Theoretical Caster Relevancy Limit.

[Promethean]

I was having a conversion earlier(not on this board) where I was bringing up to another person(whom I'll refer to as "Steve") the difficulty I was having making an optimized setting.

What I couldn't figure out was a way where the setting wouldn't eventually hit a 100% caster population do to optimized casters being able to make other classes irrelevant at high levels. For anyone who participated in my "Optimized Setting" post series, this is the reason why I stopped, because another poster pointed this problem out to me on this board.

Steve pointed out to me that optimized casters only remain relevant as long as optimized magic item crafting rules aren't in the equation for very long. Using magic item creation, most of the OP caster builds could be replicated by magic items and with shorter casting times(or even no casting time on an on-use Item). A martial class getting their hands on these items would put them in the same weight-class as any caster with them because of how the action economy works, but the martial would generally have higher health, better saves and armor, and more attacks to make, especially if the On-Use item is a weapon.

This has been bouncing around in my head since then and I have too see other peoples opinions on this. IS "Steve" correct here? Do Casters become irrelevant if custom magic items become common enough? Where would the "Saturation Point" where the martial classes start outpacing caster classes be?

[sreservoir]

Yes, it is well-known that WBLmancy smooths over tier differences, and this is simply the extreme extension of that idea.

[AvatarVecna]

In general, yes, WBL can allow a non-caster to achieve some pretty powerful things that make casters less dominant. A number of these things (wands and scrolls of powerful spells) might require UMD, but it's the kind of thing a martial adventurer shouldn't have too much trouble getting their hands on. I don't share the opinion some people possess (that Fighter is completely balanced against Wizard if you build him to be Batman), but it does make a difference.

However, when you're encouraging casting on a societal scale, it's still gonna scale things towards a caster society. Yes, a Fighter 16 with WBLmancy is much closer to a Wizard 16 with WBLmancy than a normal Fighter 16 vs Wizard 16, but a society biased towards casters doesn't really give the Fighter the opportunity to gain magic items or level 16. You're a level 1 fighter, and the adventuring party either takes on you, or the lvl 1 wizard. Of course they're taking the wizard, because the whole party is wizards, and that means they can all swap even more spells among themselves (which doesn't even get into how Wizard 1 might just be more useful than Fighter 1 on such an adventure). Sure, you've got full ranks in UMD somehow, but it doesn't matter because you can't afford a wand anyway.

There are four ways to make money very quickly in D&D: you adventure (gaining gold and XP), you sell spellcasting services (which you can't do), you sell item crafting (which you can only do for mundane items), or you run a business (DMG2 rules). If you're a PC Fighter in a normal D&D game, you're gonna accumulate money eventually - a caster PC might make money more easily, but there's only so many casters you have to compete with. There will always be something for your motley crew to mop up that isn't worth their time.

But if you're stuck in a caster-supremacy world, you have no opportunities. All the weak monsters are used by caster parties to grind up to lvl 7. All the stronger monsters are being used to fuel the XP machines of archmages and artificers. Sure, if you could find threats to deal with that a caster didn't already deal with, you could theoretically accumulate enough gp and XP to buy the same god-items the casters use, and then you could maybe outperform them. But you can't find those fights, so you're stuck using Craft/Perform/Profession to make copper pieces while they're rolling in dough. Even if you could accumulate the wealth, you'd still have no XP - and while it might be better to give the super-item to a Fighter 16 instead of a Wizard 16, it's going to be better to give it to a Wizard 16 than a Fighter 1.

That's not to say this is what a RAW Universe would end up looking like though. What would actually even the playing field is the DMG2 Business Rules, for a few different reasons. Firstly, starting up a business is waaaaay less expensive than the powerful magic items, and it gives you passive income (provided you can hit DC 26 reliably). Secondly, business events can give you XP even if caster adventuring parties have scoured the area clean: somehow, some way, a monster will show up to wreck your shop, and you've got to fight it off. It'll always be a kind of difficult fight, but if you're making good money, you can afford the toys to win those fights. Thirdly, if you can reliably hit DC 26 on the profit check, and you can prevent the events that would destroy your business, your profits will inevitably increase as times goes on. Fourthly, a highly-successful business that's already had hugs improvements to their profit per month can be inherited for cheap.

Sure, if you start your own business right now, you're gonna be making tiny money compared to what the long-running businesses are making...but you're not their competition anyway, and you might be able to just buy your parents' business instead. Or the family business that's been running in this town for three hundred years. If every family has a business per family member, everybody's going to be raking in the gp and XP regardless of what local threats there are for adventuring martials to deal with. If every family has been doing this long enough, the differences between casters and noncasters doesn't really matter: everybody can afford the items necessary for wish loop nonsense, so it's a question of where the optimization ceiling is arbitrarily set to in this world.

In general, though, Steve is correct. If we were to take an extreme example and gift a Ring Of Infinite Wishes Of Infinite power to several people, it doesn't really matter who has it: if one person who has it is a Wizard 21, great! But they're not really that much stronger than the Commoner 1 who has the same ring. The wizard will probably have a higher intelligence, and use the ring more efficiently, I suppose? But at that point, the class/build barely matters, and it's more the player behind them. In a normal game, casters are the only ones who can really access those items, and while they might be willing to craft for the party, they're more likely to use their hard-earned feats and XP on themselves than on making the fighter suck less. In a setting where casters are nearly everywhere, either martials have nothing to do, or magic doesn't matter because money is literally everywhere, and you can use money to buy better magic.

[Twurps]

A lot of people like soccer, and I mean a LOT of people. You can get a lot of fame, and a lot of money playing football, and again I mean a LOT of fame and a LOT of money. It has been this way for many years. How can it be that not everybody is a Messi/Ronaldo-esque soccer-player?

And for those who don't like soccer, replace it with internet-entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg style

What I'm getting at is: No matter how much you(r society) like(s) casters, some people are going to be something else. (And by some people, I mean most people). So unless the casters start a mass genocide on non-casters, and keep this up with every newborn non-caster, how will you ever end up with only casters?


You're a level 1 fighter, and the adventuring party either takes on you, or the lvl 1 wizard. Of course they're taking the wizard, because the whole party is wizards, and that means they can all swap even more spells among themselves (which doesn't even get into how Wizard 1 might just be more useful than Fighter 1 on such an adventure). Sure, you've got full ranks in UMD somehow, but it doesn't matter because you can't afford a wand anyway.

So fighter finds 3 others that have been 'left out' in the same way and voilá, a non caster adventuring party is born!

[AvatarVecna]

A lot of people like soccer, and I mean a LOT of people. You can get a lot of fame, and a lot of money playing football, and again I mean a LOT of fame and a LOT of money. It has been this way for many years. How can it be that not everybody is a Messi/Ronaldo-esque soccer-player?

And for those who don't like soccer, replace it with internet-entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg style

What I'm getting at is: No matter how much you(r society) like(s) casters, some people are going to be something else. (And by some people, I mean most people). So unless the casters start a mass genocide on non-casters, and keep this up with every newborn non-caster, how will you ever end up with only casters?

Only so many people can be at the top of their field, but that doesn't mean the other soccer players aren't soccer players. Just because not everybody is the next Elminster doesn't mean everybody can't be another Mialee.

Caster society gives every baby born +5 inherent to all stats. This gives something like a 98.5% chance of having a 14+ in at least one caster stat, giving basicslly everybody the opportunity to be a caster if they wanna be. They won't be the biggest baddest casters in the world, but they'll still be able to have at least a few superpowers.


So fighter finds 3 others that have been 'left out' in the same way and voilá, a non caster adventuring party is born!

This solves the "doesn't have a party" problem. It does not solve the "doesn't have anything to do" problem. All the lvl 1 problems got given to lvl 3 mage parties instead to help them reach lvl 4, not to lvl 1 fighter's. All the lvl 7 problems got given to lvl 10 wizards to help them reach lvl 11. When there's enough casters to handle the problems, why give any of them to the noncasters?

[icefractal]

On the OP, I'd say that's correct - it's not that casters are that powerful, it's that magic is that powerful. Once sufficiently high optimization is on the table, magic becomes abundant and cheap, meaning that being powerful is more about acquiring and combining the right magic than about whether you perform that magic "yourself".

That said, if you start talking NI levels of optimization, you don't have "an all caster population", you have "a single person running everything". A sufficiently powerful caster (whether inherently or via items) doesn't need anybody else, including other casters. You might still end up with multiple competing power-blocs, but in any case 99.999...% of the population has no effect on things and lives however their overlord wants them to.

So for most thought experiment purposes, there's a limit on how high-op you want to go.

[Maat Mons]

I guess, if an all-caster society is repellant to you, you could house-rule that some sort of special "spark" is necessary to learn magic. Then you just pick the percent of the population who's born with the "spark" in your campaign setting to match how many people you want to have as casters.

Personally, I hate this approach. I'd really like it if some people aren't just "born better," as my bottled water bills itself. And I think having magical ability run in families could easily lead to some sort of horrifying in-universe eugenics program. Though I guess you could view that as a possible campaign hook.



In order to have a society that makes sense, it will probably be necessary to completely redo how xp and leveling work. If you let people level up by squishing frogs, the take-home work from school is going to be very gross. If you require "real" fights to gain xp, then strife and turmoil become necessary for the existence of strong magic. Though that would explain why the D&D world is full of monsters and suffering in spite of the presence of powerful mages who can shape the world into anything they want.

In a sensible world, getting better at something should require practicing that thing. So you gain Wizard levels by reading books, Cleric levels by spending time in prayer, and Druid levels by refusing to bathe. "I'd like to be able to Cure Disease, so I guess I'd better go cracks some goblin heads open with by mace" is, when you think about it, kind of a bizarre paradigm. The only way that D&D leveling makes sense is if you're literally absorbing the power of your slain foes, Highlander style.



Anyway, on the magic item front, yeah, abundant magic items can do pretty take care of all society's needs without everybody needing to be spellcasters. If you allow magic items that create other magic items, you can set up magic items factories that can be staffed primarily by non-casters, who mostly just feed in raw materials and package up the product for shipping. If learning magic is time-consuming, and the quality of life attainable without putting in that effort is high, lots of people might just choose not to study magic, even if they have the necessary ability and access to resources. You could even wind up in a post-scarcity utopia where the knowledge of how to build the machines that sustain everyone has been completely lost.

[Promethean]

On the OP, I'd say that's correct - it's not that casters are that powerful, it's that magic is that powerful. Once sufficiently high optimization is on the table, magic becomes abundant and cheap, meaning that being powerful is more about acquiring and combining the right magic than about whether you perform that magic "yourself".

That said, if you start talking NI levels of optimization, you don't have "an all caster population", you have "a single person running everything". A sufficiently powerful caster (whether inherently or via items) doesn't need anybody else, including other casters. You might still end up with multiple competing power-blocs, but in any case 99.999...% of the population has no effect on things and lives however their overlord wants them to.

So for most thought experiment purposes, there's a limit on how high-op you want to go.

Yeah I get this. Unspoken addendum that we should assume more on the PO than the TO side, but where's the cutoff?

What would be a good percentage of population for casters, martials/Initiators, Psions, and more obscure classes if cheap, High Level magic item crafting opens up to the wider market?

How do things like Weapon regulations work with this(considering your society isn't going to want toddlers playing with Wands of Nuclear Disaster)?

Honestly, I think a High-OP setting might look more like a kind of reverse Shadowrun in that it'd be a High fantasy society where magic does many of the jobs of technology and Guilds in place of mega-corporations. Things like corporate espionage or political assassinations would probably be more common then dungeon-delving parties of plucky adventurers, so rogues and initiators decked out in as much magical gear as they could fit would have a lot more value the the average wizard(who would likely be tech-support service reps in such a world).

[Mechalich]

The amount of GP necessary for a character without spellcasting (or even a half-caster), to keep pace with a Tier I full caster at higher levels assuming practical optimization is immense. Even a low-end estimate is in the millions, per individual. It's enough that, in order for sufficient item-proliferation to insure widespread item-based near-parity to occur the setting inevitably transforms into some kind of post-scarcity environment.

Post-scarcity universes are weird and difficult to tell stories in, especially because they generally rely upon the mediation of some kind of superintelligence to manage the countless moving parts and prevent cataclysms from occurring due to literally everyone having WMDs available to them at all times.

[Soranar]

There's 2 things about a caster society.

First we forget that average humans are exactly that, average.

Even if someone did want to be a high level caster, they don't have the stats to pull it off. Most humans have an INT/WIS/CHA of 10 so they'll never be able to learn or cast a spell.

On top of that non player characters are mostly restricted to NPC classes (commoner, expert, noble, adept). Only 1 of those can even cast spells and it can't do it that well.

Finally normal people don't have optimized STATS. A monk with generally low STATS but a high charisma could happen just like a particularly dumb person could decide to become an adept.

Adventuring parties (especially with a 32 pts buy system) are very unusual people.

Hell it used to be you couldn't be anything other than a rogue unless you rolled high enough (1rst and 2nd edition) nevermind something with insane requirements like a paladin (rolling a 17 CHA was a 1.4 % chance)

With all of that in mind, I don't see casters becoming common enough to form an entire society.

[sreservoir]

There's 2 things about a caster society.

First we forget that average humans are exactly that, average.

Even if someone did want to be a high level caster, they don't have the stats to pull it off. Most humans have an INT/WIS/CHA of 10 so they'll never be able to learn or cast a spell.

"Average" characters, per DMG 110, have 3d6-rolled stats, at least in theory. This gives them a coinflip's chance of rolling 11+ on each of Int/Wis/Cha, independently, so that only 1/8 average humans don't have a single viable casting stat, even before accounting for a sufficiently wealthy society's ability to wish everyone +5 inherent across the board.

[Soranar]

Monsters are assumed to have completely average scores. The non elite array is 8,9,10,11,12,13.

Your average commoner is more likely to work with his hands doing grueling work and never reading a book. Never mind a magic one.

So it'd be more likely he or she spent his time working on his physical attributes, not his mental ones.

[Maat Mons]

How common any given class is depends on the campaign setting. Some pre-published settings have regions where certain classes are noted to be more common. In some cases, this is even explained in the lore as the result of the government taking measures to encourage those classes.

So if we're talking about a setting where the government engages in a large-scale program to provide training of some sort to the populace, we can expect that whatever class that training corresponds to will be more common in that setting than in most other settings. The fact that, in a "generic" setting, most NPCs don't have levels in PC classes, thus, doesn't really do anything to argue against the possibility of creating a setting where PC classes are relatively common due to a robust public education system.

Moreover, if we decide that there exists no way a society could have different demographics than those given in the random tables in the DMG, then this entire discussion, which is about how in-setting factors would logically change those demographics, is meaningless. So "You can't have a caster-heavy society because the DMG says casters are rare," doesn't really engage with the premise here.



If we acknowledge that ability scores are influenced by a person's life, then we acknowledge that changing the nature of life in a setting means changing the ability scores processed by people in those settings. For example, if we decide that farmers and manual laborers have good Strength scores, because of all the exercise their professions give them, then we must conclude that forcing a stringent exercise routine on a populace will result in higher average Strength scores among them. And if we decide that peasants have low Intelligence scores because they have little opportunity for book learning, then we must conclude that forcing everyone to spend hours a day studying will result in people having higher Intelligence scores on average.

So the people in charge can, if they desire, arrange large-scale training that pushes individuals towards whatever ability score arrays the government considers desirable.

The alternative is that ability scores are inborn, and can't be changed by hard work and dedication. In that case, everything is up to luck, and maybe genetics, if that exists in a D&D setting. Then there's no particular reason a surf couldn't be born with a high Intelligence score. If Intelligence isn't acquired through study, there's nothing about a low station that prevents you from being smart.



Personally, I like the interpretation that, if you take a baby, and raise it with all the right resources and advantages, you can pretty reliably get a character with the elite array and a PC class. In this case, the reason Commoners exist in a typical setting is just that a typical setting doesn't give the masses access to those things.

I guess you could take the view that only a select few people are born with the capacity to ever take levels in PC classes. Then, I suppose, at birth a sage divines which individuals have "a great destiny," and which are turds that could never be polished even if you tried.



tldr: If it's possible for the actions of people in this fantasy setting to change their world, then things like "How many spellcasters are there?" are fluid based on the actions of people in the setting. If it's impossible for the status quo to ever meaningfully change no matter what anyone in the setting does, then I guess all the adventurers could just as well stay home.

[Mechalich]

One thing that's important to keep in mind here is that high level casters create additional casters. Even if you disregard Ice Assassin as overly broken, even a garden variety Simulacrum allows a single 20th level wizard to create an endless supply of 10th-level casters of every stripe that they know.

This gets particularly nasty when you bring in something like Warforged, because you can now create an infinite supply of immortal, tireless casters who don't eat for all your needs, to the point that the availability of any spell below 5th level in the setting is functionally at will. Consider, just for a start, that Fabricate and Wall of Stone are 5th level spells.

[icefractal]

It's definitely a factor. With ways to gain arbitrary amounts of resources or ignore material components, it becomes the dominant factor, what I referred to in NI-level optimization above - you don't have societies of optimized people, you have one optimized person running everything.

But even without that, even assuming resources are meaningfully limited, Simulacrum is a bargain. 1000 gp for 10 HD minion is pretty cheap, compared to training or hiring someone of that level, plus very fast, plus absolutely loyal. It does cost XP, so if XP-acquisition is sufficiently risky/difficult, then that could be an incentive to recruit/train people instead of just simulating them.



Speaking of which, how XP is gained is a huge factor in what an optimized world looks like. Let's consider some possibilities:

Easy - any combat/challenge gives XP according to the level of the opposition, including nonlethal sparring matches. In this case, you can speed-train people to high level in a short time just by having them practice against each-other, and any XP costs can very easily be recovered.

Hard - only combats/conflicts where the specific person involved has a non-trivial (let's say at least 5%) chance to suffer meaningful consequences give XP. This is, notably, a harsher standard than most campaigns use. So if you have a friend ready to raise you from death and the cost involved won't hurt meaningfully, risk of death doesn't count, for example. So as you become more powerful it becomes harder to get XP unless you fight at a severe handicap, and also by definition there's no safe way to farm XP. In this case, high-level people are going to remain fairly rare, and there's an incentive to get your "life plan" working at the lowest possible level. And XP costs will be quite painful and avoided whenever possible.

[Biggus]

A lot of people like soccer, and I mean a LOT of people. You can get a lot of fame, and a lot of money playing football, and again I mean a LOT of fame and a LOT of money. It has been this way for many years. How can it be that not everybody is a Messi/Ronaldo-esque soccer-player?


Because soccer has only been highly popular for a few generations? Because there are other, equally good ways to become rich/powerful/successful?

If there was profession which made you more successful than all others, and that were the case for a long time, more and more of the population would become like that. That's how evolution works.

[Maat Mons]

Actually, becoming highly skilled or successful often requires a big enough time investment that it takes away from the time you might otherwise spend obtaining a romantic partner and having children. Conversely, people who aren't very careful about conceiving children can wind up forgoing education to raise their unexpected bundles of "joy," and might find themselves with many more children if they don't modify their behavior. Evolution doesn't favor the nerdy Wizard who spends all his time alone in a library unlocking the secrets of the universe. Evolution favors the charming Rogue who spends all his time wooing naive farm girls and skipping town to avoid the wrath of the fathers of the many women he's knocked up.

[Melcar]

I was having a conversion earlier(not on this board) where I was bringing up to another person(whom I'll refer to as "Steve") the difficulty I was having making an optimized setting.

What I couldn't figure out was a way where the setting wouldn't eventually hit a 100% caster population do to optimized casters being able to make other classes irrelevant at high levels. For anyone who participated in my "Optimized Setting" post series, this is the reason why I stopped, because another poster pointed this problem out to me on this board.

Steve pointed out to me that optimized casters only remain relevant as long as optimized magic item crafting rules aren't in the equation for very long. Using magic item creation, most of the OP caster builds could be replicated by magic items and with shorter casting times(or even no casting time on an on-use Item). A martial class getting their hands on these items would put them in the same weight-class as any caster with them because of how the action economy works, but the martial would generally have higher health, better saves and armor, and more attacks to make, especially if the On-Use item is a weapon.

This has been bouncing around in my head since then and I have too see other peoples opinions on this. IS "Steve" correct here? Do Casters become irrelevant if custom magic items become common enough? Where would the "Saturation Point" where the martial classes start outpacing caster classes be?

Any world, where the DM does not fiat the world into some form of low magic low tech, LotR kind of world, is a world where basically everyone has unlimited money and cast high level magic. Remember. In a world where UMD is a skill, everyone is casting spells... from the lowly commoner to the epic mages like Larloch, Srinshee, Elminster, Ioulaum and hundreds of other lesser casters... Its completely post scarcity and there are no farmers or hunters anymore. And that is simply because fabricate is a thing. Spend 1 gp worth of raw gold, get 3 gold coins. Rinse and repeat! 1,3,9,27, 81, etc....

Whatever relevance WBL had is gone! And I - as a DM - would not even fault my players for doing that. Its completely raw and not even cheesy at all. Stupid sure, I mean who were the designers of this game anyway, but still... in a world were the D&D 3.5 magic rules exist, inflation is through the roof. A loaf of bread probably costs millions of PP... and thats not even a problem... its a drop in the proverbial unlimited amount of money everybody has. R

[Telonius]

There's probably an argument for comparative advantage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage) in there somewhere. Even if spells can do literally everything more efficiently than mundane means, they don't do everything the same percent better than mundanes. As long as that's true, it would make sense to have some mundanes around for specific tasks.

Besides that, there's the hard limit of stats. There will always be people who have extremely low mental stats, making spellcasting impossible. Unless we're assuming they distribute +6 Tomes and stat-boosting items to everybody, there will always be people who literally can't cast a spell.

[unseenmage]

It's even worse if the optimizer caster IS the magic items. Thanks to Warforged Embedded Components, the MIC item combining rules, and the Constructs as Magic Items rules interpretation it is fairly easy to be a caster who adds nigh infinite magic item and Construct superpowers to themselves. Forever.

The one I played had this going on in the background on a super fast time plane while their avatar went out and adventured.

[Twurps]

Only so many people can be at the top of their field, but that doesn't mean the other soccer players aren't soccer players. Just because not everybody is the next Elminster doesn't mean everybody can't be another Mialee.
True, and yet I'm not a soccer player, and excuse me for assuming, but I'm guessing you aren't either.



This solves the "doesn't have a party" problem. It does not solve the "doesn't have anything to do" problem. All the lvl 1 problems got given to lvl 3 mage parties instead to help them reach lvl 4, not to lvl 1 fighter's. All the lvl 7 problems got given to lvl 10 wizards to help them reach lvl 11. When there's enough casters to handle the problems, why give any of them to the noncasters?

You don't need somebody 'giving out problems' to run into problems/challenges. Also: the amount of problems isn't finite. If 'looking for trouble' isn't enough, 'creating trouble' certainly is. What, the world doesn't have any bars anymore to start a barfight?


Because soccer has only been highly popular for a few generations? Because there are other, equally good ways to become rich/powerful/successful?

If there was profession which made you more successful than all others, and that were the case for a long time, more and more of the population would become like that. That's how evolution works.

But it's not though. Public school teacher has never been a very highly paying job. But for some other reason (people find it rewarding, people are ignorant of other options, people value the amount of free time it provides, whatever) Public school teachers still exist. The same is true for a plethora of lower paying jobs, or any job that's not 'a career leading to richdom' for that matter. Money(/magic/power) is not the only driving factor in people's lives.



That said, if you start talking NI levels of optimization, you don't have "an all caster population", you have "a single person running everything". A sufficiently powerful caster (whether inherently or via items) doesn't need anybody else, including other casters. You might still end up with multiple competing power-blocs, but in any case 99.999...% of the population has no effect on things and lives however their overlord wants them to.


Very much agree. And to add to that: powerful people/nations/factions just don't have a tendency to peacefully co-exist and sing kumbaya around a campfire. They have a tendency to war/strife with each other, even to the point of (mutual) self destruction. And at least in our own history this has led to a significant loss of wealth/knowhow/technology multiple times. Factions would actively try (and often succeed) in destroying each others means of warfare/welfare. So magic items and magic people alike might very well remain scarce.


There's probably an argument for comparative advantage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage) in there somewhere. Even if spells can do literally everything more efficiently than mundane means, they don't do everything the same percent better than mundanes. As long as that's true, it would make sense to have some mundanes around for specific tasks.

True. And this would hold up for both economic and military goals. which is why adventurers of any class can still rise through the ranks.

[Promethean]

Any world, where the DM does not fiat the world into some form of low magic low tech, LotR kind of world, is a world where basically everyone has unlimited money and cast high level magic. Remember. In a world where UMD is a skill, everyone is casting spells... from the lowly commoner to the epic mages like Larloch, Srinshee, Elminster, Ioulaum and hundreds of other lesser casters... Its completely post scarcity and there are no farmers or hunters anymore. And that is simply because fabricate is a thing. Spend 1 gp worth of raw gold, get 3 gold coins. Rinse and repeat! 1,3,9,27, 81, etc....

Whatever relevance WBL had is gone! And I - as a DM - would not even fault my players for doing that. Its completely raw and not even cheesy at all. Stupid sure, I mean who were the designers of this game anyway, but still... in a world were the D&D 3.5 magic rules exist, inflation is through the roof. A loaf of bread probably costs millions of PP... and thats not even a problem... its a drop in the proverbial unlimited amount of money everybody has. R

I mean, is post scarcity for basic resources(food, water, shelter, etc.) Really that big a negative on gameplay and/or worldbuilding? On the gameplay side, Those are thing players pretty much bypass or agree to ignore pretty early on. On worldbuilding, even IRL cultures where the economy reaches saturation point and basic resources are non-factors, focus instead becomes on social mobility. There'd still be wars, social conflict, between people and person vs guild/person vs government conflict.

As far as higher level magic, that's where the big question need to be. Nobody is going to argue how bad it would get if the wrong person had had Wish, let alone Everyone, so there would definitely need to be serious regulations on high level magic and high level magic items to prevent society wide self-destruction.

As far as resources go, that may actually be self-regulating to an extent if it's limited to needing to kill things(or defeat humanoids) around your level. High level monsters aren't common, and the ones that Do exist tend to have lengthy life-cycles, so potential xp farm designs have cut-offs around every 5 levels where they become exponentially more difficult and expensive to build. Most will likely never get above level 10 except in Major Cities in cultural and economic hubs of trade.

[AvatarVecna]

True, and yet I'm not a soccer player, and excuse me for assuming, but I'm guessing you aren't either.

Being a soccer player also doesn't grant actual magic powers. There's a finite amount of money in the world - any dollar in your pocket is a dollar somebody else can't have in theirs. But in D&D, everybody who wants to be can become a mage. There's not a finite demand for magical ability, and magic can be used to solve any problem - in a way that IRL money cannot be used. If you're a child with dreams, magic makes better money, but more importantly it supplies you with magic directly. Going without magic means no magic yourself, and limited funds because you're getting the dregs because nobody wants to pay you to do anything when a mage does it better. You'll get stuck doing menial labor, assuming this all-mage society hasn't got Unseen Servants handling everything.


You don't need somebody 'giving out problems' to run into problems/challenges. Also: the amount of problems isn't finite. If 'looking for trouble' isn't enough, 'creating trouble' certainly is. What, the world doesn't have any bars anymore to start a barfight?

1) If society biases towards giving mages jobs, you're stuck with the job offers that were too small to be worth a mage's time. Since lvl 1 mages aren't exactly overflowing in dignity any more than you are, that's going to be a very small pool. You could maybe try and find an animal whose ass hasn't been kicked in the nearby vicinity, and try to get XP that way. But that's generally gonna be a slow path to success, and it's not like every toad just happens to have a dozen copper pieces in his stomach, so you won't get rich either. And that only lasts until you get put in jail for being a psychopath who keeps kicking puppies and crushing toads beneath your foot just because it's your only way to get XP.

2) If winning a nonlethal barfight is sufficient to get XP, then everybody in the world is arbitrarily high level because gaining XP doesn't require somebody to suffer death. In a world where death is required, there's gonna be winners who level and losers who die; the winners will largely be mages, and the losers will largely be animals, and the audience (people not participating in fights) will largely be non-mages. If defeat is acceptable instead of requiring death, then anybody who wants to be can be whatever level they want as long as they can find so much as a single person near their level willing to win-trade. And mages will still be better at win-trading because they have better native access to healing, and can recover after a bout in seconds instead of hours.

3) Creating trouble as a lvl 1 fighter is a good way to be the problem that lvl 1 mages solve. Then they get the XP instead of you. And in a society with a lot of casters, they're going to be everywhere. Even if they're not the majority, there's going to be more than a few in the bar when you start the bar fight.


But it's not though. Public school teacher has never been a very highly paying job. But for some other reason (people find it rewarding, people are ignorant of other options, people value the amount of free time it provides, whatever) Public school teachers still exist. The same is true for a plethora of lower paying jobs, or any job that's not 'a career leading to richdom' for that matter. Money(/magic/power) is not the only driving factor in people's lives.

Money and power aren't the driving factors in most people's lives because they're hard to get and don't necessarily solve all your problems. Magic isn't the driving factor in IRL people's lives because it's not an option available. You cannot seriously stand here and tell me you know anybody who, when asked "what superpower would you want", would answer "none for me thanks". If superpowers were a thing you could just learn to have whatever powers you wanted, basically everybody would have them. Anyone who insists otherwise is either lying to themselves.


Very much agree. And to add to that: powerful people/nations/factions just don't have a tendency to peacefully co-exist and sing kumbaya around a campfire. They have a tendency to war/strife with each other, even to the point of (mutual) self destruction. And at least in our own history this has led to a significant loss of wealth/knowhow/technology multiple times. Factions would actively try (and often succeed) in destroying each others means of warfare/welfare. So magic items and magic people alike might very well remain scarce.

This is sorta true and sorta not. It got brought up in the other threads along this line, but you're correct that human nature would drive people to competition - not everybody, because not everybody is a murderhobo, but enough. Some people with magic will prefer a more peaceful solution, and some people will be abusing magic to destroy all their enemies. First Strike Advantage means the latter people will take out the former and gain XP for their defeat. All the murderhobos are competing to be the first to a particular level of competency, which is (more or less) universal domination in some form or another. The two obvious easy paths to this kind of thing are wish loops and time travel: if you're the first person to accomplish either, you have the opportunity to decide that you're the only one to ever accomplish it.

From there it becomes a dictatorship where Gandalf The Genie Timelord gets to decide the shape society takes. And he's gonna want soldiers that are useful against other wizard genie timelords out there in the multiverse, in case they exist. And fighters are not that useful. A society he controls is more useful to him if it's full of mages that he's in charge of and can un-make with his magic if they ever seem like they might be a threat to his power. It's in his interest to encourage power-gaming on the part of these lesser mages, to develop optimized strategies he didn't think of so he can steal them for himself.

If the universe has arbitrary optimization limits that prevent those kinds of shenanigans, it's still better for a caster society. Not all mages will want to work together with anybody, but some will. The ones that do will band together and form their own mage-run nation. A mage-run nation promoting unity between nations has more magical power, which gives them the advantage in every conflict. Even in a world that isn't a dictatorship run by a literal god-wizard, and is just a regular society of people made by people who abandoned their old societies to make a new better one with them in charge, is better off with more mages and fewer non-mages.

[arkangel111]

I think you really need to ask yourself how far you want to take this. I'm not even speaking TO/PO. We need to decide in which world all of this takes place.

@AvatarVecna you also have to realize that if magic was abundant people would take it for granted, and some would not want it for that reason as well. Technology is modern day magic, yet many people live off grid, forced into homelessness, or stuck in their ways. Hell every 10 years or so the next generation comes along and snubs their nose at a previous generations wonders, is it so hard to believe a generation wouldn't come up thinking technology has led the adults to nothing but ruin? I mean consoles and PC gaming are slowing down, favoring mobile apps. I mean realistically a college graduate and a wizard take the same skills. 2 decades ago Education was a big deal and it was the American Dream to get good grades and go to college. Now a large swath of the American public now thinks that public education is a joke, even privatized for money colleges are barely producing adults with brains. Switch this to a fantasy setting and it's easy to see that a coinflip could send a pro-wizard world either way.

And the idea that somehow it's easier to manage thousands of individuals with magic than to instead make it so no one can be a magician but you is absurd. it's easier to be the big guy with the gun and forcibly keep others locked down than to peacefully police thousands of individuals, and keep them from trying to break out the time travel shenanigans. That's why IRL dictators exist.

If we assume the government wants to take over the world you will have more people on the fringes of society NOT taking the blue pill, its just impractical to rule with an iron fist an entire world even with sufficiently advanced magic. You will always have Susie running off with jimmy and getting pregnant which means no +5 to all stats, Since I'd assume the easiest way is to get everyone at birth with this if you want the most amount of people. There will also be those that live on the edges of society and just ignore the government and do their own thing. You'll also have corruption running rampant with local authorities so many can slip through the cracks. With this scenario I would assume at most ~50%. If instead we assume the government has total control of the population of a small island or small country, you'll still end up with the same problems but probably be able to cast a wider net. With this scenario you might be able to push to ~70%. Lastly a small city, you might get about ~85%.

Now for your next big question. WHY? no really, even if there was a benevolent leader, he would have to take truly evil action in order to force a population in line with his ideal world. And if he's evil you'll have groups stepping up to take him down, not following his draconian policies. When realistically it's much easier to get a few "Nobles" and make them the ruling class, encouraging their children and doling out the +5 bonuses to every stat. Although not really sure why someone is just giving up these for free, especially since the last thing someone with power wants is to share it.

How can they afford it? I mean even if magic items got super cheap, many couldn't afford it based on commoner salary. If your instead saying oh, they are adventurers so money isn't an issue, well where did that money come from? in the normal setting gold bloat for PC's works because monster's have raided cities, or they are being paid exorbitant amounts by non-adventurers, or it's such a small hit to the economy that it can basically be ignored. if everyone is a wizard then everyone is an adventurer, i mean it's the easiest way to get levels and gold. if we hand wave that and say they get normal gold, ok. Now I have 500 wizard level 3's wanting to by my 1 item, price is going up not down. Which means the 1 warrior looking for an item that is "off meta" will likely have better gear, even if he has to scrounge the practice enchants from the apprentices.

Even if we get past these hurdles you still have the problem of people dabbling either purposefully or accidentally with forces that could wipe out entire populations, zombie apocalypse is a real thing in D&D after all, and it's hardly the worst thing that could happen. Thing is most world ending problems come from Casters not Mundanes, Now you've just made a world with ALOT more Casters.

I think that in all reality you would end up with some sort of reset event, long before you get to 100%. Now this sounds like more of an adventure. In Practical terms, if you are shooting for a realistic feeling setting I think ~20% is about the upper limits in a whole world, and maybe 40% in a country, without having a powerful overlord that is your plot hook. And 50% of those would likely be "Nobles" trying to get in good graces and following his policies. if instead you want a really high magic setting it's probably easier to assume everyone has access to 1-3 cantrips and 1-2 level 1 spell slots as part of their plot armor, and take the class out of that factor. This way you easily get ~98% has magical aptitude, then cut costs on magic items by 50-75% representing that their are tons of magic items, cursing maybe 15% of all items to show shoddiness making it through the system in greater abundance. All of this gets the same feeling your asking about without even considering classes.

[ShurikVch]

There's 2 things about a caster society.

First we forget that average humans are exactly that, average.

Even if someone did want to be a high level caster, they don't have the stats to pull it off. Most humans have an INT/WIS/CHA of 10 so they'll never be able to learn or cast a spell.
In the Jakandor campaign setting, Charonti - the local caster society - are using the Transmigration spell on all the dead whose souls aren't used in creation of magic items
Transmigration is kinda like reincarnation, except - rather than getting a new body ex nihilo while keeping the personality intact (level loss aside) - the spell's target is born anew by "normal way", and keeps neither memories, nor class. But guess what's they're actually keeping? Ability scores.
(In addition, Charonti have the Divine Match spell - all children from the "match" got +1 on one of their ability scores. Sure, spell can give the "no fitting match" result - but the possibility is still there...)

[Promethean]

In the Jakandor campaign setting, Charonti - the local caster society - are using the Transmigration spell on all the dead whose souls aren't used in creation of magic items
Transmigration is kinda like reincarnation, except - rather than getting a new body ex nihilo while keeping the personality intact (level loss aside) - the spell's target is born anew by "normal way", and keeps neither memories, nor class. But guess what's they're actually keeping? Ability scores.
(In addition, Charonti have the Divine Match spell - all children from the "match" got +1 on one of their ability scores. Sure, spell can give the "no fitting match" result - but the possibility is still there...)

A bit strange to be talking about magic from an obscure 2e exclusive setting explicitly not tied to any world? No offence, but I don't think those specific mechanics are likely to come up in most settings.

[Mechalich]

And the idea that somehow it's easier to manage thousands of individuals with magic than to instead make it so no one can be a magician but you is absurd. it's easier to be the big guy with the gun and forcibly keep others locked down than to peacefully police thousands of individuals, and keep them from trying to break out the time travel shenanigans. That's why IRL dictators exist.

The almighty tyrant-wizard king who rules over the world forever is indeed one of the end-states for a planet under 3.X D&D rules. Specifically, it's the end state when the first individual to unlock optimized Tier I spellcasting and hit level 17 happens to be Lawful Evil. Other outcomes are very possible, if the first person to obtain true ultimate power has other desires.

This is the thing about 3.X D&D - even a moderately optimized Tier I spellcaster is capable of becoming an unstoppable immortal god-king with only a modicum of effort (it's somewhat less complicated if they're a wizard, but the other Tier I classes can do this too). As a result the shape of such worlds, considered seriously, is entirely dependent upon who gets there first. And that, in turn, depends on both the initial conditions and a whole lot of randomness.

[Maat Mons]

Personally, when I contemplate designing a caster-heavy setting, I tend to aim for 60% of the population being casters. That corresponds to the idea that there are 5 "active" ability scores (Constitution being "passive"), and it makes sense to me that society would aim to train people in classes based on their highest "active" ability score.

For this, I rely on the interpretation that at least part of what determines ability scores is inborn and completely random. So I figure, at age whatever, everyone undergoes standardized testing to determine their aptitudes, and is then slotted into a branch of the public education system that reinforces that aptitude.

Since I enjoy both pondering and talking about this, here is my list of training programs sponsored by a hypothetical government.

Fighter: This is where you put the Strong people. Pathfinder has a feat that bypasses the need for Int on most Combat feats, and a Fighter archetype that lets you use Str for determining the benefits of Combat Reflexes. Oh, and an archetype that lets you have different feats available to you in different combats.

Rogue: This is where you put the Dexterous people. Unchained Rogue give free Weapon Finesse, and later Dex to damage with a chosen type of weapon.

Shaman: This is where you put the Wise people. Druids have alignment restrictions, and covering all possible alignments for Clerics would necessitate multiple (possibly competing) churches.

Witch: This is where you put the Charismatic people. There's a Witch archetype that changes the casting stat to Cha. Just ignore the "seduction" stuff and be pretty much a regular Witch with a Cha focus.

Wizard: This is where you put the Intelligent people. Pathfinder has a Wizard archetype that lets you cast spells from other spell lists a few times per day.

Since this society is expending resources training non-casters, obviously they perceive non-casters as having value. Whether their perception is correct doesn't really matter. This society believes punching faces is just as valid a career choice as controlling reality itself. It's my setting, the people can have whatever beliefs I want.

[RandomPeasant]

You can boost stats pretty high if you throw enough magic at the problem. Between level increases and inherent bonuses, you can get 8th level Wizard spells out of someone with base 8 Intelligence, which is the lowest you'll have unless rolling for attributes. Even if you are rolling, the number of people who will have unsalvageable mental stats is something like one five-hundredth of a percent. Now, it's true that some of those people will have trouble casting very high level spells, but I'm skeptical that losing 9th, or even 7th, level spells is enough to make Wizard worse for a society than Fighter. And this is discounting things like polymorph -> awaken or polymorph any object cheese that just set stats directly.


There's not a finite demand for magical ability, and magic can be used to solve any problem - in a way that IRL money cannot be used.

But people still have a finite number of problems. They live for a finite number of days, and do in them a finite number of things, some of which cannot necessarily be assisted by magic. Demand for magic may be "very high", but it is not infinite.


Money and power aren't the driving factors in most people's lives because they're hard to get and don't necessarily solve all your problems.

They do solve an awful lot of problems though. Money is much closer to magic than you are making it out to be, especially from the perspective of the average person. It's not until 4th level spells that you start getting things that would solve the average person's problems better than more money, and probably not until 5th or 6th level spells that I'd expect most people would pick magic over a life of mundane luxury. Obviously those numbers change in the medieval-ish society of D&Dland, but at the same time that society changes when exposed to large quantities of magic for a sustained period of time.


Some people with magic will prefer a more peaceful solution, and some people will be abusing magic to destroy all their enemies. First Strike Advantage means the latter people will take out the former and gain XP for their defeat.

That is not obviously true. In the real world, betraying everyone does not cause you to win in the long run. Certainly situations aren't exactly the same in a world where murdering someone makes you appreciably harder core, but at the same time there are clear advantages to cooperation in gaining XP and wealth. A party of four or five people working together, particularly one backed by a large and efficiently-organized society, is going to be able to overcome more dangerous challenges, and therefore gain XP faster, than an individual or even comparably-large group that simply runs around murdering everything they encounter.

[ShurikVch]

A bit strange to be talking about magic from an obscure 2e exclusive setting explicitly not tied to any world? No offence, but I don't think those specific mechanics are likely to come up in most settings.
1) There was official AD&D 2nd Edition to 3.0 conversion manual (https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Conversion-Skip-Williams/dp/B0006RK1II) - thus, everything 2E is legal in 3E (unless directly updated by the WotC, or banned outright)
2) Which other caster societies we can use for examples? Halruaa? Shadow Enclave?

[Mechalich]

2) Which other caster societies we can use for examples? Halruaa? Shadow Enclave?

You can't use any of them. That's central to the broader point. The 3.5 ruleset (and also the PF ruleset), when used as a world-building model, doesn't produce anything resembling any society represented in any 3.0, 3.5, or PF sourcebook, or any tie-in novel or game. Instead, if you perform a thought experiment with any sort of robustness you get some kind of post-scarcity magitech society that is either a utopia or a dystopia depending on who happens to be in charge (in an extreme case the society may not have any free-willed individuals at all beyond its god-caster overlord).

[Promethean]

You can't use any of them. That's central to the broader point. The 3.5 ruleset (and also the PF ruleset), when used as a world-building model, doesn't produce anything resembling any society represented in any 3.0, 3.5, or PF sourcebook, or any tie-in novel or game. Instead, if you perform a thought experiment with any sort of robustness you get some kind of post-scarcity magitech society that is either a utopia or a dystopia depending on who happens to be in charge (in an extreme case the society may not have any free-willed individuals at all beyond its god-caster overlord).

You could have multiple god-caster Supreme's vying for control though.

As pointed out before, it's not necessarily a given that the first caster to reach high level will have enough lawful evil leanings to try to take over the world and Keep it perpetually under their thumb.

You could have the first couple to reach 20th go galavanting around the multiverse for a while, a before lawful evil wizard rises to try their hand at the god king shtick, only for all of them to be locked in a stalemate as new contenders rise to and fall from their level as the cycle of eras continue.

Hell, the above could even happen in a setting where the first wizard was a god-king type. If the setting is the size of an actual planet rather than a country in europe, several 20th level spellcasters will rise without ever meeting each other, even for lifetimes After one tries their hand at world conquest(because conquering a Planet takes a Long time).

TLDR: I disagree with the one true godking theory(at least in a setting the size of earth). I think it's more likely that you'll have multiple god-king wanna-be mages locked in stalemate under a mutually assure destruction pact.

And that's before we get into stuff like the 8th level spell "teleport through time".

[RandomPeasant]

I've never really understood the argument that a 20th level character would try to conquer the world. Do you understand how big the world is? It's really big! There's world all over, and most of it is full of people growing turnips and hunting deer for food. Even a 10th level character doesn't really want any of the things those people have, so conquering them in anything other than an extremely nominal sense seems like sort of a waste of time. And unless you're talking about a pretty TO-maximalist approach to the rules (which breaks pretty much every setting in pretty much every edition), a single character can't rule the world very well even if they're willing to conquer it.

But you know what they can do? Retire to a life of luxury that does not require interacting with peasants at all. As an 11th level Wizard, you can build a self-sustaining palace filled with cocaine and literal sex fiends. That, or some other sort of hedonism, will be appealing to a lot of prospective world-conquerors. Which suggests an existing setting that fits D&D pretty well: Dark Sun. There are powerful Wizards who could conqueror the world, but the world is crap and they spend their time chilling in pleasure palaces while normal people scrabble for an existence in the ruins of what happens when high-level characters do go to war.

You can get perfectly playable, non-Tippyverse settings out of 3.5 simply by assuming that the things you are never going to allow in your game anyway aren't allowed by the rules. It's not even hard. In fact, "high level mages repeatedly blow up the world" is a much better explanation for why the world is full of ruins, mysterious magical artifacts, and strange creatures than most stock settings provide.

[Endarire]

These are my counterarguments that came up due to playing a high-level Sor in a Pathfinder game:

-Who crafts the spiffy metaphysical items? Fighters don't. Casters do!

-By default, items don't cast spells that scale with the user's caster level, spell DC, nor other feats and class features! A Fighter who UMDs a fireball scroll or wand or staff is normally using a low power version of the spell compared to a caster.

-Crafting items takes time! Sometimes, characters are in a time crunch. (I'm looking at you, Kingmaker!) Sometimes. Since we're in Hypothetical Land™, casters also normally have spell per day limits, and not everything is worth using a spell slot to handle, even if you happen to be a 40 CHA Sor who can cast level 7+ spells. (40 casting stat was chosen as a convenient upper limit due to it having a modifier of +15. Real numbers in your games will likely differ.)

-For this hypothetical to matter, it must happen in a game where enough players and GMs want it to happen. Yeah, it's plot, but plot is the most powerful force in the universe!

[Promethean]

These are my counterarguments that came up due to playing a high-level Sor in a Pathfinder game:

Some good points, but I think I need to address them individually.


Who crafts the spiffy metaphysical items? Fighters don't. Casters do!

This is highly dependent on setting. There are places where you can have mundanes using basic magic items and magical pets to make more powerful magic items(like iron kingdoms) or non traditional casting classes built specifically For magic item crafting(like artificers and warlocks).

Wizards and clerics aren't strictly necessary for magic item crafting to take off.



-By default, items don't cast spells that scale with the user's caster level, spell DC, nor other feats and class features! A Fighter who UMDs a fireball scroll or wand or staff is normally using a low power version of the spell compared to a caster.

They can be crafted at a higher level than the user could ever attain though. You can 100% craft that wand of fireballs to cast at 20th level with multiple feats applied directly by the item itself.

It depends mostly on how cheap the crafters guild can craft their items via price-reducers.



-Crafting items takes time! Sometimes, characters are in a time crunch. (I'm looking at you, Kingmaker!) Sometimes. Since we're in Hypothetical Land™, casters also normally have spell per day limits, and not everything is worth using a spell slot to handle, even if you happen to be a 40 CHA Sor who can cast level 7+ spells. (40 casting stat was chosen as a convenient upper limit due to it having a modifier of +15. Real numbers in your games will likely differ.)

Characters maybe, but guilds? No. If magic items are allowed to proliferate in a simulated world, they'd have all the time they'd need to get crafted. That Before getting into thing like cost and time reducers, so a magic item based economy should already have most of what you'll need Mass produced and on sail.



-For this hypothetical to matter, it must happen in a game where enough players and GMs want it to happen. Yeah, it's plot, but plot is the most powerful force in the universe!

To clarify, we aren't talking in terms of a campaign session, we're talking in terms of building a setting.

Player action and session time are non-factors.

[icefractal]

Given that crafting is fairly time intensive, it's not the overlords who're going to be doing it, for the most part. Could be created minions, could be lower ranking apprentices, but the people crafting are probably not the most powerful ones around.

Artificers would be popular if they exist. In a setting where cheap-minion methods were closed, I could see that being pushed as a career for anyone who could grok it.

[RandomPeasant]

It also depends on the level of optimization you're talking about. If wish cheese is allowed (even in limited for a la how it works in 3.0), most crafting is going to be done that way, which is dramatically faster.


Characters maybe, but guilds? No. If magic items are allowed to proliferate in a simulated world, they'd have all the time they'd need to get crafted. That Before getting into thing like cost and time reducers, so a magic item based economy should already have most of what you'll need Mass produced and on sail.

That is not obviously true. By the standard rules, magic items are crafted at 1,000 GP/person/day, regardless of power level. Even cost reduction only gets you constant-factor improvement. If you want more, you need not just more casters, but proportionately more casters (especially if you assume magic items wear out at any rate). The dream of a Decanter of Endless Water in every house can only be achieved by a lot of casters making Decanters.

[Promethean]

That is not obviously true. By the standard rules, magic items are crafted at 1,000 GP/person/day, regardless of power level. Even cost reduction only gets you constant-factor improvement. If you want more, you need not just more casters, but proportionately more casters (especially if you assume magic items wear out at any rate). The dream of a Decanter of Endless Water in every house can only be achieved by a lot of casters making Decanters.

Unless you have a setting were mundane people can make magic items using magical materials.

Hell, a single item that casts a free Wish once-a-day messes this up, because you can use it to make More of Itself. A single caster can do that no problem.

[RandomPeasant]

Hell, a single item that casts a free Wish once-a-day messes this up, because you can use it to make More of Itself. A single caster can do that no problem.

As I noted in the part of the post you didn't quote, wish for items changes things. If you're talking about a setting where you can do More Wishes, the direst predictions of people talking about the game blowing up really do come to pass. There's a guy who got the first XP-free wish, and he has however much power he asked for. Advancement comes not from casters, non-casters, or anything to do with character abilities, but finding larger and larger numbers you can use to describe the bonuses you are asking wished-for items to give you.

[Promethean]

As I noted in the part of the post you didn't quote, wish for items changes things. If you're talking about a setting where you can do More Wishes, the direst predictions of people talking about the game blowing up really do come to pass. There's a guy who got the first XP-free wish, and he has however much power he asked for. Advancement comes not from casters, non-casters, or anything to do with character abilities, but finding larger and larger numbers you can use to describe the bonuses you are asking wished-for items to give you.

I do think there's a limit there though. You can only ask for specific things before the "literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment" clause kicks in.

It's noted specifically that items like artifacts(which includes epic items do to some weird rules in the ELH) trigger this clause, so It would be safe to assume items are stuck under their normal crafting limits. So no +8 to charisma items for example.

[RandomPeasant]

It's noted specifically that items like artifacts(which includes epic items do to some weird rules in the ELH) trigger this clause, so It would be safe to assume items are stuck under their normal crafting limits. So no +8 to charisma items for example.

No it doesn't. There's a fluff text about how wishing for a specific named artifact might cause a problem, but the text of the spell is that you "create a magic item". A Ring of Infinite Wishes (or any number of other terribly broken things) is a magic item. You can, in fact, wish for that and nothing bad happens to you, except that if you are not somehow ignoring the XP cost you get dinged for a pile of XP that is likely larger than the pile of XP you have. SLA wish is, by RAW, campaign-destroying.

[Promethean]

No it doesn't. There's a fluff text about how wishing for a specific named artifact might cause a problem, but the text of the spell is that you "create a magic item". A Ring of Infinite Wishes (or any number of other terribly broken things) is a magic item. You can, in fact, wish for that and nothing bad happens to you, except that if you are not somehow ignoring the XP cost you get dinged for a pile of XP that is likely larger than the pile of XP you have. SLA wish is, by RAW, campaign-destroying.

That's an interpretation I have to disagree with.

The example points out doing things Like wishing for an artifact or wishing a character dead should trigger the "literal/partial fulfillment clause". I believe this is enough to make it clear by strict reading of raw that trying to pull anything directly campaign breaking like a helm of infinite stats(or other infinite x) should be caught by this rule.

Smaller infractions like wishing for a fully charged ring of three wishes avoid this by wishing for a generic(non-epic) item that anyone with wish as a spell can craft the vanilla way, but anything that you can't craft pre-epic could only exist as an artifact.

[RandomPeasant]

The example points out doing things Like wishing for an artifact or wishing a character dead should trigger the "literal/partial fulfillment clause".

The example is an example. It does not overwrite printed rules. Trying to interpret the rules that way is a path that leads only to madness. Rules are rules, examples are examples. And the rules say that you can create magic items, without restriction.

[Promethean]

The example is an example. It does not overwrite printed rules. Trying to interpret the rules that way is a path that leads only to madness. Rules are rules, examples are examples. And the rules say that you can create magic items, without restriction.

Agree to disagree then.

We can however Both agree that letting wish work that way in a setting where the populous has even the vaguest understanding of optimization would just result in Tyrant God-King the Wishing, which would be pretty boring as far as settings go.

So I propose Not letting the rules work like that for the sake of the Original discussion and having wish work in the way the examples describe. Artifacts and artifact equivalents are "greater effects" that result in would-be god kings imploding and crafting guilds can only get away with using it as a cheap way to make products.

[RandomPeasant]

So I propose Not letting the rules work like that for the sake of the Original discussion and having wish work in the way the examples describe. Artifacts and artifact equivalents are "greater effects" that result in would-be god kings imploding and crafting guilds can only get away with using it as a cheap way to make products.

The examples don't describe anything. Because they are examples. You cannot get workable rules out of one example. You can either follow RAW, or change the rules. This thing people try to do where they contort RAW into a pretzel to try to make the game not break is madness. Yes, RAW wish is broken. The solution to that is to write a version of wish that is not broken and use that, not try to infer some non-broken wish from things that are not rules and declare that that was the real wish all along. The fix for wish is simple: you revert the designer mistake that removed the 15k limit for magic items in the transition from 3.0 to 3.5. That fixes it. It also disallows items that wish for items that cast wish, because those cost more than 15k.

[Maat Mons]

If we're wanting people other than spellcasters to craft magical items, Pathfinder lets characters of any class do it with the Master Craftsman feat. Only works for wonderous items, weapons, and armor, but that's still a lot of things.

Or you could be a gnome, or anyone else with a spell-like ability. Pathfinder was kind enough to implement a rule where you can ignore prerequisite spells on most types of magic item. So a caster level is all you need... except for potions, scrolls, staves, and wands.

[Promethean]

Getting back on topic, how would a society where there are more magic items than spellcasters function?

What spells would be commonly available?

What would be the average level of spell in circulation?(assuming there'd likely some form of regulations or artificial scarcity keeping the highest level items out of common use)

Beyond the obvious(goodberry/heroes feast, various kinds of instant shelter, pocket spaces and teleportation, etc.) What other magic items would be used commonly in everyday life?

[RandomPeasant]

"More magic items than spellcasters" isn't a very precise criteria. It's just as true at 2 items and 1 caster per thousand people as it is at 2,000 items and 1 caster per thousand people. The kind of item also matters a great deal. Having a bunch of magical swords and armor is very different from having a bunch of eternal wands. Things will mostly be relatively similar to a comparable number of casters except that A) you may get a larger volume of magic (particularly if you accept e.g. Tippyverse-style magical traps) B) you may be able to get different effects, as many magic items don't exactly correspond to a spell.

[arkangel111]

I think it depends on how far you wish to take it... I think the simplest idea is to run it like Star Trek but no spaceships. Heroes feast = Replicators. Shuttles = airships. Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Take a cell phone back even 100 years and you would be thought of as nearly a god (assuming you could still somehow access the internet). You could go further and hit Fallout levels, post apocalyptic with lasers and robots (wands and constructs).
In your theoretical example we need an idea where you wish to stop. hell if you continue to let magic rule everyone's lives and continue to craft better and better items, while also avoiding some sort of apocalypse you could even get into 40k universe. What kind of game do you wish to play? If you are just assuming RAW on how far you get with the spells already a part of the game, I'd go steampunk with like a 1900's feel. Magic things are everywhere, not everyone understands it, but could likely use it with little to no training. Assume even the lowliest of commoners has a rechargeable wand with a spell that directly helps their everyday activity.
I would increase the number of low level mages in the world by maybe 10-15% to accommodate more people willing to crack open a book in the hopes of being the next Bill Gates or Elon Musk. Money is going to motivate people more than reality bending power so definitely let your economy reflect this change in attitude. Low-level spellcasting services should be dirt cheap since you can likely find at least two casters even in the smallest of towns, but High level casting will probably be far more expensive since it takes specialized and dedicated people, yet at the same time it's something the common populace has now been let in on. Think of it like shopping for a TV, a 30 in. you can find on FB for $20-$50 or brand new for maybe $150, however a 100 in. with all the bells and whistles can easily hit $10k.