What Would a Wizarding School be Like?

[KOLE]

I'm trying to puzzle through something here.

Magical Academy is a common enough trope in fantasy.

But what would a Wizard school or college actually be like in universe? Here's my sort of stumbling block:

Let's picture the most popular example, Harry Potter. You study from age eleven to eighteen. In those seven years, you learn a ton of spells. HP "Wizards" are more like sorcs,you need an arcane focus but not a spell book, and after researching the spells and practicing thoroughly, you can perform them.

At the end of seven years, even an average student knows an exceptional amount of spells, even if a lot of them are cantrip level. They can also brew potions and know there way around magical items, history and the like. It makes sense to study for seven years to reach this level.

But translating it to D&D terms: to be even a first level wizard means you're exceptional in universe, but let's pretend you graduate at 18 as a level 1 wizard. After seven years of rigorous, formal training... You know three cantrips and six spells. You may or may not be able to brew potions, and can't make any magical items.

What have you been doing for seven years? Let's say for the sake of argument, after year 1, you learned your cantrips, then each year after that you learned a single first level spell.

That seems... like a bit of a waste.

Does anyone else get where I'm coming from here? I want to make a Wizard College viable for a campaign, regardless of whether or not the PCs come from there, but mechanically speaking it's difficult to make work using traditional tropes. It sort of boggles my mind to think of the time invested in learning just your first six spells. Would your second year be spent in dark libraries repeatedly performing the verbal and somatic components to Scorching Ray until after a year it suddenly clicks?!

How would you make a magic academy work in your D&D campaign? I want to use it but in D&D terms it doesn't seem feasible.

[Temperjoke]

Well, one thing to consider is that you wouldn't just be learning spells. Take Hogwarts, for example. There was a variety of classes taught but not all of them involved direct spell casting. Here's a list from the Hogwarts wiki that can help. So this can be how a character learned various proficiencies, languages, or tools from their background. You can also give the character contacts based on the school too, such as their teachers or classmates. If the school is considered prestigious and well-respected, perhaps having some sort of proof of graduating from there can add advantage (or disadvantage if the person you're talking to is a school rival) to persuasion and other checks.

[Whyrocknodie]

My take is that D&D is more the master/apprentice school of wizarding rather than a modern college. So the D&D Hogwarts would be one wizard and maybe two or three apprentices who gradually get discarded for their ineptitude, perhaps one actual successful magic-user for every ten or so... something like that anyway.

Also envisaging the magic-using taking many years to learn, so they start at age 10 and finish 20 years later or something (the ones that finish at all).

[Mr.Spastic]

I have a high magic setting and I did make a Wizard Academy in my game. In a high magic setting, it is not that uncommon to come across a caster with 3rd level spells in most towns. Taking this into consideration a my magic academy, which you had to be pretty rich or have high aptitude to attend, would churn out a level 6 Wizard of the Abjuration, Conjuration, Transmutation, Divination, or Evocation schools. The Illusion, Enchantment, and Necromancy schools were seen as evil and manipulated. They had spellbooks with those spells in them but they were kept in the dark art section and you needed special permission to teach them. Most of the professors were level 10 or 11 with the exception of the high mage who was level 17. Wizard graduates would also have proficiency in the Herballism kit and Alchemist Supplies. A typical wizard would graduate in five years.

Compared to an adventuring wizard, they don't level up nearly as fast but they also aren't put in intense situations where they have to fight for their lives and that spell that is one level away isn't crucially needed for survival. Also in this world everybody had magic initiate so they would have 6 cantrips upon graduation. These wizards also needed official licenses to cast magic in would have to have a yearly inspection by a diviner. Wizard that joined the military would go to "Wizard College" where they are groomed to level 10. Certain positions would also train wizards to higher levels such as conjuration wizards so that they could cast teleportation circle.

[DarkKnightJin]

In the world my Cleric lives in, the Arcane Academy is a lot like a college that's in our world. A lot of studying of various subjects, experimenting with Herbalism and Alchemist sets, and with 'WizCon' usually happening once every other decade or so because scheduling is a *nightmare*, there's several months of a more 'spring break' and wizard seminar kind of thing going on.

It's rather fun to see.

[KorvinStarmast]

But what would a Wizard school or college actually be like in universe?

Change Authors.

Read A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K Le Guin Then read the two books that followed it. Then the last one that she wrote years later, Tehanu. It was first published in 1968, and is the kind of fantasy stories that the original authors of the game had access to as they were putting their ideas together. The Magic Academy in that book fits. It makes sense, if magic ever does. Plus, the writing is just excellent.
Then read the Forgotten Beasts of Eld. Not so much for a magic academy as for the tone and the point that magic has a price -- fits with There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. Heinlein, Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. SF and pulp magazine stories were also critical foundational fiction for the game we have come to enjoy.

Do not read that crap Rowling wrote, if you are trying to port an idea into D&D.
Nothing in the Potter stories fits D&D. Nothing. Magic costs nothing in that sillyverse. it is junior high wish fulfillment.

[Sindal]

You probably don't spend 7 years in a magical school in dnd.

Wizards, the way they are written, develop and learn specific formulas that they scribe into their spell books.
It would be a matter of learning the formula, learning languages that work with the formula, etc
I suppose there are some classes around weapon proficiency (yay quaterstaff class)

It's probably closer to college than school. You pick a degree and specialized school of study and go for that. After 3-4 years you have enough know how of magic to be considered a wizard.

Sorcerors, perhaps, spend less time at these schools and have more classes on just controlling how their magic works instead and how it stop it from violently imparting itself onto other people. Something like an X-man.

[dragoeniex]

The bulk of your starting lessons could very well not be casting at all- focusing instead on gaining the ability to cast. Since wizards get their magic through learning and studying the weave, they have more curriculum going into it. Understand the weave, learn to sense and manipulate it, understand what can and can't be done. Learn what languages work best for your verbal components (gotta be some reason why wizards know more languages, right?), etc. A lot of trial and error and developing mental muscles.

So yeah, there could very well be some actual coursework in there with the fun experimenting with blasts that older students do.

All this is leaving aside things like "what if you need to learn how to make a focus before you can use one" or "time spent healing from not learning how to make a focus before using one." Magical injuries is something I can see coming into play. Alternatively, maybe you need to get the hang of using material components before spells/foci work for you.

If you want to use a magic school that has higher level casters progressing faster, then do that instead! Nothing wrong about swinging higher fantasy. If you let magic be treated like it's more common in your world (or at least this corner of it), then that may balance itself out. Especially if your game takes place in the school.

Then you just start going the anime styles of learning magic.

[Nifft]

In my games, a Wizard "school" is more like a gathering of master craftsmen with several apprentices each.

The students attend each master, aiding their arcane endeavors, until a student finds one acceptable to study under (and one who is willing to accept the student, of course).


My settings don't have anything like a modern day school.

[Arzanyos]

So, three things I'd like to add. Firstly, Ursula K Le Guin followed Tehanu with two more Earthsea books, Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind. They are also excellent, read them too.

Secondly, A Wizarding School need not only go up to first level. In 5e, a first level PC is exceptional, a prodigy even, but they are still basically apprentices until level 3. Heck, Paladins don't even take their oath until 3rd level. For a literary example, consider Horace Altman from the Ranger's Apprentice series. He's a young man who starts out the series getting accepted into a battle school, to become a knight. By the end of the second book, he defeats the evil warlord who had terrorized the land for years, in a duel. He still doesn't graduate from the school and become a full knight until a few years after that. So, maybe don't think of level 1 wizard as the end product of a Wizarding School, but closer to its start. The person who spent seven years in the system is probably level 3 already, and surely they have post-grad programs to reach even higher levels.

Lastly, A wizard need not have trained in an official school for his entire career. Backgrounds exist. To go back to A Wizard of Earthsea, the protagonist, Sparrowhawk learns most of his magic from the school of hard knocks, because he's on the run from the consequences of his stupidity. Still, by the time he meets up with his old Academy buddy, who stayed in and graduated, Sparrowhawk is either his equal or better when it comes to magic.


Okay, I lied. Four things. There's also the fact that for most anything, the fundamentals take a pretty big chunk of time. The reason cantrips can be cast infinitely is not merely because they're easy, but because your character has spent a ton of time practicing them, so they come naturally. In addition, before you can learn how to cast a spell, how long do you have to spend learning how to scribe one into a spellbook? It takes days for an experienced wizard to do so, and they're assumed competent enough to never screw it up, unlike a freshfaced newbie.

[ImproperJustice]

I would think too that a lot of time is spent “gathering the spark” of whatever it is that makes Wizard’s magical and learning how to harness it and release it in constructive forms.
To that end there is probably a lot of training about how to make better use of it as one’s mastery of mystical forces increases.

Maybe that’s why you character masters new spells and techniques so quickly once you are out in the field.
The knowledge is there but the magical muscle isn’t.
As the PC pushes themselves through the intensity of life and deatg struggles, that desperation fuels the cultivation of taking in larger and larger amounts of mystic force. Then they just apply the education they already have?

Kinda like Naruto.
Several times characters will learn a new technique but they often have to build the “Chakra” to manifest them.
Vs. Naruto who has all kinds of “Chakra” but no technique.

[Clistenes]

I'm trying to puzzle through something here.

Magical Academy is a common enough trope in fantasy.

But what would a Wizard school or college actually be like in universe? Here's my sort of stumbling block:

Let's picture the most popular example, Harry Potter. You study from age eleven to eighteen. In those seven years, you learn a ton of spells. HP "Wizards" are more like sorcs,you need an arcane focus but not a spell book, and after researching the spells and practicing thoroughly, you can perform them.

At the end of seven years, even an average student knows an exceptional amount of spells, even if a lot of them are cantrip level. They can also brew potions and know there way around magical items, history and the like. It makes sense to study for seven years to reach this level.

But translating it to D&D terms: to be even a first level wizard means you're exceptional in universe, but let's pretend you graduate at 18 as a level 1 wizard. After seven years of rigorous, formal training... You know three cantrips and six spells. You may or may not be able to brew potions, and can't make any magical items.

What have you been doing for seven years? Let's say for the sake of argument, after year 1, you learned your cantrips, then each year after that you learned a single first level spell.

That seems... like a bit of a waste.

Does anyone else get where I'm coming from here? I want to make a Wizard College viable for a campaign, regardless of whether or not the PCs come from there, but mechanically speaking it's difficult to make work using traditional tropes. It sort of boggles my mind to think of the time invested in learning just your first six spells. Would your second year be spent in dark libraries repeatedly performing the verbal and somatic components to Scorching Ray until after a year it suddenly clicks?!

How would you make a magic academy work in your D&D campaign? I want to use it but in D&D terms it doesn't seem feasible.

Well, first of all, don't take the Harry Potter universe as a model; it lacks internal consistency...

Second, magic in the Harry Potter universe is EASY: They whip their wand, pronounce a word, and magic just happens; all you need is to know the words; you don't even need to know what the spell really does (Harry Potter accidentally cuts another student when he uses a curse whose effects he didn't properly understand).

Magic in the Potterverse is similar to learning how to use an IPhone. You learn what button to push, and done. And the rest of Hogwarts' curriculum is ridiculous. It makes sense if you remember the novels are a fulfillment fantasy for kids... children don't want to fantasize about having to study and work hard for years in order to achieve anything... they have the real world for that...

Think how utterly dull the world of adult wizards is in the Potterverse... they are all teachers, bureaucrats and shopkeepers doing dull, repetitive work. They are all dumb, boring, short-sighted chauvinists. The kids are the ones both having fun and doing exciting, important stuff...

Wizardly magic in the D&D is supposed to be HARD. You need to have above average intelligence in order to be able to learn even the basics. You need superhuman intelligence in order to master it. It's so difficult you can memorize only a few spells at a time... As a matter of fact, it's so difficult most people can't do it and don't bother to try because they aren't intelligent enough or lack the patience to learn, despite how useful it is...

Arcane magic isn't natural in the D&D universe... it's an acquired skill that requires lots of training, like learning maths combined with learning to play the violin.

For a D&D wizard, the adventure, the exciting stuff starts when school ends. School is all hard work and study. D&D wizards probably spend weeks training to learn just how to lit a candle or levitate a feather or generate an ice cube with their minds. And before that, they spent months learning the theoretical aspects of arcane magic, in order to learn how to warp magic to lit that candle.

So a D&D wizardly academy would probably be pretty much like a regular school. They are kids who read books, listen to the teacher and study.

Think of real life medical doctors... they don't study medicine at high school; they acquire the basic knowledge they will need in order to study medicine in college. And they don't get to treat patients and heal the sick until after they have gotten their degree, and even them they still have long period of training and supervision ahead...

D&D wizards would be much like that... you don't train a surgeon by handing them a knife and pointing to a patient... you make them memorize and understand a megaton of knowledge in order to make sure they know what they are doing first...

[Unoriginal]

I'm trying to puzzle through something here.

Magical Academy is a common enough trope in fantasy.

But what would a Wizard school or college actually be like in universe?

A good question, and one I explored in this thread:http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ghlight=school


Here's the part of my OP that is relevant (with the spelling corrected in some cases):

So the question is: what would a magic Academy be like in 5e, given what we know on how magic work?

One important thing about 5e wizardry, which differ from many work of fiction, is that spells are not simply "read it and learn, speak it and cast". Each wizard has their own method to understand and write down a given spell, which they compile in their personal spellbook, before they can even memorize said spell. Which effectively means that any spellbook the school would have would be a bunch of personal mnemonic mumbo-jumbo concealing an usable core the students can then use to develop their own. Which makes it much more likely that magic schools teach the broad theories on magic, and then how to cipher/decipher spells, than going "open your book page 94, today we are learning Firebolt".

Adding to this, as wizards kind of have to "reinvent the wheel" to get a new spell without copying it, two things are often mentioned as taking place in wizards' workshops: experiments, and dangerous uncontrolled magic. Wizards spend a lot of time experimenting with spells, rituals, magic phenomenons and creatures, often resulting, if there is a result, in something that is a mix of different quantities of scary, silly and dangerous. And that's not going into the whole "unearthing secrets" business (to which I feel compelled to pay allip service).

Furthermore, it seems magic academies do offer teaching on matters other than magic, notably the Wizard's class skills and some rudimentary combat training (wizards aren't martial powerhouses, but they do know how to use a few weapons, and even the ancient and decrepit Nagpas will swing that ol' wizard staff if push comes to shove).

Also, obviously, between rare inks, parchments, and other materials, magic cost quite a bit of coins even without factoring the teachers and the building. So it has to be accounted for

What have you been doing for seven years? Let's say for the sake of argument, after year 1, you learned your cantrips, then each year after that you learned a single first level spell.

That seems... like a bit of a waste.

As said in the Xanathar's, becoming a Wizard takes time, and lot of it. You probably spend a couple of year before being able to cast a single cantrip reliably.

It sort of boggles my mind to think of the time invested in learning just your first six spells.

See above. D&D Magic is difficult and time consuming (not to mention expensive as ****). You can look at the Apprentice Wizard's statblock to see what a wizard-in-training looks like.

Would your second year be spent in dark libraries repeatedly performing the verbal and somatic components to Scorching Ray until after a year it suddenly clicks?!

Basically, except you're re-inventing the spell from the ground up to make it work for you and only you.

How would you make a magic academy work in your D&D campaign? I want to use it but in D&D terms it doesn't seem feasible.

It does work, you just have to let go some expectations and assumptions.


5e's default setting is a world where you can transform into a literal monster from learning the wrong mystic secret, and it takes a long time to write a spellbook. Not one where you can buy magic wands at the street's corner and craft incredibly difficult magic potions in the toilets in total impunity at age 13.


There is a magic academy in the Dungeon of the Mad Mage module, and while it's far from an usual one, ALL of the students are accomplished spellcasters already.

[SirGraystone]

Modern university have level of graduation, bachelor, master and doctorate. A wizard school could have something similar with graduate coming out at level 1, 3 or 5.

And a school would also teach the character skill, arcana, history, nature, etc...

[Vogie]

To steal from other unmentioned works:

1. In the Dresden Files series, You find that it is important to learn magic in a language that isn't your normal language that you communicate with. This allows you to dissociate the incredible power of magic from mundane life... but also requires those who study it to learn yet another language, which is usually obscure and arcane so they don't accidentally use magic. Those who do learn magic in their common tongue typically go insane. It can also use gibberish that only makes sense to you: for example, Harry's cantrip spell is like the Produce Flame cantrip, but is a pop-culture reference to the old Bic lighter ads
   
   In a wizarding school type setting you'll have each character show up with their normal language, then also learn new languages to go out into the world, and then yet another language to cast spells in. The actual school that you create could have a specific language they teach magic in, such as Primordial (which requires Dwarvish script, so that's another thing to learn), or something like Deep Speech (which has no script). This is similar to your idea of basing it off the Potterverse, which uses a variant of Latin to cast spells.
   
   __________________________________________________
2. In the Movie Arrival, humanity is visited by a group of aliens we call heptapods, that communicate only visually, by creating a circle in the air that contains an entire thought, manifested instantly. They refer to it as the equivalent of writing a sentence with both hands, with one hand starting at the beginning of the sentence, the other hand starting at the end of the sentence, then having them meet in the middle. If your magic manifest in an Instant Runes type of presentation, making sure that anyone who wants to learn magic have to learn this very inhuman form of expression would certainly take a long, long time, and would explain why a person may only know tiny effects after a multiple years of study.
   
   
   __________________________________________________
3. In the Iron Druid series, you find that those who do serious magic need to create demi-worlds in their minds to store the massive information needed... which they create by reading and memorizing the entire works of an author, using a Memory Palace-esque system to hold their spells and to hold objects when they shift between planes, such as their clothing or animal companions. Examples in the series the protagonists know include the entire volumes of work by Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, and Walt Whitman.
   
   __________________________________________________
4. In the book series and corresponding show The Magicians, the magic almost universally has a somatic component that requires intricate finger movement, referred to as "tutting".
   
   Spoiler: Finger tutting

   Show

   
   
   Throughout the series, the practice of such things is required for the effects to go off without a hitch... a stray finger or limp digit can either doom the spell entirely, give an undesired effect, or even make you start over from the beginning. Being able to reliably execute that type of intricate movement in stressful situations is incredibly difficult, and would require a long stint at a school like Brakebills to master.

[Azgeroth]

to me, to learn magic as a wizard, i.e. no super natural intuition, or bestowed power from a greater being begins with two core principles.

1.
Verbal components, now this isn't explicitly explained in the rules, my interpration is that these verbal components are a language unto itself, but not in the sense of a traditional language.

in a single turn (6 seconds) the 'words' you speak, can have an incredible degree of variation, from a simple cantrip, to a wish. it all fits into 6 seconds, meaning in my opinion its less about learning a given word, but a single tone, imagine splitting the phonetics of an A into several parts, in fact every letter of the alphabet into several parts, each interacting with the weave in a certain fashion. combining those verbal components together creates the great variety of magic.

imagine how difficult it is to learn that degree of vocal control, where any slight 'accent' would create a completely different effect than intended, also consider that it doesn't matter what language the author speaks, and wizard can interpret any other wizards spell book. (this gets even stranger with part 2)

2.
Somatic components, or, hand gestures.. now it may seem intuitive to say, well how many different ways can you move a single hand? what about a single hand, a wrist, a fore-arm, and elbow, your bicept, and shoulder.. yeah, that is quite a few, and again each can create a sleuth of diffent effects, and again would be very easy to get wrong..

consider, that to properly 'cast a spell' you have to perform both, in tandem, precisely, or your mage hand might summon a demon.. how many years of practise would it take to learn not just the verbal components, there differences, or how they might interact and change there given effect, but also how single set of verbal components, will have different effects depending on the somatic components..

that is a hell of a lot of permutations, and given the potential of utter and complete disaster, you would have to be extraordinarily cautious with your practising, and even more careful with how much you 'bite off at once'

it is then so hard you can believe you could spend your entire life in pursuit of these arts, and never master them, and even a simple cantrip could take years to learn without prior knowledge of what was possible, and equally alot of time learning the dangers of practise. unless your okay with fireballing an inn to make your ale taste better.

now lets imagine, who in there right mind, knowing all of that would ever risk teaching some one else? well, they just might, and apparently they do! but where would you begin? continuously telling your apprentice to put x on a very particular shelf, on the exact same spot, and continuously chastise them for 'placing it wrong', writing some symbol with no meaning, thousands of times being scrutinised for not getting write, only for the work to be incinerated, teaching them a 'name' with ridiculously outlandish pronunciation again, and again, and again, and only of a student can do both of those things perfectly, would you ever put a wand in there hand, and finally tell them to do both, at once, perfectly, would they ever cast a single spell.. now rinse and repeat that, untill you have covered enough of the basics they can begin there own research.

thats what i imagine it would take to teach some one wizardy, and the idea of a magic class room, ridiculous, it would have to be a one on one master and apprentice, it would take years of total dedication, never questioning the reasoning behind the wierd names or why you have to put that thing on a very specific shelf in a very specific manor, or why the hell your made to write a symbol that makes no sense, again and again, though it seemingly serves no purpose..

and that is why wizards are rare, seldom gain mastery, and rarely take on students. no such thing as magic school in my book, only private tutors, the best of which are too busy perfecting there own arts to bother with some illiterate youth

[Unoriginal]

The Volo's Guide to Monsters gives a few examples of improperly trained mages.

One kind of them (the most powerful) creates a Wild Magic Surge whenever they cast a spell.

[WeaselGuy]

In the Dragonlance novels, Raistlin studied, not really at a College, per se, but at a school taught by a Wizard. He spent years, just learning how to properly write spells, and learning the nuance behind casting. Then, at the end of this, more or less "apprenticeship", he made the journey to take his tests, to become a full-fledged wizard, and earn his robes. I don't want to give any spoilers, to anybody wanting to read the books, but at this point, he really didn't know many spells, and after his tests, he received a staff that was, well, an artifact. It served as a spell focus, as well as letting him cast certain spells from it, which grew in power the more he studied.

In game terms, maybe you can have your average hedge wizard who starts journeying at level 1 have no formal schooling, maybe just an apprenticeship, but have wizards who actually went to an academy or college come out as level 2 or 3. It won't really work for a level 1 character to have gone to said school, unless they dropped out after a relatively short period (maybe just long enough to learn how to do magic, and know some spells as per a level 1 wizard). Maybe they couldn't afford their tuition. Maybe they failed Potions or Magic Item Creation, or what have you.

[RedMage125]

OP, I would look to Unoriginal's post. It was excellent.

For my part, additional detail should include remembering that Wizards don't have magic being inherent to them, like in Harry Potter. It's not some kind of inborn gift that they refine and learn to master. Wizard STUDY, and study hard. They learn about magical theory, the way magic flows through the universe. They learn how it flows around them and through them, and then...once they understand it...they bend it to their will. I imagine a great deal of classes in Wizard School are mostly magical theory, incantation basics, and study of existing spells. Their professor may give practical demonstrations, but most of them probably can't cast so much as a cantrip until they have been there for awhile. A good chunk of study would be on spell components, and what kinds of components lend towards what kinds of spells (sulfur is a common ingredient towards fire spells, or some such), to include some form of magical zoology, and what kinds of creatures or pieces thereof, have magical value. There might be specialized classes on things like Ethical Applications of Magic, or the planes (I'm imagining the coursebook being called Portals And You: A Guide to Planar Travel, lol).

Each wizard applies these theories in the ways that make the most sense to them. In their own, personal, shorthand if you will. This is done partially out of paranoia about their secrets being stolen, and partly as Unoriginal described, because each wizard's spell IS a bit different. It's also why copying spells from another wizard's spellbook isn't an automatic thing. It requires deciphering. Although, I would think that all students of the same Wizard College would have some similarities in the way they do cantrips and their earliest spells, due to having the same teachers. Even in 3.x, I've always allowed some level of the "Spell Thematics" feat to be free to all casters (minus any actual mechanical benefits, like being harder to identify, etc). Some of my own casters have had some kind of "theme" due to their individuality. Even if it's just color. One of my elven wizards, all of his visual magical effects were purple. Magic Missiles were purple. Scorching Ray and Fireball were purple flames, the whole shebang.

The 3.0 supplement Tome and Blood has a great picture of a class in a magic college, if you're looking for a good visual.

For me, personally, my campaign world has one major College of Magic in my largest city, Val Lumina. But that city also has a Mage District that caters to those with magical ability. And another city has Battle Mage training at their War College, but I see that as being "graduate school" focusing on combat magic for those that already know the basics. The high elves also have their own college. But they're snobby. To me, a level 1 wizard is someone who has JUST finished his apprenticeship. Not even a Journeyman yet. This is someone who can do the basics, but still has a lot to learn. In the College of Magic, more in-depth training is available to those who can afford it (possibly with a sponsor), and would result in wizards above 1st level.

Individual Master-Apprentice relationships and training are still common in my world as well. Those I typically see as: the apprentice is little more than a servant, doing menial tasks for the master for the privilege of getting to watch him work, look over his shoulder, and have access to his library. Once the apprentice learns his first cantrips (likely prestidigitation), it makes getting chores which previously took all day able to be done in a shorter time. At which point, he has also demonstrated that he has some aptitude, and master begins to train him in earnest.

[KOLE]

I want to take a moment to say, very sincerely, thank you all for your posts, which are extremely detailed and helpful. This forum really spoils me, I ask a simple question and get so many excellent answers.

You've all given me a lot of food for thought, and a ton of inspiration! Not to mention a reading list. Some of the books you've recommended sound excellent, I'll have to check them out.

This takes me a long way to writing out how a magic academy can work in my own world. Thanks again all.

[Unoriginal]

OP, I would look to Unoriginal's post. It was excellent.

Thank you.

I want to take a moment to say, very sincerely, thank you all for your posts, which are extremely detailed and helpful. This forum really spoils me, I ask a simple question and get so many excellent answers.

You've all given me a lot of food for thought, and a ton of inspiration! Not to mention a reading list. Some of the books you've recommended sound excellent, I'll have to check them out.

This takes me a long way to writing out how a magic academy can work in my own world. Thanks again all.

If you want more reading recommendations, I suggest the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, in particular the ones around the Unseen University.

Discworld's magic is very different from D&D magic (although it does share some similarities), but it's still an interesting academy of magic. And put the might of magic in perspective compared to how hard it is. Or rather, it's not that hard to use magic. Using it and getting away with it is the hard part.

[Tetrasodium]

Eberron has The Arcanix along with other less prestigious (ie wayfinders guild) or slightly differently focused focused (ie library of korranberg) most people who go there only stay for a few years or branch off into specific narrow research. Those who finish go on to be hired by the great houses/nations/etc or even do things like join a trade school where they teach magewrights how to cast the few rituals they need.

In a setting like Forgotten realms, you might need a decade or more of education specifically to be a wizard sure, but it's widely accepted & implied that eberron has modern institutions like public education* available in most nations & that removes the need for teaching many of the educational basics.

With that said, A place like the arcanix has an entire library of arcane knowledge that few if any are even capablew of reading or understanding (eberron doesn't do the high level peasant in every town like some settings, average level is around 4-5ish). They have that section of the library because there have been people who were capable of it in the past & anyone could theoretically put in the effort to learn. There is also the fact that even without being able to use it as it was originally, those arcane writings & spellbooks might be useful for studying specific esoteric concepts that could be leveraged in the development of more general purpose spells.

* They are literally counting the days till the 11th century after all.

[Dr. Cliché]

Do not read that crap Rowling wrote, if you are trying to port an idea into D&D.
Nothing in the Potter stories fits D&D. Nothing. Magic costs nothing in that sillyverse. it is junior high wish fulfillment.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't stand the magic in the 'Potterverse'.

[Clistenes]

Have you considered taking inspiration in the real world?

In the real world, there was lot of stuff that today we consider superstition mixed with the academic curriculum of colleges. Astrology was an important subject, Medicine included some practical herbology and effective treatments side by side with some crazy esoteric stuff... Together with Alchemy, it all fell within the purview of "natural magic"

College students learned that esoteric stuff while studying Medicine and Astrology, and those who were really interested in that kind of thing and put some effort could learn even juicier stuff (ritual magic, spell formulas, theurgy, necromancy, demonology...) from books found in shadowy corners of the library or borrowed from older heterodox. So long as you restricted yourself to stuff like the influence of planets and the power of stones and herbs you were safe... going beyond meant putting your soul your skin in peril...

There were rumors about some sages knowing the good, real stuff... spells and rituals that really worked and all. People who had summoned imps and demons and kept them trapped in the handle of a walking stick, or in a seal ring or a bottle, or who could make gold or fly or call the storms...

And if you really, really wanted to become a real wizard, there was the Dark School of the Cave of Salamanca, were the teachers were demons who demanded the soul of one in every seven students as payment every seven years...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't stand the magic in the 'Potterverse'.

As I said, studying in Hogwarts is similar to spending seven years learning how to push the buttons of an IPhone...

[iTreeby]

In my mind, magic academies would be very sink or swim with any "professors" being less teaching magic and more giving assignments. Assignments that are easily deadly. "one pound of stygian ice due Thursday" "bring me a teleportation sigil for a circle on mechanus" . The professor doesn't have to deal with the tedium of an extraplaner excursion and can finally finish magic item number 3. If students die, so be it, less grading for them. For a more hogwarts feel, the building has floors enchanted with guards and wards. And the strange statues and artwork can be deciphered to learn useful spells.

( for anyone who is dumping on HP I'd recommend reading "Harry Potter and the methods of rationality", it's also dumps on the setting and is great fan fiction)

[Tetrasodium]

In my mind, magic academies would be very sink or swim with any "professors" being less teaching magic and more giving assignments. Assignments that are easily deadly. "one pound of stygian ice due Thursday" "bring me a teleportation sigil for a circle on mechanus" . The professor doesn't have to deal with the tedium of an extraplaner excursion and can finally finish magic item number 3. If students die, so be it, less grading for them. For a more hogwarts feel, the building has floors enchanted with guards and wards. And the strange statues and artwork can be deciphered to learn useful spells.

( for anyone who is dumping on HP I'd recommend reading "Harry Potter and the methods of rationality", it's also dumps on the setting and is great fan fiction)

Just like any EE or Programming course, I'm sure that practical application type projects would be a thing, the go forth & adventure type stuff would probably be a different sort of course all to its own, but the style of such a course would vary greatly depending on the setting. A setting like faerun has lost relics of ancient fallen empires & mad wizards under every metaphorical rock, a setting like darksun or raveloft (probably) wouldn't have a school, a setting like eberron has schools but ruins of those sorts from faerun are not going to be very common in civilized areas & multiple organizations exist to broker mercenary services to (among others) researchers going off to explore some newly discovered $thing in xendriik/demon wastes/etc. Most everywhere else would be like sending a bunch of anthropology students to find & research lost cultures in the most urban parts of NYC or recover valuables from the bombed out warehouse in an exceptionally dangerous part of Iraq/Afghanistan.

Tales of mu (often nsfw sections in the writing) also has a great breakdown on learning magic in a school in a not harry potty d&d-like world

[Lord Vukodlak]

Remember wizards gain their archtype at level 2 not three.
One could consider that a wizard trains at the magic college until level 1 and then must do a final thesis that determines their arcane tradition. Some wizards like PCs do the final study in field research.

[Damon_Tor]

In one of my settings, a wizard is almost literally a hacker, using fake credentials to gain limited access to the source code of reality. It's a major challenge learning the "programming language" they interact with and use to execute their "programs" but it's also a major breakthrough getting themselves those fake credentials and tricking the universe into giving them "admin privileges" a process the wizards interpret as finding their own "true name". They really can't do any magic at all until they have this breakthrough, something that requires self reflection, a ton of math, and learning language written in four-dimensional runes.

[JackPhoenix]

Wizard school in D&D? Propably a smoking crater crawling with undead and/or demons after an attack from disgrunted ex-student. Of course, there IS one surviving prodigy, who'll have to avenge everyone, kill ton of unrelated monsters and earn enough gold to buy decently sized town along the way. After he finds 3-5 individuals of various professions and skills to help, of course.

Or is that more videogame thing?

[Max_Killjoy]

Whether there are actual schools as we'd think of them, depends on how open, wide-spread, and systematized magic is, etc. No one is going to open a school for mages to dedicate years just to learning magic when there are a handful of people using magic or magic is just a small part of a person's life (not specialists), or magic is highly personal and subjective.

Plus simply how anything is taught in that society. Rome was big and organized and "controlled" enough that it could have had a public school system for all citizens, at least in the cities, but IIRC it never did.

In one setting of mine, magic is usually subtle or small or specialized. Sure the Moon People have herbalist healers and some have the knack for following the old hidden byways to travel seemingly miraculous distances in mere hours instead of days or days instead of weeks, but you won't see them casting fireballs or summoning a host of the unholy. The Twilight People have their alchemy and artifice and shadow, but it's largely tied up in material things and hard to tell from what we'd call technology. The Storm People have gifts for reading the weather and finding their way across the vast open seas. Etc. And most of that magic is taught parent to child, master to apprentice, or elder to youth within a family or clan. The one place that has magic instruction in "schools" is within the priestly orders of various deities, and even then it's just not the sort of big world-bending civilization-shaking magic that D&D presents. Characters with big versatile magic are rare and special, and as often as not have to figure it out for themselves.