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

[Zardnaar]

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.)

May not have been foresight in particular.

NPC spellcasters often didnt have the best soelks listed or have soell combos. Tactics were often spend time more buffing or cast 1-3 spells before unleashing.

This was a trend I noticed in older adventure modules. PCs would usually optimize more.


5.5 archemsfe for example uses spells that probably aren't ideal.

Hold person is a comparatively common npc spell.

Arcemage 5.5 can turn up around lvl 7 or 8 iirc.

 

[Celebrim]

Those spells aren't weird.

The weird spells are the ones from 3e and later were all that cool numinous flavor and interesting limitations and completely explicable horrible side effects were removed in favor of powering up spellcasters to give them even more narrative control in a wider number of situations with less things that could go wrong.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

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.

The idea with buff spells is that they're supposed to be cast in advance - you're not supposed to have the lich cast them in combat, they're supposed to be cast when the party disturbs the tomb or kills the front gate guards or whatever else alerts the lich. Also fireball really isn't nasty if you're at 'face a lich' level.

Also why the hate on foresight? If you want a 5.5 lich to be really scary, replace power word: kill (which is pretty much just a 'use up one revivify' tax for a party that stands a chance against it) with foresight. All attacks on the lich now have disadvantage so you'll have a fairly hard time hitting its 20 AC, and it gets advantage on all saves and attacks (including the no save paralyzing touch) Between truesight, passive perception 24, and invisibility on itself you're not getting the jump on it, and if it feels like it might die, it can teleport 60' as a legendary action (to get out of counterspell range or sight) and then plane shift away on its turn. Though it does have at-will fireball and lightning bolt so it obviously isn't what you were thinking of.

 

[Zardnaar]

The idea with buff spells is that they're supposed to be cast in advance - you're not supposed to have the lich cast them in combat, they're supposed to be cast when the party disturbs the tomb or kills the front gate guards or whatever else alerts the lich. Also fireball really isn't nasty if you're at 'face a lich' level.

Also why the hate on foresight? If you want a 5.5 lich to be really scary, replace power word: kill (which is pretty much just a 'use up one revivify' tax for a party that stands a chance against it) with foresight. All attacks on the lich now have disadvantage so you'll have a fairly hard time hitting its 20 AC, and it gets advantage on all saves and attacks (including the no save paralyzing touch) Between truesight, passive perception 24, and invisibility on itself you're not getting the jump on it, and if it feels like it might die, it can teleport 60' as a legendary action (to get out of counterspell range or sight) and then plane shift away on its turn. Though it does have at-will fireball and lightning bolt so it obviously isn't what you were thinking of.

The idea with buff spells is that they're supposed to be cast in advance - you're not supposed to have the lich cast them in combat, they're supposed to be cast when the party disturbs the tomb or kills the front gate guards or whatever else alerts the lich. Also fireball really isn't nasty if you're at 'face a lich' level.

Also why the hate on foresight? If you want a 5.5 lich to be really scary, replace power word: kill (which is pretty much just a 'use up one revivify' tax for a party that stands a chance against it) with foresight. All attacks on the lich now have disadvantage so you'll have a fairly hard time hitting its 20 AC, and it gets advantage on all saves and attacks (including the no save paralyzing touch) Between truesight, passive perception 24, and invisibility on itself you're not getting the jump on it, and if it feels like it might die, it can teleport 60' as a legendary action (to get out of counterspell range or sight) and then plane shift away on its turn. Though it does have at-will fireball and lightning bolt so it obviously isn't what you were thinking of.

I love 5E foresight. AD&D foresight was a bit different.

Adventures featuring lvl 18 liches often didn’t feature spells like meteor swarm or fire ball on the spell list or spell combos.

So technically you face a lvl 18 caster reality they had a nerfed spell list. 18d6 fireball vs 8th level characters or 10th can be a tpk.

I'm suee theres exceptions more a trend I noticed. Sticking meteor swarm on an archmage vs 8th level party similar effect. My 13th level PCs ate a meteor swarm. Some laughed it off, others were "rather not do that again " on 20hp left.

If you use a CR 12 critter and swap the spells its no surprise what could happen especially with lvl 7 or 8 pcs.

 

[see]

It is from the Strategic Review (#4 from Winter 1975). And it's by Peter Aronson rather than Gygax. But I'm not so sure he took a nerf bat to it. Most of the restrictions are in this version too.

Mmmm.

Aronson's Illusionist got 1st-level MU spells as a 4th-level spell, not 7th, and 2nd-level ones as a 5th-level spell. And instead of Gygax's whole approach of "you need to learn these spells normally, and then memorize four in a 7th-level slot", the vague wording ("This allows the Illusionist to use all 1st level Magic Users spells") could have been interpreted as one spell in the 4th-level list that could be cast as any 1st-level MU spell. (Or not. Rather vague.)

Aronson's Illusionist also had a paralyzation spell at 2nd level affected HD equal to twice the illusionist's level. Their original improved invisibility was based on invisibility 10' range, not the base spell. The spell shadow magic was 4th level instead of 5th.

So I think it's reasonable to conclude Gygax nerfed them at least some.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

I love 5E foresight. AD&D foresight was a bit different.

Adventures featuring lvl 18 liches often didn’t feature spells like meteor swarm or fire ball on the spell list or spell combos.

So technically you face a lvl 18 caster reality they had a nerfed spell list. 18d6 fireball vs 8th level characters or 10th can be a tpk.

I'm suee theres exceptions more a trend I noticed. Sticking meteor swarm on an archmage vs 8th level party similar effect. My 13th level PCs ate a meteor swarm. Some laughed it off, others were "rather not do that again " on 20hp left.

If you use a CR 12 critter and swap the spells its no surprise what could happen especially with lvl 7 or 8 pcs.

To be fair, there really weren't that many AD&D modules with liches. Not impossible mind you, but, certainly not common.

I tend to lump things like liches and beholders and a few others in the same bag - really neat monsters in the Monster Manual that almost never saw any loving anywhere else.

 

[Staffan]

To be fair, there really weren't that many AD&D modules with liches. Not impossible mind you, but, certainly not common.

I tend to lump things like liches and beholders and a few others in the same bag - really neat monsters in the Monster Manual that almost never saw any loving anywhere else.

I believe 3e made a lot more use of liches, probably because they lowered the floor for becoming one significantly from 18th level or so to something like 12th. 12th level is still really powerful, but a lot more doable than 18th.

As for beholders, in the olden days my reaction to them was mostly pointing and laughing at their MM entry. They got some love in Spelljammer, but I think their real upgrade was the "I, Tyrant" sourcebook.

 

[Zardnaar]

To be fair, there really weren't that many AD&D modules with liches. Not impossible mind you, but, certainly not common.

I tend to lump things like liches and beholders and a few others in the same bag - really neat monsters in the Monster Manual that almost never saw any loving anywhere else.

Kinda. 1E essentially topped out in the 10-14 range and things like that could turn up around 8th level.

I suspect the higher level soell tables essentially existed for things like liches and NPCs.

2E stretch things like Dragons and Giants.

 

[Zardnaar]

I believe 3e made a lot more use of liches, probably because they lowered the floor for becoming one significantly from 18th level or so to something like 12th. 12th level is still really powerful, but a lot more doable than 18th.

As for beholders, in the olden days my reaction to them was mostly pointing and laughing at their MM entry. They got some love in Spelljammer, but I think their real upgrade was the "I, Tyrant" sourcebook.

11th kevel.

Weakest lich I saw was a joke goblin acolyte or whatever the npc class was in the DMG.

CR 8 iirc. For a lich.

 

[haakon1]

If you want a 5.5 lich to be really scary, replace power word: kill (which is pretty much just a 'use up one revivify' tax for a party that stands a chance against it) with foresight. All attacks on the lich now have disadvantage so you'll have a fairly hard time hitting its 20 AC, and it gets advantage on all saves and attacks (including the no save paralyzing touch) Between truesight, passive perception 24, and invisibility on itself you're not getting the jump on it, and if it feels like it might die, it can teleport 60' as a legendary action (to get out of counterspell range or sight) and then plane shift away on its turn. Though it does have at-will fireball and lightning bolt so it obviously isn't what you were thinking of.

This reminds me of why I don’t like editions 4/5/5.5. All D&D is complicated, but this seems complicated in all the wrong ways.