...that will, with any luck, be less ranty than my usual discourse on the subject. :)
I was thinking about Azlant and Thassilon, y'see, and the general lack of progress that one sees from then till now. Medieval Stasis is not a trope of which I am fond, as some of you may remember from previous posts. Now of course, the whole point of D&D is to present a role-playing environment that's a basic slice of medievalish fantasy, not necessarily one with six-guns or steam engines or their magical equivalent, but...
It comes down to something odd I've noticed: When people start talking about using magic to improve medieval society, others will jump in and say "but D&D magic is too rare and too expensive to make that much of a difference." And THEN, when people start talking about technological advancement, OTHER others will jump in and say "But D&D has magic, therefore all this technology isn't needed and won't get developed!" And the eternal cycle continues.
...Can you understand why I sometimes explode in a frothing rage when these subjects come up? :)
ANYWAY.
Leaving the technology issue aside for now, it'd be interesting to see actual magical progress in a setting. It seems too late to do much with the ancient empires of Golarion, as they've already been established as using more or less the same magic in more or less hte same ways as you find in the modern era, but consider this for other worlds: What if, over time, wizards -- who are masters of metamagic, and supposedly spend a lot of time researching the nature of magic -- could come up with "fat-trimmed" versions of existing spells that simply fit into a lower spell slot, with no other modification? (I'd expect this to happen very rarely, maybe one spell moving down one slot every twenty or thirty years, unless someone stumbled across a universally applicable principle and ushered in a Magical Revolution. Which might make for an interesting campaign.)
It would be hilarious for a party to run into some recently-awakened Evil Overlord Superwizard of Ages Past who was horrified to discover that Fireball was now a third level spell, when he had to slot his version in NINTH.
Similarly, and this you could actually do in Golarion, consider a time travel scenario in which our characters visit The Future (awesomely cool or horrifyingly dystopian, or both depending on your point of view), and find that Fireball is now a FIRST level spell. Or even a cantrip. :)
...I have no idea how you'd go about applying this to divine spells. Composition of more pleasing prayers?
You wouldn't want to let PCs go wild with this in a campaign, unless that was the entire point. But it's an interesting thought, no?
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Interesting, yes.
As an aside, generally, as far as 'moving into the future' in fantasy worlds is concerned, the most common way for a fantasy setting to go about it is to follow in the footsteps of ol' George R.R. Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire, it seems to me that when science begins to take hold, one of two things happen:
- HEUG Cataclysm; Center of Technological advancement explodes. Magic reigns eternal, technology is rare, often not working, expensive, and demands you spend a feat or two so you can do 1d8 damage with a weapon that you need to reload (1-2 Full Rounds) every time you use it.
- Magic fades; world stays medieval, more of a focus on alchemy, and healing becomes a pain.
Interesting, yes.
As an aside, generally, as far as 'moving into the future' in fantasy worlds is concerned, the most common way for a fantasy setting to go about it is to follow in the footsteps of ol' George R.R. Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire, it seems to me that when science begins to take hold, one of two things happen:
- HEUG Cataclysm; Center of Technological advancement explodes. Magic reigns eternal, technology is rare, often not working, expensive, and demands you spend a feat or two so you can do 1d8 damage with a weapon that you need to reload (1-2 Full Rounds) every time you use it.
- Magic fades; world stays medieval, more of a focus on alchemy, and healing becomes a pain.
Yeah, see, those are both developments included in the List of Tropes That Make Lurker Angry. :)
Or to put it another way, let me quote Lisa Simpson: "This is why we can't have nice things!"
(Also, I have no idea how GRRM handles this, as I lost interest in "Song" after the fifth or sixth character-who-I-thought-was-going-to-be-a-protagonist DIED HORRIBLY. :P )
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Another idea would probably be to think about the inclusion of metamagic feats into the spells without changing the spell level. I could easily imagine that far in the future mages have learned to cast empowered fireballs at level 3, to give an example. In fact I could also imagine that the Runelords were able to do the same thing and that the knowledge about this was forgotten with the fall of their empire (I guess you wouldn't want to retcon the history as described too much).
And if you think about certain spells like fireball who cause higher damage if spoken by higher level wizards you could also make a point that there was some technological development in the past. Probably there were times when fireball was only achievable as a 5th-level spell and then got improved in recent years 'til he reached the state he has now.
Apart from that I'd probably rather see the development of new kinds of magic (or the rediscovery of old ones, like Rune Magic for Golarion, Netherese Magic for the Realms and so on) to avoid potential balance issue with the standard system.
Your proposal is very provocative. I like it but, are you willing to deal with the Pandora's box you'd be opening?
As a mathematician, back in college this was one way we were taught new algorithms:
-First, we had a problem laid in front of us, and teacher left us to solve it on our own, current devices.
-Then, he watched us suffer for days.
-When we finally finished (when and if), he laughed in our faces and told us: "Okay that's how you did it, now I'm going to teach you the easy way..."
So, what prevents a PC wizard from re-engineering and learning these optimized algorithms? Wizardry is the view of magic as a science and discipline, so being objective you can't prevent them from figuring them out for long unless you tell them straight up it's all some plot device forever out of the players' reach, something your players may resent.
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Overall I agree with you, but let me play devil's advocate:
The only problem with a standard D&D setting advancing is that you have deities who are actively involved in the day-to-day affairs of the world. Many of whom would probably dislike, discourage, or actively oppose the idea of scientific development.
In a fantasy campaign, most assume the gods require worshippers for some reason. If science starts doing things that a cleric can do, like heal, then the common person is going to start doubting their gods power.
On the other hand, it could make for an interesting bidding war. Unskilled labour (clerics) versus skilled labour (doctors), and in that case the clerics would probably win.
I'm not disagreeing with you, societies should advance over time, but in the case of magic D&D assumes a hard limit on what you can do to your body and mind with magic. Now, introduce technology into that mix? Imagine a pill that could re-energize your brain for more spells, or an implant that grants an extra spell slot for each level. These are possibilities I could see, rather than changing the base rules of the magic itself (of course, you could argue that certain races would evolve to deal with magic more efficiently, that's another argument for another day).
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...that will, with any luck, be less ranty than my usual discourse on the subject. :)...I think the problem here is that you regard progress as inevitable.
Which is charmingly naive.
I dispute using the term "progress" itself, as it implies improvement or advancement as a positive goal. A better word is "change".
As for the inevitability of change... I suggest, for those who haven't already, that people read Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel."
The lesson learned there is that, by and large, everywhere humans have gone in the world and at all times throughout history, we have always advanced as far as it was possible to go given the resources available. (Of course, this sometimes leads to the circumstances described in his other book, "Collapse," but that doesn't stop the survivors from following the original pattern again.)
The only places where change does not happen, or where the change is in a retrograde direction, are places desperately barren of resources. Which doesn't apply to most areas of Golarion we've seen so far, except maybe the Sodden Lands.
So, what prevents a PC wizard from re-engineering and learning these optimized algorithms? Wizardry is the view of magic as a science and discipline, so being objective you can't prevent them from figuring them out for long unless you tell them straight up it's all some plot device forever out of the players' reach, something your players may resent.
Time may be a factor. Raising the tech level, while entertaining, isn't necessarily a simple process, and the other PCs may end up going places and saving the world while the wizard is locked in his tower scribbling away for months or years. ^.^ On the other hand, allowing one or two such re-engineered spells in a campaign -- at the cost of many months of research, mind you -- may not be a game breaker.
It's all in what your players are focused on, really.
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My ruling on this (when the question came up back in college, playing 1st edition), was that the current spells in the book *were* the most advanced versions. Some spells, such as Magic Missile, were literally as good as they were going to get, and older versions might have required a hit roll, or done only 1d4 damage per missile, or not even given the option of multiple missiles at higher level!
Other spells might be *slightly* improvable (Monster Summoning 1, for instance, was appallingly bad, back in 1st edition, for it's level), and with some spell research, we would allow a PC magic-user to come up with a 'better' one, but perhaps one that only allowed a single monster (specialized, and less versatile) option.
Bringing it up to 3rd edition+, I'd again assume that most of the current spells in the book have already undergone centuries of development, and used to be far weaker than they are today, having been tweaked right up to their theoretical maximums, with any other enhancements running the risk of bumping them up a spell level.
Scrolls found in Thassilonian ruins might include Summon Monster variants that only include a single monster option, or require the caster to make a Will save to command the beast summoned or have it run amok, or whatever. A primitive Hold Person might *also* Hold the caster, requiring him to lock himself in a battle of wills with the subject, and paralyzing him as long as the target is paralyzed, as they 'wrestle it out' on the psychic plane. The 'new improved' modern version of Hold Person splits off an insignificant portion of the casters psyche to wrestle with the target, sort of like a 'psychic clone' that serves no purpose other than to temporarily paralyze the foe. Or that's the theory, anyway, learned in Enchantment Academy, as the 'new improved' version of Hold Person has been around longer than the oldest teachers have been alive...
Using these 'outdated magics' as inspiration, a Wizard player might choose to research a version of Daze that's a 1st level spell, but uses the 'old Hold Person' mechanic, locking him in a battle of Wills with the target. As long as he takes no action other than a 5 ft. step (which can't take him out of range, obviously), the target has to roll another save each round or remain Dazed. The Wizard could call it 'Serpent's Stare' or 'Battle of Wills' or 'Staredown' or whatever.
On the other hand, it's common for a fantasy world to have had much more powerful magic in the past. There used to be flying castles. But not any more. Wizards used to be able to put on some Barry Manilow, cast some spells and put a giant owl and a bear in a cage together to create Owlbears. But not any more. Invoked Devastations and Rains of Colorless Fire and Mythals and Flying Cities and magics that could call meteors down out of the sky to shatter continents, all once possible, but not any more. Did the god(dess) of magic 'change the rules? Was the devastation so great that the civilizations who had mastered such magics annhilated themselves? (And if so, what in the metagame exists to stop someone else from rediscovering that level of magic?)
Golarion seems to have gone the route of saying that older societies had some impressive magic, but not in the sense of uber-spellcasting, so much as artifact level items (making it less likely that enterprising modern wizards will rediscover these things and mess up the current game setting), as opposed to the Realms variation with 10th level spells and Elven High Magic and whatever.