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

[rmcoen]

Along with Bee, I can't wait until we get to some of the other more obscure Unearthed Arcana (or 2e Tome of Magic) spells. I'm thinking Bluelight, There/Not There, Murdock's Feathery Flyer, etc.

Sorry for being 10 pages late, but I loved There/NotThere! Doors (or walls or bridges) that your party could use but your foes could not were so much fun! (I mean, fireball is also fun, but lacks that essential "crazy"!)

 

[rmcoen]

I don't see it as a choice. Unless I want to tell them everything right up front about the items they find (which I most certainly do not) then I have to note what each item is and does, as do they on their treasury.

Those notes will be different, however. Mine might say "Longsword +2, Giant-slayer" where theirs might initially say "Longsword, Dwarven-made, strong magic". As more info is learned, their notes will reflect this.

The other thing we did is develop the idea of item numbers, where every item found (magical or not, if it has a value) gets its own unique number This way, when we're talking about some half-forgotten item from five or ten real-world years ago that a character still has we can be sure we're talking about the same thing; a lesson learned the hard way back in the early days!

I usually have the players note where (or when) they got an item, in case the item was off-the-cuff and not in my "extensive-but-not-complete" Excel spreadsheet of unique items. "Hey DM, I wanna use this stinkpelt thing, what's it do?" (Check list... no stinkpelt.) "Where'd you get it?" "From that undead goblin warlock in Essel-del-Urk." "Ah, yes, the barrier tattoo you carved off his back! That stinks like rotten meat... because it is. Okay, the stats are..."

 

[Voadam]

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.

The closest I can think of to something like that is Azimer the 19th level lich in the 1e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting's sample adventure (reprinted from Dragon 95 with pregens ranging from level 5 to a single 8th level thief) who is explicitly addled and insane and starts off not being hostile and is presented as a roleplaying challenge as the way to successfully deal with him. He does not have fireball or lightning bolt so no 19d6 AoEs and his prepared ninth level spell is single target imprisonment, but he still has cloudkill and death spell (which will no save kill a number of PCs) and a bunch of power words and the DM is explicitly told to expect him to wipe the PCs if it comes to combat.

Azimer is still well equipped with
spells, and his condition still allows him
to cast them (though he has a 1%
chance per level of a spell attempted of
blowing the spell so that it does not go
off). His current spells are as follows:
magic missile (x3), read magic, shield,
continual light, ESP levitate, magic
mouth, wizard lock, dispel magic, gust
of wind, hold person (x2), suggestion,
dimension door (x2), fire trap, wall of
fire, wall of ice, cloudkill, feeblemind,
hold monster (x2), wall of force, antimagic
shell, death spell, repulsion, cacodaemon,
power word stun, reverse
gravity, Ottos irresistible dance, power
word blind (x2), and imprisonment.
Note that Azimers magic missile
spells each firing ten missiles that do 2-
5 hp damage apiece) may be directed at
separate targets if the lich so wishes.
Azimer will employ these first, interspersing
them with any defensive spells
he deems necessary (e.g., feeblemind
on spellcasters, hold person or hold
monster on charging attackers, or
reverse gravity on a group of attackers,
anti-magic shell if he faces many spellcasters,
and so forth). Azimer will use
dimension door to get into area 29 if
seriously threatened.

In I2 Tomb of the Lizard King with level 5-7 PCs the vampire lizard king who is a level 9 MU (so gets a 5th level spell) has both fireball and lightning bolt and explicitly is said to start off with cloudkill which will be save or die saves for a 20x40 persistent cloud.

In I10 The House on Gryphon Hill the lich Azalin does not have fireball or meteor swarm, but he does have the 7th level delayed blast fireball which will do 18d6+18 to the 8-10th level PCs where the pregens range from 18-75 hp.

Azalin the Lichs Spells
1st Level: charm person (x2), diminish, magic missile,
prot:good
2nd Level: darkness 15R, det. invisible, vocalize, web,
wizard lock
3rd Level: dispel magic, fly, prot:norm.missiles, slow,
suggestion
4th Level: dimension door (x2), ice storm, minor globe,
bestow curse
5th Level: animate dead, interposing hand, feeblemind,
wall of stone, monster summons III (1-4 wolves)
6th Level: anti-magic shell. invisible stalker, contingency
7th Level: delayed fireball, teleport w/o error (x2)
8th Level: clenched fist, monster summons IV (2 wraiths)
9th Level: energy drain

Strahd in I6 and I10 has fireball and lightning bolt.

In WG7 Castle Greyhawk there is a lich 20 he has a 20d6 lightning bolt and 20d4+20 cone of cold prepared.

Those and the lich in D1-2 who is loaded for bear are the only ones I can think of from 1e adventures.

Do you have specific other AD&D examples you are thinking of?

 

[Zardnaar]

The closest I can think of to something like that is Azimer the 19th level lich in the 1e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting's sample adventure (reprinted from Dragon 95 with pregens ranging from level 5 to a single 8th level thief) who is explicitly addled and insane and starts off not being hostile and is presented as a roleplaying challenge as the way to successfully deal with him. He does not have fireball or lightning bolt so no 19d6 AoEs and his prepared ninth level spell is single target imprisonment, but he still has cloudkill and death spell (which will no save kill a number of PCs) and a bunch of power words and the DM is explicitly told to expect him to wipe the PCs if it comes to combat.

Azimer is still well equipped with
spells, and his condition still allows him
to cast them (though he has a 1%
chance per level of a spell attempted of
blowing the spell so that it does not go
off). His current spells are as follows:
magic missile (x3), read magic, shield,
continual light, ESP levitate, magic
mouth, wizard lock, dispel magic, gust
of wind, hold person (x2), suggestion,
dimension door (x2), fire trap, wall of
fire, wall of ice, cloudkill, feeblemind,
hold monster (x2), wall of force, antimagic
shell, death spell, repulsion, cacodaemon,
power word stun, reverse
gravity, Ottos irresistible dance, power
word blind (x2), and imprisonment.
Note that Azimers magic missile
spells each firing ten missiles that do 2-
5 hp damage apiece) may be directed at
separate targets if the lich so wishes.
Azimer will employ these first, interspersing
them with any defensive spells
he deems necessary (e.g., feeblemind
on spellcasters, hold person or hold
monster on charging attackers, or
reverse gravity on a group of attackers,
anti-magic shell if he faces many spellcasters,
and so forth). Azimer will use
dimension door to get into area 29 if
seriously threatened.

In I2 Tomb of the Lizard King with level 5-7 PCs the vampire lizard king who is a level 9 MU (so gets a 5th level spell) has both fireball and lightning bolt and explicitly is said to start off with cloudkill which will be save or die saves for a 20x40 persistent cloud.

In I10 The House on Gryphon Hill the lich Azalin does not have fireball or meteor swarm, but he does have the 7th level delayed blast fireball which will do 18d6+18 to the 8-10th level PCs where the pregens range from 18-75 hp.

Azalin the Lichs Spells
1st Level: charm person (x2), diminish, magic missile,
prot:good
2nd Level: darkness 15R, det. invisible, vocalize, web,
wizard lock
3rd Level: dispel magic, fly, prot:norm.missiles, slow,
suggestion
4th Level: dimension door (x2), ice storm, minor globe,
bestow curse
5th Level: animate dead, interposing hand, feeblemind,
wall of stone, monster summons III (1-4 wolves)
6th Level: anti-magic shell. invisible stalker, contingency
7th Level: delayed fireball, teleport w/o error (x2)
8th Level: clenched fist, monster summons IV (2 wraiths)
9th Level: energy drain

Strahd in I6 and I10 has fireball and lightning bolt.

In WG7 Castle Greyhawk there is a lich 20 he has a 20d6 lightning bolt and 20d4+20 cone of cold prepared.

Those and the lich in D1-2 who is loaded for bear are the only ones I can think of from 1e adventures.

Do you have specific other AD&D examples you are thinking of?

It was the old dungeon magazines.

Thise NPCs have done good soels but it depends if they can resolve them.
. They dont have soell lists players woukd take. Lack of stoneskin, fireball probably would be in there. A few useless spells as well.

Didnt have those adventures back in the day. Was there a lvl 8 tourney mod in the DMG?

We had a mish mash of stuff so BECMI and 2E stuff as well. Spell caster soell lists were all over the place.

 

[Lanefan]

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

True that.

I throw liches into my homebrew modules now and then because they're cool, but indeed they're rare in the published modules. I'm not familiar with Dungeon Magazine adventures, though - maybe they were a bit more common there?

There's two in Maltese Clue, a Judges Guild module from the 1e era.

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.

Beholders can be fun but they're also damn deadly - several of their eye rays amount to straight-up save-or-die and the anti-magic area makes well-equipped melee warriors look (and feel!) mortal in a hurry.

 

[Voadam]

They dont have soell lists players woukd take. Lack of stoneskin, fireball probably would be in there. A few useless spells as well.

In 1e players did not explicitly get to choose new spells on level up, they got one new spell on level up but the DMG was silent on how that spell was chosen. "To those acquired, the magic-user will add 1 (and ONLY 1) spell when he or she actually gains an experience level (q.v.)." As a DM I randomly rolled them for either what a mentor taught or what research and experimentation discovered. I played as an MU in a long campaign where it was only what you got from play so mostly looted spellbooks.

In B/X Basic it was up to the DM whether a player chose a spell on level up or the DM determined it. "Each magic-user and elf has a spell book for the spells that he or she has learned. A first level character will only have one spell (a first level spell) in the spell book. A second level character will have two spells (both first level) in the spell book; a third level character will have three spells (two first level spells and one second level spell) in the spell book. The DM may choose which spells a character has in the book, or may allow the player to select them."

In 2e at base a wizard is on their own for learning new spells, they don't get one at level up.

Learning and casting spells require long study, patience, and research. Once his adventuring life begins, a wizard is largely responsible for his own education; he no longer has a teacher looking over his shoulder and telling him which spell to learn next. This freedom is not without its price, however. It means that the wizard must find his own source for magical knowledge: libraries, guilds, or captured books and scrolls.

For a specialist wizard however it is similar to B/X, they get a new spell when levelling and the DM chooses whether the DM or the Player chooses the specific spell:

"Whenever a specialist reaches a new spell level level, he automatically gains one spell of his school to add to his spell books. This spell can be selected by the DM or he can allow the player to pick. No roll for learning the spell need be made. It is assumed that the character has discovered this new spell during the course of his research and study."


Also stoneskin was not a spell in B/X or in the 1e PH so it is not surprising they do not show up in most spell lists in modules, even after the spell came out in Unearthed Arcana. Most modules either have the core spells (so for 1e the PH and not UA) and sometimes a new one detailed in that module.

Didnt have those adventures back in the day. Was there a lvl 8 tourney mod in the DMG?

The DMG did not have a module in it.

We had a mish mash of stuff so BECMI and 2E stuff as well. Spell caster soell lists were all over the place.

B/X, 1e, and 2e were fairly close, it was fairly easy to use a lot of stuff interchangeably, particularly modules.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

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.

It seems pretty straightforward, I'm not sure what is supposed to be 'the wrong ways' about a high end opponent that has useful abilities. Foresight does the advantage on all d20s/disadvantage on enemy attacks which is one spell and one effect. Truesight is a sense, every stat block has passive perception. Being able to use invisibility is pretty normal, and being able to move around using a legendary action is pretty common for things that are supposed to pose a challenge to a party of PCs.

It's really weird to say this about editions 4+ specifically when a 3/3.5 lich required you to build a PC style mage, pick an entire spell list for them and be prepared to use it, then apply the lich template with more abilities on top of that. That's a whole lot more complexity than a lich having a few spells and common abilities.

 

[haakon1]

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.

What don’t I like from what you said?

Buff spells stacking up instead of instantaneous spells that do what they do and are over.

Why: I remember my 4e DM having colored bases for the minis to show effects and sometimes there being like 4 on a PC or opponent. Too much cognitive load and to me all the stacking off effects is … a game of rules mastery and stacking effects is like a game of tax code optimization to me … I just don’t care about it. From D&D by and for wargamers and history buffs, to D&D with a software engineer type design. Too much crunch, almost no “simulationism”. My 4e DM is a software engineer, so that may color my perception.

Fireball is nerfed and irrelevant. Perhaps the most iconic spell turned to something more like Burning Hands.

Death as a minor “tax” to need to cast Revivify. I seriously can’t get my PC killed in 5.5e (I’ve tried!) and from what you say it wouldn’t much matter if I succeeded.

At-will (unlimited) Fireball and Lightning Bolt. Unlimited magic annoys me, and is in everything post 3.5e.

I’m playing 5.5e because the old DM from 4e wants to, and it’s my only chance to be a player instead of a DM, but I just don’t like it.

I also don’t like the stacking and in general high level play in other editions, if that helps. It felt like 4e+ were all stacking, all the way down.

 

[occam]

What don’t I like from what you said?

Buff spells stacking up instead of instantaneous spells that do what they do and are over.

Why: I remember my 4e DM having colored bases for the minis to show effects and sometimes there being like 4 on a PC or opponent. Too much cognitive load and to me all the stacking off effects is … a game of rules mastery and stacking effects is like a game of tax code optimization to me … I just don’t care about it. From D&D by and for wargamers and history buffs, to D&D with a software engineer type design. Too much crunch, almost no “simulationism”. My 4e DM is a software engineer, so that may color my perception.

Fireball is nerfed and irrelevant. Perhaps the most iconic spell turned to something more like Burning Hands.

Death as a minor “tax” to need to cast Revivify. I seriously can’t get my PC killed in 5.5e (I’ve tried!) and from what you say it wouldn’t much matter if I succeeded.

At-will (unlimited) Fireball and Lightning Bolt. Unlimited magic annoys me, and is in everything post 3.5e.

I’m playing 5.5e because the old DM from 4e wants to, and it’s my only chance to be a player instead of a DM, but I just don’t like it.

I also don’t like the stacking and in general high level play in other editions, if that helps. It felt like 4e+ were all stacking, all the way down.

Um... 3.5e foresight lasts 10 minutes per level (requiring time tracking on an adventure), and does the following:

• negates surprise
• negates flat-footedness (oy vey)
• +2 insight bonus to AC (invoking 3e's infamous stacking bonus rules)
• +2 insight bonus to Reflex saves (ditto)
• both insight bonuses are lost when Dex bonus to AC is lost (another oy vey)

5.5e foresight lasts 8 hours (long enough you probably don't have to care), and does the following:

• Advantage on d20 Tests
• Disadvantage on opponents' attacks

The text of 3.5e foresight is 176 words; in 5.5e it's 45 words.

Which one is complicated in all the wrong ways?

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

Why: I remember my 4e DM having colored bases for the minis to show effects and sometimes there being like 4 on a PC or opponent. Too much cognitive load and to me all the stacking off effects is … a game of rules mastery and stacking effects is like a game of tax code optimization to me … I just don’t care about it. From D&D by and for wargamers and history buffs, to D&D with a software engineer type design. Too much crunch, almost no “simulationism”. My 4e DM is a software engineer, so that may color my perception.

Heh. True that.

We played 4e on VTT, so, status effects were automatically tracked with little icons on the token. We actually made a mini-game out of trying to completely obscure a token with status effects. For a medium creature, that took 9 effects and 16 for a large. We succeeded more than a few times. :yikes: