Augury

My gaming group is finally considering starting up a 4th Edition campaign. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to put into GMing a campaign myself, but I won’t complain about getting to play a system I don’t know first.

For the past couple of weeks the guys have all been reviewing the rules, and I think I’ve finally got a decent handle on things. I felt like I was stumbling through the dark because of the organization of the book — It throws all these options at you first, races and classes, skills and feats, and it wasn’t until later on in the book that I felt like I was understanding the choices that were presented to me.

However, I think I’ve finally hit the clicking point. I was sitting down the other day making up sample characters, and I realized how interesting levelling up was going to be in this new system. The whole character sheet is mutable since almost every derived stat has Character Level / 2 as part of the formula. And then add on top the large numbers of feats you’re getting, and the frequent stat boosts. Yeah - I think levelling up will be cool. Not to mention that simple level 1 characters are already cool, having 4-5 powers to use in combat, instead of 3 spells for a Wizard or Cleric in the old edition (and about 1 attack for everyone else).

All that said, I think the 4th Edition PHB could really use some changing up. Coupled with the fact that they released a somewhat substantial errata already, I really hope they print another edition. Of course, I say this because I haven’t actually bought the books yet - I think I might be a bit more miffed if I had.