Rare Wizard, Common Sorcerer

[Fiery Diamond]

I'm DMing a campaign in which wizards are very rare (though they do exist and people generally know what they are) and are extremely unlikely to adventure because their studies take so much time and energy. Essentially, magic is recognized to exist in several forms: inborn magic (sorcerers and magical abilities/some supernatural abilities of monsters), divine magic (magic granted by honing the spirit (cause clerics and druids and rangers/paladins) or by worshiping a deity (regular clerics and paladins)), and musical magic (bards). Wizards have a harder time, because they try to use other means to create magic.

On the other hand, sorcerers are fairly common, at least as common as clerics. Being born able to use magic is unusual, but not truly rare.

Levels for NPCs work out something like this for all classes:
1-2: "common folk", novices
3-4: career folk
5-6: true professionals
7-8: experts
9-10: top brass
11-12: champion (1 or 2 of each class per nation)

So, how do you think the rarity of wizards and relative commonness of sorcerers would affect the world, assuming only a few nations? Specifically, how do you think that it would cause basic assumptions to differ from the norm?

[lord_khaine]

It really should not change much, most sages would proberly be wizards then, and magic would not be feared much because the high-charisma sorcerers would be able to give a positive spin to whatever they do.

[Yuki Akuma]

Isn't that generally how it works anyway? Sorcery, while not exactly common, is more likely than someone being born with high enough Int and being rich enough to afford to go to college (or lucky enough to score an apprenticeship).

[Storm Bringer]

i think the result would be that magic (arcane, at least) would gain a little more 'Mystique', as the ability to use it is linked to a arbitary trait (in that you either have Sorcerer blood or don't, and nothing can change that).

Also, if Sorcery is tied to blood, you'd see 'Sorcerer familys' forming instead of wizards guilds, taking the place of the primary magical establishments. they'd do a lot of the classic plot functions of wizards guilds (i.e. act as a center of arcane knowledge, create magic items, etc), but would have a different 'feel' to them, less 'Unseen University' and more 'mafia family', with an emphasis on preserving the bloodline and adopting new Sorcerers into the family to ward off inbreeding.

An important question is how likey a given child of a Sorcerer is to exhibit magical talent, and particually wether the child who has one Sorcerer parent is as likey to be a Sorcerer as one with two. If genetics favour the children of two-Sorcerer parents, then you'd see a lot more emphasis on keeping it in the family (or at least the talent), whereas if the odds are the same for a single Sorcerer child, you'd see most Sorcerers marrying out of the family, since not only is that pool bigger. but it keeps the familys genes form getting too tangled.

I'd expect these familys to become part of the nobility, or maybe replace the nobilty (i.e. a magocratic monarchy, where the royal bloodline is also a Sorcerer line)

also, the rate at which 'erratics' (i.e. Sorcerers not linked to the major bloodlines) crop up would be important. If the established familys control the majority of the arcane power, then they can exhert some seriously unhealthy infuence over local politics, but if their are large numbers of 'freelance' Sorcerers not tied to family intrigues, the normals would have more chance, as they could hire netural magical aid.

[Amphetryon]

I think the relative rarity of Wizards, coupled with the relative commonality of Sorcerers and other casters, could end up with Wizards perceived as sort of hard-working second thoughts, not lucky enough to be able to do magic easily and forced to rely on determination and such.

I'm thinking about the difference between scholarship players (innate casters) and walk-ons for a college team, for instance. The Sorcerers garner more automatic respect and popularity and are given a 'free' ride to a probable career, while the Wizards are paying for their education and hoping it can turn into a career.

[Ormur]

Yeah, I always pictured sorcerers as rare and popping up at random scaring the hell out of their village with their uncontrollable arcane power while wizards wouldn't exactly be common but still something that smart kids from rich families would be supposed to become, like scholars and upper clergy in the middle ages. Then wizards would be respected because of their social status but sorcerers feared.

If it were the other way around sorcerers might be better understood and less feared while wizards could be considered somewhat pathetic imitators, not content with their place in life. With few wizards there probably wouldn't be many dedicated wizard schools, mostly just a mentor and apprentice. It might be more like a vaguely sinister secret society. Sorcerers could be popular if still somewhat feared. Having a sorcerer might be a sign of pride for a village.

[Acanous]

I'd definately see Wizards be more prone to wanderlust if there were fewer of them. In order to get new spells without access to a guild, wizards would likely seek out fonts of arcane knowledge. Dragons, Outsiders, ancient Elven libraries.

Further, if being a wizard were at all frowned upon, such as with the case of sorcerer families- wizards would propably keep a lower profile. Perhaps make Illusion the easy-focus school instead of Divination.

Finally, you might have Wizards pretending to be sorcerors. Especially ones with reserve feats or access to Spell Engine.

[Dixieboy]

Isn't that generally how it works anyway? Sorcery, while not exactly common, is more likely than someone being born with high enough Int and being rich enough to afford to go to college (or lucky enough to score an apprenticeship).

What you are saying is that it's rarer for a gifted boy to get tutelage, than for a kid to be born as a magical savant, who knows how to bend the laws of physics to his will by instinct.

[Peregrinus]

Another thing that you might consider is that this is a world in an earlier stage of development than most DnD worlds. In other words, instead of being the High Middle Ages/Early Renaissance smorgashborg that is normal of DnD it might actually be a late bronze age/early iron age world. I always felt that if you create a homebrew world Sorcery is likely the first arcane magic, and that wizardry results from trying to categorize and duplicate what sorcerers do.

[Andras]

Also, if Sorcery is tied to blood, you'd see 'Sorcerer familys' forming instead of wizards guilds, taking the place of the primary magical establishments. they'd do a lot of the classic plot functions of wizards guilds (i.e. act as a center of arcane knowledge, create magic items, etc), but would have a different 'feel' to them, less 'Unseen University' and more 'mafia family', with an emphasis on preserving the bloodline and adopting new Sorcerers into the family to ward off inbreeding.

I am so doing this in a future campaign.

[awa]

I think regular access to clerics and druids would keep sorcerers from completely dominating the scene like in the mafia example this combined with the lack of really high level characters making other classes obsolete.

[Storm Bringer]

fair enough. they may not completly control the scene, but they would be as large a part in the political landscape as the Churches are.

I am so doing this in a future campaign

cheers. feel free.

[Harperfan7]

They will probably be rich and/or powerful (more than other classes).

Rich from being the primary item crafters or powerful from being paranoid batmen (reclusive wizard in a tower greedily gathering magic).

Ah, in short, your world will probably be how D&D worlds are usually seen by most beginning D&D players - blaster wizards running around all over the place, with a few extremely powerful entrenched key wizards who do most of the world running/protecting/whatever.