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nockergeekYes, D&D4e has been consuming many cycles of brain processing time as I absorb it, examine it, deconstruct it, and evaluate it, along with the various discussions, reviews, and commentaries that have been popping up around the 'net. If there's been one idea that gets repeated over and over and over again, it's that you have to approach 4e from a different angle than what you may be used to for D&D. So, with that in mind, here are...
My Favorite Five Things to Remember About 4e
Forget everything you knew about D&D. Fourth Edition is not an extension or a revision of Third Edition, or Second Edition, or any other edition of D&D. It's a rebuild from the ground up that borrows concepts and ideas from previous editions. A lot of sacred cows were slaughtered in the making of this edition - Vancian (cast-and-forget) magic, mechanically-significant alignment, hit dice, class-specific attack bonus and save progressions, and the Great Wheel cosmology, just to name a few - and what remains is significantly changed enough to make it functionally incompatible with older rules sets and your understanding of them. If you try approaching it from the old-school mindset, you're going to get frustrated.
The PCs are Big Damn Heroes. Heroes don't start out as fresh-off-the-farm anymore. At level 1, you're significantly better than the common folk at what you do. Everything the PCs do is a little bit larger than life (and increasingly so as the game goes on). It doesn't quite hit the amazing power levels of Exalted, although at the Epic tier (levels 21-30) it starts to get close. Also, the PCs are heroes; while lip service is played to having evil PCs, clerics and paladins (which can be evil now) still do a lot of healing and radiant damage, and worshippers of evil deities have no Channel Divinity feats available. If you want those options available, you'll have to homebrew them for now.
The "Points of Light" setting theme is a core assumption. The game assumes that the world is in a state of disarray, with small city states being the largest elements of surviving order. Villages and towns tend to be remote and isolated from one another, and trade is rare and risky. This is one reason why there's no real magic item trade reflected in the rules. It also ties into the Big Damn Heroes paradigm - people of heroic ability are going to be few and far between, which is why they're so superior to the common rabble.
Your favorite class/race/spell/monster/item/etc. is not in the core release. Don't assume that if it was in the core books before that it'll be in 4e's core books. For example, the Monster Manual contains creatures from all five of 3.x's MMs, and with space being limited, there are some notable iconics, like frost giants, that have been left behind. All the classes didn't make it across, either. Druids, Barbarians, Bards, Monks, and Sorcerers didn't make the cut for the first PHB. Some will make a comeback in PHB2 (Druids and Barbarians are likely going to be in, as that book supposedly focuses on "primal" characters, among others). The change in how character abilities work means certain spells didn't make it. Some skills didn't make it across, or were consolidated into other skills. Basically, in many cases, you're either going to have to wait for a future supplement, or make it up yourself.
The focus is on parties, not characters. In previous editions, character synergy didn't get a lot of attention. Instead, a lot of focus was on making individual characters into self-contained powerhouses. In 4e, the pendulum has changed directions. Individual characters are solid, but they need the other characters if they want to survive and succeed. No one character is indispensable, but tactical synergy is a major focus. Many abilities either trigger off of the actions of other characters, or can help set up actions for others. Parties are best constructed with an eye for making sure that everyone's abilities gel well together. It's very much a team game, rather than a game about loosely affiliated superpeople.
Forget everything you knew about D&D. Fourth Edition is not an extension or a revision of Third Edition, or Second Edition, or any other edition of D&D. It's a rebuild from the ground up that borrows concepts and ideas from previous editions. A lot of sacred cows were slaughtered in the making of this edition - Vancian (cast-and-forget) magic, mechanically-significant alignment, hit dice, class-specific attack bonus and save progressions, and the Great Wheel cosmology, just to name a few - and what remains is significantly changed enough to make it functionally incompatible with older rules sets and your understanding of them. If you try approaching it from the old-school mindset, you're going to get frustrated.
The PCs are Big Damn Heroes. Heroes don't start out as fresh-off-the-farm anymore. At level 1, you're significantly better than the common folk at what you do. Everything the PCs do is a little bit larger than life (and increasingly so as the game goes on). It doesn't quite hit the amazing power levels of Exalted, although at the Epic tier (levels 21-30) it starts to get close. Also, the PCs are heroes; while lip service is played to having evil PCs, clerics and paladins (which can be evil now) still do a lot of healing and radiant damage, and worshippers of evil deities have no Channel Divinity feats available. If you want those options available, you'll have to homebrew them for now.
The "Points of Light" setting theme is a core assumption. The game assumes that the world is in a state of disarray, with small city states being the largest elements of surviving order. Villages and towns tend to be remote and isolated from one another, and trade is rare and risky. This is one reason why there's no real magic item trade reflected in the rules. It also ties into the Big Damn Heroes paradigm - people of heroic ability are going to be few and far between, which is why they're so superior to the common rabble.
Your favorite class/race/spell/monster/item/etc. is not in the core release. Don't assume that if it was in the core books before that it'll be in 4e's core books. For example, the Monster Manual contains creatures from all five of 3.x's MMs, and with space being limited, there are some notable iconics, like frost giants, that have been left behind. All the classes didn't make it across, either. Druids, Barbarians, Bards, Monks, and Sorcerers didn't make the cut for the first PHB. Some will make a comeback in PHB2 (Druids and Barbarians are likely going to be in, as that book supposedly focuses on "primal" characters, among others). The change in how character abilities work means certain spells didn't make it. Some skills didn't make it across, or were consolidated into other skills. Basically, in many cases, you're either going to have to wait for a future supplement, or make it up yourself.
The focus is on parties, not characters. In previous editions, character synergy didn't get a lot of attention. Instead, a lot of focus was on making individual characters into self-contained powerhouses. In 4e, the pendulum has changed directions. Individual characters are solid, but they need the other characters if they want to survive and succeed. No one character is indispensable, but tactical synergy is a major focus. Many abilities either trigger off of the actions of other characters, or can help set up actions for others. Parties are best constructed with an eye for making sure that everyone's abilities gel well together. It's very much a team game, rather than a game about loosely affiliated superpeople.
