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

[Lanefan]

I'm not sure I'd call any 7th level spell (or higher for some of the other ones) as "a cheap way of finishing off weakened high-powered foes". A cheap way would be finishing them off with a lower leveled spell. It seems fitting for a high level spell to be capable of it, though.

Perhaps - until the BBEG Magic User hits a PC with it, leaving said PC stunned, vulnerable, and defenseless for however many rounds; and no save.

These things go both ways, remember.

 

[Zardnaar]

Perhaps - until the BBEG Magic User hits a PC with it, leaving said PC stunned, vulnerable, and defenseless for however many rounds; and no save.

These things go both ways, remember.

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.

 

[Marc17]

There’s so many aspects of these games that leave me scratching my head and feeling like an alien anthropologist. “And that’s supposed to be… fun?”

You'd typically find out pretty quickly if you just took the risk and used the item. Sip the potion or use the sword on something*. The DM didn't want to sit around for hours while you fiddle with things and try random things with it any more than you do. More complicated items might just have to wait until you got back and could say you had lots of time to experiment. The idea was that using a spell to avoid that was a cheat and the caster had to pay for it, and still didn't want it done during a dungeon. There was always the idea for a spell that just told you what it was. Most DMs I asked seemed to think it should be about 3rd level. A few other DMs were sure it should be 6th.

*Often delegated to the henchmen or hirelings provided they were sufficiently compensated for the risk, as it would be easier to deal with your 2nd level camp guard if got cursed holding the Cursed Sword of Murder than your top level fighter.

 

[Maxperson]

8. Leomund's Tiny Chest (MU 5). Everyone knows that treasure lootin' is the key to AD&D. So this a cool spell! You spend at least 5k gp to construct a large and tiny chest. Then the large chest goes to the ethereal plane, and the tiny chest is one you can carry on you. And you can summon the large chest to you at any time (MOAR LOOT AND SPELLBOOKZ!). What's not to like on this fifth level spell? Oh ... wait ... there's more writing. See, there is a growing chance that the large chest will be found on the ethereal plane. Also? Every single time you bring the big chest to you, you are ripping a hole in the fabric of space and time that remains open for five hours for Githyanki to pop through and eat you or something.

You left out the weirdness involved if the chest is found on the ethereal. There's a 10% chance that whatever finds it will ignore it. A 30% chance that the finder will just add stuff to the chest and then wander off........for reasons I guess. A 30% chance that something will be stolen. And only a 20% chance that whatever finds it will just take everything.

I never understood those percentages.

Also, the older me is now wondering if, since it doesn't say that the hole to the ethereal plane is one direction, if the spell could be used as a way to get to the ethereal plane. Call the chest back to you and then go through the hole before it closes.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

I was more referring to some of the more tedious homework / busywork elements of the game. Encumbrance, rations & water (when not explicitly playing a survival-focused game), etc. So much of the "resource attrition" aspects of the early game are just so much bother with no bite. I get the argument that it creates the potential for great scenes, when you run out of X bad things happen or when you have to decide to keep Y or Z, etc. I've made those arguments myself many times over the years.

Oh, careful, careful. Say things like this and you're going to get accused of badwrongfun. One must never call something that someone out there likes "tedious" or "busywork". You're just not getting it because it's not your playstyle and apparently you cannot understand other people's tables.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh, careful, careful. Say things like this and you're going to get accused of badwrongfun. One must never call something that someone out there likes "tedious" or "busywork". You're just not getting it because it's not your playstyle and apparently you cannot understand other people's tables.

I'm sure it had nothing to do with you telling people how things work in their game, being wrong on the mechanics for a game you're not actively playing.

You couldn't comprehend people actually play slightly different if not very different at various tables .

Not liking 5.5 thats fine. Telling active players their abilities don't work in their games RAW will likely aggravate people.

 

[Flying Toaster]

This one used to vex me too. As far as I can tell, Gygax was highly enamored with PCs not knowing what they've recovered without investing MAJOR resources into finding out. It's basically a frustrating mini-game within D&D and I know I hated it - from both sides of the DM's screen. It's too fussy to bother with. I'm glad things have improved.

As a Gen X D&D player, many of the notions my friends and I had about the game were influenced by CRPGs that were riffing on tropes established originally by D&D itself.

I played a lot of the first Wizardry game, which featured versions of the D&D Core Four PC classes, plus four more elite classes that were effectively proto-prestige classes requiring high ability scores for entry. In practice the Lord (cleric/fighter or paladin equivalent), Samurai (fighter/mage), and Ninja (sneaky assassin) could only be accessed by veteran PCs switching to those classes at level up once they had enough ASIs to qualify.

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. This does not sound so great at first, until a player learns that without a Bishop, a party would have to lug all magic loot up to the surface and (IIRC) pay the NPC proprietor of the local magic item shop to identify it for them.

I can see DMs just having an NPC hedge wizard or alchemist available to ID magic items while soaking up excess cash from the party.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

Not liking 5.5 thats fine. Telling active players their abilities don't work in their games RAW will likely aggravate people.

Who said anything about not liking 5.5? Or not playing it currently. Been playing it for a year and a half and love it. But, of course, since you actually read my posts, you already knew that.

But, since that has nothing to do with this thread, I'm sure you wouldn't want to derail this topic. I was just cautioning @overgeek to be careful not to say anything critical of other games or how other people play because you never know who's going to repeatedly misread and misunderstand what you're saying and turn it into something completely other than what you've said.

 

[billd91]

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. This does not sound so great at first, until a player learns that without a Bishop, a party would have to lug all magic loot up to the surface and (IIRC) pay the NPC proprietor of the local magic item shop to identify it for them.

I was thinking of Wizardry myself as a breath of fresh effing air compared to grappling with magic item identification thanks to that bishop class.

 

[occam]

You left out the weirdness involved if the chest is found on the ethereal. There's a 10% chance that whatever finds it will ignore it. A 30% chance that the finder will just add stuff to the chest and then wander off........for reasons I guess. A 30% chance that something will be stolen. And only a 20% chance that whatever finds it will just take everything.

I never understood those percentages.

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)?