* It seems like four "classic" wizardly implements - the orb, staff, tome, and wand - are to play a more central role in the Wizard character class. Each implement is associated with certain types of magic: orb for terrain control, manipulation and divination; staff for forcefully projected powers as well as flight and telekinisis; tome for teleportation, summoning, shapechanging; and wand for long-range effects and protection. The wizard can cast without the items, but is likened to "a slightly near-sighted man with glasses"; holding the associated implement grants a benefit to the wizard’s attack. The article refers to "the wand spell cinder storm", which implies that each spell will be an orb, staff, wand or tome spell.
* Update - conspiracy theorists ahoy! All references to the "tome" have been edited out of the above article, leaving orb, staff and wand only. Why? I don't know! But there were references to the "tome" before, and now there aren't. Instead, we have extra flavour text, referring to Iron Sigil [potent defenses when invoking spells of thunder or force] and Serpent Eye [enchantment, beguiling, and ensnaring] traditions (orb), disciplines of the Hidden Flame [fierce powers of fire and radiance] and the Golden Wyvern [battle-mages] (staff), and Emerald Frost adepts [powers of cold and deadly acidic magic] and Stormwalker theurges [spells of lightning and force] (wand).
* Bart Carroll on the change: "Hmm, well we do say it in the Design & Development column intro: "Keep in mind that the game is still in a state of flux, as refinements are made by our design and development staff." Case in point -- take another look at the most recent Wizards and Wizard Implements article. A revised version has just been posted, with several changes to the original article posted Friday [Note from Morrus - it wasn't there on Friday; it appeared today]. The version you see now is the version that should have originally gone live."
* Note: breschau posted the original article.
* Dave Noonan has spoken a little more about wizards implements (the orb, staff, wand, and elusive tome). He mentions that the level of importance attached to these items has not yet been finally decided ("The pendulum has swung around a lot during design on the implement issue... Right now the pendulum is resting somewhere in the middle.") He compares it to a fighter and his weapons: "...it might be worthwhile to think of a wizard's implements as analogous to a 3e fighter's weapon choice--if you assume that the fighter hasn't deeply, deeply specialized in that weapon through feat choice. Mid-level Tordek prefers axes, sure, and he probably has an advantage with an axe that's substantial but not overwhelming. You put a polearm in his hands, though, and he functions just fine. And he's accessing the salient properties of the polearm--reach, for example."
* He also confirms that the design intention is that these things be adjustable to work in your campaign -- "You can add your own implements and disciplines/traditions to the mix. Doing so takes some work, but it's not a massive undertaking."
* And on the nature of the described traditions: "...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."
* Wizardly orders: "They're not really specializations in the sense of 3rd Edition specialist wizards; choosing one doesn't make the spells belonging to another unavailable to you. Basically they're a mechanism by which we answer the question, "How did your wizard learn magic? Was he trained in a magical academy, tutored by a single mentor, etc., etc." So each order provides a subset a spells your character is *best* at, but doesn't replace the notion of spell school from previous editions."
* Implements: "Wizard implements now provide your character with a reason to care about a signature weapon in much the same way that the fighter cares about a signature sword. We think it's a good thing. Many other implements have been suggested, including things such as mask, dagger, and (of course) tome."
