How Common is Magic?

[MrStabby]

One of the things that I find odd about most D&D campaigns is that magic is assumed to be uncommon and that it has a huge impact on the game. By this I don't mean that magic items exist or similar but most kingdoms seem to be built on the basis that the enemies of that kingdom will not have magic.

Putting 500,000 person days of labour into building a castle or massive city walls is great if your enemies don't have fly or spiderclimb or if they cannot teleport in and so on. I see what amounts to huge quantities of resources in terms of economic output and labour to control only that part of the world that doesn't cast magic.

Total level of national security on a given budget within most kingdoms would probably be enhanced by training more low level wizards capable of casting wards and suchlike and fewer training as stonemasons.

It seems that Parties are encouraged to use magic to solve their problems simply because it never occurs to rulers (well OK, sometimes it does) to put as much attention into arcane defence as any other type.

I do think that more features in the game to passively make it more difficult to teleport/fly into a place would make the game world much more consistent.

For those that DM - to what extent do your faction's defences focus on magic and to what extent do they focus of the more traditional physical?

[Camman1984]

Magic seems pretty common place to me, particularly in adventure parties

who can use magic from phb?

All high elves, tieflings and gnomes (iirc)

All bards, clerics, sorcerers, wizards, warlocks, druids, rangers, paladins

Lots of fighters, rogues and monks (i am counting ki as magic as it gives magic like effects)

That seems like everyone to be honest :p

[GM_3826]

Magic seems pretty common place to me, particularly in adventure parties

who can use magic from phb?

All high elves, tieflings and gnomes (iirc)

All bards, clerics, sorcerers, wizards, warlocks, druids, rangers, paladins

Lots of fighters, rogues and monks (i am counting ki as magic as it gives magic like effects)

That seems like everyone to be honest :p

So the only class that is magic-free is the Barbarian... Oh, wait, totems, never mind.

[Naanomi]

A very setting dependent question; even across communities in the same nation. In my homebrew setting, it ranges from violently anti-magic places being ill prepared to deal with magic stuff based mostly on ignorance and denial; whereas elsewhere there is a nation trying to recreate an 'Atlantis' style magic renaissance/utopia where magic does everything and even common people are aware of and take into account common spells

[calebrus]

You all seem to be forgetting that people with class levels are the exception, not the rule.
People with class levels, which can also use magic, are even less prominent.
People with class levels, which can also cast magic, and will be trusted by a ruler with the defensive secrets of a kingdom are not just less prominent.... they're all but impossible to find.

[GM_3826]

You all seem to be forgetting that people with class levels are the exception, not the rule.
People with class levels, which can also use magic, are even less prominent.
People with class levels, which can also cast magic, and will be trusted by a ruler with the defensive secrets of a kingdom are not just less prominent.... they're all but impossible to find.

Yeah, I know, but every adventurer seems to be capable of having magic. Having it is more common than in other editions. Having it in this edition... Not even "hit or miss".
Although, even when you get into adventuring, magic items are less common than in the past two editions. Magic items were everywhere. Now it's much closer to 1st and 2nd edition, where they were fairly rare. Or so I've heard.
On average? I'd say it's about as rare as it was in every edition prior.

[Mr.Moron]

"Rare-ish, but common enough to account for when building your fort, castle or city"

In games where I've included fly/teleport/etc... as part of the world, building fortifications & magic have generally worked like this:

Working powerful defensive magic into fortifications is easy, their staggering mass, large size and tendency towards clean shapes make creating feedback loops on minor defensive wards a trivial matter. So long as a focusing tower remains standing in the middle a powerful defensive sphere can be projected around the area enclosed by walls. The specifics of these fields can vary by the technique used to construct them and the materials in the focus tower, but they share some common properties:


It is strongest at the poles directly above/below the tower and weakest directly connecting to the walls.
The repulsive force proportional mass/magic of the object or force attempting to penetrate. The field is stronger against larger objects and stronger magic.
It is invisible unless blocking something, in which case it manifests as momentary flash of light/force.
The larger volume the barrier covers, the less expensive it is per unit volume to construct.
The field is self-sustaining, but can be made even more powerful by casters focusing on it.
The field has some limits, throw enough stuff at it and it can fail but this is generally very inefficient unless you vastly outclass the defender in terms of resources.


This means that enemies scaling the wall can can pass through the barrier almost unhindered, and mundane arrows similarly pass through with little consequence.

With their large mass, huge siege projectiles are affected somewhat. If hitting the outside walls they feel almost no effect. However if they would land on or close to the tower the improved strength is enough to repel them generally causing them to fly clear of the walls and land on the outside without causing harm. If they'd land somewhere else over the walls but not hit the tower, they land but with reduced impact.

(NOTE: A man launched from a catapult hitting anywhere but right over the walls would likely pancake against the barrier. His shredded remains resting on the barrier for a moment before falling normally to the spot below his original impact)

All attempts to enhance siege weapons magically are basically self-defeating as even the use of magic in launching them increases the fields resistance to them exceptionally likely bouncing them back on your own troops.

Active magic items and spells (such as fly), make the barrier basically impossible to pass for their user. They won't bounce off violently like a high-speed projectile but are more like a 1-way force wall.

Attempting to apply any magic to walls or barrier repels it, with proportional force to the magic involved. A cantrip might actually be able pass and do some reduced damage. A scorching ray or fireball would just dead stop, a meteor swarm reflects directly back at the source.

Magic Creatures always find the walls to be at minimum, impassable. Large magic creatures more so. Mundane flyers are only repulsed by their mass. A pigeon (small, mundane) can pass through the barrier unhindered, a pixie (small, magic) feels it as an impassable wall as does a griffon (mundane flying, large mass), an adult dragon (big, magic) is repulsed violently.

Teleportation into the bubble from the outside is ill-advised. The best case scenario is having your teleport redirected to a random location in-range but outside the bubble. The worst case scenario is being erased from existence.

Depending on the exact construction, magic may be suppressed somewhat on the inside but that's more of a case-by-case basis.

[pibby]

The thing is in every D&D universe that I can think of, including Eberron which is a high magic setting, a majority of mages are not of a high enough level to collaborate and fathom a society similar to the Tippyverse (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy). In a typical setting there aren't even that many high level characters of any class to begin with. There are plenty of tier 1 characters in a setting and a good bunch of tier 2 characters. But past that is when it starts to get hard finding tier 3 characters, and tier 4 characters are so rare that they are legendary figures of grand stories that most would believe are fictional.

Players can choose whatever they want their PC to be but depending on the setting NPCs may either not have the potential or may not actually want to be a primary caster.

Even within armies mages are more likely to serve as artillery casting Fireballs and not as paratroopers casting Dimension Door. Even if there was a good number of mages in the army that knew Dimension Door such an occurrence would be rare and unheard of. It would also be unwise if they used Fly or Spiderclimb as they would generally be only capable of casting it on a single target. Ladders are better solution since they serve the same purpose as those spells but for multiple people. Martials also do more DPR than a mage out of resources and are less squishy.

So in conclusion, no. I don't think kingdoms need to make specific defenses against mages or train an army of mages as opposed to martials because most of the big game altering spells are available to tier 3 and 4 characters.

[Slipperychicken]

They don't prepare for it because the implications of D&D magic are so profound and far-reaching that it's almost impossible for authors to figure out how military doctrine would change in response. Even professional military analysts would probably struggle with the question.

[Camman1984]

You dont need many high level magic users in a world to make magic defences against magic a requirement. One high level wizard invisibly teleporting in and summoning monsters/setting fires/dominating the town leader etc. is much more dangerous than the 10000 men outside who cant get in because you paid for big stone walls. Taken to its logical conclusion magic users should rule everything as they can do everything a regular person can and so much more. Luckily they are usually too self absorbed to concern themselves with the affairs of muggles

[SharkForce]

They don't prepare for it because the implications of D&D magic are so profound and far-reaching that it's almost impossible for authors to figure out how military doctrine would change in response. Even professional military analysts would probably struggle with the question.

eh, not really.

if you want to know the implications of a large variety of D&D magic effects, just look to e-sports. what would teleportation mean? take a look at starcraft 2 games where someone builds a mothership.

[Demonic Spoon]

5e magic is a lot more limited than people are suggesting.


Taking a well-defended castle would require a fairly substantial army. Even without the defensive advantage, there will be a lot of soldiers in the castle. How many wizards capable of casting level 7 spells does your attacking army have? Per the "Tiers of play" section in the PHB, regarding 11-16th level characters:


These mighty adventurers often confront threats to whole regions and continents

There probably aren't more than a handful of level 13 wizards in the world. How many of them could you scrounge up into a single fighting force? With 5 wizards in your attacking army of this level, you can teleport 40 soldiers into the castle. Unless those 40 soldiers are also 13+th level badasses, that's not going to, by itself, trivialize walls. Oh, and this completely ignores the miss chance for teleport; unless your wizards are all very familiar with this castle, there's a strong probability of this tactic sending the wizard and all of your elite infiltrators to their deaths.

Okay, so how about fly? You might be able to assemble a fairly large group of level 5 wizards - not huge, but sizable. So you want to fly a bunch of soldiers up onto the castle. The wizards themselves basically cannot be part of the attack themselves, lest they be hit with an arrow and plunge themselves, as well as anyone they're flying with, to their death. So you have to direct your entire battalion of wizards to cast fly on some other strike force, fly up the walls, hope you don't die to a hail of arrows, and then take the walls. You might have some success with this tactic if you have a sizable group of elite soldiers who are capable of surviving in small numbers on an enemy-infested wall, so for this tactic to work you need a bunch of pretty powerful wizards plus a bunch of pretty powerful non-wizards. Verdict? Potentially useful in a siege, but doesn't nearly trivialize walls.

Spider climb: Basically the same thing as fly, except you can get more people doing it, at the cost of taking longer actually getting up the walls, while still being vulnerable to things like boiling oil.

Enchantment magic? Possibly powerful, but it's usually short lived (unless cast in a very, very high level slot) and, unless you're a sorcerer with Subtle Spell, you can't do it unless you have your target completely isolated. It can also be fairly easily countered by a king or someone of influence having some court mage with detect magic up shadowing him while meeting with people who could potentially take control of him.


You dont need many high level magic users in a world to make magic defences against magic a requirement. One high level wizard invisibly teleporting in and summoning monsters/setting fires/dominating the town leader etc. is much more dangerous than the 10000 men outside who cant get in because you paid for big stone walls. Taken to its logical conclusion magic users should rule everything as they can do everything a regular person can and so much more. Luckily they are usually too self absorbed to concern themselves with the affairs of muggles

A single high level wizard (assuming he is capable of getting around the miss chance described above) would get wrecked by enough soldiers ("enough soldiers" being a thing that will definitely be there in a castle under siege).



A more practical concern is that the existence of magic does make assassination potentially more deadly against high-value targets like kings. As such, a king or someone of importance would likely have some magic items and/or potions oriented towards escape, and would likely rely more on close-at-hand bodyguards than locking himself in an obscure section of the castle.

[MinotaurWarrior]

Honestly, in 5e, the advantage seems to be more on the defense. Mordenkeinen's Private Sanctum is a lower level spell than Teleportation Circle, and all the different varieties of wards can get bananas. If I'm building a castle, I think I'm gonna pay for the spellcasting defenses as I pay for the walls. And if I'm attacking the castle - I think I might try a horde of goblins and mercenaries before I resort to expensive wizardry. Heck, even if I'm a wizard, I'd likely do that. At levels high enough that I stand a chance against a castle's worth of 1st level fighters and CR 1/8 guards in a head on assault, my magic is better used raising an army of undead as the core of my force.

As to how common magic is: that's a setting assumption. Complete DM fiat.

[VoxRationis]

Yeah, the fact that they switched teleport and teleportation circle (relative to 3.5—I don't know about 4th) changes the implications of teleportation significantly. Only the very most powerful of mages can just pop in unannounced at some unspecified location—and if these mages decide to attack by knocking on your front door, you're probably still screwed anyway. Most teleportation will be to a place that you, the builder of the fortress, have already specified. In addition to the fact that control over knowledge of the sigil sequence is a first line of defense against such attack, if you know that people can teleport in at any time, but have to teleport in to a single specific place, it's easy to fortify against that. In fact, it becomes a little like Stargate. Enemies can appear with little to no warning, but they can only come through a few at a time, can't bring heavy equipment with them (maybe a scorpion, but not a battering ram or something like that), and crucially, they only come in at one point, which you set. Place the teleportation room deep in your dungeons. Make sure the hallway leading to it is filled with portcullises and traps, with lots of murder holes and arrow slits. Have guys with ballistas pointing directly at the teleportation circle. If you're really pushing the Stargate angle, have a self-destruct system ready to collapse the entire circle level if you feel desperate. Not that hard to account for, all in all.

[MrStabby]

The big magic issue isnt just open war setting but the fact that magic can obviate the need for total war.

What is the lowest level civil servant needed to meet your needs? Can you suggest it would be a good idea to sign the order to ship all of the cities grain overseas? Can you create a teleportation circle and move hundreds of soldiers in over the course of a month - enough that when your army does arrive they can storm the gates from the inside and get them open.

Transmute rock lets you destroy any bridge in the kingdom by turning its keystone to mud, mold earth lets you quickly undermine walls, plenty of effects extinguish flames so your infiltrators can cause havoc unseen. Find familiar is expert scouting, disguise self lets you pretend to be a high ranking military officer to anyone who doesn't have divination abilities to hand and so on. The world just seems to find love level spells being pretty unexpected.

Even if PCs are exceptional in being able to take their classes, high elves can do a lot of this stuff with their cantrips anyway. Economically it doesn't seem to make sense that a nation wouldn't train more wizards. Sorcerers are harder but wizards just need a modicum of intellect (doesn't have to be high to do a lot of this stuff) and about 50gp of ink to scribe the spells they need. This is pretty close to the same cost of outfitting a low level fighter.

[archaeo]

Economically it doesn't seem to make sense that a nation wouldn't train more wizards.

I think even a casual acquaintance with history should be enough to show that societies pretty routinely fail to make perfectly rational choices, economic or otherwise.


This is pretty close to the same cost of outfitting a low level fighter.

This doesn't really factor in a lot of costs that D&D has never really expected players to keep track of. For example, how much does it cost to train this caster army? How often do the casters blow themselves up, or summon property-damaging demons? How often does the system result in a necromancer upstart or other evil wizardy nonsense?

None of which is to say you can't run a campaign where magic is as common as dirt. It just seems pretty clear to me that you can justify any level of magic in any setting with relative ease, if it's the kind of thing that bothers you.

[Grek]

If you're building a castle, you really can't ignore magic. But that doesn't mean that walls are invalid. Consider the following short list of low level spells, creatures and abilities which I feel castle builders should reasonably concern themselves with defending against:

Friends/Charm Person
Damaging Cantrips
Minor or Silent Illusions
Prestidigitation
Mage Hand
Disguise/Alter Self
Detect Thoughts
Invisibility
Silence
Pass without Trace
Witch Bolt
Jump
Shatter
Spider Climb
Misty Step
Suggestion
Knock
Levitate
Any unauthorized ritual magic
Forest Gnomes, Bards, Rangers and Druids using animals as spies.
Druids turning into rats to sneak in.
Burrowing Creatures
Flying Monsters

How many of those can be stopped by having a good solid opaque wall to keep people out? A surprisingly large number, as it turns out: Most magic requires line of sight, and walls block line of sight. If the guard is on the other side of a big wooden door, you can't Charm him into opening it, or read his thoughts for the password. Likewise, the lowest level form of teleportation (Misty Step) only lets you teleport to places you can see. As long as you make the walls taller than anything within about a mile, then nobody can simultaneously see something on the inside of the castle and be close enough to cast a spell on it. So what's left? What won't walls stop?

Fooling the guards (Fix this by requiring passwords in addition to visual confirmation of identity):
Minor or Silent Illusions
Disguise/Alter Self

Sneaking in undetected (Fix this by keeping valuable items and information behind locked doors):
Invisibility
Silence
Pass without Trace
Forest Gnomes, Bards, Rangers and Druids using animals as spies.
Druids turning into rats to sneak in.

Going over or around the walls (Keep valuables in roofed in areas; post guards in a high tower to watch the walls):
Jump
Spider Climb
Levitate
Burrowing Creatures
Flying Monsters

Destroying the walls or doors (Have a motte and bailey design, so that destroying just one wall is not enough):
Damaging Cantrips
Witch Bolt
Shatter
Knock

Misc (Ensure that no publicly accessible area within range of the castle goes unobserved for ten minutes at a time):
Any unauthorized ritual magic


The problems are different (Keeping arrows/armies out vs keeping people from observing people inside), but the answer is still the same: Build a tall wall and a taller tower in the middle.

[ad_hoc]

One of the biggest differences would be having important areas and treasure lined with lead.

[Naanomi]

Most of the spell casting classes are not a big deal to me. Although it gets glossed over in character creation, spell books are expensive compared to any martial characters starting equipment; and I would also guess Druidic and clerical training isn't easy or necessarily cheap.

Sorcerers though... They can 'just happen' no training required. Even if rare, a sorcerer can be a farmers son or disgruntled postal worker or rival noble all by chance and with no investment cost to make good choices with their powers.

[MrStabby]

One of the biggest differences would be having important areas and treasure lined with lead.

Yes, this might help. Actually given the use of lead if it can block certain magic, you would expect it to be very expensive.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Yes, this might help. Actually given the use of lead if it can block certain magic, you would expect it to be very expensive.

Well, more expensive than if it didn't do that, but price is determined by how common it is rather than just how useful.

I think you're right that most fortifications would be helped by adding a few spellcasters but I don't see them replacing martial types. At low levels a high dex fighter with a bow does better damage at more range than most attack cantrips and can attack indefinitely, unlike relying on 1st or 2nd level spells. Plus, they almost certainly take less time to train than a wizard and that's important when it comes to determining how large an army you can field as well as keeping one going in the face of losses.

Grek already gave a good list of mundane protections against common spells, here's another one: given that effects such as suggestion or charm person are single target, just having people travel in groups makes a lot of low level infiltration techniques much harder. And you can have more groups with troops that are faster and easier to train, like fighters compared to wizards. So, again we're back to groups of armed guards behind walls being one of the most cost effective ways of defending against common magical attack.

[ChubbyRain]

Assuming that humans in the 5e verse think like humans do in the real world...

There is no good justification for magic being that rare. Every major government would have programs that teach kids from a small age to adulthood how to harness that ability so that it makes the government safer and in higher standings among other nations.

Look at science in the real world.

We teach kids from an early age to becomes some sort of engineer or scientist. Sure a lot of people choose other careers, mostly because of society/social economic/personal preference, but in a fantasy world you won't really have those issues that prevent a kid from becoming a scientist/engineer of some sort (other than personal preference). But beyond that, we now have a majority of the people in the united states capable of using, perhaps not producing, magic. We call it cell phones, and guns, and driving a car. To people unaware of what a cell phone really is, it is no different than casting a divination magic like clerics or druids do.

So if humans thought anything like real world humans each nation would have a dedicated system of magic schools and everyone would have a base knowledge of how to use magic given to them from a higher source. A lot more people would be considered wizards, clerics, and warlocks.

The biggest thing is that D&D religions give a big ole thumbs up to magic, whereas a lot of the mainstream religions (at least in the US) look at witchcraft/magic/science as the work of evil or or some aort of anti-natural (my relatives are a good example of this). However the deities of D&D promote the use of magic or at the very least don't speak out against it all that much.

So every D&D setting that has the typical gods and set up would have magic schools that are mandatory for all kids to go into. A percentage, but not as high as real life, wouldn't go into the sciences/engineering jobs, and society would be OK all this. Generally speaking of course.

We still wouldn't have tippyverse as I believe politicians would screw up the system before getting there but the typical d&d setting would be nonexistant. Just think of what measures humans in real life would come up with if people had even the abilities of a first or 3rd level caster.... It would be crazy.

Again, assuming humans in the game think remotely like humans in the real world.

Has anyone made a setting specifically as if the real world human evolution of thought had magic to take into consideration? Like what structures would we build, what laws in place (what magic is illegal), or what social programs we would have? Sounds like a fun time.

[SharkForce]

Well, more expensive than if it didn't do that, but price is determined by how common it is rather than just how useful.

I think you're right that most fortifications would be helped by adding a few spellcasters but I don't see them replacing martial types. At low levels a high dex fighter with a bow does better damage at more range than most attack cantrips and can attack indefinitely, unlike relying on 1st or 2nd level spells. Plus, they almost certainly take less time to train than a wizard and that's important when it comes to determining how large an army you can field as well as keeping one going in the face of losses.

Grek already gave a good list of mundane protections against common spells, here's another one: given that effects such as suggestion or charm person are single target, just having people travel in groups makes a lot of low level infiltration techniques much harder. And you can have more groups with troops that are faster and easier to train, like fighters compared to wizards. So, again we're back to groups of armed guards behind walls being one of the most cost effective ways of defending against common magical attack.

minor side note: martial training is not terribly fast with the options available to people in most D&D settings. we can train soldiers in a relatively short time today because guns don't take much time to teach, but even then, you'd be very wrong to think that training ends with boot camp. it takes a short time to teach the very basic parts of being a soldier... but that isn't the end of their training.

now imagine that instead of a few weeks of training to get familiar with your assault rifle, you had to spend years learning how to use a longbow, or how to fight in formation with a spear or shortsword or something like that, which is going to take a lot longer than learning how to use a gun (frankly, that's a major part of why muskets became the weapon of choice; the longbow was a superior weapon (better ROF, longer range, better accuracy if you're trained), but took years and years of training to be able to use.

[MrStabby]

Has anyone made a setting specifically as if the real world human evolution of thought had magic to take into consideration? Like what structures would we build, what laws in place (what magic is illegal), or what social programs we would have? Sounds like a fun time.

Actually this is in part how this came about.

I was trying to build some locations and the bigger and more secure the location was to be the bigger walls were around it. That got me thinking about how I would attack different locations, how I would infiltrate or eliminate threats as an enemy. There were basically three types of defense I looked at - wards, physical impediments (walls, traps) and animated defences (people, golems etc.). The marginal extra security given by paying a wizard to cast spells was much greater than the extra security given by getting a bunch of stonemasons to build walls higher/thicker/better - every time.

So with a few assumptions about time and material cost required to learn magic vs other skills and what can be achieved at each level I concluded that about 60% of the population should probably be a magic user of one form or another. Admittedly it wasn't a fancy general equilibrium model where the price of paper might skyrocket from all the spellbooks being produced so it might be a bit far out. The bigger problem is that the more people have magic, the less need there is for the magic services of other people - magic is sufficiently general/diverse that is doesn't generate the specialism you would normally see in an economy.

I then went back and considered the defences - given that most people available to be drafted into an army would probably be a lvl 1 or lvl 2 wizard (just because it can be taught and you can effectively do a lot of trades pretty damn well with both low levels and low intelligence). In this situation - really how important would a lot of these defences be?

[VoxRationis]

The thing is that centralized mandatory education is a pretty modern innovation that requires a pretty modern mindset. Most feudal governments probably wouldn't want to teach large sections of their populace to be able to warp other people's minds or incinerate people. Because then you need to make sure that populace is really happy. Peasant rebellions were quite common (if limited in scope) in the Late Middle Ages (I'm not so sure about the High or Early periods); the last thing governments would want is that to be empowered with a force which is often superior to advanced weaponry.

Not to mention that it requires a highly centralized government, plus the belief that the government should intervene significantly in the daily lives of their citizens in order to improve their well being. And there are places and people in modern-day America who still don't think that's true. (I'm not one of them, by the way.) Finally, you need the government to have access to magical knowledge in a significant way. That's not a given for a lot of settings; it's frequently thought of as the almost-lost arts of an older age.

You can have people think like people without schoolchildren reciting "A is for Abjuration...". "Thinking like people" doesn't mean "has social dynamics like modern Americans."

[ChubbyRain]

Actually this is in part how this came about.

I was trying to build some locations and the bigger and more secure the location was to be the bigger walls were around it. That got me thinking about how I would attack different locations, how I would infiltrate or eliminate threats as an enemy. There were basically three types of defense I looked at - wards, physical impediments (walls, traps) and animated defences (people, golems etc.). The marginal extra security given by paying a wizard to cast spells was much greater than the extra security given by getting a bunch of stonemasons to build walls higher/thicker/better - every time.

So with a few assumptions about time and material cost required to learn magic vs other skills and what can be achieved at each level I concluded that about 60% of the population should probably be a magic user of one form or another. Admittedly it wasn't a fancy general equilibrium model where the price of paper might skyrocket from all the spellbooks being produced so it might be a bit far out. The bigger problem is that the more people have magic, the less need there is for the magic services of other people - magic is sufficiently general/diverse that is doesn't generate the specialism you would normally see in an economy.

I then went back and considered the defences - given that most people available to be drafted into an army would probably be a lvl 1 or lvl 2 wizard (just because it can be taught and you can effectively do a lot of trades pretty damn well with both low levels and low intelligence). In this situation - really how important would a lot of these defences be?

I think the 60% may be a bit to low, but that works. I think all traces of non-magic classes would be very rare. The ones that couldn't specialize in magic would still be arcane trickaters or eldritch knight types (eldritch commoner would make a fine background) or whatever equivalent a class would have.

For this sort of world the psionic system in 3.5 has the best "tell" system. It uses all senses and would work for arcane/divine magic quite well.

Yo, Greg, I smell rotten eggs, I think the fridge is broken in the common room or someone just cast invisibility in the last few seconds.

[Stan]

Until a couple hundred years ago, in most countries, less than a tenth of the population could even read. Given that, I'd say ~1% of the population can do spellcasting beyond a single cantrip. (Magic is like tech so the society could easily look more modern - the exact percentage will be due to DM taste.) But those spellcasters would be enough to have some effect.

I think fortifications would move in the direction of 19th-20th century fortifications in some ways. However, the trend toward super thick walls would not occur unless spells have the sort of physical impact of heavy artillery. Walls would still help but there's no point in making them super high or thick (unless you also want them to be visually impressive) as you know there are ways around them. Flying and teleportation would have similar effects to air power, paratroops, and helicopters dropping troops. (Historically, high walls disappeared with heavy cannons, such as those in the late hundred years war.)

You'd probably see more defense in depth due to easier infiltration and flanking. Instead of one super wall, you'd have layers and the assumption that attacks could be from any direction. Look at WWI trench systems.

You'd see more underground fortifications. Flying wouldn't help attackers much as there would still be only a couple of access points. Teleport is 7th level now so less of a worry but it would still be hard to use vs. underground forts where aerial reconnaissance doesn't help. You'd have to slowly map out the fort through scrying, though an important place is likely blocked by Mord's sanctum. Of course, underground forts invite tunneling and countermeasures.

[Maxilian]

Magic seems pretty common place to me, particularly in adventure parties

who can use magic from phb?

All high elves, tieflings and gnomes (iirc)

All bards, clerics, sorcerers, wizards, warlocks, druids, rangers, paladins

Lots of fighters, rogues and monks (i am counting ki as magic as it gives magic like effects)

That seems like everyone to be honest :p

Have in mind that Players are not normal people, they are much more than many others, they are heroes or villains, i mean... we are talking about people who can easily save a kingdom or make it fall

[MrStabby]

Until a couple hundred years ago, in most countries, less than a tenth of the population could even read. Given that, I'd say ~1% of the population can do spellcasting beyond a single cantrip. (Magic is like tech so the society could easily look more modern - the exact percentage will be due to DM taste.) But those spellcasters would be enough to have some effect.

I think fortifications would move in the direction of 19th-20th century fortifications in some ways. However, the trend toward super thick walls would not occur unless spells have the sort of physical impact of heavy artillery. Walls would still help but there's no point in making them super high or thick (unless you also want them to be visually impressive) as you know there are ways around them. Flying and teleportation would have similar effects to air power, paratroops, and helicopters dropping troops. (Historically, high walls disappeared with heavy cannons, such as those in the late hundred years war.)

You'd probably see more defense in depth due to easier infiltration and flanking. Instead of one super wall, you'd have layers and the assumption that attacks could be from any direction. Look at WWI trench systems.

You'd see more underground fortifications. Flying wouldn't help attackers much as there would still be only a couple of access points. Teleport is 7th level now so less of a worry but it would still be hard to use vs. underground forts where aerial reconnaissance doesn't help. You'd have to slowly map out the fort through scrying, though an important place is likely blocked by Mord's sanctum. Of course, underground forts invite tunneling and countermeasures.


I suppose it depends where in the world. I will go by Europe, simply because it is the place with which I have the greatest familiarity. Certainly there was widespread literacy by the 1700's. Certainly it wasn't universal but many times 1%. For example look at people like Shakespeare - middle class origins but wrote plays. Most literacy was spread through the church and through church schools (hence things like Carmina Burana, Lindisfarne Gospells etc.). If you increased the power of the church (say by giving them an effective way of treating the sick) and increased the incentive to read (by it being a step on the way to magic powers) then the numbers would increase.

Consider things like the issues surrounding the reformation and the printing press. The bible could be read by anyone as it was no longer in Latin - if people couldn't read then this wouldn't really have any effect.


I certainly agree a defence in depth approach is pretty good - and the last layer is probably a Monarch encrusted with the best magic items money can by in a room full of clones and simulacra.

[VoxRationis]

Yeah, the trace italienne style of fortification has useful applications to a high-magic setting in that it assumes a more active defense, but at the same time, as Stan said, most spells don't have the impact of heavy gunpowder artillery, so high, narrow walls are going to be more effective than thick, grassy slopes (if for no other reason than at least the wall tries to stop people climbing over it). So if you build something with the pointed bastions and calculated enfilade fire of trace italienne forts with the high walls of medieval castles, you get... Minas Morgul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minas_Morgul#/media/File:Minasmorgulpj.jpg). Huh.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

minor side note: martial training is not terribly fast with the options available to people in most D&D settings. ....now imagine that instead of a few weeks of training to get familiar with your assault rifle, you had to spend years learning how to use a longbow, or how to fight in formation with a spear or shortsword or something like that, which is going to take a lot longer than learning how to use a gun (frankly, that's a major part of why muskets became the weapon of choice; the longbow was a superior weapon (better ROF, longer range, better accuracy if you're trained), but took years and years of training to be able to use.
I'm well aware of all that. I said 'faster' not 'fast'. For evidence, consider the 'starting ages' tables for various classes in previous editions. Or just compare the amount of schooling it would take to produce a modern doctor vs a medieval soldier, since arcane magic is presented as an extremely complex discipline.


I suppose it depends where in the world. I will go by Europe, simply because it is the place with which I have the greatest familiarity. Certainly there was widespread literacy by the 1700's. Certainly it wasn't universal but many times 1%.
The 1700s are a lot more modern than your average D&D setting though.

Rather than assuming your average peasant has access to magic, it might be more realistic to assume all your nobility has at least a basic grounding in it, since they can afford an education a lot more easily and worries about a peasant revolt don't apply. Instead of an army where everyone's a wizard, you'd have an army where every ranking officer was a wizard.

Yeah, the trace italienne style of fortification has useful applications to a high-magic setting in that it assumes a more active defense, but at the same time, as Stan said, most spells don't have the impact of heavy gunpowder artillery, so high, narrow walls are going to be more effective than thick, grassy slopes (if for no other reason than at least the wall tries to stop people climbing over it). So if you build something with the pointed bastions and calculated enfilade fire of trace italienne forts with the high walls of medieval castles, you get... Minas Morgul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minas_Morgul#/media/File:Minasmorgulpj.jpg). Huh.
Hm...alternately, I realized a lot of the issues you're using walls to defend against can also be beaten by tunneling. Perhaps that's the reason for so many underground dungeons existing?

[SharkForce]

i'd go a step further and say that not even all nobility would be wizards or similar.

magic doesn't start off better than swords in this edition. it *gets* better than swords, eventually.

a level 1 wizard can take out a level 1 fighter, or maybe even 2-3 (sleep). but then ask them to do it again and they've got nothing particularly worth mentioning left for the rest of the day... a level 1 fighter is *vastly* more useful for standard warfare than a level 1 wizard (on the flip side, a level 1 wizard is much more useful in guerilla warfare).

[VoxRationis]

The problem with tunneling and underground bunkers is that it's wholly defensive, unless you have some way to provide striking power at a distance. Holing up below ground yields command of the local area—you can't really strike back, and you lose strategic initiative in a big way.

[Grek]

Until a couple hundred years ago, in most countries, less than a tenth of the population could even read. Given that, I'd say ~1% of the population can do spellcasting beyond a single cantrip. (Magic is like tech so the society could easily look more modern - the exact percentage will be due to DM taste.) But those spellcasters would be enough to have some effect.
Honestly, I'd put the dividing line at "Can a non-magical character get access to this through a feat?" rather than at cantrip vs. spell. Mystery cults that teach you how to become an Magic Initiate of clerical, druidic or pact magic are probably very common. So too are academies for wizardry, sorcery and the bardic arts. In larger cities, temples, universities and libraries would have books on Ritual Magic that they let people copy from for the standard fee. And lords know this and expect to have their castles proof against rituals, cantrips and 1st level spells.


I think fortifications would move in the direction of 19th-20th century fortifications in some ways. However, the trend toward super thick walls would not occur unless spells have the sort of physical impact of heavy artillery. Walls would still help but there's no point in making them super high or thick (unless you also want them to be visually impressive) as you know there are ways around them.

I agree with walls ignoring the historical trend toward thickness. But I disagree with walls being short. It's not about being visually impressive: It's about making sure that nobody can see inside just by climbing a tree, getting on the roof of a building in the village or standing on top of a hill. With magic, keeping people from looking in is sometimes the easiest way to keep them from getting in.

Underground bunkers are another possibility, but they tend to be very expensive and are only really practical if you and all your servants have darkvision. Smoke is very dangerous if you're underground, and lantern oil costs a lot to keep burning 24/7.

[Vogonjeltz]

They don't prepare for it because the implications of D&D magic are so profound and far-reaching that it's almost impossible for authors to figure out how military doctrine would change in response. Even professional military analysts would probably struggle with the question.

You say this as if the 3.5 book Heroes of Battle was not a thing. (It goes into great detail on the impact of magic on the battlefield.)

The default setting is that magic items are a rarity. That's not however the same thing as magic being a rarity.

How common magic is remains entirely within the purview of the DM (i.e. setting dependent). If the setting is high magic I'd expect it to be something routinely taken into consideration by rulers, generals, and combatants at all levels of the game. In other words, the more common employment of magic is, the more likely the characters are to be genre savvy.

I'd anticipate in any mid-high setting that staff officers would include mages whose entire role was to prepare for how magic might be used to breach defenses (or shore them up) and line troops would almost certainly have specific training on avoiding battlefield magic and employ apt prioritization on how threatening a magic-user could be. (i.e. Shoot the one in the bathrobe first!)

In low magic settings non-magic users are substantially less likely to be genre savvy, only the wisest of rulers (or those with good advisors) would be likely to take magic into consideration when it comes to protection and defense, and troops would probably have little to no training when it comes to countering the use of battlefield magic. That being said, anyone slinging magic around probably would either inspire awe, healthy respect, or fear and hatred, and they would almost certainly be a high priority target in any fight. (Who knows how much damage they could do un-checked!)

[Mellack]

Literacy was not very common in the middle ages. It is believed that by about 1500 in Europe no more than 25% of men were literate, and it was less for women. Even as late as mid-1800's, Englishmen had 1/3 of men unable to sign their name on marriage records. Additionally, D&D is set in a era where the majority made their living in agrarian work that did not offer much time for study. If people need to work to eat, a king will have a hard time getting them to instead study magic that many may not have the inborn ability to work.

[ChubbyRain]

I think even a casual acquaintance with history should be enough to show that societies pretty routinely fail to make perfectly rational choices, economic or otherwise.



Look at how many people use technology in america. Now change technology with magic and you have D&D.

Technology and Magic is really interchangeable, especially to people looking in from the outside. Where we see a rocket ship someone else may see a flying, fire breathing dragon.

It isn't about rational choice, it is about natural progression of humans. The humans in d&d don't really think like humans in the real world so I don't really like the idea of calling that race human.

[Stan]

How common magic is also depends on how you envision it working. Maybe even wizards and priests have to have some inborn spark as well as a high level of practice or devotion. Maybe becoming a high level magic user is akin to getting into the NBA. It takes a ton of practice but, without inborn talent, you'll never be better than ok. Others might have the potential but grew up in an area where the sport isn't played so never learned.

Or maybe magic is more like calculus. Calculus isn't hidden away - anyone in a developed country can access the knowledge. But few people have the interest to truly grasp it. In my experience, about half the population's math ability starts to break down around advanced fractions and algebra - they'll get through those classes but not be proficient 5 years later.

If magic is relatively common, society will probably look more modern than medieval. Healing magic can push back plagues and extend life spans so more people live into their 70s. D&D focuses on combat but you can bet there would be magic for transportation, growing/cooking food, birth control, birthing, and other comforts. Wealthy cities will move towards magic lighting which greatly reduces the risk of fire - magic light also makes living underground more viable.

[Stormthroe]

Hey all. My two cents on the matter, it depends on your setting. ChubbyRain has an excellent point, often you can replace technology with magic. In the Eberron setting, magic is everywhere and has a strong tie in into everything that happens in that world. Minor magic is used in place of all sorts of technology, and major magic as well for more major things, like the Lightning Rail as world transport.

However, in other settings, it can be less. I run a setting where magic is rare, especially powerful magic. In the setting, there is an entire country where magic is illegal, and the only magic users in their armies are small squads called Mage Cadres, who are essentially enslaved mages serving under a monk-like executioner who kills them if they try to escape or lose control of their abilities.

It really all depends. I imagine most major countries in every setting have some kind of magic defense or study as part of the regime; example, in my setting, though magic is illegal, the Grand Vizier of that country is actually a mage of some power (roughly archmage status) who has been given pardon by that country's ruler and allowed to live, given title, wealth, power, etc. to serve as his adviser and minister in all things magical. Like in modern military Research and Development, and Advisor Boards. I feel it would be taken into account, maybe not on every fortress, but if something is important enough to protect with an army, it should be important enough to throw some magical defenses in as well.

[VoxRationis]

Look at how many people use technology in america. Now change technology with magic and you have D&D.


No, change technology with magic and you have Eberron, or the spirit of 3.5. Not necessarily all of D&D. A lot of settings have magic items, for example, primarily be the legacy of old and shattered empires. The AD&D DMG even discusses the centrality of "old shattered empire" as a trope in settings.

[Stan]

Look at how many people use technology in america. Now change technology with magic and you have D&D.


There's still economics though. Just because something exists doesn't mean it exists for everyone. Electricity generation has been around for a century and a half and was fairly advanced by a century ago. Similar story for phones. Yet 50 years ago the vast majority of the world population had access to neither. Planes are common place but very few people own one or know how to fly one - ~1 in 200 in the U.S, ~1 in 1000 worldwide are pilots but few of those hop around daily in their own plane. If the gp investment to becoming a wizard is similar to owning a plane, you'd get similar numbers.

[bulbaquil]

Here's the main difference between magic and science/technology:

Science: "Now, class, today we're going to be learning the physics behind explosives."

Magic: "Now, class, today we're going to be learning the physics behind explosives. Here is your box of hand grenades. If they run out, just wait a day, re-read the chapter in the textbook on explosives, and they should replenish."

[SharkForce]

Or maybe magic is more like calculus. Calculus isn't hidden away - anyone in a developed country can access the knowledge. But few people have the interest to truly grasp it. In my experience, about half the population's math ability starts to break down around advanced fractions and algebra - they'll get through those classes but not be proficient 5 years later.

i bet if you could apply your knowledge of calculus to clean the dishes with trivial effort in 6 seconds or so, while sitting down in a comfortable chair, plus do the laundry, sweep the floors, dust any surface that needs it, and make your food taste amazing every time, a lot more people would retain their knowledge of calculus after 5 years.

[Naanomi]

The difference for me is that to use (most) magic you have to understand how it works. While some items (now rare things) can be used by anyone, you need to study or be born knowing magic to do most of it.

Technology has the benefit that while people need to know how to work it, there is little need for anyone but the manufacturer to understand it in any detail. I barely know most of the principles behind how the phone I write this on works; my mother even less so... But we can use it to communicate just fine.

Magic would require at least one of us to know how to cast some long-range communication spell. Ebberon works because artificers make magic knowledge accessible to those who don't understand it via cheap item production... Without that it is kept in the hands of the few and doesn't change the day to day life of the many

[VoxRationis]

Here's the main difference between magic and science/technology:

Science: "Now, class, today we're going to be learning the physics behind explosives."

Magic: "Now, class, today we're going to be learning the physics behind explosives. Here is your box of hand grenades. If they run out, just wait a day, re-read the chapter in the textbook on explosives, and they should replenish."

"Now, class, today we're going to be beginning the principles of magic. Study this until you're 24, memorize by heart every line and chapter, understand every principle, and you will be able to cast a spell a day."

"What if I want to cast 2 spells per day?"

"Study for a decade beyond that, or else go on life-threatening adventures with your meager pretensions to arcane power, hoping that the kobolds will shoot someone else and not you."

Seriously, even smart people, fully capable of learning magic, are going to look at magic and ask questions about the likely cost-benefit ratio. And that's assuming that this is widely available information being publicly taught, which, again, is not necessarily true of all, or even most, settings.

[MrStabby]

"Now, class, today we're going to be beginning the principles of magic. Study this until you're 24, memorize by heart every line and chapter, understand every principle, and you will be able to cast a spell a day."

"What if I want to cast 2 spells per day?"

"Study for a decade beyond that, or else go on life-threatening adventures with your meager pretensions to arcane power, hoping that the kobolds will shoot someone else and not you."

Seriously, even smart people, fully capable of learning magic, are going to look at magic and ask questions about the likely cost-benefit ratio. And that's assuming that this is widely available information being publicly taught, which, again, is not necessarily true of all, or even most, settings.

There are plenty of cantrips that make spellcasters effective at life. Mend, mold earth etc. all let you magically undertake a trade.

[Logosloki]

I would actually expect, if driven by reality as opposed to fantasy, that everyone in the setting should be somewhere between magical initiate and third level caster. The power of magic is like that of the longbow - the benefit is well worth the cost.

Consider that a person who can cast third level spells gives you access to someone who can feed 15 people and create enough water for them as well. Hell, even a first level caster is a game changer with the ability to create water, purify food and drink and goodberry.

Rangers and Druids would probably be more common than Wizards an Clerics, with a smattering of bard and a cloistering of warlock.

[Stan]

When it comes down to it, you can make magic as rare or as common as you like and then set parameters to justify it. Make it easy/hard to learn, cheap/expensive, and something 1 in 2/1 in 1000 has the inborn talent to do. D&D's rules are for PCs, it can be just as simple for NPCs or much harder.

[Xetheral]

Have in mind that Players are not normal people, they are much more than many others, they are heroes or villains, i mean... we are talking about people who can easily save a kingdom or make it fall

Interesting... I take the exact opposite approach. In my games the PCs aren't necessarily more powerful than anyone else: they aren't heroes or villains because they *can* save or wreck kingdoms, they're heroes or villains because they actually *were* the people in the right place at the right time to save or wreck kingdoms.

[SharkForce]

Interesting... I take the exact opposite approach. In my games the PCs aren't necessarily more powerful than anyone else: they aren't heroes or villains because they *can* save or wreck kingdoms, they're heroes or villains because they actually *were* the people in the right place at the right time to save or wreck kingdoms.

by the time they've gained a few levels, they are definitively above average. if they're level 10 or so, the things that they can do to solve problems tend to be unavailable to the very vast majority of the rest of the world. unless they're fighters and you include monsters in "the rest of the world", that is... (though of course, most monsters are not known for their tendency to try and save kingdoms... )

[Xetheral]

by the time they've gained a few levels, they are definitively above average. if they're level 10 or so, the things that they can do to solve problems tend to be unavailable to the very vast majority of the rest of the world. unless they're fighters and you include monsters in "the rest of the world", that is... (though of course, most monsters are not known for their tendency to try and save kingdoms... )

The PC's are certainly very powerful, but I tend to populate my world with lots of high level npcs--the captain of the guard of a midsized city could easily be 10th level. (Admittedly, in 3.5 such an NPC might have been a 10th level Warrior. In 5e, they've gotten an upgrade to Fighter.) So it isn't their power that makes the PC's special.

I'm not trying to say my games are typical, I was merely pointing out what I found to be a fascinating difference of approach.

[SharkForce]

The PC's are certainly very powerful, but I tend to populate my world with lots of high level npcs--the captain of the guard of a midsized city could easily be 10th level. (Admittedly, in 3.5 such an NPC might have been a 10th level Warrior. In 5e, they've gotten an upgrade to Fighter.) So it isn't their power that makes the PC's special.

I'm not trying to say my games are typical, I was merely pointing out what I found to be a fascinating difference of approach.

that still leaves them as being pretty exceptional. if there's a single level 10 NPC in a city of 10,000+ people (or whatever), that isn't exactly what i would describe as common.

[Xetheral]

that still leaves them as being pretty exceptional. if there's a single level 10 NPC in a city of 10,000+ people (or whatever), that isn't exactly what i would describe as common.

You're right, they're still not common. But in my world, in a city that size, there would likely be a half-dozen residents of tenth level or higher, plus the possibility of adventuring parties or other high-level visitors, particularly if the city is on a major road and receives a lot of traffic.

[SharkForce]

You're right, they're still not common. But in my world, in a city that size, there would likely be a half-dozen residents of tenth level or higher, plus the possibility of adventuring parties or other high-level visitors, particularly if the city is on a major road and receives a lot of traffic.

sure, but there's a big difference between "anyone else could've done it if they were in the right place at the right time" and "there are 2-3 other groups that could have had a shot at doing what your group did in this area".

the former is what i would describe as them being nothing particularly special. level 1 characters are generally slightly above it, but you could reasonably expect that many of the people in the town guard are equally capable in combat as a level 1 fighter or ranger, for example (magic using classes are slightly less common in many campaigns, so there's probably "only" a few dozen that could replace the casters in the party, but even then that could easily depend on what city).

the latter? yeah, you're not the only hope. but it's not like just anyone can do what you do.

[Xetheral]

sure, but there's a big difference between "anyone else could've done it if they were in the right place at the right time" and "there are 2-3 other groups that could have had a shot at doing what your group did in this area".

the former is what i would describe as them being nothing particularly special. level 1 characters are generally slightly above it, but you could reasonably expect that many of the people in the town guard are equally capable in combat as a level 1 fighter or ranger, for example (magic using classes are slightly less common in many campaigns, so there's probably "only" a few dozen that could replace the casters in the party, but even then that could easily depend on what city).

the latter? yeah, you're not the only hope. but it's not like just anyone can do what you do.

Perhaps a better way to phrase my original point is that (at my table only) I don't view PC's at most levels as "inherently" having the power to save or destroy kingdoms just because they're heroes. Instead they're heroes *because* they save or destroy kingdoms.

[Draken]

The PC's are certainly very powerful, but I tend to populate my world with lots of high level npcs--the captain of the guard of a midsized city could easily be 10th level. (Admittedly, in 3.5 such an NPC might have been a 10th level Warrior. In 5e, they've gotten an upgrade to Fighter.) So it isn't their power that makes the PC's special.

I'm not trying to say my games are typical, I was merely pointing out what I found to be a fascinating difference of approach.

Actually, that npc probably got a downgrade (or sidegrade) to Veteran or Knight (npcs in the Monster Manual, no character class), amusingly a Bandit Captain would also make a decent Guard Captain.

In fact, most people in the world would be that. Even Mages and Archmages are not wizards properly. Priests and Acolytes are not clerics. Soldiers and Guards of all levels of expertise are not Fighters.

The magic users can still use magic. But the non-wizards don't have the ease of learning spells of a certain school, the non-clerics might not have free access to every spell ever and lack the rather useful domains and all that they entail.

Also, people in this thread are making some claims about modern education that I wouldn't call "pipe dreams" because they aren't impossible, but are certainly vastly above the actual truth of things.

[LordVonDerp]

The problem with tunneling and underground bunkers is that it's wholly defensive, unless you have some way to provide striking power at a distance. Holing up below ground yields command of the local area—you can't really strike back, and you lose strategic initiative in a big way.
The Viet Cong would like a word with you.

[Tvtyrant]

Not just settings but regions might have wildly different magic availability. A city in a node or mythal might make magical access common, or maybe there is a tribe with lots of dragon blood in it. Or maybe the local god actually prevents magical talent appearing in a population, so only Clerics can be born there.

[Xetheral]

Actually, that npc probably got a downgrade (or sidegrade) to Veteran or Knight (npcs in the Monster Manual, no character class), amusingly a Bandit Captain would also make a decent Guard Captain.

One of the things I like best about 5e is that it gives the option to construct NPCs using the same rules as PCs. To me it's important that the same model be used for both (even if at different levels of detail). The lack of NPC classes in this edition accordingly means that NPCs in my world got a power boost in 5e. (At some point I'm likely to homebrew an Expert class for modeling noncombatants.)

[Tvtyrant]

Spesking of Mythals, you could eaSily make a setting where the difficulty of learning magic is redundant because the Mythal replicates spells with less effort. A synced in person learns an easy code for casting fly, for instance, so they don't have a reason to learn ot the long way. Similar to how Cell phones discourage learning to make and use letters, radios and morse code.

[Shining Wrath]

I think it is worth pointing out that the PHB does not claim to list every spell, just common ones. There can therefore exist any magics you can imagine that are necessary to defend castles. For example, binding earth elementals directly into the walls to create self repairing walls that are highly resistant against magical attacks. Spells that create extra strong gravity in a region for a few minutes wreak havoc with flyers.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

I would actually expect, if driven by reality as opposed to fantasy, that everyone in the setting should be somewhere between magical initiate and third level caster. The power of magic is like that of the longbow - the benefit is well worth the cost.

Ah yes, just like reality where everyone in the world was highly skilled with the longbow.

Okay, that was a little unfair. Magic is significantly better than a longbow. It's also significantly more costly and dangerous. And as others have pointed out, a lot of magical spells are things the government wouldn't want in the hands of the general populace. I think it would be more likely to be restricted to certain practitioners (whether that's by birth or licensing) than allowed to the general population.

[Draken]

One of the things I like best about 5e is that it gives the option to construct NPCs using the same rules as PCs. To me it's important that the same model be used for both (even if at different levels of detail). The lack of NPC classes in this edition accordingly means that NPCs in my world got a power boost in 5e. (At some point I'm likely to homebrew an Expert class for modeling noncombatants.)

I must wonder what it would be like?

When push comes to shove, a character class is about being somewhat continuously being thrust into dangerous situations. The average npc is a person who, much like any of us who are not insane, avoids said situations and gets by exclusively on skill.

So I think it makes perfect sense that the majority of people get by with just, well, their size category hit dice*.

*HD for the unclassed is based on size category, not creature type. With the d8 as the standard for medium creatures.

[Xetheral]

I must wonder what it would be like?

When push comes to shove, a character class is about being somewhat continuously being thrust into dangerous situations. The average npc is a person who, much like any of us who are not insane, avoids said situations and gets by exclusively on skill.

So I think it makes perfect sense that the majority of people get by with just, well, their size category hit dice*.

*HD for the unclassed is based on size category, not creature type. With the d8 as the standard for medium creatures.

Sure, there is some dissonance involved. But, for me personally, not nearly so much as there is from treating NPCs as monsters.

[Draken]

Sure, there is some dissonance involved. But, for me personally, not nearly so much as there is from treating NPCs as monsters.

Eeeeh. Less 'treating npcs as monsters' and more using a consolidated mechanism for building NPCs.

They don't have classes, so they just all use racial hit dice, except the size of the dice is based on size category and not on creature type. And then the proficiencies in weapons, armor, saves, skills and tools are a lot more individualized.

[Logosloki]

Ah yes, just like reality where everyone in the world was highly skilled with the longbow.

Okay, that was a little unfair. Magic is significantly better than a longbow. It's also significantly more costly and dangerous. And as others have pointed out, a lot of magical spells are things the government wouldn't want in the hands of the general populace. I think it would be more likely to be restricted to certain practitioners (whether that's by birth or licensing) than allowed to the general population.

So like say, a gun or a car or the entire educational system, things that require licensing to do as well as regulations and penalties to govern their use? I chose the longbow as an example because the longbow had advantages in its time period which outweighed the costs of training and arming peasants with them. I probably should of used the fact that we are, right at this moment, able to communicate through a shared written language that we both know, despite the fact that we are (probably) thousands of kilometres apart from each other (Hello from New Zealand!) with almost no time between posts on a system that allows us both to read at our leisure (or at least when we can). What I am getting at is that, as a race, if there is no cost to costly if we believe that the benefit is significant, and lets be honest, giving your entire populace the ability to remove the toxins and dieases from the food they eat (mmmm unpasteurised cheese that doesn't have a chance of causing listeriosis) isn't something you shirk from because of cost.

Sure, keep knowledge of most of these spells away from people (I know I used guns before but I don't think people should be allowed to at will shoot fire out of their hands) but there are some seriously good spells that I would be willing to drop mad money on to give to the populace (also, by bulk teaching would probably drop the price down significantly, as well as only teaching particular spells and cantrips instead of a broad base). The general aim would be to get the entire populace or near enough to either magic initiate or first level caster, with the best getting both and going on to further studies. So 2-6 cantrips and 3 1st level spells.

Because there is a cantrip that RAW would prevent someone from flatlining and I'm pretty sure I would want every medical practitioner or person who wants to know a bit of first aid to know that one. Or on the more practical side, there is a cantrip that makes you able to fix any break or tear that is less than one foot in length. Button falls off? mend. leaky pipe? mend. crack in your windscreen? mend. fractures in a quantum chip? mend.

[ArlEammon]

You dont need many high level magic users in a world to make magic defences against magic a requirement. One high level wizard invisibly teleporting in and summoning monsters/setting fires/dominating the town leader etc. is much more dangerous than the 10000 men outside who cant get in because you paid for big stone walls. Taken to its logical conclusion magic users should rule everything as they can do everything a regular person can and so much more. Luckily they are usually too self absorbed to concern themselves with the affairs of muggles

Not necessarily. Depending on how active the dieties are in the Setting, Gandalf knocking down Mordor's siege towers and blowing up entire batallion of orcs with fire balls, and casting a Wish spell to ward the Fellowship against the Nazgul, using Meteor Swarms to turn back the hordes of Uruk Hai and Orcs at the battle of Helm's Deep isn't going to meet with smiling happy approval from God. (Eru Illuvetar).

[ShikomeKidoMi]

So like say, a gun or a car or the entire educational system, things that require licensing to do as well as regulations and penalties to govern their use? I chose the longbow as an example because the longbow had advantages in its time period which outweighed the costs of training and arming peasants with them. I probably should of used the fact that we are, right at this moment, able to communicate through a shared written language that we both know, despite the fact that we are (probably) thousands of kilometres apart from each other (Hello from New Zealand!) with almost no time between posts on a system that allows us both to read at our leisure (or at least when we can). What I am getting at is that, as a race, if there is no cost to costly if we believe that the benefit is significant, and lets be honest, giving your entire populace the ability to remove the toxins and dieases from the food they eat (mmmm unpasteurised cheese that doesn't have a chance of causing listeriosis) isn't something you shirk from because of cost.

Sure, keep knowledge of most of these spells away from people (I know I used guns before but I don't think people should be allowed to at will shoot fire out of their hands) but there are some seriously good spells that I would be willing to drop mad money on to give to the populace (also, by bulk teaching would probably drop the price down significantly, as well as only teaching particular spells and cantrips instead of a broad base). The general aim would be to get the entire populace or near enough to either magic initiate or first level caster, with the best getting both and going on to further studies. So 2-6 cantrips and 3 1st level spells.

Because there is a cantrip that RAW would prevent someone from flatlining and I'm pretty sure I would want every medical practitioner or person who wants to know a bit of first aid to know that one. Or on the more practical side, there is a cantrip that makes you able to fix any break or tear that is less than one foot in length. Button falls off? mend. leaky pipe? mend. crack in your windscreen? mend. fractures in a quantum chip? mend.
Yes, I think it would be like driving or producing a gun, at least, possibly more restrictive.

For most of your listed incredibly useful small scale benefits, it doesn't require everyone being a spellcasting class so much as everyone taking the cantrip feat. Which, I could easily see most people possessing in a high magic setting. The few that don't would probably either come from a deprived background or just feel they didn't have to because they knew someone that covered those needs for them (for example, despite its usefulness not everyone learns to drive).

Let's separate out what we're talking about here. Are we talking about everyone knowing magic or everyone having access to magic items? Because your example is of both of us having the skill to use an item, not the knowledge to construct it from scratch, which would be more on par with being a wizard or bard. Of course, technology lends itself to mass production better than magic items in a default D&D setting.

The long bow isn't really comparable because as much skill as it takes, it's far simpler than magic. If doing rocket science let everyone bend reality to their will, everyone would try to do it, but not everyone would succeed. At least, that's what it seems to take for the kinds of magic 'everyone can learn', wizard and bard. Sorcerers are born, not made, druids and clerics get their power from dedicating themselves honestly and completely to a power, which is not something everyone can do (and those powers may feel they only need so many clerics), and warlocks get their powers from seeking out things that should make you feel very nervous for your life, sanity, and soul. Yes, that includes the Fey. I imagine a lot of would-be warlocks meet bad ends.

Let's run with your longbow example for a little bit, though. The governments of some medieval places might have been willing to train peasant archer corps, but they didn't outfit them all with warhorses and full plate, the other advanced warfare technology of the time. Just because something's advantageous doesn't mean it's practical. To look at something else you mentioned: Knowing first aid is probably a good idea. But most people don't bother to learn and that's just a couple weeks of schooling (admittedly magic is far handier than first aid, but I'm just pointing out why I could see a world where most people didn't know Stabilize).

In summation, for a high magic campaign setting, I could see a world where nearly everyone had the magic initiate and/or ritualist feat (s), but actual full spell casters were something like doctors or fighter pilots, depending on what they specialized in and were allowed to learn. Reduced casters like Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster would be somewhere in between the two in rarity. Another thing I'd change for a 'high magic setting' to make it feel even more magical without increasing the number of casters beyond that would be to have more and more easily produced magic items, so people could achieve magical effects with less training.

[SharkForce]

Let's run with your longbow example for a little bit, though. The governments of some medieval places might have been willing to train peasant archer corps, but they didn't outfit them all with warhorses and full plate, the other advanced warfare technology of the time. Just because something's advantageous doesn't mean it's practical.


to be fair, there really isn't much advantage to be had from giving your archers plate mail and warhorses. you can't really fire a longbow properly from a mount, and the whole point of the archers is to not get into melee combat in the first place. the longbowman's armour *is* the line of infantry and cavalry in front of them.

on the flip side, they absolutely did train large numbers of people in the use of warhorses and plate, and allowed them to own their own (they didn't buy such things for them because that's a lot of money, but then they didn't buy the longbow for the longbowman either).

so that sounds a lot more like having clerics and wizards... sure, you don't make everyone into multiclass casters. that would be silly. as we all know, the spellcasting class feature scales harder the further you get into it. you might consider having a few special-purpose multiclassed units (armoured wizards sounds fairly handy), but much like the archers don't generally need to be on the front lines, neither do your wizards.

[MrConsideration]

Are we not missing something?

It takes a lot of INT to make a competent Wizard - 14 as a requirement, IIRC. 10 is supposedly Human average. The majority of people are not intelligent enough to make that grade. I teach for a living, and if I assumed that only 5% or so of people have the capacity to achieve an A in my subject (which is, admittedly, not Wizardry), I can assume that peasants who spend their lives doing back-breaking 12 hour workdays don't have much time or energy to invest in the years of studying it takes to master even the most rudimentary magic. Or much inclination - how would having a few cantrips affect them?

Assuming that the government wants to establish magic schools - who is available to teach them? What powerful Wizards are going to give up hours to teach a bunch of hick peasants who are going to increase supply of and reduce the mystery and prestige of their skillset? Does the government compel these spell-casting superheroes who can move between planes and kill people with a word and a gesture to work in these schools? How?
Feudal governments were largely perpetually bankrupt and constantly checked by the power of their vassals - they didn't have anything comparable to a modern state apparatus, and if they did, they wouldn't be able to produce armies of wizards. Still, a Wizard or two would be a powerful addition to any campaigning army, but conventional soldiery is going to make up the bulk of your forces. There's always going t be the fact that a few well-placed arrows could end your Wizard though.

Sorcerers might be more common - but how many peasants (remember, around 90% of feudal society are simply peasantry of some kind) are going to be direct blood descendants of powerful fey or dragons? I see Sorcerers as emerging in more aristocratic bloodlines or in areas 'touched' in some way by the Feywild. Are you going to breed them or something to produce your super-army?

For the technology comparison, I know how to use my phone. I don't know how to create that same phone, or know the theory behind how my phone works well enough to replicate it by sheer force of will.

The main thing that messes up this portrayal of D&D worlds is that if everyone is a weak lvl 0 peasant hick, why haven't they all been eaten by all those crazy monsters in the Monster Manual? Why aren't Humans extinct?

[Clistenes]

With regards to 5th edition, I think we have to take into account that:

1.-NPCs absolutely DON'T raise in level like PCs do. All a character has to do in order to rise from 1 to 2 level is to kill 6 Goblins or Bullywugs (CR 1/4). Or what the heck, go to the countryside and hunt 6 elks or 6 wild boars or 6 wolves.

Kill another 12 CR 1/4 creatures or 6 CR 1/2 creatures (Orcs, Lizarfolk, Black Bears) and rise to level 3.

From there it slows a bit, but a character could still reach level 4 killing 18 Orcs or 36 Goblins.

What I mean is, after several years of war there should be hundreds or thousands of 2 - 5 level characters, but the PH says that a 5 level character is an important person who faces kingdom-level threats. From that I deduce that NPCs just don't earn XP the same way PCs do.

So there probably are only a handful of spellcasters above 5 level in-universe.

2.-It takes 4 days to create a common item (100 gp), 20 days to create an uncommon item (500 gp), 200 days to create a rare item (5000 gp), 2000 days (5 and half a year) to create a very rare item (50000 gp) and 20000 days (55 years) to create a legendary item (500000 gp), and it takes days to find a buyer, and 80 % of the time you won't get paid even the money you invested on creating an item.

So, even if there are spellcasters around, they won't craft magic items, and if they do, they will craft only common items, which produce the same wealth per time invested as rarer items, and are easier to sell.

3.-Most magic items aren't game-breaking in 5th edition, so a king will probably rather spend his money hiring more soldiers and buying more mundane armor and weapons rather that buying a few expensive +1 armor and weapons that make the soldiers only slightly more effective.

[Asmotherion]

5e is widly a simplified system, and, wile most things have a suggested pattern, they are left up to the dm (to an extend of even choosing if feats exist or not or what happens after the level cap.)

When I DM I choose these rullings for how common is magic:

1) Every living thing has a portion of innate magic... taping into this magic however is a choice. This explains how most classes have at least a basic access to magic.

2) Wizards ara the D&D counterpart of an accademic subject on magic. In real life, everyone (at least in the first world) has access to math knowlage, but after highschool only half of them will continue math in college. From them, a few will actually study something related to math, wile for others it will only be there to support their studies. Finally, those who take their bachelors, have the option to go on with a master or even a doctorat. A 1/3 caster knows as much magic as a student who finished highschool. A half caster went to a college that had magic as a support class, wile a full caster got a bachelor on magic. Then, at level 20, the said caster got a master or even a doctorat either in a school of magic (for wizard) or in his specific powers (Sorcerer/Worlock etc).

3) Wile everyone has the innate ability to use some magic, one needs to combine his magic to a higher power source to produce greater effects. So, one can use his cantrips using only his own magic (thus they can be cast at will), but needs to infuse his innate magic with a higher source to cast spells using slots. The source for this magic can be the weive (the weive is a world given to explain a combination of the plane's essance. The astral and ethereal planes, shadowfell and the elemental planes are all part of the weive), which gives us arcane magic, a deity or a god for divine magic, a Demon, Fey or other being of great power who can equal a god's powers for pact magic and finally, Nature and the surounding world for Nature Magic. Ofcource, one has limited access to those sources, according to how much his body (or soul) is accustomed to drawing energy from those sources.

4) In the case of a Sorcerer, his powers are innate. This means his own soul is infused with arcane magic of a higher being (For example, a Sorcerer with Dragonic ancectry is actually the soul of a dragon born into a humanoid). This however is double edged, as, drawing a major portion of his energy could leave him weakened/exausted, and potentially even fained. Wile resting, this energy is refilled by his astral body consuming surounding arcane energy. Sorcerers are rare baings, perhaps 1 in 10000, and are more probable to be decendants of at least one sorcerer or higher being. His powers can be explained almost as racial. He knows the process to cast his spells by instict, just like one is born with the ability to breath. It does however grand him understanding on the workings of magic, and, wile he lacks the knowlage to cast a spell he doesn't have the instincnt to, he could potentially learn to with some training (multyclassing into a wizard).

5) Magic items are so rare because people who know how to make them effectivelly are rare too... In my campains, I allow up to uncommon items to be sold by wizards, but anything beyond uncommon to be either looted or bought/sold at a very expensive price at auctions or underworld market. With medicin skill, one can make some potions, wile Arcana gives them the ability to create some minor magic items. For creating something greater, I use some home made feats.

So, in short, magic is not rare, but using it for effects greater than casting a cantrip is.

[Clistenes]

Assuming that the government wants to establish magic schools - who is available to teach them? What powerful Wizards are going to give up hours to teach a bunch of hick peasants who are going to increase supply of and reduce the mystery and prestige of their skillset? Does the government compel these spell-casting superheroes who can move between planes and kill people with a word and a gesture to work in these schools? How?

Plus any Wizard able to cast 4th level spells has control of the local economy thanks to Fabricate, so, why would he accept a teaching position? So those brats can some day cast Fabricate too and push down prices? No way.

[Doug Lampert]

Let's run with your longbow example for a little bit, though. The governments of some medieval places might have been willing to train peasant archer corps, but they didn't outfit them all with warhorses and full plate, the other advanced warfare technology of the time.

War of the Roses tapestries consistently show longbowmen in full plate armor. Those in the Hundred Years War had chain (which put them on a par with most knights of the time). On several occasions English longbowmen would charge, on foot, dismounted knights and beat the crap out of them. Mounting longbowmen for rapid transportation was also not unheard of, although actual warhorses of course were since there was no point.

But there is also no evidence whatsoever that warhorse purchase was restricted in any way.

Town militia equipment lists also include quite a bit of plate once it became common. Plate was the first metal armor cheap enough for the commons to buy noticeable amounts, and they did so. The very best face hardened gothic stuff was too expensive, but ownership was not restricted and many military cavalry units included large numbers of "sergeants", which was often used as the term for a commoner with a warhorse and full plate armor.

[MrConsideration]

I think people are comparing different periods, here. The price of contemporary armour oscillates through the late Medieval period - some people argue that the reason states became more centralised by the fifteen or sixteenth century was that keeping a standing army of any kind was incredibly expensive - too pricey for the nobility to afford. Contrasted to earlier in the Medieval period where most local barons could afford to raise a reasonably small army.

A king of France called cannon 'The Last Argument of Kings' in order to allude to the fact they were too expensive for most uppity nobles to get their paws on any real amount.

Unfortunately, D&D occurs in the period of Medieval-Early-Modern pastiche, so nothing makes all that much sense.