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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9356835" data-attributes="member: 6877472">It's enough to make one wonder if Wizards were really powerful in AD&D at all with all the built-in "safeguards".  Ok, here's an idea for a sub-thread: every way the AD&D rules hamstrung Wizards.Thanks to rgard, we have "die for scribing spells into spell book".Adding to that:*NPC's hate sharing spells.*Cost to scribe spells.*Chance to fail to learn spells.*Players should have little agency over what spells they can learn.*No armor, feeble attacks.*Low hit points (can be killed by a thrown dagger/housecat!).*Slow low level progression.*Spellcasting makes you vulnerable to attacks.*Spellcasting can be interrupted by just about anything.Spell scrolls are magic items (could count as your "share" of loot, you have to give up a consumable resource to add a spell to your book, cannot be bought on open market, etc.).*Need to have read magic ready to go at a moment's notice because scrolls can disintegrate if you so much as sneeze on them (as was stated upthread).*possible competition for spell scrolls with Illusionists (more of a penalty to Illusionists, really...).*Spell components.*Saving throws of enemies improve, bonuses to saves common, penalties to saves less so.*Many spells are "save negates".*Area spells are hard to work with (33,000 cubic feet, you say?).*Very limited spell memorizations at low level.*Magic Resistance kills and only starts to get better at levels 12+.*Apparently expected to use Wands at low levels, but once a DM makes the mistake of giving a Wizard a wand of fire, they never do so again (boy I remember learning this lesson.  Suddenly every remotely dangerous situation was answered with "I cast FIREBALL!" -there's a reason why it's a meme spell to this day).*Monsters designed to be anti-caster (kind of a wash, there's a monster designed to murder every class, lol).*Even monsters designed to be fought by casters are pretty obnoxious (golems.  Oh sure, it's vulnerable to these precise specific spells I just so happen to have ready to go...).I'm sure I forgot something, but that's a lot of hurdles to overcome!EDIT: losing your spellbook turns you into a jumped-up 0-level character; and the loss can be nearly impossible to recover from!</blockquote>

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