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D&D 4E Am I missing something? What happened to spell circles in 4e?
- Thread starter dionysis
- Start date
Ah, maybe "circle" isn't the right word. I mean levels of spells. Like wish was a level 8 spell...
Mostly the levels were used to denote how high in the hierarchy in a mages guild you needed to be in order to even have access to learning the spells. You didn't get "get them in your book" when you level up.
or something...
Mostly the levels were used to denote how high in the hierarchy in a mages guild you needed to be in order to even have access to learning the spells. You didn't get "get them in your book" when you level up.
or something...
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Right. You can certainly use the concept of spell level the same way you did in previous editions, but there are 2 things to note. There are no longer an arbitrary 9 levels of spells, instead there are 30 levels of powers and they correspond to the character level required to use them.
Secondly there is much less of a clear cut increment in power from level to level. A lot more of the usefulness of spells in 4e stems from the ability of the caster instead. For instance the level 1 daily wizard spell Sleep is widely considered one of (maybe THE) most effective spell in the game and its quite common for 30th level Epic wizards to keep this spell in their book and cast it regularly.
Overall spellcasting is a good bit different in 4e, though the basic concept is similar to older editions.
Secondly there is much less of a clear cut increment in power from level to level. A lot more of the usefulness of spells in 4e stems from the ability of the caster instead. For instance the level 1 daily wizard spell Sleep is widely considered one of (maybe THE) most effective spell in the game and its quite common for 30th level Epic wizards to keep this spell in their book and cast it regularly.
Overall spellcasting is a good bit different in 4e, though the basic concept is similar to older editions.
Abdul: Cool.
I really like the concept of levels just because how it can tie into climbing up the social ladder within a mages guild. I haven't even read anything of the concept of mages guild in 4e.
Cool clarification on sleep spell.. looking forward to seeing how it all works out.
I really like the concept of levels just because how it can tie into climbing up the social ladder within a mages guild. I haven't even read anything of the concept of mages guild in 4e.
Cool clarification on sleep spell.. looking forward to seeing how it all works out.
RickVigorous
First Post
I'm not sure what you're talking about re: guilds and spell levels. In earlier editions, spell levels indicated (roughly) the power of the spell, and hence what level you needed to be in order to cast the spell. In this regard, 4e is just like every other edition, except that the spell level numbering system is no longer separate from class levels, as others have noted. They didn't have anything to with guilds, social advancement, or anything like that. Perhaps in your campaigns, the level mechanic was tied into the story in this way, but it wasn't part of the rules (as far as I can recall).
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
No, the rules never assumed that spell levels had to do with anything else besides when you could acquire a spell, but a lot of campaigns did do the fairly obvious thing and tied levels into some sort of guild hierarchy or whatnot, which is cool. Actually I've always seen it more with clerics than with wizards. The old D&D rules did sort of imply that clerics were part of some hierarchy based on levels. Wizards it seems like were always thought of as more loners.
4e really tries hard to break the time honored tradition though of a society where everyone has levels in classes and important people are high level. The base assumption is more like society is organized pretty much like in the real world where people are good at their jobs but unless your job actually involves something like fighting you probably don't have much in the way of combat ability.
So the old fashioned idea of a kingdom is "the king is the 14th level fighter because he's important" and in 4e the king is just as likely to be a level X minion where X is whatever the DM decides makes sense. Maybe the king is a noble and trained with weapons and he's a level 14 minion. Maybe he's a warrior king and he's a level 8 NPC Soldier. He could be King Conan the superhero and be a level 14 fighter like in the old days.
The same would go for any other NPCs. The head of the wizard's guild could be a high level wizard. He could also be a guy that has a really high Arcana skill and is really good at politics and doesn't know squat about combat spell casting, though he might still know some high level rituals etc. Again he could be a minion, though probably a fairly high level one, as he really doesn't know anything about fighting. Of course the EVIL wizard's guild, where you get to be top dog by frying the competition may be a different story...
4e really tries hard to break the time honored tradition though of a society where everyone has levels in classes and important people are high level. The base assumption is more like society is organized pretty much like in the real world where people are good at their jobs but unless your job actually involves something like fighting you probably don't have much in the way of combat ability.
So the old fashioned idea of a kingdom is "the king is the 14th level fighter because he's important" and in 4e the king is just as likely to be a level X minion where X is whatever the DM decides makes sense. Maybe the king is a noble and trained with weapons and he's a level 14 minion. Maybe he's a warrior king and he's a level 8 NPC Soldier. He could be King Conan the superhero and be a level 14 fighter like in the old days.
The same would go for any other NPCs. The head of the wizard's guild could be a high level wizard. He could also be a guy that has a really high Arcana skill and is really good at politics and doesn't know squat about combat spell casting, though he might still know some high level rituals etc. Again he could be a minion, though probably a fairly high level one, as he really doesn't know anything about fighting. Of course the EVIL wizard's guild, where you get to be top dog by frying the competition may be a different story...
Just as likely???
Minion is a game mechanic monster role for attacking PCs with large groups of opponents for them to mow through.
It isn't designed for high level quasi-important NPCs. That would be a rather unusual use of a minion.
I would question a DM having a King minion unless the plot of the story was for an Assassin (or the PCs) to definitively and easily kill the King. Otherwise, I'd question making the King a minion (who is he a minion of? why is he cannon fodder?).
aurance
Explorer
I wouldn't. Skill in combat does not per se make a king. Also, history is replete with examples of sickly kings, child kings, and kings who were assassinated with one stab or hit, all of which would be modeled by a minion. It's perhaps best not to get too hung up on the terminology - all it means is for whatever dramatic or narrative reasons, this guy could die easily barring external protection, which is a trait I would ascribe to the majority of rulers in history.
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