Is this officially the end of 3.5? Here's what Afshin "Diero" Ibrahim has to say...

Finally, after months of speculation and debating we've playtested 4E firsthand and i gotta say the key word here was fun.

I think probably the biggest improvement was the fact that battles no longer are a long dragged out process of rolling dice for everything and anything remotely resembling an action. (though some might argue this was a core experience of dnd, heck i was one of em) Being a pro 3.5E advocate at first, i think overall it was great. Combat was fast and furious with less on rolling dice and more on positional play and tactics. It also would have been very difficult for our old 3.5E game to squeeze in 5 encounters in 8 hours.

It would have been great to have had another melee class though coz as rizal mentioned, we had a lot of luck so another tank would have probably brought out a lot more tactical advantage from the warlord abilities.

Playing a wizard was fun, the dragon encounter being a point in case. Wizards still can cause damage but the stikers do a lot more damage (when they hit that is) so there's a lot more freedom for the wizard to move around being more courageous and all without having to worry about wasting spells and leaving the party in a pinch.

And there's just so much more movement and action... move, attack,shift, warlord shifts you, cast spell, draw, sheathe, jump,slide... yada yada yada... what joy....

The definition of the class roles really played a part. In a way, it limits what a player should do in combat. We know as a wizard, its your job to improve the odds by reducing the enemy count. We know its the ranger and warlock's job to land that killing blow against bloodied enemies. We know its the pally's job to distract and agro the biggest baddie until the small fries have been taken out, and we so know that the warlord was just itching to get that extra bonus attack/damage/shift combo into the rest of the party's attacks.

It feels a lot more like a team effort compared to 3.5E... and i'm saying that coz i know how useless a not well thought out character can be in combat when you're surrounded by purpose built power house allies. That i would say was the biggest advantage and disadvantage of 3.5E. The character creation process was much more involved and detailed and it was fun. (ask wan and ain, god knows how many characters they've created just for the heck of it) but the disadvantage being if you got it wrong, you're stuck with it.

You know what, although i'd hate to admit it, its a lot more easier to get into the 4E groove. Everything is straight to the point and easily presented that sometimes you don't really have to spend hours going thru to decide if you wanna try it. And the retraining feature is neat. You can retrain one feat,skill or power every time you level-up in addition to the built in retraining option after certain levels. So if something isn't working just swap it out if you survive till the next level. In that sense there's more freedom to experiment without far reaching consequences.

Its only been one game, but i see a lot of potentially epic battles coming up in 4E. And i agree with rizal that if something doesn't seem right, just put up a house rule for it.

I'll say this lastly, for all the criticisms, i think WOTC have done a pretty good job. There's always room for improvement but its got a good base to start with and a lot of potential for the next set of epic heroes. =)