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You're putting a modern workforce view where it doesn't exist. In the modern world, you're absolutely correct. In a pre-modern society where most labor isn't wage labor, it's either small independent farmers or more likely tenant farmers or peasants working someone else's land in return for protection and a portion of their crop, that distinction doesn't really exist.Ah yes, working the lords land and paying your rent in goods for protection. I imagine in a fantasy world like Pathfinder with powerful undead, demons, dinosaurs, and dragons that this would be more necessary than it was in feudal Europe.
Yes - especially late middle ages it was really more of a mafia style "protection".
This doesn't really answers the questions of the OP. He already has reasons as creator to not wanting technological explosion in its world, but he was asking what could be a good IN-UNIVERSE justification.
I agree, but I thought it was worth noting that "why don't we solve mundane problems with the logical application of magic" is a question that goes unanswered in many 3.x settings, and the setting creators tend to ignore it rather than create coherent in-setting answers to the question. Then I outlined a few settings that turn the question on its head by saying "what does happen if we try to solve problems by the logical application of magic" in a small-scale (Eberron) and large-scale (Tippy-verse) scenarios.
Basically, if you're the kind of GM that finds the lack of answer to this question problematic you're better off creating your own solution to the problem rather than looking to the published material to find an answer.
I've been pondering this question for a while, since this used to bother me greatly - unfortunate side effect of studying political science and psychology back in the day. I fiddled around with it for a while, inventing things similar to Raynulf's illuminators and elaborate military treaties forbidding the use of teleportation circles and so on, but the changes I found I needed to do were both extensive and didn't really add much to the game, apart from satisfying my personal desire for logical consistency. Ultimately I found it was easier to ignore the inconsistency and focus my efforts on running a fun game with the setting more or less as provided. That's just me though. :)
And "the author didn't want to because of setting feeling" is a doylist answer
Indeed. It doesn't make it any less true, though. Tackling the full ramifications of the fact that just about any metropolis will have 9th level spellcasting from both arcane and divine spell lists on hand at a nominal cost is a monumental beast.
Historically speaking the human civilization almost had several industrial revolutions. They have found a model and a real sustained flight airplane in a pyramid that dates 11000 BC. They have uncovered a mechanical computer. I was reading on how the industrial revolution almost came about 4 times since the dark ages. How did it not happen. Greed, skepticism that machines can actually work and more commonly * happens. Imagine where we would be if we had developed planes and computers 13000 years ago. So how do you keep it Dark Ages. Just keep it in the dark ages.
Can you include cites for any of this?
The oldest Egyptian pyramid was only 2700 BC, your pyramid is over 8,000 years earlier - what pyramid is this?
The Saqqara bird is widely believed to be a bird that was most likely used as a weather vane although it may have been a toy bird meant to glide like a paper airplane (but made of wood). That's a far cry from a sustained flight aircraft, and the Saqqara bird was 'entombed" in only 200 BC, not 11000 BC.
It's very easy to be taken in by "bad archaeology" and other misinformation on the web. You might have been. If not, I'd be very interested to discover these ancient mysteries if you wouldn't mind linking them.
(not that any of this is relevant to the topic, but I enjoy history and archaeology and am truly interested in learning more about your claims, even if they're hoaxes).
Historically speaking the human civilization almost had several industrial revolutions. They have found a model and a real sustained flight airplane in a pyramid that dates 11000 BC. They have uncovered a mechanical computer. I was reading on how the industrial revolution almost came about 4 times since the dark ages. How did it not happen. Greed, skepticism that machines can actually work and more commonly * happens. Imagine where we would be if we had developed planes and computers 13000 years ago. So how do you keep it Dark Ages. Just keep it in the dark ages.Can you include cites for any of this?
The oldest Egyptian pyramid was only 2700 BC, your pyramid is over 8,000 years earlier - what pyramid is this?
The Saqqara bird is widely believed to be a bird that was most likely used as a weather vane although it may have been a toy bird meant to glide like a paper airplane (but made of wood). That's a far cry from a sustained flight aircraft, and the Saqqara bird was 'entombed" in only 200 BC, not 11000 BC.
It's very easy to be taken in by "bad archaeology" and other misinformation on the web. You might have been. If not, I'd be very interested to discover these ancient mysteries if you wouldn't mind linking them.
(not that any of this is relevant to the topic, but I enjoy history and archaeology and am truly interested in learning more about your claims, even if they're hoaxes).
If the source has "Van Daniken" in it's name, tell your Librarian to reclassify it in the Fiction setting. Most likely any hard evidence is in the "conveniently disappeared" category.
I do remember a National Geographic find that proved the Nazcan Indians had independtly invented hot air ballooning... thus rendering flying saucer aid unneccessary in drawing the famous lines, which are now believed to have served as shamanic totem sites.
It's very easy to be taken in by "bad archaeology" and other misinformation on the web. You might have been. If not, I'd be very interested to discover these ancient mysteries if you wouldn't mind linking them.If the source has "Van Daniken" in it's name, tell your Librarian to reclassify it in the Fiction setting. Most likely any hard evidence is in the "conveniently disappeared" category.
Lol.
von Daniken.
Lol.
Rofl.
Bull$h!t of the Gods...
Roflmao.
Snort.
(I wish I could C H O M P ! ! ! that Swiss dude...)
It's very easy to be taken in by "bad archaeology" and other misinformation on the web. You might have been. If not, I'd be very interested to discover these ancient mysteries if you wouldn't mind linking them.If the source has "Van Daniken" in it's name, tell your Librarian to reclassify it in the Fiction setting. Most likely any hard evidence is in the "conveniently disappeared" category.Lol.
von Daniken.
Lol.
Rofl.
Bull$h!t of the Gods...
Roflmao.
Snort.
(I wish I could C H O M P ! ! ! that Swiss dude...)
Secret Confession: I love the von Daniken stuff. And Velikovsky, the grandfather of that kind of crazy. And the various illuminati/templar/merovingian conspiracy theories.
It's all nonsense of course, but it's so intricately put together and they go to such effort to tie all the little clues into the big theory. I kind of wish the world did work like that.
Same here. I have always been into reading about the occult, ghosts, cryptids, etc, because I find it fascinating, even though I don't really believe any of it.
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It's very easy to be taken in by "bad archaeology" and other misinformation on the web. You might have been. If not, I'd be very interested to discover these ancient mysteries if you wouldn't mind linking them.If the source has "Van Daniken" in it's name, tell your Librarian to reclassify it in the Fiction setting. Most likely any hard evidence is in the "conveniently disappeared" category.Lol.
von Daniken.
Lol.
Rofl.
Bull$h!t of the Gods...
Roflmao.
Snort.
(I wish I could C H O M P ! ! ! that Swiss dude...)
Secret Confession: I love the von Daniken stuff. And Velikovsky, the grandfather of that kind of crazy. And the various illuminati/templar/merovingian conspiracy theories.
It's all nonsense of course, but it's so intricately put together and they go to such effort to tie all the little clues into the big theory. I kind of wish the world did work like that.
Interestingly enough - I've read that, psychologically, those who buy into all of the conspiracy theory stuff generally do so because - subconsciously - it's comforting. To them the idea that all of that crazy stuff (assassinations/terrorism/Miley Cyrus etc.) is totally random is more frightening than the idea that some all-knowing star chamber Illuminati style organization is behind it all with everything under their control.
So I can't raise rust monsters for fun and profit off of magical iron walls then?
So, why are you arguing, again? You've already gone past the limits of the spell and added a further definition to why it doesn't work. Now, you have 'magic iron' that doesn't even MELT?
You have "magic iron" that is "not usable" for any other purpose.
Is melting another purpose? If so, it is, by RAW, not meltable.
That's not a house rule.
Well, you could, but first you have to figure out how to break into that market without winding up under 6 feet of Rock-To-Mud-To-Rock.
Secret Confession: I love the von Daniken stuff. And Velikovsky, the grandfather of that kind of crazy. And the various illuminati/templar/merovingian conspiracy theories.
It's all nonsense of course, but it's so intricately put together and they go to such effort to tie all the little clues into the big theory. I kind of wish the world did work like that
Be careful what you wish for . . . .
Lot of posts, so hard to read them all, but the way I see it, with magic you don't need technology as readily.
So, where is the biggest technological boom on Golarion (besides Numeria, which is all ancient alien tech, nothing original?)
The Mana Wastes. The one place magic is unpredictably dangerous, when it even works. So, they have guns. They have airships that run on gas and steam. Clockwork golems that continue to function even without magic.
(I wish I could C H O M P ! ! ! that Swiss dude...)
Secret Confession: I love the von Daniken stuff. And Velikovsky, the grandfather of that kind of crazy. And the various illuminati/templar/merovingian conspiracy theories.
It's all nonsense of course, but it's so intricately put together and they go to such effort to tie all the little clues into the big theory. I kind of wish the world did work like that.
I've always considered Velikovsky the "Ed Wood" of fringe theory. I've enjoyed reading his work because his particular brand of pseudo-science has such a majestic poetry and heart about it. Daniken on the other hand is nothing more than dressed up mummery and repeated assumptions that our ancestors were too stupid to build the things they did and must have had alien overseers helping them out. Although why advanced aliens capable of star travel would have need of such constructions is never brought up.
Which means...it is not normal iron! It's magical iron!
==Aelryinth
If you want to call it that go ahead. It's not a house rule. It's fluff around the actual rules text.
You don't have to house rule things to get the actual effect the rule states.
It depends on what 'fluff' means. Since it obviously is NOT normal iron, since it doesn't act like iron, I'd call it a bit more then 'fluff'. If you want the world to make sense, just one more minor detail to throw on the pile.
==Aelryinth
"...somewhat more secure" settlements also means somewhat more wealthy...a wealthier city just makes a more juicy target for someone, or something.It does mean the average defense/security level of a realm will rise re: the monsters, meaning they'd get pushed back and nations of humanoids would be somewhat more secure.
==Aelryinth
While this is true, we're talking low wealth, not 'high' wealth. The wealthy will still be the same, but the common folk would have more money due to magic multiplying/saving labor time spent.
==Aelryinth
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Which means...it is not normal iron! It's magical iron!
==Aelryinth
If you want to call it that go ahead. It's not a house rule. It's fluff around the actual rules text.
You don't have to house rule things to get the actual effect the rule states.
It depends on what 'fluff' means. Since it obviously is NOT normal iron, since it doesn't act like iron, I'd call it a bit more then 'fluff'. If you want the world to make sense, just one more minor detail to throw on the pile.
==Aelryinth
Oh. My. God. Can we drop this ridiculous magic iron semantics thread yet?
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Tries catching up with this thread, though after a couple of pages gives up out of frustration. I decided an easier solution then the back and forth, debate and arguing, involving magic is to turn to Spheres of Power. That fixes so many problems.
Aelryinth's arguments especially frustrate me at times, and leaves me to feel Pathfinder and D&D have a magic system that just causes too many problems when one analyzes just what spells are capable of. Reading through everything was just tiring, leaving me to more and more feel that it just isn't worth keeping 'as is'.
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The problem is that you will still have those who begin to over analyze the rules of Pathfinder and pick apart the setting, finding more and more that doesn't work or make 'logical' sense. I have read only a couple of pages on this thread since coming back to it and already the setting could be said to have fallen apart.
Even briefly considering world simulation game or SimFantasy and it would seem things start breaking. There will be players who do this, players like Aelryinth who takes the rules and find ways of breaking the social and economic structure of the setting. Ones who say that if you try to say no to what they are saying its 'DM fiat" or house ruling.
What makes it even worth keeping in such situations, with a magic system seemingly so easy to exploit? Sigh, it gives me a headache and leaves me filling a bit down on how bad it is.
Kindly don't blame it on me. Blame it on the fact that the magic system is made for adventuring use, NOT for downtime use.
For downtime use, it completely breaks the setting, and does so easily.
So unless you restrict magic use to only adventuring, you have to completely disregard its impact on the world otherwise. And you have to have your PC's do the same thing.
That is incredibly difficult to build immersion into. "just because" becomes the reason for everything, and it doesn't Make Sense.
So, for 'world-building', the PF system does NOT make sense. You would really have to nerf a lot of spells and effects to make things function in a reasonable, non-adventurer manner.
==Aelryinth
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Aelryinth's arguments especially frustrate me at times, and leaves me to feel Pathfinder and D&D have a magic system that just causes too many problems when one analyzes just what spells are capable of. Reading through everything was just tiring, leaving me to more and more feel that it just isn't worth keeping 'as is'.
You have to understand that Aelryinth is operating strictly off 'what the rules say', and applies no philosophy - world-building - behind it. Remember that it's his contention that a seventeen-year-old who's been farming all his short life can wake up and say, "I'm a wizard" and immediately possess spellcasting capability - that there's no actual training involved, just the desire, 'when the character gains their first level', to select wizard (or sorcerer, or any other spellcasting class) and poof, it's done. No long, laborious process; no years and years and years of study. Likewise, the same character might be barely able to pick their nose one minute, then possess the capacity to evade and disable sophisticated traps, or swing a blade with facility, or any of the dozens of other things that 'a first-level character' can do.
The systems aren't broken; really, they aren't. Aelryinth's presumptions are that the game world works the way the system (not the fluff or the philosophy behind the system) says it does/should, and ONLY in that manner. He seems to believe that there is no reason why certain things shouldn't happen - with some elements of truth, but he doesn't actually go far enough into it to understand why lantern archons haven't lit up every city in the world yet. His arguments all point to 'A, therefore B, therefore C, D, and E' - but he doesn't take it to X, Y, or Z, nor the assemblage of letters into words, words into sentences, thence into paragraphs, chapters, and stories.
In short, he argues the rulebook, and not the world; he says the rules break the setting, when in fact it's only his pseudo-strict interpretation of the rules that do so.
I confess that this attitude is useful, but only to a certain degree; once you ask 'how far can X thousand gold get me when it comes to magic', you're pretty much done, because he apparently hasn't the capacity to draw parallels. My favorite is this:
In a 2nd level game, everything you own - at 1,000 gp - is not even worth the construction costs of a +1 weapon. An everburning bullseye lantern - or a single sleep arrow - is worth a carriage, with enough change left over to live pretty well for a couple of weeks. You can exchange a +1 Keen weapon for a good-sized manor house in town. And a Holy Avenger is worth no less than 4 warships - and maybe 5, if you get a bulk discount. Or a fully-loaded mansion. Or a small keep. Only one person can wield a +1, +1 Keen, or Holy Avenger weapon. 4-5 warships is a small fleet with which you can project force; a small keep, properly placed, can be a bottleneck that stymies entire armies. (Well, so can the paladin, but still.)
As well, who has the monetary resources to buy these things? The so-called 1% at the lower end; only governments at the higher end. Why? Because while he's saying that anyone could be a 1st level character (spellcaster, whatever), worldbuilding is against him; not everyone can. Worldbuilding states it takes time and effort to learn how to discipline your mind and body to cast a spell, swing a sword or axe properly, strike a killing blow with your bare hand, pick a pocket, disarm a trap, sing a song so well that it inspires people. And most people - I typically put it at 10 NPC-level characters, aka normal people, for every adventurer of any level at all - are consumed with more immediate tasks. Children are apprenticed to trades (if they're going to be at all) when they're around 10. They have to plow the field, shoe the horse, make nails, work the mill, pluck the turkey, shave the beard. They don't have three years to learn how to harness the wild energy coursing inside them (without killing themselves in the process, that is), or seven to fifteen years to learn how to first access that energy in the world around them.
And that's what Aelyrinth doesn't seem capable of understanding - the worldbuilding side. He only sees 'oh, I'm seventeen, time to pick a character class. I'll be a wizard!!' and poof, you automagically have those skills. So really, he can keep arguing "- but the rules say -!!" until he's blue in the face, and strut around stating that the system breaks the world.
He is, quite simply, wrong. And every single GM out there understands this at an instinctive level, and every teller of stories could tell him why - sorry, he HAS been told why, but he refuses to even consider such information. So ... let him go. If there were a way to block his content, I'd've done it already.
RAW, absolutely nothing. Because it would break the adventuring game for a PC wanting to multiclass to wizard to have to take years off to train.
This isn't about PC's multiclassing, he's talking about the section of the retraining rules that specifically talks about NPC's retraining their NPC class levels.
RAW, nothing.
In any actual game, world/setting concerns.
Which is exactly what The Wyrm was saying.
Just because you ignore the rules doesn't mean other people have to.
If Bob the Player wants to do so and Clare the GM isn't interested in that kind of game, they should talk out of game about what they're both looking for in the game.
You're right. It's fiat. The game rules are not a complete world simulation. They're not supposed to be. They go far enough that if you kind of squint really hard you can think they should be and then you run into all the ways that they break horribly. Deal with it in the metagame, cause that's where it belongs.
You, the PC, can definitely spend 7 days (not sure why people keep quoting 3 - retraining a class level is clearly stated as 7 days in the PRD) and the 70gp (10gp x 1st level x 7 days) gold needed to retrain an NPC commoner into a wizard (who may well have Int 10 and be incapable of casting 1st level spells, but that's another matter). That is true and the RAW permit you to do so.
They also permit you to you dedicate yourself to it full-time for the next 80 years, you can train around 4,160 such wizards in such a manner, at a cost just shy of 300,000gp. Cool.
Out of a world population likely exceeding the half-billion mark, that is 0.000832% of the population, and noting that by the time you're done (at age 97) many of them will have started dying from old age (max age is between 72 to 110 years for humans, with an average of 91, assuming you retrain them at 17+).
Now, you can argue "Why don't NPCs follow in my footsteps!" and three answers follow:
- 1) Because they're not your PC and thus you have no say in what they do.
2) Because it's sickeningly expensive for any non-adventurer.
3) Because most people aren't completely selfless martyrs.
Even RAW, sure, you can use the retraining rules. They just aren't as effective as you think they are.
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(not sure why people keep quoting 3 - retraining a class level is clearly stated as 7 days in the PRD
Scroll further: "If you are retraining a level in an NPC class (adept, aristocrat, commoner, or expert) to a level in any other class, the training takes only 3 days."
Public education to ensure that the majority of your adult population are wizard 1 instead of any NPC class?
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As a thought experiment I once created a alternate timeline game setting where gunpowder doesn't exist. First, I considered why this could happen. After all, china and Japan had gunpowder long before Europe. And cannons naturally lead to firearms. What I decided upon was that the inventor of gunpowder blew himself up. He didn't have detailed notes for what he was doing either. So when others tried to figure out what he'd been working on and improve it, they naturally would screw up and get killed.
After a decade or two, people stopped trying to invent black powder. Without black powder, China had a harder time fighting off the mongol hordes. Over in Europe the crossbow remained the upper end of infantry stopping power. Without examples of explosives from the far east, petards weren't created in France. So siege tactics using explosives were never developed. Without the cannon ship to ship combat didn't advance enough for the pirate era to really start. Equally, without cannons ships didn't need to be armored to withstand cannon fire. So wooden ships remained in service longer.
Another consequence I realized was that fossil fuel engines would have been greatly delayed. Without centuries of using explosives to move objects, the idea behind the first combustion engine may not have occurred. Thus steam engines would have been the main go-to power source. Except steam engines are very dangerous. And without the example from black powder weapons, would it have developed as readily? Would clockwork tech have taken off without combustion engines making it redundant? Possible, even probable.
Clockwork tech could account for guns eventually being made. But when? It could be that such weapons would be a recent invention as clockwork tech becomes smaller and more efficient. Say, only in the last 60 or so years. This would indicate that swords, bows, and crossbows have been the preferred weapons of war until recently. That's not to say there isn't the occasional inventor who made advanced things early. But without the mass production of the industrial age such early advances could have been lost, only to be rediscovered later.
This is just a little thought experiment I'd done in the past. But it illustrates how a technological revolution could be delayed by one seemingly minor detail.
I find it hard to get my head around explaining why something didn't happen, explanations are normally used to explain why something did happen.
Take role playing games for example. All the basic components: dice, writing, mathematics, story telling and imagination have all been available since ancient times (or longer in some cases). But the first RPG was not invented until the 1970s. How is it that nobody in ancient Rome, Egypt, China etc. didn't invent it first? How did the Renaissance go by without the invention of RPGs? How is it possible that colour television was invented before RPGs? Weird!
The rules might make magical technology possible, sure, inevitable, no way!
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Inevitability of tech advancing and an eventual industrial revolution, that I can accept in a fantasy world. Unless there's reasons why this can't happen such as electricity not working like it does in our world. The question then becomes "when will the social and political environment be conducive to a technological revolution". And that is the tricky part.
Those wacky gnome inventors have long been building crazy contraptions and highly explosive steam engines. So why hasn't this tech become widespread? Probably because gnomish inventions are KNOWN to be excessively dangerous. Most people would rather not risk it.
Mages can drastically boost production of metal goods. Why hasn't someone hired a few and begun manufacturing things in mass quantities? Probably because mages are expensive to hire, and have things they'd rather be doing then conjure walls of steel.
Why hasn't some enterprising spell caster begun mass producing magitech? Probably because most casters don't understand technology. That, and making magic items is a time intensive task. You can't just set up an assembly line and have 20 mages each working on a small part of the process. If you tried, then at best you'd get a bunch of failed enchantments and wasted materials. At worst you'd end up with a plethora of cursed items.
But that's not to say an industrial revolution isn't on it's way eventually. The pathfinder campaign setting is already slowly heading towards one as more and more ancient tech is discovered and reverse engineered. But a full industrial revolution may still be a century or two away.
(not sure why people keep quoting 3 - retraining a class level is clearly stated as 7 days in the PRDScroll further: "If you are retraining a level in an NPC class (adept, aristocrat, commoner, or expert) to a level in any other class, the training takes only 3 days."
Right. Last line. Missed that one.
Touche. Double the numbers... and the point I was making still remains valid: A (very long) lifetime's work, 300,000gp (i.e. all the wealth of a 16th level PC) for 8,000 1st level wizards out of hundreds of millions of people, and many of whom will have died of old age by the time you do (assuming you live a very long time).
If you follow the 3.5 DMG for calculating numbers... it won't actually make that big a difference, and just gives the GM an excuse of why all those casters exist - you trained them.
You also have to take into account that said Mage being higher level has to take time out of his retraining regimen to repel evil cults, stop demon incursions, and other things adventurers generally do.
Any good wizard would simply have simulacrums teach his students... and repel evil cults, stop demon incursions and other things adventures generally do.
Ouroborous seems to have difficulty reconciling the rules with how he wants a world to work, and is reflecting his lack of understanding onto me. Interesting way of avoiding the problem.
The retraining rules exist, and they exist in a world of magic. If you don't like the fact that NPC's can be retrained to 1st level in a class in 3 days, then change the rules. Magic doesn't work the same in your world!
In short, LEARNING STUFF IS MAGIC, TOO. The ability to level up without teachers and mentors -horrid stuff you'd almost never find in a real story. People need to be taught, they need access to lore, to engage in the practice of discovery and, well, practice stuff!
Except in D&D, they don't. A level 1 17 year old wizard with the standard set of level appropriate encounters every day can become an archmage in less then two months. He gets two spells every time he levels without even having to pay for them or research them. He gets ranks in skills and knowledge without ever having to sit at the foot of a sage or spend hours and hours puttering through old tomes, summoning up outsiders to learn from, or the like.
All he needs is magic and xp...xp, the magic of learning. But Wyrm doesn't seem to 'get' that. He's looking for a classic learning scenario, in direct opposition to where the rules explicitly say one doesn't need to follow the 'apprenticeship' path to gain levels.
As for wealth, I'll just have you look at an average soldier or, more properly, a mercenary.
With all the high tech gear a modern soldier carries, he could probably buy a new house with it. This is especially true if you get into things like demolitions, or sniping, or the like. Only the 1% could really afford to carry around portable missile launchers or gatling-mounted personnel carriers and the like...and yet some do. Stinger missiles cost a million each...you could buy a mansion or a few yachts with just one of them!
But they exist for a reason. Million dollar AtA missiles shoot down multi-million dollar airplanes. +5 Holy Avengers kill CR 20 world-shaking bad guys that can obliterate armies and destroy castles by themselves. You put your money where it is effective. IN our world, they go on ships and military bases, where they can be protected and/or moved to needed locations.
In a world of magic, you put that stuff on high level people who can make use of it. VERY much unlike the real world. A Paladin/20 is probably more rare then a modern aircraft carrier, after all. This is a major, major difference between a magical world and a 'real' one...the reliance on the powerful few. The .01%'ers.
The PC's are some of those few. The world is not full of PC's, it merely has other high level characters. Everyone in creation is not playing in the same Golarion, so there aren't thousands of PC's sucking up millions of gold from everywhere.
There's just the PC's and the party. He doesn't seem to understand that, either.
He's ignoring the natural human response to take advantage of unlimited power and putting in artificial constraints. That's fine for his home campaign and house rules, I have no issue with it. But he seems to falter at the distinction between a home campaign and the rules set, and is unable to reconcile the two properly. It's not his fault, really...the rules are not meant to accurately reflect a living world, they're meant to be useful to building up a group of adventurers and going out and having fun.
You have to do a LOT of work to change things around to 'make sense', and Wyrm is tossing his house rules and judgements as writ, when actually they are what they are...house rules and adjustments he's trying to make to the rules so they make sense in his mind.
More power to him. However, we are arguing the rules here, NOT house rules, and there is a clear line between them he keeps crossing in his umbrage that the rules don't conform to his worldview. COrrecting him IS rather tiresome, but it's fine. I think we can see where he's injecting house rules and GM standards into the actual function of the game, and can forgive him his efforts to make things work.
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==Aelryinth
You also have to take into account that said Mage being higher level has to take time out of his retraining regimen to repel evil cults, stop demon incursions, and other things adventurers generally do.Any good wizard would simply have simulacrums teach his students... and repel evil cults, stop demon incursions and other things adventures generally do.Which take money to make.
500 gold per hit dice and 12 hours each of not retraining peasants.
And if it's damaged adventuring for you, it takes 24 hours and 100 gold per hit point healing it back up. Oh, there is also the cost of equipping your sim army with level appropriate magic items for the tasks. And th tasks that have to be handled by adventurers who are more than half your level or hit dice.
Schooling and retraining is institutional. As your students level up, they help train other students. Income from their activities as a Guild or government or force of followers accrues, and you can respend it. Those rules exist as well, you know? Indeed, money-making operations over time can easily eclipse adventuring income, unless you literally adventure somehow every single day!
In short, you can easily retrain peasants during your 'down time', and leave much of it to subordinates after you've done the initial work. Simple human nature and the desire for power and learning and status would have a natural snowball effect as far as recruiting talents went.
The army of wizards will naturally acquire items as they level up...it doesn't give rules for NPC's earning money, they simply get WBL through organic processes as they level up. No need to track it, people will work to better themselves, and it all happens behind the scenes.
==Aelryinth
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The PC's are some of those few. The world is not full of PC's, it merely has other high level characters. Everyone in creation is not playing in the same Golarion, so there aren't thousands of PC's sucking up millions of gold from everywhere.
There's just the PC's and the party. He doesn't seem to understand that, either.
Except you're not entirely correct either. In PFS Organized Play there ARE thousands upon thousands of adventurers, and most of them work for the pathfinder society. Even in a homebrew game you're not entirely correct.
If high level adventurers were the pervue only of player characters, you'd never be able to go to a temple and get a raise dead cast. You wouldn't be able to find magic items either. Not the good ones at least. If there's only ever 4 to 8 adventurers in the world, then please explain why the world isn't drowning in Evil yet.
You can't have it both ways. Either the players aren't the only adventurers, or it's a very dark campaign where Evil has already won and the players are struggling to stop it.
Mind you, not all of those adventurers are going to be high level. Maybe 10% of adventurers survive to level 20. But there would be a good number of them who reach level 10. And not all adventurers are acting as a force of good. Some are merely opportunists and any good they do is accidental. Some are actively evil, and are furthering their own agendas.
Also you need to keep in mind that those high level clerics and mages, fighters, and monks didn't get to high level by reading books and contemplating their navel. The head of your monk's order was probably an adventurer in his youth. The High Arch Bishop too probably spent his youth smiting evil before retiring to run a temple. As did Captain Dalton, the level 8 fighter in charge of the royal guard. And Cedric the Wise, the reclusive wizard who's always puttering around in his tower? He likely spent years adventuring as well.
Also remember that adventurers don't fight Evil Every Single Day. There's travel time, rest and recuperation, if anyone is a crafter they spend down time making gear for themselves and allies. That wizard you mentioned, he didn't just suddenly learn new spells. He was researching during the down time between adventurers. Or while traveling across the countryside to reach the next trouble hot spot.
That fighter who suddenly learned a new trick? It wasn't as sudden as you think. He spent nights, maybe weeks practicing it and perfecting his technique. It was just done off camera. Sorcerers? Yeah, they just suddenly gain new spells. But even they discover their new spells while meditating off camera.
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Even if you ignore the Adventure Paths and scenarios, the idea that the players are the only heroes is kinda silly. While the level 1 players are investigating a minor (in the long term) goblin incursion, who's stopping the storm giants from destroying a country on the other side of the world? Or does every evil mastermind and would be conqueror wait till the players are high enough level to deal with them, and in the area? No, it's more likely that there's other adventurers out there. High level ones are probably rare.
Your typical npc adventurer party is probably around 5th level A few might be 10th level to 12 level, and rarer still might be the ones who reach the high teens or actually achieve level 20. There may not be many adventurers out there. It's dangerous work, and most who attempt it die quickly. For every group that reached level 5 out there, there's probably five who got killed on their first adventure. For every one adventurer that reached level 10, five probably died before that point.
What I do when game mastering is the players will occasionally hear rumors of what some other group has done. Maybe meet the odd retired adventurer. While the players were busy dealing with a rampaging dragon, they might hear of an orc invasion that was thwarted a couple kingdoms over.
The bad guys don't all wait for the players to get to them. But there's plenty of work going around for everyone. In large part because adventurers are so uncommon, yet evil is constantly striving towards it's goals.