Did magic-users use weapons more often in older editions?

[Orius]

I've noticed about the same. In 2e, most wizards carried around a staffs and fought defensively when they ran out of spells. Staves were popular because they had a d6 for damage. Then a lot of players seemed to pack crossbows in 3e, which was pretty useful for the wizard at low-level.

In truth, they weren't like wizards, more like mafiosos when they ran out of bullets. If the magic-users could've found a way to give you cement shoes and dump you in an ocean to get rid of you, they would've done it.

Four words: transmute mud to rock. Heck, the material components are sand, lime, and water!

Transmute Mud to Rock :: d20srd.org

 

[Glyfair]

They might go several combats never casting a spell, and just throw daggers or darts from the party center, or bash a lone goblin with their staff when forced into melee.

In my experiences, it depended on how much the DM put weight on the encumbrance rules. Wizards were rarely very strong and couldn't carry much. I seem to recall darts being much longer than many suspected, and carrying a few throwing daggers would often end up with the M-U being over burdened once he starting picking up treasure.

 

[Huw]

I remember a 2e wizard who carried around a two-handed sword. The logic being that he wouldn't be able to hit anything except on a natural twenty, the -5 penalty wouldn't matter. A high CON and a few defensive magic items meant he was about as safe in combat as the thief, and his presence in melee could be used tactically by others.

I think he did manage to hit a few times in his career, once getting the killing blow.

All my 1e and 2e wizards were of the throw-daggers-from-the-back variety.

 

[pemerton]

Back in the Basic/1eAD&D times I can remember stocking up on daggers and darts* and using them a lot.

* I vaguely recall that darts were pretty powerful for their cost. Yes?

Iirc you could throw 3 darts per round in AD&D 1E by raw.

Especially at low levels, the M-Us would pull out their weapons often. My AD&D players liked darts for their M-Us for this reason - 3 per round at d3 damage was better than 2 daggers per round at d4 damage. And darts had better range than daggers, I think (3/6/9 vs 2/4/6 (?) - it's been a long time).

In 4e, the times I see casters use weapons are when (1) it's a weapliment or (2) they need to make an OA.

Yep. The sorcerer in my game uses his Staff of Ruin for OAs, while the wizard uses his Tome of Fire as an improvised weaopn - and actually killed something with it once, when he critted and did the bonus fire damage.

I once played a warmage with the fire reserve feat named Flaming Helen, whose schtick was that no matter the problem she would solve it by 'burning it with fire'. Kind of a pastiche of the typical fireball happy D&D wizard. She was great fun to play and ended up bizarrely effective. Turns out you actually can solve all your problems by burning them with fire.

I GMed a firemage in Rolemaster for several years back in the mid-90s. His player had the same approach - fire as an all-purppose solution! He was especially fond of using fireball to detect invisibility.

 

[Jhaelen]

Not really. About as often as in current editions, which is very rare.

Level 1 characters are an exception to the rule. Then again, after running out of spells they're not really spellcasters any more, right?

4e is probably the first edition where I'd never consider using a weapon.

 

[TheNovaLord]

yep, a lot. if you didnt help kill the baddies, how did you earn xp!

the monsters have more hp now relatively i feel, but the staff and dagger damage have never changed, so they where more effective in 1e.

but now they do feel more wizardy in PF, and often have no need to pull out a wepaon at all

 

[Neonchameleon]

4e: My wizards might trip someone with a staff on an opportunity attack (hey, it's worth the roll). But spells are where it's at.
Older: Spell slots are limited. Pick a weapon and use it the rest of the time.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

My brother used true strike and a crossbow quite often (I allowed for taking a -20 penalty to hit to make any hit an automatic crit, or just a threat, I don´t really know)

A different spellcater threw her lamp out of desperation, killed the enemy leader with it.

In 2e, i don´t know, as pure wizards were rather rare. We had fighter mages usually who used longswords a lot... (and haste and enlarge doing double attacks with double damage)

Yes, spellcasters used weapons before, but only in desperate situtations or when they "abused" the game.

(In 2e, fighting with those spells active had a real cost (years of life and expensice material components and most important: time to memorize)

 

[Jhaelen]

yep, a lot. if you didnt help kill the baddies, how did you earn xp!

Well, in _some_ older editions you got xp for gold pieces...

 

[Remathilis]

In the early days, we saw some low-level mages carry a staff and occasionally get into melee with weaker encounters (kobolds). However, Baldur's Gate changed our playstyle somewhat; slings became the typical 1st weapon choice, and specialist mages (extra spell) become a bit more popular.

In 3e, lots of mages had crossbows that they never used past 5th. My current PF game has a mage who never used his crossbow at all.