My First Take

[Traycor]

The whole point of utility spells is that they are situational, and you won't know in advance which ones you might need.

It's actually not that bad. What you are thinking of falls under rituals now. Think of Utility spells as non-damaging combat spells. Things like Dimension Door or Mirror Image.

I actually like the new system and think it avoids the pitfalls of Vancian, but I was agreeing with the previous poster that it has way more of a Vancian feel than expected.

 

[jtrowell]

[...]Rather, I'm a little peeved about things like a Fighter 1 Daily being stronger than a Fighter 3 Daily.

As level 3 powers are encounter ones and not daily, I can assure you that this won't happen.

Did you misread the Fighter 3 power in KotS ?

 

[ExploderWizard]

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.

I wouldn't say Vancian at all. From what I am seeing posted here it looks like all classes suffer from long term memory loss instead of casters only suffering from short term.

Instead of temporarily "forgetting" how to cast a spell, it seems like all classes more or less permenantly forget how to perform abilities as they level. Instead of expanding your array of options as you grow in power you have to "forget" how to do something before you can learn something new. Is this really how its supposed to work? If the powers are really balanced by what level they are aquired what is achieved by restricting access to lesser powers just because you have learned new ones?

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Did you misread the Fighter 3 power in KotS ?

Yeah, it appears that way. Thanks jt.

Edit: nevermind, I'm being dense.

 

[Simon Marks]

It's so you can take them both.

Also, what's with the "Weapon: Weapon: if..." bit? That makes no sense. Are you sure it says that and if so, what does it mean?

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Also, what's with the "Weapon: Weapon: if..." bit? That makes no sense. Are you sure it says that and if so, what does it mean?

Can't verify without the books, but yes I'm pretty sure it does say that.

Certain fighter powers key off specific weapons, and function differently depending on those weapons. For instance, if you wield a spear for a specific power, you might also add your Dex bonus to hit and damage. That kind of thing.

 

[drjones]

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.

And since a good chunk of the old spell list are now rituals that are limited by time/money my impression on rolling up a wizard was that it felt kind of old school for all the griping I have seen about them being either 'nerfed' or 'overbuffed' depending on the griper.

Add the 3 rituals they get at first level and even the pregen damage wizard looks much more well rounded.

 

[Baka no Hentai]

Also keep in mind that as long as a Wizard hasnt used their utility and daily spells yet, they can change what they have chosen by taking a simple 5 minute rest. So even with the worst case scenario, you dont have to wait 6 hours before you can move on.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

"Anybody notice that Vance is alive and well? Most of your best powers are 1/day. Fireball? Stinking Cloud? Sleep? 1/day, if you prepare them.

Considering that one of the "driving forces" behind 4E was to make it where every character would always have something "useful" to do, and to *stop* parties from fighting one encounter and stopping for the day, this appears to have accomplished the exact opposite. Since you can't use the same power more than once, your encounter powers are limited, and your at-will powers stink, you wind up fighting one encounter and sleeping the rest of the day to get your dailies back."

 

[AllisterH]

IInstead of temporarily "forgetting" how to cast a spell, it seems like all classes more or less permenantly forget how to perform abilities as they level. Instead of expanding your array of options as you grow in power you have to "forget" how to do something before you can learn something new. Is this really how its supposed to work? If the powers are really balanced by what level they are aquired what is achieved by restricting access to lesser powers just because you have learned new ones?

1. You do expand the number of options as you level. Only your at-will powers are constant from what you selected at level 1. If you want to get a new power outside of the listed breakpoints, you have to switch out powers.

2. Many of the powers scale (and there's no damage cap) so level isn't as good an indicator as before. For example, SLEEP is good all the way to the top.

In a lot of ways, they weren' kidding when they said ToB was their testing ground.