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Limiting Cantrips?
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8517855" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>I always find it odd that people mention Gandalf, because frankly, I've never, ever met a player who wanted to play Gandalf, or modeled a PC spellcaster they played on Gandalf. That's in 33 years of TT RPGs, note.</p><p></p><p>And further Gandalf isn't utterly incompetent in melee, nor likely to die in melee, nor does weird stuff like throw daggers/darts or hang out with a crossbow, so it's a weird comparison on that level too. Gandalf is in fact pretty great in melee, and doesn't (IIRC) even get hit short of fighting the Balrog. Whereas a 1E or 2E AD&D Wizard is extremely likely to be die or be on negative HP the first time he gets hit at level 1-3, even to a goblin or the like. Even say, level 4, unless he has a sizeable CON bonus or rolled straight 4s on HP, a 1E/2E Wizard is extremely likely to be downed in a single round by almost any monster, given the combination of crap AC and crap HP. And he does crap damage in melee.</p><p></p><p>So you just straight-up cannot be Gandalf in 1/2E, not as a single-classed character anyway (or perhaps by stacking a ton of buff spells and magic items at a pretty high level - I seem to remember some high-ish level spell no-one ever casts which more or less amounts to "be Gandalf briefly but by this point it just makes you look like an idiot because you're way more powerful than Gandalf as a spellcaster"). Any DM telling you you can be, is a bit of a jerk.</p><p></p><p>Looking at media generally, the vast majority of spellcasters fall into three categories:</p><p></p><p>1) Those who don't fight much at all, whether with magic, ranged or melee, and tend to win through non-combat cleverness or tricks (which may involve magic) or running away (sometimes magic-assisted running away). Ged/Sparrowhawk or Merlin or the like.</p><p></p><p>2) Those who use magic constantly and heavily in combat and often outside it too, and where it's their primary or sole means of doing combat (including using magical items). You mentioned Dr Strange, and the vast majority of comic-book spellcasters fall into this category, Harry Potter basically does (I mean, he's between 1 & 2 arguably, but he usually falls back to magic), most videogame characters who are "wizards" or anything remotely similar (as opposed to "clerics" or "paladins" or "spellblades") also work like this. D&D spellcasters have been in this mould since 4E and arguably leaned that way since earlier.</p><p></p><p>3) Those who are also powerful combatants (usually in melee) outside of spellcasting. D&D is not great at modeling these people, though 4E and 5E are better than previous editions, and 1E/2E could sort of do it via multiclassing (3.XE was just terrible aside from the Gestalt stuff). Other games are often pretty great at it (Shadowrun, for example). Indeed it's notable that the demand for such characters to be supported mechanically has been huge for most of D&D's history, from the Elf of BD&D to the explosion of classes and PrCs which tried to be this in 3.XE. The huge number of attempts also show that the actual results are typically disappointing. There's been an unhealthy fixation on making this an "Elf thing" in D&D's attempts though (4E dumped the "elf thing" and 5E resurrected it, but at least offered a lot of other options). These are also fairly common in media, and rarely elves.</p><p></p><p>You just don't see the AD&D 1E/2E/3E Wizard in media (aside from that based on D&D directly or older sources closely modeling it, like Wizardry). Even Vance's wizards which inspired it are more like 1.</p><p></p><p>One suspects D&D was trying to model 1, because it's the closest, but because they had such a profoundly badly-designed power curve with spells, going from being "almost entirely useless/active liability" at L1, to "incredible" at L10, to "godlike" as they go further, they utterly fail to do so. Worlds Without Number rather demonstrates how to do that type of caster "right" in a D&D-like game. But just starting wizards off with, say, 4-5 L1 spells at L1 and only ramping up to say, L6 or L7 spells ever (aside perhaps as rituals), and never getting too many would work too, if you actually wanted to do that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8517855, member: 18"] I always find it odd that people mention Gandalf, because frankly, I've never, ever met a player who wanted to play Gandalf, or modeled a PC spellcaster they played on Gandalf. That's in 33 years of TT RPGs, note. And further Gandalf isn't utterly incompetent in melee, nor likely to die in melee, nor does weird stuff like throw daggers/darts or hang out with a crossbow, so it's a weird comparison on that level too. Gandalf is in fact pretty great in melee, and doesn't (IIRC) even get hit short of fighting the Balrog. Whereas a 1E or 2E AD&D Wizard is extremely likely to be die or be on negative HP the first time he gets hit at level 1-3, even to a goblin or the like. Even say, level 4, unless he has a sizeable CON bonus or rolled straight 4s on HP, a 1E/2E Wizard is extremely likely to be downed in a single round by almost any monster, given the combination of crap AC and crap HP. And he does crap damage in melee. So you just straight-up cannot be Gandalf in 1/2E, not as a single-classed character anyway (or perhaps by stacking a ton of buff spells and magic items at a pretty high level - I seem to remember some high-ish level spell no-one ever casts which more or less amounts to "be Gandalf briefly but by this point it just makes you look like an idiot because you're way more powerful than Gandalf as a spellcaster"). Any DM telling you you can be, is a bit of a jerk. Looking at media generally, the vast majority of spellcasters fall into three categories: 1) Those who don't fight much at all, whether with magic, ranged or melee, and tend to win through non-combat cleverness or tricks (which may involve magic) or running away (sometimes magic-assisted running away). Ged/Sparrowhawk or Merlin or the like. 2) Those who use magic constantly and heavily in combat and often outside it too, and where it's their primary or sole means of doing combat (including using magical items). You mentioned Dr Strange, and the vast majority of comic-book spellcasters fall into this category, Harry Potter basically does (I mean, he's between 1 & 2 arguably, but he usually falls back to magic), most videogame characters who are "wizards" or anything remotely similar (as opposed to "clerics" or "paladins" or "spellblades") also work like this. D&D spellcasters have been in this mould since 4E and arguably leaned that way since earlier. 3) Those who are also powerful combatants (usually in melee) outside of spellcasting. D&D is not great at modeling these people, though 4E and 5E are better than previous editions, and 1E/2E could sort of do it via multiclassing (3.XE was just terrible aside from the Gestalt stuff). Other games are often pretty great at it (Shadowrun, for example). Indeed it's notable that the demand for such characters to be supported mechanically has been huge for most of D&D's history, from the Elf of BD&D to the explosion of classes and PrCs which tried to be this in 3.XE. The huge number of attempts also show that the actual results are typically disappointing. There's been an unhealthy fixation on making this an "Elf thing" in D&D's attempts though (4E dumped the "elf thing" and 5E resurrected it, but at least offered a lot of other options). These are also fairly common in media, and rarely elves. You just don't see the AD&D 1E/2E/3E Wizard in media (aside from that based on D&D directly or older sources closely modeling it, like Wizardry). Even Vance's wizards which inspired it are more like 1. One suspects D&D was trying to model 1, because it's the closest, but because they had such a profoundly badly-designed power curve with spells, going from being "almost entirely useless/active liability" at L1, to "incredible" at L10, to "godlike" as they go further, they utterly fail to do so. Worlds Without Number rather demonstrates how to do that type of caster "right" in a D&D-like game. But just starting wizards off with, say, 4-5 L1 spells at L1 and only ramping up to say, L6 or L7 spells ever (aside perhaps as rituals), and never getting too many would work too, if you actually wanted to do that. [/QUOTE]
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