Magic-Users With Swords

Michael Whelan's cover for Stormbringer

Most older editions of D&D restrict the Magic-User class in its use of weapons other than daggers and staffs. These restrictions are in place for game balance and make sense for the archetype of the scholarly magician, but what about players who want to play the archetype of the sword-wielding Magic-User?

The two main examples of this archetype are Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné, and J. R. R. Tolkien's Gandalf. People like to say that Gandalf doesn't count as a player character because he's one of the Maiar in human form and is essentially a supernatural being, but that doesn't make people want to play a character like him any less -- and fantasy roleplaying is all about playing the kinds of characters who inspire you to want to walk in their worlds.

Here's a way of allowing Magic-Users to wield swords in your old school game while still preserving the balance between Fighters and Magic-Users.

Magic Swords

If looking at these two characters as the main representatives of the archetype of the sword-wielding Magic-User, you will notice that neither Elric nor Gandalf are interested in the mundane swords of soldiers. Both of them come into contact with magic swords. As Magic-Users, they are inherently interested in magical artifacts. In the case of Elric, his sword Stormbringer is obviously intelligent and exerts some influence over him. No such relationship is explicitly described between Gandalf and Glamdring, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be some form of intelligence in that sword as well, and therefore some sort of inferred connection between the wizard and the blade.

For the purposes of furthering this archetype, based on the above, I will posit that Magic-Users are only interested in magic swords, as the result of their unique magical capabilities and their intelligence.

Magic swords, however, are most interested in Fighters, who represent the archetype of the brave warrior. Magic swords want to be used, and they know they will be used in the hands of a Fighter. But they are also artifacts of magic, and so Magic-Users do interest them to some extent; they are perhaps willing to make deals with them.

The Bargain 

Magic-Users cannot offer magic swords nearly as much melee action and spilled blood as Fighters, but they can offer them something else: the unique resource Magic-Users have at their disposal, which is spells.

In exchange for a store of magical energy (a spell slot), a magic sword might be persuaded to lend its strength to the Magic-User.

Magic-Users are not trained combatants. They spend their time studying books and scrolls, not gaining skill with body and weapon. Both Elric and Gandalf are Magic-Users who were capable of powerful magic long before they come upon their respective magic swords. Stormbringer lends Elric almost the entirety of his strength and ability to fight; without the blade's magic, he's a feeble albino, albeit still a powerful sorcerer. Gandalf's relationship with Glamdring is not explicit, nor implicit, but a similar lending of strength and fighting ability is something that could make sense in the context of a fantasy roleplaying game, given that Gandalf never wields another weapon and that there must be some special reason for his taking up Glamdring.

New Spell: Commune With Sword

This is a 2nd-level spell. Once this spell is cast, the Referee should make a Reaction Roll for the magic sword when first grasped by the Magic-User. If the result is positive, the sword will allow itself to be carried and drawn by the Magic-User. Going forward, it will lend its strength and fighting ability to the Magic-User in exchange for a spell slot, determined randomly by rolling a die equal to the maximum level of spell the Magic-User is able cast and adding a modifier of +1 (a magic sword will not accept a 1st-level spell slot as adequate recompense).* If the Magic-User is out of spell slots of the rolled spell level, re-roll.

After the spell slot is consumed, the Magic-User fights as a Fighter of equal level to the Magic-User. The duration of the boon is a number of turns equal to the level of the spell slot consumed. After the duration has passed, the Magic-User no longer has the strength or skill to wield the sword in combat, but can still make use of its passive magical abilities.

This spell can be cast in advance, before preparing spells, and only activated after the sword is drawn.

This spell must be cast each time the Magic-User wishes to wield the magic sword in combat. It only requires a single spell slot, whichever one has been consumed in the casting.

If the magic sword is not used in combat with occasional frequency, the Referee should make another Reaction Roll to determine whether the sword will continue to allow the Magic-User to wield it.

*Alternatively, the Referee may allow the Magic-User to decide the level of the spell slot to be consumed, thus giving the Magic-User control over the duration of the spell. Some Referees may find this flexibility too powerful, as it further infringes on the Fighter's precedence in regard to magic swords.

On Balance

The important thing to note here is the Reaction Roll: the magic sword must accept the Magic-User as its bearer, and Commune With Sword must be cast before the Reaction Roll is made. In addition, the desires of the magic sword and its influence over the Magic-User should be role-played during the game. These restrictions protect the Fighter's role as sole master over magic swords, but allow the lucky, clever, and sacrificing Magic-User to benefit from wielding such special blades of intelligence and magic, which may well be better understood by the Magic-User than the Fighter; after all, it isn't a Fighter who crafts these artifacts in the first place, but a high-level Magic-User.