[Thaumatology] Magic as Perks

[Prince Charon]

Imagine, if you will, that most or all easily-accessible magic is on the level of perks. Big things are rare and generally the result of a lot of preparation, a lot of people working together, or both. The most common magical advantages, possibly the only ones the PCs have access to, would be various forms of 'Modular Abilities (Magical Perks Only),' to simulate magicians having lots of such perks, some of them leveled. Beings with individual, powerful magical effects that they can pull off on the fly would be rare to the point of being legendary.

Magic items would generally be Situationally-Useful Magic Doodads, though a few legendary powerful items might exist. If Alchemy and Herb Lore exist in the setting, though, the 'standard' magic items would be Alchemical Charms.

Mostly, I'm wondering what this would do to a setting. Magic clearly exists - a magical version of something like the Ignition perk from GURPS Psionic Powers would be hard to fake at the standard fantasy tech level (TL3^), and can be proven to not be a trick at higher TLs - but it's all or nearly all minor things, if useful ones. Let's say that magical perks are also fairly common, so any given village is likely to have a bunch of people with a perk or two, but no-one or hardly anyone with lots - so, 10% have at least one magical perk, and 1% or less have more than five? Let's also say that beings with enough power to consistently solo mobs of peasants with torches and pitchforks are somewhere close to one in a million (world population in 1000 CE was probably between 250 million and 300 million, so there will be a few of those, but you aren't guaranteed to meet any).


Thoughts?

[KarlKost]

That depends, those perks are natural inborn talents, or can they be learned?

Irl we had universities being built in Medieval Europe, mostly to study theology at the beggining.

Nowadays, modern societies put a lot of effort to educate a few citizens into engineering skills, sciences and humanities, because of the return that this kind of investments generate.

Even dystopian and highly dysfunctional dictatorships like North Korea or Iran have engineers.

This kind of "low magic" would greatly change society - but not all at once, instead in incremental stages. First by slightly increasing overall productivity.

Second, people with such vital magical capacities would gain special social status. It would become harder to "put the peasants in their place" if those peasants can make the wheat grow 3x times fastes, or if those peasants are responsible to make the best swords in the feud.

This would quickly induce a meritocratic system of the mages, a "magetocracy".

And, if those capabilities can be learned, societies would begin to stockpile their resources in order to fund the education of mages.

Nobles irl began to have those problems with the ascension of the burgeouise, and those only had money, not magic powers.

In time, the wizards' Ivory Towers could begin to totally dominate socities, with all the resources spent on sustaining a meritocratic elite while the masses are left to fight for scraps

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

That depends, those perks are natural inborn talents, or can they be learned?

Yes.

Like, I'm vaguely thinking that they are inborn traits that you can, with some effort (probably qualifies as a 'big thing') gain even if you didn't start out with any. Also thinking that getting more is easier if you start with one, preferably something related to the new one, because you already 'know what it feels like' (or something like that). If the setting allows Alchemy/Herb Lore, that may be one of the usual ways of gaining more perks, and the aforementioned Modular Abilities might have Pact: Ritualism based on special diet and Alchemic/Herbal practices. Without those, it might be something more mystical, or something systematic that the universities mainly do (but a few village cunning folk might know some methods for).

In general, my current thought is that gaining more perks or gaining/improving the Modular Abilities is something that should be role-played more than roll-played or rule-played.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

That depends, those perks are natural inborn talents, or can they be learned?

Irl we had universities being built in Medieval Europe, mostly to study theology at the beggining.

Nowadays, modern societies put a lot of effort to educate a few citizens into engineering skills, sciences and humanities, because of the return that this kind of investments generate.

Even dystopian and highly dysfunctional dictatorships like North Korea or Iran have engineers.

This kind of "low magic" would greatly change society - but not all at once, instead in incremental stages. First by slightly increasing overall productivity.

Second, people with such vital magical capacities would gain special social status. It would become harder to "put the peasants in their place" if those peasants can make the wheat grow 3x times fastes, or if those peasants are responsible to make the best swords in the feud.

This would quickly induce a meritocratic system of the mages, a "magetocracy".

And, if those capabilities can be learned, societies would begin to stockpile their resources in order to fund the education of mages.

Nobles irl began to have those problems with the ascension of the burgeouise, and those only had money, not magic powers.

In time, the wizards' Ivory Towers could begin to totally dominate socities, with all the resources spent on sustaining a meritocratic elite while the masses are left to fight for scraps

I think you're dramatically overestimating the power of Perk-level abilities. Keep in mind that the most powerful magic in this setting is less powerful than the ability to reliably not get lost (Absolute Direction is a 5 point trait) or having a mellifluous voice, and equivalent to having slightly better than average vision or hearing. We're talking about abilities like lightning a fire without flint and steel, making your finger glow like a candle, copying a document by running one hand over the text and the other over a blank page. Useful, sure. Enough to make a living off of, maybe, especially if you've studied enough to have an array of related perks. Carving your way into the aristocracy is right out, though, because no matter how many perks you have access to none of them will stop an incoming sword or arrow.

[Dalillama]

Probably it would look a great deal like historical societies with mostly cosmetic differences; keep in mind that as far as TL3 people IRL were concerned magic absolutely existed and there were all manner of minor charms reputed to avert misfortune etc. Having irrefutable proof in the form of people who were sufficiently faerie-touched, or god(s) blessed, or demon haunted or whatever won't really cause most people to act differently, especially if magical Herb Lore or alchemy are also present. Some cultures will be suspicious of magic users, some will respect them, some will just note that some people can do minor cool stuff, good for them. There will be legends and tall tales of people with really powerful magic gifts, but that doesn't mean anyone actually has them. Check out T Kingfisher's Clocktaur/White Rat setting for a good worked example of what it might look like; wonderworkers, as they're called in the setting, can be more powerful but are always limited and focused, there's limited divine magic, but it matches your specifications fairly closely and would be a good source of inspiration.