Wizards now more of a speciality magician

[Celebrim]

Ah, well. Shouldn't be too hard to take the good stuff from the specialty classes and pass it back to the core ones.

I'm reserving judgment on that until I see the mechanic.

 

[brehobit]

I think you are drawing far too wide conclusions from the quoted text. Just because they add necromancers and illusionists doesn't mean that there will be no illusionist or necromancy spells in PHB I. Wizards may be less flexible but I really doubt that they will be inflexible.

Between the siloing, the "wizards will be at 80% once all spells are blown", and this post, I think they _will_ be at inflexible. But we'll see...

Mark

 

[Celebrim]

Between the siloing, the "wizards will be at 80% once all spells are blown", and this post, I think they _will_ be at inflexible. But we'll see...

If the goal is to make the game as portable to a computer environment as possible, inflexibility of a certain sort may well be considered a positive design goal. Classes with too many different potential powers are difficult to implement and have awkward interfaces - especially in real time.

 

[Grog]

I'm torn. On the one hand, I love the idea of having wizard specialties that actually mean something for a change, as opposed to just being a way to get an extra spell per level.

On the other hand, I'm not wild about having to buy more books to get those wizard specialist classes.

So for now, I'll reserve judgment until I know more.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Regardless, it's inevitable that the versatility of the Wizard be pared down a bit. As things stand now, after third level or so, you don't really need a Rogue -- Knock, Invisibility, Spider Climb, Comprehend Languages, and Find Traps (a Cleric spell, but still) and you have all your bases covered. Why should they be able to have the proverbial kitchen sink, anyway?

So that not every party has to have a Rogue in it? Surely? Any time a specific class is required in a party, you have a serious problem, esp. in 3E with the whole "role" deal, where there are supposed to be at least two classes for each role. I somehow don't see them giving the other "striker" all of the Rogue's abilities, though, hey maybe they will...

I mean, is the Wizard's "main" role is "control", via control and AE damage, spells, can't his secondary role be "utility"? Indeed, I sincerely hope that it is. Also Find Traps ahahahahahahahahahaha, but anyway.

I'll be happy if the Wizard has some basic illusions, but the Illusionist has some really mindblowing, reality-altering stuff in the order of 2E Illusion spells (many of which seem to be MIA or horribly nerfed in 3E, iirc), and can use illusions as his "free" abilities and so on.

I'll be really unhappy if the Wizard has NO real illusion spells beyond the most basic of invisibilities, and we have to wait until PHBX to have that sort of thing officially back in the game (resulting in a horrible plethora of house rules, 3rd-party rules, and so on in the meantime).

I'd be less sorry to see Wizards losing all real "necromantic" abilities, because animating the dead does seem more like a distinct concept. It'd be nice if Wizards could do it a little bit, to help make them the "generalists" of the magical world, which I feel they should be.

If they come out with five+ "Wizard" classes as Sadrik suggested, I'd be appalled, frankly. That's just plain unecessary and over-the-top. You shouldn't need a whole other class for every possible specialization of a concept. Particularly as some of them are bound to be far more "generally relevant" to combat, and thus dominant in the most dangerous and inevtiable situation in the game.

 

[Celebrim]

If they come out with five+ "Wizard" classes as Sadrik suggested, I'd be appalled, frankly.

Does appalled mean 'unsurprised' in this context? Because, frankly, I'd be really surprised if they only limit themselves to 5 'wizard' variant base classes.

The way I see it, 'warlock' and 'swordmage' are wizard variants to begin with. Remember that the warlock's schtique of being able to blast every round is something that the wizard can do too in 4e. Add to that Illusionist, Necromancer, Binder, Shadowmancer, Elementalist, Shifter, and who knows what else.

What I'm really interested in now is whether under the new 'Multiclassing: any class, any level, just works' paradigm whether we will be seeing alot of Wizard1, Warlock1, Swordmage1, Illusionist1, Necromancer1, Binder1, Elementalist1, Shifter1's a year or two from now.

 

[Terraism]

I'm reserving judgment on that until I see the mechanic.

Let me rephrase. I like working with rules, and so no matter what they do, I'm confident that it'll be modular enough I can jostle it into position for where I want it. Whatever I do or do not like about 4E, I think a lot of the design assumptions about roles and pacing are good ones, and if nothing else, I'll be able to rob those.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Does appalled mean 'unsurprised' in this context? Because, frankly, I'd be really surprised if they only limit themselves to 5 'wizard' variant base classes.

The way I see it, 'warlock' and 'swordmage' are wizard variants to begin with. Remember that the warlock's schtique of being able to blast every round is something that the wizard can do too in 4e. Add to that Illusionist, Necromancer, Binder, Shadowmancer, Elementalist, Shifter, and who knows what else.

No, it means appalled, because I don't see Warlock and Swordmage as "wizard variants".

I mean seeing most of the possible "specialist" Wizards resurrected as entirely new classes with new abilities new spells, and so on, that don't cross over with the main "Wizard" spells significantly, and the Wizard effectively being "boxed in" to a very limited spell set because, god forbid he cast an illusion, that's the illusionist's job, or no way should the Wizard have a powerful nuke, that's the Sorcerer's job, etc.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

I like 1st edition as much as the next guy, but even I will admit that certain 2nd edition innovations where superior and worth retaining.

Funny, I'm usually a 2e fanboy, but the one thing I got from Day 1 reading the PHB back in 1992 was that Illusionists were the mockery of Mage you were stuck with if you wanted to play a Gnome. I wish Illusionists were more interesting 15 years ago; if they become interesting now, it's better late than never, in my opinion.

Well, no it isn't inevitable. I'm willing to bet that at alot of tables it just won't happen. It won't happen at mine. If I do any rebalancing of the Wizard on my own, it will be toning down the depth of thier power - not thier flexibility. Their flexibility is what makes them fun to play IMO. I'm not attracted to thier power to make things go 'boom' and don't think that needs enhancing.

And even it is was inevitable, it is not inevitable that it happen in this way. Once again, just because something is broken and the designers have an approach for fixing it, doesn't mean that that approach is necessarily a good one or even necessarily better than leaving it broken. The house rule forums are filled with designs where the designer had a vague notion that he'd prefer things to be different in some fashion, but didn't have a clear, strong idea for how to accomplish that.

I agree, it can happen in many ways. That being said, the depth of power of Mages isn't necessarily what needs fixing. In fact, when I play Mages, I am rarely attracted to their power to make things go 'boom', either, as you so elegantly put it. I enjoy using spells to summon and create, transform and unlock possibilities, influence time and space and dimension, and especially I enjoy magic items: Magic Carpet, Ring of Shooting Stars, Rod of Lordly Might, Apparatus of Kwalish the Crab, and all the weird and wonderful stuff which makes D&D D&D. And all that can be done with a much more focused spellcaster who still leaves spells available to a focused Illusionist or Necromancer.

Leaving aside the fact that to make your point you had to stretch past the breaking point, yes, you can play a quite roguish wizard if you invest most of your spell slot in stealth/intrusion/divination effects. I consider that a good thing. Second, rogue is an extremely powerful class at low levels of play, with an abundance of skills, fair combat options and strong defensive abilities. I don't think your hypothetical wizard is going to overshadow a rogue, and when ultimately a wizard does start to overshadow a rogue at 9th level and beyond, it's going to be for different reasons than 'spider climb' or 'invisibility'.

I'll grant you the Wizard can't Find Traps, but the party Cleric can supply those; the Wizard supplies everything else. And with the 9:00-9:05 adventuring day and scrolls, the limited-resources argument becomes invalid, as well. Which begs the question, why play a Rogue again?

At low levels of play, they certainly don't. But, turn your question around, why should every Wizard have to wear the same hat and select his abilities from the same narrow pool? Why should I need a separate class to have necromancers, illusionists, or conjurers? Why of all the features of a wizard that you could choose to tone down would you target the classes flexibility? Why not target the raw power of thier high level spells, for example?

Whee! Let's turn the question around yet again. Why should every Fighter have to wear the same hat and select his abilities from the same narrow pool? Why should I need a separate class to have Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians, Samurai, Knights or Swashbucklers?

If I wanted ultimate flexibility, I'd choose a classless system. I enjoy having a character who does one thing, and does it well. The unbalance of several 3e classes -- I'm looking at you, Cleric, Druid, Wizard and Monk -- are trying to do too many things at once and either succeeding, and thus becoming an uber-class, or failing, and thus becoming useless...

 

[Gentlegamer]

Why would there need to be an Illusionist class? I thought talents would take care of certain specializations.