D&D Online features an implementation of the 3.5 Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules, which should be mostly familiar if you've played a recent D&D game. If you haven't, all the character options can feel a little overwhelming at first, since you're able to choose from such a large variety of skills and feats. A variety of character classes is available: fighters, rangers, paladins, barbarians, rogues, bards, clerics, wizards, and sorcerers. Each one has lots of unique skills and abilities, plus inherent differences. Barbarians are the hardiest characters but can't wear heavy armor like fighters. Wizards are more versatile than sorcerers, but sorcerers can cast more spells before having to recharge their mental batteries. It's quite a bit more complex than that makes it sound, though, especially when you consider the ability to multi-class your character as you gain levels. You can mix and match all the different classes' abilities if you prefer, or specialize in a single profession.

Leveling up in D&D Online--much like in pen-and-paper D&D--takes a while. You'll be lucky to hit level two in a few hours. To give you a better sense of progress, your character gains ranks within each level, which grant you a choice of different enhancements that can be used to further tune your playing style. What's more surprising, though, is that you don't just gain experience by killing stuff in this game--you gain it only by completing quests. That's actually how pen-and-paper D&D works; you don't just magically gain a level by killing an orc, you have to settle up all the experience points you earned at the end of an adventure. By inheriting this system, D&D Online seeks to avoid the notorious "grind" that's common to most massively multiplayer games. Since you'll always be fighting or exploring in context, you won't find yourself just standing around killing the same randomly spawned monsters over and over. But there's still a sense of satisfaction from every kill, since the game logs everything you've accomplished in a given quest, and totals up your results when you're finished.