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Jan 14, 2012 -- 9:58PM, Layander wrote:

I never had anti vancian debates until 3.5 which is why I think 4e is what it is. 

They were huge back when the Anti-Vancian stuff was a big responsibility for tons of independent off shoot games back n the 70s and 80s it was a common criticism helll I wouldnt be suprised if it wasnt a key part of why RuneQuest was made cause well Vancian didnt match up with legend, myth or fiction and not even that well with Jack Vances stories... god magic missile is like the universes least imagniative spell name...

No we didnt have the internet we did have amateur press associations one I participated in was called Alurums and Excursions and featured many game designers.

I believe something like this can be a good starting point for a system that encompasses both ideas. 


Now, in regard to the discussion. I believe the following is true.

One side of the argument wants wizards to have spells that impact the world in a very significant way. They want spells to be "more than just combat-based". They believe the 4E version of the Wizard has no spells that solve "out of combat" situations. They want to have a wizard who can choose between either offensive combat spells (and they do believe that 4E got those right: combat spells should be in line with what other characters can achieve in combat, they shouldn't be the broken powerhouses 3.5 spells were) and utility spells (something that cannot be done in 4E). The balancing mechanism can be done in the form of harsh penalties to spell users, such as failure chance, spell preparation issues, frailty.

The other side of the argument wants wizards to be able to impact the game world as much as the other classes, but in a different way. They believe that wizards using spells that mimic other classes, or completely bypass challenges, are broken to the core. They believe the 3.5 wizard was a broken powerhouse that no limitation could really fix, as by reducing his power enough to balance his awesome spells you would annihilate his playability.

The first side is missing an important point.

The 4E version of the Wizard has got spells that solve non-combat situations. Those spells are not his powers. Those spells can easily be as game-changing as 3.5 spells were, but by toning those down with longer casting time and resources requirement, you cannot break the game as easily. The 4E Wizard has access to divination spells, charm-like spells (though the Bard has easier access), mobility and travel spells, teleportation, flying, water breathing, detect secret doors, create magical wards, traps, protections, it has access to passwall, eye of warning, scry, at the highest levels he can even teleport wherever he wishes.
 
Those spells are not as broken as they were in 3.5, but would you want them to be that broken? I sure wouldn't, and I don't think anybody would. Now all those spells have meaningful costs, require time to cast and need to be learned in non-linear ways, be it payment or research as decided by the DM (you don't have the "add 2 spells every level" clause).
Those spells can change the course of a game drastically. I have played lots of adventures where that is true. Arkantha wouldn't have gone the same way if Aramil couldn't teleport the PCs at the end of the world to stop the big bad from killing a god. My, it would have been totally different even if he just didn't have the Hand of Fate spell to guide them through the mines labyrinth. Those were things I as a DM didn't expect (I had different plans in both cases) but a proper spell changed my adventure and I adapted. It went well. In another occasion I had a character cast teleportation circles and mantain them during his travels all over the course of the adventure. In the end it payed off as we were able to teleport practically everywhere at low costs from our fortress and that easily won us some otherwise tough battles. We won a siege by casting Water Breathing and sending our athletic rogue through the underground river and up the wells of the castle (he opened the gate easily from the inside).
It's all there, in the rulebook. It could be improved drastically with proper support by WotC, who mostly didn't care about that section of their own books (and that was a bad mistake). But it IS all there.

Can we make it better? Sure. Can we make it more apparent, even tie it directly to the Wizard class? Sure. 
But it is wrong to say that those options are not there in 4E. They are, they just aren't powers. They're called rituals, and their cost is meaningful. They can still be used to change a story, but they can't be used to change the course of a fight. They require moderation and preparation. They don't work in every situation. But when they do, they are about as powerful as 3.5 spells were.