Review: Dungeons and Dragons 4e (Part Five)

Book One: Player's Handbook
Part the Sixth: Feats

1. Okay. I'm really not going to have much to say about Feats, because there're still a lot of them, and they're in a list that I'm not going to read just now. Plus, knowing whether or not their implementation has improved will depend a lot on how they are played in the game (and not on how they look on the sheet). So a quick read-through of the game isn't going to answer that question for me. As Will pointed out to me earlier, the game has spent an enormous amount of effort on standardization. That's a good thing, and will no doubt go a ways toward helping me out.

2. The other thing that I absolutely have to talk about is Multiclassing, which in 4e is completely tied in to Feats. By taking Multiclass feats, you are able to integrate the abilities of another class with your own class. You are, however, limited to one extra class at most: No Wizard/Warlord/Rogue/Barbarian/Druid hybrids here. (Although you could probably use Retraining to switch out if it came to it -- I'll have to check on that.)

Basically, you spend one feat to get a Multiclass, which usually comes with some small bonus or ability. Then you can use Multiclass Swap feats, which allow you to give up the ability you would get at this level for the ability you would get at this level from your secondary class. Any time you gain a level, you can choose that level's class power to swap, reversing your previous swap. You can buy another swap at level 8 and another at level 10.

If you buy all three multiclass swaps, at level 11 you can choose to continue to train in your multiclassing rather than take a Paragon Path. In 3e terms, this would basically mean that you were creating your prestige class incorporating the powers of two of the basic classes. It's a pretty elegant solution, I think, if you really feel it necessary to have classes in the first place.

Part the Seventh: Equipment
I'm skipping the Equipment chapter, since it's a long list of the Equipment you can buy.

Which means next up is Adventuring.