Wizard population dynamics

[hcobb]

We know there must have once been a few wizards (presumably human) at IQ 24 because IQ 20 spells exist and somebody must have researched them.

Taking 24 as the maximum feasible human stat, why not use the 4d6 bell curve for wizard IQ? (Round anything under 8 up to IQ 8 and they make up 5.4% of all wizards.)

On the high end one in every 800k living humans is an IQ 24 wizard.
IQ 23 wizards are four times as common at one in every 200k humans.
IQ 22 is more common still at one in every 80k and so on.

I'd make Goblins twice as common at the high end, but with the same 24 cap.

[Skarg]

I think that gives you too many IQ 8 wizards, and too many high IQ (14+) wizards.

I've been working, on and off, mostly off, on plotting wizard IQ distribution, taking into account how much of the population lives how long, and providing a matrix of how many wizards at which age might tend to have what IQ, as well as how many you'd have per population at any given age/IQ, on average.

I used an actual medieval population pyramid for the age breakdown.

The hard and unknown (up to the GM, really) parts though are about what the distribution should be like at each age. i.e. What is the breakdown for 16-20-year old wizards, and then how much do they tend to increase and then lose their IQ as they gain experience and then decay away.

[DarkPumpkin]

In my Cidri, there are as many wizards as I need (as GM) for the story and setting that I want :-)
Seems to work. Not a fan of extrapolating too much from the rules, but that's me.

[Helborn]

You're forgetting the Mnoren. They were the only IQ 21+ Wizards.... :-)

[hcobb]

If there are no IQ 24 wizards then who makes the new Words of Command?

Unless...

Mass research: A group of wizards can combine forces, establish laboratories and communicate on a daily basis (in person or remotely) to research spells together than none of them could have discovered alone. Each wizard rolls independently and research advances on any week when all members succeed.

A group of two wizards can research a spell three IQ levels below their lowest IQ.

A group of four wizards can research a spell two IQ levels below their lowest IQ.

A group of eight wizards can research a spell one IQ level below their lowest IQ.

A group of 16 wizards can research a spell at their lowest IQ level.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

If there are no IQ 24 wizards then who makes the new Words of Command?

Hopefully hardly anyone, since Words of Command are already one of the most overpowering spells, capable of making fools and corpses of many interesting characters.

I don't see any reason why there would be NO IQ 24 characters, and I think it's good that there would be few of them, and that all of the more difficult and powerful feats of magic remain difficult and therefore rare.

The high-end things are there at the high end for reasons. If you want power creep and to make the current high-end hard things to be more routine, then you probably also want to think about what your new high-end should be like.

But one of the main problems with powerful magic is that it tends to make many interesting mid-range and non-magical characters, somewhat easy to overpower, kill, and render insignificant. A similar effect applies to conventional interesting game world and adventure situations, such as travel, maps, conventional security measures, conventional intrigue methods, etc. It can also be increasingly difficult to strategize about, and to play, because there gets to be so many strong magical tactics to consider, especially for the GM of a hopefully-self-consistent dynamic campaign. At least, I find it much easier if I assume the more powerful magic is rare and so any example of it involves thinking about a rare situation and having specific characters in mind who wanted it, created it, etc. A game with abundant very powerful magic can still be fun to play, for example either as very-powerful wizards, or as more ordinary people trying to succeed in a world with awesomely strong magic, or other play modes.

[RobW]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Mass research: A group of wizards can combine forces, establish laboratories and communicate on a daily basis (in person or remotely) to research spells together than none of them could have discovered alone.....

A group of two wizards can research a spell three IQ levels below their lowest IQ.

A group of four wizards can research a spell two IQ levels below their lowest IQ.

A group of eight wizards can research a spell one IQ level below their lowest IQ.

A group of 16 wizards can research a spell at their lowest IQ level.

I think the mythical man month would apply at least as much to spell research as to systems programming.

[Helborn]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Taking 24 as the maximum feasible human stat, why not use the 4d6 bell curve for wizard IQ? (Round anything under 8 up to IQ 8 and they make up 5.4% of all wizards.)

On the high end one in every 800k living humans is an IQ 24 wizard.
IQ 23 wizards are four times as common at one in every 200k humans.
IQ 22 is more common still at one in every 80k and so on.

Doesn't it all depend on what percentage of the population are Wizards and how the distribution operates? Why 1 in 800k instead of 1 in 800 million? There is nothing to say that it needs to be a 4d6 distribution. There are many bell curves with steeper asymptotes so that it takes 20 million Wizards to have one IQ 24 or IQ 30 super genius. It can be any distribution we want it to be. There is nothing which requires a population distribution to allow all d6 options to have an equal chance. Perhaps 1 die always rolls a 6 and the other three roll 1, 2, or 3 99.99% of the time?

Personally, I prefer a distribution where an IQ 25 (let's go to the top) Wizard comes along once in 500 or even 5000 years. He may actually come up with an IQ 21 spell - but almost no one will understand it or be able to cast it.

In the same way, perhaps all those apprentices are doomed to stay forever at IQ 8. They have NO opportunity to increase. For every IQ 9 Wizard, perhaps there are 1000 IQ 8, and so forth. That works better in my mind than a bell curve.

[hcobb]

The advantage here is the players bump into a random wizard at the guild and you just roll 4d6 to see how "high level" this random encounter is.

For a random human roll 4d6 and on a 4 or a 24 it's a full blown wizard. On a roll of 5 to 8 it's a hero who knows some spells.

[hcobb]

The most interesting question in TFT is why are starting PC wizards age 20?

Their lack of muggle skills indicates they were shipped off to Hogwarts at age 6 or so and later it takes them about four years to learn their spells at one a quarter.

That gives the lifepath of a wizard to be:

Age 6: Anakin and Tom Riddle are spotted by the Jedi council and shipped off to the academy where they spend the next ten years isolated from the world (and people skills) while they learn the basics of the force.

Age 16: With the literacy talent, basic chakra control, the Aid spell, and the ability to identify spells by their casting (page 142), young miss Poppins is then put under a Sorcerer's supervision for her apprenticeship. She can cast from books, but has very few spells actually memorized.

At age 20 these new journeymen are now ready to duel each other to the death in the arena or do whatever else it is that young independent people do these days.

Also note the following:

Page 60: "If the wizard has an apprentice who can cast the spell you want, he may have the apprentice do it for practice (unless you’re in a hurry)."

Page 141: "In order to cast a spell from a book, a wizard must have the book, right there. It must be in a language he can read. (An illiterate wizard is handicapped!) The wizard must also be in a fully-equipped laboratory, or have his magician’s chest with him."

Page 142: "A lab may be attuned to any number of wizards" ... "A wizard’s chest is attuned to him and him only."

I.e. the apprentice is book casting and attuned to the lab, which is sensible enough.

The big problem is that The Wizard's Guild is not making anywhere near enough money to pay for the $25k in base wizard training each student gets. Wizard academy charges $25 a week ($50 if boarding) for each child between the ages of six and sixteen fifty weeks a year with two weeks off. Each new wizard PC needs an explanation for where this money came from. Perhaps they'll all geased to pay off their student loans?

The Senior Guildmaster of Dranning doubles as the headmaster of the Guild school and has 16 (of the roughly 80, taking in from the surrounding countryside) wizards in the city acting as teachers for a hundred wizard students (in ten year programs) and sixty non-wizard students (that stay an average of a year each).

Each teacher has a rental lab at $200/week plus $150/week in salary times 16 is an expense of $6k to run the place or $27 per student week, with the remaining fraction subsided by guild dues. Truly the guild is cutting their own throats out of the kindness of their wicked hearts to train the next generation of evil wizards.