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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mort" data-source="post: 5726301" data-attributes="member: 762">I think a move away from Vancian magic (3e mages had much more access to spells than before and even 2e+ wa a lot more than Vancian influence would dictate even though the cast-forget mechanic remained) was part of it.But a bigger part was the evolving mindset of players, as mentioned by Umbran upthread. One problem is that in earlier edditions casters and noncasters tended to have inverse power curves. Fighters were great to start with but flattened out by higher levels. Mages were lousy to start with (except for brief moments of extreme power) but downright awsome by higher levels. This curve led to some strange player dynamics.I'd argue that PC D&D mages never had any mystery to begin with. A mage memorizes spell x and when he casts it y is the known result - every time. Sure there are a few spells with some randomness (teleport, polymorph in early edditions) but they are outliers. Further, other than losing the spell, there are no consequences - there is generaly 0 mystery when the spell is cast as to what will happen or how it will affect the mage.</blockquote>