“What dangers he might meet he could not know, so he selected three spells of general application: the Excellent Prismatic Spray, Phandaal’s Mantle of Stealth, and the Spell of the Slow Hour.” – Dying Earth

Spells and magic items from UA are in play.

The spell acquired by a magic-user upon gaining a new level is chosen by the magic-user. However, the spell must be of a level the magic-user is capable of casting at their new level and the regular “chance to know” roll must be made. If the roll fails, another spell can be chosen until one succeeds.

Spells containing a person's name in the spell title (e.g. Tenser's floating disc) cannot be chosen at any time – they must be found “in the world”, through adventure.¹⁾

When creating a new character, magic-users and illusionists should only roll on and/or select from the spells in the PHB. On level-up, spells from UA can be selected.²⁾

See Wishes.

Magic resistance applies to all spells, not just to magic-user spells.

Touch spells with the duration of “one touch” can be held in-hand until something is touched. If the character touches themselves or one of their items with that hand, the spell goes off. Be careful.

A full night’s rest is not necessarily needed to recover spells. Only the amount of time dictated by DMG 40 is required. This means a two full suites of 1st level spells could be easily cast by someone with a day to spare.

If a non-offensive spell is used offensively, such as teleport, the unwilling target is entitled to a save vs spells, and typically will need to be touched for the spell to target them.

While most spells do stack, spells of the same line do not. Only the best benefits from each spell are used. The classic example is bless, chant, and prayer.

There is no special mechanic for this in AD&D; it usually works like a regular melee attack vs the target’s AC.

Shocking grasp and some other lightning-based effects ignore metal armor and metal shields (but not their plusses).

If the target is significantly larger than the person trying to touch them, the DM may assign some bonus to the to-hit roll, such as +2 for a human trying to touch an ogre, or +4 to touch a giant, or +6 to touch an adult dragon.^Ex

When under the effect of invisibility, if an action is taken that can possibly be interpreted by the DM as an attack, it counts as an attack for ending the spell. Examples include breaking open a barrel or throwing a rock. Note that the rules specifically say that opening doors does not break invisibility.

Invisibility caused by a magic device cannot be triggered again until one full round after invisibility is broken. Put another way, if someone attacks while under the effect of a ring of invisibility, their opponents will end up getting a combat round where the wearer is visible before the wearer can use the ring again.³⁾ This does not apply to psionic invisibility.

Any time someone goes invisible in view of enemies, enemies can still target them, but with the regular -4 to hit.⁴⁾ This does not apply to psionic invisibility.

Saves to disbelieve illusions benefit from any wisdom-based mental save modifier.

Scroll fading rules kick in if the scroll is taken from the place it was discovered in. Being sealed inside a container does not matter, even if the container was never opened. Merely looking at a scroll’s contents (and therefore triggering any curses) is sufficient to reduce the chance of fading to zero. Any class can do this, and read magic is not required.

Attempting to know a spell via a scroll releases the magic from the scroll. Whether the to-know attempt fails or succeeds, the writing fades from the scroll.⁵⁾

A reaction roll can be used to determine the sword’s initial disposition to its possessor. It may be helpful and inform its owner of its powers. It is able to use its powers on its own if it feels like it.

See Recharging.

Magic circles of protection can be drawn without the use of a spell.⁶⁾ The production and nature of these circles are presently left up to the DM for their own campaign, as no player has ever attempted this in ours. But we'll put a TODO here as something we could set up some rules for in the future.

A library must be created for spell research.⁷⁾ TODO