Spell components gone

[hong]

Well, since clothes, weapons and equipment seem to step with the character, I can happily presume that the chair and thing step back and forth with him.

Or more easily, that if a character is "anchored" some way in our workd (tied to a chair or chained to a wall) then he simply is unable to do it. Magic works in mysterious ways.

Shh. By positing that magic is fickle, mysterious and tied to the whims of an uncaring universe, you are destroying Lizard's sense of wonder.

 

[Belphanior]

It could also be the iron in the manacles. Iron has always been a potent protection against fairy magics. For that reason, in my 4E world orcs will capture Eladrin by nailing their feet to a rock.

 

[Stonesnake]

The short-range teleports that we've seen (the eladrin's fey step, the pit fiends ability) seem to me to be just another form of movement, though one that ignores terrain (like flying). I think it stands to reason, that if you can't move, then you can't use the teleport. Though, there's probably more to it than what I'm speculating.

Unsure, but at DDXP I played the Ranger twice. Once I was grabbed and I used my step to get away (getting grabbed makes your movement zero) and another time I was knocked prone surrounded by 3 monsters, and used my step to teleport onto a rock, 10 feet up in the air, and standing.

So take that for what it's worth.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Judging from the preview characters, is it true that spell somatic/verbal/material components are GONE?

I would say that a more accurate assumption given the information we have seen would be that trivial material components are now gone. There really arent any 1st level spells I can think of where I would bother to track or enforce the use of the material component.

I also think that your concern about the Silence spell would be addressed by having it handled like any other ongoing effect. You will get a save every round to end / negate the effect.

Some of the higher level spells were released / published too. What kind of components did they use? Random pocket litter you could get nearly anywhere, or 1000 gp diamonds?

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Just Another User]

And why is it good to take away character abilities?

To create interesting situations, it is like superman and kriptonite, or batman without utility belt, sure, it can be abused but can create problems that make the story more interesting.

It is like another tihng that 4e seems to have eliminated, the "invulnerable monster", you have a monster that while not incredibly strong can't be hurted by your weapons, you need to find a way to hurt him or another way to defeat him. in 4e it doesn't seems to exist anymore, you can have (maybe) a monster immune to weapons or to an energy, but at least one (probably more) of the PCs will have a at willpower that can hurt him, unless the gm send against you a waaay stronger monster you will never be in a situation that ask to "retire and regroup" or try a different tactic. I'm not even sure that there can be different tactics, it seems that, barred GM fiat, either you can defeat a monster or you can't becuase it is just too powerful, with some in-the-middle situations that depend more on luck with the dice than on tactics/smart thinking.

 

[Just Another User]

I would say that a more accurate assumption given the information we have seen would be that trivial material components are now gone. There really arent any 1st level spells I can think of where I would bother to track or enforce the use of the material component.

not always, but there are situations when it should be done (you are marooned on a island for two months, good luck finding a...mh, let me see, drop of mercury for your floating disk, like if mercury is easy to find anywhere else anyway) and some components are just more uncommon than others.

 

[Lizard]

Shh. By positing that magic is fickle, mysterious and tied to the whims of an uncaring universe, you are destroying Lizard's sense of wonder.

How does this work in play?

"I cast magic missile at the orc!"
"Sorry, the capricious whims of magic say you hit the cleric, instead."

A chief trope of D&D is that magic is about as fickle as rocks falling; it's wholly predictable.

 

[fafhrd]

You guys are funny. Since WotC made it one of their central design principles to not gimp characters, it's probably safe to assume they didn't include the 3.x standard methods of character gimping.