Do Wizards suck in Shadowdark?

 And similar?

Shadowdark uses Luck, similar to spellburn i think. How muxh control u got tho?

Some say, you will cast more spells with eoll to cast. BUT others say, you just never get a spell off in two seasions. F that. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/shadowdark/comments/172lh87/dont_be_a_wizard/

Btw,  early commenter says warhammer 2e had this type of wizard. Was it before DCC?

 

Lichhouse article in general- https://dreamsinthelichhouse.blogspot.com/2025/01/shadowdark-good-bad-ugly.html?m=1

Lixhhouse says and a focus on theater of the mind (non-tactical movement and ranges) so the game plays very quickly at the table,

I'm usually running groups of 5-6 players.  Fast moving rounds with simple rules keeps the gaming moving quickly and everyone engaged.

Redsit says:

Do you use luck? Spell mishaps happen far less than 5% of the time in my games, and when they do happen they are more likely entertaining than lethal.

Honestly, unless a game is super tactical, having some chance to fail at spellcasting does so much to make it feel like I'm actually tapping into immense arcane power instead of just pew pewing everything.

I'd definitely only play a Wizard if I had at least a +3 INT at stat roll, though. 45% chance of failing to cast a Tier 1 spell and losing it for the rest of the day is too high.

“Not too long ago I ran 4 games of Shadowdark for my group as a test run, to see if we liked the system enough to play a full campaign. The biggest complaint about the system was roll to cast magic. They realized early on that spell casting might be a problem, so they brought 2 Priests to the table, both had a Wisdom of 14. In three of the four sessions neither of them was able to successfully cast a Cure Wounds spell, my players were not amused in the least.

If I were going to run Shadowdark again, I would lower the DC to 7+Tier, to increase the success rate to 70-80% and/or make it so they only loose the spell until they rest if they roll a natural 1.

Other opposite

•2y ago

I run an open table game RAW and have many enthusiastic wizards. It is the most powerful classes in the game. With careful use of luck tokens spell failure is rare, even more so with a bard or bless spell in the party. And on those occasions where important spells are used up PCs leave the dungeon, rest and return. Sometimes two or three times. Personally I love wizards and area spells like sleep, web and fireball.

Other other

The spellcasting system is the only thing I don't like about Shadowdark. I houseruled it out in favor of vancian magic which we prefer. If I had a player object and want to roll to cast, I'd let them, but none have so far. A 35% or so chance on your turn to do nothingand lose the spell is just too much for us. At least in ICRPG if you fail the casting check you can just try again next round.

I've found the Vancian vs. Roll-to-Cast divide to be one of the starkest in TTRPGs. Typically a person will love one and hate the other. I love Vancian and despise roll-to-cast, but I also know (just by reading the comments here, even) that others love roll-to-cast and despise Vancian in equal measure.

Other other other 

I'd probably use the damage values and many other effects from the B/X spells though, not Shadowdark's, since the wizard will cast fewer spells on average.