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Something to take into consideration, what if the best and the brightest of Earth suddenly found out that they could perform magic. I could invent the electric light bulb., but it will take a while, or I could just learn to cast light.
while necessity is the mother of invention, the path of least resistance is hard to over look.
Something to take into consideration, what if the best and the brightest of Earth suddenly found out that they could perform magic. I could invent the electric light bulb., but it will take a while, or I could just learn to cast light.
while necessity is the mother of invention, the path of least resistance is hard to over look.
This is exactly the problem.
The best and brightest and persistent who WANT to have light would first of all NOT be able to access magic, because then they'd use that. Then they'd somehow to make a light source that was cheaper then buying magic to make it viable.
And given how cheap Cont Light is via Calling Torch Archons, I just don't see it happening. electricity isn't viable without a huge infrastructure to support it, and petroleum will never take off without both massive need from the chemical industry and a need for gasoline (gasoline was a useless by product of petroleum at one point, mind you - they only wanted the kerosene)
==Aelryinth
Good points, but Brust has said his characters use rapiers and shuriken because he like writing about rapiers and shuriken more than he like writing about platemail and longbows.
Sure. And what came second in development, rapiers and shuriken or platemail and longbows? I'll give you a hint - it's the lighter set. They came into development because there were other things that made the former set no longer preferable. Using, you know, RL logic, Brust consequently set things up in his fiction so that rapiers and shuriken would be preferable to platemail and longbows.
Something to take into consideration, what if the best and the brightest of Earth suddenly found out that they could perform magic. I could invent the electric light bulb., but it will take a while, or I could just learn to cast light.
while necessity is the mother of invention, the path of least resistance is hard to over look.
This is exactly the problem.
The best and brightest and persistent who WANT to have light would first of all NOT be able to access magic, because then they'd use that. Then they'd somehow to make a light source that was cheaper then buying magic to make it viable.
And given how cheap Cont Light is via Calling Torch Archons, I just don't see it happening. electricity isn't viable without a huge infrastructure to support it, and petroleum will never take off without both massive need from the chemical industry and a need for gasoline (gasoline was a useless by product of petroleum at one point, mind you - they only wanted the kerosene)
As a writer, I have to question the methodologies of both of you. Simply put, you have no world-building. 'Just learn magic.' That presumes that anyone can do so, but one must first determine whether or not that's true in the world in which you're working. It isn't true in the world of Homecoming; it may not be true in the world that the OP is dealing with. As always, ask your GM.
However, electricity absolutely is viable without a huge infrastructure to support it, just like gaslamps were before them. Electricity is supportable on the personal scale, presuming a method of generation can be found - a nearby stream is sufficient, a river, lake, or artesian spring even better. This is how people can live with electricity out in the middle of nowhere, with no infrastructure anywhere near them. And the thing with electricity - with all technology - is that with only a little gradual development, it becomes cheaper, until even those who barely have two coppers to rub together are going to be making use of it.
The best and brightest and richest can afford to buy magic shortcuts, sure. But the best and brightest who are not the richest, and who don't want to learn magic, or want to be able to exploit the 99% instead of the 1% (a dollar a month from each of a million people is easier than ten thousand dollars a month from each of one hundred people) are going to find a way to do something (provide heat, light, food, transportation) for a large number of people in a relatively inexpensive manner. This is yet another thing that has pushed technological exploration and development over the centuries. 'If I can spend $30,000 to purchase a ten-acre-wide line of land from St. Paul to Seattle, then another $100,000 to build the railroad, if I can then run passenger and cargo trains leaving four times a day at a $50 profit for each train between the two, I'll make my money back in less than two years - and be raking in $73,000 every year after that.
This is how oil barons, rail barons, every sort of merchant prince has come to be. Someone has a brainchild - how to move a big load without the use of magic, because he can't use magic, and he isn't incredibly wealthy to hire someone to do it form him - and someone else figures out a way to make it more profitable.
Hell, if magic is so much better, then why are there wagons, ships, all the other mundane methods of transportations? Why do people purchase torches and lanterns and lamp-oil? Because magic is not cost-effective in the long run, because it costs 100+ gp for a single never-ending torch or lantern which you can't even use to start your campfire at the end of the day, so you have to carry flint and steel anyhow.
Both of you see 'the adventurer' as the benchmark; it isn't. It's the 0th level 'common man'. It's the ten farmers whose work supports and feeds the one adventurer - and their children, and their children's children's children. Do you want to rake in the pennies from a hundred thousand peasants paying 1cp each one-minute shot to enjoy your mechanical flip-book, or are you to hope that the lords of the manor will pay you richly for your illusion magic?
Simpler and more populous-friendly makes for technological expansion and utilization. Being able to have anyone 'cast a fireball' by way of a flamethrower emplacement makes for good security. And you don't need massive infrastructure to make good use of it at the start. Infrastructure develops later.
@The Wyrm Ouroboros:
Good points, for sure.
What I wanted to say is just to keep in mind that PF is not the real world and so there are some rules from real world which not apply there and them special rules there.
It starts with "Good & Evil" - in RL these are mearly concepts, based on the view of the people. In PF they are measureable forces which has a direct impact to the world.
Same goes for Gods.
the gods are specifically keeping a lid on advancement in order to keep their positions consolidated.
This is a good example of an artifical wall the author created, it's like saying "no because of.. no"
Sure PF is based on real world basics, but it also denies some of them for gameplay/setting reasons.
Few examples:
- Why are there deserts? Every first level cleric can create infinite amounts of water
- Why didn't plunder the level 8 bandits the town with level 1-3 guards?
- What did I need walls for if the enemy can fly?
I only wanted to make clear that these are simply things that must be the way they are - Gameplay vs. Logic
So don't try to "force develop" your world around RL ideas (e.g. the "good goblin baby dilemma")
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Good points, but Brust has said his characters use rapiers and shuriken because he like writing about rapiers and shuriken more than he like writing about platemail and longbows.Sure. And what came second in development, rapiers and shuriken or platemail and longbows? I'll give you a hint - it's the lighter set. They came into development because there were other things that made the former set no longer preferable. Using, you know, RL logic, Brust consequently set things up in his fiction so that rapiers and shuriken would be preferable to platemail and longbows.
As a writer, I have to question the methodologies of both of you. Simply put, you have no world-building. 'Just learn magic.' That presumes that anyone can do so, but one must first determine whether or not that's true in the world in which you're working. It isn't true in the world of Homecoming; it may not be true in the world that the OP is dealing with. As always, ask...Something to take into consideration, what if the best and the brightest of Earth suddenly found out that they could perform magic. I could invent the electric light bulb., but it will take a while, or I could just learn to cast light.
while necessity is the mother of invention, the path of least resistance is hard to over look.
This is exactly the problem.
The best and brightest and persistent who WANT to have light would first of all NOT be able to access magic, because then they'd use that. Then they'd somehow to make a light source that was cheaper then buying magic to make it viable.
And given how cheap Cont Light is via Calling Torch Archons, I just don't see it happening. electricity isn't viable without a huge infrastructure to support it, and petroleum will never take off without both massive need from the chemical industry and a need for gasoline (gasoline was a useless by product of petroleum at one point, mind you - they only wanted the kerosene)
As a writer and a bit of historian, well lets skip over the insulting parts and just address your world building concepts because honestly you make some leaps her about us that just don't add up.
In a world like ours without magic (let's just avoid religion at this point) you have support structures that provide thinker and makers with materials that help in the process of learning.
I never claimed the best and the brightest were the richest. (If you want to be a good writer, you should pay attention to what you read) Benjamin Franklin wasn't by any stretch of the imagination rich (or for that matter good looking) but he was one of the great minds of his time.
The question isn't so much is magic worth it, it's is it worth it to the person who would be the would be inventor to create something that would take a lot more of his time than it would to learn magic. Try and remember that not all inventors are successful, and not all inventors were successful right off the bat. Some inventors were only successful because they had backers, investors or patrons. How many of the supporters of inventors would back them if they could go with something that was successful and reproducible 100% of the time without technology? Something that didn't wear out.
And remember in a world like the one presented in Pathfinder, the vast majority of learning centers are developed around magic of one sort or another. There will be an inherent bias given to the magical solution rather than a technological solution. Even the Clockwork Cathedral in Absalom that teaches advanced mathematics, engineering and precision machinery is focused with magical applications of said learning.
As to your suppositions about Rail Barons and the like, your working on the supposition that people like that don't exist in Golarion when in fact they do. It's just that trade is done on ships (and sometimes via teleportation) rather than rail and they get rich doing it. And why hasn't magic taken over, there can be several reasons. Monopoly, risk, tradition, law, the list goes on and on.
As for seeing adventurer as the benchmark, that's fundamentally not true. I see people working towards their potential. Commoner and the like.
I see the whole medieval stasis thing iin fantasy settings as a combination of factors:
-Usually the smartest and brightest become spellcasters, and thus less likely to turn their minds to technological innovation. After all, you benefit more diirectly from being a wizard than an engineer, or an alchemist than a chemist. And you're less likely to get pantsed in school.
-Innovation is slowed down by the interference of the rampaging monsters that plague the wilderness and regularly smash through towns and other settlements, diverting resources from technological advancement to matters of more direct survival. Iif your savants are also your artillery, they don't have time to do research while the orcs are howling at the gate.
-When innovation does happen, it spread slowly, due to the difficulties of travel, the existence of magical alternatives for the elite who are more likely to realize its use, the likeliness of complex infrastructures in minor settlements being destroyed by goblins, etc...
-Industrial production needs a steady and enormous flow of resources that are often already claimed by some supernatural creatures, like dragons or feys; you also risk being the guy who dug too greedily and too deep and unearthed the Tarrasque, which could set you back somewhat.
-The big, supposedly stable empires who can develop widespread technological infrastructure more easily keep crumbling. All the Azlant, Thassilon, Numenor and what have you all end up disappearng and taking their infrastructures and knowledge with them, letting people start from scratch.
Good points, but Brust has said his characters use rapiers and shuriken because he like writing about rapiers and shuriken more than he like writing about platemail and longbows.Sure. And what came second in development, rapiers and shuriken or platemail and longbows? I'll give you a hint - it's the lighter set. They came into development because there were other things that made the former set no longer preferable. Using, you know, RL logic, Brust consequently set things up in his fiction so that rapiers and shuriken would be preferable to platemail and longbows.
As a writer, I have to question the methodologies of both of you. Simply put, you have no world-building.Something to take into consideration, what if the best and the brightest of Earth suddenly found out that they could perform magic. I could invent the electric light bulb., but it will take a while, or I could just learn to cast light.
while necessity is the mother of invention, the path of least resistance is hard to over look.
This is exactly the problem.
The best and brightest and persistent who WANT to have light would first of all NOT be able to access magic, because then they'd use that. Then they'd somehow to make a light source that was cheaper then buying magic to make it viable.
And given how cheap Cont Light is via Calling Torch Archons, I just don't see it happening. electricity isn't viable without a huge infrastructure to support it, and petroleum will never take off without both massive need from the chemical industry and a need for gasoline (gasoline was a useless by product of petroleum at one point, mind you - they only wanted the kerosene)
As a writer, historian, economist, and financial planner, I have to question your methodologies here. You seem to have no concept of real cost and opportunity costs.
First of all, I did allude to the fact that to develop tech, the person is going to need the drive to do so. If he is one of the 'best and brightest', he explicitly is going to need to NOT be able to use magic, because for his own personal comfort and design, magic is far superior to technology...and the road is ALREADY TRAVELLED. he won't have to 'invent' anything.
The best and brightest will go for the bright light if they are at all able to.
Secondly, you are ignoring the fact that under the rules, Paizo is IGNORING the fact that magic breaks the economy.
Wall of iron is suitable for nothing? MELT IT DOWN. It becomes raw iron, reshape it as needed.
A Torch Archon can make Continual Light at will. 1/rd. 14,400 a day (they don't need to sleep). For the cost of ONE WEEK of it staying around, you could get 100,000 Continual Lights made. You could sell them for ONE SILVER APIECE and get your money back. YOU could BATHE THE WORLD IN LIGHT. For basically free.
The mere EXISTENCE of Fabrication is going to have a crippling effect on the existence of highly skilled non-magical craftsmen.
Thirdly, as Herald alluded to, tech knowledge isn't going to propogate.
It is NOT the internet age. They don't have the university system that exchanges knowledge between the brilliant freely, and opens it up to the common man. They don't have the internet. They have a system that retains a tight grip on knowledge, because they also don't have a Copyright system that rewards a person for inventing something new. You only have personal might to stop someone from copying what you've done and profiting off your knowledge (an endemic problem in China that continues to this day. Which is why businesses over there have enforcement arms of thugs.)
Fourthly, lack of broad education and tight knowledge, coupled with the brain drain from magical careers, means the all-important 'little steps' aren't going to happen. Technology tends to have one big break through, and then thousands of little ones to make them viable, generally by non-geniuses who simply find something that works better, and pass it into general knowledge. Without the 'little things', tech becomes like magic - 'this works', and people don't think about improving on it, it just is.
Fifthly, the danger level. Widespread adoption of technology would require immense resources to be mobilized to feed it, and the level of danger in the world, like constantly being raided by violent races, creatures, undead rising, plagues, irritated gods, and the like is going to make organizing that level of knowledge, or even PASSING IT ON, quite difficult at times. The way of advancement is built on those who came before you, and if those people die, it is entirely possible to lose the knowledge completely. People trying to survive are not people spending countless hours developing the scientific method to make the better mousetrap.
Sixth, technological research is TEDIOUS AND TIME CONSUMING. Look how many centuries it took just to refine gunpowder properly. Edison employed dozens, if not hundreds of technicians and engineers. Think how many millions of man-hours went into the technology that got us to the moon. Think how much labor it took to excavate millions of tons of copper wire, purify them to the right level, mold them into unbroken wires miles long, string them through the land, connect them to homes, and actually work when you flip a switch.
Sure, IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, you can set up a little wheel and make enough electricity for yourself.
If you don't, then you have to do the discovery, find out the requirements, and either commission someone or do the work yourself to make your right flywheel, which sucks up time, time, time, you could better spend doing other things. The only people who would be able to do this kind of thing would have to be smart, wealthy, and with lots of free time on their hands, along with no aptitude for magic to 'cheat' with, in addition to VERY highly educated in physics, engineering and crafting abiltiy.
Seventh - You discovered electricity. Congrats. For a tithe the cost, the wizard guild down the road makes a capacitor that can actually store lightning, plugs it into an eternal storm on the plane of elemental air, and destroys all need for your technological solution.
And you STILL haven't set up the mine that can supply thousands of tons of copper for your wiring, let alone have an insulating sheathe for the stuff. You have to scale up your need for rubber, too!
Running up against magic that can sidestep so many of the difficulties of developing tech is a HUGE profit disincentive. A Team of wizards working together can Fabricate up a locomotive faster then you can laboriously put together your first one, because you'd have to somehow set up the infrastructure for parts, while they just Fabricate up one piece after another as needed. Their locomotive doesn't need water or fuel (or the massive economies needed to supply them), they use a modified decanter and bound fire elemental.
Lastly, the 'rules' assume that ANYONE can use magic. All you have to do is 'take the level in it.' Thus, as long as you have at least a 10 in Int or Cha, you can learn cantrips, and that alone is enough to obviate much of your need for magic. Because people gain Mental Stats as they get older, that means that even if you start life with a 7 Int and 7 CHa, when you turn 60ish, you can learn magic.
In short, 99% of the population can learn magic if they bother to. Yet, for some reason, they don't bother to, and it's not explained why, despite the huge incentives to do so that are there.
In short, Ouroborous, you are ignoring the interaction of magic and reality. The Rules are NOT set up on anything resembling proper economic interaction. The Cont Light example is key right there...there's NO WAY any religion that can Call a Torch Archon would NOT take advantage of it, and 'light up the world' and 'push back the darkness'. But the power of being able to have a 24 hour day (hint, starts the Industrial age) is ignored, and Cont Light is hugely overpriced. The incentive for everyone to learn magic, which is MASSIVE, is ignored. (Seriously, who in their right mind would not learn some magic if they could?).
So, come down off the high horse. We are indeed looking at all the angles. However, there is a LOT to overcome for technology to succeed in a magic world. At best, what you'd get is magitech...ways for magic to fill in the onerous parts of technology.
==Aelryinth
I think most are missing the point.
Obviously Technology as we know it would hardly exist because of magic, but why magic iteslf isn't employed massively in a world in which anyone of at least average intelligence can learn to use cantrips?
See Point Eight. heh.
And technically, you could start at Stat 5, put in your plus 2, get old for +3, and learn Magic. In ANY one Mental Stat. Without a magic item.
If somehow you could reach level 8, you could do it starting with a 3 using your Level Raises...
Taking 3 levels in the Human racial class from 3.5 gives you +2 to any stat you'd like, also. Heh!
==Aelryinth
Asking "why doesn't everyone in a fantasy setting learn spellcasting" is like asking "why doesn't everyone on Earth know how to write computer programs or how to perform surgery or how to make medicine?"
It takes time, money, and some level of inclination and talent to actually do that.
I have a friend who's going to be spending years in school to learn how to be a pharmacist. And that's normal.
I doubt learning magic is actually any easier.
PCs get to handwave a lot of stuff by being PCs, and because making a PC sit out 5 to 15 or more years while they learned magic would pretty much wreck the multi-classing mechanic.
Essentially, PCs are all prodigies who can learn things vastly faster than everyone around them, so that multiclassing doesn't remove a character from the campaign =P
nope. you can learn magic in ONE LEVEL. there is no f0rmal requirement for training time. Sorcery is merely magic igniting in you, you don't need ANY training> ditto Oracle. Technically, Bardic magic.
Even wizardry, in one level. There's not even a formal requirement to be able to READ.
Now, the difference between what you posited, Zhangar, is your friend is going into a job that earns money. Learning computer stuff earns money. You are taking different roads to earn money.
Learning magic has NO counterpart for time spent = benefits derived. The amount of time and effort saved over mundane labor is immense (just look at the cost of buying spells). It has no equal...there is nothing you can do that is a better deal for your time, even if you NEVER SELL A SPELL.
I would rank it as more important then needing how to learn to read and write, and close to learning how to talk and walk. Because there is so much other stuff that you don't need to waste time on if you know magic.
==Aelryinth
Oh, keep in mind, that in my home campaign, humanity does NOT have the intrinsic ability to wield magic. The majority of humanity is Homo Primos, and has no magical ability.
They have ANTI-MAGIC potential, however. In short, they are like water, plants and rocks...no magical ability, but 'magical' in the sense they are alive. Inert to magic, and they can get much, much more inert.
Humans who have magical ability truly inherited the ability from something non-human, are directly 'forced' into magical ability by gods or magical experiments, or something else remakes them into magic-using beings.
Other races are basically intrinsically magical. One of the reasons humanity has prospered so is because they are so many humans who are Not Magical in the slightest.
So, I don't have to put up with 'everyone can use magic' arguments, and I get to introduce tenseness between magic-using people and non-magic-users. It's important to remember that Homo Magos are vastly outnumbered by Primos among humanity...
==Aelryinth
nope. you can learn magic in ONE LEVEL. there is no f0rmal requirement for training time. Sorcery is merely magic igniting in you, you don't need ANY training> ditto Oracle. Technically, Bardic magic.
Even wizardry, in one level. There's not even a formal requirement to be able to READ.
Now, the difference between what you posited, Zhangar, is your friend is going into a job that earns money. Learning computer stuff earns money. You are taking different roads to earn money.
Learning magic has NO counterpart for time spent = benefits derived. The amount of time and effort saved over mundane labor is immense (just look at the cost of buying spells). It has no equal...there is nothing you can do that is a better deal for your time, even if you NEVER SELL A SPELL.
I would rank it as more important then needing how to learn to read and write, and close to learning how to talk and walk. Because there is so much other stuff that you don't need to waste time on if you know magic.
Wizardry is a trained class, requiring years to master.
Wizardry only requires years to master if you are young and it's your first level.
That is EXACTLY as far as the rules go. Other then that, if you can find a trainer, you can gain a level in Wizard in ONE LEVEL.
That's the rules.
Any restrictions on who can gain a level in wizard or not are all House Rules. Level of 'specialness' is entirely up to the DM.
But by the rules, all you need is One Level. Isn't XP a wonderful magical thing?
Because by the same rule, in One Level, you can be as skilled at weapons and wearing armor as someone who spent their entire childhood training in all manner of such and physical conditioning.
XP is a powerful magic. It's the difference between that first level and the second...gaining xp lets you master things with frightening speed. No xp? Takes much time and years.
==Aelryinth
Oh, keep in mind, that in my home campaign, humanity does NOT have the intrinsic ability to wield magic. The majority of humanity is Homo Primos, and has no magical ability.
They have ANTI-MAGIC potential, however. In short, they are like water, plants and rocks...no magical ability, but 'magical' in the sense they are alive. Inert to magic, and they can get much, much more inert.Humans who have magical ability truly inherited the ability from something non-human, are directly 'forced' into magical ability by gods or magical experiments, or something else remakes them into magic-using beings.
Other races are basically intrinsically magical. One of the reasons humanity has prospered so is because they are so many humans who are Not Magical in the slightest.So, I don't have to put up with 'everyone can use magic' arguments, and I get to introduce tenseness between magic-using people and non-magic-users. It's important to remember that Homo Magos are vastly outnumbered by Primos among humanity...
So why do you keep making them? Why do the rest of us have to put up with your 'everyone can use magic' arguments.
You've taken big steps to set up the world so it isn't true. I just assume it isn't true to start with.
Because on this forum, you argue the default rules.
So, I'm arguing the default rules. I posted what goes on IMC to show my personal House Rules, but I call them House Rules, not the default.
Arguing 'specialness' isn't in the rules. So putting it up as a defense doesn't fly when referring to the generic campaign. Your 'assumption' is basically not a rules argument, it's a hard House Rule.
==Aelryinth
NPCs don't gain XP. They gain levels purely through GM fiat. =P
(Edit: Which is why most NPCs are 1st level for their entire lives.)
Honestly, the thing that keeps a magically run society from having a technological explosion is magic.
Consider this; every piece of tech we have is a simple result of a need or desire being filled.
A gas stove and all the technology leading up to it (drilling for natural gas, transportation methods, flow regulators, ignition devices, etc.) are the result of needing to cook food and the desire of being able to do it quickly and easily in one's own home.
Now, this same problem is solvable in a magic world via one simple low level spell.
The need is satisfied, there's no need to develop technologies beyond that.
We don't need to reinvent the wheel.
In the end, magic actually STIFLES technological advancement.
In Golarion, this is maid evident via Alkenstar.
Firearms developed there because magic was stifled, so it in turn did not stifle technological advancement.
BAM!
Firearms!
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I think most are missing the point.
Obviously Technology as we know it would hardly exist because of magic, but why magic iteslf isn't employed massively in a world in which anyone of at least average intelligence can learn to use cantrips?
Wasn't a variant of that the basis of Eberron?
(Of course - there would still be a limit on the # of wizards. It's the same reason that there was so much unskilled labor during the pre-industrial age - it's because the guilds artificially limited the # of people trained in each craft.)
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Yeah, the industrial revolution started with water power. The first harbingers of it were mills that ran on water wheels. Then steam power and coal-fired became a thing to drive the engines, slowly improving over time.
And then someone realized all the wonderful things electricity could do if you had turbines and a lot of wiring all over the place, and things REALLY took off.
So, water->coal->electricity was the development. Alkenstar might be at the coal stage, but nobody is really at the electrical stage, except oddballs up in Numeria.
Science is discovery, a knife that cuts into the structure of nature to explore it.
There is really no good reason for a setting to not progress. Only way for fantasy world to avoid progression is to make it inherently simple. Everything is merely energy, or something similar.
The idea that magic will keep status quo is usually very bad explation because it relies on the idea of "god of status quo". While tech vs magic makes an interesting conflict in some cases, it always makes pretty one dimensional worlds because the world was made for the conflict and not the other way around.
I'm going to have to call this up as... well, not completely incorrect, but at least wildly off-target.
The majority of this argument is circling around the events of the revolution, not the events that lead to it. Arguing that "It can happen because they have the technology" is actually irrelevant if the basic components are not there to actually drive science and industry.
The roots of the industrial revolution are in the farms.
A quick google search, if you'd prefer a less verbose description.
Medieval society was a post-apocalyptic world where the formerly more advanced nations stepped back to an older and more primitive existence than had existed prior to the fall of Rome. It was a set-back, not a unique scenario, but at the same time they still had one of the greatest tools and developments of the prior age on hand - the domestic horse. In this era, much as in more ancient times, the vast majority (typically 90-97%) of the population were subsistence farmers - peasants working to feed the population with inefficient tools, inefficient methods and inefficient land use.
Populations were fairly high (in the millions), but cities were few and small, as were towns. In fact, it looks a lot like the standard rules for Pathfinder and 3.5. What most Golarion books don't mention is the overall population of nations, which are in the millions, but almost all are dirt-poor farmers trying to keep everyone fed. With the overwhelming focus of human effort being on food production, and settlements small, industry is typically on an artisan basis - there simply isn't the labor base nor demand for large scale industry, thus neither resources nor 'need' to drive innovation.
Over the centuries, farming methods were improved, draft horses (already superior to the ox) were bred to be bigger, more numerous and thus cheaper, while harnesses were improved to make better use of the animals in the field. Two-field farming systems gave way to three-field systems to give better (50% better) land usage. And finally, the Enclosure Act (still reviled by some) overturned the ancient and inefficient (but made sense at the time) structure of land allocation to allow more strategic and efficient use of land, but also causing huge numbers of peasant farmers to now be out of work.
The unemployed flocked to towns and cities, which now had something never seen before: A surplus labor force. And with the rise of urban populations came the rise of industry, escalation of commerce and the eventual birth of the middle class - common folk who rose to the top of the communities to gain wealth and influence. And it is the leisured (i.e. wealthy enough to afford luxuries, time spent to relax or work on personal projects etc) middle class that eventually sparked the industrial revolution, as an ever-growing demand for products and services grew.
What does this mean for Golarion?
It's simple: Coal? Gunpowder? Electricity? Magic? None of these will spark a industrial or technological revolution while the overwhelming majority of the population of the world are rural subsistence farmers. And as-written, Golarion is an agrarian society with the corresponding (miniscule) city sizes that come with it.
Wizardry is a trained class, requiring years to master.
Unless you're a PC multiclassing into it, in which case that gets handwaved so that your character doesn't have to sit out years of game time.
And as I said above, there's no rule that says just anyone can take a wizard level anyway.Again, if you want it to work that way and to have nearly everyone have a level of wizard with a few hours of practice, thus changing the world, that's great. The rules allow it.
If I don't want everyone to easily take wizard levels, so that I can have a more traditional world, I can do that to. The rules don't forbid it.
This.
There is a reason everyone in modern day society doesn't have a degree and PhD: Because it's completely impractical.
That and in the medieval/Golarion society, the would be mass famine and general economic collapse as all the young workers spend the better part of a decade in university.... and being a 1st level Wizard really doesn't help put food on the table that much unless there's a lot of people who aren't shelling out money for your services.
TL;DR: Golarian is an agrarian world filled with subsistence farmers who don't have time for your fancy science as they've got mouths to feed. And until farming methods improve and urban populations grow (a lot) that won't change.
To be exact, Golarian is an agrarian world that hasn't realized that if everyone knew some magic, they wouldn't be subsistence level farmers and could greatly ease their workload hugely with just cantrip-level magic.
It takes years to learn how to be a level 1 farmer, too. The same amount of time it takes to activate your bloodline. So Golarion is basically based on a reality which exists in defiance of what real circumstances would drive people to do.
There is NOTHING more important they could learn, even if they just went back to farming and using their magic to help them out.
And advances in 'farming' that created the labor surplus were fed by the NEED for more efficiency, due to an increasing population, which came forth from the benefits of other advances in technology.
There were regularly labor surpluses in any Empire with a protracted period of peace. One of the reasons rulers started wars was to keep the population down low enough that starvation wouldn't affect the cities. As someone pointed out above, the first machine in Rome was a great success for the inventor, he was paid for inventing it, and then it was quietly buried because it would put people out of work who needed to be fed.
So, the labor surplus was a side effect of long existing cycles already established. It didn't just suddenly come out of nowhere. Without the relevant tech and place to put that labor surplus from advances in technology, what would have happened is just like what happens today...food riots, starvation, violence and a lot of killing one another over scarce resources, leading to war as people look for any way out of their situation with nothing to lose.
==Aelryinth
Fine: So here are my house rules. The vast majority of people, of all player races, can't learn magic. A small percentage can be taught. An even smaller percentage can learn magic spontaneously.
Those who can't learn magic at all have no special advantages. There's no easier way to tell who can and who can't other than trying to teach them.
PCs who aren't casters are assumed not to have tried to learn. If they later wish to take a caster level, they are assumed to be able to.The neat thing is, these house rules work exactly like the real rules and exactly like Golarion and most published worlds. The only places they differ just don't come up playing the game.
The only come up when you try to extend the rules for adventuring into rules for simulating a whole world.
I'd still like to see the published rule that says everyone can be a wizard. Any PC can take a wizard level, but remember there are no prerequisites for sorcerer either. Any PC can take that (in any bloodline or 2 cross-bloodlines they please), but that's not usually interpreted to mean everyone in the world has sorcerous blood.
You can assign any class level to any NPC you care to. As long as they satisfy the stat requirements, they get a level in the class.
Them's the rules. There are NO other criteria. You're trying to look for some criteria that says yes/no, and there is none. Any NPC can gain a level in any class. The fact they don't is a hand-wave of the system to make PC's 'special', but this is written down NOWHERE.
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Interesting on spontaneous casters, Jeff.
I assume spontaneous casters are much more common then prepared casters, as high Charisma is probably more prevalent in a more uneducated society then high Int (as in, more people would put their +2 into it to help them survive the world). Also, I assume wizards are all sorcs who have chosen a different road to using magic then employing their bloodline. Thus, all wizards are actually sorcs using magic differently...and thus, they tend to think of themselves as superior to Sorcs because they CAN use magic without relying on a bloodline (in addition to being smarter by definition).
And my rules work perfectly with the game rules, too, as long as you ignore the Forsaken part of my rules and humans being non-magical. YOu have Powered people and non-Powered people, and that's how it is. NPC's generally don't have magic because they can't, and generally aren't powerful/strong/high level because they don't have magic which drives conflicts which generate that magic called 'xp' to help them level, and generally lose out to Powered people if there are conflicts.
==Aelryinth
To be exact, Golarian is an agrarian world that hasn't realized that if everyone knew some magic, they wouldn't be subsistence level farmers and could greatly ease their workload hugely with just cantrip-level magic.
I
That's assuming of course that knowledge is the only thing that's required to wield magic whether arcane or divine, as opposed to the additional requirement of an undefined "Gift".
If however the gift is relatively rare, that means that spellcasters of real ability aren't simply going to be common enough for magic to assume an assembly line model.
Minor rules nitpick: In Pathfinder (and D&D since Edition 3.0(?)), you don't technically have to meet minimum ability scores to get levels in a class. A lot of combinations of class selection and low ability scores don't make sense, but you aren't explicitly forbidden from taking them.
Now in 1st Edition, on the other hand, classes did have explicit minimum ability scores (sometimes multiple), although with the common classes it was still possible to get combinations that weren't very usable. Not sure about 2nd Edition, but I suspect that it was the same.
To be exact, Golarian is an agrarian world that hasn't realized that if everyone knew some magic, they wouldn't be subsistence level farmers and could greatly ease their workload hugely with just cantrip-level magic.
It takes years to learn how to be a level 1 farmer, too. The same amount of time it takes to activate your bloodline. So Golarion is basically based on a reality which exists in defiance of what real circumstances would drive people to do.
*snip*
==Aelryinth
This lands in the fuzzy area between mechanics and world building, but given the young character rules in Ultimate Campaign, A human can start as a level 1 Commoner (read as, farmer) between the ages of 9 and 14, whereas a Sorcerer starts between 16 and 19 and a Wizard starts between 17 and 27; I'm not saying PF does better than the historical record, but I think Golarion is based on a reality where real circumstance drive people to employ child labor in a preindustrial setting, rather than lose between 7 and 18 years of productivity.
Yes, I just said Paizo endorses child labor, someone flag my post. :P
Besides, as far as I know, there is no rule saying "anyone of at least average intelligence can learn to use cantrips". Any PC can take a level of wizard without any prerequisites, but then any PC can take a level of sorcerer without any prerequisites either and that doesn't lead to claims that everyone in the world has some kind of sorcerous bloodline.
Why would anybody ever take an NPC class, if PC classes are just as easy to pick up?
Obviously, you can nitpick this if you want to justify an "everybody is magic" world, but you don't need to. Just make one. That's cool. Run with it.
If someone else doesn't want that, the rules are loose enough to allow that too.
Wasn't a variant of that the basis of Eberron?
(Of course - there would still be a limit on the # of wizards. It's the same reason that there was so much unskilled labor during the pre-industrial age - it's because the guilds artificially limited the # of people trained in each craft.)
My point is that unlike Sorcerous magic that is inherited like having blonde hair or blue eyes, Wizardry is strictly learned, limited only by intelligence. Mechanically any character can take a level in either, but narratively one whose player decides to take a level in Sorcerer means that the character was the descendant of a dragon all along (or any other heritage) and only then unlocked the related magical power, while taking a level in Wizard means that the character chooses in that moment to learn magic and does so without needing precedent dispositions.
Thus a number of levels in Wizard are no different from a degree in science or engineering, as they just take time to learn, and not everyine is an engineer anyway. But the fact that not everyone is, doesn't mean that there isn't technical progres in the society as a whole, as scientific and technical knowledge was shared across the world even centuries before internet. And people uses all the time tools of which he doesn't have the whole technical knowledge, as you don't have to be an electronic engineer to use a radio fo example.
Thus the question becomes: as magic can be learned and thus not different in access to scientific knowledg, whhat does limit it to be found more consistently down the street in mundane and/or widespread uses? Cheap magic items exist, more precious one could be of retricted acces but used by officials, low level spells from officewrs and so on.
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Thus the question becomes: as magic can be learned and thus not different in access to scientific knowledge
Actually it is.
While I do agree that if taken to their logical conclusion many low level spells should have an impact upon the daily lives of the world at large, it's not a direct comparison to scientific development. Magic leads to relative stagnation.
The reason? With magic you can't build on the shoulders of giants the way that you can in science.
A brand new automotive engineer fresh out of school today will be able to design things which Henry Ford couldn't have imagined because of the layers of advancements which have happened since then. This is despite Henry Ford being well above the average in skill and inclination in the field.
A level 1 wizard? He's casting exactly the same power of spells that Melf did when he was a level 1 wizard millennia ago. If he levels up, said wizard will gain power and is potentially able to personally create magical gear for low level characters to use to improve their daily lives. But he can't design something which said low level characters can make.
This was pretty much a setting debate from the get-go; arguments about 'what the rules say' have been ... useful and not useful at the same time. Some of them - the theory that deserts shouldn't exist because a first-level priest can create infinite water - are somewhat erroneous, since the math isn't worked out...
So you have a crop which requires 6mm of water per day across every bit of the growing area; 2 gallons spread out only 6mm deep will cover a square about 18" on a side - or 2.26 square feet per casting. Working 14 hours out of a 24-hour day (8 hours for sleep, 1 hour for the necessary prayers, and 1 hour spread through the day for eating and the like), a 1st level cleric can therefore water (14 * 60 * 60 / 6 = 8400 castings * 2.26 sq. ft) just over 19,000 square feet worth of land!! That sounds great - but how much acreage is it?
One acre is 43,560 square feet. Which means the first level cleric would have to spend a 14 hour day to water ... less than half an acre of cropland for his crop of, say, onions.
Now, boost your priestly level, and sure, you're starting to make a difference; .44 acres per level, y'know? Or, when you hit level 7, start creating decanters of endless water, for a steady jet of 30 gal/round (equivalent to a 15th level caster), or enough to water 11.21 acres a day. Sounds like a nice little stream, right? Enough for a river, maybe? Well, streams and rivers are measured in cubic meterage of flow per second, and 1 cubic meter is just over 264 gallons; multiply by 6 to get 1585 gallons/round, divide by 30 (one decanter's worth) and you find you need 53 decanters to achieve volume enough for a roughly 3' deep by 6' wide stream flowing at about 20" per second (a decent flow). Each only 2,250gp to construct - five of which would buy you a ship. And for you and your neighbor to water your two 40-acre farms worth of onions, you're going to need seven between the two of you - 15,750 construction cost. Hey, you're more than halfway to your own warship, guys!!
Mass magic is an interesting idea - until you get into the nitty-gritty and the comparative cost.
... but I do take all their points. I think Aelryinth and a few others are wrong - in part because though 'the wizards do X' is tossed about awfully freely, when in fact doing X is going to require the yearly GDP of at least a sizeable city - but I do take the points, though really only when it's in regards to Golarion, which is essentially a high-magic world. I personally think the best points brought up are those by Raynulf.
Aelryinth argumentation is exactly what I mean with "don't mix RL with PF"
There are some "Short-cuts" which can create logic holes but they are only there because of gameplay reasons not lore reasons.
You have to seperate this. If you want to talk about "why didn't golarian advance" it's a lore question and due to this you have to stick to the lore and ignore "rule holes" (like missing "training time" for multiclass)
One of the side things that's always been suggested, if not outright understood, when it came to multiclassing is that it's always been an interest of yours, and you've been doing some reading up (or praying, or whatever) 'off-stage' as it were for the last X amount of time. But since it's not explicitly stated in the rules ...
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To be exact, Golarian is an agrarian world that hasn't realized that if everyone knew some magic, they wouldn't be subsistence level farmers and could greatly ease their workload hugely with just cantrip-level magic.
Question: What proportion of the population have studied and mastered partial differential equations? Or LaPlace transforms? Or anatomy? Or genetics? Or plasma physics?
Answer: Very few, and almost always it's a case of focusing on a specific field, because while it is possible to beat this knowledge into ones skull, it is hard and takes a lot of effort and persistence, as it takes months or years of effort to actually accomplish true (and useful) understanding. This is true of most academic pursuits.
The fact that one can become a brain surgeon or rocket scientist doesn't mean that everyone can realistically do so.
That aside: Which cantrips are you thinking? Looking at the Wizard list I'm not seeing much which will really help getting crops planted, lifestock moved or the harvest done on time.
It takes years to learn how to be a level 1 farmer, too. The same amount of time it takes to activate your bloodline. So Golarion is basically based on a reality which exists in defiance of what real circumstances would drive people to do.
Ah. Genetic destiny. Sure. If everyone actually carried around a heritage of powerful creatures which could be awakened to burninate ones foes... they'd still just be 1st level Sorcerers (NPCs don't get XP by standard without GM caveat) with 4 cantrips (none overly useful) and 2 known spells of 1st level, with the best choices being mount for a free but mediocre horse, unseen servant to do monotonous tasks that don't require any actual strength and crafter's fortune for an extra +5 on a crafting check.
And... no, actually it takes no time (beyond reaching adulthood) to be a level 1 medieval farmer. They're called commoners and they're out in the field at the age of 16 (or less), because most are simple muscle and doing what they're told - no learning involved, just the ability to follow directions.
Which is why most people are commoners. Because working in the field puts food in the belly now, whereas convincing your family to support you for years while you study so you might potentially put more food in their bellies later... well... it's not a very good gamble.
There is NOTHING more important they could learn, even if they just went back to farming and using their magic to help them out.
I had this argument with one of my players in a game we were using the kingdom building rules for. He was absolutely adamant that what would aid society most was getting a school set up and training wizards, because they could use magic for the betterment of society.
I ask you the same thing I ask him: What spells would they take and how would they use them as a 1st level wizard that would offset the (taking average) seven years such training would take? Seven years of contributing nothing, but needing to be fed, clothed and supplied with expensive tomes and books to learn from?
He poured through the SRD, and subsequently stopped asking.
I think most are missing the point.
Obviously Technology as we know it would hardly exist because of magic, but why magic iteslf isn't employed massively in a world in which anyone of at least average intelligence can learn to use cantrips?
That was my original point.
I ask you the same thing I ask him: What spells would they take and how would they use them as a 1st level wizard that would offset the (taking average) seven years such training would take? Seven years of contributing nothing, but needing to be fed, clothed and supplied with expensive tomes and books to learn from?
You realize that spellcasting is literally worth money? You could probably take Profession (Mage) for gods sake. Even just repeated castings of prestigitiation can contribute to society. Also, why are you only using the spells from the book when the rules are specifically for Adventures. Use the spell research rules to make some more mundane focused ones, or make some command use items or even just potions. The Gamesmasters guide actually specifically says that non-adventuring focused items exist that aren't detailed in Pathfinder because of the games adventuring focus, so why not make some for your community?
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Now having said what I have, it's not like I haven't thought of Magic & Tech mixed together. I still have often thought that Animate Object coupled with a permanency spell (or perhaps craft wondrous item, or craft construct) could make a basic perpetual motion machine.
Imagine being able to create a mill inside of a city that didn't require wind or water to power it? seems like a small thing, but it would be a big deal for the city.
And once a person could master the moving parts of said machine it's a simple hope to creating a self propelled wagon.
Both concepts are basic and simple engineering feats. I would imagine that for the most part, the only thing that would be that the wear and tear on these early items would be what prevented them from lasting too long, but improvements would come along in the years that followed.
What could happen if you could harvest things from the elemental planes. Rocks that always burned of all ways emitted heat could replace coal. That makes steam even cheeper. But by the time it would typically would be created, would it replace the perpetual motion machine? Energy without need for fuel vs. something that at least would require water? Maybe it would if the steam engine provided more torque?
For all of my thoughts, for all of the questions that I pose here, and we all have run through our minds, there is a much simpler less meta answer to the reason why science doesn't really overtake Magic.
Its because the people telling the story don't want it too.
If magic too much resembles tech, many fantasy genre people loose interest. There might be a uncanny valley for this sort of thing, but I remember when Eberron came out and I can tell you that some people avoided it like the plague. Personally I thought that it was kinda cool.A little too confined, but otherwise it had some interesting concepts.
TD:DR We can come up with reasons for why something happens and doesn't happen until the cows come home. Just because something seems unanswered doesn't mean it is a plot whole. Somethings are left unsaid because it's left for the reader, or player to fill in his mind themselves...
Honestly, because there's no 'mass production' cost for magic. Every item or spell is specifically crafted, with reagent costs that are for all intents and purposes standardized and which can't be reduced. Can you, as GM, decide they can be? Certainly - and so you'd have horseless wagons rumbling around the streets. One horseless wagon, however, costs 15,000gp for the permancy spell alone; most other uses of that spell cost 2500gp. I don't recall specifically what would be required for one-time travel to an elemental plane to retrieve an ever-burning object (rock, sphere, whatever), but I expect the spell components aren't cheap.
Technology is viable - one might say inevitable - because it does progress, can become mass-produceable. Costs for technology come down, or aren't so high in the first place.
Yes, there are arguments going the other way (Aelyrinth gave a whole list of them) but IMO, closer examination of those arguments in any specific manner shows that there are major issues with each of them, such as I showed with the 'infinite water' theory above.
But ... some things are left unsaid.
The infinite water argument: Okay, there are tons of holes with this. First, you're trying to compare covering an entire acre of ground with 'giving each plant enough water for a day'. You do realize that most cropland is actually 'empty space', right?
In other words, you're saying 'waste craploads of water to make sure this doesn't work.'
Let's say you've got that 6th level cleric who can cast Create Water for 2 gallons per casting.
The real question is, HOW MANY PLANTS CAN HE WATER.
Corollary: how many plants can you water with 2 gallons of water?
The answer: LOTS. 2 gallons of water is a decent size water can. Let's say 10 plants.
Which means in an eight hour day he produces enough water to nourish 48,000 plants. Acres of onions.
That's a LOT of plants.
You don't use that water to cover a wheat field and be evaporated. He fills up the jugs one by one and people administer them.
You can use those figures for spray and pray agriculture, but not for anything with brains.
A decanter would multiply this by 15, with the additional caveat that it runs on time, all the time, so x3. If one cleric could do 5 acres of onions in neat rows, a decanter would do 210 acres!
I mean, seriously, by your example, we'd have to plant onions basically EVERY 6 INCHES to maximize use of the water, leaving no place to walk. If you plant an onion every 6 inches, 19,000 sq feet is 76,000 onion plants!!!
That is a LOT of onion plants, grown at an incredible density. Which you can't do if you rely on natural watering. A normal garden would be lucky if it worked at 1/10th that density.
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Raynulf:Question: What proportion of the population have studied and mastered partial differential equations? Or LaPlace transforms? Or anatomy? Or genetics? Or plasma physics?
Answer: Very few, and almost always it's a case of focusing on a specific field, because while it is possible to beat this knowledge into ones skull, it is hard and takes a lot of effort and persistence, as it takes months or years of effort to actually accomplish true (and useful) understanding. This is true of most academic pursuits.
Question: How many people need an advanced degree in physics to learn a new language, learn how to dance, and memorize things?
Answer: None. None of what you described is required to learn magic. A person of Int 11 can learn 1st level spells, and cantrips. Prestidigitation alone would revolutionize workloads. It only requires that time as a 1st level character. Anytime after 1st level, it requires a teacher and the amount of xp. Xp is magic. XP satisfies every condition you named.
Magic is actually affecting the world. Physics is the study of the mechanics behind affecting the world, the equivalent of magical RESEARCH.
But if the spells have already been designed, you need to know enough to operate them, NOT enough to modify or improve them, or the formula behind WHY they work...only that they do.
You're trying to associate magic with theoretical physics, which would be restricted to only those with great skill in magic. The level of skill we're talking about is that of technicians and operators, MAYBE engineers, and simply knowing what to do, not total comprehension of WHY it works, which is what you are trying to draw a parallel to. I personally think if you can do all the math to build a good, clean house, you could be a low level wizard.
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As for who can learn magic, the rules make no distinctions between PC's and NPC's. The game itself assumes magic is as basic as science, and wizardry is potentially available to anyone smart enough to figure out how to use it. Wizardry is knowing how to push the buttons of existence. Unlike sorcery, it doesn't require a bloodline.
So, anyone could potentially be a wizard, there's no 'magic potential' involved.
You can define it differently in your own game. I did, because I like the 'not everyone can learn magic' trope.
==Aelryinth
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Which means in an eight hour day he produces enough water to nourish 48,000 plants. Acres of onions.
75,000 to 120,000 plants per acre is pretty typical for onion farming if you're using the traditional setup, straightforward rows.
I mean, seriously, by your example, we'd have to plant onions basically EVERY 6 INCHES to maximize use of the water, leaving no place to walk. If you plant an onion every 6 inches, 19,000 sq feet is 76,000 onion plants!!!
Reality is unrealistic, Ael. Plant in rows with two inches between plants.
/farmhand
No offense, Aelryinth, but that amount? That is per day, for a healthy crop - what's required between absorption, expiration, plant and ground evaporation, and all the other ways water leaves the area, in addition to what the plants need. This isn't 'back of an envelope', this is using scientific data used by farmers today to figure out how much water they need for their fields to grow. Plants - crops - require more space to grow, and more WATER to grow, than you apparently realize; for full growth, an onion's best planting is 6" apart, with rows 12" apart - because the root system reaches OUT 3"-6" in every direction. Not even carrots grow only straight down.
To give an example, Georgia's average annual rainfall is about 50" - 1270 mm. At 6mm/day, this equates to 211 2/3 growing days per year. Crops vary in growing day requirements, and if you're farming in a place that has annual rainfall, you don't need to water during times when nature has watered for you - because if you give 30mm in one day, you've basically watered for the next 5 days - but if you want to do what you're suggesting, i.e. turn the deserts green, you need to supply all those requirements yourself.
So in this case? Yeah, you're wrong. Watering 10 plants like you want to, instead of 2-3 like you need to, will get you 10 dead plants instead of 2-3 healthy ones.
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"First level spells and cantrips are useless'.
Oh my god. Have you ever even THOUGHT about what such minor spells could do for time savings for people back then? if the population could just use cantrips, it would be incredible. First level spells could change the world.
Just a 1st level caster:
Prestidigitation:
SEEDING A FIELD/ - Perfectly. You have a bag of seeds, and you walk between the plowed rows. The seeds fly out and plant your wheat stalks exactly four inches apart, six inches down...and then CLOSES THE FURROW so the birds can't eat them.
You can perfectly seed miles of plow lines without having to bend over, push the seed down, and close it up, and you're not just tossing out seed in the desperate hope it goes to root. Food production would skyrocket for LESS WORK.
CLEANING: You can instantly clear up minor waste from an area and render rooms clean in seconds, as well as putting everything back in place.
You can wash an entire household worth of clothes in minutes at most.
every single place you work can be returned to immaculate shape and with everything in the right place when you are done, regardless of how messed up and dirty it has become. No clean up time required.
Average level of health would increase rapidly. Women are freed up from much of the drudgery of maintaining a home.
CLEARING FIELDS: Time to expand! The most back breaking part is getting the rocks out of the fields. Walk along, small stones fly out of the ground and drop onto your Floating Disk. Larger stones get marked and your unseen servant slowly and patiently works them out and adds them to piles stacked here and there as your Disk becomes full. At the end of the day, you bring up a wagon, shuffle the stones onto it, and you've cleared massive amounts of ground without having to bend over and haul them up manually.
BUILDING STUFF: you can pound a nail in instantly (or, at the very least, set it precisely in place for a swat), turn dozens of screws into place instantly and precisely, while your tireless Unseen Servant does all the sawing at the marks you set down. The servants can either fetch materials for you or push a Disk with the same on them.
Unseen Servants and Prestidigitation can milk your cows for you. It can also feed your chickens and clean their cages.
Prestidigitation can perfectly clean,sort, and sift seeds, chaff, flour and the like at harvest time. You just need to sit there and concentrate, reducing hours of hard labor to virtually nothing, and getting a much higher quality level out of it.
It can also heat or cool food on demand, which helps out wonderfully when cooking.
Light/Dancing lights: I shouldn't have to say what always having a light source available that works in any weather can be useful for, from simple reading to signalling at a distance.
Purify Food and Water (c) means your food stores don't make you sick and won't go bad. Health and diet improve again.
Mage Hand specifically moves around objects up to 5 lbs as you like at range. No more wasting time getting up and moving around to fetch something. COME TO MY HAND! Also helps with mid-size rocks in fields.
Daze works against anything up to 4 HD. Awesome defense weapon against dangerous animals/creatures. 50% chance of shutting them down so you can run away.
Using Spark, you always have an instant fire ready to go, regardless of conditions.
Detect Poison has multiple uses, from detecting bad booze to avoiding assassination to sensing poisonous animals.
Using Ray of Cold, you always have cold drinks on demand, and basic refrigeration becomes possible. Just make a cold room and freeze a few gallons of ice into blocks every day to keep it cool.
You can use the Drench Cantrip to replace create water, instantly soaking your crops as you walk along, OR...putting out fires.
Ray of Frost is instant self-defense. It also can be used to shoot down birds preying on your crops, or for hunting squirrels, rabbits and other small game. It is far more accurate then using a bow and arrow, too.
a town of people who can memorize Disrupt Undead would never fear a zombie apocalypse.
MENDING: Making minor repairs on something without need for material components or tools. You can keep everything you have in tip top shape for much longer, reducing wear and tear, preserving money, allowing you to afford higher quality wear instead of cheap stuff that wears out quickly. Preserves and enhances quality of life by undoing accidents and the ravages of time.
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1st level spells-
Using Endure Elements, you can work in the hottest or coldest of weather without discomfort or needing cold weather gear.
Abundant Ammunition: You never need to buy arrows again. You can practice for an hour a day and never have to go fetch the arrows. You don't have to carry around quivers - just cast the spell when its time to shoot your quarry. This spell is worth tons of money and time.
Magic Missile: This spell allows you to unerringly shoot and kill small game. The perfect one-shot hunting spell to supplement your diet, as well as being semi-useful for self-defense. While Snowball improves faster, its Ranged Touch means you will still sometimes miss.
Comprehend Languages means you can always understand what strangers or intelligent monsters have to say, or what odd languages mean, avoiding misunderstandings if possible. Two people with this spell effectively have Tongues with each other.
Dancing Lantern: Very bright light source that follows you around hands free at any speed...like riding at night, if need be.
Detect Charm and Detect Undead: Thinking something suspicious is going on, now you can be absolutely sure of it! Reduces infiltration and confirms actual presence of threats. Great for security.
See Alignment: Used over time, gives you an excellent idea of what your friends and neighbors are like, bypassing charming faces and slick words. Lets people know who to trust and who not to.
True Strike: The power of the average man to Not Miss with a strong attack cannot be understated. Particularly useful for hunters. A hundred archers who could cast this spell twice can kill almost anything under CR 15, using the right arrows.
Keep Watch: A must for any night watchman. Never be sleep-deprived.
Sleep: A better version of Daze, because you can coup the sleeping creature if required.
Floating Disk: the ability to carry around up to 100 lbs of stuff without strain for an hour cannot be underestimated. Instead of making multiple trips with small loads, you can make one at a time. It's like having the perfect wheelbarrow that can go anywhere on demand.
Vanish: 1 rd of invisibility can save your life.
Decompose Corpse: Turning rotting corpses into skeletons is equivalent to burning the dead and fighting disease. No need for a pyre. Bonus: You can't make a zombie out of it, now, or Raise Dead on it.
Restore Flesh: As someone noted, Restoring flesh to the skeleton of a deer and then Purifying it effectively creates an infinite source of meat - but this is a loophole.
Ant Haul: Being able to triple the weight load of a strong creature can allow a LOT of work to be done, or things to be moved which otherwise could not. A strong horse can move a good-sized boulder and probably rip a tree out of the ground with this spell.
Animate Rope: if you are working with nets and/or sails, this spell is incredibly precise and useful.
Crafter's Fortune: This increases the speed at which you make things by 33%, and makes it much easier to create a Masterwork object (a level 2 character could cast it and create a Masterwork object in his trade EVERY TIME, without any other help. Otherwise, just need an aide or masterwork tools.)
The biggest thing is speed of production, however. Going from an average 15 to a 20 is a big leap in speed.
Mirror Polish: this unassuming spell replaces hours of labor.
Cure Light WOunds(c): Assuming you can't get Infernal Healing. This one spell takes an injury that would keep you down for days and gets rid of it instantly. It can save those dying instantly and perfectly, so getting kicked in the head by a horse is no longer dangerous.
As a cantrip, Stabilize takes the risk of dying from an injury that doesn't instantly kill you to 0. The chances of permanent injury/maiming are much reduced.
Create Water(c): A single 1st level cleric can provide enough daily water for hundreds of people to exist on, and/or keep acres of gardens well watered, if he needs to. His flowers will always be blooming.
Guidance (c): +1 to a roll is generally +6-7% more efficient, even if all you apply it to is a Craft roll. It all adds up, and it's free. Put it on a hundred craftsmen, and that's +100 silver a day in production, which is more goods coming to market.
Bless Water: Makes Holy water. i.e. makes money AND a weapon.
Carrion Compass: Find the source of the undead. Security spell allowing you to eliminate the source of a dangerous problem.
Diagnose Disease: Incredibly useful spell for maintaining the health of herds and a population.
Hairline Fractures: this spell is VERY handy in reducing the amount of labor needed to pound down large rocks.
Remove Sickness: takes someone who can't work and lets them work as if they were fine.
Speak with Animals: The ability to tell your mousing/hunting dog/cat exactly what to do, or for them to be able to tell you what they sense, would both be immensely useful.
+++++++++++++++
And let's not forget one very, very important effect - the ability to use magic items.
Being able to issue Wands to much of your population in the event of an attack, or simply having a random bystander being able to pick up and use them for you, would be incredibly useful.
Even minor magic, with enough numbers behind it, can be immensely strong. Archers with true strike, hundreds of magic missilers, etc, can really shake up and change a military situation.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
So, yeah, having a couple mages going around and casting minor spells for people won't do a massive amount except in special situations, especially combat spells.
But for specific uses, Prestidigitation and other cantrips are IMMENSE time savers if you can use them yourself, not to mention the effect on health and quality of life. Simply having your pet mages go out at harvest time to do the seeding would reap IMMENSE rewards, not to mention replacing all the filter/cleaning/seperate work at harvest time.
Create Water means eternally bountiful gardens, basically. And you get a lot more food out of a garden then a wheat field.
So, no, those peasants do NOT have anything better to do with their kids then help them learn how to keep everyone fed, make labor easier and faster, keep their food stores cold, wipe out vermin, make their clothes and tools last longer.
You realize that's the same argument nobles used to discourage commoners from getting a public education, right? It's as valid now as it was then. Everyone smart knows that an education is a ticket to a better life...even if you go back to being a farmer.
and farmers aren't dumb.
==Aelryinth
In my settings, whether it be Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, or Dungeon World, I make magic a bit different. Magic always has a cost and is either unpredictable or requires an immense amount of discipline to use. Arcane magic always has a chance to have a random effect, whether it be weal or woe. Divine magic requires you to have zealous faith in your deity and church, lest you get Excommunicated. Inner magic (my version of psychic, chi, and occultism rolled together) requires one to be incredibly disciplined and an aesthetic, and wavering from that makes them lose access to that power. In addition, all magic has a chance of corrupting the user from overuse. So that in itself is a self limiting ability, both psychological and physical, for magic to not jump to magitech. I still have cities that have some fantastic magical elements to it, but nowhere near the level of Eberron.
Second is that in my settings, magic and technology do not get along very well. At least, technology higher than, say, Renaissance. It's subjective, but usually the guidelines are, the more moving parts and complexity it has, the more of a chance magic won't like it. To bind magic to higher technological devices requires giving the device some semblance of sentience, by binding a soul into it and putting some of your life force into it. The more advanced the tech, the greater the price. So, mages aren't too keen about self-sacrificing themselves to have advanced, magic tech. And most spirits aren't too keen with being bound into an M16 to make it a +1 flaming M16 ;)
Also, from a political point of view, technology evens the playing field between mundane and mage. Mages are powerful and like being in charge, whether directly or in an advisory role. More technology means that those mundane peasants can revolt against their magocracy and mages don't want that! So most technological advances are scrutinized by their governments and if they find it too threatening, are quietly removed.
No offense, Aelryinth, but that amount? That is per day, for a healthy crop - what's required between absorption, expiration, plant and ground evaporation, and all the other ways water leaves the area, in addition to what the plants need. This isn't 'back of an envelope', this is using scientific data used by farmers today to figure out how much water they need for their fields to grow. Plants - crops - require more space to grow, and more WATER to grow, than you apparently realize; for full growth, an onion's best planting is 6" apart, with rows 12" apart - because the root system reaches OUT 3"-6" in every direction. Not even carrots grow only straight down.
To give an example, Georgia's average annual rainfall is about 50" - 1270 mm. At 6mm/day, this equates to 211 2/3 growing days per year. Crops vary in growing day requirements, and if you're farming in a place that has annual rainfall, you don't need to water during times when nature has watered for you - because if you give 30mm in one day, you've basically watered for the next 5 days - but if you want to do what you're suggesting, i.e. turn the deserts green, you need to supply all those requirements yourself.
So in this case? Yeah, you're wrong. Watering 10 plants like you want to, instead of 2-3 like you need to, will get you 10 dead plants instead of 2-3 healthy ones.
No offense, Wyrm, but what you're saying is that every onion plant basically requires 2/3 to a gallon of directly applied water Per Day. Because I used 10 plants per casting, and you're down to 2-3?
So, I believe it is your numbers that are off 'for this example and use of water'.
If you are talking FIELDS...remember, I'm talking Gardens. Because we have manual labor, not machines. And on days it does not rain, you go out there with a watering can or something and water your plants. Directly. Not splashing all over the place. The amount of waste water would be vastly reduced.
Also remember, THEY AREN"T USING MODERN FARMING METHODS. You're talking about scientifically proven mass farming efficiency...the acres of fields we're talking about are planted nowhere near so densely! Right? Our job is, with magic, to try to GET CLOSER to modern efficiency. 48,000 onion plants in Golarion is probably 5 acres or more of them, not the 1 acre we'd do nowadays, right? They'd actually have 2'-3' walking paths between the onion plants, not furrow rows from a modern combine.
We're talking the era of manual labor, not pray and spray irrigation. People are going to be going out there with the water you make and applying it to their plants. You aren't filling up a big tank to feed into your irrigation system. with buckets balanced on their shoulders, or those of their animals.
And of course, all this is In Addition to any natural rainfall, as you noted. I said nothing about making the deserts bloom. Always assuring that your plants have the right amount of water is all we are talking about.
(Seriously, if we're talking deserts, then mass greenhouses to capture water loss is a viable thing, too!)
So, if you want to impress me with numbers, tell me how much water one plant requires a day, garden style. I'm betting its a pint or less, and that would remain pretty constant across whatever kinds of plants you're talking about. If it's a pint a day, that's 16 plants per casting. If it's a quart a day, that's merely 8...which, in any event, is closer to my numbers then yours.
On top of that, is, of course, different plants have different water requirements. Most grains are rather low on reqs...dense root vegies and water-intensive fruits are higher. You're using onions, which is fine.
But if you stick an onion in a pot, just how much do you have to water it a day?
So, you need to dial back your 'modern density' and remember we aren't talking modern times. This is going to be a 'per plant' thing, not groundwater saturation irrigation. And based on THAT standard, instead of the modern, a 1st level cleric can easily keep acres of plants green.
==Aelryinth
In my settings, whether it be Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, or Dungeon World, I make magic a bit different. Magic always has a cost and is either unpredictable or requires an immense amount of discipline to use. Arcane magic always has a chance to have a random effect, whether it be weal or woe. Divine magic requires you to have zealous faith in your deity and church, lest you get Excommunicated. Inner magic (my version of psychic, chi, and occultism rolled together) requires one to be incredibly disciplined and an aesthetic, and wavering from that makes them lose access to that power. In addition, all magic has a chance of corrupting the user from overuse. So that in itself is a self limiting ability, both psychological and physical, for magic to not jump to magitech. I still have cities that have some fantastic magical elements to it, but nowhere near the level of Eberron.
Second is that in my settings, magic and technology do not get along very well. At least, technology higher than, say, Renaissance. It's subjective, but usually the guidelines are, the more moving parts and complexity it has, the more of a chance magic won't like it. To bind magic to higher technological devices requires giving the device some semblance of sentience, by binding a soul into it and putting some of your life force into it. The more advanced the tech, the greater the price. So, mages aren't too keen about self-sacrificing themselves to have advanced, magic tech. And most spirits aren't too keen with being bound into an M16 to make it a +1 flaming M16 ;)
Also, from a political point of view, technology evens the playing field between mundane and mage. Mages are powerful and like being in charge, whether directly or in an advisory role. More technology means that those mundane peasants can revolt against their magocracy and mages don't want that! So most technological advances are scrutinized by their governments and if they find it too threatening, are quietly removed.
i do similar things.
For your #2, I add something else. You start adding magic to tech-heavy things, you are invoking Axiom, trying to remove the Chaos from innately Neutral magic and make it Lawful.
If you start doing that, you run a grave risk of making Axiomatic life forms, i.e. intelligent constructs. And when your mass production line wakes up and decides the organics around are doing things wrong and/or are unnecessary, things get messy.
i.e. a lot of technological processes only work in magic-dead zones, much like you are doing, because nobody wants an animated tank roaming free.
==Aelryinth