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Apr 4, 2012 -- 8:39AM, Plaguescarred wrote:

A rule or a statement said as a general assumption ? Where is this text exactly discussed ? (under what game elements ?)

The same text appears in every book that contains tome implements, AFAICT. For example, HotEC page 153. It's unambiguously a piece of rules text and it unambiguously states that wizards are proficient with tome implements. If this text only appeared in books published before there were any wizard subclasses, it could be read as applying only to the PHB1 wizard (i.e. the arcanist). As it continues to appear every time tomes are published, many months after multiple wizard subclasses were introduced, and in the same book as one of those wizard subclasses, it seems perverse to me to continue to insist that it really means "arcanist" when it clearly says "wizard".

It might be a mistake. Or the "implements" entries in the later wizard subclass write-ups might be mistakes. One or the other must be wrong and should be errata'd. However, the rules are not, strictly speaking, contradictory. If two pieces of rules text each give lists of things you can do, and neither rule explicitly invalidates the other, then you can do all the things in both lists. In other words, if it's not strictly necessary to assume a contradiction between two pieces of rules text, don't go assuming one.

The only rules concerning Classes Implement proficiencies are contained within their write ups Implement entries. (or document errata modifying it)

The problem is that this is not true anymore.

There was a period of time between tome implements first being introduced and the errata to the PHB1 wizard that added tomes to the "class implements" part of their class write-up. Are you really claiming that wizards could not legally use tomes during that period, despite the rules text accompanying the tomes themselves that clearly stated that they could?

You could just as easily argue that it doesn't appear in the class writeup because every mention of tome specifically mentions Wizards are proficient with Tomes, while you'll never see "Wizards automatically have proficiency with using wands as implements" in the description of wand implements. Only the arcanist predated the "wizards can use tomes" rule, so it's fairly logical that they'd be the only ones to have it errata'd into their class writeup.

The text is right after the heading "Implements", it's not a sidebar, it's not fluff, it's not descriptive, it's a rule plain and simple.

Apr 4, 2012 -- 9:59PM, Alcestis wrote:

We're not really dealing with a competent group of people who actually care, here. I could bring this up directly with a developer and nothing would ever be done about it.

I have to disagree with you on this point. The fact that there's been so much effort put into revising 4e over the last few years shows that WotC does care about the rules of the game. For example, the latest errata included a nerfing of KAM which the community had been asking for to remove an obviously overpowered option. Yes, the KAM nerf was long overdue, but they did change it.

I'm hopeful that this issue with tomes can be resolved or at least clarified one way or the other. We just need to bring it to there attention in sufficient numbers to ensure that it gets to the right people.

this is what they get for changing names halfway thru the edition