Wizards still cast Enchantment, Illusions, Necromancy

[Rechan]

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)?

It would appear that's what they're doing now. You play a Wizard, and if you want to be a Wizard who has necromancy, you take Necromancer Training. Or an illusionist or enchanter, you take Bard training.

But here's something to consider. R&C talks about making the classes cast magic in different ways. By splitting up the various classes, and handling each one differently, it means that they don't have to work the same. Clerics don't cast magic like Wizards do. Warlocks don't use magic like Wizards do. This will allow Enchanters and Illusionists and Necromancers to not be defined by the mechanics and methods that the Wizard class uses.

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

1) Assuming 4e clerics have domains.

2) I felt that Domains was a bandaid, and only made priests differ by what colored shirt they were wearing. Why the hell should a Water priest be able to pray for fire spells? Why does he get trained in full plate, when 1) You can't swim in full plate, and 2) Water is much more fluid, it shouldn't be restrained by full plate. Why does the God of Water care about undead enough to give priests Turn Undead?

The difference between two clerics should not simply be eighteen spells they can pick off their domain list and two little tricks they're given. Each cleric should be different: your God may bar you from casting these spells, due to them being opposite of said God's portfolio; you have access to different skills; you have access to different weapon and armor training.

One of my biggest peeves is Turn Undead. Why does Every God in the universe care about undead? Instead, every Cleric should get Divine Channeling, and what effect Channeling does depends on your God. War God clerics get something like the Divine Feats, letting them channel to kick more arse. Fire Clerics aught to control fire and set people aflame. A Priest of Thieves and Assassins can channel shadows to make himself unseen, etc. Only gods who deal directly with undead get to bust or command them.

3) I'm glad they yanked out most illusions, necromancy, enchantment and summoning. Why? For one, so they can do them right. If those schools are the focus of a class, or at least focused on by someone, then they're going to be better. Summon Monster spells really take the pop out of summoning that Big Bad Demon that's going to come and wreck the world; because 'bink, in for a few seconds, bink, gone'. Illusion spells are very meh in 3e.

R&C mentions that one of the reason Necromancy didn't make the first cut is because after they took out Save or Dies and Level Drain, the school was pretty much bare bones.

I'd rather WotC work on the 8 classes in the PHB and shine them up real nice, and then work on the other stuff, instead of doing a lot of things half way.

 

[DSRilk]

Here are a couple things to think about:

1. At GenCon, there's something called the Iron Man tournament. Everyone creates the toughest character possible and they duke it out until only one is left standing. It's the true definition of min/maxing. I mention this because if you placed in the top 50%, virtually all your levels were in cleric or wizard. The reason was because the spells from those two classes buffed the character to a melee combatant that far outclassed any non-caster while at the same time allowing for blaster spells and combat utility spells. In theory, 4e is helping fix this by not giving one class the ability to buff themselves to become melee monsters while at the same time having unsurpassed mobility (teleport, dimension door, traveling through the earth, etc.), senses (true sight, see invisible...), defenses (blink, ethereal form...), attack spells and combat buffs, and adaptive shapeshifting, and mind control... and that doesn't even cover the all the utility spells. That could be fixed by lowering the power of buff spells and combat spells, or by eliminating the ability for one class to have it all. Due to the reasons below (and the ones they gave), they seem to have taken the second tact, which I think is good.

2. There were no real specialist wizards in 3e. In 1e there were illusionists and wizards. Both had some basic illusions at all spell levels, but illusionists had a bunch of illusions that wizards could not get and wizards had spells illusionists could not get. 3e gave everything to wizards for consistency and to make things easier to look up and remember. Then "specialists" got one extra spell per level. That's basically it. A transmuter and an illusionist could both blast stuff just as well as an evoker -- just one less time per day per spell level. To me, that's not a specialist - they weren't different. 4e seems to be going back to this 1e idea. Wizards will have some "basic" (or "common") illusions while illusionists (or perhaps bards -- whatever class is the "master" of illusions) get those plus more while not being able to have the same powers as a wizard has. True specialists. I prefer this.

3. Scrolls and wands. No self respecting mage memorized knock in order to outdo the rogue. And no self respecting wizard didn't have scrolls or wands of knock, invisibility, and all those other utility spells. Wizards could memorize all the combat spells while still "casting" all the buffs and utility spells as needed. This was one of the key reasons wizards could out-do everyone -- because they had combat spells memorized and utility as needed in their hip pocket. In 4e, wizards won't be able to do this. If they don't get knock (for example), they won't be able to step on anyone's toes. It's not a matter of "I don't memorize combat spells (so I'm ineffective)" or "I have money, and thus have all the utility I need while still being effective in combat." They simply can't do it. Because the "mastery" of unlocking stuff (just as an example) was given to someone else -- the rogue. Or, perhaps a better example given this discussion is something like dominate. I'd carry it in a wand so I could bypass diplomacy, bluff, sense motive checks and the like when necessary without giving up combat readiness. Now, that utility will be moved to another character class. So if I want to be someone that controls minds, I play a bard or enchanter (or whatever the "mind control" class will be) and if I want to play a blaster with some minor enchantments spells (but not ones that steal the thunder of the specialist class), I play a wizard. Before, it wasn't a matter of "do I give up combat for utility" it was a question of "do I have some gold." Now you simply can't do it. There are more general classes like the wizard (who have some spells of all types) and specialists like the warlock (for blasting) or bard (for manipulation). Again, I like this.

Some people want the wizard to be like he was in 3e. Everything. It's not an invalid archetype. It's not my preference, however, and I think it's not good for the game overall. If you don't like it, I can't imagine it'd be hard to simply state "wizards can pick powers or spells from any arcane list."

4. House rules. If you've played D&D for more than a couple months, you've probably house ruled at least one thing. No game is perfectly designed for everyone; it can't be. So we all tweak it to get the feel we want. I prefer that wizards have the new limitations. It's easy under this system to expand a repertoire. In 3e it was hard to limit it -- you either had access to a school or you didn't. There was no way to say "you get basic (not just low level) illusions and all evocations," so this is also better for tweaking.

Happy gaming!

 

[TPK]

3) I'm glad they yanked out most illusions, necromancy, enchantment and summoning. Why? For one, so they can do them right. If those schools are the focus of a class, or at least focused on by someone, then they're going to be better. Summon Monster spells really take the pop out of summoning that Big Bad Demon that's going to come and wreck the world; because 'bink, in for a few seconds, bink, gone'. Illusion spells are very meh in 3e.

R&C mentions that one of the reason Necromancy didn't make the first cut is because after they took out Save or Dies and Level Drain, the school was pretty much bare bones.

I'd rather WotC work on the 8 classes in the PHB and shine them up real nice, and then work on the other stuff, instead of doing a lot of things half way.

Fair enough. But what we seem to be getting in PHB I is two varieties of blaster. Since they have been working on this for years, I think it would have been nice if they had come up with some sort of non-blasty magic class. It seems my wizard school campaign will have to put off converting until PHB II. And though I'm generally hopeful, I'm also nervous that a great many cool fantasy concepts will end up in the clutches of crystal-juggling sci-fi mystics who may be hard to refluff. So, Bard, I'm counting on you! Please don't let me down!

 

[Rechan]

Fair enough. But what we seem to be getting in PHB I is two varieties of blaster.

The Warlock doesn't look like a blaster to me. He looks about as much of a Blaster as a Rogue is. Honestly, the Warlock strikes me as a debuffer, with the emphasis on Cursing. And he'll have summoning and movement powers.

The Wizard's powers seem to revolve around blasting - for the Staff, sure. To quote the Wizard Implements article:

The orb is favored by the Iron Sigil and Serpent Eye traditions. Serpent Eye cabalists use orbs to focus powers of enchantment, beguiling, and ensnaring. The mages of the Iron Sigil, on the other hand, employ orbs to guard themselves with potent defenses when invoking spells of thunder or force.

We also know that Orbs are for battlefield control, so they'll likely be using Fogs, Walls, etc.

And though I'm generally hopeful, I'm also nervous that a great many cool fantasy concepts will end up in the clutches of crystal-juggling sci-fi mystics who may be hard to refluff.

As someone who likes psionics, I hope the crystal stuff dies and the sci-fi stuff is toned down.

 

[Wulfram]

I think, as long as there are specialty classes at some point, that those concerns aren't justified though.

So long as you plan on buying lots of splat books, perhaps. If you don't, then only getting 1/6th of the full Wizard class in the core books might be a concern

 

[Lackhand]

So long as you plan on buying lots of splat books, perhaps. If you don't, then only getting 1/6th of the full Wizard class in the core books might be a concern

So then, it's down to how expansive or repetitive the powers are.
If the classes and powers that we do get are as concise as they could reasonably be, no repeated powers, no powers that are the same as other powers but one level higher, none that are mirrored across classes, then no complaints.

After all, the book only gets to be so big, and giving everybody "spells" -- also known as "discrete units of something interesting to do" is laudable. The only trouble is that it makes the magic guys less special. Still...

 

[Ahglock]

Well yes, anyone who wants the 4E wizard to be the wizard that masters all forms of magic will be highly disappointed. They won't be the best at all forms of magic anymore, espcially since Enchanters, Conjurors, Necromancers, Illusionists will all be their own sperate classes later on.

Until they had the capturing spell book think in 3.5 wizards in 3e never were masters of all forms of magic. The costs of scribing a spell limited your spell selection decently. You might master every low level spell, but the higher levels were expensive., and if you wanted to master them all you were eating into your magic item fund really quickly.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So long as you plan on buying lots of splat books, perhaps. If you don't, then only getting 1/6th of the full Wizard class in the core books might be a concern

Well, WotC will want to sell a few more books the just the core books.
I am not sure how many people could afford the 1.200 pages 4E Players Handbook. Or would want to...
Depending on how additional spellcasting classes are distributed about the book, you might get lucky and have more than 1/5th of each book useful to you. (I think that's the current "usefulness ratio" I get from the Complete books. Too many PrCs, spells and feats remain unused in my experience...)

 

[TPK]

The Warlock doesn't look like a blaster to me. He looks about as much of a Blaster as a Rogue is. Honestly, the Warlock strikes me as a debuffer, with the emphasis on Cursing. And he'll have summoning and movement powers.

And the rogue blasts with a knife Seriously, one of the main functions of the curses seem to be increasing damage to the target from Eldritch ->BLAST<-. And "Your Scary New Friend", IIRC, mentions the summoning as "disembodied jaws" chewing on people, which sounds to me like very slightly refluffed blasting. But sure, they do other stuff as well, as do wizards.

The Wizard's powers seem to revolve around blasting - for the Staff, sure. To quote the Wizard Implements article:

We also know that Orbs are for battlefield control, so they'll likely be using Fogs, Walls, etc.

One can hope. We already had this argument about the Serpent Eyes, seemingly specialized in stuff that is peripheral to the class. Maybe they'll allow the Serpent Eyes to retrain as Bards, once the PHB II comes out?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Until they had the capturing spell book think in 3.5 wizards in 3e never were masters of all forms of magic. The costs of scribing a spell limited your spell selection decently. You might master every low level spell, but the higher levels were expensive., and if you wanted to master them all you were eating into your magic item fund really quickly.

Since their most powerful ability was the ability to have just THE right spell for any occasion, it would be a foolish wizard who preferred magic items over unlimited spell choice, IMO.