Bo9S as a Model For The Magic System...

[Khaalis]

While I do believe that Bo9S:ToB is the early incarnation of some of the 4E abilities I do not think they will replace spells as the magic system. Instead I believe they will be an aside to the spells. Keep in mind that they said Vancian spells are only "mostly" going away, and that these types of spells only make up about 20% of the caster's arsenal. I fully expect Fireball to still be a "Vancian" spell. At the same time however, I expect to see them have Bo9S:ToM style 'powers' (e.g. from something like the "Emerald Frost" discipline) that are their "per encounter" abilities. JMHO.

 

[Scribble]

While I do believe that Bo9S:ToB is the early incarnation of some of the 4E abilities I do not think they will replace spells as the magic system. Instead I believe they will be an aside to the spells. Keep in mind that they said Vancian spells are only "mostly" going away, and that these types of spells only make up about 20% of the caster's arsenal. I fully expect Fireball to still be a "Vancian" spell. At the same time however, I expect to see them have Bo9S:ToM style 'powers' (e.g. from something like the "Emerald Frost" discipline) that are their "per encounter" abilities. JMHO.

Perhaps... Especially with the stances and such.

The Cleric insta heal thing on the crit seemed like a stance... (Upon a successful crit you can heal one teammate...)

So did the Mage's Fire Resistance...

Some of the Dragon's abilities seemed like counters and strikes as well...

Ironically, BO9S didn't need to do things that way.

Since all maneuver slots are held in common, there's no major reason that you should have to replace a maneuver with a nearly identical but more powerful version. Just let the maneuver scale.

With spells, you need an 8th level spell to be inherently better than a 2nd level spell because its value is tied to its 8th level spell slot, but with maneuvers levels only control when you gain access. Once you've gained it, scaling is moot since it all comes from the same maneuver pool anyways.

I'm not sure I'd call that irony...

It seems to me it was done that way so that you're never really "locked" into one character design. Ultimately you have the choice to either improve your fireball (which may incur other prereqs as well) or switch to another attack mode. or simply leave things as they are, and switch oput another lower attack. (Maybe end up with two fireball attacks..)