D&D General Nerfing Wizards the Old Fashioned Way: Magic User in 1e

[nevin]

I think devs lost the fact that not knowing what is coming or exactly how something will work is what gives the fear, excitement feeling of magic. If everything is balanced and everything is a known that can be planned for you might as well play an MMO

 

[DND_Reborn]

The trick to balancing 1st edition was that nothing was remotely balanced at all!

That isn't quite true IMO: it was just balanced in a different way. MUs were balanced more by being hard to keep alive and with very limiting spells at lower levels, but then stronger magic at higher levels made survival easier and allowed them to contribute much more over the course of a day.

But it's not useful to say "spell interruption would be better than concentration in 5e" unless you address how it could be made to work in 5e. Interruption made it through three editions, but it was eventually dropped to simplify timing. If you wanted to bring it back you would probably need to also bring back segments, casting time, weapon speed factors, overlapping turns, etc.

Well, it is useful as it isn't hard to imagine how you would implement the concept. As you say, bringing back timing is the big part. A very simple option would be having an initiative modifier equal to the spell level (or maybe twice the spell level). So, if you were casting Fireball and your initiative was a 16, you would be "casting" from 16 to 14 and the spell happens on 13 (double level would be 16-11, spell finishes on 10). If anyone hits you while casting (not on the finishing number though) you make a concentration check or your spell is gone. You really don't even have to bring weapon speeds back in, but all these types of things are already variants in the 5E DMG.

Speaking as someone who actually played a lot of 1st edition, casting times and speed factors where something we quickly dropped as making combat too slow and complicated, and as a result interruption rarely happened.

Yeah, a lot of us played AD&D (1E and/or 2E) for decades, myself included, and we always used casting times and speed factors (especially in 2E when the concept was simplified) because they made sense. We never found it slowing or complex (1E sometimes, but once you "get it" it isn't that bad...), but obviously YMDV.

It's easy to say "this is how it worked in 1e", but the reality was, it didn't work, and it wasn't fun.

I respectfully disagree. It did work, and it was fun. Otherwise, we wouldn't have kept playing it for nearly 30 years. Even when 3E came out, we tried it, thought it was "ok" but a bit cumbersome with feats, etc. then, so kept playing our 1E/2E hybrid instead. Different strokes for different folks, though. shrug I know a group who really liked the change when it went to the d20 system, and personally I preferred the d20 Star Wars the most--I felt it fit better than in D&D, for myself anyway...

 

[nevin]

Generally when I hear anyone complain that MU are too powerful it's because they play with house rules that remove limitations, or they play only in modules and the players can read it before hand and know exactly what they are going to do. MU strength has always been known encounters that they get to plan for. Take that away from them in any edition and they are far, far less effective.

 

[Helldritch]

Generally when I hear anyone complain that MU are too powerful it's because they play with house rules that remove limitations, or they play only in modules and the players can read it before hand and know exactly what they are going to do. MU strength has always been known encounters that they get to plan for. Take that away from them in any edition and they are far, far less effective.

This was especially true in 1ed. As soon as you removed limitation, complains about M-U and casters in general were common. There were a few games where the DM asked me to come and check what was going wrong. Most of the times, it was exactly that. The removal of spell casting and memorization time and spell components. The rest of the time it was a bit too much powerful magic items at too low level.

Very often, I would Co-DM with their regular to bring a bit more understanding of the rules. It often set things straight and most players prefered it that way as casters kept their power but now these powers were more in line with what they should've been.

Yes, AD&D was not the best balanced game ever made. Remember that it was (with OD&D) the first RPG ever made. But strangely, it worked out most of the time in a strange balanced way even if on the surface the game did not seemed balanced at all. If you consider that most games never got past level 11-12, The fast pace that high level wizard were leveling was rarely reached. M-U were more often than not relegated to glass canons that needed protections. Clerics were second line backers with their healing spells and average melee power but straight up good AC. The unbalance came solely from the removal of limitations.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah, a lot of us played AD&D (1E and/or 2E) for decades, myself included, and we always used casting times and speed factors (especially in 2E when the concept was simplified) because they made sense. We never found it slowing or complex (1E sometimes, but once you "get it" it isn't that bad...), but obviously YMDV.

I've never understood this! Look, there's a lot of rules that some people followed, and some people didn't-

Weapon v. AC.
Elves cannot be raised or resurrected (except one exception, because reasons).
Constitution score is the max times for raise/resurrection, and a failed role is perma death.
Even friendly castings of polymorph require system shock.
Casting certain spells (such as haste, or wish) that ages you requires a system shock check (that's an oldie but a goodie).
Items have saving throws (that's the "Dragon melts your magic items" rule).

...and so on. But what has always been weird to me is when people insist that other people didn't play with the rules. I know that some people ignored the casting limitations, but it's just bizarre that people insist that everyone did, because I didn't!

 

[DND_Reborn]

Here's my experience with these examples:

Weapon v. AC. = We used about half the time. The reason we dropped it was because we kept having to equate monster weapons to "weapon-types". It made a lot of sense, but wasn't worth the hassle and didn't really impact very much. It's greatest impact was it made sense to have weapons very heavy armor vs. no armor, etc., which was very much the case historically IME.

Elves cannot be raised or resurrected (except one exception, because reasons). = Yep. We always enforced this. Reincarnate (take your chances), wish, or nothing.

Constitution score is the max times for raise/resurrection, and a failed role is perma death. = Yep. Always used this role as well, including losing a point of CON when you were brought back.

Even friendly castings of polymorph require system shock. = Yep. Even if you know it is coming, it is quite a shock.

Casting certain spells (such as haste, or wish) that ages you requires a system shock check (that's an oldie but a goodie). = Hmm.. I remember the aging, but I don't recall it requiring a SS check?

Items have saving throws (that's the "Dragon melts your magic items" rule). = Oh, YEAH! As a DM I LOVED this one... you failed your save, then all your items must make a save as well. LOL, so many times Disintegrate and Dragon breath meltings... ah, fond DM memories here.

 

[Wasteland Knight]

I think that there are a number of reasons for this (in terms of fun):

There was an emphasis on creating the character through the shared fiction (the play), and not through the process of character creation. This was mirrored in character abilities; early D&D primarily provided increased "power" and "customization" through the game (such as magic items), where modern D&D does it through class abilities.

Classes were not balanced in terms of each other; there was a great deal of niche protection. There had to be some level of balance within the party.

There was an emphasis on "skilled play" (dungeon exploration, clever roleplaying, and the proverbial 10' pole) and none on skills.

...now, that said, I think that the trend away from this reflect popular trends. There is a reason that OSR is a niche, and not the default. And that's because, for most of us, the "tons of fun" also represents a time when we had a lot more time to play, and were at the beginning of it all ... not closer to the end. Nostalgia is a heckuva drug.

Good points, although the fun I had back then was real, but I do agree nostalgia can certainly tint the view back.

I think the biggest element of fun, at least for the gaming groups where I was a participant, was the element of personal freedom.

I still remember the first encounter of my first character (a ranger with the extremely original name of Aragorn) against goblins, where the GM asked me my action, and when I asked “What can I do?” the response was along the lines of “anything you can think up”.

I think most any ruleset would have had the same effect.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Here's my experience with these examples:

Weapon v. AC. = We used about half the time. The reason we dropped it was because we kept having to equate monster weapons to "weapon-types". It made a lot of sense, but wasn't worth the hassle and didn't really impact very much. It's greatest impact was it made sense to have weapons very heavy armor vs. no armor, etc., which was very much the case historically IME.


Elves cannot be raised or resurrected (except one exception, because reasons). = Yep. We always enforced this. Reincarnate (take your chances), wish, or nothing.

Constitution score is the max times for raise/resurrection, and a failed role is perma death. = Yep. Always used this role as well, including losing a point of CON when you were brought back.

Even friendly castings of polymorph require system shock. = Yep. Even if you know it is coming, it is quite a shock.

Casting certain spells (such as haste, or wish) that ages you requires a system shock check (that's an oldie but a goodie). = Hmm.. I remember the aging, but I don't recall it requiring a SS check?

Items have saving throws (that's the "Dragon melts your magic items" rule). = Oh, YEAH! As a DM I LOVED this one... you failed your save, then all your items must make a save as well. LOL, so many times Disintegrate and Dragon breath meltings... ah, fond DM memories here.

My experience is almost exactly like yours!

1. I loved ... LOVED Weapon v. AC. It really made the different weapons "sing" in terms of differentiation. But it was too finicky and limited, given the sheer number of monster encounters. So that was dropped. Begrudgingly.

2. You're missing the one weird exception- the Rod of Resurrection! Never understood that. But yeah, reincarnate .... heh.

3. Yep.

4. Yep.

5. Okay, I learned this due to the application on me during an unfortunate imbibing of a speed potion. System shock is any time you are magically aged (involuntarily or voluntarily)! So when I drank that speed potion, DMG= age 1 year, PHB = system shock .... 1 bad roll and the potion killed me. Worst. Death. Ever.

6. If you weren't playing with item saving throws, you just weren't playing!

 

[Helldritch]

I've never understood this! Look, there's a lot of rules that some people followed, and some people didn't-

Weapon v. AC.
Elves cannot be raised or resurrected (except one exception, because reasons).
Constitution score is the max times for raise/resurrection, and a failed role is perma death.
Even friendly castings of polymorph require system shock.
Casting certain spells (such as haste, or wish) that ages you requires a system shock check (that's an oldie but a goodie).
Items have saving throws (that's the "Dragon melts your magic items" rule).

...and so on. But what has always been weird to me is when people insist that other people didn't play with the rules. I know that some people ignored the casting limitations, but it's just bizarre that people insist that everyone did, because I didn't!

Me neither. But you'd be surprised as how many DMs tables were ignoring or simply did not apply them. And, again, it was leading to all kind of abuses.

But I don't want limitations. I want to play my class/character/race without limitations!
It is by the ignoring of the rules and limitations that a lot of misconceptions came about. Stat requirements were also a great offender.
I want to play a paly but I need 17 charisma... Give me the paly... Removing or allowing a stat adjustement to make paladin more common led to the Lawful Stupid in an attempt to "restrain" people from making too many paladins... With the stat adjustement, no need to restrain them through the lawful stupid as they were rare enough as they were. Today's paladin are no longer fixed in alignment and no longer represent the epitome of knighthood as they did back in 1ed.

Same goes with MU. Their spell allotement was so strong and their potential to boost other was so great that the only limiting factor was the limitations on casting and their low hp. When 3rd edition removed these, it led to the CODZILA of 3.xed and directly to the nerf of casters in 5ed through the concentration mecanic (no more zounds of boosting spells stacking on the characters) and the removal/modification of summon spells (that were so abused with casters in 3.xed). The great idea of touch attack was removed as the abuses of ranged touch attacks were so vehemently shown with the CODZILA that even I, is quite happy to see that idea going down the drain.

Each time a limitation is removed/ignored, it allows for abuses. It was true in 1ed. It is still in 5ed.

 

[Ancalagon]

My experience with AD&D 1rst ed is very limited, but I grew up playing 2nd ed, so a few comments

1: We absolutely used the weapon speed, spell speed etc. By the time we were level 6 or so we had figured out "the way" to beat evil spellcasters. Our wizards would attack with magic missile or other fast spells, and the fighters would attack with daggers (preferably magical) which were very fast weapons. Whatever we had to do to make sure that the high level evil wizard didn't get a spell off and kill us all. And it worked pretty well.

2: It was less fun when enemies used the same to shut down our magic users but we did our best to prevent it.

3: Balance definitely was wonky. "weak at low level, powerful at high levels" is not a good way to balance the game. Our thief's player (who had chosen the perhaps prescient name "pylov manure") gave up on it by mid levels. My first character was a cleric and I also gave up on it, it wasn't a fun character to play either. Fighters and wizards reign at our table - the fighters all had % strength (ha!), and the magic resistance of certain monsters made them very necessary.

To me it feels like 5e is much closer to balanced than either 2nd or 3rd edition. The paladin is a little too strong if you have few encounters per day, and a few subclasses don't quite work , but apart from that it's great.

In a way, each edition is a massive play-tests. We learn from the past, and improve upon it - which fixes some problems and introduces new ones. There are problems unique to 5e due to these improvements, but it feels to me like we gained more than we lost.