Developing from my post over the weekend about the new Tome Implement presented in Arcane Power and how it adds more options for the 4th Edition Wizard, several comments were made that a larger selection of spells makes the Wizard better but that the class as whole is still underpowered. Our experience is that even with more spells to choose from for Daily powers, most wizards will still choose the same spell at least 80% of the time. Sure they have a choice for their daily powers, which is an advantage over every other class… but without something to base that choice off of, it really doesn’t give much of an extra benefit.
With that in mind, I present here a new house rule that Dave and I will be using in our games to playtest and try it out with high hopes.
New Wizard Class Feature
Channel Arcanity
You have memorized your spellbook meticulously and practiced the arcane gestures in tedium so that you no longer need to prepare spells every morning. Instead of preparing spells after an extended rest, when you use a daily attack or utility power you may choose any equal or lower level spell of the same type (attack/utility) from your spellbook to cast. Regardless of how many daily attack and utility spells you have in your spellbook, you may only use a number of spells according to what you cast per day for your level and you can never substitute a daily attack for a utility power or vice versa. As such, once you have used the highest level daily or utility power that you know, all spells in your spellbook of that type and level are no longer accesible until you take an extended rest.
Oh ho, nice one. May I link to it in my house rules article? I really like this idea, and will probably be telling all my players their Wizards have it from now on.
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Nice.
May I suggest calling it ‘Channel the Arcane’.
I really like this. It might be a bit too much in a campaign with a ton of monsters with vulnerabilities, but on the other hand, isn’t that the point? Why bother having access to a vast array of elemental magic if you have to know ahead of time what you’re going to cast?
What I originally thought this would be is a Wizard version of the Barbarian’s Rage Strike, that lets you expend the spells you didn’t choose for some other kind of effect. I would like to see someone try that solution, since I’m not entirely sure myself what it would entail.
I guess my only gripe with this solution is that it makes wizards a little less diverse. We have an ice-themed wizard. If he could cast every spell in his class list, he wouldn’t have much of a theme any more. But then, with the new stuff in Arcane Power, even being able to cast everything in your book still requires picking and choosing.
@Wyatt: Glad you like it, please do link to it! 🙂
@dar: Not a bad suggestion, really you can call it whatever you like. It honestly doesn’t even need a name, just start using the Wizards in your 4E games differently and there you go.
@Swordgleam: I definitely think that’s one of the points behind this house rule, you only know what you’re facing beforehand a small percentage of the time. I also like the idea of an arcane version of Rage Strike, but I think that would fit more with a Sorcerer build as it’s a very striker-like mechanic.
As to diversity and focusing on one type of spell, your wizard is only really going to have 2 spells from each level, so unless you’re going expanded spellbook with a lot of tomes then your wizard will still be very focused in what they pick, just more versatile in any given day/encounter.
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Also something I forgot to mention in the post itself, I think this build makes the Expanded Spellbook feat way better and almost a must have for any Wizard (which it really should be).
So, how would this work with the other Spellbook using class, the Swordmage?
Maybe a feat for them, or, even better/weirder, allow it as an uber-option on Swordmage/Wizard multi-class characters, so they can pick and choose between all available options from either class for their dailies/utilities.
I was a little confused as to how a multi-class Swordmage/Wizard, especially a paragon multi-class, would effectively work anyways…
@Bartoneus: It would fit better for sorcs, but then, they don’t have spellbooks. So maybe make it more controller-y somehow? Something like, when you cast a level 7 daily that does 3d6 in burst 1 and dazes for one round (making this up). Using Spell Strike, you also expend your level 7 daily that immobilizes in burst 3 to either change the effects of the attack to burst 3, or add immobilize. It would obviously need some work so as not to be overpowered, but it is less striker-y.
@Swordgleam –
Unfortunately, it can’t work exactly as you’re thinking and actually be balanced.
Rage Strike is balanced because you’re expending one of your daily resources. This suggestion has you expending a non-resource, or a resource that you couldn’t otherwise access. (Even using the above house rule, you would only have one level 5 daily to expend each day.) There is no cost.
So unfortunately, there is no way to implement this without it being a pure power boost.
Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it is a thing, and it needs to be considered when deciding what effect this would have.
Mighty fine one there!
We’ll houserule 4E into submission yet!
We allow VERY creative use of healing surges at my table, allowing recharges of powers and all kinda good stuff.
Let the wizard do what he does best: improvise 🙂
I really like this option. The Wizard becomes the boy scout of D&D, he’s always prepared…
I like the name (as it works similar to the Channel Divinity), but might choose something different personally. The name is irrelevant anyway when it comes to a house rule.
You think Dave will let Andrew use it?
You know that there’s a staff that does something similar right? I think it’s called a Mnemonic staff (Adventurer’s Vault).
That staff’s power is a daily item use however, which makes me think that just granting wizards an additional power like this might overpower them.
Wizards were nerfed for a reason. We wizard players might not like it coming from 3e, but it was needed to maintain balance between the classes.
Wizards in 4e are fine as is. Most don’t bother taking the expanded spell book feat and they do fine.
If you really want to implement this, then make it a Paragon Feat at least, and require the expanded spell book feat as a prerequisite as well.
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@Taylor: I think this might get into the over-powered realm if you start allowing Swordmages to do it as well.
@TheMainEvent: I believe Dave is planning on implementing it also, my goal is to try it out a few times and see if it makes Wizards noticeably better.
@Cedric: I’d forgotten about the Mnemonic staff, thanks for pointing it out. Wizards may have been nerfed, but I think they were also castrated in the process. I’m a big fan of many of the changes made in 4E, especially in comparison to 3rd Edition, but as you pointed out no wizard players that I’ve heard of have taken the Expanded Spellbook feat which should say something to you. They were given the advantage of more selection of daily/utility powers, but from what I can tell it is used only about 10-20% of the time at most.
Something to keep in mind when it comes to balance is that this power does not allow a wizard to use any more powers per day or do any extra damage, what it does allow them is better versatility and adaptability which I believe was the intent of the spellbook class feature to begin with. I simply noticed, thanks to Dave (who is playing a wizard in my game) and our friend The O who is playing one in Dave’s game, that the spellbook class feature really isn’t being used that much in either of our games. Rest assured we’ll be trying this out and putting it under a lot of scrutiny to figure out if it really is balanced or not!
That’s how we’ve always generally played wizards (though never in 3e, which I never played), and that’s how we’re doing it now. Spell preparation always seemed like a step too far in favour of game balance over story.
I want royalties 😉
Also, is this only for Daily powers?
Tonester: I had the initial idea weeks and weeks ago, so you owe me royalties! (Or it’s just such an obvious idea that at least three of us were able to arrive at it near simultaneously, but didn’t want to jump the gun until Arcane Power came out)
Only daily attack and daily utilities, though I haven’t looked to see if Wizards get encounter utilities now and how that works with a spellbook.
Wizards had some Encounter utilities in the PHB1. Jump and Shield are both Encounter powers.
How it worked before was exactly the same as dailies. You prepare the one you want each day, which might mean you can use it once, or once per encounter.
The question is, how do you allow this house rule to work with Encounter Utilities…
My suggestion: The first power you use with your Channel Arcanity is the power you get for the day.
So if you use Expeditious Retreat, your level 2 is expended. If you use Jump, you can use Jump once per encounter from that point on, but no other Utility 2 spell.
Alternately, if more than one of your spells for that level is per encounter, I suppose you could let the character choose every encounter, though after first Encounter utility is used, they can no longer use the Daily ones, and if they first choose a Daily one they can’t use any more.
If that makes sense…
@Graham: I gotcha. If you use an Enc. Utility you’re ‘locked’ of dailies with that slot… but can feel free to use your favorite enc. power after your next short rest.
I think you should go a step further to keep balance in place. Daily Utility Powers are supposed to be more powerful than Encounter Utility Powers. In the levels where the Utility Powers have a mix of Encounter and Daily, the first spell cast should dictate what you have access to until your next Extended Rest – either Encounter powers or Daily powers only, not both.
i.e.
Your spellbook has 2x Level Y Encounter Utility Spells and 2x Level Y Daily Utility Spells. Assume you just had an extended rest so everything is reset.
Example 1:
In the first encounter, you cast one of the Level Y Encounter Utilities. You can no longer cast any Level Y Dailies until you perform an extended rest, but you can access Level Y Encounters after a short rest.
Example 2:
In the first encounter, you cast one of the Level Y Daily Utilities. You can no longer cast ANY Level Y Utility spells until an extended rest.
Without making it work both ways, you can get into scenarios where players can use a Daily Utility and then several Encounter Utilities of the same level without using an extended rest which obviously goes against the balance of having to choose between Daily/Encounter Utility spells to begin with…. its like allowing a Wizard to have his/her cake and eat it, too.
Having the CHOICE is powerful enough. Being able to “double-dip” into the Utility spells is a bit much, imo. So in essence, the first spell of a level you cast kind of determines that “day’s” rules with regards to which spells you have access to until the next Extended Rest – either Encounters or Dailies.
@Tonester –
Actually, that was exactly what I was trying to get across. Apparently it wasn’t clear, as evidenced by TME misunderstanding me as well.
Thanks for explaining what I was trying (and failing) to say.
This optional rule was basically what I had been thinking about too. Although, I think that just allowing ‘channel arcanity’ for daily attack powers, OR utility powers, would have been sufficient. Perhaps you could expand to allow both with the use of a feat. Nevertheless, something along these lines is just the thing that will ‘fix’ the wizard, IMO.
My thinking is that they(WotC) put this type of ability in with the magic items b/c it is overpowered but they can limit its usage in a magic item making it handy to have. I’d be willing to bet that they either playtested something similiar or toyed with the idea of this.
I do like the idea of it, but not at the heroic level of play. Maybe have a feat that could be chosen for one usage a day at heroic teir. Then at paragon have an improved version for 2 times, and a “mastery” at epic for 3 times. On top of this, have those magic items/tomes be able to augment the usages if the character has this feat, so that they won’t be completely useless.