Sorry, but I blew right past a few things here. Gina, Orcs do NOT have a higher charisma than humans, they have a higher strength and constitution... well, since humans get a bonus to place anywhere they like, even that much is inaccurate. Orcs get a boost to Str and Con, humans get a boost anywhere. If you look at the examples of orcs in the MM, most have a charisma below 10. SEO, I agree about the alignments, but since alignments have pretty much zero bearing as far a game mechanics go, it's a simple thing to re-implement the nine alignment system, as I have.

Sui, you are wrong. I did no such thing, and you accusing me of insulting your integrity by pointing out mistakes you made is either your attempt to turn this into a flame war to try get it all removed or a clear overreaction to having your mistakes pointed out. Rituals are not spells. They are rituals. Wizards and clerics are still crafters of magic items, as they both get the Ritual Casting feat for free, which they did NOT in 3e, so they are, in fact, MORE crafters than ever before. As I said before, the feat only has a strength requirement if you don't get it from your class, which fighters and soldiers DO, and even if it did, the DGM clearly lists human guards with a strength of 16, invalidating the complaint across the board. The artwork is NOT the rules of the game. Never has been, never will be. Frankly, I can't imagine why you would think they are.

So far, the only valid argument you've presented is that the chain is too light. If you're going to condemn the whole game based on that, then we can have a discussion of merits, but so long as you're presenting WRONG information, we aren't discussing merit, we're discussing what the rules actually say. It's a simple factual discussion, and you are wrong. I don't need you to be wrong, you just are. If you want me to post direct quotes and page numbers, I will. We can't both be right when we are saying mutually exclusive things about the rules, and it's not varying interpretations, because all I've said is clearly spelled out in black and white in the book.

Don't stand and there and tell me I'm presenting incorrect information and then try to say that you're not saying I'm wrong. You're clearly saying I'm wrong, and now I'm calling you out. Quote me a rule from any of the books that contradicts what I'm saying. Back your claims up, and I'll do the same, otherwise bow out and admit that everything I say is the complete truth, including that what you said is wrong.

I wasn't even going to bother looking at a 4e book for a while (read: "until I had to") but the...ummm... 'vigorous' discussions that have gone on here have got me curiouser and curiouser.

Guess I may find myself at B&N with a cup of coffee or 4 this weekend.

Yeah, definitely check it out. You might like it, you might not, but you'll never know if you don't try.

I would not pay 2 cents for it even as scrap paper. It is not a step forward for D&D but a giant step off to the side and backward.

They took away my favorite class of Bard. They made everyone capable of magic. Why in G.....s name did they change the races like Elves and Halflings, as for the loss of the Gnomes, I never considered them a viable PC race anyhow.

What they did to Forgotten Realms was a travesity of epic proportion. They were just to d....n lazy to come up with a new word setting so they bastardized it changing its history and civilizations.

Eol don't waste you money buying it, find some sucker who did and read theirs.

It is my opinion of th 4E and I have played them all 1-4

Ah well that'll teach me for not looking at the MM. Looks like I was wrong about orcs then.

But seriously, there's no need to get quite so worked up over the issue. You're not going to convince each other than one perspective is 'the truth'.

And DM...I tend to agree.

...ya don't have to actually buy anything to give it a skimming (as long as you don't take it out of the store) plus there's a Starbucks right there!

After all the back and forth I've read on 4e here (and in several other places) I can't not go and look the stuff over, now... if for no other reason than to see/judge for myself.

I think I may have said somewhere before that, despite what system or what version of the system is the current 'hot ticket', there are always going to be folks at every point along the scale from "Good lord they've ruined it! Don't play this edition or you'll be sorry!" to "OMG! This is what the system should have been all along! Go and get your copy now!" What it all boils down to, really, is personal opinion anyway, right? I like broccoli, someone else doesn't... no skin of my back and, hey, more broccoli for me.

The most 'intriguing statement' I've read regarding 4e so far is that '4e plays like an action movie whereas 2e plays more like a novel'... Given that and the fact that I tend to be more the 'storyteller' vs 'hack-and-slasher' I'd tend to believe that 2e would be 'it' for me in the battle of choosing one over the other but, hey, I likes me a good action flick, too.

Good, bad, or indifferent, you've all convinced me to at least have a look and judge for myself.

Gina, I'm not concerned with convincing people of my "perspective," on that front, I've told people how I see it, and suggested they try it out and see for themselves. I am, however, concerned making sure people understand what the actual rules are when someone goes about trying to discourage people from trying it with wrong information.

Sometimes, there is an objective truth, and in this case, it is that ALL fighters can use shields, regardless of strength. It is that players can craft magic items if they are so inclined. It is that anyone with proper training and materials can perform rituals, but it takes a person of the right class to cast spells. It is that looking at pictures will not tell you the rules of the game.

The concept of a bard has been imported into the Warlord class - if you give a warlord an instrument you have much of the same, with a little more strengthy background. Multiclass him with a rogue and bingo - you have a bard.

As for Gnomes - the monster manual has statistics to make any race playable, including gnomes. They aren't gone.

All the other complaints seem to be empty - Alignments no longer have game bearing, so call yourself a tyrant if you want. I happen to like the option of being unaligned, and the unaligned gods.

Not everyone can do magic, regardless of what some people are saying. I'm not sure where this came from.

If setting is the reason you are discrediting 4e then I'm sorry but that's a cop-out. Audalis created an entirely new pantheon and setting. Setting is the job of the DM, not the system. I've tweaked the basic 4e setting in my game, and my players love it.

The new MM groupings (new skeletons, etc.) are a major selling point for me. I can't wait for new monster manuals. I keeps me from having to homebrew monsters to keep my players guessing.

I never really understood why the rules were so darn important for roleplaying anyway. If we wanted a roleplay heavy session we would just dream up characters and roleplay with no rules, playing war or something with cards when it came to battle. Our group's roleplay has not become any less intense or elaborate, but we have found that our combats, skill challenges, and otherwise heartpounding moments have become much more exciting.

If you play 4e and find that your roleplaying suffers, well that's not really the fault of the system. It's the fault of the gaming group.

My comment was a more general one rather than being solely directed at you. I've only read and skimmed through the Player's Handbook once, and so I'm happy to defer to your analysis over how a particular aspect of the game mechanics work.

Yet when you conclude by stating that Suicidolt ought to 'bow out and admit that everything I say is the complete truth', you don't necessarily come across in the best light.

Anyway, enough has been said on the topic, so let's just agree to disagree and leave it there.

When it comes to any system, there's bound to be flaws. This is true of anything, not just D&D. I don't know much about 4e D&D, (well, in truth my only knowledge really applies to 3.5e) but I guess I'll share my opinion.

Reralae's Disclaimer: the following is my own, personal opinion; I am not saying it's 'right', nor am I saying anyone else is 'wrong'. It's just what I'm feeling at this point in time

If systems are the 'pen and paper' with which we write campaigns with, and we don't like the style of pen or layout of the paper, we can always just make adjustments as we see fit. It may be inconvenient, but if the 4e system is better for some things, and just lacking in others, then why not fix it and add your own personal touches that you want? If you have the right players, you can even make what is initially a 'hack'n'slash' type system into a thorough world with in depth storylines and role-play. It's one thing to not be happy with the system for some things, which is understandable, but that doesn't mean it still can't be used. It requires a bit more work, yes, but that doesn't mean it might not be worth it. What the DMG and PHB and other books say in the end are only suggestions; as the Game/Dungeon Master, you can totally go against their suggestions and add your own things.

So, I guess I don't really have an opinion on 4e in it being a 'good' or 'bad' system; I just see it as a different toolkit with which to build worlds of fantasy, even if I have to add in some of my own tools

C'mon now, admit it... of all the gamers and DMs you know do the majority of them 'play by the rules' as they were written and presented in the 'official source material' or, per chance, have they dropped in some homebrewed house rules by way of 'adapting' a not-quite-exactly-what-I-was-looking-for system into a not-quite-exactly-what-I-was-looking-for-but-close-enough-if-I-do-this-and-this-and-this-system.

Every system is going to have its ups and downs and ins and outs where mechanics are concerned and not everyone's going to agree with every little thing in there... Can every system or version thereof be played 'as is'? Sure. But isn't it more fun when your GM takes the 'as is' and, through imagination and creative rules tweaking, makes it into something better (or worse, I guess, depending on the GM). Addy said it best, it's not up to the system to determine the 'be all and end all' - that's up to us as players and GMs - the rulesets are there not so much as concrete, so-mote-it-be dogma but more as 'guidelines' and, as such, any system (despite it's perceived shortcomings or failures) can be adapted fairly easily to suit... Unless there's like WotC police lurking around that are gonna arrest you for 'not playing by the rules as written'. *shrug*

Ad, I think the "everyone can do magic" idea comes from rituals... At least no one corrected me when I said before that that's all I could come up with besides multiclassing.

Gina,I didn't say what he aught to do, I simply narrowed the field to what I see as the only two rational options - either admit I'm right, or show where I'm wrong. Maybe I was less than extremely polite about it, but I was being accused of impugning his integrity when I was merely correcting misunderstandings. I made an effort to keep it as civil as I could, and I apologize for where I failed in that.