Magic Preventing Technological Progress

[Thrasher92]

I have played DnD with engineers and other very intelligent people for years and one common thing that keeps coming up is that they frequently want their character to advance technology in DnD, to gamebreaking levels or further.

I have always explained that magic usually gets in the way of technological progress. Why invent and airplane when there are magic items and spells that already can enable you to fly? Or a parachute whenever there is featherfall? Etc.

Typically in a DnD setting the people with high intelligence scores that would be used to study and progress technology, are spellcasters that can find a solution through magic.

Whenever a character in my world wants to begin designing a gun or something similar, things begin to get in their way. I often explain it as deities of magic and other domains will begin intervening in order to prevent the evolution of progress without magic.

The reason they would intervene is because they need worshipers and the further that people progress in technology, they will be less reliant on magic and gods.

If a character is determined to make it a reality, I will eventually allow it to happen but there will often be significant challenges for them to overcome.

Thoughts?

[JumboWheat01]

It does seem to be the case for many worlds, where nothing more advanced than a crossbow and some siege equipment exist, though naturally Eberron gives the whole "no technology" thing a big middle finger with its amazing steam and magitech.

[Trasilor]

I have played DnD with engineers and other very intelligent people for years and one common thing that keeps coming up is that they frequently want their character to advance technology in DnD, to gamebreaking levels or further.

I have always explained that magic usually gets in the way of technological progress. Why invent and airplane when there are magic items and spells that already can enable you to fly? Or a parachute whenever there is featherfall? Etc.

Typically in a DnD setting the people with high intelligence scores that would be used to study and progress technology, are spellcasters that can find a solution through magic.

Whenever a character in my world wants to begin designing a gun or something similar, things begin to get in their way. I often explain it as deities of magic and other domains will begin intervening in order to prevent the evolution of progress without magic.

The reason they would intervene is because they need worshipers and the further that people progress in technology, they will be less reliant on magic and gods.

If a character is determined to make it a reality, I will eventually allow it to happen but there will often be significant challenges for them to overcome.

Thoughts?

Doesn't really matter if they design these things, without advancement in materials sciences it is pointless. For example, Leonardo da Vinci invented both a parachute and helicopter...on paper. Without advances in parachute material (ultra lightweight but incredibly strong) and the internal combustion engine (very high power to weigh ratio), such inventions were stuck on paper. Yes magic could supplement these problems - but that is a very short term solution.

Unless you fundamentally change the entire system - i.e. some sort of industrial revolution - simply designing modern technologies is pretty much pointless.

[gfishfunk]

You can also tell them that magic interferes with combustion. For whatever reason, fire is less likely to stick. Reduced combustion pretty much kills most technological advancement.

And it also explains why fire spells never seem to start forest fires....

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I blame it on the laziness of the creators and the many DMs. It's easy to do a technology-less setting and game due to being able to explain everything away as *magic*.

Of you add in real world tech, which is something you don't have to do to have tech, people who write settings and people who run settings have to work more.

It is quite sad. Though a lot of it isn't the DM/Players fault, they get fed this low tech magic world a all the time because it is easy to market it.

I've always loved the magi-tech settings of Final Fantasy.

[CantigThimble]

I'd probably just ask my players if they wanted to play a Renaissance, Modern or Shadowrun game instead. If they really want to use higher levels of technology then that's a solution that can make everyone happy. If they just want to break the setting by being the guys with machine guns then you need to explain to them that they need to fit in the world they're playing in, that's just the nature of the game. Alternatively, if you think it would be fun to run a game where they're running amok with technology and kingdoms and gods start fighting over it and them instead of running a more traditional adventure plot then you can try that.

If you really want an in game way to stop them from doing it then just stop them from using out of character knowledge, like the scientific method. The brightest scientific minds of the dark ages turned up jack and squat in terms of technology as they bumbled though alchemy. If their character just decides to start trying to create technology the same thing could easily happen to them. How many geniuses building on the work of previous geniuses did it take over many generations to make what we consider to be the smallest advancements in technology?

Edit: Morbo, I would not call it laziness to not include technology, that's a design choice. I personally hate Eberron and Magitech settings, I don't want steampunk or modern tech in my fantasy world. I wouldn't be playing D&D if it included trains or guns as part of the base rules. It's just not my cup of tea.

[LordFluffy]

Why invent and airplane when there are magic items and spells that already can enable you to fly? Or a parachute whenever there is featherfall? Etc.
Depends on how common magic is in your game. If there's a wizard on every corner, that makes sense. If not, then someone who has never seen a wizard is going to ask "why can't I fly like one" and go about it.

It's kind of like saying "Why learn to cook when there are restaurants"?


Typically in a DnD setting the people with high intelligence scores that would be used to study and progress technology, are spellcasters that can find a solution through magic.
Only if they're PC's because wizard is currently the only Int dependent class, really.


Whenever a character in my world wants to begin designing a gun or something similar, things begin to get in their way. I often explain it as deities of magic and other domains will begin intervening in order to prevent the evolution of progress without magic.
Guns aren't necessarily game breaking, but okay.


The reason they would intervene is because they need worshipers and the further that people progress in technology, they will be less reliant on magic and gods.
This I think makes absolutely no sense.

In real life, a dichotomy has developed between religious faith and science because the former was, at one point, the only explanation being circulated to explain the realities of our existence. Science (which doesn't really comment on the same things as religion, but that's a much longer discussion) offered other explanations with repeatable results. Where people lose faith due to science, broadly speaking, is dealing with repeatable empirical evidence versus intangible truths that require some amount of faith to remain internally consistent.

In D&D, the gods aren't a matter of faith alone. Priests can raise the dead on cue. Righteous fire is at the command of even the lowliest of clergy. The gods themselves can show up and ask to borrow a cup of sugar. The idea that building a parachute or a better clock would trump Odin popping in on your daughter's wedding reception doesn't seem logical.


If a character is determined to make it a reality, I will eventually allow it to happen but there will often be significant challenges for them to overcome.
What you allow in your game is what you allow in your game, but the base problem is that 5e in particular and D&D in general is an imperfect simulation, best suited to cinematic exploits than hard physics experiments. Even not putting in things like engines and antibiotics, teleportation and the ability to conjure fire from nothing already have implications that boggle the mind. A few 3rd level paladins can rid a small village of the plague in days. A novice wizard could empty a market square with repeated firebolts. The D&D world, if one contemplates it, becomes really twisted and scary pretty quick.

Personally, I say if someone wants to invent a parachute and they have the downtime to do it, go for it. Planes and airships would have their uses. Guns too, though a fireball is far more efficient. Wizards with guns get pretty scary, too.

But again, your game.

[darkrose50]

I once played in an Amber game (multiple dimensions game) where gunpowder did not work in the Amber home universe. Mind you there are dimensions with various levels of technology accessible (unlimited dimensions). I tried to use high pressure air to lunch bullets in stay of gunpowder. It would not work as well. I was rather bummed about the whole situation.

I would imagine there would be some people working on technological methods of advancement. Heck we have modern alchemists. Alternatively this sort of thing sounds like a hobby that many wizards would do for fun. Lastly methods of advance that are non-magical would be useful for those who are not magically inclined. Crossbows (in this example normal folks) are the go-to example of not having to train bowmen (in this example magic folks).

[Temperjoke]

While large-scale mechanical wonders might not be a thing, you do have small scale ones. Rock Gnomes are tinkers with the ability to make small things, for example. I've always enjoyed the concept of magical-based technology, where some of the science is replaced by magic.

I can see how the idea that magic can hold back science would be true though. Science is something that grows based on itself, so to speak. Take gunpowder. Rockets turned into fireworks, but then, you also had fixed cannons, then mobile ones, then tanks, all combining different bits of science into it. But if you didn't develop gunpowder, after all, why go to the time and effort when your wizard can say a word and wiggle his fingers to devastate your enemies, then you wouldn't be developing other things. Now if you had a group of people with low magic abilities, or a reason to not use magic, then you have a reason to develop your science farther and faster.

[RulesJD]

The fact that no one in the D&D universe has used the Undead as the perfect factory worker is beyond me.

[Temperjoke]

The fact that no one in the D&D universe has used the Undead as the perfect factory worker is beyond me.

Well, since raising the dead is generally a taboo thing in the D&D universe, it's not surprising that no one is letting the Lich replace local unions with undead scab workers.

[gfishfunk]

I now have a great hook for an adventuring party. The town is scared that a local wizard has been looting the graves of the recently dead, perhaps to raise an army. It turns out that the wizard is trying to assemble a group of undead workers to run a granary, but the undead lack the capacity for such commands. Now the adventurers need to decide: kill the undead and wizard? Apprehend the wizard? Let the wizard perfect his granary, which may end up providing additional food for the town?

[SpawnOfMorbo]

The fact that no one in the D&D universe has used the Undead as the perfect factory worker is beyond me.

My next necromancer shall be named...

Drof Yrneh

[Sir cryosin]

Me and my party is playing in a victorian steam punk setting campaign. I'm playing a homebrewed fighter gunslinger archtype. My DM has gave me full creative if I can think up some kind or invention and explan how I'm going to design it. I'm playing him and not using any magic. But we will see when we start to get magic iteams.

[ad_hoc]

Ravenloft might be a setting to look into.

There is a cluster of domains in the Renaissance era. Then there is one with a mining village and mad inventor who creates the Frankenstein's Monster of the setting.

There is a magic heavy domain, ones that are mostly dangerous wilderness and a cluster in the medieval era.

So, you can really mix and match if the PCs travel from domain to domain.

I ran a campaign once where there was drama over the renaissance domains attempting to build a train network invented in the inventor domain. In that domain, btw, magic is stifled unless it comes in the form of an invention.

[Vogonjeltz]

I have played DnD with engineers and other very intelligent people for years and one common thing that keeps coming up is that they frequently want their character to advance technology in DnD, to gamebreaking levels or further.

I have always explained that magic usually gets in the way of technological progress. Why invent and airplane when there are magic items and spells that already can enable you to fly? Or a parachute whenever there is featherfall? Etc.

Typically in a DnD setting the people with high intelligence scores that would be used to study and progress technology, are spellcasters that can find a solution through magic.

Whenever a character in my world wants to begin designing a gun or something similar, things begin to get in their way. I often explain it as deities of magic and other domains will begin intervening in order to prevent the evolution of progress without magic.

The reason they would intervene is because they need worshipers and the further that people progress in technology, they will be less reliant on magic and gods.

If a character is determined to make it a reality, I will eventually allow it to happen but there will often be significant challenges for them to overcome.

Thoughts?

Magic that does the equivalent of modern technology is exceedingly rare. More to the point, it can almost always only do those things temporarily (if at all).

The DMG has rules for modern and futuristic firearms, there's no reason beyond metagaming that any given character couldn't invent more advanced technology than is present within the default setting. I.e. Your player knows how X works and the only reason their character figures something out is because the player knows how.

[JackPhoenix]

The fact that no one in the D&D universe has used the Undead as the perfect factory worker is beyond me.

Because they must be kept under the necromancer's control all the time, or they revert into life-hating murderous machines with few ways to control them again. And they are (nearly) mindless, so they both lack any tool proficiencies and need to be supervised all the time...if something unexpected happens, they won't react to it, and they can't be given complex "program" like industrial robots can. And most level 5 or higher necromancers have better things to do then sitting in a factory all day, watching over a bunch of menial laborers.

That's not even getting into that whole "desecrating corpses to create unholy abominations against the gods and nature" thing.

As for technological progress: maybe its just because it's magic, but electrical effects work very strange in D&D land...Plate armor doesn't work like Faraday Cage, it actualy make you more vulnerable to Shocking Grasp, Lightning Bolts, blue and bronze dragon's breath travels in a straight line instead into the nearest thing with an opposite charge, etc. Chemistry and nuclear physics doesn't work like in our word either...the matter is made from air, earth, fire and water, not atoms and molecules. So advanced technology as we know it may not even be possible, steam engines should work, but the chemistry that makes gunpowder possible may not exist.

There are also social reasons: most D&D societies are agrarian, population density is usually pretty low, and spellcasters may be interested in keeping their monopoly on providing certain services. In real life, real progress started with richer, bigger and more influential cities and the middle class became a thing. After all, nobody needs wizards and their Firebolts and Fireballs when they can just arm a bunch of peasants with muskets and cannons. They would lure smart people to study magic, not to make weird, expensive crap prone to explosions and malfunctions. Elves, by the virtue of their longer lives, would be traditionalists, as will dwarves. And gods may be against progress... after all, peasants may be less likely to go visit churches every week to make sure they'll get that Cure Wounds when something happens if they can just visit a doctor when they need it and use the spare time more constructively (YMMV on that last one...it's just my opinion based on my atheism and general contempt of religion)

[RulesJD]

Because they must be kept under the necromancer's control all the time, or they revert into life-hating murderous machines with few ways to control them again. And they are (nearly) mindless, so they both lack any tool proficiencies and need to be supervised all the time...if something unexpected happens, they won't react to it, and they can't be given complex "program" like industrial robots can. And most level 5 or higher necromancers have better things to do then sitting in a factory all day, watching over a bunch of menial laborers.

That's not even getting into that whole "desecrating corpses to create unholy abominations against the gods and nature" thing.



That's actually not entirely accurate. For example, aspiring entrepreneur level 20 Necromancy Wizard Yrneh Drof can use Command Undead to snag him a Mummy Lord. Congrats, he now has his factory foreman. Mummy Lord can use Animate Dead on the factor workers every 24 hours to keep them in-line. Additionally, Yrneh can setup Glyphs of Warding to cast Animate Dead if any undead tries to make a break for it (can't have those scabs going on strike after all).

Plus, undead don't go kill crazy when they aren't locked down. In the Zombie entry it literally states that it stands still unless something living comes around. Considering this is an undead only (besides the Wizard of course) factor floor, you're all set. But you don't want Zombie workers, you want Skeleton workers. Why? Read the Skeleton entry in the Monster Manual. Left to their own devices, a Skeleton of a formerly living factory worker will literally stand there doing their job for eternity. AND they are capable of relatively complex tasks, so pulling a few levers will be no problem. Supply chain control will be easy, just find a few miner's skeletons and throw them down in a hole somewhere.

Heck, our friend Yrneh could create his factor in a personal Demiplane, thus ensuring workplace safety as only he could open it to get there. Plus that cuts down on delivery costs because he can just open the portal wherever he needs the goods delivered.

[randomodo]

The fact that no one in the D&D universe has used the Undead as the perfect factory worker is beyond me.

I had a villain who was a fallen paladin. He had concluded (in the face of the gnoll invasion of Karameikos) that the only way to win was to turn to the worship of Orcus and raise an army of the dead. As he said to the PCs to try and justify his decision, "They don't require forage or supply wagons, they don't wander off to pillage the local villages, they follow commands immediately and absolutely, they don't break and run at the first setback in battle, and having this force means I don't have to pull the peasantry out of the fields."

[SharkForce]

if a player decides to have their character start developing modern technology, it's fairly simple.

"ok, <character name> is going to be busy for the next 50 years or so mixing various substances to try and make something useful before poisoning themselves, make a new character".

RL these developments happened over a very long period of time. there's no reason to assume that if "real life science" applies, that the PCs should reasonable expect to be able to go from catapults to cannons, let alone developing reliable handheld firearms in any sort of useful time frame.

[VoxRationis]

I have played DnD with engineers and other very intelligent people for years and one common thing that keeps coming up is that they frequently want their character to advance technology in DnD, to gamebreaking levels or further.

I have always explained that magic usually gets in the way of technological progress. Why invent and airplane when there are magic items and spells that already can enable you to fly? Or a parachute whenever there is featherfall? Etc.

Typically in a DnD setting the people with high intelligence scores that would be used to study and progress technology, are spellcasters that can find a solution through magic.

Whenever a character in my world wants to begin designing a gun or something similar, things begin to get in their way. I often explain it as deities of magic and other domains will begin intervening in order to prevent the evolution of progress without magic.

The reason they would intervene is because they need worshipers and the further that people progress in technology, they will be less reliant on magic and gods.

If a character is determined to make it a reality, I will eventually allow it to happen but there will often be significant challenges for them to overcome.

Thoughts?

First off, trying to skip straight from "mills are the most technologically advanced things in the setting" to "airplanes" is somewhat ridiculous. In-character, your aspiring engineer will probably try to come up with some intermediate steps first. A glider, if they want to experiment with flight. Perhaps a more ambitious, more complicated mill that does a few other steps in the flour-making process.
Second-off, you can often enhance magic with non-magical technology to make its effects even more powerful (like the famous Portable Hole arrow), and you can use technology to save the amount of magic you would have to do. For example, in D&D 3.5, you could cast a fly spell, but perhaps if you got a bull's strength or levitate spell on someone with mechanical wings, they'd be able to fly under their own power. Now, by doing this, you use a lower-level spell and thereby save money every time you would need to use a scroll of fly normally. Or you use a mechanical device to fling a delayed blast fireball bead farther than it could normally go—this is especially true of 5th edition, where spell ranges are much shorter than ballista range. Coming up with a better device allows you a significant tactical advantage. So whether there's magic or not, the engineer's mindset of "I can rig up a device to make life easier" still applies.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

if a player decides to have their character start developing modern technology, it's fairly simple.

"ok, <character name> is going to be busy for the next 50 years or so mixing various substances to try and make something useful before poisoning themselves, make a new character".

RL these developments happened over a very long period of time. there's no reason to assume that if "real life science" applies, that the PCs should reasonable expect to be able to go from catapults to cannons, let alone developing reliable handheld firearms in any sort of useful time frame.

Actually, while the initial invention typically takes a while to come around, modifying an existing invention does not.

The light bulb was created and it took Edison very little time to modify it. It took Edison a year to take the light bulbs (which were around for like 70 years, they just suuuucked and couldn't be commercially available all that well) and make it work in such a way that it could be sold commercially.

Since D&D has a base level of technology one could assume that with money, a little time, and elbow grease a PC could make an improvement to an invention.

In a year or less I could see this being made from the current D&D tech.

https://youtu.be/QS4RKoRyTik

You just need a power source, which would take a long time as batteries aren't a thing.

However, Magic Initiate "shocking grasp" is your battery source (or really any magic as you just need the energy, I just like shocking grasp).

Now you have an automatic crossbow that could have different elemental properties (depending on the cantrip used to power the crossbow).

I absolutely love magi-tech worlds :)

Also, I've played in plenty of campaigns that had a time jump of a year or more, so the time shouldn't be a problem.

[Douche]

Ask yourself this: Why are we still driving gasoline powered cars, when we could've had an effective battery powered car DECADES ago?!?

It's because the Illuminati want to keep pumping CO2 into the air and fill the atmosphere with greenhouse gases in order to bring about the apocalypse. Ever wonder why gas prices have been on such a steep decline recently? The Illuminati have hit Phase 3 of their ecological destruction plan. They would never have gotten this far if they didn't impede scientific progress from the real scientists that could've eliminated all our dependence on Earth's limited resources.

Same thing goes for D&D. Wizards, whether they know it or not, are all part of or pawn to the secret cabal known as the Shadow Council, which controls all aspects of society. They impede scientific progress to increase the worlds dependence on magic, which will eventually lead to a tear in the weave and destroy the multiverse.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Ask yourself this: Why are we still driving gasoline powered cars, when we could've had an effective battery powered car DECADES ago?!?

It's because the Illuminati want to keep pumping CO2 into the air and fill the atmosphere with greenhouse gases in order to bring about the apocalypse. Ever wonder why gas prices have been on such a steep decline recently? The Illuminati have hit Phase 3 of their ecological destruction plan. They would never have gotten this far if they didn't impede scientific progress from the real scientists that could've eliminated all our dependence on Earth's limited resources.

Same thing goes for D&D. Wizards, whether they know it or not, are all part of or pawn to the secret cabal known as the Shadow Council, which controls all aspects of society. They impede scientific progress to increase the worlds dependence on magic, which will eventually lead to a tear in the weave and destroy the multiverse.


Only if the deities are the illuminati, though there is deities of creation. Gond (?) is the deity that introduced gunpowder.

Also, note, about the co2 stuff...

Edit fixed the link...
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-carbon-dioxide-captured-air-methanol.html


Edit 2

Here is a really awesome sub-reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/

[Douche]

Only if the deities are the illuminati, though there is deities of creation. Gond (?) is the deity that introduced gunpowder.

Also, note, about the co2 stuff...

Edit fixed the link...
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-carbon-dioxide-captured-air-methanol.html


Edit 2

Here is a really awesome sub-reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/

Did you even read my post?!? The Illluminati don't exist in D&D. The Shadow Council does, though.

Deities are just social constructs created by the Shadow Council to control the masses, man.

[JumboWheat01]

Did you even read my post?!? The Illluminati don't exist in D&D. The Shadow Council does, though.

Deities are just social constructs created by the Shadow Council to control the masses, man.

So... when in doubt, blame Rogues?

Of course, it all makes sense! Technology would bring better tools to prevent rogues from doing their nefarious deeds! Tougher security measures! Stealth detection! Item branding making them easier to trace! No wonder technology is so crap, rogues couldn't be proper rogues if everyone could stop them!

[LordVonDerp]

I have always explained that magic usually gets in the way of technological progress. Why invent and airplane when there are magic items and spells that already can enable you to fly? Or a parachute whenever there is featherfall? Etc.

Typically in a DnD setting the people with high intelligence scores that would be used to study and progress technology, are spellcasters that can find a solution through magic.


Thoughts?

The problem is always that if magic is prevalent enough to prevent the development of technology then it would be

Take Seige equipment as an example, in order for magic to prevent the development of cannon than there would have to be some magic seige egine that renders medieval seige engines obselete. Or maybe magic lets a whole army fly over a city wall, but then why bother having big walls?


Or, perhaps we should consider what ultimately put an end to knights in shining armor. It wasn't guns that killed the knights, in fact guns, cannon, and the plague are what spawned the widespread adoption of plate armor in the first place. It was farmers with pikes that ended the days of knights.


And one final note, what about all the technologies that would be encouraged by gods? Things like the printing press (for printing religious texts), and others.
Or what about God's that actually want people to develop technology like Moradin? (which might explain dwarven industry). Or basically any god of knowledge or trade? Or what about Hephestus, the Greek god of the forge who, according to myth, built robots out of bronze?

Or better yet, what about all the technology that would be made easier by magic? If you have frost magic than building a freezer is easy, if you can build a flaming sword you can build a cannon.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

The problem is always that if magic is prevalent enough to prevent the development of technology then it would be

Take Seige equipment as an example, in order for magic to prevent the development of cannon than there would have to be some magic seige egine that renders medieval seige engines obselete. Or maybe magic lets a whole army fly over a city wall, but then why bother having big walls?


Or, perhaps we should consider what ultimately put an end to knights in shining armor. It wasn't guns that killed the knights, in fact guns, cannon, and the plague are what spawned the widespread adoption of plate armor in the first place. It was farmers with pikes that ended the days of knights.


And one final note, what about all the technologies that would be encouraged by gods? Things like the printing press (for printing religious texts), and others.
Or what about God's that actually want people to develop technology like Moradin? (which might explain dwarven industry). Or basically any god of knowledge or trade? Or what about Hephestus, the Greek god of the forge who, according to myth, built robots out of bronze?

Or better yet, what about all the technology that would be made easier by magic? If you have frost magic than building a freezer is easy, if you can build a flaming sword you can build a cannon.

This is why I see it as a laziness factor, it's easier not to make/promote settings like that.

Yeah they have eberron/spelljammer but as we see, they don't really want to focus on those settings.

Its like sports, people said baseball can't work in Pittsburgh a few years ago... Then the team got good and suddenly people flocked to it. Out out some good magi-tech settings, support them,and people will buy into it.

[LibraryOgre]

I would say that there's a few explanations.

1) Intelligent people who would normally go into science instead go into magic. You have fewer engineers because many of them become mages.

2) Related to the first... technology is, at the core, leveraging the laws of the universe to achieve a desireable result. Your computer uses electricity, light, and an arrangement of silicon to store and transmit information. Your car uses explosions to drive a shaft which drives wheels which pull and push your car forward. In a magical world, magic is part of the laws of that universe, and magical technology (spells) are a well developed form of technology. Many of the advancements in other technologies will leverage this.

[Douche]

So... when in doubt, blame Rogues?

Of course, it all makes sense! Technology would bring better tools to prevent rogues from doing their nefarious deeds! Tougher security measures! Stealth detection! Item branding making them easier to trace! No wonder technology is so crap, rogues couldn't be proper rogues if everyone could stop them!

This guy gets it.

[Temperjoke]

In the Wheel of Time series, towards the end of the books, one of the characters has a strong distrust in that world's version of magic users (a view that is commonly shared due to various issues), and this comes into play into how he develops his strategies and embraces the development of cannons and explosives as a way to avoid needing them in battle against evil magic users. So that could be a reason a kingdom more actively pursues the exploration of technology, to counter enemies with magic users, or due to a common tragedy caused by magic they shun it (rogue wizard destroys large part of capital for example).

[krugaan]

This I think makes absolutely no sense.

In real life, a dichotomy has developed between religious faith and science because the former was, at one point, the only explanation being circulated to explain the realities of our existence. Science (which doesn't really comment on the same things as religion, but that's a much longer discussion) offered other explanations with repeatable results.

It makes perfect sense to me. In forgotten realms, at least, the gods work in exactly that manner and it would not surprise me if they would like to retain their power. Plus, the DnD gods are way, way more hands on than real life one. In a world of monsters, survival trumps philosophy every time. Internal consistency matters only to Mr Moron (lol).


Where people lose faith due to science, broadly speaking, is dealing with repeatable empirical evidence versus intangible truths that require some amount of faith to remain internally consistent.

Being compelled to kneel, teleportation to said deity's home plane, fireball to the face, being turned into a newt all can qualify as repeatable empirical evidence in my book.


In D&D, the gods aren't a matter of faith alone. Priests can raise the dead on cue. Righteous fire is at the command of even the lowliest of clergy. The gods themselves can show up and ask to borrow a cup of sugar. The idea that building a parachute or a better clock would trump Odin popping in on your daughter's wedding reception doesn't seem logical.


They derive their power from it. Priests can raise the dead on cue BECAUSE they get divine power from their god. Priests are conduits for divine power, and are supposed to use that power to increase faith in their chosen deity. After all, you gotta have money to make money.

That being said, magic preventing technological progress brings up an interesting point: can anyone be a mage? After all, there isn't strict ability requirement to be a mage, and even the lowly move earth cantrip would make you about a 100 times more efficient than a single person with a shovel. How much earth can a typical bulldozer move?

Magic will always tend to centralize power in those who can use it (ie mages). Technology centralizes power in wealth, because that's the limiting factor: how much technology they can create.

[Temperjoke]

It makes perfect sense to me. In forgotten realms, at least, the gods work in exactly that manner and it would not surprise me if they would like to retain their power. Plus, the DnD gods are way, way more hands on than real life one. In a world of monsters, survival trumps philosophy every time. Internal consistency matters only to Mr Moron (lol).



Being compelled to kneel, teleportation to said deity's home plane, fireball to the face, being turned into a newt all can qualify as repeatable empirical evidence in my book.



They derive their power from it. Priests can raise the dead on cue BECAUSE they get divine power from their god. Priests are conduits for divine power, and are supposed to use that power to increase faith in their chosen deity. After all, you gotta have money to make money.

That being said, magic preventing technological progress brings up an interesting point: can anyone be a mage? After all, there is strict ability requirement to be a mage, and even the lowly move earth cantrip would make you about a 100 times more efficient than a single person with a shovel. How much earth can a typical bulldozer move?

Magic will always tend to centralize power in those who can use it (ie mages). Technology centralizes power in wealth, because that's the limiting factor: how much technology they can create.

I think anyone can potentially be a wizard, if they are capable of putting in the necessary study and gaining the requisite knowledge. So, would you rather study numbers and figure out how to build things, or would you rather study and learn how to shoot fireballs and lightning from your hands?

[Shining Wrath]

First, once you get above a relatively low level, you don't need to invent one thing, you need to invent several interlocking things. For firearms, for example, you need to invent:

Gunpowder
High quality steel; cheap steel will burst
The ability to forge a tube with a uniform internal diameter, because a bullet getting stuck halfway down really does suck
A minimal knowledge of aerodynamics (round balls will work better than square ones or arrow shapes)
Fuses or similar lighting
A wide distribution of the knowledge of how to produce gunpowder and shot, because otherwise you need to carry your own factory with you on adventures


I've probably forgotten several things. In the real world, firearms underwent a continuous process of development, starting with cannon and continuing to this day. Better powder depended in part upon better metal; the ability to rifle a barrel was a rough 2x improvement in effective range, and so on. Your intrepid wizard now needs to be a polymath in several different subjects in order to produce workable firearms. And for many of these subjects, there's a perfectly good magical substitute, reducing the motivation for anyone to produce what you need. The only one that fits a D&D milieu is better steel; elven craftsmen will produce better quality steel just because they can, regardless of demand.

[krugaan]

First, once you get above a relatively low level, you don't need to invent one thing, you need to invent several interlocking things. For firearms, for example, you need to invent:

Gunpowder
High quality steel; cheap steel will burst
The ability to forge a tube with a uniform internal diameter, because a bullet getting stuck halfway down really does suck
A minimal knowledge of aerodynamics (round balls will work better than square ones or arrow shapes)
Fuses or similar lighting
A wide distribution of the knowledge of how to produce gunpowder and shot, because otherwise you need to carry your own factory with you on adventures


I've probably forgotten several things. In the real world, firearms underwent a continuous process of development, starting with cannon and continuing to this day. Better powder depended in part upon better metal; the ability to rifle a barrel was a rough 2x improvement in effective range, and so on. Your intrepid wizard now needs to be a polymath in several different subjects in order to produce workable firearms. And for many of these subjects, there's a perfectly good magical substitute, reducing the motivation for anyone to produce what you need. The only one that fits a D&D milieu is better steel; elven craftsmen will produce better quality steel just because they can, regardless of demand.

Magic makes for easier leaps in advancement in some ways; materials should be light years ahead of the real world, with theretically infinite strength metals like adamantite. Ditto for energy density. The only real issue is mass production.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

First, once you get above a relatively low level, you don't need to invent one thing, you need to invent several interlocking things. For firearms, for example, you need to invent:

Gunpowder
High quality steel; cheap steel will burst
The ability to forge a tube with a uniform internal diameter, because a bullet getting stuck halfway down really does suck
A minimal knowledge of aerodynamics (round balls will work better than square ones or arrow shapes)
Fuses or similar lighting
A wide distribution of the knowledge of how to produce gunpowder and shot, because otherwise you need to carry your own factory with you on adventures


I've probably forgotten several things. In the real world, firearms underwent a continuous process of development, starting with cannon and continuing to this day. Better powder depended in part upon better metal; the ability to rifle a barrel was a rough 2x improvement in effective range, and so on. Your intrepid wizard now needs to be a polymath in several different subjects in order to produce workable firearms. And for many of these subjects, there's a perfectly good magical substitute, reducing the motivation for anyone to produce what you need. The only one that fits a D&D milieu is better steel; elven craftsmen will produce better quality steel just because they can, regardless of demand.

You, and many people, are seeing magic and technology as two different systems.

[Shining Wrath]

You, and many people, are seeing magic and technology as two different systems.

AC Clark's second law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

But that's a commentary on a world without actual magic, only technology. The question here is if real magic would reduce the motivation for people to do research into technology.

[VoxRationis]

Note that in some worlds (including the campaign setting I am currently writing), magic is essentially a highly advanced technology (it was this way in Vance's Dying Earth). In my setting specifically, magic is advanced because it is the remnant of a more scientifically advanced culture, one that in its time had more recognizable technology supplementing its spells and whatnot. The spells are the easiest bits for primitives to replicate without advanced infrastructure, and thus they have survived the interceding millennia whereas the material technology has not. Technological progress is continuing, but it's at a level far below what magic has been doing... like practicing your flintknapping while still having a gun around. Until technology catches up, they look like different things, but they're really one and the same. (Incidentally, this also means that those with actual scientific knowledge are amazingly powerful in this setting, because they can change the settings on spells to great effect, whereas most wizards cannot.)

[SpawnOfMorbo]

AC Clark's second law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

But that's a commentary on a world without actual magic, only technology. The question here is if real magic would reduce the motivation for people to do research into technology.

You are still seeing it as two separate things.

One of my favorite lines from the nightly show is When a guy asks Bill Nye something like...

"How do records work, what kind of black magic is that?"

Technology in our world is magic just like in D&D magic is technology.

You use that quite and yet still separate the two.

[Clistenes]

If they are creating new stuff from the scratch, they should have to make some ungodly Knowledge (Relevant Stuff) and Investigation rolls.

I mean, if you want to build an arquebuss or musket, you have to discover gunpowder, to learn to craft barrels, to design a matchlock or flintlock, to experiment with different kinds of projectiles, different kinds of wooden supports and shapes for the weapon...etc.

And the character isn't supposed to know about guns, so he or she is supposed to research gunpowder for some other reason than building a gun, and he has to experiment for years and go through the process of making bombs, arrow cannons and hand-cannons before reaching the point at which he or she can even imagine a gun.


Magic makes for easier leaps in advancement in some ways; materials should be light years ahead of the real world, with theretically infinite strength metals like adamantite. Ditto for energy density. The only real issue is mass production.

Adamantite and mithril are expensive. In 3.5 adamantite weapons used to be above 3,000 gp... that is worth 60 pounds of pure gold. or four wands of magic missile.

[Arkhios]

The next time someone (or all of the engine-daydreamers-with-oil-for-blood) invent something ridiculous that doesn't fit in the campaign theme, let them finish that project, and when they first time use that device once finished, have them cause a warp in time-space-reality and them flung into alternative dimension, no saves possible. In this alternative dimension they end up in highly advanced civilization where their magic simply doesn't work at all, and they have a timetable in which they must either go back, only to find their device sucked between realities by the warp, with all schematics for it being destroyed, or accept their fate and remain in a magic-bereft world where any abilities that depend on even slightly magical, just doesn't work. Maybe that'll teach them a lesson, and possibly in an enjoyable way.

PS. Though, now that I suggested it, they'll expect something like that to happen. Improvise from here! :smalltongue:

[Temperjoke]

If they are creating new stuff from the scratch, they should have to make some ungodly Knowledge (Relevant Stuff) and Investigation rolls.

I mean, if you want to build an arquebuss or musket, you have to discover gunpowder, to learn to craft barrels, to design a matchlock or flintlock, to experiment with different kinds of projectiles, different kinds of wooden supports and shapes for the weapon...etc.

And the character isn't supposed to know about guns, so he or she is supposed to research gunpowder for some other reason than building a gun, and he has to experiment for years and go through the process of making bombs, arrow cannons and hand-cannons before reaching the point at which he or she can even imagine a gun.


You know, while one person doing everything on their own to make a cannon is unfeasible, all the different parts to a cannon are based on things that are developed/expanded on by different professions. Let's take a large city, like a capital. They're likely going to have a bell foundry, which could be used to make a cannon barrel (size and shape are different, but the manufacturing principle is the same). They'd also have an alchemist shop, maybe even a school, who would have knowledge of explosive chemicals (gunpowder is the most efficient, but other explosives could be used theoretically). They'd have carpenters, blacksmiths, tinkers, and other craftsmen.

Yes, you'd need a person capable of putting the pieces together, a good amount of time to experiment with, and a lot of luck to survive the experimentation process, but it wouldn't be impossible to do in a standard fantasy setting.

Of course, it'd still be easier for a wizard to wiggle his fingers and say the magic word.

[Trasilor]

You are still seeing it as two separate things.

One of my favorite lines from the nightly show is When a guy asks Bill Nye something like...

"How do records work, what kind of black magic is that?"

Technology in our world is magic just like in D&D magic is technology.

You use that quite and yet still separate the two.

Except of course magic tends to break fundamental laws of physics. :smallamused:

[Temperjoke]

Except of course magic tends to break fundamental laws of physics. :smallamused:

Fundamental laws of physics as we know them.

[JumboWheat01]

Except of course magic tends to break fundamental laws of physics. :smallamused:


Fundamental laws of physics as we know them.

There are many things even in our world that shouldn't be possible because of the laws of physics. Makes you wonder why they even exist if they get broken all the time.

[warmachine]

The real problem is these players want different game and setting conventions than that of D&D and D&D can't handle what they want. A different game might be to their tastes.

If you want a more logical reason for blocking game breaking technology, state the natural laws are fundamentally different in the D&D world. After all, magic works and is repeatable, rather than only existing in the minds of the superstitious. Matter is even based around the Aristotlean elements, not Mendeleev. That such laws support human life that looks like our Medieval times is a staggering coincidence.

And scientific people in the world know the natural laws well enough at a theoretical level to invent powerful spells and useful alchemy. Mix together the ingredients for black powder and an alchemist will explain the alchemical models which predict that it does nothing, whereas they explain how sunstones work.

If you want something to bamboozle someone who won't accept "I don't want over-powered inventors in my game".

[1of3]

You do not need magic to prevent technological innovation. There was very little of that for thousands of years of human history, and I have yet to meet a wizard.

There are several reasons why technological advances might not catch on.

- Abundance of workers. You know windmills. While the idea of having the wind turn the mill stones is rather simple, there are no known records of windmills from the Roman empire. Why? They could affort sending slaves to the mills, i.e. there were so many workers that a more efficient way of doing things wasn't required. That changed in the middle ages, with a generally lower population and the Plague.

In the same way, the industrial revolution started in England. Why there? England had the highest wages in the world at that time, so anything that could reduce the number of workes required was highly sought after.


- Entrenched businesses and interests can prevent progress. If influential groups of people fear going out of business there can be a lot of resistance. Note that the middle ages had guilds that fixed prices for crafts and certain services. So there was little incentive to develop more efficient techniques. It did happen in agriculture. When the railways came up, several rulers (including Austria and Russia) didn't want it at first for fear that the population might get unruly.


- Technological progress requires safety. If you fear that anything you produce will be taken away by your neighbours or the knight, people will not develop more efficient techniques. In the middle ages there was innovation especially in the monasteries.



So will magic prevent technology? - No. People who have magic, might. For example, the churches might discourage doctors because Healing is only granted by the gods. (And it fills the temple chests.)

[Temperjoke]

You do not need magic to prevent technological innovation. There was very little of that for thousands of years of human history, and I have yet to meet a wizard.

There are several reasons why technological advances might not catch on.

- Abundance of workers. You know windmills. While the idea of having the wind turn the mill stones is rather simple, there are no known records of windmills from the Roman empire. Why? They could affort sending slaves to the mills, i.e. there were so many workers that a more efficient way of doing things wasn't required. That changed in the middle ages, with a generally lower population and the Plague.

In the same way, the industrial revolution started in England. Why there? England had the highest wages in the world at that time, so anything that could reduce the number of workes required was highly sought after.


- Entrenched businesses and interests can prevent progress. If influential groups of people fear going out of business there can be a lot of resistance. Note that the middle ages had guilds that fixed prices for crafts and certain services. So there was little incentive to develop more efficient techniques. It did happen in agriculture. When the railways came up, several rulers (including Austria and Russia) didn't want it at first for fear that the population might get unruly.


- Technological progress requires safety. If you fear that anything you produce will be taken away by your neighbours or the knight, people will not develop more efficient techniques. In the middle ages there was innovation especially in the monasteries.



So will magic prevent technology? - No. People who have magic, might. For example, the churches might discourage doctors because Healing is only granted by the gods. (And it fills the temple chests.)

Honestly, if I was facing a surgery, then months of recovery, followed by months of rehab, to potentially be able to function like a common person, I'd rather go to a cleric who can say a prayer and get me back to 100%, all for the cost of maybe having to listen to a sermon and a small donation to their church, which may help their god look on me favorably.

[LordVonDerp]

Except of course magic tends to break fundamental laws of physics. :smallamused:

Except that the fundamental laws of physics are themselves based on observation, meaning that any scientific laws developed in a world with magic would already account for magic.

[JoeJ]

If players in my game wanted to be inventors, I'd let them. Searching for materials, seeking out sages and ancient writings, establishing a base, negotiating with the lord for permission, arranging financing, repeated experimentation (with many failures). All of that sounds like a wonderfully different kind of roleplay that I'd totally be on board for.

And at the end of it all when they have an arquebus or whatever that (mostly) works, I don't see that as game breaking. What I would not do, however, is let a PC become Tony Stark and casually invent things that couldn't possibly be built within the existing infrastructure. Going from the invention of gunpowder to the mass production of machine guns requires hundreds of years of development, not a few good die rolls.

[Clistenes]

You know, while one person doing everything on their own to make a cannon is unfeasible, all the different parts to a cannon are based on things that are developed/expanded on by different professions. Let's take a large city, like a capital. They're likely going to have a bell foundry, which could be used to make a cannon barrel (size and shape are different, but the manufacturing principle is the same). They'd also have an alchemist shop, maybe even a school, who would have knowledge of explosive chemicals (gunpowder is the most efficient, but other explosives could be used theoretically). They'd have carpenters, blacksmiths, tinkers, and other craftsmen.

Yes, you'd need a person capable of putting the pieces together, a good amount of time to experiment with, and a lot of luck to survive the experimentation process, but it wouldn't be impossible to do in a standard fantasy setting.

Of course, it'd still be easier for a wizard to wiggle his fingers and say the magic word.

I can see an alchemist thinking of something like a bombard. Of course, alchemy products tend to be very expensive too... Alchemist's fire is worth 20 gp a flask in 3.5 and 50 gp in 5th edition... so the players still would have to research real gunpowder or a cheap alternative from the scratch.

There is also the fact that, while once they have invented their cannon or gun they can create a lot of them at relatively low prices, enemy wizards could easily learn how to make them using magical espionage and mass-produce them with Fabricate... So a year after creating their musket and cannon-equipped army, the players may have to face a similarly equipped, twenty times larger army.

And if the players keep their new stuff for themselves alone... let them do it. Tell them that the arquebuss they have spent years of time and thousands of gold pieces to research has the stats of a +1 heavy crossbow.

If they want to apply their research to non-violent purposes, like making looms or mills or steam machines, let them do it; nothing they do can be as game-breaking and world-shattering as the spell Fabricate. However, make them spend time and gold in research.

At the end of the day, high-level characters should be the least interested in developing technological alternatives to magic, since it threatens their monopoly of power, unless they are altruists who want to help the low-level masses, in which case they should build the whole campaign around that idea.

[darkrose50]

I would allow players to play a gifted and/or mad scientist if they wanted to. Normally playing a mad scientist allows the gifted and/or mad scientist to create fun things.

[1] looking at the skill list: History, and/or Investigation, and/or Medicine, and/or Nature

[2] looking at possible tool Proficiencies: Herbalist Kit, and/or (if they are in there, or need to be added), engineering tools, and/or metalworking tools, and/or stone working tools, and/or woodworking tools.

[3] Backgrounds: make one up that has skills inventors would need.

[4] Feats: being a gifted inventor like Leonardo da Vinci seems like it should require one or more feats.

Feat: Inventor; Prerequisites: INT 15+, Investigation, Medicine and Nature (History recommended, and Herbalist Kit tool proficiency recommended).

Grants: [a] engineering tool proficiency, [b] artist tool proficiency (to draw up plans), [c] a bonus equal to the proficiency bonus to invent, repair, or fix technology parts of things, and [d] the ability to make something useful or interesting (possibly take the rules for Gnomes making clockwork devices, allow them to be much more stable and useful in the long-term, or write new rules).

[5] Possibly a workshop, but allowing MacGyver solutions can be part of the trope. Perhaps another feat to not need a workshop.

Feat: My Workshop Is My Mind
Prerequisite: Inventor
Grants: the ability to create things without a penalty for not having a workshop (time, and/or disadvantage ?), but useful bits/parts would need to be available, and +1 INT.

[Madbox]

Even if someone invented some new technology, there's no guarantee that it would be seen as useful. For example, the ancient Greeks invented a steam engine (called an aeolipile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile)) that we have no records of ever being used for anything that we would normally use an engine for. It takes a bit of inspiration to go from a novel concept to an idea for a useful tool, and then more inspiration and a lot of work to actually have something that functions. In a world where Average Joe is a subsistence farmer, not many people have the training or time to spare to be an inventor. There's a reason there are so many historical scientists who were either minor nobility or members of the church.

[Shining Wrath]

Fundamental laws of physics as we know them.

Which are actually pretty far advanced.


There are many things even in our world that shouldn't be possible because of the laws of physics. Makes you wonder why they even exist if they get broken all the time.

Such as?


Except that the fundamental laws of physics are themselves based on observation, meaning that any scientific laws developed in a world with magic would already account for magic.

And quite a bit of math.

[JackPhoenix]

You do not need magic to prevent technological innovation. There was very little of that for thousands of years of human history, and I have yet to meet a wizard.

There are several reasons why technological advances might not catch on.

- Abundance of workers. You know windmills. While the idea of having the wind turn the mill stones is rather simple, there are no known records of windmills from the Roman empire. Why? They could affort sending slaves to the mills, i.e. there were so many workers that a more efficient way of doing things wasn't required. That changed in the middle ages, with a generally lower population and the Plague.

In the same way, the industrial revolution started in England. Why there? England had the highest wages in the world at that time, so anything that could reduce the number of workes required was highly sought after.


- Entrenched businesses and interests can prevent progress. If influential groups of people fear going out of business there can be a lot of resistance. Note that the middle ages had guilds that fixed prices for crafts and certain services. So there was little incentive to develop more efficient techniques. It did happen in agriculture. When the railways came up, several rulers (including Austria and Russia) didn't want it at first for fear that the population might get unruly.


- Technological progress requires safety. If you fear that anything you produce will be taken away by your neighbours or the knight, people will not develop more efficient techniques. In the middle ages there was innovation especially in the monasteries.



So will magic prevent technology? - No. People who have magic, might. For example, the churches might discourage doctors because Healing is only granted by the gods. (And it fills the temple chests.)

Even better...ancient Greeks made a functional steam engine. In fact, when you look at the list of his works, Hero of Alexandria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria) sounds like time traveler or one of the players who want to do that stuff: steam engine, vending machine, first wind powered machine, programmable automated mechanisms... about 1500 years before that sort of stuff saw widespread uses.

[hacksnake]

TL;DR - playing D&D without getting into these debates is about a group of people agreeing to play the same game more than anything. Applying logic to D&D rapidly leads to the conclusion that "medieval Europe with magic and magical beasties" probably would have never existed or looked anything like it did in the real world.

I always have trouble suspending disbelief in the core D&D setting. Your players might be 'suffering' from a similar mindset. I think somewhere between "vastly different than anything earth ever saw" and "full out tippyverse" is the logical extension of even just core D&D. That leaves a lot of room to explore things like spelljammer, eberron, planescape, etc.

In only the core setting as it's presented:
We have creatures that are essentially super-robots (powered by magic, no wear and tear, no maintenance): Animated Armor, Shield Guardian, Golems...

There's an entire clockwork plane of existence (Mechanus) populated by clockwork androids (Modrons).

There are spells that would realistically change the face of the planet given a small number of people invested in applying them to social works vs. killing things. Ex: mending, purify food & drink, plant growth, goodberry, ... that's not even touching on high level spells. Especially if communally you fund the creation of durable magical goods that produce these effects for everyone.

With the availability of "game changers" like these and a certain brand of the engineering mindset it seems highly unlikely that the world would look anything at all like medieval Europe. Instead of optimal location for agricultural parameters as the basis for a civilization (I.e. - Indus river valley) you can be a lot more flexible & really only need some lowish level spell casters who have banded together to help the community thrive. Especially if the community pools resources early on to create magical items to sustain this existence long term. Now you can live anywhere and thrive in isolation if you want to. Geography doesn't matter - you have a magical town square with endless food, water, cures for disease and poison, mending, & etc. A few generations of this and what does the world look like? Hunger games but without the conflict because you don't even need slave districts to prop up the lavish existence of the elite?

Given all of that it seems perfectly reasonable that there would, somewhere / sometime, come a wizard who grew up on a farm doing some kind of back breaking labor who later in life decides to automate it to save kids from going through what he went through - and suddenly you have some permanent animate object-powered engine that can be hooked up to a butter churn. Someone else figures out how to hook it up to a wagon, a millstone, a loom (if looms are even a thing given the presence of mending etc...), and on and on.

It's not even raw technology. It's a reasonable / engineering approach to the application of magic to make life less painful.

That leaves you in a position of trying to rationalize something that on its' surface is completely irrational.

I'd suggest having a discussion about the kind of game you want to play.

If everyone agrees that we're playing "medieval Europe + magic + magical beasties and we just kill things to take treasure to kill bigger things to take bigger treasures" then your players are agreeing to not think about the setting and just accept that it's completely bonkers.

If you're playing some kingdom building game then it's asking a lot of your players to have them intentionally not use their abilities in interesting ways to better their situation. Again, maybe you all agree, we're playing medieval Europe kingdom builder (+magic +beasties) but pig farmers live in mud/straw huts cold, starving, suffering, & dying to horrible diseases and it's not evil to let them do so instead of using a tiny fraction of your resources to grant them a much less painful existence. Maybe somewhere there is an evil empire who robs magic from the populace for fun or whatever (they siphon the pain and suffering back to Baator in exchange for gems or services).

If you all agree that innovation happens - I'd wonder what motivations someone has for taking a pure-technology approach instead of blending magic with technology. Why invest the resources into a gun instead of wands of magic missile (or whatever)? Such motivations could exist. Like the forsaker from 3.5 maybe?

I think this thread has had some reasonable solutions if you want to rationalize why innovation doesn't happen. There is an established status quo and anyone who upsets that is in for some pain. Some conspiracy to keep things how they are.

Maybe magic is so rare that all of the above are unrealistic (although this gets away from what is 'core' where even most small towns might have a retired magic user or a cleric or something). If it's that rare then you probably have some explaining to do any time the party finds anything magical or even to explain how 3 magic users even found themselves adventuring together in the first place. Again - it's a huge setting altering undertaking to make it consistent.

In the end you all just need to be on the same page about what game you want to play. Being the DM doesn't make you 'right' - it's a communal game. Hopefully you can all get on the same page about what's fun and then go explore that space instead of having tension about whether or not players can innovate within the setting.

[VoxRationis]

Maybe magic is so rare that all of the above are unrealistic (although this gets away from what is 'core' where even most small towns might have a retired magic user or a cleric or something). If it's that rare then you probably have some explaining to do any time the party finds anything magical or even to explain how 3 magic users even found themselves adventuring together in the first place. Again - it's a huge setting altering undertaking to make it consistent.

In the end you all just need to be on the same page about what game you want to play. Being the DM doesn't make you 'right' - it's a communal game. Hopefully you can all get on the same page about what's fun and then go explore that space instead of having tension about whether or not players can innovate within the setting.

In earlier editions, magic was prohibitively rare; it's only 3.5's influence that makes things like the "Tippyverse" possible. The process for creating a single magic item in the 2nd edition books I have is so long, convoluted, expensive, and filled with points of failure that it's not surprising that wizards turn their attention to those items which help with immediate survival rather than long-term societal infrastructure. 5th edition returns to that, to a lesser extent; it is no longer assumed that people are churning out magical items by the bushel, or that they can be bought as a regular commodity (and thus are in numbers enough to base a society on). It's possible for even powerful mages to be unable to make a magic item, if they don't know the recipes (and these are quite commonly lost arts of past civilizations or some such). Fundamentally, party dynamics work quite well with low-magic-item worlds if you go with the rules-supported assumption that using magic spells is a different art than making magic items.

[hacksnake]

In earlier editions, magic was prohibitively rare; it's only 3.5's influence that makes things like the "Tippyverse" possible...

I mostly agree and I also somewhat disagree. I've played for a long time & much of it was in 2e.

You're clearly correct w/r/t magic rarity / magic item crafting in 2e. I completely agree with you there.

That said I still always thought that local magic users would still have a world changing impact even without creating durable magical goods. Once a year the local cleric manually casts plant growth and doubles the harvest. That alone would have huge ripple impacts across a feudal agricultural society & how many people need to devote how much time to what activities. As long as you have the cleric(s) willing to do it - you're golden. And isn't that exactly what a cleric of a harvest god should do?

5e does go somewhat back closer to 2e which is great. Magic item creation is an optional rule. It says you need a pattern. There is no RAW I saw about creating patterns that I saw (DMG 128-129, & 141). I believe there is RAW that they are magic items of 1 rarity higher than the magic item they can be used to produce (or same rarity if you're in high magic).

5e actually nods towards the Tippyverse with the teleportation circle text a bit I think.

Getting into house rule territory...
I think if you go with optional rules to allow crafting magic items it's also reasonable to allow crafting of patterns (additional rules on DMG 141).
So to start with crafting a Common item you create the Uncommon pattern (500gp; 20 days).
Now you can start crafting your Common item (100gp; 4 days each).

Even at the uncommon level it still seems like a perfectly reasonable investment for a society to bootstrap. That assumes you're playing with certain optional rules from the DMG of course.

EDIT: I didn't read your post closely enough initially; I think we're more on the same page than I initially thought although I still believe that massive societal changes are likely. Especially if you go with variant human which we have in every game I've been in for 5e so far (and assuming PHB racial traits apply to unclassed NPCs). In this world humans may be dominant because of the Magic Initiate feat - any society with a large number of humans has reliable-ish access to nearly all cantrips & 1st level spells now.

[KorvinStarmast]

My next necromancer shall be named...

Drof Yrneh The UAW just phoned, they'd like to have a quiet word with you. Something about depicting their members as zombies ... :smallbiggrin:

Another memo just arrived: UGAW (United Generic Agricultural Workers) would also like a quiet word ...

To Answer The OP vis a vis Magic Preventing Technological Progress

A number of other things do as well, in terms of spreading tech:

1. Guilds (And the secrets of crafting various metal items that only dwarves know, for example).
2. Necessity is the Mother of all Invention ... not only do you need it and do you want it, but can you sell it? (See Thomas Jefferson's invention of some interesting gizmos that only he used).
3. Thomas Eddison: invention is 1 % inspiration and 99% perspiration. (See trial and error).
4. Is it worth play time to conduct another experiment and have it fail?
5. The default setting is Swords and Sorcery

All of these are sound reasons to give to your engineering friends for the obstacles for tech growing and spreading.

One last thought: Damascus steel.

A few centuries after the Goths and their pattern welded swords established a certain quality standard in Europe (~ 100 forge hours required to make one), the steel made by the smiths of Damascus establishing a new/higher quality standard to try and meet. It's nephew was the moderately famous Toledo steel. The secret of how to make any of these blades was closely held for many years for a reason: competitive advantage. The early magicians of our world were the metal smiths: they unlocked amazing tools and things from metal.

In the 80s, I tracked a few article in Scientific American wherein a team of material scientists tried to replicate the famous Damascus steel. If I recall that correctly, part of the secret was in the quenching process ... and there are now a variety of smiths who make superb blades with various allow and various iron/carbon blends that hold a good edge.

With the laws of physics being subtly different in the default worlds, the use of "magic" to manipulate matter is also a closely held secret known to but a few ... and it is dangerous. (Just as technology can be dangerous when put into use).

Do your players really want to go through the trial and error, and establish the industrial base needed to create working versions of their "inventions?" Do you? If the answers to both aren't yes then it doesn't belong at that table. At another table, it might be a good fit.

[randomodo]

Those unions are more than welcome to try and convince the zombie workers to go on strike.

[KorvinStarmast]

Those unions are more than welcome to try and convince the zombie workers to go on strike.Scabs get treated by means other than persuasion, if even a modest review of RL US labor history is undertaken. It could get ugly, and the literal "torches and pitchforks" might arise as a consequence.

[krugaan]

Scabs get treated by means other than persuasion, if even a modest review of RL US labor history is undertaken. It could get ugly, and the literal "torches and pitchforks" might arise as a consequence.

That's a fascinating story idea. Party comes to a town and finds a brawl between the town and a mob of zombies. After all the zombies are dead, local necromancer appears and complains that you just killed his entire work force, the zombies were only defending themselves and were busy assembling cheap electronics / shoes / clothes. Villagers claim that the necromancer is evil, but also that he killed the town economy. Necromancer demands restitution from the party and also demands the right to use the slain townspeople as replacement zombies; most of the town owes him money, as he is also the BBEB (big bad evil business owner).

[KorvinStarmast]

That's a fascinating story idea. Party comes to a town and finds a brawl between the town and a mob of zombies. After all the zombies are dead, local necromancer appears and complains that you just killed his entire work force, the zombies were only defending themselves and were busy assembling cheap electronics / shoes / clothes. Villagers claim that the necromancer is evil, but also that he killed the town economy. Necromancer demands restitution from the party and also demands the right to use the slain townspeople as replacement zombies; most of the town owes him money, as he is also the BBEB (big bad evil business owner).

With this example, some playgrounders may begin to understand why raising the dead is considered evil. Even moreso when one considers that in the FR default setting, there really is an afterlife where families will expect/hope that the souls of their relatives would go.

By the way, great point on making a fun scenario out of this. I think you could make a fine adventure out of this.

[JoeJ]

That said I still always thought that local magic users would still have a world changing impact even without creating durable magical goods. Once a year the local cleric manually casts plant growth and doubles the harvest. That alone would have huge ripple impacts across a feudal agricultural society & how many people need to devote how much time to what activities. As long as you have the cleric(s) willing to do it - you're golden. And isn't that exactly what a cleric of a harvest god should do?

It would have to be a nature cleric; other domains don't get that spell. Or it could be a druid, a (higher level) ranger or, interestingly, a bard. Maybe there are itinerant bards who travel from village to village, healing the sick and improving the crops. Most villages would probably be more than happy to pool their resources to pay for a visit now and again.

[tieren]

I don't think its a question of magic replicating the effects of technology, but rather the effect divination magic would have o the nature of inquiry itself.

Most of science is based around inquiry. Trying to explain the world around us by testing it and analyzing to find answers. If all we had to do to find those answers was wiggle our fingers and toss some chicken bones there would be less serious inquiries which means less science and less technology based on the scientific discoveries that would not be occurring.

[georgie_leech]

It would have to be a nature cleric; other domains don't get that spell. Or it could be a druid, a (higher level) ranger or, interestingly, a bard. Maybe there are itinerant bards who travel from village to village, healing the sick and improving the crops. Most villages would probably be more than happy to pool their resources to pay for a visit now and again.

With the way the gods of X tend to work, I always figured that that's what was necessary to get a proper harvest in the first place. Why would the god(dess) of harvests give proper harvests without acknowledging her in some way?

[LordFluffy]

Being compelled to kneel, teleportation to said deity's home plane, fireball to the face, being turned into a newt all can qualify as repeatable empirical evidence in my book.
You're agreeing with me. My point was that tech would not erode faith because acceptance of gods isn't a matter of faith in FR.


That being said, magic preventing technological progress brings up an interesting point: can anyone be a mage? After all, there isn't strict ability requirement to be a mage...
RAW, no. 5e seems to be taking the "adventurers are fundamentally different than the rest of the populace" route, though, so I don't know.

[Sigreid]

I have played DnD with engineers and other very intelligent people for years and one common thing that keeps coming up is that they frequently want their character to advance technology in DnD, to gamebreaking levels or further.

I have always explained that magic usually gets in the way of technological progress. Why invent and airplane when there are magic items and spells that already can enable you to fly? Or a parachute whenever there is featherfall? Etc.

Typically in a DnD setting the people with high intelligence scores that would be used to study and progress technology, are spellcasters that can find a solution through magic.

Whenever a character in my world wants to begin designing a gun or something similar, things begin to get in their way. I often explain it as deities of magic and other domains will begin intervening in order to prevent the evolution of progress without magic.

The reason they would intervene is because they need worshipers and the further that people progress in technology, they will be less reliant on magic and gods.

If a character is determined to make it a reality, I will eventually allow it to happen but there will often be significant challenges for them to overcome.

Thoughts?

I have a campaign where technology is stymied for two reasons.

1) Most of the really brilliant people find themselves becoming wizards instead of engineers.
2) A variety of groups that would find their power threatened by technological advancement (kings, wizards, clergy,etc.) actively remove people trying to advance technology too far and destroy their inventions/notes.

[krugaan]

You're agreeing with me. My point was that tech would not erode faith because acceptance of gods isn't a matter of faith in FR.

For this particular example, sure.

But "faith" in this context means worship, because that is the only way gods gain power. Tech would absolutely erode it because it would make people less reliant on gods (reduce their portfolios, anyway). More importantly, faith in a particular god, because afaik worshipping one god is does not give power to another. Acceptance of the existence of gods is not nearly the same as active worship of one... I think.

What just occurred to me from your last post is this:

Why doesn't *magic* erode worship of gods? Arcane magic, i mean. It would seem that magic would be an even better god replacement than technology.

Assuming people can tell the difference between arcane and divine, which may not be the case.

edit: caveat at the end added.

[Vogonjeltz]

I can see an alchemist thinking of something like a bombard. Of course, alchemy products tend to be very expensive too... Alchemist's fire is worth 20 gp a flask in 3.5 and 50 gp in 5th edition... so the players still would have to research real gunpowder or a cheap alternative from the scratch.

There is also the fact that, while once they have invented their cannon or gun they can create a lot of them at relatively low prices, enemy wizards could easily learn how to make them using magical espionage and mass-produce them with Fabricate... So a year after creating their musket and cannon-equipped army, the players may have to face a similarly equipped, twenty times larger army.

And if the players keep their new stuff for themselves alone... let them do it. Tell them that the arquebuss they have spent years of time and thousands of gold pieces to research has the stats of a +1 heavy crossbow.

If they want to apply their research to non-violent purposes, like making looms or mills or steam machines, let them do it; nothing they do can be as game-breaking and world-shattering as the spell Fabricate. However, make them spend time and gold in research.

At the end of the day, high-level characters should be the least interested in developing technological alternatives to magic, since it threatens their monopoly of power, unless they are altruists who want to help the low-level masses, in which case they should build the whole campaign around that idea.

Maybe, but according to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder it was about 4 centuries from the invention of gunpowder to actual use in war, and only became effective about a hundred years after that.

So...yeah, steps to reach a firearm:
1) Discover a substance that is explosive. - Luck based.

2) Notice that it is explosive (e.g. has the power to push other substances). - Also luck based, if the person who discovers the original substance doesn't widely disseminate or even bother to record the discovery, it may as well have not happened the first time.

3) Come up with the idea for using the substance to propel something. This step could literally take hundreds of years or longer.

4) Develop the idea into a physical object. Also, potentially hundreds of years. Requires at least hundreds of years of effort to refine into something truly useful.

So, several thousand years after the mere discovery of the propellent, we maybe have an arquebus.

I'd put the chances of any given character in D&D inventing a firearm from scratch at exactly nil. It's simply too complicated.

If they want to use ranged technology beyond the bow and arrow/crossbow, I would just work off the assumption that the ground work has already been done and the weapons are commonplace in at least one region. H

owever, that would also lead to total domination of the other regions of the world if they didn't quickly adopt the new standard, which might be an interesting campaign theme: The replacement of the older methods of war with the new ones, and the consequent upheaval in the power structures of the world.

a multipart campaign:

Gnomish inventors discover that their plans for firearms and cannons etc... have been stolen by a duegar or drow or shapeshifter spy. The plans are sold to the highest bidder, who is probably a state that intends to aggressively use them. Next time an Orc war party comes bearing down on one of the Lords Alliance cities, they have firearms, easily dispatching the allies.

Adventurer's goals are:

1) Recover the plans before they are sold.

2) Failing that get word to the Lord's Alliance or whomever so they can strike before the weapons are manufactured and the orcs are trained to use them.

3) Failing that, sabotage and dismantle the apparatus, destroy the plans, and kill the Orc smiths who have the knowledge to end the threat (for now).

Could be an exciting game about the downfall of the old order.

[SharkForce]

to be fair, initially firearms wouldn't really take over. even once they become the standard weapon, i'm pretty sure it had a lot more to do with how quickly you could train an effective soldier with one rather than how effective they were for quite some time. i don't think the standard firearm exceeded the range of a typical longbow until maybe the american civil war, even though firearms had become the standard for centuries before that, and i *really* doubt they matched the firing rate until after the civil war (again, bearing in mind that i'm talking about the standard issue one; i know there were repeating rifles and handguns in the civil war, but i also know that far more soldiers *didn't* have them than did, and that they were generally limited to cavalry).

truthfully, i suspect that before you could make particularly useful firearms, you would first need to invent the machinery (tools) to make them.

[VoxRationis]

Maybe, but according to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder it was about 4 centuries from the invention of gunpowder to actual use in war, and only became effective about a hundred years after that.

So...yeah, steps to reach a firearm:
1) Discover a substance that is explosive. - Luck based.

2) Notice that it is explosive (e.g. has the power to push other substances). - Also luck based, if the person who discovers the original substance doesn't widely disseminate or even bother to record the discovery, it may as well have not happened the first time.

3) Come up with the idea for using the substance to propel something. This step could literally take hundreds of years or longer.

4) Develop the idea into a physical object. Also, potentially hundreds of years. Requires at least hundreds of years of effort to refine into something truly useful.

So, several thousand years after the mere discovery of the propellent, we maybe have an arquebus.



Several thousand years? By the time you could invent gunpowder in the first place, nothing goes sitting around unutilized for several thousand years. Certainly not a development which can only really come about through someone very intentionally experimenting with flammable materials, which implies a certain kind of deliberate research. Several thousand years is the time it takes to get from "What if we make a hull instead of a raft?" to "streamlined, highly-optimized specialist warships."

[krugaan]

Yeah, I think your average fantasy world with cities has more than enough infrastructure to support research of the kind that could easily develop guns. Whether that extends to PCs designing guns is up for debate.

[Sitri]

I think it might have to do with seeking to maximize fun for the group.

I played a single PC game one summer (I was a school teacher and my friend had other people do all his work for him.) In that game Knowledge Engineering was more useful than 75% of my class skills. With it just being the two of us, we could spend the time it took to plan and make some cool science-bases things happen without all the other players that couldn't/didn't want to contribute being left bored while I McGyvered an answer to the problem.

[LordFluffy]

Tech would absolutely erode it because it would make people less reliant on gods (reduce their portfolios, anyway).
I simply don't see this as a simple progression. Why does tech make people less reliant on the gods? Does help them better understand why bad things happen to good people? Provide an alternative to the afterlife? Establish a system of ethics and customs to live one's life by?

Because religion does all those things and having gods that you can see and talk to directly would only solidify the value of that religion, no matter how many cars, toasters and guns you invent, I think.


What just occurred to me from your last post is this:

Why doesn't *magic* erode worship of gods? Arcane magic, i mean. It would seem that magic would be an even better god replacement than technology.

Assuming people can tell the difference between arcane and divine, which may not be the case.

edit: caveat at the end added.
I don't think it would for the same reasons above. Religion isn't just about things working like they're supposed to or cool stuff happening. It's about community and having a guidepost to live your life by.

Engineering or Sorcery may make your day to day live easier, but neither provides an answer for "Why am I here, for how long, and what should I do with my time?"

Edited: One of my examples was "Does it control the weather", which no suggested technology does, but it might help you cope with the weather's effects, so... bad example.

[krugaan]

I simply don't see this as a simple progression. Why does tech make people less reliant on the gods? Does help them better understand why bad things happen to good people? Provide an alternative to the afterlife? Establish a system of ethics and customs to live one's life by?

Because religion does all those things and having gods that you can see and talk to directly would only solidify the value of that religion, no matter how many cars, toasters and guns you invent, I think.

I don't think it would for the same reasons above. Religion isn't just about things working like they're supposed to or cool stuff happening. It's about community and having a guidepost to live your life by.

It is perfectly possible to have a community, be a good person, and lead a fulfilling life without religion. It's just much harder.

Although you're right, it is not a simple question, really. In the interest of keeping this civil, let's just concentrate on religion in game.


Engineering or Sorcery may make your day to day live easier, but neither provides an answer for "Why am I here, for how long, and what should I do with my time?"

While, yes, technology might not ever solve philosophical questions like "why do we exist", these things are largely absent in almost all dnd campaigns. Practically speaking, its a much more mercenary arrangement between gods and worshippers : you worship me, and I'll favor you and increase your odds of survival, maybe grant you a few spells.

In the real world this isn't the case... supposedly. Again... keeping it civil.

[JoeJ]

I've never used the premise that magic prevents technological progress because I've never seen any reason to deny technological progress in the first place. For anything other than a modern day setting, the rate of innovation is far too slow to have much effect over the course of a campaign, so why prevent it?

[Arkhios]

I've never used the premise that magic prevents technological progress because I've never seen any reason to deny technological progress in the first place. For anything other than a modern day setting, the rate of innovation is far too slow to have much effect over the course of a campaign, so why prevent it?

Personally I think the reason to prevent technological advancement is to ease the amount of stress upon DM's shoulders. DM is the ultimate arbiter of whether a homebrew technology should work and how. Allowing practically anything weird your players want is to attach strings on you, basically making the DM the players' marionette, to do whatever they please, all the while you as the DM must comply and effectively make the rules for your players' inventions. Players shouldn't in my opinion be allowed to create house rules or homebrew items without their DM's approval. To prevent technological advancement with whatever magical reason is the DM's way to tell the players that "this is my world, and in my world, that doesn't work because of reasons" and by doing so, prevent the players from doing stupid things.

[JoeJ]

Personally I think the reason to prevent technological advancement is to ease the amount of stress upon DM's shoulders. DM is the ultimate arbiter of whether a homebrew technology should work and how. Allowing practically anything weird your players want is to attach strings on you, basically making the DM the players' marionette, to do whatever they please, all the while you as the DM must comply and effectively make the rules for your players' inventions. Players shouldn't in my opinion be allowed to create house rules or homebrew items without their DM's approval. To prevent technological advancement with whatever magical reason is the DM's way to tell the players that "this is my world, and in my world, that doesn't work because of reasons" and by doing so, prevent the players from doing stupid things.

I don't see how that puts strings on the DM or allows players to homebrew at all. The fact that there is technological progress in the world does not imply that a PC can be Tony Stark, or even that it's the kind of a world where Tony Stark could exist at all.

In my world of Battersea, technology has progressed at roughly the same rate as it did in the Mediterranean region of our world, except that it was stagnant for around 1,000 years during the reign of Deimos Mor, the Lich King. It's now fairly similar (although not identical) to what would have been found in Rome ca. 100 BC - AD 100. Just within the couple of centuries the stirrup has been introduced and that, along with the breeding of larger horses, has made chariots obsolete for warfare, although they're still used for transportation and for racing. Concrete for building and flat, bound books (as opposed to scrolls) have started to catch on. "Clear" glass is still pretty cloudy; it let's light in, but you can't see through it very well. There are no spinning wheels, and no distilled alcohol. Rapiers and plate armor don't exist. Steel is difficult to make and very expensive; most weapons and armor are made of iron or bronze.

With effort and time, PCs could make some kind of improvement in almost any area. A campaign focused on invention rather than adventuring would be very different from anything I've ever run, but I wouldn't have any problem going along with it. That doesn't mean they could invent the 21st century! They could, perhaps, invent a better horse collar, though. Or a water-powered machine for blowing glass. Or maybe even alchemist's fire.

[Arkhios]

snip'd

I was referring to the extremes. Technically, a normal rate of technological advancement is alright in any campaign, but if players consist, like in OP's case, from engineers trying to invent a car in a medieval fantasy setting, they are deliberately trying to artificially add their own knowledge (technically they could be accused of metagaming to a certain degree) about technology into the mindset of their characters; people of that era. Let's say a Leonardo DaVinci was someone's character in that medieval-esque era fantasy world, and he wanted to build a modern car that runs on gasoline or even a hybrid that runs on electricity, you're trying to invent technology of which precedent (coal/steam/etc) doesn't even exist. In a world where vehicles are pulled by pack animals, such as horses or oxen, or anything that fits for certain area of the world (maybe a large lizard?), suddenly inventing and then trying to build a car that functions with technology that shouldn't be plausible for that era, doesn't fit in that game, and therefore should be prevented by whatever means neccessary, if the players insist on how they know how physics should allow things to happen. If DM would just throw their hands up and just comply to whatever the players invent, they are doing what the players want, not playing the game that their DM is providing them. When players dictate the course of a campaign's advancements, they attach strings to their DM; once you have allowed something, they will yearn for more and more and more, justifying on that very thing: "because you allowed this one too!"

[JoeJ]

I was referring to the extremes. Technically, a normal rate of technological advancement is alright in any campaign, but if players consist, like in OP's case, from engineers trying to invent a car in a medieval fantasy setting, they are deliberately trying to artificially add their own knowledge (technically they could be accused of metagaming to a certain degree) about technology into the mindset of their characters; people of that era. Let's say a Leonardo DaVinci was someone's character in that medieval-esque era fantasy world, and he wanted to build a modern car that runs on gasoline or even a hybrid that runs on electricity, you're trying to invent technology of which precedent (coal/steam/etc) doesn't even exist. In a world where vehicles are pulled by pack animals, such as horses or oxen, or anything that fits for certain area of the world (maybe a large lizard?), suddenly inventing and then trying to build a car that functions with technology that shouldn't be plausible for that era, doesn't fit in that game, and therefore should be prevented by whatever means neccessary, if the players insist on how they know how physics should allow things to happen. If DM would just throw their hands up and just comply to whatever the players invent, they are doing what the players want, not playing the game that their DM is providing them. When players dictate the course of a campaign's advancements, they attach strings to their DM; once you have allowed something, they will yearn for more and more and more, justifying on that very thing: "because you allowed this one too!"

I just don't see why there's any need to throw the metaphorical baby out with the bathwater. I've never had a player want to play out the tedious process of invention: acquiring materials, refining techniques, multiple trials for each small step, etc. I've also not met many engineers who can describe in detail exactly how to build a car using only items available in the ancient/medieval world. (For example, you can't buy ready-made screws or bolts. You have to either make your own or use a different kind of fastener.) Those who can are also usually aware of how long it would take to handcraft all the necessary parts.

Time is the key here. Make the players think through and describe every single step and, unless they're being dishonest, it will quickly become apparent that it will take years to accomplish even a small innovation. Do they have the tool proficiency to craft screws? How many will they need? What kind of metal will they make them out of? Do they have a source of rod stock, or will they have to go looking for it? What quality standards are they using? If the players in question are actually working engineers, they'll understand that every one of these questions needs to be answered for every single part.

Once you've made the point of how long and detailed a process they're talking about, then you can decide as a group if you want to make that the focus of the game (probably not), abandon the idea, or allow them to keep track of downtime until enough has accumulated to allow some small measure of progress. Nothing like a modern car, but maybe a decade or so of accumulated downtime could give them a steam propelled wooden wagon that can carry several hundred pounds at a slow walking pace.

[raygun goth]

Having run D&D for engineers, scientists, and spec fic writers, and have, in my childhood before gaming, read so many novels of what is essentially the same world with new words tacked on to it or over top of it, just decided "screw it," and run a thing that works out to about mid-atomic-age technology levels that just doesn't look a whole lot like Earth-technology - at least on the inside.

Magically altered monsters providing power generation or processor memory, "circuit cards" made of traps for elemental energies at the nearly microscopic level taking over for breadboards and on/off gates, "transistors" that are just tiny shrines for spirits, Nazis riding ceratopsians with tank guns into battle against raptor mages, it's great.

Side note from someone who grew up right next to Edison's winter home: Edison did squat by himself. Edison was only brilliant because he literally blackmailed, bought out, and hired every inventor he met. He had a series of teams that totaled over 50 people working constantly on inventing ideas for him. He forced many of them to file patents under his name themselves - he particularly enjoyed making people take their own patent down to the office and filing it for him. It's what he did with the lightbulb problem.

If you had teams of wizards working for you under threat of cooked blackmail material, you could invent cool magic items, too!

[Vogonjeltz]

Several thousand years? By the time you could invent gunpowder in the first place, nothing goes sitting around unutilized for several thousand years. Certainly not a development which can only really come about through someone very intentionally experimenting with flammable materials, which implies a certain kind of deliberate research. Several thousand years is the time it takes to get from "What if we make a hull instead of a raft?" to "streamlined, highly-optimized specialist warships."

Well, the actual discovery seems to have been a byproduct of Chinese alchemists trying to find an elixir of immortality.

So, no, they weren't intentionally trying to create flammable materials. As I said, the perspective that this would all be so easy is contingent upon the modern understanding of chemistry, and the hundreds of years of development that have gone into ranged weaponry in modern times alone.

With zero knowledge of the existence of firearms, there would be no deliberate development. Even coming up with the specific idea is entirely improbable until after the discovery of materials, and even then we're talking several steps away.

Also, I said hundreds of years, not thousands, but again, even this short time period relies upon the conceit that some alchemist discovers the properties of these combined materials, probably on accident while trying to achieve some unrelated goal.

Which is not to say it's impossible. Just beyond improbable that your players characters would be the one to make that discovery, and it certainly could not be researched on purpose except for player (not character) knowledge, which is metagaming. I wouldn't be opposed to such a campaign, but those are the inherent problems with it, and the reasons Thrasher92 could easily deny the player request is that it's a metagaming breach, which should typically be avoided unless it's agreed upon out of game. And even then, it works best if the DM and player collaborate to rationalize the outcome in some way.

i.e. the characters come across the laboratory of a recently deceased alchemist who laid the ground work, discovering this substance and describing the capabilities and possibilities...someone like a da vinci. Then, the characters could try and actually realize the alchemists' invention using his notes and formulas, eventually leading to a firearm. That vignette does two things: 1) It removes the necessity for a player to metagame in order to introduce a modern idea (things that simply were not even conceptually realized until after various discoveries) and 2) It bypasses the potentially very long timeline between discovery and realized material goods. Meaning that the characters actually get to use the weapons designed and not simply gaze longingly at schematics.

[VoxRationis]

Well, the actual discovery seems to have been a byproduct of Chinese alchemists trying to find an elixir of immortality.

So, no, they weren't intentionally trying to create flammable materials. As I said, the perspective that this would all be so easy is contingent upon the modern understanding of chemistry, and the hundreds of years of development that have gone into ranged weaponry in modern times alone.

I am aware of that. They weren't trying to develop an explosive, but that's not what I said. I said they were deliberately experimenting with materials which were known to be flammable. What I was saying was that you can only get gunpowder if you have a society which has the resources and social structure to allow people to deliberately experiment. Gunpowder's three components don't just come together in the course of normal life—if someone mixes them in even remotely the correct proportions, it's because either there was a spill in a laboratory or because someone deliberately mixed them, trying to see what it would do.

In such an environment, if you discover an explosive, it doesn't matter what you originally were looking for; your report, wherever it goes, will get noticed by someone eventually, and it doesn't take that much genius to come up with the first use of the explosive in war (which would not be in a firearm, necessarily, though if the original discovery involved a mishap with a beaker pointed at someone's face, a fire lance wouldn't be far off). In fact, the fact that they were trying to come up with just about the opposite of their actual result shows just how quickly things can progress (about a hundred years from "this burns quite quickly" to "let's put it in a fire lance" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder#Original_development)), regardless of original intentions.


With zero knowledge of the existence of firearms, there would be no deliberate development. Even coming up with the specific idea is entirely improbable until after the discovery of materials, and even then we're talking several steps away.

Also, I said hundreds of years, not thousands, but again, even this short time period relies upon the conceit that some alchemist discovers the properties of these combined materials, probably on accident while trying to achieve some unrelated goal.
You said "several thousand" in the section I quoted.

And to be clear, I fully understand that it makes no sense to attempt to straight-line the development of a weapon which has not been conceptualized in-universe. I just believe that the sentence I quoted, which demanded several thousand years' development between the discovery of gunpowder and the creation of a primitive arquebus, underestimated the rate of technological progress.


i.e. the characters come across the laboratory of a recently deceased alchemist who laid the ground work, discovering this substance and describing the capabilities and possibilities...someone like a da vinci. Then, the characters could try and actually realize the alchemists' invention using his notes and formulas, eventually leading to a firearm. That vignette does two things: 1) It removes the necessity for a player to metagame in order to introduce a modern idea (things that simply were not even conceptually realized until after various discoveries) and 2) It bypasses the potentially very long timeline between discovery and realized material goods. Meaning that the characters actually get to use the weapons designed and not simply gaze longingly at schematics.

But that just shifts the burden of rapid conceptualization onto an NPC.

[Vogonjeltz]

You said "several thousand" in the section I quoted.

And to be clear, I fully understand that it makes no sense to attempt to straight-line the development of a weapon which has not been conceptualized in-universe. I just believe that the sentence I quoted, which demanded several thousand years' development between the discovery of gunpowder and the creation of a primitive arquebus, underestimated the rate of technological progress.

Eep, you're right, I stopped after the first sentence where I had said hundreds instead of scrolling down to the tally of the potential hundreds of years between developments adding up to thousands.


But that just shifts the burden of rapid conceptualization onto an NPC.

I was saying you could extend the conceptualization back however long as was necessary and then insert the players into the important part, the actual creation of the weapon. It does away with the random luck, and the excessively long periods of trial and error required and gets straight to the nitty gritty fun part. Ultimately these are adventurers we're talking about, not lifelong inventors holed up in their labratory and/or workshop.

[Segev]

A quick and important note regarding maintaining control over your undead: I don't think you can use animate dead to regain control once lost; it specifically says you must cast it during the 24 hour duration of the last time in order to retain control. Further, only you can do it; nobody else can claim them by casting animate dead on them and taking them over, so there's no chaining control. For these reasons, I doubt the glyph of warding would be able to hold them for you; maybe if it animated them in the first place and could be set up to repeatedly cast the spell to keep them under control, but even then...how does a glyph issue orders?

I'd love it if that could work, so if people have a mechanism to make it do so, that'd be awesome to read.

[hacksnake]

I was saying you could extend the conceptualization back however long as was necessary and then insert the players into the important part, the actual creation of the weapon. It does away with the random luck, and the excessively long periods of trial and error required and gets straight to the nitty gritty fun part. Ultimately these are adventurers we're talking about, not lifelong inventors holed up in their labratory and/or workshop.

Maybe relevant to the discussion, although jumping systems and settings, the D&D 3.x Iron Kingdoms setting Arcane Mechanik class could take 'Mechanikal Innovation' as a class feature at level 16 or 20. Crunch around the ability was weak - basically "work with your DM to figure out the details of what you made" but the idea was this was a way to let the PCs invent potentially world altering new things.

Recast into D&D 5e maybe it could be a feat or part of certain subclasses or something (Cleric of Artiface or whatever would be appropriate) if everyone wanted to play a game which featured innovation by the players but if you also wanted to limit the scope of how many huge leaps forward a single PC could bring to the world.

[Godwyn]

There are many things even in our world that shouldn't be possible because of the laws of physics. Makes you wonder why they even exist if they get broken all the time.

I hate it when this gets spread around. We know of NOTHING that breaks the laws of physics. Particle physics follow different rules than most people are used to, but we understand them nowadays, and they don't do anything that "defies the laws of physics." That is kind of the point of science, it is based on observation. If we observe something that "defies the laws of physics" then the law is clearly wrong, and gets reexamined. This is how science advances. If someone says they know how the universe works, but such and such simply doesn't fit those rules, then they don't really know how it works, do they.

Before saying that things defy the laws of physics, learn the laws of physics.

[LordFluffy]

It is perfectly possible to have a community, be a good person, and lead a fulfilling life without religion. It's just much harder.
Not arguing that it does. My point is once religions are in place in a world where the gods are a verifiable fact with agents walking around, performing repeatable evidence of their god's might, the presence of technology doesn't seem like it would erode faith at all.


While, yes, technology might not ever solve philosophical questions like "why do we exist", these things are largely absent in almost all dnd campaigns. Practically speaking, its a much more mercenary arrangement between gods and worshippers : you worship me, and I'll favor you and increase your odds of survival, maybe grant you a few spells.
It's only absent because most people play D&D to stab stuff and get gold, not ponder existential quandaries. Most characters don't doubt the existence of the gods, either, which I don't see changing because someone invents a flamethrower.

[krugaan]

Not arguing that it does. My point is once religions are in place in a world where the gods are a verifiable fact with agents walking around, performing repeatable evidence of their god's might, the presence of technology doesn't seem like it would erode faith at all.


Agree to disagree then.



It's only absent because most people play D&D to stab stuff and get gold, not ponder existential quandaries. Most characters don't doubt the existence of the gods, either, which I don't see changing because someone invents a flamethrower.

Again, it's more to do with the mercenary nature of the god/npc relationship than anything.

Question, how many players roleplay their deity choices in addition to their classes and alignments? Why did your PC choose that deity?

[Clistenes]

Agree to disagree then.



Again, it's more to do with the mercenary nature of the god/npc relationship than anything.

Question, how many players roleplay their deity choices in addition to their classes and alignments? Why did your PC choose that deity?

I find it funny how in D&D worlds people seem convinced that any creature worthy of being called a deity and receiving worship MUST grant spells to its worshippers...

I mean, Ao reveals himself to the Faerunians as a being above the gods, who rules them and doesn't interact with humans because he's too highly placed for that. A group of people start praying to him and wait to receeive spells in exchange. The rest of Faerun basically forgets about him because he doesn't grant spells, so why bother?

In Planescape, the Athar believe that gods are frauds and refuse to worship them. Factol Terrance, their leader, became an Athar because he came to the conclusion that beings who needed agents and followers to do their job couldn't be truly divine, so he theorized the existance of a True God, a Great Unknown who rules the Multiverse and is so high that mortals can't perceive it or relate to it in any way... what does he do after joining the Athar and scaling the ranks all the way to the top? He prays to the Great Unknown, and when he starts to receive spells, he believes that the True God is rewarding his faith... he treats his Unknowable, Unreachable, All-Powerful Great Unknown as a spell battery, like every priest does...

No wonder the Lady of Pain is so against being worshipped. She must have gotten tired of the constant wailing "Gimmegimmegimmegimmegimmegimmespells! I'm praying to you! See! I'm praying! Gimme magic!!!"

[krugaan]

I find it funny how in D&D worlds people seem convinced that any creature worthy of being called a deity and receiving worship MUST grant spells to its worshippers...

I mean, Ao reveals himself to the Faerunians as a being above the gods, who rules them and doesn't interact with humans because he's to highly placed for that. A group of people start praying to him and wait to receeive spells in exchange. The rest of Faerun basically forgets about him because he doesn't grant spells, so why bother?

In Planescape, the Athar believe that gods are frauds and refuse to worship them. Factol Terrance, their leader, became an Athar because he came to the conclusion that beings who needed agents and followers to do their job couldn't be truly divine, so he theorized the existance of a True God, a Great Unknown who rules the Multiverse and is so high that mortals can't perceive it or relate to it in any way... what does he do after joining the Athar and scaling the ranks all the way to the top? He prays to the Great Unknown, and when he starts to receive spells, he believes that the True God is rewarding his faith... he treats his Unknowable, Unreachable, All-Powerful Great Unknown as a spell battery, like every priest does...

No wonder the Lady of Pain is so against being worshipped. She must have gotten tired of the constant wailing "Gimmegimmegimmegimmegimmegimmespells! I'm praying to you! See! I'm praying! Gimme magic!!!"

I know weird, isn't it? Ao doesn't really bother granting spells because he doesn't have to. Nor does he have a huge amount of worshippers, again, because he doesn't need to.

Every other god requires worship in order to maintain power, thus the mana battery thing.

Although, i'd have to say, most setting's don't even seem to flesh it out that much. Gods are strictly plot devices and free spells, maybe a way to categorize factions. They rarely have agendas or personalities outside of the books, although I suppose that could be for continuity purposes.

[Clistenes]

I know weird, isn't it? Ao doesn't really bother granting spells because he doesn't have to. Nor does he have a huge amount of worshippers, again, because he doesn't need to.

Every other god requires worship in order to maintain power, thus the mana battery thing.

Although, i'd have to say, most setting's don't even seem to flesh it out that much. Gods are strictly plot devices and free spells, maybe a way to categorize factions. They rarely have agendas or personalities outside of the books, although I suppose that could be for continuity purposes.

Well, players and DMs treat gods like spell batteries and convenient plot devices, but, when you are fleshing out a setting, most NPCs should see deities as something more...

I mean, we, in real life, don't have religions because we are expecting to receive spells. We have religions because they help us to make sense of the world we live in. Because they give us hope of an afterlife. Because they confort us, telling us that somebody is taking care of us and everything is going to be all right in the end.

If you live in a world where there are evil gods, where Good ins't stronger than Evil, where the gods fight each other through their proxies, you should feel that reality is something fleeting, fragile, unstable, unfriendly... The forces of nature basically are warlords pitting their gangs against each other. There isn't a Great Plan, there aren't certainties, there is 50% chance that Evil will win and you will be screwed, and even if Good wins, you can be one of the casualties.

In a world like that, the thought that there is a higher purpose, an arbiter, keeping everything under control should be reassuring. Overgods and Great Unknowns style of figures should be valued and perceived and reassuring even if they don't personally do anything for you (when was the last time your real-life God granted you spells?).

[krugaan]

I mean, we, in real life, don't have religions because we are expecting to receive spells. We have religions because they help us to make sense of the world we live in. Because they give us hope of an afterlife. Because they confort us, telling us that somebody is taking care of us and everything is going to be all right in the end.

If you live in a world where there are evil gods, where Good ins't stronger than Evil, where the gods fight each other through their proxies, you should feel that reality is something fleeting, fragile, unstable, unfriendly... The forces of nature basically are warlords pitting their gangs against each other. There isn't a Great Plan, there aren't certainties, there is 50% chance that Evil will win and you will be screwed.

In a world like that, the thought that there is a higher purpose, an arbiter, keeping everything under control should be reassuring. Overgods and Great Unknowns style of figures should be valued and perceived and reassuring even if they don't personally do anything for you (when was the last time your real-life God granted you spells?).

We should probably assume that the scales are tipped wildly on the side of Good on a per-scheme basis, or else the forces of evil would have won a long time ago.

That being said, yes, the major difference between FR and the real world is that

a) the gods and all their divine structures exist by definition
b) they take a visibly active role in the world
c) they require worship to survive

The ones that do not follow these rules are largely irrelevant.

So the question becomes: would people choose the uncertain over the certain? Surprisingly, I think the answer would be yes, in the long term.

Depending on how difficult it would be for gods to maintain their ... whatever effects on a long term scale.

[Clistenes]

We should probably assume that the scales are tipped wildly on the side of Good on a per-scheme basis, or else the forces of evil would have won a long time ago.

That being said, yes, the major difference between FR and the real world is that

a) the gods and all their divine structures exist by definition
b) they take a visibly active role in the world
c) they require worship to survive

The ones that do not follow these rules are largely irrelevant.

So the question becomes: would people choose the uncertain over the certain? Surprisingly, I think the answer would be yes, in the long term.

Depending on how difficult it would be for gods to maintain their ... whatever effects on a long term scale.

Oh, I think most faerunians would mostly worship the good deities in order to ensure Good stays strong, to get their help and to get a nice afterlife... I just think that, once they got confirmation that Ao existed, he should have been made into a central figure in their culture. Sure, each person have their patron god, but Ao is above them, so it would make sense to revere him (and appease him, just in case he takes notice). People could build monuments to him, name institutions after him, write books about him...etc.

As for Factol Terrence, he doesn't make sense... If his "Great Unknown" is so powerful that it doesn't need minions, why does he believe that he is grating him spells? Because it just likes Terrence? Does Terrence believe that he has a personal, intimate relationship with the True God that nobody else share? If the Great Unknown, who is so powerful, approves of the Athar's work, why doesn't it just wipe the gods or tell everybody that they are frauds? Why would it need the Athar?

[krugaan]

Oh, I think most faerunians would mostly worship the good deities in order to ensure Good stays strong, to get their help and to get a nice afterlife... I just think that, once they got confirmation that Ao existed, he should have been made into a central figure in their culture. Sure, each person have their patron god, but Ao is above them, so it would make sense to revere him (and appease him, just in case he takes notice). People could build monuments to him, name institutions after him, write books about him...etc.

And yet they don't. Ao is basically non-existent as an active church, *despite* everyone knowing he's the Overgod. They also *know* he won't lift a finger to help anyone (for the most part). Thus, basically a non-entity. People (in FR) obviously would rather worship someone who would provide some kind of benefit.


As for Factol Terrence, he doesn't make sense... If his "Great Unknown" is so powerful that it doesn't need minions, why does he believe that he is grating him spells? Because it just likes Terrence? Does Terrence believe that he has a personal, intimate relationship with the True God that nobody else share? If the Great Unknown, who is so powerful, approves of the Athar's work, why doesn't it just wipe the gods or tell everybody that they are frauds? Why would it need the Athar?

Probably some evil god granting him spells, with the aim of undermining all gods? Or something. After all ... I don't think you necessarily know who is giving you the spells. You just ask one god in particular, and then get spells later.

[Clistenes]

Probably some evil god granting him spells, with the aim of undermining all gods? Or something. After all ... I don't think you necessarily know who is giving you the spells. You just ask one god in particular, and then get spells later.

Oh, how Terrence got his spells was explained in a module. What I think doesn't make sense is his mindset.

[krugaan]

Oh, how Terrence got his spells was explained in a module. What I think doesn't make sense is his mindset.

Lol. Probably not, but, well ... not everything is perfectly logical I guess.

"Yo dawg, I heard you don't want synthetics to kill organics, so I made synthetics to kill organics so that synthetics don't kill organics." -Mass Effect 3

[Mith]

Perhaps he believed that his logical deduction gave him the ability to tap into the fundamental powers of the universe in sense far beyond that of any other mortal, and this belief made him revere this theory of his to the point that it became faith-based knowledge, rather than just a logical conclusion.

[DigoDragon]

The fact that no one in the D&D universe has used the Undead as the perfect factory worker is beyond me.

This was a bonus point in a d20 Modern adventure! We were a team working for the FBI's paranormal department and were sent out to investigate a mine that had some unexplained sabotage done to their equipment. Local authority could not figure it out and the mine owner had pulled strings to get the Feds to take a look at it.

Separate from what was in that mine breaking the equipment, our team noticed some odd figures in the backgrounds of many workers. We found out that the mine owner is a necromancer and she was getting around union regulations by raising the dead and using illusions to disguise them as her workforce. Hilariously some of these undead were rather intelligent and knew of this plan, but went with it because the necromancer paid well. And just because you're undead, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy modern conveniences like cable TV, casinos (and in the case of the skeleton foreman) smoking a good Cuban cigar.

[krugaan]

This was a bonus point in a d20 Modern adventure! We were a team working for the FBI's paranormal department and were sent out to investigate a mine that had some unexplained sabotage done to their equipment. Local authority could not figure it out and the mine owner had pulled strings to get the Feds to take a look at it.

Separate from what was in that mine breaking the equipment, our team noticed some odd figures in the backgrounds of many workers. We found out that the mine owner is a necromancer and she was getting around union regulations by raising the dead and using illusions to disguise them as her workforce. Hilariously some of these undead were rather intelligent and knew of this plan, but went with it because the necromancer paid well. And just because you're undead, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy modern conveniences like cable TV, casinos (and in the case of the skeleton foreman) smoking a good Cuban cigar.

Hah, employer saves a fortune on health insurance.

[Carlobrand]

Keep in mind that technology is as much a matter of culture as anything else. The Greeks understood the concept of the steam engine. Hero of Alexandria in the first century AD did up a nice one - but it was basically a curiosity. They never improved on it or applied it to anything because they were quite satisfied with the solutions they already had: slaves and animals. Technological progress from the Renaissance forward wasn't just about curious people finding out how to do things - it was about a culture in which competing power interests were open to tapping into those ideas in order to advance their own interests or gain an edge on their opponents.

Two questions: what kind of tech are your engineers proposing, and do the actual characters have the knowledge to pull it off? If it's something a Greek or Roman could have done - variations on levers and gears and such - and the character's a smith or some such, you should probably let them try it. The Antykithera Mechanism was a marvelous machine for tracking astronomical phenomena, but it was just a bunch of very carefully crafted gears. However, there are alchemists instead of chemists in a D&D world because chemical interactions in a magical world typically have magical results. The formula for gunpowder could be an effective way of summoning infernal demons. (Keeping also in mind that, as Mythbusters showed us, knowing the formula for gunpowder and being able to produce something that did more than just sputter were two very different things.)

And, as others have pointed out, there's a huge difference between knowing the concept of something like a parachute and being able to make one with the available materials. A lot of Leonardo's ideas were brilliant, but many of the actual gadgets would have failed spectacularly given the materials he had available to work with. The typical answer to, "I want to make a ..." is often, "Okay, but you expect it will most likely break on the first use."

[VoxRationis]

And, as others have pointed out, there's a huge difference between knowing the concept of something like a parachute and being able to make one with the available materials. A lot of Leonardo's ideas were brilliant, but many of the actual gadgets would have failed spectacularly given the materials he had available to work with. The typical answer to, "I want to make a ..." is often, "Okay, but you expect it will most likely break on the first use."

This last bit is actually the main reason Hero's steam engine never took off. While social conditions weren't exactly encouraging of mechanization at the time, mostly it was the case that a steam engine with enough force behind it to be put to practical use would require metallurgical techniques that weren't invented yet. All Hero could make with what he had was something that spun around and used up all the water through jet propulsion—creating a system that functioned otherwise, as later steam engines did, was beyond what he had to work with.

[krugaan]

This last bit is actually the main reason Hero's steam engine never took off. While social conditions weren't exactly encouraging of mechanization at the time, mostly it was the case that a steam engine with enough force behind it to be put to practical use would require metallurgical techniques that weren't invented yet. All Hero could make with what he had was something that spun around and used up all the water through jet propulsion—creating a system that functioned otherwise, as later steam engines did, was beyond what he had to work with.

very true, although, depending on setting, there are a good deal of magical materials (cough adamantium cough) which seem to surpass real world examples.

[Clistenes]

very true, although, depending on setting, there are a good deal of magical materials (cough adamantium cough) which seem to surpass real world examples.

And as I said earlier in the thread, adamantine is f***ing expensive. In 3.5 a single adamantine firearm would cost 3000 gp, that is, 60 pounds/27 kilos and 216 grams of gold, as expensive as four wands of Magic Missile.

An adamantine steam engine able to say, pull a train would be several thousand times as expensive.

[SharkForce]

And as I said earlier in the thread, adamantine is f***ing expensive. In 3.5 a single adamantine firearm would cost 3000 gp, that is, 60 pounds/27 kilos and 216 grams of gold, as expensive as four wands of Magic Missile.

An adamantine steam engine able to say, pull a train would be several thousand times as expensive.

oh, much more than that. you pay for items by the pound... and even our modern efficient engines in just something like a car are extremely heavy, never mind an early train engine.

[krugaan]

yeah, I get that, it's just there MUST be some application for nigh-unbreakable or ultra-light materials in a low tech universe.

I just can't think of any off the top of my head. admittedly a lot of those things might be more useful in the real world...

[karolusb]

The DMG has rules for modern and futuristic firearms, there's no reason beyond metagaming that any given character couldn't invent more advanced technology than is present within the default setting. I.e. Your player knows how X works and the only reason their character figures something out is because the player knows how.

For me I tend to disagree. Ask our player is their character as smart as Newton. When the say yes, explain that they can spend their entire life inventing a handful of theorems, then after they die of old age roll a die to see if their work disseminates. After six or seven such characters and several hundred years of game time, boom, machine guns. Until then you can just continue the game as is.

This is not to say I hate the idea of advancement. Fantasy stagnation always seems weird, I mean we frequently have universities and great libraries, universal literacy etc. Advancement should probably be occurring (though that may well not be technological advancement, as much of that ends up being needs driven), but the idea that I want a gun so I will invent one based on knowledge I as a 20th century person possesses that my character couldn't is silly.

Even so, in all seriousness, let them makes checks, once a year or so. Set the DC to 40 - 1 for every great scientific work read in character. Each success let him craft a meaningful advancement towards his goal. Either a new aspect, or an improvement to an old aspect (1st check gunpowder made of dragon bones, third check gunpowder made of bird poop, 1st check barrel that deforms after three uses, 3rd check barrel that stands up to repeated abuse etc.). Some failures will be obvious, and others will be red herrings (not knowing the barrel design is flawed until use).

The big one of course will be hunting down great scientific works, many of which were lost in ancient chaos of one sort or another. Hints of long lost books resembling Archimedes "On the Method of Mechanical Theorems" becomes a lure too great to pass up.

Once you really get going a new brand of scholarship will have to emerge, unless the character wants to craft all that gunpowder on their own, they will need to train other people to understand the huge rambling documents they have written, and by the time they are done founding an academy of chemical and material sciences, they may realize that they have less use for a gun than they originally assumed.


"If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders [sic] of Giants." - Newton 1676

[AstralFire]

And as I said earlier in the thread, adamantine is f***ing expensive. In 3.5 a single adamantine firearm would cost 3000 gp, that is, 60 pounds/27 kilos and 216 grams of gold, as expensive as four wands of Magic Missile.

An adamantine steam engine able to say, pull a train would be several thousand times as expensive.

I wouldn't use 3.5e's prices as much of a guide for anything. To say that its notions of how economy might work in its default pastiche setting were quaint would be kind, and they were based first and foremost on a very loose and vague notion of design that tried to pass itself off as balance. I will grant that adamantine, mithral, firebrass, etc. are quite pricy, but these facts remain:


There are frequently people who can get their hands on a large quantity of these special metals.
You could use many of these metals in alloys rather than in a pure form.
That people know metal -can- get that hard can itself become impetus to speed and further the pace of metallurgical research.


There really is no situation short of fiat (on the part of the GM or a deity) where magic should not reasonably hasten technological growth rather than slow it, as is commonly assumed. I think arguments can be made for magic leading to less industrial (or in some cases even nomadic) civilizations, highly altering the type and speed of technology development -- but that's different.

[JoeJ]

very true, although, depending on setting, there are a good deal of magical materials (cough adamantium cough) which seem to surpass real world examples.

Adamantine is not available except as a found magic item. And the only thing we know about its properties is that it's extremely hard. We don't know anything about its strength in tension or shear.

[krugaan]

Adamantine is not available except as a found magic item.

wait, really? I know it doesn't give any properties for it explicitly except in the DMG as an item (same with mithral, I think), but im sure that wasn't an intentional thing... was it?


And the only thing we know about its properties is that it's extremely hard. We don't know anything about its strength in tension or shear.

true, but the whole schtick behind it is that's its essentially unbreakable. Im assuming it has exceptionally, ludicrously high both.

[hacksnake]

Adamantine is not available except as a found magic item. And the only thing we know about its properties is that it's extremely hard. We don't know anything about its strength in tension or shear.

DMG pg. 246 has interesting implications for how materials science works in D&D.

Material dictates AC.
Object size dictates HP.
Objects can be 'fragile' or 'resilient' seemingly regardless of materials used in construction & that also impacts HP.
Some Objects (again, seemingly having more to do with the sort of object and less to do with material) have damage resistance & can shrug off damage that isn't high enough (although I see no codification of DR values).

A 'fragile adamantine bottle' is just as easy to destroy as a 'fragile glass bottle' once you're dealing damage. It's just much more difficult to effectively apply the damage in the first place for some reason.

I'm not sure how you determine tension or shear strength of even iron or steel in D&D. For all we know they are made out of a blend of raw elemental earth and fire in harmonious balance rather than being made out of iron or iron, carbon, and other elements depending on the fabrication process.

I guess my points are:
It's a super common fantasy trope to have 'super materials' available.
D&D isn't a materials science simulation engine so of course these specific properties aren't spelled out. What's the point in even bringing it up?

[JoeJ]

wait, really? I know it doesn't give any properties for it explicitly except in the DMG as an item (same with mithral, I think), but im sure that wasn't an intentional thing... was it?

I don't believe adamantine appears anywhere in the game except as magic armor. By default, it's no more available to PCs than any other magic item with the same rarity.


true, but the whole schtick behind it is that's its essentially unbreakable. Im assuming it has exceptionally, ludicrously high both.

I'd make no assumptions about properties that aren't described. There are lots of materials that are much stronger against one kind of stress than against another, and if it's magic, it could be anything at all. This is ask your DM territory.

[krugaan]

I don't believe adamantine appears anywhere in the game except as magic armor. By default, it's no more available to PCs than any other magic item with the same rarity.

I'd make no assumptions about properties that aren't described. There are lots of materials that are much stronger against one kind of stress than against another, and if it's magic, it could be anything at all. This is ask your DM territory.

Bah humbug! We're talking conjecture anyway. "DM fiat" is a thought terminating cliché in a speculative thread.

Was adamantine specifically magical in earlier editions? I didn't play much 3.x. I know it had certain properties there, but I don't think explicitly physical properties like ductility were really explored or even vaguely described.

[hacksnake]

I don't believe adamantine appears anywhere in the game except as magic armor.

DMG pg. 246; it gives AC for Adamantine, iron/steel, & some other materials. Context is rules about how hard it is to damage objects made of various things.

[LordVonDerp]

Adamantine is not available except as a found magic item. And the only thing we know about its properties is that it's extremely hard. We don't know anything about its strength in tension or shear.

5000 kPa for shear yield.

[krugaan]

5000 kPa for shear yield.

After some Wikipedia browsing, that seems very low for an "unbreakable" material. Unless we're talking like a hair's thickness worth.

edit: wait, I guess Pa is area independent.

edit2: "steel" has a shear yield of ~21k psi / 145MPa

edit3: god, there's like 13212348197648 different terms for yield / stress / load

[LordVonDerp]

After some Wikipedia browsing, that seems very low for an "unbreakable" material. Unless we're talking like a hair's thickness worth.

edit: wait, I guess Pa is area independent.

edit2: "steel" has a shear yield of ~21k psi / 145MPa

edit3: god, there's like 13212348197648 different terms for yield / stress / load

I was going off the dwarf fortress wiki.

[krugaan]

I was going off the dwarf fortress wiki.

Ah, well, engineers they ain't apparently. 5000 MPa, maybe. Like, you shouldn't be able to cut adamantine wire with scissors, or even shears.

[georgie_leech]

Ah, well, engineers they ain't apparently. 5000 MPa, maybe. Like, you shouldn't be able to cut adamantine wire with scissors, or even shears.

DF has 430kPa for Steel at the moment, so relative values would put Adamantine at about 1686MPa if the scaling was the same.

[krugaan]

DF has 430kPa for Steel at the moment, so relative values would put Adamantine at about 1686MPa if the scaling was the same.

it possible im looking at the wrong value for shear strength.

Still, atmospheric pressure is like 130 kPa, soo...

[georgie_leech]

it possible im looking at the wrong value for shear strength.

Still, atmospheric pressure is like 130 kPa, soo...

As we've established, the makers of Dwarf Fortress aren't engineers. :smalltongue: My point is that if we're using them as a reference (I don't think we should as it's a different universe/game entirely), we should look at the relative strength of the materials rather than the direct numbers, as the direct numbers are suspect. Thus, assuming that the ratio between the shear strength of Steel and Adamantine is the same in 'real life' as in DF, we get about 1686MPa for Adamantine (5000kPa/1686MPa = 430kPa/145Mpa).

[krugaan]

As we've established, the makers of Dwarf Fortress aren't engineers. :smalltongue: My point is that if we're using them as a reference (I don't think we should as it's a different universe/game entirely), we should look at the relative strength of the materials rather than the direct numbers, as the direct numbers are suspect. Thus, assuming that the ratio between the shear strength of Steel and Adamantine is the same in 'real life' as in DF, we get about 1686MPa for Adamantine (5000kPa/1686MPa = 430kPa/145Mpa).

works for me. we need to translate 1686 MPa into some kind of "real" world example for it to make any sense, though.

1686 MPa = 122 tons / sq inch

is anyone an engineer here?

edit: after about an hour of trying, i have several answers which i know are wrong.

[georgie_leech]

If you're just looking for a quick comparison to help with visualization or reference, think about how hard it is to make steel shear (not sure why we're focusing on this particular quality, but meh). Adamantine is a little more than 10x harder than that. If you're looking for an actual explanation of what these numbers mean, I'm not an engineer, alas.

[krugaan]

If you're just looking for a quick comparison to help with visualization or reference, think about how hard it is to make steel shear (not sure why we're focusing on this particular quality, but meh). Adamantine is a little more than 10x harder than that. If you're looking for an actual explanation of what these numbers mean, I'm not an engineer, alas.

i was trying to visualize how many 2 ton cars you could suspend from the end of a 1m long 1"x1" arm of adamantite, but wading through this dense physics is quickly becoming confusing and frustrating.

short answer is ... more than 1 and probably less than 50.

[georgie_leech]

i was trying to visualize how many 2 ton cars you could suspend from the end of a 1m long 1"x1" arm of adamantite, but wading through this dense physics is quickly becoming confusing and frustrating.

short answer is ... more than 1 and probably less than 50.

And thus why engineers are so important. :smalltongue:

[Sigreid]

Going back to the original question, there may be no need to suppress what we think of as technology. Most of the theoretical physicists that I've seen talk about it on T.V. essentially say that the reason physics works exactly like it does in our universe is essentially arbitrary. No reason it has to work identically in another.

[LordVonDerp]

Going back to the original question, there may be no need to suppress what we think of as technology. Most of the theoretical physicists that I've seen talk about it on T.V. essentially say that the reason physics works exactly like it does in our universe is essentially arbitrary. No reason it has to work identically in another.

You can certainly have the physics work differently, it just means the world will look completely different.

[georgie_leech]

You can certainly have the physics work differently, it just means the world will look completely different.

Combine a highly explosive and reactive metal with toxic gas and you get table salt. Perhaps for whatever reason what would be gunpowder in our universe doesn't actually explode in D&D.

[Sigreid]

Combine a highly explosive and reactive metal with toxic gas and you get table salt. Perhaps for whatever reason what would be gunpowder in our universe doesn't actually explode in D&D.

Yep, and likewise magic could be just physics and chemistry by that universe's rules, entirely consistent within the rules of that universe.

[hacksnake]

And kind of going full circle for the thread... grant/assume that "magic is just how chemistry & physics works in D&D" how can you justify a 'classic' feudal middle ages world given those rules? How do you justify anything at all resembling any period of real world history?

Even select cantrips / 1st level spells which ought to be commonly available to even small settlements assuming default setting should ripple into huge socioeconomic impacts.

You could explain them, maybe, but it would take time and effort. It might actually provide some interesting adventure hooks.

Ex: Sure, we use [plant growth / brown mold refrigeration / purify food & drink / goodberry] to try to feed our entire population with a third or less of the labor of the real world but we have huge bribe requirements to send food to [the dragon / the giants / the trolls / ...] or else they will kill and eat us all.

Maybe a less exciting answer: produce is only half as effective as the real world so plant growth is required to produce the same amount of food as IRL. Society wouldn't function at all without the magic propping it up. Instead of finding Indus river valley and food crops with acceptable production levels this world found magic and uses it heavily behind the scenes in ways not spelled out in the core game.

Or, again full circle, maybe you all say "we all agreed that we're playing super heroes in middle ages Europe with magic and crazy monsters bolted on; stop trying to think about it like it's a real world". Nothing wrong with that if that's the game everyone wants to play. You avoid wasting time on justifications et cetera.

[EscherEnigma]

Oh, how Terrence got his spells was explained in a module. What I think doesn't make sense is his mindset.
Other then the "granting him spells" bit, it doesn't sound that unlike what many people believe on Earth. Heck, most of Earth's major religions, at one point or other, had the "only our priests have a relationship with the divine, so you have to use us as intermediaries" as a thing. IIRC, breaking that paradigm led to a schism in Christianity.

And when you move away from old formal religions with millions of followers and into cults, you find even more specific and weird beliefs.

So you can't understand his mindset? Okay. Doesn't mean it's not understandable though.

[VoxRationis]

And kind of going full circle for the thread... grant/assume that "magic is just how chemistry & physics works in D&D" how can you justify a 'classic' feudal middle ages world given those rules? How do you justify anything at all resembling any period of real world history?

Even select cantrips / 1st level spells which ought to be commonly available to even small settlements assuming default setting should ripple into huge socioeconomic impacts.

You could explain them, maybe, but it would take time and effort. It might actually provide some interesting adventure hooks.

Ex: Sure, we use [plant growth / brown mold refrigeration / purify food & drink / goodberry] to try to feed our entire population with a third or less of the labor of the real world but we have huge bribe requirements to send food to [the dragon / the giants / the trolls / ...] or else they will kill and eat us all.

Maybe a less exciting answer: produce is only half as effective as the real world so plant growth is required to produce the same amount of food as IRL. Society wouldn't function at all without the magic propping it up. Instead of finding Indus river valley and food crops with acceptable production levels this world found magic and uses it heavily behind the scenes in ways not spelled out in the core game.

Or, again full circle, maybe you all say "we all agreed that we're playing super heroes in middle ages Europe with magic and crazy monsters bolted on; stop trying to think about it like it's a real world". Nothing wrong with that if that's the game everyone wants to play. You avoid wasting time on justifications et cetera.

Magic as appears in the game rules is not the physics of the fantasy world; it is the technology of the game world, and we infer aspects about the physics from what we see in the magic. The magic is not static, necessarily, nor has it always been as it is in the setting's present. Magic might have been more well-developed in the setting's past, and the feudal structure with an agricultural focus may be the result of a breakdown in magical infrastructure (this is a common scenario, what with all the "lost magical empires" in many settings). Or perhaps magic was not so well-developed in the past, and society has not yet had time to catch up with its new capabilities. Or perhaps societal or logistical rules not mentioned in the gamebooks (because they don't really apply on the scale of wandering adventurers) prevent their widespread application, in the same fashion that the Giradoni air-rifle was useful for Lewis and Clark, but impractical for large-scale use.

[krugaan]

If magic is the technology of the dnd world, the only thing that's really strange is "why haven't they integrated magic with mass production".

Every single evil plan always involves *sacrificing* magic user to power some magical doom artifact of doom. Why not enslave / dominate / charm / pay a bunch of magic user to simply cast cantrips all day to build magical power? makes no damn sense. You could have a sustainable reusable work force instead of having to kidnap magic users all the time, thereby alerting the good guys to you plot.

[georgie_leech]

Magical Artifacts O' Doom always require an arbitrary number of souls to power. It's a standard part of the formula.

[VoxRationis]

There's probably some meta-magic effect that is required to combine small amounts of power in great number, rather than use one large effect at once, and it hasn't been invented yet.

To use an analogy, a crossbow with cranequin allows a weak person to store through gradual mechanical action enough energy to fire a bow well beyond their personal strength. The principle isn't that hard to grasp, and the need for it is immediate (every preindustrial society could benefit from allowing the old and the sick to contribute to combat in the way a crossbow allows). But not all do, because that requires the invention of several mechanical devices as prerequisites (the cranequin, the stay mechanism, the trigger mechanism, the bow itself), and many societies throughout history haven't been capable of that.

[krugaan]

Magical Artifacts O' Doom always require an arbitrary number of souls to power. It's a standard part of the formula.

Magical Artifacts of Doom Checklist

1) cannot have a clearly delineated ability set, yet ... doom.
2) must be powered by heinous, difficult to hide crimes of some sort
3) does not function without all components, yet requires destruction of all components to deactivate / destroy
4) a vague timetable for completion, which jumps ahead in direct proportion to how close the enemy is to foiling its creation

[krugaan]

There's probably some meta-magic effect that is required to combine small amounts of power in great number, rather than use one large effect at once, and it hasn't been invented yet.

To use an analogy, a crossbow with cranequin allows a weak person to store through gradual mechanical action enough energy to fire a bow well beyond their personal strength. The principle isn't that hard to grasp, and the need for it is immediate (every preindustrial society could benefit from allowing the old and the sick to contribute to combat in the way a crossbow allows). But not all do, because that requires the invention of several mechanical devices as prerequisites (the cranequin, the stay mechanism, the trigger mechanism, the bow itself), and many societies throughout history haven't been capable of that.

This is very true. It's pretty interesting to think of modern technology in terms of energy density (being able to pack enough energy into a small enough area), storage, and distribution (being able to use that energy to do work). With magic, i suppose there's lots of distribution methods (cough spells) and density, but there's kind of a lack of storage.

[Clistenes]

Other then the "granting him spells" bit, it doesn't sound that unlike what many people believe on Earth. Heck, most of Earth's major religions, at one point or other, had the "only our priests have a relationship with the divine, so you have to use us as intermediaries" as a thing. IIRC, breaking that paradigm led to a schism in Christianity.

And when you move away from old formal religions with millions of followers and into cults, you find even more specific and weird beliefs.

So you can't understand his mindset? Okay. Doesn't mean it's not understandable though.

What you say about "only our priests have a relationship with the divine, so you have to use us as intermediaries" is precisely one of the reasons Terrence lost his faith in Mishkahal: He believes a true divinity wouldn't need intermediaries.

Terrence was once the High Priest of Mishkahal. Unlike other Athar, he doesn't despise his former goddess, but greatly respects her. He lost faith in her divinity because she needed servants (priests and a church) and required prayer.

He theorized that a true God wouldn't need priests or proxies or other minions, and wouldn't have an use for prayer, so such creature wouldn't have any interaction with mortals, hence the "Great Unknown" name.

When he prays to the "Great Unknown" and gets spells in exchange, he is going directly against his own definition of a True God.

[hacksnake]

This is very true. It's pretty interesting to think of modern technology in terms of energy density (being able to pack enough energy into a small enough area), storage, and distribution (being able to use that energy to do work). With magic, i suppose there's lots of distribution methods (cough spells) and density, but there's kind of a lack of storage.

D&D, to me, seems unimaginably further ahead of the real world in this regard. The way magic items work it's as if IRL you had a battery that contained as much energy as you needed to power any device you had. Not only that - the battery never wore out. Never needed to be replaced. It just somehow tapped into a limitless latent energy source that permeated the entire universe. In the real world iron man is totally unrealistic because of energy accessibility issues. In D&D he's totally feasible given enough magic items with proper effects.

This is why it can be so difficult to suspend disbelief that the D&D world doesn't tend to be some post scarcity utopia / distopia as the case may be. Of course some of these assumptions may be faulty. Maybe 'the weave' (or what have you) isn't limitless. Maybe if you drain too much in a single area without allowing it time to recover you end up in a null magic zone temporarily. Maybe that's why ancient hyper advanced magical societies always fail.

What you don't have is generalized storage devices for magical power that can fuel different gizmos by connecting them up. Maybe it wouldn't be a stretch to have someone invent an "arcane accumulator" that could be connected to various otherwise inert magical devices... but at that point you're pretty much into full on magitech & such. Maybe magic simply doesn't work in such a way that you even can have a generalized device.

EDIT: maybe that's what you were saying with less words. I don't think storage matters so much if every device has a super battery built in, does it?

[krugaan]

D&D, to me, seems unimaginably further ahead of the real world in this regard. The way magic items work it's as if IRL you had a battery that contained as much energy as you needed to power any device you had. Not only that - the battery never wore out. Never needed to be replaced. It just somehow tapped into a limitless latent energy source that permeated the entire universe. In the real world iron man is totally unrealistic because of energy accessibility issues. In D&D he's totally feasible given enough magic items with proper effects.

This is why it can be so difficult to suspend disbelief that the D&D world doesn't tend to be some post scarcity utopia / distopia as the case may be. Of course some of these assumptions may be faulty. Maybe 'the weave' (or what have you) isn't limitless. Maybe if you drain too much in a single area without allowing it time to recover you end up in a null magic zone temporarily. Maybe that's why ancient hyper advanced magical societies always fail.

What you don't have is generalized storage devices for magical power that can fuel different gizmos by connecting them up. Maybe it wouldn't be a stretch to have someone invent an "arcane accumulator" that could be connected to various otherwise inert magical devices... but at that point you're pretty much into full on magitech & such. Maybe magic simply doesn't work in such a way that you even can have a generalized device.

EDIT: maybe that's what you were saying with less words. I don't think storage matters so much if every device has a super battery built in, does it?

Yeah, I'm a little sketchy on exactly how magic functions in DnD. It's vancian magic, not mana based, but the power has to come from somewhere, right? I guess that's the weave, but there's only vague notions of how the weave is distributed or whatever. I'm assuming magic items get their perpetual effects through by recharging through the weave, but yeah, energy density in DnD is bonkers.

For storage though, all we get is stuff like pearls of power, rings of spell storing, and staff of the magi (i think?).

Iron man could theoretically be realistic if that arc reactor or whatever he has in his chest has some ridiculous energy density. I'm no comic book fan, but does the suit use energy or force fields or something to stay stronger than steel?

[SharkForce]

What you say about "only our priests have a relationship with the divine, so you have to use us as intermediaries" is precisely one of the reasons Terrence lost his faith in Mishkahal: He believes a true divinity wouldn't need intermediaries.

Terrence was once the High Priest of Mishkahal. Unlike other Athar, he doesn't despise his former goddess, but greatly respects her. He lost faith in her divinity because she needed servants (priests and a church) and required prayer.

He theorized that a true God wouldn't need priests or proxies or other minions, and wouldn't have an use for prayer, so such creature wouldn't have any interaction with mortals, hence the "Great Unknown" name.

When he prays to the "Great Unknown" and gets spells in exchange, he is going directly against his own definition of a True God.

funny, you'd think the fact that the gods of krynn went something like 300 years with a negligible number of living worshipers would imply that the krynnish gods at the very least do not require worshipers, prayer, priests, or a church.

[EscherEnigma]

When he prays to the "Great Unknown" and gets spells in exchange, he is going directly against his own definition of a True God.
"You don't need a priest to talk to God for you, you can talk to God yourself! Also, I'm a priest, and you should talk to me to find out what God really wants."

Yeah, I'm not seeing that he's any more unreasonable then real people.

[Clistenes]

funny, you'd think the fact that the gods of krynn went something like 300 years with a negligible number of living worshipers would imply that the krynnish gods at the very least do not require worshipers, prayer, priests, or a church.

I think they elaborated that aspect of the gods in the Chaos War, Dragon Overlords, War of Souls and Dark Disciple. I'm not sure, I have only read the Chronicles trilogy, the Legends Trilogy and Puppet King.

[hacksnake]

Iron man could theoretically be realistic if that arc reactor or whatever he has in his chest has some ridiculous energy density. I'm no comic book fan, but does the suit use energy or force fields or something to stay stronger than steel?

My understanding is that the arc reactor itself is the biggest/first issue with the suit. Smaller than a soda can, requires no heat dissipation, and outperforms at least some nuclear reactors. Compare that to how magical items work in D&D.

The Ironman suit in D&D is basically just a collection of various magical items. Armor, strength girdle, truesight, assorted wands, some flying item, & that kind of thing.

You'd think you'd see non-combat advancements. You'd think those things would have huge socioeconomic impacts on the world. Given that D&D land doesn't seem to be blocked by energy limitations in the way that we are & they have more advanced technology in some regards (teleportation, creating matter from nothing, etc).

[Clistenes]

My understanding is that the arc reactor itself is the biggest/first issue with the suit. Smaller than a soda can, requires no heat dissipation, and outperforms at least some nuclear reactors. Compare that to how magical items work in D&D.

The Ironman suit in D&D is basically just a collection of various magical items. Armor, strength girdle, truesight, assorted wands, some flying item, & that kind of thing.

You'd think you'd see non-combat advancements. You'd think those things would have huge socioeconomic impacts on the world. Given that D&D land doesn't seem to be blocked by energy limitations in the way that we are & they have more advanced technology in some regards (teleportation, creating matter from nothing, etc).

Creating magic items is terribly expensive in D&D.

In second edition, you needed to expend Constitution points in order to make magic items. You were literally destroying your health. So spellcasters didn't make many magical items. The Thayans used human sacrifice to go around that, I think.

In third edition, you expend a lot of xp and money when making magical items. Adventurers loath to waste xp into crafting magical items for sale (better to use xp to level up and steal magical items from other people) while professional magical crafters don't earn enough xp to craft many magical items.

There are obscure feats (many of them third-party) to lower the costs, but adventurers usually would rather take feats that help them kill stuff better, and professional magical crafters aren't high level enough to take all those feats (and don't have the required caster level to create most magical items).

And even if you have the xp and take the crafting feats, the crafting rules are such that making many low power magical items is just as profitable (gp per hour of work) as making a single very powerful one, and finding buyers for the low-powered ones is easier, so nobody would make powerful magical items.

And of course, there is the fact that any 9th level spellcaster able to cast Fabricate can basically produce money at will, so past that level nobody works for money anymore.

In 5th edition you have to be quite high level to make most magical items, and it takes a long time to do it. The 1st level Acolyte in the MM can't craft anything at all, the Cult Fanatic, the Priest and the Druid can only craft Common and Uncommon items; the Mage can craft Rare items, but it takes 200 days for him to do so, so, why would he do that, when he can snap his fingers, cast Fabricate and become filthy rich in a second?

[hacksnake]

why would he do that, when he can snap his fingers, cast Fabricate and become filthy rich in a second?

Why do some engineers choose to work on medical devices instead of everyone talking the highest possible paying jobs?

People are complicated and have competing interests even internally.

[Clistenes]

Why do some engineers choose to work on medical devices instead of everyone talking the highest possible paying jobs?

People are complicated and have competing interests even internally.

Oh, I can see a wizard crafting magical items as part of an experiment, or for his own use, or as a gift for a loved one, or as an act of charity...

What I can't see is that wizard taking a job as a crafter of magical washing machines or magical fridges or magical TVs.

The difference between real life engineering and D&D magical crafting is, once you have designed a machine, factories churn them really fast and really cheaply. You don't need engineers to painstakingly build each TV, fridge, radio, washing machine, vacuum cleaner or whatever.

In the D&D world, you need a high level wizard to craft each magical item. He can't turn the work to machines, to commoners or acolytes. He has to do the work himself, and every time it is exactly as long and difficult as the previous one.

In the D&D world you need a Graham Bell to build every phone one by one, an Edison to build every lightbubble one by one, a Morse to build every telegraph one by one...

[SharkForce]

the 2nd AD&D "costs constitution" was highly overblown. a more accurate representation is that it *might* cost constitution, *if* you're making a permanent magical item, but still probably won't, because it's only a 5% chance, and even then that assumes you're using the spells enchant an item and permanency, which was only one of the ways you could make magic items listed in the core books, never mind later expansions; no other method that i'm aware of required that you lose constitution points to craft magic items.

as to why you'd craft magic items rather than just spamming fabricate, well, we generally abstract the economy of the world a great deal, but there rather quickly comes a time when you no longer have customers willing to buy suits of plate mail when you're making them in a single day rather than half a year, and you've got a lot of competition because many people will already *have* suits of armour passed down from their parents (in other words, you're pretty much selling to wealthy nobles and such if you're selling something that expensive, and many of them will have passed the suits down from the previous generation, or have blacksmiths that they employ already so they might as well have that blacksmith make a suit of armour for anyone that needs it during downtime).

it's reasonable to assume you can walk into a city and sell a suit of platemail without too much difficulty, so we abstract it... realistically, you should probably still need to find a buyer, but it takes away from the time available for other things that most people enjoy more, so we ignore that fact. that changes when you start selling a suit a day... especially if you're an NPC, since it is completely offscreen. suddenly, it becomes the focus of what you're doing rather than just being a side event.

in contrast, crafting magical items you'll have next to no competition for. now, 5e has a rather silly economy officially (+1 plate mail is cheaper than nonmagical plate mail, for example, and it is nearly impossible to sell magic items for their actual value for no good reason in spite of the fact that officially they're super rare items that should hold their value and then some), but if we ignore that we still have to recognize that logically there is a market for magic items (especially certain magic items that can be used to earn more money), and while demand for expensive minor improvements to magical gear is quite low, the supply is going to be even lower in most cases. sure, there aren't a ton of people who can afford a +1 longsword, but many of the people who can afford one and would like to have one, don't have one. and even if the market for +1 longswords is filled, maybe there's room in the market for +1 short swords, or +1 long bows, or +1 crossbows, or +1 arrows, or potions of fire resistance, or wands of web, etc.

[hacksnake]

In the D&D world you need a Graham Bell to build every phone one by one, an Edison to build every lightbubble one by one, a Morse to build every telegraph one by one...

Even if we go with that (seems like it could be reasonable enough although what SharkForce wrote also seems reasonable enough) magical items are durable goods never breaking in the course of normal use and a number of them could benefit an entire community rather than an individual.

To stick with your analogy - Bell needs to make every telephone one by one and he happened to make one for this village and it's been a communal resource that they have all benefited from for generations now.

Just as a thought experiment I was curious how magic items could compare to real world ancient civilization "great feats".

How about aqueducts vs. decanters of endless water? I don't know a lot about the history; I'll trust wikipedia:
Roman aqueduct (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_aqueduct)
Aqua Marcia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_Marcia)
Sestertius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesterce)

According to these sources Aqua Marcia took 2 years and 180,000,000 sesterces to construct. I had no clue what a sestertius was but it sounds like it's basically SP in DND terms. Aqua Marcia could deliver 49,600,000 US gal per day.

So 18,000,000 GP to deliver 49,600,000 US gal per day supporting a capitol city. Got it.

Decanter of Endless Water is an uncommon item costing 500gp to build & you need to be a 3rd level caster to work on it. So how many decanters to equal 49.6 million gallons a day?

Highest output is 30 US gal / 6 seconds. 300 gal / minute (10 rounds). 18,000 gal / hour. 432,000 gal / day. So divide it out you need 115 decanters to at least equal Aqua Marcia.

What would that cost? 57,500 gp without counting labor. How long would it take? 2,300 man-days. If we want the same two year (730 day) delivery schedule then we need 3.15 mages; call it 4 and give them some holiday time.

Ok so after raw materials cost I have 17,942,500 GP left in my budget to pay 4 3rd level casters to work for 2 years.
Can I hire a 3rd level caster for 4,485,625 gp for 2 years (rounded up to: 6,144.7 GP / day)?
5e doesn't seem to have a table for it but I expect I could get by paying significantly less than that.

So I get a more durable water supply. I am less prone to attacks (I don't need to protect 91km of aquaduct from giants). I (probably) spend way less money. I slightly over produce the water I need anyway.

Even if I'm wrong and a sestertius is more like a CP than a SP I think 614 GP / day is probably more than enough to hire 3rd level casters.

[Clistenes]

the 2nd AD&D "costs constitution" was highly overblown. a more accurate representation is that it *might* cost constitution, *if* you're making a permanent magical item, but still probably won't, because it's only a 5% chance, and even then that assumes you're using the spells enchant an item and permanency, which was only one of the ways you could make magic items listed in the core books, never mind later expansions; no other method that i'm aware of required that you lose constitution points to craft magic items.

as to why you'd craft magic items rather than just spamming fabricate, well, we generally abstract the economy of the world a great deal, but there rather quickly comes a time when you no longer have customers willing to buy suits of plate mail when you're making them in a single day rather than half a year, and you've got a lot of competition because many people will already *have* suits of armour passed down from their parents (in other words, you're pretty much selling to wealthy nobles and such if you're selling something that expensive, and many of them will have passed the suits down from the previous generation, or have blacksmiths that they employ already so they might as well have that blacksmith make a suit of armour for anyone that needs it during downtime).

it's reasonable to assume you can walk into a city and sell a suit of platemail without too much difficulty, so we abstract it... realistically, you should probably still need to find a buyer, but it takes away from the time available for other things that most people enjoy more, so we ignore that fact. that changes when you start selling a suit a day... especially if you're an NPC, since it is completely offscreen. suddenly, it becomes the focus of what you're doing rather than just being a side event.

in contrast, crafting magical items you'll have next to no competition for. now, 5e has a rather silly economy officially (+1 plate mail is cheaper than nonmagical plate mail, for example, and it is nearly impossible to sell magic items for their actual value for no good reason in spite of the fact that officially they're super rare items that should hold their value and then some), but if we ignore that we still have to recognize that logically there is a market for magic items (especially certain magic items that can be used to earn more money), and while demand for expensive minor improvements to magical gear is quite low, the supply is going to be even lower in most cases. sure, there aren't a ton of people who can afford a +1 longsword, but many of the people who can afford one and would like to have one, don't have one. and even if the market for +1 longswords is filled, maybe there's room in the market for +1 short swords, or +1 long bows, or +1 crossbows, or +1 arrows, or potions of fire resistance, or wands of web, etc.

There aren't many people able to cast Fabricate, and most of them are Wizards with Int 14 at least, so they probably are smart enough to not saturate the market. Also, most of the stuff that can be made by anyone with Fabricate is perishable: linen, cotton and wool cloth, soap, oil, ink, paper...etc. You can only make stuff like armor, weapons and glassware if you have the skill, so most Wizards won't compete with each other, since each will have a different crafting skill.

Not to mention that, since the assumption is that prices haven't crashed and the streets aren't full of Wizard-hating unemployed workers, we can safely come to the conclusion that Wizards aren't saturating the market.

But even taking it into account, if the market really gets saturated and the Wizard has to turn to magical crafting to get money, it would be more profitable to produce Common or even Uncommon magical items, which many wealthy people can afford, are produced faster, and can be produced on demand (so you don't have to sell that fancy wand for half its base price), than spend 200 days making a Rare magical item that almost nobody can buy and that you will probably have to sell for about half the cost of making it.


Even if we go with that (seems like it could be reasonable enough although what SharkForce wrote also seems reasonable enough) magical items are durable goods never breaking in the course of normal use and a number of them could benefit an entire community rather than an individual.

To stick with your analogy - Bell needs to make every telephone one by one and he happened to make one for this village and it's been a communal resource that they have all benefited from for generations now.

Just as a thought experiment I was curious how magic items could compare to real world ancient civilization "great feats".

How about aqueducts vs. decanters of endless water? I don't know a lot about the history; I'll trust wikipedia:
Roman aqueduct (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_aqueduct)
Aqua Marcia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_Marcia)
Sestertius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesterce)

According to these sources Aqua Marcia took 2 years and 180,000,000 sesterces to construct. I had no clue what a sestertius was but it sounds like it's basically SP in DND terms. Aqua Marcia could deliver 49,600,000 US gal per day.

So 18,000,000 GP to deliver 49,600,000 US gal per day supporting a capitol city. Got it.

Decanter of Endless Water is an uncommon item costing 500gp to build & you need to be a 3rd level caster to work on it. So how many decanters to equal 49.6 million gallons a day?

Highest output is 30 US gal / 6 seconds. 300 gal / minute (10 rounds). 18,000 gal / hour. 432,000 gal / day. So divide it out you need 115 decanters to at least equal Aqua Marcia.

What would that cost? 57,500 gp without counting labor. How long would it take? 2,300 man-days. If we want the same two year (730 day) delivery schedule then we need 3.15 mages; call it 4 and give them some holiday time.

Ok so after raw materials cost I have 17,942,500 GP left in my budget to pay 4 3rd level casters to work for 2 years.
Can I hire a 3rd level caster for 4,485,625 gp for 2 years (rounded up to: 6,144.7 GP / day)?
5e doesn't seem to have a table for it but I expect I could get by paying significantly less than that.

So I get a more durable water supply. I am less prone to attacks (I don't need to protect 91km of aquaduct from giants). I (probably) spend way less money. I slightly over produce the water I need anyway.

Even if I'm wrong and a sestertius is more like a CP than a SP I think 614 GP / day is probably more than enough to hire 3rd level casters.

Yes, that's reasonable.

However, stuff like trains and planes and steam boats would probably be Legendary.

Unless you can put together a bunch of Uncommon and Rare magical items and build a big engine (which I bet somebody in the boards is already trying to do)... but even then, how many Wands of Fireball do you need to build an explosion engine that goes at 500 rpm? That's a lot of explosions per day...

[SharkForce]

competing with others isn't the problem. when you're producing those goods at over 100 times the usual rate, you start competing with yourself.

you can probably sell one suit of plate mail in a city you come to no problem. you can probably sell 2 or 3 suits with some difficulty. if you are in a city and try to sell 4 suits of platemail per day, you are very quickly going to reach a point where all the people who want a suit of platemail and can afford it, have a suit of platemail, because there simply isn't enough demand for even one wizard to pump out platemail for.

that will basically be the situation for *any* big-ticket item that can be crafted by a fairly large number of people (in this specific case, people who are proficient with blacksmith tools). you can probably sell a few quickly, but then the demand has been filled. the locals who make armour will have already filled most of the demand already.

that problem still *could* happen with magic items, especially if there are several powerful spellcasters making those items. but it is much less likely, because there simply aren't nearly as many powerful spellcasters around.

[Clistenes]

competing with others isn't the problem. when you're producing those goods at over 100 times the usual rate, you start competing with yourself.

you can probably sell one suit of plate mail in a city you come to no problem. you can probably sell 2 or 3 suits with some difficulty. if you are in a city and try to sell 4 suits of platemail per day, you are very quickly going to reach a point where all the people who want a suit of platemail and can afford it, have a suit of platemail, because there simply isn't enough demand for even one wizard to pump out platemail for.

that will basically be the situation for *any* big-ticket item that can be crafted by a fairly large number of people (in this specific case, people who are proficient with blacksmith tools). you can probably sell a few quickly, but then the demand has been filled. the locals who make armour will have already filled most of the demand already.

that problem still *could* happen with magic items, especially if there are several powerful spellcasters making those items. but it is much less likely, because there simply aren't nearly as many powerful spellcasters around.

Well, a Wizard high level enough to cast Fabricate is high enough to cast Teleport and Tongues. You can sell your armor and weapons all around the world.

Also, while few Wizards will be able to produce Plate Armor (due to their lack of proficiency as blacksmiths), all can produce paper, linen and wool cloth, lamp oil, ink, soap and candles, all of which are perishable, and some of these stuff has a nice price per weight ratio (any spellcaster can explicitly weave linen from flax, and a single casting would produce a benefit of around 13862,5 gp, taking into acount 10 cubic feet of linen contains about about 5545 square-yard pieces of cloth; paper and ink would be even more profitable). You can teleport to cities and large towns and sell your wares all around the continent.

[hacksnake]

However, stuff like trains and planes and steam boats would probably be Legendary.


I'd think we would see functional equivalents more than straight up magical replacements.

So while I think literally inventing a gun or train or airplane is somewhat unlikely in a D&D setting it seems perfectly reasonable to me that equivalents would exist.

Trains, for example, are already canon in the default setting. They just happen to be teleportation circles. Specifically the permanent ones.

Comparing the cost of building a railroad vs equivalent infrastructure using teleportation circles would be interesting. Maybe some other infrastructure would be required to fill in the 'last mile' so to speak (extensions / spurs? I'm not fully up on my train lingo).

EDIT: Reference: DMG pg. 24.

Permanent teleportation circle requires casting teleportation circle in the same spot every day for a year. So 365 castings of a 5th level spell.
Each casting also requires 50 gp of materials.

Again, DMG/PHB don't seem to provide a formula for cost of casting spells above level 1 or 2. However it we look at adventurer's league information there are spell casting services for two 5th level spells: Greater Restoration 450 gp & Raise Dead 1250gp although that includes the 500gp material components. From this we can guess that 5th level spells cost somewhere between 450 gp & 750 gp.

So creating a permanent circle (assuming caster availability) would cost some where from:
182,500 gp to 292,000 gp.

I'm finding wildly different reports on what the transcontinental railroad cost to build ($36M - $60M; $50M seems like a common estimate). Let's go with $50,000,000. I'm having trouble easily finding the count of initial stops along the way.

Building on more assumptions...
US dollar = 1 gp & cost / circle is 292,000 gp then 50,000,000 gp = 171 circles.
US dollar = 1 gp & cost / circle is 182,500 gp then 50,000,000 gp = 273 circles.
Multiply by 10 stops if US dollar is more likely to have been a sp. I really don't know. Probably need to compare unskilled labor rates in the 1800s vs. gp rates in D&D.
Reduce stops etc if US dollar was worth more than 1 gp.

This is back of the napkin cost at best. You'd need to secure the sites for a year (although the costs of ongoing security of the railways is not factored in either etc so maybe it's fair to call that stuff a wash).

I think the TL;DR is - permanent teleportation circle networks are well within the expected realm of possibility of successful empires. Certainly as feasible as the main backbone of railway infrastructure. Last mile infrastructure still probably remains non-magical or less expensive magic.

[AstralFire]

I'd think we would see functional equivalents more than straight up magical replacements.

So while I think literally inventing a gun or train or airplane is somewhat unlikely in a D&D setting it seems perfectly reasonable to me that equivalents would exist.

Trains, for example, are already canon in the default setting. They just happen to be teleportation circles. Specifically the permanent ones.

Comparing the cost of building a railroad vs equivalent infrastructure using teleportation circles would be interesting. Maybe some other infrastructure would be required to fill in the 'last mile' so to speak (extensions / spurs? I'm not fully up on my train lingo).

Teleportation circles are -stupidly- cheap as presented. In my Renaissance-Industrial Age hybrid setting, I had to associate a lot of additional costs with their upkeep when used for high volume traffic in order to prevent the world from shooting straight past Eberron. I can't wait to see what Eberron proper does with it.

[hacksnake]

Teleportation circles are -stupidly- cheap as presented. In my Renaissance-Industrial Age hybrid setting, I had to associate a lot of additional costs with their upkeep when used for high volume traffic in order to prevent the world from shooting straight past Eberron. I can't wait to see what Eberron proper does with it.

Edited my post to add some sketchy math while you posted :).

Yeah. I think my summary opinion is it's totally realistic for medium-large cities to contain permanent circle(s) although there is still an opening for "last mile" transportation from these hubs out to smaller cities and towns of various size (if smaller settlements exist).

More thoughts if someone wanted actual trains: combined strength of numerous animated objects might be superior to trying to build a magically powered steam engine. Then you also ditch the requirement to carry any fuel or water along for the ride as well. I think in previous editions people did firewall steam engine math and it was absurd; not sure if that ports to 5e or not.

[VoxRationis]

Remember that in this edition, teleportation circles are not constantly active, but merely set destinations for a spell that still has to be individually cast. So that estimate you have, hacksnake, comes out at a bit low, because there's still a pretty cost per use of the circle (both in paying the mage to cast and in providing the materials for said casting).

[AstralFire]

Remember that in this edition, teleportation circles are not constantly active, but merely set destinations for a spell that still has to be individually cast. So that estimate you have, hacksnake, comes out at a bit low, because there's still a pretty cost per use of the circle (both in paying the mage to cast and in providing the materials for said casting).

Unless I very much misread something, a permanent teleportation circle both serves as a set destination for the spell and itself has a constantly active portal.


Edited my post to add some sketchy math while you posted :).

Yeah. I think my summary opinion is it's totally realistic for medium-large cities to contain permanent circle(s) although there is still an opening for "last mile" transportation from these hubs out to smaller cities and towns of various size (if smaller settlements exist).

More thoughts if someone wanted actual trains: combined strength of numerous animated objects might be superior to trying to build a magically powered steam engine. Then you also ditch the requirement to carry any fuel or water along for the ride as well. I think in previous editions people did firewall steam engine math and it was absurd; not sure if that ports to 5e or not.

It is realistic, and though I used different math to come at the answer than you (I compared it against the cost of horses and monthly living expenses to help get an idea of what empires can afford) my conclusion was fairly similar -- so I added upkeep charges as I wanted only the biggest of big cities to have teleport circles and I wanted them to primarily be used for VIP transport, with most shipping over traditional methods.

As far as trains go, I prefer more fanciful stuff like the lightning rail or that mass of animated objects you suggested; I never thought steam as a power source was all that cool even though I like the clockwork gear aesthetic.

[CantigThimble]

Unless I very much misread something, a permanent teleportation circle both serves as a set destination for the spell and itself has a constantly active portal.

It's really odd wording and I read it the same way as you did at first. Try reading the spell again assuming 'permanent teleportation circle' refers to a permanently available destination rather than a permanently active circle.

[SharkForce]

Remember that in this edition, teleportation circles are not constantly active, but merely set destinations for a spell that still has to be individually cast. So that estimate you have, hacksnake, comes out at a bit low, because there's still a pretty cost per use of the circle (both in paying the mage to cast and in providing the materials for said casting).

there's plenty of ongoing costs in running a train, too. coal isn't free, maintenance of the tracks isn't free, paying your employees isn't free, repairs for the trains isn't free, protecting the trains from bandits isn't free.

in-setting, it costs 2 gp per guard per day, plus 2 gp per trained teamster for a wagon per day, to run a caravan. assuming a fairly minimal caravan of 1 wagon with 2 guards and a person to drive the wagon (not really enough to stop any serious bandits, practically speaking), you're looking at 6 gp per day... that can add up fairly quickly. a teleportation circle for such a caravan would not be worth it for any trip under 83 days (longer if we go with 750 gp instead of 450 gp as the cost for the spell slot). of course, if we make it 5 wagons and 10 guards, you're looking at any trip of more than 16 days, and i think that's a lot more probable size for a caravan, though i imagine it's a bit tricky to organize the caravan to pile on through a portal so quickly (and presumably you'd need a lot of unskilled laborers or possibly mules to carry the load through the teleportation circle, since no mention of taking vehicles exists... fortunately, unskilled labour is pretty cheap). in theory, you can cram in everyone that can fit within a dash radius of the circle... 60 feet for humans, 70 feet for wood elves, 50 feet for dwarves. that's a pretty large caravan you can fit.

and of course, you have to factor in the potential increase in value... there's plenty of goods that lose in value over time.

it doesn't seem that unreasonable to assume teleportation circle trade routes to me, at least.

[hacksnake]

Remember that in this edition, teleportation circles are not constantly active, but merely set destinations for a spell that still has to be individually cast. So that estimate you have, hacksnake, comes out at a bit low, because there's still a pretty cost per use of the circle (both in paying the mage to cast and in providing the materials for said casting).

Good call; I completely missed that. So instead of railways we build permanent teleportation circles.

Then instead of trains we build homebrew helms of teleportation that cast teleportation circle instead of teleport I suppose?

Overtime helms never wear out and don't require refueling. I suppose you'd need to account for some level of theft & bake that into your operating expenses.

Looks like an individual steam engine cost between $1,800 and $5,000 (random untrustworthy internet sources). Rare items cost 5,000 gp + caster salary to construct. Due to disparity in operating expenses I would feel comfortable calling this close enough to a wash in terms of feasibility over time (higher construction costs, 0 operating/fuel cost, lower staff requirements for operation).

[EscherEnigma]

Huh. So magical engineering can meet an ancient city's need for water and replace the railroad. What about for modern cities though?

I don't have numbers on a modern water system, but comparing modern airlines to our teleportation circle network...

A Boeing 737 can carry 144 people from NYC to LA. The cheap tickets go for about $300/person, or $43,200 per flight.
Assuming the cost of setting up the permanent circles is a sunk cost, a single casting of Teleportation Circle is about 500 gp (50 gp component + 450 gp casting fee) or 800 gp (750 gp casting fee). Now, if we aren't doing the absolute maximum for bulk transport (swarm of people through that tiny portal expecting no collisions to slow people down) but a more simple column, we can get 2 columns of people, 12 people deep (or 10 ft. x 60 ft.) through. Possibly with grandma in a wheelchair.
So the spell is 500 or 800 gp for 24 people, aka 21 gp/person or 34 gp/person.

Our teleportation circle also requires 6 castings vs. 1 flight, so our economy will require more wizards then the real economy requires pilots.

Another question... it takes 18,250 gp to make a new circle in raw components. The wizard's services brings that to 182,250 gp or 292,000 gp for a new circle assuming you don't get a discount on the wizard being on retainer versus casting each spell on commission. If you slap on a 5gp "network fee" or something, that's 36,450 to 58,400 people buying tickets before you can afford a new circle. From a news article, there were expectatinos of 17,000,000 passengers from Dec 18th to Jan 3rd this past holiday season.

So yeah. Distributing the circle cost among the passengers? You can recoup that cost pretty quickly, even if you're effectively subsidizing remote circles with the more affluent "flights".

There is, however, the question of "do we have enough wizards"? A 9th level wizard can cast it once, a 9th level sorcerer can cast it twice (with sorcery points). Both at 10 can cast it three times. So assuming a pilot makes the NYC<->LA flight once per day, we need two wizards to get the same throughput. And that's just counting passengers, if the plane was taking any cargo in addition to passengers that's still unaccounted for.

So to summarize...

$300/person for a flight from NYC to LA. 21 or 34 gp/person for a teleport circle from NYC TO LA.
So at $14/gp or more (low estimate) or $9/gp or more (high estimate) the teleport circle network can match, for passengers anyway, the airlines for a modern nation. With at least twice as many wizards working for the airlines as pilots. Of course, a wizard using their 5th level slots for the travel network still has most of the working day, so it's not like it'll be a huge burden on them (just their 5th level or higher slots) allowing them to still engage in all sorts of other work.

[hacksnake]

$300/person for a flight from NYC to LA. 21 or 34 gp/person for a teleport circle from NYC TO LA.
So at $14/gp or more (low estimate) or $9/gp or more (high estimate) the teleport circle network can match, for passengers anyway, the airlines for a modern nation. With at least twice as many wizards working for the airlines as pilots. Of course, a wizard using their 5th level slots for the travel network still has most of the working day, so it's not like it'll be a huge burden on them (just their 5th level or higher slots) allowing them to still engage in all sorts of other work.

Awesome!

Allow for 'helms of teleportation circle' & you have a way to scale wizards better for castings & use relatively unskilled labor instead of high end wizard time to do the actually people moving.

Likewise if the helms count for "casting daily" requirement you can reduce spell casting fees on new circle setup.

[SharkForce]

it is also worth noting that you can use a teleport circle *from* anywhere to a circle.

[Segev]

If I understand the spell correctly - and I may not - teleportation circle is used to get from anywhere to specific locations (specified by permanent teleportation circles). If you cast it every day in the same spot for a year, it becomes a permanent teleportation circle...but that just makes it a valid destination for teleportation circle; it doesn't actually let you go from it to anywhere else without a spell being cast.

[Clistenes]

Huh. So magical engineering can meet an ancient city's need for water and replace the railroad. What about for modern cities though?

I don't have numbers on a modern water system, but comparing modern airlines to our teleportation circle network...

A Boeing 737 can carry 144 people from NYC to LA. The cheap tickets go for about $300/person, or $43,200 per flight.
Assuming the cost of setting up the permanent circles is a sunk cost, a single casting of Teleportation Circle is about 500 gp (50 gp component + 450 gp casting fee) or 800 gp (750 gp casting fee). Now, if we aren't doing the absolute maximum for bulk transport (swarm of people through that tiny portal expecting no collisions to slow people down) but a more simple column, we can get 2 columns of people, 12 people deep (or 10 ft. x 60 ft.) through. Possibly with grandma in a wheelchair.
So the spell is 500 or 800 gp for 24 people, aka 21 gp/person or 34 gp/person.

Our teleportation circle also requires 6 castings vs. 1 flight, so our economy will require more wizards then the real economy requires pilots.

Another question... it takes 18,250 gp to make a new circle in raw components. The wizard's services brings that to 182,250 gp or 292,000 gp for a new circle assuming you don't get a discount on the wizard being on retainer versus casting each spell on commission. If you slap on a 5gp "network fee" or something, that's 36,450 to 58,400 people buying tickets before you can afford a new circle. From a news article, there were expectatinos of 17,000,000 passengers from Dec 18th to Jan 3rd this past holiday season.

So yeah. Distributing the circle cost among the passengers? You can recoup that cost pretty quickly, even if you're effectively subsidizing remote circles with the more affluent "flights".

There is, however, the question of "do we have enough wizards"? A 9th level wizard can cast it once, a 9th level sorcerer can cast it twice (with sorcery points). Both at 10 can cast it three times. So assuming a pilot makes the NYC<->LA flight once per day, we need two wizards to get the same throughput. And that's just counting passengers, if the plane was taking any cargo in addition to passengers that's still unaccounted for.

So to summarize...

$300/person for a flight from NYC to LA. 21 or 34 gp/person for a teleport circle from NYC TO LA.
So at $14/gp or more (low estimate) or $9/gp or more (high estimate) the teleport circle network can match, for passengers anyway, the airlines for a modern nation. With at least twice as many wizards working for the airlines as pilots. Of course, a wizard using their 5th level slots for the travel network still has most of the working day, so it's not like it'll be a huge burden on them (just their 5th level or higher slots) allowing them to still engage in all sorts of other work.

That system requires many, many 9th level wizards or sorcerers to work. I guess that eventually, a sufficiently rich and advanced culture could produce enough wizards, but if you start at medieval level of development it will take centuries to reach that point.

Also, you have to take into account that those wizards could use their 5th level spell slot to do stuff like Contact Other Plane or Fabricate, Scrying or Legend Lore, so there would be competition for the adquisition of their services.

[Beleriphon]

The fact that no one in the D&D universe has used the Undead as the perfect factory worker is beyond me.

RulesJD meet Karranth, Karrnath meet RulesJD. Seriously, Eberron actually answers a good number of why doesn't X exist in D&D? And the answer is that in Eberron it probably does. For example there are bridges in Sharn that cast feather fall on anybody that goes over one, the Karns make Karnnathi zombies and skeletons from their slain warriors. The Kundarak dwarves use extradimensional pockets to create ultrasecure but accessible from many locations banks.

[SharkForce]

That system requires many, many 9th level wizards or sorcerers to work. I guess that eventually, a sufficiently rich and advanced culture could produce enough wizards, but if you start at medieval level of development it will take centuries to reach that point.

Also, you have to take into account that those wizards could use their 5th level spell slot to do stuff like Contact Other Plane or Fabricate, Scrying or Legend Lore, so there would be competition for the adquisition of their services.

honestly, it really doesn't require that many.

if you have one wizard who can cast this spell, who then lives for, say, 20 more years, you'd have a network of 20 teleport circles (and one filthy stinking rich wizard). that certainly isn't an all-encompassing network, but it's a pretty good start.

now imagine this process started, oh, say, 10 (human) generations ago of 20 years per generation, and there's a small wizards guild with, say, 3 wizards acting at any given time working on this project, and for some reason that number hasn't increased. now you have 600 network locations. although, to be perfectly honest, i really doubt you'd need that many to get pretty comprehensive coverage, and in fact you'd probably have to stop well before 600 locations in an empire were used unless you actually did start putting more than one per city by placing one in major temples and similar.

[EscherEnigma]

That system requires many, many 9th level wizards or sorcerers to work. I guess that eventually, a sufficiently rich and advanced culture could produce enough wizards, but if you start at medieval level of development it will take centuries to reach that point.
Eh, I'm not so sure about "centuries".

But let's look at the numbers. Using modern America as what we're trying to match...

There are something like 800 million passengers to/from/within the US each year. If we estimate that our working Wizards are doing three Teleport Circles a day, each at my reduced "not packing them like sardines" full capacity (24 people), working five days a week, a wizard will move 72 people per day, 360 per week, and 18,720 a year. So 800,000,000 passengers per year / 18,720 passengers per year per Working Wizard = 42,736 working Wizards to make this work, not counting vacation days, or non-full teleports.

The US has roughly 310,000,000 people, so that 42,736 wizards represent approximately 0.0138% of the population.

Could we expect that many wizards in a modern America + D&D ubiquitous magic? Well, if our core assumption is magical advancements and engineering replacing technology, it seems safe to assume that most people going to college/university/what-not would be training as wizards of different focuses. ~30% of US adults over 25 currently have bachenlor's degrees or higher, ~11% have a master's degree or higher, and ~3% have doctorate/professional degree. And while I don't think we can make a straight-up comparison between educational attainment and levels, I think that shows that when you have a large enough education system you can churn out that many educated and skilled people which, in our Earth + D&D Magic concept means wizards.

So I don't think that 0.0138% of the population working as Wizard Teleporters is that much of a stretch. Especially since without all the engineers, mechanics, construction and so-on that planes need, that comparable pricing for the Wizard is mostly going straight into their pocket. If they get even half of their $300/person fair, at teleporting 18,720 people a year they'll rake in
almost $3,000,000 a year. For maybe half an hour's work a day.

So I think our working Wizards at United Etherlines will be more then happy with the compensation for their time, and it'll be a sought after steady job.

[Iguanodon]

Going back to the original question, I think I have a response to how magic prevents technology that hasn't been said yet.

In my campaign world, only micro-scale technology and any tech relying on electricity are prevented by magic. Why? Because technology relies on the predictability of the laws of nature. In D&D, magic (divine OR arcane) has unpredictable effects on the world, especially at the atomic level. Any world where the spell Enlarge/Reduce exists has to have fundamentally different nanoscale physical laws (perhaps due to some sort of magical field which can be interacted with from other planes of existence which are outside the universe itself).

For the sake of everyone's sanity, mesoscale physics works similarly to the real world. As such, anything involving steam power, or cogs, or gyroscopes, or exploding dust in a metal tube, etc. would work. But circuitry is impossible.

Combine this with a series of magical apocalypses and you have yourself a consistent system, I think. Perhaps it's not what FR uses, but it works for me.

Thoughts?

[VoxRationis]

Eh, I'm not so sure about "centuries".

But let's look at the numbers. Using modern America as what we're trying to match...

There are something like 800 million passengers to/from/within the US each year. If we estimate that our working Wizards are doing three Teleport Circles a day, each at my reduced "not packing them like sardines" full capacity (24 people), working five days a week, a wizard will move 72 people per day, 360 per week, and 18,720 a year. So 800,000,000 passengers per year / 18,720 passengers per year per Working Wizard = 42,736 working Wizards to make this work, not counting vacation days, or non-full teleports.

The US has roughly 310,000,000 people, so that 42,736 wizards represent approximately 0.0138% of the population.

Could we expect that many wizards in a modern America + D&D ubiquitous magic? Well, if our core assumption is magical advancements and engineering replacing technology, it seems safe to assume that most people going to college/university/what-not would be training as wizards of different focuses. ~30% of US adults over 25 currently have bachenlor's degrees or higher, ~11% have a master's degree or higher, and ~3% have doctorate/professional degree. And while I don't think we can make a straight-up comparison between educational attainment and levels, I think that shows that when you have a large enough education system you can churn out that many educated and skilled people which, in our Earth + D&D Magic concept means wizards.

So I don't think that 0.0138% of the population working as Wizard Teleporters is that much of a stretch. Especially since without all the engineers, mechanics, construction and so-on that planes need, that comparable pricing for the Wizard is mostly going straight into their pocket. If they get even half of their $300/person fair, at teleporting 18,720 people a year they'll rake in
almost $3,000,000 a year. For maybe half an hour's work a day.

So I think our working Wizards at United Etherlines will be more then happy with the compensation for their time, and it'll be a sought after steady job.

But you're using demographics based on the society that has codeveloped with increases in technology and education for centuries...
In order to give a fair comparison, you have to compare not the number of scholars and engineers of present-day America, but rather of medieval Europe, which is the starting period (at best) for this model of magical development.

[Mith]

Thoughts?

Seems reasonable. Personally, I would still have circuitry work, simply because lightening attacks still work more effectively against those wearing metal in terms of conductivity of the metal (even though IRC it should be reversed for full-plate due to Faraday Cage effect of the armour). Perhaps consider Enlarge/Reduce, along with Wildshape as a ectoplasmic shell that the mind guides, but the original body is suspended in the Ether. A permanent transmutation that sets the target's base state to something else (petrification, permanent shapechange) creates the new form, locks the mind and soul to the new form, and destroys the old form.

[EscherEnigma]

But you're using demographics based on the society that has codeveloped with increases in technology and education for centuries...
In order to give a fair comparison, you have to compare not the number of scholars and engineers of present-day America, but rather of medieval Europe, which is the starting period (at best) for this model of magical development.
I think you missed the question I was exploring.


Huh. So magical engineering can meet an ancient city's need for water and replace the railroad. What about for modern cities though?

I don't have numbers on a modern water system, but comparing modern airlines to our teleportation circle network...
That said, medieval Europe didn't, historically speaking, support a modern airline network. So if I'm explictly considering a magical analogue to a modern airline network, how is it fair to expect me to justify it based on medieval Europe?

[Regitnui]

RulesJD meet Karranth, Karrnath meet RulesJD. Seriously, Eberron actually answers a good number of why doesn't X exist in D&D? And the answer is that in Eberron it probably does. For example there are bridges in Sharn that cast feather fall on anybody that goes over one, the Karns make Karnnathi zombies and skeletons from their slain warriors. The Kundarak dwarves use extradimensional pockets to create ultrasecure but accessible from many locations banks.

Thank you, somebody said it. Why don't we have X in D&D? We do. Eberron has the Dragonmarked Houses; multinational companies that are responsible for research and development. The House of Making took about (depending how you count) 60 years to go from Shield Guardians and Golems to Warforged, a living race of constructs with free will/souls. That's catastrophically fast, even by our modern standards where we've gotten from beeping text boxes to social media (30-40 years?) and basement-sized codebreakers to handheld do-everything machines in a similar time frame.

D&D already has guns. Americans, meet Wand of Magic Missile, hand crossbow (pistols), wand of Fireball (handheld grenade launcher), beads of force (grenades), circlet of blasting (lasers), and the Nuclear Option; Sphere of Annihilation. Admittedly, none of these are especially common, except perhaps the first two, but why should a random alchemist start messing around with gunpowder to maybe end up with something that could be as effective as a magic item House Cannith (in Eberron) or a decent arcane college with a warlike bent can turn out in a week or two in quantity? As Pratchett said; "The plural of Wizard is War."

Not going to go into the fact that the world of Eberron is already the magepunk 1800s, with a world war already past and a second brewing. Nothing like a world war to kick-start development of new technologies. The last century or so in our world has actually been an aberration as technological advances go.

[JackPhoenix]

Going back to the original question, I think I have a response to how magic prevents technology that hasn't been said yet.

In my campaign world, only micro-scale technology and any tech relying on electricity are prevented by magic. Why? Because technology relies on the predictability of the laws of nature. In D&D, magic (divine OR arcane) has unpredictable effects on the world, especially at the atomic level. Any world where the spell Enlarge/Reduce exists has to have fundamentally different nanoscale physical laws (perhaps due to some sort of magical field which can be interacted with from other planes of existence which are outside the universe itself).

For the sake of everyone's sanity, mesoscale physics works similarly to the real world. As such, anything involving steam power, or cogs, or gyroscopes, or exploding dust in a metal tube, etc. would work. But circuitry is impossible.

Combine this with a series of magical apocalypses and you have yourself a consistent system, I think. Perhaps it's not what FR uses, but it works for me.

Thoughts?

Have you played Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magics Obscura? They had something similar...magic (not only active, but the very presence of spellcasters and magical creatures) caused disruption of the laws of physics, but technology reinforced them, making using magic harder...the stronger one side is at one place, the weaker the other one... in one town, there was a conductor on train station checking if the passengers are mages (they had to sit in the last wagon, as far away from the engine as possible) by "magic detector": pocket watch that stopped working in the presence of magic.

[Clistenes]

honestly, it really doesn't require that many.

if you have one wizard who can cast this spell, who then lives for, say, 20 more years, you'd have a network of 20 teleport circles (and one filthy stinking rich wizard). that certainly isn't an all-encompassing network, but it's a pretty good start.

now imagine this process started, oh, say, 10 (human) generations ago of 20 years per generation, and there's a small wizards guild with, say, 3 wizards acting at any given time working on this project, and for some reason that number hasn't increased. now you have 600 network locations. although, to be perfectly honest, i really doubt you'd need that many to get pretty comprehensive coverage, and in fact you'd probably have to stop well before 600 locations in an empire were used unless you actually did start putting more than one per city by placing one in major temples and similar.

The issue is not the creation of the Teleportation Circles, but their operation. You need to cast Teleportation Circle everytime a group of customers wants to be teleported.


Eh, I'm not so sure about "centuries".

But let's look at the numbers. Using modern America as what we're trying to match...

There are something like 800 million passengers to/from/within the US each year. If we estimate that our working Wizards are doing three Teleport Circles a day, each at my reduced "not packing them like sardines" full capacity (24 people), working five days a week, a wizard will move 72 people per day, 360 per week, and 18,720 a year. So 800,000,000 passengers per year / 18,720 passengers per year per Working Wizard = 42,736 working Wizards to make this work, not counting vacation days, or non-full teleports.

The US has roughly 310,000,000 people, so that 42,736 wizards represent approximately 0.0138% of the population.

Could we expect that many wizards in a modern America + D&D ubiquitous magic? Well, if our core assumption is magical advancements and engineering replacing technology, it seems safe to assume that most people going to college/university/what-not would be training as wizards of different focuses. ~30% of US adults over 25 currently have bachenlor's degrees or higher, ~11% have a master's degree or higher, and ~3% have doctorate/professional degree. And while I don't think we can make a straight-up comparison between educational attainment and levels, I think that shows that when you have a large enough education system you can churn out that many educated and skilled people which, in our Earth + D&D Magic concept means wizards.

So I don't think that 0.0138% of the population working as Wizard Teleporters is that much of a stretch. Especially since without all the engineers, mechanics, construction and so-on that planes need, that comparable pricing for the Wizard is mostly going straight into their pocket. If they get even half of their $300/person fair, at teleporting 18,720 people a year they'll rake in
almost $3,000,000 a year. For maybe half an hour's work a day.

So I think our working Wizards at United Etherlines will be more then happy with the compensation for their time, and it'll be a sought after steady job.

As I said, eventually society would become advanced enough that they would produce enough wizards. However, that would require creating infraestructures, schools for kids, colleges of magic, training generalist teachers for kids and teachers of magic for the colleges of magic...etc. That requires a strong economy, a dedicated government, cultural changes... it would take time to reach that point.

[Segev]

Let's examine this from a perspective of a fairly common question in D&D-like settings: Just how common are 9th level characters? And amongst those, how common are wizards? (Let's go ahead and just use that as a minimum, so we're really asking about levels 9+.)

[CantigThimble]

Let's examine this from a perspective of a fairly common question in D&D-like settings: Just how common are 9th level characters? And amongst those, how common are wizards? (Let's go ahead and just use that as a minimum, so we're really asking about levels 9+.)

Of course it depends on the campaign setting but considering the sheer power of characters I tend to put level 8+ characters at about 1-2 per lifetime per class per major civilization and level 15+ characters at about one per 500 years in the entire world. (Think Alexander the Great) This is counting only those people who last long enough to make political or economic impact. The rest are like adventurers or chosen ones who rise quickly but fall just as fast in their hunt for ever greater challenges.

[KorvinStarmast]

works for me. we need to translate 1686 MPa into some kind of "real" world example for it to make any sense, though.

1686 MPa = 122 tons / sq inch
In compression, tension, torsion, or shear?
Is that strength the ultimate or yield strength? (Yield typically being where elastic deformation changes to plastic deformation).

The high strength steels I have worked with are in the 180-200 Ksi range. Here's a similar 4340 steel (http://asm.matweb.com/search/SpecificMaterial.asp?bassnum=M434AE). (200 ksi is 200,000 pounds per square inch).

122 tons per square inch is 244000 pounds per square inch. So, it's strong.

So, did you carburize it to give it a harder surface?
Did you shot peen it to make it stronger?
Did you coat it with Tungsten Carbide so that it will hold a stronger, sharper edge longer? (Something done for machine tools).

Adamantine: if it's strong and brittle, might not be as good as if it's strong and a little more ductile.

[Segev]

Adamantine clearly is both not brittle, capable of holding an edge/shape very well, and elastic enough to return to its shape after great deformity, despite being almost impossible to deform in the first place. :smallwink:

[Morty]

I've always found the excuse of magic somehow obstructing technological progress not to hold much water. Even in a D&D world, where magic is easy, convenient and stupidly powerful, there's space for technology. They don't work the same way, obey different principles and can serve a different role. If you want a fantasy world to stay on a certain technology level, it's a matter of genre, ambience and aesthetics. It should be treated as such, even if I've never understood the reluctance of fantasy authors to introduce certain elements.

Mind you, inventing technology the world has never seen just because a character is smart shouldn't be something a player can just declare to happen anyway.

[Clistenes]

Let's examine this from a perspective of a fairly common question in D&D-like settings: Just how common are 9th level characters? And amongst those, how common are wizards? (Let's go ahead and just use that as a minimum, so we're really asking about levels 9+.)


Of course it depends on the campaign setting but considering the sheer power of characters I tend to put level 8+ characters at about 1-2 per lifetime per class per major civilization and level 15+ characters at about one per 500 years in the entire world. (Think Alexander the Great) This is counting only those people who last long enough to make political or economic impact. The rest are like adventurers or chosen ones who rise quickly but fall just as fast in their hunt for ever greater challenges.

Another issue is that we don't know how NPCs gain their levels in 5th edition. They no longer have class levels as such, and they don't seem to gain xp.

If they gain xp and lvls like PCs, then a 9th level wizard had to kill 1920 foes of the level of an average Guard/foot soldier, or do something equally difficult/dangerous/impressive. That would make each lvl 9th wizard a legendary combat monster. Or a legendary genius, if their achievements were scholarly rather than adventurous in nature.

[JoeJ]

Another issue is that we don't know how NPCs gain their levels in 5th edition. They no longer have class levels as such, and they don't seem to gain xp.

If they gain xp and lvls like PCs, then a 9th level wizard had to kill 1920 foes of the level of an average Guard/foot soldier, or do something equally difficult/dangerous/impressive. That would make each lvl 9th wizard a legendary combat monster. Or a legendary genius, if their achievements were scholarly rather than adventurous in nature.

There's no xp for scholarly pursuits. The only way for an NPC to improve their mastery of magic seems to be mass murder, just like for PCs.

[CantigThimble]

There's no xp for scholarly pursuits. The only way for an NPC to improve their mastery of magic seems to be mass murder, just like for PCs.

RAW, yes, all high level NPCs must be murderbots. However I'd houserule that you can gain levels without murder it just takes about 5 years of training per level or something to that effect. (probably a a set amount of XP, I'm just not going to calculate that amount right now) This doesn't affect PCs at all since few of them have 5 years to spare but it explains how powerful NPCs would exist who aren't adventurers.

[JoeJ]

RAW, yes, all high level NPCs must be murderbots. However I'd houserule that you can gain levels without murder it just takes about 5 years of training per level or something to that effect. (probably a a set amount of XP, I'm just not going to calculate that amount right now) This doesn't affect PCs at all since few of them have 5 years to spare but it explains how powerful NPCs would exist who aren't adventurers.

Having all skilled NPCs gain their experience through combat would make for a interesting and unusual world. Kill enough orcs and you can become the best baker in the village.

[hacksnake]

Having all skilled NPCs gain their experience through combat would make for a interesting and unusual world. Kill enough orcs and you can become the best baker in the village.

Maybe there's a way to bring back the auto resetting spell trap to summon weak monsters and just go through an EXP grinder. Shouldn't take you more than a month or two to hit level 20 really :smallyuk:.


...Eberron...

I understand why this one comes up and I also think there are still other meaningful areas to explore here. For starters Eberron may as well be homebrew rules for many games because they just don't take place in the Eberron setting. I don't have much historical Eberron content but I've been led to believe it added significantly to the base game rules. Big changes to how binding elementals work & so on to explain away how the magitech works.

Aside from that, the thread topic is more or less, "how can I stop engineers from trying to engineer my fantasy elves game?"

Given that the players keep trying to do it maybe it'd occasionally be fun to let the player have a bit of what they want and also not throw out the entire setting all in one go & maybe not letting them add guns specifically (if the DM dislikes guns in their world). Maybe sometimes you might want to throw them a bone and have a well thought out ruin of an ancient high magic civilization. What might those things look like? Probably not full on Eberron.

That leaves a lot of room to explore smaller questions like: if I need to make drought stop being a problem once and for all what can I do about it? IRL the answers were things like irrigation, dams, aqueducts, & etc. In a world with magic maybe there's a different solution that would be more obvious to people.

To that end it might be useful to think through just given the core rules - how might it all play out in different ways at different points in history of a civilization? That's why I have continued to poke at the thread anyway. I think that stuff is an interesting mental exercise.

EDIT: my 'thread topic summary' is a bit unfair. Since OP sounds like he will let them do stuff eventually and so on. sometimes I think asking someone to just stop would be legitimate (Ex: lots of up-thread discussion about how realistic it is/isn't for a random PC to 'discover' gunpowder). Regardless, I think the rest of what I'm saying makes sense anyway :p.

[EscherEnigma]

Let's examine this from a perspective of a fairly common question in D&D-like settings: Just how common are 9th level characters? And amongst those, how common are wizards? (Let's go ahead and just use that as a minimum, so we're really asking about levels 9+.)
At the height of the Roman Empire, Rome (the city) had a population of over a million with the entire empire with a population of like 50 million.
After the fall of Rome, Baghdad, in around 800 AD hit a million.
Chang'an may have hit a million before 1000 AD, though estimates are broader on that one.
By the time the Renaissance rolls around you're regularly seeing large cities in the six digits. Tenochtitlan hits a million.
Paris, London, Berlin and St. Petersburg don't hit the million mark until the 1800s.

For comparison, New York City, today, has about 8 million people.

So yeah. The DMG's suggested population numbers for cities ("up to about 25,000", pg 17) is pretty unrealistic for any time period after the neolithic era.

But let's go back to Rome. According to Wikipedia (a reliable source, I know) Rome had about 25 legions, each with about 5,000 men, totaling 125,000 men, under Augustus. They hit their peak at a standing army of about 180,000 men under Septimus Severus. And those were just the citizens. The "Auxillaries" was later added, made up of non-citizens, with about 125,000 men.

I think it's safe to assume that lvls 1-5 go pretty fast. Another five levels over twenty years (the service period)? Seems reasonable that retired soldiers that were in the high single digits or pre-teens/early teens wouldn't be unheard of. If even a small fraction of those soldiers were wizards (and remember, Wizards in 5e don't seem to require any particular insight, something that can be taught, and the citizens, especially the citizens of higher rank, were likely to have been properly educated), like say, 1% of 'em, then yeah, Rome is gonna have quite a few mid-leveled wizards in their legions reserves.

It's part of why Rome steam-rolling the world. And remember, in the real world Rome was building these massive public works, importing all sorts of grain and other food stuffs to feed it's giant population, and so-on. So you want someone that's building a massive Teleport Circle grain chute? Rome. Decanters of Endless Water providing all of a city's fresh water? Rome. Popping out magic brooms and flying carpets to give their commanders a birds eye view, fireball wands in the artillery, Goodberry Wands to cutdown on the supply line, wands of any useful low-level spell? Rome.

So yeah. Maybe Rome couldn't support a magic airline network that's shuttling around three times it's population in travelers every year, but it sure as hell can support a permanent Teleportation Circle in every major city (and most of the smaller ones to boot) with enough mid-level wizards to cart around the nobility.

[Clistenes]

There's no xp for scholarly pursuits. The only way for an NPC to improve their mastery of magic seems to be mass murder, just like for PCs.


RAW, yes, all high level NPCs must be murderbots. However I'd houserule that you can gain levels without murder it just takes about 5 years of training per level or something to that effect. (probably a a set amount of XP, I'm just not going to calculate that amount right now) This doesn't affect PCs at all since few of them have 5 years to spare but it explains how powerful NPCs would exist who aren't adventurers.

To put it into context, freaking Simo Häyhä, "The White Death", killed "just" 505 people during his whole career, and he became a legend. Flamma, a famous gladiator who refused to accept freedom and retirement four times, only fought 34 combats to death (his 34th foe killed him). François de Montmorency-Bouteville, the man who probably fought most duels under the reign of Louis XIII is known to have engaged in 22 duels only. Mushashi Miyamoto, who is considered the top swordman in Japan history fought sixty duels to death before switching to non-lethal encounters.

In short, that 9th level guy who killed 1920 foes would be a legend. There couldn't be many like that.

It's not impossible. The Conquistadores were known to have killed a mean number of 42 foes each in some battles, and the survivors of the Sad Night and the Battle of Otumba probably killed more than that. However, it was far from normal.

[Regitnui]

Well, if you have an enterprising DM, they give you XP for resolving TR conflict, whether by diplomacy, stealth or murder. That means you could have high level ambassadors and courtiers.

[JackPhoenix]

RAW, yes, all high level NPCs must be murderbots. However I'd houserule that you can gain levels without murder it just takes about 5 years of training per level or something to that effect. (probably a a set amount of XP, I'm just not going to calculate that amount right now) This doesn't affect PCs at all since few of them have 5 years to spare but it explains how powerful NPCs would exist who aren't adventurers.

I love the ideas Keith Baker (author of Eberron) had in this thread: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?506403-Eberron-High-Level-NPCs-Where-do-they-come-from

It's 3.5 specific, where NPCs generally leveled in character classes. In 5e, where that isn't a case, it works even better.

PCs are special...they are the only ones getting experience points. NPCs doesn't use the same system. That's, why even after decades in war, veteran soldiers aren't level 10 or so Fighters...they are level 2-4 warriors (or Veterans from MM in 5e). There is a natural ceiling to their abilities they can't break through, no matter how hard they try. Now matter how long they train, most people won't run as fast as Usain Bolt or as smart as Stephen Hawking, and not just because their ability scores are lower.

Mage isn't a level 11 (or whatever) wizard who got there after few months of adventuring. He's an NPC who studied decades to get his spells. He won't get to level 17 after another few months of killing giants, demons or whatever...he hit the limits of his natural abilities. But even then, there's a hope...perhaps the limit of his abilities is higher, and after another 50 years, he'll have enough power to be an Archmage. Or perhaps he'll find (or hire PCs to find for him) the spellbooks of some legendary wizard (Mordenkainen, Fistandantilus, Merlin,...), and by studying his secrets, reaches the Archmage level of power in a mere year. Perhaps he's a BBEG...and when the level 5 PCs weren't able to stop him from escaping with Mystra's Heart, an artifact containing unimaginable power, the next time they'll meet him few PC levels later, he won't be a Mage with few hired thugs, but an Archmage at the head of an army of bound demons, despite not killing (much) people in the meantime.

[Segev]

Aren't there rules for non-combat encounters that grant XP? Surely, "encounters" can be things with which the right kind of career would still present certain people.


Also, note that it's not "over 9000" killed. It's challenges equivalent to "over 9000 basic guardsmen" killed. So maybe the 9th level wizard only overcame 50 foes (still a lot, certainly), because as he leveled up, his foes got that much more challenging (so they became worth tens, hundreds, or even eventually a thousand or more "basic guardsmen").

[CantigThimble]

Aren't there rules for non-combat encounters that grant XP? Surely, "encounters" can be things with which the right kind of career would still present certain people.


Also, note that it's not "over 9000" killed. It's challenges equivalent to "over 9000 basic guardsmen" killed. So maybe the 9th level wizard only overcame 50 foes (still a lot, certainly), because as he leveled up, his foes got that much more challenging (so they became worth tens, hundreds, or even eventually a thousand or more "basic guardsmen").

NPCs need story XP bonuses too.

Quest Complete!: 'Resolve tricky situation with brother's in-laws'

"Aw sweet, another level in commoner!"

[Regitnui]

NPCs need story XP bonuses too.

Quest Complete!: 'Resolve tricky situation with brother's in-laws'

"Aw sweet, another level in commoner!"

Can I rep this?

That should mean that every married NPC should be at least level 2 with an xp bonus for getting married.

[CantigThimble]

Can I rep this?

That should mean that every married NPC should be at least level 2 with an xp bonus for getting married.

Rep? :smallconfused:

And marriage would technically would divide your XP in half after the initial gain, though I suppose you can also access lot of future quests through your spouse's social circles. :smallbiggrin:

I mean really, at any table in which XP is handed out for good roleplaying NPCs should outpace PCs in level pretty quickly. They have nothing to do but RP all day every day. And they're perfect at it, it's not even possible for them to RP poorly.

[Regitnui]

Rep? :smallconfused:

And marriage would technically would divide your XP in half after the initial gain, though I suppose you can also access lot of future quests through your spouse's social circles. :smallbiggrin:

I mean really, at any table in which XP is handed out for good roleplaying NPCs should outpace PCs in level pretty quickly. They have nothing to do but RP all day every day. And they're perfect at it, it's not even possible for them to RP poorly.

Some forums allow rep like Facebook's like buttons.

[georgie_leech]

I mean really, at any table in which XP is handed out for good roleplaying NPCs should outpace PCs in level pretty quickly. They have nothing to do but RP all day every day. And they're perfect at it, it's not even possible for them to RP poorly.

So long as the DM isn't putting them in the spotlight at least. I've seen some weird roleplaying on both sides of the screen.:smallamused:

[Clistenes]

Aren't there rules for non-combat encounters that grant XP? Surely, "encounters" can be things with which the right kind of career would still present certain people.


Also, note that it's not "over 9000" killed. It's challenges equivalent to "over 9000 basic guardsmen" killed. So maybe the 9th level wizard only overcame 50 foes (still a lot, certainly), because as he leveled up, his foes got that much more challenging (so they became worth tens, hundreds, or even eventually a thousand or more "basic guardsmen").

A PC who fought only one-on-one duels would need to kill 7 CR 1/4 monsters (like standard goblins), 18 1/2 monsters (like standard orcs), 45 CR 1 monsters (like bugbears or brown bears) and 30 CR 2 monsters (like ogres or griffons) in order to reach level 9.

That's 100 duels, quite more than the likes of Flamma or Miyamoto Musashi or François de Montmorency-Bouteville ever fought. And 45 of those duels would be against creatures as dangerous as brown bears and 30 against creatures as dangerous as polar bears. A guy who grabbed a sword and killed 75 bears would be quite the legend, and far from common (I don't think such person ever existed).

I don't think regular folk gain their xp killing stuff, but they should do somethig else related to their field just as difficult and impressive. That level 9th wizard has done scholarly stuff that makes him as impressive a person as a warrior who goes out to the wilderness and hacks 75 bears to pieces with his axe.

[Segev]

Oh, I wasn't suggesting they wouldn't have accomplished deeds of legend. Just that the raw number of kills might not be that high.

100 kills is still a lot, but way less than "over 9000."

When more than half of those are of BEARS, in single combat? Still amazingly legendary.

[krugaan]

Oh, I wasn't suggesting they wouldn't have accomplished deeds of legend. Just that the raw number of kills might not be that high.

100 kills is still a lot, but way less than "over 9000."

When more than half of those are of BEARS, in single combat? Still amazingly legendary.

I guess it depends on how encounters are broken up. Isn't there a cap on per-encounter xp?

Otherwise just throw a few fireballs around villages.

Or circle of death.

[Sigreid]

I've always found the excuse of magic somehow obstructing technological progress not to hold much water. Even in a D&D world, where magic is easy, convenient and stupidly powerful, there's space for technology. They don't work the same way, obey different principles and can serve a different role. If you want a fantasy world to stay on a certain technology level, it's a matter of genre, ambience and aesthetics. It should be treated as such, even if I've never understood the reluctance of fantasy authors to introduce certain elements.

Mind you, inventing technology the world has never seen just because a character is smart shouldn't be something a player can just declare to happen anyway.

I think what the magic/technology conflict is really derived from is the question of why has the average D&D world been stuck at the exact same level of advancement for apparently thousands of years.

[CantigThimble]

I think what the magic/technology conflict is really derived from is the question of why has the average D&D world been stuck at the exact same level of advancement for apparently thousands of years.

I'd say that LOTS of progress has occurred. Magical progress. Spells are far more diverse and powerful than they used to be because people are constantly studying ways to make them more effective. I mean, just look at the advancements in cantrip technology! Ray of frost used to do 1d3 damage, now it does 1-4d8!!! And you used to have to prepare it. New advancements in spell memorization techniques have allowed wizards to hold a wider variety of spells for longer periods, even after expending the magical energy associated with that particular memorization!

[krugaan]

I'd say that LOTS of progress has occurred. Magical progress. Spells are far more diverse and powerful than they used to be because people are constantly studying ways to make them more effective. I mean, just look at the advancements in cantrip technology! Ray of frost used to do 1d3 damage, now it does 1-4d8!!! And you used to have to prepare it. New advancements in spell memorization techniques have allowed wizards to hold a wider variety of spells for longer periods, even after expending the magical energy associated with that particular memorization!

wait, wat? Casters have half the spell slots available, concentration makes spells far weaker, etc etc.

On a longer timeline, epic level spells no longer exist after Karsus screwed up the world with a 10th level spell, and Mystra decided that epic level spells were too powerful and banned them. You might even say that magical advancement has been intentionally crippled by the gods...

[SharkForce]

I think what the magic/technology conflict is really derived from is the question of why has the average D&D world been stuck at the exact same level of advancement for apparently thousands of years.

it happened irl to a large extent. i mean, there wasn't literally no advancement, but how many thousands of years did humanity fight wars with the same weapons before we got a firearm that worked well enough to start replacing the old weapons (and even then, that pretty much had more to do with ease of training than being a truly superior weapon; honestly, i wouldn't be too surprised if a unit of english longbowmen would perform much better than a similar number of soldiers with muskets).

[krugaan]

it happened irl to a large extent. i mean, there wasn't literally no advancement, but how many thousands of years did humanity fight wars with the same weapons before we got a firearm that worked well enough to start replacing the old weapons (and even then, that pretty much had more to do with ease of training than being a truly superior weapon; honestly, i wouldn't be too surprised if a unit of english longbowmen would perform much better than a similar number of soldiers with muskets).

I also think infrastructure needs to be addressed. Technology (be it science or magic) requires money and stability to advance. It seems like a lot of the slow pace of technology growth can be attributed to a lack of resources to spend on it. Once you start spending more on schools and less on armies your tech jumps in leaps and bounds.

This is just conjecture, though, I'm no renaissance scholar. I don't know how rich / secure the nations in FR are, but I think they're quite a bit less expansionist / bloodthirsty than comparable counterparts in the medieval world. Culturewise, it seems like FR is comparable to the renaissance maybe?

Any history buffs here that can support me?

[Sigreid]

I'd say that LOTS of progress has occurred. Magical progress. Spells are far more diverse and powerful than they used to be because people are constantly studying ways to make them more effective. I mean, just look at the advancements in cantrip technology! Ray of frost used to do 1d3 damage, now it does 1-4d8!!! And you used to have to prepare it. New advancements in spell memorization techniques have allowed wizards to hold a wider variety of spells for longer periods, even after expending the magical energy associated with that particular memorization!

Sorry, I thought it was clear that I was referring specifically to technology that works in our reality. You know, guns, steam engines, etc. And it is a valid possibility that the vast majority of geniuses capable of making the leaps for real advancement invest that talent into the dominant technology of their world, magic.

[Sigreid]

I also think infrastructure needs to be addressed. Technology (be it science or magic) requires money and stability to advance. It seems like a lot of the slow pace of technology growth can be attributed to a lack of resources to spend on it. Once you start spending more on schools and less on armies your tech jumps in leaps and bounds.

This is just conjecture, though, I'm no renaissance scholar. I don't know how rich / secure the nations in FR are, but I think they're quite a bit less expansionist / bloodthirsty than comparable counterparts in the medieval world. Culturewise, it seems like FR is comparable to the renaissance maybe?

Any history buffs here that can support me?

Education definitely, but I think if you look at human history an awful lot of our technological advancement was the direct result of people trying to figure out newer and better ways to slaughter each other.

[Clistenes]

it happened irl to a large extent. i mean, there wasn't literally no advancement, but how many thousands of years did humanity fight wars with the same weapons before we got a firearm that worked well enough to start replacing the old weapons (and even then, that pretty much had more to do with ease of training than being a truly superior weapon; honestly, i wouldn't be too surprised if a unit of english longbowmen would perform much better than a similar number of soldiers with muskets).

If we are speaking of muskets, they had more effective range, were more precise and did more damage than longbows. Even late arquesbusses were better (the English archers didn't manage to counter continental arquebussiers). You could send an arrow quite a longer distance by shooting upwards, but they would bounce harmlessly on helmets and arming doublets. Bullets still did damage at a range at which arrows were already harmless.


I guess it depends on how encounters are broken up. Isn't there a cap on per-encounter xp?

Otherwise just throw a few fireballs around villages.

Or circle of death.

Human commoners are worth 0 xp.

[hacksnake]

Sorry, I thought it was clear that I was referring specifically to technology that works in our reality. You know, guns, steam engines, etc. And it is a valid possibility that the vast majority of geniuses capable of making the leaps for real advancement invest that talent into the dominant technology of their world, magic.

I think this is basically why I tend to lean towards magic-technology hybrids. For someone to invent something they are probably thinking about a problem of some sort (like once we get to applied vs. fundamental research). Given the presence of magic it's probably reasonable that many people will first look to magic as a way to solve the problem & then working within the bounds of how that system operates try to come up with a solution.

I expect you'd still have some people who would seek non-magical solutions. Although it's likely be hampered because any sort of organized fundamental research would probably be targeted at magic to begin with. So you probably wouldn't end up with the same levels of sharing of information about non-magical fundamental research the real world saw at various points in history.

For the sake of argument, assume that physics actually worked exactly the same in the D&D world as it does in the real world. It's just that magic is so powerful that it looks like it violates it all the time. It basically means that magic is the overriding force of the universe in this setting in some sense.

Could that world have had a Newton? An Einstein? etc. Would they have been curious about the same things and found the same answers? Impossible to say but I expect you'd have seen a lot more focus on magical research & sharing of that knowledge (unless magic inherently twists all wizards to be paranoid & greedy a la Pratchett).

Maybe that's a reasonable answer to how magic could limit progress. Arcane knowledge makes you paranoid and greedy which prevents you from sharing anything you've learned over your career of research. Therefore the world never sees great advancements from sharing of knowledge allowing more people to work on the same problems and add to the pool of knowledge. Instead each wizard is a separate point duplicating fundamental research that has been discovered and lost countless times before. Wizards attack and kill each other to further their knowledge but in the end you always just end up with a pooling of magical power in an individual. The top 0.01% of the magical world controlling 99.99% of the power or something and by the time you're on top you're so warped that you can't use what you've accumulated to help anyone but yourself.

Not sure if this is insightful or if I'm just really sleep deprived. I think I just talked myself into an explanation I might accept as to why we're all pig farmers in mud huts suffering while this amazing source of energy is just waiting to be tapped into effectively. It's all house rules of course & you need to account for divine casters still but it's potentially a start to satisfying that sort of line of inquisition if the table in general is not interested in playing the technological advancement game but that one guy can't let it go.

It'd make playing a caster less appealing because you'd probably have to codify the same personality degradation into the rules for PCs as well.

[SharkForce]

If we are speaking of muskets, they had more effective range, were more precise and did more damage than longbows. Even late arquesbusses were better (the English archers didn't manage to counter continental arquebussiers). You could send an arrow quite a longer distance by shooting upwards, but they would bounce harmlessly on helmets and arming doublets. Bullets still did damage at a range at which arrows were already harmless.

the english longbow could shoot something like 250+ yards for use against formations. some estimates go as high as 400 meters, though i suspect that was just a "how far could i theoretically launch an arrow" test, rather than "how far can i shoot an arrow usefully".

the typical musket could shoot about 90-100 yards before becoming basically useless even against formations. it wouldn't be until rifling was widely employed in the early 1860s (the american civil war, in particular) that muskets would get a competitive range (up to about 270 yards for some estimates, not that you'd typically start using them at that range), and it wasn't until the mid 1860s that repeating rifles showed up (they were only used in very limited numbers typically by cavalry... ironically, the high rate of fire had officers concerned their troops would use up their ammunition too quickly so they weren't issued to infantry, though to be fair they might have had a hard time making enough ammunition to supply their armies at the time).

a skilled longbowmen could fire 6 arrows per minute sustained (you could shoot faster, but it was apparently quite tiring as the draw weight was fairly unpleasant).

with a musket, 6 shots per minute would be a miracle. you were pretty danged good if you could manage 3.

there are 2 basic reasons the longbow got replaced, really:

1) steel became common enough to make plate armour come into wide use (iron was not strong enough, had to be steel). you *can* punch through steel plate armour with a longbow, but mostly only if you're shooting from ranges so short that it defeats the purpose of using a bow at all, and you'd be better off just swinging a pick or a mace or something. muskets were less accurate, shorter range, and had a slower rate of fire, but could penetrate armour much better. as to which dealt more damage, well, muskets were certainly more likely to mutilate you while an arrow would probably "only" stab right through you. more damage is relative, of course; an arrow could easily go right through your vital organs, which is not particularly less damaging than having a musket ball go right through your vital organs in that you're probably going to die either way. i suppose it might be less likely to lose limbs that get hit by a longbow shot or something. haven't seen any statistics on that to be honest.

2) training. you really think nobody else in the world could figure out the idea of heavier draw weights for their bows? that would be silly. the reason only the english used longbows is that the english spent years training people, including having their civilian population practice. you don't just need the skill, either. remember i mentioned in rate of fire that you could shoot faster than the sustained rate? well, regular use of a longbow actually causes physical changes in your body because it is so physically demanding. if you hadn't practiced for years, you might be able to learn the theory of using a longbow, but you simply wouldn't have the physical conditioning to keep firing a bow for very long.

there's probably also some other fringe benefits (you can carry a loaded musket just as easily as an unloaded one, you can fire muskets from a kneeling or prone stance, it is much easier to use a musket in melee combat either by attaching a bayonet or simply clubbing people, just to list a few), but basically... training and steel plate armour were the reasons people stopped using longbows, and only one of those remained a factor for very long (once it became apparent that armour wasn't working terribly well against massed musket fire, people stopped using it so much... at which point ironically the longbow would have been the superior weapon again, were it not for the fact that people had stopped training to use the longbow).

and even before that, how many years were people using spears, swords, axes, and clubs (or various other bludgeons)? yeah, there's a difference between the spear an egyptian from 3000 BC would use as compared to a pike, but ultimately, it took thousands of years to go from a spear to a really long spear.

the last couple centuries have been extremely rapid in terms of technological advancement, but you shouldn't think that they are an accurate reflection of the standard rate of technological development throughout human history.

[JoeJ]

I think what the magic/technology conflict is really derived from is the question of why has the average D&D world been stuck at the exact same level of advancement for apparently thousands of years.

I don't know about the average D&D world. In worlds I create, technology almost always advances at roughly the same rates it did in our world. Magic is much more variable; it might advance faster, slower, or not at all.

[Sigreid]

I don't know about the average D&D world. In worlds I create, technology almost always advances at roughly the same rates it did in our world. Magic is much more variable; it might advance faster, slower, or not at all.

For average D&D world I pretty much mean their published ones. Greyhawk, FR, etc. Some of the tropes kind of require a somewhat locked tech level. It's a pretty standard idea that you have to retrieve the ancient sword of Emperor Whosits to defeat the great evil threatening the land. Mix that with Elves living several centuries, and ancient really tends to mean a lot longer.

Anyway, if you have to have a reason, I'll go back to the formation of the universe. The same quirk that makes magic work there and not here makes nitrogen, sulfur and charcoal form gunpowder and living things to decay into petrol here but not there. Or you can just shrug and say "because then it wouldn't be a middle earth style fantasy world."

[Clistenes]

the english longbow could shoot something like 250+ yards for use against formations. some estimates go as high as 400 meters, though i suspect that was just a "how far could i theoretically launch an arrow" test, rather than "how far can i shoot an arrow usefully.

I said "effective" range. And I mentioned arrows bouncing on helmets and arming doublets. A longbow arrow was useless against steel armor at 20 yards or more, while a musket could still do quite a bit of damage at three or four times that range.

Some experiments on the range and rate of longbows show that an archer had time to shoot a single effective arrow (an arrow able to punch through mail and gambeson or through the padded barding of the horse) against a charging knight before being trampled); all the arrows he shot before that last one were useless.


the typical musket could shoot about 90-100 yards before becoming basically useless even against formations. it wouldn't be until rifling was widely employed in the early 1860s (the american civil war, in particular) that muskets would get a competitive range (up to about 270 yards for some estimates, not that you'd typically start using them at that range),

Yes, but at the 60 yards range the arrows would be doing very little damage against armoured opponents, while muskets would be trouncing the enemy.

Also, against single targets, and given the same amount of hours of training, the musket is more precise. People often tend to compare longbowmen who have been training since childhood to musketeers with a few weeks of training, but gunmen could train for years and become better too; there are reports of Spanish gunmen getting headshots on the defenders of a city wall during the Renaissance.


a skilled longbowmen could fire 6 arrows per minute sustained (you could shoot faster, but it was apparently quite tiring as the draw weight was fairly unpleasant).

with a musket, 6 shots per minute would be a miracle. you were pretty danged good if you could manage 3.

The enemy isn't going to stay in place receiving that hail of arrows. As I said, arrows would be useless against armor except at a very short distance. During the Renaissance soldiers (at least frontline soldiers) still used half-plates or breastplates, helmets and steel rotellas; arrows would do nothing to them until they were at 20 yards or so. A trained soldier could march (march, not run) at about 90-100 yards per minute, and even middle aged, untrained XXI century men wearing full plate armor have been able to run faster than that.



there are 2 basic reasons the longbow got replaced, really:

1) steel became common enough to make plate armour come into wide use (iron was not strong enough, had to be steel). you *can* punch through steel plate armour with a longbow, but mostly only if you're shooting from ranges so short that it defeats the purpose of using a bow at all, and you'd be better off just swinging a pick or a mace or something. muskets were less accurate, shorter range, and had a slower rate of fire, but could penetrate armour much better. as to which dealt more damage, well, muskets were certainly more likely to mutilate you while an arrow would probably "only" stab right through you. more damage is relative, of course; an arrow could easily go right through your vital organs, which is not particularly less damaging than having a musket ball go right through your vital organs in that you're probably going to die either way. i suppose it might be less likely to lose limbs that get hit by a longbow shot or something. haven't seen any statistics on that to be honest.

2) training. you really think nobody else in the world could figure out the idea of heavier draw weights for their bows? that would be silly. the reason only the english used longbows is that the english spent years training people, including having their civilian population practice. you don't just need the skill, either. remember i mentioned in rate of fire that you could shoot faster than the sustained rate? well, regular use of a longbow actually causes physical changes in your body because it is so physically demanding. if you hadn't practiced for years, you might be able to learn the theory of using a longbow, but you simply wouldn't have the physical conditioning to keep firing a bow for very long.

True about the influence of steel armor. It is also true that it became hard to find properly trained archers. But, don't you think that, if longbows were really better than muskets, governments would have made the soldiers in their standing armies train in the use of longbows rather than forgetting about that weapon?

The Janissaries had composite recurved bows that were about as good as english longbows. They were slave boys who were taken to camps were they trained extrenously until they were adults, so they indeed had the required training time to learn to use any weapon their masters wanted them to use. However, they slowly phased from bows to muskets.

[SharkForce]

if you don't have total coverage, those arrows are going to be doing *something* at the longer ranges. just have to find one gap in the armour, and suddenly that soldier is probably out of the fight. it might have done a lot less damage than desired, but no... it isn't doing nothing.

and while the enemy isn't going to stand there and let you shoot arrows at them forever, i can't help but notice that archers were typically issued more than 6-12 arrows to be prepared for a fight. now, i suppose it's possible they just issued 70 arrows or whatever just in case the enemy was suffering from brain damage and just lets you shoot them, but i find it much more likely that the longbowman was expected to be able to find a use for (up to) 70 arrows during a fight... or, in other words, there was a reasonable expectation that something (generally a combination of terrain/fortifications and your regular infantry) would keep those archers from being directly engaged.

also, if you get closed on *that* quickly, just how useful do you think the musket would have been if you couldn't expect to have the enemies at range for more than a minute? you think musket troops were issued 3 musket balls (the third one being just in case they're really slow) and a bayonet, perhaps?

frankly, it wouldn't surprise me too much if the enemy spends far more time ~20 yards away than anything in battle anyways.

but mostly, it was just a matter of training. you could train people with muskets faster, physical strength was less of an issue, and you could mass produce muskets while a bow would require at least some degree of customization to the user (draw strength, bow size, etc). you could likewise train people to use cannons more quickly, and eventually the cannon would get vastly superior range... but again, that didn't happen for quite some time.

i mean, if it was *purely* a matter of the weapon being ineffective against plate armour, then surely people would have gone right back to using longbows the instant armies stopped using plate armour. longbows may not be terribly useful against plate armour except at very short range, but that isn't what made people not use them. it was the ability to field far greater numbers of muskets.

[JoeJ]

So yeah. Maybe Rome couldn't support a magic airline network that's shuttling around three times it's population in travelers every year, but it sure as hell can support a permanent Teleportation Circle in every major city (and most of the smaller ones to boot) with enough mid-level wizards to cart around the nobility.

If Teleportation Circle is house ruled to work on objects as well as creatures, it actually becomes an extremely efficient way to move large quantities of bulk goods such as grain. There was another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477603-How-much-grain-can-go-through-a-Teleportation-Circle) that discussed this point.

[hacksnake]

If Teleportation Circle is house ruled to work on objects as well as creatures, it actually becomes an extremely efficient way to move large quantities of bulk goods such as grain. There was another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477603-How-much-grain-can-go-through-a-Teleportation-Circle) that discussed this point.

Even without house rules I think a merchant house could justify teleportation circles with Helms of Teleportation given that helms are durable goods that never wear out. The only ongoing cost to be concerned with would be theft of helms. Otherwise over time they pay for themselves and become endless revenue machines costing only unskilled labor vs. endless caravan costs.

This assumes that magic items can be obtained or created in the first place of course.

[JoeJ]

For average D&D world I pretty much mean their published ones. Greyhawk, FR, etc. Some of the tropes kind of require a somewhat locked tech level. It's a pretty standard idea that you have to retrieve the ancient sword of Emperor Whosits to defeat the great evil threatening the land. Mix that with Elves living several centuries, and ancient really tends to mean a lot longer.

Anyway, if you have to have a reason, I'll go back to the formation of the universe. The same quirk that makes magic work there and not here makes nitrogen, sulfur and charcoal form gunpowder and living things to decay into petrol here but not there. Or you can just shrug and say "because then it wouldn't be a middle earth style fantasy world."

Yeah, I don't know the histories of those worlds very well, but I recall that Eberron's went back about a million years, which seems absurd and unnecessary. In our own world, from the earliest swords to the late Middle Ages is a period of roughly 3,000 years, so the ancient sword of Emperor Whosit could still be plenty old.

Also, there's no particular reason that elf technology has to advance at the same speed as human technology. Or that humans and elves have to have lived in the PC's part of the world for the same length of time. A common trope in fantasy of for humans to have arrived on the continent relatively recently, although it could just as easily be the elves who are the newcomers.

[Clistenes]

i mean, if it was *purely* a matter of the weapon being ineffective against plate armour, then surely people would have gone right back to using longbows the instant armies stopped using plate armour. longbows may not be terribly useful against plate armour except at very short range, but that isn't what made people not use them. it was the ability to field far greater numbers of muskets.

If needed, governments could produce steel half-armor, helmets and rotellas faster than they could train longbowmen. If England had decided to return to longbows during the XVII century, it would have taken them at least a decade to train enough archers, while France could have forged enough steel armor for its army in far less time.


also, if you get closed on *that* quickly, just how useful do you think the musket would have been if you couldn't expect to have the enemies at range for more than a minute? you think musket troops were issued 3 musket balls (the third one being just in case they're really slow) and a bayonet, perhaps?.

Actually, during the XVI century soldiers often prepared only 12 cartridges for battle, (a cartridge used to be a small packet with gunpowder and a bullet, so the soldier didn't have to measure the gunpowder during battle).

Soldiers would advance until they were very close to the enemy lines, shoot and run back; a second line of gunmen would shoot and run back, then a third one...etc. If the enemy charged at them, the gunmen would run and hide behind the pikemen, and shoot from cover.

If the enemy didn't have gunmen of their own, or their gunmen had been already neutralized, the gunmen would walk until they were at less than 20 meters from the enemy to make sure to maximize damage; at that distance almost each shot meant a casualty. If they managed to pull that manouver, each soldier only shot 2-3 bullets before the enemy broke ranks sometimes.

Gun technology and training evolved, and during the Napoleonic wars soldiers could shoot 3 bullets per minute on average, and their range and precision was enhanced too, so it was impossible to any foe to reach the gunmen without being killed. The Mamluck cavalry tried to charge against french musketeers during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, and they were destroyed without landing a hit on them.


frankly, it wouldn't surprise me too much if the enemy spends far more time ~20 yards away than anything in battle anyways.

Actually, Musashi Miyamoto wrote in his Book of the Five Rings that the main disadvantage of bows was that the enemy rarely stayed for long at that "sweet spot" where their effectivity was maximal.

[EscherEnigma]

If Teleportation Circle is house ruled to work on objects as well as creatures, it actually becomes an extremely efficient way to move large quantities of bulk goods such as grain. There was another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477603-How-much-grain-can-go-through-a-Teleportation-Circle) that discussed this point.
That's actually what I was referring to. :)

I also figure that unless you're saying the spells in the PHB are all that every have been or will be, that if a spell needs a (relatively) small tweak in order to work for some big magical engineering project, that whoever's involved will just research the spell with the tweak in it.

[krugaan]

If needed, governments could produce steel half-armor, helmets and rotellas faster than they could train longbowmen. If England had decided to return to longbows during the XVII century, it would have taken them at least a decade to train enough archers, while France could have forged enough steel armor for its army in far less time.


Pretty much this. The longbow requires a lot of training AND conditioning to use properly. IIRC they can identify longbowmen of ancient yore because upper body bones are enlarged from the stresses of holding the bow taut. The real advantage of firearms is that any schmuck can use them with a minimum of training and basically no conditioning whatsoever.

[SharkForce]

so, in other words, people kept using muskets because it was easier to train... which i said several times... and not because they were an inherently superior weapon that outperformed other weapons for the most part. if nothing else, forcing an enemy's entire army to use plate armour would have forced them to field smaller armies (it still costs money to get all that armour) and slowed them down... and you wouldn't even need a huge number of longbowmen to make that happen (suppose there was an army of 10,000 people, and you had 400 longbowmen or something... the other army is going to get shot, say, 6-7 times per archer on the way in, so figure 2400 shots, figure only half of them hit unique targets within the enemy's formation... well, you just probably took out 3 times the number of soldiers if they don't wear armour, and gave your own troops a numbers, morale, and maneuvering advantage if the enemies do wear armour).

i mean, forcing the other guy to pay a substantially larger amount of money to field troops *and* slow them down on the field a bit sounds pretty good. even if armour got less expensive over time, it wasn't less expensive than a cloth uniform, and would likely still cost a lot more than the musket (which again could much more easily be mass produced, as one size fits all more or less, and requires a great deal less material to make).

but that 10-year warm-up period... that's the real killer. that's why people stopped using longbows. not because the longbow was useless. but because muskets (and cannons) could be fielded in much larger numbers with much less training. it wasn't technology. it was ease of use of technology.

[Clistenes]

Pretty much this. The longbow requires a lot of training AND conditioning to use properly. IIRC they can identify longbowmen of ancient yore because upper body bones are enlarged from the stresses of holding the bow taut. The real advantage of firearms is that any schmuck can use them with a minimum of training and basically no conditioning whatsoever.

That's part of it, but not all. Firearms just outperformed bows during the XVI century. Sir Roger Willians wrote "God forbid we should try our bows with their muskets...500 musketeers are more serviciable than 1500 bowmen" in 1590. He went on to explain that an archer needed to be on top shape to be useful, while a gunman could fire his weapon even tired and sick.

And as I said, given armor, a longbow's threat was largely diminished at a range of 60-90 yards while a musket still punched through plate at that distance.


so, in other words, people kept using muskets because it was easier to train... which i said several times... and not because they were an inherently superior weapon that outperformed other weapons for the most part.

Louis XIV's army numbered 400,000 soldiers at its peak. Frederick the Great raised an army of fully trained and equiped 700,000 soldiers. The french Grande Armée reached a number of 680,000 soldiers. The British Navy had 950 war vessels in 1805.

The expenses of raising such armies were enormous. Don't you think that, had longbows being a superior alternative, governments would have invested some of those resources into training a corps of archers?


if nothing else, forcing an enemy's entire army to use plate armour would have forced them to field smaller armies (it still costs money to get all that armour) and slowed them down...

But armies still used armor during the XVI, when longbows were phased out. They used cuirasses on buff jackets, helmets and steel rotellas. Cavalry soldiers used half-armor. Even lightly equipped arquebussiers used helmets and buff jackets. And pike-and-shot formations weren't that fast anyways.


and you wouldn't even need a huge number of longbowmen to make that happen (suppose there was an army of 10,000 people, and you had 400 longbowmen or something... the other army is going to get shot, say, 6-7 times per archer on the way in, so figure 2400 shots, figure only half of them hit unique targets within the enemy's formation... well, you just probably took out 3 times the number of soldiers if they don't wear armour, and gave your own troops a numbers, morale, and maneuvering advantage if the enemies do wear armour).

If we assume XVIII century level tech and training, those musketeers would be firing 4 bullets per minute. The maximum range could be more than 300 yards (but it was recommended not to fire at more than 200 yards). Musketeers used to combine a huge ball with three smaller buckshot pellets when firing against formations. Assuming the armies were similarly sized, 10,000 musketeers would be firing 40,000 bullets and 120,000 buckshot pellets per minute. (https://www.iusb.edu/ugr-journal/static/2000/pdf/stanage.pdf)

Let say one army was entirely made of longbowmen and the other of musketeers. The 10,000 archers could shoot 60,000 arrows per minute vs the 40,000 bullets (around 400-500 grains/26-32 grams each) and 120,000 buckshot pellets (around 70 grains/4,5 grams each) of the musketeers.

Any musketers would be deadly at 200 yards, and with enough training, all could sustain that rate of fire, but only top notch archers could sustain that fire rate with longbows able to send a heavy war arrow at that distance. And they would tire very fast.

If armor enters the equation, the muskets are punching through armor at a distance at which the longbows can't do the same.

If we go back to the XVI century, there are accounts of muskets being effective at a range of 100-200 yards. Experienced soldiers could fire as fast as their XVIII century's counterparts, but their bullets were made of pure lead instead of a lead-tin-antimony-arsenic alloy, so they could melt if the barrels got hot due to firing too fast. However, armor was widespread during the XVI century, which makes arrows less effective.

I would say that during the XVI century longbows could still be of use under certain circunstances, but once it was discovered how to make bullets that didn't melt when the weapon was fired too fast, the musket outperformed the longbow.

[SharkForce]

why would you train a small portion of longbowmen when for the same amount of effort you could instead just train *even more* troops to use muskets? if you could have trained longbowmen for the same costs in time and resources as you could train soldiers to use muskets, i'd expect the longbow to have stuck around a lot longer in smaller numbers, just to force people to keep wearing armour. but it isn't.

so instead, when people stopped using armour, it just meant you could field more soldiers. not because firearms were particularly superior (until about the 1850s or so), but because it was so much easier to train your soldiers to use guns.

(also, while really long range shots may have happened before rifling, that doesn't mean they weren't heavily influenced by luck... if they were so inaccurate that you generally didn't bother shooting at *formations* of people past about 80-90 yards, you weren't going to get accurate 200+ yard shots off without getting lucky).

[Clistenes]

why would you train a small portion of longbowmen when for the same amount of effort you could instead just train *even more* troops to use muskets? if you could have trained longbowmen for the same costs in time and resources as you could train soldiers to use muskets, i'd expect the longbow to have stuck around a lot longer in smaller numbers, just to force people to keep wearing armour. but it isn't.

Training cavalry soldiers took time. Training sailors took time. Training artillerists took time. If longbows were such a superior weapon, they would have tried to have archers in their armies.


(also, while really long range shots may have happened before rifling, that doesn't mean they weren't heavily influenced by luck... if they were so inaccurate that you generally didn't bother shooting at *formations* of people past about 80-90 yards, you weren't going to get accurate 200+ yard shots off without getting lucky).

A XVIII century's musket is different from a XVI century's musket, which is in turn different from a XVI century's arquebus. Arquebusses had less range and accuracy.

If we focus on muskets, on average they had a 50% hit rate against human-sized targets at 100 meters.

If we take XVIII century's muskets only, at 100 meters 75% of bullets hit an infantry soldier-sized target and 83.3% of bullets hit a cavalry (horse and rider) sized target. At 200 m those rates were of 37.5% against infantry-sized targets and 50% against cavalry-sized targets. At 300 m 33.3% of bullets hit the infantry-sized target and 37.5% the cavalry-sized target.

However, about 25% of the those hits would go between the legs of the enemy soldiers or be glancing hits, so the rates would be of 56.25 %, 28.13 % and 24.98 % hits against human-sized targets at 100, 200 and 300 meters.

If soldiers were required to shoot 60 bullets very fast against a batallion-sized target, the rate was of 60 % hits at 75 meters, 40 % hits at 150 meters, 25 % hits at 225 meters and 20 % hits at 300 meters.

However, those rates belong to trained soldiers. Barely trained gunmen had rates as low as 20-30 % hits at 30 meters and 2 % hits at 100 meters. Training DID make a difference for gunmen too. The earliest musketeers and arquebuseers were sent to the battlefield with far less training than their XVIII century's counterparts, and that's the reason they needed to get really close to the enemy before firing. (https://sellsword.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/firearms/)

[Donnadogsoth]

I have played DnD with engineers and other very intelligent people for years and one common thing that keeps coming up is that they frequently want their character to advance technology in DnD, to gamebreaking levels or further.

I have always explained that magic usually gets in the way of technological progress. Why invent and airplane when there are magic items and spells that already can enable you to fly? Or a parachute whenever there is featherfall? Etc.

Typically in a DnD setting the people with high intelligence scores that would be used to study and progress technology, are spellcasters that can find a solution through magic.

Whenever a character in my world wants to begin designing a gun or something similar, things begin to get in their way. I often explain it as deities of magic and other domains will begin intervening in order to prevent the evolution of progress without magic.

The reason they would intervene is because they need worshipers and the further that people progress in technology, they will be less reliant on magic and gods.

If a character is determined to make it a reality, I will eventually allow it to happen but there will often be significant challenges for them to overcome.

Thoughts?

First thing that came to mind is mass production. Science-based mass production, as of tools, amenities and luxuries, isn't possible here, but why not magic-based mass production? Can Glow StonesTM be mass-produced so everyone has an eternal lantern? Can sure-shot Magic MissilesTM replace inaccurate bows and arrows? Can every man or woman have their own FeatherfallTM spell? And wouldn't there be a booming business (we're talking form our own Church kind of business) for mass-produced ResurrectionTM spells? In fact that would feed demand--who wants consumers to die? Let your engineers lateral-think their way into a whole new world of total magic saturation!

[SharkForce]

cavalry, sailors, and artillerists don't need to be trained from a young age for conditioning as well. the training aspect for a longbowman is not just skills. as i said, if that's all it was, everyone else in the world would have just handed their soldiers bows with heavier draw weights and the english longbowman would be just another guy with a bow, just like any other archer in any other army.

it simply was not a matter of "oh, well, we'll just train people to use a longbow". the english military didn't train people to use longbows. they expected people to already know how to use longbows as civilians, and then trained them how to be soldiers. if you don't have a culture of longbow use, you simply don't have realistic potential to train longbowmen no matter how much you might desire it.

[Clistenes]

cavalry, sailors, and artillerists don't need to be trained from a young age for conditioning as well. the training aspect for a longbowman is not just skills. as i said, if that's all it was, everyone else in the world would have just handed their soldiers bows with heavier draw weights and the english longbowman would be just another guy with a bow, just like any other archer in any other army.

it simply was not a matter of "oh, well, we'll just train people to use a longbow". the english military didn't train people to use longbows. they expected people to already know how to use longbows as civilians, and then trained them how to be soldiers. if you don't have a culture of longbow use, you simply don't have realistic potential to train longbowmen no matter how much you might desire it.

The ability of states to put well trained and well equiped armies on the battlefield grew constantly across Modern Age. The went from relying of feudal troops or condottieri during Middle Ages to national armies during the XVI century, and from the XVI to the XVIII centuries the ability of states to recruit, train, fund and provide troops, to build ships and artillery and to train crews for those was raised tenfold.

The most powerful states in Europe kept stading armies above half a million trained soldiers; those weren't levies or draftees who were called before battle, but professional soldiers who were kept mobilized. The British Navy kept their crews permanently mobilized during years. The resources those states poured in their armed forces were immense.

If longbows were so good, they would have invested resources into training dozens of thousands of longbowmen. They would have forced village councils to train longbowmen. They would have issued laws like those England did during the late Middle Ages. It is not beliavable that they would sit on an unused superweapon for centuries because they were too lazy to find a way to train longbowmen. And it's not as if they weren't willing to experiment, there were proposals to try it up to the XVIII century, and it never stuck.

[SharkForce]

or, they could have just put the same amount of effort into training *more* of their regular soldiers.

longbows don't have to be worse than muskets on a 1:1 ratio if you can train 3 guys to use muskets for every guy you could have trained to use a longbow. all they need is to be less useful than 3 guys with muskets. it doesn't matter how many resources you are willing to spend on troops, unless that ratio changes, you can expect them to keep training people to use muskets because the value of having 3 good soldiers is higher than the value of having 1 slightly better soldier, and that will remain true until the ratio changes (which wasn't likely to happen any time soon), or the longbow becomes more than 3 times as good as the musket.

[Bohandas]

Doesn't really matter if they design these things, without advancement in materials sciences it is pointless. For example, Leonardo da Vinci invented both a parachute and helicopter...on paper. Without advances in parachute material (ultra lightweight but incredibly strong) and the internal combustion engine (very high power to weigh ratio), such inventions were stuck on paper. Yes magic could supplement these problems - but that is a very short term solution.

Unless you fundamentally change the entire system - i.e. some sort of industrial revolution - simply designing modern technologies is pretty much pointless.

On the other hand, magic itself satisfies a lot of these prerequisites. There's no need to invent the generator when you can conjure lightning out of nowhere with a couple of carefully chosen words.

[SharkForce]

On the other hand, magic itself satisfies a lot of these prerequisites. There's no need to invent the generator when you can conjure lightning out of nowhere with a couple of carefully chosen words.

no, not really.

if it was as simple as just harnessing a lightning bolt, skyscrapers would be generating a crudload of electricity during any sort of storm because they typically have dozens of lightning rods and while any individual skyscraper won't necessarily get hit dozens of times in a storm, it is very probable that at least some skyscrapers get hit some times during a storm.

but the electricity in a lightning bolt is not particularly usable as-is. you would need to convert it into a usable form, nobody designs electrical circuits to handle being powered by a lightning bolt. there's a heck of a lot of electricity in them, but nobody is using them to generate electricity, instead all our effort goes into simply controlling them enough to keep them from starting our buildings on fire or destroying electrical circuits that are designed to handle reasonable amounts of electricity that would be useful for powering anything.

a lightning bolt is much too intense to be particularly useful. unless of course you're just trying to destroy things.

[Sigreid]

no, not really.

if it was as simple as just harnessing a lightning bolt, skyscrapers would be generating a crudload of electricity during any sort of storm because they typically have dozens of lightning rods and while any individual skyscraper won't necessarily get hit dozens of times in a storm, it is very probable that at least some skyscrapers get hit some times during a storm.

but the electricity in a lightning bolt is not particularly usable as-is. you would need to convert it into a usable form, nobody designs electrical circuits to handle being powered by a lightning bolt. there's a heck of a lot of electricity in them, but nobody is using them to generate electricity, instead all our effort goes into simply controlling them enough to keep them from starting our buildings on fire or destroying electrical circuits that are designed to handle reasonable amounts of electricity that would be useful for powering anything.

a lightning bolt is much too intense to be particularly useful. unless of course you're just trying to destroy things.

There was a very old adventure based on Alice in Wonderland where you could come across Zagyag the Mad's house. He had electricity powered devices, the whole thing run from a generator powered by a bound lightning elemental.

[Regitnui]

There was a very old adventure based on Alice in Wonderland where you could come across Zagyag the Mad's house. He had electricity powered devices, the whole thing run from a generator powered by a bound lightning elemental.

In eberron, where elemental binding is a known science, harnessing a air elemental for a constant flow of electricity could work. However, the elemental is a living being, and so would be prone to pushing out higher and lower voltages, perhaps even blowing all the devices out with too much were it mistreated or rebellious.

[JackPhoenix]

In eberron, where elemental binding is a known science, harnessing a air elemental for a constant flow of electricity could work. However, the elemental is a living being, and so would be prone to pushing out higher and lower voltages, perhaps even blowing all the devices out with too much were it mistreated or rebellious.

Well, that's where the Lightning Rail takes its name from..the trains aren't powered by electricity, though. The bound elemental sort of pushes/pulls the whole train and the lightning is (propably unwanted) byproduct.

[Bohandas]

no, not really.

if it was as simple as just harnessing a lightning bolt, skyscrapers would be generating a crudload of electricity during any sort of storm because they typically have dozens of lightning rods and while any individual skyscraper won't necessarily get hit dozens of times in a storm, it is very probable that at least some skyscrapers get hit some times during a storm.

but the electricity in a lightning bolt is not particularly usable as-is. you would need to convert it into a usable form, nobody designs electrical circuits to handle being powered by a lightning bolt. there's a heck of a lot of electricity in them, but nobody is using them to generate electricity, instead all our effort goes into simply controlling them enough to keep them from starting our buildings on fire or destroying electrical circuits that are designed to handle reasonable amounts of electricity that would be useful for powering anything.

a lightning bolt is much too intense to be particularly useful. unless of course you're just trying to destroy things.

Shocking Grasp and Electric Jolt are a lot less intense.

Though yeah they'd still need to invent the transformer and the capacitor/condenser/leyden jar

[Final Hyena]

It depends one how your world is set up. For instance if everyone with 11+ Int can become a wizard then technological progression would be severely hampered. If however magic was not something that everyone could do you would expect technology to progress because those without it would desperately need a way to stay competitive whether it be with military, healing, production or farming. You could even make a campaign based around magic guilds stomping technology, because that's what guilds actually did, I expect a wizard guild would only be more determined, and successful.

One alternative is a sort of 'magical tech' (or magic item) progression. Ask yourself, why doesn't the world just strive towards having enough rods of create food/water when it would free up the majority of the population who farm to do something else. You can go even further and do the same for crafting/construction. Are you imagining a country where a majority of its population is able to become a wizard/knight. That's the country that will take over the world.

To address the other matter of players advancing tech, I've had the same problem and solve it as so.
Step 1; Ask the player, 'Would your PC really be trying to invent this?'
Step 2; If they say yes ask for an appropriate skill check with a good DC, and then tell them it will take roughly X gold and days to finish your research. If you wanted it to be a bit more real you can do those rolls in secret and only tell them at the end if they made any actual progress.

[JoeJ]

On the other hand, magic itself satisfies a lot of these prerequisites. There's no need to invent the generator when you can conjure lightning out of nowhere with a couple of carefully chosen words.

Then you still need to invent some way to turn magical energy into whatever else it is you're trying to accomplish. In other words, create a new magic item. In some worlds this is possible, in others it isn't.

[Regitnui]

Well, that's where the Lightning Rail takes its name from..the trains aren't powered by electricity, though. The bound elemental sort of pushes/pulls the whole train and the lightning is (propably unwanted) byproduct.

Not quite; *prepares lecture*

As I was told by the Orien heir who was chatting with the other day, the rail coaches are reliant on Conducter Stones. The stones have an air elemental bound to them which causes a repulsive force between them. According to her, the lightning is caused when the stones are pressed within a certain distance of each other. The weight of a rail coach is enough to press it within the 'critical distance'. That's why it's called the Lightning Rail; because the sparks fly between the stones under the carriage and on the ground.

A second bound air elemental, separate to the first, is bound to the 'driving' coach. That elemental provides the motive force for the whole thing. This elemental also causes sparks, but again, it's entirely separate to the actual running of the rail. Poor girl seemed quite perplexed about the idea of devices powered by the lightning. It is lightning, after all.

[Bohandas]

Magic doesn't serve as a standin for technology because in many ways magic is lighly limited. Uses per day, for example. That's why the standard work day for an adventuring party is about a half an hour.

[Bohandas]

In many ways magic would increase, not impede, technology. In addition to the electricity example mentiomed before, how about plumbing? One would think that evemtually someone would realize that one or two decanters of endless water could supply water to an entire town if it could only be stored and distributed.

[Regitnui]

In many ways magic would increase, not impede, technology. In addition to the electricity example mentiomed before, how about plumbing? One would think that evemtually someone would realize that one or two decanters of endless water could supply water to an entire town if it could only be stored and distributed.

If, of course, you can find them. But that's actually a plausible example of the Wondrous Items in the DMG actually influencing the world, and I might actually nick it for my own campaign.

[EscherEnigma]

Heck, think about sanitation? In the real world a major problem is fouling out waterways with waste, landfills and so-on. If you can corral the right mix of oozes, then all that goes away. Though you might need to occasionally cull the oozes lest they get too big.

[Regitnui]

Heck, think about sanitation? In the real world a major problem is fouling out waterways with waste, landfills and so-on. If you can corral the right mix of oozes, then all that goes away. Though you might need to occasionally cull the oozes lest they get too big.

Otyughs. An entire town should keep one happy, and a city could support more. That'll also cut down on thievery, since anyone who goes into the sewers risks catching the monster's attention. Oozes can also be introduced as secondary cleaners, but just have the tunnels all run down to the otyugh's wallow and a constant flow of water (Endless Decanters).

[Bohandas]

I'd prefer to explain the lack of progress as the result of some sinister force. Likely suspects include Tharizdun, the Outlands spire, The Regulators, and the Pact Primeval.

[Clistenes]

Heck, think about sanitation? In the real world a major problem is fouling out waterways with waste, landfills and so-on. If you can corral the right mix of oozes, then all that goes away. Though you might need to occasionally cull the oozes lest they get too big.

That sounds like a good alternative starting point for the "Caverns of the Ooze Lord" adventure. Juiblex's worshippers masquerade as a sanitation business offering their oozes as an autonomous sewage cleaning system, and they build a temple in the ooze-infested sewers.

[pwykersotz]

That sounds like a good alternative starting point for the "Caverns of the Ooze Lord" adventure. Juiblex's worshippers masquerade as a sanitation business offering their oozes as an autonomous sewage cleaning system, and they build a temple in the ooze-infested sewers.

Alternately, a "Cult" that prays to Jubilex for his blessing, then puts his minions to work for the greater good!

[krugaan]

Alternately, a "Cult" that prays to Jubilex for his blessing, then puts his minions to work for the greater good!

The cult of Jello?

Head priest Cosby invokes the rite of JIGGLICIOUSNESS.

[Regitnui]

That sounds like a good alternative starting point for the "Caverns of the Ooze Lord" adventure. Juiblex's worshippers masquerade as a sanitation business offering their oozes as an autonomous sewage cleaning system, and they build a temple in the ooze-infested sewers.


The cult of Jello?

Head priest Cosby invokes the rite of JIGGLICIOUSNESS.

Two good reasons why this is my favourite D&D site. Great adventure ideas and complete off-the- wall craziness. :D

[Mith]

Would Oozes work well for separating organics from metal? They would probably work to dispose of metal, since they don't want to carry around something they cannot eat. I know Oozes are not intelligent, but I would think there would be an instinctive reaction on the oozes part.

[RazDelacroix]

Okay, I know for a fact that SOMEWHERE amidst these forum threads is a kingdom that has perfected the use of breeding oozes for most day-to-day conveniences. Sorta want to plug that in for whatever reason, more on that once my medication lets me think clearly again.

Also, personally never liked the notion that magic by it's very nature alone prevents technological progress. I think it makes sense that it would shape the overall undertakings of research that leads into technologies as used by the vast culture where it sits.

Like taking an ooze bath.

[EscherEnigma]

Would Oozes work well for separating organics from metal? They would probably work to dispose of metal, since they don't want to carry around something they cannot eat. I know Oozes are not intelligent, but I would think there would be an instinctive reaction on the oozes part.
Some, probably. Your classic Gelatinous Cube digests most organic stuff, but leaves the metal and bones behind. The trickier bit is if you want to recover the un-digested metal from the Cube for recycling or something.

Also, probably need to send some adventurers in on a regular basis to cull the oozes, lest they start crawling up through the sewer system into the streets.

[Bohandas]

The cult of Jello?

Head priest Cosby invokes the rite of JIGGLICIOUSNESS.

Now I want to make a cultist of Juiblex who sexually harasses people