How Important is Magic to Dungeons and Dragons? - Third Edition vs Fourth Edition

alleynbard said:

I was really happy when I saw that in Pathfinder. I thought it was a great development. I hope it stays in the final version.

Click to expand...

Same here, on both counts! All three counts even, for lo, I cannot count.

For me, with regards to 3e, it strikes the perfect balance between standard issue and something like Reserve Feat craziness (no offence implied or intended to those who like reserve feats, and so forth). Also, it works for *my* 'genre sense', or whatever the right term is to go there. Something vastly more important to me than fashion sense, but not the be all end all, let's just say. Anyway, yes, if they don't keep it in the print version, I'll have to kill them and take their stuff. Which would be kinda neat (the company, I mean. . .)

Count me as another who never saw the big horrible disparity in 3.5.

ProfessorCirno said:

Count me as another who never saw the big horrible disparity in 3.5.

Click to expand...

I saw it a great deal at the end of my Ptolus campaign. But I am willing to admit some of that might be group oriented rather than just the rule system. My wizard/druid/arcane hierophant and rogue were really effective compared to the knight and the favored soul/fighter/risen matyr. So there you go.

But then, the disparity was not the reason I switched to 4e when it came out.

I guess my answers would be...

1. Powers. Some of those spells are powers now. Use Web to create a 5-minute bridge.

2. Rituals. Some of those spells are rituals now.

3. Add new rituals. Change some of the old edition's spells into new rituals.

4. Skill challenges. Who says that you can't mimic casting a 3rd-edition Hallow with a skill challenge?

GlassJaw said:

Wow! That's awesome. I never realized that. I definitely want to play 4E now.

Seriously though. Why can't I do this in 3ed? Because it's not at-will?

Click to expand...

Well, for what it's worth, I was trying to show the OP that he could, in fact, use all kinds of non-combat spells like he did in 3.5. His whole thing was that 3.5 was littered with non-combat magic and 4e isn't. So I actually agree with you: you can do those things in 3ed.

In 3.x, Prestidigitation was a 0 level that lasted for one hour. So you could do everything I said for one or more hours, depending on the total number of spell slots you had. (Because you can always cast a 0 level spell in a higher level spell slot.) So the only rules limitation is the number of spell slots the arcane spell caster had.

Personally, I always took prestidigitation, even as a sorcerer with limited known 0 levels. Though, as a wizard, I didn't always prepare Prestidigitation at low levels (1st-3rd), but I often did. Once I was a mid-to-high level wizard I prepared one instance of Prestidigitation everyday, just in case.

One interesting thing to note: in 3.x a sorcerer could theoretically cast Prestidigitation at lot more than a wizard because the class didn't prepare spells ahead of time. Wizards, if they prepared Prestidigitation at all, would likely only prepare it once. In 4th, wizards can cast it an infinite number of times. (At the rate of about once every six seconds), but a sorcerer doesn't get it automatically. I grabbed a feat for my 4e NPC sorcerer that let him use Prestidigitation as an encounter power. So he can use it infinitely as well. (At the rate of about once every five minutes.)

NewJeffCT said:

As an aside - I have not found a huge disparity in class powers in 3.5 and my campaign is hitting 13th level now. The party's dwarf fighter is still the most deadly on a per round basis, as there is no save vs his axe swings, while an arcane spell like Disintergrate offers a save and many foes have magic resistance, while the dwarf's axe is also powerful enough to overcome most DR.

I thought there was a far bigger class power disparity in 1E and 2E in comparison.

Click to expand...

Miss Chance is a kind of a save versus taking damage.

Spell Resistance an issue?
Either:
1) Fighting higher CR/level enemies
2) He messes up his caster level
3) Not allowing Array SR spells


Only issue then is Golems, but then you have the orbs spells, Mel'fs Acif arrow, Conjuration(which ignores SR), etc.

Starbuck_II said:

Miss Chance is a kind of a save versus taking damage.

Spell Resistance an issue?
Either:
1) Fighting higher CR/level enemies
2) He messes up his caster level
3) Not allowing Array SR spells


Only issue then is Golems, but then you have the orbs spells, Mel'fs Acif arrow, Conjuration(which ignores SR), etc.

Click to expand...

From what I see, the group fighter is not missing very often on his 1st or 2nd attacks, though his 3rd attack is often less than 50/50. However, it is pretty common for either the bad guys - or the party, when attacked by a mage/sorcerer - to make saving throws. I have hit the party with a few Save or Die spells like Finger of Death, but they've always made their saves (we roll on the table in full view, so nobody is cheating)

And, if your arcane caster is a sorcerer, you don't always have the option to switch to various different spells (orb spells vs the standard Magic Missile/Scorching Ray/Fireball/Ice Storm/Cone of Cold chain)

Not sure what Array SR spells are?

God, I have that exactly same feelings. 4e did a lot of things very right, so much that I don't feel very well going back to 3.5. But the blandness of the classes is terrible, I eats me inside. I see things like "the monk playtest is coming out in may!" and I don't get all excited because I know it's going to have the same at will / encounter / daily power structure, and that's kind of a let down.

Don't know what to play, though

NewJeffCT said:

From what I see, the group fighter is not missing very often on his 1st or 2nd attacks, though his 3rd attack is often less than 50/50. However, it is pretty common for either the bad guys - or the party, when attacked by a mage/sorcerer - to make saving throws. I have hit the party with a few Save or Die spells like Finger of Death, but they've always made their saves (we roll on the table in full view, so nobody is cheating)

And, if your arcane caster is a sorcerer, you don't always have the option to switch to various different spells (orb spells vs the standard Magic Missile/Scorching Ray/Fireball/Ice Storm/Cone of Cold chain)

Not sure what Array SR spells are?

Click to expand...

A lot of the disparity is between the "big 5" (i.e. Wizard, Artificer, Druid, Cleric, and Archivist) who have a virtually unlimited spell selection and the other classes... So you won't see as much of a discrepancy if you aren't encountering those classes.

The Array SR spell is (probably) the assay spell resistance spell, which is a spell specifically designed to counter spell resistance.

The best thing 4.0E did for magic was Cantrips.

The worst thing 4.0E did for magic was Rituals.

The zero level cantrips work great at low levels, but there power is very limited. There are a few great applications for cantrips during an encounter, but they are limited and can not be repeated every week. I had suggested a tiered system of cantrips that gets better as the character advances in levels. Prestidigitation is great, but its range is only two squares.

Rituals are too expensive to cast, and they take way too long to cast. Most of the great utility spells from 3.5E will never be used in a stress situation because of the casting time.

In my opinion, what needs to happen is to in some way merge rituals into cantrips, with perhaps a cost involved.

DarkMasterBR said:

4e did a lot of things very right, so much that I don't feel very well going back to 3.5. But the blandness of the classes is terrible, I eats me inside. I see things like "the monk playtest is coming out in may!" and I don't get all excited because I know it's going to have the same at will / encounter / daily power structure, and that's kind of a let down.

Click to expand...

I agree, there is a sterile feeling to the class structures.