A Quick Thought on Magic-Users

A la "vintage" D&D. A thought I've had over time, and I've seen expressed my many others, is that magic-users should dominate world affairs at higher levels. I find it to be a valid point. Many rules and house rules have sought to mitigate this. Some are mechanical, the so-called nerfing of the class. Some are setting-based, with magical colleges dedicated to keeping rogue wizards in check.

I submit to you that a possible answer to this conundrum lies at the point of character creation: the HP roll. We've all played in vintage games where characters start 1st level with maximum hit points. Sometimes there's even a "kicker" of 10 to 25 points. Survivability at low level, we say.

Now, bear with me down a brief tangent. Stat requirements for classes were implemented by Mr Gygax as a way to simulate the relative rarity of certain classes. If only 1 person in 1000 was a paladin, that needed to be reflected in the rules somehow. Lest every Tom-Dick-and-Harry would play one.  Stat requirements keep the occurrence of certain classes within norms.

Now, back to the magic-user. With a d4 hit die, and likely no CON bonus (3d6 and all), it would be a rare magic-user that makes it to 2nd level, let alone to empire-controlling majesty. So, I propose that the "control" on runaway magic-users is baked right into the class at inception.

That brings me to a larger thought about tinkering and house rules, but that will be another time.

Alignment Language

I've been reading B/X these last couple of weeks. It came out when I was out of the gaming loop for a year, so I had never played or read it when it was new. In all likelihood, I wouldn't have read it had I known about its release. I was "advanced" by that time.

I've been reading a "Let's Read" thread from 2013 in conjunction with my own reading. I have noticed several really cool points in my own reading, and had others brought to my attention in the LR thread. Today in my reading of the thread, they've reached the topic of alignment languages.

I like them. Period. They aren't conversational languages, though. They exist to portray concepts central to the tenets of their respective alignments. These concepts may very well be translated into Common or any other language, but the full weight of the underpinnings of the concept only come through when spoken in the proper tongue.

Thus, without further ado, I give you my interpretation of an alignment tongue in action:

Spellbooks and Research in B/X

Ode to Black Dougal has a post about how spellbooks are handled in B/X. In a nutshell, a magic-user or elf may only have a number of spells in their spellbook equal to the number spells they may cast. Thus, a 3rd level magic-user may only have three spells in his spellbook, two 1st level and one 2nd. Further, the only way to add new spells is by researching them yourself and being taught by another caster. No copying from looted spellbooks or copying scrolls.

Being relatively new to the B/X experience, I found this rather jarring. In fact, I mostly glossed over it as a poorly worded passage when I read it. I didn't give it too much thought until I read the blog post. I reread it then and realized that it was worded exactly as intended. In my mind, I immediately houseruled it. I couldn't stop thinking about it, though, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. I like what it says about magic-users. I would still houserule two aspects, though.

1. Allow magic-users and elves to modify their spellbook limit by their INT modifier. Allow a total number of additional spells equal to the INT modifier, not to exceed caster level. So, a 1st level caster with an INT of 16 could have one additional 1st level spell. When he reached 2nd level, he could add another 1st level spell, or have two 2nd level spells. These additional spell must still be acquired, they are not freely granted. This does not grant any additional casting ability, either.
2. Looted spellbooks may be used to aid spell research. Per X51, spell research requires 1000 gp and 2 weeks per spell level. It further specifies that this time must be "spent out of campaign". If a looted spellbook is available to reference, this time may be concurrent with adventuring. The other research rules still apply. The spell-caster player must notify the referee when the character is performing his research, such as while other characters are seeking rumors, negotiating with potential hirelings, etc.