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I don't want to see it return, personally.  At least not fully.  And I'd say the same about the powers system.  Somewhere between the two lies what I want, methinks, but I couldn't say precisely what it is.  I don't think non-caster classes should be several horribly jumbled pages of Powers soup, but I do think they should be able to perform spectacular feats within their own fields of expertise.  Meanwhile I also think casters should have basic magical abilities that they can perform at will so that they're not relegated to plinking with a crossbow or stabbing with a dagger after they've had their daily spellgasm.

And I'd like the spell lists to be pretty basic, with rules for creating your own spells.  We don't need 100+ pages of Animal's Ability Bonus, Improved Animal's Ability Bonus, Super Turbo Animal's Ability Bonus Hyper Championship Arcade Edition, etc. 

It did not work.  It made no sense.  It was not fun.  It was stilted and artificial-feeling.  I've played D&D since 1982, and I had fun in spite of that system, not because of it.  Every time I'd make a magic user, I'd wish for a spell I could use at-will. 

The death of Vancian magic is the primary reason I like 4E best.

Jan 12, 2012 -- 1:51AM, Llenlleawg wrote:

The thing is, preparing a limited supply of one-shot spells (the so-called Vancian system) is not merely a legacy feature of D&D, it is an element of the game that unites how the game has been played from 1974 through 2008. To be sure, there have been alternative methods proposed from the beginning and throughout. Still, the system does in fact work. (The same can be said of the combat system, i.e. rolling to hit against armor class and using hit points.)

If part of the goal of this iteration is to draw the fan base together, I don't see how creating an even newer system as the baseline does anyone any good. Provide it as a compatible alternative system in a supplement, sure, but eliminate how spellcasting has been handled for almost the entire history of the game? I would think there are better solutions to keeping all the players involved than that.

By its lonesome, it does not, in fact, work. At all. I can explain in detail why I said "by its lonesome" and analyze why it was fine in pre-3.X editions and why 3.X broke it to ****, but you're gonna have to accept that Vancian casting doesn't work if it isn't auto-nerfed by a score of varying mechanics.

Jan 12, 2012 -- 1:54AM, Brucato wrote:

I would have to argue that if any party member is being excluded from helping to solve a problem that confronts the group, there's a fundamental flaw in the way the story is being run.  There are ways to keep casters from running amok and turning everything into a cake-walk if it becomes a problem in the older magic systems.  

I too would prefer to see the older system restored.  Specifically in some way that limits the cleric's ability to compete with the wizard in magey ways, and limits the wizard's ability to compete with the cleric in priestly ways.  I always liked the 2e method.  The cleric was a mini-fighter, sure.  But his offensive magic was limited in potency, (or if he was a cleric that focused on combat spells, his utility and healing was limited) and his spells topped out at 7th level.  The wizard could continue advancing to 9th level spells, to make up for his frail mage bones and his inability to hit the broad-side of a barn with his staff.  

None of what you mentioned served to keep casters in check in 2e and earlier. You haven't understood the underlying mechanics. Think hard about it. Why wasn't SoD spamming the norm? Why did the Fighter never lose ground to the spellcaster unless you went super deep into Immortal-level challenges? The answers to this aren't "oh noes, the wizard got spells because frail bones", that's BS. It's cold, hard math. Something that is entirely unrelated to the stuff you're talking about.

I must admit to being puzzled that you grant the system was "fine in pre-3.X editions" and yet assert that "it does not, in fact, work. At all." Granted, I'm an old-timer, and so my perspective is from pre-AD&D (Holmes plus the three original supplements) through 2nd edition. Even so, it certainly worked for me and people I knew without any need for being "auto-nerfed by a score of varying mechanics," and that seems to have been the experience of many who played the game. As I noted, there have always been alternative systems and people dissatisfied with it, but the system does work as judged by the successful and successfully fun games played by a generation of players.

So, while I know something as a lurker/outsider of players' beefs with 3.x spellcasters, I suspect it is not the system at such which was the problem, but I'll leave that to those experience with 3.x.

In any event, my point was that this part of the magic system is recognized and familiar with the largest range of players of the game, and I don't see any way to draw the fans/players together without its playing a role in the core of the game.