Mike Mearls on Controller At-Wills and the Wizard

In a recent thread about the Invoker preview, Mike Mearls shared something very interesting about at-will powers for controllers and the wizard.

This is what he had to say,

When comparing at-wills for controllers, the wizard has some issues. His at-wills focus more on damage than control. The consensus is that controllers need a little more, well, control in their at-wills than we've handed out so far.

Vanguard's lightning is what I'd see as a baseline controller at-will, with scorching burst slightly *below* baseline. That little extra bit on vanguard's lightning is precisely the kind of thing that makes controllers go - they limit/mess up the enemy's plans.

Now, this may seem pretty annoying - WotC released stuff that was too weak! However, I think it's actually a strength of the meta systems of 4e. We've never before had the ability to so clearly compare classes/roles and, when necessary, make adjustments. It's a lot easier to listen to feedback, gather hard data, and make comparisons between powers when we have a unified power scale.

The interesting thing is that this issue really only rests in the at-wills. Encounter and daily powers are fine for the wizard.

The controller role is perhaps the one that took the longest to really develop. There's a reason why there's only one in the PH. For a long while, the role was defined by its ability to attack multiple foes. That definition never sat well, since it clearly steps on other roles and archetypes. We'd never want to prevent rangers from firing multiple arrows, or a fighter from striking everyone adjacent to him.

Over time, the controller definition morphed into the opposite of the leader. If the leader sets up his allies and encourages teamwork, the controller screws up his enemies and hinders their ability to work together. The area damage aspect of the controller does play into that (it makes bunching up a bad idea) but in practice controllers need a little more to embrace their role.

It's a subtle point, and in the grand scheme of things I don't think a PH 1 wizard is crippled compared to the PH 2 classes, but it is a sign of the subtle adjustments we're likely to make to the game going forward.

There's already another thread talking about the implication of his words but I'm interested to hear what everyone from the bloggersphere has to say about this.

All We Ever Need Is A Homebrewing System

This is my first time participating in a blog carnival and I have decided to unleash my thoughts on this. So this is (hopefully) one of my many entries to the 2nd RPG Blog Carnival; Hombrew.

So I managed to flip through the Adventurer's Vault and the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and I came to a realization. WoTC has been printing and publishing book after book over the years that is just filled with more feats, equipments, magic items, powers (spells), classes and races. I mean that's what the Adventurer's Vault essentially is; a book just filled with equipment and magic items stats.

This is something they've been doing since 3.x and it is just a good way for publishers to make money as players want to get the coolest and latest rules and gadgets for their characters. They can only play with what they have until the latest expansion comes out.

By the way, how many of us can actually find the time and campaign to use every single item or class option that is listed in every book?

DMs and players are going to have to wait until the next book comes out that is just filled with stats and more stats of things that can played in their campaigns.

Then I had an idea. It's not a profitable business plan but something that makes some sense.

Imagine a game system with a rulebook which only tells you how the core mechanic of resolution works. It only tells the players the combat rules, how spells work, how skills are checked and other basics. There are no classes, races, feats, skills or spells to choose from.

Then for the DM's book, it has all the secrets of how spells, feats, classes, races should work within those rules. There are no pre-made races, classes, spells, monsters, equipment, magic items etc. Instead, the book just tells you how to design everything and anything that you need with just some heavy design notes. They just give a you guideline on how to make a balanced feat or race etc. As long as you follow along these design criterias, your homebrew should work well with the game system.

Can you imagine the freedom that it gives to players and DM to play whatever they want and they get to design them based on those rules without having to rely on the latest expansion with the latest stats for X?

Get the idea?

It's sorta works like how Savage Species and some of the Monster Manuals with creation rules in them. Maybe a few examples will be needed just to show DMs how to design them and balancing them against the rules but leave the rest up to the DM.

All we ever need is a homebrewing system, not having everything homebrewed for us.

What do you think?