Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook: Roleplaying Game Core Rules, 4th Edition

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Editorial reviews

Product Description
The first of three core rulebooks for the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game. 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. The Players Handbook presents the official Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game rules as well as everything a player needs to create D&D characters worthy of song and legend: new character races, base classes, paragon paths, epic destinies, powers, magic items, weapons, armor, and much more.

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Customer reviews

review by: Basement Dweller date: 2008-08-26 rating:
WoW for your tabletop..
I realize that there is a WoW (World of Warcraft) game for the tabletop already, but the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons comes closer to the actual game than any other system out there.

The classes are more individualized, each one having their own succinct spells, maneuvers, and abilities. It's definitely less homogenized than in previous editions.

The Core Rules Books of the 4th addition, including this one, are easy to navigate and understand, even for someone who has never played.

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review by: date: 2008-08-23 rating:
Very bad ink
Had the book for only two weeks and the ink is beginning to smear on many of the pages. It seems like they used newspaper ink to print, not good at all.

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review by: SpydersWebbing date: 2008-08-23 rating:
Read This Before you Read the 1 Star Reviews!
Let me start out by saying that in content and design aims 4th Edition is 5 stars. Everyone here posting a 1 Star Review has forgotten a few things:


1) Quantity is not Quality: Yes, we lost barbarian, druid, sorcerer, and monk, but the question is WHY? Have the people gave 1 star to the product even looked at how many pages are given to each class? There's at least 15-20 pages PER class.


The simple reason all those classes are omitted? They ran out of room.

2) The races, once again, are very unique to themselves. Yes, three of them are elf related, but let's take a look at what they are, shall we? One is the eladrin, or high elf, who has a teleport ability. One is the half-elf, and he's very adaptable to whatever you want. The last is the actual wood elf, who sneaks around and is very accurate. If you wanna change names, then fine. But don't go confusing rules with fluff, because rules wise these races are very very unique.

Dragonborn and tieflings are here for the Final Fantasy and non-Tolkien fantasy people. That's fine, Dungeons and Dragons isn't a Tolkien hack off anymore, which is better for the game all around! There's more than Tolkien.

3)Alot of people who review this product for 1 stars has forgotten that this is but the crunch of the game: these powers are SUPPOSED to be balanced with each other in their roles. This isn't bad ole 3.5 where the sorcerer and wizard are all powerful by 20th level and the fighter looks like crap. The design team knew that for things to be FAIR to all classes they needed to even out the damage and effects.

Wizards of the Coast doesn't tell you how to roleplay, that's your job, remember?


And I think that's really the point of my little review. Roleplaying is about getting together with a bunch of friends and having a good time. Wizards makes the rules, you bring the imagination for explaining why a simple weapon slash does 7d12+22 points of damage. If anything, WIZARDS HAS ENCOURAGED ROLEPLAYING MORE THAN ANY OTHER EDITION YET.

The reason this book isn't five stars? The printing sucks horribly, and the editing's bad. But, the book is definitely useable.



Heartily recommended for people looking for an actual good time, instead of spending hours creating your fighter and finding out he's worthless.

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review by: date: 2008-08-21 rating:
I've played 3.5 for 4 years. As a result, this is incomprehensible.
My biggest issue with 4th ed. is that I DONT UNDERSTAND IT.

This I owe mostly to the fact that I was "schooled in 3.5."

The biggest source of confusion for me is that this is not simply a new edition, but an entirely different game practically.

If you have never played D&D, or have previously only dabbled, this could be very enjoyable for you. It is an especially good start since from here on out, 4th edition is king for Wizards.

If you have, are serious about it, and enjoy it despite its current flaws, steer clear and stick with your current edition. Maybe pick up some supplements for fluff and stuff for your current campaigns.


review by: date: 2008-08-17 rating:
The one key book of the new edition
I have played DnD for way too many years, and I like this new edition.

I found all three books worth buying. That said, the player's handbook is the one book every DnD player should have. Finally, all the 'player' stuff, including the loot, is between just two covers. Magic items are now in the same book, admitting finally that player do read this stuff, and memorize it.

THe only negative I have is the limited list of classes. No enchanters, no illusionists, and no bards. Despite that, I really thought Wizard's did a good job with this book.

Worth buying.

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