Promises, promises...what WotC said, and actually did, with 4E

[lutecius]

There is more to Vancian magic then just daily resources. If it was, psion power points, spell points or Barbarian Rages per day would also be "vancian".

Of course, "Vancian" is not defined precisely.
I would identify the following as critical components:
- Spells are memorized/prepared
- Spells handed out in individual slots
- Spells cast are no longer available
- All spells replenish at the same time.

Wizards still are partially vancian in 4E - they prepare spells from their spell books. But these are not the only ones they can cast. But spells and all other powers replenish at different rate (each round, each encounter, each day).

That's nitpicking. Sure, wizards got some at-wills and encounter powers and some spells are now rituals.
But the point is, they still have vancian casting (by your definition) and most of its aspects were ported to other classes, except the memorisation part (which does make sense for martial powers, but means even less flexibility)

So you can hardly say vancian casting is gone.

I would also add that all the different spell types (at-wills, per-encounters, dailies, utilities of the same level that can be a.w, p.e or daily, rituals, wizard only spell preparation) are even messier than the old magic system, which kind of defeats 4e's attempts at streamlining and simplicity.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That's nitpicking. Sure, wizards got some at-wills and encounter powers and some spells are now rituals.
But the point is, they still have vancian casting (by your definition) and most of its aspects were ported to other classes, except the memorisation part (which does make sense for martial powers, but means even less flexibility)

So you can hardly say vancian casting is gone.

No, I can say that with good conscience. Because it fixes the problems that Vancian Casting caused for gameplay.

The Rituals: You do no longer have to decide between "utility" and "combat".
The Encounter and At-Will Powers: The spells per day are no longer the yard stick that defines how long a party goes on. (Of course, there is another one - Healing Surges).

s an aside, the above is from this thread. Pretty intersting to look at it a year latter.

Indeed.

 

[Scribble]

he thing with 4e's "race matters over all levels" was that it was a contrast to "3e races are unimportant" because they only gave upfront abilities. A dwarf's stability is always an ability in 3e, but they said it didn't matter because he didn't keep getting things.

So, the powers now might be more powerful, and the racial feats more tied to the system, but in contrast to 3e it's not a big deal. Certainly not the big deal that they laid it out to be early on.

Sorry to dredge up the past... ok no I'm not, but:

Well, over the next few years, things changed, as things are wont to do. We blew the game out to thirty levels, but put your most significant racial choices in the first ten. Above that, other choices started to crowd out room for special abilities coming from your race.

In the final version of 4th Edition, most of your racial traits come into play right out of the gate at 1st level—dwarven resilience, elven evasion, a half-elf’s inspiring presence, and so on. As you go up levels, you can take racial feats to make those abilities even more exciting and gain new capabilities tied to your race. You can also take race-specific powers built into your class, which accomplish a lot of what racial substitution levels used to do: a dwarf fighter with the friend of earth power can do something that other 10th-level fighters just can’t do.

The rules have changed a lot since that first idea of the 20-level race, but they still serve the same purpose: to make sure that your race stays not just relevant but actually important all the way up through thirty levels of adventure.

Seems like people either misread, or misremembered what was said.

They said they wanted to make the racial choice matter over the whole career, then lessened it to 10... then basically backed off to you get most of your powers at 1st level, and can coninue to take stuff throughout your levels that effect those powers.

Which is in the end what they did.