OK, that’s extreme, but I know ppl (myself included) who pulled that stunt in 2E. And I will pull that stunt again in 4E, because I can. It’s not a game breaker, but it makes difficult terrain a non-issue, and even makes some impassable terrain (lava or pools of acid, for example) trivial.

I guess my point would be that some of the spells converted into 24 hour ritual form might make things too easy for your players. Playtime is the only thing that will tell.

Speaking of playtime, once you guys get some game time under your belts, you will notice how smoothly and quickly combat rolls along. I always enjoyed exciting and imaginative encounters, but 3.5 as-is doesn’t make for terribly quick combats. While I feel that 4E is limited in certain aspects, the big thing it does is speed up the slowest part of the game so that you and your players can get SO much more done. As you play the game more, the things you have some confusion about will resolve themselves very quickly and, some might say, intuitively.

Oh, and before SR gets ahold of the ranger and begins drooling, WotC put an errata on the ranger exploit “Cascade of Blades” limiting it to 5 attacks. So no one round kills of any monster in the book. (I mention SR because she’s, well, she’s the ranger.)

On defenses: I like what they did with the defenses, especially with my bad luck. However, since they did that to Fort, Ref, and Will, why didn't they just extend the Take-10 out to Initiative as well? Again, I recall when I was a rogue but rolled bad…. And with that, you'd have 3 things (up from 2) based around the same attributes (AC, Reflex, *Initiative <= max{Dex mod, Int mod}).

I can buy INT helping one's reaction time, and I know errata is just a normal part of life. I'm just bitching cause I hate carrying around more books. What we need is like an Amazon Kindle for D&D books. That would be cool as hell.

I get what you're saying about rituals taking a long time encouraging people to use skills, but it used to be we didn't need a rogue to get a door open without breaking it down. I can see the rituals taking longer than skills, but 10 minutes is so long that non-combat spells are pretty much useless if you're in a hurry. And we hates that. Oh, yes. We hates that, precious.

Other systems explain this as INT representing being able to think (and react) quickly, but I don’t know if it’s spelled out in 4e.

“I’m not sure why the designers felt the need to do this or what rationale is behind it”

It’s to give people who have those skills a reason to use them. Before, you didn’t need Open Lock if you had a Knock spell in the party. Making it 10 minutes and cost gp means if you have a door to unlock in a rush, the Rogue (or whomever is trained in Thievery) is your go-to guy.

“I got a definite impression that they’re approaching 4e as a work in progress, with errata being issued and the PHB2 slated for release next year”

3.0 and 3.5 needed errata right out of the gate too, they were just slower in putting it out there officially And stuff like PHB2 is mainly for more classes- for example, you shouldn’t need it if you’re not playing a Barbarian.

@Ben Overmeyer & Stripes:

Now THAT makes sense, thanks for clearing the whole saving throw thing up for me. That's the stuff that's really hard for me — the stuff that has the same name and has mechanics that appear on their face to work the same but in practice work totally differently.

It might have been nice if they'd included a note in there for us old-timers that explained to us that they changed the meaning of the term. Get off my lawn!!!!

So that power you were looking at gives you an extra chance to save. Nice if you are staring 10 fire damage down with only 6 HP left!

sleep spells are also “save ends” as are many slow and paralise type effects.

– Stripes

As for the spells/rituals issue, I’m considering a conversion of some rituals to utility spells based on how they were used in previous editions.

I need to digest all these good comments and formulate my own, but some really good discussion is going on here!

- Reflex, Will, and Fortitude are DEFENSES, not saving throws, in 4E

- A saving throw is just the throw of a d20 with a 50/50 chance of saving (11-20 saves, 1-10 does not). That’s it. It never changes.

I agree, too, that the rituals require too much time — which means it's time for house rules for some of them at my table. I'm thinking about going through my 3.5 materials and pulling out some other useful spells and 'ritualafying' them as additional player options.

I've run a few sessions already — two from the Keep on the Shadowfell and one of our own creation — and I'm very happy with the planning aspects and gameflow of the system. It seems that some people are hung up on how it's not like 3.5, without taking the time to think about how it can facilitate great fantasy storytelling & action. They focus on what it's not as a rules set, and not what the new rules DO in practice.

I have one dutiful ruleslawyer/powergamer in my group, one who NEVER reads the rules and still has to be reminded about provoking OA from his moves, and one who just wants to tell interesting stories while hacking & slashing. The three of them, last week, were actually creaing some synergy between their respective powers & exploits during combat, and it flowed like a cool novel. Warlord, Fighter, and Rogue — and they were playing off each other's abilities on the fly…the rogue would slide his target, while the warlord rallied his buddies, and the fighter crushed the things that were scooted toward his with extra attacks granted by said Warlord. It was cinema at the table, and all accounted for within the rules. Very cool.

Go have fun with it — the rules may not be as exciting to read, and character generation may seem more limited, but the gameplay is far better.