Talent/Spell of the Week: Ward

[Axly Suregrip]

Originally Posted by phiwum

Note that it requires a laboratory or a wizard's chest to cast a spell from a book.

JohnPaulB's point is dead-on. I have and others I play with have done this. Once your wiz has a few thousand to spend, get wizard's chest and put it in your back pack with book containing a dozen helpful but not urgent spells. I had not considered Ward spell for this, but JohnPaulB is right, it is a perfect candidate.

As time goes your book(s) gets bigger. :-)

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

JohnPaulB's point is dead-on. I have and others I play with have done this. Once your wiz has a few thousand to spend, get wizard's chest and put it in your back pack with book containing a dozen helpful but not urgent spells. I had not considered Ward spell for this, but JohnPaulB is right, it is a perfect candidate.

As time goes your book(s) gets bigger. :-)

Yes, Ward is a good option to have in your spellbook. I was just pointing out that a beginning wizard couldn't go this route. You have to have a chest which, at 10lbs and $2500, isn't a trivial additional item.

[Shostak]

It's off-topic, but, given that acquired spells do not require material components, one wonders what the chestful of occult paraphernalia is for.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by ITL 141

Consider: for each spell, a book must give a complex incantation (often
with several variant forms); a list of magical ingredients and acceptable alternatives; general instructions; and something about the history and theory of the spell!

Evidently, something about the memorization process allows one to skip the ingredients. When you read a spell from a book, you need those ingredients.

Don't ask me why.

In game terms, it's pretty clear. Steve wanted casting spells from a book to be inconvenient. Making the wizard haul around an expensive 10lb. chest does that.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by phiwum

Evidently, something about the memorization process allows one to skip the ingredients. When you read a spell from a book, you need those ingredients.

Don't ask me why.

One rationalization for why "learned" spells don't need ingredients and more than one turn (usually) to cast might be this.

When learning a spell, a wizard could be doing far more than just memorizing the words and hand gestures. They could, by regular repetitions of the spell the slow way, be altering their own brains, permanently imprinting a circuit of neurons with the psychic "code" that, when executed, telepathically alters the material universe for the desired effect. Something like adding a sub-routine to an existing program, but you can't just type it in once and hit "save" -- brains are mushy organic things, not hard drives. But repeated enactment of a spell causes something analogous to screen-burn on an old CRT monitor. If the same text is displayed at the same location long enough, the image sticks. Once a spell is burned into a tiny spot in the brain, the mind only has to jump to that spot to run the spell. Perhaps the whole point to the incantations and gestures is to guide the mind to the desired scar tissue in the brain for that particular spell rather than another, but when you're smart enough you can find and trigger the spot without the crutch of words or gestures.

Un-learning a spell might be difficult if it's imprinted in this way. Probably why you'd need the Wizard's Guild to get into your head to erase it. Better hope they don't do anything else while they're in there <evil grin>

[TippetsTX]

My head-canon is similar to Steve's... it's about building meta-muscle memory. The wizard is literally enchanting their brain.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

My head-canon is similar to Steve's... it's about building meta-muscle memory. The wizard is literally enchanting their brain.

Or perhaps the mundane ingredients are thaumagenic?

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Shostak

Or perhaps the mundane ingredients are thaumagenic?

I'm all for smarter ALCHEMY rules.

[pzmcgwire]

Originally Posted by phiwum

I assume the Ward extends about 10' high.

You would have to cast ward to cover sky above you and perhaps the ground below you if you really want to be warned of any intruders.

If ward extends 10' up only and not below ground, then a ward spell would cover a megahex across if cast vertically up or down.

"He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking."