# Staying Alive in Old-School Adventures: Magic Users

2024-12-30

This is based on an older (web) blog post of mine from 2013 that had
not made it to gopher, I'm reproducing it here and updating it.

## Avoiding Melee

Ah, the freshly-minted, first-level character sheet, clean and free
of eraser marks. It represents hope for every player that this
character will be great, fearlessly battling underground evil and
surviving to fame, riches and second level!

Unfortunately, first-level magic users (MUs) do not fare so well in
melee combat. New players tend to want to jump in and attack
everything in sight, with no thought given to the odds. Perhaps this
comes from playing newer editions or video games, but when playing
with an old-school referee, this is quickly fatal.

**Referee:** You open the door and get assaulted by the stench of
rotted meat and body odor. Twelve orcs look up at you from their
meal of freshly-killed mystery meat and grin, drawing their weapons.

**Festivus (MU):** I rush into the room and attack the closest orc
with my dagger!

You get the idea. As players, you need to think tactically in
old-school dungeons.

**Referee:** You open the door and get assaulted by the stench of
rotted meat and body odor. Twelve orcs look up at you from their
meal of freshly-killed mystery meat and grin, drawing their weapons.

**Festivus (MU):** I quickly shut the door and run back east, around
the corner. I'll prepare my sleep spell and cast it when the orcs
pile into the hallway.

## Creative Spell Use

Low-level magic users can still be very beneficial in old-school
adventures. The _sleep_ spell is, of course the canonical example,
but often overlooked is _charm person_. The latter is long-lasting
and once charmed, the former foe can be used as a source of valuable
information. The _light_ spell can be cast into an opponent's eyes,
which will blind them with a failed saving throw.

## Hired Help

One of the best ways for a MU to avoid melee is to hire some
muscle. You'll probably have enough gold to hire a Fighter or two
after a few adventures. Consider using that _charm person_ spell to
enhance your retainer's loyalty.

## Defensive Weapons

For referees, if you allow MUs in your campaign to use the staff as
a weapon, you can allow them to parry with it instead of attack, at
-2 to the opponent's to-hit roll. This is an easy way to increase
the survival odds for the MU that won't upset the game balance. It's
not an offensive capability, after all, and could be combined with a
backpedal for a sort of 'parrying retreat' that would get the MU out
of the front line of attack.

## The Thrown Dagger

MUs can throw daggers, of course, and they are cheap - so a MU can
buy several to use as throwing weapons, if they are allowed in your
games (OD&D and most of the clones thereof do not even mention the
use of the dagger as a missile weapon). Still, they're best used
from a distance as a fire-and-forget weapon, before melee starts. I
do allow them, with the same range as a hand axe - always assumed to
be at medium range, or within 30 feet.

## Spells and More Spells

MUs with high INT scores (say 15+) can be given an extra first-level
spell, meaning they could memorize two sleep spells. Some DMs don't
like sleep, with no saving throw it seems over-powered for a
first-level spell. But keep in mind that it affects the rolled
number of hit dice in a given area, perhaps including PCs if the
caster is not careful. It also does not affect undead (your party
clerics need to feel useful anyway). Also see [0] for more on the
sleep spell.

The other common way to effectively give low-level MUs more spells
is to adopt the Holmes scroll creation rules, that is that any MU
can create a scroll of a spell in their spellbook for 100gp and one
week per level. So a 2nd level spell scroll would take two weeks to
create, and cost 200gp. I really like this option, and allow it in
most of my games.

[0]: gopher://gopher.smolderingwizard.com/0/phlog/2024-05-25-musings-sleep-odnd-is-it-overpowered.md