D&D 4E 4E Wizard = Harry Potter Wizard?

[Duckforceone]

Who's worrying? I think it's a good thing. I think that 4E will make it a lot easier for me to create a "Harry Potter" campaign setting, something I've been wanting to do for several years now but couldn't get the mechanics to work right. With 4E, I just write a couple of house rules about wands, and add a bit of flavor text on "witch magic" vs. "fantasy magic," and I'm golden.

ahh that's what you meant... *GG* i thought you were ranting against it looking like harry potter...

well you can easily modify almost any kind of system to feel like harry potter. Just make a wand required for all spells, and have each spell level take 5 seconds to cast through the wand, and then implement some sort of cooldown method or timer on each level spell.

though i would feel that harry potter would probably be played better with a dedicated system. You got all the history, all you need are some rules...

 

[Umbran]

I think I am being misunderstood. I did not mean any offense whatsoever to the new 4th Edition version of the game, when I pointed out similarities between it and Harry Potter.

If I may offer an explanation - the issue at hand is probably the word "influence". The implication of your original post is that the game designers took those similarities from Rowling's work, specifically.

Those who aren't impressed with Rowling's work may take this to mean, "The designers bent to the wind of recent fiction in order to catch the eye of the fans of Rowling's work." Basically, many might see this as pandering to recent pop culture, and they aren't likely to think of this as a complement.

The common response you'll get is that both Rowling and the game designers were drawing from the same large pool of background fantasy, myth, and legend, such that there's no reason to suggest it comes from Potter, specifically.

Now, having gotten that out of the way, how about anyone who's major interest is to show annoyance at the suggestion that Rowling influenced 4e just give this thread a miss, okay? Nobody's going to find that constructive.

A discussion of how to use what we've seen of 4e to build a Potter-like universe, however, could be interesting to some.

 

[CleverNickName]

ahh that's what you meant... *GG* i thought you were ranting against it looking like harry potter...

well you can easily modify almost any kind of system to feel like harry potter. Just make a wand required for all spells, and have each spell level take 5 seconds to cast through the wand, and then implement some sort of cooldown method or timer on each level spell.

though i would feel that harry potter would probably be played better with a dedicated system. You got all the history, all you need are some rules...

lol no, not ranting. I was raving, but I admit the two often sound similar. My bad.

It hasn't been so easy in 3.5E, I'm afraid. I've spent the last few months trying to get a set of rules together for at-will spellcasting that borrows heavily from Harry Potter, and it is a lot harder than I thought it would be. You can check out the progress on it over in the House Rules forum.

 

[drjones]

In that both are based on stories of Merlin, Gandalf and witches and wizards for thousands of years yes they are exactly the same.

The real change in 3-4 as far as implements goes is a way for wizards to have the same amount of cool loot a fighter gets (with the tactical implications that come from choosing between them). The HP universe on the other hand makes wands very personal and mcguffiney. I can't imagine harry collecting a staff, 5 wands and a few orbs and choosing from them.

Also the interesting HP wizard fights are more like counterspell-offs than we have seen in the little 4e info I have seen.

 

[KoshPWNZYou]

Those who aren't impressed with Rowling's work may take this to mean, "The designers bent to the wind of recent fiction in order to catch the eye of the fans of Rowling's work." Basically, many might see this as pandering to recent pop culture, and they aren't likely to think of this as a complement.

I can't imagine why. Many of the first Potter fans were 10-13 yr old kids in the late 90's. By now, they're in their early to mid twenties -- ideal D&D age. Plus, since those kids did a lot of reading on their own, they're likely to be intelligent and imaginative -- again, ideal D&D players. If there's anything in 4e that appeals specifically to their love of HP without reducing the overall quality of the game, I'm all for it.

 

[Green Knight]

I don't know if Harry Potter was the impetus for implements coming about, but if so, I'm glad. I never much cared for the rules for staffs and wands in prior editions of D&D. They were never used the way they were used in other fantasy stories, as a tool for the wizard to channel his magic through. Nor was there a personal connection between the wizard and his staff/wand as I thought there should've been. Now there is. Now if it were up to me, you wouldn't be able to use magic at all without an implement, save for a few minor spells, but oh well. At least now there's a good reason for a wizard to have a staff, besides having a limited number of weapon proficiencies, and the quarterstaff being the best weapon of the bunch. And now wizards in D&D will feel more like Gandalf, or the wizards from Masters of the Universe (Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Sorceress, Orko), and so on.

 

[Jhulae]

Does anyone else feel that 4th Edition spellcasters are going to be more like Harry Potter wizards than ever before?

Nope. Earthdawn and Shadowrun, especially Earthdawn.

 

[Generico]

It's not like Harry Potter invented the idea of wizards using wands to cast spells. That concept has been around for ages, as has most of the content in D&D. I don't understand why people get so bent out of shape by the things that influence D&D's design. Anyone who thinks D&D has ever been an original game is extremely delusional. Most of the core D&D content is ripped wholesale from Tolkien and other popular fantasy works that Gygax was fond of in his youth, and most of those works took liberally from old mythology. Tolkien took virtually everything in his books from Welsh and Norse mythology and language. Even the name Gandalf isn't original, it's Old Norse meaning "wand-elf". Original ideas are extremely rare, and any dislike for something as a result of its possible influences is nothing more than snide elitism.

Personally I think 4e's influences have been good. Video games are the primary area of game development research these days. If WoTC can improve their game by using principles that make video games fun, that's great. If Harry Potter makes the game more fun and appealing to a new group of players, that's great too.

 

[Ranger REG]

It's not like Harry Potter invented the idea of wizards using wands to cast spells.

No, but the success and widespread exposure of the films is one thing many fantasy fans notice, especially fantasy fans who are also D&D gamers.

I'd like to wield a [no. 2] wand as would a cleric wield his Holy Symbol, or a fighter wield his sword.

But in D&D it is merely a magic item with stored spells. In the old "Spells per Day" era, it's a good thing ... to cast extra spells from magic items after exhausting your own repertoire.

 

[tuffnoogies]

Meh.

I don't think the spellcasting "rules" in HP are that different from dozens, if not, hundreds of other fantasy novels out there.