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Zenthar
2008-06-02, 07:18 AM
How badly are they nerfed? Or are they nerfed at all? Is the wizard still as powerful?

MorkaisChosen
2008-06-02, 07:20 AM
There's been a thread discussing this. They're definitely less versatile now, was the main consensus- they can zap things admirably, but don't expect to see Batman so much.

Grug
2008-06-02, 07:23 AM
The popular sentiment is James Bond (Blast foes and foil plans) instead of Batman (do anything).

Kurald Galain
2008-06-02, 07:24 AM
I think everybody agrees that wizards in 4E should have a significantly lower power level than they do in 3E, for the sake of game balance. I also think that everybody agrees that they do, in fact, have this lower power level.

However, aside from this reduction in power, several wizard-like archetypes are no longer possible under the rules. For instance, by the PHB rules, it is completely impossible to make a summoner, or an illusionist, or an enchanter/hypnotist, or a necromancer, or a party buffer with spells like Bull's Strength.

3E wizards can do all of the above. Arguably, a balanced wizard should be able to pick and do one of the above, but not the others. A 4E wizard can do none of the above, and has no choice in the matter.

Yakk
2008-06-02, 07:58 AM
Basically, the Wizard no longer gets 1/4 to 1/5 of the PHB to herself (ok, split with her evil twin, the Sorcerer). So the Wizard has far fewer powers than 3e at this point.

As it stands, the Wizard uses elemental-ish magics to control the flow of battle on the battlefield, with a secondary specialization of killing things dead.

The Wizard is a weak buffer -- that is a Leader's job.

The Wizard lacks combat illusion magic, for the most part. PHB2 will probably have a shadow power-source illusionist.

Barring daily powers that summon things like force-swords, the Wizard isn't a summoner.

The (Fel Pact) Warlock does more necrotic damage than the Wizard -- but neither are real necromancers.

Edea
2008-06-02, 08:20 AM
They got rid of summons and necromancy due to economy of actions. WotC doesn't want PCs choking out enemies with a bunch of extra turns from summon monsters, companions, and undead minions.

They got rid of 'real' enchantments and, once again, necromancy, due to elimination of the 'save-or-die' mechanic. One charm person or ray of enfeeblement in low-level 3E and it's pretty much over for that character; not anymore, we now get the "confused for a round" or "weakened for a round" idea instead.

They got rid of most of the illusions because they were tired of people bitching about how to adjudicate the effects of such spells. DMs were tired of players using them to effectively duplicate all kinds of other spells, players were tired of DMs improperly awarding extra saving throws to disbelieve against their spells and generally not allowing their monsters to "fall for it."

Divinations, certain Conjurations (notably teleportation), and many Abjurations can now be done by just about anybody via Rituals.

They got rid of a fair number of the transmutations because, frankly, that school was one of the primary reasons Wizards owned so damn hard. Sorry, no more polymorph; it's dead. Also, other classes buff stats now.

The 4E Wizard is at best an Evoker or a Warmage. At first glance, I don't like it, but I still need to play one in this new game system to find out if playing it is fun or not. It may well be; now you don't face -enemy- Wizards of 3E magnitude, either, and they were the ones that didn't need to worry about conserving their spell slots.

Kurald Galain
2008-06-02, 08:41 AM
They got rid of summons and necromancy due to economy of actions. WotC doesn't want PCs choking out enemies with a bunch of extra turns from summon monsters, companions, and undead minions.
Yeah, I get that, but this solution is like curing a cold with a firm dose of arsenic. A better solution would have been to restrict it to one minion per PC. Familiars, animal companions, warhorses, and created undead are all fun to play with, except if one PC has a dozen of them and the others have none.



They got rid of 'real' enchantments and, once again, necromancy, due to elimination of the 'save-or-die' mechanic.
Except for the large parts of enchantment and necromancy that weren't "save-or-die". Such as ability score damage, the "I am your friend now" mechanic, Rage, Geas, Contagion, Fear, and indeed pretty much any status effect that lasts longer than twelve seconds.



They got rid of most of the illusions because they were tired of people bitching about how to adjudicate the effects of such spells.
Got a source on that? Pretty much every RPG I know of has an illusion mechanic, and I have heard preciously little bitching about their adjudication.



Divinations, certain Conjurations (notably teleportation), and many Abjurations can now be done by just about anybody via Rituals.
Divination, yes. Conjuration, most definitely not, with the sole exception of teleportation. For abjuration, the "remove nasty conditions" part is now a ritual, but the "defensive buffs" section is removed almost entirely, and even Dispel Magic no longer does all that much.



They got rid of a fair number of the transmutations because, frankly, that school was one of the primary reasons Wizards owned so damn hard. Sorry, no more polymorph; it's dead.
That goes solely for the polymorph line, which, yes, is well-known to be overpowered and often banned in 3E. That is no excuse for getting rid of enlarge/reduce, magic weapon, levitate, pyrotechnics, spider climb, slow, stone shape, and so forth.


Now it's easy to fall into the argument that "wizards shouldn't be able to do all of that", but that's actually a straw man since (almost) nobody is saying they should. It would be nice if a wizard could pick one of those and stick with it; the problem with 4E is that the wizard can do none of that, and neither can the other classes in the PHB.

It's not just wizards either - social rogue? No longer an option. Cloistered cleric? Nope, can't have that. Archery-based fighter? Well, only if you call yourself a ranger. Melee warlock? Also gone. Effectively, any and every build that didn't rely on "hitting enemies" as their primary modus operandi, no longer exists in D&D.

BlackRabite
2008-06-02, 08:49 AM
We played for a pretty long time this last weekend (a person in our group got the books early) and I played a wizard through the whole campaign.

I tried my best to play a controller wizard and it worked for the most part, the biggest problem I had was that we were level 1 and all the real controlling powers were daily or encounter and I just didn't have enough of them at level 1. The at-wills were nice, Cloud of Daggers is an excellent Minion killing spell, it can't fail because it does lingering damage on the start of the targets turn even on a miss, so the minion always takes damage and dies. Thunderwave was an excellent pushing at-will power.

My biggest problem was that all the powers save my daily power did nothing on a miss and I only had a +4 to my attacks. Most everything we fought floated around 14-15 on its saves so I had a rough 50% chance to hit with every power, that prevented me from controlling more often than the change in powers.

We had an excellent session and the wizard did more to control than any other class that I've seen so far, its definitely my favorite class so far. We played through 5 combat encounters and every one of them came down to the wire, there was only one encounter where one of us wasn't dropped into the negatives and I can definitely say that we only survived most of those because tactically sound pushes and good uses of Sleep or Icy Terrain.

Aquillion
2008-06-02, 09:09 AM
Actually, there are illusion rules, and they solve the 'extra saving throw' thing -- by, basically, granting saving throws constantly and giving everyone the most stupidly broad protection against illusions imaginable.

You now get a check to see through the illusion the first time you look at it, another check whenever you interact with it, and you automatically see through it if you touch it, period (making me wonder exactly what 'interact' means.) Basically all the houserules that jerk DMs invented to make monsters not be tricked by illusions when they didn't want them to be are now codified as the official system. This also makes illusions, well, almost useless (even the most carefully planned-out illusion is essentially save-every-turn for temporary uselessness, just like every other debuff or, really, any effect in the game that isn't straight-out damage.)

Starbuck_II
2008-06-02, 09:23 AM
Basically, the Wizard no longer gets 1/4 to 1/5 of the PHB to herself (ok, split with her evil twin, the Sorcerer). So the Wizard has far fewer powers than 3e at this point.

As it stands, the Wizard uses elemental-ish magics to control the flow of battle on the battlefield, with a secondary specialization of killing things dead.

The Wizard is a weak buffer -- that is a Leader's job.

The Wizard lacks combat illusion magic, for the most part. PHB2 will probably have a shadow power-source illusionist.

Barring daily powers that summon things like force-swords, the Wizard isn't a summoner.

The (Fel Pact) Warlock does more necrotic damage than the Wizard -- but neither are real necromancers.


I hear the Warlock and Cleric have most of the summoning magic.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-02, 10:00 AM
Cloud of Daggers is an excellent Minion killing spell, it can't fail because it does lingering damage on the start of the targets turn even on a miss, so the minion always takes damage and dies.

Minions take no damage on a miss.

SamTheCleric
2008-06-02, 10:07 AM
Minions take no damage on a miss.

But they DO take damage from auto-damaging effects, such as the effect produced by cloud of knives.

Edea
2008-06-02, 10:08 AM
I...dunno. The "deals damage equal to your Wisdom modifier just for standing nearby" bit doesn't explicitly call out an attack roll, or announce its use as an immediate or opportunity action (since otherwise you can't make an attack roll on anyone's turn other than your own, and this damage occurs on someone else's turn).

Dark Tira
2008-06-02, 11:12 AM
I...dunno. The "deals damage equal to your Wisdom modifier just for standing nearby" bit doesn't explicitly call out an attack roll, or announce its use as an immediate or opportunity action (since otherwise you can't make an attack roll on anyone's turn other than your own, and this damage occurs on someone else's turn).
Page 55 of the DMG says that attacks that don't require attack rolls auto-kill minions. It's really hinders the use of minions in my opinion.

Moak
2008-06-02, 12:19 PM
Hi wizzie...leave that big boy to the combo striker+defener,and while the leader buff the world,take out a lot of smaller enemies...when you've ended,go to help...

I like a lot area attacks. But,you know,I was in love with "damage everything less than one a lot" since OD&D with my wizards/elfs...

bosssmiley
2008-06-02, 01:00 PM
How badly are they nerfed? Or are they nerfed at all? Is the wizard still as powerful?

The 4th Ed wizard is absolutely not the wizard you know from 3rd Ed.

There's no Vancian casting (other than the ' at will, -per encounter, -per day' mechanic that everyone now uses)
.
There's no meta-magic, and I remember metamagic (spells that modified other spells, rather than feats) being in 2nd Ed.
.
There's no school specialisation (no illusionists, transmuters, w/e for you).
There goes a tradition going back - at least in part - to the original Unearthed Arcana. :smalleek:
.
Half the old spell list has gone *pfffft* leaving you with mainly evocations, abjurations and a handful of conjurations (mainly walls)
.
Oh, and most of your utility, summoning and travel spells are now 'rituals'. Rituals that anyone can cast if they fork over the gold and expend of feat on ritual casting. :smallannoyed:

In fact, (AFAICT) 4th Ed wizard's nearest equivalent in 3rd Ed is probably the warlock - or perhaps a sorcerer with evocation spell picks - rather than the squishy wizard-with-beard-and-pointy-hat we grew up with. :smallconfused:

RukiTanuki
2008-06-02, 02:24 PM
The 4th Ed wizard is absolutely not the wizard you know from 3rd Ed.

Though, admittedly, if you're like me and think of Wizard as "intelligent, studied adventurer who uses magic to alter the battle," you'll still recognize their 4e counterpart. You may even be pleased to find they've retained most of their effectiveness but become much, MUCH easier to use.

If you intend to dominate the battlefield and blutly inform every other class that their services are neither required nor especially liked, then stick with 3e. If you enjoy contributing to the adventure in a "couldn't have done it without you" way that ensures you're saying the same thing to your allies, try 4e.

They can't do literally everything, but Utility spells and Rituals retain a lot of their core versatility without quite venturing into 3e's "magic does EVERYTHING better" territory.

Just my thoughts, at least.

AKA_Bait
2008-06-02, 02:31 PM
Page 55 of the DMG says that attacks that don't require attack rolls auto-kill minions. It's really hinders the use of minions in my opinion.

Oh yes it does. Wizards, at least thus far, seem to be the premier Minion Slayers in 4e for exactly that reason.

Honestly though, Wizards pretty much are sorcerers at this point. That's not necc a bad thing though. They are still quite powerful and although some spells are gone (I miss the Dance) I suspect we will see them in other classes. If a Wizard wants it, they can multiclass just like everyone else.

Yakk
2008-06-02, 02:35 PM
There's no Vancian casting (other than the ' at will, -per encounter, -per day' mechanic that everyone now uses)
And the ability to change out your per-day spells from your own list every day, which only Wizards get.


There's no meta-magic, and I remember metamagic (spells that modified other spells, rather than feats) being in 2nd Ed.
For the most part, true. Metamagic feats that exist are on the order of "you do +1 damage with ice spells".


There's no school specialisation (no illusionists, transmuters, w/e for you).
There goes a tradition going back - at least in part - to the original Unearthed Arcana. :smalleek:
Well, the Warlock did hit the Wizard and take some of his stuff. Between the Wizard and the Warlock, you have more breadth in Arcane casting. They are just different classes.


Half the old spell list has gone *pfffft* leaving you with mainly evocations, abjurations and a handful of conjurations (mainly walls)
*nod* -- the Wizard gets the same length of power-list (10ish pages) that everyone else gets, instead of 40 to 100 pages of spells just for the Wizard (and his evil twin, the Sorcerer in 3e).


Oh, and most of your utility, summoning and travel spells are now 'rituals'. Rituals that anyone can cast if they fork over the gold and expend of feat on ritual casting. :smallannoyed:Who expends a feat on ritual casting, on Arcana or Religion, and who goes out and buys the spells.

Wizards get 2 free rituals every 5 levels, have Arcana and Religion as class skills that they can get for free (instead of having to burn the feat), and get the Ritual feat as a bonus feat.

In essence, if you don't have a Cleric or Wizard, getting the ability to perform Rituals is worth it. Otherwise, you leave it to the Cleric or Wizard.

Note that Wizards in 4e can cast Raise Dead etc -- Ritual magic is Ritual magic.

Morty
2008-06-02, 04:07 PM
I've actually got a question regarding 4ed wizards: they get Spellbook feature which lets them choose more daily and utility spells and then choose them at extended rest. Right. But what if those utility spells are usable once per encounter?

Johnny Blade
2008-06-02, 04:15 PM
Then they recharge after a five minute rest. (Those rests are intended to happen after every battle, though you might want to ignore this to reach milestones.)

You choose which utilities you can use for a whole day, but that doesn't mean that you can only use them once a day.

kc0bbq
2008-06-02, 04:25 PM
I've actually got a question regarding 4ed wizards: they get Spellbook feature which lets them choose more daily and utility spells and then choose them at extended rest. Right. But what if those utility spells are usable once per encounter?Since they're Utility, you can swap them for another in your spellbook.

Short rests do not affect milestones, just your extended rest.

Bleen
2008-06-02, 04:28 PM
and his evil twin, the Sorcerer

Fact: All Sorcerers are actually born with a goatee. Some just prefer to cover it up with minor illusion magic.

Morty
2008-06-02, 04:30 PM
So... if a wizard selects one Per Encounter and one Per Day Utility power, he chooses which one he wants to use at extended rest and if he chooses the Encounter one it recharges after short rest as normal?

Johnny Blade
2008-06-02, 04:32 PM
Short rests do not affect milestones, just your extended rest.
Oh...right. Mea culpa.

I somehow keep forgetting this.

Probably because I think that "milestones" imply a greater accomplishment than not burning through all of your dailies in one encounter.



So... if a wizard selects one Per Encounter and one Per Day Utility power, he chooses which one he wants to use at extended rest and if he chooses the Encounter one it recharges after short rest as normal?
Yeah.
Otherwise, per-encounter utilities would be utterly pointless, since the Wizard has to prepare all of them.

holywhippet
2008-06-02, 06:29 PM
Actually, there are illusion rules, and they solve the 'extra saving throw' thing -- by, basically, granting saving throws constantly and giving everyone the most stupidly broad protection against illusions imaginable.

You now get a check to see through the illusion the first time you look at it, another check whenever you interact with it, and you automatically see through it if you touch it, period (making me wonder exactly what 'interact' means.) Basically all the houserules that jerk DMs invented to make monsters not be tricked by illusions when they didn't want them to be are now codified as the official system. This also makes illusions, well, almost useless (even the most carefully planned-out illusion is essentially save-every-turn for temporary uselessness, just like every other debuff or, really, any effect in the game that isn't straight-out damage.)

It depends on what you want to use them for. If you are trying to infiltrate the enemy base by using and illusion to disguise yourself as one of them then you should be fine. Gate guards aren't likely to be the brightest of the lot and they aren't likely to give you a hug when you enter so that means no fail on touch problem.

You can use illusions for other things - if the king asks you "What did the enemy general look like?" you can use an illusion spell to show him exactly what he looked like. Need to get out of a city where you are wanted, just use an illusion and stroll out.

For combat you could use it as a brief defense - make an illusion of a barbarian warrior at your side and hopefully the enemy will waste an attack trying to take him down.

Roderick_BR
2008-06-02, 07:17 PM
The popular sentiment is James Bond (Blast foes and foil plans) instead of Batman (do anything everything).
Fixed it.

Jarlax
2008-06-02, 10:20 PM
There's no school specialisation (no illusionists, transmuters, w/e for you).
There goes a tradition going back - at least in part - to the original Unearthed Arcana. :smalleek:
Half the old spell list has gone *pfffft* leaving you with mainly evocations, abjurations and a handful of conjurations (mainly walls)

its true, these are all gone. however it does not mean that they will not be back. illusionists, transmutes, necromancers, summoners. sounds like they might make better classes somewhere down the track, rather than being trapped forever as mere school specializations.

the wizard in 4e phb has been reduced to a blaster mage. but with roles and power sources more clearly defined nercomancer might show up as the shadow or death power source for striker. illusionist may be the shadow controller. and summoner may be the arcane leader once people become comfortable with the concept of minions i think a class who can spawn and buff their own minions might be exciting.


Oh, and most of your utility, summoning and travel spells are now 'rituals'. Rituals that anyone can cast if they fork over the gold and expend of feat on ritual casting. :smallannoyed:

its true anyone can do them. that said wizards get the for free(thats feats, skills and the rituals themselves), they are your ritualists extraordinar.

what you neglected to mention is that most of your utility spells from ALL casters are now rituals. that includes commune, raise dead, speak with dead, cure disease, detect lies. the system has been designed to remove party powers from specific classes.

you don't need a rouge in 4e because there is no such thing as trapfinding anymore, anyone can find a trap if they have the skill trained. you don't need a cleric to raise dead any more, a wizard may have the ritual, or any other class who puts in significant feats, skills and cash.

and it is significant, remember the ritual casting feat requires skill training in arcana or religion, if you don't have those you will need the feat skill training(arcana or religion). also raise dead for example uses the heal skill as its key skill. if you don't have that trained its another skill training feat.

so thats:
Ritual Casting
Skill Training(religion/arcana)
Skill Training(key skill)

trying to learn rituals when you are not a cleric or a wizard is not a wise course of action if only for the fact you need to waste a significant number of feats for the privilege.

EvilElitest
2008-06-02, 10:31 PM
blasters with ritual
from
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TheOOB
2008-06-02, 10:53 PM
Don't sell the wizard short, they still have a lot of battlefield control (yes most their spells do damage, most their spells also do something else to help control the battle). Wizards still also have plenty of useful utility magic outside of rituals as well, they still have invisibility, they still have disguise self, they still have fly, and any effect you don't have you can probably make with a magic item.

Trizap
2008-06-02, 11:03 PM
methinks that the school specializations will come back as real classes.

Kompera
2008-06-03, 01:56 AM
Basically, the Wizard no longer gets 1/4 to 1/5 of the PHB to herself (ok, split with her evil twin, the Sorcerer). So the Wizard has far fewer powers than 3e at this point.

And this by itself is the single best change which could have been hoped for in 4e.


Now it's easy to fall into the argument that "wizards shouldn't be able to do all of that", but that's actually a straw man since (almost) nobody is saying they should.
It's not much of a straw man, really. There are actually several posters on these boards who happily endorse the idea that casters should indeed blow past their adventuring companions in terms of potency, and balance be damned. They don't say it exactly like that, but that's their point all the same. I read such an opinion earlier today, and I wish I could find it to credit it. It went something like this: "Wizards are meant to be protected by Fighters at the lower levels, and to exceed them as they become stronger in magic. It's just the way these things should work." Of course, in such a system no one in their right mind would be the Fighter, who has a usefulness limited to some arbitrary low number of levels, and are able to be discarded after that limit is reached. In such a system everyone would logically want to play the Wizards.


The at-wills were nice, Cloud of Daggers is an excellent Minion killing spell, it can't fail because it does lingering damage on the start of the targets turn even on a miss, so the minion always takes damage and dies.
I can't seem to find the spell, but I thought that the damage was inflicted in between turns (or some other non-immediate mechanic), and with all of the shift abilities I've seen for monsters and players I kind of assumed that an intelligently run monster leader would be using those to move his Minions out of any effects which were going to kill them before it could happen. Not something which would happen in all cases, but it's something the GM should be keeping in mind (and the players, when they find themselves in a similar situation).

ghost_warlock
2008-06-03, 02:33 AM
There are actually several posters on these boards who happily endorse the idea that casters should indeed blow past their adventuring companions in terms of potency, and balance be damned. They don't say it exactly like that, but that's their point all the same. I read such an opinion earlier today, and I wish I could find it to credit it. It went something like this: "Wizards are meant to be protected by Fighters at the lower levels, and to exceed them as they become stronger in magic. It's just the way these things should work." Of course, in such a system no one in their right mind would be the Fighter, who has a usefulness limited to some arbitrary low number of levels, and are able to be discarded after that limit is reached. In such a system everyone would logically want to play the Wizards.

It may well have been my post at the end of a 6-page thread you read, listing specific things I sought in 3e as opposed to 2e that I'm now seeing as problems I have with 4e.

Even though everyone would logically want to play wizards, this has never been the case in any edition of D&D where the dominance of casters at high levels has been a common theme (at least 2e and 3e). People continue to play fighters even though almost everyone knows that fighters suck.

This may be in part due to the fact that most campaigns take place at low levels (where martial characters excel) to mid-levels (where casters are not as dependent on protection but martial characters can still ruin a casters day if need be). In a high-magic setting, high-level magic can literally reshape the world and swinging a sharp stick just isn't going to compare to this no matter how hard the stick is swung.

The intelligent response to this, made by a character living in such a world, would be to get some magic of his own. Whether this takes stocking up on magic items or multiclassing is a matter of personal preference. That was one of the beautiful aspects of 3e - you could do both of these. At 8th level (or any other level, really) nothing was stopping a fighter from expanding his options by multiclassing, especially since there were ample other classes and prestige classes he could choose to magic-up his game. I feel this lent the game verisimiltude in that multiclassing into a magical class/PrC was a logical thing to do to keep up with power creep. I see D&D as high-magic, high-fantasy so this makes perfect sense to me that everyone should have some magic. Low-magic games are probably best served by another system - that system may now very well be 4e (but I prefer Alternity).

Essentially, by attempting to enforce class balance, WotC has un-magic'd the game and setting to an extent and I don't like this. To me, D&D should, ultimately, be magical. As such, high level play should be about magic.

3e may have exacerbated the balance problem by making some caster-based PrCs too powerful and not thinking things though all the way when it came to some spell combinations. Really, the design flaw is that the magical fighter options simply weren't as good as the caster options. I see this as unfortunate but the solution I'd prefer would be to remove/adjust some of the worst offenders from caster classes and spells and up the power-level of the magical/martial options. This is the direction I saw the system going with ToB. I don't feel that WotC has followed through with that direction in the new edition.

4e is a different system, and needs to be evaluated in that light, but it's not a system that I feel captures the, ultimately magical, spirit of D&D. I'd rather play a bugged, high-magic 3e than a perfectly streamlined and balanced, but low-magic, 4e. I suppose it's all a matter of personal preference in the end.

Edit: found my original post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4408159&postcount=176).