On Magic Users and Darts: What's Up With That?

[Dannyalcatraz]

As others have mentioned, useless in melee, but even with a dagger or staff, you were useless in melee.

Just as an illustration of the kooky power of statistics & perversity of d20s, the MU in my very first game of AD&D (@1977) was the only other surviving PC besides my human fighter in the penultimate room of the dungeon we were in. He had a MM spell and a staff, my guy had a 2-handed sword.

And yet, after casting his last spell, HIS staff-swinging dude in a robe did the bulk of the melee damage to the Purple Worm that confronted us. I barely scratched it until AFTER it ate him.

On the main topic...

I didn’t play manysingle-classed MUs in...well...ANY edition, but I tended towards staves & daggers. I did play one with darts that I can recall. His spell selection (I can’t recall what it was) wasn’t great, but his Dex was pretty high. So having darts let the PC contribute in combat.

 

[Coroc]

If you want to see dart wizard in action I suggest you play the Baldur's Gate CRPG. They are by far the most effective weapon a wizard can use (and not bad for other classes either). Several reasons:

• Baldur's Gate is a low level adventure, so wizards quickly run out of spells (no cantrips in 2e);
• darts are fast and very good for interrupting hostile spellcasting;
• high RoF compensates for poor thac0;
• Darts benefit from high dex, which a wizard wants anyway for AC purposes;
• Wizards need to stay out of melee range at all costs.

Come 3rd edition, darts are nerfed and wizards can use light crossbows.

Yes and in BG they came in abundance with additional procs like paralyzing wounding etc. Only disadvantage was the stack size so I often equipped my BG wizards with slings instead.

 

[amethal]

Yeah sure Coroc,

I know that now.

When I was 8 years old, however, Darts were lame. I did not know about the information in the link that somebody always posts , (even when the letters D A R T are not remotely close to each other, and not making the word - “dart” ).

To young me Darts and Stones did not sound so impressive. Only Later did I see pictures of weapons, did research, went to a good historical armoury etc to learn the truth.

Ah, the innocence of youth. We used to let clerics use the lucerne hammer (it's a hammer, of course clerics can use it!) and (when playing Call of Cthulhu) assumed you could put a 20mm cannon in your pocket (it's tiny!)

 

[Maxperson]

We took darts a lot in 1e. With d4 hit points, if a magic user was in melee combat the odds of death went waaaaay up. We threw darts at a distance and if something closed with us, we left melee and threw more darts. There were no attacks of opportunity then and you didn't want to stay in melee combat. That was what the fighters were for.

When 2e came along and added specialization and we got more spells, running out of spells in a fight became less common, so we started going with dagger or staff just because it looked cooler. We still got our rears out of melee combat if something closed with us.

 

[Nagol]

One of the first campaign I ran with any success (~1981) at first level, the M-U had 4 times the hit points of the front line paladin!

 

[Maxperson]

One of the first campaign I ran with any success (~1981) at first level, the M-U had 4 times the hit points of the front line paladin!

Rolling a 1 as a fighter class at 1st level really sucked.

 

[jasper]

.........

RULES in AD&D (1E)
MU gets three weapons to choose from; dagger, dart, and staff.
Dagger 1-4 / 1-3
Dart 1-3 / 1-2
Staff 1-6 / 1-6

However, MU only gets one (1) weapon that she is proficient in, doesn't gain another until 7th level, and has a -5 to hit with any non-proficient weapon. For this reason, most MUs only carried one weapon.

......

...

Um It has been a lot of Jim Beam and a lot of years ago. But I think you are wrong on the proficient idea. IMXP the Magic User carried all three if he could afford them at first level.

 

[Maxperson]

Um It has been a lot of Jim Beam and a lot of years ago. But I think you are wrong on the proficient idea. IMXP the Magic User carried all three if he could afford them at first level.

No, he is correct. A level 1 Magic-User got 1 weapon proficiency, had a -5 non-proficient penalty and gained a new weapon proficiency at a rate of 1 every 6 levels.

A lot of rules were ignored or changed by a lot of people in the 1e days. Maybe you guys didn't use proficiencies.

 

[jasper]

Thanks Maxperson. I think we assumed they were proficient in dart, dagger, and staff at first level.

 

[JeffB]

Havent read all the posts but-

To me darts are the 70s option (so 1E) most of the Magic Users (I still use that term whenever I'm talking about D&D-old habits) in our games went with darts- they stayed out of range and used them for missle fire. I always figured they were those spike things Ninjas were always throwing into people's necks on my Saturday morning Kung Fu movies. But one day we were outside playing lawn darts and the next thing you know we were Magic Users running around my yard pretending to be out of spells- so now my mental image are these bigass Lawn Darts from the 70s.

And those friggin things WERE deadly