Oh my goodness, did he really?!?!?! I always watch PDM's videos but I haven't gotten to this one yet. I recorded and scheduled my video yesterday so I had no idea!
Video length is less important to me than covering the material well, and I think you have a good sense of what amount of depth is useful for these videos, or at least I appreciate the depth that you go into the topics you cover. I think if you started to go into detailed stats that would be too much, but you cover what things were new to the game and how they were affected by and the wider gaming and fantasy literature ecosystem, and how they affected that ecosystem in return, and it feels just perfect to me.
I really appreciate this comment so much, not just because it's positive but also because you articulate *why* you like the format, and this gives me a sense of what I should be focusing on. Thank you so much for watching, but also for taking the time to write this insightful and helpful comment. I really appreciate your support. Cheers.
Thank you for your continued effort to bring the history of D&D to us. I started playing back in the mid 1980’s but did not get full blown into it until 1992 when I could afford the books and miniatures. You help me remember good times with friends around a kitchen table where we forget time and games that lasted months. Whenever I watch your videos, it brings back memories like a good song does for you. I appreciate your effort to continue to do this.
That is such a huge compliment! I really appreciate it, and I'm so glad you found my channel. I'm very happy to bring you some nostalgia and positive vibes. Thank you so much for watching and commenting. Cheers!
Gandalf was actually closer to an angel than a wizard. It was a different cosmology then most D&D world (though that was a point in lawsuits back in the day).
As I discuss in the video, this is partially the problem with trying to compare fiction/movies/etc. to D&D and say one of them is "wrong" (which the author of the article tries to do). Spellswords didn't even exist back in March 1977 when this article was written, but the author of the article doesn't even address that issue. According to the rules available at the time, Gandalf shouldn't have been able to use a sword (if he was in fact a D&D character, which of course he wans't!). Thanks for watching and commenting, both of you! (Leodouskyron5671 and Marveryn)!
In a Moria scenario printed in White Dwarf back when it was general roleplaying magazine, Gandalf was presented as an 8th level cleric, beefed up with some spells drawn from the magic user and druid lists. Pretty sure a Knock spell was there along with Produce Flame, Heat Metal and some kind of light spell, probably Continual Light. Dancing Lights might have been there too. I'm not sure whether Hold Portal was. Since the Istari were a type of maiar, the interpretation made sense to me at the time. Aragorn was a 6th level ranger who I think got access to clerical spells early. Boromir, Gimli and Legolas were all 4th level fighters. The hobbits were low level. I always felt that Frodo should be a bard, but rules at the time required that a character work through levels one to five as a fighter and as a thief, before you got onto the bard track, in what was essentially a precursor of prestige classes. I also feel that Sam Gamgee ended up as a bard, in the narrative. There was Sam telling Frodo the story of Nine Fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom. Frodos writings ending up as the Red Book of Westfarthing establishes him as a chronicler. His frequent meetings with dwarves and elves who were passing by The Shire even before his role in the War of the Ring, and his performance for inn patrons very much suggest he should be regarded as a lore bard.
@@daddyrolleda1 In MERP and One Ring you need to figure out what Gandalf can do. You might very well run into him or Saruman, and then I need to know if Gandalf can regrow their toes if they ask him.
18:15 real quick “MS” is abbreviation for “manuscript”. To get real nerdy it goes back to *Manu+Striptus* Latin for “written by hand” but came to include hand typed, used to differentiate it from machine printed works. Today we might use it for anything not mass printed.
I really appreciate that! A few folks have mentioned this, and I feel that I should've been able to figure that out, but it stumped me, and quite honestly I should've looked it up when I was prepping the video. Anyway, thank you! And, thanks for watching, commenting, and your support of the channel!
Thanks for the video! I have the pleasure of gaming with Tom Wham here in Lake Geneva almost every week, often in one of his boardgame or card game designs. It's true that the Gandalf thing simply doesn't translate so to try and take anything not written with particular game rules in mind and try to make it fit that mold is a fairly futile pursuit. I tend to describe my own D&D setting and campaigns not as magic weak but rather as magic rare. It can be incredibly powerful but I have few spellcasters as NPCs which makes PCs who cast spells a rare thing but still a powerful thing. The various temples have Clerics but the rank and file are mainly laypersons without magical abilities. I don't have "schools of magic" but there are some high level NPC Magic Users, though few will take on apprentices and mostly PC MUs tend to be the rare ones who have access to such training. I like magic in my setting to be special and not used lightly or willy-nilly. There aren't legions of Clerics feeding and healing the populace nor Magic-users keeping all the streets of major cities clean all as part of some Arcane-Divine Industrial Complex.
This sounds a lot like my campaign world I'm using for my daughter's B/X campaign! Most healing is done by Barber-Surgeons and the average peasant hasn't seen arcane magic, or if they have, it was probably just a trick performed by a charlatan. My daughter and her friend are playing Elves, so they know a few spells, but they never use them in public, as their mentor explained that doing so would draw unwanted attention and could even be dangerous! That's so cool you get to game with Tom Wham! Thanks for sharing! And of course, thanks for watching and commenting. Cheers!
Another great video. I really appreciate the long form content. I just wish I could listen to it all in one setting so I don’t screw up your algorithm.
Thank you so much! And no worries at all! I know a lot of folks don't have the time to watch the entire video all in one sitting. I really appreciate you watching when you can, and also commenting to let me know. And most of all, I appreciate your support! Cheers!
I really do enjoy your content. I am an OD&D gen x-er and Connect strongly with the old publications and I really like what you do bringing them back to life. And reminding me of what I have forgotten! I was wondering if you’ve ever done a review of the Erol Otis small book called the Necromican? Yes, that’s how it is spelled. Best, Scott
👍 for doing these Dragon walkthroughs. I can remember getting copies from the library and then deciding which articles to copy at the local pharmacy on their $0.05 per page copier. I've got a whole stack of Dungeon magazines, but never ended up collecting the Dragon ones. Hope you stick with this series.
A long time ago I posted (and have since lost) a Facebook Note examining Gandalf vs Dumbledore in terms of D&D. Arrived at the conclusion that Dumbledore was a roughly level 10 wizard in Third Edition for a variety of reasons. I remember arguing that Gandalf was something like a Fighter 20/Wizard 5 (character with two classes), since he soloed the Balrog with his longsword (which wizards otherwise can't use), and that he was specifically an AD&D wizard -- which meant that Dumbledore's higher AC much more of a liability.
That Gandalf was, effectively, an Angel in Tolkien's world means he had a code of conduct to only do as much as necessary; that Gandalf beats a Balor (originally called Balrog in D&D) means he's likely a much higher level.
Basically when Gandalf died he went back to headquarters and asked to use more recources. So they authorized him more, (The White). The angely guys, if they use too much power, can destroy the world by accident.
That's really good to know! I'll remember this for future videos! I appreciate you watching and sharing your thougts, and also for your support of the channel. Cheers!
Yes, for sure! I still have bunch of homemade character sheets I made on a manual typewriter and they sure to reveal the lack of features compared to what we have today! Thanks for watching and commenting!
Gandalf was a Deva that became a Planetary like Saruman. Sauron was a Solar that fell. Gandalf and Saruman weren’t allowed to use their full power so they seemed like old wizards.
It's one of the things I like most about shopping in person for "niche" hobbies. I recall there being a lightning storm (in a good way!) where I had that at my comics shop, game store, and vinyl/record store. These days, while I do have a game store within walking distance of my house, I don't feel a connection there like I had in the past. My best friend owns a vinyl shop and I visit as often as I can and work (volunteer) there on occasion but I wouldn't say I've made a long-standing connection with anybody there (other than him, of course). But... I have found that kind of connection at my local comic book shop that I've been going to for the past ~12 years. I feel so comfortable there and love talking with the staff and other customers. But I do take your meaning. I hope that you're able to find a game store or other place outside the home where you can make those kinds of connections again!
That was an interesting tidbit about Algernon being dropped from the appendix N. I wonder if that was by accident. There is an inspirational source material book list in the Moldvay Basic on page B 62 with some different authors.
That one you're referring to is the first list of Inspirational Reading that I ever saw for D&D (I didn't see the DMG until a few months later). I liked that it was broken up into different categories including Non-Fiction. Thanks for watching and commenting!
The closest LotR game, a decade or so after this magazine, would be MERP by ICE. MERP took Rolemaster right off including the magic rules and its peculiarities. We found the mood on MERP closer to Bilbo where a random wizard walking down the road is not a big deal. PCs can play wizards and they will encounter a slightly more magical world. Low-level sorcerers who can heat water is normal. MERP is fun because it had no Jackson movie to draw on, unlike games today. They had books and the Bakshi movie.
I remember seeing those ads for MERP in almost every inside front or back cover of Dragon for YEARS. I was always interested, but like most non-TSR products advertised in Dragon, I never saw the products for sale at any of my local stores. Decades later, I played in a 3rd Edition campaign run by a friend who is a big Tolkien fan and he used a lot of his old MERP stuff from back in the day to create the setting we gamed in. It was really fun.
@@daddyrolleda1 We managed to play a MERP campaign. It is Rolemaster light. But still Rolemaster with all its quirks about weapon crit tables, spell points, giant charts and stuff. We managed by dividing responsibility for charts between players and giving everyone a print of the charts. My duty was to track biomes and reference the herb availability chart. A necessary task because buying a herb was expensive. You never know when you suffer hand nerve damage and need a jololopo root.
Gandalf’s role was to inspire the people of Middle-Earth to unite and fight for themselves. He avoids showing that he has power as much as possible so that people don’t rely on him to save them. He’s clearly a decent fighter as well, more than a wizard would be. He’s more like the elf class in early D&D, a fighter magic-user, except he can do both at the same time and has no level cap. Clearly he can beat a Balrog as Gandalf the Grey, and he uses both sword and spells. Maybe he is a 5th level magic user, but his character level is clearly much higher.
The character IN the Black company were low level, low magic characters. Their world was drenched in ancient magics. The background war the mercenary company was fighting is was driven by the machinations of high level magic users and liches. The Black company series is iconic because of it's portrayal of the little guys caught in the crossfire of powerful spellcasters...
In MERP Gandalf was level 40 as the Grey, 80 as the White in Endor; in reality his level was 240 as an Istar. ( ref. Valar and Maiar, I.C.E. 2006, p 77)
And these ratings are really among the best any fantasy rpg has ever produced. Magic of Middle Earth is much more subdued yet still very common, often over-looked. Using the MERP conversion to AD&D we still get a very powerful Gandalf as we should because as it shares his varying specialties-Fire Magic, Animist, Enchantment, etc,.. are additional bonuses to the character via conversion. Unfortunately so many ignorant D&D roll players are just that, while about 10-20 % are actual "Role-Players" and through reading the books, The Hobbit, The Lord Of The Rings, Unfinished Tales-now years later, are capable of perceiving the strength and power that he wielded.
Thank you so much for that feedback! My best friend was listening to a copy of the video I made for my Kickstarter page and he said it sounded like I was inside a bucket! But it's the same audio used for this video. I thought I was going insane. Thanks for the validation that I'm not crazy! And, yet again, thank you so much for your support, both here and on Facebook. I am humbled by your continued efforts on behalf of my channel! Cheers!
As far as the Witch article , the reference to JDW is James Ward whom recently passed away. Long Career working On D&D in all its forms and so much more...
The guy who wrote the article makes some really good points, to me, but I always assumed there were other elements to the character that I'm not familiar with as I'm not a Tolkien scholar. I think a better title (but less catchy and definitely much more cumbersome) would be, "Gandalf only casts up to 3rd level spells." Thank you for watching and commenting!
There's also the fir cones he lights and throws down on the wolves, a 0 level fire finger cantrip perhaps ;) and the 'fireworks' he's famous for in the shire, real fireworks or pyrotechnics (2nd level mage and 3rd level druid spell)? and the fantastical shapes his fireworks are reported to take (a flying dragon etc) which can't possibly be achieved by any real fireworks, a surreptitiously cast phantasmal force or maybe a dancing lights spell might achieve the special effects of his fireworks .. not just a light spell but they are all low level so 5th still checks out ;) if not lower ;D Short of facing off solo against a balrog there's nothing he overtly does I can recall in the hobbit or the lord of the rings that could be used to 'prove' he was any higher than 4th level in an old school D&D campaign. And the balrog killed him anyway .. so that doesn't really count either ;D
The fir cones come up in my video when I talk about the first person to ever roleplay a magic-user (in Blackmoor, pre-D&D) and how he came up with the idea of throwing balls of fire which were inspired, partially, by this scene you mention!
@@daddyrolleda1 "Gandalf only casts up to 3rd level spells." Yep, that much is accurate. I tried my hand at modeling Tolkien's characters in D&D stat blocks back in the '90s, and the problem that really came to the fore for me was how many times a spell could be cast. Using Weathertop as the example, the description suggests ongoing lightning strikes visible from miles away continuously for hours as Gandalf fights the Nazgul. Who in D&D's Vancian magic system has the spell slots for that? In the end I decided that modeling any of the Maiar would properly require using the Forgotten Realms Avatar rules or the BECMI Immortal rules, if not outright custom homebrew material.
@@chiblast100x I've not a clear recollection of that bit from the book, do we actually know Gandalf was throwing lightning bolts or do we hear of it more in the manner of a third hand description from some distant witness? .. there was lightning, but do we know it was his? But that aside I can think of *one* low level spell you could do that for hours on end that would only use one spell slot, some low level illusion spells last as long as you concentrate on them .. admittedly not getting your concentration broken for hours of battle when people are swinging blades at you and presumably hitting you with them occasionally might be a big ask with D&D rules ;) but you could 'potentially' keep up illusory lightning strikes for hours with a single spell. [Ponders] Picture this, a mage hiding behind a hedge, casts an illusion of himself walking up to the top of the hill that then starts hurling lightning bolts at the enemy, proceeds to sit out the entire battle behind said hedge while his opponents attack the illusion of himself that he has take injuries and react appropriately but has it always survive and continue hurling lightning bolts. Phantasmal force probably won''t cut it, you'll likely want or even need some thermal and sound effects with that rather than just visual, so maybe improved phantasmal force or spectral force? A little forward planning to get to the hill first and hide behind that hedge before the other guys get there, and hours worth of fun and lightning bolts can be had with a single spell slot ;)
If I'm not mistaken Asgard Miniatures made a figure based on that drawing; I had that at one time. Barry Minot made authentic single-breasted amazons. Citadel Amazons were more fully clothed; I never got to painting a set that I picked up but they are in the basement somewhere.
Great stuff. I remember reading the article ages ago. And I too was miffed that Gandalf was a 5th level spellcaster. I was like "not in a million years!" Great video as always man.
Great to see you here! Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. It's fun that old-timers like us remember this article. It's also funny how many folks are getting upset thinking that I'm the one saying Gandalf is only 5th level! 😁
@@daddyrolleda1 Right? This was a common debate in many LGSs in the 80s. But THAT Dragon article really set it off. There were also debates about what level wizard any of the Jedi were. Very common to see people’s take on pop culture / fiction characters applied to Gygax / Arneson’s early AD&D system.
I wonder if the reason they dropped the letters column was due to the development of AD&D and either lack of available person-hours for that or internal difficulties with keeping OD&D and AD&D straight.
but since certain magic-like abilities seem to have near infinite uses, his divine nature must also give him some at-will magic abilities and given how long he dueled with certain enemies (Balrog, Nazgul, etc.) his divine nature would seem to bestow some form of fast healing and maybe damage reduction, along with some divine/radiant aspects to his attacks and defense against these extremely strong fiendish/undead horrors.
Thank you so much! I really can't even express how much I appreciate your ongoing support! Never fear - the Gandalf-themed thumbnail amounts to less than a quarter of the entire video! Thanks again!
For those interested, here is my list of witch related 1&2e classes & info. 1e classes: Witch (Dragon mags 3, 5, 20, 43, & 114) Witch Doctor [NPC tribal cleric/magic-user] (DMG p40) 2e NPC class: Witch (DMG p32 `nothing but a female wizard`) Witch Doctor (Monster Mythology p12-13) 2e NPC non class: "Witch" (PO: Spells & Magic p72) 2e kits: BARBARIAN SHAMAN Witchman (The Complete Barbarian’s Handbook p62) FIGHTER or THIEF Witch (Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Comp. III p272) PRIEST Kongo Witch Doctor (D#209 p18) Witch Doctor (The Complete Book of Humanoids p79) PSIONICIST Thought Agent- Witch hunter (D#191 p18) TALTOS (Rogue) Boszorkany/Witch (D#247 p43) WIZARD Rashemaar Witch (Spellbound p91) Roman Witch (The Glory of Rome p27) Witch (D#200 p16) Witch (The Complete Book of Necromancers p21) Witch (The Complete Wizard's Handbook p45) 2e Witch magic system (PO: Spells & Magic p83)
While I agree that Tolkien is it's own thing and you can't compare D&D to it in terms of systems. In the movie when Gandalf is falling through the mountain fighting the balrog, he is obviously rolling natural 20's the whole way down
Maybe the DC for the fall was only like 12 or something... 😁 Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel! I truly appreciate it!
Nice video. One funny thing to me is that just yesterday, I was catching up on the Hall of blue illumination pod cast which is run by some people who gamed with Prof. Barker, and they mentioned the female empress on tekumel in either the war wizards episode or the plague one if I remember correctly. I do love your content in this format, though, and it is very interesting, especially with your stuff on the history of rpgs and others not as popular games. I'd love to see more tekumel, or if you've ever looked into olde house games, they have pits and perils which I'd love to see get some attention
Video idea: monsters invented for D&D. I know beholder and mindflayer, but I didn’t know about ankheg. It would be interesting to cover which ones are unique and when/how they were introduced. I expect it’s been done before but I’ve never seen it, and I doubt the specific history was included.
Bravo Martin! What a pleasure it was to get home from work and see that you covered the Gandalf article from Dragon. I have no memory of that cover, and certainly didn't read it in the late 70s. I must have read it in a "best-of" or a xeroxed copy belonging to someone older. I enjoyed that article and still think it is a strong argument. You are correct that one can't take it too seriously as the novel pre-exists the game. I'd argue that G, being an Maiar, he is among the first creatures created by God. A Balrog is a Maiar gone to the dark side. Inspiration for a Balor demon. Using D&D stats, what appear like low level spells are innate abilities similar to demons (fallen angels) that can be used at will, usually daily. G, having willingly taken human form, chooses to hold back his full power. We see him use his innate powers at will - as opposed to formal spell casting that a D&D MU would employ. His sword is an ancient Elvish blade. probably a relic level item. It also bestows powers. I remember an article that suggested he is a Druid. I wonder if my memory is faulty or there is another article?
I do recall there being quite a few articles, letters, and forum articles discussing the subject of Gandalf, but off the top of my head, I can't recall them all right now. Maybe we'll get to them as I continue through my overviews of the early days of Dragon magazine! This was a really thought-provoking comment, and I really appreciate you taking the time to make it. And, thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Thank you very much! I got a couple of comments who said the same thing, so I'll use this approach going forward when I record stuff from my screen. It takes a bit longer to edit since I have to upload two files and try to get the timing to work out (I made a mistake on the video I uploaded today that somehow I didn't catch until it was already loaded!). Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
When I was recording this, I had read the article before hand to do the research but I had forgotten about the address being included, so when I got there, I began to slightly stumble over my words because in my mind I was thinking, "Do I say something? Or does that make it worse? Do I ignore it? Do I start over?... " and all those thoughts happened in less than a second and I decided it was long enough ago that it was probably highly unlikely that he still lived there, and even if he did, far more people would have seen it from that article back in the day than would see it on my small YT channel!
I think there’s something to be said for the fact that even low level spells in D&D can be surprisingly strong, especially the ones like Magic Missile that date back to the early game. Which probably shouldn’t be surprising since the characters would have to have been lower level early on, when the game was being written by the players! Anyways I think the article would be better if it suggested that *if* one wanted to try and make a more Tolkien like game then you should up the spell levels. But of course that doesn’t read quite so provocatively!
As I mentioned last week, I used Minifigs figures in the 1970s. the range mentioned in the ad are medievals. Russian knights and Teutonic knights. I actually had several from this range, called Alexander Nevski. The range included a Bishop and a Priest, and these were the only explicit Cleric figures available to us at the time. Minifigs produced several fantasy ranges. The earliest were the Mythical (i.e. Middle) Earth, which we used in our first wargames. the second was the Hyborian range, based on the Conan stories. There were more wizards and a few useful monsters in that range. Third was the Valley of the Four Winds; much more dramatic figures with a story to tell. Lastly came the first line of offiicial DnD miniatures. These were mainly PC races, but included figures for the Eldritch Wizardry Demons (Types 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Orcus, Demogorgon and a Succubus); those are still in a box in my basement.
When I read this article I said the same thing then that I'll say right now. Just because you didn't see him cast a Gate or Meteor Swarm or Wish doesn't mean he couldn't. He knew he could not overly involve himself in the quest, plus he had a lot of other irons in the fire... so he was probably saving the spells for where they were most needed. #2 - He survived a confrontation with a Balrog. Do you think a 5th level wizard, alone, would survive? #3 - Specifically he didn't want to call attention to the party and their quest. Do you think he's going to cast a major spell around them, therefore allowing his enemy to possibly locate him and his party? Overall, I could go on and on... The truth is he was not a Wizard at all, but something more akin to a celestial being, along with the other color 'wizards', were guardians of middle earth.
Ms= manuscript, the article in rough form in other words. No idea how I know that, other than maybe looking at one too many 19th century documents with their obsession with abbreviations.
Thank you for that! I should've been able to figure that out, and even more embarrassingly, I should've looked it up while prepping the video rather than stumbling over it during the commentary. Thanks for the information, and for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
A few people have suggested he's an "angel" or other some such divine creature, and therefore, has divine spell-like abilities, as opposed to learning spells like a magic-user. That would explain a lot of things. Of course, it's all in good fun. There's no way to back-into the Tolkien characters from a D&D standpoint since the two properties were created decades apart and not designed to be compatible! Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
@@daddyrolleda1 oh yeah he’s a Maiar and specifically compelled to not use his full power. Might as well use a legendary sword when you find one in that case. Thanks for the deep history dives, fun to watch and informative
There was a great short story about a rakshasa in an old Dragon magazine, where he was portrayed as a peaceful sort of 19th century academic smoking on a pipe. Do you know which issue that was from? It was delightfully whimsical.
I don't remember a short story specifically, but there was a whole article about three different types of Rakshasas in Dragon Magazine #84. I remember reading that article on vacation in the backseat of my parents' car after I picked it up at a book store way back in the early 1980s. However, the image you describe of the Rakshasa smoking on a pipe sounds a lot like the artwork by David Trampier featured in the 1st Edition Advanced D&D Monster Manual for the Rakshasa entry. That Rakshasa is smoking a pipe, wearing a fur-lined robe, and leaning on a desk.
@@daddyrolleda1 Ah well, it was worth a shot. Maybe it was the intro to the article in #84. It strikes me as the kind of scene Ed Greenwood would come up with? Conversation with a rakshasa in my study kind of thing.
Gandalf is a much higher level Magic-User than he shows based on the spells used in the books, he's just saving his higher level spells for the BBEG fight against Sauron!
It's so funny because I recorded this video before I watched his (I watch all his videos!) and as you probably noticed, I covered quite a few topics but I was trying to think of the single topic that would generate the most interest in the thumbnail, so I picked this one. Looking at the numbers, I think it was a good choice! I commented on his video, and completely separately, he commented on mine! Thanks for watching and commenting!
That's a great question! Jon Peterson's article doesn't discuss that and I couldn't find any current info about him, but he certainly seemed to be a ground-breaker in terms of massive multi-player D&D games! In case you wanted to learn more, here's the blog post about it on Playing at the World: playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2017/11/a-forgotten-variant-loera-massively.html
Ha! I have the two modules from back in the day (CB1 and CB2)! I won't comment now so I don't spoil any commentary I give if/when I get around to covering them! As a side note, during the early days of the pandemic lockdowns, I discovered that I had 2 copies of "CB1" and I sold one on Ebay for what folks would probably deem a pittance these days, mostly because I don't have a large profile there. I wish I had it back so I could use it as a subscriber giveaway!
There was a lot of these articles over the years. I think it was a fun exercise to take a character from movies or books and see how to cram it into a game. I have read people trying to stat Rakhir from Elric and different Schwarzenegger characters. Or try to stat out Conan from different parts of his adventures. Sometimes this is necessary because you will run into this character for some reason. Then I need to know how hard the Terminator will punch your bum.
I get that - the "Giants in the Earth" column in Dragon is proof that folks were interested in the concept of trying to illustrate fictional or even real-world characters in D&D terms. That was one of my favorite series of articles back in the day.
@@daddyrolleda1 I don't think anyone played with these people. My mates tried a Star Wars adventure where you run into Luke Skywalker... And when Luke Skywalker is in the room he sort of hogs the spotlight. And while it's fun to have a chat with Luke, it's no fun to be his assistant goon squad for hours. So I think this was more like a fun exercise.
Yes, that totally makes sense to me. I enjoyed reading Giants of the Earth, but I never had any intention of using them in a game. But I thought a few of them providing some interesting ideas on how to "break the rules" (so-to-speak) when creating NPCs, and as a young kid, I found that flexibility refreshing.
One of the first issues of Dragon I ever got and read was #72, which was an April Fool's issue, and I felt the perfect combination as it had lots of "useful" stuff like the new Cavalier class (which at the time I thought was awesome) and also a lot of the joke stuff (I still to this day have most of the "half-spells" from that issue memorized). But I do recall being miffed (again, at the time) that there wasn't more "serious" content. Now when I look back on these issues, I love the humor!
Oh, interesting! The guy who wrote the article didn't include that as one of the spells he analyzed. I've read the Hobbit a few times (including to my daughter when she turned 3) and I honestly never made that connection with the thrush! Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@shockerck4465 Really this felt implied on my first reading. It was clear that the guide/gandalf returns and solves their problem. This is analogous to the men leading Beowulf to the lake but stopping there he had to proceed into the underworld alone. The guide opens the door but the hero must be the one who enters, in this case bilbo.
Gandalf was depicted as a much better fighter in the films than he was in the books. The Balrog is depicted much more fearsome in the movies. I doubt it was much bigger than a man, so Gandalf's battle was probably just about magic.
Yeah, the guy who wrote the article partially addresses the Istari angle in his video. I think the article would have better been titled (although it's of course clunky and not as clever/engaging), "Gandalf only seems to cast spells that compare at most to 3rd level spells as described in D&D." So, not that Gandalf is the *minimum* level to cast those spells, but rather those are the only ones we see him cast in the books. Thank you for commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1People have gods and classic myth characters the same treatment. Look at my stats for Hector and Balder etc. I liked how you, among the many, many shops of City-state of the Invincible Overlord can meet Balder in disguise running a wine shop for larks.
The big problem with trying to classify LOTR characters with a spell casting level based on the 'spells' they cast is that that's not how they work. The 'angelic' and 'demonic' beings that all of the magic using characters in LOTR all are the embodied forms of all started with a certain amount of finite power given to them by their creator, some with more some with less, in game terms we might choose to call it something like 'mana', that they can never replenish. Every bit of magic they perform (forging the rings, casting spells, 'changing the world' in any way at all) drains this starting power .. so the longer and more active they've been in the world the less power they have. We're never shown any mortal mages in LOTR. All the ''wizards' we know of in LOTR are 'angels' in corporeal form. If we were to try and design game mechanics to represent how Tolkien described (suggested or implied?) this about their ability to do magic it would be completely different and in some ways the reverse of the D&D game mechanics where mages become more powerful with experience. So 'wizards' like Gandalf in LOTR are husbanding a finite resource that will eventually run out so rely on it as little as possible to achieve their aims, if they must use 'magic' the smallest magic to get the job done is always prefered. Which makes attempting a comparison between the two based on the spells they are seen to use a bit of a problem. They're called wizards but they aren't D&D wizards. In D&D5e terms they might best be thought of as a sort of Sorcerer with a variable (depending on how much power their creator put into them when he made them) lifetime spell slot limit (instead of a daily one) that can never be replenished.
I love that one of the few spells that Gandalf actually casts in the book is widely regarded as one of the most useless D&D spells of all time: Hold Portal.
I have such a fun Hold Portal story from one of the Elf characters in my daughter's D&D campaign. I think I shared it in one of my DM Advice videos, but the short version is that the player's Elf had learned that spell upon character creation (it was the only spell she knew) and we played in real world time for over a year (we only play about once a month) before she used it, and it was spectacular. She used it to prevent the bad guy from following them, and it was so unexpected (I'd forgotten she even knew the spell). I was very impressed with my player that day!
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah, in oldschool D&D it was supposed to be used to allow the party to escape pusuing monsters. But today, who wouldn't take another magic missile?
In the book, Gandalf casts it to stop the Balrog from following them in Moria( Gandalf calls it "a Word of Command" which is even more cryptic and opens up so many more questions) and the poor door only lasts a few seconds before the contest between Gandalf's power and the Balrog's power causes the poor door to shatter into a thousand pieces.
@@Heike-- Yea, and the way he said it "I had to use a Word of Command", suggests it is a limited resource, sort of like a spell slot (forgive me if I misused the concept, I've never actually played).
@@digitalnomad9985 Tolkien's magic uses a system closer to magic points or more closely life points. Spend your life energy to alter the world but afterwards you never get it back, even for Sauron. That's why the Ring is so important, it's much of his own life and when it's destroyed, so is he.
I never agreed with this. The way Tolkien wrote his magic is nothing even remotely close to the fire & forget system used in D&D. Can't compare Ulluvatar & The Secret Fire, Morgoth and their followers to Mordenkainen, Melf, Bigby or Iggwilv/Tasha.
Totally agree with you! I think I used the phrase "an exercise in futility" to try to figure out fictional characters in D&D terms, but that said, it can still be kind of fun, as long as one understands that they're never going to match up exactly and that doesn't mean one or the other is "wrong." Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
I enjoy the long videos. I do have to plan time sometimes, but always worth it. On Gandalf, I prefer to think the reverse. Dude, your 5th level Magic User is Gandalf! Bonus comment for bonus content: Did you realize that "you put the Lime in the Coconut and drank them both together"?
I feel that articles written in the early Dragon magazines (1-12) are just written differently than later ones. Once AD&D gets rollin that’s kinda the Dragon everyone is used to imo.
I can definitely agree with that point of view. The other thing that happens, too, as time goes on is that more and more articles are written by amateurs/fans, which helps explore a lot of ideas that the founders and first employees never thought of. Thanks for watching and commenting!
This far we like the decision in One Ring to keep magic out of the PCs (and most of the world's) hands. Gandalf does not follow the normal rules. Pendragon had a magic system that was entirely DM-facing. You calculate how many years Merlin spends dreaming in the fey world to pay for a spell he used. PCs might have a potion or item but they are all knights. Using a bow unless hunting or understanding economy is un-knightly.
I agree it's not based on D&D, but i still think it's good to think about. D&D wizards get spell tiers way way way too fast, and are freakishly weak for the spell tier they have compared to fiction. D&D wizards are some uber min/maxed point buy esque creation where they sacraficed all mundane skill for "absolute loads of spellpower" compared to fictional wizards. This is why we get the disconnect of "gandalf needs to be like 20th level", because gandalf fights like a dozen men. So gandalf is like 12hitdice...but only 6th-7th level casting ability.
All good points. I think the best explanation I've heard of this particular article is that Gandalf only *displays* the casting ability of a 5th level wizard due to the spells he chooses to cast (which, as I think you might be getting at, Lightning Bolt is pretty darn powerful to be "only" a 3rd level spell) but he probably has powers far beyond that and we don't necessarily get to see all of those. That could partly explain his fighting ability. The other argument I've seen is that he's not a wizard, but rather a divine being with innate spell-like abilities so you can't compare his level to a standard character class. In any event, it can be fun to think about and obviously a lot of folks have very vocal opinions about it! Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 i'm not just thinking about gandalf but, fictional wizards generally. they tend to be able to mix it up at least passably, even if farless than the characters who would be fighting-men. in contrast to D&D where you are chucking around the top tier of "what is personal scale" when you have 5-6 hitdice. (level 5&6 spells raise dead and control weather.) the mass combat lvl7-8 spells are a bit more common than lvl5-6 in fiction, but i think that's very obviously from the way the spell list was made. where gygax wanted "top of personal scale" magical power at the end of the progression, then added the mass combat spells to fill in 7-8. So if you really wanted to look like wizards in fiction mass suggestion and mass charm should come online earlier. Say lvl11ish with fireball and such coming online at 7ish, but you make wizards combat skills on par with the cleric/thief.
5th level is a lot in a level 0 world. I usually peek at the NPC roster of adventures to see how many mid-level people hang around. And an MU 5 in a world with a dozen MUs is a lot. Level 0 me would be dumbfounded by a level 3 MU.
Yes, Iron Crown Enterprises (where Monte Cook worked before working for TSR and Wizards of the Coast) made "Midle Earth Roleplaying" (aka "MERP"), which, mechanics-wise, was a lighter stripped down version of "Role Master." TSR did make a Conan roleplaying game in 1985 I think. You can learn a little more about it in my video on TSR Boxed Sets: ruclips.net/video/4b9dcHDAqFo/видео.htmlsi=O_Yb2CjyBDri7oC0 Thanks for watching, commenting, and support of the channel!
A few people have pointed out the multi-class angle (some even include Fighter, or what would have, at the time, been called a "Fighting Man", to account for him wielding a sword). At the time this article was published (March 1977), multi-classing as an official rule in D&D didn't exist yet. It wasn't until the release of the Advanced D&D Player's Handbook in 1978 that multi-classing entered the game officially. The distinction between Wizard ("Magic-User") and Sorcerer didn't happen until 3rd Edition, in 2000. It's still fun to think about, though!
A facet of the MAR Barker situation that I never see discussed is that everyone gets so stuck on "Was MAR Barker personally evil y/n?" that there is almost no sober reflection on the worldview and biases that his work itself is communicating. EotPT itself communicates a pretty noxious worldview about how the world works and how disparate groups interact and extreme-even-for-the-time bioessentialism. I certainly hadn't guessed the *degree* Barker sucked prior to the 2022 statement, but I could tell something was seriously off with EotPT when I read through it. Terrible shame, there are facets of it that are interesting, but it would be more work to fix it than to make something new from scratch.
Totally cool with me! I think a few folks mistakenly think that *I* think Gandalf is "only" 5th level. I just used that specific article from issue #5 of Dragon Magazine to generate some interest for my video but I talk about so many other articles in issues #4 and #5 as well!
@daddyrolleda1 My comment was purely in response to the article claiming he was level 5. I'm currently listening to your video, actually. So far I'm enjoying and agreeing with you
Thank you so much for listening! I've heard a lot of folks prefer to listen to my videos while doing other things versus watching, and I think that totally makes sense. I really appreciate you do so, and am enjoying chatting with you. Thanks again!
It's a bit odd to try and get a class level for Gandalf. He's definitely far beyond 5th level, but more significantly he isn't a human or mortal being to begin with. It's like saying a Dragon is a 5th level wizard because it did a fireball one time. I would say based on the spread of abilities we see, he would be closer to a wizard/druid/fighter multi class. Following those rules, having access to all his skills at 5th level casting it would be more like a 15th level minimum with plenty of racial abilities thrown in. I would lean towards having a few rogue levels in there too, he has some pretty slick sleight of hand tricks. I think within the structure of D&D back then, Gandalf would not be a player character race or class at all though. Certainly not a "5th level human magic user".
Pendragon had wizards and some rules for them, but you can not play one. They are presumably used by the GM when Merlin or some small-time sorcerer shows up in the path of the knightley PCs. One Ring decided that no PCs can play wizards. In MERP, closer to the episodic tale of Bilbo and using the Rolemaster rules, you can play one and small-time sorcerers are more normal.
D&d uses a different magic system than LotR, it is like saying Batman is a level 3 Fighter with a munch of magic items... really apples to oranges. Based on Gandolf's ability and resources for gathering and leading troops, with od&d rules, he has to be in Domain level play (9+ for a pure wizard). It is like an alignment arguement; keeps coming up because you can have literally any opinion and be equally wrong.
1:15:17 so if there are sea elves, does that mean you can have pirate elves 🙂? Now I want to see someone play the elf version of Captain Jack Sparrow 😊.
WFRP high elves and dark elves are both great naval nations. High elves live on Elflantis and show up in Clipper ships. Dark elves are all about commanding monsters and some of their larger ships are simply castles built on top of giant sea monsters. Man'o'war was the GW specialist game for naval combat. It got dwarf submarines, orc catapult ships and dark elf black arks. Like on land, dark elf monster-ships could panic. So the whole black ark can go down as the monster freaks out and dives.
Dark elfs in WFRP are Raiders who show up to grab slaves for their giant torture-festivals. Which is a nice reason for a black ark with elf marines to show up anywhere. You can play both the fight for naval supremacy and the landing. Battlefleet Gothic could also be used in conjunction with other games. Like your fleet plays a metacampaign where planetary invasions in Epic or Space Hulk skirmishes take place.
It's long been a controversial article from Dragon Magazine and I thought folks would find it interesting to revisit it and see the guy's justification for making such a claim! Thanks for commenting, and I hope you enjoy the video!
![[DOKKAN BATTLE] Worldwide Campaign Announcement Video Part 2!](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JpT5Voak6WA/mqdefault.jpg)
Lol. I JUST made a thumbnail for the same topic!
Ha! I commented on your video. How funny that we both referenced the same article in completely different videos on the same day!
YES! sounds much better... Dig ur style ❤ What came 1st, the wizard or the Spell system? 😂
Great minds think alike. 🥸
Funny how Professor DM just premiered a video in which he mentions this Dragon Magazine article, too. That's synchronicity.
Oh my goodness, did he really?!?!?! I always watch PDM's videos but I haven't gotten to this one yet. I recorded and scheduled my video yesterday so I had no idea!
I literally just got done watching that video, too.
I just watched it as well and left a comment!
Lol
They're controlled by the AI hivemind is why that happens.
Video length is less important to me than covering the material well, and I think you have a good sense of what amount of depth is useful for these videos, or at least I appreciate the depth that you go into the topics you cover. I think if you started to go into detailed stats that would be too much, but you cover what things were new to the game and how they were affected by and the wider gaming and fantasy literature ecosystem, and how they affected that ecosystem in return, and it feels just perfect to me.
I really appreciate this comment so much, not just because it's positive but also because you articulate *why* you like the format, and this gives me a sense of what I should be focusing on. Thank you so much for watching, but also for taking the time to write this insightful and helpful comment. I really appreciate your support. Cheers.
With the depth of your vids, I'd say you are more of a DnD professor than anyone else
Thank you for your continued effort to bring the history of D&D to us. I started playing back in the mid 1980’s but did not get full blown into it until 1992 when I could afford the books and miniatures. You help me remember good times with friends around a kitchen table where we forget time and games that lasted months. Whenever I watch your videos, it brings back memories like a good song does for you. I appreciate your effort to continue to do this.
That is such a huge compliment! I really appreciate it, and I'm so glad you found my channel. I'm very happy to bring you some nostalgia and positive vibes. Thank you so much for watching and commenting. Cheers!
Gandalf was actually closer to an angel than a wizard. It was a different cosmology then most D&D world (though that was a point in lawsuits back in the day).
he also a spellsword as he uses a sword in combat as well as a staff.
As I discuss in the video, this is partially the problem with trying to compare fiction/movies/etc. to D&D and say one of them is "wrong" (which the author of the article tries to do). Spellswords didn't even exist back in March 1977 when this article was written, but the author of the article doesn't even address that issue. According to the rules available at the time, Gandalf shouldn't have been able to use a sword (if he was in fact a D&D character, which of course he wans't!).
Thanks for watching and commenting, both of you! (Leodouskyron5671 and Marveryn)!
In a Moria scenario printed in White Dwarf back when it was general roleplaying magazine, Gandalf was presented as an 8th level cleric, beefed up with some spells drawn from the magic user and druid lists. Pretty sure a Knock spell was there along with Produce Flame, Heat Metal and some kind of light spell, probably Continual Light. Dancing Lights might have been there too. I'm not sure whether Hold Portal was. Since the Istari were a type of maiar, the interpretation made sense to me at the time.
Aragorn was a 6th level ranger who I think got access to clerical spells early. Boromir, Gimli and Legolas were all 4th level fighters. The hobbits were low level. I always felt that Frodo should be a bard, but rules at the time required that a character work through levels one to five as a fighter and as a thief, before you got onto the bard track, in what was essentially a precursor of prestige classes. I also feel that Sam Gamgee ended up as a bard, in the narrative.
There was Sam telling Frodo the story of Nine Fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom. Frodos writings ending up as the Red Book of Westfarthing establishes him as a chronicler. His frequent meetings with dwarves and elves who were passing by The Shire even before his role in the War of the Ring, and his performance for inn patrons very much suggest he should be regarded as a lore bard.
Gandalf wasn't a wizard but a celestial with innate spellcasting.
@@daddyrolleda1 In MERP and One Ring you need to figure out what Gandalf can do. You might very well run into him or Saruman, and then I need to know if Gandalf can regrow their toes if they ask him.
18:15 real quick “MS” is abbreviation for “manuscript”.
To get real nerdy it goes back to *Manu+Striptus* Latin for “written by hand” but came to include hand typed, used to differentiate it from machine printed works. Today we might use it for anything not mass printed.
I really appreciate that! A few folks have mentioned this, and I feel that I should've been able to figure that out, but it stumped me, and quite honestly I should've looked it up when I was prepping the video. Anyway, thank you!
And, thanks for watching, commenting, and your support of the channel!
Thanks for the video! I have the pleasure of gaming with Tom Wham here in Lake Geneva almost every week, often in one of his boardgame or card game designs.
It's true that the Gandalf thing simply doesn't translate so to try and take anything not written with particular game rules in mind and try to make it fit that mold is a fairly futile pursuit.
I tend to describe my own D&D setting and campaigns not as magic weak but rather as magic rare. It can be incredibly powerful but I have few spellcasters as NPCs which makes PCs who cast spells a rare thing but still a powerful thing. The various temples have Clerics but the rank and file are mainly laypersons without magical abilities. I don't have "schools of magic" but there are some high level NPC Magic Users, though few will take on apprentices and mostly PC MUs tend to be the rare ones who have access to such training. I like magic in my setting to be special and not used lightly or willy-nilly. There aren't legions of Clerics feeding and healing the populace nor Magic-users keeping all the streets of major cities clean all as part of some Arcane-Divine Industrial Complex.
This sounds a lot like my campaign world I'm using for my daughter's B/X campaign! Most healing is done by Barber-Surgeons and the average peasant hasn't seen arcane magic, or if they have, it was probably just a trick performed by a charlatan. My daughter and her friend are playing Elves, so they know a few spells, but they never use them in public, as their mentor explained that doing so would draw unwanted attention and could even be dangerous!
That's so cool you get to game with Tom Wham! Thanks for sharing! And of course, thanks for watching and commenting. Cheers!
Gandalf is a demigod by any D&D lore comparison. Period.
Another great video. I really appreciate the long form content. I just wish I could listen to it all in one setting so I don’t screw up your algorithm.
Thank you so much! And no worries at all! I know a lot of folks don't have the time to watch the entire video all in one sitting. I really appreciate you watching when you can, and also commenting to let me know. And most of all, I appreciate your support! Cheers!
I really do enjoy your content. I am an OD&D gen x-er and Connect strongly with the old publications and I really like what you do bringing them back to life. And reminding me of what I have forgotten! I was wondering if you’ve ever done a review of the Erol Otis small book called the Necromican? Yes, that’s how it is spelled. Best, Scott
👍 for doing these Dragon walkthroughs. I can remember getting copies from the library and then deciding which articles to copy at the local pharmacy on their $0.05 per page copier.
I've got a whole stack of Dungeon magazines, but never ended up collecting the Dragon ones. Hope you stick with this series.
I love the frame around the ankheg picture.
For sure!
A long time ago I posted (and have since lost) a Facebook Note examining Gandalf vs Dumbledore in terms of D&D. Arrived at the conclusion that Dumbledore was a roughly level 10 wizard in Third Edition for a variety of reasons. I remember arguing that Gandalf was something like a Fighter 20/Wizard 5 (character with two classes), since he soloed the Balrog with his longsword (which wizards otherwise can't use), and that he was specifically an AD&D wizard -- which meant that Dumbledore's higher AC much more of a liability.
manuscript - Ms.
Ah, of course! I should've been able to figure that out. Thanks! And thank you for watching and commenting.
@@daddyrolleda1 The pleasure is all mine. Thanks!
That Gandalf was, effectively, an Angel in Tolkien's world means he had a code of conduct to only do as much as necessary; that Gandalf beats a Balor (originally called Balrog in D&D) means he's likely a much higher level.
A few folks have shared theories similar to this, and I think there's some merit to the idea. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1: I quite enjoyed it, thank you!
Also Gandalf The Gray was according to Tolkins letters more limited than Gandalf The White.
@@brianzmek7272: indeed; but less capable he was as the Grey, the Grey still (barely) defeated a Balor.
Basically when Gandalf died he went back to headquarters and asked to use more recources. So they authorized him more, (The White).
The angely guys, if they use too much power, can destroy the world by accident.
Audio sounds good. Might be a hassle, but the production value shows it. Thumbs Up!
That's really good to know! I'll remember this for future videos! I appreciate you watching and sharing your thougts, and also for your support of the channel. Cheers!
Heh. Back in the day... Had to spec type by hand.
I'm SO glad for DTP and PageMaker!
Yes, for sure! I still have bunch of homemade character sheets I made on a manual typewriter and they sure to reveal the lack of features compared to what we have today!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Gandalf was a Deva that became a Planetary like Saruman. Sauron was a Solar that fell. Gandalf and Saruman weren’t allowed to use their full power so they seemed like old wizards.
Planetar, not Planetary .
Lyle's Hobby and Crafts in Westmont, IL ad. Long gone, and almost brought me to tears in nostalgic memory.
Tosses myself to the algorithmic pool of radiance
I really appreciate that! Thank you!
I miss going to the game store to hang out/socialize & gathering to meet up for the next campaigns game... nostalgia.
It's one of the things I like most about shopping in person for "niche" hobbies. I recall there being a lightning storm (in a good way!) where I had that at my comics shop, game store, and vinyl/record store. These days, while I do have a game store within walking distance of my house, I don't feel a connection there like I had in the past. My best friend owns a vinyl shop and I visit as often as I can and work (volunteer) there on occasion but I wouldn't say I've made a long-standing connection with anybody there (other than him, of course). But... I have found that kind of connection at my local comic book shop that I've been going to for the past ~12 years. I feel so comfortable there and love talking with the staff and other customers. But I do take your meaning. I hope that you're able to find a game store or other place outside the home where you can make those kinds of connections again!
That was an interesting tidbit about Algernon being dropped from the appendix N. I wonder if that was by accident. There is an inspirational source material book list in the Moldvay Basic on page B 62 with some different authors.
That one you're referring to is the first list of Inspirational Reading that I ever saw for D&D (I didn't see the DMG until a few months later). I liked that it was broken up into different categories including Non-Fiction.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
The closest LotR game, a decade or so after this magazine, would be MERP by ICE. MERP took Rolemaster right off including the magic rules and its peculiarities. We found the mood on MERP closer to Bilbo where a random wizard walking down the road is not a big deal. PCs can play wizards and they will encounter a slightly more magical world. Low-level sorcerers who can heat water is normal. MERP is fun because it had no Jackson movie to draw on, unlike games today. They had books and the Bakshi movie.
I remember seeing those ads for MERP in almost every inside front or back cover of Dragon for YEARS. I was always interested, but like most non-TSR products advertised in Dragon, I never saw the products for sale at any of my local stores. Decades later, I played in a 3rd Edition campaign run by a friend who is a big Tolkien fan and he used a lot of his old MERP stuff from back in the day to create the setting we gamed in. It was really fun.
@@daddyrolleda1 We managed to play a MERP campaign. It is Rolemaster light. But still Rolemaster with all its quirks about weapon crit tables, spell points, giant charts and stuff. We managed by dividing responsibility for charts between players and giving everyone a print of the charts. My duty was to track biomes and reference the herb availability chart. A necessary task because buying a herb was expensive. You never know when you suffer hand nerve damage and need a jololopo root.
Nice shout out to the Black Company!
Gandalf’s role was to inspire the people of Middle-Earth to unite and fight for themselves. He avoids showing that he has power as much as possible so that people don’t rely on him to save them. He’s clearly a decent fighter as well, more than a wizard would be. He’s more like the elf class in early D&D, a fighter magic-user, except he can do both at the same time and has no level cap. Clearly he can beat a Balrog as Gandalf the Grey, and he uses both sword and spells. Maybe he is a 5th level magic user, but his character level is clearly much higher.
He is Olorin the quasi deity of dreams i recall from the Silmarillian.
Now how did you know I needed this right now? 😊
Great minds think alike?
In any event, I'm glad this is interesting to you, and I really hope you enjoy the video. Cheers!
The character IN the Black company were low level, low magic characters. Their world was drenched in ancient magics. The background war the mercenary company was fighting is was driven by the machinations of high level magic users and liches.
The Black company series is iconic because of it's portrayal of the little guys caught in the crossfire of powerful spellcasters...
I’ve always loved the take that Gandalf is a fighter with a few nice magic items
The artist with the signature “JDW” I believe is J.D. Webster, who was also the writer/ illustrator of the Finieous Fingers comic.
Keep
Doing what you are doing sir
I appreciate the support. Thank you!
In MERP Gandalf was level 40 as the Grey, 80 as the White in Endor; in reality his level was 240 as an Istar. ( ref. Valar and Maiar, I.C.E. 2006, p 77)
And these ratings are really among the best any fantasy rpg has ever produced. Magic of Middle Earth is much more subdued yet still very common, often over-looked. Using the MERP conversion to AD&D we still get a very powerful Gandalf as we should because as it shares his varying specialties-Fire Magic, Animist, Enchantment, etc,.. are additional bonuses to the character via conversion. Unfortunately so many ignorant D&D roll players are just that, while about 10-20 % are actual "Role-Players" and through reading the books, The Hobbit, The Lord Of The Rings, Unfinished Tales-now years later, are capable of perceiving the strength and power that he wielded.
The audio on this video was pristine. I know you said it’s more difficult to set up, but the production quality is so much higher with it.
Thank you so much for that feedback! My best friend was listening to a copy of the video I made for my Kickstarter page and he said it sounded like I was inside a bucket! But it's the same audio used for this video. I thought I was going insane. Thanks for the validation that I'm not crazy!
And, yet again, thank you so much for your support, both here and on Facebook. I am humbled by your continued efforts on behalf of my channel! Cheers!
As far as the Witch article , the reference to JDW is James Ward whom recently passed away. Long Career working On D&D in all its forms and so much more...
Gandalf talks to a moth and casts a light spell. Beyond that he bangs his staff a lot. 5th level checks out.
The guy who wrote the article makes some really good points, to me, but I always assumed there were other elements to the character that I'm not familiar with as I'm not a Tolkien scholar. I think a better title (but less catchy and definitely much more cumbersome) would be, "Gandalf only casts up to 3rd level spells."
Thank you for watching and commenting!
There's also the fir cones he lights and throws down on the wolves, a 0 level fire finger cantrip perhaps ;) and the 'fireworks' he's famous for in the shire, real fireworks or pyrotechnics (2nd level mage and 3rd level druid spell)? and the fantastical shapes his fireworks are reported to take (a flying dragon etc) which can't possibly be achieved by any real fireworks, a surreptitiously cast phantasmal force or maybe a dancing lights spell might achieve the special effects of his fireworks .. not just a light spell but they are all low level so 5th still checks out ;) if not lower ;D
Short of facing off solo against a balrog there's nothing he overtly does I can recall in the hobbit or the lord of the rings that could be used to 'prove' he was any higher than 4th level in an old school D&D campaign.
And the balrog killed him anyway .. so that doesn't really count either ;D
The fir cones come up in my video when I talk about the first person to ever roleplay a magic-user (in Blackmoor, pre-D&D) and how he came up with the idea of throwing balls of fire which were inspired, partially, by this scene you mention!
@@daddyrolleda1 "Gandalf only casts up to 3rd level spells."
Yep, that much is accurate. I tried my hand at modeling Tolkien's characters in D&D stat blocks back in the '90s, and the problem that really came to the fore for me was how many times a spell could be cast. Using Weathertop as the example, the description suggests ongoing lightning strikes visible from miles away continuously for hours as Gandalf fights the Nazgul. Who in D&D's Vancian magic system has the spell slots for that? In the end I decided that modeling any of the Maiar would properly require using the Forgotten Realms Avatar rules or the BECMI Immortal rules, if not outright custom homebrew material.
@@chiblast100x I've not a clear recollection of that bit from the book, do we actually know Gandalf was throwing lightning bolts or do we hear of it more in the manner of a third hand description from some distant witness? .. there was lightning, but do we know it was his?
But that aside I can think of *one* low level spell you could do that for hours on end that would only use one spell slot, some low level illusion spells last as long as you concentrate on them .. admittedly not getting your concentration broken for hours of battle when people are swinging blades at you and presumably hitting you with them occasionally might be a big ask with D&D rules ;) but you could 'potentially' keep up illusory lightning strikes for hours with a single spell.
[Ponders] Picture this, a mage hiding behind a hedge, casts an illusion of himself walking up to the top of the hill that then starts hurling lightning bolts at the enemy, proceeds to sit out the entire battle behind said hedge while his opponents attack the illusion of himself that he has take injuries and react appropriately but has it always survive and continue hurling lightning bolts.
Phantasmal force probably won''t cut it, you'll likely want or even need some thermal and sound effects with that rather than just visual, so maybe improved phantasmal force or spectral force?
A little forward planning to get to the hill first and hide behind that hedge before the other guys get there, and hours worth of fun and lightning bolts can be had with a single spell slot ;)
0:07 That 'Amazon' appears to be _not_ missing something.
Haha
Yeah, she has both... weird.
If I'm not mistaken Asgard Miniatures made a figure based on that drawing; I had that at one time. Barry Minot made authentic single-breasted amazons. Citadel Amazons were more fully clothed; I never got to painting a set that I picked up but they are in the basement somewhere.
Great stuff. I remember reading the article ages ago. And I too was miffed that Gandalf was a 5th level spellcaster. I was like "not in a million years!" Great video as always man.
Great to see you here! Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. It's fun that old-timers like us remember this article. It's also funny how many folks are getting upset thinking that I'm the one saying Gandalf is only 5th level! 😁
@@daddyrolleda1 Right? This was a common debate in many LGSs in the 80s. But THAT Dragon article really set it off. There were also debates about what level wizard any of the Jedi were. Very common to see people’s take on pop culture / fiction characters applied to Gygax / Arneson’s early AD&D system.
I very much enjoy your long form content.
I wonder if the reason they dropped the letters column was due to the development of AD&D and either lack of available person-hours for that or internal difficulties with keeping OD&D and AD&D straight.
Yeah, I'm not sure. Both of those sound like reasonable reasons. Thanks!
Gandalf is not a mage he is a fighter mage he uses a sword very well and a staff far more effectively than most fighting men in the game.
I love the comic of people just hanging in a living room playing D&D instead of at a table. Now that's legit real gaming.
Gandalf was a 5th level Magic User... And a 10th level Fighter.
but since certain magic-like abilities seem to have near infinite uses, his divine nature must also give him some at-will magic abilities and given how long he dueled with certain enemies (Balrog, Nazgul, etc.) his divine nature would seem to bestow some form of fast healing and maybe damage reduction, along with some divine/radiant aspects to his attacks and defense against these extremely strong fiendish/undead horrors.
I can’t wait to give this video a watch (despite not being a Tolkien fan.)
Thank you so much! I really can't even express how much I appreciate your ongoing support!
Never fear - the Gandalf-themed thumbnail amounts to less than a quarter of the entire video!
Thanks again!
I didn't mind the way your other shows are
For those interested, here is my list of witch related 1&2e classes & info.
1e classes:
Witch (Dragon mags 3, 5, 20, 43, & 114)
Witch Doctor [NPC tribal cleric/magic-user] (DMG p40)
2e NPC class:
Witch (DMG p32 `nothing but a female wizard`)
Witch Doctor (Monster Mythology p12-13)
2e NPC non class:
"Witch" (PO: Spells & Magic p72)
2e kits:
BARBARIAN SHAMAN
Witchman (The Complete Barbarian’s Handbook p62)
FIGHTER or THIEF
Witch (Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Comp. III p272)
PRIEST
Kongo Witch Doctor (D#209 p18)
Witch Doctor (The Complete Book of Humanoids p79)
PSIONICIST
Thought Agent- Witch hunter (D#191 p18)
TALTOS (Rogue)
Boszorkany/Witch (D#247 p43)
WIZARD
Rashemaar Witch (Spellbound p91)
Roman Witch (The Glory of Rome p27)
Witch (D#200 p16)
Witch (The Complete Book of Necromancers p21)
Witch (The Complete Wizard's Handbook p45)
2e Witch magic system (PO: Spells & Magic p83)
While I agree that Tolkien is it's own thing and you can't compare D&D to it in terms of systems. In the movie when Gandalf is falling through the mountain fighting the balrog, he is obviously rolling natural 20's the whole way down
Maybe the DC for the fall was only like 12 or something... 😁
Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel! I truly appreciate it!
Nice video. One funny thing to me is that just yesterday, I was catching up on the Hall of blue illumination pod cast which is run by some people who gamed with Prof. Barker, and they mentioned the female empress on tekumel in either the war wizards episode or the plague one if I remember correctly. I do love your content in this format, though, and it is very interesting, especially with your stuff on the history of rpgs and others not as popular games.
I'd love to see more tekumel, or if you've ever looked into olde house games, they have pits and perils which I'd love to see get some attention
Video idea: monsters invented for D&D. I know beholder and mindflayer, but I didn’t know about ankheg. It would be interesting to cover which ones are unique and when/how they were introduced. I expect it’s been done before but I’ve never seen it, and I doubt the specific history was included.
At around 11 light years away, Loera would probably be orbiting Tau Ceti or Epsilon Eridani, assuming a Sun-like star.
Bravo Martin! What a pleasure it was to get home from work and see that you covered the Gandalf article from Dragon. I have no memory of that cover, and certainly didn't read it in the late 70s. I must have read it in a "best-of" or a xeroxed copy belonging to someone older. I enjoyed that article and still think it is a strong argument. You are correct that one can't take it too seriously as the novel pre-exists the game. I'd argue that G, being an Maiar, he is among the first creatures created by God. A Balrog is a Maiar gone to the dark side. Inspiration for a Balor demon. Using D&D stats, what appear like low level spells are innate abilities similar to demons (fallen angels) that can be used at will, usually daily. G, having willingly taken human form, chooses to hold back his full power. We see him use his innate powers at will - as opposed to formal spell casting that a D&D MU would employ. His sword is an ancient Elvish blade. probably a relic level item. It also bestows powers. I remember an article that suggested he is a Druid. I wonder if my memory is faulty or there is another article?
I do recall there being quite a few articles, letters, and forum articles discussing the subject of Gandalf, but off the top of my head, I can't recall them all right now. Maybe we'll get to them as I continue through my overviews of the early days of Dragon magazine!
This was a really thought-provoking comment, and I really appreciate you taking the time to make it. And, thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I appreciate the response Martin, thanks. I'll look forward to those videos.
it is good to watch while painting minis
The audio sounds good BTW.
Thank you very much! I got a couple of comments who said the same thing, so I'll use this approach going forward when I record stuff from my screen. It takes a bit longer to edit since I have to upload two files and try to get the timing to work out (I made a mistake on the video I uploaded today that somehow I didn't catch until it was already loaded!).
Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
36:36 we should all write a letter to that address 🙂.
When I was recording this, I had read the article before hand to do the research but I had forgotten about the address being included, so when I got there, I began to slightly stumble over my words because in my mind I was thinking, "Do I say something? Or does that make it worse? Do I ignore it? Do I start over?... " and all those thoughts happened in less than a second and I decided it was long enough ago that it was probably highly unlikely that he still lived there, and even if he did, far more people would have seen it from that article back in the day than would see it on my small YT channel!
Oh yeah, I'm sure he's not living there anymore. it would be cool to get him on the show if he can be tracked down @@daddyrolleda1
I like GM, instead of DM, myself. Thanks for the share!!
I think there’s something to be said for the fact that even low level spells in D&D can be surprisingly strong, especially the ones like Magic Missile that date back to the early game. Which probably shouldn’t be surprising since the characters would have to have been lower level early on, when the game was being written by the players! Anyways I think the article would be better if it suggested that *if* one wanted to try and make a more Tolkien like game then you should up the spell levels. But of course that doesn’t read quite so provocatively!
As I mentioned last week, I used Minifigs figures in the 1970s. the range mentioned in the ad are medievals. Russian knights and Teutonic knights. I actually had several from this range, called Alexander Nevski. The range included a Bishop and a Priest, and these were the only explicit Cleric figures available to us at the time. Minifigs produced several fantasy ranges. The earliest were the Mythical (i.e. Middle) Earth, which we used in our first wargames. the second was the Hyborian range, based on the Conan stories. There were more wizards and a few useful monsters in that range. Third was the Valley of the Four Winds; much more dramatic figures with a story to tell. Lastly came the first line of offiicial DnD miniatures. These were mainly PC races, but included figures for the Eldritch Wizardry Demons (Types 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Orcus, Demogorgon and a Succubus); those are still in a box in my basement.
When I read this article I said the same thing then that I'll say right now. Just because you didn't see him cast a Gate or Meteor Swarm or Wish doesn't mean he couldn't. He knew he could not overly involve himself in the quest, plus he had a lot of other irons in the fire... so he was probably saving the spells for where they were most needed. #2 - He survived a confrontation with a Balrog. Do you think a 5th level wizard, alone, would survive? #3 - Specifically he didn't want to call attention to the party and their quest. Do you think he's going to cast a major spell around them, therefore allowing his enemy to possibly locate him and his party?
Overall, I could go on and on... The truth is he was not a Wizard at all, but something more akin to a celestial being, along with the other color 'wizards', were guardians of middle earth.
PS - I played StarWeb for a long time. Just played a game recently to see if I still liked it.
The witch class is damn hardcore, extremely fine spells
Ms= manuscript, the article in rough form in other words. No idea how I know that, other than maybe looking at one too many 19th century documents with their obsession with abbreviations.
Thank you for that! I should've been able to figure that out, and even more embarrassingly, I should've looked it up while prepping the video rather than stumbling over it during the commentary.
Thanks for the information, and for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
Hah Gandalf did what he needed to to prevail, why waste spell slots? That being said, he did use his sword so he’s no magic user :)
A few people have suggested he's an "angel" or other some such divine creature, and therefore, has divine spell-like abilities, as opposed to learning spells like a magic-user. That would explain a lot of things.
Of course, it's all in good fun. There's no way to back-into the Tolkien characters from a D&D standpoint since the two properties were created decades apart and not designed to be compatible!
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@@daddyrolleda1 oh yeah he’s a Maiar and specifically compelled to not use his full power. Might as well use a legendary sword when you find one in that case.
Thanks for the deep history dives, fun to watch and informative
There was a great short story about a rakshasa in an old Dragon magazine, where he was portrayed as a peaceful sort of 19th century academic smoking on a pipe. Do you know which issue that was from? It was delightfully whimsical.
I don't remember a short story specifically, but there was a whole article about three different types of Rakshasas in Dragon Magazine #84. I remember reading that article on vacation in the backseat of my parents' car after I picked it up at a book store way back in the early 1980s.
However, the image you describe of the Rakshasa smoking on a pipe sounds a lot like the artwork by David Trampier featured in the 1st Edition Advanced D&D Monster Manual for the Rakshasa entry. That Rakshasa is smoking a pipe, wearing a fur-lined robe, and leaning on a desk.
@@daddyrolleda1 Ah well, it was worth a shot. Maybe it was the intro to the article in #84. It strikes me as the kind of scene Ed Greenwood would come up with? Conversation with a rakshasa in my study kind of thing.
Gandalf is a much higher level Magic-User than he shows based on the spells used in the books, he's just saving his higher level spells for the BBEG fight against Sauron!
I think that is such a good way of looking at it, and a missed opportunity for the author to have addressed! It's still a fun article, though.
Professor Dungeon Master mentioned this and poof, it popped up in my recommendations
It's so funny because I recorded this video before I watched his (I watch all his videos!) and as you probably noticed, I covered quite a few topics but I was trying to think of the single topic that would generate the most interest in the thumbnail, so I picked this one. Looking at the numbers, I think it was a good choice!
I commented on his video, and completely separately, he commented on mine!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Keith Abbott sounds like a cool guy. I wonder if he still DMs?
That's a great question! Jon Peterson's article doesn't discuss that and I couldn't find any current info about him, but he certainly seemed to be a ground-breaker in terms of massive multi-player D&D games!
In case you wanted to learn more, here's the blog post about it on Playing at the World: playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2017/11/a-forgotten-variant-loera-massively.html
Can't wait until you get to the D&D interpretation of Conan the Barbarian - Conan Unchained!
Ha! I have the two modules from back in the day (CB1 and CB2)! I won't comment now so I don't spoil any commentary I give if/when I get around to covering them!
As a side note, during the early days of the pandemic lockdowns, I discovered that I had 2 copies of "CB1" and I sold one on Ebay for what folks would probably deem a pittance these days, mostly because I don't have a large profile there. I wish I had it back so I could use it as a subscriber giveaway!
@@daddyrolleda1 Excellent - looking forward to it!
There was a lot of these articles over the years. I think it was a fun exercise to take a character from movies or books and see how to cram it into a game. I have read people trying to stat Rakhir from Elric and different Schwarzenegger characters. Or try to stat out Conan from different parts of his adventures.
Sometimes this is necessary because you will run into this character for some reason. Then I need to know how hard the Terminator will punch your bum.
I get that - the "Giants in the Earth" column in Dragon is proof that folks were interested in the concept of trying to illustrate fictional or even real-world characters in D&D terms. That was one of my favorite series of articles back in the day.
@@daddyrolleda1 I don't think anyone played with these people. My mates tried a Star Wars adventure where you run into Luke Skywalker... And when Luke Skywalker is in the room he sort of hogs the spotlight. And while it's fun to have a chat with Luke, it's no fun to be his assistant goon squad for hours. So I think this was more like a fun exercise.
Yes, that totally makes sense to me. I enjoyed reading Giants of the Earth, but I never had any intention of using them in a game. But I thought a few of them providing some interesting ideas on how to "break the rules" (so-to-speak) when creating NPCs, and as a young kid, I found that flexibility refreshing.
The April Fools editions of Dragon were some of the funniest D&D content I ever read. I STILL remember Wall of Arrows....
One of the first issues of Dragon I ever got and read was #72, which was an April Fool's issue, and I felt the perfect combination as it had lots of "useful" stuff like the new Cavalier class (which at the time I thought was awesome) and also a lot of the joke stuff (I still to this day have most of the "half-spells" from that issue memorized). But I do recall being miffed (again, at the time) that there wasn't more "serious" content. Now when I look back on these issues, I love the humor!
Jeff Dee did the art in the Witch article.
In context, ms is manuscript.
more like an extremely high level wizard with a ton of roleplay restrictions and a very high bluff skill
Gandalf cast shape change / polymorph in the hobbit; obviously being the grey thrush who knocks. he is at least 7th.
Oh, interesting! The guy who wrote the article didn't include that as one of the spells he analyzed. I've read the Hobbit a few times (including to my daughter when she turned 3) and I honestly never made that connection with the thrush!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I recycled that joke from 89 when my friend Brian told me about that article.
Where is it ever stated or implied that the thrush was Gandalf? I think that's a bit of a stretch.
@@shockerck4465 Really this felt implied on my first reading. It was clear that the guide/gandalf returns and solves their problem. This is analogous to the men leading Beowulf to the lake but stopping there he had to proceed into the underworld alone. The guide opens the door but the hero must be the one who enters, in this case bilbo.
Gandalf was depicted as a much better fighter in the films than he was in the books. The Balrog is depicted much more fearsome in the movies. I doubt it was much bigger than a man, so Gandalf's battle was probably just about magic.
Maybe a 5th level wizard but also a 20th level Celestial in disguise haha
Yeah, the guy who wrote the article partially addresses the Istari angle in his video. I think the article would have better been titled (although it's of course clunky and not as clever/engaging), "Gandalf only seems to cast spells that compare at most to 3rd level spells as described in D&D." So, not that Gandalf is the *minimum* level to cast those spells, but rather those are the only ones we see him cast in the books.
Thank you for commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1People have gods and classic myth characters the same treatment. Look at my stats for Hector and Balder etc.
I liked how you, among the many, many shops of City-state of the Invincible Overlord can meet Balder in disguise running a wine shop for larks.
The big problem with trying to classify LOTR characters with a spell casting level based on the 'spells' they cast is that that's not how they work.
The 'angelic' and 'demonic' beings that all of the magic using characters in LOTR all are the embodied forms of all started with a certain amount of finite power given to them by their creator, some with more some with less, in game terms we might choose to call it something like 'mana', that they can never replenish.
Every bit of magic they perform (forging the rings, casting spells, 'changing the world' in any way at all) drains this starting power .. so the longer and more active they've been in the world the less power they have.
We're never shown any mortal mages in LOTR.
All the ''wizards' we know of in LOTR are 'angels' in corporeal form.
If we were to try and design game mechanics to represent how Tolkien described (suggested or implied?) this about their ability to do magic it would be completely different and in some ways the reverse of the D&D game mechanics where mages become more powerful with experience.
So 'wizards' like Gandalf in LOTR are husbanding a finite resource that will eventually run out so rely on it as little as possible to achieve their aims, if they must use 'magic' the smallest magic to get the job done is always prefered.
Which makes attempting a comparison between the two based on the spells they are seen to use a bit of a problem.
They're called wizards but they aren't D&D wizards.
In D&D5e terms they might best be thought of as a sort of Sorcerer with a variable (depending on how much power their creator put into them when he made them) lifetime spell slot limit (instead of a daily one) that can never be replenished.
I love that one of the few spells that Gandalf actually casts in the book is widely regarded as one of the most useless D&D spells of all time: Hold Portal.
I have such a fun Hold Portal story from one of the Elf characters in my daughter's D&D campaign. I think I shared it in one of my DM Advice videos, but the short version is that the player's Elf had learned that spell upon character creation (it was the only spell she knew) and we played in real world time for over a year (we only play about once a month) before she used it, and it was spectacular. She used it to prevent the bad guy from following them, and it was so unexpected (I'd forgotten she even knew the spell). I was very impressed with my player that day!
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah, in oldschool D&D it was supposed to be used to allow the party to escape pusuing monsters. But today, who wouldn't take another magic missile?
In the book, Gandalf casts it to stop the Balrog from following them in Moria( Gandalf calls it "a Word of Command" which is even more cryptic and opens up so many more questions) and the poor door only lasts a few seconds before the contest between Gandalf's power and the Balrog's power causes the poor door to shatter into a thousand pieces.
@@Heike-- Yea, and the way he said it "I had to use a Word of Command", suggests it is a limited resource, sort of like a spell slot (forgive me if I misused the concept, I've never actually played).
@@digitalnomad9985 Tolkien's magic uses a system closer to magic points or more closely life points. Spend your life energy to alter the world but afterwards you never get it back, even for Sauron. That's why the Ring is so important, it's much of his own life and when it's destroyed, so is he.
I never agreed with this. The way Tolkien wrote his magic is nothing even remotely close to the fire & forget system used in D&D. Can't compare Ulluvatar & The Secret Fire, Morgoth and their followers to Mordenkainen, Melf, Bigby or Iggwilv/Tasha.
Totally agree with you! I think I used the phrase "an exercise in futility" to try to figure out fictional characters in D&D terms, but that said, it can still be kind of fun, as long as one understands that they're never going to match up exactly and that doesn't mean one or the other is "wrong."
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1:17:06 - Wait, GEN CON in 1977 was held at the Playboy Resort? Did ANY gaming happen at that event? 🤣🤣🤣
I enjoy the long videos. I do have to plan time sometimes, but always worth it.
On Gandalf, I prefer to think the reverse. Dude, your 5th level Magic User is Gandalf!
Bonus comment for bonus content: Did you realize that "you put the Lime in the Coconut and drank them both together"?
Good format, better sound. The format is just fine.
The first D&D zine was called Alarums and Excursions, not Alarms and Excursions.
Keep up the good work!
I appreciate your support so much. It's very difficult to put into words, but please know that I am overwhelmed by your generosity. Cheers.
I feel that articles written in the early Dragon magazines (1-12) are just written differently than later ones. Once AD&D gets rollin that’s kinda the Dragon everyone is used to imo.
I can definitely agree with that point of view. The other thing that happens, too, as time goes on is that more and more articles are written by amateurs/fans, which helps explore a lot of ideas that the founders and first employees never thought of.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
This far we like the decision in One Ring to keep magic out of the PCs (and most of the world's) hands. Gandalf does not follow the normal rules.
Pendragon had a magic system that was entirely DM-facing. You calculate how many years Merlin spends dreaming in the fey world to pay for a spell he used. PCs might have a potion or item but they are all knights. Using a bow unless hunting or understanding economy is un-knightly.
I agree it's not based on D&D, but i still think it's good to think about.
D&D wizards get spell tiers way way way too fast, and are freakishly weak for the spell tier they have compared to fiction. D&D wizards are some uber min/maxed point buy esque creation where they sacraficed all mundane skill for "absolute loads of spellpower" compared to fictional wizards.
This is why we get the disconnect of "gandalf needs to be like 20th level", because gandalf fights like a dozen men. So gandalf is like 12hitdice...but only 6th-7th level casting ability.
All good points. I think the best explanation I've heard of this particular article is that Gandalf only *displays* the casting ability of a 5th level wizard due to the spells he chooses to cast (which, as I think you might be getting at, Lightning Bolt is pretty darn powerful to be "only" a 3rd level spell) but he probably has powers far beyond that and we don't necessarily get to see all of those. That could partly explain his fighting ability. The other argument I've seen is that he's not a wizard, but rather a divine being with innate spell-like abilities so you can't compare his level to a standard character class. In any event, it can be fun to think about and obviously a lot of folks have very vocal opinions about it!
Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 i'm not just thinking about gandalf but, fictional wizards generally.
they tend to be able to mix it up at least passably, even if farless than the characters who would be fighting-men.
in contrast to D&D where you are chucking around the top tier of "what is personal scale" when you have 5-6 hitdice. (level 5&6 spells raise dead and control weather.)
the mass combat lvl7-8 spells are a bit more common than lvl5-6 in fiction, but i think that's very obviously from the way the spell list was made. where gygax wanted "top of personal scale" magical power at the end of the progression, then added the mass combat spells to fill in 7-8. So if you really wanted to look like wizards in fiction mass suggestion and mass charm should come online earlier. Say lvl11ish with fireball and such coming online at 7ish, but you make wizards combat skills on par with the cleric/thief.
Gandalf was a multiclass Fighter/Wizard at least, probably Druid as well.
he's also a 17th level chad
5th level is a lot in a level 0 world. I usually peek at the NPC roster of adventures to see how many mid-level people hang around. And an MU 5 in a world with a dozen MUs is a lot. Level 0 me would be dumbfounded by a level 3 MU.
E6 play ROCKS with older editions, I like E7 if using Pathfinder 1st ed
Bright Eyes also made an interesting Christmas album.
Tim wrote a LOT of uncredited articles for The Dragon.
Wasn’t there a middle earth rpg back in the day? I think tsr also made a Conan rpg.
Yes, Iron Crown Enterprises (where Monte Cook worked before working for TSR and Wizards of the Coast) made "Midle Earth Roleplaying" (aka "MERP"), which, mechanics-wise, was a lighter stripped down version of "Role Master."
TSR did make a Conan roleplaying game in 1985 I think. You can learn a little more about it in my video on TSR Boxed Sets: ruclips.net/video/4b9dcHDAqFo/видео.htmlsi=O_Yb2CjyBDri7oC0
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In fact, Gandalf could even be a multiclass Wizard/Druid/Cleric/Sorcerer. Equal 5 levels in all.
A few people have pointed out the multi-class angle (some even include Fighter, or what would have, at the time, been called a "Fighting Man", to account for him wielding a sword).
At the time this article was published (March 1977), multi-classing as an official rule in D&D didn't exist yet. It wasn't until the release of the Advanced D&D Player's Handbook in 1978 that multi-classing entered the game officially.
The distinction between Wizard ("Magic-User") and Sorcerer didn't happen until 3rd Edition, in 2000.
It's still fun to think about, though!
What level is the conjure cheap trick spell?
Fear is level 1.
It's a thaumaturgy cantrip...
A facet of the MAR Barker situation that I never see discussed is that everyone gets so stuck on "Was MAR Barker personally evil y/n?" that there is almost no sober reflection on the worldview and biases that his work itself is communicating. EotPT itself communicates a pretty noxious worldview about how the world works and how disparate groups interact and extreme-even-for-the-time bioessentialism. I certainly hadn't guessed the *degree* Barker sucked prior to the 2022 statement, but I could tell something was seriously off with EotPT when I read through it. Terrible shame, there are facets of it that are interesting, but it would be more work to fix it than to make something new from scratch.
Respectfully, no. He solos a Balrog, the closest equivalent being a Balor. He's level 20.
Totally cool with me! I think a few folks mistakenly think that *I* think Gandalf is "only" 5th level. I just used that specific article from issue #5 of Dragon Magazine to generate some interest for my video but I talk about so many other articles in issues #4 and #5 as well!
@daddyrolleda1 My comment was purely in response to the article claiming he was level 5. I'm currently listening to your video, actually. So far I'm enjoying and agreeing with you
Thank you so much for listening! I've heard a lot of folks prefer to listen to my videos while doing other things versus watching, and I think that totally makes sense.
I really appreciate you do so, and am enjoying chatting with you. Thanks again!
There other articles on the other Lord of the Rings characters for D&D?
It's a bit odd to try and get a class level for Gandalf. He's definitely far beyond 5th level, but more significantly he isn't a human or mortal being to begin with. It's like saying a Dragon is a 5th level wizard because it did a fireball one time. I would say based on the spread of abilities we see, he would be closer to a wizard/druid/fighter multi class. Following those rules, having access to all his skills at 5th level casting it would be more like a 15th level minimum with plenty of racial abilities thrown in. I would lean towards having a few rogue levels in there too, he has some pretty slick sleight of hand tricks. I think within the structure of D&D back then, Gandalf would not be a player character race or class at all though. Certainly not a "5th level human magic user".
Pendragon had wizards and some rules for them, but you can not play one. They are presumably used by the GM when Merlin or some small-time sorcerer shows up in the path of the knightley PCs.
One Ring decided that no PCs can play wizards. In MERP, closer to the episodic tale of Bilbo and using the Rolemaster rules, you can play one and small-time sorcerers are more normal.
D&d uses a different magic system than LotR, it is like saying Batman is a level 3 Fighter with a munch of magic items... really apples to oranges.
Based on Gandolf's ability and resources for gathering and leading troops, with od&d rules, he has to be in Domain level play (9+ for a pure wizard).
It is like an alignment arguement; keeps coming up because you can have literally any opinion and be equally wrong.
1:15:17 so if there are sea elves, does that mean you can have pirate elves 🙂? Now I want to see someone play the elf version of Captain Jack Sparrow 😊.
WFRP high elves and dark elves are both great naval nations. High elves live on Elflantis and show up in Clipper ships. Dark elves are all about commanding monsters and some of their larger ships are simply castles built on top of giant sea monsters.
Man'o'war was the GW specialist game for naval combat. It got dwarf submarines, orc catapult ships and dark elf black arks. Like on land, dark elf monster-ships could panic. So the whole black ark can go down as the monster freaks out and dives.
Dark elfs in WFRP are Raiders who show up to grab slaves for their giant torture-festivals. Which is a nice reason for a black ark with elf marines to show up anywhere. You can play both the fight for naval supremacy and the landing.
Battlefleet Gothic could also be used in conjunction with other games. Like your fleet plays a metacampaign where planetary invasions in Epic or Space Hulk skirmishes take place.
Can you do some scenario for star wars FFG as well?
I really don’t see how that can be. Considering Gandalf be getting in sword fights and winning lmao
It's long been a controversial article from Dragon Magazine and I thought folks would find it interesting to revisit it and see the guy's justification for making such a claim! Thanks for commenting, and I hope you enjoy the video!