How hard would it be to train a villager to use cantrips (Pathfinder and 5E DnD)?


Advice


I was getting into a interesting conversation with a friend about the viability of teaching a villager an offensive cantrip. Suppose that a city was to teach every citizen as a mandatory curriculum the ability to cast 0 level spells (Or higher if the people have the aptitude). Would this be more cost effective than training a bunch of people to use longbows, crossbows or the like? Just due to ammo costs and gold costs, or would that be silly of me to believe so? If not, what would make using 0-level offensive spells more viable than a bunch of archers?


Range is an issue. Longbows or similar will be far better on the battlefield simply because they will absurdly outrange cantrips.

To make Acid Splash or whatever useful? Maybe the main enemies have DR and attack in the night, meaning that the city will need expensive silvered arrows and archers are likely to miss a lot outside the range of torches. Maybe the city is underground and fighting things coming up from below, in tunnels you might seldom get a decent range.


avr wrote:

Range is an issue. Longbows or similar will be far better on the battlefield simply because they will absurdly outrange cantrips.

To make Acid Splash or whatever useful? Maybe the main enemies have DR and attack in the night, meaning that the city will need expensive silvered arrows and archers are likely to miss a lot outside the range of torches. Maybe the city is underground and fighting things coming up from below, in tunnels you might seldom get a decent range.

I also want to apologize for starting it in this thread, but I think the math would be close. The cantrip I was discussing for my friend was the DND 5th Edition cantrip Firebolt. Which is a 120ft ranged attack, with 1d10 damage and can light things on fire. Along with some of the other cantrips from that game.


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Other advantages to level 0 spells...

1) Touch AC. Attacking Touch AC is easier and ignores armor.

2) You are ALWAYS armed. Unless you need a spellbook to cast your cantrips, you are armed even when people assume you are unarmed. (Hey, much like Unarmed Strike!)

3) If you know level 0 spells, you probably know a spell like Light. That'd be useful for every citizen to know... And what about Stabilize? That's a literal life-saver.

As AVR said, there are plenty of situations where you'd still be in trouble. However, having a substantial portion of your militia learn to cast 0 level spells would definitely help.

EDIT: D&D 5E cantrips are rather different from PF and 3.5 cantrips. They carry a lot more weight, IMO, and would make 0 level spells even more valuable.


I recommend you mention 5E in your title at least.


Not really familiar with 5e. Is that a flat 120' max range or a 120' range increment? If the former my point stands, if the latter you've probably found a game where bows are no longer important in warfare.


avr wrote:
Not really familiar with 5e. Is that a flat 120' max range or a 120' range increment? If the former my point stands, if the latter you've probably found a game where bows are no longer important in warfare.

Flat 120 IIRC.

That's the other thing: Spells have a range at which they fizzle out. Bows? If you roll a 20, or if you're REALLY skilled, you can shoot extremely long distances.

A peasant that knows how to use a crossbow will at least be able to rain some death on enemies below if grouped up with a bunch of other peasants with crossbows. Massed fire vs. armies is good.


I wouldn't have it as my primary ranged tactic, but it does seem like a decent enough mid ranged tactic right before getting into melee. Essentially, something like a volley of rifles. Give them long spears after that, and you can probably do fairly well.

It would be something to consider if the city had a lot of experience with siege warfare, since materials would be at a high premium. Admittedly, this was the main argument for slings as well. I think it is cheaper to train them in slings (0 cost, and just uses random rocks they can pick up anywhere)

Of course, a mandatory cantrip program can have a wide number of other benefits if you include a couple more spells.
-Prestidigitation, for instance, would very quickly improve the sanitation of the city as the citizens just magic everything clean. Improves...poor rations. Can color flags for quick coded messages.
-Create water- always essential
-Purify food and drink- important
-stabilize-triage for wounded soldiers; questionable use of actions for adventurers, fantastic when it is a nurse just spamming this.
-Light and dancing lights can save on oil, which means that the city might have less dependence on a foreign good. If you can send the light high into the sky (just sending dancing lights, or maybe throwing/slinging an object with light), you can make a flare for emergency communication.
-Mending can allow for the repair of a lot of common tools.
-Message could be used to make a relay of communication that lets you get information from all around the city (as in, you post men every so often, and their job is to receive and send reports to the next guy in the chain)

Even if everyone is not trained in more than 1-2 cantrips, making these widely available throughout the city would improve quality of life dramatically, and would greatly improve a war effort.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Icy Turbo wrote:
I was getting into a interesting conversation with a friend about the viability of teaching a villager an offensive cantrip. Suppose that a city was to teach every citizen as a mandatory curriculum the ability to cast 0 level spells (Or higher if the people have the aptitude). Would this be more cost effective than training a bunch of people to use longbows, crossbows or the like? Just due to ammo costs and gold costs, or would that be silly of me to believe so? If not, what would make using 0-level offensive spells more viable than a bunch of archers?

I'd say that the vast majority would not have the talent to do so, no matter what their Intelligence was or how hard you tried to pound it into them. It's a classic trope that the ability to wield magic is pretty much drawn from a talent even if it takes training to draw it out. But without that talent, training is useless.

The other thing is that such a move would probably pose a threat to the established social order.


^You would also run into the trouble of an awful lot of people having a murder weapon that doesn't stick around after it is used . . . .


LazarX wrote:
Icy Turbo wrote:
I was getting into a interesting conversation with a friend about the viability of teaching a villager an offensive cantrip. Suppose that a city was to teach every citizen as a mandatory curriculum the ability to cast 0 level spells (Or higher if the people have the aptitude). Would this be more cost effective than training a bunch of people to use longbows, crossbows or the like? Just due to ammo costs and gold costs, or would that be silly of me to believe so? If not, what would make using 0-level offensive spells more viable than a bunch of archers?

I'd say that the vast majority would not have the talent to do so, no matter what their Intelligence was or how hard you tried to pound it into them. It's a classic trope that the ability to wield magic is pretty much drawn from a talent even if it takes training to draw it out. But without that talent, training is useless.

The other thing is that such a move would probably pose a threat to the established social order.

Well, it is certainly true that the 'average' intelligence is 10. Given the way averages work, for every master wizard with blistering intellect... there is an illiterate fool that digs ditches (or really, 1 exceptional outlier and 10 slightly below average). So on average, maybe...half? Or probably less, have the scores to properly learn a cantrip. At least in ways that can be reasonably taught on a institutional level (sorcerer stuff is in the blood, and bards just have talent and a knack at picking things up in general).

Of course, you can always brute force it. Pathfinder has rules for that- traits. These represent facets of your background and upbringing, and they care less about score.s There are traits that let you get a cantrip 1/day. The trifler trait gives prestidigitation 3/day (which is 3 hours per day due to duration- more than enough to make a difference culturally if it is made standard).


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3 days and 30 GP each


I think that magic is not just about intelligence, but aptitude. If intelligence was the only factor, then there would be more wizards around.


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wraithstrike wrote:
I think that magic is not just about intelligence, but aptitude. If intelligence was the only factor, then there would be more wizards around.

Not necessarily. Deuxhero kind of touched on the issue- 30 GP.

It might not seem like much...but remember, hirelings (who often represent the average joe) make 1-3 sp per day. That is 100-300 days worth of work for most people. That is akin to the kinds of costs of going to college (at least a community college part time).

Not everyone in modern society goes to college, right? Well, sure, it is becoming a more and more common thing, and an expectation in many fields... but we are talking about a medieval/renaissance era world where your student loans are much more obviously written by devils.

So perhaps prohibitive costs, combined with the fact that a lot of people might not have the appropriate scores (maybe they have 7 INT and 13 CHA) limits how many can go to schools. I mean...there doesn't appear to be any magical SATs that tell you 'you are not ready for this', which means even trying the classes can be a gamble if you are right at the line for keeping up.


The average person is not using a PC class which is what the retraining rules are for. Even then you have to be certain classes in order to retrain.

You still need the aptitude or a good in world reason to explain why there are not more PC classes if you(general statement) why more people have NPC classes instead of PC classes.


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You would have to take in to account that everyone in the village wasn't suspicious of magic to some degree. Even in cities where a wizards colledge might reside, the populace isn't 100% behind the wizardly cause. You after all are in command of powers that are far beyond the citizenry despite their average intelligence.

I can only imagine a series of village wars that would be a nightmare not only for the rulimg class but for everyone else. Having a smidgen of power would these villagers then raise the prices on the various food goods that they sell? After all they, in their minds could view themselves as all powerful. That is until they are set back in to their place.

Sure the occasional dream of adventure fills the mind of the average hayseed, many don't move beyond their menial life. Yes you can argue that everyone wishes to raise their status, villagers are not exempt. I of course wouldn't deny that right, but only envision headaches beyond belief.

Hope I didn't ramble on too much.


This might be a better explanation to why that would be a bad idea besides the above listed problems.

You have village A and a nearby village B. Village A learns 0 level spells to better defend their village. Coincidently village A has a bumper crop at the end of the season that had nothing to do with said spells. Village B coincidentaly has a failure of crops and suspects that village A was respondible for their imminent starvation. Let the witch hunts begin.

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Seems easy to do. Take said commoner out on an adventure or two. Hope they survive. When they get enough XP for 2nd level, they take a level in a class with cantrips.

No idea about 5E, this is a Pathfinder forum for a reason.


The simplest way to look at this (without ANOVA analysis) is is a multiple layered "normal" distribution problem.

First assuming a normal distribution for intelligence and for literacy. You only have those villagers who meet the minimum intelligence and are also literate.

As others have pointed out other factors may also come into play, such as a distrust of magic or religious aversion to magic, or lack of motivation.

So maybe 1d10% could be trained, but sorting them out from the general population would be a challenge.


Thorazeen wrote:

This might be a better explanation to why that would be a bad idea besides the above listed problems.

You have village A and a nearby village B. Village A learns 0 level spells to better defend their village. Coincidently village A has a bumper crop at the end of the season that had nothing to do with said spells. Village B coincidentaly has a failure of crops and suspects that village A was respondible for their imminent starvation. Let the witch hunts begin.

I wonder if this might have actually happened in Mendev -- certainly had their witch hunts for other reasons, but they would also have extra reason to train their villagers to be better at self-defense even in the face of potential hazards, and might well have run afoul of one of these hazards.

Liberty's Edge

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Erik the Cleric: So, how'd the commoner-training go, guys?

Rita the Rogue: Ugh, terrible! We jumped the one guy in the bar like we always do, and we brought him out to the Winterlands to learn how to adventure properly. Thing is, Freddy wanted to fight a dragon...

Freddy the Fighter: (wearing some new red-scaled armor) Guy Number One's charcoal now.

Erik: ..."Guy Number One?"

Freddy: Don't worry, we got another guy to train! Rita and I went out to Rampart, she said something about "how to be an arcane trickster."

Erik: Nothing wrong with a prestige class, but... where is he?

Rita: Our wannabe arcane trickster got knifed in the back by a wannabe assassin. It's okay, though! I monogrammed him in the back!

Erik: Revenge isn't--

Rita: Of his head.

Erik: D:

Freddy: We had a third guy training with Ed, but...

Erik: "But" what...?

Edvard Eddard, Evoker Extraordinaire: Guy somehow managed to hit himself with his own Magic Missile. I didn't think that was possible.


Or the evil guy in your party keeps killing then for more XP after they are trained......


I don’t think it would work like people seem to think it would. Just because spell casters can cast cantrips again and again does not mean anyone else can. Most talents, traits or feats that allow a non-caster to use cantrips usually limit them to three times per day. So even if every villager could cast them they would probably be limited to the same three times per day.

The other thing is that the ability to cast spells is probably not something that can be easily taught. Spells are a class feature not something everyone has. Everyone has the capability to use some weapons. Learning to use another is just a matter of training on the specifics of the weapon. Every creature in existence has a BAB of some kind, even if it is at a penalty. Most creatures on the other hand do not have a caster level. This is a class ability that only certain classes have. If it is possible to teach someone a cantrip without having an appropriate class level it would be possible to teach then to channel energy, or rage without the appropriate class.

To teach someone to cast a single cantrip will require that they have a caster level. The way I see it having a caster level is more than just knowing a single spell. It is more like learning to write a computer program. Even the simplest program requires a lot of specialized knowledge and equipment. The feats and traits that grant cantrips all state the person has studied magic and managed to retain some of the skill.


^Maybe you could have them become an arcane variant of Adept, since otherwise most of them will be level 1 Commoners anyway.

Liberty's Edge

Also just wanna point out in all seriousness, 3.5e's Unearthed Arcana has a generic class called the Spellcaster. The spellcaster has the same spells known and spells/day as a sorcerer, and their spells are picked from the cleric, druid, and sorcerer/wizard spell lists.

You do have to choose whether you're an arcane or divine spellcaster with this class; divine spellcasters use Wisdom to determine saves and bonus spells, while arcane spellcasters have a choice of using Intelligence or Charisma.


^3.5's Unearthed Arcana had a section on simplified classes: Adept, Expert, and Warrior, from which the various spellcasters, rogues, and martial types would be built by adding feats, etc.. Nice idea, but it wasn't very fleshed out.


Yeah, the adept is part of the NPC classes included in the core rule book (taken from the open license on 3.5 stuff I would imagine).

They lack the damaging cantrips, for the the purposes of this discussion (but they have a lot of the other 'useful' ones).

I wouldn't doubt that adepts would likely be the main result if you tried to mass produce spell casters, but it still seems like it would take a lot of cost and effort. Still, you can argue 'better than commoners'. Hell, even the proficiencies are an upgrade (from only a single simple weapon to all of them; long spears and slings ahoy).


This seems more like a flavor question than a mechanics question.

Personally, I'd say most normal people simply lack the ability/drive/talent to learn to cast any spells, even level 0 ones. Assuming that a few can learn, doing so would still take months -- if not years -- of training and study.

Putting a crossbow in someone's hand makes far more sense from a practical standpoint.


My idea that I stated to my friend was that a Small City would, as sort of a mandatory conscription, teach every villager with the aptitude over a period of many years perhaps (starting at like 10 or 11 and going onto maturity) the art of magic, and perhaps extending this training further for anyone with true magical aptitude (such as NPC's that could become wizards or clerics or etc). Even if a small city of perhaps 5,000 people could only produce say 500 people, that is a crazy high number perhaps. Crazy but could be useful.


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bugleyman wrote:

This seems more like a flavor question than a mechanics question.

Personally, I'd say most normal people simply lack the ability/drive/talent to learn to cast any spells, even level 0 ones. Assuming that a few can learn, doing so would still take months -- if not years -- of training and study.

Putting a crossbow in someone's hand makes far more sense from a practical standpoint.

Not too far fetched -- supposedly it took years of training (that Commoners can't afford to spend) to get somebody to be good with a bow, whereas crossbows and later guns were much easier to use, taking only weeks of training.


It's really easy if it's a village of gnomes...


Icy Turbo wrote:
My idea that I stated to my friend was that a Small City would, as sort of a mandatory conscription, teach every villager with the aptitude over a period of many years perhaps (starting at like 10 or 11 and going onto maturity) the art of magic, and perhaps extending this training further for anyone with true magical aptitude (such as NPC's that could become wizards or clerics or etc). Even if a small city of perhaps 5,000 people could only produce say 500 people, that is a crazy high number perhaps. Crazy but could be useful.

This breaks down when you put ego's in the mix though. It is far more likely that those with both the magical aptitude AND the magical knowledge would keep that knowledge to a tight circle of friends, and not spread that knowledge throughout the village to any kid with a spark of insight.

There's no such thing as an altruistic mage... :-)


The other thing you are forgetting is once you start teaching someone how to use magic they will want to learn more. Next thing you know the peasant you invested all that time in moved to a new city where he can make more money by using what you taught him. You would be better off training fewer candidates to become real mages instead of a bunch of minor talents. Use the same money you planned to tech the peasants to fund a school with the stipulation that anyone trained in the school has to server you.


^I think similar arguments have been made about education more generally . . . .

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