Can anybody give a reasonable explanation?

[Zarrgon]

No, it's the "kinda like real life since the start of specialized skills, trades, and careers 1000s of years ago" viewpoint, and repeatedly trying to make it fit some misbegotten hobbyhorse about gaming styles won't make it otherwise. Stop trying to tell other people what they're thinking and what their reasoning is.

But again, not everyone who has a job or trade or career has 100% perfectly optimized ability scores. It would be great if someday when you were say 13, you'd wake up and know your ability score numbers and then you could pick a career based off those numbers. Of course, you'd still have millions of people saying they don't care how low their score is and they want to be take whatever career anyway.

But people heavily tend to not pick careers they're highly unsuited for, and if they do try, they very much tend to fail at it. People with 11 INT rarely if ever become theoretical physicists, people with 11 DEX rarely if ever become top-tier professional athletes.

Well, notice your moving the goal posts. It was just generic jobs, but now you want to say top tier? And, yes it's true that a person with the stats of 11, won't become top-tier professional athlete. BUT they can still become an athlete. They might not make it to theoretical physicists, but might make it to just regular physicist. And like I said, you need to compare your top tier professional to an archmage.

And no one with ability scores of between 8-12 is "highly unsuited" for most jobs, as that range does make up a lot of people. The 11 character, will in fact, just be average.

No, it's true of people in general. You're getting hung up on the fact that we're assigning a number to the Int and claiming "that's playing the optimization game." In reality, in real life, in everyday life, people play the optimization game all the time, trying to do the best they can with what they have.

I'm sure that no one except the RPG Optimization fans play the optimization game. But optimization is a far cry from "trying to do the best they can with what you have".

When an Optimization Fan builds a Optimized Character, yes, all they care about is "making the best optimized character they can with what they have".

When any other play makes(note not "build") a character they most often care about making a fun character to play.

I'll just point to 3e and PF for now, but I'm pretty sure other editions also have it: see the "starting ages" based on class.

Ok, sure, starting ages....can you point to the part that says learning magic is hard and difficult and takes years of apprenticeship?

Yes, multiclassing into wizard means you just "suddenly pick it up,"

Yup, silly game rules.

If you want to argue that becoming a wizard is trivially easy, such that anybody who has the aptitude shoudl take at least one level of it, go ahead, but now you are playing the optimization game, not me.

I'm not saying it's easy, I just asked for a rule that makes it so hard. And how hard is it?

In real life, historically speaking, unless there was a lot of patronage and bribery going on, people ill-suited to prestigious and highly-lucrative jobs didn't have masters of the profession wasting their time on training them to be barely-passable. They were turned out to go learn a trade more suited to their talents. Or simply turned out in favor of more promising students.

Er, historical speaking this happens everyday. Most people training and teaching are average and they are teaching average students. And bribery to get into a school.....humm, check the recent news.

"Want to?" "Pick?" Sure, people decide to be professional athletes all the time...and most of them don't make it into the pro leagues. People decide they want to get into Harvard, Yale, or MIT and can't make the cut against all the others competing for the positions because there are limited spaces. I could decide that I want to be a movie producer or an actor, but I would be hard-pressed to make any money at it given my lack of skill or talent or connections in the field. I could decide I want to run for office in two years, but I doubt I would succeed because I lack the skills, talents, temperament, and charisma to win a position as STUCO rep for a high school class, let alone a serious position where professional politicians are out advertising for people's votes. Heck, I probably couldn't raise $5000 for a campaign, because my Charisma is just too low.

But does this not prove my point? Obviously most of these people don't have ability scores of like 18 or 25, but they sure do jobs they are not "optimized too". Some fail, but most can just make it through as average or below average. After all the world is full of producers, actors and writers that are just objectively "not that good"; and yet they make whole carries and lifetimes doing that and "just" get by.

The 11-int Wizard needs special circumstances to even be given the chance to learn: he needs either to be trying to be self-taught (in which case it probably does take him much longer than if he were being trained by a master) or to find a master who will bear with his rather dunce-like nature compared to said master and most of the other apprentices. A master who is desperate for a student might take him on, but how many wizards are desperate for students and can't find anybody smarter than the average human?

Intelligence of 11 is not "that low". It's average. If a wizard was to sit around and wait only for geniuses with a sing saying "you must have an Intelligence of 18+ to be my apprentice", they will be sitting around for a long time.

The point being: yes, you can construct scenarios where 11-int Wizards pop up, but they're special cases and circumstances.

Oddly I see it the other way around. Wizards of Lower Intelligence would be quite common, but it's the wizards of high and super high intelligence that are rare. Plus you'd have plenty of high intelligence characters of other classes that chose that class because they were not optimizing.

[Max_Killjoy]

But again, not everyone who has a job or trade or career has 100% perfectly optimized ability scores. It would be great if someday when you were say 13, you'd wake up and know your ability score numbers and then you could pick a career based off those numbers. Of course, you'd still have millions of people saying they don't care how low their score is and they want to be take whatever career anyway.

And those who can't cut it in a demanding field, don't get the career they want. It doesn't matter how much you want it, if you can't hack it.

Well, notice your moving the goal posts. It was just generic jobs, but now you want to say top tier? And, yes it's true that a person with the stats of 11, won't become top-tier professional athlete. BUT they can still become an athlete. They might not make it to theoretical physicists, but might make it to just regular physicist. And like I said, you need to compare your top tier professional to an archmage.

And no one with ability scores of between 8-12 is "highly unsuited" for most jobs, as that range does make up a lot of people. The 11 character, will in fact, just be average.

Goalposts are firmly planted, we've always been discussing wizards, not ditch-diggers etc.

[mindstalk]

Goalposts are firmly planted, we've always been discussing wizards, not ditch-diggers etc.

But what "being a wizard" means, in training requirements and social role, is *not* firmly planted.

I note that a first level spell cast by an 11 Int wizard is *just as good* as one cast by a 20 Int wizard, unless you need high DC, which for civilian purposes you don't. Depending on edition Int can matter for speed of advancement, or how many spells you get per day, or how easily you can learn a spell, or the highest level spell you can learn and cast, but in D&D it has never mattered for the actual spell cast.

Also edition details can matter a lot. In 3.5 a 1st level bard gets a handful of cantrips; in Pathfinder she gets infinite cantrip slots *and* potential access to Cure Light Wounds. In the latter game it would make more sense for your entire 11+ Cha nobility to have dipped into a level of Bard just for easy access to curative magic. In the former game it's less appealing, in AD&D the question doesn't even make sense.

[Alcore]

Also edition details can matter a lot. In 3.5 a 1st level bard gets a handful of cantrips; in Pathfinder she gets infinite cantrip slots *and* potential access to Cure Light Wounds. In the latter game it would make more sense for your entire 11+ Cha nobility to have dipped into a level of Bard just for easy access to curative magic. In the former game it's less appealing, in AD&D the question doesn't even make sense.

also in pathfinder...


A witch (an arcane class) can select the healing hex (at 1st level). All day long she can cast cure light wounds. The catch is that it only works once per person per 24 hours. That won't typically matter in a city; you only need to stabilize before better help can be found. Upgrades to cure moderate wounds at 5th level. Witches also have a few contrips that used to be restricted to divine casters.

A Magocracy with unlimited, if conditional, healing...

[Psyren]

I just can't seem to think of a valid, in-game reason that these societies aren't the dominant form of government in D&D.

1) Gods don't want it that way: It might feel like a cop-out answer to some, but you're specifically asking about D&D settings - and all of them except for Eberron do possess deities that can outmuscle any wizard long before they achieve demigod status. Several of these deities have a vested interest in non-magocratic societies - whether they are typical pseudo-medieval feudal states, honorable warrior-tribes, And even Eberron, while lacking deities in the traditional sense, instead has a global prophecy that dictates the overall progress

2) The mages themselves don't want it that way: Think of someone like Elminster or Raistlin or Manshoon. Yeah they could easily rule a city or a country, but why would they? All that administration is useless time they could otherwise spend researching, adventuring, crafting, or just plain kicking back.

3) The people don't want it that way: No matter how powerful someone is, they can't be a leader with no one to lead. Whether its a general distrust of magic, specific bad examples in the past, or both - if people want to prevent or curtail mages from having too much political power, that's generally what will happen. Mages are more often key advisors or agents than the rulers themselves, both because that is more in line with their own goals (see #2) and because they usually don't have to worry about pitchfork-wielding mobs that way, since there is another ruler taking the fall.

4) The mages already run things and nobody knows it: This is an offshoot of the last two - if you can accomplish just as much ruling from behind the scenes with far less risk, there's little reason not to. A "mageocracy" doesn't have to mean the monarch or ruling class are all mages - it could mean that they install a non-mage into whatever positions of power are needed and just direct that individual - willingly or non-wilingly.

[mindstalk]

All that administration is useless time they could otherwise spend researching, adventuring, crafting, or just plain kicking back.

People keep saying this but I'm not sure it holds up. The office of grand vizier/prime minister/Hand of the King exists for reasons, one of which is to offload the boring administrative work onto someone else. Someone who might be better qualified at that job than the person who is "the last king's eldest son" or "the most powerful wizard". And someone who can be blamed for unpopular decisions -- even if you're the one who forced those decisions through. In the meantime you the king get the nice feeling of being In Charge and rolling around in as much tax money as you can siphon off from the military and roads and bribes. All the benefit, little of the work.

Have you ever wished you could tell the government what to do? It's like that. The king does what they want while living in luxury, offloading the gruntwork, but gets to override the government if it does something they disagree with.

[Zarrgon]

And those who can't cut it in a demanding field, don't get the career they want. It doesn't matter how much you want it, if you can't hack it.

True for demanding fields, but there are tons of less demanding fields. A average score character can't be a, as you say, a top tier pro athlete, but they can still be a professional athlete. Same way the average score character can be a wizard, but not be an archmage.

Goalposts are firmly planted, we've always been discussing wizards, not ditch-diggers etc.

Ok, good to know then that you agree that characters of at least average stats like intelligence can be a wizard.

[Max_Killjoy]

True for demanding fields, but there are tons of less demanding fields. A average score character can't be a, as you say, a top tier pro athlete, but they can still be a professional athlete. Same way the average score character can be a wizard, but not be an archmage.

Wizardry IS a demanding field.

And no, an "average score character" CANNOT be a professional athlete. Even a single-A baseball player toiling away in the minor leagues is still in the 99th percentile of human beings athletically. Or higher.

Ok, good to know then that you agree that characters of at least average stats like intelligence can be a wizard.

If you're not going to argue in good faith, don't bother.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

You, do realize what administration actually entails, right? It's secretarial work, paperwork, number-crunching, signing and writing documents, keeping track of manifests, and making sure people's schedules line up. A lantern archon has literally no abilities that would help with that save for Tongues for translation. They have an Int of 6 and no skills. To use their "superhuman" status to claim that they would be able to somehow magically obviate administrative tasks is like saying that a gorilla would be a good driver.

Lantern archons, being archons, have at-will greater teleport in addition to their constant tongues, making them a classic option for casters wanting easy transportation and communication and an excellent choice for messengers, couriers, translators, concierges, and other public-facing roles where being fast and multilingual helps. Not having to sleep plus having Darkvision plus having the ability to make continual flames plus literally being a ball of light makes them good night shift workers, too, improving the efficiency of your bureacracy.

Far from having "no skills," outsiders like archons have 8+Int skills, so even with a 6 Int that lets them max out 6 skills; the standard stat block even has them train Diplomacy, so by default they're people persons archons.

And finally, the best thing about lantern archons is that you don't need to call up a few hundred of them and deprive Celestia and Bytopia of their gifts, you can just make them! They only last for a short time, but (A) an infinitely-teleporting archon can get a lot done in 1 hour and (B) you're actually increasing the number of archons in the multiverse by spamming that spell, something that might help persuade more powerful archons to lend you a hand.

The single biggest problem with D&D is the Good alignment. A lot of these arguments fall apart if you don't have explicitly Good people to call on. If Pelor is just a sun god, who only really cares about the sun and crops and maybe killing undead, but has no particular mandate to help people, the question of why Pelor and his clergy don't do anything about the fact that being stuck in the middle ages is miserable basically goes away. D&D would be in all ways improved if you replaced alignment with MTG's Color Wheel or abolished it entirely.

Without straying too far into real-world religion territory, I'd point out that "omnibenevolent deity vs. Problem of Evil" is an unsolved issue in philosophy and there's an entire field of theodicy devoted to solving it, and there are a lot more valid reasons why a Good D&D deity might be otherwise occupied (dealing with stronger opposing gods, handling stuff on other Prime worlds, etc.).

[Zarrgon]

Wizardry IS a demanding field.

It is? Based on what?

The D&D rules sure don't say anything about spellcasting being demanding.

And no, an "average score character" CANNOT be a professional athlete. Even a single-A baseball player toiling away in the minor leagues is still in the 99th percentile of human beings athletically. Or higher.

99% or higher for the minors leagues sounds a bit high.

If you're not going to argue in good faith, don't bother.

Well, I'm pointing out that even average people can be wizards. There is nothing about wizards that makes them only the top 99% of people. That would be saying what, all wizards must have a minimum intelligence of 18?

No edition of D&D ever had a rule that all wizards must be way above average. Maybe there is a game out there that only always wizards that were born demi gods that your thinking of?

[Psyren]

People keep saying this but I'm not sure it holds up. The office of grand vizier/prime minister/Hand of the King exists for reasons, one of which is to offload the boring administrative work onto someone else. Someone who might be better qualified at that job than the person who is "the last king's eldest son" or "the most powerful wizard". And someone who can be blamed for unpopular decisions -- even if you're the one who forced those decisions through. In the meantime you the king get the nice feeling of being In Charge and rolling around in as much tax money as you can siphon off from the military and roads and bribes. All the benefit, little of the work.

Have you ever wished you could tell the government what to do? It's like that. The king does what they want while living in luxury, offloading the gruntwork, but gets to override the government if it does something they disagree with.

You know what lets you offload even more work? Telling the king what to do. All putting your name over the door does is tell the rivals/revolutionaries who to go after.

It is? Based on what?

The D&D rules sure don't say anything about spellcasting being demanding.

This a thread about settings, not RAW.

[Max_Killjoy]

It is? Based on what?

The D&D rules sure don't say anything about spellcasting being demanding.

Most of the text for D&D (both for the settings and and for its implicit setting), and many other game settings, make it quite clear that wizardry is an intellectually challenging pursuit that is not just unsuited for the average intellect, but quite potentially dangerous.

Even in 5th edition, INT controls how many spells the wizard can prepare, the effectiveness of some spells, the saving throw imposed on targets, etc -- that is, even an edition where the rules sometimes deeply fail to embrace the "fluff" (hate that word) an average or low INT makes for a poor wizard indeed. And there is a min INT still for multi-classing as a Wizard, at least.

99% or higher for the minors leagues sounds a bit high.

There are roughly 6500 minor league baseball players each season. Even if we ignore how many of them are from other countries and pretend they're all Americans, that's about 0.002% of the US population playing minor league baseball each season. So if anything, 99th percentile is being conservative.

It doesn't matter how much the average person wants to engage in one of these highly demanding pursuits we're discussing, they're simply not equipped.

Well, I'm pointing out that even average people can be wizards.

I was referring to the "thank you for agreeing with me" when you know damn well I don't, and that my statement expressed no agreement.

[AdAstra]

Lantern archons, being archons, have at-will greater teleport in addition to their constant tongues, making them a classic option for casters wanting easy transportation and communication and an excellent choice for messengers, couriers, translators, concierges, and other public-facing roles where being fast and multilingual helps. Not having to sleep plus having Darkvision plus having the ability to make continual flames plus literally being a ball of light makes them good night shift workers, too, improving the efficiency of your bureacracy.

Far from having "no skills," outsiders like archons have 8+Int skills, so even with a 6 Int that lets them max out 6 skills; the standard stat block even has them train Diplomacy, so by default they're people persons archons.

And finally, the best thing about lantern archons is that you don't need to call up a few hundred of them and deprive Celestia and Bytopia of their gifts, you can just make them! They only last for a short time, but (A) an infinitely-teleporting archon can get a lot done in 1 hour and (B) you're actually increasing the number of archons in the multiverse by spamming that spell, something that might help persuade more powerful archons to lend you a hand.

Where are you getting that from? At least in the OGL stat block no skills are listed. (EDIT: Ah, okay, outsider rules. Still not sure where the diplomacy is coming from though). How would cross-class skill rules and max ranks interact with that? And even when maxed out, any intelligence skills will still only be at a +0 pretty sure. Charisma and Wisdom skills would be +2?

In addition, that spell says "You sacrifice a small part of your own life force to create a new lantern archon". That doesn't sound like the sort of spell you can spam if we're taking spell descriptions with any in-universe weight. Of course, we could also go with a Tippyverse setup, but that's a far more comprehensive interpretation of the setting beyond just having mageocracies and such.

[mindstalk]

"You sacrifice a small part of your own life force to create a new lantern archon". That doesn't sound like the sort of spell you can spam if we're taking spell descriptions with any in-universe weight.

But mechanically it's just Con drain.

[Alcore]

There are roughly 6500 minor league baseball players each season. Even if we ignore how many of them are from other countries and pretend they're all Americans, that's about 0.002% of the US population playing minor league baseball each season. So if anything, 99th percentile is being conservative.

It doesn't matter how much the average person wants to engage in one of these highly demanding pursuits we're discussing, they're simply not equipped.

Problem is that while minor leagues is conservative it can be spot on for the demographs of population centers. If you roll high on the "highest wizard level" table in 3.5 you can often reach 1 or 2% arcane intelligence based casters if you keep doubling wizard numbers for each lower level (a common trend). Add in artifcers or warmages (both intelligence based) and you might make 5%. Add the spellcaster npc class in Eberron and double digit percentage arcane casters is not terribly unreasonable.


I feel wizards (or any intelligence based arcane caster) are more common than most people think yet it is harder to be one than what other people think.

[Friv]

There are roughly 6500 minor league baseball players each season. Even if we ignore how many of them are from other countries and pretend they're all Americans, that's about 0.002% of the US population playing minor league baseball each season. So if anything, 99th percentile is being conservative.

That assumes that everyone who is capable of playing in the minor leagues wants to. For example, a lot of athletes playing in other sports would be capable of playing minor league baseball if they shifted their training regimens to that, and lots of people who are capable of minor league baseball have chosen to be software developers, or lawyers, or cashiers. Ultimately speaking, how much someone wants to be involved in these occupations is one of the primary drivers of whether they do.

For example, the average salary of a minor league baseball player is $1,100 per month, which is only $7.25 per hour if you're training full-time for games - and then clubhouse fees are taken out. You literally make more money working at McDonalds. I don't think the primary barrier to participation in the minor leagues is your physical ability to play baseball.

And it calls into question how you're defining capability. If I were capable of playing in the minor leagues, provided that I was willing to spend 2-3 hours a day training to be in the minor leagues, but since I am not currently spending 2-3 hours a day exercising I would not currently be able to play in the minor leagues - are you excluding me from the list? If most people could learn wizardry, but they don't have time because the hours required to be a farmer preclude the hours involved to be a wizard, would you say that those people can't learn to be wizards, or merely that they don't?

[prabe]

That assumes that everyone who is capable of playing in the minor leagues wants to. For example, a lot of athletes playing in other sports would be capable of playing minor league baseball if they shifted their training regimens to that, and lots of people who are capable of minor league baseball have chosen to be software developers, or lawyers, or cashiers. Ultimately speaking, how much someone wants to be involved in these occupations is one of the primary drivers of whether they do.

For example, the average salary of a minor league baseball player is $1,100 per month, which is only $7.25 per hour if you're training full-time for games - and then clubhouse fees are taken out. You literally make more money working at McDonalds. I don't think the primary barrier to participation in the minor leagues is your physical ability to play baseball.

And it calls into question how you're defining capability. If I were capable of playing in the minor leagues, provided that I was willing to spend 2-3 hours a day training to be in the minor leagues, but since I am not currently spending 2-3 hours a day exercising I would not currently be able to play in the minor leagues - are you excluding me from the list? If most people could learn wizardry, but they don't have time because the hours required to be a farmer preclude the hours involved to be a wizard, would you say that those people can't learn to be wizards, or merely that they don't?

A way to look at this: If there are ~6500 players in the Minors (I have no reason to doubt the number, but I haven't checked it, but the total number of players under contract in all leagues maxes out at 8700), and there are 750 players in the Majors at any given time (25-man roster times 30 teams) then the percentage of players who aren't in the Majors is easy to work out. Conventional wisdom says that about 10% of players signed ever play in the Bigs, which I think would place those players in the 90th percentile of professional baseball players, at least. I don't think it's unreasonable to place them well into the 99th percentile as far as capability goes.

[Zarrgon]

Most of the text for D&D (both for the settings and and for its implicit setting), and many other game settings, make it quite clear that wizardry is an intellectually challenging pursuit that is not just unsuited for the average intellect, but quite potentially dangerous.

Well, maybe there is fluff that sort of implies it....but you'd be hard pressed to find much in a game book.

In fact, just about all "settings and implicit settings" do have weak wizards that are a lot more common then the archmage wizards.

And very few "settings and implicit settings" have "dangerous" magic, in fact again it's the exact opposite where magic is super safe and easy.

There are roughly 6500 minor league baseball players each season. Even if we ignore how many of them are from other countries and pretend they're all Americans, that's about 0.002% of the US population playing minor league baseball each season. So if anything, 99th percentile is being conservative.

Well comparing athletes to wizards might not be the best as athletes are not intelligence based.

Maybe compare wizards to scientists.

[Max_Killjoy]

That assumes that everyone who is capable of playing in the minor leagues wants to. For example, a lot of athletes playing in other sports would be capable of playing minor league baseball if they shifted their training regimens to that, and lots of people who are capable of minor league baseball have chosen to be software developers, or lawyers, or cashiers. Ultimately speaking, how much someone wants to be involved in these occupations is one of the primary drivers of whether they do.

For example, the average salary of a minor league baseball player is $1,100 per month, which is only $7.25 per hour if you're training full-time for games - and then clubhouse fees are taken out. You literally make more money working at McDonalds. I don't think the primary barrier to participation in the minor leagues is your physical ability to play baseball.

And it calls into question how you're defining capability. If I were capable of playing in the minor leagues, provided that I was willing to spend 2-3 hours a day training to be in the minor leagues, but since I am not currently spending 2-3 hours a day exercising I would not currently be able to play in the minor leagues - are you excluding me from the list? If most people could learn wizardry, but they don't have time because the hours required to be a farmer preclude the hours involved to be a wizard, would you say that those people can't learn to be wizards, or merely that they don't?

I'd say most of that is swamped by the fact that it's 0.002%.

If we guesstimate that there are 10 times as many who capable, but either don't want to or are playing another sport... that's still 0.02%.

If we guesstimate 100 times as many, that's 0.2%

Still safely in the 99th percentile figure I originally gave, and actually some of the reasons I didn't go further than 99th percentile.

My original point still stands, comparing wizards to elite athletes, not ditch-diggers and random clerks.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Where are you getting that from? At least in the OGL stat block no skills are listed. (EDIT: Ah, okay, outsider rules. Still not sure where the diplomacy is coming from though). How would cross-class skill rules and max ranks interact with that? And even when maxed out, any intelligence skills will still only be at a +0 pretty sure. Charisma and Wisdom skills would be +2?

For monsters, any skills found in their stat block are treated as class skills, so yes, cross-"class" Int-based skills are +0 and Wis-/Cha-based skills are +2. But that's not a huge deal, because many tasks you'd use lantern archons for either don't require any skill checks (so long as you can give them the appropriate destination, they don't need to navigate or look anything up, they can just bamf there) or require low-DC skill checks (so long as they have a +0 in a Knowledge skill they can take 10 for "common knowledge," enough to be a tour guide or intepreter or the like).

In addition, that spell says "You sacrifice a small part of your own life force to create a new lantern archon". That doesn't sound like the sort of spell you can spam if we're taking spell descriptions with any in-universe weight. Of course, we could also go with a Tippyverse setup, but that's a far more comprehensive interpretation of the setting beyond just having mageocracies and such.

As mindstalk noted, the spell only costs 1d2 Con drain. Any non-evil 7th-level cleric with at least 10 Con can safely create 8 lantern archons per day, following every fourth casting of create lantern archon with a casting of restoration to heal the Con drain, so unless you need dozens of disposable archons per day you don't even need dedicated lantern archon generators, any mid-level priest (or archon with cleric casting) can fill in in a pinch.

---

Regarding the wizard stats discussion, keep in mind that high stats actually aren't all that rare.

The minimum starting Int needed to be able to eventually cast 9th-level spells without Int-boosting items in 3e is 15 (+4 from levels gets you to Int 19 just in time), and getting at least 15 Int happens 9.26% of the time on a straight 3d6 roll or 23.15% of the time on 4d6-drop-lowest, so between ~1/10 and ~1/4 of the population is capable not just of "being a wizard at all" but of reaching the heights of wizardry with no outside assistance. Even the much-vaunted 18 Int will show up a comparatively high 0.46% (3d6) or 1.62% (4d6b3) of the time, so between 1/216 and ~1/60 of the populace is thus gifted.

That doesn't mean adventuring or military wizards are necessarily that common, since those percentages don't take into account other stats and someone with a stat array of 3/3/3/15/3/3 isn't going to last long in a fight (or be someone you want to trust with phenomenal cosmic power, obviously), but it does mean that "ZOMG an Int above 10, what a dirty dirty optimizer!" is a ridiculous reaction to someone having good stats for their class, and it also means that a wizard-based magocracy can have a pretty wide base of individuals from which to draw new arcanists if you assume universal magical education.

[AdAstra]

For monsters, any skills found in their stat block are treated as class skills, so yes, cross-"class" Int-based skills are +0 and Wis-/Cha-based skills are +2. But that's not a huge deal, because many tasks you'd use lantern archons for either don't require any skill checks (so long as you can give them the appropriate destination, they don't need to navigate or look anything up, they can just bamf there) or require low-DC skill checks (so long as they have a +0 in a Knowledge skill they can take 10 for "common knowledge," enough to be a tour guide or intepreter or the like).



As mindstalk noted, the spell only costs 1d2 Con drain. Any non-evil 7th-level cleric with at least 10 Con can safely create 8 lantern archons per day, following every fourth casting of create lantern archon with a casting of restoration to heal the Con drain, so unless you need dozens of disposable archons per day you don't even need dedicated lantern archon generators, any mid-level priest (or archon with cleric casting) can fill in in a pinch.

"Tour guide and interpreter" is very different from an administrator.

Also, if we're allowing infinite archon summoning from splatbooks, that definitely is just going to end up as Tippyverse, Locate City bombs and all. Infinite teleportation and servants with no limit on stamina completely obviate the need to even have citizens in your country, and realistically obviate the need for adventurers as well.

[Zarrgon]

My original point still stands, comparing wizards to elite athletes, not ditch-diggers and random clerks.

How about wizards to scientists? Does that not seem like a better match? Both are intelligent based.

How about the fact that just about all settings that have at least average levels of magic do, in fact, have lots of weak and average wizards?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

"Tour guide and interpreter" is very different from an administrator.

You'll note that I initially said lantern archons would be excellent "messengers, couriers, translators, concierges, and other public-facing roles where being fast and multilingual helps." I never claimed they would make, say, good scribes or calligraphers; first of all, it's kind of hard to use a quill when you lack hands.

For both the archon example and the general case, a lot of people seem to be reading "magocracy" and thinking "clerks and middle managers with wizard levels," but a bureaucracy is much more than just a bunch of paper-pushers. The famed ancient Chinese scholar-bureaucracy, with its Imperial examinations transitioning the government from a hereditary to a meritocratic system, gave roles such as secretaries, messengers in the Ministry of Rites, case reviewers, erudites, prefectural judges, prefects or county magistrates to those who scored lowest on its exams, and the current ISCO list of clerical and service jobs includes such roles as tellers, money collectors, transport clerks, travel attendants, guides, and personal care workers.

Those certainly aren't glamorous jobs, but I'd certainly sleep better at night knowing that physical incarnations of Lawful Goodness who are cognitively incapable of corruption or embezzlement are handling the government's casework and tax collection, wouldn't you? And handing those tasks off to lantern archons lets you give the more traditional bureaucratic jobs to stronger archons who, y'know, have hands and stuff.

Also, if we're allowing infinite archon summoning from splatbooks, that definitely is just going to end up as Tippyverse, Locate City bombs and all. Infinite teleportation and servants with no limit on stamina completely obviate the need to even have citizens in your country, and realistically obviate the need for adventurers as well.

I'm sure you realize that there's a massive gap between "a level 3 and a level 4 spell that are both known to literally every single non-Evil cleric of 7th level or higher, the former of which can be cast spontaneously and can be used more sparingly by a 5th-level-or-higher-cleric if they rest a few days between castings" and "infinite traps of infinite everything with 17th+ level casters flinging wishes and teleportation circles around."

The Tippyverse is something requiring a bunch of factors to arise, including but not limited to a cooperative and/or RAW-obeying DM, non-interventionist gods, and a critical mass of 17th-level wizards. An archonocracy is something that any government in Eberron could just wake up tomorrow and decided it wanted to implement and it would be well within both their mechanical and thematic capabilities to do so.

[AdAstra]

You'll note that I initially said lantern archons would be excellent "messengers, couriers, translators, concierges, and other public-facing roles where being fast and multilingual helps." I never claimed they would make, say, good scribes or calligraphers; first of all, it's kind of hard to use a quill when you lack hands.

For both the archon example and the general case, a lot of people seem to be reading "magocracy" and thinking "clerks and middle managers with wizard levels," but a bureaucracy is much more than just a bunch of paper-pushers. The famed ancient Chinese scholar-bureaucracy, with its Imperial examinations transitioning the government from a hereditary to a meritocratic system, gave roles such as secretaries, messengers in the Ministry of Rites, case reviewers, erudites, prefectural judges, prefects or county magistrates to those who scored lowest on its exams, and the current ISCO list of clerical and service jobs includes such roles as tellers, money collectors, transport clerks, travel attendants, guides, and personal care workers.

Those certainly aren't glamorous jobs, but I'd certainly sleep better at night knowing that physical incarnations of Lawful Goodness who are cognitively incapable of corruption or embezzlement are handling the government's casework and tax collection, wouldn't you? And handing those tasks off to lantern archons lets you give the more traditional bureaucratic jobs to stronger archons who, y'know, have hands and stuff.



I'm sure you realize that there's a massive gap between "a level 3 and a level 4 spell that are both known to literally every single non-Evil cleric of 7th level or higher, the former of which can be cast spontaneously and can be used more sparingly by a 5th-level-or-higher-cleric if they rest a few days between castings" and "infinite traps of infinite everything with 17th+ level casters flinging wishes and teleportation circles around."

The Tippyverse is something requiring a bunch of factors to arise, including but not limited to a cooperative and/or RAW-obeying DM, non-interventionist gods, and a critical mass of 17th-level wizards. An archonocracy is something that any government in Eberron could just wake up tomorrow and decided it wanted to implement and it would be well within both their mechanical and thematic capabilities to do so.

In the Imperial Chinese Bureaucracy example, yeah it was the lowest scoring individuals, among those who passed the rigorous standards (because you could still fail), after going through the years of education and study that were required before you even took the test. Does that sound like an Int 6 task?


The problem is that the archonocracy directly leads to a Tippyverse situation without intervention, assuming the archons stick around or others show up to replace them. Infinite teleports coupled with cargo allows for infinite energy (through waterwheels or other contraptions), infinite transportation capacity of objects that are less than 50 pounds per package, rapid communication across any distance, even warfare (archon teleports near hazardous material, then teleports it on top of whatever it wants to kill).

[Max_Killjoy]

How about wizards to scientists? Does that not seem like a better match? Both are intelligent based.

How about the fact that just about all settings that have at least average levels of magic do, in fact, have lots of weak and average wizards?

"Lots". OK. Just how common do you think wizards are compared to farmers, laborers, clerks, merchants, etc, or other character classes, in these settings?

(Never mind that most people who fail to cut it in science don't blow themselves up or summon a demon who eats them in the process of failing...)

[Nifft]

(Never mind that most people who fail to cut it in science don't blow themselves up or summon a demon who eats them in the process of failing...)

If adjunct teaching positions were actually life-devouring demons, I suspect those people would not be worse off...

[Friv]

How about wizards to scientists? Does that not seem like a better match? Both are intelligent based.

How about the fact that just about all settings that have at least average levels of magic do, in fact, have lots of weak and average wizards?

Flipping over to support Max, you should probably not look at modern numbers of experts when you're trying to figure these things out, because D&D, as a rule, doesn't have a modern agricultural base. Clerical magic, provided that it is relatively common (and that's the other half of this can of worms, of course) can help deal with disease and injuries and probably provide a better life expectancy, but clerical spells aren't really designed for industrial farming. The number of experts that a nation can support is thus fairly low compared to current societies, and wizards are experts. They need food from somewhere until they're fairly high level, and even then, they probably don't want to spend spell slots exclusively on feeding themselves.

[mindstalk]

OTOH if you can get to 50% workforce in agriculture via weather or pest control magic, you'll still have a largely agrarian society and yet half as many non farmers as you can ever have.

Even at 75% that's still 1/4 as many experts as modern, which is still a lot, though a lot lower expert/farmer ratio.

And a lot of people moved from farming to retail or other basic services, rather than high experts.

[Zarrgon]

"Lots". OK. Just how common do you think wizards are compared to farmers, laborers, clerks, merchants, etc, or other character classes, in these settings?

Well, I'll admit I'm a bit confused about what "settings" everyone is talking about. Settings vary a lot. And the really good settings are massive in scope and scale that they cover way to much ground literately to be talked about as just one whole setting.

Spelljammer, Planescape, The Forgotten Realms, Ebberon, Mystrara all have a TON of wizards.

Any pre industrial low magic "generic" setting will have a ton more farmers and other such "sustenance" jobs then any other class. Merchants need a whole trade infrastructure(and a concept of worth and money) to even exist...and something to trade.

And local places do trump the "setting". In the Forgotten Realms Vangerdahast of Cormyr founds War Wizards in 1306, and by 1358 there are "over" 3,000 of them kingdom wide. Something like 200 to 500 per city. But this is artificial, of course, as Vangy did recruit and train wizards who then recruited and trained more and more. And THAT is only the War Wizards. Plus 5-20 public wizards per town and city(no dumb 3E rules here), and 5-20 not public. Plus each noble family having 5-20 wizards, plus 'house' wizards. And, that only covers humans and half elves. So, maybe a little under 5,000 wizards. For a single kingdom.

(Never mind that most people who fail to cut it in science don't blow themselves up or summon a demon who eats them in the process of failing...)

So what is your reference for this? Is there a game your thinking of where a player has to roll some dice or "blow up" when they cast a spell. I know your not thinking about any D&D past 3E as all that magic is safe.

[Quertus]

Ehhhh...

It's unlikely that anybody with 11 int would become a wizard.

It's not as unlikely as you might think.

To me it sounded more like people with 11 INT don't become wizards for the same reason people with the equivalent of 11 INT in the real world don't become theoretical mathematicians.

Yea, but that is a bit apples and oranges though.

Wizard is much more generic then "theoretical mathematicians". A "theoretical mathematician" is a bit more like saying "Archmage".

Oh about "wizard" for "scientist" or "engineer" or "computer programmer". You might find a couple million people with 11 Int in such jobs.

You know some programmers are making quantum virus artificial intelligence networks.....and some make internet click bait with a little flashing box that says "click here".

I certainly had a fair number of "Int 11” classmates in my Computer Science classes - and numerous below-average intelligence people in university in general (really, if "there's a 1-in-6 chance of getting a '6' on a normal die (a d6 for us)" is an incomprehensible, "stuff of the gods" "how can you know that" concept? You may be making it through college on your back.).

Heck, now I want to run an 11-Int grey elf in 3e who had to go to human Wizard school, and still only made it through on her back.

But, back in 2e? I had plenty of 11-int Wizards. Was it suboptimal? Sure. But that didn't make it any less fun.