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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9360973" data-attributes="member: 6799660">Although this runs into the issue of DM adjudication. The spell description states that it creates a  globe of light. whether it has a specific source and/or can be blocked by physical barriers (like said scroll tube) isn't clear. IIRC, one of the Gygax adjacent folks (Mentzer, I think, or maybe Mornard) stated that Gary played it that the radius would even go through walls, possibly tipping off enemies in other rooms to your presence. The entire 'X class can't/won't ____{specific weapons, etc.}' always seemed to me to be some of the more gamist rules, in a 'these-are-board-game-pieces' manner. The rook moves in diagonals because that sets up in-game variation, so to with magic users using daggers and the monk not using oil. I don't think it is just magic users. Certainly thieves also had a lot of rules making sure that attempting the tasks in which they are entrusted is a recipe for disaster. Characters with any complex rules seemed to invite making their best course of action not to use their abilities. I've not run into people who didn't know it, but I think a lot of people didn't really care -- they were the character-building components you could actually choose, so darn right you were going to do so. Fundamentally, I think 2E had two different flavors it tried to support at once -- 1) themed characters, self- or campaign-specific constraints, and customization; and 2) the same dungeon crawls and deadly monsters as before. Exactly how NWPs or savage kit PCs using stone daggers or rapier-wielding swashbucklers were supposed to interact with level-drain-on-hit undead or instant-death poison traps or the same old treasure tables was always somewhere between a mystery and 'each table will figure something out.'I think this highlights how the entire attribute concept is kinda arbitrary. If <a href="https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Ability_score#Development" target="_blank">this synopsis</a> is accurate, the pre-oD&D attribute list included everything from strength and health to looks and credibility to horsemanship. I don't feel that the average D&D game has enough use for looks to make it worth 1/6 or 1/7 of a total, but overall I don't think there's a strong enough through-line of 'this is what an attribute should be' to specifically exclude looks either.</blockquote>

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