How many MU spell levels

[Finarvyn]

I used to play OD&D+supplements but recently have undergone more of a "back to the basics" campaign. This means I got rid of most of the optional classes and scaled back to the "big four" (fighter, wizard, thief, cleric). It also means that I decided to ditch most of the spell information in Greyhawk.

I kind of like the idea that PCs are capped out at level 6 spells but evil NPC magic users can invoke spells of 7-9, or that the PC can learn higher spells if they research or find them. And perhaps with great danger to cast. Keeps the powerful magic more amazing.

When I started playing in '75 I used the M&M spell lists only. Later I expanded to M&M+Greyhawk. Now I'm undecided as to whether I want to go back to M&M only or to also include the low-level spells (levels 1-6) from Greyhawk in addition to the M&M list. The advantage of allowing some Greyhawk spells is this includes Magic Missile, but the disadvantage is that it changes the feel of the magic user.

What do you think?

[James Maliszewski]

In my Dwimmermount campaign, I only use spell levels 1-6, but I use all the spells from the LBBs + Supplements. I leave open the possibility that Level 7-9 spells may exist as lost knowledge from the past, castable after much study and effort, but I've not yet allowed them into the campaign and doubt I ever will.

[llenlleawg]

I think as the core spells, the kind you get by acquiring the "1st level spell book", it is best to stick to the M&M list as the core of known magical lore. The extra spells in Greyhawk, as well as the druid spells in Eldritch Wizardry and the illusionist spells in The Dragon, can exist as arcane/lost/forbidden lore that can be found through adventure or research in ancient libraries or as the jealously guarded spell lists of secret societies of magic (e.g. the druid and illusionist spells, the latter of which could even be the special glamours known only to the residents of Faerie). The level and intelligence restrictions tend to make the "worrisome" high level spells less likely to come up in play anyway, and since I see them as "treasure" to be found, no more guaranteed to exist than, say, a rare magic item.

I'm less sanguine about clerics "inventing" or "researching" spells which are granted by heaven (or Hell!), so I'd be inclined to use just the M&M list.

[talysman]

For me: level 6 cap for which spells can be *memorized*.

Spells in M&M are the only ones to begin with.

Other spells can be researched, but there are a number of problems with Greyhawk spells. For example, you don't get any direct damage spells in M&M until Level 3, and summoning or conjuration doesn't happen until Level 5. Greyhawk breaks those rules. I could see allowing the Monster Summoning spells as long as they are limited to non-supernatural monsters, but Magic Missile has to be seriously modified.

Clerics should *not* have damage-dealing spells. Chaotic Clerics, casting reversed Cure spells, OK... since they don't get any Turn Undead ability, by the book. Adding clerical damage spells, or magic-user healing spells, breaks the distinction between the two kinds of magic.

Spells of Level 7 to 9 are possible to research and learn the way I run the game, but they can't be memorized; they can only be cast with scrolls.

[Morandir]

Spells in my game cap out at 6th level. The 1st-level spells in M&M are "standard," and every starting MU has them in his spell book. I also use the new spells in TheGreyElf's "Secrets of Acheron" but those have to be researched or found as treasure.

[geoffrey]

For NPCs, I don't typically use the standard spell system. I instead make-up unique powers for magical NPCs.

For PCs, I allow pretty much anything: Any spell from any book.

When I'm feeling more traditional, I like OD&D plus pretty much all of GREYHAWK (including all the spells).

[nizrad]

I let the players use the spells in M&M while I allow select other spells to be filtered in via found scrolls and research. Most magic weilding foes also follow this rule and would rarely have spells from any of the suplements in their spellbooks.
Now as far as liches are concerned they get access to any spell from any source and several of my own creation.

[James Maliszewski]

Apr 18, 2012 14:30:53 GMT -6 talysman said:

Other spells can be researched, but there are a number of problems with Greyhawk spells. For example, you don't get any direct damage spells in M&M until Level 3, and summoning or conjuration doesn't happen until Level 5. Greyhawk breaks those rules. I could see allowing the Monster Summoning spells as long as they are limited to non-supernatural monsters, but Magic Missile has to be seriously modified.

This is a keen observation. Is it something you've given a lot of thought too or a recent insight? If the former, have you written about it on your blog? I'd love to hear expanded discussion of this.

Clerics should *not* have damage-dealing spells.

I wholeheartedly endorse this notion. Not only do damage-dealing spells dilute the difference between the two types of magic, they contribute further to the power creep of the cleric.

[llenlleawg]

In general, having damage-dealing magic is an unhappy slippery slope. Magic is great ay bypassing combat in one way or another (charming foes, putting them to sleep, holding them in place, turning them into toads, binding them in webs, etc.), but it should not replace what fighting men are for, namely, causing damage and slaying things. This should generally be true of magic users as well as clerics. The proliferation of, e.g., wands of fireballs, is an unhappy consequence of letting magic users deal out the main damage in a combat, rather than fighters (and with surprise, thieves). MUs and even more clerics should be happy when their spells or powers make combat unnecessary, or for MUs when occasionally they can bring on major pain, but in general, when it comes to combat, the fighter should be center stage.

[aldarron]

Whether Greyhawk is added or not, there's no reason to keep adding spell levels, and a better fit to the rest of the game to simply have 6.

[talysman]

Apr 19, 2012 10:45:59 GMT -6 aldarron said:

Whether Greyhawk is added or not, there's no reason to keep adding spell levels, and a better fit to the rest of the game to simply have 6.

Plus, six-sided dice are pretty easy to get a hold of. Linking max spell level to a common die seems pretty handy, since you can quickly generate things like spell books or random monsters by rolling a d6 for spell level.

Apr 19, 2012 7:31:07 GMT -6 James Maliszewski said:

Apr 18, 2012 14:30:53 GMT -6 talysman said:

Other spells can be researched, but there are a number of problems with Greyhawk spells. For example, you don't get any direct damage spells in M&M until Level 3, and summoning or conjuration doesn't happen until Level 5. Greyhawk breaks those rules. I could see allowing the Monster Summoning spells as long as they are limited to non-supernatural monsters, but Magic Missile has to be seriously modified.

This is a keen observation. Is it something you've given a lot of thought too or a recent insight? If the former, have you written about it on your blog? I'd love to hear expanded discussion of this.

I don't think I dealt with the Greyhawk spells specifically. That may be worthy of a future blogpost.

A long time ago, I did a series of six posts analyzing M-U spells level by level for a build-a-spell system I was thinking of. Here's the summary post that includes to links to each part:

9and30kingdoms.blogspot.com/2010/08/build-spell-iii-analysis-follow-up.html

The actual details for each spell are kind of obsolete now, since they pertain to a specific idea I had for setting spell levels, but the intro to each post describes what spell effects we first see at each level, which is where I got the list of key phrases.

A lot of that got re-worked when I started working on Liber Zero; those posts, I know, are a bit of a disorganized mess, making it hard to follow discussions (man, I wish Blogger supported boolean use of tags, so that you could look up just the posts tagged with both "clone" and "magic".) Somewhere in that mess, I started talking about something else I noticed: several spells like Wall of Fire or Conjure Elemental are limited to what HD of creature they can affect, and ranges appear to be based on spell level rather than caster level as well. Max HD of target is loosely equivalent to the typical HD of a wandering monster of that level.

I keep simplifying what I've already done to get something quick and usable for LZ, so most of my posts on spell effects by spell level repeat early stuff, and won't be of much use.

[Deleted]

I'm a LBB guy, so I prefer the 6 spell levels. I don't really care for Magic Missile because it changes everything for Magic-users. I had noticed, too, that they don't have access to direct-damage spells until 3rd level spells. I never noticed the thing about Summoning, though. Anyway, I do like the idea of certain spells from the supplements being "lost" magics, so possible to find as part of some treasure. I also like the notion of spells from 7th-9th level being some sort of high potency Ritual, but I haven't developed any house rules for such.

[Zenopus]

There's some evidence that Gary's original intent for Magic Missile was to require a to-hit roll, which makes it less powerful. The original wording is ambiguous, but the strongest external evidence is that Yeenoghu in the Monster Manual casts a magic missile that is +2 to hit. Tim Kask has also stated that magic missile was changed to auto-hit for AD&D.

[talysman]

Apr 27, 2012 17:42:36 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

There's some evidence that Gary's original intent for Magic Missile was to require a to-hit roll, which makes it less powerful. The original wording is ambiguous, but the strongest external evidence is that Yeenoghu in the Monster Manual casts a magic missile that is +2 to hit. Tim Kask has also stated that magic missile was changed to auto-hit for AD&D.

I've thought about changing it from a spell that creates a missile to one that causes a hand-held missile to automatically hit when thrown. Basically, letting the magic-user "fire" arrows or bolts without a bow, or training of any kind. In that case, the damage would actually be a side effect of the spell, so it makes more sense in the context of the implied spell system.

[cooper]

I actually like MM because it is the only spell that really reminds me of The excellent prismatic spray from Dying Earth.