Seminar Transcript - Class Design: From Assassins to Wizards

BryonD · Jan 27, 2012

avin said:
For Fighters and non magic users, yeah, agreed.

For some Pact Warlock, why not? That made as much sense as having to memorize spells and cast them daily. I can back up Mana, Fatigue or (Mage's) Paradigm... Vancian was always alien to me... "Hey dude, when you sleep you forget how to cast fireball" what what?

First. I've never played that you forget unused spells unless you choose to free up the slot. But I'm also fine with Vancian, fine without Vancian and can easily see why someone else might reasonably dislike it...

But on encounter based powers, it is an arbitrary and internally inconsistent frequency. Something may work once a day because that is they way the story of the power works. And once every 15 minutes could be justified in certain cases.

It doesn't make sense for a great power to offer a warlock a power usable "once per encounter".

"I, the Great Lord GeGe, as a reward for this pact you have entered bestow upon you the power of Really Cool Winking. You may use this power once per encounter."
"Um, ok, thanks. How do I know if an encounter is over and I can use it again? What if I Really Cool Wink Sarah and while I'm still talking to Sarah, Karen shows up? Is she a new encounter with Sarah still here, cuz I like REALLY want to Really Cool Wink at her. Did I waste it? If I can get Sarah to leave is it NOW a new encounter?"
"Do not anger the Great Lord GeGe with your narrative demands, just make something up to explain it each time!!!"

Vancian is ABSOLUTELY arbitrary. No argument there. But it has two things going for it over "encounter". The first is that the idea is based fully on a story idea and once that narrative description is embraced, it is no longer arbitrary. So the arbitrary choice is driven by story preference not mechanical expectations. Second, once it is accepted, it is internally consistent.

And, I don't think we should go any further on this in this thread.....

I'd be happy to continue in a new thread if you would to discuss further. Or not. Your call.

To be clear, this is the first red flag I've seen. We are a long way from deal breaker. We are also a long way from "this is an improvement over what I have now, therefore I am switching". But we are still VERY much in play and keeping my interest.

avin · Jan 27, 2012

Nah, I'm fine... as my sig suggests spells aren't a big deal to me... but I ran back to the transcript and didn't find an "encounter power" mention.

All mentions there seem to be referring to encounter as "fights", not "encounter powers". There's an "(encounter)" on a Rob phrase when he talks what they *could* bring to game and it's not clear if it's about encounter power.

I believe there won't be encounter powers in 5E.

Agamon · Jan 27, 2012

Herobizkit said:
Monte.... no! Vancian magic?! REALLY?! You were my HERO!

What happened to the 3e psionic mechanic... THAT should be the core spellcasting mechanic...

That's not very "D&D" though, which is what they are trying to do.

And they said the wizard and cleric would be vancian. Other classes would use other processes. I'm sure there will be choices for those that don't like fire-and-forget (maybe the sorcerer and priest).

Agamon · Jan 27, 2012

avin said:
Nah, I'm fine... as my sig suggests spells aren't a big deal to me... but I ran back to the transcript and didn't find an "encounter power" mention.

All mentions there seem to be referring to encounter as "fights", not "encounter powers". There's an "(encounter)" on a Rob phrase when he talks what they *could* bring to game and it's not clear if it's about encounter power.

I believe there won't be encounter powers in 5E.

Rob does make mention of it:

Rob: We could bring back a whole raft of at-wills from 4e, and make those type of things Wizard feats. There are also magical feats that are non-combat oriented. Different frequency rates, as well (encounter).

I knida hope they stay away from this, too, honestly.

malcolm_n · Jan 27, 2012

Just to see if I'm understanding this, we're seeing something like,

15th level fighter can deal average 90 damage per round. 15th level wizard can dominate said fighter, losing any damage dealt that round, but gaining 90 damage per round in subsequent rounds while also preventing said 90 damage on one of his allies. Sounds like an interesting tradeoff, and I'd like to see at what point in the math that 180 damage swing balances things out. After all, after losing 90 damage the first round, you regain it and also add 90 in the second. So, will the wizard then lose control of the dominated person because the damage is balanced? Or, sorry for the rambling, will he be able to somehow sustain his 180 damage (90 prevented to his party, 90 dealt to enemies)?

If the latter is true, how do they then look at the party's fighter to be equivalent? Maybe the rogue gets his 180 straight per round, but only when not dominated? and the cleric can choose to deal 90 + prevent 90 or just straight prevent 180?

**EDIT**
Thinking on my own here, but they could, conceivably have a fighter able to deal 180 damage, which is then reduced to 90 while dominated (creatures deal half damage, for example). that would give the Wizard's use of Dominate only a swing of 270 because they're preventing 180 and gaining 90. When the fighter does become free again, he goes back to 180 and quickly builds his DPR back up, assuming he's not dead. Anyway, just a thought there.

Starglyte · Jan 27, 2012

Any news/info on the susposed Racial classes (like the BECMI elf, dwarf, halfing)?

UngeheuerLich · Jan 27, 2012

BryonD said:
First. I've never played that you forget unused spells unless you choose to free up the slot. But I'm also fine with Vancian, fine without Vancian and can easily see why someone else might reasonably dislike it...

But on encounter based powers, it is an arbitrary and internally inconsistent frequency. Something may work once a day because that is they way the story of the power works. And once every 15 minutes could be justified in certain cases.

It doesn't make sense for a great power to offer a warlock a power usable "once per encounter".

"I, the Great Lord GeGe, as a reward for this pact you have entered bestow upon you the power of Really Cool Winking. You may use this power once per encounter."
"Um, ok, thanks. How do I know if an encounter is over and I can use it again? What if I Really Cool Wink Sarah and while I'm still talking to Sarah, Karen shows up? Is she a new encounter with Sarah still here, cuz I like REALLY want to Really Cool Wink at her. Did I waste it? If I can get Sarah to leave is it NOW a new encounter?"
"Do not anger the Great Lord GeGe with your narrative demands, just make something up to explain it each time!!!"

Vancian is ABSOLUTELY arbitrary. No argument there. But it has two things going for it over "encounter". The first is that the idea is based fully on a story idea and once that narrative description is embraced, it is no longer arbitrary. So the arbitrary choice is driven by story preference not mechanical expectations. Second, once it is accepted, it is internally consistent.

And, I don't think we should go any further on this in this thread.....

I'd be happy to continue in a new thread if you would to discuss further. Or not. Your call.

To be clear, this is the first red flag I've seen. We are a long way from deal breaker. We are also a long way from "this is an improvement over what I have now, therefore I am switching". But we are still VERY much in play and keeping my interest.

Disagreed:

the once per encounter in 4e means: until you had time for a short rest. IMHO 5 min is too long. 1min short rests would be enough... but that is a diefferent story.

So a mage can have lesser spells which he can prepare in a shorter time, just have a quick glance in your book... does not sound wrong...

Also once per encounter powers are not new to D&D 4e for non casters. The 3.x barbarian. Some of the second edition bard kits. Just look it up. Encounter powers really are no deal breakers...

also I want to note, that the enworld transkript is a lot better than the one on the wizard site... the magical feats to gain at will powers sounds better than feats to spend on at-will powers what I understood in the live chat.

FitzTheRuke · Jan 27, 2012

BryonD said:
It doesn't make sense for a great power to offer a warlock a power usable "once per encounter".

"I, the Great Lord GeGe, as a reward for this pact you have entered bestow upon you the power of Really Cool Winking. You may use this power once per encounter."
"Um, ok, thanks. How do I know if an encounter is over and I can use it again? What if I Really Cool Wink Sarah and while I'm still talking to Sarah, Karen shows up? Is she a new encounter with Sarah still here, cuz I like REALLY want to Really Cool Wink at her. Did I waste it? If I can get Sarah to leave is it NOW a new encounter?"
"Do not anger the Great Lord GeGe with your narrative demands, just make something up to explain it each time!!!"

Huh? "Encounter Power" is just rules jargon for "Until you've had time to relax and catch your breath" (also known mechanically as "a short rest")

How hard is that to understand in in-game terms?

Edit to add: Not that your scenario wasn't funny.

Oh, and I was ninja'd

Warunsun · Jan 27, 2012

kitsune9 said:
Interesting transcript. I'm really curious how they'll get in all the classes in the first PH and then go with all the modular add-ons for each class.

That part is easy, actually. While they seem to be taking the rules from AD&D it doesn't mean they will not take some ideas from Basic D&D.

So...
Red Box (Levels 1 - 5, Introductory)

Player's Handbook I - Heroic (level 1 - 10)

Player's Handbook II - Paragon (level 11-20)

Player's Handbook III - Epic (level 21-30)

This organization would keep paragon ideas in it's own book and epic ideas in it's own book. Could be an excellent organizational tool and also an incredible way to get folks to buy a minimum of 3 main rule books without resorting to "Splat Books".

They might even use quasi-BECMI names for the books/sets.

You could take this idea further and group monsters by tier in their own Monster Manuals.

Puggins · Jan 27, 2012

BryonD said:
But on encounter based powers, it is an arbitrary and internally inconsistent frequency. Something may work once a day because that is they way the story of the power works. And once every 15 minutes could be justified in certain cases.

However 4e defined it, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that an encounter ability is one that can be recovered with a minor rest. Like some previous poster said, a one minute break where one is (reasonably) sure that combat isn't imminent sounds reasonable.

Note that 3e had some flirtings with encounter-based powers. The barbarian's rage was the prime example- he can rage "once per combat," if I remember correctly, and there was all sorts of disagreement over what constituted a combat.

3e also had the "once per one/five/ten minutes" power, ala the Binder. Whether it made sense, it injected a lot of bookkeeping that we really don't need 99% of the time.

The idea of the encounter power is reasonable, but some grounded-in-reality guidelines as to how they are recovered is necessary.