Something weird was going on in Gary's campaign that compelled him to write 20 paragraphs of rules for running sages in AD&D.
First off we have tables for determining how much knowledge your local sage has. Briefly, each sage has a major field of knowledge, say Humanoids & Giantkind. Within this major field, a sage will have 2-4 Special categories--rolled on a random table of course. So your H&G major could have a specialization in the biology and languages of Humanoids and giants.
We also learn that Sages require significant space: a useful sage must have living quarters, a library, workroom, and a study, each room to be at least 200 sf. So 800 sf at the minimum. Not terribly huge, but why must every sage have a separate study and library? And what the heck goes on in a history major's "workroom"? More importantly, why do we care? We just wanted to find out if it's true that orcs have forked penises, what do we care how big the sage's house is? Stick with me, Gary has a reason.
Next we learn about the characteristics of a sage: for instance sages roll 1d8 for their STR and add 7, which means their range is 8-15, which is actually stronger than the norm. Surprising given the sedentary nature of their labors. They also have exceptionally high Int--makes sense--and Wis--makes less sense--but shit Con and Cha--also makes sense I suppose if we're going to generalize and stereotype, 70s style.
They also have access to spells up to levels 3-6; not bad considering they are not actually members of a spell casting class. Gygax equates certain fields to certain class of spells--Nature studying sages would have druid spells, supernatural studies indicate MUs, and experts on the physical universe and/or deviant sex would have clerical spells.
Also, sages have 8d4 hit points. Not bad.
There are also rules for when PCs hire sages as employees--as opposed to just asking for a consultation. Remember those space requirements mentioned a few paragraphs ago? This is where they come into play: as an employer, you are now required to provide the sage with adequate space to ply its craft.
This raises the question of who the heck was hiring sages as permanent employees? I honestly can't fathom a reason why anyone would want to do this. Well, it wasn't spell casters because only fighters, rangers, paladins, thieves, and assassins may hire a sage as an employee. Apparently the Brotherhood of Sages (an actual thing) won't allow them to take a permanent gig with a wizard.
Further, sages will only accept permanent employment offers that are lifelong! You can't just hire a sage for a year or two or ten; once you hire a smarty-pants know-it-all sage, they're on your payroll until they kick off this mortal coil. How many sages with this arrangement end up getting murdered by their patron once they are no longer needed?
Consulting with a sage, however, is open to anyone, spell caster or not. However, Sage-work is a tiring business--sages require 1 day of relaxing and recuperating for every 3 days spent answering a question. And such employment cannot last more than a week or the sage will then be unable to answer any further questions for at least one month! How the heck did these chumps get through grad school?
All this tells us that finding expert advice was such a valuable commodity in Old Man Gygax's campaigns back in the day that he felt the need to create elaborate rules for sages dispensing knowledge. But you know what else this tells us? It tells us that somebody in Lake Geneva was gaining such an undue advantage from these sage rules and Gygax had to shut that crap down!
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