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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WalterKovacs" data-source="post: 4512466" data-attributes="member: 63763">Well, in 4e all damage can be chosen to be non-lethal if they want it to be that way, thus it's entirely up to the players to decide if they are trying to kill their enemies or "knock them out/incapacitate". And, many of those are essentally "save or might as well die". An effect that takes someone out of the fight for quite a long time if they don't save. Out of the 4e PHB: Sleep is hard to pull off, true, but an orb wizard can almost assuredly take out a single foe with it [without having to take multiple iterations of the same spell while going up in levels]. Now, it does require coup de gras'ing the guy to make it permanent since, especially an elite or solo is going to get out of it, but basically it's making someone sleep and beating them up to keep them unconcious. Not as "hands off" as the old wizard, but it's not a "one spell and we are done.". Also, once someone fails the save, you have a whole round until they get another save, and even then, they only save at the END of their turn. So, if the idea is to rob them or run away you do have quite a head start on the guys that failed the saves. Web - deals no damage, creates an area that is constantly immobilizing foes and even when not immobilized is hard to move through. Using some movement effects [thunderwave, not to mention your allies], you can put someone back in the web to keep them out of melee Ottiluke's resilient sphere - One hit, the guy is inside for the encounter ... or until a total of 100 damage is done to the sphere, which still takes him out of the fight for a while. If the rest of his buddies are taken care of by the time he's out ... he may go quietly. The new maze does do some damage [again, which can per RAW, be lethal or non-lethal] but it also puts them away for a few turns, although it's made to eventually let them out, likely after 2 or 3 turns. The time it takes in many fights though, he may be the last man standing when he gets out.  The Will based parts of the prismatic effects don't do damage, and based on the breakdowns that have been done, it's the most likely to hit against most monsters. While everything has damage with it ... there are a number of effects that incapacitate creatures, albeit temporarily. They eliminated "If this spell hits/you fail this save, you are out of the fight" effects, and made them either "fail multiple saves in a row" or "lasts only so long" type of effects. The damage you "happen" to do while keeping someone out of the fight may be enough to bloody them and allow them to surrender through intimidation, or the monster/villain/NPC runs away because the rest of his allies were incapacitated. The fights are so fast, relatively speaking, that incapacitation is merely, you soundly beat them in a skirmish and they surrender realizing if you weren't pulling your punches they'd be dead, etc ... It's only hack and slash if you choose it to be that way. If the party wants to take the bad guys back to town so they can face justice, if they want to release the wandering beasts back into the wild etc, it can go that way to. And the DM could incorporate consequences of peaceful PCs [recurring foes] just as easily as bloodthirsty ones [perhaps authorities on their trail, and if that fight goes badly, suddenly their reputation in urban areas may take a hit]. It's one thing to say that 4e is a certain way, but you can't really prove your point by ignoring things that do exist. And wizards having mostly daily utility powers ... well, that is ALL they had in 3, although they could prepare the same power multiple times [which they can't do now ... however the wizard, more than any other class, has ways to get multiple uses out of their dailies thanks to various higher tier feats and such.]</blockquote>

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