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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Torgaard" data-source="post: 5621061" data-attributes="member: 6679168">After a nearly 20 year hiatus from D&D, I recently returned to the game (upon discovering the Fantasy Ground VTT, me n' the old group just HAD to try it) and dove head-first into 4E.Initially, I just started buyin' up books.  Kind of a mistake, but I don't really regret it (I just kinda like havin' the books).  In hindsight, I can't help but wonder if I only needed two things:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Player's Handbook</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">DDi</li> </ul>The rest is mostly fluff.  I probably would've bought the Dungeon Master's Guide's as well, but it would've been with the knowledge that they contain very little in the way of actual rules to the game, but instead offer a dearth of helpful tips and ideas on how to be a good DM.  Well, actually the stuff on Skill Challenges was extremely helpful so I guess I would definitely have snagged the DMG for that.And I think an important point needs to be made to the OP about DDi + not getting any of the books.  Something that a couple posts got close to spelling out, but maybe didn't quite nail it down as well as I'd like.  And that's this: DDi, and mostly notably The Compendium, does not contain a huge amount of the meat of the books.  As someone else noted; the Compendium is just a database.  And when we talk about a rules reference and DDi, the Compendium is pretty much what we're talkin' about.  It (mostly) only has Powers, Monsters, Items, etc.  So you could look up a "Kobold Skirmisher" for example, and get its monster card if you will (stats, etc), but you won't get the writeup in the Monster Manual about Kobolds.   Possibly not a big deal for some, but I personally like to read up on stuff like that so I know how the critter's gonna react.  I think back to all those "Ecology of the..." articles in Dragon magazine (do they still do those?).  So you'll get the stats on just about everything with the Compendium, but that's pretty much all you'll get; the stats.Though it should be noted that the Compendium does writeup alot of useful and detailed information on some things; notably Classes and some of the compartmentalized rules that 4E does so well (ie things like "Slowed" or "Mounted Combat" or "Surprise Round" or whatever), but it won't have all the glue that holds it together.  You won't have it all pieced together so it makes sense.What makes DDi a no brainer for me is:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Compendium - Used as a supplement.  Man, you will get this thing out of my cold, dead hands (well, technically off my cold dead 2nd monitor while I have Fantasy Grounds on the other one).  It is INSANELY, RIDICULOUSLY, HUGELY (did I emphasize that enough) useful for almost instantly looking something up.  Somebody asks me if a "Shift" provokes an "Opportunity Attack", I can bring it up in about 10 seconds.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Character Builder - Ya, it's a little clunky but man it is soooooo deep.  You're cross referenced to pretty much everything that's every come out in a book or article, and you'd never know it from lookin' at it.  Making a "Wizard"?  Well, here's every Power listed in every book and every Dragon/Dungeon article right there in the list; just picke what ya want.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dragon and Dungeon Magazines - Man, this stuff gets dismissed way too often (imo).  I found these articles to be incredibly useful.  There is a huge amount of information on the Forgotten Realms (world I use) in those articles, and a crapload more.  And it just keeps growin'.  It's crazy.  If anything; there's so much information in those articles that it's hard to get a handle on it all.</li> </ul>Sorry, kinda got to rambling there.  Nutshell: DDi is a must have (for me).  The Compendium, the Character Builder, the articles, and all the other bells and whistles amount to a fairly staggering amount of information.  And it's all just a search away.</blockquote>

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