If you’ve ever seen a Wizard past 15th level in that system who DIDN’T know Fireball, you were probably looking at one of my character sheets.
D&D 1E Favorite Obscure Rules from TSR-era D&D
- Thread starter Snarf Zagyg
- Start date
Is there anything sadder than the 1e player of a Magic User who, having survived and scraped by for four levels of largely useless play ... finally makes it to fifth level ....
...and fails their chance to learn fireball?
Sure, you might say, there are lots of other great 3rd level spells! But none of them are fireball.
And to channel an advertisement that baseball used to run ... the fireball is the homerun of magic user spells, and we know what that means.
Willie the Duck
Hero
So I take it other people didn't have the fireballs blow up the loot (and sometimes the party), huh?
Oh, constantly!
But c'mon, man. FIREBALL!!!!!!
It's the spell that short-circuits the brain cells, because it MAKES THINGS GO BOOM.
Right – they were more powerful than baseline clerics (particularly if you let them use the druid XP table as stated in F&A rather than the fixed version from Powers & Pantheons), but not that much more for the most part. But if you tried to recreate them using POS&M, you would get a ridiculously high point value because it was pretty common for them to get a level-appropriate spell-like ability every other level, and those were ridiculously overcosted in POSM.
Speaking of obscure rules and fireball.
I think most people were aware that in 1e, 1" had different meaning indoors and outdoors.
1" indoors (or dungeons, etc.) would be 10 feet.
1" outdoors would be 10 yards.
So you could roughly say that everything in 1e would be tripled when you went outside. Missile weapons would fire three times further. Fireballs would have a range three times longer. Etc.
EXCEPT. A spell's area of effect would always be measured at 1" = 10'. This was often overlooked!
So a fireball cast by a 10th level magic user would have a different range if cast indoors or outdoors-
Inside- 200 feet.
Outside- 200 yards (600 feet).
But the area would be the same- it would be a 20 foot radius sphere. I ran across tables that did not know that rule and believed that when cast outside, the fireball would be a 20 yard radius sphere!
(Bonus question- if you are in a tunnel, and casting fireball to hit people that are some distance outside the tunnel, how do you calculate the range when you have a mixed inside/outside scenario?)
I think most people were aware that in 1e, 1" had different meaning indoors and outdoors.
1" indoors (or dungeons, etc.) would be 10 feet.
1" outdoors would be 10 yards.
So you could roughly say that everything in 1e would be tripled when you went outside. Missile weapons would fire three times further. Fireballs would have a range three times longer. Etc.
EXCEPT. A spell's area of effect would always be measured at 1" = 10'. This was often overlooked!
So a fireball cast by a 10th level magic user would have a different range if cast indoors or outdoors-
Inside- 200 feet.
Outside- 200 yards (600 feet).
But the area would be the same- it would be a 20 foot radius sphere. I ran across tables that did not know that rule and believed that when cast outside, the fireball would be a 20 yard radius sphere!
(Bonus question- if you are in a tunnel, and casting fireball to hit people that are some distance outside the tunnel, how do you calculate the range when you have a mixed inside/outside scenario?)
Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
My first issue of Dragon was #123, which has a four page article ("Fire for Effect!", Richard W. Emerich) going into how fireballs and lightning bolts and similar spells would cause such collateral damage, extrapolating how hot such spells and effects are based on the info given in the item save rules, and detailing how bad the damage to stuff would be, what kinds of treasures would melt, etc.
It included The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, The Merck Index: An Encyclopedia of Chemicals, Drugs, and Biologicals, and International Fire Service Training Association's Essentials of Fire Fighting in its bibliography.
Willie the Duck
Hero
Yep, and there were item saving throw rules in the DMG (p. 80 for AD&D). From what I understand, the reason Cone of Cold was a higher level was because items had a much (with the exception of liquids) better chance of surviving.
It seemed that-- at least in the version of A/D&D emergent from the obscure rules -- area-effect spells are last-ditch save-your-butt spells while in the dungeon. In the wilderness or whenever you aren't fighting 'in-lair,' things might be different.
Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
Yeah, like I mentioned, the article extrapolates from the real-world temperatures of the examples given in the item save rules.
Well, also wandering monsters typically aren't carrying much or any treasure. And a fair number of monsters with lairs wouldn't be fighting right in their treasure room. So I wouldn't say last ditch. But yeah, accounting for item destruction definitely puts a wrinkle in the usage of these spells.
Voadam
Legend
I always inferred that the indoor restriction was a simplification of the impact of ceilings and so outside you can arc an arrow farther while inside it has to go horizontally straight.
So I would rule that shooting from inside to outside you have to go straight for the 1/3 range.
