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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8621268" data-attributes="member: 6877472">So 4e's way of handling magic in general went like this.&nbsp; You had powers specifically designed for in-combat purposes.&nbsp; There were utility powers that might have combat or out-of-combat uses, but were generally short in duration.Then you had Rituals, which is where all the non-combat magical effects were placed; these took a long time to cast and were generally useless in a situation like the &quot;Orcs on Stairs&quot;.4e didn't have a lot of effects devoted to exploration, social interaction, or &quot;narrative elements&quot;, as I like to call them.&nbsp; The design team thought that all of this was best handled with group skill challenges.&nbsp; So the idea of having a profession, building a base, investing in a mercantile enterprise, what have you, was largely vestigial- the adventure was front and center.This sounds weird at first, but if you think about it, such things had become more and more vestigial over the editions- in the 2e era, most groups didn't care about establishing a keep and gathering followers, they just wanted more adventures!Most DM's didn't even allow Leadership in the 3e era, and books about building strongholds and the like didn't sell very well.So in 4e, they had the thought that, if players don't really want this, then we won't bother devoting much effort to it.&nbsp; This, of course, led to older gamers turning up their noses at 4e, and I admit, even I got frustrated with it, when I tried to convert White Plume Mountain to 4e.&nbsp; It just didn't work!So while you could have short range teleport powers, like the Eladrin being able to teleport 30' once an encounter, being able to bounce over long distances wasn't a thing.And, since &quot;magic effects&quot; were locked off from the Martial power source, just about anyone could teleport after awhile except the poor Fighter and Rogue.&nbsp; The Ranger got a few powers because they were partly Primal- I recall my Ranger had a daily utility that let him create a temporary portal on one side of the battlefield, and another adjacent to him, and both he and his allies could use it to blip from one location to the other for the battle.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 8621268, member: 6877472"] So 4e's way of handling magic in general went like this. You had powers specifically designed for in-combat purposes. There were utility powers that might have combat or out-of-combat uses, but were generally short in duration. Then you had Rituals, which is where all the non-combat magical effects were placed; these took a long time to cast and were generally useless in a situation like the "Orcs on Stairs". 4e didn't have a lot of effects devoted to exploration, social interaction, or "narrative elements", as I like to call them. The design team thought that all of this was best handled with group skill challenges. So the idea of having a profession, building a base, investing in a mercantile enterprise, what have you, was largely vestigial- the adventure was front and center. This sounds weird at first, but if you think about it, such things had become more and more vestigial over the editions- in the 2e era, most groups didn't care about establishing a keep and gathering followers, they just wanted more adventures! Most DM's didn't even allow Leadership in the 3e era, and books about building strongholds and the like didn't sell very well. So in 4e, they had the thought that, if players don't really want this, then we won't bother devoting much effort to it. This, of course, led to older gamers turning up their noses at 4e, and I admit, even I got frustrated with it, when I tried to convert White Plume Mountain to 4e. It just didn't work! So while you could have short range teleport powers, like the Eladrin being able to teleport 30' once an encounter, being able to bounce over long distances wasn't a thing. And, since "magic effects" were locked off from the Martial power source, just about anyone could teleport after awhile except the poor Fighter and Rogue. The Ranger got a few powers because they were partly Primal- I recall my Ranger had a daily utility that let him create a temporary portal on one side of the battlefield, and another adjacent to him, and both he and his allies could use it to blip from one location to the other for the battle. [/QUOTE]

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