D&D 4E 4e Wizards - No More Necromancers, Enchanters, Summoners???

[Steely Dan]

It does sound a little as if the Sorcerer may be moving in this direction

I'm also thinking the sorcerer may have this new power source – Primal, along with the druid, barbarian and this Primal striker class mentioned in R&C.

 

[Hussar]

I agree with what you are saying but to me it looks like 4e will have less options in its core 3 books than 3/3.5 did in its core 3. Sure it may be unrealistic to assume they should have the Dread Necromancer but wanting them to have necromancy isn't an unrealistic requirement.

The problem is, what did the necromancer have going for him in core PHB in 3e? One extra necro spell and a +2 spellcraft. Never mind that a cleric made a MUCH better necromancer. And, a straight up wizard could do everything a necromancer could do. There was nothing a necromancer could do that a wizard couldn't.

And, the wizard didn't have to lose any access to other spells to do it.

Sure, you had specialist wizards, but, they were pretty much identical to straigh wizards.

Does that mean that 3e had more options? Sort of. You had the option of playing a wizard, or a slightly more focused kind of wizard. It looks like 4e will have actual separate classes for specialists. I wonder if the Shadowcaster from Tome of Magic might be a preview of how they'll work the specialists in the future.

 

[satori01]

Let's face it, 4e will NOT have as many options as 3e at release. That's a completely unrealistic expectation.

Err no that really is not that unrealistic of an expectation , to say that, ( and by no means is this meant to be a personal attack, or demeaning in anyway), shows you are looking at this from a very narrow perspective.

Lets look at a real world example that I think is applicable.....PC Operating systems. Windows XP works fine, not perfect, but better than what came before, and the system lets you do pretty much want you want with a minimum of head ache.

Then Vista comes out, and Vista is supposed to be better, and do things better, and in some ways it does, but because Vista is so new, code for things like Wi-Fi cards and other applications can not run on Vista.

So the choice for many people becomes do I upgrade to the new system and risk losing out on some functionality for the potential gain of better use for some functions, or do I stick with what for the most part works?

Since for my group the point of D&D is to have fun and not having Enchantment and or Necromancy could be a large deterrent to fun....sorry guys no Morgan Le Fey type character for you, sorry Bob you cant play your Inca themed shaman that looks on the undead as a sacred tool that only the holy can use.....but you can be Tim the Sorcerer and blow things up!

Blowing things up in 4E, by default, will have to be so good that other archetypes will not even be considered.

Under WOTC announced release schedule, it might be unrealistic to expect the Enchanter or the Necromancer, under their release schedule. However, on might argue that one should not serve a cake until it rises, until it is done. Simply put No enchantment magic; not quite sure the cake is done.

 

[Lord Ernie]

Lets look at a real world example that I think is applicable.....PC Operating systems. Windows XP works fine, not perfect, but better than what came before, and the system lets you do pretty much want you want with a minimum of head ache.

Then Vista comes out, and Vista is supposed to be better, and do things better, and in some ways it does, but because Vista is so new, code for things like Wi-Fi cards and other applications can not run on Vista.

So the choice for many people becomes do I upgrade to the new system and risk losing out on some functionality for the potential gain of better use for some functions, or do I stick with what for the most part works?

Let me take your metaphor and look at it from another angle. Take the example of a PC OS, and compare XP to a supposedly perfect-working Vista (yeah, I know, big supposition, but we're being hypothetical here).

Now suppose said XP has had support of 3rd party programmers for years, and people have developed tons of custom-made tools and programs that are being used in day-to-day usage and are vastly easier to use than doing everything via the standard interface.

Now suppose Vista is released; this means a new update to the Windows "Core", with improved stability, performance, capability of taking advantage of higher classes of hardware, and so on and so forth. BUT, and this is indeed a big but, all your special tools you're so used to will not simply work in Vista without the programmers releasing new versions. Then it's your choice to make: do I switch over to the new OS for the sake of all the improvements, or do I stay with my old version so I can keep using my old tools? Eventually, of course, most tools will get updated and all the functionality you had in XP will become available in Vista, with the added bonus of the Vista improvements - but that will not happen right away, probably only a few months after Vista's release.

In D&D terms: decently 3.x working versions of an Enchanter and/or Necromancer (i.e. the Beguiler and the Dread/True Necromancer) didn't arrive until later splatbooks (don't quote me on which), and definitely were not in the PHB. What was in the PHB were a couple of specialist wizards who, besides having some extra spell slots, really didn't offer anything better than the standard general caster. Instead of that mess, 4.0 promises (and I say promises... it remains to be seen if they will deliver) to hand out a good, balanced, decently working generalist wizard in the PHB, and later (to continue the analogy: SP1 or somesuch ). bring in additions of specialist casters such as an Enchanter (the Psion) and a Necromancer that will have their own niche, and indeed actually be better in filling in that role than your average Joe wizard.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Err no that really is not that unrealistic of an expectation , to say that, ( and by no means is this meant to be a personal attack, or demeaning in anyway), shows you are looking at this from a very narrow perspective.

Lets look at a real world example that I think is applicable.....PC Operating systems. Windows XP works fine, not perfect, but better than what came before, and the system lets you do pretty much want you want with a minimum of head ache.

Then Vista comes out, and Vista is supposed to be better, and do things better, and in some ways it does, but because Vista is so new, code for things like Wi-Fi cards and other applications can not run on Vista.

Only, in this case, Vista (4E) is incompatible with everything from XP (3E), which is incompatible with everything from Windows 95 (2E). There is no legacy support, and no history of legacy support. Every time the system gets redone, you have to start from scratch, making adjustments until your personally favourite topic gets treatment in a supplement.

We did this when we started playing 3E, before Tome and Blood, Sword and Fist, etc. started coming out. We're going to do it in 4E until they get out a few solid supplement works.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The Powerful Generalist as the starting point has been problematic from the beginning.

A Conjurer should be able to summon significantly better than a Generalist of similar level. Ditto Enchanter, Illusionist, etc.

You can think of it as losing the overpowered Generalist, or you can think of it as gaining many viable new Specialists.

I choose the latter.

 

[The Little Raven]

Err no that really is not that unrealistic of an expectation , to say that, ( and by no means is this meant to be a personal attack, or demeaning in anyway), shows you are looking at this from a very narrow perspective.

You're looking at it wrong.

800 pages of content (the 4e core books) cannot compare with over 12,000 pages of content (the 3e books spanning nearly 8 years). It's simply impossible for that to happen.

Blowing things up in 4E, by default, will have to be so good that other archetypes will not even be considered.

It's called "priorities." They only have a limited amount of space for the core books, so they have to prioritize which concepts get in first. These concepts have to share space with other concepts, so you don't have the 3e issue of two classes (sorcerer and wizard) using more of the core books than all the other classes combined.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Err no that really is not that unrealistic of an expectation , to say that, ( and by no means is this meant to be a personal attack, or demeaning in anyway), shows you are looking at this from a very narrow perspective.

I think you may be misunderstanding.

He wasn't saying "4e at release will have less than 3e at release".

He is saying "4e at release won't cover the entire state of 3e at the end of its run".

Cheers

 

[Ahglock]

The problem is, what did the necromancer have going for him in core PHB in 3e? One extra necro spell and a +2 spellcraft. Never mind that a cleric made a MUCH better necromancer. And, a straight up wizard could do everything a necromancer could do. There was nothing a necromancer could do that a wizard couldn't.

And, the wizard didn't have to lose any access to other spells to do it.

Sure, you had specialist wizards, but, they were pretty much identical to straigh wizards.

Does that mean that 3e had more options? Sort of. You had the option of playing a wizard, or a slightly more focused kind of wizard. It looks like 4e will have actual separate classes for specialists. I wonder if the Shadowcaster from Tome of Magic might be a preview of how they'll work the specialists in the future.

Yeah and eventually 3e had those specialized style classes like the beguiler and the Dread Necromancer etc. If 4e started with some of these specialties in the core 3 books it could be argued it came with just as much, but it doesn't. And even without the specialized classes you could do a fair job of making a necromancer etc by learning the right spells. If there aren't enough of the right spells in the 3 core 4e books you can't even fake it until they decide to release splat book X, which now is CORE.(woo)

The end of 4e very well may have more options than the end of 3e. The beginning of 4e doesn't look to me like it will have the options of the beginning of 3e. The core mechanics being improved may be enough to let that slide for me, but it might not be enough for a lot of others. This really is a tough sell, the changes don't look to be 2e to 3e style in scale and yet you are asked to give up just as much because there totally not compatible.

For people like me it totally can work for them, I haven't played 3e in probably a year now, I'm mainly playing shadowrun 4e, and I started running a SAGA game maybe two months ago. Since my 3e is just stuff on my shelf that I sometimes use for inspiration when writing a non 3e adventure I really am not losing anything in the change.

 

[Rechan]

Yeah and eventually 3e had those specialized style classes like the beguiler and the Dread Necromancer etc. If 4e started with some of these specialties in the core 3 books it could be argued it came with just as much, but it doesn't.

Except that putting specialists in the PHB at the expense of more broader classes isn't that great.

If they put the Illusionist and the Necromancer in the PHB, then that means two other classes would've got the axe. Who do you think deserves to get the axe, just so we have 3 variant wizards?

I'd rather have a broader array at start, and then fine-tune. We all ready know that we're getting a magic book in later 2008. We'll probably see the Swordmage there.

The end of 4e very well may have more options than the end of 3e. The beginning of 4e doesn't look to me like it will have the options of the beginning of 3e.

Considering how there were 11 classes in the 3e PHB and 8 in the 4e PHB, I think that's a given.

But if those 8 classes have les overlap compared to the Holy Not-As-Good-A-Fighter and the Primitive Not-as-Good-A-Fighter and the Woodsy fighter that were in the 3e PHB, I consider that a success.