Since I am extremely bored I decided to write down my personal in game explanation for how scribing a spell into your spell book works. Hope this helps other people visualize the process of being a wizard. :)
The rules for copying a new spell into your spell book are as follows.
Copying that spell into your spell book involves reproducing the basic form of the spell, then deciphering the unique system of notation used by the wizard who wrote it. You must practice the spell until you understand the sounds or gestures required, then transcribe it into your spell book using your own notation.
For each level of the spell, the process takes 2 hours and costs 50 GP. The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the fine inks you need to record it. Once you have spent this time and money, you can prepare the spell just like your other spells.
Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, the gold and time you must spend to copy an evocation spell into your spell book is halved.
I've seen people analog this to deciphering a some form of encryption and while this explanation is plausible it doesn't readily explain the need for these mysterious components or explain the cost reduction for scribing a spell of your specialized school. I think a better analogy would be deciphering computer code. Anyone with even the most basic knowledge of programming will immediately understand that if you have 100 people write the same program. You get 100 variations of that program. Even if the end result looks and functions exactly the same, the back end source code will be different for each person coding it. Several programming professors have told me “How you code is like a finger print.”.
With this in mind, the mysterious spell components can be explained as minor consumable magical items that aid in deciphering the logic of another wizards spell. I personally picture small hand sized glass orbs that produce a visual output when chanting part of the formula. Think of this like running the source code of a program through a compiler one line at a time and studying the logic of the program.
So all that being said we can determine that you need both the inks and “scribing orbs” to copy a spell, but how much of each do we need? Lets look at the rules for replacing a spell book.
This is just like copying a new spell into your spell book, but faster and easier, since you understand your own notation and already know how to cast the spell. You need spend only 1 hour and 10 GP for each level of the copied spell.
This tells me that the ink cost for scribing a spell is 10 GP per level of the spell leaving us with 40 GP worth of “scribing orbs”
This is all well and good but it doesn't really explain the cost reduction for your chosen school. For this we can look to real world branches of mathematics for a real world comparison. Someone who specializes in Cartesian Geometry is probably better at Cartesian Geometry than they are at Matrix Algebra, even though they are certainly capable of working out the solution to a Matrix Algebra problem, It will likely taken them longer than someone who specializes in Matrix Algebra.
With this in mind we can theorize that spell classifications are likely not arbitrary, but rather based on the logic of the formula. Each school of magic following general logical and algorithmic patterns to produce effects. Your familiarity with the logical and algorithmic patterns of your chosen school means you intuitively understand arcane formulas from your chosen school and need less help deciphering the code.
So with that wall of text out of the way lets break this down to game mechanics.
Copying a Magic Missile spell into your spell book takes 10 gp of ink and 40 gp worth of scribing orbs. For simplicity's sake lets put the cost of each orb at 5 GP, putting the total number of orbs you will need at 8. However an Evocation wizard only needs 25 GP to do it. Since the ink cost should remain the same regardless; it makes more sense to say he requires fewer orbs to decipher the formula. Meaning he needs 10 GP of ink and 3 scribing orbs (15 GP).
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Since I am extremely bored I decided to write down my personal in game explanation for how scribing a spell into your spell book works. Hope this helps other people visualize the process of being a wizard. :)
The rules for copying a new spell into your spell book are as follows.
I've seen people analog this to deciphering a some form of encryption and while this explanation is plausible it doesn't readily explain the need for these mysterious components or explain the cost reduction for scribing a spell of your specialized school. I think a better analogy would be deciphering computer code. Anyone with even the most basic knowledge of programming will immediately understand that if you have 100 people write the same program. You get 100 variations of that program. Even if the end result looks and functions exactly the same, the back end source code will be different for each person coding it. Several programming professors have told me “How you code is like a finger print.”.
With this in mind, the mysterious spell components can be explained as minor consumable magical items that aid in deciphering the logic of another wizards spell. I personally picture small hand sized glass orbs that produce a visual output when chanting part of the formula. Think of this like running the source code of a program through a compiler one line at a time and studying the logic of the program.
So all that being said we can determine that you need both the inks and “scribing orbs” to copy a spell, but how much of each do we need? Lets look at the rules for replacing a spell book.
This tells me that the ink cost for scribing a spell is 10 GP per level of the spell leaving us with 40 GP worth of “scribing orbs”
This is all well and good but it doesn't really explain the cost reduction for your chosen school. For this we can look to real world branches of mathematics for a real world comparison. Someone who specializes in Cartesian Geometry is probably better at Cartesian Geometry than they are at Matrix Algebra, even though they are certainly capable of working out the solution to a Matrix Algebra problem, It will likely taken them longer than someone who specializes in Matrix Algebra.
With this in mind we can theorize that spell classifications are likely not arbitrary, but rather based on the logic of the formula. Each school of magic following general logical and algorithmic patterns to produce effects. Your familiarity with the logical and algorithmic patterns of your chosen school means you intuitively understand arcane formulas from your chosen school and need less help deciphering the code.
So with that wall of text out of the way lets break this down to game mechanics.
Copying a Magic Missile spell into your spell book takes 10 gp of ink and 40 gp worth of scribing orbs. For simplicity's sake lets put the cost of each orb at 5 GP, putting the total number of orbs you will need at 8. However an Evocation wizard only needs 25 GP to do it. Since the ink cost should remain the same regardless; it makes more sense to say he requires fewer orbs to decipher the formula. Meaning he needs 10 GP of ink and 3 scribing orbs (15 GP).