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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 7882320" data-attributes="member: 6801228">This is off-topic, so I'll put the rant in spoilers so as to try and not derail too much. I will say to your first point that no, not all magic systems are created equally. Brandon Sanderson is my favorite example of a coherent magic system. Even if his choices are somewhat arbitrary, you can predict how input effects output. Avatar the Last Airbender is another good example, where you can follow a logic and see where things usually fall. [SPOILER="Rant"] DnD magic is does not work predictably like this. The smallest unit of magic is the 1st level spell slot. Unless you are talking about Cantrips, but we are going to set those aside as having a negligible cost.  So, what is a 1st level spell slot? Well, as close as we can tell it is a unit of magical energy. It has no form, being able to be used in multiple different ways to effect the world, but once they run out you can't use magic anymore, so it has to be energy. And, we can explain away not being able to cast a higher level spell with a lower level slot because you don't have the minimum energy required. And, you can use a higher level slot to cast, because you can put in more energy and "overcast" the spell. But, what you cannot do is combine two 1st level slots into a 2nd level slot. In fact, within infinite 1st level slots you could never cast a 2nd level spell. You have infinite energy, but you can't combine this energy in any way to achieve a higher energy amount. You also cannot take a 3rd level spell slot and break it into three 1st level slots. Slots cannot be altered in that way. Okay, so maybe "slot" is the energy unit. One Slot is one slot and magic is measured in slots, with the "level" of the spot representing an energy state. Could potentially work it seems, but you don't gain slots in a logical manner. Why do you sometimes gain a single slot and other times gain two slots of a higher level? And, it seems weird to consider it works that way, because every time they show magic in an item, or if you go with spell points, it represents a slot by a number of points, and a higher level slot is simply more points. Using a staff of fire to cast burning hands takes 1 charge, using it for fireball is 3 charges. So, we are back to spell slot level being the amount of energy we are talking about. And, like I said, going to spell points seems to solve the slot issue. X number of points compared to Y number of points... until you get to 6th level. Then, casting a sixth level spell prevents you from casting another 6th level spell (until higher levels) it can't be strain from the number of points you just spent, because you can still cast a 7th, an 8th, a 9th, ect. Locking each on afterwards. And you can spend an infinite amount of points as long as the slot level ends up being 5th or lower. You can cast ten or twenty times a sixth level slot and have no issues. So, it is mechanical, game-like. You have slots, you can use them, but there is no concern to make it make sense in how energy works, how these things might combine or function. You can't combine spells, you can't combine slots, you can't break them apart. Knowing one type of fire magic doesn't let you figure out other types, ect ect ect. It works as a game system. IT does not work as a logical system for a world. [/SPOILER]</blockquote>

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