So, whatever the setting of a game of D&D might be in, if spellcasters occur among even 1% of humanoids, they dramatically alter how things work. For the sake of this discussion, I won't even consider high level spells, because the assumptions baked therein are too many to really allow for generalizations. But, just going through the official cantrips and first level spells, a few stand out. These, and others, if known and available, would dramatically change any society that looked like medieval earth.
This cantrip is at the top of the list. Having a cleric around at any childbirth becomes a necessity, and survival rates (and therefore the population in general) skyrocket. Technological advancements are very tightly correlated to population density due to the greater possibility of professional specialization and professional research. This spell alone would accelerate any timeline of humanoid development, dramatically compressing it. Other spells have similar roles, albeit lesser ones. Resistance would have some impact, assuming that disease is spread through a mechanic involving a saving throw, but timing becomes an issue: when do folks make a save against an ongoing cold or infection. Healing spells generally, particularly Lesser Restoration, but also Purify Food and Drink or Detect Poison and Disease, would also have a big impact, but make bigger assumptions about the availability of those spells. It's a safe assumption that they might be reserved for the wealthy and powerful. But, surely, thanks to Spare the Dying, populations would rise much, much faster than they did historically. The irony is that this spell is a terrible pick for adventurers, since it's replaced by a cheap item available to everyone and achieving a 10 on your Medicine skill check.
It should be noted that this kind of population growth would need the assistance of spells like Plant Growth, discussed below, to feed.
Basically, this cantrip makes things last forever. And almost every spellcasting class has it. Any community, large or small, would have a shop manned by someone who can cast this cantrip fixing things. This poses an economic problem, too: maintenance, although not without value, would be less of a priority. Broken horseshoe or window pane? It would otherwise take some decent amount of work, expertise, and resources to fix those, but a quick casting of Mending, and you're back in business. Regardless of how widespread magic is in a campaign, if this spell is available and known with any real frequency, it would become a staple in most communities.
The main impact that I can imagine this spell would have is to assist in the proliferation in the variety of books that were available, with secondary effects in commerce and diplomacy. It would have quite the impact that the other two do, because it's first level, and it only allows one party to understand what another party is saying, so it's one-way communication, but that's still dramatically better than nothing, and would accelerate those kinds of endeavors quite a bit. Merchants armed with access to this spell would explore new markets with little hesitation, and scribes would transcribe written documents from other lands readily. Nice, but nothing huge.
These spells are fantastic law-enforcement tools. People with access to them, if known as such, would be sought out to find the culprits of criminal activity, and would probably be eventually either outlawed because evil powers would dislike their efficacy, or integrated into law enforcement in good-oriented areas. Speak with animals is available to a first level Druid or Bard, or a second level (official) Ranger. So, common enough, even though not as common as a cantrip might be. Speak with Plants and Speak with Dead are third level spells. Like Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants (available to 5th level Druids and Bards, or 9th level (official) Rangers), is limited to investigating events that occurred within the past 24 hours, so would require the individual so equipped be a constant presence to have real impact, and the answers might be useless due to the intelligence and focus of those answering the questions. Nonetheless, the extra information is probably welcome when there are no other solid leads, or when matters are contested by witnesses with more or less equal credibility.
Speak with Dead (also available to 5th level Bards or Clerics) is more flexible in that it allows victims killed up to 10 days ago to voice their thoughts. However, "answers are usually brief, cryptic, or repetitive, and the corpse is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer if you are hostile to it or it recognizes you as an enemy." Further, Speak with Dead is limited to 5 questions. I imagine the form these questions would take would be quickly set into law as a matter of policy, and there might even be formal procedures to test their veracity, legally speaking. Nonetheless, with these spells known to be available, it would be hard to imagine societies with rampant open criminality. This could lead to declining crime rates, since the spells allow bringing in additional witnesses to criminal behavior, distinctly improving the quality of life for honest folks where they become so integrated, and making them more desirable for commercial ventures, and becoming a cause for economic migration. Since nations compete for population and wealth, successfully implemented policies are likely to be copied over time, and this would (relatively) quickly create an expectation that law enforcement arm themselves with these sorts of spells.
Could have a dramatic impact, depending on caster availability. The two elements resulting in how deeply it could shape society are the area of effect and the degree to which it improves the land, the latter being problematic.
The spell affects about 506 acres (if my math converting units are correct: 505 acres in the spell's half-mile-radius area of effect, and, for the math below, 640 acres in a square kilometer), assuming the 8-hour casting version of the spell. Since the average peasant can care for 20 to 40 acres, this amounts to radically fertilizing a small village in a day. That's not bad for something a 5th level caster could do every day. However, it does take literally all day. So, if they're willing, it's the kind of thing that might even become their permanent job, but it depends a lot on how common 5th level Bards and Druids (or 9th level Rangers) are. As a term of comparison, about half of England (32 million acres) was either farmed or under pasture in the middle ages, so it could be covered by just under 32,000 castings of the spell. So, assuming one casting per day, 100 level 5 Bards or Druids could cover all the farmland in England in about a year, while doing so only on weekdays. This really would turn into a full time job.
But the problem is that Plant Growth only multiplies the nutritional yield of the area by 2.. That might change the amount of farmland necessary to support one person from the historic 10 acres (during historic medieval times) to a bountiful 5acres. Ideally, it would upgrade the nutritional yield to that equivalent to a sweet potato. Nonetheless, if the population growth spiked due to use of spells to intensely assist birth rates, Plant Growth might become a necessity to feed the people, since modern agricultural yields are very difficult to achieve without the right technologies.
I'd be eager to read of any other spells that might change society radically.
I was looking at this and I have my doubts, or maybe I'm not thinking hard enough.
I thought of drought, and, according to a quick google search, an average acre of pastoral lands might require over 4300 gallons of water per day. 10, or 20, or even 30 gallons per day is going to make a difference only in a narrow range of cases. And, to be clear, most magic is going to change society to some degree, but I'm not sure how deep this particular use cuts.
I also thought of using it to furnish cities with dense populations with potable water, but this first level spell would satisfy the needs of a family for one day, more or less. There certainly are some settings that have one level of caster per household, but that's far more abundance of spellcasters than most campaigns assume. It might be a luxury resource, in the sense that you have magically clean water, guaranteed to not have Bahamut knows what in it, but I'm not sure this implementation would have widespread impact.
It might affect warfare, particularly siege warfare, considerably, but this seems one of those cases where the weapon is also the shield, so evenly distributed caster populations wouldn't affect the balance of power much.
I'm not sure that this changes society that much because of the numbers involved. A spell such as Plant Growth would have much more dramatic impact. See my edit in the first post of this thread.
Create Food and Water certainly encourages exploration, since uncertain food and water is one of the main impediments of going on a long trip into unknown territory. So, yes this would certainly change things, although humans haven't been that shy about exploration, historically. It would mean that a 5th level cleric (or 9th level paladin) would be an indispensable staple on any expedition.
I was referring to those places where the availability of food and water are quite scarce. Those spell might make a huge difference.
True, although it would make settling in those areas still undesireable, since they would be dependent on the spellcasters to survive. If spellcasters are plentiful, that's reasonable. Otherwise, not so much.
Yeah, I like Eberron. And it is sensible to deal with magic as it were, basically, technology.
But the thing that's interesting is that there are elements here that would dramatically change almost any setting. It would be impossible to run a D&D setting like Ars Magica's, which almost historical medieval Europe, but with a very few exceptional individuals who can make crazy things happen.
D&D settings also assume certain powers or organizations tied to classes. Druids, rangers, thieves and clerics all have related organizations, of which the strictest are, ironically, probably thieves' guilds. And I'm not even going into Warlocks, who have entire ecosystems of actors as a power source.
There seem to be a lot things basically set in stone in a D&D setting, and many of them are barely even inferred, like the spells in this thread.
Irrigation improvements become easier with low level magic. Long distance travel, communication, trade, and probably long term storage all become easier as well. Those factors alone might do more than Plant Growth to accelerate food abundance. Also, breeding better food crops is easier if you can grow them faster.
Also, in many regions of the world, women's spend most of every day gathering water from rivers, which is less necessary if a Druid can enchant a vase to create water every day. So, we have to determine if his hypothetical world allows magic item creation.
How low level is Control Weather? What about the elemental control spells from the EE players guide? If you can move earth and water magically, modern irrigation is within reach. If you can do that and make it rain more often, who even needs plant growth?
Detecting disease is HUGE. Detecting poison makes the process of finding new food via exploration and trade much safer and accelerates the rate at which you can introduce new crops and also breed new crops.
A lot of construction tasks become much easier if your builders and architects have access to magic users. From the parts of projects that involve breaking destroying things to build other things, to heating and cooling objects at extreme temps, etc.
metalurgy. Just imagine metalurgical advancements with fire magic available. And Control Flame is a cantrip!
Mold Earth is a cantrip, and can be used to move loose earth, or break up harder earth. Most of what you can do with earth moving equipment falls into those categories. Shape Water lets you redirect the flow of water. Goodbye un-irrigated areas. You could magically create irrigation water tunnels between rows of crops that have no evaporation loss, and don't get in the way of planting.
Imagine how quickly real world "alchemy" would have advanced with access to just the various cantrips and 1st level spells!
Animal husbardry! This is bigger than plant growth, honestly. Anyone who knows about livestock, ranching, shepparding, etc already knows that Ranger cowboys and sheppards would lose far fewer animals, keep their animals healthier, have more leasure time, etc, just with their 1-3 level abilities and spells.
Mold Earth is a cantrip, and can be used to ... break up harder earth.
Shape Water lets you redirect the flow of water.
Those are reasonable effects of those cantrips, but I don't see them in the official EEPC. Was it updated?
The first benefit of Mold Earth lets you excavate it.
The third benefit lets you make it difficult terrain. Not sure how else that can be interpreted than as, other than that you can break up Earth with it. So, for fertilizing land, one thing you often want to do is to churn up the land and dump a ton of fertilizing elements into it, likemulch and traditional fertilizer, or riverbed soil. And also, road maintanence. You can smooth out roads, five feet per every few seconds.
Shape Water. First benefit, you change the flow of the water.
Both cantrips say you can do up to two such effects at a time. So, a couple people with these cantrips could create a canal very quickly, while keeping the river or lake from flooding the work area. You could also use Shape Water to temporarily move Water over an area to irrigate, and then let it go back to normal. Or keep it flowing the way you want until it pushes dirt out of the way and makes a nice channel for itself.
Another thing I didn't think of earlier is excavating for buildings and such. And piling up Earth for various purposes, etc. again, anything an excavation equipment can do.
Still, Gust will help with some things, like filling sails, and moving windmills and such. I feel like weather manipulation could be achieved pretty well with the use of multiple spells, as well. And honestly just using create Water a lot in an area, increasing ground water day by day, year by year, and using the other spells to redirect rivers, and you can create a fertile area from pretty much anything.
And imagine once someone figures it conductivity and all that, and we get to wind and hydro power plants.
Mold Earth is a cantrip, and can be used to ... break up harder earth.
Shape Water lets you redirect the flow of water.
Those are reasonable effects of those cantrips, but I don't see them in the official EEPC. Was it updated?
The first benefit of Mold Earth lets you excavate it.
The third benefit lets you make it difficult terrain. Not sure how else that can be interpreted than as, other than that you can break up Earth with it.
Again, I'm not saying it's an unreasonable use of the spell, but the first benefit clearly says it can excavate loose earth. If they meant that it could excavate compact soil, which is what most soil is unless it has been tilled, it's weird that they added the word loose in the first benefit. The third benefit only says that it can make dirt or stone on the ground into difficult terrain or make difficult terrain normal. The third benefit seems only related to footing on terrain, not excavation. I think any reasonable DM would rule that the spell helps, but I'm not sure the by-the-book words lend themselves to your interpretation.
The notion of moving water with Shape Water is good, but I'm wondering whether it would drain by the time you can cast it again, since it only moves it 5 feet every casting.
Still, Gust will help with some things, like filling sails, and moving windmills and such. I feel like weather manipulation could be achieved pretty well with the use of multiple spells, as well. And honestly just using create Water a lot in an area, increasing ground water day by day, year by year, and using the other spells to redirect rivers, and you can create a fertile area from pretty much anything.
And imagine once someone figures it conductivity and all that, and we get to wind and hydro power plants.
Gust seems pretty innocuous in terms of strength, at least as written. Any ship or windmill blade I know of weigh much more than 5 pounds, but there's a solid argument to be made for surface area and wind capture. It's a good thought, and I'll add it to the original post when I find time.
Generally, I'd assume that common folks can't usually afford first or second level spells, at least at the prices in the PHB (10 to 50 GP for a common first or second level spell). So it would have to be really worth their while to do so, which is why I looked at Plant Growth. I imagine most folks live on about a silver a day. Maybe less. So getting someone to cast a first level spell might be the achievement of a lifetime. The benefit would have to be really considerable for them to spend that kind of money on it.
I agree that most commoners couldn't afford spell casting, but in a quasi feudal society the rulers could foot the bill, due to the potential benefits to them of making their peasants' lives easier. As with automation, the effect on the working class depends on how willing the people at the top are to share resources with those "beneath" them on the social ladder.
You could have a tyrannical government with a great road system that helps move troops and tax collectors, with no effort spent on improving the lives of the serfs; or you could have a more benevolent monarchy that spreads the love around a bit more evenly.
Alarm, Floating Disc, Unseen Servant, even Grease, have significant commercial applications.
How would the non spell casting masses feel about this though? Unseen Servant would eliminate low level clerical (clerk) jobs. Floating Disc puts porters and dock workers out of a job.
But, as noted, adventurers are about 1% of the population maybe. And not all Adventurers are spell casters.
Mold Earth is a cantrip, and can be used to ... break up harder earth.
Shape Water lets you redirect the flow of water.
Those are reasonable effects of those cantrips, but I don't see them in the official EEPC. Was it updated?
The first benefit of Mold Earth lets you excavate it.
The third benefit lets you make it difficult terrain. Not sure how else that can be interpreted than as, other than that you can break up Earth with it.
Again, I'm not saying it's an unreasonable use of the spell, but the first benefit clearly says it can excavate loose earth. If they meant that it could excavate compact soil, which is what most soil is unless it has been tilled, it's weird that they added the word loose in the first benefit. The third benefit only says that it can make dirt or stone on the ground into difficult terrain or make difficult terrain normal. The third benefit seems only related to footing on terrain, not excavation. I think any reasonable DM would rule that the spell helps, but I'm not sure the by-the-book words lend themselves to your interpretation.
The notion of moving water with Shape Water is good, but I'm wondering whether it would drain by the time you can cast it again, since it only moves it 5 feet every casting.
Loose earth just means not solid earth. Ie, not stone. If the third benefit can make stone into difficult terrain, it can turn it into enough broken pieces to count. Even if not, normal Attack cantrips inarguably can break it into loose earth, with less effort than doing so with a pickaxe.
Shape Water can last up to an hour, and you can have two instances going. No need to worry on that score. Just overlap castings. Considering how much water fits in a 5 foot cube, an hour of that is pretty damn good. And it only redirects by 5 ft, but that is more than enough to change how irrigation works.
Alarm, Floating Disc, Unseen Servant, even Grease, have significant commercial applications.
How would the non spell casting masses feel about this though? Unseen Servant would eliminate low level clerical (clerk) jobs. Floating Disc puts porters and dock workers out of a job.
But, as noted, adventurers are about 1% of the population maybe. And not all Adventurers are spell casters.
Even if adventurers are 1%, spell users are more than that. Druids alone inherently assume that the PC is one of a circle, and that circle is one of multiple circles. Paladins strongly implie structures and organizations of Paladins. Wizards don't assume the PC taught themselves, and Bards have Colleges. Rangers have conclaves and even if not, the lore assumes they have peers.
So, unless we explicitly go out of our way to build a world where the PCs taught themselves somehow, and there aren't any of those assumed structures or groups, people who can use spells, are probably more than 1%, while people who can cast mid level or higher spells are probably much less than 1%.
As for commoners affording spells, doesn't matter. A village could. And paying a magical irrigation renovator to reroute river water so that it irrigates more space, more reliably, would be a one time cost that makes them more productive as long as the river exists.
If we are assuming that using plant growth on the same land, same plants, year after year, doesn't do anything bad to the soil or have diminishing returns on the plants, demand would reduce the price of that service. Because it's an ability you get back with a night's rest, and you can do it every day, multiple times a day.
The prices in the books assume we don't extrapolate how the world would be changed by low level magic. In a world that follows through on these ideas, the economy described in the books can't exist. It's a different economy.
Even basic things like feudalism might not be sustainable in such a world, as it relied in part upon serfs having to spend the greater part of their wakeful time working the fields. Any level of agricultural automation, even just reliable irrigation, would make it hard to keep that going.
Just Shape Water would completely change what Medieval Europe looked like.
Especially because magic doesn't care about money, like tech does. Magic can just randomly show up in a peasant, and anyone who knows how to do magic can do it, no need for patronage.
This is a relatively common topic of discussion in FRPG circles and the debate goes back and forth on just how much the availability of magic affects a pseudo-medieval society. I tend to believe that, just as technology has rendered most parts of the world unrecognizable in a span so small as 100 years, the pervasive availability of minor magic (going with the 1% number for casters, a medium town of 10,000 will have 100 of them) would have sweeping effects on society. But, just as no one in 1917 could even really conceive of what the world would look like in 2017, I think it's rather academic to argue what the world would and could look like with the pervasive influence of magic, minor and otherwise. I just don't believe we can possibly anticipate what that world would look like no matter how hard we break our heads over it.
That said, the most important perspective, I believe, is this: It's a game.
It's a game that's already full of anachronisms, silly stereotypes, and defiance of natural physics. That's not a problem - that's the beauty of the whole thing.
While I love to throw in the occasional "NPC hacking life in a clever, magical way" moment, my players want a relatable, recognizable pseudo-medieval society with all those "problems" firmly in place. I definitely think it's valuable to consider how magic has affected society when you're building cities and such, especially when they are wealthy and powerful, but ultimately it's just another detail of hundreds to consider and, like many of those details, it can be taken too far.
So, by all means, it's a topic worthy of discussion. But, as an old boss of mine used to be fond of saying, "Let's not get wrapped around the axle."
:)
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PBP "Beregost Blues" - Dungeon Master of Gnome Slaying +5
This thread is super interesting. I may steal a lot of this stuff for the Lord's Alliance "playbook" in the FR campaign I'm running right now. I may even use Nazim and Bricing as important LA NPCs. Thanks all.
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So, whatever the setting of a game of D&D might be in, if spellcasters occur among even 1% of humanoids, they dramatically alter how things work. For the sake of this discussion, I won't even consider high level spells, because the assumptions baked therein are too many to really allow for generalizations. But, just going through the official cantrips and first level spells, a few stand out. These, and others, if known and available, would dramatically change any society that looked like medieval earth.
Spare the Dying
This cantrip is at the top of the list. Having a cleric around at any childbirth becomes a necessity, and survival rates (and therefore the population in general) skyrocket. Technological advancements are very tightly correlated to population density due to the greater possibility of professional specialization and professional research. This spell alone would accelerate any timeline of humanoid development, dramatically compressing it. Other spells have similar roles, albeit lesser ones. Resistance would have some impact, assuming that disease is spread through a mechanic involving a saving throw, but timing becomes an issue: when do folks make a save against an ongoing cold or infection. Healing spells generally, particularly Lesser Restoration, but also Purify Food and Drink or Detect Poison and Disease, would also have a big impact, but make bigger assumptions about the availability of those spells. It's a safe assumption that they might be reserved for the wealthy and powerful. But, surely, thanks to Spare the Dying, populations would rise much, much faster than they did historically. The irony is that this spell is a terrible pick for adventurers, since it's replaced by a cheap item available to everyone and achieving a 10 on your Medicine skill check.
It should be noted that this kind of population growth would need the assistance of spells like Plant Growth, discussed below, to feed.
Mending
Basically, this cantrip makes things last forever. And almost every spellcasting class has it. Any community, large or small, would have a shop manned by someone who can cast this cantrip fixing things. This poses an economic problem, too: maintenance, although not without value, would be less of a priority. Broken horseshoe or window pane? It would otherwise take some decent amount of work, expertise, and resources to fix those, but a quick casting of Mending, and you're back in business. Regardless of how widespread magic is in a campaign, if this spell is available and known with any real frequency, it would become a staple in most communities.
Comprehend Languages
The main impact that I can imagine this spell would have is to assist in the proliferation in the variety of books that were available, with secondary effects in commerce and diplomacy. It would have quite the impact that the other two do, because it's first level, and it only allows one party to understand what another party is saying, so it's one-way communication, but that's still dramatically better than nothing, and would accelerate those kinds of endeavors quite a bit. Merchants armed with access to this spell would explore new markets with little hesitation, and scribes would transcribe written documents from other lands readily. Nice, but nothing huge.
Speak with Animals, Dead, Plants
These spells are fantastic law-enforcement tools. People with access to them, if known as such, would be sought out to find the culprits of criminal activity, and would probably be eventually either outlawed because evil powers would dislike their efficacy, or integrated into law enforcement in good-oriented areas. Speak with animals is available to a first level Druid or Bard, or a second level (official) Ranger. So, common enough, even though not as common as a cantrip might be. Speak with Plants and Speak with Dead are third level spells. Like Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants (available to 5th level Druids and Bards, or 9th level (official) Rangers), is limited to investigating events that occurred within the past 24 hours, so would require the individual so equipped be a constant presence to have real impact, and the answers might be useless due to the intelligence and focus of those answering the questions. Nonetheless, the extra information is probably welcome when there are no other solid leads, or when matters are contested by witnesses with more or less equal credibility.
Speak with Dead (also available to 5th level Bards or Clerics) is more flexible in that it allows victims killed up to 10 days ago to voice their thoughts. However, "answers are usually brief, cryptic, or repetitive, and the corpse is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer if you are hostile to it or it recognizes you as an enemy." Further, Speak with Dead is limited to 5 questions. I imagine the form these questions would take would be quickly set into law as a matter of policy, and there might even be formal procedures to test their veracity, legally speaking. Nonetheless, with these spells known to be available, it would be hard to imagine societies with rampant open criminality. This could lead to declining crime rates, since the spells allow bringing in additional witnesses to criminal behavior, distinctly improving the quality of life for honest folks where they become so integrated, and making them more desirable for commercial ventures, and becoming a cause for economic migration. Since nations compete for population and wealth, successfully implemented policies are likely to be copied over time, and this would (relatively) quickly create an expectation that law enforcement arm themselves with these sorts of spells.
Editing to add:
Plant Growth
Could have a dramatic impact, depending on caster availability. The two elements resulting in how deeply it could shape society are the area of effect and the degree to which it improves the land, the latter being problematic.
The spell affects about 506 acres (if my math converting units are correct: 505 acres in the spell's half-mile-radius area of effect, and, for the math below, 640 acres in a square kilometer), assuming the 8-hour casting version of the spell. Since the average peasant can care for 20 to 40 acres, this amounts to radically fertilizing a small village in a day. That's not bad for something a 5th level caster could do every day. However, it does take literally all day. So, if they're willing, it's the kind of thing that might even become their permanent job, but it depends a lot on how common 5th level Bards and Druids (or 9th level Rangers) are. As a term of comparison, about half of England (32 million acres) was either farmed or under pasture in the middle ages, so it could be covered by just under 32,000 castings of the spell. So, assuming one casting per day, 100 level 5 Bards or Druids could cover all the farmland in England in about a year, while doing so only on weekdays. This really would turn into a full time job.
But the problem is that Plant Growth only multiplies the nutritional yield of the area by 2.. That might change the amount of farmland necessary to support one person from the historic 10 acres (during historic medieval times) to a bountiful 5 acres. Ideally, it would upgrade the nutritional yield to that equivalent to a sweet potato. Nonetheless, if the population growth spiked due to use of spells to intensely assist birth rates, Plant Growth might become a necessity to feed the people, since modern agricultural yields are very difficult to achieve without the right technologies.
I'd be eager to read of any other spells that might change society radically.
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.
Create or destroy water and Create food and water.
I guess there is no need to explain.
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.
I was referring to those places where the availability of food and water are quite scarce. Those spell might make a huge difference.
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.
You might be interested in Eberron, if you've never run into it before.
There are guilds based around families who have economic quasi-monopolies based around this very concept.
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Yeah, I like Eberron. And it is sensible to deal with magic as it were, basically, technology.
But the thing that's interesting is that there are elements here that would dramatically change almost any setting. It would be impossible to run a D&D setting like Ars Magica's, which almost historical medieval Europe, but with a very few exceptional individuals who can make crazy things happen.
D&D settings also assume certain powers or organizations tied to classes. Druids, rangers, thieves and clerics all have related organizations, of which the strictest are, ironically, probably thieves' guilds. And I'm not even going into Warlocks, who have entire ecosystems of actors as a power source.
There seem to be a lot things basically set in stone in a D&D setting, and many of them are barely even inferred, like the spells in this thread.
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.
Irrigation improvements become easier with low level magic. Long distance travel, communication, trade, and probably long term storage all become easier as well. Those factors alone might do more than Plant Growth to accelerate food abundance. Also, breeding better food crops is easier if you can grow them faster.
Also, in many regions of the world, women's spend most of every day gathering water from rivers, which is less necessary if a Druid can enchant a vase to create water every day. So, we have to determine if his hypothetical world allows magic item creation.
How low level is Control Weather? What about the elemental control spells from the EE players guide? If you can move earth and water magically, modern irrigation is within reach. If you can do that and make it rain more often, who even needs plant growth?
Detecting disease is HUGE. Detecting poison makes the process of finding new food via exploration and trade much safer and accelerates the rate at which you can introduce new crops and also breed new crops.
A lot of construction tasks become much easier if your builders and architects have access to magic users. From the parts of projects that involve breaking destroying things to build other things, to heating and cooling objects at extreme temps, etc.
metalurgy. Just imagine metalurgical advancements with fire magic available. And Control Flame is a cantrip!
Mold Earth is a cantrip, and can be used to move loose earth, or break up harder earth. Most of what you can do with earth moving equipment falls into those categories. Shape Water lets you redirect the flow of water. Goodbye un-irrigated areas. You could magically create irrigation water tunnels between rows of crops that have no evaporation loss, and don't get in the way of planting.
Imagine how quickly real world "alchemy" would have advanced with access to just the various cantrips and 1st level spells!
Animal husbardry! This is bigger than plant growth, honestly. Anyone who knows about livestock, ranching, shepparding, etc already knows that Ranger cowboys and sheppards would lose far fewer animals, keep their animals healthier, have more leasure time, etc, just with their 1-3 level abilities and spells.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
We do bones, motherf***ker!
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.
I agree that most commoners couldn't afford spell casting, but in a quasi feudal society the rulers could foot the bill, due to the potential benefits to them of making their peasants' lives easier. As with automation, the effect on the working class depends on how willing the people at the top are to share resources with those "beneath" them on the social ladder.
You could have a tyrannical government with a great road system that helps move troops and tax collectors, with no effort spent on improving the lives of the serfs; or you could have a more benevolent monarchy that spreads the love around a bit more evenly.
geek dad with 3 geek kids
Alarm, Floating Disc, Unseen Servant, even Grease, have significant commercial applications.
How would the non spell casting masses feel about this though? Unseen Servant would eliminate low level clerical (clerk) jobs. Floating Disc puts porters and dock workers out of a job.
But, as noted, adventurers are about 1% of the population maybe. And not all Adventurers are spell casters.
geek dad with 3 geek kids
We do bones, motherf***ker!
We do bones, motherf***ker!
This is a relatively common topic of discussion in FRPG circles and the debate goes back and forth on just how much the availability of magic affects a pseudo-medieval society. I tend to believe that, just as technology has rendered most parts of the world unrecognizable in a span so small as 100 years, the pervasive availability of minor magic (going with the 1% number for casters, a medium town of 10,000 will have 100 of them) would have sweeping effects on society. But, just as no one in 1917 could even really conceive of what the world would look like in 2017, I think it's rather academic to argue what the world would and could look like with the pervasive influence of magic, minor and otherwise. I just don't believe we can possibly anticipate what that world would look like no matter how hard we break our heads over it.
That said, the most important perspective, I believe, is this: It's a game.
It's a game that's already full of anachronisms, silly stereotypes, and defiance of natural physics. That's not a problem - that's the beauty of the whole thing.
While I love to throw in the occasional "NPC hacking life in a clever, magical way" moment, my players want a relatable, recognizable pseudo-medieval society with all those "problems" firmly in place. I definitely think it's valuable to consider how magic has affected society when you're building cities and such, especially when they are wealthy and powerful, but ultimately it's just another detail of hundreds to consider and, like many of those details, it can be taken too far.
So, by all means, it's a topic worthy of discussion. But, as an old boss of mine used to be fond of saying, "Let's not get wrapped around the axle."
:)
This thread is super interesting. I may steal a lot of this stuff for the Lord's Alliance "playbook" in the FR campaign I'm running right now. I may even use Nazim and Bricing as important LA NPCs. Thanks all.