Economy wrecking spells?

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Prospecting is not so big a part of the medieval economy that making it obsolete will make things bizarre.

Partly because Prospecting is a time consuming labor instense work with relatively poor chance of success on any given try. Seek Earth tends to make the chance of success MUCH better.

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

Partly because Prospecting is a time consuming labor instense work with relatively poor chance of success on any given try. Seek Earth tends to make the chance of success MUCH better.

In which case the challenge becomes seeking a trustworthy mage. :)

[hal]

Originally Posted by Xplo

No, but metal is. Or rather, isn't.

The worry isn't that putting some miners out of work will cause a major change. The worry is that having vast supplies of metal brings you one giant step closer to an industrial age. This is particularly true if the same mages that have been making it also know how to shape it into plates, tubes, machine parts, and other useful objects.

Which means to a large extent, mages can create molded shapes, turn those shapes into seamless metalic parts, and they wouldn't even have to pour heated metals in order to make it. Imagine if you will, being able to create a stainless steel pump made of a region approximately 1 cubic foot in volume. Imagine being able to create pieces of metal with such tight tolerance within that pump, and then being able to make it so that you have valve pieces inside some very special parameters within the pump, that keep that piece of metal from flipping over, or from being "Stuck" at any given time. In short, being able to create metalic pieces we would have difficulty fabricating for real with modern technology.

Ah well, I'll leave this thought alone <g>.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

Partly because Prospecting is a time consuming labor instense work with relatively poor chance of success on any given try. Seek Earth tends to make the chance of success MUCH better.

By the by? One fix I proposed for the Seek Earth is to treat it like the Shapeshift spell. Each metal has its own spell, which requires that the mage decide what it is he's seeking, and be willing to invest points into it instead of being able to do ALL metals with just one spell. Another alternative that I favor more is based on the premise that different metals are easier to find than some, and other metals are harder to find than some. If heavier density metals are harder to find than lighter density metals, you could for example, assign a -3 penalty to finding certain density metals, or -5, or -8 the harder it is you as GM desire certain metals to be found. Since long distance penalties can be relieved somewhat by having the mage closer to the materials he seeks, it become akin to needing the mage to act like a metal detector over a specific spot, instead of him sitting in his chair some 10 miles away, and triangulating where it has to be. Also? One SHOULD require mathematics to actually "triangulate" on a given location in this manner ;)

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

Partly because Prospecting is a time consuming labor instense work with relatively poor chance of success on any given try. Seek Earth tends to make the chance of success MUCH better.

Although not infallible. Even if the ore isn't staked out by monsters (or worse, dwarves), Seek Earth will only point the way to the nearest concentration in range that hasn't been excluded. No guarantees that it will be close enough to the surface to be exploited using TL 3 techniques.

[weby]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

No guarantees that it will be close enough to the surface to be exploited using TL 3 techniques.

that is what shape earth is for..

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by weby

that is what shape earth is for..

No, not really. Not only would you need to turn the stone to earth before it would be useful that way, go deep enough enough and you start to develop heat, air and water problems.

[weby]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

No, not really. Not only would you need to turn the stone to earth before it would be useful that way, go deep enough enough and you start to develop heat, air and water problems.

Shape earth can shape stone too.

Also those other problems are fairly easy to overcome with spells. (Way easier than with any technology before maybe TL6)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Xplo

That's one wife, two children, and four other people who suddenly don't need to work in the fields all day.

Congratulations, you've just reinvented the green revolution.

Say, maybe that mage's kids can study engineering with all that free time. I'm sure that his suddenly-wealthy family can afford tutors and such. I hear there's this guy with thousands of tons of iron and he's looking for someone to help him build some machines...

No you haven't reinvented the green revolution. Modern farmer feed a hundred or more people for everyone involved in agriculture.

You have not possibly reduced the number of households involved in agriculture to below 50%. In the modern US it's probably below 1%.

It's not even going to push it down to 50% because Create Food doesn't make fibers for clothes or rope or thatch for roofing or wood for construction or a lot of other things.

You also did not appear to notice the comment of "even if everyone is a mage". That's much more likely to change a setting beyond recognition than any particular spell.

Both of the farmer's children can't study engineering (and why would they want to if magic works so well?). At least one of them has to study Create Food to make this system self-sustaining.

The other one probably has to study weaving and sewing and every other domestic skill (even if those are done with magic too).

Other Skills like carpentry and blacksmithing probably have to be farmed out to specialists (even if they are magical specialists). The Create Food guys has to make enough food to feed them as well.

Really, magic may enable a man who hasn't studied a particular mundane craft to replace a man who has. However when you consider the pts spent on Magery and spells rather than skills it's only people who have a lot of pts to whom this is attractive. People with a lot of CP would be just better anyway.

It's only when magic allows the mage to do work of entire factories of normal people that a magical industrial revolution becomes inevitable. Replacing mundane craftsmen with magical craftsmen leaves you still in a crafts-based economy (i.e. pre-industrial).

You might get more luxury goods but few people want to adventure in a setting of realistic medieval poverty.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

In which case the challenge becomes seeking a trustworthy mage. :)

Or BEING the mage who prospects. One suggestion given to me at yesterday's game: Introduce Invokings. An Invoking is to spells what Hard techniques are to skills. The main distinction between them is that like spells, you MUST buy a level of the Invoking to use it.

On the plus side you can raise an invoking to Spell +3, so while a caster can't get time or energy reductions for higher skill on the Invoking the Power of an item enchanted with it can be higher than an item with the base spell.

How does this apply here? Simple: An altering of the Seek Earth spell.

Seek Earth seeks earths. The Earth College distinguishes Earth from Stone in many cases and this is one more. Seek (Specific type of) Stone defaults to Seek Earth -4 and for purposes of Enchantment (but NOT energy/casting time reduction) use the base skill of the Invoking rather than the underlying spell.

Marla Magicus is a 14/3 wizard who knows Seek Earth at 15. If Invokings defaulted freely from spell level, she could default from an 11-. Since points must be spent, she can find rock type X at 12- for 2 CP, and Rock Type Y for an additional 2 CP etc.