The Mysterious Mage vs. Pew Pew

[SkidAce]

Why in hell does everyone presume that the wizard was ever getting into melee combat?

Because in our experience they were.

 

[Hussar]

Because in our experience they were.

Why?

I'm not trying to be obtuse here, but, you've got a group of six-eight PC's. Why on earth is your wizard ever getting into melee? Did everyone just part like the Red Sea and let the monsters go bash on the wizard?

It's from comments such as the wizard "spending the game cowering behind the fighter after casting his only spell(s)" and "throwing darts instead of casting spells is worthless".

Granted, low-level spellcasters in D&D have been weak, but I don't remember them being "completely useless" when they weren't throwing spells.

Something to remember though, one of the two biggest changes from AD&D to 3e is the incredible increase in monster power. (the other change was presumed party size) In A&D, darts actually were pretty dangerous. You could do 4-5 points of damage per round with darts, by and large. Three attacks per round meant you were hitting at least once and twice wasn't out of line.

When monsters only had less than 20 hp and big monsters had about 40, doing 5 points of damage in a round was significant. You could pretty easily kill any 1HD or less creature and a lot of what you would face up to about 4th or 5th level might actually only have 1 HD or so. For a significant portion of the campaign, you actually were effective in combat. Not as effective as the fighter, sure, but, not useless.

By the time you hit 5th level, sure those darts aren't really doing that much, but now you have spells to cover most situations and probably a magic wand or two to let you deal with the rest. 100 charges in a wand meant you could blast away all day long and your wand really wasn't going to run out anytime soon.

Fast forward to 3e. Now, your 1HD creatures average 5 HP and you only get one attack per round for d3 points of damage. You aren't even killing kobolds in a given round, whereas in 1e or 2e it was possibly you were dropping three.

Something had to change. If you drop the wizards in combat abilties you have to bump them up somewhere, and that was in spells per day. But, that's where the problem comes because while they bumped the spells per day, and made the spells less subject to interpretation, they left in all the really game breaking spells. No one memorized Glitterdust in 2e when the choice was Glitterdust or Invisibility. Invis was just too good. But, in 3e, where I have so many more slots available, and scrolls as well, then there's no problem taking both.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

It's from comments such as the wizard "spending the game cowering behind the fighter after casting his only spell(s)" and "throwing darts instead of casting spells is worthless".

Sounds exactly like my experiences.

Granted, low-level spellcasters in D&D have been weak, but I don't remember them being "completely useless" when they weren't throwing spells.

They were pretty weak. Thieves got dungeoneering skills, fighters got butt-kicking abilities, and wizards got ... I seem to recall them not even having that many NWPs. Anyone can RP, regardless of class or role, but it's not to get tools to go with the RP.

Wizards being weak at low levels was seen as a bug, not a feature, for a lot of people. WotC responded with new class design. I don't see how giving customers what they want is such a bad thing. (Note the DM is also a customer; hence my hatred for OP stuff, even if some players want it.)

 

[BenBrown]

I'm not trying to be obtuse here, but, you've got a group of six-eight PC's. Why on earth is your wizard ever getting into melee? Did everyone just part like the Red Sea and let the monsters go bash on the wizard?

I don't think I ever had 6-8 PCs in an AD&D game. 2-3 was a lot more likely, with or without NPCs.

Was I "doing it wrong"? Probably. I was 12 at the time.

 

[Votan]

Why?

I'm not trying to be obtuse here, but, you've got a group of six-eight PC's. Why on earth is your wizard ever getting into melee? Did everyone just part like the Red Sea and let the monsters go bash on the wizard?

There is the haze of more than a decade of recollection, but what I seem to recall was that the theory of the front lin worked well in dungeon corridors and badly in open places (think random encounter at night). Heck, we still see this with 3E which si why 4E introduced the marking mechanic to try and make creatures attack the big armored guy.

It was also worth noting that monsters were (correctly) afraid of mages in 1E/2E -- so good tactics on the part of any group was to focus on the wizards. It was fair enough -- the second players identied a possible wizard they did everything they could to attack and kill it.

If you could form a line, that didn't work so well. But in the open, stopping circling without opportunity attacks is rough.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I agree. I'm not sure why any 1st level party would recruit a wizard. His 1 spell for the day is likely to not be that useful compared to any other PC class taking his place.
.

Back in the day, his one spell would almost certainly be sleep. Take out 4-16HD of creatures of up to 4HD with no saving thrown.

Party of 5 attacked by a dozen orcs, twenty kobolds? That one MU spell was a lifesaver for the party.

Back in those days sleep really -meant- something

 

[Salamandyr]

In an older game of D&D, the magic user's player might also be running a man at arms henchman, or have a war dog. He might even be running one or more other characters. So even if the magic user wasn't sitting out a few combats where his magical talents weren't needed, the player wasn't.

 

[Hussar]

In an older game of D&D, the magic user's player might also be running a man at arms henchman, or have a war dog. He might even be running one or more other characters. So even if the magic user wasn't sitting out a few combats where his magical talents weren't needed, the player wasn't.

Y'know, that's a good point. While I realize not ever group did this, it does tend to mitigate the issues of not having your character do something every round. While your main character isn't doing anything, your three flunky characters are.

Really depends on the group. 3e and later pretty much dispensed with this idea, although, they kept pets in 3e which caused its own problems because turns could take so long.