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<blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 3858552" data-attributes="member: 3649">Not to pick on you specifically, but this opens up a discussion that's been percolating in my brain for some time now.Gandalf is actually an astoundingly poor example to bring into any discussion of D&amp;D spellcasting becasue Gandalf is not what you'd consider a 'player character'. He's a GM plot device that enables certain things to happen, such as the defeat of the Balrog, so the real PC's - the rest of the Fellowship - get to see some cool stuff and not die. Besides being a great example of why certain great books would make very poor games, Galdalf is constrained in ways that are only hinted at. He's not just a mortal man who has studied lore to the point that he can do Cool Stuff, he's basically a demigod figure that - if he misuses his power or uses it too much - allows the Enemy similar free reign in what he can do. You see this a lot in classical high fantasy literature; sure he could probably have wiped out an orc army but that would give Sauron similar license to cut loose on the Armies of the West. Too much of that stuff and they'd literally break the world. Now this is very cool in the books but in a game where people expect a great deal more latitude in what they are allowed to do, it doesn't play very well. We're simply ignorant as to the degree of spellcasting ability Galdalf has at his disposal as oppossed to what we see in the canon, which is what he's allowed to do by higher powers. (This is the major flaw in the amazingly silly early D&amp;D article saying that Gandalf is a fifth-level MU). We never get to see what he's actually capable of. Were he not constrained by the higher powers, I suspect he'd be able to do pretty much anything he wanted to do.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="WayneLigon, post: 3858552, member: 3649"] Not to pick on you specifically, but this opens up a discussion that's been percolating in my brain for some time now. Gandalf is actually an astoundingly poor example to bring into any discussion of D&D spellcasting becasue Gandalf is not what you'd consider a 'player character'. He's a GM plot device that enables certain things to happen, such as the defeat of the Balrog, so the real PC's - the rest of the Fellowship - get to see some cool stuff and not die. Besides being a great example of why certain great books would make very poor games, Galdalf is constrained in ways that are only hinted at. He's not just a mortal man who has studied lore to the point that he can do Cool Stuff, he's basically a demigod figure that - if he misuses his power or uses it too much - allows the Enemy similar free reign in what he can do. You see this a lot in classical high fantasy literature; sure he could probably have wiped out an orc army but that would give Sauron similar license to cut loose on the Armies of the West. Too much of that stuff and they'd literally break the world. Now this is very cool in the books but in a game where people expect a great deal more latitude in what they are allowed to do, it doesn't play very well. We're simply ignorant as to the degree of spellcasting ability Galdalf has [I]at his disposal [/I] as oppossed to what we see in the canon, which is what he's [I]allowed [/I] to do by higher powers. (This is the major flaw in the amazingly silly early D&D article saying that Gandalf is a fifth-level MU). We never get to see what he's actually capable of. Were he not constrained by the higher powers, I suspect he'd be able to do pretty much anything he wanted to do. [/QUOTE]

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