The fireball spell through the editions

[painandgreed]

However, I sort of miss designing dungeons to take into account fireballs volume. Walls of force, illusionary walls making the room look smaller, and additional corriders to vent fireballs and lessen their effect in rooms with bad guys. Then building the corridors to encounter the BBEG as narrow and long with proper volume so that a fireball will envelope the entire hallway including back around corners where people might be hiding.

 

[Evilhalfling]

in earlier addtions the party just stopped preping fireball for dungeons - and occasionally got caught by bouncing L bolts.

My fav use of lightning was the vampire mage and the paladin in a 10x10 room - the mist floated away chuckling evily.

And I still remember the line from Homelands trilogy (where the drow refused to send mages top side after a mishap with a FB exploding to an unpredictible size. Made drow look like novices. )

 

[TheNovaLord]

I agree with your basic point, but ought to note that thieves didn't come into OD&D until Greyhawk (supplement 1) and they arrived with d6 hd, mirroring clerics.

QUOTE]

maybe i meant basic D&D where thieves only had d4 hp! the red book

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I agree with your basic point, but ought to note that thieves didn't come into OD&D until Greyhawk (supplement 1) and they arrived with d6 hd, mirroring clerics.

QUOTE]

maybe i meant basic D&D where thieves only had d4 hp! the red book

Actually, thieves used 1d4 for HD in the Greyhawk Suppment (OD&D), the Basic "blue book" (Holmes) the Moldvay/Cook Basic Red Book (B/X), and the Mentzer Basic Red Book (BECMI). I believe it was only in AD&D that thieves had 1d6 for HD.

The terms I used for the various editions I took from common usage on the Dragonsfoot site. Not trying to impose anything "official," but they are handy:

OD&D = three booklets + supplements

Holmes Basic = "blue book" (still pretty close to OD&D, actually)

B/X (Moldvay/Cook/Marsh) = 1981 basic and expert (Erol Otus cover art)

BECMI/RC (Mentzer) = basic/expert/companion/masters/immortals/rules cyclopedia. (Elmore cover art)

 

[Contrarian]

My magic-user was a friggin' terror in the dungeon; thankfully my DM was gracious enough to allow us to use the "open the door a crack...fireball in, slam the door and jump back" strategy.:

I used to let PCs do that back when I was 13 and didn't know any better. Which leads to My Best Fireball Story:

PCs are slogging through G-1-2-3 Against the Giants. (It's been so long, I don't remember exactly which giant stronghold they were in.) They come to a closed door, the thief listens at the door, and the party decides the bad guys on the other side are tough enough that they need to soften them up with the "fireball and shut the door trick." Unfortunately for them, the door is locked and the thief fails this lockpicking roll.

The players' brilliant plan? The magic-user will start casting Fireball, then the ranger will force the door open, and then the magic-user will send the fireball through the door, and then the ranger will shut the door.

Yeah, what you're imagining right now is exactly what happened.

The ranger, despite wearing a girdle of giant strength (and thus having something like a 95% of forcing open doors) fails. The magic-user blasts the ranger in the back with a fireball. The party takes massive damage -- one PC dies on the spot. The ranger (still alive, because he was 100-hp tank) is knocked through the flaming remains of the door into the room, and combat begins.

On a more positive note, I did rule that the NPCs inside the room were suprised by the exploding door and flaming ranger, because I know I sure as hell would be.

Nobody ever tried "fireball and shut the door" after that.

 

[Quasqueton]

I just added the D&D4 version of fireball to the list.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...eball-spell-through-editions.html#post2972187

Quasqueton

 

[Remathilis]

One side note--I think the idea of capping hte damage of fire ball and similar spells to a certain number of d6s was first introduced in (IIRC) the Companion Rules set. There the limit was 20d6. 3e tones it down to 10d6.

Actually, 2e toned them down to 10d6. They also limited magic missiles (5 max), and lightning bolt (10d6) the same way.

Beyond that, I recall with horror stories from a former roommate about a DM he knew that counted cubic feet for fireball. After the 2nd TPK (cept for the caster) no one was allowed to memorize or cast that spell in their group. Even having it in your spellbook was grounds for your PC being attacked and killed by the other PCs!

 

[The Shaman]

I still use 33,000 cubic foot fireballs.

Heck, and bouncing lightning bolts as well - if the bolt does not do enough damage to break through a barrier, it bounces back instead.

As it should be.

 

[Ahglock]

Yup. Takes away so much power from the arcane classes you almost might consider running a fighter at 5th level or higher

Weirdly enough, despite this in 3e wizards became more powerful than ever before. I thought thieves needed work in the previous editions, but most of the other classes actually in game play worked out well. In 2e as you leveled, you encountered Magic resistance, much nastier than 3es spell resistance, and saves were much harder to overcome. Save or die spells were a waste to cast and fire ball did pidly damage.

 

[starwed]

Heh, for the first page or so I was wondering why an edition war hadn't broken out...