Monday, October 21, 2013

More on Magic users

One of the perils of stream-of-conscious writing is that things get left out. I fancy myself some sort of Mozart of the blog, putting out a completed post in a single pass, no editing required. Of course, I know that's total horseshit, but we all have our delusions. Anyway . . .

There are a couple of more setting-centric thoughts about magic users that didn't make it into the recent relevant post.

I envision magic users in my setting as more adventurous than their "standard" brethren. With a more restrictive spell system, with a more limited number of acquisition options, they are forced to venture into the wild places in search of spells. They are also forced to be more pragmatic and seek more mundane solutions to many of their problems. Thus, they are slightly more robust and more capable in a fight.

  • They may use any one-handed weapon
  • They may wear leather armor, but still may not use shields
  • Their hit points are slightly better, adding +2 on the even levels, rather than +1
It seems like there was something else, but now it eludes me. Oh well, there's always another post.

2 comments:

  1. I'd been tinkering with a Holmes-like system where I've wanted to make wizards less squishy. I mean, c'mon, Gandalf uses a pretty awesome magic sword, so why shouldn't other wizards? The penalty on the to-hit rolls for MU class does well enough to reflect that the wizard has spent more time devoted to study of magic than study of arms, but there's no reason they should not be able to use any bladed weapons and still cast spells, provided they have a free hand. Sure, armor and shields are out, but the restrictions on MUs in D&D give the impression that all wizards are old, weak and frail men whose old-man hip will break in the slightest breeze even at the outset of their career. In a lot of ways, the old race-as-class Elf best reflects the adventuring wizard, but the inherent limitations put on demi-humans in older rule-sets discourages using that as an alternative.

    Also, the way I see it, if Wizards aren't the ones using those +whatever magic swords, it sure as hell isn't in their best interest to keep enchanting them.

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