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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eldritch_Lord" data-source="post: 5883681" data-attributes="member: 52073">It's definitely the class system, not the Vancian system.  In 3e, every class that has some sort of resource management system is better than classes that don't, because for some reason the designers thought that getting something in the Special column of your class table (Smite +1/day!) was equal to getting multiple things (5 spells!  2 maneuvers!  15 power points!).I should have been more clear, by AD&D I was referring to 1e.  3e is the system that made both the "too many spells" and the "too-fast preparation" problems real problems, with Focused Specialist and Collegiate Wizard and easily-crafted wands and Doman Wizards and all that on the one hand and 1-hour preparation on the other.  2e didn't have the too-fast preparation problem, and the number of spells available, both known and per day, were higher than 1e but still nowhere near 3e.  If we went back to the 1e version as I suggested, both problems would be solved.If you have a spell point system with fatigue or other limiters, you're essentially capping people at X 9th-level spells per day, Y 8th-level spells per day, and so forth, with a limited ability to mix that up and a vastly larger number of lower-level spells.  If you're going to do that, then using a Vancian hard cap plus either lots of lower-level spells or reserve feats and some sort of "overchanneling" like the Versatile Spellcaster feat accomplishes the same general concept with less complexity.  Yes, spell points let you keep using the higher-level spells at an ever-increasing cost, but either you actually use those high-level spells with that frequency (in which case you're more powerful than an equivalent Vancian caster) or there's a marginal utility to those spells (in which case there's a self-imposed cap that makes it effectively Vancian).Yeah, most of the time when I hear people who want to fix casters by restricting them to themes, the 1e illusionist and the 3e beguiler are held up as shining examples.  Supposedly, before Gygax was kicked out of TSR he had planned to change the wizard into a bunch of specialist spells and leave the mage as a bard-like limited caster, which would have been a sight to see.  I'd be all for going the forced-specialization route.In theory, yes.  However, the problems with the ritual system are their time and gold/residuum cost.  As presented in 4e, they're not worth it at all the vast majority of the time because of one or both of those factors ("Quick!  They're almost here!  Arcane lock the door!  What?  10 freaking minutes?  Never mind, grab some debris!" and "Sooo...I could knock the door down, at the cost of 10 minutes and 175 gp, orrr...I could blow the thing off its hinges, because they'll hear me chanting anyway...decisions, decisions....") and they aren't as well supported.Also, as I mentioned above, they don't give you any tactical flexibility or creativity at all, which the Vancian system does.  Being able to cast several spells in quick succession lets you get creative with combining them, casting them as rituals one at a time does not.It's not the overpoweredness of AD&D/3e spells people like, it's the variety.  If 5e was 4e powers in a Vancian framework, I wouldn't like it because those spells would likely be incredibly boring and same-y and all combat-focused.  Give me grease, silent image, reduce person, fly, fire trap, wall of force, delayed blast fireball, telekinetic sphere--and those are just SRD spells--not yet another way to damage someone and push them a bit, or teleport tactically, or create a crowd-control zone.  Lots of people played crowd-control wizards in 3e, and that's a fun and effective way to play, but 4e (and now probably 5e) have said "If you want CC or blasting or very limited abjuration, you can contribute in combat, if you want illusions or enchantment or very limited necromancy, you'll have a few watered-down tricks in combat and not much out of combat."If you sort 3e spells by power and cut off the top half of them, you'll still have plenty of fun, creative, flexible, and noncombat-capable spells.  You can shape the world, fool people, build wards and traps for later, pick up a few minions, and do lots of other things.  If the designers think you can't use illusions in combat, tough noogies for them, they shouldn't give you a few powers that deal psychic damage and call them illusions and then make you spend an arm and a leg to get basic rituals, like Hallucinatory Creature which, at level 12, finally lets you make the moving image of a creature at the cost of 10 minutes and 500gp where a 3e caster could have been doing that several times a day from level 1.Back in 1e, all the overpowered 3e spells had drawbacks, and plenty of them.  Wish had no "safe" options and aged you, polymorph could kill you, animate dead could be dispelled, fly didn't have the safe descent, and so forth.  Yet people liked the 1e system just fine, because it wasn't about options, it was about creativity and breadth of effects.[/rant]It's not actually a problem if there's one Wizard class, as long as you can build him into whatever kind of style you like.  In theory, the 3e fighter could be built as a legionnaire, a mercenary, a knight, a bodyguard, and bunches of other things, and even do a passable job of duplicating the ranger, knight, nonmagical monk, and so forth; the fact that none of those classes were really capable of doing what they said they were is beside the point.  Likewise, it's not a problem having one Wizard class as long as you can build him as a pyromancer, a summoner, a diabolist, an oracle, a warlock, or anything else.The difference between versatility in build and versatility in play is an important one.  You want a single class to be able to do many, many things well when you build a character of that class, so you have interesting options and not all characters of that class are too similar, but you want to limit their options when you play a character of that class to keep things within one theme.1e and 2e were very good at the latter as far as casters were concerned, with their cap on spells known, difficulty in learning new spells, and such, but not so good with the former, since you didn't have any class features to differentiate "illusionists who happen to cast a summon once in a while" from "summoners who happen to cast an illusion once in a while" from "wizards who can both summon and create illusions."  3e was the opposite--build any kind of wizard you want, good; play any kind of wizard you want with the same character, bad.If the 5e wizard can be built to be anything under the sun involving magic, but you can build the 3e/4e warlock, 3e dread necromancer, 1e illusionist, and more with it to play with, I'd be perfectly happy with a do-anything wizard class.</blockquote>

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