"9 Bad wizards!" Topic

Some interesting theories.
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Yes, in the early days of D&D, i.e., the 70's, the local group would have long discussions about Gandalfs level in D&D, they seemed to think it was 3rd or possibly 4th at the most. I thought it was a waste of valuable gaming time, but what did I know?

Fun.

Okay, but those wizards were written to be bad. So it's not much of a list, as such lists go (and lists are overtaking the Internet. Lazy writing, IMHO).

If you have to do a list, a better list would be of wizards who are presented as competent yet on close examination are actually not competent at all (or only barely so).

I suspect that list would include Merlin, Gandalf, Dumbledore and Voldemort, among others.

Yes, in the early days of D&D, i.e., the 70's, the local group would have long discussions about Gandalfs level in D&D, they seemed to think it was 3rd or possibly 4th at the most. I thought it was a waste of valuable gaming time, but what did I know?

Every teenage gaming group in the world had that discussion!

But the truth is, though in D&D terms, Gandalf's powers border on the feeble (tossing willy pete pinecones? Seriously?), the fact is that, when you think about it, the ability to do any magic at all would be incredibly impressive. I mean, yeah, the flaming pine cone grenade isn't much in D&D terms, but in the world of Middle-Earth, Gandalf is the only guy who can do it— and only four others can do anything remotely equivalent in magical power. So "power" is relative to the setting.

How did I get going on this? Dang… I'm back in high school, debating Gandalf's powers. At least these days, I have the girl…

I didn't really think about it but is that stuff in Radagast's hair bird poop?

Wonder what the Wizard Of Id's level would be? ;^)