Quote from: jibbajibba;627866Quite I was merely saying that in a universe where you were an actual magic user with powers of that sort these are the tactics you would actually adopt. Which is what Vance does in his books with wizards with these powers and restrictions.

You would scan the location from your satelite analyze the defenses and weaknesses then send in a remote drone to bomb the crap of it. Or if the location was not accessible to wizard eye - fireball, you would teleport (airdrop) in a precision team with just the right spells and equipment (weapons and tactics) to deal with the enemy in the most effective manner then you would port (evac) the fuck out of there before the rest of the gnolls/orcs (terrorists/Somali millitants) turned up to give you a pasting.

It would be a challenging tactic for an "Expert" Magic-User to try to utilize. Meaning, a lot of requirements:

• You'd have to be at least 10th level - to have 2 instances of Teleport memorized. 450,000 XP, and a lot of risk through standard adventuring.
  
• For effective satellite-scrying, you really need a crystal ball. Clairvoyance and Wizard-eye is limited to 240', which is not that remote for a hostile environment.
• B/X Teleport only allows you to 'port yourself or one other target to the destination. So, that prevents a 'strike team' or horde of winged monkeys from getting the job done for you.

A certainly possible approach, but your M-U will have done a lot of standard dungeon-delving, fighting 6+ HD monsters (that are of the right treasure type to have the possibility of hoarding a Crystal Ball) for quite some time before you get to the satellite stage.

Quote from: jibbajibba;627860Um... I was talking about Vancian wizards as in the wizards that appear in the Dying Earth books. Scry-port-fry is exactly their Modus Operandi, except they prefer to port in someone else to do the actual frying......
Sorry if that wasn't clear.

When we play AD&D high level wizards we start from a Vancian Premise.

Apologies for any failure to communicate that.

No worries. I thought we were discussing B/X casters and the rules for them.

There are some aspects of casting in AD&D that generally don't apply to B/X such as variable segment casting times and most spell components.

Spell interruption still applies and is an important part of a caster balanced diet in B/X.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;627924No worries. I thought we were discussing B/X casters and the rules for them.

There are some aspects of casting in AD&D that generally don't apply to B/X such as variable segment casting times and most spell components.

Spell interruption still applies and is an important part of a caster balanced diet in B/X.

I am curious why spell interuption is important. I have never used it, and no problem arose. What makes it important?

Quote from: Bill;627927I am curious why spell interuption is important. I have never used it, and no problem arose. What makes it important?

because if someone so much as throws a handful of rocks at you, you lose your spell.  Ruined.  Can't cast again unless you happened to have another one memorized.

Quote from: Bill;627927I am curious why spell interuption is important. I have never used it, and no problem arose. What makes it important?

There are many handicaps a wizard has to using his power in combat.  Spell interruption is the cornerstone to this.  It is a key element of balancing the M-U with the fighter.

There is a reason the 1E DMG explicitly advises that smart M-Us will forego spell casting in combat, and instead use wands or other charged/single-use magic items for combat spells - spell casting in combat is supposed to be very easy to disrupt.  (Another balancer is that wands, staves, etc., generally have damage dice capped at around 6-8 dice, instead of per level of the M-U.)

Spellcasting is best used for non-combat utility magic.  Taking away all the limits, I feel, is a chief cause of the complaints that fighters can never match up with Magic Users.

Quote from: Bill;627927I am curious why spell interuption is important. I have never used it, and no problem arose. What makes it important?

A lot of B/X spells are fight-enders, like Web/Hold Person/Charm Person/Sleep/etc, and even though B/X PCs have better saves against high-level casters than 3.x+ editions grant, they still end up rolling 11+ to save versus losing. Without spell interruption, your party will eat a few volleys of these spells every time they have to deal with a wizard, unless they can somehow one-round KO him before he can get anything off. If an enemy wizard is reasonably certain that the PCs can't off him in one round, he's incentivized to care about nothing but unloading his offensive spells as quickly as possible. If he can empty his wand before the PCs can zero his HP, he wins- and if that's not enough to win, well, he was screwed from the start.

Quote from: SineNomine;627935A lot of B/X spells are fight-enders, like Web/Hold Person/Charm Person/Sleep/etc, and even though B/X PCs have better saves against high-level casters than 3.x+ editions grant, they still end up rolling 11+ to save versus losing. Without spell interruption, your party will eat a few volleys of these spells every time they have to deal with a wizard, unless they can somehow one-round KO him before he can get anything off. If an enemy wizard is reasonably certain that the PCs can't off him in one round, he's incentivized to care about nothing but unloading his offensive spells as quickly as possible. If he can empty his wand before the PCs can zero his HP, he wins- and if that's not enough to win, well, he was screwed from the start.

So when a wizard wins initiative he wipes your pc's? About half the time they fight a wizard they all die? And thats before interuption would even be a factor.

Just curious, as I have never used interuption and it never created a problem.

I did switch from basic/expert to ADD 1E fairly early, but as I recall the spells were similar.

Wizards tend to be scary but fragile.

Quote from: Bill;627927I am curious why spell interuption is important. I have never used it, and no problem arose. What makes it important?

Spells provide effects that can be much more potent than mere damage. One of the balancing factors of that potency is reliability.

Fighter types are the consistent performers. Magic users make the big impact plays at the cost of being able to do so in a reliable fashion via spell disruption.

Getting the big guns means sometimes firing a dud.

If magic users get to make the high impact moves with nearly complete reliability then you have the 3E issue of : why NOT play a caster?

Quote from: Bill;627938So when a wizard wins initiative he wipes your pc's? About half the time they fight a wizard they all die? And thats before interuption would even be a factor.

Just curious, as I have never used interuption and it never created a problem.

I did switch from basic/expert to ADD 1E fairly early, but as I recall the spells were similar.

Wizards tend to be scary but fragile.

Without spell interruption, including a midlevel wizard with reasonably sharp tactical skills means that he will get off at least one round of spells on the PCs unless they both win initiative and manage to kill him before he can act.

If that wizard spends his time buffing himself or is forced to move to an advantageous position before he can get a round off, then it can sometimes be avoided, but otherwise, including a no-interruption wizard in a hostile group is a guarantee that somebody's gonna get blasted in the ensuing fight. This gets even uglier when clerics with Hold Person spells get involved, since they get to wade around in AC 3 plate mail and have better hit dice to boot.

Quote from: EOTB;627933There are many handicaps a wizard has to using his power in combat.  Spell interruption is the cornerstone to this.  It is a key element of balancing the M-U with the fighter.

There is a reason the 1E DMG explicitly advises that smart M-Us will forego spell casting in combat, and instead use wands or other charged/single-use magic items for combat spells - spell casting in combat is supposed to be very easy to disrupt.  (Another balancer is that wands, staves, etc., generally have damage dice capped at around 6-8 dice, instead of per level of the M-U.)

Spellcasting is best used for non-combat utility magic.  Taking away all the limits, I feel, is a chief cause of the complaints that fighters can never match up with Magic Users.

Just strange to me; I have run a ton of multi year 1E campaigns and I can't recall a single player bitching about fighters being weaker than wizards.

I do tend to be strict about resting to rememorize. A Wizard in my game is unlikely to always have every spell available evry time combat occurs.

Pretty much every wizard pc I have ever seen is quite fragile. A level 10 wizard in 1E has 25 hp on the average. With a generally horrid AC, a mere troll can kill him in two rounds. That wizard is toast if he did not have time to cast spells before the fight.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;627940Spells provide effects that can be much more potent than mere damage. One of the balancing factors of that potency is reliability.

Fighter types are the consistent performers. Magic users make the big impact plays at the cost of being able to do so in a reliable fashion via spell disruption.

Getting the big guns means sometimes firing a dud.

If magic users get to make the high impact moves with nearly complete reliability then you have the 3E issue of : why NOT play a caster?

The big impact is until they are out of spells. Then they don't have much oomph.

I consider clerics vastly more powerful than wizards, but thats another debate.

Why not play a Wizard?

Player does not like being a low hp easy kill to pretty much anything.

Some types of enemies are tough for some wizards.
That hold person spell he depends on is useless vs a ton of enemies.

GM, in theory, will provide challenges that are appropriate to the characters.
So if a wizard is 'playing thief' with invisibility and knock, does that make thieves useless?

This really is perplexing; never been a problem for me.

Quote from: Bill;627944Pretty much every wizard pc I have ever seen is quite fragile. A level 10 wizard in 1E has 25 hp on the average. With a generally horrid AC, a mere troll can kill him in two rounds. That wizard is toast if he did not have time to cast spells before the fight.

I have no interest in the D&D specific aspect of this, but the line I put in bold interests.

How often are they actually toast in the game (i.e. killed)?

Quote from: gleichman;627947I have no interest in the D&D specific aspect of this, but the line I put in bold interests.

How often are they actually toast in the game (i.e. killed)?

If one runs 1E raw, with only the core books, a wizard is very likely to die in any signifigant battle they did not have time to prepare for.

Even losing initiative could easily be fatal.

It reverses based on prep time; a well forewarned wizard is unlikely to die.

Quote from: Bill;627948If one runs 1E raw, with only the core books, a wizard is very likely to die in any signifigant battle they did not have time to prepare for.

That seems to be a theory based answer.

In actual play, how often is the wizard killed (and to make the question more meaningful) while the rest or even most of his party isn't?

Quote from: Bill;627948If one runs 1E raw, with only the core books, a wizard is very likely to die in any signifigant battle they did not have time to prepare for.

Even losing initiative could easily be fatal.

It reverses based on prep time; a well forewarned wizard is unlikely to die.

Funny anecdote.  A couple years ago I ran my group through T1.  1st encounter at the moathouse (the frogs)?  The MU was the one who hit most often and did the most damage.  Sure, luck of the rolls, but at low levels the THAC0 of a MU isn't much different than anyone else, so ranged attacks are just as effective.