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Dec 13, 2012 -- 3:46PM, Jenks wrote:

Of which only 1 of those spells came from core material, which is what I was comparing. Splat will be splat. You can't compare an edition in it's infancy to a fully developed edition with tons of splat. That's just a completely one-sided comparison.

I know, reasonably, that's the reality of it - but man is that a disappointing attitude to see justifying "a lack of interesting options" in core (not that I necessarily agree that there is such a lack).  "These things were all really popular choices - but splat will be splat.  We only have so much room.  We'll get around to it later."

That said, the 4e Wizard's "launch" at-wills were pretty intensely boring (except for that one whose name eludes me at the moment - the one with some actual area denial?) - other than the fact that they were at-will.  "Boring At-Wills" isn't something I would take any particular joy in seeing repeated, and should be pretty easy to avoid, right?

Dec 13, 2012 -- 4:45PM, greatfrito wrote:

That said, the 4e Wizard's "launch" at-wills were pretty intensely boring (except for that one whose name eludes me at the moment - the one with some actual area denial?)

Thunderwave, which pushed enemies out of an area?  Or Cloud of Daggers, which was ony 1 square but did auto damage to the enemy in it at the /start/ of its turn (questionable area denial, since they never have a chance to leave it on their own)?  

Though, eeally, any AE is area denial becaue it punishes enemies for standing too close together (while spreading out keeps melee enemies from concentrating damage, and makes ranged enemies vulnerable to being picked off by melee allies), even Scorching Burst.  

Dec 13, 2012 -- 7:00PM, FallingIcicle wrote:

Dec 13, 2012 -- 3:14PM, Lawolf wrote:

The only time I ever enjoyed the wizard was in 4e.  The reason might surprise you though.  It was mostly because the wizard at-wills were so much fun.  So fun in fact that I would have gladly traded away my daily spells for more at-wills. No class in 4e had the breadth of magical options as the wizard. Between at will cantrips and some of the most unique at will powers in the game the wizard finally felt magical.

5e wizard feels meh at best compared to that. 

I agree, the at-will spells for wizards in 4e were alot of fun. I'd rather they placed more emphasis on the at-will spells and much less on the daily spells in 5e. Sadly, that is unlikely to happen. But as long as the wizard gets a good enough variety of at-wills and they are strong enough that I don't feel like a complete waste of space next to the martial classes when I'm not using daily spells, I'll be okay with that.

Humans made great wizards because of the extra at-will... not to mention some sneaky cool human feats that played off of it.

Dec 13, 2012 -- 8:14PM, Jenks wrote:

Dec 13, 2012 -- 4:45PM, greatfrito wrote:

That said, the 4e Wizard's "launch" at-wills were pretty intensely boring (except for that one whose name eludes me at the moment - the one with some actual area denial?) - other than the fact that they were at-will.  "Boring At-Wills" isn't something I would take any particular joy in seeing repeated, and should be pretty easy to avoid, right?

This is more or less what I was getting at. If he compared the options of core 4e and what we have in 5e there's not a real difference in how cool the abilities are. It's not an excuse to not make cool content, you're right.

I don't know if I quite agree.  I mean, at the time, just the fact that the wizard had at-wills was new and exciting.  By contrast, in this, as in a lot of areas, the DDN team is playing it safe.  They're not taking a lot of risks with new stuff, even in the playtest(which would be a great place to publish some crazy moves and push the boundaries).

I mean, they just spent all that time designing for 4e, including a lot of those wizard at-wills in later splats.  5e may be its own beast, but if it is, it's not in a new Order, Family or Genus.  Seems like most of that experience should carry right over.