Vlaakith's Theorem - Why The Magocracy Is Highly Improbable And Unstable

[White Blade]

"The number of all-powerful mages in a territory is always approaching one." -The Theorem of Vlaakith CLVII, Lich-Queen of the Githyanki, Epic Level Wizard

Throughout this forum's history, one towering figure has loomed above us all: Emperor Tippy, the most thorough of the explicators of RAW-Implied Universe Theory. Tippy brings to bear a thorough understanding of 3.5 rules and a keen economic mind, which serves him well in his argumentation. However, I do not think that his vision is likely even if it is theoretically possible. First of all, it is true that Teleportation Circles would likely destroy trade routes and possibly also villages and similar, if someone were committed to profit. The Create Food and Water Traps or Everful Larder/Basins are quite economically viable, likely to occur in any setting with ECL 5 Artificers.

But the theory that the mages would rise up and rule is highly unlikely at best. Firstly, it is unlikely that any ultra-rich wizard would want to rule over or serve as a general for one of the megapolii. Why would they want to do that? They already have an iron-grasp on trade (they don't have money from the traps, of course, because they already have those.). It is also highly unlikely that they will spend many, many days crafting monstrous relics of arcane power to destroy other cities. There's nothing in it for the wizards - They can just combine Fabricate and Lyre of Building to get whatever they are looking for and move somewhere obscure enough no other wizards try to run them over. Ultimately, the reason for Wizardly Rule can only be one thing: The power over other people. While you could share wealth and profit, even acclaim, without really losing out, you can't share power over others without losing out.

How The Wizard Got His Spells:
I myself prefer to rob the libraries of the lower planes. -Vlaakith CLVII, explaining how she has so many spells and why she has so many dominated warlocks
Some people think that wizards and archivists benefit from other wizards and archivists. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wizards and archivists are powerful, dangerous threats to one another. For another wizard or archivist of similar stature to be alive is like living in a room with a bomb. It may never go off, of course, but it could very well kill you. There are no other beings with a similar description, except perhaps the gods, in D&D. And, moreover, in the Tippyverse it does seem as if other wizards and archivists are the things that take cities down and cause them to collapse. At a minimum, it is in the interest of every individual mage to limit or eliminate magical education, if not to kill all other casters as Vlaakith recommends. If some strapping adventurer gains sixteen levels in Wizard, they become a lethal threat. But where will you get spells? Warlocks. Warlocks are not a threat to a wizard. If you're a good and charitable wizard, you can of course pay them and kill their patron with many Ice Assassins as appropriate. If you're a bad, evil wizard you of course use Mind Rape and Dominate Person spam. (These same basic rules, but Psionic Artificers if you're an Erudite) Since wizards and archivists are not necessary and are a threat, well, the number of all-powerful mages in a territory is always approaching one.

Rivalry: A Perfectly Good Reason For Murder
One does not pursue absolute power and then accept anything less. -Vlaakith CLVII
As a rule, any character who spends their life in pursuit of power over others wants to achieve some grandiose vision (For others, see below). Either some enlightened utopia or absolute iron-fisted dictatorship where the whole society genuflects to your power. Good aligned characters tend towards the Utopia, evil toward the iron-fisted dictatorship. You know what neither of these things allow? Other people of similar power with different goals. Do you know what is absolutely impossible to ensure? That another high level caster continues to agree with these precepts. Ideally, one might be able to find an order of Clerics dedicated to some deity that's basically in agreement with you, but ultimately such a coterie would probably decide that you were the biggest liability. Really, nobody is sitting around saying, "It would be good if we allowed a narrow cabal of people to accumulate unlimited power. We should let that happen" - Even the people who are themselves in a narrow cabal of people. And while many might think they are the exception, precious few others will agree. Anyone who disagrees with you has every reason to kill you. Once again, the number of all powerful mages in any territory is always approaching one.

You Can't Pass It On:
If I had children, would I have become what I am? No. That is why I did not have children. -Vlaakith CLVII, Lich-Queen, Last of Her Line
In real life, these problems are averted by the natural sociality of people and their desire to pass on a good life to their children. Cabals reproduce literally by reproducing. But here's the problem: You can't pass on being a level 20 Wizard. At best, you might get lucky and pass on a high INT, your +6 Headband of Intellect, a +5 Tome of Clear Thought, Wizard 1 (or maybe Artificer 1), and your spellbooks. Power meanwhile flows from magic. And when you're dead, you can bet that your erstwhile subordinates will be eying your potentially dangerous son. Of course, you can solve this problem by only allowing your son to be a wizard. But then we're back at the start. Once again, the number of all powerful mages in a territory is always approaching one.

But Why? I Didn't Want To Be In Charge Anyway
"Walking on the moon is power! Being a great wizard is power! There are kinds of power that don't require me to spend the rest of my life pandering to morons!" -Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, Methods of Rationality, expressing why most archmages probably just aren't that into this whole being in charge thing.
Up till now, I've made some arguments on behalf of what I think the forces of politics will move contra to any collaborative relationship between wizards, archivists, or erudites and why I think they'll be impelled to kill each other. But there's another, more likely event: Most archmages are just not going to get drawn into this cycle. They don't need to be. They hire a reliable warlock to provide them with spells, they Genesis a plane where they can live and work with their family and friends, and Craft Contingent Spell a Greater Teleport onto their friends and family with a code word trigger in the event of emergencies. Most such retirees are just left alone by the Political Wizards, for the straightforward reason that that would be like walking into a room with a bomb in it. Most wizards became wizards because they wanted a course to power that ran straight through the universe and not begging and negotiating for the rest of their lives. They did not become wizards because they wanted to be politicians. This would have been a mightily twisty route, after all, and would have been betting against the odds that they would be an arch wizard.

I have another, separate dissertation on what sort of governments I do think would occur ({Scrubbed}), but I'll leave them off here.

[Blackhawk748]

Well, a simple comparison is looking at the English nobility during the Victorian era. Many of them did stuff solely for bragging rights, so they would do all sorts of things that suck (like being generals) for prestige under their Wizard God-Emperor, who is probably so singularly powerful that they work for him out of fear.

I agree with your basic premise, I just don't feel its as unlikely. It just depends on the stupidly powerful Mage at the top.

[Saintheart]

You Can't Pass It On:
[I]If I had children, would I have become what I am? No. That is why I did not have children. -Vlaakith CLVII, Lich-Queen, Last of Her Line
In real life, these problems are averted by the natural sociality of people and their desire to pass on a good life to their children. Cabals reproduce literally by reproducing. But here's the problem: You can't pass on being a level 20 Wizard. At best, you might get lucky and pass on a high INT, your +6 Headband of Intellect, a +5 Tome of Clear Thought, Wizard 1 (or maybe Artificer 1), and your spellbooks. Power meanwhile flows from magic. And when you're dead, you can bet that your erstwhile subordinates will be eying your potentially dangerous son. Of course, you can solve this problem by only allowing your son to be a wizard. But then we're back at the start. Once again, the number of all powerful mages in a territory is always approaching one.

Quaere:

Doesn't a trap of Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion work as an excellent and secure environment in which to raise one's child, especially given it generates 100 servants completely obedient to their master's commands? Especially if that Mansion is set up on a plane where time moves slower than it does on the Prime Material Plane?

[Kalkra]

I'm confused about the warlock thing. What purpose do they serve? Also, if I understand correctly and it's something about learning new spells, you could research them on your own, or just wish for scrolls.

[White Blade]

Well, a simple comparison is looking at the English nobility during the Victorian era. Many of them did stuff solely for bragging rights, so they would do all sorts of things that suck (like being generals) for prestige under their Wizard God-Emperor, who is probably so singularly powerful that they work for him out of fear.

I agree with your basic premise, I just don't feel its as unlikely. It just depends on the stupidly powerful Mage at the top.
It's really a matter of how quickly you think it's approaching one. If it's pretty slow, then you'd end up in situations like that all the time. If it's fast, on the other hand as I tend to think it is, there's always some budding young mage who will try to kill you if you don't snuff him out first. Prestige is cool and it motivates a lot of people in real life. Certainly a lot of people might prefer to serve in their armies, but I'm at least skeptical that the average self-motivated Wizard who reaches ECL 17 is one of those people. Even so, as long as the number of wizards is increasing, the odds of a Vlaakith CLVII appearing and instituting Githyanki Ganking Rules is going up, and as long as the number of archmages is decreasing, the system is approaching one. It's just a matter of "How fast do I think we're approaching one"? And I think the answer is, "About 3/10 odds that we're gonna get someone who thinks Vlaakith CLVII has the right idea every single time"


Quaere:

Doesn't a trap of Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion work as an excellent and secure environment in which to raise one's child, especially given it generates 100 servants completely obedient to their master's commands? Especially if that Mansion is set up on a plane where time moves slower than it does on the Prime Material Plane?

Yes? Your children can grow up in nice houses and such, obviously, nobody's going to stop that. That'd just be asking for you to kill them. But it won't make your child a level 17 Wizard, which is what you need.


I'm confused about the warlock thing. What purpose do they serve? Also, if I understand correctly and it's something about learning new spells, you could research them on your own, or just wish for scrolls.
Ah, they provide new scrolls for spells for your spellbook, yes. It is true that you could probably just wish such things up, but Warlocks probably aren't going to successfully kill you the way other wizards are (I'm sure there's some obscure way that they can get to that level, but you take care to prevent that). Wish takes about one on level combat encounter for you to pay for, and I assume you just don't really like spending XP because it's work. Why do the work yourself when you can make somebody else do it? You can also have multiple Warlocks to increase your productivity whereas multiple wizards is (as is the core thesis of this thread) increasing your vulnerability.

[Crake]

I disagree with your premise of why mages would make megacities. Power over others isnt the sole motivating factor, in my custom campaign setting, there was an era where wizards ruled over megacities, and each megacity served one, relatively simple, purpose: Generating XP. XP is the currency in these cities, and the people are encouraged to generate it, bottle it, and trade it, keeping the populus at an easily managable low level, which also serves to keep xp generation high, as lower level people generate xp faster. Naturally, as with any ecosystem like that, the millions of xp being generated funnels its way to the top, where the wizards can use it in their time sped demiplanes to make their impossibly large scale wonders of magic. Now naturally, you could argue why would you bother when you can simply make an ambrosia farm, but the answer is honestly rather simple: a city is self sustaining, and quite possible to make fully autonomous, wheras an ambrosia farm needs to be tended, and even if you hire or make guards, it can still be stolen. Its not so easy to steal an economy.

[LordBlades]

A counterpoint to the one wizard idea: mutual protection and continuation of power.

Being the sole wizard in a land is a bad idea from this point of view. The moment the land next door finds two wizards of similar power who agree to take you down, you are toast.

There is an advantage of building the biggest and most bad-ass cabal of wizards in the land/plane/multiverse/etc. : nobody dares to mess with you. Now, the wizards within the cabal will likely scheme and plot (within reason or they get dealt with) to rise up the ranks, but they will all likely understand the safety a group of wizards provide against outside threats.

IMO, the one wizard political system falls apart the moment somewhere in the multiverse a group of several wizards decide to band together and take over the world. Unless the other wizards also band together (creating another group of wizards), they will fall one by one.

Edit: it can also be creatures with access to magic or psionics instead of wizards: dragons, Ethergaunts etc.

[Saintheart]

Yes? Your children can grow up in nice houses and such, obviously, nobody's going to stop that. That'd just be asking for you to kill them. But it won't make your child a level 17 Wizard, which is what you need.

And what you need for that is a river of XP and (optionally) the time to earn it. A time plane which moves faster than Prime Material time means your kid can grow up in up to one tenth the time, and earn XP, thus levelling up, while he's there. Distilled Joy trap + Thought Bottle abuse, notably. Or just create a simple auto-resetting magic trap; disarming or defeating said trap provides XP, so just hit that repeatedly until you're at level 17. It's max 8 rounds to disable a trap, thus, 48 seconds local time, select your multiples of XP you'd like to earn and calculate when you're going to hit level 17 by accordingly. After a certain point the kid can help out with spells to shuffle the process along faster, since you gain spells at least at 2/level irrespective of whether you've got spare spellbooks to copy off.
Not much chance of being interrupted, and if you're worried about scry and die-ers, cast Forbiddance effects all over your sprog's house.

[pabelfly]

I don't see any difference between a regular military dictatorship and one that uses magic instead of real weapons, to the extent that it requires a complete rethink of how such a dictatorship would work. Like, sure, you have teleportation and various spells that can nuke entire cities but that doesn't change the fundamental difference in power between a civilian and a militia member or a civilian and a wizard, or the rough equality between two militia or two wizards. Seems to me that the political maneuvering is going to be stay the same.

And with two wizards that hate eachother... they could fight to the death, sure, but are they really going to risk their life in a battle when they have no real way of knowing exactly how powerful their opponent is? That's a pretty big gamble to take, and when you've finished battling and used up a bunch of spell slots there's no reason not to think that another opponent, even one normally weaker than you, isn't going to take you in your weakened state.

[Maat Mons]

The natural state of all intelligent beings is warring factions.

It's pretty obvious, really. In a world of factions, what chance does one being stand by himself?

Why doesn't all the bloodshed eventually leave just one survivor? Because, whenever a faction is running low on people, they recruit or train more.

Why doesn't one faction finally win out over all the others? They do, time and time again. And then the one remaining faction splits into multiple, smaller factions, which go on to war against each other.

You've asked yourself, "What will be the end result after all the fighting is over?" And you've concluded that the answer is "One person, left uncontested." But you doomed yourself to an erroneous conclusion the moment you asked the question. Because it is fundamentally flawed.

The fighting will never be over.

[thethird]

I don't want to dispute that the magocracy can be unstable. Note that almost all settings are adventure settings, adventure needs to happen, for adventure to happen there cannot be stability. On a setting where resources are scarce there is many avenues for this instability, and people might fight for those. But if you have all the resources all the time, why adventure?


"The number of all-powerful mages in a territory is always approaching one." -The Theorem of Vlaakith CLVII, Lich-Queen of the Githyanki, Epic Level Wizard

Throughout this forum's history, one towering figure has loomed above us all: Emperor Tippy, the most thorough of the explicators of RAW-Implied Universe Theory.

Tippy doesn't loom above me, he is nice. He gave me a cookie, once.


*stares at the little worm and wonders how he got into his personal demiplane, waves hand and flings thethird into a slow time dead magic prison plane to deal with later. throws in a cookie as well because he is so generous. gets back to work*

Incidentally, if you want to get out of dead magic prison demiplanes, what you need to do is get some resetting traps attempting to wish teleport you to wherever it is. Normally nothings happens, because you carry with you a spellblade to wish, and can't be targeted by it, but a dead magic plane negates that.


Tippy brings to bear a thorough understanding of 3.5 rules and a keen economic mind, which serves him well in his argumentation. However, I do not think that his vision is likely even if it is theoretically possible. First of all, it is true that Teleportation Circles would likely destroy trade routes and possibly also villages and similar, if someone were committed to profit. The Create Food and Water Traps or Everful Larder/Basins are quite economically viable, likely to occur in any setting with ECL 5 Artificers.

But the theory that the mages would rise up and rule is highly unlikely at best. Firstly, it is unlikely that any ultra-rich wizard would want to rule over or serve as a general for one of the megapolii. Why would they want to do that? They already have an iron-grasp on trade (they don't have money from the traps, of course, because they already have those.). It is also highly unlikely that they will spend many, many days crafting monstrous relics of arcane power to destroy other cities. There's nothing in it for the wizards - They can just combine Fabricate and Lyre of Building to get whatever they are looking for and move somewhere obscure enough no other wizards try to run them over. Ultimately, the reason for Wizardly Rule can only be one thing: The power over other people. While you could share wealth and profit, even acclaim, without really losing out, you can't share power over others without losing out.

I think that you are looking at a question, "why would they want to do that?" and then providing some examples of why they wouldn't. Are you arguing that because the wizard can do a lot of things, it certainly won't want to do other things? Why? Motives behind NPC's are on the hands of the DM. Tippy wanted to create a world in which there were magocracies, so he did that.


How The Wizard Got His Spells:
I myself prefer to rob the libraries of the lower planes. -Vlaakith CLVII, explaining how she has so many spells and why she has so many dominated warlocks
Some people think that wizards and archivists benefit from other wizards and archivists. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wizards and archivists are powerful, dangerous threats to one another. For another wizard or archivist of similar stature to be alive is like living in a room with a bomb. It may never go off, of course, but it could very well kill you. There are no other beings with a similar description, except perhaps the gods, in D&D. And, moreover, in the Tippyverse it does seem as if other wizards and archivists are the things that take cities down and cause them to collapse. At a minimum, it is in the interest of every individual mage to limit or eliminate magical education, if not to kill all other casters as Vlaakith recommends. If some strapping adventurer gains sixteen levels in Wizard, they become a lethal threat. But where will you get spells? Warlocks. Warlocks are not a threat to a wizard. If you're a good and charitable wizard, you can of course pay them and kill their patron with many Ice Assassins as appropriate. If you're a bad, evil wizard you of course use Mind Rape and Dominate Person spam. (These same basic rules, but Psionic Artificers if you're an Erudite) Since wizards and archivists are not necessary and are a threat, well, the number of all-powerful mages in a territory is always approaching one.

For what is worth I am a big fan of that, erudite > archivist > wizards at that point. Note though the following that might not be inherently obvious:
1) That is for spells that exists. A warlock, or an artificer, cannot research spells. Who can? A wizard. Or multiple wizards. Who do you need to get new spells? If warlocks and artificers are the corporate spies, the wizards are the I+D.
2) If you aren't using temporal feats + dark chaos shuffle for infinite feats, feats are limited. Why does that matter? Because the appropriately named arcane thesis exists. You might want to have other wizards specialized on other areas arround. Think of them as heads of department of an university.
3) Omnilocation is hard, being at more than one place at once is hard. You can copy yourself, but when you do, aren't there more than one?
4) Circle magic exists. It is a pretty good way of raising your CL and you might want other wizards around.

If you have a better method let me know.
The best way that I have found of being at more than one place is to be a creature capable of taking ghost feats, i.e. most likely a ghost. And take the grand malevolence feat, which let's you possess more than one target at the same time.

Note that those are mechanical reasons. I assume you can always come up with fluff reasons. If you want some... let's assume we have this wizard who is such a huge nerd that he has learned all the spells, he then proceeds to kill all other potential wizards. Who is he going to brag talk to about how much he enjoys spell collecting?


Rivalry: A Perfectly Good Reason For Murder
One does not pursue absolute power and then accept anything less. -Vlaakith CLVII
As a rule, any character who spends their life in pursuit of power over others wants to achieve some grandiose vision (For others, see below). Either some enlightened utopia or absolute iron-fisted dictatorship where the whole society genuflects to your power. Good aligned characters tend towards the Utopia, evil toward the iron-fisted dictatorship. You know what neither of these things allow? Other people of similar power with different goals. Do you know what is absolutely impossible to ensure? That another high level caster continues to agree with these precepts. Ideally, one might be able to find an order of Clerics dedicated to some deity that's basically in agreement with you, but ultimately such a coterie would probably decide that you were the biggest liability. Really, nobody is sitting around saying, "It would be good if we allowed a narrow cabal of people to accumulate unlimited power. We should let that happen" - Even the people who are themselves in a narrow cabal of people. And while many might think they are the exception, precious few others will agree. Anyone who disagrees with you has every reason to kill you. Once again, the number of all powerful mages in any territory is always approaching one.

fluff, feel free to use fluff.


You Can't Pass It On:
If I had children, would I have become what I am? No. That is why I did not have children. -Vlaakith CLVII, Lich-Queen, Last of Her Line
In real life, these problems are averted by the natural sociality of people and their desire to pass on a good life to their children. Cabals reproduce literally by reproducing. But here's the problem: You can't pass on being a level 20 Wizard. At best, you might get lucky and pass on a high INT, your +6 Headband of Intellect, a +5 Tome of Clear Thought, Wizard 1 (or maybe Artificer 1), and your spellbooks. Power meanwhile flows from magic. And when you're dead, you can bet that your erstwhile subordinates will be eying your potentially dangerous son. Of course, you can solve this problem by only allowing your son to be a wizard. But then we're back at the start. Once again, the number of all powerful mages in a territory is always approaching one.

You are looking at this as if at bests the heir's life can be as good as the wizard, but never better. If you can research spells, you can, you could be hopeful about the future.

Why would you limit yourself to one heir? That's valid, but there is no mechanical restriction to it. Basic survival instinct would lead you to have more than one child, to increase their odds. And once you have more than one child you have a fluffy incentive to get them to get along, and raise them in a society where they would get along.

Let's assume you are an immortal creature incapable of reproducing, like Vlaakith, you have lived for longer than you can bother to remember. Do you put contingencies on place in case something happens? Could those contingencies inherit after your death? Congratulations, you've got potential heirs.


But Why? I Didn't Want To Be In Charge Anyway
"Walking on the moon is power! Being a great wizard is power! There are kinds of power that don't require me to spend the rest of my life pandering to morons!" -Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, Methods of Rationality, expressing why most archmages probably just aren't that into this whole being in charge thing.
Up till now, I've made some arguments on behalf of what I think the forces of politics will move contra to any collaborative relationship between wizards, archivists, or erudites and why I think they'll be impelled to kill each other. But there's another, more likely event: Most archmages are just not going to get drawn into this cycle. They don't need to be. They hire a reliable warlock to provide them with spells, they Genesis a plane where they can live and work with their family and friends, and Craft Contingent Spell a Greater Teleport onto their friends and family with a code word trigger in the event of emergencies. Most such retirees are just left alone by the Political Wizards, for the straightforward reason that that would be like walking into a room with a bomb in it. Most wizards became wizards because they wanted a course to power that ran straight through the universe and not begging and negotiating for the rest of their lives. They did not become wizards because they wanted to be politicians. This would have been a mightily twisty route, after all, and would have been betting against the odds that they would be an arch wizard.

I have another, separate dissertation on what sort of governments I do think would occur (Hint: It's not liberal democracies OR traditional feudal structures), but I'll leave them off here.

That's fair. Many people don't care about politics. There are still politicians around.

[Asmotherion]

On the other hand a group of casters can be very profitable in a number of ways:

-Cyrcle Magic. Grants CL 40 (60 with Consumptive Field Cheese). Many groups of casters can daily buff a leader in exchange for their protection. When one is of significant enough power he gets to lead his own Cyrcle.

-The Mage of the Arcane Order PRC; Mages can use a spellpool to have access to virtually any spell that ever existed.

-incantations can archive greater magic than a Caster could accomplish. The more casters the better.

-Some spells such as Binding profit a lot from having multiple secondary Casters.

Overall i believe that a Magocracy would function greatly. Each member of a Cyrcle gets a vote that has a value equal to his Caster Level on any topic concerning the Cyrcle. A Wizard 1 would get 1 vote wile a Sorcerer 20 gets 20 votes.

Cyrcle Leaders have a high council and form a Parliment that is an oppen forum for debates and voting. if a Mage is opposed to the outcome of the council he must abide with it or at least not directly interfere with the course of actions or be expelled from the counsil.

Finally an other good counter arguement; if you were a 20 Level Sorcerer/Wizard and were aware of other Mages of equal power would you rather have them as allies or enemies? Even if you chose an independent life away from them how long would it be 'till a Diviner found out about you? Or simply 'till they interfeared (possitively or negatively) with your plans?

PS: On Vlaakith: Don't forget she's a Chaotic Evil Lich Queen. in her assesment she's assuming every other caster is Chaotic and/or Evil and would antagonise an opposing equal force for total control instead of trying for a mutual benefit through colaboration.

[White Blade]

A lot of people have responded, so I'm going to try to go argument by argument instead of post by post
Mage's Circles? No, Warmage's Circles
The maximum number of spell levels is 65 (+23 to your CL 17, +23 for level checks, +19 to Maximize/Empower/Heighten) in a Magic Circle. You can fulfill that with five Warmage 14 and four Warmage 16, but it's easier to use a Warmage 16's nine Ice Assassins or Warmage 18's Ice Assassins, really. Command them never to do anything to harm you or except power your Magic Circle. Create a resetting Raise Undead trap that lets them murder the warmage they're based on a few dozen times. That's if you're going in one fell swoop. You can just break this down into three seperate circles with CL 10 Warmages with Arcane preperation.
Other Caster Levels
Most other CL exploits aren't enough to really benefit. Consumptive Energy Field with bats or similar is fine, but it doesn't endanger you. +2 Caster level for research is NOT worth risking another archmage. The pay out is insanely low.
Aren't Friends Good?
The whole thesis of this argument is that equals are bad. If you are an ECL 20 Archivist or ECL 20 Wizard, friends who are also such mighty casters are bad. What problem are multiple wizards trying to fix as a unit? Everyone in this thread agrees the problem is other wizards. There are no other threats. Therefore, increasing the numbers of archmages is always bad for an archmage.

Suppose that two Archmages attack an Archmage and kill him, taking his city (the monsters). Now suppose that three archmages become live to this possibility and form a confederation to destroy these two scoundrels. They slay these monstrous archmages and now there are three archmages with six cities. The Tetrarchy only lasted twenty years and it was notoriously stable. Remember, these three archmages are allies of convenience - Best case scenario is that they leave each other alone. But there's no particular reason to assume that they are good aligned - After all, they only aligned with one another out of convenience. Maybe the LG one gets fed up with the NE one for mindraping his peasentry into oblivion.

And you know what else has changed? When the archmages attacked, the three gained knowledge of their spells and prep. When they attacked the two, they shared tactical information by default. They learned about the resources, wealth, and spells of their compatriots. They've become more vulnerable to one another.
But How Do You Deal With Other Archmages?
Well, the key is that you don't. You ruthlessly ensure that there are no other archmages and you draw lines on the map that say who gets what if one already exists. Lines which are either enforced by a large enough number of archmages who are willing to tolerate any behavior but not willing to take risks to conquer but who are willing to stick their neck out defending the truce or lines which will be constantly redrawn as factions eliminate one another, approaching one. New archmages will not occur, because no individual archmage wants to permit other archmages to occur. That's new lines on the map and less territory than you had before. Put a stop to that. Employ Arcane Preperation Warmages.

Shouldn't You Have an Heir?
Under no circumstances should you have an heir. Heirs are bad, in that heirs often want to rule (a natural desire) and you yourself are immortal. Even if heirs don't want that, many will see your heir as viable replacement to you, reducing the likelihood that your acolytes will expend all possible energy ensuring your resurrection and immortality. Yes, it hurts the nation that you haven't instituted an heir, but only if you don't come back. And really, the odds of that only go up if you let there be an heir. If common sentimentality drives you to produce children, you really should ensure that they are not archmages and therefore are not motivated to kill you and their siblings. Let them be bards (don't let them go into that one class) or warmages or adepts.

Crafting!
But they can just do without the benefits of multiple crafters and not risk, you know, death.

Expand Reach (Omnipresence)
In theory, the reason for forming a faction would be to increase your influence. But any faction that increases you influence increases the numbers of members of the faction, the more members in a faction, the higher probability of civil war, the higher probability of civil war, the higher probability that you die. To rule, you have to live. if you have an interest in ruling, you don't have an interest in increasing the number of archmages.

PS: I chose Vlaakith because she does it in the canon, but these quotes are just made up for the sake of illustrating the argument.

[LordBlades]

What problem are multiple wizards trying to fix as a unit? Everyone in this thread agrees the problem is other wizards. There are no other threats. Therefore, increasing the numbers of archmages is always bad for an archmage.



I for one, and my guess is at least some others, have used 'wizard' as a catch-all term for tier 1 caster. There are many other cosmic forces, of all alignments that might require more than one wizard to fight and which you have no hope to completely eradicate:

-Churces; if high level wizards exist, so do high level clerics, and going around culling the best of each church will likely attract the ire of most gods.

-Dragons; many Great Wyrms can amass enough magic to be a threat to a 17th level wizard and taking out ALL dragons above a certain age category is quite an undertaking.

- Powerful outsiders; many have enough spellcasting to be a threat and taking all of them out is not an options, as some of them actually are infinite (like Demons) or at least enough to hold off an infinite army (like Devils)

[PoeticallyPsyco]

A counterpoint to the one wizard idea: mutual protection and continuation of power.

Being the sole wizard in a land is a bad idea from this point of view. The moment the land next door find two wizards of similar power who agree to take you down, you are toast.

There is an advantage of building the biggest and most bad-ass cabal of wizards in the land: nobody dares to mess with you. Now, the wizards within the cabal will likely scheme and plot (within reason) to rise up the ranks, but they will all likely understand the safety a group of wizards provide against outside threats.

IMO, the one wizard political system falls apart the moment somewhere a group of several wizards decide to band together to take over the world. Unless the other wizards also band together (creating another group of wizards), they will fall one by one.

Reminds me of how the mage guild came to be the most powerful force in the world in the Gentlemen Bastards series. As the characters explained it, one mage goes up to a weaker mage and says "I'm forming a guild. If you don't join, we duel to the death, right here, right now." And the weaker mage says "What a coincidence. I've always wanted to join a guild and not be killed in the street for refusing." Then the two go to a third mage and say "Join or duel the both of us." And so on and so forth, until you have a guild powerful enough to crush all rivals. And any countries that annoy them too badly.

[Maat Mons]

"Increasing the numbers of archmages is always bad for an archmage?" You're still missing some very basic aspects of human nature. Training new wizards is bad for everyone, sure. But it's not equally bad for all of them.

Increasing the number of high-level wizards is most bad for whoever has the greatest chance of being the Last Mage Standing. It's least bad (but still bad) for whoever has the smallest chance of being the Last Mage Standing.

People routinely take actions that hurt themselves, but hurt their enemies more. It's called spite. Now, let's imagine you're a mage, and you look around at all the other mages, and realize you don't have what it takes to be the winner in this game of King of the Hill. What do you do? You make sure nobody else wins either!

At any given time, there are a small number of mages who have a chance at winning this game. and those mages are playing to win. But there are many, many more mages who don't have any real chance. And they're not playing to win. They're playing to screw over everyone else. And if they screw themselves at the same time? What do they care? They were already screwed!

[Mato]

Q: Why The Magocracy Is Highly Improbable And Unstable
A: You could look at Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory's Obsidian Trilogy for how a lawful good/neutral magocracy could work instead of focusing on chaotic evil mages.

[White Blade]

I for one, and my guess is at least some others, have used 'wizard' as a catch-all term for tier 1 caster. There are many other cosmic forces, of all alignments that might require more than one wizard to fight and which you have no hope to completely eradicate:

-Churces; if high level wizards exist, so do high level clerics, and going around culling the best of each church will likely attract the ire of most gods.

-Dragons; many Great Wyrms can amass enough magic to be a threat to a 17th level wizard and taking out ALL dragons above a certain age category is quite an undertaking.

- Powerful outsiders; many have enough spellcasting to be a threat and taking all of them out is not an options, as some of them actually are infinite (like Demons) or at least enough to hold off an infinite army (like Devils)
1) The Tippyverse behaves as if dragons/demons aren't keeping humans down and preventing them from developing dangerous magical techniques that might kill the dragons/demons, which seems like an obvious thing for them to do (what with their ridiculous HD and caster levels and either excellent infiltration abilities or evil alignment). So presumably unless you go hitting their nest, there's no reason to do this.
2) The Tippyverse and most magocracy societies assume the gods are mostly silent. Obviously, if the gods directly intervene, all bets are off. Whatever governmental system they like best occurs, the preferences and inclinations of mortals be damned. If they decide fighters should rule based on who can win an arm wrestling contest, well, that's what happens. It's not politically interesting to have an argument about that.
3) This still makes the mistake of assuming that wizards are a faction. But wizards are one of their own primary predators, not a faction, and the fact that other wizards occasionally get killed by demons/dragons/inquisitions is a benefit and not a drawback, especially if you can nick their spellbook afterwards.
4) Vlaakith solves these problems by aligning herself personally with a faction of dragons and an evil aligned god to give her cover. An evil aligned caster could copy this strategy or a good aligned one could copy it with Bahamut and silver.

It is possible that some churches might form theocratic organizations and rule for a thousand years through mutual dedication to the cause. One of the Lawful Good religious factions, the Silver Flame or Bahamut or philosophical clerics dedicated to Celestia or Rainbow Feathered Servants, might succeed if they manage to achieve more or less full control of the supply of clerics. But "a specific church rules without question" is not the magocracy as it is usually imagined, at the very least.


"Increasing the numbers of archmages is always bad for an archmage?" You're still missing some very basic aspects of human nature. Training new wizards is bad for everyone, sure. But it's not equally bad for all of them.

Increasing the number of high-level wizards is most bad for whoever has the greatest chance of being the Last Mage Standing. It's least bad (but still bad) for whoever has the smallest chance of being the Last Mage Standing.

People routinely take actions that hurt themselves, but hurt their enemies more. It's called spite. Now, let's imagine you're a mage, and you look around at all the other mages, and realize you don't have what it takes to be the winner in this game of King of the Hill. What do you do? You make sure nobody else wins either!

At any given time, there are a small number of mages who have a chance at winning this game. and those mages are playing to win. But there are many, many more mages who don't have any real chance. And they're not playing to win. They're playing to screw over everyone else. And if they screw themselves at the same time? What do they care? They were already screwed!

The whole thesis is that someone is going to act to stop there from being a proliferation of mages. Powerful mages don't benefit from more mages existing. It cuts into their pie. So, rather than allowing you know Wizard 3 from training Wizard 1, they teleport to their location and hurl their Spellbooks into a fire. They make a Wish Trap that steals all spellbooks with higher than first level spells, furthest to closest. They use Legend Lore and scrying to find all the low level wizards. They walk around with Arcane Sight and find the low level wizards who are just out having a good time. They destroy all public spell supplies and maintain a diligently maintained horde of Contingent Disintegrate on their own spellbooks in the event of their permanent demise. If you aren't in the running to win, you get killed or neutralized. They never let a wizard reach a level where they are a threat. They kill or isolate people who break the laws against magical education. That's what winners do - They crush all potential competition. And if they don't, eventually some competition comes along and does.

Letting another wizard reach level eight is like letting someone get personal control of an army unit. It is not something a responsible government does.

[LordBlades]

Q: Why The Magocracy Is Highly Improbable And Unstable
A: You could look at Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory's Obsidian Trilogy for how a lawful good/neutral magocracy could work instead of focusing on chaotic evil mages.

The Jedi Order of Star Wars is also a great example of a Lawful magocracy.

In my view, once you get the ball running, establish the magocracy and get a solid flow of 2nd or 3rd generation recruits, people born and raised with the ideals of the magocracy as their one and only truth you're pretty much too big to fail. Being lawful and indoctrinating your people toward lawfulness makes you safe-ish from the inside, and you're very likely to hear about any rival organization long before they're big enough to pose a threat.

[LordBlades]

1) The Tippyverse behaves as if dragons/demons aren't keeping humans down and preventing them from developing dangerous magical techniques that might kill the dragons/demons, which seems like an obvious thing for them to do (what with their ridiculous HD and caster levels and either excellent infiltration abilities or evil alignment). So presumably unless you go hitting their nest, there's no reason to do this.
2) The Tippyverse and most magocracy societies assume the gods are mostly silent. Obviously, if the gods directly intervene, all bets are off. Whatever governmental system they like best occurs, the preferences and inclinations of mortals be damned. If they decide fighters should rule based on who can win an arm wrestling contest, well, that's what happens. It's not politically interesting to have an argument about that.
3) This still makes the mistake of assuming that wizards are a faction. But wizards are one of their own primary predators, not a faction, and the fact that other wizards occasionally get killed by demons/dragons/inquisitions is a benefit and not a drawback, especially if you can nick their spellbook afterwards.
4) Vlaakith solves these problems by aligning herself personally with a faction of dragons and an evil aligned god to give her cover. An evil aligned caster could copy this strategy or a good aligned one could copy it with Bahamut and silver.



Fair point about dragons/outsiders so let's exclude them for now. This leaves the churches. I fully agree that, in a setting where God's get routinely involved any discussion of mortal power is moot, so let's assume them passive. Even so, you'd have an exceedingly hard time enacting upon divine casters (clerics and druids mainly) the same kind of control you can enact on arcane casters, mainly for two reasons:

- clerics and druids are already organized in churches/circles while you are alone
- even if gods are passive, as long as they are not non-existant (like Eberron), going around messing with their chosen servants is still a bad idea.

This leaves you as the 'one wizard' alone in a world of many high level clerics and druids, which basicly limits your power to what these guys feel like allowing you to get away with on a given day. While a church/druid circle might think twice before messing with a full-sized magocracy, they likely have enough resources (by resources I mean high level casters) to deal with a lone wizard that pisses them off.

[Mechalich]

The Jedi Order of Star Wars is also a great example of a Lawful magocracy.

In my view, once you get the ball running, establish the magocracy and get a solid flow of 2nd or 3rd generation recruits, people born and raised with the ideals of the magocracy as their one and only truth you're pretty much too big to fail. Being lawful and indoctrinating your people toward lawfulness makes you safe-ish from the inside, and you're very likely to hear about any rival organization long before they're big enough to pose a threat.

The Jedi Order has nowhere near the power scaling of 3.X wizards. And, of course, the Jedi Order's evil counterpart - the Sith, are massively unstable and continually obliterate their own empire through infighting unless, and only unless, the singular leader is sufficiently powerful to crush all challenges without perceptible effort as Darth Vitiate of TOR was.

[Maat Mons]

This whole idea of powerful mages hunting down and killing weaker mages presumes the weaker mages do not have the protection of other powerful mages. But there will be powerful mages who want to protect weaker mages. Not out of the goodness of their hearts. And not in an effort to pursue their own self-interest. They'll do it because someone they personally dislike has a goal that requires the death of all weak mages. And they want to make sure that whatever that guy wants doesn't happen, regardless of what it is.

"If you aren't in the running to win, you get killed or neutralized?" Just because someone is weaker than the most powerful mage doesn't mean he's trivial to deal with. Moreover, there is only ever one most powerful mage. And there are going to be innumerable mages who are ever so slightly weaker. This difference can easily be large enough that they don't expect to be able to take the big guy down, yet small enough that they are by no means trivial for him to deal with either. So we've got one incredibly powerful guy pushing for fewer mages, because that's what will allow him to become uncontested. and we've got many, many incredibly powerful (just slightly less so) people pushing for more mages, because that's what will stop that one guy from becoming uncontested.

In any game, no matter how many players, there is always only one person who wants the game to end. It's the guy who's in the lead, because if the game ends right then, he'll be the winner. Every single other player want to draw the game out. Especially the guy who's in second place. If the game goes on, he stands the best chance of pulling ahead. And if he can do that then end the game he's the winner.

Ensuring the proliferation of mages is how players keep this game going. And, at any time, there are a crapton of very powerful wizards who want the game to keep going, and thus want more mages. There is only ever on wizard (the current frontrunner) who wants the game to end, and thus wants fewer mages. If you have many very powerful people pushing for one thing, and just one very powerful person pushing for the opposite, guess which one's going to happen? It doesn't matter if that one person is slightly more powerful that the most powerful member of the majority.

[White Blade]

The Jedi Order of Star Wars is also a great example of a Lawful magocracy.

In my view, once you get the ball running, establish the magocracy and get a solid flow of 2nd or 3rd generation recruits, people born and raised with the ideals of the magocracy as their one and only truth you're pretty much too big to fail. Being lawful and indoctrinating your people toward lawfulness makes you safe-ish from the inside, and you're very likely to hear about any rival organization long before they're big enough to pose a threat.

I don't think I've ever implied that I thought it was in the interest of chaotic evil characters specifically. I think even Exalted Lawful Good alignment will set out to hold down the magical progress of all competitors. I think they'll be nicer about it, certainly, but I don't think that a Rainbow Feathered Shadowsnake will be itching for another CL17 character to occur. I think every responsible character will go out of their way to crush any other CL17 characters. Imagine Superman. Imagine that there were a magic rock that caused other people to get Superman's powers at random and it's permanent. Should Superman destroy the rock? Superman doesn't think, "everyone who is effected by the rock will be evil." Superman knows that MOST people who get the power won't do anything useful, some people will even do good, but Superman knows some people will use the powers for evil. Millions of people could die if an Evil!Superman appears. Dictatorial governments could spring up that he, Superman, would have to risk his life defeating, bound by moral constraints that would not effect Evil!Superman. If he dies, then Evil!Superman will destroy the rock and forever rule a world of tears. Magic is the rock.


Fair point about dragons/outsiders so let's exclude them for now. This leaves the churches. I fully agree that, in a setting where God's get routinely involved any discussion of mortal power is moot, so let's assume them passive. Even so, you'd have an exceedingly hard time enacting upon divine casters (clerics and druids mainly) the same kind of control you can enact on arcane casters, mainly for two reasons:

- clerics and druids are already organized in churches/circles while you are alone
- even if gods are passive, as long as they are not non-existant (like Eberron), going around messing with their chosen servants is still a bad idea.

This leaves you as the 'one wizard' alone in a world of many high level clerics and druids, which basicly limits your power to what these guys feel like allowing you to get away with on a given day. While a church/druid circle might think twice before messing with a full-sized magocracy, they likely have enough resources (by resources I mean high level casters) to deal with a lone wizard that pisses them off.

That's just multiplying the structures you have to answer to - Either I listen to the Church of Bahamut and I keep coloring within the lines or I listen to the Mages' Guild and I keep coloring within the lines. Of course this assumes that the Churches are letting wizards proliferate in the first place, which they aren't. They're continually grinding them down, along with all the dangerous churches of evil or neutral alignment. If the gods intervene to protect their followers, why won't they do so when the Theocracy of [LG God] gets hit and you come to negotiate for equal position?

But the imagined situation is that a lone wizard wouldn't be able to resist the naturally co-ordinated theocracies. Quite right - There would be no wizards to resist these theocracies. Any such cabals would be highly illegal, characterized by paranoia, resentment, and burning ambition, and if they made it to power they'd start obeying Vlaakith's Theorem before they even burnt the cathedral to the ground.

This whole idea of powerful mages hunting down and killing weaker mages presumes the weaker mages do not have the protection of other powerful mages. But there will be powerful mages who want to protect weaker mages. Not out of the goodness of their hearts. And not in an effort to pursue their own self-interest. They'll do it because someone they personally dislike has a goal that requires the death of all weak mages. And they want to make sure that whatever that guy wants doesn't happen, regardless of what it is.

"If you aren't in the running to win, you get killed or neutralized?" Just because someone is weaker than the most powerful mage doesn't mean he's trivial to deal with. Moreover, there is only ever one most powerful mage. And there are going to be innumerable mages who are ever so slightly weaker. This difference can easily be large enough that they don't expect to be able to take the big guy down, yet small enough that they are by no means trivial for him to deal with either. So we've got one incredibly powerful guy pushing for fewer mages, because that's what will allow him to become uncontested. and we've got many, many incredibly powerful (just slightly less so) people pushing for more mages, because that's what will stop that one guy from becoming uncontested.

In any game, no matter how many players, there is always only one person who wants the game to end. It's the guy who's in the lead, because if the game ends right then, he'll be the winner. Every single other player want to draw the game out. Especially the guy who's in second place. If the game goes on, he stands the best chance of pulling ahead. And if he can do that then end the game he's the winner.

Ensuring the proliferation of mages is how players keep this game going. And, at any time, there are a crapton of very powerful wizards who want the game to keep going, and thus want more mages. There is only ever on wizard (the current frontrunner) who wants the game to end, and thus wants fewer mages. If you have many very powerful people pushing for one thing, and just one very powerful person pushing for the opposite, guess which one's going to happen? It doesn't matter if that one person is slightly more powerful that the most powerful member of the majority.
If GiantITP has taught me anything, it's that the difference between CL16 and CL17 is infinite. You can offer people the Rainbow Feathered Servant with the missing levels and they just turn you down. They make fun of it as an actively bad choice. "Why have every Cleric spell below 9th spontaneously," they ask rhetorically, "When you can have Gate as a prepared spell?" That's how big of a difference one spell level makes. And that transition comes in the twinkle of an eye - A wizard goes from "near" to "God" status in one level.

Imagine, since you will, a pyramidal structure of magical power. One CL 20, Two CL 19, Four CL 18, Eight CL 17. It continues on down, but these are GiantITP wizards, so we're just straight up ignoring everybody below the same spell level. For some god forsaken reason, the CL 20 guy did not stop anybody nor did anybody after him permit it. This new Quindecarchy live together in obligatory harmony. Do they allow another person to join their ranks and split power sixteen ways? Who benefits? Only the faction in power (the faction winning the race) will have the power to permit such proliferation and they will have no reason to do so. That faction will inevitably destroy its rivals in the Quindecarchy, there will be a period where factions will be confused enough that training wizards will be fashionable again. There won't be individuals applying the Theorem, there will be factions until there is only one sufficiently united faction that no further collapse is possible and then that one faction will behave just as Vlaakith does. That faction might be one individual or it might be four, but it will be bound by trust and affection if so. Which is why it's best to mindrape yourself Ultra-Honorable Lawful Good at the start of the competition with a hidden contingent Break Enchantment that will trigger when you are in a dominant position.

[Kris Moonhand]

Made me think of some Discworld quotes.


Once, when the level of background magic on the Disc was young and high and found every opportunity to burst on the world, wizards were all as powerful as sourcerers and built their towers on every hilltop. And if there was one thing a really powerful wizard can’t stand, it is another wizard. His instinctive approach to diplomacy is to hex ‘em till they glow, then curse them in the dark.

That was, in fact, the problem. All the wizards were pretty evenly matched and in any case lived in high towers well protected with spells, which meant that most magical weapons rebounded and landed on the common people who were trying to scratch an honest living from what was,temporarily, the soil, and lead ordinary, decent (but rather short) lives.

It had all gone critical. Wizardry was breaking up. Goodbye to the University, the levels, the Orders; deep in his heart, every wizard knew that the natural unit of wizardry was one wizard. The towers would multiply and fight until there was one tower left, and then the wizards would fight until there was one wizard.

However, I disagree completely. The greatest wizard I have ever known spent the better part of a year and several kingdoms worth of gold creating a library with every spell known to man. Because he wanted everyone to be able to have access to magic. In fact, the website in my signature is named after him.

Nethys (or Boccob for you 3.5 folks) would be ashamed of this selfish behavior. I guarantee that any mage trying this bull**** would have every other mage kicking down his door before he'd burned 5 spellbooks.

[Maat Mons]

You're imagining one level-20 wizard, and everybody else is lower level. Why? You're trying to prove that a clear top dog will arise, and your starting point is to assume that there's already a clear top dog?

Imagine 100 level-20 wizards. Imagine each of them uses divinations to ask the question "If the number of wizards is permitted to whittle itself down to one, will I be that one?" One of the 20th-level wizards will get "yes" as his answer. He will, of course do his best to ensure that the number of wizards does get whittled down to one. The other 99 will get the answer "no," and they will all do their best to ensure that the number of wizards does not get whittled down to one.

That's 99 20th-level wizards working to keep the number of wizards up, and one working to bring the number of wizards down. That one wizard, given that he would have been the Last Mage Standing if it came to that, is apparently the most powerful, or the most clever, or the luckiest, or some combination. But do you really think one 20th-level wizard will win out against a united force of 99 20th-level wizards? Just because he had whatever slight edge or bit of luck would have allowed him to prevail in a free-for-all in the timeline that never actually happens? They're all the same level.



No faction is ever united, except against a common enemy. Once that enemy is defeated, the faction splits apart into multiple new factions.

People mutually agreeing to live in peace just because it's clearly in the best interests of all of them? That's not how people work.

You think a bunch of guys who kill all would-be mages to avoid having to share power with anyone will just cordially agree to share power with each other?



You know, a lot of your argumentation seems to stem from the idea that an all-powerful wizard has no way of knowing what might happen if any given person were permitted to become similarly powerful. But since he's all-powerful, he does know exactly that. It's called divination. There's no "what if," or "maybe." Anyone who would have been trouble for the High Wizard is not even permitted to be conceived. The people who are allowed to be born are those who the High Wizard knows with absolute certainty will never do him any harm. So let them study magic. It's not a risk, since the entire concept of risk is nonsensical when you know the future.



Also, you've routinely made reference to "slices of the pie." But what sense does that make when wizards can just waive their hands and make a new pie. Land? You can make it. People? You can make them. Why fight others for rulership of a realm of finite size, when you can rule over a realm of any size you want without nearly so much trouble?



I'd like to address the idea of a "territory." What delineates a territory, and how big is it?

If each mage's territory is "the physical space occupied by his body," then yes, there will generally be only one mage per territory. There might be occasional overlap when one of the parties is incorporeal, but that won't represent the bulk of situations.

On the other hand, if a territory is "everything, all of it," then your proposed scenario of a single dominant faction of mages violates your own axiom. Because that's more than one mage, and they're all inside of "everything," which is one territory. And you described them as being stable. So the number of mages in that territory is not approaching one.

Your axiom is so vaguely defined that it can be made true or false based on how you choose to interpret the a word.

[White Blade]

I’m assuming that the elimination of rivals is always in effect from the very first wizards when I say “someone reaches 17” I mean that ANYONE reaches 17. There aren’t a hundred wizards of level 20 to start because the first ten wizards who reached level 17 certainly did not permit the next ninety to reach it. If only because they had to gang up on a would be Vlaakith in the first ten. And then probably on some Boccobite who thought they should share. Except I also think this happened at 15, 13, and 11. I think it happened at every spell level above teleport and legend lore. I think that wizards are not a natural faction and they’re their own best predators (different problems, make each other worse off). They’ve been retiring peers to Elysia without their spellbooks for five levels before they even get their level nine spells. Best case scenario is Mad-Eye Moody, worst case scenario is Vlaakith. And that’s the balances that the wizards are weighing letting in at every new spell level.

I have no idea what spell you’re using to know who all potential threats could ever be. I don’t think that even Tippy has a way of doing that.

Territory means the area where a wizard wants to rule - Meaning you have to exclude him from your circle and you have to not be within his. If the Drow/Elf Archmages split Underdark and Surface world or if a coalition agrees to govern their own races, or what have you (e.g. Vlaakith rules the Githyanki and the astral plane - So she’ll kill you if you try to horn in, but otherwise doesn’t care.). Generally this means “everywhere desirable within range of greater teleport” and it may well mean “everywhere”.

Stable factions (by which I mean three man cabals) are approaching one by a mixture of not taking on new members and entropy - Somebody is going to retire or get killed in an argument or blow a wish eventually.

[Mato]

I don't think I've ever implied that I thought it was in the interest of chaotic evil characters specifically.Sure you did. Your entire post focuses on how an evil wizard has no qualms with killing a weaker wizard (and offspring) to maintain their position. How an evil wizard would refuse to share spells because spells are keys to power used to control other people (see also: oppression). It even repeatedly quotes Vlaakith CLVII, a chaotic evil githyanki lich, for enforcement.

We can avoid this thread devolving into a misunderstanding of good & evil by not even using it. Because even the most unethically controlled person isn't blind to the benefits of taking half the credit for success instead of none for a failure. And while the lawful trait even comes in and forces cooperation and agreements, such as sharing the knowledge of a valuable spell with a rival wizard for a peace treaty, we don't even have to talk about that either. Instead we're going to talk about two things.

1. The only real lesson GitP has to offer is not to trust everything you read.
2. CPG Gray has a wonderful video on the rules for ruler ship. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)
Just remember with #2, "treasure" is all resources such as the most important one: experience points. And a wizard isn't automatically exempt to ruling alone, while an ice assassin is inherently a rival even an unproven amount infinite simulacrums that have an unproven amount of infinite spells and unproveningly invincible with it's master's selfish driven personality will have other ideas.

[ezekielraiden]

But the theory that the mages would rise up and rule is highly unlikely at best. Firstly, it is unlikely that any ultra-rich wizard would want to rule over or serve as a general for one of the megapolii. Why would they want to do that?
Because unlike Vlaakith, some people do pursue power and authority as a means, and not an end in itself. Some people take power, not because they like it or enjoy it or even want anything to do with it, but because the things they do value--people, places, things, ideals--come under threat. Your entire argument falls down with a single name: Cincinnatus. There really are people who accept Ultimate Power, use it only as far as necessary, and then abandon it without remorse afterward.


It is also highly unlikely that they will spend many, many days crafting monstrous relics of arcane power to destroy other cities.
Unless those cities pose an existential threat to the things they care about.


There's nothing in it for the wizards - They can just combine Fabricate and Lyre of Building to get whatever they are looking for and move somewhere obscure enough no other wizards try to run them over.
Assuming that the only things all wizards ever want is independence, control, and greater knowledge, sure. But what about wizards that don't solely want those three things?

Ultimately, the reason for Wizardly Rule can only be one thing: The power over other people.
*sigh* Yes, if you have already committed to an ultra-materialist, all-things-are-tools worldview, then all that matters is material things and the way others may be used as tools. But that's begging the question. Bluntly: is it really impossible to be a 20th level Wizard, while still caring more about others than you do about yourself? Is it really impossible to be a selfless archwizard? Because until you actually demonstrate that, your whole position is a castle built on sand.

While you could share wealth and profit, even acclaim, without really losing out, you can't share power over others without losing out.
Sure you can, unless you define "power over others" in absolutist terms.

Some people think that wizards and archivists benefit from other wizards and archivists. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wizards and archivists are powerful, dangerous threats to one another. For another wizard or archivist of similar stature to be alive is like living in a room with a bomb. It may never go off, of course, but it could very well kill you.
Again with the hyper-materialist perspective, which comes to the conclusions assumed from the beginning. Humans pose an existential threat to other humans, under this view, as every human is potentially a murderer, so in a post-scarcity society the only natural choice is to murder every human you meet, right? But if you actually value things other than what an eliminative materialist nihilist would value, suddenly a whole world of other options arises.


As a rule, any character who spends their life in pursuit of power over others wants to achieve some grandiose vision (For others, see below).
Again, your argument is circular, as you have assumed that only hyper-materialists pursue great power, and that all people who pursue power do so as an end, and not merely as a means. Cincinnatus accepted absolute power twice and never did any of this. When we're already, of necessity, talking about microscopic sample sizes and the like--you cannot validly apply statistical arguments like "as a rule" etc. to a necessarily outlier, quirky group. Your statistics will betray you.


You Can't Pass It On:
This isn't a problem of being a powerful wizard. This is a problem of centralized, absolute power, be it absolute monarchy, dictatorship, or autocracy. All governments based on a single individual possessing absolute power are at their most vulnerable when succession is concerned. (As an aside, this is one of the reasons why democracies make such a big deal out of the smooth and orderly transition from one head-of-state to the next: such a thing is one of the key ways democracy differs from autocracy.) So, while this is a perfectly valid point, it has nothing really to do with wizardry at all, and simply with single-ruler absolute-power government--and as I've repeatedly stated, you've only proven that such a thing is guaranteed for magocracies in the absence of other ethical systems besides extreme materialism/nihilism.


Most wizards became wizards because they wanted a course to power that ran straight through the universe...
And here is the fundamental reason we will always disagree.

I don't think "most" wizards become wizards because they wanted cosmic power, for the same reason that I don't think most nuclear physicists became physicists in order to create nuclear weapons. You have asserted a perfectly valid value that people can pursue, but you have erred by assuming that it is the only value people can pursue. People learn and master skills for a cornucopia of reasons. Magic, as practiced by Wizards, is just as much a skillset as pottery or painting. People may simply take it up because they find it interesting, not caring one whit how much power it gives them. People may take it up because it gives them a transcendent experience, and therefore is an expression of devotion. People may take it up because they are forced to, whether by circumstance or family or social expectation. Some may even do it because they're simply bored and this is one of the only things that actually provides a challenge.

Some wizards absolutely become wizards, and pursue that path with zeal, because it will grant them independence and control--a course to minimally-fettered power. And such wizards may be extremely dangerous people, "walking bombs" as you put it (again the hyper-materialism: other people aren't people, they're objects, which may be useful or useless, dangerous or harmless). It is your imported assumptions, that all wizards have identical hyper-materialist values systems, that all of them view all of reality in an instrumental, means-not-ends way, etc., which force the final conclusion. Your reasoning is perfectly sound, it's just circular.

[White Blade]

Some wizards absolutely become wizards, and pursue that path with zeal, because it will grant them independence and control--a course to minimally-fettered power. And such wizards may be extremely dangerous people, "walking bombs" as you put it (again the hyper-materialism: other people aren't people, they're objects, which may be useful or useless, dangerous or harmless). It is your imported assumptions, that all wizards have identical hyper-materialist values systems, that all of them view all of reality in an instrumental, means-not-ends way, etc., which force the final conclusion. Your reasoning is perfectly sound, it's just circular.
As long as some wizards will obey the maxim, every wizard should obey it. That's not selfishness or nilhism, it's responsibility: Cincinnatus shouldn't allow the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Casters shouldn't allow the proliferation of casters. They can't possibly benefit enough from another caster of 9th level spells to justify the risks unless they are either a) very certain that the caster will not act against their interests or b) In real life, if you have the power to kill people at the tip of your fingers, that's bad. You say, "single-ruler absolute-power government" but a magocracy is just a dictatorship of mages. Unless the majority of society are mages, it's violent, minoritarian rule and it is characterized (by extension) by violent control of power and the suppression of dissent. It has all the same faults and will obey Vlaakith's Theorem, because it's members will always be trying to maximize their power. It will be an arena that rewards
• Pro-Social casters should prevent the proliferation of high level casters to minimize harms by casters to others
• Self-Interested casters should prevent the proliferation of high level casters to minimize harms to themselves
• Casters with any interest at stake in the world (family, nation, wealth, politics) should prevent the proliferation of high level casters to minimize harms to that interest
• Curiosity and the love of magic may permit or even cause proliferation but proliferation will lead to growing numbers of mages with the previous three interests and (I would assert) those interests will be much more powerful and more common. Supposing, however, that the ultra-intelligent archmages seize control of all magical training and then seek out and permit only those driven solely by these interests to learn magic, then I suppose that it is possible to ensure a magocracy of nerds, dedicated wholly to the pursuit of knowledge and magic. Even then, there is always the possibility of the development of new interests once you've been recruited.

You don't need two Archmages for anything. So nearly every interest pushes back against allowing other casters, unless there's some massive threat from other casters. Whenever wizards aren't growing, they're dying and their numbers are approaching one.

Sure you did. Your entire post focuses on how an evil wizard has no qualms with killing a weaker wizard (and offspring) to maintain their position. How an evil wizard would refuse to share spells because spells are keys to power used to control other people (see also: oppression). It even repeatedly quotes Vlaakith CLVII, a chaotic evil githyanki lich, for enforcement.

We can avoid this thread devolving into a misunderstanding of good & evil by not even using it. Because even the most unethically controlled person isn't blind to the benefits of taking half the credit for success instead of none for a failure. And while the lawful trait even comes in and forces cooperation and agreements, such as sharing the knowledge of a valuable spell with a rival wizard for a peace treaty, we don't even have to talk about that either. Instead we're going to talk about two things.

1. The only real lesson GitP has to offer is not to trust everything you read.
2. CPG Gray has a wonderful video on the rules for ruler ship. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)
Just remember with #2, "treasure" is all resources such as the most important one: experience points. And a wizard isn't automatically exempt to ruling alone, while an ice assassin is inherently a rival even an unproven amount infinite simulacrums that have an unproven amount of infinite spells and unproveningly invincible with it's master's selfish driven personality will have other ideas.
I actually read the Rules for Rulership book (well, listened to the audiobook) by the people who invented the theory and I think they would agree with Vlaakith. Every individual wizard is incentivized to prevent there from being more wizards, because it reduces their control of resources. They say very explicitly that every leader wants to minimize their necessary coalition, the number of people they have to pay off. "Me, Myself, And I" is the maximum supply, after all. If your own simulacrums kill you, you've got some real personal issues but unless your only interest is self-preservation, all your other interests are still preserved (they protect your wife, raise your children, defend your nation state, advance your theories, and so forth) which you can't say for all other co-conspirators.

I don't think killing other wizards to prevent their ascension to magical nuclear powers is evil. Even if we accept that it would be, you can just appear and strip them with Disjunction and Maximized Greater Dispel Magic, destroy their spellbook, and Energy Drain them back to level one over the course of a few days.

[LordBlades]

The Jedi Order has nowhere near the power scaling of 3.X wizards. And, of course, the Jedi Order's evil counterpart - the Sith, are massively unstable and continually obliterate their own empire through infighting unless, and only unless, the singular leader is sufficiently powerful to crush all challenges without perceptible effort as Darth Vitiate of TOR was.

While they don't have the same power scaling, the principle stays the same: the Jedi Order are an organization of extremely powerful individuals, most/all of them indoctrinated from birth into the organization's ideals. They have set themselves above the law and work hard to maintain this status-quo. If you want to cause trouble (where cause trouble is defined at the sole discretion of the Jedi Order), a Jedi will show up and stop you. If you want to use the Force in ways the Jedi Order doesn't approve of, a Jedi will show up and stop you.

[Asmotherion]

Magocracy is not a Dictatorship but rather a form of Meritocracy.

and i can see the arguement that some Mages will eventually attempt to eradicate Magocracy to archive a Dictatorship. My arguement is that there will be equally powerful mages who will go against them and form a Magocracy to prevent such actions. in the end more Mages win.

Also a government that functions on the basis of "we're already aware of what you'll be plotting 3 months from now" through multiple Diviners is not going to let a ploter actually gather followers. They'll eradicate him from existance before he even conceives a plan.

A colaboration of 2 casters able to cast 9th level spells is more power than 1 of them. And because there will always be the odd one who will try to win on his own (or some extraplanar threat etc) having more power on your site is always better (which would motivate a number of casters to colaborate on a code of conduct that would turn into a Magocracy).

[pabelfly]

Been reading this thread and I'd opine that a tippyverse shouldn't have every wizard act like they're The Terminator in a Battle Royale videogame.

[White Blade]

Magocracy is not a Dictatorship but rather a form of Meritocracy.

and i can see the arguement that some Mages will eventually attempt to eradicate Magocracy to archive a Dictatorship. My arguement is that there will be equally powerful mages who will go against them and form a Magocracy to prevent such actions. in the end more Mages win.

Also a government that functions on the basis of "we're already aware of what you'll be plotting 3 months from now" through multiple Diviners is not going to let a ploter actually gather followers. They'll eradicate him from existance before he even conceives a plan.

A colaboration of 2 casters able to cast 9th level spells is more power than 1 of them. And because there will always be the odd one who will try to win on his own (or some extraplanar threat etc) having more power on your site is always better (which would motivate a number of casters to colaborate on a code of conduct that would turn into a Magocracy).

How do you know what people will be plotting three months from now when they have Mind Blank, the most fundamental defense which every wizard with 8th level spells uses? Divination only goes one week forward, is a 4th level spell (thus doesn't require the magocracy), and should be countered by Mind Blank. If there's some absurd higher level divination that can bypass your anti-divination defenses, use a Spellblade against that (those) spell(s). So it's not true that a proliferation of wizards enables you (Archmage Asmotherion) to benefit from foresight three months in advance, it doesn't improve your safety against wizards. But it does increase the number of wizards who have Mind Blank and can no sell your divinations, making you (and all your interests) more vulnerable.

Meritocracy? It's an oligarchy predisposed towards maintaining its own interests. That means crushing the opposing oligarchs, either at home or (occasionally) abroad, and then crushing the potential wizards at home who might grow up to have rival power. This is how all oligarchies have functioned from the beginning of time. Why would they add one to the x-number mages who are already in equilibrium? Suppose the Magocracy fights it out with potential threats, establishes its iron grasp on society and then what do these mighty mages do? They stop there from being new mages - Every new mage increases the odd of a divorce within the magocracy and decreases the power of the majority of the existing magocrats. It doesn't expand on its power or keep building up its arsenal of Mages. It is at equilibrium. It has divination, its opponents do not. It has a functioning archmage coalition, its opponents do not. It either Energy Drains or Disintegrates every mage who is within a week of reaching 7th level spells outside of its own circle. Its members achieve immortality in one of half a dozen well-documented ways (Good Lich, probably), they rule forever until they get bored or destroy each other in the divorce (they might have an "amicable" divorce where they're still all in it together but live in very different places).

Once one such archmage coalition exists, no other such coalition will be permitted. Once one such archmage coalition exists, its numbers start creeping towards one.

High Magic Non-Proliferation is the most basic doctrine of any political power based on magic. It's not even like... mean or bad or wrong. It's just correct.

[Sutr]

This is dark. I dubbed this hypothetical wizard Darius(phone autocorrect of darkus). I dont think a 17th level wizard can do this either so I'm going to attempt to prove the wizard fails. If the wizard fails to prevent proliferation of a magocracy, people rally against the guy spouting nonproliferation by killing them; the magocracy becomes optimal. So offhand 2 abilities prevent Darius from even knowing about rivals.

1 Vecna-blooded: it should be clear that since Darius can't detect these creatures and they are created by a force outside his control. As they are created by a deity of magic possibly of a similar ethos. They may be willing to create a secret society. I mean I just made an argument for a magocracy that functions like Darius, but it's more stable than Darius running around disintegrating random rivals in random streets.

2: cerebral blind: 6th level slayers are immune to attempts to discern their location. So unless we are discounting psionics as well. Which we shouldn't as the lich queen seems to be the example used to say this is possible, and she can't find any slayers.

3. Mystical locations: I know I have high level dungeons in cool places that I run my players through. These places disrupt scrying. I'd think that people level up in them. So Darius needs to now end every threat in these locations as well?

4 different argument: If darius wants to be the only wizard. At some point he needs to set a limitation on what level casting he allows. At that point across the infinite planes the optimal way to end high level casters is to end high level problems; or those problems might become beholder mages. Through time-wimey plane things I'm lead to believe he can succeed, but isn't that boring to plane shift to your demiplane divine a problem scry optimize tactics stop time destroy repeat again and again for all eternity.

[Mato]

I actually read the Rules for Rulership book (well, listened to the audiobook)I think you mean "The Dictator's Handbook", it's even linked to in the video's description.

Except as noted, the "treasure" in this case also includes experience points. A random tavern brawl, no matter how illegal, still creates possibilities for stray wizards obtaining new spells and deciding to work together to overthrow their evil dictator. Another aspect of this is the evil wizard ruler cannot even replace any XP spent on building his power base without squaring off against actual enemies an absolute minimum of CR13, which increases as the wizard tries to obtain more power. These problems need solutions and those solutions create new keys to power.


If your own simulacrums kill you, you've got some real personal issues but unless your only interest is self-preservation, all your other interests are still preserved (they protect your wife, raise your children, defend your nation state, advance your theories, and so forth)Hold up, you just made this big case in your first post about how the evil wizard won't have any children out of their fear to be replaced. But now you want to talk about how a copy of this evil dictator wizard will be willing to raise someone else's possible-replacements.

[White Blade]

This is dark. I dubbed this hypothetical wizard Darius(phone autocorrect of darkus). I dont think a 17th level wizard can do this either so I'm going to attempt to prove the wizard fails. If the wizard fails to prevent proliferation of a magocracy, people rally against the guy spouting nonproliferation by killing them; the magocracy becomes optimal. So offhand 2 abilities prevent Darius from even knowing about rivals.

1 Vecna-blooded: it should be clear that since Darius can't detect these creatures and they are created by a force outside his control. As they are created by a deity of magic possibly of a similar ethos. They may be willing to create a secret society. I mean I just made an argument for a magocracy that functions like Darius, but it's more stable than Darius running around disintegrating random rivals in random streets.

2: cerebral blind: 6th level slayers are immune to attempts to discern their location. So unless we are discounting psionics as well. Which we shouldn't as the lich queen seems to be the example used to say this is possible, and she can't find any slayers.

3. Mystical locations: I know I have high level dungeons in cool places that I run my players through. These places disrupt scrying. I'd think that people level up in them. So Darius needs to now end every threat in these locations as well?

4 different argument: If darius wants to be the only wizard. At some point he needs to set a limitation on what level casting he allows. At that point across the infinite planes the optimal way to end high level casters is to end high level problems; or those problems might become beholder mages. Through time-wimey plane things I'm lead to believe he can succeed, but isn't that boring to plane shift to your demiplane divine a problem scry optimize tactics stop time destroy repeat again and again for all eternity.
Oh mercy, I forgot about Vecna Blooded. Vecna Blooded makes this sort of behavior inevitable, it's literally the perfect tool for anyone who wants to betray a magocracy. It's a template so add it with that ritual in Savage Species if you don't feel like being tortured, buy off the LA. And it forces you to be evil and you're associated with Vecna. Good grief.

In theory, probably some people can gain high level magic without the approval of Darius. They might form a coalition to crush Darius, who is of course a Vecna Blooded Wizard 5/Mindbender 1/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 10/??? 4 (Or just a Wizard 6/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil/Tainted Sorcerer or whatever, if Vecna prevents Ur-Priests from getting the template), but they'll soon find themselves agreeing with him that having a large number of equals is a liability and not an advantage. Especially since at any moment, Vecna might whisper the riddles into one of his acolyte's ears and suddenly there's an ECL 17 Archmage popping around who they can't scry on or learn anything about and who knows their own structures, tactics, inclinations, and rules. A Vecna-blooded knows the riddles already, so she could in theory eliminate a rival, burn the template, and then make herself disappear from history whenever the backlash starts to heat up. Any other member of the Vecna Blooded could do the same, so they won't form an alliance. They're their own natural worst enemies. All as Vecna intended, to keep the intrigue up and his potential rivals down.

I think you mean "The Dictator's Handbook", it's even linked to in the video's description.

Except as noted, the "treasure" in this case also includes experience points. A random tavern brawl, no matter how illegal, still creates possibilities for stray wizards obtaining new spells and deciding to work together to overthrow their evil dictator. Another aspect of this is the evil wizard ruler cannot even replace any XP spent on building his power base without squaring off against actual enemies an absolute minimum of CR13, which increases as the wizard tries to obtain more power. These problems need solutions and those solutions create new keys to power.

Hold up, you just made this big case in your first post about how the evil wizard won't have any children out of their fear to be replaced. But now you want to talk about how a copy of this evil dictator wizard will be willing to raise someone else's possible-replacements.
I do. Didn't want to bother. That book's not that good. You don't need XP? You have Thought Bottle and Distilled Joy factories. It's not a need. Even if you don't have thought bottle and distilled joy, just have a Battletitan hunting range and use Touch of Idiocy + coup de grace or a Zaratan ranch if you're aquatic and evil.

Evil Simulacrum of you are half your level and can never gain experience? So if you're saying, "Why do these ultra-paranoid power mongers put up with you?" because you're all they've got. They also literally have to obey you, it's explicit that they're under your "absolute command". Just command them not to genie you and remind them that you're all they've got. If you don't have other interests then yourself, your simulacrums will obey you and if you do, they will protect those interests.

[Mato]

You have Thought Bottle and Distilled Joy factories.Thought bottles don't work like that and distilled joy requires a good-aligned spellcaster which, according to the PHB and not White Blade, means the wizard wants to co-operate with others instead of oppressing them. :smallsmile:


Evil Simulacrum of you are half your level and can never gain experience? So if you're saying, "Why do these ultra-paranoid power mongers put up with you?" because you're all they've got. They also literally have to obey you, it's explicit that they're under your "absolute command". Just command them not to genie you and remind them that you're all they've got. If you don't have other interests then yourself, your simulacrums will obey you and if you do, they will protect those interests.Let's try an analogy that assumes "Winters Bane", aka WB, is a wizard likes chips. WB makes a clone and the clone likes chips. So the clone eats the chips. WB is upset, so he gets another bag of chips and tells his clone he was wrong to to eat them and then orders his clone not to steal the chips. How do you think WB would react to being told he was wrong and then ordered not to do it? Well as we can see WB is just going to persist no matter what, change the language to fit it's desires, refuse to see things from another point of view, and continue to exclusively push it's agenda even if it means reneging on previously used points with a worthless discussion. So the clone eats the chips anyway and tells WB that it didn't steal them, it is burrowing them, and WB can have them back in two days.

It's a classic philosophical question of "can you get along with your self?". And every time WB's displays his egocentrism, which combines his selfish paranoia and desire to rule, he continues to showcase examples of why it's impossible to those who understand the story even if WB cannot.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Oh mercy, I forgot about Vecna Blooded. Vecna Blooded makes this sort of behavior inevitable, it's literally the perfect tool for anyone who wants to betray a magocracy. It's a template so add it with that ritual in Savage Species if you don't feel like being tortured, buy off the LA. And it forces you to be evil and you're associated with Vecna. Good grief.

In theory, probably some people can gain high level magic without the approval of Darius. They might form a coalition to crush Darius, who is of course a Vecna Blooded Wizard 5/Mindbender 1/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 10/??? 4 (Or just a Wizard 6/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil/Tainted Sorcerer or whatever, if Vecna prevents Ur-Priests from getting the template), but they'll soon find themselves agreeing with him that having a large number of equals is a liability and not an advantage. Especially since at any moment, Vecna might whisper the riddles into one of his acolyte's ears and suddenly there's an ECL 17 Archmage popping around who they can't scry on or learn anything about and who knows their own structures, tactics, inclinations, and rules. A Vecna-blooded knows the riddles already, so she could in theory eliminate a rival, burn the template, and then make herself disappear from history whenever the backlash starts to heat up. Any other member of the Vecna Blooded could do the same, so they won't form an alliance. They're their own natural worst enemies. All as Vecna intended, to keep the intrigue up and his potential rivals down.

Shortly after beginning his rampage, Darius was terminated with extreme prejudice by a planehopping team of Dweomerkeepers. His cause of death was listed in the endless records of Mechanus as "fatal overconfidence".

(Cloak of Mysteries gives one "immunity to all divination spells", not divination effects - all one needs to get past it is to use a (Su) divination effect, which is at most a moderate inconvenience for an optimised 17th+ level caster.)

The Dweomerkeepers then unaccountably failed to viciously turn on each other in a merciless battle of extermination, because they were all Good, got along jolly well, and shared their equally Good deity's dedication to preventing the misuse of magic. They were thus rather disinclined to murder each other on the basis of a misapplied version of Offensive Realism.

I'm going to let other people go down the rabbit hole of all the other ways you're wrong (your complete misunderstanding of IR/Deterrence theory, the utterly unsubstantiated assumption that all high level casters somehow turn into stereotypical 4X players regardless of alignment and previous attachments, the inherent ludicrousness of an entity with non-infinite power trying to pull a "There Can Be Only One" in an infinite universe, oligarchies often actually don't work that way, etc, etc...), because I'm too lazy, but I thought that particular bit of wrongness was worth cocking a snook at.

Edit: In the interests of further snook-cocking, however, I will leave you with a of fun fact. As it happens Dweomerkeeper has a class feature called "Cloak of Mysteries". This presumably links to how Team Dweomer was able to defeat Darius, because their cloaks had multiple mysteries and his had only one - and, as has been observed frequently by the wise throughout this thread, one is less than many.

[White Blade]

Thought bottles don't work like that and distilled joy requires a good-aligned spellcaster which, according to the PHB and not White Blade, means the wizard wants to co-operate with others instead of oppressing them. :smallsmile:
I mean, again, letting people have personalized nuclear weapons is uh... not the baseline definition of co-operation. Many, many governments make it illegal for private citizens to own high end explosives and enforce that law at the end of the gun. But even if we accept the falacious thesis you are advancing, you just mind-raped yourself while you crafted the object to be Lawful Good and to believe the contingent break enchantment was just in case you got jumped. Which to be fair it probably is for that too.


Let's try an analogy that assumes "Winters Bane", aka WB, is a wizard likes chips. WB makes a clone and the clone likes chips. So the clone eats the chips. WB is upset, so he gets another bag of chips and tells his clone he was wrong to to eat them and then orders his clone not to steal the chips. How do you think WB would react to being told he was wrong and then ordered not to do it? Well as we can see WB is just going to persist no matter what, change the language to fit it's desires, refuse to see things from another point of view, and continue to exclusively push it's agenda even if it means reneging on previously used points with a worthless discussion. So the clone eats the chips anyway and tells WB that it didn't steal them, it is burrowing them, and WB can have them back in two days.

It's a classic philosophical question of "can you get along with your self?". And every time WB's displays his egocentrism, which combines his selfish paranoia and desire to rule, he continues to showcase examples of why it's impossible to those who understand the story even if WB cannot.
I, of course, understood this reference. And it was quite rude. I'm happy to renege on points I'm wrong on. Yes, you could have children and your own interests - I don't think you'd let them be wizards, for the record, that would be asking for them to kill each other and you - But I don't think for a second that the rational self-interest of a being incapable of leveling up or gaining experience is, uh, spiting you.


Shortly after beginning his rampage, Darius was terminated with extreme prejudice by a planehopping team of Dweomerkeepers. His cause of death was listed in the endless records of Mechanus as "terminal overconfidence".

(Cloak of Mysteries gives one "immunity to all divination spells", not divination effects - all one needs to get past it is to use a (Su) divination effect, which is at most a moderate inconvenience for an optimised 17th+ level caster.)

The Dweomerkeepers then unaccountably failed to viciously turn on each other in a merciless battle of extermination, because they were all Good, got along jolly well, and shared their equally Good deity's dedication to preventing the misuse of magic. They were thus rather disinclined to murder each other on the basis of a misapplied version of Offensive Realism.
It's true that if you presuppose an infinite universe wherein the forces of magic at large have worked very hard to ensure that everyone has magic, the magocracy would occur. But it isn't the ordinary behavior of governments to share heavy explosives with any but the best behaved of their citizenry, much less heavy explosives that's primary use is killing oligarchs (because honest to God that's all ninth level spells are good for after the teleportation network).

[TheTeaMustFlow]

It's true that if you presuppose an infinite universe wherein the forces of magic at large have worked very hard to ensure that everyone has magic, the magocracy would occur.

That's not my point. Actually, that has nothing to do with any of my points. One of My points is that, magocracy or no, the whole idea of trying to be the only 17th+ Wizard (or comparable - and there's actually quite a lot of comparable) in an infinite universe (like the Great Wheel) is self-evidently ridiculous.

The part that you quoted was just pointing out your fairly glaring oversight.


But it isn't the ordinary behavior of governments to share heavy explosives with any but the best behaved of their citizenry, much less heavy explosives that's primary use is killing oligarchs (because honest to God that's all ninth level spells are good for after the teleportation network).

...You really don't know much about politics or history, do you?

It is. It really, really is. Oligarchies - and democracies, dictatorships, and every other kind of government in existence - literally do that every day. Alright, so maybe they don't give such weapons to the common rabble every day (though actually there are a number that do), but they happily sell or even give away weapons to other governments, including potentially threatening ones. This doesn't even change much as you consider deadlier weapons - by your logic, no government would ever help another develop nuclear weapons, or hand their own nukes to another government, and yet there are plenty who have done just that.

[White Blade]

That's not my point. Actually, that has nothing to do with any of my points. One of My points is that, magocracy or no, the whole idea of trying to be the only 17th+ Wizard (or comparable - and there's actually quite a lot of comparable) in an infinite universe is self-evidently ridiculous.

The part that you quoted was just about how you failed to read the rules properly.
I guess I have overcommitted, because I always think of 3.5 as a Prime Material world and no more unless you hit it with a stick, which it’s not of course. Good on you on that front.

..You really don't know much about politics or history, do you?

It is. It really, really is. Oligarchies - and democracies, dictatorships, and every other kind of government in existence - literally do that every day. Alright, so maybe they don't give such weapons to the common rabble every day (though actually there are a number that do), but they happily sell or even give away weapons to other governments, including potentially threatening ones. This doesn't even change much as you consider deadlier weapons - by your logic, no government would ever help another develop nuclear weapons, or hand their own nukes to another government, and yet there are plenty who have done just that.

Only 14 nation states have held nuclear weapons out of something like a hundred. Governments have permitted such behaviors because the political costs of suppression have been too high or supported it to gain leverage against a rival.

But unless a wizard is entering a pre-floating mage arm race that exists a priori, it’s easy to use energy drain to keep potential rivals well under the threat threshold with some judicious energy drain application. It’s even good in that it keeps them safe for everybody else. In real life, people are the only source of power (also truly egregious technological gaps). In D&D 3.5, a would be mage tyrant doesn’t need get along with people - Some legend lore divination for potential threats, jump them with energy drain, make sure they really do lose that level, and then send them on their way. Or kill them, or drag them off to Elysium to retire them.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

I guess I have overcommitted, because I always think of 3.5 as a Prime Material world and no more unless you hit it with a stick, which it’s not of course. Good on you on that front.

Quite, but actually the prime material is also infinite by RAW.



Only 14 nation states have held nuclear weapons out of something like a hundred.

Not quite. 13 separate countries have owned nuclear weapons (I assume you're counting the USSR and Russia as separate for some reason), but the number of states that have held them is rather higher due to NATO nuclear sharing, which gives operational control of American weapons to certain allied countries that host them in the event of a nuclear war (i.e. when it would actually matter).


Governments have permitted such behaviors because the political costs of suppression have been too high or supported it to gain leverage against a rival.

Again, no, there are quite a few cases where neither motive has particularly applied - Israeli support of the South African nuclear programme being the obvious case. And once again, that these permanent, long term alliances between nuclear states - the 17th+ Tier 1s in our scenario - exist, have existed and have been successful argues against your case, not for it. If teaming up with other powers capable of destroying you works in the long run, then the Dariuses of the worlds lose. He is one, they are many. One is less than many.


But unless a wizard is entering a pre-floating mage arm race that exists a priori
...Which they are. There are plenty of things around that can rival Darius for power (generally because they also have 9th level casting), a fair number of which were explicitly around in numbers greater than one since the dawn of time.

Great, that's that then.


it’s easy to use energy drain to keep potential rivals well under the threat threshold with some judicious energy drain application.


No, it isn't. You keep saying stuff like this without evidence, and expecting us to believe it. There is an infinite number of potential rivals.



In D&D 3.5, a would be mage tyrant doesn’t need get along with people - Some legend lore divination for potential threats

Again, read the rules you're citing. Firstly, Legend Lore gives you information about "an important person, place, or thing". Not something as vague as "potential threats" or "any character anywhere who might get 9th level spells soon". Secondly, even when you have a specific subject in mind, it gives you legends, it does not hand you over a copy of their character sheet. So you try that and you can very easily find yourself picking a fight with someone higher level than you, or with sufficiently good preparations and luck to either beat you or escape you (and probably earn a tidy pile of xp while doing so. Thirdly, numerous potential threats can be immune to it. Fourthly, there is still an infinite number of potential threats.


jump them with energy drain

Because it's not as if being immune to that is very common or anything.


make sure they really do lose that level, and then send them on their way.

...And they are still a potential threat. You haven't stopped anything, you've just delayed it. Meanwhile, the number of such potential threats is going to keep going up and up, they're going to get wise to you, and they're going to start working together. You only have to get unlucky once.

...And there are still an infinite number of threats, by the way.


Or kill them

Ah, yes, notoriously reliable as a method of permanently dealing with something according to RAW. (Also, neither the prime material nor the Wheel have ceased to be infinite yet.)


or drag them off to Elysium to retire them.

...Fair's fair, this one gave me a good laugh. Both because it's a great image and because it's so obviously unworkable. Firstly, it doesn't actually deal with the problem by your own rules. They still exist on Elysium, and lose none of their abilities. Elysium is quite a safe place, so they're likely to survive, earn xp, and make it up to 17. Yes, they won't leave, and yes, they don't remember you, but by your own standards they're still a threat - they could still relearn of your existence, and the rules just prevent them from leaving. They don't say anything about sending Simulacrum after Simulacrum at you (or any of the other means an optimised high level caster has of killing people across planes). And because they're under Elysium's control, the mages you dump there can cooperate indefinitely.

More prosaically, Elysium has locals that might object to your whole scheme, or just to you generally. Many of these are in your weight class (some by virtue of the fact they just are 17+th Wizards), they outnumber you, and because they're celestials they're pretty good at that working together indefinitely thing.

And, you know, ceterum censeo, infinite planes, you know the drill.

(Though deliberately doing the Elysium plan to yourself after leaving yourself instructions to use your simulacrums to kidnap evil wizards and use the plane to brainwash them into righteousness would be a fairly good way to "win" according to your rules. Though I suppose it would more be Elysium/the Celestials winning than you.)

[Maat Mons]

Ugh, so many wordy people. I'm going to respond based on page 1, and then move on to reading page 2.



"I’m assuming that the elimination of rivals is always in effect from the very first wizards."

So, your vision of the world is dependent on the first person to attain power having this same vision of the world?

Well, that's nowhere near certain. If you were saying that someone with this mindset will arise at some point, then sure, absolutely. But the first person to attain power? That's one dude. There's no telling what he might do.

What if he's an idealist, and operates on the assumption that everyone will share and get along? What if he's actually somewhat successful if promoting his vision, for a little while?

If the first would-be Vlaakith is born into a world where the first wizard to attain significant power decided to try to form Team Friendship and build the land of everyone Gets Magical Training, can he tear that down and build Vlaakith-topia? Because, if he can't, then we've basically decided that, whatever the whims of the first wizard are, that dictates how the world will be forever after.

So, just to be clear, are you saying that a Vlaakith can only arise if the very first mage to hit 17th (or whatver) level is also a Vlaakith? Or are you saying that, even if the first mage to hit 17th (or whatever) level is Rainbowhead McIdrealismface, someone is going to come along and pull a Vlaaakith?



"Territory means the area where a wizard wants to rule."

So let's take our theorem, "The number of all-powerful mages in a territory is always approaching one." and substitute that in.

"The number of all-powerful mages in a [area where a wizard wants to rule] is always approaching one."

So, just by using the word "territory" in the theorem, we've already assumed that there's a mage who wants to rule. Just want to make sure we're clear on that. That we're not treating the existence of mages with a desire to rule as something being demonstrated by this theorem. But rather as a necessary premise for this theorem to work.

I think we could, then, more accurately phrase this theorem as "If someone wants to rule, he has incentive to remove his rivals." This phrasing is much more upfront about the fact that the desire to rule must be assumed or proven, and that it is not something that can be inferred from the theorem itself.

[Mato]

I mean, again, letting people have personalized nuclear weapons is uh...A little different. Generally a wizard's spells don't quite of the range, radius, or toxic fallout of a nuclear bomb. Real life also doesn't have several creatures immune to a nuclear explosion or that awkward moment where an unarmed martial artist remains completely unscathed from a lucky roll. Plus, real life has found a way for several nations to have nuclear weapons and they have focused on trying to win economically rather than brute force. So nuclear war is more lethal than most theoretical wizards ever end up becoming and it still serves as an example of people mostly settling on working together instead of the world collapsing into a single dictator.


I, of course, understood this reference. And it was quite rude.For the record, I thought sliding in a poop joke was funny and wasn't trying to interlink it the analogy too much. :smallsmile:

The main point was I needed some kind of working analogy that calls out the problem with simulacrums in a way that you understood it since my original point was no one rules alone as a continuation of how your post exclusively deals with evil-aligned leaders. So I apologize for it seeming rude, but it seems like it kind of worked. As far as growth goes, I'm sure someone will say an ability ripped Bargest's feed is more specfic than a simulacrum's growth is through I'm more inclined to stick to the point that leveling only shares a correlation of more power. It's why the paranoid wizard builds a heavily fortified tower after all, you don't need a new level of spellcasting to gain more resources.


But it isn't the ordinary behavior of governments to share heavy explosives with any but the best behaved of their citizenrySo you are saying it's ordinary behavior for a government to bestow lesser nuke-like boons upon it's best behaved citizens?

[Mechalich]

The essential assumption behind this whole discussion that, assuming everything in all sourcebooks is available and one can optimize to fairly high levels (bleeding edge extremes not necessary) the first Tier I prepared Arcane caster - which is usually but not always a wizard - to hit level 17 has the freedom to reshape the world more or less according to their whims.

There are some dependent sub-assumptions, notably that the gods aren't actively interfering with the world and that neither are powerful extraplanar entities. However, these assumptions pretty much have to hold or otherwise no one in any D&D world can accomplish anything whatsoever because either deities or infinite extraplanar hordes have already reduced your world to whatever preferred form of fiat rubble they desire.

So the central question is how that very first caster, who is an immortal entity, has effectively limitless minions, and can dispatch said minions to any location at any time, chooses to act. This caster will be aware that there are other casters out there, and some of them may be quite powerful and though they do not represent a threat because they don't have access to 9th level spells yet, they are potential threats because the moment they acquire 9th level spells they metamorphose into someone on equal footing unless they can be eliminated almost immediately. For the moment you have complete control, the world is yours to reshape as you choose. What do you do about these potential threats?

Elimination is the most obvious, and most certain choice. A potential threat that has been removed can never metamorphose into an actual threat. Note that elimination doesn't necessarily mean killing, high-level wizards can put people into stasis, banish them to demiplanes of pure paradise, put them into mental loops, and create all sorts of actually rather pleasant neutralization measures if they wish.

There are other choices, and some might be surprisingly efficacious. For example, a good wizard might convert their homeworld into a Utopian paradise devoid of danger or difficult for others. In such a scenario perhaps no potential rival can ever find the challenges necessary to advance in level sufficiently to reach 9th level spells. There's some complex math involved in making that prediction, but a god-wizard is fully capable of plotting out whether or not that course would work in a simulation beforehand. Or they could just banish potential rivals to the planes around level 13 or so and make the guess that they'll never come back. After all, in an infinite multiverse there will always be worlds that don't yet have a god-wizard that will be far easier to conquer than one that already does.

Where things get complicated is when god-wizards allow - and this is entirely a choice, their power makes it ludicrously easy to prevent it from happening - others to ascend to the same rough heights as their own. Should this happen any potential conflict becomes extremely difficult to predict. Once demiplanes, simulacrums, contigencies, and all the other appropriately optimized preparations are in place any spark of conflict that passes through 'argument' into 'violence' becomes a 5D-chess mess that hinges more on 'who won initiative' than any other factor. There's no MAD and there's no good predictions, it's just a freaking coin flip scenario. Those are really, really bad odds, especially when you're looking down immortality. So, if you're going to allow someone else to join you at the top you'd better be d*** sure they aren't going to try to kill you someday - with someday potentially being ten thousand years from now.

The math on that suggests that betrayals will eventually happen and therefore god-wizards who allow rivals will eventually lose the coin flip and fall, leading to gradual replacement by suitably ruthless souls who won't allow rivals over the course of sufficient run time.

[ezekielraiden]

As long as some wizards will obey the maxim, every wizard should obey it. That's not selfishness or nilhism, it's responsibility: Cincinnatus shouldn't allow the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
So you're saying we live in an impossible world, since the United States permitted the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and Earth's nations didn't annihilate each other? No, you're very very much in nihilist territory, assuming that nothing has any actual or natural value, only instrumental value (all things merely as means, rather than as ends). Assuming that every potential threat is definitely a real and present danger that not only can be, but must be eliminated is literally assuming, from the beginning, that society cannot form. You are begging the question, in the formal logical meaning of that phrase.

Your argument literally cannot even attempt to capture the behavior of a true Kantian, categorical-imperative-driven mage. Because such a person is literally not possible if we accept your assumptions, but there is no logical flaw in the possibility of someone being genuinely committed to a Kantian ethical system and also being level 17 or higher Wizard/Erudite/Archivist.


Casters shouldn't allow the proliferation of casters. They can't possibly benefit enough from another caster of 9th level spells to justify the risks unless they are either a) very certain that the caster will not act against their interests or b)
Sure they can, you're just refusing to consider any form of value besides the instrumental. Which is literally what I've been telling you is the problem. (Also I'm going to assume you meant to include a second point, but forgot--I do that all the time so don't sweat it.) You're putting far too high a premium on absolute certainty. Society requires some degree of trust, and some acceptance that at rock bottom the use of force is the ultimate (as in last/final, not best or strongest) form of deterrent for abrogation of that trust. If all your argument boils down to is, "You cannot be certain that dangerous people won't try to kill you unless you kill them first, so society cannot exist," you really aren't saying anything particularly novel or, IMO, interesting. The existence of actual human society proves that thesis is built on faulty assumptions--real people are willing to trust enough, and accept some possibility of coercive force used on them, for societies to form. I see no reason why wizardry should be any different in practice.


You say, "single-ruler absolute-power government" but a magocracy is just a dictatorship of mages.
Not any more than a plutocracy is a dictatorship by coinage--you're abusing senses of the word. "Magocracy," like "meritocracy," "kleptocracy," and "technocracy," are not usually understood literally; they are metaphorical, referring to (theoretically) the group from which whatever actual government structure arises. You can have a technocracy or theocracy that is democratic, autocratic, oligarchic, whatever. The Vatican City, for example, is a theocratic elective absolute monarchy, while the internal structure of the Eastern Orthodox Church (when they choose to convene an ecumenical council) is effectively a theocratic oligarchy.

A magocracy is a state where magical skill is determinative of one's influence and ability to hold office. It says nothing more about how violent or nonviolent, oppressive or non-oppressive, that government may be. The Air Nomads of Avatar: the Last Airbender were a magocracy, styled after Buddhist monastic structures. They weren't oppressive in the least, and were in fact ardent pacifists (to the point that evidence that some of them killed invading genocidal soldiers bent on their annihilation was seen as surprising). It's only when you require perfect control, perfect certainty, perfect independence, that you get these morality-distorting situations--because you have demanded a thing that must occur to the exclusion of all else.


Unless the majority of society are mages, it's violent, minoritarian rule and it is characterized (by extension) by violent control of power and the suppression of dissent.
Why need it be violent? Only a minority of citizens of the United States have access to military hardware, a minority with quite literally "the power to kill people at the tip of [their] fingers," and yet our society is not ruled by it soldiery, but the soldiery is beholden to it (we have a civilian commander-in-chief). Whereas the later Roman Empire was ruled by its soldiery, particularly the Praetorian Guard, despite having far weaker tools-of-violence at its disposal, lacking even gunpowder for God's sake. Your framework fails to even remotely describe the real, physical world--where nations with comparatively tiny military power may be ruled by those holding the tools-of-violence, while those with enormous military power are not--why should I take it seriously for anything else?


• Pro-Social casters should prevent the proliferation of high level casters to minimize harms by casters to others
Only if that is literally the only way, and said pro-social casters believe that trust is for losers...which is literally the definition of being non-pro-social (or more realistically anti-social, hence my statements regarding nihilism or selfishness).

• Self-Interested casters should prevent the proliferation of high level casters to minimize harms to themselves
Which I've already agreed to; these are the nihilist/hyper-materialist types I spoke of.

• Casters with any interest at stake in the world (family, nation, wealth, politics) should prevent the proliferation of high level casters to minimize harms to that interest
Again, only if they're unwilling to engage in any form of trust. You have assumed that trust is either impossible, or definitionally a fool's game. Therefore, you have assumed that society is impossible. Your conclusion is assumed among your premises, therefore your argument begs the question.

• Curiosity and the love of magic may permit or even cause proliferation but proliferation will lead to growing numbers of mages with the previous three interests and (I would assert) those interests will be much more powerful and more common. Supposing, however, that the ultra-intelligent archmages seize control of all magical training and then seek out and permit only those driven solely by these interests to learn magic, then I suppose that it is possible to ensure a magocracy of nerds, dedicated wholly to the pursuit of knowledge and magic. Even then, there is always the possibility of the development of new interests once you've been recruited.
So you admit there are other values besides control, independence, and certainty?


You don't need two Archmages for anything. So nearly every interest pushes back against allowing other casters, unless there's some massive threat from other casters. Whenever wizards aren't growing, they're dying and their numbers are approaching one.
Nah. You've failed to respond meaningfully to anything I've said: you keep insisting on assuming that a Wizard absolutely must have perfect, 100% certainty of safety and perfect, 100% certainty of achieving their goals. That's your problem. Certainty requires absolute control, and when power is viewed in absolutist ways, morality goes out the window. You have locked yourself into a single view because you require absolute control in order to achieve absolute certainty. Absolute certainty is not as desirable as you think. It is incompatible with the two of us having this conversation to begin with. To quote a cybersecurity maxim: "A secure device is unusable. A usable device is insecure."


I don't think killing other wizards to prevent their ascension to magical nuclear powers is evil.
Then you are wrong. "You may possibly be a threat to me, so I have to kill you now" is pretty much definitional, textbook evil as far as I'm concerned. When you are laser-focused on being certain no one can ever threaten you, ever again, you have unquestionably crossed over into evil, even if you did it for what you believed are good reasons. There's a great passage from CS Lewis' The Four Loves that applies here:

"There is no man alive who responds more naturally than I to such canny maxims. I am a safety-first creature. Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as “Careful! This might lead you to suffering.”

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubt whether there is anything in me that pleases Him less. And who could conceivably begin to love God on such a prudential ground—because the security (so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the ground for loving? Would you choose a wife or a friend—if it comes to that, would you choose a dog—in this spirit? One must be outside the world of love, of all loves, before one thus calculates. Eros, lawless Eros, preferring the Beloved to happiness, is more like Love himself than this.
[...] There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the danges and perturbations of love is Hell.
I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God's will than a self-invited and selfprotective lovelesssness. It is like hiding the talent in a napkin and for much the same reason."
Alternatively, consider Gandalf. "Don't tempt me, Frodo! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand Frodo, I would use this Ring from a desire to do good. But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine." Gandalf is not willing to use any and all powers potentially at his disposal in order to achieve the certainty of victory--because the cost of that certainty is much, much to great. Better to die, better to lose everything else, than to give into that. Again, your framework cannot process such a person's thinking, despite Gandalf being among the closest fictional Wizards to the ridiculous power of 3.5e Wizards (he is, after all, explicitly the wisest of the Maiar according to the Silmarillion, and thus second only to nearly-godlike beings.)

Even if we accept that it would be, you can just appear and strip them with Disjunction and Maximized Greater Dispel Magic, destroy their spellbook, and Energy Drain them back to level one over the course of a few days.
But what about your precious certainty of victory? Stripping a Wizard of their power in this way still leaves the potential for someone to develop this power again, or develop it in secret. You can't be sure, unless you kill them--wasn't that the whole point? You can't be sure your allies are your allies, so prepare to betray them before they betray you. You can't be sure your offspring will be of identical mind, so either never have any, or never let them reach your greatness--and kill them if they try. You can't be sure your populace will love you, so make them fear you, be pitiless in your judgments and swift in your vengeance, and who cares if they hate you in the process, you'll be a godlike magic-user and they'll be dirt in comparison.

And that's why what you're talking about is so blatantly, irrevocably evil, and therefore completely unacceptable to anyone who, y'know, actually believes in the value and worth of other beings, even their enemies.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by ezekielraiden
And that's why what you're talking about is so blatantly, irrevocably evil, and therefore completely unacceptable to anyone who, y'know, actually believes in the value and worth of other beings, even their enemies.

You seem to be extremely upset that a high-level wizard wouldn’t value other people, but I’m not sure why one ever would. A wizard who has devoted the years, if not decades, of study required to achieve the highest levels of magical power will be a driven, isolated ultragenius. He doesn’t have anything remotely like a normal life; he knew he never would, and accepted that without hesitation as the price of the power he pursues.

At that level it’s not a hobby, it’s not a vocation, it’s a consuming obsession. In order to research new spells, he is literally pouring his heart and soul into his work, and he frequently puts himself into mortal danger in order to test his creations. He survives by being faster and more lethal than everyone and everything he goes up against. He’s a casual killer by the nature of his profession, and he has no compelling reason to value anyone’s life but his own.

He doesn’t have friends, because there is no one else around as intelligent and fiercely focused as he is; there is no one else who sees reality the way he does, who understands the potential power in every pinch of dust, who can summon or banish with a handful of words. No one else has his transcendent intellect, his multiplanar perspective or his wealth of esoteric lore.

If he has social skills, they are for careful manipulation, not idle pleasantries, and certainly not for interacting with persons so vastly beneath his understanding and abilities. He has left ordinary human perspective far behind; he converses with imps, interrogates elementals, strikes bargains with creatures the sight of which would drive most men to madness. There is no incentive for him to consider humility, much less develop relationships except to further his goals.

He knows better than anyone just how far he is from actual godhood—but he also knows that in the eyes of most mortals, he’s effectively one already. And how can he have any regard for these creatures, when they fear him as much as any god?

[Empyreal Dragon]

I would like to utilize the example of one of my old parties. A truly MASSIVE group of adventurers, with staggering levels of power.

We had no less than 32 members at our peak, we still continue to grow from time to time.

And we have every alignment represented. Plainly speaking, the kind of paranoid belief you espouse just doesn't work.



We were OBJECTIVELY better off for our unity.

When our wizard had ready access to an artificer, our sorcerer, bard, and dragons had access to multiple people with dragonblood spellpact. Our erudite had an endless supply of arcane spells, divine as arcane and psionic spells.

We feared nothing short of a few greater dieties.

Two of our party members main ambitions were the acquisition of supreme destructive force of magic, and perfection of the art of murder.


We had eight different true dragons in the party, one of which freely shared spells with the wizard and erudite. Because the three of them were STRONGER for it.

When you have somebody who has the means to produce and rear HERDS of tarrasques. Yes you read that right.
Another who can craft legit artifacts.
And dozens of epic casters.

There was never a "slice of the pie" or a "threat to ourselves" because plainly speaking. We were the only threat to ourselves.

Why would the artificer and the highmage want to get into conflict when they can devise staggeringly powerful mythals and artifacts together impossible on their own?

Why bother striking down the wizard who you freely share spellbooks with?

Take our four white dragons and our lizard wizard, there was little to no chance the 4 advanced great wyrms and their archmage father figure were going to turn on eachother. And anybody turning on them was fighting 4 advanced great wyrms and an epic wizard.

Turn on our half-elf weaponmaster? He was an elven highmage, a netherese arcanist and a few other things. HE MADE MYTHALS OF BIGGER AND BADDER EPIC SPELLS! ACORNS OF FAR TRAVEL AND A PLANAR BUBBLE LATER! And he was constantly walking around with epic spell enhanced equipment.

More notably. He had a ****ing half-red/half-white dragon similar to porn the steel dragon as his forge hand.


Dont even try with the damn erudite. He had every damn spell, power, mystery, utterance, whatever in the game. He gave little to no care about coming at him. He HAD a power at hand for it.

And he had a blue-dragon spellhoarding wyrm backing him up.

Loki helson was called the WARDEN OF THE FAR REALM! And had beaten two gods. Alone.




We were stronger in every way for being a group. Nasty gentleman, dweomerkeeper, shadowcraft mage, zeroficer, we had the gamut and HIGH epic levels.



Our frontline fighters were a max hit die sentient t-rex cyborg/half-construct, a woeforged vampiric juggernaut who had a list of immunities longer than some peoples character sheets, and a samurai(not actual class.) Who had been in a drunken deathless frenzy for YEARS.

We had more epic spell slots to throw around than we knew what to do with.



And we had no reason to lower our numbers. Because we saw more advantage for being together. The territory we called our own was exponentially larger, even divided 32 ways than if we were 32 individual nations.



We had a neutral evil gish dedicated to perfecting MURDER! And we gave him things to kill. He kept our enemies away. We had a craftsman, an alchemist and master craftsman actually crazy enough to use hardfire bombs and void stone weapons.



But we didn't engage in drifting towards one. We found common ground. Our holdings took up multiple planes, planets, and demiplanes.

If power is what you seek, then look at our erudite, wizard, and blue dragon. Freely Sharing spells.

Look at our crafters.

I say the magocracy is not only probable but inevitable in some fashion.

We cant reliably ensure no threat ever arises to any of us. But with 32 of us we can ensure no threat ever rises to ALL of us.

So why would no other people engage in such? It seems unreasonable to me to assume the number always drifts towards 1 because simply for the fact that we were not singular, we dominate the entire sphere of our influence.

We keep an army of intelligent tarrasques shaped through our power, trained with class levels. We literally have a vacation home in the abyss because we CAN!

We walked through the 9 hells, the 7 heavens, mechanics. And limbo. Because we could.

We fought the lich you use as an example and unified the gith again through sheer force.


You say an archmage has no reason to share power. I say they have no reason not to gather together

[ezekielraiden]

You seem to be extremely upset that a high-level wizard wouldn’t value other people, but I’m not sure why one ever would.
I'm not upset. I'm annoyed by an argument presenting itself as logical and realistic when it is neither.


A wizard who has devoted the years, if not decades, of study required to achieve the highest levels of magical power will be a driven, isolated ultragenius. He doesn’t have anything remotely like a normal life; he knew he never would, and accepted that without hesitation as the price of the power he pursues.
I...completely disagree? It's entirely possible to live a normal life and also be a genius. You should check out the life of Richard Feynman. Most brilliant scientific minds are more like him than they are like Newton--and even Newton, the closest you'll ever get to the "crazed loner genius," still had friends and got on relatively well with several people, enough to correspond with them on the regular and not just for scientific reasons. Newton was also an alchemist and an ardent anti-Trinitarian, who occasionally lectured at empty rooms because no one wanted to attend the lecture. And he still wasn't half as crazy as you portray powerful Wizards being.

I did the math. It takes about 20 years if you have to manually research every 9th level spell on your own (9 weeks per spell, and there are less than 100 9th level spells out there)--and that assumes you never got any free spells and always had to draft them up from scratch, with no assistance from anyone ever. And regular spell research is only an 8-hour day, and doesn't take into account things like careful abuse of metaplanes or the like as one would see in a hardcore Tippyverse. You can do research and also have a life.


At that level it’s not a hobby, it’s not a vocation, it’s a consuming obsession.
Prove it. You've asserted all this supported by nothing more than cynical assumptions about human existence. Show me how it's required that every high-level Wizard be a fanatically-devoted, reclusive jerk. Until you do, I don't buy a single word of this, and find its pretense of realism, as I said, annoying.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Empyreal Dragon
We walked through the 9 hells, the 7 heavens, mechanics. And limbo. Because we could.


Originally Posted by ezekielraiden
It's entirely possible to live a normal life and also be a genius. You should check out the life of Richard Feynman.

Difference being, Feynman wasn’t walking through limbo and all the other planes. He was snug at home, a rather sheltered academic, lecturing on orbits and particles.

This is no disrespect to Feynman, who was certainly brilliant and admirable in many ways. But if I recall correctly, the worst physical threat he ever had to face was a mildly drunk guy in the men’s room.

So there’s no valid comparison between a modern-day university academic, who deals with departmental infighting and overbearing deans, and a high-level wizard, who risks his life in combat with lich-queens, planar monstrosities and great old wyrms. Your average professor mainly worries about whether he’ll get tenure, but a high-level wizard knows that sudden death is the least awful thing that can happen to him on any given day.


Originally Posted by ezekielraiden
You can do research and also have a life.

But why are you assuming that such a life would have anything to do with other people? Why is that required?

[ezekielraiden]

Difference being, Feynman wasn’t walking through limbo and all the other planes. He was snug at home, a rather sheltered academic, lecturing on orbits and particles.

This is no disrespect to Feynman, who was certainly brilliant and admirable in many ways. But if I recall correctly, the worst physical threat he ever had to face was a mildly drunk guy in the men’s room.

So there’s no valid comparison between a modern-day university academic, who deals with departmental infighting and overbearing deans, and a high-level wizard, who risks his life in combat with lich-queens, planar monstrosities and great old wyrms. Your average professor mainly worries about whether he’ll get tenure, but a high-level wizard knows that sudden death is the least awful thing that can happen to him on any given day.
What's the logical connection between "may have faced off against planar threats" and "absolutely must be the kind of person who views all potential threats as 100% actual threats that must be exterminated immediately with extreme prejudice"?

I'm not saying Feynman's experience is identical to a wizard's. I'm saying that real-world genius-level intellects do not become information-obsessed hermits who abhor all contact with their alleged lessers. Feynman is the *actual* way genius tends to work: sociable, clever, charismatic. Intelligence is positively correlated with height, wealth, health, and social status. Of course, correlation is not causation, but any argument that depends on "the ONLY way to become a great archwizard is to be a genius, and all geniuses are ALWAYS antisocial and prone to developing god complexes" must explain why actual human geniuses effectively never end up that way. Hence why I gave Newton as an example of *the weirdest and most social genius* who STILL managed to have multiple friends and maintain some kind of social life.


But why are you assuming that such a life would have anything to do with other people? Why is that required?
I'm not saying that. I'm responding to an argument that requires that one and only one way is possible. I'm pointing out that it *can* logically be otherwise, and that there are easily reasons for someone to choose any other path (we are not bound by Plato's Republic, it is more than possible to master multiple skills), and that the history of actual human behavior suggests rather strongly that people tend to be more social rather than less.

Besides, if you want a reason why there "have" to be at least some other people?

Adult Wizards do not spontaneously condense out of nothing. They require parents, or guardian(s), or creator(s) of some kind, which see to their education and development until they are independent. Further, adult level 1 Wizards generally do not have very good survival odds all by their lonesome, so survival up to the point of developing meaningful high-level spellcasting very very likely involves the participation of other, sturdier people. So *some* degree of social contact is implied by the fact that mortal mages, in any game I know of, are born or created, trained, and then in need of social group support before they can ever achieve the kind of power so described.

Unless, of course, you actually want to bite the bullet on the spontaneous generation of 17th+ level Wizards etc.? I imagine this would cause some rather serious *other* concerns for the OP's postulate, namely that it doesn't matter how hard the first utterly-ruthless archmage squishes the up and coming wizards, more will spontaneously generate regardless of what they do...

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by ezekielraiden
Feynman is the *actual* way genius tends to work: sociable, clever, charismatic.

…Hence why I gave Newton as an example of *the weirdest and most social genius* who STILL managed to have multiple friends and maintain some kind of social life.

I think you’re confusing real-world scientists with high-level fantasy wizards.

Real-world scientists can certainly be sociable and charismatic, because they don’t have to adventure and defeat deadly threats to gain XP and advance in their careers. They just write grants and oversee grad students, which advances their research, and serve on departmental committees, which they complain about because that takes time away from their research.

High-level fantasy wizards are a different kind of genius. A first-level wizard has to survive to reach second level, and he doesn’t do that by writing grant proposals. He survives threats like goblins and kobolds by means of Magic Missile to their faces. As he advances, he disposes of threats by more sophisticated means—Fireball to incinerate an evil druid, Phantasmal Killer to eliminate a warlord, Chain Lightning for a pack of leucrottas, all the way up to Power Word Kill.

It’s a fundamental aspect of the rules that wizards, like all characters, can only advance by overcoming threats and earning XP. Most of the time this means killing those threats, whether people or monsters or extradimensional beings. Thus wizards are accustomed to killing whatever they need to in order to survive and advance their careers.

When you can kill most people in your world by speaking a single word, that changes you. There is simply no comparison between modern academics and high-level fantasy wizards, because modern academics don’t kill people to further their research. High-level fantasy wizards do this as a matter of course. They are fundamentally different from people living in today’s society, and trying to model a fantasy wizard’s behavior on a nonmagical lecturer is essentially dividing by zero.

[Sutr]

Yes human nature is changed from this possibly as posited.; but perhaps we can theorize elves, halfling, black ethergaunts and other are not. Since this theory seems to be about a conclusion of how all beings must be at a certain level of power. I think those arguing against it posit instead that not all beings will see potential threats as actual threats. Argo the proof resides in the upper planes. Solar's work together and dont kill other solar's. Argo the theory is ...

[Doug Lampert]

You seem to be extremely upset that a high-level wizard wouldn’t value other people, but I’m not sure why one ever would. A wizard who has devoted the years, if not decades, of study required to achieve the highest levels of magical power will be a driven, isolated ultragenius.

It takes 3-4 adventuring days to gain a level.

Going from level 1 to 17 in a no-downtime campaign is "part of what I did on my summer vacation" territory. (You hit level 17 after approximately 54 days of adventuring.)

This doesn't require obsessive decades of study. It requires that you and your friends win the lottery of "over 200 encounters in a row and none of them were overwhelming or completely out of scale for us".

Being an obsessive loner makes it HARDER to advance as a mage in D&D land.

Edited to add: The obsessive loner who spends decades studying to gain arcane power in D&D land. He ends up as a level 1 wizard with thousands of level 1 spells in his massive library, most of them strictly inferior to the PHB spells as he ran out of useful things to research and isn't doing anything to earn XP, sad really. Meanwhile a random fireball blaster mage who made friends with the cleric has been having fun with meteor swarm for most of those decades.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Doug Lampert
It takes 3-4 adventuring days to gain a level.

This is entirely dependent on the campaign, and certainly not a universal standard.


Originally Posted by Doug Lampert
It requires that you and your friends win the lottery of "over 200 encounters in a row and none of them were overwhelming or completely out of scale for us".

I’d definitely be interested in seeing the odds on that.


Originally Posted by Sutr
Argo the proof resides in the upper planes. Solar's work together and dont kill other solar's.

I think you mean “ergo.” :smallsmile:

As for solars, these are the highest form of angels, celestial creatures who are inherently good by definition, and thus a poor choice to compare with humans.

[Mechalich]

It takes 3-4 adventuring days to gain a level.

Going from level 1 to 17 in a no-downtime campaign is "part of what I did on my summer vacation" territory. (You hit level 17 after approximately 54 days of adventuring.)

This doesn't require obsessive decades of study. It requires that you and your friends win the lottery of "over 200 encounters in a row and none of them were overwhelming or completely out of scale for us".

This is only true if the first god-wizard fails to significantly modify the world in question, which is unlikely, even if they're pure and good.

An ascendant god-wizard is highly likely to eliminate all high-CR entities that are opposed to their alignment at minimum as an obstacle to their vision of how the world should be. This is something that, by-and-large, requires minimal effort given their capabilities and can be sourced out entirely to minions/clones/etc so why wouldn't you do it? There's no reason for a 20th level LG god-wizard to allow something like beholders or illithids or red dragons to continue to exist. Exterminate those evil vermin. And of course, if your god-wizard is evil, well, all those dangerous things they don't need are gonna get obliterated or enslaved, whichever is more convenient.

It's a lot harder to reach CR 17 when all of the the CR 5+ evil monsters in the world have ceased to exist.

[Doug Lampert]

This is entirely dependent on the campaign, and certainly not a universal standard.

It's by the rulebook play. You don't need any obsessive study to advance magically, you need adventures, and adventures let you advance FAST.




I’d definitely be interested in seeing the odds on that.

At 5% overwhelming over 15 people in 1,000,000 make it. Given an infinite universe, that's plenty.

[Doug Lampert]

This is only true if the first god-wizard fails to significantly modify the world in question, which is unlikely, even if they're pure and good.

You specifically discuss the FIRST character to do this in your posts. The first character is one who advances with an adventuring party via gaining XP. So is the second, and the third, and the 56th.

All of them have friends and associates. None of them are obsessive loner researchers dedicated to gaining power, because the obsessive loner researchers have no way to gain XP at all, in any world.

[JNAProductions]

Yeah, you're a LOT more likely to hit level 17 with party support than you are by yourself.

Is it possible to hit 17 without any help? Sure.
Is it likely for the FIRST person to hit 17 does so alone? Almost certainly not.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Doug Lampert
It's by the rulebook play.

No, it's assuming that everything lines up perfectly for every single encounter, with no time or need for travel, crafting, supply runs or anything else.

I’ve never been in a campaign where any of that applied, much less all of it, and I doubt too many others have either. It may be possible by the math, but that’s hardly standard gameplay.


Originally Posted by Doug Lampert
…obsessive loner researchers have no way to gain XP at all, in any world.

Patently false. There’s nothing to stop a wizard from soloing less challenging encounters, which refutes this claim completely.

[Mechalich]

Yeah, you're a LOT more likely to hit level 17 with party support than you are by yourself.

Is it possible to hit 17 without any help? Sure.
Is it likely for the FIRST person to hit 17 does so alone? Almost certainly not.

Sure, but unless those other characters are Tier I casters they do not matter at all.


All of them have friends and associates. None of them are obsessive loner researchers dedicated to gaining power, because the obsessive loner researchers have no way to gain XP at all, in any world.

I, specifically, haven't said anything about loner obsessive researchers, because that point is irrelevant.

At 5D-chess levels of optimization, 3.X power scaling is such that level 17+ Tier I casters are, baring any rivals, functionally omnipotent. This is admittedly rather stupid, but it is a by RAW effect of how the system unfolds.

There are functionally two possibilities for a Tier I full caster who completes the apotheosis of reaching level 17. They can either bamf off to somewhere else in the multiverse to pursue general weirdness according to their personal interests, or they can start meddling with the world around them. In the case of the latter, events snowball rapidly and you no longer have a standard D&D world when you're done. We don't really have any idea what you have afterwards, given that each such case would depend on the unique desires of the god-wizard in question, however it seems highly unlikely that such an entity would level open any path for another to achieve the same thing and challenge both them and all they had wrought.

[pabelfly]

Low-level Wizards pretty much need allies to help them though. They're low on spells, they need eight hours uninterrupted rest to recover spells and they have commoner-level HP, so they have mundane fighting-types to help shore up their weaknesses and take a hit or two they can't afford to. Could a wizard solo through levels 1 to 17? Maybe. If they're really lucky. And take it really slowly. Could a party wizard do it? Much more likely. And much quicker too.

The first level 17 wizard is going to be someone who understands the value of allies, regardless of alignment.

[Mechalich]

Low-level Wizards pretty much need allies to help them though. They're low on spells, they need eight hours uninterrupted rest to recover spells and they have commoner-level HP, so they have mundane fighting-types to help shore up their weaknesses and take a hit or two they can't afford to. Could a wizard solo through levels 1 to 17? Maybe. If they're really lucky. And take it really slowly. Could a party wizard do it? Much more likely. And much quicker too.

The first level 17 wizard is going to be someone who understands the value of allies, regardless of alignment.

Low-level wizards need allies to help them until, and only until, level 9. At that point, Lesser Planar Binding obviates the need for most mortal assistance, by level 12, with the full version of Planar Binding in place, the game breaks and non-caster PCs are wholly irrelevant.

This whole question is dependent upon the overwhelming power available to massively optimized Tier I full casters in 3.X D&D. The answer is indeed very different when considering low-op casters or the capabilities of casters built around 2e rules as found in most D&D fiction, but that is a direct result of such characters being orders of magnitude less powerful than the heights of achievement available to bleeding-edge builds for Tier Is.

[pabelfly]

Low-level wizards need allies to help them until, and only until, level 9. At that point, Lesser Planar Binding obviates the need for most mortal assistance, by level 12, with the full version of Planar Binding in place, the game breaks and non-caster PCs are wholly irrelevant.

This whole question is dependent upon the overwhelming power available to massively optimized Tier I full casters in 3.X D&D. The answer is indeed very different when considering low-op casters or the capabilities of casters built around 2e rules as found in most D&D fiction, but that is a direct result of such characters being orders of magnitude less powerful than the heights of achievement available to bleeding-edge builds for Tier Is.

Yeah, good luck if your opponent loses that will save check or you get that 1/20 chance of critically failing that Charisma check. Or that extraplanar entity just hates you afterwards, which by every right it should after you've kidnapped it and forced it to do your bidding.

So we already have a caster that's needed to survive their first nine levels by cultivating allies rather than being an edgelord lone wolf that TC posits, and would still prefer allies even after that.

[smasher0404]

The big flaw I'm finding with the theory laid out is that it makes one huge assumption: Rationality over Human-ess.

Sure in a hypothetical cynical scenario, the first wizard to reach 9th level spells may decide to completely suppress the casting potential of the rest of the population. However, no wizard is born in a vacuum, they are raised into their own ideologies and their own set of irrationalities. Before they reach the path of infinite power, they form bonds and relationships that they may prioritize over

Let's take this hypothetical situation:

Wizard A and Wizard B studied under the same Master, Mid-Level Wizard Not Appearing In This Story. Wizard A and Wizard B fall in love. Coincidentally, Wizard A is also the first Wizard to have reached 9th level spells, Wizard B is close but not quite there. Wizard A is obviously not going to kill their lover, Wizard B. And so, eventually Wizard A and Wizard B both attain 9th level spells. Wizard A and Wizard B aren't going to agree on everything, and may occasionally get into arguments. But Wizard A and Wizard B are not going to kill the other for power's sake, and they don't have a reason to live completely apart. They are in turn, impossible to be overthrown by the up-and-coming There-Can-Only-Be-One Wizard, simply because 2 20th Level Casters working together triumphs over the one.

Or take this other one:

Wizard McWizardPants is close-friends with Fighter McGee (they were childhood friends and stayed penpals) and has become the resident Wizard King. Fighter McGee has a child called Apprentice McGee. Apprentice McGee is a prodigy at the magical arts, a real Precocious Apprentice. Fighter McGee asks Wizard McWizardPants for a favor: train Apprentice McGee into a respectable wizard. Now Wizard McWizardPants obviously agrees to do this for their friend, and trains Apprentice McGee. Apprentice McGee takes quickly to the magical arts, and trains into someone who can rival Wizard McWizardPants. However, Apprentice McGee decides "I'm not going to overthrow Wizard McWizardPants, Wizard McWizardPants taught me so much at their own expense. Also if I killed them, Fighter McGee will be really upset." Wizard McWizardPants is also not going to kill Apprentice McGee, they spent so many days training them, and their the child of Fighter McGee who is still a close friend. They, even if they are not particularly close, do not have incentive to fight each other. They share power, because they have a common connection they'd rather not upset if they didn't have to.

Or finally:

Wizard C, Wizard D and Wizard E all hate each other. As such they keep all of their power and research secret from the other, focusing on anti-divination magic to prevent the others from finding out what they know. They each grow in power and plot the other's demise. Wizard C may eventually be able to pierce the veil of either D or E and is able to take them, but never gains a substantial enough lead to have enough resources to pierce both veils. So while they know that they may be able to take out 1 of the opposing Wizards, the remaining opposing Wizard may have an opportunity to swoop in and knock them off while they try. Paranoia forces them to continue researching until they can gain enough of a lead to take both enemies off the board at once. But being reasonably equal leveled and thinking the same thing, none of them will be able to outpace the other two for too long.

[ezekielraiden]

The big flaw I'm finding with the theory laid out is that it makes one huge assumption: Rationality over Human-ess.

More or less what I've been trying to say. It assumes the only people who become powerful wizards are homo economicus, when homo economicus is generally understood to not actually exist, and probably not be actually rational. Hence the references to...questionable characters like Eleizer Yudkowski's Harry Potter-Evans-Verres. (I doubt I will surprise anyone by noting how little I think of Mr. Yudkowski's "rational fiction.")

[Quarian Rex]

The whole thesis of this argument is that equals are bad.

You seem to have a flawed thesis. Also, you are using thesis incorrectly. A thesis is a prediction that you test against the data to see whether or not it is accurate. As such, most thesis's are proven false or at best inconclusive. What you have is an opinion that you seem to be defending at all costs, ignoring info that may not agree. Be aware of the difference.



1) The Tippyverse behaves as if dragons/demons aren't keeping humans down...

2) The Tippyverse and most magocracy societies assume the gods are mostly silent...

Your base opinion that the Tippyverse is based upon incorrect assumptions means that you need to address issues without relying on the Tippyverse's assumptions.

In general, you seem to have made the Cliff Notes of the BBEGs in-game version of Mein Kampf. An interesting basis for the BBEG thinking he is justified, but in no way showing a valid argument for the BBEG winning on a societal level. Wizards, more than any other class, benefit from the sharing of knowledge as a source of new spells and innovation. Any Wizard choosing to kill his peers will be at a disadvantage to those who choose to trade. Relying on Warlocks for scrolls to fill your spellbooks would seem like a dead end as has already been mentioned. They can create scrolls of known spells but new spell research is beyond them, and so BBEG is at a disadvantage.

This is to say nothing of disparities in action economy (a group of lower level characters always has an advantage against a single opponent, this is the very basis of BBEG battles) and this still holds true at the strategic level as well. 10 co-ordinated 15th level casters will be able to out scry-and-die a single 17th level BBEG every time. {scrubbed}



Imagine Superman. Imagine that there were a magic rock that caused other people to get Superman's powers at random and it's permanent. Should Superman destroy the rock? Superman doesn't think, "everyone who is effected by the rock will be evil." Superman knows that MOST people who get the power won't do anything useful, some people will even do good, but Superman knows some people will use the powers for evil. Millions of people could die if an Evil!Superman appears. Dictatorial governments could spring up that he, Superman, would have to risk his life defeating, bound by moral constraints that would not effect Evil!Superman. If he dies, then Evil!Superman will destroy the rock and forever rule a world of tears. Magic is the rock.

You have chosen a completely inappropriate analogy. A better one would be to imagine a world where Superman wasn't born with his powers but had to go to school to learn them. There he was taught by stronger Supermen, in classes with similar Supermen, learning all of the standard Superman abilities, developing friendships and rivalries as one does. When he graduates he goes on to use his powers and develops new ones, as do his peers, as do his old teachers. They even get together and trade these new powers (one knows how to grapple someone at range with his emblem, one knows how to erase memories with a kiss, one knows how to reverse time by flying around the world really fast).

Then General Zod shows up and demands that everyone, "Kneel before Zod!", including all of the Supermen (but for them replace 'kneel' with 'die painfully'). Zod is then quickly dispatched (sent to the phantom zone, lobotomized, dismembered, etc. depending on which version of Superman defeats him first) because there are many Supermen with many tricks, and Zod is just one guy who has been killing anyone who could possibly teach him anything new.

After Zod's defeat does Superman decide to wipe out the Super School and go all final solution on all of the other Supermen? Nope. Because the very act of becoming Superman in this setting has taught him the value of other Supermen (even among the most cynical). Is the potential of another Zod rising a threat? Sure. But keeping an eye on those muttering under their breath about the muggles/squishies with a little too much venom/contempt is probably a much better survival strategy than trying to go toe-to-toe with the entire magical world.



If GiantITP has taught me anything, it's that the difference between CL16 and CL17 is infinite.

{scrubbed} The power of 9th level spells should not be underestimated but they are not everything. {scrubbed} Legend Lore (a spell you seem to think fixes all intel concerns) has a 2d6 week casting time if you only have rumors to go by, and finding 'all casters above X level' is considerably less than rumors. Even should you succeed the info provided little better than bardic tales (hardly actionable info) and even then the "If the person, place, or thing is not of legendary importance, you gain no information" line stalls a lot of investigations with this spell.

If you plan on using Wish as a get out of jail free card in your argument then you must rethink your argument. Whether 3.5 or Pathfinder Wish has a very specific list of things that it can accomplish safely and the caveat that "You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment, at the GM’s discretion.)", thus severely limiting shenanigans. When you push Wish beyond it's stated limits it will bite back and there will be nothing you can do against it, because Wish.

Remember, your BBEG is trying to take down a group of people who can use the same tools he can, but he has the added limitation of not being able to share new tools. Any attacks your BBEG has against them they will have plus more. Any defenses your BBEG has, they will have plus more.

Mage relations will probably more closely resemble the modern day geo-political landscape. Rivalries will arise but so will alliances, forming potentially complex social links between individuals whose full capabilities are unknown. While battles between individuals may happen from time to time (or even be common) anyone trying to take on everyone else is just creatively committing suicide. Even a mid-level mage can {scrubbed} up in a large area. Any BBEG looking to wipe out all competition is thinking strategically (if not doing it well) and so has strategic concerns, and so strategic vulnerabilities. That makes the BBEG vulnerable to even mid-level retaliation without having to be personally vulnerable to it.



I mean, again, letting people have personalized nuclear weapons is uh... not the baseline definition of co-operation. Many, many governments make it illegal for private citizens to own high end explosives and enforce that law at the end of the gun.

Other Wizards are not the citizens in that analogy, they are other governments. {scrubbed}



You seem to be extremely upset that a high-level wizard wouldn’t value other people, but I’m not sure why one ever would. A wizard who has devoted the years, if not decades, of study required to achieve the highest levels of magical power will be a driven, isolated ultragenius. He doesn’t have anything remotely like a normal life; he knew he never would, and accepted that without hesitation as the price of the power he pursues.

At that level it’s not a hobby, it’s not a vocation, it’s a consuming obsession. In order to research new spells, he is literally pouring his heart and soul into his work, and he frequently puts himself into mortal danger in order to test his creations. He survives by being faster and more lethal than everyone and everything he goes up against. He’s a casual killer by the nature of his profession, and he has no compelling reason to value anyone’s life but his own.

{scrubbed} This is the very opposite of Wizardly progression. They start their careers with strong social bonds (whether to those in a magic school where they were taught or to a master to whom they were apprenticed) just to start with something in their spellbooks. Then they start their adventuring careers weak as kittens, learning to rely on (and the value of) their teammates, being virtually useless after they have cast their one or two spells per day, needing someone else to watch over them as a guardian every night just to regain their magical power and not be useless for one encounter the next day. As a Wizards power grows so does their trust and camaraderie with their party members. Combat and looming death does wonders forming emotional bonds. Even when the Wizard gains enough power to semi-retire and do some dedicated spell research, that research is limited to 8 hrs a day, leaving plenty of time for carousing/socializing/family/etc. No 20 hr workdays turning him into a broken shell of a man. In fact, those who try to devote themselves solely to research are the greatest failures in the wizarding world since research does not grant XP, adventuring does.

A Wizard has every reason to value the lives of others. That is a lesson he has learned over and over again since the day he scribed his first spell.

[ezekielraiden]

A Wizard has every reason to value the lives of others. That is a lesson he has learned over and over again since the day he scribed his first spell.

Though it's worth noting, here, that "value the lives of others" does not necessarily mean "value other sapients as ends in themselves, and never as means" (as Kant would put it). It is possible to see the lives of others in instrumentalist-value terms, and I'd argue this is the basis of the scariness of dragons in Shadowrun: they DO see humans instrumentally, and thus are perfectly willing to sacrifice a pawn in order to take down a knight or bishop (to say nothing of taking down a queen!) In my arguing against instrumental value and hyper-materialism, I perhaps have not been careful enough to make clear that I'm not saying no one can be this way. Some people almost certainly will be. But I am saying that instrumentalist value-theory is (a) not the only theory that exists, (b) not inevitable, and (c) not guaranteed to drive out all other value-theories.

(a) is self-evident, as there are other forms of value-theory already described in our world. (b) is the contra-claim to the core of the OP's argument, and my efforts have focused on showing how the conclusion (all high-level Wizards inevitably act in accordance with the most ruthless possible form of instrumental value) is actually assumed in the premises (that all intelligent people use this theory and nothing else), rather than proved by it. (c) is the contra-claim to the ever-so-slightly more nuanced version of the OP's argument, which recognizes that other values might exist, but assumes that hyper-ruthless instrumentalism is guaranteed to be more successful, and thus drive out all other theories, when this is not at all proven.

Hence: Wizards can value things, and people, for reasons other than the purely instrumental. Wizards are not guaranteed to increase their success/survival rates by adopting exclusively instrumentalist ethics. Wizards may in fact reduce both due to externalities.* Vlaakith's postulate is, at best, only a maxim for those already committed to an utterly ruthless worldview--but ruthlessness is far from the only reason for choosing to become an archmage.

*People so easily misquote Machiavelli about this exact thing. It is true that he said it was better to be feared than loved, but they misunderstand what those words mean, and moreover fail to include the vital following thought. To whit: "It may be answered that one should wish to be both [feared and loved], but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. [...] Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated...." (The Prince, Chapter XVII (https://www.constitution.org/mac/prince17.htm), paragraphs 3 and 4) If you absolutely have to dispense with one or the other, love is the less reliable, and thus reasonable as the one to drop. People are fickle, but even fickle people don't like crossing a powerful individual they genuinely believe will harm them for such crossing...unless, that is, they are motivated by hatred to act against such an individual, because hate is enough to make punishment, even death, acceptable. Love is risky, but even if it's risky, it's better to be loved and not hated than it is to be feared and hated.

[AvatarVecna]

Without touching on absolutely anything else going on in this thread, I must admit that I laughed out loud when I read "wizards can't pass their power on". Except...they're like, basically the only class that can? Sure, every other class can "teach their kids the techniques", but the kids can't start off any better than the parents did, not really. If a wizard and a barbarian each teach their kid to be a barbarian, they'll come out more or less the same; if instead they teach their kid to be a wizard, the wizard who's second-gen rather than first-gen has a slight advantage. And because that kid wizard starts out at a better place than his father did, he'll probably accomplish more in the same lifespan, and have more knowledge to pass on to his son when he comes of age. A Wizard 1 with Int 11 is still a formidable enough threat for his level if he happened to inherit a spellbook with every 0th and 1st lvl spell in existence scribed within.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Quarian Rex
A thesis is a prediction that you test against the data….

Having written more than one thesis analyzing actual data, I should point out that there are no actual data being analyzed here.


Originally Posted by Quarian Rex
What you have is an opinion that you seem to be defending at all costs….

It’s fair to say the OP isn’t alone in that regard.


Originally Posted by Quarian Rex
{scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{Scrubbed}


Originally Posted by Quarian Rex
As a Wizards power grows so does their trust and camaraderie with their party members.

This may be possible, but it’s not a universal maxim and shouldn’t be presented as such. A wizard can rely on other party members without liking or valuing them as anything other than useful allies.

And given how often party members tend to die, emotional compartmentalization may be the safer way to go.


Originally Posted by ezekielraiden
Though it's worth noting, here, that "value the lives of others" does not necessarily mean "value other sapients as ends in themselves, and never as means" (as Kant would put it). It is possible to see the lives of others in instrumentalist-value terms….

Agreed completely.


Originally Posted by ezekielraiden
In my arguing against instrumental value and hyper-materialism, I perhaps have not been careful enough to make clear that I'm not saying no one can be this way. Some people almost certainly will be. But I am saying that instrumentalist value-theory is (a) not the only theory that exists, (b) not inevitable, and (c) not guaranteed to drive out all other value-theories.

Also agreed.


Originally Posted by AvatarVecna
Sure, every other class can "teach their kids the techniques", but the kids can't start off any better than the parents did, not really.

If the parents have acquired a king’s ransom in loot while adventuring, then yes, the kids can absolutely have a better start than the parents.


Originally Posted by AvatarVecna
If a wizard and a barbarian each teach their kid to be a barbarian, they'll come out more or less the same; if instead they teach their kid to be a wizard, the wizard who's second-gen rather than first-gen has a slight advantage.

I don’t really follow this claim. How is a parent teaching a child to be a wizard any different than another wizard teaching the child to be a wizard?

In other words, if a child is taken as an apprentice by a wizard, what does it matter if the wizard is the child’s parent? How does that provide an advantage?


Originally Posted by AvatarVecna
I must admit that I laughed out loud when I read "wizards can't pass their power on". Except...they're like, basically the only class that can?

How is this any different from an alchemist bequeathing a laboratory to his child? Wouldn’t the alchemist’s child have the same degree of advantage as the wizard’s child? Or how is it different from a druid bequeathing a grove to her child? Wouldn’t the druid’s child have the same advantage as the wizard’s and alchemist’s children?

I’m not seeing how wizards are the only class who can pass along aspects of their power.

.

[Quarian Rex]

Having written more than one thesis analyzing actual data, I should point out that there are no actual data being analyzed here.

Which is why it doesn't really apply.



*scrub the post, scrub the quote

*scrubbed*



This also goes for statements about the OP being a "poor student," etc.

No, if you spend time on these boards and come away merely with the assumption that level 17 = infinite power then that is a potentially accurate assessment. There are a lot of (poor) assumptions that can go on in the TO threads and if one does not take the time to check the work behind the build to separate facts from hyperbole *scrubbed*



This may be possible, but it’s not a universal maxim and shouldn’t be presented as such. A wizard can rely on other party members without liking or valuing them as anything other than useful allies.

Trust and camaraderie do not require anyone to be liked. Those are different things, do not confuse them. I did not present this as a universal maxim, merely as the norm, providing support for the development of that mindset as well. Remember, this was in direct response to your (apparently unsupported) claims that high level Wizards are all emotionally stunted sociopaths (which came off quite universal-seeming and maxim-ish, but probably shouldn't have been presented as such). I was merely pointing out that the early career of any Wizard would stress development in the exact opposite direction of where you claimed a Wizard would be.



And given how often party members tend to die, emotional compartmentalization may be the safer way to go.

And 5,000 gp in diamonds is all it takes to resolve that emotional upheaval. Raising of the dead does a lot to take the sting out of the grieving process. How much stronger would your bond with someone be if you knew that they were not only trying to keep you alive, but would even bring you back from the dead should they fail. Even the most single-mindedly self-centered person would see the value of engendering loyalty in those around him and expressing it to others, and the hyper-vulnerable Int. based SAD class that is the Wizard would probably pick up on that faster than most. Even those with natural anti-social tendencies would be incentivized on every level to actually value those around them, steering them away from your proposed inevitabilities.

Wizards may end extremely powerful, but they start very, very weak. That goes a long way to shaping a character. And that is universal among all Wizards because that is just a natural consequence of the class and the chassis that it is built on. Will there be exceptions? Of course. But we are not talking about exceptions here. We are talking about the natural end result of Wizards (all Wizards) existing in a game world. The idea that there is something inherent in Wizardry that would lead to stone cold psychopathy would seem to be completely backwards.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Quarian Rex
And 5,000 gp in diamonds is all it takes to resolve that emotional upheaval.

No, it doesn’t. 5000 gp restores the lost person, but does nothing to address whatever grief or other emotions may have played out in other people between death and raising.

And not every campaign has frequent, easy raising as an option. I played 3.P for a dozen years before I ever saw a character raised that way. If it’s easy-peasy for your group, that’s great, but not every group plays with that assumption.


Originally Posted by Quarian Rex
Wizards may end extremely powerful, but they start very, very weak. That goes a long way to shaping a character.

For instance, a driving ambition to no longer be weak, and to no longer need to rely on others for one’s own safety.


Originally Posted by smasher0404
The big flaw I'm finding with the theory laid out is that it makes one huge assumption:


Originally Posted by Quarian Rex
The idea that there is something inherent in Wizardry that would lead to stone cold psychopathy would seem to be completely backwards.

The counter-assumption being made is that wizards will be the very same people at 17th level that they were at first level. In other words, that the journey from 1st to 17th will have no effect on them, won’t change them in the slightest, which seems untenable at best.

It shouldn’t be controversial to agree that a high-level wizard can travel the planes at will, bind and command outsiders, win esoteric arguments with extraplanar beings in their own languages. Why is it controversial to even propose that this would fundamentally change a person from who he or she was when they first began their career?

Traveling the planes, binding outsiders, seeing the future—these are things that 99.9999% of the population of any given world cannot do. Why would an extraordinarily intelligent, analytical wizard not consider himself a breed apart? What possible reason would he have to still consider himself part of the common lot?

He has had experiences that virtually no one else in his world can even understand. He has made moral choices which no one else is qualified to judge, or so he may believe. He sees, and freely travels, a cosmos immeasurably grand, vast beyond the tiny understanding of cottars and burghers and shepherds. He is become, allowing for a little poetic license, the destroyer of worlds.

How has that not changed him? And more specifically, how can it have changed him to have any greater regard for those he has left so far behind?

[flat_footed]

The Fullmetal Mod: Keep it civil. Discuss the topic, not the poster.

[smasher0404]

No, it doesn’t. 5000 gp restores the lost person, but does nothing to address whatever grief or other emotions may have played out in other people between death and raising.

And not every campaign has frequent, easy raising as an option. I played 3.P for a dozen years before I ever saw a character raised that way. If it’s easy-peasy for your group, that’s great, but not every group plays with that assumption.



For instance, a driving ambition to no longer be weak, and to no longer need to rely on others for one’s own safety.





The counter-assumption being made is that wizards will be the very same people at 17th level that they were at first level. In other words, that the journey from 1st to 17th will have no effect on them, won’t change them in the slightest, which seems untenable at best.

It shouldn’t be controversial to agree that a high-level wizard can travel the planes at will, bind and command outsiders, win esoteric arguments with extraplanar beings in their own languages. Why is it controversial to even propose that this would fundamentally change a person from who he or she was when they first began their career?

Traveling the planes, binding outsiders, seeing the future—these are things that 99.9999% of the population of any given world cannot do. Why would an extraordinarily intelligent, analytical wizard not consider himself a breed apart? What possible reason would he have to still consider himself part of the common lot?

He has had experiences that virtually no one else in his world can even understand. He has made moral choices which no one else is qualified to judge, or so he may believe. He sees, and freely travels, a cosmos immeasurably grand, vast beyond the tiny understanding of cottars and burghers and shepherds. He is become, allowing for a little poetic license, the destroyer of worlds.

How has that not changed him? And more specifically, how can it have changed him to have any greater regard for those he has left so far behind?

I'm not assuming that the path to ultimate power can't change someone. I'm arguing that changes does not necessarily preclude the existence of human bonds.

Think about the Superhero genre as an exploration of this. Superheroes are inherently superior to normal people in sometimes reality changing ways. They can and often do fundamentally warp reality. Some of them often deal with beings from beyond our world on a daily basis (see Doctor Strange). But at the same time their powered is still paired with some connection to human emotion. Sure some detach themselves from the civilians below them (such as Dr. Manhattan), but others are stalwart protectors of Humanity and help nurture other Supers into becoming stronger than they currently are.

Consider Superman, he walks as a god among men, with powers that far exceed the combined might of the rest of Earth. He is still on love with Lois Lane at the end of the day.

I'm not arguing that becoming reality-warping powerful does not change how one's brain thinks. But I think the assumption that said changes necessarily precludes the ability to form emotional bonds with others is a bit presumptuous.

[Quarian Rex]

No, it doesn’t. 5000 gp restores the lost person, but does nothing to address whatever grief or other emotions may have played out in other people between death and raising.

I said that it resolves the emotional upheaval, not prevent it, and I'll stand by that statement. The mourning process comes to a screeching halt when the subject of the mourning is returned. Although there is a very strong argument to be made that it would prevent a lot of emotional turmoil as well. In a world where the dead can be returned to the living (to say nothing of having actual proof of an afterlife) people's relationship with grief would fundamentally change. The equivalent in out world might be if a loved one got into an accident and was shipped to a hospital on the other side of the world where they instantly recovered and got to stay in a luxury resort, but would come back as soon as I could scratch together the cash for an expensive plane ticket. And knowing that this is how things worked from the earliest teachings of my life. So... not equivalent to our world at all really. I see how your {Scrubbed} reaction would be to assume that our emotional reactions would be relatively unchanged in that reality, but they really would have a very different framework.

The nonchalant attitude that players have towards (N)PC death may very well be the emotionally mature and normal reaction in that world.



And not every campaign has frequent, easy raising as an option. I played 3.P for a dozen years before I ever saw a character raised that way. If it’s easy-peasy for your group, that’s great, but not every group plays with that assumption.

This isn't something that would apply in every campaign, but it does in this one. The OP assumes the achievement of 9th level casting by the BBEG and that doing so is easy enough that steps must be taken to prevent others from doing so. This is explicitly a high magic campaign and that would apply to every class, not just Wizard. Raising opportunities are all over the place in this world.



For instance, a driving ambition to no longer be weak, and to no longer need to rely on others for one’s own safety.

And that is a noble goal, but along the way the value of others has been demonstrated to him over and over again. To be clear, I am not saying that there cannot be individuals in the wizarding community who are ungrateful jerks, there undoubtedly are, I an saying that they have to be that in spite of their actual formative experiences, and so will never be the norm.



The counter-assumption being made is that wizards will be the very same people at 17th level that they were at first level. In other words, that the journey from 1st to 17th will have no effect on them, won’t change them in the slightest, which seems untenable at best.

No such assumption is being made. The assumption that is being made is that people are shaped by all of their experiences, and that Wizards are in a unique position to have a very collaborative early career, and so be shaped accordingly.



It shouldn’t be controversial to agree that a high-level wizard can travel the planes at will, bind and command outsiders, win esoteric arguments with extraplanar beings in their own languages. Why is it controversial to even propose that this would fundamentally change a person from who he or she was when they first began their career?

The controversy arises when you assume that the ability to do cool stuff necessitates forgetting all formative experiences and becoming a sociopath, not just as an individual outlier, but as the normal state of Wizard development, and therefore a reflection of the (demi)human condition.

Remember, I am not arguing against the backstory of the BBEG, I am arguing that the BBEGs backstory doesn't apply to every other Wizard in existence (or even the majority of them).



Traveling the planes, binding outsiders, seeing the future—these are things that 99.9999% of the population of any given world cannot do. Why would an extraordinarily intelligent, analytical wizard not consider himself a breed apart? What possible reason would he have to still consider himself part of the common lot?

He has had experiences that virtually no one else in his world can even understand. He has made moral choices which no one else is qualified to judge, or so he may believe. He sees, and freely travels, a cosmos immeasurably grand, vast beyond the tiny understanding of cottars and burghers and shepherds. He is become, allowing for a little poetic license, the destroyer of worlds.

How has that not changed him? And more specifically, how can it have changed him to have any greater regard for those he has left so far behind?
You seem to consider Wizards to be the equivalent of 3rd generation billionaires (consider themselves to be a breed apart, can do things that 99.9999% of the population of the world cannot do, etc.) with a terminal case of affluenza. I can see where you are coming from there but I think you have it wrong.

I am arguing that Wizards are closer to self-made billionaires. Ones who were born to blue collar families had to join the military to get an education and spent the first half of their first tour with a broken shooting arm, having to be cared for by their squad mates for a long time before they could really hold their own. That is a very influential formative experience that would be common to the vast majority of Wizards

Could I see the the affluenza having a wizardly counterpart? Sure. I can see a 3rd generation mage go out as a level 1 Wizard, surrounded by Marrilith bodyguards, an item of Magnificent Mansion, a Staff of Scrub-Slaying, etc., for baby's first dungeon crawl and that guy naturally growing up to be an emotionally stunted sociopath, but that is a very, very, different situation, now isn't it?

Again, I am not arguing that a Wizard cannot be a psychopath, and I have never done so. I am responding to the apparent position held by both you and the OP that Wizard = psychopath, and that that would be the natural state of Wizard society. The very mechanics of the class exert pressure in the opposite, as I've been pointing out.

[ezekielraiden]

Okay. So. I'm going to ask two questions, of people who seem to take this conjecture* seriously.

1. Does the OP's logic require that there be one, and only one, way in which high-level wizards perceive the value of other beings? (Namely, pure instrumentality, seeing other beings solely as tools, as means to the wizard's ends rather than as ends in themselves.)

2. Does the counter claim, "Wizards can value things, including people, for reasons other than brute instrumental value" require that there be one, and only one, way in which high-level wizards perceive the value of things?

I would very much appreciate answers to these two questions, ideally in as simple and direct of terms as you can manage without shortchanging yourself. I have tried, inasmuch as I am able, to keep the questions as simple and laser-focused as I can, to avoid distracting side concepts.

*"Conjecture" is the proper term for this; it has not been rigorously proven, it is being put to the test to see if it *can* be. Thus does not qualify for the status of "theorem" yet. Since it is a primarily logical argument, and one that properly speaking cannot be tested empirically, it must be treated by mathematical/logical standards and not by empirical ones. I'm not about to disqualify the argument in step 1 solely because it can't be tested.

[AvatarVecna]

I don’t really follow this claim. How is a parent teaching a child to be a wizard any different than another wizard teaching the child to be a wizard?

In other words, if a child is taken as an apprentice by a wizard, what does it matter if the wizard is the child’s parent? How does that provide an advantage?



How is this any different from an alchemist bequeathing a laboratory to his child? Wouldn’t the alchemist’s child have the same degree of advantage as the wizard’s child? Or how is it different from a druid bequeathing a grove to her child? Wouldn’t the druid’s child have the same advantage as the wizard’s and alchemist’s children?

I’m not seeing how wizards are the only class who can pass along aspects of their power.

.

I have perhaps not quite presented my point the way I should have and this exact confusion is why my wording was a bit unclear. Let me then clarify: wizard, almost uniquely among all base classes, can share power rather than borrow/steal/inherit power. Wizard can do that as well, but the ability to share power doesn't exist.very much outside the wizard class.

During chargen and level-ups, how exactoy you improve yourself is left nebulous, at least in 3.5 anyway. Maybe you've been practicing all along on your own and its only now that your efforts are finally repeatable enough ti have mechanical effect; maybe you took a break from asventuring for a well to train with a master of your personal craft in am aspect, or maybe a deity touched you with the knowledge for ****s and giggles, and thats how you got that feat/spell known/skill rank. These are all fluff explanations that can change how the character is played, but whether (for example) a monk child learned the Improved Grappler feat by being blessed by a goddess of competition, training in a monk academy, or wrestling with his blackbelt father growing up, the child's mechanics remain the same. But if you go with that last explanation, Improved Grappler is not a bonis feat acquired on top of fhe normal feats the monk child would've had under another explanation, it is merely the particular way in which this monk child acquired the feat. At the end of the day, all three explanations still mean that you as the player chose Improved Grappler over Stunning Fist. In this sense, while anybody can be fluffed as "sharing power", it doesn't actually make a mechanical difference. All of the examples you give have this problem: a druid can gift hher child a grove, which is nice but has no mechanical effect on the child. It's an interesting background feature but that's about it. A cleric child whose father is a high priest will have religion feature even more heavily in her backstory than evsn most clerics, but there is no hidden Connections stat that increases based on backstory appropriateness the way Charisma gives you contacts in Shadowrun. There's no mechanics for that, so what can be done is "as much as the DM allows" regardless of whether you joined the church at birth or at dawn. Even chargen gear is like this: maybe you wandered i to Walmart with 150 gp and walked out near-penniless with everything you'll ever need, oraybe you acquired 150 gp worth of gear through inheritance, theft, loans, dumpster-diving, or...whatever. How you fluff your gear acqquisition doesn't change how much gear you acquired.

The one kind of power that doesn't fall info this trap is post-chargen gear, and in most respects this is even between classes of similar power; one could perhaps argue that a cleric giving her child a periapt +2 is more valuable than a monk giving her child gloves +2 (from a "clerics are better than monks" perspective), but the cleric child is on more or less even footing with the wizard child who inherited a headband +2. Really though, at level 1 even the difference between tiers is almost irrelevant to the power being bestowed: the oldest elf will live to be 750 years old, or around 39000 weeks. If they are an unskilled laborer working from birth to death, they will make 3900 gp and thus still never afford the treasure the child has just inherited. But that doesn't matter because it's 1) even between all classes, more or less, and 2) not really power being shared.

You see, only one of the clerics can walk away with the periapt. There are multiple fluff explanations that can result in the child acquirong the periapt - I framed it as inheritance earlier, but it could just as easily be a loan or even theft - but however the periapt is acquired, one thing remains true: they can't both bemefit from it simultaneously. The power of gear is flexible, but not in a way that can be shared.

It is from this perspective that we now turn to the question: in what way can a character contribute to the power of another in such a way that the controbutee is better off mechanically for the contributor being of a particular class? With the above established points, the answer makes itself obvious: if the only way to truly gift power is through money and gear, and all contributors are equally wealthy and equally generous, the only way for advantage to exist is if class affects whether you are allowed to make a purchase, or affects the efficiency with which you can make that purchase. Feats can sort-of be built into gear, but their price doesn't vary by buyer, but rather varies by the method by which the feat was "bought". In this same sense, spell slots and slells known can be purchased, but tyese things aren't cheaper for sorcerers or bards than they are for fighters or clerics; if they're all buying it for their kid, none of their kids end up better off than any other.

Some could perhaps point to crafting feats as a "purchasing" advantage and this is true to an extent especially if the parent is a focused crafter. But crafting also requires paying XP; a common exchange rate that shows up a few times through the system is 5 gp per 1 XP, thus making standard item crafting cost the approximate equivalent of 70% the market price (certain feats and items can improve on that even further). And this is certainly an option available to casters, making caster parents in at least theoretically superior to noncaster parents regardless of the child's class by virtue of never being worse amd sometimes being better. But there's another way of turning money into power that is advantageous when both parent and child are wizards which involves the process by which wizards learn spells.

There are two costs to gaining new spells as a wizard: access to spells to copy, and materials with which to copy spells to. The latter is unavoidable, or at least the methods of avoiding it are not unique to any particular parent's class. Yes, a wizard parent is more likely than a barbarian parent to have blank spellbooks lying around the house, and more likely to have expensive spell-scribing ink somewhere, but as previously stated, how you acquire starting gear is irrelevant. A wizard 1 could perhaps take a detour before the adventure starts to her childhood home, but that will necessarily involve a social encounter to determine what "stuff lying ariund" the wizard can borrow, from her daddy, which would also occur of a wizard raised in any other household took a detour to their master's tower or the boccob temple they learned in or whatever. No, where the fluff can turn into mechanical difference is the cost that isn't based on mechanical fact: howuch a wizard charges you to peruse her spellbook looking for spells to copy has guidelines but not hard rules; she could say there's no charge or say there's no amount of money in the world that would be sufficient. But while an apprentice wizard could probably have an easier time begging for book access from their master or magic god priest, it is likely that they will on average have better results begging for book access from a parent. This is a place in which a wizard parent has the monetary advantage over the cleric parent; the cleric will need to use money and charm to gain book access on their kids behalf, but the wizard already has access like that by virtue of being a parent. Some wizarding parents will perhaps lean in a Vlaakith-like direction and say his kid should pull herself up by her bootstraps like he had to when he was her age, which puts her in the same boat as the clerics/monks/rogues wizard kids...but the wizard parent at least has the option to say yes where the other parents do not.

This is the advantage to which I was referring, because while every class can turn money into power for their child, the wizard has a method of doing so that is unique to their class in a way that is advantageous over other classes ability to expend resources acquiring that power on their kids' behalf.

Edit: I should clarify that this advantage is a potential advantage on an individual scale, and is only truly a certainty on a societal scale. While it is theoretically possible for a cleric child to become more powerful the all learning from a another cleric, Such as via the extra spell feat, there is no special advantage to learning this feat from a cleric parent as opposed to just any member of the cleric's church. Similarly, while a fighter specialized in spiked chain the fighting could teach his daughter everything he can about fighting with a spiked chain, any other spiked chain fighter could teach her just as well as he could. And while there will be wizard parents out there who are not intrested in teaching their children their wizard ways, it is at least theoretically advantagious for them to do so. It is an option available to a wizard parent/wizard child combo that is not available to any other parent/child class combination - Indeed, every other Parent to/child class combo doesn't have an equivalent to this option. Because basically no other class has the option to share power in quite this manner, amd the methods they do have are available to wizards as well, it is inevitable that, on a societal scale, wizarding knowledge/power will spread in a way that the knowledge and power of others does not.

This mechanical advantage is baked into the fantasy genre as a whole, as part of being a wizard. You are a master of magical knowledge and you gain more power by gaining more knowledge. One of the ways you gain power is by learning it from other wizards. Most fantasies will start out with wizards approaching something closer to a medieval masters/apprentice relationship, but as magical knowledge is shared between family members, as knowledge of magic's capabilities spreads throughout society, economic demand for magical education will increase. Supply will adjust to meet the desires of the market, and the end result os that while theasterþapprentice relationship will still exist, it will have been largely replaced by institutions of magical learning and "family magic" passed down from wizard to wizard, because the alternative to passing along knowledge os to let your kod make it on their own and fall behind their peers. When giving a free advantage becomes so universal, refusing to give it has becomes effectively a disadvantage, and a potentially substantial one at that. And this is something that just can't happen with any other class because they can't share power like this.

[Psychoalpha]

I don't think I've ever implied that I thought it was in the interest of chaotic evil characters specifically. I think even Exalted Lawful Good alignment will set out to hold down the magical progress of all competitors. I think they'll be nicer about it, certainly, but I don't think that a Rainbow Feathered Shadowsnake will be itching for another CL17 character to occur. I think every responsible character will go out of their way to crush any other CL17 characters. Imagine Superman. Imagine that there were a magic rock that caused other people to get Superman's powers at random and it's permanent. Should Superman destroy the rock? Superman doesn't think, "everyone who is effected by the rock will be evil." Superman knows that MOST people who get the power won't do anything useful, some people will even do good, but Superman knows some people will use the powers for evil. Millions of people could die if an Evil!Superman appears. Dictatorial governments could spring up that he, Superman, would have to risk his life defeating, bound by moral constraints that would not effect Evil!Superman. If he dies, then Evil!Superman will destroy the rock and forever rule a world of tears. Magic is the rock.

Except that more than once Superman has been confronted with a situation where numerous people might get Superman or close to Superman levels of power, from outside investment, from a bunch of Kryptonians showing up who aren't powered up yet but he knows they will be given time and exposure to the sun, etc... and outside of What If/Elseworlds style comics where the whole point is 'what if Superman was a pragmatic jerk instead of Superman', he does no such thing.

Even at the risk of there being evil Kryptonians, something he has plenty of experience with, he does not put them down, imprison them, or otherwise take the necessary steps to keep a population of randos from getting Superpowers. Not even when he knows it will (and it does) bite him in the ass.

All of your premises here are, from my perspective, ultimately rooted in levels of selfishness and pride that fly in the face of what 'Good' means, or can mean, both in and out of D&D. You know why a Good aligned caster not only allows but even helps another hit 17th level to team up with him? Because they (or at least one of them) are good people who trust each other. And even if one ultimately betrays the other, that basic fact of how people works isn't going to change. There are always going to be people who trust each other, or who would rather take the risk of someone evil gaining their level of ultimate power if the alternative is the murder or oppression of anyone and everyone who might try. And once two or more of them can team up... enh.

To pretend otherwise requires a far, far more cynical de facto world than I can suspend my disbelief for.

[ezekielraiden]

As I've said repeatedly, the argument is circular. It starts from the assumption that trust is for losers and that evolutionary pressure exclusively favors all-and-only the most ruthless, cutthroat, kill-or-be-killed perspective. It then pretends that this is not identical to presuming that society is impossible, even though that's exactly what it's doing. "If society is impossible then society is impossible" {Scrubbed}."

[LordBlades]

More or less what I've been trying to say. It assumes the only people who become powerful wizards are homo economicus, when homo economicus is generally understood to not actually exist, and probably not be actually rational. Hence the references to...questionable characters like Eleizer Yudkowski's Harry Potter-Evans-Verres. (I doubt I will surprise anyone by noting how little I think of Mr. Yudkowski's "rational fiction.")

While I fully agree that 'this is the only logical way a high level wizard would function' is not the strongest argument, I also think that maybe, attributing human morals and motivations to high level wizard could be a mistake as well.

The smartest human being could at most be Int 21 (18 maximum for a human +3 from old age) and many of humanity's geniuses have not been fully fitting into society (to put it mildly), I find it not very unlikely that the motivations of a 30+ Int being would be utterly alien to the human nature. I mean, beings of transcendent intellect could very well conclude society is impossible and being the only one tyrant in charge is the only worthwhile goal, or they could conclude power struggle is futile (as one inevitably ends up dethroned) and the only measure of one's greatness is the legacy of progress they leave behind.

[Psychoalpha]

While I fully agree that 'this is the only logical way a high level wizard would function' is not the strongest argument, I also think that maybe, attributing human morals and motivations to high level wizard could be a mistake as well.

Which is a totally valid reason why a high level Wizard might believe as the OP suggests. Or why some high level Wizards, or even many high level Wizards would come to the conclusions presented.

The problem is that it requires that all high level Wizards come to that conclusion. Because if they don't, it all falls apart. Not only does it require that there are no altruistic high level Wizards willing to band together for protection and/or foster the growth of other powerful wizards, it requires that none of them feel obligated to act against the new Powers of the world who are doing all the murdering and oppressing of people in order to preserve their power.

High intellect doesn't require a loss of humanity or empathy, even if it's a perfectly viable reason for either of those things. Besides which, incredibly smart people do incredibly stupid things, or make mistakes, all the time. The idea that all these high level wizards are universally 'smart enough to know better' and thus all come to the same conclusion (even if for varied reasons) is way more absurd than anything in the Tippyverse.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying this isn't a viable world state, just that it's not a sustainable one. I mean, it's essentially the setting of Dark Sun, minus the particulars, more or less. One God-Tier uberpower who only allows individuals to gain a certain level of power, specifically its henchfolk who rule over the cities in its name, who themselves are in part responsible for ensuring that nobody gains enough power to threaten them (let alone their boss). And almost every Dark Sun story arc involves the ways in which that system is not only not sustainable, but creates its own downfall. The existence of powerful outsiders (not Outsiders, but like the savage Druids in Dark Sun), artifacts capable of imbuing people with outrageous power spikes, etc, etc. They all build towards making the downfall of that system inevitable.

[unseenmage]

A gameworld whose rules are nearly exclusively combat oriented might not be the best gameworld from whose rules to generate one's idea of human nature.

That said, a possible solution to infinite opponents that in reality just creates more opponents.

Time Travel, immortality, and retraining.
Become full caster.
Become immortal.
Hax CL to Time Travel as far as one wants.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Retrain as needed, via whatever means suit you.

In an infinite multiverse there's always a point to travel back to that avoids your duplicates.

With infinite time you effectively have infinite actions. Contjngent actions with foreknowledge of events even.
Scary stuff.

This might give one the potential to fight infinite opponents. Theoretically.


Aside from the above, I am a father. I adore my children. In a multiverse where I can have immortality, any nigh omnipotence what does this fatherhood mean? Do I spoil my children? Set trials for them? I dont have to wonder. Omniscient dad would already know what's best.

But wait, I am also a devoted husband. I love my wife dearly. I even appreciate that I may not be someone she could spend a literal eternity with. Do I share eternity with her regardless? Can my magic quell my jealousy? Is my patriarchal possessiveness enough of a 'disease' that it might be cured by a simple cleric spell?
Doesnt matter. Omniscient husbands literally know the optimum path.

I'm seeing a few things here. Putting my real self into these wizard shoes is telling. I am human with human weaknesses which are poorly shored up by printed D&D magics. I will make mistakes. I will feel more than I think. But it will. not. matter.

Omnipotence, or something very much like it must be so very boring. Knowing everything. Always having a save game state to fall back on. Groundhog Day ing the universe over and over until you get it all just right.

Having a rival or two might make that slightly less mind numbing. Even if you both agree to non aggression, beating each others speed runs in the game of universe mastery could be fun.

It's a gamist gameworld. Might as well have someone to game with.

[Sereg]

I am going to give an example from one of my favourite manga: Medaka Box.

In that manga, there is a major character named Ajimu. Ajimu is one of the most powerful characters in an absurdly powerful setting, with almost 14 quadrillion powers, including omnipresence, Universe creation, reverting her enemies to level one, instantly killing anyone who sees her, poverty creation, time travel, etc etc etc. She is way older than the Universe and tanked the Big Bang. Her enormous power, intellect and inhumanity causes her to see others as practically scenery.

However, she is not beyond the ability to be threatened. There are other characters capable of challenging and even killing her.

What is her biggest goal in life? Making everyone in the Universe equally powerful. And she works closely with a partner who is one of the few of comparable power (He is a power creator). At one point, she chose to attempt suicide (and would have succeeded without intervention).

Vlaakith would call her an idiot and there's nothing stopping Vlaakith from believing that. Someone with Vlaakith's mindset makes sense. But it is not the only possible mindset. Ajimu's is also possible.

In fact, people are forgetting that Good, especially Chaotic Good, people, usually respect others' right to agency. They would call the behaviour advocated in the OP as evil as it is denying others' their right to decide whether or not to become powerful wizards. In fact, many good individuals, particularly Lawful ones, see it as their duty to help others achieve their goals.

[Yahzi Coyote]

Firstly, it is unlikely that any ultra-rich wizard would want to rule over or serve as a general for one of the megapolii. Why would they want to do that?
And yet it is a staple of both fantasy literature and D&D that they do want to. Fortunately, I have an answer.

The answer is simple: make XP tangible. When a commoner dies he produces 1/2 CR worth of XP. If you manage a fief of 10,000 peasants you can expect over 100 deaths a year even if you're the kindest lord in the world (and up to 400 or more if you're cruel).

Now there is a reason to rule over peasants. There is a reason for trade (because more money = more food = more peasants). You can pass on your 20th level wizardness in the form of the XP from you when you die and the continuing pool of XP from your peasants.

Players love this. D&D is a resource management game and XP is the single most valuable resource, so let the players manage it! It solves so many problems - not just "why are there barons" but why don't shadows take over the world (they need enough XP to spawn another CR 3 creature), why genies cast free wishes (you still have to supply the XP), why so many creatures hunt humans for food (for XP), why heroes do side quests (for XP), why wizards will make magic items for warriors (because the warrior pays in XP), and so on.

It sounds like a crazy idea but in practice it works great. Check out Lords of Prime on DriveThruRPG (it's free) or my Sword of the Bright Lady series (sorry no links, my account of many years disappeared and this one can't do links yet). Or look at my blog for a running recap of my current game (MCPlanck Rebooted).

[jdizzlean]

The Fullmetal Mod: Keep it civil. Discuss the topic, not the poster.

The Mod Life Crisis: This thread is now closed. If you can't have a civil discussion without attacking other users, then it's better to not post at all on the topic.