My First Take

[shadowlance]

That is perfectly acceptable, as long as they COULD use the powers if they so desired. Its like Leon in "The Professional". He kills with a knife because he is that skilled, but that doesn't mean he forgot how to shoot a rifle.

I hear where you are coming from. I think the main reason that the "forgetting" system is in place is to keep people from just using encounter and daily powers constantly at higher levels. I suspect that a perfectly serviceable house rule would be to allow PCs to remember their old powers but be limited to a level appropriate number per day or per encounter.

So if at 20th level you would normally have access to 4 encounter and 4 daily powers (requiring you to have forgotten some encounter and daily powers by the rules)....the house rule would allow you to use no more than 4 encounter powers per encounter (but you'd have 5 or 6 to choose from each encounter) and 4 daily powers per day (but you'd have 5 or 6 prepared). If the forgetting aspect of the rules bugs you, this seems like a solid fix. For some players it would slow down play (more options) but it should keep the at-wills relevant, which I'm pretty sure is the goal of the "forgetting" system.

Once I get a campaign under my belt I'm going to give that a serious look because the forgetting thing bugs me a bit too.


edited because I misread the excerpt chart

 

[ExploderWizard]

For example, if the rules had said, "you only get new powers, no retraining", it wouldn't break your sense of disbelief I assume since you don't have players "forgetting" new powers as they increase in level but at the cost of gameplay (remember, this "rule" is also the 3.5 sorceror rule and was instituted to increase the fun for the player)

Where is the cost in gameplay? I don't remember this "rule" for the sorcerer. The sorcerer just learned fewer spells than the wizard but had had more firepower. I do not recall them forgetting anything.

If you think 4E is a great campaigning system thats a perfectly fine opinion and I respect that.

 

[shadowlance]

Well, as far as "at-will" powers go...sure, no problem. If you want to use a 1st-level "at-will" when you're 27th-level, be my guest. It's pointless, but go right ahead.

You can bet that 27th level characters will absolutely be getting some use out of their at will abilities.....unless your group is one of those that likes to rest after every fight (and the DM allows that).

 

[shadowlance]

I don't remember this "rule" for the sorcerer. The sorcerer just learned fewer spells than the wizard but had had more firepower. I do not recall them forgetting anything.

Every couple of levels (starting at 6th?) the sorcerer could forget a spell that they felt had become obsolete and replace it with another spell of the same or lesser level. It's really completely different from the 4th edition system in virtually every way but it DID involve forgetting something you used to know how to do.

 

[Puggins]

That is perfectly acceptable, as long as they COULD use the powers if they so desired. Its like Leon in "The Professional". He kills with a knife because he is that skilled, but that doesn't mean he forgot how to shoot a rifle.

You're making an assumption that is not "realistic." Humans forget things that they don't practice- rather quickly, too. I use a variety of simulators to design and verify integrated circuitry, but I tend to use only one or two of them at a time. I've been doing this job for close to twelve years now, and I've been using many of these simulators since I began my career. If I stop using one for a few months, though, out the door of my memory it goes. I haven't used HSPICE in a year? Might as well be greek then, 'cause it's going to take me a while to get used to it again. Learning it again will be easy of course.... but it will be work, and it will take time. I won't be able to instantly code up the test I want to run on it.

Human being have a limited amount of mainline memory- it's a simple fact of life. If the wizard I'm playing decides that he'd rather use fire burst than magic missile, but he definitely wants to keep using ray of cold, then it makes perfect sense for him to be able to cast Fire Burst and Ray of Frost and completely forget how to cast Magic Missile. Maybe feats or other class features would expand your ability to remember different abilities- that'd be great, and it would represent getting better at remembering more things at once. But you'd still have a limit, which is only human (or elvish, dwarvish or dragonbornish, as it were).