Sure, there's old age, but I mean accidental deaths...
Ah, the tramp has syphillis? Remove disease.
The king was beheaded? Raise dead/ressurect.
Crime? Buy magical trinkets that let them know whenever someone is lying.
Starvation? Child's play for a druid or cleric.
Wars? Instead of +1 weapons, give them clw or infernal healing.
Why aren't kingdoms severely overpopulated?
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Magic is readily available to the wealthy, not commoners.
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I do people die from starvation, exposure and simple infections in the U.S?
A PC has these resources. For the most part the rest of the world does not.
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Redchigh wrote: Sure, there's old age, but I mean accidental deaths...
Ah, the tramp has syphillis? Remove disease.
The king was beheaded? Raise dead/ressurect.
Crime? Buy magical trinkets that let them know whenever someone is lying.
Starvation? Child's play for a druid or cleric.
Wars? Instead of +1 weapons, give them clw or infernal healing.
Why aren't kingdoms severely overpopulated?
Because asking those questions ruins the game's settings, so you just let it go for the sake of fun.
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Because such a world would be boring.
And for every magical boon there is a magical bane.
Well it seems pretty clear that rich people in Golarion don't die from non-age related stuff very often...
137ben wrote: Well it seems pretty clear that rich people in Golarion don't die from non-age related stuff very often... There's plenty of ways to ensure that a person stays dead, including, but not limited to simply refusing to pay for their resurrection and/or bribing the cleric to fake the spell and then tell everyone the soul chose to remain where he was, disposing of the body, etc.
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TriOmegaZero wrote: Because such a world would be boring.
And for every magical boon there is a magical bane.
And frequently a magical boom!
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Because there's "Cure Disease" but no "Immunization" spell.
Edit: In the future we would expect everyone to wear Periapts of Health. The current world is poorly optimized -- someone should fix it.
Redchigh wrote: Ah, the tramp has syphillis? Remove disease. Cost of one remove disease: SL x CL x 10 = 3 x 5 x 10 = 150 gold pieces. Most tramps don't have 150 gold to spare.
Quote: The king was beheaded? Raise dead/ressurect. Law of the land, ritual disfigurement, desire of the prince to have his turn at the helm, cost. Seriously, even a kingdom thinks twice about spending 5450 gp every time a king dies. Assuming the king doesn't need to pay the caster, the price drops to 5000 gp, but that's still most of the cost. And that's for Raise Dead. Oh, and assumes that you have 5000 gp worth of diamonds at hand, not just 5000 gp. Rarer than you might think.
Unless the new king wants to give up his crown jewels... nah... Dad had a good life, it's time for him to rest...
Quote: Crime? Buy magical trinkets that let them know whenever someone is lying. Again, this comes down to cost. Even big stores in the real world invest only so much in loss-prevention.
If you're talking about police forces, ask yourself how much the king cares about stopping every petty crime. Sure, he'll bust out the good toys once in a while. But, giving even every-other precinct a [wand of detect thoughts[/i]is tens of thousands of gold, at 4,500 gold each.
And that's assuming there's no Magna Carta that says "the king shall not violate the right of his people to be secure in their thoughts without first obtaining a warrant, which requires probable cause".
Are you seeing how this breaks down?
Quote: Starvation? Child's play for a druid or cleric.
Wars? Instead of +1 weapons, give them clw or infernal healing.
Why aren't kingdoms severely overpopulated?
See above about the scarcity of money, goods, and services. It's called economics, and it's why the modern world still has all these problems, too.
BillyGoat wrote: See above about the scarcity of money, goods, and services. It's called economics, and it's why the modern world still has all these problems, too. Actually, the D20 system (even PF) has the capabilities in the rules to essentially create a post-scarcity society.
Drachasor wrote: BillyGoat wrote: See above about the scarcity of money, goods, and services. It's called economics, and it's why the modern world still has all these problems, too. Actually, the D20 system (even PF) has the capabilities in the rules to essentially create a post-scarcity society. If everyone works together in a perfectly altruistic way and no goblin hordes / angry dragons arrive during the creation of a post-scarcity society to burn it all to the ground.
For every Wish spell cast by a good guy to bring new wonders into existence, there's an army of demons waiting to tear it down.
You cannot look at the positive capabilities whilst ignoring the balancing factors that exist in the Bestiaries. Nor can you assume/assert that society is working in tandem so well that they agree on the how/why of the post-scarcity world.
Without first addressing competing individual goals, the efforts to forge a post scarcity society are necessarily sabotaged.
We have the technology, ourselves, to create a post-scarcity world in terms of food & energy. If, and only if, you assume that the competing wants, goals, and fears of the individual beings that make up the population of the world are first eliminated.
"Repeat to yourself, 'it's just a game, I should really just relax'."
(On a tangential note, I think both character death and character resurrection should be based on storyline, rather than math.)
If every army was dressed like even a low level adventuring party that had +1 swords and CLW wands, the entire nation would be broke.
BillyGoat wrote: Drachasor wrote: BillyGoat wrote: See above about the scarcity of money, goods, and services. It's called economics, and it's why the modern world still has all these problems, too. Actually, the D20 system (even PF) has the capabilities in the rules to essentially create a post-scarcity society. If everyone works together in a perfectly altruistic way and no goblin hordes / angry dragons arrive during the creation of a post-scarcity society to burn it all to the ground.
For every Wish spell cast by a good guy to bring new wonders into existence, there's an army of demons waiting to tear it down.
You cannot look at the positive capabilities whilst ignoring the balancing factors that exist in the Bestiaries. Nor can you assume/assert that society is working in tandem so well that they agree on the how/why of the post-scarcity world.
Without first addressing competing individual goals, the efforts to forge a post scarcity society are necessarily sabotaged.
We have the technology, ourselves, to create a post-scarcity world in terms of food & energy. If, and only if, you assume that the competing wants, goals, and fears of the individual beings that make up the population of the world are first eliminated. You really underestimate the power of magic. Even if you ignore the ways to just make money out of nothing by 9th level, there are still tons of magical items and other effects that cost a lot less than they give. Add to that the fact that magical items last for a very, very long time. There's really no comparison to the real world here. Heck, make a Staff of Wishes and it pays for itself in less than a year.
And if enemy hordes are a problem...well, that's what demiplanes are for. That said, the costs of feeding everyone and basically eliminating the scarcity of standard care, housing, etc is extremely cheap.
Zhayne wrote: (On a tangential note, I think both character death and character resurrection should be based on storyline, rather than math.) I like the Death Flag rule for such things.
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Here's the thing that I think would prevent most resurrection spells from becoming common in Pathfinder:
"The subject's soul must be free and willing to return."
I imagine that about 99% of people who die wouldn't meet that qualification.
If you've lived a good life, you go to heaven, which is a damned sight better than living in a world where the things that will try to kill you or make your life miserable sometimes literally include the floors, ceiling, and air.
If you've lived a bad life, I'm doubting that folks like Asmodeus are going to let your soul walk out of Hell just because some 9th level priest waved a diamond over your corpse.
Played by the book, I think resurrection spells would be a waste of money for most people.
Zhayne wrote: "Repeat to yourself, 'it's just a game, I should really just relax'." My apologies. In retrospect, I got carried away in my second post, and it wasn't my intention to be so defensive.
Drachasor wrote: You really underestimate the power of magic. Even if you ignore the ways to just make money out of nothing by 9th level, there are still tons of magical items and other effects that cost a lot less than they give. Add to that the fact that magical items last for a very, very long time. There's really no comparison to the real world here. Heck, make a Staff of Wishes and it pays for itself in less than a year.
And if enemy hordes are a problem...well, that's what demiplanes are for. That said, the costs of feeding everyone and basically eliminating the scarcity of standard care, housing, etc is extremely cheap.
While I readily admit to not knowing all the ways that characters of sufficiently high level can do to overcome the law of scarcity, I remain convinced that this is addressed by the very scarcity of the individuals of sufficiently high level.
Most of the world is made up of villages or smaller, where spellcasters are fortunate to have access to 3rd level spells. Even in a city, there's access to 6th and 7th level spells, but I doubt that the line in the Gamemastery Guide is really intended to suggest there's a plethora of these people.
When coupled with their lack of unity and the presence of adversaries to prevent their unmitigated success, this inhibits most of the means I've seen presented to obviate the law of scarcity.
TriOmegaZero wrote: I like the Death Flag rule for such things. I like the raises, later in that same document. Similar in intent to the Plot Twist cards, but better player/GM control.
There is also the counter force of evil clerics and other such. One church might fight an epidemic, while another church is busy destroying the crops.
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I think what people need to understand is that this game and all the spells were designed very much in a campaign vacuum and that all the in-game abilities were meant for PCs in dungeon crawls. There was no thought put into castle security in a world where teleport exists - there still really isn't an easy long term defense for the tactic (Dimensional Lock is an 8th level spell that only covers a 20 rad area). What in-game mechanics or abilities exist to counter invisibility, knock, silence and wealth of magical tools that could be easily used to break into a shop? That's because when the game was designed it was not designed with these considerations -those spells were for a team hitting the Slave Pits of the Undercity, or exploring White Plume Mountain and not to create Joe the Diviner Spammable Urgent Care Clinic.
People often fall over themselves here (and other places) trying to explain the internal consistency of D&D/Pathfinder when none exists. Spammable water is far more disruptive than cure disease, since even the latter has use per day and semi-plausible level limits. So for spammable water orisons are their pre-written (as in core) magical non DM-fiat areas of the desert where this ability doesn't work? No, because zero thought was put into the game with regard to world consistency at it's inception, and this trend has only been ramped up with each subsequent edition (WoTC and Paizo being the worst offenders).
It's one of those stupid things in the game that we accept so we can play the game. You can try to fix it (Cure disease is not automatic, limit orison use per day) which would go down the houserules road or you can just accept it as a highly unique flaw (or feature) of D&D gaming.
If the spells only worked in the dungeon (and that's where all the action was) then these problems wouldn't exist. Once you take the game out of adventure mode and make a whole world then it needs to be addressed. The writers/devs need to figure out how all this power shapes the world. TSR failed at this (though less character types and less spell slots was a form of minor internal control), WoTC failed at this (what internal consistency?) and Paizo has also failed at this (WoTC approach cloned from the 3.5 rules turned up to 11).
Anyway.
Drachasor wrote: BillyGoat wrote: See above about the scarcity of money, goods, and services. It's called economics, and it's why the modern world still has all these problems, too. Actually, the D20 system (even PF) has the capabilities in the rules to essentially create a post-scarcity society. Think of all the very wealthy and powerful people who would come out second-best in such a society.
BillyGoat wrote: While I readily admit to not knowing all the ways that characters of sufficiently high level can do to overcome the law of scarcity, I remain convinced that this is addressed by the very scarcity of the individuals of sufficiently high level. That is certainly how I run it, and always have from very early on. Normal people are level 1 or 2. Only exceptional people get better than that, and normal people never get beyond level 5 or 6 (as, skill wise, that is the limit of what is realistically possible).
But in Pathfinder, you have, as a matter of course, level 4 carpenters, level 5 Cafe Owners and Actors, level 6 shopkeepers and merchants, level 9 lawyers...it just gets ridiculous (what the hell is a level 6 Commoner, anyway?).
So, by the base assumptions of the rules, there is not a serious lack of these people. You said small towns only have 3rd level spells. Only? Those cure disease! A caster capable of 3rd level spells is drastically altering the location he lives in. A divine character is healing massive amounts of people a day, while an arcanist is flying around town, spying on distant locations (which would allow for very long distance communication--one scryer could put written words in view of the location he knows his buddy far away will be scrying on), and serving as a universal translator, among other things. That alone is huge.
You have to alter things to get the world you think Pathfinder is.
I think the game gives players a skewed view of reality as far as economies or power go. Remember, 90% of the world is made up of 1-3 commoners who make...like 1 silver a day going by the charts. I would vaguely imagine that that would be just a bit over minimum wage according to our standards of living. Even nobles can't just throw money around since their wealth is usually tied up in land or trade goods such as wheat or metals from said land.
Plus, with the scarcity of ANY player class, the scarcity of magic users is rather low(particularly ones above a few levels; remember, there is power creep in all games so the players don't go "Oh, its a level 2 wizards? Any bets on what round of the fight against the first fight he is going to die in?" once they start getting up in the mid levels). While the number of spells a magic user has is typically fine for a party of 4-6, try doing anything to useful when it is a village 150.
Still, I will agree that there can be useful groups of powerful casters with maybe martial classes as backup that can go around solving the land's problems. They are called ADVENTURERS. Now, you can complain about the problems of society once you are willing to give up your precious spell slots on random NPCs.
lemeres wrote: I think the game gives players a skewed view of reality as far as economies or power go. Remember, 90% of the world is made up of 1-3 commoners who make...like 1 silver a day going by the charts. Again, I wish that were the case, and I think most people believe that and run it that way. However, as I showed above, shopkeepers are level 6 commoners. I would like for the world to be level 1-3, but it's not.
Every now and again in ancient Rome, someone would come along and invent some marvelous new labor saving device that could make some particular job 10 times easier for half the manpower. The government would often shut them down and tell them to stop producing and distributing these mechanisms because keeping more people employed by inefficient labor kept them occupied and out of trouble. Even if magic were relatively inexpensive and commonplace, the sovereign authority would likely step in and tell magic-users to quit their shenanigans and stop mucking up the economy by contributing to over-population and such. Not to mention, magic-users are often rather eccentric types... who's to say they really care that much to use their magic for such endeavors. Some may even have personal codes against too much "unnatural" mucking about. I mean, adventurers are out there, putting their lives on the line fighting the hoards of beasts and monsters and undead, keeping civilization safe so they obviously deserve to have death take a sick-day for them. But farmer Joe? There's plenty of farmers. King William? He's got a line of successors. Mogar, the orc-slayer? He may not know much about digging out a mine or building a house, but he slays orcs like nobody's business; lets bring him back and give him another go.
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Based on my adventures, I think there are high-level areas and low-level areas.
Low-level areas don't have common access to magic. Even if there are a few level 6 commoners about, that doesn't mean they have level 6 clerics.
In high-level areas, disease isn't a problem for anyone rich because there are enough clerics around to cure dozens people a day. (Note that in a city of thousands of people, this won't be enough to abolish disease.)
However, high-level areas have high level problems. There are as many evil clerics as good ones. Death by disease might be replaced by death by demon.
High-level police may have access to spells for detecting lies. But they will have to deal with high-level criminals who can negate detection spells, or teleport away before you catch them.
Charlie Brooks wrote: Here's the thing that I think would prevent most resurrection spells from becoming common in Pathfinder:
"The subject's soul must be free and willing to return."
I imagine that about 99% of people who die wouldn't meet that qualification.
If you've lived a good life, you go to heaven, which is a damned sight better than living in a world where the things that will try to kill you or make your life miserable sometimes literally include the floors, ceiling, and air.
If you've lived a bad life, I'm doubting that folks like Asmodeus are going to let your soul walk out of Hell just because some 9th level priest waved a diamond over your corpse.
Played by the book, I think resurrection spells would be a waste of money for most people.
I think between this, and the cost prohibition issues (low magic 99% of people Level 1, higher magic 99% of people are 1-3), are why raising people from the dead (even a lot of low to mid end royalty and 'rich') isn't a common occurance, and that's before the fact a lot of clergy wouldn't do it willy nilly for any amount of mone, w/o a reason to defy nature and the divines cycle of life.
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Even in Golarion (where levels are a bit higher than everyone being 1-3), levels aren't high enough to actually provide post-scarcity stuff to the masses.
For example, I've been working on the population demographics of Korvosa specifically (a mid-sized city), and there are around 30 people of 9th level or higher in the whole city. And that's higher than average, by a bit anyway. Half of those are likely spellcasters...so maybe 15 people in the whole city can cast 5th level or higher spells. That's not enough to solve the problems you list for everyone.
On an actual per-question list:
Redchigh wrote: Sure, there's old age, but I mean accidental deaths...
Ah, the tramp has syphillis? Remove disease.
Syphilis has been curable a long time...but rarely cheaply. That stays the same.
Redchigh wrote: The king was beheaded? Raise dead/ressurect. Assuming you don't destroy the body completely or bind the soul. Coincidentally both available as spells roughly on-par with Raise Dead and Resurrection.
Redchigh wrote: Crime? Buy magical trinkets that let them know whenever someone is lying. No such thing. The very best spells that detect lies still have a Will Save...and as Items, a Save DC of around 16 or so. That's...pretty resistable, really. And far too expensive to equip every cop with. Zone of Truth is easier and cheaper, but it's also a much lower Save DC, probably around 13 for items of it.
Redchigh wrote: Starvation? Child's play for a druid or cleric. Only if they choose to do so nobody's actively stopping them. There's plenty of food on Earth in the real world to fee everyone...but people still starve every day. Distribution's a b&&&!.
Redchigh wrote: Wars? Instead of +1 weapons, give them clw or infernal healing. Uh...common soldiers can't afford +1 weapons. They can afford a potion of CLW, and most probably carry such a thing...but if everyone has those, they don't change the outcome much, do they?
Redchigh wrote: Why aren't kingdoms severely overpopulated? Well, there's the high rate of predation. In the real world, humans are pretty much the top of the food chain. In Pathfinder? A large number of things hunt and eat people, and do so quite successfully.
Low level casters really don't matter. One 20th will do.
A 5th level caster costs 2500gp to make via Simulacrum. They follow your orders. If a divine caster, they can provide at least 2 Cure Disease every day. Let's say they are just used to prevent permanent disability or death. That's about 730 such cases a year. So in the year after each person is saved, that's AT LEAST 730*365*1s = 26827.5 gold in economic activity. So after two years he's more than paid for the cost 10 times over. In fact, assuming these cures are used each day, you have .1*D^2 payoff after D days. So it just takes about 159 days to pay for itself.
Slightly better Simulacra can obsolete craft professions and make building a snap with Fabricate. Boom, you're in a post-industrial world, where jobs move more towards the service sector. Naturally you provide for public education (also aided by simulacra where needed). Again, all this pays for itself rather quickly and frees up people and casters to focus on defense in a hostile world.
Of course, before you do that you probably make a Staff of Wishes so that you can have a free no-cost wish every single day of the year. (That pays for itself in the first 2 months, mind you if your wishes are worth 25k each).
Who'd do this? Why the Good King. Several are 20th level wizards/sorcerers.
Etc, etc. If things get too rough, you could always decide to leave the Prime Material and go to a Demiplane. It's much safer there. The good ol' Staff of Wishes has the punch to make each casting of Greater Create Demiplane permanent for free. That's 40,000 Square Feet each day, though only enough food by itself to sustain 400 more people -- but that's 146,000 people per year -- I'm sorry, double that because you're manipulating time (and everyone has fast healing 2, etc, etc). This can be increased with the expenditure of some money, other high level help, other ways to make food and space, etc, etc.
This is just scratching the barest inch of the surface. As someone said, the effects of magic on society weren't thought out when the spells were designed. I'd compare it to the Temeraire books (Napoleonic Wars + Dragons, they are great books). The idea that history in those books could so closely match up to our own when dragons were always around is absurd. It's far more absurd that with the magical resources available in a D&D that the people would be living in some sort of medieval setting. Hand waving only works so far -- the nobles stop it? Like they did in our history? Don't know if anyone noticed, but they failed. Progress marches on even if it is difficult at times.
It's fine to pretend that somehow things stay the same even though one person could do it by themselves. But let's not act like we aren't closing our eyes and pretending really, really hard.
Staff of Wishes? Where in any book is there a Staff of Wishes?
Drachasor wrote: Who'd do this? Why the Good King. Several are 20th level wizards/sorcerers. Huh? In Golarion, based on Inner Sea Magic and the Dragon Empires Gazetteer, I see a whole one currently-alive Good-aligned ruler who's also a high level Wizard or Sorcerer...and she's only 15th (there are a few more high level Good-aligned Cleric rulers...but I still only count three even of those).
That's entirely aside from the potential moral issues with using huge amounts of Simulacrum slave labor that are posed by this suggestion. That's something that might be interesting to explore...but doing what's described isn't an unalloyed good by any means.
But that 20th level caster doesn't have time for that shit when there's always another nefarious enemy threatening the world just a little stronger than the last that needs foiling. Those enemies got that strong by killing other adventurers and taking their stuff either on this plane or somewhere else in the endless astral sea. The arms race never ends, even for the gods... it's turtles all the way down AND up.
That's why nobody who is in a position to fix it really gives a damn if farmer bob caught the pox.
First, I agree with BillyGoat and everyone else who says that essentially, "Magic just replaces technology - the lack of easy-to-use/reliable methods makes it even more lackluster than tech". For Drachasor, a 20th level Cleric or Wizard has more important things to do than amass money to just give it away. Even the Super Pope of the God of Healing is either way too feeble (because he's likely not an adventurer and thus it's taken him 60+ years to achieve said level), or he has more important things to do (because he's an adventurer, and Heroes need a support/buff for the raid (heh.))
Drachasor, the difference between technology and magic is thus: One person wields said power. Even with Simulacrum it'd take time to make the Sim, and the staff of wishes more importantly.
Staff of Wishes is worth 766,300 gold.
A 20th level crafting-based wizard would have max ranks in spellcraft, so 23+int mod.
Assuming the Elite Array (w/ 15 in Int), plus a human with +2 Int, and a +5 int book, +6 Int headband, you'd get an int score of 28 (+9).
So a total Spellcraft Modifier of 32 (42 with Skill focus+Magical Aptitude).
The staff's DC would be 23 (28 if accelerated, and as we can see, for a crafter-based wizard, why wouldn't you?) So it'd only be a matter of time, sure, but it'd only be acquirable by a 20th level "boss" or "adventuring" NPC (one who gets a PCs "starting gold").
The Heroic NPC only gets 159,000 and the "adventuring" NPC has 880~ GP typically (saying that the starting gold would be considered a "typical" 20th level adventurer's phat-lewt).
All that being said - look at how long it'd take still take 192 (rounding up) 4-hour sessions. Any sort of interruption reduces the chances of making it successfully, and we're not talking about some musty NPC, we're talking about a "An Army of Daemons are threatening reality again - go take care of it" kind of character.
He'd have to be a HIGHLY altruistic person (at LEAST) to bother. As far as the average hero would be concerned: He'd be out saving the world, why would he want to spend his off-time making the world a better place when he's spending 90% of his time on a device too?
To quote Mr. Incredible; "I feel like the maid - I clean everything up and all of a sudden is falls into a mess again and I'm like, 'can't it be kept clean for just 5 seconds?!'"
Also, if you look at the 2nd book in the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP, WoTC made a population-by-level demographic that they used. Everything I'm about to say is from the author's blurb at the foreword:
"“Seven Days to the Grave” does everything I hoped
it would. We’ve got sham cures, overwhelmed healers,
sinister doctors, horrific symptoms, and a slowly building
sense of doom and ruin that really does capture the terror
of a city caught in an epidemic. The key is that the sickness
doesn’t just target the PCs—it targets everyone. It’s one
thing if the PCs can cure themselves, but what happens
when they’re also expected to cure dozens, hundreds, or
even thousands of their friends and allies? And worse,
what happens when a plague brings out those allies’ true
colors, and riots and mayhem result?
Perhaps most gratifiying to my inner GM, though,
was the discovery that just because there are effects that
can cure disease doesn’t mean you can’t have plagues.
When you run the numbers to estimate just how many
remove disease spells a large city can generate in a day,
you get a surprisingly small number. Certainly enough
to handle day-to-day sicknesses or even small outbreaks,
but a fantasy city gripped by a full-blown epidemic is
not all that much better off than one in the real world.
In fact, magic can just as easily encourage the spread of
a plague—say, by giving a plague’s sinister creators the
ability to infect things like weapons and coins. In “Seven
Days to the Grave,” characters who assume that a few
remove disease spells can stop a full-blown epidemic are in
for a rude surprise indeed."
FallofCamelot wrote: Staff of Wishes? Where in any book is there a Staff of Wishes? Staff creation rules are straight-forward and don't come with the proviso that Wondrous Items do about costs being difficult to determine. We're just putting the Wish spell into a staff afterall. It does cost a LOT
(1.2 million gp). You might as well complain about combining armor enchantments together if that particular combo doesn't exist in the book.
Would you prefer I discussed Dominate Monster on a creature that can make wishes or Bloody Money with wish? Many ways to get Wishes. (I view a Simulacrum as a DM-fiat spell for a creature with wishes or spell-like abilities, so I'm not using it as an example).
Deadmanwalking wrote: Drachasor wrote: Who'd do this? Why the Good King. Several are 20th level wizards/sorcerers. Huh? In Golarion, based on Inner Sea Magic and the Dragon Empires Gazetteer, I see a whole one currently-alive Good-aligned ruler who's also a high level Wizard or Sorcerer...and she's only 15th (there are a few more high level Good-aligned Cleric rulers...but I still only count three even of those).
That's entirely aside from the potential moral issues with using huge amounts of Simulacrum slave labor that are posed by this suggestion. That's something that might be interesting to explore...but doing what's described isn't an unalloyed good by any means. Yeah, it's a shame there wasn't some sort of god-like entity watching over humanity at any point in the past that could have done all this.
Neutral will do in a pinch though, they care about their people. Good people have to worry about everyone.
As for the slave labor issue, that's solved easily enough. You pick someone self-sacrificing as the basis. They'd WANT to do it.
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They already dealt with "cure disease" bonanza in Pathfinder #8, where a plague is ripping through a large city. Even if every spellcaster in that town capable of it prepared every available slot with cure disease and cast it for free, the plague would still spread faster than they could cure it.
As for the Staff of Wishes, even if a GM was going to allow such a ridiculous item to exist, it would still cost almost the entire net worth of a 20th level PC to make one. I assume the staff you are referring to is the one that would cost 766,300gp to craft.
A 20th level NPC would only have about 159,000gp to spend, nowhere near enough.
But it would pay for itself in two months you say, so the PC could buy back all his stuff then. Sure, but let's just hope no one powerful comes to steal that staff of munchkin while his stuff is all gone, without his gear a 20th level PC is severely depowered.
Then maybe a kingdom could pay for it, surely a kingdom has the ability to pay for 766,300gp for a staff of wishful thinking. Let's put that in a real world perspective. One pound of gold is worth 50gp, so 766,300gp would be 15,326 pounds of gold. Assuming the going rate of gold is currently 1250$ per ounce of gold, and one pound is sixteen ounces. That would mean a staff of idiocy would cost 306,520,000$. Doesn't sound like a lot? If you have a population of three hundred million like the US, it's pretty affordable. However, extrapolating from real world population levels, three hundred million is likely closer to the whole world's population, not a single nation. So that three hundred million in modern money is going to put a lot higher stress on a nation than you would expect.
Say a city state metropolis of 25,000 people were to pay for this (and most of those 25,000 people are likely untrained laborers who make 1sp per day). It would cost around 12,000$ per person in that city to make the jokestaff. Sorry people of the city, we can't afford to pay for sanitation, city guards, fire protection, the military, public works or anything really this year, because we're making a single magic item that will be awesome. Sound realistic? Even large nations of a million or more citizens would have difficulty paying for it. "Hey Qadira, it's Taldor here. Please don't invade this year, we've dismissed our whole military to be able to pay for one magic item".
But let's say you through some miracle (and I ain't talking about the spell) manage to make the staff of RAW abuse, and actually start using it. Such blatant abuse of wishes is going to have severe consequences. Pathfinder #24 dedicated an entire article to talking about wishcraft, read it.
Pathfinder #24 wrote:
Genies know that not all wishes deserve to be made. Reality is like a symphony and some wishes ring like discordant notes. These wishes make demands of the cosmos that were never intended and that are not meant to be, falling outside even the bounds of magic. While such reality-breaking wishes are gradually eroded by time and the innate forces of existence, they can cause great damage while their effects linger, and when cast about wildly and in great number can even degrade the fabric of the planes to terrible effect (see Wishwarps, below).
Rest assured, there will be consequences.
Atrocious wrote: They already dealt with "cure disease" bonanza in Pathfinder #8, where a plague is ripping through a large city. Even if every spellcaster in that town capable of it prepared every available slot with cure disease and cast it for free, the plague would still spread faster than they could cure it. Yes, because it assumes there is no quarantine system, no wands of Cure Disease kept on standby for plagues, no periapts of health for healers, no teleporting in more healers in an emergency, etc, etc, etc.
But I suppose a DM could rule that no one is smart enough to prepare for disasters or that Wands of Cure Disease are impossible to make just because he said so.
Atrocious wrote: As for the Staff of Wishes, even if a GM was going to allow such a ridiculous item to exist, it would still cost almost the entire net worth of a 20th level PC to make one. I assume the staff you are referring to is the one that would cost 766,300gp to craft.
A 20th level NPC would only have about 159,000gp to spend, nowhere near enough.
That's an average 20th level NPC (and a wizard one that didn't bother making money with Fabricate, using teleport to transport goods, etc, etc). But a ruler of a nation would have great deal more wealth. A being that became a god would have more.
Not that a Staff of Wishes is necessary. Simulacrums and the like can do the needed work. A Staff of Wishes is just an extreme example -- and there are other ways of getting a wish.
Atrocious wrote: But it would pay for itself in two months you say, so the PC could buy back all his stuff then. Sure, but let's just hope no one powerful comes to steal that staff of munchkin while his stuff is all gone, without his gear a 20th level PC is severely depowered. Yeah, it isn't like they'd have something like Forbiddance on a Demiplane.
Atrocious wrote: Say a city state metropolis of 25,000 people were to pay for this (and most of those 25,000 people are likely untrained laborers who make 1sp per day). It would cost around 12,000$ per person in that city to make the jokestaff. Sorry people of the city, we can't afford to pay for sanitation, city guards, fire protection, the military, public... Obviously you don't start with the Staff of Wishes if you can't afford it -- though you could go with one of the other ways to get wishes. The other stuff with simulacrums, cheap magical items, and the like are enough to start an economic boom. They pay for themselves too.
You also seem to forget that the wealth disparity would be a great deal worse back then. Just looking at the poorest people is an immensely poor way to gauge wealth. Let's bear in mind there's a civilization that has made multiple artifacts just for the death sentence.
Akadzjian wrote: Drachasor, the difference between technology and magic is thus: One person wields said power. Even with Simulacrum it'd take time to make the Sim, and the staff of wishes more importantly. This makes it EASIER not harder. You just need ONE MAN to start this sort of thing off -- and heck, 20th level Wizards can become immortal with a feat; plenty of time to work on things.
But, I am amused to find so many people believe medieval stasis in a world with such powerful magic is realistic.
Drachasor wrote: FallofCamelot wrote: Staff of Wishes? Where in any book is there a Staff of Wishes? Staff creation rules are straight-forward and don't come with the proviso that Wondrous Items do about costs being difficult to determine. We're just putting the Wish spell into a staff afterall. It does cost a LOT
(1.2 million gp). You might as well complain about combining armor enchantments together if that particular combo doesn't exist in the book. I'll point out that characters aren't allowed to spend more than half their wealth by level on any one item and that 1.2 million gp exceeds even a 20th level character's wealth by a not insignificant margin.
Quote: Deadmanwalking wrote: Drachasor wrote: Who'd do this? Why the Good King. Several are 20th level wizards/sorcerers. Huh? In Golarion, based on Inner Sea Magic and the Dragon Empires Gazetteer, I see a whole one currently-alive Good-aligned ruler who's also a high level Wizard or Sorcerer...and she's only 15th (there are a few more high level Good-aligned Cleric rulers...but I still only count three even of those).
That's entirely aside from the potential moral issues with using huge amounts of Simulacrum slave labor that are posed by this suggestion. That's something that might be interesting to explore...but doing what's described isn't an unalloyed good by any means. Yeah, it's a shame there wasn't some sort of god-like entity watching over humanity at any point in the past that could have done all this.
Neutral will do in a pinch though, they care about their people. Good people have to worry about everyone.
As for the slave labor issue, that's solved easily enough. You pick someone self-sacrificing as the basis. They'd WANT to do it.
First, there's just as many godlike entities watching over humanity that would want to stop this. Secondly, I don't think even good aligned godlike entitites are going to want to put a staff of wishes into the hands of mortals. Power corrupts and all that.
And no one is so self-sacrificing as to wish to allow themselves to be bound into indefinite and repeated slavery.
Drachasor wrote: Yeah, it's a shame there wasn't some sort of god-like entity watching over humanity at any point in the past that could have done all this. He kinda, y'know, died. Which sorta wrecked any stuff like this he'd set up. And he was LN anyway, and much more concrned about humanity as a whole than individual humans.
Drachasor wrote: Neutral will do in a pinch though, they care about their people. Good people have to worry about everyone. Yeah...still aren't any of those ruling countries. I count several Oracles, a Druid, and a Cleric on top of those mentioned previously. All 15th level at most. And a single Dragon.
That's...really not the people necessary to do this kind of thing.
Drachasor wrote: As for the slave labor issue, that's solved easily enough. You pick someone self-sacrificing as the basis. They'd WANT to do it. Easier said than done. And who says they'll want to do the exact thing you want them to? I mean, maybe if they're all LG and really loyal...but then you run into other problems:
Like the fact that Simulacrums don't heal and are prohibitively expensive to fix. So attrition's gonna eat away at them pretty fast, comparatively.
Or like the fact that, even if they were free, your 20th level Wizard is pretty much the only guy who can make them and they take him a day each. So how many of these can he actually make a year? 300 at most? And how big a populace does he rule? Say his country's only 320,000, by my calculations that's 4,000 5th level or higher characters of PC classes. Call 1 in 10 of them a Cleric (or equivalent), that's 400. Three years of work and even with attrition our 20th level Wizard will have tripled the number of such Clerics available. A worthy cause, certainly. This will have cost him over 2 million GP and 9,600 hours of his time, which is to say a 12 hour day 6 days a week for three years.
One would think he could spend his time better. And that's for a relatively small kingdom. A kingdom of 1 million people, and he hasn't even doubled the number of healers (though he's admittedly raised it by two thirds or so).
And anyway, it won't last, because even at 5 points of damage a year (hardly unlikely), most of these Simulacra are going to be gone in less than a decade due to the healing issues mentioned above.
ShadowcatX wrote: I'll point out that characters aren't allowed to spend more than half their wealth by level on any one item and that 1.2 million gp exceeds even a 20th level character's wealth by a not insignificant margin. We're not talking about guidelines for characters. We're talking about a realistic planet and the consequences of magical items and high-level magic.
ShadowcatX wrote: First, there's just as many godlike entities watching over humanity that would want to stop this. Secondly, I don't think even good aligned godlike entitites are going to want to put a staff of wishes into the hands of mortals. Power corrupts and all that. Maybe my reference to a certain dead god went over your head. And to be clear, I was proposing the GOD would use their power to do it. They can avoid the whole Staff of Wishes issue. And power doesn't necessarily corrupt, or are you saying that good-aligned deities are actually evil? (To say nothing of long-lived good-aligned wizards, etc, etc).
ShadowcatX wrote: Drachasor wrote: As for the slave labor issue, that's solved easily enough. You pick someone self-sacrificing as the basis. They'd WANT to do it. And no one is so self-sacrificing as to wish to allow themselves to be bound into indefinite and repeated slavery.
There are about a million ways to handle that. They are still a profitable expense if they (the simulacrums) are free to do as they wish after 5 years. They'd still be contributing to the economy and general state of health at that point. There are plenty of people that have lived in squalor to help others -- and this isn't even asking for that. It is pretty realistic to find volunteers who WANT to help others.
Beyond that, it isn't slavery if you WANT to do that. A 5th level caster can survive on their own at a decent standard of living easily enough. More so if it is higher level. If they enjoy helping others, then where's the slavery by letting them do that? You could even give them very classy accomodations using Wall of Stone, Stone Shape, Fabricate, etc. A simulacrum of a wizard/architect would enjoy that work (and each place only needs to be set up once).
Nothing here prevents them from acquiring items, hobbies, etc, though they can't increase their skill ranks.
Your objection here is very much like saying "How dare you find people who want to help others and then have them do it!" Rings kinda hollow.
Drachasor wrote:
Yes, because it assumes there is no quarantine system, no wands of Cure Disease kept on standby for plagues, no periapts of health for healers, no teleporting in more healers in an emergency, etc, etc, etc.
But I suppose a DM could rule that no one is smart enough to prepare for disasters or that Wands of Cure Disease are impossible to make just because he said so.
Fundamentally, it assumes that the potential need far outweighs the supply. One core assumption is that characters (player and non-player) who can actually wield these resources are rare compared to the rest of the population. Teleporting in clerics really just deprives other areas of the clerics they need. So you save some people from disease in Korvosa - how many injuries or diseases are going unhealed while they're gone from their home territory? And just how many 5th level wand-making clerics are there to generate those cure disease wands? To cover the whole city, as a preventative measure, they've got to stockpile 370 wands at a cost of over 2 million gold and over 40 years of cumulative labor and you'll still risk reinfection with sufficiently virulent diseases. Keeping a dose of smallpox vaccine for everyone in the US may be possible, but we have much higher economies of scale with that sort of production than wand makers in a fantasy game.
Deadmanwalking wrote: Drachasor wrote: Yeah, it's a shame there wasn't some sort of god-like entity watching over humanity at any point in the past that could have done all this. He kinda, y'know, died. Which sorta wrecked any stuff like this he'd set up. And he was LN anyway, and much more concrned about humanity as a whole than individual humans.
Drachasor wrote: Neutral will do in a pinch though, they care about their people. Good people have to worry about everyone. Yeah...still aren't any of those ruling countries. I count several Oracles, a Druid, and a Cleric on top of those mentioned previously. All 15th level at most. And a single Dragon.
That's...really not the people necessary to do this kind of thing. I'm pointing out how the setting is unrealistic -- an inherent problem in D&D honestly. There have been many possible casters that could have done this in the history of the setting.
Deadmanwalking wrote: Like the fact that Simulacrums don't heal and are prohibitively expensive to fix. So attrition's gonna eat away at them pretty fast, comparatively. They visit a positively aligned demiplane now and then to get fast healing. That'll take care of that quickly. (Though actually, the text doesn't even prevent healing spells from working on them, it never did).
Deadmanwalking wrote: Or like the fact that, even if they were free, your 20th level Wizard is pretty much the only guy who can make them and they take him a day each. You just need a 13th level Wizard to make a Simulacrum that's 5th level. So there are a lot more of those around. Need to be a bit higher for a demiplane for healing, but there are other options.
Drachasor wrote: ShadowcatX wrote: I'll point out that characters aren't allowed to spend more than half their wealth by level on any one item and that 1.2 million gp exceeds even a 20th level character's wealth by a not insignificant margin. We're not talking about guidelines for characters. We're talking about a realistic planet and the consequences of magical items and high-level magic. So you're saying you only use the rules when they suit you? Then of course things get broken rather quickly.
Quote: ShadowcatX wrote: First, there's just as many godlike entities watching over humanity that would want to stop this. Secondly, I don't think even good aligned godlike entitites are going to want to put a staff of wishes into the hands of mortals. Power corrupts and all that. Maybe my reference to a certain dead god went over your head. And to be clear, I was proposing the GOD would use their power to do it. They can avoid the whole Staff of Wishes issue. And power doesn't necessarily corrupt, or are you saying that good-aligned deities are actually evil? (To say nothing of long-lived good-aligned wizards, etc, etc).
First, no, I got it, just didn't care, because as I point out there's equally as many deities who don't want mortals having this sort of thing.
I'd say it is much harder to corrupt a god than it is to corrupt a human being. (Not impossible mind you, but harder.)
Quote: ShadowcatX wrote: Drachasor wrote: As for the slave labor issue, that's solved easily enough. You pick someone self-sacrificing as the basis. They'd WANT to do it. And no one is so self-sacrificing as to wish to allow themselves to be bound into indefinite and repeated slavery.
There are about a million ways to handle that. They are still a profitable expense if they (the simulacrums) are free to do as they wish after 5 years. They'd still be contributing to the economy and general state of health at that point. There are plenty of people that have lived in squalor to help others -- and this isn't even asking for that. It is pretty realistic to find volunteers who WANT to help others.
So indentured servitude? Ya. . . That worked out to be totally not slavery and not a horrible thing, right? And someone needs to go watch blade runner.
Quote: Your objection here is very much like saying "How dare you find people who want to help others and then have them do it!" Rings kinda hollow. My belief that people aren't going to volunteer for slavery rings hollow? Since you brought up the gods, it is a good thing there's not some butterfly goddess out there with a chaotic alignment and a passionate hatred of slavery. . .
Dude, you've already made up your mind about this, I don't even know why I'm talking to you, you're not listening. (And on that note, I think we've discussed this on another site, if you are who I think you are.)
Bill Dunn wrote: Fundamentally, it assumes that the potential need far outweighs the supply. One core assumption is that characters (player and non-player) who can actually wield these resources are rare compared to the rest of the population. Teleporting in clerics really just deprives other areas of the clerics they need.[Emphasis Added] On the bolded bit, you've just used an incredibly weak argument against every sort of emergency service EVER.
As for the rest, the problem with such a core assumption is that it falls apart when there are spells and effects that would completely change the economic structure of the world -- and rarity does not stop it. Do you have any idea how RARE Airplanes are compared to the number of people? Hardly any per person. They've radically changed how we live and operate.
ShadowcatX wrote: So you're saying you only use the rules when they suit you? Then of course things get broken rather quickly. 1. They don't apply to NPCs.
2. They are guidelines.
3. They are designed around balanced play, which is very different from looking at what makes a realistic world.
The OP's question is a theoretical one about the world, so we can't be bothered with artificial constraints about balanced play when looking at the game world. We must instead look at the capabilities of people and how they might be best applied.
ShadowcatX wrote: So indentured servitude? Ya. . . That worked out to be totally not slavery and not a horrible thing, right? And someone needs to go watch blade runner. Stories are not reality for one. And again, we're picking people who would WANT to do this. That's the selection process. It isn't slavery if you choose to give of yourself.
Do you not believe that people can want to sacrifice a few years of their life to help others? Do you think such people don't exist? Or do you think it is impossible for such people to become spellcasters?
ShadowcatX wrote: Dude, you've already made up your mind about this, I don't even know why I'm talking to you, you're not listening. (And on that note, I think we've discussed this on another site, if you are who I think you are.) We haven't, since I haven't ever discussed this with anyone. I admit I've thought of it more since reading over some of Tippy's stuff, whom I assume you are referring to. That's a bit extreme for me though. : )
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Drachasor wrote: I'm pointing out how the setting is unrealistic -- an inherent problem in D&D honestly. There have been many possible casters that could have done this in the history of the setting. Who exactly? Old Mage Jatembe, maybe, but that was a while ago. Aroden when he was mortal, maybe, but again, like 1000+ years ago (which is plenty of time for things to stop working). Who else?
Drachasor wrote: They visit a positively aligned demiplane now and then to get fast healing. That'll take care of that quickly. (Though actually, the text doesn't even prevent healing spells from working on them, it never did). I'm of the opinion that the spell strongly implies they can't heal without the alchemical process mentioned in the spell...otherwise why even mention such a costly alternative? I guess it doesn't technically say that...but that strikes me as not really representing the word as intended since it's no longer using the rules as intended.
Drachasor wrote: You just need a 13th level Wizard to make a Simulacrum that's 5th level. So there are a lot more of those around. Need to be a bit higher for a demiplane for healing, but there are other options. Not that many more. Again, by my calculations, in the aforementioned kingdom of 320,000 there are 14 or so people of 13th level plus. How many of those are Wizards...two? Maybe three? Those guys totally don't have better things to do. Even in the kingdom of 1 million, we're still talking like, 45 people total of those levels, and thus 4 or 5 Wizards. This is not a populous level range.
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Drachasor wrote: ShadowcatX wrote: So you're saying you only use the rules when they suit you? Then of course things get broken rather quickly. 1. They don't apply to NPCs. They don't? That's funny because I recall a specific chart for wealth by level specifically for NPCs. I wonder who that chart applies to.
Quote: 2. They are guidelines. All the rules are guidelines. Still, if you don't follow any of them, you're not really playing Pathfinder, are you?
Quote: 3. They are designed around balanced play, which is very different from looking at what makes a realistic world.
The OP's question is a theoretical one about the world, so we can't be bothered with artificial constraints about balanced play when looking at the game world. We must instead look at the capabilities of people and how they might be best applied.
Except that you blind yourself to all the bad things that can disrupt your "realistic" world. You've convinced yourself that your way is the way it would be in a "real" fantasy world, and ignore everything to the contrary.
ShadowcatX wrote: So indentured servitude? Ya. . . That worked out to be totally not slavery and not a horrible thing, right? And someone needs to go watch blade runner. Stories are not reality for one. And again, we're picking people who would WANT to do this. That's the selection process. It isn't slavery if you choose to give of yourself.
Do you not believe that people can want to sacrifice a few years of their life to help others? Do you think such people don't exist? Or do you think it is impossible for such people to become spellcasters? I believe a very few such people might exist. Now what do you think the odds are that one of those people exist
A) While your theoretical selfless spell caster also exists.
B) Exists in an area where they can hear of one another.
C) Doesn't get killed by all the bad people that don't like people who are selfless.
D) Also happens to be at least a 5th level spell caster.
Because I'd say those odds are pretty freaking small.
Deadmanwalking wrote: Drachasor wrote: I'm pointing out how the setting is unrealistic -- an inherent problem in D&D honestly. There have been many possible casters that could have done this in the history of the setting. Who exactly? Old Mage Jatembe, maybe, but that was a while ago. Aroden when he was mortal, maybe, but again, like 1000+ years ago (which is plenty of time for things to stop working). Who else? If my argument is that the world isn't realistic, then I just really need one example. I have more than one. Done.
Deadmanwalking wrote: Drachasor wrote: They visit a positively aligned demiplane now and then to get fast healing. That'll take care of that quickly. (Though actually, the text doesn't even prevent healing spells from working on them, it never did). I'm of the opinion that the spell strongly implies they can't heal without the alchemical process mentioned in the spell...otherwise why even mention such a costly alternative? I guess it doesn't technically say that...but that strikes me as not really representing the word as intended since it's no longer using the rules as intended.
No more than Constructs in 3.X were implied to not be healable save by certain effects. Actually, Constructs had MUCH stronger language regarding healing, and a similar method of costly repair. That didn't stop spells or fast healing effects from working on them.
Deadmanwalking wrote: Drachasor wrote: You just need a 13th level Wizard to make a Simulacrum that's 5th level. So there are a lot more of those around. Need to be a bit higher for a demiplane for healing, but there are other options. Not that many more. Again, by my calculations, in the aforementioned kingdom of 320,000 there are 14 or so people of 13th level plus. How many of those are Wizards...two? Maybe three? Those guys totally don't have better things to do. Even in the kingdom of 1 million, we're still talking like, 45 people total of those levels, and thus 4 or 5 Wizards. This is not a populous level range.
That is, in fact, a whole bunch more. Over time that's a huge difference. Remember, we are looking at how significant magic would impact an entire society. By your arguments even places like Nex shouldn't exist. Which is absurd. I'm just pointing out there are broader implications that we all gloss over.
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