Wizard Vows

[mhd]

Before we get too much into D&D bashing, I'd like to say that apart from some balancing and archetypal stuff, it's also about "weapons allowed to the common man", at least from a very superficial hobbyist perspective.

And to get a bit back on topic: Germany's most popular RPG enforced this issue in the beginning, too, but were pretty blunt about it: "No weapon that does more than 1d+2 dmg", i.e. no effort to conceal the reasons for this rule.

In later editions, they actually came up with a pretty decent idea: It's not a rule, it's the law. As mages belong to guilds, some internal edicts and regulations make sense. You want to seem like proper acedemics, without unseemly martial allures – and you don't want to frighten the populace any more than you already do. Certainly could easily be applied to the pretty regulated red, white & black system of Dragonlance (if that's still in place, I bowed out after Legends).

In GURPS terms that sounds more like a Code of Honor, for the usual order regulations. Maybe a small Secret if you regularly step over the line, or maybe a Perk if you got a special dispensation to carry a sword.

[Faolyn]

Originally Posted by Dragondog

In Dragonlance, the only weapons wizards use are staffs and daggers. And they only wear textile armor, if that. If I turned these into vows, what would they be worth?

Vow: Wizard Weapons Only - The only weapons you use are staffs, daggers, and knifes.

Vow: Wizard Armor Only - The only armor you use is textile armor.

Both of them seem to each be as restrictive as No edged weapons [-10]

It's been a while since I played D&D, but IIRC, the reason they were so limited in weapons is that they supposedly didn't have the time to learn combat skills, so they only weapons they could use were simple and relatively light bonk-or-stab things. I doubt that counts as a Vow in GURPS terms. The armor thing was (again IIRC) because metal screwed up the "flow" of magic. That could be seen as a limitation on Magery.

If you actually want it to be a Vow, what happens if they break it? Do they get shunned by other mages or lose their ability to cast magic, or what?

[aesir23]

Most D&D mages also have Pact on their Magery so that it doesn't work if they break their vows regarding armor.

[Flyndaran]

Level cap was the only reason to ever play a human in original D&D.

[Phaelen Bleux]

I must admit that reading this post reminds me of why I embraced GURPS over D&D all those years back. . .silly rules that limited creative character generation.

Makes me wonder why you'd bother to re-inflict those rules on your players. . .although campaign flavor is as good an excuse as anything.

It makes me smile about having heated discussions on these topics in "the good ol' days," however.

[mhd]

Originally Posted by Phaelen Bleux

I must admit that reading this post reminds me of why I embraced GURPS over D&D all those years back. . .silly rules that limited creative character generation.

Well, at least in GURPS you can "buy it off", i.e. you can say that "in my campaign, Wizards have these compulsory disadvantages" and if the player can give a reason why he doesn't have these (and/or trades them in for another set), he's good to go. Unless it's about the actual magical metaphysics or something like that…

For Dragonlance, I can certainly see the point. It had a pretty brutal system for Wizardry. Once you reach a certain, erm, level of your abilities, you had to take that horrendous test that might kill you. If your campaign starts in a CP range where this can't be taken for granted, "Vow: Have to take test that might ruin or kill me" is certainly in order…
(And If I'm not mistaken, they did hunt you down if they noticed you've become too powerful and didn't subject yourself to their silly classifications)

[Purple Haze]

Originally Posted by mhd

Blunt weapons? Wasn't this based on an earlier misconception that Odo, Bishop of Bayeux (and depicted in the eponymous tapestry) used a mace to avoid shedding blood? Used to be somewhat common, and I think EGG mostly included it for flavor, not balance (back in the days when there was really no difference in weapon stats).

If you want really ridiculous reasonings, go to their next-door neighbors, the Druids. Maybe no one knows who they were or what they were doing, but apparently they did it using scimitars.

I wouldn't blame EGG for this one, it was never the case in his games. His rule was always clerics were restricted to the weapons of their gods, wasn't 'til the publication of "Gods of Greyhawk" that we knew what those were.

It is hard to imagine where the whole "blunt weapons" myth arose. Certainly no medieval cleric practiced it. Real maces, flails, and warhammers are not blunt.

I think scimitar was meant to be a proxy for a scythe/sickle type weapon. Not that that makes any more sense.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

..
It is hard to imagine where the whole "blunt weapons" myth arose. Certainly no medieval cleric practiced it. Real maces, flails, and warhammers are not blunt.
...

Boxing gloves are pretty blunt and yet cause a lot of blood spilling.

[whswhs]

As a historical note, on the subject of what Gygax said, I'm looking at my set of the little tan books. Volume 1, Men and Magic, on p. 7, says Clerics gain some of the advantages from both of the other two classes . . . in that they have the use of magic armor and all non-edged magic weapons (no arrows!). . . . Rereading this, I can see that it does not actually say "can't use edged (or pointed) weapons"—the restriction is only against magic weapons with edges (or points)—but even back in the 1970s, when I was introduced to D&D, every player I met took it as "no edged weapons for clerics."

Bill Stoddard

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

That as well. Although to be fair, I think the blunt-weapon clerics, like ring mail and other wierdnesses had a solid basis in poor quality 19th century scholarship.

Still not as wierd as 'elf' being a job description in basic D&D (or the level cap that meant that the mighty, mystical elves could never be as magically powerful as a human wizard. Which, come to think of it, was dissonant from the alleged Tolkeinian roots anyway).

What Tolkeinian roots? Wizards in D&D had Vancian roots.