If you were a wizard in a fantasy land, what would your research be?

[S@tanicoaldo]

So, after years of intense study and dedication, after slaying countless mystical creatures and exploring alien and supernatural realms you have done it.

You are now a level 20 wizard with a lot of magical power at your disposal.

Now that you have reached this point, what do you plan to do? You have your own lab in your own secluded tower.

What is you research about? What do you plan to achieve?

To reach immortality? To gain eternal youth? To create unflawed original life? To ascend to godhood, or to achieve inconceivable mastery of magic, which may be the same? To catalogue the histories of your past selves or past influences? To travel through time? To restore a lost species or specimen to life? To discover the hidden name(s) and bindings of a certain significant extra dimensional entity? To catalogue a variety of mystical creatures? To transfer yourself via portal to another planet or domain? To divest yourself of some unwanted element of your identity, history, or psyche? To invest yourself or a portion of yourself into a magically receptive device or construct? To take on a form or identity significantly unlike yourself?

What's your plan?

[Winter_Wolf]

"Things that go BOOM". Explosions are fun. Hey, even a wizard-20 needs a hobby. Bigger and better magical nukes. Start with planet destroyers, then solar system destroyers. Eventually while galaxies worth of destruction.

[Vitruviansquid]

I guess I'd research how to ascend.

Man, wizards love ascending.

I never met a wizard who wasn't excited about ascension.

[Quertus]

To reach immortality? To gain eternal youth? To create unflawed original life? To ascend to godhood, or to achieve inconceivable mastery of magic, which may be the same? To catalogue the histories of your past selves or past influences? To travel through time? To restore a lost species or specimen to life? To discover the hidden name(s) and bindings of a certain significant extra dimensional entity? To catalogue a variety of mystical creatures? To transfer yourself via portal to another planet or domain? To divest yourself of some unwanted element of your identity, history, or psyche? To invest yourself or a portion of yourself into a magically receptive device or construct? To take on a form or identity significantly unlike yourself?

Well, you pretty much covered most of my plan right there.

Wizard 20 implies D&D. In case I was in the wrong world / edition, I'd use / research spells to get me where I'd rather be.

Then immorality. And most of the stuff you listed. And an eternity of researching cool new spells, like all the cool new programs I build IRL.

I never met a wizard who wasn't excited about ascension.

Quertus says hi. He's one of my few characters who explicitly doesn't have divinity as an end goal.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

In D&D probably not immortality.

There is a system of afterlives in place more grand and complex than the material plane. And everyone you know is going there. Down on earth there are only junior spirits, kids. Up there are all the sages and magical masters. I'd rather figure out how to freely move around all these planes when I do die.

[Guizonde]

how to break the fourth wall and invade earth for the sole purpose of abolishing pants.

... might as well chase windmills when you already break reality for breakfast, right?

[Madbox]

Deeper understanding of how magic works. What causes it to function? What are its limits? Is magic an energy field? A wave? A particle? Particle/wave duality? A dead god's remnants? How can magic be measured, and is said measurement granular, or infinitely divisible? Does magic decay over time, or grow? Has the amount of magic in the world always been the same?

It is hard to think about these things when the big stupid fighter keeps dragging you off to save the kingdom.

[JBPuffin]

How to redeem the unredeemable - demons, devils, et cetera. After that, purify some succubi (hopefully while switching off the level drain thing) and set up a temple in my name. Godhood awaits!

No, seriously, that's about the sort of long-term goal I'd set for a DnD version of me.

[Kane0]

Hrm.
Some means to ease the transition into the afterlife. Things like retaining abilities and memories when you become a petitioner.
When I need a break from that probably coming up with awesome quality of life improvements for the locals.

[Kitten Champion]

I'd probably go the fantastic beasts and where to find them route.

I'd make a pretty dull wizard having no great personal ambition whatsoever, but I do think I could get out of bed each morning and travel yonder if there's some promise of observing unique creatures and how they be.

[weckar]

I'd finally find a way to rid the world of earworms once and for all. Catchy tunes shall no longer plague the working man!

[S@tanicoaldo]

I'd finally find a way to rid the world of earworms once and for all. Catchy tunes shall no longer plague the working man!

Get ready to have some visits from the assassin guild hired by the music industry.

[LibraryOgre]

Healing spells for wizards. Clerics get to blow **** up in D&D, these days. It's time to let wizards heal.

[Quertus]

In D&D probably not immortality.

There is a system of afterlives in place more grand and complex than the material plane. And everyone you know is going there. Down on earth there are only junior spirits, kids. Up there are all the sages and magical masters. I'd rather figure out how to freely move around all these planes when I do die.

Well, according top the OP, I'm here, so all those so-called "great" sages of the past should be clamoring to get to where the real master is!

Besides, in most D&D afterlives, being a petitioner (or worse!) means no memories, let alone no trace of your former power. It's a fail state, not a goal.

Unless you worship Amalak's God of Death. All other gods care about life - this one cares about the afterlife. You're only alive for a short time - whose retirement plan would you rather have?

Under that god, I might agree with you - but no one of my caliber would await me on the other side, even then, as no great sages and master mages converted, IIRC.

How to redeem the unredeemable - demons, devils, et cetera. After that, purify some succubi (hopefully while switching off the level drain thing) and set up a temple in my name. Godhood awaits!

No, seriously, that's about the sort of long-term goal I'd set for a DnD version of me.

I've played a few characters like that. One, sadly, in a party that believed in killing rather than redeeming. I approve of your goal - especially if you're aiming to become the God of Redemption.

Healing spells for wizards. Clerics get to blow **** up in D&D, these days. It's time to let wizards heal.

Wizards can, with Epic Spells and, what, 25 ranks in Knowledge:Religion?

[noob]

They can also heal with polymorph.

[xroads]

Probably spells to understand/manipulate natural phenomena such as storms, volcanoes, and tarrasques. Because, why not?

Though the altruist in me does wonder if maybe I should spend that research time on more productive/utilitarian spells.

[The Eye]

Become the ruler of small city and create an utopia.

By mass producing golems the citizens under my domain would not need to do hard labor such as farming and war, they would have no responsibilities so they can dedicate their lives to art, culture and joy.

[NichG]

To start with, lets make a proper suite of analytical spells. We've got all these spells for blowing stuff up and asking gods annoying questions with a chance of insanity or even 'create some arbitrary thing', but we don't have a Microscope spell or a Discern Composition spell. Then, spells to determine things about spells themselves, looking for variations and phenomena at the sub-spell scale.

Next, establish the computational bounds of the magic's subconscious. Spells can trigger off of, interpret, and influence things at a fairly abstract cognitive level - which means that spells (or magic itself) have things like sensory inputs, cognitive functions, etc. What's doing the thinking? Is it interconnected? What are its limits?

Tying it all together, the goal would be to harvest the computational resources of magic itself to create an 'implied reality', where things exist because magic itself is 'thinking' about them. Then try to bridge that with the physical world via Godel-style self-referential statements.

Of course the result could just be that rather than the complex logic blocks going off correctly, a simple paper card shows up saying 'knock it off, you're giving me a headache, next time you try this I'm teleporting you into a swamp'.

[Karl Aegis]

Somewhere between surgery and engineering. Samuraization surgery, Shinobization surgery, Mechanica implants, Meikyo and Kimen Konghokis and Yorois. Maybe some snake-body Yorois. That kind of thing. Maybe I'll save up enough money to get a Kugutsu assistant. You know, stuff that get you a bit of respect, people who will look out for your well-being and enough money to live somewhere.

[Jay R]

By that point I would be much more intelligent than I am now, and with a much greater knowledge of what magic can do. My plan would be something brilliant which I cannot comprehend at present.

[Squiddish]

I'd say time travel and non-necromantic immortality would be a good place to start. Then, I travel the universe.

Also, some serious research into the nature of magic.

[Bohandas]

Besides, in most D&D afterlives, being a petitioner (or worse!) means no memories, let alone no trace of your former power. It's a fail state, not a goal.

You've got to remember that most people are commoners and thus improved in stature by petitionerness. A lantern archon is a fourth level summon.

[Mr. E]

I would develop the tools and spells to analyse magic more deeply (a time slowdown device to allow me to watch and playback events at any rate I choose, a tracing device to work out where magic goes to and comes from and so on). The global aim would be to simplify the study of magic with a long term goal of making magic available to as many members of the population as possible. After all, if everybody can cast Goodberry then famine is no longer a problem. If everyone can cast Mending then we can eliminate a lot of waste in society.

[oxybe]

A) Conditional immortality. Basically I live forever, until I say otherwise. None of this "outlive the the planet and then stuck floating in space for eternity" BS

B)To paraphrase (read:scrub out the profanity) myself in Reddit in a discussion we had about the 5th ed playtest module "the mud sorcerer's tomb" and it's litteral invincible walls you can't teleport through:

Look.. if I, Oxybe, was the badguy in question I would have made the whole dungeon just 2 rooms made of that Unbreakium you can't teleport through.

First room is a 30ftx5ft long corridor that shuts the door behind the party once they get within 5 ft from the end, which is a door. On that door is a dumb riddle that has nothing to do with the room as the ceiling falls down immediately to crush them when the door is touched.

Because the only way to safely open that door is to touch it while holding the key, and the trap is reset with a remote car starter to activate/deactivate the trap remotely. Both of which I have on my person. On the other side of the door. Because I made that my bachelor pad of awesomeness.

Because if I can afford enough "HAHA!"-ium and magical traps to make a whole goshdarn dungeon out of the stuff, I can probably consolidate my funds to afford a smaller place with a good hermetic seal on the door, an unbreakable peephole to look on the other side (or a crystal ball or something instead), a self-stocking minifridge, heating/air conditioning, an air recycler, some lighting, an Evercomfy Bed, a few good books and a hat of disguise+broom of flying if I ever wanted to go out undercover to get new books or something, and have it guarded by the "bugger you" room of doom. And I can spend the rest of my money blinging the heck of out that room.

The end.

That's how a competent villain does stuff. No faffing about with traps or puzzles to test the worthyness of your foes. You put a good lock and a puzzle that's just there to take people's attention away from their imminent doom just long enough for it to kill them. Because who cares if the puzzle is solved, you've just gotten rid of those pesky adventurers who are here to take your stuff, that you likely took because it's original owner decided to put a puzzle instead of a security device in front of it.

Then again, I'm a wee bit of a misanthrope. There are people I like, I just don't like people in general.

[Bohandas]

Wasn't that basically how Tomb of Horrors worked?

[oxybe]

Wasn't that basically how Tomb of Horrors worked?

Sort of, only Acerak was pretty wasteful in how he managed his materials and resources IMO as he simply went for quantity of deathtraps over anything else and his furnishings weren't practical for someone looking to live out their lives in comfort. I would have to fish out the module, but I don't remember any actual entertainment being there in his skull room or what his gameplan was other then "hang out in room with treasure" for eternity as a fancy undead paperweight.

For me, the worst case scenario is that I just have to outlive my problems that can't be solved by "ceiling falls" while still having a really nice place where I can Scry and Chill, read trashy halfling novels, eat some poutine and not have to talk to people or work outside of my own indulgences. Acerak just kinda overcomplicated things with the big tomb setup.

I just want a hidey-hole where I don't need to interact with people, because: magic.

[Knaight]

I'd go about dealing with human's big enemies - disease and famine. Targeted disease eradication of particularly nasty diseases, development of vaccination spells, crop resilience, and just generally spells of that nature.

[GuzWaatensen]

I would find a way to convert an extradimensional demiplane into a huge self-contained factory that builds nearly indestructible golem copies of myself (which should ideally retain all my spellcasting abilities). I'd then bind my soul to that factory so that I can inhabit and control any of the golems at will. Then I'd take control of one of the golems and polymorph it into the pet of some unsuspecting adventurer. If said adventure ever needs to save the world against improbable odds, I'll reveal myself solve the problem in 2 minutes with my indestructible spellcaster golem army and have his party cry 'Deus Ex Machina' until all eternity.

[Vknight]

Time Travel I build it into the tower and I make the tower appear smaller on the outside.
I use Simulacrums to transfer my consciousness in death into young bodies with the same power and abilities. Or a phylactery and travel the cosmos and time to study all things. Also collect some wards to keep my eternal life(maybe unlife) interesting and lively.

[Bohandas]

A) Conditional immortality. Basically I live forever, until I say otherwise. None of this "outlive the the planet and then stuck floating in space for eternity" BS

Due to the thermodynamic violations involved therein a truly immortal being would be able to spawn a new planet out of thwir own blood over the course of many many years