Similarly, the whole don’t know/don’t care on the rule changes? A shame. I think it’ll be worth the time invested. I get ya a PHB if it helps. Ya won’t be rolling abilities on character creation so don’t let that keep you up at night.

I think/hope we’re going to look back on 3/3.5 as a vital step along the way out of the 1st/2nd edition backwaters, but not holding a candle to 4. I sure don’t think 3/3.5 was broken or ended up the way it did for lack of testing - it was a system that allowed itself to become overburdened in time, and it did. 4 is like pruning back a tree and getting it returned to a pleasing shape. Sure, it’ll have growth issues in the future, too, but that’s no reason to dismiss it now.

Anyone in drive distance to Batavia, NY (14020) interested in a seat at a late-summer-launching 4E campaign, give a shout. Guaranteed to be less painful than a trip to the dentist, most days. And you get to see your triumphs and foibles repeated here for the world (we kid, we kid) to see.

This is not to say I won’t like 4′th Ed. but the point being I don’t really want to have to reinvest time and money to learn an new RPG system that call itself D&D. I mean why not just go to a percentile based dice system…. introduce critical tables and more mechanics… oh wait… we have that… I really liked the 3.0 revision because it introduced a hard and fast skill system and the feat system was cool. Plus it had been awhile since anything new came out for the D&D name. I bought into that, but 3.5, was it really necessary? Some of the rules changes made sense but some were really inane, what they did to druids was discombobulating and their ruling on haste was a waste. They should have just soft bound a rules errata that was nicely indexed, not put out a whole new edition of hardbound books. This way we as GMs can pick and choose the rules we want to adopt (eh we do that anyhow right) with a quick and inexpensive reference.

Silliness…

So on the my thoughts of a character if I were to play in this campaign… I have no idea what the rule changes are… but I don’t know that I really care. Unless I roll a broken character (Elena v 2.0) I’m not thinking about how to make use of the rules. I am just gonna go with what I feel inclined to play. I’ve played a fighter rogue recently that was ungodly broken good(when I rolled her character I sucked the life out of not only the Buffalo Sabres but the NHL, because for that season the Sabres were poor and then the NHL PA went on strike and shut the season down). I have a sorceror currently in Random’s campaign who is a walking (flying now) missile boat. I also had a halfling bard in a pretty short lived campaign. I have been playing Neverwinter Nights 2 and ran into character that was this gnome bard who literally talked the party into a slumber… and thought hmmm how fun could that be… though it could be annoying as well and probably a bit taxing on me as my personality isn’t always one of of chatter… I could change the character to a cleric (for purposes of playing a different class) and having him preach boring sermons that put people to sleep… eh… well who knows…

Oh yes… this is a rant… but 4th Ed. kinda got me going…

I’ve not really looked into the Ranger, but I suspect it’s the same kind of deal.

I probably overlooked the healing surge thing because I didn’t think it was a big deal. In my experience the only thing important about healing is that you get it, not how quick you can use it. Besides, if someone else is playing a Cleric the dwarf just makes it so the Cleric doesn’t worry about him as as much.

Oh yeah, and I definitely like the Dungeoneering option. It’s not that I want to not care about nature mind you. I just like the idea of dwarves knowing the underground environment.

First of all, he gets his axe proficiency for being a ranger, so you can totally go battle axe plus hand axe and use all the two weapon powers.

Your article leaves out the most important power that dwarves have - free second wind. Every character in 4th edition can get one “free” healing surge per combat, but they have to give up their attacks and take full defense (+2 to AC) to get that surge. Dwarves do it while keeping up the attack, making a two-weapon dwarf ranger all the more playable.

The ranger description lets you take dungeoneering instead of nature skill. You could easily be a dwarven ranger sworn to slay the undead or denizens of the underdark, and never really care all that much about nature.

Dwarves get a cool feat that gives them extra damage with hammers and axes. At higher levels, you could take a heavy armor feat and not really lose class features (you won’t have the greatest DEX anyway).

This is a build that totally fits with 4th edition, and should feel pretty awesome in practice.