Fun fact! The requirement of preparing spells and then forgetting them after casting is called Vancian magic, also named after Jack Vance. In D&D you see this in spellcasters who need to prepare their spells, and lore wise it's how magic the gathering works.
I assume its something along the lines of imagine preparing your spells by separating the components or whatever into little sandwich bags and writing "fireball" with a marker on one, and "hold person" on another. As the wizard, you reach in, cast the spell, and next time you go to cast it, you see the bag is gone and, because youre smart and know how magic works, think "well, must have cast that one already... explains why everything is on fire"
I still don't understand, because this isn't how magic works in D&D. You can cast the same spell multiple times without preparing it again. You just have to decide in advance what to study for that day to keep the procedure fresh in your mind.
That’s new for 5E, and not how it worked in previous editions. Previously you had to memorize each instance of a spell. So if you wanted to cast fireball twice, it was memorized twice separately. The new system is more flexible.
Youre trying to apply concrete logic, (as i did since i just learned this info today as well) to a loose magic system idea that generally only exists as neat lore and not very often plot relevant.
You can interpret forgetting the spell entirely or simply forgetting you used it. Forgetting entirely means going back to the spellbook (again using wizards with components as an example as its really the only logical case i see for this to work).
So sure, you have materials "prepared" for more than 1 fireball for the day. You cast it and forget the spell completely. You know you need to cast a spell, and you reach in and grab your next sandwich bag, on it reads "fireball; page 105".
Again, youre not an idiot, so you know these are the spell components and that is the page in your spellbook with the incantation.
Its why the wizards HAVE a spellbook to begin with.
It’s also more about “forgetting” how to cast the spell. That’s why your spell book is important. Magic was treated as essentially a living thing that literally flew out of your brain once used, so you had to look at your spell book to remember the method of casting it.
If you’ve ever crammed for a math exam then forgot everything after the test was over, it’s basically just that
Another poster commented that older editions were as you described. I just didn't understand with the current rules, especially when focuses replace 95%+ of material components. I only started with 5e a few years ago :)
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u/TobiasCB Nov 09 '24
Fun fact! The requirement of preparing spells and then forgetting them after casting is called Vancian magic, also named after Jack Vance. In D&D you see this in spellcasters who need to prepare their spells, and lore wise it's how magic the gathering works.