Dragon article -- Class Acts: Wizards

[Baron Opal]

Wow. That's a nice start. Add some rituals for something longer term and you would be set for the heroic tier.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Add some rituals for something longer term and you would be set for the heroic tier.

There already are some long-term illusion rituals in the PHB.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Insight doesn't "see through illusions." It recognizes effects as illusions. Say an adventuring party is dungeon diving, but a Goblin Wizard put up an Illusionary Wall across a path before the adventurers see it. Insight allows a person to recognize that the wall is an Illusion, rather then the whole party to wander past it. A successful Insight roll doesn't allow that person to see through it though as if it wasn't there.

True! (I only looked up insight after writing my post )

 

[Plane Sailing]

Also, Metus gave me a great idea. I have really enjoyed reskinning monsters, but reskinning spells never occurred to me (Outside of adapting the warlock spells' description from one pact to the other).

Although I don't know if a DM would let me get away wtih swapping Cold out for Psychic, as fewer things seem to resist that. But the effects, the effect reskinning is a neat idea.

FWIW I think this would be a bad idea.

One of the things that always annoyed me in earlier editions was that there was very little consistency between 'energy attacks'. Some fire attacks could set things alight but most didn't. Stuff like 'energy substitution' allowed you to change your fireball into a lightning ball because all it did was 1d6 per level and target a particular resistance.

In 4e I'm seeing a lot more thematic effects, even though I've not read through in depth yet. Cold tends to slow things. Fire and acid often have ongoing damage. The different 'energy types' -feel- different in the different spells.

I think that is a good thing, and 'reskinning' powers in the way you suggest would negatively impact that.

All in my opinion, of course

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

The ENEMIES ABOUND power is awesome, omg...burst 1, failure = they qualify as legitimate "allies" for flanking until the end of your next round!

Did I just hear the sound of rogues having ecstasy?

 

[Bagpuss]

So if you use any of these abilities on a Cyclops within 6 squares do they just fail?

 

[Plane Sailing]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080616

Some new powers to for your Devid Copperfield wanna be wizard.

Well, I was surprised quite a bit, since I thought we had to wait for the Psyonics to see more illusions at work. Well, guess this will make someone happy.

Check to see if another thread exists first please! I've merged you with the existing thread.

Thanks

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

FWIW I think this would be a bad idea.

One of the things that always annoyed me in earlier editions was that there was very little consistency between 'energy attacks'. Some fire attacks could set things alight but most didn't. Stuff like 'energy substitution' allowed you to change your fireball into a lightning ball because all it did was 1d6 per level and target a particular resistance.

In 4e I'm seeing a lot more thematic effects, even though I've not read through in depth yet. Cold tends to slow things. Fire and acid often have ongoing damage. The different 'energy types' -feel- different in the different spells.

I think that is a good thing, and 'reskinning' powers in the way you suggest would negatively impact that.

All in my opinion, of course

Depends on how you reskin. You can exchange damage types, but you could also change some of the thematic effects. Change cold to fire and replace slow with ongoing fire 5 (save ends).

It's all a matter how far you go with reskinning, and what you reskin.

But I absolutely agree that Energy Substition spells sometimes felt thematically inappropriate...

 

[hamishspence]

phantasmal terrain

The only one that seems buggy: no duration listed, or sustain.

RAW it lasts forever: mmm, wild magic terrain. Nice. While I suspect it was not intended that way, I might allow it.

 

[Nebulous]

It's one of the reasons I don't like CRPGs as much as tabletop D&D. I remember playing Neverwinter Nights, and every new spell from every new expansion revolved around doing a damage, except in a slightly different way. I would point that out to other people, and they would explain, yes, it's like that, because you can't use your imagination like you can in tabletop, so spells can't be as versatile.

Well here we are.

Illusory Wall is kind of nice, and I do like that. But most of the other abilities just kind of melt into the bland, generic mush that is combat abilities.

That being said, don't take this as a strike against 4E as a whole, since I think 4E does some things right, and I'm about to start running a 4E campaign which I'm excited about. This is just a problem I have with a part of the system.

I'm in your boat, man. It all sort of blends into a mush of similarity. I'm also getting ready to start 4e, and i'm excited about, but this blandness of the magic stuff that was done for the sake of balance really bothers me.