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| Dungeons and Dragons Core Rulebook Gift Set, 4th Edition | 
| Author: Wizards Rpg Team
Brand: Wizards of the Coast
Category: Book
List Price: $104.95
Buy New: $56.83
You Save: $48.12 (46%)
Buy New/Used from $52.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  (183 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1516
Format: Box Set
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
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
Release Date: June 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Depends On What You Like November 10, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Depending on what you are hoping for from this new edition, you will either love it or hate it. It is definitely not for everyone, as can be easily surmised from the highly mixed reviews. You should be clear about what you want out of the time and money you will invest before buying the books. Like anything in life, it depends on what type of experience you value. One thing is for sure - this edition is a very radical departure from the previous D&D and accordingly will provoke a radical reaction, depending on how much you liked or disliked playing 3rd/3.5 Edition D&D, how long you have been playing the game, and what sort of game you like.
If you are hoping for a more streamlined game that takes the bookishness and vast amounts of reading and reference out, and makes the combat system more interesting and fun, you will love it. It lends itself well to people who like fast-paced, action-packed games and want to spend as little time as possible on character and adventure design so they can just get straight to the action. This edition takes much of the time out character and adventure design and puts it on the action. This change can be quite fun if action is what you like. For the casual or new RPG fan who enjoys playing but does not have time to truly immerse themselves in details of the game, this edition is the best one yet. Most people who will buy these books will probably fit into this category. So for the casual gamer, this is a good edition to buy. It's definitely a more practical edition to play.
On the other hand, if you are a die-hard D&D nerd with dozens of books, custom made campaign worlds, and more than a decade of experience, hoping for an upgrade path to your current campaign and body of books to make it more playable while keeping the foundation, this is the abomination you have been dreading. The game is now so different from what you have grown to love that it will probably feel like an insult to your hard-earned mastery. If you love spending hours on character creation and adventure design, if you loved the quirks of the system and the differences in how characters progressed, if you loved the various attempts attempts in the rules to simulate reality, you will feel insulted by this edition and will probably want to return the books and just keep playing your old edition.
Players who began playing the game in its 1st and 2nd editions and have stuck with it for this long have grown to love the quirks of the D&D system and are by and large not pleased with this new edition because Hasbro/WotC have essentially ended the product line while keeping the brand, which is smart for them getting new customers but unfortunate and deceptive for the long-term fan base. They did this by throwing out a huge number of D&D conventions such as saving throws, spell memorization, bards, rolling for hit points, and basically everything that made the game quirky, unpredictable and hard for new players of the ADD (attention deficit disorder) generation to understand. It streamlined the game a lot, but also did away with much of its character as a unique rule system. The baby by and large went out with the bath water.
Thankfully for the die-hard D&D nerds there is an alternative, and it is called Pathfinder. Repeat: 4th Edition has ZERO backwards compatibility with any previous edition, meaning it is not possible to translate a 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 3.5 edition character into a 4th Edition D&D game. This is a huge blunder on behalf of Hasbro in my opinion, and will cost the company a large part of its dedicated fan base, which will migrate to Pathfinder, stick with older editions, or try out new games altogether. This is not an upgrade path by any means.
While it is true that most of the 4th Edition rules have largely turned it into more of a fast-paced action/strategy game than a true RPG, this pace of gaming fits what some players want. This does not necessarily take the possibility of role-playing out of the game. Indeed, there is more time for role-playing now, at least for people who don't have time to get deep into the books, since the rules are now much less cumbersome (and also thereby less realistic).
In all fairness, however, D&D was always a combat-centric and less versatile game compared with other systems like GURPS and Mage. It always had a fair amount of adaptability to different playing styles, but the way your character advanced always had way more to do with defeating monsters than anything else. It is much less versatile than many other systems. If you think that fighting monsters is one of the less fun aspects of role-playing, or if you are more into the magical elements of the game than the hero aspect, you would probably have a whole lot more fun playing GURPS, Ars Magica, or Mage: The Ascension than any version whatsoever of D&D.
It is not hard to see what caused Hasbro to take the direction it did with this game. The progression of D&D from 2nd to 3rd Edition by and large made the game more complicated. Specialized terms like THAC0 were discarded in favor of the more general bonus system and the weird proficiency system was replaced by the more sensical skill system. But the new system of bonuses quickly became quite cumbersome and actually involved more calculation for most things than the 2nd Edition equivalents, especially when it came to calculating experience. This resulted in a more detailed and realistic game, but also one that took far more time to learn and play. The complexity of the rules actually became a major obstacle for many players, who were more confused about the changes than excited about the additional detail and versatility.
4th Edition reversed course and did away with that direction of evolution, much like a child destroying a sand castle. While much of the new 3rd Edition rules needed some serious streamlining, many people agree that Hasbro went a bit too far and destroyed a lot of good things about the game that people had grown to love. New players or people unfamiliar or daunted with the old structures will probably be excited about this new edition, whereas people who labored to make the 3rd/3.5 Editions work for them and met with some degree of success will see 4th Edition as an insult to their hard-earned efforts. 3rd/3.5 Edition required a lot of time to become familiar enough with to be usable, but once that time had been invested, it was perhaps the most versatile and adaptable edition and could be a lot of fun with players who were fluent in the rules.
4th Edition, by contrast, is a usable with far less time investment. For example, character creation now takes only about 30 minutes. Putting an adventure together as DM take easily half the time it used to. The new pre-made modules require much less reference to the core books. If you are fairly new to the system, you will spend far more time actually playing and far less time reading.
A couple more points worth mentioning - you need a solid five people to make a 4th Edition game work because the mechanics have changed to become much more strategic. The game, sadly, is no longer workable with a DM and one player or a DM and two players. This is very limiting and makes it harder to get a game together. Also, while non-combat elements are certainly possible to integrate into the game, there are few rules to provide for them. Last but not least, all measurements for spells and weapons have been reduced to "squares" instead of feet, making combat virtually impossible without the use of a board and miniatures unless conversion is done. This is not terribly difficult, but is still a pain for those who prefer to play without miniatures.
All in all, this is a complete game redesign. It represents a major split in the continuum of the game, and will most definitely split most of the fan base into two different camps - one going toward the 4th Edition style of play, and the other going toward Pathfinder or remaining where they are.
For my part, I like the Revised 2nd Edition of D&D the best. It is only slightly more complicated than 4th Edition in terms of its mechanics, but is also quite expandable and to me strikes the best balance between realism and practicality. The real kicker for me, however, is the fact that it contains the best and most imaginative campaign setting ever released for D&D, with by far the best art ever - Planescape!
 D&D Rulebook Gift Set 4.0 November 1, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
how can you go wrong with everything right at your fingertips? you can't. rules, weapons, characters, and monsters. also, it saves you a bit of money because its all together.
 Run away from this edition of D&D! October 27, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I'll be brief in my reveiw because most honest reviews have already pointed out the dire deficiencies in this edition of D&D.
Most of the people who left glowing feedback for this game are obviously employees of Wizards of the Coast, trying to prop up the dismal ratings left by real purchasers and players.
Much of this game may as well have been a cut-and-paste of the code used for online games such as World of Warcraft. The rules even list a laptop as suggested optional equipment. You'll need it...
I'll echo the comments of other reviewers who've said "This is not D&D." It doesn't even remotely resemble the 1st edition of AD&D. Gary Gygax is rolling in his grave at this abomination with the D&D name on it.
Read the other reviews! If you buy this game anyway, be prepared to sell it on Amazon or Ebay at a loss, once you've attempted to muddle through the manuals. This edition just came out - yet the books/manuals are available USED in huge quantities on Amazon and Ebay. It doesn't take a magic-user with an 18 intelligence to figure out why!
Please, I'm begging you, don't do what I did. Don't buy this edition of D&D!
This isn't D&D October 26, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've been playing D&D/AD&D for over 25 years. I can't describe how disappointed I was with the 4th edition. But for the sake of potential buyers, I'll try.
- The rules for just about everything are overly complicated. There was a time when you could play with your children under 12. You'd be lucky if a highschool senior from your trig class could play this edition.
- Gone are the days of playing with just one or two players and a DM. WOTC has designed this edition with four absurd mandatory roles for a minimum of four PC's such as "striker" and "controller." This was obviously a marketing ploy by WOTC to force additional sales of their PHB, via recruitment of people to play with you. You can play with fewer than 5 players (4 PC's +DM), but it's not going to be easy.
- Fewer spells.
- More complicated combat resolution (wow, and complicated everything). Add this to half of this to this, plus this, but not this, or that...
- Foreordained hit points. No more rolling your hit points for each level. A "warlock" now gets 5 hp per level, and a figher gets 6. No more fun rolling a 1d10, etc. Two 20th-level fighters will have pretty much the same hit points (the only variation will be 1st level when you get to add a constitution bonus). WOTC may as well email everyone their characters and say "Here, this is what you must use."
- And geeze I could go on and on about the shortcomings of this game, but I don't have all night.
- There is one redeeming feature about the handbooks/manuals. That is the artwork, which is super. Wow, with that being said, I suppose if I wanted artwork I could've bought a couple of art books by Jeff Easley and Larry Elmore.
It's a different, good game. But it's D&D in title only. October 26, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I think that what it all boils down to is this: Folks like me who have been playing D&D since the Blue Box days and have played through the various editions seem to hate 4th edition. Players who are new to the genre seem to like it.
So what is it that's upsetting the older, more experienced players?
While listening to the Wizards of the Coast podcast on the differences to 4e they often mentioned wanting to remove the "15 minute adventure day." This is the aspect of D&D where you go in, you fight hard, take damage, and then have to go rest for a day or more to heal up. It's very true that this can be typical of a D&D adventure, especially lower level adventures where the spell casters are very weak. But by changing the rules to eliminate that aspect they profoundly changed the feel of the game.
In 4e each player has a set of "healing surges". They can use these throughout the day to heal 1/4 of their hit points. At first glance this may sound like a good idea. But what ends up happening is that a character can be beaten and bloodied (or even unconscious and just moments from death) and use a healing surge to bounce back up to full strength in no time. In fact, if they're unconscious and dying but make their saving throw against death the character can bounce back from near death to 1/4 of his total hit points in 2 combat rounds (12 seconds). If you roll a natural 20 you "wake up" with zero hit points and immediately get a free healing surge. So with the proper roll you can go from dead to fighting in 6 seconds of game time. That seems a bit unrealistic, even for a world full of goblins and dragons.
One of the other aspects of D&D is that spell casters are very weak at lower levels. In 4e the spell casters can blast away even at first level. In fact, they have "per encounter" spells that they can cast once per encounter no matter how many encounters they have that day. In every edition before 4e the Wizard or Sorcerer's spell casting would drain them mentally and they'd have to recover from the exertion of calling in powers from other magical planes of existence. The feeling that it's hard work to cast a spell seems to be missing from 4e.
This is the kind of thing that the detractors are talking about when they say that 4e is a "dumbed down" version of D&D.
On The Other Hand: There are really 2 parts to a D&D game. The combat part, and the non-combat part (the role playing part). The role playing part of the game is still up to the DM and the players. It would take a huge change in the rules to destroy the role playing portion of the game experience. But because the risk of death is lessened, the power of spell casters is increased, and the bounce back healing surges exist I think that the new rules may, in fact, be a big enough change to effect the role playing experience. Players can put themselves into situations that they wouldn't in edition 3.5 because they know they can bounce back and keep going. The strength of the magic users and the power of clerics to heal change the dynamic of the game enough that the role playing part is effected.
There's one last thing to consider as well. Did edition 3.5 need to be updated? There may be small things about 3.5 that could be tweaked, and the Pathfinder RPG has done a wonderful job of that. Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beta (Pathfinder) But did 3.5 really need to be gutted and changed? I don't think so. It seems to me that Wizards really needed to produce a new product line to continue to build sales and 4e was that new product line. But the decision seems to have come from a marketing and sales point of view rather than from the point of view of "what's best for the RPG gamer". Pathfinder, on the other hand, seems to be written from the point of view of "What's the best way to continue the arc of the 3.5 story line? How can we give the players more within the 3.5 edition and the open gaming license." I think they succeeded.
At this point in the D&D world we have a split. The new players will probably enjoy 4th edition. But the experienced players will most likely stick with 3.5 and use Pathfinder. My prediction is that within the hard core gamer circles Pathfinder will replace D&D entirely. And in a way, that's too bad. There's a feeling of history with D&D. The older players remember the Gary Gygax days. We remember playing in a game where Mordenkainen and Leomund (Gygax's personal characters) existed and influenced our world. We remember grinding out adventure after adventure as a spell caster just waiting to become so powerful that we can change reality with a wave of our hand. There was a certain feel to the older versions of the game that's profoundly different in 4e.
And that's what we miss. That's what makes 4e not feel like it's Dungeons and Dragons any more. 4th edition is a great, well designed RPG. It's just not D&D any more.
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