Hmmm… We tried Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition last night. It was interesting. I’m still not sure how I feel about it, so here’s some of my thoughts thus far.

Characters

• Some classes seem unbalanced compared to others in the same role
• role structure seems somewhat artificial in light of the ability to focus on different aspects of combat
• Character powers work VERY well as streamlining combat
• Team powers encourage more teamwork than any other paper-pencil game I’ve ever seen
• Assist didn’t change, thank god
• New class system: you specialize out from your starting role, but you can’t take paragon paths in other classes… I want my prestige classes back

Monsters

• Monster roles are handy, secondary roles make it theoretically possible to create interesting encounters quickly
• game relies heavily on “this is a dungeon crawl,” and doesn’t handle organic combat and storytelling too well

Dungeon Master mechanics

• DMG covers lots of topics that are really hand for a new DM
• NO RANDOM F@*^ING TREASURE??? MAKE A WISHLIST??? WHAT?!?!
• Encounter building is pretty interesting, but could use some streamlining