What's the minimal amount of magic that would revolutionize a government?

[SangoProduction]

Thought experiment / challenge.
"Minimal" means lowest spell level, lowest caster level, and fewest casters possible. Magic items (and such permanent manifestations therein) are off limits. (Also limit to only getting to cast that singular spell. Because it's a challenge.)

What's the minimal amount of magic that would revolutionize a government?

Comprehend Language (CL 1, SL 1, 1 Caster) would certainly be... nice for a head diplomat. It can prevent several diplomatic faux pas... but not particularly revolutionary.

Zone of Truth (CL 3, SL 2, 1 caster) on a "judge-supreme" might be meaningful in that you would have difficulty lying. Especially if deliberately and intentionally lying by omission (ie speaking half-truths with the intention of deception) counts as lying to the spell. But, again, hardly revolutionary.

Sending is about as revolutionary as the telephone. Too bad that it's a 5th level spell, with relatedly horrendous casts-per-day, limiting its functional capability of revolution dramatically to just that of convenience.

Goodberry [5e] (CL 1, SL 1, x casters). 1 cast for 10 full bellies. Problem being? That's going to require many, many casters to be anything other than a novelty. It doesn't have much hope in changing much in the grand scheme of a government, when minimized.

More promising:
Lesser Restoration (CL 3, SL 2, x casters). Unsure how many would be needed to make this truly something else, but given that the majority of all people throughout history died to disease, rather than injury, negating the majority of the effects of a disease a couple times a day, per caster, is probably pretty notable. But most notably, it would make the doctors more willing to treat some deadly disease, knowing that they can be sustained by magic if they get infected.

Detect Thoughts (Psychic CL 1, SL 1, 1 caster). The downside at this caster level, we're only getting a couple minutes of surface thoughts a day. Very useful for diplomats and spies, obviously. How revolutionary is a few minutes of surface thought reading? Well, that's the thing, now isn't it? You don't need to be actively detecting peoples' thoughts to give off the message "If I do detect those thoughts, you are dead," or whatever other dystopian hellhole you can think of. I think this does truly contend for a top spot.

[Thane of Fife]

A 1st level paladin can Detect Evil at will (and a 1st level cleric can detect any alignment less frequently). I think that that is more than enough to revolutionize a government.

[Crake]

A 1st level paladin can Detect Evil at will (and a 1st level cleric can detect any alignment less frequently). I think that that is more than enough to revolutionize a government.

I dunno, people only have the paladin's word on this, there's no actual proof that can be supplied beyond "trust me bro". Also, "evil" doesn't necessarily mean "unproductive". There can be evil people doing things for selfish goals that still provide value to civilization as a whole, so merely being able to detect evil doesn't really help, most people aren't going to be motivated by pure malice after all.

[Thane of Fife]

I dunno, people only have the paladin's word on this, there's no actual proof that can be supplied beyond "trust me bro". Also, "evil" doesn't necessarily mean "unproductive". There can be evil people doing things for selfish goals that still provide value to civilization as a whole, so merely being able to detect evil doesn't really help, most people aren't going to be motivated by pure malice after all.

Paladins have a code of conduct that prohibits lying. They are pretty much the most trustworthy people who could have such a power.

And it does not matter that evil people can be productive. What about the king? Should he be allowed to be evil? What about his bodyguards? Should they be allowed to be evil? What about the treasurer, or the royal cook? Even if nobody ever actually casts a Detect Evil spell, even having the discussion about whether people in given roles should be permitted to be evil has a high potential to totally revolutionize what it means to be in government. And this assumes there is agreement. In real life, people have fought wars and revolutions over things that we would regard as substantially more trivial than whether or not the king has the right to be evil.

[H_H_F_F]

Scholar's touch from Races of Destiny. At CL 1, it's one book per casting - in 6 seconds. Nice and thematic for a D&D campaign, broken AF IRL.

A first level sorcerer with 11 Cha could do a "solid reading" (so not skim, read) 3 books per day with this spell, and it'll only take them 18 seconds of their day. A second level sorcerer could read 8 books per day, still with less than a minute of their time.

Imagine this on an advisor. "Mr. president, you've been worried about the internal politics of this obscure Afghan tribe yesterday, so I had my assistant hop to the library and take out 6 books on the subject. Having read them, I think..."

No need to look for an expert anymore - anyone you trust could be very well educated on any subject within days, an expert within a month.

Big, for the same reason it'd be huge for any of us. It's tremendously useful, and it scales perfectly well to upper levels of society.

[loky1109]

Any is enough. Just 0th level with 1 CL will change everything.

[Crake]

Paladins have a code of conduct that prohibits lying. They are pretty much the most trustworthy people who could have such a power.

Yeah, but you need to convince other people of that. Again, your source is "trust me bro, I'm not allowed to lie".

[Ramza00]

Teaching with Prestidigitation, Unseen Servant, and Mage Hand. 🤚 The Sorcerer's Apprentice / Fantasia plays in the background.

=====

This may be bad vibes but one of the things you have to understand is the history of thought influences the history of magic and our imaginations. Aristotle in his “Politics” was justifying all these horrible things society did, but he also gave us the magic words we use today to describe fantasy and fancy. Aristotle justify a society, a society reproducing itself beyond one human lifetime, would need division of labour and that will create slavery. The alternative in Aristotles politics is "automatons” little puppets, golems, homunculi, etc to do specific tasks where without this magic we would have to do some form of labour.

This book influenced everyone, and it was reproduced with time consuming labour by Christian monks in Europe but also Arabic scientists, so on and so on. It takes writers labour to recreate and rewrite / copy a 230 page book one at a time by hand. Just like it took labour to make the pages out of animal hides (wood paper is an 1800s invention mostly.)

And the printing press merely made some of the tasks of making a book automatic, but there was still labour involved. Thus I am saying anything that can be substituted for labour, substituted for novelty and curiosity, substituted for knowledge, any of these things magically will fundamentally alter a society.

A substitute is merely an offering to the gods, and then the sacrifice is transformed in the process, either instantly or over a longer period of time.

Insert here the episode of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood where the two boys learn magic and their teacher kicks their martial art ass while reading a book.

[Quertus]

I get to add spell level 3, CL 5 (or even 3, I suppose), single caster Animate Dead? Cool. Even a single caster can create infinite undead (Although my preferred tech for free undead takes… well, if not a pure single class, I guess it could be CL 5, too?). When your population of free labor grows by even 10 laborers per day, that could greatly impact how a nation structures itself.

Spell level 2, caster level 3, N casters could use Command Undead to add undead conscripts to the army. A 3rd level Necromancer could easily maintain… 9 mindless undead of any size. Probably takes a lot of casters before that’s enough elephant skeletons to matter.


Scholar's touch from Races of Destiny. At CL 1, it's one book per casting - in 6 seconds. Nice and thematic for a D&D campaign, broken AF IRL.

A first level sorcerer with 11 Cha could do a "solid reading" (so not skim, read) 3 books per day with this spell, and it'll only take them 18 seconds of their day. A second level sorcerer could read 8 books per day, still with less than a minute of their time.

Imagine this on an advisor. "Mr. president, you've been worried about the internal politics of this obscure Afghan tribe yesterday, so I had my assistant hop to the library and take out 6 books on the subject. Having read them, I think..."

No need to look for an expert anymore - anyone you trust could be very well educated on any subject within days, an expert within a month.

Big, for the same reason it'd be huge for any of us. It's tremendously useful, and it scales perfectly well to upper levels of society.

Well, that’s probably better than - but also better with - my entry of Wield Skill. Get to use a skill untrained, or (once you’ve tread those books) get a +10 bonus to the roll. Keep an Omni-Expert on staff.

[NichG]

I guess I'll put in for Augury as the thing which would require not just a fairly low spell level, but also would not require more than five people capable of casting it to be majorly impactful. 70% chance per casting to get a true answer about whether a given decision will be good or bad over the next half hour? Have your five casters all ask before committing to any military maneuvers, before opening any negotiations, etc; heck, you could even use it like Coil's power to map out things you have no intention of actually trying, just to get information - 'if I had an agent approach this person and bribe them to betray me, would it work?'. It's something like $65k worth of raw materials each time you ask a question this way, but that's peanuts compared to e.g. the fuel costs to operate a military plane or a tank or anything like that.

As far as Detect Evil, I'll point out that people don't even need the thing to work to be eager to believe such indicators. But at the end of the day, I think its unlikely to actually improve things because D&D alignment is easy enough to game that its no different than politicians using scandals to smear each-other and covering their bases with calculated PR stances and activities. Rather, it would just be yet another angle of attack - spend a favor to get a paladin sent to an area your political rival tends to frequent and hope they were dumb enough to have personally done something that would make them ping.

[spectralphoenix]

Charm Person. The applications are endless. Even just the possibility that someone could be charmed would be a game-changer.

[Rebel7284]

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Your phone does an okay job of being a universal translator and is getting better every day and lie detectors have been around for a while and have about the same success rate as Zone of Truth would. While even the most minor of magic would be used if it makes things more convenient, I think it would take some higher level magic to radically change the way the world works.

[H_H_F_F]

Charm Person. The applications are endless. Even just the possibility that someone could be charmed would be a game-changer.

Yes, 100%. I was thinking along the lines of "improving capabilities" and not "ruining nations", but charm person is obviously huge. I think any DM who's ever tried to run low-magic fantasy where people aren't aware of magic had a rude awakening when their second level party charmed the commander of the guard, and no one had any means to figure out what's going on.


lie detectors have been around for a while and have about the same success rate as Zone of Truth would.


Press X to doubt.

[Rebel7284]

Press X to doubt.

A quick online search tells me that various studies place the polygraph test between 80% to 98% accuracy.

Zone of Truth has a fortitude save, so 95% accuracy rate assuming that your targets need a natural 20, but very likely lower depending on what the save is and who your targets are.

[Ramza00]

Charm Person. The applications are endless. Even just the possibility that someone could be charmed would be a game-changer.

I offer you food and a piece of paper, you open the paper and the symbol of charm person activates. You are now friendly to me, being helpful for I gave you some chicken, bread, and a red popsicle / icee.

You then hand me 7 silver pieces.

=====

I then open my ledger and add a line to the list of people served :smallamused:

[loky1109]

Charm Person is garbage. Look at Purify Food and Drink and Create Water. Detect Poison and Detect Disease are cool, too. This four are fundamental. Also, I see nobody mentioned Amanuensis.

[AvatarVecna]

Charm Person is garbage. Look at Purify Food and Drink and Create Water. Detect Poison and Detect Disease are cool, too. This four are fundamental. Also, I see nobody mentioned Amanuensis.

Came here to mention Amanuensis. If you take a deep look at our IRL history, easily the most important kind of technology is one that facilitates communication. The internet, naturally, but also cell phones, TV, radio, the printing press, libraries, even language itself. Every time a new medium of communication comes about, or another way of copying and distributing information comes about, the species advances at a faster rate than ever before.

Gonna get into the mechanical weeds for a second here.

Masterwork tool could be a book on the subject. 1 lb of weight, 50 gp market price, unknown number of pages. The upfront material cost would be 50/3, let's call it 16.66 gp. That's pages, the binding, and the ink. The rest of the value comes from the knowledge imparted and the effort put into the writing process. An empty wizard's spellbook is 3 lbs, 15 gp, and 100 pages. The tool is 1/3rd the weight, so let's call it 33 pages. 33 sheets of parchment is 6.6 gp. Let's call it x2 to account for mistakes and edits made after the rough draft, so 13.2 gp. [URL="https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=5739008&postcount=11"]Someone has previously mathed out[/thread] that a 1oz vial of ink used via an ink pen should get you about 300 pages worth of text. Since we're doing double-sided, call it 66 pages. Making revisions requires whole new pages, but maybe doesn't require that much wasted ink, so call it x1.5 ink requirements for a total of 99 pages. 2.64 gp worth of ink. Remaining 0.82 gp of upfront costs can be the wooden cover and the bindings.

A good lvl 1 writer (4 ranks, +1 stat, Skill Focus) will finished this 66-page original book in roughly 1.54 weeks (or 10.8 days, or 86.42 hours) of work.

The reason I care about the specifics is because if you're just copying, you don't need to worry about rough drafts. You're just a scribe. 6.6+1.76+0.82=9.18 gp upfront, for a copy having a market price of 27.54 gp. This would take a writer of similar skill 0.85 weeks (or 5.95 days, or 47.6 hours) of work. Six 8-hour days to painstakingly copy from one book to another. Cool? Cool.

A touch of research indicates we can expect maybe 250 words per page? So 16500 words, and it's gonna take 66 minutes for Amanuensis to do it's thing.

Make a repeating trap of Amenuensis CL 20. This will cost approximately 5000 gp, plus whatever additional trap costs you're making. Place a book in the trap, and the trap will cast the spell on it once per round. If you placed our example book in there, and left it in there 2 hours, by the time you came back there would be 540 copies of it piling up with hundreds more in production (+1 book per six seconds). If you had placed in a 50000 word book, and come back 4 hours later, there would be 400 copies piling up, with hundreds (thousands?) more in the works.

Congrats, you've invented the printing press.

Edit: Actually slowing down for a second it's not quite that good. You can't have two of the same spell on the same target. So copying the first one you have takes 66 minutes, and now you have two. Scan each one, and you'll have two more copies 66 minutes later. Repeat until you reach the "1 copy per round" speed anyway. It takes about 12 hours instead of 2, and now you need to have people whose full time job is loading copies into the machine (starts slow, gets hectic). Some way of inventing the conveyor belt would he useful.

And sure the thing costs as much as a big house, but the booms you make in just the first day will more than cover the creation/installation costs.

[Vahnavoi]

Most low-level spells are not particularly impressive compared to modern technology, even the outliers would have to be truly ubiquitous to have an effect in a world with 8 billion people. Comprehend Languages is one of such outliers, but I think it would be more likely to revolutionize history rather than government.

Augury is a good catch, but good luck convincing governments that I-ching actually work. Okay, I take it back. Some politician almost certainly already believes it works. This is the kind of thing I could see catching on and reaching ubiquity, because it's based in a real act that actually was ubiquitous. Sadly, how it would revolutionize government is beyond guessing without actually having Augury.

[SangoProduction]

Any government, not necessarily a modern government. It's more for thinking about scale.
Magic items, including spell traps, have also already been banned for this challenge.

And I agree. The magics that have an effect without even being cast (or those with effects that persist after the cast) are probably going to be the ones that have the best chance of revolution.

And just so we don't multiply by 0, spell level 0 is considered 0.3 for the purpose of calculation. (Can allocate 3 times the casters for the same score as a first level spell.)

[RandomPeasant]

I think you can make a reasonable case for cure minor wounds. It is sort of weird, because a lot of the danger of untreated injuries is contracting disease, and D&D doesn't really model that, but at the very least you'd make it so that the queen never died during childbirth and prevent whatever percentage of kings dying after battles or boar hunts was "we stitched him up but he was bleeding internally". That seems pretty big for hereditary monarchies.

[Mechalich]

I think you can make a reasonable case for cure minor wounds. It is sort of weird, because a lot of the danger of untreated injuries is contracting disease, and D&D doesn't really model that, but at the very least you'd make it so that the queen never died during childbirth and prevent whatever percentage of kings dying after battles or boar hunts was "we stitched him up but he was bleeding internally". That seems pretty big for hereditary monarchies.

I think that's more of a case of the failures of the HP system than the power of magic though. The big power of Cure Minor Wounds is to stabilize a dying person, but the Heal check to stabilize a dying person is only DC 15, which is almost trivial for a 1st Level Expert (ie. a Midwife) to achieve: 4 (ranks) + 2 (ability score), + 3 (skill focus) + 2 (self-sufficient feat) + 2 (healer's kit) = +13, so they only fail if they roll a 1, and a 2nd level expert never fails. First Aid is already super-effective in 3.5e, so the benefit of magic is modest.


I'll cast a vote for Continual Light. It's only 2nd level, and while there's an upfront cost, it's a permanent effect. A single 3rd-level wizard can churn out lights that last forever, day after day, until society has however many it needs (and various shade, aperture, and other tricks mean continual light pebbles can be used for essentially all lighting needs). The widespread availability of reliable and zero-fuel artificial lighting is a massive game-changer to pre-industrial societies. After all, a stone with continual light cast on it would still be valuable in the 21st Century.

[Vahnavoi]

Any government, not necessarily a modern government. It's more for thinking about scale.


Oh, okay. Well, then the relative weight of a single person with magic grows the further you go to the past and the less people there are. Charm Person, the ability to hypnotize someone to be your friend for a while, is great for when government still largely works through small numbers of people meeting face to face. It's noteworthy because, unlike many other spells, it can be directly leveraged for political influence even by a single user.

Augury and Comprehend Languages remain noteworthy because they fit needs and practices of historical governments. Arcane Mark and Message become noteworthy because they are analogous to real innovations in communication technology that revolutionized governments. Unseen Servant also achieves potential to trigger a minor industrial revolution of sorts. With all of these, they would need to reach near-ubiquity, and the difficulty is in estimating how many early adopters and how much time it would take.

---


I think you can make a reasonable case for cure minor wounds. It is sort of weird, because a lot of the danger of untreated injuries is contracting disease, and D&D doesn't really model that, but at the very least you'd make it so that the queen never died during childbirth and prevent whatever percentage of kings dying after battles or boar hunts was "we stitched him up but he was bleeding internally". That seems pretty big for hereditary monarchies.

For hereditary systems, a bigger effect would be granted by splatbook spells like Blessed Seed, which give templates to offspring and make them superhuman. I don't remember if they smooth over the pregnancy, but maybe? I didn't find these spells worth mentioning before because they're quite high level and typically costly, so thy don't fit the pursuit of looking for minimal magic.

[ciopo]

If light can be converted to energy without passing by heat, continual flame is infinite clean energy.

But even the implications of a light source that doesn't produce heat are mind boggling

[Satinavian]

And just so we don't multiply by 0, spell level 0 is considered 0.3 for the purpose of calculation. (Can allocate 3 times the casters for the same score as a first level spell.)Are you talking 3.x or Pathfinder with its at-will canntrips ? If the latter, spamming create water might actually be somewhat impactfull as a single fist level caster might be able to support a whole settlement with regular, clean drinking water. Would be not enough for irrigation but might make many settlements viable that otherwise are not.

[Mechalich]

Oh, okay. Well, then the relative weight of a single person with magic grows the further you go to the past and the less people there are. Charm Person, the ability to hypnotize someone to be your friend for a while, is great for when government still largely works through small numbers of people meeting face to face. It's noteworthy because, unlike many other spells, it can be directly leveraged for political influence even by a single user.

Augury and Comprehend Languages remain noteworthy because they fit needs and practices of historical governments. Arcane Mark and Message become noteworthy because they are analogous to real innovations in communication technology that revolutionized governments. Unseen Servant also achieves potential to trigger a minor industrial revolution of sorts. With all of these, they would need to reach near-ubiquity, and the difficulty is in estimating how many early adopters and how much time it would take.

If society trains everyone it possibly can, the 0-level Mending is enough to be revolutionary, since it allows functionally infinite repair of everything, which would revolutionize production demands in mind-boggling ways. For example, the production of textiles accounted for a huge proportion of total preindustrial labor, especially the 'women's work' of darning, spinning, and weaving, and this would be largely eliminated. Likewise the massive deforesting impacts of charcoal production for the production of metal goods could be almost entirely eliminated, because rust has ceased to be an issue. Using PF rules, in which 0-level spells can be cast essentially all day long (PF Mending has a 10 minute casting time, so a caster could mend ~50 objects per normal work day), the number of casters needed drops significantly.

So that's Caster Level 1 and Spell Level 0.3 but the number of casters would be very high. So I guess the question is there an equally revolutionary spell that needs considerably fewer casters. I stand by the Continual Flame case, but alternatively, it's possible to consider Lesser Planar Binding as an option, because many of the things that can be bound have SLAs that offer revolutionary options of their own. For example, a Lantern Archon has Continual Flame at will, and a Succubus has both Charm Monster and Suggestion at will, and Tongues as an innate ability, which allows for all kinds of madness if you can get the right people into a room. So that probably gets the # of casters in question down to a solid one.

[Crake]

If society trains everyone it possibly can, the 0-level Mending is enough to be revolutionary, since it allows functionally infinite repair of everything, which would revolutionize production demands in mind-boggling ways. For example, the production of textiles accounted for a huge proportion of total preindustrial labor, especially the 'women's work' of darning, spinning, and weaving, and this would be largely eliminated. Likewise the massive deforesting impacts of charcoal production for the production of metal goods could be almost entirely eliminated, because rust has ceased to be an issue. Using PF rules, in which 0-level spells can be cast essentially all day long (PF Mending has a 10 minute casting time, so a caster could mend ~50 objects per normal work day), the number of casters needed drops significantly.

This isn't revolutionizing a government though, it's revolutionizing a society. The governing body and how they function, seem like they would be largely unaffected by this.

[Asmotherion]

Unseen Servant, 1st level spell at CL1 can ensure free labor. While limited in it's use at 1st level, if everyone has it (for example, a Leadership Chain full of 1st level arcane casters), it would really revolutionize mundane jobs.

[Vaern]

Charm Person. The applications are endless. Even just the possibility that someone could be charmed would be a game-changer.

There are plenty of unexplored possibilities that enchantment could have in the real world. I know a handful of people who would love to be able to cast Charm Person to change their disposition towards themselves.

[loky1109]

I don't understand.

Why did so many people call Charm Person?
What does it give? It gives ability try to change another person's aptitude to you. What's new here? Everybody in real world could do the same using talking. More, it rules this spell also refers to diplomacy rules.
This spell will change nothing. This spell will give nothing. But spells which could really change something (I already called them - create water, purify food and drink, detect poison and disease) most people ignores.

Plus, Charm Person's effect can not be rejected from caster and is temporal. You couldn't build revolution on this base.

I can't understand. What is wrong with you?

[pabelfly]

I'm going to add a vote for Wield Skill, which is a level 1 and caster level 1 is spell that gives a +10 to a skill for one minute. It also lets a character act as if they're trained in the skill.

I'm thinking this would best be used for Knowledge skills. Let's quickly go over what the Knowledge skill is worth, per PHB:

10 is to answer really easy questions
15 is to answer basic questions
20 to 30 is to answer really tough questions

So an average person with no training and 10 INT - say, a government minister in a portfolio they are not familiar with - could take 10 and now answer a really tough question with the spell active. An expert with a total of 15 in a skill (say, 18 INT, 8 skill ranks, and a Skill Focus feat) and takes 10 goes from being able to answer really tough questions to being able to answer all of them with an understanding beyond what anyone else is capable of.

[Crake]

I don't understand.

Why did so many people call Charm Person?
What does it give? It gives ability try to change another person's aptitude to you. What's new here? Everybody in real world could do the same using talking. More, it rules this spell also refers to diplomacy rules.
This spell will change nothing. This spell will give nothing. But spells which could really change something (I already called them - create water, purify food and drink, detect poison and disease) most people ignores.

Plus, Charm Person's effect can not be rejected from caster and is temporal. You couldn't build revolution on this base.

I can't understand. What is wrong with you?

Because talking to change someone's disposition in real life can take months or years, or sometimes be practically impossible, but charm person can make them amiable in a moment, and get them to do something that would be otherwise quite radical. If you cast this on an opposing world leader during negotiations, you can easily get the upper hand, but it can also be used by a spy to gain access to sensitive material, or access to places where they may otherwise have been completely unable to gain access.

This would be revoluationary to the powers which a government can wield, and drastically change the face of international negotiations, and national security.

On the other hand, create water, purify food and drink, detect poison and disease.... These things are all great for a society, and improving quality of life, but for a GOVERNMENT.... they don't really change much. People will live longer, healthier lives, sure, but the government doesn't really change the way it functions.

The reason why you're not getting the answers you'd expect is because you're not answering the right question.

[spectralphoenix]

I don't understand.

Why did so many people call Charm Person?
What does it give? It gives ability try to change another person's aptitude to you. What's new here? Everybody in real world could do the same using talking. More, it rules this spell also refers to diplomacy rules.
This spell will change nothing. This spell will give nothing. But spells which could really change something (I already called them - create water, purify food and drink, detect poison and disease) most people ignores.

Plus, Charm Person's effect can not be rejected from caster and is temporal. You couldn't build revolution on this base.

I can't understand. What is wrong with you?

I agree with Crake. I'd also point out that the question asks for the minimal number of casters. You'd need a lot of casters purifying food or creating water to make a dent in the economy of the world, but only a few or even just one magically influencing people would throw a spanner in the works.

On an unrelated note, divine magic in general might be one, depending on how the faith requirements are handled. If only believers of one religion can cure wounds, or members of ANY religion, but not atheists, that would have some pretty profound theological implications.

[loky1109]

These things are all great for a society, and improving quality of life, but for a GOVERNMENT.... they don't really change much.
Sorry, but it sounds like you don't understand what are you talking about.
Changing society and improving quality of life are only things that could change government. Yes, you could charm one politician and exchange him for another (if you are lucky enough) and this changes nothing. All politicians in the same society are the same.


but only a few or even just one magically influencing people would throw a spanner in the works.
Disagree. Totally.
Do you remember duration of Charm Person? It's hour per CL. And it change aptitude to caster, nothing more. With it you could steal many from single person, but even rob the bank still is challenging task. To change something in the government you need to influence multiple (at least dozens, highly likely hundreds) people for long time.

[Crake]

On an unrelated note, divine magic in general might be one, depending on how the faith requirements are handled. If only believers of one religion can cure wounds, or members of ANY religion, but not atheists, that would have some pretty profound theological implications.

While this is true (and could very easily lead to a government revolution into a theocracy), it could be equally done by an arcane caster with sufficient guile (or even just one that is religious, and sincerely believes that their power comes from their faith, even if it does not)


Sorry, but it sounds like you don't understand what are you talking about.
Changing society and improving quality of life are only things that could change government. Yes, you could charm one politician and exchange him for another (if you are lucky enough) and this changes nothing. All politicians in the same society are the same.


Disagree. Totally.
Do you remember duration of Charm Person? It's hour per CL. And it change aptitude to caster, nothing more. With it you could steal many from single person, but even rob the bank still is challenging task. To change something in the government you need to influence multiple (at least dozens, highly likely hundreds) people for long time.

I think you're misunderstanding. Charm person won't revolutionize a government from the outside, it will revolutionize a government from the inside. Having that tool in their arsenal will drastically change the political landscape. It takes far less than an hour to make a life altering decision, and remember that with a successful charisma check, you can make someone do something they wouldnt normally do. You could charm a world leader and convince him to kill his wife, completely destablizing that country as they are suddenly thrown into the midst of an irreconcilable poltiical scandal. You could charm a kidnapped four star general and get access to vital military information that can turn the tide of a war, you can charm a merchant prince and convince him to sign a trade agreement with you over a rival nation, starving them of resources, the possibilites are endless with the sort of mayhem and espionage you would be capable of wielding as a government.

The same does not go for quality of life upgrades. The government's power and influence do not change in this circumstance, and as others have said, it only takes one person with access to charm person to make all those suddenly a possibility, while you'd need a whole society of people with quality of life spells to have a significant impact. One vs thousands, or even tens or hundreds of thousands, charm person comes out faaaarrrr ahead in the score.

[hamishspence]

It takes far less than an hour to make a life altering decision, and remember that with a successful charisma check, you can make someone do something they wouldnt normally do. You could charm a world leader and convince him to kill his wife, completely destablizing that country as they are suddenly thrown into the midst of an irreconcilable poltiical scandal.

They don't obey "Obviously harmful" orders though.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/charmPerson.htm

Is this entirely restricted to self, or does it apply to loved ones as well?

Pathfinder's example for Charm Person of "something the character wouldn't normally do" was "till a field" for an enemy orc:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/charm-person/

[Crake]

They don't obey "Obviously harmful" orders though.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/charmPerson.htm

Is this entirely restricted to self, or does it apply to loved ones as well?

That depends on how many degrees of separation you treat it as, and what your definition of "obviously harmful" is. Does it count as direct bodily harm? Does it count as reputational damage? How far ahead into the future, and how many degrees of separation does it account for?

Unfortunately, since the terminology is vague, it's hard to say, but a clever actor can definitely work around such restrictions by making what would normally be obviously harmful seem not so obviously harmful, or sometimes perhaps even make it seem the opposite. "Your wife has been cheating on you with the vizer, and is plotting to kill you. As your close, dear friend, I came to warn you, she plans to kill you tonight, you must act first!"

[hamishspence]

Might require a Potion of Glibness if the character is low level though.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html

[Crake]

Might require a Potion of Glibness if the character is low level though.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html

True, but that would then take the magic level to level 3 (bard 3, so CL7 as well), which reduces the score.

That said though, bluff is irrelevant, because the initiating factor is the opposed cha check to convince them to do something they wouldn't normally do, so bluff doesn't REALLY need to enter into the equation. Even if he doesn't quite believe you, and might normally want to investigate or act rationally in such a situation at such an accusation, the cha check vs "protect yourself from this threat in an immediate and violent manner" does not pose as an "obviously harmful" act, and thus the cha check becomes a possibility.

[loky1109]

I think you're misunderstanding. Charm person won't revolutionize a government from the outside, it will revolutionize a government from the inside. Having that tool in their arsenal will drastically change the political landscape. It takes far less than an hour to make a life altering decision, and remember that with a successful charisma check, you can make someone do something they wouldnt normally do. You could charm a world leader and convince him to kill his wife, completely destablizing that country as they are suddenly thrown into the midst of an irreconcilable poltiical scandal. You could charm a kidnapped four star general and get access to vital military information that can turn the tide of a war, you can charm a merchant prince and convince him to sign a trade agreement with you over a rival nation, starving them of resources, the possibilites are endless with the sort of mayhem and espionage you would be capable of wielding as a government.
All you described... Changes nothing. Yeah, there will be some new people on the same positions.


The same does not go for quality of life upgrades. The government's power and influence do not change in this circumstance
The only source of political power is the people. Changing quality of life changes political power.


and as others have said, it only takes one person with access to charm person to make all those suddenly a possibility
Still disagree. One person with charm person really changes nothing. Things you call "changed" aren't changes.
If there are multiple persons with charm person - there should be methods against them.


"Your wife has been cheating on you with the vizer, and is plotting to kill you. As your close, dear friend, I came to warn you, she plans to kill you tonight, you must act first!"
You don't need charm person to do this.

[Tyndmyr]

I think that's more of a case of the failures of the HP system than the power of magic though. The big power of Cure Minor Wounds is to stabilize a dying person, but the Heal check to stabilize a dying person is only DC 15, which is almost trivial for a 1st Level Expert (ie. a Midwife) to achieve: 4 (ranks) + 2 (ability score), + 3 (skill focus) + 2 (self-sufficient feat) + 2 (healer's kit) = +13, so they only fail if they roll a 1, and a 2nd level expert never fails. First Aid is already super-effective in 3.5e, so the benefit of magic is modest.

Sometimes an expert isn't around, or doesn't have the right tools. Sometimes the local "expert" is not optimized for career path, but for politics. Literal magic is remarkable in this regard.

Keep in mind, Cure Minor doesn't just stabilize...it also heals 1 HP. Someone with a few castings of that per day can not only reliably stop someone from bleeding out, they can cure them entirely over just a few days. It also does this *fast*. Even in the modern day, an ambulance can take some time to arrive, the actual care somewhat longer, and any real care requires transport to the hospital. A few seconds to cast is amazing in comparison. Even in the modern day, such a person would be highly desired by any leader.

Detect Magic also has some interesting implications. If our hypothetical caster can cast magic, well...that's a world in which magic exists. If magic items, animals, or other effects also exist, that could be...interesting. From the standpoint of "this discovery dramatically alters the world", it'd be a great literary way to introduce whatever. Granted, this very much depends on what the world and history is like in this hypothetical situation.


Sorry, but it sounds like you don't understand what are you talking about.
Changing society and improving quality of life are only things that could change government. Yes, you could charm one politician and exchange him for another (if you are lucky enough) and this changes nothing. All politicians in the same society are the same.

Not always. Yes, a king's son is often like his father, and surely education, tradition, etc will result in shared ideas within a culture...but the specific person often does matter greatly. It turns out that Macedonia without Alexander the Great at the helm was not so unified as with him. In Rome, we can see great differences between the best emperors and the rest.

Hell, it applies to non-leaders too. On Easter Island, someone had to cut down the last tree. Something like Charm Person could be of immense usefulness if you need to prevent someone from taking advantage of something. Individuals and their decisions do matter at times.

If we're discussing spycraft and the like, one must not forget about Mage Hand, which could be truly impressive indeed.

[loky1109]

Different people could do some things, but this will not change big picture. All what even greatest person could make is thing that are allowed by the world around. To break the wheel you need to change economic formation. Purify food and drink isn't just improving people life. It's free time. This time could be used to make more goods and resources.
Yes, you need more than several persons in whole world with it, but several persons with charms... Well, there will be several frauds more, nothing new.

[Bohandas]

Scholar's Touch from the Spell Compendium (lv 1; read one non-magical book instantly) would completely change everything everywhere if it could be put into a permanent magic item

[Tyndmyr]

Different people could do some things, but this will not change big picture. All what even greatest person could make is thing that are allowed by the world around. To break the wheel you need to change economic formation. Purify food and drink isn't just improving people life. It's free time. This time could be used to make more goods and resources.
Yes, you need more than several persons in whole world with it, but several persons with charms... Well, there will be several frauds more, nothing new.

Economics are helpful, but creating more wealth does not guarantee change. Cyrus the great abolished slavery and guaranteed famous natural rights like freedom of religion, yet the same topics were contested thousands of years later.

We want more wealth, always, but wealth isn't everything. Granted, in the case of Charm Person, it is very probable that it will be used in a self serving way, but a single person with the motivation could change almost any government. The more the government focuses power in the hands of few people, the more powerful such a spell would be.

If you want to change the world more than the government, something like the Summon Monsters would do. If you can call forth a literal fiend to serve you, that calls into question all kinds of cosmological things, and is probably going to be seen as a very big deal by a lot of folks....but that probably wouldn't change the government at all.

[vasilidor]

Zone of truth and similar magic would be revolutionary. Most of the time politicians lie about things that harm people every day. This leads to a lot of unnecessary death. I cannot really go into specifics without violating the no real world religion or politics though.

[Crake]

All you described... Changes nothing. Yeah, there will be some new people on the same positions.


The only source of political power is the people. Changing quality of life changes political power.


Still disagree. One person with charm person really changes nothing. Things you call "changed" aren't changes.
If there are multiple persons with charm person - there should be methods against them.

You keep making these assertions without actually backing them up. Its hard to take you seriously when your source is “trust me bro”.


You don't need charm person to do this.

No, you dont, but charm person does in an hour what would have otherwise taken months or years of infiltration and guile to achieve.

[Soranar]

Governments need computers and create water (or mage hand) can seriously mess up computers.

Especially if they mess up nukes or important servers.

So I vote cantrips are enough to change a government.

[Crake]

Governments need computers and create water (or mage hand) can seriously mess up computers.

Especially if they mess up nukes or important servers.

So I vote cantrips are enough to change a government.

As mentioned by the OP, this isn’t necessarily for modern governments, we had systems of government loonnggg before we had computers

[SangoProduction]

Not necessarily modern. But could be. It's the user's choice.

[Bohandas]

could create water create heavy water I wonder


Unfortunately, since the terminology is vague, it's hard to say, but a clever actor can definitely work around such restrictions by making what would normally be obviously harmful seem not so obviously harmful, or sometimes perhaps even make it seem the opposite. "Your wife has been cheating on you with the vizer, and is plotting to kill you. As your close, dear friend, I came to warn you, she plans to kill you tonight, you must act first!"

Wouldn't that be more in the realm of Suggestion rather than Charm Person? I'll grant that Charm Person would definitely augment the effect and make it more likely to succeed, but it's definite;y Suggestion's wheelhouse

[False God]

Because talking to change someone's disposition in real life can take months or years, or sometimes be practically impossible, but charm person can make them amiable in a moment, and get them to do something that would be otherwise quite radical. If you cast this on an opposing world leader during negotiations, you can easily get the upper hand, but it can also be used by a spy to gain access to sensitive material, or access to places where they may otherwise have been completely unable to gain access.

This would be revoluationary to the powers which a government can wield, and drastically change the face of international negotiations, and national security.

On the other hand, create water, purify food and drink, detect poison and disease.... These things are all great for a society, and improving quality of life, but for a GOVERNMENT.... they don't really change much. People will live longer, healthier lives, sure, but the government doesn't really change the way it functions.

The reason why you're not getting the answers you'd expect is because you're not answering the right question.

I think y'all are forgetting that to make effective use of Charm Person, you're going to be targeting people who are probably intelligent and likely charismatic. You're not going to have *High Ranking Senator* just walk up and Charm Person on *The President*. Likewise *The President* isn't going to just Charm Person *Foreign Leader*. Aside from the fact that anyone who'd be worth a target is likely going to have 0 level spell Detect Magic. Anyone caught using Charm Person, or under its effects, would very quickly be ejected from any sort of negotiation.

And frankly, I think you're all overselling Charm Person. It makes you friendly towards the caster and amenable to their arguments. It's explicit exception is "If the creature is currently being threatened or attacked by you or your allies, however, it receives a +5 bonus on its saving throw." which is probably going to apply in a number of negotiation settings.

Further, there are governmental checks IRL, this isn't the middle ages. If you do happen to charm *The President* there are advisors, other branches of government, and by the time any suggestions you've made get to these people the 1hr/level has likely worn off(assuming we're dealing with low-level casters, otherwise better high magic options would be available). And it's entirely possible after all this that the charmed person knows you've charmed them. Which is going to make things much, much worse for your position afterward.

Generally speaking, the people you're attempting to charm are all the worst targets to use it on. And, unless Silent Spell was used, it has a verbal component. Meaning either you're saying something weird in backwards latin right before *The President* starts taking a shine to you, or something that everyone around them can understand like "Look deep into my eyes!"

And yes, I'm putting this in a modern context because the game this forum is under already has magical governments. We can just read about them.

[Mechalich]

Economics are helpful, but creating more wealth does not guarantee change. Cyrus the great abolished slavery and guaranteed famous natural rights like freedom of religion, yet the same topics were contested thousands of years later.

We want more wealth, always, but wealth isn't everything. Granted, in the case of Charm Person, it is very probable that it will be used in a self serving way, but a single person with the motivation could change almost any government. The more the government focuses power in the hands of few people, the more powerful such a spell would be.

If you want to change the world more than the government, something like the Summon Monsters would do. If you can call forth a literal fiend to serve you, that calls into question all kinds of cosmological things, and is probably going to be seen as a very big deal by a lot of folks....but that probably wouldn't change the government at all.

Low-level magic, applied at mass scale, can change the nature of human society though, because they do more than simply increase wealth. For example, Purify Food & Drink, applied at the scale of 'everyone,' essentially eliminates all water-borne diseases and a huge number of parasites from society. These means that conditions that didn't exist until the mid-20th century in highly developed nations become available during the Bronze Age. This creates a massive decoupling from history that needs to be considered in the subsequent world-building.

At the very least it revolutionizes government in the sense that whatever form the new government takes, it must be able to maintain the mass deployment of the spell going forward.

[Crake]

I think y'all are forgetting that to make effective use of Charm Person, you're going to be targeting people who are probably intelligent and likely charismatic. You're not going to have *High Ranking Senator* just walk up and Charm Person on *The President*. Likewise *The President* isn't going to just Charm Person *Foreign Leader*. Aside from the fact that anyone who'd be worth a target is likely going to have 0 level spell Detect Magic. Anyone caught using Charm Person, or under its effects, would very quickly be ejected from any sort of negotiation.

And frankly, I think you're all overselling Charm Person. It makes you friendly towards the caster and amenable to their arguments. It's explicit exception is "If the creature is currently being threatened or attacked by you or your allies, however, it receives a +5 bonus on its saving throw." which is probably going to apply in a number of negotiation settings.

Further, there are governmental checks IRL, this isn't the middle ages. If you do happen to charm *The President* there are advisors, other branches of government, and by the time any suggestions you've made get to these people the 1hr/level has likely worn off(assuming we're dealing with low-level casters, otherwise better high magic options would be available). And it's entirely possible after all this that the charmed person knows you've charmed them. Which is going to make things much, much worse for your position afterward.

Generally speaking, the people you're attempting to charm are all the worst targets to use it on. And, unless Silent Spell was used, it has a verbal component. Meaning either you're saying something weird in backwards latin right before *The President* starts taking a shine to you, or something that everyone around them can understand like "Look deep into my eyes!"

And yes, I'm putting this in a modern context because the game this forum is under already has magical governments. We can just read about them.

I did mention on the previous page that charm person’s biggest strength is in destabilising a government, not directing it. Sure a government has checks, but if your president is caught with a dead hooker in the white house suite, thats going to cause an uproar.

Your point about it typically targetting intelligent and charismatic people is true, until you start targeting the security agents to infiltrate your way into the president’s kitchen and poison his food.

None of these things are going to influence an opposing government, but it can significantly destablize them, and it becomes a powerful weapon that a government can wield, even against it’s own populace, to easily take care of dissidents.

Its by no means a progressive revolution, but it is certainly a revolution.

Also, just because charm person exists, doesnt mean detect magic does. This is talking about individual spells, and also the number of people wielding such magic, not to mention, if theres literally a single person in the world capable of this power, nobody would have any idea of what is going on.

[SangoProduction]

I mean, you could certainly say that in a modern context, they wouldn't immediately jump to the magical conclusion, but it is a greater leap to say that they would have no idea what's going on.

You are talking about a species that put rocks in a fire, and somehow that built up to metallurgy - to the point of sending semi-autonomous metal creatures onto completely alien bodies of rock.
Those humans. They are a tricky and weirdly creative bunch. Freaky really.

[loky1109]

Its by no means a progressive revolution, but it is certainly a revolution.

It certainly isn't. Changing president for another president isn't revolution, even if it was accompanied by scandal or death of previous president. I don’t remember anyone calling situations after Kennedy's or Abraham Lincoln's death "revolution". How does it differ from your "security agent with poison"?


if your president is caught with a dead hooker in the white house suite, thats going to cause an uproar.
Yeah, it can result in impeachment. But impeachment isn't revolution.


In political science, a revolution (Latin: revolutio, 'a turn around') is an attempt to achieve fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization. It typically involves a revolt against the government due to perceived oppression (political, social, economic) or political incompetence.
link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution)

All your examples aren't revolution, because revolution needs revolutionary situation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_situation). And revolutionary situation can't be made by one (or ten) charms on president.

[Crake]

It certainly isn't. Changing president for another president isn't revolution, even if it was accompanied by scandal or death of previous president. I don’t remember anyone calling situations after Kennedy's or Abraham Lincoln's death "revolution". How does it differ from your "security agent with poison"?


Yeah, it can result in impeachment. But impeachment isn't revolution.


link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution)

All your examples aren't revolution, because revolution needs revolutionary situation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_situation). And revolutionary situation can't be made by one (or ten) charms on president.

Well, firstly, you're maintaining a modern setting, when modern is not a requisite of this discussion. Secondly, if you're trying to argue that america wasn't destabilized after presidential assassinations, I don't know what to say. Thirdly, imagine it happened repeatedly, every time a new president is elected, some sort of scandal arises? You think the people wouldn't start to question their leaders and push at some kind of reform?

I can see you're not quite black-hatted enough to really see the implications of even just an hour of "we're best friends, and I can do a charisma check to make you do things you wouldn't normally do".

[loky1109]

Secondly, if you're trying to argue that america wasn't destabilized after presidential assassinations, I don't know what to say.
Why do you argue that "destabilized" means "revolution"? Was USA destabilize after presidential assassinations? Yes. Were revolutions in USA after presidential assassinations? No. (Well, I don't know USA history good enough, and maybe after some of assassinations it was)


Thirdly, imagine it happened repeatedly, every time a new president is elected, some sort of scandal arises? You think the people wouldn't start to question their leaders and push at some kind of reform?
Yes. Of course. First set of reforms will be in the president's security service. And you can be sure protocols for protection against such will be developed as soon as possible. Or, maybe, such protocols already exist.
Plus. Reforms are reforms, not revolution. Reforms is almost opposite thing to revolution.


I can see you're not quite black-hatted enough to really see the implications of even just an hour of "we're best friends, and I can do a charisma check to make you do things you wouldn't normally do".
Oh, I can! But even if you somehow force president and all his ministers to kill and eat dozen of infants on the air this wouldn't result in revolution if there are no preconditions in the society.

[Vahnavoi]

Yes, there are mundane ways to achieve the effect of Charm Person. That rather misses the forest for the trees: good chunk of politics is just getting other people to consider your case favourably in a timely manner, and the people who can do that regularly end up as key negotiators and politicians.

Charm Person gives any individual with it a leg up in that, regardless of what topic of the day is. Is it about how to partition food resources? Is it about what to do about foreign invaders? Is it about rights of minorities? Is it about how people with Charm Person ought to be treated in the wider society?

More specialized spells don't have that. Unseen Servant or Purify Food & Drink don't directly make other people more favorable to your case.

[Mechalich]

Yes, there are mundane ways to achieve the effect of Charm Person. That rather misses the forest for the trees: good chunk of politics is just getting other people to consider your case favourably in a timely manner, and the people who can do that regularly end up as key negotiators and politicians.


I think it's more that a single caster, using Charm Person, cannot do anything that extensive diplomacy, scheming, or simple circumstances can achieve. For example, I can imagine Charm Person taking the place of madness to re-enact the plot of King Lear. However, the kinds of transformations Charm Person can enact based on a small number of castings are, assuming the persons being charmed are otherwise normal humans, within the bounds of the normal permutations that might afflict any given state (including the destruction of said state or the conversion of a state from an absolute monarchy to an oligarchy and so on). Widespread use of Charm Person would certainly be revolutionary, but this thread has established that such a thing is true of a number of low-level spells. Plausibly, Charm Person makes this happen with an order of magnitude fewer casters compared to something like Mending or Purify Food & Drink.


Is it about how people with Charm Person ought to be treated in the wider society?

I imagine that, if some small fraction of people naturally had Charm Person as some kind of innate ability (for example, as a Psionic Wild Talent), the response of the rest of society would be 'kill 'em all!' Supernatural persuasive powers are common in folklore and fiction and are among the most despised supernatural abilities of all.

[False God]

I did mention on the previous page that charm person’s biggest strength is in destabilising a government, not directing it. Sure a government has checks, but if your president is caught with a dead hooker in the white house suite, thats going to cause an uproar.

Your point about it typically targetting intelligent and charismatic people is true, until you start targeting the security agents to infiltrate your way into the president’s kitchen and poison his food.
Don't treat modern security agents like bumbling medieval guards. And again, the failure comes from the numbers. Sure, you can charm 1 person, for maybe an hour or two, but you're going to have limited castings of this ability.


None of these things are going to influence an opposing government, but it can significantly destablize them, and it becomes a powerful weapon that a government can wield, even against it’s own populace, to easily take care of dissidents.

Its by no means a progressive revolution, but it is certainly a revolution.
Again, you're vastly underestimating the capabilities of most modern governments.


Also, just because charm person exists, doesnt mean detect magic does. This is talking about individual spells, and also the number of people wielding such magic, not to mention, if theres literally a single person in the world capable of this power, nobody would have any idea of what is going on.
Vampires. What you're arguing is that vampires exist. And statistically speaking, "if only one person in the world has this power", it's unlikely to have any real impact, especially if they are reliant on utilizing their power to maintain control.

Going back a step, it may take a *long time* to get someone to really listen to your arguments, but the effects of Charm Person and anything you said or did to them while you had them charmed doesn't just stick around. Sure, you make them friendly and amenable towards you, but as soon as the spell wears off, their positive view of whatever you said or did goes away too. Charm Person only makes them more likely to listen.

[Bohandas]

Don't treat modern security agents like bumbling medieval guards. And again, the failure comes from the numbers. Sure, you can charm 1 person, for maybe an hour or two, but you're going to have limited castings of this ability.

Plus, even more importantly than the redundancy in modern systems is that the dudebro guard who's going to let all his friends through is not the guy who's going to get hired for government security

[Tyndmyr]

Why do you argue that "destabilized" means "revolution"? Was USA destabilize after presidential assassinations? Yes. Were revolutions in USA after presidential assassinations? No. (Well, I don't know USA history good enough, and maybe after some of assassinations it was)

Oddly enough, in the case of Lincoln, it rather was, since his VP was not of his party. This is an old practice that isn't typical today, but it did mean some drastic overnight upset, and likely significantly changed the course of history.

In older history, Garfield was assassinated with the aim of elevating Arthur to the presidency. The assassination was successful, and Arthur did indeed become president next.

Obviously, morally assassination is pretty sketchy, but historically, they did often change history. We are not limited to recent history, either. The original post merely says a government, not only the US government. All manner of governments can or have existed, and some of them are very hierarchical. Imagine a dictator, or a hereditary king of the worst sort. There, swapping one for another is indeed revolutionary. After all, switching the head of government is one of the things people have a revolution for.


Yes. Of course. First set of reforms will be in the president's security service. And you can be sure protocols for protection against such will be developed as soon as possible. Or, maybe, such protocols already exist.
Plus. Reforms are reforms, not revolution. Reforms is almost opposite thing to revolution.

It is not stated that everyone will automatically know of this power. Or that it is widespread. In fact, given that the object is to find the least powerful change that will have an impact, I think it is inherently strange to propose that "everyone has the spell" is more reasonable than "one person has the spell". The latter is clearly utilizing a lesser magical amount.

Therefore, any scheme that relies on "we teach the entire world the cantrip" is a failure by comparison to even a single caster with ninth level spells.

[Vahnavoi]

I think it's more that a single caster, using Charm Person, cannot do anything that extensive diplomacy, scheming, or simple circumstances can achieve.

Sure, I don't disagree with that. But Charm Person can put that political power in the hand of someone who normally doesn't have it. Plenty of mundane revolutions were, after all, about the right people getting themselves heard at the right time.


I imagine that, if some small fraction of people naturally had Charm Person as some kind of innate ability (for example, as a Psionic Wild Talent), the response of the rest of society would be 'kill 'em all!' Supernatural persuasive powers are common in folklore and fiction and are among the most despised supernatural abilities of all.

The reason I underlined the part this responds to was to remind people that you can't take this for granted. Start far back enough, and you might as well get a society where that fraction is venerated as natural leaders, in part because they themselves lobbied for that.

Place and time are key for both of above arguments, of course. Who the power is given to, and when, matters a great deal for its revolutionary potential.

[vasilidor]

Casting create water in the right area can be a game changer for a small group of people. Maybe enough to let them advance onto other things.
Especially if you can teach others the spell.
Suddenly everyone has access to clean water.

[Crake]

Casting create water in the right area can be a game changer for a small group of people. Maybe enough to let them advance onto other things.
Especially if you can teach others the spell.
Suddenly everyone has access to clean water.

Right, but the more people who gain access, the larger the amount of magic being considered as per the OP's ranking system. 20 people knowing create water loses to 1 person knowing charm person, and you need far more than 20 people for EVERYONE to have access to clean water.

[vasilidor]

A part of what I said is if it is teachable.
That puts no limit on the number of casters.

[Crake]

A part of what I said is if it is teachable.
That puts no limit on the number of casters.

… right, and what I said was, if theres no limit on the number of caster, then it scores LOWER in this scenario, because we’re looking for the least amount of magic total, not just the weakest. A billion cantrips is more magic in total than one 9th level caster, but we can all agree that one 9th level caster can have far more impact than a billion people who can cast create water

[Satinavian]

Right, but the more people who gain access, the larger the amount of magic being considered as per the OP's ranking system. 20 people knowing create water loses to 1 person knowing charm person, and you need far more than 20 people for EVERYONE to have access to clean water.
As i already said, PF cantrips can be used at will. Which means a single person with create water can provide for a whole settlement.

[Crake]

As i already said, PF cantrips can be used at will. Which means a single person with create water can provide for a whole settlement.

Well, firstly, this thread isnt marked as pathfinder, and considering that “permanent” sources of magic like magic items that can spam spells are not valid for this thought experiment, I would assume pathfinder infinite cantrips are not included either.

Secondly, a caster who spends all day casting create water for their settlement is still a much higher volume of magic than someone casting charm person 2-4 times a day

[pabelfly]

Let's say we want to grow grain with magical water. A ton of grain requires 1,000 tons of water to grow (Source: https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/average-daily-water-usage
), and can grow in as quickly as a month, depending on variety.

1,000,000L of water / 30 days /22.7L of water per day = 1468 people

So, if we want a ton of grain, we need 1,468 people donating all of their water solely to growing grain.

Now, these people have worked hard for a month, how much food do they get out of it?

1000kg of grain / 1468 people = 0.681 kg

For all of their effort for a month, they get not quite a kilo of food in return.

So, short summary: even if everyone in the world got Create Water as a cantrip, you're still going to need to source nonmagical water if you hope to create any meaningful social change.

[loky1109]

Main point of create water is drinking water. Clean drinking water. No need to boil or use alcohol. And it's enough eater for one-two or even more persons for day.

[SangoProduction]

I'm honestly shocked how little war magic has been called out as being notable.
(Well, not really shocked. But still)

[Quertus]

As far as changing government policies, I expect knowledge of the existence of Invisibility and <Hat of Disguise> (Alter Self?) might encourage some changes to security procedures.

Lack of such knowledge could leave governments about as vulnerable as lack of knowledge of Charm spells - arguably more so, as the effects aren't on a timer that discourages future attempts.

EDIT: Combining the two, OTOH, can keep Charm "fresh".

[pabelfly]

Main point of create water is drinking water. Clean drinking water. No need to boil or use alcohol. And it's enough eater for one-two or even more persons for day.
Grain is also for eating. Once everyone has their fill of drinking water, what are they eating?

[loky1109]

Grain is also for eating. Once everyone has their fill of drinking water, what are they eating?
You could irrigate grain with river water without any problems. If you try to drink river water it will result in intestinal infections and poisonings.

[Crake]

I'm honestly shocked how little war magic has been called out as being notable.
(Well, not really shocked. But still)

Think it's mostly because a single warmage isn't really going to be significant in affecting the course of a government. A legion maybe, but just one? Probably not. Especially if they're level 1 and able to die from a stray arrow.

[RSGA]

I think Sango's talking about Dragon Magaizine's War Magic (and the feat that lets you use it) which is over ten times bigger, ten times slower, and far more expensive per cast than the non-War version of a spell.

[Bohandas]

Generally speaking, the people you're attempting to charm are all the worst targets to use it on. And, unless Silent Spell was used, it has a verbal component. Meaning either you're saying something weird in backwards latin right before *The President* starts taking a shine to you, or something that everyone around them can understand like "Look deep into my eyes!"

What if it's a bad poem? That could be relatively inconspicuous

[False God]

What if it's a bad poem? That could be relatively inconspicuous

It's less about the specific wording and more about the context. Does what you just said seem out of place for the normal conversation? It's not like "trigger words" are particularly unheard of, be they stuff of movies or something you can actually program into a persons brain. I'm sure one of the security agents has watched The Manchurian Candidate, or read the book, or has been trained to be on the lookout for strange behaviour happening right after someone says a unique phrase.

And as I mentioned, even if you did charm Mr President, he's still limited by the checks and balances of the system. The magic user's problem isn't so much magical success or failure, but that they are unlikely to be able to affect enough people at any given time. Statistics just aren't in their favor.

[Malphegor]

Heward’s Handy Haversack would revolutionise their administrative divisions if its auto-sort feature can be placed on a filing cabinet. Suddenly, many many documents can’t be so easily lost in some office somewhere, as now if you know it exists it can be drawn quickly

[Tyndmyr]

I'm honestly shocked how little war magic has been called out as being notable.
(Well, not really shocked. But still)

War is an expensive and messy way to alter government, and while blasty magic exists, it is usually the most carefully scaled, so you're not going to be putting out much damage with a cantrip. Oh, sure, you can munchkin magic to make someone an effective dualist or the like, but one good soldier isn't of amazing importance in a war.

Utility spells have a lot more room to play.

Since he said "minimal amount of magic", I am interpreting this as lowest levels and least amount of spellcasters. "everybody knows magic missile" changes things, sure, but honestly takes a lot of magic, so it scores poorly. Spells that require only a single caster to have a great impact are better. Spells that require only a single caster AND are low level are best of all. One caster that can cast Dominate can do amazing things, obviously.

[gijoemike]

A quick online search tells me that various studies place the polygraph test between 80% to 98% accuracy.

Zone of Truth has a fortitude save, so 95% accuracy rate assuming that your targets need a natural 20, but very likely lower depending on what the save is and who your targets are.

They are wildly inaccurate and are not admissible in any court of law due to how misleading they are. We are talking less than 50% accuracy.

[SangoProduction]

They are wildly inaccurate and are not admissible in any court of law due to how misleading they are. We are talking less than 50% accuracy.

No, they were inadmissible on account of the 5th amendment, enshrining the right to not self-incriminate. as one which the government is not to infringe. (But let's not get into any issues on that front.)

Accuracy estimates place it at around 70-90%, when administered by a properly skilled and trained tester. Though others argue that the tests are no more accurate than chance, particularly when administered under less than ideal conditions.

But there's yet another reason: The change of context from the inherently fallible human, to "lie detector" machine. Regardless of whether it has a 50% chance of failure or not, it's treated as infallible by the general public (aka, a jury of your peers). And it drowns out the other evidence.

Just like the cases of people using math in the court room being deemed as mistrials on the same account. People are just really not good at staying objective. Surely once we replace all those fallible jury members with chatGPT 6.0, we'll finally be free. :)

[Bohandas]

Didn't one of the FBI's old lie detector experts attach one to a houseplant and conclude that the plant was lying to him

EDIT:
Also there's two kinds of accuracy, there's the chance of saying someone is lying when they're actually telling the truth, and the chance of saying they're telling thentruth when they're actually lying

[SangoProduction]

Didn't one of the FBI's old lie detector experts attach one to a houseplant and conclude that the plant was lying to him

EDIT:
Also there's two kinds of accuracy, there's the chance of saying someone is lying when they're actually telling the truth, and the chance of saying they're telling the truth when they're actually lying

The terms are: true positives, false positives, true negatives and false negatives. They are often referred to as a "confusion matrix" or "error matrix."
But yeah, two different ways to be wrong in a test.

But yeah, the reason behind their banning was sociological, not whether or not they are effective. (Such is the case for a lot of things in criminal justice... but this forum is explicitly not a place for any detailed discussions therein. Let's stick to magic.)

[Quertus]

They are wildly inaccurate and are not admissible in any court of law due to how misleading they are. We are talking less than 50% accuracy.


No, they were inadmissible on account of the 5th amendment, enshrining the right to not self-incriminate. as one which the government is not to infringe.


the reason behind their banning was sociological, not whether or not they are effective.

I'm assuming that they weren't banned worldwide, and that whether or not they were banned, and the reasons for the bans, will vary by country, no?


Just like the cases of people using math in the court room being deemed as mistrials on the same account. People are just really not good at staying objective. Surely once we replace all those fallible jury members with chatGPT 6.0, we'll finally be free. :)

Um... math? What? What kind of human insanity are you referencing here? :smallconfused::smallamused:

[SangoProduction]

I'm assuming that they weren't banned worldwide, and that whether or not they were banned, and the reasons for the bans, will vary by country, no?



Um... math? What? What kind of human insanity are you referencing here? :smallconfused::smallamused:

Fair enough. I was taking an America-centric approach to the topic. Even though "When America sneezes, the world catches the cold."

I would just recommend searching youtube for "math in the court," and leave it at that. Of course. vsauce2 has developed a political bias, but at least when you ignore it, you can find actually true facts. Not all of the facts, but true ones.

[Quertus]

I would just recommend searching youtube for "math in the court," and leave it at that. Of course. vsauce2 has developed a political bias, but at least when you ignore it, you can find actually true facts. Not all of the facts, but true ones.

Eh, his presentation is poor enough that one of his "facts" is wrong. That is, in his Monte Haul video ("The Easiest Problem Everyone Gets Wrong"), he explains the first scenario so poorly as to bring the math into doubt. While he is correct about Monte Haul, the gold coins, and the pudding problem, the initial Winkie execution could have just as easily been implemented such that he killed off people winkies at random until he had killed off everyone everyone's winkie except for two people. Just because he did a favor to one of the people, and said whose winkie he was killing first, does not make the odds one-in-8-billion vs 7,999,999,999 / 8 billion in favor of the one he didn't talk to about the first name he chose to execute.

In other words, if he drew just a single name of [A,B,C] for the 1st execution, there are not the 4 states VSauce depicted; instead, "Orange Winkie A is dead" is among the cases to consider, and, if orange winkie A is still alive, and there are 2 names left in the hat, orange winkie A does indeed have a 50/50 chance of survival. Because he did not explicitly demonstrate looking at both slips of paper before informing orange winkie A of a name that will die, he messed up his own probability problem.

Once you've seen the whole video, it's obvious what he meant to do, but he failed at the execution.

Which is a long way of saying, I can't stand wading through his videos any longer looking for math to cause a mistrial.

[SangoProduction]

Fair enough, let's call that conversation over, and return to the topic at hand.

How do we think silent image or disguise self would be used in this context? Especially a modern context. Imagine having a literal video of any politician you want just doing the most illegal thing they can... I mean, we do have those, and there's only occasionally anything that actually happens about that.

But when the video evidence is so brazen and overwhelming, or perhaps lewd and lascivious, it may be picked up by the internet at large, and actually demand answers.

Well, perhaps it would be best to quell this concept and move onto another one. Like if we bring Spheres of Power into it, using the Mind sphere's Utterances, you can force others to say things that you want them to say. And they only get a bonus save if it's against their nature. So plenty of "silent parts" that can just be said out loud without the extra save. Especially when giving a speech or otherwise vulnerable to the public.

[redking]

Depending on how you rule minor or major creation, you could create fossil fuels and use them to generate electricity. Once the duration is over, byproducts disappear, so no greenhouse effect just free electricity.

[pabelfly]

Okay, of the two main spells discussed so far, "Charm Person," and "Create Water", I think Charm Person is the clear winner. In favour of Create Water, it's a level 0 spell instead of a level 1 spell, but the amount and regularity of casting needed for Create Water to change anything at a government level is on a scale far beyond Charm Person. You'd only need a few people casting Charm Person a few times before governments are going to start wanting to make changes and implement controls based around that spell existing.

Here are two other options I think deserve more discussion:

Summon Monster I has been bought up for the cosmological implications, but on a more mundane level, you can summon a monster capable and willing to murder people without leaving any DNA evidence that you were responsible for their murder. Which then dissapears shortly after. Admittedly you have to be close to them at the time when said murderous monster appears, but I think that's extremely workable to the extent it would be dangerous.

Disguise Self: mentioned before for doing ops against prominent figures - have a person do controversial things to lead to their arrest - but you can also use it in plenty of other ways. Political dissidents can make speeches supporting a government, you can create blackmail material, create puppet political figures, and so forth.

[DMVerdandi]

Badwrongfun man really screwed this thread lol.

I'd say

wizard 1, Mage hand and message.
For my own fun experience I'd say easy bake style. Eidetic spellcaster+Domain wizard+Spell point wizard+Able learner.


In the past, simply be at the assembly.
Right now, get on youtube.

Show either one of the spells. Right now, maximum results would come from stating you will sell the secret of magic to the highest state bidder.

Instant arms race. Voila.
GIGANTIC amounts of resources will be used to understand spellcasting, recreate it, militarize it, and counter-magic would become it's own discipline. All of the spells that everyone is used to are essentially things that supposed medieval esque mages would focus on, but those are only the spells that the Dev's wrote. Technically, spell research is available to everyone. This is just a game though, so actually creating spells yourself gets looked down upon.

In real life,it would be just like app development. There is no balance really when it comes to things like data. Spell books are not inherently magical, so instead of scripts more likely, in a modern setting, because I don't care about old goverments. they are going to be just as ferverous as any timeline would because magic supercedes rules.

Just knowing it exists, can be taught, and can get stronger than those two cantrips, Everyone is going bananas.

Back to it, you can create spells to do whatever you want, they are just discrete reproducible operations.

Wizards would probably take over, unless the other tier zero classes are also present. Regardless, the tier 0's would rule the world easily. And not even out of might, simply because the bureaucracy would become hyper efficient with everyone taking wizard 1.

Or rather Factotum 1/Wizard 1[or Far better //].

Factotum1//Wizard1
Artificer1//Wizard2

will put the INT in the intelligence community. So much so, that this will facilitate the need for the others. All government agents will have a level in factotum and artificer, but will swap out wizard between Archivist, Warblade, and Erudite.

And then would probably have those as Tax stamp classes, but distribute adept and magewright.

In ten years, We Ebberon now:smallcool:



How long have we been talking about Merlin? The court mage is a whole older than dirt trope.

[Clause]

A single everfull bottle, can make all diference at real world. And i see a minor item, that is a cup or glass, who give full nutritional needs for a entire day. This will eliminate mundial hungry.