From
Men & Magic:
Characters who employ spells are assumed to acquire books containing the spells they can use, one book for each level.
This implies that though a first level magic-user can only learn & cast one first level spell per day, they have @ their finger tips
all the first level spells in one huge tome. You would not lug this into a dungeon
.
With the
Greyhawk supplement, Gygax limits this a bit, which is wise. This is the same spell book generation that would later be found in the
Holmes Blue Book: percentile dice are rolled for each first level spell to determine whether that spell is in the m-u's spell book or not.
Here's the chart:
INT % Chance to Know Spell Minimum Maximum
3-4 20% 2 3
5-7 30% 2 4
8-9 40% 3 5
10-12 50% 4 6
13-14 65% 5 8
15-16 75% 6 10
17 85% 7 All
18 95% 8 All
Example: Jimmy the Hex Master has an INT of 15. To determine what spells he has in his spell book, I go down the list of first level spells & roll percentiles. Every time I roll a 75 or lower, Jimmy adds that spell to his spell book. Once he has 10 spells, he stops (cuz that's his max on the chart for his INT). If Jimmy makes it through the entire list & has 6, he's done (cuz that's his minimum). But if Jimmy only has 5 after going through the list, he starts again w/ the spells he failed to add the first time, rolling until he can add one more to meet his minimum of 6.
This is the way to do it. Not only does it open up magic-users @ the start of the game, but also, it awards players w/ high intelligence for what we could assume is a lot of time & study done before setting out for fame & fortune.
So how was I doing it before?
From
Moldvay Basic:
These spells are stored in large spell books... Each magic-user & elf has a spell book for the spells that he or she has learned. A first level character will only have one spell (a first level spell) in the spell book. A second level character will have two spells (both first level) in the spell book...
I always asked myself, why would a magic-user w/ only one first level spell carry around a mostly empty, massive spell book? My
guess was that Moldvay wanted to simplify the spell selection process for an introductory game while also holding on to the classic fantasy
image of the magic-user's exhaustive tome. So while Moldvay keeps the description of the "large spell book" within his rules, he doesnt go so far as Holmes to say that
Magic-users can not bring their magic books into the dungeon w/ them.
So it's a trade off: OD&D/Holmes equip magic-users w/ exhaustive spell tomes that give them a wide daily spell selection, but the location they can study these tomes is limited. On the other hand, Moldvay severely limits the number of spells a magic-user has access to, but they are free to carry the book about as they wish, even into a dungeon.
There are benefits to both approaches, so I've fused the two: while first level magic-users will start per the
Greyhawk rules, I think they should also be able to, down the line, purchase a smaller spell book to copy select spells in for possible overnight dungeon travel. However, if
any spell book has more than 5 spells in it, it is only possible to travel into dungeon w/ m-u if they have a STR of 12 or more, & even then, there may be other consequences or limitations.
What about
elves?
Elves will not use these same rules. As elves know magic inherently, their magic-use learning is different, @ least starting out. For their spell list, they will choose the Moldvay way (plus additional spell or two for high INT). That is, UNLESS, an elf character decides to be a magic-user
only. I/o/w, they will not be a multi-classed elf, they will be an elf magic-user.
