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The entire choice is duplicitous and false.

Can anyone on these baords truly take the position that these are the only two settings for wizards. That its either A or B? This is what bothers me about the whole editions wars thing. The reality is, each edition had some good ideas and bad ideas, the game has gotten generally better, but 4E is a long way from perfect.

There are a PLETHORA of things I miss about the 3.X wizard, but there are also a great number of things I like about the 4E wizard. So instead of BOO! and YAY! being our only options, lets look at this a little more reasonable.

Things I liked about the 3.X wizard
1.) Versatility of spells. I have heard alot of talk about people not liking all the spell choices, and that is fine, I don't want to offend, but I did like them. I liked pouring over books, finding neat spells. It made the entire act of playing a wizard, feel like what I imagine BEING a wizard to be like. It sounds goofy, but it made the whole experience more compelling. Rituals, mainly due to their overwhleming suckyness, simply do not fulfill me the same way.
2.) Versatility of Effect. Here is what I mean, spells did stuff besides blow people up or make them attack their friends. Now, they don't Where is my polymorph any object? All of the non-combat spells. Already, I can see you chomping at the bit to point to rituals, but here is the reality, many people (myself included) hate rituals. I don't care if you do or not. The fact that there has been so much negativity about them means there IS an issue with them. It means this compenent of the game is not meeting the expectations of many players, even if it is meeting yours. Why are rituals so underwhelming? See #3
3.) Creativity of Application. Spells could be used in hundreds of "off-label" applications. What the spell did was in some part tied to your creativity, not just the words on the page. The system was less clamped down, there was more chaos, yes, this meant there were sometimes goofy outcomes or stupid combinations, but it also let a creative mind do neat things. Let me give you an example. Let's imagine you are a 3.X (or previous edition) spellcaster or reasonable power and I say - build me a castle. How do you do it? Me, maybe I create a golem to build it, raise an army of undead to build it, gnomish machines, polymorph any object, wish, on and on. What do all these spells have in common, none of them say anything about building castles. Only my creativity allowed them to do so. Rituals are completely spelled out and boring. They have none of this creativity.

What I like about 4E wizards.
1.) Easy application of battlefield effects. I do like that when I use a spell on the battlefield, what it does is easy to adjucate and see. I know where it will land, whom it will hit and what the effects are in clear terms.
2.) Interesting use of actions. Giving spellcasters things like immediate action and minor action spells and effects makes them feel more magical, and I like this part of the whole 4E action economy.
3.) At-wills (enough said)


These lists are not exhaustive, but they are I feel illustrative of how each edition brought good things to the table, I would love to see a new wizard in 5E (or whatever) some day incorporate the best of all of this together.

Jan 14, 2011 -- 12:24PM, Scottevil912 wrote:

Jan 14, 2011 -- 12:00PM, kev777 wrote:

Yes all of those things are good about 4e wizards, but it all comes at the cost of having mediocre powers and rituals that can't be used in combat.    

I say that 5th edition should keep the things that 4e improved upon and scrap the magic system it completely bastardized. 

I just want to make sure I understand your position better:

+ You feel that the current power selection of wizard powers is too limited.
+ You feel that rituals are weak because they have limited use within combat (none in most cases).
+ You feel some of the magic (pun intended) is lost on wizards because you can only find non-combat spells off of other wizards (i.e. rituals)
+ You feel that character design makes all the characters feel the same - a Wizard using his at-wills isn't much different than a warlord using his at-wills.

I'll be honest - I like 4e.  I do wish there were more rituals in the book - but I'm simply going through my old 2nd and 3rd books and finding old spells to make into rituals.  In games I've played, rituals are hard to come by - they are pricy, components are pricey, and whenever the DM found a new one on line - rumors of it's existance got me going to go find it.

Other than missing a couple of spells (like Chromatic Orb now being a Sorc. power only) - in general I've been happy with the Wizard.  There is enough ways to make my wizard feel magical through feats, paragon path, gear, and build.

Yes thanks for outlining my points.    I would only add that I miss the concept of schools and specialist wizards. 
  
Actually, have you looked at other sources for rituals such as Azagar's Book of Rituals from Goodman games?    It has a ton of great new rituals in it that really add to the game. 

Jan 14, 2011 -- 12:52PM, Salla wrote:

All this stuff you call 'creative', I call 'unbalanced' and 'bending the rules' and 'too much flexibility for the cost and effort involved'.

How would casting Shadow Bridge in the middle of combat cause a problem?   It think it would be fun.

Jan 14, 2011 -- 11:44AM, kev777 wrote:

I mean imagine casting Shadow Bridge across a chasm to allow your party to attack the archers on the other side. 

 
  There are a few movement utility powers which can get you across a smallish chasm.  Whether or not characters have taken them is another story.