EOM - 4th Edition Compatibility?

[phloog]

I have no plans to move to 4th Edition yet, but I'm trying to stay open-minded. However, the one show-stopper will be if EoM is not compatible with 4th Edition....with the way they've seemingly hacked away at magic ("You want to fly? Maybe at 18th level, but certainly not this early!") I'm worried that the two won't play nice.

I haven't spent a lot of time searching for rules changes - - I'm admitting to laziness here. But if someone here is familiar with Elements of Magic and the slow trickle of information on 4E, I'd appreciate opinions on whether or not it will work from a planning perspective.

It looks to me like Saves are now 50/50 each round, and instead of an initial saving throw you have to hit/defeat some kind of static defense, perhaps with a type of caster level check. If this is true, I would imagine that converting wouldn't be tough in this regard, with the exception of durations of hostile spells (You hit someone with a spell that does 1d6 per minute for ten minutes...is this even possible in 4E?)

It also looks like there may be some 'power level' considerations - most Move type effects in the base game are much higher level - to me this isn't a killer since it just speaks to philosophy of what folks can do, and not game-breaking damage.

In some ways it seems like EoM might be more like the new system than unlike it, in terms of removing many of the spells that caused wizards to be able to do anything that other classes could do.

Realizing it's early days, I'd appreciate any opinions.

 

[RangerWickett]

I can barely begin to imagine what a 4e version of EOM would look like. Depending on how flexible they make rituals, it might be a much simpler system. But pretty much anything now would just be guessing on my part.

 

[phloog]

Well, in the interest of 'taking one for the team', I used a fairly substantial bn.com coupon and my membership discount, and ordered the set of three core books. I guess I'll take a look at it when they arrive and decide.

I pretty much fell in love with (a slightly modified version of) EoM, and have integrated it into my campaign. 4E must take a back seat to the magic system. I'm reading more, and starting to believe that I can't possibly use much of 4E anyway. I know it's harped upon a lot, but the ring/level thing is seemingly very arbitrary unless you buy into their world. It's looking like the answer will not be so much tacking my stuff onto 4e, but taking a few things for 4E for my world.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I don't think there is enough leaked on the mechanics of the spells to be sure, altho it seems 4e has some similarities. For instance at-will spells are kinda like signature spells.

As to enduring damage, perhaps in EoM 4e the enhancement is changed to '5 points continuing damage'

I will also be buying the books and working some conversions. I would be glad to banter about the options with you !

 

[phloog]

Sounds good, as things trickle out we can discuss here, and in June-ish we'll have the books and can talk more specifically.

Or of course if you've got a spare $2500, we could go in halfsies on a tremendously expensive early peak.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Eh, I would much rather replace my water heater....

Subscribed to thread

 

[sirwmholder]

I'd be interested to see what comes from this discussion... one thing that I have noticed from the teaser powers is that each power has a linked ability. I suspect 4e EoM would allow you to decide not only the range, area, and duration of a spell but also what linked effect, if any, takes place. Evoke has something similar to this already by changing out die of damage to effects. Though some of the powers have almost random secondary effects... heal ally 3 hitpoints, even on a miss move the enemy one square... that alone has the potential to be problematic.

Intrigued,
William Holder

 

[phloog]

Actually, while you said that 'at will' sounded analogous to sig spells, I was actually thinking that it might be possible to translate not all sig spells to 'at will', but perhaps add the notion of 'signature cantrips' -- single action-castable spell effects that take no magic points.

Basically, my thought was whether or not the mage would be overpowered if one or more cantrips available to them were NEVER counted against the daily cantrip limit - truly usable at will.

Looking at the example Tiefling (yick) Wizard, that character can use Magic Missile at will for 2d4+5 damage. I'm not sure, but perhaps the +5 is based on INT.

This gives me concerns that damage has been scaled up a might, so we might find that a transitioned mage is even more limited in terms of power/damage than in current 3.5 with EoM. Also of note is that Magic Missile for the first time ever seems to require an attack roll (vs. Reflex)

It seems like they might get additional At-will spells at higher levels, so I'm not sure how that will work. It's definitely a boost to the power level of wizards.

We won't really know until June-ish, and that means it will be Q3 or later before I'm even thinking about using 4th Edition.

 

[genshou]

I wouldn't normally respond to a thread that's been inactive for more than a week, but I'm not active on EN World anymore.

But I had to jump in on this discussion.

Ryan, EoM is the best thing that's ever happened to my d20 gaming. I was about to give 3.x up altogether when I first discovered EoM-R back in July of 2005. It was love at first sight. I can't imagine d20 gaming without Revised or Mythic Earth, now.

But now there's 4e. I am thinking that since a lot of the scale has changed (what levels some powers become available like the aforementioned flight, how many hit points creatures have and how much damage attacks do, and other such things), EoM-R will merge with 4e's core rules about as well as a square peg going into a hole shaped like an equilateral triangle (assuming each has sides of the same length as the other shape).

I think it would be easier to build a new EoM ruleset altogether. If this is ever in the works I will gladly playtest or give it a starting review. I long ago declared the only way I'd get dragged into 4e would be if Ryan "RangerWickett" Nock wrote a magic ruleset for it.

 

[RangerWickett]

I long ago declared the only way I'd get dragged into 4e would be if Ryan "RangerWickett" Nock wrote a magic ruleset for it.

Then it looks like WotC won't get to sell you any new books for a while. I don't have any plans to revisit Elements of Magic and am, in general, toning down my game design involvement.

Anyway, it was 2002 before E.N. Pub put out Matt Blakeley's EOM, and 2004 before we updated it to EOM-R. I figure it'll take at least 2 years before I get fed up with the 4e magic system enough to devise a new one.

Of course, if somebody else wants to work up an Elements of Magic style system for 4e, I encourage you to pitch it to Russ.