spellcaster fumbles

[Scott Adams]

At 03:16 AM 6/24/00 -0800, you wrote:
>> PS. I think it might have been fun playing a mage in P&P, but
>> then again I'm not sure. The first mage in the party did
>> fail his spells very often, and he fumbled a few times
>> while Vindor was in the party, plus Vindor heard many "old
>> war stories" about previous fumbles made by the mage PC.
>> I think that if an RPG rules system makes spellcasting too
>> prone to failure and fumbling, spellcaster characters won't
>> get the respect they deserve. Of course going to the other
>> extreme, having spellcasting always be reliable (like AD&d
>> does it) is equally problematic, but I believe a happy medium
>> can be found (such as Quest RPG, for instance).
>>
>
>To play a spellcaster in P&P it really helps to know the rules. In general
>young spellcasters don't become old spellcasters if they use hostile magic
>against creatures with MDV (magic defense value) as this is when fumbles are
>most likely. There are various tricks to improving the odds of having spells
>succeed besides simply being higher level and having more skill in the
>particular spell, but in general only very experienced spellcasters can
>confidently rely on their spells working against creatures and not causing
>embarrasing and potentially fatal fumbles.
>
>Spellcasters can cast spells on themselves with a fair assurance of success
>even as apprentices as their MDV helps in this case. This might affect your
>choice of spells. Spells such as Purification, Luck, and certain magic items
>(in particular staff or wand) can really help the odds of success, but going
>against MDVs really hurts your odds. When relatively inexperienced it is
>often better (certainly safer) to cast Invulnerability on a friend than
>Astral Flame on an Enemy.
>

Very good points indeed.  Course the problem is the AD&Ders who come from that
magic system into ours and think they can cast Magic Missile (a typical combat
spell)
50 billion times in a span of 2 minutes.  Or you get players that hope thier
level 4
fireball will kill a dragon then act shocked when it barely scraps him.

But its a good player that gets beyond those initial 'problems' and can dive
into the
pnp system.



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