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<blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 5119737" data-attributes="member: 32164">Interesting commentary. As someone who likes 4e and plays it regularly (DMs, actually, but...), I can see all of your points. I'd even venture to say I agree with most of them.The wizard spell concern is certainly a valid one. While it's less obvious in the Quick-Start rules, there are still utility spells. As has been mentioned, the PHB Wizard gets prestidigitation, mage hand, light, and ghost sound as &quot;at-will&quot; powers. That handles almost all your minor magical effects.However, the PHB Wizard is basically a battle mage (or &quot;invocation expert&quot; to steal an earlier term) with a few &quot;other&quot; powers that are more &quot;universal&quot; wizard abilities (like flight, invisibility, and so forth). Divination and non-combat protection spells have largely been moved to rituals, as were most of the traditional &quot;handy, but not necessary&quot; spells like Tenser's Floating Disc. To that list, Arcane Power adds summoning and illusion spells to the Wizard's repertoire. But yeah, that's pretty much it.I think largely as a result of trying to &quot;make room&quot; for all the other classes, three formerly very broad classes (wizard, cleric and fighter) have been narrowed considerably. Since the wizard is no longer the game's &quot;primary spellcaster,&quot; but just one of many, certain spell types have been turned over to other classes where appropriate. For example, buffing, hexing, and healing magic are largely (although not exclusively) the province of characters that fill the &quot;leader&quot; role (bards, clerics, shamans), the bard is the master of charms, and the druid is the polymorph class.Similarly, the fighter class is now targeted at being a melee bruiser, and so is pretty ineffectual as a skirmisher or ranged combatant. The cleric is still a great healer and buffer, and the best at dealing with the undead, but is, at best, a secondary combatant.The plus side is that the classes are more equal. But on the minus side, they're also less flexible.I'll share some thoughts on hit point and healing surges in a future post, but I have to run for now.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="JohnSnow, post: 5119737, member: 32164"] Interesting commentary. As someone who likes 4e and plays it regularly (DMs, actually, but...), I can see all of your points. I'd even venture to say I agree with most of them. The wizard spell concern is certainly a valid one. While it's less obvious in the Quick-Start rules, there are still utility spells. As has been mentioned, the PHB Wizard gets prestidigitation, mage hand, light, and ghost sound as "at-will" powers. That handles almost all your minor magical effects. However, the PHB Wizard is basically a battle mage (or "invocation expert" to steal an earlier term) with a few "other" powers that are more "universal" wizard abilities (like flight, invisibility, and so forth). Divination and non-combat protection spells have largely been moved to rituals, as were most of the traditional "handy, but not necessary" spells like Tenser's Floating Disc. To that list, [i]Arcane Power[/i] adds summoning and illusion spells to the Wizard's repertoire. But yeah, that's pretty much it. I think largely as a result of trying to "make room" for all the other classes, three formerly very broad classes (wizard, cleric and fighter) have been narrowed considerably. Since the wizard is no longer the game's "primary spellcaster," but just one of many, certain spell types have been turned over to other classes where appropriate. For example, buffing, hexing, and healing magic are largely (although not exclusively) the province of characters that fill the "leader" role (bards, clerics, shamans), the bard is the master of charms, and the druid is the polymorph class. Similarly, the fighter class is now targeted at being a melee bruiser, and so is pretty ineffectual as a skirmisher or ranged combatant. The cleric is still a great healer and buffer, and the best at dealing with the undead, but is, at best, a secondary combatant. The plus side is that the classes are more equal. But on the minus side, they're also less flexible. I'll share some thoughts on hit point and healing surges in a future post, but I have to run for now. [/QUOTE]

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