Wizards in 4E have been 'neutered' argument...

[Melkor]

So one of my best gaming buddies is a stubborn guy who I have been playing RPGs with for over two decades. I have a great time with him, and would feel like I was missing something if he wasn't involved in my gaming group.

He loves D&D, but is really skeptical about 4E, and says that his main sticking point (other than the fact that he feels it's too much like an MMORPG) is that Wizards and other spellcasters have been 'neutered' by the new system.

He says that while he sees that At-Will, and Per-Encounter powers can be used mutliple times a day, he feels that having to wake up early in the morning (as a spellcaster), and spend a lot of time and GP on rituals to 'buff' your character isn't 'classic D&D'.

He also says that if you compare 3.5 Wizards to 4E spellcasters, at higher levels, the 3.5 Wizards had a lot more versatility in choosing spells.

I'm just learning the 4E system, and have never seen a character over 3rd Level in play....How can I speak to this, and what arguments could I use to at least get him to give the system a look-see?

 

[Moon_Goddess]

Probably not the answer you want, and naturally it's only my opinion, but I'd say,

He's right. Not only is he right, it should have been done 25 years go.

 

[frankthedm]

Yes, casters have been neutered, and they needed it. Before 3E designers flat out admitted the wizard was the strongest character by requiring them to gain more XP to level. In the advent of 3e, the designers tried to bring all characters on a level playing field. And failed because the assumption that X number of spells have to last N numbers of encounters can't be balanced unless the characters are forced into N numbers of encounters or everyone has the same X number of spells. 4E rebalanced all classes again by having a more unified power mechanic. Nobody gets to take out a significant foe in round one anymore and everyone has roughly the same potential of "going nova" now.

 

[thatdarnedbob]

To address one point, rituals in 4E do not grant combat bonuses. He will never have to wake up early to use rituals to buff his his character; this is probably a holdover opinion from earlier editions where a wizard would wake up early to buff for the day. Which makes his comment really strange, since it would appear he wasn't casting prep spells in editions 1-3.5.

 

[Morrus]

"Neutered" is a pretty emotive way of putting it. Not the word I'd choose.

They are certainly different, and don't much resemble 3.5 wizards. But that's because they're in a different game system, so they wouldn't. In the context of 4E they work just fine; in the context of "being the same as 3.5" then - well, 4E fails on every count there if that's your metric. If it was the same as 3.5 it'd be called 3.5.

Sounds to me like your player isn't keen on the 4E flavour. If he doesn't want to play it, he doesn't want to play it.

I have a similar friend who frequently rants about the "failings" of 4E. I keep trying to tell him that I'm not trying to sell him a copy of the 4E PHB and am perfectly comfortable with his RPG taste being different to mine.

 

[CapnZapp]

The only real issue as I see it is that WotC chose to market this new game as a "4th edition" of something, despite it clearly being a new game.

If your buddy wasn't led to believe by WotC that wizards in the new D&D should be anything like wizards in the old D&D I do not believe this thread would even exist.

 

[Filcher]

The only real issue as I see it is that WotC chose to market this new game as a "4th edition" of something, despite it clearly being a new game.

If your buddy wasn't led to believe by WotC that wizards in the new D&D should be anything like wizards in the old D&D I do not believe this thread would even exist.

I felt the same way when they did away with the "fighting man" class.

But your friend is right. Whereas a magic user/wizard could pretty much do everything a thief could do, but more reliably, in 4E that is no longer the case.

 

[Fanaelialae]

IMO, he's correct in that spellcasters were nerfed in 4e. However, there are a number of people who believe that pre-4e casters were overpowered. 4e brought casters down a bit, non-casters up a bit, and now everyone's on a (relatively) even playing field.

As has been stated, your friend is mistaken about having to use rituals to buff himself. Rituals are more along the lines of costly utility magic with long casting times. These kinds of spells certainly existed in earlier editions of D&D (Identify, for example) so they aren't new in that sense. The only major differences are which particular spells fall into this classification, and that rituals don't require a spell slot. Once you've learned a ritual you can cast it all day long, provided you can supply the components.

Wizards (unlike other spellcasters) do still memorize spells in the morning (they have a feature that allows them a choice regarding what spell to select for a daily or utility "spell slot" each day). Admittedly, their versatility has lessened by a significant margin, but it still exists.

In the end though, if he doesn't want to play a 4e wizard, he could always play a fighter or something...

 

[Celebrim]

One of the main issues that earlier editions had to deal with is that the Wizards of fantasy could do fantastic magical things. The ability to do fantastic magical things is extremely powerful, and so some attempt to balance and limit that fantastic power was made. The results were not completely successful, because at some point the Wizard still outgrew those limitations and become the phenomenally powerful character of myth, legend, and story.

The problem in 3e got especially bad, because low level wizards got big ability boosts that carried over to higher levels. Non-combat classes didn't have the huge edge in hit points, attacks, saving throws or levels that they would have enjoyed in earlier editions. A high-level wizard didn't outshine a rogue quite as much as they would have in earlier editions (primarily because of huge boosts to rogue power levels), but they outshown a fighter to an even greater degree. And because of huge boosts to the power of clerics, this was true of clerics as well (and by 3.5 also druids).

4e fixes the spellcaster problem by giving them the same sort of abilities had by every other class. It's a fix, albeit not the sort many people expected (which might have been reduce the power of spells and increases the defenses non-spellcasters had against them, for example).

For many players, the old style was a feature, not a bug. If the goal was to play Merlin, Gandalf or whatever, then the player at some point wanted to wield phenomenal cosmic power. For these players, 4e is entirely unsuited to their gaming goals because a wizard can do nothing that isn't fundamentally mundane. Sure, they can do damage, attack something other than AC, apply conditions, move the target, and move themselves and some of this impressive and perhaps can't be explained easily in mundane terms, but every other class can do all the same things and sometimes these things can't easily be explained in mundane terms either. While it creates a level playing field, it isn't paying much attention to simulating either fantasy source material or, as is probably more important in the case of your friend, the flavor of the play experience he's used to for the last 20 years or more.

I don't think this is a crossable gulf.

 

[Nifft]

In 4e, Wizards have been smacked down so hard, they're only slightly better than Fighters. Wizards used to rule the world. Now they are merely a balanced class for those who like a certain playstyle.

For people who played wizards because they like to win D&D, this is a terrible setback.

For people who played wizards because they like to play D&D, this is a wonderful development.

"I like both", -- N