OSR Old school wizards, how do you play level 1?

[Mannahnin]

Just because the character's a magic-user doesn't mean everything it does has to be magical.

I mean, you could have accomplished the same thing in a far simpler way by just giving this guy a bag of rocks and proficiency with sling (they're pre-gens, so maybe in that setting 'sling' is an allowed weapon option for all mages?).

Well no naughty word. That's why I was talking about this being something I've "toyed with" as opposed to it being a core rule in my games. It is B/X, so M-Us are dagger-only, but sure, I could make another house rule to give them slings. BtB a bandolier of daggers would theoretically be an option, but for my taste that's mostly a funny meme or occasionally an option of necessity in certain games. The idea of the wand for that character is to give them something special that feels magical but allows a little more frequent (but not unlimited!) use.

And I explicitly talked about how this is a case of competing priorities I'm working to balance- the player's desire for their character to feel more magical with the paradigmatic difference of older-school D&D being about less-frequent but more individually powerful spells, contrasted with modern D&D's constant availability of magic via cantrips but individual spells being generally weaker and less impactful.

Do you feel like a Fighter if you only fight occasionally?

Yes. Likewise when I play any other class. No one gets to do their class schtick constantly.

FOUL. Not the question he asked.

The word was "occasionally". Not "anything other than constantly". If you only get to do your character's main shtick a fraction of the time, it's a common experience for players to feel like they're not getting quite the experience they expected and signed up for.

This is a matter of subjective taste, of course. Older editions (at least at low levels) don't give spell casters as many chances to cast spells, but they make those spells powerful and badass, as a rule.

Some players can play a 3rd level M-U and enjoy knowing that they've got the encounter nuke of Sleep on deck to save the party's bacon, Hold Portal for an emergency to help the party escape, and Knock to access a locked treasure which would be inaccessible otherwise, and relish the fun of those few moments they get to bust out a spell during the adventure. Other players don't have as much fun sitting back and waiting for those golden opportunities, and would prefer to be actively magical more than one to three times a session.

For my money both styles of magic in-world are fun, but I get why some players definitely prefer the latter. I was certainly more one of those when I was younger.

 

[Quickleaf]

Trained war dogs are also a good choice.

"Hah, this feeble mage hides because he is reduced to throwing components at us. Bacon trimmings, really? Clearly, you have no magic left and now Uruik the Butcher wi– Wh- Why are those hounds looking at me like that?"

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"Hah, this feeble mage hides because he is reduced to throwing components at us. Bacon trimmings, really? Clearly, you have no magic left and now Uruik the Butcher wi– Wh- Why are those hounds looking at me like that?"

Heh, there's a fight that goes exactly this way in World of Warcraft.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The other old suggestion I like to make M-Us feel more magical is to rule that they can always do minor cantrip-y things based on whatever spells they have memorized. Being able to light their pipe or a rope on fire with their fingertip if they have Fireball memorized, for example. Or lull small children or animals to sleep if they have Sleep prepared. Generally I want to restrict it to utility and flavor functions, but it's a nice option if the player doesn't feel like their character is magical enough.

The road to hell is paved with good intenetions...

This is actually a good idea. It is such a good idea, that it was the basis behind the original cantrips in Dragon Magazine (and UA).

But once you uncorked that bottle, it was a short hop & skip to PEW PEW PEW.

(Which, again, if that's your thing ... no kink shaming here. But if I was going to go with this idea, I like your implementation of "always able to do something very minor" as opposed to codified cantrips.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The road to hell is paved with good intenetions...

This is actually a good idea. It is such a good idea, that it was the basis behind the original cantrips in Dragon Magazine (and UA).

But once you uncorked that bottle, it was a short hop & skip to PEW PEW PEW.

(Which, again, if that's your thing ... no kink shaming here. But if I was going to go with this idea, I like your implementation of "always able to do something very minor" as opposed to codified cantrips.)

Yeah, this is the core of the issue.

1. Being a magic user throwing darts or firing sling stones or just not participating in combat (which every edition of D&D spends a ton of rules on, letting you know just how important it is in the game) sucks for that player. (Note that most of the people arguing that this is fine are DMs or non-MU players.)
2. But letting magic users do magic all the time inevitably raises the magic level of the game.

It's a real pick-your-poison sort of choice. Even if one doesn't love how 5E turned out as a result, it's not hard to see why WotC went this way in the closing days of 3E with feats that allowed constant low level magical effects if a wizard held onto a given uncast spell.

 

[Mannahnin]

The road to hell is paved with good intenetions...

This is actually a good idea. It is such a good idea, that it was the basis behind the original cantrips in Dragon Magazine (and UA).

But once you uncorked that bottle, it was a short hop & skip to PEW PEW PEW.

(Which, again, if that's your thing ... no kink shaming here. But if I was going to go with this idea, I like your implementation of "always able to do something very minor" as opposed to codified cantrips.)

Oh yes, the idea's been batted around for decades and I'm fairly certain I first saw it in a Dragon article for 1E.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Oh yes, the idea's been batted around for decades and I'm fairly certain I first saw it in a Dragon article for 1E.

....the history lesson wasn't for you, Mannahnin!

I know you well enough.


I guess that brings up the question ... who was the history lesson for? Or do I just like to needlessly inject history into everything? Or do I just enjoy ranting about how everything got worse with Unearthed Arcana?

...eh, self-reflection is for people who have the luxury to not be continuously typing moar wordz.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The other old suggestion I like to make M-Us feel more magical is to rule that they can always do minor cantrip-y things based on whatever spells they have memorized. Being able to light their pipe or a rope on fire with their fingertip if they have Fireball memorized, for example. Or lull small children or animals to sleep if they have Sleep prepared. Generally I want to restrict it to utility and flavor functions, but it's a nice option if the player doesn't feel like their character is magical enough.

Which is why- even though I don’t feel casters need to be using magic all the time- Reserve Feats were one of my favorite categories of caster feats. I was disappointed to see them disappear in 4Ed.

And the Shadow Magic rules let casters use lesser powers as at-wills after they’d become powerful enough.

As I recall, Mutants & Masterminds also explicitly let you do similar minor stunts & tricks that seemed natural outgrowths of powers without making you buy completely separate powers. (Handy, if you were using that system to run a fantasy campaign.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

sucks for that player

Sucks for SOME players. Personally, I relished the challenge of contributing without Magic.

 

[Mannahnin]

Which is why- even though I don’t feel casters need to be using magic all the time- Reserve Feats were one of my favorite categories of caster feats. I was disappointed to see them disappear in 4Ed.

And the Shadow Magic rules let casters use lesser powers as at-wills after they’d become powerful enough.

Same, at the time (I played a Shadowcaster for a whole campaign, too). Though I'm now less fond of unlimited-use magic than I was.