Wait, so 7/8/9th level spells weren't in OD&D?

[pawsplay]

Interestingly, d20 Modern takes a similar approach. Spells top out at 5th level; slow to cast Incantations are required for anything mightier.

 

[hong]

I could never restrict magic to 5th level. It's unrealistic to put a cap. With magic, there is no limit.

And you'll get angry players when they can't kill with a word or gate in mighty demons like "other D&D players" can. You get laughed at by fellow gamers when you tell them that your 20th-level wizard can't cast chain lightning or look really cool blasting opponents with a meteor swarm.

 

[Greegan75]

Hong you're funny

 

[S'mon]

Amen. BECMI for life.

I do love the RC, but mostly for Mentzer's dominion ruling & war machine mass combat rules from the Companion set, which I use in all my games. I settled on using Moldvay-Cook/Marsh 1981 Basic/Expert though as the basis for one of my PBEMs, mostly because I find Mentzer's Weapon Mastery rules over-complex and over-powered, and I like not having spells above 6th. Plus Moldvay is a really good concise writer, I think 1981 Moldvay Basic is the best ready-reference for running a D&D game that's ever been written.

 

[Plane Sailing]

we were playing OD&D + greyhawk+blackmoor+eldritch wizardry+houserules at the time when we saw both AD&D and Basic D&D arrive.

We looked at AD&D and BD&D and since the latter had a built in assumption of 1st-3rd level characters and all our existing PCs were higher level than that, we just went with AD&D.

In some ways I regret that, because it meant that I never saw the expert/ advanced/ companion/ immortals/ whatever sets come out that extended the BD&D rules... and it sounds as though they covered a lot of things that AD&D only alluded to and 3e never bothers dealing with at all.

We had our house rules for setting up kingdoms and ascending to godhood, but it would have been nice to see some well thought out things for that kind of stuff.

Cheers

 

[S'mon]

Plane Sailing - I have somewhat similar regrets; age 12 in 1985 I was getting into D&D and a friend sold me his 1e Monster Manual & DMG, so that's what I went with, going straight to Unearthed Arcana. Initially all the PCs were either Rangers or Clerics (even in 1e, Clerics were a very powerful class), but soon it was all UA munchkin Drow Clerics and Cavaliers. I coped by running an incredibly tough campaign, but with hindsight I really regret not trying Basic-Expert etc D&D back in the day, it seems a far better balanced system than 1e, especially 1e post UA.

 

[diaglo]

The original Chainmail and all of the OD&D supplements are available in PDF format from RPGNow (search for them by name). I could not, however, find the core three rule books.

cool. i don't do pdfs and i already have the supplements so i didn't bother to look for them.
but i think you and i are still right about the core booklets not being available legally.

 

[Baumi]

Why do you need Chainmail for OD&D?

 

[hong]

Why do you need Chainmail for OD&D?

Full plate hadn't been invented in 1974.

 

[diaglo]

Why do you need Chainmail for OD&D?

please tell me you didn't write that????