Advice in Practice: On the Simulacrum Spell

I've talked before about what I think makes for effective games that keep players wanting more (namely listening to the players and establishing real stakes as described in this blog post), but I recently encountered a Reddit thread wherein the original poster was asking about advice for trying to limit the 5e version of the simulacrum spell. The rule for 5e simulacrum is that a given caster can only cast one instance of simulacrum at any given time, but those simulacra could use their one cast of simulacrum on the caster, creating an infinite army of wizards given enough time and powdered rubies. The redditor in question was worried about this "exploit," and was asking for advice.

While a lot of advice in the comments suggests, "go ahead and limit it, you're the GM," I don't find that satisfying, because I tend to think the inflection points of a thing are usually the most interesting part. So in keeping with establishing real stakes, here was my response. A specific example that is potentially broadly applicable; when your players can do something wild and creative that seems like it will upend your carefully crafted world, let them do it! But also, brainstorm the ripple effects this action will have. Nothing happens in a vacuum, and the world keeps moving while the players wait.

(Also, part of the joy of being a powerful wizard in any role-playing game system is doing wild, impossible things. Don't take that from your players!)

I replicate my response below:

As the DM, you are perfectly within your rights to limit aspects of the rules or setting. That's technically the end of the discussion, although I might canvass the entire player group and see what they think.

But personally? I wouldn't limit simulacrum. I'm usually in favor of whatever nonsense my players want to do.

However, there is always a cost.

Each casting of simulacrum costs 1,500gp and takes twelve hours, which means you can functionally only cast it once per day despite your spell slots. (If your characters have folded time or don't need to sleep, then maybe you get two castings if you have the spell slots. Wish obviously changes the calculus of these assumptions, but it does that anyway.)

That means your magic-user's clone army takes weeks to amass. If anything else is happening at the moment, it continues to happen while they're doing this. If the other players don't want to wait, then they get to go have adventures while the wizard sits in their laboratory and makes simulacra all day.

And what about ruby dust? Your player might have plenty of rubies (a single "typical" 5,000gp ruby as described in the treasure portion of the Dungeon Master's Guide yields enough powder for 3 1/3 castings of simulacrum), but will probably have to get more to amass an army over the course of months. That means they have to go delving, or mining, or trading. How many rubies are in a typical settlement, anyway? A typical mine? Is the queen willing to pry every ruby out of her crown to power your simulacra?

All of this to say: the spell is not instantaneous, and it's not without cost. Casting simulacrum takes time and resources, the sort of large-scale project that someone notices and tends to engender strong opinions. What do the NPCs do when they realize a wizard is casting simulacrum over and over again? What do they do when they realize a wizard has 50 rubies on hand? (Worth at least 250,000gp; the GDP of whole city-states.) What do the other player characters do when they realize the wizard is going to spend the next two months blasting through their wealth to build clones?

Are things so quiet in the world that the characters can afford to wait while the wizard performs their Great Work in their ivory tower? Is there no political or religious organization in your setting that would be very interested in these activities? Is the villain merely sitting idly while the players gather a magical army vulnerable to antimagic?

I don't know the parameters of your campaign. But I do know that player decisions don't happen in a vacuum, and in high-level games, they have consequences. Big consequences. What are the consequences of this choice?

Play to find out.

That Old Silk Hat

And now, a bit of Christmas magick: an artifact for Unknown Armies, third edition.  Enjoy!

That Old Silk Hat

Power: Significant

Description: That Old Silk Hat is usually treated as a joke or urban legend (it seems soundly ludicrous to think the holiday song "Frosty the Snowman" holds mystical significance), but some checkers in the occult underground claim it's an actual thing.
     That Old Silk Hat appears as an old, unassuming, and somewhat battered top hat, made of cheap felt.  Any story depicting it usually indicates it's found in the garbage or has been otherwise abandoned — it usually smells like refuse, and is occasionally described as being crusted with blood.  The stories claim That Old Silk Hat rarely stays in one place for long, as misfortune tends to befall those who use it.  It won't be long before it shows up in some dumpster, or abandoned basement, or forgotten corner of someone's garage...
     Chargers in the know claim there are many such hats, each with a limited number of uses.  In that case, the magick is not in the hat, but in the ritual that empowers them.  The chargers who tell such tales claim a ritual to empower That Old Silk Hat is a significant one, and requires the ritualist to murder someone and entomb them in a snow effigy.  The hat placed atop the snow effigy is then empowered as That Old Silk Hat.
     (Such a ritual would probably take 2 significant charges, and would empower the hat for a number of uses equal to the sum of the dice.)

Effect: When That Old Silk Hat is placed on a mound of snow that has been sculpted to resemble a human shape (typically at least given a face and rudimentary limbs, although most people who receive That Old Silk Hat are under explicit instructions to make the snowman "as lifelike as possible;" some of them are quite elaborate), the hat summons the nearest demon to animate the snowman.
     While demons are always hungry for experiences on this side of the Veil, That Old Silk Hat does nothing to make the snowman stronger, or grant it significant structural activity.  As such, snow golems animated by the hat are pretty fragile, and will still melt if the ambient temperature gets too far above freezing.
     As a result, demons are usually pretty annoyed with being trapped in a snow-body.
     Still, it beats being on the other side of the Veil.  Clever (and stupid) checkers can use this to communicate with demons, and particularly smart ones use this as a negotiation tactic; after all, a summoned demon probably needs the occultist to enact any particular schemes it has in mind, so it allows a would-be demonologist to negotiate from a position of strength.
     While in a snow body, a demon's wound threshold is only equal to 20% of its Urge (round down), and it only deals an amount of damage equal to the tens place of the roll when making hand-to-hand attacks.  When a snowbound demon makes a melee attack, it takes the same damage itself as it shakes its snow body apart.  A snow-body only takes hand-to-hand damage from guns, although any explosions or sufficiently large trauma will probably deal full damage.  (When in doubt, the snowman is fragile and probably just falls apart.)  If you're tracking movement, snow-bodies can typically only move at half-speed (check out "Running Around" on page 63 of Book One: Play), and take 1d10 wounds if they move at full speed.  Likewise, if it's too warm outside, the demon can take anywhere from 1d10 wounds per hour to 1d10 wounds per minute.  (Although the degradation of a snow-body in high temperatures is ultimately up to the discretion of the GM.)
     A would-be snow-sculptor can potentially heal a snow body by re-packing the snow, restoring a demon's full wound threshold with a few minutes' work.
     A demon is released when its snow-body is destroyed or when the hat is removed.  Sensation-junkies they are, however, no demon will willingly remove its own hat.  (If, as some stories say, That Old Silk Hat has limited uses, any given found hat probably has 1d10 uses.  A single "use" ends when the demon is banished; there is otherwise no time limit.)
     At the GM's discretion, a particularly skilled snow-sculptor might be able to make a sturdier-than-normal body.  If a character has an Identity uniquely suited to building a particularly-sturdy snowman, then the snow-body has a wound threshold equal to the character's roll or 20% of the demon's Urge, whichever is higher.  Likewise, such a snow golem might deal additional damage on a successful Struggle roll, such as dealing half standard hand-to-hand damage, whole damage, or even weapon damage (for a sculptor adding sticks and knives to the snowman's construction).  Such a snow golem might even maintain its integrity when it makes hand-to-hand attacks.
     It is exceedingly unlikely someone could make a snow sculpture sturdy enough to use a gun, but who knows?
     A character living in a cold climate or otherwise with access to a sufficiently-large, frozen place could potentially keep a single snowbound demon around for a long time, if they so chose.  It's possible that a particularly demented charger has a demonic snowman familiar stashed away in an old restaurant freezer somewhere.

Spell: Baron van Hook's Microcosmic Eye (5e version)

Baron Lee van Hook is still out there, studying microbes and performing other magical research.  So here's a version of his microcosmic eye spell for fifth edition.  It appears on the Wizard spell list.  (It probably also relies a bit more on DM fiat than normal 5e spells, but that's Rulings, Not Rules for you.)

Baron van Hook’s Microcosmic Eye
1st-level divination (ritual)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a small, finely-crafted lens worth at least 100 gp)
Duration: 1 hour
You can magnify objects by sight and will alone. While focusing on an object, you can “zoom in” to a magnification as high as one thousand times, the upper limit of modern light microscopy. As an added benefit, the spell automatically enhances contrast, replicating some of the utility of microbial staining.
While using Baron van Hook's microcosmic eye, you may gain advantage on certain Intelligence (Investigation) and Wisdom (Medicine) checks to diagnose diseases or investigate other microbial phenomena, as determined by the DM.

Better Than Any Man: Unknown Armies Conversion Notes, Part 2

A quick update: the Unknown Armies excursion into Better Than Any Man continues to go hilariously.  Some bandits died, a clockwork robot died, and a lot of PCs quite nearly died.  (Read about it here.)

Since the PCs are quickly exiting Thüngen next session, it seems probable (although not completely certain) that they will miss Dittmar, the bandit leader.  He gets a roughly two sentence description in Better Than Any Man, but since his potential presence seemed notable, I gave him full statistics in Unknown Armies.  So, without further ado...

Dittmar

Personality: Two-Face from Batman.  He seems like a somewhat suave gangster, but his reliance on chance tends to add a little capriciousness and viciousness to his demeanor.
Obsession: Power.  Money's part of it, but Dittmar really likes the control his position brings.  His reliance on chance is just to keep things interesting.  He's likely to become a postmodern Entropomancer if he's not careful.
Wound Points: 65

Rage Stimulus: Messing with his dice.  He will seriously go apeshit.
Fear Stimulus: (The Unnatural) Predestination.  Really, anything that makes him feel boxed-in or otherwise out of control really bothers him.
Noble Stimulus: Gamblers.  Dittmar has a soft spot for people who roll their own bones, and might join them for a game or cut them some slack.

Body: 65 (Toughass)
General Athletics 25%, Hold Your Liquor 20%, Struggle 50%
Speed: 60 (Ready to Move)
Dodge 35%, Horseback Riding 15%, Initiative 30%, Missile Weapons 50%
Mind: 45 (Pragmatic)
Conceal 20%, General Education 15%, Notice 30%, Strategy 25%
Soul: 50 (Superstitious)
Charm 30%, Intimidation 40%, Lying 35%, Roll the Bones 15%

Violence:  7 Hardened, 3 Failed
Unnatural: 1 Hardened, 1 Failed
Helplessness: 0 Hardened, 0 Failed
Isolation:  0 Hardened, 0 Failed
Self:  2 Hardened, 1 Failed

Possessions: Light armor, dirk (+3), short sword (+6), crossbow (maximum damage 50), wheellock pistol (maximum damage 80).  He also has his lucky dice and 8 ducats on him.

Notes: Roll the Bones is a skill Dittmar rolls every time he rolls his dice to determine an outcome.  With a successful Roll the Bones check, Dittmar gains a hunch (UA, pg. 7).

Better Than Any Man: Unknown Armies Conversion Notes

I'm not going to post everything as yet, but here are a couple of my scattered notes.  I'll probably put them in a pdf or something when I'm finished running Better Than Any Man in Unknown Armies.  Obviously, these notes assume familiarity with both games.  The following notes also reference the Unknown Armies books The Ascension of the Magdalene, Hush Hush, and Postmodern Magick.

Willibald Schwartz

Obsession: Conquering death.  Death is a form of spiritual alchemy.  By controlling the doorway, you control that potential.
Wound Points: 45

Rage Stimulus: Pointing out that he might be insane or deluded.  Schwartz might be a murderous psychopath, but he really doesn't enjoy being reminded of it.
Fear Stimulus: (Isolation) Dying of old age.
Noble Stimulus: Helping children.  Willibald crafts art of the bodies of young children because that's the highest gift he can bestow to one killed so young.  He can't help it if his glass tiger gets confused from time to time.

Body: 45 (Living Well)
General Athletics 25%, Hold Your Liquor 20%, Struggle 25%, Work Without Rest 20%
Speed: 50 (Steady Hand)
Dodge 20%, Horseback Riding 25%, Initiative 25%, Taxidermy 35%
Mind: 75 (Learned)
Conceal 35%, Notice 40%, Occult Correspondences 60%
Soul: 90 (Transcendent)
Avatar: The Magus 60%, Charm 30%, Lying 50%, Magick: Thanatomancy 70%

Violence: 7 Hardened 2 Failed
Unnatural: 7 Hardened 3 Failed
Helplessness: 2 Hardened 2 Failed
Isolation: 6 Hardened 1 Failed
Self: 4 Hardened 5 Failed

Possessions: Rapier (+3 damage), dagger (+3 damage), various fine clothes and ritual components

Notes: Occult Correspondences is Willibald's General Education skill.  It also covers his general knowledge of folklore and occultism.
Avatar: The Magus originally appears in The Ascension of the Magdalene, page 53.  Magick: Thanatomancy originally appears in Postmodern Magick, pages 111-115.
In addition to his own magickal prowess, Willibald Schwartz has access to the rituals Song of Ancient Days (detailed below) and Fires of Pure Will (Hush Hush, page 47).

Schwartz's Glass Tiger

Wound Points: 120

Body: 120 (Savage)
General Athletics 50%, Rip and Tear 65%
Speed: 80 (Swfit)
Dodge 35%, Initiative 40%, Sneak 70%
Mind: 30 (Cunning)
Notice 50%
Soul: 50 (Weird)

Notes: The Glass Tiger's exceptional Body stat grants a +3 to all melee damage.  This is in addition to the beast's teeth and claws, which also grant a +3 to damage.  The glass tiger reduces damage equivalent to heavy armor, removing the +3 damage for sharpness and the +3 damage for heaviness in hand-to-hand combat while also reducing rolled damage by three-fourths.  Guns are deal hand-to-hand damage, but aren't reduced but the tiger's armor.  Magick deals damage normally, although it's not made of flesh, so Magick: Epideromancy blasts do nothing.

Song of Ancient Days (significant ritual)

Note: This is the Unknown Armies version of Schwartz's Journey to the Past spell.  In my version of Better Than Any Man, Schwartz was kind enough to give the PCs all the components to enact the ritual, including a copy of the Fires of Pure Will ritual (a charge-building ritual).  Your Schwartz may not be so accommodating.

Power: significant

Cost: 7 significant charges

Effect: The caster and a group of up to eight individuals participating in the ritual are sent back in time to July 14, 10,000 B.C.  They are sent to the same point in time, although they appear in the same geographic location they left.  (So, if the caster casts this ritual in downtown London, he'll end up in the middle of downtown London...before it's ever built.)  To the outside observer, no time appears to pass — the ritualists appear to flicker for a fraction of a second after the ritual ends.  However, the casters are cast back to 10,000 B.C. for an amount of time equal to ten times the sum of the dice.  As such, a caster rolling a 45 will spend 90 minutes in the past, while a caster rolling a 12 will only spend 30 minutes in the past.
Being sent to the past is a rank-7 Unnatural check.

Ritual Action: This ritual requires a simple stone hammer, particularly of the sort that would have been used in the Neolithic.  The caster should use this hammer to break a sandclock, shouting, "Ula atolnay!" with each hammer blow.  When the clock is smashed, the caster should use the hammer to draw the seal of Prince Seere (a goetic demon) in the spilled sand while reciting a chant in Latin depicting a litany of the demon's praises and epithets.  Once finished, the caster should then use the hammer to smash a sundial, deface a calendar, and destroy a seal of King Philip II Augustus.  Again, with each hammer blow, the caster should shout, "Ula atolnay!"  The ritual completes with the final hammer blow.

Note: For easy reference, Prince Seere's seal looks like this:

On Game-Breaking and Powergaming

This is a post about powergaming, except, it isn't.  Not really.  I'll ramble all over the place, so just bear with me.

I've devoted a lot of word count to my love of Unknown Armies.  My occult horror gaming background informs much of what I do gaming-wise — I try to make my fantasy wizards at least a little off-kilter, for example.  I try to keep this picture in mind when I contemplate fantasy wizards.  In my current 4e game, the gnome wizard was given a temptation in the form of a sexy vampire wizard woman with forbidden knowledge.  (He took the bait, and is now a vampire diabolist himself.)  The other wizards encountered in the game tend to be weird and buried in their own pet projects.

Don't worry, I'm getting to it.

I don't have a head for powergaming.  I have a head for numbers and figures, sure, but I usually would rather make a broader character.  In our recently-ended Deadlands game, I could have made Father Seward a straight-up gunslinger with a 5d12 shootin', but I wanted him to have a bit more happening, so I also made him a holy man and theologian with a troubled past.  In classic World of Darkness, I typically couldn't conceive of making a character without at least a dot of Etiquette, for example.

Basically, I tend towards a well-rounded character.  Jack of all trades, master of none, and all that.

One of my powergaming triumphs?  The guy who ran Deadlands is running a Changeling: the Lost game.  I just made a character who is amazing at chemistry — assuming he has access to his library, he rolls twelve dice with the 9-Again quality.  He tried to physically resist someone else at the first game session and failed miserably.  Not typically how people min-max their characters.

Of course, that's not really the focus of this blog post.

What I really want to talk about is the game-breaking sort of powergaming.  You tend not to find it in horror gaming — even if you max out your rifle skill at 99%, Cthulhu still eats 1d6 investigators per round.

This sort of min-maxing never really bothered me.  Real people do it all the time — if you're a Nobel-winning astrophysicist, you're probably not also a UFC champion, and if you're an Olympic-award winning boxer, you're probably not also a famed actor.  (Not to say that these things are impossible, just that they're rare).  If you make a combat character, he probably has some notable flaws, like an inability to negotiate through social situations or a weak will.

Game-breaking, though, is a different story.  Since it doesn't really happen in horror gaming, one typically finds it in games such as D&D.  Various people have attempted to create game-breaking characters, frequently in D&D 3.x, that exploit poorly-written or poorly-considered rules to make characters of preternatural power.

Of course, since the heights of power typically rely on magical abilities, this means that it is typically magicians performing these feats.

In my mind, that is what magic-users do.  Player character magic-users decided to throw away a life of quiet experimentation to use their talents for profit, but the majority of wizards and sorcerers in the world are probably idiosyncratic research scientists, spending decades to unlock the properties of the philosopher's stone, or some similar eldritch discovery.

Do you remember the Zodiac wizards in Isle of the Unknown, each of whom is perfectly aspected to a sign of the Zodiac?  What about the mosaic magician in that same book, who bound his mind and spirit into the mosaic in an old temple?  What about Louhi from Vampire: the Masquerade, who has spent centuries engaged in a ritual to blot out the Sun?  What about every gutter magician in Unknown Armies, trying to turn his life into an allegory for some grand occult design?

I imagine that magic-users do that sort of thing all the time.  With that in mind, game-breaking characters seem pretty natural.  It's an intriguing thought exercise to consider what makes them tick: why would you engage in a particular avenue of research to the exclusion of all others.  Consider the following:

• The muscle wizard is a very specific character build: you have to be an Illumian, for starters.  This works, though; Illumians are very driven magical researchers who always hope to be the best in everything.  At second level, an Illumian has two power sigils glowing around her head; these two power sigils combine into a single word.  The "Aeshkrau" word allows the Illumian to use her Strength score to determine bonus spells for a spellcasting class.  When combined with the Cancer Mage prestige class from The Book of Vile Darkness (allowing a character to become a disease carrier who receives the benefits but none of the drawbacks of any diseases, among other things) and the Festering Anger disease from the same book (which causes boils, fits of rage, and a degenerative constitution but also causes increased strength), this allows the character to increase her Strength score every day and gain more bonus spells (in addition to slowly but steadily gaining a ludicrously high Strength).  Within weeks, you'll be able to memorize prodigious numbers of spells and split boulders in half with your bare hands, although you'll be a pock-marked pariah with a crippling vulnerability to Cure Disease spells, not to mention the fact that you had to mentally train yourself to maintain a near-constant murderous rage for about a year to catch Festering Anger in the first place.  Such is the price of power.
• Pun-Pun the super kobold is a kobold from Forgotten Realms whose quest for power led it to learn (or steal) shapeshifting abilities to assume the form and powers of a sarrukh.  It uses this same power to do this to its serpent familiar.  As the progenitor race of all Scaled Ones on Toril, the sarrukh can use the Manipulate Form ability to enhance their statistics.  Since both Pun-Pun and its familiar are both reptilian creatures posing as sarrukhs, they can use Manipulate Form as well as various other enhancement magics to form a feedback loop whereby they can constantly improve each others' statistics.  Through this method, Pun-Pun slowly but surely becomes a potent being, even holding Divine Rank in some character builds.  If allowed to continue this activity, Pun-Pun will eventually become immune to the puny attacks of mortals, although the gods themselves would likely take interest in such a creature's activities.  Interpretations of the character tend to cast him in the vein of the Monkey King; a divine trickster who stole power from the gods.  Pun-Pun might cause havoc on the Material Plane, but it seems more likely at that point that such a creature would move into the realms beyond and quickly fade into legend.  Who can say?
• The Locate City nuke is not quite as narrow as the other two, but still requires a significant level of dedication.  The Locate City spell locates the nearest city within several miles (specifically ten miles per caster level).  The classic version of the build requires a specific selection of feats to add cold damage, lightning damage, sonic damage, and an explosive effect that throws everyone in the radius outside the radius of effect.  This modified spell now locates the nearest city while also causing small amounts of elemental damage to everyone within its radius of effect, and flinging them several miles.  Since the spell is centered on the caster, he is recommended to remain indoors while casting this spell.  Assuming a Level 12 caster, he will be struck by the elements and thrown a few feet, likely surviving the encounter with significant but not life-threatening injuries.  However, anybody else inside the area of effect is hit with elemental damage and thrown to the outside of the effect, which should strike in a 120 mile radius around the caster.  (As noted, this is about the size of Spain.)  Being thrown even a single mile will kill just about anybody, to say nothing of being thrown 100 miles.  This will certainly kill every Level 0 entity in the radius, whether or not they are indoors when "thrown," and will kill many characters with class levels, as well.  This 45,239 square mile holocaust will probably also make the character the most wanted person on the planet.  Why someone would wish to inflict this level of villainy on the world is unclear, but any magic-user with a grudge or an agenda could clearly perform such a feat.  Of course, it is also possible that the magic-user in question has no intention of surviving the blast, feels like he has no other option, or has been brainwashed to train in such a way.

Each of these potent wizards seems to come with significant weaknesses that make perfect sense of some mad genius who sought the heights of power.  Of course, that doesn't necessarily justify allowing a player to attempt to derail a campaign in such a way, but anyone dedicated enough to try these sorts of antics might deserve having the opportunity to try.  Even if it backfires horribly, as it often does.

Edit: This post marked two years of this blog, and I totally didn't notice!  Happy birthday to me.

Potion Miscibility in Rockulon Prime

I'm going to go ahead and say that nobody should watch this.  Wizards get sick and things get nasty.

Spell: Baron van Hook's Microcosmic Eye

So, in a couple of Wednesday Werks, I've been referencing a character named Baron Lee van Hook.  He's a minor magus and botanist who also has been researching something he terms "microphytes," which a modern audience would recognize as microorganisms.

Observers might ask the logical question, "How does a fake-medieval fantasy guy see microorganisms anyway?"

The answer: Baron van Hook's Microcosmic Eye.

As part of his plant biology studies, Baron Lee van Hook determined that he needed to be able to see how plants work in miniature.  How do these things fit together?  What action pulls food and water from the soil?

When a magnifying glass wouldn't work, he turned to specialized applications of magic to answer his questions.  It took a lot of research, but Baron Hook finally developed specialized scrying methods to view the microcosmic world around us.

Persistent rumor suggests Baron Hook is researching a refined version of the spell, Baron van Hook's Fundamental Eye.  He suspects there are things even smaller than what he can see with his microcosmic eye.  Modern observers might infer that the fundamental eye would have resolving capabilities similar to electron microscopy.

Baron Hook would likely be willing to teach the spell to others (tell your FLAILSNAILS friends to come to the Sorrowfell Plains!), but no one knows because most people consider his microcosmic investigations to be somewhere bordering on quackery.  It is likely that he has already taught the spell to some of his colleagues or that it has been otherwise archived at the Wizard's Tower.

What follows are three versions of the spell, one for retroclones, one for D&D 3e, and one for D&D 4e.

Retroclone Version:
Magic-User Level 1
Duration: 1 turn/level
Range: 0
This spell augments the caster's sight, allowing him or her to magnify objects.  While focusing on an object, the caster can "zoom in" to a magnification as high as one thousand times, essentially the upper limit of modern light microscopy.  As an added benefit, the spell automatically enhances contrast, replicating some of the utility of microbial staining.

Among the typical components required of magic-user spells, this spell requires a small, finely-crafted lens worth 100 gp.

Third Edition Version:
Divination
Level: Brd 1, Sor/Wiz 1 (the jury's still out as to whether any clerics have channeled this spell, but the Knowledge domain seems like a good bet)
Components: V, S, M, F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 10 min./level
You can magnify objects by sight and will alone.  While focusing on an object, you can "zoom in" to a magnification as high as one thousand times, essentially the upper limit of modern light microscopy.  As an added benefit, the spell automatically enhances contrast, replicating some of the utility of microbial staining.

Baron van Hook's microcosmic eye can be made permanent with permanency.  The caster must have a minimum caster level of 9th level and spend 500 XP.

Arcane Material Component
A pinch of crumbled, dead leaf litter.

Focus
A small, finely-crafted lens worth 100 gp.

Fourth Edition Version (Ritual):
As you finish the ritual, you find that a microcosmic world opens for you.
Level: 1
Category: Divination
Time: 10 minutes
Duration: 1 hour
Component Cost: 5 gp, plus a focus worth 20 gp
Market Price: 50 gp
Key Skill: Arcana
For the ritual's duration, you can "zoom in" your sight at will to see microscopic objects and creatures.  At the DM's option, this may allow you to re-roll a failed Perception check — as well as a failed Nature or other knowledge check — when appropriate.
Focus: A finely-crafted magnifying glass you look through as part of the ritual.