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

[GuyBoy]

Back in 1e days, I frequently used illusionists as NPC bad guys, but I genuinely never saw anyone play one as a PC, so respect @Whizbang Dustyboots

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Back in 1e days, I frequently used illusionists as NPC bad guys, but I genuinely never saw anyone play one as a PC, so respect @Whizbang Dustyboots

Mine started off as a 3E character, and I'm technically still playing it, although my DM has had work/life stuff that's put us on hiatus for about a year or so. He's very into shenanigans, so it's been a blast to play an illusionist with him. (Given how long I've been playing him, it's probably time to buy a fancy bronze HeroForge mini.)

 

[bedir than]

The answer was to test it on the DM's favorite NPCs until you suddenly figured it out.

I honestly don't know how "I don't know what my magic item does" is supposed to be interesting or fun in 99% of the situations. Save that for extra-special relics and artifacts and stuff. Let the players figure out that longsword is +1, +3 versus bugbears between adventures without the extra drama.

It was only supposed to be fun for the DM whose primary role was to trick players into killing their characters

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It was only supposed to be fun for the DM whose primary role was to trick players into killing their characters

Letting players deal with the consequences of their actions is fun, but not giving them informed choices is amateur hour.

Getting them to voluntarily march off to their near-certain doom, with everyone knowing they're probably screwed, and have to McGuyver a solution to pull something out at the last minute -- that's the really good stuff.

 

[Staffan]

Of course you're supposed to keep track of the items they find. It's a basic part of the DM's job; even more so if the players' own tracking is inconsistent (or, as I've seen once in a while, non-existent).

Thing is that as a DM I have enough other things to keep track of. I don't have the bandwidth to manage the PCs' inventories for them.

 

[Coroc]

True statement- I was not familiar with those. I've been occupied for a while.

But on the illusionist ... there are just some absolutely crazy decisions that they made to absolutely destroy the class as written. There are so many I could probably write an essay or two about it, but one of my favorite examples isn't one that I think was deliberate, but was, instead, an example of how little they thought about the class after including it.

The Illusionist has an insanely detailed list of magic item prescriptions (what they can and cannot use). In fact, they have a written and specific list of rods, staves, and wands they can use:
Rod of cancellation, staff of striking, and wands of enemy detection, fear, illusion, magic detection, metal & mineral detection, secret door & trap detection, wonder.

THAT'S IT. And here's the thing .... on that list, only the staff of striking and the wand of fear are gated by class. All the rest are "any." Which means that the illusionist is prohibited from using a ton of items that ... are allowed by EVERYONE ELSE (e.g., wands of magic missiles, illumination, negation).

I don't even think that it was deliberate? It's just stupid.

they fixed some spells in 2e. but not the level 1/2 sleep hold and charm instakillers.
on the sticks to snakes et vice versa that is straight out of the bible, eventuall, moses or aaron or so.
your essay gave me a good laugh. i started with 2e but it still required loads of houserules for similar shenanigans.

 

[Baron Opal II]

1. Polymorph Other (MU 4).

This was a party favorite for infiltration. Exploring the Vault of the Drow with most characters polymorphed into drow helped tremendously. It did make them a touch more susceptible to commands from the EHPs, though.

6. Pretty Much All Illusionist Spells. It was pretty common for spells to cross-reference each other in the PHB, and for spells to be slightly different between different casters (Dispel Magic isn't the same for everyone!). But the majority of Illusionist spells were simply, "This other spell, but weaker, and usually at a later level." Shadow magic was a fifth level spell that let them cast fireball, except a save wasn't 1/2 damage, it was 1hp/level. Illusionists get True Sight at Sixth, which was the same as the Cleric's True Seeing at Fifth, but weaker. Clerics and MUs get detect magic as a first level spell, Illusionists get it at second level. MUs get rope trick at second, Illusionists at third. And so on.

Shadow magic and shadow monsters were actually popular spells. While the save damage was weak, the flexibility of what was manifested made up for it. Unfortunately, playing an illusionist was more of a slog than usual to get to the inventive parts of their magic.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This was a party favorite for infiltration. Exploring the Vault of the Drow with most characters polymorphed into drow helped tremendously. It did make them a touch more susceptible to commands from the EHPs, though.

Shadow magic and shadow monsters were actually popular spells. While the save damage was weak, the flexibility of what was manifested made up for it. Unfortunately, playing an illusionist was more of a slog than usual to get to the inventive parts of their magic.

Yeah, WotC era illusionists (not you, 4E) are a lot more fun, since you can get to the shenanigans pretty fast.

 

[Lanefan]

Back in 1e days, I frequently used illusionists as NPC bad guys, but I genuinely never saw anyone play one as a PC, so respect @Whizbang Dustyboots

The character I'm playing in our Saturday game (1e-adjacent) is an Illusionist. She's supposed to be pure Illusionist and was for a long time, but recently she got a few levels of Fighter dumped into her from a very strange magic surge of some sort.

 

[Lanefan]

Thing is that as a DM I have enough other things to keep track of. I don't have the bandwidth to manage the PCs' inventories for them.

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!