D&D General TSR to WoTC shift--OR--the de-prioritization on Exploration spells/classes

[Voadam]

In TSR era D&D, utility spells were important, and often more important than combat spells. Most old school players knows how only a newbie Magic User takes Magic Missile at first level, the real powerful spell to take was either sleep or charm person. Spells like levitate, knock, teleport, invisibility, and dispel magic were very important. Sure, you also had combat spells, but crowd control was more important than DPR: hold person, sleep, stinking cloud, etc. If I were to make a guess, I'd say over 50% of your memorized spells were utility spells.

I don't get this divide.

Combat is more than just DPR attacks.

Knock seems the only pure utility spell there.

Teleport is very utility heavy, but also a great combat retreat spell or part of scry buff teleport attack plans.

Levitate can be either utility or defensive in combat to stay out of melee.

Invisibility is utility for scouting and such but also useful for getting around in combat or getting a combat advantage.

Dispel magic is useful for countering opponents spells or breaking their ongoing magical effects.

Charm person can turn an enemy into a friend.

Sleep is a combat spell, I have never seen a situation that calls for a utility insomnia cure (though someone could work hard to contrive one in an adventure).

While half may have had some out of combat utility, I would guess a much larger percentage had combat utility.

Affect normal fire made your torches last longer, but not much combat utility that I could think of. Identify was an out of combat only spell, though learning command words for looted wands and their charges (approximately) was definitely useful for combat.

 

[Voadam]

For probably the first couple years or so of my gaming I played a bunch of B/X and 1e but they were all one shots or single module or connected module series. I can't remember playing a character continuously enough to level, even when playing through the first two of the desert of desolation series. Xp is only a reward for extended campaign play.

We explored and we got into combat and we interacted with things. That was the fun.

I think I was the first in my group to start a campaign, and that was after 1e Unearthed Arcana came out. I applied 1e xp rules and the training rules but it was a lot of book keeping and accounting on my end and I know I never explained the xp charts, those were in the DMG, not the PH and the DMG seemed to encourage having the players focus on being sword and sorcery heroic immersion by gating such behind the screen rules so they would not consider them except through experience.

I do remember playing a long campaign of Warhammer FRP 1e after that came out and getting I think 100 xp each game which was enough to advance one thing one rank, so it was something you could plan out and a bit of a reward to keep playing, but I would have to look up whether that matches the actual xp award system they had. When I was playing I didn't own the book, only the GM did so I borrowed it to make my character and then occasionally to look up stuff like different advanced class options, immersing myself in the cool art, and learning some of the rules and world flavor. I do not remember looking up xp awards to see about maximizing my advancement, rather I gamed out spending xp on things like attacks first to efficiently make the more powerful combat advancements earlier.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't know if I'd characterize it that way. I mean, yes, the various guidelines for non-combat XP awards were easy to overlook, and often relied on DM judgment calls (which I suspect led to arguments about whether or not a DM was assigning XP correctly), but I suspect that if applied liberally they had a fairly decent overall chance of replacing the XP-for-GP standard fairly well (though that's based purely on my eyeballing it).

We used that and I had players picking healing priests and a Rogue that got 3-4 levels ahead of the rest of the party.

So I think the thief hit level 9 while everyone else was level 5-6.

 

[Lanefan]

Combat is more than just DPR attacks.

Or it once was, at any rate.

Teleport is very utility heavy, but also a great combat retreat spell or part of scry buff teleport attack plans.

In 3e and forward, Teleport is very close to broken. With 1e's small but not-zero risk of splinching yourself and your passengers into solid rock it became much more emergency-only (for wise characters anyway).

Invisibility is utility for scouting and such but also useful for getting around in combat or getting a combat advantage.

Only once per combat, unless you want to keep re-casting it.

Dispel magic is useful for countering opponents spells or breaking their ongoing magical effects.

Charm person can turn an enemy into a friend.

Sleep is a combat spell, I have never seen a situation that calls for a utility insomnia cure (though someone could work hard to contrive one in an adventure).

Agreed on these.

Affect normal fire made your torches last longer, but not much combat utility that I could think of. Identify was an out of combat only spell, though learning command words for looted wands and their charges (approximately) was definitely useful for combat.

Thing is, we're so used to the ways utility spells have been co-opted for combat that we lose sight of their original purpose.

Light was supposed to obviate the need for torches but became a combat spell. Fly is largely utility but can also greatly help in a fight; Spider Climb is more toward utility. Unseen Servant is utility all the way. Defensive spells like Alarm, Hold Portal, Wizard Lock, etc. are utility only. And so on.

 

[Lanefan]

For probably the first couple years or so of my gaming I played a bunch of B/X and 1e but they were all one shots or single module or connected module series. I can't remember playing a character continuously enough to level, even when playing through the first two of the desert of desolation series. Xp is only a reward for extended campaign play.

We explored and we got into combat and we interacted with things. That was the fun.

This!

I think I was the first in my group to start a campaign, and that was after 1e Unearthed Arcana came out. I applied 1e xp rules and the training rules but it was a lot of book keeping and accounting on my end and I know I never explained the xp charts, those were in the DMG, not the PH and the DMG seemed to encourage having the players focus on being sword and sorcery heroic immersion by gating such behind the screen rules so they would not consider them except through experience.

Indeed. Let players worry about playing their characters and leave the number-crunching to the DM.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't get this divide.

Combat is more than just DPR attacks.

Knock seems the only pure utility spell there.

Teleport is very utility heavy, but also a great combat retreat spell or part of scry buff teleport attack plans.

Levitate can be either utility or defensive in combat to stay out of melee.

Invisibility is utility for scouting and such but also useful for getting around in combat or getting a combat advantage.

Dispel magic is useful for countering opponents spells or breaking their ongoing magical effects.

Charm person can turn an enemy into a friend.

Sleep is a combat spell, I have never seen a situation that calls for a utility insomnia cure (though someone could work hard to contrive one in an adventure).

While half may have had some out of combat utility, I would guess a much larger percentage had combat utility.

Affect normal fire made your torches last longer, but not much combat utility that I could think of. Identify was an out of combat only spell, though learning command words for looted wands and their charges (approximately) was definitely useful for combat.

I didn’t say they were only combat spells. In fact, I included sleep explicitly as a non-dpr combat spell. But what I was getting at was those spells are also heavily utility spells that are not being used as nearly as often as they used to be for utility.

Charm person is a huge utility spell, more effective out of combat than in combat I’d argue. Not only is it a way to to gain a friend who might know things or be a source of information out of combat, but is very powerful to get a mayor, advisor, captain of the guard, etc to do what you want.

If you’ve never seen sleep out of combat, then I think you really missed an opportunity. It’s been used to put guards to sleep, allowing the avoidance of combat altogether. That’s a frequent occurrence.

Dispel magic IME was used way more in 1e out of combat than in combat. So many obstacles in the exploration phase were magical where dispel magic was needed or useful. Persistent magical effects were all over the place.

I won’t repeat the same reasons Lanfan gave for the other spells as to why a spell like invisibility was more useful out of combat than in combat.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I didn’t say they were only combat spells. In fact, I included sleep explicitly as a non-dpr combat spell. But what I was getting at was those spells are also heavily utility spells that are not being used as nearly as often as they used to be for utility.

Charm person is a huge utility spell, more effective out of combat than in combat I’d argue. Not only is it a way to to gain a friend who might know things or be a source of information out of combat, but is very powerful to get a mayor, advisor, captain of the guard, etc to do what you want.

If you’ve never seen sleep out of combat, then I think you really missed an opportunity. It’s been used to put guards to sleep, allowing the avoidance of combat altogether. That’s a frequent occurrence.

Dispel magic IME was used way more in 1e out of combat than in combat. So many obstacles in the exploration phase were magical where dispel magic was needed or useful. Persistent magical effects were all over the place.

I won’t repeat the same reasons Lanfan gave for the other spells as to why a spell like invisibility was more useful out of combat than in combat.

I wouldn't consider using sleep in that manner out-of-combat. Or, at least, if we consider that to be OOC then a surprise fireball that ends combat before it begins is also an OOC spell, which seems like a stretch.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I wouldn't consider using sleep in that manner out-of-combat. Or, at least, if we consider that to be OOC then a surprise fireball that ends combat before it begins is also an OOC spell, which seems like a stretch.

Fireball hurts and kills things. And has a very large bang and…well…fireball. Sleep is more discreet without causing any harm. In combat, things typically get hurt or killed. Sleep doesn’t do that and fireball does. Not the same.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Fireball hurts and kills things. And has a very large bang and…well…fireball. Sleep is more discreet without causing any harm. In combat, things typically get hurt or killed. Sleep doesn’t do that and fireball does. Not the same.

It actually doesn't have a loud bang. You can rule that it has a loud bang, but that's your own ruling. Even in Chromatic Dragons the spell description says nothing about Fireball being loud.

Also, I'm pretty sure that guys in chainmail/plate holding weapons suddenly falling over could cause quite a racket.

One might be more subtle than the other in certain circumstances, but I think it's a stretch to say that sleep is discrete while fireball is anything but, and suggest that it's anything more than your own personal preference.

 

[Lanefan]

If it defeats the opponents, or helps to do so, it's combat. Sleep qualifies all day long.