So says Keith Bakker the founder and head of Europe’s first and only clinic to treat gaming addicts.

The Smith & Jones Center in Amsterdam has treated hundreds of young gamers since the clinic opened in 2006.

But the clinic is changing its treatment as it realizes that compulsive gaming is a social rather than a psychological problem.

Using traditional abstinence-based treatment models the clinic has had very high success rates treating people who also show other addictive behaviours such as drug taking and excessive drinking.

But Mr Bakker believes that this kind of cross-addiction affects only 10% of gamers. For the other 90% who may spend four hours a day or more playing games such as World of Warcraft, he no longer thinks addiction counseling is the way to treat these people.

“These kids come in showing some kind of symptoms that are similar to other addictions and chemical dependencies,” he says.

“But the more we work with these kids the less I believe we can call this addiction. What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers - this is a social problem.”

In response to this realization the clinic has changed its treatment program for gamers to focus more on developing activity-based social and communications skills to help them rejoin society.

There is a section on starting hit points. While the final play testing and brain storming on this is not yet over, there are several options for how to handle 1^st level hit points. One option also includes adding hit points by your race. Frail races (elves) get 4 additional HP, humans get 6 while tough races (half-orcs) get 8.

Hit dice have changed for Bards (d8), sorcerer/wizards (d6).

Fighters now get a bonus when using armor due to their extensive training. This starts out at +1 at 3^rd level and increases to +4 at level 15. At 19^th level, fighters gain armor mastery giving them DR 5/-. Fighters choose weapons by groups (axes, heavy blades, etc…). For each group selected the fighter gets +1 to hit and damage. At 20^th level the fighter gets weapon mastery – choose 1 weapon, all critical threats are automatically confirmed. Based on the verbiage, it looks like burst weapons automatically cause extra damage but you would still need to roll for leather affects. So my fighter’s vorpal mercurial long sword could do x4 damage but not sever the head if the roll to confirm the threat is not made.

Paladin lay on hands has changed. You get to use it (half level + cha modifier) times a day. Each use cures (level) of damage. Doing the math, a 10^th level paladin with a cha of 18 gets to lay on hands 9 times a day curing 10 points each time – 90 hp of healing a day. At 12^th level, the paladin can use 2 lay on hands to neutralize poison. At 18^th level, the paladin can use 4 lay on hands to heal.

Sorcerers get blood lines. Now all our sorcerers can become dragon blood sorcerers and have some form of damage resistance.

Wizards become specialists…..of sorts. You need to choose a school and two prohibited schools. However, you can still use prohibited spells but just lose the benefits of your school for the day. As long s you don’t break the rules, you always have a spell to cast. In the case of a conjurer, you can cast acid dart every round (range 30’, damage 1d6 +1 / 2 levels).

Skills have been consolidated. Acrobatics = balance, jump, tumble. Linguistics = forgery, decipher script, speak languages. Each rank in linguistics gives you a new language.

Trained class skills now get a +3 bonus. If you multiclass you can gain new class skills. Once a class skill, you get the bonus. You no longer have to pay extra for cross class skills.

Cleric spells – lose cure minor. Cleric domains have been balanced. No longer does the war domain give you the weapon focus feat.

Some changes to magic items. Staves now only contain 10 charges. Spell casters can recharge these on a daily basis. Boots of elfin kind provide a +5 bonus to acrobatics. I never really like the change for elfin boots and cloaks from 2^nd edition to 3^rd edition. There are some name changes too (Keoghtom’s ointment is now restorative ointment).

Magic item creation no longer uses XP.

Lots of new art to look at. There also seems to be an effort that was made to provide more detail.

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