Gamer Question on Dungeons and Dragons
Ok, I need an honest opinion here. Do I get the core books for 4th edition or not? I've read very little of it myself and while there are some things I'm not thrilled about, I haven't read nearly enough to form an opinion one way or another. Here are some things to keep in mind to help with your suggestion
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The ranger still gives you two options, twin-sword and ranged, and I almost played a ranger until I read the specifics of the twin-sword. If you take that path, all your special attacks use STR to hit. With no more weapon finesse, you can say goodbye to DEX-based twin-weapon rangers. To be effective, be built like Conan. If you want to play a fast dexterous character who's decent in melee, don't play a ranger.
Example 3: the multiclassed Fighter / Wizard
This accounts for most of the 25% of non-rogue characters I play, so I wanted to see how they handled it, since the official word from WotC was that they had made the Fighter / Wizard build playable "unlike 3 Ed." Now, I've got some pretty kickass F/W 3Ed characters, so I was surprised they didn't consider it playable, but wanted to see what the new system would deliver. Unfortunately, I'm left with the feeling that multiclassing under the new system is worthless. Possible worse than worthless, and the F/W is the worst multiclass in the bunch.
The way multiclassing now works is that you can only have one class, but you can spend feats to buy some abilities from other classes - abilities that then replace your current abilities. In other words, if I'm a first level rogue, I have two at-will attacks, one encounter power, and one daily power. I can then spend a feat on something useful (like more HP) or I can spend it on getting, say, a ranger at-will attack - which then replaces one of my rogue attacks. I've burned a feat, but I still only have two at-will attacks. You can spend up to - I think it's four feats this way... horribly gimping your character. Also, you can only spend feats on abilities from one other class, so you can't be a rogue and take abilities from both wizard and cleric, for instance.
Additionally, your first ability isn't yours to choose - it's picked for you. If you multiclass into fighter, you get the ability to "mark" an opponent, which is 4E'd version of 'drawing aggro' in WoW. If you hit someone, you "mark" them, and then they take a penalty if they attack anyone but you, encouraging them to hit you (the tank) instead of, say, the wizard. However, let's say that I decide to play a wizard and multiclass into fighter. I don't get fighter HP; I keep rolling wizard HP. And now if I get into melee, I'm marking people and encouraging them to attack me. You can imagine how playable that would be. A fighter multiclassed into wizard is marginally playable, but then you'd max out at knowing something like four spells (basically whatever you spent feats on). Potentially useful, but no great shakes.
As a final note on wizards, you basically have a tiny, tiny spell selection now. Oh, but you can cast magic missile at will. This is a continuing theme - everything is dumbed down in the name of simplicity. I liked the wizard / sorcerer dichotomy of 3.X because it allowed you to play a spellcaster w/o the bookkeeping by choosing sorcerer, or get the full flexibility (with bookkeeping) by choosing wizard. That option, like so many others, is now gone.
Setting Stuff
The campaign worlds are now being revamped to fall in line with the "Points of Light" concept. To quote Wikipedia, "the style is described as being a large wilderness with small towns and other safe havens (the 'Points of Light') in it." This appears to be a combination attempt to hearken back to the nostalgic "good ol' days" of early 1st Edition, where there wasn't a lot of campaign material, and you never knew what was over the next rise, and wandered from module to module, and catering to those players who don't bother to read campaign setting books (I've gamed with several of this sort). You may be surprised to hear that I don't dislike this concept. I cut my gaming teeth on things like 'Keep on the Borderlands,' 'Lost Caverns of Tjocanth,' and 'Expedition to the Barrier Peaks' - and I DO get nostalgic for this kind of 'borderlands' action.
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