Wizards still cast Enchantment, Illusions, Necromancy

[Lackhand]

*makes a mental note to add this to adventures*

Two buttons. The first one pressed causes a spear to shoot up in the square directly in front of the button. The second one pressed causes a spear to shoot up in the square 10' in front of the button.

 

[Falling Icicle]

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.

I disagree. All of those specialists could easily fit the controller role, they just do it a bit differently.

 

[Khuxan]

1) And Specialist wizards were in the 2nd and 3ed PHB! No need for another book, pfft
2) Available, but, what will it be like?
3) Even Sauron had to spend time as a noobling!
4) Where do your characters get all the MONEY for that though, hm? 3rd and 4th level wanrs are extremely expensive. (Rightfully so)
5) ...*holds finger in the air* If an area has been designed ot prevent inflitration/theft by a wizard, or, by someone with smarts who knows about magic, they should be really on the ball about ways to deal with arcanes. I'm sure thieves guilds have come up with ways to deal with mages

1) Specialist wizards were present in name, but they were inadequate - hence the need for warmages, dread necromancers, beguilers, and so on. You can still play a wizard with many illusion spells, many necromancy spells, etc., - but now there is an acknowledgement that a specialist illusionist requires more than that.
2) Like charm person is now?
3) No he didn't. He was created as a god-like being, much more powerful than Gandalf.
4) A third-level wand is affordable by 6th-level. A third-level scroll is affordable by 2nd-level. A wizard can use his/her spells to memorise offensive spells, and then carry scrolls of spells like knock, silence or invisibility to make the rogue useless.

 

[Falling Icicle]

4) A third-level wand is affordable by 6th-level. A third-level scroll is affordable by 2nd-level. A wizard can use his/her spells to memorise offensive spells, and then carry scrolls of spells like knock, silence or invisibility to make the rogue useless.

Hold on a minute here. Rogues can pick locks any number of times for free. They are certainly better lock openers than Wizards, who need expensive scrolls and wands of knock. Wizards have to pay something, be it a spell slot, charge, etc, evey time they do this. Rogues don't. And every gold piece a Wizard spends trying to be a rogue is a gold piece that didn't go to something that helps his spellcasting.

Yeah, Wizards can go invisible to sneak around. Too bad it doesn't make them move silently. And don't forget that the Wizard can make the Rogue invisible too, which results in a far better scout than the Wizard could ever be.

Really, a selfish Wizard that insits on trying to cover for other party member's roles will find himself mediocre at best at the things he's supposed to be good at and make his party less effective overall. Toolkit type wizards tend to be jacks of all trades, masters of nothing.

 

[Traycor]

Plus, animate dead.

Minions sure would be handy for control. Plus, it's cool, and you shouldn't have necromancy if you can't animate the dead, IMO.

I'm fairly certain that this will be reserved for the necromancer class.

 

[Ahglock]

Grr, rangers are not and never should be "masters of archery"...GAH!! Sorry, rangers are "masters of the wild/hunting/tracking/survival and non-magical combat in the wild".

The "two weapon" silliness of AD&D PO'd me off enormously. 3.5 fixed things, though why a woodsman would actually have speical stuff with dual wielding is ludicrous. They should be very good with hunting weapons, you don't hunt deer etc with two scimitars!

Fighters train all the time to be masters of combat, nothing else. They, and only they, are the masters of weaponry, though other folk can of course, be very good, but not as good, note the only class to get weapon specialization!

I somewhat agree but in the end I don't want to get hung up in class names, all I want to know is if I can build the character I am envisioning. Is there a way to build the super opposite of unfun archer who doesn't have wilderness crap tied to him. I don't care if it comes from multi classing, or from the rogue class even, just let me make a pure weapon specialist archer. Similarly for the wizard I don't care if its the wizard class as long as I can play my generalist arcane caster who isn't shoe-horned into being a blaster with a handful of tricks.

 

[Ahglock]

I'm fairly certain that this will be reserved for the necromancer class.

I hope a basic animate dead spell isn't. Sure making vampires or especially vampire potatoes should be a necromancer only thing, but basic zombies should be available to the generalist.

 

[Ahglock]

Hold on a minute here. Rogues can pick locks any number of times for free. They are certainly better lock openers than Wizards, who need expensive scrolls and wands of knock. Wizards have to pay something, be it a spell slot, charge, etc, evey time they do this. Rogues don't. And every gold piece a Wizard spends trying to be a rogue is a gold piece that didn't go to something that helps his spellcasting.

.

Not to mention chanting loudly while reading a scroll kind of wrecks that entire element of surprise thing, you minds well just have the orc kick the door in at that point.

 

[Lackhand]

I hope a basic animate dead spell isn't. Sure making vampires or especially vampire potatoes should be a necromancer only thing, but basic zombies should be available to the generalist.

Mmm... I dunno if I agree with that "should". Sure, "could". But "should"?
In genre, only icky-evil-necromancers consort with the undead. You have skeletons around --> you are a necromancer.
Sometimes necromancers sling flame around, or enchant people... but then, aren't they really necromancers who multiclassed into something else, rather than vice-versa?

Also, having minions sucks for everybody who doesn't have minions. Sure, if the zombie-horde is mechanically simple and unobtrusive to interact with, everybody can get one. But if it's not, it shouldn't be a base option just lying there for someone to step in -- it should require some sort of sacrifice, a specific build, so that having it precludes other guys just lying around. This is only an issue for PCs. NPCs just have zombies lying around, the same way they can control nigh infinite HD of created undead.

 

[Lackhand]

Not to mention chanting loudly while reading a scroll kind of wrecks that entire element of surprise thing, you minds well just have the orc kick the door in at that point.

"Loudly"?