Dungons and Dragons 4 Evaluation1

What can I say about Dungeons and Dragons fourth edition?

Well I must say, that at first I was skeptical and in many ways I still am. I am just going to have to play to see how I like it. I like the concept of at will powers. These are spells and abilities that Characters can use at once per combat round at will. Other more powerful powers can be used once per encounter. Read that as fight. This gives each of the player classes some serious teeth. I think that the wizard class benefits from this change the most. In older editions Wizards just had a few spell that they could cast a couple of times per “Day” then they were out of spells and became more a liability rather than an asset.

Dungeons and Dragons fourth edition introduces a couple of new races and new classes to the game. Dragonborn are the first of the new races. Dragonborn are the offspring of dragons and humans. They are heirs of a fallen empire and believe that honor is more important than life. Another introduced race is the Tiefling (okay so they are not exactly new but they have never been this detailed before). The human ancestors to the Tieflings were the noble class of an ancient empire. To control the vast lands they conqured the humans entered into a pact with devils. The offspring were Tieflings. The Tiefling and dragonborn empires clashed for decades causing the fall of both. Both races have interesting abilities and both would be fun to play.

D and D 4 also introduces a couple of new classes the Warlord and the Warlock. The Warlord looks fun. A lot of the Warlords powers effect the tactical movement of the fight. To be honest to play a warlord effectively you really do need a combat map even if it is just a piece of graph paper. The Warlock is a spin on Wizard. More focused on curses then on spells. They did a way with monks and sorcerers. Not sure why both classes were fun to play. I understand that some GM’s had a hard time with monks. Again, I am not sure why.

Tiffany is already working on a character concept. She would like to play a Tiefling Paladin.

WotC has deliberately left the world blank they have not fleshed out the campain world with detail they tell you that they have made certain assumptions and the rest is up to the GM. I am sure that will be changing in the near future as I am sure that they would like to sell more books. I am not sure how they are going to transfer there established worlds. The assumptions the WotC tell you that they have made are: The World Is a Fantastic Place, The world is Ancient, The World is Mysterious, Monsters Are Everywhere, Adventurers Are Exceptional, The civilized Races Band Together, Magic is not Everyday but it is Natural, Gods and Primordials Shaped the World, and Gods are Distant.

The World is Fantastic, well duh. It is a fantasy Game.


The world is Ancient. Empires have risen and have fallen. The last empire one dominated by humans but welcoming to all civilized races recently fell. It was beset by orcs and demons. The emperor and his heirs were assassinated and the empire fell into ruin. Splintering into duchies principalities, city states and the like. There of course are some tensions between the smaller kingdoms. Most people have forgotten. Dungeons dungeons everywhere.

The World is Mysterious. Most of the world is not explored. Cities and towns are points of light in a world of unexplored darkness full of forgotten places and forgotten civilizations.

Monsters are everywhere, oh goody.

The Civilized Races Band Together. That means that on this world the playable races mostly get along. Its like they have enough trouble. Also the last empire that recently fell united the main races.

Magic is not Everyday but it is natural. No witch hunts.

God’s and primodials shaped the world. Zeus and the titans what?

God are distant. They work though minions.

Anyway there is much more I could say about the game but not on this blog.