4th Edition Red Wizards

Falling Icicle · Apr 12, 2008

I wonder how they're going to handle the Red Wizards of Thay (from the Forgotten Realms) now that the schools of magic are gone and Necromancy has been stripped from Wizards to make its own class? How will they stat Szass Tam? Will he be a Necromancer or a Wizard? Will the Necromancer class even be released by the time the FR book is out?

Zamkaizer · Apr 12, 2008

Falling Icicle said:
I wonder how they're going to handle the Red Wizards of Thay (from the Forgotten Realms) now that the schools of magic are gone and Necromancy has been stripped from Wizards to make its own class?

Paragon path, or NPC wizards with hand-waved possession of undead minions.

How will they stat Szass Tam?

With numbers.

Will he be a Necromancer or a Wizard? Will the Necromancer class even be released by the time the FR book is out?

There obviously won't be a true necromancer class. There might, however be a Paragon Path to which he belongs. Otherwise, he'll be an NPC wizard who happens to control a variety of undead assets and possesses a special ability that feeds off the burning hatred of people who bitch and moan about verisimilitude.

HeinorNY · Apr 12, 2008

Falling Icicle said:
I wonder how they're going to handle the Red Wizards of Thay (from the Forgotten Realms) now that the schools of magic are gone and Necromancy has been stripped from Wizards to make its own class? How will they stat Szass Tam? Will he be a Necromancer or a Wizard? Will the Necromancer class even be released by the time the FR book is out?

He is a NPC, he has no class. His stats will probably be of an epic level controller leader.

lvl20dm · Apr 12, 2008

While the standard so far has been NPC's with no class levels - there is nothing saying that many of the NPC's in the adventure modules and in FR won't have PC class levels. They've said that you can stat out NPC's like PC's and the game supports it. But yeah, Tamm really could just be an Epic level Elite Controller or some such. I imagine he has only gotten more powerful in the last century.

lutecius · Apr 12, 2008

I think Red Wizard will be a class of its own, with its own power list.
The new philosophy apparently is to make classes very specific but not necessarily very different from each other.
Looking at the wizard and the warlock, it's easy to imagine red wizard and necromancer core classes coexisting even if they overlap, once they've solved their minion extra action "problem", that is.

It makes more sense than the generic approach from a business perspective, even if we have to wait years for certain classes. I am sure there will be a necromancer class, eventually.

Nymrohd · Apr 12, 2008

With the changes in Thay seen in the new novel series I think that the old Thayan traditions are now defunct. The schools of magic social division might exist still in the expatriates at the enclaves, who will no longer have a nation to back them and will probably be more likely to be unaligned than evil, making a Red Wizard PC more likely and dealing with an enclave a viable option for good characters who would never abide dealing with slavers before.
Meanwhile back in Thay the undead outnumber the living. I think it's going to be a paragon level adventuring region with Szass Tam and a number of wizards (whether necromancers or not is I guess defunct till the Shadow power source).
Szass would be best handled as an epic level solo controller for the time being, though I guess they can change him to a necromancer when that class is available. Still a solo monster would probably be a more interesting option; class levels would not provide him with what a monster needs to be solo, that is reactive actions.

Ciaran · Apr 12, 2008

Zamkaizer said:
With numbers.

Win.

malcolm_n · Apr 12, 2008

Stat Szass as an epic solo monster ftw.

Easy way to tell where he fits is ask if he could take on a pit fiend and live. Then we know higher or lower. Also, as a monster, minions aren't an issue (again I'm looking at Pit Fiend example). He'd probably have wizard-like abilities, but the rest would be his own.