First, sorry for the delay in postings.  Just have been too busy and uninspired to write.  So here is a continuation of my initial DnD 4ED review.

Initially I had thought the system was a bit MMO ish.  The abilities and character roles had given me that initial opinion.  Now that we have gotten through the first session, I can say that its more than that.  This game focuses more on teamwork in combat than any dice RP I have seen so far.  While there are only four roles to play, each class is given a wide variance on how to go about it.  But in that, they are used in a more chessboard style RP play that you see more often in electronic games.  So I have to tag 4th Edition with ‘Strategy RPG’ category.

The four Roles in the book are ‘Controller, Defender, Leader and Striker’.  Each one is self explanatory in their own names but here are short explanations on how they do it.  A Controller uses an array of abilities that target multiple enemies, from widespread damage to movement control.  Defenders have abilities that hamper or harm enemies if they attack anyone but them.  Leaders have the widest range of abilities like healing, moving enemies or allies around the battlefield or assisting attacks.  Strikers are just there to deal out a lot of damage to one or two enemies.

Now the classes give a huge variation on how each class goes about doing these roles.  They also impact how you deal with social and skill challenges.  I can go on a long time about this but I come back to the ‘Strategy’ part of it.  With the right setup of characters, you can control the battlefield.  Its a big complex game of chess of the players, each with only one piece and the Dungeon Master with his unlimited number of pieces.

The challenge isn’t the actual battle in itself, but how well the DM can handle his side.  The RP portion of the battles has to give Story, Cinematic and… well role play value.  In the mist of this battle, you have to give it some meaning in one way or another.  They can also impact how you handle the Tactics of the fight.  Either giving your players a simple enemy to handle or lay out a complex group of enemies to make them work for the win.  In all this, they still have to balance it with the players in the game.  This can be a daunting task, but always remember to just have fun.  I am not trying to scare people from this job, just focus on an important area.