It has often been discussed around my gaming table what a world would look like if it had to follow the RAW rules of a game. Often we ask why can't I do this or that action as they make sense and the answer is the rules just don't allow PC's to do that. However the rules don't apply to npc's. Where no matter how hard you work, or how many times you save X kingdom, you will never have as much wealth as the nobles (whom have castles and 100 of servants and honor guards etc..)
So I ask what a fantasy world would look like if every thing was followed the Raw Core Rules. What elements could not exist in the history of the peoples and what elements could exist.
This is a exercise in creative thinking.
My first thought is that plagues would not have as great of an impact in a fantasy world as they have in our own.
By history plagues hit major population centers the hardest. The death toll got less the further away from major cities one would go.
My second thought is great library's would not got lost as easily. Priestly scholars would look to the use of divine spells to get any lost information from the dead.
My third thought is that do the Character Classes, there would be a new division of stats in societies.
My forth thought is that wealth would only exist for those that have great character levels (WBL rules you know).
How would history have been shaped if secrets to the universe were only a priest or lore master away, where if a plague would start, the rich would be immune and the poor (whom could not afford healing) perished.
Where earning potential was set very clear. Everyone earns between 6 and 30 GP a week, except for craftsmen which might get a little less or more.
In a land where masterwork items only required a little more time and had little to nothing to do with skill.
A world where a 14 year old boy nearly dies every time he falls from a 10 foot wall (even if he eases himself down the wall while holding the ledge, so that he only has less than a 3 foot drop), a world where all children have negative swim checks!
What kinda world would evolve it the laws of Physics, Nature, Gods and Men were locked to RAW.....
Can a world exist that the PC's can do everything that the NPC's can do?
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First step: shooting down some of your opinions (sorry, I am a disagreeable guy) ;)
Disease will be as widespread as in the historical past, simply the rich or powerful will be capable to cure it. The poor will die as readily as ever.
The number of characters capable to cast cure disease is very reduced against the number of targets during a pestilence.
Sanitation and knowledge of how the diseases are carried is much more important that having a few cure spells (norte that in Pathfinder the cure DC depend on the disease, it is no more automatic).
Knowledge will be much more power than in Earth history. People will hoard it more. It is almost impossible to recover a book content from a dead guy mind with the existing spells. I call it a draw.
WBL is a guideline, not a rule.
- * - * -
The big differences as I see them:
- religion is supported by evidence
- teleportation: you have the money, you can get anywhere in seconds
- food preservation is easier. If you can build items that do purify food and drink without human intervention you will resolve a large proportion of the famine problems
Wait till Ashiel get here, she will have way more extreme suggestions than ours :D
So we have
ALL PEOPLE
Religion is not faith based by Fact Based
Miracles do in fact exist and God May truly be watching....
FOR THE RICH
Safe form disease, can easily travel the world.
I would also think that the standard of living for the rich would be very close to modern like standards, Cool homes in the summer, Warm homes in the winter. Food preserved for greater periods of time. Perfect health care.
So assuming that a majoity of the people are commoners npc class. They would all be able to read/write and do math. So education would be higher than in the Mid Evil times, heck higher than in our times. I still know folks whom can't read and write.
Working hard would not make you better at a skill, only hunting animals, monsters, and disarming traps would do that..lol
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You get XP for completing goals. It will work for non combat types.
Perfect dental care. (for the rich)
The cure spells mend cracked bones, they should mend teeth before they develop dental decay, if cast often enough. If really needed you could use regeneration to regrow them.
Immortality if the druid agree
Reincarnation give you a new, young body. It will allow you to live forever.
At the same time it will create a lot of legal problems. What will happen when grandpa die and is reincarnated as a young kobold?
Undead
What are the legal rights of undead? Especially those that don't need to prey on the living to survive?
a hard time for lawyers
Truth spells!
First society to make a printing press and write "an introduction to magic for begginers", and passes it out to everyone with a 13 or above intelligence in the country conquers the planet.
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Prestidigitation will mean sanitation, or at least personal hygiene, is widespread and easy.
Also, urban warfare will be an even worse idea than it was in those times, due to the possibility of drafting anyone with a magical heritage and telling those 1st+ level Wizards & Sorcerers to Magic Missile en masse.
First society to make a printing press and write "an introduction to magic for begginers", and passes it out to everyone with a 13 or above intelligence in the country conquers the planet.
11 int even. Just have to have 11 to cast 1st level spells, some of which would destroy the world.
The world would quickly dissolve into who has magic and who hasn't. Huge wars would be fought over how to control that magic, and factions would arise trying to use it to control vs. help, etc. Though mostly the former.
Mages become kings, queens, generals, and everything important and fight one another, directly and by proxy through nation-states' military forces, for control over magic.
But since magic actually GENERATES its own resources and is essentially free of economic forces (post-scarcity anyone) eventually, and at this point it's just coming out of my ass, the mages will kill one another off pre-emptively to protect their own lives and all that is left will be a few mages who are basically gods on earth and the commoners who will have to rebuild the world. Probably banning magic.
Oh, hey, I just described Dark Sun.
No energy crisis.
The ability to evoke or conjure energy exists among every spellcaster. Animated dead can walk on a treadmill for eternity without any side effects, Fire Elementals can be summoned and given a power plant as an eternal gilded cage. With enough casters among the population, energy companies have zero hope of keeping it controlled enough to make people pay inflated prices for it; only infrastructure maintenance and expansion is worth spending anything on.
No food crisis.
Meat producers don't slaughter animals anymore. Their budget is spent on animal-fitting Rings of Regeneration, and they just continue to carve the live animals up as a renewable resource. The rings pay for themselves after a few years.
Even farmers can do the same using items that cast Plant Growth daily.
What Climate Problem?
Government provided Control Weather towers make hurricanes and blizzards the kind of thing that happens "over there", as in miles away from civilization.
Healthcare
With items like the Pariapt of Health, Ring of Regeneration and so on, major hospitals will just be big waiting rooms where these things are passed around for a minute per patient. It just has to be managed. Cost is negligible.
Military
Horrifyingly powerful. Put the the magic section in front of the elite at M.I.T. and give them a month to dream up war machines. Then go toss your lunch.
Corruption
When magic can pinch a loaf on the laws of physics for such things as stated above, things get so automated that almost nobody works anymore. Everyone has plenty to eat, automatons and animated dead and persistent Unseen Servants do all the labor, and the only people who actually do anything are the ones who control the automatons or make magic items. As such, they'd be the elite, and the rest of us would be fat, apathetic, spoiled and lazy brats who have everything we need and more.
Overpopulation and War
With everyone fed and healthy and provided for, things like disease and resource limitations aren't holding us back. We would just thrive, and thrive, and thrive until we succumb to the one population control mechanism which we humans excel at: War. Since greed is a moot point (with everyone being spoiled brats), we'll find something else to kill each other over, likely living space, or divine disagreements (as gods are real and lots of them disagree). We'd reach critical mass, then slaughter each other until the population drops enough or someone wins (whichever comes last). Rinse and repeat.
Interplanar Expansion
Another outlet to our overpopulation is to simply move somewhere else. Plane Shift, Gate and so on allows the elite and their loved ones to high-tail it off the rock, and start anew... which will inevitably lead to the same result.
Honestly you can't have a 'RAW' world since there aren't rules for population percentages, average levels, monster populations, and a whole host of other things that aren't actually covered in RAW.
Basically speaking there is way too much room for variation for us to fully define a world only by RAW and nothing else.
First society to make a printing press and write "an introduction to magic for begginers", and passes it out to everyone with a 13 or above intelligence in the country conquers the planet.11 int even. Just have to have 11 to cast 1st level spells, some of which would destroy the world.
Magic spells cost money to copy. Even the starting 1st level wizard's book represents 130gp of scribing costs, which also you have to transcribe yourself unless you like making Spellcraft rolls every time you prepare spells.
So by RAW, you must either be trained in Spellcraft and decipher the magical writings (which isn't easy, DC 20 for cantrips), or be able to cast Read Magic (which Wizards are specifically trained to be able to do and can prepare from memory).
Creating a Wizard explosion isn't cheap nor easy. Besides which, 1st level Wizards, en masse, aren't conquering anything. They die to archery fire as well as anything else (even better, since they're usually easy to hit and have lower hit points).
Also, everyone in question has to be ABLE to take a level in the Wizard class. Not everyone is on the cusp of leveling up, and by RAW starting wizards must be older than just about everyone else. Wizards must be at least 17 years old (human). Assuming the average commoner rolls for their staring age rather than choosing it, they'd have to wait until their rolled starting age if they want to start as a Wizard.
So reading everyone's post the world is begining to take on some form.
The Gods Rule the spirits of men, while the Wizards rule the land.
Priest and Temples prosper in this society, however the secrets of wizardry are kept close to the immortal Magi Kings.
The rich live exceeding well with good health and plenty of food. Of course the food, and health are insured by the priest. The Wizards abide the priest because even the mightiest wizard may one day fall.
Those who are not rich and are not priest or wizards live in the shadow of their great civilization. However the world outside of the Wizard Kings cities is a wildly damage place where Arcane and Divine magic have run made after countless wars.
But men do survive and live by the knowledge of the Land (most folks can feed them selves if the take 10 on survival). Live is hard, but not harsh. As long as no one attempts to become magically adept.
Well hows that. So far not bad. There might be a better way to combine the details .
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Honestly you can't have a 'RAW' world since there aren't rules for population percentages, average levels, monster populations, and a whole host of other things that aren't actually covered in RAW.
Basically speaking there is way too much room for variation for us to fully define a world only by RAW and nothing else.
By "RAW" you don't even have rich people or kings. The rich would be high level adventurers. It is only DM fiat in campaign settings that make NPCs rich or poor, noble or pauper, other opposites, one more opposite TBD.
Without a DM you have a very plain meritocratic/ communist world.
Basically everything being discussed in this thread has already been very nicely broken down and analyzed here.
(in my opinion, this document should be required reading for anyone running Pathfinder, especially for people homebrewing their settings. In particular check out the Socialnomicon)
Wow that piece is really sparse. I mean the Thermodynaminomicon section doesn't even touch on things like creatures that occupy more than one ecosystem, geothermic energy, or anything.
It just goes with "MAGIC MAGIC MAGIC!" How utterly boring.
And I just have to say I'm still not impressed with the supposed wish based economy -- it really didn't hold up back then and it certainly doesn't now.
It's one of those treats economics professors through out for the sophomore class so they feel smarter while the professor laughs at the ignorance they are displaying by simply accepting that this is actually the case. In later classes they will of course explain why it is nonsense but if it gets on Fox News before they it won't matter because they'll run with it regardless of the real point it was supposed to illustrate.
A world where Ravingdork is happy, for no rule 0 fiends disrupt the pristine landscape of clearly defined rules.
lol. :D
Our group does make rules where there are none available from time to time, but we don't consider those to be house rules, just OUR rules (or what others might call "rulings"). To us, house rules are changes to existing rules in order to (ideally) adjust the game to better suit the play style of a given gaming group.
As a group, we consciously choose to play the game as it was intended (or at least as close as we can manage) even if it chafes a little.
I know I have a reputation as a strict rules interpreter and rules exploiter, though that's not really accurate. I do like finding rules exploits, but not to abuse them so much as to point them out to other players and GMs. In my mind, it is akin to a soldier pointing out to his men where not to step while traversing a minefield.
I am a rules lawyer in that I make a point in knowing as much about the RAW as I can (to me, it's part of the fun). I am a power gamer in that I prefer powerful builds most of the time.
That doesn't mean I don't like house rules* or roleplay.
* House rules don't bother me in their own right, but I will admit that I rarely hear one that sounds reasonable or necessary to me.
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One of my favorites: No one can see the sun, other stars, or moon due to the cumulative -1 distance penalty on Perception checks for every 10 feet.
Likewise, most people can't see anything more than a hundred feet away, even while in bright light, in a narrow tunnel, looking straight at the object/creature in question.
stuff
It's not supposed to be an example of the way things are supposed to be. It's a breakdown of how things would actually be if the RAW realistically shaped a D&D world, which is *exactly* what the OP is discussing.
It's a little dated due to some rules changes but it's a fantastic starting point for discussion, and a great common ground for people discussing things to reference.
It's one of those treats economics professors through out for the sophomore class so they feel smarter while the professor laughs at the ignorance they are displaying by simply accepting that this is actually the case. In later classes they will of course explain why it is nonsense but if it gets on Fox News before they it won't matter because they'll run with it regardless of the real point it was supposed to illustrate.
I had to read this three times to figure out what you were trying to say. If you're going to rip on someone else's work, you might want to brush up your sentence structure a little. Even if you have a masterful and compelling critique, if you write it like that it's going to be a tough sell.
stuffIt's not supposed to be an example of the way things are supposed to be. It's a breakdown of how things would actually be if the RAW realistically shaped a D&D world, which is *exactly* what the OP is discussing.
It's a little dated due to some rules changes but it's a fantastic starting point for discussion, and a great common ground for people discussing things to reference.
Except for the numerous gaps in setting development that have to be filled with assumptions before you can even begin to call such work a world.
Quite frankly it's the stuff of unstated assumptions and false premises precisely because RAW doesn't cover enough to actually make a world based on it alone.
I had to read this three times to figure out what you were trying to say. If you're going to rip on someone else's work, you might want to brush up your sentence structure a little. Even if you have a masterful and compelling critique, if you write it like that it's going to be a tough sell.
It's one of those treats economics professors through out for the sophomore class so they feel smarter while the professor laughs at the ignorance they are displaying by simply accepting that this is actually the case. In later classes they will of course explain why it is nonsense but if it gets on Fox News before they it won't matter because they'll run with it regardless of the real point it was supposed to illustrate.
Sorry it took you so long?
Sorry it took you so long?
Subtle ad hominem there. Totally invalidated my point. Guess you were right about everything. I don't know what I was thinking.
Subtle ad hominem there. Totally invalidated my point. Guess you were right about everything. I don't know what I was thinking.
Sorry it took you so long?
That's fine I didn't know what you were thinking either ;D
EDIT:
So here's the thing -- as 'subtle' as that was your second point was exactly the same sort of thing: "Your point is invalid because of sentence structure." In fact the sentence structure wasn't clumsy: the idea involved was.
However to spell it out a bit more:
1. They lack examples, and more importantly proof. They assume what they stated is in fact correct and what's more RAW without providing verification. They didn't even bother running numbers to see if their points held up. This point is the first I come to because it is in fact the most important.
2. In addition to a lack of proofs or examples they also didn't spell out their assumptions that had to be in place for their positions to hold weight. A few are implicitly stated in the middle of their positions but again they aren't supported by RAW. A quick example would be the assumption of portals and magic sustained wild life.
3. Lack of any in depth real world comparisons. Okay it is a magical and fantastical world -- such a place wouldn't seem to have much in the way of comparison with our own... except our own does give us a starting point to say what is possible without the realized existence of magic. There are a few spots where we have a touch of such things (the ecology portion for example which talks about top predators) but even here they don't honestly try to compare or contrast anything -- they take great liberties in simply mentioning it and assuming their hypothesis is correct without any testing. Now in the ecological section they very well could have some very strong arguments, but currently it's simply a skeleton token gesture, and as such has little to nothing supporting the positions.
The 'Charactonomicon' is particularly laughable in the current case (that of pathfinder) due to it being so out of date as to not even have a real touch stone. For example the automatic assumption that the monk couldn't perform seems to show a simple (and ignorant) opinion on what the monk is, and what it needs to be. Nothing is said of how the current monk could be made to work within the frame work of 3.5 (which others have done in the charop forums that were up at the time). In fact compared to the rest of what is displayed on the page this entire section seems completely out of place.
Now perhaps this is a case of the three installments simply not referencing each other well. Perhaps the other two installments go over the default assumptions that the entire thing is based off of and where the faults and breaks lie... but as it stands these things are not covered.
more stuff
THAT was a much better argument. Nicely done.
I'll actually concede your point about the characteronomicon. It's dated and doesn't work well in current context.
However, I think you're dismissing the premise of the Wish economy too quickly. Especially now that the overall cost of Wish has been lowered. (sure the overall power has as well, but the increased accessibility counters that)
The fact is that at high levels the economics of the game stop making sense. Your equipment becomes worth more than entire kingdoms. Some settings have ways of dealing with this, but this thread is specifically about what a setting would be like if RAW set the tone. One of the things that means is that the wealth by level rules, and the capacities high level crafters have, has to be taken into account as is.
also the Socialonomicon is spot on in terms of heredity and who the rulers are. There's just no other way it could go down. Every king that could keep his kingdom would be Conan or Arthur.
I'll admit the tone of the article is overly-assertive but frankly i like it. It's assuming it's points are correct because at the time there had been a lot of discussion on them, and he was extrapolating based on widely accepted ideas. I think of it in the same way that evolutionary scientists don't need to explain evolution every time they make a theory based on it's principals. The people they're trying to reach with their material already understand the important stuff.
The fact is that at high levels the economics of the game stop making sense. Your equipment becomes worth more than entire kingdoms.
This is in fact false. Your equipment specifically is not worth more than entire kingdoms because such statements specifically ignore RAW, and don't even have any proof to back them up. However if you want to try please feel free to -- I've yet to have anyone offer any when pressed.
This is the exact sort of thing I was talking about.
It relies entirely on unstated assumptions such as average NPC level (and class), average NPC gear, average cost of buildings, and average size of kingdoms. None of these are covered at all.
This is in fact false. Your equipment specifically is not worth more than entire kingdoms because such statements specifically ignore RAW, and don't even have any proof to back them up. However if you want to try please feel free to -- I've yet to have anyone offer any when pressed.
The fact that it's difficult to verify does not make it false. Just conjecture.
I'm going to stand by it because, lacking official price guides from Paizo, I fall back on 3.5 and things like the Dungeon Builder's Guidebook, which have economic statistics for kingdoms. They operate at scales of between 10s and 100s of thousands of GP. (really big successful ones are in the millions) Generally that's well within the price range of a high level adventurer. Compare to the cost of a couple +6 attribute items.
The fact is, by the time an adventurer hits the upper teens, if they've been smart about how they aquire money, they could easily have assets that exceed the wealth of nations. The combination of Crafter's Fortune and Fabricate alone is a fast track to All The Wealth Ever.
Ahhh yes, arbitrary kingdom wealth values. As if a modestly stocked jewelry store and winery composed an entire kingdom.
I suggest tossing such things out. The value of a city's infrastructure alone should be worth ten, a hundred, a thousand times more than any of those values, and I'm just talking roads and bridges. Add buildings and water works and now we're talking billions of gold pieces for any decent city. Then add military, civil servants such as smiths to maintain the weapons and armor of said militia, animal trainers and stables, food production ...
To the authors of such books: Seriously, look up a city's budget before writing a book about building cities. Do some research.
I admit, though... I love those "omicons". Fun to read and there's some pearls of reason in there which can't be denied.
Looking at the values provided by the kingdom building rules in Kingmaker, and knowing that you must control no less than 81 hexes in order for it to be considered a true kingdom, I'd say you need a lot more than even an entire 20th-level adventuring party's combined wealth. After all, you not only need to explore and clear the land of possible threats, you need to make way for roads, buildings, and other forms of infrastructure--and it takes a LOT of infrastructure to support an 81 hex kingdom. Providing said infrastructure is far, far, far from cheap.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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My first thought is that plagues would not have as great of an impact in a fantasy world as they have in our own.
Pathfinder 8 (7 days to the grave) had some excellent thoughts on how much (surprisingly little!) impact clerical healing has on an epidemic. Bottom line is: ither you nip it in the bud, or you're trying to put down a forest fire by squirtgun
It would seem that one of the first major burgled to this experiment would be economics. As RAW currently exist there are no direct economic rules.
I seem to recall a thread were someone broke down the math of how much gold exists in a village. Not sure if it was RAW or not however.
I personally don't see a way to determine a formula from raw that would help regulate supply and demand from the proffesion or craft skills. I thought that maybe I could extrapolate a answer. But the math keeps failing.
As it stands there is not enough wealth generated to get the materials to make a cart by RAW. As there is no way to generate gold, silver, or copper. No one can make a pick so they can mine, because you have to supply coins to make a pick.
As best as I can figure every one has to use survial each day for shealter and food. And the only have clothing made of what ever survival will provide.
Lol
It would seem that one of the first major burgled to this experiment would be economics. As RAW currently exist there are no direct economic rules.
I seem to recall a thread were someone broke down the math of how much gold exists in a village. Not sure if it was RAW or not however.
It was as RAW as it could be -- but even with that it made assumptions about what level NPCs were among other things.
Here is the thread in question.
No food crisis.
Meat producers don't slaughter animals anymore. Their budget is spent on animal-fitting Rings of Regeneration, and they just continue to carve the live animals up as a renewable resource. The rings pay for themselves after a few years.
Even farmers can do the same using items that cast Plant Growth daily.
Wrong! There is no crisis, because there is no food. By RAW, there are no rules for starvation or malnutrition, so nobody ever has to eat. Which means there are no farmers, since nobody needs food. Also, there shouldn't be any predators, since there is no reason to hunt.
But in that case, there shouldn't be any creatures at all, since there are no rules for reproduction.
Wrong! There is no crisis, because there is no food. By RAW, there are no rules for starvation or malnutrition, so nobody ever has to eat. Which means there are no farmers, since nobody needs food. Also, there shouldn't be any predators, since there is no reason to hunt.No food crisis.
Meat producers don't slaughter animals anymore. Their budget is spent on animal-fitting Rings of Regeneration, and they just continue to carve the live animals up as a renewable resource. The rings pay for themselves after a few years.
Even farmers can do the same using items that cast Plant Growth daily.
It's funny because you are wrong.
Starvation and Thirst
Characters might find themselves without food or water and with no means to obtain them. In normal climates, Medium characters need at least a gallon of fluids and about a pound of decent food per day to avoid starvation. (Small characters need half as much.) In very hot climates, characters need two or three times as much water to avoid dehydration.
A character can go without water for 1 day plus a number of hours equal to his Constitution score. After this time, the character must make a Constitution check each hour (DC 10, +1 for each previous check) or take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. Characters that take an amount of nonlethal damage equal to their total hit points begin to take lethal damage instead.
A character can go without food for 3 days, in growing discomfort. After this time, the character must make a Constitution check each day (DC 10, +1 for each previous check) or take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. Characters that take an amount of nonlethal damage equal to their total hit points begin to take lethal damage instead.
Characters who have taken nonlethal damage from lack of food or water are fatigued. Nonlethal damage from thirst or starvation cannot be recovered until the character gets food or water, as needed—not even magic that restores hit points heals this damage.
Things we need in order to make this work.
1. We need a new disease "Pregnancy". I know it is not RAW but we have to have reproduction in order for the setting to exist. I suppose we could build the setting with just clones and such but really.
So I propose the following New Disease
Pregnancy
Type: disease, contact; Save Fortitude DC 12
Onset One night stand; Frequency 1/9months
Effect1d4 Str damage, 1d4 Con damage, 1d4 dex damage; Cure 1 save
Before anyone screams I know viewing pregnancy as a disease is wrong. But for the last couple of decades pregnancy has been listed as a disease.
So we have
ALL PEOPLE
Religion is not faith based by Fact Based
Miracles do in fact exist and God May truly be watching....
Sorry, I am going to have to disagree with this one.
The problem is that while miracles do exist, so does arcane magic. What if any is the pratical difference between an arcane wish and a divine miracle? Spellcraft is not usable untrained. How many commoners would have the ranks is spellcraft to know the difference?
In short, while amazings displays of actual magic would exist, there would be no reliable way for most people to validate that the guy casting cure light wounds in the town square is actually a cleric, and not a bard. The rich and powerful might know the difference, but the average commoner would not.
My first thought is that plagues would not have as great of an impact in a fantasy world as they have in our own.Pathfinder 8 (7 days to the grave) had some excellent thoughts on how much (surprisingly little!) impact clerical healing has on an epidemic. Bottom line is: ither you nip it in the bud, or you're trying to put down a forest fire by squirtgun
If you're trying to have spellcasters casting Remove Disease, this is true. But an unlimited use Remove Disease item? This will cost 13,500gp to make (retails for 27,000gp), slightly more for use-activated rather than command word. Any decent sized town would be able to afford one. You might not prevent the spread of a disease, but you can sure help prevent the majority of people from dying by one.
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A lot of the examples given for magical economics (e.g. rings of regeneration on cattle, created water, undead power supplies) neglect one big thing.
The rate of return on almost all magical investments is much lower than comparable or analogous mundane investments. People get 5-15% rate of return on normal investments all the time, sometimes even more in rapidly developing societies (which describes a lot of settings really well, most are post-apocalyptic). The only magical investment that is even in that ballpark in most cases is Plant growth, when cast on productive fields.
What magic DOES allow you to do is to inhabit, with a fairly small economy, a lot of areas that wouldn't otherwise be very hospitable. When you think about it, this is VERY in genre. How many wells could you dig for the cost of a decanter of endless water? An awful lot, with much higher gallons/day capacity, but only if there are actually reservoirs of water to tap with said wells.
Also, on the regeneration thing---I believe it is spelled out explictly that things like trolls HAVE to eat, so you'd still have to feed said cows, making the rate of return even worse.
It neglects another thing too. Cows suck at guarding magic items. One Handle animal skill check and you can have a whole herd's worth of stuff.
Also, on the regeneration thing---I believe it is spelled out explictly that things like trolls HAVE to eat, so you'd still have to feed said cows, making the rate of return even worse.
How much does it cost to raise a cow to edible maturity? Then you slaughter it once. You get 1 cow-weight worth of cow.
A regenerating cow can produce a hundred times that amount (in the few years before becoming old enough to warrant allocation to less palatable endeavors), without having to spend the time or resources to raise a hundred cows. Your cost becomes a fraction, compared to the return.
I don't think you're seeing the picture here.
One cow producing 100 cows worth of meat means you can produce 100 units of meat with a fraction of land, cow food, and cow maintenance (labor/effort).
Even so, you take a company like McDonalds, who can easily afford such a venture. This ring heals an Auroch from zero to full 22hp in 2:12 (just over 2 minutes), which I'll be happy to cut in half to prevent death. This means you can get a full cow's worth of meat in under 5 minutes with this ring. That's a hundred cows worth in an 8-hour shift.
That means you get full ROI in roughly 100 work days (estimating conservatively to account for feeding the cow).
What's even better is that you can go for only the best cuts of beef, over and over again, and not have to worry about the less expensive ones.
50% reinvestment of the annual profits of this ring will allow you to double your output every year. It's exponential production growth. McDonalds can produce kilotons of beef with only a single herd of cattle, as they are a renewable resource, both from reproduction and from regeneration.
You don't need to feed a dead cow. Restore corpse and purify food and drink cost nothing. Why wait for the cow to regenerate over 20+ minutes when you can cast these spells several times a minute?
Create an assembly line that slowly goes back and forth over a saw; an assembly line that cuts off the choice bits from the cow. Each time the cow goes from one end to the next your assembly line workers cast those two spells upon it.
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Even so, you take a company like McDonalds, who can easily afford such a venture.
That's the catch, though, isn't it? No farmer has 9K gp to start up such a business. And adventurers are probably the closest thing to venture capitalists in the land. Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Renaissance, whenever you want to place your fantasy RPG, there just are large corporations floating around who can sock year's worth of income into a project that will eventually turn a profit.
Eberron kind of had this with the Dragonmarked houses, basically big families, who, through magic, had cornered certain economic níches. But Golarion, no way.
Also, are we assuming an unlimited supply of magic items for those with the money to buy them? That's certainly one model, but unless you've got a portion of your population devoted to industrial magic production (again, see Eberron), how many regeneration farmers are you going to see?
Even so, you take a company like McDonalds, who can easily afford such a venture.That's the catch, though, isn't it? No farmer has 9K gp to start up such a business. And adventurers are probably the closest thing to venture capitalists in the land. Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Renaissance, whenever you want to place your fantasy RPG, there just are large corporations floating around who can sock year's worth of income into a project that will eventually turn a profit.
Eberron kind of had this with the Dragonmarked houses, basically big families, who, through magic, had cornered certain economic níches. But Golarion, no way.
Also, are we assuming an unlimited supply of magic items for those with the money to buy them? That's certainly one model, but unless you've got a portion of your population devoted to industrial magic production (again, see Eberron), how many regeneration farmers are you going to see?
As I said above, who needs 9,000gp? Just cast the spells I mentioned over and over for free.
Do trolls shrink when they regenerate from lost parts? Regeneration is magic. This thread is about RAW, not about IRL physics dominating magic.Malignor,
You've still got to feed the cow. The fact that regeneration isn't immune to starvation implies that it isn't violating conservation of mass or energy.
So how long would it take a cow to eat and digest enough to replace all the weight you're removing from him through slaughter?
As I said above, who needs 9,000gp? Just cast the spells I mentioned over and over for free.
Then you need a spellcaster, and are limited by spells per day. With a ring, you merely need people with a rank in Profession - butcher.
Do trolls shrink when they regenerate from lost parts? Regeneration is magic.
Actually according to the rules it's not magic at all — at least not in the case of trolls. Click the link for "Regeneration" in the troll's stat block. You will find that it links to an Extraordinary ability, not a supernatural one:
Universal Monster Rules: Regeneration
if magic isn't extraordinary, does that mean it is ordinary?
(I believe "magic" wasn't used in the RAW term, but rather in the "how to explain to a child" manner)