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Raunchel
2017-12-13, 01:33 PM
Quite a few roleplaying games (including DnD) have rules for researching new spells, and it also happens in a fair few settings even if there aren't any rules (see Harry Potter for instance). But one thing that I never read anything about it how researching a new spell would actually work. Not in a rules sense, but in the way of what a mage would be doing. Does anyone here have a clue or fun suggestions?

Tinkerer
2017-12-13, 01:35 PM
Do you mean completely new (as in invented) spells or researching existing spells?

Guizonde
2017-12-13, 01:45 PM
Quite a few roleplaying games (including DnD) have rules for researching new spells, and it also happens in a fair few settings even if there aren't any rules (see Harry Potter for instance). But one thing that I never read anything about it how researching a new spell would actually work. Not in a rules sense, but in the way of what a mage would be doing. Does anyone here have a clue or fun suggestions?

take it with a grain of salt, but in dnd i had a dm explain to me that being a wizard was as straightforward as nerd-wish fulfilment: delving into textbooks until you could beat up the bully that took your lunch money, but with more fireballs. so i've always imagined a wizard as more empirical than anything else. maybe involving dusting off grimoires long-forgotten or writing equations, a chalkboard with odd symbols would not be out of place either.

now, that dm was a hardcore hater of anything not wizardly. don't ask why, i don't know, and i had endless fun being a thorn in his side about it. he gathered that a sorceror had to have a certain "way" of making magic in dnd. it couldn't be via spellbooks, because that was the sacred grounds of the almighty wizard. the sorceror could think about it while playing an instrument, could conjure it up by sheer willpower (like basically how words of power work: "i want to set that guy on fire sooooo bad!! *poof* "oh, his pants caught on fire. neat".) or could even have an artistic streak, like writing poetry or painting as ways of channeling arcane energy, so long as the end goal was doable for his caster level. ultimately, the divination-oriented sorceror in our party adopted studying and creating/learning new spells by using a bowl of water and gazing at the moon's reflection in it.

since that's theoretically how new spells are learned in dnd, i'd hazard a guess at saying it works for creating brand-new ones too. if you're playing a divine caster, may i suggest asking your god really nicely?

VoxRationis
2017-12-13, 01:49 PM
To some degree, it would be expected that they would be employing something like the scientific method: based on their understanding of how magic works, they come up with a hypothesis for how to achieve the desired effect, they test the hypothesis, and then they look at what worked and what didn't in order to plan the next iteration of the process. One would imagine that the process has the potential to be both extremely expensive (from wasted components and materials of various forms) and quite dangerous; it is much easier to break something than to rebuild or alter it in a desirable way. There is just about one way to reshape your body into the form of a healthy dragon, for instance, while keeping your mind intact, and countless ways to fail horribly. I suspect most such researchers set about finding a steady supply of test subjects.

Edit: @Guizonde: Your DM was right about the wizard/sorcerer thing, at least by the book. D&D pretty firmly describes the whole "ancient grimoire" schtick as being the province of wizards, while sorcerers have almost no described connection to any such thing.

Frozen_Feet
2017-12-13, 02:18 PM
It depends on what the rules of magic actually are.

Here is one version of rules of magic and quite a bit of discussion which might answer your question. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?542746-Old-School-magic-amp-metamagic)

Long story short:

1) Magic needs the correct symbols, so a mage would be going through books, interrogating people and studying works of art to find the correct images, names, sounds or such to invoke the desired power.

2) Magic needs a proper connection, so a mage would be hunting for materials, relics etc. items of personal and spiritual signifigance to work magic with. This might involve trying to identify and ascertain origin and location of renowned items, buying or stealing them from their current owners, trying to create such connections via rituals and contracts or by living in proximity of them.

3) Magic needs proper intent and state of mind. So a mage might be chanting mantras, doing drugs, meditating, lucid dreaming, so on and so forth, to create the proper mental framework to work the magic.

4) Magic is impermanent. This is inconvenient. A lot of magical research is actually monkeying around to stall the end of the spell as long as possible, or figuring out contingencies for its inevitable failure.

Each step is obviously influenced by the desired effect. Different things may require different methods. Notably, magic is not science. "There are no accidents in magic": you cannot get a spell to work if you do not believe it will work and intent it to work. This means confirmation bias is necessary for magic where as it is harmfull for science, and by contrast skepticism harms magic-use but is necessary for science.

LibraryOgre
2017-12-13, 03:49 PM
While a lot depends on the system, for most spell magic systems (i.e. systems where spells are individually learnable things, sometimes arranged into schools or other hierarchies and categories of knowledge; these are opposed to more open systems, where spells are often "effects you create on the fly, but do often."), I think it's a matter of working from what you know.

If I want to create a fireball spell, I look at what I know about magical fire. If I don't know any magical fire spells myself, I probably have some degree of familiarity with the principles of magical fire, and how it might be created. I then spend days/weeks/months trying to build a spell that will do what I want it to, fiddling with the different parts of the formula (which would include words, gestures, material components, etc).

Vogie
2017-12-13, 04:15 PM
I think that's one of the issues with RPG systems currently. There isn't really a "learning" element in any of the systems - There's just being able to do it, versus not doing it, and that is all. I can certainly see WHY that is - as soon as you add a mini-leveling system where you have to cast the spell X times before you can reliably "get it down", and it will happen in a game precisely once before being regulated to "something done during long rests" or "I did that between play sessions". Grod's law applies.

That being said, it isn't needed for most classes, just the traditional wizard trope. Warlocks and witches gain the new things from their patron, divine casters from their diety or order, and bloodline based casters just "get it" in a grown-into-it manner. It can be redirected - for example, the "wizard" from Pathfinder occult adventures was the Occultist, who had minor psychic powers, and all of the level 1+ spells were actually UMD checks for various psychically charged artifacts on their possession.

However, there are certain elements that can show mastery of a spell - in 3.P, that'd be metamagic feats for specific spells. That's been removed in 5e by making metamagic strictly a Sorcerer thing, but also allowed for other spells to be "scaled up" over time.

I do think it'd be worthwhile to let your casters of all varieties choose a tiny number of spells to develop into "signature" spells. That signature spell could have changes to the Casting Time, Range, Components, Duration, whether or not it uses Concentration, Differences or adjustments at Higher (or lower) levels, making the spell more and more niche for that specific caster.

This could allow them to gain access to scaled-down versions of spells they won't gain until later as well. A signature multi-use spell could be cast at lower level for only one of the effects, or scaled down damage spell would have less damage, or turn into a save/suck spell.

Lord Torath
2017-12-13, 04:44 PM
I think Durkon does a pretty good job of doing what I imagine spell research to be like here: Making up for Lost Time (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0750.html).

You research similar spells and effects, make changes you think will make the spell do what you want ti to do, try it out, then go back and make more changes until it does what you want it to do. Expensive, time-consuming, and possibly dangerous (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0970.html).

Avigor
2017-12-13, 07:51 PM
My favorite method is that seen in The Arithmancer/ Lady Archimedes fanfics: basically, spells can be broken down into mathematical equations, and you can use a desired result to figure out how to create a mathematical equation (aka a spell) that gives said result, and deriving from an existing spell with a similar end result can speed things up. Hermione even reverse engineered Avada Kedavra in it lol, after confirming that this fic's version was neuron fryer instead of say a soul flayer or something.

PhoenixPhyre
2017-12-13, 08:02 PM
Oddly enough, I'm much more willing to allow non-prepared casters (sorcerers and warlocks especially) develop new spells than prepared casters, with wizards and clerics at the bottom of the list. That's because of how I see them (note this it 5e)--

Bards put together pastiches of things they've seen/heard--they're the magical magpies.

Clerics feel the will of their deity and become living channels for deific power. This leaves them somewhat poor at coming up with totally new things, except the clerics of innovation-loving deities. And (in personal canon) those tend toward the mechanical/magitek rather than the pure magical.

Druids and rangers are like clerics, except that they make contracts with local spirits instead of channeling the power of a single deity. They can adapt to the local circumstances, but think less in terms of research--they're too tied to what the spirits offer.

Paladins are self-limiting. Only the narrow range of effects that they believe fit with their Oath can be cast, as they create magic by sheer stubbornness and confidence.

Sorcerers respond to the magic in their blood--each one is unique. So coming up with a new resonance that only they can create makes sense. This is likely to be a highly thematic spell.

Warlocks gather and assemble bits and pieces of forbidden knowledge, including from their Patrons. This lends itself to highly thematic new spells.

Wizards are less arcane researchers than black-box magic users. They know that this particular pattern creates a spell, but can't necessarily extrapolate. Not to mention that systematic research tends to be dangerous--mispronouncing a word can cause unpredictable effects up to and including nasal demons. As a result, they tend to look for proven formulas discovered by others rather than coming up with their own. The ones that do are the ones we remember--the Aganazzars, the Mordenkainens, etc.

Darth Ultron
2017-12-13, 11:09 PM
I always have had the idea that a spellcaster can tap and use magical energy at will....but not in any effective way without actually casting a spell.

With the right gesture, thought, materials, and such a spellcaster can make magic happen...but the trick is for a spellcaster to find the right combination of such things to make an effective spell.

Part of this is based on known magic theory, but a lot of it is just trial and error.

For example, a spellcaster knows that spread fingers is the gesture that can produce magical fire...but they still need to find just the right spread to make just the right amount of fire and make the wanted spell effect.

icefractal
2017-12-14, 12:55 PM
For D&D in particular, the question arises - what is the researcher spending gold on? It can't just be the normal components, because not all spells have those, and while it could sometimes be grimoures, that doesn't work for the isolated Wizard - one of the more likely cases to be doing research.

So here's two possibilities -

1) Magic Dust. Or Thaumo-reactive unreified matter, to use the proper name. While researching a spell, most Wizards go through hundreds of intermediary versions trying to get the exact right effect. You /could/ test these the normal way, by preparing them - but - imagine trying to write a program that you can only compile once a day, and where a syntax error might set your house on fire. So instead, they use this dust. It's extremely reactive to any magic, so even going through the motions of casting with no power behind it will cause it to mimic a very weak version of the spell's effects. Makes research much faster and safer. Implies that you can do research for free if you take 10x as long and risk magical mishaps during the process, which I'm fine with. 😝

2) All spells start out with expensive components. It's only through refining / optimizing of an almost-final spell that the need can be eliminated or cheaper substitutes can be found.

PhoenixPhyre
2017-12-14, 01:11 PM
For D&D in particular, the question arises - what is the researcher spending gold on? It can't just be the normal components, because not all spells have those, and while it could sometimes be grimoures, that doesn't work for the isolated Wizard - one of the more likely cases to be doing research.

So here's two possibilities -

1) Magic Dust. Or Thaumo-reactive unreified matter, to use the proper name. While researching a spell, most Wizards go through hundreds of intermediary versions trying to get the exact right effect. You /could/ test these the normal way, by preparing them - but - imagine trying to write a program that you can only compile once a day, and where a syntax error might set your house on fire. So instead, they use this dust. It's extremely reactive to any magic, so even going through the motions of casting with no power behind it will cause it to mimic a very weak version of the spell's effects. Makes research much faster and safer. Implies that you can do research for free if you take 10x as long and risk magical mishaps during the process, which I'm fine with. 😝

2) All spells start out with expensive components. It's only through refining / optimizing of an almost-final spell that the need can be eliminated or cheaper substitutes can be found.

Another possibility--repairs. I'm of the belief that researching a new spell (especially if it's something unique rather than a tweak to an existing one) is a strongly hazardous enterprise, especially to things like walls, furniture, and servants.

ayvango
2017-12-14, 02:07 PM
Mages employ ML to acquire new spells. They encode neural networks with specific symbols and diagrams, then use their magic potential to send waves of force back and forth trough the diagrams, morphing them representing changes in hidden weights. After the neural network is trained enough it operates similar to what a mage intended to achieve. That symbols become new spell he could memorise in his spell book.

Similar magic effects could be achieved with completely different diagrams since ML is just unpredictable random stuff which could be comprehended by no human. They only could copy successful schemes and pass to their fellows as is.

Loxagn
2017-12-14, 02:14 PM
I've always viewed it as the following:

Arcane Magic
Wizardry is like programming. You have to use a special language that takes multiple inputs in the form of verbal and somatic components, spelling out exactly what you want the magic to do. It's possible to do magic without these, but you have to specifically alter the spell in question to 'run' without those components. A material component is often needed, as well, because the material component has magical resonance with the spell's effect, and wizards themselves have no such resonance. The language used may not always make sense to a nonwizard, any more than "public static void main(String[] args)" would make sense to a non-programmer, but an experienced wizard can see what's what. In a very real sense, this is the source of difficulty involved in copying spells from other Wizards; most of the time is spent sorting through the code and adjusting to that other wizard's 'style' of coding, and heaven help you if they haven't included comments! The reagents used, too, are a sort of compiler, telling you ahead of time that the spell will function as advertised, and no wizard is going to use a spell they haven't compiled and doublechecked properly, since in magical accidents sometimes horrible death is the best-case scenario.

Sorcery is like Wizardry, but instead of the programmer, Sorcerers are the platform. A sorcerer, in essence, 'downloads' spells and runs them as he pleases; he doesn't need material components either, because he has the necessary resonance to make the spell run without them. For a sorcerer, spell research is mostly trial and error, with the reagents of spell research being spent, primarily, on similar substances to the Wizard, but where the Wizard's approach is methodical and reasonable, the Sorcerer's is much more forceful. They tell the magic what they want done, and through sheer force of personality kludge it together until it works, godsdammit.

Bardic Magic is nothing at all like Wizardry and Sorcery. It's more akin to composing a few measures of a song, and it takes a solid grounding in musical theory because in a Bard's hands, every note struck builds resonance until, finally, the resonance reaches the point at which it finally releases, producing the Melody. Bards who want to research spells spend many nights tearing their hair out, scribbling notes on parchment and humming them under their breath before finally cursing, crossing the whole page out, and throwing it in the wastepaper basket only to start again. The Melody has to sound perfect, even the slightest dissonance will foul the whole thing up.

Truenaming is like Wizardry and Sorcery, only it's so much more incomprehensible, even to Wizards. Instead of doing things through a programming language, they screech a string of binary at the universe, which interprets that as instructions, and does what it's told. Researching an Utterance is like trying to translate a sentence into binary; it's time-consuming and will probably produce nothing but garbage if you get it wrong.

Following the programming metaphor, Warlocking is akin to having been given a platform, but it comes with several programs pre-installed and your manufacturer won't give you the privileges to install more. Expect to spend hours burning arcane reagents on navigating your patron's byzantine tech support line and, finally, getting through to a representative and telling them what you want. And even if they give it to you, it's probably not going to be exactly what you want but your manufacturer's brand version of the same. It's a bit like owning a Mac in that way.


Divine Magic is a lot more esoteric. You need the words of power, usually, but for the most part all you need is permission. Spell research time is spent in quiet prayer or meditation, beseeching your god for the power to do a thing you normally couldn't. And gods sometimes aren't used to producing certain magical effects, either; your patron might have to give someone else in the pantheon a prod to see if they can't puzzle through it. Sometimes your god's just too busy to bother, so you're just going to have to wait on that Divine version of Prestidigitation. Of course, once they've worked out what you want, when you're doing your morning prayer you can just ask for your usual and they'll know what you mean.

Jay R
2017-12-14, 03:59 PM
In Chivalry and Sorcery, a low-level alchemist must study each plant's magical abilities, and then each metal and each gem, before beginning to create new items.

Beyond that, if I were a D&D wizard trying to research a new sonic spell, I'd spend time casting the sonic spells I knew, investigating how they actually work. They I might try different spell components, and see what effect they had. How does this gesture affect it, and what do I learn from that? Why does this spell take more time to cast, and what does that tell me about how magic works? How does metamagic actually modify a spell? Is there some useful metamagic I could use here?

But the real answer is that the researching wizard knows more about magic than I do, so I probably don't know what she's doing, just as most people don't know what I'm doing when I'm trying to prove a new math theorem.

Nifft
2017-12-14, 09:10 PM
Quite a few roleplaying games (including DnD) have rules for researching new spells, and it also happens in a fair few settings even if there aren't any rules (see Harry Potter for instance). But one thing that I never read anything about it how researching a new spell would actually work. Not in a rules sense, but in the way of what a mage would be doing. Does anyone here have a clue or fun suggestions?

DM: "Okay, you guys now have a few months of downtime here on the demiplane of elemental lightning-kittens. If you want to do spell research involving lightning, demi-planes, or kittens, then this is a great time to start. Or you could go home and do downtime stuff there."

PhoenixPhyre
2017-12-14, 09:28 PM
DM: "Okay, you guys now have a few months of downtime here on the demiplane of elemental lightning-kittens. If you want to do spell research involving lightning, demi-planes, or kittens, then this is a great time to start. Or you could go home and do downtime stuff there."

That sounds like a fun (albeit shocking) sort of demiplane. I'm sure the designer must have had a...peculiar...sense of humor for that one.

Tyrrell
2017-12-14, 10:54 PM
This is so very game system dependent.

I remember my shadowrun mages camping out in their magic circles with their hermetic libraries on their "laptops". This would imply that researching required both lore and a magical environment, he could be aided in his effort by an elemental but the game was never explicit in what it was doing to help me. The Shamans and the other traditions all had somewhat different but largely similar requirements.

My Ars Magica characters hang out in their laboratories. They get bonuses for different equipment and features of their labs which suggests that learning a formulaic spell is aided by environments sympathetic to the themes of their spells and by cool lab gear. It is also based on their arts and the magical aura which indicates that casting spontaneous spells is a part of the process, (backed up by the restriction from receiving a bonus to a laboratory characteristic based on spontaneous or ritual magic - apparently it's already part of your lab total).

My L5R characters never were able to research spells and my Mage the Ascension characters didn't need to.

Jay R
2017-12-15, 10:42 AM
DM: "Okay, you guys now have a few months of downtime here on the demiplane of elemental lightning-kittens. If you want to do spell research involving lightning, demi-planes, or kittens, then this is a great time to start. Or you could go home and do downtime stuff there."

I am so going to research Summon lightning-kitten elemental.

Glorthindel
2017-12-15, 10:58 AM
The one time I created a spell of my own in a campaign, the DM and I agreed an amount of downtime required, and a "value" of gp expense required in research. Because I intended to research multiple spells over my characters career, he agreed that a % of the expense spent in the first research would be on purchasing books, and reusable lab equipment, which, assuming I could provide a storage location for them, could then be reused in later research.

Velaryon
2017-12-15, 11:16 AM
Back when my 3.5 game was more episodic in nature and my PC's were low level, one of them was hired to be a live test subject for an NPC wizard's spell research. This mostly involved him getting the spell cast on him repeatedly (with the occasional misfire and humorous side effect), then afterward he was healed up and paid for his trouble.

The whole thing is pretty abstract, but if I were inclined to detail it out, I would have the spell research process start off with lots of browsing tomes, doing theoretical calculations, and testing different components in the lab, then moving on to field-testing the spell under controlled conditions until it works. The rules specify how long it takes to research a spell and how much it costs, so what specifically that entails really just comes down to how much detail you want to roleplay out.