Was Gandalf Just A 5th Level Magic User?

This article from Dragon Magazine, back in 1977, is likely very familiar to many of you (feel free to yawn - this item isn't for you!) However, there are many newer fans of D&D who don't even remember Dragon Magazine, let alone issues from nearly 40 years ago. In the article, Bill Seligman posits that Gandalf was merely a 5th level magic-user. Given Cubicle 7's recent announcement about an official Middle Earth setting for D&D, it seems like a nostalgia piece worth revisiting.

Some folks I hear discussing this topic these days take the position that Gandalf is actually a paladin. Certainly "wizards" in Tolkien's works aren't the same magic-missile-throwing folks as in regular D&D; in fact there are only five wizards in the whole of Middle Earth - and at least one of them (the 7th Doctor) is very clearly a druid.

What do you think? Is Gandalf a 5th level magic-user? What about in 5th Edition, given the upcoming Middle Earth release? I'm sure Cubicle 7 will tells for certain this summer, but until then...

 

[Marandahir]

I'm late to the party, but I'd say, if he's a 5th level Magic User, his race is a totally broken homebrew.

Given that he's an Astral Deva taking mortal form… Devas were balanced in 4e, but in 5e playing one would be totally broken, yes.

 

[Zardnaar]

His race could jsut be NPC, and most likely was since he is a celestial in D&D terms.

 

[Maxperson]

Unless they are actually using magic to aid the process, the Dwarves are still limited by the known physics of forgecraft. They can't make the ores heat faster, hotter or separate into their various elements more rapidly. The metal will quench at a set rate. It will take a certain amount of time to repeatedly hammer and fold the blade in order to get the optimal distribution of carbon (especially Carbon nanotubes), tungsten, vanadium and other trace elements within the steel- plus whatever it is that makes the alloy called Mithril.

Then you can tell me what "physics" allowed them to make a face mask that would keep the entire body of the wearer immune to even the hottest dragon fire.

That isn't about skill, that's physics. Physics doesn't care if you're man or dwarf. Skill doesn't create physics-defying shortcuts.

Reread what I wrote, Maxperson. You are either missing my point or deliberately misrepresenting it.

To be 100% clear: I. Am. Not. Asserting. Dwarves. Can't. Make. Powerful. Magic. Items. Not at all.

What I am saying is that there is zero evidence in the novels that they made a buttload of them.

Other than the Silmarillion stating that they equipped elven armies with weapons to fight Morgoths armies, which included balrogs and other fallen Maia. Hard to equip entire armies to fight things like that if they aren't magical and in large numbers.

You still don't get it. The overall plot of LotR is Middle Earth's facing of an Extinction Level Event.

This is their big meteor coming to hit the planet, and everyone has to work together to make the big super nuclear missile (or missiles) to knock the thing off of its collision trajectory. If the nukes fail, everyone dies, so there is no point in holding anything back. So nobody does. The contingencies in such stories are never "we'll fire our own withheld and secretly better missiles after yours fail because we are so awesome we don't need your help". It's always having bunkers where they hope someone will survive the impact.

Just like the humans, hobbits & everyone else in Middle Earth, the elves and dwarves are screwed if the Company of the Ring fails. If Sauron wins, there won't be a bunker deep enough. There is no point in not supplying elven mail to any of the 9 it will fit. There is no reason for them not to give/loan powerful magic weapons to those who will be facing Sauron...if they have it to give.

The ONLY reason it's an extinction event is because the number of elves and dwarves is so low. Feanor and company would laugh at Sauron and company. Heck, even the Numenoreans forced Sauron at the height of his power to give up and use subtlety and manipulation. He could't beat them.

Yet not even Gimli and Legolas have anything resembling a significant magic weapon at the quest's inception.

Says who? Just because they weren't flashy like Sting, doesn't mean that they weren't magical.

 

[MoonSong]

Given that he's an Astral Deva taking mortal form… Devas were balanced in 4e, but in 5e playing one would be totally broken, yes.

His race could jsut be NPC, and most likely was since he is a celestial in D&D terms.

Aasimar anybody?

 

[Marandahir]

While Deva served the same purpose as Aasimar in 4e, and was intended as a reworked Aasimar (granted, mostly because the developers hated that name and it's connotations), it lacked the key quality of the Aasimar – they're Half-human or more than half-human. I guess they could be half some other race. But the point is that while Deva is a full angel taking on human flesh, an Aasimar has angelic ancestry.

Lúthien is more like an Aasimar than Gandalf. She's half-Elf, half-Celestial.

Gandalf is a full-fledged angel that took on a human shape. That's right there in the Astral Deva description in the Monster Manual for 5e. While you COULD try to emulate him with the Aasimar, you'd be extremely underplaying his latent racial abilities.

 

[jsaving]

It's hard to say whether Lord of the Rings is best described as a low-magic setting (characters have wimpy spells/equipment because nearly all spells/equipment in the world are wimpy) or as a different-magic setting (where magic items tend to look normal and casters for whatever reason tend to shy away from casting the high level spells they possess). I tend to think it's a combination of the two, which makes it even tougher to write a "conversion manual" for LotR.

But getting back to Gandalf -- we're talking about a guy who has three defining features compared to the other NPCs who are seen in the books/movies. One, he can man the front lines and hold his own in melee as those around him go down, not because attacks bounce off of his magical defenses but because of his melee prowess. Two, he has an unparalleled ability to inspire people around him and an unparalleled knowledge of lore. Three, he is able to face epic-level monsters like the balrog and sometimes emerge triumphant, even telling the rest of his high-level party to fall back because the balrog is beyond their -- but implicitly not his -- power.

Taken together, it just seems untenable to stat Gandalf as a low-level character. A better approach is probably to give him max XP and then figure out his class(es) based on which class features best epitomize what he does in the setting. While there are always pitfalls in this kind of exercise, I'd look for class(es) that would give him some combination of the extra attack class feature, spellcasting, access to an inspiration/exhortation class feature, and some knowledge of lore. This would lead me toward either a college of valor bard or an eldritch knight, which are two of the more common ways people have statted Gandalf in the past. The eldritch knight approach nicely reconciles Gandalf being a high-level character yet never casting high-level spells, while the bard approach handles the knowledge/inspiration aspect of his character while also offering class features like countercharm and magical secrets that dovetail nicely with his eclectic spellbook and ability to break through enchantments.

Opting for 20th level wizard is certainly another possibility, as Gandalf calls himself a wizard and carries the signature weapon of a wizard. I don't see the class features of a 5th edition wizard as being a great fit for Gandalf, personally, but maybe it would be possible to carefully tailor his spellbook to include mainly buffs/divinations and then explain his apparent lack of magic by saying he was constantly casting those kinds of spells off-camera. His martial prowess, inspiration ability and uncanny knowledge of lore would then be coming from spells even though we didn't explicitly "see" the appropriate spells being cast, an approach that could potentially make him a much higher-level wizard than he "appeared" to be.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My point is that there is as much evidence for the bomb as there is for a Staff of Power. That amount is zero. Assuming a Staff of Power is bupkis.

Well, there was a staff, so that's more evidence than for a bomb, FWTW.

But, from a slightly different angle, isn't it fair to say that the few things Gandalf did with his staff up to and destroying the bridge, might have been inspiration for the Staff of the Magi (including its retributive strike), and the things he did with his new staff after could have been inspiration for the Staff of Power. Both magic items do a lot more (typical for D&D, really), but are consistent with the powers displayed.

They are poor approximations limited by play balance.

heh

I'm simply rejecting the plethora of unsupported assumptions that the author of the essay makes in order to make everything as weak as he wants it.

Remember, he was working without the Silmarilion, and going by what the character displayed. Sure, a 5th level magic-user could have done what Gandalf did in LotR, as far as actual spell-casting ability displayed. A higher level D&D magic user in a similar scenario could have done a lot more, and probably would have. It just illustrated that D&D magic-users didn't emulate the 'high fantasy' genre very well, and already had gone beyond the pale.

There was a tendency to translate almost any literary character as very high level, and possessing rule-breaking special abilities, class combinations, levels and the like, especially in Giants in the Earth.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, there was a staff, so that's more evidence than for a bomb, FWTW.

There was a fuse at the bottom of the staff

Seriously, though, that's only evidence of a staff, not a Staff of Power.

But, from a slightly different angle, isn't it fair to say that the few things Gandalf did with his staff up to and destroying the bridge, might have been inspiration for the Staff of the Magi (including its retributive strike), and the things he did with his new staff after could have been inspiration for the Staff of Power. Both magic items do a lot more (typical for D&D, really), but are consistent with the powers displayed.

Inspiration isn't the same as the thing being what you are inspired to create. A dog running across the street to his master could inspire me to write a love story. That doesn't make the dog a leading man.

Remember, he was working without the Silmarilion, and going by what the character displayed. Sure, a 5th level magic-user could have done what Gandalf did in LotR, as far as actual spell-casting ability displayed. A higher level D&D magic user in a similar scenario could have done a lot more, and probably would have. It just illustrated that D&D magic-users didn't emulate the 'high fantasy' genre very well, and already had gone beyond the pale.

True.

There was a tendency to translate almost any literary character as very high level, and possessing rule-breaking special abilities, class combinations, levels and the like, especially in Giants in the Earth.

Well, most literary characters are depicted as very powerful, or else grow into being very powerful. I'm not familiar with Giants in the Earth, though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Inspiration isn't the same as the thing being what you are inspired to create.

Exactly. D&D was inspired by Lovecraft, Lieber, Moorcock, Howard, Tolkien &c. But it didn't faithfully simulate specifics of their work. Gandalf was the greatest wizard of his age, but he inspired a handful of 1st - 3rd level spells, and few magic items (which each do a lot more than was displayed when he used them). Aragorn was a lost king who could summon a ghost army, but he inspired a class that was good at tracking, killing giants, and attracted random woodsy followers and cast low-level MU & Druid spells at high level.

Well, most literary characters are depicted as very powerful, or else grow into being very powerful.

That's just the point, though. Gandalf is very powerful, but D&D rates the magical powers he actually displays as fairly low-level spells.

I'm not familiar with Giants in the Earth, though.

Just the title of the regular feature in The Dragon that presented D&D stats for literary or legendary characters.

 

[Maxperson]

Exactly. D&D was inspired by Lovecraft, Lieber, Moorcock, Howard, Tolkien &c. But it didn't faithfully simulate specifics of their work. Gandalf was the greatest wizard of his age, but he inspired a handful of 1st - 3rd level spells, and few magic items (which each do a lot more than was displayed when he used them). Aragorn was a lost king who could summon a ghost army, but he inspired a class that was good at tracking, killing giants, and attracted random woodsy followers and cast low-level MU & Druid spells at high level.


That's just the point, though. Gandalf is very powerful, but D&D rates the magical powers he actually displays as fairly low-level spells. Just the title of the regular feature in The Dragon that presented D&D stats for literary or legendary characters.

Huh! With all the Dragon magazines I read from 1e to 3e, you'd think I'd have known that.