for the old timers here, we already had a version of the rituals thing in AD&D. remember lankhmar? circa about 1985? every magic user spell cast in that world took 10 times longer than in the regular (greyhawk at the time) world. and if i remember correctly, it sucked the big one. made the magic user useless. of course, now with unlimited magic missiles that actually can miss (what kinda heresy is that!?!?), i guess they think 4e solves that problem.
i dont see the big deal with 3.x spell casting. any problems i had with it were solved with one page of house rules modifying about a dozen spells. end of problem. it seems that wotc overdid it a lot with the whole new system.
i agree that creative casting is dead. they made this whole thing too combat oriented, and blended the class abilities and powers too much. its a terrible system. rituals suck except for a few powerful campaign altering spells like astral projection, polymorph, and wish, for example.
as for the magic user doing the thief's job, sure, he can do it, but at the expense of other more needed spells. i might memorize one knock spell, for if the thief failed. i needed those never miss magic missiles too badly to waste on knock. scrolls were a good backup, sure, but i'm not using thief skills type spells too much, because i dont want the door to explode on me. i am not putting myself in the line of fire of glyphs of whatever deathtrap the dm was throwing at us.
plus it is a cooperative game. i am not going to steal the glory from my other players who are playing a thief for a reason-- they like thieves. why would i ruin their fun? also, this might seem like heresy to some, but i took away the thief ability to backstab when in combat. the only time he can backstab is when he gets the surprise check, and never in a combat situation when someone is facing off against a fighter and the thief just happens to be behind the guy. rogues dont exist as a concept in my campaign. they are all variants of thief. thieves specialize in getting something from someone for nothing. their role in the group is commensurate with that concept. their role is not the everquest or warcraft mmorpg type of backstabber extraordinaire.
and as a magic user, when i was in a city setting i sure as hell memorized a different spell list than when i was in a dungeon. tongues, charm, suggestion, detect lie, invisibility etc all made the list. less fireballs, more utility spells. but again, i didnt steal the thief's job. he can do one thing over and over again. i am limited in my memorzation. while the thief skulked about, the magic user was in the mage guild doing magic user stuff. usually selling magic gear in town, or learning his new spells.
all these spells that allegedly make the magic user too powerful as compared to the other classes have been around since the 70's. why all the bitching that 3.x made the magic users uber? if anything, the fighter type classes are now uber to me. i held off casting fireballs and lightning bolts because in an average round the low to mid level fighters easily outperform it, with cleave and great cleave.
again, 1 page of house rules for spells made our gaming experience balanced and fun by twinking some of the spells and other rules so that i as dm can make the campaign i want to create.
4e is over the top and not needed.
joe
