Yes, it should be noted that when people refer to "Vancian casting" they're pretty much explicitly referring to spellcasting in 3.5 and before. 4e spellcasting is actually a much more logical system. You have the capacity to perform a small amount of arcane abilities, but they drain your body such that certain ones can only be done once every few minutes, while certain others can only be done once per day. As you gain levels and become stronger and stronger willed, you gain the capacity to perform these feats more often, eventually being able to expel powerful arcane energies up to four times per day. Meanwhile, you have certain other tricks that, while useful, are so rudimentary they require little effort, and can be used at will.
There's even PPs and EDs that address the logical capacity to eventually become so powerful that you can convert something you could only do a few times a day (encounter powers) into something that is now relatively trivial for you so you can do it at will. Likewise with daily to encounter stuff.
To elaborate a bit on number 1, I hypothetically present this question to Monte Cook: Why is it simple fighters, complex casters? How are the martial characters "rewarded" for "smart play"?
If they were smart, they wouldn't be playing a fighter.
(By the way, is there a way to disable emoticon images because help.)
I wonder if Monte's games just don't have martial classes or what. Maybe it's like someone draws straws and "takes one for the team" and plays the martial guy for levels 1-5 and then is expected to multiclass druid or something? I just don't get how it isn't painfully obvious to the guy who designed one edition of the game and is now doing the same for a second that there is a huge disparity there.
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Tradition. People played rogues in 2nd edition where you practically had to bribe the DM in order to ever get a backstab off and that backstab would still be less damage than a fighter could do in a single round.
In compensation you got some really unreliable skills to do things like climb walls.
A big issue a lot of people seem to have with 4e is that it doesn't apparently reward "good roleplay" or "creative solutions" So if you tell the DM you're sewing a false bottom into your boot so you can hide a dagger, that doesn't mean "okay you have a hidden dagger" it means "okay, make a stealth check" and people get upset because what's the point of coming up with cheesy ideas if they don't give you any automatic benefits.
VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited February 2012
I understand the complaint about the brokenness of balance. I was more referring to the concept of preparing spells/being limited per day. Nothing said in this topic makes the case that MP somehow makes more sense than preparing spells or having a limited number of spell slots. It's essentially the same. In the MP system, each spell deducts from some overall pool of mana; in the Vancian system, your spells count against daily limits based on your ability.
The 'game' is always going to reward particular kinds of behaviour. 'Reward' can also mean a lot of different things, from the success and advancement of your character, to the happiness and respect of you and your fellow players.
The major examples I see mentioned here:
A -Some RPGs reward clever careful analysis of the situation as presented and intelligent forethought.
B - Some RPGs reward creative storytelling ability。
C - Some RPGs reward intelligent gameplay - knowing the rules and finding the optimal action within those rules.
D - Some games reward good acting ability.
When I see a lot of the talk in this thread, I think that many of the people here would disagree less if we worked out which of those, or what mix of those, we wanted. Because D&D has mixed those together, and different players of the game have often ended up favouring one of these playstyles, or even another one I haven't thought of, without noticing.
And they're not easily compatible - for example if you want B, then the people who aren't creative and good at narrative will do worse in the game. And in A, the DM becomes very very important and powerful, so if he/she is a git, that will mess up the entire game. And so on and so on.
Whoever said that Monte Cook's posts are embarassing when compared to indie RPG blogs is entirely right. The ideas I mention above are basic RPG design for many many designers and players, and D&D continues as if this whole renaissance in game design hadn't taken place.
I understand the complaint about the brokenness of balance. I was more referring to the concept of preparing spells/being limited per day. Nothing said in this topic makes the case that MP somehow makes more sense than preparing spells or having a limited number of spell slots. It's essentially the same. In the MP system, each spell deducts from some overall pool of mana; in the Vancian system, your spells count against daily limits based on your ability.
We're arguing what you prefer at this point.
To each their own I guess.
The complaints about brokenness and balance are the complaints. People who don't like Vancian systems don't like them because they find those systems to be broken and lacking severely in balance.
Again, I'll reference the 4e system. It's arguably a vancian-hybrid, and most of the opponents of Vancian magic have no issue with the 4e Mage, even when standing next to the 4e Knight or Thief, who by comparison have far fewer combat abilities (though Thief tricks and stances bridge the gap).
Pretty much everything is arbitrary though. I mean, I see no meaningful difference between MP and Vancian magic, except Vancian magic is far less abstract. It is explicable, too. Especially when you explain it in relation to Sorcerers. One gets their magic through hard study; the other gets it through being innately magical.
MP (though I wouldn't want to use that system) is infinitely less arbitrary, in my opinion at least. You cast spells of various power until your too exhausted: more powerful spells exhaust you quicker.
Vancian is just weird: you memorize a specific set of spells for the day, and as soon as you use that spell, you can't cast it again for the rest of the day, unless you memorize it multiple times, which is bizzare in and of itself. How the hell do you memorize it multiple times? And at the end of the day, you dismemorize your entire spell list and learn a new one.
Magic Points are an approximation of a simple idea. Vancian just reeks to me of existing for the sake of existing.
To elaborate a bit on number 1, I hypothetically present this question to Monte Cook: Why is it simple fighters, complex casters? How are the martial characters "rewarded" for "smart play"?
If they were smart, they wouldn't be playing a fighter.
With mana you draw from a pool of energy that can be formed into any magical form you know instantly.
With Vanician casting spells are a lot more complex. They are like little bombs in your head you build and while the flashbang grenade and concussion grenade are just as hard to build as each other they can't be transformed from one to the other easily.
I like vancian casting and think it has a place in the game assuming they can balance it. They thing is it only makes sense to me for the Wizard and the Cleric. I would like to see a lot of systems in place instead of the one(mostly) in 4th edition. Though third was almost as bad in that most everything was Vancian. It makes no sense for the Sorcerer to work like it does for example.
If people in the thread are arguing heavily in favor of MP systems, I must have missed it. The split seems to be largely between 3.5-style vancian and 4e-style at-will/encounter/daily systems.
The problem with giving vancian casting to only some classes is that it creates substantial balance issues on the design side and substantial complexity problems on the play side. Trying to design a game that only gives vancian to some classes and which builds classes around a bevy of different subsystems would absolutely represent a complete failure to learn from the places where 3e was lacking. It would be a decade-length step backwards, and stands an excellent chance of killing the brand.
No, I saw what you were quoting, but that conversation started from someone else bringing up MP systems as though they were what was being discussed - which is possible, but I didn't think I'd seen much discussion on that point.
re Vancian: Well, I'd argue that it IS a natural and unavoidable consequence of Vancian casting in a game with Cook at the helm.
Less snarkily, it's also been the result of vancian in the past, so while it might be possible to design a balanced vancian system that doesn't cause fighters to lag behind wizards, that isn't usually the goal of most people arguing for vancian - rather, the argument seems to usually swing in favor of going 'back to the way things were'.
And more generally, ANY attempt to design a game where players use radically different subsystems is going to hit both the complexity problem and the balance problem. Every new subsystem you add is something to have to balance against all the other subsystems, and it quickly becomes untenable, whether we're talking about vancian or 4e or MP or whatever. If you have players using four different systems, one of those systems is going to be noticeably better than the others unless you have a truly superhuman design team.
No, I saw what you were quoting, but that conversation started from someone else bringing up MP systems as though they were what was being discussed - which is possible, but I didn't think I'd seen much discussion on that point.
re Vancian: Well, I'd argue that it IS a natural and unavoidable consequence of Vancian casting in a game with Cook at the helm.
Less snarkily, it's also been the result of vancian in the past, so while it might be possible to design a balanced vancian system that doesn't cause fighters to lag behind wizards, that isn't usually the goal of most people arguing for vancian - rather, the argument seems to usually swing in favor of going 'back to the way things were'.
And more generally, ANY attempt to design a game where players use radically different subsystems is going to hit both the complexity problem and the balance problem. Every new subsystem you add is something to have to balance against all the other subsystems, and it quickly becomes untenable, whether we're talking about vancian or 4e or MP or whatever. If you have players using four different systems, one of those systems is going to be noticeably better than the others unless you have a truly superhuman design team.
Next has Monte Cook.
Yeah. Basically all this is why I always feel like I have to make a lot of qualifiers when I say I like Wizard's having Vancian casting. I don't want another 3.5. I want Melee characters to get neat abilities and for Wizards to be balanced with everything else.
But I dig different classes working on different subsystems and Vancian makes sense fluff-wise to me for Wizards. the idea that there spells are machine like entities that they build and then "light" appeals to me.
No nobody was suggesting MP be used. I didn't think they were it was just the "what makes sense" comparison other people were using.
Standard vancian, but with a slight optional twist. Certain spells would either be specifically made, or have varients designed for at-will casting. The trick is these spells typically have DC penalties or use smaller dice for damage or something that makes them less effective than normal spells. Each different spell takes up a spell slot but you can cast it repeatedly without burning it. I'd imagine there's be a limit of how many of these you could take (1 per spell level maybe?)
Granted this doesn't do anything for the power differential between wizards and fighters, but it's just an idea that popped into my head.
Standard vancian, but with a slight optional twist. Certain spells would either be specifically made, or have varients designed for at-will casting. The trick is these spells typically have DC penalties or use smaller dice for damage or something that makes them less effective than normal spells. Each different spell takes up a spell slot but you can cast it repeatedly without burning it. I'd imagine there's be a limit of how many of these you could take (1 per spell level maybe?)
Granted this doesn't do anything for the power differential between wizards and fighters, but it's just an idea that popped into my head.
Something very similar to this actually existed in 3.5, and is probably what they're talking about when they mention feats allowing at-will spells.
They were grouped as "reserve feats" and gave you an at-will power that mimicked a generalized version of a spell, with power scaling based on the the highest-level unexpended prepared spell from that school.
So you have stuff along the lines of "at-will, spend a standard action to deal X fire damage to an enemy within 10 squares, where X is the level of your highest-level unexpended evocation spell" or "at-will, spend a standard action to heal a character you are touching for X hp, where X is the level of your highest-level unexpended restoration spell"
They were...mostly shitty, with the possibly exception of the healing one (because it gave you infinite out-of-combat healing as long as you had at least a level 1 restoration spell remaining, although it also didn't allow you to heal anything past 50% health, if I recall correctly) and the conjuration one (because it gave you a dinky little elemental who could be summoned at-will for 1 round per spell level and then used as an expendable mook to walk down hallways and trigger traps, or earthglide through walls and tell you what was on the other side.)
They were grouped as "reserve feats" and gave you an at-will power that mimicked a generalized version of a spell, with power scaling based on the the highest-level unexpended prepared spell from that school.
So you have stuff along the lines of "at-will, spend a standard action to deal X fire damage to an enemy within 10 squares, where X is the level of your highest-level unexpended evocation spell" or "at-will, spend a standard action to heal a character you are touching for X hp, where X is the level of your highest-level unexpended restoration spell"
It seems strange to me that the reserve feat power would scale with the power of spells not yet cast. It almost seems like it should be the reverse, that the 'at-wills' would get stronger the more empty spell slots the wizard had. Fluff-wise, if a vancian caster has to expend mental energy to keep a spell in their memory, then wouldn't having empty spell slots free up more of his dizzying intellect to 'power up' the cantrips?
Since the justification for the quadratic power curve is that magic users die off too easily at the lower levels, why not give them evasive at-wills or interrupts that get more powerful the more empty spell slots they have? Maybe a "disappear in a puff of smoke" power that just interrupts movement, slides the caster, and provides temporary partial concealment? It could power up to nastier effects as the caster gains levels (and capacity for empty spell slots), to blind/prone/daze attackers, or teleport/invisibilify the caster, etc.
I always thought part of the problem with the 3rd edition version of Vancian casting was the absurd number of spell slots. Why do you gain more spells slots for each level? Wouldn't having a smaller number of slots total lower the amount of quadratic-ness of casters? For instance, what if you had X slots for spells and you must share them among all your levels. The only limitation would be learning spells, and you could only prepare up to X copies of the same spell.
Hopefully with the extended range of threats, you would want some of the lower level ones to stick around longer. The feats that you get for the at-will shit could also become more important. Just spit-balling, here.
@wildwood: I think that might be a little over-powering if you just become untouchable after using your abilities. I do like the concept, though.
Yeah, I meant, instead of having X per spell level you would have X total.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
Could totally roll with vancian casting, as long as we also get vancian face-punching. That is, martial dudes with techniques they can use as long as they 'practice' (prepare) them in the morning.
Yeah, I meant, instead of having X per spell level you would have X total.
Supposedly you only had so much room in your spellbook. 100 pages with each spell taking up a page per level.
This was either ignored or easily circumvented.
Yea, everybody made/got a Boccob's Blessed book at some point. Even then the cost of spells kept most Wizards from learning that many more than a sorcerer of equal level.
Any DMs out there remember making wizard enemies back in the day? All that prep?
To be frank, most of the spells sucked anyway and it wasn't even worth writing down very many of them. You wanted your usual array of save or suck spells, then your usual array of instant death spells and if I was feeling vindictive something like antimagic field, teleport and metamagic'ed harm, haste and such forth. With how lethal 3.5 combat can actually be, it's irrelevant to worry about every spell a creature has in the first place.
I got very adept at this as in the epic game I ran, I basically added caster levels to everything. A pit fiend is already fairly ridiculous in many ways. Now throw several levels of wizard and a few PrCs onto it. Now you have absolute hilarity in a gigantic unweildy stat block of absolute doom. That probably dies round 1 or 2 to a save or die/suck spell with a ridiculous DC. But if I won initiate, oh boy you better watch out!
For castings the individual numbers per a level don't get unmanageable, but that number times 8 or 9 is pretty unwieldy.
Not positive but I think wizards cap at 4 casting base, usually plus 1 or 2 for intelligence, per a level.
Wizards can cast 4 spells per day of each level at 20th level. You get bonus spells as long as you intelligence modifier is equal to the spell in question (+4 allows you to get bonus spells up to fourth level, for example).
It's really not unreasonable or unwieldy, especially once you out together a default list.
I know Sorcerers were the red-headed stepchild of the arcane classes in 3.X, but they are fucking awesome in Pathfinder. They get bloodline abilities, feats, and powers, and completely bypass the headache of bookkeeping.
No prep needed, you just cast everything spontaneously and go from there.
So...why do people hate Vancian magic again? I've heard complaints over the years but I've never had a problem.
Maybe I just have bad taste.
3) It made almost no sense for divine casters, at least in a setting where they prayed to their god, acting as an actual agent for that god, for their spells. (Other systems where all casting relied on the same innate force of will, sure whatever.)
This. So much This. I see no reason divine casters use the same mechanics as wizards. It's a huge pet peeve for me.
Vancian is just weird: you memorize a specific set of spells for the day, and as soon as you use that spell, you can't cast it again for the rest of the day, unless you memorize it multiple times, which is bizzare in and of itself. How the hell do you memorize it multiple times? And at the end of the day, you dismemorize your entire spell list and learn a new one.
Vancian magic is at least neat from a flavor perspective. Here's a good explanation:
"The tomes which held Turjan's sorcery lay on the long table of black steel or were thrust helter-skelter into shelves. These were volumes compiled by many wizards of the past, untidy folios collected by the Sage, leather-bound librams setting forth the syllables of a hundred powerful spells, so cogent that Turjan's brain could know but four at a time.
Turjan found a musty portfolio, turned the heavy pages to the spell the Sage had shown him, the Call to the Violent Cloud. He stared down at the characters and they burned with an urgent power, pressing off the page as if frantic to leave the dark solitude of the book.
Turjan closed the book, forcing the spell back into oblivion. He robed himself with a short cape, tucked a blade into his belt, fitted the amulet holding Laccodel's Rune to his wrist. Then he sat down and from a journal chose the spells he would take with him. What dangers he might meet he could not know, so he selected three spells of general application: the Excellent Prismatic Spray, Phandal's Mantle of Stealth, and the Spell of the Slow Hour."
I think the only thing that needs to be said about Vancian Casting is that it's such a popular and successful system that I can't name another game that uses it besides DnD and it's direct clones.
Isn't that all the more reason to include it if you want 5E to be "iconic" D&D?
I don't think Vancian Wizards necessarily denies at-will sorcerors, fighter feats, thief skills, miracles for clerics either. It doesnt have to be Vancian Wizards then noone else gets any abilities. Or Vancian Quadratic Wizards and Linear Fighterrs.
Design-wise 4E makes sense, its a unified, easy to understand design: at wills, encounters, dailies for everyone.
But flavor wise I would prefer every class get its own system or combination of systems. Wizards get Vancian casting. Sorcerors get spontaneous casting at-wills with a chance of failure/backfire/whatever. Clerics get miracles, Thieves get Skills, Fighters get Combat Techniques, Bards get songs. etc.
For castings the individual numbers per a level don't get unmanageable, but that number times 8 or 9 is pretty unwieldy.
Not positive but I think wizards cap at 4 casting base, usually plus 1 or 2 for intelligence, per a level.
Wizards can cast 4 spells per day of each level at 20th level. You get bonus spells as long as you intelligence modifier is equal to the spell in question (+4 allows you to get bonus spells up to fourth level, for example).
It's really not unreasonable or unwieldy, especially once you out together a default list.
I know Sorcerers were the red-headed stepchild of the arcane classes in 3.X, but they are fucking awesome in Pathfinder. They get bloodline abilities, feats, and powers, and completely bypass the headache of bookkeeping.
No prep needed, you just cast everything spontaneously and go from there.
Yea, that was about what I thought.
The funny thing is the Sorcerers don't really get that much fewer spells than a wizard, at least not the NPC wizards they've written up. The two free spells at a level seems to be the default assumption for wizards. Two spells a level and two levels per a spell level...means four spells at each level. Which is pretty damn close to what the Sorcerer ends up with. The Sorcerer does give up half a level of spells but you get so many castings....well I always thought Sorcerer stacked up fine with Wizard.
Of course with a Sorcerer it's really easy to totally fuck yourself by picking bad spells. Fixing that will take a massive amount of time.
Sorcerer was limited by the number of spells they could learn, not cast. A wizard would always be more versatile, given enough time to prepare.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited February 2012
Well, that's the trade off. More spells per day, no prep needed for less versatility in choice but more on the fly decisions. I suggest you take a look at Sorcerers in Pathfinder as they are very distinct compared to their 3.5 counterparts.
We have an elemental sorcerers in my game. She resists electricity, can change the elemental damage of any spell to electricity, and will be getting a fly speed soon enough. Sorcerers with a draconic bloodline gain claws, breath weapons, and grow wings. None of this is accomplished with spells.
Wizards get huge bonuses if they specialize in Pathfinder too.
The moral of this post is everything is more awesome in Pathfinder.
I think the only thing that needs to be said about Vancian Casting is that it's such a popular and successful system that I can't name another game that uses it besides DnD and it's direct clones.
Isn't that all the more reason to include it if you want 5E to be "iconic" D&D?
I don't think Vancian Wizards necessarily denies at-will sorcerors, fighter feats, thief skills, miracles for clerics etc.
Design-wise 4E makes sense, its a unified, easy to understand design: at wills, encounters, dailies for everyone.
But flavor wise I would prefer every class get its own system or combination of systems. Wizards get Vancian casting. Sorcerors get spontaneous casting at-wills with a chance of failure/backfire/whatever. Clerics get miracles, Thieves get Skills, Fighters get Combat Technique
Sorcerer was limited by the number of spells they could learn, not cast. A wizard would always be more versatile, given enough time to prepare.
I shifted into spells known after the first paragraph. Published wizard NPC's rarely had any more than the free spells gained per a level. If that was kept to they don't really have anywhere near as much of an advantage as people think they do over Wizards.
Ok, i've tried to do some searching, but didn't find anything yet. I'm asking the experts hoping someone knows. Is it a free sign-up for a play test? And how does one sign-up for said play test? Have they even started anything like that?
I think the only thing that needs to be said about Vancian Casting is that it's such a popular and successful system that I can't name another game that uses it besides DnD and it's direct clones.
Isn't that all the more reason to include it if you want 5E to be "iconic" D&D?
I don't think Vancian Wizards necessarily denies at-will sorcerors, fighter feats, thief skills, miracles for clerics etc.
Design-wise 4E makes sense, its a unified, easy to understand design: at wills, encounters, dailies for everyone.
But flavor wise I would prefer every class get its own system or combination of systems. Wizards get Vancian casting. Sorcerors get spontaneous casting at-wills with a chance of failure/backfire/whatever. Clerics get miracles, Thieves get Skills, Fighters get Combat Technique
This is why trying to actually make a game where the classes all use different subsystems is a terrible idea.
The best argument that can be summoned for it is 'Doing things the 4e way is good design, but I'd rather have broken and badly designed in order to get marginally more mechanically-enforced flavor'
This is what I'm not getting. All the flavor-stuff people are complaining about can be DM'd/Houseruled into 4E with minimal issues, so why are they tearing apart the system for it? Some people want more "roleplaying" in their D&D, so why aren't they doing that currently? You could set up encounters to be shorter with more roleplaying in-between with a minimum of fuss. This is just silly "because that's how REAL D&D works" troglodyte stuff. You really want vancian casting? Make a new optional class/wizard flavor.
This is what I'm not getting. All the flavor-stuff people are complaining about can be DM'd/Houseruled into 4E with minimal issues, so why are they tearing apart the system for it? Some people want more "roleplaying" in their D&D, so why aren't they doing that currently? You could set up encounters to be shorter with more roleplaying in-between with a minimum of fuss. This is just silly "because that's how REAL D&D works" troglodyte stuff. You really want vancian casting? Make a new optional class/wizard flavor.
This is the hilarious irony of the entire 3.5e/4e discussion.
The first problem with 4e is that it is like a video game because it gives you rules for what your character can do and that makes the people who play it uncreative and shackled to rules, not like REAL roleplayers who play 3.5.
The second problem with 4e is that it doesn't specifically have rules for the flavor things I want, and my superior 3.5 creativity is somehow unable to resolve this problem.
Ok, i've tried to do some searching, but didn't find anything yet. I'm asking the experts hoping someone knows. Is it a free sign-up for a play test? And how does one sign-up for said play test? Have they even started anything like that?
It's a link on the main page of the D&D website. Just throw in your email and hope for the best. As far as I'm nothing has happened outside convention or press events so far.
Well, that's the trade off. More spells per day, no prep needed for less versatility in choice but more on the fly decisions. I suggest you take a look at Sorcerers in Pathfinder as they are very distinct compared to their 3.5 counterparts.
We have an elemental sorcerers in my game. She resists electricity, can change the elemental damage of any spell to electricity, and will be getting a fly speed soon enough. Sorcerers with a draconic bloodline gain claws, breath weapons, and grow wings. None of this is accomplished with spells.
Wizards get huge bonuses if they specialize in Pathfinder too.
The moral of this post is everything is more awesome in Pathfinder.
A human Arcane Bloodline Sorcerer can get a flat out stupid amount of spells if they choose a bonus spell instead of a bonus skillpoint every level.
A 20th sorceror normally gets
9 0th, 5 1st, 5 2nd, 4 3rd, 4 4th, 4 5th, 3 6th, 3 7th, 3 8th and 3 9th levels spells.
Any sorcerer gets an additional preselected spell every spell level.
An arcane bloodline sorceror gets an addition 4th, 6th and 8th level spell (or lower if they choose)
Sacrificing the bonus skill points gets you an extra 3 0th, 2 1st, 2 2nd, 2 3rd, 2 4th, 2 5th, 2 6th, 2 7th, and 3 8th level spells.
65 spells all of their choosing, plus an additional 9 preselected spells, for a total of 74. Not too shabby, though I wouldn't count the cantrips (and wouldn't sacrifice 3 skill points for 3 cantrips either.) so lets say 62 spells and 9 cantrips.
...Damn, now I really want to play a sorcerer again.
This is the hilarious irony of the entire 3.5e/4e discussion.
The first problem with 4e is that it is like a video game because it gives you rules for what your character can do and that makes the people who play it uncreative and shackled to rules, not like REAL roleplayers who play 3.5.
The second problem with 4e is that it doesn't specifically have rules for the flavor things I want, and my superior 3.5 creativity is somehow unable to resolve this problem.
Just to add to this, in my experience the people who were the most "BUT I CAN'T BE CREATIVE IN 4e WHYYYYYYYYYY" about it were the people whose idea of creativity was finding the holes in 3e and driving PC god trucks through them. They could optimize the shit out of everything but got bothered by the idea that I flavored magic missile to be a ray. It didn't work like a ray in the rules, I didn't try to make it work like a ray, I just wanted my flavor to have magic rays shoot out of my fingers rather than magic bolts. It was like unfathomable to them, they were bound by some kind of anti-creativity.
In that theory, 4e "stifled creativity" because it was so good at narrowing the brokenness and the exploiters (or, favorably, "system masters") had nothing to drive their trucks through, and despite their flaunted creativity they knew nothing outside of the bounds of the ruleset.
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I mean, there's still plenty of optimization that can be done in 4e, but there's certainly no "I'm a Ruby Knight Vindicator you guys might want to go get a pizza or something I'm about to take thirty turns."
I know one of the managers at my game shop has been given (and signed) an NDA, recently, for playtesting Next. I don't know if it's related to the open playtest, or if it's another stage of playtesting (like maybe giving Premiere stores one playtest group each or something).
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There's even PPs and EDs that address the logical capacity to eventually become so powerful that you can convert something you could only do a few times a day (encounter powers) into something that is now relatively trivial for you so you can do it at will. Likewise with daily to encounter stuff.
I wonder if Monte's games just don't have martial classes or what. Maybe it's like someone draws straws and "takes one for the team" and plays the martial guy for levels 1-5 and then is expected to multiclass druid or something? I just don't get how it isn't painfully obvious to the guy who designed one edition of the game and is now doing the same for a second that there is a huge disparity there.
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In compensation you got some really unreliable skills to do things like climb walls.
We're arguing what you prefer at this point.
To each their own I guess.
The major examples I see mentioned here:
A -Some RPGs reward clever careful analysis of the situation as presented and intelligent forethought.
B - Some RPGs reward creative storytelling ability。
C - Some RPGs reward intelligent gameplay - knowing the rules and finding the optimal action within those rules.
D - Some games reward good acting ability.
When I see a lot of the talk in this thread, I think that many of the people here would disagree less if we worked out which of those, or what mix of those, we wanted. Because D&D has mixed those together, and different players of the game have often ended up favouring one of these playstyles, or even another one I haven't thought of, without noticing.
And they're not easily compatible - for example if you want B, then the people who aren't creative and good at narrative will do worse in the game. And in A, the DM becomes very very important and powerful, so if he/she is a git, that will mess up the entire game. And so on and so on.
Whoever said that Monte Cook's posts are embarassing when compared to indie RPG blogs is entirely right. The ideas I mention above are basic RPG design for many many designers and players, and D&D continues as if this whole renaissance in game design hadn't taken place.
The complaints about brokenness and balance are the complaints. People who don't like Vancian systems don't like them because they find those systems to be broken and lacking severely in balance.
Again, I'll reference the 4e system. It's arguably a vancian-hybrid, and most of the opponents of Vancian magic have no issue with the 4e Mage, even when standing next to the 4e Knight or Thief, who by comparison have far fewer combat abilities (though Thief tricks and stances bridge the gap).
With mana you draw from a pool of energy that can be formed into any magical form you know instantly.
With Vanician casting spells are a lot more complex. They are like little bombs in your head you build and while the flashbang grenade and concussion grenade are just as hard to build as each other they can't be transformed from one to the other easily.
I like vancian casting and think it has a place in the game assuming they can balance it. They thing is it only makes sense to me for the Wizard and the Cleric. I would like to see a lot of systems in place instead of the one(mostly) in 4th edition. Though third was almost as bad in that most everything was Vancian. It makes no sense for the Sorcerer to work like it does for example.
And Fighters need abilities!
The problem with giving vancian casting to only some classes is that it creates substantial balance issues on the design side and substantial complexity problems on the play side. Trying to design a game that only gives vancian to some classes and which builds classes around a bevy of different subsystems would absolutely represent a complete failure to learn from the places where 3e was lacking. It would be a decade-length step backwards, and stands an excellent chance of killing the brand.
That isn't necessarily a natural and unavoidable consequence of Vancian casting.
re Vancian: Well, I'd argue that it IS a natural and unavoidable consequence of Vancian casting in a game with Cook at the helm.
Less snarkily, it's also been the result of vancian in the past, so while it might be possible to design a balanced vancian system that doesn't cause fighters to lag behind wizards, that isn't usually the goal of most people arguing for vancian - rather, the argument seems to usually swing in favor of going 'back to the way things were'.
And more generally, ANY attempt to design a game where players use radically different subsystems is going to hit both the complexity problem and the balance problem. Every new subsystem you add is something to have to balance against all the other subsystems, and it quickly becomes untenable, whether we're talking about vancian or 4e or MP or whatever. If you have players using four different systems, one of those systems is going to be noticeably better than the others unless you have a truly superhuman design team.
Next has Monte Cook.
Hell, that's the entire design mantra so far. I can't think of a L&L yet where anyone has even considered that things might get out of balance.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
Yeah. Basically all this is why I always feel like I have to make a lot of qualifiers when I say I like Wizard's having Vancian casting. I don't want another 3.5. I want Melee characters to get neat abilities and for Wizards to be balanced with everything else.
But I dig different classes working on different subsystems and Vancian makes sense fluff-wise to me for Wizards. the idea that there spells are machine like entities that they build and then "light" appeals to me.
No nobody was suggesting MP be used. I didn't think they were it was just the "what makes sense" comparison other people were using.
Standard vancian, but with a slight optional twist. Certain spells would either be specifically made, or have varients designed for at-will casting. The trick is these spells typically have DC penalties or use smaller dice for damage or something that makes them less effective than normal spells. Each different spell takes up a spell slot but you can cast it repeatedly without burning it. I'd imagine there's be a limit of how many of these you could take (1 per spell level maybe?)
Granted this doesn't do anything for the power differential between wizards and fighters, but it's just an idea that popped into my head.
Something very similar to this actually existed in 3.5, and is probably what they're talking about when they mention feats allowing at-will spells.
They were grouped as "reserve feats" and gave you an at-will power that mimicked a generalized version of a spell, with power scaling based on the the highest-level unexpended prepared spell from that school.
So you have stuff along the lines of "at-will, spend a standard action to deal X fire damage to an enemy within 10 squares, where X is the level of your highest-level unexpended evocation spell" or "at-will, spend a standard action to heal a character you are touching for X hp, where X is the level of your highest-level unexpended restoration spell"
They were...mostly shitty, with the possibly exception of the healing one (because it gave you infinite out-of-combat healing as long as you had at least a level 1 restoration spell remaining, although it also didn't allow you to heal anything past 50% health, if I recall correctly) and the conjuration one (because it gave you a dinky little elemental who could be summoned at-will for 1 round per spell level and then used as an expendable mook to walk down hallways and trigger traps, or earthglide through walls and tell you what was on the other side.)
It seems strange to me that the reserve feat power would scale with the power of spells not yet cast. It almost seems like it should be the reverse, that the 'at-wills' would get stronger the more empty spell slots the wizard had. Fluff-wise, if a vancian caster has to expend mental energy to keep a spell in their memory, then wouldn't having empty spell slots free up more of his dizzying intellect to 'power up' the cantrips?
Since the justification for the quadratic power curve is that magic users die off too easily at the lower levels, why not give them evasive at-wills or interrupts that get more powerful the more empty spell slots they have? Maybe a "disappear in a puff of smoke" power that just interrupts movement, slides the caster, and provides temporary partial concealment? It could power up to nastier effects as the caster gains levels (and capacity for empty spell slots), to blind/prone/daze attackers, or teleport/invisibilify the caster, etc.
Hopefully with the extended range of threats, you would want some of the lower level ones to stick around longer. The feats that you get for the at-will shit could also become more important. Just spit-balling, here.
@wildwood: I think that might be a little over-powering if you just become untouchable after using your abilities. I do like the concept, though.
Not positive but I think wizards cap at 4 casting base, usually plus 1 or 2 for intelligence, per a level.
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This was either ignored or easily circumvented.
Yea, everybody made/got a Boccob's Blessed book at some point. Even then the cost of spells kept most Wizards from learning that many more than a sorcerer of equal level.
To be frank, most of the spells sucked anyway and it wasn't even worth writing down very many of them. You wanted your usual array of save or suck spells, then your usual array of instant death spells and if I was feeling vindictive something like antimagic field, teleport and metamagic'ed harm, haste and such forth. With how lethal 3.5 combat can actually be, it's irrelevant to worry about every spell a creature has in the first place.
I got very adept at this as in the epic game I ran, I basically added caster levels to everything. A pit fiend is already fairly ridiculous in many ways. Now throw several levels of wizard and a few PrCs onto it. Now you have absolute hilarity in a gigantic unweildy stat block of absolute doom. That probably dies round 1 or 2 to a save or die/suck spell with a ridiculous DC. But if I won initiate, oh boy you better watch out!
Wizards can cast 4 spells per day of each level at 20th level. You get bonus spells as long as you intelligence modifier is equal to the spell in question (+4 allows you to get bonus spells up to fourth level, for example).
It's really not unreasonable or unwieldy, especially once you out together a default list.
I know Sorcerers were the red-headed stepchild of the arcane classes in 3.X, but they are fucking awesome in Pathfinder. They get bloodline abilities, feats, and powers, and completely bypass the headache of bookkeeping.
No prep needed, you just cast everything spontaneously and go from there.
This. So much This. I see no reason divine casters use the same mechanics as wizards. It's a huge pet peeve for me.
Vancian magic is at least neat from a flavor perspective. Here's a good explanation:
http://beyondtheblackgate.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-vancian-magic-is-vancian.html
Yea, that was about what I thought.
The funny thing is the Sorcerers don't really get that much fewer spells than a wizard, at least not the NPC wizards they've written up. The two free spells at a level seems to be the default assumption for wizards. Two spells a level and two levels per a spell level...means four spells at each level. Which is pretty damn close to what the Sorcerer ends up with. The Sorcerer does give up half a level of spells but you get so many castings....well I always thought Sorcerer stacked up fine with Wizard.
Of course with a Sorcerer it's really easy to totally fuck yourself by picking bad spells. Fixing that will take a massive amount of time.
We have an elemental sorcerers in my game. She resists electricity, can change the elemental damage of any spell to electricity, and will be getting a fly speed soon enough. Sorcerers with a draconic bloodline gain claws, breath weapons, and grow wings. None of this is accomplished with spells.
Wizards get huge bonuses if they specialize in Pathfinder too.
The moral of this post is everything is more awesome in Pathfinder.
Isn't that all the more reason to include it if you want 5E to be "iconic" D&D?
I don't think Vancian Wizards necessarily denies at-will sorcerors, fighter feats, thief skills, miracles for clerics etc.
Design-wise 4E makes sense, its a unified, easy to understand design: at wills, encounters, dailies for everyone.
But flavor wise I would prefer every class get its own system or combination of systems. Wizards get Vancian casting. Sorcerors get spontaneous casting at-wills with a chance of failure/backfire/whatever. Clerics get miracles, Thieves get Skills, Fighters get Combat Technique
I shifted into spells known after the first paragraph. Published wizard NPC's rarely had any more than the free spells gained per a level. If that was kept to they don't really have anywhere near as much of an advantage as people think they do over Wizards.
This is why trying to actually make a game where the classes all use different subsystems is a terrible idea.
The best argument that can be summoned for it is 'Doing things the 4e way is good design, but I'd rather have broken and badly designed in order to get marginally more mechanically-enforced flavor'
This is the hilarious irony of the entire 3.5e/4e discussion.
The first problem with 4e is that it is like a video game because it gives you rules for what your character can do and that makes the people who play it uncreative and shackled to rules, not like REAL roleplayers who play 3.5.
The second problem with 4e is that it doesn't specifically have rules for the flavor things I want, and my superior 3.5 creativity is somehow unable to resolve this problem.
It's a link on the main page of the D&D website. Just throw in your email and hope for the best. As far as I'm nothing has happened outside convention or press events so far.
A 20th sorceror normally gets
9 0th, 5 1st, 5 2nd, 4 3rd, 4 4th, 4 5th, 3 6th, 3 7th, 3 8th and 3 9th levels spells.
Any sorcerer gets an additional preselected spell every spell level.
An arcane bloodline sorceror gets an addition 4th, 6th and 8th level spell (or lower if they choose)
Sacrificing the bonus skill points gets you an extra 3 0th, 2 1st, 2 2nd, 2 3rd, 2 4th, 2 5th, 2 6th, 2 7th, and 3 8th level spells.
So we have a sorcerer with
7 1st
7 2nd
6 3rd
7 4th
6 5th
6 6th
5 7th
7 8th
3 9th
...Damn, now I really want to play a sorcerer again.
Just to add to this, in my experience the people who were the most "BUT I CAN'T BE CREATIVE IN 4e WHYYYYYYYYYY" about it were the people whose idea of creativity was finding the holes in 3e and driving PC god trucks through them. They could optimize the shit out of everything but got bothered by the idea that I flavored magic missile to be a ray. It didn't work like a ray in the rules, I didn't try to make it work like a ray, I just wanted my flavor to have magic rays shoot out of my fingers rather than magic bolts. It was like unfathomable to them, they were bound by some kind of anti-creativity.
In that theory, 4e "stifled creativity" because it was so good at narrowing the brokenness and the exploiters (or, favorably, "system masters") had nothing to drive their trucks through, and despite their flaunted creativity they knew nothing outside of the bounds of the ruleset.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
I mean, there's still plenty of optimization that can be done in 4e, but there's certainly no "I'm a Ruby Knight Vindicator you guys might want to go get a pizza or something I'm about to take thirty turns."
I know one of the managers at my game shop has been given (and signed) an NDA, recently, for playtesting Next. I don't know if it's related to the open playtest, or if it's another stage of playtesting (like maybe giving Premiere stores one playtest group each or something).