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Heliomance
2008-09-19, 03:57 AM
I was discussing with a friend recently the possible consequences of an incredibly high magic setting - to the point where there were no such things as commoners, only level 1 sorcerers. What does the playground think?

chronoplasm
2008-09-19, 04:18 AM
I think it could be interesting if you pushed it in a "You aren't a pretty little snow-flake" direction. In such a setting, the players wouldn't be unique heroes at all; they could be mass-produced slaves or something.
The world would have to be very harsh. All those spell casters makes for a lot of danger.

Johel
2008-09-19, 04:49 AM
Don't know if it's published in english but you could check for "Lanfeust de Troy" and "Troll de Troy".

Both comics which decribe a planet (at least one of its region...) where
everybody has one special magical hability, from heating metal to changing the state of water, conjuring swarm of bugs, veiling a area, charm-person, ect...

It's not mean to be a serious story and it's heavily combat-oriented but the setting is pretty well-thought. "Lanfeust de Troy" become more dark in the end.

For a D&D setting, you should ask yourself about the magic items. I mean, how many of them would be around in a world where it's really easy to create them but also where any peasant can basically do the same as a costly-to-build magical staff ?

Also, what about divine magic ? Will the clerics still be that important ? The healing and stuff will still be usefull but not seen as miracle anymore. Worship would probably be the same, though, as it is more a question of faith than a question of magical access.

Also, what would be the consequences of such an intensive use of magic ? Think of the FR in the time of Karsus, where access to magic was really easy and where there was nearly no limit to its use (flying cities everywhere...)

Khanderas
2008-09-19, 05:05 AM
I remember reading a short fantasy series about a world where everyone had magic. infact they didnt even call it magic, they called it life. Farmers farm the fields by flying over it, dropping seeds, then using magic to make it rain and so on. People with a more "fiery" type of magic becomes soldiers and law enforcers and so on.

Except one day, a prince is born without magic and it freaks them all out! They talk about him as if he was undead (he has no LIFE man) and the prophecy that a dead child of the royal family would destroy the world certainly don't help. He was supposed to be put to death but escapes by luck and stuff happens, and does indeed wreck the world once he gets old and bitter enough.

An intresting take since most fantasy, magic users scares the crap out of mundanes and here it is the opposite.


Anyhow, for a homebrew world where magic is common, it may still be a good idea to devide the humans into "types". The book, "earth" type casters almost never can really do what a "fire" solder type would do and vice versa. Basically you are born to a caste and has to suck it up. That is where drama could come into the world, when you wish you were able to do fire type magic instead of just a glorified farmhand.
Or a soldier sorcerer who wishes he could settle down and be able to live in peace like the sorcerers who have more earthly magic.

Maybe note helpful but I already typed it so there.

Tempest Fennac
2008-09-19, 05:20 AM
This thread, http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91265 , could be really useful. Would Favoured Souls be available as well?

The Rose Dragon
2008-09-19, 05:44 AM
I remember reading a short fantasy series about a world where everyone had magic. infact they didnt even call it magic, they called it life. Farmers farm the fields by flying over it, dropping seeds, then using magic to make it rain and so on. People with a more "fiery" type of magic becomes soldiers and law enforcers and so on.

Except one day, a prince is born without magic and it freaks them all out! They talk about him as if he was undead (he has no LIFE man) and the prophecy that a dead child of the royal family would destroy the world certainly don't help. He was supposed to be put to death but escapes by luck and stuff happens, and does indeed wreck the world once he gets old and bitter enough.

An intresting take since most fantasy, magic users scares the crap out of mundanes and here it is the opposite.

So, like the Darksword Trilogy?

Heliomance
2008-09-19, 05:44 AM
My take on it was that that sheer amount of power would have to come from somewhere. Ergo, the world simply has massive amounts of raw firmament sloshing around that anyone can take hold of and manipulate. This lends itself to the idea of everyone being a spont-caster, rather than having any prepared casters. On the other hand, ritual magic would be well developed, as while a level one sorcerer couldn't raise a village out of the ground by himself, there's no particular reason why a hundred of them working in concert wouldn't be able to.

Arcane and divine magic would not be so different. We felt the best way to handle that would be to merge the cleric and the sorc/wiz spell list, but say that you had to follow logical paths - so, for example, you couldn't go "illusion spells suck, I won't take any - ooh! Phantasmal Killer! I like!" - you wouldn't be able to take PK if you didn't already have illusion spells in the levels below. In this setting, we reckoned, gods would likely just be strong concentrations of magic - epic mortals who had wrested divinity for themselves. That meant there was no particular reason why the spells they granted would be any different to the ones sorcerers cast, seeing as they used to be sorcerers themselves, hence the merging of the lists. You could get magic by worshipping them, but it would be drawn from the list. The difference would be that you wouldn't be bound by the tree system sorcerers had to follow, but the pool of spells you could choose from would be limited by the areas your god specialised in.
Nature magic, on the other hand, is sufficiently different in flavour that you could easily imagine it just being how magic manifests for those sufficiently in tune with nature.

I also felt that in such a setting, fighters, rogues, rangers and so on just wouldn't exist. After all, why learn to hit things with bits of metal when spells do so much better?

Tempest Fennac
2008-09-19, 05:54 AM
The Generic Spellcaster could be useful to you here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm#spellcaster , especially since the fluff for the class is easy to change for individuals.

Jack_Simth
2008-09-19, 06:10 AM
I remember reading a short fantasy series about a world where everyone had magic. infact they didnt even call it magic, they called it life. Farmers farm the fields by flying over it, dropping seeds, then using magic to make it rain and so on. People with a more "fiery" type of magic becomes soldiers and law enforcers and so on.

Except one day, a prince is born without magic and it freaks them all out! They talk about him as if he was undead (he has no LIFE man) and the prophecy that a dead child of the royal family would destroy the world certainly don't help. He was supposed to be put to death but escapes by luck and stuff happens, and does indeed wreck the world once he gets old and bitter enough.

An intresting take since most fantasy, magic users scares the crap out of mundanes and here it is the opposite.


Anyhow, for a homebrew world where magic is common, it may still be a good idea to devide the humans into "types". The book, "earth" type casters almost never can really do what a "fire" solder type would do and vice versa. Basically you are born to a caste and has to suck it up. That is where drama could come into the world, when you wish you were able to do fire type magic instead of just a glorified farmhand.
Or a soldier sorcerer who wishes he could settle down and be able to live in peace like the sorcerers who have more earthly magic.

Maybe note helpful but I already typed it so there.
It helped that he had that massively antimagic sword (which also worked on technology when the place was finally invaded....) that he smashed into the rock that was keeping the seal up, making it a high-mana area, and cutting magic off from the rest of the galaxy. When that rock went away, so did the seal, and most of the magic in the area, leaving everyone else commoners....

Edit:
As for what it'd be like?
Like most societies, it would look very much like what the people involved say it looks like. Power, of whatever stripe, does not inherently make people more generous, nor less greedy, nor more noble, nor less petty. It also depends on how high of magic you want to make available, whether or not the rare "very powerful" caster is willing to burn XP on "public works" projects, and so on.

If everyone is expected to "pull there own weight" and get "no help from anybody", then it'll look very much like a "normal" D&D society - sure, everyone's got a spell or two, but it doesn't much matter, as they can't really do much with it, and there isn't the massive investment in public works (Create Food and Water traps, Endure Elements traps, Cure X Wounds traps available for public use) that do the actual changing of society. You might see an Endure Elements "trap" in a noble's manner, or you might see a Cure Minor Wounds "trap" in a church somewhere, but for the most part, you'll still have huge numbers of farmers farming (most people can't simply create food, and those that can don't bother to do it for others), you'll still have actual smiths smithing, and so on.

If 1st level spells are available in trap form for public use, you'll have Cure Light Wounds and Endure Elements (those are the two biggies) in reasonably secure areas that are still public. Clothing will be primarily for decoration, or for when traveling, only (minor injuries don't matter, and the weather isn't a problem). The poor will likely go about with the minimum cloth they can get away with due to social norms; the rich will likely have an absurd amount of cloth on them - as it sets them apart (the original "reason" behind Zoot Suits).

If 2nd level spells are available for public works, see 1st, but note that public areas are lit up 24/7 now, due to Continual Flame existing at this level.

If 3rd level spells are available for public works traps, Create Food and Water is now available; see 2nd, but note that now farming isn't done for nourishment, but for taste. Rich people hire farmers so that they can have food that doesn't taste and look like wet cardboard. The poor don't go hungry - they get fed on the public dole, possibly being required to do some token work. The non-poor, non-rich will usually have food from a Create Food and Water trap that includes a Prestidigitation element for flavoring - and will go out to eat on occasion to have someone prepare "grown food" for them. The only people that ever starve are the "criminals" who aren't permitted near the public works areas, or those who make mistakes while traveling.
There's very little reason to travel - you're immune to the weather, and society doesn't starve regardless. If it was coherent before, this society will very likely fracture into reasonably independent city-states, with their own social norms that will vary widely. Roads between cities will likely not be maintained, and expect to get very large populations.
At this "stage", if society is to be kept stable, the people in charge (those who control access to the Create Food and Water "traps") charge a nominal fee for the use of the facilities - boredom breeds revolution, so they need to keep everyone occupied. As the ones in charge of the traps get all the money, they're also the ones hiring everybody. What they say, goes. This could become a military society (they hire everyone on as guards), an artist society (they want entertainment, first and foremost), or a production society (they like having nice things), on the whim of those in charge.

Higher level spells don't matter too much, except to note that Wall of Stone and Fabricate makes for a very short turn-around on housing construction, as well as the construction of other goods, at 5th level spells and above.

Lappy9000
2008-09-19, 06:50 AM
If 3rd level spells are available for public works traps, Create Food and Water is now available; see 2nd, but note that now farming isn't done for nourishment, but for taste. Rich people hire farmers so that they can have food that doesn't taste and look like wet cardboard. The poor don't go hungry - they get fed on the public dole, possibly being required to do some token work. The non-poor, non-rich will usually have food from a Create Food and Water trap that includes a Prestidigitation element for flavoring - and will go out to eat on occasion to have someone prepare "grown food" for them. The only people that ever starve are the "criminals" who aren't permitted near the public works areas, or those who make mistakes while traveling.
There's very little reason to travel - you're immune to the weather, and society doesn't starve regardless. If it was coherent before, this society will very likely fracture into reasonably independent city-states, with their own social norms that will vary widely. Roads between cities will likely not be maintained, and expect to get very large populations.
At this "stage", if society is to be kept stable, the people in charge (those who control access to the Create Food and Water "traps") charge a nominal fee for the use of the facilities - boredom breeds revolution, so they need to keep everyone occupied. As the ones in charge of the traps get all the money, they're also the ones hiring everybody. What they say, goes. This could become a military society (they hire everyone on as guards), an artist society (they want entertainment, first and foremost), or a production society (they like having nice things), on the whim of those in charge.

Wouldn't a simple Prestidigitation spell handle the taste issue?

Tempest Fennac
2008-09-19, 06:53 AM
It would. I also mentioned using Unseen Servant "traps" in my thread for cleaning people, but Prestigitation traps could handle laundry as well.

Heliomance
2008-09-19, 07:52 AM
As I said, I feel ritual magic would be well developed. While a single sorcerer can't do much, ten sorcerers pulling together in a ritual could probably do a fair bit.

Jack_Simth
2008-09-19, 04:58 PM
Wouldn't a simple Prestidigitation spell handle the taste issue?
Mentioned, sentence four of the segment you quoted:
"The non-poor, non-rich will usually have food from a Create Food and Water trap that includes a Prestidigitation element for flavoring - and will go out to eat on occasion to have someone prepare "grown food" for them."

But then, that only deals with flavor - not texture, consistency, appearance, or smell. Prestidigitation may make it taste like fillet minion - but it still looks, smells, and feels like "simple fare of your choice—highly nourishing, if rather bland" as listed in the spell description - and that most likely selected when the trap is created, not when it is triggered. The exact same thing every single day (unless multiple "traps" are made) gets dull, regardless. There will still be some food grown, but it'll essentially be for those with money, who are after some variety.

BRC
2008-09-19, 05:28 PM
In terms of society, With magic everywhere people would have most of their needs met magically.

Items of Conjure food and Water would provide most of the food, permanancied teleportation circles would provide transportation, Fabricate spells (esp Lyre of building) would build things for people. Who needs a coat when the corner store sells items of Endure Elements. You've got +1 butterknifes sitting in people's kitchens (May be necessary, because with that much magic floating around, butter can get pretty fierce).

Now, there are two ways to go with making this intresting.

Option one, or "Magic Inflation". Alright, so there is alot of magic floating around, John Q Commoner is a first level sorcerer. In such a world, Billy T Bandit and his first level warrior skills isn't going to be much of a threat. However, remember, just because magic is everywhere doesn't mean only good guys get it. Bandits raid caravans armed with wands of scorching ray. Evil warlords attack with armies of Orcish duskblades armed with +1 axes (Which, like all magic items would be very cheap in this setting). Kobolds build Fireball traps where they would normally dig pit traps. The PC's are still heroes who awe the commoners, it's just that now it's all been kicked up a notch.


Option two, or "We have magic and you don't":Though magic is floating around everywhere, only a few societies have really tapped into it, they created magical utopias in their cities, all needs met magically as described above. With the exception of occasional patrol's, those with magical knowledge never left their cities, traveling between them VIA teleports. Meanwhile, outside the cities people without magical knowledge have eked out what livings they could, powerful monsters and warlords fight over the resources that the magi didn't feel like taking for themselves whilst gazing with envy on the impenitrable mage-cities. The PC's are either living on the outside, perhaps fighting the mages, or they work for the magi-civillizations, leaving the cities to gather lost resources or track down rouge wizards hiding in the outlands.

Option Three or "Where has all the magic gone": This is my favorite. The world WAS as described above, however recently something has been going on. Magic has been failing in various ways. Inside the cities people have grown so used to magic fulfilling their every need that when it ceases to work they don't know what to do, anarchy reins in certain cities. Outside the monsters and warlords watch as the impenetrable magical defenses of the mage-cities start to weaken. Walls lined with Fireball shooting turrets and gates of force cease to function, the soliders who once manned them find their spells failing, and the citizens find themselves helpless against their mundane foes. The PC's have been assembled by the council of one of the cities to find out why magic has been failing, and to stop it before their city falls as well.

Lappy9000
2008-09-19, 09:00 PM
Mentioned, sentence four of the segment you quoted:
"The non-poor, non-rich will usually have food from a Create Food and Water trap that includes a Prestidigitation element for flavoring - and will go out to eat on occasion to have someone prepare "grown food" for them."

But then, that only deals with flavor - not texture, consistency, appearance, or smell. Prestidigitation may make it taste like fillet minion - but it still looks, smells, and feels like "simple fare of your choice—highly nourishing, if rather bland" as listed in the spell description - and that most likely selected when the trap is created, not when it is triggered. The exact same thing every single day (unless multiple "traps" are made) gets dull, regardless. There will still be some food grown, but it'll essentially be for those with money, who are after some variety.

Clearly my reading skills are lacking :smallconfused: