Sure, the artwork does take up too much space for the cost of the materials they’re pushing, but at the same time, the amount of new players being brought in and enjoying the experience without having to look at the 400,000th possibility for advancing their level 11 character. Options are nice, but when it comes down to it, sometimes you just want coffee-flavored coffee, am I right? In my opinion, despite some of its setbacks, the makers are simply trying to return to the KISS philosophy, and I’m not talking about selling out like the rock band.

Also, basing your group on what books they have read sounds rather elitist. I’m a fan of Tolkien, but I didn’t know you had prerequisites to enjoy a GAME. That’s all it is, friend. So, just put down the hate stick and quit whacking at everything that’s not a piñata.

How did it ‘ruin’ it? By setting the scene of the modern fantasy realm. Most of the people that play MMORPG’s have no clue to any of the history behind the fantasy realm of D&D and therefore have driven the market to now be all inclusive of their ‘insta-uber-powerguy’ world.

No thanks, my quest now begins to assemble a group of people that have at least read all the LOTR series, knows who Gygax&Arneson were and understand the VERY MOST IMPORTANT RULE of D&D: Any rule, set in the books, can be changed or altered by the GM. The GM is the final arbiter of the rules.

Give me an understanding of how armor is made, how swords are crafted and an actual understanding of combat techniques of the middle ages soldier and I will apply this to craft a fantastic, yet set in the bounds of realism, campaing.

Nuff said fanboys, sayonara 4th Edition…You have finally put the nail in the coffin of D&D. Now, on to E-bay to build up my collection of 1st/2nd ed goodies!

Nice! It’s great being able to DM outside of the pope booth eh?

I used my screen for the first time Thursday, and it was great. It repelled numerous peanut M&Ms and one translucent salmon d20.

For those who do not know, Wizards has published an updated skill DC by level table that you can paste over the one on the screen. It’s not elegant, but it works. You can find it on WotC’s site under “Official D&D Updates”. I used some putty I got from a friend to stick my updated table to the screen, and it looks much nicer than having tape stuck all over it.

Interestingly, and I have not had a chance to confirm this yet, but the DCs in the table of skills and what you can do with them seem appropriate to the new skill DC table. I am wondering if they changed those and simply overlooked or missed the DC by level table. Any opinions on this?

I find it annoying that they wasted space on the character advancement table. As someone else already pointed out, players are acutely aware of how many XP they need to level, and it is something that comes up very rarely (every several sessions); not something you need handy all the time.

They could have also skipped “Rolling Attacks and Checks.” It might be useful to a complete neophyte, but anyone that has played or run a single game will have that rule down pat. If you don’t, you are probably not ready to be running 4e just yet.

I don’t mind the XP reward table because it is useful for scaling encounters on the fly if I have fewer/more players than expected or if people come and go in the middle of a game. This happens quite often at a monthly game I run that is open to the public, but I do think they could have skipped it for something more useful to the majority of DMs.

The tables I find truly indispensable are “Food, Drink, and Lodging” (never could remember prices for that stuff), “Light Sources”, “DC/Damage by Level”, “Actions in Combat”, “Attack Modifiers”, and “Cover/Concealment”. Those alone are worth the very reasonable price of admission to pick up a screen, and it’s nice to have a quick reference for conditions without having to keep another sheet of paper on the table.