Would anyone prefer spellcasting to stay as it is?

[WhatGravitas]

Hi, guys!

Mouseferatu has posted on his blog a few of the 4e changes:
http://mouseferatu.livejournal.com/497515.html

For spellcasting, a wizard will have...
...1/day abilities
...1/encounter abilities.
...at will abilities

How much 1/day will be Vancian is unclear - quite possible it will be retained, but I like that breakdown a lot.

That sounds very interesting (and funnily, it resembles the Mouse's Shadowcaster a bit)! I really hope, that they found a way to organize these suites without very much bookkeeping... perhaps they have three-effect spells? (i.e. a fireball can produce a weak fire missile, a scorching ray or a fireball, with one spell for each spell level, see the other thread on spell levels)

Cheers, LT.

 

[Ander00]

I like the concept of vancian spellcasting, but I very much approve of the shift away from the /day paradigm. I hope they manage to give us the best of both worlds with the new magic system, though the 80% power figure when 'out of spells' seems a bit high to me. Time will tell.


cheers

 

[Zaruthustran]

- Wizards possess great power, way beyond fighter-type classes, at least that's the way I see it. The tradeoff is having limited use of it.

That's a false tradeoff. The reality is that if your party's spellcasters run out of spells, the whole group camps for the night. Even if you just got up, and been in three fights that each lasted less than a minute. The 4E designers really wanted to put an end to the adventurer's typical 1 hour workday.

Sure, there are cases where the plot prevents camping. But pressing on, completely unable to meaningfully contribute... that's not really that fun for the wizard player.

- Having to think and plan ahead is part of the challenge, and sounds particularly in character for a wizard. Deciding whether to pull out the "ace in the sleeve" now, or wait in case something even more dreadful awaits in the next room, is a lot more interesting IMHO than knowing you can fire at will just because it will all be ready again for the next fight.

That's the beauty of Reserve feats in 3E. You have a cool ability you can use at will, but only so long as you keep your "ace in the sleeve", well, up your sleeve. When you do decide to throw that ace, you're also losing the at-will ability.

You get all the fun of having to manage your resources, but you also get to join the fun in beating up on minor bad guys without feeling like you're "wasting" a spell.

- Logically, how can a wizard just walk around all day shooting spells? Doesn't he get tired? It also sounds a little broken... Like having a crossbow that doesn't need darts... (And always hits a-la magic missile? Requires only touch attacks?) Doesn't sound very fun at all.

Compare to a fighter. He can swing that sword, effectively, all day long. I think 4E wants to give that same play experience to wizards. But I imagine in 4E spells will be limited by components, in the same way that archers are limited by arrows. Which is to say, not at all. Almost everybody "hand-waves" ammo unless it's abused, or the party is in one of those rare situations (siege, very long voyage away from any civilization, and so on) where it becomes important to track such minor resources.

But from a "logical" perspective, look at Harry Potter or Charmed or many other examples of magic. You can do your basic schtick whenever you want. It's only the big, dramatic works of magic that exhaust the caster. This seems to be in keeping with 4E's grouping of abilities into "at will", "per encounter", and "per day".

- I just can't imagine a wizard without the stereotypical endless memorization and studying
and the complete dependence on his spell-book. Dragonlance's Raistlin comes to mind...

Well, that's because Dragonlance was deliberately based on an RPG, and went to great lengths to shoehorn D&D's odd mechanics. Me, I never really understood why wizards "forgot" their spells each time they were cast. You'd think after decades of practice, the mighty archmage would remember the words and gestures for a simple Magic Missile.

So, WOTC are definitely slaying a holy cow here as far as I'm considered. Of course I do not yet know any particular details, just rumors and speculations, but so far this is the only thing that's been bothering me. Any opinions?

Yes: I'd like a double bacon Sacred Cowberger. D&D is long overdue for a complete magic overhaul.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Well, that's because Dragonlance was deliberately based on an RPG, and went to great lengths to shoehorn D&D's odd mechanics. Me, I never really understood why wizards "forgot" their spells each time they were cast. You'd think after decades of practice, the mighty archmage would remember the words and gestures for a simple Magic Missile.

Easy. Wizards shape an arcane pattern, fill it with magical energy, and lock that in their mind/aura/personal force field/whathaveyou. The little bit during casting is simply a trigger that releases that stored-up energy through the pattern, creating a spell effect. Once it is release, it is gone, pattern and energy. The "Spells per Day" limit is the number of charged patterns a wizard can store in his mind/aura. That's why it goes up with level and Intelligence...they simply get better at it.

Sorcerers, by their heritage, have those patterns in their aura/etc. already...they simply have to pull magical energy through them every time they want to create a spell effect. Since their patterns are attached to their auras from birth, they don't vanish with a casting. The limit on "Spells per Day" for the sorcerer is more the amount of magical energy he can pull through his aura without endangering its integrity. Spell levels function as quantum levels in that case.

What a wizard has to study (shaping of patterns, charging them with energy, and locking both in their mind), a sorcerer does instinctively and on the spot, since he only needs to do one half of the work, but in turn can't really change anything because he never studied and understood it. A wizard can waggle his fingers and wave that sulfur-bat guano ball all he wants, if he hasn't got a charged fireball pattern stored in his mind, no kablooie.

If you want a class that has the innate ability of the sorcerer and the learning of the wizard, use the Magister of Arcana Unearthed fame...as is, or as prestige class for someone with sorcerous abilities who actually studied the theory of magic. If you want the sorcerer to be able to extend his casting at his own risk, use Overchanneling from Wheel of Time...with a few minute tweaks, it does that perfectly. Want a spell point system? The quickest one is to use the Psion with arcane spells. Want something a la Dragonlance where the caster tires the more powerful spells he casts? Use the channeler from Midnight and swap the Magic Cost to subdual damage once the magic points have run out.

It's one thing 3E really accomplished...a whole lot of damn interesting ways to modify D&D's method of spellcasting. And this was just arcane magic, and the tip of the iceberg.

Outdated and inflexible? I don't see it at all.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Outdated and inflexible ideas need to be re-examined. They're doing this.

Yes, I've heard talk about dropping "legacy" items from the game.

I've been playing for about 20 years and I'm all for it.

There's a lot of clunky and extraneous minutiae in this game that puts otherwise very bright people off – I don't want to work that hard to have fun kind of thing.

 

[Li Shenron]

Because WotC/Hasbro wants to actually SELL the game and enough of the players have begged for Vancian magic and other aspects that it becomes more clear that keeping the sacred cows will have a (possibly significantly) reduced number of sales, and they don't want that. They are trying to grow the game and make it more interesting to more people. Outdated and inflexible ideas need to be re-examined. They're doing this.

...

Personally, I've played a ton of RPGs over the years and many (maybe even most) of them had a magic system I preferred to the D&D system.

Yeah but this is what I don't fully understand. You played a ton of other systems and you liked them better... Then why do you want D&D to turn into one of them? Can't you just keep playing them?

Why trying to adapt D&D to become something else? We're talking about major changes and sacred cows here, not fixes to mechanics.

It's like saying "i don't like soccer because you cannot touch the ball with your hands, like in other games (basketball, football, volley...), so let's change soccer because the total number of players of the other games is larger", it is totally nonsense

edit: so how would you feel about your favourite Mage: The Ascension publishing a new edition that switches to vancian magic for marketing reasons??

 

[Nine Hands]

Out of pure curiosity, since it has already been confirmed that spellcasting will undergo serious changes, is there anyone who is less enthusiastic about it?

Sure, it may not be so exciting to run out of spells and remain useless until the next nap, but here are some points to consider:

- Wizards possess great power, way beyond fighter-type classes, at least that's the way I see it. The tradeoff is having limited use of it. Giving the wizard some form of unlimited casting, without breaking the game, has to be accompanied either by some weakening of spells or massive reduction of powerful spell uses per-day/encounter/whatever or something like that. It would just ruin the experience for me, giving up Meteor Swarms of Doom for the ability to fling around magic missiles at will.

- Having to think and plan ahead is part of the challenge, and sounds particularly in character for a wizard. Deciding whether to pull out the "ace in the sleeve" now, or wait in case something even more dreadful awaits in the next room, is a lot more interesting IMHO than knowing you can fire at will just because it will all be ready again for the next fight.

- Logically, how can a wizard just walk around all day shooting spells? Doesn't he get tired? It also sounds a little broken... Like having a crossbow that doesn't need darts... (And always hits a-la magic missile? Requires only touch attacks?) Doesn't sound very fun at all.

- I just can't imagine a wizard without the stereotypical endless memorization and studying and the complete dependence on his spell-book. Dragonlance's Raistlin comes to mind...

So, WOTC are definitely slaying a holy cow here as far as I'm considered. Of course I do not yet know any particular details, just rumors and speculations, but so far this is the only thing that's been bothering me. Any opinions?

I absolutely detest the current fire and forget system of spell casting. There are so many other, better ways of doing things. A hybrid idea is fine, just as long as there is something a spellcaster can do once his bing bang spells are done. In my higher level games, I've just wanted to allow spellcasters to use lower level spells without limit.

 

[glass]

I personally see Malhavoc's Arcana Evolved as a nice modern implementation of Vancian magic.

If by 'modern' you mean 'not'!

Personally, I think AE's system had all the problems of Vancian magic with none of the flavour: The worst of all worlds, in that respect. Other things about it were cool though.


glass.

 

[solkan_uk]

I was under the impression that it was heading towards a wizard/warlock hybrid. With some weak powers that are usable at will, but the actual spells working roughly as they do now...

 

[Nebulous]

I personally see Malhavoc's Arcana Evolved as a nice modern implementation of Vancian magic.

Personally, I think they can make an amalgam system, combining the best ideas from Bo9S and Arcana Evolved and develop a spellcasting system that can fit arcane/divine/psion casters alike.

What he said. Arcana Evolved fixed a lot of the problems i had with the core magic system. In fact, i would never want to play a 3.x wizard or sorcerer again. The magister and witch are much more fun.