how many spells should i give to the mage?

[rossik]

OD&D, at first level, how many spells do you give to M-U characters?

only one?

roll a d4?

 

[BPIJonathan]

OD&D, at first level, how many spells do you give to M-U characters?

only one?

roll a d4?

In my games I always gave them Read Magic, Detect Magic plus an additional 1d4 as starting spells in their spell book. All other spells were received as part of questing or such.

 

[T. Foster]

Depends on what version you're talking about. In actual OD&D (1974) it's unspecified but my tendency is to give the magic-user access to all the spells in the book. In Holmes (1977-78) the magic-user roll "chance to know" based on his Int score to determine which spells he knows (this also applies if you're using OD&D+supplements -- the "chance to know" rules are in SuppI). Moldvay (1981) gives only one spell, but lets the player choose (because it would suck to have hold portal as your only spell). Mentzer (1983) gives 2 spells -- read magic and 1 chosen by the DM (with a suggestion to the DM that the spell should generally be one of the more useful ones, at least if the character is a magic-user; if he's an elf it's okay to give him something lame because he has other talents). The later versions (Black Box, Rules Cyclopedia, etc.) I assume follow Mentzer.

 

[BPIJonathan]

Depends on what version you're talking about.

You could do it by version, but I generally just did it on what I felt was correct. I figured that everyone would be taught read magic and detect magic, and the other spells were random depending on what scrolls were available when they left the school. It worked for years (in fact it still works now in 3.5, but I digress). I would basically do what you think you is best for your games.

 

[the_myth]

How about:

Read Magic
Detect Magic
1 attack spell of choice (like Sleep)
other non-attack spells equal to Intelligence bonus (so MU w/ Int 16 gets 2 extra, like Shield & Mending)

Seems fair, balanced, allows options, and gives a perk from high Intelligence.

 

[T. Foster]

You could do it by version, but I generally just did it on what I felt was correct. I figured that everyone would be taught read magic and detect magic, and the other spells were random depending on what scrolls were available when they left the school. It worked for years (in fact it still works now in 3.5, but I digress). I would basically do what you think you is best for your games.

Well yeah, of course that's always the answer ("do what you think is best for your game"), but since 1) he was asking, 2) 3 of the 4 versions actually have an answer in the rules, and 3) that answer is different for each of those versions, I thought it worth mentioning...

 

[Treebore]

I let them pick six spells from their masters spellbook, whom has all the first level spells.

In a "college" setting, its the same thing, but is the colleges library versions.

 

[RFisher]

It depends. Sometimes I go the 1e AD&D-ish route. (Read Magic + one combat spell + one non-combat spell)

Last campaign, they got only one spell, but they got to pick it. I kind of like the idea of Read Magic being a valuable commodity instead of a gimme.

Yet, I could see myself giving them the whole list of 1st level spells.

I'm not sure you can go very wrong any way you play it.

 

[LostSoul]

What module are you running?

edit: What I'm getting at is that you want the spell (or spells) to be useful or cool in the adventure. If you want to select the spells yourself, pick a variety of spells: some that have obvious uses (Sleep), some less so (Hold Portal), and maybe an oddball that could really come in handy in a specific situation.