Ruethgar
2015-07-25, 12:00 PM
I'm making a high mortality low magic setting but am having trouble figuring out how the magic available would effect the world.
It is E6, 3.5 with all officially lose send and created WotC content avaiable, only Experts, Warriors, Aristocrats, and Commoners as available classes(Aristocrat not playable) and only [Human] races. Science in crafting is calculated at half of your level. Arcane magic requires defilement. Druidic, unaligned incarnum, SLAs, non(Su) maneuvers, true naming and psionics are all normal. Divine requires an element or a god(small gods onlySpells and Spellcraft). Let's assume 1% are normally spellcasters. With only 2nd level spells and lower available, how would that alter society? Please share your opinions as to what would differ from the typical D&D medieval setting. I realize there are a myriad of possibilities.
Spellcasting Feats: Regional/Racial Requirements Removed
Magical Training(arcane cantrips 1 CL spells)
Precocious Apprentice(2nd level spell X CL spell)
Redhead(1st or orisons druid lvl CL SLA)
Hidden Talent(1st psionic 1 CL power)
Magical Affinity(any zero level X CL spells)
Minor Divine Spellcaster(cleric orisons 1/2 lvl CL spells)
CArc SLAs(limited 1st and 0)
Minor Utterance of the Evolving Mind(truenaming)
Shape Soulmeld(incarnum)
Only divine casters are able to make magical items, though scientists can effectively do so as well, but is it far more expensive. Theocracies would likely be a common occurrence in the world because of this. As all WotC is available, healing would probably fall to the Heal skill from Dark Sun for non-emergencies with Cure Minor Wounds being used more sparsely. This could go a few ways and may just depend on the culture of the society. Scientists filling the roles as doctors with science governing hospitals would be costly, but fairly effective as the higher level ones can get Cure Minor Wounds at will. Religious hospitals is another option, less effective with the limited spells per day, but allows alchemy which could let you sell the healing to the layman and their traps of healing are cheaper to make. These two could also be united or opposing within any given culture.
Farming would likely be unchanged from normal unless druidic groups rose to fill that niche. Druids capable of making easily usable traps of grass growth, create rain, plant renewal, nurturing seeds and other farming spells are rare, but as the farmers they could protect nature by having small farms with high yield rather than the typical expansive plots with low yield. However these magical gardens would be exclusively grass crops, severely altering the diet of kingdoms. The druids could also grow normal crops with a magically improved process, but it would still be slow for any without plant growth. Oats, Barley, Wheat, Rice, Corn, Bamboo, and Sugar Cane are all grasses and many grasses are staples of diets around the world.
Without teleportation, a true tippyverse cannot occur giving little driving force for kingdoms to become overly centralized apart from access to modern amenities such as the running water possible from Decanters of Endless Water, swift food production, and magical slave labor for the rich.
Edit: Let's assume cantrips and orisons are common enough to be more readily available.
Amanuensis: The printing press made public education possible, eventually. I am tempted to use Dark Sun's illiterate until stated otherwise.
Chalkboard: Not world breaking, but useful. Would probably be in universities.
Create Water: As long as you can manage to get Endure Elements, you can now colonize the deserts. Water need never be in short supply ever again... for larger cities... or the rich.
Cure Minor Wounds: Disease is normally the big killer, but injuries are not as big a deal when you can heal them in less than a minute.
Dawn: Yay alarm spellclocks!
Detect Poison: Wouldn't if be great to just take six seconds to diagnose whether your patient is poisoned or not?
Forage: No longer need to bring as much food as you require for the journey, letting you travel lighter or carry more goods instead.
Ghost Sound: Couple with Silent Images and actors on a stage and you have an awesome movie experience.
Heat Water: Prestidigitation can't boil, this can make a stove a whole hell of a lot safer without an open flame. This of course would lend to steaming and boiling food staples over grilled if it were widespread.
Light: Who needs oil lamps and torches?
Mending: This would severely reduce resource consumption.
Message: Short range, but set up a relay and your little thorp in the countryside can call the capital to say they're being invaded.
Prestidigitation: Cleaning and food preparation just became magically delightful. This means that food can be all about nutrition and presentation.
Purify Food and Drink: You don't have remove disease, but you can prevent a whole hell of a lot of it from ever taking hold now.
Repair Minor Damage: Similar to Mending just more situational.
Stick: Duct tape is awesome.
Virtue: When your entire population has an average of 3 health, +33% is rather significant.
It is E6, 3.5 with all officially lose send and created WotC content avaiable, only Experts, Warriors, Aristocrats, and Commoners as available classes(Aristocrat not playable) and only [Human] races. Science in crafting is calculated at half of your level. Arcane magic requires defilement. Druidic, unaligned incarnum, SLAs, non(Su) maneuvers, true naming and psionics are all normal. Divine requires an element or a god(small gods onlySpells and Spellcraft). Let's assume 1% are normally spellcasters. With only 2nd level spells and lower available, how would that alter society? Please share your opinions as to what would differ from the typical D&D medieval setting. I realize there are a myriad of possibilities.
Spellcasting Feats: Regional/Racial Requirements Removed
Magical Training(arcane cantrips 1 CL spells)
Precocious Apprentice(2nd level spell X CL spell)
Redhead(1st or orisons druid lvl CL SLA)
Hidden Talent(1st psionic 1 CL power)
Magical Affinity(any zero level X CL spells)
Minor Divine Spellcaster(cleric orisons 1/2 lvl CL spells)
CArc SLAs(limited 1st and 0)
Minor Utterance of the Evolving Mind(truenaming)
Shape Soulmeld(incarnum)
Only divine casters are able to make magical items, though scientists can effectively do so as well, but is it far more expensive. Theocracies would likely be a common occurrence in the world because of this. As all WotC is available, healing would probably fall to the Heal skill from Dark Sun for non-emergencies with Cure Minor Wounds being used more sparsely. This could go a few ways and may just depend on the culture of the society. Scientists filling the roles as doctors with science governing hospitals would be costly, but fairly effective as the higher level ones can get Cure Minor Wounds at will. Religious hospitals is another option, less effective with the limited spells per day, but allows alchemy which could let you sell the healing to the layman and their traps of healing are cheaper to make. These two could also be united or opposing within any given culture.
Farming would likely be unchanged from normal unless druidic groups rose to fill that niche. Druids capable of making easily usable traps of grass growth, create rain, plant renewal, nurturing seeds and other farming spells are rare, but as the farmers they could protect nature by having small farms with high yield rather than the typical expansive plots with low yield. However these magical gardens would be exclusively grass crops, severely altering the diet of kingdoms. The druids could also grow normal crops with a magically improved process, but it would still be slow for any without plant growth. Oats, Barley, Wheat, Rice, Corn, Bamboo, and Sugar Cane are all grasses and many grasses are staples of diets around the world.
Without teleportation, a true tippyverse cannot occur giving little driving force for kingdoms to become overly centralized apart from access to modern amenities such as the running water possible from Decanters of Endless Water, swift food production, and magical slave labor for the rich.
Edit: Let's assume cantrips and orisons are common enough to be more readily available.
Amanuensis: The printing press made public education possible, eventually. I am tempted to use Dark Sun's illiterate until stated otherwise.
Chalkboard: Not world breaking, but useful. Would probably be in universities.
Create Water: As long as you can manage to get Endure Elements, you can now colonize the deserts. Water need never be in short supply ever again... for larger cities... or the rich.
Cure Minor Wounds: Disease is normally the big killer, but injuries are not as big a deal when you can heal them in less than a minute.
Dawn: Yay alarm spellclocks!
Detect Poison: Wouldn't if be great to just take six seconds to diagnose whether your patient is poisoned or not?
Forage: No longer need to bring as much food as you require for the journey, letting you travel lighter or carry more goods instead.
Ghost Sound: Couple with Silent Images and actors on a stage and you have an awesome movie experience.
Heat Water: Prestidigitation can't boil, this can make a stove a whole hell of a lot safer without an open flame. This of course would lend to steaming and boiling food staples over grilled if it were widespread.
Light: Who needs oil lamps and torches?
Mending: This would severely reduce resource consumption.
Message: Short range, but set up a relay and your little thorp in the countryside can call the capital to say they're being invaded.
Prestidigitation: Cleaning and food preparation just became magically delightful. This means that food can be all about nutrition and presentation.
Purify Food and Drink: You don't have remove disease, but you can prevent a whole hell of a lot of it from ever taking hold now.
Repair Minor Damage: Similar to Mending just more situational.
Stick: Duct tape is awesome.
Virtue: When your entire population has an average of 3 health, +33% is rather significant.