arrowed
2016-09-22, 09:31 AM
Hi! Be warned: meandering musings ahead.
D&D is built mainly for 'adventurers' to romp through dungeons killing monsters and racking up loot. It can also do events in the wilderness and urban areas to some extent. All (or at least most) of the classes in the PHB are made for combat, with varying amounts of utility outside the arena. But what if a sorcerer has no intention of being an adventurer, or a barbarian wants to help the community out? What can these classes do in a social environment with their combat-based game statistics? In this thread, for however long it lasts, I'm going to try and design characters who use their levels and features to be judges, couriers, builders, or other non-combat members of society.
I mainly want to explore how Rules As Written would change a game world when rigorously applied, and to see how the societies created compare to our expectations and our own world. Can crime exist? What happens to trade? Can D&D 5e's magic replace technology completely?
Feel free to comment and add your own ideas! :smallsmile: But as a small note, I'm not interested in discussing whether or not D&D was meant to model this stuff, or whether NPCs should have PC classes, or anything like that. I'm going to assume that published D&D 5e material defines the laws of the universe, and anyone can get a PC class if they have the right background/training/talent.
The Premise
I'm going to start off with the courier-sorcerer. The courier-sorcerer is a sorcerer who has turned their magic and power to the ability to travel and transport as fast as possible, if not faster. Before inventions like trains and canals, letters could take days to move between towns and villages. Part of the huge impact of such efficient transport was the ability to move goods and information much more quickly, so a sorcerer's potential to become the ultimate postman could be a huge thing in a medieval setting.
The Build
I don't have the SCAG, so I don't know how the official Storm Sorcerer is different to the one in the Unearthed Arcana. Feel free to correct me where I'm wrong. That said, the Storm Sorc seems like the best subclass around for a sorcerer who wants to be mobile.
Level 1: The courier sorcerer gets a handful of cantrips, the only one of which matters is Message. Message lets our courier deliver private messages in public and receive an equally subtle return commission. Security and privacy are both things people will pay for, so Message is a good tool in the courier's arsenal. Apart from that, the sorcerer has two level 1 spells and 2 level 1 slots. There are 3 spells he might find useful: Expeditious Retreat, Jump, and Feather Fall. Expeditious Retreat lets him move at around 90 feet per round for a while, allowing him to deliver messages that bit faster than the competition. Combined with Jump it allows for proper parkour-style message delivery. Feather Fall is a long term investment for Fly really, but if the head of state lives in a tall tower, a sorcerer with Feather Fall can use the window when deployed to shave vital minutes off their delivery time. Still, the sorc will be out of steam after 1 or 2 runs, and is a strictly local deliverer.
Level 3: A courier wants only 2 metamagics: extended and distant spell. Extended spell lets your movement buffs last a bit longer, while distant spell increases the range on a lot of your teleport-style spells. Speaking of which... Misty Step. A crowded street is no longer an obstacle, as long as our courier can see the other side. It's great for bypassing physical obstacles, and can stop a bad traffic day ruining your run. Two more level 2 spells vie for attention: Spider Climb and Levitate. Levitate is less useful. It can give him a boost, but not much else. Spider Climb is the must-have. No more need for the streets, this and Jump can let the courier hop from wall to roof to wall to street as it suits him, and it has a sweet hour-long duration. The courier sorc is still local, but he has a few more options to speed his way and a bit more endurance on the spell slot front.
Level 5: Sweet Hermes, he can fly! Or walk on or breathe water, I guess. Is he official messenger to the merfolk? If not, he gets Fly. 60 foot speed, up to 10 minutes without extend spell, and the power to make all terrestrial obstacles nigh-irrelevant. With Flexible casting our sorcerer can manage up to 5 standard Fly spells a day, or four extended Flys, letting him perform a decent number of quick deliveries a day. The courier sorc is starting to come into his own, and now has some long-range capacity.
Level 7: A distant dimension door can give you 1000 feet of travel instantly, and lets a passenger tag along. The courier can now provide transportation services to people as well as information, greatly widening his target market. He can also use a level 4 Fly to take passengers via air travel. Plus he now has enough power to travel long distances in a day. In a couple of minutes he can travel 8000 feet with distant Dimension Doors, or he can sustain 2 hours of flight with extended Fly spells and cover 27 miles. With a sack of letters on his back he can run deliveries to other settlements in the area.
Level 9: Teleportation Circle is great. The courier doesn't even need to go himself, he can arrange a time to open the circle, let paying customers hustle through, and get back to running the rest of his delivery service. Obviously good spell is obviously good. And has no range limit. But ity does need other circles to connect to, so there's that.
Level 11: Arcane Gate really just lets our courier make a long lasting Dimension Door. It isn't that useful by this stage except for transporting large parties across town quickly.
Level 13: Teleport. Like TeleCircle, but SO MUCH BETTER! No restriction on where or how far, up to 8 other creatures at once or a pretty big crate... There is that pesky error chance, but as long as our courier keeps to permanent TeleCircles and associated objects, he should avoid scrambling his customers to death.
Level 18: Storm sorc gives permaflight now. Apart from letting our courier pull a full working day, it doesn't change much by this stage.
Impact
Even a large number of low level courier sorcerers won't do anything an efficient local postal service couldn't. The town's elite might hire one or two each as a kind of low-power texting service, but their biggest role will be when messages need to be delivered quickly and without fail.
At levels 5 to 8 couriers become a lot more useful, making long range deliveries, much more rapid short range deliveries, and providing magical transport. They can easily beat horse-based couriers over short distances and times, but their per day spell limits will prevent them from being much more efficient over longer distances and journeys.
One level 9+ courier sorcerer in a town can make it a trade hub. Teleportation Circle and Teleport put him beyond any real-world service in terms of sheer range and speed, and while he can only manage a few each day, each one has the capacity to move a sizeable number of goods or people through with the right logistics.
In summary, level 4 or lower couriers won't affect a society massively, level 5 to 8 couriers will strengthen communication between nearby towns and cities, and level 9+ couriers will massively influence a settlement's ability to trade with other locations and may drastically alter a game world in large numbers.
Here's hoping you found this interesting! :smallsmile:
D&D is built mainly for 'adventurers' to romp through dungeons killing monsters and racking up loot. It can also do events in the wilderness and urban areas to some extent. All (or at least most) of the classes in the PHB are made for combat, with varying amounts of utility outside the arena. But what if a sorcerer has no intention of being an adventurer, or a barbarian wants to help the community out? What can these classes do in a social environment with their combat-based game statistics? In this thread, for however long it lasts, I'm going to try and design characters who use their levels and features to be judges, couriers, builders, or other non-combat members of society.
I mainly want to explore how Rules As Written would change a game world when rigorously applied, and to see how the societies created compare to our expectations and our own world. Can crime exist? What happens to trade? Can D&D 5e's magic replace technology completely?
Feel free to comment and add your own ideas! :smallsmile: But as a small note, I'm not interested in discussing whether or not D&D was meant to model this stuff, or whether NPCs should have PC classes, or anything like that. I'm going to assume that published D&D 5e material defines the laws of the universe, and anyone can get a PC class if they have the right background/training/talent.
The Premise
I'm going to start off with the courier-sorcerer. The courier-sorcerer is a sorcerer who has turned their magic and power to the ability to travel and transport as fast as possible, if not faster. Before inventions like trains and canals, letters could take days to move between towns and villages. Part of the huge impact of such efficient transport was the ability to move goods and information much more quickly, so a sorcerer's potential to become the ultimate postman could be a huge thing in a medieval setting.
The Build
I don't have the SCAG, so I don't know how the official Storm Sorcerer is different to the one in the Unearthed Arcana. Feel free to correct me where I'm wrong. That said, the Storm Sorc seems like the best subclass around for a sorcerer who wants to be mobile.
Level 1: The courier sorcerer gets a handful of cantrips, the only one of which matters is Message. Message lets our courier deliver private messages in public and receive an equally subtle return commission. Security and privacy are both things people will pay for, so Message is a good tool in the courier's arsenal. Apart from that, the sorcerer has two level 1 spells and 2 level 1 slots. There are 3 spells he might find useful: Expeditious Retreat, Jump, and Feather Fall. Expeditious Retreat lets him move at around 90 feet per round for a while, allowing him to deliver messages that bit faster than the competition. Combined with Jump it allows for proper parkour-style message delivery. Feather Fall is a long term investment for Fly really, but if the head of state lives in a tall tower, a sorcerer with Feather Fall can use the window when deployed to shave vital minutes off their delivery time. Still, the sorc will be out of steam after 1 or 2 runs, and is a strictly local deliverer.
Level 3: A courier wants only 2 metamagics: extended and distant spell. Extended spell lets your movement buffs last a bit longer, while distant spell increases the range on a lot of your teleport-style spells. Speaking of which... Misty Step. A crowded street is no longer an obstacle, as long as our courier can see the other side. It's great for bypassing physical obstacles, and can stop a bad traffic day ruining your run. Two more level 2 spells vie for attention: Spider Climb and Levitate. Levitate is less useful. It can give him a boost, but not much else. Spider Climb is the must-have. No more need for the streets, this and Jump can let the courier hop from wall to roof to wall to street as it suits him, and it has a sweet hour-long duration. The courier sorc is still local, but he has a few more options to speed his way and a bit more endurance on the spell slot front.
Level 5: Sweet Hermes, he can fly! Or walk on or breathe water, I guess. Is he official messenger to the merfolk? If not, he gets Fly. 60 foot speed, up to 10 minutes without extend spell, and the power to make all terrestrial obstacles nigh-irrelevant. With Flexible casting our sorcerer can manage up to 5 standard Fly spells a day, or four extended Flys, letting him perform a decent number of quick deliveries a day. The courier sorc is starting to come into his own, and now has some long-range capacity.
Level 7: A distant dimension door can give you 1000 feet of travel instantly, and lets a passenger tag along. The courier can now provide transportation services to people as well as information, greatly widening his target market. He can also use a level 4 Fly to take passengers via air travel. Plus he now has enough power to travel long distances in a day. In a couple of minutes he can travel 8000 feet with distant Dimension Doors, or he can sustain 2 hours of flight with extended Fly spells and cover 27 miles. With a sack of letters on his back he can run deliveries to other settlements in the area.
Level 9: Teleportation Circle is great. The courier doesn't even need to go himself, he can arrange a time to open the circle, let paying customers hustle through, and get back to running the rest of his delivery service. Obviously good spell is obviously good. And has no range limit. But ity does need other circles to connect to, so there's that.
Level 11: Arcane Gate really just lets our courier make a long lasting Dimension Door. It isn't that useful by this stage except for transporting large parties across town quickly.
Level 13: Teleport. Like TeleCircle, but SO MUCH BETTER! No restriction on where or how far, up to 8 other creatures at once or a pretty big crate... There is that pesky error chance, but as long as our courier keeps to permanent TeleCircles and associated objects, he should avoid scrambling his customers to death.
Level 18: Storm sorc gives permaflight now. Apart from letting our courier pull a full working day, it doesn't change much by this stage.
Impact
Even a large number of low level courier sorcerers won't do anything an efficient local postal service couldn't. The town's elite might hire one or two each as a kind of low-power texting service, but their biggest role will be when messages need to be delivered quickly and without fail.
At levels 5 to 8 couriers become a lot more useful, making long range deliveries, much more rapid short range deliveries, and providing magical transport. They can easily beat horse-based couriers over short distances and times, but their per day spell limits will prevent them from being much more efficient over longer distances and journeys.
One level 9+ courier sorcerer in a town can make it a trade hub. Teleportation Circle and Teleport put him beyond any real-world service in terms of sheer range and speed, and while he can only manage a few each day, each one has the capacity to move a sizeable number of goods or people through with the right logistics.
In summary, level 4 or lower couriers won't affect a society massively, level 5 to 8 couriers will strengthen communication between nearby towns and cities, and level 9+ couriers will massively influence a settlement's ability to trade with other locations and may drastically alter a game world in large numbers.
Here's hoping you found this interesting! :smallsmile: