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Jul 26, 2012 -- 7:48AM, cheethorne wrote:

Jul 25, 2012 -- 4:56AM, anjelika wrote:

Yannow...really, Lok, you gotta let this silly talking point die.  When a band has a coupla years since you last heard them, do people only buy their new CD from 'nostalgia', or because they like the band?  Do we elect presidents on nostalgia?  The only reason people watch the Olympics?  You guessed it.  Nostalgia.

I think it is more about why WotC is including it in the game rather than why people on the boards are buying a system that has it.

THACO is an example of a mechanic that was overly complicated for what it was trying to do. Because it didn't have many supporters, when WotC dropped it, not many people complained (and of course there is always the people that liked it, but still didn't care that it was gone). If WotC had decided to keep THACO instead of migrating to a better attack bonus style system, then they would be keeping it more for nostalgia and for it being a "sacred cow" then because it was a good mechanic.

There are certain business decisions that come into play here, sure, because if huge part of your audience will not buy your books if they don't have THACO, for example, then you really have just two choices: keep it despite you knowing that it is not the best way of doing what you are trying to do or trying to educate your audience on why it is a good idea to replace it.

One of my biggest problems with Vancian-style magic, which would apply to any class that is overly reliant on per day resources, is that the only real way to balance them against at-will dominated classes is with more / longer encounters (ie. the adventuring day number of combat rounds that Mike Mearls has talked about) and the only way that it works out is if the vancian-style class player knows how many encounters / rounds he is supposed to be prepared for in advance.

If the game's balance point is 20 rounds of combat and the Wizard plans for only 15 rounds of combat and the day only actually has 10 rounds of combat (or really any number between 1 and 15, then the balance was off and the wizard was too powerful than the game intended. This applies just as equally if the day happened to have 30 rounds of combat, which would make the wizard too weak compared to the at-will dominated classes.

4e tried to address this problem by making daily resources not as big a part of a player's overall power, so while there were daily resources in nearly every class, they did not contribute as much in any given encounter where they were used or not used compared to the sum total of everything else in the class (ie. compared to the at-wills, encounters, magic items, feats, and class features combined).

By the same token, when you don't have reams of magic items, preparing for 20 rounds of combat is tough to do while trying to guess what utility you'll need.  That's why wizard was always a more 'difficult' class -- fail to do it right and you'll be hurting.   Quickly.

And I'd agree with you about Thac0 (partially -- I never found it even remotely difficult, and I don't see how anyone can but I also know tons of people did, because some of my own players had a bit-o-trouble with it), if they brought -that- back...it would be nostalgia.  It hasn't been around for 2 full editions, 12 years.  But Vancian was only -just- changed in what was it...2008, right?  So one edition ago.  That's more like trying out a new brand of tires.  Presumably, the feedback WotC has says that people want Vancian back.  That's not nostalgia so much as it is they didn't like the replacement as well -- it doesn't even mean they didn't like the replacement, they just didn't like it as much.

Jul 25, 2012 -- 8:48PM, Kabluey wrote:

I agree, the 5MW issue is irrespective of level. However, at least for the lower level wizard especially, the inclusion of at-wills certainly would seem to alleviate the issue. The wizard now always has a spell, so continuing on when he runs out of non-at-wills shouldn't be as much of a issue as it used to be.

Spellcasting with at-wills is not Vanican casting. So you don't seem to want Vanican casting in Next, but instead a hybrid casting system that contains some amount of daily resource management.

But you also once again deride the inclusion of Vancian magic as being for only "nostalgia", and I still reject this. What you seem to be saying is that there is no way a person could like Vancian, but they just want to use it because that's what they used to use back in the day. But, believe it or not, some people like it. And they like it for a host of different reasons. Nostalgia is certainly one possible reason, but it's not the only one. But even if it was, why is that somehow inferior to the reasons you play the game? Is there only one way to have fun? Or are you claiming that some motivations for playing D&D are inferior to others? Outside of reasons that can inhibit the fun of other players (e.g., powergamers, players who like to kill other players' characters, etc.), I don't think we can judge why people play the game.

Please list some reasons. And explain why daily resources are not utilized for all classes.

You don't need Vancian casting in Next to invoke nostalgia. The game will have many classic elements of D&D (e.g. hit points, AC, the six attributes, etc), so to keep a game mechanic for the sole reason of nostalgia is silly.

In part I play D&D because of nostalgia, but I don't need a new edition to include everything from older editions. If I really want to create a nostalgic experience of my 3e playing days, I'll just play 3e.

But, having said that, I think Vancian is so core to the D&D feel that it has to be included - and has to be included in such a way as to feel like the magic of 3E and prior editions.

This is the definitin of a sacred cow. If your position is that Vanican casting is a sacred cow, there is nothing anyone could say to alter your perspective.