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BigKahuna
2016-03-13, 04:38 AM
Hi all,

I'm building a hexcrawl map based on these guidelines (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17308/roleplaying-games/hexcrawl), and I had this idea for one of the hexes that I can't quite figure it out. Basically, the hex is out in the desert and I want it to be inhabited by a Dwarven wizard who was outcast from his mountain community (because in my setting Dwarves despise arcane magic) and has built a 10 storey tower of sand to further his studies. My problem is that I'm not quite sure how arcane magic actually works so I'm not sure what he would need to further his studies.

My current idea for the tower is that he is using the top floor to work out spells and craft magic items, and the other nine floors are composed of traps of scaling difficulties. These traps aren't designed to be particularly lethal, as he is using them to acquire test subjects (whom he keeps locked in cells on the same floor where they were defeated).

So, what is the methodology behind arcane magic and how could he learn it without books or a tutor?

Inevitability
2016-03-13, 05:27 AM
In my opinion, magic is a lot like math. If you have enough time, you can rediscover every mathematical law in existence without knowing they exist beforehand. Similarly, with enough time and practice you can discover the inherent opportunities for spells that lie hidden in the laws of magic.

To illustrate my point, a 1st-level wizard who does nothing but adventure and kill monsters, never visits a library, never talks to other wizards or anything similar can still discover 9th-level spells, and the available spells are the same as the spells discovered by any other wizard.

TheFamilarRaven
2016-03-14, 04:54 PM
we talking about 3.P wizards?

If that's the case, then one important thing to think about is what school does said wizard specialize in. He could be a generalist, I suppose, but having a specialty school could add a little flavor as to what kinds of arcane studies he occupies himself with.

You said he keeps test subjects, what kinds of tests does he perform. Does he blow them up with fireballs? Mind Control. Test the potency of illusions? All of the above?

As to how he advances his knowledge without tutoring or access to magical texts, as Dire_Stirge pointed out, a wizard does not need to scribe scrolls or take lessons in order to level up. And by leveling up a wizard gets two spells automatically. You could flavor it by saying he learns magic through trial and error. He mastered the basics of Scorching Ray, now he's trying variants on that spell to create a localized burst of flame (i.e Fireball).

Magic could be the manipulation of . The "science" behind it comes from figuring out which material components work best for spells, what hand motions are needed and what words of power need to be spoken and in what order. What sort of mystic geometry needs to be drawn for summoning circles, that sort of thing.

The material component aspect is a good place to start. Some spells use silly musing as the inspiration for their component. (I.e "A penny for your thoughts", is a common expression, and the spell [I]Detect Thoughts, requires a copper piece...). But some make a little for sense, the spell Lightning Bolt requires the caster the rub a metal rod with a piece of wool, generating static... How do think people (wizards) figured that out?

Another thing to consider are other races... sure he lives out in the desert, but does that prevent him from going to other places where arcane magic is not shunned and tomes and tutors are available?

Also take into consideration, what kinds of magic items does he craft and why? Does he make golems that guard his property? Or does he make magic items and trade them in exchange for magical literature?

Tiktakkat
2016-03-14, 05:33 PM
Start here:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawsOfMagic

You can develop those in various ways.

The most common elements in D&D systems have related to the components of spells:
Law of Names/Words of Powers = Verbal components, with Power Word spells being "perfect" examples, the feats Word of Creation and Dark Speech representing ur-language contributions, and the Truenamer class trying to turn it into an overall system
Law of Association/all sub-laws = Material components, including foci, with classical alchemy being predicated on it
other = Somatic components to some extent, attempting to "manipulate" around various laws of reality to get a spell to function properly

Learning it without books or a tutor would be outrageously difficult, but theoretically possible with mundane references once he has some inkling of the base rules. It would just require an absurd amount of experimentation.

The Grue
2016-03-14, 05:55 PM
Depending on how meta you want to go, this thread might also offer some insights (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?263062-What-insights-into-the-rules-of-D-amp-D-could-a-character-gain-through-experimentation). :smallbiggrin:

Ravens_cry
2016-03-15, 01:16 AM
If you're willing to look outside 3.P, Ars Magica delves about as far into this as one can reasonably expect. Your primary character is, after all, a mage and the magic system has a noun verb freeform that, allows both improvisation and, to me, a feeling of discovery and innovation. It even solves the question of what to do when your character is doing research (which you will do a lot of) and the rest of the party wants to adventure and vice versa by giving mundanes held in common.

Slipperychicken
2016-03-16, 03:38 PM
When you have the wealth (or power) to build, defend, and maintain a ten-story tower full of deadly monsters, that typically means you can get some books or a tutor.



So, what is the methodology behind arcane magic and how could he learn it without books or a tutor?

A favorite of mine is by having supernatural help. Some corrupting figure [insert mean vaguely-magical baddie here] may have been walking through, bumped into this clever magic-sensitive dwarf with deep resentment and no social ties, and saw an opportunity in him. That being to turn the dwarf into an evil archwizard by teaching him magic while subtly corrupting his moral fiber. The dwarf did nasty things to people as part of his work (in addition to other services for the bad guy), and in exchange the supernatural evil has been teaching him the secrets of magic.

Lycanthrope13
2016-03-22, 07:00 PM
I'm gonna second the math analogy. All currently known laws and formulae could conceivably be independently discovered by a suitably gifted individual, given enough time.

I would also argue a biological component to spellcasting. There is likely a special set of traits which enables some individuals to channel magical energies through their bodies. This explains why not everyone is a caster.

I've always thought of wizards in particular as possessing relatively minor talent, and leveraging that through creative use of arcane implements and material components.

Grinner
2016-03-22, 08:16 PM
It's whatever you want it to be.

Is math your thing? Okay, go for it.

Do you want a more realistic feel? Well, then you'd have to narrow down exactly what family of traditions you'd like to base it on.

Or hey, there's books about this sort of stuff all over the place. Tear a couple pages out of Aleister Crowley's writings, mix it with some Kabbalah, garnish with a couple YouTube videos about occult science, and serve. Go nuts.

Here's an idea. Magic is like chemistry. Not in that you rearrange chemicals with it, but more like in practice. You might have a bunch of books and charts documenting theories about how different gestures, intonations, and materials interact, to varying degrees of accuracy. Then, you have to find the right set of gestures, intonations, and materials to produce a given effect, preferably without killing yourself in the process.

Âmesang
2016-03-22, 08:23 PM
Suddenly I'm picturing magic like programming. :smalltongue: Old D&D basic would be… Basic. AD&D C++? What's 3rd Edition? Java? PHP? Perl?

…though I'm not sure how that'd apply to sorcerers. Perhaps they simply bought a website design program and took to it with ease, but a wizard is the guy who took a website design class and can fully understand the source code.

goto124
2016-03-23, 12:03 AM
Nah, sorcerers are cyborgs and thus have an innate link to computers already.

Devils_Advocate
2016-03-24, 01:07 PM
I'm not quite sure how arcane magic actually works
Heh, that's the idea!

OK. So. Magic users can do things that ordinary people can't do, pretty much by definition, right? Which raises the question, how the heck do they do that special stuff that they do? Obviously they have some source of power that ordinary people lack; a power source, if you will. But what is it?

There are many possible answers to that question, and a single work of fiction can even have multiple different sources of magical power. One possible answer -- one recurring idea in myth and fantasy -- is that magic is sitting out there in the world, just waiting to be harnessed, but it can only be harnessed through the proper rituals. And some people have secret knowledge of those rituals; knowledge that ordinary people lack. That secret knowledge is their power source. :O If only you had that special secret knowledge, you would be able to cast spells, too! But you don't, you see, so you can't.

Now, that last part is actually only necessary if you want to maintain the conceit that arcane magic works in our world. If magic is sitting out there in another, different world in which the story takes place, but not in our world, because of reasons, then there's no problem with you knowing all about how wizards cast spells. Also, if casting spells is just really difficult to learn, then the knowledge of how to do so doesn't have to be all that secret. Like, if learning how to cast spells at all takes years and above-average intelligence, then the party wizard doesn't need to be a power-hungry conspirator in order not to teach the fighter to cast all of the spells that she knows; that not happening is explained by the wizard and the fighter both thinking that it's not worth the effort to try.

But the above two considerations kind of counteract each other, because together they require an author to invent a fake system of magic that doesn't actually do anything and takes years to learn in order for readers to experience what it's like for the imaginary spellcasters of a given setting. And... well, I was going to say that no one involved would be willing to bother, but writers came up with fictional Elvish and Klingon languages and people learned them so that they could communicate with fictional peoples, if they existed, which they don't, so... I guess I'm gonna go with "No one has done this yet, to my knowledge".

Now, that's not to say that writers can't rather more easily tell us some of the principles at work in how their imaginary magic functions, and indeed the writers of Dungeons & Dragons have done just that. But what we are told about arcane magic is... not promising news, for the would-be practitioner of traditional "fire and forget" Vancian style spellcasting (which is how wizards work in 3rd Edition and earlier, to my understanding). Because knowing how to cast a spell isn't just a requirement for casting it; oh, no, these things aren't nearly so easy. That knowledge is literally the price of the spell; once you actually cast it, you forget how to cast it. Oh, and if you try to preserve your idea for a spell by writing it down before testing it, then the writing disappears, and you forget how to cast the spell, although the spell does at least go off... for better or for worse.

Now, wizards have developed methods for dealing with the problems inherent in arcane magic, like writing spells in special (and expensive) ink that makes them not disappear. They've learned how to leave spells incomplete and almost cast so that they can be quickly finished at a moment's notice... most of the time. Among many other various tricks of the trade.

But, man, figuring all of that out for yourself with most of your work erasing itself from your mind over and over as you go along? That's not something that anyone short of super ultra genius is gonna figure out in one lifetime. I mean, sure, I'm sure that it's relatively easy to develop spells once you know all of the basic stuff about how arcane spellcasing works in the first place, but that basic stuff is the part that takes years to learn with a teacher! Trying to come up with all of that on your own isn't like trying to derive mathematical theorems, it's like trying to develop mathematics.

Someone could maybe figure out how to be a wizard from a wizard's partial notes that were never meant to instruct. But the process of doing so would have long ago driven him mad.

MAD! MAD, I SAY!


Suddenly I'm picturing magic like programming.
Enabling arcane magic is pretty much what computers do; they create an environment in which an arcane language translates into results. With the right knowledge, you, too, can be a computer wizard! Even if it's hard to make a spell that does exactly what you want, you should at least be able to make one that does something, which is more than can be said for most incantations.


…though I'm not sure how that'd apply to sorcerers.
Bah! Script kiddies, the lot of 'em.

Âmesang
2016-03-24, 03:19 PM
…but would I need the Scent ability to be a pinball wizard? :smallamused: