Monday, March 21, 2011

Here's a chart that I think about too much


This chart can be found in both OD&D Supplement I: Greyhawk and Holmes Basic, along with the modified version (basically cutting all entries for Int scores less than 9) in the 1st edition Players Handbook.  I like the pre-AD&D version because, by lack of the Int requirement, it demonstrates that any idiot can become a magic-user.

I think this table clearly shows a three phase process in the development of Gygax's ideas for MU spells.

Phase 1 - Here's the spell list, kid.

In the beginning Gygax drew up his draft spell list and all MUs had access to all the same spell list.  That seems to be the least tortured reading of OD&D Book I: Men & Magic.  If my guy can cast third level spells, he can choose from any third level spells in the rulebook and/or research his own.

Phase 2 - Too many dang spells!

Several possible pressures led to a revision introducing the above table.    Perhaps some of the players in Gygax's campaign started reaching higher levels and the sheer volume of available spells was upsetting the balance of the game.  Or spell research and sharing increased the number of spells available to PCs.  Or the fact that all MUs cast sleep and fireball was getting boring.  Or some combination of all these factors.  Either way, the result was that now everyone had to roll to see if they understood each of the spells on the official lists, with a minimum and maximum number available to each caster.  Now all but the smartest MUs had a more reasonable number of spells (and like the more infamous 18/% strength, there's suddenly a new reason why high stat scores mattered).

Phase 3 - Spell as commodity

The next phase is seen in the publication of the 1st edition DMG, with its charts for starting spells.  Under this system each MU starts life with Read Magic and a handful (3-5) other spells.  At each level the budding magic-user may add a single spell to their book automatically.  The rest they have to find within the milieu (i.e. via purchase, discovery, reaserch, etc.).  Spells are also commodified in the rules in Moldvay Basic and its successors, where you start out with a single spell and spellbooks only hold as many spells as you can actually cast in a day. 

Suddenly with phase 3, the Minimum column on the chart above makes a lot less sense to me.  What does it mean if my first level magic-user begins play with an Int of 17 but only 4 spells in his spellbook?  The chart says I should know a minimum of seven first level spells.  Where are those other 3 spells?  I suspect that the transition from Phase 2 to Phase 3 happened between the publication of the PHB and DMG.  The Minimum column only applies to Gygax's Phase 2 thinking, which was outdated by the time he penned the starting spell charts.

Note that I think that each of these three phases makes for a perfectly acceptable spell system.  Phase 3 encourages a more Vancian model, where a major activity of successful MUs will be tracking down new spells to add to their book.  Phases 1 and 2 basically imply that in your setting we are all one big happy magical society; everyone who graduates from Hogwart's gets the exact same education and as they advance the Wizard's Guild doles out the standard spells.  Phase 2 rewards the talented and punishes the mediocre, but the Phase 1 model is easy as pie to implement.

In some ways I really like the Phase 2 approach and that's what I've been using in my current campaign.  But there's one big drag: I hate forcing the players to sit down with the spell list and roll percentile dice umpteen times just to get their 1st level MU ready to go.  I want chargen to be super-fast and painless, but the Phase 2 approach is clunky as hell.

21 comments:

  1. This all makes perfect sense to me: nice archaeological work.
    Next time I run a game, though, I am going totally spell-as-commodity, and making books and scrolls into major treasure. For me it confuses the issue to have some spells that regenerate each day and others that are used once and gone. I'm going with everything being destroyed on use and the population of scrolls being kept down by the scarcity of some necessary ingredient. And if an MU wants to walk around with a fortune in one-use scrolls on him, he'll face the attention of thieves and other MUs.

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  2. We used the table briefly in my AD&D days, but not when I first started in OD&D. I wouldn't bother with it any more.

    I think spells were always a commodity, at least for M-U spells of 2nd level or higher. Perhaps all the (standard) 1st level spells were known, though.

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  3. Jeff, I'll need to check when I get home but I seem to remember the DMG discussing what the minimum met. When a M-U got access to a spell he didn't know he rolled after studying it to see if he could learn it. Upon hitting the max he couldn't add anymore that way. However, if he went through all the spells in the PHB and didn't learn the minimum he could try again on failed ones.

    So it's not a minimum at start, but a minimum you will ultimately succeed on the learning roll for. When I get home tonight I'll see if I can find it and post a reference.

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  4. I know the passage you're discussing, Herb. But I can't for the life of me figure out what it/you mean by "a minimum you will ultimately succeed on the learning roll for." I agree that's a correct interpretation of the passage, but I don't understand how a minimum that only applies in some unforeseen future is a minimum at all. It makes no ding dang sense. That's why I looked for a transition in Gygax's thinking.

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  5. I started play with the Holmes box and (if I understood it correctly, which is unlikely), we would have a first level magic user go through the list, rolling his 'chance to know' for each spell. He could try for the spells in whatever order he wanted, but if he failed his roll, he got one less chance and had to try for every other spell on the list before he could try for the spell he failed his roll on again. You got up to your maximum in spells but each failed roll meant you got one less spell 'slot' to fill (but you got no fewer spells than your minimum).
    I'd probably use that method again (happily) rather than the parsimonious method in the AD&D DMG. I think if the magic user found other spells int he future, I would let him add them even though he might surpass his maximum since the Vancian method did not allow him to cram more spells in his brain for use anyway.

    I also remember we allowed the magic user to have bonus spells (same as a cleric but subbing INT for WIS). I also had a house rule that allowed the magic user to have 1 favored spell every level... he could switch out any spell of the same spell level for that spell at any time (so if his favorite was 'sleep,' he could switch out any other 1st level spell for sleep) but once a 'favorite' spell was determined, the magic user could not change it.

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  6. I started play with the Holmes box and (if I understood it correctly, which is unlikely), we would have a first level magic user go through the list, rolling his 'chance to know' for each spell. He could try for the spells in whatever order he wanted, but if he failed his roll, he got one less chance and had to try for every other spell on the list before he could try for the spell he failed his roll on again. You got up to your maximum in spells but each failed roll meant you got one less spell 'slot' to fill (but you got no fewer spells than your minimum).

    That's exactly my procedure right now.

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  7. I like the pre-AD&D version because, by lack of the Int requirement, it demonstrates that any idiot can become a magic-user.

    I like that as well. It does help to explain why certain groups of low intelligence monsters and primitive human tribes would have witchdoctors casting MU spells.

    It also would fit well with the concept of arcane magic being the result of pacts with dark forces. A demon/devil/spirit may grant spells to a devoted servant with an intelligence of 4, but they probably wouldn't grant him too many.

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  8. But there's one big drag: I hate forcing the players to sit down with the spell list and roll percentile dice umpteen times just to get their 1st level MU ready to go. I want chargen to be super-fast and painless, but the Phase 2 approach is clunky as hell.

    Try this spells known roller. It can be saved to your hard drive for use when not connected to the 'net. (It uses javascript, so there's a chance it won't work in your web browser. It works in my versions of Firefox and Safari.)

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  9. IMO this is the least-developed, most-rickety part of D&D and one that I have consistently grappled with.

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  10. So, the dumbest of dumb Holmesian magic users, a barely sapient mouth-breather with Intelligence 3, could be (should be, statistically) running around with 2-3 1st level spells, 3 2nd level spells (statistically it's 3-4, but maximum spell limits!), and, if he keeps himself from getting killed (maybe a helper monkey familiar watches out for danger and reminds him to breathe) before reaching the necessary levels, 3 3rd level spells.

    Going to Greyhawk, this same knuckle-dragging wizard has his helper monkey shepherd him to 20th level, and will have 2-3 spells of EVERY LEVEL.

    While the Intelligence 3 wizard is hilarious, I believe I prefer the 3rd edition minimum intelligence of 10+spell level to cast spells of X level.

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  11. Ha ha! And using Dan's spells known roller, my INT 3 Wizzard knows:

    Level 1
    - Detect Magic
    - Hold Portal
    - Read Magic
    Level 2
    - Detect Invisible
    - Levitate
    Level 3
    - Fly
    - Hold Person
    - Dispel Magic
    Level 4
    - Polymorph Self
    - Polymorph Others
    - Remove Curse
    Level 5
    - Teleport
    - Hold Monster
    - Conjure Elemental
    Level 6
    - Stone-Flesh
    - Reincarnation
    - Invisible Stalker

    Tremble in terror.

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  12. The spell-as-commodity system appeals to me very strongly, however a game approaches that basic concept. I like the idea of raiding crypts for old spells or pouring energy into researching new spells, and cheerfully rework other magic systems to make something more like this if I have to.

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  13. @cappadocious- Swords and Wizardry complete adds a spell level cap to the Int table. An int of 3 is not going to have spells above 4th level. Still fearsome! Perhaps magic is not about smarts but rather talent governed by smarts?

    @all- Check out my response to this and ChicagoWiz's spell musings at the Hydras Grotto.

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  14. In the days before there were supplements, to figure out if a MU learned or copied a spell successfully, I took the Wizards Intelligence, multiplied it by five, and used that as a percentage chance of successfully memorizing or copying a spell.

    Int 10 = 50%
    Int 12 = 60%
    Int 14 = 70%
    Int 16 = 80%
    Int 18 = 90%

    It works, Is extremely close to the regular charts and doesn't require a chart, as it can be easily memorized.

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  15. Oh, and the new spells that were selected right after level up had to be rolled to see if they were memorized or copied properly. If the player failed his roll, he failed to grok the spell and had to wait until leveling again before trying to relearn the spell. We did allow the player to select another spell instead, and would continue in this fashion until the MU reached his/her limit on max spells/lvl.

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  16. ...and the players had to roll whenever they wanted to memorize a spell for a day out of their spellbook as well... so daily spell selection was not an automatic given. Srry... just coming back to me in bits as I recall the days of old...

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  17. I suspect you're right about Phase 1 being the origin, but I think there's a Phase 1.5 you can already see in Volume 1: Men & Magic. Particularly on page 34, which includes:

    "Once a new spell is created the researcher may include it in the list appropriate to its level. He may inform others of it, thus enabling them to utilize it, or he may keep it to himself."

    and

    "Characters who employ spells are assumed to acquire books containing the spells they use, one book for each level. If a duplicate set of such books is desired, the cost will be the same as the initial investment for research as listed above..."

    Once the Pandora's Box of "they may not know all of their spells" is opened, one is forced to go looking for guidance on spells known... of which one finds little.

    (The use of the word "assumed" is also interesting, because the context is so vague. It could mean "the wizard is just assumed to own these books as he levels up". Or it could mean "it's assumed that the wizard has paid for such a book; if he hasn't, then he doesn't get access to his new spells".)

    Consider the passage on pg. 19: "The number in each column opposite each applicable character [level] indicates the number of spells of each level that can be used (remembered during any single adventure) by that character. [...] A spell used once may not be reused in the same day."

    In perhaps the most punitive interpretation of this passage, the number of spells known = the number of spells per day. In other words, at 2nd level you know two spells... and you can cast each of them once. ("A spell used once may not be reused in the same day.")

    You can loosen that up so that if you want to cast sleep twice in the same day at 2nd level, then you can pick separate iterations of sleep for both of your spells.

    And, obviously, you can loosen that all the way up to "you know all the spells for that class".

    Anyway, this is turning into a bit of a ramble. My point is that I think there's signs on the ground in Volume 1 that "you know all the spells for your class" was already on shaky ground. How shaky it was depends on how you interpret some pretty vague text.

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  18. Spells as commodity has to be carefully handled. If every first level, 1d4 hp, AC10 M-U is carrying around a highly portable little book worth many hundreds of gold, "prestidigitator" becomes a word for "target."

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  19. Here's something that was posted on the ODDguild Yahoo group:

    "Limits on the number of spells knowable in Greyhawk were treated as how many spells you could get for free "in training" when levelling. I recall some refs in our area wanting to interpret the number knowable as a cap on how many spells could be in a caster's spellbook. A letter to TSR got the reply that it was a cap on how many would be got in training, so that a string of hot die rolls wouldn't give a caster the whole list, for example, and that the spell book could expand beyond that. Most campaigns that were already limiting access to spells didn't change as a result of the new Greyhawk rule, and about half the campaigns that were handing out the entire list for the campaign changed to the Greyhawk rule, the other half kept handing out the whole list."

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  20. I agree 100% with your analysis of the 3 phases. I think the rationale for Phase 2 is most easily explained that as spell lists grew (Sup-I, etc.) some cap was needed to retain game balance. In Phase 3 I agree that the table has become vestigial and no longer makes sense. (Maybe yes at PHB time, no by DMG time.)

    I doubt that any thought at all regarding "societal implications" took place in Phases 1 or 2. As soon as that occurs to you as an issue, then the need for Phase 3 immediately follows.

    As an aside, I still use that table for the number of spells in NPC wizard spellbooks. Like, with Int 15 I assume 6 spells of max level, 10 spells of 1st-level, interpolated in between. All are randomly selected; then I hand-pick what's actually memorized.

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  21. Regarding INT 3 M/U's, and paraphrasing Luke:

    With my low INT, I can't even read! How am I supposed to study my spellbook?

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