by Kameron M. Franklin

Created on: May 02, 2008

Wizards of the Coast (WotC) announced at GenCon Indy 2007 that they were working on a fourth edition (4E) of Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, previews and excerpts of the new rules have given players a sneak peek at some of the upcoming changes. From races and classes to the monsters player characters (PCs) will fight, nothing went untouched. Ten of the biggest changes are listed below.

1. NEW CORE RACES
Gone is the gnome, banished to the Monster Manual. In it's place is the tiefling. Elves are now strictly wild forest-dwellers, while eladrin become the noble fey race.

2. RACIAL ABIILITIES
Races also receive some new features. There are no more ability score penalties, and each race as a power particular to it. For example, the elf has the Elven Accuracy racial power, which grants the effect of one reroll on an attack roll per encounter.

3. NEW CORE CLASSES
There are eight core classes featured in the D&D 4E Players Handbook (PHB): cleric, fighter, paladin, ranger, rogue, warlock, warlord and wizard. Each class has a specific role it fulfills: controller, defender, leader or striker. These roles help define how a player can best take advantage of the class's abilities.

4. CLASS POWERS
Class features and spells are now powers. There are three different types of powers: at-will, encounter and daily. A power's type governs how often it can be used. Each class will have a number of powers available at first level, giving PCs the ability to be effective in a variety of ways throughout an adventure.

5. DEFENSES
Fortitude, Reflex and Will now join Armor Class (AC) as a defense, eliminating the mechanic of savings throws. This change puts the action back in the hands of the players, as they must roll higher than their opponent's defense in order for an attack to be successful.

6. TIERS OF PLAY
D&D 4E core rules describe game play for PCs from level 1 to level 30. The previous edition covered levels 1 to 20, with a supplement for levels 20-40. In the new rules, the level spread is divided into three tiers of play: 1-10 is the heroic tier, 11-20 is the paragon tier, and 21-30 is the epic tier. Each tier has a different flavor of play and provides different options for PC advancement.

7. PARAGON PATHS
4E has replaced the prestige classes of 3.5 with paragon paths. These paths represent ways a player can specialize their character, giving him a unique flavor as he advances from eleventh to twentieth level.

8. MULTICLASSING
In previous editions, multiclassing meant adding a second or third

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