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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 9510307" data-attributes="member: 6680772">Now let's look at the Wizard class group, which is made up of the Mage and Specialist Wizards.First, the elephant in the room (for me). Here lieth the Magic-user, 1974-1989. With 2nd Edition, and beyond, magic-users would be called wizards. Intellectually, I understand the feeling. "Magic-user" is a rather clinical term, even a little clunky, and certainly not evocative of fantasy literature. (I certainly noticed that Hickman and Weis went through great lengths to not call Raistlin a "magic-user," preferring the word "mage" many years before 2nd Edition. On the other hand, I came to the game with B/X and Mentzer, and then 1st Edition, so to me, the wizard-like characters were called magic-users. My first long-term character was a magic-user. I liked that "wizard" was something you worked to attain, like "Lord" for fighters.(Sidebar: I live in Japan. In Japanese, the word for "wizard" is 魔法使い mahou-tsukai, which is literally "magic (mahou) user (tsukai)." You'd think, "Great! So the original Japanese translation would have been mahou-tsukai, and there would have been no need to change it when 2nd Edition came around!" Only the classes were transliterated in the original translations of Mentzer Red Box, so "magic-user" became majikku yuuzaa. This has continued with subsequent translations, so since 2nd Edition in Japan, "wizard" is wizaado...)Unlike the Warrior group description, which spent a short time on the group description, and a long time on each individual class description, there are only a few minor differences between mages and specialists, so much of the class description is given in the greater Wizard description. It notes that wizards cannot wear armor because a) it gets in the way of their spell casting and b) they haven't studied how to use and wear it. Because they haven't studied weaponry, they can only use daggers, staves, knives, darts, and slings. Proficiency in knives and slings are new additions in 2nd Edition, via Unearthed Arcana. (As an aside, I missed 3e in its entirety, so the crossbow-wielding wizard is outside my conceptual space of a D&D wizard. It was daggers in D&D, daggers or staves in AD&D, and at-will cantrips in 4e and 5e.) Wizards get access to the most magic items, due to their ability to use rings, wands, rods, and scrolls.Next it talks about wizards' ability to make spells scrolls and potions at 9th level. This is a change from 1st Edition, but more in a "splitting the baby" sense. The 1st Edition Players Handbook says that magic-users can  make scrolls and potions (and other magic items) at 11th level. But the 1st Edition Dungeon Masters Guide says they can do it at 7th level! So 2nd Edition's 9th level just takes the average of these two numbers.All Wizards, mage or specialist, use the same XP chart, and all use 4-sided Hit Dice. The XP progression is almost exactly the same as 1st Edition, except for Level 5. In 1st Ed, 22,501 XP were needed to reach Level 5, but 2nd Ed. smooths this down to an even 20,000. All Wizards also use the same Wizard Spell Progression table, which is unchanged from 1st Ed., aside from only going to 20th level, instead of 1st Edition's 29th level.The rest of the description talks about spell books, and gives a perhaps the fullest accounting of what Vancian magic entails in-world. In another example of 2nd Edition's sometimes shaky editing, there's another paragraph noting that wizards can research new spells and craft magical items, even though this was already mentioned on the previous page. Interestingly, wizards are denied the ability to build a stronghold. They can own property and hire henchmen and mercenaries, but gain no special benefits. In 1st Edition, a 12th level wizard could build a stronghold, clear out the countryside surrounding it for 10 or 20 miles, and begin to rule the area like a noble, receiving 5 sp per inhabitant each month.The ability requirement to be a Mage is INT 9. INT 16 or higher gives a 10% bonus to XP. Only humans, half-elves, and elves can become mages. Because they are the baseline, nothing else is really written about them: they can use all the schools of magic, unlike specialists.</blockquote>

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