Why Changes were made in 4e

[Cadfan]

The Reserve feats were an elegant way of handling this issue: they give the spellcaster something to do instead of casting spells, something at least as good as using a weapon, and its still "magical"- hopefully satisfying those who lament resorting to using crossbows as "unwizardly."

That's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the curve, where you start out not having enough spells per rounds of battle, but never invest in any non spell attack options because soon you'll have more spells than you need, and whatever feats or character choices you invest in non spell options will be ultimately wasted. Reserve feats kick in too late to really help with this. In fact, they make it worse, because the problem isn't just not having enough spells early in your career, its having too many spells later.

It wasn't some large critique of 3e or anything. It was just some musing I've had on how to make actual Vancian magic work. The big flaw seems to me to be not having enough magic early on, but never developing a non magical alternative because later in your career you'll have too much. It seems to me that if you get rid of the "too much" effect, then offer viable non magical options, the incentives would exist for the player to do the rest of the work in making Vancian magic functional and balanced.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the curve, where you start out not having enough spells per rounds of battle, but never invest in any non spell attack options because soon you'll have more spells than you need, and whatever feats or character choices you invest in non spell options will be ultimately wasted. Reserve feats kick in too late to really help with this. In fact, they make it worse, because the problem isn't just not having enough spells early in your career, its having too many spells later.

It wasn't some large critique of 3e or anything. It was just some musing I've had on how to make actual Vancian magic work.

No, I got you, and even agree to a point. I just never had an issue with the curve personally- what some cite as a flaw I see as a feature. To an extent, low level mages should struggle with resource management, occasionally being without a useful spell to cast- they're nööbs!

Certain Reserve feats- and a few Alternative Class Features- fit the bill for correcting this curve somewhat, but as you correctly state, they don't address the low end (as things ended in 3.X).

Which is why I was looking for an expansion of the mechanic in 3.X- which was aborted by the release of 4Ed- or the appearance & blossoming of the mechanic in 4Ed- in which Reserve Feats/ACFs were supplanted by a mechanic that could charitably be called its first cousin.

IOW, had 3.5 continued, I would like to have seen a broader variety of Reserve feats, with varying plateaus of utility and covering more than just attack or summon spells.

(I'd also have modified the way metamagic works, but that's a different story...)

Another thing that might have worked was the way the Shadowcaster was handled. I have no problem with strict limitations on top spells, but with increasing freedom- eventually leading to "at will"- regarding the lowest-tier spells. Of course, that would mean that auto-scaling of spells would be rare.

 

[Lanefan]

Re Vancian casting:

The things that have always bothered me about 0-1-2-3e casting rules as written are not that the caster is limited in how many spells per day she can cast, but in both what those spells are (memorization) and having to guess ahead of time what spells will be needed (memorization ahead of time). The end result was you'd see a magic-user with 10 1st-level spells in her book only ever memorize one or two of them, over and over again. And how many times have you as DM watched an otherwise ready-to-rock party stop dead for the day because they got to a door that the Thief couldn't open and the bashers couldn't break...and the MU didn't memorize Knock. Aaaaargh!

3e's Sorcerer class was a revelation (though it took me a while to realize it; at first I thought the class was a waste of paper as it seemed so similar to the Wizard) - the answer lay in spell selection flexibility. In my current 1e-based campaign I've now got all caster types working like Sorcerers - if it's in your book (or on your list, for Clerics) and you have a slot left for that level, you can cast it. So far the result is that while some spells still get cast far too often, I'm seeing lots of other spells get used that would otherwise never see the light of day. Remains to be seen if this'll end up horribly broken at higher levels; they're now about the 3rd-5th range and so far, so good.

Re alignments and mechanics:

I've always like one aspect of alignment mechanics: that an aligned weapon or item can sometimes bite those of the wrong alignment who try to pick it up. Otherwise, alignment isn't that big a deal in my games...unless you're a Paladin, Cleric, Necromancer, or Assassin. But I really like the point raised earlier - and I apologize for forgetting who raised it - that alignment discussions in the pub were *far* preferable to bragging about the latest greatest character build; they showed (and led to) greater buy-in to the game as a whole, more often than not. And if you didn't care, well, hey, you're in the pub and there's beer; what more do you need?

One thing to remember, for you history buffs, is that in original D+D there was *no* good-evil axis - the alignments were lawful-neutral-chaotic. Good and evil came in with 1e AD+D...and have since slowly taken over.

Re demons and devils:

I've always seen both these "races" as areas where I as DM can lob in absolutely anything I can dream up. Particularly demons. And as for having lots and lots of layers of the Abyss, that's actually quite handy: if I need a particularly whacked-out setting for some off-plane adventure I'm dreaming up, then ::whoop:: down to some random otherwise-unused plane of the Abyss they go.

Lan-"'greedy' is a modifier that can go on the end of any alignment"-efan

 

[MerricB]

Re Vancian casting:

The things that have always bothered me about 0-1-2-3e casting rules as written are not that the caster is limited in how many spells per day she can cast, but in both what those spells are (memorization) and having to guess ahead of time what spells will be needed (memorization ahead of time). The end result was you'd see a magic-user with 10 1st-level spells in her book only ever memorize one or two of them, over and over again. And how many times have you as DM watched an otherwise ready-to-rock party stop dead for the day because they got to a door that the Thief couldn't open and the bashers couldn't break...and the MU didn't memorize Knock. Aaaaargh!

3e's Sorcerer class was a revelation (though it took me a while to realize it; at first I thought the class was a waste of paper as it seemed so similar to the Wizard) - the answer lay in spell selection flexibility. In my current 1e-based campaign I've now got all caster types working like Sorcerers - if it's in your book (or on your list, for Clerics) and you have a slot left for that level, you can cast it. So far the result is that while some spells still get cast far too often, I'm seeing lots of other spells get used that would otherwise never see the light of day. Remains to be seen if this'll end up horribly broken at higher levels; they're now about the 3rd-5th range and so far, so good.

In theory, it's one of things 4e's Rituals should be good at: allowing the PCs to use utility spells at need. So far in my two campaigns, they've been erratically used, but we've had a few really good uses of rituals that has added a lot to the game - and a lot of time wondering what good rituals are!

I like your idea of "sorcerer-style" casting for AD&D clerics and wizards; especially with clerics, who had a lot of really interesting spells that just wouldn't get cast. I mean, the reversed spell snakes to sticks is glorious, but when would it ever be used?

Cheers!

 

[Raven Crowking]

Interesting post RC.

I still don't think WotC envisioned games like C&C or OSRIC when they created the OGL. Still, that's another conversation for another day.

You should read the whole bit I linked to above.

It seems very, very clear that WotC imagined that the D&D brand was strong enough that someone who started in whatever other OGL-based game might exist would eventually buy from WotC. Since WotC imagined that the OGL would lead to changes in mechanics (some of which would become official), I really doubt that WotC expected that a retro-clone would damage the game, if they considered it at all. They certainly expected other SRD-based fantasy games to exist.

The problem for WotC became, IMHO, that several 3pp were "doing it better" than WotC, in the humble opinions of too large of a segment of the gaming population. So D&D became a feeder to other games perhaps more than WotC would like, and not enough other games became feeders to D&D.

Rather than using the OGL as it was intended according to their own statements -- to make D&D more like the successful 3pp games -- WotC went in the opposite direction. (Shrug)


RC

 

[Betote]

About the changes on alignments, I can totally understand why LE and CG were ditched. They were utterly strange and alien concepts no one could grasp. I mean, who's ever heard of nazis* or hippies?

*: I hope this won't invoke Godwin's Law upon me...

 

[Hussar]

When we went through RttToEE (3.XEd, and I was a player, not DM), we had a stretch in which we went through 6 combat encounters without an in-game break. (It covered 3 sessions.)

The single-classed mage still had a spell or 2 left at the end of it. He had spells left because instead of nova-ing, he'd cast a couple of spells, then reach for a weapon.

The main healer was tapped, but there were other (minor) curatives available. No front-line warrior had more than 20% of their HP.

By the time that stretch was over, my Ftr/Rgr/Diviner/Spellsword was getting ready to move up to the front...and he'd been there before.

We didn't rest before then because we didn't have the opportunity to. Though we had made occasional returns to our base of ops to restock & reload, retreat was not an option at that point.

And that's typical of the way all of the DMs in our group run things...even before 3Ed.

Funny you mention that. When I ran World's Largest Dungeon, which is really a pretty similar sort of thing, we had 1-3 encounters and rest pretty much every single time. I ran 2-5 encounters per session for about 80 sessions, IIRC, it was roughly 200 encounters. And 1-3 before rest was the hard limit. I think they might have gotten past that once or twice, but, that was the exception, and certainly not the rule.

When I ran Savage Tide these past couple of years, the players stocked up on cure light wands, and then they started having 6-8 encounters before rest.

So, IME, what WOTC stated was pretty much spot on.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The Wiz wasn't an item creator- he went straight Metamagic. Ditto the main divine casters.

We didn't have any Cure wands or scrolls. A couple of potions per PC, but that was it.

 

[Hussar]

DannyA, to be honest, I really gotta wonder how you did it. I mean, 6 combats is about 20-25 rounds of combat. Give or take anyway. That's some pretty serious beatings for your front line.

Heck, 3e even specifically assumes 4 par encounters should be as far as you can go in a day. Were the encounters particularly easy or were there extenuating circumstances that prevented you from taking a lot of damage?

And, does this stand out in your mind because it was the exception?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

DannyA, to be honest, I really gotta wonder how you did it. I mean, 6 combats is about 20-25 rounds of combat. Give or take anyway. That's some pretty serious beatings for your front line.

Heck, 3e even specifically assumes 4 par encounters should be as far as you can go in a day. Were the encounters particularly easy or were there extenuating circumstances that prevented you from taking a lot of damage?

And, does this stand out in your mind because it was the exception?

1) We fight tactically- using cover, obstructions & bottlenecks to limit the number of attackers that can actually get to the party. Several members of the party have reach weapons so they can attack from the 2nd rank. Even mundane items get used- alchemical grenades, caltrops, marbles, etc- in order to control where foes stand.

Sometimes, if there is no real ranged threat, the spell-hoarding mage will visibly lob a big spell to open a combat (announcing his presence), then retreat to a "cover" position, knocking the bejuanas out of anyone who travels into his line of fire.

2) That was not a typical stretch of adventures between rests, but neither was it atypical. Three to four combats between rests was pretty common, and I can't remember any time with only 1 combat.

Of course, not all combats are created equal- some were easy and some were tough- but the DMs in our group tend not to pull punches. We came close to a TPK once or twice, and several PCs were at death's door during the campaign- some more than once. Some deaths were avoided by metaplay on the part of some of the players- making their PCs tend to the wounded when that would be an unsound choice 9 times out of 10. One death was avoided because my PC (and ONLY my PC) actually had levels in Swimming, and could save the party's Rogue from drowning after he got paralyzed by a ___________.

Even though that prompted a retreat, the party still had 2 subsequent combats on the way out.