In reading through the bi-modal reviews of D&D 4e on Amazon, it's clear that there's one fundamental element that is provoking a large degree of contention.

In the interest of game balance between the classes, and simplifying things, WotC has redesigned the combat system so that everything -- melee, missile, and spells -- are essentially "powers" with different ranges. There's a common mechanic (roll D20 plus modifiers vs. a resisting value, which might be AD or one of the "save" attributes) for everything, and the results are generally speaking XdY + Z damage of a particular type.

So that sounds pretty straightforward, right, and even desireable -- you can easily balance various powers/attacks between the classes, and not have to treat spells as something fundamentally different from swords. A Magic Missile can be handled by the mechanic as a Spear.

Some people thing this is spiffy-doodle, and they have good cause for it. Looking at a host of both tabletop games (GURPS come to mind) and online games (I'll include CoX here), it's clear that this approach makes things both a lot simpler to play and to run and to design around. A fundamentally sound system makes for a stronger game.

But some folks object to this very thing, and they have a good cause, too. A system where a Magic Missile and a Fire Spear and a Lightning Bolt and a Crossbow all basically do the same thing, just with (meaningless?) special effects makes things more like ... well, a video game, and loses a lot of the interesting flavor that makes D&D fun.

I've seen this before in different systems. Back in the Dark Ages, when I was running a supers game using Mayfair's DC Heroes system, I admired the integration and scalability of the system -- but it bugged the heck out of me that, really truly, there was no difference between someone attacking an opponent with a fire blast, an ice blast, an electrical blast, a force blast, a psychic blast, etc. 

The question then becomes whether there is, in fact, a difference in those different damage types. In, for example, CoX, the difference come into play in two ways: pretty special effects (ooooh ... aaaaah ...) and differences in how defenders actually react to things -- some folks resist fire better than cold, or energy better than lethal damage, etc. Most power groups do different sorts of side effects, too -- psychic reducing damage, electricity reducing endurance, cold causing slowing, etc.

It's not clear to me, as yet, the extent to which D&D does this. How many different critters resist different damage types differently. Are there, or should there, be side effects of different attack types? As a magic-user I could see that damage was described in different types, but I don't recall much specifically done with those types. (My Ray of Cold did do a Slow, but my Magic Missile and various Fire attacks didn't seem to have any secondary effects.)

If the attack type doesn't make any real difference (or only in rare cases) except for folks drawing pictures of the combat, then I agree that they system has been over-simplified. If I simply haven't seen it yet (altogether possible -- two encounters in a sample scenario with pregen characters is hardly a fair assessment), then I withhold judgment.

(I'll note, though, that even online games aren't immune to this sort of criticism. CoX has been going through some "normalizing" of powers at different levels -- e.g., so that different types of scrappers get roughly the same sort of power/damage throughput at different levels, and some folks still object because their favorite set isn't as cool or distinct any more.)

So I'm not sure how fair a criticism it is -- it certainly has the potential to be a problem, but it should be possible to streamline and rationalize the conflict/damage system without adding a lot of specialized cruft and "exceptions" that overly slow things down. A happy balance between flavor and function.

I look forward to finding out more.

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The fights you've done so far should, in fact, have shown you some of that, but you're dorky GM forgot that kobolds have a fairly significant fire resistance, which would make other spells more appealing.

(And no, a spell like magic missile doesn't have a secondary effect... the trade-off for the fact that it does more damage outright than the cold ray -- at first blush, it all Seems pretty well balanced, but in interesting ways.)

I too am looking forward to playing more.

Err. "your" dorky gm.

Dayce is correct. There are many 'types' of damage and creatures that are resistant to or vulnerable to those damage types to a greater or lesser degree.

This shows up a lot more in the late game. Paladins leverage this fairly heavily with lots of attacks with the 'Radiant' damage type.

A lot of the players bemoaning the changes are missing the high power curve of the old systems and their "I Win!" buttons. I've seen complaints that mages aren't different enought, but something those critics aren't seeing is how many combat conditions Wizards and Warlocks can throw out onto the field.

These players have also not taken into account that old D&D characters and new don't port directly. New D&D characters are defined by the whole party and combined abilities and tactics. Individually a 4E character is slightly less powerful, but as a party the characters are far more powerful at a much lower level.

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I do miss Monk's though.... :(

Monks, at least, have been mentioned as coming out in future PHBs. (The existence of which future books is the subject of much Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth from folks who object to all this and the endless series of future books coming out from WotC.)

I'm a willing shill for 4E, but I'd note that the flood of additional info has begun already as the WotC website has released Wizard info giving players an option to build their Wizard more like an Illusionist.

Frankly this IS a huge market for WotC to make tons of cash releasing splatbooks, but it's been a loooong time since we've had such a TRUE reworking of the system that we're due for a big ol' pile of books.

We'll have a PHB 2, MM 2 and 3 in short order, etc.

However, Monks, Bards and other classes that have unusual roles are by far trickier to fit into the new system and I'm glad they held back on them rather than release them and have to immediately nerf them.

Frankly I think the new system will make the Monk power set work quite nicely, probably in a Striker role, I think Bards will be re-imagined in a controller role, but could be Leaders.

Frankly our hobby has not been helped by the creating of the online forum culture.

Bards were already Controller-ish in the way they were the Master Buffers for any Group (Yeah, I'm REALLY going to miss Bard Song. :( ).

Also, we found that 4e really messed with the Free Form group we have ( The GM decided to let us play any Class we wanted, so it was 2 Monk's, 1 Sorceror, 1 Barbarian and 2 Rogues. ) which has been a blast to play simply because everyone gets to play the class they want, how they want, without having to play the Sucktastic Classes of Cleric, Paladin, Ranger, Wizard and Bard.

And personally, I would have wished that they would have done away with the Starting Races (I am amused by the Sarnak Dragonkin race) and just made any and all races Templets in the MM and be done with it.