The "Sage Advice" column in issue #33 of Dragon (January 1980) contains the following question and answer:
The question itself is a genuinely interesting one, as I don't believe either the Players Handbook or Dungeon Masters Guide explicitly answers it (as always, please correct me in the comments if I am mistaken). More interesting, though, is the answer by the Sage (Jean Wells), where she states both the official rule and her own disagreement with it, along with her preferred interpretation. During her tenure as the Sage, Wells often expressed her own opinions, often drawing on her experiences playing Dungeons & Dragons. However, I can't recall any other time where she admitted to disagreeing with the official rules and then offering her alternative.
Simply from a historical perspective, this is remarkable. With the publication of the DMG in August 1979, AD&D is complete and that completion ushers in the era of wholly official answers to any question one might have about the rules. This is the Everything-I-say-is-God's-Holy-Word era, which makes it all the more striking that Wells would state her disagreement in such an unambiguous way. I suspect this might be because Wells began playing D&D quite early, in the wild and woolly age of "why have us do any more of your imagining for you?" Her job required her to state the official answer and so she did, but she was still very much a woman of the afterward [sic] to the 1974 rules.
for the record, we played it as they cast as first level
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of people played that way.
Deleteotherwise, holy cow, it is a big deal. Healing like the priest beside you? WHAM!
DeleteWe always treated them as first level and progressed from that point onwards.
ReplyDeleteRangers and paladins get very few spells, I don't think they would be overpowered by having them cast at their class level.
ReplyDeleteWhat does "of the afterward [sic] to the 1974 rules" refer to? I presume that there is a famous typo?
ReplyDeleteCorrect. "Afterward" instead of "Afterword."
DeleteWhere did this typo occur? In one of the '74 books?
DeleteYes, it's at the very end of Volume 3 of OD&D.
DeleteWeird, as the official answer (in a very early Polyhedron issue, which was explicitly touted as official rather than Dragon) states that they cast at 1st level (analogously for druid spells.)
ReplyDelete