1. Huh. I didn't really get to fiddle with anything beyond late 2010. I believe the Bard had been announced then, but not released- or it was in preliminary release, but not fully available.
2. Yep. Times and costs were ridiculous. Some of the spells they integrated into it were things that should've been doable in combat-scale time- things like Knock- but as written, took ridiculous amounts of time.
Also, the ritual system itself wasn't very well-integrated into the rest of 4e. It felt like an afterthought, really- like they wrote up the classes, the powers, and the monsters, spent all this time getting them simplified and polished and straitjacketedbalanced properly... and then slammed out a bunch of rituals in the time they had left. They weren't part of a coherent whole, the way they'd be if they were spells again.
3. ...by Jove, you're right! I retract my statement about that particular spell.
The primary point remains, though, and I believe my other examples do as well. 4e has less of the type of magic that couldn't easily be handled in an MMORPG than previous editions, and loses flavor because of it.
Some of my friends are currently rewriting/rebalancing 4e to deal with a lot of its quirks/redundancies/WTFeries. When they finish (it's been a project for several months to a year, and they're most of the way done), I'll probably be shilling it a bit. If anybody's interested, I might be able to put you in contact with them.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.
2. Yep. Times and costs were ridiculous. Some of the spells they integrated into it were things that should've been doable in combat-scale time- things like Knock- but as written, took ridiculous amounts of time.
Also, the ritual system itself wasn't very well-integrated into the rest of 4e. It felt like an afterthought, really- like they wrote up the classes, the powers, and the monsters, spent all this time getting them simplified and polished and straitjacketedbalanced properly... and then slammed out a bunch of rituals in the time they had left. They weren't part of a coherent whole, the way they'd be if they were spells again.
3. ...by Jove, you're right! I retract my statement about that particular spell.
The primary point remains, though, and I believe my other examples do as well. 4e has less of the type of magic that couldn't easily be handled in an MMORPG than previous editions, and loses flavor because of it.
Some of my friends are currently rewriting/rebalancing 4e to deal with a lot of its quirks/redundancies/WTFeries. When they finish (it's been a project for several months to a year, and they're most of the way done), I'll probably be shilling it a bit. If anybody's interested, I might be able to put you in contact with them.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.