I'm new here and to Lion & Dragon / Baptism of Fire, so this question might have already been covered and I just haven't seen it yet.

I love the more historic feel of the rules and the settings that go with them, and the significantly lowered power creep compared to 3e – 5e. I like the lower HP (but the chance of getting lucky on a level advancement and getting a HD worth). Also, I really like the idea of the cleric (and BoF's Holy Warrior [paladin]) prayers for miracles as opposed to D&D's cleric spell slots.

I understand the reasoning behind how the mages are designed for the rules. However, compared to normal D&D mages with their more impressive spells / flash bang damage dealing spells / are mages normally played as a class as often as they are in D&D?

They with their astrology, sage knowledge, demon binding, etc read like they would be AMAZING NPCs, but not sure how useful they would be on the grind of an adventure. Am I missing something, or not seeing the potential for them being a good useful PC (admittedly in even D&D games I tend not to play mages, so the magic type PC in them is also a weakness of mine)

On a similar note.

I have gotten the pdfs of L&D Dark Albion. The 'Old School Companions' and some of the RPGPundent presents to go along with the rules books, and while looking through the additional material, I could have sworn I saw something on adding an elemental type mage to the game, but I haven't been able to find it again.

Did I just imagine it, am I mixing it from another similar system, or is there an elementalist out there for L&D / BoF ?

Hi! First of all, I'm going to move this to the main RPG forum; I hope you don't mind but it is more topical there.

Second: in the many L&D campaigns I've ran, there's been plenty of people who play Magisters. At lower levels they are typically quite weak (though if they're lucky with level rolls they might be not that weak), but at higher levels and when they get enough magic, and if they take the time and expenses to do the magic, they can become very powerful in terms of boosting the party's ability.

There is no 'elementalist' class, but in the Old School Companion there is a grimoire that allows you to contact and summon elementals (based, as all the grimoires there are, on a real historical grimoire). Maybe that was what you recalled?
Related to the first topic, if the GM uses the Old School companion and gives a magister access to any of the grimoires in there, it will significantly increase the magister's power level. Of course, grimoires are meant to be rare artifacts, so they shouldn't be handed out too freely.

In BoF I didn't have a straight magister-class because at that time and in that place the only magisters there might be in Poland would probably be monks in monasteries. Though I do include a pagan magician class, which a GM can optionally allow as a PC class depending on how he's running his campaign.

Thanks for the reply.

Since it was L&D BoF specific I wasn't sure where to post it. Thanks for moving it here where it belongs.

I'll be the first to admit even back in the day with ole school D&D, then Castles and Crusades, and now looking into your game, Magic Users have always been my weakness (as both a player and DM). That said, if you and others have had the class work well, I'll have to start trying to look at it and try and think about how to use it outside of a D&D fire and forget mage type .

That elementalist grimoire must have been what I was thinking about. That was probably why I couldn't find it again because I was looking through everything dealing with class and not at those magic books.

I just thought of another question on magic. In the history of Dark Albion, the Frogs (I love the play on the French being Frogs, reminds me of my uncle talking about his time in the Army in WWII) having an army of undead that was killed by the Black Prince. However, I haven't seen any 'necromancy' type spells or abilities. I know something that evil shouldn't be available to PCs, but is there anything like it for big bad Frog NPCs ?

There might be something already covering it, but work was crazy today and I didn't have a chance to read any more.

One big difference in L&D/BoF from D&D is that the Cleric (or now, Holy Man or Holy Warrior) are the "Fire & Forget" class. Miracles are easy, they just require prayer.

Magic, on the other hand, is about artifice; with a few exceptions, you have to prepare the magic beforehand. Consider for example, the Bread of Gideon. It is a an extremely powerful (but relatively simple and inexpensive) bit of magic that can give a huge advantage when you intend to go confront supernatural monsters. But you have to have it made ahead of time.

When a magister gets to where they've god astrological talismans or alchemy, they will have a hugely varied and powerful set of magics, but you need to have put all that in place.