WotC_Rodney's Wizard: Sleep, magic missiles, and dimension door?

[TerraDave]

From "WotC_Rodney" (I have lost track of real names) here:

On his charecter:

So Halloween night was our first session of Chris Perkins' new 4th Edition campaign...We did get into one scuffle with some sailors that gave me a chance to flex some of my magical muscle, though. I put a large group of sailors to sleep (they were clustered close together hauling a local drunk out of his shanty), but right after I did some of their sneakier friends came up behind us. I took a critical to the back and dropped down to 2 hit points (ouch!). Fortunately, I'd been developing something of a rapport with Curt Gould's cleric, and he was there to provide me with some boosted healing. On the next round I was able to do a short teleport away and then started peppering enemies with magic missiles until our reinforcements arrived and talked the sailors down.

On being tickled pink by the Wizard

This morning I compared notes with Jeremy Crawford, who is playing a wizard in Chris Perkins' Monday night campaign, and we both found ourselves coming to the same conclusions about the wizard class, what we liked, what we needed to tweak, etc. Interestingly enough, no sooner had I handed my playtest feedback over to the powers that be than I received an update from our development team...that fixed a huge chunk of the issues I'd had with the wizard. Needless to say, I'm tickled pink. Being a step outside the design process (since I'm the full time Star Wars RPG designer/developer/ freelance wrangler/editing assistant/product guide/Mr. Universe I am only doing development work on 4th Edition, and only in short bursts) I was interested to see how the wizard translated over to our new system. I knew I was going to like the changes to classes like rogue (which I also playtested before) and ranger (which I helped develop), but getting to play with the wizard eased a lot of my concerns about versatility. Incorporating the changes I got this morning, I definitely feel more like the wizard of old.

And be sure to hit link, see picture.

 

[WyzardWhately]

I thought the PHB was done...how are they still making changes to the class?

 

[Patlin]

I thought the PHB was done...how are they still making changes to the class?

The PHB was "done" in that it was ready to playtest. In other words, it hit a milestone, not the finish line.

 

[Goken100]

I'm pumped about the Magic Missile. It looks that that will be the standard low-level attack of a Wizard that doesn't run out. Remember Warcraft 2, and how the magic users could always fling some energy attacks around? That's the new magic missle. I'm betting that it'll involve an attack role, since otherwise it would have to be REALLY weak or it would be broken.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Incorporating the changes I got this morning, I definitely feel more like the wizard of old.

This sounds good. And sleep is still there... I guess the worries about too much blasty stuff and not enough wizardly stuff are unfounded - sounds good, sounds good.

And the picture... is funny!

Cheers, LT.

 

[WyzardWhately]

I'm pumped about the Magic Missile. It looks that that will be the standard low-level attack of a Wizard that doesn't run out. Remember Warcraft 2, and how the magic users could always fling some energy attacks around? That's the new magic missle. I'm betting that it'll involve an attack role, since otherwise it would have to be REALLY weak or it would be broken.

Not necessarily. 1d4+1 against one out of five enemies isn't nearly as cool as it was when you were only fighting one.

 

[WayneLigon]

I presume that they started at level 1? Interesting that he could take a crit as a wizard and be down to 2 HP instead of looking at the wrong side of a coffin lid.

 

[drothgery]

I presume that they started at level 1? Interesting that he could take a crit as a wizard and be down to 2 HP instead of looking at the wrong side of a coffin lid.

With SWSE-style triple HD+con HPs at first level and killing the d4 hit die dead (which should have been done long ago), not so unlikley.

 

[Doug McCrae]

This sounds good. And sleep is still there... I guess the worries about too much blasty stuff and not enough wizardly stuff are unfounded - sounds good, sounds good.

Each class seems to have a number of alternate paths. The blasty path could be one of a wizard's or he could go more battlefield control or whatever.

Currently a wizard can do that by means of spell selection. If he's not a specialist, he can switch completely freely from one to another - loading up nothing but blast spells one day for instance (maybe he feels like a bit of fun ). Perhaps that will no longer be the case in 4e.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

and killing the d4 hit die dead (which should have been done long ago)

How do we know this? Source?