D&D General A Trip Back In Time: On The Utter Weirdness of Old Spells

[Maxperson]

It was:

• 10% chance of ignoring it
• 10% chance of adding something
• 30% chance of exchanging something
• 30% chance of stealing something
• 20% chance of emptying it

Unless there were different numbers in some other printing of the PHB than the one I have (6th printing, 1980)?

No. I wrote it wrong. They're still not really understandable to me. Why would some random being that is intelligent enough to recognize and use chests add or exchange stuff in a chest that it knows does not belong to it? Ignore, steal some, or steal everything I get.

 

[haakon1]

No. I wrote it wrong. They're still not really understandable to me. Why would some random being that is intelligent enough to recognize and use chests add or exchange stuff in a chest that it knows does not belong to it? Ignore, steal some, or steal everything I get.

In game: The creature doesn’t know it’s going to phase back to the PMP. Not a lot of places to store things in the Ethereal, so it’s leaving its bone for later (or whatever) in a convenient place.

Meta game: Because random outcomes can be fun? Gives the DM a chance to pull or provide an item.

 

[Kannik]

4. Identify (MU 1). Unlike Erase, this is a spell that seems like it would be incredibly useful! And then, you read it. So how does this spell work? First, the Magic User must use/wear the item, so if it's cursed, then the MU will suffer the consequences. OKAY THEN! Next, it lasts 1 segment / level, and for every segment that the MU has the item, the MU has a 15%+5% per level chance of maybe finding out one thing BUT every time they do, the DM rolls a secret save vs. magic, and depending on the roll, will either learn something true, false, or nothing. Also, they can never learn accurate information about charges and stuff (that will be always be off). Also also the MU loses eight points of constitution. There's some other stuff there, but WTAF?

Woah, I had to pull the PHB off my shelves to check this one up, I had totally forgotten how bat insane this was. My fav part: you need to identify things within 1 hour per caster level of finding the item, or else it got "mixed in with all your auras" and you could no longer identify them. Gary really didn't want you using this spell, he wanted you to put the thing on and gleefully laugh as the curse takes hold. (Or maybe go to a town and get the item IDed by someone else, spending that gold you found.)

The 2e version, beyond cleaned up a bit in language, is much more usable. There they've flipped the "must ID within X hours" to "must purify the object for 8 hours". Now more explicitly making it so that it's an "out of the dungeon" activity, which also mitigates the massive Con loss. And it's more forgiving about "handling" the item as it's not explicit that you have to wear/wield/etc the item as in use, so that should be much less chance of being cursed just for wanting to know what an item is (one of the prime reasons to want to ID something before putting it on in the first place!).

 

[jolt]

Part of the reason for random tables is to generate a result without having to worry about why it happened. It doesn't matter why someone left an item in your chest if you're never going to encounter that someone. Maybe they were on the run and just needed a quick place to stash something, but the point is to avoid having to create a backstory for every event that happens.

The problem with the logistics side of the game is how quickly it becomes irrelevant. At first level, things like rations and candles might seem important, but every level you advance makes those concerns seem increasingly silly. It's hard to generate fun from mechanical systems that are only relevant for a very short time.

 

[Savage Wombat]

The one elite class that could usually be included even in a n00b party right from the start was a cleric/mage equivalent called the Bishop. They could cast both Priest and Mage spells, but lagged somewhat as they were a jack of both trades class. Their one unique power was the ability to identify unknown magic items found in the dungeon.

Well, that and the hidden ability to gain 10 million exp or so by a hidden designer exploit. More than enough to get max stats and every spell in the game. Of course, if you changed classes you lost most of that.

 

[KYRON45]

Oh how I missed you Snarf. But you know....not enough to read all of that.

 

[Voadam]

NPCs often lacked the nasty spells. Heres you lvl 18 lich for lvl 8 PCs. The level 9 spell is foresight no fireball to be seen.

?

Here is the first statted out lich I remember from a 1e published module, he has fireball, lightning bolt, time stop, and power word kill (and cloudkill, and reverse gravity, and lesser wish). This is from Gygax, this is the baseline template for such high level bad guy casters. The module is for levels 9-14, only one tournament PC out of the nine choices starts off with more than the PWK 60 hp threshold.

 

[Zardnaar]

?

Here is the first statted out lich I remember from a 1e published module, he has fireball, lightning bolt, time stop, and power word kill (and cloudkill, and reverse gravity, and lesser wish). This is from Gygax, this is the baseline template for such high level bad guy casters. The module is for levels 9-14, only one tournament PC out of the nine choices starts off with more than the PWK 60 hp threshold.

View attachment 447605

Different lich.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, that and the hidden ability to gain 10 million exp or so by a hidden designer exploit. More than enough to get max stats and every spell in the game. Of course, if you changed classes you lost most of that.

I did that once by accident and never was able to repeat it.

 

[occam]

NPCs often lacked the nasty spells. Heres you lvl 18 lich for lvl 8 PCs. The level 9 spell is foresight no fireball to be seen.

Is this an actual example of something, or a generalization with a fictional example? I can't find any lich statted with foresight, much less as its only 9th-level spell. (And foresight didn't even exist until 2e, IIRC.)