Essential Mage: The return of schools

[UngeheuerLich]

i think he means features. Orb mastery etc is gone (although he uses tome of readiness more or less)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Looks like my guess that the schools of magic will be returning was accurate. However, it looks a mage's school of magic will have less of an effect on him than a warpriest's domain: it gives a benefit, but no pre-selected at-will power, suggested encounter power, and no level 1 utility power.

It also seems that a mage will get to choose two at-will powers in addition to magic missile, for a grand total of three at-will powers (presumably four if human).

I wonder though are the at wills only from the list presented. That they cannot pick regular wiz at wills.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I wonder though are the at wills only from the list presented. That they cannot pick regular wiz at wills.

We know from last weeks article that whenever a class from Essentials gets a power with a level listed, they are allowed to swap it out for any other power from their class at the same level. Thus, all of the 1st level Wizard powers are available. But they can't swap Magic Missile since it lacks a level.

 

[Pickles JG]

Yeah, so far this Wizard just looks more powerful than the PHB Wizard. They get class features as they go up levels, 3 at-wills instead of 2, and the ability to choose different encounter powers from their spellbook each day. All with no loss of power choice.

Doesn't seem to be a downside. Even if their class feature isn't the best, I think all of that stuff more than makes up for the lack of most of the Wizard's class features from the PHB and Arcane Power.

The article as a whole made me feel all warm inside but this is a nagging concern - the new classes seem at present to gain more than they lose.

Despite that I hope that fighters get the pull from Come & Get it as a class feature without the attack for damage though. A bit like inervation in WOW (IIRC) its mandatory to feel defendery.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Nope, they still get feats at all the same levels normal characters do. And someone from WOTC (can't remember who) confirmed that the only reason they include the feat and xp fields in the table at all is to avoid having to flip pages. All classes in the Essentials book use the same XP table as old classes and gain feats at the same rate.

Ah. Right. Is Ritual Casting on there?

 

[tyrlaan]

I wonder if they plant to "patch" existing wizard powers with spell school keywords... I can see both sides of the coin on this one.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't agree that the Mage is more powerful than the Wizard. It COULD be, if the various class features we can't see are strong, but they've already lost ritual casting, and implement mastery at the very least. That's a cost of a feat slot and a feature you can't get at all (maybe at paragon with a feat). In return they have 4 class features and can swap out encounter powers. Gaining MM as a freebie is almost worthless.

My guess is that PHB1 Wizards will get the encounter power swap as errata, its trivial and would be consistent (though it may require rewriting a few items and the Tome implement mastery). Its hard to believe the 4 class features will be all that powerful. Maybe they'll be an implement mastery and what, something worth a feat, and whatever else. One could be Ritual Caster. In fact they could be Ritual Caster and then the others could be "gain 2 rituals of your level or lower", which would actually put Mage at virtual parity with Wizard.

Its far too soon to say this class is more powerful. Even if it is, the difference is going to be pretty marginal. If I really want Staff of Defense, then I'm not going to be all broken hearted to miss out on 1-2 other minor things to get it.

 

[ExploderWizard]

We know from last weeks article that whenever a class from Essentials gets a power with a level listed, they are allowed to swap it out for any other power from their class at the same level. Thus, all of the 1st level Wizard powers are available. But they can't swap Magic Missile since it lacks a level.

Magic missile does have a level. It says "Wizard Attack 1". If it did not have a level then PHB wizards could no longer get it!

I don't think they can trade it though because it is a specific bonus power for mage instead of an unnamed extra slot. The way I read it, the mage gets MM and pick 2 others NOT 3 at will slots.

What I am excited about is new versatility in encounter powers. Being able to swap out encounter, utility, and daily powers is awesome.

 

[erf_beto]

Ah. Right. Is Ritual Casting on there?

No, there's nothing about Ritual Casting on the article, but we don't know what Aprentice, Expert and Master Mage means. They could very well have rituals from the school you choose to specialize.

And I hope they errata the older spells to add the new school keywords, but only with a list of spells published so far, or saying "all pre-essentials spells with the Fire, Cold, Lighting and Acid keywords can be considered evocation spells. All spells with the Illusion keyword belong to the Illusion school", etc. I don't want the next errata to have 279 pages of reprinted wizard spells... :S

They did mention they would change a lot of things with the wizard encounter spells.. who knows what else?

 

[fba827]

Ah. Right. Is Ritual Casting on there?

If I recall correctly from the earlier essentials cleric warpriest preview, while they didn't get ritual casting either, they did have one feature in the chart called "Raise Dead" which coincides with the name of a ritual -- so it is possible that the mage, while not receiving ritual casting, will receive as part of it's "school" benefits some utility type abilities that emulate various rituals.