Spell Memorization
by Paul DupuisWith great joy, I got to play some BECMI/Mystara characters this Sunday that I haven't played in 15 years! One is a magic-user and that got me reviewing the Rules Cyclopedia on everything related to magic-users, spells, and spellcasting. I realized that the rules state/imply that a magic user needs about an hour of study each day to memorize all their spells. At 1st level you have 1 1st level spell. At 36th level, you have 9 spells of each level 1-9, a total of 81 spells. Clearly, as you gain experience, you can memorize spells faster, which makes perfect sense.
At the same time the RC states that a spell not cast is not forgotten and the PC doesn't need to memorize it again. This implies to me that each spell has some sort of memorization time by level of the caster. It also seems logical that a 9th level spell would take longer to memorize that a 1st level spell. So with all that in mind, I calculated BECMI compliant memorization time by level of spell and caster for any who are interested.
This assumes a 2nd level spell takes twice as long to memorize as a 1st level and a 9th level spell takes 9 times as long to memorize as a 1st level spell, which also seemed logical.
