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Character death is yet another example of where there seems to be a great divide between modern and “old school” players, and as with all other issues, my answer tends to fall somewhere in the middle. According to the latest social media dust ups, 1e AD&D players generally see character death as a necessary ingredient to making the game fun. Without the risk of failure, not only is there no thrill of victory, but also there’s no “game” all. Moreover, the more at risk, the greater the reward. I largely agree with that, so the structure of this post is to operate from that assumption and then pull back on it a bit.

Modern Crybabies

In my experience, modern players react emotionally to losses. I like the attachment they have to their characters, but more often than I’d like to see, that reaction is embarrassingly extreme. I’ve had plenty of players complain if they didn’t find every single magic item in the adventure, solve every single puzzle, or even when they get hit by a trap for zero damage. This appears to be taking failure far too seriously and “out of character.” In contrast, I see such failures as a fun learning experience. Nevertheless, I do acknowledge the modern player’s yang to the old school player’s yin, though I gather it’s not for the same reasons.

Too Much of Anything Can Be Too Much

I was in a 4e Dark Sun campaign run by Matt James. Among other writing credits to his name, he’s the author of Soldiers of Fortune. There was a stretch in which I lost 5 characters over the course of 9 weeks (i.e., my character died in week 1, then the next in week 3, then week 5, 7, and 9). All but one of those deaths was grandly heroic. NPC bards would sing stories about their sacrifices for centuries to come. But there are two reasons that much death sucks. First, I wrote up backstories at least one page in length for each of those characters. I’m particularly proud of my shardmind’s backstory. Having to do that every other week was a bit of work and eventually would have left me with little room to do something radically different from all I had written before, yet still fun for me. Second, for a character to really matter to a player (or at least to this player), the player must be invested in it, but a player shouldn’t get invested in a character with a shelf life of two, four-hour sessions. Doing so will make the game far too frustrating.

Multiple Characters

In my 1e days (1977-1982), due to limited interest and accessibility to a player pool (there was no internet back then), there were never more than five players around the table, and even five was rare. Moreover, adventures were designed for as many as 10 characters at a time. That meant we pulled double duty in the party.

Playing multiple characters militated against getting too attached, and while that has the downside, it also had the upside of giving me a wider variety of options on my turns.

I want to know that, in a fair fight, my character has a reasonable chance of survival, but at the same time I want to know that poor decisions on my part, or even just a string of bad luck, can make adventuring as risky as you’d expect it to be if it were real. That’s my often-cited “immersion in the game world/story” that I love to have in my games as either a player or DM. However, it’s ultimately a game and should be playable. Moreover, an investment in your character is another, equally legitimate path to immersion that old school players don’t seem to acknowledge.

Clearly, both sides have a merit, and I prefer them to be balanced rather have one than chosen to the exclusion of the other. YMMV.

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I posted a question a couple weeks ago to the 1st Edition AD&D (“1e”) social media groups: When a 8th level paladin or 9th level ranger gain the ability to cast spells, what is their caster level? Despite literally decades of debates over the issue evidencing that the answer isn’t printed in any of the sourcebooks, I received several claims that the answer was clear, but there isn’t a clear answer in the rules. None. If you can find it, please enlighten everyone who’s come before you with a sourcebook and page number linking to a clear statement on the matter. There are, however, just a couple of reasons that I fall on the “caster level is the character level” side of the discussion.

Silence Is Telling

The fact that there’s no statement expressly saying that a 10th-level paladin doesn’t cast at 10th level places us in the default position of “caster level is the character level,” as is the case in every other context (i.e., clerics, druids, illusionists, and magic users). The wording of spells always tells you that variable effects are based on the “level of the caster,” refusing to distinguish between caster level and character level. Consider, then, the third level illusionist spell, Dispel Illusion (using my own words).

The caster can dispel any illusion, with or without an audible component, cast by a non-illusionist, and can dispel an illusion by an illusionist with a 50% base chance adjusted 2% downward for each caster level beneath the illusion’s caster, or 5% upward for each caster level above the illusion’s caster.

Player’s Handbook, p. 96

Per Unearthed Arcana, the magic user doesn’t get the spell until 4th level, and even then:

A magic-user attempting to dispel an illusion is considered at two levels below his actual level with respect to illusion/phantasm spells cast by an illusionist.

p. 56

It’s one of only a couple of spells that expressly breaks the “caster level is character level” rule, and it tells us two things. First, despite the illusionist needing to be better at illusions than the magic user, it isn’t when dispelling illusions not cast by an illusionist. Even though the magic user doesn’t get the spell as early, it immediately is as powerful of a caster. However, second, the game wanted there to be a distinction when the spell was casted by an illusionist, so it expressly stated one. It never did so for paladins or rangers. Any other interpretation is reading more into the text of the game than is there. While I don’t believe anyone who tells me that Gary Gygax himself once told them something, it makes me believe that’s possible.

It certainly helps that Sage Advice once agreed after supposedly “speaking with the higher ups.”

Much Ado About Nothing

Most importantly, however, is that it doesn’t matter. One could rule that the caster level is the character level, or a fraction of the caster level, without changing the game significantly. This report provides a list of all the spells a paladin will ever be able to cast from the Player’s Handbook and Unearthed Arcana. In it, you’ll see that there isn’t a single spell where the caster level determines damage or healing. Mostly, the differences are in duration, with a few differences in range and area of effect. Rangers tell the same story as evidenced by this report providing a list of all the spells a ranger will ever be able to cast from the Player’s Handbook and Unearthed Arcana.

Is it at all overpowered to allow a paladin to create an extra 8 cubic feet of food and water or a ranger to predict the weather for and extra 14 hours? If not, then the primary two reasons for ruling otherwise – 1) paladins and rangers should be fighters first and casters second, and 2) it would make them overpowered – are quickly undermined. A notable exception is Magic Missile, but consider how useful useless a 1st-level Magic Missile spell would be against 9th-level threats? At 9th-level, that’s an extra 4d4+4 damage (average 10 hps) against 1-2 Storm Giants with, on average, 72 hps each. A ranger is generally far better off attacking with a bow. The benefit of paladin and ranger spellcasting is increased versatility for those classes, so the real limiting factor is that a ranger could never cast even Fireball or Fly, let alone Power Word Kill or Time Stop.

This may seem like I’m trying to make a strong argument for why I’m right and you’re wrong, but there is no right and wrong here. The rules are ambiguous, and the consequences to the game are insignificant. There’s nothing wrong with ruling either way, and I’d be happy to play at a table with a different rule. I’m just explaining my rationale for my choice in order to spur more conversation and am pointing out that any claim of a clearly correct answer is objectively wrong. There’s no absolutely correct way play D&D.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes. Are you a Sith? Are you?

EDIT: @nrfoley on Twitter provided the following official ruling from Polyhedron 7 (July, 1982), though it doesn’t change my personal decision. As always, YMMV.

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Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, once again my current old-school kick has 1e taking over.

In 1e, this is 100% true. I don’t think a magic user sees healing capability until Limited Wish.

I had to replace the original photos with these wonderful, stock photos to avoid copyright concerns. That’s sad, but there is some good news. No Aussies were harmed in the editing of this meme. This does remind me, though, of something I once read (lost to the passage of time) that Lord Gygax always said that the Olman of Greyhawk weren’t just culturally similar to the Aztecs. They were the Aztecs. There was a portal in their lands that connected Oerth to Earth, so they sometimes passed between the two worlds. I’ve heard a lot of things attributed to Lord Gygax over the years. I know better than to assume they’re accurate.

Like I said; Sundays are lazy.

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Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)