So why can ANYONE use rituals?

[BASHMAN]

Technically, you can pick up the Ritual Caster feat at first level and have to already have to have Arcana or Religion trained. So Human Fighter 1:

Feat: Skill Training: Arcana, Ritual Caster

1st level Human Fighter can now learn and use first level Rituals.

Or be smarter and take Arcane Initiate instead of Skill Training, so you can cast Magic Missile 1/Encounter too.

 

[Staffan]

For the record, I'm in favor of anything that makes D&D magic more closely resemble the best conceived magic system in a novel ever.

It's not that "anyone" can do magic, it's that any PC who chooses to study magic is considered one of the "fortunate few" who have "the gift."

And some Dresden rituals can be done even without "the gift", like protection circles. Just ask Butters.

 

[Lizard]

Scribe Scroll.



Great compared to what? The designers have tried to reduce the differences between the best classes and the worst ones, but characters aren't competing against other characters (unless the player gets joy from out-minmaxing everyone else at the table) they're competing agains the monsters and NPCs. How does removing suckage make it impossible to be great?

Compared to other possible characters, esp. in a niche or focused way. It's fun to be notably better with, say, an axe than a sword, or to be able to really shine in a given situation. From what I've seen of 4e, The Math slams down hard on diversity -- defenses will all be within 1-4 points of each other, even at high levels, for both PC and NPCs, hit point spreads are closer together, the "pick the best of two" for defenses means no one risks a real weak spot or has to balance two attributes instead of min-maxing one (see thread on Int), etc.

"Great" is by definition a relative term. If everyone is equal, no one is great. That's the way it is. 3x gave a lot of options for hyper-focus, even at low levels. 4e gives you two builds. So it goes.

 

[hong]

"Great" is by definition a relative term.

Correct.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Or be smarter and take Arcane Initiate instead of Skill Training, so you can cast Magic Missile 1/Encounter too.

If you have Int 13. Which itself is a cost to pay.

 

[Mallus]

It's fun to be notably better with, say, an axe than a sword, or to be able to really shine in a given situation.

But were not talking about being good with either a sword or axe. We're talking about being good with a sword vs. being good at everything else with a mere 8 hours notice.

From what I've seen of 4e, The Math slams down hard on diversity...

1) There are other ways to achieve character diversity than raw mechanical abilities.

2) This doesn't hurt systems like Mutants and Masterminds. The fact that our party's brick does than same damage with a punch as my character does dropping a pyramid on a foe's head in no way leaves us feeling too same-y.

If everyone is equal, no one is great.

Some people can still play better then others. It's not all about builds.

And is this essentially a Harrison Bergeron thing?

So it goes.

I see it is...

 

[broghammerj]

Any class can cast scrying, magic circle, or teleport if they take multiple Feats in order to learn how to do it. For a Fighter, taking two feats at character creation means he's spent 66% of his time learning how to cast rituals instead of focusing on swordplay (unless he's a human, in which case he's spend half his time learning rituals instead of swordplay).

Why do people always ignore that?

It's the fact that so many more feats are available. So the cost of two feats isn't so expensive over the long haul. Too cheap if you ask me.

 

[Lizard]

2) This doesn't hurt systems like Mutants and Masterminds. The fact that our party's brick does than same damage with a punch as my character does dropping a pyramid on a foe's head in no way leaves us feeling too same-y.

Having played M&M...it did for me. I found the "Everyone of PL X has Attack X, Defense X, and does Damage+X" to be terribly dull.

And is this essentially a Harrsion Bergeron thing?

It does seem some of the 4e designers took that story as a model, not a warning.

 

[Lizard]

It's the fact that so many more feats are available. So the cost of two feats isn't so expensive over the long haul. Too cheap if you ask me.

It depends on what you're giving up.

If you have a wizard/cleric in the party who gets the ability "for free", then taking the feats seems to be a bit sub-optimal. I can see reasons why, for character concept, for backup (Who raises the Cleric?), etc, but it's not a clear no-brainer.

 

[hong]

It does seem some of the 4e designers took that story as a model, not a warning.

Incorrect.