Not all of this is strictly ‘Wizard stuff’ but most of it is. So I thought I’d post it here.

So after playing D&D since 5e has come out, there are still some things around magic that I still don’t quite fully get.

So, I get that different classes get their magic from different places. A wizard from years of study, sorcerers from some internal power, druids their connection to the earth, clerics their connection to god, etc.

But how about where this all blends together?

So potions are pretty straight forward. They are made. Have a magical property. And do a thing. How about scrolls? As long as you can read the language it is written in are they like potions? You just read it and it does it’s thing? If you don’t understand what you are reading(ie, you don’t know the language) can you still use it? Are they always a one time use?

Then I think it’s wizard stuff I find most confusing. Let’s start with levelling up. When a wizard levels up, how do they technically learn new spells? Since their magic comes from study, how do they learn new spells? Does it just appear in their book? Do they need to study and scribe a spell themselves? What if they are adventuring and gain 4 levels before getting a chance to study/learn somewhere? Do they just get no spells?

Then what if a lvl 3 wizard finds another spell book? Can she literally just copy any unknown spell into her book? What if said spell book had higher level spells than what the wizard is able to cast? Say from a lvl 15 wizard.

And then what if another spell caster finds a spell book? Could a lvl 5 Druid or paladin or sorcerer find a spellbook from a lvl1 wizard and cast a spell from it?

Anyway, that’s all I can think of for now. I’m sure there is more though.

Thanks for any help. ;)

I'll touch on a few of these :-)

Scrolls: There are two types, a Spell Scroll which requires you to be able to cast the spell from your spell list to activate (if it's higher level then you can currently cast then you have to make a check to cast it), and then just a Scroll (like the [Tooltip Not Found]) which can be used by anyone so long as they can read. Scrolls are considered consumables, so unless the item specifically says it has multiple uses it is considered a 1 time use item.

Wizards: "They learn new spells as they experiment and grow in experience", So basically the easiest way to understand this (at least for me) is that a wizard is like a scientist. They are always looking at the formula, plugging in number, adding new variables, and seeing what the outcome is. Magic to them is like math. Even someone with only a rudimentary knowledge of match can add, subtract, multiply, divide, but Wizards are your folks who go beyond that. They are able to find ways to combine the various operations to form geometry, trigonometry, algebra, calculus, statistics, etc. Only with magic. Just like mathematicians they may lean on someone else's theorems to expand their own knowledge (ala inscribing a scroll or copying from another wizards spellbook) or they may discover the knowledge themselves simply by practicing and theorizing. No matter where the wizard is they are constantly thinking about magic, thinking about it's variables, thinking about how to manipulate the words they say, or adding a new material component, or even small things like shifting their front foot another degree to the left. Then they practice that, and it has a different effect, because magic is science to them. So even if they aren't in a library, or laboratory, the Wizard is always learning and crafting, and like physical exercise does for the muscles of the body the Wizard grows his minds ability to grasp knowledge of the arcane so that he can tap into more of it without feeling exhaustion or fatigue (ala gaining spell slots), and he learns new formulas for spells just by discovering them.

As for finding a 15th level Wizards spell book: "Copying a Spell into the Book. When you find a wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your spellbook if it is of a spell level you can prepare and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it."

And as for the level 5 Druid or Paladin, I personally would not allow them to cast a spell from it, they don't have the training to decipher the gestures, verbiage, etc in the book to understand what it means.

Thanks! 

This is where the gameplay and story segregate a little bit. For wizards, I take it to mean that you were studying/experimenting with magic on your downtime, while you were keeping watch at night, while you were taking a light rest. You don't roleplay every single action you take on every single day, after all. The level up represents the part where you figure out how to translate your research into reality.

While I personally like the idea of sorcerers studying magic in the way that wizards do (I have a few homebrew ideas on the subject, but that's another topic), most sorcerers are not going to have the depth of understanding  of magic that even the lowliest wizard would have. In any case, you can't cast spells out of a spellbook. You can cast them from scrolls. A spellbook is a set of instructions on how to cast spells, and that typically takes years of study before you can perform even the most basic set of spells. Plus, doing so in such a manner requires an entirely different mindset than casting them as a druid or sorcerer or what have you. There's a reason you need a minimum of 13 Intelligence to multiclass into wizard.

Yes, a wizard can read another wizard's spellbooks, but they have to copy the spell into their own spellbook in order to cast it. There's a difference between reading instructions and understanding how to follow them, and that is what the process of copying entails. And, no, you cannot copy a spell that you are too low level to cast. I could probably read instructions on how to build a nuclear reactor, but that doesn't mean I'd be able to follow them.

Well covered by others. Let me add two things:

• In lore, wizards train before first level: apprentice or mage school. So a first level wizard knows OF many spells, but had mastered a few.  Essentially, when he/she levels up, there is an eureka moment when how to cast a spell he had been struggling with now makes sense, she finishes the entry in books and can cast.
• This is what makes wizards so powerful.  When they can study another's books, they gain that insight into how to cast it and make it a permanent entry in their own books. This gives wizards the potential to have many more "known" spells then any other arcane casters.  This means that a wizard that knows what is coming can prepare better for the challenge.  

Red dragon? Prepare lightning bolt instead of fireball! Undead? No need for charm or suggestion!  Orcs? Charm and suggestion raise havoc!  Etc.  Sorcerers and warlocks are optimized around a few spells.  Good wizards can be prepared for anything.  

Quote from Windrunner >>

Well covered by others. Let me add two things:

• In lore, wizards train before first level: apprentice or mage school. So a first level wizard knows OF many spells, but had mastered a few.  Essentially, when he/she levels up, there is an eureka moment when how to cast a spell he had been struggling with now makes sense, she finishes the entry in books and can cast.
• This is what makes wizards so powerful.  When they can study another's books, they gain that insight into how to cast it and make it a permanent entry in their own books. This gives wizards the potential to have many more "known" spells then any other arcane casters.  This means that a wizard that knows what is coming can prepare better for the challenge.  

Quote from OooKrazy8ooO >>

Quote from Windrunner >>

Well covered by others. Let me add two things:

• In lore, wizards train before first level: apprentice or mage school. So a first level wizard knows OF many spells, but had mastered a few.  Essentially, when he/she levels up, there is an eureka moment when how to cast a spell he had been struggling with now makes sense, she finishes the entry in books and can cast.
• This is what makes wizards so powerful.  When they can study another's books, they gain that insight into how to cast it and make it a permanent entry in their own books. This gives wizards the potential to have many more "known" spells then any other arcane casters.  This means that a wizard that knows what is coming can prepare better for the challenge.  

 This is spot on.  

 

Also keep in mind the cost associated with the time needed to copy a new spell into your book outside of level progression.  New spells are a tough lot to wrangle. Getting them outside of the continued learning and understanding of time and practice is a boon that a wizard should not see to often...nor should it be cheap.

On the flip side...a fighter selling a dusty magic tome to a wizard should be able to retire from the adventuring life after the sale.

Quote from Windrunner >>

Well covered by others. Let me add two things:

• In lore, wizards train before first level: apprentice or mage school. So a first level wizard knows OF many spells, but had mastered a few.  Essentially, when he/she levels up, there is an eureka moment when how to cast a spell he had been struggling with now makes sense, she finishes the entry in books and can cast.
• This is what makes wizards so powerful.  When they can study another's books, they gain that insight into how to cast it and make it a permanent entry in their own books. This gives wizards the potential to have many more "known" spells then any other arcane casters.  This means that a wizard that knows what is coming can prepare better for the challenge.  

Red dragon? Prepare lightning bolt instead of fireball! Undead? No need for charm or suggestion!  Orcs? Charm and suggestion raise havoc!  Etc.  Sorcerers and warlocks are optimized around a few spells.  Good wizards can be prepared for anything.  

Quote from wildste >>

Quote from Windrunner >>

Well covered by others. Let me add two things:

• In lore, wizards train before first level: apprentice or mage school. So a first level wizard knows OF many spells, but had mastered a few.  Essentially, when he/she levels up, there is an eureka moment when how to cast a spell he had been struggling with now makes sense, she finishes the entry in books and can cast.
• This is what makes wizards so powerful.  When they can study another's books, they gain that insight into how to cast it and make it a permanent entry in their own books. This gives wizards the potential to have many more "known" spells then any other arcane casters.  This means that a wizard that knows what is coming can prepare better for the challenge.  

Red dragon? Prepare lightning bolt instead of fireball! Undead? No need for charm or suggestion!  Orcs? Charm and suggestion raise havoc!  Etc.  Sorcerers and warlocks are optimized around a few spells.  Good wizards can be prepared for anything.  

 I don't understand this last bit, this seems to imply that as long as the spell is in your spell book, it is already prepared. That can't be right

Just a question. Do the RAW rules actually state anywhere that a wizard who finds someone else's spellbook can automatically decipher all the spells in it and copy them into their own book? My understanding of lore around wizards is that they are a secretive bunch and generally write everything in their books in code, using exotic languages and personal symbols. You couldn't just open to the page labelled "Fireball" and start copying. I'm not saying that finding a spellbook shouldn't be an awesome thing for a wizard, but I feel there should be some real investment required to get anything out of it, and no guarantee that the rewards will be what you expect.

Quote from RegentCorreon >>

Just a question. Do the RAW rules actually state anywhere that a wizard who finds someone else's spellbook can automatically decipher all the spells in it and copy them into their own book?

Okay so I think for the first time, all of my time spent reading the last bit of the PHB might come in handy here.

I'll start with magic as defined in the PHB.

The world has a tapestry of magic that's invisible to the naked eye. When someone pulls on these threads within the tapestry, the tapestry bends and creates an effect. This is the very basic of the basic and quite frankly, an over simplification of the concept. But to help conceive the imagry in your mind, if you pull a lose thread in your shirt, you can fill the thread tighten around your arm or your chest because the thread is part of the whole.

Now, it is a little more difficult to put this into practice because you do more than just reach into the sky, pinch, and pull. Spells require verbal, somatic, and/or material components to work. You can think of these as using a mortar and pestle when crafting potions. You can only do the job with the right tools and these three are your basic tools. To pull the right thread, maybe you need an eye of newt. Maybe to make the spell work, the thread needs to be focused on a specific item and that item gets destroyed. Maybe to make the thread perform the right effect, you need to modify it with some pass phrase that makes it not blow up in your face. It all depends on the spell.

So, we have wizards. The magic nerds so to speak. They look at spells and go, "Well, it's very simple. To slow time, you need to isolate the thread around the target area, pull the thread that runs directly into the center, say sim sim salabim and throw a cashew at the zone in order to manipulate gravity to slow the flow of time." (This is not how you cast slow, but without looking it up, I forget exactly what components are required. It's an example of how it works.)

Their spell books are basically huge collections of 'Chapter 1: Bruh. How to blow up stuff with thunder.' And it notes which threads to pull, which components are needed, how to use them, what words to say. What's more each wizard gets the result in slightly different ways. Where my wizard may need to snap and yell, "Poor Uganda!" to cast fireball, maybe the way you cast it involves smacking your hand to your chest and shouting, "FOR WAKANDA!" because we learned ALMOST exactly the same thing but have different methods of doing so. So your spellbook would have variations that aren't exact and maybe the way I pronouce wakanda doesn't trigger the right effect. So when copying from another's books, you are studying their notes and practicing and finding out what works. When you apply the critical thinking skills of "Well, this spell means tugging this thread and this is a much stronger version of that spell so it should be THIS thread that I need to pull based on logic," you decipher these notes and learn a spell. But the thing is, this is a LOT of crap to remember so you can't be expected to know the whole book by heart.

For scrolls, this is similar to finding a page of someone's book. The roll to see if you fail is similar to the pronunciation going wrong or something because your trying to cast it while you read how to cast it. Still, there's notes and it can be studied just like a book.

For sorcerers, they have an innate talent for magic. This is the kid who you may see in a movie who has never held a lightsabe-I mean sword and suddenly use it like they've had it their whole lives. They just seem to know where the threads are and if they pull it, boom boom fire storm happens. They don't really know why, they don't have as much of an understanding of the threads, but they know they exist. They still need the material components and they can apply this knowledge learned to learn new spells, but the magic in their blood and their bodies are what allow them to mess with the tapestry as opposed to know what the tapestry is and how to mess with it.

Clerics (And paladins) are a little on my weak side because I don't play them often but the best I can explain it is this: They pray to a certain god or diety and that god or diety says, "You know what carl. I really liked the smell of that candle you burned. If you do the hokey pokey and shake it all about, it will rain. Congrats." and they can cast certain spells that are bestowed by their specific diety as an always prepped thing, but clerics in general are touched by the gods and dieties and this gives them the potential of tapping into this tapestry using their god as a catalyst. They have their holy symbol and they pray and the diety may pluck the thread themselves. That's my estimation of how it works but you just have to say, "Dear Big Labowski. I think today I'll use cure wounds and bless. So if you hear me say, OH hell, he got stabbed. I need a quick cure wounds." This is probably wrong, but again, I don't study them as hard is I did with wizards and warlocks.

Which brings me to my personal favorite, warlocks.

Warlocks have limited casting capability because the ones they draw power from aren't as strong as a god or a diety in most cases. A fiend may offer them a drop of their blood for power in exchange for every kill they make, the fiend will get the soul. That drop of blood isn't as fierce as say Bahamut's blessing, but it's enough to cast a little magic. Invocations are warlock's tapping into that physical existence of that magical blood or whatnot to have various effects. The magic in blood let's them cast alter self or something to that effect before they need to rest and let the magic build. If it's just a weak bit of magic, they may not need to rest. These are the at will invocations.

Druids, I've always imagined as to be just a hint of Fey based. The Feywild contains a massive abundance of magic. A crippling amount even. This magic is harnessed by druids to affect the natural things around them directly. They are still fiddling with threads, but only the ones that deal directly with mother nature. This is also a weak aspect of my knowledge as to why a druid can't finagle the threads like a wizard would to create the same spells or why a wizard wouldn't be able to cast druid spells, but that might be a question answerable by someone else.

Finally, there are bards. Bards are just so damn convincing, they say, "Hey girl. What CHU doin?" and the thread bends to it's super sensual will. (Not true. Ignore that part. That was for the sake of comedy.) Their spells are a lot more somatic and using the magic through the vocal cords to create their effects. This isn't 100% the case but it's pretty close.

Magic items have these threads connected to a point on the item itself and using it in the correct way generates the correct effect.

That's most of what I got. I'll reread these posts but I hope this gives you a good idea of how magic works now and it will end up solving every question you have about it as a whole.