Hi

Hi

I am not a player but am fascinated by the books. I saw the 5th edition ones at my local bookstore and I wanted to buy a couple but not at that price.

I found the 4th edition of the monster's manual and dungeon master's guide at a decent price used locally.

Is it ok to buy and read that or is it completely outdated?  I might get in the game after all, who knows.

Thanks

Pat

There is nothing dumb about reading old D&D books! They all have something to offer to jog your imagination.

The main thing to remember about 4e is that it was extremely heavy on mechanics. They did away with a lot of the actual role playing elements early on and then tried to play catch up later with their dozens of splat books. It's more like elaborate tactical grid combat game with some fantasy trappings and optional role play. To this day, it's absolutely insane that we never got a video game out of 4e, but that's just endemic of 4e as a whole. I also absolutely love the implied setting of Nentir Vale and the "Points of Light", but it's unfortunatley hidden deep between the lines of the text. I liked 4e at the time, but I wouldn't go back to it. I want to go back to Nentir Vale tho. I've had fun with all the Editions of D&D.

so...

The 4e DMG has some excellent advice. It's one of the best treatises on DMing I've read. I actually like it in some ways more than the 5e DMG, barring the amount of mechanical things that no longer apply. However, the actual advice columns that would still be pertinent today are a minority of the book.

The 4e MM has some good Fantasy RPG concept art, but almost no fluff whatsoever. It's not going to be a particularly enlightening read. A great deal of the mechanics of 4e got lost in translation, so it might not even make sense to you at all if all you're familiar with is 5e. (4e MM has Bear Lore tho, the most important lore when dealing with bears.)

All in all, I think if all I was familiar with was 5e, I'd be disappointed reading the 4e books for the first time. There's not a lot of substance to them, just infinite minutiae on grid combat that we don't even use anymore. However, what little substance that's there though, is pretty good, strictly in my opinion.

Thank-you so much for the detailed answer.

Pat

You’d be hard pressed to find a 4e game. If you are at all interested in playing then go 5e even with the higher price. The good thing about not reading an old edition is you’ll never confuse a rule from that edition and 5e rules are easier than old editions, but still a major undertaking for a new player.

Thxs a lot for the extra answers. I might stear clear of the 4th edition.

Pat

The value really all depends on the use you get out of it. it does’t really matter the price If you will never use it. 

Are you a player or DM? The value of those 4e books are higher than it is for a Player. You can get the 5e digital content here for at most 25, I think it is. You can find the hardbacks in that ballpark on Amazon. 

I picked up a few 4e books after watching this video:

I wouldn't say the different editions are necessarily better or worse than each other, but most importantly, they're incompatible. An edition has rules, characters, abilities, and you can't mix and match.

If you have a group of people who want to play 4th edition, sure, you can do that. Or if you have a group of people that want to play 5th edition, sure, you can do that (that's probably easier, since 5e is pretty popular right now and has been for the recent years).

But if you get the 4e books, they're kind of useless if you have a group where everyone else wants to play 5e.

Thanks a lot for the extra explanations.

Pat

4e had some good ideas and some bad ideas.  I still use some of the lore books.  There's nothing wrong with the 4e books you got and you might get some good ideas on things you want to try such as trying to make an Avenger (character class) or a Warden (another character class), but beyond inspiration, the books will not be much help for a 5e game.

If you want them just to read, and not necessarily to play a game, sure. If you want to try to find a game using them, not many do 4e, its either 5e or Pathfinder.

I personally love the Pathfinder (1e) books, they are among the best for readable layouts and I love the art style.

I wouldn’t say you should steer clear of it. 4e was very unpopular, however it had a lot of good ideas. Many of which I use as homebrew rules in fifth edition. Such as minion monsters, where they only have one hit point. Or dragons having auras, or them being able to concentrate their breath weapon. 4e had very dynamic combat.