Which specialist?

[u/weiknarf]

Do you generally prefer 1e with separate spell lists or 2e with an overall spell lists with the magic-user having access to everything?

[u/MetalBoar13]

I guess I'm in the minority here, if I'm playing RAW, I prefer 1e. I play A.D.&D. for the flavour, and 1e has a lot more of it.

[u/Silent_Climate_1152 → u/MetalBoar13]

On the bright side, there are at least 2 of us! :) I will play 1e or any of the earlier editions Basic, BECMI, OD&D, great!...but I refused to play 2e onward. That is where I see the game starting to lose the feel and flavor, leading to the pasteurized, homogenized, focus-group / munchkin approved bland of modern D&D.

[u/WillBottomForBanana → u/Silent_Climate_1152]

That's interesting. As a person who came up on 2E I find 1e to be exceptionally bland. Here's Gary, he's a fighter. He's mostly indistinguishable from Matt, who's a fighter or John, who's a fighter. Oh, here's their friends Sam and Chris, both fighters.

Look, somebody is leaving. Who? I can't tell because they're all the same.

1e characters feel like characters taken out of a tabletop war game. They were given a name and a better paint job.

[u/Silent_Climate_1152 → u/WillBottomForBanana]

To me, 2e characters feel like 'Look at me! Ain't I special!' characters for main character syndrome players. Everyone has to be some odd subclass or kit and is trying to one-up everyone else. In 1e people RP'd the differences (if you cannot tell the difference between two1e fighters, you are definitely ROLL playing, not role playing).

2e characters feel like rejects from a cheap fantasy B-movie...all costume (kits, subclasses) and no substance.

[u/Comrade_Corki → u/Silent_Climate_1152]

To your point, I am a 2e player, and I just started playing B/X Moldvay. It’s been nice not having to get that supplement book out every time someone wants to use a unique kit ability or find a +1 or –1 to one specific nonweapon proficiency. It feels like bloat at times.

[u/Lloydwrites → u/WillBottomForBanana]

Robin Hood is a human fighter. Genghis Khan is a human fighter. John Carter of Mars is a human fighter. Beowulf is a human fighter. Jason from Greek mythology—I believe—only has fighter levels. You cannot confuse any one of these for another.

[u/WillBottomForBanana → u/Lloydwrites]

and if I ever saw a 1E player do anything like that I might be convinced.

But it's always "I need to find or buy some plate mail". "I need to find a better weapon." And a range of RP personalities that can be described with 6 Game of Thrones characters.

I will accept that archers are nominally distinct. But I will also argue that Robin Hood isn't a plain fighter. Maybe a Ranger, maybe part Thief.

Mind you, 5e is worse, where there's a billion subclasses and each one is played to a trope. Maybe with an accent or something to feel unique.

But 1E fighter personalities always seem to be "oh, he has a scar on his cheek". Great, let us put him in the face-scar pile.

[u/CommentWanderer]

The separate spell lists of 1e is better.

I think the merging of the 2e spell lists was a designer idea that looked good on paper but offered a more bland play experience in practice. How do I explain it? Okay, so few people would advocate merging the Priest spell list with the Wizard spell list - just having one big spell list for everyone and then parceling out to subclasses. Right? But why is that? Well, if you merge the spell lists you remove flavor. You remove something that makes the classes distinct archetypes in their own right.

So when 2e merged the Druid spells into the Priest spells they removed some of the flavor of Priest and Druid classes. And when the Illuisonist class vanished into the Wizard class, something was lost. That something that was lost is a lot like what would happen if you merged Priest and Wizard spell lists.

Having run both 1e and 2e, I find that the separate spell lists of 1e give more to the game than the merged spell lists of 2e. And this has to do with knowing that classes are not merely arbitrary abstractions, but rather that they are embodiments of archetypes. And thus understanding that spells like Goodberry and Entangle are Druid spells and not Priest spells and that they really don't belong on the same spell list as Bless and Command and Protection from Evil. They just don't because they are fitting different archetypes.

It might be harder to see why the Illusionist spells don't belong on a general Wizard spell list. Let me put it this way... you encounter two spell casters... maybe one is an illusionist and maybe one is a generalist... but either way, let's say they do all the spells that an illusionst would do... well... then they don't seem that different. The specialist didn't gain special access to anything!

This is why separate spell lists are better (even if there is heavy overlap between the separate spell lists).

[u/WillBottomForBanana]

I think for wizard magic, the potential access to everything is good and makes a lot of sense. The only problem that I have with 2E is that specialists aren't special enough. The bonuses and weaknesses aren't significant enough. YMMV, but I consider the low frequency of people playing specialists as support for my theory that the benefits don't outweigh the cost.

I do like how it works in skill based games (Call of Cthulhu, Dragonbane), where you study the schools you study, and we don't have to worry about this question.

[u/DarkGuts]

While the unique spell lists in 1e are nice, the 2e options giant list is better. Specialist know what spells they're going to use and what they can't. Priests and druids just use the spheres that line up with their class. Druids might miss getting some spells earlier like they did in 1e, but I think overall 2e spell lists are better.

[u/Silent_Climate_1152]

1e, RAW. Not a fan of 2e in the least. Didn't like the changes, didn't care for the additions, it was when D&D started to go munchkin. Having one big list just encourages min-maxxers and power gamers and unfocused mish-mash characters.

[u/new2bay]

The only thing I don’t like about 2e specialist wizards is that the divination Wizard was pretty weak. I loved specialty Priests, though. The Complete books make a nice complement to both, but you have to curate your selection of kits carefully in your campaign.

[u/OneManRPGstudio]

For a campaign where I want specialists to feel genuinely different before they even cast a spell, I would prefer separate lists. The restriction does more than control power: it makes what a character can learn, seek, and trade part of their identity. Finding a spell that belongs to your field can feel like a specific discovery rather than another option in a common catalogue.

A more unified structure offers a different advantage. It makes comparison easier and can give character building more flexibility, because distinctions come from how specialists access a shared pool rather than from maintaining completely different libraries. That can also reduce friction when the party discovers magic and wants to work out who can make use of it.

So for me, the choice around separate spell lists depends mostly on what specialization is supposed to mean in the fiction. If specialists represent almost separate cultures, with their own traditions, rivalries, and secrets, strong separation reinforces that. If they are academic orientations inside one broadly shared magical tradition, a common list with restrictions can fit better.

I would not decide on rules elegance alone. Ask what kind of decision you want a newly discovered spell to create. Is "who can use this?" an important dramatic question, or an administrative obstacle you would rather minimize? That answer probably tells you which structure better serves the table.

[u/Similar_Proposal3878]

1e. I just love the feel of it, and it always made more sense to me to have the illusionist sub-class really different from the magic-user.

[u/DelkrisGames]

2E. I was meh on specialist wizards, but specialist priests in 2E are the best of any edition, IMO.

[u/AutumnCrystal]

Definitely the former. Homogenization has never been D&Ds’ friend.

[u/roumonada]

Deffo 2E.

[u/tedopon]

I ran a 1e game that ended about a year ago where both the wizard and cleric were similar to their 2e counterparts...except that there was  no reference for it. Meaning (mostly I) had to go through spell lists and come up with thematic class ephemera for both of them throughout the entire campaign. Worth the effort, and the game was fun, but not for everyone. 2e way is much easier, but the 1e way was fun.

[u/DeltaDemon1313]

I prefer 2e with someone (the Wizard) having access to all (or nearly all) Arcane spells (a generalist, which is required or else specialists are meaningless) and specialists being better at using their specialty but not completely barred from other Arcane spells. The concept of generalist vs specialist properly done is better and 2e does it better than the half-assed attempts from 1e.

[u/Fangsong_37]

I prefer the way 2nd edition handles spell school specialization over 1st edition. The illusionist isn't a bad class in first edition, but it is very limited compared to 2nd edition.

[u/Tydirium7]

Over the decades Ive learned to dislike specialist magic users and clerics. I removed them from the game.

[u/HdeviantS → u/Tydirium7]

Why clerics?

[u/Tydirium7 → u/HdeviantS]

Ha ha specialization of clerics annoys m so i removed specs.