Quote from: Thondor on March 29, 2024, 02:07:21 PM
Let's see what Wizards can do in "Dragons at Dawn" which was an attempt to make a "how Dave Arneson originally ran things."

Quote from: Dragons at Dawn
Wizards can see in the dark as if in daylight and can cast Wizard Light, Lightning bolt and Fireball spells at will.

Holy shit. Well . . . there's more to it right?

Quote from: Dragons at Dawn
Wizards can channel raw magic energy to make Wizard Light, Lightning Bolts and Fireballs. This magic may be thrown at will but requires the Wizard to make a Saving Throw versus Health for the spell to successfully trigger. Failure of the Saving Throw means failure of the magic and causes the Wizard to collapse with exhaustion which will last for 2d6 turns. Note that, for Wizards, these Throws apply only to these magic energy spells and not material based spells.

Interestingly, a lot of this is similar to Chainmail, where the Wizard is the 100 point variant of the spellcaster (the top dude).  Fighter types have "Hero" and "Superhero" and similar, and these titles carried into OD&D (and served as helpful points for determining how hits worked, as that was on the table and required reference to Chainmail to determine how hits work).  By contrast, the game you're running grants these powers to wizards at the start of the game.

QuoteSo how good are these spells? Lightning Bolt is save or die for a 10 x 10 area. Fireballs do 20 damage to prime target and 7 to those within 10 feet (saves are allowed).

First level characters have between 4 and 7 hitpoints.

This game has pretty wild stuff for warriors too:

QuoteWarriors gain advantages in defense (Armor Class) and Saving Throws. They receive a +1 at 1st level, a +2 at 4th (hero), and a +3 at
level 8 (superhero) to all Saving Throws vs. AC, Constitution and Strength. Unless the player specifies otherwise, damage will be shared out among all opponents within melee distance (10 feet), beginning with the weakest target. The warrior who successfully kills all of the opponents he strikes in the round, then gets another attack on any opponent within 20 feet. This continues until an opponent either survives the warriors attack or all opponents in range are dead. Thus a skilled warrior can chop through weaker creatures fairly quickly.

This means that while wizards have some wild aoe available to them, so do the fighters of this game.

I honestly consider all the first level abilities there to be pretty powerful by comparison- you'd need to list out the others for a fair comparison.

Quote from: FingerRod on March 29, 2024, 08:23:28 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 29, 2024, 08:00:31 AM

Quote from: FingerRod on March 29, 2024, 07:22:42 AM

Quote from: JeremyR on March 29, 2024, 03:12:06 AM
Yes and no. If you use the modern 4 person adventuring party, one is probably going to be useless except for that one fight where he uses sleep.

But back in the day if you had 6 to 12 people in the party, he could hide in the back throwing darts or whatnot until sleep was needed.

This was my experience as well. A clutch sleep or charm person was the main contribution. The secondary contribution was as a pack mule.

Our usual approach was for a wizard to find* a wand of magic missiles pretty early in their career, and give them something to do/use when their big spells would be wasted.

*GM discretion when placing treasure.

Fantastic idea. That never occurred to us.

It's so simple, I don't even know if this is sarcasm or not. 

I find it's more thematic than a wizard chucking darts at enemies. And it gives a little more freedom to choose non-combat spells since they can fall back on their wand.
At higher levels, they usually upgrade to a staff of fireballs. Really, wizards access to scrolls and wands and staves bolsters their spellcasting especially at lower levels.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 29, 2024, 06:19:28 PM

Quote from: FingerRod on March 29, 2024, 08:23:28 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 29, 2024, 08:00:31 AM

Quote from: FingerRod on March 29, 2024, 07:22:42 AM

Quote from: JeremyR on March 29, 2024, 03:12:06 AM
Yes and no. If you use the modern 4 person adventuring party, one is probably going to be useless except for that one fight where he uses sleep.

But back in the day if you had 6 to 12 people in the party, he could hide in the back throwing darts or whatnot until sleep was needed.

This was my experience as well. A clutch sleep or charm person was the main contribution. The secondary contribution was as a pack mule.

Our usual approach was for a wizard to find* a wand of magic missiles pretty early in their career, and give them something to do/use when their big spells would be wasted.

*GM discretion when placing treasure.

Fantastic idea. That never occurred to us.

It's so simple, I don't even know if this is sarcasm or not. 

I find it's more thematic than a wizard chucking darts at enemies. And it gives a little more freedom to choose non-combat spells since they can fall back on their wand.
At higher levels, they usually upgrade to a staff of fireballs. Really, wizards access to scrolls and wands and staves bolsters their spellcasting especially at lower levels.

No sarcasm. Kicking myself. Played a LOT of AD&D as a kid and legit never occurred to us to do something like that to help on ramp the magic user.

I guess I can throw a little elemental sodium in the punch bowl.  While I think the AD&D 1e magic-user is not horribly weak, and I've made that point above....

I think the Pathfinder, 4e, and 5e method of cantrips is just better than the method where you run out of juice.  I think this is something that OSR gets wrong, at least past the first few levels.  Further, I think that in 5e, the cantrips scale fine for that game- the game assumes that your bow and arrow boys and your sword boys have magic weapons by like 11th level and such.

If you love your games without cantrips, I'm not here to convince you.  But I will say that it's much more thematic for a dedicated caster to be doing some magic damage instead of being Guy Who Throws Knives, and I think it's ok if he does a reasonable fraction- say 40% to 60%- of martial damage without having to expend resources, and the 5th level magic-user is definitely at a level where he should have something to contribute without expending his mana or whatever.  Obviously, if you go down this path, you have to be sure that the cantrips don't become way too good for a class that actually has daily resources to expend- it shouldn't be as much damage as bowman or swordsman or buttstabber.

I think modern gaming has the right idea here, overall.  I will grant that one thing OSR has here is that, it's super easy to port baby versions of the 5e cantrips or the 4e wizard powers into any OSR game, as long as this is understood to be a buff for the selected classes, but it's really hard to tear these things out of 5e without making everyone scream.


Edit:  And in regard to "buy the magic-user a cheap wand or simply hand one out", I think that accomplishes the goal perfectly as well.

I put this under 'if it is not broke don't fix it' category. We have had weak D&D mages forever and it works, people like it. There are always folks who will find some issue to complain about but I think this is the kind of criticism, if addressed, removes an important trope from the game (however realistic or unrealistic it is)

Quote from: Venka on March 29, 2024, 06:41:21 PMI think the Pathfinder, 4e, and 5e method of cantrips is just better than the method where you run out of juice.  I think this is something that OSR gets wrong, at least past the first few levels.  Further, I think that in 5e, the cantrips scale fine for that game- the game assumes that your bow and arrow boys and your sword boys have magic weapons by like 11th level and such.

I agree. As far as I'm concerned, Apprentice Spells (what D&D calls Cantrips) should be readily available. In fact, I would expand the list a bit to include spells like Read Magic, Dancing Lights and even Nystul's Magic Aura (what I call Fool's Aura). Of course, I wouldn't go as far as 5E and allow Shocking Grasp or spells that do much damage past 1d4. In fact, I'd bump Magic Missile to a d6 or d8 or the like. You could even expand the list of Apprentice spells to include more 'flavorful' folk magic type spells like those in Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (ex - spell to track animals) or even The Lord of the Rings RPG (ex - Rainward).

IDK...I have always really enjoyed Vancian magic. The limitations that come with it are an important part

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 29, 2024, 07:22:46 PM
I agree. As far as I'm concerned, Apprentice Spells (what D&D calls Cantrips) should be readily available. In fact, I would expand the list a bit to include spells like Read Magic, Dancing Lights and even Nystul's Magic Aura (what I call Fool's Aura).

I don't know what your Fool's Aura does, but the AD&D 2e version is a bit strong for below level 1.  The 1e version seems like it would be fine to cast a bunch of times, though likely not "every six seconds" as 5e cantrips allow.

QuoteOf course, I wouldn't go as far as 5E and allow Shocking Grasp or spells that do much damage past 1d4.

All the cantrips in 5e do the correct amount of damage for something in 5e at 1st level- the raw damage ones are 1d10, the ones with bonuses are 1d8 or 1d6, and the ones with mild penalties can hit 1d12.  This is in a world where 1st level characters have about 2.5 times the hit points that they would in older games, and where every martial character is going to be landing something like 1d8+3 immediately, and possibly as high as 2d6+3.

I don't think any of these guys would be appropriate for porting to older games, or to OSR, directly as written.  I think you'd need to reduce the damage die at a bare minimum.  If the game is designed for the magic user to reliably throw a 1d4 dagger, then the firebolt shouldn't be much beyond that, for instance.  Benefits over using physical weapons can be based on range, for instance.  In 5e, the spells will either require a save or an attack roll- something that requires an attack roll in most OSR games is going to be WAY more accurate that something that uses an attack roll at low levels (many characters you hit will fail a save like 80% of the time), and should either be changed to an attack roll, or the damage reduced below that of a dagger.

Quote from: FingerRod on March 29, 2024, 07:35:18 PM
IDK...I have always really enjoyed Vancian magic. The limitations that come with it are an important part

Yes, and if not Vancian magic, then some other limits that are similar.  the whole "thematic" wizard as doing magic all the time is only thematic for certain genre's.  It's self-referential to some of the higher powered stuff that spins off of RPGs, but not the original. Not that it never happens, but there are whole other genres where magic is limited and/or hard to build up to. 

There's also a practical side to this.  One group sees "sweet spot of the game was 5th to 9th level" and then seeks to make more of the game live in the same spot.  Another group sees the same thing, and then says if you want to play in the sweet spot, start at 5th level and slow the XP down.  There's pros and cons to both approaches, which means going after either direction in the extreme is going to throw out a lot of good things with the bad. 

The AD&D magic user is not "implausibly weak".  The magic user is plausibly weak, and that's part of what makes it work. 

Quote from: Venka on March 29, 2024, 07:54:52 PMI don't know what your Fool's Aura does, but the AD&D 2e version is a bit strong for below level 1.  The 1e version seems like it would be fine to cast a bunch of times, though likely not "every six seconds" as 5e cantrips allow.

Well, rounds are still a minute long. And turns are still 10 minutes. So, very different from 5E. And Nystul's Magic Aura isn't THAT powerful. Its basically 'putting mana' into an object and that's it. Not really powerful in the slightest.

QuoteIn 5e, the spells will either require a save or an attack roll- something that requires an attack roll in most OSR games is going to be WAY more accurate that something that uses an attack roll at low levels (many characters you hit will fail a save like 80% of the time), and should either be changed to an attack roll, or the damage reduced below that of a dagger.

The old 3E 'Ranged Touch Attack' rule seems to work well enough in that regard. And, as I said, I don't think allowing any more than a d4 for a spell damage would be advisable. In fact, you could even rule no Cantrip can do damage, or can only do 1HP worth of damage. Now, a more useful Cantrip might be something like Ignite which causes flammable objects to burn, such as being able to light a roomful of candles or get a torch lit.

"class" is meaningless to me outside of a description of what the setting demands of a set of skills and abilities.

By backwards engineering what a class is in your favorite D&D edition, you can infer what the intention of those types of people were. So no, they weren't implausibly anything. They simply were.

Defining them is on you as a GM in your setting. Including tossing whatever St. Gary and St. Dave said about them. To your own success or detriment.

Quote from: Domina on March 28, 2024, 10:03:04 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on March 28, 2024, 10:00:45 PM

Quote from: jhkim on March 28, 2024, 02:22:51 PM
It seems like you're picturing an adventuring party like a SEAL team -- where everyone are highly-trained experts who can do anything and are all self-reliant. But I think AD&D pictured groups more as historical expeditions. They were likely to have a bunch of lesser combatants (henchmen) as well non-combatants like porters, torch-bearers, squires, hirelings, etc. I think of the Lewis and Clark expedition that had a bunch of unmarried soldiers but also boat crew, an trapper/interpreter and his pregnant wife, and an enslaved body servant.

John,

What is an "enslaved body servant?"

In 1784, an enslaved boy was assigned to be 14-year-old William Clark's personal "body servant." Like many slaves, the boy didn't have a legal right to a last name, so he was known just as York.

All that is known about York's parents are their first names, which were listed in John Clark's will of 1799. York's father was called Old York, and his mother was named Rose. It's possible that Old York was John's personal servant, and Rose may have been a house servant.

According to Rhonda Blumberg's "York's Adventures with Lewis and Clark," black household servants like York were "upper-class slaves." He would have slept in the Clark's home, within earshot of William. He wore nicer clothing than those of field slaves, probably hand-me-downs from William and his brothers. He would have eaten better foods from the family's kitchen and would have acquired refined manners and speech patterns. But slaves of all classes were typically forbidden from learning reading and writing.

I have no idea if any of this is actually true, it's just what I found in a random internet article.

Interesting Wikipedia article about York:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_(explorer)

I'm thinking of allowing wizards to cast directly from their books, in addition to their vancian spell slots.  Each round he can make an intelligence check (roll under intelligence on a 20-sided die).  A spell requires one success per level, so a fireball cast straight from the book would take a minimum three rounds, while casting it from memory would take just one action.  This means that a wizard could attempt a magic missile every round.  Taking damage would reset your progress, so you would get some of that spell-fizzling that 2e had.

Quote from: Glak on March 30, 2024, 09:01:25 PMI'm thinking of allowing wizards to cast directly from their books, in addition to their vancian spell slots.

To take this idea further, what if like in Frieren: Beyond Journey's End a Mage had could cast some Cleric spells as long as they were in a Grimoire? Like basically translated into whatever cypher it is Mages use (hence why Read Magic is a thing)? And must consume a slot 1 lvl higher than the corresponding Cleric spell.

So like this one time, in the lunchroom, I rolled up a character with a 7 strength so I made him a magic-user because everyone knows wizards are weak as fuck. Then my buddy playing the roid monster barbarian made sure I didn't die and I eventually got 9th level spells and we killed Orcus and stole his stuff.