In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, we Nerf Magic Users the Old Fashioned Way: With a Series of Complex Rules!
I had been thinking, for the last week, of doing a deep dive into the restrictions that ye olde spellcasters in 1e faced, and then came across the following post by the erstwhile Kitten of Enworld, @Alzrius that provides an excellent summary:
www.enworld.org
But given the number of times that you see people, IMO, incorrectly assert that Magic Users (in today's parlance, Wizards) were always predominant in D&D, even in 1e, I thought I'd do an overview into the many ways that the magic users were underpowered in many ways back in 1e, especially compared to today (and even moreso compared to 3e).
1. LFQW isn't accurate for 1e.
The whole "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" didn't apply in the same way in 1e, for a very simple reason. In addition to the other things I am about to point out, there is the issue of survivability. Characters with high constitutions were rarely magic users. That means that the typical MU had (on average) 2.5 hit points per level. Period. And a not-so-great system shock and resurrection chance. An MU topped out at level 11 for hit dice, which means that a top-level MU had, on average, 28 hit points (rounded up). And gained 1hp per level after that. So imagine you are the most powerful wizard in the land- an 18th level MU, who can now bend reality to your will and finally can cast a ninth level spell. You'd probably have under 40hp. Most monsters and martial characters could easily kill you in one round.
So while the basic memory of the MU is correct- it could be terrible to play for the first four levels .... it was never an easy, world-conquering class either.
2. You can ignore the Clerics and the Druids.
Healing was a desperate thing in 1e. For the most part, the scarcity of healing (not to mention issues regarding poison and the like) would usually require Clerics and Druids to use most or all the available spells of certain levels for healing. Again, they had some decent combat spells when they had the slots (Druid's Call Lightning at 3rd was fun, and while the Cleric's Flame Strike wasn't optimal, it was cool). But given the numerous terrible "conditions" (poisoning, disesases, blindness, traps- which the cleric had a spell for, but not the MU, not to mention DEATH) the MU was usually responsible for most combat and utility spells.
3. If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball; but if you can't dodge either, you can't cast a spell.
People in 5e complain about the cocentration mechanic and not being able to stack spells. Well, this was noted in the PHB, which warned you that most spells take some time to cast and as such would go off at the end of the round (or sometimes, the follwoing round) and if they spellcaster was struck, "grabbed," or failed any type of save ... the spell was spoiled. The spell could only be cast when the spellcaster was stationary - not jogging, or moving, or dodging blows. (DMG 65). And once the spell was cast, if it was spoiled, you lost it, it didn't work.
So a MU had to announce their spell they would cast. Attacks against the spellcaster would come in on the roll of the opposing initiative die (a d6, so segment 1-6 of the 10 segment round). The spell would be cast on the MU's side of the initative roll, + the number of segments it would take to cast. And because the caster was stationary, there could be no DEX bonus to the AC. (DMG 65).
As to how long a spell would cast ... a typical "fast" combat spell would take (segments were 1/10 of a round, or 6 seconds) three segments - 18 seconds - to cast, as in fireball. So you see the problem. That's an effective -4 (because a tie is as bad as a loss) on initiative rolls. That placed a huge premium on either the very few "emergency" combat spells (Magic Missile, the Power Words were all one segment), or required careful planning and stealth to use your spells.
(EDIT: I should add if it's not clear that I was using an example of fast combat spells; most spells had casting times of 5-7 segments (sometimes more), which meant that you'd always cast last in a round)
As a general rule, though, spellcasting during combat was very difficult, and if you had intelligent enemies ("Tucker's Kobolds") nearly impossible.
4. You didn't get all the spells.
MUs had a number of restrictions on them based on their intelligence. First, they had a % chance to know each spell; if they tried to learn a spell, and failed, they could never learn it. "Awesome, I'm 5th level, I get fireball! Oh, wait. I can never learn fireball? WHAT?" There was also a maximum number of spells known per level; a MU with a 16 intelligence could only learn 11 spells of any given level. Period.
5. Monsters were tough.
Today, of course, your enterprising young Wizard simply targets the monster's worst ability score (which he totally guessed at because he never looked it up, of course I believe that). In 1e, there were no weak scores. Monsters saved by their Hit Dice. So more powerful monsters were much more likely to make their saving throws, period. Not to mention that the most powerful monsters often had a % spell resistance. I don't want to oversell this- combats could be very swingy; spells could, and would, turn the tide of the battle on a failed saving throw. But more often than not, the big boom would just fizzle.
6. Spells were dangerous.
Casting spells could kills you. There were the unfortunate side effects (certain spells aged you, from haste to resurrection to wish to GATE WHICH AGES YOU FIVE YEARS!!!!!), but sometimes the spells were just downright unsafe. You could dimension door and accidentally end up in the astral planed stunned until someone helped you ... because when I think of the astral plane, I think of helpful people, not monsters that will eat you or raiding Gith parties. Heck, you might accidentally kill a party member when you polymorph them to do something useful, and they fail the system shock. Magic was legititmately awesome, but also kinda sorta dangerous too.
....and everyone has a story about the first time you cast fireball in a restricted space.
7. Spells took forever to "reload."
As previously discussed, spells take 15 minutes to memorize per spell level. (PHB 40). A ninth level MU who cast all of their spells would take (4x1, 3x2, 3x3, 2x4, 1x5) = 480 minutes, or eight hours to "reload" their spells. Which is bad enough, but "reloading" (memorizing again) just three fifth level spells takes nearly four hours (225 minutes) of uninterrupted time. This causes pretty severe restrictions on going "nova" in many adventuring environments. In effect, instead of being able to cast, and then re-cast on a daily basis, deciding when to cast spells (especially the high level ones) became a much more difficult game of resource management.
I wanted to open up a general thread about this, because I had been thinking about it for a while (mostly in the context of MUs- as Alzrius already noted, there were other issues for Clerics and Druids, and everything I wrote above applies moreso to illusionists).
But before I throw it out, one last note-
People played AD&D (1e) in a variety of fashions. Not everyone played the same. Some people played Monty Haul campaigns or campaigns that easily allowed MUs to bypass restrictions. Others ignored all combat rules related to spellcasting. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to play, and there was a lot less reliance on the RAW then there is now. This is simply an observation that while MUs could be pretty awesome, they had a lot of drawbacks that we need to remember and consider that were baked into the ruleset.
I had been thinking, for the last week, of doing a deep dive into the restrictions that ye olde spellcasters in 1e faced, and then came across the following post by the erstwhile Kitten of Enworld, @Alzrius that provides an excellent summary:
D&D 2E - Wait, what? (Spell memorization in 2nd ed AD&D)
So, I was skimming through the rule book for "Gateway to the Savage Frontier", and the section on magic says it takes 4 hours to prepare 1st and 2nd level spells, and six hours to prepare 3rd level spells, minimum, plus 15 minutes per level of spell. So, preparing 2 first level, 1 second level...
www.enworld.org
But given the number of times that you see people, IMO, incorrectly assert that Magic Users (in today's parlance, Wizards) were always predominant in D&D, even in 1e, I thought I'd do an overview into the many ways that the magic users were underpowered in many ways back in 1e, especially compared to today (and even moreso compared to 3e).
1. LFQW isn't accurate for 1e.
The whole "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" didn't apply in the same way in 1e, for a very simple reason. In addition to the other things I am about to point out, there is the issue of survivability. Characters with high constitutions were rarely magic users. That means that the typical MU had (on average) 2.5 hit points per level. Period. And a not-so-great system shock and resurrection chance. An MU topped out at level 11 for hit dice, which means that a top-level MU had, on average, 28 hit points (rounded up). And gained 1hp per level after that. So imagine you are the most powerful wizard in the land- an 18th level MU, who can now bend reality to your will and finally can cast a ninth level spell. You'd probably have under 40hp. Most monsters and martial characters could easily kill you in one round.
So while the basic memory of the MU is correct- it could be terrible to play for the first four levels .... it was never an easy, world-conquering class either.
2. You can ignore the Clerics and the Druids.
Healing was a desperate thing in 1e. For the most part, the scarcity of healing (not to mention issues regarding poison and the like) would usually require Clerics and Druids to use most or all the available spells of certain levels for healing. Again, they had some decent combat spells when they had the slots (Druid's Call Lightning at 3rd was fun, and while the Cleric's Flame Strike wasn't optimal, it was cool). But given the numerous terrible "conditions" (poisoning, disesases, blindness, traps- which the cleric had a spell for, but not the MU, not to mention DEATH) the MU was usually responsible for most combat and utility spells.
3. If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball; but if you can't dodge either, you can't cast a spell.
People in 5e complain about the cocentration mechanic and not being able to stack spells. Well, this was noted in the PHB, which warned you that most spells take some time to cast and as such would go off at the end of the round (or sometimes, the follwoing round) and if they spellcaster was struck, "grabbed," or failed any type of save ... the spell was spoiled. The spell could only be cast when the spellcaster was stationary - not jogging, or moving, or dodging blows. (DMG 65). And once the spell was cast, if it was spoiled, you lost it, it didn't work.
So a MU had to announce their spell they would cast. Attacks against the spellcaster would come in on the roll of the opposing initiative die (a d6, so segment 1-6 of the 10 segment round). The spell would be cast on the MU's side of the initative roll, + the number of segments it would take to cast. And because the caster was stationary, there could be no DEX bonus to the AC. (DMG 65).
As to how long a spell would cast ... a typical "fast" combat spell would take (segments were 1/10 of a round, or 6 seconds) three segments - 18 seconds - to cast, as in fireball. So you see the problem. That's an effective -4 (because a tie is as bad as a loss) on initiative rolls. That placed a huge premium on either the very few "emergency" combat spells (Magic Missile, the Power Words were all one segment), or required careful planning and stealth to use your spells.
(EDIT: I should add if it's not clear that I was using an example of fast combat spells; most spells had casting times of 5-7 segments (sometimes more), which meant that you'd always cast last in a round)
As a general rule, though, spellcasting during combat was very difficult, and if you had intelligent enemies ("Tucker's Kobolds") nearly impossible.
4. You didn't get all the spells.
MUs had a number of restrictions on them based on their intelligence. First, they had a % chance to know each spell; if they tried to learn a spell, and failed, they could never learn it. "Awesome, I'm 5th level, I get fireball! Oh, wait. I can never learn fireball? WHAT?" There was also a maximum number of spells known per level; a MU with a 16 intelligence could only learn 11 spells of any given level. Period.
5. Monsters were tough.
Today, of course, your enterprising young Wizard simply targets the monster's worst ability score (which he totally guessed at because he never looked it up, of course I believe that). In 1e, there were no weak scores. Monsters saved by their Hit Dice. So more powerful monsters were much more likely to make their saving throws, period. Not to mention that the most powerful monsters often had a % spell resistance. I don't want to oversell this- combats could be very swingy; spells could, and would, turn the tide of the battle on a failed saving throw. But more often than not, the big boom would just fizzle.
6. Spells were dangerous.
Casting spells could kills you. There were the unfortunate side effects (certain spells aged you, from haste to resurrection to wish to GATE WHICH AGES YOU FIVE YEARS!!!!!), but sometimes the spells were just downright unsafe. You could dimension door and accidentally end up in the astral planed stunned until someone helped you ... because when I think of the astral plane, I think of helpful people, not monsters that will eat you or raiding Gith parties. Heck, you might accidentally kill a party member when you polymorph them to do something useful, and they fail the system shock. Magic was legititmately awesome, but also kinda sorta dangerous too.
....and everyone has a story about the first time you cast fireball in a restricted space.
7. Spells took forever to "reload."
As previously discussed, spells take 15 minutes to memorize per spell level. (PHB 40). A ninth level MU who cast all of their spells would take (4x1, 3x2, 3x3, 2x4, 1x5) = 480 minutes, or eight hours to "reload" their spells. Which is bad enough, but "reloading" (memorizing again) just three fifth level spells takes nearly four hours (225 minutes) of uninterrupted time. This causes pretty severe restrictions on going "nova" in many adventuring environments. In effect, instead of being able to cast, and then re-cast on a daily basis, deciding when to cast spells (especially the high level ones) became a much more difficult game of resource management.
I wanted to open up a general thread about this, because I had been thinking about it for a while (mostly in the context of MUs- as Alzrius already noted, there were other issues for Clerics and Druids, and everything I wrote above applies moreso to illusionists).
But before I throw it out, one last note-
People played AD&D (1e) in a variety of fashions. Not everyone played the same. Some people played Monty Haul campaigns or campaigns that easily allowed MUs to bypass restrictions. Others ignored all combat rules related to spellcasting. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to play, and there was a lot less reliance on the RAW then there is now. This is simply an observation that while MUs could be pretty awesome, they had a lot of drawbacks that we need to remember and consider that were baked into the ruleset.
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