Inventing New Spells and the first Mage

[momothefiddler]

According to Magic p.15, inventing new spells requires a (highly expensive) magical laboratory with enchanted equipment. I can see how enchanted equipment would make this process easier, but I don't see how it makes sense for it to be required. Enchant requires 10 prerequisites, meaning this process was completed at least eleven times before it was even possible to obtain enchanted equipment. I suppose maybe the first enchanted tools were made by the Ancient Gods or something, but that seems a stretch. More specific to my current character, this means that:

A mage cannot learn magic without the assistance of another mage.

This can happen in a number of ways - the veteran can teach the beginner, write a book that the beginner reads several centuries later, or enchant tools that the beginner can use to invent spells, but he is required in some fashion.

I'm attempting to build a character that was born with Magery and has since been able to work out the basics of the science (as he approaches it) on his own. The costs are immense, but that seems a reasonable limitation. The fact that it's impossible without outside help, however, is jarring. Is there something I'm missing? What other possibilities are there to handle this sort of character?

[Anaraxes]

Arab folklore has it that Allah gave the first blacksmith the first pair of tongs, because you can't forge a pair of tongs unless you have one already. In a fantasy game, this could even be literally true for mages.

"Required" is not an absolute prohibition. See B345, top of the page, for various skill penalties for lacking proper tools. ("The quality of your equipment modifies your skill rolls for tasks that normally require equipment.")

You might also consider the back-history of magical development to be much like technology in that past mages bootstrapped their way up, making tools to the make the tools. (There's a section in Campaigns discussing the "advance the local tech level" plot.) Perhaps there are primitive versions of the tools, inefficient enchantments that take a lot more work, tool enchantments that are only temporary or even cast spells, none of which you'd want to use once you can make the better stuff -- but which you can use when you must.

[Polydamas]

Indeed, I think the natural assumption for a fantasy world is that it didn't develop like our own, over geological time under impersonal natural forces. "Thoth inspired the first wizard" or "the fae, fleeing from a world with stronger magic, taught the first spells to their mortal lovers" is a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Its also possible that the existing spells include most of the really easy effects which are easier to develop from scratch.

[munin]

Originally Posted by momothefiddler

... I can see how enchanted equipment would make this process easier, but I don't see how it makes sense for it to be required. ...

It probably assumes that the 800+ low-hanging fruits have already been discovered, and that other spells are more difficult to discover and thus require advanced research methods made possible by previous discoveries. Early Physics discoveries could be made by dropping things off buildings, later discoveries require super-colliders.

Originally Posted by momothefiddler

... The fact that it's impossible without outside help, however, is jarring. Is there something I'm missing? What other possibilities are there to handle this sort of character?

It's been mentioned before that, in terms of mastering use, each spell is the equivalent of a specialization in a field of science -- e.g., Ignite Fire and Biology (Genetics) are both Hard skills. Thaumatology (the understanding of magic) is a Very Hard skill. Someone who can work all of this out on their own in less than multiple lifetimes is at least the equivalent of an Isaac Newton.

That said, GURPS can do that (TM). The simplest is Unusual Background (Intuitive Spell Learner) -- you can learn spells without requiring a teacher or references. This is functionally equivalent to Reawakened so costs the same, [10]. If they can learn new spells in the middle of an adventure, they probably have Wild Talent (Retention). Or just really really high IQ, with penalties for no equipment as Anaraxes mentioned.

[momothefiddler]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

"Required" is not an absolute prohibition. See B345, top of the page, for various skill penalties for lacking proper tools. ("The quality of your equipment modifies your skill rolls for tasks that normally require equipment.")

Fair enough. At -5 for no equipment and -5 for not knowing any other spells in the college, that makes it possible (though hard) for anyone with Thaumatology 13+, which seems reasonable. Would this apply to other inventions as well? For instance: could one invent a Complex mechanical device out of minimal materials in 1d*3 days for -14? I'd assumed Invention didn't benefit from tool or time modifiers, but I can't think of a reason to think that.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Its also possible that the existing spells include most of the really easy effects which are easier to develop from scratch.

Originally Posted by munin

It probably assumes that the 800+ low-hanging fruits have already been discovered, and that other spells are more difficult to discover and thus require advanced research methods made possible by previous discoveries. Early Physics discoveries could be made by dropping things off buildings, later discoveries require super-colliders.

That's fair. Depending on the world, then, the GM could decrease penalties for already-existing spells along the lines of Reinventing the Wheel on B473, which would correspondingly decrease the amount of enchanted tools required.

Originally Posted by munin

It's been mentioned before that, in terms of mastering use, each spell is the equivalent of a specialization in a field of science -- e.g., Ignite Fire and Biology (Genetics) are both Hard skills. Thaumatology (the understanding of magic) is a Very Hard skill. Someone who can work all of this out on their own in less than multiple lifetimes is at least the equivalent of an Isaac Newton.

True. The character as originally written (there've been some changes) was taught Alchemy and has the ability to see the various Essences (magical properties) that alchemy uses, as well as high IQ and Magery. That's my excuse for someone that can develop such a huge amount of theory in a comparatively short time.

Originally Posted by munin

That said, GURPS can do that (TM). The simplest is Unusual Background (Intuitive Spell Learner) -- you can learn spells without requiring a teacher or references. This is functionally equivalent to Reawakened so costs the same, [10]. If they can learn new spells in the middle of an adventure, they probably have Wild Talent (Retention). Or just really really high IQ, with penalties for no equipment as Anaraxes mentioned.

I hadn't thought about Reawakened. I did write up an idea for self-teaching without books or invention, but I wasn't terribly satisfied with it.

Magical Improvisation: You are extremely adept with the theory behind magical spells and may forego the standard rules for invention. Instead, take the time required to learn one point in the spell through self-teaching (modified by Magery as usual - 400 hours less 40hrs/Magery, minimum 240 hours) and then make an IQ+Magery roll. On a success, you may spend an already acquired point in the skill. On a failure, your time was wasted and you must try again. This is Wild Talent(Magical -20%, Retention +25%, Takes Extra Time floor(lg(3600*240))=19 -190%, Cosmic(Doesn't require a month of waiting on a success) +50%) [4]

But I like the skill penalties idea. He has IQ 13 and Magery 2, so if a fully-equipped alchemy lab counts as improvised equipment that's a Thaumatology default of 8 (assuming Alchemy counts as "real magic" for the purposes of having a default) and an equipment penalty of -2, enough to learn enough magic to experiment with it and study Thaumatology. And since time modifiers apply and each roll for spell invention is a day, he could reasonably invent a spell in a month, then start learning it.

[Nemi3e]

Technomancer mentions Kindermagic. Mage children usually make one or two spells, due to the effort and time required, though it is done intuitively, this "assembling strings of nonsense words and nursery rhymes," into spells. Which indicates some sort of natural feedback? Things "feeling" right.

The First Mage could easily continue doing this into adulthood, and come up with a dozens basic spells in his entire lifetime, pass them on, and the later generations build upon it. Enchant Item would probably be the result of "I want to put magic in this thing," and then using it as a sort of dowsing rod for their own magic/harmonics. Maybe make an array of them and then go "What happens if I make them all point in the same direction?" Or what ever.

[starslayer]

I always more viewed it as 'the spells in the book are the optimized application of magic'.

In a world where magic exists it does more then power spells (it powers a lot of the races in that realm), manna exists and DOES STUFF, stuff that is largely beyond the ken of even wizards to figure out without a lot of research into things, but they can direct the manna, sloppily and haphazardly, with only trivial understanding of the fundamentals of magic.

So ANY individual with a background in thaumatology can enact an apportation. First you need to physically walk to the object and bind strings of magic to it, then you need to focus a lot, in a circle. Then you need to lift an equivalent amount of weight elsewhere to set up the sympathy between the two, and then what you were trying to lift up via apportation lifts up, at ten times the regular fatigue cost.

Basically it would have been easier to just lift the object up in the first place, but that it CAN be done by magic means that a proper wizard in there tower, with there tools, can bash away at the concept until they economize the process down to the apportation spell.

As such the first mage just noticed that by doing something weird they could get an effect that was not part of what they were doing, they then refined the process until they created there first spell, once they had one they taught it to others (and some of those others were better at it, and some of those others could just outright not do it).

[momothefiddler]

Originally Posted by Nemi3e

Technomancer mentions Kindermagic. Mage children usually make one or two spells, due to the effort and time required, though it is done intuitively, this "assembling strings of nonsense words and nursery rhymes," into spells. Which indicates some sort of natural feedback? Things "feeling" right.

The First Mage could easily continue doing this into adulthood, and come up with a dozens basic spells in his entire lifetime, pass them on, and the later generations build upon it. Enchant Item would probably be the result of "I want to put magic in this thing," and then using it as a sort of dowsing rod for their own magic/harmonics. Maybe make an array of them and then go "What happens if I make them all point in the same direction?" Or what ever.

Intriguing. I don't have Technomancer (and I don't think I'd heard of it until now, which is a pity - just the name makes me like it) but I like the concept. It makes me wonder, though - what were the rules for spell invention in 3e? Is kindermagic somehow bypassing those? How and why?

Originally Posted by starslayer

I always more viewed it as 'the spells in the book are the optimized application of magic'.

In a world where magic exists it does more then power spells (it powers a lot of the races in that realm), manna exists and DOES STUFF, stuff that is largely beyond the ken of even wizards to figure out without a lot of research into things, but they can direct the manna, sloppily and haphazardly, with only trivial understanding of the fundamentals of magic.

So ANY individual with a background in thaumatology can enact an apportation. First you need to physically walk to the object and bind strings of magic to it, then you need to focus a lot, in a circle. Then you need to lift an equivalent amount of weight elsewhere to set up the sympathy between the two, and then what you were trying to lift up via apportation lifts up, at ten times the regular fatigue cost.

Basically it would have been easier to just lift the object up in the first place, but that it CAN be done by magic means that a proper wizard in there tower, with there tools, can bash away at the concept until they economize the process down to the apportation spell.

As such the first mage just noticed that by doing something weird they could get an effect that was not part of what they were doing, they then refined the process until they created there first spell, once they had one they taught it to others (and some of those others were better at it, and some of those others could just outright not do it).

I like this concept. So you're saying something like Anaraxes - there are certain unterspells (unterspellen?), the invention of which is possible with minimal equipment, but the spells given in Magic are the diecast high-precision spells that can't be made without specialized tools.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by momothefiddler

According to Magic p.15, inventing new spells requires a (highly expensive) magical laboratory with enchanted equipment.

The same problem applies to the regular invention rules and normal technology. Discovering fire or Ignite Fire is obviously a lot simpler than inventing controlled fusion or Create Star. The original discoverer of fire didn't have thousands of dollars to spend on prototype fire or any of that.

[Nemi3e]

Originally Posted by momothefiddler

Intriguing. I don't have Technomancer (and I don't think I'd heard of it until now, which is a pity - just the name makes me like it) but I like the concept. It makes me wonder, though - what were the rules for spell invention in 3e? Is kindermagic somehow bypassing those? How and why?

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG30-6087

The Magic Comes back setting, due to Oppenheimer's quote during the Trinity Nuclear Test.

I don't recall the rules, but Technomancer says it's on M16 and/or CII146, anyone got their books handy?

Kindermagic is basically the kids going after low hanging fruit and basically cobbling together a dam across a brook with mud and stones, noting how they fit together, compared to professional spells which are the Hoover Dam.

Kindermagic is also noted as being "powerful, primitive ritual."