High Magic World Building

[sithlordnergal]

Soooo, I've been toying with an idea for a world that is very high magic. The basic idea is that, if one is skilled enough at their trade, they can learn spells that help with their work. For example, a simple Farmer might learn spells like Plant Grown, Move Earth, and Mold Earth in order to increase their harvest and help till their fields. While a ship captain might learn spells like Control Water, Shape Water, and Gust of Wind to help pilot their ships.

I already figure I can have players add in a job as part of their background that they're trained in, then give them a cantrip that suits the job. For example, an Entertainer might get Dancing Lights or Minor Illusion, while an Acolyte might get Thaumaturgy or Spare the Dying, and a Scout could get the Message cantrip.

However, in a world so full of magic, where your average Smith could cast Mending, how could I make sure classes like Wizards and Sorcerers stand out? Do I even need to make them stand out? Sure everyone can cast spells, but they'd be very limited in their spells compared to an actual full caster.

[HoodedHero007]

Soooo, I've been toying with an idea for a world that is very high magic. The basic idea is that, if one is skilled enough at their trade, they can learn spells that help with their work. For example, a simple Farmer might learn spells like Plant Grown, Move Earth, and Mold Earth in order to increase their harvest and help till their fields. While a ship captain might learn spells like Control Water, Shape Water, and Gust of Wind to help pilot their ships.

I already figure I can have players add in a job as part of their background that they're trained in, then give them a cantrip that suits the job. For example, an Entertainer might get Dancing Lights or Minor Illusion, while an Acolyte might get Thaumaturgy or Spare the Dying, and a Scout could get the Message cantrip.

However, in a world so full of magic, where your average Smith could cast Mending, how could I make sure classes like Wizards and Sorcerers stand out? Do I even need to make them stand out? Sure everyone can cast spells, but they'd be very limited in their spells compared to an actual full caster.
Give most NPCs the Magic Initiate feat. Suddenly, they all can do magic-y stuff, but at the same time a Full Caster is much, much more powerful.

[vexedart]

For world building there’s a nice piece of home brew I enjoy. One of the only ones I let at my table. Strongholds. Besides that the big contenders for world building are probably spells like the fortress temple or grove in xanathars, and teleportation circle, fabricate from the PHB. Things like that.

http://gdnd.wikidot.com/stronghold

[HoodedHero007]

For world building there’s a nice piece of home brew I enjoy. One of the only ones I let at my table. Strongholds. Besides that the big contenders for world building are probably spells like the fortress temple or grove in xanathars, and teleportation circle, fabricate from the PHB. Things like that.

http://gdnd.wikidot.com/stronghold
Um... I'm 99.9% certain the OP wasn't discussing the creation of structures. They were discussing what would make the caster PCs unique in a setting in which your average joe can use magic.

[sithlordnergal]

Um... I'm 99.9% certain the OP wasn't discussing the creation of structures. They were discussing what would make the caster PCs unique in a setting in which your average joe can use magic.

Actually, if you look at the end it does have some neat spells that would fit the setting XD Though you are correct, I wanna keep caster PCs unique. Its kind of like that quote from The Incredibles, "When everyone's super, no-one will be"

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

I was playing with this idea a bit for if I ever DMd. My idea was to essentially equate magic in game with how computers are in the real world. For most prosperous countries, everyone has at least a little computer knowledge, but the more complex stuff is typically left to enthusiasts or people in a specific job field. High level Wizards and Sorcerers would be the equivalent of Hackers, NSA agents, and such in the real world. Spells up to 4th or so would be the equivalent of your typical IT. Things like that.

[JoeJ]

However, in a world so full of magic, where your average Smith could cast Mending, how could I make sure classes like Wizards and Sorcerers stand out? Do I even need to make them stand out? Sure everyone can cast spells, but they'd be very limited in their spells compared to an actual full caster.

In a world where every farmer and craftsman can swing a knife or a club, what makes fighters stand out? Answer that and you'll have your answer for wizards, too.

[Hecuba]

It's worth noting that there are different kinds of high magic settings. What you are describing seems to be a magic-sufficed world like Eberron rather than a high - peak magic world like Netherese-era Faerun.

To that end, you want to emphasize 3 things: magic as infrastructure, magic as appliances, and magic as a job skill.

Magic as infrastructure is the real of public works: Eberron's Lightning Rail and mail system, Harry Potter's trace and Floor Network. It is important that singular great works don't generally have the same effect: an arcane great pyramid or a magically engineered death Ray aren't going to capture this to e if only Imhotep or Archimedes can make them.

Magic as appliance is exactly what it sounds like. Cameras that run with Imps and magical food chests that preserve food with spells instead of refregiration. When in doubt, if considering a real world analog, it can be worthwhile to make it different without being better: ex - without refrigeration for preservation, certain things that require refrigeration (ice, ice cream, pastery crust, etc.) could remain delicacies in warm climates, since they would require a separate unnecessary appliance beyond what you use to keep the food fresh.

Magic as a job skill is easy: give skilled workers a small set of magic. In Eberron, this is magewrights. Wayfinder's covers the 5e treatment of this, as does Keith Baker's blog:
http://keith-baker.com/tag/magewrights/
You can even one up this by making it a basic life skill- the fantasy equivalent of literacy or basic home maintenance for the setting.


If you really want to go for broke, have individual elements of the setting that touch on more than one of these ideas. To take some examples from Jim Butcher's Codex Alera you could have household lamps that presume any adult would be able to use a minimum level of magic to interact with them, or magical highways built for millitary use that presume every soldier would be trained with a basic simple spell to benefit from them.

[Vogie]

However, in a world so full of magic, where your average Smith could cast Mending, how could I make sure classes like Wizards and Sorcerers stand out? Do I even need to make them stand out? Sure everyone can cast spells, but they'd be very limited in their spells compared to an actual full caster.


I wanna keep caster PCs unique. Its kind of like that quote from The Incredibles, "When everyone's super, no-one will be"

This is a ridiculous comparison. I can buy an RC car at Walmart, which makes me the same as that guy with a Tesla, right? We both have an electric car, so we're the same!

The first way to make people stand out is variability. Yes, an above-average farmer may have the means to use Mold earth and Plant Growth, but that's all they'll be able to do. No fireballs, no phantom steeds, no flight and certainly no wishes.

You want to further entrench the disparity, make the ambient magic more like technology. Using the above example, said farmer only has access to those abilities via attuned magic objects, like an enchanted spade, scythe, or divining rod, that may have charges that have to refresh. This is wildly different from a wizard who can learn and perform everything, a magical version of Tony Stark, and doubly so from a sorcerer who can use magic using only foci, regardless of the items at their disposal.

Will they feel like a normal person at level 1? Sure, but that is all level 1 characters. As soon as they gain any levels whatsoever, they're going to be above and beyond any Average Jo.