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I am very confused with wizards right now.
droz
Member Posts: 3 Arc User
My recollection of DnD, even 4th edition,. gave us the option of choosing our own spells when a new spell could be learned. Eventually could get fireballs and such. I don't see any sort of options here for choosing spells, not do I even see the iconic Fireball or Lightning Bolt in the list. Am I missing something?
Post edited by droz on
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Character is what a man is in the dark
Class Feature spells
Ghost Sound Wizard Cantrip
Light Wizard Cantrip
Mage Hand Wizard Cantrip
Prestidigitation Wizard Cantrip
Level 1 At-Will Spells
Cloud of Daggers Wizard Attack 1
Magic Missile Wizard Attack 1
Ray of Frost Wizard Attack 1
Scorching Burst Wizard Attack 1
Thunderwave Wizard Attack 1
Level 1 Encounter Spells
Burning Hands Wizard Attack 1
Chill Strike Wizard Attack 1
Force Orb Wizard Attack 1
Icy Terrain Wizard Attack 1
Ray of Enfeeblement Wizard Attack 1
Level 1 Daily Spells
Acid Arrow Wizard Attack 1
Flaming Sphere Wizard Attack 1
Freezing Cloud Wizard Attack 1
Sleep Wizard Attack 1
Level 2 Utility Spells
Expeditious Retreat (Daily) Wizard Utility 2
Feather Fall (Daily) Wizard Utility 2
Jump (Encounter) Wizard Utility 2
Shield (Encounter) Wizard Utility 2
This is just an example. Everything in Bold, I don't see any of it at all.
Come on, use your head buddy.
Computers can't do creativity, because they can only perform a limited number of options. For flexibility, creativity, and roleplaying, you cannot substitute for a real live DM.
I would certainly agree with this. I have been playing DnD since the 1970s.
Further, since it is not DnD, adapting the magic systems so that players could effect their element or effect of choice in the expression of a spells effect should not have been a problem. As they are apparently making up spells and systemic effects anyway, they might as well have done something that would be both functional and expressive. IE. Positive/Divine Energy expressed in blue/white fire, Negative in purple/black fire, Flame as red fire, Earth as crystal fire, etc. The spell effect would be the same, but the skin would have been different. And this isn't house rules in AD&D 3.5, you can make your own spell effects using the base stats of other spells. Simply put, no one has bothered to provide players a simple set of options. Apparently, AD&D 4.0 was designed for those with less imagination to put into role play and more interest in mashing keys for pathetic status. I understood from the get-go that 4.0 was created to make programmers happy at the expense of the game, and this is now obvious.
As it stands, the mage class is barely worth playing because of its incredible limitations. The whole system is so devoted to limitations rather than versatility as to make it undesirable. The Devoted Cleric is more of a mage than the mage class, and is a poor excuse for a healer. The tanks are tolerable, but equally limited. The rogue class is a glass cannon without any glass, but amusing non-the-less. And the ranged class isn't at all. We have nature kits, but no nature classes. The pantheons seem to have been massively massacred.
The base functions of the system mechanics had already been simplified, but now we switch to computerized mechanics to complicated them. Where one class regenerates points to effect powers, another builds them before they can. These are part of console game systems and never belonged in any form of DnD, nor were they necessary here. Their inclusion here has more to do with familiarity on the party of the gaming industry with itself rather than on its interest in presenting the game faithfully or looking for creative solutions to advance RP and Characterization options for the player base. Yes, I am saying that game designers (across the board) are complacent with what they have and their kudos granted by each other to each other for regurgitating the same base codes with trivial differences is ultimately unimpressive. So my horny female is rendered slightly more smoothly when she shakes her tail at me now, versus two games back. The fact is, I am still playing the game from two games back. A game that has been abandoned by its developers and its distributors had more to offer from before its first patch in classes, races, weapons, spells, skills, and player input than a brand new game developed almost a decade later?
However, I play my characters out of a sense of duty to the character and with no interest in where they are going, or excitement in what they can become because it is absolutely nothing I would choose. MAGES USE ALL KINDS OF MAGIC, not just cold and lightening.
That being said:
I do like a great deal of what we have.
I do not regret the money I spent on the game (between STO and Neverwinter, a little under $300.00 in one month).
The art is consistent in style and expression.
Success, at least in early levels, is not burdensome to achieve.
I have logged very few hours because I cannot make a character worth playing.
I'm sure they'll introduce a mage class with other elements at some point. War Wizard, some kind of Warlock or Sorcerer, whatever.
A new MMO doesn't have everything imaginable right at launch. What a shocking state of affairs.
this
There isn't any other way around it. Nearly ALL of the classic D&D we once knew is gone. Whether it's because of 4th edition or this company wasn't really familiar with what Dungeons & Dragons was like prior to ...2007 or when ever 4th ed was published.
If this is what D&D is now, I am sad to say that I simply don't like D&D anymore. The franchise has lost it's flavor and most of its magic (literally and figuratively).
Still, this game is fun, and the setting is still Forgotten Realms-ish. The combat is fun, the dungeons are interesting, and I dig the graphics. Dungeons & Dragons it is not, but as a video game it totally works - except the 46 forms of currency, each of which can only buy a few pieces of gear that are quickly outgrown...who the hell came up with this idea and who consented to putting this in the game?
Magic, wizards, spells - gone, all gone. So are rogue/thief skills for that matter.
I am weeping for the one responsible for trashing Gygax & Arneson's hard work, because that poor soul has sold out.
Amillion Dollars L60 'easy mode' GWF
Then everything on my character has been a complete waste of time and money. In which case, playing the game becomes a waste of both.
This sort of answer fails. TONS of computer games have implemented a very large set of spells for wizards. D&D online, which is a different version but makes the point, has most (not all, but most) of the 3.5 ruleset spells implemented. NWN and NWN 2 also had most of the 3.5 (which is a larger list).
Not every spell can be added. Not every spell should be added. But I can roll a level 1 wizard in NWN2 that has more spells than a level 60 here, and that is only about 1/4 the available ones (you only get so many to start even with a 20 starting int).
Its very possible to do it. By and large, MOST wizard spells do damage and so all that changes is the graphic and shape/size of the area of effect. Eye-candy, is all it would be. Like having a variety of armor styles, its missing from the game at this time.
One would hope the other paragon paths add other spells including at least a fireball. But we do not know about that yet, its possible, but nothing has been said to my knowledge.
As for it being a control wizard, then where is my 10 min duration multiple target hold monster spell???
The powers were right there for you to see the moment you started your character. It's nobody's fault but your own that you didn't understand what you class could and could not do.
I actually think cosmetic animation changes would be a good Zen store item.
But still; Neverwinter has very complicated animations compared to, say, DDOs. Adding more animations is not trivial, and not something that should be expected at this stage of development.
Dead and buried. Good riddance to horribly flawed game design.
The control wizard has plenty of control.
I think the game is being as true to it as possible.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Including the Eberron-specific stuff like the repairs, it has less than 200. Even the bare-bones 3.5 SRD (which does not include those setting-specific spells) has over 370.
There are fewer spells in the basic 4th Edition, so NWO can be expected to have fewer spells.
Fireball seems to be more likely for a battle-wizard rather than a control wizard doesn't it?
I'm really not sure whether many of the issues expressed here are due to people having difficulty adjusting to the fact that NWO is based on a different edition of D&D, that the conversion from a round-based tabletop game to a real-time computer MMO involved some changes, or both.
its the same with movies. "based on a true story" means that they took something that happened and created their own version of what happened.
But you could do something like that for a 3rd edition version. Build a 'rest meter' that refreshes all your memorized spells when it fills up.
No, they can make the spells available PERIOD. And the only reason Neverwinter has more complicated graphics in appearance is the technological changes in the complexity of the graphics cards and CPUs. If those cards had existed when Turbine made DDO and LotRO, they also would be just as graphically intensive. As it stands, Neverwinter is not significantly superior in graphical appearance, or even pathing, to be considered a major improvement versus those two games. Icons get stuck and spawn in undesirable places here just as they do there.
Having the animations for the spells should have happened before this stage of the game, assuming there were any to have. The presentation so far only indicates that D&D 4.0 is by far an inferior game made so that programmers need accomplish nothing.
You completely miss the point. The fact is the Control Wizard isn't. And D&D never had any such thing. There is a WIZARD, a SORCEROR, a CLERIC, a DRUID, there is and never was any FRACKING CONTROL WIZARD. The entire point to having the option of choosing your spells for your spell book was to establish the flavor and nature of the magic that would express the nature of your character - not merely some boohoo PUGs wannabe listing of req.s or you can't be a part of our raid. Power is drawn from the essence of the soul of the caster, and expressed with that essence. A wizard with a stormy and tempestuous history raging against the world will express the power in stormy or chaotic magics. A wizard full of burning desire for power or full of passion will express magic as fire or even enchantment. A wizard, or sorceror, whose love is is killed and whose heart is the coldest and blackest void will render ice or even necromantic magic. No previous computer game claiming origins in D&D, whether MMO or not, has so irrevocably annihilated the opportunity for role play with their limitations and systematic failure to provide for characterization. This is not only true in magic. It is equally true in some of the skin color choices, racial limitations, hair color limitations, weapons limitations, class absences, the limitations on deity choices, etc. Further, the failure to provide for racial, cultural, and religious options serves absolutely no purpose.
The only wizard available is a cold based wizard until level 30, but you can't have white hair? No matter how old you are? The only race set up to be a wizard is the Tiefling, but you can't have blue or white skin to go with the only spell like effects permitted the only mage like (because let's face it it is NOT a D&D wizard). All clerics stand in the back ground and hold up a pendulum in their left hand, and only half-elves can be clerics? I guess it's a good thing for Gruumsh that humans and elves got drunk together one night...
As far as the role-playing goes... You adressed condition that every MMO suffers. It is limited by number of players. The variety of their playstyles is too big to handle. It is just not possible to make a MMO game that is as free as D&D or NWN.
That said, I agree with you, role-play that could be is not and they should work on that.
Wizards are certainly worth playing if you don't have absurdly specific and rigid expectations.
And what does the respec have to do with anything? Again, you were shown your options. If you don't like those options, a respec isn't going to do anything for you. You were given no reason to believe that more spells (at least, any more than a very few from other Paragon Paths) would be coming your way. If you "wasted" time on your character, it's nobodies fault but your own.
Maybe the other paragon paths will be to your liking, but frankly, I doubt it. They'll most likely be in the same general theme as the existing Control Wizard.
They "can" do a lot of things. Will you personally pay the salaries of many more developers so that you can get every little thing you think you're entitled to?
The image quality, sure, but the animations themselves are much more varied and differentiated in Neverwinter than in DDO. That's not a matter of technology, that's a matter of an artist's time and effort. Each power has a lot more dev time required in Neverwinter than spells and abilities in DDO.
All the spells in Neverwinter have animations, just as they should at this stage. It's just the spells you feel entitled to that aren' in the game that don't.
You obviously are clueless about 4E. Wizards have hundreds of spells, spanning just about every concept imaginable. Neverwinter has focused classes for its own reasons, not because 4E did it.
It doesn't matter what tabletop D&D did or did not. This is not tabletop D&D. It's an MMO with a D&D theme.
You're dreaming if you think adding more spells will make people more likely to accept your own personal snowflake. Players in MMOs expect their teammates to play to the best of their ability. They don't care about your character concept. If you want to play with people who do, join an RP guild.
That's not D&D Wizards at all. I don't know where you're getting this.
D&D Wizards are academics who learn to cast spells. They are powered by intellect, not soul. What you're talking about is more in line with Sorcerers and Warlocks.
You can have white hair. I have a character with white hair.
No it isn't. Humans make great Wizards too. Other races can certainly be Wizards as well, if that's the character concept you want.
In what edition is a Wizard's hair/skin color determined by his choice of spells? Does that change if he slots entirely different spells on a different day?
All clerics that we can play so far do, yes. Again, you appear to have no concept of game development. It takes time to add more things.
And I don't know what you're talking about with half-elves. They're not even a particularly good choice for cleric. Human, Wood Elf, Dwarf and Drow are all better choices.
Shield is a staple for AoEs and AP building. It exists.
I've run and played campaigns in 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and 4e with over a half dozen DMs and 3-4 different groups. I've also played different editions of Shadowrun, GURPs, Paranoia, Savage Worlds, Deadlands, BESM, Necessary Evil, and probably things I've forgotten. When I think of D&D I don't think of combat mechanics and "customization" at all, because those have all changed while I've played D&D over the decades.
My definition of "D&D experience" is the tone of the campaigns, the setting, the party dynamic. It is a different experience from a "Shadowrun experience" or a "Paranoia experience" or a "Deadlands experience".
My Deadlands experience is about undead steampunk cowboys with magic six shooters, and the group talking like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne. My Paranoia experience is about Friend Computer, Commie Mutant Traitors, and stabbing your buddies in the back. My Shadowrun experience is about magical cyberpunk, carefully planning illegal activities, and then eventually having everything go hilariously FUBAR. The mechanics influence how a campaign plays, but it doesn't affect the actual experience - much of which is party dynamics, campaign flow, and the social interaction between friends.
My D&D experience is about my friends (usually filling the fighter, wizard, cleric and rogue archtypes long before MMOs existed) exploring Faerun, Athas, or Oerth, clearing dungeons, foiling plots, and defeating villains as a team. The mechanics have never played a significant part in the experience, because when you're thinking about mechanics you're not thinking about playing. That is an Out Of Character aspect, and it's the In Character portions of what we did that forms the D&D experience for me.
In 2e my rogue stabbed stuff, and the one and only Bladesinger I managed to roll died in his first session to a puddle of burning oil. In 3e/3.5e my swashbuckler was a cool nobleman, my wizard was highly efficient and unfriendly, and I ran a campaign where the (apparently mundane) kitten I introduced as a DM clue-bat became the more cared for and loved member of the party via cuteness. In 4e my favorite character was a Halfling Rogue. Yes, he was min/maxed and essentially untouchable, but that's not what I remember him for - he was a friendly barber with a mockney accent who chatted up every NPC we came across. I remember keeping extensive notes on what we discovered, but he was always blissfully oblivious as to what we were doing.
None of my fondest memories have to do with the mechanics behind any of the campaigns and characters. They all played different because the combat systems changed, but they all felt like D&D. Neverwinter Online is about wandering around the post-Spell Plague city of Neverwinter, and working together with my party to clear dungeons and foil nefarious Thayan plots. It plays different, but it still feels like D&D because my definition of the "D&D experience" is very broad, incorporating all the different editions and campaigns I've been involved in as well as two decades of D&D CRPGs.
Its worth also pointing out that in those editions, Fighters/Rogues etc are limited by magic: in the form of healing.
The Respec Token was presented with the specific indication that when other powers would become available one could use it to Respec. Since this was a Beta it was reasonable to expect they still had things to add to the game. After all, in STO we paid for our Beta for two years before It went F2P.
Perhaps if there were other paragon paths this could be a consideration, but there are not. And Nothing should have been so limiting and undifferentiated at the lower levels as what we have. Specialization in an element, like acid, fire, ice, lightning, or necrotic energy shouldn't have been the limitation of the early class. However, since Control Wizard (Something that Never Ever Existed In D&D) was the only wizard option available (while Devoted Clerics act more like wizards than control wizards do) CW was the only choice. The pretense that there was some other option is disingenuous on your part.
They had plenty of developers to put on this plethora of tokens for collection that are pointless for life control grind that is equally pointless. Either they were going to do the game right or they were not, they chose not. An ethical person chooses to do things right or they do not engage in doing them at all. If Cryptic couldn't be bothered with doing the right things for the right reasons, or doing what is right was too expensive for them to bother with, then they shouldn't have half-stepped.
Exactly what is so varied? I don't see anything other than the same sling of energy and swing of steel one strike after another. Or, do you mean when the CW walks like some one just gave them a prostrate exam right after each and every combat?
Actually, that is not true. Ray of Frost has no animation whatsoever, and equally has no effect either.
Have you been reading what you are responding too? I have already stated I did not purchase D&D 4.0, and given this as an example of where they have taken D&D I will never purchase another D&D game. When they announced they were making 4.0 to make the programmers happy, I suspected they would screw up the game. I have waited to see where it would go. It has gone here. And this is proof, D&D 4.0 on will not receive my money. As a DM, GM, Referee, and Storyteller ... I will not be promoting any Wizards products from here on out.
And this is the only MMO to entirely dismiss the very essence of Pen and Paper. (Which by the way, the term is Pen and Paper, as Tabletop is a reference to Backgammon, Bridge, Chess, Dominoes, Mahjong, Parchisi, Poker, and some military miniature board war games as put out by companies like Avalon Hill. While the other goes back as far as the Royal Game of Sumer, a Role Playing Game is not a table top game.)
In other words, either have the functional cookie cutter combination that we the majority expect and demand or go become part of a dysfunctional group sitting in the bar dancing naked on tables to the latest MMO version of As Toril Turns. Thank you for so succinctly posting the two options of game play provided through the failure to allow for infinite diversity in infinite combinations (IDIC). However, here we are not even looking for something as open minded as IDIC, we are only looking for the natural derivation of the actual game - something that has been thrown away.
Then maybe you should have been around back when Dragon Magazine was a new idea and we actually had to research everything in a library full of books with pages in order to tell a story. Shortly thereafter people began offering the options of their research in the form of tables and charts to help as guidelines for others wishing to tell similar stories. This was followed by an entire generation of players having imagination and intuition replaced with rote memorization of tables and charts to be executed in computer like efficiency while they missed the entire point and then end up arguing how they only comprehend what they can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Characters without motive for the essence of what they are aren't characters. Characters who have meaningless backgrounds and motives must by nature live on one of the more pernicious 666 levels of the virtual Abyss.
So, Wizards have no soul, essence, or identity? Tell me who answers when they speak to the observer within? That is as silly as saying Sorcerers and Warlocks have no rationale merely because it is not your rationale. They simply handle cognitive dissonance through social justification rather than legislative or cultural mandated justifications.
Cannot. Best you can get is medium gray.
Incorrect. Humans and Woodelves (who aren't supposed to excel at magic compared to other elves) can be functional wizards, and races other than Tieflings can be sub-par. To be clear, Tieflings are the only race with stats that fully support being a wizard.
Physical descriptions were left to the player. If one is not limited by the intellectual morass of a world now lacking in imagination and intuition, these descriptions were always themed to character expression. Do I expect there will be limitations on character expression in an MMOG? Yes. Do I expect to be limited to less than 15% of the concept and less than 5% of the powers of a class? N - O! And while it never stated that casters changed shape, color, hairstyle, eye-color, clothing, etc. as they changed spells - I could very easily see this on those heavily influenced by and affected by the plane of Pandemonium, and its neighboring planes. However, that a conjurer dresses and expresses the magic of which they are capable, while an evoker specializing in acid magic does the same in the way they dress, the condition of their health (skin color, etc.) should not surprise you or be anywhere outside the box.
Half-elves do not appear to be a good choice for anything except cleric. The only thing their ability stat bonuses support is cleric. The other races you mention, with the exception of Drow (which I cannot afford) do not support cleric. The Half-Elf even has the cleric armor depicted on it at creation specifically because it is only designed for playing that class. The entire game is designed for cookie cutter builds and inflexible designations and expressions of role and role play.
And whining on the forums is totally imaginative and creative and worldly. Sounds like you're just angry you can't play the very specific character notion you've latched onto, and lack the imagination and creativity to work with what's available.
Where was this specifically indicated?
It should have been obvious that additional powers were highly unlikely, and that each class's theme is specific by design.
Huh? I was talking about potential future paragon paths. I don't know what you're talking about.
They haven't "half-stepped". They've offered 5 full very differentiated classes, by modern MMO standards. You are applying expectations formed by entirely different types of games.
Every single power looks quite different from the others. Much moreso than, say, DDO's animations. I can't account for your apparent blindness to this.
It most certainly has an animation. It also most certainly has an effect. I don't know what you're talking about.
I'm reading you making inferences about 4E based on Neverwinter. I long ago in this thread stated that Neverwinter has no mechanics relation to 4E. All of the supposed failings you cite about Neverwinter have absolutely nothing to do with 4E. I don't understand why you keep suggesting they do, when you yourself say you have no basis to make such a claim.
They said no such thing.
All MMOs lack the "very essence" of PnP. Without a live DM, an MMO is fundamentally not a roleplaying game in terms of anything but theme and a few borrowed game mechanics.
First, you are entirely incorrect. Tabletop and Pen and Paper are interchangeable terms for RPGs.
Second, while we're being stupidly pedantic, how many people do you think play D&D with pens?
What I stated is a natural state of affairs of all MMOs. Including DDO. Even with all it's vaunted diversity, people are expected to abide by certain specific builds and spell choices.
Sorry you don't like MMO communities, I guess, but them's the breaks. This doesn't have anything to do with Neverwinter specifically.
So you're saying that this is you own pet setting stuff you made up, not any official D&D lore? Why the heck would you expect Neverwinter to support that? It's Forgotten Realms setting, not "wudwean's home game setting".
I said no such thing. I said their magic isn't derived from those things. So a Wizard's personality or appearance reflecting their choice of spells is not normal D&D. If you want to create a character where that's true, sure, whatever, have at it, but Neverwinter is based on official D&D lore.
Look, I'd like to see more cosmetic options as well, but it's not the game ruining problem you make it out to be.
They're not really a good choice for anything. Cleric is least bad I guess.
What do you mean they don't "support" cleric? Human is a great choice for Cleric; certainly better than Half-elf. And Wood Elf has a +WIS option, and arguably better racial features.
Here's your control wizard.