Average roll on 3d6 is 10.5.*
I would imagine intellignece gathering on people would be a lot more important in military affairs. Because in PF universe an invidual can be incredibly powerful. So not knowing that the archmage X was adventuring buddies with orcwarlord that is raiding your country might result in some very costly mistakes. As such I would also assume that aliases and false identies would be fairly common for anyone in those circles that is midlevel of higher. Some kingdoms would also probably try to bluff by letting false information leak. "Oh yeah we totally have a super secret cabal."
EDIT:* Forgot to also note that, you need to take into the accounts of chances of any mental stat being higher as any of them can be used for casting.
That +2 floating stat bonus is going to come into play as well.
This follows my earlier point regarding ability scores required to cast spells. A 10 is above average (assumind 3d6 standard rolls vs point-buy) and this eliminates a good portion of the population in your standard village.I understand your point, and from a pure Civilization™ strategy game point of view, it makes sense. Since I rather suspect that more people are capable of performing agrarian types of pursuits, than are able to possess sufficient devotion, obedience, understanding, divine connection, et al, your point falls apart in a world set attempting to portray, at some level, existance at an individual level.because there aren't enough clerics to feed everybody, and it's economically and socially more productive to keep the masses occupied as peasants, and the clerics busy doing something else?Missing the point.
Have clerics, not farmers. Ie., in this world where food is an orisen and gods exist and you make more food with less work by the orisen - you'd have stacks of sweatshop monasteries with fields unplowed.
Umm, no Quintain, on a straight 3d6 roll, 10.5 is dead average. So the only Norm's who can't manage Cantrips have to be solidly below average in all three casting stats to be utterly incapable of spellcasting. Most norms will be able to manage even first level spells of at least one of the types.
EDIT ADD
If you assume that only Adept is open to NPCs, then you are only talking a bit over half of the NPCs are capable of Cantrips, with a bit under half of all NPCs capable of first level spells.
Now ... will they all choose to do so, is the question? Will they go into the field they are most suited for? People do not in reality efficiently sort into appropriate fields of endeavor.
Just pointing out a flaw in a number theory. I can easily envision a world setting where anyone capable of magic will learn it. Pathfinder™ is not my first choice for rules to play that world in. You would have to outright toss the whole concept of restricting NPC (character) levels, and actual (character) class restrictions.
Umm, no Quintain, on a straight 3d6 roll, 10.5 is dead average. So the only Norm's who can't manage Cantrips have to be solidly below average in all three casting stats to be utterly incapable of spellcasting. Most norms will be able to manage even first level spells of at least one of the types.
EDIT ADD
If you assume that only Adept is open to NPCs, then you are only talking a bit over half of the NPCs are capable of Cantrips, with a bit under half of all NPCs capable of first level spells.
If you restrict norms to only the Adept, you eliminate 1/3 of the potential casting pool by limiting the only casting stat available to wisdom. Assuming random distribution of ability scores. You also have the human nature portion of the equation that will further limit the number of people becoming spellcasters simply due to societal pressures - nobles breed nobles, etc. Historically, the priesthood was only populated by 2nd and greater sons of minor nobility. 1st born sons already had the role of heir to the house.
The same sort of idea applies to laborers, etc.Note also: the adept can't cast an unlimited number of cantrips, they are limited to 3 a day. So, if you take a Thorp's population of say 20 average normals, you get only 10 that have a casting stat of 10+, and only 3 of those 10 will be able to be adepts. That is 9 cantrips per day - not quite the unlimited supply that is presumed in these threads. So, that makes the use of cantrips to do repairs, make water, and purify food/drink as a limited commodity, not an unlimited one.
Now once you start getting into the major metropolises, yeah, you get a huge prevalence of "normals" being able to contribute to the commune. Magic in the Pathfinder universe is more akin to technology than what we have grown up with.
Umm, no Quintain, on a straight 3d6 roll, 10.5 is dead average. So the only Norm's who can't manage Cantrips have to be solidly below average in all three casting stats to be utterly incapable of spellcasting. Most norms will be able to manage even first level spells of at least one of the types.
EDIT ADD
If you assume that only Adept is open to NPCs, then you are only talking a bit over half of the NPCs are capable of Cantrips, with a bit under half of all NPCs capable of first level spells.If you restrict norms to only the Adept, you eliminate 1/3 of the potential casting pool by limiting the only casting stat available to wisdom. Assuming random distribution of ability scores. You also have the human nature portion of the equation that will further limit the number of people becoming spellcasters simply due to societal pressures - nobles breed nobles, etc. Historically, the priesthood was only populated by 2nd and greater sons of minor nobility. 1st born sons already had the role of heir to the house.
The same sort of idea applies to laborers, etc.Note also: the adept can't cast an unlimited number of cantrips, they are limited to 3 a day. So, if you take a Thorp's population of say 20 average normals, you get only 10 that have a casting stat of 10+, and only 3 of those 10 will be able to be adepts. That is 9 cantrips per day - not quite the unlimited supply that is presumed in these threads. So, that makes the use of cantrips to do repairs, make water, and purify food/drink as a limited commodity, not an unlimited one.
Now once you start getting into the major metropolises, yeah, you get a huge prevalence of "normals" being able to contribute to the commune. Magic in the Pathfinder universe is more akin to technology than what we have grown up with.
Quintain, your stats are not good. To be clear: on average, assuming 3d6 for stats, no moving the rolls between stats, no racial wisdom bonus/penalty and ignoring age modifiers, a thorp with 20 inhabitants will have on average 12 (actually 12.5) with wisdom 10 or higher. I don't expect all of these will be adepts but the potential is there.
Quintain, your stats are not good. To be clear: on average, assuming 3d6 for stats, no moving the rolls between stats, no racial wisdom bonus/penalty and ignoring age modifiers, a thorp with 20 inhabitants will have on average 12 (actually 12.5) with wisdom 10 or higher. I don't expect all of these will be adepts but the potential is there.
My mathematics may be off slightly, but my point is not. My point is that while there is the *potential* for x number of adepts out of y population (whatever ratio you want to assign), you will never have 100% conformity between potential and in-game reality.
Which reduces the sheer quantity of spell-casting available to any particular community, making it less of a given and more of a consumer good that requires costs.
Note: correction on my statement above. Adepts can memorize no more than 3 cantrips. There doesn't seem to be a declared limitation on number of castings a day. However, just as a blacksmith won't work for free, a spell caster won't either.
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I'm not sure it's terribly useful to argue that every single NPC with a casting stat of 10 or better is going to become an adept (or cleric, druid, sorcerer, wizard, etc.), since we've got lots of adventures and such that indicate that tons of them go on to become aristocrats, commoners, experts and warriors, despite the obvious advantages of being a spellcaster. There's got to be an 'in-game reason' for that, other than 'they chose poorly.'
For whatever reason, spellcasting seems to require something more than just a 10 or better in the relevant attribute, but whatever that 'special something' is, call it 'the Art' in the Realms, or the appropriate bloodline, for Sorcerers, or a god to choose you, for a Cleric, it's kind of handwaved for PCs who want to play a Cleric or Wizard, just as it's handwaved for a PC who wants to play a nobleman's bastard, or a half-elf (which is *also* something that not every NPC can just decide to be!).
I think it's a false start to assume that, because we players can choose for our character to be a Wizard, that any NPC with an Int of 10+ can choose to be a Wizard and start casting cantrips at will.
While it seems thematic for Clerics and Sorcerers, in particular, to have some sort of setting limit (based on the gods deciding who gets to be a cleric, and your bloodline deciding if you've got the 'stuff' to be a sorcerer), it's less intuitive, but, IMO, just as likely, that you can't just decide to raise *thousands* of kids to be Bards, Druids or Wizards (or even Adepts), because they are at least average Cha, Wis or Int.
Set,
Actually, I have already argued against everyone with the minimum requisite stats automatically being casters, after a post suggesting that a society would stop "producing" farmers and only produce clerics. Another poster added that, assuming a straight-up 3d6 roll, most Norms would be incapable of any magic. Problem is, his math was wrong, and I have difficulty leaving bad math alone.....
Now, the biggest problem is that there are different unspoken assumptions being used here, as the OP failed to include any assumptions, and the title of the thread literally asks for an "anything-goes" discussion, but then refuted ideas based on unstated assumptions. The thread suffers continued dissonance because of this. Add to this, positing any consequence that would weaken or counter ^-^ "the sacrosanct superiority of spellcasters" is met as it always is by some forum-folk. This was predestined to be another Tower-of-Babel thread with nobody speaking the same language. There have still been some good ideas posted, and some useful responses too. Consensus is not a possibility, but that isn't the value of this kind of thread.
Daw,
It is an anything goes discussion. Both with points and counter points. There isn't any rules for this thread, just discussion. There is no effort to prove anything other than funny/not so funny consequences of the rules of magic.
It has deviated somewhat into the logistics of NPC spellcasters, but that is germain to the discussion.
This is simply a friendly discussion.
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If I can reference medieval demographics, according to this source, you have one "clergyman" for about every 40 people, but only one priest for about every 25-30 clergy (or about 1,000 people).
It seems reasonable to me that most of the basic clergy would be adepts, while most of the priests would be clerics. That would give you an estimate of about one adept per 40 people, and one cleric per 1,000.
Incidentally, you also need about 1,500 people to support a blacksmith, which means that this:
Some people are guards, some farmers, some blacksmiths, some spell casters. The usefulness of each occupation is directly related to how much you aid your community. The smallest of communities is probably going to have a single smithy, a single general goods store, and a single church. Just as a smithy has a master blacksmith and a few apprentices, the local church is going to have one head priest and a few acolytes. Since they live in that community AND want to spread their faith they are going to use their services to aid the community how ever they can.
That means casting "Create Water" to fill the town irrigation, purify food/drink to clean the town well water, mending to fix broken tools, stabilize on a person who hurt themselves, things like that.
...would describe a town of about 1,000-1,500 people. And while one cleric and a couple dozen adepts can do quite a lot of good for a town, I don't think they would be able to fill all the community's needs for water, medicine, or mending.
First, it is my understanding that adepts don't have unlimited orisons:
Note: correction on my statement above. Adepts can memorize no more than 3 cantrips. There doesn't seem to be a declared limitation on number of castings a day.
As far as I'm aware, every class that gets unlimited 0-level spells gets either the "orisons," "cantrips," or "knacks" class feature. For example, clerics have: "Clerics can prepare a number of orisons, or 0-level spells, each day, as noted on Table: Cleric under “Spells per day.” These spells are treated like any other spell, but they are not expended when cast and may be used again." To me this suggests that 0-level spells are not actually unlimited by default, which means that adepts, lacking the orisons feature, can only cast a limited number of them.
Looking at water alone, this source estimates the global average water consumption per person at 1243 cubic metres per year, or 328,365.9 gallons per person, or 328,365,900 gallons for a town of 1,000. At 1,200 gallons per hour for Create Water, you're looking at 273,638 hours worth of work a year, or 750 hours a day. If the magical irrigators are casting 8 hours a day, you'll need 94 of them to single-handedly supply the town.
But can we use the water consumption of a modern person to estimate the water consumption of a pseudo-medieval person?
Well, potatoes are one of the most water-efficient crops at 287 litres of water (75.8 gallons) and 770 calories to the kilogram, which means that to feed a person 2000 calories worth of potatoes you need about 197 gallons of water a day, or just under 197,000 gallons a day for a town of 1,000. That's 165 hours worth of work per day, which takes 21 magical irrigators casting Create Water for 8 hours a day – or about 1/50th the population of the town. For a diet of potatoes.
And remember that if I'm correct that adepts cannot crank out Create Water for 8 hours a day, this work needs to be done by clerics or other PC-classed spellcasters. This would make widespread irrigation by manual casting massively impractical.
However, it would be relatively easy for clerics to supply drinking water to a castle under siege or a sailing ship, and they'd probably be able to blunt a drought or possibly even supplement irrigation long-term in an area that otherwise gets just a little less than it needs to support farming.
And you could get some very interesting things going with Decanters of Endless Water. I've got a city in my setting that is primarily magically irrigated, and I estimated that it would need about one decanter per 20 people - or a 450gp investment each. That's equivalent to 12-13 years of wages for an unskilled worker or about a year's wages for an artisan - which, given that it's a permanent investment, is not out of the question for an elven city.
As far as I'm aware, every class that gets unlimited 0-level spells gets either the "orisons," "cantrips," or "knacks" class feature. For example, clerics have: "Clerics can prepare a number of orisons, or 0-level spells, each day, as noted on Table: Cleric under “Spells per day.” These spells are treated like any other spell, but they are not expended when cast and may be used again." To me this suggests that 0-level spells are not actually unlimited by default, which means that adepts, lacking the orisons feature, can only cast a limited number of them.
Fantastic post, Wierdo. It may be that they can cast only 3 cantrips per day -- as I didn't see a statement one way or another, I couldn't come to a conclusion, but the lack of one is somewhat of an indicator of limited cantrip spellcasting.