New tidbit about spells and hit points.

[Sun Knight]

Then the 'overpowered' argument goes away, and those who want to play a truly magical character win a small but important victory.

However in game mechanics it is exactly the same as the crossbow but changes the fundamental nature how magic works which makes it inconsistant how magic worked before. Given in the context of setting and story, such inconsistancies break immersion and definitely is not fun.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I started playing D&D with the Basic Set. The fundamental concept of a wizard was a human who had very powerful magic, but it was limited.

I started playing D&D some time after that, and I *always* played Elven Fighter / Magic-Users specifically because the "Awesome in one fight, lame all the rest of the time" was annoying.

I also played a lot of D&D Gold Box games, and in those (but especially in Pool of Radiance) the Magic-User character was the one you hid in the back of the party and hoped to Torm didn't get hit with a fireball before he was cool enough to start throwing fireballs back.

... and you never memorized any 1st-level spells other than Sleep.

 

[Gentlegamer]

If all you want is a "magical" attack that is the same effectiveness as firing a crossbow, the only problem becomes one of flavor, which is of course subject to the personal taste of the participants, and can be determined from group to group.

But what I mean by this is that the "minor magical blast" has exactly the same characteristics of employing a crossbow, same damage die, same requirement to make an attack roll, same limitation on the amount of "ammo" that is available, same potential liability of having the ability taken from you (such as when you are captured), same gp expense to obtain more "ammo," etc.

Is this what you are looking for? A purely flavor swap, or something more?

 

[Wormwood]

However in game mechanics it is exactly the same as the crossbow but changes the fundamental nature how magic works which makes it inconsistant how magic worked before. Given in the context of setting and story, such inconsistancies break immersion and definitely is not fun.

The only conflict is in comparison to "how it's been done before".

That's not a compelling enough reason for me.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

However in game mechanics it is exactly the same as the crossbow but changes the fundamental nature how magic works which makes it inconsistant how magic worked before. Given in the context of setting and story, such inconsistancies break immersion and definitely is not fun.

Every edition has broken consistency with previous ones. Spells have different effects than they had the edition before, spells in 3rd edition are prepared in advance instead of memorized and forgotten, in 2nd edition everyone used two weapons or a longsword and shield and in 3rd edition there are suddenly large amounts of barbarians with greatswords.

Each time a new book came out I'd retroactively change history in my campaign to allow the new classes to exist. Never heard of a Warmage? Sure you have...Greyhawk City has had a Warmage School for YEARS, you just happened to never come across one before.

I certainly don't have any problem saying "Mages have always had minor magics that they could cast all the time. They didn't want to show off before. Just like rogues could always leap over people's heads and attack them from behind like they can now."

 

[Gentlegamer]

I started playing D&D some time after that, and I *always* played Elven Fighter / Magic-Users specifically because the "Awesome in one fight, lame all the rest of the time" was annoying.

If you limit the experience to pure combat, yes, a wizard will seem to be lame most of the time. There is more to D&D than combat, thankfully.

I also played a lot of D&D Gold Box games, and in those (but especially in Pool of Radiance) the Magic-User character was the one you hid in the back of the party and hoped to Torm didn't get hit with a fireball before he was cool enough to start throwing fireballs back.

... and you never memorized any 1st-level spells other than Sleep.

I would suggest that since you were playing a video game and not a full-fledged role-playing game, your options were restricted to mostly combat, and so the limitation of the M-U class was exaggerated. D&D, as a role-playing game, is not limited to combat encounters.

 

[Wormwood]

Is this what you are looking for? A purely flavor swap, or something more?

Something more.

I expect the at-will abilities to scale, progressing from a low-level 'ping' to powerful 'blasts' at higher levels.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

If you limit the experience to pure combat, yes, a wizard will seem to be lame most of the time. There is more to D&D than combat, thankfully.
I would suggest that since you were playing a video game and not a full-fledged role-playing game, your options were restricted to mostly combat, and so the limitation of the M-U class was exaggerated. D&D, as a role-playing game, is not limited to combat encounters.

No, it isn't LIMITED to purely combat. However, I believe I saw a post where someone from WOTC said that D&D games averaged about 80% of each session on combat. Most of my sessions are about 90%.

It's still the vast majority of what people do when playing D&D. We role play to get the reasons to enter combat, but then we can spend sometimes 10 sessions straight in the same dungeon doing nothing but combat.

 

[Imaro]

No, it isn't LIMITED to purely combat. However, I believe I saw a post where someone from WOTC said that D&D games averaged about 80% of each session on combat. Most of my sessions are about 90%.

It's still the vast majority of what people do when playing D&D. We role play to get the reasons to enter combat, but then we can spend sometimes 10 sessions straight in the same dungeon doing nothing but combat.

This is so not how me and my group play...maybe that's why I've become more and more disillusioned with th game of D&D, especially since the game is being designed from the standpoint that this is 100% true, instead of the standpoint that combat isn't the end all and be all of fun. Yeah, I know...go play another game.

 

[charlesatan]

If you limit the experience to pure combat, yes, a wizard will seem to be lame most of the time. There is more to D&D than combat, thankfully.

I would suggest that since you were playing a video game and not a full-fledged role-playing game, your options were restricted to mostly combat, and so the limitation of the M-U class was exaggerated. D&D, as a role-playing game, is not limited to combat encounters.

First off, many people play D&D differently. While there are some groups that never roll a dice in a session, there are also those that roll lots of dice. Having said that, I think the D&D system has always been a good vehicle for combat. If you want a role-playing intensive game, there are honestly other, better systems at it. D&D 3.0 has been more like "majority is still combat, but we'll give rules for non-combat encounters" which is where some of the skills come in. But honestly, when you look at a class in the PHB, most of the facts presented are concerned with combat: AC, hit points, base attack bonus, etc. In D&D, the norm is that combat is expected (again, your gaming group doesn't have to play D&D this way). And it's also been my experience that if I have a six-hour session, most likely half that time will be spent in combat, even if it's really only one or two skirmishes/encounters. Roleplaying seems to take less time (in terms of encounters). I can have had ten RP encounters in three hours where those three hours could have only lasted two combat encounters.