Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Depends on the campaign and how the character is played. In some cases, admittedly not great, but 1e (and many other OSR-style games) are tough.
D&D General Why is "OSR style" D&D Fun For You?
Uni-the-Unicorn!
Hero
I’ve thought of suggesting an idea from Shadowdark: unlimited cantrips but you roll each time you cast one. If you fail, you can’t cast that cantrip until you complete a rest (long or short TBD).
At will magic makes no sense to me, whatever the edition. I think it’s in PF1 and PF2. I don’t remember if it’s in 4e.
Uni-the-Unicorn!
Hero
It is in 4e too
Voadam
Legend
Pathfinder 1e has at will cantrips (which can do a d3 damage in general).
In 4e spellcasters have at will, encounter, and daily attack spells similar to a martial's at will attack, encounter, and daily attack powers.
Warlocks with at will magic were in 3.5.
50 charge Wands could be cheap and easy to get/make in 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder 1e.
100 charge wands that can be recharged were in AD&D.
OD&D had 100 charge wands and 200 charge staves as the baseline.
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Even at a level per adventure that's a pretty long run before you get access to it.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
IME it's highly variable and largely based on luck.
I could start two parties at 1st level, same players, and one lot might turn over the lineup several times before getting to 5th while the other crew might mostly sail through.
Complicating things is that usually by 3rd-4th level they've amassed enough treasure and wealth to be able to afford to pay a high-level NPC to revive their dead, should they so desire.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
AD&D rechargable wands are not a great comparison with any of the others above for a number of reasons:
--- wands in 1e/2e are uncommon to rare so no guarantee of finding one in the field
--- they were pretty expensive, unlike 3e, so even if you could find one to buy you may or may not have been able to afford it
--- item construction isn't really a thing in AD&D so, again unlike 3e, you can't just have your PC go out and make one
--- recharging them isn't easy (though in 1e the mechanics are left a bit fuzzy, what a surprise)
--- in 1e items can break when you fail a save vs AoE damage, and wands aren't the sturdiest of things (and if you use retributive strike rules, breaking a wand can be a VERY bad idea!)
Voadam
Legend
I disagree.
I think they are kind of expected at mid to high level AD&D. My experience as a PC and DM in long running AD&D campaigns both using modules and homebrew was that many PC spellcasters got them at various points.
Rods/staves/wands are only 5% on the random magic item generation chart in the 1e DMG and about 2/3 of the RSW subchart so reduced even further, but AD&D cranks out a number of items per module/adventure and from the generation charts for loot and in long campaigns you do a bunch of modules and fight a number of monsters with loot.
In the 32 page G1-3 by Gygax there are three wands to be found by adventurers and two of the three pregen PC Magic Users start with attack magic wands.
You only need a single 80 charge (lowest number of charges if generated from the DMG charts) wand of frost or fire or whatever to have effectively at will area of effect attack magic for a good while.
Mid to high level AD&D and B/X Expert is a lot different than low level AD&D and B/X Basic.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
I have never based the assumptions of my game on that game's published adventures. They are at odds with the actual rulebooks remarkably often.
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