1. If feels unfinished and unpolished despite its slick look. An example: the new rules for dying are that if you slip below 0 hit points you have to make a Death saving throw at the end every round. You need a 10 or higher to succeed. Presumably, you are rolling on a d20 - but it does not say. It also does not say what is or is not added to the saving throw. So far as the rules indicate, the best you can do is imply that its a straight, unmodified d20 roll for 10 or better, which is almost (but not quite) the same as just saying its 50/50, roll whatever dice. Point being, while Attack rolls and skill usage are explained, saving throws are not - at all. Saving throws can also be "granted" by use of the Heal skill - but it does not specify anywhere what that means. What is a saving throw? How is it made?
Another example: The module tells you how much XP is needed for 2nd level and for 3rd level. It also tells you that the PCs will probably hit 4th level by the end, or be very close - but - how would we know since they don't tell us how many XP are needed for 4th level?!? Grr.
2. High Price, lesser quality. The hard-bound adventures we got at the end of of 3.5 were expensive, but they were at least quality constructed. This adventure costs about the same ($30) but instead of being a large, hard-bound folio, its a flimsy cover enclosing two thin, soft covered glossy books (one the Adventure, the other the Quick-Start rules). Worse yet, while there is little content, its even less than it appears as the rules in the Quick Start booklet are duplicated in the adventure booklet, so really, you are getting even less content than you thought. The fold out maps are nice and big and colorful - those I like - but they are clearly from the miniatures side of the house, not the real role-play side of the house.
3. The Layout: The adventure layout will be familiar to those of you have picked up any of the recent 3.5 adventures, the ones with the glossy combat map layouts and stats seperated from the rest of the adventure (Like the Greyhawk one, or Undermountain, or Demonweb pits, or Shadowdale, etc.).
4. Combat combat combat. The Adventure appears to be just a linked series of combat encounters - which is fine I suppose. D&D is the original hack-n-slash game after all, but honestly, it feels like D&D is gone, and we have had the D&D Miniatures combat game substituted in.
And I guess thats where I am at right now in my evaluation: from just this first impression, it feels like the role-playing game is gone, replaced with a miniature's combat game. And we are being told "and you can RP around these miniatures too!" Its almost as if we have come full circle: "Chainmail" was a fantasy miniatures combat game, that eventually gave way to a role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons. Dungeons and Dragons then got ever more complicated and grand and such, but then ... the miniatures came along. And now, D&D has come full circle, and is now really just a miniature's combat game, that you can chose to role-play around.
Now, I may be wrong - this is just first impressions based off of an adventure and quick-start rules, but that IS my first impression.
There are some things I like, however: Healing surges - people can heal, a bit, by resting for 5 minutes. Not a lot, not to full health, and not infinitely per day, but you can rest a bit and gain some HP back. I think this is much more realistic given that HP represent much more than physical damage. In real medieval combat, the combatants would move together, fight, and then ... get tired. Second waves would come in, the survivors of the first waves would rest, if they could, then go back at it. So, I like the resting thing. The whole game seems to have been redesigned to stop the usual "We go in, we fight through two or three encounters taking about 15 minutes of in-game time (though about 8 hours of game-table time) and then we have to make camp and rest for 23 hours and 45 minutes so that the cleric can heal everyone back up and then the wizards can cast again etc. So, I think the new version will allow for more "realistic" rest and recovery, not too mention a smoother flow of the game. That part I like.
I also like the individual class and race abilities I have seen so far. I am not so fond of the 'numbers' - but I am sure I just don't understand the context yet. One example (hopefully without giving too much away): one antagonist in the adventure, designed and intended to fight the 3rd level PCs, has ... wait for it ... 186 hit points. 186.
WOW.
Granted, even first level PCs in this world seem to have like 20-30 HPs, but DAMN man, 186 hp monsters for 3rd level PCs to face? What kind of HPs are we looking at when the PCs hit 20th level? Thousands of HP? Tens-of-thousands? Its starting to sound more like Rifts than D&D ('my gargoyle has 10,000 STRUTURE points, which equates to four-hundred-gabillion hp, puny mortal!")
Anyway, those are my observations 24 hours into 4th Edition. That said, I still cannot wait until June 6th! I am such an addict ...
