>I have spent decades honing the magical arts
>But I have the memory of a goldfish, and unless I read my spellbook every morning I forget how to make the fireball go brrrr
What did dnd mean by this?
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>I have spent decades honing the magical arts
Read the source material.
I don't remember that spell
There hasn't been a legitimate established worldbuilding for the way Wizard magic works published in any D&D book in decades. Most of them don't even cite Vance and Tales of a Dying Earth. It's fricking cargo cult shit at this point that we accept because it's part of D&D sacred cow brand identity these days.
Correction, 5e's PHb does list Vance as suggested reading, but no further talk about Vancian magic and why it works the way it does.
But 5e also doesn't use Vancian magic and none of the writers/developers have read classic fantasy literature, so that doesn't really matter.
Wizards are the bastard child of vancian magic and have been for a while.
>"5e" capeshit counts as DnD
ugh
pathetic
>it's not D&D because I say so
It's the same shit, conceptually, that it's been for decades. Don't pretend the point doesn't stand just because 5e is terrible even though it's literally just 3.5 with the edges sanded down.
5e is not 3.5 with the edges sanded down. It's 2e with a Fischer Price logo on it.
>"Hey guys, a thing in D&D is moron3D!"
Yes, we know. Have you tried playing less shitty systems?
D&D is mid but that doesn't excuse you from doing your homeworks you fricking homosexual.
It exists both in litterature (Dying Earth) and Myths (India) so I fail to see the problem. Just imagine that he needs to repeat the formula to gather the spiritual energy necessary for the Spell, creating the Spell in his mind. The Verbal component being just a mantra to utter and unleash the spell. If the words alone had power, a parrot could cast spells. He needs to sculpt the mana, he cannot just go brr.
> there's also an official explanation in the Ad&d book if you don't like mine.
>Myths (India)
My fellow scholar, please tell me where I can learn more about this?
I don't follow your reasoning. Why would the fact that some book is also stupid make the game any less stupid?
You'll never really figure it out. Don't worry about it, move back to Ganker.
I accept your concession.
>If the words alone had power, a parrot could cast spells.
Yeah that would be actually cool, can't do that. Also, it's not just the words but the intent and will of the caster.
Is this the part where I mentioned I homebrewed a creature that could do exactly that? A bird monster that was so good at mimicry that he could cast spells.
why shouldn't parrots cast spells?
the lore understander has logged on
TQ answered with prejudice.
I mean, it's gotten less and less focus in more recent editions, but IIRC, the books still state that the daily prep wizards and the like do are when they actually cast their spells, the 'casting' they do in the round they use it is just the final trigger for it. In non-magical terms it's mixing up an explosive (prepping a spell in the morning) and then lighting the fuse and throwing it at some poor son of a b***h (casting), you only forget cause you need to mix up the explosive again and that takes time
Yeah, vancian magic sucks.
Play a different system. Or read how it's meant to work.
Better still keep you shit in the DnD general.
>anon assumes their magical powers are governed by their mundane memory and not an arcane suite of spellcraft disconnected from their standard recall
INTlet irl.
Memory loss is a side effect of spellcasting.
I forgot the spell, but I can still remember it because I memorised it twice.
>lawyers need to read up on laws before a trial
>they don't memorize the entirety of every penal code on earth for life as they go to their bar exam
That's what you're like OP.
>What did dnd mean by this?
How exactly or why in the first place people use Vancian magic in DnD is not explained, except, occasionally, by a given setting. This is, in my opinion, one of DnD's biggest flaws and one of the main reasons it has such a polarizing reputation in the community, because a lot of its elements, such as Vancian casting, the delineation of various class abilities, and alignment, are not actually common parts of fantasy media and literature. Magic in the minds of the average person works much more like it does in Mage the Ascension, Genesys, and Exalted than it does in DnD. This is arguably the main problem it has in increasing its appeal as a supposedly "universal" fantasy RPG system, its extremely niche and extremely canned magical system which it doesn't even narratively justify.
It was better in The Dying Earth, which inspired Vancian casting but it got bastardized for DnD. Spells in the novels were metqphydical cobstructs a wizard had to carefully build and pack into the quantum-ether spaces within his brain. Most could hold only one spell at a time, but some powerfull mages were able to cram in a srcond at cost of constant migraines until they were cast out, and a legendary mage or two had gotten three but they'd bleed from their eyes, nose and ears in nearly debilitating agony from their minds being crushed by the spells. Spells did not have levels, their effects tended to be pretty total.
>moron has never tried to record his own dreams
It took me 10 years to find the answers to something
I forgot about it in 2 seconds
That's about it
Spells are higher dimensional code that leaves the lower dimensions once you “cast” them using mathematics/memory/whatever.
They are non-objects you “hold” until you don’t. Who built them? Aliens probably.
"I spent all morning making bullets and loading my gun, why can't I just put the bullets back in?"
Just make more bullets then. But not today. You've already made too many bullets today. You need to rest.
Making bullets by hand takes time and resources, and these are hand-loaded specialized bullets made for a specific custom-made firearm that I have been building, tweaking, and repairing so mass production is not an option. Not only that but I don't want someone knowing how my bullets work or loan them my gun.
Read Vance, then read D&D, they're completely different but they both make sense.
D&D casters don't "forget" spells, a spell is a single-fire ritual, 1 preparation = 1 casting and then you have to prepare it again. Your spellbook helps you do the ritual, but if you want to be a madlad and commit the whole thing to memory you can take Spell Mastery, or take a spellbook-eschewing effect in later editions.
Spells in Dying Earth are described as "memorized" and then "forgotten", but the basic effect is the same, 1 preparation = 1 casting. AD&D used the term "memorize" in homage (as did OD&D), 3e avoided the term in order to avoid confusing people like you.
Invisible Sun uses cards of different sizes for the spells. As long as you can fit the cards on a paper (experienced wizards having more space), you're good.
why did the designers decide to copy a shitty system from a book written by a moron?
Vance never wrote anything that wasn't excellent, and vancian casting is a great system to reward planning in a game about survival and exploration and resource management, you're just being contrary and I forgive you.
Cool.
Vance is a hack and vancian casting is garbage, sorry.
of all the things to bait over
Fix your taste.
I want to know what your favorite magic system is.
I think "Vancian" casting is bullshit in the context of a tabletop RPG. However, do you really have a hate boner for Vance himself? Don't you think Dying Earth is at least fun and has soul? Imagine, for a moment, if you made something great that people enjoy, and then after your death some fat homosexual in suspenders from Wisconsin steals and perverts it, but names it after you, destroying your legacy. Literally what's happening here
Something is artificially making you forget
ITS ALMOST LIKE ITS A GAME!!!!11
Op is a homosexual but "dude, it's a game" as a response hits a low even beneath him. Congrats.
NTA but I think it's right on-point. "This is the in-world explanation" is a good response, "This is the in-world explanation and this is the out-of-game reason" is even better, but OP obviously doesn't care about any of that so it's useful to just remind him that he's talking about a game.
Ironically, when wizards spend "decades of study" in pre-4e lore, most of that is to achieve spell master with the Read Magic spell so that they actually can prepare it from memory (that way they aren't completely fricked if they lose their original spellbook).
All magic, myth, folklore, etc, comes across as a game, moron.
The imagination, superstition, etc, is arbitrary as hell.
My point is that obviously, while disingenuous, op question required some some in-world explanation (that d&d gives more or less depending on the edition and setting). moron.
It's a game, nerd. Take a shower.
Ez explanation: preparing a spell is just the wizard pre-casting the spell except instead of shooting the load right away they keep it suspended inside until such a time that you want to use it, you have an upper limit on how many spells you can have stored waiting release in you at once depending on your skill and power as a wizard, it's like edging
>he thinks mundane memory applies to literal magic
It does.
>What did dnd mean by this?
That youre a shit eating moron who hasn't read the fricking rule books about how casting actually works, because you're a nogames troll with a sub 80 IQ.
Wizards precast their spells every morning, leaving the final touches such as target and execute commands till they need them later that day. To cast a spell straight from the spell book would take a solid minute for the most basic of them. This is why the spells take up entire pages of their spell books, because its all casting directions that need to be followed exactly.
The amount of magical power you can hold in your memory is limited, and with training (ie levels) you can hold more of them and more powerful versions of them. Read the fricking books and use your fricking head, moron.
dumb system
>Wizards precast their spells every morning, leaving the final touches such as target and execute commands till they need them later that day.
in addition to this, the older systems actually require you spend 15minutes per total spell level doing so, instead of just handwaving the time requirement from the lore. this is why you cant just read fireball directly from your spellbook, because the ACTUAL fireball spell is an intricate 45 minute ritual, that you are postponing within your gigabrain mind by holding it in limbo, so that you can finish it at a later date
In 3.5, it was one minute per level as precast. So a standard level 5 wizard is spending about 15 minutes precasting every day. At level 20, its three hours each day to be a "minor god". Three hours of precasting. And thats without extra slots from high intelligence.
yeah, that was the start of the reduction. 15 mins per spell level is the og, so its hours of work
Mystra did it, just like she capped spells at 9th. There are feats to get around both to some degree.
DnD magic system is inspired by Jack Vance's Dying Earth books (which is why it's also called "Vancian magic"), where casting spells required very long and complex rituals that would make them impossible to do in the middle of combat, but wizards could get around that by completing every step of the spellcasting process but the very last beforehand, and then in battle they just finish the last step which causes the spell to go off.
There's some differences in DnD for game mechanics reasons (in Dying Earth wizards would normally only be able to have one spell "stored" this way since it took tremendous mental effort to contain every detail of the almost completed ritual in your mind, with only the very best wizards being able to have more than a couple of spells prepared, but because only being able to cast one spell per day until you're at almost max level wouldn't be very fun DnD upped the amount of spells you can have prepared), but that's basically what a DnD wizard is doing as well. When the wizard is memorizing his spells every morning he's actually pre-preparing all the spells he intends to cast that day so that when in combat he just needs to say the last piece of incantation and add the last reagent in order to make a fireball appear.
That isn't what is being described.
What is being described is weird and specific, but it isn't your stupid strawman.
It means that wizards have ADHD and are forgetful of the rules of magic like I am forgetful of rules of tabletop games and have ADHD.
Help.
I have 2nd edition adhd
OP gargles semen.
>What did dnd mean by this?
A lapse in judgement when taking into consideration that wizards might be so genius and knowledgeable in magic that they don't need the magic book open all the time.
Wizards aren't just a rip off of Jack Vance's work or "magic system," but three very specific characters from a short story as Jack Vance had other Wizard characters and magic systems. Even within the very setting the three principal characters they're ripping off were featured in. Rhialto the Marvellous, Cugel, and Turjan of Miir. Would be a Fifth Level, Ninth Level, and Third Level.
Reading Dying Earth made me understand better the fondamental issue with "vancian" magic in D&D, namely that it is merely using the original material for an explanation but really only needs it for the intended gameplay (so druids and clerics are similar to wizards despite being supposedly totally different) - when most spells come from other sources (from Conan, the Bible or Elric stories) and despite Dying Earth offering, as you mentioned, other ways of doing magic.
Cugel can cast spells like a Thief (and miscast them)... but it isn't supposed to be only possible for a Thief, just like the average Ranger shouldn't be able to casually use a Palantir. That way of doing magic is closer to the Rituals found in some Editions.
Turjan (and his rival Mazirian) is close to a D&D M-U but Rhialto is vastly different even if many iconic spells like Time Stop come from his novels. He has a "Sandestin" (imagine having a Pacha Djinn as your personal butler) to cast pretty much any spells he can think of, totally unlike a D&D Wizard (but not unlike a powerful Sha'ir of Ad&d 2e).
All in all, I regret that they didn't keep more of Chainmail (=M-U rolling to cast his spells) instead of going that road but I understand their decision - something was needed to avoid M- U from being godlike and casting at will.
Don't worry, WotC has been dedicated to fellating Wizards and slowly phasing out anything that impacts their casting ability (armor penalty, denial of implements, silencing, binding one's hands), eventually by 7e they'll just know all spells at all times as well (monkey's paw, there will only be like 10 spells in that edition).
How come I can summon a horse that hangs around for hours, but if I summon a dog, it only lasts for a few seconds, despite being a more powerful spell?
How come I can drop bricks while invisible, but if the brick hits someone, I become visible again?
have a nice day, Gankerermin
Show me where in the source material it is described as "memorizing".
I'll bet you'll only see reference to "preparing". Why? Because it's Vancian magic. Vancian spells are not "memorized", they are prepared in advance. By "prepared" they are talking about the actual ritual and performance of the spellcasting. In Vancian magic, spells are elaborate and arduous rituals far too cumbersome to use in combat if you had to cast the whole thing all at once. Instead, you cast *almost all* of the spell, and leave off just the last finishing touches of the ritual: a word or two and a gesture or something. This last little bit of a gesture and a word is what you do in combat when you "cast fireball". The truth is, you cast fireball that morning in a ritual that took you several minutes, and in combat you just point and finish the incantation which then completes the spell.
Thus, if you wanted to cast another fireball, you'd need to perform the ritual all over again. Spells are like grenades: you have to construct them. And then when you pull the pin and throw it, it's gone and you need another one if you want to do it again.
Nothing about this is a matter of memorizing or remembering beyond just knowing what little gesture or word you need to finish a given ritual.
The notion that you "memorize" a spell as a wizard is a completely fricking stupid issue that began cropping up because illiterate trash like you started thinking you could play RPGs.
But all of this is before we talk about how fricking garbage Vancian magic is as a game system and why none of the systems which use it are worth shitting on - so when the garbage like you find Vancian magic confusing it doesn't really bother me since you're just swimming in your cesspit where you belong.
Show me in the D&D books where it explains how Vancian magic works.