The 4E Players Handbook: good...bad...ugly..

[TerraDave]

In Comparison

Vs. 3E phb(s): the 4E PHB dominates. The main weakness of both is on the "flavour" side, and the presence of an uneeded, unwanted, default pantheon. But what 3E tried to do: make a reference for players built around a streamlined, more coherent system; the 4E PHB just does better.

Vs. 2E phb: No contest. The 2E watered down AD&Ds flavour, but didn't go far enough in dealing with AD&D's quirkier aspects. Its main promises...non-weapon proficiencies, specialty priests..worked better in theory then in practice. Really no comparing.

Vs 1E phb: Mechanically, this had some issues. Context mitigates much of these, but still, I give the edge to 4E. Style and attitude wise, I still think the 1st AD&D PHB holds its own. It says swords and sorcery, it says high fantasy, it says adventure, but doesn't shoehorn, or really imply (a few spell names aside) any kind of default setting or world.

So, ranking wise: 4E=1E>3E>2E

 

[fba827]

Judging soley by layout, amount of information, etc (as opposed to judging "4e material itself since that is all personal and relative) I think it is good. The main con is the ink/paper combination. I take very good care of my books... yet the cover is warping and the ink is smudging (I've never had that problem, ever, with any other book, (period).)

In terms of layout it is well done. Amount of artwork was good (it didn't feel like too much or too little). And amount of content is good too - sure, I would have wanted more of lots of things (classes, feats, powers, etc), but to keep it at a reasonable page count, I understand not everything could fit.

 

[munkeywrench]

Vs 1E phb: Mechanically, this had some issues. Context mitigates much of these, but still, I give the edge to 4E. Style and attitude wise, I still think the 1st AD&D PHB holds its own. It says swords and sorcery, it says high fantasy, it says adventure, but doesn't shoehorn, or really imply (a few spell names aside) any kind of default setting or world.

As I type this, I am comparing side-by-side an open copy of the 1E AD&D player's handbook with an open copy of the 4E player's handbook. It is blatantly obvious to me that 4E is light years ahead in terms of how everything is written. 4e is better edited, more intuitively organized, has easier to read formatting, and uses language that is by and far much easier to understand and interpret.

The major thing the 1e AD&D PHB has on 4e PHB is content. 1e PHB has so much stuff in it that I can only read for about 30 minutes before my brain goes into information overload.

Gygax, bless his soul, was awesome when it came to creativity and rules mechanics, but he just couldn't write for beans.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Really, truly terrible. Whereas I would give the DMG maybe 2 stars, the PHB might be lucky to get 1.5. . . 1 is a little more likely, actually.

Luckily, I read it before deciding whether I'd buy it or not (same went for the DMG and MM - well, I didn't actually read every fricking line of the MM, truth be told. . .). Not, as it turned out - and that goes for the entire game line forevermore. Forewarned, and all that.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I have several issues with the 4E PHB.

1) The quality of material seems a little down on some of the stuff that was coming out at the back end of the 3.x era. The waviness of the paper and smudgability are quite severe production quality issues, especially when you think more PHBs will be sold than any other. It is a disservice to the D&D brand.

2) The "Wall of Spells" at the rear of the 3.x PHB has become the "Wall of Classes" in 4E. Some may not mind this but when I first got the book, it acted like one huge road block to the rest of the book. While I can appreciate why they did this (in terms of referencing information), it does reduce the overall readability of the book.

3) There is a certain sterility to the book. It's like reading the old SRD compared to the 3.x PHB. Good for information and referencing but overall, it is not a document that particularly enthuses me and "captures my imagination". Not that it's particularly bad, but just that I think they could have done better with a D&D book.

4) From a personal perspective (YMMV), I did not like magical items going into the PHB. Aside from taking away from the mystery of magic, it has also enforced two things I really don't like. Firstly an absolute surfeit of +x buff items as well as an exponential scale of economy that seems completely false. Others may like this but I don't.

5) Skills. It seems like they forgot to do the mathematics on this which is disappointing given the attention to other details.

6) Alignment. This has been a basket case which I think the "unaligned" alignment had the potential to solve. Instead, alignment and D&D remain "weird".

Having said all that, I think the game plays very well or at least it has with our group... and in the end, maybe that is how the PHB should be judged. While the document itself is a little lacklustre, the experience it provides is a different story.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Siran Dunmorgan]

Meh. It's flaws and cons far out weight its pros.

Really, truly terrible. Whereas I would give the DMG maybe 2 stars, the PHB might be lucky to get 1.5. . . 1 is a little more likely, actually.

Luckily, I read it before deciding whether I'd buy it or not (same went for the DMG and MM - well, I didn't actually read every fricking line of the MM, truth be told. . .). Not, as it turned out - and that goes for the entire game line forevermore. Forewarned, and all that.

This… confuses me. I'm willing—as others providing positive feedback concerning the 4th Edition Player's Handbook have been—to describe the things that I do and do not like about the book.

But those of you providing negative feedback simply say "terrible" and move on, as if the things that are terrible about it should be self-evident.

They're not.

I'd like to know, before recommending this game to my friends and relatives, what it is that people don't actually like about it.

I have my own attitudes and perspectives: sometimes, these are different from those of other people. It's not helpful to say that something is flawed, and then not describe the flaws.

For myself, I know what it is that I don't like about the 4th Edition Player's Handbook, and it's the same thing I don't like about the 4th Edition core books in general: it isn't entertaining to read.

There are a lot of facts, and everything is clearly spelled out, but it's not entertainment in its own right.

Yes, the game it describes is a lot of fun to play, but the decision to move all but the minimum necessary flavor text—I'm not saying there isn't any flavor text in the book at all—to the online services and campaign setting books leaves the Player's Handbook feeling vaguely empty, for all the details and rules that it provides.

For me, this is a potential problem because circumstances dictate that I build a gaming group ex nihilo, starting with people who have only the most vague notions of what paper-and-pencil role playing games are about: I can't simply send them home with the Player's Handbook and expect them to be engaged in the reading of it, as I might have been able to do with certain earlier editions.

I'll not, however, second-guess the designers: I suspect that many of them would have preferred a more entertaining text, but I believe that this would have been difficult to accomplish given the constraints and design goals.

—Siran Dunmorgan


P. S. That said, this isn't a comment about 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons in general: the game itself, I like quite a lot. When actually running or playing, aye, the system really shines.

 

[Starbuck_II]

Good:
- It´s a very good game
- There is finally layout that deserves the name
- Goodbye wall of spells

Bad
- Smudging. What gives? Not much, though. But some is too much.

Ugly
- Not. Enough. Rituals. But i admit i would have said that if the book consisted only of rituals. I like them, i do.

This is pretty much my sentiment, but I thought they missed putting an important part to Table of Contents: the section that tells what you get each level.

That was frustrating the first couple days reading it (for my freinds, but I read from beggining to forward so didn't miss it).

I also didn't encounter smudging: I get smudging from notebooks I buy from Walmart fror school on my left hand (because I lay my hand there when I write), but I have yet to get any smudging from the books.

Maybe I was just lucky.
I do wish there were more rituals, but Dragons gave usa few more so that tides me over for now.

 

[Shroomy]

I voted good, but not the greatest (to be fair, I haven't cracked open a 1e or 2e PHB in such a long time, it would be hard to make a comparison). That said, maybe its just me, but despite what other posters have written, I never felt that the 3e PHB was very easy to read or particularly flavorful. Both the 4e and 3e books read like text books, its just that the 4e text book is laid out kind of like a modern one.

 

[Darrin Drader]

The Good - Honestly, I can't come up with anything that it does that the 3.5 PHB doesn't do better. I suppose the 1/2 level + ability modifier mechanic is good, but it doesn't outweigh the negative.

The bad - Uninspired graphical design, way (way!) too much wasted space taken up by powers that could easily be heavily condensed. The font is way too large, again depriving us of material, and too much white space on the page. Really, I can think of no reason they would have done this if not to cheat the players out of content they should have gotten with the core so they can sell more books later.

The Ugly - Powers are repetitive and cause combat to become less interesting. Since the at-will powers automatically outstrip a regular attack in terms of usefulness, you're always going to do it, which means that your character is always going to trip, or always going to mark, etc..... Character options are fairly rigid whereas in 3.5, you could do a great deal of customizing. Lack of core races and classes. This is the reason why 4E fails for me.

 

[Gothmog]

The 4e PHB is by far the best PHB. While I love the 1E PHB for its quirkiness and tone, as an actual reference during play, its difficult to use. The 2E PHB I used for years and years, and while it was better organized and better laid out with better art, it was rather bland. The 3e PHB was my least favorite of the lot- it was very dry to read, the art was plain fugly, and I really didn't like the divergence the game had taken from 1e/2e. The 4e PHB is a worthy successor to 1e- IME it recaptures the flavor and feel of 1e, while updating and streamlining the system, having awesome art, and offering some cool and fun twists for everyone who plays. Plus, the 4e PHB is the only version of the PHB I've shown to non-gamers, and after a quick explanation of a few terms, they decided they MUST play it. And after they played 4e, they were hooked. That never happened with any other PHB/version of D&D.

4e PHB for the win!