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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 15, 2018 10:07:46 GMT -6
Melan's article on dungeon design doesn't reject the notion that they were just making things up; it illustrates what they made up. Go ahead and analyze the hell out of it, no problem. But don't go telling the guy who was there that what he says he was thinking isn't what he was thinking. The bit that goes after Gronan's "we just made shirt up" is, to project a quotation, "and if it didn't work we fixed it or got rid of it." He's said that too, in his own words. If you want to call that design, I have no problem with that. But they were still just making things up as they occurred to them, not slowly developing a grand structure according to a plan. On this site we sometimes have people believe they have received a glimpse of the grand structure, rather than just some stuff that was made haphazardly and play-tested. In this thread we are starting to get a whiff of the objective purity and rightness of the original D&D rules. Go back and review the prophet scene in Life of Brian. Follow the gourd!
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 15, 2018 8:19:18 GMT -6
My only exposure to jousting is through Hollywood. I'd heard of three rides, but I've also heard of three lances, and that once unhorsed, the joust is basically over. What's realistic, and does the Chainmail jousting procedure reflect that?
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 15, 2018 8:15:05 GMT -6
Have you guys ever created a game or procedure on the spur of the moment? Maybe a set of randomized tables that work together to produce pleasing or useful results? You didn't make stuff up at random; you made stuff up to fit the purpose of the game or procedure. But you still made it up. And then you tried out the procedure and tweaked it based on what worked and what didn't. When it was fine-tuned, you showed it to your friends, and maybe published it on the Internet. If you're lucky, it becomes a viral meme.
And then fifty years later some ninnies in the sub-etha insist on telling you that you didn't just make it up but were carefully applying systems science to achieve a grand design that is objectively better than anything that has been done since, so shut up about "making it up."
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 15, 2018 8:00:44 GMT -6
"Objective"
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 12, 2018 7:15:52 GMT -6
So my question is why are we not pushing the originals since we are at a point that we can which was where we wanted to be? [...] It's time to reunify the community under the banner of the original games we loved. We'll never put that genie back in its bottle. We can't force people to play the game we like and not their own. Nor should we try. Fundamentalism only creates further schisms. The best thing to do is accept that different people play different things and to appreciate our differences, not eliminate them.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 10, 2018 20:43:49 GMT -6
I was bowled away by the description of intelligent swords, not because it's a new concept, but because if I understand correctly M&T suggests that all swords are intelligent (though some not very, and/or lack communication ability). But I find it really refreshing - I've always found something pretty lame about a +1 sword when that's all it does. I know this post is a year old now, but... A magic sword with an Intelligence of 6 or less is basically the same as the common idea of a sword +1, except it also zaps people of the wrong alignment and breaks spells on them, etc. In later versions of the game, rolling a sword +1 is just a shortcut to rolling a sword of Intelligence 6 or less.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 10, 2018 20:35:08 GMT -6
Instead of OD&D material we have Compatible material made for X clone. I boggle at this. It's all the same! Yes, sure, Clone X has this way of doing a thing and Clone Y does it another way. Peanuts! There's no reason you can't take material from one clone and use it as-is in another, or in the original. The original point of the clones was to publish new D&D and AD&D material without the legal right to do so, by filing off the serial numbers using this handy OGL that Wizards of the Coast gave away. Just go with that. You don't need someone to purify the "edition" of D&D you're using. Just use whatever. Don't even tell your players which version you're using; just tell them to how to roll up their ability scores and ask them what they do now.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 10, 2018 20:19:12 GMT -6
Actually Stormcow, the only claim I really made in this entire conversation was that the original players were well aware of how d6 initiative worked and likely used it, even if it wasn't spelled out. Not that it matters, Gary has said as much. I didn't even claim it's the only way to determine initiative. It just so happens that how surprise is determined is very similar to the ol' d6 method of initiative. My "you" in the above was the indefinite "you," not you specifically. Yes, words have meaning. And words can be written whose author wasn't expecting them to be dissected as closely as happens here and didn't write them in a way that would convey precisely the meaning the had in mind and no other. The Gygax of 1973 would have been flabbergasted to learn that nigh-religious fervor would be invested in the interpretation of his choice of grammar in some passages. Thank goodness D&D doesn't have a rule about shooting elephants in your pajamas! Saying it was just a quick general cast-off example would be entirely unhelpful in attempting to interpret and debate the text that stands. But that's not what I did. I said that everything in the D&D rules is meant to be taken as "you can do this, and you can do this, and—ooh!—try this!" not "this is how surprise must be rolled, and this is how combat hits must be determined..." The wyvern example is attempting to demonstrate the surprise rules in action, so the reader gets the idea, not provide essential rules that the previous text left out, and not provide a complete example of everything. It's just an example. A sample of the idea. But he may not have had such a precise and comprehensive procedure in mind as is being ascribed to him in the early posts. I think he had the basic idea, with the further idea that anyone who got the gist would be able to handle any variants that came up, which they surely would. After describing the basic idea, he gives an example of the basic idea. And that's all. If you want to argue for more extensive surprise rules than are generally understood, you need to make a better case for it than an analysis of the author's grammar, who wasn't writing with any kind of precision. Some people around here have argued that D&D really has ten-second melee rounds inside one-minute combat turns inside ten-minute exploration turns (or something like that), because Chainmail had melee rounds inside one-minute combat turns, and because here and here and here D&D says "turn" instead of "round," and so on. But this is over-analysis based in part simply on the loose terminology used by the authors when writing the text. D&D has one-minute periods of combat and ten-minute periods of dungeon exploration (and one-day periods of wilderness exploration), and they were called "turns" or "rounds" or or whatever happened to cross the author's mind at the time. Making an argument based on exactly what Gygax called one of those periods in one particular line misses the point that he wasn't being exact when he called it that. The wyvern example is not meant to vaguely illustrate a procedure of surprise that gets communicated so poorly it has taken until 2018 to understand what it really means. The example simply illustrates an application of the gist that has already been described, so the reader can see it in action and get the gist himself. And that's all that I'm saying. Not that you can't debate the meaning of text or intention or come up with new rules and procedures. Just stop ascribing to Gygax a master-plan of rules so arcane it has taken all these decades to decode them. He was making it up as he went, and he expected the reader to make it up as he went too. All he cared was for you to get the gist, and that's the level to which he wrote. His rules are on the level of "Need to search? Roll a die; let's say you have a 2 in 6 chance to find something." It's just not that complicated.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 10, 2018 16:51:12 GMT -6
That's not how I heard you.
Yes, it certainly can. The rules give you the gist of the game, and any reasonable person can take it from there. But people here are attempting to derive comprehensive systems from gist-text and call them "OD&D as written."
Just call them what they are: your own ways of playing D&D. No one has discovered anything hidden behind the text here; someone has just come up with a procedure they like. No problem with sharing your procedures, none at all. No problem with analyzing and debating the text as it's written, either. But if you want to claim that a well-understood part of the rules has actually been misinterpreted for decades, you really need to back up and look at the big picture for a bit, to make sure you're not missing the forest for the trees.
I'm not saying such a discovery is impossible. But you need more than a strained interpretation of a bit of grammar in the "just the gist" text before you've proven your case.
I'm not trying to shut anyone down. I'm just asking people to consider whether their great, new discovery that no one else has ever noticed before passes the smell test. Is that really what the authors were trying to convey? Are you sure you're not too close to the problem to judge that clearly?
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 9, 2018 16:13:01 GMT -6
I keep writing replies to this, and then I keep deleting them. The sock puppets are bizarre, but I've had experience with them that makes me think I see a little of what's going on, even if I don't have the moderators' information. If I'm right, then it's just a very sad situation all around.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 9, 2018 13:52:45 GMT -6
My impression that the assortments were curated were not solely the result of random rolls. I can recall Ernie talking about that, once upon a GenCon. I seem to remember (and it's been a while ... a long while) him claiming he used the chart in the rules. Why can't it be both? "I rolled only 1,000 copper pieces in that treasure. Eh, make it 6,000 copper pieces." Robert's "not solely" means rolled and curated.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 9, 2018 13:46:59 GMT -6
No one's saying you can't manage to play without having everything handed to you. That's demonstrably untrue. I don't know why you're hearing that.
The D&D rules are like instructions on how to build a car. But while the instructions tell you how your engine will let you accelerate the car, they don't tell you what kind of engine to install, and they neglect to mention that you have to get the oil changed every few months. But provided you can work that out yourself, you will have built yourself a car. Then, as you're driving along, someone pulls up alongside you and asks where your seats are.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 8, 2018 18:39:04 GMT -6
The trouble here is that it was clearly written as a set of ideas, not a comprehensive set of rules. Interesting. Are you saying OD&D as published is not a playable game? No, I'm saying OD&D as published is not a set of comprehensive rules. It doesn't provide, or claim to provide, a complete set of procedures to play, even in those areas that it gives some procedures. You have to fill in the blanks. And in so filling, you are not playing "as written," even if you're playing "within the framework" they set up. The surprise rules were not written from the viewpoint of "follow this exactly." Therefore they weren't trying to explain everything carefully enough to follow exactly. The book is just trying to give you the general idea. You're supposed to say, "Ah, I get it. Okay, I'll do stuff like that." Trying to analyze the comprehensive system hidden behind that is kind of pointless, because it isn't there.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 7, 2018 21:27:16 GMT -6
1. A party comes upon a great cavern with a sleeping dragon. The dragon is still sleeping . . . A sleeping anything is automatically surprised, and the dragon will remain asleep unless the party does anything to disturb it. The party might roll for surprise, but this is kind of pointless, as a surprised party will, presumably, not wake the dragon. Once the dragon wakes, however, it does not roll for surprise; no double-jeopardy! The party rolls for surprise normally. The hobgoblins cannot be surprised. Assuming the party opens the door on the first try, the orcs roll for surprise normally. The party cannot be surprised. If they fail to open the door on the first try, no one can be surprised. Assuming neither side is being particularly noticeable, both sides roll for surprise.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 7, 2018 21:17:53 GMT -6
Others enjoy attempting to play the game as written. The trouble here is that it was clearly written as a set of ideas, not a comprehensive set of rules. No one was ever meant to just do everything the text said, so it wasn't written carefully enough to use it that way.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 7, 2018 11:25:24 GMT -6
Let's explore something else concerning surprise, evasion, and pursuit.
When an encounter is indicated, both sides check for surprise. If either side is surprised, the rules say, encounter distance is 10–30 feet.
Except surprise requires being unaware of the other party's presence at the moment of encounter. If we suppose the monsters are surprised and the party is not, that means that although the rule says if one side is surprised distance is 10–30 feet, that can only mean that's the point at which both sides become aware of each other. The players can see monsters from 20–80 feet if they're not surprised. The only logical conclusion is that if players are not surprised but monsters are, then players will first become aware of monsters at 20–80 feet, and if the distance is 40–80 feet, then the monsters are, by definition, completely unaware of the players.
The players may then do whatever they like so long as they don't alert the monster to their presence. They can leave, and the monster will not pursue. They can attack from long range, in which case the monsters will be pincushions for one combat round before they can react at all. They can close the distance, in which case that's their surprise action, and the next round begins already in melee and rolls for initiative (or whatever method you use to determine first strike).
But notice that there is no possibility, according to a strict interpretation of the text, for a monster to surprise players and then attack at long range. Monsters surprising players always appear at 10–30 feet. Is this an oversight? Are the rules asymmetrical in favor of players? I think it's just a simplification in a condensed text; they weren't about to explain every possible option. Up until the moment the players become aware of a monster, whether an encounter even exists or not, let alone the monster's tactics, are completely up to the whim of the referee.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 2, 2018 10:42:00 GMT -6
That sounds extremely likely.
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Post by Stormcrow on Feb 25, 2018 18:29:28 GMT -6
They don't, in Monsters & Treasure.
Skeletons: 1/2 Zombies: 1 Ghouls: 2 Wights: 3 Wraiths: 4 Mummies: 5+1 Spectres: 6 Vampires: 7-9
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Post by Stormcrow on Feb 18, 2018 18:11:33 GMT -6
Anyway, I thought I put "in my own opinion" in bold in my original post. You seem to be the only one bent on "one official way to play," I would point out. "In your own opinion" just sounds like your opinion of how to interpret the text, not your opinion of what would be fun to turn the rules into. I'm not bent on one official way to play. Did I mention the whole "make stuff up" angle? I did. My only bent is to point out that the books don't say what you say they're saying. This is all very silly, and I feel the goalposts keep on being moved, so that's all I have to say about that.
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Post by Stormcrow on Feb 18, 2018 15:10:56 GMT -6
If you're not trying to figure out what the text is trying to say, why is the subject of this thread "I think I figured out surprise"?
I haven't been talking about how Gary or anyone actually played; I'm talking about what the text is trying to say. And I'm seeing a lot of people doing somersaults in parsing numbers and sentences in ways that clearly were never intended (and this happens a lot on this board). If you were really just playing around with what the text COULD mean given the most outrageous interpretations of the text possible, you utterly failed to communicate this.
Frankly, I'm not sure I see the point. If you want to follow the rules, follow them. If you want to do something else, make it up. I don't see why you'd want to constrain your making thing up to nevertheless fit a tortured interpretation of the text.
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Post by Stormcrow on Feb 18, 2018 9:20:41 GMT -6
I don't even think Stormcows comment was pointed at you Piper . It wasn't. It was a general comment about how everyone on this forum is always so focused on unearthing the arcane secrets hidden in various turns of phrase in the rules that you don't even realize that the real meaning is simply what it seems to say on the surface. Those turns of phrase are just idiosyncratic writing, not carefully constructed and nuanced instructions. Didja ever do that exercise in school where you have to write instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Everyone KNOWS how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but can you write out the exact procedure, with no room for error? The students write their instructions, then the teacher attempts to follow them, interpreting the instructions literally and taking any opportunity to get it wrong within the letter of the instructions. Some kids write "put peanut butter on bread," and the teacher would put the jar of peanut butter on the bread. Stuff like that. Mine almost got the job done, but at the end, when I said "push the two pieces of bread together by the flat sides," I neglected to include the instruction that the peanut butter side should be pushed against the jelly side; the teacher intentionally pushed them together the wrong way. The point is that Gygax et al weren't writing careful, exacting specifications for the game; they were writing colloquially about fairly simple concepts (albeit concepts being put together in a new way at the time). We all know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but if you know someone who has never seen one before, they're still going to understand basic concepts like taking the peanut butter out of the jar before putting it on the bread. You wouldn't write that in instructions to a human being. Likewise, when the D&D authors write things that SEEM obvious and straightforward, they usually ARE obvious and straightforward, even if they aren't explained clearly or exactly. With surprise, distance, and free attacks, there is nothing hidden here that we've been doing wrong all these years. There is no discovery to be made. If you're surprised, distance is short; if the distance isn't 1", the monsters can spend their free turn closing that distance. It's just explained in that idiosyncratic Gygaxian way that makes people think there's more there than there really is.
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Post by Stormcrow on Feb 17, 2018 19:39:06 GMT -6
Dear World: D&D is not Chainmail.You guys are making mountains out of molehills here, apparently in an attempt to claim first ascent of the mountain. The procedure is simple: - Determine surprise with a d6. 1–2 equals side is surprised.
- Determine distance between parties.
- If characters are surprised, distance is 10–30 (determined with 1d3×10, read as feet indoors or yards outdoors).
- If characters are not surprised, distance is 20–80 (2d4×10 feet or yards).
In any case, melee distance in D&D is "next to me." When you break down distance into 1″ scale units, 1″ equals "next to me." Where D&D says "If monsters gain surprise they will either close the distance between themselves and the character(s)... or attack," it simply means "if the monsters can attack immediately, they will do so, otherwise they will spend the surprise segment closing to attack."
That 3″ melee range thing from Chainmail? Not in D&D (except for aerial combat which, obviously, works a lot differently than guys with swords standing around in stone corridors).
That's all it means. If the monsters want to attack, and they're at 1″ or have ranged weapons, they will attack immediately. Otherwise they have to close the distance. During a surprise segment, closing the distance uses up all your surprise, and play goes to the next combat round.
Later supplements added nuances to surprise and initiative and distance, but you can't read that stuff backward into the original rules.
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Post by Stormcrow on Jan 9, 2018 13:29:06 GMT -6
Well, it presumes you are familiar with Dr. Strange and Weird Tales. Or picked up Fate Magazine once or twice as a curiosity. I doubt any of the early D&D writers were reading Blavatsky or other Theosophists, or similar schools of thought. But some of the fantasy writers they read did, and dropped a little of the lingo into their stories. Or you just know a bit about New Age occultism and psychics. You don't have to have a PhD to know something about these things. I haven't read Dr. Strange, Weird Tales, Fate Magazine, or any Thosophists, and I've picked up a basic understanding of "planes" just from hearing some of the mumbo-jumbo you hear from psychics and the like. Not everything in D&D has a straight-from-pulp origin. Some things just come from folklore and popular mysticism. Maybe these things came from Dr. Strange, but there's really no way to tell. Sure thing. But you don't have to assume that the D&D creators knew about these things only through the lens of speculative fiction. I don't know why the range 3–12 was chosen, but you've jumped to a conclusion on very little evidence indeed. The author of this spell hadn't worked out his own esoteric cosmology; he was obviously adapting something. The thing to do would be to find out what belief or story includes planes 3–12 as "higher" ones.
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Post by Stormcrow on Jan 9, 2018 10:17:02 GMT -6
The Gate spell definitely refers to other planes and confirms that "plane" in OD&D basically means "where gods and demons are from", but the various astral and ethereal spells and items describe these more as physical states than planes of existence. The astral and etheric planes are other examples of occult or mystical metaphysics along with "higher planes." Their exact natures are vague or subject to interpretation throughout history, though they are both proposed as explanations for why the world behaves as it does (the astral plane as an explanation for spirituality and stars; the etheric plane as an explanation of matter). As D&D developed, and we learned that various monsters and beings actually live in and come from these planes, they naturally took on a more physical meaning, turning them into the Planet of Hats parallel universes of D&D. Even as of Greyhawk they hadn't been clearly defined yet, though they would come to be later in the pages of The Dragon.Basically, early D&D presumes you are familiar with modern occult and psychic ideas. It is hard for someone who knows the later stuff to jettison that baggage.
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Post by Stormcrow on Jan 7, 2018 12:52:07 GMT -6
You're thinking too physically. The higher planes of the spell are more like the higher planes of spiritualism or esoteric cosmology, not the parallel universes of later D&D. Think the Ancients of Stargate SG-1 or Obi-wan Kenobi bound to Luke after he dies. An ascended being has access to knowledge and power not possible in our own plane, and each level up is exponentially more powerful. Thus, an ascended being can answer questions you cannot, and the higher the ascension, the greater the knowledge, but the more likely that contact with beings so complex and powerful will simply be too much for your lower-order brain to handle.
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Post by Stormcrow on Dec 24, 2017 9:35:43 GMT -6
Think of the word "class" in the taxonomic sense, not the programming sense. "Fighter" is the "class" of all characters whose primary mode of adventuring is martial technique. Within the "class" of all "fighters," there is variation: you have the rank and file, the land-owners and rulers, the champions of law. Within the "class" of all "magic-users," you have witches and warlocks, enchanters, mystics, seers, cunning men and wise women. (Forget about level titles for the moment; I'm using these terms descriptively only.) Not every variation deserves its own subclass; those come up with you've got characters who get "class"ified with others, but who need special rules to cover the extra bits.
So classes are not occupations. Each class suggests multiple possible occupations. Subclasses are narrow enough that they may be occupations, but their presence is up to the whim of the referee. The assassin subclass is obviously an occupation.
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Post by Stormcrow on Dec 21, 2017 8:16:54 GMT -6
For example, after reading Moorcock's Corum stories I thought it would be cool to give a player magic items similar to the eye and hand that Corum had in the literature. The problem is that OD&D doesn't have hit location rules to allow for a severed limb or lost eye, so (unless I go out of my way to institute such rules just for this occasion) I'm pretty much stuck. Play GURPS. Seriously. The point of GURPS is to be like D&D except adding in all those fine-tuned details that D&D glosses over. Case in point: in D&D, the DM will often let you just blurt out, "I search the room!" and you just find stuff. In GURPS, you have to specify HOW you search the room, and you'll want to be trained to do it: Architecture skill to find hidden features of the room itself. Carpentry skill to notice something odd with the woodwork. Criminology skill to find macroscopic evidence left behind by a criminal. Electrician skill to spot something strange about the lights or wiring. Forensics skill to discover traces of blood, explosives, fibers, etc. Masonry skill to identify unusual stonework. Observation skill to "case the joint." Tracking skill to pick up on footprints on the floor. Traps skill to find traps and secret doors. This is just railroading, not a rules issue. Redesign your adventure in a way that lets players retain their autonomy, or tell your players, "This is a railroad." There's another way to do this. Hand your players "introduction characters," who play through the introductory plot where the villain performs the kidnapping. Let the players do whatever they want as these minor, throwaway characters, but they won't have the abilities necessary to stop the villain. Once the introduction is over, switch the players back to their normal characters. This technique is recommended for the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game, to resemble the prologue act of a Doctor Who episode, in which minor characters get attacked by the monster or discover a problem, and thereby set up the conflict the main characters will drop into.
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Post by Stormcrow on Dec 20, 2017 19:14:12 GMT -6
In Chainmail, goblins, kobolds, and orcs are normal, not fantastic. Only the entries on the Fantasy Combat Table are fantastic.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 30, 2017 11:06:29 GMT -6
There is no indication whatsoever of any limit to the number of times a Wizard can cast a particular spell, and if there was meant to be the writers completely dropped the ball. It's "number of spells," not "number of spell catings." Your number 2 is the correct answer.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 20, 2017 9:58:38 GMT -6
They're envisioning this as a spin-off of Peter Jackson's films.
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