Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5794888" data-attributes="member: 42582">The Vancian issue has been debated at length in a recent thread on general, so I won't rehash that - just state my agreement with [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] that 4e in many ways is closer to Vance than 3E, because it confines wizards to a handful of potent daily spells at one time. (Though for truly Vancian wizards, the at-wills probably should be martial, and the encounters involves potions and similar alchemical items.)But I've just recently reread the Earthsea books, and so have views on them. The spells that we see used include (from memory):*light and illusions (a wide variety); *shapechanging (which is one mode of transportation spell, though dangerous because of the tendency to lose one's sense of self); *weather summoning (the other mode of transportation spell); *conjuration and mending in the style of an AD&D illusionist's minor/major creation spells (used to magically repair boats); *quite powerful holding/binding spells (used against dragons, galley oarsmen etc); *curses and confusion; *healing and herbalism; *animal calling and control; *necromantic summoning/astral projection (used to call spirits and to travel to the land of the dead - also very dangerous).This is the sort of spell list that, in D&D, might be given to a witch class - a sort of druid/illusionist combination, but with the necromantic aspect thrown in also.I still think that this shows that a wizard can feel wizardly while being limited in certain respects - there is no teleportation, no D&D-style elemental or force attacks, and no wish spells. In combat, Earthsea wizards mostly fit the "controller" paradigm - conjuring weather to hinder their enemies, using hold person/monster, and speaking words of command/cursing. The only time that a shapechange is used in combat is when Ged turns into a dragon to fight dragons - in an RPG version of Earthsea, some technique would need to be used to limit the resort to shapechange, or it could quickly come to dominate in a way that would not replicate the feel of the stories.It is a little obscure exactly how powerful (and how mythically powerful) the heroic warriors of Earthsea are, but one important ability they have which wizards lack is rulership - in contemporary D&D terms, then, Earthsea warriors would probably be warlords as much as fighters. Mere warriors, being obviously inferior to wizards, would be NPC fodder, I think.</blockquote>

Verification