The Plane Below

On August 15, 2007, Wizards of the Coast announced the development of D&D 4th edition. In December 2007, the book Wizards Presents: Races and Classes, the first preview of 4th Edition, was released. This was followed by a second book in January 2008 named Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters. The Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide were released in June 2008. Slashdot reported anger from some players and retailers due to the financial investment in v3.5 and the relatively brief period of time that it had been in publication.[18] Although many players chose to continue playing older editions, or other games such as Pathfinder by Paizo Publishing (itself based on D&D v3.5 via the OGL),[19][20] the initial print run of the 4th edition sold out during preorders, and Wizards of the Coast announced a second print run prior to the game's official release.[21] Unlike previous editions with just three core rulebooks, 4th edition core rules include multiple volumes of the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual that were released yearly, with each new book becoming a part of the core.[22] In the first Player's Handbook, the warlock and warlord are included, while the barbarian, bard, druid, sorcerer and monk are not present. Of those classes, the first four were included in Player's Handbook 2, while the monk class appears in Player's Handbook 3.