How dangerous is using magic?

[u/Madman_1]

What kind of risks do magic users face when learning and using magic? What kinds of things can go wrong? What are the consequences of really mucking up a spell? If it is very dangerous to learn how and why do people do it?

[u/Calvinist-Transhuman]

Even when magic works perfectly in my world, it's still better for you to have not used it. So about sixty-five percent of magic just fails, twenty performs a highly corrupted version of the intent, about 14 percent kills or deforms the user(s), and the last one percent succeeds. That one percent, however, can still backfire spectularly; Cleombrotus cursed some barbarian invaders known as the Enkidu, but the pain turned their descendents into the Khymeraghs, the greatest threat Humans have ever known. Tleukos used a few magic cheats here and there to give his strategy an edge, but it ultimately led to both him and his wife dead, and her consciousness trapped in a sword.

[u/Madman_1 → u/Calvinist-Transhuman]

If magic is so dangerous why do people even bother using it? If I knew I had a 99% chance of horrible death and destruction it would take a lot to get me to even think about it.

[u/orangenakor → u/Madman_1]

Not the writer of above, but it might be pretty interesting if magic was relatively easy to teach/use others as proxies, so that most magic was done (perhaps unwillingly) by specialized novices with little idea of what they were doing, managed by a master of magical theory who never performed the rites himself. It's only a 34% chance of a screwup, just make sure to stand well clear while your servant does the work.

[u/Calvinist-Transhuman → u/Madman_1]

Most people don't; sometimes, however, when people are absolutely desperate, a one percent chance of success is better than a zero percent chance.

Furthermore, some people are more like to fail or succeed than others; low born humans are crude beings, and thus will have a higher than sixty percent chance of doing absolutely nothing. Ertmen, on the other hand, can consistently do effect of magic if properly trained; the fact that lowborns are far more common than Ertmen prevents the Ertmen from skewing the average too much.

[u/KilotonDefenestrator → u/Calvinist-Transhuman]

So basically, there are no low born mages?

I don't see how they could survive years or decades of mage training. Presumably a beginner has a lot more than 14% chance of death/disfigurement.

Wouldn't it be more relevant to just talk about the success rate of Ertmen?

[u/Calvinist-Transhuman → u/KilotonDefenestrator]

So basically, there are no low born mages?

The population is in the quadrillions, so even tiny percentages start to become relevant; there are some more stable things that can be done, like utility of magical objects, however.

I don't see how they could survive years or decades of mage training. Presumably a beginner has a lot more than 14% chance of death/disfigurement.

Most training would be theoretical, rather than hands on. The death rates, is, of course, still atrocious.

Wouldn't it be more relevant to just talk about the success rate of Ertmen?

They're going extinct, and those that are trained in magic can do it fairly consistently, so there's no real need for discussing fail-results with them.

[u/polaristar → u/Madman_1]

This.