Wizard (Dungeons & Dragons)
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- Magic-User redirects here. See spellcaster for magic users, or below for the old Dungeons & Dragons character class.
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In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the wizard is one of the base character classes. A wizard is an arcane magic user, and weak in mêlée combat. Wizards spend several years studying magic.
[edit] Wizard spell preparation and casting
Wizards cast their spells by using their acquired magical knowledge (augmented by their Intelligence score) and experience. In particular, they learn most new spells by seeking out magical writings and copying them into their spellbooks, a method that allows them (unlike sorcerers) to master any number of permissible spells once they find them, assembling a broad and versitile arsenal of power. Many wizards see themselves not only as spell casters but as philosophers, inventors, and scientists, studying a system of natural laws that are for the most part unknown and undiscovered. Once the 3rd edition introduced skills to D&D, wizards' best skills became those that involved either magic or other scholarly or applied knowledge as history, nature, and geography.
Resting: Wizards need to rest prior to spell casting. This may be in the form of sleep or meditation. A wizard who refuses to sleep and then goes on a spell casting binge (which is not entirely impossible, but rare due to temporal allowances) will grow weary - possibly delusional - and may experience many negative health effects.
Preparing: In order to prepare spells from their spellbooks, wizards need comfortable quiet areas to study. The spell is read, spoken, or memorized up until the trigger. This is the easiest and most efficient way to cast arcane magic as a wizard because it means the wizard needs only to perform the trigger element of the spell when the need arises to cast it. There may be a temporal limit in spell casting and this could be the reason why wizards can only cast a certain number of spells of various degrees in one day.
A weakness of wizards is that they cannot cast an arcane spell that they have not prepared, so they are extremely vulnerable if caught in a situation they did not expect. To minimize this, wizards often develop their problem-solving ability to anticipate which spells may be most useful, and some may enhance this with abilities such as foresight.
Casting: When the need calls for a certain spell to be cast, wizards will allow their thoughts to retreat back into their consciousness in order to obtain it, and it often appears that wizards are in trances while they are casting. While there is some credence to that, they are not so much entranced that they cannot recognize situations outside their subconscious.
When they find the spell they want, wizards will then complete the trigger sequence. This is the common view of a wizard casting: voicing several strange words, utilising some arcane component, like tossing pixie dust, and perhaps making some sort of quirky hand movement. In actuality every part of the sequence must be exact or else the wizard may miscast, misfire, cast an entirely different spell, or cast nothing at all.
For example to trigger the spell Ignite Wood, a wizard would need to first speak the final words of the spell and then spread shavings of brimstone and sulphuric ash reagents onto the desired piece of wood to ignite.
[edit] Magic-User
In the early version of the game, magic-user was one of the base character classes. It was one of the three original classes, the other two being Fighting Man (renamed Fighter in later editions) and Cleric. The Magic-User was renamed to "mage" and then "wizard" in later editions.
The Magic-User represented the wizards or sorcerers common in modern fantasy literature. The Magic-User was physically weak and vulnerable, but was compensated with the potential to develop powerful spellcasting abilities. In practice a mid- to high-level Magic-User was a combination intelligence gatherer and walking artillery, gathering information about possible dangers not yet seen and augmenting the physical combat abilities of the other classes with potentially devastating long range and area attacks.
An awkward term, "Magic-User" was invented for the original Dungeons & Dragons rules developed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson (in order to avoid cultural connotations of terms such as "wizard" or "warlock"). It continued to be used in the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) rules and in the simplified Dungeons & Dragons rules set. The second edition of AD&D discarded the term in favor of "mage". The third edition of the game (dropping the word Advanced and now just called Dungeons & Dragons) renamed the mage to "Wizard". The term "magic user" is rarely used in the current edition of the game, and when it is used it is usually a synonym for an arcane spellcaster or for an arcane spellcasting character class.
