pawsplay's dealbreaker list

[Kishin]

Every time this comes up, I can come up with more wizards who fight than ones who don't.

Wizards who fight: Gandalf, Grey Mouser, Galen (from Dragonslayer), Harry Potter, Darth Vader, Belgarion, Richard Cypher, Rod Gallowglass, Elminster.
Wizards who don't: Merlin, Miracle Max, Raistilin.

Again, the Mouser is not a wizard. Gandalf is a divine being. Belgarion is a Mary Sue. So is Richard Cypher. In fact, Richard Cypher is probably the President of the Mary Sue club. Rand Al'thor is more Sorcerer than Wizard by 3E and 4E standard, since his power is instinctual rather than trained, but I'd suppose it's agreeable though again, fairly Mary Sue.

Wizards that don't fight: Saruman, Elric off the drugs/pre Stormbringer. (Standard Elric is admittedly a fighting wizard). Sephrenia from Eddings' Elenium/Tamuli. Polgara. Belgarath. Quick Ben Delat. Khelben Blackstaff. The standard Wizard types in the Dark Glory War series.
Mordenkainen.

We could go on and on in both categories. You did a very, very limited count of wizards who do not fight.

Again, to you. My group voted against using ToB and Bo9S, because to us they felt a bit "over the top" and ridiculous. As I've said before, monk has also always been a "banned" core class in my group.

I'm guessing you didn't play too many high level campaigns, wherein your fighters are destined to be wholly outpaced by your casters.

 

[Primal]

Oh no, elven cleric archers got nerfed.

You never played them? Hong, I'm surprised!

 

[SteveC]

I really feel the need to post this, as a big OGL fan.

Anyone who is really excited about 4E should thank their lucky stars that we had an OGL. Without it, 4E would not be the game it is. Why: simple. No OGL, no Mike Mearls working at WotC. Before 3E and the OGL Mike was just a regular guy with no industry connections. His D20/OGL work brought him to the attention of WotC and that's why we have a lot of the game we have today, be that for good or ill.

Here's the thing: right now, there is the next Mike Mearls out there, possibly reading ENWorld right now. Without a real OGL, they may very likely not work on D&D products, and might instead develop their own Heartbreaker of a game. Heck, that game might even be better then 4E. The point is, they'll never get the exposure, and we'll likely never get the benefits of their talents.

The OGL brought us a lot of talent, and made a lot of great companies what they are today. It also gave us a lot of great games that either never would have seen the light of day or else would have used some strange proprietary game engine that would have made them utterly useless to the majority of gamers.

It also gave us its share of clunkers, but I still enjoy talking about the Foundation, and chuckle at the thought of all of those Fast Forward games (especially when they're confused with Fantasy Flight), so on balance I'll take it.

--Steve

 

[Wolfspider]

Thank you, SteveC, for that eloquent post. It reflects many of my feelings.

 

[muffin_of_chaos]

Kinda boils down to whether or not you appreciate balance, doesn't it. 3.x mechanics were terribly unbalanced, even more so than 2E because of the massive range of options presented.
The ruckus over the Paladin mark is an example of how important balance seems to have become to the gaming society in general.
I've always played with flexible, intelligent DMs that believe in maintaining balance while accepting or rejecting rules they don't think make sense. None of us could stand how riddled with mechanical holes 3.x was, and now 4E actually looks like a viable system for character-character interactions. A rule or two will have to be examined and changed, but not to the extent that we'll just give up D&D in disgust as before.
So WotC has reason to market 4E as more mechanically sound than 3E, because it's more obviously true than simply "4E is totally the awesomest thing ever."

 

[pawsplay]

Again, the Mouser is not a wizard. Gandalf is a divine being. Belgarion is a Mary Sue. So is Richard Cypher. In fact, Richard Cypher is probably the President of the Mary Sue club. Rand Al'thor is more Sorcerer than Wizard by 3E and 4E standard, since his power is instinctual rather than trained, but I'd suppose it's agreeable though again, fairly Mary Sue.

Wizards that don't fight: Saruman, Elric off the drugs/pre Stormbringer. (Standard Elric is admittedly a fighting wizard). Sephrenia from Eddings' Elenium/Tamuli. Polgara. Belgarath. Quick Ben Delat. Khelben Blackstaff. The standard Wizard types in the Dark Glory War series.
Mordenkainen.

So I guess the Grey Mouser is no true Scotsman.

 

[pemerton]

it's a simple fact of life (that 4e seems hell-bent on ignoring) that not everybody is going to be able to "do something" 100% of the time.

But in most games, most players get to play the game most of the time. If I wanted to be bored and have nothing fun to do, I'd go to the office, not the gaming table.

5) First level characters are superheroes that can fight small armies from the beginning. Sorry, you should have to earn this kind of power, not have it served to you on a silver platter.

Why do I have to earn the right to enjoy myself playing a game? That's right, I don't, I just start my game at 4th level. Or alternatively, rewrite my game so 1st level (which seems like the first level one might begin a character at) isn't a save-or-die gamble.

I also gather (from playtesters of 4e) that first level heroes can't fight small armies from the beginning.

 

[Kishin]

So I guess the Grey Mouser is no true Scotsman.

Are you seriously going to argue that the Mouser is better represented as a primary Wizard with a smattering of rogue levels (in 3.5E) or in the case of the new 4E rules, a Wizard who took the multiclassing feats for the Rogue class?

Because if you're going to insist on an archetypal Rogue as being a 'wizard', then we have nothing further to discuss.

 

[pawsplay]

Are you seriously going to argue that the Mouser is better represented as a primary Wizard with a smattering of rogue levels (in 3.5E) or in the case of the new 4E rules, a Wizard who took the multiclassing feats for the Rogue class?

Because if you're going to insist on an archetypal Rogue as being a 'wizard', then we have nothing further to discuss.

You are putting words into my mouth. You are insisting that calling him a "wizard" means he is primarily of the Wizard class, which is not true. The archetypal wizard is some part of all characters who are wizards, and the Grey Mouser happens to be one.

It appears to me that the majority of wizards in fiction would be multiclass characters in 4e. That's fine, but it weakens the argument that the Wizard is somehow archetypal, rather than a deliberate synthesis by the D&D writers. There is no reason why a wizard has to be a poor combatant, and many reasons, drawn from the media, why they should not be. There are good reasons why a magician should not be all magic, all the time.

You are sidestepping my point, which remains: of the characters who use arcane magic in fiction, most are competent, even heroic at nonmagical combat.

 

[hong]

You are putting words into my mouth. You are insisting that calling him a "wizard" means he is primarily of the Wizard class, which is not true. The archetypal wizard is some part of all characters who are wizards, and the Grey Mouser happens to be one.

It appears to me that the majority of wizards in fiction would be multiclass characters in 4e. That's fine, but it weakens the argument that the Wizard is somehow archetypal, rather than a deliberate synthesis by the D&D writers. There is no reason why a wizard has to be a poor combatant, and many reasons, drawn from the media, why they should not be. There are good reasons why a magician should not be all magic, all the time.

You still forgot Musashi.