Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DSRilk" data-source="post: 3976666" data-attributes="member: 35212">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!</blockquote>

Verification