This is true in every setting I have ever read and in major cities, high-level hero class characters not only not rare but they are extremely common.
Well, PC classes are probably still a pretty small minority (5e didn't discuss demographics), but over a small kingdom with a million people a small minority is still a large absolute number.
I believe that we are meant to pretend that NPCs like the Apprentice Wizard and Archdruid are just like the PC classes, but due to game design, they MUST be made under a different rule set. PC/NPC (class vs stat block) design is there just strictly to make the Game work and shouldn't impact lore. At least that is how I see it.
I believe that we are meant to pretend that NPCs like the Apprentice Wizard and Archdruid are just like the PC classes, but due to game design, they MUST be made under a different rule set.
It's more a case of 'using full fledged PC rules for NPCs is a giant PITA' than it actually being required.
This is true in every setting I have ever read and in major cities, high-level hero class characters not only not rare but they are extremely common.
Well, PC classes are probably still a pretty small minority (5e didn't discuss demographics), but over a small kingdom with a million people a small minority is still a large absolute number.
I believe that we are meant to pretend that NPCs like the Apprentice Wizard and Archdruid are just like the PC classes, but due to game design, they MUST be made under a different rule set. PC/NPC (class vs stat block) design is there just strictly to make the Game work and shouldn't impact lore. At least that is how I see it.
I think you could make an argument that it has lore implications as well, if you wanted it to. That "high level" wizard at a university who's never been off campus could have very different spells that aren't available to PCs, and/or wouldn't be considered very useful for adventuring - a dictation spell that lasts the length of a lecture and writes everything you say on a blackboard, for instance
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
This is true in every setting I have ever read and in major cities, high-level hero class characters not only not rare but they are extremely common.
Well, PC classes are probably still a pretty small minority (5e didn't discuss demographics), but over a small kingdom with a million people a small minority is still a large absolute number.
I believe that we are meant to pretend that NPCs like the Apprentice Wizard and Archdruid are just like the PC classes, but due to game design, they MUST be made under a different rule set. PC/NPC (class vs stat block) design is there just strictly to make the Game work and shouldn't impact lore. At least that is how I see it.
I think you could make an argument that it has lore implications as well, if you wanted it to. That "high level" wizard at a university who's never been off campus could have very different spells that aren't available to PCs, and/or wouldn't be considered very useful for adventuring - a dictation spell that lasts the length of a lecture and writes everything you say on a blackboard, for instance
Oh, you most certainly could do that, it is just my belief that it was meant to be a part of the framework behind the scenes that the characters aren't supposed to notice even though we, as players of the game, do.
Edit: I could be wrong. This is just what I believe.
Another good use of a magic shop is getting rid of your magic items when you retire from adventuring, what you going to do with that +2 sword when you retire at level 10. Why you tell a magic shop you wish to sell said item they may not have the gold to cover it but they could tell interested parties that your selling for a price.
No one maintains armouries any more?
I was mostly posting to the peeps saying about retiring adventurers that need more gold to keep their families in comfort over the long haul. Yes some still do keep the magic like my characters do unless they have multiple copies of the same thing ie as one of my characters did when he kept getting the hood of water breathing like 4 separate times during his career lol.
This is true in every setting I have ever read and in major cities, high-level hero class characters not only not rare but they are extremely common.
Well, PC classes are probably still a pretty small minority (5e didn't discuss demographics), but over a small kingdom with a million people a small minority is still a large absolute number.
I believe that we are meant to pretend that NPCs like the Apprentice Wizard and Archdruid are just like the PC classes, but due to game design, they MUST be made under a different rule set. PC/NPC (class vs stat block) design is there just strictly to make the Game work and shouldn't impact lore. At least that is how I see it.
I actually believe the opposite, in a sense. Two PC wizards are only mechanically alike because they're built for players. Two wizards in the game fiction wouldn't consider themselves related in any deep way. Commoners and other NPCs are as likely to call a wizard-by-class a "sorcerer" as they are to use that term for a sorcerer-by-class. An eldritch knight might call himself a mage, and really no one's going to tell him he's wrong except that it might rub the cleric the wrong way because she likes to call herself a mage.
But I also do whatever I can to discourage the idea that the in-fiction characters could ever realize they're in a game.
This is true in every setting I have ever read and in major cities, high-level hero class characters not only not rare but they are extremely common.
Well, PC classes are probably still a pretty small minority (5e didn't discuss demographics), but over a small kingdom with a million people a small minority is still a large absolute number.
I believe that we are meant to pretend that NPCs like the Apprentice Wizard and Archdruid are just like the PC classes, but due to game design, they MUST be made under a different rule set. PC/NPC (class vs stat block) design is there just strictly to make the Game work and shouldn't impact lore. At least that is how I see it.
I actually believe the opposite, in a sense. Two PC wizards are only mechanically alike because they're built for players. Two wizards in the game fiction wouldn't consider themselves related in any deep way. Commoners and other NPCs are as likely to call a wizard-by-class a "sorcerer" as they are to use that term for a sorcerer-by-class. An eldritch knight might call himself a mage, and really no one's going to tell him he's wrong except that it might rub the cleric the wrong way because she likes to call herself a mage.
But I also do whatever I can to discourage the idea that the in-fiction characters could ever realize they're in a game.
Wizards require a great deal of specialized training and education, basically like getting a PhD. As such it's common for them to regard other wizards as peers, even if there might be some rivalry based on where two different wizards studied, not unlike rivalries between different universities (though with a bit more chance of lightning in some cases). Similarly, a commoner might call a wizard a sorcerer, but said wizard is likely to be quick to correct them because they worked hard for their magic, they didn't just have it handed to them because their great grandpappy bonked a dragon.
Similarly, a cleric isn't likely to call herself a mage unless she's multiclassed or pulling a con. People know that clerics are different from wizards: they cast spells by holding up a symbol of their faith and uttering a prayer and they don't need to study books to learn spells. These are differences that can be observed in-universe. Saying that common people can never tell the difference between the two because they don't realize they're in a game is like saying that it's impossible to tell the difference between a heart surgeon and a geologist.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Every published D&D setting and source book has this built into them.
This is true in every setting I have ever read and in major cities, high-level hero class characters not only not rare but they are extremely common.
I know people want magic items and heroes to be rare in their worlds and that is fine, but in published D&D settings, magic items, magic shops and hero class characters are not rare. In some they might be less common than others, but you can walk into a village of a few hundred people and there is likely to be a Wizard, maybe a few fighters, some thieves, their will with 100% certainty be magic items in that village somewhere. This is common place in every D&D setting, you would be hard pressed to pick up a published adventure, find a village in it and not see this.
I do agree that the depiction of the DMG when it comes to magic items and shops is very inconsistent with what is in published adventures, which is strange because it means Wizards of the Coast designers don't follow their own rules.
I mean Dragon of Icespire Peak comes with about 30/40ish I think magic items that the DM is told could be found in and around the area and this is a tiny town out in the wilderness.
Every published D&D setting and source book has this built into them.
This is true in every setting I have ever read and in major cities, high-level hero class characters not only not rare but they are extremely common.
I know people want magic items and heroes to be rare in their worlds and that is fine, but in published D&D settings, magic items, magic shops and hero class characters are not rare. In some they might be less common than others, but you can walk into a village of a few hundred people and there is likely to be a Wizard, maybe a few fighters, some thieves, their will with 100% certainty be magic items in that village somewhere. This is common place in every D&D setting, you would be hard pressed to pick up a published adventure, find a village in it and not see this.
I do agree that the depiction of the DMG when it comes to magic items and shops is very inconsistent with what is in published adventures, which is strange because it means Wizards of the Coast designers don't follow their own rules.
Would definitely not say 'extremely common.' Leadership of major cities, sure, but the majority of the populace are just populace.
And the population of mage guilds was not that huge.
However with 5e it seems to have gone extremely conservative. Somewhere on these boards is a massive thread with the majority defending the concept that levelled anyone are exceedingly rare and even most actual temples or churches do not even have so much as 1st level priests (although they may have 'Acolyte' NPC's who know a couple spells).
Again, I don't go that far either but the fact remains that such higher level types as do exist almost certainly have better things to do than just sit in production lines enchanting things for resale.
So one of the formal settings, Exandria, has exactly that. Xhorhas has a university/library full of Enchanters who's only job is to create and enchant magic items for the war effort.
So one of the formal settings, Exandria, has exactly that. Xhorhas has a university/library full of Enchanters who's only job is to create and enchant magic items for the war effort.
Really.... so why, exactly, is it called a university/library rather than an enchantery or factory or anything you are actually calling it? And where are they getting the steady stream of needed parts to produce on that scale?
Students, adventurers, side projects, you name it. That's the easiest part to solve. Give out a quest pay a handful of gold ask for the corpse of the critter as proof. Use rare ingredients in item or potion crafting sell at mark up. Maybe even to gullible adventurers that brought you the ingredients in the first place.
So one of the formal settings, Exandria, has exactly that. Xhorhas has a university/library full of Enchanters who's only job is to create and enchant magic items for the war effort.
Really.... so why, exactly, is it called a university/library rather than an enchantery or factory or anything you are actually calling it? And where are they getting the steady stream of needed parts to produce on that scale?
Students, adventurers, side projects, you name it. That's the easiest part to solve. Give out a quest pay a handful of gold ask for the corpse of the critter as proof. Use rare ingredients in item or potion crafting sell at mark up. Maybe even to gullible adventurers that brought you the ingredients in the first place.
It seems the most obvious way for a lecturer to finance their research while letting their students learn by doing. Set a 10 week project to enchant a pair of bracers off defense which the university will then sell. In much the same way as how most research students at university’s sign an agreement that any thing they discover that becomes commercially viable/can be patented the university makes a cut if any money made
So one of the formal settings, Exandria, has exactly that. Xhorhas has a university/library full of Enchanters who's only job is to create and enchant magic items for the war effort.
Really.... so why, exactly, is it called a university/library rather than an enchantery or factory or anything you are actually calling it? And where are they getting the steady stream of needed parts to produce on that scale?
Students, adventurers, side projects, you name it. That's the easiest part to solve. Give out a quest pay a handful of gold ask for the corpse of the critter as proof. Use rare ingredients in item or potion crafting sell at mark up. Maybe even to gullible adventurers that brought you the ingredients in the first place.
It seems the most obvious way for a lecturer to finance their research while letting their students learn by doing. Set a 10 week project to enchant a pair of bracers off defense which the university will then sell. In much the same way as how most research students at university’s sign an agreement that any thing they discover that becomes commercially viable/can be patented the university makes a cut if any money made
Name me any university anywhere in the world that actually engages in any significant level of commercially significant production. Or even any technical college.
"University" is not the term used to describe what you are attributing to such places.
Well blame Matt Mercer/WotC for that since they created it that way.
Wizards require a great deal of specialized training and education, basically like getting a PhD. As such it's common for them to regard other wizards as peers, even if there might be some rivalry based on where two different wizards studied, not unlike rivalries between different universities (though with a bit more chance of lightning in some cases). Similarly, a commoner might call a wizard a sorcerer, but said wizard is likely to be quick to correct them because they worked hard for their magic, they didn't just have it handed to them because their great grandpappy bonked a dragon.
Similarly, a cleric isn't likely to call herself a mage unless she's multiclassed or pulling a con. People know that clerics are different from wizards: they cast spells by holding up a symbol of their faith and uttering a prayer and they don't need to study books to learn spells. These are differences that can be observed in-universe. Saying that common people can never tell the difference between the two because they don't realize they're in a game is like saying that it's impossible to tell the difference between a heart surgeon and a geologist.
Wizards in my setting are more like Doc Brown. There are no schools that teach magic beyond some basic theory. Most spellcasters have worked out two, maybe three spells, and most of them cast them as rituals (even stuff that isn't terribly useful cast that way, like magic missile), and probably only once or twice a day. Of all the wizardly spellcasters, less than 1% can do anything remotely approaching anything a PC wizard can do, in terms of overall power and versatility. Most of those keep themselves (and more importantly, the magical secrets they've worked out) away from prying eyes. Of that 1%, maybe another 1% are what we think of as adventurer wizards. A PC wizard would be in this last group.
Wizards can't trade spells. While a wizard might be able to reverse-engineer the notes of another wizard, the process is as much about reframing that other wizard's assumptions and magical philosophy or worldview into something he (the first wizard) would be able to make use of. Each wizard not only uses a unique script or language for spells, even the underlying concepts are individualized. No two wizards call the same spell by the same name -- the names of spells in the PHB and so forth are just terms for players.
NPC clerics are super-rare. Like, there's probably no more than a couple dozen of them in existence. And none of them have the breadth of capability that a PC cleric has.
I view it kind of like the original Conan movie. Conan is called a barbarian but he's much more a fighter with like maybe one level in rogue ("You're not a very good thief!") and possibly some levels in ranger. Subatai is much more like a rogue. I'm not sure what Valeria is. Mako's "wizard" is clearly a cleric.
Modern universities do not engage in commercially significant production.
The Krynn Dynasty is not the modern world. The skilled, knowledgable people required to do enchanting work typically require the support of both scholastic sorts that can aid them in their research and expand their knowledge, as well as productive sorts that can turn knowledge into objects.
Again - this idea that magical equipment is overwhelming, vanishingly rare and cannot be created, bartered, or acquired in any way other than digging it out of the buttholes of ancient tomb zombies simply does not match the idea that magic is hyperabundant in the world. Magic is real, concrete, predictable, and repeatable - everything you need to advance the arcane arts scientifically. You really expect to tell me that hundreds of generations of the most focused arcane scholars in the world haven't been able to puzzle out the creation of even the simplest, tamest, and most basic of permanent objects? I just don't buy it.
"Magic is real, concrete, predictable, and repeatable - everything you need to advance the arcane arts scientifically."
Is it, though? I've encountered two separate adventure module scenarios where an NPC attempted a teleportation circle to catastrophic effect.
Anyway, if it doesn't click for you, there are plenty of ways to justify it. Dragons and entities of similar power level might actively suppress advancement to maintain their supremacy, or simply hoard resources. The allure of power might drive people with arcane-aligned brains to their own destruction. (Netheril was brought low by this kind of ambition.) Warlords and kings might seize all research and prototypes for their war efforts. That's just off the top of my head, with concepts that are already largely featured in the genre.
I mean, the Harpers are canonically out there keeping advanced magic out of the hands of those they deem dangerous. Every dragon canonically collects magic items, and some also collect Wizards. I don't think this is too much of a stretch.
So one of the formal settings, Exandria, has exactly that. Xhorhas has a university/library full of Enchanters who's only job is to create and enchant magic items for the war effort.
Really.... so why, exactly, is it called a university/library rather than an enchantery or factory or anything you are actually calling it? And where are they getting the steady stream of needed parts to produce on that scale?
Students, adventurers, side projects, you name it. That's the easiest part to solve. Give out a quest pay a handful of gold ask for the corpse of the critter as proof. Use rare ingredients in item or potion crafting sell at mark up. Maybe even to gullible adventurers that brought you the ingredients in the first place.
It seems the most obvious way for a lecturer to finance their research while letting their students learn by doing. Set a 10 week project to enchant a pair of bracers off defense which the university will then sell. In much the same way as how most research students at university’s sign an agreement that any thing they discover that becomes commercially viable/can be patented the university makes a cut if any money made
Name me any university anywhere in the world that actually engages in any significant level of commercially significant production. Or even any technical college.
"University" is not the term used to describe what you are attributing to such places.
Every department? No of course not, but if I look at the university in my hometown Ghent, I know of at least two departments that have a commercial deal were the uni and private capital do research and produce applicable technologies. Both of the in Bio Tech and GMO's. Now doesn't that sound like R&D for Wizards to you?
The R&D in this case is financed by the joint venture. That's how it works. Now to extrapolate that to a DnD setting were funding is even more of a problem creating and selling, scrolls, potions and items would be a good way to produce a budget, don't you think? I can post a link to Van Montagus' work if you want? Or it's on Wikipedia.
So one of the formal settings, Exandria, has exactly that. Xhorhas has a university/library full of Enchanters who's only job is to create and enchant magic items for the war effort.
Really.... so why, exactly, is it called a university/library rather than an enchantery or factory or anything you are actually calling it? And where are they getting the steady stream of needed parts to produce on that scale?
Students, adventurers, side projects, you name it. That's the easiest part to solve. Give out a quest pay a handful of gold ask for the corpse of the critter as proof. Use rare ingredients in item or potion crafting sell at mark up. Maybe even to gullible adventurers that brought you the ingredients in the first place.
It seems the most obvious way for a lecturer to finance their research while letting their students learn by doing. Set a 10 week project to enchant a pair of bracers off defense which the university will then sell. In much the same way as how most research students at university’s sign an agreement that any thing they discover that becomes commercially viable/can be patented the university makes a cut if any money made
Name me any university anywhere in the world that actually engages in any significant level of commercially significant production. Or even any technical college.
"University" is not the term used to describe what you are attributing to such places.
How many universities are capable of large-scale production in the real world? Some worlds in D&D contain universities that teach the theoretical and practical application of magic. There is an opportunity to put that to use in these worlds and apparently unlike many places in the real world, an absence of policy and law to prevent it. Here in the real world, there is strong resistance to commercialization at universities, specifically because of growing pressure for commercialization at these institutions. Educational institutions in some of these fictional worlds are likely called universities because that is their primary purpose - to educate growing minds in the research and use of magic. I strongly doubt every person that goes through such an institution is called to be a soldier, assassin, or 'magical scientist'. What could be an alternative line of work to tossing a fireball into a crowd or research? How might this be used in a world with completely different policies and laws than those you are familiar (or unfamiliar) with?
So one of the formal settings, Exandria, has exactly that. Xhorhas has a university/library full of Enchanters who's only job is to create and enchant magic items for the war effort.
Really.... so why, exactly, is it called a university/library rather than an enchantery or factory or anything you are actually calling it? And where are they getting the steady stream of needed parts to produce on that scale?
Students, adventurers, side projects, you name it. That's the easiest part to solve. Give out a quest pay a handful of gold ask for the corpse of the critter as proof. Use rare ingredients in item or potion crafting sell at mark up. Maybe even to gullible adventurers that brought you the ingredients in the first place.
It seems the most obvious way for a lecturer to finance their research while letting their students learn by doing. Set a 10 week project to enchant a pair of bracers off defense which the university will then sell. In much the same way as how most research students at university’s sign an agreement that any thing they discover that becomes commercially viable/can be patented the university makes a cut if any money made
Name me any university anywhere in the world that actually engages in any significant level of commercially significant production. Or even any technical college.
"University" is not the term used to describe what you are attributing to such places.
How many universities are capable of large-scale production in the real world? Some worlds in D&D contain universities that teach the theoretical and practical application of magic. There is an opportunity to put that to use in these worlds and apparently unlike many places in the real world, an absence of policy and law to prevent it. Here in the real world, there is strong resistance to commercialization at universities, specifically because of growing pressure for commercialization at these institutions. Educational institutions in some of these fictional worlds are likely called universities because that is their primary purpose - to educate growing minds in the research and use of magic. I strongly doubt every person that goes through such an institution is called to be a soldier, assassin, or 'magical scientist'. What could be an alternative line of work to tossing a fireball into a crowd or research? How might this be used in a world with completely different policies and laws than those you are familiar (or unfamiliar) with?
Is this really so frustrating to accept?
It is not a question of commercialization. Universities do help develop finished products. But the key word there is 'Develop.' They are not in the business of actual production.
Next you'll be arguing that Artificers can go beyond infusion style prototypes and just mass produce anything they have an infusion for, since their magic parallels the development roles of universities.
Fluff wise yes, they created the Warforged, players can't of course. I don't understand why you are having such a difficult time accepting this. Every one of your complaints have been answered and every time you move the goalposts a bit farther. Why?
The local community college in my town has a winery program that produces and sells its own wine. Wine sales are used to help subsidize the cost of the program.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I believe that we are meant to pretend that NPCs like the Apprentice Wizard and Archdruid are just like the PC classes, but due to game design, they MUST be made under a different rule set. PC/NPC (class vs stat block) design is there just strictly to make the Game work and shouldn't impact lore. At least that is how I see it.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
It's more a case of 'using full fledged PC rules for NPCs is a giant PITA' than it actually being required.
I think you could make an argument that it has lore implications as well, if you wanted it to. That "high level" wizard at a university who's never been off campus could have very different spells that aren't available to PCs, and/or wouldn't be considered very useful for adventuring - a dictation spell that lasts the length of a lecture and writes everything you say on a blackboard, for instance
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Oh, you most certainly could do that, it is just my belief that it was meant to be a part of the framework behind the scenes that the characters aren't supposed to notice even though we, as players of the game, do.
Edit: I could be wrong. This is just what I believe.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I was mostly posting to the peeps saying about retiring adventurers that need more gold to keep their families in comfort over the long haul. Yes some still do keep the magic like my characters do unless they have multiple copies of the same thing ie as one of my characters did when he kept getting the hood of water breathing like 4 separate times during his career lol.
I actually believe the opposite, in a sense. Two PC wizards are only mechanically alike because they're built for players. Two wizards in the game fiction wouldn't consider themselves related in any deep way. Commoners and other NPCs are as likely to call a wizard-by-class a "sorcerer" as they are to use that term for a sorcerer-by-class. An eldritch knight might call himself a mage, and really no one's going to tell him he's wrong except that it might rub the cleric the wrong way because she likes to call herself a mage.
But I also do whatever I can to discourage the idea that the in-fiction characters could ever realize they're in a game.
Wizards require a great deal of specialized training and education, basically like getting a PhD. As such it's common for them to regard other wizards as peers, even if there might be some rivalry based on where two different wizards studied, not unlike rivalries between different universities (though with a bit more chance of lightning in some cases). Similarly, a commoner might call a wizard a sorcerer, but said wizard is likely to be quick to correct them because they worked hard for their magic, they didn't just have it handed to them because their great grandpappy bonked a dragon.
Similarly, a cleric isn't likely to call herself a mage unless she's multiclassed or pulling a con. People know that clerics are different from wizards: they cast spells by holding up a symbol of their faith and uttering a prayer and they don't need to study books to learn spells. These are differences that can be observed in-universe. Saying that common people can never tell the difference between the two because they don't realize they're in a game is like saying that it's impossible to tell the difference between a heart surgeon and a geologist.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I mean Dragon of Icespire Peak comes with about 30/40ish I think magic items that the DM is told could be found in and around the area and this is a tiny town out in the wilderness.
So one of the formal settings, Exandria, has exactly that. Xhorhas has a university/library full of Enchanters who's only job is to create and enchant magic items for the war effort.
Students, adventurers, side projects, you name it. That's the easiest part to solve. Give out a quest pay a handful of gold ask for the corpse of the critter as proof. Use rare ingredients in item or potion crafting sell at mark up. Maybe even to gullible adventurers that brought you the ingredients in the first place.
It seems the most obvious way for a lecturer to finance their research while letting their students learn by doing. Set a 10 week project to enchant a pair of bracers off defense which the university will then sell. In much the same way as how most research students at university’s sign an agreement that any thing they discover that becomes commercially viable/can be patented the university makes a cut if any money made
Well blame Matt Mercer/WotC for that since they created it that way.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Wizards in my setting are more like Doc Brown. There are no schools that teach magic beyond some basic theory. Most spellcasters have worked out two, maybe three spells, and most of them cast them as rituals (even stuff that isn't terribly useful cast that way, like magic missile), and probably only once or twice a day. Of all the wizardly spellcasters, less than 1% can do anything remotely approaching anything a PC wizard can do, in terms of overall power and versatility. Most of those keep themselves (and more importantly, the magical secrets they've worked out) away from prying eyes. Of that 1%, maybe another 1% are what we think of as adventurer wizards. A PC wizard would be in this last group.
Wizards can't trade spells. While a wizard might be able to reverse-engineer the notes of another wizard, the process is as much about reframing that other wizard's assumptions and magical philosophy or worldview into something he (the first wizard) would be able to make use of. Each wizard not only uses a unique script or language for spells, even the underlying concepts are individualized. No two wizards call the same spell by the same name -- the names of spells in the PHB and so forth are just terms for players.
NPC clerics are super-rare. Like, there's probably no more than a couple dozen of them in existence. And none of them have the breadth of capability that a PC cleric has.
I view it kind of like the original Conan movie. Conan is called a barbarian but he's much more a fighter with like maybe one level in rogue ("You're not a very good thief!") and possibly some levels in ranger. Subatai is much more like a rogue. I'm not sure what Valeria is. Mako's "wizard" is clearly a cleric.
Modern universities do not engage in commercially significant production.
The Krynn Dynasty is not the modern world. The skilled, knowledgable people required to do enchanting work typically require the support of both scholastic sorts that can aid them in their research and expand their knowledge, as well as productive sorts that can turn knowledge into objects.
Again - this idea that magical equipment is overwhelming, vanishingly rare and cannot be created, bartered, or acquired in any way other than digging it out of the buttholes of ancient tomb zombies simply does not match the idea that magic is hyperabundant in the world. Magic is real, concrete, predictable, and repeatable - everything you need to advance the arcane arts scientifically. You really expect to tell me that hundreds of generations of the most focused arcane scholars in the world haven't been able to puzzle out the creation of even the simplest, tamest, and most basic of permanent objects? I just don't buy it.
Please do not contact or message me.
"Magic is real, concrete, predictable, and repeatable - everything you need to advance the arcane arts scientifically."
Is it, though? I've encountered two separate adventure module scenarios where an NPC attempted a teleportation circle to catastrophic effect.
Anyway, if it doesn't click for you, there are plenty of ways to justify it. Dragons and entities of similar power level might actively suppress advancement to maintain their supremacy, or simply hoard resources. The allure of power might drive people with arcane-aligned brains to their own destruction. (Netheril was brought low by this kind of ambition.) Warlords and kings might seize all research and prototypes for their war efforts. That's just off the top of my head, with concepts that are already largely featured in the genre.
I mean, the Harpers are canonically out there keeping advanced magic out of the hands of those they deem dangerous. Every dragon canonically collects magic items, and some also collect Wizards. I don't think this is too much of a stretch.
Every department? No of course not, but if I look at the university in my hometown Ghent, I know of at least two departments that have a commercial deal were the uni and private capital do research and produce applicable technologies. Both of the in Bio Tech and GMO's. Now doesn't that sound like R&D for Wizards to you?
The R&D in this case is financed by the joint venture. That's how it works. Now to extrapolate that to a DnD setting were funding is even more of a problem creating and selling, scrolls, potions and items would be a good way to produce a budget, don't you think? I can post a link to Van Montagus' work if you want? Or it's on Wikipedia.
How many universities are capable of large-scale production in the real world? Some worlds in D&D contain universities that teach the theoretical and practical application of magic. There is an opportunity to put that to use in these worlds and apparently unlike many places in the real world, an absence of policy and law to prevent it. Here in the real world, there is strong resistance to commercialization at universities, specifically because of growing pressure for commercialization at these institutions. Educational institutions in some of these fictional worlds are likely called universities because that is their primary purpose - to educate growing minds in the research and use of magic. I strongly doubt every person that goes through such an institution is called to be a soldier, assassin, or 'magical scientist'. What could be an alternative line of work to tossing a fireball into a crowd or research? How might this be used in a world with completely different policies and laws than those you are familiar (or unfamiliar) with?
Is this really so frustrating to accept?
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
Fluff wise yes, they created the Warforged, players can't of course. I don't understand why you are having such a difficult time accepting this. Every one of your complaints have been answered and every time you move the goalposts a bit farther. Why?
The local community college in my town has a winery program that produces and sells its own wine. Wine sales are used to help subsidize the cost of the program.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.