My First Take

[Charwoman Gene]

My initial first take? It's better than I expected, but the disappointing barts are more disappointing to me than I thought.

Key highlights that were new to me:
Wizards are WAY more vancian than I thought they'd be.

Key disappointments:
Skills. Lack of customizations, loss of background-type skills.

 

[Kzach]

One person's trash is another person's treasure.

Key highlights that were new to me:
Wizards are WAY more vancian than I thought they'd be.

Which I'm annoyed at. My only hesitation in scrapping that is not knowing how the sorcerer is going to be affected.

Key disappointments:
Skills. Lack of customizations, loss of background-type skills.

Lack of customisations?

As for background skills, I really don't see that as a loss. I'm happy to allow the Secondary skills concept from 2e to be used.

 

[Henry]

VANCIAN? Really? If you call the dailies Vancian, I guess, but I really wouldn't. The encounter stuff is used way too often to be called "slotted". I suppose the Warblade and Swordsage from 3.5 would be Vancian too, by that line of thought.

4e is Zelazny-Amberish, maybe, but not Vancian.

 

[Traycor]

VANCIAN? Really? If you call the dailies Vancian, I guess, but I really wouldn't. The encounter stuff is used way too often to be called "slotted". I suppose the Warblade and Swordsage from 3.5 would be Vancian too, by that line of thought.

4e is Zelazny-Amberish, maybe, but not Vancian.

You still prepare your daily and utility spells each day instead of just having all the ones you know available... looks fairly Vancian to me.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Which I'm annoyed at. My only hesitation in scrapping that is not knowing how the sorcerer is going to be affected.

IIRC, the general idea for the sorcerer is that he's barely in control of the power. It's powerful, but may have side effects, good and bad. Like if you use a cold attack spell it puts a frost armor effect on you to damage/slow melee attackers. Pretty sure I saw a very small blurb about that in Races and Classes.

As for background skills, I really don't see that as a loss. I'm happy to allow the Secondary skills concept from 2e to be used.

I wasn't real fond of Secondary Skills in 2e, but it does seem to fit well now. Not sure if that's a change in the game or in me.

 

[Dragonblade]

You still prepare your daily and utility spells each day instead of just having all the ones you know available... looks fairly Vancian to me.

Yes, but you get TWICE as many daily and utility powers as everyone else!

The amount of spells you can have readied is the same amount of powers that every other class gets. You lose nothing and gain options.

I HATED Vancian casting, but I really like the way 4e does wizard spells.

 

[Destil]

And you only need one feat to have three times as many daily powers to choose from as everyone else. This applies to both daily attack and utility powers...

 

[Zinovia]

You still prepare your daily and utility spells each day instead of just having all the ones you know available... looks fairly Vancian to me.

I knew that wizards chose which dailies they'd take each day, but they have to prepare utility spells? Meh.

The whole point of utility spells is that they are situational, and you won't know in advance which ones you might need. That's the reason many of them were underutilized in previous editions. You had to take your best guess at what might be needed this particular adventuring day, and so chose the most flexible spells, rather than the more specific ones. If you knew you were going to be dungeon crawling, you probably wouldn't prepare water breathing. Later you come to a water filled tunnel that would be easily overcome with the right spell. So what happens? As often as not, it would trigger a "rest and rememorize", thus contributing to the short adventuring day problem.

Utility spells, IMHO are the ones that *most* needed to become flexible, and not be subject to the stupid memorization rules of Vancian casting. Ugh. I'll take a look at the actual rules later I guess, and we'll go from there.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Except for the Daily option wizards get, I really didn't see them as Vancian either.

I have to say, I'm still pretty excited about 4th edition. After reading the PHB in depth, I have lots of great ideas for characters and stories for my game.

That said, this excitment is now tempered by full rules, which has shown me some things I am not so fond of. And of course, the editorial errors... I don't mean stuff like "see page XX" or monsters missing from the index. Rather, I'm a little peeved about things like a Fighter 1 Daily being stronger than a Fighter 3 Daily.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Most of the old situational spells are now rituals.