Why is the Vancian system still so popular?

[Akaiku]

Thing is, if Vancian works for magic, why not have it work for martial as well? It's a secret fighting technique that immediately vacates your body until you study it again the next day? And your training capacity only increases by level or str mod cause you have more muscle/skill to store the powers in.

 

[FireLance]

Thing is, if Vancian works for magic, why not have it work for martial as well?

Different people find different things plausible. For some, "martial" is inextricably linked with "repeatable".

 

[GX.Sigma]

Thing is, if Vancian works for magic, why not have it work for martial as well? It's a secret fighting technique that immediately vacates your body until you study it again the next day? And your training capacity only increases by level or str mod cause you have more muscle/skill to store the powers in.

That may work for mystic martial artists, but doesn't really work for mundane fighters.

 

[Akaiku]

That may work for mystic martial artists, but doesn't really work for mundane fighters.

The only argument on how it works for non-ameniasic mages is that DnD and Vance did it. Plus, mundane... A mundane fighter cannot match up to even a middling amount of reality warping. If the fighter cannot parry a fireball or a dragon's breath, it will never be useful for a wizard. Fighters have to quit being mundane or wizards need to start.

 

[GX.Sigma]

The only argument on how it works for non-ameniasic mages is that DnD and Vance did it. Plus, mundane... A mundane fighter cannot match up to even a middling amount of reality warping. If the fighter cannot parry a fireball or a dragon's breath, it will never be useful for a wizard. Fighters have to quit being mundane or wizards need to start.

The in-world explanation for Vancian magic works.

If you explain in-world that the fighter is overcoming the limits of mortal capabilities and is basically a demigod, that would work too.

If you explain in-world that the fighter is channeling his inner energy by learning and mastering ancient martial techniques with mental discipline, that doesn't work because that's not the fighter. It could work for the monk, but not the fighter.

 

[triqui]

Not a single 4e DM I know has done that. :shrug:

Really? I've done a lot of times. Giving a instant success in a chase skill challenge because you use a teleportation power, or quelching a tavern on fire using a blizzard-like power are the first two that came to my mind.

EDIT: I've just remembered one that happened in the very first 4e encounter we had. A player used Thunder Wave to overturn a brazier and blocking a corridor with fire. Creative use of powers is actually encouraged if you use 3e style terrain.

 

[triqui]

Well I mean I'll say this -- if there is class disparity then it should be transparent. It would be unfair to give someone a "trap" class that is just destined to get relatively worse and worse as the game goes on. Any "traps" in the system should be things you can change relatively soon after you find out that it's a trap.

But if it IS transparent, if the game actually said right there that wizards (for example) start out worse than fighters but at high levels are much better, then I don't find that unfair. The player is free to take that information into account when choosing their class. You could argue it from a game design standpoint, but I think it's just toxic discourse to get all moralistic about it.

I'm not being moralistic about it, or arguing about a game design standpoint. I'm just stating that some *players* (as opossed to PC) might want to play Conan-like or The Great Mouse-like characters, and still being comparatively competent to other players who choose diferent kinds of flavor for their in game avatars.

In your proposed example, the game states that wizards start being worse, and end being better. A *LOT* of players might feel bad treated by that. For example, a player that is an unconditional fan of martial archetypes (like Conan or Aragorn) and ussually plays in high level campaigns, or a player that is an unconditional fan lof caster-archetypes, but play mostly low level campaigns. Or a martial fan that play from 1-20/30, but want to stay balanced through the whole career. In your proposed scenario, those players have two options: either they can play a character they *don't want* to play, or they can go and find a different game. None of those are good for WotC, from a selling perspective.

If a player wants to play a fighter, and stay gimped, they should be able to. But if a player wants to play a fighter that stay balanced, they should be able to as well. There's a whole difference between me, deciding I like to play a class that is gimped, and *you* deciding that the class I like to play *has* to be a gimped class.

 

[Blackwarder]

Being the guy that always wants to play Aragorn I always though that a high level Aragon will have an army at his back...

Warder

 

[Neonchameleon]

will fail. There will always be the wrong rating on the wrong spells, because as soon as the rabbits (unsuspecting DMs) get faster, so do the foxes (more optimized/exploitative players or powergamers), since there is too much of a lag before errata can either slow down the foxes. (if not take them out back, and shoot them out right)

But being close is better than not doing it at all.

A creative/smart caster with a vancian system and spells that affect the world in non-trivial ways, can always pose balance problems. Is it the nature of the beast. 4e solved it by making all combat spells apply to a grid, and either do damage against creatures or enemies, but not objects, so you are very much limited to the very limited set of in-combat uses, to avoid e.g. fireball being used to set a forest on fire.

This is complete nonsense. I'll give two counter-examples

1: B/X D&D has a phrasing that is surprisingly similar to that of 4e for the fireball. The necessary text for the most common uses - i.e. combat, added to enough fluff (keywords in 4e) to extrapolate. If you're saying that B/X had problems this way that's the first I've heard of it. You can use 4e fireball to set a forest on fire - with the DM's agreement. And no DM I've ever played with would say that fireball lacked that potential. Fireball explicitely does fire damage. And fire burns.

2: The last time I played a 4e wizard I retired him for giving the DM too much of a headache through creative power use.

So long as Wotc allows for open play tests, these bugs should be found /sorted before launch.

Because it worked with Pathfinder.

A lot of these balance issues can be sorted out in-game within the rules of earlier editions, but there is no house rule in 4e to not use your power the way it says, other than "chose a different power".

"There is no house rule in 4e" - are you actually reading what you are writing? Even if you are, it's completely wrong in my experience.

I've said it before, there is no balance between a fighter, any fighter, and a smart player playing a wizard with spells -- any spells -- with which there is a complex enough set of world-modifying, non-straight up damage effects.

Then we might as well give up on D&D. I've only actually retired a wizard in 4e but I've caused enough headaches with a monk and offbeat use of powers (much more experienced DM). We have what you want in 4e - it's just weaker than in 3.X and intentionally so.

Not a single 4e DM I know has done that. :shrug:

Any 4e DM who didn't allow that sort of stunt would bore me very fast. :shrug: (And I've played with more than half a dozen).



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I don't care if the fighter has a bunch of fancy, powerful moves that rival the power of a wizard's spells--in fact, I'm all for the martial classes getting a powerup. What I don't want to see is a martial power system that doesn't make sense, and martial dailyies don't make much sense to me.

Then try playing Essentials. No Martial Dailies. Martial classes use stances and basic attacks rather than at will powers. Seriously, just about every criticism you've made has been fixed in Essentials.

If daily powers were supposed to be these big dramatic events, make them "per scene" instead of "per day" and define a scene appropriately.

I'd rather say "per episode". The single point of 4e I always houserule when DMing is to change extended rests to be extended rather than 8 hours sleep. But then I believe pre-4e casters are also improved by this rule and needing a lab or a temple and several days to restock spells.

The wizard is too powerful because of the effects he has access to at that level, not because of the number or frequency of them.

Number and frequency can both do a lot in their own right. Both are part of the problem.

but all three of them can still blast their way into a room, turn everyone inside into frogs, and teleport away before they can react.

And here is one of my problems. The fighter should be able to turn the wizard into cuisineart before the wizard can turn him into a frog. At high levels wizards should act as fighter delivery mechanisms.

Rituals can be game-changers, but much of the time their casting time and cost prevents them being worth it.

Exactly. They aren't an obvious answer.

And my question to you is, how is using a 4e ritual "actual genuine creativity" and using a Vancian spell "exactly what it was designed for"? They're basically the same effects in terms of what can generally be accomplished, the difference being casting time and cost. Does taking 5 minutes and 100gp suddenly make an illusion creative?

There's a much more serious opportunity cost to the rituals - and they aren't as directly targetted at an end result in most cases.

I haven't gotten my hands on Essentials, so perhaps they improve it there, but before that the Illusionist is very poorly represented.

They do and agreed.

First of all, really? Reduce person is top half?

This I'll grant.

Fly

is top half?

Emphatically. Or would be if the polymorph chain didn't contain quite so much stinky cheese (Alter Self being able to cover almost everything fly can do and do it for longer). Fly is effectively a reality-altering spell that changes what needs guarding against in the gameworld. Fly is every bit as much a gamechanger at level 3 as teleport is at level 4.

Second of all, I'm not asking for spells to be ported over directly. I'd like it if they were, but it's not a requirement. I'm just asking for the same capabilities. Silent image can be a person-size image requiring concentration and all of my actions to change and maintain for all I care as long as I can be an illusionist who casts actual honest-to-Pelor illusions from level 1.

You can have a person sized image as an encounter utility power at level 2. (And I really dislike the 4e decision not to hand out the first utility power at level 1). This is once again in Essentials where they did a much better job with Illusionists.

Fly can be a spell with a lower flight ceiling that leaves you unable to cast and flat-footed while it's in effect and requires actions to sustain for all I care as long as I don't have to wait more than half the game to be able to fly or make someone else fly and I can take to the air on a moment's notice.

I can't recall when the wizard gets the first Fly spell (they are definitely there). But my Monk was able to get a wire-fu short distance flight at level 2 (I think there's a level 1 way of allowing wire-fu flight for a monk). A sorceror can definitely have a sustainable-for-five-minutes encounter flight spell from level 6 (which does take serious sustaining).

With 10 minutes notice, you can. You can't turn the corner, disguise self, and say "Guards! The prisoner went that way!"

Yes you can. I'm pretty sure there's a spell that does this at heroic tier in Essentials. And I know there's one that does this as a cantrip in Heroes of the Feywild.

You can't arcane lock the door right behind you as you dash through to prevent the monsters from getting in.

I think you're right here.

You can't have multiple minions for more than 5 minutes at a time--actual creatures, not sort-of creatures that have limited actions and require yours.

This part is right. The action economy is important. Or you can just hire minions. (I will say that the Necromancy rules suck even post-essentials).

Likewise, if I'm an illusionist and all of my signature spells cost cash and multiple minutes, what's the point?

The point is that you're a year and a half out of date in your source material. Now I'll admit that the PHB wizard with just PHB options can't do what you want.

Again, this may have been mitigated by Essentials, as I don't have access to those books. But the state of utility magic in the core is sadly lacking, and I want to see that fixed in 5e.

Essentials was intended to be the new core.

I didn't say it limited their power, I said it limited their breadth. Limiting options doesn't matter if each of those options is too powerful.

On the other hand quantity of options has a quality all of its own.

Don't nerf the casters down to the martial level, bring the martials up to the caster level, or do a bit of both to have them meet in the middle.

I favour the "Bit of both" version.


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Are not all wizard spells "dailies"? And, if not, WHY not?

Why should they be? Why can't wizards ever master their spells to the point they don't actually need to prepare them.

Why?..."in compensation"?! Mages do not require "compensation"! All of this "I wanna at-wills" is the result of the cultural "I want it NOW daddy" mentality. The "I deserve to have my cake and eat it too".

"I don't mind if I can only fireball once a day...cuz I get to magic missile alllll day long"....What?! Why!? You're trying to master the arcane mysteries of the universe...so you should be able to "pew pew"all day...because...???

Because I've mastered it. Because I have that much control over that fragment of magic that I can do it with just a thought. To me the part I have trouble understanding is the idea that spells cast by rote directly out of a spellbook and preparation count as actually mastering the arcane mysteries of the universe rather than actually getting to the point that I can do some things with the snap of my fingers even if I can't do things that are quite so powerful.

 

[Harlander]

Are not all wizard spells "dailies"? And, if not, WHY not?

Personally, I find a character whose prime focus is magic use being able to produce a set of low-level magical effects at will more compelling than the alternative.

Are cantrips not usable at will? And if not, why not?