The Problem With Magic

[Celjabba]

The biggest obstacle to bringing Henry Ford a few TL early by way of magic is probably the critical failure table...

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I've heard that one of the spell design rules says "three CP of advantages costs 1 FP". You could make your own spells by using Sorcery/Powered Magic and converting that way.

My rule of thumb is 5 CP = 1 point of mana.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The job of ceremonial assistant would be suitable for children, disabled people, elderly people, etc.

Unless you're cursed or otherwise so infirm or mentally disabled that you can't effectively participate, it guarantees full employment.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

You could have traveling magical bazaars, consisting of a group of five mages with skill-16 and one hundred ceremonial assistants.

This is a great campaign idea! Basically, you've got a caravan which travels along a circuit doing magical stuff at each stop. Due to the presence of the mages, it might attract other professionals, making it a traveling fair.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

You could have traveling magical bazaars, consisting of a group of five mages with skill-16 and one hundred ceremonial assistants.

My recollection is that in 3e, an assistant had to genuinely want the ceremony to succeed, and merely wanting to be paid wasn't enough. 4e removed this, and with it one of the main limitations on cheap large-scale ceremonies - in 3e they'd most likely be religious ceremonies for the benefit of the whole congregation, or at least a member of it who was in need. In 4e they're a commercial tool, assuming my memory is correct.

[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I could imagine a fantasy society with few beggars, for example, because the majority of the people who would have been beggars make a better living being a ceremonial assistant than they would as a beggar.

Interesting. However, if even beggars could make a good living, the ramifications would still shift the economics to a new state.

More and more it seems to me in our modern society of plenty that economics is much less about productivity and wealth and more about creating hierarchies and control. Even if everyone were highly skilled in the latest demanding technologies, there is a strong need to keep the masses "down" so as to ensure the power of the insecure elites, for better or worse.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by maximara

Actually due to its origin as Chainmail, D&D owed more to H. G. Wells' 1913 Little Wars then the actual Sword and Sorcery coming out of Weird Tales. OD&D was for all practical proposes a miniature war game with RPG elements awkwardly slapped on.

And those elements seem to have mainly come from Vance, Howard, and a little bit of Tolkien.

The first thing an army needs to even remotely function is supplies. The ability to replenish units in terms of health and spell power between battles means potions...lots and lots of potions. Sure they may be rare in the average town but they have to be common enough to be used in the average war or tourney going on.

Metalwork rare in a village was often found in a castle. Swords represented a big investment, the poor fought with clubs and farm implements. It makes sense that potions would be found among the wealthy and powerful. If we had magic potions that really worked in our world, the rich would have most of them and the governments of the world would control and/or outlaw many types of potion.

One of the more famous articles back from the old days of Dragon magazine was "Gandalf was only a Fifth Level Magic-User!" (Dragon #5 March 1977) showed just how quickly things went pearshaped with D&D in terms of magical power. Clerics in many respects were worse.

No fifth level magic-user could go face to face with a Balrog.

[dcarson]

In the early days of mechanized agriculture and still some today you had the harvesting machinery move along a north-south circuit with harvest time. A similar thing with a Bless Plants and such at planting time would work with magic.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I could imagine a fantasy society with few beggars, for example, because the majority of the people who would have been beggars make a better living being a ceremonial assistant than they would as a beggar.

Your new beggar class is composed of people who cannot* take this job (and of course the standard stable of beggars who simply refuse to work).


* Magic Resistance is the new Disad... also just anyone who is very poor of health.

[AlexanderHowl]

Hm, I wonder how that would be modelled in game? Would it be a Social Stigma? Or would they suffer a reaction penalty equal to their Magical Resistance?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

No fifth level magic-user could go face to face with a Balrog.

He could if he was also a 20th level fighter. Gandalf did a lot of hitting things with a sword.