AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Right, but I think that what the solution proposed in this and the other thread does is simply take the choices away entirely! I mean, what choices do you have here? To only use certain specific damage types and effects to get a rather hefty increase in damage? TBH I'd be pretty darn hard pressed not to just toss around lightning and/or thunder for 2 extra points per die of added damage (or 3 if you can pare it down to one or the other). Yes, I know, I will fight Shambling Mounds to the end of time
Lets look at the level 1 wizard powers from PHB1:
Cloud of Daggers - Nope, that would require a Paragon Tier delivery system, and even then the result would be different, though I will grant that the difference would probably be largely immaterial in play.
Magic Missile - Not precisely reproducible in its post-Essentials form, not even close in its pre-Essentials form. There's simply nothing like 'can be used as an RBA' possible in the 2 page wizard.
Ray of Frost - Slowed is only available in (save ends) flavor, so this is pretty close to available. I can't feel too sad about simplifying durations to be honest, though I think it may be a bit OP with save ends.
Scorching Burst - Ranges are a bit simplified, which I think is a bit of a shame tactically, but in some ways not really a big loss. This is the one at-will which is essentially reproducible. I would note that it was pretty much universally panned and only ever used in builds which focused on Fire damage, which is pretty much a non-existent optimization in stock 4e.
Thunderwave - technically not possible by the one-page rules, as you would have to add condition 'slide 3' reducing the damage to 0 dice. I note that again the granularity of the system is too large, as it ignores push.
At the very least I would suggest there would need to be a list of 'zero cost' add-ons for powers (yes this means every power use would add on something, why not). That would allow for things like push or pull, minor heroic level UEONT conditions, etc. Maybe these should be trade-outs at a sub-1d level, so you have to shorten range to 10 squares, or make an implement vs AC attack, or one of some list of other such things to buy a minor effect. As it stands now you certainly cannot produce EXACTLY any of the PHB1 at-wills, though I think a few of them you can get close enough that nobody would be offended.
I'd note that there is a distinct lowering of power level here too. The only power you can fully emulate is Scorching Burst, which was basically never used by anyone with any 4e experience due to its weak nature. I note the same issue below with encounter powers.
Burning Hands - Already a weak power, this now goes from Blast 5 to Blast 3 (or loses a whole damage die, take your pick). It was already a lemon power...
Chill Strike - This one simply becomes range 20 and Save Ends instead of UEONT. So its the most doable. It was again a somewhat weak power, though not bad. The switch to Save Ends is maybe not so bad. It also loses a tiny bit of damage, but that's splitting hairs really (average 1 point per hit).
Force Orb - This was a weird power which can simply be emulated as an area burst one. It is really another of the fairly weak encounter powers which does nothing to aid the wizard's control shtick. I expect the wizard handbook calls it purple or something like that, usable but not recommended. The two page version is no better, though by comparison to other two page options it is relatively OK.
Icy Terrain - This is a really solid control power, at least for original PHB1 wizard encounter powers. Unfortunately two page offers no options to build anything even similar, since it simply leaves out all Zone type effects entirely at heroic and has only movable ones at paragon. To be fair, this could be rectified without a drastic revision I'm sure.
Ray of Enfeeblement - Again this cannot be precisely recreated, as weakened (save ends) is a -2 die effect and there is no -1 die UEONT version of it. That could be fixed of course...
Daily Powers really are where things fall short
Acid Arrow - This one you can approximate as an area burst 1 Acid attack, and just not bother with the fairly uninteresting ongoing 5 damage (I was never a fan of ongoing damage really, it may add some color but tactically its fairly uninteresting, at least in this context).
Flaming Sphere - Well, you can do this one, pretty much, due to the fact that the two page wizard oddly provides this one-of-a-kind delivery mechanism as a standard off-the-shelf! I have no idea why that is, except I would assume U_K wanted to be able to emulate all level 1 PHB1 wizard powers... However, we now run into the omission, there's no sustain option at all at heroic!
Freezing Cloud - There are multiple omissions which make this impossible. There's no option to sustain, there's no option for a zone at all, and there's no option to increase from burst 1 to burst 2. That last is probably trivial to add (cost of one extra die, which would match this power exactly on that front). Sustain simply needs adding, badly, as wizards use it extensively in heroic.
Sleep - Yeah, you just cannot do this at all with the existing two-page system. It lacks any option for progressive saving effects, helpless isn't there at all, and you cannot create a non-damaging attack power effect. Thus we see that any somewhat outlying power is simply lost, or else significant (and potentially complex and unbalancing) options need to be added to the system.
I will note that from here we really run off the rails. At level 5 you cannot even come close to any of the daily powers, the options available would need to be extended dramatically. This tells me that the contention that all powers are merely a few minor variations on one or two options is simply wrong. You could argue that such things add nothing to the game, but I think very few actual 4e players will agree with you! Again, I think you would need to create a much less combat-centered and tactical game to pull this off!
To be perfectly honest. I think if you were to produce a reasonable facsimile of each 4e wizard power in PHB1 you'd require about 15 pages worth of rules! Odd, how that corresponds pretty well with the size of the wizard spell list...
I agree that the effects would be more regularized and probably that would make play somewhat simpler. In fact this is another area where HoML also does the same thing, there are far less little twiggy differences between powers. But I still HAVE powers!
Last edited:
