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| Dungeons and Dragons Core Rulebook Gift Set, 4th Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Wizards Rpg Team
Brand: Wizards of the Coast
Category: Book
List Price: $104.95
Buy New: $56.34
You Save: $48.61 (46%)
New (34) Used (9) from $55.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  184 reviews
Sales Rank: 1204
Format: Box Set
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 4th
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 832
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6.9
Dimensions (in): 11.6 x 8.7 x 2.4
ISBN: 0786950633
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN: 9780786950638
ASIN: 0786950633
Publication Date: June 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New! Save 30 - 50% off of retail prices on our wide selection of comic book graphic novels, manga and anime, role playing games, DVDS, Osprey military history books, and more!
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| Customer Reviews:
 D&D for Dummies June 17, 2008
16 out of 27 found this review helpful
This edition of Dungeons and Dragons has been "simplified" to where it's basically nothing more than a slightly expanded version of the D&D Miniatures game.
The new rules are focused ONLY on running boardgame-style combat with miniature figures. After running three of four test sessions my players became VERY bored and insisted on going back and playing "real D&D."
If you want to play this kind of tabletop miniatures combat, you'd be better of just getting the D&D miniatures game. Or the game "Heroscape."
But if you REALLY want to play 4E, I suggest that you wait a month or two. The books will cost a lot less when they're on clearance.
 End Of An Era June 17, 2008
15 out of 20 found this review helpful
So, here we are a little over five years after the 3.5 version of D&D and Wizards of the Coast has launched the 4th Edition. Drastic changes abound within these pages. Some are good, some bad, some necessary, and some trivial.
Physically, the package is very nice. The slipcase for the three books is sturdy and aesthetically pleasing. The books themselves are hardbound, well stitched, and printed on heavy stock. The cover art has returned to pre-3rd Ed style and features artwork rather than faux embellishments to make the book appear like a mystic artifact. The interior art features mostly new illustrations with a few recycled pieces from the previous books. The layout is clear and easy to follow. The lack of a glossary is troubling for new players, but not a dealbreaker.
The actual rules system has gotten a drastic overhaul. Although the basic d20 system is still in use, just about everything else in D&D has changed. Combat now revolves around "At-Will", "Encounter", and "Once Per Day" powers that are given to every class. Combat spells are not memorized daily and do not operate on a different resolution system. They can be fired off without using up a "slot" as in the old method, and they can also miss their target since they are aimed like any other attack. Hit points regenerate overnight to fully healed status.
Multi-classing is essentially out. (You can take powers from other classes, but you'll never be able to fully have all their abilities.) Gnomes are gone except as monsters. Bards are gone. Sorcerors and Monks are also gone. Frost giants and metallic dragons aren't found in the Monster Manual. Tieflings, Dragonborn, and Eladrin are now core races. Alignments have been streamlined. Character levels go to 30 in the core game. Skills are simplified. The list of changes goes on and on...
Is it good, or is it bad? That depends, really. If you're a number-crunching powergamer, then this game will not be for you. If you relish the thought of building a 12th Level Fighter with 7 FTR, 3 RGR, 1 ROG, 1 SOR in it's makeup, then 4th Edition is going to make you cry. If you want to play a game that in combat encounters mimics a computer MMO played on a tabletop, or if you just want a RPG that offers quick and easy gaming, then 4th Edition may be up your alley.
Wizards obviously made the changes in response to the kinds of gaming standards set by computer games. As a business, they've had to adapt. As a RPG hobby, they've all but died.
Although I understand their business needs, it saddens me that they've decided to drop roleplaying for the kind of gaming found in modern MMO games. It would seem obvious to me that one audience is not necessarily the same as the other, but the die has been cast.
Not the best foot forward July 10, 2008
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
I'll admit, I'm not going to be kind, but I think this ruleset is getting what it deserves.
4E does has its good points. Slimming the rules down is something the game needed. Combat is extremely tactical. If you like lots of combat or are into table-top combat games, you'll enjoy this part of the game immensely. There are plenty of tidbits that could allude to hours worth of roleplaying. The DM has more control over the game (though I wish they would quit ending each rule with "...unless the DM says otherwise." Stop being wishy-washy WotC, and we ALL know the DM can change the rules any time he feels like it anyways. We don't need it beaten over our head every few paragraphs.)
But for every good point 4E has, it has at least twice as many strikes against it.
The rules have been slimmed down to the point that they are often confusing, contradictory or incomplete. The current hubbub surrounding the Stealth skill is one example. Several other areas of the rules feel incomplete or are just badly worded. And in many cases, pieces of a rule you need can be scattered between three and four different sections, thanks to keywords and WotC's sometimes baffling organization of the information.
Roleplaying is mostly ignored; though you are thrown scraps here and there that could easily be developed and fleshed out, the focus of the game is clearly on combat, with a dash of plot mixed into the mess. You're "on your own" for justifying the use of any of the powers, skills or other pieces of the game outside of combat, as if ignoring the world beyond combat was a perk to the system, not a bug. I could just as easily roleplay with games like Descent, Heroquest, Dragon Strike or Warhammer Quest and get in about the same amount of combat. Really, this doesn't feel like a roleplaying game so much as a board game with a running group of loosely interconnected scenarios that someone slapped the label of "story" on it.
Feats have become worthless - to the point of ignoring them won't hurt your character at all. Rituals are forgettable as well as now. And while Paragon classes will get you extra "cool powerz", they don't allow you to really build on the concept of your character to build it in other ways beside being good in a fight.
There is a serious disconnect between logic and the game. You can do things that mechanically make sense, but have a huge disconnect in why it would work. Don't put too much thought into the whys of the game; the fragile suspension of belief will simply crumble away. Just get it in your head it's a game and move on. Your brain will hurt less.
If you've made one character, you've pretty much made them all. Two strikers pretty much will have the same defense scores and dish out the same damage, even if one's a ranger and the other is a rogue. Your unarmored rogue will have about the same AC as scale & shield fighter. The cleric and the warlord can heal party members for pretty much the same amount. If you're not a striker, everybody deals pretty much the same amount of damage. In a way, it's sort of blah. The only difference is the effects you deal with your base damage, and that loses its charm very quickly. Expect your first few combats to be exciting, but it quickly starts degrading into the same sort of pattern as the old "I charge, I swing, I hit, I miss, etc.", except it becomes "I move here. I use this power. I hit, deal this damage and inflict this effect. He makes his save. I move here, use this power ... rinse and repeat."
Half of the game is missing - or at least it feels like it. If you're a veteran of previous editions, there is so much missing from just the core books that I felt quite dismayed. From missing races, classes, whole groupings of spells (summoning and polymorph just to start) and a disappointing list of weapons, armor and equipment (heck, they forgot to list lamp oil in the equipment list to fill up those lanterns you can buy!). Whole groups of magic items are gone - it feels like basically anything in the game that's use was primarily outside of combat.
Telling us that these things, that were previous in the core book will be available "down the road" is a copout for the true problem with 4E. This is a system that will nickle and dime you to death to get the "full-blown" system. Don't fall for it.
Oh, and to top it all off, there's the fact that books are very shoddily constructed. The ink in my DMG has smeared at a touch, and I have about 3 pages where the ink at the time of print left a red streak that runs down the page (the pages are in the "Adding templates to monsters" section, and the ink is obviously from the red headers on those pages). Also, the interior book binding is splitting away from the covers/spine. Another player in my group has had his PHB less than a month (in a bookbag in the car, only coming out for our once-a-week game), and the pages are falling out of his book already. I'm afraid to even take the books down from the shelves anymore.
Product 5 star, Amazon, 0 stars June 11, 2008
14 out of 56 found this review helpful
I'd preordered this almost a month ago and they delayed me until July 14, of all the stupidity. So, I've gone with another seller - Comics-Now - but had to pay for shipping. Overall, I'm really angry with Amazon over this. How could they accept preorders and then not have enough to ship to everyone, while meantime stores have them on their shelves just fine? Amazon, you fail.
WoW+D&D=Blah June 15, 2008
14 out of 33 found this review helpful
I have been playing in some form for 25+ years. This product has nice art and good combat, but lacks any flavor. Elves are amoral, wizards are the definition of bland, multiclassing is a vacant hole at best and every class seems to be a poor copy of WoW/Everquest. Played the sample module and just felt... well... bored. Just wait until 5th edition (or 6th).
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