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

[Garthanos]

Need some [IRONY] tags, there. ;P

let er drip

 

[Upper_Krust]

Math is severely off. +2 area for -1 die? Level 19 Wizard can disintegrate in an area 3 burst as an encounter option? i.e. do Encounter attack, AP: Encounter attack - anything you hit twice is dead…

Hey there...its been a while since I went over the math but...

L19 wizard Encounter Power (Area Burst 3) w. Disintigrate is dealing 1d6 + 1/4 target's Max. Hp

So twice is 2d6 + Bloodied basically.

That doesn't seem overtly powerful, given interupts, spell res and such. I'm sure there are better things by the official books (IIRC).

 

[Upper_Krust]

Speaking of class features perhaps clerics could have a class feature that makes the power more ally friendly.

While I never got around to posting up the Revised Cleric Class one of the big differences I was going to push is that Cleric Spells did not have Friendly Fire whereas Wizard Spells did.

 

[Garthanos]

If 5e looks anything like what you have done here, I would be completely sold on it.

It definitely doesn't LOL

 

[Garthanos]

While I never got around to posting up the Revised Cleric Class one of the big differences I was going to push is that Cleric Spells did not have Friendly Fire whereas Wizard Spells did.

I like sparking people to think about this stuff it really is massively worthwhile 4e has a far more solid basis than ahem the half backwards edition (and I trust what fans can do more ).

 

[Garthanos]

I like sparking people to think about this stuff it really is massively worthwhile 4e has a far more solid basis than ahem the half backwards edition (and I trust what fans can do more ).

If we follow through and have each others backs on checking things

 

[MwaO]

Hey there...its been a while since I went over the math but...

L19 wizard Encounter Power (Area Burst 3) w. Disintigrate is dealing 1d6 + 1/4 target's Max. Hp

So twice is 2d6 + Bloodied basically.

That doesn't seem overtly powerful, given interupts, spell res and such. I'm sure there are better things by the official books (IIRC).

Ok, slightly misread it, but that's still crazy powerful. A 20th level Standard would take 45 or so damage from that and quite possibly dies from the damage dice rolls. A 20th level Solo would take 180 or so. Or the Wizard could throw on Ongoing 5 damage instead. See the math problem?

It really is one of those things where you have to have a point system where picking a condition both costs points and changes the damage done. Encounter Stunned Until EoNT means you do 1d of damage in Paragon against a single target with range melee. A Wizard could use one of their Paragon Encounter options to make it Ranged 10 instead. Or one of their Epic options to make it Area 1.

If you look at how powers actually break out, that's what happens a significant percentage of the time, just without the flexibility.

 

[Garthanos]

While I never got around to posting up the Revised Cleric Class one of the big differences I was going to push is that Cleric Spells did not have Friendly Fire whereas Wizard Spells did.

I would like to see what you have

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

After MUCH tinkering in various games (some wargames which were pretty widely played) I am of the opinion that this sort of 'build your own power' is not ever going to work. IME you have to have some neutral arbiter to look at it and decide if its borked or not. There's just too many ways to create subtly OP stuff this way, and players WILL find it ASAP! Now, with 4e, as it is, there are some powers which are undoubtedly as good as anything you will make with the Krusty System. HOWEVER, you only get each ONCE. That is a really key part of 4e, you can't take multiples of a single power. With any kind of system which is this flexible though, you effectively can. You can just replicate the same OP combination 6 different ways. It might not be IDENTICAL, but it will be pretty close, and then the game turns into spamming the same broken shtick 1000 times.

The other flip side of it is that there's not much to be gained really. In other words, players are going to quickly home in on the combinations of elements that they like, and then stick with them. So they don't really NEED all this flexibility! The fact is, a decent well-thought-out power list already will give you all the variations you are every going to use in actual play.

What I conclude is that 4e just needs all the cruft knocked out of the power lists. If someone were to go through the wizard and simply delete all the stuff which is just one more pointless variation on the same tired theme, and just generally look at the list HOLISTICALLY then wizards could likely go down from 1000+ powers to 250 without any actual noticeable decrease in their range of options.

 

[Garthanos]

A Wizard could use one of their Paragon Encounter options to make it Ranged 10 instead. Or one of their Epic options to make it Area 1.

Perhaps class feature meta magic?