Why is it so important?

[Celebrim]

Let me stop you right there.

Grog. We've fought this fight before. You didn't listen to me then, and you aren't listening to me now.

Smart metagamers don't rest when they reach 80% or 50% or 25% of thier maximum resources. They rest as soon as they drop below 100% of thier maximum resources. If I'm metagaming in a vacuum (for example, assume a non-timed dungeon exploration without a proactive opponent, 'Descent into the Forgotten Catacombs' for example), I don't rest when I think I have to. I rest after every encounter. If I metagaming, I'm not motivated by whether it seems silly to rest after 5 minutes of actual adventuring. I'm motivated by the desire to 'win'. And the best strategy is to rest, even if I only lost 4 hit points.

This has been true for every addition of the game. Earlier editions of the game fought against this with 'wandering encounters' and longer term survival resources (can't rest indefinately without an infinite food and water supply). Current editions deemphacize wandering monsters as a metagame mechanic and look askance at the idea that players should do tedious bookkeeping like marking off rations, water, etc. The natural result is that a formerly specific tactic is coming to have a more general application, especially against novice DMs who don't think to play monsters proactively when they are 'off stage'.

 

[Mouseferatu]

This has been true for every addition of the game. Earlier editions of the game fought against this with 'wandering encounters' and longer term survival resources (can't rest indefinately without an infinite food and water supply). Current editions deemphacize wandering monsters as a metagame mechanic and look askance at the idea that players should do tedious bookkeeping like marking off rations, water, etc. The natural result is that a formerly specific tactic is coming to have a more general application, especially against novice DMs who don't think to play monsters proactively when they are 'off stage'.

This only matters if you assume the rules are in place primarily to discourage extreme metagamers. They're not. They can't be.

What the rules should do, primarily, is provide as much support as possible for people who choose to play the game as written. Nothing in the world can stop a determined metagamer except a DM who's not asleep at the switch, rules or no rules. The books should advise novice DMs how to deal with this, but ultimately, it's in his hands.

 

[Vigilance]

I hope that you don't take this as an insult, because it isn't intended that way: if you don't read the source material for the game, and you don't get the importance of balance, you are really in no position to make arguments about how the wizard class should be designed.

The current D&D Wizard fails on the "emulates the genre" test, and it also fails at both high and low levels at the "is it balanced" test. It is better at both of those things than previous editions of the game to be sure, but there is still a lot that can be done. To me, those are two very good reasons to make further changes to the class. I don't know if the new wizard will be better in 4E, and I won't until I see it, but it sounds like they are working to address some problems that I see in the game. To me, that's a good thing

--Steve

Exactly.

The only fantasy fiction the current Wizard imitates is Jack Vance. It doesn't do most of the other systems Raven mentioned AT ALL.

It's not Tolkien magic, and it's DEFINITELY not Hyborian magic (which involves making deals with devils and taking drugs to cast spells, then hybernating while your mind recovers for months sometimes- sound like D&D to you?)

The Wizard class is also not well balanced at low levels (1-5) or high levels (16-20).

So it really only emulates one fantasy author, and it's unbalanced half the character's lifespan.

I see no reason not to try and improve on THAT.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

3.5 is not Badwrongfun.

4E is not Badwrongfun.

If those of you that like the system now want to stick with it, that's awesome!

Those that don't want to switch? Awesome!

I'm not judgemental. I know that parts of 3.5 do not work for me and do not work for my group. That it looks like some of those parts will be changed in 4E sounds great to me!

I see the straw men. The attacks against them, they do not impress.

--fje

 

[Celebrim]

How does that follow, exactly?

Without going back and writing an outline for everything I just posted, it is the natural assumption which falls out from the magic system implied by what's posted so far. Namely, that 4e wizards will look like a combination of at will abiltiies (my guess is that this is mostly warlock like 'blast abilities'), per encounter abilities, and per day abilities. We know this to be true from quotes that tell us a wizard that uses 'all of his spells per day' will still be at about 80% power.

Thus, he'll be missing about 20% of his effectiveness. At high levels, without an extraordinary revamping of the system in other areas, at least some of that effectiveness will be deemed to be 'critical'. Thus, the smart party will, absent other factors, always choose to rest so as to never go into an encounter at less than 100%. Since some of the Wizard's spells are still 'per day', this means resting for the day.

Let's then hypothesize that you can replenish these abilities after an encounter is over.

Already previously covered in a post. If you can replenish all of these abilities after an encounter is over, then resource management goes away completely. I think it can be taken as a given that most players don't want resource management to leave the game completely. Even the most ardent 'per encounter' supporter here isn't suggesting hit points should return to 100% after every encounter. So everyone is assuming at least one critical resource will be deplenished by encounters. We know for a fact that the 'uber-resources' aren't the only ones. If the core classes are looting Bo9S, probably most classes are going to have a number of 'per day' abilities.

 

[Mouseferatu]

So, how many people were clamouring for a mage to be able to do more all the time, *before* the relevant details of 4e were released? Or has 4e suddenly shown just about everyone (or perhaps, nearly everyone who is "vocal" in this forum, for example) something they didn't realise about the horrors of playing a mage in 3e, 2e, 1e, BECMI, B/X and OD&D (and the rest). . .?

Just to readdress this...

It's something that's bugged me, to a greater or lesser extend, since 1E. It's also something that I'd gotten so used to working around, I rarely thought of it any more. And had it not changed in 4E, I wouldn't have been horribly crushed, but I didn't expect it to change in 4E.

That doesn't change the fact, now that I appear to be getting a system that solves many of the previous issues I had, without completely ditching resource management, that I'm quite excited to see it.

 

[gizmo33]

Smart metagamers don't rest when they reach 80% or 50% or 25% of thier maximum resources. They rest as soon as they drop below 100% of thier maximum resources.

IME metagaming has evil connotations. IMO resting when you're below 100% resources in a potential life-or-death situation is what sensible people do IRL and in most stories. It makes no sense, even entirely within character, to continue to press on in the "Catacombs of Mystery" when there is no compelling reason to do so unless you're playing Captain Ahab/insane.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I think per-encounter is a good step, but I hope to see other changes.

I'd like to see the removal of binary Save Vs. Dead/Nerf abilities.

I'd like to see a flatter curve to HP distribution. As it is, the High Con characters have High Hit Die classes while the Wizard has a lower Con and d4 hit die. My cleric has twice the hit points of the wizard, and it means at 16th level play, any bruiser becomes a binary situation for the arcane caster. I've got 2x the HP of the Wizard and the Fighter has 175% of the HP my Cleric has.

--fje

 

[gizmo33]

It's not Tolkien magic, and it's DEFINITELY not Hyborian magic (which involves making deals with devils and taking drugs to cast spells, then hybernating while your mind recovers for months sometimes- sound like D&D to you?)

To be fair, neither Tolkien or REH actually proposes a working magic system. Nor do they tell their stories from the perspective of the spell caster as Vance does. Why doesn't Gandalf blast the enemy with lightning every single round? Why did he only do it on Weathertop? I don't think Tolkien would have been able to easily duck these issues if his main character was a wizard (and perhaps he doesn't anyway).

The Wizard class is also not well balanced at low levels (1-5) or high levels (16-20).

Balancing, and the resource management issue IMO are two different things. The original wizard design in 1E was stated as "you're really weak at low levels and really powerful at high levels". I wouldn't be surprised if the legacies in the design continue this. So I agree that fixing that would be cool. But the resource management thing is addressing another problem entirely IMO.

 

[Celebrim]

This only matters if you assume the rules are in place primarily to discourage extreme metagamers. They're not. They can't be.

That's what I've been saying all along.

Some of the flaws in 3rd edition have been do to attempts to write the rules such that players are protected from bad DMing. I have no real idea at this point what the major flaws in 4e will be. I am not principally arguing that 4e will be good or that it will be bad, although I have said that it doesn't principally seem to be designed to address my problems with 3rd and D&D in general. I am principally arguing against the notion being advanced by so many 4e supporters that changes in the mechanics are intended to and will be able to protect all the players (DM's are players too!) from bad play.

There might be good reasons for adopting a mechanic that let players rapidly replenish certain resources, but forcing players to string together long series of encounters so as to create better fluff (or what is someone's idea of better fluff) isn't it because it won't work.