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Dungeons and Dragons Core Rulebook Gift Set, 4th Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Wizards Rpg Team
Brand: Wizards of the Coast
Category: Book
List Price: $104.95
Buy New: $65.75
You Save: $39.20 (37%)
New (20) Used (5) from $62.05
Avg. Customer Rating:  126 reviews
Sales Rank: 92
Format: Box Set
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 4th
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 832
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6.9
Dimensions (in): 11.6 x 8.7 x 2.4
ISBN: 0786950633
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN: 9780786950638
ASIN: 0786950633
Publication Date: June 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
All three 4th Edition core rulebooks in one handsome slipcase. The Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game has defined the medieval fantasy genre and the tabletop RPG industry for more than 30 years. In the D&D game, players create characters that band together to explore dungeons, slay monsters, and find treasure. The 4th Edition D&D rules offer the best possible play experience by presenting exciting character options, an elegant and robust rules system, and handy storytelling tools for the Dungeon Master.This gift set features a handsome slipcase containing all three of the 4th Edition D&D Roleplaying Game core rulebooks: the Players Handbook rulebook (320 pages), the Monster Manual rulebook (288 pages), and the Dungeon Masters Guide rulebook (224 pages).
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| Customer Reviews: Read 121 more reviews...
 The best RPG on the market today July 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
4th edition is a massive improvement on 3rd edition. While a radical change from 3rd edition, perhaps even more so than 3rd edition was from 2nd edition, it still is Dungeons & Dragons, but it is a much better version of it, delivering what you enjoyed in the past but much more efficiently.
All classes are fun to play now and always have multiple interesting options. The reason for this is the new powers system; now all characters have abilities they can use whenever they want (at-will), once per encounter (encounter abilities, which tend to be more powerful or do things which are more combat-shaping), or once per day (daily abilities, very powerful abilities which significantly change the course of combat). Unlike in previous editions, ALL characters have powers of all three types, and in equal amounts; a fighter might have an at-will attack which allows him to deal damage even if he misses with the attack, an encounter power which allows him to whirl around and attack all nearby foes, and a daily power which cracks the foe's skull, dealing ongoing damage and giving them a penalty to their AC. You always have multiple options in combat; even if you've used up all of your encounter and daily powers, all characters have a minimum of two distinctive at-will attacks.
This change to the combat system fixes many of the issues of previous editions, ranging from wizards being useless at low levels after they've cast a couple spells to fighters being useless at high levels when the wizard never runs out of their overpowered spells. Additionally, characters are less likely to miss only on a 1 or hit only on a 20 - the combat system is more balanced towards more reasonable values, and characters within a given party are unlikely to vary so much that what is a trivial roll for one character is completely impossible for another.
Outside of combat, the skills system has been revised and greatly improved with an eye towards keeping values more reasonable, and better guidelines are laid out for the Dungeon Master for use of skill checks. Many related skills have been rolled into a single skill, and all of the skills now in the game are more useful and broader than they were in the past; where in 3rd edition, you might have a skill you use only once or twice in a campaign, you're expected to use most skills every adventure in 4th edition. Skill challenges are a new type of non-combat encounter; these are events such as negotiating with a duke or traversing the wilderness. Everyone in the party makes skill checks in turn, trying to use some skill which will aid them through the situation; perhaps the wizard uses his knowledge of history to tie in their plight to the duke's, while the cleric shames him into helping him with his knowledge of religion and the smooth rogue uses diplomacy to get his way. It takes multiple successes to succeed, but also multiple failures to fail, leading to an interesting non-combat analog of combat which is a great deal of fun, both for the players and for the DM. It also encourages creativity, which is always wonderful for a non-combat mechanic, and is highly flexible.
Traps have been completely redone as well; rather than the boring "search for traps in every hallway" routine the rogue has done historically, now traps are intended to be used in combats or even be encounters unto themselves which require thought, skill challenges, or combat to overcome. Kobolds may scamper across the trigger tiles for a spear trap, but when someone as heavy as a human steps on them, they get speared. Traps aren't simple Disable Device (now Thievery) checks anymore, but rather skill challenges to disable, though you could potentially destroy the spear mechanism with attacks or jump over the trapped squares - there are many ways of dealing with traps now, and traps are themselves more interactive, ranging from the standard spear trap to complex blade pendulum traps. All of this makes traps FUN, rather than just a boring hp penalty when the rogue rolls low on a Search check.
Monsters and NPCs are much easier to build now, and adventures in general are much more fun for the DM to design; they take a lot less busywork and allow you to spend your time focusing on the story, rather than trying to make an NPC actually a worthwhile foe for the two rounds he shows up. It is simple to adjust monsters to meet your needs and to generate new NPCs from scratch. It is much easier to run a game now and to prepare your own adventures, which will hopefully bring a new generation into DMing.
The overall formatting and layout of the books is massively superior to that of previous editions, or indeed of any other RPG. It is easy to read the rules and easy to reference what you need to look up; things are logically organized and very easy to get to when you need them. The rules are streamlined and they did away with many unnecessary subsystems, making combat work coherently and making it so that fighters and wizards don't have to use different rules in order to operate in combat. Wizards now roll to hit, rather than force foes to make "saving throws", meaning that everyone gets to roll dice every round and letting the wizard have some idea of how tough it is to affect his foes, much the same as a fighter.
The only real bad thing about the books are the poor indexes; they are only a page long and are missing a lot of entries you'd want to look up. However, this is not a crippling issue.
Overall, I give it a 5 out of 5; 4th edition is more fun than 3rd edition, and if you enjoyed previous editions of D&D you'll enjoy 4th edition. I heartily recommend it.
Awesome...Awesome...Awesome...and Awesome July 25, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
It came quicker than I expected, it was half the price as at a real world retail spot. It arrived in great condition. I am getting familiar with the 4th Edition rules now.
Awesome!
 Terrible - Unless You Don't Like D&D July 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is not D&D. It's a new game, not a particularly good one, with the D&D "logo" slapped on the front. Third Edition tinkered a little bit with the iconic elements of D&D, but could still be seen as an upgrade. For fourth edition however, all prior editions might as well have never existed. It is obvious that the publisher's driving motivation was to trade on the D&D label, while making absolutely certain that no prior edition products would be in any way useful for this game. Great way to alienate your entire market Hasbro. Thanks.
Wait for the PC version July 21, 2008
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
First off, yes I have played using the 4E rules, not once, but twice and never again.
Secondly, before I get accused of being some old-school, hard-core grognard (despite my 20+ years of D&D campaigning) I should say that I play World of Warcraft (WoW) regularly, even more than I play D&D. I like WoW for what it is , and like D&D even more so for what WoW is not. WoW and it's ilk are not role playing games in the sense that there is no character development. Yes there is statistical development, but not character; personality, traits, habits and so forth. And therein lies my chief complaint about 4E.
While many reviewers have said that 4E is an attempt at making a tabletop game out of a MMORPG, I think it is just the opposite. I beleive WOTC/Hasbro had every intention from the start of design to take D&D into the MMORPG world. Just look at the rules, it reads like a video game manual already.
Gone are all of the background information and flavor text, replaced by statistics and mechanical rules which easily translate into hot keys for the computer or console controller. No thinking or problem solving required here, you just keeep hitting the hot key until the monster drops.
The most glaring proof that the designers have given up on role playing and are eyeing taking D&D to an electronic format is the almost linear character developement, which forces players into preset roles. Tanks, Crowd Controllers, yaddy yadda, yadda, again its like reading a WoW manual. These limiting factors are clearly present to set parameters that are easily written in code by some programmer.
It is also evident that the designers have gone after the younger "Instant-Gratification" generation by handing out gonzo powers from the moment your character sheet is filled out. 1st level characters need not fear death no matter the odds unless they run into a streak of bad die rolls (and even then maybe not).
The designers in their efforts to build a game that is cross-platform capable forgot that at its heart D&D is not a game about gaining powers and increasing your character's ability scores. It is about developing your character and the interactions with your fellow adventurers.
4E's focus is clearly not in this vein and any role playing that may occur while using this version of the game is probably a bug that they will fix in patch 4.1.000123133.
Great!! July 21, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a great product for anyone who is going to be DMing. While everything you really need to play as a player is in the PHB, the Monster Manual and the DMG will be indispensable to any DM. The slipcase is made of a great cardboard that is about as thick as the covers of the books. I actually dropped mine when I got it and the case took all the shock and kept the books in perfect condition. I highly recommend this product for its price, looks, and quality.
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