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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: $62.97
You Save: $41.98 (40%)
New (7) Used (3) from $62.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  95 reviews
Sales Rank: 96
Format: Box Set
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 4th
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 832
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6.9
Dimensions (in): 11.7 x 8.7 x 2.3
ISBN: 0786950633
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN: 9780786950638
ASIN: 0786950633
Publication Date: June 6, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Pre-Order (0-0 Business Days)
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Product Description
All three 4th Edition core rulebooks in one handsome slipcase. The Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game has defined the medieval fantasy genre and the tabletop RPG industry for more than 30 years. In the D&D game, players create characters that band together to explore dungeons, slay monsters, and find treasure. The 4th Edition D&D rules offer the best possible play experience by presenting exciting character options, an elegant and robust rules system, and handy storytelling tools for the Dungeon Master.This gift set features a handsome slipcase containing all three of the 4th Edition D&D Roleplaying Game core rulebooks: the Players Handbook rulebook (320 pages), the Monster Manual rulebook (288 pages), and the Dungeon Masters Guide rulebook (224 pages).
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| Customer Reviews: Read 90 more reviews...
 TURNING TABLE GAME INTO VIDEO GAME FAILS July 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
You know how the Star Trek movies seem to make bad odd numbered films and great even numbered films? D&D is the opposite. The 2nd edition was a rehash of the first to resell us stuff we already owned, without Gary Gygax' name on the cover. The 1st and 3rd editions - just outstanding!. Let's wait until 5.0. It HAS to be better.
I am not a pre-judgement person concerning revisions. I read the 2nd edition before I came to dislike it. I studied the fourth too, and it is boring. Dumbed down from page one - even the print is larger - the new edition drops all those elements that made 3.5 the best version of D&D. Single class track again, no multi-classing, the races are watered down, the alignments cut by four, crank up the hit points so starting PC's have at least 16 (remember when your first level magic user had 3 HP and you really had to sweat it?) the spellcasting classes don't seem to have much in the way of - hmmm - spells.
Worst of it all, the skills feature, a great improvement to the game, has been turned into pretty much a level check (yawn). It was great for a 10th level party to really need that 4th level PC or NPC who could out perform them all at some skill (open lock, listening, survival, whatever the higher level team lacked). It was one of the most profound effects on the game - and in the fourth edition, they killed it.
The whole of the texts seems to be a collection of bad decisions. As if the focus was to make the game emulate the video games Hasbro puts out. Power up, add a "per event" ability. Push buttons. Get experience. Power up. Blah.
If you have played nothing but the video games and want to play with real people and a DM to see what it is like, this edition is great for you. Not much thinking required here at all. If you are like me, and came from strategy gaming into role playing and found that new dynamic to be pretty awesome, you better keep your money in D&D 3.5 - and wait for 5.0. That will be a good one.
Player's Handbook - Deluxe Edition: A 4th Edition Core Rulebook (D&D Core Rulebook)
 For some, great. For me, boring. July 6, 2008
5 out of 5 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.
 Simpler and Easier to Play but... July 6, 2008
Having played several sessions using the 4.0 rules system, there are several noteworthy steps forward in the new structure. It is a simpler, more streamlined system to play than the 3.5 and 3.0 editions, and certainly will be easier to run for a novice Dungeon Master. Unlike the earlier systems (even the much older Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rules) sessions don't seem to be dominated by rulebook dives for exceptions and loopholes in the rules. The at-will, encounter, and daily powers given to each character class make each class more distinctive than earlier editions, as everyone now has something "special" to bring to the table (even a basic fighter). In addition, first level characters are now more capable and have a lot more hit points (they seem about equal to 3rd or 4th level characters of earlier editions) so more interesting things can be done earlier in a character's career.
There are a few negatives though. One immediately notices that the races aren't well balanced- dragonborn and eladrin seem much more capable than others, and dwarves and halflings slightly less capable. Skills are much more generic and less important than earlier editions, resulting in less character choice. These are fairly minor complaints however.
The biggest likely problem doesn't exist yet, but may eventually overwhelm the system's straightforwardness and ease of play. I understand there are already three more expansion books in the works with more character classes, play options, and rules modifications. This is the same route that earlier rules systems from TSR/WOTC took, and this threatens the major virtue the system has- its streamlined ease of play. This will be lost if players have to look through 11 different books to check multiple rules exceptions for 16 races and 37 character classes. Invariably the new classes are more powerful and flashier to play, so they become the stars and those who play a "basic" class are reduced to supporting roles, rewarding those who have spent lots more money on books and have the time to master many, many more pages of rules. It would be far better to keep the system simple, but the desire to sell more books (and make more money) makes this highly unlikely. I would recommend buying the basic books and having fun with them before the system gets too weighty for its own good.
The Gist July 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Here's the gist:
***If you have experienced, fair-minded players & a good GM & like role-playing over roll-playing, skip 4e. 3.5 offers many more options & you'll be able to pick up the HUGE library cheap on eBay, Amazon, etc.***
***If you're a newbie, or your GM is a newbie, or you're forced to play with powergaming munchkins, or you enjoy miniatures-based wargaming more than role-playing, snap up 4e.***
Note: I'm not slagging 4e here... much. There are a lot of people in the second category who will be well-served by the new system.
 great edition July 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
they really did 4th edition right. Everything is organized, great rules, it really plays well if you enjoy storyteller style gaming.
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