Okay people, a little wake up call.

[Metus]

How is it creative to say "hmm, we appear to need spell ___, which I happen to have"? I think it's far more creative to do lots of things with a limited toolset. As other people have said, "being creative" with spells usually means "breaking the game" (i.e. "can I cast light on his eyes? Will that blind him?" "I summon ten gallons of water into his small intestine, bursting it and killing him", both incredible game-braking maneuvers attempted with cantrips).

Well, in the case of 3rd edition, it felt like the creativity was on both ends. They were creative in their spell selection, and you could be creative in the spell usage, as per your example (which I was grinning about, and thought was quite funny and creative).

So you want to be creative ... but you don't want to be creative? Or you want to be MacGyver the Wizard "I just happen to have a spell of paralyzing white dragon zombies right here!"

To be fair, I would consider MacGyver to be closer to 4th edition - working with limited tools, instead of an arsenal, as he seemed to do in the shows.

This just ... doesn't work. One of the fundamental reasons behind Wizards being so powerful in 3E is that they got a million and one options for what they could do (even the books on alternative magic systems included spells!). You're also attempting to balance 1000 different options multiplied by every class made, and asking players to learn a completely different system for every class made.

What you're actually asking for is that the 4E rules be made up of Magic, Incarnum, Book of 9 Swords, Psionics, Shadow Magic, Pact Magic, Truename Magic, and Artificers. Which is very bad, because it's probably impossible to balance completely different systems (the most balanced combat system I've ever encountered? World of Darkness. It's exactly as easy to kill someone with a gun as it is with a sword. Why? Because they both use exactly the same system)

Oh, I'm aware of how impractical such a system would be. I would be very, very impressed if any game developer managed to pull that off. But, I took what I could get, which was the 3rd ed. wizard. 4th ed. doesn't even have that for me, anymore.

But please recognize that the game has a fundamentally different design goal than what you want. It's like saying "boy, this chocolate cake sure is disappointing" while eating a bagel.

No doubt. That's what I gathered after having read the rule books, that WotC was going for a different design goal than what I would want. So, I was voicing my disappointment with their change.

 

[hong]

And now I see it as nobody can do anything varied. If anything, I feel like they should have gone in the opposite direction: 1001 things that every class can do that no other class can.

No. No, they should not have done that. Cf. Shadowrun and netrunners.

 

[Metus]

No. No, they should not have done that. Cf. Shadowrun and netrunners.

It's odd you mention Shadowrun. I love that system! (Now more than D&D, methinks).

 

[bjorn2bwild]

and on the subject of only being able to cast fireball once per day,

you can only cast one spell named fireball per day.

Spells that are in essence pretty much the same as fireball, but aren't called "fireball" may be cast more frequently.

for example:

1 at-will power, burst 1 fire
1 encounter level 1 close blast 5 fire
1 encounter level 3 close burst 3 fire
1 encounter level 7 burst 2 fire
1 encounter level 13 burst 2 fire and cold
1 encounter level 17 burst 2 fire
1 encounter level 27 close blast 5 fire and necrotic

In fact, many of these powers exceed the damage dealing capacity of the fireball spell, and this is not by accident, as fireball is merely a level 5 spell.

 

[theNater]

abbreviated, it looks like 4/2/4/4(1+10)/5(1+8) and 9 rituals for a total of 39 unique spells known including cantrips.

Thank you, bjorn2bwild.

So, peeling away the cantrips(so I don't have to count 3e wizard's knowledge of every cantrip in the game), but leaving in rituals(because some of the spells 3e wizard takes may well be things that have become rituals), we get the 20th level 4e basic wizard with 35 spells known vs. the 3e basic wizard with 45.

I guess it is a meaningful decrease in options. Good to know.

Myself, I get option paralysis when I've got more than about 10 things to choose from(heck, sometimes I get it when I've got more than 1 thing to choose from), but I can recognize the desire to have exactly the right tool for every job.

 

[Sashi]

Well, in the case of 3rd edition, it felt like the creativity was on both ends. They were creative in their spell selection, and you could be creative in the spell usage, as per your example (which I was grinning about, and thought was quite funny and creative).

Yes, I agree that both of those are very fun/funny and creative things to do with the spells. They're also things that are fun/funny once. They're funny exactly until the 10th level party encounters the second level cleric who casts Create Water and kills them all.

And it's still not creative to have a giant toolbox that you grab things out of. A computer programmer is not creative for saying "I need to sort 40MB of data, I'll just select the proper algorithm from my vast library" He's creative for creating an entirely new algorithm, or applying an old algorithm in a new way. D&D (even 3E) allowed you to do neither. Almost every spell turns into a web of "cants" (just as an example, you can't summon anything inside of any other creature, so blowing people up with summon water is specifically forbidden, this was included for exactly the reasons I described)

Getting past a trap in 3E with spells I could:
Cast Fly (equivalent to jumping over the pit, only more reliable)
Summon a monkey to jump up and down on the pressure plate (equivalent to poking it with a stick)
Cast Wall of Force and walk over it (lay a plank down)
Cast flaming sphere and roll that down the hall, burning away the arrows in their recesses. (throw oil everywhere and light it on fire)

None of which are particularly inventive uses of the spells, or even inventive ways of bypassing the trap. An inventive way would be to track down the designer of the trap, and give him noogies until he told you how to bypass it.

Casting "Detect Traps" to find traps isn't creative, casting "Create Food and Water" and watching for the cracks that Ants come out of, then avoiding the tiles in the floor with lots of ands, that's creative. It's also unnecessary, because there is a "find traps" spell.

About the only time I've actually had a player spontaneously think of a creative use of a spell that wasn't game breaking was when one of my players summoned a wall of iron to punch a hole in the floor of a third story room the party was trapped in, thus creating an escape route.

 

[LowSpine]

Just about the only thing that has disappointed me is the at-wills. I assumed there would be loads of dailies, encounters and at-will powers, but each class has only 4 at-wills to choose from and can only have 2 ever. Which they start with.

(There are utitility at-wills but they are utility which are okay but don't have the umph.)

I would at least bump up the at-wills through level progression so that they end up at 4 like the dailies and encounters, but also have at least a couple of more options with them.

Other than that everything seems okay. The whole no roleplaying stuff is just stupid, because D&D has never really had any roleplay stuff other than a few basics and the player/dm imagination.

If anything there is more roleplaying stuff than there ever has been.

Secondary skills and non-weapon proficiencies were just a paragraph of after thoughts. 3E which was considered killing roleplaying had the best roleplaying skills ever. 4E has simplified this system a great deal.

 

[That One Guy]

4E definitely reduced the complexity of the game, this is true. But for me it's like how Tangrams are less complex than a Jigsaw puzzle. For you, it appears that the reduction is more akin to how Tic Tac Toe is is less complex than Chess.
I'm not going to disagree with you that the game is now simpler, but I'm going to disagree that the game being simpler is calamitous and/or wrong.

I'd say Pente opposed to chess. The rules are pretty simple, but the strategy in the game is amazingly fun.


I don't have much love for tic-tac-toe. It always felt like to me either tie or hope your enemy doesn't know your winning strategy.

In regards to Metus, I think your complaints are valid. The wizards' options are no longer dizzingly long. The utilities and rituals don't do it for you... and you feel shafted, correct? That's a bummer. I think utilities and rituals will provide the tools needed for spellcaster rocking and neither of us can possibly convince the other one. BUT, for what it's worth, I do understand the feeling of options being taken away and how it feels unfair/disappointing. I hope you enjoy playing whatever game you choose to, and if you play 4e find it fun and rewarding.

 

[Exquisite Dead Guy]

Just about the only thing that has disappointed me is the at-wills. I assumed there would be loads of dailies, encounters and at-will powers, but each class has only 4 at-wills to choose from...

Can you say splatbook?

...and can only have 2 ever. Which they start with.

True, but there are options for swapping them out later.

 

[Pbartender]

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, instead of limiting everyone's options and forcing more usage out of the options that are available, I prefer having thousands of options, ideally ones that are unique to every class. In 3rd edition that was the purview of the wizard, which is why I liked the wizard.

This just ... doesn't work. One of the fundamental reasons behind Wizards being so powerful in 3E is that they got a million and one options for what they could do (even the books on alternative magic systems included spells!). You're also attempting to balance 1000 different options multiplied by every class made, and asking players to learn a completely different system for every class made.

It's not that it doesn't work, but that it can't work.

In 3E, the wizard didn't have thousands options unique to the wizard class alone. It had thousands of options that allowed it to do everything any other class could do, but better and with prettier window dressings. Sooner or later, you come to the point where the multitude of unique options aren't unique anymore.


To contrast Metis, last week, when we played through a bit of Keep on the Shadowfell, my wife mentioned that for the first time ever in any edition of D&D, she would be interested and happy playing a wizard or a cleric... A comment that astounded everyone in our group along the lines of "He likes it! Hey, Mikey!"