New Design: Wizards...

[Soel]

Some fun ideas:
Spirits: Over time you can ally yourself with various spiritual forces of great power. The each grant you various powers when invoked, but only one can be called upon in a period of time (per encounter). The amount and power of spirits you can posses is determined by your magical potential.

A great way to bring the Binder into 4e! I also like your Alchemy idea!

 

[The Grackle]

I wonder what this means for somatic components? Will you still need a free hand? Do components still exist?

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I think its great. Before the wizard was basically a "tome" wizard right? They needed their spell book to do anything. Now the wizard is much more variable-- allowing for the creation of characters from novels and movies. Just think about some iconic characters; some famous "wizards" needed a staff (Lord of the Rings), others an orb (can't think of anything...), and others a wand (Harry Poter...okay bad example but I'm sure there are others.)

David Bowie in Labyrinth was all about that orb..

(That's all I got)

 

[FireLance]

I wonder what this means for somatic components? Will you still need a free hand? Do components still exist?

I'm guessing that if somatic components still exist, holding an implement will not interfere with your ability to perform them.

 

[Beckett]

So, are you suggesting that you think scrolls will go away completely?

Yeah, I guess I am. I don't think they will be as necessary as they are in 3E. And what would they be used for? Per/day powers, and possibly per/encounter. Being able to have scribe a scroll with a per/day encounter seems unbalancing, unless everyone else is able to do something to gain additional uses. Per/encounter powers, maybe, as these are supposed to be less powerful than per/day abilities, but again, if the other classes can't gain additional uses of their per/encounter abilities through magic items, why should the wizard?

Hrm. I think I'm starting to like the taste of sacred cow burger.

 

[FireLance]

This bit seems to have been glossed over:

Thus a wizard without an implement is like a slightly near-sighted man with glasses; the man can still see, but without his glasses, he can’t read the road sign across the way. In like wise, while wizard powers are associated with a particular implement, a wizard need not possess or hold a given implement to use its associated power. For instance, a wizard can cast the wand spell cinder storm even if he doesn’t own, has lost, or is not holding a magic wand. However, holding the associated implement grants a benefit to the wizard’s attack that is just like the benefit the warrior gains when attacking an enemy with a magic sword.

I wonder if this means that 4e will do away with the wizard's reliance on his spell book, and possibly material components/foci as well. If so, a couple more historical methods of crippling the wizard will be removed.

 

[Khaalis]

Where is my aluminum foil hat?!?!

We have been using a very similar mechanic in one of our homebrew worlds for a while now. I love this change. It adds a much more concise flavor to the wizard and makes them match more closely to the common archetypes for wizards in from non-D&D fiction. I truly hope this is replacing the old material components system completely. I also like that fact that the concept is so easily mutable as Mouseferatu noted, making it very simple to alter the flavor of the wizard simply by changing their focus items. I will be interested to see how this plays out with the rest of the wizard's abilities.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

This sounds pretty cool to me.

I like the idea and flavor behind material components (and I hope they remain in some form, as they are a part of Dungeons & Dragons) but I've been in very few games where they were kept track of in any meaningful detail.

By the time a player or DM has learned all the material components by heart, there's always a new edition around the corner anyway.

 

[Elphilm]

Really neat change!

I like it not only because it's flavorful, but also because focus items are so easy to change to suit your own preferences. I already had a strong inclination to start working on magicians based on the Tarot. Hell, the Minor Arcana are already associated with the classical elements as well:

Staves (Fire)
Pentacles (Earth)
Chalices (Water)
Swords (Air)

And there are a million other possibilities as well.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Here's a change I really didn't expect, but which seems very cool indeed.

Staffs and wands are pretty iconic items linked with magic; having them be the tools you weave magic with sounds very nice. Orbs, likewise; a crystal ball the size of a large egg, perhaps, or a small magical mirror, or something similar.

As for tomes replacing spellbooks... yeah, why not? The spellbook in D&D has always been a bit odd thing; it's not something you cast spells from, but more of a portable magical library. A tome to focus your spells ("I recite the Rhyme of Aubar-Am to confound the ogres!"), separate from the libraries and laboratories you study in, sounds pretty cool, flavor-wise.

...

You know, I was suddenly reminded of Diablo II, where you have staffs and orbs (for Sorceress) and wands (for Necromancer). You don't need them for magic, but they will usually boost your ability to do that. OMG, 4e is going to be a videogame! And I like it!