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I’ve decided to stop keeping the people that check here regularly (all four of them) on the edge of their seats and state that I’m just not going to continue the PHB2 review.  To bring it to a nice close I’ll simply state that if you liked Martial Power and the core 4e rulebooks, then you can safely purchase the 4e PHB2.  Whether or not you’ll want to, now that WotC’s legal department has injected 200 milliliters of retardation directly into the brain of the company, is entirely up to you.  The recent foolishness from WotC is not the reason I’ve dropped the series, though (although it does deserve its own article).

I started running a 4e game about 4 weeks ago and we’ve met for just two sessions.  The reason we’ve stopped meeting is because I’m looking for a different system to use.  Some time after that second session (truly, maybe even during that second session) I realized that I simply wasn’t enjoying D&D.  The game (4e and 3.5 alike) just doesn’t interest me anymore.  I can’t convince myself to finish that PHB2 review no matter how hard I try — I just don’t care.  Given my history of reviews for 4e content, I think that I should give you folks my reasons:

• I feel that awesome gear should be mysterious and unique, not an entitlement.  What’s so special about magic items when characters are supposed to be finding them before they reach level 2?
• … and bring back the Appraise skill!  Seriously, how the hell are the PCs supposed to know that a golden spear found in an abandoned dwarven fortress is something more than a golden spear by simply picking it up and looking at it?
• I’m tired of PCs being “special” or “heroic.”  How about they earn that distinction?
• How am I supposed to relate to these characters? They are not unlike the superheroes of DC Comics (Superman, Wonder Woman, et al), completely alien to me in all their power.
• I hate high-fantasy settings.  I like low-fantasy settings.  Gimme the world of Conan with Dwarves, Elves and Halflings and I’d say “Now this is a good start.”
• I could run 4e in a low-fantasy setting, but that would require me to re-work much of the guts of the game to accommodate characters that would not see a single magic item before level 16.  This would require a major re-working of monsters and powers as well.  I’d have to severely cut the amount of HP that monsters and PCs could expect to have.  All of this would just “scratch the surface” — there’s not enough time in the day for me to do all of this and attend college.
• Less abstraction, please.  I’m OK with the level of abstraction present in Dark Heresy; D&D takes it way too far.
• I want more danger and brutality in the game, especially at the earlier levels.  I want that danger to escalate at the higher levels.  I’m talking “Battletoads with dice” here.
• I want players to suffer consequences for doing stupid things like forging pacts with extraplanar entities (you honestly expect any good to come of that?) or pissing off their patron diety.
• I want to play Dark Heresy (now, there’s a good RPG), but I want to play something in a fantasy setting.  The awesomeness that is DH is strongly encouraging me to check out Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

For the record, I consider Star Wars SAGA Edition to be the pinnacle of WotC’s endeavors with the D20 (that I’ve seen, at least).  If they would have taken SWSAGA, put it in a low-fantasy setting and cut that crap about player characters being “special” instead of… doing whatever it is they did with 4th Edition, I’d be quite content.  I’ve been dwelling on my displeasure with D&D for entirely too long.  Please dear readers, in the space below, recommend a game that you think might be right up my alley.