Things that don't make sense

Chris24601 wrote:

skwyd42 wrote:

In 4E, it seemed just as troublesome for the player with the wizard to spend that time deciding which of the two choices to take. I really wish that 4E had put the "combat spells" for wizards into the same format as everyone else (AEDU) and relegated ALL spellbook activity to rituals.

Just my anecdotal experience here, but our 4E wizards never had that problem. Due to the interaction of items, feats and class features, 9 times out of 10 there was going to be a single "best fit" spell for the build at any given level and that spell would cover 99% of the encounters you were likely to run into and, unless you have very specific information about what you'd be facing ahead of time, there was never a need to even consider swapping out your spells.

I think your experience is fairly common, and I agree with skwyd42 because of it. 4e spells aren't the circumstantial win-buttons they were in previous editions, so I would have preferred the wizard to handle powers like every other class.

Of course, I also think there should be an option for players who really want to juggle dozens of powers. Like a feat or three that characters of any class can take, like Expanded Spell Book. Except also for at-wills and encounters; 'cause seriously, why only dailies and utilities?!

(My confusion might have something to do with my confusion over whatever conceptual difference others see between martial dailies and martial encounters.)

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Chris24601 wrote:

skwyd42 wrote:

In 4E, it seemed just as troublesome for the player with the wizard to spend that time deciding which of the two choices to take. I really wish that 4E had put the "combat spells" for wizards into the same format as everyone else (AEDU) and relegated ALL spellbook activity to rituals.

Just my anecdotal experience here, but our 4E wizards never had that problem. Due to the interaction of items, feats and class features, 9 times out of 10 there was going to be a single "best fit" spell for the build at any given level and that spell would cover 99% of the encounters you were likely to run into and, unless you have very specific information about what you'd be facing ahead of time, there was never a need to even consider swapping out your spells.

I think your experience is fairly common, and I agree with skwyd42 because of it. 4e spells aren't the circumstantial win-buttons they were in previous editions, so I would have preferred the wizard to handle powers like every other class.

Of course, I also think there should be an option for players who really want to juggle dozens of powers. Like a feat or three that characters of any class can take, like Expanded Spell Book. Except also for at-wills and encounters; 'cause seriously, why only dailies and utilities?!

(My confusion might have something to do with my confusion over whatever conceptual difference others see between martial dailies and martial encounters.)

Yeah. I personally wish 4e would've drowned out the vancian system permanently. But hints of are still there (even more so with the Essentials Mage). And the results of the AEDU plus the Vancian magic system equals some horrendous beast that doesn't make much sense IMO. If they would've went full AEDU it would've made more sense. Maybe the spell book feature could have allowed them to just switch their spells at-will and allow them to cast any with zero prep. Or maybe they could just make the spellbook a normal item used only for note taking and making magic more akin to that of say Harry Potter (akin... not the same). I don't know... just spit balling.

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Chris24601 wrote:

skwyd42 wrote:

In 4E, it seemed just as troublesome for the player with the wizard to spend that time deciding which of the two choices to take. I really wish that 4E had put the "combat spells" for wizards into the same format as everyone else (AEDU) and relegated ALL spellbook activity to rituals.

Just my anecdotal experience here, but our 4E wizards never had that problem. Due to the interaction of items, feats and class features, 9 times out of 10 there was going to be a single "best fit" spell for the build at any given level and that spell would cover 99% of the encounters you were likely to run into and, unless you have very specific information about what you'd be facing ahead of time, there was never a need to even consider swapping out your spells.

I think your experience is fairly common, and I agree with skwyd42 because of it. 4e spells aren't the circumstantial win-buttons they were in previous editions, so I would have preferred the wizard to handle powers like every other class.

Of course, I also think there should be an option for players who really want to juggle dozens of powers. Like a feat or three that characters of any class can take, like Expanded Spell Book. Except also for at-wills and encounters; 'cause seriously, why only dailies and utilities?!

(My confusion might have something to do with my confusion over whatever conceptual difference others see between martial dailies and martial encounters.)

Yeah. I personally wish 4e would've drowned out the vancian system permanently. But hints of are still there (even more so with the Essentials Mage). And the results of the AEDU plus the Vancian magic system equals some horrendous beast that doesn't make much sense IMO. If they would've went full AEDU it would've made more sense. Maybe the spell book feature could have allowed them to just switch their spells at-will and allow them to cast any with zero prep. Or maybe they could just make the spellbook a normal item used only for note taking and making magic more akin to that of say Harry Potter (akin... not the same). I don't know... just spit balling.

My feelings are pretty much summed up in these comments. The fact that at least 90% (or more) of the time, there is no point for the Wizard to choose the second of the possible choices, why give the Wizard that option? I played a Wizard the very first time I played 4E. And not once did I ever choose the "second option" in any of my daily or utility powers. So the class feature was essentially a "non-feature" and should have been replaced with something else, in my opinion.

It seemed that the idea of 4E was to change the Wizard in two major ways. First, give Wizards something to do throughout combat. The at-will spell worked perfectly for this. I recall too many times in previous editions of the Wizard saying "Okay, that's it for me, I'll be back here with my crossbow. Hopefully I don't get attacked." The second thing was to keep the Wizard from saying "Oh, I could get us out of this situation, but I didn't memorize that spell today. Can we come back after we rest?" This was partially managed by moving many of the non-combat spells into rituals. But I still just feel that the Wizard and their "sort-of Vancian" system of spells was an odd way to go in 4E.

Fortunately, rarely does anyone play a Wizard in my campaigns.

Durriken wrote:

 And 2/3 (maybe more) of all characters were chaotic good or chaotic neutral so they could do whatever they want anyway.  

Exactly. 5 alignments actually works better if your intention is to preserve the alignment system, from what I've seen (I don't use alignments, personally).