Class being penalized for doing its thing?

[Tharen the Damned]

I do not think that divine or arcane casters will have unlimited casting power in 4th. They wil still have to carefully manage most of their spells. But they will have some sort of spells that they can cast x/day or x/encounter or 1/round.
I do not think (and pray) that clerics will be able to flame strike every encounter from morning to evening. Or that Mages (Wizards/Sorcerers) will be able to fireball the whole day.
But IMO it would make sense if the cleric could heal his party to a degree without giving up his buff spells or flame strikes. It would also make sense for the mage to be able to contribute even after he cast all his powerfull spells. I do not mean blasting spells like 1/encounter MM. It could also be simple Illusion spells or abjuration spells (like mage armor 1/encounter or so) or conjuration or whatever.
So spellcasters have their arsenal of slots/memorized spells that they can run out of but they also have their spells per encounter that do not have the same power but can help the party nonetheless.

 

[jasin]

Typically, the wizards are not liked in fantasy wordls, as they have eldritch powers, but a mob of peasants can still get them once they run out of magic missiles and bash the door to the tower.

First, it's been a long time since the D&D wizard was by default a disliked outcast.

Second, even unlimited magic missiles won't necessarily stop the mob. A magic zap at will will only kill one peasant per round. If there's enough of them... Of course, there'd need to be really lots of them to lynch anyone but a low-level wizard, but between fireballs, cloudkills, fear, that's already true even with a limited number of spells per day.

The clerics are supposed to be holy pepole sent by the gods who get to cure sick people now and then. Which is already wonderful. If they have unlimited curing, then you eradicate sickness hunger and death from the world. And probably a lot of respect as well.

Unlimited curing doesn't necessarily mean unlimited food creation or unlimited disease removal. It does mean much fewer people in a community with a cleric would ever die of injury than in the real world... but again, that's already true with the current system.

D&D never did really model regular medieval (or even regular fantasy medieval) life very well.

 

[Numion]

yes, I run out of spells, but that limitation helps define him as well. Being able to heal all the time would remove the fun from him.

It depends. I love to play clerics in 3E - just not the healing kind. I like to buff up and duke it out on the frontline. If somebody wants healing, he'll have to wait until after the fight, usually. I'm much more useful for kincking the enemys rear for 50 points a round than healing own people for 10 points.

So, in order to not run out of healing, or buffing spells because I've just healed all the time, we buy wands of cure light. I'll shoot them for other PCs, but in combat I'll deal damage.

3E was nice that clerics were suitable for both ass-kicking and healing. Some might say they were too good at ass-kicking, better than fighters, but I just think that was a reward for good playing. It took skill to make a cleric into a combat monster, but I guess that's not too rare these days as efficient cleric builds can be found on the net easily.

But for our group it was an eye-opener when our resident munchkin player pored over the books for a long time when making a new PC, and made the first tank cleric I had seen. (This was in the early days of 3E).

 

[Mighty Halfling]

It will probably start out as something like 3 magic missiles per encounter at 1st level, then by 3rd level it will be 6 magic missiles per round or 1 scorching ray, then at sixth level it will be 9 magic missiles, 2 scorching rays or 1 fireball. Basically, you can fire off one of these per encounter for free. (Or perhaps alll of them if the encounter lasts long enough).
Through each day, all the rest of your spells will be through the regular Vancian selection. It's with those spells that you can start to pick up the utlity spells like invisibility, enlarge and so on.
Just a guess, of course.

 

[MerricB]

Bunch of info on Mouseferatu's blog:
http://mouseferatu.livejournal.com/497515.html

 

[jasin]

Appropriate monsters. Monsters are built by purpose, as much as (or even more than) creature type. It means that they're better suited to toolbox use by the DM, and much harder for players to metagame.

It sounds like it would be easier for players to metagame.

Mouseferatu addresses some of this in the discussions, maintaining that a monster isn't just a basher or just a mastermind, but has it's own schtick: the example is an ettin taking two actions per round, thanks to its two heads.

This sounds OK... but really, this monster things seems extremely vague. I'm not getting what the innovation is. What is the point of monsters being "built by purpose"? How is it different than how monsters were built for the 3E MM? Is the role suppose to inform the design to a greater extent than before, so that we don't get "basher" vampire fighters with crappy hp because of their Undead type?

 

[mmu1]

Huh ? No, they are looking for playtesters... Plus, if the printed the books 10 months in advance, the risk of leaks would be to high.

So, I think they won't be print before february.

They're pretending to look for playtesters. (they claimed at the annoucement they'll be putting a call out over the next several months, for a book coming out in May) From what I've heard at Gencon, the book is pretty much done - it won't actually go to print till next year, but it's much too late for any playtest results to actually result in major rule changes. It's nothing like the 3E playtest.

Oh, and in response to something said up-thread... The World of Warcraft comparison is unavoidable, because, again, from what I heard the Wizards people were using it themselves when talking about successful games.

 

[Someone]

How is it different than how monsters were built for the 3E MM?

For us, there'll be no difference - by us I mean the people that dedicate enough time to D&D that even post about it in boards. We know that an encounter with a vampire fighter may not be the best idea, thanks to the increased CR and lack of a Con bonus. But I imagine it means that unexperienced DMs using the 4e MM will know what monsters to use if they want a melee monster.

 

[Driddle]

I see it as sort of a video-game/comic-book-superhero mentality. Your character "power" or super-ability must not be easily depleted before other members in your party.

It changes the default assumption that magic (arcane or divine) is a resource that overlays mundane reality -- i.e. when magic is used up, we can always rely on physical muscle and weapons. Instead, magic will be fully equal and parallel to martial combat ability.

It's a major paradigm shift.

 

[heirodule]

I swear I'm gonna do what ever I can to minimize my wizards ability to do its magic blast thingy and take a crossbow and crossbow feats.

I'll show the rules who's boss!