Spell Research Woes

Lothar asked me this past week if I could talk about the process of creating new spells.  Let's start with this breakdown from StackExchange (commenter Andras), since it will fit in one image:

This is not far from the original DMs Guide.

My first conflict addresses the utter incompatibility of the above design with any rational setting.  First, I would argue that all spells in existence had to first be researched.  And second, that all the possible spells in the world are listed in the 3.5 spell list.  Why would the game hold existing spells back from the players who had achieved a high enough level?  There is nothing in the books that there is a hidden list anywhere.

Looking it up, I find 49 ninth level sorceror spells in 3rd Edition.  That's quite a lot compared to 1st edition, but still.  I argue these are ALL the spells in the world of that level.  Yet I read above that a character can whip up a new spell for this list in just nine weeks, for the paltry base cost of 81,000 g.p.  Crazy.  Why wouldn't every kingdom, which surely must have this kind of measly coin to spare (kingdom finances rather outweigh character finances by about a million times, literally), be busy designing specific spells to aid their own specific mages in an incomparable cold war of constant expediture?

Rule 1.  Spell design can't be bought.  No rule that has as its base, spend this much money for this amount of time, makes any sense.  For one thing, who is this money being paid to?  What funnel is it filling?  There's only so much equipment, so much raw material, that can justify these costs.

How to research this spell: buy two medium-sized galleys.  Drag them up onto dry land and burn them both down to ash.  Collect all the ash in a hole, using it to cover one ordinary chicken egg.  Wait four weeks, keeping area constantly wet.  Dig down and find egg, without breaking it.  Carefully crack open egg and pour out the contents into a very large pan made of 14 pounds of gold bullion.  Swirl the egg in the pan for five hours.  Pour egg into glass.  Drop pan in the sea.  Eat egg. You may now cast the spell.

This might as well be the logic.  Any collection of ordered instructions amounts to the same silliness as the above, however desperately we try to make it believable.

What we want is an honest struggle on the player's emotion, not a calculation on the character sheet that can be fixed with eraser and pencil.  How do we do things in real life?  How were those 49 spells originally invented?  For that, I can go back to my RPG 201 class.

[oh, I forgot.  There are actually only 109 first level spells.  So even though a 9th level spell in the game costs 81 times a 1st level spell (and ought to at least take 81 times as long), there are still only 60 more 1st level spells than 9th level.  Does that make sense?]

First, research.  Usually, the player proposes the spell, the DM decides the level of the spell and tells the player, and the player starts to create it.  But remember ~ from the player character's perspective, there is no DM.  There is no voice in the sky saying to the player in a booming voice, "THY SPELL SHALL BE 1ST LEVEL ...!"  *crack of thunder*

So right out of the gate, the player has no idea what spell level the spell is.  To learn this, and whether the spell is even practical, the player will have to visit libraries, speak with experts, write experts if this is possible in your game world, spending time and effort to go around asking questions.  At best, three or four sources make a suggestion of about 10 different elements that should be attempted ... with an understanding that the actual spell may need all, some, or none of these elements.  The advisors don't know.  This book may suggest ambergris as a fixing agent, but another book may suggest wood alcohol.  This sage may suggest a stag's blood, but another may insist it has to be the boiled skin of a toad.  In all, the player gets a bunch of advice, writes it all down (who knows what might be useful). then moves onto step two.

How much money and time does the player have?  Do we want to get some ingredients or all of them?  What is the player's gut instincts on the use of crushed pumice stone as opposed to using talc?  Do we really want to start experimenting with the most expensive things?  And where do we want to put the laboratory, if it turns out we're going to need access to these mountains and that sea shore?  Glass is more expensive in this part of the world than that; we could haul the glass, but is is safe to  bring 300 lbs of glass and expensive laboratory equipment through this war torn country, or to a lab in a dangerous foreign country where help isn't available?  But damn, some of this will need to be done in a very dry, very tropical part of the world!

Very well, we've estimated our resources and our agenda.  Let's plan this thing.  I'll need this many people and assistants, and these people to make leather out of the hippopotomus skins, not to mention drugs to keep us healthy while we work and at least some means of communicating with the Sorceror Anders if I get stuck.  Damn, this is getting expensive.  Is there a way we could do part of the collection in the tropics and finish the research in a temperate clime?

Now we have to find the right people, interview them, supply them, possibly apply to a mage school for additional funding or some kind of research support, plus a ship, plus a crew for the ship and a reliable captain, not to mention food that won't go bad in the tropics and some means of resupply if we need it.

Wait, wait, wait.  Am I smart enough to research this?  Do I know enough about toads and hippopotomuses.  Is there a course I can take?  Books I can read on the journey there?  It wouldn't hurt to spend a month boning up on the material before going, to make sure it is fresh in my mind.  I could take notes that I'll bring along; damn, I sure hope I don't lose my notes after we get there.  I better make copies.

Okay, okay, let's go.  Damn, it's hot in the tropics.  Okay, take this mix and pour it into that one, then ... oh damn, I've poured it too fast.  Let's do it again.  Why is this sample turning green?  Let's do it again.  Ooo, that looks good, in the morning we'll ... what the hell?  It was fine last night.  Now it looks like ... oh well, let's do it again.  Attempt number nine.  Attempt number fifteen.  Attempt number thirty-one.  Maybe this isn't right.  Maybe it shouldn't even be hippopotomuses.  What's as big?  An elephant?  Okay, let's try it with elephant skin.  Hm, it certainly looks different.  Let's try it again.  Attempt number seven.  Attempt number sixteen.  Damn.  Damn, damn, damn, damn!

Now what.  This worked and this worked, only that produced the wrong result entirely.  Is it the fixing agent?  Or is it the tannin in the leather process?  Maybe it isn't hot enough in the room.  Or there's too much air movement.  Let's think this through.

Attempt number eleven.  Attempt number forty-seven.  Attempt number one hundred and thirteen.

Sigh.  Do I really need this spell?

I don't suggest this as a means of torturing a player out of creating the spell.  But rather, having the player recognize that invention is itself an adventure.  Some, I know, won't see it that way.  But for me, magic is science.  Science is magic.  And it doesn't come easy.  It shouldn't.  It should be a mystery wrapped in an enigma.  And in the end, what's discovered may not even be what the character was looking for.  It may be something ... amazing.

Which may be its own profound adventure.

From the Witcher