply because it’s not humane/honorable.

In respect to the Divine classes, I feel that, even with Divine Power, Paladins and Clerics seem to have been left in the dust of other classes. From things I have seen before I played DnD: WoW, various fiction, comics etc., Clerics were meant to be individuals who would provide some form of Deus Ex Machina at the end of games, healing a much loved party member. Paladins were meant to be feared power houses, individuals who had the skills equal to a fighter, backed by the immessurable power of a deity, allowing the story to present them as mysterious (like the Jedi). Now, though, the two classes seem to be fairly useless and over used (like the Jedi), especially when compared to the new Primal Equivalents, the Shaman and the Warden (not so much the Shaman, healing wise, but Shamans were still pretty good)

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Well, it might be because of my writer leanings, but I tend to evaluate Classes according to their role in the societies they are set in (and secondarily, on their abilities.) For example, the basic concept of the Priest is that he or she receives special abilities from a deity in exchange for his/her services. This is definitely valid in a fantasy setting, but what those abilities (and services) are should depend on the individual deity. The original Cleric was based on the Christian Priest of the middle ages, which is why they had abilities like turning undead and restrictions like not using bladed weapons. But these characteristics would not fit, say, a Celtic priest, which is why they invented Druids. And then they came up with Shamans and Avengers and Invokers and- you see the problem. Why not just have a single Priest class and just give the DMs the option to customize them by religion? (The 2nd Edition Cleric class had something like this, thanks to the concept of Spell Spheres, which limited what type of spells a Cleric would get according to his patron deity.)

Another thing I noticed from the 4th Edition is that multiclassing is no longer possible- well not strictly. In older editions, if you wanted to play, say, a fighter/magic user, you could (as long as your character met the requirements for both classes, of course.) Now however, you’re stuck with one class, though you can learn feats from other classes. With all the customization options they have now, it might be entirely possible to give your character all the abilities a Fighter/Magic user would have… but instead of just writing “F/MU” in your character sheet, you have to jot down “Fighter with the following feats and character paths and whatever”. More complicated.

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There is this p cool class called a “swordmage” that can fight and also use magic.

hth

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I did hear a while ago that Player’s Handbook 3 would include rules for ‘Hybrid Classes’. You’d pick two classes from level 1, take half the stats from one and half from the other, put them together, and pick alternating powers as you level up. I think it might work out, but not by much. they’d have to work out some bugs to keep classes from being ever so slightly overpowered.

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Acenra: Again, that sounds needlessly complicated. In the old days, you just decided to which of your classes your current experience points gain would go to. This would represent which one you had been training for lately. Of course, it might be argued that adventuring classes do their training on the field; in that case, a GM might insist the exp. go to the class whose abilities you used most significantly in the adventure, for example if you failed to cast any spells then you would not get to raise your Wizard class level.

In practice this means that a character with two classes would level them up more slowly than a single-class one would (to say nothing of one with THREE!) but that is realistic and helps game balance.