Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Phelf_Der_Zemit 04-30-08, 08:18 PM	Now, I'm realitivly new to the books of FR. Though, I think I now have read, and own my far share. Some where between a Novice and Teacher, having a few of my own origanol ideas, though not yet brave enough to creep from the beaten path. And from there I am even less wizend in the ways of gaming, having only known the ways of 3.5ed. Not even around back in 3ed. Anywho, to my question. Back before 3ed, I am told the wizard's ability to learn, and cast spells where different, I may be wrong. But my question is weather or not this was shown some how in the oldest, of old books? I know that now adays, a wizard may coment on how his memorized spells were all but spent, or in some other way references the way magic for a wizard works. Another thing is if the new magic system in 4ed will change the wording of the wizards themselves in the new books. All this is very sketchy as no wizard in any book I know of goes into great detail of the way magic is mermorized. The most detailed I can think of is Phauren(sp?) in WotSQ, and even this is still as fuzzy and obscure as you would expect. So in the new magic system of 4ed, be it a point system or sorts, or whatever, will it change the way the books sound and feel, and be noticalbe change in the not so old books? thank you. I'll be reading.
Stigger 05-01-08, 02:30 AM	3.5e wasn't that different from 2e in terms of how wizards learned and cast spells. Only major differences I can think of offhand are metamagic not being seperate spells in 3e (definite improvement), item creation being much more obtuse in 2e (not to mention far more limited) that didn't really involve much spellcasting that I could tell, and a spell progression table that didn't stop at level 20 (a loss I think, to be honest). As to how that changes the books, I doubt it will much. If anything it bring PnP more in-line with the way magic worked in the books than anything else, at least from what I know of them. Not that I have read many FR novels, but the few I have seemed to ignore the game mechanics of spellcasting as far as I could tell.
Shiftkitty 05-03-08, 12:35 AM	One thing that I remember clearly from the 1e and 2e days was that, at level 1, a wizard better have learned the Read Magic spell, or he was up the creek without a paddle. It was like "Okay, you have two spell slots (or however many), but you have to use one of them for a Read Magic spell, or you won't be able to re-memorize the other spell(s) after you use them because you won't be able to read a scroll." It never made sense to me. Isn't reading magic part of becoming a wizard? I always ruled it as an ability unique to the spellcasting classes.
Stigger 05-03-08, 03:15 AM	I usually applied it to reading magical tomes and scrolls that the wizard in question wasn't familiar with. Never really occurred to me that it would be possible that they couldn't read their own spellbooks without it.
wtsutton 05-03-08, 01:06 PM	In my campaigns we play with the understanding that wizards use their own symbology and language when writing scrolls and spells in spellbooks, usually based off the way they were taught by their master...resulting in what are effectively countless different "languages" so to speak. The read magic spells works to translate the said "language" into something the wizard can understand...much like a Comprehend Language spell would do for everything else.
Faraer 05-04-08, 06:45 PM	Magic has worked the same way in the Realms since Ed first adapted its already Vanceian magic to D&D in the mid-1970s; first-, second- and third- edition rules have just given slightly different ways to handle it in the rules. Magic in the 4th-edition 'Realms' is different. Read magic is used to read 'magic inscriptions . . . which would otherwise be totally unintelligble . . . (The personal books of the magic-user, and works already magically read, are intelligible.)'.