Optimizing a Setting(?): Wealth Discrepancies(3.PF)

[Promethean]

Continuing the series of splitting up the topic into Different posts.

So, Assuming that people in a D&D setting largely understood optimization and the "mechanics" to a degree, how would that effect the divide between wealthy and non-wealthy? A lot of Classic D&D assumes a form of idealized feudalism in it's setting, but how would an "Optimized setting" look.

If they had limited access to any material from any setting-specific books or *3rd party sources, including various production cost reducers, non-standard magic item types, and variant rules.

*by 3rd party I mostly mean the published 3rd party companies, let's leave out out homebrew(even balanced homebrew), because anyone can homebrew anything and making an exceptions list would make things complicated.


Clarification: The idea proposed isn't that everyone wakes up one day with complete knowledge of the game mechanics and how to optimize them or that everyone in this setting is optimized.

The central idea of this post is that various societies in said world were able to figure out the "mechanics" by trial and error, that they'd gravitate toward improving magic/technology to improve their race/group's standard of living, and make efforts to standardize class education and builds to increase their power by reducing the number of "NPC classes". Not everyone would necessarily be optimized for the same reason that not everyone is a soldier, a farmer, or a computer engineer.

Basically trying to build a setting where optimization organically grew out of the circumstances as a form of technology.


Note 1: Let's also nerf any Infinite or Arbitrary high stat booster builds(for our purposes let's say the cap on these builds is 2x modifier on base stat), things that rely on creating new epic spells(the epic spells in published material[example: Athasian dragon or Aumvor's fragmented phylactery] are fine), and abusing "Greater Effects" wishes(standard effects of wish are fine, assume greater effects are being fulfilled by a sadistic DM that's lost patience with the wish user).
Note 2:High PO and Low TO builds are fine. Broken, but reasonable builds are fine. "I ascend and slay the gods" builds are not. Otherwise, the setting will just become whatever the first person to discover these Wants it to be.

[Jervis]

Continuing the series of splitting up the topic into Different posts.

So, Assuming that people in a D&D setting largely understood optimization and the "mechanics" to a degree, how would that effect the divide between wealthy and non-wealthy? A lot of Classic D&D assumes a form of idealized feudalism in it's setting, but how would an "Optimized setting" look.

If they had limited access to any material from any setting-specific books or *3rd party sources, including various production cost reducers, non-standard magic item types, and variant rules.

*by 3rd party I mostly mean the published 3rd party companies, let's leave out out homebrew(even balanced homebrew), because anyone can homebrew anything and making an exceptions list would make things complicated.


Clarification: The idea proposed isn't that everyone wakes up one day with complete knowledge of the game mechanics and how to optimize them or that everyone in this setting is optimized.

The central idea of this post is that various societies in said world were able to figure out the "mechanics" by trial and error, that they'd gravitate toward improving magic/technology to improve their race/group's standard of living, and make efforts to standardize class education and builds to increase their power by reducing the number of "NPC classes". Not everyone would necessarily be optimized for the same reason that not everyone is a soldier, a farmer, or a computer engineer.

Basically trying to build a setting where optimization organically grew out of the circumstances as a form of technology.


Note 1: Let's also nerf any Infinite or Arbitrary high stat booster builds(for our purposes let's say the cap on these builds is 2x modifier on base stat), things that rely on creating new epic spells(the epic spells in published material[example: Athasian dragon or Aumvor's fragmented phylactery] are fine), and abusing "Greater Effects" wishes(standard effects of wish are fine).
Note 2:High PO and Low TO builds are fine. Broken, but reasonable builds are fine. "I ascend and slay the gods" builds are not. Otherwise, the setting will just become whatever the first person to discover these Wants it to be.


Honestly I can see a corporate state like a lot of cyberpunk stories forming where the item crafting guilds become megacorps arms dealers.

[AvatarVecna]

As established in previous threads, society will generally take advantage of elite toad farms to grind people to lvl 9 about a week after they get their first class level. Additionally, I'm going to handwave that most everyone is going to be a member of society in general, and a relevant guild in particular. Government takes 10% of your income as taxes, guild takes 10% of your income as guild dues as payment for guild services.

Guild dues are much lower in RAW but so low that they couldn't realistically support a guild - you're just getting too much benefit from it as a member if it costs 5 gp per character level per month. Guild membership gives free room and board, which is saving you at least 9 gp per month, and that's before getting into actual guild services.

However, taxes are supposed to range from 10% to 25% per RAW (depending on how greedy the government is). This cumulative 20% is, I feel, a relatively reasonable middle-ground: 20% covering taxes and guild dues is probably economically viable, and still leaves you a good bit of cash.

Prepared Casters
Clerics, Druids, Wizards, and so on can cast 5th lvl spells at CL 9. If they do this once per week (selling a spellcasting service to an interested buyer), they will have a yearly income of 23400 gp. After taxes, this is 18720 gp, or ~51.28 gp/day. In a spellcasting-driven society, I feel that one 5th lvl spell per week is defensible demand. That's a Wall Of Stone, or a Fabricate.

Spontaneous Casters
Sorcerers, Beguilers, Warmages, and so on cast 4th lvl spells at CL 9. If they do this once per week (selling a spellcasting service to an interested buyer), they will have a yearly income of 18720 gp. After taxes, this is 14976 gp, or ~41.03 gp/day. 4th lvl spells should still be in decent demand:

Artificers
Artificers craft items faster and cheaper than usual. An artificer who spends no feats on crafting, but is just a member of a wizard circle and affiliation, will craft 3333 gp worth of items per day, at 12.15% their market price. These numbers are "without restriction", so we're clear. So for example, you might craft 3000 gp item which is restricted to be only used by neutral clerics with 4 UMD ranks. This item would cost 364.5 gp, 36 XP, and 1 day to craft. It would sell on the market for half of its restricted market price (that is to say, 15% what a PC would buy it for). It thus sells for 450 gp, giving the Artificer an income of 85.5 gp/day. because the craft limit per day is slightly higher than 3000 gp, such an artificer could theoretically have daily income as high as 94.99 gp. Post-tax profits for these would be ~24966 gp/year or ~27737 gp/year.

If the artificer has a particularly optimal build, they can craft up to 5925 gp worth per day, at ~4.6% market price, and selling for 15%. In this example, they craft an item worth 5925 gp pre-restrictions, costing 279.98 gp, 40 XP, and 1 day. Daily income of 608.77 gp, yearly profit of ~177760 gp.

Normal Skills
Some people aren't going to have optimal builds, that's just how it is. They'll still be commoners and experts - 9th lvl ones, but commoners and experts with normal skills. Maybe they didn't have the patience for PC School, no shame. We'll assume these guys don't really try to level up any more either - 9th is perfectly acceptable. Let's pump up skills as part of this magic-item-heavy society:

Mental Stat: 14-29 (+2-9)
Roll 3-18
Tome +5
Item +6

Skill Bonus (minimum effort): +46
Ranks 12
Stat +2 (minimum)
MW Tools +2
Competence Item +30

Skill Bonus (more effort): +83
Ranks 12
Stat +9 (maximum)
MW Tools +2
Competence Item +30
Skill Focus +3
Item Familiar +12
1/week Command Word CL 10 "Divine Insight" +15

Perform skill will make 10.5 gp per day, even with less-than-minimum effort. Once you can reliably hit +30, your Perform money is capped at 10.5 gp. There's benefits to bigger bonuses (namely, the epic use of the skill that lets you use it like diplomacy), but we're talking about making money right now. That's yearly profit of 3066 gp.

Profession is doing okay: +46 is looking at 28.25 gp/week income, which is 1175.2 gp yearly profit. +83 is looking at 46.75 gp/week income, or 1944.8 gp yearly profit. It ain't much (by this society's standards), but it's honest work, and you're still making tons compared to what commoners in other settings might be making.

Craft skill is a bit more complicated. You're still a guild member even at minimum effort, so you craft stuff for 30% market price, sell it for 50%, making income of 20%. +46 and taking 10 means 56x56=3136 sp of progress per week. Assuming you set out to craft an item worth 313.6 gp, it would take you a week to finish, and you would make 62.72 gp as your weekly income. That's yearly profit of 2609.15 gp. If you put in more effort, you have +83 and Apprentice feat (which changes income to 23% market price). 93x93=8649 sp progress per week. Craft an item worth 864.9 gp, it'll take a week and you'll make income of 198.92 gp. That's yearly profit of 8275.36 gp. That's a pretty chunk of change for someone who isn't crafting magic items or selling spells.

Of course, there is a secret forbidden NI technique that can lead to generational wealth and megacorps...


Honestly I can see a corporate state like a lot of cyberpunk stories forming where the item crafting guilds become megacorps arms dealers.

DMG Business Rules!

If running businesses without cheese, profits are more limited. Somebody with +46 (as with the above skills) can have a business in the woods that they never visit, and so long as it's not a criminal organization, they'll still make money off it: Wilderness -10, Never There -8, High Resource or High Risk -4, total +24. That's enough to guarantee you at least break even every single month on the profit checks by default. If you put your store in a metropolis and work there at least 8 hours a week, a +46 skill will see you making +157.5 gp, +630 gp, or +1575 gp of profit per month on top of whatever else you're spending your time on. Since this is explicitly profit, it should be post-taxes (for the most part, there's a business event that can have surprise extra taxes). If running businesses normally, the main issue you'll run into is business events. You'll have one or two of these per month, with rolls ranging from 5-24. Some will make you extra money, some will lose you money, some will increase your monthly income forever by small amounts. Finally, you can make profit checks while also making craft and profession checks on the side.

Of course...cheese exists. The business rules in DMG2 allow for cheap infinite growth. Pay 125-16000 gp (depending on starting business/location) every three months for +1d4 to profit checks permanently per payment. +1 on profit checks is equivalent to +5, +20, or +50 gp/month. Even the most expensive and least profitable business will have their upgrades pay for themselves after 250 years. That's within a lifetime for a dwarf or elf business owner, and it can always be passed on to another generation. Even if you were to insist that a change in leadership requires "selling the business" to your children, that's maximum 82000 gp + the recent monthly profit...but that could be a loan. Let's assume something like +90 after business upgrades - that'll see you with a profit somewhere around 375 gp, 1500 gp, or 3750 gp per month. That loan would take 18 years to pay off, but it would happen. If the business makes more money, the loan is slightly bigger, but it also finishes slightly faster - if the loan was 100k, it's because the business made 18k that last month, and so the loan will be paid back with interest within a year.



A human commoner putting minimum effort into his skills and his farm business is looking at a +46 pre-adjustment. He starts up his business, and owes 40080 to other people - 27000 for his restricted +30 competence item, 10080 for his restricted +6 Wis item, 3000 for his business. He's starting in a rural area, and he works maybe 8 hours a week on that farm, and he doesn't have the other skills a farmer ought to. He's in the farmer's guild though, so that helps. Profit checks clock in at +45. He will average 152.5 gp monthly profit from his business, and 1175 gp yearly profit from profession checks. Every three months, he spends 125 gp upgrading his business, and getting another +2.5 on profit checks (the average). Also he'll have a business even every month.

Booming business in a rural area means he's rolling 1d20+1 on the table, with the following possibilities:
Banditry: assume similar to Burglary, so -700 gp
Wounded Adventurer: Plot Hook
Bad Weather: -70 gp
Natural Disaster: -100 gp
Fire: Fire prevention is a societal concern and will be handled by casters/magic item wielders, possibly including you
Burglary: -700 gp
Accident: -700 gp
Irate Customer: -100 gp
No Encounter: self-explanatory
Bad Competition: -52.5 gp
Infestation: -70 gp
Employee Unrest: no employees, no problem
Spell Gone Awry: Assume similar to an Accident, so -700 gp.
Sabotage: -10 gp
Unexpected Taxes: -43.75 gp.
Protection Racket: This almost certainly isn't guilds antagonizing each other, so get your guild's wizards or clerics or whoever to crush whatever punks are trying to shake you down for pocket change.
Mistaken Identity: Plot Hook
Important Customer: +25 gp
Spectacle: +10 gp
Good Competition: -87.5 gp, then +22.5 gp/month forever

In summary: every 20 months, business events will average -3298.75 gp, but also +22.5 gp/month forever forever.



He starts doing this at age 15 when he became an adult, and he finishes when he reaches middle-aged at 35 (goodish retirement age?). He's worked 8 hours a week on his farm for 20 years. He sells the farm to his son (age 15) for 2910 gp. He's made 91815 gp profit off this business, or enough that from age 15 to death he can spend 3.3 gp per day on various things (all with room and board paid for via guild dues). He'll live like a king by normal D&D commoner standards, and he's going to be the least successful person in his family!

His son does the same thing - 8 hours a week for 20 years. He owes 39990 gp. He sells the business to his own son (age 15) for 4167.5 gp. He's made 394962.5 gp profit off this business, or enough that from age 15 to death he can spend 14.23 gp per day on various things (all with room and board paid for via guild dues).

This continues with each subsequent son. Every generation makes ~300k more than the previous one did. This is a single business.

Imagine if this was a magic item shop in a metropolis instead of a farm in the country. Profits would be a bit more than 10 times as big.

Imagine if this was a family of dwarves who work until they die, with each new member of the family starting their own business unless one is about to become available because the person who works it is dying. Instead of one business per family accumulating wealth by the millions, now it's dozens per family - as many as they can manage to have enough children to maintain. Oh wait, generations can grow exponentially.

Imagine that one person ran multiple businesses so long as they could afford to buy another one. That every 3000 gp bought another farm making hundreds or thousands per month forever.

Have a hundred dwarf families do this for two hundred years, and that's how you get a Megacorp, or a Dragonmarked House.

[rel]

Simplest sweeping change I've implemented in some of my own settings is an absence of unskilled labour.
Everyone, even the meanest serf has ranks in either profession or craft and makes multiple SP per week through the relevant systems. The 1CP per month peasants simply don't exist.

From there you can take things in a number of directions. I usually make spellcasting, hireling and other such services vastly more expensive since society as a whole is so much wealthier.

[AvatarVecna]

Simplest sweeping change I've implemented in some of my own settings is an absence of unskilled labour.
Everyone, even the meanest serf has ranks in either profession or craft and makes multiple SP per week through the relevant systems. The 1CP per month peasants simply don't exist.

From there you can take things in a number of directions. I usually make spellcasting, hireling and other such services vastly more expensive since society as a whole is so much wealthier.

Well if for no other reason than commoners with no ranks can still use the Profession skill to make an average if 1sp/day? So yeah 1cp/month is very much not a thing that will happen.

[Jervis]

On the note of taxes. The amount of money a population can afford to give away to the government is very dependent on income and cost of living. If all of your food is made via self resetting traps of hero’s feat, create food and water, goodberry, etc. then that could get very cheap. Fabricate cuts down on the time needed to make anything by a lot. Likewise a lot of commodities like salt are basically cost less thanks to wall of salt. So actually living in this society could get quite cheap, to the point that they might be considered post scarcity.

[Promethean]

As established in previous threads, society will generally take advantage of elite toad farms to grind people to lvl 9 about a week after they get their first class level. Additionally, I'm going to handwave that most everyone is going to be a member of society in general, and a relevant guild in particular. Government takes 10% of your income as taxes, guild takes 10% of your income as guild dues as payment for guild services.

Guild dues are much lower in RAW but so low that they couldn't realistically support a guild - you're just getting too much benefit from it as a member if it costs 5 gp per character level per month. Guild membership gives free room and board, which is saving you at least 9 gp per month, and that's before getting into actual guild services.

However, taxes are supposed to range from 10% to 25% per RAW (depending on how greedy the government is). This cumulative 20% is, I feel, a relatively reasonable middle-ground: 20% covering taxes and guild dues is probably economically viable, and still leaves you a good bit of cash.


I was thinking, XP farms are costly to build initially for leveling beyond 1-6 if you consider the need to Loan magic items, security, and care/feeding of the higher CR monsters. There are plenty of ways a high level wizard could offset those costs in the long run, but Employing those wizards would also be initially costly.

IRL things with a high initial cost tend to put them out of reach of non-wealthy people without the help of larger corporations even if the long term cost if laughable. SO XP farms themselves would likely be controlled by Guilds, Kingdoms, and high-wealth individuals that are able to max out their member's levels while charging a fee for others or putting caps on their level advancement.

That could easily create a society where the wealthy are also the equivalent of Boss Monsters because the have much easier access to leveling resources.



Craft skill is a bit more complicated. You're still a guild member even at minimum effort, so you craft stuff for 30% market price, sell it for 50%, making income of 20%. +46 and taking 10 means 56x56=3136 sp of progress per week. Assuming you set out to craft an item worth 313.6 gp, it would take you a week to finish, and you would make 62.72 gp as your weekly income. That's yearly profit of 2609.15 gp. If you put in more effort, you have +83 and Apprentice feat (which changes income to 23% market price). 93x93=8649 sp progress per week. Craft an item worth 864.9 gp, it'll take a week and you'll make income of 198.92 gp. That's yearly profit of 8275.36 gp. That's a pretty chunk of change for someone who isn't crafting magic items or selling spells.

Of course, there is a secret forbidden NI technique that can lead to generational wealth and megacorps...

DMG Business Rules!

If running businesses without cheese, profits are more limited. Somebody with +46 (as with the above skills) can have a business in the woods that they never visit, and so long as it's not a criminal organization, they'll still make money off it: Wilderness -10, Never There -8, High Resource or High Risk -4, total +24. That's enough to guarantee you at least break even every single month on the profit checks by default. If you put your store in a metropolis and work there at least 8 hours a week, a +46 skill will see you making +157.5 gp, +630 gp, or +1575 gp of profit per month on top of whatever else you're spending your time on. Since this is explicitly profit, it should be post-taxes (for the most part, there's a business event that can have surprise extra taxes). If running businesses normally, the main issue you'll run into is business events. You'll have one or two of these per month, with rolls ranging from 5-24. Some will make you extra money, some will lose you money, some will increase your monthly income forever by small amounts. Finally, you can make profit checks while also making craft and profession checks on the side.

Of course...cheese exists. The business rules in DMG2 allow for cheap infinite growth. Pay 125-16000 gp (depending on starting business/location) every three months for +1d4 to profit checks permanently per payment. +1 on profit checks is equivalent to +5, +20, or +50 gp/month. Even the most expensive and least profitable business will have their upgrades pay for themselves after 250 years. That's within a lifetime for a dwarf or elf business owner, and it can always be passed on to another generation. Even if you were to insist that a change in leadership requires "selling the business" to your children, that's maximum 82000 gp + the recent monthly profit...but that could be a loan. Let's assume something like +90 after business upgrades - that'll see you with a profit somewhere around 375 gp, 1500 gp, or 3750 gp per month. That loan would take 18 years to pay off, but it would happen. If the business makes more money, the loan is slightly bigger, but it also finishes slightly faster - if the loan was 100k, it's because the business made 18k that last month, and so the loan will be paid back with interest within a year.



A human commoner putting minimum effort into his skills and his farm business is looking at a +46 pre-adjustment. He starts up his business, and owes 40080 to other people - 27000 for his restricted +30 competence item, 10080 for his restricted +6 Wis item, 3000 for his business. He's starting in a rural area, and he works maybe 8 hours a week on that farm, and he doesn't have the other skills a farmer ought to. He's in the farmer's guild though, so that helps. Profit checks clock in at +45. He will average 152.5 gp monthly profit from his business, and 1175 gp yearly profit from profession checks. Every three months, he spends 125 gp upgrading his business, and getting another +2.5 on profit checks (the average). Also he'll have a business even every month.

Booming business in a rural area means he's rolling 1d20+1 on the table, with the following possibilities:
Banditry: assume similar to Burglary, so -700 gp
Wounded Adventurer: Plot Hook
Bad Weather: -70 gp
Natural Disaster: -100 gp
Fire: Fire prevention is a societal concern and will be handled by casters/magic item wielders, possibly including you
Burglary: -700 gp
Accident: -700 gp
Irate Customer: -100 gp
No Encounter: self-explanatory
Bad Competition: -52.5 gp
Infestation: -70 gp
Employee Unrest: no employees, no problem
Spell Gone Awry: Assume similar to an Accident, so -700 gp.
Sabotage: -10 gp
Unexpected Taxes: -43.75 gp.
Protection Racket: This almost certainly isn't guilds antagonizing each other, so get your guild's wizards or clerics or whoever to crush whatever punks are trying to shake you down for pocket change.
Mistaken Identity: Plot Hook
Important Customer: +25 gp
Spectacle: +10 gp
Good Competition: -87.5 gp, then +22.5 gp/month forever

In summary: every 20 months, business events will average -3298.75 gp, but also +22.5 gp/month forever forever.



He starts doing this at age 15 when he became an adult, and he finishes when he reaches middle-aged at 35 (goodish retirement age?). He's worked 8 hours a week on his farm for 20 years. He sells the farm to his son (age 15) for 2910 gp. He's made 91815 gp profit off this business, or enough that from age 15 to death he can spend 3.3 gp per day on various things (all with room and board paid for via guild dues). He'll live like a king by normal D&D commoner standards, and he's going to be the least successful person in his family!

His son does the same thing - 8 hours a week for 20 years. He owes 39990 gp. He sells the business to his own son (age 15) for 4167.5 gp. He's made 394962.5 gp profit off this business, or enough that from age 15 to death he can spend 14.23 gp per day on various things (all with room and board paid for via guild dues).

This continues with each subsequent son. Every generation makes ~300k more than the previous one did. This is a single business.

Imagine if this was a magic item shop in a metropolis instead of a farm in the country. Profits would be a bit more than 10 times as big.

Imagine if this was a family of dwarves who work until they die, with each new member of the family starting their own business unless one is about to become available because the person who works it is dying. Instead of one business per family accumulating wealth by the millions, now it's dozens per family - as many as they can manage to have enough children to maintain. Oh wait, generations can grow exponentially.

Imagine that one person ran multiple businesses so long as they could afford to buy another one. That every 3000 gp bought another farm making hundreds or thousands per month forever.

Have a hundred dwarf families do this for two hundred years, and that's how you get a Megacorp, or a Dragonmarked House.


I imagine elves being able to do this and Dark chaos shuffle their 4 racial weapon feats for business/aristocratic feats will put them Much higher in the social latter than humans, followed by dwarves.

[Maat Mons]

I'm fond of Domain Focus in the Commerce domain for a +20 Competence bonus to checks to earn a living. Yes, custom +30 Competence bonus items can be crafted, but getting +20 for no gp investment (except whatever Cleric school costs) really lowers the cost of entry for starting a business.

My math indicates that a metropolis is not the most beneficial place to start a business. It does give you a larger bonus to profit checks, yes, but it also increases the cost of reinvesting in your business, which you'll be doing if you're smart. After you both add in the extra money you get from the bonus, and subtract out the extra money you spend on reinvestment, you get a net result that's worse than other locations.

Also, Profession is marked Trained Only, so people without ranks are not, in fact, using it to make 1 sp per day.

[AvatarVecna]

I was thinking, XP farms are costly to build initially for leveling beyond 1-6 if you consider the need to Loan magic items, security, and care/feeding of the higher CR monsters. There are plenty of ways a high level wizard could offset those costs in the long run, but Employing those wizards would also be initially costly.

IRL things with a high initial cost tend to put them out of reach of non-wealthy people without the help of larger corporations even if the long term cost if laughable. SO XP farms themselves would likely be controlled by Guilds, Kingdoms, and high-wealth individuals that are able to max out their member's levels while charging a fee for others or putting caps on their level advancement.

That could easily create a society where the wealthy are also the equivalent of Boss Monsters because the have much easier access to leveling resources.




I imagine elves being able to do this and Dark chaos shuffle their 4 racial weapon feats for business/aristocratic feats will put them Much higher in the social latter than humans, followed by dwarves.

Elite Toads are incapable of harming you, and killing them will take you to lvl 9 without issue. A few hundred toads bred for size and strength will still breed millions per year, and age quickly. Plenty of toads for a society to have each young person kill a hundred or so to reach lvl 9 in a week.

It's levels beyond 9th that get tricky and require more difficult XP farms because that's the point where you need monsters that can at least theoretically fight back.

[AvatarVecna]

I'm fond of Domain Focus in the Commerce domain for a +20 Competence bonus to checks to earn a living. Yes, custom +30 Competence bonus items can be crafted, but getting +20 for no gp investment (except whatever Cleric school costs) really lowers the cost of entry for starting a business.

My math indicates that a metropolis is not the most beneficial place to start a business. It does give you a larger bonus to profit checks, yes, but it also increases the cost of reinvesting in your business, which you'll be doing if you're smart. After you both add in the extra money you get from the bonus, and subtract out the extra money you spend on reinvestment, you get a net result that's worse than other locations.

Also, Profession is marked Trained Only, so people without ranks are not, in fact, using it to make 1 sp per day.

If you read the skill description instead of the single line at the top, you'll see this neat little section:


Untrained
Untrained laborers and assistants (that is, characters without any ranks in Profession) earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.

1cp/month is not a commoner wage. It's a laughably pitiful exaggeration of how poor commoners that's about 1/300th the actual rate.

[Promethean]

Elite Toads are incapable of harming you, and killing them will take you to lvl 9 without issue. A few hundred toads bred for size and strength will still breed millions per year, and age quickly. Plenty of toads for a society to have each young person kill a hundred or so to reach lvl 9 in a week.

It's levels beyond 9th that get tricky and require more difficult XP farms because that's the point where you need monsters that can at least theoretically fight back.

Perhaps, but I feel the point still stands. Building and maintaining higher level monster farms will be something only very wealthy or very well connected people would be likely to have access to.

That might actually lead to a magocracy type world. Where the strongest government are lead by bloodlines of 20th level spellcasters and psions who have easy access to unfathable wealth and self-made XP farms for their kids.

[AvatarVecna]

Perhaps, but I feel the point still stands. Building and maintaining higher level monster farms will be something only very wealthy or very well connected people would be likely to have access to.

That might actually lead to a magocracy type world. Where the strongest government are lead by bloodlines of 20th level spellcasters and psions who have easy access to unfathable wealth and self-made XP farms for their kids.

Possibly. I thought part of the prompt was about encouraging and assisting large portions of the populace in reaching greater capabilities because it helps our nation if most of the citizenry can reach 9th lvl spells. In fact this is partially enforced by your rules against some of the combos that allow a single wizard to take over the world.

Nations that empower large portions of the population to be powerful makes will tend to overpower and subsume Nations that only allow a select portion of their population access to the most powerful magicks. If nobody is powerful enough to go it alone, the fact that Nations compete against each other will breed out the more selfish magocracies

[Promethean]

Possibly. I thought part of the prompt was about encouraging and assisting large portions of the populace in reaching greater capabilities because it helps our nation if most of the citizenry can reach 9th lvl spells. In fact this is partially enforced by your rules against some of the combos that allow a single wizard to take over the world.

Nations that empower large portions of the population to be powerful makes will tend to overpower and subsume Nations that only allow a select portion of their population access to the most powerful magicks. If nobody is powerful enough to go it alone, the fact that Nations compete against each other will breed out the more selfish magocracies

Not necessarily. After all, that's theoretically true of real life as well, but not how things function in practice.

IRL dictatorships survive because they tend to either hold a valuable resource, a geographical position that makes going to war with them not worth the cost, or an accumulation of enough resources to make them too large to effectively fight.

There's also the control angle. Larger societies with "Free" citizens able to think for themselves also run into the issue of their citizens having wildly differing opinions and philosophies, making them harder to organize together. This is often why democracies of equal citizens often fall, because people are too busy fighting each other to prevent an outside threat conquering them or a inside threat taking power and monopolizing all the resources.

[AvatarVecna]

Not necessarily. After all, that's theoretically true of real life as well, but not how things function in practice.

IRL dictatorships survive because they tend to either hold a valuable resource, a geographical position that makes going to war with them not worth the cost, or an accumulation of enough resources to make them too large to effectively fight.

There's also the control angle. Larger societies with "Free" citizens able to think for themselves also run into the issue of their citizens having wildly differing opinions and philosophies, making them harder to organize together. This is often why democracies of equal citizens often fall, because people are too busy fighting each other to prevent an outside threat conquering them or a inside threat taking power and monopolizing all the resources.

This isn't a question of the freedom a given society has. A society where everyone is allowed to practice magic might look somewhat like a democracy, but a society where everyone is expected to learn magic would be more like a dictatorship. It's easier for people to have the power necessary to break free, but that's where social pressures prove their worth in the face of magical power. Instill enough loyalty and people won't want to leave. This isn't a question of freedom, but of the equivalent if higher education. Even if it's expensive, if it's widely encouraged, that society ends up with more magic and more powerful magic at its beck and call.

Which gets back to the issue: some dictators will suppress magic knowledge to maintain an edge over their own citizens, and some will entrust the populace with magic because Mass Diplomancy will keep them in line. And The latter civilization will overwhelm the former most every time.

[Promethean]

This isn't a question of the freedom a given society has. A society where everyone is allowed to practice magic might look somewhat like a democracy, but a society where everyone is expected to learn magic would be more like a dictatorship. It's easier for people to have the power necessary to break free, but that's where social pressures prove their worth in the face of magical power. Instill enough loyalty and people won't want to leave. This isn't a question of freedom, but of the equivalent if higher education. Even if it's expensive, if it's widely encouraged, that society ends up with more magic and more powerful magic at its beck and call.

I'm honestly of the mindset that having everyone in a society knowing magic is a Very bad idea. For the same reasons that giving everyone an easy-to-use "design your own superbacteria" kit and the plans for antibiotic resistant plagues is a bad idea in real life. I'd give such a society a decade at most before they fall apart from the blast radius of bad decisions involving abusing wish or obscure magic.



Which gets back to the issue: some dictators will suppress magic knowledge to maintain an edge over their own citizens, and some will entrust the populace with magic because Mass Diplomancy will keep them in line. And The latter civilization will overwhelm the former most every time.

With the above belief I voiced, I think it'll be less a matter of suppressing magic as controlling magic. As a means of survival no less. As you pointed out, Not having magic is suicidal when other societies have spellcasters, but I think it's Equally suicidal to give everyone free access to magic just because of how destructive it can be if not handled with care. Not everyone is a good person and not everyone is going to have a wisdom score above 8, and there are things magic can do that even Wish can't fix(and even when it can, it's not necessarily reliable).

I think mages would be members of an elite, but tightly regulated group while everyone else is more of a skill-focus or martial build.

[Maat Mons]

I think it's a shame that, even though two different sources statted out mice for 3.5, neither of them assigned a challenge rating.

In Pathfinder, chicken is CR 1/6, rabbit is CR 1/6, mutton is CR 1/4, pork is CR 1/3, and beef is CR 2. So in a non-vegetarian society that doesn't feed its populace by magic, clearly someone is raking in xp. Pathfinder doesn't even reduce or eliminate xp awards if your level is higher than the cr of the encounter, so the slaughterhouse employees never cease to be able to benefit.

In a world where technology/sufficiently-advanced magic takes care of most of the grunt work, the thing that really determines the prosperity of a nation is how skilled/educated its populace is. The countries that excel in this magically-industrialized world will be the ones that have a robust and mandatory public education system.

The nature of D&D leveling mechanics means that you'll want to split people off into specialized training programs early. For the common folk, they'd probably get slotted into a training program based on a combination of their aptitudes and what the labor market needs. For anyone with the money for private school, they can probably get training for whichever jobs are most desirable, as long as they have at least the minimum competence necessary to scrape by.

So, for example, if you have Int 8 and want to be a Wizard, the public education system is going to say "tough" and slot you into a training program for which you're better suited. But if your parents can afford to buy you a Headband of Intellect +6 and make a generous donation to a prestigious private institution, you can still get your Wizard training.

In spite of that, public education, if implemented well, can do a lot to reduce wealth inequality. Or, at least, it can create social and economic mobility. I'm envisioning a society where being born with a good roll in the right ability score can put you on track for a good life, no matter how poor your parents were.

With regard to a magical elite ruling over a nonmagical populace, I don't really see why these magical elite would want or need a large number of muggles serving under them. If they put themselves in charge because they like the feeling of having power over others, then society is doomed. If they put themselves in charge because they want to help people, then I don't think enforcing a magical caste system is the way to do it.

What really matters isn't the number of magic users, or the ratio of magic users to non-magic-users. What really matters is the ratio of good eggs to bad eggs among magic users. If you've got two Wizards in the world, and one of them is Evil, you're in for a bad time just as surely as if you had 100 Wizards in the world, and 50 of them were evil. It's not about keeping the number of mages small, it's about keeping sociopaths out of magic school.

I'd say it's very beneficial for the government to run magic academies. This puts them in the position of getting to decide who can learn magic, and also getting to indoctrinate those magic-users to their way of thinking.

Also, you know what's a great way to rehabilitate Evil people? Plunk a Helm of Opposite Alignment on them. Just magic the Evil away! Or Book of Vile Darkness has a spell called Mindrape that lets you set the target's alignment to whatever you want. So magic away the apathy too. Make every single citizen Good-aligned... and maybe Lawful too, while you're at it. Magic can fix everything, even people.

[Promethean]

I think it's a shame that, even though two different sources statted out mice for 3.5, neither of them assigned a challenge rating.

In Pathfinder, chicken is CR 1/6, rabbit is CR 1/6, mutton is CR 1/4, pork is CR 1/3, and beef is CR 2. So in a non-vegetarian society that doesn't feed its populace by magic, clearly someone is raking in xp. Pathfinder doesn't even reduce or eliminate xp awards if your level is higher than the cr of the encounter, so the slaughterhouse employees never cease to be able to benefit.

Wait, that means that every village hunter, farmer, and butcher would become level 20 even in a relatively safe area.

Huh...



In a world where technology/sufficiently-advanced magic takes care of most of the grunt work, the thing that really determines the prosperity of a nation is how skilled/educated its populace is. The countries that excel in this magically-industrialized world will be the ones that have a robust and mandatory public education system.

The nature of D&D leveling mechanics means that you'll want to split people off into specialized training programs early. For the common folk, they'd probably get slotted into a training program based on a combination of their aptitudes and what the labor market needs. For anyone with the money for private school, they can probably get training for whichever jobs are most desirable, as long as they have at least the minimum competence necessary to scrape by.

So, for example, if you have Int 8 and want to be a Wizard, the public education system is going to say "tough" and slot you into a training program for which you're better suited. But if your parents can afford to buy you a Headband of Intellect +6 and make a generous donation to a prestigious private institution, you can still get your Wizard training.

In spite of that, public education, if implemented well, can do a lot to reduce wealth inequality. Or, at least, it can create social and economic mobility. I'm envisioning a society where being born with a good roll in the right ability score can put you on track for a good life, no matter how poor your parents were.

I like these ideas a Lot. I'm stealing them.



With regard to a magical elite ruling over a nonmagical populace, I don't really see why these magical elite would want or need a large number of muggles serving under them. If they put themselves in charge because they like the feeling of having power over others, then society is doomed. If they put themselves in charge because they want to help people, then I don't think enforcing a magical caste system is the way to do it.

What really matters isn't the number of magic users, or the ratio of magic users to non-magic-users. What really matters is the ratio of good eggs to bad eggs among magic users. If you've got two Wizards in the world, and one of them is Evil, you're in for a bad time just as surely as if you had 100 Wizards in the world, and 50 of them were evil. It's not about keeping the number of mages small, it's about keeping sociopaths out of magic school.

I'd say it's very beneficial for the government to run magic academies. This puts them in the position of getting to decide who can learn magic, and also getting to indoctrinate those magic-users to their way of thinking.

I have to disagree.

This is where I think the numbers game comes in. It is physically impossible to keep specific things out of evil people's hands past a certain population size of people coming into contact with that thing. Magic or no, the system breaks eventually as has happened for every society that has ever existed. The laws of probability are working against you at that point.

This is only exacerbated by the fact that being a magic user gives you an immense amount of power, which makes it incredibly attractive to the people who want to abuse that power. One of the weirdest parts about psychology is the fact that the people most likely to abuse power are the ones most likely to put all their effort into obtaining it, while those least likely to abuse it are the ones least likely to Want it in the first place. This is why you rarely see genuinely good people in positions of power in any governments that have existed for a descent amount of time. The good people do what they need to and move on, while the Power hungry stick around to feel important and party on everyone else's dollar.

Finally there's the entire status quo paradox. It is stupidly easy to destroy a perfect system, because all it takes is for a couple things to mess up for that system to quickly become imperfect, and an imperfect system is only a step away from becoming entirely dysfunctional. Good people need to win one hundred victories out of one hundred battles to keep a good status quo from collapsing, but evil only needs One solid victory to disrupt it, and in the mean time that good takes to regather and repair, it is Much easier for evil to gain victories(creating an evil status quo where the positions flip).

Actually, a lot of this is also an argument against tightly controlled magic populations as well, as nothing you do would actually stop or prevent magic from being abused by a select few who ruin it for everyone...

I guess every means of tackling it is equally valid(since they're all doomed to failure), carry on.



Also, you know what's a great way to rehabilitate Evil people? Plunk a Helm of Opposite Alignment on them. Just magic the Evil away! Or Book of Vile Darkness has a spell called Mindrape that lets you set the target's alignment to whatever you want. So magic away the apathy too. Make every single citizen Good-aligned... and maybe Lawful too, while you're at it. Magic can fix everything, even people.

I don't think anyone who can rationalize mindraping or mind-controlling people to follow their beliefs OR Else, is ever going to come into spitting distance of the good alignment. Heck, I'd say that's a bit too far even for Lawful neutral. With that as the case, the philosophical beliefs being forced onto people aren't likely to be anything good either...

[Maat Mons]

The laws of probability guarantee that an Evil person will gain power at some point, and any system that requires no Evil person to ever get power is doomed to failure, on that much we agree. However, I don't think one evil person gaining power has to be the end of the world.

Let's take it as given that, at some point, an Evil person will become a powerful spellcaster, because they will. How do you design a system that can recover from that, and quickly? The only thing that will be able to oppose an Evil spellcaster is other spellcasters. So we need to make sure there are lots of them to ensure they'll be able to overwhelm the Evil guy.

If there's only ever one high-level Wizard, then on the rare occasion that the one high-level Wizard is Evil, the world is screwed. If there are always 10 high-level Wizards, then if one Evil guy manages to become one of them, there are nine more who can oppose him. If there are 100 high-level Wizards, there will be 99 to oppose the one Evil Wizard who managed to pass for Good long enough to convince someone to train him.

If we can get a system in place where the frequency of Evil people gaining power is low enough and the number of Good people with power is high enough, the Good will be able to defeat the Evil, and depower them with a casting of Greater Bestow Curse, so they may never again use their powers for Evil.

Okay, so maybe forcibly rewriting the personalities of others is slightly un-Good. I think something can still be devised. Magically divine the alignments of candidates for magical training, and turn away any Evil applicants. Also perform periodic mandatory alignment checks on all magic-users, because alignments can change over time. Use Greater Bestow Curse to strip the spellcasting from those who have turned Evil. And keep detailed records of all magic users, because anyone who knows they're going to fail their next alignment test isn't going to show up for it. You'll have to track them down.

Or, maybe magically rewriting someone's personality can be not-Evil if they give informed consent with no coercion? I've just tracked down a variant effect for Greater Bestow Curse in Dragon 348 which can make someone Good. It doesn't have the side effect of flipping the other axis, like the Helm, so maybe people who feel very strongly Lawful would consent to have their Evil impulses quashed, if it means being allowed to pursue the training that will let them champion those Lawful ideals? It also isn't tagged as Evil, like Mindrape is, so you don't have the guy whose job it is to cast it constantly drifting towards Evil just from casting it.

Anyway, people could always be given a choice. "You're too Evil for Wizard school … unless you agree to undergo alignment restructuring." "You're too Evil to keep being a Wizard, you're powers will be sealed … unless you consent to alignment restructuring." "If you undergo alignment restructuring, you'll be paroled." That last one may or may not have been the plot of A Clockwork Orange.

[Promethean]

Let's take it as given that, at some point, an Evil person will become a powerful spellcaster, because they will. How do you design a system that can recover from that, and quickly? The only thing that will be able to oppose an Evil spellcaster is other spellcasters. So we need to make sure there are lots of them to ensure they'll be able to overwhelm the Evil guy.

If there's only ever one high-level Wizard, then on the rare occasion that the one high-level Wizard is Evil, the world is screwed. If there are always 10 high-level Wizards, then if one Evil guy manages to become one of them, there are nine more who can oppose him. If there are 100 high-level Wizards, there will be 99 to oppose the one Evil Wizard who managed to pass for Good long enough to convince someone to train him.

If we can get a system in place where the frequency of Evil people gaining power is low enough and the number of Good people with power is high enough, the Good will be able to defeat the Evil, and depower them with a casting of Greater Bestow Curse, so they may never again use their powers for Evil.

Don't forget that the probability of evil and/or unqualified people rising to a powerful office rises in proportion to the number of evil and/or unqualified people already in that office.

Say for example: Phil the evil wizard becomes a 20th level wizard. Phil can try to take over the world, but doing so would get him killed, so instead he's just generally petty, slacks off only as much as he can get away with without losing his job, steals things people leave unattended, and parties under the influence of illegal drugs in his free time. Phil is generally unlikable, but he does his job passably enough (because the alternative is being fired) and replacing him is more paperwork than his boss wants to deal with. Everyone just gets used to dealing with phil.

Eventually, Phil gains enough seniority to be promoted to a position to train/hire more wizards and hands the job to his friend Mike. Mike is also an evil wizard and is even Less likable than phil, but like phil he does his job Just passably enough that firing him is too much trouble...

The above is the prime example of how standards slowly erode and organizations fill up with evil/unqualified individuals. It's Never one BBEG trying to take over when they're surrounded by Heroes, BBEGs only Rise when a society has already decayed enough that it only needs one last straw to collapse. The change happens so gradually that few people notice until it's too late, and for the few that do notice are most often ignored because changing things is more work than the majority of people feel is necessary. This is the classic quiet takeover that happens in IRL history.

Second, If you give too many people access to high level magic, then massive magical accidents cased by people failing their wisdom check are not just going to be guaranteed, they'll be more common(and thus more likely to be world-affecting). At least 1 person thought it was a good idea to cast Karsus's Avatar...



Okay, so maybe forcibly rewriting the personalities of others is slightly un-Good. I think something can still be devised. Magically divine the alignments of candidates for magical training, and turn away any Evil applicants. Also perform periodic mandatory alignment checks on all magic-users, because alignments can change over time. Use Greater Bestow Curse to strip the spellcasting from those who have turned Evil. And keep detailed records of all magic users, because anyone who knows they're going to fail their next alignment test isn't going to show up for it. You'll have to track them down.

So, tightly regulated small groups like I suggested? Unless you have a small focus group that only headquarter out of a select number of locations(Ideally one), then the system you presented is Guaranteed to have people outside of the major cities relaxing or outright ignoring regulations(Cough American Osha and Workers Rights Regulations Cough).

Especially if they have lower funding do to operating out of a poorer area(Cough American Public schooling Cough).



Or, maybe magically rewriting someone's personality can be not-Evil if they give informed consent with no coercion? I've just tracked down a variant effect for Greater Bestow Curse in Dragon 348 which can make someone Good. It doesn't have the side effect of flipping the other axis, like the Helm, so maybe people who feel very strongly Lawful would consent to have their Evil impulses quashed, if it means being allowed to pursue the training that will let them champion those Lawful ideals? It also isn't tagged as Evil, like Mindrape is, so you don't have the guy whose job it is to cast it constantly drifting towards Evil just from casting it.

Anyway, people could always be given a choice. "You're too Evil for Wizard school … unless you agree to undergo alignment restructuring." "You're too Evil to keep being a Wizard, you're powers will be sealed … unless you consent to alignment restructuring." "If you undergo alignment restructuring, you'll be paroled." That last one may or may not have been the plot of A Clockwork Orange.

That's not giving people a choice, that's giving people an ultimatum. Which is by definition coercion. Coercing people into mind control is Definitely in the morally dubious-to-outright-evil side of things.

There's not going to be a way you can spin this that will make Mandatory Mind Control not evil. You can make it Lawful Evil, where the evil act is done will a strict code of honor and understanding of necessity, but on the other hand Asmodeus is going to start looking at your civilization Very Closely. He might even start speaking to some of you and it's funny how some fiends can hide their alignments...

[AvatarVecna]

Don't forget that the probability of evil and/or unqualified people rising to a powerful office rises in proportion to the number of evil and/or unqualified people already in that office.

Say for example: Phil the evil wizard becomes a 20th level wizard. Phil can try to take over the world, but doing so would get him killed, so instead he's just generally petty, slacks off only as much as he can get away with without losing his job, steals things people leave unattended, and parties under the influence of illegal drugs in his free time. Phil is generally unlikable, but he does his job passably enough (because the alternative is being fired) and replacing him is more paperwork than his boss wants to deal with. Everyone just gets used to dealing with phil.

Eventually, Phil gains enough seniority to be promoted to a position to train/hire more wizards and hands the job to his friend Mike. Mike is also an evil wizard and is even Less likable than phil, but like phil he does his job Just passably enough that firing him is too much trouble...

The above is the prime example of how standards slowly erode and organizations fill up with evil/unqualified individuals. It's Never one BBEG trying to take over when they're surrounded by Heroes, BBEGs only Rise when a society has already decayed enough that it only needs one last straw to collapse. The change happens so gradually that few people notice until it's too late, and for the few that do notice are most often ignored because changing things is more work than the majority of people feel is necessary. This is the classic quiet takeover that happens in IRL history.

Second, If you give too many people access to high level magic, then massive magical accidents cased by people failing their wisdom check are not just going to be guaranteed, they'll be more common(and thus more likely to be world-affecting). At least 1 person thought it was a good idea to cast Karsus's Avatar...



So, tightly regulated small groups like I suggested? Unless you have a small focus group that only headquarter out of a select number of locations(Ideally one), then the system you presented is Guaranteed to have people outside of the major cities relaxing or outright ignoring regulations(Cough American Osha and Workers Rights Regulations Cough).

Especially if they have lower funding do to operating out of a poorer area(Cough American Public schooling Cough).



That's not giving people a choice, that's giving people an ultimatum. Which is by definition coercion. Coercing people into mind control is Definitely in the morally dubious-to-outright-evil side of things.

There's not going to be a way you can spin this that will make Mandatory Mind Control not evil. You can make it Lawful Evil, where the evil act is done will a strict code of honor and understanding of necessity, but on the other hand Asmodeus is going to start looking at your civilization Very Closely. He might even start speaking to some of you and it's funny how some fiends can hide their alignments...

Hiding alignments only matters if we're being conservative in our use of the Re-Alignment machines, but we don't have to be. If we're running a society where we're using the Mind Rape spell on people to re-align them away from abusing magic For The Greater Good, and we've already decided that consent isn't an issue, then it's better to get it out of the way when they're incapable of resisting. In my set up, we're already casting 30 wish scrolls on a baby before they leave the hospital to give them +5 inherent to all attributes (makes them 12.5% better at everything, such as those wisdom checks you mentioned)...what does it matter if we cast one more spell on them, a Mind Rape spell to make that baby into a loyal citizen?

EDIT: Additionally, I wanna clarify that I don't think this is necessary. I think the society I've been working on where everybody is about 12.5% better than normal people in every way isn't going to be nearly as prone to the accidents or mistakes that mass-teaching magic can allow for.

But also, I wanna be clear: if there's a society that can reliably teach most of their citizenry magic, that society is going to have a leg up on societies that need to keep magic more in check because they can't trust their fellow man. Regardless of the reasons magic isn't being widely taught, the fact will remain that a nation of time lords is going to have an advantage over a nation of humans with a small controlling elite group of time lords leading the government. It's just a question of figuring out what kind of society would allow for a nation of time lords in the first place.

Personally, I think in a world where the afterlife is a confirm-able fact, using magic to uplift the population (both through direct usage on them, and through education) will have better results than a society that tries to keep things controlled. Of course, it helps that I'm considering (at worst) Wis 8 wizards instead of like...Wis 3 wizards. That's a marked difference in craziness levels.

[Promethean]

Hiding alignments only matters if we're being conservative in our use of the Re-Alignment machines, but we don't have to be. If we're running a society where we're using the Mind Rape spell on people to re-align them away from abusing magic For The Greater Good, and we've already decided that consent isn't an issue, then it's better to get it out of the way when they're incapable of resisting. In my set up, we're already casting 30 wish scrolls on a baby before they leave the hospital to give them +5 inherent to all attributes (makes them 12.5% better at everything, such as those wisdom checks you mentioned)...what does it matter if we cast one more spell on them, a Mind Rape spell to make that baby into a loyal citizen?

:smalleek:

I give your society 5 years tops before everyone is lawful evil.



EDIT: Additionally, I wanna clarify that I don't think this is necessary. I think the society I've been working on where everybody is about 12.5% better than normal people in every way isn't going to be nearly as prone to the accidents or mistakes that mass-teaching magic can allow for.


Mayhaps, but lets not forget karsus had a wisdom of 24 when he decided that Mystra was the best possible candidate to remove from the pantheon of gods, in netheril a society that Runs on magic to stay alive. High wisdom does not make you immune to bad decisions, nor does it make them any less catastrophic. It just makes them just less likely.



But also, I wanna be clear: if there's a society that can reliably teach most of their citizenry magic, that society is going to have a leg up on societies that need to keep magic more in check because they can't trust their fellow man. Regardless of the reasons magic isn't being widely taught, the fact will remain that a nation of time lords is going to have an advantage over a nation of humans with a small controlling elite group of time lords leading the government. It's just a question of figuring out what kind of society would allow for a nation of time lords in the first place.

Personally, I think in a world where the afterlife is a confirm-able fact, using magic to uplift the population (both through direct usage on them, and through education) will have better results than a society that tries to keep things controlled. Of course, it helps that I'm considering (at worst) Wis 8 wizards instead of like...Wis 3 wizards. That's a marked difference in craziness levels.

I'm still not convinced. Yes a society of magic users will likely out compete a society with controlled magic For A While, but I'm also 100% on the side that they'll also destroy themselves Much faster.

After all, you're giving Everyone access to wish(and that's not the only problematic spell).

[Jervis]

:smalleek:

I give your society 5 years tops before everyone is lawful evil.



Mayhaps, but lets not forget karsus had a wisdom of 24 when he decided that Mystra was the best possible candidate to remove from the pantheon of gods, in netheril a society that Runs on magic to stay alive. High wisdom does not make you immune to bad decisions, nor does it make them any less catastrophic. It just makes them just less likely

Huh, I always thought Karsus had a wisdom of, like, 5.

[AvatarVecna]

:smalleek:

I give your society 5 years tops before everyone is lawful evil.

I never said it wasn't LE. I basically outright stated that it would be. That doesn't matter. The point of my post isn't "this is how I would make society behave if I were in charge", it's "what kind of society would get tons of magic to work with". There will be all kinds of civilizations through history with all kinds of philosophies, but the ones willing to mind rape the citizenry en masse into being loyal are the ones that will be writing the history books, because everybody else will have less magic and will collapse under the boot heel.


Mayhaps, but lets not forget karsus had a wisdom of 24 when he decided that Mystra was the best possible candidate to remove from the pantheon of gods, in netheril a society that Runs on magic to stay alive. High wisdom does not make you immune to bad decisions, nor does it make them any less catastrophic. It just makes them just less likely.

High wisdom doesn't make you immune to the whims of the author, because nothing makes you immune to the whims of whoever is writing the setting lore. D&D deities make all kinds of stupid decisions despite having int/wis/cha scores at least in the 30s for the most part. That doesn't make them an accurate representation of what high wisdom looks like. It just means the author needed somebody really powerful to reboot the setting and wasn't particularly concerned with whether such a decision was consistent with their characterization or not.


I'm still not convinced. Yes a society of magic users will likely out compete a society with controlled magic For A While, but I'm also 100% on the side that they'll also destroy themselves Much faster.

No society lasts forever. Some are killed by others, others are killed by their own bad decisions. Big sprawling empires dont tend to be the "killed by others" kind, so they end up defaulting into "we didnt know how to run a nation this big for very long". The ones that don't die fade into relative obscurity and get replaced with societies more ruthless than themselves (see England as opposed to America in terms of global dominance).

Part of the premise is that we aren't allowed to use magic to go post-scarcity, and that means societies are still going to be competing with each other for resources. Societies that are teaching magic to basically everybody, where all babies born are reprogrammed into loyal servants, are the ones that will have more impact on the world, control more land, control more people, and last longer. I might only last 100 years before somebody usurps me and my kingdom, but your kingdom of hippie nobodies who restricted magic to avoid breaking the universe only lasted 5 years because that's how long it took me to destroy you and steal all your resources for myself.


After all, you're giving Everyone access to wish(and that's not the only problematic spell).

As long as people only use safe wishes, there's no threat of unforeseen consequences - and even with unsafe wishes, the consequences tend to fall specifically on the head of the person who made the wish, not society at large. And because of the restrictions you've placed on every single person in this setting, Wish is just a spell with extreme versatility that's not really capable of breaking anything outside of what other spells were already capable of.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

I'm fond of Domain Focus in the Commerce domain for a +20 Competence bonus to checks to earn a living. Yes, custom +30 Competence bonus items can be crafted, but getting +20 for no gp investment (except whatever Cleric school costs) really lowers the cost of entry for starting a business.

My math indicates that a metropolis is not the most beneficial place to start a business. It does give you a larger bonus to profit checks, yes, but it also increases the cost of reinvesting in your business, which you'll be doing if you're smart. After you both add in the extra money you get from the bonus, and subtract out the extra money you spend on reinvestment, you get a net result that's worse than other locations.

Also, Profession is marked Trained Only, so people without ranks are not, in fact, using it to make 1 sp per day.
Source on the Domain Focus feat that does that?

[Promethean]

I never said it wasn't LE. I basically outright stated that it would be. That doesn't matter. The point of my post isn't "this is how I would make society behave if I were in charge", it's "what kind of society would get tons of magic to work with". There will be all kinds of civilizations through history with all kinds of philosophies, but the ones willing to mind rape the citizenry en masse into being loyal are the ones that will be writing the history books, because everybody else will have less magic and will collapse under the boot heel.

I mean the Ilithid empire did that(with psionics), but that didn't really work out for them too well.




High wisdom doesn't make you immune to the whims of the author, because nothing makes you immune to the whims of whoever is writing the setting lore. D&D deities make all kinds of stupid decisions despite having int/wis/cha scores at least in the 30s for the most part. That doesn't make them an accurate representation of what high wisdom looks like. It just means the author needed somebody really powerful to reboot the setting and wasn't particularly concerned with whether such a decision was consistent with their characterization or not.

I disagree here. Karsus was an incredibly competent and influential mage despite the fact that his younger age put him at a social disadvantage. He built and managed powerful kingdom almost singlehandedly despite the fact that he started from a position where no one wanted to trust him. Dud shows amazing wisdom and charisma, but that still didn't prevent him from making a bad decision and the thing that made that bad decision so catastrophic was just how powerful karsus was at the time.

Even if a character had wisdom 100, it won't stop them from making bad decisions, and mind-bogglingly powerful people sliding into complacency and arrogance is because of their absolute confidence in their own intelligence and wisdom. Honestly, if we wanted to model it realistically, a character's wisdom score should go Down with time if they don't experience adversity for too long.



No society lasts forever. Some are killed by others, others are killed by their own bad decisions. Big sprawling empires don't tend to be the "killed by others" kind, so they end up defaulting into "we didnt know how to run a nation this big for very long". The ones that don't die fade into relative obscurity and get replaced with societies more ruthless than themselves (see England as opposed to America in terms of global dominance).

Empires also don't tend to last very long in historical time scales(with a couple exceptions). Most of the time, the exist for a couple hundred years before they tear themselves apart and are re-conquered internally by a new government that may or may not keep the old name. This process is actually common enough that older cultures recognized it as a cycle similar to the seasons, the chinese for example called it the "Mandate of Heaven".



Part of the premise is that we aren't allowed to use magic to go post-scarcity...

That is not part of the premise what so ever. You can 100% go post-scarcity. The only things that are disallowed are infinite loops and other "I ascend to slay the gods at level 4" cheese.



As long as people only use safe wishes,

"Safe Wishes" HA! But joking aside, that's never going to happen. You are essentially giving everyone a button and telling them "don't push that button". Eventually, every single person is going to be so angry, so drunk, or just not paying attention one day and say something they regret.



there's no threat of unforeseen consequences - and even with unsafe wishes, the consequences tend to fall specifically on the head of the person who made the wish, not society at large. And because of the restrictions you've placed on every single person in this setting, Wish is just a spell with extreme versatility that's not really capable of breaking anything outside of what other spells were already capable of.

That wasn't really my intention. When I say "abusing "Greater Effects" wishes", I don't mean they don't happen. I mean that they don't happen the way the user intends, Reinterpretation/Partial completion and all that.

An better explanation would be "default All greater wishes to functioning as if they were being fulfilled by a sadistic DM that's lost patience with you".

[AvatarVecna]

I mean the Ilithid empire did that(with psionics), but that didn't really work out for them too well.




I disagree here. Karsus was an incredibly competent and influential mage despite the fact that his younger age put him at a social disadvantage. He built and managed powerful kingdom almost singlehandedly despite the fact that he started from a position where no one wanted to trust him. Dud shows amazing wisdom and charisma, but that still didn't prevent him from making a bad decision and the thing that made that bad decision so catastrophic was just how powerful karsus was at the time.

Even if a character had wisdom 100, it won't stop them from making bad decisions, and mind-bogglingly powerful people sliding into complacency and arrogance is because of their absolute confidence in their own intelligence and wisdom. Honestly, if we wanted to model it realistically, a character's wisdom score should go Down with time if they don't experience adversity for too long.



Empires also don't tend to last very long in historical time scales(with a couple exceptions). Most of the time, the exist for a couple hundred years before they tear themselves apart and are re-conquered internally by a new government that may or may not keep the old name. This process is actually common enough that older cultures recognized it as a cycle similar to the seasons, the chinese for example called it the "Mandate of Heaven".



That is not part of the premise what so ever. You can 100% go post-scarcity. The only things that are disallowed are infinite loops and other "I ascend to slay the gods at level 4" cheese.[quote]

I was under the impression all the NI stuff got shut down, as we're the industrial-scale magic availability, specifically because it's use inevitably leads to abuse. Post-scarcity means "I have whatever materials I need or want". NI resources lead to large-scale problems. Hence why I assume resource-gathering still matter.

[Quite]"Safe Wishes" HA! But joking aside, that's never going to happen. You are essentially giving everyone a button and telling them "don't push that button". Eventually, every single person is going to be so angry, so drunk, or just not paying attention one day and say something they regret.

Maybe in your society that cares about silly things like "free will". You're really not understanding the kind of society that would end up having everybody magic: it ends up being more or less a hivemind. We're not connected, and everybody thinks their own thoughts, but only the thoughts they're allowed to think by those in charge.

People are fallible. That's an obstacle to overcome. It's also inherently an overcomeable obstacle in a high-magic setting.


That wasn't really my intention. When I say "abusing "Greater Effects" wishes", I don't mean they don't happen. I mean that they don't happen the way the user intends, Reinterpretation/Partial completion and all that.

An better explanation would be "default All greater wishes to functioning as if they were being fulfilled by a sadistic DM that's lost patience with you".

And my point is "the consequences for greater wish effects" are going to tend towards falling on the individual and their immediate family. Unless you're saying that wishes can't be abused to rewrite nation borders in your favor on purpose, but can be used to rewrite nation borders not in your favor by accident. Wishes are either allowed to greatly alter the world at large or they're not. If they can't be large-scale abused, they shouldn't have large-scale consequences either. You're breaking your own premise rules just to win the argument.

[Maat Mons]

Erm, no, I didn't mean "tightly regulated small groups." I meant "moderately regulated large group." Yes, the larger group is going to let bad eggs in with more regularity, but it's also going to take more bad eggs to impact the larger group. A large population makes things cluster towards the mean. A small population makes everything chancier. The smaller group has better odds of going a long time without encountering problems, but it also has better odds of running into catastrophe immediately. The population of magic users needs to be large enough that all the individual good and bad decision blur into one big average. The average of a large group can be relied upon. The decisions of individuals can't be.

Maybe it would help if I used an example from scifi. If humanity has weapons that can destroy planets in one shot, it is imperative that humanity colonize as many planets as possible. Human nature means some planets are going to get blown up, so we need spares. Yes, the large number of planets guarantees a steady rate of interplanetary wars where whole worlds drop like flies, but with a sufficient rate of new colonization, those losses won't stop humanity as a whole from growing. It would be utterly foolish to stay on one planet and try to keep the planet-destroying weapon from being used. Those efforts, no matter how good, will fail eventually, and then humanity will be gone, because we had all our eggs in one basket. Similarly, if we have weapons that can destroy an entire galaxy, we need to colonize as many galaxies as possible, and if we have weapons that can destroy entire universes, we need to colonize as many universes as possible.

[Promethean]

I was under the impression all the NI stuff got shut down, as we're the industrial-scale magic availability, specifically because it's use inevitably leads to abuse. Post-scarcity means "I have whatever materials I need or want". NI resources lead to large-scale problems. Hence why I assume resource-gathering still matter.

I guess I didn't communicate my intentions very well, I'll have to re-write the original post.

When I say NI loops, I only meant things like NI stat inflation or unlimited self-refilling spell slots from thing like tainted scholar abuse. I don't really care if there are wizards using wish to alter the landscape or cause natural disasters or create artifacts that are otherwise impossible to make, I just don't want "wish" to homogenize the setting in a way that it becomes "whatever the first person to learn wish Wants". That was the thing that was derailing the first thread.

Post scarcity societies, people abusing spell traps for infinite production like its tippyverse, and other things of that nature are fine with me.

I'm having trouble clearly drawing the line between that and people turning themselves into punpun for the discussion at hand, though.



Maybe in your society that cares about silly things like "free will". You're really not understanding the kind of society that would end up having everybody magic: it ends up being more or less a hivemind. We're not connected, and everybody thinks their own thoughts, but only the thoughts they're allowed to think by those in charge.

People are fallible. That's an obstacle to overcome. It's also inherently an overcomeable obstacle in a high-magic setting.

Slow down there asmodeus, the pact primera is still in effect!



And my point is "the consequences for greater wish effects" are going to tend towards falling on the individual and their immediate family. Unless you're saying that wishes can't be abused to rewrite nation borders in your favor on purpose, but can be used to rewrite nation borders not in your favor by accident. Wishes are either allowed to greatly alter the world at large or they're not. If they can't be large-scale abused, they shouldn't have large-scale consequences either. You're breaking your own premise rules just to win the argument.

I apologize.

I honestly want greater wishes and epic magic to be a part of the "optimized" setting, but I don't want people just straight up break the setting and turn it into one character's personal... erm, "magical realm".

Any Ideas on how I can draw that line more clearly without nerfing things into the ground?

On the previous argument though(ignoring wish), I'm still in the camp that there are still other spells that do the job of "horrible setting destroying consequences if handling incorrectly". Giving everyone access to those spells is just a bad idea in general... For people with free will. The Borg hivemind thing makes me want to run your suggestion as an Elder Evil in my next campaign.


Erm, no, I didn't mean "tightly regulated small groups." I meant "moderately regulated large group." Yes, the larger group is going to let bad eggs in with more regularity, but it's also going to take more bad eggs to impact the larger group. A large population makes things cluster towards the mean. A small population makes everything chancier. The smaller group has better odds of going a long time without encountering problems, but it also has better odds of running into catastrophe immediately. The population of magic users needs to be large enough that all the individual good and bad decision blur into one big average. The average of a large group can be relied upon. The decisions of individuals can't be.

I'm not sure that applies when considering high power magic/hyper advanced technology.

My genetically engineered super-plague comparison wasn't hyperbole. Giving everyone access to the ability to make super-plagues without heavy limitations is guaranteed to wipe out the majority of the human race. Some attacks/mistakes are just Too Big for even a 1000 to 1 majority to contain, and giving individuals the power and ability to make those decisions independently is just a bad idea in my book.

Granted, If you were to remove free will from the equation entirely, the might not be a problem.



Maybe it would help if I used an example from scifi. If humanity has weapons that can destroy planets in one shot, it is imperative that humanity colonize as many planets as possible. Human nature means some planets are going to get blown up, so we need spares. Yes, the large number of planets guarantees a steady rate of interplanetary wars where whole worlds drop like flies, but with a sufficient rate of new colonization, those losses won't stop humanity as a whole from growing. It would be utterly foolish to stay on one planet and try to keep the planet-destroying weapon from being used. Those efforts, no matter how good, will fail eventually, and then humanity will be gone, because we had all our eggs in one basket. Similarly, if we have weapons that can destroy an entire galaxy, we need to colonize as many galaxies as possible, and if we have weapons that can destroy entire universes, we need to colonize as many universes as possible.

Isn't that the setting for warhammer 40k? In the grim darkness of the future, There is only War...

Personally wouldn't want to live there.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by TalonOfAnathrax
Source on the Domain Focus feat that does that?

This question seems to have been overlooked, and I’d like to see that answer as well.

In particular, I’m not seeing how a +1 CL gets us to a +20 Competence bonus. Might be helpful to spell out the intermediate steps for the less cheese-aware among us.


Originally Posted by Maat Mons
Human nature means some planets are going to get blown up, so we need spares. Yes, the large number of planets guarantees a steady rate of interplanetary wars where whole worlds drop like flies, but with a sufficient rate of new colonization, those losses won't stop humanity as a whole from growing.

I’m not seeing this as a given by any stretch. If humans are able to both colonize and destroy worlds, then there’s no reason why an all-consuming conflict won’t reach every world humans have colonized, and no reason why every one of those worlds won’t be destroyed by one faction or another.

Increasing the scale doesn’t really matter here. If humans can both access and destroy X, then they can access and destroy all of X.

[Maat Mons]

Oh, right, Domain Focus. I meant to address that, but got distracted by crafting dystopias. It's an ACF from Dragon 347, specifically page 91.

You lose one domain and your spontaneous casting of Cure/Inflict spells. You actually have to pick one of your deity's domains as the one you're losing, and any spells in that domain that are normally on the Cleric spell list are removed from your spell list. You get to either double the numeric bonus from the granted power of your one remaining domain, or you get to double the number of daily uses of the granted power of your one remaining domain.

I'm not quite sure how it interacts with Cloistered Cleric.

Some fun domains to apply Domain Focus to are Commerce (+20 Profession bonus), Inquisition (+8 Dispel bonus), and Luck (2 rerolls per day).

[Promethean]

Another thing that was brought to my attention is the thought that if magic items become common enough, then you don't really Need spellcasters for the the vast majority of useful spells. In fact it becomes More costly to be a spellcaster for some things, because spells cost actions, material components and XP, while a magic item can be programmed to cast specific magic on use for free.

So wealthy individuals may not need to be or even need to employ casters, as apposed to employing large guilds of magic item crafters instead. In a society like that, being a magic user might not be any more important than being a STEM major IRL. It'd be decent pay and a respectable job, but you'll never be bill gates on that alone.

[Seward]

Simplest sweeping change I've implemented in some of my own settings is an absence of unskilled labour.

The undead chain gangs run by clerics and necromancers and the unseen servants provided by arcanes will likely pick up a lot of the slack :)

Unskilled labor probably loses value. Being able to form an undead labor gang or servant horde would get you your usual L3 type spell rates.

[Promethean]

The undead chain gangs run by clerics and necromancers and the unseen servants provided by arcanes will likely pick up a lot of the slack :)

Unskilled labor probably loses value. Being able to form an undead labor gang or servant horde would get you your usual L3 type spell rates.

Labor would also loose value with the introduction of tools that make training redundant. Not just because of zombies and magic items doing the work for most things, with stuff like "Item of Legend" masterwork tools from Dragonlance(tools that grant +10 masterwork bonus to rolls) making skill ranks entirely redundant for most things. Pair any of those tools with a headbands or something that gives the "jack of all trades" feat, and any average joe could to any job with reasonable competence or a group of them could use aid-another stacks to do the job of an expert.

Granted, which are cheaper to mass produce at large scales, undead or warforged?