Pre-Supplement I Magic System

[jrients]

Does anyone have any interesting recollections of how the magic rules were adjudicated in your games prior to Greyhawk? Like a lot of other things, the spell system was refined in Greyhawk and the Strategic Review article full of D&D clarifications.

For example, how did spellbooks work? Did every starting MU get access to every spell? Looking over the meager text in Men & Magic last night, I realized that I might not have understood spell memorization back then. (Had I been a ODD player. I started with a Basic set in '81.) And if I had gotten Vancian magic, I might not have allowed MUs to memorize the same spell more than once. I.e. a second level Magic User can memorize a Sleep and a Charm Person, but not 2 Sleeps or 2 Charms.

Any other oddities you recall from early games, before some of this stuff was clarified/standardized by later writings?

[Finarvyn]

Back in "the day" we never worried about memorizing spells. We assumed that characters had access to the basic low-level spells from Men & Magic and any spells above 3rd level I made my players find in scrolls. This was totally a "house rule" since it never says anything about the issue, but it just made sense that most magic-users would have access to most spells.

When Greyhawk came out we assumed that all of the M&M spells were common knowledge, along with a few basic ones like "magic missile" but the new GH spells of higher level had to be found via scroll again.

Later we changed our rules so that a M-U could know (memorize?) as many spell levels as his INT score, and other spells had to be cast from the spellbook. We played that known spells went off right away, but that spells read from a book took an extra round or two to cast since the M-U had to look them up.

Again, all "house" but we had fun doing it. What I found later was that my players who ran Magic-users got really crabby when I tried to impose AD&D rules of memorization, etc, upon them. They were so used to a free-style magic system that they felt cheated when they had to come up with spell components, pre-select memorized spells, and so on.

Basically, I continue to play with a similar philosophy as what I used 30 years ago. It worked well for my group then, and it seems to work well for my group now.

[dwayanu]

The standard spell lists were common knowledge. We tried but quickly discarded the rule from Greyhawk & Holmes.

Per M&M's description, Charm spells are more powerful than in later versions. They "cause the charmed entity to come completely under the influence of the Magic-User" until dispelled.

Hold Person is described as "similar to a Charm Person." Until reminded of it recently, I forgot that the more limited effect of immobilization was specified in Holmes.

[WSmith]

admin said:

Again, all "house" but we had fun doing it. What I found later was that my players who ran Magic-users got really crabby when I tried to impose AD&D rules of memorization, etc, upon them. They were so used to a free-style magic system that they felt cheated when they had to come up with spell components, pre-select memorized spells, and so on.

Basically, I continue to play with a similar philosophy as what I used 30 years ago. It worked well for my group then, and it seems to work well for my group now.

Finarvyn, to to make it clear cause I might not be getting your post, did your spellcasters not have to memorize any spells, but could cast any spell from the spell book? I tell you why I ask.

I am considering for a marathon game that I might be ref'ing in the winter to allow clerics spontaneous casting from their spell list in Men & Magic as: 1) their spell lists are very small and focused and 2) their spells are more for support than actual combat. I didn't plan on using the spells from Greyhawk or latter, (though I supposes an extra 2 spells for levels 3-4 are no big deal breaker, and they wouldn't get to be high enough level to use spells higher than 5th anyway.) However, I still can't seem to want to let go of some kind of memorization rule for magic-users. D&D to me means Vancian magic-users. It just seems right.

[calithena]

We always played spells memorized in our group. No spellbooks early on though, open picking from the list, but once you picked, it was fire 'n forget.

I heard tell that it was all scroll-based in the earliest Blackmoor runs, but someone else will have to confirm that.

[Zulgyan]

In pre greyhawk - do magic-user know all first level spells? or do they start with a small selected number and must search for them for adding to his spellbook?

[jrients]

zulgyan said:

In pre greyhawk - do magic-user know all first level spells? or do they start with a small selected number and must search for them for adding to his spellbook?

My reading of Men & Magic is that a first level spellbook contains all the 1st level spells, a second level spellbook contains all the 2nd level spells, etc.

[Finarvyn]

In general I just find it a little strange that MUs have to pick in advance, and if they cast something they forget and cast it again.

wsmith said:

[Finarvyn, to to make it clear cause I might not be getting your post, did your spellcasters not have to memorize any spells, but could cast any spell from the spell book?

I have a couple ways I do it, depending upon my mood when I set up a given campaign.

1. If I want lots of spell-slinging, I allow any MU to cast any spell he knows without memorization.

2. Another twist is to allow the MU to memorize a number of spell levels equal to their INT score, and those can be cast right away. Other spells need to be read from a spellbook and require 1d6 rounds to find since the MU needs to shuffle through the pages. Memorized spells are not forgotten, so a character could cast Knock twice without it taking up twice as many "INT slots", for example.

I kind of like #2 the best because it makes INT a little more worthwhile.

[WSmith]

WOW. I could never be that generous.

In case #1 do you still use the slots for allowable per day as in M&M or is it just cast all day long?

In Case #2 are there any limits on the level of the spells that can be memorized?

[Zulgyan]

jrients said:

zulgyan said:

In pre greyhawk - do magic-user know all first level spells? or do they start with a small selected number and must search for them for adding to his spellbook?

My reading of Men & Magic is that a first level spellbook contains all the 1st level spells, a second level spellbook contains all the 2nd level spells, etc.

But how do they actually get that second level spellbook?

[Finarvyn]

wsmith said:

WOW. I could never be that generous.

In case #1 do you still use the slots for allowable per day as in M&M or is it just cast all day long?

In Case #2 are there any limits on the level of the spells that can be memorized?

Not so generous, but I suspect I wasn't clear in the details of my rule. In all cases, I assume that the maximum number of spells cast per day is per the MU tables in M&M or Greyhawk. No radical rules changes there.

I don't treat the spellbook like a scroll or anything like that, but just use it as a place where MUs keep their non-menorized spells. I assume that casting from a spellbook is just as tiring as regular spellcasting but just takes a little longer because of the searching issue.

And when I allow them to memorize their INT number of spell levels for quick-casting, that's forever and not changed each adventure. So if the mage uses up all of his spell slots with low-level spells, he may not be able to learn spells later on. (He can still slow-cast them from the spellbook, however.)

In a way, it's more limiting than the official way but it also allows for some flexibility when a MU wants to cast the same spell more than once per day.

[jrients]

zulgyan said:

But how do they actually get that second level spellbook?

I have not seen an answer to that in the original 3 books. Options that spring immediately to mind:

1) Trained MUs have all six spellbooks "back home".

2) Their mentors supply them with spellbooks, assuming they stay in good stead with them.

3) Some less than complete version of the above two options. Maybe all MUs have the books for first through third levels, or maybe a mentor can only supply spellbooks for levels the mentor are able to cast.

4) You have to buy the books as you advance.

[ffilz]

If going purely by 3 LBB, I would say magic-users get additional spell books as needed.

When using Greyhawk, I'm inclined to make it not quite so automatic.

For my upcoming campaign, I think I'll have magic-users go through the 1st level spell list and dice for spells until they hit their maximum. If they exhaust the list without hitting their minimum, I'll let them go back through the list until they do. If they want to stop before hitting their maximum because they hope to research a new spell, or find one that isn't in the starting lineup (I may make spells available from other sources), they are free to do so.

After 1st level, they will have to acquire new spells. Save those scrolls, or buy spells in town.

Frank

[Finarvyn]

Tunnels & Trolls has a system where each new spell has a GP cost, with the assumption that when you are ready you can go see the "Wizard's Guild" and buy the information from them. Sort of like taking a correspondance course. :-)

[WSmith]

jrients said:

I have not seen an answer to that in the original 3 books. Options that spring immediately to mind:

1) Trained MUs have all six spellbooks "back home".

2) Their mentors supply them with spellbooks, assuming they stay in good stead with them.

3) Some less than complete version of the above two options. Maybe all MUs have the books for first through third levels, or maybe a mentor can only supply spellbooks for levels the mentor are able to cast.

4) You have to buy the books as you advance.

One way to think about it is if you bought textbooks for Pre-Calculus, Calculus I, and Calculus II. Until to master the pre calc, the calc I book won't really do you much good. Until you mostly understand the Calc I book, the Calc II book may be unusable.

[foster1941]

zulgyan said:

But how do they actually get that second level spellbook?

I tend to assume (and would suggest it's the default assumption of the game) that all magic-user characters are assumed to belong to a "mage's guild" from whom they receive the appropriate book(s) automatically as soon as they graduate to the appropriate rank. If the character during the course of play becomes estranged from the guild then he would need to acquire his own higher level spellbooks, either buying them (though if the character is estranged from the guild this may not be an option either) or, more likely, looting them off the bodies of defeated enemy mages.

(FWIW I assume the existence of a Fighter's Guild as well, and of course all clerics are already assumed to belong to an organized church -- a side-effect of which is that yes, the oft-maligned level titles exist in-milieu, as guild rankings -- introducing yourself as a "swordsman" tells those in the know that you're a 3rd rank member of the Fighter's Guild, etc.)

[ffilz]

wsmith said:

One way to think about it is if you bought textbooks for Pre-Calculus, Calculus I, and Calculus II. Until to master the pre calc, the calc I book won't really do you much good. Until you mostly understand the Calc I book, the Calc II book may be unusable.

You know, it's kind of funny you should use calculus as your example... To some extent you are right, but on the other hand, significant parts of calculus need not be learned in exactly the order presented in the book.

Why is this funny? Because I figured out how multiple integration worked a couple months ahead of when we got to it in Calc II using stuff I had learned in Calc I (ok, so Calc II following Calc I does make sense). Why did I figure it out? Because I was trying to come up with a formula to evaluate how a fireball spread... Yea, I was sick or something... (p.s. I never figured it all out, the best I could do is figure a radius of the fireball if you set it off at any altitude in the middle of a "large enough" room such that the only constraints on the spherical shape were the floor and ceiling.) But it did let me sleep through a couple classes of Calc II with the nutty professor who kept making mistakes on the black board, and in attempt to try and correct them when a student pointed out the mistake would often muddle things up even worse (for example, say something was supposed to be X + 1, he would write X - 1, and then when trying to correct it would change it to 1 - X).

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled program...

Frank

[driver]

Sorry for necro'ing this thread, but I didn't want to create a new one that treads the same ground.

Is there *any* support in the 3LB for a Vancian magic system? That is, if you're playing with just the rules-as-written, without Supplement I or The Strategic Review, is there anything in the text that would lead you to believe that spells have to be pre-memorized?

My current 3LB campaign has the memorization rules from Moldvay Basic grafted in. However, I'm messing around with a pure 3LB campaign -- practically pure Men & Magic -- for future use, and I just don't see textual support in the 3LB for the quasi-Vancian memorization system.

I'm considering the following skeleton for the magic system:

1. All spellcasters use spell books.
2. All spellcasters have access, through their spell books, to all of the spells on the appropriate Men & Magic spell list for each level.
3. All spellcasters can spontaneously cast spells, but can only use a given spell once per day -- "A spell used once may not be re-used in the same day" (M&M 19).
4. All spellcasters can conduct magical research.

(My next campaign will probably fold many of the Cleric spells into the Magic-User list and eliminate the Cleric class, so "all spellcasters" = "Magic-Users" for that campaign.)

I realize that later supplementation made the pre-memorization mechanic the default, but I'm consciously trying to avoid adopting later rules, assumptions, and standardizations in my OD&D campaigns.

So, I'd love to get input on this. Leaving aside GH and SR, is there anything in the 3LB that points to a particular memorization system?

[Zulgyan]

You could deduce pre-memorization by referring to the works of the inspirator of the D&D magic system, Jack Vance.

It's like the dwarf paladin question. It is solved by recurring to it's literature inspiration.

[badger2305]

Oct 25, 2007 11:40:55 GMT -6 ffilz said:

If going purely by 3 LBB, I would say magic-users get additional spell books as needed.

Well, no, actually. It's not quite that clear. From M&M page 34: "Characters who employ spells are assumed to acquire books containing the spells they can use, one book for each level. If a duplicate set of such books is desired, the cost will be the same as the initial investment for research as listed above, i.e. 2,000, 4,000, 8,000, etc. Loss of these books will requite replacement at the above expense."

...which doesn't say anything about how they acquire such books, how many spells are in each book (all of a level of spells? Only the ones their master taught them? Somewhere in between?), who they get replacement books from, etc.

For my upcoming campaign, I think I'll have magic-users go through the 1st level spell list and dice for spells until they hit their maximum. If they exhaust the list without hitting their minimum, I'll let them go back through the list until they do. If they want to stop before hitting their maximum because they hope to research a new spell, or find one that isn't in the starting lineup (I may make spells available from other sources), they are free to do so.

After 1st level, they will have to acquire new spells. Save those scrolls, or buy spells in town.

Frank

Sounds like an excellent plan to me. Then again, I tend to be of the "make 'em work for it" school of refereeing.

[badger2305]

Apr 11, 2008 22:37:59 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

You could deduce pre-memorization by referring to the works of the inspirator of the D&D magic system, Jack Vance.

It's like the dwarf paladin question. It is solved by recurring to it's literature inspiration.

Well, no, actually. The literature wasn't clear then, and taking it at face value isn't clear now, either. I recall quite distinctly the debates on how magic was supposed to work, usually asked in the form of "so how do they do it in Lake Geneva?" The article in the last Strategic Review about the Vancian basis for magic was seen as both clarifying things and still finding ways to muddy the waters further.

We tend to operate on the basis of what we think is 20/20 hindsight and assume we're not reading into things - but if you read M&M closely, all that's there is a single reference to "...the number of spells of each level that can be used (remembered during any single adventure) by that character." Does that mean if he doesn't remember it, he can go back to his spell book? How long is an adventure? A day? Several days? How do you tell time underground? And it's made worse by "A spell used once may not be reused in the same day." Is that the same as a single adventure? Does that mean AT ALL? Or does it mean that if you have an open spell slot of the same level you can use it again?

I'm not bringing this up to be a tool; what I'm trying to get at is that we can't escape our knowledge of later rules sets and we tend to let those later understandings filter into our reading of the original game. When it first came out, there were a LOT of debates about this and it is worth remembering that, if only because there are several different ways to interpret what's there. Pretty much every referee developed their own understanding of what was meant, as I recall.

[jrients]

My copy of Men & Magic, page 19, first paragraph:

The number in each column opposite each applicable character indicates the number of spells of each level that can be used (remembered during any single adventure) by that character. ... A spell used once may not be re-used in the same day.

My wildest interpretation of the above is that an MU memorizes a specific spell list per adventure and may use each of those spells once per day. Say my 2nd level magic-user starts an adventure with Sleep and Charm (but not 2 of either Sleep or Charm). He may cast each once per day until the adventure ends, no matter how many days that adventure takes and without further consultation of his spellbooks.

[badger2305]

Yep; our first clarification of what was meant comes in the Strategic Review #2:

Spells: A magic-user can use a given spell but once during any
given day, even if he is carrying his books with him. This is not to say
that he cannot equip himself with a multiplicity of the same spell so as
to have its use more than a single time. Therefore, a magic-user could,
for example, equip himself with three sleep spells, each of which would
be usable but once. He could also have a scroll of let us say two spells,
both of which are also sleep spells. As the spelIs were read from the
scrolls they would disappear, so in total that magic-user would have a
maximum of five sleep spells to use that day. If he had no books with
him there would be no renewal of spells on the next day, as the game
assumes that the magic-use gains spells by preparations such as memorizing
incantations, and once the spell is spoken that particular memory
pattern is gone completely. ln a similar manner spells are inscribed on
a scroll, and as the words are uttered they vanish from the scroll.

...which is when we begin to see the Vancian kind of magic being suggested (though I do not recall if there were scrolls of the sort described here in his Dying Earth stories).

[busman]

I'd actually be curious to try some alternate interpretations out. Seems like it might be fun to remove the mid-adventure re-memorization stuff we all got beaten into us from AD&D. Instead, you select the spells you are going to have for the adventure, then you can cast each of those once a day and get a fresh batch of those same selected spells each morning.

I would think allowing multiple selections of a single spell with the same system would be another, less strict, interpretation to try out.

It might be a lot of fun, actually.

[driver]

The idea I'm currently messing with is for Magic-User spell slots to "renew" at a particular time of day for each Magic-User -- dawn, noon, dusk, or midnight, depending on his astrological aspect or whatever. You could tie it to Alignment, but I'm not using Alignment in my next campaign.