Forgive me if this question seems a little silly as I am not quite sure how to ask it.
I am trying to find a ratio for spellcasters in a standard d&d, realms based world. For example, is it split down the middle so that the numbers turn out as 50:100, or is the ratio less, say 50:1000? The number of magic users to none magic users is essential to me because I am trying to make a world where magic is very, very common, and in which magic users are much more potent than none magic users.
To pump up the potency, I am developing a new form of magic called Archive Magic. Archive Magic will be the default form of magic in my world and will use the variant spell point system, instead of spell slots. All spellcasters in my world will then use Archive Magic, which will be most of the populace. I will post more about Archive Magic in a later post, but for now, I am concentrating on the ratios or magic users to none magic users, so that I can give my world a consistent feel and theme.
To correctly scale the number of magic users against the number of none magic users though, I need to know the base split between the two. I have tried looking in the DMG, but I don't seem able to find anything regarding this.
Do any of you happen to know what the standard ratios are?
Thanks
Foxes
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I'd put the ratio at somewhere around 5% of the population.
That makes it sort of easy for me, as I can reverse that scale and say 5% of the population or a ratio of 50:1000 are none magic users. Then I get for every 1000 people in my world, 50 of them will be none magic users.
With these ratios, I can use the settlement info in the DMG to work out how likely it will be for none magic users to be present in each settlement based upon population size. The number of none magic users in each area would then inform me of how easy it would be to find shops selling magical items for use by none magic users. It would also go quite a long way towards figuring out how NPCs would react to none magic-users as well.
In villages with a population of up to 1000 people, the number of none magic-users would number around 50 at most. That means they are probably one or two families, and that does not mean that every village with a population of 1000 has to have 50 none magic users either. Anything less, like a hamlet or a village with less than 1000 people. and it would probably be quite rare for none magic users to come from there.
Towns with a population of 6000 people are more likely to have none magic users living in them than villages of just 1000. There should also be stores or merchants that sell magical items for use by none magic users to be present in these places. So probably none magic users from surrounding villages would travel to their nearest town to purchase their supplies (possible escort missions for starting adventurers maybe)?
Cities with a population of 25,000 plus, would be the most likely of all to be home to none magic users. Indeed, I would imagine that those none magic users who were able to, would migrate to the cities. There could be small city districts of none magic users, and stores selling magical items for use by none magic users would be the most common here.
Obviously a lot more work to do in regards to this, but knowing these ratios has already given me a starting point.
Cheers
Foxes
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I would take 5% with a big pinch of salt. It depends on setting and thus is ultimately down to DM. Eberron has a much higher percentage of those the can use magic than Faerun, which has a higher percentage than Athas. It might be 6% in Eberron, 0.1% in Faerun and 0.001% on Athas.
Equally, there's the 'depth' of magic; 5% of the population of Sharn might be able to cast magic, but it's only cantrips and maybe a first level spell. However that 0.001% of Athas might be able to reach 9th level magic.
In short, this is a question only you as DM can answer
It doesn't really matter what the percentage of people can use magic in other D&D worlds if you're using the own. You make the rules, you could make it so its only a few unlucky individuals don't have magic or take a 50/50 split. As to the whole idea of whether these are non-mages would be more common in the city or rural areas, perhaps consider that non-mages may be left doing a lot more manual labour and so be more abundant in farming/mining/etc. villages.
Also very petty point but 5% for a population of 1000 would be 50:950.
First, I presume you are speaking about total population and not just the adventuring population. In that case, I would expect the number to be closer to 1% even in what I might call a "High-Magic" setting. If you're talking about what is the percentage among adventurers, then you have to decide what is the percentage of adventurers first. For me this is about 4-5% and many of the political leaders and their advisors are retired adventurers. If you go into a town in my settings and start throwing your weight around, you might find there are more and high-level adventurers that have chosen to settle down in this town. You might not like where that leads.
Second, you have to let us know what you consider magic wielding characters. Are you talking about the Wizards, Warlocks, Sorcerers, Bards, Clerics and Druids or are you also considering the magic wielding fighters and rogues too?
I think you should make it whatever you want.
Take a standard town. Let's set the population of the town at 4000 people. Of those, 30% are children, so we're down to 2,800 adults. Of those, a vast majority are farmers and laborers (probably miners, or woodsmen). Factoring in the marriage rate, say 60% of adults (young adults and older folks being widowed or widowers) that leaves 840 of adults working "in the home" so we have just under two-thousand at 1960 adults in the workforce, save a few of the very old that might not be in the work force. Of these, maybe 10% work in the "government" in one capacity or another (mostly as town guard / militia or something). 10% of these might be former adventurers, so you have 19-20 adventurers in semi-retirement. Let's further say there are a couple (2 or 3) folks that are former adventurers that are not in the government and let's say all three of these are magic using classes. Of the 19-20 government workers in semi-retired status, we might guess one third are magic using classes (probably mostly clerics) so we have six or seven more here. Add that together and you have eight to ten magic users in our town of 4000. An analysis of this kind should guide you into a number you like.
Good luck. Have fun.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
It will depend on the world but if you use the CR of NPCs it basically breaks down in a city with 25,000 people to ...
CR 1/8 - 1/2 about 556 magic users (Acolytes and Apprentice wizards) you would encounter less than 4 an hour
CR 1-4 about 89 magic users (Cult Fanatic, Druid, Priest, Bard, Illusionist, and Warlock of the Archfey) you would encounter less than 3 a day
CR 5-10 about 12 magic users (Mage, Enchanter, Kraken Priest, Transmuter, Conjurer, Warlock of the Great Old One, Warlock of the Fiend, Blackguard, Diviner, Abjurer, Evoker, Necromancer, and War Priest). you would encounter less than 2 a week
CR 11 - 19 about 2 magic users (Archmage and Archdruid) you would encounter less than 1 a month
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Discord: MasterWitch#2965
My World Anvil account if you're interested. Work in progress.
Why aim for the inverse of some theoretical standard that in all likelihood doesn't actually exist? I'm pretty confident in stating no official D&D setting was ever created from a "this will be the point of reference for the existence of magic in D&D fantasy worlds" starting point. Any figure would by definition by meaningless to any other setting, so it'd be a moot notion. Figure out what you want for your setting and take it from there, is my suggestion. Is Archive Magic something any given person is presumed to be able to use, with the very rare exceptions being extremely pitiable and unfortunate? Or is it more a divide into two overarching social stratifications, a majority caste of those who can access it and a still significant minority caste of those who can't? What's the reason for one or the other (or something else) being preferable, and how does it translate into societal consequences? Build your setting and adjust the numbers to match it rather than the other way around. I mean, it could be a fun intellectual exercise to design a coherent world based on a starting point that's not of your choosing, sort of like a writing assignment, but if you intend to use it I'd assume you had some ideas to begin with and in that case you're likely to be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I figure that while anyone can be a wizard (there's no "magery talent" requirement like some games have), few will have the will, time, money and education needed. Also, the worlds I GM in are fairly low magic. I figure wizards being around 1 in a 1000 people.
A town with 25,000 inhabitatns will probably have 25 wizards. 20 of them will be tier 1, three or four will be tier 2, and one or two will be tier 3.
In line with what was said previously, I like to draw a distinction between the commonality of magic users and the potential of any individual wielder.
For simplicity, I like to use this breakdown for rarity:
Low Magic
Standard Magic
High Magic
Pop. %
0.1%
1%
10%
*In a "Very High" magic setting, I probably wouldn't go any higher than 4/5 being magic capable, because the contrast is a large part of what makes magic "special".
For Magic "Potential" of magic capable users, I would think to emulate either a normal curve or an exponential curve.
Cantrips
1st~3rd
4th~6th
7th~8th
9th
Normal-ish
100%
70%
25%
5%
0.25%
Exp-ish
100%
50%
25%
12.5%
6%
From here, you can scale the "potential" for Low/Standard/High by expanding or contracting the level distributions. (e.g. For a low magic campaign, make 1st level spells 70%, 2nd 25%, 3rd 5%, etc... )
Generally speaking, if I make magic users more common, I will want to make the magic potential lower to restrain the overall impact that magic has in the world. If everyone can do magic, then the vast majority of them are going to be limited to "tricks". If there are too many high-magic users, then there are going to be a lot of world dynamics to resolve.
I look at a couple of factors when it comes to how common any magic or creature type is. Between CR and Type Rarity based on what plan a creature type comes from I created a model. I wanted to know how many different creatures are in an area of a particular type. Asking how rare is magic varies based on how powerful that magic is. In my view based on the math in the game, most people would be aware of Acolytes, Apprentice wizards, and Illusionists. High-powered mages are rare and probably not found in small communities. If you do find a more powerful mage there might be single one. This is also true of most high-powered creatures. For example, Black Dragon Wyrmling is as rare as an Archmage based on CR and where they come from. Could you imagion how bad it would be for civilisation it would be if anchent dragons are as common as a Archmage or even an Apprentice wizards.
Just looking at human magic users this was what I got with my math.
Other races make the creature type even more rare.
NPC, Commoner ***************CR 0*************>100% 1 in 1 (Mundane)
Hi, guys,
Forgive me if this question seems a little silly as I am not quite sure how to ask it.
I am trying to find a ratio for spellcasters in a standard d&d, realms based world. For example, is it split down the middle so that the numbers turn out as 50:100, or is the ratio less, say 50:1000? The number of magic users to none magic users is essential to me because I am trying to make a world where magic is very, very common, and in which magic users are much more potent than none magic users.
To pump up the potency, I am developing a new form of magic called Archive Magic. Archive Magic will be the default form of magic in my world and will use the variant spell point system, instead of spell slots. All spellcasters in my world will then use Archive Magic, which will be most of the populace. I will post more about Archive Magic in a later post, but for now, I am concentrating on the ratios or magic users to none magic users, so that I can give my world a consistent feel and theme.
To correctly scale the number of magic users against the number of none magic users though, I need to know the base split between the two. I have tried looking in the DMG, but I don't seem able to find anything regarding this.
Do any of you happen to know what the standard ratios are?
Thanks
Foxes
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I'd put the ratio at somewhere around 5% of the population.
That makes it sort of easy for me, as I can reverse that scale and say 5% of the population or a ratio of 50:1000 are none magic users. Then I get for every 1000 people in my world, 50 of them will be none magic users.
With these ratios, I can use the settlement info in the DMG to work out how likely it will be for none magic users to be present in each settlement based upon population size. The number of none magic users in each area would then inform me of how easy it would be to find shops selling magical items for use by none magic users. It would also go quite a long way towards figuring out how NPCs would react to none magic-users as well.
In villages with a population of up to 1000 people, the number of none magic-users would number around 50 at most. That means they are probably one or two families, and that does not mean that every village with a population of 1000 has to have 50 none magic users either. Anything less, like a hamlet or a village with less than 1000 people. and it would probably be quite rare for none magic users to come from there.
Towns with a population of 6000 people are more likely to have none magic users living in them than villages of just 1000. There should also be stores or merchants that sell magical items for use by none magic users to be present in these places. So probably none magic users from surrounding villages would travel to their nearest town to purchase their supplies (possible escort missions for starting adventurers maybe)?
Cities with a population of 25,000 plus, would be the most likely of all to be home to none magic users. Indeed, I would imagine that those none magic users who were able to, would migrate to the cities. There could be small city districts of none magic users, and stores selling magical items for use by none magic users would be the most common here.
Obviously a lot more work to do in regards to this, but knowing these ratios has already given me a starting point.
Cheers
Foxes
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I would take 5% with a big pinch of salt. It depends on setting and thus is ultimately down to DM. Eberron has a much higher percentage of those the can use magic than Faerun, which has a higher percentage than Athas. It might be 6% in Eberron, 0.1% in Faerun and 0.001% on Athas.
Equally, there's the 'depth' of magic; 5% of the population of Sharn might be able to cast magic, but it's only cantrips and maybe a first level spell. However that 0.001% of Athas might be able to reach 9th level magic.
In short, this is a question only you as DM can answer
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
It doesn't really matter what the percentage of people can use magic in other D&D worlds if you're using the own. You make the rules, you could make it so its only a few unlucky individuals don't have magic or take a 50/50 split. As to the whole idea of whether these are non-mages would be more common in the city or rural areas, perhaps consider that non-mages may be left doing a lot more manual labour and so be more abundant in farming/mining/etc. villages.
Also very petty point but 5% for a population of 1000 would be 50:950.
You get to make it whatever you want.
First, I presume you are speaking about total population and not just the adventuring population. In that case, I would expect the number to be closer to 1% even in what I might call a "High-Magic" setting. If you're talking about what is the percentage among adventurers, then you have to decide what is the percentage of adventurers first. For me this is about 4-5% and many of the political leaders and their advisors are retired adventurers. If you go into a town in my settings and start throwing your weight around, you might find there are more and high-level adventurers that have chosen to settle down in this town. You might not like where that leads.
Second, you have to let us know what you consider magic wielding characters. Are you talking about the Wizards, Warlocks, Sorcerers, Bards, Clerics and Druids or are you also considering the magic wielding fighters and rogues too?
I think you should make it whatever you want.
Take a standard town. Let's set the population of the town at 4000 people. Of those, 30% are children, so we're down to 2,800 adults. Of those, a vast majority are farmers and laborers (probably miners, or woodsmen). Factoring in the marriage rate, say 60% of adults (young adults and older folks being widowed or widowers) that leaves 840 of adults working "in the home" so we have just under two-thousand at 1960 adults in the workforce, save a few of the very old that might not be in the work force. Of these, maybe 10% work in the "government" in one capacity or another (mostly as town guard / militia or something). 10% of these might be former adventurers, so you have 19-20 adventurers in semi-retirement. Let's further say there are a couple (2 or 3) folks that are former adventurers that are not in the government and let's say all three of these are magic using classes. Of the 19-20 government workers in semi-retired status, we might guess one third are magic using classes (probably mostly clerics) so we have six or seven more here. Add that together and you have eight to ten magic users in our town of 4000. An analysis of this kind should guide you into a number you like.
Good luck. Have fun.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
It will depend on the world but if you use the CR of NPCs it basically breaks down in a city with 25,000 people to ...
CR 1/8 - 1/2 about 556 magic users (Acolytes and Apprentice wizards) you would encounter less than 4 an hour
CR 1-4 about 89 magic users (Cult Fanatic, Druid, Priest, Bard, Illusionist, and Warlock of the Archfey) you would encounter less than 3 a day
CR 5-10 about 12 magic users (Mage, Enchanter, Kraken Priest, Transmuter, Conjurer, Warlock of the Great Old One, Warlock of the Fiend, Blackguard, Diviner, Abjurer, Evoker, Necromancer, and War Priest). you would encounter less than 2 a week
CR 11 - 19 about 2 magic users (Archmage and Archdruid) you would encounter less than 1 a month
Discord: MasterWitch#2965
My World Anvil account if you're interested. Work in progress.
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/land-of-the-fallen-7Blandfall7D-masterwitch
Why aim for the inverse of some theoretical standard that in all likelihood doesn't actually exist? I'm pretty confident in stating no official D&D setting was ever created from a "this will be the point of reference for the existence of magic in D&D fantasy worlds" starting point. Any figure would by definition by meaningless to any other setting, so it'd be a moot notion. Figure out what you want for your setting and take it from there, is my suggestion. Is Archive Magic something any given person is presumed to be able to use, with the very rare exceptions being extremely pitiable and unfortunate? Or is it more a divide into two overarching social stratifications, a majority caste of those who can access it and a still significant minority caste of those who can't? What's the reason for one or the other (or something else) being preferable, and how does it translate into societal consequences? Build your setting and adjust the numbers to match it rather than the other way around. I mean, it could be a fun intellectual exercise to design a coherent world based on a starting point that's not of your choosing, sort of like a writing assignment, but if you intend to use it I'd assume you had some ideas to begin with and in that case you're likely to be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I figure that while anyone can be a wizard (there's no "magery talent" requirement like some games have), few will have the will, time, money and education needed. Also, the worlds I GM in are fairly low magic. I figure wizards being around 1 in a 1000 people.
A town with 25,000 inhabitatns will probably have 25 wizards. 20 of them will be tier 1, three or four will be tier 2, and one or two will be tier 3.
In line with what was said previously, I like to draw a distinction between the commonality of magic users and the potential of any individual wielder.
For simplicity, I like to use this breakdown for rarity:
*In a "Very High" magic setting, I probably wouldn't go any higher than 4/5 being magic capable, because the contrast is a large part of what makes magic "special".
For Magic "Potential" of magic capable users, I would think to emulate either a normal curve or an exponential curve.
From here, you can scale the "potential" for Low/Standard/High by expanding or contracting the level distributions. (e.g. For a low magic campaign, make 1st level spells 70%, 2nd 25%, 3rd 5%, etc... )
Generally speaking, if I make magic users more common, I will want to make the magic potential lower to restrain the overall impact that magic has in the world. If everyone can do magic, then the vast majority of them are going to be limited to "tricks". If there are too many high-magic users, then there are going to be a lot of world dynamics to resolve.
I look at a couple of factors when it comes to how common any magic or creature type is. Between CR and Type Rarity based on what plan a creature type comes from I created a model. I wanted to know how many different creatures are in an area of a particular type. Asking how rare is magic varies based on how powerful that magic is. In my view based on the math in the game, most people would be aware of Acolytes, Apprentice wizards, and Illusionists. High-powered mages are rare and probably not found in small communities. If you do find a more powerful mage there might be single one. This is also true of most high-powered creatures. For example, Black Dragon Wyrmling is as rare as an Archmage based on CR and where they come from. Could you imagion how bad it would be for civilisation it would be if anchent dragons are as common as a Archmage or even an Apprentice wizards.
Just looking at human magic users this was what I got with my math.
Other races make the creature type even more rare.
For other examples, you can look at my Worldanvil account
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/land-of-the-fallen-7Blandfall7D-masterwitch/a/chance-to-encounter-creatures-by-type-and-cr-value-organization
I know that every DM sets their own world but I find it helps to know how common magic and creatures in general are at a baseline.
Discord: MasterWitch#2965
My World Anvil account if you're interested. Work in progress.
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/land-of-the-fallen-7Blandfall7D-masterwitch