PDA

View Full Version : Magic: Frequency vs. Strength



elliott20
2007-03-05, 04:40 PM
Something that has bothered me for a while... it's how a lot of campaigns are often described as high magic or low magic... but what does high magic means? Does it mean that magic is very powerful here or does it simply mean that magic is common?

I think to better get a feel on a campaign setting, we need to split magic down to two qualities: frequency and strength.

Frequency essentially rules how common you'll see something while strength determines how powerful magic truly is.

So, to make a quick example, Faerun would be one where you have high strength and high frequency, while a setting that mimics reality might be a low strength, low frequency.

And in between, you'd have all sorts of variation. i.e. a campaign with high frequency, but low strength, means that a fair amount of people wield magic. But they do not do anything as earth shattering as you'd think. The most powerful magic in this world may very well be a 2nd-3rd level spell. It basically means that magic is very easily accessable, but there just isn't a lot of effort into making it better and more powerful.

Or we can go the other direction, where you have high powered magic but with very low frequency. This is where you have a Lord of the Rings situation, where a wizard can cast lightning bolts thousands of miles away, with perfect precision, causing avalanches, floods, control people's minds at great distance.

but at the same time, you'll probably only see 3-4 people to ever wield magic.

The why of your decision can help shape your world immensely. Take a high frequency, but low strength. Perhaps there is an abundant of magical energy out there in the world, but it is not pure enough or as potent as the magical energy in a high frequency, medium strength world. Perhaps the second setting, somebody has figured out how to distill the magical energy further so that it is more pure and thus you can utilize it more efficiently, result in greater output. (and thus, a higher level spell is now possible)

How does this translate into system?

Well, to make it short, frequency denotes ease of leveling up, ease of recouping magical resources, and price range for it's usage. Strength, on the other hand, denotes what would be the highest level of power that one could attain with it. (So to make it short and fast, low strength magic would go about 1-3, medium 4-6, high 7-9.)

Frequency would dictate things like how easy it would be for players to enter into the magic wielding profession.

In a low frequency setting, perhaps entering a magical profession would be like a 2E paladin, where you have make certain attribute requirements to even contemplate being one. Or perhaps only 5% of the world can do it, and you'd have to roll to see if you're lucky enough to part of that 5%.

magic items and spell prices would probably get inflated or become flat out inaccessable as a result of the supply and demand laws.

The point of all this is that, using a matrix like this, you can actually help shape a lot of mechanical rules that would be implied within a setting. And I think such a system would help people quickly get a grip as to how a campaign is played.

What do you guys think?

Woot Spitum
2007-03-05, 05:30 PM
I do believe that high magic and low magic refer to the amount of magic the average PC wields. In a high magic campaign, even the melee fighters have access to quite a few spells (warblade, multiclass, or prestige class) and everyone has plenty of magic items with plenty of unique abilities. Low magic probably means full-spellcasting classes are gone outright, and that even a ranger may be considered a powerful caster (relatively speaking).

MeklorIlavator
2007-03-05, 05:39 PM
Woot Spitum has it exactly right. High magic is pretty much normal the forgotten realms, and low magic is more like lord of the rings, if that helps.

TheElfLord
2007-03-05, 07:05 PM
Woot Spitum has it exactly right. High magic is pretty much normal the forgotten realms, and low magic is more like lord of the rings, if that helps.

Did you even read his post? He said that exact thing.

As to the subject at hand, I agree that those are two seperate elements that need to be considered. Personally I favor a high power, medium frequency. Part of this is my love of Lord of the Rings, as well as my love of history. I don't want everyone running around with magical items to help out with everyday needs. At the same time, given that barring death it is quite easy for an adventurer to get to high levels, I think there should be a fair amount of powerful people in the world, mostly retired and living out the good life.

So in my campiagns magical items are by no means rare, but you aren't going to find first level fighters with magical swords. At the same time, my campaign probably has more 20th level denezens than most non-Forgotten Realms settings, which seem to have them under every rock

Toliudar
2007-03-05, 08:41 PM
By this standard, I guess I run a high-frequency, low-strength setting. There are a ton of ways to gain access to minor magic elements - the village adept, the druid in his grove outside of town - but perhaps not more than 20 individuals on the planet who are nudging towards epic. And, in five years of a PnP campaign, my group has run into...one of them. And all they did was chat.

I'm curious as to how you would adjust a system for a high "strength" campaign. I suppose you could decrease the spell-level-raising requirements of metamagic feats, or make more magic items less expensive (perhaps adjusting downwards the usual progression of costs).

For low strength, I'm simply making it more difficult to find expensive magic items to buy, keeping a bit of restraint on treasure to make it a little less than standard WBL. Because I have no wizard in the group, and only a suboptimized cleric, spellcasting really hasn't become a dominant force in the campaign. There's a clear division between the kinds of moderately powerful levels of magic that the PC's are capable of, and the demigods and distant BBEG's that they have only intermediary contact with.

Pocket lint
2007-03-06, 04:44 AM
The campaign world I have been working on manages to be both high-frequency, low-strength AND low-frequency, high-strength. I suppose that in summation, it would count as a low-magic world, since any party that has more than 2 magic items is severely overpowered.

The reason for this wonky distribution is that there are hedge wizards all over the place, minor clerics and so forth. If you want to go above level 4 or so, you need to start making Deals in low places, which at least for the wizards means that there's a distinct "attrition rate" from people botching their summonings >:-) For clerics, I only grant further powers to those few who qualify for Exalted feats - paladin-level virtue required.
FYI, I run the summonings as Incantations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm), with fairly lethal consequences on failure. The trick is to get high enough that your Knowledge(arcana) checks will stop being so difficult to pass. Having apprentices doing Aid another is useful too.

Sardia
2007-03-06, 08:07 AM
I go with the peasant test-- how the average peasant reacts to seeing magic. If the answer is "flee in terror" or "stare in awe" it's probably low magic.

Sardia
2007-03-06, 08:15 AM
I'm curious as to how you would adjust a system for a high "strength" campaign.

In my take on it, there are barriers to entry-- gods don't just hand out spells like party favors, the particular "gene" for sorcery is rare, and the one culture which has wizardry guards it as one of their highest secrets.
Once someone somehow gets an "in", the only limits are the vanguard of magical research of faith, but the number of practitioners is relatively low.
And if you have very few people who can make magic items, it becomes a lot harder to obtain them. More a matter of who you know and what favors you've done rather than who you killed. Buying them is right out.

Indon
2007-03-06, 08:44 AM
I'd say there's another facet to keep in mind for frequency; scarcity vs. control.

Two low-magic worlds, with low frequency. In one, wizards just aren't very common; wizardry is hard, you know! That'd be a high-scarcity world.

In the other, wizardry is easy, but wizards are still rare, because each region has a "Wizards' guild" which holds a monopoly on arcane spellcasting, and they're picky and demanding. If you want a spell above level 2, and you aren't in one of these guilds, you better be good at stealing. That world is high-control.

Personally, I view magic as being high-strength, low-scarcity, and high-control.

...you know, we could just keep adding additional model dimensions to this...

Orzel
2007-03-06, 09:20 AM
I think there are 3 factors in magic level.

Magic strength: What amount of magic do most adventurers and magic users have.
Magic frequency: How many magic users there are.
Magic Knowledge: What magic effects can be produced.

In my homebrew magic users and magic items are common in groups not banned from it. Seeing a based 5th level spell on the other hand is a rare sight. You have people with +5 weapons but no one knows how to cast teleport. All of a wizards higher spell spots are highed metamagiced 1-4th level spells.

It's a high strength, high frequency, low knowledge world.

kellandros
2007-03-06, 10:41 AM
For low frequency worlds- can add in the heat of battle rule. Many fictional worlds state that magic is not that useful in direct conflict, because the focused anger, rage, and bloodlust from those engaging in combat tends to deflect most spells.

Your mages can act before the battle- setting up traps, hiding things, shooting people. But once blood starts to get spilled, spells start failing left and right.

Telok
2007-03-06, 10:50 AM
I've been working on a setting with some interesting ramifications in this area. It would probably come in under the high power/low frequency dimension and has some unique rules.

1) All casters use Adept as the base. No bonus feats.
2) Int for number of bonus spells known/memorized, Chr for spell DC, Wis for bonus spells to cast.
3) New spell levels cost a feat, starting at level 0. Sorcerers require deals with trans-planars, clerics require demonstrations of faith, wizards must research thier first spell of a new level.
4) All casters are specialized. Unfinished partial list is: Wizard= abjuration, transmutation, conjuration, apportation, evocation, divination. Sorcerer= pyromancy, aquamancy, geomancy, aeromancy, necromancy, photomancy, chronomancy. Cleric= spontanious cast domain spells only. At least half of the spells known/memorized must be within the specialization.
5) No saving throws. Evasion allows a Reflex save, Imporved Evasion allows normal Evasion.
6) Spells do not improve in effect with level (remove all "+X/level" stuff from spells) unless cast as a higher level spell with the Heighten Spell feat.
7) Heavily edited spell lists, no Spell Compendium. All spells are listed as [skill/power/domain], example Fireball [Evocation/Pyromancy/Fire].
8) "The Magic Goes Away Rule" is in effect.

"The Magic Goes Away Rule"
All areas (varies from small house size to large field size normally) have a mana rating. If a spell is cast compare the spell level*10 to the mana rating. If the spell is under the mana rating the casting is a success, if the spell is over tha mana rating the casting fails and the area loses one point of mana rating forever. If the spell is under tha mana rating but equal to the mana rating*10 rounded down, the casting is a success but the area loses one point of mana rating forever. This rule applies to all spells, spell like abilities, and other abilities or effects that are a function of magic.

There's some other stuff for the setting, and a very similar thing going for psionics, but those are the basic magic rules I'm using in it.

elliott20
2007-03-06, 11:07 AM
well, there gets to a certain point where models like this become unfeasible from over complication.

Scarcity and Control, though, would effectively control the supply of magic available on a supply and demand graph.

While the methods of going about doing so would be different, the effect would be the same in terms of a general supply sense. In essence, this would result in a price hike.

There are several methods we can do this. The first method is the most intuitive one, where you would simply apply a factor multiplier to your prices.

A flat multiplier would keep the relationship between a level 1 item and a level 9 caster item relatively intact. So, if we simply take it by a factor of 2, you effectively double the price.

However, as we all know from experience, while wealth can deter an normal populous from accessing magic, it doesn't necessarily effect the PCs beyond emptying their koffers that much faster. It still means they can just go find a city, and unload their economy.

In fact, D&D settings often have a problem of showing any control as to how much magic is even available to the populous.

With factors like scarcity and control, you can almost deduce this.

Consider the typical magic user

Chances are, unless for special reasons, magic users tend to be more common in places with higher population, just like any other profession. (Seeing as magic users too need to make a living, and more people provide them with more business)

Using the NPC town population table, we can determine the maximum level NPC with a PC class. Using this, we can also deduce the maximum possible level for a caster.

I don't have access to the tables at the moment since I'm at work, but let's assume that in a city with a population of 25000, the max level you get is 10.

That means, the maximum possible caster level any character can possess in this city is lvl 10. Okay, that alone already denotes the highest level magical item that can be purchased or commission, if it is at all possible.

Somewhere around the same section, you'll also find a table that will tell you how many adventurers of certain level is going to be around. This table will tell you what are the chances that you would pick up a character of a certain class level if you were to pick a random individual out of the city.

The only problem now is figuring out what percentage of this population is in fact magically in tune. It would be really simple to just say "well, 5% of the population uses magic".

That's fine and dandy. but if you want this to conform to normal class distribution, we need to ensure that the level distribution is as exponential as the class distribution.

Hmm... I need to spend more time thinking about this.

Sardia
2007-03-06, 11:36 AM
Chances are, unless for special reasons, magic users tend to be more common in places with higher population, just like any other profession. (Seeing as magic users too need to make a living, and more people provide them with more business)


My question has always been why a magic user would make an item...and then get rid of it, even if he's being paid to do so. Direct casting for pay would seem to be a more efficient use of time and less personally costly to the wizard.
Clerics might do so out of motivation, but if we presume wizards are tolerably mercenary about things, I can see how one might make something for his own personal use, but what would motivate him to make a powerful item for someone else?

elliott20
2007-03-06, 01:23 PM
well, for one, items cost more.

in the long run, an item might not be worth while but in the short term items give you a large bulk sum over a single casting over a period of time. The economic principle behind this is that money now is better than money later.

A wizard who gets his money now can immediately put it to use to further his research.

Also, an item is portable and can be used where ever the adventurer may go. If a wizard only does spell casting for people, then his services are tied to strictly HIS location. This severely limits what kind of services he can provide for people and thusly reduce what kind of profits he can make.

Also, don't forget, the convention of wizards creating items comes from earlier where wizards didn't have to spend XP to do so. They would just have to spend time, components and money and then they can sell the item for 100% profit. There is no XP cost unless the spell has one attached to it.

So, barring XP costs, creating magical items is not a bad idea.

Of course, XP cost is a very real issue, and it's going to be difficult to account for it... unless, you include the mechanic that allows characters to accumulate XP even when not adventuring.

I remember a while back, I managed to calculate that a lvl 1 commoner, provided that he does nothing special at all, can earn 150 xp a year from just surviving the year. (Treating such a task as a non-lethal CR 1 challenge)

A wizard, having to overcome a greater variety of obstacles than a commoner even during his time off of adventuring, can reasonably be expected to gain a bit more than that.

So it stands to reason that it is possible for wizards to gain minimal amounts of XP that he can use to craft his minor magical items. The only problem is that if he makes enough of them every year, he's not leveling up unless he does something major.

Matthew
2007-03-06, 07:01 PM
I agree that frequency and strength of magic are two factors that can help to describe whether a campaign is low or high magic. However, as these other posters have shown, any analysis has to take into account more than just these two factors.

Mewtarthio
2007-03-06, 07:11 PM
I agree that frequency and strength of magic are two factors that can help to describe whether a campaign is low or high magic. However, as these other posters have shown, any analysis has to take into account more than just these two factors.

But quite a lot of these are just variations on strength and frequency. For instance, having a monopolistic Wizard's Guild or making magic difficult to learn or otherwise limiting the number of spellcasters creates a low-frequency campaign.

Matthew
2007-03-06, 08:57 PM
Well, no because the frequency can be localised, rather than treated as an average, as can power levels. Maybe the campaign is almost always low magic until characters reach a certain level and gain access to powerful magic. The localisation of magic (both in terms of location, over time and type) plays a big part in all this. Looking at the source of magic and the limits of what is possible may often buck the trend of the average.

In short, what I am saying is treating frequency and strength as averages can easily be misleading, further nuancing is almost unavoidable.

Desaril
2007-03-06, 10:32 PM
I think this was an excellent post and worthy for an published article once elliot20 looks at the tables and works out the math on his examples.

I prefer a high-strength, low-frequency world. Magic should be rare and dangerous; everyone should quake with fear at the first hint of spellcasting. This fear would be even greater for divine casters (they can call on the power of a deity!!!)

To reflect this, I usually allow casters to cast spells at a higher level (+3 levels). NPCs are always in awe of casters; people are wary of anyone wearing a cloak and walking with a staff, etc.

I restrict magical items. I require PCs to make names/histories for many of their items (like Anduril, the Flame of the West, reforged from the Shards of Narsil, the sword of Kings). They get less of them and don't often trade up. No "Ye olde Magic Shoppe" in the towns; you have to find an ancient relic or get it from someone who has it (and probably plans to keep it).

Winterking
2007-03-07, 01:38 AM
My world is medium-strength, and low frequency--Magic is as powerful as normal, but due to a decreased percentage of sorcerors in the population (spontaneous casting only manifests at periods of great crisis--which, for many people, either never come, or come prepackaged with death), and to a College of the Arcane (a Wizard's guild), not so many people can actually use magic. Any PCs who want to can; they are, by definition, extraordinary. But they won't find magic-enhanced street urchins with bowls of begging +2 on every street corner.

Sardia
2007-03-07, 08:15 AM
Also, an item is portable and can be used where ever the adventurer may go. If a wizard only does spell casting for people, then his services are tied to strictly HIS location. This severely limits what kind of services he can provide for people and thusly reduce what kind of profits he can make.

So it stands to reason that it is possible for wizards to gain minimal amounts of XP that he can use to craft his minor magical items. The only problem is that if he makes enough of them every year, he's not leveling up unless he does something major.

The first one'd be true...but then again, the same would apply for doctors, and good luck finding one who'll make a housecall--if the demand for the service is high enough, the customer will come.

The XP issue is the major sticking point, I think-- a wizard who spends all his time making magic items is going to wind up being a lower-powered wizard than one who doesn't, and less able to command high fees for direct casting.
For the adventuring wizard, this might be worth it-- heavily-armed friends make for a safer outing. For a non-adventuring one, though, what amount of gold is worth the XP?

Indon
2007-03-07, 08:39 AM
The first one'd be true...but then again, the same would apply for doctors, and good luck finding one who'll make a housecall--if the demand for the service is high enough, the customer will come.

The XP issue is the major sticking point, I think-- a wizard who spends all his time making magic items is going to wind up being a lower-powered wizard than one who doesn't, and less able to command high fees for direct casting.
For the adventuring wizard, this might be worth it-- heavily-armed friends make for a safer outing. For a non-adventuring one, though, what amount of gold is worth the XP?

I would suspect that the vast majority of spells cast commercially for a wizard are low-level; those that aren't items, anyway. A sedentary wizard probably gets a lot of requests for potions, for instance. (Such as the classic potion of Charm Person)

Sardia
2007-03-07, 09:41 AM
I would suspect that the vast majority of spells cast commercially for a wizard are low-level; those that aren't items, anyway. A sedentary wizard probably gets a lot of requests for potions, for instance. (Such as the classic potion of Charm Person)

I suppose it'd have to vary by the number of practitioners, too. If there's a hedge wizard under every tree, the price's going to be driven down. If you have to haul your buddy/statue a few hundred miles to get him turned back into flesh, the wizard knows he's got an...er...business opportunity.

Roethke
2007-03-07, 09:49 AM
...
Also, don't forget, the convention of wizards creating items comes from earlier where wizards didn't have to spend XP to do so. They would just have to spend time, components and money and then they can sell the item for 100% profit. There is no XP cost unless the spell has one attached to it.
...



Well, aside from potions and scrolls, at least in 2nd ed., a Wizard wishing to enchant an item had to expend CON points using the permanency spell, which really was prohibitively expensive, unless you had a way of wishing you're CON back up, which was also expensive. Made sure that you really, really wanted the item you were creating, but made trying to explain all the +1 swords and tridents lying around sort of difficult.

Dervag
2007-03-07, 10:28 AM
For a non-adventuring one, though, what amount of gold is worth the XP?Especially since non-adventuring wizards aren't going to gain XP very fast.

And since (as Rich has noted in some of his gaming articles) NPCs don't really know about experience points, all that a wizard really knows is that if he creates too many magic items in succession, his powers will eventually decrease (he loses a level to XP loss). If he doesn't know that he can regain those XP through adventuring, he may be very worried about the possibility that he's somehow decreasing his innate magical ability permanently or losing a bit of his soul with every magic weapon he makes.

Golthur
2007-03-07, 10:35 AM
Well, aside from potions and scrolls, at least in 2nd ed., a Wizard wishing to enchant an item had to expend CON points using the permanency spell, which really was prohibitively expensive, unless you had a way of wishing you're CON back up, which was also expensive. Made sure that you really, really wanted the item you were creating, but made trying to explain all the +1 swords and tridents lying around sort of difficult.

That's also not counting the aging for wishes :smallsmile:. It's a wonder there were ever any magic items in old-school D&D save for the most powerful ones. No one would burn a Constitution point to make a +1 glaive, that's for sure.

On the original frequency vs. strength topic, this works, but it would vary a great deal from area to area within the world, I'd think.

I usually run low frequency, medium strength (or some variant thereof) - magic is rare and precious, but isn't a waste of time when you find it. Every servant does *not* have a couple of cantrips to lighten their workload. A mage walking down the street is cause for either awe or fear from the general populace.

But, there would be areas within the world (say, the homeland of a more magic-friendly race), where the frequency would be increased dramatically. Perhaps there, yes, most people would be able to work a little magic.

Roethke
2007-03-07, 10:50 AM
I usually run low frequency, medium strength (or some variant thereof) - magic is rare and precious, but isn't a waste of time when you find it. Every servant does *not* have a couple of cantrips to lighten their workload. A mage walking down the street is cause for either awe or fear from the general populace.


Yup. I do about the same in my campaigns. I think the dirty, little secret as to why Low Frequency -> High Strength magic campaigns are so popular is simple: DM control. To go into ridiculous analysis, for myself, as a young DM, I was burned by going to Monty Haul. (We were running Dragonlance, and towards the end. one of the PC's owned an enormous Spelljamming ship in the form of a dragon. Made out of solid Platinum. His wizard ally created an enormous black 'Cloak' for it. Fun times, but silly stuff).

It's much, much easier to predict what the PC's are going to do/gauge appropriate, so we overreact in the other direction. We ran a custom Midnight (Low Frequency, High Strength) campaign, recently, and had great fun.

Now, I'm running an Age of Worms Campaign, right out of the modules, and the flood of minor magic items, was a bit overwhelming at first. But balance seems to be holding out.

Golthur
2007-03-07, 11:02 AM
Yup. I do about the same in my campaigns. I think the dirty, little secret as to why Low Frequency -> High Strength magic campaigns are so popular is simple: DM control. To go into ridiculous analysis, for myself, as a young DM, I was burned by going to Monty Haul. (We were running Dragonlance, and towards the end. one of the PC's owned an enormous Spelljamming ship in the form of a dragon. Made out of solid Platinum. His wizard ally created an enormous black 'Cloak' for it. Fun times, but silly stuff).

It's much, much easier to predict what the PC's are going to do/gauge appropriate, so we overreact in the other direction. We ran a custom Midnight (Low Frequency, High Strength) campaign, recently, and had great fun.

It's also probably more prevalent in 1.x/2.x DMs, I'd say. In old-school, PCs could make their own magic items, but it was a big, big deal, and usually campaign-worthy in and of itself, for the most part. It was certainly never "Oh, I have a week of down-time? I whip off a few magic items, then". I never remember a player making a simple +X weapon, I do remember a magic-user questing to get all the bits to make a Staff of the Magi, though.

Sardia
2007-03-07, 11:12 AM
I think the dirty, little secret as to why Low Frequency -> High Strength magic campaigns are so popular is simple: DM control.

For me, it's simple sanity in world design. At least if magic's relatively low-frequency, you don't have to think quite as much about the implications of broadly-available magic and can go about making a calm, pseudo-medieval world.

Golthur
2007-03-07, 11:14 AM
For me, it's simple sanity in world design. At least if magic's relatively low-frequency, you don't have to think quite as much about the implications of broadly-available magic and can go about making a calm, pseudo-medieval world.

Yes, and it keeps armies somewhat relevant :amused:

Mewtarthio
2007-03-07, 11:22 AM
Especially since non-adventuring wizards aren't going to gain XP very fast.

And since (as Rich has noted in some of his gaming articles) NPCs don't really know about experience points, all that a wizard really knows is that if he creates too many magic items in succession, his powers will eventually decrease (he loses a level to XP loss). If he doesn't know that he can regain those XP through adventuring, he may be very worried about the possibility that he's somehow decreasing his innate magical ability permanently or losing a bit of his soul with every magic weapon he makes.

You technically can't lose levels from crafting: I don't think you're allowed to expend more XP on crafting than you actually have that level. A Wizard who spends his time crafting things is just going to notice that he's not progressing as quickly, which makes perfect sense: If he's spending all his time making magic items, he's not spending his time honing his spellcrafting skills to learn high-level spells.

Sardia
2007-03-07, 11:44 AM
Yes, and it keeps armies somewhat relevant :amused:

And castles. And shipping. Not to mention the entire economy.
Although a few acts of high magic do explain the 1:10 gold to silver ratio if you're assuming an otherwise earthlike world (since Earth tended to run 15 or 16 silver to one gold.)

Matthew
2007-03-07, 02:08 PM
Actually, that's a matter of quality, period and such. 1:7 to 1:12 was a reasonable ratio in the twelfth century, but Frankish Silver Coins were something like a third of the weight of Gold Besants.

Charlemagne's basic coinage introduction was the 12 Silver Coins = 1 Sous, 20 Sous = 1 libre. Basically, what this meant was that 1 (Trojan) lb of silver could be converted into 240 Silver Coins. 12 Silver Coins were 'supposed' to equal 1 Gold Coin, but the system was *very* unstable.

In any case, a 1:10 ratio is a reasonable average. There was no absolute fixed rate of exchange, as far as I am aware.

The D&D economy, though, is totally broken, so it hardly matters.

A a D&D Gold Coin Grey Hawk Gold Coin] weighs about 9 grams, which makes it around twice as heavy as a typical Besant (around 4.5 grams) and something like six times as heavy as a Frankish Silver Coin (around 1.5 grams).

[Edit]Hmmn. Maybe you are talking about modern Gold to Silver ratios? (Also tricky ground, as the official ratio only counts for officially stamped precious metals...)

elliott20
2007-03-07, 02:36 PM
goddammit, I can't seem to post my replies thanks to this stupid network. I'll have to just save it for now and post it later.

Sardia
2007-03-07, 03:15 PM
Actually, that's a matter of quality, period and such. 1:7 to 1:12 was a reasonable ratio in the twelfth century, but Frankish Silver Coins were something like a third of the weight of Gold Besants.

[Edit]Hmmn. Maybe you are talking about modern Gold to Silver ratios? (Also tricky ground, as the official ratio only counts for officially stamped precious metals...)

Around 1300s until the 1800s or so was what I had in mind, as far as the ratios for the metals themselves were concerned.
The value of the coins, as well as their purity...haven't touched that can of worms. Seigniorage policies of fantasy kingdoms ought to be interesting...and an interesting way of getting around wizards who can make their own gold.

"Yes, you have much bullion. Of course, only coin is legal to spend here. Our fees are reasonable."

icthius
2007-03-07, 03:21 PM
So what would you describe something like George RR Martin's A Game of Thrones world? Working just from the books (I am trying to get my hands on a copy of the D20 rulebook) it would seem that it's more common than in LoTR, but less powerful, but it's still extremely rare.

elliott20
2007-03-07, 03:33 PM
well, let's not get into inflationary prices within the D&D setting now. That could get a little tricky...

Sardia
2007-03-07, 03:52 PM
well, let's not get into inflationary prices within the D&D setting now. That could get a little tricky...

It makes for an interesting take on the economy-- most of the money is apparently in the possession of adventurers or monsters.
Since the monsters don't spend it, we can presume that the main benefit of adventurers lies not in killing monsters, but in providing liquidity.

elliott20
2007-03-07, 04:14 PM
in essence, D&D economy is powered entirely by adventurers.

But yeah, I've always found the concept of savage monsters having more wealth than the average citizen to be a trying system at best.

Hell, the entire concept of a wealth distribution table appropriate to level is a pretty silly one to me.

Sardia
2007-03-07, 04:21 PM
Hell, the entire concept of a wealth distribution table appropriate to level is a pretty silly one to me.

It makes sense if magic items are interconvertible with money fairly easily. If you just presume the "wealth by level" only involves magical items and services, and let the players have as much or as little coin as they can haul or spend, it's a bit more reasonable, and still tolerably balanced.

elliott20
2007-03-07, 04:27 PM
that's true. but then that presumption assumes that there is a fairly large amount of magical items out there, which can be problematic when you consider the cost for creating a large number of these items. (incidentally, that was going to be the topic of my original post but then for some reason my broswer keeps on eating that one post)

Matthew
2007-03-07, 04:34 PM
Around 1300s until the 1800s or so was what I had in mind, as far as the ratios for the metals themselves were concerned.
The value of the coins, as well as their purity...haven't touched that can of worms. Seigniorage policies of fantasy kingdoms ought to be interesting...and an interesting way of getting around wizards who can make their own gold.

"Yes, you have much bullion. Of course, only coin is legal to spend here. Our fees are reasonable."

Interesting, but where did you come up with the figures? I have never heard that there was a european standard exchange rate of Gold to Silver in the fourteenth century.

Sardia
2007-03-07, 05:14 PM
Interesting, but where did you come up with the figures? I have never heard that there was a european standard exchange rate of Gold to Silver in the fourteenth century.

I'd have to browse up the sources, but Milton Friedman's popping to mind as one of them.
And there certainly wasn't a set standard of exchange, but for that time period the values tended to hit more-or-less within that range of their own accord somehow. Shortly before better gold extraction techniques and the odd bit of government intervention threw things into the blender. Oh, well.
The best I can come up with as a website reference on the spur of the moment is: http://goldinfo.net/silver600.html

Sardia
2007-03-07, 05:20 PM
that's true. but then that presumption assumes that there is a fairly large amount of magical items out there, which can be problematic when you consider the cost for creating a large number of these items. (incidentally, that was going to be the topic of my original post but then for some reason my broswer keeps on eating that one post)

The thought occurs that given enough adventurers, you ought to find plenty of magical items in dungeons, but relatively little cash-- after all, adventurers rarely haul large quantities of gold into the dungeons, but to take their items with them, so when the dragon/slime/lich/whatever offs an adventuring party, they're going to add to the item horde. Whenever the adventurers win, they take all the loot anyhow.
You'd think there'd be a gross preponderance of items compared to treasure in the average monster horde...

Matthew
2007-03-07, 05:29 PM
Wow, that's a pretty precise looking graph. The data looks pretty suspicious to me for such an early period, but it all depends on exactly what sources they are drawing on.