Community

Moribund wrote:

What you've done is broken one effect into two, which has a very different balance dynamic than Born of Three Thunders because it uses up two feat slots.

Apparently, in 4e there will be more feat slots available, so I don't see that as being a serious problem.

Also by being specific you can keep effects that you want to keep separate, separate. If you don't want acid effects to cause stunning because it leads to a broken combo (with say Melf's Acid Arrow), then you can't include your feats. The possibility for unintended consequences increase exponentially when you allow that kind of choice.

Muahaha... *cough*

You can already make such 'broken' combos with the use of the Energy Substitution feat - which, from memory, is a prerequisite for Three Thunders. In practise, most monsters worth doing that to instead of simply killing them with damage laugh at your puny Fort save DCs. Amusing to watch when it does work, though.

As long as energy substitution exists, the only real balance issue that can be resolved by de-generalising things is dealing with energy resistances. And if it doesn't... hopefully that means they'll be introducing more spells of the various energy types at each level, since if it's viable to play anything other than a fire wizard purely out of the PHB in 4e, it'll be the first edition where that is the case.

(Not that I'd object to the idea of each energy type having enough spells of its own to have its own flavour rather than relying on borrowing from other energy types through Energy Substitution, mind you...)

It also limits future additions. If later in the game they want to add a new energy type that behaves differently the devs have to parse all of the effects that relate to energy types in general and figure out how the new energy will interact with them as well as describe that interaction in text.

Do they? I don't see any complicated rules about how the current energy types interact in the current ruleset. The only one that's even a little weird is sonic (you can't sub into or admix with sonic, but you can take a sonic spell and sub or admix with something else). Introduction of new energy types may well involve giving some exceptions to existing feats, but is that really more effort than coming up with a separate feat for every possible interaction?

Moribund wrote:

Also the more specific you make abilities the more you encourage overspecialization. Being a fire mage in 3e may be thematically cohesive, but it isn't a balanced character. I should know, I have one in my party. By having the tradition feats apply to multiple general concepts, you encourage players to be more balanced, which makes things more fun for everyone. Having a path for each specific theme may give the illusion of more options, but it fails to work out that way. Because, in order to be optimal, you have to focus on a limited path.

Then throw in some costs. Most metamagic feats come with a level boost, after all. Most others have some kind of cost - Three Thunders, for instance, has the one-round Daze on the caster. They're nice to have, but it's not like you really want to pile every metamagic feat onto every spell.

And if that's the case, there isn't such the drive to overspecialise. There's no advantage to having a dozen feats for one energy type over a more diverse range if you can't pile them all onto one spell in the first place. Someone may well choose to go for the full specialisation route, but as long as there's a system in place to stop you from piling everything you've got onto one spell it shouldn't be overbalancing to the point where the alternatives stop being viable.

So, unless the WOTC balancing team is really sleeping on the job, I don't see the scenario you present as being particularly likely to occur, and my proposal allows a greater range of concepts then limiting it to six... of which none may actually resemble your character concept.

Moribund wrote:

Hmm, [class] powers are considered wizard powers for the purposes of abilities and effects.

It could work, I suppose.

draxynnic, the number of available viable options are going to be finite. Your method may make the initial number greater, but at least in my perspective it limits future addition.

I fully expect the designers to add new traditions to allow for more concepts, I imagine Tome of Tomes: Book of Nine Traditions is already on the internal release schedule. In fact I think expandability is why they decided to go with traditions as opposed to something more like schools. It is almost impossible to add a new school, and it can be difficult to add a new general-concept path due to name-space and overlap issues. Traditions don't concern themselves with overlap. Traditions can probably be mixed an matched leading to far more than 6 options even initially.

So, shall we also see the gods in the original release hardwired in, and the ability to worship other deities reserved for splatbook owners? That's analogous to what you're saying.

On one breath you say my system will still give a finite number of options, and then you say that it can't be expanded. If it gives a finite number of options, those options can be expanded.

I also don't see your point of fitting character concept. If traditions are more inclusive than general-concepts, the character concept of a wizard with a general-concept focus will fit within the concept of a tradition.

It means that the only viable character concepts are those that fit within the traditions.

A cost-based mechanic prevents the wizard from combining diverse effects in novel ways, and is not in evidence in the one ability we have knowledge of. A cost-based mechanic is also difficult to implement; metamagic-like costs are unlikely to work in the new at-will, per-encounter, and per-day system and actually discouraged players from using their abilities frequently.

That's the whole point. They give you some more options, but you don't want to have your entire spell selection loaded with metamagic. It still leaves some options for mixing and matching among the lower-cost options, but prevents you from piling everything onto one spell... which seemed to be what you were worried about in your last post!

As for the new mechanics: We don't know them well enough to speculate how they'd operate with costs, but I'm sure there are ways. Have the spell take up a higher-level slot. Have the application of a feat reduce raw damage. Who knows what mechanics may be possible for applying a cost to using a particular ability?