 List Price: $104.95
Lowest Price: $62.97 
Product Description: All three 4th Edition core rulebooks in one handsome slipcase. The Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game has defined the medieval fantasy genre and the tabletop RPG industry for more than 30 years. In the D&D game, players create characters that band together to explore dungeons, slay monsters, and find treasure. The 4th Edition D&D rules offer the best possible play experience by presenting exciting character options, an elegant and robust rules system, and handy storytelling tools for the Dungeon Master.This gift set features a handsome slipcase containing all three of the 4th Edition D&D Roleplaying Game core rulebooks: the Players Handbook rulebook (320 pages), the Monster Manual rulebook (288 pages), and the Dungeon Masters Guide rulebook (224 pages). Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-07-08
Streamlining at the expense of freedom
4th edition seems more like a successor to 2nd edition than it does to 3rd/3.5. The 2 hallmarks of 3rd edition were (mostly) sensible codified rules, and freedom, especially from arbitrary rules (like race restrictions on classes). While there are exceptions to both in 3.x, these trends permeated the system as a whole, and it was a better game than its predecessor in virtually every way I can think of.
4th edition doesn't mess too much with with the first hallmark (though it does seem like a tiny step backward), it really reverses itself on the second. Not completely; it's not as bad as second edition, but it's sad to see this in 3.x's successor.
Classes are once again very rigid, and with little room to deviate on the narrow path (or often two paths) it sets in front of you. Want to use two weapons? Only a Ranger gets to make any extra attacks with them. Want to be able to use a bow/crossbow? Ranger is your only real choice (well, rogue has some minor ranged stuff for a crossbow). It's very Video game / World of Warcraft inspired; it's a shame they carried over the bad stuff from video games (massive constraint), eliminating a lot of the strength Pen & paper RPGs have over video games. For the record, I'm not bashing video games, I'm an avid player of both).
Multiclassing is one of the biggest victims. While there were problems with 3rd edition multiclassing, the method of doing so was nearly flawless. The discrepancies between multiclassing martial classes (good) and caster classes (bad) came from the way martial classes were front-loaded with diminishing returns and caster classes had weak starts with near god-like endgame powers.
As a DM, I loved the finely crafted enemies in 3.x that you could build with the care and attention to detail that a player takes in creating PCs. Getting a Race/Class combination, choosing feats/equipment to suit them, etc. That's gone. Enemies are pretty much all off the shelf with the possibility of small changes like across the board generic +1 to 5 or -1 to 5 too defenses/attacks. Templates are a little bit better, but are almost as much work as fine-tuning a 3.x enemy for almost none of the customization.
But, it's not all bad. For all the sacrifices that they made to the game, they did add some benefits. The game is more streamlined now. 3rd edition codified rules instead of making DMs wing a lot of it, but in some respects it went too far. No longer do you have to worry about 7 different penalties from 3 different sources for holding 2 weapons. That wasn't very fun. Grapple is now a single check instead of 4 separate rolls (whose modifiers were arbitrary and changed with every new release of the FAQ). Spells/effects typically only last for 1-2 rounds or the end of the encounter so you don't have to worry about having 12 different buffs with varying durations on you. Basically, once you've got your character sheet made, the game chugs along with minimal stoppage for rules consultations, and questions like "has it been 16 minutes since that last battle, I've got 3 buffs that wear off then?" etc. or recalculating attacks/saves past a common +2 you might have from this ability and a bonus for attacking a prone opponent, etc.
While it will be many months until I can really comment on the overall balance of the classes compared to one another, abilities do seem much more spread out over the levels. There are no more "empty" levels where you get nothing but HP and a few skillpoints. The fighter class isn't nearly so boring as a feat every other level (in a game where feats never got more powerful past 6th level until years later with supplements).
The one big change that I am most fond of is more per-encounter balancing of the game. I am pleasantly surprised they finally ditched Vancian spellcasting sacred cow (you're next: alignment!), and make a low-level caster fun to play (no more 3 spells and then stuck with weak crossbow abilities for the rest of the game). This is really the defining positive feature of this edition in my opinion, and does shore up some of its weaknesses, even if it's not enough to raise my rating over 3 stars.
So, all in all, a much streamlined game, but one that sacrificed a lot of its ability to micromanage and customize its aspects. I'll likely have fun with it for a little while, but I also see that fun ending much quicker than with 3.x edition. You'll almost have to purchase expansion books to keep anything more than the campaign itself from being trodden ground (like the guy that plays the same character over and over again with only a letter change in his name)...then again, that could have been Wizards of the Coast's intention all along... Rating: 
Date: 2008-07-07
Not your father's Dungeons and Dragons...
One thing that just about every reviewer agrees about is that 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons is a vastly different game system than all the previous editions. Some reviewers scoff at the idea of doing things differently, but I personally see 4th edition as an excellent RPG in its own right. I look at it as its own entity, separate from AD&D and 3rd edition, and I see a game that is relatively easy to learn, fun to play, balanced and well-presented. My complaints about the rules are few and minor, and my gaming group has come to enjoy the streamlined combat and uniqueness in the monster design.
The basic mechanics of 4th edition are relatively uniform throughout the game system. When you attack or cast a spell or attempt a skill, you roll a die and add your modifier and try and beat a target number. The person doing the action always does the rolling and always tries to beat some previously set target value. Similarly all the classes in the game use the same basic underlying mechanisms for their abilities. They all get a similar number of abilities, the abilities all sort of function using the same methodology, and everybody advances in the same sort of way. This makes the game not only fairly easy for a new player to learn, but it also makes the game easier for even veteran DMs to adjudicate and helps make the game that much more balanced on a fundamental level.
But even though the game uses underlying similarities to streamline the process during combat and character design, it has taken the time to make sure that every monster the party faces has unique features and hooks to make them interesting and different from every other monster. Likewise even though the classes all have powers that use similar basic mechanics, the specific effects of those powers vary widely and make each class play differently during actual combat.
I should also mention that the books themselves are very visually appealing. The artwork is top notch, the rules are in a reasonably readable typeface and are pretty well organized. This is probably one of the best looking RPG products in terms of art and organization that I've seen in a while.
Now I'm not going to claim the game is perfect. The indices at the back of each book seem a bit short, making it tricky to find certain details occasionally. The magic items aren't cataloged by level, making it a little more cumbersome for a DM creating an adventure to flip through level appropriate loot for their encounters. And while there are literally hundreds of powers in the Player's Handbook, those powers are by necessity split between 30 levels and so at any given level there are only four or so choices of powers to choose from in each category and class.
But those quibbles are minor, and the game itself plays very well in practice. Even the newest person in our gaming group, who had never played a tabletop RPG before, got into the game very quickly and is having a blast. The group-on-group combat design of encounters in 4th edition makes the action exciting, while the streamlined combat process keeps things moving fluidly despite having 10 or 20 combatants at a time. Out of combat the addition of skill challenges is a nice touch, and the DMG has quite a bit of excellent advice and practical systems to aid encounter and adventure design.
So to me this is an excellent purchase and well worth the time to play. My group and I are having a great time with it, and if you're either a new player looking to try a tabletop roleplaying game or a veteran player looking to try a new, different RPG for a change of pace then this is a solid system worth giving a go. Rating: 
Date: 2008-07-07
waste of print
This new version of D&D is terrible. Its not that they made changes, its the type of changes that they made. This is not a 4th edition product it is a completely different game. And the game design itself is in some ways infantile. They have tried to bridge the gap between tabletop rpg's and the new fad of MMOG (massive multiplayer online games). As a player of both, I feel that they have failed.
The game is heavily weighed towards giving the players more power. To have an adequate challenge you will need to throw more and more bad guys at them. Might as well call this a very complicated tabletop wargame.
The game seems to lend itself to very young players. The DMG is a joke..filled with fluff material and has no real substance. I didnt even bother opening the Monster Manual.
I ended up selling the game after a week at a loss.
enjoy. Rating: 
Date: 2008-07-07
Better game, but book quality is weak.
Many of the pages of the PHB and DMG in this set had minor wrinkles from the production process, which detracts from the otherwise great value and great fun we're having with the game. Rating:
Date: 2008-07-07
D&D 4th - Collector's Item interest only
I bought this copy and it is still in the shrink wrap. I have no intention of playing. The system appears to be a giant step backwards to the days of wargaming, where moving a figure on a battle mat is more important than a lively exchange of roleplaying. |
