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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6835775" data-attributes="member: 7006">So we're talking one encounter out of a string of encounters in your typical dungeon crawl... which is what quite a number (if not in fact most) of your adventuring was back in the early 80s.  So great... *if* your Magic-User prepared Sleep (over the other 30 spells he could have taken)... he could put that group of kobolds down that one time.  But what about the other six to twelve encounters against a pair of kobolds here or a trio of goblins there that the group would face before finally decides to rest overnight?  Crossbow city.  No magic whatsoever.  Fighters and clerics in melee, rogues sniping from the sides, and the magic-user in the back needing to roll like 16s or higher with their crossbow in hopes of actually accomplishing something.  At least... that's was my experience.  And which is exactly why our magic-users more often than not were multiclassed fighter/magic-users, cleric/magic-users or magic-user/thieves... so they have something to do in those other six to twelve encounters that they didn't cast Sleep.And as far as the "years" of adventuring... that's a combination of both how often you get to play (if you're only playing once a month, getting a character to 5th could indeed possibly take a year or two depending on the DM), and what   [MENTION=6790260]EzekielRaiden[/MENTION] said about your MU getting ganked over and over again until you finally lucked out reached a point your MU got to 5th.  So no... in my personal experience a Magic-User never seemed all that *magical* until he finally reached maybe 5th level or so and had enough spell slots where he could throw hopefully at least one spell every fight before resting, plus had a magic item like a wand that would allow him to supplement his personal spellcasting with item casting.If you felt differently... if you felt that lone Sleep spell once or twice a day was enough for you... then I can certainly see why having a Fire Bolt at your disposal every round as your back-up action (should you not want to cast another slotted spell) might seem like too much.  But I'm willing to say you and others are in the minority, seeing as how WotC went through the two year playtest to find out apparently that at-will spells were wanted, true Vancian casting was not, and a class like the Bard was more interesting and usable as a full caster than a half-caster.  Meaning that more people wanted more available magic.</blockquote>

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