Non-Combat magic?

[DandD]

There are speculations about Necromancers being rather their own class, instead of being a (substandart) subclass for the Wizard class. Ditto for Summoners. The game developers said that they want to try to find a way how to balance the "action economy", which is why said classes who create and handle dozens of creatures (like the beast-summoning druid, necromancers with their undead legions, wizards with their million summon monster-spells and such) are still in development.
For one-time conjuring and creation, I'd say that Rituals will surely take care for that. Animate Undead wasn't meant to be used in combat, anyway.

 

[NebtheNever]

Its a bit more than that.
The utility spells I have seen are, as far as I remember them, written strictly with combat in mind. Any out of combat application is a "unintended" bonus.
Sadly I haven't found the wizard sample spells in a quick search to quite, for example, the invisibility spell.

Fly's duration is listed as being either until the end of the encounter or for five minutes. Since Fly clearly has out of combat uses, I'd rather think that application isn't unintended.

Also, all of the at-will cantrips clearly have some uses out of rounds.

In general, though, I'm forced to agree with you to an extent; most utility spells - at least as far as their mechanics go - seem oriented around combat. I think you'll have to be creative to use them outside of combat. On the flip side, this means there might be fewer restrictions on how such spells are used out of combat, which could give the players and DM more flexibility. *shrug*

 

[Minigiant]

I personally hope there are ritual and utility versions of some spells. Some utilities may be able to be used out of combat but they were probably made too inefficient for reliable use. I could see most out of combat uses of utility powers for emergencies whereas planned effects will be regulated to rituals.

So you might be able to use Fly out of combat to reach a lever, the Overland Flight ritual is better for out of combat use for chasing dragons due it's larger number of targets and longer duration.

 

[cangrejoide]

I would personally peg Spider Climb as a Wizard 2nd level Utility spell, but thats just a guess.

Level 2 is quite low considering that Fly is level 16. Maybe level 8 - 10 would be more practical.

 

[Caliber]

I'm not 100% convinced Utility abilities are focused that closely on combat. We've barely seen any at all, to be honest.

The name "Utility" suggests that at least a large portion will have out of combat applications, to me. I mean, if they're just more combat abilities, why not lump them into the Daily powers, right?

Off the top of my head I can think of three Utility powers we've seen, the Rogue's Tumble (which is admittedly pretty combat-centric) and the Wizard's Fly and Improved Invisibility which, while excellent in combat, are quite nice outside of it as well.

I'd bank on most Utility abilities having non-combat uses. I'd assume this is where Phantom Steed, for example, was "siloed" off, as an early designer said.

 

[Caliber]

Level 2 is quite low considering that Fly is level 16. Maybe level 8 - 10 would be more practical.

True, true. But then Fly is much more game changing than the ability to walk on walls/ceilings, at least IMO. If it was higher I wouldn't complain though.

 

[Emirikol]

May I refer you to the following list of 4E spells (official, ripped right from playtest): http://www.duke.edu/web/DRAGO/humor/useless_spells.html

jh

 

[heretic888]

Anyone seen something regarding Animate dead? or Summon Demons/ Devils?..

Hi Muminalver,

The recent article about angels seemed to strongly imply that summoning spells are rituals in 4E.

Laterz.

 

[Jhaelen]

Level 2 is quite low considering that Fly is level 16. Maybe level 8 - 10 would be more practical.

Yep. Unless they've changed the spell to simply grant a (low) bonus to your climb check or got rid of it completely.

Actually 3E spider climb is one of my favorite examples for spells I'd like to get rid of. It is one of those spells completely eliminating a certain kind of environmental threat and obsoleting a skill. Very bad design, imho.

Judging from the 4E utility spells I've seen so far, they seem to have been written with combat applications in mind. So far I'm assuming anything that would be only useful outside of combat will be rituals.

 

[Stalker0]

In some cases skills have replaced certain spells. For example, if your trained in arcana you can use that to detect magic.