Fireball & OD&D Hit Dice

[Zulgyan]

All of us know 2 things:

1. In OD&D, a Fireball deals 1d6 per level of the caster.
2. OD&D has the lowest hit dice of all D&D versions, thus, making Fireball a MUCH deadlier spell. Because in later editions HD increased, but Fireball remained the same.

Now, a 5th level Fighter rolls 5d6+1 for total hit points. And a 5th level M-U can toss him a 5d6 Fireball, with a high probability wiping him right away with the need of just 1 spell.

Have you runned into a situacion where this seemed too strong?? Where the Fighter's HD seemed to low vs. the all mighty fireball?? What do you think?? Is this an important issue?

[Finarvyn]

Well, I agree that a fireball can be nasty (5d6 averages to around 17.5 damage points to each affected critter, or around 8 damage points to any creature who makes a saving throw) it certainly seems to be in the spirit of the game to me and I don't think it unbalances the game too much. Magic Users simply don't get many of them until they reach high levels anyway.

A fighter has over a 50% chance of inflicting 1d6 damage each round (modified by opponent's AC) so over the course of a long battle the damage can really add up. A 5th level MU only gets one 3rd level spell (aka Fireball) and doesn't have too many other offensive spells, so over the course of the same long battle may only inflict 5d6 damage (or less with the saving throw).

If you want to diminish the value of the fireball, the tradeoff would probably be to make entry-level MU spells more powerful becasue the MU starts off weak and eventually gains enough power to be worthwhile in battle. In that sense, the entire MU class is somewhat unbalanced. In order to "fix" middle to upper levels, one ought to also tinker with lower levels.

Just an offhand reaction without totally thinking it through....

[Falconer]

That’s a good point. The Thaumaturgist gets only one chance per day to pull out the big, flashy spell, and even then he has to use it tactically, and even then he might roll low!

...And even then he might destroy the treasure he’s fighting for in the first place!

[ffilz]

The magic user has certainly long been viewed as very unbalanced and overpowerfull. On the other hand, when I think back about our early play, I don't see it as being a real problem. In fact, I can't remember who ran the magic user(s) in our group, but I do remember who played the fighters (true though that was AD&D that beefed up the fighter, though the magic user did also get more spells).

Frank

[jrients]

Personally, I much prefer the OD&D situation where a magic-user generally has enough firepower to bring down a fighter of equal level with a single spell.

[Finarvyn]

And OD&D keeps the hit points for Magic-users more similar to those of the fighters. I see that as a major balancing-point.

I think that Greyhawk and later AD&D caused most of the imbalance in the Magic-user becasue of the shift to d4 versus d8, expansion of the XP charts to encourage greater levels, and so on.

[calithena]

High level MUs are really tough characters from OD&D to 3e, there's no doubt. Like jreints I don't know that I see a big problem with this, at least not until 3e where the increased resources available to all character types give the MU so much firepower that s/he basically uses spells every encounter.

As to fireball in OD&D, it's fine. It's like Sleep at low levels, the fighter does a little damage all the time, the MU has to pick his spots but can 'win' a fight with a well-placed spell pretty much on his own. If your model is say a dungeon level with 30 different encounters, there's no problem with this at all except maybe at very high levels. It only becomes a problem if you play in the 'vignette' style (e.g. Champions, big fights punctuated by role playing) or if it's too easy to heal up, refresh, etc. between fights.

The problem spells in OD&D are the ones like Wall of Stone. I remember the glory days where people insisted they could create them in the air above their enemies because the rules didn't say they couldn't. The first time, giddy fun, the second time, a realization that using the spell that way couldn't be allowed to stand.

[ffilz]

Calithena, you're definitely right about the effect vignette combats (which is also essentially what 3e pushes) and quick refresh have on magic user power. Even a wand of fireballs isn't unreasonable when you look at a mega-dungeon.

The vignette encounter issue is also one reason I feel wilderness adventuring doesn't work too well for D&D (though the bigger reason is the wilderness isn't so easily separated into "levels" like a dungeon can be).

The way we played AD&D in high school, with mostly modules (and those primarily dungeons), trying and clear entire levels or even whole modules without a rest period (and in one game session no less) left the magic user having to pick his fights, using his wand of fireballs to clean out rooms with lots of boring orcs and such. This worked well for high level play (forget how high we got, but one of my NPCs is 16th level according to his character card, so the PCs must have been up there also).

It was in college with modules from the 80s, and getting into other games like Rune Quest where the style of play started to change, and magic users started to dominate too much because of having only a few encounters between refreshes. Now with a game system like Rune Quest, that's fine, because the spells don't do much and a PC can't really sling that many before running out of steam.

Frank

[Zulgyan]

I think that the power of magic in OD&D, and all D&D, is highly influenced by the way you handle initiative.

Under some systems I've seen out there, magic spells go ALWAYS before melee. No matter if you won the roll. That certainly makes magic much more powerful.

If there is a higher chance to interrupt spells, the power of magic diminishes.

It's a choice that you as a referee must make.

[James Maliszewski]

jrients said:

Personally, I much prefer the OD&D situation where a magic-user generally has enough firepower to bring down a fighter of equal level with a single spell.

I feel the same way. I've honestly never quite understood most critiques of the magic-user.

[James Maliszewski]

admin said:

I think that Greyhawk and later AD&D caused most of the imbalance in the Magic-user becasue of the shift to d4 versus d8, expansion of the XP charts to encourage greater levels, and so on.

What I find interesting, actually, is that we simultaneously hear that the MU is both too powerful and too weak, which is usually a sign that it's just right. ;D

[James Maliszewski]

calithena said:

As to fireball in OD&D, it's fine. It's like Sleep at low levels, the fighter does a little damage all the time, the MU has to pick his spots but can 'win' a fight with a well-placed spell pretty much on his own. If your model is say a dungeon level with 30 different encounters, there's no problem with this at all except maybe at very high levels. It only becomes a problem if you play in the 'vignette' style (e.g. Champions, big fights punctuated by role playing) or if it's too easy to heal up, refresh, etc. between fights.

Yes, agreed. I think distinguishing the "vignette" style is very useful here and helps illustrate a very real example of where latter day RPGs diverged from the old school ones.

[James Maliszewski]

ffilz said:

Calithena, you're definitely right about the effect vignette combats (which is also essentially what 3e pushes) and quick refresh have on magic user power. Even a wand of fireballs isn't unreasonable when you look at a mega-dungeon.

The funny thing is that 3e was actually designed with what passes for the mega-dungeon these days in mind. The problem is that too many mechanical elements of the rules were changed from earlier versions, so the delicate balances were upset and the result is a mess, neither fish nor fowl. I have even less confidence that 4e will address these problems; if anything, it will exaggerate them further.

Ah well.