Will all spells be attacks?

[Cadfan]

No. Magic is supposed to be able to bend reality, but it seems to be regulated to just blowing up. What happened to making floating castles? Creating monsters (Owlbear, etc) and other Wizardly Experiments? Magic allows for creative uses, especially when creating a campaign world.

Is everything that doesn't have an attack regulated to Rituals?

I doubt it, but I bet you a nickel that creating floating castles isn't something you accomplish with a standard action once per day.

If you're asking "where's my spells like invisibility and flight?" then that's already been answered by the preview page that contained... the spells invisibility and flight.

If you're asking "where's my spells to create magical constructs?" then those were never spells before now, were they. They were rituals (by which I mean magical off stage processes that cost materials and didn't involve casting any particular spell except as a prereq for performing the ritual). If they exist in 4e, they will undoubtedly still be rituals. Complaining because they're not spells is missing the boat by a bit.

If you're asking something else, then god only knows. Because if you're not asking one of those two things, I don't know what you're asking.

 

[Wormwood]

At Ye Wizard School the PC wizard majored in Combat Magic, becasue his chosen career on graduation was to become an ADVENTURER. If he was going to specialize in rare magical research or animate sweeping broom construction, he'd have taken other classes.

The only wizards who manage to graduate from Ye Wizard School are the boring NPC schmucks who spend the rest of their lives making potions and scrolls.

Future PC's, on the other hand, spend most of their time in double-secret probation before being expelled for blowing up the gym.

 

[Rechan]

At Ye Wizard School the PC wizard majored in Combat Magic, becasue his chosen career on graduation was to become an ADVENTURER. If he was going to specialize in rare magical research or animate sweeping broom construction, he'd have taken other classes.

Fitz

That's a pretty limited definition that all PCs = Adventurers.

 

[Rechan]

If you're asking something else, then god only knows. Because if you're not asking one of those two things, I don't know what you're asking.

How about where's Erase? Unseen Servant? Alarm? Tenser's Floating Disk? Magical Aura? Animate rope? Magic Mouth? Rope Trick? Spider Climb? Pyrotechnics? Tiny hut? Illusionary Script? Secret Page? Shrink Item? Secure Shelter? Arcane Eye? Just to name a few.

Many of those aren't suited for a standard action in a combat round for your "Fight Porn", but they also seem fairly silly to take ten minutes to accomplish. And while they don't fit into the "Fight Porn" paradigm, they're regardless options for creative play, and also very useful to both mundanes and adventurers.

 

[Mort]

That's a pretty limited definition that all PCs = Adventurers.

To me that actually sounds like a pretty good generalization. I can't think of a PC in a D&D game I've been in that was not "an adventurer" (sure many had other professions especially off screen and former PCs showed up as all sorts of different things but in their "PC lives" they were adventurers) and would honestly be surprised if many people could.

Wizards in D&D have always been "combat heavy," hopefully rituals will address the non-combat wizard archetype in a satisfactory fashion (obviously too early to tell).

 

[Rechan]

To me that actually sounds like a pretty good generalization. I can't think of a PC in a D&D game I've been in that was not "an adventurer" (sure many had other professions especially off screen and former PCs showed up as all sorts of different things but in their "PC lives" they were adventurers) and would honestly be surprised if many people could.

I can think of quite a few.

Considering that D&D is "The Most Popular RPG"(tm), I would think it should be able to facilitate more than "Fight Porn". RPGs are more than just killing things, so the gateway RPG should be able to handle more than doing damage to things for XP.

 

[Felon]

Show me one 5th level Fighter of any edition that can deal out 88 points of damage as a MINIMUM like a 5th level Wizard/Sorcerer can with a Fireball into a "room" full of creatures.

Show me one Fighter who can create "Save or Die" situations come 9th level or above, especially effecting more than one critter in a round...

You're straw-manning so badly you don't even know.

Is this 88 points of damage scenario with a bunch of creatures conveniently filling out every square the a fireball covers? Of course, a sorcerer's not throwing a fireball at that level anyway, but we'd like to say 5th level because if you got to 6th, then the warriors are getting an extra attack that can double their output. Very sublte manipulation of the data there.

In 3x--and likely 4x as well--fireballs are for softening groups of critters. If you have one big powerful target, it's not what you want. In 3e, what you want is a barbarian with a greatsword. In 4e, that's the equivalent of a striker's role.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

In the new edition, using wizardly combat spells to construct a house would be like using a machine gun to cut down trees. That's possible, but awkward and expensive, because the tool is really specialized for a completely different job.

If you want to chop down trees quickly and efficiently, you use a chainsaw. If you want to build things, you learn and use a ritual for that purpose-- whether you're a wizard or just an overeducated NPC with some magical textbooks.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Magic lasts a very short time in 4e. Most of it instantaneous.

Some magic(rituals) can do really extravagant things(which used to be extremely easy things for wizards to do in 3e) but require a lot of time and resources. I'm guessing most average people resort to non-magical ways to solve their problems. Even wizards.

When you want to build a house, you use a hammer, some nails and some wood. You want to explode a bunch of orcs, you use magic.

It's simply a redefining of the limitations of magic. Which might be a problem for some people as the limitation in previous editions was "none". Something as powerful as Wish is a pipe dream in 4e, from what I can tell. It's the sort of thing that wizards have been attempting to create since the beginning of time, but no one has been able to succeed.

However, it certainly gets rid of magic as the "I win" button. By this I mean:
Rogue: "I took 20 on the lock and I can't open this door. This lock is amazingly good."
Wizard: "Knock. It's open."

Bard: "I tried my best, even with my best Diplomacy roll I can't convince those people to leave the village. They say its their home and don't believe me that there are monsters coming to kill them all."
Wizard: "Charm Person. The mayor will order everyone to leave now, don't worry about it."

and so on.

 

[Mort]

How about where's Erase? Unseen Servant? Alarm? Tenser's Floating Disk? Magical Aura? Animate rope? Magic Mouth? Rope Trick? Spider Climb? Pyrotechnics? Tiny hut? Illusionary Script? Secret Page? Shrink Item? Secure Shelter? Arcane Eye? Just to name a few.

Many of those aren't suited for a standard action in a combat round for your "Fight Porn", but they also seem fairly silly to take ten minutes to accomplish. And while they don't fit into the "Fight Porn" paradigm, they're regardless options for creative play, and also very useful to both mundanes and adventurers.

Seeing as we haven't seen anything resembling a full list of spells and or rituals it's a little too early to condemn WoTC for lacking in that department.

That said - most of the spells you listed would be perfect as rituals with an approx 10 min casting time (especially the divinations which we know will likely be rituals). Further all indications are that you can have as many ritualls as you can find/afford so it's quite likely a wizard will accumulate a high proportion of these as they gain power.

 

[DandD]

He's going out there to help damsels in distress and venture out to unknown and ancient regions of the world, strange planes of existence and kicking devils in their hiney for being mean to little girls and kindergardeners. And he will keep doing that again and again, and gain levels, advance to the paragon tier, where he'll go and bitchslap demons with some Bigby Bitchslapping Hand-spell, tell the Fomorian Kings to shut up and leave the normal-worldeners in peace, go buy stuff in the city of Brass, and when he's epic-tiered, he'll make Asmodeus shove his own head into the place where the sun shouldn't shine. And he might become the new god of awesomeness and get Chuck Norris as his personal pet, who got killed in the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.
Of course, you as the player might decide that your character won't go further than heroic, but for any intents and purpose, your Player Character is one serious dude who is doing crazy things that only heroes like Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Green Arrow, Hawkeye, He-Man, Dr. Strange, and other fellows of the League of very very extraordinary gentlemen would do. They're all on a big adventure.