|
5 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2008 - 5:03AM
#11
|
|
|
What happened to the other, non-combat spells?
Rituals. At - Will Cantrips. Some utility spells.
What happened to summoning demons and demanding their service?
'Ambassador Imp', 'Minions of Malbolge', [Insert Homebrewed lvl 22+ Ritual Here]
What happened to creating powerful illusions, shapechanging into other creatures or becoming gaseous?
'Hallucinatory Terrain'. 'Hallucinatory Creature'. 'Shadow Form'. 'Beguiling Tongue'. 'Disguise Self'.
As for the true shapechanging, that seems to have been made the true dominion of the doppleganger, as it should be. Though, again, you can always make a ritual for it.
Funny that people seem so angry at having a system that is open to self creation to fullfill needs that the designers missed or did not originally want in their game. When my players saw "Rituals", their eyes widened like children meeting the real Santa Clause.
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2008 - 5:33AM
#12
|
Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2005
|
Spellcasters were broken in 3.x. They were broken because they could do everything and had access to horribly broken powers. Until you understand this, you understand absolutely nothing. The idea that spellcasters should have more options than non-spellcasters is horribly wrong and you need to clear your mind of it. Spellcasters should not be more fun to play than non-spellcasters, and spells shouldn't break the game in half. That's why spellcasters are so much more limited in what they can do now; because now they aren't broken and have options roughly equivalent to, in power and scope, those of other classes. Incidentally, you obviously didn't actually read the monster manual, or didn't understand the templating. You see, spells aren't different from other powers anymore; they're the same. TONS of monsters have SLAs; they're just standard abilities and have the same templating as other abilities, AS THEY SHOULD. Some people complain about out of combat spells, but I'll counter with this: most of them shouldn't exist. You should not give players the ability to create their own army of mindless slaves unless EVERYONE has that ability. Don't argue, don't whine, don't complain; you're wrong and I'm right. You CANNOT allow it. Same goes for numerous other things - dominating/charming people completely does away with need for roleplaying, diplomacy, and other party members. Flying completely screws over adventures. Teleportation makes it too easy to come and go as you please at a moment's notice, anywhere, anytime. 3.x did not work, and spellcasting being broken was a large part of why it was non-functional. The entire vancian casting system, the idea of being able to change into any shape you wanted... these are inherently broken, and simply not good for roleplaying games. They have balanced the game through homogeneity, in the same way that warcraft 2 was balanced. Wizards weren't broken they had the most powerful abilities at later levels but also the most drawbacks and vulnerabilities, which made them interesting.
The only person who claims wizards weren't broken is the person who has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.
Wizards didn't have the most drawbacks and vulnerabilities; clearly you don't understand 3.x. They had no weaknesses, no drawbacks, and no vulnerabilities. Oh no, I'm out of spells! I'll just teleport away, rest, and teleport back. Or planeshift away to a plane where time runs a million times faster, rest, and teleport back the same round I left, but with all my spells. Oh, I'm suprised? That's right, I can't be suprised due to divinations and the fact that I've got spells which allow me to instantly and proactively react to anything.
They had numerous ways of killing anything with no saving throw, no SR, and no ability to escape.
Only the ignorant would claim they weren't broken, because they were, even without throwing splatbooks into the mix.
Sure at tenth level you could pass through walls and fly, but you had a limited number of things you could do per day, you had to plan ahead. Some situations severely limited your capabilities - always relying on charming your enemies? doesnt work against undead, same with casting on a ship during a storm...good luck.
Why are you on a ship? You can teleport. And fly. Obviously you haven't played a mid to high level 3.x wizard, otherwise you wouldn't speak of things like ships.
Now all the classes are operating on the same mechanic. This certainly makes some aspects of the rules much much easier to figure out, including making it very easy to make your own classes and such. But now many classes have lost their flair. So many people are complaining about the same things for a reason.
That reason being, of course, that they have no idea what they're talking about.
You cannot give spellcasters the ability to do everything. Simple as that. If you think you can, then you shouldn't play D&D, as D&D has non-spellcaster classes which are supposed to be as powerful as the spellcaster classes. There are games which assume that everyone is a spellcaster, and that is the game you must play if you want to give wizards the power to do everything. The only way to give wizards the power to do anything is for everyone to be wizards.
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2008 - 6:10AM
#13
|
|
|
Yes, it's the point of 4th edition...and that's the sad part. The point of the game seems to have changed from fantasy adventures, to tabletop wargaming.
Stop right there. The point of the game is the same as it always was; providing a mechanical framework wherein you and your buddies can pretend to be brave warriors and cunning thieves from a magical fantasy land. That hasn't changed. What has, and what's freaking everyone out apparently, is the quality of the combat system.
4E's system is leaps and bounds ahead of previous editions in terms of the impact of tactics and in-combat decisions on the game as a whole. You don't win fights with your character sheet anymore; you win them with strategy. All this means is that combat now showcases the abilities of the characters rather than being a speed bump on the way to the Wizard dominating out of combat play. It's not "roll for initiative, cast save or die, split loot" anymore, and apparently that has a lot of feathers ruffled. The system isn't a table-top strategy game anymore than Monopoly is a game of craps; they share certain similarities (dice rolling, money changing hands, etc) but they do very different things if you're using them correctly.
This is why wizards have been made to work "the same as everyone else"
Wizards don't work "the same as everyone else." They cast spells, know rituals right from the start, and have a good working knowledge of the planes of existence built right in. Compare to the Fighter, who swings his sword, can take a beating, is good at killing things with pointy stuff and probably knows more about the local sporting events than anything to do with the Shadowfell or Feywild.
Wizards do have combat powers. And the do generally do damage. The thing is, that hasn't changed from previous editions at all. Magic Missle, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, etc. Combat staples that every Wizard who didn't have Conjuration and Evocation blocked would prepare and cast. They had other things too (what mid-to-high-level Wizard was ever without the ability to make the game go "boom" if he wanted to, after all?) but if they wanted to synergize with their party-mates rather than completely dominate them, damage dealing was their best bet.
Now all the classes are operating on the same mechanic. This certainly makes some aspects of the rules much much easier to figure out, including making it very easy to make your own classes and such. But now many classes have lost their flair. So many people are complaining about the same things for a reason.
No offense, but that "reason" always boils down to "I can't do the things I used to do, and I find change scary." Shifting paradigms (in this case the underlying mechanical system of D&D) always bring people out of the woodwork opining for what was and mindlessly demonizing whatever replaced it.
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2008 - 6:31AM
#14
|
|
|
Funny that people seem so angry at having a system that is open to self creation to fullfill needs that the designers missed or did not originally want in their game.
I never claimed that there are no non-combat spells, I only said that there are far too few non-combat spells. Every class has no more than just a handful on them, whereas they in 3.5 had dozens, if not a hundred, of them. While I understand that it is fully possible to create your own rituals, I somehow doubt it is the right choice to dump all responsibility on the DM to create the 200+ rituals needed to make magic seem like something more than just a weapon to kill things with.
You see, spells aren't different from other powers anymore; they're the same. TONS of monsters have SLAs; they're just standard abilities and have the same templating as other abilities, AS THEY SHOULD.
I do understand that spells have the same templating as the other powers, and I do agree that practically all of the monsters do have SLAs, but the problem here is the same as above: they are far too few. Look up any mid to high level monster in the 3.5 monster manual, and you will see that most of them have at least ten SLAs or spells, in addition to their normal attacks and extraordinary abilities. The monsters of 4th edition seem to have 3 or, at most 4, different attacks too choose from, leaving them with significantly less tactical options in combat.
You should not give players the ability to create their own army of mindless slaves unless EVERYONE has that ability.
I don't agree about this. If everyone is supposed to be able to to everything the other characters can do, then what is the purpose of having different classes? Aren't the classes supposed to be different? Aren't they supposed to give the players different abilities?
3.x did not work, and spellcasting being broken was a large part of why it was non-functional.
I suppose this is true, to some extent, but I don't believe it was necessary to completely tear down the system to balance it. As it is today, there is no significant difference between the wizard and the fighter. What they do is practically the same, except that the way they do it looks a little different. The fighter is a warrior, and therefore he should do lots of damage in combat. The wizard is a magic-user, and therefore he should be able to perform magic. They are different classes, and thus they should have different abilities.
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2008 - 6:34AM
#15
|
Date Joined:
Jun 30, 2008
|
I'd rather see all the schools of magic split into various classes than to have them all grouped under the same one. It wouldn't change much mechanically since to be effect you should focus on one specific school of magic rather than try to do it all...so why not just have different names right? Plus new class mean new class features and those are always fun!
The new uniform power structure makes it easier for new comers to pick up.
I love Horseshoecrabfolk.
What I love most about them is that they seem to be the one thing that we all can agree on.
See for yourself, click here!
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2008 - 6:49AM
#16
|
Date Joined:
Jun 28, 2006
|
Casters now play like everyone else, and that's the point.
That isn't honestly responsive to the argument. The OP uses the word spells, but what is really under discussion are powers (or capabilities, or whatever you choose to call packages of costs-targets-effects).
In 4th those are indeed lacking variety. Related to that, classes can feel more homogenous.
As you say, Ritual Magic provides an out. An out that is unnecessarily narrowed (or costly) while at the same time hearks back to the paradigm of 'spells' for stuff containing variety. Thus it fails one of 4th's best design objectives.
-vk
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2008 - 6:52AM
#17
|
Date Joined:
Apr 28, 2004
|
In 3.5e D&D spellcaster were totally overpowered and dominated the game. Some people loved this.
In 4e D&D spellcasters are no longer overpowered and can no longer dominate the game. Some people hate this.
WotC is playing the world's smallest violin for the 4e haters.
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2008 - 7:03AM
#18
|
|
|
That isn't honestly responsive to the argument. The OP uses the word spells, but what is really under discussion are powers (or capabilities, or whatever you choose to call packages of costs-targets-effects).
No, what's really under discussion is the level of versatility and "magicness" a Wizard brings to the table. The powers are representative of in-combat abilities, but there is an entire section of the book dedicated to non-combat magic. Discounting them is disengenious at best.
In 4th those are indeed lacking variety. Related to that, classes can feel more homogenous.
Only on paper. In practice Wizards, Rogues, Clerics, etc play completely differently. They use the same mechanic (d20 + Attribute mod vs Defense) but the effects they create have very different impacts on the battlefield. Saying that the Wizard "feels" just like the Fighter is like saying that pizza and tacos taste the same because they contain the same food groups.
As you say, Ritual Magic provides an out. An out that is unnecessarily narrowed (or costly) while at the same time hearks back to the paradigm of 'spells' for stuff containing variety.
"Unnecessarily" is extremely subjective. All the classics are there; Knock, Scry, Raise Dead, Comprehend Languages, Speak with Dead, etc. The only truly ubiquitous spells that aren't Rituals are things like Feather Fall and Fly which are Wizard Utility powers instead.
Rituals as they stand keep the flavor of the versatile spellcaster without providing major avenues for abuse. Charms and mental dominations are out because they basically wound up giving the Wizard a second PC. Same goes for Undead and Golem creation. Those will probably show back up in later supplements, but only after the devs have taken the time to make sure they aren't unbalancing. Frankly, I'd rather have a Charm (or animate dead, or summon animal companion, etc) spell that I can let my players use freely than one that I have to massively restrict to keep it from breaking the game.
The bottom line is that casters in previous editions, the ones that filled everyone's head with this idea that they should be able to do absolutely everything, were unbalancing to the game. Well played, they could suck all the fun out of a campaign for the other players, and that made them bad classes. The way it's set up in 4E, they have their niche (Controller), they have their magical powers (lets see the Fighter turn invisible or Fly), and they don't invalidate every other PC class.
Thus it fails one of 4th's best design objectives.
Only through an extremely hostile interpretation of those objectives.
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2008 - 7:14AM
#19
|
|
|
While I understand that it is fully possible to create your own rituals, I somehow doubt it is the right choice to dump all responsibility on the DM to create the 200+ rituals needed ...
DM created rituals? No no no. My players create the rituals (if they have ritual caster feat). Its a great roleplaying tool (the studious mage/cleric/arlock/other class with a thing for magic spending time in a stuffy library/lab/mage tower to study a create a ritual) and I still have final say as a DM to let it in or not (nay- the ritual doesn't work, a flaw of research or design; aye- the ritual works as intended, or maybe with an unexpected variance).
But 200+? I'm trying to fathom what effects you want that aren't in 4th ed....
|
|
|
|
5 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2008 - 7:25AM
#20
|
|
|
I don't find it less magical, I just find it different. In things prior ot 4th, once a spellcaster was out of memorized spells, or power points or whatever alternative they used, they were essentially useless. In early levels this was problematic.
In 4th edition, a mage can continue to keep throwing out those missiles, a paladin can still use lay on hands nd a priest can still keep throwing up magical shields.
To me, there is more magic now.
|
|
|
