What does a world with magic look like?

[JDCAce]

I'm creating my own world, and I've hit a significant roadblock. How does magic affect everyday life? With spells that can teleport people thousands of miles, how does that effect inter-city trade and travel? How do you build a city when the enemy can literally walk through your walls or fly over them (or even simply appear in your throne room)? How does telepathy affect communication?

I suppose this all depends on how common magic is, how many people can cast spells of different levels, etc. But what's the average? How did you build your magical world?

[Daelen]

A good rule of thumb, in my opinion, is that the higher level you are, the more likely you're being watched by someone of importance as a spellcaster especially. by about 10-15 you're becoming at the very least world renowned, and any higher than that and planar beings have started to take notice. What that means, among other things, is that anyone with villainous intent would have a hard time getting up to some of the higher level spells before a group of adventurers gets sent out to stop them.

[Vincent Takeda]

A rotating activation of campfire beads and that everflowing flask can go a long way towards a low cost functioning tavern...

I've often considered the idea of a small community 100 people or less where they used a rotating series of 7 rods of splendor to feed themselves. Maybe everyone in the community has 3 campfire beads and maybe those winterland boots so the community is in some horribly inhospitable but relatively windless mountain range...

The idea is still in development but I muse on it from time to time.

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

Also most magic items don't "wear out," so a one time invesent will last effectively forever. An decanter of endless water in the desert, for example, can create a permanent oasis. Until someone steals or breaks the thing, of course.

[darkorbit]

Honestly, I would just imagine or human world with magic. That's how I would make my magical world. I would make the technology more primitive, like no gun use. Also, I would add more tension, like there is dark magic at play...

[thejeff]

Generally magic, at least of the high-level Pathfinder variety, has to be fairly rare if you want your world to look anything like what people expect from fantasy. The vast majority of the population gets by without any magic other than maybe some healing from a local priest or adept. Wars are primarily fought by normal troops with magical support rather than just teleporting caster hit squads.
Magic can certainly be invoked to make the world a nicer place than much of the real-worlds history. Cure Disease, along with things like purify food and water can do a lot to keep diseases from spreading. A quick word of advice from the gods about sterilization would be probably do more.

But really, that's what most genre fantasy looks like: Some part of real-world history + magic. And a good deal of suspension of disbelief to keep it all working.:)

If you really want to work out what the effects of common powerful magic are likely to be, you're going to wind up with something more like the modern world or something really weird, depending on which direction you take it.

[Nox Aeterna]

First you must decide if it is low or high magic. (Or something in the middle :P)

If it is low magic you can imagine it closer to ours and magic being things that few people like adventurers use. Common people would have no access to these things. (effects of this could be that technology is then more advanced since people dont rely on magic)

If it is high magic then world would trully need a reshape. yes mages could have come up with something for fast transport inside a kingdom for example. A city like said above could use its taxes to buy magical services that helped from the plantation to other everyday things. Certain bigger taverns could have magic items that help them provide a better service or even shows with bards and so on. You could have an actual newspaper made from every corner of the world by people who teleported and shared the info and distribution. (Just make sure to keep some control over what normal people can get here , otherwise you will have PC with flying boots lvl 1 because everyone can buy those... ofc , unless you want that :P)

[thejeff]

Nox Aeterna wrote:

First you must decide if it is low or high magic. (Or something in the middle :P)

If it is low magic you can imagine it closer to ours and magic being things that few people like adventurers use. Common people would have no access to these things. (effects of this could be that technology is then more advanced since people dont rely on magic)

If it is high magic then world would trully need a reshape. yes mages could have come up with something for fast transport inside a kingdom for example. A city like said above could use its taxes to buy magical services that helped from the plantation to other everyday things. Certain bigger taverns could have magic items that help them provide a better service or even shows with bards and so on. You could have an actual newspaper made from every corner of the world by people who teleported and shared the info and distribution. (Just make sure to keep some control over what normal people can get here , otherwise you will have PC with flying boots lvl 1 because everyone can buy those... ofc , unless you want that :P)

Of course, by this usage, Golarion (and most published D&D worlds, except Eberron, I think) qualify as low-magic, which seems a little odd to me, since D&D has always been a high magic game.

Mostly, this has been done by handwaving the effects away, which is a perfectly fine approach.

[robert best 549]

I think it depends on 2 things really how prevalent is literacy or education in general in your world that you imagine, and has the printing press or an equivalent usage of a spell come into being. If yes to both it is conceivable that every commoner knows cantrips and maybe the hygiene spell(assuming it exist in the world). If one of those 2 is lacking, your magic becomes much more limited, maybe having literacy limited to small cities and up. Then you also can factor for how paranoid about magic the common folk are based off these things.I like settings where magic is common personally.

Edit: some of those excluded traveling teachers but hey, they can't be that common as dangerous as the Golarion or Eberron settings are.

[Atarlost]

If the base population is assumed to be 3d6 rolled in order 75% of the population could cast at least first level spells if they took the effort to learn and could find a wizard or bard to teach them.

They won't because that would oversaturate the market and that education has opportunity costs, but they could and the market for first level magic should be saturated.

The majority of urban households will probably have someone who can cast mending and prestidigitation and unseen servant.

Rural populations may not have access to wizarding schools, but bards don't need advanced literacy and every village of any size should have a journeyman level bard (level 3-4ish) capable of teaching those with potential to reach first level bardhood. Even 50% casters is a lot, though you may not quite get one per household.

[Mark Hoover]

What do you WANT it to look like? You're the bloody GM. Yes, there exists a spell that lets you teleport all over. If the few wizards/sorcerers/witches/magi of the world were benevolent or at least concerned in some way with commerce, they'd have gifted/sold that magic to merchants and you'd have teleportation circles dotting the landscape.

If however (like in my homebrew of Karnoss) a massive, multi-religion inquisition scoured the land capturing, torturing and ultimately burning all arcanists and their associates a little over a century ago and convinced their respective churches to preach brimstone and hellfire to all those who aspire to such magical pursuits, then more than likely you'd have a grim world of fear and loathing. Then, when these churches have a falling out with their respective inquisitors enacting a holy war that thins the ranks of divine magic too, you have a low-magic world where just making a permanent bowl for cleaning oneself a la Prestidigitation becomes tantamount to horror.

It really depends on what world you want.

Me, I've done both and prefer a happy medium where I don't worry about it. If your players don't really care for such details, why bother crafting them?

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

Keep in mind that Evil can also be powerful. Take a look at the Codex Arcanis for a high-magic fantasy setting where powerful spellcasters exist, and have to keep both eyes open for other powerful spellcasters.

[Mordo the Spaz - Forum Troll]

JDCAce wrote:

How does magic affect everyday life?

Glowing Rectangles

[Zhayne]

Look up Eberron. The primary inspiration for the setting was 'what would a world look like where magic actually affected sociological development', instead of the bizarre middle-ages stasis.

[RedDogMT]

Mapleswitch wrote:

50% of magical items are supposed to glow.

Sorry, that is incorrect.

By RAW, fully 30% of magic weapons shed light equivalent to a light spell.

Also by RAW, the GM can change and shape the rules as he likes for his game.

[SeeleyOne]

Light Generation: Fully 30% of magic weapons shed light equivalent to a light spell. These glowing weapons are quite obviously magical. Such a weapon can’t be concealed when drawn, nor can its light be shut off. Some of the specific weapons detailed below always or never glow, as defined in their descriptions.

[pibby]

The influence of magic over the universe depends on how prominent you want casters of certain levels to be. By allowing wizards with 4th level spells to be common then you got things like Dimension Door, Scrying, Contagion, Enervation to deal with; and those were just 4th level.
At the moment, I'm making a world that follows the rules for an E6 campaign. If you want a world that is comparable to Lord of the Rings, look up E6 threads.
If you want a world with crazy magic, I suggest you cap the level of casters in the world at level 12ish like they do in Pathfinder Society. At level 11 Wizards have access to Planar Binding, letting them bind Efreeti who have Wish as a spell-like ability. But if anything, never let casters go beyond level 14, especially Wizards. I forgot exactly what 8th level spell they use that makes them completely busted at that point, but most campaigns I've heard of are completed by level 15 anyways.

[robert best 549]

SeeleyOne wrote:

Light Generation: Fully 30% of magic weapons shed light equivalent to a light spell. These glowing weapons are quite obviously magical. Such a weapon can’t be concealed when drawn, nor can its light be shut off. Some of the specific weapons detailed below always or never glow, as defined in their descriptions.

Gotta love the brilliant energy weapon. "Who wants a light saber? I do!!"

[Odraude]

Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

Also most magic items don't "wear out," so a one time invesent will last effectively forever. An decanter of endless water in the desert, for example, can create a permanent oasis. Until someone steals or breaks the thing, of course.

Either that or an expansive salt flat akin to Salar de Uyuni.

[Odraude]

Also, magic would change the world depending on how many spells casters there are in the world. I usually run games where a minute fraction of the population can cast spells, and of them, even less get into high levels. Course, the PCs and NPCs they fight are exceptions. And even a fraction of a world's population is still a decent amount of casters that could change the world.

[Helic]

1. Death from injury becomes a lot less commonplace. A lot of people can afford to have a potion of Cure Light Wounds hanging around to save a life - it might be worth a common man's month's pay, that's still totally affordable.

2. Despite what people might think, there will not be enough 9th level Wizards around to replace craftsmen with castings of Fabricate.

3. Similarly, the use of Teleport will only really affect the luxury goods market, and even then it will merely stabilize prices over regions rather than allowing a supply and demand economy. Only so many teleporting Wizards can only move so many goods, after all.

4. Raise Dead, Cure Disease and Neutralize Poison will all extend the life span of the rich/nobility by a large amount. The wealthy strata of society will inherit late in life as a rule, this will leave a lot of idle heirs around to cause trouble for everyone.

[Vod Canockers]

JDCAce wrote:

I'm creating my own world, and I've hit a significant roadblock. How does magic affect everyday life? With spells that can teleport people thousands of miles, how does that effect inter-city trade and travel? How do you build a city when the enemy can literally walk through your walls or fly over them (or even simply appear in your throne room)? How does telepathy affect communication?

I suppose this all depends on how common magic is, how many people can cast spells of different levels, etc. But what's the average? How did you build your magical world?

The Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust is one of the highest magic fantasy series I can think of. It has multiple kinds of magic, one of which any Imperial citizen can use. Teleportation is common, at least amongst the rich and powerful.

[ParagonDireRaccoon]

The arrival of Europeans in North America shows some factors that might be useful. Native Americans on the East Coast had farming practices that used a rotation of crops to keep nutrients in the soil replenished. There was a consistent and sustainable yield, and enough forest land was left uncultivated to support biodiversity of game animals and plants used for medicinal purposes. In Europe, grain agriculture produced higher yields but depletes nutrients in the soil (fields were often unused for a season every now and then to let the nutrients replenish). The close proximity of humans and farm animals and poor hygiene led to diseases like smallpox, and high resistance to smallpox. These two different models of society could be applied to societies in a high magic world. To use the racial archetypes, elves would use high magic to live in harmony with nature with consistent, relatively small surpluses of food of resources. Dwarfs might use a high level of magic to build deeper underground, finding both great riches and dangerous creatures deep below the mountains. Humans might maximize yield of produce and expand, requiring more land and more resources.

There is a field of study called Agrarian Studies (the most prominent professors in the field are at Yale). Agrarian Studies looks at how sedentary grain agriculture is tied to the growth of nation-states. Grain agriculture produces high yields, and must be harvest at a predictable time, so is ideal for a tax-collecting nation-state with a high population density. High magic could drastically alter the growth and structure of civilization. High magic could allow high agricultural yields without grain agriculture. Depending on what kind of world you like to GM, you could have regions with densely populated nation-states with high levels of magic, and regions sparsely populated regions and small communities led by powerful druids, clerics, sorcerers, witches, bards, and oracles.

Another potential factor in a high magic world is extraplanar influence, and strength of magical creatures. Some fantasy (I can't think of any examples off the top of my head) features dragons who purge the humanoid races every thousand years or so to keep PC races from getting out of hand. Bestiary 4 has a lot of cool, powerful monsters that could significantly reduce PC race populations. You have a lot of options when designing a high-magic world.

[Kimera757]

You need to ask a lot of questions. More specific ones. It doesn't help that people make lots of assumptions about medieval life that isn't true, or in many cases we just don't know the answers.

Take a look at the demographics rules. Every village has casters, but only a few. A big city might have a 12th-level wizard, 13th-level cleric, and so forth. Note that every 2 levels "down", double the number of that class. So if your city has 1 12th-level wizard, it has 2 10th-level, 4 8th-level, and so forth.

Magic is more available in big cities, much like certain conveniences are more available in big cities today.

JDCAce wrote:

I'm creating my own world, and I've hit a significant roadblock. How does magic affect everyday life? With spells that can teleport people thousands of miles, how does that effect inter-city trade and travel?

Spellcasting has costs. It's spell level x caster level x 10 gp. So a teleport spell costs at minimum 450 gp (5 x 9 x 10 gp). I'm only taking into account common classes. Maybe summoners cast Teleport at lower level, but I'm ignoring that.

A teleport spell is pointless for the purposes of cargo transportation if you're sending something not worth 450 gp. That's actually a lot of money for anyone who isn't an adventurer. Even a noble won't want to use it that much.

You can bring your maximum load with you. That puts limits on how much stuff you can take. You're not teleporting wagon loads, unless you've found a way of abusing Strength/size-boosting magic (and that raises the costs anyway). Take low-weight high-value stuff like magic items. And, of course, passengers. Note that passengers won't be carrying much luggage.

Teleporting is unreliable. A wizard operating a teleporting business probably offers "flights" to a few specific safe areas they're familiar with, within 100 miles. That'll keep the failure rate manageable. Note that the 3% failure rate for teleporting home might be enough to put a stop to a business. If only 97% of letters that you sent got through, would you trust the postal service? And what if you only sent important letters, each worth $450+?

Note that, even if your city has three people capable of casting Teleport, maybe one doesn't have that spell in his spellbook, and another couldn't care less about a teleporting business, he's too busy researching new spells or secretly trying to conquer the world. Only the largest cities are likely to have that kind of business, and the upkeep would be high. You would need "teleport insurance" which covers finding lost wizards and clients. You would probably spend a lot of money on Teleport scrolls, as your 12th-level wizard only has so many 5th-level spell slots. You would want some sort of guardian for when you accidentally teleport into Orcton.

Quote:

How do you build a city when the enemy can literally walk through your walls or fly over them (or even simply appear in your throne room)?

You would build a city the same way. We have troop transporting helicopters, and yet that has little effect on how we build a city. Walls still keep out weak and/or non-magical groups. They have just become less important.

Castles don't have large open courtyards, or even any. They don't have flat roofs either. The tops of walls where guards patrol are covered too (with wooded "hoardings" that protect your troops from rain, too). Most have a lead-lined "panic room" and a system to defeat magic. The system is not foolproof by any stretch, but enemies have to research it... and the system is different for every castle. Anyone asking awkward questions will be chased...

The king's throne room has magical traps. His bedroom has magical traps. These traps do things like dish out Greater Dispel Magic when people arrive (to strip off their buffs and prevent Scry/Buff/'Port attacks). In fact, they're probably protected from scrying (see the Private Sanctum spell).

Furthermore he's guarded by his court wizard and confessor, both of whom provide magical support. The king can be a witless 1st-level aristocrat and he's still not the softest of targets. (And frankly he's probably breaking the wealth-by-level guidelines. He's a king after all. He inherited his stuff from his 10th-level father.)

Note that the king had better keep his court wizard and confessor happy. That means no kicking arrogant mages in the teeth, because that could offend your court wizard. Don't offend the person who keeps visitors from charming you, and can charm you himself. Religion is obviously important, which means don't offend your confessor. You don't want him to deny you healing or condition relief. This is much like keeping your nobles and troops happy, now you have more factions to appease.

Now what if in your society mages and clerics don't get along? Some societies might ban mages, including the king... or not, because court wizards are just too valuable. Make your choice, and know the consequences.

What if your confessor demands you suppress the druids? That means no one is casting Plant Growth, and you're dependent on the high yields. Or you can deny the confessor, in which case your armies lost their healers (and you just lost yours too).

Quote:

How does telepathy affect communication?

Generally telepathy provided by spell doesn't last long, and for communication purposes requires consent. It also has limited range. Comprehend Languages and Tongues have a far bigger effect on the world. Then again, a near-universal Common language means your world already doesn't resemble the real world.

[Azten]

If you want technology to advance about the same time, look at almost any cutscenes from a Final Fantasy game.

[Indagare]

Besides the fact that Mark Hoover is right and ultimately you must decide for yourself, some other things you must consider is whether or not there's 'natural magic' - that is, if there are 'pools' of magic in places that do specific things (pools of healing, places of transformations, etc).

More than arcane magic, divine magic will define a setting: deities answer prayers. There's no reason a local priest/ess cannot have access to orisons and first-level magic as long as they are faithful.

[yellowdingo]

Consider if you will Motorola's decision to patent a throat microphone in the form of a Tattoo (Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2426918,00.asp). The fact is if 'technology' can be reduced to a tattoo on the skin then why not magic? Imagine TAZER Tattoos (a full body capacitor capable of storing electrical energy) and telecommunications tattoos. now imagine the ability to tattoo a wizard's spellbook on a host body and allow even non-spellcasters to access the magic on a daily basis.

[Cathulhu]

Reminds me of the Tippyverse.

basically, this is a guide to how magic affects everyday life in a world with high magic... it is based around 3.X, but its close enough. Its pretty radically different than what most imagine, and it is very thorough.

I STRONGLY advise any serious GM to read it.

[sunshadow21]

That's one way it can turn out, but far from the only way. Tippyverse makes a lot of assumptions that I don't entirely agree with, and it is definitely an extreme example. Could be a fun one to play in, but it's not the only possibility.

For my custom world, I personally equate magic to technology in our world and treat accordingly. Low level magic/tech is pretty abundant. Anything up to 3rd level spells and/or roughly 4k would be much like cars or phones to us; a ready market with comparatively little regulation or concerns. As you get into higher level stuff, or specific subcategories, like teleporting or necromancy to name a few, limited markets, regulations, and oversight become increasingly important and it becomes a lot harder to work with such things without someone catching wind of it and running interference before you can fully execute your plans if you're doing something stupid. The really high level magic is the equivalent of top secret weaponry or nuclear warheads, and is definitely not something that anyone is going to be tossing around lightly. I like this balance as it allows for the assumptions about magic built into the system to hold true for the most part while still preserving the limited impact of the truly world shaping stuff.

[the David]

The best way to figure this out is to get some creative ways to use spells.

1st level clerics can perform miracles with Create Water and Purify Food and Drink. 3rd level clerics use Consecrate on graveyards to prevent the dead from rising from their graves, or casts Zone of Truth at the court. A 5th level druid could go from village to village to cast Plant Growth to increase the production of food. 5th level clerics Animate Dead so they don't need to use slaves for their dirty work.

The possibilities are endless, but it all depends on the amount of spellcasters. The 3.5 DMG had rules for this though.

[JDCAce]

So many great questions i need to ask myself! Thanks for the tips! Once I have some answers, I'll let you guys know.

I have heard of Eberron, and I kinda wanted my world to be a mix of Eberron and a standard middle-ages-esque world. I was thinking of creating various guilds that would provide services, such as a transportation guild that provides teleportation, at a cost of course. I was thinking the cost would be about half the listed cost of getting an appropriately leveled wizard to cast the spell for you (under the spellcasting services section). There would need to be a guild house to take advantage of their services, so it wouldn't be everywhere.

As for the "buy a couple magic items for the betterment of the village" ideas, while very creative, I think those would be rare. I'll probably use that decanter of endless water idea, though!

EDIT: Kimera, your analysis has put doubts in my mind about a sustainable transportation guild. I'll give it more thought and tell you what I've come up with.

[Pupsocket]

At the low end, life is certainly easier. You can expect to have 7 or 8 healthy children easily. And you need them, because disasters and monster attacks are ridiculously common.

[Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan]

Ptolus describes a world where city guards aren't even surprised when they find a random web spell across the city streets, and commoners aren't remotely impressed with the parlor tricks of magic spells,a s they've seen it all.

[marcryser]

Another thing to remember is that 'magic' can be very common in a society without being the spells and spellcasters from the PHB. Since all it takes is an intelligence, wisdom, or charisma of 10 to cast 0 level spells... the vast majority of normal people could do it. Maybe 10-20% of the npc people that inhabit a village are not commoners or experts but adepts.

They might have spells which are very useful to a stay at home caster or community but which no adventurer in his/her right mind would ever learn. A 1st level adept could work very closely with the 1st level expert carpenter in building a house. The 1st level commoners cut trees down and bring them to the site. The carpenter cuts the wood and draws the plans while the adept dries the wood with his only 1st level spell 'kiln wood.' Further he uses his cantrips to 'sand wood' and 'plane wood' and uses mage hand to lift buckets of nails to the carpenter. He can work all day and really speed up construction but probably couldn't kill an orc with 'nail gun' unless he got really lucky.

Maybe in this world the spells in the PHB are regulated and only available to licensed and registered characters. Magic Missile could be a lot like a gun and only available if you pass the background check.

[Kimera757]

JDCAce wrote:

EDIT: Kimera, your analysis has put doubts in my mind about a sustainable transportation guild. I'll give it more thought and tell you what I've come up with.

My analysis was just based on the rules. In Eberron, teleporting is cheaper, if you've got an item that only a member of House Orien, with the proper dragomark, can use. (There are rules differences there, but the items in question are "off the books".)

[Klokk]

I recently started a PBP game here that is a homebrew. it uses PF rules, with a few 3pp things. One of my players gave me this link to 'Tzizimines' Eberron to Pathfinder conversion. It is mostly crunch. So what you could do is pick and choose which of the various dragonmarked feats are available.. say you don't want uber crafting so no cannith/making marks are allowed. In my tale I am allowing Forged to have marks of making. part of the reason is that the city the campaign takes place in is built around a working creation forge.

Tzizimine does have almost all the items and such converted. as in you could a 100% Eberron game using his crunch for things that different from PF raw. and either 3e or 4e fluff depending on when in time you are.

One thing to consider.

Spoiler:

Continual flame/fire/light/whateveritscallednow
back in the 1e days it took 1000 years for it eat through and burn out a 2" sphere of iron.

Say you have a village of 100 people. 10% have ability to cast that spell. In one year the ten of them could make almost 4000 of these light bulbs that last for 1000 years. They can pick a rock a cast the spell on it and odds are it will last at least half that. Even cast upon a wax candle it would last a year or so, before the wax just couldn't handle it.

That means they could basically make 3652.4 of these which means that 10 commoners or adepts could potentially make 401764 gold selling them as "Everburning Torchs @ 110g"

One of my players in another kingdom game did that. I had to say he flooded the market and now many other villages have come up with the same idea dropping the value of his villages torches to only 5% of there market value.

You have to find your own balance with what you are comfortable with being the max level that is commonly available for stuff.

Maybe in your world all wizards Must past a test to access any spell above 4th or 1st.

Maybe everyone can do any 0th spell reguardless of class or race.

Maybe an item causes skills and other things to happen to people around it, side effects. My Players are aware that they get a rank in survival for free all levels and its always class skill. They know it is an effect of the creation forge we are using to make more Forged Ones. There are lakes of acid that look like water, maybe. there is water that has been contaminated by magic and unsafe to drink. All ocean water is fresh and safe to drink. Something has happened that casued all natural animals that have been encountered so far to be one size larger then written.

High magic does not always mean ALOT of magic items or things. Look at that Sword of Truth stuff. Magic years ago caused multiple magical barriers to appear in the world.

In war with powerfully magical nations it can farmland into the badlands.

As said above wishes and even raise dead could be seen as >TS clearance.. perhaps all adepts toil as slaves of some sort, or killed but the sorc and god talkers and bard stuff just keeps popping up.

Scatter artifacts around the world. tons of them. Let the heroes finally use all the toys they have dreamt about.
Or have the BBEG's minnions be the ones unearthing them and using against the players.

More magic game does mean more power. But as a player who has been forced to retire at 9th because he companions wanted to, and who also currently plays an insane HP game. (Klokk has almost 70 levels ontop of being an age 12 dragon.) I also have a paladin of 12th who has yet to see even a potion of cure light wounds drop in his campaign. All different magic or tech levels are fine. We ran a bronze aged 2e game for a while.

I hope you find the right balance for you.

[Klokk]

There are soo many things.. so much potential.

Take the bound elementals from that power air/land/sea/sub ships from Eberron, add the d20 airship book by sam witt. Now your up to magic + tech of 1800's. pick up a d20 steampunk to fill out on tech err magic items.

To make ANY magic item except for the eternal flame thing I mentioned above requires a CL3. Assuming the same 10 people in a village of 100. 1 of them has the feat Craft Wonderous Item, doesn't matter which one.

Enchant the item with the following
Bonus Spell 0th level spell (don't matter which)
Spell level squared x 1,000 gp cost (0x0x1000=0)
*in one day you can enchant 1000gold worth of items.

Every day they can make at least 10 items, my math would suggest 20 Different items. in addition to the continual flame orbs.
1@ 3rd, 13@1st, 2@nd, 20@0th I think would be the breakdown. assuming all Level 1 cept the 1 3rd level "elder" This is only assuming a 12 for the 1st levels and a 14 for the 3rd level

Translation
For the price of a Compass(10g) or a burnt out iron stone (25g) you can get a piece of clothing that never wrinkles, a pipe that lights itself, a waterskin that whatever is in it is always cold, or hot, Basically it would mean that an item that makes usable at will for any 0th level spell would be somewhere between the two prices, if not cheeper.

No tv or phone.
2 items for sale
1 a sender. it can be placed anywhere.
1 a viewer. .it can be placed anywhere.
Anything the eye of the sender sees can be sent as an illusion to the viewer unit over the IMW (invisible magical weave)

That's just one village of 100 people with 10% able to do Very Minor magics. Most PC's I know don't bat an eye at casting 0ths all day.

It changes the whole economy, as said above nothing is the same.. That river that flows from the mountain. Well many a hundred years ago an explorer died from a cave in as he was taking a drink from a decanter of endless water. the decanter was left on. its now become a river and many a small village have sprung up around it. Just like the one I mentioned above.

The reason that 10% of them develop magical abilities is from them drinking the magical waters from the decanter over their whole life times.

:)

[Odraude]

Here is a post I made about a city that uses simulacrum, wishes, and blood money to create a Magetopia, and how to go about in doing it

And here is a post about how it could become an awesome idea for a dystopian campaign.

And another post about a Terminator/Matrix-style revolution of indentured Djinn simulacra servants.

[Icyshadow]

Pretty interesting stuff brought up here, considering I still wonder how magic affects my own campaign world.

So yeah, leaving a dot here.

[sunshadow21]

Klokk wrote:

Interesting Post

So you end up with several villages close to each other trading goods and services, with each village focusing on a different product/service. It changes the value of the trading going on, but it doesn't automatically change the world nor does it automatically create a market for the village off by itself that still needs to get those goods to a larger city where there is a ready market.

The take away I get from this thread is that creating things becomes much easier. That says nothing about gathering the raw materials and the logistics of transporting both raw and finished goods, especially in a world that has dragons, magical creatures of all kinds, and threats from all directions. So you still have to figure out a way to deal with the logistics of moving potentially massive amounts of physical stuff, and magic only goes so far to help in that department; even the highest level of teleport spells can create as many problems as they solve.

In the end, a highly magical world means better developed cities/guilds/governments (in short, a more developed, well connected world overall) than the standard psuedo-feudal society we've become used to in D&D settings. It's probably why I prefer Golarion, Eberron, and Greyhawk over FR; FR tries to be both high magic while having next to no order in Fearun as a whole, especially in the magic community and around the heavy use of magic in general that would normally be the priority for the community at large to stabilize, with the end product being borderline silly and unrealistic when it doesn't completely destroy itself ten times over. Whether you're using it to counter/regulate magic or to handle all the problems and challenges created by magic, organization is the key; no single person might be able to stop a well placed wish, but a good coalition can stop it from being made in the first place and/or counter it quite effectively. Whether such organization is proactive (meaning the world is still moderately balanced relative to our own) or reactive (where you get extremes like Tippyverse) and what groups you use to demonstrate that organization seem to be the real questions.

[Vincent Takeda]

I read somewhere about like an archmage festival where all the powerful casters got together for like mage tournaments and such.... so the location was kinda like burning man or just a huge plain of wild grass, but the number of mordenkainen's mansions and secure shelters that popped up basically made it into a small town overnight, which I find hillarious.

[Klokk]

Consider this.

I have found a Fire Giant smeltery and mine deep in the mountains. it was abandoned. I brought in a hundred dwarf miners. gave them decanters of water and those spoons. The whole smeltery thing was augmented with unseen servants with spots where Whispering could occur to aid them.

All of metal was poured through a Ring Gate into the WalHosue (one of the commoners named it)73 miles away. In the walhosue the molten metal arrived and was sorted by more unseen servants into the various pure metals (gold,iron,silver,etc) which flowed down troughs enchanted with heat metal and eventually into basins that held 10, 50, 100 pounds of the metal. The molten metal was cooled by chill metal. Then moved by more unseen servants into either bins within the various smithies or into warehouses for trade with outsiders.

Now that actually happened to Klokk and his party :D

[LazarX]

thejeff wrote:

Of course, by this usage, Golarion (and most published D&D worlds, except Eberron, I think) qualify as low-magic, which seems a little odd to me, since D&D has always been a high magic game.

"High-Magic" and "Low-Magic" are very subjective terms. I've read literature which would make Greyhawk seem like the fabled Super-Atlantis of the pulp comics in comparison. While magic isn't omnipresent in worlds like Golarion and Forgotten Realms, an argument can be said that the very existence of things such as the Worldwound, planet destroying weapons makes it an extremely High Magic setting.

The level of a magic world takes essentially two dimensions. The first defined as the upper limits of what can be done with magic and/or fantastic powers. Is the ultimate trick possible the splitting of worlds, tipping over mountains and building cities on the flipped undersides? or just setting a few people on fire? Or is it even more limited to things such as invisibility and charm person? Or no more than starting campfires and putting a slight edge on a blade?

The other dimension is the commonality of such magic. Even if only a relatively few people can cast teleport directly, can such services be bought by an average townsman, or is it only available to kings and other pwoerful people who command the services of guilds. Or is it confined to a secet society? Or does it remain a totally undiscovered country?

[thejeff]

LazarX wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Of course, by this usage, Golarion (and most published D&D worlds, except Eberron, I think) qualify as low-magic, which seems a little odd to me, since D&D has always been a high magic game.

"High-Magic" and "Low-Magic" are very subjective terms. I've read literature which would make Greyhawk seem like the fabled Super-Atlantis of the pulp comics in comparison. While magic isn't omnipresent in worlds like Golarion and Forgotten Realms, an argument can be said that the very existence of things such as the Worldwound, planet destroying weapons makes it an extremely High Magic setting.

The level of a magic world takes essentially two dimensions. The first defined as the upper limits of what can be done with magic and/or fantastic powers. Is the ultimate trick possible the splitting of worlds, tipping over mountains and building cities on the flipped undersides? or just setting a few people on fire? Or is it even more limited to things such as invisibility and charm person? Or no more than starting campfires and putting a slight edge on a blade?

The other dimension is the commonality of such magic. Even if only a relatively few people can cast teleport directly, can such services be bought by an average townsman, or is it only available to kings and other pwoerful people who command the services of guilds. Or is it confined to a secet society?

And by both of those, Golarion seems pretty high magic. Maybe not quite splitting worlds & floating cities, but definitely well past setting a few people on fire. Nor is magic strictly controlled. It's expensive, but even high level casting is available for sale.

On the other hand, it hasn't turned into magic-tech ala Eberron. Often with little more than hand-waving for an excuse, the setting is still mostly like the historical real world + magic, rather than what the world would really be like with magic. That's not a criticism. I prefer it that way. It's more like the worlds of myth and legend and of most fantasy. Something recognizable, with magic added.

I think, and was trying to get across in my earlier post, that's quite a different axis than High/Low magic. You can have logical consequences to having magic however strong or available it is. Or not. It'll be less distinguishable in a Low magic world, but High magic can definitely go either way.