NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 4976559" data-attributes="member: 3424">I would say that the biggest thing that the wizard has lost in the transition from 3E to 4E is what I will call, for want of a better term, potential.While the poster child for this change is probably the loss of the wish spell, you can see aspects of this loss of potential in other areas as well:1. Save or DieIn 4E, the wizard has lost the possibility, however remote, of ending a fight with a single spell. 2. Creative SolutionsSpell effects are more tightly defined in 4E, which means that the scope for creating and/or discovering uses for them which the DM (and maybe even the designers) did not expect are reduced. 3. Learning EverythingThe 4E wizard's spellbook is more limited than in previous editions. There is no longer the possibility, (again) however remote, of learning every spell.4. Doing AnythingAll of the above, plus the (normally) relatively cheap "cost" of spending a spell slot to prepare and cast a spell combined to make it seem as if the wizard could do anything. This was reinforced by many classic spells with very flexible effects such as polymorph self/other, phantasmal force and other illusion spells, and (of course) wish.Mind you, while the wizard had all this theoretical potential, I doubt that many wizards in actual play ever achieved even a significant fraction of it. There were always limiting factors (which incidentally, also helped to balance the wizard with the other classes) such as: the availability of spells and other resource limitations, the need to prepare spells in advance, and simply not being high enough level to cast really powerful spells.So, how you view the 4E wizard is thus very dependent on what you are looking at. If you are looking at how he performs in actual play, in comparison to the challenges he faces and in comparison to his other party members, there will not be very much of a difference between the 4E wizard and his predecessors. However, if you are looking at the 4E wizard's theoretical potential, then yes, he will appear to be quite limited.</blockquote>

Verification