New Design: Wizards...

[Samnell]

This is the first bit of 4e news in about two weeks that I don't utterly hate, and it transpires that I'm not just neutral but actually approve.

About time.

 

[Gloombunny]

What on earth does high vs low magic or at-will vs limited magic have to do with wizards needing orbs and staves? I think you're in the wrong thread here, Sun Knight.

 

[Cadfan]

I don't understand how a spellcaster casting a small spell at will makes a worse low magic setting than a spellcaster shattering cities once per day.

If you want low magic, ban primary spellcasters. That is, has been, and always will be the best way to accomplish that.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

This is the main thing that worries me as well. Down with generic magic items! Let's get rid of the +x weapons and armor too, while we're at it.

Party: "We cast detect magic!"

DM: "You find a sword, a ring, and a book."

Wizard: "Ooh, a spellbook? I open it. What's it about?"

DM: "It's a tome of magic."

Wizard: "Yeah, about what?"

DM: "It's a +3 Tome."

Wizard: "???"

Other than this annoyance, it's a pretty good idea and easy to tweak for campaign flavor. I would hope at least that any magical implement is associated with specific spells as well as a general school. For example, the tome could be a Book of Names, and focus on summoning spells--perhaps allowing the wizard to summon a specific creature every time--but it would also provide a minor bonus to other spells purely for its symbolic value as a magical implement.

I can actually see a lot of potential for these implements to have powers connected to their histories, which famous wizards used them, etc. For example, if you locate the Tome of Thanik, who was a noted demonologist, you gain special powers over demons, as well as the benefit of the rest of the lore in the book (i.e. +2 tome, +4 against demons). Perhaps it even allows you to 1/day summon Thanik's personal demon servant.

 

[Samnell]

I never found 3.5e characters as magic item dependent. In fact most of the campaigns I have participated in and ran rarely has any real potent magic items at all. At most a +3 weapon or armor, a wand or three in the party. No minor artifacts or intelligent weapons that is fo sure.

I'm very generous with magic items in my games. Enemies have them all the time, and the players get to use most of 'em. They can sell the rest and buy or craft whatever they like, provided they can afford it and they're not passing off some nasty exploit under the table.

I still don't see PCs decked out with the Big Six as unfailingly as others here say they do. Magic weapons and armor are rarely priorities for anyone but melee guys. They tend to prefer special abilities to +x on their weapons and not really care on their armor. Few have cloaks of resistance. Stat boosters are common, but that makes excellent world and rules sense to me. It's a feature.

 

[F4NBOY]

Did anyone else think the Arcane Strike, Power Words and Spells will be the Wizard's "at will" "per encounter" and "per day" powers respectively?

 

[Sun Knight]

I shouldn't have to ban a class just to have the desirable effect. That is one of the things I like 3.5e. You want a low magic setting, don't give out magic items, have the spell casters make the majority of the items used. As for the forced to use a spell focus as with the OP states it seems that they are trying to make it overly complicated as well as over powered.

 

[WayneLigon]

3.5e makes allowances for low magic settings. It looks like 4e does not.

Well, if you want a low magic game, you've already had to make some pretty large changes to 3.5. I don't think it's a far reach to expect you're going to have to do that same to 4E.

 

[Baby Samurai]

I guess the DMs I played under and my own games we showed a lot of restraint compared to your experiences.

Don't assume my experiences due to your defensiveness. I too am very frugal (some might say stingy) about handing out magic items, but the default 3.5 D&D game assumes PCs will literally be crawling with magic items at a certain level; even CRs are designed around the assumption of the party having the magic items they need.

I could, if I wanted to be a jack-ass, assume that your experiences come from not playing D&D 3.5 as intended, but I'm not like some people…

 

[Wormwood]

I guess the DMs I played under and my own games we showed a lot of restraint compared to your experiences.

Restraint in this case being defined as ignoring the PC Wealth by Level guidelines?