Wizard Spells 10-16 Two Page Spread

[SoulStorm]

Did you just call 4E too mundane?



One of the core precepts of 4E is to remove/reduce instances where only one character can do stuff, sidelining the other characters. So, unless your weather mage and sharky druid obtain their weathery and sharky powers in a manner available to everyone, that's right out.

Mang, specialist players got teh shaft in 4E.

Wow! If you're right I've gone from eagerly anticipating 4th edition to being not in the least bit interested.

Yes, it would be horrible if one character could do something every other character couldn't do. That would be like having a rocket scientist who didn't know how to perform open-heart surgery. I mean, how crazy would that be?

 

[Walking Dad]

...
Sure, combat can be fun, but I'd much rather role-play the weather mage who loves flying through storms, or the druid who loves turning into a shark in order to explore the ocean depths. If 4th edition can't simulate those character concepts, I'm not interested.

Yeah, and expect the fun of the other players on the ground, while you solo role-play flying to storms and exploring the sea.

Wow! If you're right I've gone from eagerly anticipating 4th edition to being not in the least bit interested.

Yes, it would be horrible if one character could do something every other character couldn't do. That would be like having a rocket scientist who didn't know how to perform open-heart surgery. I mean, how crazy would that be?

Yeah, in a hospital based game around heart surgery I would feel bad. Good the game is not about one character with the approciated powers and his group of cheer leaders...

 

[Ulthwithian]

Well, regarding the small number of powers shown, I believe someone speculated in another thread that at the Paragon level, characters would be able to move Heroic Tier Encounter Powers to At-Will Powers, and Heroic Tier Daily Powers to Encounter Powers. If this is true, then there would be little-to-no need to print Paragon At-Will Powers, which would result in the two-page spread that we have.

Personally, I would not be surprised in the least if Teleport (or even Teleport Circle) would be a Paragon-tier ritual. This solves the problem of getting people from place to place while not kludging the tactical options available. IOW, this would be the 4E analog to 3.5 Fly/Overland Flight.

If anything, I would expect Overland Flight (as a ritual) to be of a lower-level than Flight, since this would fit with the 4E paradigm.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

I have to say it looks as if the Wizard got hit with a giant dinosaur-killing Nerf Asteroid. And I'm not impressed, the utility powers I see are singularly uninspiring. If anything the way they've smacked down spellcasters (my usual characters when I get to play) I wouldn't touch the edition with a pole.

 

[Simon Marks]

Have you ever played Ars Magica?

 

[ZappoHisbane]

Besides, in pretty much every one of my favorite videogames I use as D&D inspiration (Fire Emblem, Suikoden, etc), the only people who can fly are the people who either are born with wings, ride a winged creature, or have a character-defining specialization in transforming into a flying creature. Flight is a powerful, character defining ability that, in other games, is never handed out as lightly as it is in D&D.

This.

Seriously, let's look at this beyond videogames. The ability to fly (especially allowing an entire party to fly) has always been portrayed as a powerful ability in fiction. It's about time that D&D treated it the same.

 

[wedgeski]

This looks good to me. Very very good. I had a pang that Prismatic Spray (which I have always thought was the coolest sounding spell in the game) had been changed to the relatively flabby 'Prismatic Beams', but that's a tiny house rule away from being rectified. I love the de-emphasised game breakers, and I could have babies with the 'Sustain Minor' approach to spell concentration.

<-- Happy chap.

 

[Nebulous]

Is it just me, or do the spell descriptions look incredibly *short*? I can't decide if that's good or bad.

The Good: to the point, concise, easy to remember.

The Bad: If loopholes aren't spelled out, or options made clear, confusion ensues.

 

[fafhrd]

Aside from mirror image, the spread is reassuring. Happy as a clam now that a wizard can toss up resistance to shut down radiant paladin marking.

 

[SoulStorm]

Yeah, and expect the fun of the other players on the ground, while you solo role-play flying to storms and exploring the sea.



Yeah, in a hospital based game around heart surgery I would feel bad. Good the game is not about one character with the approciated powers and his group of cheer leaders...

Don't your characters ever do anything besides run through DM prepared adventures? It doesn't take that long for characters to describe what they do in their downtime between adventures but it gives them a lot more depth. It not like an in-depth narrative is required. Two or three sentences usually do the trick. Then if you have a good DM, subplots can develop around each character's narratives that the entire party can participate in. In fact, our DM required us to periodically write narratives about what we did in our downtime in order to develop character centric plots. Often the narratives of multiple characters would dovetail. Are the games you've played in really so different?