Is Technology Inherently Superior to Magic?

[Destro2119]

So recently I have been wondering about how magic and technological societies differ, in that one is typically constantly medieval and the other highly advanced over time, and I decided that it is because of the difference in magic and technology.

It seems to me that technology is superior in effectively every way to magic, from raising the quality of life to military power to overall societal advancement.

For example, we know that IRL technology can be industrialized on an incredible scale. I have yet to see magic becoming industrialized as even a possibility in any DnD system, let alone setting. Plus, the fact that crafting feats or abilities are required leads me to conclude that it is simply impossible to industrialize magic. Tech 1, Magic 0.

Another is the accessibility of magic vs. tech. Magic requires magical aptitude in at least a 10 or 11 in a mental stat to become a magewright or a wizard. Meanwhile, even a 9 int or even 7 int commoner can study in a university for some years and get the training to become a engineer or a scientist of particle physics. Plus, it takes a DC 20 UMD check to use a wand, while even babies can use iPads. Tech 2, Magic 0.

The military might of technology vs magic is also considerable. It takes 5 levels for a wizard to hurl a ****ty easy save fireball and he can only do it once per day. Meanwhile, mortars and tanks have shells manufactured by the millions (industry for the win again!) and can easily destroy some bearded fool in bathrobes from miles away. Plus, nukes can destroy cities, which is not even something any spell can even do. I am pretty sure Eberron would lose vs 1930s earth, and even the Tippyverse would be easily conquered by Modern earth. Tech 3, Magic 0.

One of the most important points is the overall advancement of society. A purely technological society, as demonstrated by Stellaris and multiple other sources, has the potential to grow and develop over time into an incredibly advanced society that benefits everyone, from the humblest agri-worker to the Presidents, as proven by the Khen-Zai for an in universe example. Meanwhile, the average fantasy land or magical society has nothing but wizards in ivory towers lording it over dirt farming peasants doomed to toil in medieval savagery until the local star novas or something. An example being all of Forgotten Realms. Tech 4, Magic 0.

Finally, high technology realms are much safer than magic realms. The vast majority of magical realms, from Netheril to Azlant, collapse because of some magical apocalypse and never even get the chance to reach intergalactic levels. Meanwhile, the vast majority of technological realms such as Stellaris or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri reach intergalactic levels and usher in eras of peace and plenty. Tech 5, Magic 0.

Again, this is only my surface interpretation of tech's superiority to magic. If anybody wishes to offer arguments to the contrary, I would love to hear them.

[noob]

The typpyverse does not go as far in magic exploitation as infinite wish traps does.
The high end in magic is far remote from all that makes sense.
Yes overall a huge proportion of the high tech worlds are far preferable to live in and gives better quality of life to the global population relatively to magical worlds.
(the high tech worlds where it is bad to live in are usually intentionally grimdark or meant to be rpg universes like shadowrunner or warhammer 40k)

[Kayblis]

Ok, I'll bite. Are you really comparing 2020s tech to the baseline magic items in the DMG? And High Sci-fi space games to medieval D&D? While you're at it, why not compare how a spaceship is a better way to reach the moon than a common horse, if we're throwing all standards in the trash bin?

If you want an actual comparison, you need to look at how both achieve the same points, not how one fares with 1000~2000 years advantage while the other isn't allowed to grow. Using post-scarcity sci-fi in contrast to basic medieval magic is the farthest from an honest comparison you can get.

Let's talk your points. First, you require years and years of study to learn both, and only one is bound by physical laws like material supply and processing feasibility. A factory producing cars is not just the factory, it's a huuuuge supply chain that connects many different sectors to provide the materials, tools and labor for all the tasks needed to produce a car. A small magic center with a handful of magic men can produce stuff from thin air, such is the point of magic. This means that, given the same time and resources, magic organizes much much faster and isn't prone to falling apart due to uncontrollable circumstances, like economic shifts.

Second, wands require an UMD check if you don't have the spell on your list. Welding tools require 2 years of training. That's a more fair comparison, as both are tools made for people that work in their field. Ipads require you to learn how to use it, which isn't hard for people born with it, but older people struggle - while Magic Items don't require anything to work, other than a command word, so they're actually easier to use. You can't compare apples to oranges and then complain that they're different.

Third, military. Modern tech is all about direct damage, while magic can make you immune to damage pretty easily, so a single wizard can take all modern weaponry to the face and laugh. This is a point you miss, maybe comparing modern mass-produced tech to baseline damage spells in the PHB might not be the best comparison. Also, you can make Spell Traps of damaging spells to shoot every round if you want, so there you go, infinitely repeating area damage without ammo limits. A single wizard can set up tons of those. You can also set up impenetrable defenses like Walls of Force, that completely negate any modern weaponry no questions asked. If direct damage doesn't solve an issue, modern military can't solve it. For the last point, Apocalypse From the Sky. Look it up.

Fourth, society. Sure, go ahead, give tech all the advancement they need and leave magic behind. In 2021 we still have world hunger as a huge, seemingly unsolvable issue. This is solved by magic with repeating Create Food/Water traps. So are all health issues we currently struggle with, as repeating Restoration/Healing spell traps solve them all. This is actually included in the Tippyverse, as it's one of the easy issues. Going with 'possible' post-scarcity high sci-fi alleviates this a bit, but at that point you're comparing cyborg apples to oranges, which is apparently the theme here.

For the final point, I guess you've never read one of the thousands of grim, apocalyptic future sci-fi works around. Stuff may go well, or it may go terribly badly. The dystopian future genre is actually much larger than the bright future one, as it's a more realistic and less naive to assume things won't develop in a perfect way when humans are involved. Not to mention your magical society can fall to a magical apocalypse just as well as your future socitety can fall to aliens. You don't really gain much in the end of the world scenarios.

[ezekielraiden]

Not really. Technology and magic both have advantages. Tech is generally reproducible so anyone can use it. But it relies on external energy sources, and struggles to overcome limitations like conservation of energy. Magic is usually restricted only to the few who can learn it, inherit it, receive it as a blessing, or bargain for it. But it needs no other energy source than itself, and the ability to research new spells means presumptively unlimited potential.

The Wheel of Time's Age of Legends (or late Second Age) is a demonstration of what a society with both high technology and high magic can be like--both for good and for ill. Want was pretty much eliminated, and wealth was trivial to generate, so the only interesting challenges became doing things for humanity. But it was also a deeply stratified society, which was completely comfortable manufacturing fully-sapient engineered beings to do labor for it (the Nym) or using what amounted to indentured servitude (the Aes Sedai and their use of Da'shain Aiel.) It's very possible that you could still end up in a society where there are social classes and incredibly rigid, unbending roles and norms, despite no one dying of preventable illness and crime being essentially unknown.

Alternatively, look at the Chozo from Metroid, especially Metroid Prime 1 and 2. The Chozo are (or were, before they ascended or whatever) a deeply spiritual people who learned how to tap into powers others would consider "magic," including clairvoyance, telepathy, and non-conserved energy sources. Yet they are(/were) also a highly advanced race technologically, who could integrate biological elements into their technology, while also having matter-energy transfer and spatial-modification technology. They're a people who have melded technology and magic into a holistic union, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

[Destro2119]

The typpyverse does not go as far in magic exploitation as infinite wish traps does.
The high end in magic is far remote from all that makes sense.
Yes overall a huge proportion of the high tech worlds are far preferable to live in and gives better quality of life to the global population relatively to magical worlds.
(the high tech worlds where it is bad to live in are usually intentionally grimdark or meant to be rpg universes like shadowrunner or warhammer 40k)

So you concede that magic is inferior to Tech? Also, I thought that Tippyverse was supposed to be high magic. Proving that tech is superior to magic?

[Destro2119]

Ok, I'll bite. Are you really comparing 2020s tech to the baseline magic items in the DMG? And High Sci-fi space games to medieval D&D? While you're at it, why not compare how a spaceship is a better way to reach the moon than a common horse, if we're throwing all standards in the trash bin?

If you want an actual comparison, you need to look at how both achieve the same points, not how one fares with 1000~2000 years advantage while the other isn't allowed to grow. Using post-scarcity sci-fi in contrast to basic medieval magic is the farthest from an honest comparison you can get.

Let's talk your points. First, you require years and years of study to learn both, and only one is bound by physical laws like material supply and processing feasibility. A factory producing cars is not just the factory, it's a huuuuge supply chain that connects many different sectors to provide the materials, tools and labor for all the tasks needed to produce a car. A small magic center with a handful of magic men can produce stuff from thin air, such is the point of magic. This means that, given the same time and resources, magic organizes much much faster and isn't prone to falling apart due to uncontrollable circumstances, like economic shifts.

Second, wands require an UMD check if you don't have the spell on your list. Welding tools require 2 years of training. That's a more fair comparison, as both are tools made for people that work in their field. Ipads require you to learn how to use it, which isn't hard for people born with it, but older people struggle - while Magic Items don't require anything to work, other than a command word, so they're actually easier to use. You can't compare apples to oranges and then complain that they're different.

Third, military. Modern tech is all about direct damage, while magic can make you immune to damage pretty easily, so a single wizard can take all modern weaponry to the face and laugh. This is a point you miss, maybe comparing modern mass-produced tech to baseline damage spells in the PHB might not be the best comparison. Also, you can make Spell Traps of damaging spells to shoot every round if you want, so there you go, infinitely repeating area damage without ammo limits. A single wizard can set up tons of those. You can also set up impenetrable defenses like Walls of Force, that completely negate any modern weaponry no questions asked. If direct damage doesn't solve an issue, modern military can't solve it. For the last point, Apocalypse From the Sky. Look it up.

Fourth, society. Sure, go ahead, give tech all the advancement they need and leave magic behind. In 2021 we still have world hunger as a huge, seemingly unsolvable issue. This is solved by magic with repeating Create Food/Water traps. So are all health issues we currently struggle with, as repeating Restoration/Healing spell traps solve them all. This is actually included in the Tippyverse, as it's one of the easy issues. Going with 'possible' post-scarcity high sci-fi alleviates this a bit, but at that point you're comparing cyborg apples to oranges, which is apparently the theme here.

For the final point, I guess you've never read one of the thousands of grim, apocalyptic future sci-fi works around. Stuff may go well, or it may go terribly badly. The dystopian future genre is actually much larger than the bright future one, as it's a more realistic and less naive to assume things won't develop in a perfect way when humans are involved. Not to mention your magical society can fall to a magical apocalypse just as well as your future socitety can fall to aliens. You don't really gain much in the end of the world scenarios.

Apocalypse from the Sky is inferior to nukes. Nukes should also kill an ethereal wizard because its forces disrupt molecules.

Ok, then what would an "equally advanced" magic society look like? Assume both the tech and magical society have 10000 years of advancement from stone age. I bet dollars to donuts that tech world is better place to live and could easily beat magic/fantasy world in a GATE style fight.

[Destro2119]

Not really. Technology and magic both have advantages. Tech is generally reproducible so anyone can use it. But it relies on external energy sources, and struggles to overcome limitations like conservation of energy. Magic is usually restricted only to the few who can learn it, inherit it, receive it as a blessing, or bargain for it. But it needs no other energy source than itself, and the ability to research new spells means presumptively unlimited potential.

The Wheel of Time's Age of Legends (or late Second Age) is a demonstration of what a society with both high technology and high magic can be like--both for good and for ill. Want was pretty much eliminated, and wealth was trivial to generate, so the only interesting challenges became doing things for humanity. But it was also a deeply stratified society, which was completely comfortable manufacturing fully-sapient engineered beings to do labor for it (the Nym) or using what amounted to indentured servitude (the Aes Sedai and their use of Da'shain Aiel.) It's very possible that you could still end up in a society where there are social classes and incredibly rigid, unbending roles and norms, despite no one dying of preventable illness and crime being essentially unknown.

Alternatively, look at the Chozo from Metroid, especially Metroid Prime 1 and 2. The Chozo are (or were, before they ascended or whatever) a deeply spiritual people who learned how to tap into powers others would consider "magic," including clairvoyance, telepathy, and non-conserved energy sources. Yet they are(/were) also a highly advanced race technologically, who could integrate biological elements into their technology, while also having matter-energy transfer and spatial-modification technology. They're a people who have melded technology and magic into a holistic union, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Well then 100000 AK-wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can still beat a magic world, just going from that.

EDIT: Just to clarify, we assume 3.P magic system and classes.

[Mephit]

So you concede that magic is inferior to Tech? Also, I thought that Tippyverse was supposed to be high magic. Proving that tech is superior to magic?

Tippyverse is an extrapolation of 3.5 rules per RAW. It's not a fictional, wholly-original imagination of what a high-magic society could be like.
It also explicitly excludes epic magic because it becomes way too reality-breaking to make any sense of it.

I think your thesis is too vague to actually engage, since what magic is or can be is not clearly defined.
In the context of RAW D&D, sure, real-life technology is superior, if only because most spells are for combat or at least conflict-related (be it social, stealth or some other form). The designers are not interested in providing a magic system that can lift society to a pseudo-industrial age, because the setting is supposed to be medieval.


For a high-magic concept that rivals sci-fi, look at the Ninth world from Numenera, where the distinction between technology and magic is vague because both can create otherworldy phenomena.

[noob]

So you concede that magic is inferior to Tech? Also, I thought that Tippyverse was supposed to be high magic. Proving that tech is superior to magic?

Magic is stronger if you use the op stuff like wish traps making wish traps making wish traps making ice assassins of deities.
But in terms of quality of life it is really bad for the common people because usually casters do not want to share their power or comfort with the common people.
So yes tech is superior to magic for the quality of life of the common people which is a really important thing(if not the most important).
But if all you care is about winning wars with armies that have 10^1000000 more teleporting soldiers than the opponent army have atoms then magic is better but most magical creatures for mysterious reasons do not use dnd magic to its fullest and take actively detrimental decisions for themselves.

[Kazyan]

Since fantasy magic is generally designed such that it can preserve a traditional fantasy setting, sure. Essentially, unless the author of any setting is trying to push the boat out pretty far, magic is immediately kneecapped by the fact that the authors are not making science fiction and specifically want the setting not to do any of the things you've described.

If magic were allowed to actually create prosperous societies, then you couldn't have a million dirt-poor farm boys for your Chosen One to hail from. You couldn't have adventures where you walk around on foot and fight a beholder with a sharp metal stick. If magic were allowed to be widely-accessible, then the reader wouldn't feel like the protagonist is special and unusual for learning magic, which lowers the appeal of those things. If magic were allowed to be an industrial powerhouse, then you couldn't have giant army battles where 1000 humans run at 1000 orcs with sharp metal sticks. If magic didn't have medieval stasis, then you couldn't go questing for the 10,000-year-old artifact of might from The Ancient Ones that is said to be powerful enough to slay the dark lord. And if magical worlds were safe, you couldn't get to fight bandits every day.

That's why authors aren't going to let any of that happen, and why high-tech worlds tend to be nicer in those respects. It's not that you couldn't design a magical world where everything is great, but rather, that is simply not what people usually read about magic for.

It also might be worth noting that in a pre-industrial society, our modern idea of "progress" is completely foreign, and people don't tend to improve their world relentlessly like we try to do today. The ancient Greeks had a working steam engine, and they didn't really do anything with it.

[Destro2119]

Since fantasy magic is generally designed such that it can preserve a traditional fantasy setting, sure. Essentially, unless the author of any setting is trying to push the boat out pretty far, magic is immediately kneecapped by the fact that the authors are not making science fiction and specifically want the setting not to do any of the things you've described.

If magic were allowed to actually create prosperous societies, then you couldn't have a million dirt-poor farm boys for your Chosen One to hail from. You couldn't have adventures where you walk around on foot and fight a beholder with a sharp metal stick. If magic were allowed to be widely-accessible, then the reader wouldn't feel like the protagonist is special and unusual for learning magic, which lowers the appeal of those things. If magic were allowed to be an industrial powerhouse, then you couldn't have giant army battles where 1000 humans run at 1000 orcs with sharp metal sticks. If magic didn't have medieval stasis, then you couldn't go questing for the 10,000-year-old artifact of might from The Ancient Ones that is said to be powerful enough to slay the dark lord. And if magical worlds were safe, you couldn't get to fight bandits every day.

That's why authors aren't going to let any of that happen, and why high-tech worlds tend to be nicer in those respects. It's not that you couldn't design a magical world where everything is great, but rather, that is simply not what people usually read about magic for.

It also might be worth noting that in a pre-industrial society, our modern idea of "progress" is completely foreign, and people don't tend to improve their world relentlessly like we try to do today. The ancient Greeks had a working steam engine, and they didn't really do anything with it.

So fantasy people are thus naturally inferior to even our medieval societies? Because its a misnomer to assume science was dead in "The Dark Ages" it was alive and well.

[Destro2119]

Tippyverse is an extrapolation of 3.5 rules per RAW. It's not a fictional, wholly-original imagination of what a high-magic society could be like.
It also explicitly excludes epic magic because it becomes way too reality-breaking to make any sense of it.

I think your thesis is too vague to actually engage, since what magic is or can be is not clearly defined.
In the context of RAW D&D, sure, real-life technology is superior, if only because most spells are for combat or at least conflict-related (be it social, stealth or some other form). The designers are not interested in providing a magic system that can lift society to a pseudo-industrial age, because the setting is supposed to be medieval.


For a high-magic concept that rivals sci-fi, look at the Ninth world from Numenera, where the distinction between technology and magic is vague because both can create otherworldy phenomena.

Well real life does not work by RAW so magic does not necessarily start from RAW either otherwise everyone would not be able to see from more than 100 ft away due to perception rules. What about now?

[Gnaeus]

Well then 100000 AK-wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can still beat a magic world, just going from that.

EDIT: Just to clarify, we assume 3.P magic system and classes.

100,000 AK wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can’t beat a single core only Wizard 20. They have no way to kill a wizard Astral Projecting from another plane. And he can pretty easily kill hundreds or thousands per day. When they start getting hit from fireballs launched by invisible caster, they’re gonna what? Spray bullets around in hopes of hitting something they can’t see? Nuke their own base? If they somehow “kill” him he pops back to his body and returns next day with better tailored spells.

If the wizard in question has a higher cheese quotient he can do that at level 11 with a planar bound nightmare.

They also can’t beat a single high level Druid. Control Weather: your base is in a hurricane forever. Aberration wildshape Dharculus. Sit on the ethereal plane in the middle of their base. Kill people hentai style whenever they are alone or asleep. Randomly summon high level monsters to go on murder sprees in command HQ tent or officers mess or the hanger. Yeah, they can kill a 112 hp, DR 15 noble salimander that just popped into a barracks full of sleeping dudes. But I bet they can’t do it before he casts his 3 fireballs. And there will be 2d3+3 more summoned in your base in the middle of the night every day. With Djinni and arrowhawks and earth gliding elementals backing them up. Every ammo dump gets its own fire elemental with orders to burn it all.

There are easily half a dozen nations in the FR alone that could kill 100,000 guys with AKs and jets. They might nuke Thaymount but Szass Tam doesn’t care what kind of mundane weapons you have. Without clerics, it’s just 100,000 shadows or wights. You ever see a zombie movie where military fights zombies? Now imagine if the zombies were intelligent, resistant to normal weapons, stealthy as hell, could see in total darkness, killed and transformed with a touch and were lead by an unkillable super-genius with artillery support. With like vampires and ghosts and other liches as sub officers. That’s not even being meta. Undead wave tactics are his listed strategy of choice. He’ll thank you for the invasion when all his wights have AKs. He also has a nation full of high level wizards who could do all the other stuff if he didn’t feel like pwning the aliens personally. Or if you split your troops or something.

I can keep going. Beguiler 18. Sneak into the base. Replace the top general or their secretary. Drop a couple dozen charms and dominates. Use your unbeatable bluff to explain to high command that the source of magic is in the underdark and all we need to do is send 50,000 men down that hole over there to secure it. Bye Felecia.

Until your “technology” advances to the point where you are genetically engineering high powered mutants and psychics (magic by another name) it isn’t even a contest.

But then it seems you are aware of that:



Yesterday 02:20 PM
Default Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
I have to agree that the PF wizard would win. First off, one man, especially a wizard, is very hard to find, unless (paraphrasing a previous poster) "he is a moron and the Chinese have superhuman skill."

Then you would just employ the standard wizard techniques til the Chinese army is dead.

BTW, remember, the thread is Wizard vs Chinese army on a fair playing field. Putting the wizard on Earth at all is a major aid to the Chinese

[Kazyan]

So fantasy people are thus naturally inferior to even our medieval societies? Because its a misnomer to assume science was dead in "The Dark Ages" it was alive and well.

Careful with your terminology ("X people are thus naturally inferior") there. But people IRL do tend to have a very dim view of the advancement of science in medieval societies, and when they write medieval fantasy, that perception becomes their fiction's reality.

[gijoemike]

Well then 100000 AK-wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can still beat a magic world, just going from that.

EDIT: Just to clarify, we assume 3.P magic system and classes.

I will see those 100,000 AK wielding troops with 1 use of command undead, a 1st level spell, used on a Shadow CR3. Those troops are in serious trouble. 1 shadow played normally will easily kill dozens if not hundreds. When backed with intelligent command from a cleric/wizard commanding 10,000 could be killed by 1. Imagine 3 or 5 shadows now.

Forget CR 3 shadows, move on to full on Ghosts. Now the undead is an intelligent in-wall walking assassin. What mundane non magic thing can hurt incorporeal undead coming up from the ground?

Frankly I find cheesing out incorporeal undead unfair for this exercise. Lets instead throw an invisible stalker at that same army. Lots of ppl start to die when they sleep. Nothing ever appears on the camera or heat sensors. This creature is a blob of air without distinct shape. It also has perfect fly so it doesn't need to get near dogs. A hovering death breeze forever under the effect of invisibility. Or imagine it attacks the 3rd rank of infantry. Now the army will just spray and pray causing 1000s of wounds/deaths from friendly fire.

What about a werewolf.
Does all 100,000 soldiers have silver bullets? Silver blades? An AK does 3d4 damage? A basic werewolf has 10/silver DR. And it has regen. I assume the soldiers would learn quickly and there would be snipers with silver bullets as support. Let's hope the werewolf doesn't get imp invis cast on it. If the rule set were 2e or 5e the werewolf would just kill everyone.

What about scry and fry tactics?
A group of wizard of moderate level would find the leadership of the invading army. Say start with generals and work down to lieutenants. It would be impossible to protect these people from the amount of hate that would just appear out of nowhere. Mundane defenses are built in layers. A single teleport without error bypasses all of it. One cannot lead an invasion or battle if every single person that can give orders is dead.

What about a bard and a few suggestions and charm persons later?
Now you have an entire spy network that can sabotage supply lines. Follow this up with a few dominates and now the army will be killing themselves.

Iron golem?
15/ adamantine DR. Those bullets cannot hurt it at all as golems cannot be crit. Bombs might hurt it. It has over 100 hp.


Those fighter jets cannot carpet bomb and nuke their own cities. What happens when anything mentioned above gets to a city. What about 10 of that thing in a city? What about a group of 10 of those things in 10 different cities? The point here is quality over quantity. A single lvl 15 wizard is easily worth 10,000 troops and magic worlds have horrible things that only magic can defeat.

[gijoemike]

I am not sure how this digressed into a war of magic vs fully mundane. That wasn't the point of the first post.

Destro2119: Your assumption mad in the first post specifically


For example, we know that IRL technology can be industrialized on an incredible scale. I have yet to see magic becoming industrialized as even a possibility in any DnD system, let alone setting. Plus, the fact that crafting feats or abilities are required leads me to conclude that it is simply impossible to industrialize magic. Tech 1, Magic 0.

Is flat wrong. Forgotten Realms is set after a great apocalypse around year 13XX. In the 600's there were magical mythals set in all the major cities that allowed everyone to do insane wondrous things. This included free dimension doors, free healing cuts broken bones, minor creation abilities, minor repair abilities, removal of disease, feather fall after 6 feet, magical lights everywhere, massive city wide defense systems, and much more. And all major cities had teleportation circles to other major cities. Travel was instant and safe. At this time there were magical floating sky cities and underwater paradises.

Then horrible war broke out some jack ass sucked up too much magic and the deities fell from the sky and everything went bottom up. Whole cities fell from the sky and other cities drowned.

But in a published & still supported D&D setting magic was wide spread and industrialized. But the setting and expectation of when the Players will play is set after all that.

[Destro2119]

100,000 AK wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can’t beat a single core only Wizard 20. They have no way to kill a wizard Astral Projecting from another plane. And he can pretty easily kill hundreds or thousands per day. When they start getting hit from fireballs launched by invisible caster, they’re gonna what? Spray bullets around in hopes of hitting something they can’t see? Nuke their own base? If they somehow “kill” him he pops back to his body and returns next day with better tailored spells.

If the wizard in question has a higher cheese quotient he can do that at level 11 with a planar bound nightmare.

They also can’t beat a single high level Druid. Control Weather: your base is in a hurricane forever. Aberration wildshape Dharculus. Sit on the ethereal plane in the middle of their base. Kill people hentai style whenever they are alone or asleep. Randomly summon high level monsters to go on murder sprees in command HQ tent or officers mess or the hanger. Yeah, they can kill a 112 hp, DR 15 noble salimander that just popped into a barracks full of sleeping dudes. But I bet they can’t do it before he casts his 3 fireballs. And there will be 2d3+3 more summoned in your base in the middle of the night every day. With Djinni and arrowhawks and earth gliding elementals backing them up. Every ammo dump gets its own fire elemental with orders to burn it all.

There are easily half a dozen nations in the FR alone that could kill 100,000 guys with AKs and jets. They might nuke Thaymount but Szass Tam doesn’t care what kind of mundane weapons you have. Without clerics, it’s just 100,000 shadows or wights. You ever see a zombie movie where military fights zombies? Now imagine if the zombies were intelligent, resistant to normal weapons, stealthy as hell, could see in total darkness, killed and transformed with a touch and were lead by an unkillable super-genius with artillery support. With like vampires and ghosts and other liches as sub officers. That’s not even being meta. Undead wave tactics are his listed strategy of choice. He’ll thank you for the invasion when all his wights have AKs. He also has a nation full of high level wizards who could do all the other stuff if he didn’t feel like pwning the aliens personally. Or if you split your troops or something.

I can keep going. Beguiler 18. Sneak into the base. Replace the top general or their secretary. Drop a couple dozen charms and dominates. Use your unbeatable bluff to explain to high command that the source of magic is in the underdark and all we need to do is send 50,000 men down that hole over there to secure it. Bye Felecia.

Until your “technology” advances to the point where you are genetically engineering high powered mutants and psychics (magic by another name) it isn’t even a contest.

But then it seems you are aware of that:

Now the discussion can truly begin :smallcool:

So to step away from militarywank, how would both societies advance in terms of quality of life? A lot of people I have seen say "wizards are selfish and will never help others," but under 3.P rules magic can technically be learned by anyone. I do think that certain objects are better for tech, like lightbulbs (until someone binds a lantern archon) but big stuff, like industrial tech and effects like FTL, etc are far better for magic.

How would you handle this?

PS: In 3.P, in the average fantasy world, it is absolute possible to mass-produce magic according to scientific principles. PM me for more info.

PPS: What class would you use instead of Beguiler if Beguiler were forbidden?

[Jazath]

Apocalypse from the Sky is inferior to nukes. Nukes should also kill an ethereal wizard because its forces disrupt molecules.

Ok, then what would an "equally advanced" magic society look like? Assume both the tech and magical society have 10000 years of advancement from stone age. I bet dollars to donuts that tech world is better place to live and could easily beat magic/fantasy world in a GATE style fight.

From what I can tell the power of magic can reach near unlimited levels. With nukes sure, they cover a whole lot of range and bring out a whole ton of damage. But you could reproduce a nukes effect with simple magic. Not only that a spell can be more controllable then tech assuming your high enough level, magic could even destroy planets with destructive energy, sap the life out of creatures, bring others back to life, can tech bring back people to life? No, It can't. So magic is more powerful than tech. What tech could do magic could do better.
Also, on that subject, no matter how high level you are when using tech, magic is still more potent than tech could ever be. Could you create a war fortress in thin air with tech? Even if you assume your using a replicator from a tv show, you still need OVERWHELMING power to create a large fortress. With magic you do some words and gestures and their you go. While your at it conjure armies from thin air and create magic weapons and you're ready for warfare.

Anyone can use tech, but only some can use magic.


A magic society would not, in my opinion, be "equally advanced" than technology. When a society advances it's either culturally or technologically increasing, all of what I think magical can progress just means that their are unique ways to apply its effects with runes, contingent spells, and permanency to create more efficient and controllable versions of modern appliances.

Why not combine magic and tech? Best of both worlds.

[Gnaeus]

I am not sure how this digressed into a war of magic vs fully mundane. That wasn't the point of the first post.

Destro2119: Your assumption mad in the first post specifically.

Well, first OP started comparing spells to nukes and then he started arguing about 100k guys with AKs being able to take a world with 3.pf magic, although we can see from his post yesterday that he is well aware that they can’t.

The war is more attractive to discuss than the society because even though it is still clear that 3.pf wins, it wins with tippyverse style tricks not commonly seen in play, or with non-rules style extrapolations. Like “fantasy world wins because its ruler has access to superhuman intelligence and wisdom” “what does that do?” “IDK no one has ever seen what a society with superhumanly smart rulers looks like”. Or “what if the the most creative people in the world became immortal?” “IDK, the worlds greatest artists and composers all died after a human lifespan”. Or the fact that magic items last forever make create stuff traps drive post scarcity societies at some point, because the investment creates an unending supply of goods. Which can be used to make more traps all creating resources.

[SquidFighter]

So fantasy people are thus naturally inferior to even our medieval societies? ...

I find it pretty funny to think of fictional things as having "natural" characteristics. I mean, fantasy people can only be as inferior to anything if you write them that way ...


Back on topic : While magic does not prevent technology, it does remove a lot of the need for it.

Take medicine, for example. Why would there be a need to develop medical sciences if there are eternal lasting magic items that can cure any and all (natural) diseases. You don't need a whole lot of them either, one per household maybe ?
Electricity is a good one, why figure out how to make electricity by all kinds of ways, when you can just call it out of thin air ? Or summon a creature made of it ?
In fact, why do you need electricity in the first place ? You can have eternal lasting light and heat with magic items.
Travel ? Planes and cars are cool inventions, but pale in comparison to magical flight or teleportation.

Now, you can go on about the plight of the less fortunate of those fantasy worlds, who maybe couldn't afford the magic. But to then declare technology to be better in that regards supposes that said technology is also available to our less fortunates, which I find highly debatable.

[Bugbear]

For example, we know that IRL technology can be industrialized on an incredible scale. I have yet to see magic becoming industrialized as even a possibility in any DnD system, let alone setting. Plus, the fact that crafting feats or abilities are required leads me to conclude that it is simply impossible to industrialize magic. Tech 1, Magic 0.

Well, first off you really should not just count what you read in books. If you want to say that most, if not all, RPG writers lack imagination: that would be fair enough. Though also that most RPG publishers want to only publish set specific things, and most are against the idea of 'magic tech'.

If we only stick to D&D settings. Spelljammer is close to industrial magic. And you have the Forgotten Realms. Neitheirl, for example, had mythellars and quasimagical items. A quasimagical item was an item that acted as a permanently activated magical item, provided that it remained within range of a mythallar. Quasimagical items were actually created with the common folk in mind, simple creations to assist in the everyday tasks of the middle class. The first such items to enter the markets were roomlights, tiny globes that lit up upon command. Magical provision of running water and plumbing came next. An elf living inside any ancient elven mythal had does of powers and spell effects that effected them daily.

And, I guess if you have to use a d20 system to represent rules....you'd be using d20 Modern, right? So characters living under such rules need crafting feats or abilities.



Another is the accessibility of magic vs. tech. Magic requires magical aptitude in at least a 10 or 11 in a mental stat to become a magewright or a wizard. Meanwhile, even a 9 int or even 7 int commoner can study in a university for some years and get the training to become a engineer or a scientist of particle physics. Plus, it takes a DC 20 UMD check to use a wand, while even babies can use iPads. Tech 2, Magic 0.

Again, using d20 Modern to compare rules vs rules: So D20 Modern does not have the magical aptitude, but you still need a higher then average score to get things done. And you will need lots of skill points and those are tied to high ability scores. To be a D20 Modern engineer takes 30 skill ranks, for example.

Also magic and tech don't compare as even babies can use simple items of either that are made for everyone to use.



The military might of technology vs magic is also considerable. It takes 5 levels for a wizard to hurl a ****ty easy save fireball and he can only do it once per day. Meanwhile, mortars and tanks have shells manufactured by the millions (industry for the win again!) and can easily destroy some bearded fool in bathrobes from miles away. Plus, nukes can destroy cities, which is not even something any spell can even do. I am pretty sure Eberron would lose vs 1930s earth, and even the Tippyverse would be easily conquered by Modern earth. Tech 3, Magic 0.

Well, again comparing to a single 5th level D20 Modern solider with a M79,a single-shot grenade launcher...and d20 wealth rules make it unlikely a 5th level solider could even buy one.

Constructs and magic weapons can be mass made as much as tanks and guns. Many magic places in many magic settings do this.

Well, it should be obvious that magic can destroy a city.



One of the most important points is the overall advancement of society. A purely technological society, as demonstrated by Stellaris and multiple other sources, has the potential to grow and develop over time into an incredibly advanced society that benefits everyone, from the humblest agri-worker to the Presidents, as proven by the Khen-Zai for an in universe example. Meanwhile, the average fantasy land or magical society has nothing but wizards in ivory towers lording it over dirt farming peasants doomed to toil in medieval savagery until the local star novas or something. An example being all of Forgotten Realms. Tech 4, Magic 0.

Note the Forgotten Realms is also an example of a "overall advancement of society".




Finally, high technology realms are much safer than magic realms. The vast majority of magical realms, from Netheril to Azlant, collapse because of some magical apocalypse and never even get the chance to reach intergalactic levels. Meanwhile, the vast majority of technological realms such as Stellaris or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri reach intergalactic levels and usher in eras of peace and plenty. Tech 5, Magic 0.

Well, you might want to check your history...every technological empire has fallen two. It's not like tech empires never fall....sci fi is full of them: The Old Republic or Empire of Star Wars. The Federation of Star Trek. The colonies of Battlestar Glattica.

Also note Spelljammer reaches intergalactic levels.



Again, this is only my surface interpretation of tech's superiority to magic. If anybody wishes to offer arguments to the contrary, I would love to hear them.

When comparing apples to apples, they are the same.

[Destro2119]

Well, first OP started comparing spells to nukes and then he started arguing about 100k guys with AKs being able to take a world with 3.pf magic, although we can see from his post yesterday that he is well aware that they can’t.

The war is more attractive to discuss than the society because even though it is still clear that 3.pf wins, it wins with tippyverse style tricks not commonly seen in play, or with non-rules style extrapolations. Like “fantasy world wins because its ruler has access to superhuman intelligence and wisdom” “what does that do?” “IDK no one has ever seen what a society with superhumanly smart rulers looks like”. Or “what if the the most creative people in the world became immortal?” “IDK, the worlds greatest artists and composers all died after a human lifespan”. Or the fact that magic items last forever make create stuff traps drive post scarcity societies at some point, because the investment creates an unending supply of goods. Which can be used to make more traps all creating resources.

What evidence can you provide that magic items or traps last forever?

Also, what specific evidence can you provide that "it is clear 3.pf" wins?

[Destro2119]

From what I can tell the power of magic can reach near unlimited levels. With nukes sure, they cover a whole lot of range and bring out a whole ton of damage. But you could reproduce a nukes effect with simple magic. Not only that a spell can be more controllable then tech assuming your high enough level, magic could even destroy planets with destructive energy, sap the life out of creatures, bring others back to life, can tech bring back people to life? No, It can't. So magic is more powerful than tech. What tech could do magic could do better.
Also, on that subject, no matter how high level you are when using tech, magic is still more potent than tech could ever be. Could you create a war fortress in thin air with tech? Even if you assume your using a replicator from a tv show, you still need OVERWHELMING power to create a large fortress. With magic you do some words and gestures and their you go. While your at it conjure armies from thin air and create magic weapons and you're ready for warfare.

Anyone can use tech, but only some can use magic.


A magic society would not, in my opinion, be "equally advanced" than technology. When a society advances it's either culturally or technologically increasing, all of what I think magical can progress just means that their are unique ways to apply its effects with runes, contingent spells, and permanency to create more efficient and controllable versions of modern appliances.

Why not combine magic and tech? Best of both worlds.

Tech societies can mass-produce the resources needed to construct a replicator/nukes. You need high level people to do the same with magic. Also, what is this about "combining" magic and tech?

[Gavinfoxx]

They are both two different ways of achieving exactly the same things?? Like seriously, I have a handbook on how to make a full post scarcity society using 3.5 rules, it's not hard, and doesn't require high level casters. The question doesn't make any sense in the first place, neither is superior at the high end. They both do the same. Maybe having both would let you get certain effects earlier?

And why can't you combine both. Have enchanted mecha-golems. Why not? This isn't Arcanum where they don't play nice with one another.

[Destro2119]

Not really. Technology and magic both have advantages. Tech is generally reproducible so anyone can use it. But it relies on external energy sources, and struggles to overcome limitations like conservation of energy. Magic is usually restricted only to the few who can learn it, inherit it, receive it as a blessing, or bargain for it. But it needs no other energy source than itself, and the ability to research new spells means presumptively unlimited potential.

The Wheel of Time's Age of Legends (or late Second Age) is a demonstration of what a society with both high technology and high magic can be like--both for good and for ill. Want was pretty much eliminated, and wealth was trivial to generate, so the only interesting challenges became doing things for humanity. But it was also a deeply stratified society, which was completely comfortable manufacturing fully-sapient engineered beings to do labor for it (the Nym) or using what amounted to indentured servitude (the Aes Sedai and their use of Da'shain Aiel.) It's very possible that you could still end up in a society where there are social classes and incredibly rigid, unbending roles and norms, despite no one dying of preventable illness and crime being essentially unknown.

Alternatively, look at the Chozo from Metroid, especially Metroid Prime 1 and 2. The Chozo are (or were, before they ascended or whatever) a deeply spiritual people who learned how to tap into powers others would consider "magic," including clairvoyance, telepathy, and non-conserved energy sources. Yet they are(/were) also a highly advanced race technologically, who could integrate biological elements into their technology, while also having matter-energy transfer and spatial-modification technology. They're a people who have melded technology and magic into a holistic union, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

So is any of this advancement possible under 3.P? If so, how?

[Gavinfoxx]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z9NJIs751Af3i0IEIJwCkIp9H9YFiZYZ7u-wmYVaheI/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14zilT4WGOyHM0AfpG4-GmD2FkgDg1HZ9HC1cTleQHds/edit

Read these.

[Morty_Jhones]

the anser is simply NO. there both good at diferant things

as for whena tec socity goes to war with a magic one, try reading the darksword set, marget and tracy do a good job of exsploring that very thing in the books.



also look at weapon damage, the standard fire arm does 2d6/2d8 damage or 1d10 by default rules, yes thats lot enough to on average put down any civilian or basic warrior. A Warror Veteran might have the Hp to take it.

BUT

most D&D 3.5 basic foes can take that and LOL, also a suprising amount of monsters have DR against piercing weapons like guns, so they have real trouble doing signifecant damage to them.

throw in a Joker like silver or adamantine DR, Rapid/Fast healing X and guns rapidly fall off in damage potental, espeshaly since by D20 modern rules any enchanted ammo has a straight 50% failer rate when used in rifled weapons , which is any that alows you to add your dex bonuse to attack roles. and you can see why even in a tec world a cross bow might still be your best weapon.

[ezekielraiden]

So you concede that magic is inferior to Tech? Also, I thought that Tippyverse was supposed to be high magic. Proving that tech is superior to magic?
The Tippyverse is not so much "high magic" as "magic evaluated frankly." It doesn't restrict itself to genre conventions, but exploits advantages where they can be discovered.


Nukes should also kill an ethereal wizard because its forces disrupt molecules.
Why should it? Nukes are physical things. Atoms are physical things. Physical attacks of any kind except things that are explicitly Force effects do not affect ethereal creatures, unless otherwise noted. If you're going to start saying "well a nuke SHOULD count as a Force effect," you're inherently biasing the rules by allowing the tech side to gain new attributes without allowing the magic side to do the same (such as researching an anti-radiation spell, which is a perfectly valid idea--Pathfinder has anti-radiation spells.)


Ok, then what would an "equally advanced" magic society look like? Assume both the tech and magical society have 10000 years of advancement from stone age. I bet dollars to donuts that tech world is better place to live and could easily beat magic/fantasy world in a GATE style fight.
I assume you are going to allow equivalent amounts of ambition and desire to change/fix things?

So, magic has an initial leg up, due to some people being just innately born with power (sorcerers), and even more importantly, some being gifted power from gods or other similar beings. The divine/"gifted" side is especially significant because this allows teaching of magic, and thus can inspire the development of new magic from other sources wanting to imitate, surpass, or simply understand it. Divine magic used intelligently eliminates infant mortality, women dying in childbirth, unclean water, and food preservation.

Such groups will still have an advantage in warfare if they can gather together, and feeding large numbers of people is difficult for low-level clerics (or druids), so you'd still likely see the rise of agriculture and cities. But things would look very different; sewage and sanitation would be easily handled with magic, and druidic assistance in weather control and crop yield enhancement would mean much less labor (and land) would be needed to support any given population size. Cities are thus likely to become larger more quickly than they did on Earth. Doubly so because mid-level spells like stone shape, wall of stone, wall of iron, and transmute mud to rock allow for the creation of sturdy infrastructure without tons of awful, backbreaking labor. A handful of clerics casting wall of stone and stone shape day after day could easily replicate many of the great wonders of the world with far less required labor. Transportation can also be simplified, once infrastructure is available, by employing permanent teleportation circles or gates, but since this requires very high-level casters (17+), it won't happen until after other means of transporation have already been put in place--so roads will still be necessary until it is worthwhile to employ permanent circles or gates.

With the rise of cities, yet disease mitigated and a relative abundance of food and clean water, more city-dwellers can be focused on skilled labor and education. This will permit an accelerated rise of an educated, literate class that can then learn wizard- and archivist-type spells. Since such skills can be learned by anyone who has sufficient Intelligence (remember, most Wizards will never gain a ton of class levels, so it doesn't matter if most of them don't have Int 19; Int 15 is sufficient for the vast majority of "career" Wizards or magewrights). From there, developing magic items that do not require personal magical talent would be enormously valuable, economically; exactly the same impulse that drives a tech-based society to develop new patents would drive a magic-based society to develop new magic items, which (based on the magic item creation rules) can potentially be quite diverse in power and application. Perhaps most importantly on that front, a true specialist in magic item creation can get a ton of crafting-cost reductions if we fully exploit the rules of 3.P, potentially allowing very powerful items. And because a +5 weapon is still a +5 weapon no matter who wields it, it is possible to overcome (some) of the faults of so-called "non-tech" weapons like bows and swords through magic item bonuses.

Even with repeated setbacks as we experienced in the real world (such as the Bronze Age collapse, the Greek Dark Age, the fall of Rome, the fall of the Islamic Golden Age, etc.), yeah, I'd say 10,000 years is PLENTY of time. I could easily see a society that is both pretty dang utopian (communicable disease is nearly gone, hunger and foul water are never a problem, construction costs and time are near-trivial) and yet still has enough pressures and concerns to continue iterating and advancing nonetheless. I mean, imagine Eberron, but with an additional couple of centuries to continue improving things like the Lightning Rail network and other mass-access magical benefits.


Well then 100000 AK-wielding conscripts backed by fighter jets and nukes can still beat a magic world, just going from that. EDIT: Just to clarify, we assume 3.P magic system and classes.
Why is tech allowed an army, but magic isn't? An army of 100000 wand-wielding peasants backed by gate'd balors and Locate City bombs, for example.

It very much seems to me that you are coming into this argument with an unfair advantage provided to technology, presuming that it always has more population, manpower, and widespread access than magic could ever replicate. That doesn't seem to make sense, given that magic is best at defeating things that it took technology 95% of the time you allotted to actually fight or even find: famine, toxins, disease, and injury. Remove those (especially for infants and pregnant mothers), and you get the vast majority of the improvements to the human condition provided by technology.

Remember, we only discovered the real cause of disease very recently. Until the late 1600s, no one even knew bacteria existed, and it took another two centuries for the germ theory of disease to overtake the miasma theory. It wasn't until Pasteur and Lister (mid-1800s) that we started learning how to prevent disease purely technologically, and it wasn't until 1928 that we discovered penicillin and antibiotics. Vaccination was known for centuries, but no one knew how it worked, they just knew that it worked: expose people to cowpox (a very benign illness), and they (probably) won't die of smallpox later. We've made tremendous progress in the past two to three centuries, but we're also running into real walls as we do (consider the treatment of cancer--trivial to magic, but impossible to our current medicine--or the problems of combustive pollution, deforestation, and the looming energy crisis when fossil fuels start to run out). Even in our most purely scientific things like physics, we're running into extremely difficult problems, like how to unify relativity (and thus gravity and the "large scale" of the universe) with quantum theory (and thus all other forces and the smallest scale effects and objects), or how to safely perform genetic engineering to treat disease and modify organisms.

Magic, in many ways, gets a head start because it just works, and because it can be provided to humans without the need to experiment (via faith in deities, pacts with powerful beings, innate magic in one's blood, reverence of nature, etc.) Having a head start, and having most of these benefits be accessible very quickly: purify food and drink and create water are cantrips, abstemiousness and goodberry are 1st level spells, create food and water and remove disease are 3rd level, etc., and these are just the BEST spells for the purpose, not the only ones. But just because there's no NEED to experiment doesn't mean people won't WANT to, as has been the case since time immemorial. Especially when many more people will definitely have their daily food and water needs met, so they can look beyond basal needs and start working on self-actualization.

[AvatarVecna]

The fact that high-fantasy fiction as a rule avoids looking too different from Tolkien isn't a limitation on the possibilities of magic, but of the willingness of the reader's ability to accept it as fantasy instead of sci-fi. Generally the in-universe explanation is that what magic forces exist could perhaps take over the masses without much issue, but they are opposed by equally-powerful magical forces that defend against such things. This balancing act of the truly powerful figures is what maintains the status quo, and breaking it is simply a matter of growing more powerful than them yourself. A magic society that isn't constantly at each other's throats would almost by necessity require an entity so powerful that it cannot be opposed even by other powerful magical entities - and such a being could very well force cooperation, with the aim of improving society using the ultimate phenomenal cosmic power that can result from raising up those most in need.

This is also to the benefit of the cosmic being, for while they can operate at a scale that allows them to take over a planet, they would still need to worry about similar beings such as themselves taking over the same planet in another dimension. Thus, it is in the best interest on this powerful magical entity - even if they're the spitting image of selfish narcissistic Neutral Evil - to upgrade their helpless army of commoner minions into a helpless army of god wizard minions - if they have the ability to control high-level wizards reliably in small numbers, controlling larger numbers is relatively trivial.

Industrialized magic on a societal level isn't difficult - a commoner 1 who gains a meager amount of XP can level up into whatever class they want. A little bit of early-life attribute boosting, and they can almost certainly become a big name caster. Ideally, this society would generally push people towards wizardry in specific, with those unsuited to wizardry becoming clerics/druids/favored souls/sorcerers, or whatever they like if they're not suited to casting in general. With +5 tomes to all stats before they hit adulthood, though, 19 in 20 people will have at least one mental attribute at 15 or higher before race.

Power-leveling will see them hit 20th inside a couple months at most, and that's assuming there's no epic rules. Assuming epic play isn't a thing, at that point the only purpose XP serves is being turned into magic items and spell components - spells like Wish, which can be used to create magic items in a single round (plus however much time it took to collect the XP for that wish in the first place).

High-level wizards handle the magic item creation, druids handle the creature farms that fuel XP requirements and spell components, and clerics get involved with just about everything as needed, depending on their particular passion. The push towards wizardry taking precedent over the others is because Wizard is the class that can most easily share power. Ten wishes costing 18000 XP each will create 10 blessed books that are filled with literally every wizard spell that exists. This takes about two days worth of 9th lvl slots, as well as however much time it takes that particular wizard to make back the 180k XP it took to create them (which is a whole lot quicker than you'd think, depending on how thorough the creature farms are). So a burgeoning wizard will receive these ten books and will spend a few weeks mastering each one in succession, to make it their own spellbook going forward. The cost for spellbook creation was put entirely on the powerful wizards who could most easily bear it and recover, while wizards just starting out have access to the whole dang subsystem more or less.

(This is more expensive, and more rewarding, for wizards who become rainbow servants - they'll need additional Blessed Books wished into existence for all their extra wizard spells, but carrying around a small personal library will be 100% worth it for full access to the two best lists in the game.)

And yeah, this does end with your starting out wizard having received what amounts to ~2 million gp in charity, but given how easy XP is to get, they'll be powerful archmages before you can blink, pumping out items for next week's baby wizards and selling spells to pay back the government while still living a life of pure luxury. Even if you don't abuse the custom item creation rules to make absolute nonsense, and even if you don't let this society advance into epic, we're essentially talking a society where every single adult reaches 9th lvl spells within 6 months of graduating from childhood - and that's if they're slow! And the sheer number of powerful magic items floating around will be just absurd. This is a society who's standard of living will far outstrip most anything you see in any science-fiction - it's essentially a nation of minor deities.

EDIT: And none of this is touching on even stronger cheese, like actual wish loops, or the sacrifice rules, or custom item shenanigans, or time traveling magic, or literally anything epic. But in short:

Depending on just how hard you're optimizing your magic society, it might look like Star Wars where everybody is a force user, or like the Time Lords from Doctor Who, or like the Qs in Star Trek. At what point do we say "ten thousand years of technological advancement probably can't match that"?

[AntiAuthority]

Depends on who's writing the story. (https://youtu.be/L4_zFYnnn2Y)

If we're talking IRL science vs fantasy magic... Well, huh. In terms of sheer destructive power, science wins because nukes and hypothetically more powerful weapons (like an antimatter bomb). Though magic has more versatility, as science (unless something new is discovered that radically changes our understanding of this) dictates that we can never travel faster than the speed of light, while Greater Teleport allows you to teleport to virtually anywhere in the universe in a few moments.



If we're talking sci-fi vs high magic... Hm... Well, that's where things get complicated. As that famous quote goes...


Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Anyway, if we're including sci-fi vs high magic, it mostly goes back to "whoever writes it." Because after a point, you're going to have magic that can allow people to teleport faster than light, much like you'll have technology that allows you to travel to anywhere in the universe in the blink of an eye.

You can enhance your body with magic? Cool, you can also enhance your body with cybernetics/drugs.

You can open portals into other dimensions with magic? Just fire up an interdimensional gate that lets you do the same thing with tech.

Magic allows you to have telepathy? Use genetic engineering to give people that ability or some sort of tech to emulate it.

Magic lets you create constructs? Frankenstein did it with science, androids would also count as constructs, and such with sufficiently advanced tech.

Immortality? Well, magic can slow down the aging process/allowing you to inhabit another body, advances in medicine/copying and uploading the brain to a new body should get the same result.

A magic sword can slice though mundane metal like butter? Cool, this energy sword can do the same thing!

Magic can turn someone into a god-like being? How many science fiction stories involve characters getting incredible, god-like power because of a science experiment? (Like Dr. Manhattan)

After a point, the line between them just becomes really blurry between which is more effective. I suppose the only real difference (depending on the setting) is that technology can be used by virtually anyone, while magic usually requires some form of training/having the ability to use it at all... Then again, you have some settings where literally everyone and their grandmother can use magic, so this is subjective. After a point they can do pretty much the same things, just through different processes.



As for why magic doesn't really elevate the settings beyond being Medieval... It's not necessarily because magic is inferior or superior in anyway. It's just because the people designing the D&D/PF/whatever settings haven't thought about the worldbuilding implications of magic in a society like that. They were mostly interested in playing games set in stories like those you'd find in Conan the Barbarian, Lord of the Rings, etc. without thinking it out too far, that's the long and short of it. Everything else (well, obviously not for the ones with internally consistent settings, but that should go without saying) is an attempt to explain the designers not paying much attention to the worldbuilding on why the setting isn't radically different from our own world's... And that's ok, I, and people like me, don't care too much about setting implications and how certain things interact with it, I just want to play a game I find fun and I can do that in a setting that makes no sense.

Gary Gygax in particular was against realism being taken seriously in games, but I'm sure there were other designers who felt the opposite way.


When fantasy games are criticized for being “unrealistic” — and by fantasy I certainly mean both imaginary “science fiction” games and heroic fantasy — the sheer magnitude of the misconception absolutely astounds me! How can the critic presume that his or her imagined projection of a non existent world or conjectured future history is any more “real” than another’s? While science fantasy does have some facts and good theories to logically proceed from, so that a semblance of truth can be claimed for those works which attempt to ground themselves on the basis of reality for their future projections, the world of “never-was” has no such shelter. Therefore, the absurdity of a cry for “realism” in a pure fantasy game seems so evident that I am overwhelmed when such confronts me. Yet, there are those persistent few who keep demanding it.




Though if I'm being brutally honest, I imagine such a world would look more like Magitech or something, where the two become one. Fireballs are now mass produced and easily portable, constructs would be doing most of the mass production as they don't (usually) require maintenance/upkeep and magic items would probably be rather widespread but be as mundane as a lighter or a smartphone are to us. The power of magic plus the ease of use of flicking on a lightswitch...

Anyway, this all comes back down to who is writing the thing. You can easily make magic GOAT or you can make science so powerful that it dwarfs magic, or you can have both co-existing at the same level of potency.

[Gavinfoxx]

Also, the whole premise of the argument being even a thing to talk about is flawed, because a.) Sci fi tech can do whatever the author wants and b.) magic can do whatever the author wants.

It's all fictional and utterly undefined! You might be able to make extrapolations from specific settings for purposes of improving your fanfiction writing, if you define your conceptual space enough, but that's about it!

Read this, OP: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rHBdcHGLJ7KvLJQPk/the-logical-fallacy-of-generalization-from-fictional

[Segev]

I would also like to quibble with the notion that technology and magic are distinct. "Technology" is just the use and exploitation of tools and mechanics of the function of the world. A more efficient fly spell that works better because the creator of the spell figured out a better way to align the thaumic gravitons is "better technology" than the older fly spells. Or, in my usual way of conceiving it, a better fly spell that requires less effort to prepare due to getting its effects from a clever application of the same precepts that go into mage hand and levitate would be technological advancement. When a mathematician proves a new theorem that simplifies other proofs or enables other proofs to be done, that, too, is technology.

Setting undead to turning a dynamo to produce electricity isn't "not technology" just because you're using magic as part of it. Same for binding a fire elemental to power your steam engine. In a setting with magic and no "medieval stagnation" enforced for genre convention reasons, people would use magic as part of their technology, because magic is just another thing to exploit to do cool stuff.

[Destro2119]

Well, first off you really should not just count what you read in books. If you want to say that most, if not all, RPG writers lack imagination: that would be fair enough. Though also that most RPG publishers want to only publish set specific things, and most are against the idea of 'magic tech'.

If we only stick to D&D settings. Spelljammer is close to industrial magic. And you have the Forgotten Realms. Neitheirl, for example, had mythellars and quasimagical items. A quasimagical item was an item that acted as a permanently activated magical item, provided that it remained within range of a mythallar. Quasimagical items were actually created with the common folk in mind, simple creations to assist in the everyday tasks of the middle class. The first such items to enter the markets were roomlights, tiny globes that lit up upon command. Magical provision of running water and plumbing came next. An elf living inside any ancient elven mythal had does of powers and spell effects that effected them daily.

And, I guess if you have to use a d20 system to represent rules....you'd be using d20 Modern, right? So characters living under such rules need crafting feats or abilities.



Again, using d20 Modern to compare rules vs rules: So D20 Modern does not have the magical aptitude, but you still need a higher then average score to get things done. And you will need lots of skill points and those are tied to high ability scores. To be a D20 Modern engineer takes 30 skill ranks, for example.

Also magic and tech don't compare as even babies can use simple items of either that are made for everyone to use.



Well, again comparing to a single 5th level D20 Modern solider with a M79,a single-shot grenade launcher...and d20 wealth rules make it unlikely a 5th level solider could even buy one.

Constructs and magic weapons can be mass made as much as tanks and guns. Many magic places in many magic settings do this.

Well, it should be obvious that magic can destroy a city.



Note the Forgotten Realms is also an example of a "overall advancement of society".




Well, you might want to check your history...every technological empire has fallen two. It's not like tech empires never fall....sci fi is full of them: The Old Republic or Empire of Star Wars. The Federation of Star Trek. The colonies of Battlestar Glattica.

Also note Spelljammer reaches intergalactic levels.



When comparing apples to apples, they are the same.

Well if d20 modern needs skill ranks and levels, then how is anything mass-produced? Also the soldier is given weaponry for free (although i suppose the fantasy soldiers might be given weaponry too).

How can constructs and magic weapons be mass made? Draw a parallel between d20 modern and DnD rules, please.

[Gavinfoxx]

What is your end purpose in this endeavor, Destro? What are you trying to figure out? What exactly would satisfy you, one way or another? What kind of analysis is needed, and to what ends? Are you just trying to compare D20 Modern, D&D 3.5e, Pathfinder 1e, and Starfinder? What do you plan on doing with the information you get?

[Bugbear]

Well if d20 modern needs skill ranks and levels, then how is anything mass-produced? Also the soldier is given weaponry for free (although i suppose the fantasy soldiers might be given weaponry too).

Same way anything is mass produced in any d20 system: by using skills, feats, class abilities, equipment, allies and items. A factory of either type would be run by a person of high level with lots of abilities and skills...and the leardership feat.

To "give" a soldier, or any NPC anything really is a problem for any d20 rules. There are no rules to cover this. A higher level character can give a lower level character a magic weapon or a grenade launcher....but this just throws the balance rules out the window.




How can constructs and magic weapons be mass made? Draw a parallel between d20 modern and DnD rules, please.


Well, at the most basic, you can people making the physical item components, and then a spellcaster/engineer making the magic item/technology.

Clockwork construct has parts made by craftsmen. Spellcaster then creates construct
Robot has parts made by craftsmen. Engineer then creates robot.

You can just simply gather up spellcasters to make as many constructs as you want. Per the 3X rules there are an unlimited number of whatever is needed. The rules do say how many spellcasters are in places like cities and towns....but anywhere else can be any number.

[Quertus]

D&D magic vs modern technology? In a war? A single Wizard 20 would have far too many ways to wipe out the entire world, and far too many ways to just "nope" any risk to themselves (Astral Projection being the simplest) for this to even be a contest (vs a prepared, optimized Wizard, at least).

Conceptually? Infinite tech vs infinite magic? The only real difference (afaict) is a) both require expertise to create, but tech is generally designed/intended to be used by "any moron" (of that Tech's "generation"), whereas magic usually (but not always) still requires expertise to use; b) tech obeys certain *laws*, while magic usually has different limits (like internal and/or external power sources).

Explicitly 3e magic, on a 2e-style "no, technology *cannot* advance" world, vs "real" tech, but no magic? Well, it's complicated.

IMO, both allow for a great deal of innovation; magic better encourages "personal excellence", whereas technology more strongly encourages "civic improvements".

Magic is much more adaptable: introduce a new concept, like radiation, and a few weeks later, the Wizard says, "yeah, I've got a spell for that". Technology usually takes decades or centuries - and, even then, the solutions that it produces are often highly suboptimal.

3e has numerous forms of immortality.

Technology lends itself to mass production better than *most* 3e magic, as technology (afaict) doesn't cost XP to produce. But… I'm not sure quite at what point that fact actually matters.

As a software developer, I have a lot of experience saying that technology is often created by individuals with no business creating that technology ("can we get since trained monkeys in here? I'm tired of cleaning up after all these untrained monkeys.") - I'm sure that anyone who's delt with buggy, poorly-thought-through programs can relate. Whereas magic? It can't be cast by that drek.

A simple Wisdom check *should* let you know to slap the idiot who thought that magical flying / underwater population centers was a good plan… but I guess that decadence breeds stupidity regardless of the underlying cause. So… maybe magic usually not improving the lifestyle of the peasants… is generally advantageous for its more intelligent application?

[AntiAuthority]

Also, the whole premise of the argument being even a thing to talk about is flawed, because a.) Sci fi tech can do whatever the author wants and b.) magic can do whatever the author wants.

It's all fictional and utterly undefined! You might be able to make extrapolations from specific settings for purposes of improving your fanfiction writing, if you define your conceptual space enough, but that's about it!

Read this, OP: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rHBdcHGLJ7KvLJQPk/the-logical-fallacy-of-generalization-from-fictional

That was a refreshing read. This answers way too many questions about why genre conventions are treated as immutable laws like "X must be superior because a lot of stories do it that way" or "X was this way for that one movie, so all movies in that genre have to be the same." Forgetting that these are all imaginary and the limitations and rules depend on the person(s) writing it.

[ezekielraiden]

That was a refreshing read. This answers way too many questions about why genre conventions are treated as immutable laws like "X must be superior because a lot of stories do it that way" or "X was this way for that one movie, so all movies in that genre have to be the same." Forgetting that these are all imaginary and the limitations and rules depend on the person(s) writing it.

Honestly, it was pretty anti-refreshing for me, even though the point being made was a reasonable one. Mr. Yudkowski is not a particularly effective communicator, despite his impressions to the contrary, and many of his own biases leak out when he speaks. (E.g., his implied claim that the only way to speak about what is true or real is to speak about probabilities, reflecting his bias in favor of a rigidly Bayesian approach to everything, including epistemology.)

The problem is that what he's talking about isn't even a fallacy. A fallacy, even an informal one, is about using an invalid form but pretending it's a valid one. But what's being used isn't an invalid form; what's being used is invalid inputs. It's the attempt to insert something that is neither true nor false into a form that requires only true or false inputs. As he himself said (but only 3/4 of the way through), fictional "evidence" isn't even an example, because it's NOT evidence at all. It's a person's artistic notion.

But we must be extremely careful not to make too much of this overall claim, that not-physically-present things should be used very carefully, because if we take it as far as Mr. Yudkowski wants us to here, we'd have to reject thought experiments as well. That would be indescribably bad for science. Some of our most important developments have only come about after individuals had first built theory through thought experiments. Perhaps more often, other critical advancements have only been brought about because thought experiment allowed us to see a gap we didn't know was there. (See, for example, the discovery of the CNO cycle: we cannot make stellar fusion ourselves, we can only observe the stars around us, so thought experiment was vital for making progress.)

[Destro2119]

I would also like to quibble with the notion that technology and magic are distinct. "Technology" is just the use and exploitation of tools and mechanics of the function of the world. A more efficient fly spell that works better because the creator of the spell figured out a better way to align the thaumic gravitons is "better technology" than the older fly spells. Or, in my usual way of conceiving it, a better fly spell that requires less effort to prepare due to getting its effects from a clever application of the same precepts that go into mage hand and levitate would be technological advancement. When a mathematician proves a new theorem that simplifies other proofs or enables other proofs to be done, that, too, is technology.

Setting undead to turning a dynamo to produce electricity isn't "not technology" just because you're using magic as part of it. Same for binding a fire elemental to power your steam engine. In a setting with magic and no "medieval stagnation" enforced for genre convention reasons, people would use magic as part of their technology, because magic is just another thing to exploit to do cool stuff.

This is... actually a pretty good summarization of how magic would progress (see some of the SF spells, like energy ray, a condensed acid splash/ray of frost with a fire spell, for examples). Of course, pure spells would be harder to condense, but enchantments would be easier to apply in this way.

[Destro2119]

D&D magic vs modern technology? In a war? A single Wizard 20 would have far too many ways to wipe out the entire world, and far too many ways to just "nope" any risk to themselves (Astral Projection being the simplest) for this to even be a contest (vs a prepared, optimized Wizard, at least).

Conceptually? Infinite tech vs infinite magic? The only real difference (afaict) is a) both require expertise to create, but tech is generally designed/intended to be used by "any moron" (of that Tech's "generation"), whereas magic usually (but not always) still requires expertise to use; b) tech obeys certain *laws*, while magic usually has different limits (like internal and/or external power sources).

Explicitly 3e magic, on a 2e-style "no, technology *cannot* advance" world, vs "real" tech, but no magic? Well, it's complicated.

IMO, both allow for a great deal of innovation; magic better encourages "personal excellence", whereas technology more strongly encourages "civic improvements".

Magic is much more adaptable: introduce a new concept, like radiation, and a few weeks later, the Wizard says, "yeah, I've got a spell for that". Technology usually takes decades or centuries - and, even then, the solutions that it produces are often highly suboptimal.

3e has numerous forms of immortality.

Technology lends itself to mass production better than *most* 3e magic, as technology (afaict) doesn't cost XP to produce. But… I'm not sure quite at what point that fact actually matters.

As a software developer, I have a lot of experience saying that technology is often created by individuals with no business creating that technology ("can we get since trained monkeys in here? I'm tired of cleaning up after all these untrained monkeys.") - I'm sure that anyone who's delt with buggy, poorly-thought-through programs can relate. Whereas magic? It can't be cast by that drek.

A simple Wisdom check *should* let you know to slap the idiot who thought that magical flying / underwater population centers was a good plan… but I guess that decadence breeds stupidity regardless of the underlying cause. So… maybe magic usually not improving the lifestyle of the peasants… is generally advantageous for its more intelligent application?

You keep referencing 3e/2e world tech advancement rules. I do not recall any of that existing in 3.5/PF*.

On that last point... the sivv Vorkular and the council of the intergalactic/dimensional empire he sits on would definitely disagree with you. Keep the drones happy with nigh-unbreakable, incredible conveniences (and for the most irascible, a productivity implant or two) and elevate a few with your mass produced tomes of intelligence.

*basically, our 3.Pf/3.X means that we mix and match rules from the entire 3.X line, as in 3.0-PF1e. We use PF crafting rules.

[Destro2119]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z9NJIs751Af3i0IEIJwCkIp9H9YFiZYZ7u-wmYVaheI/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14zilT4WGOyHM0AfpG4-GmD2FkgDg1HZ9HC1cTleQHds/edit

Read these.

A question I don't think that article answered: How can you attain infinite resources? Like infinite gold, adamantine, etc.?

Also, this might be interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/7xy7ie/how_to_make_high_fantasy_airships_none_of_this/

[Destro2119]

What is your end purpose in this endeavor, Destro? What are you trying to figure out? What exactly would satisfy you, one way or another? What kind of analysis is needed, and to what ends? Are you just trying to compare D20 Modern, D&D 3.5e, Pathfinder 1e, and Starfinder? What do you plan on doing with the information you get?

I am trying to see, for example, how quickly a magical society could advance through the tech levels like from GURPS) vs a tech one.

[Gavinfoxx]

Did you read my three links that describe, in detail, how to mass produce magical technology and magical items using 3.5 and PF1 rules like you have asked for several times in this thread?

[Destro2119]

Did you read my three links that describe, in detail, how to mass produce magical technology and magical items using 3.5 and PF1 rules like you have asked for several times in this thread?

Not very thoroughly. I will read again later today and let you know. But can you answer my initial question about "infinite gold/mineral/materials" please?

[ezekielraiden]

Not very thoroughly. I will read again later today and let you know. But can you answer my initial question about "infinite gold/mineral/materials" please?

I don't understand why either side needs infinite resources. As long as resources are readily available, does it matter if it's actually infinite, or simply "as abundant as needed"?

Because, if you'll accept the latter, then the planes are your answer, particularly the Plane of Earth. It's explicit that the Plane of Earth is infinite, and contains precious materials of all sorts. Powerful casters have no difficulty extracting these resources.

Furthermore, since you've been so incredibly insistent on sticking to the rules of 3.P: Where does it say that there are only finite quantities of rubies or diamonds or adamantine in the world? No rules I know of say a single thing about draining the resources of the planet (or plane) you live on. If we're going to adhere so closely to the rules, why would we insert an extra rule not present? Other than to arbitrarily make things harder for the magic-user side, I mean.

[AvatarVecna]

If we're talking about PF crafting rules, items don't cost XP and the existence of the Master Craftsman feat (and the unchained craft skill, if you're good enough) allow noncasters to craft magic items too. You'll want to be a Phantom Rogue if you're going the latter route, so that it kicks in much earlier, but it still means that noncasters can still contribute to the industrialization of magic item creation.

[Destro2119]

Depends on who's writing the story. (https://youtu.be/L4_zFYnnn2Y)

If we're talking IRL science vs fantasy magic... Well, huh. In terms of sheer destructive power, science wins because nukes and hypothetically more powerful weapons (like an antimatter bomb). Though magic has more versatility, as science (unless something new is discovered that radically changes our understanding of this) dictates that we can never travel faster than the speed of light, while Greater Teleport allows you to teleport to virtually anywhere in the universe in a few moments.



If we're talking sci-fi vs high magic... Hm... Well, that's where things get complicated. As that famous quote goes...



Anyway, if we're including sci-fi vs high magic, it mostly goes back to "whoever writes it." Because after a point, you're going to have magic that can allow people to teleport faster than light, much like you'll have technology that allows you to travel to anywhere in the universe in the blink of an eye.

You can enhance your body with magic? Cool, you can also enhance your body with cybernetics/drugs.

You can open portals into other dimensions with magic? Just fire up an interdimensional gate that lets you do the same thing with tech.

Magic allows you to have telepathy? Use genetic engineering to give people that ability or some sort of tech to emulate it.

Magic lets you create constructs? Frankenstein did it with science, androids would also count as constructs, and such with sufficiently advanced tech.

Immortality? Well, magic can slow down the aging process/allowing you to inhabit another body, advances in medicine/copying and uploading the brain to a new body should get the same result.

A magic sword can slice though mundane metal like butter? Cool, this energy sword can do the same thing!

Magic can turn someone into a god-like being? How many science fiction stories involve characters getting incredible, god-like power because of a science experiment? (Like Dr. Manhattan)

After a point, the line between them just becomes really blurry between which is more effective. I suppose the only real difference (depending on the setting) is that technology can be used by virtually anyone, while magic usually requires some form of training/having the ability to use it at all... Then again, you have some settings where literally everyone and their grandmother can use magic, so this is subjective. After a point they can do pretty much the same things, just through different processes.



As for why magic doesn't really elevate the settings beyond being Medieval... It's not necessarily because magic is inferior or superior in anyway. It's just because the people designing the D&D/PF/whatever settings haven't thought about the worldbuilding implications of magic in a society like that. They were mostly interested in playing games set in stories like those you'd find in Conan the Barbarian, Lord of the Rings, etc. without thinking it out too far, that's the long and short of it. Everything else (well, obviously not for the ones with internally consistent settings, but that should go without saying) is an attempt to explain the designers not paying much attention to the worldbuilding on why the setting isn't radically different from our own world's... And that's ok, I, and people like me, don't care too much about setting implications and how certain things interact with it, I just want to play a game I find fun and I can do that in a setting that makes no sense.

Gary Gygax in particular was against realism being taken seriously in games, but I'm sure there were other designers who felt the opposite way.





Though if I'm being brutally honest, I imagine such a world would look more like Magitech or something, where the two become one. Fireballs are now mass produced and easily portable, constructs would be doing most of the mass production as they don't (usually) require maintenance/upkeep and magic items would probably be rather widespread but be as mundane as a lighter or a smartphone are to us. The power of magic plus the ease of use of flicking on a lightswitch...

Anyway, this all comes back down to who is writing the thing. You can easily make magic GOAT or you can make science so powerful that it dwarfs magic, or you can have both co-existing at the same level of potency.

But according to Stan Lee's logic, a perfectly normal person could defeat Superman. A Bronze age society could defeat a high tech/high magic intergalactic/interdimensional empire. Please explain how this could possibly happen?

On the topic of Magitech, I must admit I really like it, the point where I often include it in my games.

[Gavinfoxx]

Not very thoroughly. I will read again later today and let you know. But can you answer my initial question about "infinite gold/mineral/materials" please?

The instructions of how to get any material infinitely are in the handbooks. READ THEM. Any way of me describing how to get infinite whatever would be... me quoting the handbook, probably in its entirety! If you don't want to actually read the answers to the questions you have that I already gave you, I can't help you!

[Segev]

The instructions of how to get any material infinitely are in the handbooks. READ THEM. Any way of me describing how to get infinite whatever would be... me quoting the handbook, probably in its entirety! If you don't want to actually read the answers to the questions you have that I already gave you, I can't help you!

Just to be clear, then, there is no concise way to outline creating infinite material; it requires reading thoroughly and fully understanding three handbooks?

[ShurikVch]

Dungeon #90 has "Pulp Heroes" series of articles
In it some new base classes - some just slightly changed (Martial Artist is about 97% Monk), some - completely new
One of those classes is Scientist: able to produce "Inventions" which are duplicating effects of spells from Wizard list while not being a magic

"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science." (https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081205) (Agatha Heterodyne, the Girl Genius)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gaslamp_fantasy_gg.png

[Gavinfoxx]

Just to be clear, then, there is no concise way to outline creating infinite material; it requires reading thoroughly and fully understanding three handbooks?

No, but the information is contained within (primarily the one on post scarcity) and takes many paragraphs to describe. I could say, 'Fabricate Traps', but that doesn't really answer the question thoroughly, and leaves out several alternatives. Hence why I wrote a handbook on the topic.

[AntiAuthority]

I'm not sure if you understand what I mean, but author fiat trumps all the powers in the world. But I'll answer.


But according to Stan Lee's logic, a perfectly normal person could defeat Superman.

Here (https://www.cbr.com/times-superman-defeated-beat-by-mortal-normal-human/)is a list of humans who defeated Superman. This human could also know pressure points and because comics, Kryptonian pressure points also line up with human pressure points, and that's how they'd defeat Superman. Or this person is that powerful despite being a normal human. Because the writer wanted them to win.

There's even a panel of regular Batman kicking and injuring the Spectre (the second most powerful being in existence, who has the power of omnipotence and omniscience). Because the writer wanted Batman to be able to kick a god-like being and gave him the power to.

Captain America also regularly punches way above his weight class, even hurting 100 tonners like Hulk with a punch to the chest. Same way with him holding his ground against the blatantly superhuman Spider-Man, despite feats pointing to Spider-Man having a massive superiority in raw speed and strength. Because the writers want him to.


A Bronze age society could defeat a high tech/high magic intergalactic/interdimensional empire.

These are pretty common in JRPGs, sure there are other genres but this was the first thing my mind went to. I'm going to spoiler this for length, but read it to figure out why the writer can have normal humans defeat gods. JRPG humans are exactly as strong or weak as the writer wants them to be, just as comic book humans are as strong or as weak the writer wants them to be. And the humans I'll be using are just like us in terms of technology (well, a few decades into our past anyway, with some cyberpunk/sci-fi thrown in) and can stand up to interdimensional warmongers with a powerful tech/magical advantage despite some of them just being regular humans in-universe.

The SMT series is the best I can think of, as it's one of the most powerful fictional universes out there. SMT deals with demons, angels, gods, etc. Essentially, a bunch of extradimensional entities invade the world and drag humanity into the battle.

One game has you, as a trained human in powered armor. The armor is noted to not be why you're so effective, as plenty of other people have the same/better armor and better equipment/genes/whatever than you. Over the course of the game, you go and kill creatures that can create universes, manipulate space-time and defeated a civilization full of beings much more advanced than humanity. One character in particular says you're equal to a character that, bare minimum, can destroy and reshape the multiverse constantly, which is backed up by your half-demon daughter in a futuristic version of your power suit having to buff herself up with reality warping items/fragments of creation itself just to have a chance at defeating you (as opposed to it being the other way around) and one boss being noted to be able to shake an infinite multiverse by breathing.

Another game has a bunch of gods ambush and attack a mortal human who... Slays angels, demons and gods pretty regularly, dodged a lightning attack from a god and was so powerful that he was considered the trump card against their true enemy, so they needed to add their power to his to have a chance of defeating the series-spanning BBEG (the same character that is above the one that destroys/recreates the multiverse constantly). Of note, the gods had to play dirty to defeat this character, despite much weaker beings being able to effortlessly slaughter humans, this mortal is on another level entirely.

The DLC of the previous game outright says that a regular high schooler (who certainly had no firearm experience) and a country boy (who's training amounted to "Don't die, now go fight monsters") are equal in power with a genetically engineered super soldier who can fight the series-spanning BBEG, a half-demon handpicked by one of the most powerful demons in the setting to kill the series-spanning nigh-omnipotent BBEG (and, this same character also ends up killing possibly every universe in existence at once) and the reanimated guy who was selected to kill the series-spanning nigh-omnipotent BBEG/became a transcendental god themselves (who kills an infinite amount of the character during their boss fight). The transcendent BBEG (who has a multiversal fragment/avatar) was basically terrified of their potential and so killed each of them off in the DLC before they hit their peak and could (and would, in the case of most) be capable of threatening him.

The games heavily imply humanity have the ability to alter reality to some degree, and the player characters in particular have a lot of potential to become insanely powerful. The early game bosses for some games are explicitly capable of creating universes/dimensions, while other, late-game bosses can and do shape the entire universe/multiverse. SMT human protagonists can probably hang out with (and defeat) most versions of Superman if we want to keep it to accomplishments, if we're being honest... But Superman could easily win against the entire SMT universe at once if a DC writer were writing this hypothetical versus battle and wanted him to.

Just because a character is a human in one setting doesn't mean all humans in all stories follow the same format for what is and isn't possible in a story. Otherwise, I could make the argument that DC humans follow the same rules as SMT humans... But that's not the case because DC and SMT have different writers, with different ways of working.

Much like how you can't extrapolate the effectiveness of magic vs the effectiveness of technology as an objective fact, as it depends on whoever is writing the story and their personal preferences. Marvel Magic is not DC Magic and neither are D&D Magic, and DC Technology is not Marvel Technology anymore than either are D&D technology, despite all of them being magic and/or tech, you have different people writing the rules for how they work and how effective they are vs each other.

Once again, it comes down to whoever is writing it. You have normal humans beating up impossibly ancient universe/multiversal destroyers that wage war across the infinite multiverse and all you have to put them in their place are guns and swords... Because the writers wanted it to be the case that you don't have any powers, you're just that good.


Please explain how this could possibly happen?

In Marvel vs DC or whatever it was called, people could place votes IIRC and whoever got the most votes won. Including Wolverine beating up Lobo (someone who is apparently so fast and strong that even Superman has trouble keeping up with him). Why? Because the writer decided to let Wolverine win, despite Lobo being a villain who can hang with Superman.

The writer decides who wins and loses at the end of the day. Much like how the writer decides if magic or technology is superior, as this is imaginary and imagination can do whatever you want.

These are fictional characters, they don't exist, so it goes back to whoever is writing the story to determine how effective things are.

[Huzuhbazah]

My response to each segment will be in bold red.


So recently I have been wondering about how magic and technological societies differ, in that one is typically constantly medieval and the other highly advanced over time, and I decided that it is because of the difference in magic and technology.

It seems to me that technology is superior in effectively every way to magic, from raising the quality of life to military power to overall societal advancement.

It's not superior. See below for details regarding why.

For example, we know that IRL technology can be industrialized on an incredible scale. I have yet to see magic becoming industrialized as even a possibility in any DnD system, let alone setting. Plus, the fact that crafting feats or abilities are required leads me to conclude that it is simply impossible to industrialize magic. Tech 1, Magic 0.

Not observing magic industrialized as even a possibility in any system or setting, and there being feat and ability requirements for crafting, doesn't make magic industrialization impossible.

Another is the accessibility of magic vs. tech. Magic requires magical aptitude in at least a 10 or 11 in a mental stat to become a magewright or a wizard. Meanwhile, even a 9 int or even 7 int commoner can study in a university for some years and get the training to become a engineer or a scientist of particle physics. Plus, it takes a DC 20 UMD check to use a wand, while even babies can use iPads. Tech 2, Magic 0.

A 3d6 roll will produce the following results:
#: Minimum % Chance
3: 100
4: 99.54
5: 98.15
6: 95.37
7: 90.74
8: 83.8
9: 74.07
10: 62.5
11: 50
12: 37.5
13: 25.9
14: 16.2
15: 9.26
16: 4.63
17: 1.85
18: 0.46

Getting at least 7 Intelligence is at least ~1.45 times more likely than getting at least 10 Intelligence in a 3d6 roll, which isn't that big of probability gap. Also, the ability bonus/penalty difference between 7 and 10 Intelligence is 2, which is very small. Wands are not needed to industrialize magic, while iPads are more fragile, reliant, and transient than wands.

The military might of technology vs magic is also considerable. It takes 5 levels for a wizard to hurl a ****ty easy save fireball and he can only do it once per day. Meanwhile, mortars and tanks have shells manufactured by the millions (industry for the win again!) and can easily destroy some bearded fool in bathrobes from miles away. Plus, nukes can destroy cities, which is not even something any spell can even do. I am pretty sure Eberron would lose vs 1930s earth, and even the Tippyverse would be easily conquered by Modern earth. Tech 3, Magic 0.

It merely takes 3 levels in Wizard, 12 Intelligence, the Craft Wondrous Item feat, 3,500 GP worth of material components, 280 XP, and 8 hours of crafting per day for 7 consecutive days to craft a theoretically permanent and automatic reset trap of Invisibility with a touch trigger. I shouldn't have to explain how constant invisibility makes the Wizard a serious threat against modern military forces from Earth. This also doesn't take into account other highly useful magic traps with identical or lower crafting costs and requirements that could be made by said Wizard. For reference, 3,500 GP can be acquired by a 3rd level generalist Wizard via selling every spell slot available to them each day for 59 consecutive days, 37 consecutive days if they're a 3rd level specialist Wizard, or 70/35/17.5 minutes by either if they sell an instance of a 0th/1st/2nd level spell with no material component costs produced by an automatic reset trap every round.

Meanwhile, mortars, mortar rounds, tanks, tank rounds, and the supply chains needed to maintain, operate, and replace such arms and vehicles could be vastly more complex and vulnerable than the supply chains needed to provide a 3rd level Wizard with material components.

Also, an 11th level Wizard can cast Major Creation (Uranium-235), Resilient Sphere, and Teleport once every 24 hours, so as to effectively produce, survive, then vacate the blast zone of a nuclear explosion with a yield of ~116 megatons of TNT, all without warning, with virtually no chance of interference from their target, and at potentially any location the Wizard can be present at. If they so wished, a 10th level Wizard (or 9th level Conjurer) could also craft automatic reset traps of each of those spells, which would give them the ability to systematically obliterate the entirety of Earth's surface over time, and Earth's militaries would be unable to stop them.

The Tippyverse could also easily and peacefully conquer modern Earth by having just one of its 11th level Wizards cast Planar Binding to capture a Noble Djinn, which the Wizard then utilizes to acquire two Candles of Invocation, and compensates said Noble Djinn with their 3rd Wish, so as to acquire an endless supply of Candles of Invocations by repeatedly calling more Noble Djinn with said Candles of Invocation to acquire more Candles of Invocation, until the Wizard calls enough Noble Djinn to then cast enough instances of Demand via Wish to compel all leaders of every country on Earth to act as needed to merge all Earth nations into a world government ruled by the Wizard, and compel all dissidents to cease hostilities and resistance against the world government, as well as cast enough instances of all spells needed to sustain everyone's loyalty by providing them with necessities and luxuries.

As for Eberron versus 1930s Earth, we can safely assume that the 9th level Conjurer and 10th/11th level Wizards described above could easily exist, and therefore singlehandedly defeat said Earth very quickly.

One of the most important points is the overall advancement of society. A purely technological society, as demonstrated by Stellaris and multiple other sources, has the potential to grow and develop over time into an incredibly advanced society that benefits everyone, from the humblest agri-worker to the Presidents, as proven by the Khen-Zai for an in universe example. Meanwhile, the average fantasy land or magical society has nothing but wizards in ivory towers lording it over dirt farming peasants doomed to toil in medieval savagery until the local star novas or something. An example being all of Forgotten Realms. Tech 4, Magic 0.

The potential to grow and develop over time into an incredibly advanced society that benefits everyone is possible with magic, especially in ways that violate the conservation of matter and energy, as exemplified by spells like True Creation.

Finally, high technology realms are much safer than magic realms. The vast majority of magical realms, from Netheril to Azlant, collapse because of some magical apocalypse and never even get the chance to reach intergalactic levels. Meanwhile, the vast majority of technological realms such as Stellaris or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri reach intergalactic levels and usher in eras of peace and plenty. Tech 5, Magic 0.

In certain cosmologies, be they based on high technology or magic, there are an infinite number of differing realities, so the idea that the majority of one type of realm is more prone to apocalypses, populated by societies with the ability or inability to reach intergalactic levels, and/or achieve eras of peace and plenty is based on a perspective limited to a finite set of known realms that is not representative of the infinite varieties that could exist.

If we go off Pathfinder 1e rules, things change quite a bit, especially if you use Mythic rules. For example, Resilient Sphere no longer protects the Wizard from the nuclear explosion caused by Major Creation (Uranium-235), and they must use other methods to avoid dying, such as Contingency (Teleport), which would require them to be a 13th level Wizard in that specific case. Another example, specifically one that uses Mythic rules, would be the possibility of a Mythic character with 13 levels in Wizard that is going down the Archmage path, has a Mythic Rank of 3+, has the ability to cast visual illusion spells, has cast Contingency (Plane Shift) on themselves, has selected the Tangible Illusion path ability, to expend one use of their mythic power to temporarily transform an illusory black hole they created via a visual illusion spell into a physical, non-magical black hole, which would instantly cause them to Plane Shift away to safety, as their now tangible black hole absorbs nearby mass-energy, which would rapidly increase the black hole's volume and mass from 15 cubic feet and 52.58 Earths to ~15.87 cubic feet and 53.58 Earths, assuming the black hole absorbs a planet like Earth or Golarion, and said black hole would have most of its physical, non-magical self suddenly cease to be after 30 minutes, leaving behind a real black hole with a volume of ~0.34 inches and a mass of Earth or Golarion. If this was done on an infinite plane with sufficient mass-energy densities throughout its expansion volume, the black hole's volume and mass would continuously grow, even after its initial, physical, non-magical portion suddenly ceased to be after 30 minutes, effectively dooming the portions on the plane near the constantly growing black hole to eventually be absorbed.

So, consider me skeptical of technology being inherently superior to magic, unless it somehow can produce situations more extreme than these, all without violating the known laws of quantum mechanics and phenomena that emerge from said laws. Because, after all, if said laws are violated, the technology employed can effectively be considered another form of magic. :smallsmile:

[Destro2119]

The instructions of how to get any material infinitely are in the handbooks. READ THEM. Any way of me describing how to get infinite whatever would be... me quoting the handbook, probably in its entirety! If you don't want to actually read the answers to the questions you have that I already gave you, I can't help you!

Quoting:
"The mages have access to incredible resources. This includes things like a Wish based, Noble Djinn Simulacrum economy (remember, Savage Species added ‘changing the race of a creature’ to the functions of Wish. Doing so is considered the unsafe to cast, ‘greater’ uses of the spell, but the book also gives specific ways to mitigate that risk and particular uses of this, mostly by pumping Spellcraft extremely high during the casting, which is trivial to do with the correct spells), various ways of getting arbitrary amounts of powerful magic items into the population, at least one Dweomerkeeper with access to completely costless Miracles, ways of generating XP for crafting via traps, planar binding shenanigans, epic level magic, custom spell research, basically unlimited wealth, the sponsorship of a deity in doing these sorts of things, etc. etc. In essence -- money is not an object, and neither are obscure feats for different sorts of grafts (after all, a single crafter can make as many Dedicated Wrights as needed, assuming the DM allows them to work in parallel), nor is manpower or spellcasting ability."

You also mention blood money.

It seems to me that a lot of these exploits are too cheesy. Noble Djinns will 100% rebel against you trying to exploit them. Blood money requires human sacrifice more or less. Is there any more "safe" way to make infinite money/resources?

[Destro2119]

My response to each segment will be in bold red.



If we go off Pathfinder 1e rules, things change quite a bit, especially if you use Mythic rules. For example, Resilient Sphere no longer protects the Wizard from the nuclear explosion caused by Major Creation (Uranium-235), and they must use other methods to avoid dying, such as Contingency (Teleport), which would require them to be a 13th level Wizard in that specific case. Another example, specifically one that uses Mythic rules, would be the possibility of a Mythic character with 13 levels in Wizard that is going down the Archmage path, has a Mythic Rank of 3+, has the ability to cast visual illusion spells, has cast Contingency (Plane Shift) on themselves, has selected the Tangible Illusion path ability, to expend one use of their mythic power to temporarily transform an illusory black hole they created via a visual illusion spell into a physical, non-magical black hole, which would instantly cause them to Plane Shift away to safety, as their now tangible black hole absorbs nearby mass-energy, which would rapidly increase the black hole's volume and mass from 15 cubic feet and 52.58 Earths to ~15.87 cubic feet and 53.58 Earths, assuming the black hole absorbs a planet like Earth or Golarion, and said black hole would have most of its physical, non-magical self suddenly cease to be after 30 minutes, leaving behind a real black hole with a volume of ~0.34 inches and a mass of Earth or Golarion. If this was done on an infinite plane with mass-energy present at every point, the black hole's volume and mass would continuously grow, even after its initial, physical, non-magical portion suddenly ceased to be after 30 minutes, effectively dooming the portions on the plane near the constantly growing black hole to eventually be absorbed.

So, consider me skeptical of technology being inherently superior to magic, unless it somehow can produce situations more extreme than these, all without violating the known laws of quantum mechanics and phenomena that emerge from said laws. Because, after all, if said laws are violated, the technology employed can effectively be considered another form of magic. :smallsmile:

Nice writeup!

(Just to clarify, the system I assume is 3.X, which is basically a combo of every rule in the 3.0-3.5-PF. For example, we use 3.0 Animal buff spells but PF crafting rules, and epic rules instead of mythic, though most mythic things translate to epic feats or spells anyways, or just consolidated under epic)

[Segev]

Blood money requires human sacrifice more or less. Is there any more "safe" way to make infinite money/resources?

Quibble: it really doesn't. It just requires greater restoration as a backup to heal the Strength damage. There are also other means to achieve it reasonably ethically (including magic jar into, say, a cow, and then getting polymorphed into your own form to cast the spells, then leaving the strengthless cow for either basic care or for slaughter).

[Gavinfoxx]

No the pathfinder spell Blood Money requires a miniscule amount of easily healed hit point and ability score damage.

Also the point of Noble Djinns was to not do it with Efreeti, cause they're more jerks. Also, you're not getting the wishes from the Noble Djinn, typically. If you would read my handbook, you'd see that I suggest planar binding Mirror Mephits and forcing them to make Simulacrum of Noble Djinn under your control, which are then forced to cast the spells on your behalf. Also, look at the specific methods later in the handbook. Even if a DM shoots down some of them, if they are okay with, you know, a game predicated upon economic upheaval and magical industrialization, they may allow a large chunk of them, and most any of the methods can start a magitech-industrial revolution. MORE IMPORTANTLY, the rules allow these things to happen. Just because it feels weird to you doesn't mean the game doesn't allow it. Magical industrial revolution is, after all, a fantasy roleplaying game genre. See this book for examples: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/291774/Magical-Industrial-Revolution


Also this Blood money doesnt kill anyone:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-money/

The one from this book?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601254369/

All you need is a cheap repeating source of Lesser Restoration and extremely mild amounts of healing.

[Bugbear]

Is there any more "safe" way to make infinite money/resources?

*Creation magic. The default example is create water. Even the lowest level divine caster can do this. In 3X they can create six gallons of water a day.....Pathfinder, well, two gallons a round at will any time. Access to fresh, clean, safe water is a big deal (even in 2021). People, quite literally need water to live...so you can charge plenty of coin for it. Plus HUGE sections of any world have VAST areas with little or no water.....and in such areas, the price of water goes up.

And that is just a zero level spell. A divine caster that gets a couple levels that makes even a single Decanter of Endless Water.....gets endless water.

And for two other easy examples, wall of iron or wall of salt both get you a ton of free material.

*This works both for fantasy or Sci FI: raid alternate realities. With the whole multiverse idea there are an infinite number of "Earths"...and every other planet. So it's simple enough: open a gate and raid away, an infinite number of times. You can even pick the 'Earths' with no intelligent life: just a planet full of resources all for you.

[Destro2119]

No the pathfinder spell Blood Money requires a miniscule amount of easily healed hit point and ability score damage.

Also the point of Noble Djinns was to not do it with Efreeti, cause they're more jerks. Also, you're not getting the wishes from the Noble Djinn, typically. If you would read my handbook, you'd see that I suggest planar binding Mirror Mephits and forcing them to make Simulacrum of Noble Djinn under your control, which are then forced to cast the spells on your behalf. Also, look at the specific methods later in the handbook. Even if a DM shoots down some of them, if they are okay with, you know, a game predicated upon economic upheaval and magical industrialization, they may allow a large chunk of them, and most any of the methods can start a magitech-industrial revolution. MORE IMPORTANTLY, the rules allow these things to happen. Just because it feels weird to you doesn't mean the game doesn't allow it. Magical industrial revolution is, after all, a fantasy roleplaying game genre. See this book for examples: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/291774/Magical-Industrial-Revolution


Also this Blood money doesnt kill anyone:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-money/

The one from this book?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601254369/

All you need is a cheap repeating source of Lesser Restoration and extremely mild amounts of healing.

Well, moving away from those known exploits, that book Magical Industrial Revolution lists completely new developments. What sort of advancements in that vein can you think of?

[Vaern]

Why should it? Nukes are physical things. Atoms are physical things. Physical attacks of any kind except things that are explicitly Force effects do not affect ethereal creatures, unless otherwise noted. If you're going to start saying "well a nuke SHOULD count as a Force effect," you're inherently biasing the rules by allowing the tech side to gain new attributes without allowing the magic side to do the same (such as researching an anti-radiation spell, which is a perfectly valid idea--Pathfinder has anti-radiation spells.)
D&D doesn't describe or define nukes in any way, so there really aren't any rules to bias. To determine whether nukes are a force effect, you would have to look at a physics textbook's definition of force to determine whether a nuke releases a significant amount of force. The massive fireball that comes with a nuclear explosion might not touch an ethereal wizard, but the shockwave that comes with it is pure force and will still obliterate him. Unless he has evasion or a fridge available.

[JNAProductions]

Physical force is not magical force.

[Vaern]

Physical force is not magical force.

Are ethereal creatures specifically vulnerable to magical force, or to force in general? By saying, "well it SHOULD require a MAGICAL force effect," when it's not specified in the text then you're inherently biasing the rules by allowing the magic side to gain new attributes without allowing the tech side to do the same.

[Gnaeus]

Are ethereal creatures specifically vulnerable to magical force, or to force in general? By saying, "well it SHOULD require a MAGICAL force effect," when it's not specified in the text then you're inherently biasing the rules by allowing the magic side to gain new attributes without allowing the tech side to do the same.

If kinetic force was a force effect, swinging a warhammer would hit incorporeal creatures. A shockwave is just a big wall of air and debris moving really fast. It has the same non effect on a wizard as a tsunami or hurricane. And it’s pretty clear that the force descriptor describes something like a force field, rather than something that has a large amount of kinetic force (like mage armor, which affects incorporeals despite actually just being armor with no particular kinetic force component). Could super-tech create a force effect? Certainly. Can a nuke do it? No.

But

We also have damage numbers for getting hit with a nuclear blast. They are easily soakable by a high level wizard. The shockwave alone would do quite a bit less.

But

Where do you even place the bomb to hit the astrally projecting wizard? Yeah, his projected body may be where you are. But even if you could do a trillion force damage to his projected body, his actual body could be anywhere on the plane. And that’s what you need to kill for the nuke to hurt the wizard. He could be somewhere that equates to 100 miles below ground on the prime.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, moving away from those known exploits, that book Magical Industrial Revolution lists completely new developments. What sort of advancements in that vein can you think of?

Magical Industrial Revolution isn't 3.5e. It's intended for a different game. It's simply the same genre of fantasy. I already have a handbook for 3.5e and PF1 methods. If you want me to make some **** up, you're going to have to narrow the scope of the fictional space. Why would I just randomly make some random things up to justify an utterly undefined magical system advancing technology with no constraints whatsoever? And for no payment? Is this even for a D20 game at all? Is this for a novel that you will be writing? Again:


What is your end purpose in this endeavor, Destro? What are you trying to figure out? What exactly would satisfy you, one way or another? What kind of analysis is needed, and to what ends? Are you just trying to compare D20 Modern, D&D 3.5e, Pathfinder 1e, and Starfinder? What do you plan on doing with the information you get?

[Faily]

When it comes to settings, some things have been missed or stated incorrectly.

Someone already corrected on Netheril earlier, so I don't need to touch on that.

Eberron should be mentioned for being a setting with industrialized magic, and magic has been used to improve lives of people. They have magical railways, and elemental-powered airships as well as forges/factories (so they've eliminated the need for fuel/electricity/power... matters of ethics can be discussed about enslaving elementals though).

Azlant in Golarion didn't fall because of magic going awry (but it's a myth mentioned IC in the setting). Earthfall was the result of the master-manipulators of the Azlanti deciding to wipe them out in a pique of rage (https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Earthfall). Azlant should be noted having highly advanced technology fuelled by magic.

Did you know what happened to the most technologically advanced D&D setting, namely Blackmoor (also a location in Mystara)? Yeah. It blew up. Because of technology going wrong. It blew up so hard it changed the axis of the planet.

Overall, highly advanced technological sci-fi societies tend to trend more towards dystopian or post-apocalyptic than utopian and idyllic. The Federation in Star Trek is probably among the nicest ones, and even there it's only on core worlds of the Federation (like on Earth) that life is pretty sweet. Further out? Not so much. I don't really consider Stellaris to be a good representation of sci-fi settings, as it would be like dragging Civilzation Kings or Europa Universalis into the discussion. Stellaris is a simulation game with various programmed inputs and choices, not an actual setting.

[CIDE]

To go into less of an abstract and dip into WotC's own works D20 Modern/D20 Future discusses this a bit. At progress level 9 (the highest printed level) the technology can do everything in the lower tiers, all the insane stuff printed for PL9 technology, and literally, anything magic can do. With references directly to D&D sourcebook for examples and a few printed examples like the transmorgifier (I think I misspelled it). Which is a device that is basically At-will polymorph. No magic is required to construct these magic-like devices and they don't deal with the same weaknesses.

Even within WotC's own works technology does seem to win out, eventually.

[AntiAuthority]

Magical Industrial Revolution isn't 3.5e. It's intended for a different game. It's simply the same genre of fantasy. I already have a handbook for 3.5e and PF1 methods. If you want me to make some **** up, you're going to have to narrow the scope of the fictional space. Why would I just randomly make some random things up to justify an utterly undefined magical system advancing technology with no constraints whatsoever? And for no payment? Is this even for a D20 game at all? Is this for a novel that you will be writing? Again:

That seems to be the crux of the issue with this whole thing. There's no real indication of what level of magic or tech we're talking about, as OP is being pretty vague as to what we're discussing. There's no real indicator of if the tech caps out at real world technology or something else (and does cybernetic implants eat your soul if it reaches into sci-fi realms, was it a leftover from another civilization, did aliens give it to humanity)? Are the materials readily available to be mass produced? Same with magic, we don't know who has it or where it comes from or how it can (if at all) interact with technology. Can they be combined or are they limited to what we see in 3.5e/3.PF rulebooks and can't be improved upon in any way?

At the end of the day, there's no real way to answer "Is Technology Inherently Superior to Magic?" because the question is so vague, without any criteria, there's no right way to approach the question.

"Is Technology Inherently Superior to Magic?" depends on the limitations and powers the writer set down for or against one or the other, but without any rules in place, this seems like it would heavily depend on whatever setting the writer was going for, rather than an objective "Yes" or "No" answer.

[Destro2119]

That seems to be the crux of the issue with this whole thing. There's no real indication of what level of magic or tech we're talking about, as OP is being pretty vague as to what we're discussing. There's no real indicator of if the tech caps out at real world technology or something else (and does cybernetic implants eat your soul if it reaches into sci-fi realms, was it a leftover from another civilization, did aliens give it to humanity)? Are the materials readily available to be mass produced? Same with magic, we don't know who has it or where it comes from or how it can (if at all) interact with technology. Can they be combined or are they limited to what we see in 3.5e/3.PF rulebooks and can't be improved upon in any way?

At the end of the day, there's no real way to answer "Is Technology Inherently Superior to Magic?" because the question is so vague, without any criteria, there's no right way to approach the question.

"Is Technology Inherently Superior to Magic?" depends on the limitations and powers the writer set down for or against one or the other, but without any rules in place, this seems like it would heavily depend on whatever setting the writer was going for, rather than an objective "Yes" or "No" answer.

My whole point was to analyze how a society or societies would development if they had 3.X* magic or if they had no magic. For example, Golarion (not a good setting, but I can use the base idea) has an area that has no magic at all, and they have developed tech like guns in order to battle the monsters in the area they live. Another example would be Lantan, from FR.

In essence, I am trying to figure out whether a society with magic would become more advanced or powerful than a society with only tech and science as possibilities. The post was titled as such since we know tech IRL is very very powerful, and I wanted to see how magic would do if it had the same chances to advance, or of it would advance at all.

To Gavinfoxx, I brought up the possibility of "non-rulebook" advancements since tech is obviously not restrained to a single rulebook, and I was looking to see what possible developments might be made.

*Just to clarify, 3.X means you use any rule from the entire 3.0-PF line, which means you might use the 3.0 version of a spell, a 3.5 character option, and a PF rule)

[Destro2119]

To go into less of an abstract and dip into WotC's own works D20 Modern/D20 Future discusses this a bit. At progress level 9 (the highest printed level) the technology can do everything in the lower tiers, all the insane stuff printed for PL9 technology, and literally, anything magic can do. With references directly to D&D sourcebook for examples and a few printed examples like the transmorgifier (I think I misspelled it). Which is a device that is basically At-will polymorph. No magic is required to construct these magic-like devices and they don't deal with the same weaknesses.

Even within WotC's own works technology does seem to win out, eventually.

The problem with PL 9 (other than it assumes a no-magic place and probably runs off of made up laws that would mean it is basically magic) is that it takes so long to make that, as other posters have pointed out, a magical society with the same drive to advance as the tech one that reached PL 9 would be perfectly content to let you have your little transmogification machines b/c at THEIR "PL 9" they can create an 80 billion miles wide demiplane and plane shift a star and a dyson sphere into it(assuming 3.X system).

EDIT: Rereading PL 9, that level is basically "GM FIAT: THE GAME." I guess it is just a matter of who gets there quicker. Which magic still wins.

[Gavinfoxx]

My whole point was to analyze how a society or societies would development if they had 3.X* magic or if they had no magic. For example, Golarion (not a good setting, but I can use the base idea) has an area that has no magic at all, and they have developed tech like guns in order to battle the monsters in the area they live. Another example would be Lantan, from FR.

In essence, I am trying to figure out whether a society with magic would become more advanced or powerful than a society with only tech and science as possibilities. The post was titled as such since we know tech IRL is very very powerful, and I wanted to see how magic would do if it had the same chances to advance, or of it would advance at all.

To Gavinfoxx, I brought up the possibility of "non-rulebook" advancements since tech is obviously not restrained to a single rulebook, and I was looking to see what possible developments might be made.

*Just to clarify, 3.X means you use any rule from the entire 3.0-PF line, which means you might use the 3.0 version of a spell, a 3.5 character option, and a PF rule)


You realize this is the first time you've specified a world that runs on 3.0, 3.5, and PF1 rules as your baseline, right? Also, why do you want to figure this out? Are you running a game? Writing a D&D fanfic? What's the point here?

Also, if you want to see a fanfic where 3.5e magic is turned into technology, just read the Two Year Emperor

https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3xe9fn/ffrt_the_two_year_emperor_is_back_and_free/

[Vaern]

You realize this is the first time you've specified a world that runs on 3.0, 3.5, and PF1 rules as your baseline, right?
It should go without saying, though. It is on the 3e/3.5e/d20 board, after all.

[Destro2119]

You realize this is the first time you've specified a world that runs on 3.0, 3.5, and PF1 rules as your baseline, right? Also, why do you want to figure this out? Are you running a game? Writing a D&D fanfic? What's the point here?

Also, if you want to see a fanfic where 3.5e magic is turned into technology, just read the Two Year Emperor

https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3xe9fn/ffrt_the_two_year_emperor_is_back_and_free/

I want to know it for worldbuilding reasons, if you must have a reason. Otherwise, I think I explained it pretty well. I appreciate your handbooks, but you seem to actively be ignoring my discussions at this point.

[Destro2119]

You realize this is the first time you've specified a world that runs on 3.0, 3.5, and PF1 rules as your baseline, right? Also, why do you want to figure this out? Are you running a game? Writing a D&D fanfic? What's the point here?

Also, if you want to see a fanfic where 3.5e magic is turned into technology, just read the Two Year Emperor

https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3xe9fn/ffrt_the_two_year_emperor_is_back_and_free/

I do not have the time to read it. Please summarize at least some of the advancements made?

[AntiAuthority]

My whole point was to analyze how a society or societies would development if they had 3.X* magic or if they had no magic. For example, Golarion (not a good setting, but I can use the base idea) has an area that has no magic at all, and they have developed tech like guns in order to battle the monsters in the area they live. Another example would be Lantan, from FR.

In essence, I am trying to figure out whether a society with magic would become more advanced or powerful than a society with only tech and science as possibilities. The post was titled as such since we know tech IRL is very very powerful, and I wanted to see how magic would do if it had the same chances to advance, or of it would advance at all.

To Gavinfoxx, I brought up the possibility of "non-rulebook" advancements since tech is obviously not restrained to a single rulebook, and I was looking to see what possible developments might be made.

*Just to clarify, 3.X means you use any rule from the entire 3.0-PF line, which means you might use the 3.0 version of a spell, a 3.5 character option, and a PF rule)

In that case... Probably 3.PF magic.

We have rockets that haven't taken us outside of the solar system, while Greater Teleport lets you travel outside our galaxy, to anywhere in the universe.

Humans have to travel under the speed of light, 3.PF magic has no such limitations.

Humans struggle to colonize Mars, Eziah (Wizard 16) managed to create his own personal castle on the sun.

Can spells be made readily available to the public? Probably, just enchant stuff and it should be theoretically possible. Can it advance to Magitech? That seems like something the DM should decide.

Though, I suppose there is a good reason for this... I'll explain a possible way around it below, as this piques my interest.


The problem with PL 9 (other than it assumes a no-magic place and probably runs off of made up laws that would mean it is basically magic) is that it takes so long to make that, as other posters have pointed out, a magical society with the same drive to advance as the tech one that reached PL 9 would be perfectly content to let you have your little transmogification machines b/c at THEIR "PL 9" they can create an 80 billion miles wide demiplane and plane shift your planet into it (assuming 3.X system).

It sounds like you already know the answer on which is superior from this, so I'm not sure what else can be said.



Now, for my interpretation of why magic seems so OP (and my response to how to make it a truly fair comparison).

The first is the writers didn't think it out ahead what kind of guns would be effective in a world full of monsters and such. The games run on Rule of Cool, and that's perfectly acceptable, but a gun is a gun, while magic tends to invoke images of fantastical powers and such. This leads into the next part.

The second part... I subscribe to the Real Life is E6 belief, as in everyone in real life caps out at Level 6. This includes guns being limited to what we can find in real life too, while magic isn't. So, we (and the designers) are comparing magic for high level characters to technology for low level characters. The only way this could really be fair to technology is if we had high level scientists or some scientific analogue (closest I can think of are Alchemists, but that's probably not right) and compared what these high level characters with their high level tech could do to compete with magic in terms of effectiveness.

It's a variation of the Guy at the Gym in a way (only instead of nerds overtaking martial artists, it's nerds overtaking other nerds...). We're comparing a bunch of Level 6 Experts (even subconsciously) that have to build off the progress of others and hope they make a breakthrough in their lifetime to a bunch of Level 20 magic users that can probably beat the Level 6 Expert's best rolls fairly easily and have no known basis in reality. So, instead of comparing Dr. Strange (high level magic user) to Albert Einstein (low level Expert), we compare Dr. Strange to Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards (high level scientist) or Hank Pym (high level scientist) for sake of reference as to what sort of things could be invented.

Without this, it's "Fantastic characters with no basis in reality vs mundane characters that are just as human as the smartest real world person." Essentially, let's say Albert Einstein was a Level 6 Expert and essentially hit his cap, but if he were a Level 6 Scientist, he would have come up with his theory or relativity, then realized how to improve the kinks, figured out how to use it to create wormholes, find out a way to circumvent the "nothing can go faster than light" rule (and then find a way for humans to use it without dying instantly), discover a bunch of new particles that revolutionize how understanding of the universe works and finally probably realize how to create (if he wanted to) a miniature black hole... Then make a bunch of other people with the potential and drive to do the same thing, in their own field of study, and allow them to build on the progress of their predecessors, like the magic users can.

This would be much more fair to ask if technology is inherently superior to magic or not, as it's High Level Fantastic Character vs High Level Fantastic Character. Though this leads to the issue of the books not really having examples of such fantastic, non-magical characters written into the rules, so it's kind of hard to gauge with 3.5E/3.PF rules. Closest I can figure is that this hypothetical civilization would have developed technology must faster than our world did, gone to space sooner, etc. and finally figured out how to get around The Great Filter/Fermi Paradox and such, but this is me guessing since there aren't any rules for this type of thing to my knowledge.

Just my thoughts on how to possibly balance this. If this is at all confusing, I'll try to clarify it.

[CIDE]

The problem with PL 9 (other than it assumes a no-magic place and probably runs off of made up laws that would mean it is basically magic) is that it takes so long to make that, as other posters have pointed out, a magical society with the same drive to advance as the tech one that reached PL 9 would be perfectly content to let you have your little transmogification machines b/c at THEIR "PL 9" they can create an 80 billion miles wide demiplane and plane shift a star and a dyson sphere into it(assuming 3.X system).


First and foremost, I said the same thing. I even stated that it would happen EVENTUALLY. The point I was making was that once we get there the technology is objectively better. There are alternate dimensions, other planes, time travel, and alternate timelines all available to the tech side of things so no reason to believe that they can't take advantage of the same tricks that the magic side will be able to. The other problem is that we simply do not know how long it takes to reach PL9. PL 7 or 8, based on modules and story prompts available in the books, could be reached in as little as a few centuries after our modern day.

Also, even under the best circumstances it would still probably take decades to centuries to get that medieval fantasy setting up to where it needs to be here.

[Gavinfoxx]

What exactly are you asking for?

If you want the mechanics of how to use 3.5 and PF to use magical technology... read my handbooks. They tell you how to do it. As well as some extrapolations that go a bit beyond the rules, and are informed by them, since you seem to want that.

If you want a roleplaying sourcebook that shows general dungeon fantasy going through a magical technology revolution... then read the book in the drivethroughrpg link.

If you want a novel that shows a 3.5e civilization going through a magical technological revolution, than read the Two Year Emperor.

What else could you possibly need??

[Bugbear]

The problem with PL 9 (other than it assumes a no-magic place and probably runs off of made up laws that would mean it is basically magic) is that it takes so long to make that, as other posters have pointed out, a magical society with the same drive to advance as the tech one that reached PL 9 would be perfectly content to let you have your little transmogification machines b/c at THEIR "PL 9" they can create an 80 billion miles wide demiplane and plane shift a star and a dyson sphere into it(assuming 3.X system).

PL 9 or any other number to rank development is a bit silly. That D20 PL only covers ancient and modern, once it gets to 'future' things it just gets vague.

If we are using the d20/D&D/PF rules of reality, then magic and technology are exactly the same. Each can potentially do anything. Anything magic can do, technology can do and reversed.

You can say magic can can create an 80 billion miles wide demiplane and plane shift a star and a dyson sphere into it.

But anyone else can say...well....technology can do EXACTLY that too. To toss out some random sci fi the Timelords of Gallafrey do that, plus their star is frozen in time.

If you were to take a hundred magical worlds and a hundred technological worlds, each will progress at a level unique to each planet. Anything can happen. But there will be no "winner".

[Destro2119]

PL 9 or any other number to rank development is a bit silly. That D20 PL only covers ancient and modern, once it gets to 'future' things it just gets vague.

If we are using the d20/D&D/PF rules of reality, then magic and technology are exactly the same. Each can potentially do anything. Anything magic can do, technology can do and reversed.

You can say magic can can create an 80 billion miles wide demiplane and plane shift a star and a dyson sphere into it.

But anyone else can say...well....technology can do EXACTLY that too. To toss out some random sci fi the Timelords of Gallafrey do that, plus their star is frozen in time.

If you were to take a hundred magical worlds and a hundred technological worlds, each will progress at a level unique to each planet. Anything can happen. But there will be no "winner".

Well, I made an edit, but the gist of it is PL 9 is basically the leveling off point for both tech and magic. I still assert that if the main goal is to get there faster, magic will probably win out.

[Destro2119]

First and foremost, I said the same thing. I even stated that it would happen EVENTUALLY. The point I was making was that once we get there the technology is objectively better. There are alternate dimensions, other planes, time travel, and alternate timelines all available to the tech side of things so no reason to believe that they can't take advantage of the same tricks that the magic side will be able to. The other problem is that we simply do not know how long it takes to reach PL9. PL 7 or 8, based on modules and story prompts available in the books, could be reached in as little as a few centuries after our modern day.

Also, even under the best circumstances it would still probably take decades to centuries to get that medieval fantasy setting up to where it needs to be here.

Well, once again, rereading PL 9, it is the leveling off point for both tech and magic civilizations. It's when they are basically one and the same in terms of accessibility and power, whether everyone is a transhuman wizard or a transhuman scientist.

If the goal is to get there faster, I assert that since they are both fiction, it will be up to the author, though I probably would give magic the edge (of course, both civilizations could just nuke themselves into oblivion far before then, so I assert to reach PL 9 at all you need some sort of global peace).

[Bugbear]

Well, I made an edit, but the gist of it is PL 9 is basically the leveling off point for both tech and magic. I still assert that if the main goal is to get there faster, magic will probably win out.

But how and why?

With the same baseline of rules, the d20/D&D/PF rules, why do you say magic is so fast? What advantage do you see magic having that makes it faster?

[AntiAuthority]

But how and why?

With the same baseline of rules, the d20/D&D/PF rules, why do you say magic is so fast? What advantage do you see magic having that makes it faster?

Adding onto this. At what rate are they discovering all these spells, or do they just automatically know every potential spell they can use at X level? Because the latter is unfair if the magic side doesn't need trial and error to figure out how spells work, but would certainly make things go faster for them than "We need to figure out how this works" and wasting countless spell components and time trying to figure out what (if any) causes spells to be cast. Meanwhile, if we just limit the tech side to trial and error...

What if a bunch of Druids were the first prominent group to discover magic and arcane magic never takes off because nobody realized there were different types of magic? That sort of limits the tech level and ultimately slows them down, what with Druids valuing nature...

There actually a lot of questions with assuming magic automatically grows faster.

[Luccan]

Magical societies are normally in medieval stasis because that's one of the more popular settings for fantasy fiction.

In 3.5, the requirements for any forms of spellcasting are a minimum of 10 in one of three mental stats. There are other forms of magical accessible to people that require different stats or no stats at all, but lets stick with spells and classes in the PHB. In order to cast a cantrip or orison, you have to be a perfectly average individual in either your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. One of those should be achievable to most human beings. Now, there's the matter of study. 3.5 is non-specific as to how long training/studying for your first level takes. We know if varies because of the starting age table, but its not made clear if you had to be working on your class before becoming an adult. Regardless, the longest time it takes to become a wizard, cleric, or druid is by the time you're 27. The shortest is by the time you're 17. You can become a Bard, Paladin, or Ranger by 16. Same with Sorcerer, if you're born lucky enough. So it takes at most the same amount of time to become a medical doctor as it does to become a wizard (or perhaps more relevantly, a cleric. All that learning and some guy with a sun medallion fixed that broken bone you set in 6 seconds). Any setting that pushed through the medieval stasis and mistrust of magic would likely advance much faster than ours has, at least if we're using 3.5 D&D rules.

Edit: It should be noted, even a cantrip could potentially be life changing magic. Cure Minor Wounds alone would greatly reduce the mortality rate if widely available.

[Mechalich]

But how and why?

With the same baseline of rules, the d20/D&D/PF rules, why do you say magic is so fast? What advantage do you see magic having that makes it faster?

According to 3.X D&D rules, you can use magic to outright accelerate time. If you create/find a fast time demiplane (exactly how much temporal acceleration is allowed is a subject to significant rules debate, but some is clearly viable because fast time localities exist in the multiverse), you are now operating faster than before. All other things being equal, this is a pretty substantial advantage.

[ezekielraiden]

For all those asking about nuclear weapons and force damage:

The 3.5e glossary (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/glossary&term=Glossary_dnd_forcedamage&alpha=) specifically says that force damage is only dealt by effects that specifically have the [Force] descriptor. So, we would need the specific writeup of a nuclear weapon to know if it counts as "force damage" or not.

Also, keep in mind that 90% or more of the damage is NOT due to radiation. It's due to the pressure shockwave caused by the explosion. Pressure shockwaves, even magical ones, are not "things made of pure magical force," they're generally bludgeoning damage. You are never actually exposed to any changes to the nuclear forces within your own atoms, only the fissile material inside the bomb experiences those forces. (Or fusion material, if it's an H-bomb.)

To the best of my knowledge, PF does not have rules for nuclear weapons either, but it DOES have supertech weapons that can do force damage. However, they're very much not just a nuclear bomb; these weapons all actually work by projecting a beam or cone of manipulated fundamental particles (gravitons, specifically). This would seem to imply that nuclear weapons do NOT do force damage. Likewise, the PF description for the [Force] descriptor is: "Force: Spells with the force descriptor create or manipulate magical force. Force spells affect incorporeal creatures normally (as if they were corporeal creatures)." No evidence that nukes should qualify.

And, as the OP has repeatedly stated, we should only stick to 3.5e/PF rules here. If the rules don't tell us nuclear weapons do force damage, we should not presume it.

[Huzuhbazah]

The rate of magical or technological advancement for any given setting fully depends on the wishes of its creator(s). Also, the amount of time needed to take one or more levels in any class ranges from a free action to an eternity, as even a Commoner can instantly earn enough XP to level up so much that they can then take the maximum amount of levels in all classes with requirements that they meet. Unless technology can produce similar or superior results, it will be inherently inferior to magic.

[Destro2119]

In that case... Probably 3.PF magic.

We have rockets that haven't taken us outside of the solar system, while Greater Teleport lets you travel outside our galaxy, to anywhere in the universe.

Humans have to travel under the speed of light, 3.PF magic has no such limitations.

Humans struggle to colonize Mars, Eziah (Wizard 16) managed to create his own personal castle on the sun.

Can spells be made readily available to the public? Probably, just enchant stuff and it should be theoretically possible. Can it advance to Magitech? That seems like something the DM should decide.

Though, I suppose there is a good reason for this... I'll explain a possible way around it below, as this piques my interest.



It sounds like you already know the answer on which is superior from this, so I'm not sure what else can be said.



Now, for my interpretation of why magic seems so OP (and my response to how to make it a truly fair comparison).

The first is the writers didn't think it out ahead what kind of guns would be effective in a world full of monsters and such. The games run on Rule of Cool, and that's perfectly acceptable, but a gun is a gun, while magic tends to invoke images of fantastical powers and such. This leads into the next part.

The second part... I subscribe to the Real Life is E6 belief, as in everyone in real life caps out at Level 6. This includes guns being limited to what we can find in real life too, while magic isn't. So, we (and the designers) are comparing magic for high level characters to technology for low level characters. The only way this could really be fair to technology is if we had high level scientists or some scientific analogue (closest I can think of are Alchemists, but that's probably not right) and compared what these high level characters with their high level tech could do to compete with magic in terms of effectiveness.

It's a variation of the Guy at the Gym in a way (only instead of nerds overtaking martial artists, it's nerds overtaking other nerds...). We're comparing a bunch of Level 6 Experts (even subconsciously) that have to build off the progress of others and hope they make a breakthrough in their lifetime to a bunch of Level 20 magic users that can probably beat the Level 6 Expert's best rolls fairly easily and have no known basis in reality. So, instead of comparing Dr. Strange (high level magic user) to Albert Einstein (low level Expert), we compare Dr. Strange to Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards (high level scientist) or Hank Pym (high level scientist) for sake of reference as to what sort of things could be invented.

Without this, it's "Fantastic characters with no basis in reality vs mundane characters that are just as human as the smartest real world person." Essentially, let's say Albert Einstein was a Level 6 Expert and essentially hit his cap, but if he were a Level 6 Scientist, he would have come up with his theory or relativity, then realized how to improve the kinks, figured out how to use it to create wormholes, find out a way to circumvent the "nothing can go faster than light" rule (and then find a way for humans to use it without dying instantly), discover a bunch of new particles that revolutionize how understanding of the universe works and finally probably realize how to create (if he wanted to) a miniature black hole... Then make a bunch of other people with the potential and drive to do the same thing, in their own field of study, and allow them to build on the progress of their predecessors, like the magic users can.

This would be much more fair to ask if technology is inherently superior to magic or not, as it's High Level Fantastic Character vs High Level Fantastic Character. Though this leads to the issue of the books not really having examples of such fantastic, non-magical characters written into the rules, so it's kind of hard to gauge with 3.5E/3.PF rules. Closest I can figure is that this hypothetical civilization would have developed technology must faster than our world did, gone to space sooner, etc. and finally figured out how to get around The Great Filter/Fermi Paradox and such, but this is me guessing since there aren't any rules for this type of thing to my knowledge.

Just my thoughts on how to possibly balance this. If this is at all confusing, I'll try to clarify it.

The problem with this is that by definition science, and therefore tech follows laws. If you have to make up new laws (to allow pym particles or FTL*) then you, by definition, are not doing science, you are doing pseudo magic (like WoD Mage technocrats).

Which is why I use Einstein and the real world as an example. I mean, realistically, for say a spaceship, unless you make up some new law to allow for anti gravity, then you are gonna have to rotate your ship to do it.

*Specifically safe FTL-- normal FTL would mean that a dust mote could knock a boulder sized hole in your ship

[Bugbear]

According to 3.X D&D rules, you can use magic to outright accelerate time. If you create/find a fast time demiplane (exactly how much temporal acceleration is allowed is a subject to significant rules debate, but some is clearly viable because fast time localities exist in the multiverse), you are now operating faster than before. All other things being equal, this is a pretty substantial advantage.

This is my point though. You can't just say "magic does X and wins". Unless you can say that it is utterly impossible for technology to do something similar, if not exactly that.

So...you CAN use technology to outright accelerate time. And you can create/find a fast time demiplane. Plenty of d20 sci fi rules can manipulate time.


The problem with this is that by definition science, and therefore tech follows laws. If you have to make up new laws (to allow pym particles or FTL*) then you, by definition, are not doing science, you are doing pseudo magic (like WoD Mage technocrats).

Magic also follows laws: there are laws(aka rules) of magic in any d20 game that has magic.

If you want to limit d20 to only 21st century 'real' science, but then say 'magic can do anything'....well, then sure: magic all ways wins. But that is stacking the deck and out right making the side you want win. Someone else could say: "Ok the d20 magic can only use real magic that exists in the real world." And as "real" magic does not exist, then technology wins.




Which is why I use Einstein and the real world as an example. I mean, realistically, for say a spaceship, unless you make up some new law to allow for anti gravity, then you are gonna have to rotate your ship to do it.


Again you can't do different law and rules for each reality.

And it's a bit beyond silly to compare game rules to "real life".

[AntiAuthority]

The problem with this is that by definition science, and therefore tech follows laws. If you have to make up new laws (to allow pym particles or FTL*) then you, by definition, are not doing science, you are doing pseudo magic (like WoD Mage technocrats).

Which is why I use Einstein and the real world as an example. I mean, realistically, for say a spaceship, unless you make up some new law to allow for anti gravity, then you are gonna have to rotate your ship to do it.

*Specifically safe FTL-- normal FTL would mean that a dust mote could knock a boulder sized hole in your ship

This is what I was talking about earlier. This is basically the science version of the Guy at the Gym. I consider magic to be waving your arms around and casting spells, with wands, maybe some familiars. If it's pseudo magic because it violates the rules of our reality, and disqualifies itself... How is it possibly supposed to compete with the thing that violates the laws of our reality and can be as strong or as weak as anyone wants it to be? Even more since one side essentially has arbitrary rates of growth, potential and whatever you want because it's magic, while the other is grounded in reality in what it can and can't do.

Based on this quote:


The problem with PL 9 (other than it assumes a no-magic place and probably runs off of made up laws that would mean it is basically magic) is that it takes so long to make that, as other posters have pointed out, a magical society with the same drive to advance as the tech one that reached PL 9 would be perfectly content to let you have your little transmogification machines b/c at THEIR "PL 9" they can create an 80 billion miles wide demiplane and plane shift a star and a dyson sphere into it(assuming 3.X system).

EDIT: Rereading PL 9, that level is basically "GM FIAT: THE GAME." I guess it is just a matter of who gets there quicker. Which magic still wins.

I don't mean any disrespect, and I'm sorry if I come off that way. But with the above of limiting one side while letting another be limitless, and that quote about magic winning the rate of growth... This is starting to seem less like an actual question you have and more like you already made up your mind about the conclusion of which is superior, and you're now just setting it up so that magic wins.

I don't see the point in this discussion. You've essentially said you want to compare which is superior between a limitless, reality defying (well, defying the rules of our reality anyway, not the reality of whatever universe it's set in), nigh-omnipotent force with arbitrary rules against a side that has hard limitations and if it starts to break those limitations, it disqualifies itself and loses because it's "pseudo magic"/"not real science" now. You've set it up to be a lose-lose scenario for tech, as it's limited to our reality while the thing it's competing with... Isn't.

What's the point in this discussion with this in mind?

[Destro2119]

This is what I was talking about earlier. This is basically the science version of the Guy at the Gym. I consider magic to be waving your arms around and casting spells, with wands, maybe some familiars. If it's pseudo magic because it violates the rules of our reality, and disqualifies itself... How is it possibly supposed to compete with the thing that violates the laws of our reality and can be as strong or as weak as anyone wants it to be? Even more since one side essentially has arbitrary rates of growth, potential and whatever you want because it's magic, while the other is grounded in reality in what it can and can't do.

Based on this quote:



I don't mean any disrespect, and I'm sorry if I come off that way. But with the above of limiting one side while letting another be limitless, and that quote about magic winning the rate of growth... This is starting to seem less like an actual question you have and more like you already made up your mind about the conclusion of which is superior, and you're now just setting it up so that magic wins.

I don't see the point in this discussion. You've essentially said you want to compare which is superior between a limitless, reality defying (well, defying the rules of our reality anyway, not the reality of whatever universe it's set in), nigh-omnipotent force with arbitrary rules against a side that has hard limitations and if it starts to break those limitations, it disqualifies itself and loses because it's "pseudo magic"/"not real science" now. You've set it up to be a lose-lose scenario for tech, as it's limited to our reality while the thing it's competing with... Isn't.

What's the point in this discussion with this in mind?

It is not giving magic undue advantages, it is trying to evaluate things from the most rational perspective there is. Look, you can say that oh FTL is possible or that because of science law x pym particles now exist and gamma radiation gives you superpowers, but it would make as much sense as saying due to a newly discovered principle of magic, everyone on the planet can cast magic now. Same goes for moving to a universe where laws are different. I mean, if you moved to a universe where Ohm's law is equal to 10IR instead of IR, then things will be different for science, but then we can't really make any rational comparisons for obvious reasons.

The whole POINT of magic is that it defies physics. But to answer your question, I made this thread because even with the limits of science, humanity has done some pretty amazing things, and I wanted to see how each society might grow and advance. My responses are meant to provoke logical extrapolations and discussion, not to shut people down.

[Bugbear]

The whole POINT of magic is that it defies physics.

Except that is not true, after all "magic" as far as we know does not really exist....so you can't say it defies physics.

Does a lot of the wacky made up not real fictional stuff we call "magic" deify the laws of physios? Yes, sure.....but then it's all imaginary, so it's not like it matters.

So yes made up imaginary wacky stuff that can do anything you can imagine is "superior" to anything real....if you choose to think that way.

[AntiAuthority]

It is not giving magic undue advantages, it is trying to evaluate things from the most rational perspective there is. Look, you can say that oh FTL is possible or that because of science law x pym particles now exist and gamma radiation gives you superpowers, but it would make as much sense as saying due to a newly discovered principle of magic, everyone on the planet can cast magic now. Same goes for moving to a universe where laws are different. I mean, if you moved to a universe where Ohm's law is equal to 10IR instead of IR, then things will be different for science, but then we can't really make any rational comparisons for obvious reasons.

The whole POINT of magic is that it defies physics.

Magic is dependent on whoever writes it. Magic being that way is only because you want it to be able to do whatever it wants and ignore (our) physics without any consequences. Since magic is dependent on whoever is writing it... I say magic is therefore bound to the same laws as physics (it's a shortcut to doing the same thing, it just can't do anything science deems impossible) and it's just as valid an interpretation as magic. Or I could say magic is just an undiscovered science yet that only appears magical to use (like how lightning storms were attributed to Thor's wrath in the past). That's just as valid an interpretation of magic. You're boosting it to such a level while also trying to compare it to something that plays by much stricter rules, but claiming not to be doing so.

For sake of comparison, this is what you might as well asking with this question: "Godzilla vs King Kong... But Kong has to abide by the Square-Cube Law and is the maximum size a real world gorilla can become before dying immediately. So it's a giant, nuclear reactor god of destruction that violates all the laws of physics vs a larger than average (but not Kaiju sized) gorilla with brittle bones, poor circulation and can't move around like other gorillas can without its spine/spinal structure crumbling under the awkwardly distributed weight. I get that Godzilla is bound by whatever rules I want him to, so is like 25x-150x Kong's size here, has thousands of tons of weight on him, has an atomic breath that can destroy planets/black holes and I might let him become a living universe... And whatever else I want him to be able to do as the fight progresses so he can win. But this ISN'T stacked in either side's favor, it's just one side plays by entirely different rules than the other. I genuinely want to know who wins between these two."

This is the equivalent of what you're asking, but with giant monsters. There really isn't anywhere for the discussion to go, you've essentially made it impossible for the tech side to win by limiting it to reality while the other side can do whatever you or I can imagine it to, with its limitless potential because its the only one allowed to reach that level of power by your statements.

[Destro2119]

Except that is not true, after all "magic" as far as we know does not really exist....so you can't say it defies physics.

Does a lot of the wacky made up not real fictional stuff we call "magic" deify the laws of physios? Yes, sure.....but then it's all imaginary, so it's not like it matters.

So yes made up imaginary wacky stuff that can do anything you can imagine is "superior" to anything real....if you choose to think that way.

In my defense I am talking about 3.X magic. We are also talking about a theorycraft verse where everything is the same as this universe except there is a 3.X magic and magic system.

Again, I do not wish to exasperate anybody, but if you allow science to break known laws by making new ones up you basically say that "yes, gamma radiation can give you superpowers."

[Destro2119]

Magic is dependent on whoever writes it. Magic being that way is only because you want it to be able to do whatever it wants and ignore (our) physics without any consequences. Since magic is dependent on whoever is writing it... I say magic is therefore bound to the same laws as physics (it's a shortcut to doing the same thing, it just can't do anything science deems impossible) and it's just as valid an interpretation as magic. Or I could say magic is just an undiscovered science yet that only appears magical to use (like how lightning storms were attributed to Thor's wrath in the past). That's just as valid an interpretation of magic. You're boosting it to such a level while also trying to compare it to something that plays by much stricter rules, but claiming not to be doing so.

For sake of comparison, this is what you might as well asking with this question: "Godzilla vs King Kong... But Kong has to abide by the Square-Cube Law and is the maximum size a real world gorilla can become before dying immediately. So it's a giant, nuclear reactor god of destruction that violates all the laws of physics vs a larger than average (but not Kaiju sized) gorilla with brittle bones, poor circulation and can't move around like other gorillas can without its spine/spinal structure crumbling under the awkwardly distributed weight. I get that Godzilla is bound by whatever rules I want him to, so is like 25x-150x Kong's size here, has thousands of tons of weight on him, has an atomic breath that can destroy planets/black holes and I might let him become a living universe... And whatever else I want him to be able to do as the fight progresses so he can win. But this ISN'T stacked in either side's favor, it's just one side plays by entirely different rules than the other. I genuinely want to know who wins between these two."

This is the equivalent of what you're asking, but with giant monsters. There really isn't anywhere for the discussion to go, you've essentially made it impossible for the tech side to win by limiting it to reality while the other side can do whatever you or I can imagine it to, with its limitless potential because its the only one allowed to reach that level of power by your statements.

Well Godzilla and King Kong would be *magical beasts* like most kaiju or dragons which automatically exempts them from any limitations of science.

To your first point, the fact remains that 3.X magic can create perpetual motion, which is not something possible in science. But to follow your logic, ok, magic is bound by physics like science. The DEFINITION of science is that it discovers laws that have *always* existed, and technology follows them to create effects. So then you giving science new laws to do things like interplanar travel, pym particles, crazy reed richards science etc that you insist it should have means that, in the same vein, new *magical* laws can be discovered too that do crazy things too. Unless you assert that can't happen for some reason?

[Bugbear]

In my defense I am talking about 3.X magic. We are also talking about a theorycraft verse where everything is the same as this universe except there is a 3.X magic and magic system.

Again, I do not wish to exasperate anybody, but if you allow science to break known laws by making new ones up you basically say that "yes, gamma radiation can give you superpowers."

Right your talking about 3.X in a game. That is made up.

Gamma rays giving you super powers is made up, AND so is 3.X magic. It's all made up.

IF you are going to take "real reality" and then say "oh this made up magic of 3.X exists there" BUT "nothing else imaginary exists there for not real", then OK, but that set up "magic is superior to science".

So yea, my 600th level over god lord wizard can shrink whole multiverse to the size of a pea and crush it. Guess I win the internet, right?

BUT only because you made the basic set up to be "magic is superior to science".

So it makes it kind of pointless.

[AntiAuthority]

Well Godzilla and King Kong would be *magical beasts* like most kaiju or dragons which automatically exempts them from any limitations of science.

To your first point, the fact remains that 3.X magic can create perpetual motion, which is not something possible in science. But to follow your logic, ok, magic is bound by physics like science. The DEFINITION of science is that it discovers laws that have *always* existed, and technology follows them to create effects. So then you giving science new laws to do things like interplanar travel, pym particles, crazy reed richards science etc that you insist it should have means that, in the same vein, new *magical* laws can be discovered too that do crazy things too. Unless you assert that can't happen for some reason?

Actually, if we're using definitions, 3.X magic can be reliably reproduced, has been studied, has created technology (magic items/artifacts) and... Considering how planes consider Magic to be as fundamental to their makeup as Gravity or Time in 3.P, that's a good indicator that magic isn't "outside physics", so much as playing by the rules of that setting's physics. So pretty much science when you get down to it, at least for the scientific method... Though, you've also said that pretty much anything that's impossible by our physics is considered magic, so that means any form of science that wins automatically loses because it's no longer science, leading to an infinite loop of "magic wins".

To be honest, the only reason we're even having this conversation is because the 3.X designers basically took every magical ability you can find in mythology, Epic Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery and maybe comic books (Dr. Strange) and threw them into the book... Even if they step on the toes of other archetypes. Meanwhile, we don't have a 3.X equivalent that was given the same treatment for non-magical abilities such as taking scientific abilities from every story/character of note under the sun (like Hank Pym, Reed Richards, Thanos, etc.). You're trying to compare 3.X magic when it was basically, "I am every archetype" to 3.X where the scientific angle (among others) were pretty much ignored. When I try to bring up examples of high powered sci-fi that would be on the same level as magic (and one of 3.PF, you shoot it down as pseudo magic that doesn't count. This sort of thing is why people say 3.X is unbalanced, not necessarily because magic is too OP (this is up for debate), but because the designers pretty much focused exclusively on making magic powerful, but not the other archetypes in the game, including the technologically gifted scientist.

This blog by a former 3.P designer (https://seankreynolds.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/ex-su-and-martial-characters/) is the only thing I can think of that might give some insight onto how messed up this whole thing is, just replace the word martial with scientist and you get the general idea. He comes to the conclusion that separating incredible accomplishments into "magic" and "not magic" is a bit of an issue, and limits what characters can accomplish because it subconsciously creates the bias that one class "the one with magic" should be automatically superior to the ones without it.

That said, I'm not too sure what the point is now. Based on the criteria so far, even IF there were sciences in 3.X that could compete with 3.X magic, your criteria would disqualify them for being pseudo magic so they wouldn't qualify. This discussion is pretty much spinning in circles and the criteria is heavily stacked in one direction.




Right your talking about 3.X in a game. That is made up.

Gamma rays giving you super powers is made up, AND so is 3.X magic. It's all made up.

IF you are going to take "real reality" and then say "oh this made up magic of 3.X exists there" BUT "nothing else imaginary exists there for not real", then OK, but that set up "magic is superior to science".

So yea, my 600th level over god lord wizard can shrink whole multiverse to the size of a pea and crush it. Guess I win the internet, right?

BUT only because you made the basic set up to be "magic is superior to science".

So it makes it kind of pointless.

Agreed. There are examples of such things existing in fiction, but they're not allowed to be considered for this thread. You can compare real people to real people, or fictional characters to other fictional characters, but comparing reality vs fiction and trying to get the former to defeat the latter is typically a loaded question. If 3.X pulled from more than just magical archetypes being able to do impossible things (like making portable black holes or warp pads for example), this thread would have taken an entirely different turn.

[DMVerdandi]

Hmm...

Well, we know how classical physics and laws work, and for the most part, unless explicitly changed in 3.x, it acts as normal. So really the statement isn't that technology always wins out, but rather, you find the lack of magic as a factor in growth as more comforting and less volatile, and that the comfortable rate of growth that you see from a non-magical universe one that you enjoy more.

Because as others have stated:
Magic items CAN be industrialized
also using pathfinder rules, and in actuality you don't even need XP, and with master craftsman, you don't even need caster levels. HOWEVER, they are still making magic items, they just are using their skills to access magic, which in 3.X is essentially the art/character skill of using discrete versions of [alter reality].

It's specifically NOT using classical physics to make solely technological advances. That meaning in an antimagic field, it won't work.


Magic is thusly, an all pervasive field that people can interact with, which has rules that ARE very distinct[comes in levels, has duration, range, targets, and can be modified with magical environments and effects,class levels, magic items and feats. Those are the laws of magic. ].

Because non-magical environments are always changed without resistance to magic, it's laws are superlative or to take from mage supernal in nature.

the SU[supernatural] dimension is higher by definition, so it acts on the lower dimensions without itself being subject to change. But the dimensions are all stacked on each other.





Now, the thing about it is if you give 3.x magic to everyone tommorow. Not that they can all cast, but lets say... Everyone gets class levels tommorow. And they can even opt out, and just live normally, and won't be subject to the SU rules, and they can choose to delay it too, but we know automatically that any printed material is doable, and that it can be advanced as well. That the 3.x rules are medieval understandings of how it all works, but say... starfinder is the advanced tech understanding. But the STRUCTURE is what matters.



With that being said, conceptual strength seems to be the primary drive of things, not necessarily really the ability to do something or not in the game. Yes, a lot of it is very gamey, but if you have like a unified D20 ruleset, you start to realize, much of the issue with 3.5 isn't actually in the lack of ability for one class or another to do a thing, but rather in people's own concept of themselves and investure into that thing.

It's almost like, the real cost of things is class levels and feats, and whatever you ask for during that time is what you get, and then the idea of that thing is shared with others, and the non-innovative ones simply follow that thing.


It's like tiers truly exist, but they are actually limited by people's conceptual understanding.

Wizard exists as an example. And then people play around with wizardry until they meet that conceptual end of what a wizard is. A combat application of a scholarly manipulator of cosmic energy.


There are even schools that blend in with other schools, metamagic, prestige classes, archetypes, but there is like a base, this for that kind of thing that never stops.

That is the D20 path to power is only ARBITRARILY bound by costs. Like its almost a pay what you want system. Temporary changes cost spell/power, but permanent changes cost levels and feats.

Class levels are essentially the most powerful changes, and will give you a host of changes, but they all have to be within the same conceptual theme and are a linear growth. The reason people muliticlass is because they want to grow outside of their conceptual identity, but things like feats modify within, but them costing feats in the first place is what the cost is, because once that potential is actualized, it's set.


Adding prerequisites actually increases potential of the feat because then you can just limit it to... a specific class, or class level and then it can be way stronger.




Thing is, if we all got the ability to get class levels tommorow, and were only arbitrarily bound by the current d20 ruleset, then immediately, 3rd party stuff would come into play, and you could use science to see what is and isn't possible.


Ultimately, the spell to power erudite//psychic mage gestalt would become one of the highest coveted classes to have, and since a feat is the quickest and easiest way to completely usurp a rule, a level 1 only 2e multiclass conversion would come fast as hell.

Basically the unifying rule in D20 is the higher the sacrifice, the more benefit you can get. If you burn your potential to do one thing, then you can really circumvent the flaws that it has.



It's Ivory tower game design, right? Like there is no reason for people to actually pick suboptimal routes in life, they just do because of reasons. Real life is kind of like that too. Lack of information makes for VERY suboptimal choices. It's exploration of how things work[science], which helps us make better choices anyway [optimization].




So immediately, people who had system knowledge of D20 would QUICKLY become the beaters of this system. Especially if the function of the dungeon master becomes mediated by the player themselves. That is so long as it follows the base rules, and the rules can only be subsumed by equivalent costs, it can happen.



Modern people, with all the stuff that we have created with our imaginations would quickly outpace any potential we have had before because here is the truth


The existence of magic does not invalidate techniques that work in the mundane world, and magic's role is to remove a concept of a thing and replace it.
An example is magic in starfinder charging the batteries of a technological item.

Like that's what a spell can do. Have a broken down car? You can simply use magic to interact with the car to figure out what is wrong with it. Does that invalidate having a car? tools? except for the diagnostic tool. That is invalidated, but even moreso, if you have the diagnostic tool you don't need to expend magic to make it better.
So any thing that we have going on, like industrialism, or any current tech we have can be improved by magic. You can enhance the speed of your internet connection, or make your speakers louder, or really anything. Thing is, the more burden that is taken on by physical laws, the less magic has to work.
Infinite recharging cell phones are nothing. Enchanting glasses to be able to connect to the internet is nothing. but if you have glasses that already have google glass, you can use magic to do something different, like give it a connection no matter where it is.




Spell creation is something we didn't talk about either. much of d20 magic's limitations is in it not being open source, and people going down routes that don't allow for just wanton gain of magic knowledge. but as far as everything goes, if you pick the right route, you will be able to learn all spells, as well as creation of completely new ones.







So, in reality, it is in the magical universe's best interest to make non-magical solutions, because then you can just keep going. Nanobots are fantastic because then you can make magical nanite clouds like in starfinder.

Gene therapy is great, because now all you have to do is reduce rejection, rather than polymorphing someone, magic then becomes the butter to bread instead of the whole meal.

Its better to enchant a ballistic plate so that all of the damage goes into the plate regardless of where you are hit, than just casting the spell.





Magic wins EASY. Because it still has a benefit when you lack the materials for a strong technological existence, But it gets BETTER when you have a lot of technology. You can literally write spells that interact with the current tech level. for CHEAP.

[ezekielraiden]

The whole POINT of magic is that it defies physics.

The whole point of magic is that it isn't real. "Magic" means whatever an author wants it to mean. Even "magic in the rules of 3.5e/PF," it means what the creators decided it should mean.

That's the fundamental problem here. Loath as I am to agree with Mr. Yudkowski about anything whatsoever, you really are comparing two fundamentally unlike things: the actual progression of the hard sciences, which is a concrete fact of our real world, and the fictional possibilities of various authors' imaginations, which has no basis in anything except what humans think sounds cool.

In a contest between the two, "what humans think sounds cool" will always win, because it has no limitations. Unless you also open the hard sciences to having things-that-sound-cool-to-humans, such as string theory, parallel universes, time travel, FTL travel, etc., they will never be able to keep up with magic. Mostly because "sounding cool to humans" does not require being rational or physically possible. M.C. Escher's impossible waterfalls or the "impossible trident" are visual examples. We can quite easily imagine that which cannot exist even in principle, to say nothing of that which is logically possible but not physically possible.

[AvatarVecna]

If we're measuring superiority by how it benefits society and how long it takes to create a solution to previously-unsolvable problems, 3.5 magic wins. Sure, there's tons and tons of spells and metamagic combos that can already solve basically any problem under the sun, but also epic spellcasting is on the table, which is literally "build any spell you want". Money can be turned into permanent power via spellcasting services. Money, XP, and Time can be turned into permanent power via magic items. Infinite loops are possible pre-epic. Getting a society of epic mages just isn't that hard when the universe isn't bending over backwards to keep the setting low-level by default.

[ShurikVch]

Magic may be superior to technology only when it... :
... does works. Counter-examples - Dead Magic planes, the Spire of Outlands, our Earth. Technology doesn't works much rarer, excluding sillier interpretations of Gond, or 1E Alternate Prime Material Planes (but the latter can prevent magic too)
... is available. Counter-examples - Westeros, Midnight, and (to lesser extend) Jakandor (nobody have 9th-level spells, and the only 8th-level spell is Permanency)
... not persecuted. Cowled Wizards in Amn, cultists of the Shattered Peak, Ashbound druids, Dark Sun, Jakandor (Knorr invaders are despising magic - regardless of using Constructs), Midnight campaign setting

[Destro2119]

Magic may be superior to technology only when it... :
... does works. Counter-examples - Dead Magic planes, the Spire of Outlands, our Earth. Technology doesn't works much rarer, excluding sillier interpretations of Gond, or 1E Alternate Prime Material Planes (but the latter can prevent magic too)
... is available. Counter-examples - Westeros, Midnight, and (to lesser extend) Jakandor (nobody have 9th-level spells, and the only 8th-level spell is Permanency)
... not persecuted. Cowled Wizards in Amn, cultists of the Shattered Peak, Ashbound druids, Dark Sun, Jakandor (Knorr invaders are despising magic - regardless of using Constructs), Midnight campaign setting

You could flip around those terms and nothing would be changed at this point. Spelljammer has tech beyond the places "tech level" simply not function, tech is effectively unavailable in a place with low mineral wealth, or knoweldge of it, like the Native Americans, and persecution of tech is a very common trope at this point.

[Destro2119]

Actually, if we're using definitions, 3.X magic can be reliably reproduced, has been studied, has created technology (magic items/artifacts) and... Considering how planes consider Magic to be as fundamental to their makeup as Gravity or Time in 3.P, that's a good indicator that magic isn't "outside physics", so much as playing by the rules of that setting's physics. So pretty much science when you get down to it, at least for the scientific method... Though, you've also said that pretty much anything that's impossible by our physics is considered magic, so that means any form of science that wins automatically loses because it's no longer science, leading to an infinite loop of "magic wins".

To be honest, the only reason we're even having this conversation is because the 3.X designers basically took every magical ability you can find in mythology, Epic Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery and maybe comic books (Dr. Strange) and threw them into the book... Even if they step on the toes of other archetypes. Meanwhile, we don't have a 3.X equivalent that was given the same treatment for non-magical abilities such as taking scientific abilities from every story/character of note under the sun (like Hank Pym, Reed Richards, Thanos, etc.). You're trying to compare 3.X magic when it was basically, "I am every archetype" to 3.X where the scientific angle (among others) were pretty much ignored. When I try to bring up examples of high powered sci-fi that would be on the same level as magic (and one of 3.PF, you shoot it down as pseudo magic that doesn't count. This sort of thing is why people say 3.X is unbalanced, not necessarily because magic is too OP (this is up for debate), but because the designers pretty much focused exclusively on making magic powerful, but not the other archetypes in the game, including the technologically gifted scientist.

This blog by a former 3.P designer (https://seankreynolds.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/ex-su-and-martial-characters/) is the only thing I can think of that might give some insight onto how messed up this whole thing is, just replace the word martial with scientist and you get the general idea. He comes to the conclusion that separating incredible accomplishments into "magic" and "not magic" is a bit of an issue, and limits what characters can accomplish because it subconsciously creates the bias that one class "the one with magic" should be automatically superior to the ones without it.

That said, I'm not too sure what the point is now. Based on the criteria so far, even IF there were sciences in 3.X that could compete with 3.X magic, your criteria would disqualify them for being pseudo magic so they wouldn't qualify. This discussion is pretty much spinning in circles and the criteria is heavily stacked in one direction.





Agreed. There are examples of such things existing in fiction, but they're not allowed to be considered for this thread. You can compare real people to real people, or fictional characters to other fictional characters, but comparing reality vs fiction and trying to get the former to defeat the latter is typically a loaded question. If 3.X pulled from more than just magical archetypes being able to do impossible things (like making portable black holes or warp pads for example), this thread would have taken an entirely different turn.

Yeah, I guess so. At this point, the argument is basically just "science must follow laws. If you make up new laws for science to follow so it can make super-tech, then by default you allow new magical laws for 3.X magic to be discovered and nothing changes except for the fact that a scientist (using the pulp scientist of Dungeon 90 for an example) can wave around his discovery of the science that allows him to make a lightning projector until he is blue in the face while the wizard shoots him in the face with a lightning bolt and goes off to craft a device that allows anybody to cast lightning bolt exactly like the scientist.

So let's step away from that for a while, and wonder how both spheres of magic and tech could come together to make a greater whole. Let's focus on building up right now.

[Destro2119]

Hmm...

Well, we know how classical physics and laws work, and for the most part, unless explicitly changed in 3.x, it acts as normal. So really the statement isn't that technology always wins out, but rather, you find the lack of magic as a factor in growth as more comforting and less volatile, and that the comfortable rate of growth that you see from a non-magical universe one that you enjoy more.

Because as others have stated:
Magic items CAN be industrialized
also using pathfinder rules, and in actuality you don't even need XP, and with master craftsman, you don't even need caster levels. HOWEVER, they are still making magic items, they just are using their skills to access magic, which in 3.X is essentially the art/character skill of using discrete versions of [alter reality].

It's specifically NOT using classical physics to make solely technological advances. That meaning in an antimagic field, it won't work.


Magic is thusly, an all pervasive field that people can interact with, which has rules that ARE very distinct[comes in levels, has duration, range, targets, and can be modified with magical environments and effects,class levels, magic items and feats. Those are the laws of magic. ].

Because non-magical environments are always changed without resistance to magic, it's laws are superlative or to take from mage supernal in nature.

the SU[supernatural] dimension is higher by definition, so it acts on the lower dimensions without itself being subject to change. But the dimensions are all stacked on each other.





Now, the thing about it is if you give 3.x magic to everyone tommorow. Not that they can all cast, but lets say... Everyone gets class levels tommorow. And they can even opt out, and just live normally, and won't be subject to the SU rules, and they can choose to delay it too, but we know automatically that any printed material is doable, and that it can be advanced as well. That the 3.x rules are medieval understandings of how it all works, but say... starfinder is the advanced tech understanding. But the STRUCTURE is what matters.



With that being said, conceptual strength seems to be the primary drive of things, not necessarily really the ability to do something or not in the game. Yes, a lot of it is very gamey, but if you have like a unified D20 ruleset, you start to realize, much of the issue with 3.5 isn't actually in the lack of ability for one class or another to do a thing, but rather in people's own concept of themselves and investure into that thing.

It's almost like, the real cost of things is class levels and feats, and whatever you ask for during that time is what you get, and then the idea of that thing is shared with others, and the non-innovative ones simply follow that thing.


It's like tiers truly exist, but they are actually limited by people's conceptual understanding.

Wizard exists as an example. And then people play around with wizardry until they meet that conceptual end of what a wizard is. A combat application of a scholarly manipulator of cosmic energy.


There are even schools that blend in with other schools, metamagic, prestige classes, archetypes, but there is like a base, this for that kind of thing that never stops.

That is the D20 path to power is only ARBITRARILY bound by costs. Like its almost a pay what you want system. Temporary changes cost spell/power, but permanent changes cost levels and feats.

Class levels are essentially the most powerful changes, and will give you a host of changes, but they all have to be within the same conceptual theme and are a linear growth. The reason people muliticlass is because they want to grow outside of their conceptual identity, but things like feats modify within, but them costing feats in the first place is what the cost is, because once that potential is actualized, it's set.


Adding prerequisites actually increases potential of the feat because then you can just limit it to... a specific class, or class level and then it can be way stronger.




Thing is, if we all got the ability to get class levels tommorow, and were only arbitrarily bound by the current d20 ruleset, then immediately, 3rd party stuff would come into play, and you could use science to see what is and isn't possible.


Ultimately, the spell to power erudite//psychic mage gestalt would become one of the highest coveted classes to have, and since a feat is the quickest and easiest way to completely usurp a rule, a level 1 only 2e multiclass conversion would come fast as hell.

Basically the unifying rule in D20 is the higher the sacrifice, the more benefit you can get. If you burn your potential to do one thing, then you can really circumvent the flaws that it has.



It's Ivory tower game design, right? Like there is no reason for people to actually pick suboptimal routes in life, they just do because of reasons. Real life is kind of like that too. Lack of information makes for VERY suboptimal choices. It's exploration of how things work[science], which helps us make better choices anyway [optimization].




So immediately, people who had system knowledge of D20 would QUICKLY become the beaters of this system. Especially if the function of the dungeon master becomes mediated by the player themselves. That is so long as it follows the base rules, and the rules can only be subsumed by equivalent costs, it can happen.



Modern people, with all the stuff that we have created with our imaginations would quickly outpace any potential we have had before because here is the truth


The existence of magic does not invalidate techniques that work in the mundane world, and magic's role is to remove a concept of a thing and replace it.
An example is magic in starfinder charging the batteries of a technological item.

Like that's what a spell can do. Have a broken down car? You can simply use magic to interact with the car to figure out what is wrong with it. Does that invalidate having a car? tools? except for the diagnostic tool. That is invalidated, but even moreso, if you have the diagnostic tool you don't need to expend magic to make it better.
So any thing that we have going on, like industrialism, or any current tech we have can be improved by magic. You can enhance the speed of your internet connection, or make your speakers louder, or really anything. Thing is, the more burden that is taken on by physical laws, the less magic has to work.
Infinite recharging cell phones are nothing. Enchanting glasses to be able to connect to the internet is nothing. but if you have glasses that already have google glass, you can use magic to do something different, like give it a connection no matter where it is.



Spell creation is something we didn't talk about either. much of d20 magic's limitations is in it not being open source, and people going down routes that don't allow for just wanton gain of magic knowledge. but as far as everything goes, if you pick the right route, you will be able to learn all spells, as well as creation of completely new ones.



So, in reality, it is in the magical universe's best interest to make non-magical solutions, because then you can just keep going. Nanobots are fantastic because then you can make magical nanite clouds like in starfinder.

Gene therapy is great, because now all you have to do is reduce rejection, rather than polymorphing someone, magic then becomes the butter to bread instead of the whole meal.

Its better to enchant a ballistic plate so that all of the damage goes into the plate regardless of where you are hit, than just casting the spell.


Magic wins EASY. Because it still has a benefit when you lack the materials for a strong technological existence, But it gets BETTER when you have a lot of technology. You can literally write spells that interact with the current tech level. for CHEAP.

I am intrigued by this possibility. What would such a world look like? How would you envision it?

[Bohandas]

As others have said, I don't think magic vs. technology is a valid distinction in a world where magic exists

[Yahzi Coyote]

Depends on who's writing the story. (https://youtu.be/L4_zFYnnn2Y)
I wrote a whole series about a mechanical engineer who winds up in a D&D world. He invents guns and raises an army... but never actually uses a gun himself. Because magic. :smallbiggrin:

[Destro2119]

I wrote a whole series about a mechanical engineer who winds up in a D&D world. He invents guns and raises an army... but never actually uses a gun himself. Because magic. :smallbiggrin:

So you think tech is greater than magic? Wait, why doesn't he use a gun if tech is superior to magic?

Also, what is the series?

[Quertus]

So let's step away from that for a while, and wonder how both spheres of magic and tech could come together to make a greater whole. Let's focus on building up right now.

You should make a "magic + technology" thread for us to discuss possible visions for how such a world might work.

[Smoutwortel]

So you concede that magic is inferior to Tech? Also, I thought that Tippyverse was supposed to be high magic. Proving that tech is superior to magic?

The Tippyverse is more like middle magic(it doesn't even include epic magic and for it to function you require like 1000 level 11+ casters par 10 million people, while you're comparing it with the highest tech known to function to man.

Another thing to point out about the tippyverse: although it's a pretty high magic setting, a lower magic setting with the same principles turns effective fast too.
For example lets take a world where one in the 1.000.000.000 people develop to a level of caster that can cast "teleportation circle".
Those people would be able to cast a two to four(too lazy to search the specific rules for a short rest) teleportation circles every day virtually anywhere on the world and be able to permanence them, with the assistance of only two other kinds of people: travelers to describe the far lands they've been to and trainers/soldiers(to refresh their xp). in 44 years of one such caster they could have as many teleportation circles as there were airports in 2010(according to http://chartsbin.com/view/1395 there were 43.982 airports). Between the first armed flight(which happened from an airport https://www.thoughtco.com/airplanes-flight-history-1991789) and 2010 are 2010-1912 98 years, so this is much faster even if there is on average one person on the world who can do it. Another advantage of teleportation circles to airports is that they are much faster. In one round(around the time for one punch of an inexperienced puncher) one teleport circle could transport around 45 times the year the year output of the biggest container port in the world in 2010(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world%27s_busiest_container_ports, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-foot_equivalent_unit, https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy/page2).


The problem is that magic and tech offer very different things. Magic allows you to do big feats on a small scale(ooh I appear immune to piercing damage what will you do now gun carrier), while tech allows for small things on a big scale.

[Smoutwortel]

The Tippyverse is more like middle magic(it doesn't even include epic magic and for it to function you require like 1000 level 11+ casters par 10 million people, while you're comparing it with the highest tech known to function to man.

Another thing to point out about the tippyverse: although it's a pretty high magic setting, a lower magic setting with the same principles turns effective fast too.
For example lets take a world where one in the 1.000.000.000 people develop to a level of caster that can cast "teleportation circle".
Those people would be able to cast a two to four(too lazy to search the specific rules for a short rest) teleportation circles every day virtually anywhere on the world and be able to permanence them, with the assistance of only two other kinds of people: travelers to describe the far lands they've been to and trainers/soldiers(to refresh their xp). in 44 years of one such caster they could have as many teleportation circles as there were airports in 2010(according to http://chartsbin.com/view/1395 there were 43.982 airports). Between the first armed flight(which happened from an airport https://www.thoughtco.com/airplanes-flight-history-1991789) and 2010 are 2010-1912 98 years, so this is much faster even if there is on average one person on the world who can do it. Another advantage of teleportation circles to airports is that they are much faster. In one round(around the time for one punch of an inexperienced puncher) one teleport circle could transport around 45 times the year the year output of the biggest container port in the world in 2010(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world%27s_busiest_container_ports, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-foot_equivalent_unit, https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy/page2).


The problem is that magic and tech offer very different things. Magic allows you to do big feats on a small scale(ooh I appear immune to piercing damage what will you do now gun carrier), while tech allows for small things on a big scale.

For the lower magic settings there are also less costly and less effective alternatives like arcane gate, which would mostly function as a cheaper alternative to tunnels.

[Bohandas]

For example lets take a world where one in the 1.000.000.000 people develop to a level of caster that can cast "teleportation circle".

That seems like an excessive number of people.

[Bonzai]

Fun topic, but it's near impossible to get a fair comparison as how do you scale them? What is the magical comparison to 2020 tech? What is the scientific equivalent to a wish spell?. (Closest thing would be a federation engineer I think).

Lol, I suppose you could use a gold standard to compare resource efficiency I suppose. I play 3.5 so 1 coin is 1/3 an ounce. One ounce of gold is worth $1,823.20 U.S., so each gold coin is roughly worth $608 rounding up.

For this example let's take flight. A flying carpet in dollar costs would be $12,160,000. A small brand new twin engine plane runs roughly $400,000. That's the one time cost. Your per hour cost with fuel/pilot/maintenance is going to be some where around $1,000 an hour.

So which is better? The carpet or the plane? The plane is initially cheaper and is faster. However it requires a large number of support personnel. Pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers, etc... a steady stream of parts and fuel, each of which takes an army of laborers to produce. All of these people must be trained to a certain level of education and proficiency. The carpet requires no additional personnel, no fuel, no real additional maintenance and support. It's initial creation cost is all it requires. It will presumably fly forever, emission free.

And that pretty much is the crux of the argument. In theory, both have infinite potential. However Science always has a far steeper cost in man power as magic is individualistic. Science requires huge amounts resources and infrastructure, but once it is set up it can rapidly churn out product non stop. But it is a complex system of many interlocking parts. It all has to be working together in unison. Where as a caster is pretty much self sufficient.

[loky1109]

Bad question. Magic is technology that we can't understand.

[Bonzai]

Bad question. Magic is technology that we can't understand.

Yes and no. Ultimately, Technology is governed by the laws of reality. Magic has no laws or rules that we know of.

[Mechalich]

Yes and no. Ultimately, Technology is governed by the laws of reality. Magic has no laws or rules that we know of.

Well, it depends. "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and in some cases, sufficiently advanced technology is posited for a fictional setting in outright defiance of what we know to be possible - by far the most common example being faster-than-light travel. Handwavium or Applied Phlebotinum (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum) technologies are basically magic. They don't necessarily follow any consistent rules and do whatever the plot needs them to do. At some point in most ultra-high-tech settings the plausibility of the 'technologies' in play is utterly beside the point.

For example, the Culture Universe - which is probably the best-conceptualized post-scarcity supertech universe ever written (in English anyway) - has certain limitations on what it's technologies can do, mostly designed to preserve distance as a functional property of the universe (for example, there's teleportation, called Displacement, but it has a limited range). These aren't based on any scientific principles though, they are simply a function of the plot.

Magic, in a fictional universe, should function according to some set of rules. D&D, being a game, has such a set of rules and they are set down for us to interrogate. Unfortunately those rules were designed of as a means to facilitate dungeon crawls, not managing coherent fictional worlds, and they have real problems as a result. For example, the various monster manuals are rife with creatures with 'At will' SLAs. This isn't a big deal in a combat context since it just means the monster can use that ability every round if it wishes. However, out-of-combat such an ability can be used thousands of times per day which is destabilizing as all get out if it has any sort of utility function at all (a Hound Archon gets continual light at will, so all 3e worlds have endless free lighting forever).

[Gavinfoxx]

The rules are:

"Sufficiently Advanced Technology is indistinguishable from magic."
and it's corollary:
"Sufficiently Analyzed Magic is indistinguishable from technology."

[Jay R]

What level of technology, and what level of magic?

If you compare modern post-industrial technology to medieval handcrafted magic, you are being deliberately unfair. Modern technology should not be compared with a single wand, but with the production of wand factories.

Wands made by hand requiring Craft Wand should be compared to weapons made individually by blacksmiths and requiring Craft (weaponsmith).

I could easily design a world with weak magic and powerful technology, or one with weak technology and powerful magic. In your world, magic is as weak or powerful compared to technology as you want it to be.

Let's get back to the original question, which is about 3rd edition D&D. [Yes, it really is; look at the forum we're in.]

The level of magic shown in most 3.5e books is superior to the level of technology presented in those same books. It isn't "inherently" superior, but in the context of 3rd edition, it is superior.


The rules are:

"Sufficiently Advanced Technology is indistinguishable from magic."
and it's corollary:
"Sufficiently Analyzed Magic is indistinguishable from technology."

Don't forget Clarke's Contrapositive:

"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."

[loky1109]

Yes and no. Ultimately, Technology is governed by the laws of reality. Magic has no laws or rules that we know of.
No. Magic is governed by the laws of reality, too. That isn't governed by it isn't exist. If something exists - it don't break rules of reality. This rules can't be breaken. Magic is physics.

[Quertus]

I've lost the QUOTE, but I think that the best answer was that technology is superior for providing small benefits to large groups, whereas magic is better for larger benefits to select individuals.

And this goes hand in hand with "any sufficient advanced is indistinguishable from" logic. Sort of.

If it's a science - and society has adopted the learning necessary to stand on the backs of the corpses of half-pints to get there - then anyone can do… small things. Like write "hello world", or finger paint.

But when it's an art form, requiring dedication and study under great masters, only the best will be funded to even touch it, and they will be encouraged to greatness.

Maybe?

[Lucas Yew]

The problem is that magic and tech offer very different things. Magic allows you to do big feats on a small scale, while tech allows for small things on a big scale.

Ooh, that's one catchy summary there.

[Bonzai]

No. Magic is governed by the laws of reality, too. That isn't governed by it isn't exist. If something exists - it don't break rules of reality. This rules can't be breaken. Magic is physics.

Lol, Magic doesn't exist precisely because it would break the laws of reality and goes contrary to physics. It can reverse or ignore gravity on a whim, create something from nothing, run roughshod over things like space and time, and change reality through the manifested will of the caster.

Sure the line can become blurred when you advance technology to uncomprehendable levels, but there still has to be a line or they become the same thing. And if they are the same thing, then you are basically saying that all technology is magic and all magic is technology. Which would make the whole point of this debate pointless.

[Destro2119]

The rules are:

"Sufficiently Advanced Technology is indistinguishable from magic."
and it's corollary:
"Sufficiently Analyzed Magic is indistinguishable from technology."

And magic in 3.X does follow laws, just not the same ones as tech.

[Destro2119]

Fun topic, but it's near impossible to get a fair comparison as how do you scale them? What is the magical comparison to 2020 tech? What is the scientific equivalent to a wish spell?. (Closest thing would be a federation engineer I think).

Lol, I suppose you could use a gold standard to compare resource efficiency I suppose. I play 3.5 so 1 coin is 1/3 an ounce. One ounce of gold is worth $1,823.20 U.S., so each gold coin is roughly worth $608 rounding up.

For this example let's take flight. A flying carpet in dollar costs would be $12,160,000. A small brand new twin engine plane runs roughly $400,000. That's the one time cost. Your per hour cost with fuel/pilot/maintenance is going to be some where around $1,000 an hour.

So which is better? The carpet or the plane? The plane is initially cheaper and is faster. However it requires a large number of support personnel. Pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers, etc... a steady stream of parts and fuel, each of which takes an army of laborers to produce. All of these people must be trained to a certain level of education and proficiency. The carpet requires no additional personnel, no fuel, no real additional maintenance and support. It's initial creation cost is all it requires. It will presumably fly forever, emission free.

And that pretty much is the crux of the argument. In theory, both have infinite potential. However Science always has a far steeper cost in man power as magic is individualistic. Science requires huge amounts resources and infrastructure, but once it is set up it can rapidly churn out product non stop. But it is a complex system of many interlocking parts. It all has to be working together in unison. Where as a caster is pretty much self sufficient.

I mean, I hope you don't think casters craft magic by tossing gp onto a table and muttering over it. These people need supplies too (for example in PF using the downtime system it is absolutely possible to industrialize production of Magic goods to use for crafting). Sure, the end result is more efficient but you still need the raw components.

[Gnaeus]

I mean, I hope you don't think casters craft magic by tossing gp onto a table and muttering over it. These people need supplies too (for example in PF using the downtime system it is absolutely possible to industrialize production of Magic goods to use for crafting). Sure, the end result is more efficient but you still need the raw components.

That’s true, but magic doesn’t obey laws like conservation of mass/energy. And the components are often cheap or trivial. So the cost to permanently turn a shrew into a sperm whale is some mercury, gum resin and smoke. Actually you can make almost anything with mercury, gum resin and smoke.

[Destro2119]

That’s true, but magic doesn’t obey laws like conservation of mass/energy. And the components are often cheap or trivial. So the cost to permanently turn a shrew into a sperm whale is some mercury, gum resin and smoke. Actually you can make almost anything with mercury, gum resin and smoke.

I was talking about magic items. Also, see the point on downtime rules again.

[Bugbear]

No. Magic is governed by the laws of reality, too. That isn't governed by it isn't exist. If something exists - it don't break rules of reality. This rules can't be breaken. Magic is physics.

You can't compare Reality to a handful of game rules written for a game by some people years ago.

If you want to compare magic vs technology, you have to keep everything under the D20 rules. Use the D20 rules as the multiverse rules.


I've lost the QUOTE, but I think that the best answer was that technology is superior for providing small benefits to large groups, whereas magic is better for larger benefits to select individuals.



That does not really fit. Both magic and technology helps large groups of people. And both magic and technology benefit select individuals.

A millions of clueless people can pick up a smart phone and do things online, and maybe even read and learn things.

Millions of clueless people can pick up an intelligent book and do things and maybe even read and learn things.

It's exactly the same. The big rub is just about all of our magic setting examples are stuck in the Dark Ages at best. It IS possible with D20 magic to have a whole world each person has a headband of telepathic contact that connects them to the whole world of intelligent beings and objects.

[Gavinfoxx]

And magic in 3.X does follow laws, just not the same ones as tech.

Except in a world based on 3.5e, magic is, specifically, a form of technology that exploits the natural laws of the universe they find themselves in.

[Destro2119]

Except in a world based on 3.5e, magic is, specifically, a form of technology that exploits the natural laws of the universe they find themselves in.

So basically magic bypasses certain laws that tech would be subject to?

[Mechalich]

So basically magic bypasses certain laws that tech would be subject to?

D&D realities are multi-level.

The base level, the one in which characters are usually operating, is the Prime Material Plane, which has a set of physical laws that broadly resemble our own. So long as you are operating purely within the context of those laws you're mostly limited to things that are possible on Earth in real life (there are some exceptions, like animals that violate square-cube mass ratios, and weird spelljammer gravity, but this mostly holds).

Magic draws on energies from beyond the base layer of reality, from other planes or entities on other planes (gods, demon lords, etc.). Dropping those resources back down into the Prime Material causes effects that override the physical laws of the prime material. A useful analogy is that the spellcaster is accessing Administrator level commands to modify the game instance, with each spell representing a preset command (if you play Conan Exiles on single player, you can make yourself admin for an almost perfectly on the nose representation of how this can work). The difference between arcane magic and divine magic is that arcane magic involves the user manipulating those commands directly, while divine magic involves asking an admin level entity to do so on your behalf (a 'pact' caster like a warlock is somewhere in between).

So in D&D technology is confined to processes that manipulate the physical laws of a given plane - this can get weird, since on the Outer Planes things like souls become a natural resource - while magic can utilize the resources of multiple planes at once. In this interpretation an anti-magic field involves locking out extraplanar energies from an area.

It's worth noting that in speculative fiction technology is not inherently limited to single layer reality. In the post-scarcity culture universe the super-AI Minds draw on the power of adjacent universes in an infinite multiverse all the time which allows them to do all sorts of things our universe does not permit, like reactionless propulsion.

[Destro2119]

D&D realities are multi-level.

The base level, the one in which characters are usually operating, is the Prime Material Plane, which has a set of physical laws that broadly resemble our own. So long as you are operating purely within the context of those laws you're mostly limited to things that are possible on Earth in real life (there are some exceptions, like animals that violate square-cube mass ratios, and weird spelljammer gravity, but this mostly holds).

Magic draws on energies from beyond the base layer of reality, from other planes or entities on other planes (gods, demon lords, etc.). Dropping those resources back down into the Prime Material causes effects that override the physical laws of the prime material. A useful analogy is that the spellcaster is accessing Administrator level commands to modify the game instance, with each spell representing a preset command (if you play Conan Exiles on single player, you can make yourself admin for an almost perfectly on the nose representation of how this can work). The difference between arcane magic and divine magic is that arcane magic involves the user manipulating those commands directly, while divine magic involves asking an admin level entity to do so on your behalf (a 'pact' caster like a warlock is somewhere in between).

So in D&D technology is confined to processes that manipulate the physical laws of a given plane - this can get weird, since on the Outer Planes things like souls become a natural resource - while magic can utilize the resources of multiple planes at once. In this interpretation an anti-magic field involves locking out extraplanar energies from an area.

It's worth noting that in speculative fiction technology is not inherently limited to single layer reality. In the post-scarcity culture universe the super-AI Minds draw on the power of adjacent universes in an infinite multiverse all the time which allows them to do all sorts of things our universe does not permit, like reactionless propulsion.

So tech is not inherently superior to magic?

But more specifically, can you "industrialize" magic like tech "since specifically, a form of technology that exploits the natural laws of the prime material"? (3.X baseline. Logical extrapolations are allowed, like gp prices/crafting times are not fixed universal constants and magical crafting/caster levels just represent training, and that you CAN make new items like datapads for spells, etc.)

[Gavinfoxx]

So tech is not inherently superior to magic?

But more specifically, can you "industrialize" magic like tech (3.X baseline. Logical extrapolations are allowed.)

See my handbooks about precisely how to do that.

[Destro2119]

See my handbooks about precisely how to do that.

See edits to your quoted post. How would you develop things that are not in books? What things would you make?

[Gavinfoxx]

See edits to your quoted post. How would you develop things that are not in books? What things would you make?

My handbooks also mention things not in the actual books too, that are extrapolations, just like you ask!

[loky1109]

Lol, Magic doesn't exist precisely because it would break the laws of reality and goes contrary to physics. It can reverse or ignore gravity on a whim, create something from nothing, run roughshod over things like space and time, and change reality through the manifested will of the caster.

Nothing can "break the laws of reality". It is impossible. If we think something can - we don't know something.

Magic don't contrary to physics, only to part of physics we know.


Sure the line can become blurred when you advance technology to uncomprehendable levels, but there still has to be a line or they become the same thing. And if they are the same thing, then you are basically saying that all technology is magic and all magic is technology. Which would make the whole point of this debate pointless.
We don't need "uncomprehendable levels of technology". For ancient peoples lightning was magic, we use electrify every second. Has the lightning changed?


You can't compare Reality to a handful of game rules written for a game by some people years ago.
I can and I do. :smallcool:
There are nothing besides Reality to compare.


Use the D20 rules as the multiverse rules.
I can't, multiverse build by D20 rules can't exist. D20 rules aren't self-consistent.

[noob]

I mean, I hope you don't think casters craft magic by tossing gp onto a table and muttering over it. These people need supplies too (for example in PF using the downtime system it is absolutely possible to industrialize production of Magic goods to use for crafting). Sure, the end result is more efficient but you still need the raw components.

That is not how it works: the muttering is optional as is the table and you are not forced to only use gold: anything can be used to craft magical items as long as the sum of gp values are enough.
So while a big pile of gold can be used to create a magical item even an house, a potato, a gold statue, a commoner and a bunch of trees can be a valid set of components provided they are worth enough.

[Bugbear]

So basically magic bypasses certain laws that tech would be subject to?

No.

Magic, technology and anything else in a multiverse must obey that multiverses laws. You can't go around, by pass or break a natural law....though it should be noted that few if any natural laws are absolute and do, in fact, have plenty of wiggle room also.

A great example is freezing water. Most people know water freezes into ice right at 32/0 degrees. Well...except the poles of Earth are well below freezing and yet have liquid water oceans. So is the water "breaking reality" or something? Or, well, are things just more complicated....but still follow all the natural laws. Well, yes, things are more complicated.

Science only understands a bit of reality and what the rules are, at any given time. Radio waves, radiation, and electricity all existed back in 1500AD, but few people knew anything about them. In the same way, psionic energy might exist right now and be all around us, but we in 2021 don't know it. And for a great example: everything on Earth is effected by gravity.....but we have yet to find a gravaton or a quantum particles that does this...but somehow gravity IS effecting everything.


It is true that magic effects from a fantasy game don't fit into our reality science, but that does not really mean anything. After all, "real" magic does not exist.

But if "real" magic did exist, it would follow the natural laws of reality....but they might not be "only" the "what is known in 2021 laws of reality".

[Destro2119]

That is not how it works: the muttering is optional as is the table and you are not forced to only use gold: anything can be used to craft magical items as long as the sum of gp values are enough.
So while a big pile of gold can be used to create a magical item even an house, a potato, a gold statue, a commoner and a bunch of trees can be a valid set of components provided they are worth enough.

...wut.

I think you are reading too much into RAW amigo. I mean, I guess now I can make a commoner railgun?

(Point being-- I should not be able to use a decanter of endless water to get infinite salt and use the infinite salt as now infinite crafting materials. That is 1000% not RAI in a world or even out of a world as in GMs will not allow it)

[Mechalich]

Nothing can "break the laws of reality". It is impossible. If we think something can - we don't know something.

Magic don't contrary to physics, only to part of physics we know.

People need to stop saying this. It is not true, or more accurately it only holds for a specific case where the fictional reality retains the same axiomatic assumptions as our own, which are commonly known as naturalism. A fictional universe does not have to be a naturalist one. Several game systems, such as Mage: the Ascension, posit one that explicitly is not.

Most D&D settings are non-naturalist because they are theistic. The deity or deities has complete ability to change and alter the natural laws at any time.

[noob]

...wut.

I think you are reading too much into RAW amigo. I mean, I guess now I can make a commoner railgun?

(Point being-- I should not be able to use a decanter of endless water to get infinite salt and use the infinite salt as now infinite crafting materials. That is 1000% not RAI in a world or even out of a world as in GMs will not allow it)
Commoner railgun needs alternating between raw and real world physics.
It does not works by raw because attacking at the end regardless of velocity deals a specified damage(that is low in the case of a commoner throwing an object)
Likewise decanter of endless water making salt is not raw: at no point is it specified the water contains any salt.
However using profession in the middle of nowhere to make gold is raw.
Ex: you are in the middle of a sand desert away from any creatures you can decide all of a sudden "Hey I am going to do my job as a sailor without a boat" and then be paid after a week in the middle of the desert.

[Quertus]

That does not really fit. Both magic and technology helps large groups of people. And both magic and technology benefit select individuals.

A millions of clueless people can pick up a smart phone and do things online, and maybe even read and learn things.

Millions of clueless people can pick up an intelligent book and do things and maybe even read and learn things.

It's exactly the same. The big rub is just about all of our magic setting examples are stuck in the Dark Ages at best. It IS possible with D20 magic to have a whole world each person has a headband of telepathic contact that connects them to the whole world of intelligent beings and objects.

Sure.

But how does one go about creating a million smart books, or billions of headbands of telepathic contact?

Technology seems more readily mass-produced than magic.


Nothing can "break the laws of reality". It is impossible. If we think something can - we don't know something.

Magic don't contrary to physics, only to part of physics we know.

I'm a programmer. Suppose I write a world. Its denizens become sentient, and explore that world, come to understand its laws. Then I just set some variables, and cause effects that they cannot explain. Or code gravity to go "up" in one particular area.

But, yes, "normal" magic *is* a part of physics.


People need to stop saying this. It is not true, or more accurately it only holds for a specific case where the fictional reality retains the same axiomatic assumptions as our own, which are commonly known as naturalism. A fictional universe does not have to be a naturalist one. Several game systems, such as Mage: the Ascension, posit one that explicitly is not.

Most D&D settings are non-naturalist because they are theistic. The deity or deities has complete ability to change and alter the natural laws at any time.

Citation needed on D&D deities having the ability to redefine natural laws ("I declare that Undead can reproduce by willing it so, and don't cause any environmental damage / undead pollution" should be a valid divine mandate as I read your claim)

Citation needed on "ability of WoD Mages to alter reality" being a property of reality, not of the mages.

[hamishspence]

Likewise decanter of endless water making salt is not raw: at no point is it specified the water contains any salt.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#decanterofEndlessWater

Decanter of Endless Water
If the stopper is removed from this ordinary-looking flask and a command word spoken, an amount of fresh or salt water pours out. Separate command words determine the type as well as the volume and velocity.

Salt water is water with salt in.

However, getting the salt together so you can sell it will require some work. The same techniques people use to get sea salt from seawater.

[noob]

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#decanterofEndlessWater

Decanter of Endless Water
If the stopper is removed from this ordinary-looking flask and a command word spoken, an amount of fresh or salt water pours out. Separate command words determine the type as well as the volume and velocity.

Salt water is water with salt in.

However, getting the salt together so you can sell it will require some work. The same techniques people use to get sea salt from seawater.

I still do not see the point over using the sea.

[hamishspence]

Salt is a valuable commodity, and the character may be living in the middle of a continent a long way from the sea.

[Destro2119]

I still do not see the point over using the sea.

"The point" is that by your logic one could develop a cantrip or something that instantly sieves salt, and then use the decanter as a source of infinite crafting material. Or that you can go to a saltworks and create magic items equal to the king's treasury using the salt. Which is nonsense.

[loky1109]

People need to stop saying this. It is not true, or more accurately it only holds for a specific case where the fictional reality retains the same axiomatic assumptions as our own, which are commonly known as naturalism. A fictional universe does not have to be a naturalist one. Several game systems, such as Mage: the Ascension, posit one that explicitly is not.

Most D&D settings are non-naturalist because they are theistic. The deity or deities has complete ability to change and alter the natural laws at any time.

Of course you are wrong. Any reality including fictional need some unbreakable laws. Base constants.
Of course the fictional reality retains the same axiomatic assumptions as our own. Plus some fantastic assumptions. Not instead! Plus! You won't be able to understand fictional reality if it be instead.


A fictional universe does not have to be a naturalist one. Several game systems, such as Mage: the Ascension, posit one that explicitly is not.
MtA don't posit that there aren't any laws of reality, only that laws we know are from some degree wrong and there are some more complicated more overall laws that include "our" laws as a particular case. As classical mechanics is a particular case of relativistic mechanics.



Most D&D settings are non-naturalist because they are theistic. The deity or deities has complete ability to change and alter the natural laws at any time.
Yes, deities can. In some limits, obeying some laws. Metalaws in relation to "our" physics, but still laws.

This isn't about naturalist. It is about causal relationships and self-consistency.

[noob]

"The point" is that by your logic one could develop a cantrip or something that instantly sieves salt, and then use the decanter as a source of infinite crafting material. Or that you can go to a saltworks and create magic items equal to the king's treasury using the salt. Which is nonsense.

Just use wall of salt instead of doing convoluted things.
Or use fabricate to turn diamonds in 3 times as many diamonds.
There is a lot of easier ways to do wealthmancy.

[Destro2119]

Sure.

But how does one go about creating a million smart books, or billions of headbands of telepathic contact?

Technology seems more result mass-produced than magic.



I'm a programmer. Suppose I write a world. It's denizens become sentient, and explore that world, come to understand it's laws. Then I just set some variables, and cause effects that they cannot explain. Or code gravity to go "up" in one particular area.

But, yes, "normal" magic *is* a part of physics.



Citation needed on D&D deities having the ability to redefine natural laws ("I declare that Undead can reproduce by willing it so, and don't cause any environmental damage / undead pollution" should be a valid divine mandate as I read your claim)

Citation needed on "ability of WoD Mages to alter reality" being a property of reality, not of the mages.

To the first point-- by the same methodology that you "mass-produce" tech items or mundane items (going by 3.X, which is a mixture of whatever rules you want from 3.0-PF). If we were using 3.5 standards and you have to use xp then I would concede this, but for this we are using PF rules where the whole thing is more or less explicitly supposed to model individual knowledge (ie PF2e has Alchemical Crafting as a separate feat and basically standardized Craft [x] magical item into Magical Crafting which all uses the new Crafting skill), not industrial production, and moreover you don't need xp, I don't feel it is a stretch to say that under these circumstances magic can be mass produced just as easily. For what it would look like, think GURPS Technomancer (runic furnaces, magical levitation conveyor belts, ie essentially the same methods/mindset but different tools). Or just wish for UPBs from SF and/or ask a god how to make them.

Insufficient knowledge of WoD Mages, but for deities I think that since epic characters can do bullsh*t hyper spells/items to make self replicating undead, there is probably a salient ability that lets deities alter reality to whatever they want concerning their domains. In fact, since Miracle is something they can all do at will, it should be trivial.

[Bugbear]

Sure.

But how does one go about creating a million smart books, or billions of headbands of telepathic contact?

Technology seems more readily mass-produced than magic.

Magic is just as easy to mass produce.

To make a magic factory that makes smart books or any other item is simple enough. Just like tech, you'd need to take time...maybe a couple years...to make massive wondrous architecture living construct arcanewright factories.

Even just a dozen spellcasters, with the right feats and tools and classes and such can make an item cheaply in just a couple days.

You just need to take any D&D setting out of the Post apocalypse time frame and put in in a magical industrial one.






Citation needed on D&D deities having the ability to redefine natural laws ("I declare that Undead can reproduce by willing it so, and don't cause any environmental damage / undead pollution" should be a valid divine mandate as I read your claim)


I'd just point out that even a deity has to follow the laws of reality. They can't "break" anything.

[Quertus]

Huh. Maybe it's just me. Pardon me while I ramble.

I'm accustomed to thinking of Magic as… an art form. And costing XP (3e) / requiring a *caster* to make it.

I'm clearly wrong, as Dedicated Wrights can craft magic items second-hand. Could they use XP farms for the XP portion if their creator were dead? Certainly they could use XP components.

But that's still many, many days to completion per smart book for each of the Dedicated Wrights.

And I think that there's a "minimum 1 day" clause, so no mass reproducing chachka like pencils, crayons, notebooks, etc. I mean, yes, Fabricate can mass produce *those*, but you can't churn out a billion magical self-inking quills in a day… can you?

A factory… huh. A random Google search accidently returned that a 10¢ pencil would cost $50 in labor and materials to make by hand. So, *if* magic could be automated efficiently, we might expect a 500x increase in efficiency. That's pretty amazing! Imagine what adventuring parties would look like if… they could buy *very much not custom* items for 1/500th of the price!

(Also, that pencil has an estimated lifespan of 45,000 words. The things you learn.)

Anyway, maybe someone with more… tolerance for research than I can compare the size and output of a modern factory mass producing cheap items (like pencils, crayons, bouncy balls, or lightbulbs) to the productivity of filling the same volume with 5' cubes of Dedicated Wrights, each individually crafting the cheapest possible magical item.

Then take those numbers, and give them a 500x boost for (somehow) applying "assembly line" tech to the process.

[Bugbear]

But that's still many, many days to completion per smart book for each of the Dedicated Wrights.

Well, if we go from the vague D&D time of 1400AD to 2021 we do have over 600 years. Even if you want to go from 'invention of the telephone' to 'handheld computer smart phone' that is more then 100 years.

And we are not talking about one lone spellcaster sitting on a stump...we are talking about 1,000's of spellcasters and 1,000's of others working together and against and opposed to each other (See Earth history).

And pretty quick you really need to toss out lots of the dumb rules. And the first to go need to be the money joke rules. Like how a spellcaster "pays" several wagon full tons of gold to make magic items. And even if you isist on using the silly "pay money to craft magic" rules, it is easy within the rules to just "make" unlimited money.

And I think that there's a "minimum 1 day" clause, so no mass reproducing chachka like pencils, crayons, notebooks, etc. I mean, yes, Fabricate can mass produce *those*, but you can't churn out a billion magical self-inking quills in a dayÂ… can you?



A factoryÂ… huh.


Yea, but remember not overnight. We start with more a workshop and build upwards. Year one we just have three spellcasters in a room with wondrous architecture, spells and magic items...each with a Dedicated Wright.

And the sky is the limit as 3X and pathfinder are loaded with stuff. Our "group" becomes an official guild per DMG2 rules with access to the guild feats. A spellpool, place magic, A 'wondrous location' and constructs really only scratch the surface.

And just think of massive wondrous architecture living construct arcanewright factories....

[Destro2119]

Huh. Maybe it's just me. Pardon me while I ramble.

I'm accustomed to thinking of Magic as… an art form. And costing XP (3e) / requiring a *caster* to make it.

I'm clearly wrong, as Dedicated Wrights can craft magic items second-hand. Could they use XP farms for the XP portion if their creator were dead? Certainly they could use XP components.

But that's still many, many days to completion per smart book for each of the Dedicated Wrights.

And I think that there's a "minimum 1 day" clause, so no mass reproducing chachka like pencils, crayons, notebooks, etc. I mean, yes, Fabricate can mass produce *those*, but you can't churn out a billion magical self-inking quills in a day… can you?

A factory… huh. A random Google search accidently returned that a 10¢ pencil would cost $50 in labor and materials to make by hand. So, *if* magic could be automated efficiently, we might expect a 500x increase in efficiency. That's pretty amazing! Imagine what adventuring parties would look like if… they could buy *very much not custom* items for 1/500th of the price!

(Also, that pencil has an estimated lifespan of 45,000 words. The things you learn.)

Anyway, maybe someone with more… tolerance for research than I can compare the size and output of a modern factory mass producing cheap items (like pencils, crayons, bouncy balls, or lightbulbs) to the productivity of filling the same volume with 5' cubes of Dedicated Wrights, each individually crafting the cheapest possible magical item.

Then take those numbers, and give them a 500x boost for (somehow) applying "assembly line" tech to the process.

"there's a "minimum 1 day" clause"

Frankly this is more an abstraction of the game for the aforementioned individual craftsman PC as well. Just as much as the "only one potion a day" thing (even though it doesn't sync up with how much is available in world, for example). Basically, the point is just about game balance, so one PC doesn't have the crafting output of an entire factory.

If you accept that "RAW is NOT physics and RAW is NOT god" (kind of the only logical way to consider it) then "industrialized" magic crafting is very possible, for the reasons I have set forth (ie extrapolations and innovations). Like researching and making UPBs for one :smallsmile:

PS: I always felt that 3.X as a game always leaned towards this kind of thing (magitech world). From 2e, we have Netheril, and in the spiritual successor Pathfinder we have this heavy emphasis on magic and tech together which culminates in Starfinder.

EDIT: And yes, I think that to "stat out" a factory, you're gonna need to extrapolate a new system of special rules. Once again, GURPS Technomancer has good examples.

[noob]

"there's a "minimum 1 day" clause"

Frankly this is more an abstraction of the game for the aforementioned individual craftsman PC as well. Just as much as the "only one potion a day" thing (even though it doesn't sync up with how much is available in world, for example). Basically, the point is just about game balance, so one PC doesn't have the crafting output of an entire factory.

If you accept that "RAW is NOT physics and RAW is NOT god" (kind of the only logical way to consider it) then "industrialized" magic crafting is very possible, for the reasons I have set forth (ie extrapolations and innovations). Like researching and making UPBs for one :smallsmile:

PS: I always felt that 3.X as a game always leaned towards this kind of thing (magitech world). From 2e, we have Netheril, and in the spiritual successor Pathfinder we have this heavy emphasis on magic and tech together which culminates in Starfinder.

EDIT: And yes, I think that to "stat out" a factory, you're gonna need to extrapolate a new system of special rules. Once again, GURPS Technomancer has good examples.
I believe there is a prc that allows to make more than one magical potion a day(but only for potions)

[Destro2119]

I believe there is a prc that allows to make more than one magical potion a day(but only for potions)

Yeah, but it's obscure enough and came late enough in 3.X's publishing cycle that I am pretty sure my point about "one a day" being an abstraction still stands.

Plus, in PF, I think the RAW is foggy enough that you can rule crafting, say, four potions in one day as the same as crafting a batch of 50 +1 arrows, ie they are all considered "one product."

[Destro2119]

Well, if we go from the vague D&D time of 1400AD to 2021 we do have over 600 years. Even if you want to go from 'invention of the telephone' to 'handheld computer smart phone' that is more then 100 years.

And we are not talking about one lone spellcaster sitting on a stump...we are talking about 1,000's of spellcasters and 1,000's of others working together and against and opposed to each other (See Earth history).

And pretty quick you really need to toss out lots of the dumb rules. And the first to go need to be the money joke rules. Like how a spellcaster "pays" several wagon full tons of gold to make magic items. And even if you isist on using the silly "pay money to craft magic" rules, it is easy within the rules to just "make" unlimited money.

And I think that there's a "minimum 1 day" clause, so no mass reproducing chachka like pencils, crayons, notebooks, etc. I mean, yes, Fabricate can mass produce *those*, but you can't churn out a billion magical self-inking quills in a dayÂ… can you?



Yea, but remember not overnight. We start with more a workshop and build upwards. Year one we just have three spellcasters in a room with wondrous architecture, spells and magic items...each with a Dedicated Wright.

And the sky is the limit as 3X and pathfinder are loaded with stuff. Our "group" becomes an official guild per DMG2 rules with access to the guild feats. A spellpool, place magic, A 'wondrous location' and constructs really only scratch the surface.

And just think of massive wondrous architecture living construct arcanewright factories....

To reinforce this idea, PF has confirmed that you can make robots/artificial beings with CLs and that can cast spells.

Plus, this is all just assuming you don't take the easy (and frankly, less society confusing/more societally stable) route and just ask the god of tech how to make UPBs :smallcool:

[Gavinfoxx]

Just FYI, my handbook does talk about the sorts of things you can make, using the rules, that aren't limited the magical crafting rules, and also it talks about various ways of mitigating the limitations of those rules with massively parallel factories full of dedicated wrights, mixed with other techniques...

I can still tell by your questions that you have not closely read the three handbooks and cross referenced the techniques and books referenced!

[Bugbear]

you're gonna need to extrapolate a new system of special rules.

The 3x/P have a lot of problems, mostly:

1.They are some simple rules for an overly focused combat game made up at random
2.A LOT of them simply make no sense...they are close to the worst idiotic scribble ever
3.Too many rules are made with some wacky idea of 'game balance'

So, you really need to get get over all the above to talk about doing things in a d20 type universe.

And just about all the rules are 99% pure combat related. To talk about a more living world, you'd need to add 99% more non combat to the rules.

You need to take things like classes, feats and prestige classes and make them 'non combat'. For example making the 'fighter' the 'worker' that gets bonus feats...like 'tool focus'(weapon focus). And it gets fun with prestige classes that get the use of a spell like ability at will or even unique magic abilities at will. Like an Urban Soul can Meld Into City at will....and use that as a point to change: a 3rd level spell usable at will as a spell like ability. Stone shape at will...metal shape at will...the possibilities are endless.

[Quertus]

If we just "make stuff up", well, there's little in the way of intellectual contribution I can make to endeavors of pure fancy.

I've given my best guess of a way to compare apples to apples, to extrapolate from "individual craftsman" magic to "assembly line" magic.

If anyone has a better way to produce such estimates - to compare the space, setup cost, upkeep, productivity, and new product "retooling" costs than by using the baseline that I have suggested, by all means, suggest such.

Until a detailed analysis of "pencils vs self-inking quills" is made and suggests otherwise, my instincts comparing apples to oranges says that magic loses, hard.

[Destro2119]

Just FYI, my handbook does talk about the sorts of things you can make, using the rules, that aren't limited the magical crafting rules, and also it talks about various ways of mitigating the limitations of those rules with massively parallel factories full of dedicated wrights, mixed with other techniques...

I can still tell by your questions that you have not closely read the three handbooks and cross referenced the techniques and books referenced!

Well, if you are so knowledgeable, how about you try explaining to Mr. Quertus what your techniques are, based on the handbooks? (this is a genuine question, not sarcasm)

Please try to summarize their info.

[noob]

Just spam duplicates of casters(there is many ways to do that including mirror mephits) and have them use dark crafting xp and gold to create stuff?

[Gavinfoxx]

Again, it's mostly about pointing out the various rules for the 'better than masterwork' options scattered around dozens of books, as well as the various cost reduction (time, xp, gold) for crafting, ways to get arbitrary large amounts of any of those, massive use of shapesand to make tools on an as-needed basis, massive parallel use of dedicated wrights, use of massive amounts of unseen crafters from repeating traps (or any of the alternative to those), massive use of auto reset repeating traps for the long-duration crafitng buff spells, an elaboration of the various super-materials in the edition and what each can be used for and how (especially the plant-based supermaterials), various ways to get permanently real plant materials with the right types of simulacrums and how to get them, various ways of setting up a Wish-based economy and what it can and can't do, details of the 'turn one material into another' spells and their provenance, ways of pumping various skills to enable rapid traditional technological advancement, etc. etc.

Just READ THE HANDBOOKS.

[Destro2119]

If we just "make stuff up", well, there's little in the way of intellectual contribution I can make to endeavors of pure fancy.

I've given my best guess of a way to compare apples to apples, to extrapolate from "individual craftsman" magic to "assembly line" magic.

If anyone has a better way to produce such estimates - to compare the space, setup cost, upkeep, productivity, and new product "retooling" costs than by using the baseline that I have suggested, by all means, suggest such.

Until a detailed analysis of "pencils vs self-inking quills" is made and suggests otherwise, my instincts comparing apples to oranges says that magic loses, hard.

I mean, the only thing you really "need" to do is establish that it doesn't need xp and the "one item a day" rule is 1000% a convenient game balance abstraction for individual PCs.

After that, everything is easy. I mean, the game doesn't stat out an industrial textile weaver or an industrial foundry, but those are 100% possible IRL. So now that we have established that magic goods are no different than normal goods, who is to say that industrial production is impossible?

PS: The economy always has been borked, even for mundane items. Apparently going from RAW only everything is worth the same everywhere regardless of local conditions, and nothing can decrease fixed PHB prices so an item is easier to create or buy.

EDIT: If you want specific examples, then an example might be that you have different grades of industrial machines-- one can craft wondrous items, another allows you to make [x] times 100 amount of common goods a day, and a separate set of facilities provides a bonus to the amount.

[Destro2119]

Again, it's mostly about pointing out the various rules for the 'better than masterwork' options scattered around dozens of books, as well as the various cost reduction (time, xp, gold) for crafting, ways to get arbitrary large amounts of any of those, massive use of shapesand to make tools on an as-needed basis, massive parallel use of dedicated wrights, use of massive amounts of unseen crafters from repeating traps (or any of the alternative to those), massive use of auto reset repeating traps for the long-duration crafitng buff spells, an elaboration of the various super-materials in the edition and what each can be used for and how (especially the plant-based supermaterials), various ways to get permanently real plant materials with the right types of simulacrums and how to get them, various ways of setting up a Wish-based economy and what it can and can't do, details of the 'turn one material into another' spells and their provenance, ways of pumping various skills to enable rapid traditional technological advancement, etc. etc.

Just READ THE HANDBOOKS.

So in the terms of our thought experiment, how would you build a datapad for storing spells instead of a spellbook? How would you develop a system that syncs up all dedicated wrights on a line to create items or that improves them by giving them more skill ranks/more feats at a cost that is not prohibitive? These types of things.

[Gavinfoxx]

There's the Eberron Spellshard, and also methods of making Autohypnosis and Eidetic Spellcasting more normalized among any population that wants to 'have a spellbook', if you don't like paper books for some reason. And they don't NEED to do assembly line stuff particularly much; they can just work in arbitrary large artisan-type shops. And anything you need to pump out in the thousands a day is worth making a Fabricate trap to make one of whatever-it-is every six seconds from nothing. Which you would know, if you bothered to read the handbooks!

[Destro2119]

There's the Eberron Spellshard, and also methods of making Autohypnosis and Eidetic Spellcasting more normalized among any population that wants to 'have a spellbook', if you don't like paper books for some reason. And they don't NEED to do assembly line stuff particularly much; they can just work in arbitrary large artisan-type shops. And anything you need to pump out in the thousands a day is worth making a Fabricate trap to make one of whatever-it-is every six seconds from nothing. Which you would know, if you bothered to read the handbooks!

Are you *sure* traps are legal? How do they work exactly? Doesn't a living person need to trigger them?

Also, what would a world built around those handbooks look like? How would *you* envision it? Do you think it could invent space travel and eventually colonize other planets?

[Gavinfoxx]

Uh, it already has airships without altitude limits and with reactionless drives their own life support which will never run out... and the ability to scry and teleport circle wherever... and the ability to make planes of arbitrary size is already in the rules as they exist...

And if traps aren't legal, WHICH I DISCUSS AS BEING A POSSIBILITY, I mention at least three other methods of doing the same thing to present to your GM, which you would know if you read the handbooks!

[Destro2119]

Uh, it already has airships without altitude limits and with reactionless drives their own life support which will never run out... and the ability to scry and teleport circle wherever... and the ability to make planes of arbitrary size is already in the rules as they exist...

And if traps aren't legal, WHICH I DISCUSS AS BEING A POSSIBILITY, I mention at least three other methods of doing the same thing to present to your GM, which you would know if you read the handbooks!

Oh wait-- I just reread my Iron Gods and realized PF actually has a remove disease trap as canon. Well then.

I already have read the handbooks; I was just trying to clarify on points I thought weren't clear. Do you have any more of them? They were really good :smallsmile:

"and the ability to make planes of arbitrary size is already in the rules as they exist..."

Where exactly in the rules?

EDIT: D'oh. I thought you said planets, not planes.

[Bugbear]

Are you *sure* traps are legal? How do they work exactly? Doesn't a living person need to trigger them?



Traps are legal, they are in the core rules. The Boon Trap is in Dungeonscape. There are also Spell Clocks and Spell Turrets. Plus just Wondrous Architecture.



Also, what would a world built around those handbooks look like? How would *you* envision it? Do you think it could invent space travel and eventually colonize other planets?

Spelljammer

[Quertus]

There's the Eberron Spellshard, and also methods of making Autohypnosis and Eidetic Spellcasting more normalized among any population that wants to 'have a spellbook', if you don't like paper books for some reason. And they don't NEED to do assembly line stuff particularly much; they can just work in arbitrary large artisan-type shops. And anything you need to pump out in the thousands a day is worth making a Fabricate trap to make one of whatever-it-is every six seconds from nothing. Which you would know, if you bothered to read the handbooks!

1) you keep mentioning them, but… what handbooks? They're not linked in your signature. Did I miss you posting them earlier in the thread?

2) "Fabricate" does not, afaik, allow for the creation of *magical* items, which is what was under discussion (which you'd know if you read the thread :smallwink:)

3) "Arbitrarily large" implies that your factories may well be inefficient, space-wise, when compared to muggle alternatives.

4) all the "creation" and "importing" logic you use (in other posts) is not conducive to stability - eventually, oceans will flood from Decanter of Endless Water, gravity will increase from Wall of Stone, etc. Hard to say which loses on the "pollution" angle between magic and technology. (EDIT: sorry, that wasn't you. Got my conversations confused :smallredface: Still, you need to either use Creation, or have Transportation infrastructure in place.)


Traps are legal, they are in the core rules. The Boon Trap is in Dungeonscape. There are also Spell Clocks and Spell Turrets. Plus just Wondrous Architecture.

And how many self-inking quills per day does what sized factory produce, with what initial investment?

Can magical goods provide economically feasible replacements for muggle crafts?

[Gavinfoxx]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z9NJIs751Af3i0IEIJwCkIp9H9YFiZYZ7u-wmYVaheI/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14zilT4WGOyHM0AfpG4-GmD2FkgDg1HZ9HC1cTleQHds/edit?usp=sharing

And I did mention making magical items in general too -- the wrights are good at both!

[Destro2119]

1) you keep mentioning them, but… what handbooks? They're not linked in your signature. Did I miss you posting them earlier in the thread?

2) "Fabricate" does not, afaik, allow for the creation of *magical* items, which is what was under discussion (which you'd know if you read the thread :smallwink:)

3) "Arbitrarily large" implies that your factories may well be inefficient, space-wise, when compared to muggle alternatives.

4) all the "creation" and "importing" logic you use (in other posts) is not conducive to stability - eventually, oceans will flood from Decanter of Endless Water, gravity will increase from Wall of Stone, etc. Hard to say which loses on the "pollution" angle between magic and technology. (EDIT: sorry, that wasn't you. Got my conversations confused :smallredface: Still, you need to either use Creation, or have Transportation infrastructure in place.)


And how many self-inking quills per day does what sized factory produce, with what initial investment?

Can magical goods provide economically feasible replacements for muggle crafts?


Well to actually answer your specific assertions in any feasible way, you are going to need to drag out some stats for a factory to produce fountain pens from a game like d20 modern or d20 future. Otherwise we really have no comparison.

In any case, unless magic goods need some element that can't be represented in mere gp values, like xp (and even then read Gavinfoxx's handbooks for some tips/read Eberron) then there is no reason they couldn't be mass produced like, say, guns, which started off handmade but become mass-produced. PF's downtime rules even support this by straight up allowing you to mass-produce Magic goods which can be used for magic crafting. Not to mention SF's system and how you could just make UPBs.

EDIT: The whole "all the "creation" and "importing" logic you use (in other posts) is not conducive to stability - eventually, oceans will flood from Decanter of Endless Water, gravity will increase from Wall of Stone, etc." thing was a ridiculous assertion by a poster who thinks that salt being worth gp on the trade goods table (*cough*economy nonsense*cough*) means that you can go to a saltworks and use it to create 1000s of gp worth of items.

Also, a side point, but the "eventually" of your worries is so far off that it is effectively zero. Otherwise gravity would have increased to an unbearable amount on our planet about 10 years ago :smalltongue:

[noob]

Well to actually answer your specific assertions in any feasible way, you are going to need to drag out some stats for a factory to produce fountain pens from a game like d20 modern or d20 future. Otherwise we really have no comparison.

In any case, unless magic goods need some element that can't be represented in mere gp values, like xp (and even then read Gavinfoxx's handbooks for some tips/read Eberron) then there is no reason they couldn't be mass produced like, say, guns, which started off handmade but become mass-produced. PF's downtime rules even support this by straight up allowing you to mass-produce Magic goods which can be used for magic crafting. Not to mention SF's system and how you could just make UPBs.

EDIT: The whole "all the "creation" and "importing" logic you use (in other posts) is not conducive to stability - eventually, oceans will flood from Decanter of Endless Water, gravity will increase from Wall of Stone, etc." thing was a ridiculous assertion by a poster who thinks that salt being worth gp on the trade goods table (*cough*economy nonsense*cough*) means that you can go to a saltworks and use it to create 1000s of gp worth of items.

Also, a side point, but the "eventually" of your worries is so far off that it is effectively zero. Otherwise gravity would have increased to an unbearable amount on our planet about 10 years ago :smalltongue:

There is solutions such as using portals toward other planes to get rid of the excess.
ex: a portal toward the plane of water at the bottom of the ocean and other things like that.

[Gavinfoxx]

Look at my setting idea here, where in order to get a magical setting with advanced technology to seem sci-fi-y, I had to actually put major constraints on what magic could do, nullifying all the infinite energy and infinite space and ex nihilo matter creation tricks, putting some limits on teleports and planar cosmology, and so on, to have a reason for people to expand into space and deconstruct planets and such:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?612578-How-to-set-up-the-cosmology-of-a-D-amp-D-setting-as-a-Dyson-Swarm

Remember, you don't build a dyson swarm if you trivially have infinite energy and can make infinite living room and infinite matter without ever leaving your planet. There's just no need!


Anyway, the way I was doing that setting was using Glassteel as one of the main megastructure construction materials; weight of mithril, durability of adamantine, not as good as either for weaponry, but perfect for building stuff!

[Bugbear]

1)


And how many self-inking quills per day does what sized factory produce, with what initial investment?

Can magical goods provide economically feasible replacements for muggle crafts?

Well, in Pathfinder spellcasters can use the Quill spell at will.

Something like:
Pen of Endless Ink
Wonderous Item

This miraculous pen never runs out of ink.

Cost to create: 50 gp 5sp, 20xp, 1 day
Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, prestidigitation(or quill), CL 3rd



A factory of ten spellcsters with 10 dedicated wights is making 20 a day. And you can hire more. You could start with a nice contract: the company pays for your magic needs and helps you build the wight.

We use the Arcane Distillery (Dr355) as an example, and create an Arcane Qillary to give is the 10% in cost and time.

Burred in the Sliver Marches book is this wonderful rule: A worker can use the companies lab and may create a magic item even if they don't have the need item creation feat.

So with just leadership...that is something like 20 spellcasting workers per the big ten...so we are up to 200.

So it's a bit clunky, but 200 Quill Pens of Endless Ink is not bad. 1,000 a week. And that is just one factory.

But with things like the dumb rule that "crafting a magic item MUST take one day" it gets hard to go further. But if you do insist that the "Rules" must be used, then we can use rules like giving every worker at our company access to all item creation feats.

To get to the more "modern" factory, we'd need a fast time plane where workers can make 10,000 items a day....in one second on the Prime. OR we can remove the dumb 8 hour rule. AND we can can cooperative magic crafting. And many other things.

[Destro2119]

Well, in Pathfinder spellcasters can use the Quill spell at will.

Something like:
Pen of Endless Ink
Wonderous Item

This miraculous pen never runs out of ink.

Cost to create: 50 gp 5sp, 20xp, 1 day
Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, prestidigitation(or quill), CL 3rd



A factory of ten spellcsters with 10 dedicated wights is making 20 a day. And you can hire more. You could start with a nice contract: the company pays for your magic needs and helps you build the wight.

We use the Arcane Distillery (Dr355) as an example, and create an Arcane Qillary to give is the 10% in cost and time.

Burred in the Sliver Marches book is this wonderful rule: A worker can use the companies lab and may create a magic item even if they don't have the need item creation feat.

So with just leadership...that is something like 20 spellcasting workers per the big ten...so we are up to 200.

So it's a bit clunky, but 200 Quill Pens of Endless Ink is not bad. 1,000 a week. And that is just one factory.

But with things like the dumb rule that "crafting a magic item MUST take one day" it gets hard to go further. But if you do insist that the "Rules" must be used, then we can use rules like giving every worker at our company access to all item creation feats.

To get to the more "modern" factory, we'd need a fast time plane where workers can make 10,000 items a day....in one second on the Prime. OR we can remove the dumb 8 hour rule. AND we can can cooperative magic crafting. And many other things.

Great writeup!

BTW, on the "1 a day" rule, I again assert that it is 1000% a game abstraction for PC/individual crafting, which can be clearly seen in how enchanting 50 +1 arrows in one go is the same effort as creating one quill.

Also, creating robot servants with the necessary crafting feats/spells would be the logical next step from dedicated wrights. Also developing UPBs too :smallsmile:

[loky1109]

Great writeup!

BTW, on the "1 a day" rule, I again assert that it is 1000% a game abstraction for PC/individual crafting, which can be clearly seen in how enchanting 50 +1 arrows in one go is the same effort as creating one quill.


6 scrolls with 1 spell and 1 scroll with 6 same spells. ;)

[Destro2119]

6 scrolls with 1 spell and 1 scroll with 6 same spells. ;)

I don't get this reference. Please explain?

[loky1109]

I don't get this reference. Please explain?

Craft 1 scroll with 1*0-lvl spell - 1 day (plus some XP and gp).
Craft 1 scroll with 6*0-lvl spell - 1 day (plus 6*some XP and gp).

Six time more work, but same amount of time.

It's about that it is univocal 1000% a game abstraction.

[Destro2119]

Craft 1 scroll with 1*0-lvl spell - 1 day (plus some XP and gp).
Craft 1 scroll with 6*0-lvl spell - 1 day (plus 6*some XP and gp).

Six time more work, but same amount of time.

It's about that it is unequivocally 1000% a game abstraction.

I agree. Also, RAW perception penalties mean that a man dressed in bright red on a open plain is unseeable at about 250ft. by the average man. For ref, a man in normal army dress is expected to be *identifiable* at some 1500 ft on that same open plain by the US army.

So essentially you have to extrapolate at some point, and/or realize that RAW is not the "physics" of the world. So I agree that "1 item a day" is 1000% an abstraction :smallsmile:

[Quertus]

So essentially you have to extrapolate at some point, and/or realize that RAW is not the "physics" of the world. So I agree that "1 item a day" is 1000% an abstraction :smallsmile:

--or-- that RAW *is* the physics of the world - that places where our experience differs from RAW, it is because the physics differ there.

It's kinda hard for obvious, observable metrics like that to be "an abstraction" - or, rather, it would be a *very poor* one, that would break by casual observations by the natives.

Also, the fact that there are explicit rules to grant exceptions to the 1/day rule gives voice to the lie of it not functioning as intended.

(Or, as an intermediary step, that the physics differ, and RAW is an abstraction for those different physics)

[mashlagoo1982]

As for the argument which setting would own the other.

Any equally advanced magic setting would totally own any equally advanced tech setting.

Tech works within the various laws of physics and such.
Magic regularly tells the same laws to go sit in the corner while it makes some awesome stuff happen.

That being said, I would choose to live in a tech setting.
There is already enough crazy stuff there without adding magic to the mix.

[Bugbear]

BTW, on the "1 a day" rule, I again assert that it is 1000% a game abstraction for PC/individual crafting, which can be clearly seen in how enchanting 50 +1 arrows in one go is the same effort as creating one quill.


There is the wiggle room of making a magic item in multiple parts.

The bag of tricks, everfull purse, and the robe of useful items. So this is more along the lines of making a Box of Endless Endless Everfull Quills. Even at the most basic, using the rules, in a day or two you can make a box that makes an endless quill every day. Sure the box only makes one a day.....but it adds up.

So the factory spends a month making Box of Endless Endless Everfull Quills. With all the cost reductions we can get that down to one day to make each. Then we have 30 boxes, that we can open each once a day, and get 30 Everfull Quills. So month three, we are making 60 quills a day, and so on.

And really, it's not so much to make a item that can make five Everfull Quills a day....or even more. Making like a Wondrous Writing Wren that makes 10 quills at day is easy enough. And we are not even at high or even medium spell levels.

And we have not even touched on say......shapesand. Alchemists can make this very cheap as there are a lot of alchemy related classes, feats and effects. Then everyone gets a jug of sand, that they can mental shape into any needed object.

[Destro2119]

--or-- that RAW *is* the physics of the world - that places where our experience differs from RAW, it is because the physics differ there.

It's kinda hard for obvious, observable metrics like that to be "an abstraction" - or, rather, it would be a *very poor* one, that would break by casual observations by the natives.

Also, the fact that there are explicit rules to grant exceptions to the 1/day rule gives voice to the lie of it not functioning as intended.

(Or, as an intermediary step, that the physics differ, and RAW is an abstraction for those different physics)

OK, then by accepting *that* little postulate you singlehandedly open up the new can of worms that is being unable to see the sun (and other perception related confusion), the aforementioned "saltworks becomes a motherlode of crafting material" nonsense, prices can never ever change no matter what, and many many other RAW confusions.

"Obvious, observable metrics" like perception work BEST as abstractions for the general difficulty of spotting someone either trying to hide, or while you are in a semi-distracting situation like a moderately crowded square. Not when you are trying to spot a man some hundreds of ft away on a plain which is easily seen by normal humans. So unless you want to actually argue the point that people in DnD land are nearsighted and the myriads of other nonsensical RAW situations, accept that RAW is not physics.

"Also, the fact that there are explicit rules to grant exceptions to the 1/day rule gives voice to the lie of it not functioning as intended."

It actually makes sense if you accept that crafting is meant from an individual POV, a concept that Paizo makes more explicit in all its games. If I wanted to make a fancy chair or sword individually, using hand tools and a single workspace, it would probably take a few days or at least a day. Obviously a sword or chair manufactured using a modern factory processes will make them far quicker. Those abilities/rules represent crazy personal skill and training that makes an individual able to match a factory levels of production with no other special assistance.

[Quertus]

It actually makes sense if you accept that crafting is meant from an individual POV, a concept that Paizo makes more explicit in all its games. If I wanted to make a fancy chair or sword individually, using hand tools and a single workspace, it would probably take a few days or at least a day. Obviously a sword or chair manufactured using a modern factory processes will make them far quicker.

Which is why I quoted the relevant muggle craft math of "$50 to hand-craft a 10¢ pencil" to provide a baseline for an "apples to apples" comparison of modern factories to industrialized magic.

[Destro2119]

Which is why I quoted the relevant muggle craft math of "$50 to hand-craft a 10¢ pencil" to provide a baseline for an "apples to apples" comparison of modern factories to industrialized magic.

Well drawing from the same example, read this: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/craft/alternative-craft-rules-3pp/

That pencil would take at least one entire day of nonstop handwork to create, if not more. So apparently even normal crafting by DnD humans is orders of magnitude less efficient than real world humans. Forget about factories, if we ever got to DnD world bowl them over by showing how a blacksmith in our world can craft a sword using the exact same tech they have in 2-5 days, while it takes them a month to craft the same sword. Or show them how a modern chemist can make, again using the same tech and ingredients, a pot of Alchemical Cleaner (https://aonprd.com/EquipmentMiscDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Alchemical%20cl eaner) in a few hours or a day at most, while it takes a alchemist several years to make the same with the same tools (and BTW, if it did, as it does by RAW, there is no way it would have caught on with the organization from the book it is from since it is far easier to make a wand of P-digis).

RAW does not make sense if you want to use it as "world physics".

[Duff]

I'm going to add a plausible reason why magic may not advance a society as quickly as technology. And that's the way technology is helping us to learn science which in turn helps us make better technology. This positive feedback loop is why my kids are growing up in a world that's profoundly different to what I grew up in In fact, they'll become adults in a world that's quite different to what they were born into.

Unless better magic makes it easier to learn more about magic, that loop won't exist.
OTOH, its quite possible for magic in a low tech world to support a larger population with spells to control weather etc. And those "spare" people may be learning and performing more magic. So maybe population, wellbeing and social complexity rise more quickly early on but once the feedback loop starts to kick in hard (maybe the industrial or information ages?), the technical society pulls ahead.

Or maybe the knowledge of how to enchant items for the study of magic, or to create golems able to assist with original research (such as Terry Pratchett's HEX maybe) or spells to make a person better at magic exist. Then you could have the same runaway on magical power as better spells make it easier to do research and design better spells

[Destro2119]

I'm going to add a plausible reason why magic may not advance a society as quickly as technology. And that's the way technology is helping us to learn science which in turn helps us make better technology. This positive feedback loop is why my kids are growing up in a world that's profoundly different to what I grew up in In fact, they'll become adults in a world that's quite different to what they were born into.

Unless better magic makes it easier to learn more about magic, that loop won't exist.
OTOH, its quite possible for magic in a low tech world to support a larger population with spells to control weather etc. And those "spare" people may be learning and performing more magic. So maybe population, wellbeing and social complexity rise more quickly early on but once the feedback loop starts to kick in hard (maybe the industrial or information ages?), the technical society pulls ahead.

Or maybe the knowledge of how to enchant items for the study of magic, or to create golems able to assist with original research (such as Terry Pratchett's HEX maybe) or spells to make a person better at magic exist. Then you could have the same runaway on magical power as better spells make it easier to do research and design better spells

"Or maybe the knowledge of how to enchant items for the study of magic, or to create golems able to assist with original research (such as Terry Pratchett's HEX maybe) or spells to make a person better at magic exist. Then you could have the same runaway on magical power as better spells make it easier to do research and design better spells"

This is the case with 3.X magic essentially. It is a science. New enchantments can be made, and things can even be improved (case in point-- crafting robots from dedicated wrights and the invention of UPBs) Plus, gaining xp and feats is not magical energy you get from killing monsters, it's an abstraction to represent how you get better through study.

Remember, "RAW is NOT physics, RAW is NOT god." :smallsmile:

[Quertus]

This is the case with 3.X magic essentially. It is a science.

RAW is NOT physics

Citation needed.


I'm going to add a plausible reason why magic may not advance a society as quickly as technology. And that's the way technology is helping us to learn science which in turn helps us make better technology. This positive feedback loop is why my kids are growing up in a world that's profoundly different to what I grew up in In fact, they'll become adults in a world that's quite different to what they were born into.

Unless better magic makes it easier to learn more about magic, that loop won't exist.
OTOH, its quite possible for magic in a low tech world to support a larger population with spells to control weather etc. And those "spare" people may be learning and performing more magic. So maybe population, wellbeing and social complexity rise more quickly early on but once the feedback loop starts to kick in hard (maybe the industrial or information ages?), the technical society pulls ahead.

Or maybe the knowledge of how to enchant items for the study of magic, or to create golems able to assist with original research (such as Terry Pratchett's HEX maybe) or spells to make a person better at magic exist. Then you could have the same runaway on magical power as better spells make it easier to do research and design better spells

Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, is about the only being I've ever seen take an actual, in-universe scientific approach to magic, focusing on "capturing and dissecting monsters" and "learning new custom spells designed to gather information about the nature of the universe" over "completing missions".

RPGs - and D&D in particular - don't exactly lend themselves to facilitating this mindset.

[mashlagoo1982]

Two interesting tangents I have been thinking about in regards to this topic.

What technologies would be lagging behind in the magic world because sufficient magical methods exist?
As a possible bad example, how far behind would the magic world be from creating non-magic methods of flight?
Would there be any reason for the magic residents to investigate those methods?

Also, if a high level caster determined that the tech advancements were worth it, what is to stop them from casting a spell like Wish, Miracle, or something beyond epic level to grant the non-magic advancements to their magic world? Is there a spell that can do that? Could a spell be used to create tech beyond the tech based world?

[Destro2119]

Citation needed.



Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, is about the only being I've ever seen take an actual, in-universe scientific approach to magic, focusing on "capturing and dissecting monsters" and "learning new custom spells designed to gather information about the nature of the universe" over "completing missions".

RPGs - and D&D in particular - don't exactly lend themselves to facilitating this mindset.

To the second point-- well, you've already proven that magic can be evaluated scientifically, which makes basically everything else tip in my direction. Also, in *your* world he may be the only one, but just because that is how *you* have written it does not mean everyone else cannot be in any other world. Look at this for instance: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/74486/where-are-all-of-the-wizard-colleges-in-golarion

Every "wizard college"/magic university is focused on the type of thing you say Quertus is doing. Remember, the *vast* majority of mages probably aren't going gadding off to "complete missions" and "adventure" in the common sense of the term, they are staying in school quietly gaining roleplaying/milestone xp from completing courses/doing research.

"don't exactly lend themselves to facilitating this mindset"

I said it once, I'll say it again: xp is not magical energy from killing monsters. It is the abstraction of the experience you get from overcoming challenges, which could be anything from doing research/learning magical theory to, yes, slaying the dragon. If you want concrete proof, I point you to Vraxeris, a wizard in the Rise of the Runelords 3.5 adventure who kept himself alive by studying to gain xp to negate the negative level from clone. In this way, we can easily see that adventuring is not the be-all end-all of advancing yourself.

To the first point-- I am curious about what you hope to gain by asserting that the DnD world has the CRB's RAW as actual physics. You do realize that doing so would make trade as a *concept* impossible since supply and demand does not work with static RAW prices right? Thereby making the average setting with cities and villages completely impossible?

Finally, I am also going to need to see a citation where in the book it says the RAW are the actual, literal physics of the world, like gravity or impulse in our world, and not just convenient game abstractions. I think you are more likely to find a stipulation in either the PHB or the DMG that says to use rule zero.

[Destro2119]

Two interesting tangents I have been thinking about in regards to this topic.

What technologies would be lagging behind in the magic world because sufficient magical methods exist?
As a possible bad example, how far behind would the magic world be from creating non-magic methods of flight?
Would there be any reason for the magic residents to investigate those methods?

Also, if a high level caster determined that the tech advancements were worth it, what is to stop them from casting a spell like Wish, Miracle, or something beyond epic level to grant the non-magic advancements to their magic world? Is there a spell that can do that? Could a spell be used to create tech beyond the tech based world?

To the first point-- nothing really. All forms of magic are basically science, meaning there isn't really any reason for any part to stagnate.

Flight would be used if you needed some way to transport a lot of nonmages somewhere in a hurry, I could definitely see emphasis on air travel develop.

For the last one, wish is famously vague in its abilities. Getting exactly what you want would require probably some research beforehand to get the wording right and/or "attune the spell" to your wants (I am pretty sure there are rules for this, GavinFoxx probably knows them). However, seeing as a cleric can actually ask the god of knowlegde and tech on how things work, that is another avenue.

[mashlagoo1982]

To the first point-- probably medicine. As demonstrated by Starfinder, in which almost every nonmagic method of healing damage is inferior to magical methods to the point where things like the Pharmaceuticals from the nonmagical world of Androffa in Pathfinder simply don't exist in Starfinder (replaced by potions/serums).

Flight would be used if you needed some way to transport a lot of nonmages somewhere in a hurry, I could see more emphasis on skyships develop.

For the last one, wish is famously vague in its abilities. Getting exactly what you want would require probably some research beforehand to get the wording right and/or "attune the spell" to your wants (I am pretty sure there are rules for this, GavinFoxx probably knows them). However, seeing as a cleric can actually ask the god of knowlegde and tech on how things work, that is another avenue.

Medicine was another area I was thinking a magic world would be lacking in nonmagic advancements.
However, I could easily see some high level cleric/priest just asking for a Miracle from their benevolent god for the necessary knowledge.
I do believe having the knowledge alone would not be enough. But, with the new knowledge, magic could be further used to help the magic world catch up with the tech world. Like using magic to fabricate medical instruments.

Now... just apply this method to other areas.

[Jay R]

My vague idea of the difference between them involves mass production. Once Henry Ford comes up with the assembly line, everybody can have a car. It’s not that much harder to make a million cars once you’ve set up the tools to make one, and Henry Ford doesn't have to be there doing it. But making a magic carpet doesn’t inherently set things up to make a million magic carpets quickly, without the wizard who crafted the first one.

20 years after Iron Man appears, everybody should have an armored suit. And anybody wearing one should be able to operate it (although some will do better than others, just as some people drive better than others). But 20 years after Thor appears, there should still be very few magic hammers. And very few people should be able to use one.

Of course, this “answers” the question only by assuming that a certain answer is true. It assumes that magic cannot be industrialized, whereas we know that technology can be industrialized far beyond the level of a standard D&D world.

In truth, we don’t know. Is there a way to industrialize the creation of magic carpets? Is there a way to let anybody use a magic hammer? These questions cannot be answered. They can only be decided by the creator of any given fictional world. We can’t test those answers because magic doesn’t seem to exist in this one.

We (usually) play D&D set in a world in which neither technology nor magic has been industrialized. We live in a world in which technology *has* been industrialized.

Assume a world in which magic has been industrialized and technology has not. Mundane items are still made individually by smiths and craftspeople, but every family owns a flying carpet. The D&D players in that world might be having a debate thread titled “Is Magic Inherently Superior to Technology?”

They wouldn’t know that technology can do what we have seen, just as we don’t know that magic can do what they have seen.

Our D&D worlds are fictional. Worlds with both magic and technology are fictional. DMs and module designers can make up the answers they want for their created worlds.

[Destro2119]

My vague idea of the difference between them involves mass production. Once Henry Ford comes up with the assembly line, everybody can have a car. It’s not that much harder to make a million cars once you’ve set up the tools to make one, and Henry Ford doesn't have to be there doing it. But making a magic carpet doesn’t inherently set things up to make a million magic carpets quickly, without the wizard who crafted the first one.

20 years after Iron Man appears, everybody should have an armored suit. And anybody wearing one should be able to operate it (although some will do better than others, just as some people drive better than others). But 20 years after Thor appears, there should still be very few magic hammers. And very few people should be able to use one.

Of course, this “answers” the question only by assuming that a certain answer is true. It assumes that magic cannot be industrialized, whereas we know that technology can be industrialized far beyond the level of a standard D&D world.

In truth, we don’t know. Is there a way to industrialize the creation of magic carpets? Is there a way to let anybody use a magic hammer? These questions cannot be answered. They can only be decided by the creator of any given fictional world. We can’t test those answers because magic doesn’t seem to exist in this one.

We (usually) play D&D set in a world in which neither technology nor magic has been industrialized. We live in a world in which technology *has* been industrialized.

Assume a world in which magic has been industrialized and technology has not. Mundane items are still made individually by smiths and craftspeople, but every family owns a flying carpet. The D&D players in that world might be having a debate thread titled “Is Magic Inherently Superior to Technology?”

They wouldn’t know that technology can do what we have seen, just as we don’t know that magic can do what they have seen.

Our D&D worlds are fictional. Worlds with both magic and technology are fictional. DMs and module designers can make up the answers they want for their created worlds.

Well, I assert that from the basic extrapolations* of the 3.X/3.P magic system, as depicted in thought experiments/theories by Gavinfoxx, etc, and as shown in concrete form in such games as Pathfinder and eventually Starfinder (and even way back in 2e w/ Netheril as a proto-example), industrialization of magic is possible, typically in the form of both magic and tech developing together.

*when I use this term, I specifically mean how, with 3.X's system, you can extrapolate individual crafting processes into eventually industrial processes. See GURPS Technomancer for an example.

EDIT: On the Marvel Universe stuff, well Iron Man's suits are probably built on advanced science and tech only Stark himself and someone about as learned as he could understand. Thor's hammer is kind of a bad example b/c it is *supposed* to be limited to only him or someone worthy enough to replace him. It is not meant to be easy to use. Asgard's magitech/magic is a better example, with a direct quote from Thor: "Your ancestors called it magic... and you call it science. Well, I come from a place where they're one and the same thing."

[Jay R]

Each creator will decide this for their own created world. All creators will not agree.


Well, I assert that from the basic extrapolations* of the 3.X/3.P magic system, as depicted in thought experiments/theories by Gavinfoxx, etc, and as shown in concrete form in such games as Pathfinder and eventually Starfinder (and even way back in 2e w/ Netheril as a proto-example), industrialization of magic is possible, typically in the form of both magic and tech developing together.

*when I use this term, I specifically mean how, with 3.X's system, you can extrapolate individual crafting processes into eventually industrial processes. See GURPS Technomancer for an example.

EDIT: On the Marvel Universe stuff, well Iron Man's suits are probably built on advanced science and tech only Stark himself and someone about as learned as he could understand. Thor's hammer is kind of a bad example b/c it is *supposed* to be limited to only him or someone worthy enough to replace him. It is not meant to be easy to use. Asgard's magitech/magic is a better example, with a direct quote from Thor: "Your ancestors called it magic... and you call it science. Well, I come from a place where they're one and the same thing."

Side note: 20 years was not randomly chosen. In the comics, Iron Man debuted in 1963. He was fighting armored villains almost immediately -- Crimson Dynamo (1963), Titanium Man (1965), etc. In the 1980s, he went on a quest called Armor Wars, in which he tried to stop all the people using his tech in their armor -- Beetle, Shockwave, Doctor Doom, Stilt-Man, the Crimson Dynamo, Controller, Mauler, Professor Power, Titanium Man, the Raiders, the Mandroids, the Guardsmen, and others. Marvel had lots of armored villains. But there was only a second magic hammer by then: Beta Ray Bill's Stormbreaker.

---

Main point: When Babylon 5 first was broadcast, one fan objected to the communicators that were worn on the back of the hand, because Star Trek had already shown us that communicators would be worn on the torso in the future.

That fan didn't understand that different fictional worlds have different assumptions. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Each creator will decide this for their own created world. All creators will not agree.

I wrote, "These questions cannot be answered. They can only be decided by the creator of any given fictional world. We can’t test those answers because magic doesn’t seem to exist in this one."

You provided some examples of creators doing this. We cannot test whether magic can be restricted to those who are "worthy", as with Thor's hammer. And we also cannot test if magic can be industrialized as in Starfinder.

Your examples are completely compatible with my conclusion that:

"Our D&D worlds are fictional. Worlds with both magic and technology are fictional. DMs and module designers can make up the answers they want for their created worlds."

Since magic is made up, we can make it up any number of ways, and there is no conclusive answer that applies to all fictional worlds.

You have provided examples of fictional worlds for which the creators made specific decisions. But the next creator can come up with a different fictional answer, just as the Marvel universe doesn't have to include Kryptonians.

Writers can make magic work any way they want. They can also put their futuristic communicators anywhere they want.

There really is no single answer. Magic isn't something real and scientifically testable in our world. It will be decided by each creator, for the same reasons that Elfquest elves and Harry Potter house elves are nothing like Tolkien elves.

Each creator will decide this for their own created world. All creators will not agree.

You are correct that the d20 system can be applied to industrialized magic. It's intended to be a generic mechanic that can be applied to anything. But it is equally true that any DM can choose not to have industrialized magic, and that's just as consistent with the d20 system. This is not appreciably different from the fact that not all d20 worlds have elves, or spaceships -- or the city of Greyhawk.

In my D&D worlds, magic items cannot be mass-produced, because the wizard must concentrate for eight hours a day on that item for as many days as it takes. Industrialization is therefore not possible. Technology will not go beyond the Middle Ages either, because the underlying world is far closer to the medieval model than our modern scientific model. Cold is a positive force, not merely the absence of heat. Levitation and Flight show that gravity is not universal. Dead bodies can become sentient undead creatures. Fire is composed of phlogiston. The elements are Earth, Air, Fire, Water and a few others. And the unmoving earth is orbited by the planets, which include the sun and the moon.

Nobody else has to use these assumptions. They are just as right (and just as wrong) as any other approach to a fictional magical world.

Each creator will decide this for their own created world. All creators will not agree.

[Bugbear]

Two interesting tangents I have been thinking about in regards to this topic.

What technologies would be lagging behind in the magic world because sufficient magical methods exist?
As a possible bad example, how far behind would the magic world be from creating non-magic methods of flight?
Would there be any reason for the magic residents to investigate those methods?

Well, any setting..really any individual place might make or not make any advancement. And it depends on a lot of factors.

A nation of skyships would not "need" to invent mechanical flying craft. Of course, not everyone in that nation would not have access to a skyship. And not everyone might have access to the magic to make them too. And you'd get a lot in the middle, Bob can't bind an air elemental to a sky ship but he can summon and trap some fire elemental slugs to heat his airship or boil the water for his steam engine.




Also, if a high level caster determined that the tech advancements were worth it, what is to stop them from casting a spell like Wish, Miracle, or something beyond epic level to grant the non-magic advancements to their magic world? Is there a spell that can do that? Could a spell be used to create tech beyond the tech based world?

Nothing. In a general sense, wish can do anything.


Medicine was another area I was thinking a magic world would be lacking in nonmagic advancements.


It does seem like magic would stifle medicine, but it likely would not happen. You might not want to use a 'cure all spell' any time someone is sick. That is a bit like casting Teleport without Error to hove ten feet: you can do it, but it's a huge waste of magic. A spell that conjures medicine is much cheaper then the cure all...but you need to know what to conjure.

And there is a lot more to medicine then just 'sickness'.

[Bonzai]

Nothing can "break the laws of reality". It is impossible. If we think something can - we don't know something.

Magic don't contrary to physics, only to part of physics we know.

Then by that view point there is no magic, only science. This debate is prefaced on magic being something separate from science and technology.

With science being the "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment." Then magic comes from the unnatural, supernatural, otherworldly, and from things outside the physically world. Therefore not physics or applicable to its laws.


We don't need "uncomprehendable levels of technology". For ancient peoples lightning was magic, we use electrify every second. Has the lightning changed?

No lighting hasn't changed. Peoples understanding of it has. The thing is though, our ignorance did not make it magic. It was always part of the natural world, and governed by set rules. Fictional magic is something else entirely.


There are nothing besides Reality to compare.

Exactly. Everything in our reality is governed by natural laws. That means it can be explained through science once sufficient understanding is obtained. Therefore magic must be outside of reality. Which is fitting since it doesn't exist.


Of course you are wrong. Any reality including fictional need some unbreakable laws. Base constants.

Says who? Breaking the laws of reality happens frequently in fiction.



MtA don't posit that there aren't any laws of reality, only that laws we know are from some degree wrong and there are some more complicated more overall laws that include "our" laws as a particular case. As classical mechanics is a particular case of relativistic mechanics.


I kind of disagree. As a starting mage you are shackled by your paradigm, reliant on tools and rituals to perform your magic. You rationalize what you are doing through your particular belief on how magic works. Yet as you gain enlightenment and learn to focus your will you can begin to shed these things. Eventually you learn that reality is completely malleable. Your only restrictions are your will, and familiarity with the forces you are working with.

The rules that apply to regular humans exist. They are real. However as an awakened and ascended mage, you can ignore them. How? Magic.

[Destro2119]

Each creator will decide this for their own created world. All creators will not agree.



Side note: 20 years was not randomly chosen. In the comics, Iron Man debuted in 1963. He was fighting armored villains almost immediately -- Crimson Dynamo (1963), Titanium Man (1965), etc. In the 1980s, he went on a quest called Armor Wars, in which he tried to stop all the people using his tech in their armor -- Beetle, Shockwave, Doctor Doom, Stilt-Man, the Crimson Dynamo, Controller, Mauler, Professor Power, Titanium Man, the Raiders, the Mandroids, the Guardsmen, and others. Marvel had lots of armored villains. But there was only a second magic hammer by then: Beta Ray Bill's Stormbreaker.

---

Main point: When Babylon 5 first was broadcast, one fan objected to the communicators that were worn on the back of the hand, because Star Trek had already shown us that communicators would be worn on the torso in the future.

That fan didn't understand that different fictional worlds have different assumptions. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Each creator will decide this for their own created world. All creators will not agree.

I wrote, "These questions cannot be answered. They can only be decided by the creator of any given fictional world. We can’t test those answers because magic doesn’t seem to exist in this one."

You provided some examples of creators doing this. We cannot test whether magic can be restricted to those who are "worthy", as with Thor's hammer. And we also cannot test if magic can be industrialized as in Starfinder.

Your examples are completely compatible with my conclusion that:

"Our D&D worlds are fictional. Worlds with both magic and technology are fictional. DMs and module designers can make up the answers they want for their created worlds."

Since magic is made up, we can make it up any number of ways, and there is no conclusive answer that applies to all fictional worlds.

You have provided examples of fictional worlds for which the creators made specific decisions. But the next creator can come up with a different fictional answer, just as the Marvel universe doesn't have to include Kryptonians.

Writers can make magic work any way they want. They can also put their futuristic communicators anywhere they want.

There really is no single answer. Magic isn't something real and scientifically testable in our world. It will be decided by each creator, for the same reasons that Elfquest elves and Harry Potter house elves are nothing like Tolkien elves.

Each creator will decide this for their own created world. All creators will not agree.

You are correct that the d20 system can be applied to industrialized magic. It's intended to be a generic mechanic that can be applied to anything. But it is equally true that any DM can choose not to have industrialized magic, and that's just as consistent with the d20 system. This is not appreciably different from the fact that not all d20 worlds have elves, or spaceships -- or the city of Greyhawk.

In my D&D worlds, magic items cannot be mass-produced, because the wizard must concentrate for eight hours a day on that item for as many days as it takes. Industrialization is therefore not possible. Technology will not go beyond the Middle Ages either, because the underlying world is far closer to the medieval model than our modern scientific model. Cold is a positive force, not merely the absence of heat. Levitation and Flight show that gravity is not universal. Dead bodies can become sentient undead creatures. Fire is composed of phlogiston. The elements are Earth, Air, Fire, Water and a few others. And the unmoving earth is orbited by the planets, which include the sun and the moon.

Nobody else has to use these assumptions. They are just as right (and just as wrong) as any other approach to a fictional magical world.

Each creator will decide this for their own created world. All creators will not agree.

This is a good answer. I especially like how you make it so technology is different too. My pet peeve is when people nerf magic into oblivion and then say that the literal thousands of physical mechanics that govern tech must function flawlessly "because that is what we have IRL!"

On another note, however, as people like GavinFoxx have shown, there are tons of ways to "industrialize" magic in game using only RAW with no abstractions or extrapolations. This is not mentioning what happens if you allow the same abstractions/extrapolations that we IRL have done for tech to apply to magic (as seen in Starfinder with the invention of UPB, not to mention what other discoveries/innovations are in that setting that haven't been statted out since the goal of the game is to be an adventure game not a factory/economics simulator).

"Each creator will decide this for their own created world. All creators will not agree."

As a note on this point, it might be relevant that quite a few designers, all the way from 2e of DnD into Pathfinder, have seen a magitech civilization as the "advanced point" of the world, with the PF designers, who worked heavily on 3.5, showing us (one of) the endpoint(s) of such undertakings as an industrial revolution et al in the form of Starfinder.

[Quertus]

To the second point-- well, you've already proven that magic can be evaluated scientifically, which makes basically everything else tip in my direction. Also, in *your* world he may be the only one, but just because that is how *you* have written it does not mean everyone else cannot be in any other world. Look at this for instance: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/74486/where-are-all-of-the-wizard-colleges-in-golarion

Every "wizard college"/magic university is focused on the type of thing you say Quertus is doing. Remember, the *vast* majority of mages probably aren't going gadding off to "complete missions" and "adventure" in the common sense of the term, they are staying in school quietly gaining roleplaying/milestone xp from completing courses/doing research.

"don't exactly lend themselves to facilitating this mindset"

I said it once, I'll say it again: xp is not magical energy from killing monsters. It is the abstraction of the experience you get from overcoming challenges, which could be anything from doing research/learning magical theory to, yes, slaying the dragon. If you want concrete proof, I point you to Vraxeris, a wizard in the Rise of the Runelords 3.5 adventure who kept himself alive by studying to gain xp to negate the negative level from clone. In this way, we can easily see that adventuring is not the be-all end-all of advancing yourself.

To the first point-- I am curious about what you hope to gain by asserting that the DnD world has the CRB's RAW as actual physics. You do realize that doing so would make trade as a *concept* impossible since supply and demand does not work with static RAW prices right? Thereby making the average setting with cities and villages completely impossible?

Finally, I am also going to need to see a citation where in the book it says the RAW are the actual, literal physics of the world, like gravity or impulse in our world, and not just convenient game abstractions. I think you are more likely to find a stipulation in either the PHB or the DMG that says to use rule zero.

Quite simply put, you've strayed too far afield to be readily pointed back to the right path. But here's a scant few of the mile markers you'd need to pass, should you like to find your way back to the path:


Quertus comes from a world where "academia mage" is a thing. But he's the only *PC* of his ilk I've ever seen.

In a decade on the Playground, I've seen exactly 1 thread about someone wanting to build a PC like Quertus. I've no evidence that they actually played the character.

Quertus was spurred on to do his research by noticing something that your responses indicate that you had not: that the answer to your question (and many others) will vary by world.

RPGs have rules for, and are designed to give XP for, expected and incentivized gameplay. "Research" isn't generally a supported minigame, let alone a rewarded one.

IME, neither magical nor IRL universities come close to Quertus. (None, for example, compare multiple worlds, or other places where physics actually *differ*)

If you want directions back to the path? Hmmm… just look at internet conversations IRL, and see if you can perceive the distinction between "seeker of truth" and "wants to win the internet". Once you can perceive that distinction, and begin to comprehend how rare the former is, you might be better positioned to understand. Most people - even most college professors - do not and cannot look at the world with open eyes.


My vague idea of the difference between them involves mass production.

It assumes that magic cannot be industrialized, whereas we know that technology can be industrialized far beyond the level of a standard D&D world.

In truth, we don’t know. Is there a way to industrialize the creation of magic carpets? Is there a way to let anybody use a magic hammer? These questions cannot be answered. They can only be decided by the creator of any given fictional world. We can’t test those answers because magic doesn’t seem to exist in this one.

DMs and module designers can make up the answers they want for their created worlds.

Lots of really good stuff - kudos!


Also, if a high level caster determined that the tech advancements were worth it, what is to stop them from casting a spell like Wish, Miracle, or something beyond epic level to grant the non-magic advancements to their magic world? Is there a spell that can do that? Could a spell be used to create tech beyond the tech based world?

You don't need epic spells - see my classic "leapfrogging" method of building skills by using skill-boosting spells/items, writing about the subject, removing the buff, and reading what you wrote, learning, repeat.

Given infinite time, a low-level caster (an Elan, a bone creature, a Necropolitan, etc) could easily accomplish this. With a fast time plane, such progress could be quite noticeable.

However

Not all worlds can actually facilitate technology. 2e D&D gave worlds a "maximum tech level"; anything beyond that simply didn't function. Many of my 3e worlds grandfather that concept in.

On those worlds, clearly, magic *is* superior to technology. On other of my worlds, technology *is* superior to magic.

(As to your other question, "it depends". Fascinating as the subject is, the answer largely depends on the Society, and the… stimulus, the impetus. It's a great world-building question - and one with as many possible answers as there are worlds.)

[Destro2119]

Quite simply put, you've strayed too far afield to be readily pointed back to the right path. But here's a scant few of the mile markers you'd need to pass, should you like to find your way back to the path:


Quertus comes from a world where "academia mage" is a thing. But he's the only *PC* of his ilk I've ever seen.

In a decade on the Playground, I've seen exactly 1 thread about someone wanting to build a PC like Quertus. I've no evidence that they actually played the character.

Quertus was spurred on to do his research by noticing something that your responses indicate that you had not: that the answer to your question (and many others) will vary by world.

RPGs have rules for, and are designed to give XP for, expected and incentivized gameplay. "Research" isn't generally a supported minigame, let alone a rewarded one.

IME, neither magical nor IRL universities come close to Quertus. (None, for example, compare multiple worlds, or other places where physics actually *differ*)

If you want directions back to the path? Hmmm… just look at internet conversations IRL, and see if you can perceive the distinction between "seeker of truth" and "wants to win the internet". Once you can perceive that distinction, and begin to comprehend how rare the former is, you might be better positioned to understand. Most people - even most college professors - do not and cannot look at the world with open eyes.



Lots of really good stuff - kudos!



You don't need epic spells - see my classic "leapfrogging" method of building skills by using skill-boosting spells/items, writing about the subject, removing the buff, and reading what you wrote, learning, repeat.

Given infinite time, a low-level caster (an Elan, a bone creature, a Necropolitan, etc) could easily accomplish this. With a fast time plane, such progress could be quite noticeable.

However

Not all worlds can actually facilitate technology. 2e D&D gave worlds a "maximum tech level"; anything beyond that simply didn't function. Many of my 3e worlds grandfather that concept in.

On those worlds, clearly, magic *is* superior to technology. On other of my worlds, technology *is* superior to magic.

(As to your other question, "it depends". Fascinating as the subject is, the answer largely depends on the Society, and the… stimulus, the impetus. It's a great world-building question - and one with as many possible answers as there are worlds.)

To your first point-- are you saying that since you haven't seen many threads *IN OUR WORLD* on this forum-- explicitly a *character optimizers* forum-- about PCs doing research and/or wanting to improve the world then therefore nobody in DnD worlds exists who wants to do research? Or that you are using *internet threads* on forums as proof that no one in even our world is focused on gaining knowledge? What?

"RPGs have rules for, and are designed to give XP for, expected and incentivized gameplay. "Research" isn't generally a supported minigame, let alone a rewarded one."

Please, PLEASE read my example of xp. Adventurers are the EXCEPTION, otherwise we would have to rewrite the world's lore to reflect this crazy adventuring economy (like Orconomics) which is typically NOT WHAT MOST WORLDS ARE LIKE. Also, I guess now that we should go tell all those scientists in the background of d20 modern to stop working since they can't possibly affect the world/their career paths are suboptimal :smalltongue:

"IME, neither magical nor IRL universities come close to Quertus. (None, for example, compare multiple worlds, or other places where physics actually *differ*)"

In your experience, well, you have ALREADY said that Quertus is the *only* person in your RAW-is-physics-xp-is-killing-things game to bother with any sort of research/learning, so forgive me if I propose that your experience may be rather narrow.

Finally, 2e "world tech level" is not the assumption for 3.X. That "grandfathered assumption" is never written down in 3.X, and FR, for example, even just says that it's not because of some "innate tech level law of the universe," it's the gods working together to keep FR in stasis.

[noob]

To your first point-- are you saying that since you haven't seen many threads *IN OUR WORLD* on this forum-- explicitly a *character optimizers* forum-- about PCs doing research and/or wanting to improve the world then therefore nobody in DnD worlds exists who wants to do research? Or that you are using *internet threads* on forums as proof that no one in even our world is focused on gaining knowledge? What?

"RPGs have rules for, and are designed to give XP for, expected and incentivized gameplay. "Research" isn't generally a supported minigame, let alone a rewarded one."

Please, PLEASE read my example of xp. Adventurers are the EXCEPTION, otherwise we would have to rewrite the world's lore to reflect this crazy adventuring economy (like Orconomics) which is typically NOT WHAT MOST WORLDS ARE LIKE. Also, I guess now that we should go tell all those scientists in the background of d20 modern to stop working since they can't possibly affect the world/their career paths are suboptimal :smalltongue:

"IME, neither magical nor IRL universities come close to Quertus. (None, for example, compare multiple worlds, or other places where physics actually *differ*)"

In your experience, well, you have ALREADY said that Quertus is the *only* person in your RAW-is-physics-xp-is-killing-things game to bother with any sort of research/learning, so forgive me if I propose that your experience may be rather narrow.

Finally, 2e "world tech level" is not the assumption for 3.X. That "grandfathered assumption" is never written down in 3.X, and FR, for example, even just says that its not because of some "innate tech level law of the universe," it's the gods working together to keep FR in stasis.
If you play older dnds you gain xp from researching spells and making magical items.
Because the entire concept was "wealth is power" and you literally gained xp in function of how much treasure you looted.

[Destro2119]

If you play older dnds you gain xp from researching spells and making magical items.
Because the entire concept was "wealth is power" and you literally gained xp in function of how much treasure you looted.

Yeah-- older DnDs-- ie not the "universal physics assumptions" of 3.X or later. ESPECIALLY not in 3.X or later, since it tried to be more simulationist and later developers would try to make the mechanics fit the world more "realistically" until 4e but we don't talk about 4e :smallwink:)

The "world tech level" thing DID kind of survive in the form of Spelljammer, but that is still one setting.

[Quertus]

@Destro2119 - none of your response connects with what I've said. Like I said, you're too far off the path for me to lead you back.


If you play older dnds you gain xp from researching spells and making magical items.
Because the entire concept was "wealth is power" and you literally gained xp in function of how much treasure you looted.

Yup. Which is how older editions at least incentivized that level of research (whereas modern editions do not). But even that is like comparing "learning to recognize the alphabet" vs "writing Shakespeare" to the type of research I'm discussing.

[Destro2119]

@Destro2119 - none of your response connects with what I've said. Like I said, you're too far off the path for me to lead you back.



Yup. Which is how older editions at least incentivized that level of research (whereas modern editions do not). But even that is like comparing "learning to recognize the alphabet" vs "writing Shakespeare" to the type of research I'm discussing.

You are the one trying to disprove me and force your own concepts on the world.

I have repeatedly raised counterpoints to your points, and you simply refuse to acknowledge them, as demonstrated by this last post.

In any case, Jay R has raised probably one of the most objective points on this thread. However, if you have read the posts of Gavinfoxx and Bugbear, you will see that even working under PURELY RAW rules that all your games work under, with absolutely NO other new magical items/custom spells, etc, industrialization is still possible.

And even more is possible if you make logical extrapolations from what is available to create new innovations and things in that vein.

[loky1109]

Then by that view point there is no magic, only science. This debate is prefaced on magic being something separate from science and technology.
"Then by that view point there is no magic, only science."
Yes! Of course! Magic is only the point of view.



With science being the "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment." Then magic comes from the unnatural, supernatural, otherworldly, and from things outside the physically world. Therefore not physics or applicable to its laws.

Exactly. Everything in our reality is governed by natural laws. That means it can be explained through science once sufficient understanding is obtained. Therefore magic must be outside of reality. Which is fitting since it doesn't exist.
I agree, outside of reality can be something, but... This something can't interact with any in reality. Or it is outside or it is inside, not both. If magic can - it is inside and it is governed by natural laws. Not our laws, different, but still laws and still natural.

Magic has laws. Wizards systematic study this laws. Wizards are scientists. There are no opposition.


[/QUOTE]No lighting hasn't changed. Peoples understanding of it has. The thing is though, our ignorance did not make it magic. It was always part of the natural world, and governed by set rules. Fictional magic is something else entirely.[/QUOTE]
"The thing is though, our ignorance did not make it magic."
Only our ignorance did make something magic.



Says who? Breaking the laws of reality happens frequently in fiction.
Says every smart person. Breaking the laws of reality in fiction didn't happens no-one time. Using alter laws - yes, breaking - impossible.

[Destro2119]

I think we can conclude that 3.X magic, particularly the PF influenced aspects, are very, very much associated with the principles of tech. Magic runs off of laws just like tech does, and they can be both evaluated scientifically because science isn't just some mojo that is antithetical to magic, it is a way of evaluating the world around us-- and that includes magic.

Thus, technology is NOT, in any way, inherently superior to magic.

"Any Sufficiently Analyzed Magic is Indistinguishable from Technology."