Seriously? Spellcasters will not be able to have many spell choices?

[kennew142]

That was my experience with running and playing RQ for a decade or so of 2nd edition too. Essentially the characters grew in a shape which was determined by their cult membership(s), and even by the end the Rune Priest-Lord of Storm Bull was very different in skills and tactical choices to the Rune Priest-Lord of Humakt and the Rune Priest-Lord of Orlanth. In each case they tended to grow into their specialties, which ensured distinctiveness.

I've not played GURPS, but I could easily believe that a point-buy system which didn't have strong 'groups' with an incentive to join those groups would end up with relatively samey characters though.

Cheers

You're right about GURPS.

RQ tends the same direction if you don't play in Glorantha. Many GMs prefer homebrews, and many players are turned off by the extreme flavor of the official setting.

 

[arscott]

Well lets say at level 5 a wizard can have infinite level 1-5 spells known. But he can pick 1 at will ability, 2 per encounters and 1 per day to prep for the day.

A fighters had 3 at will abilities, 7 per encounter, and 3 per day abilities that he always knows at level 5.

It may end up being balanced in that the wizard has overall more diversity, but per day he has much less diversity.

Numbers of abilities obviously picked out of the air, play testing would come up with the balance if this was the model.

But that's the same sort of conditional balance that leads to the "wizards suck at 1st level, but it's okay because they're overpowered at 20th" mindset. And that's exactly the thing that 4e is trying to escape.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Rituals: we know a lot of rituals,
they have material components. So you think twice about casting them. We suppose that they have long casting and preperation times.
I tend to disagree. I can perfectly see former spells that fit better to rituals with very short casting times:

e.g.: feather fall: immediate action + a rare feather
fire resistance: immediate action + water from a water elemental creature
glitterdust: standard action + gold dust
dispell magic: 1 full round
banishment: 3 rounds + holy water

 

[KrazyHades]

We know that Vancian spellcasting is still there, just much smaller. So there are still daily spells that you can choose, hopefully from a long spell list. But there are also at will, per encounter, and per day abilities to complement them. These abilities will probably be mostly combat abilities, because we've heard how you won't have to choose between fireball and phantom steed, for example.

My guess is that utility spells will still be done in the Vancian style, with memorization each day. The combat heavy spells, or the other most common spells you will probably choose as your infinite, per encounter, and per day abilities. It really isn't that different from 3E in some respects. It just formally recognizes that there are some spells a wizard essentially HAS to have each day, namely Fireball, Lightning, Magic Missile, etc...

 

[jdrakeh]

I'm a big fan of the "spells are rare and precious things you must hunt down" school, so if the Cool Stuff is all Rituals, and the DM controls how/when these enter the game, so much the better.

I agree. Magic has always been far more prolific in D&D than in the vast majoirty of fantasy fiction (including such epoic High Fantasy as the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and that has always bothered me, as it cheapened what should have been miraculous and full of wonder. In many ways, magic in D&D is as commonplace as air on Earth -- and that sucks.

 

[Dausuul]

We know that Vancian spellcasting is still there, just much smaller. So there are still daily spells that you can choose, hopefully from a long spell list.

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on what the designers mean by "Vancian." I've always used the term to refer to the "prepare your spells in advance, carry them around with you like grenades, throw them at people" system, but I've noticed that a lot of people consider "Vancian" to mean "per-day-limited." If the latter is true, then there may not be any spell preparation at all.

 

[IceFractal]

On Point-Systems:
Homogenization tends to happen when people hit the cap on their specialty, so the higher the cap (relative to the starting power), the less it will tend to happen.

For instance, a D&D-styled Fantasy HERO campaign would involve starting out at low-power and gaining XP at a much faster than normal rate, eventually ending up in a completely different power-bracket (with the caps, if any, increasing in-sync with this). In such a setup, homogenization will be less likely, as there's always more to increase within one's speciality.

Systems with mutable-flavor abilties at least seem less homogenized than systems with fixed-flavor abilities. Even if the warrior and the spellcaster both picked up wall-walking (because it's useful), they've got a different style when using it - the spellcaster is using a spell of subjective gravity, the warrior is dashing up the wall with uncanny speed. Likewise, systems with a huge number of potential powers (like HERO) tend to homogenize slower than systems with a smaller pool to choose from.

Also, systems with "diminishing returns", where improving an already superb power to even-better is harder than improving a weak power to average may be realistic, but they encourage homogenization like nobody's business.


HERO in particular:
Divergent experiences in homogenization may result from different "cap" rigidities. If the cap is just "X-point powers", then a brute type could keep improving their combat skills by adding velocity damage, skill levels, multiple simultaneous attacks, and so forth. If the cap is "no more than X damage dealt per turn" then there's no point improving combat beyond that, and you may as well branch out into other things.

 

[Falling Icicle]

If wizards in 4e work like 3e sorcerers and warlocks, with a set number of powers that can be expanded only by increasing in level, I will be very unhappy. The ability to seek out new spells has always been one of my favorite things about playing a wizard.

 

[FourthBear]

If wizards in 4e work like 3e sorcerers and warlocks, with a set number of powers that can be expanded only by increasing in level, I will be very unhappy. The ability to seek out new spells has always been one of my favorite things about playing a wizard.

Just curious, were you very unhappy with all of the other classes that have never been able to pick up new powers in all previous editions of D&D? Did you pity the fighter and rogues in the party where you were playing the wizard?

I've always preferred playing magic-users and I would agree that being able to pick up new spells is a lot of fun. I'm hoping that finding rituals with assuage this, that rituals won't be at all limited to spellcasting characters and that they don't appear anywhere near as often as spells in captured spellbooks in previous edition. I wouldn't mind, say, a single new ritual every level or every other level, say. I do think the game needs to think about giving a class with an already ridiculously broad power source the ability to pick up new powers willy-nilly.

 

[Darrius Adler]

If wizards can switch and swap their abilities every day, than those abilities had better be weaker or more situationally dependant than people stuck with the abilities they pickper level and are stuck with.

If they were to set it sort of like the Bo9S I don't see why other classes could not learn extra stances/attacks from special sources much like the wizard would do from spellbooks. No matter how many they can only have so many readied for use at any one time.