Magic 101

"What I mean is, is there some reason I would want to limit myself to a certain number of powers?" You continue. "Like, are some powers bad or incompatible with each other or something? Or is there some downside I'm not seeing to just getting all the powers? Because I can't really see a situation where you've already given me six powers and I'm like, nah, don't bother with number seven, I'm good."

"Okay, let me try to explain the nature of how magic works." The voice in the ring says. "For the purpose of this discussion, I'm really going to be oversimplifying things here, but generally speaking, when it comes to magic there are three types of people: those who cast it, those who craft it, and those who carry it. The ones who cast it are your basic Wizards, people who learn how to wield magic and use it to cast spells. This also includes variations on that theme, like clerics or bards or things like that. The ones who craft it are Artificers, like me, people who use magic to create or imbue magic into things. This might also include things like Alchemists, or to some extent, Ritualists. The ones who carry it are your typical Superheroes, people who have some inherent magical quality or ability. This also includes any number of innately magical beings or monsters, like Werewolves or Demons or Elementals."

"If you want to be able to improvise and do anything you want right in the moment you'll want to be the first type, one of the ones who casts magic. The downside is that you'll have to spend decades if not centuries studying magic before you are any good at it and it's relatively easy for an enemy to interrupt you or disrupt your concentration while you're trying to cast."

"If you want to be able to prepare for any eventuality and avoid the need for concentration or the risk of being interrupted you'll want to be the second type, one of the ones who crafts magic. The downside of that being that you'll need about the same amount of study as those who cast it as well as access to a bunch of rare and expensive material components."

"If you want to be able to do a few things really well without spending decades studying or finding expensive components or worrying about getting interrupted in the heat of the moment, you'll want to be the third type, one of the ones who carry magic. The downside being that you will be limited to a relatively small number of magical abilities."

"If you really wanted to do everything, I could teach you the principles of magic to help you become the first or second type, but there is no shortcut for acquiring those skills, so we're talking decades or centuries of study before you see any progress. What I typically do for people is help them to become the third type, which involves lending them artifacts that can help them to practice specific abilities until they are able to essentially write them onto their soul and they become inherent abilities. People are typically able to start using a power within a few days and it usually only takes a few months before it becomes an inherent ability. You won't be able to handle a whole lot right away, but as your soul becomes more and more powerful it can, in theory, handle more and more powers, which means that technically I could just keep giving you more and more powers forever. However, each subsequent power would require more and more time and effort for you to take on, so we would eventually reach a point of diminishing returns where the time and effort required to adopt the next power wouldn't be worth it compared to the time it would take just to become an actual wizard or artificer."

"Okay..." You say, attempting to parse the big info dump. After a few moments of trying to make everything clear in your head you continue. "So, I probably don't want to be the first or second type because that'll take way too long to learn. But if I go with the third type, then even though you can give me powers right away, each power you give me after that is going to take longer and longer to learn?"

"Exactly." The voice in the ring agrees. "Plus, in addition to the amount of time it will take to learn, there are also some other downsides to having too many powers. The more you use a power the stronger it will get, so if you only have one power it will grow pretty quickly, but if you have a ton of powers splitting your focus they will each grow much slower. And having too many powers can also be detrimental simply because it can get difficult to keep track of them all. If you have three powers it's really easy to activate the right one at the right time, but if you have three hundred powers you'll have to spend some time mentally searching through your soul to find the one you want."

"So what's the best number of powers to have?" You ask.