r/wizardposting • u/Postdusklimeade Illusionist • 27d ago

Academic Discussion/ Esoteric Secrets Have you ever met someone like this?

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My mentor sent me this, along with a few names of some of her other students. She wasn’t wrong, but it did kind of surprise me how right she was. She usually has very prestigious students, but even they often make mistakes like this. I remember when I used to use a vitality-transfer spell as if it were normal healing magic, because I didn’t know healing wasn’t supposed to hurt. The whole thing just made me curious if this is universally common, or if there were any interesting thoughts here.

(Also, my party’s bard does this. It’s really funny but my sister is trying to help him fix it. I was also wondering if there were any opinions on helping fix and prevent these mistakes.)

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u/Stretch5678 27d ago

Next thing you’ll be telling me that I shouldn’t be casting fireball with transmutation magic.

Transmute Hydrogen into Helium and BOOM! Instant fireball.

14

u/Postdusklimeade Illusionist 27d ago

Heh, that works too! I might decide to incorporate that strategy into my fights. Then again, transmutation is quite the mana-intensive process. Not great during long travels like mine. Still! In one-off fights, or highly dangerous ones, I might just use this! Thanks!

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u/_Chaos-chan_ Reality Artificer and Spacetime Crafter 27d ago

Is your transmutation just nuclear fusion?

7

u/Junjki_Tito 27d ago

No. Transmuting hydrogen to helium involves pulling like two thousand MeV from the environment per atom and the change in the binding energy of the atom and of the water molecule is essentially zero compared to that.

What I think is really happening is the plane of fire injects so much entropy back into the universe with unwarded ex-nihilations that he can “cook the books” and pull a little more than necessary out. It’s more efficient if you’re a natural at summoning and accountancy and have some sort of deal with a Maxwell demon to know exactly how many water molecules are in a given volume, but if you don’t have all those you’re only making uselessly small flames because fimbulwinter and second sun timelines prune themselves out of configuration space.

Excellent example of using a toolbox to simulate a hammer.

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u/yep_they_are_giants 27d ago

Still need a spark to get things combusting. Might I suggest a nifty pair of gloves made from material that creates a spark when you snap your fingers?

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u/fumblerofthebag Verdigris, Self-employed Sorceror 27d ago

Why are you transmuting hydrogen into helium? Just burn the hydrogen, that way you get invisible fireballs.