Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

I'm not entirely clear on what the "Min #" and "Max #" columns are for, as they seem at odds with the Magic User's "spells Per Level" table (Page 5). Does one table take precedence over the other, or is there something I'm missing?

Ah ha! Turns out it was something I was missing. As it turns out, the table footnote in Supplement 1: Greyhawk set me straight. So, just to be clear, those numbers aren't the minimum and maximum level of spells that a character can memorize per day, per character level but, rather, the minimum and maximum number of spells of given spell level that a character can know?

Take a look at pages 133-134 in the rulebook. Actually, the specific answers you are looking for are on page 134. This is a point of major contention among the scholars of the 0E rules, and 134 presents the two main positions on the subject.

For some reason, that still isn't clear for me. I think I'm just going to stick to Min and Max as number of spells knowable, as opposed to number of spells memorize-able (i.e., a spell book may contain more spells than the caster can commit to memory). I am just running a one-shot to start, after all, so it shouldn't have much bearing right away.

There are two common interpretations of the table, and it's not entirely clear which is "right" (except, of course, to die-hard proponents of one or the other interpretation).

In one version, the one I term "limited" spell lists, the player rolls the dice for those spells the character has a chance to learn. That is, those he or she actually sees in a spell book, or pays an NPC to teach. If the maximum the character can learn is ever reached (at a given level), he or she can learn no more. If, after encountering every spell in the level, the character has not reached the minimum, he or she may re-try spells that previously failed.

In the other, "extended" spell lists version, each time the character gains a new level of spell, he or she rolls for each and every spell of the new level, following the same basic rules as above. The character then has a book containing all the selected spells (and which costs what it says in the rulebook).

Either way, the character will likely know more spells than he or she can actually memorize in a day. But the second interpretation dramatically increases the flexibility of the magic-user.