Spell casting, House Rules to Make your Wizard less of a Pussy

I was flipping through some blogs and read some interesting takes on spell casting in the OSR. So, naturally I had to give my particular experience or spin upon the matter myself. Here it goes fellow grognards.

We have all had that experience where you are a first level magic-user in an OSR game. The one and done chump. I cast sleep save the party and then becomes the torch bearer for the rest of the session. Eventually we House Rule to make a Magic-User more useful for the lower levels. Or expand upon a skil set to make them much more than their spell selection.

I always  thought it strange that the most Intelligent class was essentially thought of useless outside of their single spell. Adding a few features to the Magic-User in BX does not really break anything so I allow them a sort of bardic ability; as a note I absolutely despise the Bard as a class, with insights into the past on Legends and magical items. They do spend their entire life with their nose in a book and should get credit for picking up a few things outside of storing a bit of arcane power in the noggin right? Plus I get an extra reason to never allow Bards into my campaigns, #Score.

In some games I have allowed them to innately detect magic but this was later shifted over to Elves who are innately magical in my old school games. I did notice that human magic-users abused the ability to a much greater level than those playing Elves. Every ten feet detecting magic as they advanced into a dungeon while Elves handled items with their detection or in unusual rooms and this was in two separate campaigns with different people. Just something Odd I had noticed.

Other more mundane options tried was the eldritch wand which allowed a short range damaging attack requiring a to hit roll. But this gave them an essentially unlimited magical item so was discarded as being a bit over the top. The eldritch wand then become more of a very rare magical item which was very useful for a Magic-User but vastly superior to a magic missile wand as it was infinite. Eventually I had to make it one of those legendary wands which curiously resembled something out of Harry Potter. I have no shame when it comes to stealing/borrowing ideas from fiction or blogs. Build upon all these ideas in your own campaign and see what works with your particular group of adventurers.

The most common method is expanding that spell selection and I have seen many go to the Sorcerous route wherein they have no need to memorize but that approach is how I house ruled my Elves spell casting ability with whom as I have said are more innately magical. I simply decided to give Intelligence the same benefit as Wisdom in my BX and OSR games and it worked just fine. Otherwise Magic-Users are as tempted to put a floating attribute or buff a stat such as Dexterity or Constitution over Intelligence as it gives a more tangible benefit that actual Intelligence. I use a straight in order creation system for stats but if you allow to drop two to raise one this very well could happen. The added benefit of allowing the Magic-user to pull from a repertoire as opposed to memorizing spells for the adventure is you get an unusual variety of utility spells outside of magic Missile, Sleep or Charm Person but I find that the better player character wizard with a larger spell selection is adding those spells naturally as opposed to your Mr Sandman who takes nothing but Sleep. I personally find that Unseen servant is terribly useful in an OSR dungeon but I am a devious Magic-User. Encourage odd spell selections and you should see interesting applications in your adventuring groups.

Expanding weapon selection is a handy option too. Anything to get a frail cloth wearer into a brawl with goblins and skeletons is always funny. Disemboweled, have a nice day. It typically turns your Magic-User into part time executioner of fellow party members depending upon how you handle firing into a melee especially if you allow them a nice large missile weapon of some sort. Ir also sets up possible party friction between a wizard trying to pick a magical weapon over a more melee class. Always interesting to watch how those things get resolved.

Time to wrap this up I guess. I find it easier to expand their ability to be useful in a non magical way helpful. As scholar and sage in addition to mobile magical artillery. Expanding their options in melee just a tad and their spell selection with bonus spells makes a player feel that they actually contributing more at low level but the spell selection of a wise player is a skill learned in many adventures. Your mileage may vary on that depending upon your players though. These are just a few thing I have tried over the years but I am always curious to see how others do this as well. Feel free to comment.

There was another option but it seemed sort of broken to me and that was spell reclamation. Allowing a Magic-User to attempt to retain the spell in memory after casting as a full round action. The scaling I noticed was hard to balance and as a player I immediately sought to abuse it. Make it hard for low level it become easy for high level granting them endless fireballs and make it hard for high level and it was nigh impossible for lower level players. In the end the concept was interesting but application was difficult.

Game Well, Game Often

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