Inspired by the big spellcraft/spellcasting detectability debate, I thought I’d share my personal interpretation of Pathfinder spellcasting logic and internal consistency, while leaving most of the details of timing and perception, stillness or visibility to that other thread.
In our Rise of the Runelords campaign, I have written an in-character paper for the Cypher Lodge of Riddleport. (The character is a Linguistics/Knowledge/Spellcraft orientated cypher hunter transmuter/cyphermage.)
The document is in excess of 4,500 words of fanwank flavor fluff, but it provides me with what I think is a pretty coherent understanding of the practical (if not theoretical) workings of metaphysics and spellcasting in Pathfinder, at least from the point of view of this magic-user IMC. Anyway, the explanations should be adaptable to most settings. =)
Here's my somewhat condensed list of takeaways.
- Great will must be imposed in order to bend the laws of nature. (Echoes of thelemic magick here)
- I disregard the passage describing “two types” of magic. There are no arcane and divine “sources” of magical power. I don’t know of any instances where this is a decisive factor in practice anyway.
- The phrase “Unlike arcane spells, divine spells draw power from a divine source” becomes accurate only when substituting “draw power” with “act on an invested willpower”. Divine spellcasters channel the will of something greater than themselves, arcane spellcasters must muster their own (free) will. (Note that witches seem to be a special case.)
- Therefore, generally way more precision is required for doing arcane magic than for divine magic, even if the spell effect is identical:
** Loud and forcefully presented verbal components in a commanding voice.
** Armor means risking interference with the somatic part, arcane casters can’t get away with just waggling arms around. (Note how arcane bard spells are more lenient in this regard, but OTOH they always require verbal components.)
** Material components for sympathetic magic instead of just providing a holy symbol.
- Every caster has just a limited reservoir of willpower available to spend before rest is necessary to regain it. The more powerful magic, the more force of will is necessary. This improves with experience and (cap)ability increases.
- Spellbooks are collections of formulae and algorithms detailing the exact manners in which patches, rifts or wrinkles in the fabric of the plane (or however magical phenomena are explained) may be inserted or exploited in order to fool with nature in different ways.
- These formulae are so incredibly, unfathomably complex that the symbolic notation script used for documenting them relies exceedingly heavily on mnemonics, to the point that they draw on the uniquely personal traits of every individual caster copying down their spells.
- Thus, deciphering and understanding another person’s script takes time, which can be reduced with the assistance of the person having written the spellbook.
- During the preparation of spells, the actual algorithmic procedure from the arcane spellbook for evoking the spell effect is in fact followed. Likewise, the divine rituals are performed, partly as praying and/or meditation. There is no memorization and no cramming. The change in the world is made ready, like carefully setting a mainspring-powered trap or meticulously mixing reagents, and it merely awaits the throwing of the switch or adding of the catalyst to take effect.
- The caster’s mind and/or body then functions much like a spell completion item for spells prepared. The spell resides in the caster, almost-cast until the last components and triggers are applied.
- Like scrolls, the magic energy stored in pre-cast form may be released in other ways than just completing the spell.
- The minds and/or bodies and/or souls of spontaneous casters are permanently imbued with a magical conduit of some sort.
- Scribing spell scrolls and crafting other spell completion items means externalizing the storage of the prepared spell outside oneself. (Like allocating program memory externally at compile-time. Sorcerers allocate internal memory at run-time.) The main lifting of exerting willpower is done during the item creation process.
- The writing on a scroll describes briefly and symbolically how the scriber personally has prepared this specific instance of a spellcasting, and gives unique instructions for its completion. This is why high-level scrolls are no larger in size than low-level ones, even if the high-level spells take up more pages in a spellbook. (Casting time could possibly be a more relevant factor.)
- When casting a spell, it is only a matter of completing it properly. The spellcaster adds the situationally conditional parameters by adjusting the use of required spell components.
- Through these, the caster’s will is also unequivocally expressed. (“I command: Make it so!” or “In the name of $DEITY, amen”).
- The components may or may not consist of mnemonically enhanced language symbols, elaborate poetry and/or interpretive limb signs. It’s all individual. But which general effect (spell name, not the specific parameter values of target, distance, etc. or color of the magic missiles) that these components are designed to make is still recognizable to spellcrafty observers during casting time (as the spell is being cast).
- As a spell is being cast, its counterspell will always be faster to set off, since it has no need to detail many of the situational parameters. This is how a spell used as a counterspell may interrupt a regular version of itself even if the counterspellcaster must first identify the spell.
- Persons skilled in Using Magic Devices may recognize a spell scribed on a scroll and improvise the verbal and somatic components needed for its completion, which will vary according to the spellcasting and scribing habits of the person who originally crafted the scroll, and possibly to the person currently using the scroll as well. The divine/arcane dichotomy is actually quite important in this case because of the difference in components employed by divine/arcane casters. So a rogue activating a divine and an arcane scroll of the same spell would in fact behave a little differently during the completion of each of them.
What do you think? Does this make sense, or is it nonsense? With what, if anything, do you particularly disagree? All comments welcome!