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Message: <blockquote data-quote="zoroaster100" data-source="post: 4259834" data-attributes="member: 8538">O.k., now I have reviewed most of the material in the core books. And I felt compelled to come and pronounce: they are a masterpiece, a work of genius, and I am thrilled to be a D&D fan on the eve of a new age of gaming.  I have been looking forward to 4E with a generally positive outlook, but with some concerns.  But after actually reading the full rules, I am ecstatic.  I have run a few preview games for friends with the preview 4th edition rules, and the games went great.  But of course I still need to actually try running a full campaign into the high levels to pass my final conclusive judgment on fourth edition.  But I have been playing D&D for three decades, so I feel capable of judging by reading the rules that the game has just taken a monumental leap forward.Things in particular that stand out to me a great advancements: 1) rituals - they make it so much easier for the DM to limit or eliminate "plot ruining" abilities in campaigns where they are not wanted, and they eliminate the trumping of all skills by magic effects.2) clear rules - while I'm sure we'll still find some corner cases that are hard to adjudicate, overall the rules are so much more clear and detailed to me in how the timing and interaction of various events and effects occur in combat.3) simple, fun monsters at all levels - sure you can still have complex monsters if you really want one, but it is now possible to have easy to run monsters and NPCs throughout the campaign.  This is probably the biggest advance, since it will massively reduce the time for prepping for DMs.4) mechanics that allow cinematic action - its in the player character powers and in the monster powers, and in the combat rules in the Player's Handbook and DM's Guide.  The game is now designed to facilitate and encourage cinematic action during combat and in some cases out of combat as well.  Awesome!5) eliminating the necessity of a cleric and rogue in every party by allowing warlords, healing surges and giving everyone the chance to overcome traps.6) skill challenges that allow the whole party to participate in noncombat encountersMinor things I still have reservations about:1) Grab seems to weak to be the full end-all and be all for grappling.  It seems that there are many cinematic action scenes that require more powerful grappling by at least some monsters and some player character builds.  I agree third edition grappling was overpowered, but it would be nice to have some more effective grapple-like rules for some monsters and for one or more future martial character classes or martial powers.2) Some powers are a bit too illogical to me in how they work, and will require an extra effort for suspension of disbelief while describing how their mechanics take effect in the game world. In particular the cleric and paladin buffs where you have to hit an enemy to grant a buff to someone.  But these are a minor complaint compared to the positives.(Edited to correct my typo of the word "genius"...oops.)</blockquote>

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