OMG Fireball, Noooooooooooo!

[Hammerhead]

Wizards have already been described as "psions with the serial numbers filed off" in one place, so it could very well just mean that the X in Xd6 is 'however much of your per-encounter-magic-resource' you spend on the fireball rather than just a flat amount depending on your level.

No.

The quote you're referring to describes his character (a psion, but using the mechanics for the wizard).

 

[Szatany]

Its simple, have a cure spell for every level. If you cast a 3rd level spell it heals a third level character up to max. For a PC higher than 3rd level it only heals 36 HP's (the max HP's of the Barbarian without a Con Bonus). You can even say that whoever is healed gets their CON bonus per level added.

I have another idea. Have 3 healing spells (per class, lets say cleric here).

Cure Wounds
At will spell
Cleric 1
Heal 1d6+level damage to a touched creature.

Remedy Wounds
Per Encounter spell
Cleric 5
Heal 3d6+3/level damage to a touched creature

Heal Wounds
Per Day spell
Cleric 10
Heal 5d6+5/level damage to a touched creature.

 

[meleeguy]

it's so beautiful in my mind.

Pass the sauce, pass the sauce.

 

[wayne62682]

It's about damn time! Maybe they finally realized that direct damage spells SUCK in 3.x because they don't scale well compared to monster's hit points. Hopefully they get rid of save-or-die and save-or-suck spells as well.

 

[BryonD]

No.

The quote you're referring to describes his character (a psion, but using the mechanics for the wizard).

Exactly. That was a wildly misleading misquote.

In this specific case an existing 3X psion in a 3X game was converted to a 4E playtest. Because they had no such thing as a 4E psion to work with they wrote the character as a wizard and CALLED it a psion to maintain the story. It was made clear that this had nothing in the world to do with what 4E psionics will or will not ultimately be. And there is no reason at all to expect they will be wizard clones when the 4e psionics comes around.

 

[meleeguy]

What I hope they do.

Is get the math right, and playtest heavily (not cheap, but it makes the difference).

Then leave out as many non-essential rules as possible, like scrying. This would encourage 3rd party development, and later they could publish on the subject.

 

[DItheringFool]

Olgar Shiverstone has the following signature:

"The Soul of D&D? It's rolling a natural 20 when you're down to 3 hit points and the cleric's on the floor and you're staring that sunnavabitch bugbear right in his bloodshot eye and holding the line just long enough to let the wizard unleash a fireball at the guards who are on their way, because they're all that stands between you, the Foozle and Glory." - WizarDru

This is one of my fears...In the almighty name of fairness we level the playing field and loose the soul of the game.

 

[carmachu]

I have another idea. Have 3 healing spells (per class, lets say cleric here).

Cure Wounds
At will spell
Cleric 1
Heal 1d6+level damage to a touched creature.

Remedy Wounds
Per Encounter spell
Cleric 5
Heal 3d6+3/level damage to a touched creature

Heal Wounds
Per Day spell
Cleric 10
Heal 5d6+5/level damage to a touched creature.

I would HATE playing my cleric if thats what I got. Seems bland.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Do we know that, though?

By my reading, James didn't say "fireballs don't do xd6 damage." He said they don't do "1d6 damage/level."

That could just mean they do 1d6 damage per two caster levels.

Not saying your interpretation is necessarily wrong; just that I don't think we can take it as a given.

Good point!

 

[Herobizkit]

Spell levels as we know are gone, so some rules no longer apply. There will not be separate slots for each level you prepare spells in (I'm making an educated guess because if there were, the game would be almost unplayable).
That means that you prepare spells of any level you want in the same pool of slots.
That in turn means that if a caster has two spells of varying power but otherwise the same, he will always pick the better one.
That means that there is no point in making a better spell version. It's easier and more elegant to just let the original spell scale all the way up.
I hopy my logic is flawless

I like it. I like it a lot. You wanna throw a charm monster? Make certain you have a big enough spell "pool" to affect the monster. If you guess wrong, well... you guessed wrong, and the monster will easily save. Same with any damage spell; throw a 3rd-level sized mana pool "droplet" to throw 3d6, or dump a few extra to pump up the damage. Maybe even overpower a spell at the cost of ability damage/drain. Fully flexible magic. That's what magic needs to be.