D&D 4E Revised 4E Wizard Class with Freeform Spellcasting System

[Garthanos]

Very early on in the game, I was doing a metric ton of multi-marking and establishing catch-22s

Love the damned if you do and damned if you don't action of the fighter class.

 

[Upper_Krust]

It might indeed be too powerful... hence the sub discussion Abul and I have been having about Sleep and how legacy SOD or SOS may not have been appropriate.

I knew there was some reason I left it out.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Firstly apologies for the slow reply...

Yeah, we clearly have VERY different ideas about what powers are and do in 4e. That's cool. Suffice it to say that from my perspective powers have a much wider variation than you see, and I wouldn't know how to play 4e as it is with this narrow a range of effects.

But my point is that FAR too many (official) powers are very similar and just there to pad out the books. Many are unnecessary and lead to rules bloat.

While you can argue my 2-page Class Revisions don't allow every single thing we see in the official 60+ pages of powers (from all sourcebooks) they do allow for a very large amount of those powers to be duplicated. Added to which anything not already featured could fit into a SINGLE extra page.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Honestly, I think it would be interesting to hear someone like [MENTION=12749]MwaO[/MENTION] who's got a really good handle on powers and tactics and the subtle trade-offs between different things. There's a LOT MORE GOING ON with 4e powers, particularly wizard ones in PHB1, than you seem to believe.

The differences between powers can be quite signficant even for subtle variations. Much of 4e tactics is based on this. For instance you called Thunderwave "overpowered", but you are INCORRECT. Its a good power, but close blast 3 is a very tough thing to use consistently in tactical situations with the rest of the party to consider (you will QUITE often end up hitting at least one ally with it). This reduces the power's potency considerably and puts it on a par with others. Also push CAN be a useful effect, but it can also be utterly worthless much of the time. Similar analysis can be done with other powers, and really only extensive testing and analysis can tease these things out.

I am sure rules lawyers love the minutiae of different ranges between two different Ray 'spells' but I don't see that as adding depth, simply breadth.

As regards Thunderwave, its slightly better than the other powers in its bracket - that's why its so popular. I went a bit overboard saying it was overpowered though.

Yes, you can add rules to include the effects I noted as missing, but I assure you that the addition of more such, as well as '0 die cost' minor effects, more save options, sustain options, etc. will cost you considerable page count. This is because these things can and will interact, in ways you are not predicting, which will require additional rules to try to handle [MENTION=12749]MwaO[/MENTION] pointed out 2 in your existing implementation, but the numbers will increase GEOMETRICALLY with more options).

...well the two 'flaws' were completely new energy mechanics I created to add diversity.

I am not even attempting to get into entire ranges of wizard powers you haven't addressed at all, such as summons, a wide variety of different types of conjurations, powers with movement effects and secondary effects, etc. And what about other options, such as miss effects, outright effects that aren't related to hitting or missing, etc. etc. etc.

Just as examples from the Wizard list in PHB1:
Bigby's Grasping Hands
Frostburn
Lightning bolt
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere
Prismatic Beams
Crushing Titan's Fist
Ice Tomb
Evard's Black Tentacles
Chain Lightning
Acid Storm
Elemental Maw
Maze
Prismatic Spray
Confusion
Forcecage
Legion's Hold

These are ALL powers which would require additional effects to emulate in any close way at all. Obviously you can just leave wizards with mostly straight up blasting damage as their option, but how then would you distinguish them from Sorcerers?

The situation is this though, I simply don't foresee how with ONE extra page I couldn't cover EVERY power listed in all the sourcebooks. We are simply talking about a few new effects and a few new delivery systems.

If anything adding those new effects and delivery systems would completely blow the spell possibilities wide open.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Ummm it is an attack vs Will... just not two attacks to gain an effect

My mistake - simply highlights what having my head out of 4E rulebooks for 6 years will do to someone.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Firstly apologies for the slow reply...



But my point is that FAR too many (official) powers are very similar and just there to pad out the books. Many are unnecessary and lead to rules bloat.

While you can argue my 2-page Class Revisions don't allow every single thing we see in the official 60+ pages of powers (from all sourcebooks) they do allow for a very large amount of those powers to be duplicated. Added to which anything not already featured could fit into a SINGLE extra page.

Yeah, I agree that many powers, though not most by far, are of limited utility. There aren't a LOT that are actually worthless or entirely redundant though. One thing is, there's a lot of trade-offs involved. You will see some powers that are close functionally, but at different levels, and with subtle variations. Those variations make a difference in 4e! Also they present choices to players, take A at level X or B at level Y (probably because you want to take something else at X). While the large size of the power lists might be argued to offset the value of these minor variations, there IS a good argument to be made, and I think you're kind of just passing over it when you dismiss them as 'just there to pad out the books'. I think that the 4e developers weren't 'padding out books', they were filling in actual niches where they saw that someone wanted another power, in at least many cases.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am sure rules lawyers love the minutiae of different ranges between two different Ray 'spells' but I don't see that as adding depth, simply breadth.

As regards Thunderwave, its slightly better than the other powers in its bracket - that's why its so popular. I went a bit overboard saying it was overpowered though.

There's a huge amount of perception there though. In the thread about how broken Beguiling Strands is, it was roundly criticized for being 'worthless and no more than a filler for people taking a 3rd at will'. 4e is so finely balanced that EVERYTHING is situational and conditional. I think T-Wave is potentially a very good power, but at the same time its a hard power to actually use in a build.

...well the two 'flaws' were completely new energy mechanics I created to add diversity.

Right, I just think you're going to quickly run into a lot of those flaws when expanding your sort of mechanics to cover more of what 4e does, that's all.

The situation is this though, I simply don't foresee how with ONE extra page I couldn't cover EVERY power listed in all the sourcebooks. We are simply talking about a few new effects and a few new delivery systems.

If anything adding those new effects and delivery systems would completely blow the spell possibilities wide open.

I'm a bit dubious of this claim, but I would be happy to be proven wrong. Again, I think there will be a bunch of questionable combos there though.

 

[Garthanos]

There's a huge amount of perception there though. In the thread about how broken Beguiling Strands is, it was roundly criticized for being 'worthless and no more than a filler for people taking a 3rd at will'. 4e is so finely balanced that EVERYTHING is situational and conditional. I think T-Wave is potentially a very good power, but at the same time its a hard power to actually use in a build.

And utterly over shadowed by Beguiling Strands... in the same build slot, ie fool you ditwad controller for taking Thunderwave.

 

[Garthanos]

My mistake - simply highlights what having my head out of 4E rulebooks for 6 years will do to someone.

I was invoking a later official adjusted version ... which is marginally more powerful according to those who make fine distinctions but having easy value in its original form - (Targeting will made some of its effects more reliable). In my opinion in either case is an acceptable simplification in a game of D&D subject to taste you would likely prefer the adjusted version. The range of pull is well within a battles threat range and deceptions being reliable at level 7 (one level under raising the dead is ummm yeah check out how close this power is like a level 1 wizard at will -- ie this is actually kind of weak letting the pull be automatic is pretty tame for a 7th level effect)

You might need to separate your taste in the powers from the players being able to construct them if you want this tool to really do it's job.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And utterly over shadowed by Beguiling Strands... in the same build slot, ie fool you ditwad controller for taking Thunderwave.

Meh, one does thunder damage, one does psychic. One puts out a pretty decent amount of damage, the other doesn't. One targets FORT and one targets WILL. They are, to some extent, useful for different things. I tend to agree that BS is a bit of a spoiler power, being party friendly and just generally being obviously simple to employ. The damage output of T-Wave isn't ENOUGH more to have a vast impact, etc.

I'd actually use this to point out how some fairly trivial differences between powers makes them very different in play. For a front-line 'blast 'em up' wizard staff build T-Wave can be a very solid choice, even with BS in the mix, though most wizards would now likely take the latter by default. Still, you can build up a build that is very potent with 'storm' powers and does things like carve out a single ally that gets missed, expand the power's effect, increase damage, etc. All this will apply to many other powers for such a build, so it isn't particularly a foolish use of resources. If you're going to build in that direction ANYWAY, then this is a fairly smart power to have.

4e is subtle. That's one of the two blade edges of this two-page thing, it misses a lot of that subtlety.