Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6752625" data-attributes="member: 22779">I'm going to call shenanigans on this.  True, Rangers and Paladins did in AD&D gain spells, it wasn't until 8th level - just before name level as I mentioned earlier, and after a LOT of play.  You're looking at getting 1st and 2nd level spells (and not too many of them) at the most by the end of a campaign.  Add to that the fact that your clerics in AD&D (1e or 2e) have a MUCH truncated spell list that includes virtually no offensive spells until about 4th or 5th level (about 7th or 9th character level) and you're not going to see a whole lot of clerical magic outside of healing and status effect removal.Add to that you have little to no magic item creation in AD&D (yes, yes, it could be done, but, it certainly wasn't as easy as it is in 3e), and the magic items you find are overwhelmingly consumables.  Now, you could certainly jack up the magic level.  You mention Tomb of Horrors or White Plume Mountain.  Both Gygax modules which are seriously Monty Haul, but, besides that, both very high level modules as well.  Start looking at modules like Secret of Saltmarsh, Cult of the Reptile God, Isle of Dread, or the A series modules and there aren't all that many magic items in there.  It isn't until you get into the high level stuff, particularly the high level Gygax stuff, that you see very high magic.  But, then again, as far as magical creatures go, remember, most critters didn't have magical effects.  Again, you mention demons - something you generally don't see until name level.  Drow is another example of high level monster as are Mind Flayers.  Get in to the stuff you would typically meet from levels 1-9, trolls, giants, orcs and humanoids, maybe some of the lower end undead, and various giant animals, and you don't see a lot of magic.Good grief, look at the change to dragons.  Dragons in 1e might not even have any spells.  By 3rd edition, every Elder Wyrm is an Archmage.  Demons go from having a small handful of spell abilities to having a shopping list.  On an on.And that's my point.  You could play earlier D&D as high magic.  Not a problem whatsoever.  Most of the magic would come from items.  But, you could very easily play 1e or 2e as pretty low magic.  One or two items per PC by 8th level, wizards weren't needed - fighters and fighter types were such damage kings that wizards were pretty much baggage until about 6th level.  The primary source of magic in the game, at least on a session by session basis would be clerics.  Not that it had to be played this way.  But, it very, very easily could.  It's 3e that blew those gates wide open - bonus spells for casters, any class that gained spells gained them MUCH earlier - Paladins go from gaining a single 1st level cleric spell at 9th to gaining spells by 4th level, and gaining bonus spells for high stats.  Never minding a hugely expanded spell list to choose from.</blockquote>

Verification