Should Fantasy Humans be Extinct? DnD Specific [Archive]

5ColouredWalker

2016-01-30, 08:34 AM

My thoughts in Regards to 3.5 Core Races (Not their Sub Races, based on SRD stats so the bare bones to start with), with information sourced from books such as Races of the Wild. I will not be looking at half-breeds.

Quick Note: Disease has always been the biggest killer of man, however outside of childhood/injury, human adults even in the stone age could expect to live to 60 after having survived childhood. This is the Old age catagory.
Now, you can either take this as people with a -2 con mod or worse dying quickly or more saving throws being forced in old age and people now having -2 to their fort saves. I will be presuming the later in my writing as it's closer to reality, but will provide a note as to the other viewpoint at the end of my thoughts.
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Elves
+2 Dex, -2 Con. As already discussed, the Dex bonus isn't a major help once you get to the agricultural level, however the -2 Con is a major penalty, less elves will survive childbirth and childhood, and any disease could be a serious threat.

That said, Elves have a gestation period of 1 year, are mature at 20 years [100 is just when Elf society in dnd considers Elves mature, and can be waved], and continue to exist in their prime until 175. If 1 child was had every 1.5 years [A similar rate occured with people, being faster due to a shorter gestation period] that means 1 elf pair can produce 166 children, as opposed to a human's 17 going from 18ish to 30 at 1/year... Even restricting them to reaching 100 first, that's still up to 50 children.
So, Elves outbreed people, are as smart and capable of cooperating with people, and spend far longer in their prime. Additionally, Elves have hightened senses, can see far better than people at night, and recover quicker. It's entirely possible that A elvish workday is longer than a man's but has a couple more breaks to even it out, or improve on it, allowing them to get similar amounts of work done in similar amounts of time.
So, Elves outbreed Humans, could outwork Humans, and are less likely to have accidents due to missing things... Yea, Elves win in dnd, even before you consider that their best in their fields would be older and more experienced, the only way elves could lose is if they stagnate due to having similar psychology to humans. [Old people enjoy stability, and tend to hinder advancement.]

As for the -2 con vs Old Age thought, that's still elves reaching 180 before they drop compared to 60 for people.

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Halflings
Halflings are slower, yes. But having have better fort, better aim, better stealth skills, and while weak physically carry 39% of what people can while only needing 1/4 of what people do. A brace of rabits might feed a human family for a day and not encumber a man, but just shy of a halflings encumbrance would feed them for 56% longer than it'd feed a human just based on encumberance [1*.39*4 [1=Max light load, .39=Halfling Comparison, 4=needing 1/4 a human]].
Then, we get to agriculture. Halflings are weaker, sure, but they don't need to do as much, can work longer [+1 to Fort Saves.].
Finally, halflings live longer [Though take 2 years more to mature], and are in their prime longer. I don't have anything on their gestation period, but assuming the same reproductive rate as people, Halflings produce 30 children to a human's 17, and Halflings are more likely to survive childbirth, childhood, life in general, and age due to their +1 to all saving throws.

So, Halflings will likely come into conflict or intermingle with people. The question is, what's more important, numbers or raw strength? Quite frankly, I'd pick numbers. Sure, Halflings need to be defensive or playing Khan to beat people, but Light Cavalry conquered almost all of Asia, so I'd give the win to the halflings.

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Dwarves
Dwarves age too slowly in my opinion. If they evolved far enough away, Dwarves might win due to longer breeding period etc, but due to the face there are two full human generations in the time it takes a single Dwarf to grow up, I don't see them winning if they evolve nearby. That said, they may interbreed.
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Gnomes
Are in the same boat as Dwarves. They have amazing benefits in a variety of ways, but when it takes 2 human generations for a baby to grow up.

LordOfCain

2016-01-30, 09:11 AM

5ColouredWalker

2016-01-30, 10:12 AM

But humans have extra feats and skills, they should be able to be better at what they do and better at more things. If a level one elf warrior could have weapon focus (longbow), a level one human warrior could have weapon focus (longbow) and point blank shot.

Your feat option forgets the dex bonus. A Human Warriors WFLBow is countered by Elven Dex so both get Point Blank Shot and are equals, except in war you wouldn't be shooting someone from 30ft away with your bow so the Elf would instead get WF[Lbow] and be better off in war or equal as an adventurer. Try another direction.
But yes, with skill points, a Human could be skilled in more areas.

But, what makes you think a 100 year old elf [Still in his prime, has been for 80 years] and a 18 year old human [approaching his prime which will come around 25] are the same level? Other than that's what the standard age roll says? There's no logical reason for it, a 100 year old elf has lived over 5* longer than the human, and (Given similar growth levels) has been working at his trade for up to 85 years compared to the human's 5 [Starting at 15 and 13 respectively, being what I remember for when humans used to learn a trade and slowing the elf down 2 years instead of the slightly more accurate 1.].

By 100, the Elf should at the least be a high level expert, which also fits the fluff presented in RotW where elves are expected by the community to try and be self sufficient, and as such dabble to be at least journeyman level in everything, thus being their own carpenter, architect etc when they decide to build a house for theirself.

Starbuck_II

2016-01-30, 12:12 PM

--------
Elves
+2 Dex, -2 Con. As already discussed, the Dex bonus isn't a major help once you get to the agricultural level, however the -2 Con is a major penalty, less elves will survive childbirth and childhood, and any disease could be a serious threat.

That said, Elves have a gestation period of 1 year, are mature at 20 years [100 is just when Elf society in dnd considers Elves mature, and can be waved], and continue to exist in their prime until 175. If 1 child was had every 1.5 years [A similar rate occured with people, being faster due to a shorter gestation period] that means 1 elf pair can produce 166 children, as opposed to a human's 17 going from 18ish to 30 at 1/year... Even restricting them to reaching 100 first, that's still up to 50 children.
So, Elves outbreed people, are as smart and capable of cooperating with people, and spend far longer in their prime. Additionally, Elves have hightened senses, can see far better than people at night, and recover quicker. It's entirely possible that A elvish workday is longer than a man's but has a couple more breaks to even it out, or improve on it, allowing them to get similar amounts of work done in similar amounts of time.
So, Elves outbreed Humans, could outwork Humans, and are less likely to have accidents due to missing things... Yea, Elves win in dnd, even before you consider that their best in their fields would be older and more experienced, the only way elves could lose is if they stagnate due to having similar psychology to humans. [Old people enjoy stability, and tend to hinder advancement.]

As for the -2 con vs Old Age thought, that's still elves reaching 180 before they drop compared to 60 for people.

Races of the Wild propaganda, Elves don't mature by 20, that is just drow.
They are in diapers for 20 years.

Inevitability

2016-01-30, 12:51 PM

Something to note, though, is that most non-human humanoids will have racial deities to watch over them and guarantee their existence. Apart from Zarus, humans don't have such a deity.

MaxiDuRaritry

2016-01-30, 01:06 PM

If D&D humans are anything like in real life, we are, on average, determinator eldritch abominations. Sure, it's possible to break people, but when raised in an environment where adulthood is expected to be harsh and children are raised to suit, we friggin' steamroll everything in our way, matched in vicious bloody-mindedness only by other humans.

Our species developed on a deathworld, where practically everything was out to kill us. Both our prey and those that preyed on us were all faster, stronger, harder to crack, and had natural defenses that far outstripped anything our bodies could match. But we're persistence hunters, and one odd quirk of our shared anatomy is that we can survive lethal wounds so long as we're pumped with enough adrenaline and remain functional enough to hurl our broken bodies into the jaws of a predator and tear it apart with our bare hands to take our killer down with us in order to ensure it doesn't harm the tribe any more. And then the survivors hunt down the monsters that attacked us, destroy them all through cunning tactics, cooperation, and tool use, and raze their habitat to the ground.

That's humanity, and a few thousand years of domestication really haven't changed us as much as you might think.

Granted, the mechanics don't reflect that unless you take Diehard (which should be granted as a human bonus feat, in addition to everything they get already), but the attitude is still there.

Suddo

2016-01-30, 02:46 PM

Your feat option forgets the dex bonus. A Human Warriors WFLBow is countered by Elven Dex so both get Point Blank Shot and are equals, except in war you wouldn't be shooting someone from 30ft away with your bow so the Elf would instead get WF[Lbow] and be better off in war or equal as an adventurer. Try another direction.
But yes, with skill points, a Human could be skilled in more areas.

See skill focus (anything) pretty close to anything. Yeah elves will crush humans if they go to war but they don't have the economic powerhouse humans do.

dhasenan

2016-01-30, 04:07 PM

Humans have no huge advantages and no huge disadvantages. If we're assuming that political units always form along race boundaries, then a citystate containing only humans won't be best at everything, but at least it will be pretty good at everything.

D&D positions humans as the most flexible race. Flexibility means survivability in the face of changing circumstances.

Cosi

2016-01-30, 06:13 PM

First, obviously. But not because they were out competed by Elves or whatever. Consider that, as has been pointed out in this thread:

Disease has always been the biggest killer of man,

The Black Death managed to kill upwards of a hundred million people, and it was merely "very contagious" and "very deadly". In D&D there are far more virulent plagues. Plagues like the Wight, which kills instantly, and brings you back as a Wight in less than 30 seconds. And Wights are stronger than humans, tougher than humans, immortal, and don't need to eat or breathe. Also, they're intelligent, implying they can presumably take class levels (they make good Sorcerers).

The question isn't really "why are there Humans" it's "why is there anything living at all"?

Second, if Elves do in fact out compete Humans, it's not because they get +2 Dex and Longbow Proficiency. The threats that exist in D&D don't particularly care how strong your line troops are. A Dragon or Archmage can kill arbitrarily many low level troops without any meaningful care as to what their stats nominally are. The thing that would cause Elves or Humans to out-compete each other wouldn't be racial bonuses, it would be racial propensity to produce heroes.

Third, Elves and Humans don't meaningfully compete with each other. They both occupy the ecological niche of "intelligent tool user", which is a niche that expands as more people occupy it (thanks to gains from specialization). The world can support more Humans and more Elves if they work together, especially if Elves consume leaves or bark or something else that Humans cannot use for food.

Also, technical nitpick: Elves and Humans are probably not different species. They can breed and produce fertile offspring, so Humans are just another kind of Elf (like the Wood Elves or the Valley Elves)

If D&D humans are anything like in real life, we are, on average, determinator eldritch abominations.

Yes, because we are so much stronger than all the other intelligent species we have to compare ourselves with. Wait...

Our species developed on a deathworld, where practically everything was out to kill us. Both our prey and those that preyed on us were all faster, stronger, harder to crack, and had natural defenses that far outstripped anything our bodies could match.

Which of those were intelligent or tool using? Once humanity figured out fire, there was essentially nothing in the world that could meaningfully threaten us. In D&D that is very much not how things work.

D&D has predators like Giants (which are like humans, except physically more imposing), Dragons (magic, hyper-intelligent, crazy hard to hurt), and Mind Flayers (superior to humans in literally every way, and they have a big pile of innate magic).

Mechalich

2016-01-30, 08:04 PM

Mind Flayers (superior to humans in literally every way, and they have a big pile of innate magic).

And the fluff actually acknowledges this. In standard D&D cosmology Mind Flayers ruled the universe for an arbitrarily long period of time prior to ~30000 years before present. Humans exist because they made the ideal slave race (the other common races exist because their gods hid them in secluded places across the planes). The fact that there are free humans at all in D&D is because Gith happened.

After Gith happened humans had an arbitrary numerical advantage at the cosmo-wide level because they'd been part of a huge slave population, and that standing start allowed them to develop high level magic - which equalizes pretty much everything at least in the short to mid-terms because the only real factor of importance in a clash of mature D&D civilizations is 'who has the most high-level casters?'

In the long run everybody goes extinct except for some species X which has the ability to develop an arbitrary number of high level casters N so that they can start cracking worlds. Possibilities include things like aboleths, the mind flayers again (if they can ever get the Gith to stop murdering them so they can build up their numbers), the elves (which in spelljammer were the dominant modern civ), and many varieties of weird OP stuff hidden in various monstrous supplements like Ethergaunts (who are all high-level casters, but theirs are smarter and better than yours).

If you posited a flat standing start with every species at the founding of civilization in proportional numbers, then you pick the thing with the best magic potential and highest internal unity and whatever that thing is wins more iterations of the simulation than anything else (obviously any particular species may get ganged up on and lose some of the time).

5ColouredWalker

2016-01-30, 10:07 PM

The Black Death managed to kill upwards of a hundred million people, and it was merely "very contagious" and "very deadly". In D&D there are far more virulent plagues. Plagues like the Wight, which kills instantly, and brings you back as a Wight in less than 30 seconds. And Wights are stronger than humans, tougher than humans, immortal, and don't need to eat or breathe. Also, they're intelligent, implying they can presumably take class levels (they make good Sorcerers).

The question isn't really "why are there Humans" it's "why is there anything living at all

Third, Elves and Humans don't meaningfully compete with each other. They both occupy the ecological niche of "intelligent tool user", which is a niche that expands as more people occupy it (thanks to gains from specialization). The world can support more Humans and more Elves if they work together, especially if Elves consume leaves or bark or something else that Humans cannot use for food.

On my phone, but taking the more relevant bits.
Smallpox, on introduction to America and Australia wiped out up to 95% of the population. Everyone else just had 'circumstance bonuses' on their saving throws. Second, this is looking more at the start of agriculture, not after literacy and someone discovering create undead.

On the next big point, you do remember how much we fight among ourselves? Theres been a century in Europe where it was known as the 100 year war. There's going to be conflict, particularly with elves given their potential breeding rates.

5ColouredWalker

2016-01-30, 10:19 PM

See skill focus (anything) pretty close to anything. Yeah elves will crush humans if they go to war but they don't have the economic powerhouse humans do.

Look at breeding rates and divorce yourself from the level 1 fallacy. A elf has up to 160 years in his prime in which to master his craft, or learn many crafts. A human ans elven population are not at the same level, if just because elves have longer to accumulate RP XP.

Inevitability

2016-01-31, 01:39 AM

5ColouredWalker

2016-01-31, 01:46 AM

Elves know they're long-lived, so they don't rush. If they did, then I'd agree with you.

That, while reducing elven abilities in specific fields to be closer to human, would still result in a 'average elf' having several levels on a human.

Mechalich

2016-01-31, 02:49 AM

It doesn't really matter what the average anything choses to do. In D&D the average status is not determinative.

If we're playing D&D Civilization and going from the starting point from each species/race there's two victory paths relevant to the extinction debate: absolute military conquest, and total magical dominance (which is essentially technological victory, you don't build a starship, you evolve your world into whatever Tippyverse-analogue suits your species best).

Absolute military conquest is unlikely. D&D includes too many high-powered individual entities and non-unified species (ex. dragons) that act as a break on any species trying to Zerg-swarm a world. Also, if we go down this route, then some non-standard species that actually can Zerg-rush for infinite numbers (like Clockwork Horrors, Formians, or various forms of spawn-breeding undead) always wins and everything else is completely not relevant to the debate.

More likely is Tippyverse evolution. You need enough high-level magical (or psionic) breakthroughs to develop specific spellcasting and item-based capabilities that grant you perpetual motion machines of the first kind to provide infinite energy and resources among other things. This sort of thing is going to be developed by small groups of very talented, high-level casters. Maximum intelligence will matter, ability to work together will matter (which is why dragons don't do this), and the amount of time available to any given individual will matter, because it means more time to research and develop ideas. If a key spellcraft check to develop, say, teleportation circles, takes a year to work on, an elven archmage can make a ten times as many roles as a human does, effectively guaranteeing the maximum result. So the winning races to master magic will be high intelligence races with long (or infinite) lifespans and high levels of group cohesion. Generally that's going to be things like Ethergaunts and Mind Flayers. Elves are doing better than any of the other core races, but since they lack an intelligence bonus, still considerably worse than any one that does (pathfinder has a bunch, 3.X has a few obscure ones).

Elana

2016-01-31, 03:36 AM

Why exactly would humans go extinct?
In our world humans are better at practically everything than rats.
But rats are not even close to going extinct, even with humans actively trying to get rid of them

Zanos

2016-01-31, 03:47 AM

Coidzor

2016-01-31, 04:07 AM

No, especially not in Eberron.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?323220-Creepiness-in-the-Daelkyr-Half-Blood-race

Something to note, though, is that most non-human humanoids will have racial deities to watch over them and guarantee their existence. Apart from Zarus, humans don't have such a deity.

Instead they have every deity that isn't part of a racial pantheon and then some of the ones that are part of a racial pantheon.

Inevitability

2016-01-31, 04:44 AM

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?323220-Creepiness-in-the-Daelkyr-Half-Blood-race

I... oh god. :smalleek:

That's just... no.

Cosi

2016-01-31, 08:57 AM

Second, this is looking more at the start of agriculture, not after literacy and someone discovering create undead.

D&D doesn't model a difference between those things. Also, leveling to the point of creating undead is much faster than agricultural development. To the tune of weeks versus centuries.

On the next big point, you do remember how much we fight among ourselves? Theres been a century in Europe where it was known as the 100 year war. There's going to be conflict, particularly with elves given their potential breeding rates.

Sure, but there's basically no reason to assume it'll be along racial lines. Specialization is super good for civilizations, so cultures that have Orc Warriors, High Elf Mages, and Human Craftsman will naturally out-compete single race cultures (assuming the gods don't interfere in favor of the racists).

More likely is Tippyverse evolution.

I don't think that's true, actually. The Tippyverse is based on a bunch of assumptions that don't seem particularly supported. For example:

1. The Tippyverse doesn't patch XP-free wishes at all. The ability of random people to gain essentially arbitrary power by invoking the right demon or buying the right magic item destabilizes society nearly totally, because it means people aren't dependent on society for anything at all. Also, it gives individuals absurd levels of personal power.

2. There's no reason to assume that high level Wizards would spend time creating teleport circles or magic traps for society. They can create anything they want more efficiently than society can, and as such cannot be meaningfully paid to produce anything. You could talk about altruism, but that explanation doesn't hold water. It's based on assumptions about trade and social obligation that don't exist in a medieval pastiche, and the kind of altruistic actions people take in D&D are mostly fighting existential risks.

3. Even if you could nominally get people to build Tippyverse type cities, Tippy does some slight of hand to make that seem more necessary than it actually is. The basic claim that supports building Cities is that you can't build anything else, because it's impossible to produce enough castings of forbiddance to cover your territory. But then Tippy turns right around to postulate magic traps that could produce staves of forbiddance (or, thanks to ice assassin actual Wizards capable of casting it) in arbitrary quantities.

4. Not a particularly strong objection, but taking magic traps working as described and running with it is kind of absurd. The idea that those work as intended (and remember, Tippy had an open ended nerf clause) is spurious, at least in my opinion.

D&D with high level casters probably looks much less like the Tippyverse and much more like the Blood War or Dark Sun. High level people too locked in fighting each other (or simply enjoying the benefits of being high level) to effect meaningful change. The place where D&D magic actually effects the evolution of civilization is going to be mid levels, where people still interact with the economy but also have the ability to use magic to outproduce some sectors of it.

You need enough high-level magical (or psionic) breakthroughs to develop specific spellcasting and item-based capabilities that grant you perpetual motion machines of the first kind to provide infinite energy and resources among other things.

I'm pretty sure what actually happens if you model things that way is a cyclical process of expansion and extinction. Magical advancements will be distributed non-homogenously and give groups that develop them an overwhelming (if temporary) advantage. Eventually, that advantage is big enough to destroy the world. As there are groups in D&D with the explicit agenda of destroying the world, the world will be destroyed. Maybe because the guy who invents enervation really wants to kick of the Wightpocalypse. Maybe cause the guy who figures out Chain Binding decides to use it to summon demons until the world drown in the tide of the Blood War.

Generally that's going to be things like Ethergaunts and Mind Flayers. Elves are doing better than any of the other core races, but since they lack an intelligence bonus, still considerably worse than any one that does (pathfinder has a bunch, 3.X has a few obscure ones).

I'm pretty sure that the Ethergaunts back story is that they did that, someone locked them in a planar prison, and they just recently figured out how to get out. Presumably, the Ethergaunts set up their civilization somewhere (probably the Ethereal Plane), messed around for a while, then fought a war with some other culture. Maybe Genies.

Anlashok

2016-01-31, 02:38 PM

Psyren

2016-01-31, 03:23 PM

Something to note, though, is that most non-human humanoids will have racial deities to watch over them and guarantee their existence. Apart from Zarus, humans don't have such a deity.

*obligatory Zarus=Pelor*

Humans don't actually *need* a racial deity; every major race-agnostic deity is beating their drum, from Boccob to Mystra to Lathander to Sarenrae to even malcontents like Asmodeus, Bane, and Hextor. And that's to say nothing of Eberron, were deities may or may not even exist and magitech runs the setting, with humans being on top by dint of having the most of it as well as the most dragonmarks.

Zombimode

2016-01-31, 03:34 PM

This whole discussion is absolutely meaningless in a vacuum. To make sense, you have to ask the question for specific settings. "Should humans be extinct in Eberron?" is a meaningful question. It can be answered and the answer is likely different if you would ask the question for a different setting.

Also Psyren, the Giant quote in your sig seems quite fitting to me regarding this topic.

Psyren

2016-01-31, 03:47 PM

Also Psyren, the Giant quote in your sig seems quite fitting to me regarding this topic.

One of many, many, many reasons I put it there :smallsmile:

Exemplis

2016-01-31, 07:30 PM

I think OP tried to prove human inferiority factoring out magic at all. He's talking about lifespan expectancies, reproduction rates and ability modifiers.

But talking about elves' longievity multiplying their reproduction rates he forgets that these things are inversley related (compare African states and, say, Japan). Women of 1st world countries nowdays decide to make children when they are already old by biological standards (around 30s). This along with enourmous cost associated with rasing a child in modern world and sedentary lifestyle make it very dificult to have many children even if they are willing to. More often they are not. So I think DnD elves would have similar problems.

But if we concider magic and DnD cosmology then all of core races would be long extinct unless gods were set on keeping them alive long enough to develop powerful spellcasting at all costs. In this case all evolutionary arguments are completely irrelevant.

Mechalich

2016-01-31, 07:50 PM

I'm pretty sure what actually happens if you model things that way is a cyclical process of expansion and extinction. Magical advancements will be distributed non-homogenously and give groups that develop them an overwhelming (if temporary) advantage. Eventually, that advantage is big enough to destroy the world. As there are groups in D&D with the explicit agenda of destroying the world, the world will be destroyed. Maybe because the guy who invents enervation really wants to kick of the Wightpocalypse. Maybe cause the guy who figures out Chain Binding decides to use it to summon demons until the world drown in the tide of the Blood War.

I agree with this, only I would add that in addition to the destroy the world option there is also the 'kick off a post-scarcity magical utopia' option. That's kinda what I meant by Tippyverse-esque. There's a lot of possibilities to what could happen with this: the Mind flayer utopia doesn't resemble the Elven utopia at all, but the general point is that, so long as the world manages to keep turning it's not going to resemble a standard fantasy world in any way.

Eldan

2016-01-31, 09:44 PM

The reason why living beings are around at all is easily answered: they are raw material. They live, they mature, they die, and then they become souls. Cosmically speaking, souls make up everything that actually matters. Petitioners, Exemplars, Proxies. Eventually, they melt into the planes they are on, so they make up the planes, too. In Planescape, we are brick and mortar with the added bonus that we reproduce by ourselves. No mortals means no souls, means no larvae or lantern archons or Einherjar or a thousand other things.
Everyone on the planes, from Asmodeus to Zaphkiel to the Queen of Chaos needs mortals around. Without mortals, they run out of soldiers.

That's before you get the gods involved. Mortals are god's lifeblood. Without worshippers, they die. The more they have, the more powerful they are.

And why mortals? Why not illithid worshippers, or dragon petitioners? Because there's more of them and souls is a pure numbers game.

So yeah. Try to brainwash or kill enough humans and everyone will be after you.

Mechalich

2016-02-01, 12:00 AM

And why mortals? Why not illithid worshippers, or dragon petitioners? Because there's more of them and souls is a pure numbers game.

Humans don't win the pure numbers game though. If the argument is 'fill the planes with souls' you're way better off with goblins than humans: fast-breeding, high turnover rate, short lifespan, dense population structure, and reduced per individual food requirements (and actually that's not a bad campaign hook - devils trying to replace humans with goblins to maximize the larvae output). Halflings also work better than humans for many of the same reasons, or really any species with small size and a short lifespan.

And the gods and outsider races are limited in their ability to act directly on this count anyway, since otherwise Clockwork Horrors and Ethergaunts and Formians simply wouldn't be allowed to exist. The interaction of D&D material plane campaign worlds and Planescape and vice versa gets weirdly recursive really fast (which is cool if you're running Planescape and embracing the weirdness, but otherwise tends to be confusing).

tiercel

2016-02-01, 01:59 AM

Perhaps a better question might be, why aren't elves extinct?

Elves have a congenital learning defect.

Elven society is zillions of years older than yours, yet with no particular demonstrable technological advantage to show for it, which implies that elven society is slow to progress. In and of itself, this might not be a problem, but unless world-threatening events only appear for the first time when PCs exist, a slow-to-progress and deliberately-slow-to-move society would arguably be in greatest peril for failure to react in timely manner.

And elves are even half as haughty/convinced of their own superiority as fluff suggests they are -- or if they are even generally perceived to be so -- this bodes ill for their relations with other races.

In a nutshell, humans are generally acclaimed as one of (or THE) most adaptable races, while elves are just about humans' polar opposite in this regard. If evolution is a force in D&D worlds -- much less with increased selection pressure due to the world's very existence being in danger seemingly every few months or years at most -- the question shouldn't be "why humans?" but "why elves?"

Cosi

2016-02-01, 02:23 AM

This whole discussion is absolutely meaningless in a vacuum.

Not really. The rules have a bunch of elements (for example, spawn creating undead) that are super bad for people surviving.

"Should humans be extinct in Eberron?"

Probably?

The highest level character on the main continent is 18th (the Silver Flame pope in her home city), 16th (the lich), or 11th (the vampire king of magic-Russia). There's an entire continent of dragons where there are unnamed NPCs that strong.

Also, Eberron doesn't make sense at all. The setting doesn't account for high level characters at all, so everything falls apart once someone decides to start Chain Binding or using major creation for stuff. It's like someone wrote a setting for E6, but forgot to include the rules about not getting to advance past 6th.

Also Psyren, the Giant quote in your sig seems quite fitting to me regarding this topic.

Applying that quote in this context is, to my mind, basically throwing up your hands and abandoning the possibility of improving the setting. The response to problems with consistency between the rules and the setting should be either changing the rules or changing the setting, not calling people out for criticizing the setting.

I agree with this, only I would add that in addition to the destroy the world option there is also the 'kick off a post-scarcity magical utopia' option.

Maybe. I'm pretty sure there are enough sources of barbarians (in the "sack of Rome" sense, not the Rage sense) to knock over civilizations. Like demons and such.

And the gods and outsider races are limited in their ability to act directly on this count anyway, since otherwise Clockwork Horrors and Ethergaunts and Formians simply wouldn't be allowed to exist.

I dunno, all those dudes have a bunch of crazy magic. If you assume that the gods are just very high level casters (rather than trying to use the crazy go nuts rules in Deities and Demigods), that's enough to protect themselves.

Fizban

2016-02-01, 04:41 AM

Look at breeding rates and divorce yourself from the level 1 fallacy. A elf has up to 160 years in his prime in which to master his craft, or learn many crafts. A human ans elven population are not at the same level, if just because elves have longer to accumulate RP XP.
Wrong. I will point out again that the DMG has rules right there giving the highest level NPCs in any given population, and they apply equally to every race. Elves are not higher level than humans, period.

I don't support the assumption of Tippyverse either, but Mechalich still has the right idea. The missing link is that the population with the most high level casters is the same as the one with the highest population, because that is required to get high level casters that aren't DM fiat or PC adventurers, the kind that might actually do the research to tech up the tree.

The highest level character on the main continent is 18th (the Silver Flame pope in her home city), 16th (the lich), or 11th (the vampire king of magic-Russia). There's an entire continent of dragons where there are unnamed NPCs that strong.

Also, Eberron doesn't make sense at all. The setting doesn't account for high level characters at all, so everything falls apart once someone decides to start Chain Binding or using major creation for stuff. It's like someone wrote a setting for E6, but forgot to include the rules about not getting to advance past 6th.
I really liked that when I first heard it, then I stared looking at the other books and just laughed when they immediately started dropping high level NPCs everywhere. There's another 11th level cleric and 16th level lich in Sharn, the aforementioned nation full of dragons with completely random made up piles of class levels, and so on. The only difference between Eberron and Forgotten Realms is that Eberron wasn't around long enough to accumulate the same number of high level NPCs and didn't inherit epic level characters from the writer's home games or books.

If we assume that most of the high level casters in Eberron cities are all tied up in government work and the sort of research they were doing in the last war (remember research times for anything but spells are undefined and stuff like Warforged, Karnathi Undead, and Dragonmarked items all had to be invented at some point), then they've got no time for abusing our known char OP exploits. And once you apply a setting you add a certain amount of hypothetical DM attention that I think should imply silly infinite loops will be automatically closed.

Zombimode

2016-02-01, 05:10 AM

Not really. The rules have a bunch of elements (for example, spawn creating undead) that are super bad for people surviving.

No. Each setting has its own set of precondition and its own history. The current state of a setting is a result of this history + preconditions. Sure, there are some common elements. But ignoring a settings specifics will render your predictions about the settings future states wild guesses at best.

Are undead and their spawning ability a threat that could destroy a civilization in many settings? Sure. But possibility does not equal necessity. That an undead apocalypse will inevitably occur, or rather should have occurred by now in a given setting is something that you would have to prove for this setting. Have fun with that. Mentioning the possibility is not a proof.

The highest level character on the main continent is 18th (the Silver Flame pope in her home city), 16th (the lich), or 11th (the vampire king of magic-Russia). There's an entire continent of dragons where there are unnamed NPCs that strong.

Also, Eberron doesn't make sense at all. The setting doesn't account for high level characters at all, so everything falls apart once someone decides to start Chain Binding or using major creation for stuff. It's like someone wrote a setting for E6, but forgot to include the rules about not getting to advance past 6th.

Applying that quote in this context is, to my mind, basically throwing up your hands and abandoning the possibility of improving the setting. The response to problems with consistency between the rules and the setting should be either changing the rules or changing the setting, not calling people out for criticizing the setting.

Addressing those two in conjunction, because you may have missed the point of Rich's quote.

What do you meant to imply by your first paragraph? That the ability of the Dragons of Argonessen to destroy Khorvairian civilization means that dragons should have destroyed Khorvaire by now? Because if that is what you meant, than you are making exactly the kind of assumption Rich's quote is talking about.

Could the dragons destroy Khorvairian civilization? Yes, probably. They did so with the giants of Xendrik. But they had a reason to do so. Apparently they have no reason to do so with Khorvaire until now. Assuming otherwise means making an assumption that does not fit with established Eberron lore.

Abusing poorly thought out spells and abilities is a "problem" for every setting. Eberron choose the way of saying "yeah, thats stupid, so it doesn't happen" and leaves the details and houserules in the hands of the DM. You know, like pretty much every setting does.

Concerning your last paragraph: this is not at all what Rich meant. Criticizing a piece of fiction is fine. But not all critique is equally valid. When making a critique, you should look at the underlying assumptions and check if they actually fit with the established information of the piece of fiction and if they don't, discarding those assumptions.

Yahzi

2016-02-01, 05:41 AM

Platymus Pus

2016-02-01, 05:58 AM

Humans are possibly the strongest core race, I see no reason why they should be behind dwarves and elves.

Besides the fact they are fragile and short lived in the long term?

Cosi

2016-02-01, 06:50 AM

And once you apply a setting you add a certain amount of hypothetical DM attention that I think should imply silly infinite loops will be automatically closed.

You don't need infinite loops to collapse Eberron's economy. You just need to actually cast stuff like wall of iron and fabricate.

On an only semi-related note, I'm disappointed in Eberron's design. Announcing that you are going to write a setting where people use magic for industry, and then writing up a bunch of new magic rather than applying the magic that actually exists is lame.

No. Each setting has its own set of precondition and its own history. The current state of a setting is a result of this history + preconditions. Sure, there are some common elements. But ignoring a settings specifics will render your predictions about the settings future states wild guesses at best.

You're forgetting the most important element: rules. Eberron (or Forgotten Realms, or Dark Sun) isn't a story, it is a canvas for telling stories under a rules framework. If that framework doesn't support the setting, either the setting or the rules need to change. Given that you're writing for an existing game, it's massively easier to fix the setting.

That an undead apocalypse will inevitably occur, or rather should have occurred by now in a given setting is something that you would have to prove for this setting. Have fun with that. Mentioning the possibility is not a proof.

No, the setting needs to explain why The Shadow Over The Sun hasn't happened. Because it can and unless it is stopped, it will.

What do you meant to imply by your first paragraph? That the ability of the Dragons of Argonessen to destroy Khorvairian civilization means that dragons should have destroyed Khorvaire by now?

Not "the dragons" as a monolithic entity. Some random dragon hillbilly, because he has more class levels than anyone actually in Khorvaire and is also a freaking dragon. The setting postulates an entire continent full of people capable of destroying humanoid civilization. If any of them want to do that (spoilers: some of them do), then it is the burden of the authors of the setting to present a setup where that does not happen.

Abusing poorly thought out spells and abilities is a "problem" for every setting. Eberron choose the way of saying "yeah, thats stupid, so it doesn't happen" and leaves the details and houserules in the hands of the DM.

Stop apologizing for bad design. The reason Eberron doesn't account for major creation or planar binding isn't because people thought that fixing those things should be left to DMs, it is because they were lazy and didn't care.

You know, like pretty much every setting does.

Actually, no. Lots of settings have solutions to that problem. Dark Sun assumes that the crazy powerful God-Wizards actually turned themselves into dragons and blew up the world. Planescape (and Forgotten Realms) assume that there are a roughly equal number of arbitrarily powerful people on every side, and that cancels out somehow. Spelljammer assumes that high level Wizards spend their time making magic items and going off on Star Trek style expeditions into the unknown. Birthright assumes that high level people are super rare (and possibly don't exist, I forget the details).

Concerning your last paragraph: this is not at all what Rich meant. Criticizing a piece of fiction is fine. But not all critique is equally valid. When making a critique, you should look at the underlying assumptions and check if they actually fit with the established information of the piece of fiction and if they don't, discarding those assumptions.

Underlying assumptions like the rules of the game? You know, the ones where the actual apocalypse cultists have the ability to cause the apocalypse.

If criticism ends up finding that the setting is inconsistent, the response should be to fix the setting, not discard the criticism. Otherwise your design never improves, and that is terrible.

squiggit

2016-02-01, 06:50 AM

It's like someone wrote a setting for E6, but forgot to include the rules about not getting to advance past 6th.
That's more the case for D&D in general rather than just Eberron. Even Forgotten Realms falls apart if high level spellcasters start being proactive in society. D&D is a game that builds settings designed specifically to express certain kinds of fantasy worlds rather than settings that realistically reflect the rules of the game.

Though you can make a good argument for Dark Sun doing both, I suppose.

OldTrees1

2016-02-01, 08:09 AM

Fantasy humans are not extinct because nothing in this thread gets even close to being an actual cause of extinction even if taken as true.

A rival race that is better? Every rival race except the savage races has selected niches in which to fill. Humanity opted to not be niche specific. This greatly reduces the race-race competition.

A stronger predator? Deer, Rabbits, Cows, and even Rats have not gone extinct as a result of Humanity. Why would Humanity go extinct from Ghouls, Dragons, Illithids, or even *missing*?

Before you ask a question like "Should X be extinct?" you need to ask "What actually causes extinction?" Because a stronger rival or the existence of a predator is not sufficient. Humanity has witnessed extinctions. 3 IRL causes that come to mind are:
1) Humanity decided to wipe them out & had the power to do so. We could not eliminate all rats or mosquitoes. However we did hunt the Tasmanian Tiger species to extinction.
2) Invasive species was introduced that either had no predator (and thus its carrying capacity was only limited by the shared food supply) or was a new kind of predator (Ex: Kiwi evolved without dealing with terrestrial mammalian predators although Kiwi are not extinct).
3) Their habitat changes drastically and they do not adapt in time.

When you look at these causes, none is applicable to fantasy humanity. Enemies either don't want us extinct or don't have the power to do so. Humanity is not dealing with an invasive species. Humanity's tool use makes habitat change a negligible existential threat. Thus Humanity is unlikely to be extinct.

Fizban

2016-02-01, 08:12 AM

You don't need infinite loops to collapse Eberron's economy. You just need to actually cast stuff like wall of iron and fabricate.

On an only semi-related note, I'm disappointed in Eberron's design. Announcing that you are going to write a setting where people use magic for industry, and then writing up a bunch of new magic rather than applying the magic that actually exists is lame.
I ignore Wall of Iron/Salt abuse on a grand scale, all the DM has to do is say "market saturation" and cap you at whatever limit he wants, even easier than banning infinite traps and it's all the same principle. Fabricate is certainly a thing (I've used it as justification for nanotech myself), but the number of people who can cast it remains quite small and all it actually does is speed up the crafting process, which is practically required for expensive mundane stuff anyway. And neither spell is exclusive to Eberron.

I partially agree with your disappointment, a bunch of arbitrary magic trains and magic items that ignore existing rules is not very inspiring, but I do get what the guy figured out: while there are low-ish level spells that can change the world if cast en-masse, there are not enough caster classed people to do so, period. The only things everybody gets are skills and feats, and commoners already have defined skill lists. The dragonmark feats allow commoners to have some of those spells and the setting says 25% of all people have them, which is enough to actually start changing things. The problem is that dragonmarks have nothing to do with creating magic trains or airships which are impossible with the originally claimed lack of high level casters. But it did solve one problem.

There's also a bit of the aggressive open endedness that bugs me. Bringing it back to the topic at hand, I'm pretty sure we can't say why the dragons destroyed the giants because it's deliberately blank for the DM to fill (or if not that, then the spooky Mournland). Hard to build on the world when you're missing important historical facts, but maybe the later books filled in more.

Cosi

2016-02-01, 08:41 AM

I ignore Wall of Iron/Salt abuse on a grand scale, all the DM has to do is say "market saturation" and cap you at whatever limit he wants, even easier than banning infinite traps and it's all the same principle.

Except that's a massive shift in the economy. You just produced all the iron. The economic implications of that are going to be intense. The game doesn't model them well, but that seems like something that absolutely should have been written in a game about magi-industrial revolution D&D.

while there are low-ish level spells that can change the world if cast en-masse, there are not enough caster classed people to do so, period.

There are plenty for some stuff. animate dead for a labor force, plant growth for farming, healing to massively reduce mortality, or wall of stone for construction. All of those require minimal caster overhead.

The dragonmark feats allow commoners to have some of those spells and the setting says 25% of all people have them,

Really? That seems high.

Fizban

2016-02-01, 01:56 PM

Except that's a massive shift in the economy. You just produced all the iron. The economic implications of that are going to be intense. The game doesn't model them well, but that seems like something that absolutely should have been written in a game about magi-industrial revolution D&D.
Wall of Iron was also never intended as a source of raw iron and it's entirely likely that none of the people writing it never noticed. I won't pretend to know the exact chain of events that would occur, but I imagine the iron miners would switch to mining other things, like the gold needed to cast the spell, or coal for the steam trains they should be using. Have to dig some new mines in new places but there's always something to dig out of the ground.

There are plenty for some stuff. animate dead for a labor force, plant growth for farming, healing to massively reduce mortality, or wall of stone for construction. All of those require minimal caster overhead.
You are seriously overestimating the number of casters there are and the effect of those spells. Animate Dead produces a few dozen mindless laborers that are harder to handle than the much more inexpensive commoners. Plant Growth increases the yield a bit but the harvesting equipment needed to actually get people off the farms is nowhere in sight. Cure Wounds won't reduce mortality any more than a 1st level expert with maxed heal skill would, and even the much vaunted Remove Disease is best used for keeping the healers alive while they roll heal checks for multiple people. Wall of Stone is indeed convenient for building, but that just means more stone buildings.

A metropolis gets 4 rolls each on 5 classes I'll say matter here, so that's maybe 20 people with guaranteed 5th level spells, 40 with 3rd or 4th, 80 more that might have 2nd, 130 level 1's in PC classes, and finally 120 or so extra 1st level Adepts. The labor force required to support the minimum 25,000 of that city is. . . 22,500 or more manning the farms. If every single caster had Animate Dead, and filled up their full capacity, and then spent all their time supervising skeletons (hah), that would add some 1,500 bodies. A nice bit of breathing room but not world shaking to my mind, and don't forget that as someone mentioned in one of these threads: magic people that don't need to do work have no reason to go around doing all the work. More significant is comparing those 1,500 to the 2,500 professional soldiers (mostly but not all Warriors), but once you raise the militia the numbers aren't so scary anymore and crushing armies is something spells can do well.

Granted, I don't know what sort of percentages are needed to kick off the renaissance, maybe kicking 5% more people into more interesting jobs is enough to do it, could be. But the default world is mostly subsistence farmers and it takes so many of them to hold up a city you can't just wave your hands and make their lives better with any magic but the advance of industry.

Really? That seems high.
I can't remember where I got it from, but I was quite sure about it. Googling has failed. Either I read it recently or it was in Grek and Weyrock's Eberron Homebrew thread (for 5e), and they were basing their stuff on the printed material so I doubt they'd have made it up wholecloth (if that's where I got the number).

Coidzor

2016-02-01, 02:47 PM

There are plenty for some stuff. animate dead for a labor force, plant growth for farming, healing to massively reduce mortality, or wall of stone for construction. All of those require minimal caster overhead.

Without specific shenanigans, animate dead is more useful for producing automated mills that are more consistent than windmills and don't require running water. Uncontrolled undead that are stuck doing their last task ad infinitum can do some assembly line work, I suppose, but even then they're more useful haunt-shifted into a isolated power generation role for more mundane forms of automation and industrialization.

Cosi

2016-02-01, 03:26 PM

Wall of Iron was also never intended as a source of raw iron and it's entirely likely that none of the people writing it never noticed.

That is almost certainly true, as RPG designers rarely have the forethought to consider the implications of the things they write, but it's essentially irrelevant. wall of iron exists, and its effects should be analyzed and, ideally, incorporated when making world-building decisions.

I won't pretend to know the exact chain of events that would occur, but I imagine the iron miners would switch to mining other things, like the gold needed to cast the spell, or coal for the steam trains they should be using. Have to dig some new mines in new places but there's always something to dig out of the ground.

Possibly. But the gold inputs needed are going to be much lower than they were previously (considering gold required to pay miners as an input of iron production)* and some number of people will be freed from the drudgery of mining to go write poetry or apprentice as Wizards.

*: Sort of. The gold is physically consumed if you're casting wall of iron, while it isn't if you mine iron. OTOH, it's really a lot less.

You are seriously overestimating the number of casters there are and the effect of those spells.

A metropolis gets 4 rolls each on 5 classes I'll say matter here, so that's maybe 20 people with guaranteed 5th level spells, 40 with 3rd or 4th, 80 more that might have 2nd, 130 level 1's in PC classes, and finally 120 or so extra 1st level Adepts. The labor force required to support the minimum 25,000 of that city is. . . 22,500 or more manning the farms.

D&D demographics are screwy. On the one hand, I don't know where the hell those level distributions come from (in the sense of emergence from other game mechanics, obviously there's a chart), and there are rules that screw those things up. For example, Apprentice from the DMGII implies that you can crank out 5th level casters, and using lesser planar binding to nab convenient outsiders (go go gadget six Formian Workers!) lets you pull in a lot of magic.

Basically, I don't think those numbers hold up if you believe RAW, and even if they do you should be able to bootstrap your way up pretty quickly.

Animate Dead produces a few dozen mindless laborers that are harder to handle than the much more inexpensive commoners.

If every single caster had Animate Dead, and filled up their full capacity, and then spent all their time supervising skeletons (hah), that would add some 1,500 bodies.

Without specific shenanigans, animate dead is more useful for producing automated mills that are more consistent than windmills and don't require running water. Uncontrolled undead that are stuck doing their last task ad infinitum can do some assembly line work, I suppose, but even then they're more useful haunt-shifted into a isolated power generation role for more mundane forms of automation and industrialization.

My thought was actually use activated items (or eternal wands, but those require casters) of command undead. The cost is 2,400 GP per cast per day (2nd level spell * CL 3 * 2,000 / 5 for one charge per day). Each charge lets a Commoner control three zombies (probably skeletons for hygiene reasons), which is enough to have a horse to pull his cart around as a sort of car, a field laborer, and a free skeleton for the public defense.

Now, that does some interesting things to society. For one thing, it puts weird long term pressures on population relative to dead people, because each living human wants two dead humans as servants. It also takes a while to ramp up the items. On the other hand, all of the infrastructure involved is permanent, which makes it a strong long term investment.

Plant Growth increases the yield a bit but the harvesting equipment needed to actually get people off the farms is nowhere in sight.

plant growth is interesting. It's multiplicative, so it would be a much bigger deal in modern society (where yields are super high) than medieval society (where they are ... not), but it does free up a third or so of your population for more productive stuff that subsistence farming. You high better better results from goodberry, though I don't know enough about medieval agriculture to say for sure that you're bellow the point where that makes sense.

ShurikVch

2016-02-01, 04:05 PM

Should Fantasy Humans be Extinct? DnD SpecificYes.
With their irresponsible breeding habits they should be dissolved in communal gene-pool like a sugar-cube in a cup of hot tea!
Human: Hey elf, you look like a girl.
Elf: To a human, everything must look like a girl.
Human: What?
Elf: Half-orcs, half-ogres...
Human: ... shut up.
Dwarf: Half-dragons, half-kobolds.
Human: I said shut up!
Elf: ...
Dwarf: ...
Human: ...
Elf: Centaurs.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yBrwu9B3s2o/UcTCmTB5byI/AAAAAAAACzM/7UpEJXlbcH4/s400/family_gathering_colored.jpg

Clistenes

2016-02-01, 05:51 PM

Yes.
With their irresponsible breeding habits they should be dissolved in communal gene-pool like a sugar-cube in a cup of hot tea!
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yBrwu9B3s2o/UcTCmTB5byI/AAAAAAAACzM/7UpEJXlbcH4/s400/family_gathering_colored.jpg

You people have it wrong! Fredrik Andersson's Bard (http://www.naorhy.com/fa_graphics_e2.htm) is the GREATEST HERO EVER! He is saving Humanity from monsters by slowly turning all monsters into humans! With the power of love! And of his magic ****!

Seriously, at the rate that guy is going there won't be a next generation of pure monsters in his world. Only his half-breed kids, all of which seem quite friendly to humans.

EDIT 1: The Bard impregnated an Animated Boulder once. He claims that he doesn't know how it happened.

EDIT 2: He has never made a move on the party's only female, an elven ranger, because he can't tell the gender of elves.

EDIT 3: By the way, most monster ladies are angry at him for his womanizing ways, but the Scorpionfolk and the Centaur ladies are bi, and after this scene the two of them became a couple and went to live together with their children as a family. The Bard often visits them, since they are welcoming (they are happy with each other and don't resent him) and, according to Andersson, "they are the less likely to kill him".

arkangel111

2016-02-01, 07:30 PM

So the OP asked the question whether humans should be extinct in most settings. for some reason no one has actually mentioned the sheer number of builds that suggest human as the base for optimizing. It is very rare that a thread pops up on this forum and no one suggests human. I would venture a conservative guess at close to 80% of builds suggest human as a base. That extra feat goes a long way. just look at the simple feats that are almost never picked by PC's Iron will and its ilk, Skill focus, and really any feat that isn't combat oriented.

will, reflex, Fortitude boosters and skill focus would require a +6 to an attribute from a base race, not too many of those without template stacking. and even for races that have the +6 they don't get it to every attribute, and they are taking a penalty somewhere to make up for it.

the bonus feat is getting many builds off the ground 3 levels sooner. Probably the key thing everyone complains about when asking for builds is feats. Everyone is feat starved, its the reason why everyone suggests a dip in fighter even when ToB is on the table. This fact alone would put more PC's in the equation, and PC's push the setting forward and make world changing decisions. Even without this factored in that feat is still really strong, and in most cases far stronger than even a huge stat boost.

In summation I think the OP and his players failed to take account of the humans biggest advantage the bonus feat.

Coidzor

2016-02-01, 08:55 PM

You people have it wrong! Fredrik Andersson's Bard (http://www.naorhy.com/fa_graphics_e2.htm) is the GREATEST HERO EVER! He is saving Humanity from monsters by slowly turning all monsters into humans! With the power of love! And of his magic ****!

Seriously, at the rate that guy is going there won't be a next generation of pure monsters in his world. Only his half-breed kids, all of which seem quite friendly to humans.

With the way things seem to work, the diluting effect of human blood is stronger than other creatures' blood. So while humans breed with everything, it's more likely that populations of half-humans will have throwbacks to humanity than whatever they were mixed with, and a person with an elven grandmother and humans for the rest of the family tree is basically fully human most of the time while a person with a human grandmother and elves for the rest of the family tree is still a sort of half-elf.

All hail the Daelkyr Overlords and their insidious multigenerational plot to end up with everyone either looking like them or mongrelfolk!

Mechalich

2016-02-01, 09:46 PM

That's more the case for D&D in general rather than just Eberron. Even Forgotten Realms falls apart if high level spellcasters start being proactive in society. D&D is a game that builds settings designed specifically to express certain kinds of fantasy worlds rather than settings that realistically reflect the rules of the game.

Though you can make a good argument for Dark Sun doing both, I suppose.

This is, of course, very true. D&D draws a huge amount of generic setting design elements from LotR, even though LotR is even less magical than an E6 setting in many ways (nobody has wands for one), whereas the D&D rules allow for overpowered insanity that makes the powers thrown about in high-power modern fantasies like WoT look tame.

Dark Sun actually well represents a post-apocalypse setting following the sort of magic-induced world destruction that both I and several other posters indicate is highly likely to occur. Dark Sun's history describes just such a series of events and while it happens that humans were not rendered extinct in that setting, a whole bunch of other species were annihilated. If the Dark Sun experience is the norm and the apocalyptic event generally renders say 25-75% of all species on a world extinct, then humans are probably extirpated about half the time just due to random chance, since it's ultimately going to be a question of which species the overlord/overlords who set in motion the apocalypse perceive as major threats.

Fizban

2016-02-01, 09:57 PM

D&D demographics are screwy. On the one hand, I don't know where the hell those level distributions come from (in the sense of emergence from other game mechanics, obviously there's a chart), and there are rules that screw those things up. For example, Apprentice from the DMGII implies that you can crank out 5th level casters, and using lesser planar binding to nab convenient outsiders (go go gadget six Formian Workers!) lets you pull in a lot of magic.

Basically, I don't think those numbers hold up if you believe RAW, and even if they do you should be able to bootstrap your way up pretty quickly.
Except those numbers are RAW, the only RAW for determining NPC levels. There is different RAW for PCs and NPCs. Apprentice doesn't increase the number of 5th level casters, it just gives a convenient explaination for why some of them exist when they don't adventure. Planar Binding can do much better than Formian Workers, but the spell never guarantees service ("work for free" is unreasonable, an ageless outsider can wait till you give up) so you'll need to use other mind control and leave them with a chance of potentially catastrophic escape.

My thought was actually use activated items (or eternal wands, but those require casters) of command undead. The cost is 2,400 GP per cast per day (2nd level spell * CL 3 * 2,000 / 5 for one charge per day).
Same justification as the Tippyverse: using item creation guidelines as hard rules instead of guidelines has nothing to do with the number of spellcasters. If you want RAW you're gonna need Undead Controlling armor for 50,000gp per 26HD. Even at the lower price that's still 800gp per body, while livestock and commoners breed themselves and depending on book slaves are quite cheap.

I also forgot Coidzor's point which is indeed much more relevant: undead are the only easy RAW perpetual motion machine, and they do so quite well, especially with stuff like Corpsecrafter. Using them to replace or generate electricity is far more effective than trying to replace human labor. Similarly, Planar Binding a Fire Elemental or Magmin and just letting it sit there to power a steam engine for free until the end of time is considerably more huge. The dissonance isn't that magic replaces technology, it's that magic removes all that pesky conservation of energy we have to deal with in the real world making it easier to advance.

plant growth is interesting. It's multiplicative, so it would be a much bigger deal in modern society (where yields are super high) than medieval society (where they are ... not), but it does free up a third or so of your population for more productive stuff that subsistence farming. You high better better results from goodberry, though I don't know enough about medieval agriculture to say for sure that you're bellow the point where that makes sense.
More yield just means more stuff you have to harvest and distribute, which still takes manual labor. A 33% increase would result in 25% reduction, but depending on crop you're still gonna need at least a bit more time to harvest and process it, could be as low as 5-10% for stuff you have to pick individually. Or pledging allegiance to the RAW, Plant Growth says nothing about labor so all it does is put more food into the system, which is nice I guess.

So humans and humanoid races survive and thrive due to the disinterest or even support of existential threat level creatures, while those creatures survive because in every setting (including Eberron) humans have failed to discover the power of unlimited energy+industry. Once they do and start devouring resources and territory then the conflict with the dragons can begin. And it only took 200 years or so to go from textile manufacture to computers in our world.

Cosi

2016-02-01, 10:15 PM

Except those numbers are RAW, the only RAW for determining NPC levels. There is different RAW for PCs and NPCs. Apprentice doesn't increase the number of 5th level casters, it just gives a convenient explaination for why some of them exist when they don't adventure.

Again, maybe? I suppose if you assume the world just exists in a steady state like that it works, but there are a bunch of other rules influencing NPC distributions that would seem to counteract that..

Planar Binding can do much better than Formian Workers, but the spell never guarantees service ("work for free" is unreasonable, an ageless outsider can wait till you give up) so you'll need to use other mind control and leave them with a chance of potentially catastrophic escape.

As you point out below, one of the useful services you can get is having a creature which natively generates heat sit around and generate heat. It does that even if you never bargain with it.

Also, I personally doubt that creatures will unilaterally refuse to work with you like that.

Same justification as the Tippyverse: using item creation guidelines as hard rules instead of guidelines has nothing to do with the number of spellcasters.

You can do the same thing with Eternal Wands. Those are RAW, they just require the undead to be managed by spellcasters (so you'd probably have undead powered rail lines rather than undead powered cars).

More yield just means more stuff you have to harvest and distribute, which still takes manual labor. A 33% increase would result in 25% reduction, but depending on crop you're still gonna need at least a bit more time to harvest and process it, could be as low as 5-10% for stuff you have to pick individually. Or pledging allegiance to the RAW, Plant Growth says nothing about labor so all it does is put more food into the system, which is nice I guess.

Historically, increasing food yield in pretty much exactly that manner increased the amount of labor that was not dedicated to farming.

Coidzor

2016-02-02, 01:09 AM

More yield just means more stuff you have to harvest and distribute, which still takes manual labor. A 33% increase would result in 25% reduction, but depending on crop you're still gonna need at least a bit more time to harvest and process it, could be as low as 5-10% for stuff you have to pick individually. Or pledging allegiance to the RAW, Plant Growth says nothing about labor so all it does is put more food into the system, which is nice I guess.

I think it's more like the food that's produced will support both a larger population per arable land unit and also the proportion of the minority of population in urban centers will shift slightly higher, as the agricultural base can support more tradesmen, priests, etc. It won't, however, work to trigger a shift of concentration of population into the cities like the agricultural revolution that freed up the labor that was necessary to precipitate the industrial one.

edit: For that you need some form of labor saving device or development. Developing crops that are easier to harvest or tools to make harvesting go faster or take less people.

Animating all of the trees in an orchard so that they deposit their fruit in a central area for processing and make pruning them a more straightforward task because the tree exposes the buds that need pruning for easier access, that'll mean less time is spent on pruning them(maybe not a significant amount per tree, but multiplied across the trees, it has some multiplicative effect on the number of trees a gardener could prune during pruning season) and very little labor force is needed for picking the fruit during harvest time, meaning most of the (human) labor is in processing the fruit, sorting it to go towards whatever purpose it's suited for, which is likely one area where you wouldn't be able or want to eliminate the human element in the process.

Picking fruit is still a process that we just hire people to do in this day and age, though, so that may not be the best example, or it goes to show how labor intensive it can be. One of those.

Spore

2016-02-02, 01:15 AM

Humans shouldn't be extinct by any means. Keep in mind, biological survival depends on ecological niches and the competition in said niche. They are bipedal sapient species who have cultivated tool use, have social structures and are able to dominate whole eco systems.

But so are several dozens of other fantasy races. If anything, true blooded humans should be nearly impossible to find. Represented by races like Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Half-Trolls *shudder* or any other Half-Human race there should be a mix of races and the 'pure' human dominance is likely a thing to make the fantasy worlds more relatable. As despicable as it sounds but humans tend to procreate with anything possible. (Regardless if it produces offsprings or not).

This should lead to a 'new' race of mixed bloods (something orc-elf-human-giant-vampire-dragon-esque) with no major rules differences to normal humans just a small nod in a few ways. And that is already the case. A human might have orcs, dragons and elves in his ancestry. His physique can be lite, his shoulders broad (and his teeth a bit crooked) and he could show a talent of spontaneous magic. So my main point is: There should be almost exclusively mixed breeds.

And please, I am not talking about Half-Orc-Half-Giant Half Minotaur Half Fiend Munchkin abominations.

Fizban

2016-02-02, 02:50 AM

Again, maybe? I suppose if you assume the world just exists in a steady state like that it works, but there are a bunch of other rules influencing NPC distributions that would seem to counteract that..
I am legitimately curious as to what rules you are referring to, because I don't know of any. The only rules for NPC levels and distribution are town generation and DM placement, anything else is applying PC rules to NPCs. The Apprentice feat is a new method of interaction and justification, but it doesn't actually produce any more casters.

Also, I personally doubt that creatures will unilaterally refuse to work with you like that.
When attempting to exploit rules on a grand scale one must assume a DM/setting editor will err on the side of no, otherwise Pun Pun. How many to you have to call before you find one willing to work for free, how long is it willing to work for, how many times can you cast the spell per day. The numbers don't exist, but if you assume that some will say yes I can just as easily assume that the number who say yes is so small you waste more time binding them then you'd get out of their free work.

You can do the same thing with Eternal Wands. Those are RAW, they just require the undead to be managed by spellcasters (so you'd probably have undead powered rail lines rather than undead powered cars).
Eternal Wands require a spellcaster, an Arcane spellcaster in fact, meaning your pool of people managing undead just dropped from the entire population to a couple hundred, leaving you right back where you were before with 1-2,000 undead and 25,000 people.

Historically, increasing food yield in pretty much exactly that manner increased the amount of labor that was not dedicated to farming.
Coidzor has refined that bit to something more useful.

The point I'm trying to argue isn't that magic does nothing (it's plenty of justification for stuff here and there), it's that RAW magic is limited enough in scope, number of casters, and holes in the RAW that it doesn't justify anything on a societal scale on it's own. Unless you fiat commoners into casters or allow loopholes and take guidelines as exact formulas, the best you can do is get free energy and aim for real world industrialization, and clearly no published setting has reached a point where the population figured that out (most likely because they're too blinded by magic to realize they can do more). To continue putting that in context of the thread, the reasoning of "humanoids live because they have the most casters" is false, because there are only enough casters to act as dragon deterrents and such, not enough to counter creatures with innate abilities or automatically assume magic has solved everything.

LudicSavant

2016-02-02, 07:12 AM

Anything created by Major Creation is temporary. You could use it for fraud, but it wouldn't be very good fraud (it wouldn't work for large trades). Is there some combo we're supposed to be assuming is used here?

ShurikVch

2016-02-02, 11:56 AM

Clistenes

2016-02-02, 12:28 PM

On the other hand, does he have any human children?

He knocked up Santa Klaus's daughter... does that count?

atemu1234

2016-02-02, 12:49 PM

*obligatory Zarus=Pelor*

Humans don't actually *need* a racial deity; every major race-agnostic deity is beating their drum, from Boccob to Mystra to Lathander to Sarenrae to even malcontents like Asmodeus, Bane, and Hextor. And that's to say nothing of Eberron, were deities may or may not even exist and magitech runs the setting, with humans being on top by dint of having the most of it as well as the most dragonmarks.

To be fair, humans do have a slew of minor racial deities and gods who are ascended humans.

Besides that, the only reason I can think of for them to not be deader than disco is that they have a tendency to adapt better than longer-lived races and level up quickly by comparison. In the time it takes an Elf to grow from birth to adulthood, a human can become a venerable epic-level wizard who has a vested interest in keeping his race intact.

ShurikVch

2016-02-02, 01:11 PM

Then how about races with shorter lifespan than Humans?

Say, Goblins live up to... what, sixty?

Quickling (Tome of Horrors variant) will turn adult at 2 months, and die from old age at 18 y.

atemu1234

2016-02-02, 01:42 PM

Then how about races with shorter lifespan than Humans?

Say, Goblins live up to... what, sixty?

Quickling (Tome of Horrors variant) will turn adult at 2 months, and die from old age at 18 y.

Read the adaptation point again. Orcs won't begin civilizations. Neither will goblins.

Jay R

2016-02-02, 01:51 PM

Complete genocide of sentient races is a very unusual thing. An army of fifty thousand elves may need to go to war with 50,000 humans, but there's no reason to continue attacking the last 5,000.

ShurikVch

2016-02-02, 02:13 PM

Read the adaptation point again. Orcs won't begin civilizations. Neither will goblins.Dunno about Orcs, but Goblins already did it - see "Zakhara" and ancient history of FR

Cosi

2016-02-02, 05:37 PM

I am legitimately curious as to what rules you are referring to, because I don't know of any. The only rules for NPC levels and distribution are town generation and DM placement, anything else is applying PC rules to NPCs.

The PC rules in question are just the advancement/XP rules, which apply to NPCs (otherwise, what happens when NPCs cast any spell with an XP cost or create magic items?). You can make a case that most NPCs won't adventure, but long lived or military NPCs should get a significant number of levels.

The Apprentice feat is a new method of interaction and justification, but it doesn't actually produce any more casters.

Why do you say that? I haven't checked the DMG II recently, but IIRC, the ability of someone with Master (Mentor?) to train apprentices isn't presented in that context.

When attempting to exploit rules on a grand scale one must assume a DM/setting editor will err on the side of no, otherwise Pun Pun.

That depends. Obviously if you're going to try something in your game, check with your DM, but the rules shouldn't have to rely on DM intervention to produce the expected outcome. If you want people to have a medieval economy where infrastructure is minimal and labor is almost all invested in farming, that should be what happens when people apply the rules creatively.

The numbers don't exist, but if you assume that some will say yes I can just as easily assume that the number who say yes is so small you waste more time binding them then you'd get out of their free work.

That depends on what people want. If you can get Formain Workers to do productive labor for less (on a per unit basis) than human laborers, and you produce enough to justify the slots you spent on planar binding, that's a win. Also, there are a bunch of creatures with weird motivations. Various demons that create and control undead might be appeased with getting some number of souls which those dead no longer need. Angels might help out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm sure there are Lawful outsiders of some stripe written up that just love doing X task which is somehow beneficial to society.

Eternal Wands require a spellcaster, an Arcane spellcaster in fact, meaning your pool of people managing undead just dropped from the entire population to a couple hundred, leaving you right back where you were before with 1-2,000 undead and 25,000 people.

Yes, there's a limited number of controllers. But the control pool is now limited by items rather than by levels of the casters. You have to centralize things more if you need arcane casters, so people probably won't have skeleton butlers. But you can still make a train, or a factory, or a plantation, or any other centralized enterprise work.

Anything created by Major Creation is temporary. You could use it for fraud, but it wouldn't be very good fraud (it wouldn't work for large trades). Is there some combo we're supposed to be assuming is used here?

There's a variety of stuff you could do, just off the top of my head. Expendable alchemical items or (with fabricate) temporary structures, for example. In a modern society you could produce clean burning coal. Possibly even medicine, though I don't know if it lasts long enough (headache pills probably work, maybe not longer lasting stuff). Recreationally, you could make drugs that don't accumulate in the bloodstream/kidneys, which might (I don't actually know) combat health risk. How much of that matters for D&Dland depends on a bunch of other stuff.

LudicSavant

2016-02-02, 09:10 PM

There's a variety of stuff you could do, just off the top of my head. Expendable alchemical items or (with fabricate) temporary structures, for example. In a modern society you could produce clean burning coal. Possibly even medicine, though I don't know if it lasts long enough (headache pills probably work, maybe not longer lasting stuff). Recreationally, you could make drugs that don't accumulate in the bloodstream/kidneys, which might (I don't actually know) combat health risk. How much of that matters for D&Dland depends on a bunch of other stuff.

Your previous post said "everything falls apart once someone decides to use Major Creation." None of the things you listed sound severe enough to make everything fall apart at the drop of a hat. Using 5th level spell slots for minor headache pills or getting high hardly sounds like it's going to make the world collapse.

Cosi

2016-02-02, 09:21 PM

Your previous post said "everything falls apart once someone uses Major Creation." None of the things you listed sound severe enough to make everything fall apart.

One of the alchemical items you can make with major creation (probably even minor creation) is Healing Salve*. It lasts long enough to provide healing services for everyone in a good sized city. One of the Dragonmarked Houses apparently based on doing that. A 9th level Wizard just obsoleted the core of their business model with one spell. That's not "everything", but that's a huge setting flaw from what is, again, one spell.

*: Tome and Blood, page 72. Heals 1d8 damage on application.

LudicSavant

2016-02-02, 09:37 PM

One of the alchemical items you can make with major creation (probably even minor creation) is Healing Salve*. It lasts long enough to provide healing services for everyone in a good sized city. One of the Dragonmarked Houses apparently based on doing that. A 9th level Wizard just obsoleted the core of their business model with one spell. That's not "everything", but that's a huge setting flaw from what is, again, one spell.

*: Tome and Blood, page 72. Heals 1d8 damage on application.

Healing Salve was updated in 3.5e. You cannot create Healing Salve with Major Creation in 3.5e.

Cosi

2016-02-02, 09:47 PM

Healing Salve was updated in 3.5e. You cannot create Healing Salve with Major Creation in 3.5e.

First, I find the claim that a magic item with (admittedly very slightly) different properties, production costs, and units overrides an alchemical item with the same name dubious.

Second, even if you accept that the MIC healing salve counts as the 3.5 update of the Tome and Blood Healing Salve, that's not a compelling argument that the Eberron setting isn't destabilized by major creation for healing salve. After all, when it was written, healing salve negated the economic purpose of one of the houses. That condition persisted for almost three years, and it was ultimately resolved in a book that is not in any way affiliated with Eberron.

Coidzor

2016-02-02, 10:14 PM

No, it's you who get it wrong.
Those monsters, despite becoming kinda human-like, are not a humans, and never will be ones

His descendants join the millieu of demihumans and become more likely to breed with humans until in 2 or 3 generations they're just humans that are slightly hairier or have slightly strange eye or hair color. :smalltongue:

And it doesn't matter how friendly are they; humans would just die out from old age, and their descendants would be monsters

Assuming that all humans only ever breed with non-humans who have no human blood and the demihumans that result only ever breed with non-humans with no human blood.

If you're assuming that there's only one generation of each around, then that generation of humans dedicating itself to interbreeding with other races will result in both humans and those other races going extinct after that generation, but the partially human millieu that results will interbreed until you have throwbacks to humans but not throwbacks to the originating monster races.

Mechalich

2016-02-02, 10:44 PM

Complete genocide of sentient races is a very unusual thing. An army of fifty thousand elves may need to go to war with 50,000 humans, but there's no reason to continue attacking the last 5,000.

True, but unusual things happen in fantasy, and individuals have extreme levels of personal power. A single individual is quite capable of taking command of the most powerful society on a given planet and directing it to conquer and exterminate all the races they find beyond the pale. And since said individual can and probably is immortal, they can make it happen over the long term. This is basically the Dark Sun experience.

Also, extermination is absolutely the goal of the various hegemonizing swarm species like Formians or Clockwork Horrors, who are out to replace everything on any given world with more of themselves.

LudicSavant

2016-02-02, 11:49 PM

True, but unusual things happen in fantasy, and individuals have extreme levels of personal power. A single individual is quite capable of taking command of the most powerful society on a given planet and directing it to conquer and exterminate all the races they find beyond the pale. And since said individual can and probably is immortal, they can make it happen over the long term. This is basically the Dark Sun experience.

All of these are things that the human race could do, though. In fact, when it comes to races which are good at producing Xykon-like Sorcerers, humans are some of the top candidates.

- Sorcerers can presumably pop up without a lot of infrastructure or technology; if we're talking about evolution, they probably pop up earlier on the tech tree than Wizards or Clerics. Humans are mixers for diverse magical genes. Who knows what kind of monster Sorcerer might pop out of that endless recombination of magical potential? Plus, Sorcerer is one of the favored classes for Humans (just like everything else, of course).

- According to many settings, Sorcerers get their power from bloodlines. You know who breeds with bloody every variety of magical thing out there and then dilutes back to the base race like all the time? Humans!

- Humans have a good enough Charisma score that they don't need to be notably above average to produce a guy who has enough Charisma to cast first level Sorcerer spells.

- Humans cycle generations more quickly than pretty much anything that doesn't have a Charisma penalty (and thus is bad at building early game magic units). Also, creatures that mature and breed faster often have some other limitation relative to humans. For instance, orcs can't sustain nearly as large a population size as humans simply because they're carnivores (at least in the original Greyhawk).

- Humans can survive basically anywhere and eat basically anything (things like "dairy products" are no problem for humans!). That's a pretty significant advantage.

- Humans are actually really good at surviving. They have high shock resistance and hyperactive scar tissue and can survive stuff like losing limbs or performing surgery on themselves. They are so sturdy that (in our world) they could supposedly hunt by simply walking after their prey until it succumbed to exhaustion. (See "Persistence hunting")

- Humans canonically adapt, learn, and specialize more readily than many other races. They are good at fitting into any situation, which is good when you're in a game called "Survival of the Fittest." Remember, fittest just means fitting the environmental niche better, not necessarily being stronger.

But honestly, it's a toss-up. Whichever race develops intelligence first is going to have a pretty big advantage, for instance. Same goes for whoever happens to get god-king-level characters first. These are things we can't determine just by looking at the race.

Really, though? The "why aren't humans extinct" post seems to assume that the existence of a stronger creature means the weaker creature will go extinct. A human can beat a cockroach in a cage match, but that doesn't mean cockroaches are going anywhere.

Fizban

2016-02-03, 04:35 AM

The PC rules in question are just the advancement/XP rules, which apply to NPCs (otherwise, what happens when NPCs cast any spell with an XP cost or create magic items?). You can make a case that most NPCs won't adventure, but long lived or military NPCs should get a significant number of levels.
And how many of them manage to adventure, and come back alive and settle down? Why the numbers are outlined right there in the DMG and nowhere else. Turns out about 300 or so are above 1st level, and the other literally 99% are 1st level. Your argument is basically, "I haven't done the math so I think it works." There aren't enough encounters to level up the number of people you seem to think should be above 1st level, if there were most of them would die, and while I provided an example of how some few could manage that without dying, you have not. 99% of the population has to farm and labor peacefully at 1st level in order to support the fraction of a percent that are capable of casting significant spells, which are in turn of dubious use. Even if you reduce the number that have to farm and labor they still need an explanation for where they're getting the xp, which without a DM ruling is only guaranteed to come from lethal combat.

Why do you say that? I haven't checked the DMG II recently, but IIRC, the ability of someone with Master (Mentor?) to train apprentices isn't presented in that context.
Because unlike a clerical or wizardly spell, a feat is a limited one-choice option that not everybody will take. People raise other points about how humans are the best char op race thanks to the bonus feat, and Mentor is. . . basically cohort only leadership with strings attached, not the stuff of world breaking magic. In fact that's another argument you should be making: the existence of Leadership magically doubles the number of high level NPCs because they all take it. But they don't, and because there are literally hundreds of feats the effect of any one feat is assumed to be negligible.

That depends. Obviously if you're going to try something in your game, check with your DM, but the rules shouldn't have to rely on DM intervention to produce the expected outcome. If you want people to have a medieval economy where infrastructure is minimal and labor is almost all invested in farming, that should be what happens when people apply the rules creatively.
You have failed so far to show sufficient evidence to disprove the idea that magic is limited enough to not affect the setting on a grand scale.

That depends on what people want. If you can get Formain Workers to do productive labor for less (on a per unit basis) than human laborers, and you produce enough to justify the slots you spent on planar binding, that's a win. Also, there are a bunch of creatures with weird motivations. Various demons that create and control undead might be appeased with getting some number of souls which those dead no longer need. Angels might help out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm sure there are Lawful outsiders of some stripe written up that just love doing X task which is somehow beneficial to society.
Again, no proof, just possibilities. Formian workers refuse to work because they're a hive mind and have no programming without their queen, demons demand the souls of the still living because murder and pain is what they desire, angels believe that doing the mortal's work for them will cause decadence and corruption and are wise enough to refuse. Boom, done, next.

Yes, there's a limited number of controllers. But the control pool is now limited by items rather than by levels of the casters. You have to centralize things more if you need arcane casters, so people probably won't have skeleton butlers. But you can still make a train, or a factory, or a plantation, or any other centralized enterprise work.
Ah right, I forgot, as custom items they have no restrictions (because again, these are non RAW custom items where you're effectively writing the rules yourself and have nothing to do with industrializing existing magic). (Edit-Duh, eternal wands, although I'll still point out that those were added by Eberron, not extrapolated, so while it counts as something they for which didn't fully cover the possibilities, it's still not an example of how magic breaks the default setting). Very well then, you may move on to phase two: finding a way to pay for the 800gp/head costs. Well you'll probably say 400gp since you're crafting them. And while they may exist forever, unlike horses of the same cost they can't breed and tend to go on a killing rampage when left unattended. But okay, if you use the Tippyverse method it works, except I was under the impression we were arguing about the effects of RAW magic on a setting and not whatever that is.

There's a variety of stuff you could do, just off the top of my head. Expendable alchemical items or (with fabricate) temporary structures, for example. In a modern society you could produce clean burning coal. Possibly even medicine, though I don't know if it lasts long enough (headache pills probably work, maybe not longer lasting stuff). Recreationally, you could make drugs that don't accumulate in the bloodstream/kidneys, which might (I don't actually know) combat health risk. How much of that matters for D&Dland depends on a bunch of other stuff.
Structures are generally permanent for a reason, you have maybe a 24 hour limit, what's the point? Except you can't create a structure, you get 1cu ft/level, enough for a thin wall. Clean burning coal means nothing until you've already industrialized for a century. Medicine is a decent option. Cure Disease, Remove Poison, and the splatbook spells for pain and insanity are all lower level, but if the DND rules listed any medicines with definitive effects this would be a useful boost. You can get free Healer's Kits and Antitoxins, but you still need to have healers in the right place and time and with un-"spoiled" created items.

One of the alchemical items you can make with major creation (probably even minor creation) is Healing Salve*. It lasts long enough to provide healing services for everyone in a good sized city. One of the Dragonmarked Houses apparently based on doing that. A 9th level Wizard just obsoleted the core of their business model with one spell. That's not "everything", but that's a huge setting flaw from what is, again, one spell.
You continue to claim that a spell does something on a large scale with no math to back it up. How many jars, how many people, how many injuries, and how are you getting it where it needs to be on time? But I'm getting ahead of myself, since Major Creation has no entry for Alchemical (just mineral-alchemical silver at best), so you can't do that anyway. But wait, we're still getting ahead of ourselves, because Eberron is a campaign setting book and like almost all books in 3.5 it is written in a vaccuum, thus Tome and Blood material is not part of the default setting and Healing Salve doesn't exist for you to duplicate. That's three axis of failure, and the last also tells you why Major Creating medicine doesn't matter: there are no core medicines listed. Faerun has some birth control in another setting, that's handy.

ShurikVch

2016-02-03, 05:53 AM

His descendants join the millieu of demihumans and become more likely to breed with humans until in 2 or 3 generations they're just humans that are slightly hairier or have slightly strange eye or hair color. :smalltongue:RAW support it? :smallconfused:

Assuming that all humans only ever breed with non-humans who have no human blood and the demihumans that result only ever breed with non-humans with no human blood.In the most settings, humans are, no matter how numerous, still insignificant against the numbers of various monsters (hell, Kobolds alone probably outnumbered them!)
Thus probability of demihumans breeding with humans is lower than with non-humans

If you're assuming that there's only one generation of each around, then that generation of humans dedicating itself to interbreeding with other races will result in both humans and those other races going extinct after that generation, but the partially human millieu that results will interbreed until you have throwbacks to humans but not throwbacks to the originating monster races.1) They not "go extinct", because there are many of them, but only one Humanity
2) "... until you have throwbacks to humans but not throwbacks to the originating monster races." RAW support it? :smallconfused:

Cosi

2016-02-03, 08:59 AM

And how many of them manage to adventure, and come back alive and settle down? Why the numbers are outlined right there in the DMG and nowhere else. Turns out about 300 or so are above 1st level, and the other literally 99% are 1st level. Your argument is basically, "I haven't done the math so I think it works."'

Actually, I have done the math, and while assuming only 1% of the population adventures doesn't get you huge numbers of adventurers, it gets you a level distribution that is massively higher than the DMG claims.

Again, no proof, just possibilities.

You also don't have any proof. You're even ignoring the actual rules of planar binding, which explicitly state that you can get creatures to agree to tasks with an oppose CHA check. Unless you have access to some text that clarifies what specific creatures consider "impossible demands or unreasonable commands", you can stop complaining about how planar binding doesn't work.

Ah right, I forgot, as custom items they have no restrictions

I'm talking about Eternal Wands. Which are not custom magic items.

You continue to claim that a spell does something on a large scale with no math to back it up.

Sure. A dose of healing salve is "enough to rub into a wound". You might estimate the average wound to have a surface area of 2 in * 4 in. An 1/8th of an inch coating over that (as much or more as most topical creams today) gives you a dose of 1 cubic inch. There are 1728 of those in a cubic foot. major creation makes 9 cubic feet of healing salve. That's enough for 15,552 doses.

But wait, we're still getting ahead of ourselves, because Eberron is a campaign setting book and like almost all books in 3.5 it is written in a vaccuum, thus Tome and Blood material is not part of the default setting and Healing Salve doesn't exist for you to duplicate.

Have you read the Eberron book? Because it explicitly states on page 8 that "If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron". So yes, you can make healing salve with major creation.

Fizban

2016-02-03, 11:25 AM

Actually, I have done the math, and while assuming only 1% of the population adventures doesn't get you huge numbers of adventurers, it gets you a level distribution that is massively higher than the DMG claims.
Then provide it? Based on your previous comments I expect your math assumes an inexhaustible supply of encounters worth full xp with no chance of death, which while not explicitly called out as impossible still makes no sense. Although I don't know why I'm asking since it doesn't matter: the DMG gives a RAW method, and you're explicitly refusing to use it.

You also don't have any proof. You're even ignoring the actual rules of planar binding, which explicitly state that you can get creatures to agree to tasks with an oppose CHA check. Unless you have access to some text that clarifies what specific creatures consider "impossible demands or unreasonable commands", you can stop complaining about how planar binding doesn't work.
If there's a conflict over an unclear ruling, the obvious result is that the assumed default prevails. Which is that planar binding has no significant effect on the world outside of DM placement.

I'm talking about Eternal Wands. Which are not custom magic items.
Sorry about that, was just coming back to edit but you beat me to it. So where's the money coming from? I'd like to ask for something other than Wall of Iron, but since you can make sustainable income with skill checks anyway you just need to multiply over time. So eternal wand->pile of undead is another way of industrializing a setting, I prefer elemental steam myself. But Eberron specifically? It spends a considerable amount of time detailing what exact point in history it has reached. Eternal Wands exist, but have not existed long enough for a nation to amass enough to industrialize.

That's enough for 15,552 doses.
Highly convenient then, free hp for anyone who visits. Now explain how this changes the world, since it doesn't prevent disease, prevent people from dying if they hit -10 immediately (or stabilize people who are more than 1 minute away from someone carrying a dose but I'll let that one slide). You get a slightly reduced mortality rate from injuries, which aren't the main killer anyway.

Have you read the Eberron book? Because it explicitly states on page 8 that "If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron". So yes, you can make healing salve with major creation.
Yeah, the standard "please buy and use whatever books you want or homebrew if you feel like it" disclaimer. This does not mean that the people writing the setting are going to comb through every single book past and future and look for ways to exploit them. It may be disappointing that they chose to do most of their stuff via fiat, but it makes perfect sense from a designer's standpoint where you still want a mellow default that anyone can work with. Otherwise you'd have to put up a strict list of books and find every possible exploit in order to make sure someone didn't find one you missed and complain about it.

Your original claim was that you could collapse Eberron's economy by casting Wall of Iron and Fabricate, followed by an assertion that there were enough casters to change the world with Animate Dead, Plant Growth, and unspecified magical healing. We've established that Wall of Iron replaces iron miners and Plant Growth may reduce the number of farmers, but the effects of Fabricate, Animate Dead, and magical healing depend on the number of casters. For Animate Dead you have established that in Eberron's future Eternal Wands could produce enough Control Undead to industrialize, but the setting gives Eternal Wands as an extremely recent creation so any scheme involving them must be limited in scope. Eternal Wands cannot cast Fabricate, which requires many castings to replace human labor and Eberron not only does not assume that NPCs level up as PCs on a large scale, it in fact suggests that level distributions are even lower than normal. The best ideas you've given for Minor/Major creation are medicines, which as written in DnD can do no more than provide skill/save bonuses and recover hp, none of which has a concrete effect on survival, especially in the face of the plagues given in the DMG. Regarding Planar Binding, as above it relies on favorable rulings a setting designer may not have assumed.

I believe that's everything, and I think I've taken up quite enough of this thread continuing the argument. If you want to assume that all worlds are set long after Eternal Wands or some other magic item abuse abolished human labor and allowed everyone to become spellcasters then sure, magic does a ton. It doesn't change the fact that the DMG has a level distribution for medieval-ish settings, the number of casters given there are insufficient to immediately overhaul the setting even if working in perfect concert (and especially if they're actually their own people), and no published setting increases this (that I know of anyway). If the only thing you have to back up your assertion that there are "enough" casters is your own personally devised level progression for NPCs, well I'm afraid that's your own setting material you've just written and has nothing to do with an objective discussion. I wouldn't mind reading it but otherwise I'm done derailing the thread.

Cosi

2016-02-03, 11:40 AM

Then provide it? Based on your previous comments I expect your math assumes an inexhaustible supply of encounters worth full xp with no chance of death, which while not explicitly called out as impossible still makes no sense.

4 encounters/day, 13 encounters/level. I also assumed that people retired at 20th (because otherwise things get insane). Lethality is going to be low, because people are supposed to win those encounters.

Although I don't know why I'm asking since it doesn't matter: the DMG gives a RAW method, and you're explicitly refusing to use it.

The DMG gives two RAW methods, and zero reason to prefer yours.

If there's a conflict over an unclear ruling, the obvious result is that the assumed default prevails. Which is that planar binding has no significant effect on the world outside of DM placement.

How is that the assumed default?

It spends a considerable amount of time detailing what exact point in history it has reached.

And the rules presented are not consistent with that point. Which is the reason there's an argument.

Now explain how this changes the world,

It changes Eberron, because there is an entire multinational based on providing that service. Imagine what would happen to Apple if some guy started producing comparable numbers of iPhones in his garage.

This does not mean that the people writing the setting are going to comb through every single book past and future and look for ways to exploit them.

If you are pitching a setting about using magic on the economy, you should absolutely investigate the impact of magic on the economy.

We've established that Wall of Iron replaces iron miners

How the hell is that not changing the world? You just destroyed an entire industry.

For Animate Dead you have established that in Eberron's future Eternal Wands could produce enough Control Undead to industrialize, but the setting gives Eternal Wands as an extremely recent creation so any scheme involving them must be limited in scope.

Eternal Wands also exist in a setting agnostic fashion. And remember that Eberron assumes people mass produced them in the immediate past.

Coidzor

2016-02-03, 09:01 PM

RAW support it? :smallconfused:

You left RAW territory a long time ago. :smallwink:

Mechalich

2016-02-03, 10:17 PM

- Sorcerers can presumably pop up without a lot of infrastructure or technology; if we're talking about evolution, they probably pop up earlier on the tech tree than Wizards or Clerics. Humans are mixers for diverse magical genes. Who knows what kind of monster Sorcerer might pop out of that endless recombination of magical potential? Plus, Sorcerer is one of the favored classes for Humans (just like everything else, of course).

Sorcerers don't matter. Sorcerers have a crippling spell selection limitations, with limited abilities to produce magical items and world-shattering combos. Its the non-spontaneous casters that matter. Otherwise dragons - which are sorcerers-plus, always win forever.

- Humans can survive basically anywhere and eat basically anything (things like "dairy products" are no problem for humans!). That's a pretty significant advantage.

Actually, because humans are unable to synthesize all necessary amino acids they have huge dietary restrictions and tend to have horrible deficiency problems like scurvy as a result. A species that can achieve complete nutrition from a purely vegetarian diet (and yes humans can do this but it requires many species of crops and complex cultivation) has both greater stability and a potentially higher agricultural density.

- Humans are actually really good at surviving. They have high shock resistance and hyperactive scar tissue and can survive stuff like losing limbs or performing surgery on themselves. They are so sturdy that (in our world) they could supposedly hunt by simply walking after their prey until it succumbed to exhaustion. (See "Persistence hunting")

Comparing the capabilities of humans on Earth without any other sapient humanoid species is pointless when dealing with comparing them to worlds with both humanoid and non-humanoid sapient species. In D&D terms humans do not have a Con bonus, and therefore are not especially durable.

But honestly, it's a toss-up. Whichever race develops intelligence first is going to have a pretty big advantage, for instance. Same goes for whoever happens to get god-king-level characters first. These are things we can't determine just by looking at the race.

The is no evolution in D&D - it is an explicitly Creationist setting. All of the extant races and species either sprang into being fully-formed through the vision of deities or where modified into their current forms later on via powerful magic/psionics (like Elans or Githyanki). So whatever race has the highest intelligence stat listed in their MM entry has the highest stat from start to finish.

Really, though? The "why aren't humans extinct" post seems to assume that the existence of a stronger creature means the weaker creature will go extinct. A human can beat a cockroach in a cage match, but that doesn't mean cockroaches are going anywhere.

Humans and cockroaches aren't competing for any significant resources. Humans and Neanderthals did compete for almost all resources. Neanderthals aren't with us anymore. But, again, that doesn't matter, because the conditions in D&D are not functioning under an evolutionary paradigm.

The question of human extinction in D&D is much more like a twisted game of Civilization, with each of the various races as a starting civ. Essentially, the question is, does some non-human civ have an overwhelming such that it will auto-win the game in almost all iterations that you run. The thing being that this is a distorted game of Civilization in that, by developing high-level non-spontaneous spellcasting capabilities and a few other magical technologies, you can achieve absolute victory during the ancient era. There's also the ancillary question that there are potentially certain super-races that are basically playing the game with various cheat codes input (Formians, for example, have infinite workers, infinite settlers, and perpetual max happiness no matter what) and may auto-win as a result regardless of how they fair in other comparisons.

Personally I would contend that, yes the Formians and Ethergaunts and Illithids break the game massively, and races with an Int bonus break the game modestly (every +2 to Int is like having a flat +25% to research in Civ, a very large but not always overwhelming advantage). I would further contend that magic-based 'Technological Victory' conditions don't just mean that your society triumphs over all the others, but that is it free to do whatever it wants to all the others as a matter of pure whim. If the victors are magnanimous, sure, extinction does not necessarily result, but human agency in the setting is lost completely.

LudicSavant

2016-02-03, 10:31 PM

The is no evolution in D&D - it is an explicitly Creationist setting.

Thanks for correcting me and letting me know that D&D is a single setting. Whatever was I thinking, addressing the topic when it was brought up?

:smallsigh:

Fizban

2016-02-04, 03:32 AM

The is no evolution in D&D - it is an explicitly Creationist setting. All of the extant races and species either sprang into being fully-formed through the vision of deities or where modified into their current forms later on via powerful magic/psionics (like Elans or Githyanki). So whatever race has the highest intelligence stat listed in their MM entry has the highest stat from start to finish.
I'm not sure I'd go quite that far. I believe it's usually a combination with gods create world, gods wait around a while, gods get bored and create or elevate humanoids. I'm sure there are some monsters and even possibly some humanoids that are described in way that sounds like evolution (on a ridiculously accelerated scale, but not always with outside magic).

Even for core-only I think it's reasonable to assume that with racially worshiped gods it's likely that any race with their own deity was created as-is, but you'd need a more specific setting to find out if they were all created at the same time. If any one intelligent species was created before the others then it would start with the advantage. I think Forgotten Realms has the longest history and pre-history, not sure if it says all it's races were created at the same time but I am sure it's not long enough for serious evolution to occur. Of course dragons are usually described as having been around for ages, but I think the general consensus right now is that since they're territorial and compete with humanoids most of the time they're not initially a threat-as in they don't start playing Civ until it bugs them.

I'd be interested in what happens when humans get uppity enough to anger dragons, and then the Mind Flayers that depend on them for reproduction get involved. Do the humans take note of this previously ignored threat and try to take on both at once, or do they allow the Mind Flayers to continue on the grounds that having a seriously powerful race who's continued survival is dependent upon your own is worth the sacrifice?

LudicSavant

2016-02-04, 01:58 PM

I'd be interested in what happens when humans get uppity enough to anger dragons, and then the Mind Flayers that depend on them for reproduction get involved. Do the humans take note of this previously ignored threat and try to take on both at once, or do they allow the Mind Flayers to continue on the grounds that having a seriously powerful race who's continued survival is dependent upon your own is worth the sacrifice?

You might appreciate this:

Let's talk about Illithids, this'll be fun. According to The Illithiad (shush, bear with me), a mind flayer needs one brain of a month to stay alive - that's bare minimum - and it needs to be from an intelligent creature with the ability to reason (no using Int 4 critters, the mind flayer needs meat). Smart and clever brains taste better. We are told they keep slaves for this, or make raids.

This means one mind flayer, at minimum, needs to kill 12 people a year. Now, since the brains have to be adult brains, they need a maturation period of 16-17 years or more. That means the minimum brain input a mind flayer needs to get to a given brain is about 150 brains. That's a lot of raiding or slave raising. Illithiad also says there's ~100 or more illithids in a given city or town run by them, on top of what the elder brain eats (we'll ignore it for a moment). That's 15,000 brains over the course of 16 years, which may not seem like much, but that's the bare minimum - it's like forcing your entire population to live on unseasoned instant ramen for a decade and a half. In order for your population to maintain that level of consumption, you should probably have about ten times that - you need breeders and educators (you want your brains smart, they need to be tasty) and then you need to keep up their maintenance - feeding them and pumping away their waste is a big job. You also need to house them, can't keep them in cages, it makes for horrible food.

Basically what this means is that you might have a small group of illithids in charge of a huge city-cult devoted to them and devoted to producing smart, intelligent members of the populace who might even petition to be eaten, on top of the rabble-rousers and troublemakers (this is probably why the ancient Gith had high enough numbers to stage a coup and win). Welcome to the city of mind flayers, where health care is free, education is robust and fun, but hey, don't break the law.

ryu

2016-02-04, 02:35 PM

You might appreciate this:

Alternative/additional systems to eating lawbreakers: Exorbitantly pay the smart people and their families to enter all smart people into a kind of reverse lottery. ''Winning'' is bad but the number of contestants is kept high enough that each individual person has a staggeringly low chance of getting eaten and the families of the eaten are paid regardless. The only questions are just how often you'd have to hold the lottery, what system of payment would be most effective and manageable, and just how many people you'd need to make the odds properly staggeringly low. The general populace would naturally applaud the stupid lawbreakers. They volunteered to win the reverse lottery and bought everyone else more time.

LudicSavant

2016-02-04, 04:58 PM

Alternative/additional systems to eating lawbreakers: Exorbitantly pay the smart people and their families to enter all smart people into a kind of reverse lottery. ''Winning'' is bad but the number of contestants is kept high enough that each individual person has a staggeringly low chance of getting eaten and the families of the eaten are paid regardless. The only questions are just how often you'd have to hold the lottery, what system of payment would be most effective and manageable, and just how many people you'd need to make the odds properly staggeringly low. The general populace would naturally applaud the stupid lawbreakers. They volunteered to win the reverse lottery and bought everyone else more time.

Another alternative/additional system is that having your brain eaten is a desired outcome. Bear with me here.

Imagine being socialized from birth in a society where the mind flayers are associated with nobility, royalty, and enlightenment. After all, mind flayers are not only powerful protectors entirely capable of enforcing national security against pretty much anything, they're also genuine superintelligent administrators. It's a symbiotic relationship; the humans give over some brains, the illithids manage your society well in order to maximize the quality of your brains and the sustainability of your species.

Imagine also that the culture's religion exalts those who have their brain devoured, saying things like "it is a transcendent honor to be eaten by an illithid, for your brain matter will live on as part of a royal superbeing. Think of it less as death and more as... becoming a part of the ruling class." On top of that, there could be social incentives, such as pecuniary reward or the opportunity to bring your political ideas to the attention of politicians; perhaps a sort of "last wishes" kind of tradition.

To the people of this society, to be devoured could be a path to leaving an honorable legacy, pushing for desired social change, or attaining some measure of desired afterlife. Not only that, it could be a boost to ego or agenda, if candidates are chosen for their wisdom and/or strength of character (thus making their brains tastier). In such a culture, people may willingly petition for their venerable brains to be eaten, or even compete fiercely for the honor.

ryu

2016-02-04, 05:37 PM

Another alternative/additional system is that having your brain eaten is a desired outcome. Bear with me here.

Imagine being socialized from birth in a society where the mind flayers are associated with nobility, royalty, and enlightenment. After all, mind flayers are not only powerful protectors entirely capable of enforcing national security against pretty much anything, they're also genuine superintelligent administrators. It's a symbiotic relationship; the humans give over some brains, the illithids manage your society well in order to maximize the quality of your brains and the sustainability of your species.

Imagine also that the culture's religion exalts those who have their brain devoured, saying things like "it is a transcendent honor to be eaten by an illithid, for your brain matter will live on as part of a royal superbeing. Think of it less as death and more as... becoming a part of the ruling class." On top of that, there could be social incentives, such as pecuniary reward or the opportunity to bring your political ideas to the attention of politicians; perhaps a sort of "last wishes" kind of tradition.

To the people of this society, to be devoured could be a path to leaving an honorable legacy, pushing for desired social change, or attaining some measure of desired afterlife. Not only that, it could be a boost to ego or agenda, if candidates are chosen for their wisdom and/or strength of character (thus making their brains tastier). In such a culture, people may willingly petition for their venerable brains to be eaten, or even compete fiercely for the honor.

Probably better to have that be the method to encourage volunteers for being mind flayer host bodies. You can even spin some story about the host body have some control, or that their personality directly influences the growing little psion.

LudicSavant

2016-02-04, 05:46 PM

You can even spin some story about the host body have some control, or that their personality directly influences the growing little psion.

Yes. I'm sure such rumors would be encouraged, whether they were true or not.

ryu

2016-02-04, 07:44 PM

Yes. I'm sure such rumors would be encouraged, whether they were true or not.

Also people to be eaten or made hosts are treated extra luxurious in the planned time leading up to it. Nothing that can't be reused from ''winner'' to ''winner'' besides fancier food but it helps the point for the populace. Think immediate access to a superior house and the servitude of a staff of people pleasantly jealous of the fact that due to being permanently assigned this job they'll never be picked. King human for a week rather than just upper middle class human.

Fizban

2016-02-04, 08:57 PM

ryu

2016-02-04, 09:40 PM

A guy above said that animal brains would suffice, but it sounds like that's an older book and Lords of Madness probably watered it down in order to make them more survivable. You could also split the difference and farm kobolds for your instant ramen rations (they reach adult stats at 6 so that cuts the base in half I think?), but then you lose out on the PR spin and just have to brute force it. Math applies to pretty much any creature that needs to fully kill a person every month to survive, though I don't actually know of that many.

Why lose PR? You don't have to eat your kobolds in front of the humans. Just make the above mentioned human farming the equivalent of what the more absurdly high grade beef farmers do to cows. They feed the cows decent quality alcohol and even massage them simply because happy, healthy, and most importantly COMFY meat free from any tension is tasty. Same thing here. Hell you might even be able to swing members of the general population understanding without rebelling. Think about it. Would you accept less than a full percent of the population dying monthly inevitably to prevent large swaths of other deaths from having a probability, raise universal health standard, more efficient law enforcement, universally available work for good pay, psionically enhanced trade, and complete and utter safety from anything dangerous on city/state/province level? The sheer utility of submission is huge.