Wizard Traditions...What would be ideal?

[Imaro]

This quote from Dave Noonan...

I may have good news for you, then: traditions are not groupings (fluffy or otherwise) of spells/spell schools/etc.

I can see how someone could read the preview article and make the reasonable speculation that the traditions we mention are analogous to spell schools or domains. While that's a decent guess, and it fits the available data, it's not a correct guess.

--Dave.

Got me to thinking that the wizard traditions will be something like the Force-Traditions in Star Wars saga ed. For those that don't know what Force Traditions are, they are basically a grouping of talents(basically feats) that one gains access to when they are a member of the tradition. The "traditions" have membership requirements that one must meet before joining them but, based on SW saga ed., they are not based on mechanics but on specific details of a character (some examples are gender, planet of origin, etc.). If this is the case I have a few concerns I'd like to express.

Now one of my concerns with this is that, instead of providing rules and structure for making these "traditions", WotC will just give us these four examples and a statement along the lines of "you can easily make up more traditions" and leave it at that (this was basically what they did in SW and with D&D 3.x with Prestige Classses). I would rather have a real system for creating balanced traditions in D&D if this is the case.

Another concern I have is about balance and interactions. I guess this is a more general concern with the game as a whole but fits in this topic as well. There seem to be numerous categories of abilities (racial traits, traditions, class abilities, feats, etc.) and I am concerned at how well all of these will be balanced against each other as well as when used in tandem with each other.

Finally, if no system is presented to design traditions, I am worried about the specificity of the example traditions. I think there is a fine line between what could be considered, neutral talents and those that are more specific in nature. An example of this disparity in 3.x is the difference between the Sorcerers bloodline feats, where they have to have the blood of a specific creature(thus assuming that creature exsists in every campaign world) to gain access and metamagic feats which anyone could use. It will probably be hard to make tradition talents totally generic, but I hope that the designer's lean more in this direction than the other. (and yes I know bloodline feats can be wrangled into a generic form, but the less work to do that, the better IMHO). In other words I would hope that I could use these talents out of the box without pre-supposing certain campaign paradigms.

 

[Cam Banks]

A system to introduce traditions that differentiate and/or customize the basic wizard would be ideal for Dragonlance, to be honest.

The orb/staff/wand thing is already heading in that direction.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Irda Ranger]

Now one of my concerns with this is that, instead of providing rules and structure for making these "traditions", WotC will just give us these four examples and a statement along the lines of "you can easily make up more traditions" and leave it at that (this was basically what they did in SW and with D&D 3.x with Prestige Classses). I would rather have a real system for creating balanced traditions in D&D if this is the case.

Also a concern of mine. I would much prefer that it was easy as pie to make traditions, and that the examples given in the article were just that - examples. In fact, if it were so easy to make traditions that the traditions in the article were made on the spot specifically (and only) for that article, that would be great.

I really like the concept of traditions for spellcasters, but it must be done in a very flexible manner so that DM's can easily and quickly tailor them to campaign settings and adventures with minimal fuss and over-head.

As Wulf Ratbane has said, an ideal comparison would be 3e religions.
Clerical Religion = 2 Domains + Favored Weapon. Done.
Wizard Tradition = 3 Spell Descriptors + Favored Implement. Done.

It won't look exactly like that (because the magic system is so different), but we should be able to quickly select and re-combine certain game elements (like schools of magic, or energy types, or whatever) to make new traditions on the fly. If I want to stat up the Wizard School of Air and Darkness, I should be able to do that quickly.

Another concern I have is about balance and interactions. I guess this is a more general concern with the game as a whole but fits in this topic as well. There seem to be numerous categories of abilities (racial traits, traditions, class abilities, feats, etc.) and I am concerned at how well all of these will be balanced against each other as well as when used in tandem with each other.

Do you mean, 'Will elves be balanced against Dwarves'?, etc.? I think they'll do a pretty good job of that. It's hardly like "game balance" is a new concept. Some have expressed concern about the short play-testing time leading to insufficiently tested rules, but we'll see. They've had the core mechanics for years, and the math has supposedly all be worked out already. If the system is sufficiently integrated (and they're merely writing new implementations, not new systems), it could come together quite quickly.

 

[GreatLemur]

Got me to thinking that the wizard traditions will be something like the Force-Traditions in Star Wars saga ed. For those that don't know what Force Traditions are, they are basically a grouping of talents(basically feats) that one gains access to when they are a member of the tradition. The "traditions" have membership requirements that one must meet before joining them but, based on SW saga ed., they are not based on mechanics but on specific details of a character (some examples are gender, planet of origin, etc.). If this is the case I have a few concerns I'd like to express.

Aw, interesting. I didn't know about that feature of Saga Edition, and that seems like a pretty logical thing to connect to 4e's Wizard traditions. I suspect they won't have any sort of prerequisites, but this comparison seems like a good argument for the possibility that they'll be talent trees.

Personally, I'm hoping that the traditions are just equivalent to a Cleric's choice of deity in 3.x, and thus easy as hell to create. Maybe some kind of deal where you just pick an associated implement, and a couple different spell descriptors that the tradition grants some bonuses with, that's it. Maybe a bonus feat and/or skill bonuses, too. Everything else is just fluff.

Ease of customization is absolutely vital to me.

 

[Imaro]

Do you mean, 'Will elves be balanced against Dwarves'?, etc.? I think they'll do a pretty good job of that. It's hardly like "game balance" is a new concept. Some have expressed concern about the short play-testing time leading to insufficiently tested rules, but we'll see. They've had the core mechanics for years, and the math has supposedly all be worked out already. If the system is sufficiently integrated (and they're merely writing new implementations, not new systems), it could come together quite quickly.

No...well not exactly. What I'm worried about in this instance is that there were alot of interactions between spells, feats, class abilities, and rules that I guess people would call overpowering, loopholes, "broken"...whatever. I see 4e as having even more categories of intrinsic small parts that interact together and am hoping they spend enough time actually seeing how they can come together and be exploited or underpowerd as a whole.

The reason this strikes me as a major concern is because the system doesn't seem finished yet. About a week ago they added a new "social" system...well the social system in isolation might work well, but how does it work when you bring in racial talents, particular feats, traditions...and my biggest worry, spells. This is just a singular example(not necessarily a particular system I am worried about), but I used it to illustrate what I'm talking about. This is further complicated in my oppinion that there is a new paradigm for abilities period(at-will, per-day and per-encounter) this creates another axis which must be balanced on.