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ZeroGear
2019-10-09, 02:54 AM
Ok so, this is another "How would X influence Y" types of discussions, and I know it's been done before, however I'd like to try and look at this from a bit of a different angle.

So, for the sake of argument, let's assume the world we are talking about has magic and multitudes of intelligent races. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that most races have similar life spans to humans, but develop varied cultures. Maybe one or two races live exceedingly long lives, but they tend to isolate themselves because they have a longer view than us "short sighted ants" (which is a discussion for a different thread).
In this world, we can assume that in the early days, mortals found a very primitive way to access magic, and it was generally a very slow learning process that not a lot of individuals had access to. We canteen extrapolate and say that society became more complex, magic changed along with it. Thus, we can make the argument that before anyone had invented language, magic "scrolls" were probably just some crude scratches on a piece of bark, and "potions" were some mashed up ingredients in a deer stomach if you were lucky.
Now, assuming that technology in this world would have developed somewhat similarly to hw it developed in our world, it is reasonable to assume that those crude scratches became the foundation for arcane language, possibly inspiring common tongue along the way. Similarly, the medium for spells would have changed from pieces of bark to clay tablets to some from of vellum or paper scroll. Potions would have changed containers from sacks of skin to clay jars to glass vials, the ingredients and processes getting refined through distillation along the way.
See, the thing I'm trying to touch on here is that while we take certain ideas for granted, one could easily argue that magic is a separate from of and shaped by technology, and I'm wondering if that could be extrapolated a little further.
One of the things that has become very clear about the typical "fantasy" era is that much like our on medieval/victorian era, everything had to be made by hand. This is especially true of books, which had to be copied page-by-page and could thus only be afforded by wealthier figures.
That begs the question then, what happens when someone invents the printing press? Can scrolls for spells now be mass produced? And, if a press can write in smaller font than a human can, would their shape change? Would evolving technology allow for more casters to learn spells, thus increasing how many mages there are in the world? Would such technology allow wizards to carry additional spells into battle if all their "scrolls" were only the size of a standard playing card deck?
Would massive distilleries be able to turn out healing potions on a massive scale? How would that influence the daily life of an average citizen? How about that of a soldier?

Overall, would advancing technology also make the monsters of the world less of a threat?
I know that inevitably the idea of someone inventing a gun is going to come up, and Pathfinder 1.0 had archetypes that allowed existing classes, such as the paladin' holy gun archetype, to take advantage of these mechanics in addition to the base gunslinger class. Thing is, I can't help but think that firearms of any kind would change the Challenge Raring of a monster, since I believe these ratings are created with the idea in mind that the party is going to be in melee with the creature for some significant amount of time. It's a very different story when you can engage the manticore from 80ft away and hit harder than a crossbow, even partially bypassing armor to some degree.

This also brings up how the types of spells would change. See, guns are easier to use than crossbows, which are the preferred backup weapon for wizards and sorcerers. While a spell at higher levels will still out damage any single shot from a gun that isn't a cannon, later models of guns can fire multiple timed before needing reloading. And there's less of a need for a few fireball spells if you can just fire off a bullet every single (or every other) round and get similar results. Would casters shift to a higher focus on utility spells rather than destructive ones?

What do you all think?

Anymage
2019-10-09, 03:25 AM
#1: Realistically, in pretty much any setting, magic is a technology. New forms of using it are found, and old forms are refined and perfected. (Although sometimes the science backslides, most dramatically in a Dying Earth sort of setting where humanity has only scraps left to work with.) Presumably improvements in potionmaking and the like would happen as you went from smashed up herbs to alchemical concoctions, and new forms like crafting contingent spells would be found. It might be different if magic comes in the form of begging assistance from spirits, but even then people would improve their understanding of spirit diplomacy and orders would strike advanced deals as time went on.

#2: Advancing technology would integrate magic, possibly being advancing magic, unless there are major drawbacks to doing so. You're going to look for any nonmagical alternative in a warhammer setting where magic can cause a demon to eat your face, but advanced refrigeration methods are unlikely to be discovered in a D&D world where items of Purify Food and Water can be made. D&D style medieval stasis still makes little sense as spell applications will still be uncovered and used, but their technological advancement is unlikely to mirror our advancement.

#3: Guns really depend on the system, but I'm okay with the D&D conceit that they're basically just slightly better, pricier crossbows. (If possible I like to make them slightly cheaty to appeal to anachronism fans, but in ways that make them different rather than strong; making them crit on a 19-20/x3 weapons in 3.5 is a little different, but making them touch attacks is over the top.) Regardless, this is one of those places where magic and technology growing in tandem would produce different results than if they each grew independently. Magical weapons and wands could be strong enough that advances in firearm technology (beyond just improving them through enhancements) might not be appealing enough. Add in that a tiny hole in a huge monster is unlikely to have much stopping power - even real-world humans can go for a bit after being shot before blood loss slows them down - and there's still room for the genre convention of a preternaturally strong human doing massive tissue damage with a huge sword/axe.

MoiMagnus
2019-10-09, 06:05 AM
1) About monsters: Peoples don't like to die. As soon as civilization start to develop, monsters that threaten human life will be hunted and exterminated (similarly to wolves and bears in the real world), unless they are invasive enough (mosquitoes, rats, ...).

2) About automation: I think the central part of technology is automation, i.e finding way to easily accomplish repetitive task. It means a much more "software-like" approach of magic, where the "interface" is designed to be usable by all and adaptable to multiple situations, at the cost of time and energy efficiency (since you have to power your "operating system" somehow). Of course, battle mage might still use regular spells if they are quicker to cast. This automation also mean automation of creation of magic items, with most likely some "magic battery" of some kind.

3) Don't think too much about guns, as you will need to give a physical meaning to hit points. Against regular humans, guns are not much more powerful than arrows: both of them kill you without too much difficulty. The main differences is that guns go through armors much more easily (so higher bonus to hit?), and are much easier to use (No strength requirement? Depending on the version of D&D you use, bow already don't need strength at all...). In fact, you could give to guns exactly the same stats as current bows (and nerf bows so that they are weaker than guns), and it would work perfectly.
Sure "if everyone use guns, the creature will be dead before reaching melee", but in real medieval world that would be the same, everyone would try to use bows and crossbows to kill the creature before it reaches melee, because nobody want to be in melee against a big monster, and arrows are deadly. D&D craft a world in which you can be so resistant to hits that you can without fear engage big creature in melee, there is no reasons for this to change if you add guns that are not as OP as in real life.

Mechalich
2019-10-09, 06:16 AM
#2: Advancing technology would integrate magic, possibly being advancing magic, unless there are major drawbacks to doing so. You're going to look for any nonmagical alternative in a warhammer setting where magic can cause a demon to eat your face, but advanced refrigeration methods are unlikely to be discovered in a D&D world where items of Purify Food and Water can be made. D&D style medieval stasis still makes little sense as spell applications will still be uncovered and used, but their technological advancement is unlikely to mirror our advancement.

Indeed, medieval stasis is mostly a storytelling conceit and rarely holds up when examined closely. In order for medieval stasis to work at all there needs to be enough magic to drastically reduce incentives for technological development and said magic has to have significant trade-offs or side effects that prevent it from being industrialized in its own right (such as magic that eats at the life force of the user). There are some settings that handle it better than others, but D&D generally and 3.X D&D (the highest magic reference frame for D&D) is particularly terrible at it and all D&D settings are massively unstable and cannot maintain any sort of stasis without massive amounts of authorial fiat.

BlacKnight
2019-10-09, 06:55 AM
3) Don't think too much about guns, as you will need to give a physical meaning to hit points. Against regular humans, guns are not much more powerful than arrows: both of them kill you without too much difficulty. The main differences is that guns go through armors much more easily (so higher bonus to hit?), and are much easier to use (No strength requirement? Depending on the version of D&D you use, bow already don't need strength at all...). In fact, you could give to guns exactly the same stats as current bows (and nerf bows so that they are weaker than guns), and it would work perfectly.


I agree that D&D is so vague that you can have bows and guns with the same stats without problem, but in real life arrows and bullets are not the same at all. The stopping power of a bullet is way higher and the deformation of the lead at the moment of impact causes grievous wounds.
In fact firearms replaced bows even among the native Americans, and armor wasn't a problem for them.

Regarding gunpowder it's important to notice that it was invented only one time, so it's perfectly plausible to have a setting where is not invented until the development of chemical industry. No need for magic to stall its development.

jjordan
2019-10-09, 09:11 AM
Ok so, this is another "How would X influence Y" types of discussions, and I know it's been done before, however I'd like to try and look at this from a bit of a different angle.

So, for the sake of argument, let's assume the world we are talking about has magic and multitudes of intelligent races. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that most races have similar life spans to humans, but develop varied cultures. Maybe one or two races live exceedingly long lives, but they tend to isolate themselves because they have a longer view than us "short sighted ants" (which is a discussion for a different thread).
In this world, we can assume that in the early days, mortals found a very primitive way to access magic, and it was generally a very slow learning process that not a lot of individuals had access to. We canteen extrapolate and say that society became more complex, magic changed along with it. Thus, we can make the argument that before anyone had invented language, magic "scrolls" were probably just some crude scratches on a piece of bark, and "potions" were some mashed up ingredients in a deer stomach if you were lucky.
Now, assuming that technology in this world would have developed somewhat similarly to hw it developed in our world, it is reasonable to assume that those crude scratches became the foundation for arcane language, possibly inspiring common tongue along the way. Similarly, the medium for spells would have changed from pieces of bark to clay tablets to some from of vellum or paper scroll. Potions would have changed containers from sacks of skin to clay jars to glass vials, the ingredients and processes getting refined through distillation along the way.
See, the thing I'm trying to touch on here is that while we take certain ideas for granted, one could easily argue that magic is a separate from of and shaped by technology, and I'm wondering if that could be extrapolated a little further.
One of the things that has become very clear about the typical "fantasy" era is that much like our on medieval/victorian era, everything had to be made by hand. This is especially true of books, which had to be copied page-by-page and could thus only be afforded by wealthier figures.
That begs the question then, what happens when someone invents the printing press? Can scrolls for spells now be mass produced? And, if a press can write in smaller font than a human can, would their shape change? Would evolving technology allow for more casters to learn spells, thus increasing how many mages there are in the world? Would such technology allow wizards to carry additional spells into battle if all their "scrolls" were only the size of a standard playing card deck?
Would massive distilleries be able to turn out healing potions on a massive scale? How would that influence the daily life of an average citizen? How about that of a soldier?

Overall, would advancing technology also make the monsters of the world less of a threat?
I know that inevitably the idea of someone inventing a gun is going to come up, and Pathfinder 1.0 had archetypes that allowed existing classes, such as the paladin' holy gun archetype, to take advantage of these mechanics in addition to the base gunslinger class. Thing is, I can't help but think that firearms of any kind would change the Challenge Raring of a monster, since I believe these ratings are created with the idea in mind that the party is going to be in melee with the creature for some significant amount of time. It's a very different story when you can engage the manticore from 80ft away and hit harder than a crossbow, even partially bypassing armor to some degree.

This also brings up how the types of spells would change. See, guns are easier to use than crossbows, which are the preferred backup weapon for wizards and sorcerers. While a spell at higher levels will still out damage any single shot from a gun that isn't a cannon, later models of guns can fire multiple timed before needing reloading. And there's less of a need for a few fireball spells if you can just fire off a bullet every single (or every other) round and get similar results. Would casters shift to a higher focus on utility spells rather than destructive ones?

What do you all think?
I think that people, in general, tend to place too much weight on technology and not enough on standards. Modern firearms are dependent upon a host of other industries performing at high levels and producing products that are reliably graded. What concentration of saltpetre ("Chinese Salt") is in your gunpowder? If this varies from batch to batch then performance will vary.

Printing is another good idea. If you assume that magic is cooking and anyone can read the words off a page, add a few ingredients and get a fireball then printing is going to be a big deal. If you approach a scroll as a crafted item which allows the reader to release a stored spell then printing is less of an issue because you still have to hand-craft the item.

Healing potions are going to be another example of this. If a magic potion is just a secret mix of herbs and spices that anyone can make you still have issues with quality control that can produce potions of varying effectiveness or that fail to work at all. If you assume that a magic potion is a liquid matrix that contains raw magic power or a specific spell, however, then your mass production goes out the window unless you're training magic users to work the production line.

LibraryOgre
2019-10-09, 09:40 AM
So, I talked about this when I wrote Mysteries of Magic (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/253899/PFRPG-17-Mysteries-of-MagicTM-One-The-Heart-of-MagicTM-for-Palladium-Fantasy-RPGR-2nd-Edition?affiliate_id=315505), but it's been so long since I looked at what got published, I don't remember if it actually made it in.

In the beginning of the Palladium World, magic was the only available technology, mostly cast-offs developed by the Great Old Ones. Magical energy was so powerful on that world that, unless you were supernatural yourself, many monsters simply could not be injured by mundane weapons, especially not at the simple tools level they had. So, out of necessity, magic received the bulk of R&D... you can't invent missile launchers if you're struggling to survive. Because magic is so flexible, though, those several early advantages (primary research done by someone else, effective at keeping you alive), it became the technological standard of the world... especially since it was widely accessible.

If you look at other starting conditions, though... where technology had a head start, or where it was less widely accessible... they're going to have different developments. If technology has a huge head start (qv Shadowrun), technology and magic will get integrated insofar as are possible (i.e. you'll have a spellbook app on your commlink). If I can't do magic to help me with my work, then I'm going to come up with another way to do it, so I don't have to go running to the mage all day (who might not even be around).

If magic can be understood, then it is a technology. If it can be, it will be integrated into physical technologies.

CombatBunny
2019-10-09, 09:50 AM
Mankind always takes the path which offers less resistance. If magic proves to be more effective and easier to produce than technology, then technology would be relegated to an almost abandoned state and vice versa.

If magic is better than technology accomplishing some stuff, but technology is better accomplishing other stuff, then as you said, technology could be considered as another kind of magic and magic would be another kind of technology.

In this way, the world would likely evolve as many cyberpunk settings have envisioned, in which technology and magic is common and seen everywhere, and to know if the source of something is magical or technological, would be as relevant as knowing if your car’s motor works with plasma-injectors or turbo-air-compressors.

As for the monsters, yes, they would either had evolved or become extinct. But then there are mutations, scientific experiments, robots and all kind of new threats.

Imbalance
2019-10-09, 10:22 AM
You should explore the fluff around Mage Knight (not the board game, but the original CMG). The OP sounds almost exactly like the flavor of that world.

Droid Tony
2019-10-09, 03:59 PM
That begs the question then, what happens when someone invents the printing press? Can scrolls for spells now be mass produced? And, if a press can write in smaller font than a human can, would their shape change? Would evolving technology allow for more casters to learn spells, thus increasing how many mages there are in the world? Would such technology allow wizards to carry additional spells into battle if all their "scrolls" were only the size of a standard playing card deck?

Well, depends a LOT on how magic works.

Assuming D&D: You'd need a magic item printing press. And you could mass produce scrolls...sort of. It would not be hit a button and print a thousand scrolls. The ingredents and cost and time would not change, just the printing press would do it. Spells ''take up a page", no matter the font size.

Well, yes, the non magic printing press could print off tons of non magical books about magic...and every other topic. Books equal knowladge. So, you'd get more intelligent people, and more wizard type spellcasters.

Spell card runes? Sure, you can already do such things in the rules for mosr D&D editions. Scrolls do not have to be big long rolls of paper.






Would massive distilleries be able to turn out healing potions on a massive scale? How would that influence the daily life of an average citizen? How about that of a soldier?

Maybe not. You still need a magic item to brew the potions. And the by the book rules are for a small bottle, so a vat would cost a lot more. And take longer.

Though you might as well just make items of healing, like amulets or armbands.




Overall, would advancing technology also make the monsters of the world less of a threat?

A couple of the brute type monsters, sure....but not the intelligent magic using ones.



Thing is, I can't help but think that firearms of any kind would change the Challenge Raring of a monster, since I believe these ratings are created with the idea in mind that the party is going to be in melee with the creature for some significant amount of time. It's a very different story when you can engage the manticore from 80ft away and hit harder than a crossbow, even partially bypassing armor to some degree.

Maybe not. Sure many geeks think guns are all powerful....but guns don't work that way. Even more so in D&D/PF a bullet would only do a small amount of damage. Like all weapons do. A stab from a sharp weapon, like a dagger can kill a normal human....excatly the same way a bullet can. And daggers only do 1d4 damage. Small damage, but can kill common folk.

Armor would move out fast....except for magic armor, and armor of exotic stuff, until bullet proff things are made.

Durkoala
2019-10-09, 04:04 PM
A couple of the brute type monsters, sure....but not the intelligent magic using ones.

*Ahem* Dragon drone attack!

RedMage125
2019-10-09, 04:22 PM
I would also advise the OP to look into the Xcrawl setting. It was initially designed for 3.0 and never updated, but they did a PF update on a Kickstarter.

Even if the mechanics aren't for your game, the fluff is amazing. PM me if you're interested, I may have some ways to preview the material in question, but cannot post links right now.

King of Nowhere
2019-10-10, 08:10 AM
In d&d you can't mass produce magic. It has an xp cost, which i read as "the crafter has to impart some of his life force into the item", so a press could copy the text of the spell but would have no power of its own.
I used that in my setting to justify stasis: magic is powerful, so people don't do much technology, but magic can't be mass produced, so it advances slowly.
And still my world wasn't a medieval stasis, it merely had slower progress.

Of course you can mass produce books and get thousands of young students graduate in wizardry - which my world did, as they had printing. Low level casters were everywhere.

Guns are tricky because of the exact meaning of hit points. Personally i went for "high level people are superhumans, arrows and bullets bounce off their skin".
With that interpretation, guns are slightly superior crossbows with an "armor penetration" factor that ignores some non-touch armor (most small arms have armor penetration 5, a heavy machine gun has ap 10, a cannon has ap so high that it's a touch attack).
The combination between magic and technology went up to produce the mecha golem, a colossal golem with a flail, a cannon, two machine guns and a chemical flamethrower. It had cold spells to keep the machine guns from overheating, and grease to avoid jamming, and the cannon was reloaded by a specialized smaller golem with a haste spell to reload faster, and it was really nice. Maybe i'll post it when i'm not on my mobile

MoiMagnus
2019-10-10, 10:04 AM
In d&d you can't mass produce magic. It has an xp cost, which i read as "the crafter has to impart some of his life force into the item", so a press could copy the text of the spell but would have no power of its own.

Merely an inconvenience (and the XP cost is not present in every version of D&D). Humans are good at finding solutions to that kind of problems over the course of centuries. Sure, it might mean you cannot have stuff fully automatized without any intervention from a sentient person, but that was also the case for industry in the beginning: you still needed someone to make the complex work (like screwing stuff together in a factory line). But that was still a revolution.

Assuming a 3e version of the universe, where crafting indeed require XP as a form of "life energy": You could imagine a system where "scroll writers" alternate between XP farms where they get enough "life energy" at minimal cost for the company, and actual writing of the scroll with a quill, or maybe even a press (chances are that you could craft a press that manage to reproduce the property of a magic quill of being able to transfer "life energy" from its user to the scroll). Alternatively, similarly to people selling their free time for few bucks, peoples would be selling their XP for few bucks to industries that give to them the exact minimal formation required to write down one specific scroll.

ZeroGear
2019-10-10, 10:07 AM
Thank you very much for the responses to this, and thank you for keeping it a civil discussion.
So, there are some finer points I'd like to ask about and refine for this:

-Magic Language:
MoiMagnus touched on magic as a kind or programming code, and I agree with that to a point. The way I see it, and feel free to offer your view on this, incantations/rituals/runes are the "code" of magic, and have been refined over the ages. If one thinks as magic as something akin to an admin tool in video games, then the early scratches on bark would be considered OS 0.0, and each reinterpretation and refinement of the scratches into a type of language an "update" to the "code". By the time one is using ink and parchment, the language would have been as refined as many Android OS systems we are using compared to the original DOS used when computers were first invented. Therefore, while I could see slightly more refinement in spells via elimination of superfluous words and spelling errors, one could say that the "language" of magic is fully developed.

-Components for scrolls and potions
Several people have pointed out that it takes materials and time to craft magic items, and that one could only print non-magical versions of scrolls and books without casters. While the need for a magic needing craftsman is an interesting point of debate, here is my view this:
The costs time and materials needed are no different that the non-magical counterpart aside from what the components contain. See, one thing that people miss in the rules is that crafting any item from scratch also takes time and materials, but is usually glossed over because it's not interesting. Realistically, crafting a sword by hand can take weeks, moths, even years depending on the quality of the blade (something that the masterwork component is meant to simulate). Near as I can tell, the material cost represents the exotic inks and dyes, gold leaf, and vellum that is used to make the scroll, or the rare plants and minerals that make up healing potions. Looking at it from that angle, while the costs would still be there, it might be slightly reduced as you'd need less of the overall material due to a decreased chance of errors and production time (aka, time needed printing vs time needed writing by hand). After all, it takes less time, effort, and to some degree material, to craft a sword in a modern blast furnace than in a medieval/victorian blacksmith's forge.
This is, of course, just how I see it, and would welcome another view on this.

-Firearm rules
I'd like to note that I'm using the 3.5/Pathfinder rules for how firearms work in D&D as a reference base, as those are the rules I'm familiar with. See, in those they are essentially touch weapons that deal between 1d6-1d12 points of damage depending on the weapon. Additionally, while early models do have a significant reload time, latter variants drastically reduce this with the introduction of breach loaders and magazines. Additionally, while there is some degree of training involved (and I know that there are people that train years to use these guns, I'm mainly talking common masses here), they are much less training intensive than a longbow, making them as easy, if not easier to use than a crossbow, which did quickly replace most longbows in our own history.
When I bring up monsters, I'm thinking of a lot of the much more common ones: dire animals, giant insets, chimeras, manticores, non-intelligent zombies, etc. Generally, I agree that more intelligent creatures like Sphinxes and Dragons would be able to deal with evolving firearms or negotiate non-aggression pacts, and humanoid/monstrous humanoid monsters would also either adopt such weapons or become absorbed into the growing nation. I'm mostly wondering how the ecology of the world would adapt to this. Would they develop thicker skin, or become smaller and speedier to dodge the bullets? Would demons and angels adopt firearms too? How fearsome would a giant be if he used what could be described as a cannon as a main weapon? I'm interested in that.

King of Nowhere
2019-10-10, 12:57 PM
Merely an inconvenience (and the XP cost is not present in every version of D&D). Humans are good at finding solutions to that kind of problems over the course of centuries. Sure, it might mean you cannot have stuff fully automatized without any intervention from a sentient person, but that was also the case for industry in the beginning: you still needed someone to make the complex work (like screwing stuff together in a factory line). But that was still a revolution.

Assuming a 3e version of the universe, where crafting indeed require XP as a form of "life energy": You could imagine a system where "scroll writers" alternate between XP farms where they get enough "life energy" at minimal cost for the company, and actual writing of the scroll with a quill, or maybe even a press (chances are that you could craft a press that manage to reproduce the property of a magic quill of being able to transfer "life energy" from its user to the scroll). Alternatively, similarly to people selling their free time for few bucks, peoples would be selling their XP for few bucks to industries that give to them the exact minimal formation required to write down one specific scroll.

fair points. how magic interacts with mass production depends on how you want it to. I did decide that it couldn't be mass produced because I wanted a high magic setting that still was somewhat limited, and I did decide that you couldn't get someone else to pay the xp cost for you because I didn't want it to devolve into a grimdark setting where people are farmed for xp. but of course someone else may want to bring it to a different direction.

By the way, I got ahold of the stats for the mecha golem, a little piece of magicpunk insanity that was the result of wondering how to combine magic and technology
gargantuan construct
Hit dice: 60d10+60 (660 hp)
Initiative: -3
Speed: 9 m/60 m
Armor class: 52 (-3 dex, -4 size, +24 natural, +13 armor, +5 deviation, +7 shield)
BAB/grapple: +45/+71
Attack: flail +63 melee (6d8+23)
Full attack: flail +63 melee (6d8+23)
Space/reach: 6 m / 6 m
special attacks: slow, gatling gun/incendiary rounds, napalm spray, acid shower, mouth cannon, flail sweep
Special qualities: construct traits, superb construction, tracks, spell resistance 25, damage reduction 10/adamantine, immunity to magic, fused equipment, pilot post
Saves: fort +20 ref +17 will +20
Abilities: STR 45 DEX 5 CON 0 INT 0 WIS 11 CHA 1
Skills: none
Feats: none
Environment: any
Organization: solitary
Challenge rating: no flippin' idea, somewhere around 25 probably?
Treasure:
Alignment:
Advancement:
Level adjustment:
slow (su): The mecha golem can use a slow effect, as the spell, as a free action once every 2 rounds. The effect has a range of 10 feet and a duration of 7 rounds, requiring a DC 40 Will save to negate. The save DC is Constitution-based.
gatling gun/incendiary rounds: the mecha golem is equipped with +5 gatling guns embedded into its eyes. At every round as a free action it can fire a burst, spraying an area 3 squares wide with incendiary bullets. Every bullet attacks with a +30 to hit and ignores up to 10 points of armor, natural armor or shield combined (so it's effectively a +40 against most targets). it deals 1d12+5 piercing damage (crit *3) and 2d6 fire damage. A creature occupying the central square of the area get attacked by 5 bullets, everyone around get hit by one bullet. Bullets of special materials to bypass damage reduction are available, but must be loaded beforehand. The golem carries enough bullets to fire for ten rounds, it must be reloaded by a maintenance crew afterwards. Cleverly used ice spells keep the weapon from overheating.
napalm spray: the mecha golem has a turret on its lower abdomen that sprays a sticky incendiary liquid as a free action. It deals 12d6 fire damage in a 15-meters cone (reflexes DC 22 halves). Creatures that failed the saving throw are stuck with the burning liquid, and keep burning for an additional 3d6 damage every round for 10 more rounds. Putting out the flames is virtually impossible without magic. Due to the liquid seeping through holes, having cover halves the damage but does not grant evasion against this ability. Napalm spray can be used only every two rounds, because it takes some time to reload the siphons and pistons that power it. The mecha golem has enough fuel for five uses, then it must be reloaded by a maintenance crew.
acid shower: the mecha golem has embedded acid tanks in its chest, and holes to spray it out all around to deter attackers. As a free action it can open them, causing everyone within 3 meters of the golem to take 10d6 acid damage and everyone else within 9 meters to take 2d6 acid damage (reflexes DC 22 halves); this use consumes 2 charges of acid. Alternatively, the pilot can choose to only spray one side of the golem (front/rear), basically a semicircle; this use consumes one charge of acid. The mecha golem has 5 charges of acid, which must then be reloaded by a maintenance crew.
mouth cannon: a cannon firing from a small porthole where the mouth of the golem would be. Inside, a smaller golem manufactured for the specific task reloads the weapon. It has two modes of fire: shrapnel (45 meters cone, 20d6 piercing and slashing damage for creatures within 15 meters, 10d6 between 15 and 30 meters, 5d6 between 30 and 45 meters, no saving throw unless there is cover available, in which case reflexes DC 30 negates) and single shot (+16 ranged contact attack, 40d6+6 piercing and bludgeoning damage). Normally, the cannon fires +1 adamantine rounds to penetrate damage reduction, but different ammunitions can be used. The cannon fires every 3 rounds as a free action and the mecha golem has 30 rounds of mixed types.
flail sweep: as a standard action, the mecha golem can sweep its flail in a semicircle 6 meters wide. Creatures in the area take 3d8+23 damage (reflexes halves, DC 40)
superb construction: the mecha golem got maximum hit points from all hit dice.
tracks: the mecha golem has tracks on the exterior of its legs that can be engaged by kneeling. When moving on feet, its movement speed is 9 m. When moving on tracks, it has a movement speed of 60 meters, but it can only move freely forward and backwards; turning requires sacrificing 30 m of speed for every 45°. Switching from trucks to legs sacrifices half the golem move speed for that round. When on tracks, the golem has an additional +8 to resist attempts to trip, bull rush, or otherwise move it.
Immunity to magic: same as a stone golem: rock to mud slows it for 2d6 rounds, mud to rock heals it, stone to flesh negates immunity for one round. Its regular spell resistance applies to spells that ignore the immunity. Spells cast from the pilot post (see below) ignore both obstacles, though.
fused equipment: magical equipment is fused into the golem, including a +5 full plate armor, +5 shield, +5 flail. The mecha golem also has a +5 deviation bonus to AC. All stats already included.
pilot post: the golem is commanded by a pilot, so it uses the pilot's spot and listen checks. The pilot is given true sight, arcane sight and darkvision, but the convoluted visibility (images are brought in by periscopes and sound by ear-like holes) the pilot takes a -10 penalty to all such checks to perceive anything outside of the golem. While inside the pilot cabin (situated somewhere in the chest) the pilot has full cover and mind blank. The cabin is also dimensionally locked, and too small for another creature to teleport in anyway.





-Firearm rules
I'm mostly wondering how the ecology of the world would adapt to this. Would they develop thicker skin, or become smaller and speedier to dodge the bullets?

did you ever see real world animals adapting thicker skin to face bullets? no, because it doesn't work.
It would take an insane amount of thick skin to survive bullets. all that skin makes the animal less nimble, slower. it weights it down, makes it less capable of chasing prey while forcing it to eat more to compensate the extra energy requirement of having all that extra skin and moving in it.
No, animals would just learn to stay away from humans. at least if we try to be realistic.


Would demons and angels adopt firearms too? How fearsome would a giant be if he used what could be described as a cannon as a main weapon? I'm interested in that.
of course they would, and of course they would be effective.
but then, if everyone is using cannons, a giant is just a bigger target, so perhaps not as fearsome as they would be otherwise. the cannon does more to bring everyone to equal level.

ZeroGear
2019-10-10, 02:16 PM
did you ever see real world animals adapting thicker skin to face bullets? no, because it doesn't work.
It would take an insane amount of thick skin to survive bullets. all that skin makes the animal less nimble, slower. it weights it down, makes it less capable of chasing prey while forcing it to eat more to compensate the extra energy requirement of having all that extra skin and moving in it.
No, animals would just learn to stay away from humans. at least if we try to be realistic.

Counterpoint: did you ever see a creature exhale a cone of cold?
Or ants grow to the size of house cats and build mounds that can rival skyscrapers?
How about trees that can just decide to uproot themselves and walk a few miles to find better soil?
No, because those abilities do not exist in our world. No one has discussed how “Magic” interacts with the nature of this world, so the idea that creatures can adapt to the creation of firearms isn’t quite as out of the question as you make it out to be.
That, however, is a different discussion for a different thread.

That does, however, bring up a different point: creatures living next to humans. How much of the monster manual would go extinct if these advances happen, and what would come to fill their niches? And what would adapt its behaviors to flourish under these conditions? Would and Otyugh set up shop in the cities sewer? Would Displacer Beast hunt the alleyways of cities, leaping from rooftop to rooftop to traverse great distances? How would the behaviors of other monsters change?

King of Nowhere
2019-10-10, 06:08 PM
Counterpoint: did you ever see a creature exhale a cone of cold?
Or ants grow to the size of house cats and build mounds that can rival skyscrapers?
How about trees that can just decide to uproot themselves and walk a few miles to find better soil?
No, because those abilities do not exist in our world. No one has discussed how “Magic” interacts with the nature of this world, so the idea that creatures can adapt to the creation of firearms isn’t quite as out of the question as you make it out to be.
That, however, is a different discussion for a different thread.


unless magic is malevolent and out there to screw us, the result is still always the same: messing with humans is terrible business.

a human is smaller and less nourishing than other large animals like deers. humans also breed very slowly, so you can't rely on them as a staple food. and they are extremely dangerous; not only they are capable of defending themselves against much bigger animals with their technology, but if you make a habit of killing them, they will not just run away and then stay in the general area like normal prey, but they will gather larger numbers and hunt you back. If we want to have some evolution at work, then I can't see any way an animal could reasonably specialize to hunt humanoids, not even with magic. it's just so much better to look for easier prey.

now, living around humans, that's an entirely different matter. I could see an invisible monster snatching cattle, for example. and for parasites and disease, attacking a dominant species is a good deal, at least until the point where we invent modern medicine and start eradicating them.

in fact, if you want to consider how adaptation to human expansion may impact monsters, you need to consider the ecology they had before. and frankly, that one also doens't hold to close scrutiny. all those huge lumbering monsters should simply die of starvation as they are too slow to catch anything, too big to sneak anywhere near a prey before alerting it, and they'd require too much food. So you have first to find them suitable places in the ecosystem, with suitable preys and sustainable population dynamics. or you can use magic to justify how they can bend the rules - but do notice that magic merely gives more tools for survival, it doesn't allow to skip the rules.
Personally I went for "those huge beasts are the product of random mutations generated by magic, sort of like a tumor. they cannot reproduce and would not be able to survive in the environment in the long run." but magic sustains them enough that they will last for a while, and they will deal a lot of damage unless put down. also, the fact that they spawn from regular animals means that there's always going to be more of them even if you eradicate them completely.
And with that premise, you can also totally justify some mutated beast being bulletproof :smallcool:

Droid Tony
2019-10-10, 08:00 PM
Really, guns are just mundane weapons and are not any diffrent then a dagger or sword or arrow. One bullet does as much damage as most any other mundane attack.

And sure over the centuries the world will change if guns are common. You'd see a lot of magic made around guns and bullets and such.

And sure folks would change monsters too. Make things like monsters with ''displacemnet" and other such illusions. Make monsters with higher AC's by speed or agality or thick skin or even Damage Reduction.

You could fast get to a sort of balance: Have ALL life has a DR 10/Magic, so a single bullet hit would very very unlikely to hurt anything. So even if you had a machine gun that shot 1,000 bullets for 1d10 damage each....you'd do no damage to a creature....

Jay R
2019-10-11, 11:16 AM
If magic can be understood, then it is a technology. If it can be, it will be integrated into physical technologies.

That's an interesting approach, but not the only one,

I would prefer, "If magic is consistent and universal, then it is a technology."

For instance, compare a gun and a 3.5e wand. It doesn't matter who pulls the trigger; the gun goes off exactly the same way -- even if the one pulling the trigger is a primitive with no concept of a gun. But it takes a caster (or a highly specific skill) to make the wand work at all.

There are a number of ways this can be made to work. Consider the printing press idea.


Printing scrolls do not work.
Printing scrolls can reduce the time, but not the xp or gp cost.
Printing scrolls makes mass-produced scrolls that still require a caster.
Printed scrolls can be used by anybody (who can read the right language).



Each of these possibilities will have consequences that will affect the world.

A similar issue comes up with weapons manufacture. The first person who learns how to mass-produce magic weapons will have an army, all of whom have magic swords.

Now suppose that 500 years ago there was a great war between the elves and goblins. Some elf wizard learned how to mass-produce identical magic swords. Then there would quickly be an army wielding +1 goblinsbane swords, and the goblins would be quickly defeated, and possibly wiped out.

The elf wizard who did it destroyed her notes, to prevent anybody from making elfsbane swords. The elven stories of the war didn't mention superior weapons -- just elven heroism.

Results? Any number of directions you could take this. The last remaining goblins fled underground, and hid. They have nursed their grudges against the elves, and are now about to strike back. Nobody knew the swords were more than +1 swords, so many of the +1 swords you find are really goblinsbane.

Possible effects:
Improving your +1 sword to +2 takes 14,000 gp, not just 6,000.
Goblin thieves are stealing magic swords whenever possible.
Maybe a captured goblin reveals that there were once mass-produced goblinsbane swords, giving the PCs a clue to the possibility.

I find this kind of moment in history far more intriguing for game purposes than one with a fully-developed magical technology. If wands are as available and universally usable as guns, then they're just guns. When the average sword is magic, then magic swords are average.

As Syndrome said, "And when I'm old, and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions, so that everyone can be super-heroes. Everyone can be super. And when everyone's super, ... (evil laugh) ... no one will be."

Max_Killjoy
2019-10-11, 11:29 AM
Maybe not. Sure many geeks think guns are all powerful....but guns don't work that way. Even more so in D&D/PF a bullet would only do a small amount of damage. Like all weapons do. A stab from a sharp weapon, like a dagger can kill a normal human....excatly the same way a bullet can. And daggers only do 1d4 damage. Small damage, but can kill common folk.

Armor would move out fast....except for magic armor, and armor of exotic stuff, until bullet proff things are made.


As a side note, old-school armor and firearms overlap for a couple centuries at least -- it was less firearms that did in armor, and more socioeconomic factors and how armies were assembled from the population. "Munitions" plate issued en masse to the rank and file soldiers fared poorly against the firearms of the period, but quality plate could be made well proof against those firearms even at close ranges. The shift to mass conscription and block formation fighting and larger armies, and social elites moving off the front lines slowly over time, meant that it was cost prohibitive to equip troops with "proof" armor.




-Magic Language:
MoiMagnus touched on magic as a kind or programming code, and I agree with that to a point. The way I see it, and feel free to offer your view on this, incantations/rituals/runes are the "code" of magic, and have been refined over the ages. If one thinks as magic as something akin to an admin tool in video games, then the early scratches on bark would be considered OS 0.0, and each reinterpretation and refinement of the scratches into a type of language an "update" to the "code". By the time one is using ink and parchment, the language would have been as refined as many Android OS systems we are using compared to the original DOS used when computers were first invented. Therefore, while I could see slightly more refinement in spells via elimination of superfluous words and spelling errors, one could say that the "language" of magic is fully developed.


We tried to start a thread on "magic as reality hacking" a while back, but it petered out -- http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?598313-Reality-Hacking

That thread in turn had spun off from another discussion -- http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?593764-The-Power-Words&p=24061232#post24061232

LibraryOgre
2019-10-11, 01:54 PM
That's an interesting approach, but not the only one,

I would prefer, "If magic is consistent and universal, then it is a technology."

A more precise phrasing, to be sure.

To divert a little bit, consider Shadowrun, where magic is understandable (at least, according to some traditions), but not readily reproducible, since it requires a living being to enact; in fact, one of Dunkelzahn's bequests was to whoever figured out how to make a machine that could sustain a spell.

ZeroGear
2019-10-11, 02:58 PM
Hey, quick question here:
What item crafting rules are you all working under?
I’m only curious because I’ve seen “XP cost” been thrown around a bit, and don’t think all crafting rules have one of those.
Mostly, I know it was part of 3.5, but the system had a variant in Unearthed Arcana that did away with that by increasing material cost. Similarly, Pathfinder 1.0 (not sure about 2.0) doesn’t have an XP cost for items.
I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page here.

Anymage
2019-10-11, 07:06 PM
I find this kind of moment in history far more intriguing for game purposes than one with a fully-developed magical technology. If wands are as available and universally usable as guns, then they're just guns. When the average sword is magic, then magic swords are average.

As Syndrome said, "And when I'm old, and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions, so that everyone can be super-heroes. Everyone can be super. And when everyone's super, ... (evil laugh) ... no one will be."

People like to repeat that Syndrome quote as if it's a bad thing, but in reality characters in games have only two benchmarks to meaningfully compare themselves to. Other PCs, and opposition NPCs. Some PCs being more super than others is a very tricky road to go down. And opposition NPCs, to be meaningful, will have to be at least in the same ballpark as the PCs. The only real question is if you want a mob of armed muggles to be a threat, or if you need to bring out other superbeings. Comparing PCs to PCs, everyone should be super.

Jay R
2019-10-11, 07:45 PM
People like to repeat that Syndrome quote as if it's a bad thing, but in reality characters in games have only two benchmarks to meaningfully compare themselves to. Other PCs, and opposition NPCs. Some PCs being more super than others is a very tricky road to go down. And opposition NPCs, to be meaningful, will have to be at least in the same ballpark as the PCs. The only real question is if you want a mob of armed muggles to be a threat, or if you need to bring out other superbeings. Comparing PCs to PCs, everyone should be super.

Yes, but you're not disagreeing with my point. When magic becomes technology, you won't just be comparing PCs to PCs. All the mundane NPCs will have as much magic as PCs.

In a fantasy realm, only a few can use crystal balls or wands of fireball.

In a technological world, whether the technology is electronics or magic, everybody who can afford it can have television and guns.

So I repeat: I find this kind of moment in history (when somebody is just starting to learn how to mass-produce magic) far more intriguing for game purposes than one with a fully-developed magical technology.

[Leaving the question of magic aside, this is equivalent to saying I'd rather play Iron Man when only a few heroes and villains have powered suits than when everybody does.]

Max_Killjoy
2019-10-11, 08:16 PM
Is there a middle ground, where magic is "scientific", but not "technological", that's not transitional but inherent to how magic works in that setting?

That is, magic is repeatable and reliable and operates based on universal understandable principles, but isn't amenable to mass production and mass access?

IMO, there's definitely is, starting with casters being somehow special or casting being somehow challenging, or magic items not being possible, or similar limits on how widespread it can be.

Mechalich
2019-10-11, 11:02 PM
Is there a middle ground, where magic is "scientific", but not "technological", that's not transitional but inherent to how magic works in that setting?

That is, magic is repeatable and reliable and operates based on universal understandable principles, but isn't amenable to mass production and mass access?

IMO, there's definitely is, starting with casters being somehow special or casting being somehow challenging, or magic items not being possible, or similar limits on how widespread it can be.

There's a difference between technological and industrial.

Technological simply means that magic is amenable to advancement along technical pathways, meaning that over time you could produce better and more effective methods and processes of doing whatever it is magic does. If magic is repeatable and reliable, a single user can do this on their own, at least in a limited way, in the same way a single craftsman can come up with better and more efficient methods of production in their workshop.

Industrial means that the magic can be industrialized leading to at least some level of interchangeable parts, mass production, and aggregation of outputs. There are, as you say, a variety of ways to prevent any sort of industrialization of magic and trapping it in an artisanal paradigm.

Max_Killjoy
2019-10-12, 06:25 AM
There's a difference between technological and industrial.

Technological simply means that magic is amenable to advancement along technical pathways, meaning that over time you could produce better and more effective methods and processes of doing whatever it is magic does. If magic is repeatable and reliable, a single user can do this on their own, at least in a limited way, in the same way a single craftsman can come up with better and more efficient methods of production in their workshop.

Industrial means that the magic can be industrialized leading to at least some level of interchangeable parts, mass production, and aggregation of outputs. There are, as you say, a variety of ways to prevent any sort of industrialization of magic and trapping it in an artisanal paradigm.

Artisanal vs Industrial might be a better terminology than what I used.

LibraryOgre
2019-10-12, 09:58 AM
I am reminded of the Guardians of the Flame series (https://amzn.to/315IZYV) by the late Joel Rosenberg. (Some unspoiled spoilers; the last book was almost 20 years ago, so I feel no shame)

In it, some early-80s college students are transported into their fantasy RPG and, for a variety of reasons, wind up staying. Among their number is a civil engineer, who's got a bit of knowledge of mechanical, chemical, and electrical engineering... enough to get a standard fantasy world started, and to manufacture basic black powder firearms, and, eventually percussion cap weapons.

The response of the Wizard and Slaver's guild to them showing up with black powder? They created their own, using complex magics to manufacture something that turned to super-pressurized steam when exposed to water... enough to emulate a black powder weapon, without knowing how it actually did what it did.

Which goes to show a time when magic and technology are in political opposition, how they might develop in competition and parallel.

ZeroGear
2019-10-13, 10:54 PM
So, one other small question about the more nuanced points to this:
Why is it that pretty much everyone that's replied has only covered the topic in pretty broad strokes?
I mean, no one has brought up the idea (and believe me, this only just come to me) that only low level spells could be mass produced?
I mean, I'm going to borrow from our real world a little, if you think about clothing evolving with out cultures, all clothes were originally made by hand. Later, when contraptions like the Cotton Jin came around, we were able to refine materials and more readily produce cheeper clothing for the larger populace, however a number of suits and clothing for nobles still had to be made by hand because there was no other way to craft garments of that quality since the materials were too fragile or expensive to mass produce.
I know I've also been using broad strokes here, and I've kinda fallen into the trap that only special individuals would even have access to spells above 4th level.
Under these assumptions, I'd propose that the printing press would only be able to print 0 level spells at the start, then slowly evolve to handle more powerful spells up until 5th level at most. Beyond that the spells would just be too powerful, or the materials just too costly to buy.
Similarly, I'd imagine that there would be a boom in magical items that worked with the home, such as brooms that swept the floors, or bottles that chilled drinks on their own. I'd imagine this would also lead to new household spells being invented.

I'd also imagine that this would result in a lot more dangers around the house too.
Part of why I thought about this was a series of documentaries about how dangerous some of the previous decades were. It included facts such as cyanide paint used in victorian era wallpaper, the flammable nature of cellophane plastics, and how sugar (of all things) caused a to of deaths due to people not understanding it's link to tooth decay.
When I brought up the idea of linking magic with technology, I'm surprised no one brought up the idea that it would cause households to become more dangerous.

Mechalich
2019-10-14, 02:10 AM
Why is it that pretty much everyone that's replied has only covered the topic in pretty broad strokes?

Because this is the general RPG forum, and therefore the presumption that any answers need to be system and setting agnostic. As a result, it's only possible to talk in a broad fashion because no specific technological level or magic system has been specified. If you want to talk about how technology and magic might influence each other in a specific system (you seem to be referencing some edition of D&D) then you should create a thread for that in the specific sub-forum or if you're referring to specifically homebrewed magical system (or just one that only exists in books) then in the world-building sub-forum.

MoiMagnus
2019-10-14, 04:31 AM
So, one other small question about the more nuanced points to this:
Why is it that pretty much everyone that's replied has only covered the topic in pretty broad strokes?
I mean, no one has brought up the idea (and believe me, this only just come to me) that only low level spells could be mass produced?

On top of the answers trying to be system agnostics, there is not that many reason for spell level to correspond exactly to ease of mass production. Objects that were easily mass produced in the real world, and objects that were the easiest to create by hand, are quite different categories.
Though there is a correlation, obviously, especially since component cost is actually proportional to the spell level, so it is not that absurd.

But for example, a lot of spells are restricted to some classes. Why? If a factory is able to "learn" Cordon of Arrows [Lv2, Ranger exclusive in 5e] and reproduce it as easily as any other Lv2 spell, why can't a level 20 Wizard? Maybe only Wizard spells can be mass produced because all the other ones are ad hoc? Maybe some magical effects are actually easier to mass produce than actual spells designed to be remembered an written by peoples?

ZeroGear
2019-10-14, 09:07 AM
Because this is the general RPG forum, and therefore the presumption that any answers need to be system and setting agnostic. As a result, it's only possible to talk in a broad fashion because no specific technological level or magic system has been specified. If you want to talk about how technology and magic might influence each other in a specific system (you seem to be referencing some edition of D&D) then you should create a thread for that in the specific sub-forum or if you're referring to specifically homebrewed magical system (or just one that only exists in books) then in the world-building sub-forum.

Not exactly what I meant, and I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear.
When I say “broad strokes”, I mean that a lot of the replies have only talked about how it would influence the world on the crossest scale, such as how there might be a rise in literacy, an increase in Magic users, and the change in armor due to fielding armies in full plate not begin feasible cost wise. However, no one seems to be willing to get more specific than that.
It’s possible to be system agnostic while still discussing the changes it might have on a culture, or bring in examples from editions if one wishes, there is no one barring that, but the idea that a wider access to water producing spells would change how crops are handled, or what parts of the world could be settled are not tied to mechanics.

Droid Tony
2019-10-15, 02:54 AM
Not exactly what I meant, and I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear.
When I say “broad strokes”, I mean that a lot of the replies have only talked about how it would influence the world on the crossest scale, such as how there might be a rise in literacy, an increase in Magic users, and the change in armor due to fielding armies in full plate not begin feasible cost wise. However, no one seems to be willing to get more specific than that.
It’s possible to be system agnostic while still discussing the changes it might have on a culture.....

Well edition rules matter as they are the reality rules.

If you want to say something like ''what whould a word with free everything by magic be like", well that just gets to the very boring world. People can just sit in thier mansions and wish for anything.

D&d 3.5 and P1 are horrabile editions to talk about using the pure lazy combat rules and applying them to a realistic setting. Going by those rules, the world is a perfect utopia: game over.

Other editions of D&D have at least given some thought to world building and added rules to make things at least slightly better then just the 3X/P1 game over.

Anymage
2019-10-15, 03:52 AM
but the idea that a wider access to water producing spells would change how crops are handled, or what parts of the world could be settled are not tied to mechanics.

How easily can you conjure permanent objects with magic vs. how much does it work primarily through transient forces or effects?

What costs are there to using magic? What's worth a quick utility spell in most D&D is probably different if you're in dark sun or call of cthulhu.

Cheap, effective, easily scalable magic with no externalities will generally get you a tippyverse. That idea has been explored. Change any of those parameters and you'll be looking at something quite different.

ZeroGear
2019-10-15, 08:58 AM
Well edition rules matter as they are the reality rules.

Forgive me if I seem to be missing something, but I’m getting the feeling that you’re getting the fluff and crunch mixed up.

Most of my questions have been directed at the the world and the people, not the mechanics.
While I do welcome anyone to use mechanics to describe how it would work in their edition of choice, this idea has been about how the world and society would change.
While I did bring up the idea of monster CR being affected, that was more of an afterthought since those are reflective of the monster’s general threat level, and I assumed that would be affected in any game if the world had access to more powerful weaponry.

I apologize if I caused any confusion on this.

LibraryOgre
2019-10-15, 10:51 AM
Forgive me if I seem to be missing something, but I’m getting the feeling that you’re getting the fluff and crunch mixed up.

Most of my questions have been directed at the the world and the people, not the mechanics.
While I do welcome anyone to use mechanics to describe how it would work in their edition of choice, this idea has been about how the world and society would change.
While I did bring up the idea of monster CR being affected, that was more of an afterthought since those are reflective of the monster’s general threat level, and I assumed that would be affected in any game if the world had access to more powerful weaponry.

I apologize if I caused any confusion on this.

The problem is, the fluff is heavily influenced by the crunch.

Take, for example, the Red Wizards of Thay in D&D.

In AD&D, creating magic items was relatively difficult, and the items themselves were relatively rare. Thus, the Red Wizards were a lurking force, and seeing a Red Wizard in a place like Waterdeep was relatively rare... why are they here?

In 3.x, making magic items became a lot easier; you could start churning out things at 3rd level. Suddenly, the Red Wizards became magical merchants, with enclaves set up across the world, selling their services and leveraging their influence.

The crunch helped shape the fluff. The fluff of 3.x would have made no sense in AD&D, where magic items were rare and valuable, more akin to art pieces than any really tradable good. In AD&D, even if magic WAS a technology, it was one that was largely only operable by specialized mechanics (i.e. wizards), with rare, exceptional, devices that could be operated by anyone (magic items).

Max_Killjoy
2019-10-15, 11:05 AM
The problem is, the fluff is heavily influenced by the crunch.

Take, for example, the Red Wizards of Thay in D&D.

In AD&D, creating magic items was relatively difficult, and the items themselves were relatively rare. Thus, the Red Wizards were a lurking force, and seeing a Red Wizard in a place like Waterdeep was relatively rare... why are they here?

In 3.x, making magic items became a lot easier; you could start churning out things at 3rd level. Suddenly, the Red Wizards became magical merchants, with enclaves set up across the world, selling their services and leveraging their influence.

The crunch helped shape the fluff. The fluff of 3.x would have made no sense in AD&D, where magic items were rare and valuable, more akin to art pieces than any really tradable good. In AD&D, even if magic WAS a technology, it was one that was largely only operable by specialized mechanics (i.e. wizards), with rare, exceptional, devices that could be operated by anyone (magic items).

And while it doesn't bother all gamers... fluff/crunch dissonance will drive some gamers crazy.

Droid Tony
2019-10-15, 08:05 PM
Forgive me if I seem to be missing something, but I’m getting the feeling that you’re getting the fluff and crunch mixed up.


Well, it is all mixed up.

What are you talking about? Some unknown alternate Earth that has something called magic? Ok, we can talk about this pure fluff world.....but you need to tell us how the world works. Is everyone in this world born an arch magic user that can alter reality at will? Do they need to learn magic somehow? What can and can't magic do? And so on.

You mentioned a potion factory...seeming using the Pathfinder rule set, right? You are not talking about generic fluff magic, right? And if some one can just make a potion factory, why not just make a Ocean of Healing? And if you will go back and say your talking only about making potions using the Pathfinder magic potion creation rules...well, are you not using the crunch?

Ravens_cry
2019-10-16, 01:41 AM
Look at how electricity got used on Earth. At first, it was used as a novelty and for crude experiments, then some practical uses came about along with a lot of quackery and then, over time, as we learned more about it and how to harness it in novel way, it got into practically everything. I wouldn't be surprised if magic followed a similar pattern. You want some specifics? OK, how about continual flames lighting the streets and homes, cure minor wounds preventing bleed out, disease eliminated with cure disease. Greater Teleport would open up at least the solar system for exploration.

ZeroGear
2019-10-16, 10:55 AM
Well, it is all mixed up.

What are you talking about? Some unknown alternate Earth that has something called magic? Ok, we can talk about this pure fluff world.....but you need to tell us how the world works. Is everyone in this world born an arch magic user that can alter reality at will? Do they need to learn magic somehow? What can and can't magic do? And so on.


If I have confused everyone, I deeply apologize. I’ve always been under the impression that the idea of a setting came first, then one picked the rules for one’s edition of choice and fitted them to the world in order to simulate rules of “reality”.
When I made this post, I was thinking of a generic fantasy world and wanted a to create a discussion of how Magic, the ability to circumvent certain conventional rules of the universe, would evolve with the introduction of more industrial and technological advancements.


Look at how electricity got used on Earth. At first, it was used as a novelty and for crude experiments, then some practical uses came about along with a lot of quackery and then, over time, as we learned more about it and how to harness it in novel way, it got into practically everything. I wouldn't be surprised if magic followed a similar pattern. You want some specifics? OK, how about continual flames lighting the streets and homes, cure minor wounds preventing bleed out, disease eliminated with cure disease. Greater Teleport would open up at least the solar system for exploration.

This is honestly the kind of discussion I was looking to have. I’m someone that enjoys diving into the zany concepts of history and fiction. I remember that a documentary I watched talked about how house fires became much more common when households had both gas and electric lighting at the same time, or how people used asbestus in machines for curling ones hair.
We already have a big understanding of this in the real world, I’d love a discussion of this in the fantasy realm.

Imbalance
2019-10-16, 02:28 PM
I'm telling you: Mage Knight

As brief as I can think to be (and from imperfect memory), there was light magic - life, healing, growth - and dark magic - death, destruction, deceit - and throughout history, nobody had ever mastered both schools until a wizard was born that not only did just that but also discovered the magical potential of naturally occurring crystalline ley lines and created an entirely new school called technomancy. His power and inventiveness allowed him to essentially reshape the world over the course of his extended lifespan, creating unto himself an empire and uniting much of the land in peace. He invented robots and hovercars and lightning guns, his teachings revolutionized everything, he single-handedly levitated his capital city, and when he finally died the leaders of all three schools each claimed that his spirit had come to reside within a token vessel that was prepared for his everlasting essence (and it's quite probable that all three were legitimate).

In the wake of his passing, factions began to splinter again, the old schools abandoned the empire to go their separate ways, leaving the technomages to their own devices. In time, they found that in order to maintain their civilization they had to constantly mine for more of the crystals, which were magically toxic in their raw form. Dwarves, who in this universe are utterly immune to magic, were enslaved to feed the demands of the empire, while freedom fighters began using a crude form of gunpowder to at last effect a defense against the lightning weapons and magic users. Conflict ensued.

Of course, the devastating plunder of the natural world as well as an age of heightened magical experimentation leads to an increase in monstrous mutations and unnatural creatures roaming the land and occasionally becoming sapient and organized into tribal societies, while orc and elf tropes abound. Add in good, old-fashioned political intrigue, sprinkle in some surprisingly original angel/alien beings, thrown in a dash of dungeon-crawling, let the fans stir the mix, cook in a fomenting Internet, and finally garnish with an over-the-top end-of-the-world (and product run) scenario, and that's how you create a market that didn't previously exist. But that's meta-level magineering. In the universe of our world's first Collectable Miniatures Game, magic evolved from something rare and divisive, to wondrous and unifying, to ravaging and oppressive (complete with continent-spanning war) within a stretch of several centuries. Is this the kind of discussion you're looking for?

Droid Tony
2019-10-16, 05:28 PM
When I made this post, I was thinking of a generic fantasy world and wanted a to create a discussion of how Magic, the ability to circumvent certain conventional rules of the universe, would evolve with the introduction of more industrial and technological advancements.


Well, I'd point out that if magic is part of a universe, then it's not something that "circumvents certain conventional rules of the universe", it IS part of the universe.

So with the vague basis of D&D/PF magic: Vatican casting, spell formulas, people need at least average intelligence, wisdom or charisma to be a spellcaster, people gain Experience and levels from living life and a magic item lasts roughly 1000 years.

So the Cave People would discovery magic, so by the time Civilization came around (aka Ancient Mesopotamia or so). Everyone with the ability to do so is a spellcaster, so roughly half the world. They are all wizard/druids or wizard/clerics or all three.

Big Points:

1.Food and Water. This world is overflowing with good food and clean water. There is no hunger or want for food. Most people can simply cast a spell, and there would be thousands of them, to create food and drink. Magic items that make food and water would also be common. Every single spellcaster, worldwide, would make dozens of creating food and magic items in their lifetime. Really, food and water is that important.

Farming would still exist, but to a much less degree then on Earth. Farms would be small, and used to supplement magic food and drink. Farming would also use a magic like animation, constructs, Unseen Servants(and such), healing, and most of all the druid type natural magic.

2.Light, Heat and Warmth(and coolness). This world is overflowing with well lit warm places. As magic light blazes as bright a sunlight, the sun going down does not effect life very much. Everburing fires are everywhere. Homes and heated. Anyone can live anywhere, with not worry about cold. The same is true about keeping places cool in hotter areas.

3.Healing. This world is is healthy to an extreme. Few people die for any ''common" reason. Any injury or sickness or ailment will be treated in moments. In some places, even the dead can be brought back to life. Compared to historical Earth, the population will be huge.

4.Travel and Communication. With even simple magic vast areas are quite in touch with each other. Both messages and people can travel at least as fast as in 2019. Of course, with even slightly complex magic, you get teleportation, with the whole world just a step away.

5.Automation. Unseen servants, animated objects, and constructs. Vast amounts of labor will be done with such magic. From a simple wooden spoon that stirs to a wooden ox that plows a field to anything else needed.


This world has no use or need for money.....or even the concept of "value". Magic is all that matters. With magic a person can live well enough alone with no wants or needs. This makes the whole concept of mundane rulers something that does not happen. Magic lords, to a point, but not to a tyrant. Magic by it's nature needs to be shared to be useful and powerful. A land that tries to outlaw or such magic will quickly fall to a land of 5,000 spellcasters, either by war or other ways.

Wars would be a bit uncommon, but would still happen. Though the ''need" to do so would often be taken up by magic.

This is just some broad strokes, but you can see this world would be nothing even close to Earth.

Gnoman
2019-10-16, 06:45 PM
In a general sense, there are three ways in which magic and technology can interact - there are, of course, infinite possible variations.

1. Magic and technology have no inherent effect on one another. One can inspire the other (a magic-based gun, or a technology-based fireball, for example), but you won't have odd effects if you work magic near technology or try to bring tech into a magical area.

2. Magic and technology are opposed. Perhaps the presence of forged iron stops spells from functioning, or maybe making gunpowder is suicidal because fire spirits will be drawn to it and set it off. You can have one or another, but not both.

3. Magic and technology are symbiotic. They both influence each other in expected ways. Perhaps inventing firearms causes monsters to sprout ranged weaponry in response, or maybe nearby dragonfire causes an internal combustion engine to burn less fuel for higher output by strengthening the fire element in that area.


Of these, the most common I see is 2, but both 1 and 3 have interesting potential.

ZeroGear
2019-10-16, 06:55 PM
I really like the breakdown of how things could be and agree with you on pretty much all the points... under ideal circumstances.
I hope you’ll forgive me for this, however the situation you laid out seems like it’s too good to be true, mainly because it ignores three basic concepts: Paranoia, Faith, and Greed.

Paranoia:
Humans are a species that is governed by their fears, always cautious against what is different to them. Over the years, what we fear has shifted as the knowledge we have has changed, however one of the primal fears we still hold onto is the Fear of the Unknown.
Wouldn’t this influence how civilizations would handle Magic?

Faith:
Much like fear, humans are shaped by what they are willing to believe in, and this has always been the foundation of Faith. Even our modern scientific knowledge is grounded in the idea that we believe the world works the way it does because we have faith that the Laws of Science are true.
And in even the most generic fantasy setting, odds are that churches would shape how the populace views both technology and Magic.

Greed:
Like it or not, greed rules everyone. Those that are in power always vie to stay in power, and there are always others that wish to overthrow them. And this that wish to stay in power will always hoard the best stuff for themselves, and try to enforce laws that makes them come out on top every time. This would most assuredly impact how widespread certain Magic’s become.

Droid Tony
2019-10-17, 04:12 PM
Paranoia:
Humans are a species that is governed by their fears, always cautious against what is different to them. Over the years, what we fear has shifted as the knowledge we have has changed, however one of the primal fears we still hold onto is the Fear of the Unknown.
Wouldn’t this influence how civilizations would handle Magic?

Well, magic is not an unknown in this world. It has been a part of life from day one. This world has a lot less to fear too. Simple spells and magic items provide light and protection, of a type we are just getting to in 2019. And on top of that healing, and even bring back the dead.






Faith:
Much like fear, humans are shaped by what they are willing to believe in, and this has always been the foundation of Faith. Even our modern scientific knowledge is grounded in the idea that we believe the world works the way it does because we have faith that the Laws of Science are true.
And in even the most generic fantasy setting, odds are that churches would shape how the populace views both technology and Magic.

Well, any type of society is possible. But with easy magic providing the basics of life and with no basic hardships of life.......faith is a LOT less likely to form and get followers. There is no need to ''belive in a better place" when you live in a better place.

In the big picture, sure any faith might form and be popular....just like on Earth.





Greed:
Like it or not, greed rules everyone. Those that are in power always vie to stay in power, and there are always others that wish to overthrow them. And this that wish to stay in power will always hoard the best stuff for themselves, and try to enforce laws that makes them come out on top every time. This would most assuredly impact how widespread certain Magic’s become.

Greed does NOT rule everyone. The only power is magic, the idea of power over others simply can't exist in this world.

Magic is wide spread: everyone with even average mental stats can do magic. So if someone wants power, they simply need to get more magic. There is really no power to get from people.

Anymage
2019-10-17, 07:55 PM
Well, any type of society is possible. But with easy magic providing the basics of life and with no basic hardships of life.......faith is a LOT less likely to form and get followers. There is no need to ''belive in a better place" when you live in a better place.

In the big picture, sure any faith might form and be popular....just like on Earth.

On the other hand, divine magic implies the nature of gods. Being able to summon outsiders implies the nature of celestial/infernal hierarchies. And being able to cast Plane Shift and literally visit afterlives will give simple answers to questions that have bedeviled real-life philosophers for ages.

Different magic systems will imply different things about reality. But D&D magic in particular carries a lot of metaphysical implications baked right in.


Greed does NOT rule everyone. The only power is magic, the idea of power over others simply can't exist in this world.

Magic is wide spread: everyone with even average mental stats can do magic. So if someone wants power, they simply need to get more magic. There is really no power to get from people.

Any time two beings come into conflict, whoever has more magic will have a huge edge. There will be cases where even god-tier casters will want conflicting things. (Think political parties, where even well-meaning individuals can have different ideas about what form of governance is best for society.) Reducing the number and power of other casters will mean fewer potential friction points.

Outright caster wars are unlikely, for mutually assured destruction reasons. But restricting access to more powerful magics is very likely to happen.

Mechalich
2019-10-17, 08:17 PM
Greed does NOT rule everyone. The only power is magic, the idea of power over others simply can't exist in this world.

Magic is wide spread: everyone with even average mental stats can do magic. So if someone wants power, they simply need to get more magic. There is really no power to get from people.

Since you seem to be describing a post-scarcity world via magic, it's more like 'greed is pointless.' Everything is available, and even if you don't have enough magic to produce it yourself, you can freely borrow an item, or a summoned being, or Simulacrum and they'll do it for you. There probably are nigh-omnipotent high-level uber-god-casters running around the setting but keeping 'the masses' happy requires such a minimal expenditure of effort on their part that it easy for them to just do that.

Now, honestly, post-scarcity is uninteresting as an RPG setting (its very interesting if you're reading the works of Iain M. Banks, but that's a different story), because there's nothing for your characters to do that will ever be important. So you probably don't want a magical, technological, or magitech scenario that allows for post-scarcity, or even just plentiful abundance, to occur. Greed is a primary motivator for player characters and their NPC enemies so its good to have it available.

ZeroGear
2019-10-18, 02:02 AM
Greed does NOT rule everyone. The only power is magic, the idea of power over others simply can't exist in this world.

Magic is wide spread: everyone with even average mental stats can do magic. So if someone wants power, they simply need to get more magic. There is really no power to get from people.

Even if I agreed with all your other points, I STRONGLY disagree with this one.
Even without magic, humanity is motivated by greed on the most fundamental level, because pretty much every emotion we feel can be linked back to the desire to want something.
More to the point, humanity (and I'm going to say this includes all potentially intelligent races for simplicity's sake) are a living paradox: we wish for peace, but search out conflict. It is in our very nature to compete in one form or another, to prove that we are superior in one way or another. And while your view is ideal and utopian, it is also exceedingly naive because in the end there will always be someone that wants to stand above everyone else. (Though while it would be interesting to discuss this further, it's kinda drifting away from the main topic).



Well, magic is not an unknown in this world. It has been a part of life from day one. This world has a lot less to fear too. Simple spells and magic items provide light and protection, of a type we are just getting to in 2019. And on top of that healing, and even bring back the dead.


That isn't the only paranoia that one needs to worry about. As with what I said about Greed, humanity is also paradoxically very inclusive and very exclusive at the same time. We've always found ways to categorize ourselves and others, and fear mongering is a longstanding method of enforcing behavior within one's community. Be it fear of the law or fear of outsiders, people will always band together against things they mutually dislike and don't understand. So imagine how a community would treat those that are able to cast magic compared to those that cannot.
That is to say nothing of other sapient races (which I'm also putting under the label of 'humanity' because it makes things simpler).

One other point I'd like to bring up about your initial post:
The main future you laid out seems to assume that magic is pretty common and 50% of the world are casters in one form or another.
It's worth pointing out that in most classic forms of fantasy, magic is known to the world, however it seems to be more along the lines of 10% or less of the population, at least for those born with magical talent. There also seems to be a bit of a divide between those that chan use magic through study, and those that are born able to cast spells from birth. How would this nuance change the development of this world?

Droid Tony
2019-10-18, 03:55 AM
Even if I agreed with all your other points, I STRONGLY disagree with this one.
Even without magic, humanity is motivated by greed on the most fundamental level, because pretty much every emotion we feel can be linked back to the desire to want something.

Greed is not a universal human thing: just look at all the societies with no greed(or money or concept of value).

Sure the media does focus on greed and shines a spotlight on greed, so if you watch the media it will look like greed is everywhere. This is a classic case of Spotlighting it, of course. They point out the pockets of greed, ignore the tons and tons and tons of places with no greed, and then say Greed is Everywhere. It's like if you were to go around a world and visit 100 greedy dragons....and go nowhere else....you'd say ''everyone on this world is full of greed".

Plenty of people have no need for greed. They want other things: Personal happiness, a family, good freinds, and such. The things money (and greed) can't buy. Now sure, saddly, in 2019 money is important...and you must have it. And sure, the world is full of greedy people who want it all. Though it is also full of people who only would want a little money, just enough to live on, and that is it.

Say one of the super rich folks offered a blank check to a winner of a contest for as much money as they wanted. Now, sure, there are super crazy greedy people who would want 'it all: a zillion dollars!' But not everyone. Plenty of people would be more then happy with say a single milion dollars: enough to pay off their home, all their debt, put the kids through school, and retire on.



More to the point, humanity (and I'm going to say this includes all potentially intelligent races for simplicity's sake) are a living paradox: we wish for peace, but search out conflict. It is in our very nature to compete in one form or another, to prove that we are superior in one way or another. And while your view is ideal and utopian, it is also exceedingly naive because in the end there will always be someone that wants to stand above everyone else. (Though while it would be interesting to discuss this further, it's kinda drifting away from the main topic).

The normal folks don't search for conflict...that is done by leaders and other things. Competetion is fine, it's great and IS a unversial human thing: but it's not a bad thing in the right society.

And in my world the way to stand above others is to have new/better magic.




That isn't the only paranoia that one needs to worry about. As with what I said about Greed, humanity is also paradoxically very inclusive and very exclusive at the same time. We've always found ways to categorize ourselves and others, and fear mongering is a longstanding method of enforcing behavior within one's community. Be it fear of the law or fear of outsiders, people will always band together against things they mutually dislike and don't understand. So imagine how a community would treat those that are able to cast magic compared to those that cannot.

Well, even by the time frame I stopped at, 6,000 or so years ago by Earth time, there would be few non spellcasters.

While a good half of people are dumb, foolish and uncrasimatic and can't be spellcasters...they can use magic items. And one of the most popular magic items would be to increase a persons mental stats. So there would be a flood of items that can make anyone a spellcaster.

Though, sure, there would be groups and factions and such. Same as Earth.



One other point I'd like to bring up about your initial post:
The main future you laid out seems to assume that magic is pretty common and 50% of the world are casters in one form or another.
It's worth pointing out that in most classic forms of fantasy, magic is known to the world, however it seems to be more along the lines of 10% or less of the population, at least for those born with magical talent. There also seems to be a bit of a divide between those that chan use magic through study, and those that are born able to cast spells from birth. How would this nuance change the development of this world?

Most fantasy does this to avoid the above problem. Most fantasy keeps magic very rare for one simple reason: they want a world just like Earth in the past. The author wants to tell a story about a point in Earths past with a dash of magic.

D&D/PF are bulit on the ieda that the world in the rulebooks comes after a huge magic apocalypse: it's why the world is full of monsters, dungeons and magic item loot.

And if you back up the use of magic to like 10% of the people, then that ends the disscusion as there is not enough magic in the world to have any effect on the world other then the classic ways. If magic is rare you won't ever mass produce it, for example.

Magic is all or nothing...a lot like technology. You have an Unseen Servant that does all your domestic housework....or you don't. The same way you have a refregerator...or you don't.

As everyone uses the same magic, being born with magic blood does not make much of a diffrance: everyone uses the same spells. Magic blood people do get some perks, so you might see them being 'royalty' or 'rock stars'. It would likey be a classic blood split between magic users. As magic blood people have lots of charisma, they would also likely be famous or in power.

Anymage
2019-10-18, 08:20 AM
Greed is not a universal human thing: just look at all the societies with no greed(or money or concept of value).

Have any examples of these cultures? The only societies I can think of that don't have money are ones that haven't advanced past barter, while greed and warfare go beyond human universals to cover a lot of nonhuman species as well.


Say one of the super rich folks offered a blank check to a winner of a contest for as much money as they wanted. Now, sure, there are super crazy greedy people who would want 'it all: a zillion dollars!' But not everyone. Plenty of people would be more then happy with say a single milion dollars: enough to pay off their home, all their debt, put the kids through school, and retire on.

That's just because most people really suck at big numbers. Instinctively a lot of people think that a million and a billion are kind of close, when in fact the former is one tenth of one percent of the latter. If they could see them written out as $1,000,000 vs. $1,000,000,000 I don't think you'd find many people who'd pick the first.


Magic is all or nothing...a lot like technology. You have an Unseen Servant that does all your domestic housework....or you don't. The same way you have a refregerator...or you don't.

Either you have a car or you don't. All cars are equally effective and reliable. Similarly, either you have a computer or you don't. All computers have the exact same speed and amount of processing power.

Max_Killjoy
2019-10-18, 09:29 AM
Don't try to paint all wants, needs, or desires as "greed".

It grossly misrepresents a lot of human needs and emotions, and/or dilutes the word "greed" to meaninglessness.

ZeroGear
2019-10-18, 10:37 AM
Greed is not a universal human thing: just look at all the societies with no greed(or money or concept of value).

Sure the media does focus on greed and shines a spotlight on greed, so if you watch the media it will look like greed is everywhere. This is a classic case of Spotlighting it, of course. They point out the pockets of greed, ignore the tons and tons and tons of places with no greed, and then say Greed is Everywhere. It's like if you were to go around a world and visit 100 greedy dragons....and go nowhere else....you'd say ''everyone on this world is full of greed".

Plenty of people have no need for greed. They want other things: Personal happiness, a family, good freinds, and such. The things money (and greed) can't buy. Now sure, saddly, in 2019 money is important...and you must have it. And sure, the world is full of greedy people who want it all. Though it is also full of people who only would want a little money, just enough to live on, and that is it.

Say one of the super rich folks offered a blank check to a winner of a contest for as much money as they wanted. Now, sure, there are super crazy greedy people who would want 'it all: a zillion dollars!' But not everyone. Plenty of people would be more then happy with say a single milion dollars: enough to pay off their home, all their debt, put the kids through school, and retire on.


That is 100% false. Greed is more than just money, it's anything of value. Holding onto a piece of land, ones wives, one's status, and one's livestock is form of desire. Wanting more than you have is a form of greed.



The normal folks don't search for conflict...that is done by leaders and other things. Competetion is fine, it's great and IS a unversial human thing: but it's not a bad thing in the right society.

And in my world the way to stand above others is to have new/better magic.

One person is all it takes. And if that person stands above others, they want to stay there. You essentially contradicted your own point.



Well, even by the time frame I stopped at, 6,000 or so years ago by Earth time, there would be few non spellcasters.

While a good half of people are dumb, foolish and uncrasimatic and can't be spellcasters...they can use magic items. And one of the most popular magic items would be to increase a persons mental stats. So there would be a flood of items that can make anyone a spellcaster. Though, sure, there would be groups and factions and such. Same as Earth.

Most fantasy does this to avoid the above problem. Most fantasy keeps magic very rare for one simple reason: they want a world just like Earth in the past. The author wants to tell a story about a point in Earths past with a dash of magic.

D&D/PF are bulit on the ieda that the world in the rulebooks comes after a huge magic apocalypse: it's why the world is full of monsters, dungeons and magic item loot.

And if you back up the use of magic to like 10% of the people, then that ends the disscusion as there is not enough magic in the world to have any effect on the world other then the classic ways. If magic is rare you won't ever mass produce it, for example.

Magic is all or nothing...a lot like technology. You have an Unseen Servant that does all your domestic housework....or you don't. The same way you have a refregerator...or you don't.

As everyone uses the same magic, being born with magic blood does not make much of a diffrance: everyone uses the same spells. Magic blood people do get some perks, so you might see them being 'royalty' or 'rock stars'. It would likey be a classic blood split between magic users. As magic blood people have lots of charisma, they would also likely be famous or in power..

Then why isn't everyone on our planet a redhead?
For simplicity's sake, let's assume inborn talent is a recessive gene. Sure, intelligent people can learn magic, but it takes a lot of time and effort. Those with in born talent would have an edge in this department, making a significant difference. It's like athletes in a lot of cases: everyone can learn to do any sport, but someone with a larger build is going to have an edge in wrestling while someone with a more streamlined figure will be better at swimming, assuming talent is equal.
The other thing is that dumb people don't like feeling that they are dumb, and will use any justification to make themselves feel better. There is a reason witch hunts were a thing beyond the doctrine and power structure.



Don't try to paint all wants, needs, or desires as "greed".

It grossly misrepresents a lot of human needs and emotions, and/or dilutes the word "greed" to meaninglessness.

Greed is a form of all desires, but not al desires are a form of greed. To be clear about this, "Greed" is the excess of a desire, not the desire itself. You can be greedy for love, wealth, companionship, knowledge, or anything else imaginable, but it's only considered "greed" if it goes beyond a natural want into an obsession.

Droid Tony
2019-10-18, 08:08 PM
That is 100% false. Greed is more than just money, it's anything of value. Holding onto a piece of land, ones wives, one's status, and one's livestock is form of desire. Wanting more than you have is a form of greed.

Remember my example world also does not have the concept of value.




One person is all it takes. And if that person stands above others, they want to stay there. You essentially contradicted your own point.

I'm saying more that it does not matter.



Then why isn't everyone on our planet a redhead?
For simplicity's sake, let's assume inborn talent is a recessive gene. Sure, intelligent people can learn magic, but it takes a lot of time and effort. Those with in born talent would have an edge in this department, making a significant difference. It's like athletes in a lot of cases: everyone can learn to do any sport, but someone with a larger build is going to have an edge in wrestling while someone with a more streamlined figure will be better at swimming, assuming talent is equal.
The other thing is that dumb people don't like feeling that they are dumb, and will use any justification to make themselves feel better. There is a reason witch hunts were a thing beyond the doctrine and power structure.

Well, your going down the reality rules route that I mentioned before. My world goes by the reality rules I set out before...you can't simply alter reality now.

Yes, at least half the world will be people that are simply Magic Users. They are stright up simply casting spells that other people have made. And drive, talent, concentration, skill, and a lot of other things will make people of all types.

Well, likely anyone born dumb would get an intelligence boosting item for a present before they became an adult. Most parents would do that.



Greed is a form of all desires, but not al desires are a form of greed. To be clear about this, "Greed" is the excess of a desire, not the desire itself. You can be greedy for love, wealth, companionship, knowledge, or anything else imaginable, but it's only considered "greed" if it goes beyond a natural want into an obsession.

It seems a bit of a wide net to say all desire or want is greed. I think greed is only once you go past the norm. To just want something is not greed.

New idea: So I thought about the whole people not likeing those not like them. Consider this: With polymorph, illusions and possession anyone can be anything. Say Sam the halfling walks into a human town and everyone makes fun of him for being so short. So Sam leaves town, polymorphs into a tall human and comes back into town. In fact, you'd rarely meet a natural person as everyone will change all sorts of things about themselves.

And this brings up the crazy question of 'what is someone'. Say Zon the elf lives as an elf for 100 years, then he posseses the body of a dwarf and lives as a dwarf for 50 years. So is Zon and elf still, or a dwarf? What if Zon possesses a new body every 50 years, so after 500 years he has 'been' a lot of races. Is he still and elf? What is he?

ZeroGear
2019-10-18, 10:31 PM
Well, your going down the reality rules route that I mentioned before. My world goes by the reality rules I set out before...you can't simply alter reality now.


Ok, fullstop and backtrack.
I didn't alter the rules at all. In fact, I laid out all the baseline assumptions in my first post:
-The world has magic and a multitude of varied races.
-For the sake of simplicity all races have similar lifespans to humans and develop varied cultures, with possible one or two long-lived exceptions that tend to isolate themselves.
-In the early days mortals found a primitive way to access magic.
-The learning process was slow and not a lot of individuals had access to it.
-As society became more complex magic changed along with it.
-Technology developed in this world somewhat similarly to how it developed in our world.

I specifically set these rules as a baseline for the world so we could flesh it out in a discussion of how we would go from there. We are not talking about the world as you want it to be, we're talking about the world how it would most likely develop following these base points. And I point to both "races have varied cultures" and "Technology developed somewhat similar to how it did in our world" as important points, because a number of our technologies (and I am including concepts such as agriculture, blacksmithing, and construction work as forms of technology) were either used slave labor, indentured servitude, or were created to support a war.
I just wanted to make this point clear before we go any further down this side track.

Mechalich
2019-10-18, 10:57 PM
Ok, fullstop and backtrack.
I didn't alter the rules at all. In fact, I laid out all the baseline assumptions in my first post:
-The world has magic and a multitude of varied races.
-For the sake of simplicity all races have similar lifespans to humans and develop varied cultures, with possible one or two long-lived exceptions that tend to isolate themselves.
-In the early days mortals found a primitive way to access magic.
-The learning process was slow and not a lot of individuals had access to it.
-As society became more complex magic changed along with it.
-Technology developed in this world somewhat similarly to how it developed in our world.

Since these assumptions don't tell us anything about what the magic is capable of doing, or the requirements to perform it, or any trade-offs that might be involved in use, there is no discussion to have.

For example, a very important point is whether the magic is both strong enough, abundant enough, and industrial enough to potentially trigger a magitech feedback-loop based singularity where the world has a hard or soft takeoff from some point in development to the magitech post-scarcity utopia. 3.X D&D magic has all these features and accomplishes this probably around the 'Classical Antiquity' level of development when the resources to allow widespread literacy come into play and overcome the arcane magic bottleneck. Exalted 'magic' (actually a combination of a variety of powers of dubious specificity) also has all these features and the Solars rang in their largely post-scarcity First Age simply after enough time had passed for a plurality of the group to reach the zenith of their power. By contrast the magic available in The First Law is not any of these things (well it's powerful enough, if you're willing to invoke mass suffering) and is gradually being abandoned in the face of industry that it broadly only served to hold back.

There's also the question of whether or not magic is tied to any particular aware entities that may exercise control over its deployment. D&D divine magic is dependent upon the permissiveness of deities, but mediated magic can range from the vastly impersonal - The Force in Star Wars - to the philosophical - Radiants in Stormlight Archive have to forge oaths between manifested ideals - to being derived from living beings - in the Draconis Memoria 'magic' is acquired by consuming drake blood, something the drakes take exception to.

One thing I can say is that, in a world with a multitude of varied 'races,' if a magitech feedback loop can be triggered, the first one to trigger it wins, and gets to decide what happens to all the others. The history of Dark Sun is kind of an example of how this plays out, just with a significant cost added that causes the process to stall out.

ZeroGear
2019-10-19, 10:13 AM
Since these assumptions don't tell us anything about what the magic is capable of doing, or the requirements to perform it, or any trade-offs that might be involved in use, there is no discussion to have.


To quote pretty much every math teacher in middle school: "Show your work".
The problem I see here is that you're jumping right to the end and not looking at the accomplishments between starting point (A) and post scarcity point (Z).
There is a lot of discussion to be had about this, particularly because of how industry worked in our world. Think about it, a number of world powers are at a point where one can just go to the supermarket and buy pre-prepared food, then bring it home and kook it over a metal plate that is heated by harnessed lightning, able to talk over vast distances on devices the fir in our pockets, and fly in the skies in vehicles the size of buildings going hundreds of miles per hour. And those are things we've accomplished by using the rules of the world that exist.
And yet, look back and think of how we got there:
Two bicycle makers decided to make a frame of wood and cloth and leap off a hill in their home town. Later someone added a propeller and and engine, and built a frame to support it. After that someone found that you could use a combustion engine to replace the propeller and reach speeds unheard of before. There are many steps in-between that are interesting to talk about.

In short, I wanted a discussion about the journey, not just the destination.

Jay R
2019-10-19, 10:56 AM
Another point worth considering. These discussions usually assume modern physics and other science apply unless overridden by magic. There is no reason for this to be true.

People question how the owlbear came into existence. The question carries the assumption that species cannot interbreed due to genetic incompatibility. But what if life is itself magic?

My usual assumption is that things look like they do to us, but that medieval or classical explanatiuons for them might be true. In my world, phlogiston theory is true. Among other things, this allows cold to be a positive force, which modern physics does not.

I once included the following in the introduction to my game:

A warning about meta-knowledge. In a game in which stone gargoyles can fly and people can cast magic spells, modern rules of physics and chemistry simply don’t apply. There aren’t 92 natural elements, lightning is not caused by an imbalance of electrical potential, and stars are not gigantic gaseous bodies undergoing nuclear fusion. Cute stunts involving clever use of the laws of thermodynamics simply won’t work. Note that cute stunts involving the gross effects thereof very likely will work. Roll a stone down a mountain, and you could cause an avalanche. But in a world with teleportation, levitation, and fireball spells, Newton’s three laws of motion do not apply, and energy and momentum are not conserved. Accordingly, modern scientific meta-knowledge will do you more harm than good. On the other hand, knowledge of Aristotle, Ptolemy, medieval alchemy, or medieval and classical legends might be useful occasionally.

In this world, the earth was the center of the universe, and the planets (including the sun and moon, but not Earth) circled around it, as Ptolemy described.

How does this affect the current topic? Well, technology, like the scientific method, implies repeatable phenomena. A world with gods and demons may not have this.

For instance, consider mass-producing magic items. Technology assumes that the process for doing so is always the same. But if, for instance, the mage must always be adjusting for the flows of magic in the world, then the process cannot be automated. Perhaps a first step is building a laboratory surrounded by an anti-magic field so that the process won't be disrupted and continually fixed by random magic. This allows one mage at one time to have learned to do it, and perhaps mass-produced some item you want very common in your game, without suddenly arming the world with +5 armor and Dancing swords.

You could have a single ancient order of knighthood armed with Brilliant weapons without making them easy to produce for everyone.

And of course, if you wanted it to go that way, discovery of that long-lost lab would make it possible for the party – and nobody else – to mass produce magic items.

Or perhaps the quest is to stop the powerful wizard who is mass-producing them, so as you get close, once she learns who the PCs are, they are facing the perfect weapons against them.

Or just an army of kobolds with an infinite supply of magic arrows.

While you're changing your magic system to allow technological advances, don't forget to consider options to change technology to modify what is possible.

Droid Tony
2019-10-19, 08:59 PM
Have any examples of these cultures? The only societies I can think of that don't have money are ones that haven't advanced past barter, while greed and warfare go beyond human universals to cover a lot of nonhuman species as well.

Sure, but can't give examples here as they are from the real world.



Either you have a car or you don't. All cars are equally effective and reliable. Similarly, either you have a computer or you don't. All computers have the exact same speed and amount of processing power.

Again, this is true.


Ok, fullstop and backtrack.
I didn't alter the rules at all. In fact, I laid out all the baseline assumptions in my first post:
-The world has magic and a multitude of varied races.
-For the sake of simplicity all races have similar lifespans to humans and develop varied cultures, with possible one or two long-lived exceptions that tend to isolate themselves.
-In the early days mortals found a primitive way to access magic.
-The learning process was slow and not a lot of individuals had access to it.
-As society became more complex magic changed along with it.
-Technology developed in this world somewhat similarly to how it developed in our world.


So the only vague point you made about the soceity is the bold part. So I'm saying 50% of the people of all races can cast spells and use magic. You are oddly saying it's 10% or less. Well, ok maybe put that in your post something like: Magic is super rare like in a typical fictional story. Of course if magic is rare it woun't influence anything.

For magic to influence technology, magic must be common. If magic is uncommon or even rare, then it won't have any influence. A city of 100,000 with ten spellcasters won't ever have a magic factory.

ZeroGear
2019-10-19, 10:05 PM
So the only vague point you made about the soceity is the bold part. So I'm saying 50% of the people of all races can cast spells and use magic. You are oddly saying it's 10% or less. Well, ok maybe put that in your post something like: Magic is super rare like in a typical fictional story. Of course if magic is rare it woun't influence anything.

For magic to influence technology, magic must be common. If magic is uncommon or even rare, then it won't have any influence. A city of 100,000 with ten spellcasters won't ever have a magic factory.

I think we are getting some mixed signals here, because "not a lot of people had access to it" is not saying "10 out of 100,000 people".

Allow me to illustrate my point:
In our real-world history, we had a pandemic known as the Black Death. During the 5 year period that everyone points to (1347-1352), about 25 million people died. During that time the world population was estimated to be 75 million people.
During the six years of the second world war between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 70-85 million people died. However, the world population was an estimated 2.3 billion people.
This means that while there were far more casualties as a result of the second world war, the Black Death killed a far larger percentage of the world population (the BD's 33% compared to WWII measly 3-3.7%).

Keeping this in mind, "not a lot of people" would be closer to 1 out of 1000 or 1 out of 500 than 1 out of 10,000. Plus, that baseline could change as magic evolves. It could go up or down depending on both bloodline dependence or academic learning, depending on the society.

Allow me to give one possible route of how things could progress:
Let's assume that society has advanced to the point where technology is similar to medieval Europe (let's say early Renaissance at the latest). Magic is a known part of the world, and is most commonly taught in academic universities or within the established churches, though druidic sects and secret covenants do exist. In this era, the majority of magic users are the nobility, as they are the only ones able to afford the expensive tomes, scrolls, and schoolings that are required to become a wizard, or they come from bloodlines with strong magical talents.
All of the sudden, someone develops the early version of a printing press.
While the adoption and creation of mass produced magical tomes is slow, mostly because the nobles being fearful of losing their power to the "unwashed masses", a number of the merchant class begin learning how to become casters and improve their livelihood. Now everyone has the talent to be a caster, so the majority of the population still relies on traditional work, however the number of craftsmen that can produce magical items starts slowly increasing.
As time passes, the emerging middle class gains more access to minor magical items, such as light stones or overturning coals, and houses begin incorporating such items into their designs. Unfortunately, there is an increase of house fires because at this point the dangers of having an overturning coal in an unguarded fire pit or fireplace cove isn't as well known, so precautions and safety regulations are slowly introduced as the populace becomes more familiar with such magical gadgets.

This is a small example of something that could happen, and hopefully we could discuss similar events after this point.

Mechalich
2019-10-19, 11:18 PM
For magic to influence technology, magic must be common. If magic is uncommon or even rare, then it won't have any influence. A city of 100,000 with ten spellcasters won't ever have a magic factory.

Well, that actually depends on the magic system. In Exalted a city with just one Solar could set up a 'factory-cathedral' that completely ordinary people could run and it could churn out magical gear nearly endlessly. In 3.X D&D a highly-optimized 20th level wizard can produce effectively limitless extraplanar or undead servitors and drastically remake the industrial base of a society - as in the case of a necropunk scenario where all labor is conducted by zombies.


Allow me to give one possible route of how things could progress:
Let's assume that society has advanced to the point where technology is similar to medieval Europe (let's say early Renaissance at the latest). Magic is a known part of the world, and is most commonly taught in academic universities or within the established churches, though druidic sects and secret covenants do exist. In this era, the majority of magic users are the nobility, as they are the only ones able to afford the expensive tomes, scrolls, and schoolings that are required to become a wizard, or they come from bloodlines with strong magical talents.

Is the magic of the druidic sects, the churches, and the mystery cults also governed by the reliance on literary materials in the same way as wizardry? if not, your example completely falls apart. If so, why is this so and how are the different forms different?


All of the sudden, someone develops the early version of a printing press.

Did block printing not previously exist for some weird reason? Woodblocks were used in printing at least as early as Han Dynasty China and were used extensively in some areas and for certain documents and remained in use in a number of countries for centuries after the printing press was introduced in languages (such as Chinese) with very large character sets.


While the adoption and creation of mass produced magical tomes is slow, mostly because the nobles being fearful of losing their power to the "unwashed masses", a number of the merchant class begin learning how to become casters and improve their livelihood. Now everyone has the talent to be a caster, so the majority of the population still relies on traditional work, however the number of craftsmen that can produce magical items starts slowly increasing.
As time passes, the emerging middle class gains more access to minor magical items, such as light stones or overturning coals, and houses begin incorporating such items into their designs. Unfortunately, there is an increase of house fires because at this point the dangers of having an overturning coal in an unguarded fire pit or fireplace cove isn't as well known, so precautions and safety regulations are slowly introduced as the populace becomes more familiar with such magical gadgets.

You are describing one scenario for a soft takeoff towards a highly advanced magitech world, one that may take several generations. Such a scenario involves a form of industrial revolution, just using magic, and is drastically unstable over both the short and medium term. Predicting such consequences, even in a case where you know exactly what magic is capable of accomplishing, and are projecting it across a specific fantasy world with detailed cultural, economic, and political structures, is incredibly difficult. And before you ask me to 'show my work' again, understand that to do so would involve writing a novel length work.

Anonymouswizard
2019-10-20, 03:06 PM
Fullmetal Alchemist might be a place to look for inspiration re. non singularity magical societies. Due to the capabilities and limitations of alchemy things more directly related to it (such as the physical sciences, and to a lesser extent the biological sciences) are more advanced than the 'equivalent' era in our world, but things such as psychology seem to be somewhat lacking. Alchemists are also presented as a weird hybrif of mystics and scoentists, as alchemy is based on the chemical elements*, research is generally conducted in teams (people like the Elrics and Shou Tucker seem to be a bit of an exception), but research is also coded to stop rival alchemists from attaining your power.

Alchemists are also integrated into the world and economy as a profession, with most alchemists being a mixture of scientists and handymen (with characters like Isumi favouring the latter, while Ed, Al, and thei Father favour the former), and State Alchemists being divided into the researchers (such as Marco and Tucker), the soldiers (such as Mustang and Armstrong), with the role Ed serves being a bit less clear (he seems to be used as a mixture between a researcher and a detective, and is clearly being groomed to become a soldier).

Alchemy is also very complicated and not something everybody can learn, in chapter 3 a character states that they know a little bit about alchemy but gave it up due to not having the talent while Ed, Al, and Hohenheim seem to be naturals. But it's closer to having the talent for the guitar than 'you're either born an alchemist or you're not', I don't think there's any implication that say Huges or Winry can't learn alchemy just that they don't want to. (It is a little more complicated, but not in ways that matter to this discussion.)

Note that compared to D&D magic Alchemy in FMA is less versatile but lacks time-related limitations. Alchemy is mostly limited to changing the shape, state, or structure of physical objects, including living organisms, requires a transmutation circle (most of the time), can't change the general properties of matter, and can't create matter from nothing.

Okay, it's a bit more complicated.

There are two ways to perform alchemy without drawing a circle. The most prevelant in the series is via using a philosopher's stone, which is the way the Homonculi use their abilities (you can see the telltale alchemy cracks when Envy is shapeshifting), which seems to simply remove the need for a circle. Possibly something to do with how the stones work, explained a little later on.

The second is 'clapping alchemy', performed by those who have been shown what lies beyond the Gate of Truth. Although going by the rules of the series it's not actually impossible for other alchemists to do it, they just need another way of learning the truth of the universe. But it works by the alchemist creating a symbolic transmutation circle with their body, and then holding the rest of the details in their heads. The important bit seems to be the symbolic circle though, as other alchemists are seen performinh a variety of transmutations with one circle, which means they're likely holding additional details in their head.

Additionally, as I said an alchemist can't create matter from nothing. This is because alchemy follows the law of equivalent exchange, or the law of conservation of mass as real world science understands it. But it's a bit more complicated, because mass is energy, and so somebody with a sufficiently large source of energy can transmute it into mass.

This is how the Philosopher's Stone, rumoured to allow one to ignore Equivalent Exchange, actually works. I won't go into how they're made, but the end result is a small object that acts as an incredibly powerful alchemical battery, allowing anybody to use alchemy without a circle even if they're not a properly trained alchemist, and allows an actual alchemist to conjure matter or energy from nothing. It seems like quite a few laws of alchemy are actually 'alchemy can't do X without sufficient energy, which you can't get with normal alchemical methods', and having a stone makes alchemist incredibly powerful due to the ability to conjure matter, affect larger quantities of matter, and perform alchemy at a distance. Which is the one big weakness of alchemy, you can carry pre-prepared circles but you can't transmute something that you can't touch (kind of, Mustang seems to be able to move oxygen around from quite far away). Unless you use alkasthery, which is a similar but different art descended from the same source.

Notably alchemists in FMA are relatively rare, but common enough to be in almost every major town and city. It seems to be something like one in a thousand or one in ten thousand, and although I haven't checked the actual statistics it's probably along the lines of 'the proportion of computer programmers in the world' instead of 'the number of dog owners int he world' or 'the number of aristocrats with Steve in their name'. Using the smaller figure there'd still be six thousand alchemists in modern day Britain, so while the proportion isn't big enough to change technology entirely or redirect it towards magic even a fraction of a percent of the population being magic users might change how technology develops and what the society focuses on.

* Mostly at least, in the first chapter one of the Elrics (it's unclear which) mentions there's ways to do it with the four classical elements and the 'three principles'.

Droid Tony
2019-10-20, 04:10 PM
This is a small example of something that could happen, and hopefully we could discuss similar events after this point.

Sounds like your saying at least 50% of the people in the world can do magic?

So are you saying you just want to say random ''what if" type things?

ZeroGear
2019-10-21, 08:59 AM
Is the magic of the druidic sects, the churches, and the mystery cults also governed by the reliance on literary materials in the same way as wizardry? if not, your example completely falls apart. If so, why is this so and how are the different forms different?


The short version is both yes and no. It’s reliant on knowing the rituals and understanding how the Magic flows, but these would focus more on a “hands on” form of learning than a magic institute.
The best way I could describe this is the difference between a sculptor and a painter: both are artists, and both require an intimate understanding of aesthetics, however a painter would have a stronger focus on color theory while a sculptor would focus more on texture.

The other part is that each would have a different expertise with their schools of Magic. Druids would probably teach magic that influences the weather, plant life, and animals, and have other classes related to herbology, animal husbandry, and hunting. The church, on the other hand, would be more included to teach spells that protect and heal, and have classes dedicated to history and scripture. Cults would likely focus on spells that a lot of people find “unsavory”, such as necromancy or some forms of illusion, and have dealings with the black market.



Did block printing not previously exist for some weird reason? Woodblocks were used in printing at least as early as Han Dynasty China and were used extensively in some areas and for certain documents and remained in use in a number of countries for centuries after the printing press was introduced in languages (such as Chinese) with very large character sets.

You bring up a valid point and are correct, I just kinda lumped them together under the same term because a) not everyone knows that the few printed books were made with etched metal tablets and b) it would take a lot of words to break everything down. Plus, as your pointed out, different cultures had different techniques, and I just decided to focus on one for an example.



You are describing one scenario for a soft takeoff towards a highly advanced magitech world, one that may take several generations. Such a scenario involves a form of industrial revolution, just using magic, and is drastically unstable over both the short and medium term. Predicting such consequences, even in a case where you know exactly what magic is capable of accomplishing, and are projecting it across a specific fantasy world with detailed cultural, economic, and political structures, is incredibly difficult. And before you ask me to 'show my work' again, understand that to do so would involve writing a novel length work.

I get that, and wouldn’t ask you to put yourself though that if you don’t want to. As with my example, you could just pull out one through line and then discuss the other consequences over multiple posts. I’d enjoy discussing such threads.


Sounds like your saying at least 50% of the people in the world can do magic?


How are you reaching that conclusion?
At best, maybe 25% of the world’s population, but most likely it would be closer to 20% or 15%.
After all, using magic and using a magic item are very different. It’s like the difference between being a programmer and being able to use a smartphone.

Droid Tony
2019-10-22, 04:06 AM
How are you reaching that conclusion?
At best, maybe 25% of the world’s population, but most likely it would be closer to 20% or 15%.
After all, using magic and using a magic item are very different. It’s like the difference between being a programmer and being able to use a smartphone.

That is my point, we need to all be on the same page before we can start talking about anything.

So are you saying magic use is common then? As common as programing is in our world? That is a lot of people.

Really you need write out the mini novel first.

ZeroGear
2019-10-22, 07:36 AM
That is my point, we need to all be on the same page before we can start talking about anything.

So are you saying magic use is common then? As common as programing is in our world? That is a lot of people.

Really you need write out the mini novel first.

The way I see it, and feel free to disagree, the world kinda breaks down like this by the equivalent of the “Edwardian” era:
There is a small subsection, maybe 2%, that don’t trust magic at all and refuse to have anything to do with it.
Then there are around 3% that just can’t afford Magic items.
The majority of people, around 65%, know how to and do use common magical items and are the middle-lower class, including servants that serve the wealthier individuals. Maybe about 10% of this group can cast up to 2nd level spells.
Then there are around 15% in the merchant class that can actually use some small amount of magic on a regular basis, possibly up to around 4th level spells.
Above that are nobles, which is about 14% of the population, who are able to use spells of up to 7th level in power. This group includes high ranking religious leaders.
Even further up you have the 1% that know how to cast Up to 8th level spells, and maybe one or two people in the entire world able to cast 9th level magic.

Then you step back and look at what magic items can and cannot be mass
Produced, and see that you can’t manufacture anything above 3rd level on a mass scale, and you have the basic breakdown of how things would breakdown in the next era.

I equate this with how people use tech on our world. Most people can use the UI of systems, far less can understand the basic tools to use it, even less can read code directly, and then there are the rare people that treat binary as a second language.