D&D (2024) Nerf to magic users?

[Yaarel]

People misinterpreting your satire as actual opinion? A pain I know far too well.

Heh, that is because, no matter how intentionally ridiculous and absurd one tries to make their sarcasm, there is probably ten people out there in internet land saying the same thing in all seriousness.

 

[Charlaquin]

Heh, that is because, no matter how intentionally ridiculous and absurd one tries to make their sarcasm, there is probably ten people out there in internet land saying the same thing in all seriousness.

Also, a lot of people just have a very difficult time recognizing sarcasm. Autistic folks especially, but also plenty of neurotypical people.

 

[Yaarel]

Also, a lot of people just have a very difficult time recognizing sarcasm. Autistic folks especially, but also plenty of neurotypical people.

Sometimes, I have difficulty recognizing sarcasm. Often I can imagine a hypothetical scenario when such a concept might be plausible. So it isnt always obvious that person is trying to be ridiculous.

 

[ECMO3]

The Society for Spellcasting Supremacy will never allow the 1st ed rules for limiting spellcasters to happen again.

Amen Brother!

I am already not happy about the bloat/boost to Fighters and Monks in ONE, but if they nerfed casters along with that I would stay with 5E forever.

 

[ECMO3]

Magic-users were still insane back then once they reached high level.

No they still pretty much sucked at high level.

If you played RAW it was very rare for a Magic User to be more powerful than a Fighter at any level. Every race except humans had a level cap that prevented magic users from getting to high level. When it comes to humans, they got no bonus to intelligence, so over half of human Magic-Users were capped at 7th level spells and almost none had the requisite 18 to learn 9th level spells. Then you only had about a 60% chance of learning the spell you wanted each level.

Then if you have your one great spell for the day and you try to cast it in combat you will usually get interrupted and fail ..... and then probably die that same round.

Unearthed Arcana improved Magic Users some by allowing them to roll 9 dice for intelligence and specialize in a school, but it was still relatively rare to get the 18 you need for 9th level spells and this publication boosted Fighters more than other classes.

The only way for magic users to compete at all is to get legendary magic items like a Staff of Power or a Wand of Fire, but even then Fighters were still outdamaging them once Unearthed Arcana came online.

 

[Clint_L]

No they still pretty much sucked at high level.

If you played RAW it was very rare for a Magic User to be more powerful than a Fighter at any level. Every race except humans had a level cap that prevented magic users from getting to high level. When it comes to humans, they got no bonus to intelligence, so over half of human Magic-Users were capped at 7th level spells and almost none had the requisite 18 to learn 9th level spells. Then you only had about a 60% chance of learning the spell you wanted each level.

Then if you have your one great spell for the day and you try to cast it in combat you will usually get interrupted and fail ..... and then probably die that same round.

Unearthed Arcana improved Magic Users some by allowing them to roll 9 dice for intelligence and specialize in a school, but it was still relatively rare to get the 18 you need for 9th level spells and this publication boosted Fighters more than other classes.

The only way for magic users to compete at all is to get legendary magic items like a Staff of Power or a Wand of Fire, but even then Fighters were still outdamaging them once Unearthed Arcana came online.

This was not my experience back in the day. Almost everyone used variant rules from the DMG for stats and having an 18 in your primary stat was common, plus there was magic that could raise stats. The general consensus back then was that high level magic users were OP. Gygax was always trying to figure out ways to help other classes catch up.

Mind you, at low levels magic users were terrible.

Maybe somebody used the roll 3 dice 6 times in order method for ability scores, but I never met them. I never saw anyone level capped by ability scores, either. And racial caps were seldom enforced. AD&D was not as hardcore as is often made out.

 

[Maxperson]

No they still pretty much sucked at high level.

If you played RAW it was very rare for a Magic User to be more powerful than a Fighter at any level. Every race except humans had a level cap that prevented magic users from getting to high level. When it comes to humans, they got no bonus to intelligence, so over half of human Magic-Users were capped at 7th level spells and almost none had the requisite 18 to learn 9th level spells. Then you only had about a 60% chance of learning the spell you wanted each level.

Then if you have your one great spell for the day and you try to cast it in combat you will usually get interrupted and fail ..... and then probably die that same round.

Unearthed Arcana improved Magic Users some by allowing them to roll 9 dice for intelligence and specialize in a school, but it was still relatively rare to get the 18 you need for 9th level spells and this publication boosted Fighters more than other classes.

The only way for magic users to compete at all is to get legendary magic items like a Staff of Power or a Wand of Fire, but even then Fighters were still outdamaging them once Unearthed Arcana came online.

Yeah. They sucked so badly that the vast majority of well known early high level characters were magic users. If they had been good, nobody would have played them.

 

[James Gasik]

There were a lot of things working against you as a high level caster in AD&D. It wasn't uncommon to fight an enemy with an immunity to some effect. Magic Resistance was handed out like candy, even to some fairly weak enemies. Stronger enemies got very good saving throws. Big spells took more segments/had a higher speed factor and so the chances of someone getting to deal damage to you and make you lose the spell were high.

A lot of DM's I played under were just unfriendly towards spellcasters as well. Every spell was went over with a fine-toothed comb. If the DM made a ruling on a spell that nerfed it or made it useless, you had no recourse. That was how the spell was and writing in to Sage Advice was far from guaranteed to get you an answer (and definitely not a timely one), plus, even then, you had people who just said "Sage Advice is wrong", lol.

Like I joined a game once where the DM had it in his head that the spell description of the Magic Missile spell (Area of Effect: 1 or more creatures in a 10' cube) meant that each Missile did damage to everyone within 10' of it, so my attempts to use it instantly caused friendly fire! Nothing I said could get him to back down either, so I just had to stop using the spell in a lot of combats!

Enemies might have magic gear specifically designed to protect against your spells, as if things weren't rough enough "Oh, well of course the Orc Boss has a Ring of Fire Resistance/Protection +3/Spell Turning". Dead and Wild Magic zones appeared without warning. Spell Mishap tables were cobbled together. Your spellbooks and material components were always being targeted (my favorite was "it's raining so your material components get wet and you can't cast Fireball").

Actually getting the spells you wanted was fun too- Gary came out and said you should never do it, and even in 2e, you would often have to roll randomly to get new spells...and there was always that chance you failed to learn them. Oh and if you were a specialist? Funny how your enemies would always stock spells you couldn't cast!

And I know that for everyone who reads this and goes "Come on, James, there's no way that actually happened", there's going to be one person who will think "ah, the good old days."

 

[Horwath]

There were a lot of things working against you as a high level caster in AD&D. It wasn't uncommon to fight an enemy with an immunity to some effect. Magic Resistance was handed out like candy, even to some fairly weak enemies. Stronger enemies got very good saving throws. Big spells took more segments/had a higher speed factor and so the chances of someone getting to deal damage to you and make you lose the spell were high.

A lot of DM's I played under were just unfriendly towards spellcasters as well. Every spell was went over with a fine-toothed comb. If the DM made a ruling on a spell that nerfed it or made it useless, you had no recourse. That was how the spell was and writing in to Sage Advice was far from guaranteed to get you an answer (and definitely not a timely one), plus, even then, you had people who just said "Sage Advice is wrong", lol.

Like I joined a game once where the DM had it in his head that the spell description of the Magic Missile spell (Area of Effect: 1 or more creatures in a 10' cube) meant that each Missile did damage to everyone within 10' of it, so my attempts to use it instantly caused friendly fire! Nothing I said could get him to back down either, so I just had to stop using the spell in a lot of combats!

Enemies might have magic gear specifically designed to protect against your spells, as if things weren't rough enough "Oh, well of course the Orc Boss has a Ring of Fire Resistance/Protection +3/Spell Turning". Dead and Wild Magic zones appeared without warning. Spell Mishap tables were cobbled together. Your spellbooks and material components were always being targeted (my favorite was "it's raining so your material components get wet and you can't cast Fireball").

Actually getting the spells you wanted was fun too- Gary came out and said you should never do it, and even in 2e, you would often have to roll randomly to get new spells...and there was always that chance you failed to learn them. Oh and if you were a specialist? Funny how your enemies would always stock spells you couldn't cast!

And I know that for everyone who reads this and goes "Come on, James, there's no way that actually happened", there's going to be one person who will think "ah, the good old days."

this is more of a bad DM not a bad game design.

It's like having a 100% ghost campaign that are immune to nonmagical damage and then claiming that fighters are 100% and completely useless in D&D.

 

[ECMO3]

This was not my experience back in the day. Almost everyone used variant rules from the DMG for stats and having an 18 in your primary stat was common, plus there was magic that could raise stats. The general consensus back then was that high level magic users were OP. Gygax was always trying to figure out ways to help other classes catch up.

The DMG had no rules that make it likely you will get an 18 with a human in 1E.

You were more likely to start with a 13 than a 17 and an 18 was unheard of.

When Unearthed Arcana came out this changed, but even with roll 9/drop 6 , the average is only 16. If this is true and it was "common" you used some kind of homebrew rules.

Maybe somebody used the roll 3 dice 6 times in order method for ability scores, but I never met them. I never saw anyone level capped by ability scores, either. And racial caps were seldom enforced. AD&D was not as hardcore as is often made out.

It was still very unlikely to get an 18 intelligence using the DMG methods

method 1: 9% chance of 18 some where, 2% chance of 18 intelligence
method 2: 5% 18 intelligence
method 3: 15% chance of 18 somewhere, 3% chance of 18 intelligence
method 4: 29% chance of 18 somewhere, 6% chance of 18 intelligence
method from Unearthed Arcana rolling a Magic-User: 18% chance of 18 Intelligence, 14% chance of 18 Dexterity, 10% chance of 18 Wisdom, 6% chance of 18 Constitution, 3% chance of 18 Charisma, 2% Chance of 18 Strength, 1% chance of 18 Comliness

So using the unearthed arcana method around 1 in 6 parties had a Magic-user with an 18 Intelligence. Somewhere around 1 in 20 parties for the other DMG methods.