Notes on OD&D - Part 32

Ok moving on to the 3rd Level Clerical "Spells"...

Men & Magic

• p32 - Explanation of Clerical Spells - 3rd Level

Remove Curse: This spell is the same as that for Magic-Users.

So I think what we should take way from this is that Clerics and Magic-Users really were more or less equivalents. There is little to distinguish the two by spells themselves, because the spells both work the same way mechanically, and there is significant overlap between the two classes. So what is the the difference then? As far as I can tell, the major difference is that Magic-Users were intended to be non-fighters, whereas Clerics were a combination of Fighter and Magic-User, with a focus on slightly different kinds of spells. As I've already covered the overlap, I will move on, but you can review the spell list distinctions in Notes on OD&D - Part 15.

I rate this spell 3 out of 5 Stars for usefulness. (I don't see it coming up that often, frankly)

Cure Disease: A spell which cures any form of disease. The spell is only method to rid a character of a disease from a curse, for example.

Um... uh... wait. This is a bit confusing. So a curse can cause a disease. But Remove Curse doesn't work on that. Only Cure Disease works on that, despite the fact that we have Remove Curse sitting right there above this spell. Um ... ok. Kind of squirrely. I would think it should be, in this case, that if someone is diseased by a curse that either Remove Curse OR Cure Disease would work to cure it. Meh. As a GM I would prefer a less convoluted arrangement. I suspect my players would feel the same. But ok. Its D&D v1, some bugs included.

I rate this spell 2.5 Stars out of 5 for usefulness (because it's confusing).

Locate Object: This spell is the same as that for Magic-Users, except that the base range is 9".

Ditto on my comment above.

I rate this spell 3 out of 5 Stars for usefulness.

Continuous Light: This spell is the same as that for Magic-Users, except that the light shed is equal to full daylight.

Ok, this suggests a superiority of Clerics in terms of dealing with those monsters which are destroyed by daylight. This includes:
Goblins
Kobolds
Orcs
Vampires

Surprisingly, perhaps, trolls are not included in those creatures effected by full daylight. I'm a bit miffed at that. There may be other monsters that are affected by daylight as well, but conducting a few searches in google failed to produce a list of them, so I am thinking that the above list will do for now. If I find in Monsters & Treasure others that should be included (I'll be surprised if daylight has no bearing on Shades, and the like), I will add them.

I rate this spell 4 out of 5 Stars for usefulness (because full daylight is a good thing).

Ok that section was easy. Very few spells, most of them overlapping Magic-User spells which I already covered. So yah. Until next time, ciao.