Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;909759No.  Gygax assigned spell levels himself.  And, for instance, Tenser did NOT develop "Tenser's Floating Disk."

Heh. Players getting to assign spell levels, thats pretty funny. The rules in the DMG make it clear that the player describes how the spell works more or less and the DM then assigns it a level.

" Yeah I know it turns a creature's bone to gelatin, buts only got a 10 ft range so it should be 1st level."

Quote from: cranebump;909785What is this balance you speak of?:-)

A reasonable question.  I'd put "balance" in quotes, because I'm not talking so much about balancing the class as balancing the spells against each other, so character progression makes sense.  I think people here are making a lot of good points; the moderating factor is not the power of the spells so much as their "scarcity" in a Vancian approach.  Of course, if you are abandoning a Vancian system (as I do for some caster types), it might be more important to reconsider some of the level assignments.  It seems to me like it would be easier to do so with fewer spell levels, because I have absolutely no sense why I would make a certain spell fourth level instead of fifth.

Quote from: Bren;909764The original spells in OD&D are somewhat balanced when comparing one spell against another in the abstract. But given limited spells slots, memorization requirements, fire and forget, and optionally random spell selection along with the highly contextual nature of figuring ouot what spell is best in this specific circumstance I'd say that this is a case where Pareto's 80-20 rule of thumb applies and I doubt Gary Gygax lost a lot of sleep worrying about whether he'd incorrectly categorized a spell as 3rd level when it should have been 2nd level, or vice versa.

Not to mention D&D was one of several games he was working on at the same time, including Boot Hill, Warriors of Mars, Cavaliers and Roundheads, and I think Classic Warfare, just off the top of my head.

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?28896-quot-We-Made-Up-Some-Shit-We-Thought-Would-Be-Fun-quot-I-Tease-You-Long-Time

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;909759No.  Gygax assigned spell levels himself.  And, for instance, Tenser did NOT develop "Tenser's Floating Disk."

Really? So when someone was creating a new spell how did that work out? Or did no one ever try?

Quote from: Exploderwizard;909791Heh. Players getting to assign spell levels, thats pretty funny. The rules in the DMG make it clear that the player describes how the spell works more or less and the DM then assigns it a level.

" Yeah I know it turns a creature's bone to gelatin, buts only got a 10 ft range so it should be 1st level."

From the Men & Magic booklet.

QuoteAssume that a Magic-User can use a 4th level spell (explained later), therefore he could develop a new spell provided it was equal to or less than 4th level.

and

QuoteThe level of the spell researched must be consistent with the level of the Magic-User or Cleric involved, i.e. the character must be able to use spells equal to or above the level of the one he desires to create. This is a matter of time and investment. The level of the magic required to operate the spell (determination by referee) dictates the initial investment.

Note the bolded part. But the spell will be in the range the caster can actually cast. I assume that if someone level 1 tried to research Fireball level 1 then the GM would just say no. Or adjust the damage/area/etc down substantially.

Quote from: Omega;909821Really? So when someone was creating a new spell how did that work out? Or did no one ever try?

Yes, they tried.  I thought we were discussing spells that actually wound up in the published lists, sorry.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;909824Yes, they tried.  I thought we were discussing spells that actually wound up in the published lists, sorry.

Nah. You are on the right track. I (wrongly) assumed that some of the spells that made it into the game (or at least AD&D) originated from players creations or suggestions.

Quote from: Omega;909840Nah. You are on the right track. I (wrongly) assumed that some of the spells that made it into the game (or at least AD&D) originated from players creations or suggestions.

Technically, you're both right.

Quite a few spells, like Ed Greenwood's self-insertion character's slew of ungodly collection of broken rules packets, were added after Gary was pushed out of D&D, which meant that without the originator's concept of what he thought was balanced, it went all over the place with homebrewing.

I dont think many of Eds spells or items made it into the core books of 2e, if any?

FR stuff is a different matter as its his own setting and he had his own ideas on the power levels. And still does. Same as how Weiss and Hickman had their own take on magic. And Connors went his own route with magic in Masque of the Red Death.

Quote from: Omega;909845I dont think many of Eds spells or items made it into the core books of 2e, if any?

FR stuff is a different matter as its his own setting and he had his own ideas on the power levels. And still does. Same as how Weiss and Hickman had their own take on magic. And Connors went his own route with magic in Masque of the Red Death.

Actually, a few of Elminster spells did cross over in later editions, if I remember correctly.  I can't remember now, sadly.  I should get access to the books later though.

Quote from: Edgewise;909761As a related question, I wonder if there are too many spell levels.  Nine levels, especially, seems to entail a level of granularity that isn't actually reflected in the breakdown.  Lots of games seem to do just fine with fewer levels - DCC does it with five, and BoL manages to get away with three (but their mages are mostly expected to be NPCs).  It seems like it would be a lot easier to have distinct power strata with fewer spell levels.  Why nine, anyway, and why only seven for clerics and their kin?  From what I'm hearing, these are mostly artifacts of the history of how this stuff came to be.

Well it depends on what you want.
For example i always felt dnd magic levels where jumpy so when i started making my game i bumped the number of levels up too 15 and have tried to smooth out level to level jumps.

I don't think old-school spells were very balanced at all, but they didn't really need to be.  A lot of the problems with later editions were that the spells weren't balanced, but the designers tried to remedy this in different ways (usually unsuccessfully).

Yep.

I once briefly joined a D&D game where the players were all going on about how they had one or more casters capable of casting Stone To Mud (IIRC) and that they had just used it to take out several very powerful monsters and hadn't figured out any counter to it when underground, since they figured it could melt a huge area of the ceiling over just about anything and so as long as they weren't smothered themselves, it could take out most things.

Does that make sense or were they not considering something (other than that they probably would end up smothering themselves)? (This was in the early 90's some - I think they were playing 2nd Edition.)

Quote from: Skarg;911742I once briefly joined a D&D game where the players were all going on about how they had one or more casters capable of casting Stone To Mud (IIRC) and that they had just used it to take out several very powerful monsters and hadn't figured out any counter to it when underground, since they figured it could melt a huge area of the ceiling over just about anything and so as long as they weren't smothered themselves, it could take out most things.

Does that make sense or were they not considering something (other than that they probably would end up smothering themselves)? (This was in the early 90's some - I think they were playing 2nd Edition.)

In D&D 5e, Transmute Rock (added in Princes of the Apocalypse appendix or the Elemental Evil Player's Companion) can be cast on a ceiling, and causes 4d8 damage to creatures beneath it (DEX save for half), which is not very impressive for a 5th level spell; its main use is to make the ground four times slower to walk across. In OD&D the spell simply mired creatures that could not fly or levitate (sinking if heavy enough or losing 90% of movement otherwise), with no mention of damaging any target directly. It seems unlikely to me that the spell could affect rock deep enough to fill the space beneath it unless the ceiling were very, very low.

I have encountered other more or less abusive uses of spells, like polymorphing a whale into a mouse and then dispelling it at an opportune moment to squish every opponent in a small dungeon room, or casting an unattached wall of stone horizontally above an enemy force so that it would fall on them. Lots of spells were rigged to undercut potential unbalance (cannot attack and remain invisible, for example.) 5e has mostly preempted most such ideas. But I think there needs to be freedom for the DM to adjudicate an unexpected use that is particularly effective in a given situation, like dropping the muddy ceiling on fire elementals, which might be more vulnerable to such damage.