I'm sorry if I implied anything negative, as that was not my intent.
The arcane bolt reference is not directed at you. I should have made that more clear. If you look up-thread, you'll see the OP and understand that to which I refer.
As for focusing on offensive spells, I find it curious that you'd gripe about my doing that, because you specifically said it's the problem:
This is the issue. How many times can a fighter swing a sword? how many times can a ranger shoot an arrow? Spell use is the only way a MU can attack an opponent that is seeking to kill them.
Please forgive me for speaking to exactly what you brought up. I'll do my best to better read between the lines next time I try to directly address something you clearly and unequivocally state.
Please note I was and am not calling into question your gaming resume. I
am calling into question the wisdom of your opinion in this matter.
When you boil all the verbiage off arguments like this, it all boils down to this: Tweaks like giving low-level MUs more spells have an alarming tendency to break the game.
If you amp the abilities of MUs at lower levels it very much
does overpower the class at later levels. Gygax, Arneson, Moldvay, et al. knew that, experienced it in playtesting, and made the game which BFRPG emulates the way it is for a very good reason. In like manner, BFRPG also was exhaustively play-tested. If you fiddle with the game engine in such a fundamental way, for whatever reason, you
will [/i]take the later game out of balance. In this context, what generally happens is the non-MU players sit there bored - "Gee, another monster/problem. Frank, cast something and fix it. I'm going to the fridge. Who wants a Fresca?" You haven't fixed the "problem" - you've just moved it around.
The MU is
not on a par with other classes at lower levels, because if she
is, at higher levels a low-level perceived imbalance
against MUs goes out of whack on the other side. I've watched it happen.
I've been responsible for it, trying to do exactly what you advocate. Like I did, you'll have to grant other classes special stuff to let them keep up, or nerf the MU, or something else. Then you'll look around you, realize that with your house rules you've tripled the size of the rulebook and ruined the rules-light, simple system that attracted you to B/X/BF in the first place.
House rules are dangerous things sometimes.
That's why I suggest that if you perceive an imbalance in the game as written, it's probably wiser to seek a different game than attempt to fix the perceived imbalance.
TL;DR: If you try to fix a part of a game that isn't really broken, all that happens is you break the entire game in a different way. Knock-on effects are a bitch.
Regards,
Bob