*Hands you a torch*
The room begins to fill with a strange and eerie mist. As you notice the walls have a slimy texture to them as you attempt to peer down the long, dark, corridor. Off in the distance you hear the breathing of a large creature. With the magical book in your hand, you begin reading to get a better understanding of what you are about to face…

Much like the Dungeon Master guide I did, I’m going to go through the chapters with you. I won’t give you all the information in it (you know… so wizards doesn’t try to eat me) but enough so they are happy with me if you go buy their product. So, grab that d20 and lets do it!

One thing I want to make notice before going through here so I don’t have to make multiple notes, almost every thing is now based on 1/2 your level. Example, instead of having certain scores for your Fort, Will, Reflex and gaining points every now and then when you level. You have your class modifier + 1/2 your level + other mods to determine what your saves are. Now this rule doesn’t apply to everything, but it’s pretty close. To get a better understanding of what I mean, check out a clean copy of the 4th Edition Character Sheet.

Chapter 1 – How To Play

Anyone that has ever played D&D before can for the most part skip this chapter unless you just want a quick review. For someone wanting to get into D&D for the first time, this is a great chapter to get a better understanding of just what D&D is.

Chapter 2 – Making The Characters

Finally, we are starting to get into the new rules that are brought to us by D&D 4.0. Before when making a group, the players were normally conscious of the different members in their party, so you wouldn’t normally go around making five Rogues. Well now all the classes have a role. Here are the different rolls:

• Controller (Wizard, Warlock)
• Defender (Fighter, Paladin)
• Leader (Cleric, Warlord)
• Striker (Ranger, Rouge)

Within this chapter you’ll also find one of the things I really enjoy, Retraining. So every time you level, say you don’t like a certain skill, power, or feat that you don’t think is working out just the way you want. Upon reaching a new level, you can pick one out of those three and select a new one in replace. (This doesn’t go against anything else you learn for your level up, this is extra)

Chapter 3 – Character Races

New comers!

Dragonborn – Creatures that resemble humanoid dragons. Their special ability? Duh, breath attack!! And you even get to pick what type of element it is! So for those of you that have always craved and desired to play a dragon based character, here is your chance!

Eladrin – Introducing one of the new realms, the Feywild, upon first glance, you will think they are Elves. Well… you’re right. Long ago Eladrin and Elves lived together as a single race, but then when the Drow stirred a rebellion, ties between the two separated. Eladrin choose to remain in the Feywild, where Elves now tend to reside more in the world. There special ability? Oh yeah… a short teleportation skill. (5 squares)

Tiefling – Any D&D vet recognizes these guys right off the bat from the old Monster Manuals. Now however they are in the PHB! Horns! Red Eyes! Natural Evilness! What’s not to love here? There special ability, Fire Resistance and once per combat able to add their Charisma modifier to their damage rolls.

The Classics

Dwarf
Elf
Half-Elf
Halfing
Human

Sorry for you Gnome/Half-Orc fan boys out there, you won’t be able to convert to 4.0 just yet! Maybe one day… one day

Chapter 4 – Character Classes

By far the biggest chapter you’ll find in the book. This one actually doubles the next biggest chapter, so you know they did a major over-haul to the classes.

Upon looking at the first class, more then likely your favorite class and wanting to see all the new changes. Here is an example of what you’ll see. One of the new coming features to 4.0, class skills. Yeah you had some things like… Sneak attack… or Rage, and Wildshape back in your older D&D. But now, you build your character on skills, and every class has them. Instead of trying to build your character on feats and waiting to get more attacks. There are At-Will skills, that well… you can use at will and as often as you feel it’s needed. Then Encounter skills, which can only be used once per encounter, but can be re-used if you have taken a short break. (Five minutes = short break) Then the big one, Daily skill. These are the big skills, the one where your character digs deep and pulls out some crazy shit, and you can only use them again after you have taken an extended rest. So you will find these skills from level 1 – 10. After that you will find all of your Paragon class options. (I’m not going to list all of those, but I will list all of the character classes)

• Cleric
• Fighter
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Rogue
• Warlock
• Warlord
• Wizard

For the most part, I think all of these classes are amazing with their new updates. However I still feel the Wizard took a major beating by the other classes with great clubs. I won’t get into it, I don’t want to detour some of you die hard Wizard fans, just be prepared and know that I warned you.

Every class has two example builds which are basically the direct opposites of each other. The Fighter has a defender build and a damage build, rogue has the stealthy or a bruiser build. Just to give you an idea of what each class would look like if you took certain powers.

Chapter 5 – Skills

This has to be the second most over-hauled chapter in my person opinion. Why you ask? Upon looking at this chapter, you will discover there are now only 17… 17 sills! They took a bunch of other skills and mushed them into others. Example, the Athletic skill now contains the climb, escape from a grab, jump, and swim. I’m actually in favor of this new change, yes it makes things simpler, but it also helps reduce character build time and level up.

Chapter 6 – Feats

Much like older version of feats, these are here to help mold your character. They range from Heroic Tier, Paragon Tier, and Epic Tier level feats.

Chapter 7 – Equipment

One of the biggest change you’ll notice to this chapter, it now contains Magic Items! No longer do you need to own a DM book, or trick you DM into relinquishing his for your own purpose to browse the magical items. So basically take what was once in the DM book, toss it into the PHB with a few new things like Holy Symbols, and categorization of arm, feet, hands, head, and neck slot. You have the new Equipment chapter.

Chapter 8 – Adventuring

Chapter 8 goes into Quest, Encounters, and rewards. All things I’ve covered a little bit prior to the 4th edition release from the excerpts Wizards released.

Chapter 9 – Combat

Here is another chapter that if you are familiar with the game mechanics, this helps with a nice review. For the most part, not a whole lot of major changes from the last version, but there are a few new things which you’ll want to read up about.

Chapter 10 – Rituals

The last chapter in the book, and probably one of the other neatest additions to the game. This is something any player that can cast Arcana or Religion spells and has the Ritual Casting feat. The spells are much like normal spells, they have levels, casting cost, time duration. These can be minor things, or huge abilities like being able to bring back the dead. Which by the way is much more cost efficient than it was in previous versions.

So what do you think? Have any questions, feel free to ask.