New tidbit about spells and hit points.

[Geron Raveneye]

One thing I can say after taking a longer look at the Reserve feats is that I like nearly all of them. They are nice in that they require you to use up a feat slot to gain the ability, and to keep a spell back in your head to be able to profit from them. With these two requirements, they are nicely balanced as well as fit into the general scheme of "Vancian Magic" while offering an extended effect of that scheme.

A handful are a bit on the powerful side...Clap of Thunder makes me wonder why anybody would want to use Shout instead of simply doing 4d6 damage and 1 round of stunning every time, but that's one out of 20+

Since they are going to alter the general scheme of how magic works in 4E, I doubt it will look exactly the same, but I can at least say that this mechanism for "magic at will" does find my approval.

 

[Sun Knight]

Allowing wizards to do unlimited magic at will like this will at 1st level definitely make them way to powerful. That is my opinion on the subject and that will never change. I do hope that 4e steers away from this sort of "munchkin" gaming.

 

[Cadfan]

Sun Knight- if the unlimited magic is designed so that its power level starts out matching the crossbow backup that the wizard is carrying in 3.5, and then scales to match reasonably close to, say, the Warlock, then your objection is pretty much objectively moot. Even if you choose it as your hill to die upon.

 

[Sun Knight]

The problem here is that it is not scaled to the Warlock because the Warlock is severely limited in its diversity of what it can do magically while the wizard is not. The warlock can use his magical ability unlimited fashion but it is limited in what he can do. The Wizard has the ability to be diverse in his casting and adaptability but is limited in how much magic he can cast in a day's time.

Checks and balances, my friend. If you give a person both the wizard's adaptability and diversity in magic with the Warlock's unlimited use of power do you not see how that is way too overpowered?

 

[Cadfan]

For the obvious reason, "my friend," that its stupid to claim that a 4.0 class you haven't seen and which is being heavily revised (80% power after using up its per day spells suggests that most of its power is not highly versatile per day spell slots) is equal in versatility to a class you have seen in 3.5.

There are perfectly good ways to balance a wizard who gets unlimited magical power. Reserve feats essentially do this already (you have to keep a spell slot open, and they trail slightly behind warlocks). So does the Archmage class. I find it very unlikely that a system in which a wizard gets an at will magical blast is intrinsically unbalanceable.

 

[Jhaelen]

Checks and balances, my friend. If you give a person both the wizard's adaptability and diversity in magic with the Warlock's unlimited use of power do you not see how that is way too overpowered?

Overpowered compared to what? To the 3rd.ed. classes? Sure! But don't know what the other 4th.ed. classes will be able to do

 

[F4NBOY]

Allowing wizards to do unlimited magic at will like this will at 1st level definitely make them way to powerful. That is my opinion on the subject and that will never change. I do hope that 4e steers away from this sort of "munchkin" gaming.

Don't you think allowing fighters to attack with their weapons all day long without getting tired is also munchkin gaming? And at least for THAT we have a real world parameter to compare. We know fighters can't fight for too long without getting tired. We don't have the same parameters for spellcasters. We can't say "a wizard should only be able to cast a few spells per day", or "a wizard should get tired after too much spellcasting" or "a wise mage only uses magic when needed." Where is all that stated? Lord of the rings? Fantasy novels? Movies? D&D is independet, it's a game on itself, it's not bound by parameters or measures. It creates its own in every edition.

Wizards and Warlocks have no real paramater, you can't say "that's a wizard" and "that's a warlock". "The first is supposed to do this, and the former supposed to do that". It's not a valid argument to say the coming rules are wrong. It's completelly subjective. Your ideas are biased maybe by any fictional novels you like, personal taste or even in D&D3.5, but 4E is a new game. You can't apply your personal tastes and beliefs about what you think a wizard should or should not be able to do to say the rules are wrong or overpowered .
Effectivey you are just saying: "I think the new rules are wrong because I don't like them", but with other words.

It's all relative. Anyone can say 3.5 is totally munchkin game compared to 2E. Sorcerers are so broken, near 2E wizards.

If a fighter can swing a sword all day long, (and we know that's hardly possible) I can't understand why couldn't a wizards cast a spell all day long.

Allowing wizards to do unlimited magic at will like this will at 1st level definitely make them way to powerful.

-based on what???

 

[WarlockLord]

Why are we all arguing over whether classes we haven't seen yet are overpowered? We have virtually no idea what will come out in May, and here we are, debating, before we know anything, whether OUR IDEA of the wizard class will be overpowered.

Not to be a threadcrapper, but we don't know jack.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

Hell, munchkin's not even the technically valid term. "Power bloat" might be acceptable, but only if you've got it in your head that D&D is a continuous course from brown box to 4e, rather than a series of games written by different "design teams" (the term is often used rather loosely) with different design goals. Munchkinism, as a power-gaming phenomenon, is as simple as violating the first law of optimization ("Thou shalt respect thy DM and his campaign"); it's trying to be bigger and badder than the whole damn campaign setting. Munchkinism cannot be written into a rule set unless the DM in question scales down dramatically from the core books (something D&D has been terrible at since inception).

C'mon, folks. If you're going to grognard at least get your terms right.

 

[Sun Knight]

Overpowered compared to what? To the 3rd.ed. classes? Sure! But don't know what the other 4th.ed. classes will be able to do

That is one of my worries about 4e. That it is going to be a powerfest game that makes Dragonball Z look tame.