If you missed it, I posted this look at a 1970s OD&D spell point system yesterday. Includes discussion of potential OSR usage at the end.
Originally shared by Zenopus Archives
In 1975 a group of Caltech students published Warlock, one of the first supplements for OD&D. Holmes used this system for his personal OD&D games prior to editing the Basic Set. He was a fan of the Warlock spell point system and mentioned in Dragon #52 that he tried to get Gary to include a spell point system in the Basic Set. I've written up a summary of these rules if you are interested in trying them out, either in your OD&D game (particularly now the pdfs are publicly available) or in your OSR game.
http://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-warlock-od-spell-point-system.html
Yeah, the problem with Vancian magic is that low level MUs suck and high level ones dominate the games. We played for a long time with Chainmail type magic (casting roll required but if you succeed you keep the spell in memory) but that breaks down beyond mid-levels as spells a couple of levels down from you essentially become 4e style "at will" abilities.
ReplyDeleteNo problem, Shannon Ferguson. So much of OD&D only makes sense when viewed in the context of Chainmail. I just wish WotC would release an official PDF.
ReplyDeleteYes, thank you, Shannon Ferguson, I have it. I've also run games of Spellcraft & Swordplay which utilises many aspects of Chainmail, albeit in a not very well thought through way.
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