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View Full Version : [3.5] Incorporating magic into my setting without making the tippyverse.



Myou
2009-10-14, 03:12 PM
The setting I use is a world covered in ocean, peppered wth small to medium-sized tropical islands. The north and south poles are cut off by endless storms that no-one has survived entering and the material plane is cut off from all others by a impenetrable barrier that stops anyone leaving or entering the plane.

So far we've only spent time in the relatively backwards west side of a large island, but when we get to the east coast on the other side of the mountains, where the odd village in the jungle gives way to plains, and there are a couple of towns and a city, I want to start including more magical effects, as the setting has level 20+ spellcasters in it, and so magic should be available, at a cost, to almost anyone.

Most isolated settlements are self-governing and citie usually function as city-states, although on larger islands they may form competing small countries.

A quick note, magical traps can only be used for offensive spells, and don't autoreset, so no traps to make food, etc.

One thing I though of is having all major shops part of a merchant's guild (or several competing guilds) and the shops all being nearly empty, instead housing teleportation circles that allow shopkeepers to order whatever customers want to buy from one vast magical storehouse, which would hold almost anything you can buy (although really rare stuff wouldn't be certain to be in stock, or even stocked at all).

What do you think of my idea, and what other reasonable uses would magic logically be put to?

Crafty Cultist
2009-10-14, 03:23 PM
transporting goods by teleportation makes sense if the merchants can afford it. a teleportation feild in each town would allow for easy travel for those permitted to use it. given the small islands, expantion might go upwards, making floating buildings common

Myou
2009-10-14, 03:25 PM
transporting goods by teleportation makes sense if the merchants can afford it. a teleportation feild in each town would allow for easy travel for those permitted to use it. given the small islands, expantion might go upwards, making floating buildings common

Teleporation field? :smalleek:

The population isn't really high enough for there to be overcrowding, 95% of the current island is wilderness, but that's a great idea if I make a tiny island with a higher-than-average population. :3

ericgrau
2009-10-14, 03:32 PM
Adventurers and other wealthy people are rare, so magic items can only solve the problems of a few rich people, not everyone. Remember how the Azure City rebellion is having food shortages simply because they have no clerics high enough level to cast create food and water? Custom items and traps should be allowed by DM approval only. Other stuff that's so obviously cheesy that you notice it at first glance can be simply denied the moment it shows its face.

Myou
2009-10-14, 03:38 PM
Adventurers and other wealthy people are rare, so magic items can only solve the problems of a few rich people, not everyone. Remember how the Azure City rebellion is having food shortages simply because they have no clerics high enough level to cast create food and water? Custom items and traps should be allowed by DM approval only. Other stuff that's so obviously cheesy that you notice it at first glance can be simply denied the moment it shows its face.

Well, the thing is that in my game he average wealth level is a bit higher, so a merchant can afford to invest in a teleportation circle.

So while so far the only magic has been in the hands of the privaleged few, I'm looking for ways that magic would reasonably manifest in the world, both in the hands of rich NPCs and the middle classes, and even commoners. If that makes sense. ^^;

Myrmex
2009-10-14, 03:45 PM
One alternative is to create NPC rules for team crafting where a bunch of people working together can do something, or power materials that low level users can convert into high level effects.

For instance, a 50,000gp room seems ridiculous if its assumed that King Not-So-Powerful had to pay for it all at once in gold coins. But that's not how governments work. It was bled out of the peasants over 50 years, and he's inherited it.

Kind of like how a castle is really pricey for an adventurer to purchase, but quite cheap for someone with a monopoly on coercive force (a government).

You have to recognize that gp is a placeholder for material wealth for PCs and should be largely ignored for NPC organizations.

Myou
2009-10-14, 03:51 PM
One alternative is to create NPC rules for team crafting where a bunch of people working together can do something, or power materials that low level users can convert into high level effects.

For instance, a 50,000gp room seems ridiculous if its assumed that King Not-So-Powerful had to pay for it all at once in gold coins. But that's not how governments work. It was bled out of the peasants over 50 years, and he's inherited it.

Kind of like how a castle is really pricey for an adventurer to purchase, but quite cheap for someone with a monopoly on coercive force (a government).

You have to recognize that gp is a placeholder for material wealth for PCs and should be largely ignored for NPC organizations.

I'm probably not making my self very clear, sorry. What I'm looking for are ideas on what uses magic would be put to, assuming that even high level spells are affordable if they give some return on the investment.

Another idea I just had is for centralised banks that use teleportation circles to move money to a vault complex, and issue magical banknotes to the owners to allow for transactions without carrying actual carts of gold everywhere.

It's a good point you make about government contruction and labour though.

TheLogman
2009-10-14, 04:35 PM
Well, for this, I shall turn to Maslow's Hierarchy.

First Step: Food, Water, Shelter, Sleep
Second Step: Health and safety of self and friends/family
Third Step: Love and Belonging
Fourth Step: Self-Esteem, Confidence, Respect
Fifth Step: Self Actualization.

So, if magic is really expensive, and only nobles can buy magic items, they'll buy things that make the first step easier before the second step, the second step before the third step, and the like.

So, magic items that create food, Hero's Feast or just Create Food and Water are first. A neverending well or sink could provide infinite personal or communal water.

If a noble or his family is sick though, he may avoid spending on future welfare to spend on immediate health. Potions of Neutralize posion or Cure Disease, or remove blindness or deafness may be purchased when needed, or for the very rich, bought and kept in reserve.

For Safety, it really comes down to protecting the castle. Magical defenses on castle walls, alarms for the main doors, magic sentries and other defenses. Only the very richest can afford magically protected anything.

Then even more expensive comes assurance from death. Contingencies to save the noble or his family from immediate danger, and perhaps items or raise dead or resurrection for the highest royalty.

The only other thing the average noble will buy magically wise is something to A. Impress a potential lover, or B. Snare a potential lover.

But that's frivolous spending, especially in a world of low and expensive magic.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-10-14, 04:41 PM
In the campaign I wrote up, there were Gates, which were two portals large enough for a cart to go through, specifically linked to each other. One walks through one, and out the other, regardless of distance between.

Such things are... expensive. Like Millions of GP expensive. So they are mostly owned and operated by cartels and other similarly wealthy organizations. But hey, getting from one side of the empire to the other, instantly, without risking any cargo (which is a major concern on that particular trade route) is worth it. Getting luxury items, or heck even perishables, a few thousand miles safely can mean *huge* profits. Also, when you aren't using it, you can charge people a *nominal* fee (something like 1k gp per person, with a 5k gp per vehicle or pack animal) to use it as well. Or better, let the nobles use it... for a Favor.

The Wizard's Guild, of course, keeps the secret of these portals... very secret. One of their most profitable magic items they've got. And you better believe that they've got a clause specifying that they can use 'em whenever they want to, at no charge.

Myou
2009-10-15, 03:59 AM
Well, for this, I shall turn to Maslow's Hierarchy.

First Step: Food, Water, Shelter, Sleep
Second Step: Health and safety of self and friends/family
Third Step: Love and Belonging
Fourth Step: Self-Esteem, Confidence, Respect
Fifth Step: Self Actualization.

So, if magic is really expensive, and only nobles can buy magic items, they'll buy things that make the first step easier before the second step, the second step before the third step, and the like.

So, magic items that create food, Hero's Feast or just Create Food and Water are first. A neverending well or sink could provide infinite personal or communal water.

If a noble or his family is sick though, he may avoid spending on future welfare to spend on immediate health. Potions of Neutralize posion or Cure Disease, or remove blindness or deafness may be purchased when needed, or for the very rich, bought and kept in reserve.

For Safety, it really comes down to protecting the castle. Magical defenses on castle walls, alarms for the main doors, magic sentries and other defenses. Only the very richest can afford magically protected anything.

Then even more expensive comes assurance from death. Contingencies to save the noble or his family from immediate danger, and perhaps items or raise dead or resurrection for the highest royalty.

The only other thing the average noble will buy magically wise is something to A. Impress a potential lover, or B. Snare a potential lover.

But that's frivolous spending, especially in a world of low and expensive magic.

Hmmm, so towns and cities would have communal magic wells and food dispensers, perhaps with a small charge for use? They could be provided by some sort of guild to towns that want them, who run them for a respectable profit. I like guilds. x3

There aren't really many kings or royalty, since most islands only hold a few towns/villages, but there are aristocrats on larger islands.

Hmmm, poorer people travel by ship, but the wealthy might not do that - they could hire wizards to teleport them places, the you only need ships for transporting very large cargos, or going to places that none of the avialable wizards have seen before.



In the campaign I wrote up, there were Gates, which were two portals large enough for a cart to go through, specifically linked to each other. One walks through one, and out the other, regardless of distance between.

Such things are... expensive. Like Millions of GP expensive. So they are mostly owned and operated by cartels and other similarly wealthy organizations. But hey, getting from one side of the empire to the other, instantly, without risking any cargo (which is a major concern on that particular trade route) is worth it. Getting luxury items, or heck even perishables, a few thousand miles safely can mean *huge* profits. Also, when you aren't using it, you can charge people a *nominal* fee (something like 1k gp per person, with a 5k gp per vehicle or pack animal) to use it as well. Or better, let the nobles use it... for a Favor.

The Wizard's Guild, of course, keeps the secret of these portals... very secret. One of their most profitable magic items they've got. And you better believe that they've got a clause specifying that they can use 'em whenever they want to, at no charge.

I like the idea of that, but I'm trying to only bring in magic where it would logically crop up, so since there's no existing spell for that I don't have to worry there. I don't want travel to become instantanious, I want it to take time and effort.

elliott20
2009-10-15, 04:55 AM
I personally find it odd that magical items never need any sort of upkeep to maintain. That is, barring an item running out of charges or consumables you will never actually see a magical item needing fixing.

this is especially true when it comes to infrastructure. Once you create a teleportation circle, you never really need to do much to keep it running. And that to me seems rather odd. The idea here is that the magic never deteriorates in quality (I guess magic doesn't have a half-life), the infrastructure it is set upon is NEVER breaking or disturbed, and not even the ink you use to draw the damn circle gets smudged, despite having 100,000 different things getting dragged over it on a daily basis. To me, that just seems really weird.

One of the major obstacles for major infrastructure investments in a lot of organization tends come down to two things: investment capital and maintenance requirements.

the higher income level means that the first one is less effective. so if you want to prevent magic from flooding the world, the best way is probably to focus on the second one.

It doesn't even need to be something big, it just needs to be something that takes up some resources. i.e. a teleportation circle with permanency cast on it might still require a level appropriate wizard drop by every so often to re-charge the magical infrastructure to make sure it holds. It doesn't need to be another permanency spell, it could just be he has to unload a level 9 spell slot or some such and then just charge for the spell slot itself. As long as something like that is there, it will go a long way in preventing excessive magical proliferation.

Myou
2009-10-15, 09:01 AM
I personally find it odd that magical items never need any sort of upkeep to maintain. That is, barring an item running out of charges or consumables you will never actually see a magical item needing fixing.

this is especially true when it comes to infrastructure. Once you create a teleportation circle, you never really need to do much to keep it running. And that to me seems rather odd. The idea here is that the magic never deteriorates in quality (I guess magic doesn't have a half-life), the infrastructure it is set upon is NEVER breaking or disturbed, and not even the ink you use to draw the damn circle gets smudged, despite having 100,000 different things getting dragged over it on a daily basis. To me, that just seems really weird.

One of the major obstacles for major infrastructure investments in a lot of organization tends come down to two things: investment capital and maintenance requirements.

the higher income level means that the first one is less effective. so if you want to prevent magic from flooding the world, the best way is probably to focus on the second one.

It doesn't even need to be something big, it just needs to be something that takes up some resources. i.e. a teleportation circle with permanency cast on it might still require a level appropriate wizard drop by every so often to re-charge the magical infrastructure to make sure it holds. It doesn't need to be another permanency spell, it could just be he has to unload a level 9 spell slot or some such and then just charge for the spell slot itself. As long as something like that is there, it will go a long way in preventing excessive magical proliferation.

I love the idea, but I'm a little concerned, because I don't want players to have to worry about their premanent magical items and devices failing on them or needing upkeep, and yet if an NPC cicle can fail a PC one can too. It would require quite a bit of houseruling it seems too, to establish a mechanic for spell failure. Is there a better way of doing it?

Khanderas
2009-10-15, 09:19 AM
Everything decays.
Make it so that this applies to magic as well. While it would survive a generation perhaps, most magic items and effects have been created by a wizard not that long ago. Artifacts would be exempt but the knowledge to make those are lost to the ages and would be very sought after. Infact a +1 sword that is permanent problebly counts as an artifact in regards to noteriety.

Big things, like teleportation fields can be made but would decay in months and not practical compared to mundane (or enhanced) ships. Floating buildings just wont happen with the cost compared to how long it lasts.

Why does it work like this ? Well some theories are out there, the most popular one is that magic power is "slow". The force that powers it grows from the world itself and settles, spending large quantities of it (especially in fixed locations) thin the density of magic down, while it always flows back in, it does so farily slowly. Mages and Sages agree it can be described kinda like this, then start to pull out advanced math with exceptions, details, formulaes and more. Usually noncasters stop being able to follow at this time. So its "kinda" like this. This explanation is good enough for noncasters anyway.

(another reason to have wizard towers far out from civilization, so they dont have to share the power with neighbouring nobles with +1 swords and cantripping posers)

Myou
2009-10-15, 09:56 AM
Everything decays.
Make it so that this applies to magic as well. While it would survive a generation perhaps, most magic items and effects have been created by a wizard not that long ago. Artifacts would be exempt but the knowledge to make those are lost to the ages and would be very sought after. Infact a +1 sword that is permanent problebly counts as an artifact in regards to noteriety.

Big things, like teleportation fields can be made but would decay in months and not practical compared to mundane (or enhanced) ships. Floating buildings just wont happen with the cost compared to how long it lasts.

Why does it work like this ? Well some theories are out there, the most popular one is that magic power is "slow". The force that powers it grows from the world itself and settles, spending large quantities of it (especially in fixed locations) thin the density of magic down, while it always flows back in, it does so farily slowly. Mages and Sages agree it can be described kinda like this, then start to pull out advanced math with exceptions, details, formulaes and more. Usually noncasters stop being able to follow at this time. So its "kinda" like this. This explanation is good enough for noncasters anyway.

(another reason to have wizard towers far out from civilization, so they dont have to share the power with neighbouring nobles with +1 swords and cantripping posers)

Except that I don't want to introduce rules for items decaying, and I already have very different fluff for how magic works.

I don't really see a way to make this practical without houseruling durations for permanent spells. xP

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-10-15, 10:54 AM
I like the idea of that, but I'm trying to only bring in magic where it would logically crop up, so since there's no existing spell for that I don't have to worry there. I don't want travel to become instantanious, I want it to take time and effort.

It's called Circle of Teleportation. It'll also charge the PC's like 10k to bring an average party through... so it's not free. And it only goes city to city, and only to a specific city. So it's kind of like an Airport, you go from city to city, then you travel from there to your ultimate destination.

Travel *IS* already instantaneous after 9th level if you have an arcane caster n the party, because he can just teleport everyone around to wherever they need to be. Face it, any party with an arcane caster that has 5th level spells (unless they banned Conjuration for some reason) has instantaneous transportation to anywhere they've ever been. After they get 7th level spells, they get Greater Teleport, and get instantaneous transportation to anywhere they'd ever want to be.

Myou
2009-10-15, 11:02 AM
It's called Circle of Teleportation. It'll also charge the PC's like 10k to bring an average party through... so it's not free. And it only goes city to city, and only to a specific city. So it's kind of like an Airport, you go from city to city, then you travel from there to your ultimate destination.

Travel *IS* already instantaneous after 9th level if you have an arcane caster n the party, because he can just teleport everyone around to wherever they need to be. Face it, any party with an arcane caster that has 5th level spells (unless they banned Conjuration for some reason) has instantaneous transportation to anywhere they've ever been. After they get 7th level spells, they get Greater Teleport, and get instantaneous transportation to anywhere they'd ever want to be.

Oh, you mean Teleportation Circle? I thought you were talking about something more like a homebrew portable Gate spell.

Greater Teleport only works if you have a well-defined target and a caster, at those high levels that's fine. I'm referring more to lower levels - low level players and NPCs shouldn't be able to teleport all the time.

I think that fees to use a city's Teleportation Circles works well. and they'd only link to allied cities of course, so it would be rare to see one that went further than perhaps the next island.

Flickerdart
2009-10-15, 11:09 AM
Nope. Teleportation carries you, I believe, through the Ethereal or Astral plane, meaning that if as you say the Material Plane is cut off from everything, then teleporting's not gonna be happening. You could use Wind Walk to get around that, and such. I mean sure, you could refluff that, but it seems like a fun enough limitation.

And "impenetrable barriers" don't really exist to 20+ level spellcasters. They'd just all get together, jury-rig an Epic spell and make everything working properly. Or the players will convince them to do that/do that themselves. The fun comes in thinking up the hilarious and fatal consequences of this.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-10-15, 11:14 AM
Oh, you mean Teleportation Circle? I thought you were talking about something more like a homebrew portable Gate spell.

Greater Teleport only works if you have a well-defined target and a caster, at those high levels that's fine. I'm referring more to lower levels - low level players and NPCs shouldn't be able to teleport all the time.

I think that fees to use a city's Teleportation Circles works well. and they'd only link to allied cities of course, so it would be rare to see one that went further than perhaps the next island.

Basically, they use Circle of Teleportation, although they are called 'Gates', and only teleport you from and to one specific 'pad'. Thus, Gate A is linked to Gate B. You can use Gate A to get to Gate B, and vice versa. You can't use either to get to Gate C.

In my game, they were aligned along economic trade routes, particularly the more dangerous ones. So going from Metropolis A to Metropolis B requires the caravan to trek through the Blighted Lands, then through the Dead Moor, then through the Haunted Hills, would likely have a set of Gates set up between them, because of the economic advantage of trade goods more easily getting between them.

In my game, they were only used in one nation, which was huge, so political alliances were not a significant issue. But the problem with multiple smaller nations is that you need a large Wizard's Guild to be able to fund the research and build the Gates. Without a centralized group of Wizards able to make them, they won't exist. Therefore, either the Wizard's Guild will have to be a separate political entity, at least partially above and beyond more mundane politics, or you will have different Wizard's Guilds vying for the secrets.

Ormur
2009-10-15, 11:14 AM
Even if the magic lasts forever the magic circles may not. Accidents happen, once in a a century magical phenomena and hostile or careless wizards may simply dispel it. It's also reasonable to assume that the organization that bought the teleportation ring had to take out a loan for most of the price so there would be interest payments.

The way to make expensive magical items commonplace is for them to be used by the community or the government for the benefit of all the citizens. Magic items for defense of course but perhaps a lyre of building for building new infrastructure, decanters of endless water for plumbing etc. Mage hand magic items also make good endlessly pumping pumps.

Myou
2009-10-15, 11:55 AM
Nope. Teleportation carries you, I believe, through the Ethereal or Astral plane, meaning that if as you say the Material Plane is cut off from everything, then teleporting's not gonna be happening. You could use Wind Walk to get around that, and such. I mean sure, you could refluff that, but it seems like a fun enough limitation.

And "impenetrable barriers" don't really exist to 20+ level spellcasters. They'd just all get together, jury-rig an Epic spell and make everything working properly. Or the players will convince them to do that/do that themselves. The fun comes in thinking up the hilarious and fatal consequences of this.

Perhaps you're thinking of fluff? I don't see anything like that in the spell description. And fluff that pointless can die in a fire. :smalltongue:

Also, WotC epic spellcasting already did die in a fire, so that's not happening. See my sig if you're curious. Breaking through that barrier is a potential plot point though.


Basically, they use Circle of Teleportation, although they are called 'Gates', and only teleport you from and to one specific 'pad'. Thus, Gate A is linked to Gate B. You can use Gate A to get to Gate B, and vice versa. You can't use either to get to Gate C.

In my game, they were aligned along economic trade routes, particularly the more dangerous ones. So going from Metropolis A to Metropolis B requires the caravan to trek through the Blighted Lands, then through the Dead Moor, then through the Haunted Hills, would likely have a set of Gates set up between them, because of the economic advantage of trade goods more easily getting between them.

In my game, they were only used in one nation, which was huge, so political alliances were not a significant issue. But the problem with multiple smaller nations is that you need a large Wizard's Guild to be able to fund the research and build the Gates. Without a centralized group of Wizards able to make them, they won't exist. Therefore, either the Wizard's Guild will have to be a separate political entity, at least partially above and beyond more mundane politics, or you will have different Wizard's Guilds vying for the secrets.

Well I was thinking that the real power in the world will lie in the hands of guilds. A merchant's guild that uses circles to transport stock to sellers, a banking guild that does the same sort of thing with wealth and issues 'banknotes', the church that supplies divine casting (following Pelor), the Arcane Order that supplies arcane casting and some sort of thieves guild that supplies crime. :3

I'm not sure if each should be unique to its field of have multiple competitors.

I'm also not sure if there should be any other major organisations.


Even if the magic lasts forever the magic circles may not. Accidents happen, once in a a century magical phenomena and hostile or careless wizards may simply dispel it. It's also reasonable to assume that the organization that bought the teleportation ring had to take out a loan for most of the price so there would be interest payments.

The way to make expensive magical items commonplace is for them to be used by the community or the government for the benefit of all the citizens. Magic items for defense of course but perhaps a lyre of building for building new infrastructure, decanters of endless water for plumbing etc. Mage hand magic items also make good endlessly pumping pumps.

Ah, that sounds better. :3
Perhaps the mages won't sell them, only rent them out. :smallbiggrin:

And yes, that sounds good. Large cities might have some of those things.
What does the lyre do?

Another_Poet
2009-10-15, 12:10 PM
I think that mid-level wizards would probably have one or more guilds that run a monopoly on the teleport rings. Assuming every large town wants one, they'd have a tidy business for themselves.

I would not have individual teleport circles in merchant shops. Maybe some kings or nobles would have private teleport circles, but most merchants would use the communal teleporter in the middle of town. The guild that owns the teleporter would charge the merchants a fee for regularly bringing shipments through. If they're smart the teleporter guilds would also buy up the major stockhouses that the merchants receive the shipments from, making money on both ends. But merchant guilds would fight hard to keep control over the stockhouses themselves, and instead get gouged on shipping fees between warehouses or from warehouse to retail.

Ideally no town would ever have to buy a teleport circle. Instead they pay an ongoing (monthly or yearly) usage fee, with the understanding that the teleporter guild will dispel the thing if the town ever gets behind on payments. In the long run this is better for the teleporter guild (as they have a customer forever, and will eventually accrue far more profit than if they had charged for a one-time sale of the teleport ring). It's also a good deal for the towns, because they don't have to make a large up-front investment and the maintenance of the teleporter is handled by the teleporter guild (for instance if it gets dispelled or the settings need to be changed to not allow incoming teleports from an enemy nation, the guild handles it as part of their contract).

Basically, smart capitalists will make magic a service industry rather than relying on the sale of magic items.

Other perks of a magic society include cheap labour from golems or animated objects, (or undead but probably frowned upon), good health care, wider availability of luxuries such as hot water or iced drinks, more interesting illegal services (both of the prostitution and mind-altering-substance varieties), and potentially a better criminal justice system if constables learn to rely on magical investigators and leave behind medieval principles of "justice".

Some of the above have major downfalls, however. Cheap labour can destroy an economy quickly. If animated objects do all the drudge work for cheap, living people are out of jobs. This makes people angry.

I would steer clear of Heroes' Feast and Create Food/Water because important people stand to lose a lot of money if these are put into regular use. Lords rely on serfs for tax money, military service and the perception of importance; serfs are tied hand-in-hand with an agricultural economy. Delete the need for agriculture, and your serfs either get lazy (if they get food and don't have to work) or rebellious (if they are not beneficiaries of the new free food policy). Plus, the tax base of the economy (grain) falls out and you have lords who can no longer afford the magical and mundane equipment they need to conduct a war. Since their whole right to rule is predicated on the idea that they will defend the land and keep the people safe, they feel threatened by this even if there is no immediate threat.

In short: If magic is implemented too broadly and on purely capitalistic terms, you will see destabilisation of the aristocratic regime and widespread rebellion against feudal monarchy. In fact, it will be exactly like what happened when technology and capitalism were broadly implemented in the real world.

If you wish to keep a more medieval fantasy feel, concentrate the magical services in the hands of a few cabal-like guilds and make sure they have an elabourate, balanced relationship with the nobles on one hand and the clergy on the other. Look at Renaissance Italy for inspiration. Leave out the food-creating magic (and possibly the free labour magic) and just assume that the Powers the Be have discouraged such magics while encouraging more profitable things.

Also, war sucks in a high magic world. Chemical and biological weapons are nothing compared to wizards on the loose. Assume that entire towns/cities are destroyed, charmed, undeaded, diseased, or mutated when war breaks out.

tyckspoon
2009-10-15, 12:16 PM
The lyre is also useful with respect to building. Once a week its strings can be strummed so as to produce chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, or whatever. The effect produced in but 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for three days. Each hour after the first, a character playing the lyre must make a DC 18 Perform (string instruments) check. If it fails, she must stop and cannot play the lyre again for this purpose until a week has passed.

It completely destroys any reason to have a construction industry, basically. You can have the support businesses around it- you'll still need people to harvest and haul in wood and stone and whatnot to build things with, for example- but almost all of the actual building can be done by a 1st level Expert playing a lyre for a couple of hours (Take 10 +4 Ranks + 3 Skill Focus +2 Masterwork Tool [the lyre you're playing- magic items must be of masterwork quality..] = cannot fail. He can build most of a town for you in one day if you find a way to prevent Exhaustion.)

Asheram
2009-10-15, 01:04 PM
According to Stronghold builders guide, a two-way gate would cost 150.000gp, Market price and require a caster L17
300.000gp if you want one about big enough to take two carts through simultaneous (might have the math wrong on that, they're describing it quite strangely in the book.)

A two-way portal, that is.

Myou
2009-10-15, 01:24 PM
I think that mid-level wizards would probably have one or more guilds that run a monopoly on the teleport rings. Assuming every large town wants one, they'd have a tidy business for themselves.

I would not have individual teleport circles in merchant shops. Maybe some kings or nobles would have private teleport circles, but most merchants would use the communal teleporter in the middle of town. The guild that owns the teleporter would charge the merchants a fee for regularly bringing shipments through. If they're smart the teleporter guilds would also buy up the major stockhouses that the merchants receive the shipments from, making money on both ends. But merchant guilds would fight hard to keep control over the stockhouses themselves, and instead get gouged on shipping fees between warehouses or from warehouse to retail.

Well, the thing is that by havig a circle in each shop no shop has to carry any stock at all - they just take the customer's order then return in a few minute wth the item(s). The guild wouldn't let a circle leading to it's central vault be in public.

The merchant's guild would actually be in competititon with the wizard's guild in a way - the merchants can offer items and scrolls that do what the wizards do, and while it costs more, it lets them make the circles themselves for example.


Ideally no town would ever have to buy a teleport circle. Instead they pay an ongoing (monthly or yearly) usage fee, with the understanding that the teleporter guild will dispel the thing if the town ever gets behind on payments. In the long run this is better for the teleporter guild (as they have a customer forever, and will eventually accrue far more profit than if they had charged for a one-time sale of the teleport ring). It's also a good deal for the towns, because they don't have to make a large up-front investment and the maintenance of the teleporter is handled by the teleporter guild (for instance if it gets dispelled or the settings need to be changed to not allow incoming teleports from an enemy nation, the guild handles it as part of their contract).

Basically, smart capitalists will make magic a service industry rather than relying on the sale of magic items.

Mmmm, yeah, the wizard's guild would just rent the circle, and dispel it if you stopped paying. We think alike. :smallsmile:
Only big towns and cities would have a circle, and only to the most trusted allied towns.


Other perks of a magic society include cheap labour from golems or animated objects, (or undead but probably frowned upon), good health care, wider availability of luxuries such as hot water or iced drinks, more interesting illegal services (both of the prostitution and mind-altering-substance varieties), and potentially a better criminal justice system if constables learn to rely on magical investigators and leave behind medieval principles of "justice".

Some of the above have major downfalls, however. Cheap labour can destroy an economy quickly. If animated objects do all the drudge work for cheap, living people are out of jobs. This makes people angry.

Mmm, this is just the sort of thing I have to account for.
What could prevent or make impractical the use of animated objects or golems en-masse?
If no-one has a better idea perhaps I could introduce a houserule that any aimated object that exists long enough becomes truely sentient, making it moraly unacceptable to use them as free labour?


I would steer clear of Heroes' Feast and Create Food/Water because important people stand to lose a lot of money if these are put into regular use. Lords rely on serfs for tax money, military service and the perception of importance; serfs are tied hand-in-hand with an agricultural economy. Delete the need for agriculture, and your serfs either get lazy (if they get food and don't have to work) or rebellious (if they are not beneficiaries of the new free food policy). Plus, the tax base of the economy (grain) falls out and you have lords who can no longer afford the magical and mundane equipment they need to conduct a war. Since their whole right to rule is predicated on the idea that they will defend the land and keep the people safe, they feel threatened by this even if there is no immediate threat.

But how can the use of those spells be stopped? Without banning them that is.


In short: If magic is implemented too broadly and on purely capitalistic terms, you will see destabilisation of the aristocratic regime and widespread rebellion against feudal monarchy. In fact, it will be exactly like what happened when technology and capitalism were broadly implemented in the real world.

Well, so far no real nobles have come up, so its perfectly feasable to have them replaced by the wealhy mercantile families. The problem then is simply finding jobs for the lower classes to keep the economy moving.


If you wish to keep a more medieval fantasy feel, concentrate the magical services in the hands of a few cabal-like guilds and make sure they have an elabourate, balanced relationship with the nobles on one hand and the clergy on the other. Look at Renaissance Italy for inspiration. Leave out the food-creating magic (and possibly the free labour magic) and just assume that the Powers the Be have discouraged such magics while encouraging more profitable things.

Hmmm, I like that a lot, my setting was inspired by the Italian city-states. But I really want a more solid reason not to use food creation items. That or a way to incorporate them without breaking the universe.


Also, war sucks in a high magic world. Chemical and biological weapons are nothing compared to wizards on the loose. Assume that entire towns/cities are destroyed, charmed, undeaded, diseased, or mutated when war breaks out.

Heh heh, there's no real war in the current region because the place is pretty quiet and peaceful, but as you say, on other islands/island chains politics are sometimes extremely tense, since each side has wizards of mass destruction.

Thanks for your post, you've been of great help!

Myou
2009-10-15, 01:29 PM
It completely destroys any reason to have a construction industry, basically. You can have the support businesses around it- you'll still need people to harvest and haul in wood and stone and whatnot to build things with, for example- but almost all of the actual building can be done by a 1st level Expert playing a lyre for a couple of hours (Take 10 +4 Ranks + 3 Skill Focus +2 Masterwork Tool [the lyre you're playing- magic items must be of masterwork quality..] = cannot fail. He can build most of a town for you in one day if you find a way to prevent Exhaustion.)

Hmmm, I think it might be a good idea to ban that particular item, since it is fairly obscure and won't be much missed. I'd rather the world not depend on musical insturments to build housing. xD

But at the same time its a cool and stylish touch, and does, as you say, require ancillary industry. How much does it cost?


According to Stronghold builders guide, a two-way gate would cost 150.000gp, Market price and require a caster L17
300.000gp if you want one about big enough to take two carts through simultaneous (might have the math wrong on that, they're describing it quite strangely in the book.)

A two-way portal, that is.

Hmmm, is that a two-way Gate spell? If so it seems a bit overpriced - a Teleportation Circle would only be about 30,000 gold, so 60,000 for two.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-10-15, 02:31 PM
Hmmm, I think it might be a good idea to ban that particular item, since it is fairly obscure and won't be much missed. I'd rather the world not depend on musical insturments to build housing. xD

But at the same time its a cool and stylish touch, and does, as you say, require ancillary industry. How much does it cost?



Hmmm, is that a two-way Gate spell? If so it seems a bit overpriced - a Teleportation Circle would only be about 30,000 gold, so 60,000 for two.
Significant XP cost for crafting an item, At-Will, Use-Activated, with significant material costs (for creating the platform which will be used to teleport from), an extra 150k just from material components for the spell (1k per use, X 50, then because it is Unlimited, another X 100), then we tack on a multiplier for 'market value', considering the high demand and low supply...

yea, it's not cheap.

elliott20
2009-10-15, 09:38 PM
Significant XP cost for crafting an item, At-Will, Use-Activated, with significant material costs (for creating the platform which will be used to teleport from), an extra 150k just from material components for the spell (1k per use, X 50, then because it is Unlimited, another X 100), then we tack on a multiplier for 'market value', considering the high demand and low supply...

yea, it's not cheap.

Personally, I would simply go one step further and say that at will, use activated items simply don't exist. Anything that goes beyond giving you a flat, magic numerical bonus MUST have charges attach to it, pure and simple. This means that items that can create endless amounts of water would instead be an item with lots of create water charges or some such.

Flickerdart
2009-10-15, 09:48 PM
Personally, I would simply go one step further and say that at will, use activated items simply don't exist. Anything that goes beyond giving you a flat, magic numerical bonus MUST have charges attach to it, pure and simple. This means that items that can create endless amounts of water would instead be an item with lots of create water charges or some such.
I'd make an exception for the less abusable spells though. I hate spending money on things knowing that after a charge here and a charge there, my investment will have burnt itself out. Eternal wands, of, say, Scorching Ray have never broken any games. Actually, eternal wands of Create Water won't, either: there's an, I think, 3/day cap. It doesn't approach Create Water traps or Decanters of Endless Water in the cheese potential, but it does make sense in the world. It would also mean that wealthy kings can buy a TON of these things and actually have the equivalent of a Decanter of Endless Water by activating one per round for 24 hours a day. Not players, though, unless they have nothing to do with their WBL.

Yahzi
2009-10-15, 09:53 PM
If you have many spell casters, your world has much larger problems than magic items: spells.

Cure Minor Wounds: no more deaths from accidents or childbirth.
Zone of Truth. Perfect justice or a perfect police state.
Remove Disease: no more hospitals.
Divination: no more unsolved crimes.

None of this even vaguely represents a medieval world. For high magic your flavor is Sci-Fi, not Fantasy.

elliott20
2009-10-15, 10:06 PM
well, I've always argued that this is one of the reasons the D&D magic system fundamentally doesn't jive well with the setting.

The main reason being magic is in fact, too fast, too reliable, and too cheap to use. Seriously, the cost for a magic user to summon a swarm of meteors to destroy a town is what... 8 hours of sleep, takes 6 seconds per volley, and has no actual repercussions on his own person beyond the moral issues he must deal with. With magic being THIS easy, I'm surprised that not every tom, ****, and harry are magic users. In this context, and with multi-classing RAW, it would make perfect sense of wizard colleges churning out a crap ton of wizards who focuses their career on utility / crafting spells.

Wizards, in this case, are basically treated like engineers/scientists/doctors/construction workers all rolled into one. It's like, the most potent profession you can ever have.

Another_Poet
2009-10-15, 10:33 PM
Well, the thing is that by havig a circle in each shop no shop has to carry any stock at all - they just take the customer's order then return in a few minute wth the item(s).

I think it will be cheaper to build a small stock room at the shop to hold inventory than to buy a private teleport circle (or even pay to lease one). Even with security cost on the inventory. Cheaper means more profitable, and by passing on some of the savings to the end consumer you also remain more competitive.

Of course, high-ticket items would have to be ordered and then requested from the big warehouse so that they're not sitting around in some poorly guarded shop.


The guild wouldn't let a circle leading to it's central vault be in public.

No, the public ones would presumably be able to adjust destination. During the one hour a week that Bob the Merchant has paid to use the teleporter, the teleport attendant keys it to Bob's guild's warehouse. Bob goes through, shows the proper credentials and gets this week's shipment.

Of course, teleport attendant would be a skilled profession that pays well and is respected, kind of like telegraphist in the Old West.


Only big towns and cities would have a circle, and only to the most trusted allied towns.

That's a setting choice. If you have paranoid governments, it makes sense. Otherwise posting a town guard near the teleporter makes it reasonably safe to open the teleport to any city/country that isn't openly hostile. I mean, if the guys on the other side decide to surprise attack, they can only come through a few at a time. The teleport attendant dispels the circle and the town guard whistles for backup to kill/capture the few soldiers who got through. It's not different than guarding a border crossing, except that it's an even better choke point.

Of course, espionage may be a booming military tactic under such conditions.


Mmm, this is just the sort of thing I have to account for.
What could prevent or make impractical the use of animated objects or golems en-masse?

A caste system or cultural taboo could limit certain kinds of work as drudge work that animated objects can perform, whereas other work is "special" (takes skill, shouldn't be sullied by the arcane, whatever bullcrap explanation the culture wants) and must not be done by nonliving hands.

Alternately, the cost on the the animated objects could be high, or there could be a high rate of breakdown after a short period. Or give them all the "berserk" quality that some true golems have, where they have a % chance of going on a berserk rage if they are damaged in any way. If they are dangerous to use they won't be used as widely.


If no-one has a better idea perhaps I could introduce a houserule that any aimated object that exists long enough becomes truely sentient, making it moraly unacceptable to use them as free labour?

That works too, but then you have an ever-increasing population that is in competition with humans and yet superior to humans in almost every way. This is a major setting change.


But how can the use of those spells be stopped? Without banning them that is.

Easily. The same reason you pay $70 or more for shoes that cost less than $2 to make and ship to the store. Greed, or pragmatic business sense if you prefer.

If you own the means to produce unlimited food, the stupidest thing you can do is give it away for free or cheap. People in the Create Food racket will charge roughly the same price for their goods as what is charged for naturally grown food. If they flood the market with cheap food it devalues and they go bankrupt, so they cut the price just enough to stay competitive (and of course they roll in filthy money when there's a drought and their natueal agro competitors have reduced inventory).

As in many real world industries, reaction from rich people will be swift and severe toward anyone who tries to go around the system and give something away for free or cheap. They'll tolerate competition but not being put collectively out of business.


Well, so far no real nobles have come up, so its perfectly feasable to have them replaced by the wealhy mercantile families. The problem then is simply finding jobs for the lower classes to keep the economy moving.

Agreed. If you do allow shared crafting, then people who are not wizards can be involved in magic item production and put in a share of XP, as well as do some of the labour involved in making items. You could have whole factories or sweatshops that do this. Of course then you need to assume there are other ways of gaining XP than combat, for instance, overcoming challenges of a nonmilitary nature.

Alternately, the culture may put great value on mundane items ("magic food is bad for you!!!") and create some demand that way.


Thanks for your post, you've been of great help!

No problem!

Willfor
2009-10-15, 11:14 PM
Alternately, the culture may put great value on mundane items ("magic food is bad for you!!!") and create some demand that way.

I thought everyone knew studies have shown that magical food increases your risk of both colon cancer, and heart disease? :smallconfused:

:smallamused:

Another_Poet
2009-10-16, 08:59 AM
I thought everyone knew studies have shown that magical food increases your risk of both colon cancer, and heart disease? :smallconfused:

:smallamused:

And zombification :)

jiriku
2009-10-16, 10:09 AM
Typically the poor concentrate on survival and entertainment, the middle class focus on comfort and security, while the rich are concerned about net worth and uniquene possessions or experiences.

Since even in a magic-heavy campaign, spells are only for the rich, we'll look at what the rich would do.

A rich man wants his money to be making money for him while he sleeps. So he'll definitely invest in paying for permanent teleportation circles, crystal balls, speaking stones, and ring gates, and charging for their use. Even if it takes him five or ten years to break even on the investment, it will provide him and his descendents with a stream of income forever. Spells like create food and water and wall of stone are uninteresting because they're too expensive compared to mundane alternatives. Expect wealthy individuals and organizations to pay for magical security in the form of hardness, permanent magic mouth, and permanent alarm, and financial advice backed by divinations if you have a god of wealth in your setting.

Since the rich also prize unique possessions and experience, expect fantastic art produced through the fabricate spell, heroes feast banquets during parties, and a steady market among the wealthy for "adventure tours" using spells like fly and water breathing , or even plane shift to explore exotic environments. With teleport spells to take care of travel, such vacations don't even need to take much time.

Myou
2009-10-16, 10:58 AM
Significant XP cost for crafting an item, At-Will, Use-Activated, with significant material costs (for creating the platform which will be used to teleport from), an extra 150k just from material components for the spell (1k per use, X 50, then because it is Unlimited, another X 100), then we tack on a multiplier for 'market value', considering the high demand and low supply...

yea, it's not cheap.

Hmmm, that's good. Can ayoe give me an estimate? If they cost enough then you'd probably only find them in the hands of some sort of construction guild who can afford the payments on them.


Personally, I would simply go one step further and say that at will, use activated items simply don't exist. Anything that goes beyond giving you a flat, magic numerical bonus MUST have charges attach to it, pure and simple. This means that items that can create endless amounts of water would instead be an item with lots of create water charges or some such.

That would have been easier, but my player and I like permanent items and already have a few. ^^;


I'd make an exception for the less abusable spells though. I hate spending money on things knowing that after a charge here and a charge there, my investment will have burnt itself out. Eternal wands, of, say, Scorching Ray have never broken any games. Actually, eternal wands of Create Water won't, either: there's an, I think, 3/day cap. It doesn't approach Create Water traps or Decanters of Endless Water in the cheese potential, but it does make sense in the world. It would also mean that wealthy kings can buy a TON of these things and actually have the equivalent of a Decanter of Endless Water by activating one per round for 24 hours a day. Not players, though, unless they have nothing to do with their WBL.

Well, that' one way os restaining it a little, but by RAW it doesn't seem that much more expensive to get the infinite use version than the limited one. My player got that done with his Brawler's Gauntlets.


If you have many spell casters, your world has much larger problems than magic items: spells.

Cure Minor Wounds: no more deaths from accidents or childbirth.
Zone of Truth. Perfect justice or a perfect police state.
Remove Disease: no more hospitals.
Divination: no more unsolved crimes.

None of this even vaguely represents a medieval world. For high magic your flavor is Sci-Fi, not Fantasy.

Errr, yes, I am aware of casters. xD

But cure spells won't stop people dying, especially in childbirth - you'd have to have hired a cleric to oversee the birth. :smallconfused:

Zone of Truth is easily foiled, so it would be on par with modern lie detectors, and might be inadmissable in some courts. (As lie detectors are in most.)

Very right on the hospitals and remove disease. But don't forget, medevil time had no hospitals to begin with.

Divination is actually only able to look into the future, not the past.



well, I've always argued that this is one of the reasons the D&D magic system fundamentally doesn't jive well with the setting.

The main reason being magic is in fact, too fast, too reliable, and too cheap to use. Seriously, the cost for a magic user to summon a swarm of meteors to destroy a town is what... 8 hours of sleep, takes 6 seconds per volley, and has no actual repercussions on his own person beyond the moral issues he must deal with. With magic being THIS easy, I'm surprised that not every tom, ****, and harry are magic users. In this context, and with multi-classing RAW, it would make perfect sense of wizard colleges churning out a crap ton of wizards who focuses their career on utility / crafting spells.

Wizards, in this case, are basically treated like engineers/scientists/doctors/construction workers all rolled into one. It's like, the most potent profession you can ever have.

In my setting not even 1 in 1,000 people have to potential to become powerful casters, and only perhaps 1 in 100 have any chance of even masterng a few cantrips. Primarily because arcane magic come from the caster and not some external source they tap into. Oh, and divine magic comes from collective will - clerics channel power from thier worshippers, not their diety, and it takes a lot of skill and ability. :smallsmile:

But yes, Wizard and Cleric are the top jobs. Everyone wants to be one. Well, almost everyone.


I thought everyone knew studies have shown that magical food increases your risk of both colon cancer, and heart disease? :smallconfused:

:smallamused:

I'm glad WotC forgot to stat up cancer and heart disease then. :smalltongue:

And yet somehow made a PrC based on cancer, without cancer existing....



I think it will be cheaper to build a small stock room at the shop to hold inventory than to buy a private teleport circle (or even pay to lease one). Even with security cost on the inventory. Cheaper means more profitable, and by passing on some of the savings to the end consumer you also remain more competitive.

Of course, high-ticket items would have to be ordered and then requested from the big warehouse so that they're not sitting around in some poorly guarded shop.

But if you have to order them how do you actually get them to the customer without teleporting them?


No, the public ones would presumably be able to adjust destination. During the one hour a week that Bob the Merchant has paid to use the teleporter, the teleport attendant keys it to Bob's guild's warehouse. Bob goes through, shows the proper credentials and gets this week's shipment.

Of course, teleport attendant would be a skilled profession that pays well and is respected, kind of like telegraphist in the Old West.

Well, Teleportation Circle can't actually do that, and I don't want it to be able to either, because that makes travel even easier. ^^;

Also, the guild vault complex wouldn't want a public circle pointed at it ever.


That's a setting choice. If you have paranoid governments, it makes sense. Otherwise posting a town guard near the teleporter makes it reasonably safe to open the teleport to any city/country that isn't openly hostile. I mean, if the guys on the other side decide to surprise attack, they can only come through a few at a time. The teleport attendant dispels the circle and the town guard whistles for backup to kill/capture the few soldiers who got through. It's not different than guarding a border crossing, except that it's an even better choke point.

Of course, espionage may be a booming military tactic under such conditions.

But the thing there is that the attendant would have to be a very high level caster, and there's no way a guy able to dispel the circle would be content to sit there indefinitely.

Also, remember that the circle has no cooldown (as far as I recall), so in one round everyone within movement range of it can run through.


A caste system or cultural taboo could limit certain kinds of work as drudge work that animated objects can perform, whereas other work is "special" (takes skill, shouldn't be sullied by the arcane, whatever bullcrap explanation the culture wants) and must not be done by nonliving hands.

Alternately, the cost on the the animated objects could be high, or there could be a high rate of breakdown after a short period. Or give them all the "berserk" quality that some true golems have, where they have a % chance of going on a berserk rage if they are damaged in any way. If they are dangerous to use they won't be used as widely.

I don't want to resort to fluff, because fluff like that changes with region.

Hmmmm... perhaps they only reliably obey their creator, and anyone else has a chance of making them berserk? Thus wizards stll have them, but they can't be used for mass labour.

But then wizards would make golem sweatshops....

Oh, damage, good idea, perhaps if damaged they go berserk, so they're too dangerou for mass use, and the normal law is that they can only be used by those certified in their maintenance and strong enough to control them?



That works too, but then you have an ever-increasing population that is in competition with humans and yet superior to humans in almost every way. This is a major setting change.

Yeah, maybe not that. XD


Easily. The same reason you pay $70 or more for shoes that cost less than $2 to make and ship to the store. Greed, or pragmatic business sense if you prefer.

If you own the means to produce unlimited food, the stupidest thing you can do is give it away for free or cheap. People in the Create Food racket will charge roughly the same price for their goods as what is charged for naturally grown food. If they flood the market with cheap food it devalues and they go bankrupt, so they cut the price just enough to stay competitive (and of course they roll in filthy money when there's a drought and their natueal agro competitors have reduced inventory).

As in many real world industries, reaction from rich people will be swift and severe toward anyone who tries to go around the system and give something away for free or cheap. They'll tolerate competition but not being put collectively out of business.

Ohhh, very good! So the big guilds would all have agreements in place to artificially sustain the commodity prices, so as to avoid putting non-casters out of buisness, and as a happy side effect, make more money. :smallsmile:

I'm not perfectly happy with that though, because clerics of good gods would probably want to give the food away for free....
Perhaps they give only to the impoverished?


Agreed. If you do allow shared crafting, then people who are not wizards can be involved in magic item production and put in a share of XP, as well as do some of the labour involved in making items. You could have whole factories or sweatshops that do this. Of course then you need to assume there are other ways of gaining XP than combat, for instance, overcoming challenges of a nonmilitary nature.

Alternately, the culture may put great value on mundane items ("magic food is bad for you!!!") and create some demand that way.

Ahhh, this gives me a few ideas! Most peasants could be artisans, creating goods such as tools, clothes, art and other mundane items, which can't be readily made by magic without very great investment - Limited Wish or somethingl like that. And so those who farm are like organic growers, focusing on taste and quality, to sell to the rich, with natural food being seen as better tasting and a status symbol. And more people would, as you say, make a living producing low-end magic items - anyone not talented enouh to get to high caster levels would still be able to make a great living making magic items for sale.

In my mind, XP can be gained by working hard at anything - farmers get XP for farming, etc, but only battle gains a lot of XP fast.


No problem!

And thanks again! :3


Typically the poor concentrate on survival and entertainment, the middle class focus on comfort and security, while the rich are concerned about net worth and uniquene possessions or experiences.

Since even in a magic-heavy campaign, spells are only for the rich, we'll look at what the rich would do.

A rich man wants his money to be making money for him while he sleeps. So he'll definitely invest in paying for permanent teleportation circles, crystal balls, speaking stones, and ring gates, and charging for their use. Even if it takes him five or ten years to break even on the investment, it will provide him and his descendents with a stream of income forever. Spells like create food and water and wall of stone are uninteresting because they're too expensive compared to mundane alternatives. Expect wealthy individuals and organizations to pay for magical security in the form of hardness, permanent magic mouth, and permanent alarm, and financial advice backed by divinations if you have a god of wealth in your setting.

Since the rich also prize unique possessions and experience, expect fantastic art produced through the fabricate spell, heroes feast banquets during parties, and a steady market among the wealthy for "adventure tours" using spells like fly and water breathing , or even plane shift to explore exotic environments. With teleport spells to take care of travel, such vacations don't even need to take much time.

What do crystal balls do?

Speaking stones are a great one that I missed. And ring gates too - those are the iron rings that form a small wormhole, right?

On the divinations, why does it need to be to a god of wealth?

Plae Shift doesn't work (yet), but the touring thing is a cool idea, although only for those with insane wealth - got to hire someone powerful to guard you.

It's daunting to think how many magical devices really rich people would have. XD


Thanks for all the great posts everyone! I think that things are shaping up really well.

Another_Poet
2009-10-16, 02:13 PM
But if you have to order them how do you actually get them to the customer without teleporting them?

You do teleport them. You send the order to the warehouse via teleport and get the item back to the shop via teleport. You may have to wait a couple days (for the shopkeeper to get to the teleporter, find the stuff in the big warehouse, fill out the paperwork and bring it back) but it's still faster than service in most medieval worlds (wait x weeks while it's custom built) and far cheaper than the merchant having his own private teleport circle in his shop.


Well, Teleportation Circle can't actually do that, and I don't want it to be able to either, because that makes travel even easier. ^^;

Teleportation Circle can't, but a wondrous item based on it can. In a world with reasonably competent wizards/crafters, someone is going to eventually figure out that the cost of a wondrous item with buttons that configure teleport destination and buttons that disable teleportation is, in the long run, totally worth it compared to casting lots of fixed-destination Teleportation Circles that have to be dispelled if enemies come through.


Also, the guild vault complex wouldn't want a public circle pointed at it ever.

Actually it makes no difference. They have to have super heavy duty security no matter what. Whether the telepor comes from a public plaza or from a shopkeeper's back room, either way thieves can hop in and show up at the warehouse. The shopkeeper is not going to have high security at his shop if he has no inventory on hand; his whole business model is that he's shelling out big bucks to the Guild in order to not have to worry about theft and, at the same time, to have better security. Since he has nothing invested in the stock at the warehouse, he won't even threaten potential thieves with a baseball bat. He'll just put his hands in the air and let them walk right in.

At least a public teleporter with an attendant has someone who could conceivably shut down the teleporter when suspicious figures approach, and there are town guards watching it at all times - coming out with big bags of loot and no Guild-certified manifest is a quick way to get jailed.

Plus, a Guild warehouse with millions of gold pieces worth of magic items is going to have to have a small army guarding it in case of thieves showing up the old fashioned way - on foot, via tunnel, whatever. Presumably the teleporter dumps visitors on their doorstep, not deep inside the locked vault.


But the thing there is that the attendant would have to be a very high level caster, and there's no way a guy able to dispel the circle would be content to sit there indefinitely.

Again, if the teleporter is a wondrous item you can build in UMD checks to use it. For instance:

Before you can change the Teleporter settings you must decipher the controls. This requires Guild training, or else a DC 30 UMD check. Once you understand the controls you may adjust destination to another registered teleporter (UMD DC 8), adjust destination to some other location (UMD DC 20), lock the teleporter against all incoming teleports (DC 8), lock the teleporter against incoming teleport from a specific destination (DC 15), or unlock the teleporter (DC 15).


Also, remember that the circle has no cooldown (as far as I recall), so in one round everyone within movement range of it can run through.

No, because "You can’t run across difficult terrain or if you can’t see where you’re going." (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsincombat.htm#run)

A surprise attack force with a speed of 30' can double move up to 60' blindly through the teleporter. But they all have to start within 30' of it on their side, because otherwise they won't have enough move to get to open squares on the other side. So you can send as many troops through in one turn as you can fit within a 30' radius around the starting teleporter. And no DM worth his salt would let someone do even that many, because realistically it would be a mess. You just can't move 100 people through a bottleneck that quickly.

All the soldiers would spill out flatfooted on the other side. Assuming they are arriving in a crowded public plaza there will be numerous obstacles and they may find they can't all fit through after all, because not enough squares are available.

Whoever does get through will find that the attendant disables the teleporter behind them and they are on their own until/unless their wizards can get it working again.

It's not a terrible tactic; dropping 20-100 soldiers in the middle of an unprepared city by surprise is a good opening gambit. But that's all it is; it's not a win button. Saying fantasy cities would never allow open teleporters to other cities because of the invasion risk is akin to saying that no one in the United States would ever dare live in an above-ground home because Canada could hit them with missiles before their coutermissiles could be launched. It's true that such a scenario could happen, but it would only provide a small, temorary opening advantage and the retribution would be swift and strong.

Bottom line is, countries adjust their military strategies to the real-world situations they find themselves in (or they fail). They cannot adjust their real-world situation to their preferred military strategy without becoming a hopeless backwater.

And of course if the teleporter is a Wondrous Item you can have a setting on it so that it won't accept teleports of more than, say, 6 armoured individuals at a time.


Oh, damage, good idea, perhaps if damaged they go berserk, so they're too dangerou for mass use, and the normal law is that they can only be used by those certified in their maintenance and strong enough to control them?

I like that.


Ohhh, very good! So the big guilds would all have agreements in place to artificially sustain the commodity prices, so as to avoid putting non-casters out of buisness, and as a happy side effect, make more money. :smallsmile:

I'm not perfectly happy with that though, because clerics of good gods would probably want to give the food away for free....
Perhaps they give only to the impoverished?

Yeah, a combination of focusing their efforts on charity and relying on the support of major merchant families to sustain their overall church should keep 'em in line :)


Ahhh, this gives me a few ideas! Most peasants could be artisans, creating goods such as tools, clothes, art and other mundane items, which can't be readily made by magic without very great investment - Limited Wish or somethingl like that. And so those who farm are like organic growers, focusing on taste and quality, to sell to the rich, with natural food being seen as better tasting and a status symbol. And more people would, as you say, make a living producing low-end magic items - anyone not talented enouh to get to high caster levels would still be able to make a great living making magic items for sale.

Brilliant.

Oh, and on the topic of teleporters making travel too easy, there are a lot of solutions - if the price tag is high, you might have to travel on foot for days before reaching a city that actualy has a teleporter. You could pull a FFXII and have conditions that prevent teleportation ("sorry, it's a heavy mist day"). You could have the teleport guild jealously guard its machines and put strict limits on where they'll send you. Nations could require travel permits before allowing usage. A round trip ticket could cost 100x the cost of a boat ride. All sorts of options.

Myou
2009-10-16, 03:11 PM
You do teleport them. You send the order to the warehouse via teleport and get the item back to the shop via teleport. You may have to wait a couple days (for the shopkeeper to get to the teleporter, find the stuff in the big warehouse, fill out the paperwork and bring it back) but it's still faster than service in most medieval worlds (wait x weeks while it's custom built) and far cheaper than the merchant having his own private teleport circle in his shop.

But the merchant gets his circle for a lot less since his guild creates it using UMD rather than going to the Transporter's Guild (I imagine the two having a non-compete contract, they don't try to interfere with the merchants buying scolls of Teleportation Circle, and the merchants don't then go on to sell those scrolls too freely.), and it's his forever, no rental.

Customers aren't going to want to wait days, most adventurers won't even be in town the next day, and this way they don't have to. :smallsmile:

In any case, it has to be a dedicated circle, because at the other end is a magical vault filled with stock worth billions, and there's no way they'd let the public circle point to that, ever.

One way to make it cheaper though, is for all the shopkeepers who are in the gild to share a circle and build their shops in a block, a shopping ditrict, so that they share one circle. Just not a public one.


Teleportation Circle can't, but a wondrous item based on it can. In a world with reasonably competent wizards/crafters, someone is going to eventually figure out that the cost of a wondrous item with buttons that configure teleport destination and buttons that disable teleportation is, in the long run, totally worth it compared to casting lots of fixed-destination Teleportation Circles that have to be dispelled if enemies come through.

Well, that would be a custom item, and not one I'd allow, because it makes things too easy. I don't want players hopping on the transporter from level 1 to go wherever they like.


Actually it makes no difference. They have to have super heavy duty security no matter what. Whether the telepor comes from a public plaza or from a shopkeeper's back room, either way thieves can hop in and show up at the warehouse. The shopkeeper is not going to have high security at his shop if he has no inventory on hand; his whole business model is that he's shelling out big bucks to the Guild in order to not have to worry about theft and, at the same time, to have better security. Since he has nothing invested in the stock at the warehouse, he won't even threaten potential thieves with a baseball bat. He'll just put his hands in the air and let them walk right in.

Yes, but if it's a public circle then anyone can wonder in and scope out the security without even breaking the law - they just leave again when told to get out, that or the guild murders innocent people. And while a determined attack will get through wherever the circle is, those minor intrusions are damn costly when you have to respond with force just to be sure, every time. Imagine a bank vault - you don't put it in the foyer, because while ciminals can reach it wherever it is, the less they know in advance the betther, and every second looking for it is time for the shopkeeper to set off the silent alarm.


At least a public teleporter with an attendant has someone who could conceivably shut down the teleporter when suspicious figures approach, and there are town guards watching it at all times - coming out with big bags of loot and no Guild-certified manifest is a quick way to get jailed.

Well, as I said, there's not going to be a custom transporter pad, it's just a basic Teleportation Circle, so there's no turing it off, unles you pay a high level caster millions to sit there all day every day with a readied action to dispel it.

Also, loot can be gained legally - they're hardly going to ask for a deed to the dragon hoarde you won.


Plus, a Guild warehouse with millions of gold pieces worth of magic items is going to have to have a small army guarding it in case of thieves showing up the old fashioned way - on foot, via tunnel, whatever. Presumably the teleporter dumps visitors on their doorstep, not deep inside the locked vault.

For efficiency it drops them at one of the checking stations where they're given a quick scan with all possible spells and then their order is taken, payment given, and the item(s) retrieved by staff members cleared to use the final circle into the actual vault.


Again, if the teleporter is a wondrous item you can build in UMD checks to use it. For instance:

Before you can change the Teleporter settings you must decipher the controls. This requires Guild training, or else a DC 30 UMD check. Once you understand the controls you may adjust destination to another registered teleporter (UMD DC 8), adjust destination to some other location (UMD DC 20), lock the teleporter against all incoming teleports (DC 8), lock the teleporter against incoming teleport from a specific destination (DC 15), or unlock the teleporter (DC 15).

It's a great idea, but I want one-destination circles only, sorry.



No, because "You can’t run across difficult terrain or if you can’t see where you’re going." (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsincombat.htm#run)

A surprise attack force with a speed of 30' can double move up to 60' blindly through the teleporter. But they all have to start within 30' of it on their side, because otherwise they won't have enough move to get to open squares on the other side. So you can send as many troops through in one turn as you can fit within a 30' radius around the starting teleporter. And no DM worth his salt would let someone do even that many, because realistically it would be a mess. You just can't move 100 people through a bottleneck that quickly.

Errr, as the forward troops pass through the rear ones can see, so what are you trying to say with the linked page? Sorry, just a little confused. :smallredface:

Anyway, you can easily send a huge number of troops through each round with o way to stop more the next round and every round after, even if you limit them to a 5ft square each that's still one for every square within 120ft. They'd really go slower than that, but it's safe to say you could get about 30 through a round at the least. I think it's a valid concern.


All the soldiers would spill out flatfooted on the other side. Assuming they are arriving in a crowded public plaza there will be numerous obstacles and they may find they can't all fit through after all, because not enough squares are available.

Whoever does get through will find that the attendant disables the teleporter behind them and they are on their own until/unless their wizards can get it working again.

The thing is that the troops quickly spread out - they know ther allie are waiing for them to clear the spot. So you could easily deploy 10,000 men in twenty minutes. With no proper warning. It's not a win button of course, but its a huge tactical advantage.


It's not a terrible tactic; dropping 20-100 soldiers in the middle of an unprepared city by surprise is a good opening gambit. But that's all it is; it's not a win button. Saying fantasy cities would never allow open teleporters to other cities because of the invasion risk is akin to saying that no one in the United States would ever dare live in an above-ground home because Canada could hit them with missiles before their coutermissiles could be launched. It's true that such a scenario could happen, but it would only provide a small, temorary opening advantage and the retribution would be swift and strong.

Bottom line is, countries adjust their military strategies to the real-world situations they find themselves in (or they fail). They cannot adjust their real-world situation to their preferred military strategy without becoming a hopeless backwater.

I'm not sugesting they don't have them at all, I'm saying they only have them to cities they know and trust well.



I like that.

Thanks. :smallsmile:


Yeah, a combination of focusing their efforts on charity and relying on the support of major merchant families to sustain their overall church should keep 'em in line :)

Awesome. :3


Brilliant.

Thanks!


Oh, and on the topic of teleporters making travel too easy, there are a lot of solutions - if the price tag is high, you might have to travel on foot for days before reaching a city that actualy has a teleporter. You could pull a FFXII and have conditions that prevent teleportation ("sorry, it's a heavy mist day"). You could have the teleport guild jealously guard its machines and put strict limits on where they'll send you. Nations could require travel permits before allowing usage. A round trip ticket could cost 100x the cost of a boat ride. All sorts of options.

I love the idea of things like weather interfering, but I'm really trying to stick to the rules when I can.

A travel permit is a really good idea! Perhaps you have to apply to ue the circle(s) and get cleared, then pay a heafty fee, and submit to tax on items you transport - which explains why people use shipping and carts, etc to move items in bulk - teleport tax! :smallsmile:

Another_Poet
2009-10-16, 09:07 PM
It seems we have really different visions on how this would best operate, and it's your campaign so I'm going to wind down my comments. I will say a few things however.



But the merchant gets his circle for a lot less since his guild creates it using UMD rather than going to the Transporter's Guild

I bet I could find a company that can build & launch me a communications satellite for less than what my internet provider pays, but that doesn't mean I can afford to commission it. Most small business owners would rather pay 10 gp/month for a fixed number of teleporter uses in the town square, plus a few silvers to a guy with a wagon, than pay thousands of gold pieces for a private circle.


In any case, it has to be a dedicated circle, because at the other end is a magical vault filled with stock worth billions, and there's no way they'd let the public circle point to that, ever.

...

Yes, but if it's a public circle then anyone can wonder in and scope out the security without even breaking the law - they just leave again when told to get out, that or the guild murders innocent people. And while a determined attack will get through wherever the circle is, those minor intrusions are damn costly when you have to respond with force just to be sure, every time. Imagine a bank vault - you don't put it in the foyer, because while ciminals can reach it wherever it is, the less they know in advance the betther, and every second looking for it is time for the shopkeeper to set off the silent alarm.

The teleporter should not be inside the building. Just as the public is allowed to walk up to the lobby of a bank, or to the business office of a warehouse, the public can teleport to the street in front of the guild warehouse and walk into the office and make inquiries. They won't find out much about security this way, and if they don't have a good reason for coming inside they will be asked to leave and then meet some very badass security guards.


Also, loot can be gained legally - they're hardly going to ask for a deed to the dragon hoarde you won.

True, but the constable can make you catalogue it all. Just like you have to declare large amounts of cash when crossing real-world borders, I would think this stuff has to be declared at the teleport station and catalogued by law enforcement as a precaution against smuggling or international theft.


Errr, as the forward troops pass through the rear ones can see, so what are you trying to say with the linked page? Sorry, just a little confused. :smallredface:

I presume that you cannot see what is on the other side of the teleport gate. Therefore, you cannot use the Run action while crossing through. Therefore, you can only double move (60'). And, lastly, therefore you are limited by the maximum number of troops you can fit within 30' of the gate per round.[/quote]


A travel permit is a really good idea! Perhaps you have to apply to ue the circle(s) and get cleared, then pay a heafty fee, and submit to tax on items you transport - which explains why people use shipping and carts, etc to move items in bulk - teleport tax! :smallsmile:

Nice, this also gives you an excuse to insist on cataloguing loot that goes through the teleporters. It can't be properly taxed if it isn't searched and examined.

Hope your characters are lawful, or at least good :)

Myou
2009-10-17, 05:46 AM
It seems we have really different visions on how this would best operate, and it's your campaign so I'm going to wind down my comments. I will say a few things however.

Well you've been a huge help, so I hope I haven't offended you.

If you have any more ideas I'd like to hear them.


I bet I could find a company that can build & launch me a communications satellite for less than what my internet provider pays, but that doesn't mean I can afford to commission it. Most small business owners would rather pay 10 gp/month for a fixed number of teleporter uses in the town square, plus a few silvers to a guy with a wagon, than pay thousands of gold pieces for a private circle.

Well, the idea is that the guild pays and the merchant just slowly pays it back a part of his guild membership.


The teleporter should not be inside the building. Just as the public is allowed to walk up to the lobby of a bank, or to the business office of a warehouse, the public can teleport to the street in front of the guild warehouse and walk into the office and make inquiries. They won't find out much about security this way, and if they don't have a good reason for coming inside they will be asked to leave and then meet some very badass security guards.

Well, actually, they guild keep the location of the vault as secret as they can, so they have public buildings where people can come to see them, that are completely operate from their vault, which is hidden underground somewhere.


True, but the constable can make you catalogue it all. Just like you have to declare large amounts of cash when crossing real-world borders, I would think this stuff has to be declared at the teleport station and catalogued by law enforcement as a precaution against smuggling or international theft.

Very true, that makes prefect sense. "Did you pack your own Handy Haversack, Sir?"


I presume that you cannot see what is on the other side of the teleport gate. Therefore, you cannot use the Run action while crossing through. Therefore, you can only double move (60'). And, lastly, therefore you are limited by the maximum number of troops you can fit within 30' of the gate per round.

Well, the precice numbers don't matter too much - a lot of troops could get through very fast, fast enough that you'd only want a link to trusted allies. :3


Nice, this also gives you an excuse to insist on cataloguing loot that goes through the teleporters. It can't be properly taxed if it isn't searched and examined.

Hope your characters are lawful, or at least good :)

Yeah, that'll be perfect! :smallsmile:

We're about as far from lawful as you can get - I recently blew up a church, of our own god. xD
But we're good, so we'll behave ourselves. XD

h2doh
2009-10-18, 01:00 PM
You could have it that everyone who goes into your teleporter grid is automatically effected by a sepia snake sigil. If they are in stasis then there is ample time to check their credentials for security. You could also have the teleporters in one big loop where they will continuously teleport untill they reach their destination. There would be a token that records their destination, and hops them out of the teleporter when they reach it. The token would be proof that they paid to use the teleport system, otherwise they would port around forever in stasis.

Myou
2009-10-19, 05:15 AM
You could have it that everyone who goes into your teleporter grid is automatically effected by a sepia snake sigil. If they are in stasis then there is ample time to check their credentials for security. You could also have the teleporters in one big loop where they will continuously teleport untill they reach their destination. There would be a token that records their destination, and hops them out of the teleporter when they reach it. The token would be proof that they paid to use the teleport system, otherwise they would port around forever in stasis.

Well, those would be homebrew effects, so not what I'm looking for, but nice idea. :smallsmile:

Another_Poet
2009-10-19, 10:25 AM
Well you've been a huge help, so I hope I haven't offended you.

If you have any more ideas I'd like to hear them.

Haha, no, I'm not offended. It's pretty hard to offend me. But I'm the sort of guy who could argue this case for hours, and I realised, wait, why am I arguing? It's his world. So I figured I'd take a step back.

Anyway, everything you have looks good - it all seems internally consistent. I would just consider what kind of security individual merchants are required to have before the Guild will let them have a teleporter to the warehouse.

Good luck! Let us know what else you come up with!

ap

Myou
2009-10-20, 09:41 AM
Haha, no, I'm not offended. It's pretty hard to offend me. But I'm the sort of guy who could argue this case for hours, and I realised, wait, why am I arguing? It's his world. So I figured I'd take a step back.

Anyway, everything you have looks good - it all seems internally consistent. I would just consider what kind of security individual merchants are required to have before the Guild will let them have a teleporter to the warehouse.

Good luck! Let us know what else you come up with!

ap

Ah, fair enough. ^^

And thank you! I'm glad to hear it!

I was thinking that a lot of the merchants would build shops in a block around a shared circle to cut costs. They'd treat it like a vault - the room would be well-reinforced and they'd need a key to enter. The guild wouldn't really have stricter requirements, because the circle leads to a heavily guarded area, so it would be redundant security that the merchants couldn't afford.

And I will! Thanks. ^^

Myou
2009-10-27, 05:54 PM
Magical sewers! =D

I just had the idea that towns could have copper pipes linking all the buildings, and all the pipes would be fed by a central magical item, providing free water! Residents would just pay a small water tax to the council, who would use it to maintain the supply/spend on other town expenses. The the used water would drain into some destructive item.

So what items would I need? What item creates enough water and enough pressure to supply it, and what item works best for diposing of the waste?



Also, another question, assuming that magical traps don't reset, what's the best way of providing a limitless food dupply for a town? And is there an easy way to deliver it?


Oh, one more thing. Am I right in thinking that if flavoured by Prestidigitation, Create Food's food tastes pretty good?

Ormur
2009-10-27, 06:13 PM
Decanter of endless (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#decanterofEndlessWater) water it the obvious solution for magical plumbing, just set it to geyser and fresh water.

Myou
2009-10-27, 06:26 PM
Decanter of endless (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#decanterofEndlessWater) water it the obvious solution for magical plumbing, just set it to geyser and fresh water.
Ah, that's the one, the name had escaped me.

So perhaps one of those, filling a tank that holds the water supply. But how would it then be pumped? The pressure might be too much if the pipes were connected directly. But then again, it's only DC12, and it says nothing about excess pressure building up, so maybe that works! In face that seems perfect.


How should the waste be destroyed? Is there such a thing as a Bag of devouring or was that a dream?

Emperor Tippy
2009-10-27, 08:20 PM
Destroying waste is easy. Just place a permanent prismatic sphere somewhere. The Violet level destroys all items and effects.

Myou
2009-10-28, 04:11 AM
Destroying waste is easy. Just place a permanent prismatic sphere somewhere. The Violet level destroys all items and effects.

Yeah, but there must be a cheaper way. :smalleek:

BobVosh
2009-10-28, 04:56 AM
Prismatic wall can be permanency too, and is lower level.

Resetting traps of burning hands, or an eternal wand of "choose your favorite destruction spell" seems much cheaper too.

Myou
2009-10-28, 05:19 AM
Prismatic wall can be permanency too, and is lower level.

Resetting traps of burning hands, or an eternal wand of "choose your favorite destruction spell" seems much cheaper too.

Destruction spell?

BobVosh
2009-10-28, 05:24 AM
Spell o'death from the school of "do not specialize in." Of course you may always use orbs. I didn't mean something like the spell destruction. I meant burning hands, fireball, acid arrows.

Myou
2009-10-28, 05:34 AM
Spell o'death from the school of "do not specialize in." Of course you may always use orbs. I didn't mean something like the spell destruction. I meant burning hands, fireball, acid arrows.

Do those destroy water? :smallconfused:

BobVosh
2009-10-28, 05:41 AM
depends on you allowing fireball to evaporate stuff.

Also dispel water does. 3rd level spell (I believe) from sandstorm. Dispel with wand 1, incinerate with wand 2. Note this is an attempt to use low level spells, so it won't be the most efficient.

Myou
2009-10-28, 05:54 AM
depends on you allowing fireball to evaporate stuff.

Also dispel water does. 3rd level spell (I believe) from sandstorm. Dispel with wand 1, incinerate with wand 2. Note this is an attempt to use low level spells, so it won't be the most efficient.

Trouble with fireball is that the water is still about, just as vapour, so you'd end up causing climate change. Which would be costly to fix.
And Dispel is 4th for druids and 5th for sor/wiz. :smalleek:

What I really need is something like a bag of devouring, but always on.

Fishy
2009-10-28, 06:59 AM
Magical tele-com/portation grid question:

What if there's no central warehouse? What if every member of the Guild has a smallish shop, and when an order comes in for something they don't have, they just put a message out to the Grid to find out who has one. It works out all the same, and there's no massive vault of treasure that needs to be protected from epic spellcasters somehow.

Hawriel
2009-10-28, 07:05 AM
I think the best way to not tippy virs your world is to keep these things in mind.

Tippy's world is based on the D20 mechanics to be absolute rules in how every thing in the univers works. Basicly think about how magic would logicly work in your world.

The mechanics are a tool for the GM and the players to determine outcomes of actions, and orgonization.

Wizards do not know every thing.

Magic does not brake the laws of the univers they bend them at best, so....

Matter can be altered but not destroyed, and you can't make somthing out of nothing. Only god(s) can do this.

Magic is used by peaple. Peaple want to do things efficiantly. Peaple do not want to be harmed by their tools. Think about how magic would work logicly with that in mind.

Your world is an ocean world with islands. Drinkable water is a rare. I assume it's not a fresh water ocean. The spell create water would not exist in this world. Ocean remember, alot of water, alot of rain. Purify water would be a spell that exists. After all a ship can only sail as far as its water supply.

well Im rambling its after 8am I need to sleep. this is turning into a wall of text. Sorry but this touched on a conversation I was having yesterday.

Tyndmyr
2009-10-28, 07:46 AM
Yeah, but there must be a cheaper way. :smalleek:

Bag of Devouring. It's a "cursed" item, so it's cheap.

As for excess water, just put in a spillway at the top of the tank. If it's full, the rest just flows directly into sewers/out to the sea. Problem solved, and as a side effect, it'll boost the water/waste ratio in the sewers, cleaning things out better.

Myou
2009-10-28, 09:34 AM
Thanks to everyone who posted. ^^


Magical tele-com/portation grid question:

What if there's no central warehouse? What if every member of the Guild has a smallish shop, and when an order comes in for something they don't have, they just put a message out to the Grid to find out who has one. It works out all the same, and there's no massive vault of treasure that needs to be protected from epic spellcasters somehow.

It's a lot easier to guard one vault than to guard every shop individually. And then they'd still need the central linking area, they'd just also have the added headache of finding smeone with the rare item the buyer wants.

It would be trivially easy for a high level character to rob them all that way anyway - the shops are all linked and none has much security.

Also, the best protection from spellcasters is other spellcasters/magic items, and that's what they stock.


Bag of Devouring. It's a "cursed" item, so it's cheap.

As for excess water, just put in a spillway at the top of the tank. If it's full, the rest just flows directly into sewers/out to the sea. Problem solved, and as a side effect, it'll boost the water/waste ratio in the sewers, cleaning things out better.

Trouble is that I looked at the bag, and it seem that it has limited storage space, and only a 10% chance of actually devouring any item. ><

If there's a spillway that means there's no pressure, so how would water be delivered to the citizens?


I think the best way to not tippy virs your world is to keep these things in mind.

Tippy's world is based on the D20 mechanics to be absolute rules in how every thing in the univers works. Basicly think about how magic would logicly work in your world.

The mechanics are a tool for the GM and the players to determine outcomes of actions, and orgonization.

Wizards do not know every thing.

Magic does not brake the laws of the univers they bend them at best, so....

Matter can be altered but not destroyed, and you can't make somthing out of nothing. Only god(s) can do this.

Magic is used by peaple. Peaple want to do things efficiantly. Peaple do not want to be harmed by their tools. Think about how magic would work logicly with that in mind.

Your world is an ocean world with islands. Drinkable water is a rare. I assume it's not a fresh water ocean. The spell create water would not exist in this world. Ocean remember, alot of water, alot of rain. Purify water would be a spell that exists. After all a ship can only sail as far as its water supply.

well Im rambling its after 8am I need to sleep. this is turning into a wall of text. Sorry but this touched on a conversation I was having yesterday.

Thanks for the reply. ^^

I, uh, don't really see how you can justify a tropical island being starved of water, the tropic see very heavy rainfall. But in any case, that problem I soved in a much more elegant way than banning spells - I just don't allow magical traps to reset. I don't have a problem with items of create food/water anyway, we solved those issues in previous posts. :3

But if you can think of any other problems that would logically arise, please tell me. ^^

Hawriel
2009-10-28, 12:59 PM
I, uh, don't really see how you can justify a tropical island being starved of water, the tropic see very heavy rainfall. But in any case, that problem I soved in a much more elegant way than banning spells - I just don't allow magical traps to reset. I don't have a problem with items of create food/water anyway, we solved those issues in previous posts. :3

But if you can think of any other problems that would logically arise, please tell me. ^^

Yes tropical islands can be a very hard place to live because of a lack of drinking water. Not all islands have a place where water can collect in quantities suffeciant to support peaple. Most water runs right of an island while the rest is absorbed into the soil. If there is soil. There are monsoon seasons but what about inbetween? Whether you thing drinking water is no problem do to rainfall or not, I suggest doing a little research into pacific island weather paterns. You may have alot of islands like the Philippins or the Hawian islands. Or they could be like Iwo Jima and Peleliu wich is mostly rock and coral with few water sources. Or it could be like Tarawa wich is a mile squar sand barge that has grass and palm trees. No rivers or ponds there.
I was using the spell create water as an example of how magic would develop in your world. I was not banning a spell I said it wouldnt logicly exist because there would be no need to use magic to create water when your in the middle of a pacific ocean planet. The need to make ocean water drinkable on the other hand is a big motivator.

And if water is so plentiful from rain why did you spend several posts divising a way for magic to supply the water to peaple? If it rains so much why not just have basins around your town that collect rain water. then use pipes to bring it to homes. Real world peaple have done this for centuries. Magic could be used to keep the system clean.

Also why even bother to make a decanter of endless water when you live on a water world?

I dont mean to batter, Im just asking questions. And arguing a little. I see argument as a good way to ask questions, which makes peaple think, which makes a well thought out gaming world.

Another_Poet
2009-10-28, 01:50 PM
If your world is earth-like, lead pipes will be cheaper (and easier to work with) than copper. Just allow the lead to calcify before installing the pipes and you won't have problems with lead poisoning.

I agree that purifying existing water is going to be cheaper and more sensible than creating water. Plus I am always a little worried to have a decanter of endless water lying around - if it's stolen and hidden somewhere it can dangerously alter the world.

For water pressure, just get the water to the top of a cistern. Pipes lead out the bottom. Voila.

A mage hand can move 5 lbs of material, so give a bunch of them appropriate-sized buckets and let them move it uphill if needed.

ap

Tyndmyr
2009-10-28, 02:01 PM
Trouble is that I looked at the bag, and it seem that it has limited storage space, and only a 10% chance of actually devouring any item. ><

Well, thats the initial chance, sure. Each hour means an additional 5% chance. So, bag of devouring is a pretty decent means of disposing of waste, but it does have limited throughput. Live things go away much faster, of course.


If there's a spillway that means there's no pressure, so how would water be delivered to the citizens?

Gravity feed. If for layout reasons you need pressure, you can simply rely on an overpressure spillway. I'd reccomend against high pressure systems, though, since they tend to fail in much more catastrophic ways.

Myou
2009-10-29, 09:36 AM
Yes tropical islands can be a very hard place to live because of a lack of drinking water. Not all islands have a place where water can collect in quantities suffeciant to support peaple. Most water runs right of an island while the rest is absorbed into the soil. If there is soil. There are monsoon seasons but what about inbetween? Whether you thing drinking water is no problem do to rainfall or not, I suggest doing a little research into pacific island weather paterns. You may have alot of islands like the Philippins or the Hawian islands. Or they could be like Iwo Jima and Peleliu wich is mostly rock and coral with few water sources. Or it could be like Tarawa wich is a mile squar sand barge that has grass and palm trees. No rivers or ponds there.
I was using the spell create water as an example of how magic would develop in your world. I was not banning a spell I said it wouldnt logicly exist because there would be no need to use magic to create water when your in the middle of a pacific ocean planet. The need to make ocean water drinkable on the other hand is a big motivator.

And if water is so plentiful from rain why did you spend several posts divising a way for magic to supply the water to peaple? If it rains so much why not just have basins around your town that collect rain water. then use pipes to bring it to homes. Real world peaple have done this for centuries. Magic could be used to keep the system clean.

Also why even bother to make a decanter of endless water when you live on a water world?

I dont mean to batter, Im just asking questions. And arguing a little. I see argument as a good way to ask questions, which makes peaple think, which makes a well thought out gaming world.

Well, basically what I'm saying is that water is about, but rather than digging wells, etc, and being vulnerable should there be a drought, people would want thier own reliable, pure water supply. And pumped to their homes rather than gathered by hand.

A decanter isn't that costly either, a pemanent spell item would probably be more expensive. A permanent item to clean water would be more than twice the cost of a simple decanter.

Thanks for making me think about things. :smallsmile:



If your world is earth-like, lead pipes will be cheaper (and easier to work with) than copper. Just allow the lead to calcify before installing the pipes and you won't have problems with lead poisoning.

I agree that purifying existing water is going to be cheaper and more sensible than creating water. Plus I am always a little worried to have a decanter of endless water lying around - if it's stolen and hidden somewhere it can dangerously alter the world.

For water pressure, just get the water to the top of a cistern. Pipes lead out the bottom. Voila.

A mage hand can move 5 lbs of material, so give a bunch of them appropriate-sized buckets and let them move it uphill if needed.

ap

Funny, I always thought lead pipes were banned these days because of the risk - my house only uses copper.

How is a decanter dangerous when left on? It's not even a drop in the ocean. Anyway, if ocean levels did start to rise then casters could fix it with magic.

A load of items of mage hand? That's not possible, that's a huge expense. :smallconfused:


Well, thats the initial chance, sure. Each hour means an additional 5% chance. So, bag of devouring is a pretty decent means of disposing of waste, but it does have limited throughput. Live things go away much faster, of course.

Gravity feed. If for layout reasons you need pressure, you can simply rely on an overpressure spillway. I'd reccomend against high pressure systems, though, since they tend to fail in much more catastrophic ways.

Well, I suppose a bag of devouring will have to do. With a liquid it's kind of hazy anyway, since it's contantly pouring in. I just wish there was a better answer, that wasn't unrealistically expensive.

The overpressure spillway is good, thanks. ^^

Tyndmyr
2009-10-29, 12:13 PM
Yeah, liquid is hazy...most likely, ruling that it's a flat percentage that goes away instead of rolling percentage will be easiest.

The weight limit should be more restrictive than the volume limit, so that's 250lbs at a time. That's 12.5lbs per hour, and of the replacement water, another 1.25 lbs eaten. More on the initial surge, but that's consistant consumption.

Probably not going to scale well against decanters, so yeah, probably stick with using spillways for water, and if oversupply of water is a flooding risk, make a trap using spells from Sandstorm, which have a variety of ways to get rid of water.

Use the Bag of Devouring for getting rid of unwanted objects. It's horribly effective on animals and corpses, so any unwanted byproducts of non-magical food creation can just get tossed in the hole without worry.

Myou
2009-10-29, 01:11 PM
Yeah, liquid is hazy...most likely, ruling that it's a flat percentage that goes away instead of rolling percentage will be easiest.

The weight limit should be more restrictive than the volume limit, so that's 250lbs at a time. That's 12.5lbs per hour, and of the replacement water, another 1.25 lbs eaten. More on the initial surge, but that's consistant consumption.

Probably not going to scale well against decanters, so yeah, probably stick with using spillways for water, and if oversupply of water is a flooding risk, make a trap using spells from Sandstorm, which have a variety of ways to get rid of water.

Use the Bag of Devouring for getting rid of unwanted objects. It's horribly effective on animals and corpses, so any unwanted byproducts of non-magical food creation can just get tossed in the hole without worry.

The trouble with using spillways to dispose of water is that the waste has to go somewhere, so with every town dumping that much water (and sewage), the enviromental effects would get rather dire.

The devouring bags won't really work, and they're a little small for solid waste disposal.

So, can anyone think of a way to dispose of waste solid and liquids with no residue at all? Obviously a Prismatic Wall works, but that's very expensive.

Radar
2009-10-29, 02:04 PM
(...)
So, can anyone think of a way to dispose of waste solid and liquids with no residue at all? Obviously a Prismatic Wall works, but that's very expensive.
Yet, you won't need more then one Prismatic Wall per a city or even a country, if you set waste disposal system right. It's more cost-efficient then bags of devouring.

Alternatively, you could dump your waste into some other plane (elemental fire or positive energy should take care of any sort of waste). Yet, Planeshift doesn't say a word about transporting objects and description for Teleportation is quite abusable (possible load is constrained by traveler's maximum load), so interpret it as you like. The advantage is that it's a 5th level spell for clerics, so it's way cheeper, then the Prismatic Wall. There should also be some items of Planeshift x/day.

Tyndmyr
2009-10-29, 02:36 PM
The trouble with using spillways to dispose of water is that the waste has to go somewhere, so with every town dumping that much water (and sewage), the enviromental effects would get rather dire.

The devouring bags won't really work, and they're a little small for solid waste disposal.

Environmental effects from excess water are minimal. The water system is huge, so it would take a *lot* of decanters running to matter. And, on the flip side, there are many low level spells that can get rid of water via spell trap.

Prestidigitation actually takes care of a lot of mundane cleaning, so we don't need much of the usual overhead in such a system. I presume unseen servants could be used for pretty much anything else that needs to be cleaned, as well as plenty of chores.

Actual waste is thus relegated to solid waste only. Bags of devouring are probably not available en masse anyhow...given that by definition, there are less of them than there are bags of holding. Saving them for special situations where the size/portability matters might be better, using a prismatic wall for the permanent disposal system, yeah.

Myou
2009-10-29, 02:37 PM
Yet, you won't need more then one Prismatic Wall per a city or even a country, if you set waste disposal system right. It's more cost-efficient then bags of devouring.

Alternatively, you could dump your waste into some other plane (elemental fire or positive energy should take care of any sort of waste). Yet, Planeshift doesn't say a word about transporting objects and description for Teleportation is quite abusable (possible load is constrained by traveler's maximum load), so interpret it as you like. The advantage is that it's a 5th level spell for clerics, so it's way cheeper, then the Prismatic Wall. There should also be some items of Planeshift x/day.

I thought of plane shifting effects, but as the OP says, planar travel doen't work in the setting, so sadly that can't be done.

Prismatic wall seems most effective, but, well, it's so crude - ramming waste into a wall.
It really seems like there must be some more appropriate method.


Environmental effects from excess water are minimal. The water system is huge, so it would take a *lot* of decanters running to matter. And, on the flip side, there are many low level spells that can get rid of water via spell trap.

Prestidigitation actually takes care of a lot of mundane cleaning, so we don't need much of the usual overhead in such a system. I presume unseen servants could be used for pretty much anything else that needs to be cleaned, as well as plenty of chores.

Actual waste is thus relegated to solid waste only. Bags of devouring are probably not available en masse anyhow...given that by definition, there are less of them than there are bags of holding. Saving them for special situations where the size/portability matters might be better, using a prismatic wall for the permanent disposal system, yeah.

Hmmm, maybe I should just have regular drains. It saves quite a headache.
But then the question is what the people do with solid garbage.

Everyone having items of Prestidigitation and Unseen Servant would be way too costly.
My current thoughts on housework are simply that people do it as usual.

Ay item, en masse, is going to cost way too much. It really has to be one or two or none.

Another_Poet
2009-10-29, 03:36 PM
re. lead pipes - yes they are illegal nowadays for good reason. Lead is poisonous. That said, after several years of exposure to water the lead builds up a thick layer of calcification. This acts as a barrier and prevents the poisonous lead from leeching into the water. My engineer friend says the ancient Romans were actually aware of the dangers of lead and used it to line aqueducts anyway because once it calcifies it is harmless. You can do some research to back that up if you like, but the point is that you could let lead pipes soak for a year or two before installing them (or simply use some 0th level spell to calcify them instantly) and still come out cheaper than copper. Lead was a waste metal in the ancient real world; copper however was in demand and pricey. This is one of the reasons there are coins made of copper but not of lead - lead is nigh worthless, while copper was actually precious :)

re. endless water - I don't care if it's one decanter, the point is it's endless. And the effect is so gradual people may not notice till it's too late. Eventually that water will cause problems.

More to the point, even if it takes centuries to cause global problems it can ruin a local area very quickly. Hide it somewhere in a mountain - watch the surrounding fertile valleys wash out. Put it under a foundation of a large building, watch the building collapse. Water is a powerful natural force and the idea of an endless, uncontrolled source of it being hidden somewhere - a source that does not fluctuate with the seasons - is a dangerous one. Natural springs may seem endless but they have natural channels that already drain them to the sea or a lake or marsh. Putting a decanter in some random place will cause a new water source that will create its own channel, destroying the path of least resistance till it makes its way to an ocean, lake, etc.

You could destroy a town or island pretty quick with one of those things. Now that's true with a lot of spells too, but the difference is that the decanter can be used by any mundane Joe with a sick sense of humour.

ap

Tyndmyr
2009-10-29, 11:18 PM
Endless water eventually flooding lower countries = great plot hook.

As for spells, the idea isn't to provide them to every family...there's just no way to do that practically, even for things like prestidigitation that are relatively cheap. The trick is to make an auto-resetting trap of it that can be shared by many. Walk through it, and boom, instantly clean.

Now, this is going to have interesting sociological repercussions...is it a communistic society? Is it a wizard led society? Do businessmen or brigands charge money to access the traps?

What happens if demand for traps suddenly outstrips supply? Say...there's only enough prestidigitation traps for routine cleaning(doesn't take many at 1 cubic ft per round), and a sudden cold snap results in everyone trying to use it to warm themselves indirectly(it only warms non living materials...but that could be a hot water bottle).

Personally, I think adding a solid dose of magic to a campaign and thinking about what would happen as a result leads to all sorts of interesting plot hooks that haven't yet become routine.

Myou
2009-10-30, 06:29 AM
re. lead pipes - yes they are illegal nowadays for good reason. Lead is poisonous. That said, after several years of exposure to water the lead builds up a thick layer of calcification. This acts as a barrier and prevents the poisonous lead from leeching into the water. My engineer friend says the ancient Romans were actually aware of the dangers of lead and used it to line aqueducts anyway because once it calcifies it is harmless. You can do some research to back that up if you like, but the point is that you could let lead pipes soak for a year or two before installing them (or simply use some 0th level spell to calcify them instantly) and still come out cheaper than copper. Lead was a waste metal in the ancient real world; copper however was in demand and pricey. This is one of the reasons there are coins made of copper but not of lead - lead is nigh worthless, while copper was actually precious :)

re. endless water - I don't care if it's one decanter, the point is it's endless. And the effect is so gradual people may not notice till it's too late. Eventually that water will cause problems.

More to the point, even if it takes centuries to cause global problems it can ruin a local area very quickly. Hide it somewhere in a mountain - watch the surrounding fertile valleys wash out. Put it under a foundation of a large building, watch the building collapse. Water is a powerful natural force and the idea of an endless, uncontrolled source of it being hidden somewhere - a source that does not fluctuate with the seasons - is a dangerous one. Natural springs may seem endless but they have natural channels that already drain them to the sea or a lake or marsh. Putting a decanter in some random place will cause a new water source that will create its own channel, destroying the path of least resistance till it makes its way to an ocean, lake, etc.

You could destroy a town or island pretty quick with one of those things. Now that's true with a lot of spells too, but the difference is that the decanter can be used by any mundane Joe with a sick sense of humour.

ap

Well, lead it is then! By-product of smithing, etc. Good idea. :3

Well, yeah, it can make it's own river, but, well, you steal the decanter from a town, the wizards who the town pays rent to for it will be pretty pissed. :smalltongue:
Anyway, all it takes is someone noticing that there's a lot of water about, and soon some adventurers will fix it.


Endless water eventually flooding lower countries = great plot hook.

As for spells, the idea isn't to provide them to every family...there's just no way to do that practically, even for things like prestidigitation that are relatively cheap. The trick is to make an auto-resetting trap of it that can be shared by many. Walk through it, and boom, instantly clean.

Now, this is going to have interesting sociological repercussions...is it a communistic society? Is it a wizard led society? Do businessmen or brigands charge money to access the traps?

What happens if demand for traps suddenly outstrips supply? Say...there's only enough prestidigitation traps for routine cleaning(doesn't take many at 1 cubic ft per round), and a sudden cold snap results in everyone trying to use it to warm themselves indirectly(it only warms non living materials...but that could be a hot water bottle).

Personally, I think adding a solid dose of magic to a campaign and thinking about what would happen as a result leads to all sorts of interesting plot hooks that haven't yet become routine.

I'm glad you get the trouble with trying to give everyone spell items. :smallsmile:

But I've banned resetting magical traps, they're a horrible creation. You probably missed that post.

Permanent magic items are made and rented to city-states by the guilds, which are very powerful, on par with small countries. In a world without many actual countries.

So far I have;

The Arcane Order: Wizards for hire.

The Magical Supplies Guild (someone please think of a better name): They craft and rent out (on a permanent basis) magic items and permanancied spells like Teleportation Circle.

The Church of Pelor: The principle religious organisation, whose clerics form an effective guild, offering spells for donation and providing free healthcare and food to the poor and needy, or paid healthcare to the rich.

The Merchant's Guild: They trade in magical and mundane goods of all kinds, but have trade deals with the Magical Supplies Guild, not to try to compete on price for services.

The Central Bank: They issue banknotes and hold vast gold reserves.

All the guilds are uneasy rivals, except for the bank, which is always completely neutral.

I agree wholeheartedly about adding magic. ^^