Old-school charm also does not have the "Automatically hostile after it ends" caveat that the newer version does. So in effect, if you treated your minions well, they might decide to just stick around by their own will at the end.
I was DMing my group many moons ago through Tomb of the Lizard King and the party avoided death traps, magical misfortune and a hack and slash fight with 70 lizard men by charming the 8th level Captain of Sakatha (the sorcerous, vampiric lizard king). Despite this boon, the party experienced a TPK via cloudkill when they finally faced the king. The two that survived the poisonous cloud were mauled by Sakatha as his cleric dispelled the charm on the Captain. It’s been 33yrs and we still talk about it.
Sleep was 100% the only spell for first level MUs. Sure you only get to cast it once. But it's like a grenade that takes out a whole room of monsters. By far the most powerful spell available at L1.
Yes indeed. By far the easiest route to getting enough XP to get to level 2. Of course you weren't guaranteed to be able to learn it. I miss that in 5e it stopped all wizards using the same handful of spells.
When playing Keep on the Borderlands, Sleep saved my group against the hobgoblins knocking out a half dozen when we were trapped. And a charm person against the bugbear cheiftain, allowed us to convince him to use his group against the neighbor orc tribes and to only have to fight a few bugbears instead of the whole group. Those are dang powerful spells when used correctly
Totally agree with your video. Fun story about another 1st level spell i didn't consider powerful : i will be starting a OSE campaign in a few days, and my brother (who never played any OSR games or similar stuff) choosed Ventriloquism for his first spell. He immediately asked me if he could make his voice come from the ear of someone else in order to break their concentration, giving his party an advantage in combat and to disrupt enemy casting spells. Ofc i said i would allow it, i'm so happy to see him be creative and ingenious before the game even started !
I go by red box ('83) rules, so MUs start with read magic and one other random 1st level spell. Just about any spell on the list can be leveraged by a clever player, I find. But the real key to surviving level one? Make use of the fact that you don't have to spend any starting gold on armor, and either hire an extra man-at-arms, or load up on holy water, acid, and especially oil!
One of my players Charmed a Troll once. The poor thing failed many a subsequent save, but then again she treated it well enough so eventually it just hung around...
So they used a Charm Monster spell, because Charm Person can't charm a troll... That means 7th level MU, and I suppose she also charmed all city guards and patrols her group met, because trolls are usually feared and destroyed if possible because of their violent behavior and ravenous nature. But it may be different in your campaign.
@@alainberthon2739 It was a bit different - it was at a wilderness keep, so not a lot of other 'people' around. And rules-wise it was BECMI where my read can be upheld: humanoid; not larger than an Ogre; Trolls 8' tall and wiry - Ogres 8'-10' tall and chonky... YMMV :) We had fun. And I think that she was 7th or above anyway...
Sleep, the entry-level death spell. When I play 5e I really miss the relatively OP spells from BX, etc. I generally prefer to run osr games in large part due to the more difficult magic use bits. It makes magic rarer and more mysterious, and rewards suffering through the "low-power" levels to get to the crazy power.
I started with 1E and I remember Enlarge got my wizards by. Very handy on inanimate objects (my favorite is delaying my turn until the fighter or thief threw a rock - I'd hit the rock with Enlarge mid flight - instant boulder incoming).
Yeah, Charm Person is CRAZY. Back in the day we were playing through the Saltmarsh series and (somewhat foolishly) snuck on board the Pirate ship while we were relatively low level. We were discovered mid mission and were getting SWARMED by pirates and definitely were headed for a TPK when the mage cast Charm Person on the CAPTAIN. He failed his save. He mowed through his ENTIRE CREW within a few minutes and we had a New Friend AND a Pirate Ship at our disposal.
Wow, Charm Person has so much role playing usage. The party doesn't know who to trust because the person might be under the control of the evil wizard.
As a GM I love role playing charmed NPCs. They're very friendly but I play them as a little confused. Like they know something isn't right but can't put their finger on what it is. "I don't know... the boss really wouldn't want me just giving the jail keys to someone. I know I can trust you, but please just promise you won't do anything crazy with them and make sure I get them back." What's hilarious is how much that kind of thing creates a bond between the NPC and PCs. I've seen PCs go out of their way to be nice to an NPC that they've charmed and make sure they're none the worse for wear at the end of the spell.
When i started DMing 5e after not playing for 30 years, with a bunch of newbs, these changes took awhile for me to get. i didnt read very carefully and basically played the spells old school. made for some very easy encounters
Ben, as an avid Oldschooler myself, this video resonates with me. I’m still running a campaign for 1/2e and the party’s Magic User (who is 9th level) makes solid use of Charm and Sleep. We were running Dwellers of the Forbidden City where the group was entering the city via a huge tree manned by Tasloi (diminutive monkey men). The Magic User won initiative cast Sleep and the six simian guards went comatose and plummeted 300’ to the jungle ruins below. We all giggled like school girls. Totally agree on your assessment but would also include Spider Climb and Unseen Servant as truly excellent “utility” spells. Climb can be cast on anyone and allows for nearly perfect scaling ability. Unseen Servant can be used like a 10’ pole but has a range of 90’. Clever players can find lots of interesting and fun uses for 1st level spells. You could do a breakdown of the most useful or most underutilized spells by level. 2nd is chock full of under appreciated gems like Rope Trick, Audible Glamer, Locate Object, and Forget.
@@tomkerruish2982 in all my years I’ve never played nor run ToH. It’s on the list. The Demi-Lich is a formidable adversary. Forget is one of the few spells that’ll effect it. If I recall, Shatter too.
I’ve watched a thousands of videos over the past decade speaking of D&D in the 70-80’s and yours, Ben, truly reminded me of the feeling of the game in my teens. I was keenly reminded of my first wizard and using light and charm exactly as explained; I forgot the power in such a so called brutal system.
id appreciate a video about PC combat tactics, like what general principles should a party follow for successful combat - hold the high ground, use the element of surprise, etc.
@@noamto that one spell is an instant wipe of a low level encounter, a massive boon for low level party's, it's worth having a magic user around, these games are alot more team based than newer editions, if you can't work together your getting nowhere, if your resentful of your lot in the party it will cause issues, at the end of the day every player has a choice, they choose their class and their race and must accept what comes along with that, teamwork makes the dream work a magic user is just a more team focused role than the others, if you want the best of both worlds play an elf or a cleric, yes there's downsides in the long run compared to a human magic user but the short term upsides is probably what alot of people who grumble about magic users want, better ac weapon usage and hit dice worry about the lack of high level magic when you actually get to high level most games probably won't get there so it's just all upsides
Excellent summary for people asking the question. Though on a design side, sleep and charm person is so troublesome to the GM in a low fantasy setting, when they are available to PCs at an inappropriate standing. While the spells are excellent reflections of a wizard's commonly known abilities, players often are poor in the discipline over these abilities. I still remember that one blog post about how "sleep spell turns your players into sadists and executioners" by Bob Reed. Authentic wizards are commonly perceived as disciplined. The meaningful nuances of magic (best explored in the manga "Witch Hat Atelier") are sometimes overlooked at the game table, even when the group aimed to run games with a similar attitude. What are everyone's solutions to help remind players of the diegetic discipline a traditional wizard is burdened with?
Sleep is very potent, especially at lower levels / against lower level opponents. That there is no Save against it is the real clincher. If a DM wanted to rein it in a bit, they can just require saves.
@@JeffersonMills I think that point was made in the video. Although, even in a low fantasy world such as Hyperborea there will be individuals and beings who can affect that magic. Thusly making them even more dangerous. I play a midlevel fantasy game myself. There aren’t a lot of high level folks running around but there’s some serious magic still floating around to make things real interesting
I'm late watching this, but really love you did that kind of video. The OSR community tends so much to minimize the players point of view. Hope you'll do more videos of that kind!
Yes, the Sleep spell was a game winner for our groups. And one player was a master at running a mage! He used Charm Person to great effect and with treating them well he could make most of them into allies who either stayed with him or remained friends on good terms. This worked really well with shopkeepers, guards and even a Thief that he caught trying to steal from him in town.
@@noamtoactually It Is great. I made two of my groups try both 5e and 1e and both preferred 1e also because of how much more impactful the spells were. In 5e you can spam cantrip but they are weak
I can't wait to finish DMing my 5e campaign for my wife. Her first time playing. I want to DM an Old School Essentials campaign next. Great spell recommendations!
You nailed it with my favourite starting spells for OSR. I personally prefer to randomly roll starting spells for force me to work with what I’m given rather than what I’ve chosen but those three spells are my go-to.
You know, I prefer my wizards to be weak but have awesome, reality-altering spells (like in some OSR games) than to be tougher, but having their spells toned down to a point that they are just glorified support (like in some modern D&D clones, take Pathfinder 2nd Ed., for example).
While I don't recommend a particular spell in OS I do allow a wizard to have a wand that causes a d4 of elemental damage and a very minor penalty of corresponding type i.e. fire causes a target a minus 2 to hit for 1 turn , ice causes half movement for one turn or thunder will cause the target to drop a weapon in their hand. I balance this out by having limited usage (3) and then it's mounted jewel needs to be replaced during downtime with something of roughly equal value. Players will gradually use it on fewer occasions but I've seen the wand used as an emergency tool to escape enemies from time to time
lol i just had a first-hand experience of Sleep's power. I was running Hommlet moathouse and the MU rolled well, resulting in like 12 HD worth of sleep before the bandits could react. the entire bandit group in the grand chamber went lights out and the party decided to haul the whole lot back to the village and turn them in for bounties
Totally agree. Charm Person is surprisingly underrated by a lot of people given that it can just last and last. I guess one thing you have to decide is how obvious the casting has to be. If everyone has to be a video game / anime wizard and spellcasting involves some combination of gymnastics and yodeling... there are going to be times where you don't get away with it. If you're allowed to be subtle (eye contact and maybe an evil-looking hand motion) then you can understand why magic-users are hated and feared! They could be controlling you right now and you might not even realize it. Witchery!
We did have to slightly house rule the older D&D. We gave EVERY Class a 0-Level Hit Die at maximum points (just like all the Man-at-Arms NPCs in Keep On The Borderlands) and we gave Magic Users an additional Spell for 0-Level. Those two basic house rules will greatly improve a party's survival at 1st level. In another campaign, our DM's house rule was that a Magic-User started with 1D6 spells known and could cast ANY of those spells... BUT... still only cast ONE SPELL per day. They just got to choose which one at the very moment they needed to cast it.
If I remember correctly in ADnD Light and Darkness could also be cast on objects and it would last way longer depending on the quality of the item . The way we played and thought how it worked was to cast light on a gem or stone and put it in your pocket tostop the light or dark and it would last for months. I kept a pouch full of stones with darkness cast on them if it hit the fan Id grab the bottom of the pouch and fling it around causing a whole bunch of spheres of darkness to cover the battlefield , and I had true sight cast on me at all times thanks to a spell I think we found on the internet called control duration which was aweaker version of permanency. I don't know if everything we did was played absolutely correct but it was fun.
Old school Sleep is probably the best at low levels unless you are in a game which mostly features undead. Charm Person can be anywhere from crap to fantastic, depending the the ruleset you are using and your GM's interpretation of how the spell should work. In ACKS, I had one GM rule that even though I charmed the leader of an enemy group that he would not aid me in any way, he just would not harm me, and I think he even continued to perform hostile acts on my allies. It felt really bad. In the same system I have seen it ruled much more favorably where you basically have a faithful ally until they break free from the spell on a future saving throw, so long as you do not abuse them or attempt to use them as fodder. If you do, they may get another saving throw immediately. If you do not release them from service before they break free of the spell then you may have a problem on your hands, depending on the nature of the creature you charmed and how well you treated them while they were charmed. If you managed to charm an ogre and then it breaks free from the charm a month later, do not be surprised if it attempts to suddenly smash you with its club.
My magic user has charm person, it's so useful. I charmed the terrible guard captain in Evils of Illmire. Then we realized how long I had him for lol. He's my best bud now. I'm paying him in loot so if the spell does wear off he's got a reason to stick around.
For me it was ALWAYS sleep for my spellcasters. I didn't know about Charm Person, but sleep always let us clear one room of the dungeon guaranteed per rest.
Great video as usual! No quibbles with your logic. My ranking is a bit different but that is probably due more to the beauty of OSR games, specifically our play style and house rules are different … which is a lovely thing about these old games. Here is my ranking: 1. Sleep - called “shotgun” by the players in my group, unless you are up against undead, the spell saves parties from TPKs. In OSR games as everyone who plays them knows, the single 6 HD monster does not cause a TPK, it’s the six 1 HD or 12 half HD monsters that do that. Sleep solves this problem and as you said no saving throw for the targets. Yikes! 2. Hold Portal - another TPK saver. It gives the party time to flee and given the pursuit rules in most OSR games, by the time the monsters get through the held portal the party is safely away. 3. Light- for all the reasons you mentioned plus darkness in a dungeon is a killer in its own right (losing one’s light source I mean). While it does have offensive combat capabilities as you covered, it affects only one target and they get a saving throw which is why I put Sleep ahead of it. Oh, Charm Person. There are three reasons from my gaming experiences for why I did not put this in the top 3. First, because of just what you mentioned about a M-U using this spell to create their own small army, we allow this spell to be cast only once per week. The M-U is supposed to be a member of the PCs’ party, not a party himself. Second, the description is vague enough that I have yet to play with a DM who allows the spell to do much against an enemy of the M-U. The ruling is almost always that the charmed enemy wouldn’t do such-and-such because that to strongly benefits the M-U, their enemy. And third, when the target does finally make their save, they are so pissed from being charmed that they go off on the M-U and, if they are intelligent, they don’t let on that they have made their save and when the M-U’s guard is down, WHAM!, dead M-U. Honestly, this last one has happened to me so many times that I rarely cast this spell when playing a M-U. But I think my critique of CP has more to do with the people I play with than the rules per se. You should do a video for 2nd level cleric spell choices too!
I would replace Light with read magic. I would be the type of player that starts with read magic and complain every time we find a map instead of a scroll :D
Holmes Basic/AD&D all the way back to '80, I almost always took sleep, took light a few times though. MUs were HARD to get up the exp charts! Then I got forever DM'd and here I am lol
The Sleep and the light spell were already my first spells of choice since the I begun to play DND. But I never thought charm person as this. Give me a week at the town tavern and I would make a squad to clean a 1st level dungeon without breaking a sweat.
In regards to 5E, there are a couple of 1st-level spells that are ridiculously powerful and remain useful throughout. Shield could be a 2nd level spell easily, and Protection from Evil and Good I could see being justifiably 4th Level.
I'm playing a game of Hyperborea 3rd edition. Our wizard has but one spell: Sleep. It's saved us from TPK at least twice now (we've been in about 10 battles or less).
Those would be in my top choices, too. When I was DMing back in the day, I would hope for my players to get Sleep because it seemed the best chance for a first level party to survive. I was always grateful no one seemed interested in charm person, because it was just broken. Usually light came from a cleric. Contenders would be web and magic missile. Web because it’s a lot like Sleep but can hit higher levels, and magic missile because sometimes that guaranteed hit is a big deal for low level characters.
Yeah, Sleep got deceptively nerfed in 5e. Turning it into a roll a lot of dice rather than based off hit dice spell makes it seem good to the player but the DM likely has noted that monster HP went up a bit.
Charm Person, like other charms, are one of the most argument-inspiring spells ever known. Metagaming on both sides of the screen leads to friction-causing moments like this spell can create.
@@JeffersonMills That's an odd response. Casting infrequently isn't really relevant when the duration is "permanent", and the familiar gets to act each round (making it effectively an at-will spell). Also not everyone's game has NPC Magic Users who are selling scrolls on demand, in fact 'magic marts' are a decidedly not-old-school feature.
@@JeffersonMills Doesn't really matter that it debuted in 1E, that's still Old-School D&D lol. Your recounting of page numbers and how Int works doesn't suddenly mean "how often I can cast this" is absolutely equal to "how good this spell is". DURATION is equally, if not more important. Find Familiar is PERMANENT, which makes it have a better Duration then basically all alternatives. If I applied your method of choosing ONE attribute of a spell to determine what the best spells are, Find Familiar wins hands down. See how silly that is? Additionally your entire argument hinges on the PC's ability to acquire a Find Familiar scroll. Not everyone has magic-mart in their game like you seem to be advocating. Getting a scroll of a specific spell is NOT guaranteed.
@@JeffersonMills 1) Your points are based entirely on the assumption that there is no situation where you would be denied a scroll. An item the DM is under NO obligation to make available to you. I'm not missing your points, they aren't good points. 2) It's not "a DM issue" when the DM deigns not to provide magic items to you that allow you to fully optimize your character, and preserve your slots for "more useful spells" 3) Having additional actions and being able to act in two locations at once is the opposite of "less useful". That ability alone is more useful then most spells, not just first level ones.
I just saw the video. Sleep is must have for a 1st level MU, and life saver for low level group. Charm Person is also very good, but can quickly create problems for the group. A pair charmed orcs are still evil to the core, and could disagree with the paladin or the good cleric. Their basic nature isn't changed, and if left alone, they could just go and murder the nearby farmer, just to bring back fresh eggs for their good friend the magic-user. I remember that it caused much trouble for the party, so the different Charm spells were used with caution and usually for short periods of time. Light was not considered very useful, we generally left this for the cleric characters.
When running Basic Fantasy RPG, I usually let my players pick an additional first level spell that their character can pick as a cantrip. I balance it out my giving it different spells 1d4 or 1d6 cooldown in combat, and making it non-heightenable, so that spells like dispel magic or magic missile don't become overpowered, or turn combat into a bullet hell, but still let's magic users be valuable contributors in the early game.
I ran a one-shot for some friends and other people at a con this weekend while in line for an extremely popular panel we wanted to go to. Everyone, especially the magic users had much more fun when I added this rule.
I had a copy of Unearthed Arcana, so I would always pick a couple cantrips (could cast 4 per first level spell) and light things on fire. I wish I had taken charm person though :)
Back when I was a 1E player, I remember the moment when I realized I had the wrong idea about magic users. They are actually charismatic figures. Thanks to the charm spell, they're master manipulators who can bend people to their will.
All you really need is the "Classic Fantasy Rules Tome". It will give you classes, equipment, spells, monsters, treasure, DM stuff, everything. Also, for the sake of completion, there is a 2-book set called "Advanced Fantasy" which contains more classes and stuff from AD&D. It's a stand-alone set, you don't need the Classic book to use the Advanced set.
I like Joethelawyer's homerule for allowing mages learning light crossbow. This seems legit as light crossbows are used regularly by common people in real life hunting situations with very little time spent on becoming proficient. As for spells I have used the home rule since the 90s that mages get bonus spells equal to priest bonus spells. Instead of WIS as with priests the bonus is based on INT.
Spell duration in older editions was just bonkers. Anyone with some experience playing Baldur's Gate can point out the problem, though. It's just not very fun. Save or suck effects are potentially super powerful but they can also take players completely out of a combat (or even out of the game) with one bad roll. Hope they brought their smart phone with them because its time to browse Reddit for the next twenty minutes. I play Basic Fantasy with my kids and I just ended up house ruling that all long duration effects allow a save per round, or per turn out of combat. Applies to PCs, NPCs, and monsters. They still end up being powerful but a little less predictable. I give magic-users bonus spells based on their intelligence to make up for it. Permanent effects are still permanent. Might not be strictly old-school, but then nothing is more old-school than a small book full of house rules.
staves, daggers and DARTS! Keep a bag full of those puppies, as your THAC0 is the same as that fighter next to you! EDIT: At least in AD&D 1e. Not sure about OSE.
The lack of spells magic-users had was something that initially turned me off from old school designs u til I looked closer and realized that these weren't 5e spells. Imo lvl 1 casters are much more powerful in OSE than 5e, it's just that they need to use more cunning and assistance from the party to be successful. For goodness sakes just consider the disparity in power between these OSE spells you talk about and their 5e counterparts, knowing even one of these in OSE is probably better than knowing all of them in 5e.
Enjoyed throroughly! Unrelated, but I recently saw (and got drawn in by) Heart: the City Beneath, and was semi shocked not to see a review on your channel. Just wondering if it has flaws, doesn’t interest you, or is too far down in your stack of “stuff to get to.” Just cracking it open now, but gives off that Into the Odd/Patrick Stuart vibe.
If you think these spells are crazy you should see the freedom the game "The Riddle Of Steel" gives you. As long as you pass your rolls and don't pass out you can do almost anything as a sorcerer if your character has the time. My sorcerer sealed the entrance of a mine off and super heated the air inside to cook the goblins living in it alive. And he dominated the memories and minds of many people in the nearby town to love and serve him.
Choosing your spell? In 1st edition, you get 4 spells, read magic, and an offensive, defensive and misc. spell, you have a 3 in 10 chance of getting to pick which of the spells in that group you pick
Hi, ADHD is in overdrive from your bookcase, can you say what the book next to the Labyrinth game book behind you is? (Not knave, other side) love the Time Bandits map!
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they aren't crazy just normal its today spells that are horrifically neutered
Old-school charm also does not have the "Automatically hostile after it ends" caveat that the newer version does. So in effect, if you treated your minions well, they might decide to just stick around by their own will at the end.
CHARM PERSON!!! saved my bacon so many times the first time I have played as a player in prolly 20 years just last month!
I was DMing my group many moons ago through Tomb of the Lizard King and the party avoided death traps, magical misfortune and a hack and slash fight with 70 lizard men by charming the 8th level Captain of Sakatha (the sorcerous, vampiric lizard king). Despite this boon, the party experienced a TPK via cloudkill when they finally faced the king. The two that survived the poisonous cloud were mauled by Sakatha as his cleric dispelled the charm on the Captain. It’s been 33yrs and we still talk about it.
Old school charm person is indeed a bacon saver. That and sleep.
Hold Portal on the tavern door to slightly delay the adventure and inevitable death.
Hold portal and have the hirelings hold spear vs charge....
In our B/X game the MU user has found his most powerful spell is the fat sack of gold he started with to hire hirelings with
Magic-user in my game picked Sleep, I knew it was good in 5e but my god is it GREAT in old-school
Sleep was 100% the only spell for first level MUs. Sure you only get to cast it once. But it's like a grenade that takes out a whole room of monsters. By far the most powerful spell available at L1.
Yes indeed. By far the easiest route to getting enough XP to get to level 2. Of course you weren't guaranteed to be able to learn it. I miss that in 5e it stopped all wizards using the same handful of spells.
Yes, sleep is the fireball of low levels
@@jeffreymoynagh5439 Numerical damage is for plebes.
When playing Keep on the Borderlands, Sleep saved my group against the hobgoblins knocking out a half dozen when we were trapped. And a charm person against the bugbear cheiftain, allowed us to convince him to use his group against the neighbor orc tribes and to only have to fight a few bugbears instead of the whole group. Those are dang powerful spells when used correctly
Totally agree with your video.
Fun story about another 1st level spell i didn't consider powerful : i will be starting a OSE campaign in a few days, and my brother (who never played any OSR games or similar stuff) choosed Ventriloquism for his first spell. He immediately asked me if he could make his voice come from the ear of someone else in order to break their concentration, giving his party an advantage in combat and to disrupt enemy casting spells. Ofc i said i would allow it, i'm so happy to see him be creative and ingenious before the game even started !
That's the type of creativity I love to see. Hope you had a blast with your first sessions! :)
I go by red box ('83) rules, so MUs start with read magic and one other random 1st level spell. Just about any spell on the list can be leveraged by a clever player, I find. But the real key to surviving level one? Make use of the fact that you don't have to spend any starting gold on armor, and either hire an extra man-at-arms, or load up on holy water, acid, and especially oil!
In the 1983 set Mentzer specifically recommends giving MUs one of the powerful spells. Elves he says can make do with a random one.
I used to send my familiar to fight.
One of my players Charmed a Troll once. The poor thing failed many a subsequent save, but then again she treated it well enough so eventually it just hung around...
So they used a Charm Monster spell, because Charm Person can't charm a troll... That means 7th level MU, and I suppose she also charmed all city guards and patrols her group met, because trolls are usually feared and destroyed if possible because of their violent behavior and ravenous nature. But it may be different in your campaign.
@@alainberthon2739 It was a bit different - it was at a wilderness keep, so not a lot of other 'people' around.
And rules-wise it was BECMI where my read can be upheld: humanoid; not larger than an Ogre; Trolls 8' tall and wiry - Ogres 8'-10' tall and chonky...
YMMV :)
We had fun. And I think that she was 7th or above anyway...
Sleep, the entry-level death spell.
When I play 5e I really miss the relatively OP spells from BX, etc. I generally prefer to run osr games in large part due to the more difficult magic use bits. It makes magic rarer and more mysterious, and rewards suffering through the "low-power" levels to get to the crazy power.
simple solution. don't play WOTC profit driven dumbed down 5e
Sleep was extra brutal against a group of 1/2 HD monsters.
I started with 1E and I remember Enlarge got my wizards by. Very handy on inanimate objects (my favorite is delaying my turn until the fighter or thief threw a rock - I'd hit the rock with Enlarge mid flight - instant boulder incoming).
Back when I played AD&D 1st edition ('81) Sleep was it. Basically allowing for mass destruction. Useless vs undead, extradimensional beings, etc.
Yeah, Charm Person is CRAZY. Back in the day we were playing through the Saltmarsh series and (somewhat foolishly) snuck on board the Pirate ship while we were relatively low level. We were discovered mid mission and were getting SWARMED by pirates and definitely were headed for a TPK when the mage cast Charm Person on the CAPTAIN. He failed his save. He mowed through his ENTIRE CREW within a few minutes and we had a New Friend AND a Pirate Ship at our disposal.
"Mutiny? 20 against one? It's a fair fight then!"
Wow, Charm Person has so much role playing usage. The party doesn't know who to trust because the person might be under the control of the evil wizard.
Or, worse still, under the control of the party's sneaky, greedy, no-good wizard. 😆
That spell is brutal! 😄
My wizard player in early 2ed abused Charm Person. It was epic.
As a GM I love role playing charmed NPCs. They're very friendly but I play them as a little confused. Like they know something isn't right but can't put their finger on what it is. "I don't know... the boss really wouldn't want me just giving the jail keys to someone. I know I can trust you, but please just promise you won't do anything crazy with them and make sure I get them back."
What's hilarious is how much that kind of thing creates a bond between the NPC and PCs. I've seen PCs go out of their way to be nice to an NPC that they've charmed and make sure they're none the worse for wear at the end of the spell.
I vaguely remember using Charm Person like you mentioned in 1st Ed. I was so young then I don’t think I appreciated the utility as I should have.
When i started DMing 5e after not playing for 30 years, with a bunch of newbs, these changes took awhile for me to get. i didnt read very carefully and basically played the spells old school. made for some very easy encounters
Ben, as an avid Oldschooler myself, this video resonates with me. I’m still running a campaign for 1/2e and the party’s Magic User (who is 9th level) makes solid use of Charm and Sleep. We were running Dwellers of the Forbidden City where the group was entering the city via a huge tree manned by Tasloi (diminutive monkey men). The Magic User won initiative cast Sleep and the six simian guards went comatose and plummeted 300’ to the jungle ruins below. We all giggled like school girls.
Totally agree on your assessment but would also include Spider Climb and Unseen Servant as truly excellent “utility” spells. Climb can be cast on anyone and allows for nearly perfect scaling ability. Unseen Servant can be used like a 10’ pole but has a range of 90’. Clever players can find lots of interesting and fun uses for 1st level spells.
You could do a breakdown of the most useful or most underutilized spells by level. 2nd is chock full of under appreciated gems like Rope Trick, Audible Glamer, Locate Object, and Forget.
Forget can save your butt at the end of Tomb of Horrors.
@@tomkerruish2982 in all my years I’ve never played nor run ToH. It’s on the list. The Demi-Lich is a formidable adversary. Forget is one of the few spells that’ll effect it. If I recall, Shatter too.
I’ve watched a thousands of videos over the past decade speaking of D&D in the 70-80’s and yours, Ben, truly reminded me of the feeling of the game in my teens. I was keenly reminded of my first wizard and using light and charm exactly as explained; I forgot the power in such a so called brutal system.
id appreciate a video about PC combat tactics, like what general principles should a party follow for successful combat - hold the high ground, use the element of surprise, etc.
Honestly the secret to surviving as a magic user in osr games is teamwork, with a disordered or uncooperative party its very hard casting any spell.
Not like you had a choice since you only get that 1 spell casting for the whole adventure.
@@noamto that one spell is an instant wipe of a low level encounter, a massive boon for low level party's, it's worth having a magic user around, these games are alot more team based than newer editions, if you can't work together your getting nowhere, if your resentful of your lot in the party it will cause issues, at the end of the day every player has a choice, they choose their class and their race and must accept what comes along with that, teamwork makes the dream work a magic user is just a more team focused role than the others, if you want the best of both worlds play an elf or a cleric, yes there's downsides in the long run compared to a human magic user but the short term upsides is probably what alot of people who grumble about magic users want, better ac weapon usage and hit dice worry about the lack of high level magic when you actually get to high level most games probably won't get there so it's just all upsides
Excellent summary for people asking the question.
Though on a design side, sleep and charm person is so troublesome to the GM in a low fantasy setting, when they are available to PCs at an inappropriate standing. While the spells are excellent reflections of a wizard's commonly known abilities, players often are poor in the discipline over these abilities. I still remember that one blog post about how "sleep spell turns your players into sadists and executioners" by Bob Reed. Authentic wizards are commonly perceived as disciplined. The meaningful nuances of magic (best explored in the manga "Witch Hat Atelier") are sometimes overlooked at the game table, even when the group aimed to run games with a similar attitude.
What are everyone's solutions to help remind players of the diegetic discipline a traditional wizard is burdened with?
Sleep is very potent, especially at lower levels / against lower level opponents. That there is no Save against it is the real clincher. If a DM wanted to rein it in a bit, they can just require saves.
How is a setting in which the spells Sleep and Charm Person exist “low fantasy“?
@@JeffersonMills I think that point was made in the video. Although, even in a low fantasy world such as Hyperborea there will be individuals and beings who can affect that magic. Thusly making them even more dangerous.
I play a midlevel fantasy game myself. There aren’t a lot of high level folks running around but there’s some serious magic still floating around to make things real interesting
That's an interesting point that often feels ignored in games today: the dichotomy between using magic optimally versus using magic responsibly.
Without watching, I guess it's Sleep, Charm, Read Magic.
Correct on 2 out of 3
Says something about how good Sleep and Charm Person are
Excellent points; I love the "afraid to look into wizards eyes" suggestion.
I'm late watching this, but really love you did that kind of video. The OSR community tends so much to minimize the players point of view. Hope you'll do more videos of that kind!
Yes, the Sleep spell was a game winner for our groups. And one player was a master at running a mage! He used Charm Person to great effect and with treating them well he could make most of them into allies who either stayed with him or remained friends on good terms. This worked really well with shopkeepers, guards and even a Thief that he caught trying to steal from him in town.
Old versions were so great, I love the amout of control and potential they trusted the players with. Current spells are so tightly curated and boring.
Yeah so great to have 1 round where you cast your single spell and then be useless for the rest of the adventure.
@@noamtoactually It Is great. I made two of my groups try both 5e and 1e and both preferred 1e also because of how much more impactful the spells were. In 5e you can spam cantrip but they are weak
I can't wait to finish DMing my 5e campaign for my wife. Her first time playing. I want to DM an Old School Essentials campaign next. Great spell recommendations!
You nailed it with my favourite starting spells for OSR. I personally prefer to randomly roll starting spells for force me to work with what I’m given rather than what I’ve chosen but those three spells are my go-to.
You know, I prefer my wizards to be weak but have awesome, reality-altering spells (like in some OSR games) than to be tougher, but having their spells toned down to a point that they are just glorified support (like in some modern D&D clones, take Pathfinder 2nd Ed., for example).
While I don't recommend a particular spell in OS I do allow a wizard to have a wand that causes a d4 of elemental damage and a very minor penalty of corresponding type i.e. fire causes a target a minus 2 to hit for 1 turn , ice causes half movement for one turn or thunder will cause the target to drop a weapon in their hand. I balance this out by having limited usage (3) and then it's mounted jewel needs to be replaced during downtime with something of roughly equal value.
Players will gradually use it on fewer occasions but I've seen the wand used as an emergency tool to escape enemies from time to time
That's why I have written thousands of news spells, monsters, magic items and a few other things for the OSR since 2009 on my blog.
Very interesting take on these basic spells. Would love more videos like this
lol i just had a first-hand experience of Sleep's power. I was running Hommlet moathouse and the MU rolled well, resulting in like 12 HD worth of sleep before the bandits could react. the entire bandit group in the grand chamber went lights out and the party decided to haul the whole lot back to the village and turn them in for bounties
Totally agree. Charm Person is surprisingly underrated by a lot of people given that it can just last and last. I guess one thing you have to decide is how obvious the casting has to be. If everyone has to be a video game / anime wizard and spellcasting involves some combination of gymnastics and yodeling... there are going to be times where you don't get away with it. If you're allowed to be subtle (eye contact and maybe an evil-looking hand motion) then you can understand why magic-users are hated and feared! They could be controlling you right now and you might not even realize it. Witchery!
We did have to slightly house rule the older D&D.
We gave EVERY Class a 0-Level Hit Die at maximum points (just like all the Man-at-Arms NPCs in Keep On The Borderlands) and we gave Magic Users an additional Spell for 0-Level. Those two basic house rules will greatly improve a party's survival at 1st level.
In another campaign, our DM's house rule was that a Magic-User started with 1D6 spells known and could cast ANY of those spells... BUT... still only cast ONE SPELL per day. They just got to choose which one at the very moment they needed to cast it.
i forgot how boss B/X style magic was - love it
As someone who is soon to be a referee for OSE I truly enjoyed this video. More content like this video would be amazing! Thanks for your work!
Playing BECMI with my kids right now. 100% agree with this analysis.
Great episode! I love short and sweet summaries like this, thank you!
Whoa, I never really played magic users in old school D&D (I've played since 1979). I now love Charm Person!
Magic Missile is great and all, but yeah sleep is gotta be my go-to. Gf loves ventriloquism and throwing daggers.
If I remember correctly in ADnD Light and Darkness could also be cast on objects and it would last way longer depending on the quality of the item . The way we played and thought how it worked was to cast light on a gem or stone and put it in your pocket tostop the light or dark and it would last for months. I kept a pouch full of stones with darkness cast on them if it hit the fan Id grab the bottom of the pouch and fling it around causing a whole bunch of spheres of darkness to cover the battlefield , and I had true sight cast on me at all times thanks to a spell I think we found on the internet called control duration which was aweaker version of permanency. I don't know if everything we did was played absolutely correct but it was fun.
Great video! I’m running a B/X campaign now and coaching a total noob on her magic user. I may show her this.
Old school Sleep is probably the best at low levels unless you are in a game which mostly features undead. Charm Person can be anywhere from crap to fantastic, depending the the ruleset you are using and your GM's interpretation of how the spell should work. In ACKS, I had one GM rule that even though I charmed the leader of an enemy group that he would not aid me in any way, he just would not harm me, and I think he even continued to perform hostile acts on my allies. It felt really bad. In the same system I have seen it ruled much more favorably where you basically have a faithful ally until they break free from the spell on a future saving throw, so long as you do not abuse them or attempt to use them as fodder. If you do, they may get another saving throw immediately. If you do not release them from service before they break free of the spell then you may have a problem on your hands, depending on the nature of the creature you charmed and how well you treated them while they were charmed. If you managed to charm an ogre and then it breaks free from the charm a month later, do not be surprised if it attempts to suddenly smash you with its club.
My magic user has charm person, it's so useful. I charmed the terrible guard captain in Evils of Illmire. Then we realized how long I had him for lol. He's my best bud now. I'm paying him in loot so if the spell does wear off he's got a reason to stick around.
For me it was ALWAYS sleep for my spellcasters. I didn't know about Charm Person, but sleep always let us clear one room of the dungeon guaranteed per rest.
Great video as usual! No quibbles with your logic. My ranking is a bit different but that is probably due more to the beauty of OSR games, specifically our play style and house rules are different … which is a lovely thing about these old games. Here is my ranking:
1. Sleep - called “shotgun” by the players in my group, unless you are up against undead, the spell saves parties from TPKs. In OSR games as everyone who plays them knows, the single 6 HD monster does not cause a TPK, it’s the six 1 HD or 12 half HD monsters that do that. Sleep solves this problem and as you said no saving throw for the targets. Yikes!
2. Hold Portal - another TPK saver. It gives the party time to flee and given the pursuit rules in most OSR games, by the time the monsters get through the held portal the party is safely away.
3. Light- for all the reasons you mentioned plus darkness in a dungeon is a killer in its own right (losing one’s light source I mean). While it does have offensive combat capabilities as you covered, it affects only one target and they get a saving throw which is why I put Sleep ahead of it.
Oh, Charm Person. There are three reasons from my gaming experiences for why I did not put this in the top 3. First, because of just what you mentioned about a M-U using this spell to create their own small army, we allow this spell to be cast only once per week. The M-U is supposed to be a member of the PCs’ party, not a party himself. Second, the description is vague enough that I have yet to play with a DM who allows the spell to do much against an enemy of the M-U. The ruling is almost always that the charmed enemy wouldn’t do such-and-such because that to strongly benefits the M-U, their enemy. And third, when the target does finally make their save, they are so pissed from being charmed that they go off on the M-U and, if they are intelligent, they don’t let on that they have made their save and when the M-U’s guard is down, WHAM!, dead M-U. Honestly, this last one has happened to me so many times that I rarely cast this spell when playing a M-U. But I think my critique of CP has more to do with the people I play with than the rules per se.
You should do a video for 2nd level cleric spell choices too!
This is really interesting. I've not read OSE, and this makes me tempted to do so.
I would replace Light with read magic. I would be the type of player that starts with read magic and complain every time we find a map instead of a scroll :D
I noticed Labyrinth Lord gives the magic user Read Magic automatically in addition to their one other spell. It makes sense to me
the Feeblemind + Charm combo was a wrecking ball back then
Holmes Basic/AD&D all the way back to '80, I almost always took sleep, took light a few times though. MUs were HARD to get up the exp charts! Then I got forever DM'd and here I am lol
my goodness, charm person is the spell i always wanted for an Enchanter
Light is my favorite level 1 Spell.
The Sleep and the light spell were already my first spells of choice since the I begun to play DND. But I never thought charm person as this. Give me a week at the town tavern and I would make a squad to clean a 1st level dungeon without breaking a sweat.
In regards to 5E, there are a couple of 1st-level spells that are ridiculously powerful and remain useful throughout. Shield could be a 2nd level spell easily, and Protection from Evil and Good I could see being justifiably 4th Level.
I'm playing a game of Hyperborea 3rd edition. Our wizard has but one spell: Sleep. It's saved us from TPK at least twice now (we've been in about 10 battles or less).
Those would be in my top choices, too. When I was DMing back in the day, I would hope for my players to get Sleep because it seemed the best chance for a first level party to survive. I was always grateful no one seemed interested in charm person, because it was just broken. Usually light came from a cleric. Contenders would be web and magic missile. Web because it’s a lot like Sleep but can hit higher levels, and magic missile because sometimes that guaranteed hit is a big deal for low level characters.
Cantrips were added in AD&D. 4 cantrips replaced 1 first level by Gary Gygax. See Dragon #59.
Charm person is why protection from evil makes you immune to charms.
I loved 2e charm person.
“Choose a starting spell…”. That’s cute!
For some reason I remember your first spell being random in OD&D...
Gygax ain't the boss of you
Yeah, Sleep got deceptively nerfed in 5e. Turning it into a roll a lot of dice rather than based off hit dice spell makes it seem good to the player but the DM likely has noted that monster HP went up a bit.
thanks for the video
Charm Person, like other charms, are one of the most argument-inspiring spells ever known. Metagaming on both sides of the screen leads to friction-causing moments like this spell can create.
Great list! If this was a "Top 3" I think an argument can be made for Find Familiar over Light, but Charm Person and Sleep are indispensable.
@@JeffersonMills That's an odd response. Casting infrequently isn't really relevant when the duration is "permanent", and the familiar gets to act each round (making it effectively an at-will spell). Also not everyone's game has NPC Magic Users who are selling scrolls on demand, in fact 'magic marts' are a decidedly not-old-school feature.
@@JeffersonMills Doesn't really matter that it debuted in 1E, that's still Old-School D&D lol.
Your recounting of page numbers and how Int works doesn't suddenly mean "how often I can cast this" is absolutely equal to "how good this spell is". DURATION is equally, if not more important. Find Familiar is PERMANENT, which makes it have a better Duration then basically all alternatives.
If I applied your method of choosing ONE attribute of a spell to determine what the best spells are, Find Familiar wins hands down. See how silly that is?
Additionally your entire argument hinges on the PC's ability to acquire a Find Familiar scroll. Not everyone has magic-mart in their game like you seem to be advocating. Getting a scroll of a specific spell is NOT guaranteed.
@@JeffersonMills 1) Your points are based entirely on the assumption that there is no situation where you would be denied a scroll. An item the DM is under NO obligation to make available to you. I'm not missing your points, they aren't good points.
2) It's not "a DM issue" when the DM deigns not to provide magic items to you that allow you to fully optimize your character, and preserve your slots for "more useful spells"
3) Having additional actions and being able to act in two locations at once is the opposite of "less useful". That ability alone is more useful then most spells, not just first level ones.
I just saw the video. Sleep is must have for a 1st level MU, and life saver for low level group. Charm Person is also very good, but can quickly create problems for the group. A pair charmed orcs are still evil to the core, and could disagree with the paladin or the good cleric. Their basic nature isn't changed, and if left alone, they could just go and murder the nearby farmer, just to bring back fresh eggs for their good friend the magic-user. I remember that it caused much trouble for the party, so the different Charm spells were used with caution and usually for short periods of time. Light was not considered very useful, we generally left this for the cleric characters.
Thanks for the video.
When running Basic Fantasy RPG, I usually let my players pick an additional first level spell that their character can pick as a cantrip.
I balance it out my giving it different spells 1d4 or 1d6 cooldown in combat, and making it non-heightenable, so that spells like dispel magic or magic missile don't become overpowered, or turn combat into a bullet hell, but still let's magic users be valuable contributors in the early game.
I ran a one-shot for some friends and other people at a con this weekend while in line for an extremely popular panel we wanted to go to. Everyone, especially the magic users had much more fun when I added this rule.
I had a copy of Unearthed Arcana, so I would always pick a couple cantrips (could cast 4 per first level spell) and light things on fire. I wish I had taken charm person though :)
Back when I was a 1E player, I remember the moment when I realized I had the wrong idea about magic users. They are actually charismatic figures. Thanks to the charm spell, they're master manipulators who can bend people to their will.
Which OSE books would you recommend picking up as essentials to playing and running the game?
All you really need is the "Classic Fantasy Rules Tome". It will give you classes, equipment, spells, monsters, treasure, DM stuff, everything. Also, for the sake of completion, there is a 2-book set called "Advanced Fantasy" which contains more classes and stuff from AD&D. It's a stand-alone set, you don't need the Classic book to use the Advanced set.
I like Joethelawyer's homerule for allowing mages learning light crossbow. This seems legit as light crossbows are used regularly by common people in real life hunting situations with very little time spent on becoming proficient.
As for spells I have used the home rule since the 90s that mages get bonus spells equal to priest bonus spells. Instead of WIS as with priests the bonus is based on INT.
Spell duration in older editions was just bonkers. Anyone with some experience playing Baldur's Gate can point out the problem, though. It's just not very fun. Save or suck effects are potentially super powerful but they can also take players completely out of a combat (or even out of the game) with one bad roll. Hope they brought their smart phone with them because its time to browse Reddit for the next twenty minutes.
I play Basic Fantasy with my kids and I just ended up house ruling that all long duration effects allow a save per round, or per turn out of combat. Applies to PCs, NPCs, and monsters. They still end up being powerful but a little less predictable. I give magic-users bonus spells based on their intelligence to make up for it. Permanent effects are still permanent.
Might not be strictly old-school, but then nothing is more old-school than a small book full of house rules.
Sleep is the unequivocal #1 choice. Followed closely by Charm Person and Light.
Great video about a great game! Thanks for the tips 😁👍
Sleep and Charm Person are OP!
staves, daggers and DARTS! Keep a bag full of those puppies, as your THAC0 is the same as that fighter next to you! EDIT: At least in AD&D 1e. Not sure about OSE.
I always liked color spray
The lack of spells magic-users had was something that initially turned me off from old school designs u til I looked closer and realized that these weren't 5e spells. Imo lvl 1 casters are much more powerful in OSE than 5e, it's just that they need to use more cunning and assistance from the party to be successful. For goodness sakes just consider the disparity in power between these OSE spells you talk about and their 5e counterparts, knowing even one of these in OSE is probably better than knowing all of them in 5e.
There were cantrips in the 1st edition AD&D Unearthed Arcana
Enjoyed throroughly! Unrelated, but I recently saw (and got drawn in by) Heart: the City Beneath, and was semi shocked not to see a review on your channel. Just wondering if it has flaws, doesn’t interest you, or is too far down in your stack of “stuff to get to.” Just cracking it open now, but gives off that Into the Odd/Patrick Stuart vibe.
I cast charm person on myself for the confidence boost
Great stuff friend 👏 👍
Thank you for giving me a nice video to send people when they don't believe me that sleep is a great spell.
Backed via your link!
Love the video clips
I run an OSR game based in Five Torches Deep. Light is too OP.
This is why I have players roll spells randomly :)
If you think these spells are crazy you should see the freedom the game "The Riddle Of Steel" gives you. As long as you pass your rolls and don't pass out you can do almost anything as a sorcerer if your character has the time. My sorcerer sealed the entrance of a mine off and super heated the air inside to cook the goblins living in it alive. And he dominated the memories and minds of many people in the nearby town to love and serve him.
Sleep was an early-game requirement in AD&D
Sleep is always my go to 1st level spell.
Shout out for 'Summon' in Lamentations of the Flame Princess - kill your entire party at level 1 the first time you attempt a spell!
Old School Charm Person lets you become a pokemon master, huh? Wild.
Would you not need to take Read Magic as the first spell choice to be able to cast anything?
Choosing your spell? In 1st edition, you get 4 spells, read magic, and an offensive, defensive and misc. spell, you have a 3 in 10 chance of getting to pick which of the spells in that group you pick
If you are running into creature with more than 4HD at first level you got other problems. Unless you have the option to run or parley
Hi, ADHD is in overdrive from your bookcase, can you say what the book next to the Labyrinth game book behind you is? (Not knave, other side) love the Time Bandits map!
That's the Chthonic Codex, a boxed set about wizards. I have a review of it on my channel.
@@QuestingBeast thank you! Great collection; we have similar interests.