4e Magic in practice

[Mercule]

Wow, way to fudge the math there!

There's a reason I posted my assumptions. I was just coming up with something as a starting point.

The other path I was considering was figuring out what percentage of arsenal each wizard went through based on assumptions about average combat lengths. I decided that was probably even more swingy, though.

Feel free to post your own comparisons. I really want something to look at more than a "feeling" after thumbing through the book or a single session.

 

[Miyaa]

I like how the powers don't have any Hit Dice limitations. So sleep at first level will be just as effective as it would be at 30th level.

I do wish in general that some of the powers were actually rituals or had a ritual variant that would have more power. For example, the fly spell lasts only a few rounds (five I think?). I wish there was a fly/levitate ritual that lasted eight hours or the whole day.

The other thing too is I don't believe the powers/rituals made for having magic items that had lasting effect. That is most of the magic items had specific powers that lasted only a short time.

 

[Miar]

Yeah, same observation here - I've picked up the first Dresden Files novel October... and said "I want to play that".

And then I get 4E!

Cheers, LT.

On an added note the Dresden rpg http://www.evilhat.com/home/?page_id=102

 

[Victim]

The problem with wizard versatility is that all combat is now "Kill the enemy." There's no illusions to draw the enemy away or subdue them or whatnot. Hell, Maze does damage and lasts seconds.

The thing is that in 3e you'd cast an illusion and hope the enemies are fooled and then get drawn out of position. In 4e, you'd get a power that attacks Will (to mess with their minds) and then applies a push or slide effect to move the enemy out of position.

 

[Staffan]

So far, my main concern is that you can't cast stuff like silent image in combat any more. Sure, illusions and such are hard to adjudicate, meaning that the effectiveness is very hard to judge objectively, but you lose some flexibility.

I believe they've said that they went easy on mind-affecting and illusion stuff for the Wizard to leave room for other classes later on.

One of the design-level problems in 3e was that the wizard could pretty much do anything (except heal). That meant that when, for example, the psion was made, it was hard to distinguish his power selection from that of the wizard. In an ideal world, the psion would have had mostly telepathic and clairsentient abilities, with a little telekinesis thrown in. However, since they couldn't make the psion too much better at mind stuff than the wizard, they compensated by adding energy blasts, summons, teleports, and the like, basically making the psion just a wizard that uses power points.

This goes doubly for 4e, where they can't rely on different methods of resource management to make one class different from one another.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My take on it is that the magic system reads a lot like I think magic works in the Harry Dresden novels. Harry has a few tricks that he can pull out at will. Everything else is a time-consuming ritual.

Holy cow. I never thought about this, but you're spot on with that observation.

-O

Its not just the Dresden novels- you'll find it similar to the way a lot of writers handle modern, urban fantasy mages. Check out Simon Green's Darkside Novels, Gaiman's Neverwhere, Barker's Imagica (and others), heck- even the TV show Charmed worked something like that.

There are also a few writers who handle magic that way in low-magic classical fantasy settings, like Turtledove's epic Darkness series.

The main difference I see, though, is that 4Ed magic heavily emphasizes damage-dealing spells, while most of the writers tend towards subtle spells (like TK, divinations, illusions or mind control) with the occasional use of damage dealing spells.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The main difference I see, though, is that 4Ed magic heavily emphasizes damage-dealing spells, while most of the writers tend towards subtle spells (like TK, divinations, illusions or mind control) with the occasional use of damage dealing spells.

That's a strange thing anyway. I am not an expert on mythology, but really, when did wizards casting fireball became common anyway? In most "traditional" stories, magic is a lot more subtle, relying on divinations or enchantments, and some illusions.

 

[WhatGravitas]

...when did wizards casting fireball became common anyway?

Perhaps when they evolved from artillery pieces to characters, i.e. when D&D came.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's a strange thing anyway. I am not an expert on mythology, but really, when did wizards casting fireball became common anyway? In most "traditional" stories, magic is a lot more subtle, relying on divinations or enchantments, and some illusions.

Perhaps when they evolved from artillery pieces to characters, i.e. when D&D came.

That's pretty much the truth, with a couple of caveats.

I've seen a few stories in which the magic used was flashy, but in those cases, the character was among the most powerful wizards in the land/ever, and was doing something exceedingly rare. He wasn't lobbing fireball after fireball.

However, you can find some stories about "levin bolts" (some kind of lightning-type bolt) in classical mythology- see Euripides' The Trojan Women and the epic story of Gilgamesh - that some beings could sling at will. Others could TK things at will, or charm at will, etc.

But typically, those beings could do only a narrow suite of things repeatedly- like a 3.X Focused Specialist wizard with the appropriate Reserve feats (something I love), or creatures with a spell-like ability.

Still, you never really saw someone casting a wide variety of spells over and over again until the advent of RPGs.

 

[AllisterH]

Um, you guys do know that the 3E wizard got SIGNIFICANTLY upgraded from 2e right?

The 1e/2E wizard is much, MUCH closer in feel to the 4e wizard than the 3e uber-wizard.

The 3E magic system is a vast change from the 1e/2e world of magic.