Arcane Power- Wizards Stretched Thin

[exile]

So, I picked up a copy of Arcane Power yesterday. I was very excited to see what kinds of goodies it contained for my dwarven wizardess. I was distressed to see that most of the feats for wizards had fairly high ability score prerequisites. While most can be met, it sure puts a strain on a character that you also want to take sorcerer multiclass feats with (the new one of which also has fairly tough ability score prerequisites). Discuss.

[Lizard]

Having not looked at the feats, I'm not sure, but might it be that WOTC wants people to get away from "2 18s, 4 8s" in chargen? (OTOH, if the prereq is Intelligence, I have no clue as to motive.)

[Kralin Thornberry]

I will, after I get my book today.

[exile]

The one that irked me the most was 'Wizard Implement Expertise' which lets you crit with an implement power on a 19-20. It required a 21 INT, 15 DEX, 15CON if I am not mistaken. The 15 DEX requirement sucks if you'd planned on making a staff/orb wizard.

Most of teh other feats alone aren't so bad, just bad when you couple them with a desire to take the new sorcerer multiclass feat which requires a 13 STR and 13 CHA.

Chad

[Badwe]

Well, you’ve got a main class: int/wis/dex/con (in order of importance) and you want to get into a subclass, cha/str/dex. You overlap on one minor stat and your plusses are to wis and con. There’s only so much new feats can do for you. Don’t forget, all those sorcerer powers you’re multiclassing into need CHA in order to actually hit, so if you’re just rolling in with a 13… you won’t be hitting much. As for the implement feat, dex is associated with the wand implement which is the implement of accuracy, so this feat sounds on-theme to me.

[Klaus]

Originally Posted by Lizard

Having not looked at the feats, I'm not sure, but might it be that WOTC wants people to get away from "2 18s, 4 8s" in chargen? (OTOH, if the prereq is Intelligence, I have no clue as to motive.)

Impossible by 4e point-buy rules, which allow for only 1 stat to be below 10.

Taking into account the auto-bumps at 11th and 21st, the feat mentioned by the OP would translate into needing a starting Int of 19 plus Dex and Con of 13. For every point below that, you need to devote one 4th level bump to those stats. If you start with 18 Int, 11 Dex and 12 Con, you can bump Int and Con at 4th, then bump Int and Dex at 8th and 14th, then devote the other bumps to Int and Wis.

[Plane Sailing]

Tell me more about Arcane Power!

What stands out, what grabs your attention, what do you *definitely* want to retrain for your wizard?

[Cadfan]

My group exclusively uses the standard array.

That means that feat prereqs like these are mostly non issues for us. If you start with a base 16 (before racial modifiers) in intelligence, 14 in your implement ability score, 13 in something else you care about for feats, and a 12 in whatever's left you might possibly care about some day for feats, then by paragon tier you have at least a 13 in all of them. By epic tier you have at least a 15 in two scores other than intelligence.

[chaotix42]

The illusion spells! There's one where you trap a group of enemies in an illusion of the world being destroyed (Visions of Ruin) - they cannot willingly move out of the AoE and do not have line of sight to anything outside. Even on a miss they're trapped there until the end of your next turn. Anyone forced to move out takes psychic damage and the effect ends for them.

[Rechan]

Originally Posted by chaotix42

The illusion spells! There's one where you trap a group of enemies in an illusion of the world being destroyed (Visions of Ruin) - they cannot willingly move out of the AoE and do not have line of sight to anything outside. Even on a miss they're trapped there until the end of your next turn. Anyone forced to move out takes psychic damage and the effect ends for them.

That is sweet.

[Holy Smokes]

Must.. update.. character.. builder...!

[Enforcer]

Originally Posted by Holy Smokes

Must.. update.. character.. builder...!

Ugh, seriously. The last Tuesday of every month is not doing it for me. Why not the first Tuesday after the awesome new book comes out? Where by "first Tuesday" I mean "within six seconds".

[exile]

I've not read Arcane Power closely enough to comment in great detail. I am looking forward to making a summoner type character. I like the new tome implement and that there are two mastery abilities associated with it (there's a new one for the orb as well). Fire Shield is a nice little utility power for my fire-themed dwarven wizardess. All in all, very happy with the book.

Even though I started this thread (in a possibly negative way), I don't think there's some secret agenda against wizards or anything like that, but it does seem, at a glance, that their feats do have higher ability score requirements than the other classes.

[LightPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Enforcer

Ugh, seriously. The last Tuesday of every month is not doing it for me. Why not the first Tuesday after the awesome new book comes out? Where by "first Tuesday" I mean "within six seconds".

The last Tuesday of the month usually is the first Tuesday after the book comes out. New books usually come out on the third Tuesday of the month.

To answer the question of why not immediately? Simple. They want the highly important first week sales. People who want immediate gratification buy the book. Otherwise you've got to wait.

[chaotix42]

Originally Posted by Rechan

That is sweet.

Hell yeah! And it's 9th level too.

In general, illusionists seem like some of the best controllers around. The effects of each power are rather straightforward, with no DM fiat required. You could take illusion spells at every level possible and be quite effective IMO.

I only think wizards are stretched thin now because of all the cool stuff to take!