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Post by Red Baron on Oct 20, 2020 16:42:41 GMT -6
Vance always keeps magic strange and wonderful, so I think any attempt to hedge magic into one highly-codified system is rather "un-Vancian". D&D benefits from following suit - eg. hypnotists, time travellers, Phil Dick style pre-cogs/ anti-precogs, etc, etc make for much better NPCS than the "magic-user" class does. Melan's "Garden of Al Astorian" grants the titular character the power of transmutation and construction, rather than conforming to the "magic-user" class, and thus feels very Vancian to me. Vance's "the miracle workers" is great inspiration. Vancian magic to me means "feels truly magical" in the way of fairy tales or the arabian nights, and not "fire and forget", because what vance excels at is making magic magical. I see Turjan and Mazirian are about as powerful as a theurgist and magician respectively. IIRC, Turjan casts invisibility, a high-powered magic missile, and summons a djinn or devil that gates him to another plane. Mazirian uses hold person, strength, levitate (cast on another), a high powered magic missile, water breathing, and some magic boots of speed. None of that is really outside the scope of a mid-level magic-user. Rhialto and his ilk are nearly demigods, so of course the same rules do not apply. The magic in Rhialto is far closer to that used in Lyonesse, and both texts make heavy use of sandestins, magic items, more freeform magic, and very powerful wizards. The Dying Earth is actually more the anomaly, and Rhialto closer to his other writing.
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Post by Red Baron on Oct 20, 2020 16:45:38 GMT -6
Magic users can't use magic swords for the same reason as clerics: because they are not fighting-men.
If you want to use a magic sword play a fighting man. The main appeal of being a fighting-man is running with magic talking sword!
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Post by blackwyvern on Oct 20, 2020 19:37:38 GMT -6
Snicker-snack!
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Post by dicebro on Oct 21, 2020 5:46:21 GMT -6
Magic users can't use magic swords for the same reason as clerics: because they are not fighting-men. If you want to use a magic sword play a fighting man. The main appeal of being a fighting-man is running with magic talking sword! Yeah! I mean, “I concur indubitably.”
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Post by ahabicher on Oct 15, 2021 10:34:56 GMT -6
Interestingly enough, I have just stumbled over the fact(?) that in the original rules there is only talk about magic armor and magic weapons. About the Magic-User, it is said that he can only arm himself with a dagger and that he cannot use magic armor. But there is no actual mention of mundane armor, of chainmail or even platemail, as long as it is not enchanted.
I assume that it was self-explanatory to the early players that OF COURSE the magic user cannot wear armor, so strongly ingrained that they did not even bother to write it down. Or did I overlook it?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2021 11:36:47 GMT -6
Interestingly enough, I have just stumbled over the fact(?) that in the original rules there is only talk about magic armor and magic weapons. About the Magic-User, it is said that he can only arm himself with a dagger and that he cannot use magic armor. But there is no actual mention of mundane armor, of chainmail or even platemail, as long as it is not enchanted. I assume that it was self-explanatory to the early players that OF COURSE the magic user cannot wear armor, so strongly ingrained that they did not even bother to write it down. Or did I overlook it? I think it's an assumption that Gary didn't feel the need to make explicit right away. The description of the Cleric as having some of the advantages of both the other classes seems to support it, too. Of course, without later explicit clarification, you could assume either way.
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Post by Starbeard on Oct 15, 2021 19:09:24 GMT -6
Or else didn't realize he hadn't made it explicit, which of course is arguably still the same thing.
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Post by Starbeard on Oct 15, 2021 19:09:58 GMT -6
My general house rule that has almost never come up is that magic-users can wield magic swords and use their abilities, they just get no attack bonus from them. Similarly, magic armor can be enchanted specially to allow use by magic-users, but MUs only ever receive the normal AC, never the magic AC bonus.
MUs can of course wear armor not enchanted for them, but they must roll 2D6 against their AC to avoid misfiring & wasting their spells if they do.
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aramis
Level 4 Theurgist
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Post by aramis on Oct 18, 2021 14:47:05 GMT -6
“It's just stupid--if Gandalf could use a sword my wizard should be able to as well!" “Gandalf wasn’t a man” I know the above sounds dumb. anyhoo. So maybe it was just a mechanical constraint to separate the class options. From what I understand, Blackmoor isnt the source. Gygax probably playtested the heck out of it and felt the need to limit Magic Users lest they take over the game. While it sounds dumb to the ill-informed, it's accurate to the works, as Gandalf is, along with Saurman and Radagast, essentially an Angel. Human, elven, and dwarven magics are much more subtle and less potent than the abilities of the Istari...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2021 8:51:24 GMT -6
“It's just stupid--if Gandalf could use a sword my wizard should be able to as well!" “Gandalf wasn’t a man” I know the above sounds dumb. anyhoo. So maybe it was just a mechanical constraint to separate the class options. From what I understand, Blackmoor isnt the source. Gygax probably playtested the heck out of it and felt the need to limit Magic Users lest they take over the game. While it sounds dumb to the ill-informed, it's accurate to the works, as Gandalf is, along with Saurman and Radagast, essentially an Angel. Human, elven, and dwarven magics are much more subtle and less potent than the abilities of the Istari... Which is perfect for a Middle-Earth game, which of course many referees did and continue to portray in Chainmail Fantasy or OD&D. That also touches on the fact that in any and all discussions of 3lbb, with or without Chainmail, there's always that caveat that the referee designs a world and the laws of that particular campaign world are in flux and some cosmic change in pencil can occur in any of the booklets. (It's baked in, as we all know.) However, the Magic-Users of the booklets aren't Istari, and the closest thing to an Istari in any of the later D&D expansions would be a Planetar or Solar in my opinion. Kind of the celestial answer to the Balor or Pit Fiend. The Yin to that evil Yang. Fascinating creatures, but definitely not PCs. Much more powerful. More in the "Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes" milieu. So the whole "Gandalf and Saruman can use swords" thing is always a bit of a red herring to an informed reader. Maybe less obvious and more debatable to a casual fantasy fan. It's in the "Conan wears plate armor sometimes" thing with Barbarians category. He kinda does but he's not the be all, end all example of a Barbarian and in the world of AD&D he's canonically a Fighter/Thief anyway.
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aramis
Level 4 Theurgist
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Post by aramis on Oct 22, 2021 16:01:25 GMT -6
It's worth noting that doing Tolkien's Middle Earth with ANY D&D edition requires nerfing all the magical classes or upping the level of magic available.
After all, all the magic we see of Gandalf is 5th level or less, save self-resurrection (If it indeed was same, or was merely banished for a few weeks...) We see even less from others.
D&D borrows the races, not the magics, of Middle Earth.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2021 16:06:38 GMT -6
Gandalf was almost certainly resurrected by a higher power, possibly Eru Iluvatar himself. In a D&D game, this would be a Monty Haul trope with a care bear DM showing favoritism to a particular player, not a mechanic of the game or a particular spell.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Oct 23, 2021 18:29:19 GMT -6
I just read in "Game Wizards" that for a creative position working with Gary the applicant had to answer three reasons why Magic-users shouldn't be able to use swords.
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Post by Porphyre on Oct 31, 2021 9:44:42 GMT -6
While it sounds dumb to the ill-informed, it's accurate to the works, as Gandalf is, along with Saurman and Radagast, essentially an Angel. Human, elven, and dwarven magics are much more subtle and less potent than the abilities of the Istari... Which is perfect for a Middle-Earth game, which of course many referees did and continue to portray in Chainmail Fantasy or OD&D. That also touches on the fact that in any and all discussions of 3lbb, with or without Chainmail, there's always that caveat that the referee designs a world and the laws of that particular campaign world are in flux and some cosmic change in pencil can occur in any of the booklets. (It's baked in, as we all know.) However, the Magic-Users of the booklets aren't Istari, and the closest thing to an Istari in any of the later D&D expansions would be a Planetar or Solar in my opinion. Kind of the celestial answer to the Balor or Pit Fiend. The Yin to that evil Yang. Fascinating creatures, but definitely not PCs. Much more powerful. More in the "Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes" milieu. Actually a lot of "true" Wizards in fantasy fiction aren't exactly humans: as stated before, Istari are angelic beings in disguise. Merlin was a half-demon. In Jack Vance's Lyonesse, they are either half faes, former fes, changelings or humonculi created by other wizards. Elric is a member of a chaos-touched race, etc. All of them are more or less magical beings, who have magic ingrained in their very self and use it as a natural ability ( (in D&D terms, they could technically count as as an elf). On the other end of the wizarding spectrum, D&D Magic-Users are scholars who must spend their time pondering the laws of the universe, reading dusty tomes and moldy parchments to learn and memorize complex spells. So basically, they are nerds. Sure, you can put a football helmet and suit to the maths nerd, of give him a baseball bat; but he won't play more effitiently in the team.
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Post by cometaryorbit on Nov 3, 2021 23:25:25 GMT -6
All of them are more or less magical beings, who have magic ingrained in their very self and use it as a natural ability ( (in D&D terms, they could technically count as as an elf). On the other end of the wizarding spectrum, D&D Magic-Users are scholars who must spend their time pondering the laws of the universe, reading dusty tomes and moldy parchments to learn and memorize complex spells. So basically, they are nerds. Sure, you can put a football helmet and suit to the maths nerd, of give him a baseball bat; but he won't play more effitiently in the team. Yeah, I was actually just thinking today that Elric is probably best modeled in OD&D as an Elf, since he uses both spells and a sword (Stormbringer probably has an effect like "Gauntlets of Ogre Power" to raise his naturally super-low STR). And the Melniboneans are indeed not quite human, or at least a distinctly different form of humanity (they are at different points in the stories both classed with humanity and as distinct from it). Gandalf similarly uses a sword and is definitely not really human, though human in form; in OD&D he could easily be an Elf mechanically, though not an Elf in "species" in Tolkien's universe.
D&D human Magic-Users are more scholars studying a largely forgotten "science", yeah - this is Dying Earth like.
Of course, the Harold Shea stories by de Camp & Pratt has magic as entirely "learned", a branch of formal logic, and still has Harold using a sword as well as magic, so...
Ultimately it's a game balance thing, with perhaps a nod to the Conan etc. swordsman vs sorcerer aspect.
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Post by qomannon on Jan 4, 2022 21:11:59 GMT -6
I allow any character to use any weapon... HOWEVER, no magical bonuses work (not even +1) unless the weapon is wielded in the hands of a fighting-man. Otherwise, the weapon (all weapons are semi-sentient and with unique histories IMC) remains dormant or judges the wielder as not worthy. All weapons do 1d6 in this case, even if the magic user is using a polearm. Only in the hands of a fighting-man can the weapon reach its full potential.
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Post by Porphyre on Jan 7, 2022 16:53:34 GMT -6
I allow any character to use any weapon... HOWEVER, no magical bonuses work (not even +1) unless the weapon is wielded in the hands of a fighting-man. Otherwise, the weapon (all weapons are semi-sentient and with unique histories IMC) remains dormant or judges the wielder as not worthy. All weapons do 1d6 in this case, even if the magic user is using a polearm. Only in the hands of a fighting-man can the weapon reach its full potential.
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Post by Malchor on Sept 16, 2022 14:54:20 GMT -6
Magic users can't use magic swords for the same reason as clerics: because they are not fighting-men. If you want to use a magic sword play a fighting man. The main appeal of being a fighting-man is running with magic talking sword! This. In some cases a sub-system, monster or spell has a clear literary or mythological inspiration. In others, it is possible the mechanic or mechanical balancing mechanism came first and the explanation came later. And of course, in some cases the reason hangs like an ill fitting fig leaf. In the case of the latter, I tend to come up with a new reasons where I can, like Buffkin, in others I change the rule (elven cleric/MU/fighters can use swords, which balances having to divide xp between three classes), in others I shrug, and in a few I lean in hard.
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Post by hamurai on Sept 16, 2022 23:55:50 GMT -6
Originally, the discussion was about using any swords, not particularly magic swords. I agree that only FM should wield magic swords, but I still don't see any reason why wizards or clerics shouldn't be allowed to use mundane swords. They'll deal 1d6 damage no matter what, at least in the 3LBB.
So it really was only a matter of fluff until the variable damage dice came up.
Personally, I allow wizards with swords and clerics devoted to a deity of war. If it helps to make a cool story, I'm game.
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Post by Red Baron on Sept 18, 2022 6:12:40 GMT -6
I think the bigger question is "why does the player playing the magic user want to have armor and weapons", and the answer is they want something to do during combat.
Maybe the solution here is: give the player something to do.
Ideas: Let them play a henchman Let them play a monster Let them make some sort of "zap" attack Let them throw darts/daggers
Having low hitpoints, a magic user should want to keep his character out of combat. But combats are exciting and players don't want to sit bored on the sidelines.
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