Wizards... How do they even work?

Actually, you do the more common it is so people get "Oh! That's a clever way to use that spell" instead of a wizard did it.

>the actual reason is "I hated Chad in high school and I will project my hatred on to martials"

Basically this

Why can't just anyone do integral calculus?

Anyone interested in doing that can do that.

Okay, I'll assume you're talking D&D since you're using the vanican system.

First off, there are wizards in other systems, stories, etc Than the assorted D&D options. Just constraining ourselves to those few severely limits discussion, but I suppose in this case it can be tolerated for brevity's sake. Also in D&D the vast majority of wizards are NPC's, not PC's, so we'll narrow our answer to the majority and not outliers. Same with the majority not being adventurers- but scholars, court mages, or even just a hobbyist who learned how to create magic fireworks to entertain the village during festivals.

Now, as for what they do, it comes to defining what they do with magic; which can be hard to say because many settings fail to describe just what the arcane is, other than it's there. In their world they know, but us being in meatspace we don't. It's like trying to describe the Large Hadron Collider to someone from the wizard's setting. A basic idea can get passed along, but it would be incomprehensible to them- like how magic is incomprehensible to us. But at the same time, magic is incomprehensible to the vast majority of the mortal population in the wizard's setting as well, just like the average person on Earth trying to understand the LHC. We know it works, but that's about it. Hell, even a home computer is pretty much sorcery to the common man, and the thing of fairy tales to those in less developed nations. Sure you can use it, just like we're doing now, but that could be compared to a rogue using the use magic device skill.

So with that all in mind, you can consider wizards to be the scientists or engineers of fantasy settings. There are different types of course, an engineer building a bridge and one who is building an addition to the International Space station are two very different scenarios. But in D&D there are different types of wizard, even if we limited the discussion to the schools of magic being the only limiting variable.

Cont~

Given you're referring to D&D related terms.

Going back, Druids were basically just a way to have divine casting that wasn't based around DEUS VULT.
Clerics were the undead smasher with emphasis on holy guidance/might.
Paladins were "I rolled really well and want to force the DM to plan his plots around me" the class
Sorcerers didn't exist as a specific class, however some AD&D writers have said if the Sorcerer or other natural spellcaster existed back in the old days there would be far less wizards in D&D settings.
Bards were the dabbling class who learned a bit of magic through studying things that they probably shouldn't be studying without a license, depending on where you look it's either druidic stuff they studied or wizardly stuff.
Wizards work off of the idea that anyone smart enough and with access to the right study tools can learn techniques to bend reality in very specific ways, but doing so causes your brain to function differently than a normal human's, hence why using a slot causes the spell to just vanish from your mind entirely until you can re-memorize it.

...yes?

Now, as to your counterargument of "wizard... forgets his spells after casting them. This doesn't happens to engineers or doctors.", I want you to ask yourself if you think that the majority of professionals don't need to keep notes, records, or even cheat sheets to make sure they keep all their facts in line. I'm a zoologist and I still need to sometimes check a few things that would be taught in biology 101, just to make sure I'm not fucking up. Now I want you to put yourself in the wizard's shoes; they are wielding forces that could blow up a house or open portals to Hell. You can bet your ass they want to keep their spellbook nearby. Also, it's a mechanics abstraction to make them different from sorcerers, and try and hold them back from being blatantly broken instead of just regular broken. (Yes, my bitterness about 3.5/PF is bleeding through.)

Now, as to why not everyone can learn magic? Well, to go back to using the real world as an example, what the fuck would some dirt-poor farmer from India do with knowledge of microprocessors? Sure, he might think of getting education to raise his lot in life, but does he have the time, money, or even the smarts to do it? And would he even have a chance to pursue it when there's his family's mouths to feed? Same thing with fantasy and magic. There's a skewed perception on the abundance of magic due to the players only seeing things from a PC perspective. 99.999(repeating)% of the fantasy population is NPC. 80% or more would have no access to the ability to learn magic other than maybe a single spell from the local level 1 adept. And in most cases, they wouldn't need to. Spellcasting, while powerful, has too many risks attached. Yes I know that isn't in the mechanics, but fluff often states that a spell going wrong is a LOT worse than simply forgetting it.

Finally, With two exceptions wizards don't bend reality to their will. The vast majority of their spells are VERY predefined. Even wish and its limited version have recommendations- with custom stuff having a lot of room to fuck up according to the DM's whim. They simply are repeating old long tested and used formulas that produce a desired effect. Like how using the quadratic formula will solve a lot of algebra problems. Yes, the results are fantastic, and have no real logic behind them that we meatspace dwellers can comprehend, but to me that looks like in-universe all spells are literally the result of science. There's even hints of it in many components; sulfur in bat guano acting as an accelerant for the fireball spell. So with that all in mind?

TL;DR - Wizards are theoretical astrophysicists at best, took an audit class at the community college at worst. It's just based in their world's rules instead of ours.

>want you to ask yourself if you think that the majority of professionals don't need to keep notes, records, or even cheat sheets to make sure they keep all their facts in line.
This is just regular forgetfulness, not magical amnesia. If it was otherwise, a lot of wizards would have taken chances in life-threatening situation instead of dying because they already used their magic missile or something today.
>There's a skewed perception on the abundance of magic due to the players only seeing things from a PC perspective.
>Well, to go back to using the real world as an example, what the fuck would some dirt-poor farmer from India do with knowledge of microprocessors?
There are no microprocessors involved. Just song and dance you forget anyway after performing it.
>Yes I know that isn't in the mechanics, but fluff often states that a spell going wrong is a LOT worse than simply forgetting it.
And then mechanics do exact opposite of that.

>Druids
Actually believe their powers come from nature directly. Gods are either part of nature rather than reigning over it, or purely incidental to their work.
>Clerics and paladins
One is a font for divinity, channeling pure divine magic at the behest of a god or in its service. Taking a look at them with a manascope reveals that all they're doing is acting like a prism.
The later strives to embody some virtue or idea and is thus given a boost by a god or Outer Realm which looks at that person and says 'I dig this, have some magic."
>sorcerers have a third chromosome (just liker their players) or something.
Mostly correct. They think theirmagic comes from bloodlines, and magic responds.
>How bards work
How magic reacts to a mind that doesn't think about it too hard. In a mana-soaked universe, everyone would be bards of some sort. Scary concept, right?
>Wizards
Wizards are taught a very important lie: that magic is a system, prone to rules and observation, quantifiable, and ultimately understandable. The tiers of magic, schools of magic, even the ability to 'study' magic as if it were some aspect of materialistic physics, all of these are based on this lie. It is the bedrock of all wizard training: that we live in a rational universe.
>Why can't anyone just memorize a spell?
Anyone can. They just have to believe a lie, and be willing to put college-level or higher focus into this lie that magic can be 'scienced'.

>Finally, With two exceptions wizards don't bend reality to their will.
And yet you regularly see posts like "why someone who learned to bend reality to their will have to be subjected to same standards as a filthy martial?"
>Yes, the results are fantastic, and have no real logic behind them that we meatspace dwellers can comprehend, but to me that looks like in-universe all spells are literally the result of science.
The whole point of science is that results are repeatable by anyone capable of following a simple instruction without any understanding of processes involved. Clearly not the case with magic.

>By that logic doctors are just pricks who studied medicine books and engineers are just dicks who studied engineering
But that's literally it.

First I'll admit my metaphors are flawed, haven't had my coffee yet. So my apologies if my arguments are a little shaky.

>This is just regular forgetfulness, not magical amnesia. If it was otherwise, a lot of wizards would have taken chances in life-threatening situation instead of dying because they already used their magic missile or something today.

In 3.5 I think this one was handwaved away as 'wizards complete 90% of the spell when they prepare it, kind of like putting a scroll in their brain.' The wizards have a limited amount of energy, kind of like how batteries have a limited charge. They get back the charge while resting, and allocate the power once they prepare for the day. The 'wizardry' bit comes from understanding HOW to allocate the power.

>There are no microprocessors involved. Just song and dance you forget anyway after performing it.

Microprocessors were a metaphor for something that is difficult and esoteric to understand, and even moreso for a person who is living in conditions comparable to the 1700's. As for the song and dance, I answered that above.

>And then mechanics do exact opposite of that.

3.5 has busted mechanics, what else is new? But for an example of what I mean, wild magic can be a good example, if slightly unrelated.

Because dungeons and dragons wizards take inspiration from so many different sources that the result is a Mish mash.

Instead, make your Wizards from a single inspiration- Just medieval alchemists, or just demonologists, or just half fairies who weave illusions, or just witches who curse people. Not all of the above plus more.

>The wizards have a limited amount of energy, kind of like how batteries have a limited charge.
Aren't that sorcerers? Aren't wizards supposed to have external power source?

>Actually believe their powers come from nature directly. Gods are either part of nature rather than reigning over it, or purely incidental to their work.

4e did a good job of separating this. Clerics draw power from the gods (Good or evil or whatever) of the Astral Sea, a plane connected to the prime material. So a cleric of a nature god is still drawing power from the Astral Sea, it's just a nature-themed part of it.

Druids are Primal, they draw power from the prime material itself. From the spirits and flow of life along leylines that is part of the world itself rather than provided by some extraplanar patron.

It's also the reason why demons and gods don't physically turn up very much. There was a big dust up between a god and an elemental lord long, long ago. The wind gently asked them to stop. They didn't. The rain politely tried to make them leave. They refused. The motherfucking thunderbird, incarnation of the fury of nature itself turns up and beat the shit out of them until they both agreed to stay out of this world in the future in order to stop the beating.

>And yet you regularly see posts like "why someone who learned to bend reality to their will have to be subjected to same standards as a filthy martial?"

People using flawed language for anecdotes is not proof- nor discussing how magic or wizards work. They're bitching about caster/martial power imbalances.

>The whole point of science is that results are repeatable by anyone capable of following a simple instruction without any understanding of processes involved. Clearly not the case with magic.

And yet there are in-universe magic academies doing just that, teaching students how to do magic in a predictable way. As an example of real world science going wrong, have you ever seen a video of a thermite reaction? Now imagine that getting out of control and burning a house down. Wizards have to do that in their head, and trying to not burn their skulls from the inside out.

>reading 4E for any purpose other than picking out-of-context quote to make 4E hate thread

>Now imagine that getting out of control and burning a house down.
And yet, what exactly they do? Why replicating their work requires that knowledge? Again, thermite reaction can be performed by anyone, even a person with zero knowledge of chemistry, if you give them a simple instructions sheet. If they follow it to the letter they won't even burn their house down.

It amuses me that 4e's prime material basically runs on Castle Doctrine. If you turn up without an invitation, you will get shot. There are druids and other primal groups wandering about getting rid of angels, demons and elementals.

>I bring you the love of the gods.
>FUCK OFF, THIS IS OUR HOUSE. WE DON'T WANT NO GODS HERE BOY!

Fascinating.
Then again, everybody except clerics and paladins are also drawing from the prime material plane as well.And the Fae control that magic by instinct, so technically that makes bards pseudo-fae? Our DM never fully explained this.

>...if you give them a simple instructions sheet.

I think what you're describing is the Use Magic Device skill, at least in D&D.

magic was a shortcut that creator made to make reality more flexible, and had either a perfect memory or a cheat sheet
wizards piggyback on this, and since creator didn't remove that yet, it's okay with the state of events, doesn't care or missing

The Feywild and the Shadowfell (Not the best name but better than the 'negative energy plane' I suppose) are more or less the end points as far as life is concerned from the prime material, flowing from the overflowing feywild into the prime material and draining away into the Shadowfell (Where it can be recycled).

The elemental chaos is the raw building blocks of reality, while the astral sea is the high concepts. With the prime material being a combination of both (And more than the sum of it's parts). Which is why both gods and elementals are unwelcome, as both of them see the prime material through their own realms lens (Elementals as the physical elemental components that make up the stuff, gods as the metaphysical concepts when prime material stuff is more than just either one of those).

Arcane magic is sorta the Background Radiation of reality. It's everywhere but not strongly associated with any given thing (So the other magic types can often beat it in their area). You'll find it more or less anywhere (From the high heavens to the low hells to the feywild), with Bardic magic being drawn heavily from the traditions of the Feywild. Bards are not fey but a lot of what bards do was developed by fey.

I'm going off memory so take this with a grain of salt, my books are down in the garage.

Anyone can copy an instruction.
Wizard can copy a spell from a scroll to the spellbook, but rogue can't do that somehow.

>Wizards work off of the idea that anyone smart enough and with access to the right study tools can learn techniques to bend reality in very specific ways, but doing so causes your brain to function differently than a normal human's, hence why using a slot causes the spell to just vanish from your mind entirely until you can re-memorize it.

I must admit, I really don't like how wizard magic has a tendency to be treated as The Best Magic rather than one with it's own strengths and weaknesses.

While integral calculus is difficult, most people are capable of learning calculus if they put the hours of study they require to learn it. Some people just need more hours than others.

Your average peasant is too busy trying to get enough food to survive to spend years on end studying magic.