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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: $56.24
You Save: $48.71 (46%)
New (32) Used (9) from $50.62
Avg. Customer Rating:  187 reviews
Sales Rank: 1633
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
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Review from a DM June 8, 2008
46 out of 70 found this review helpful
Alright, here's a warning: if you do like 3.5, don't look at this. If you've found all the flaws I have, then do look.
3.5's flaws were painfully clear. Powergamers were frequent and cheap, using tactics that allow 16th level characters to one shot monsters double their level. The system actually discouraged roleplaying and skill use, since the wizard could just do all of that. Long live the wizard and the sorcerer, they were the only classes really worth using. Story took a backseat because roleplaying took a backseat.
4th has fixed these flaws. Every class has been made even. This means that non-casters can actually do cool stuff.
The main power of powergamers, multiclassing, has been made fair. You wanna multiclass? Take a feat for it. Granted, I don't like the actual feats given, but that's what houserules are for.
The skills have been consolidated into a sensible few. C'mon, if you're gonna be good at climbing you'll be good at swimming. The skill point system has been removed, turning it from the longest to the shortest area you spend on your character sheet.
Combat has sped up, and has gotten alot better. Movement is expected and encouraged, giving the game a more cinematic feel.
There are a few flaws besides the multiclassing feats, and here they are:
Most of the classes are more homogeneous, with the descriptive text and name being the only difference in some powers.
There just isn't...enough, to the system, but it's really not a flaw, it's a fact. The Player's Hand is so full of stuff that it couldn't hold anymore, which is why there are supplements coming out. As time goes on, the homogeneous feel of the classes will vanish, since new options will open up as time goes on. And that's what homebrewing's for anyway.
My two games of 4th have been better than the last two years of 3.5. Long live 4th. Don't listen to the others, this is the real deal. This is fantasy roleplaying. This is Dungeons and Dragons.
4th edition D&D -- a great game June 9, 2008
45 out of 64 found this review helpful
I call the new rule set:
"Everything that is old is new again"
As other reviewers have mentioned, there are significant changes to the rules. Having lived with the rules for the past 6 months, I can say that the game is much more balanced (in general) and most importantly -- REALLY FUN TO PLAY AND DM.
I played and ran a significant amount of 3.5 rules and the system had come to the natural conclusion. There were so many rules and options that it was becoming unplayable.
I'll give a few examples:
* The "Dunkin Donuts" effect of prestige classes was getting silly. The "I'm a fighter...well, really a Fighter 4, Barbarian 1, Occult Slayer 2, Reaping Mauler 2, etc..." was becoming the normal with high level characters...fighter types in particular.
This was a nightmare for the DM to keep track of everyone's abilities at high level
* Monsters had too much to do...that's right, monsters, especially complicated or high level monsters, were just a pain to run. I can cast this laundry list of spells -- but really, I only cast 3-4 of my most powerful spells ever
* One word -- grappling. Let's use it in a sentence:
In 3.5, some of the most difficult and annoying rules revolve around...grappling.
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I have already heard the complaints -- it's too simple, it doesn't allow flexibility, etc..
At least for me, I am more than willing to give up flexibility (at least for now...you know there are more books on the way in the next year) for now in order to have a system that is fast and fun to play
What's great about 4th edition?
* Skill Challenges -- awesome mechanic -- basically allows you to abstract almost any situation and roleplay with very little restrictions.
Negotiations with the town council -- skill challenge
Trying to get out of a maze -- skill challenge
Playing a game of poker against an opponent -- skill challenge
You can use just about any skill or ability to try to influence the challenge -- one person used streetwise in the poker game to try to tip me off on the other person's hand.
* Race matters -- just like in the original rule books, race plays a big part. A dwarven fighter really is different than an elf or eladrin fighter and that's just cool
* The DMG is a great book. They are not afraid to call it as they see it and "expose" the various types of gamers, what they want and how to handle them well in a group.
* Easy for the target market (12+ -- especially on the lower end of the age range) to pick up the game and run with it.
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I was a huge skeptic going into this new editon but I have converted and become an advocate for 4th edition
 Incomplete and overly Simplistic (also Smudges!) June 10, 2008
40 out of 87 found this review helpful
Good:
* Faster combat (depending on class choice)
* Good Artwork
Bad:
*Pages smudge - poor quality printing
* No druid - have to continuously pay for more core books and who knows which one this class will be in?
* Erasure of old cosmology, replaced with simplistic game that resembles video game but way more expensive to support
* Rows upon rows of tables will not draw MMORPG players
* Supplementary online material costs $15/month - the cost for ALL of WoW
* Resused a good deal of art but no savings passed to consumer
* Limited creativity - lots of things you can't do
* Classes feel generic - playing a fighter is like playing a wizard
 For some, great. For me, boring. July 6, 2008
39 out of 46 found this review helpful
I was really looking forward to 4ed. The idea that you can just pick-up and play without having to decipher lots of fine print and sub-rules and supplements and so on, this seemed like a good idea. (Although, frankly, the mastery of D&D minutiae is most certainly the appeal for some geeks.)
Surprisingly, I've had to literally force my way through the Player's Handbook. It's all so ... boring. Part of the fun of D&D (for me, as a DM) was reading through all the possibilities, and imagining more. 3ed had this in spades: You could do just about anything, and it gave a lot of room to go in interesting and unique directions.
4ed, meanwhile, maps everything out. Everything is classified in terms of how often you can use it, and you add this power or that feat at each level according to a unified formula. It reminds me more of Diablo than anything.
I'm not being dismissive, either. Really, 4ed is an impressive piece of work, streamlining and cleaning up a very messy game. I give it three (of five) stars because it's so easy to read and has big type with every detail clerly spelled out. (I don't like the artwork but that's my own taste.) It will surely be easier for people to casually pick up and play. What I can't figure out is why they--or really, why =I= would want to play it.
I gather that a lot of issues with 3ed came about because of pickup and competition games. There are such things as "powergamers" and "rules lawyers" and they found ways to drag the game down. And, of course, not all classes in previous editions were equally powerful, if you crunched the numbers. (It never occurred to me that this was a problem, but then I do everything I can to keep my players from focusing on the numbers.)
So, I guess 4ed is good in that regard. Every character boils down to one of four combat roles, and all the features they can acquire are centered around those roles, one of which they'll likely specialize in. (It's probably not as boring as I just made it sound there.)
Now, I run a very DM-centered game, and 4ed diminishes that greatly. The races have a back story which implies a pre-made, common world; Clerics pick from a variety of bland, pre-made deities; The magic items are listed in the PHB and a player can acquire them easily based on level, which implies a world where magic becomes banal at some level.
This is great for a pick-up game, I'm sure. And of course, the DM who doesn't care for all this can do as he pleases. But at some point, as you're sitting there thinking, "Well, I can ignore the two gratuitous elf races, drop the half-demon and half-dragon races, bring back the full nine alignments, assume that stuff that I miss, like gnomes, druids and illusionists will be back with the PHB II, bring back real multiclassing and prestige classes...", you have to wonder, "Why 4ed at all?"
Here's a fun fact: In AD&D (what's now referred to as 1ed), you rolled a d20 to attack and checked against a table to see if you hit. Then the monster rolled a d20, etc. Magic-users would use a spell, thieves would try to sneak attack, etc. But that was combat in the original. It was said to represent one minute of fighting, including all the feints, dodges, parries, tumbling, etc. It was detail free, basically, except as the DM described the action. There were no critical hits, there were very tight minimum and maximum ACs. There was no distinction between "touching" and "causing damage" when you hit; it was really very loose and vague.
Of course, the whole thing was a deliberate simplification. And since D&D's roots were in wargaming, with its considerable, meticulous measures and calculations, you can safely assume the creators weren't afraid of complexity. (I run 3ed like 1ed, essentially ignoring the absurdly extensive 3ed combat rules.)
4ed, on the other hand, is basically a tactical board game. The rules--I mean, =all= the rules--are pretty much set up to facilitate putting figurines on a grid and having them combat in turn, taking equal amounts of time, doing roughly similarly powered things, and measuring everything in terms of causing damage.
Hell, you could easily put the character's actions into a computer program and let the players use hotkeys to select which power they want--and I'm sure they're working on it.
A lot of people seem to love the new rules, and it's not that I looked at the changes and couldn't see exactly why they changed them and why that was a "good thing" (except for the elimination of half the alignments). I get it. I really do get it.
It just leaves me cold.
 The Good and The Bad June 9, 2008
36 out of 52 found this review helpful
I really wanted to like this edition but I can't get over the fact that some of the 'fixes' to streamline the system either were unneeded or are very limiting. It gives you the feel that it is more of a supplement designed for the D&D Insider, then a stand alone game system.
A few notes about the individual books.
The Players Handbook: Being a new system, with new terminology and definitions, a glossary should have been included. I have spent far too much time paging through the book `double checking' to see if I understood some of the new terms. I enjoyed the power system, it opened play to some fun tactical options and cinematic abilities, but it really neutered the flexibility of spell casters. The skill system is okay at best. Most skills are well defined and are duly compressed, like stealth, but others are out of place, like Dungeoneering, or poorly defined, like Diplomacy. I still can not figure out the need to fix the healing system, and completely dislike the surge idea.
The Monster Manual: My favorite parts of the MM are the new powers and the glossary =). Averaging about two pages per creature and giving differing level examples, the space doesn't feel too wasted, but at the same time there is a distinct feeling you are missing out on a lot of monsters.
The Dungeon Masters Guide: Wow, Ummm... Yeah. I would like to balance the good with the bad in my review but I find it difficult to do with this book. I enjoyed the experience point system, the artwork is nice, and I like the system for traps, but I can honestly tell you I don't think I will ever use the book. I was also very disappointed with the near destruction of the magic items system. I understand the `balance' concept they were trying to achieve, but magic items are one of the core untouchables of the D&D system. I think they forgot the fact that the ultimate balance within the magic item system was the DM =).
Overall I think the system is a great source to `borrow' ideas from to supplement your current 3.5 system, but it doesn't have enough substance to stand on it own.
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