D&D 4E Monte Cook Predicts 4e Spellcasting?

[Remathilis]

http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?otherd20_Spellcasters

The 3rd Edition spellcaster has enough spells so that he need not be miserly but not enough so that he can cast them with real abandon. Just enough to encourage him to be imprudent but not enough to actually allow him to back up that tactic.

So, then, why not just go all the way and create a balanced way for spellcasters to do some amount of magic "stuff" all the time? It wouldn't be hard, for example, to create balanced magical attacks or defenses that were on par with other classes' offensive and defensive abilities. In other words, the rogues' sneak attack is designed so that it's balanced even if he gets to make one every round. Surely the wizard can be balanced so that he gets a magical blast of some type every round.

However, resource management isn't a bad mechanic. Quite the contrary. It leads to very interesting play decisions. In fact, it's interesting enough that I often wish that all classes had access to some form of it (that why I created the ritual warrior for Arcana Evolved). Getting rid of it completely would be a mistake.

Imagine, then, a magical class set up with two different kinds of magical powers. Some things characters could do all the time, without cost. These aren't spells so much as just "things they've learned to do with magic." Call them magical disciplines. The other things they could use in a limited fashion, or were costly to them for some reason. Call them spells.

The rest of the article sets up the problem and gives it a solution, but this quote (and in fact the whole article) seems to jive with what has been discussed about 4e spellcasting...

Was that a lucky guess Monte, or were you more in tune that we all first thought?

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Isnt that what reserve feats where for in 3e?

 

[Remathilis]

Similar enough. However, Reserve Feats cost a "feat" to use, Monte is advocating that reserve feats become a "class feature" so to speak, and thats the way I see 4e going...

 

[kenmarable]

I'd say this is a prime example of great minds thinking alike.

Opinions of course vary, but I'd say Monte is a good game designer, and the folks working on 4e are as well. They both saw a problem that needed to be addressed (and frankly, a lot of gamers saw it, too, I've been toying with letting wizards cast low level spells at will to help with this).

No real need for inside info or even luck. There is a perceived problem in 3e spellcasting, and both Monte and the 4e team apparently came to a similar conclusion to solve it. Independent invention gives me more faith that it's a good solution. (However, I don't know how similar Monte's thoughts are to the 4e spellcasting, but the solution to have separate per day and at will/constant abilities is a logical and good solution to the problem that they both came to.)

 

[Bacris]

You could argue a similar concept was introduced with the XPH and psionic focus and the focus-expending feats. These were all pseudo-magical effects that could be used without limit, so long as psionic focus was available. Maybe a very primitive fashion, but a similar concept.

Regardless, the warlock-style mechanic mixed with a finite, greater strength ability sounds like a good mix to me.

 

[TerraDave]

As noted on another thread, he also suggested (and this was while at WotC) spell levels 1-20 to match charecter levels 1-20.

So he seems to have some influance. I doubt it is 100% coincedence.

 

[Umbran]

Well, it may also be that the subject came up during 3e design, so that they were simply continuing a line that Monte had helped create in the first place. Great minds think alike more often when they share a common starting point.

 

[Glyfair]

On his blog Monte is posting about his new campaign. He's using a lot of house rules (not because he needs to, but because he likes to experiment). This one caught my eye:

For example, I'm doing some significant rewriting of the spell system. I've been busy lately working on little things like reshaping the spell list to have 20 levels rather than 9, and developing "always available" disciplines for spellcasters so that they never run out of things to do. As I promised at GenCon to a number of you, though, I'll be posting this stuff when it's done. Maybe as soon as next week.

He also is going experimenting with "hit points."

 

[maransreth]

I did a take of that article from Monte Cook, and came up with this .

So do you think this is something like what the wizard might look like in 4e?