Wizards still cast Enchantment, Illusions, Necromancy

[JohnSnow]

So the argument is that it was bad for a wizard, whose only notable ability was his ability with magic, was better at magic than other classes that didn't have a similarily narrow focus?

No. The argument is that it's bad for the wizard to be able to use his magic to be better than other classes at what they're supposed to be the best at.

The wizard can use illusion to out-stealth the rogue. He can polymorph to outfight the fighter. He can use transmutation to eliminate the need for skill-using classes like the ranger and rogue. He can use enchantment to be a better face than the bard, or the rogue. He can also usurp the psion's role with his enchantment, making the psion pointless.

If you don't want to use psionics, the last may be fine. If you do, it becomes an issue. But any class that can take over the others' roles is too versatile.

What's the wizard's role? Problem-solver. In literature (and 3e), the wizard is the guy who can, hypothetically at least, do anything. Third Edition (and earlier ones) limited that versatilty, in a practical sense, by resorting to the spell preparation. Sure, the wizard can theoretically do anything, but his options on any given day are much narrower.

For 4th Edition, they decided to come up with a wizard that can do many of the traditional wizard things, but who isn't be better than the other classes at what they do. They want to make the wizard a part of the adventuring party, not a replacement for it.

 

[Incenjucar]

I think the idea is to make the wizard something of a blaster-bard.

That is, they'll be JoaTs, but with a primary purpose of control rather than leadership, and with spell-based half-decent JoaTing, rather than skill-based.

This allows them to be versitile, but never threatening to the other classes anymore than the bard threatened the cleric or mage of 3E with their spells.

Which is perfectly fine with me.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I actually think this statement is to let people know that spells that are consider "classic" for Wizards will still be in there.

What spells? Well, Charm Person/Monster, Sleep, Invisibility, some minor illusions, perhaps Suggestion and Geas as well. (I'd say Feeblemind but this is a "take the player out of the game" sort of spell).

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Personally, I'm curious to find out what spells they mean by, "classic illusions and classic necromancy spells"

Any suggestions on which spells will be considered "classic" from these catagories?

When I think of 3e wizard necromancy these spells come to mind first:
Ray of Enfeeblement
Vampiric Touch
Enervation
Fear

 

[Reynard]

The wizard can use illusion to out-stealth the rogue. He can polymorph to outfight the fighter. He can use transmutation to eliminate the need for skill-using classes like the ranger and rogue. He can use enchantment to be a better face than the bard, or the rogue. He can also usurp the psion's role with his enchantment, making the psion pointless.

I think you are missing an important thing, though: in earlier editions, any time the wizard chooses to "out-X the X" he is using up a resource that could be applied elsewhere. one of the reasons the wizard was always considered an "advanced" class for "advanced" players is that it takes a lot of work to get to know what all the spells do and it takes a lot of skill with the game to decide which of the myriad of options available to take. The sorcerer, I think, was intended to combat this by being a "wizard lite" -- fewer choices, so easier to play.

Poor wizard players were the kind to constantly try and fill another party member's adventuring role -- it was a waste of resources to cast "knock" when you had a decent thief/rogue in the party, for example. But good players tried to support the rest of their party (often in the form of artillery, the ultimate form of combat support) and use their very versatile but limited resources for those occassions where magic was really necessary.

One thing that I think was lost in 3E was the limited number of spells the wizard could learn and the tendency -- though I don't think it was in the rules anywhere -- for wizards to have whatever spells they wanted, instead of having to find them and/or research them. Assuming that you didn't just give every wizard an 18 Int, the wizard player had to think long term about what spells to learn, what spells would still be useful 3 or 5 or 9 levels down the line.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I think they could have balanced the broad range of spells available to wizards by putting more emphasis on specialties. Perhaps, like 3e psions, wizards would have to pick a specialty school, for example. And alot of their "at will" powers, talent trees, etc could be based upon that choice. Some of the more powerful spells in a school could be available to only specialists in that school. They could have had the wizard kill the dread necromancer, warmage and beguiler, take their stuff, and have it divided up among different types of specialists. A Necromancer could get sole access to animate dead type spells, dread necromancer abilities like charnel touch, lich body, etc, and would be, in a way, its own class, but still a type of wizard. An evoker could have sole access to some of the more powerful energy spells, get metamagic type abilities, etc. Similar things could be done for other wizard archetypes.

Instead, it sounds to me like wizards are being put into a much narrower role, and wizards will have alot more in common with each other than they used to. I think this is a bad thing. I prefer choices, options and diversity to cookie cutter classes.

 

[Traycor]

I think they could have balanced the broad range of spells available to wizards by putting more emphasis on specialties. Perhaps, like 3e psions, wizards would have to pick a specialty school, for example. And alot of their "at will" powers, talent trees, etc could be based upon that choice. Some of the more powerful spells in a school could be available to only specialists in that school. They could have had the wizard kill the dread necromancer, warmage and beguiler, take their stuff, and have it divided up among different types of specialists. A Necromancer could get sole access to animate dead type spells, dread necromancer abilities like charnel touch, lich body, etc, and would be, in a way, its own class, but still a type of wizard. An evoker could have sole access to some of the more powerful energy spells, get metamagic type abilities, etc. Similar things could be done for other wizard archetypes.

Instead, it sounds to me like wizards are being put into a much narrower role, and wizards will have alot more in common with each other than they used to. I think this is a bad thing. I prefer choices, options and diversity to cookie cutter classes.

The point in 4E is to define the role of the class. Each of these "specialties" would serve a different role in the party, and thus are better served as seperate classes.

 

[Reynard]

The point in 4E is to define the role of the class. Each of these "specialties" would serve a different role in the party, and thus are better served as seperate classes.

This is one of the greatest design flaws of 4E, I think (and, of course, others will say it is one of the greatest design strengths). "Party role" is only useful for whatever default playstyle the game assumes, and the stricter the role, the narrower the default playstyle and more difficult it is to deviate from that playstyle without house-ruling. I think we have all known enough gamers and/or read enough message boards to know that playstyle varies widely from group to group (and even within groups) and enforcing any one particulr playstyle to the most basic game mechanics reduces the accessibility of the game, particularly to those that have been playing a long time and are used to their playstyle.

3E actually broadened the assumed playstyle quite a bit by giving both players and DMs a lot of flexibility through feats, skills and other choices. Fighters didn't have to be tanks. Rogues didn't have to be thieves. The idea that class=role (primarily combat role) is a bug, not a feature of 4E.

 

[Klaus]

This may have been mentioned already, but Rich Baker talked about the spells wizards will cast in the Designer thread on the Gleemax boards. Link



Specific spells mentioned: Sleep, Charm Person, Hold Monster
General spells mentioned: "classic illusions and classic necromancy spells"

And the mention that while you couldn't build a wizard that specializes in Enchantment, you could still have some "handy enchantments." I like this bunches and lotses. It seems that the fears of wizards being nothing but bazookas were unfounded

This is the part that worries me:

You won't be able to really build a specialist Enchanter

If the all-around power of the wizard was the worry, why not have the class choose their specialty (since it seems the wizard is now the name of the old Evoker)? In essence, *every* wizard is a specialist. And if he wants to broaden his repertoire, he'd choose a "Training" talent (Necromancer Training, Evoker Training, Illusionist Training, Enchanter Training, etc)?

After all, every cleric must choose his domains, why not require wizards to do the same?

 

[Dinkeldog]

According to whom? A lot of people don't even recognize psionics in their fantasy games, so I think it's a tough sell to say these things are more associated with psionics than arcane magic.

Not to overly hijack here, but this is one of the places that I thought Rolemaster really got things right. The "arcane magic" roughly equates to "essence" and the psionics to "mentalism". That way you don't have "sci-fi getting into the fantasy", because you shifted the paradigm into "spells drawing from the personal energy and will of the caster", which is a closer approximation of mentalism. This doesn't even have to cross the "oriental vs. occidental" boundary because Western esoteric traditions are basically about transforming the self through will.