Welcome to Gaia! ::

Just wanted to throw it out there. I'm excited about it, really excited, been keeping my eye on GamerZer0 on Youtube for information and leaks about the rules and wandering aimlessly through the forums, finding tidbits of rules and characters.

If you haven't already done so, go to WotC web site and download the pre-constructed characters, it will give you a small idea what what you'll be in for. However, how a Level 1 Dwarf Fighter has 33HP, I'll never know.

As a DM, I'm going to say that the game will be pretty well developed since I'm under the impression that the game has been, in a manner of speaking, dumbed down. When I run a session, its in-depth, insightful and my players get into it pretty hardcore. My problem is trying to figure out how to spice things up so they're not always using the same skills over and over again. What 4.0 does is crams those 70 some odd skills into a tiny little box of 17 skills which, I believe are more based off of your ability modifiers than anything. Another thing I'm worried about is all the powers and abilities players now have. Feats now drastically effect battle, your race grants you benevolent powers. Now granted they can only use them one an encounter, usually. Even with that in mind I'd say that most encounters at low and even higher levels aren't going to last very long, what with the Second Wind feature.

As a player, I'm nervous, though I haven't played in years, stupid friends enver wanting to DM... In any case, as a player I value being/having/creating a truly individual character, all those skills I mentioned above getting tucked into one neat little box shunts that notion of individuality in my humble opinion. It was being a rogue that set me apart, no one else could do the wide variety of things I could, or as a barbarian, no one could inflict massive amounts of damage in a single turn at low levels. Now everything seems to have an ability that does one form of 3D10+5, and the cleric, the poor cleric, seems all but useless in 4.0. On the bright side, I'm looking forward, if I ever find a DM who likes 4.0, to smoother gaming, more focus on Role Playing and more interesting combat where we can't just run in and hack and slash.

Over all, I feel its going to come down to a roll of the dice on whether 4th Ed will be a flop or fancy. I wish I could've gone to Gencon to play test but living in the great white north forbids that. Curses...

What does everyone else think? What have you heard, what are your impressions and ideas?

the Lion

I feel the same way some times.. in other news:

Hi there!