Magic and spell question or Cleric vs wizard

  1. cleric vs wizard
    I see a problem, as I read the rules both kind of spellcaster chose the spell to cast at the moment of casting BUT the cleric can chose between 10 spell vs the 1-4 spell at first level to the 4-7 spell at 14th level of a wizard it seems a little “wrong” for at least 2 reason
    a) the cleric seems too much advantaged
    b) more importantly in this way the cleric is more flexible in his choice of spells and it should be the other way around
    and we go back to the question of the limits to the number of spell in the spellbook :slight_smile:
    I come from AD&D 1st edition, the limit of spell in the book are linked to intelligence as all of you know (and at 19 you get unlimited number of spell), to have such a small number of spell in the book means to take away a reason of being of the wizard (to have the biggest collection of spell in his library)
    this was one of the reason for asking again to rethink of the way the book works in ACKS

Fabio - thanks for your comments. Before printing these rules, we had a 101 session long campaign that took the players from level 1 to level 14. We had both mages and clerics in the campaign. We did not feel, overall, that the clerics were over-powered relative to the mages. Certainly clerics are powerful, but consider:

  • Mages start with spells at 1st level, Clerics do not.
  • At every level, mage spells tend to be more powerful than cleric spells. For example, Fireball is a 3rd level arcane spell; Flamestrike, similar in effect, is a 5th level cleric spell.
  • The most powerful cleric spell, Finger of Death (the reverse of Restore Life and Limb), seems powerful, as it is a save or die effect that the cleric gains at 7th level; but a 7th level mage can take Polymorph Other, which can be used for a save or die effect or for other purposes, and is harder to save against.
  • Clerics never get 6th level spells or 8th or 9th level ritual magic, while Mages do.
  • Magic items usable by mages, such as the various staffs and wands, tend to substantially broaden their available repertoire of spells, relative to the magic items available to Clerics.
    In any event, I’m aware that opinions will vary widely on how magic ought best be implemented in a fantasy game, so I won’t be offended if someone wants to give mages more spells to choose from, or limit clerics to memorization, or whatever they’d like. But I can say with certainty that the ACKS method works and plays very well rules-as-written.

thanks for the answer, while I have not tried to go from 1st to 14th level with acks (maybe in august?) I tested a similar magic system at the time and this was a problem (the fact that the cleric had more spell to choose from), I am not suggesting to put back the cleric but to reconsider the limit of spell in the spell-book, maybe considering a short list as it is now and a long list with other limitation, I think the big problem is when the mage has no reason to go around researching all kind of spells, that’s all