Review of D&D v4 (Dungeons and Dragons version 4)
I recently got Dungeons and Dragons version 4. D&D is a tabletop RPG with real dice and real people around a real table. It uses this fancy new nanotechnology called “atoms” to render its images. Version 4 is the radical replacement for the previous version 3 (which upgraded to a minor 3.5). Version 3 was itself a huge rebirth of D&D done in the early 2000s after “Advanced D&D” collapsed under its own weight decades ago. V3 and V4 are made by Wizards of the Coast, who makes the card game Magic the Gathering.
Having played it a bit and read it all, I am very positive on v4. I would regard it as a pretty much new game system, and 3.5 still a good valid system. Sort of like playing Shadowrun and D&D—you may be in the mood for either. For easily distracted kids, new players, and a lower-hassle gameplay experience, I’d say v4 is well worth it.
V4 is a major streamline. Though the books are equally thick, in reality the rule density is about a third of 3.5. The books have bigger type, more air, and more content (items and skills, as opposed to rules). In combat, you would go around the table faster for each combat round, but for more rounds. I’d bet that with fairly new or distractible players, a combat round would take about a quarter the time in v4; with experienced players maybe half the time. There is less to look up, adjudicate, and get finicky about. However, an encounter will probably take about the same amount of time. For us it has been an hour or even two for a full encounter, but the time flew because it was really fun. This is because an encounter takes more rounds. There is a lot more back-and-forth tides of fortune, where you (the players) think you are doing well, then you shit yourselves thinking you might lose, then you get a second wind and it goes your way again, then back, and so on. Hit points go down and up and down more dramatically for the players, so battles just take longer. The monsters are tougher.
Character building and levelling is a lot faster in v4, trading again simplicity for speed and less headache. Maybe 1/4th the time to set up a new character and half the time to level one up. Nice for new players and fast advancing groups.
All this comes at a tradeoff, which means I understand those who want to stick with 3.5 (or Pathfinder, its current legacy bearer) as well as or instead of v4. If you are a grognard who loves well-made complexity with lots of fun fiddly bits and a lot of creative flexibility to your options in character building and combat, you could well like 3.5 a lot more. V4 gives you fewer options in combat, but it all feels more epic and sweeps along faster. V4 gives you fewer options in character building, but it’s faster, the character roles are more differentiated with very different feels, and you have less niggling suspicion that you nerfed yourself a few levels ago and now you are a permanent gimp. You also don’t feel like if you only pored over the rules for another few hours, you could find a neato way to make your character a lot more leet.
Some of the tradeoffs are nothing less than heresy to hardcore devotees of 3.5 and they shocked me. But I don’t miss them and I appreciate their ballsiness. Dwarves don’t have darkvision. Diagonal movement has no penalty. You start each encounter at nearly full strength. There are no skill ranks. Intelligence can help your reflex save and AC, and equipment helps less, so wizards can have quite high AC. Say whaaaat? But it all works and I am eager to keep playing.
Some say (disparagingly) that v4 is like they wanted it to feel like you are playing WoW. On one hand, I see the point. Your character build is lot more like a WoW tree than old D&D, and everyone uses “powers” in combat which makes everyone seem semi-magical and epic. But I like that and think WoW is a good game so that comment seems a bit snide. Also, really, playing any tabletop RPG is a totally different experience than playing an MMO so it’s a silly comparison. Everyone seems to like splitting themselves into little cabals and I usually don’t see the point, so all the 3.5 vs. 4 arguments kind of bore me.
I really like the addition of strong roles for both monsters and players, making combat a real interplay of tank/healer/controller/glass cannon like in an MMO. That’s a great game dynamic so I am happy to see it working here. I also like the addition of the “skill challenge” idea, which probably can also be done well in 3.5 but it’s nicely explained here.
One final note: if you buy v4, be sure to download the latest updates from Wizards and plan to spend a few hours with scissors and a gluestick to update the books. Lots of important tuning changes and rule quirks smoothed out. A pain to do but well worth it.
Tags: d&d, recommendations, rpgs
Hi
If you where a surfer, I’d be the old grey haired dude with skin like leather standing next to a 10ft longboard wondering if I should try out these new fandangled things that have multiple fins and are no taller than I am.
I started playing with the Basic set back in the 70′s and did more hours than most, mostly as a DM and most of it through 70′s, 80′s.
There isn’t a lot anyone could tell me about A D&D I don’t already know.
Lately a bunch of my equally grey haired mates have gotten back into the swing of things and although I’m late to the party, I’d like to catch up.
They’re going with V4 so I guess my question is (assuming you could bother to help an old fart like me,) what do I need to do to get up to speed and catch a few waves without breaking my old fool neck?
Cheers and thanks for the V4 review.
Stoffa
October 11th, 2010 at 2:29 amHi Stoffa! Wow, I feel like the proprietor of an old inn on the abandoned interstate who hears the ring of the front door bell and runs around yelling, “A visitor! Wake up!”
I have to run off to teach class but I’ll give a proper reply to this within a day. Cheers!
October 11th, 2010 at 6:51 amHi again Stoffa–
Surf on dude! I think V4 is a fine choice. It plays quite quickly in that the rules are pretty clear and simple. Hard to compare to the Basic set– I played that one too– because there is a lot more content now, of course. On a blow-by-blow basis combat has some more factors, since position on the battlefield matters a lot more than in Basic. But I think that adds a lot to the tactics. As I recall AD&D, V4 is a *lot* more streamlined and less time reading and arguing about rules once you get the hang of the game. That said, a full-on combat encounter can take an hour or two in V4. It’s a really fun hour or two, but still, some people think that’s too long and squeezes out room for role-playing. I disagree. You can have a nice five-hour play session with some RP, some minor skirmishes and traps, then *one* big fight, then more RP. One way to speed up combat for DMs who want more chat and less hack and slash is to make the encounters quite hard, but don’t play to the bitter end when all the monsters are dead. Make it so that once a few of them get bloodied, they abandon the fight, or they provide some opening that lets the party finish them off in one blow.
Anyway, here’s a bit of advice for a gaming group getting started:
–Get 1 set of books: Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide 1, and a Monster Manual. Not sure if MM1 is best or MM3. The latter has better-balanced monsters, I hear, but not sure if it has a lot of monsters for low-levels to fight.
–DM can get a nice cheap module to play, by buying a month of Insider access at wizards.com, or buying it on paper. Chaos Scar looks like a good set for low-levels to play. Good way to get a feel for how combat is supposed to work. I don’t advise the DMG making his own encounters right away.
–Definitely get a battle grid and miniatures or colorful stones. No need to spend a lot on fancy minis; mostly you just want some way to lay out the tactics as you play.
–Start at level 1. It feels more epic to be a L1 in V4 than it did to be higher levels in Basic, I think, so you can have fun right away.
–Use the character builder at wizards.com to make characters. (Once you get past level 3, someone needs to have an Insider account but you can all use the same account.) The builder makes it fast and fun, gives you access to a whole shelf’s worth of books’ content, and you don’t have to worry about every single rule. It works very well, IMO.
As for you, grey surfer, just read the Player’s Handbook. Don’t bother reading about all the races and classes and their skills, and don’t bother reading all the feats — do that reading in the Character Builder tool as you make your character. If you skip all that, it’s only an afternoon’s pleasant reading.
And then just jump in. Like it was when you first started playing D&D, it can be slow and bothersome to learn, but it was easier when we were younger and had a lot more time on our hands.
Just give it time and have fun along the way. Keep it breezy and light, not worrying if you die. Your DM should be nice and let you replay an encounter that goes all wrong. You learn a lot more that way IMO.
Have a blast and don’t mind the occasional wipeout. If you get caught in a rip, just relax and let it take you where it will. And come back to say how it goes!
You might like my Facebook game page there in which I talk about D&D:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Locused/133723866643844
…you don’t have to be a Facebook member to read it, but you do in order to comment there.
Rock on,
October 13th, 2010 at 10:04 amMatt