Taking Level 1 of Wizard Mid-Adventure

[backwaterj]

So, interestingly enough, I've never run into this conundrum in my history of gaming, and it's finally popped its head (with a friend's character) and is threatening to do so again (with my own).

Namely: if you take your first level of wizard in the middle of adventuring, what happens with spellbooks?

Obviously you need one. My question pertains to spells in said book. The wizard class description states: "A wizard starts play with a spellbook containing all 0-level spells . . . plus three first level spells of your choice" plus bonus for Intelligence of course. This seems to imply a first level character who has been studying "off-camera" for a while.

Would this count as "spells for free at each new level" per the section on adding spells to spellbooks (negating the time and gold to learn)? And what happens when the potential wizard does not have a spellbook until after the fact? It strains my suspension of disbelief to think all those spells just appear overnight.

[Milodiah]

Personally, since the book kind of phrases it like "wizard spellbooks start off with all 0-level spells" I've always assumed they were sold as such, so any spellbook you bought came with them as a foreword or something.

The second part I do agree with you, though. I think that if the wizard doesn't start off as a wizard, he should have to actually go out of his way to learn those 1st level spells from someone/somewhere; if it helps, I personally don't let people multiclass into wizard unless that happens. I mean, sorcerers manifest magical powers (around puberty, according to the fluff, but still...eh...I guess multiclassing into sorcerer could be described as just being a late bloomer), but wizards learn them from an instructor. Therefore, if there ain't an instructor around, you ain't gonna become a wizard anytime soon. If he does it in a larger settlement with a resident wizard who can provide tutoring, I'd allow it. But if he's standing in the middle of the road, dings, and then some bolt of mindlightning comes out of the sky and hits him in the head with about seven spells' worth of wizardliness, then no, isn't going to happen.

[bjoern]

I've always considered gaining a level to not simply be...
BAM
now I'm a level 4 fighter

I've always thought it to be like

I'm 3rd level fighter working on 1st level wizard.

Looking at it this way allows the character to "train" in the background during the whole time he level 3. Gaining any stuff like training manuals, volumes he may need to become a level 1 in the new class.

Really a level 1 wizards grasp of magic is pretty limited. I'd believe that a mid level, experienced player could teach himself to be a level 1 wizard making cantrips and mage armor by using texts over the course of the whole level prior.

[Milodiah]

I've always considered gaining a level to not simply be...
BAM
now I'm a level 4 fighter

I've always thought it to be like

I'm 3rd level fighter working on 1st level wizard.

Looking at it this way allows the character to "train" in the background during the whole time he level 3. Gaining any stuff he may need to become a level 1 in the new class.

That's actually an interesting and valid perspective.

It might not have been what you meant exactly, but I think I'll make them declare their next level choice at the beginning of XP-gathering, rather than the end. So it avoids the whole 'retroactively assumed I've been looking over your shoulder' thing.

[bjoern]

That's actually an interesting and valid perspective.

It might not have been what you meant exactly, but I think I'll make them declare their next level choice at the beginning of XP-gathering, rather than the end. So it avoids the whole 'retroactively assumed I've been looking over your shoulder' thing.

I've always played it that way. Under every DM, GM, and while it was GMing. If a player wanted to change classes from their base one, they needed to say so as soon as they attained the level prior. That way they and the DM could hash out any prerequirements,quests (not usually), and discuss what background activities the player would have to be doing during downtime and what it would cost.
This is kind of a courtesy also so the DM isn't blindsided by a player who does a 180 on their build and messes up his whole campaign.

[backwaterj]

I've always played it that way. Under every DM, GM, and while it was GMing. If a player wanted to change classes from their base one, they needed to say so as soon as they attained the level prior. That way they and the DM could hash out any prerequirements,quests (not usually), and discuss what background activities the player would have to be doing during downtime and what it would cost.
This is kind of a courtesy also so the DM isn't blindsided by a player who does a 180 on their build and messes up his whole campaign.

This group has been pretty open about character leveling goals in general, though my friend's choice to make his lizardfolk cleric suddenly a wizard caught me off guard. Sort of makes sense though since she's the scholarly sort. I'm playing my duskblade as researching her way into it, carefully studying any scrolls or spellbooks (or indeed anything magical) the party comes across and writing her findings in the book (which, yes, was purchased as an actual spellbook). Given a few filler levels I think that's more than reasonable.

[Milodiah]

It does also help that the person is a cleric. They're scholarly types rather like wizards, who understand the concepts of intensive studying of magical phenomena, even if they do pray for their spells rather than learn them. Plus divine magic and arcane magic are much closer to each other than, say, arcane magic and hitting a dude in the face with a sword until he falls over dead.

[Fax Celestis]

Personally, since the book kind of phrases it like "wizard spellbooks start off with all 0-level spells" I've always assumed they were sold as such, so any spellbook you bought came with them as a foreword or something.

The second part I do agree with you, though. I think that if the wizard doesn't start off as a wizard, he should have to actually go out of his way to learn those 1st level spells from someone/somewhere; if it helps, I personally don't let people multiclass into wizard unless that happens. I mean, sorcerers manifest magical powers (around puberty, according to the fluff, but still...eh...I guess multiclassing into sorcerer could be described as just being a late bloomer), but wizards learn them from an instructor. Therefore, if there ain't an instructor around, you ain't gonna become a wizard anytime soon. If he does it in a larger settlement with a resident wizard who can provide tutoring, I'd allow it. But if he's standing in the middle of the road, dings, and then some bolt of mindlightning comes out of the sky and hits him in the head with about seven spells' worth of wizardliness, then no, isn't going to happen.

According to what, exactly?

[Milodiah]

"A wizard must study her spellbook each day to prepare her spells...She cannot prepare any spell not recorded in her spellbook, except for read magic, which all wizards can prepare from memory. A wizard begins play with a spellbook containing all 0-level wizard spells."

Player's Handbook, page 57

[backwaterj]

Right, the question here being whether "begins play" applies when you're nowhere near a town and accustomed to bashing things on the head.

I'm inclined to think that as long as there's reasonable backstory supporting it (character purchased a spellbook, has been studying magic) that taking that first wizard level should give you at least a headstart to learning the requisite number of spells. Though our other DM did rule that the cleric had to spend 24 hours per spell to learn them.

[Fax Celestis]

"A wizard must study her spellbook each day to prepare her spells...She cannot prepare any spell not recorded in her spellbook, except for read magic, which all wizards can prepare from memory. A wizard begins play with a spellbook containing all 0-level wizard spells."

Player's Handbook, page 57

You're still not showing me the part where it says they're all college educated bespectacled Gandalf ripoffs.

[Milodiah]

You're still not showing me the part where it says they're all college educated bespectacled Gandalf ripoffs.

"A few unintelligible words and fleeting gestures carry more power than a battleaxe, when they are the words and gestures of a wizard. These simple acts make magic seem easy, but they only hint at the time the wizard must spend poring over her spellbook preparing each spell for casting, and the years before that spent in apprenticeship to learn the arts of magic. Wizards depend on intensive study to create their magic. They examine musty old tomes, debate magical theory with their peers, and practice minor magics whenever they can. For a wizard, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art."

Two pages earlier, Player's Handbook

Sorry, I misunderstood what you wanted evidence for.

[Fax Celestis]

Now find me the part in the DMG where it says fluff is malleable.

Just because the book describes the archetypal version of something does not mean everything is that way.

[torrasque666]

Now find me the part in the DMG where it says fluff is malleable.

Just because the book describes the archetypal version of something does not mean everything is that way.

So how do they learn this kind of magic without an instructor then? I could buy someone becoming a Wizard after studying under a Sorcerer, but just randomly grabbing a book and scratching down spells? Tough sell.

[Owl Prowler]

Obtaining the spellbook isn't too difficult to fluff. You could just say the wizard's first act of magic is conjuring up a book to write spells in. If your players are such powergamers that they try to abuse this ability by creating unlimited spellbooks to crush their enemies/climb out of pit traps, slap them.

[Fax Celestis]

"Hey guys, I found this awesome book that when I read out of it a certain way, stuff happens! What? What do you mean you can't read it...? Look, this one..." *pop* "uh, well. I guess you're just purple now. Uh. Lemme see if I can fix that..." *pages through book quickly*

[Fax Celestis]

"Strange beings visited me last night and gave me a book. Said only my superior intellect could understand."

Or Faustian ritual. Or hidden talent. Or any number of things.

[Milodiah]

"Strange beings visited me last night and gave me a book. Said only my superior intellect could understand."

Or Faustian ritual. Or hidden talent. Or any number of things.

Instructor, instructor, sorcerer and not wizard are the three things I just heard.

Basically, wizard magic is like calculus. Doesn't matter how naturally inclined you are towards math, you're not going to ever figure it out in your lifetime without some outside assistance.

[Fax Celestis]

According to two pages of text about the archetypical version of members of the class. No one plays atypical characters in your games?

Barbarians all get angry and can't do something like enter a state of trance or tap into lycanthropic heritage? Rogues are all sneakthieves, trappers, and second-story men--no thugs, graverobbers, alchemists, snipers, linguists, or con men? Every sorcerer has draconic blood? Not an arcane college dropout? Faustian pact user? Fey lineage? Battle mage?

What a small, narrow world you must play in.

For a game about imagination, you certainly aren't allowing much to be used. As long as the mechanics are unaltered, who gives a damn if my wizard attended college, sold his soul, has a symbiotic creature that he has an agreement with, or even just is smart enough to know how to break physics (and carries around a book of notes so esoteric, no one else even understands what it says)? Mechanics are not fluff, and fluff is not mechanics.

[Owl Prowler]

Basically, wizard magic is like calculus. Doesn't matter how naturally inclined you are towards math, you're not going to ever figure it out in your lifetime without some outside assistance.

Didn't Newton do, like, exactly that?

[torrasque666]

Didn't Newton do, like, exactly that?

Bits and pieces, yes. And he still didn't fully understand it. Hell, we still don't really understand it. We're still finding new proofs and invalidating old ones.

[Milodiah]

Since we're at that point in the discussion where ad-hominem attacks are being made on my creativity and openmindedness, I suppose there's no point in even trying anymore.

I'd just like to emphasize the wizard has to learn it somewhere, and you learn things by being taught things. Magic is one of those things that is so complex that guesswork won't get you anywhere in an average mortal's lifetime, like calculus, someone/thing had to have given you the information. Otherwise you quite literally fit the description of a sorcerer, and I know for a goddamn fact that sorcerers =/= wizards.

[Fax Celestis]

No he really doesn't.

[Milodiah]

Didn't Newton do, like, exactly that?


Newton didn't invent math. Newton was a visionary who furthered math more than almost anyone else, but he certainly didn't invent counting, then invent addition and subtraction, then invent everything else that leads all the way up to differential calculus all by himself. Which is what someone learning to do magic ALL BY THEMSELVES without being an inborn sorcerer would be doing the equivalent of.

[Fax Celestis]

Newton didn't invent math. Newton was a visionary who furthered math more than almost anyone else, but he certainly didn't invent counting, then invent addition and subtraction, then invent everything else that leads all the way up to differential calculus all by himself. Which is what someone learning to do magic ALL BY THEMSELVES without being an inborn sorcerer would be doing the equivalent of.

According to...?

[Milodiah]

The basic design and concept of wizards, who after years or even decades of study have yet to fully memorize the complexities of spellcasting. Who need entire pages of instructions carefully copied into their manuals to operate a spell properly. Who need to forego most forms of martial training and other physical abilities in order to figure out spellcasting.

[Fax Celestis]

Basically you're saying you're ok with people spontaneously manifesting spellcasting ability, but god forbid they write it down or be intelligent!

[Marlowe]

If wizards always need training and "outside assistance" to become wizards, then where did the first wizard come from?

[Milodiah]

Basically you're saying you're ok with people spontaneously manifesting spellcasting ability,

I don't even know what you're talking about anymore, and I'm beginning to suspect you don't either. Sorcerers =/= wizards, full stop. They are two entirely different things, according to every single inch of the fluff, sorcerer magic functioning entirely through heredity. Doesn't make a scrap of sense when analyzed this close with the microscope, but go yell at WoTC for that one. Anyone who's NOT a sorcerer does not get access to that, thus the wizard.


But god forbid they write it down or be intelligent!

The fact that you've been missing every post I make, judging by this, makes me want to just stop trying, which would be the wiser thing. Clearly we've just got almost impossibly diametric thoughts on how all of magic works, and there's no way to bridge that.

[torrasque666]

If wizards always need training and "outside assistance" to become wizards, then where did the first wizard come from?

Sorcerer's student.

[Fax Celestis]

I am trying to show you that you can literally take 100% of the fluff they write before the class and throw it away and the game will still work. And as a game it is about having fun. Using such a narrow view of magic lessens the potential different kinds of characters you can have in a game, which means there are less ways to have fun. Yes, you definitely can have fun with the Dumbledore clone presented in the PHB, but you can also have fun with any of the alternatives I've brought up here.

There is absolutely, positively, no reason to treat the fluff text attached to a class as some sort of holy text.

[Milodiah]

I am trying to show you that you can literally take 100% of the fluff they write before the class and throw it away and the game will still work. And as a game it is about having fun. Using such a narrow view of magic lessens the potential different kinds of characters you can have in a game, which means there are less ways to have fun. Yes, you definitely can have fun with the Dumbledore clone presented in the PHB, but you can also have fun with any of the alternatives I've brought up here.

There is absolutely, positively, no reason to treat the fluff text attached to a class as some sort of holy text.

There are several alternatives, and you've become fixated on a singular word I've said in the past, tried (and succeeded) to drag me into a drawn-out argument on the subject, and accomplished nothing overall.

There are hundreds of different ways a wizard can learn his spells. But he's got to learn them from somewhere, or he's just a sorcerer.

[Fax Celestis]

Why is it so hard for you to believe that someone who is so smart they can tell the universe to sit down and shut up can also invent spells that just happen to work like those presented in the PHB?

[Milodiah]

Why is it so hard for you to believe that someone who is so smart they can tell the universe to sit down and shut up can also invent spells that just happen to work like those presented in the PHB?

How did they learn to invent those spells, exactly? What you're saying is that a (non-magical) man standing in the street suddenly becomes a wizard and starts inventing spells on the spot. If it isn't what you're saying, then you need to say more, because what has been said reads exactly like that.

[Fax Celestis]

Trial and error, just like anyone else who invents something. And look, he even has this huge book of notes!

[Milodiah]

Trial and error, just like anyone else who invents something. And look, he even has this huge book of notes!

If you affix "for decades", I'll grudgingly accept this.

[Fax Celestis]

How did they learn to invent those spells, exactly? What you're saying is that a (non-magical) man standing in the street suddenly becomes a wizard and starts inventing spells on the spot. If it isn't what you're saying, then you need to say more, because what has been said reads exactly like that.

This is a universe where gods walk the earth, dragons feast upon the living, the dead walk (and occasionally have jobs!), and men can rub some bat guano together to make explosions. Is it so hard to consider that something just clicks? That he's struck by a spark of inspiration and suddenly everything makes sense?

[backwaterj]

Can the OP call a truce here? Since I think you're both saying the same thing different ways loudly at each other?

Yes, there is a difference between sorcerer and wizard magic, so fundamental a difference that they use a different aspect of their personality (Charisma vs. Intelligence) to access it. That doesn't mean that the only way to learn wizardry is to "study under Gandalf" any more than the only way to learn calculus is to attend college. Some people are self-motivated learners, and, y'know, books are a thing. :smallwink:

That said, the issue at hand is suddenly "becoming studied in the arcane arts" without actually having studied the arcane arts. I think it needs at least a little backstory, even if it's mostly "off-camera".

[Milodiah]

Right, the topic. Sorry.

[backwaterj]

Apology accepted. :smallsmile:

And let me say, I do appreciate your informed opinions about this. It's one of those issues without an easy answer, so I'm sure you could ask five people and get ten different solutions.

[otakumick]

I just want to say, self taught wizard(or more accurately epiphany wizard boom flash of light inside the brain "I know a new spell, cool") Nikola Tesla. Wizard who learns by rote and/or steals ideas(spells) from others, that Thomas "Lets kill elephants to discredit Tesla" Edison.

[bjoern]

Just like the reds apple ale commercial.

A guys walking along and someone zings a spell book at his head.

*SMACK*

thinks about it

"I know magic"

Or kung fu, depending on which reference is more suitable.

[satcharna]

I'd personally go the OotS route and imply that the character has been sneaking peeks at the party wizard or whomever fits the idea most.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0126.html

[JusticeZero]

My annoyance was with other classes. Someone once randomly killed a goblin we'd captured and announced that he was taking an Assassin level, for instance.

[Milodiah]

My annoyance was with other classes. Someone once randomly killed a goblin we'd captured and announced that he was taking an Assassin level, for instance.


As in, summarily executed? I know it's (sort of) not the point, but I wouldn't be giving him XP that would bump him up a level for killing a prisoner...

[Fax Celestis]

As in, summarily executed? I know it's (sort of) not the point, but I wouldn't be giving him XP that would bump him up a level for killing a prisoner...

No, but "murdering someone explicitly to become an assassin" is a prereq for the Assassin PrC that people tend to forget about.

[Milodiah]

No, but "murdering someone explicitly to become an assassin" is a prereq for the Assassin PrC that people tend to forget about.

Ah, right, thanks. If everything else was in order, I suppose it's permissible...especially if he happens to be practically straight rogue, which is kind of the fast-track to Assassin for most people. I mean, in-character at least, it isn't that much a leap to make.

[satcharna]

It's up to the GM to interpret that, and I'd argue that executing prisoners isn't exactly qualifying for an assassin. Unless he's getting paid for it, of course. Better would be to ask him to discuss it with the GM first, so he can actually be hired to assassinate someone to qualify for that assassin level.

[Milodiah]

It's up to the GM to interpret that, and I'd argue that executing prisoners isn't exactly qualifying for an assassin. Unless he's getting paid for it, of course. Better would be to ask him to discuss it with the GM first, so he can actually be hired to assassinate someone to qualify for that assassin level.

It's not that you're being hired to be an assassin for your first kill, it's that you demonstrate the will to kill in cold blood to become an assassin. After all, who would hire someone who wasn't an assassin to be an assassin if they could just hire an already-qualified assassin?

[satcharna]

It's not that you're being hired to be an assassin for your first kill, it's that you demonstrate the will to kill in cold blood to become an assassin. After all, who would hire someone who wasn't an assassin to be an assassin if they could just hire an already-qualified assassin?From my knowledge of the area, there's nothing that says you, as the GM, isn't allowed to prefer that a player helps you set up something that ends in a better story than "I stab this commoner so I can arbitrarily get an extra dice of sneak attack".

[Milodiah]

From my knowledge of the area, there's nothing that says you, as the GM, isn't allowed to prefer that a player helps you set up something that ends in a better story than "I stab this commoner so I can arbitrarily get an extra dice of sneak attack".

That's not what I said, I was just pointing out how the class works and the reasoning behind why its prerequisites are "kill in cold blood". Which is entirely fluff, as I'll point out.

[JusticeZero]

I'd always considered it "hoops to jump through before a trainer will talk to you" personally. And being paid for the killing invalidates it, oddly enough.

[satcharna]

I'd always considered it "hoops to jump through before a trainer will talk to you" personally. And being paid for the killing invalidates it, oddly enough.
The character must kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassins.I'd argue that a payment in this case (assuming a guild of assassins exists, and is necessary for the training of assassins) is well in line with the prerequisite. The payment could very well simply be admittance to the guild of assassins, much like the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim.
Even without a guild of assassins a payment makes sense. An assassin is someone who kills for money, the prerequisite for taking up the class would to me be justified as being heartless enough to kill for money.

[Segev]

Yeah, fluff it however you want, and you may reasonably require that a wizard buy his first spellbook (the physical book, in the same sense that a fighter must pay for his sword and armor), but the spells his class "comes with" are truly free with joining the class and leveling up. Again, fluff how you came to have this spellbook around however you like.

Heck, if you want to, you can claim you've been writing notes on your arms and torso or something (there are rules in C.Arcane for tattoo-spellbooks).

[backwaterj]

That is an excellent point, though I don't think either of these particular wizards-to-be would take that route. The cleric in question actually had the party mage pick one up on a teleport back to town.


Just like the reds apple ale commercial.

A guys walking along and someone zings a spell book at his head.

*SMACK*

thinks about it

"I know magic"

Or kung fu, depending on which reference is more suitable.

Mind if I sig this? :smallbiggrin:

[bjoern]

That is an excellent point, though I don't think either of these particular wizards-to-be would take that route. The cleric in question actually had the party mage pick one up on a teleport back to town.



Mind if I sig this? :smallbiggrin:

Lol sure. Those things crack me up.

[Yogibear41]

Nothing in the rules about it, but you shouldn't be able to just say bam, I'm a wizard now. It would be like taking a kid off the street giving him a guitar and expecting him to be able to play it. In the game I play in depending on your original class, it can take years to learn a new one. Now suddenly taking a level in fighter when you were already a barbarian? pretty easy to do. But becoming a wizard when your character was only a barbarian a week ago? Not so much.

[waccio]

Must be part of the roleplay. I had the same issue with one of my player (fighter), so i let him take the path. Hurray!! you are a lvl 1 wizard born in the middle of a dungeon. Spellbook? try to get one here. Spells? try to find them too! As for the ingame motivation, quite clear: ex-mercenarie, friendly bond with previous wizards. Keeps 1 scroll in his inventory, wasting hours of his time trying to decipher. enogh reason to become a wiz.

[KingSmitty]

Imo it really depends on the backstory. Maybe his dad was a wizard but he really wanted to grow up and be a fighter. After trying that for a while he decided to follow the family business. Since daddy showed him a few tticks when he was little he may nor have had to go to hogwarts and learn.

Its really not a big deal, just force them to have no 1st level spells if it sounds cheaty. Though anything but what they start with in the handbook falls under houseruling, and since houseruling = opinion, everyone has their own which is gonna be different than everyone else's .


And there are people who can just look at a calculus book and have an expert understanding of it. There arent many of them due to low reproduction rate of math geeks.

[Pan151]

Character in question was always interested in magic, and often took some time here and there to look up magic lore and basic theories of spellcraft. It was for the most part just a hobby, until a couple weeks ago he decided to give it a try in practice, and after a bit of experimentation found out he actually had some talent for it.

No he didn't mention any of this until the day he took his first level of Wizard. He is also not gonna mention his inclination towards Illithid erotica either, until the day he gets his first level of Aberrant Mangaka .

There, done.

PS. The main problem is that the books try to fluff out 1st level characters as having had years of experience in their craft, when in practice they are just incompetent rookies that can be outclassed by a swarm of angry cats. Plus, if wizard 1 -> wizard 5 can be easilly achieved within a few weeks of fairly conservative adventuring, I don't buy that aristocrat 1 -> wizard 1 takes years of study...

[backwaterj]

Yeah, it's problematic. My usual solution (for wizard anyway) is to assume at level 1 you fall squarely into the "apprentice" category, and not a very powerful one at that.

Both of the characters in question are very well studied in the arcane: the duskblade is an Intelligence caster arcanist whose text mentions wizard specifically as the closest pure caster, and besides she's Deep Imaskari, which means wizardry has more or less been drilled into her since kindergarten.