So fun thing about AD&D spells is that there's the player-facing rules in the PHB, but there's also the spell's description in the DMG as well which hides additional rules about a spell. This is to not "spoil" creative uses of the spell which Erase does have! If you don't care about the spoiler, Erase removes Glyph of warding as a first level spell which makes it a tool for higher level casters to remove Glyphs of Warding from trapped spell books or a trapped dungeon that you have the ability to leave and come back to. Is it great in general or for level 1 wizards? No. Is it way cheaper than preparing dispel magic if you know there's a glyph of warding in your way? Absolutely.
@@zeebashew you might have gotten mixed up due to 5e combining the two into one spell for no discernable reason. 5e's glyph of warding is explosive runes unless the explosion is overwritten with a different spell.
Well according to erase, you need to "touch" any magical writing you want to erase and what is the most common trigger for activating glyths of warding? At least explosive runes you have to read them first.
That line alone is inspirational enough to make a whole series about a shit wizard trying in vain to get spells that are even slightly helpful with a power creep structured like a shonen anime but a snail-like rate of actual power increase.
That's unironically the entire old D&D wizard experience. Learning new spells becomes part of why you're adventuring. You're not just going in that hole for gold and glory, you want those delicious scrolls. So your characterization is pretty much set in stone, you're on a quest for knowledge.
That's unironically the entire old D&D wizard experience. Learning new spells becomes part of why you're adventuring. You're not just going in that hole for gold and glory, you want those delicious scrolls. So your characterization is pretty much set in stone, you're on a quest for knowledge.
Robbing the living shit out of other wizards to get new spells was A Thing, in lore and in play. The backstory of every single spellbook in the old "Pages From the Mages" articles was a litany of theft and stabbing.
Welcome to old school D&D! I've had a Wizard die from a glancing blow on a backswing, and I've defeated two Liches almost single-handedly with two different Wizards, one at level 11 and another at like level 3 or 4 with a first level spell that went wrong.
If your lucky your useful once per day. Other than that your worse than a NPC farmer with 1-4 HP and an attack that misses 90% the time that deals like 1-3dmg. Honestly till you get the likes of Fireball your pretty useless, even then it's still a once per day usefulness factor for a long time.
I like to imagine Elminster or some old-ass dragons live on in 5e still knowing some of these "ancient" spells and reflect on "...how easy the scholars of today have it." and how back in their day, you had to "ferry everything on your floating disc both ways through the dungeon! And may the gods HELP you if you forgot your ladder for the pit traps!"
I like the NetHack approach to grapple: "Why, yes, we did copy or rip off practically every single mechanic in all of AD&D, except Vancian casting because we don't have rests, and yes we did also steal a huge chunk of the Monster Manual as well, but... no, we're not doing grappling."
I don't know what deal you can make that helps you while you're still within 3 inches* of the paper, but when I find it I'll be ready! *Ok wait good news, I actually read the rules; I believe they used (") as a stand in for either feet when inside, or yards when outside. Truly an artist that Gygax.
@@Day-eb9po I encourage you to keep exploring. In AD&D, (") means inches on the tabletop, and the scale is going to be 10 feet per " indoors and underground, and 10 yards per " outdoors. Importantly, this is STRICTLY for RANGE AND MOVEMENT ONLY. EVER. I don't wanna see anybody thinking Fireball is bigger outside. You never triple the area of effect for anything. Why the indoor/outdoor difference? Outdoors, there's no ceiling height, so arrows can arc higher and shoot farther. Hard to shoot the full distance possible when you have to aim straight ahead in a hallway of 10 feet height. And outdoors there are better sight lines, more open space, and fewer obstructions, so you can more freely move at your top speed. Essentially, you have to slow down when you're in a dungeon for the same reason you take longer to go around your bed and down the hall into the bathroom vs. being on a hike striding along the straight line distance between those two points. The outdoor movement rate much more closely approximates a marching speed for a human with medieval equipment through the wilderness. Next you're going to wonder, if a hallway 10 feet across is represented by a 1-inch square on the table, how do we fit 2 miniatures into that 1-inch square? I'll bake your noodle with a note from the beginning of the DMG that 3 characters can walk abreast in a 10' hallway. Whether they can all fight at the same time depends on their weapon "Space Required" (two longswords only, but if they have spears or daggers they can all three fight at once as a front rank). I'm assuming the early gamers weren't using 10mm / 12mm figures which would be the size needed for that space on the table. Many early D&D groups didn't even use miniatures. What I can tell you is, when I draw a DM's map of a dungeon, I use a 10' per square scale. This lets me pack a LOT more dungeon into a graph paper page. When I draw it on the gridded vinyl mat, where people put their figures, I draw 1 square = 5' and draw just what we need for that fight and then erase it. The players are responsible for making a map. What I used to do was to draw the public mat dungeon as we went, 1 square = 10' like my private map, which meant one dungeon level fit on one mat at a time. This worked great because I used the One Page Dungeon format for my dungeons, so I could always fit the dungeon level on the mat at once. But with my current project, there's no way to make that work. See the Undermountain map for another example where it just doesn't work. In this scale, I needed to represent the adventuring party on the mat with one 25mm figure at the lead (its base is 1 inch square), with everyone else invisibly trailing behind according to the marching order list. A wonderful alternative would be buying and painting up a bunch of 12mm figures, including a few donkeys or whatever, and then mounting them onto 1 inch square bases, 4 per base. This would be a super-miniature unit of the adventuring party. But it would be just for the visual effect, since I wouldn't have a whole slew of monster figures in 12mm, so we couldn't run combats like that. Anyway, as I said, I left that process behind in favor of only publicly drawing the immediate battle area as needed.
Hahaha. Gygax:"Lock down identify! It will break the game! Player:"Huh, if you don't wear armor, you can be a wrestling god". Gygax:"The rules are fine, save more ink for meandering asides!"
In AD&D every grapple attempt is preceded by a weapon attack from the defender which can prevent the attempt. If you aren't wearing armour the defender will hit more often than not. It is balanced within the system.
AD&D 1st edition did have cantrips, as far back as 1982 (Dragon Magazine #52, article by E. Gary Gygax), added fully officially in Unearthed Arcana (1985). You could substitute up to four for a 1st level spell slot. You automatically know as many of the 20 "Useful" cantrips as you have points of Intelligence and get to choose from the list, and you know 2-8 (2d4) from each of Person (person-affecting), Personal (handy little tricks, e.g. Firefinger is a short little jet of flame up to 6 inches long sufficient to light a candle or ignite kindling, Spider summons a random type of normal-sized spider native to the area (which *will* be irritated and isn't under the caster's control, etc), and Reversed (reversed versions of Useful cantrips, such as Tarnish vs Polish, or Spill vs Gather), and 2-5 (1d4+1) Legerdemain (minor "magic trick" style effects like Change (an alteration that can make a small object or creature be another of roughly the same size for up to about 10 minutes, within the same kingdom of animal or general type of material -- for instance, make a sheet of paper into a linen handkerchief, or a mouse into a bat) and Haunting (makes real or illusory sounds useful for simulating haunting or the presence of someone unseen, like Footfall, Tap, Groan, etc). So, you could potentially have a 1st-level Wizard with 15 Intelligence know up to 15 Useful cantrips, 8 Person, Personal, and Reversed, and 5 Legerdemain and Haunting, for a total of 49 cantrips. They could could only cast 4 of them per 1st-level spell slot they allotted for cantrips, though, but 4 handy little "0-level" spells would be handy during downtime. It was a pretty common house rule to add the cantrips at 4 per 1st-level spell slot, so if you could cast two 1st-level spells per day, you could also cast 8 cantrips per day, instead of having to trade. Most of them were handy for roleplaying and hard to abuse.
You ever wonder why spells like this exist in the first place? Like what was going on in their heads that they were thinking: "yes this is a spell that someone would want to use resources on casting."
Part of it I guess is that when they were making AD&D most of this stuff had only been tested by a few groups of people, and if those people found a use for it or one person who used the spell all the time vehemently defended its inclusion in the module.
@@joelwhite2361 Made worse then by the one person who found a way to completely abuse the spell in one very specific and unusual circumstance, leading to an already mediocre spell gaining a bunch of caveats and a fail chance.
I think at a base level it makes sense. There's a lot of potential in magic! Even if sometimes it can get a bit specific. Though imagine being able to just erase an entire library of stored knowledge. The issue is more an overcompensation of balancing, which may have been done due to some edge case someone thought of, like erasing the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps forgetting they could've probably just tossed it into a camp fire for similar effect.
You also have to take into account that the primary goal in constructing 1E and AD&D was to add flavor to system and systematize flavor, and that this is a bunch of folks (male nerds, really) who’ve been scrabbling in pencil on paper all day. The idea of a magic spell that just wipes the slate clean (perhaps when your third character of the day dies horribly and you need to start a fourth one on a fourth new sheet) would appeal to both the player AND the scrawny, lazy wizard who doesn’t have the carrying capacity to haul much more than what they absolutely need.
Interesting. This immediately recalls to me one of the original inspirations for the magic system: Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" setting. For a wizard who's generally acting as a solo adventurer exploring the lost ruins of an ancient civilization. and who's so very limited in both access to spells and the ability to have them ready to cast that any sane wizard will train in physical combat just to reduce how often they'll need to save precious mental space for an attack spell, a near-certain bypass for any inscribed spell would be a vital tool.
When youre talking about the spell prep process for wizards, its important to remember that they were Vancian magic. The spells were concepts that took time and space in a trained brain to hold onto
2nd edition was similar, and it has 4 books that cover basically every spell printed for the edition along with some optional rules. They range from very cool to very WEIRD!
I legitimately gaffawed at "you desperately need that spellbook" I mean i might be higher than a storm giant's nut sack but still that was a solid joke/accurate observation
More generous than the DM's I played with. I believe it was something like you got 1 spell per level you just know, and can pick anything. Some classes like specialist got an extra spell per level in their specialty. Other than that it was up to random spell scrolls or books you found along the way and transcribed into your spell book... Oh and all wizards started off with Read magic. The real fun begins if you lose your spell book for some reason. You can no longer cast read magic to read other wizards books, so you can't even transcribe it again to memorize. You have to actually pay the thousands of gold to "research" the spell and basically create it again. Moral of the story, always have a back up spell book. Too bad it also takes like a day per spell level to transcribe spells I think in Ad&D.
1:13 Interesting that the material components for Identify are so similar between here and 5e. We kept the pearl (even the minimum price) and owl feather, but we don't need to steep the feather in wine and drink the result, nor swallow a live miniature carp.
There is no set of spells i could have that would be so good that i wouldnt steal/copy another wizard's spell book given the opportunity. Quantity of spells has a quality all it's own.
Better idea: everyone plays different specialty wizards and share your spellbooks. Try not to learn the same spells so everyone can have as many options as possible.
@@Zanarthis That doesn't really work in an AD&D/OSR game because of how fragile magic users are. you only get a d4 hit die, and you require 2-3 times as much xp per level as other classes depending on the class. At first level, you only get one spell per day. You are only proficient with daggers and maybe staves, and you have to use STR for melee regardless. All of that is to say that the game is hard enough on even a balanced party that keeping more than a couple of magic users alive until they become self sufficient in mid levels isn't really feasible. Besides, in most AD&D/OSR games, different "specialty wizards" are different classes with different spell lists. Magic User, Illusionist, and Necromancer are all separate things. They aren't just subclasses of wizard. Sharing spells between them requires expensive and time consuming magical research.
@@nunyabidness8870 I mostly agree, but I should point out that hiring a bunch of mercenaries with staves and crossbows to protect the all-wizard party through a dungeon until they level up enough COULD work. It might even make Charisma a useful stat (there were explicit rules for hirelings). Of course, things would less cut-and-dry in actual play, surviving contact with the enemy and all that, but that’s what makes the game fun.
The spells in AD&D (both 1E and 2E) had ridiculous restrictions. Take Hold Portal, for example. The purpose of Hold Portal is to secure a door in the dungeon. For example your party is on the run from a monster, and want to bar the door, but don't have the time to do so. But the duration is so short, it won't help your party bar the door. A high level NPC Magic User might get use out of it to escape the PCs and their hirelings, bur a low level party might need to be immensely creative to get any use out of it. Fun fact: Hold Portal made it into 3.5 edition. I only remember that because Rich Burlew made fun of the spell in Order of the Stick. By 4E the game designers saw no utility in Hold Person, and I am pretty sure its not in 5E either.
There is no Hold Portal spell in 5e, but there is Arcane Lock, which holds much of the intended use, but much better. For one, its duration is "until dispelled", which already puts it leagues ahead of the ADD version. It also increases the DC to break down the object (it also works on chest, windows, etc.) by ten, and any creatures of your choice can still open it. It is also a level two spell, though, so there is a bit of a trade-off.
Hearing all these old school AD&D misadventures is reminding me of my childhood reading dragonlance. Keep it up, I love this period period of RPGs, even for all it's flaws, especially the flaws even.
@@badideagenerator2315 Not really if I'm honest, because wizards don't use their spellbooks for spellcasting. They use it for spell preparation. Which does not happen during combat. You'd be wasting your turn while they nuke you on theirs.
@@kylestanley7843 that's why it's great for the finale of the fight, when that opposing wizard is down, barely conscious, and can't fight back, you walk over, open their spellbook and smirk as you systematically erase *all* of their hard work, two pages at a time, then you just leave, leaving them to pick up the pieces of their shattered life's work,
The dramatic pan out of the wizard’s tower combined with that line delivery has made this one of my favorite animated spellbook episodes. Thank you for your work Zee!
As someone who plays wizards alot in 5e, this entire segment both hurts my soul, and resonates with that cry of 'you need that spellbook'... Especially as Order of Scribes. That 14th level feature can eat through so many spells...
i looked up what the14th level feature is and just out curiosity why would you use it unless it was a last ditch effort like "I just need to reduce the damage enough to survive then my contingency will trigger a dimension door or something to get me to safety" since coping spells to the spellbook costs gold and higher level spells cost more gold to copy so the amount of coin needed to copy even "junk" spells to use for that feature seems like it might be better spent on magic items or something?
@@wolfyblackknight8321 I mean, the effect is just that, meant as an emergency measure to reduce damage to zero once a day. Whilst something like contingency combined with Dimension Door is nice, it doesn't stop effects like the 'you are turned into a pile of dust if you're left at 0 from disintegrate', or certain monster effects that outright kill you if it reduces you to zero, or zombifies you, or many other effects. And bear in mind that you lose the spells in question for 1-6 long rests, which means you could lose up to 18 levels of spells for nearly a week. And if you have to use that, say, two or three times during said cooldown period... I don't know about you, but when you consider the cost and niche nature of some other magic items that does something similar, but even then only does it against one type of damage (Fire Absorbing tattoo, let's say) - that costs at minimum 20k gold (using Xanathar's guide 'buying magic item' downtime calculation) up to 50k gold pieces. Compare that to, say, the 10k gold pieces you'd probably spend to get ahold of a shit ton of 'junk' 1st/2nd/3rd level spells and copy them into your book?
The spell says “paper, parchment, or similar surfaces”". So going as written it could be used on anything with a similar SURFACE. Like a thin wooden floor (like tiles). But not ceramic. Also, glyph of warding is EXPLICITLY affected by Erase (DMG pg41/44). Wizard marks can also be explicitly targeted regardless of surface (UA pg53). So it would be reasonable to rule that any similar magic etc. would be affected regardless of what it's on.
Yeah but sadly Gygax and crew had an insipid approach to metagaming back in the day. You weren't supposed to read the DMG and thus know all the features of your class/spells. Even though it would be idiotic that no wizard would know that Erase works on Glyph of Warding except through trial and error. That's probably one of the first things that comes to mind for someone whose entire career is research into magic.
i can see exactly one use for this, your party notices a wanted poster looking for them in a tavern, you attempt to erase it before anyone can check it and recognize you
@tuomasronnberg5244 Tearing it off with your fingers would still have a chance to fail. It would be loud, and it's more difficult than you might think. Meanwhile, the spell could give you the chance to make some subtractive edits.
@@robintheviking8990 Erase has both vocal and somatic components, and a range of a whole 3 inches. You don't think a guy chanting and gesturing right in front of a wanted poster wouldn't be noticeable? Also, I am fairly confident that an average person would have more than 54% chance of tearing down a poster off the wall with their hands unlike the spell, wouldn't you agree?
@tuomasronnberg5244 Rules about how obvious spellcasting is were much more flexible at the time, and people who didn't know magic might not realize that what they're seeing is a spell being cast. Also, no, I wouldn't agree. Have you ever tried to remove a flier stuck to a wall with wheat paste? It ain't as easy as it looks.
Watching these made me realize that without knowing it, my first DnD experience was with AD&D: as a wee bab, I watched my parents play Baldurs Gate I and II and when I was old enough for my chubby little hands to maneuver the mouse and keys, I played it too. I can rattle off Irenicus' opening monologue by heart to this day, at 30, and sometimes the chanting of Alaundo's prophecies outside of Candlekeep bounce around my skull like a commercial jingle when I least expect it. To this day, I don't understand the magic system. Half of the spell descriptions mean absolutely nothing to me. Might as well be written in cuniform for all the comprehension I have. Horrid Wilting? Laroch's Minor Drain? What does it do? Who knows? I certainly don't!
Currently in the game I’m dming for I had two wizards in the party who have been uncovering “ancient” spell books that had 5e conversions of AD&D spells. Erase was one of the spells the creative wizard latch onto and attempted to find every corner case use for. It has been great watching him learn to disarm every magical trap/puzzle I’ve thrown their way. The best of course was erasing billboard signs of businesses that “crossed” the party in some fashion or another.
So, to clarify. Erase allows a magic user to spend a very valuable limited resource to, if they are lucky, do the same thing that a match would do reliably.
Struggle, plead, compromise, and grovel until you survive long enough to reach level 3. Then cast Erase on the cover and title page of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Since it's no longer the Dungeon Master's Guide, there's no reason that you, as a player, are forbidden to read it.
I remember that there were cantrips in ad&d but they were basically one specific use case spells that were non damaging that was eventually rolled into one spell of prestidigitation. Cantrips like color, salt, polish and a few others.
To be fair, I can think of a handful of ways that Erase could be useful. Maybe the BBEG has a scroll with a powerful spell or ritual that he plans on using to do something evil with. The scroll can't be destroyed, and he has some form of magic on it that lets him know where it is at all times. So, you could Erase the text of the scroll, leaving it unharmed and letting the BBEG think things are fine until he uses it. Combine it with a spell like Explosive Runes, and you can literally have the villain's plans blow up in his face.
i.e. the GM needs to set up a highly specific situation where the spell would be useful and not accept any other creative ideas players come up with so that the wizard can feel like they're helping
@@tuomasronnberg5244 But some of the most incredible moments in Web TTRPG history, like Dimension 20 and Critical Role, come from unexpected uses of seemingly minor spells. An eldritch knight casting Knock on a locked door in "A Crown Of Candy" took the DM completely by surprise, as an example. It isn't "The DM needs to craft a specific setup so this spell is useful", it's "The DM forgot that I have this niche spell that will allow me to use it in a creative way and change the situation in my favor". That is the heart of a RPG.
@@FirstLast-cg2nk Exactly my point. Those moments are amazing because they rise organically from a player using a real spell creatively, not because the GM goes out of his way to craft a scenario so that the player finally has some reason to cast their useless spell (which could be better solved with a real spell but cannot due to artificial constraints set by the GM).
My understanding (as someone who started out in 5e and tried 1e after finding my dad's old copy) is that the min/max spells are NOT the ones you know, but basically the ones you have the potential to learn. You are meant to have a few spells your character can just never understand, regardless if they come across it. I imagined it as the spells your teacher taught you/prepped you to know eventually, so I would rule as a GM that the magic user can learn those spells if they have a specific teacher and significant time.
2:17 This is just for me so that I can immediately go back to the best part of this video instantly. I've been laughing my ass off for 5 minutes and counting!
Which means YOU DESPERATELY NEED THAT SPELL BOOK!!! Ah, I've been in that situation before; admittedly at least once by my own dimwitted and boisterous ways 😛
erase is one of those spells, that you give to an NPC so they can try to erase something the players want, forcing the players to counter or disrupt the spell. if i saw a PC actively take it, i would probably call their spouse to ask if everything was okay at home.
Sounds like my campaign flawed spells ("magic research rolled bad, but I am still granting a spell. Roll research to see if you know what the flaw is"). The flawed spell that would solve riddles, but if you cast it it erases itself from the spellbook and casts the spell learned just before it as a side effect, whatever that spell is. So the player solved a riddle and...disintegrated the riddle reward.
Oh man. That... That punchline you ended on. You're entirely right, and I want to laugh, but I can't because oh my gods do you *desperately* need that spellbook!
I used to think the spell was useless until it saved my party…also had the spell forget which also seemed useless until I countered a suggestion spell by making the player forget the suggestion…also works with command spell.
Well a very limited use for Erase is Spell books are expensive and heavy to carry around. I believe traveling spell books had 50 pages and Spells took something like 1d4-1 plus the level of the spell in pages. So unless you get your hands on a bag of holding carting around several spell books is not very likely for a wizard and their general encumbrance limits. So a very niche use would be to cast Erase on your own spell books to remove spells you either don't want any more, or have other wise copied to new spell books. I know most my wizards started off with any spell they knew all in one book, then I'd eventually move on to "useful spells", all spells by level etc to make organization easier. Funny enough an absolutely insanely powerful spell though is Copy. As you can imagine it's a first level spell that lets you basically instantly copy spells you know into spell books, I believe the number of pages per cast limited by your level.
Mechanical "Game Balance" was NOT really a thing in 1st Edition AD&D (nor in Basic D&D) My table royally mishandled stuff like this back in the day. My 1st EVER character (a magic user from Basic D&D) started with only ONE spell in his book (ventriloquism) & got Floating disk when he leveled up! (random rolls each time) It wasn't until YEARS later (when I READ the DMs guide) I learned that he was SUPPOSED to automatically get Read magic (or maybe Detect magic), an offensive or defensive spell & a utility spell! But he DIED before he could hit 3rd level (& scribe the Web scroll he found)!
That's a cantrip, and all cantrips in 1e are about that powerful. Also you get to sting someone with the bee, it's not just "oh hey now there's a bee here".
Erased basically takes the place of a potentially useful spell and costs a resource to maybe use, True strike if nothing else, only wastes a cantrip spot (not great).
honestly, that is something I liked when playing with the grognards of old was that spells were indeed random and you going up in levels you didn't just learn new spells, you needed to find scrolls to scribe them.
The identify spell controls for anyone curious Explanation/Description: When an identify spell is cast, one item may be touched and handled by the magic-user in order that he or she may possibly find what dweomer it possesses. The item in question must be held or worn as would be normal for any such object, ie, a bracelet must be placed on the spell caster's wrist, a helm on his or her head, boots on the feet, a cloak wom, a dagger held, and so on. Note that any consequences of this use of the item fall fully upon the magic user, although any saving throw normally allowed is still the privilege of the magic-user. For each segment the spell is in force, it is 15% + 5% per level of the magic-user probable that 1 property of the object touched can become known possibly that the item has no properties and is merely a ruse (the presence of Nystul's magic aura or a magic mouth being detected). Each time a property can be known, the referee will secretly roll to see if the magic-user made his or her saving throw versus magic. If the save was successful, the property is known; if is 1 point short, a false power will be revealed, and if it is lower than I under the required score no information will be gained. The item will never reveal its exact plusses to hit or its damage bonuses, although the fact that it has few or many such plusses can be discovered. If it has charges, the object will never reveal the exact number, but it will give information which is +/-25% of actual, ie a wand with 40 charges could feel as if it had 30, or 50, or any number in between. The item to be identified must be examined by the magic-user within 1 hour per level of experience of the examiner after it has been discovered, or all readable impressions will have been blended into those of the characters who have possessed it since. After casting the spell and determining what can be learned from it, the magic user loses 8 points of constitution. He or she must rest for 6 turns per 1 point in order to regain them. If the 8 point loss drops the spell caster below a constitution of 3, he or she will fall unconscious, and consciousness will not be regained until full constitution is restored 24 hours later. The material components of this spell are a pearl (of at least 100 g.p. value) and an owi feather steeped in wine, with the infusion drunk and a live miniature carp swallowed whole prior to spell casting. If a luckstone is powdered and added to the infusion, probability increases 25% and all saving throws are made at +4.
Being a magic caster in 1st edition is the same as being a dr some generations ago. They had to swallow living carps to identify the property of an item as the doctors had to taste pee to identify diabetes
Its great to see these on my feed so often! You should try Dolemnwood lots of fun spells with that AD&D feel. Level 1: Ingratiate, enchant an object that a character will willingly accept as a gift. and then Ventriloquism, self explanatory. So fun!
Reminds me of the first time I tried making a D&D character after enjoying many other systems. Tried picking some spells for a level 1 Cleric. Noticed Detect Poison and the way to purify poison were two separate spells, so you either could tell if someone tried to poison you, or make sure whatever you're about to eat won't be poisoned but you'd never know if it was poisoned in the first place... Great...
This does though remind me of a spell from an adventure called Lost Lines. It's basically the opposite - you get erased or damaged text back. At ninth level you can even restore stuff the author didn't write down.
Great video Zee, love the animations as always. I also really like the background song too and it seems like I'm not the only one. Could you put it in the description or make a comment with it or reply to someone with it? Thanks.
If I remember right from my reading of old AD&D books, it's not one spell/day, it's a set of spell slots at a given time. Each slot takes time to prep based on it's lvl, 15min/spell level. So you can cast a spell, write a bit, cast another. I think,
The 1e DMG has guidelines for the DM to determine your starting spells… different from the ones you can possibly know, these are the ones your mentor puts in your book. Usually Read Magic and up to 3 others. My best character, eventually an archmage after about 5 years of weekly play, started with Read Magic, Detect Magic, Jump and Push. DM was pretty stingy.
![Natti Natasha - Quiéreme Menos [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/R57RrTjRGxk/mqdefault.jpg)
So fun thing about AD&D spells is that there's the player-facing rules in the PHB, but there's also the spell's description in the DMG as well which hides additional rules about a spell. This is to not "spoil" creative uses of the spell which Erase does have! If you don't care about the spoiler, Erase removes Glyph of warding as a first level spell which makes it a tool for higher level casters to remove Glyphs of Warding from trapped spell books or a trapped dungeon that you have the ability to leave and come back to. Is it great in general or for level 1 wizards? No. Is it way cheaper than preparing dispel magic if you know there's a glyph of warding in your way? Absolutely.
Oh boy, I totally messed up haha I conflated *Explosive Runes* and *Glyphs*
You actually can use it on Glyphs - it's possible I've made a grave error.
@@zeebashew
Your delivery on that last line "YOU DESPERATELY NEED THAT SPELL BOOK!" was absolutely fantastic! From wizards everywhere thank you! lol
@@zeebashew you might have gotten mixed up due to 5e combining the two into one spell for no discernable reason. 5e's glyph of warding is explosive runes unless the explosion is overwritten with a different spell.
Well according to erase, you need to "touch" any magical writing you want to erase and what is the most common trigger for activating glyths of warding?
At least explosive runes you have to read them first.
@@evilbarrels2506 Ohhhh, we now need this as an Animated Spellbook for this exact reason on the utility of Glyphs... Past and present.
“Desperately need that spell book” was the most visceral I’ve ever heard you sound
Yeah that was GREAT!
And true moment. For a wizard if you beat another wizard in combat you NEED that fricking book, because it's an free spells to add to your list.
I laughed hard.
By far one of the funniest single lines ever delivered by Zee
That line alone is inspirational enough to make a whole series about a shit wizard trying in vain to get spells that are even slightly helpful with a power creep structured like a shonen anime but a snail-like rate of actual power increase.
ok here's my use for erase-You cast it on your spellbook to remove it and beg to the DM to let you re-roll for another spell
This is so so funny.
I don't know if failing to erase your own spell works for or against your begging.
Erase your only spells and retire to the country side. Really this is better than the avg outcome for lv 1 wizards
Wouldn't try it, GMs above 3rd level get special ability that makes them resistant to any plea, and those of name-level are immune.
@@Gashren where are you finding nameless gms
The idea of a wizard who doesn’t know any good spells concocting a heist on another wizard for their spell book seems like a cool adventure idea
That's unironically the entire old D&D wizard experience. Learning new spells becomes part of why you're adventuring. You're not just going in that hole for gold and glory, you want those delicious scrolls. So your characterization is pretty much set in stone, you're on a quest for knowledge.
That's unironically the entire old D&D wizard experience. Learning new spells becomes part of why you're adventuring. You're not just going in that hole for gold and glory, you want those delicious scrolls. So your characterization is pretty much set in stone, you're on a quest for knowledge.
Robbing the living shit out of other wizards to get new spells was A Thing, in lore and in play. The backstory of every single spellbook in the old "Pages From the Mages" articles was a litany of theft and stabbing.
I made a character that only knew Create Water and would pretend to have magical powers through trickery and crafting. He was a fun character.
Welcome to old school D&D! I've had a Wizard die from a glancing blow on a backswing, and I've defeated two Liches almost single-handedly with two different Wizards, one at level 11 and another at like level 3 or 4 with a first level spell that went wrong.
Playing a low level wizard in this sounds like playing a slightly aggressive toddler
Lvl 1 wiz vs toddler, toddler wins every time.
If your lucky your useful once per day. Other than that your worse than a NPC farmer with 1-4 HP and an attack that misses 90% the time that deals like 1-3dmg. Honestly till you get the likes of Fireball your pretty useless, even then it's still a once per day usefulness factor for a long time.
I’ve seen a level 1 wizard die to a house cat.
@@S71xx A house cat could obliterate a lvl 1 wizard.
There is an old 3.5 joke.
What is weaker than a lvl 1 wizard?
A lvl 1 wizard that just cast magic missile.
5e has a spell with a similar effect. It's called Fireball. It erases more than a couple pages though.
Fire: The cause of, and solution to, most of life's problems!
The Spell Description for fireball in ADND obliterates most things including worn magical items
The goblin with a -hammersaw- chainhammer is absurd and horrifying, I love it!
um actually. thats clearly a chainhammer
Thank you. I wanted to take a moment to appreciate the Chainhammer saw. Glad I'm not alone in that.
My favorite tool in Terraria!
It works just like a normal chainsaw, but is horrendously less efficient unless your goal inflicting even more pain!
I like to imagine Elminster or some old-ass dragons live on in 5e still knowing some of these "ancient" spells and reflect on "...how easy the scholars of today have it." and how back in their day, you had to "ferry everything on your floating disc both ways through the dungeon! And may the gods HELP you if you forgot your ladder for the pit traps!"
“These damn new fangled sommatic components are a game changer, I no longer have to use a 5th level spell slot on sending”
"Back in MY day, we went out and FOUND our own twigs from trees that had been struck by lightning to cast Witch Bolt!"
He doesn't go anywhere without a 10ft. pole, a hand mirror, and a live chicken.
@@robintheviking899012 foot pole.
Ah, listening to someone playing First Edition for the first time. How long until someone tries to grapple and he winds up going mad?
It already happened! Two weeks ago we made a video about this same caster using the grappling system for the first time haha
@@zeebashew You have my condolences...also why did that not pop into my feed then. I'm subscribed...youtube being youtube I suppose.
"...Who's gonna tell him?"
@@SageofStarsOh, he went mad all right. MAD WITH POWER!
I like the NetHack approach to grapple:
"Why, yes, we did copy or rip off practically every single mechanic in all of AD&D, except Vancian casting because we don't have rests, and yes we did also steal a huge chunk of the Monster Manual as well, but... no, we're not doing grappling."
the DM's face when you sign your soul away to a devil only to Erase your signature and free yourself of the consequences afterward
I don't know what deal you can make that helps you while you're still within 3 inches* of the paper, but when I find it I'll be ready!
*Ok wait good news, I actually read the rules; I believe they used (") as a stand in for either feet when inside, or yards when outside. Truly an artist that Gygax.
@@Day-eb9po I encourage you to keep exploring. In AD&D, (") means inches on the tabletop, and the scale is going to be 10 feet per " indoors and underground, and 10 yards per " outdoors. Importantly, this is STRICTLY for RANGE AND MOVEMENT ONLY. EVER. I don't wanna see anybody thinking Fireball is bigger outside. You never triple the area of effect for anything.
Why the indoor/outdoor difference?
Outdoors, there's no ceiling height, so arrows can arc higher and shoot farther. Hard to shoot the full distance possible when you have to aim straight ahead in a hallway of 10 feet height. And outdoors there are better sight lines, more open space, and fewer obstructions, so you can more freely move at your top speed. Essentially, you have to slow down when you're in a dungeon for the same reason you take longer to go around your bed and down the hall into the bathroom vs. being on a hike striding along the straight line distance between those two points. The outdoor movement rate much more closely approximates a marching speed for a human with medieval equipment through the wilderness.
Next you're going to wonder, if a hallway 10 feet across is represented by a 1-inch square on the table, how do we fit 2 miniatures into that 1-inch square? I'll bake your noodle with a note from the beginning of the DMG that 3 characters can walk abreast in a 10' hallway. Whether they can all fight at the same time depends on their weapon "Space Required" (two longswords only, but if they have spears or daggers they can all three fight at once as a front rank). I'm assuming the early gamers weren't using 10mm / 12mm figures which would be the size needed for that space on the table. Many early D&D groups didn't even use miniatures.
What I can tell you is, when I draw a DM's map of a dungeon, I use a 10' per square scale. This lets me pack a LOT more dungeon into a graph paper page. When I draw it on the gridded vinyl mat, where people put their figures, I draw 1 square = 5' and draw just what we need for that fight and then erase it. The players are responsible for making a map.
What I used to do was to draw the public mat dungeon as we went, 1 square = 10' like my private map, which meant one dungeon level fit on one mat at a time. This worked great because I used the One Page Dungeon format for my dungeons, so I could always fit the dungeon level on the mat at once. But with my current project, there's no way to make that work. See the Undermountain map for another example where it just doesn't work. In this scale, I needed to represent the adventuring party on the mat with one 25mm figure at the lead (its base is 1 inch square), with everyone else invisibly trailing behind according to the marching order list. A wonderful alternative would be buying and painting up a bunch of 12mm figures, including a few donkeys or whatever, and then mounting them onto 1 inch square bases, 4 per base. This would be a super-miniature unit of the adventuring party. But it would be just for the visual effect, since I wouldn't have a whole slew of monster figures in 12mm, so we couldn't run combats like that. Anyway, as I said, I left that process behind in favor of only publicly drawing the immediate battle area as needed.
"if you have erase prepped.. YOU NEED THAT SPELLBOOK" XD the FORCE spoken into that is *chefs kiss* flawless
Hahaha.
Gygax:"Lock down identify! It will break the game!
Player:"Huh, if you don't wear armor, you can be a wrestling god".
Gygax:"The rules are fine, save more ink for meandering asides!"
Us mere mortals could not possibly understand his genius.
Yeah, looking back on his career, I don’t think he was the best game designer. The game was actual buttcheeks until 3.5.
@@jonathanwells223He also treated the game far more as an asymmetrical war game where the DM was the adversary as opposed to current styles of TTRPG
In AD&D every grapple attempt is preceded by a weapon attack from the defender which can prevent the attempt. If you aren't wearing armour the defender will hit more often than not. It is balanced within the system.
@@bthsr7113 I mean it was meant to be war gaming and still mostly is
AD&D 1st edition did have cantrips, as far back as 1982 (Dragon Magazine #52, article by E. Gary Gygax), added fully officially in Unearthed Arcana (1985). You could substitute up to four for a 1st level spell slot. You automatically know as many of the 20 "Useful" cantrips as you have points of Intelligence and get to choose from the list, and you know 2-8 (2d4) from each of Person (person-affecting), Personal (handy little tricks, e.g. Firefinger is a short little jet of flame up to 6 inches long sufficient to light a candle or ignite kindling, Spider summons a random type of normal-sized spider native to the area (which *will* be irritated and isn't under the caster's control, etc), and Reversed (reversed versions of Useful cantrips, such as Tarnish vs Polish, or Spill vs Gather), and 2-5 (1d4+1) Legerdemain (minor "magic trick" style effects like Change (an alteration that can make a small object or creature be another of roughly the same size for up to about 10 minutes, within the same kingdom of animal or general type of material -- for instance, make a sheet of paper into a linen handkerchief, or a mouse into a bat) and Haunting (makes real or illusory sounds useful for simulating haunting or the presence of someone unseen, like Footfall, Tap, Groan, etc).
So, you could potentially have a 1st-level Wizard with 15 Intelligence know up to 15 Useful cantrips, 8 Person, Personal, and Reversed, and 5 Legerdemain and Haunting, for a total of 49 cantrips. They could could only cast 4 of them per 1st-level spell slot they allotted for cantrips, though, but 4 handy little "0-level" spells would be handy during downtime.
It was a pretty common house rule to add the cantrips at 4 per 1st-level spell slot, so if you could cast two 1st-level spells per day, you could also cast 8 cantrips per day, instead of having to trade. Most of them were handy for roleplaying and hard to abuse.
"I'd like to case Erase to erase Erase from my spell book."
Wizard equivalent of typing google into google and breaking the internet.
You ever wonder why spells like this exist in the first place? Like what was going on in their heads that they were thinking: "yes this is a spell that someone would want to use resources on casting."
Part of it I guess is that when they were making AD&D most of this stuff had only been tested by a few groups of people, and if those people found a use for it or one person who used the spell all the time vehemently defended its inclusion in the module.
I can see it as a dm spell. In fact it would be deviously cruel as a dm spell
@@joelwhite2361 Made worse then by the one person who found a way to completely abuse the spell in one very specific and unusual circumstance, leading to an already mediocre spell gaining a bunch of caveats and a fail chance.
I think at a base level it makes sense. There's a lot of potential in magic! Even if sometimes it can get a bit specific. Though imagine being able to just erase an entire library of stored knowledge. The issue is more an overcompensation of balancing, which may have been done due to some edge case someone thought of, like erasing the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps forgetting they could've probably just tossed it into a camp fire for similar effect.
You also have to take into account that the primary goal in constructing 1E and AD&D was to add flavor to system and systematize flavor, and that this is a bunch of folks (male nerds, really) who’ve been scrabbling in pencil on paper all day. The idea of a magic spell that just wipes the slate clean (perhaps when your third character of the day dies horribly and you need to start a fourth one on a fourth new sheet) would appeal to both the player AND the scrawny, lazy wizard who doesn’t have the carrying capacity to haul much more than what they absolutely need.
Interesting. This immediately recalls to me one of the original inspirations for the magic system: Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" setting. For a wizard who's generally acting as a solo adventurer exploring the lost ruins of an ancient civilization. and who's so very limited in both access to spells and the ability to have them ready to cast that any sane wizard will train in physical combat just to reduce how often they'll need to save precious mental space for an attack spell, a near-certain bypass for any inscribed spell would be a vital tool.
When youre talking about the spell prep process for wizards, its important to remember that they were Vancian magic. The spells were concepts that took time and space in a trained brain to hold onto
Sheesh it's like disc world
@@redbuck1385 exactly!
@@redbuck1385prismatic spray wasn’t in discworld. Dying Earth >>>>> discworld
@@jonathanwells223 Binky wasn't in Dying Earth. Check and Mate, librarians.
That was a COOL zoom out at the end there. Props!
the more ad&d rules you describe the more confused I am, keep it up, this is fun.
yeah, it's not that hard dispite it's quirks, but if you want to devle into the world of AD&D and older games, OSE is a your best bet
2nd edition was similar, and it has 4 books that cover basically every spell printed for the edition along with some optional rules. They range from very cool to very WEIRD!
@@robintheviking8990 Any bad?
I legitimately gaffawed at "you desperately need that spellbook"
I mean i might be higher than a storm giant's nut sack but still that was a solid joke/accurate observation
More generous than the DM's I played with. I believe it was something like you got 1 spell per level you just know, and can pick anything. Some classes like specialist got an extra spell per level in their specialty. Other than that it was up to random spell scrolls or books you found along the way and transcribed into your spell book... Oh and all wizards started off with Read magic.
The real fun begins if you lose your spell book for some reason. You can no longer cast read magic to read other wizards books, so you can't even transcribe it again to memorize. You have to actually pay the thousands of gold to "research" the spell and basically create it again. Moral of the story, always have a back up spell book. Too bad it also takes like a day per spell level to transcribe spells I think in Ad&D.
the delivery on "YOU DESPERATELY NEED THAT SPELLBOOK!" was great. XD Killer stuff. Also, that was my understanding of how to prep spell too.
Old D&D had the best spells ever😂 re: Shark Bolt
Thank you for introducing me to my new favorite spell. I will now hound every dm that lets me play a caster to bring it into 5e
Shark Bolt! Ooh ha ha!
man and I thought sticks to snakes was the best spell, but that right there blows it out of the water
1:13 Interesting that the material components for Identify are so similar between here and 5e. We kept the pearl (even the minimum price) and owl feather, but we don't need to steep the feather in wine and drink the result, nor swallow a live miniature carp.
Imagine having spells so bad that you need to steal another wizards spell book
There is no set of spells i could have that would be so good that i wouldnt steal/copy another wizard's spell book given the opportunity. Quantity of spells has a quality all it's own.
That's every wizard I ever play.
Better idea: everyone plays different specialty wizards and share your spellbooks. Try not to learn the same spells so everyone can have as many options as possible.
@@Zanarthis That doesn't really work in an AD&D/OSR game because of how fragile magic users are. you only get a d4 hit die, and you require 2-3 times as much xp per level as other classes depending on the class. At first level, you only get one spell per day. You are only proficient with daggers and maybe staves, and you have to use STR for melee regardless. All of that is to say that the game is hard enough on even a balanced party that keeping more than a couple of magic users alive until they become self sufficient in mid levels isn't really feasible. Besides, in most AD&D/OSR games, different "specialty wizards" are different classes with different spell lists. Magic User, Illusionist, and Necromancer are all separate things. They aren't just subclasses of wizard. Sharing spells between them requires expensive and time consuming magical research.
@@nunyabidness8870 I mostly agree, but I should point out that hiring a bunch of mercenaries with staves and crossbows to protect the all-wizard party through a dungeon until they level up enough COULD work. It might even make Charisma a useful stat (there were explicit rules for hirelings). Of course, things would less cut-and-dry in actual play, surviving contact with the enemy and all that, but that’s what makes the game fun.
Man, I love that "Your spells are either alter reality or kill you" approach to magic
The spells in AD&D (both 1E and 2E) had ridiculous restrictions. Take Hold Portal, for example. The purpose of Hold Portal is to secure a door in the dungeon. For example your party is on the run from a monster, and want to bar the door, but don't have the time to do so. But the duration is so short, it won't help your party bar the door. A high level NPC Magic User might get use out of it to escape the PCs and their hirelings, bur a low level party might need to be immensely creative to get any use out of it. Fun fact: Hold Portal made it into 3.5 edition. I only remember that because Rich Burlew made fun of the spell in Order of the Stick. By 4E the game designers saw no utility in Hold Person, and I am pretty sure its not in 5E either.
It's now Arcane Lock, and it's MUCH more useful. And it works on things other than doors!
There is no Hold Portal spell in 5e, but there is Arcane Lock, which holds much of the intended use, but much better. For one, its duration is "until dispelled", which already puts it leagues ahead of the ADD version. It also increases the DC to break down the object (it also works on chest, windows, etc.) by ten, and any creatures of your choice can still open it.
It is also a level two spell, though, so there is a bit of a trade-off.
it would probably be a not-too-terrible pick for dungeoneering if the initial duration was merely 2 rounds instead of one
What's the duration on that? Keep in mind that a round is 1 minute and a turn is 10 rounds.
Turns out that Hodor from Game of Thrones was an AD&D wizard and only knew this spell.
That last little bit at the end left a smile on my face.
Nice video.
A wizard before 3.5 always ALWAYS always needs read magic. If you don't start with read magic, RAW, you can never really learn new spells.
Not true for AD&D Illusionists. For reasons I don't understand mind you, but it was an often referenced specific advantage of the sub-class.
Hearing all these old school AD&D misadventures is reminding me of my childhood reading dragonlance. Keep it up, I love this period period of RPGs, even for all it's flaws, especially the flaws even.
Imagine having this in 5e. It'd still be terrible, but in a wizard vs wizard fight, that's going to be hilarious.
Still better than true strike
@@badideagenerator2315 Not really if I'm honest, because wizards don't use their spellbooks for spellcasting. They use it for spell preparation. Which does not happen during combat. You'd be wasting your turn while they nuke you on theirs.
@@kylestanley7843 that's why it's great for the finale of the fight, when that opposing wizard is down, barely conscious, and can't fight back, you walk over, open their spellbook and smirk as you systematically erase *all* of their hard work, two pages at a time, then you just leave, leaving them to pick up the pieces of their shattered life's work,
@@denzilbrowder5509 That is a _fantastic_ origin story for a vengeful villain lmao
@@badideagenerator2315 true strike would be good if there wern't 1000 ways to get advantage
The dramatic pan out of the wizard’s tower combined with that line delivery has made this one of my favorite animated spellbook episodes. Thank you for your work Zee!
Incredible delivery of that last line. I felt it in my soul. So much so that I feel compelled to sprinkle a book into the next loot for my party.
As someone who plays wizards alot in 5e, this entire segment both hurts my soul, and resonates with that cry of 'you need that spellbook'... Especially as Order of Scribes. That 14th level feature can eat through so many spells...
i looked up what the14th level feature is and just out curiosity why would you use it unless it was a last ditch effort like "I just need to reduce the damage enough to survive then my contingency will trigger a dimension door or something to get me to safety" since coping spells to the spellbook costs gold and higher level spells cost more gold to copy so the amount of coin needed to copy even "junk" spells to use for that feature seems like it might be better spent on magic items or something?
@@wolfyblackknight8321 I mean, the effect is just that, meant as an emergency measure to reduce damage to zero once a day. Whilst something like contingency combined with Dimension Door is nice, it doesn't stop effects like the 'you are turned into a pile of dust if you're left at 0 from disintegrate', or certain monster effects that outright kill you if it reduces you to zero, or zombifies you, or many other effects. And bear in mind that you lose the spells in question for 1-6 long rests, which means you could lose up to 18 levels of spells for nearly a week. And if you have to use that, say, two or three times during said cooldown period... I don't know about you, but when you consider the cost and niche nature of some other magic items that does something similar, but even then only does it against one type of damage (Fire Absorbing tattoo, let's say) - that costs at minimum 20k gold (using Xanathar's guide 'buying magic item' downtime calculation) up to 50k gold pieces. Compare that to, say, the 10k gold pieces you'd probably spend to get ahold of a shit ton of 'junk' 1st/2nd/3rd level spells and copy them into your book?
AD&D wizard vs 3/5e wizard spell learning seems like getting random learning courses by post vs going to university and choosing your modules. XD
I don't think I've ever been this early
Same
Welcome to the early crew!
At least clerics have Sticks to Snakes. Or so I’ve heard.
You've heard correctly.
The spell says “paper, parchment, or similar surfaces”".
So going as written it could be used on anything with a similar SURFACE. Like a thin wooden floor (like tiles). But not ceramic. Also, glyph of warding is EXPLICITLY affected by Erase (DMG pg41/44). Wizard marks can also be explicitly targeted regardless of surface (UA pg53). So it would be reasonable to rule that any similar magic etc. would be affected regardless of what it's on.
He did note in another comment that he confused the Glyph ruling with the Explosive Runes ruling.
Yeah but sadly Gygax and crew had an insipid approach to metagaming back in the day. You weren't supposed to read the DMG and thus know all the features of your class/spells. Even though it would be idiotic that no wizard would know that Erase works on Glyph of Warding except through trial and error. That's probably one of the first things that comes to mind for someone whose entire career is research into magic.
i can see exactly one use for this, your party notices a wanted poster looking for them in a tavern, you attempt to erase it before anyone can check it and recognize you
That's actually a very valid and creative use. Old D&D was deadly, and things like this can save your party.
...or you could just tear the wanted poster off the wall with your fingers without a chance to fail.
@tuomasronnberg5244 Tearing it off with your fingers would still have a chance to fail. It would be loud, and it's more difficult than you might think. Meanwhile, the spell could give you the chance to make some subtractive edits.
@@robintheviking8990 Erase has both vocal and somatic components, and a range of a whole 3 inches. You don't think a guy chanting and gesturing right in front of a wanted poster wouldn't be noticeable? Also, I am fairly confident that an average person would have more than 54% chance of tearing down a poster off the wall with their hands unlike the spell, wouldn't you agree?
@tuomasronnberg5244 Rules about how obvious spellcasting is were much more flexible at the time, and people who didn't know magic might not realize that what they're seeing is a spell being cast. Also, no, I wouldn't agree. Have you ever tried to remove a flier stuck to a wall with wheat paste? It ain't as easy as it looks.
Watching these made me realize that without knowing it, my first DnD experience was with AD&D: as a wee bab, I watched my parents play Baldurs Gate I and II and when I was old enough for my chubby little hands to maneuver the mouse and keys, I played it too. I can rattle off Irenicus' opening monologue by heart to this day, at 30, and sometimes the chanting of Alaundo's prophecies outside of Candlekeep bounce around my skull like a commercial jingle when I least expect it.
To this day, I don't understand the magic system. Half of the spell descriptions mean absolutely nothing to me. Might as well be written in cuniform for all the comprehension I have. Horrid Wilting? Laroch's Minor Drain? What does it do? Who knows? I certainly don't!
Currently in the game I’m dming for I had two wizards in the party who have been uncovering “ancient” spell books that had 5e conversions of AD&D spells. Erase was one of the spells the creative wizard latch onto and attempted to find every corner case use for. It has been great watching him learn to disarm every magical trap/puzzle I’ve thrown their way. The best of course was erasing billboard signs of businesses that “crossed” the party in some fashion or another.
"if i can't have these spells, nobody can"
So, to clarify. Erase allows a magic user to spend a very valuable limited resource to, if they are lucky, do the same thing that a match would do reliably.
A match can erase glyphs?
This spell has hilarious possibilities in narrative spaces. Just erasing key parts of laws or something much more silly.
Erase a monster's statblock
@@badideagenerator2315 if the dm allows it lol
Struggle, plead, compromise, and grovel until you survive long enough to reach level 3. Then cast Erase on the cover and title page of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Since it's no longer the Dungeon Master's Guide, there's no reason that you, as a player, are forbidden to read it.
I remember that there were cantrips in ad&d but they were basically one specific use case spells that were non damaging that was eventually rolled into one spell of prestidigitation. Cantrips like color, salt, polish and a few others.
To be fair, I can think of a handful of ways that Erase could be useful. Maybe the BBEG has a scroll with a powerful spell or ritual that he plans on using to do something evil with. The scroll can't be destroyed, and he has some form of magic on it that lets him know where it is at all times. So, you could Erase the text of the scroll, leaving it unharmed and letting the BBEG think things are fine until he uses it. Combine it with a spell like Explosive Runes, and you can literally have the villain's plans blow up in his face.
Love this!
i.e. the GM needs to set up a highly specific situation where the spell would be useful and not accept any other creative ideas players come up with so that the wizard can feel like they're helping
@@tuomasronnberg5244 But some of the most incredible moments in Web TTRPG history, like Dimension 20 and Critical Role, come from unexpected uses of seemingly minor spells. An eldritch knight casting Knock on a locked door in "A Crown Of Candy" took the DM completely by surprise, as an example. It isn't "The DM needs to craft a specific setup so this spell is useful", it's "The DM forgot that I have this niche spell that will allow me to use it in a creative way and change the situation in my favor". That is the heart of a RPG.
@@FirstLast-cg2nk Exactly my point. Those moments are amazing because they rise organically from a player using a real spell creatively, not because the GM goes out of his way to craft a scenario so that the player finally has some reason to cast their useless spell (which could be better solved with a real spell but cannot due to artificial constraints set by the GM).
My understanding (as someone who started out in 5e and tried 1e after finding my dad's old copy) is that the min/max spells are NOT the ones you know, but basically the ones you have the potential to learn. You are meant to have a few spells your character can just never understand, regardless if they come across it. I imagined it as the spells your teacher taught you/prepped you to know eventually, so I would rule as a GM that the magic user can learn those spells if they have a specific teacher and significant time.
2:17
This is just for me so that I can immediately go back to the best part of this video instantly. I've been laughing my ass off for 5 minutes and counting!
Please don’t burn yourself out. I believe everyone would be okay with a more relaxed upload schedule
Which means YOU DESPERATELY NEED THAT SPELL BOOK!!!
Ah, I've been in that situation before; admittedly at least once by my own dimwitted and boisterous ways 😛
erase is one of those spells, that you give to an NPC so they can try to erase something the players want, forcing the players to counter or disrupt the spell. if i saw a PC actively take it, i would probably call their spouse to ask if everything was okay at home.
The sheer agony channeled into those last few words was palpable.
congratulations, you failed to erase a single page of paper and then died, you could have alternatively burned the book with the torch on the wall
Making this spellbook just a blank video was a great touch.
Best animated zoom out ever!
Honestly looking forward to the story about that backup character you wanted to play before Grammacy became Potemkin
man, i am so happy tp see you're still making videos. i've shown my friends your content and it's always been enjoyable.
I LOVE random spells to start with... that's how Liftomancers are made... they get things like levitate and tensers floating disk.
Sounds like my campaign flawed spells ("magic research rolled bad, but I am still granting a spell. Roll research to see if you know what the flaw is").
The flawed spell that would solve riddles, but if you cast it it erases itself from the spellbook and casts the spell learned just before it as a side effect, whatever that spell is. So the player solved a riddle and...disintegrated the riddle reward.
Lmao, A+ ending. I love these videos and used to watch them all the time, glad RUclips figured that out again and brought me back haha
New META. Use Erase, to Erase Erase from your spellbook with Erase.
Oh man. That... That punchline you ended on. You're entirely right, and I want to laugh, but I can't because oh my gods do you *desperately* need that spellbook!
I used to think the spell was useless until it saved my party…also had the spell forget which also seemed useless until I countered a suggestion spell by making the player forget the suggestion…also works with command spell.
hilarious, in tears, amazing as always!
Oh hey happy day
Well a very limited use for Erase is Spell books are expensive and heavy to carry around. I believe traveling spell books had 50 pages and Spells took something like 1d4-1 plus the level of the spell in pages. So unless you get your hands on a bag of holding carting around several spell books is not very likely for a wizard and their general encumbrance limits.
So a very niche use would be to cast Erase on your own spell books to remove spells you either don't want any more, or have other wise copied to new spell books. I know most my wizards started off with any spell they knew all in one book, then I'd eventually move on to "useful spells", all spells by level etc to make organization easier. Funny enough an absolutely insanely powerful spell though is Copy.
As you can imagine it's a first level spell that lets you basically instantly copy spells you know into spell books, I believe the number of pages per cast limited by your level.
Really sold that *desperate need* in problem 2.
Real talk I always get so excited when a new video pops up
Mechanical "Game Balance" was NOT really a thing in 1st Edition AD&D (nor in Basic D&D)
My table royally mishandled stuff like this back in the day.
My 1st EVER character (a magic user from Basic D&D) started with only ONE spell in his book (ventriloquism) & got Floating disk when he leveled up! (random rolls each time)
It wasn't until YEARS later (when I READ the DMs guide) I learned that he was SUPPOSED to automatically get Read magic (or maybe Detect magic), an offensive or defensive spell & a utility spell!
But he DIED before he could hit 3rd level (& scribe the Web scroll he found)!
Yeah i was going to say in AD&D dont you want to steal that spell book instead of erasing... 2 pages out of it
I do not miss early end, I do miss how I felt when I discovered it.
A spell that puts your entire spell book in danger does sound like some crap.
DMG page 39 - you should only get 3 spells at 1st level, though still random. The "chance to know" is really "chance to learn" from a scroll
My absolute favorite useless 1st level spell in AD&D has to be "Bee"
It conjures one (1) bee.
That's a cantrip, and all cantrips in 1e are about that powerful. Also you get to sting someone with the bee, it's not just "oh hey now there's a bee here".
Worse than True Strike?
Correct!
@@zeebashewthis concerns me. It’s like years and years of memes have been….erased
Erased basically takes the place of a potentially useful spell and costs a resource to maybe use, True strike if nothing else, only wastes a cantrip spot (not great).
True Strike is only bad in 5e that I am aware of, in 3X it added like 20 to your next attack roll. for instance.
I can imagine a scenario where, technically, true strike came in handy.
I cannot get enough of this guy's videos
Going back and looking at some of those old rules...dear gods, no wonder we argued so much.
honestly, that is something I liked when playing with the grognards of old was that spells were indeed random and you going up in levels you didn't just learn new spells, you needed to find scrolls to scribe them.
That last line was said from the soul good job. Hope you get that spell book lol
I got it what of someone was reading a news paper and as soon as they got to the wanted section you erased it
1:20 It does... it absolutely does.
If you ever ask that question in AD&D, the answer is 99.99999% yes
THREE WEEKS, ZEE.
WE STILL WISH FOR THAT MUSIC.
The identify spell controls for anyone curious
Explanation/Description: When an identify spell is cast, one item may be touched and handled by the magic-user in order that he or she may possibly find what dweomer it possesses. The item in question must be held or worn as would be normal for any such object, ie, a bracelet must be placed on the spell caster's wrist, a helm on his or her head, boots on the feet, a cloak wom, a dagger held, and so on. Note that any consequences of this use of the item fall fully upon the magic user, although any saving throw normally allowed is still the privilege of the magic-user. For each segment the spell is in force, it is 15% + 5% per level of the magic-user probable that 1 property of the object touched can become known possibly that the item has no properties and is merely a ruse (the presence of Nystul's magic aura or a magic mouth being detected). Each time a property can be known, the referee will secretly roll to see if the magic-user made his or her saving throw versus magic. If the save was successful, the property is known; if is 1 point short, a false power will be revealed, and if it is lower than I under the required score no information will be gained. The item will never reveal its exact plusses to hit or its damage bonuses, although the fact that it has few or many such plusses can be discovered. If it has charges, the object will never reveal the exact number, but it will give information which is +/-25% of actual, ie a wand with 40 charges could feel as if it had 30, or 50, or any number in between. The item to be identified must be examined by the magic-user within 1 hour per level of experience of the examiner after it has been discovered, or all readable impressions will have been blended into those of the characters who have possessed it since. After casting the spell and determining what can be learned from it, the magic user loses 8 points of constitution. He or she must rest for 6 turns per 1 point in order to regain them. If the 8 point loss drops the spell caster below a constitution of 3, he or she will fall unconscious, and consciousness will not be regained until full constitution is restored 24 hours later. The material components of this spell are a pearl (of at least 100 g.p. value) and an owi feather steeped in wine, with the infusion drunk and a live miniature carp swallowed whole prior to spell casting. If a luckstone is powdered and added to the infusion, probability increases 25% and all saving throws are made at +4.
Being a magic caster in 1st edition is the same as being a dr some generations ago. They had to swallow living carps to identify the property of an item as the doctors had to taste pee to identify diabetes
Its great to see these on my feed so often! You should try Dolemnwood lots of fun spells with that AD&D feel. Level 1: Ingratiate, enchant an object that a character will willingly accept as a gift. and then Ventriloquism, self explanatory. So fun!
Rewatched the yelling bit 5 times
It takes 48 hours to recover from casting identify, which requires a 100 gp pearl, an owl feather, and swallowing a live miniature carp.
What to use erase on: Corporate sabotage, maybe undoing a contract, like a demon contract. Could be cool.
Reminds me of the first time I tried making a D&D character after enjoying many other systems. Tried picking some spells for a level 1 Cleric. Noticed Detect Poison and the way to purify poison were two separate spells, so you either could tell if someone tried to poison you, or make sure whatever you're about to eat won't be poisoned but you'd never know if it was poisoned in the first place... Great...
This does though remind me of a spell from an adventure called Lost Lines. It's basically the opposite - you get erased or damaged text back. At ninth level you can even restore stuff the author didn't write down.
The best use of hold portal I've seen is to open a portal to an elemental plane, and then use hold portal to keep it open.
This reminds me of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, ever see the spell Bookspeak? Now, that's a quality piece of magic!
Great video Zee, love the animations as always. I also really like the background song too and it seems like I'm not the only one. Could you put it in the description or make a comment with it or reply to someone with it? Thanks.
If I remember right from my reading of old AD&D books, it's not one spell/day, it's a set of spell slots at a given time. Each slot takes time to prep based on it's lvl, 15min/spell level. So you can cast a spell, write a bit, cast another. I think,
The 1e DMG has guidelines for the DM to determine your starting spells… different from the ones you can possibly know, these are the ones your mentor puts in your book. Usually Read Magic and up to 3 others. My best character, eventually an archmage after about 5 years of weekly play, started with Read Magic, Detect Magic, Jump and Push. DM was pretty stingy.
Cze & Peku’s maps are incredible!
I cast erase on the law that says I must own insurance for a flying carpet
I only tapped because I thought "finger find a button marked erase" and that it was a tmbg reference.
Great video!🎉
I love Czepeku's stuff!