Rules Compendium: An Essential Dungeons & Dragons Compendium Book

[First things first, I do appreciate the design of this edition. 4E was clearly designed to be streamlined from D&D 3.5, and carefully structured for ease of use and balance. Every class and every foe has a role, every rules subsystem is laid out in a straightforward manner. Statistics are easy to determine. The layout of powers and monsters and items and the like makes it easy to pick them up and use. Encounters and rewards look to be a breeze to design. As for the Rules Compendium itself, everything is very clearly explained, with very few areas that are confusing or ambiguous.

That all said, the game has two major flaws. (IMHO, of course.)

One is more objective - there is still too much of the detail-oriented 3.5 in it. Mainly it's a matter of having too many rules to remember - too many specifics with skill use, too many situational modifiers, too many conditions, too many specific action options. Certainly there are fewer fiddly bits than 3.5, and certainly everything is better explained and easier to apply. But having to remember or refer to these rules during game events stands out all the more when other stuff, like powers or monsters, have everything you need in one convenient stat block.

The other is more subjective - I don't like the focus of the game. They decided to take 3.5's grid-based miniatures combat, and turn it up to 11. Movement and positioning are meticulous, and many actions (such as those that move other figures, er, characters) seem particularly game-y. The assigned combat roles may make assembling parties and encounters easier, and the powers (what used to be spells, but for all classes) are nice and balanced, but they add to the sense that this is a miniatures wargame rather than a RPG.

Now, if combat is the main thing you're into D&D for, then I'm sure 4E made you very happy. (It's no coincidence that Combat is the longest chapter in the Rules Compendium by far, nearly triple the length of the others.) But if you want a focus on other stuff, like skills, the best support you get is in step-by-step "skill challenges". (Which are a neat structure, admittedly... but also limiting and overly mechanical.) And if you want an emphasis on role-playing... you're largely on your own. The Rules Compendium does try to push role-playing in earlier chapters, but in the end it doesn't seem like their heart is in it. It seems you're here to fight things, upgrade your loot, and level up. It's no surprise many accused 4E of being a tabletop MMORPG.

However, there are admittedly some things I disliked about 4E at the time I can view more favorably now. One is the default Nentir Vale setting (a.k.a. "Points of Light") and its cosmology, which threw out the old D&D multiverse for something new and reimagined. Now that the old cosmology is back in 5E, I can appreciate Nentir Vale for the lean, mean "greatest hits" setting it is. And I do like that 5E kept the Feywild and Shadowfell. (On the other hand, I still don't like 4E's overly simple five alignments.) And there are some rules ideas here and there I do like: a "bloodied" condition for monsters at half HP, where special powers can kick in; minions, monsters with 1 hit point; the structure for XP overall, including clear guidelines for handling non-monster challenges.

In addition, from a historical standpoint, it's interesting to see how significant a step D&D 4E was in the game's evolution. You can see a lot of the concepts featured in 5E getting started here, such as a unified bonus based on level; the "unaligned" alignment; a simple trained/untrained division for skills; two types of rests (a short one and a long one); the ability to recover health during rests (through healing surges in 4E and hit dice in 5E); an action economy centered around a move, a standard, and a "minor" (bonus) action each turn; the simpler list of skills; and death saves (4E, surprisingly, is actually more lethal here). There's also a section on fleshing out characters that feels a lot like a precursor to 5E's backgrounds. (hide spoiler)]