Dot.
Really, I don't think it's a numbers game. Not without some goal in mind. With the numbers proposed, Sandpoint alone has the magical firepower of a large number of towns - so, frankly I'd toss out trying to work out "demographics" with a set number of casters. A single party of adventurers can skew the demographics across entire countries using the numbers proposed. It just doesn't make much sense to me (YMMV).
So, how much of an impact would magic have on a world? Like LazarX says, technological advance would be slow to non-existent. There are world changing spells at EVERY level, starting with simple cantrips that can be cast unlimited amounts of time. It all depends on the level of verisimilitude you want to apply to a campaign world - the more you think about the effects of simple things like Stabilize, Mend, Prestidigitation, Light, Create Water (and then higher level spells) the more the world is going to change into something much closer to the Tippyverse (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide- to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy)
Magic SHOULD have a truly transformative impact on a world. It's practitioners, in the case of most casters, are the wisest and most intelligent people around. It's simply defies logic that none of them have thought about creating world changing items via crafting, etc.
For me, designing a campaign around this can be fun and challenging, but I don't do it by using raw numbers, I do it by extrapolating how these developments are going to skew historical trends, warfare, competition between states, economics, etc. I also choose to start the campaign at a point when using spells in a Tippyverse like way starts to come into regular use (like a golden age of industrial revolution, except with magic). Things aren't "full Tippyverse" yet, but they are headed in that direction, because, logically they SHOULD.
Or, you start putting in caster numbers so low as to make the campaign "low magic" in every sense of the word, or some other outside force that keeps Casters from going full Tippyverse (eg/interference from the Gods). Neither are something I'd choose to do, but that doesn't invalidate that there are probably many methods of keeping casters in check. Just some are less heavy handed than others. But, eventually you may be faced with a PC that starts going all Tippyverse on you. Then what do you do? If you introduce another high level type caster to counter, then one asks - why didn't *that* NPC go all Tippyverse first?
I choose to explore what magic has the potential to do to reshape a world and work that into my definition of how my campaign is going to work. Then I don't have to sweat the demographics numbers game of how many casters can dance on the head of a state (or pin). :-)
Magic SHOULD have a truly transformative impact on a world. It's practitioners, in the case of most casters, are the wisest and most intelligent people around. It's simply defies logic that none of them have thought about creating world changing items via crafting, etc.Intelligence DOES not equal Wisdom. Edward Teller comes to mind.
True. I was thinking Wisdom (Clerics) and Intelligence (Wizards) not necessarily that both are present at the same time in any one individual. Charismatic individuals may lack both, making things even more entertaining.
Some implementations of magic run amuck can be very much failures of Wisdom. There are some genies best left in the bottle, so to speak (though in Pathfinder one can take this phrase literally, I mean it in the figurative sense). Not unlike our splitting of the atom as you correctly allude to. I have a few wizards cut from Edward Teller's cloth, so to speak. It's going to lead to problems...
The exact numbers don't mean a whole lot, but I like that higher level magic it hard to find by. I guess the only change I would make is that in a given village, town, city, etc. a particular level of spell may or not be available depending on the level of literacy and education, relative safety, prosperity of the settlement, etc.
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Just some food for thought about the population numbers.
It gets a little weird at higher levels. Since the dawn of the human species it's estimated that there have been 100 to 115 Billion People. So for your 9th Level casters, there have been maybe 4 in all of history (druids, wizards, sorcerers, clerics, oracles, witches, shaman). For a world that's going to be using powerful outsiders or may be the target of powerful outsiders this seems like a dangerous state of affairs. And you'd expect an invasion from a different plane to have conquered at least part of your setting.
I'm not sure how populated your world is, but a world like Golarion seems to be populated at much lower levels than the modern world (even taking into account non-human sentients) Our world didn't cross the 1 billion mark until ~1800 CE. So there would be a 1 in 3 chance of an 8th Level caster being around at those levels. If you're populating your world at levels below that it obviously gets lower.
So if you're mapping out a city. Golarion's Absalom has around 300K in population. This maybe small for such a major city. The City of Rome itself had ~1 million people around 0 CE, while the Roman Empire at the time contained ~60 million.
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In a setting like this, it might be best to limit characters to either 3/4 Casters or ~12 levels of a full caster class.
Also be sure to limit what sort of enemies you throw at them, some high level play seems built around high level spell options.
The automatic progression system in Unchained, might work out pretty well for this world.
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Nitpick! We have established guidelines for what settlements have what spells available and the size of those towns.
In addition, not every town or village has a spellcaster of sufficient level to cast any spell. In general, you must travel to a small town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4th-level spells, a large city for 5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells. Even a metropolis isn't guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells.
Settlement Size and Base Value
Population Settlement Size Base Value
Fewer than 21 Thorp 50 gp
21—60 Hamlet 200 gp
61—200 Village 500 gp
201—2,000 Small town 1,000 gp
2,001—5,000 Large town 2,000 gp
5,001—10,000 Small city 4,000 gp
10,001—25,000 Large city 8,000 gp
More than 25,000 Metropolis 16,000 gp
For instance, an 8th level spell caster is found 1 in at least 25,000. So you're figure are wildly off at 1 in 3 billion.
Though, reading through further parts of the thread it looks like you're suggesting changing this.
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Further breakdown based on above:
1st level spell, found in Small town Population: 201-2000.
1 in 200 can cast 1st level spells
2nd level spell, found in Large town Population: 2001-5000.
1 in 2001 can cast 2nd level spells
3rd & 4th level spell, found in Small City Pop: 5001-10,000.
1 in 5001 can cast 3&4th level spells
5th and 6th in Large City at 10,001 - 25,000
1 in 10,0001 can cast 6th level spells.
7th and 8th level spells in Metropolis at >25000
1 in 25,001 can cast 8th level spells*
There are no guaranteed 9th level spell casters anywhere on the planet.
*My earlier post said 1 in 25,000. This is technically wrong, but a small margin of error.
This would be the minimum magic density for Golarion's setting.
Keep in mind, a lot of your low level casters are probably adepts which may then retrain into cleric or oracle after a few levels.
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I know the demographics presented gamemaster's guide. I just think that is way to common.
Assuming that urban life is 10 percent of the population then all of your numbers go up by a factor of 10.
That puts a caster with 8th level spells at 1 in 250K. The inner sea has about 40M so that would mean that there are 160 folks in the that region alone who can cast 8th level spells.
I just hate using cities to try a derive demographics because it is hard to know how much of the world that caster represents. Now if urbanity actually causes casters then this reasonable but that seams unlikely.
Well probably not for Druids. But urbanization does tend to increase the level of education and training people have as well as more specialization in skills. Also the universe you're descti
You may not find a good correlation between a logarithmic scale and spell casting for your purposes. You could try something that increases on a natural log scale (Ae^n). Or just pick the level of maximum spell casting you want to have the powers have access to and then add the higher level casters in where you think they should be story wise, as statistics have trouble dealing with really rare occurrences.
Most cities don't want wands of fireballs for sale in the city. On the black market they will be at double the cost.
Wands of healing, on the other hand, are a good thing for churches to sell. Adventurers survive and people eating monsters don't.
Demographics are great when you are in a creative slump, but they can't compare with role playing your city like a character.
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Using the minimum town size to determine the overall density of casters is flawed. If we have three small towns, populations 200, 800, and 1700, and one 1st level caster per town, then we have three 1st level casters per 2700 people, or 1 per 900 people. Since it doesn't establish the maximum number of casters in a certain town you could say that a small town has one 1st level caster for every 200 people. That simplifies the demographics but doesn't directly follow from the spellcasting availability guidelines. Casters who set up shop in smaller towns may be somewhat territorial and prefer not to live in the same towns as casters of similar skill - more social casters would gather in the larger settlements eg a college with 30 1st & 2nd level wizards in a metropolis of 27,000 people (1:900).
Additionally, as Mathius points out, we don't know how common each type of settlement is. You could easily, based on historical demographics, have 4000 people living rurally to support one small town of 500 people with a single 1st level caster. Or the existence of spellcasters might mean that a smaller rural/agricultural population is necessary to support towns.
Therefore the spellcasting level of a town only tells you the kinds of magic that town has access to, not what the situation looks like in the world as a whole.
Isn't this a consequence of needing to be scientifically consistent and instead you could simply solve it by stating that the distribution of magical power follows no observable pattern?
Even if there's no clear pattern in the distribution of casters you'll still be able to figure out how many of them there are relative to noncasters.
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Sorcerers may be more prevalent in one race than another or in an ethnicity that's had more opportunities to acquire bloodlines in its heritage.See, this is what I'm taking about: what we're dealing with is a consequence of the trying to be too consistent. Why do you assume sorcerer bloodlines work the way real genetics works? Maybe the game says this and I just missed it.
Don't care. While everyone else is saying "Let's assume the stats in the text get it right" I saying "Assume the stats in the text are wrong".
It's a entirely fictional world, but if the OP wants to use it as a framework guiding him as he fleshes out his campaign, I think it can be a useful exercise or at least an interesting mental exercise.
That being said, I always go "Marvel" instead of "DC" telling a good story is more important than continuity and consistency in any fictional setting.
A society that worships dragons, and demands all royalty be descended from at least one dragon, will probably have more sorcerers with the draconic bloodline.
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Isn't this a consequence of needing to be scientifically consistent and instead you could simply solve it by stating that the distribution of magical power follows no observable pattern?Even if there's no clear pattern in the distribution of casters you'll still be able to figure out how many of them there are relative to noncasters.What I'm saying is "What if you can't?". That if you go "1 in X per area Y" suddenly you run across a whole city of them that skews this all wildly for no known reason. You say "This city has X00,000 people so they should have Y number" and the city doesn't have a one.
Statistics only work if you assume the world behaves with scientific logic.
I'm not sure I follow.
Statistics basically means describing observable things with numbers. You can do that whether there are scientific rules dictating those observations, or whether it's random, or whether it's some combination of both.
If the numbers you are using aren't telling you anything meaningful, that doesn't mean that it's useless to use numbers, it means you're not collecting and using your numbers properly.
For example, the mean is often unreliable as a measure of "average" if you have outliers such as a magic-free city. (Example: 10 employees each earn $10/hour, the boss earns $1,000 per hour, the mean is $100/hour but that doesn't reflect what's really going on.) Depending on how many cities you have with a lot of mages, and how many have very few, you might have a large standard deviation for your "caster percentage" measurement over geographic areas, or possibly you have a non-normal distribution (eg with a lot of very low-magic cities and a lot of very high-magic cities, and few in the middle.) Getting a few more numbers tells you a lot about the setting.
Someone who understands demographics (better than I do) doesn't let peculiarities with the data get in the way of drawing useful conclusions.
RDM42 you correct is what you say. That is why I hate the guidelines we have do just that. It is why I am working on new guidelines.
For me, I am DC lack of continuity kills a story for me. If casters are as common as sandport the world look vastly different.
I would like to lower spellcasting enough that armies still matter at least on some level. If towns can routinely field a some one who can fly and wields wand of fireball then a mass of 2nd warriors will never matter. On the other hand if a wands only in cities and then countryside can still be ravaged by a hoard of orcs. Eventually the city is likely to send someone to deal with hoard but maybe not before it burns the PCs home town to the ground.
Plant growth is probably the spell changes the world the most. A kingdom that can field that spell once a day every day frees grows enough extra food to feed 11 to 18 thousand extra people.
I think with my propose demographics there will not be enough casters to an entire kingdom but if I am wrong about that then huge advantage of non agricultural labor should be noted. Also a staff with Plant growth and detect magic can be UMDed by any one and recharged by any one with 3rd level spells. Stealing that staff can really hurt a kingdom that relies on it.
I totally get what you are saying - so, instead of approaching it from a "statistics first" approach, come at the issue from a "what do I want my campaign to look like" approach, and let the statistics derive from that vision.
What I mean:
1) Decide what a small town should have for casters. You only want maybe 1 real caster, maybe an Adept or two, and all low level so as to not create Tippyverse-like situations. Maybe little villages just have an Adept handy, with only a couple of cantrips.
2) Work your way up. If you don't want to see 3rd-5th level spells until you hit a reasonable sized city/city-state, then that's what you do. Decide that a Magnimar sized place maybe only has a very small handful of fireballs tossers and maybe 1 divine caster than can do a Raise Dead.
3) Place a very small handful of your "Power" casters by name, individually, where you want them to be - I'm talking about the people tossing possibly 6th-8th level spells.
That will then define what you have chosen as what is statistically applied to your campaign. Maybe different areas might be different too. I don't think it necessary to bludgeon one set of statistics for caster levels across all of Golarion.
Result - non-caster types, your warriors, your fighters, etc - don't get overshadowed by the appearance of Fireball flingers that render traditional warfare entirely obsolute, nor does society get overwhelmed by magical casters doing crazy things with day-to-day spells because...there just aren't enough of them.
Seed your campaign that way with your spellcasters and then let the statistics derive from that. Not the other way around.
But, if a PC group advances quickly enough, they will skew the entire situation. That will also make them the "go to" guys when heroes are needed - because there just isn't anyone else around to handle things.
I thought is 300K for Absalom. Any way it have 1.3 M in villages to support it.
True about them accumulating. Got to think about that.
Keep in mind that the Italian countryside could NOT support Rome when it was at it's height. Egypt was the breadbasket of the Roman Republic / Empire and food shipments were vital. And it was done without the help of magic.
Absalom is probably the same - it derives support from a LOT of trade and does have magic to enhance things. That is why, when things get ugly and trade gets cut off, they fall back on using their Cornucopias - their magical emergency food supply. When trade is working, more mundane methods (shipping) helps keep the population fed.
Porttown had a mysterious wizard in a tower next to the town. I assume an attack by pirates or vikings would be met by fireballs. When the wizard blew himself up(or transformed into a green dragon) the town retained a student of his. The guy was LE and his cellar was part of the dungeon.
As the characters advanced, the first level of the dungeon ended up with 4 men from the watch staking out one of the rooms guarding against attacks from below.
My point is that settlements need high level characters. Demographics tell you the minimum. Upwardly mobile communities will tolerate evil and even monstrous characters. A farming village might support a high level vampire if they are too near a goblin lair.
This website looks helpful Medieval Demographics Made Easy. Numbers for Fantasy Worlds.
Some Historical Comparisons: Medieval France tops the list, with a 14th-century density upwards of 100 people/sq. mile. The French were blessed with an abundance of arable countryside, waiting to be farmed. Modern France has more than twice this many people. Germany, with a slightly less perfect climate and a lower percentage of arable land, averaged more like 90 people/sq. mile. Italy was similar (lots of hills and rocky areas). The British Isles were the least populous, with a little more than 40 people per square mile, most of them clustered in the southern half of the isles.