Quote from: Aglondir on March 28, 2024, 10:00:45 PM

Quote from: jhkim on March 28, 2024, 02:22:51 PM
It seems like you're picturing an adventuring party like a SEAL team -- where everyone are highly-trained experts who can do anything and are all self-reliant. But I think AD&D pictured groups more as historical expeditions. They were likely to have a bunch of lesser combatants (henchmen) as well non-combatants like porters, torch-bearers, squires, hirelings, etc. I think of the Lewis and Clark expedition that had a bunch of unmarried soldiers but also boat crew, an trapper/interpreter and his pregnant wife, and an enslaved body servant.

John,

What is an "enslaved body servant?"

In 1784, an enslaved boy was assigned to be 14-year-old William Clark's personal "body servant." Like many slaves, the boy didn't have a legal right to a last name, so he was known just as York.

All that is known about York's parents are their first names, which were listed in John Clark's will of 1799. York's father was called Old York, and his mother was named Rose. It's possible that Old York was John's personal servant, and Rose may have been a house servant.

According to Rhonda Blumberg's "York's Adventures with Lewis and Clark," black household servants like York were "upper-class slaves." He would have slept in the Clark's home, within earshot of William. He wore nicer clothing than those of field slaves, probably hand-me-downs from William and his brothers. He would have eaten better foods from the family's kitchen and would have acquired refined manners and speech patterns. But slaves of all classes were typically forbidden from learning reading and writing.

I have no idea if any of this is actually true, it's just what I found in a random internet article.

Yes and no. If you use the modern 4 person adventuring party, one is probably going to be useless except for that one fight where he uses sleep.

But back in the day if you had 6 to 12 people in the party, he could hide in the back throwing darts or whatnot until sleep was needed.

Quote from: jhkim on March 28, 2024, 02:22:51 PM
It seems like you're picturing an adventuring party like a SEAL team --

We don't have to wonder what he was picturing.  He said it straight out several times and it was not an elite Special Operations team.  It was a normal rifleman aka everyone in the Marine Corps.  Pretending that he is talking about an adventuring group that's like a SEAL team when he clearly said what he was talking about is highly disingenuous.

As someone else has already pointed out, there is a very large excluded middle ground between people who would be an active liability because they can't walk on one hand and super elite soldiers on the other.  This middle ground is where the large majority of D&D characters are.  The wizard isn't as physically capable as the barbarian but he can still keep up or he wouldn't be there.  Going from one extreme directly to the opposite extreme is highly disingenuous.

I suspect that this entire topic was started in bad faith.  I think you are trying to get someone to say something that you can then use to justify wheelchair bound characters going adventuring.  You are fishing for a gotcha in an argument in another thread.  Something like this

People would bring physically incapable wizards because they bring other utility.
Oh yeah well a character wheelchair bound character can also bring other utility.  Touche bigot.

People just aren't playing ball. 

A couple of thoughts on this ...

I believe the approach with early D&D was that the magic user paid for his nigh-demigodhood late in the game by having a difficult childhood.  This more or less worked, but in retrospect, I think it wasn't the best approach

My group played more or less RAW starting at 1st level, and the magic-users moved on to higher levels, proving that they weren't actually too frail to survive.

Playing a first level magic user and getting a critical sleep spell maybe once per session at the right time is glorious, but being weaksauce the rest of the time is boring and not very fun.  It's a legitimate play style but not one I care for.

My preferred approach follows SHARK's comments.  I'd like everyone on the team to be a competent but not necessarily expert combatant so they can pull their weight even at low level.  In AD&D (my preferred D&D) I think the best way to do this would be to give everyone a level of fighter from the git-go.  So your m-u would be a m-u 1 / fighter 1, the thief would be a thief 1 / fighter 1, and the fighter would be a fighter 2.  Then progression would happen in the non-fighter class.

Quote from: JeremyR on March 29, 2024, 03:12:06 AM
Yes and no. If you use the modern 4 person adventuring party, one is probably going to be useless except for that one fight where he uses sleep.

But back in the day if you had 6 to 12 people in the party, he could hide in the back throwing darts or whatnot until sleep was needed.

This was my experience as well. A clutch sleep or charm person was the main contribution. The secondary contribution was as a pack mule.

You could view an adventuring party more like one of those "lost expedition" type media ("starring Doug McLure") where the professor (the "magic user" in D&D's case) is the specialist who has no combat skills whatsoever (and fights with his umbrella, in one example) but is needed for their knowledge of archaeology/anthropology/botany or whatever. Magic users aren't just spell repositories - they should have an understanding of magical stuff that the fighters and other adventurers don't have.

Quote from: FingerRod on March 29, 2024, 07:22:42 AM

Quote from: JeremyR on March 29, 2024, 03:12:06 AM
Yes and no. If you use the modern 4 person adventuring party, one is probably going to be useless except for that one fight where he uses sleep.

But back in the day if you had 6 to 12 people in the party, he could hide in the back throwing darts or whatnot until sleep was needed.

This was my experience as well. A clutch sleep or charm person was the main contribution. The secondary contribution was as a pack mule.

Our usual approach was for a wizard to find* a wand of magic missiles pretty early in their career, and give them something to do/use when their big spells would be wasted.

*GM discretion when placing treasure.

With regard to magic users, we need to take a look at how they started out. In original pre-supplement OD&D there were only three classes. The fighting man got 1d6+1 hit points and the magic user and clerics each got 1d6, not exactly a huge disparity there. Since there were no bonuses to hit or damage for STR the fighting man only had a 5% edge in attacking in combat and EVERYONE did 1d6 damage on a hit  regardless of weapon. In fighting ability the cleric and magic user user fought as 1 man and the fighting man fought as 1 man +1. The cleric and fighting man could both wear armor while the magic user couldn't. Before skill systems and other assorted baggage was added, all characters were assumed to be equally competent general adventurers. Everyone could climb, ride, survive in the woods, and sneak around (if not heavily armored).

So in retrospect the original magic user wasn't particularly weak in relation to the other classes. Then comes:

- massive STR bonuses for fighters
-reordering the combat tables to leave magic users fighting as normal men for 5 LEVELS. In OD&D the magic user fought as 2+1 man at level 4.
-variable weapon damage leaving magic users with only d4 weapons
-reducing magic user hit dice to d4 while promoting the fighter to d10
-introducing a specialist thief class that gave the impression that other classes suddenly couldn't sneak around anymore.

So I firmly blame AD&D for making the magic user into the ultimate pussy.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 29, 2024, 08:00:31 AM

Quote from: FingerRod on March 29, 2024, 07:22:42 AM

Quote from: JeremyR on March 29, 2024, 03:12:06 AM
Yes and no. If you use the modern 4 person adventuring party, one is probably going to be useless except for that one fight where he uses sleep.

But back in the day if you had 6 to 12 people in the party, he could hide in the back throwing darts or whatnot until sleep was needed.

This was my experience as well. A clutch sleep or charm person was the main contribution. The secondary contribution was as a pack mule.

Our usual approach was for a wizard to find* a wand of magic missiles pretty early in their career, and give them something to do/use when their big spells would be wasted.

*GM discretion when placing treasure.

Fantastic idea. That never occurred to us.

Quote from: JeremyR on March 29, 2024, 03:12:06 AM
Yes and no. If you use the modern 4 person adventuring party, one is probably going to be useless except for that one fight where he uses sleep.

But back in the day if you had 6 to 12 people in the party, he could hide in the back throwing darts or whatnot until sleep was needed.

Agree in spades.  Then add light sources.  Sure, that 12 person party probably has the "link boy" to handle that, but as the hired help goes down, someone has to hold a torch or lantern.  Is it the thief trying to sneak, the fighter with sword & board or a 2-handed weapon or a ranger with a bow?  Nope.  Sure don't want your cleric to do it when he could be using a shield and staying up.  Heck, that's even true when you have a 5-person party, which was more typical of the "small" group.  Hand-wave all the light source stuff, and that all goes out the window.

Then as mentioned, there's the wand of magic missiles.  But you don't even need to go that far.  The GM can just use the treasure tables, where the majority of early magic is going to be magic arrows, potions, and scrolls--most of the latter being wizard scrolls.  By third or fourth level, the wizard has not only picked up a few more spells, he's also likely got several consumable things that might come in really handy.

However, I think the biggest roadblock to that kind of play is not embracing the style--whether because can't or won't doesn't really matter.  It can suck to be the wizard until about 5th level in that kind of game.  OTOH, giving a few hired NPC body guards to keep him out of the front line and playing smart, the wizard player gets a little dopamine hit every time they get a new spell, wand, or scroll.  What really sets it apart is the playing smart part, though.  If you stay at levels 1-3 perpetually, because the party keeps getting wiped out, then there's not enough payoff.

It's been very eye-opening for some of my moderately experienced but younger players in one of my new groups.  Even with my system allowing multiple charges of spells, having random cantrips to lead off is not what they are used to in a caster.  (Also, not being able to heal certain kinds of damage easily.)  Just last session I had a lightly-armored healer volunteer to hold the torch in a desperate running night fight, and he was reveling in it.  His decisions probably made the difference in the party not losing anyone.  And he knew it.  His announced reasoning was the was position in the middle so that everyone could see, he had a hand free, and the torch was a beacon for anyone hurt to make their way to him (or be dragged by someone else or for him to see to go to them).  That's in a party of 10 players, no one able to see in the dark.  He never even tried to attack, but did use tactical movement to stay out of melee until the last few rounds, where upon a couple of other PC's immediately converged on him to get him out of melee again.

Comment after the game, immediately echoed by several other players:  "This is so much more tactically rich than 5E".  None of them had ever played AD&D before.

Now I'm picturing a guy in a wheel chair getting picked for the team before the wizard.  No wonder there are so many bitter, evil wizards.

Quote from: David Johansen on March 29, 2024, 11:54:47 AM
Now I'm picturing a guy in a wheel chair getting picked for the team before the wizard.  No wonder there are so many bitter, evil wizards.

Or have the wheelchair character BE a wizard and really wheel on down in that race to the bottom 

AD&D 1e magic-users are a solid and reliable pick at 1st level.
Certainly, they have the worst hit points and armor, and no shield access.  But at first level, this isn't that much less survivable than a fighter.  If you apply some 21st century idea like point buy and don't have a good Dex or Con as a result (compared to the fighter or thief), then yes, the gap is wider; but if you are rolling as the PHB instructs, you might get a good or a bad Con, but assuredly you are mostly working with the same score for that as the fighter is.

For magic spells, you are subject to anything from a list that could be as bad as read magic, light, affect normal fires, and identify, up to a solid 5 spells that you yourself choose.  If you truly strike out of spells and stats, then sure, you are implausibly weak- but the average magic-user will not roll so badly.  Bad rolls can tank any class, of course.

So why would you, Mr. 4 hit point fighter with a , take the 2 hit point wizard with you?  He has an AC of maybe 10, compared to your 4, so you have to be in front.  Did you roll an 18/00 and change your character from human woman to human man so you wouldn't be capped on strength?  Then you probably don't want that guy, because his 1d4 damage per round is nothing compared to your likely 1d8+7, and you have a +3 to hit.  Go recruit a higher-level magic user!  But what if you didn't land such a mighty score?  What if your strength is a mere 16?  Now you have the exact same chance to hit as the magic-user does, and you deal probably two more points of damage on a hit.  With non-absurd stats, his ability to contribute to the fight is not so slight compared to yours.

What if a bad guy comes along who can deal 8 points of damage in a hit?  Both of you will be thoroughly wrecked by that, and while the magic-user is much more likely to be struck, frankly, neither of you can reasonably tank at all at level 1.

Finally, dungeons are stocked full of magic items.  If you don't bring a magic-user, you'll have to sell all the various loot that he could make incredibly powerful use of.  There's scrolls and spellbooks and all manner of things that will be incredibly useful to your team, but of course, someone has to be there to make use of it.

If you assume some modernist thing where the loot appears to suit the players, then you wouldn't consider this.  But run a module or create something that isn't artificially inserted for your players, and it's definitely silly to not bring along a magic-user to read magical inscriptions on doors, know important magical factoids, and make powerful use of single-use items that are simply all over the place.

All that being said, the point about them being weak has resulted in several modifications.
First, there were options from the start to start a bit stronger.
Second, by AD&D 2e the wizard class had a more solid way of starting out with spells, and you were much more likely to begin all your encounters with a mage armor active, removing you from AC 10 land.
Third, many games began starting at higher than 1st level- in Dark Sun, such a thing was mandatory, but it wasn't unique by any means.


I think AD&D magic-users are perfectly playable if the team is grabbing loot at the intended and high rate, and their extreme frailty at 1st level is merely the worst of a bad bunch- everyone is frankly just a shopkeeper at that level, with one or at most two things sticking out of that weak statblock (unless you got some incredible stats of course).  There's no reason not to include such a potentially powerful guy on your team.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on March 29, 2024, 08:21:38 AM
With regard to magic users, we need to take a look at how they started out. In original pre-supplement OD&D there were only three classes. The fighting man got 1d6+1 hit points and the magic user and clerics each got 1d6, not exactly a huge disparity there. Since there were no bonuses to hit or damage for STR the fighting man only had a 5% edge in attacking in combat and EVERYONE did 1d6 damage on a hit  regardless of weapon. In fighting ability the cleric and magic user user fought as 1 man and the fighting man fought as 1 man +1. The cleric and fighting man could both wear armor while the magic user couldn't. Before skill systems and other assorted baggage was added, all characters were assumed to be equally competent general adventurers. Everyone could climb, ride, survive in the woods, and sneak around (if not heavily armored).

So in retrospect the original magic user wasn't particularly weak in relation to the other classes. Then comes:

- massive STR bonuses for fighters
-reordering the combat tables to leave magic users fighting as normal men for 5 LEVELS. In OD&D the magic user fought as 2+1 man at level 4.
-variable weapon damage leaving magic users with only d4 weapons
-reducing magic user hit dice to d4 while promoting the fighter to d10
-introducing a specialist thief class that gave the impression that other classes suddenly couldn't sneak around anymore.

So I firmly blame AD&D for making the magic user into the ultimate pussy.

Great post. Certainly seem much stronger in OD&D (and I agree that thief skews play).

Let's see what Wizards can do in "Dragons at Dawn" which was an attempt to make a "how Dave Arneson originally ran things."

Quote from: Dragons at Dawn
Wizards can see in the dark as if in daylight and can cast Wizard Light, Lightning bolt and Fireball spells at will.

Holy shit. Well . . . there's more to it right?

Quote from: Dragons at Dawn
Wizards can channel raw magic energy to make Wizard Light, Lightning Bolts and Fireballs. This magic may be thrown at will but requires the Wizard to make a Saving Throw versus Health for the spell to successfully trigger. Failure of the Saving Throw means failure of the magic and causes the Wizard to collapse with exhaustion which will last for 2d6 turns. Note that, for Wizards, these Throws apply only to these magic energy spells and not material based spells.

Health stat is rolled (an attribute) at character creation. It's 2d6 - 2 (a score of zeros are re-rolled). For saving throws you make the same roll and want to roll under your score. They do get a bonus to this every 4 levels.
So how good this is really depends on your stat rolls.

So how good are these spells? Lightning Bolt is save or die for a 10 x 10 area. Fireballs do 20 damage to prime target and 7 to those within 10 feet (saves are allowed).

First level characters have between 4 and 7 hitpoints.

So that's some major fire power for any wizard to have at their disposal.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on March 29, 2024, 08:21:38 AM
With regard to magic users, we need to take a look at how they started out.
...
So in retrospect the original magic user wasn't particularly weak in relation to the other classes. Then comes:

You're correct that they started out much more similar in OD&D, but spells were capped at 6th level, and at that level a magic-user was attacking as two armored foot while a fighting-man was fighting as a superhero, which appears to mostly be the same as 8 men.  That is to say, the fighting ability of a fighter ramped up much higher, and even in AD&D, at the start magic-users and fighters were both bad at hitting things.

Quote- massive STR bonuses for fighters
-reordering the combat tables to leave magic users fighting as normal men for 5 LEVELS. In OD&D the magic user fought as 2+1 man at level 4.

At this level the fighting-man fought as a hero which appears to be 4 men.  The discrepancy in fighting between fighters and mages was extremely similar in OD&D and AD&D 1e; both started bad, and mages ramped up much more slowly than fighters.  The OD&D had a higher ramp for magic-users, sure, but it was even more aggressive for fighting-men.

Quote-variable weapon damage leaving magic users with only d4 weapons
-reducing magic user hit dice to d4 while promoting the fighter to d10
-introducing a specialist thief class that gave the impression that other classes suddenly couldn't sneak around anymore.

The other points are valid, but you are leaving out the addition of a variety of very powerful spells, including spells beyond 6th level, along with the general inclusion of single-use items well beyond what went before.

I think what we were witnessing was greater specialization, and a desire to make the casters as bad at physical combat as the non-casters were at magic (that is to say, to almost remove the capability completely).  Remember that spells did get stronger during this period.