It's just a flavor that Paizo no longer likes or wishes to support.
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For the same reason that Cloak of Resistance, Belt of Giant Strength, and Monk Robes need to be done away with.
They're all essentially REQUIRED equipment after a certain point and building these kinds of bonuses into the basic Leveling system makes sense versus punishing players by requiring them to invest their WBL on things the system more/less assumes you have.
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For the same reason that Cloak of Resistance, Belt of Giant Strength, and Monk Robes need to be done away with.
They're all essentially REQUIRED equipment after a certain point and building these kinds of bonuses into the basic Leveling system makes sense versus punishing players by requiring them to invest their WBL on things the system more/less assumes you have.
This. Even if Paizo is only going half the way with PF2.
For me, genre and aesthetics, I do not like the idea of Elric and Moonglum circle-jerking a wand of cure light wounds all night in order to continue with the adventure.The only reason I've heard for Wands of CLW being such a problem is because it feels stupid to sit around with a level 1 wand and heal up to full after every fight.
But why does that feel stupid?
I viewed it as folks praying for healing and holding on to the wand until they were healed, the healing was expended from the wand (empty wand), or deciding to press on without being fully healed.
How you look at it in game often changes how you feel about certain game mechanics.
Surely Elric could afford better healing. Cure Light Wounds wands are really only a concern for low level PCs.
Surely Elric could afford better healing. Cure Light Wounds wands are really only a concern for low level PCs.
But but but! Cost effectiveness! You are playing the game badwrongfun if you don't stockpile CLW wands! Why would you waste that money! You are bad player! - Goes part of the argument.
Hyperbolic and extreme? Yes. But I'm getting tired of people seemingly assuming that EVERY group just uses CLW wands the same and as full replacement for healing after a certain point.
My own groups pick up 1 because they like to believe their own built in healing spells/abilities will be enough and that they'll make good tactical choices. The wand is for when they are running on empty or don't feel like preparing a Cure that day.
But that bloody community Math has shown that CLW wands are busted no matter what so everyone just load up 10 of the suckers per character. Everyone does that right?
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Fair point, but I will say that the gold cost of wands of CLW and skill points in UMD or requiring a spell list are not to be neglected either.
The gold cost is meaningless past the very early levels (and at the very early levels, nobody is objecting to using a Wand of CLW, that's when you're supposed to use them, it's when you're still using them at 13th level that there are...issues).
The UMD thing is fair enough, if you weren't already taking it for non-CLW reasons (which, if nobody has CLW, you probably are), and if you need to take it (I've literally never seen a party where somebody didn't have CLW on their list, I mean, if you have a Ranger or a Paladin, you've got that...in total, I believe 15 of 36 Classes have CLW on their list, 17 if you count alchemy, though that doesn't matter for Wands, so it's possible to go without but you almost have to be trying to).
In short, for most parties, it's without meaningful cost past the very low levels, which is where I was going with that.
At early levels, an extra wand or two can mean putting off important gear upgrades and not everyone has the skillpoints to spare for being the UMD-bot. I've also DMed two consecutive games without a divine caster, so it's not like that's unheard of either.
My current game also lacks a Divine caster. The players have two people who can do healing magic, though (a Witch and an Occultist).
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The gold cost is meaningless past the very early levels (and at the very early levels, nobody is objecting to using a Wand of CLW, that's when you're supposed to use them, it's when you're still using them at 13th level that there are...issues).
All costs are meaningless if the design calls for groups to be full hit points between encounters.
If the design calls for full hit points - then the cost will be built into the game no matter what 'fluff' you put around it the end result is the same. Fluff used intentionally - here if the design calls for full healing - you can twist words, powers, money, objects, systems, doesn't matter - into pretzels - the end result is the same - all groups will have access to heal to full between encounters and are expected to do so. The idea that the action used to do it matters is really immaterial - at the end of the day if heal to full is an expectation any solution is functionally identical to 'all characters are full hit points after a fight, make up reasons why on your own'. The dressing doesn't change the design.
I try to use that word sparingly (especially given James Jacob's dislike of the word) - because lore, backstory, or just cool stuff to me *isn't* worthless. I do use it here because people argue over the method (cure light wounds wands). I feel the discussion should be more along what the end goal is - because it'd be easier to make your table and my table happy if they just gave us the assumption, and let us handle the details without telling us that either playstyle is wrong.
It might feel good to tell someone 'cure light wounds wands is wrong' because you are on that side of the argument - but I'm telling you that if the changes result in the same thing, that you just spent a ton of time and effort that at the end of the day - did nothing different.
That - to me - seems like a waste of 'design space' that could be used for cool stuff.
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All costs are meaningless if the design calls for groups to be full hit points between encounters.
If the design calls for full hit points - then the cost will be built into the game no matter what 'fluff' you put around it the end result is the same. Fluff used intentionally - here if the design calls for full healing - you can twist words, powers, money, objects, systems, doesn't matter - into pretzels - the end result is the same - all groups will have access to heal to full between encounters and are expected to do so. The idea that the action used to do it matters is really immaterial - at the end of the day if heal to full is an expectation any solution is functionally identical to 'all characters are full hit points after a fight, make up reasons why on your own'. The dressing doesn't change the design.
Sure, this is absolutely true if the design necessitates healing to full between all encounters at no cost.
That's not actually how PF1 was supposed to work, just how it wound up working. And it's certainly not an inherently desirable design goal. Indeed, I'd argue that it's a potentially serious design problem if PCs are never 'too hurt to go on today', and PCs sometimes being too hurt to go on is certainly the tack PF2 seems to be taking from what we've seen thus far.
I try to use that word sparingly (especially given James Jacob's dislike of the word) - because lore, backstory, or just cool stuff to me *isn't* worthless. I do use it here because people argue over the method (cure light wounds wands). I feel the discussion should be more along what the end goal is - because it'd be easier to make your table and my table happy if they just gave us the assumption, and let us handle the details without telling us that either playstyle is wrong.
It's not about the playstyle being 'wrong' in some objective sense. It's about the playstyle not being the original intention of the game whatsoever. It's a side effect of a standardized rules interaction rather than something they were aiming for.
They are aiming to not have a similar unintended interaction in PF2.
It might feel good to tell someone 'cure light wounds wands is wrong' because you are on that side of the argument - but I'm telling you that if the changes result in the same thing, that you just spent a ton of time and effort that at the end of the day - did nothing different.
That - to me - seems like a waste of 'design space' that could be used for cool stuff.
But the result is not the same. There's clearly fairly abundant healing, but it's not unlimited. You can absolutely run out of healing in most cases (very possibly all cases), and while you may start many fights at full health or near it, there remains a point of no return beyond which you simply won't have any more healing available.
And that's actually a pretty big change.
As Jason Buhlman stated at UK Games Expo, "In Pathfinder, the day never ends because the fighter is low on hit-points". I believe that he was implying that this was an issue.
By having each class use a depleting daily pool of resources (resonance, spells, etc) to continue to function, the system can attempt to balance each class so that they don't end up in a situation where the party has to rest because the mage is out of spells but the fighter can keep going.
My interpretation of this was that the designers think that this is a problem.
Ok. This I can see - if resonance is the thing that makes Fighters want to rest at roughly the same encounter rate that a caster wants to rest - my entire opinion of the system changes.
I hadn't seen that quote (or reasoning) anywhere - and it makes a ton of sense.
That's not actually how PF1 was supposed to work, just how it wound up working.
No - this was a thing in 3E - and was well known before Pathfinder 'forked' the rules.
https://seankreynolds.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/a-different-take-on-wands-in -ddpf/
Check that out - considering he helped shape the rules for v 1.0 - I'm guessing that the fact that he knew cure light wounds wands were a thing kind of shows how this wasn't some surprise.
Pathfinder - for what it's worth - actually encouraged wand use - by including at least one wand or partial wand in every adventure path book one as loot, by having it as a super cheap item in PFS, etc.
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That's not actually how PF1 was supposed to work, just how it wound up working.No - this was a thing in 3E - and was well known before Pathfinder 'forked' the rules.
https://seankreynolds.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/a-different-take-on-wands-in -ddpf/
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While I don't like his suggested change to wands--a wand of +X to spell DC would be another lackluster addition to the number-buffing mandatory magic items--I do like the comparison between wands in 1st and 2nd edition D&D and wands in 3rd Edition D&D. The earlier editions were more piecemeal, so that having a few wands did not mean having all wands. Third Edition was meant to be universal, so wands of all spells 4th level and lower were available. Thus, it enabled Wands of CLW without that being a deliberate design intention.
Back in my AD&D and early 3rd Edition D&D days, my characters used potions of Cure Light Wounds instead of wands. Habits survive despite rule changes. In one campaign, the halfling rogue carried several of them, and she would sneak onto the battlefield as a stealth healer for downed characters.
And this part really makes me angry – there is a feat for allowing a character to craft wands.
A Player Character is not, ever, going to take that feat if the setting has “wand vending machines”
So, the feat only exists to explain why the world can have “wand vending machines”
In my games, wands can be freely purchased in large towns and towns with sufficient trade to receive regular shipments from large towns. The town does not need a wand-crafting cleric of its own (or a wand-crafting wizard with a low-level cleric partner) if it has a market for wands.
Yet two party members, an oracle in my Jade Regent campaign and a skald in my Iron Gods campaign, learned Craft Wand. Their reasons were that their job was to provide healing magic when necessary, even if out of spells, and the wands were a way to store their spells. My wife points out that she does not like buying magic, because throwing cash at a problem does not seem heroic, but making potions, wands, and magic items themselves seems like an extension of the character and does not bother her.
Just saying per the rules, a small town (population range 201-2000 people) has a base gold limit of 1000gp and per the rules there is a 75% chance of the players being able to trivially find any magic item at or below that limit (like a CLW wand).
I guess you are playing a different game than the rest of us.
This is just another one of those cases where the economy (of PF1, at least) just doesn't make sense if you sit down to think of it. Among the incomprehensible comparison of artifact and major magic item gold prices versus the cost to construct entire cities, you have the rampant availability of magic items in areas where the demographics provided by the game's source materials say they wouldn't exist. The populace to create the items doesn't exist and the cost of the items versus how many must be out there doesn't gel; if you have a 75% chance to find items under 1,000 GP, then on average, 75% of every possible magic item (including scrolls and wands) in that range is in the area--potentially with more total monetary value than all the mundane goods and real estate of the area.
This is just another one of those cases where the economy (of PF1, at least) just doesn't make sense if you sit down to think of it. Among the incomprehensible comparison of artifact and major magic item gold prices versus the cost to construct entire cities, you have the rampant availability of magic items in areas where the demographics provided by the game's source materials say they wouldn't exist. The populace to create the items doesn't exist and the cost of the items versus how many must be out there doesn't gel; if you have a 75% chance to find items under 1,000 GP, then on average, 75% of every possible magic item (including scrolls and wands) in that range is in the area--potentially with more total monetary value than all the mundane goods and real estate of the area.Just saying per the rules, a small town (population range 201-2000 people) has a base gold limit of 1000gp and per the rules there is a 75% chance of the players being able to trivially find any magic item at or below that limit (like a CLW wand).
I guess you are playing a different game than the rest of us.
Which is why you would actually have utopia hallways in all major population centers. You walk through and get healed and cured of poison and disease. Plus you get a sack of food and whatever other goodies you'd like to add to that. It would be a fairly minor investment of gold for the extreme long term benefit. And now that the population doesn't have to worry about being medieval serfs, they can focus on education. Thus, providing more gold and skilled crafters to build more utopia hallways.
If you want to have more fun with it, create beneficial magical disease that cure ability damage and other such effects, which you use the utopia hallways to spread to your entire population. After all, if an evil cult can rub their hands together to create a magic disease that deals con damage, a good cult can just as easily rub their hands together to create a magic disease that heals con damage.
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-potentially with more total monetary value than all the mundane goods and real estate of the area.
That's actually not true. A house in a city are worth 1,290 gp, while a farmhouse + farm is 2,090 gp.
A Wand of CLW is pricey, but stuff under 1000 gp is cheaper than a house.
Which is why you would actually have utopia hallways in all major population centers. You walk through and get healed and cured of poison and disease.
This is only possible if you really abuse the magical trap rules in a way that clearly doesn't work in-universe (even if it does by RAW). I suspect it will no longer work RAW in PF2 either.
Ignoring that one thing, the economy is actually pretty workable.
Which is why you would actually have utopia hallways in all major population centers. You walk through and get healed and cured of poison and disease.
This is only possible if you really abuse the magical trap rules in a way that clearly doesn't work in-universe (even if it does by RAW). I suspect it will no longer work RAW in PF2 either.
Ignoring that one thing, the economy is actually pretty workable.
I've walked through hallways trapped with far more powerful magic than: Cure light wounds, lesser restoration, remove curse, remove disease, create food and water, and neutralize poison. So clearly it isn't an abuse and works in-universe. If a magical device can infinitely cast inflict minor wounds, then it can infinitely cast cure minor wounds. I thought you liked the rules to be a physics book of the universe?
And they might fix up the trap rules, but beneficial magical diseases are still an issue. CotCR has a cult that flat creates a magical disease. A good cult could do the same, and could also use the same 1500gp item to infinitely replicate the disease for plot convenience, I mean mass contamination. Nature is full of beneficial microbes after all. Pretty silly to suggest that magical beneficial microbes couldn't exist.
And it's hardly just either of those things. A handful of Lyres of Building would free up most to all of the working class of a city to focus on other things. The tippyverse list goes on and on and on. The issue is that most fantasy settings don't build things from the ground up to include the magic, monsters, and other elements. Instead magic and the like is slapped on to a basic medieval setting without much regard for how those things would fundamentally change the fabric of society. Hell, long distance communication and teleportation alone would probably see the world play out differently than presented. This problem only gets worse with each new spell and magic item.
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I've walked through hallways trapped with far more powerful magic than: Cure light wounds, lesser restoration, remove curse, remove disease, create food and water, and neutralize poison. So clearly it isn't an abuse and works in-universe. If a magical device can infinitely cast inflict minor wounds, then it can infinitely cast cure minor wounds.
It certainly could. But traps with infinite resets that can be used every round (or every other round) are not actually a thing that needs to exist in the setting. They are not inherently needed, and they and only they are the problem.
For example, in my house rules, magical traps hold a max of fifty charges but can recover one per year up to that maximum (allowing for the 1000 year old magic trap that still works). This change effects no actual published scenario or situation at all.
Is that the route they'll take to fix this world building issue? No clue, but they could do a dozen similar things pretty easily.
I thought you liked the rules to be a physics book of the universe?
I prefer it when they are, but some are clearly and unambiguously wrong and broken. The high and low temperature rules, for example, would result in me personally being dead since I've gone winter camping. And walked places in 90 degree heat.
And they might fix up the trap rules, but beneficial magical diseases are still an issue. CotCR has a cult that flat creates a magical disease. A good cult could do the same, and could also use the same 1500gp item to infinitely replicate the disease for plot convenience, I mean mass contamination. Nature is full of beneficial microbes after all. Pretty silly to suggest that magical beneficial microbes couldn't exist.
They don't create the disease. They modify an existing disease to be more infectious and virulent. Basically, nothing was done in creating that disease that a modern biowarfare lab couldn't do (using technology instead of magic), though they probably do it quicker.
In short, there's no evidence they can do this any more easily than we can in real life. Have we done this in real life yet? Because if so I seem to have missed the memo...
Now, they use magic to spread the disease, but that's a whole different thing.
And it's hardly just either of those things. A handful of Lyres of Building would free up most to all of the working class of a city to focus on other things.
Uh...the working class of most cities do jobs other than building things (which is all the Lyre can do). If you want to argue this means there wouldn't be a lot of construction jobs you should feel free...but I can't recall a single construction worker coming up in any Pathfinder supplement. There might be some, but they certainly aren't particularly common.
The Lyre doesn't actually work in the mines, farm, or work in a shop. It's debatable if it can even make something difficult to build like a ship.
The tippyverse list goes on and on and on. The issue is that most fantasy settings don't build things from the ground up to include the magic, monsters, and other elements. Instead magic and the like is slapped on to a basic medieval setting without much regard for how those things would fundamentally change the fabric of society. Hell, long distance communication and teleportation alone would probably see the world play out differently than presented. This problem only gets worse with each new spell and magic item.
This is actually fairly untrue of Golarion. If you read up on the setting, universal literacy is assumed, feudal systems are rare and considered backwards, the equivalent of modern medical care or better is clearly readily available via local Clerics, people are much more familiar with distant locations than they ever were in Medieval times, there are modern-style nation states (something that was definitely aided by long range communication), and a variety of other setting assumptions are profoundly different from what Medieval society was like.
And all in ways that are pretty consistent with the more common uses of magic.
It certainly could. But traps with infinite resets that can be used every round (or every other round) are not actually a thing that needs to exist in the setting. They are not inherently needed, and they and only they are the problem.
Resetting fireball traps are most certainly a part of the setting. As are resetting negative energy traps.
They don't create the disease. They modify an existing disease to be more infectious and virulent. Basically, nothing was done in creating that disease that a modern biowarfare lab couldn't do (using technology instead of magic), though they probably do it quicker.
In short, there's no evidence they can do this any more easily than we can in real life. Have we done this in real life yet? Because if so I seem to have missed the memo...
Now, they use magic to spread the disease, but that's a whole different thing.
They took a disease that was magically created by a necromancer then modified it to be more virulent. I'm not sure where I even suggested that technology couldn't create beneficial microbes and I clearly stated magical disease. I'm not sure what your comment on bio labs is about. The fact that beneficial microbes can be created without magic is a huge argument in favor of them being able to be magically created.
Uh...the working class of most cities do jobs other than building things (which is all the Lyre can do). If you want to argue this means there wouldn't be a lot of construction jobs you should feel free...but I can't recall a single construction worker coming up in any Pathfinder supplement. There might be some, but they certainly aren't particularly common.
The Lyre doesn't actually work in the mines, farm, or work in a shop. It's debatable if it can even make something difficult to build like a ship
Actually construction is a lot of what the working class does in a medieval city. But I didn't say it replaces all of the working class now did I? Being able to spend half an hour to get the same result as 100 people laboring for 3 days(for the minimum is massive. Cities and fleets of ships could be built in an effective blink of an eye. Because yes, if it can build something like a building, then it can build a boat. That is a lot of labor that we no longer need, than can now be focused on becoming skilled laborers. Who can then focus on creating more magic and money that creates more of a surplus of labor, thus creating more ability to create skilled laborers, thus etc, etc. Then of course there is automation, which magic more than allows for. For example, horde of unseen servants could take care of a lot of the cleaning and other such menial labor, constructs could be used for hard labor or creating more constructs to do more hard labor. Not that we actually need constructs to mine for us since we can easily conjure raw materials out of thin air. Repair work is simple as Make Whole takes care of the majority of it. Even prestidigitation frees up a lot of chore time. Again, the list goes on. That s$&& is exponential in a society that has had the available means for centuries, millennia even.
"I haven't run across that many construction workers in stories that didn't revolve or involve construction workers" is hardly a compelling argument. You haven't run across all that many farmers. Am I to believe that farmers aren't particularly common? To be fair, the ability to easily conjure food certainly takes away a lot of the need. But I've never once had any of the farmers in the released material talk about all the magical means of crop production they use.
This is actually fairly untrue of Golarion. If you read up on the setting, universal literacy is assumed, feudal systems are rare and considered backwards, the equivalent of modern medical care or better is clearly readily available via local Clerics, people are much more familiar with distant locations than they ever were in Medieval times, there are modern-style nation states (something that was definitely aided by long range communication), and a variety of other setting assumptions are profoundly different from what Medieval society was like.
And all in ways that are pretty consistent with the more common uses of magic.
Yeah no, it's true of Golarion. Take a gander at the spell list some time. They have some modern takes on things and a bit more education on basic information, but the overall foundation remains the same. Universal literacy is assumed for play convenience, and has been standard for decades in the d20 system. Local Clerics provide some local health care, but it is very limited and they hardly have the medical infrastructural they RAW could have. The nations are hardly modern-style, they are mostly a large collection of city states and kingdoms. They have some modern morality, but again that is for player convenience as modern sensibilities makes even the greatest medieval kingdom seem evil. They certainly don't have anything set up that approaches the logical conclusion of the long range communication and travel options available. And they certainly don't have anything approaching modern means of education and production.
So your argument that simply because they aren't exactly a Medieval society holds very little water. And that's bad, because these are offhanded examples and hardly the most egregious. Golarion is profoundly the same set up as Medieval society, with some minor changes from slapping magic on to it. Eberon is a setting that takes in to account the magic available. That is what a profoundly different society looks like. The Tipperverse is what a profoundly different society looks like.
Actually construction is a lot of what the working class does in a medieval city. But I didn't say it replaces all of the working class now did I? Being able to spend half an hour to get the same result as 100 people laboring for 3 days(for the minimum is massive. Cities and fleets of ships could be built in an effective blink of an eye. Because yes, if it can build something like a building, then it can build a boat. That is a lot of labor that we no longer need, than can now be focused on becoming skilled laborers. Who can then focus on creating more magic and money that creates more of a surplus of labor, thus creating more ability to create skilled laborers, thus etc, etc. Then of course there is automation, which magic more than allows for. For example, horde of unseen servants could take care of a lot of the cleaning and other such menial labor, constructs could be used for hard labor or creating more constructs to do more hard labor. Not that we actually need constructs to mine for us since we can easily conjure raw materials out of thin air. Repair work is simple as Make Whole takes care of the majority of it. Even prestidigitation frees up a lot of chore time. Again, the list goes on. That s*$@ is exponential in a society that has had the available means for centuries, millennia even.
"I haven't run across that many construction workers in stories that didn't revolve or involve construction workers" is hardly a compelling argument. You haven't run across all that many farmers. Am I to believe that farmers aren't particularly common? To be fair, the ability to easily conjure food certainly takes away a lot of the need. But I've never once had any of the farmers in the released material talk about all the magical means of crop production they use.
So question: where are all the wizards that can cast these unseen servants, and why don't they have anything better to do with their spells?
Only 1 in 10 people that are even worth a stat block are casters (and let's even pretend that all of those are wizards), and that's of people worth a stat block. Let's say for example that 1 in 10 of the people that exist are worth a stat block (and that's likely an incredibly generous number). So of this wizard's two spells/day, one of those (unseen servant) is spent doing the work of an unskilled labourer for one hour.
How is this supposed to "advance society" again?
Actually construction is a lot of what the working class does in a medieval city. But I didn't say it replaces all of the working class now did I? Being able to spend half an hour to get the same result as 100 people laboring for 3 days(for the minimum is massive. Cities and fleets of ships could be built in an effective blink of an eye. Because yes, if it can build something like a building, then it can build a boat. That is a lot of labor that we no longer need, than can now be focused on becoming skilled laborers. Who can then focus on creating more magic and money that creates more of a surplus of labor, thus creating more ability to create skilled laborers, thus etc, etc. Then of course there is automation, which magic more than allows for. For example, horde of unseen servants could take care of a lot of the cleaning and other such menial labor, constructs could be used for hard labor or creating more constructs to do more hard labor. Not that we actually need constructs to mine for us since we can easily conjure raw materials out of thin air. Repair work is simple as Make Whole takes care of the majority of it. Even prestidigitation frees up a lot of chore time. Again, the list goes on. That s*$@ is exponential in a society that has had the available means for centuries, millennia even.
"I haven't run across that many construction workers in stories that didn't revolve or involve construction workers" is hardly a compelling argument. You haven't run across all that many farmers. Am I to believe that farmers aren't particularly common? To be fair, the ability to easily conjure food certainly takes away a lot of the need. But I've never once had any of the farmers in the released material talk about all the magical means of crop production they use.
So question: where are all the wizards that can cast these unseen servants, and why don't they have anything better to do with their spells?
Only 1 in 10 people that are even worth a stat block are casters (and let's even...
For a city, most of those will be magic items which cast the unseen servants. This will also be the case for numerous other examples. Where did all of those Wizards come from you ask? Simple, from the education system created by the increase of production and profit, and the subsequent free time created by that. A means of magical public education wouldn't actually require that much investment from a nation, and the benefits of such a system are truly immense.
Every human can have at least 12 int, and arcane wizardry can be taught in a school. Will that suddenly flood the world with lv 20 Wizards? Unlikely. Will it dramatically increase the amount of lv 1-5 wizards in the world? Absolutely. And those lv 3 wizards can join magical tradesguilds to help produce magical items which create more means of convenience and labor, which in turn allows for the creation of more wizards. So on and so forth.
And this is just using magic as an analogy for technology in our world. Some of the higher level effects allow for some real bananas stuff. That Wizard school that is pumping out low level wizards and that wizard trade guild pumping out low level magic items? No need for those to be in the material plane. Put them in a demi-plane where time works differently and that exponential growth skyrockets. People can effectively receive years of education in a matter of days or weeks. The same is true of production rates.
And again, these are all just off handed examples.
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-potentially with more total monetary value than all the mundane goods and real estate of the area.That's actually not true. A house in a city are worth 1,290 gp, while a farmhouse + farm is 2,090 gp.
A Wand of CLW is pricey, but stuff under 1000 gp is cheaper than a house.
But think how many different items the settlement must possess for there to be a 75% chance of them having any given item.
Scene: An adventurer passing through a village pops into the local shop.
Adventurer: "I'm looking for an Oil of Versatile Weapon and a composite longbow with a +2 strength modifier and a masterwork cold-iron katana and some Four-mirror armor and a Scroll of Fleshworm Infestation and a wand of Cure Light Wounds. Do you have all that?"
Shopkeeper: "Sorry, we're out of wands of Cure Light Wounds."
...Actually construction is a lot of what the working class does in a medieval city. But I didn't say it replaces all of the working class now did I? Being able to spend half an hour to get the same result as 100 people laboring for 3 days(for the minimum is massive. Cities and fleets of ships could be built in an effective blink of an eye. Because yes, if it can build something like a building, then it can build a boat. That is a lot of labor that we no longer need, than can now be focused on becoming skilled laborers. Who can then focus on creating more magic and money that creates more of a surplus of labor, thus creating more ability to create skilled laborers, thus etc, etc. Then of course there is automation, which magic more than allows for. For example, horde of unseen servants could take care of a lot of the cleaning and other such menial labor, constructs could be used for hard labor or creating more constructs to do more hard labor. Not that we actually need constructs to mine for us since we can easily conjure raw materials out of thin air. Repair work is simple as Make Whole takes care of the majority of it. Even prestidigitation frees up a lot of chore time. Again, the list goes on. That s*$@ is exponential in a society that has had the available means for centuries, millennia even.
"I haven't run across that many construction workers in stories that didn't revolve or involve construction workers" is hardly a compelling argument. You haven't run across all that many farmers. Am I to believe that farmers aren't particularly common? To be fair, the ability to easily conjure food certainly takes away a lot of the need. But I've never once had any of the farmers in the released material talk about all the magical means of crop production they use.
So question: where are all the wizards that can cast these unseen servants, and why don't they have anything better to do with their spells?
Only 1 in 10 people that are even worth a stat block are
Yeah, so to start with.
How many castings of unseen servant do you think it takes to keep a metropolis clean? And no, you're not allowed access to the custom magic item rules. Prestidigitation can't really do anything that an untrained labourer couldn't already do, so great work there.Similarly, a demiplane that has a different rate of time requires a level 17 wizard, and again, what is this wizard doing that he has time to afford to do this for pretty much 0 benefit of his own? (Not to mention greater demiplane can only double time, not do 10x it as you'd like to think.)
And this is all assuming optimal human condition that all wants to work together for a collective benefit, as though that's ever happened historically.
Finally, I'm pretty sure that this was basically the definition of Azlant. Look what happened to it.
How many castings of unseen servant do you think it takes to keep a metropolis clean? And no, you're not allowed access to the custom magic item rules. Prestidigitation can't really do anything that an untrained labourer couldn't already do, so great work there.
Could easily be hundreds, which is why you'd want magic items to do it. And yes, I am allowed access to the custom magic item rules. But having hundreds of low level casters in a city resolves that issue either way. The point isn't to do things that laborers couldn't do, it's to make it so they don't have to do that and can instead focus on other things. I've repeated that several times so I feel like you haven't actually read my posts.
Similarly, a demiplane that has a different rate of time requires a level 17 wizard, and again, what is this wizard doing that he has time to afford to do this for pretty much 0 benefit of his own? (Not to mention greater demiplane can only double time, not do 10x it as you'd like to think.)
I see you've skipped right past the magic school and trade guilds part and are moving the goal post to "But that would be a high level effect!!1!". I know it would be high level effect, that's why I said high level effects could create banana things. It's also why nothing I said was based on such an effect happening and it was mentioned after the fact as a bananas thing you could do with high level effects. As to why they would do that, that's a broad question that doesn't actually raise a point. Why does anyone do anything? Why does that one Wizard live on the Sun? Or are you suggesting that a high level wizard would never run a wizard school? Because there are canon numerous magic schools with mid to high level wizards running them.
And this is all assuming optimal human condition that all wants to work together for a collective benefit, as though that's ever happened historically.
This is assuming things would progress roughly in the manor as things did with technology in our world. It doesn't come close to "optimal human condition".
Finally, I'm pretty sure that this was basically the definition of Azlant. Look what happened to it.
Fish monsters crashed a meteorite in to it?
Yeah so, try starting with a point for your next post.
How many castings of unseen servant do you think it takes to keep a metropolis clean? And no, you're not allowed access to the custom magic item rules. Prestidigitation can't really do anything that an untrained labourer couldn't already do, so great work there.Could easily be hundreds, which is why you'd want magic items to do it. And yes, I am allowed access to the custom magic item rules. But having hundreds of low level casters in a city resolves that issue either way. The point isn't to do things that laborers couldn't do, it's to make it so they don't have to do that and can instead focus on other things. I've repeated that several times so I feel like you haven't actually read my posts.
Yes, but there aren't hundreds of low-level wizards in a metropolis. Let's go by my (extremely generous) note earlier that 1 in 100 people is a caster. So in a given metropolis, there are 250 casters, and not all of them will be wizards. You'd be lucky if even half of them are wizards, actually, given the sheer number of other types of caster. So let's say 100 wizards. Those 100 wizards can replace 100 labourers...for 2 hours each - 200 work hours. Presuming an 8-hour workday, you have successfully added...25 people to the economy, in a city of 25 thousand.
And if you want to use magic item creation rules, then start by explaining where in Golarion the infinite wish items are, or where the bracers of mage armor went to.
I see you've skipped right past the magic school and trade guilds part and are moving the goal post to "But that would be a high level effect!!1!". I know it would be high level effect, that's why I said high level effects could create banana things. It's also why nothing I said was based on such an effect happening and it was mentioned after the fact as a bananas thing you could do with high level effects. As to why they would do that, that's a broad question that doesn't actually raise a point. Why does anyone do anything? Why does that one Wizard live on the Sun? Or are you suggesting that a high level wizard would never run a wizard school? Because there are canon numerous magic schools with mid to high level wizards running them.
The magic school and guilds being infinitely effective relies on massive sudden magical man-hours appearing out of nowhere, so there's no need to cover that when they can't appear.
Yes, there's a high-level wizard running a magic school in Golarion...as a front for an Infernal Duke. Now, I don't actually recall what Lorthact uses the Acadamae for, but what was a noted thing about that?
> Students give ten years of their life to try and become highly talented wizards. During the first three years of their studies, the students are used as cheap labor by the staff and the senior students. Two of every ten students at the Acadamae do not survive these first years, being slain by magic traps, wayward spells, or murderous imps, or simply dying from exhaustion or carelessness.
A 20% fatality rate is not great for this magical society, and this is one of the best-known and highly skilled in Golarion.
This is assuming things would progress roughly in the manor as things did with technology in our world. It doesn't come close to "optimal human condition".
Very big assumption, considering there are demons, daemons, devils and their agents, all of whom would love to take advantage of that. And that's not even counting mortals that like the status quo. You're basically assuming everyone of a significant power level or above wants to contribute to this, and nothing like the Technic League forms, for example.
And you can't assume anything in relation to magic in comparison to our world's technology, when people of a certain level or above can literally take on an army of commoners and slaughter them all handily.
Fish monsters crashed a meteorite in to it?
Yes, because they didn't like the empire growing too big for its britches. There have been things that might eventually approach what you talk about (Aroden Cheliax, Azlant, Thassilon) but it turns out that pretty much anything like that usually can't survive long enough to eventually (over millenia) become a magic utopia, and any upheaval destroys the progress that was built up.
Even Cheliax (the absurdly big government) has only even been around for about a hundred years.
I guess I don’t understand the world of Golarion. Is every town the Player Characters begin adventuring in a city of 50,000 people? With 4,000 clerics, 1,600 of which are over 5th level, and 900 of these have Craft Wands as a feat?
Is that what is going on?
In my campaign settings, the average community size of the place where the Player Characters begin is less than 2,000 people. There might be 8 clerics. Two of the clerics are 5th level (usually not higher) and neither one of them knows how to craft a wand of healing.
I guess I play a different kind of game.
Just saying per the rules, a small town (population range 201-2000 people) has a base gold limit of 1000gp and per the rules there is a 75% chance of the players being able to trivially find any magic item at or below that limit (like a CLW wand).
I guess you are playing a different game than the rest of us.
I was describing this thread to a friend, who is also the player of the skald that learned Craft Wands so that she could make Wands of CLW and custom wands for the party (our magus liked Wands of Snowball at caster level 5). She asked, "Where are they finding all these wands?"
I pointed out the Core Rulebook rule: "The number and types of magic items available in a community depend upon its size. Each community has a base value associated with it (see Table: Available Magic Items). There is a 75% chance that any item of that value or lower can be found for sale with little effort in that community."
She asked a key question, "How many are available?"
I guess if the wand is not among the 3d4 random minor magic items for the town, then I could determine the number by selling one and then re-rolling the 75% chance to see whether the town has another. The expected number of wands of CLW in a town would be 0.75 + 0.75^2 + 0.75^3 + ... = 3. Consuming a dozen wands of CLW per dungeon will be more difficult if the party can buy only 3 per large town.
Tarik Blackhands is talking about the Core Rulebook rules, where a large town would be expected to have 3 wands of CLW for sale and won't have any more until the annual magic-item caravan visits. Terquem is talking about the economics of a large city with a steady manufacture of new wands of CLW. Thus, they have different results.
Technically speaking it's the weekly magic caravan. Settlements reset their stock every week according to that same section of the rules.
The Core Rulebook says, "The GM should keep a list of what items are available from each merchant and should replenish the stocks on occasion to represent new acquisitions." Does another rulebook define the replenishment as weekly?
Very big assumption, considering there are demons, daemons, devils and their agents, all of whom would love to take advantage of that. And that's not even counting mortals that like the status quo. You're basically assuming everyone of a significant power level or above wants to contribute to this, and nothing like the Technic League forms, for example.
The bladebound magus Elric Jones stood in front of the crowd of Technic League members, with the 300-foot exploration shuttle Meriwether Lewis hovering overhead, its single cannon aimed at Technic League headquarters. "We are now in charge of the Technic League. You heard your former leader Ozmyn Zaidow, we have Androffan friends. We will teach you the secrets of Androffan technology, and then together we will teach them to everyone."
That is how our Iron Gods campaign ended, not counting some bloodshed as a few Technic League members objected violently and were silenced more violently. My players are so cool. (And that was the group with the wand-crafting skald. And the Meriwether Lewis is not in the adventure path as written.)
Wizards who share informtion with each other are likely to be more powerful than wizards who hoard information.
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Resetting fireball traps are most certainly a part of the setting. As are resetting negative energy traps.
Sure, but they don't need to be able to do that an infinite number of times without recharging of some sort. That's the part that the rules say but is completely unnecessary for the setting and allows utopia machines, infinite uses.
They took a disease that was magically created by a necromancer then modified it to be more virulent. I'm not sure where I even suggested that technology couldn't create beneficial microbes and I clearly stated magical disease. I'm not sure what your comment on bio labs is about. The fact that beneficial microbes can be created without magic is a huge argument in favor of them being able to be magically created.
My point was they seemed similarly limited in capability to a modern biowarfare project (replacing our technology with their magic) and there was thus no evidence that they could do any beneficial microbe stuff we haven't done in the real world. And we haven't worked any major miracles as of yet.
Actually construction is a lot of what the working class does in a medieval city. But I didn't say it replaces all of the working class now did I? Being able to spend half an hour to get the same result as 100 people laboring for 3 days(for the minimum is massive. Cities and fleets of ships could be built in an effective blink of an eye. Because yes, if it can build something like a building, then it can build a boat.
I'm skeptical to some degree. It's a very specialized item, and lacks the ability to make Craft or Profession checks. That makes what it can actually achieve in terms of skilled labor (rather than unskilled stuff) extremely mechanically ambiguous.
That is a lot of labor that we no longer need, than can now be focused on becoming skilled laborers.
Okay. Let's assume that it does work this way. I'm not sure how that instantly results in a government offering them the training necessary to do this.
Many governments certainly fail to provide training necessary to be skilled workers in the real world, especially when a profession becomes obsolete.
Who can then focus on creating more magic and money that creates more of a surplus of labor, thus creating more ability to create skilled laborers, thus etc, etc.
Whoah, hold on. How does a laborer getting a bit of training suddenly allow him to perform magic? That requires either a bloodline or something like 10 years of advanced schooling and above-average Intelligence to start with.
Even magic item crafting with Master Craftsman requires being 5th level, and getting someone to 5th level is not as simple as basic training.
Then of course there is automation, which magic more than allows for. For example, horde of unseen servants could take care of a lot of the cleaning and other such menial labor, constructs could be used for hard labor or creating more constructs to do more hard labor. Not that we actually need constructs to mine for us since we can easily conjure raw materials out of thin air. Repair work is simple as Make Whole takes care of the majority of it. Even prestidigitation frees up a lot of chore time. Again, the list goes on. That s@#$ is exponential in a society that has had the available means for centuries, millennia even.
Okay. You're assuming magic items to do all this? None of those are available as at-will magic items for less than a couple of thousand GP. 100s of them is an extraordinarily expensive infrastructure undertaking. Which is a serious short term problem, and one the people of Golarion appear not to have overcome most places (which is perfectly believable, just because something can be done it does not follow that it will).
There's also the economic problem of breakage. Do they get broken more than once every, say, 4 years? If so, hiring people is flatly cheaper, and requires no initial cash investment. Given that Unseen Servants are mindless, I can't imagine there would be less breakage than that. So this is not economical in the most direct fashion.
A government with foresight might well do it and then train people in more skilled trades, but the benefits are gonna take a generation or more to become real and there's gonna be serious cash flow issues in the interim.
And frankly, you have a higher opinion of people than I do if you think most governments plan a generation ahead in an effective manner like that. None having done so is eminently plausible.
Additionally, the long term problem with using magic automation for more than the very basics is that most people are literally incapable of meaningfully creating it. Making most people unemployable creates an undserclass, and a very angry one. Revolution is pretty inevitable at that point. Magic might help you win it...or it might not. And courting revolution is never a smart plan.
"I haven't run across that many construction workers in stories that didn't revolve or involve construction workers" is hardly a compelling argument. You haven't run across all that many farmers. Am I to believe that farmers aren't particularly common? To be fair, the ability to easily conjure food certainly takes away a lot of the need. But I've never once had any of the farmers in the released material talk about all the magical means of crop production they use.
Most farmers don't use magical means of crop production, but then they don't need to. They make a few thousand GP a year from farming. Golarion is apparently super fertile or something. Which actually makes a lot of sense with lots of other things.
Also, in terms of magic food producers, Absalom has a couple, which is how it gets by as an island city.
Yeah no, it's true of Golarion. Take a gander at the spell list some time. They have some modern takes on things and a bit more education on basic information, but the overall foundation remains the same.
It really doesn't. It remains pre-industrial, sure, but medieval? No.
Universal literacy is assumed for play convenience, and has been standard for decades in the d20 system.
Sure, but it's clearly also true for random NPC farmers and the like. It is true in universe.
Local Clerics provide some local health care, but it is very limited and they hardly have the medical infrastructural they RAW could have.
Could and will are very different things. We have sufficient technology and resources to ensure nobody on Earth ever goes hungry and provide free basic medical care for pretty much everyone on Earth. Neither of those things actually occurs.
The nations are hardly modern-style, they are mostly a large collection of city states and kingdoms.
Actually, hereditary monarchies are a minority of Inner Sea nations. But more importantly, only Taldor is even sort of feudal. That's a huge change and is one of the major things that creates the the concept of the modern nation state rather than being loyal to someone purely local who is then loyal to the next link up the chain. It's a sea change in people's perceptions and loyalties as they really begin to think of themselves as citizens of their nation.
Sociologically, we're talking late 1700s to early 1800s (as Andoran demonstrates).
They have some modern morality, but again that is for player convenience as modern sensibilities makes even the greatest medieval kingdom seem evil.
This part I agree with, though in-setting alignment being objective and the Good Gods having some influence make this make a lot of sense.
They certainly don't have anything set up that approaches the logical conclusion of the long range communication and travel options available.
And what would those be? Are you talking teleportation circle networks? Because those are basically only available to 17th or higher level Wizards, and there are precious few of those on the whole planet of Golarion. Most of whom are not that interested in setting such a network up. Some of the ancient empires may well have had one (indeed, Thassilon probably did), but nobody around right now is super interested in setting one up.
Everything except those is only workable in small numbers for the most part, and thus useful and couriers and messengers, but not for trade.
And they certainly don't have anything approaching modern means of education and production.
Production? No. Education? Every tiny town has a schoolhouse and major cities often have universities. That may not be modern, but it's definitely more 19th century than medieval.
So your argument that simply because they aren't exactly a Medieval society holds very little water. And that's bad, because these are offhanded examples and hardly the most egregious. Golarion is profoundly the same set up as Medieval society, with some minor changes from slapping magic on to it.
It's really and profoundly not. You can argue it as pre-industrial if you want, but medieval? No. Not in any way. Even their tech level is mid-Renaissance.
Eberon is a setting that takes in to account the magic available. That is what a profoundly different society looks like. The Tipperverse is what a profoundly different society looks like.
Both of those assume common access to magic for most people. They assume it's generalizable in a way that Golarion does not. Magic in Golarion is certainly impressive, but the number who can wield anything beyond the most basic level is very small per capita, and most of them can't craft any permanent magic items.
Yes, but there aren't hundreds of low-level wizards in a metropolis. Let's go by my (extremely generous) note earlier that 1 in 100 people is a caster. So in a given metropolis, there are 250 casters, and not all of them will be wizards. You'd be lucky if even half of them are wizards, actually, given the sheer number of other types of caster. So let's say 100 wizards. Those 100 wizards can replace 100 labourers...for 2 hours each - 200 work hours. Presuming an 8-hour workday, you have successfully added...25 people to the economy, in a city of 25 thousand.
And if you want to use magic item creation rules, then start by explaining where in Golarion the infinite wish items are, or where the bracers of mage armor went to.
No, but there easily could be, which is the entire conversation. Much in the way that skilled craftsman and laborer used to be rare but are now fairly common. Unseen servant would not, in and of itself, create this massive change in society. It would be one of many, many elements that would do this. The washing machine did not do away with menial labor, but it did make that labor easier and less time consuming. As did many other house hold appliances.
If you don't want to use the magic item creation rules, you have to figure out how literally every magic item was created. Since the magic item creation rules are what the NPCs are using as well.
The magic school and guilds being infinitely effective relies on massive sudden magical man-hours appearing out of nowhere, so there's no need to cover that when they can't appear.
Yes, there's a high-level wizard running a magic school in Golarion...as a front for an Infernal Duke. Now, I don't actually recall what Lorthact uses the Acadamae for, but what was a noted thing about that?
> Students give ten years of their life to try and become highly talented wizards. During the first three years of their studies, the students are used as cheap labor by the staff and the senior students. Two of every ten students at the Acadamae do not survive these first years, being slain by magic traps, wayward spells, or murderous imps, or simply dying from exhaustion or carelessness.
A 20% fatality rate is not great for this magical society, and this is one of the best-known and highly skilled in Golarion.
Who said they were infinitely effective? Again, most of the basis for this is increasing labor and education, which the schools easily do. They can get bananas with high level effects in play, but again focusing on the one hogwarts doesn't address my points. They don't need to be in erratic or timeless demi-planes, the possibility is simply there. The schools don't require magical man-hours appearing out of no where. It requires magical man-hours which are already present to be applied. From there it builds up. And just like technology, the gains start to become exponential, meaning the average person can be well educated and trained.
And there is not just the one school in Korvosa. It's merely the premier institute for conjuration. There is the Arcanamirium, The White Grotto, Magaambya, and others. Pointing at The Acadamae and going "Ah haa!" doesn't actually make much of a point. Also, yeah you are going to have some deaths at the magic schools. You think people weren't dying at Hogwarts? They have a literal murder tree and didn't put up so much as a fence around it. Their main sport involves racing around through the sky while trying to hit each other in the head with magically accelerating bowling balls. Don't even bother to set up a net.
Very big assumption, considering there are demons, daemons, devils and their agents, all of whom would love to take advantage of that. And that's not even counting mortals that like the status quo. You're basically assuming everyone of a significant power level or above wants to contribute to this, and nothing like the Technic League forms, for example.
And you can't assume anything in relation to magic in comparison to our world's technology, when people of a certain level or above can literally take on an army of commoners and slaughter them all handily.
Yeah, given how closely Golarion serves as an analogue to real world times and places, not actually much of an assumption. Plenty of magic replicates the effects of technology, and thus a close estimate can be made for their effects on society. And singular people holding vast amounts of power and slaughtering entire countries handily is a description of the majority of human history. So that in and of itself doesn't prevent what I'm talking about. In fact, it highly encourages the landscape of society to be vastly different from ours, since that is effectively introducing weapons of mass destruction very early on. And mind control seriously alters things. Laws would need to heavily take that in to account, the city guard couldn't just be a bunch of lv 1 warriors, any kind of ruler would need to have numerous layers of magical protection. On and on and on all of that goes, which is the point I'm making here.
Yes, because they didn't like the empire growing too big for its britches. There have been things that might eventually approach what you talk about (Aroden Cheliax, Azlant, Thassilon) but it turns out that pretty much anything like that usually can't survive long enough to eventually (over millenia) become a magic utopia, and any upheaval destroys the progress that was built up.
Even Cheliax (the absurdly big government) has only even been around for about a hundred years.
Aroden Cheliax didn't begin to approach it. Azlant was ended because of fish monsters, and Thassilon was an evil society eventually overthrown. Also, the fact that it might not last forever doesn't actually address my points.
Sure, but they don't need to be able to do that an infinite number of times without recharging of some sort. That's the part that the rules say but is completely unnecessary for the setting and allows utopia machines, infinite uses.
It doesn't matter what the need to be able to do, what matters is that they RAW can. Which goes back to that whole the rules are the physics thing. Infinite magic traps do exist, and that would impact society more than the setting has presented. Because if you can make an infinite negative energy trap, you can make an infinite positive energy trap, and that would be awesome.
My point was they seemed similarly limited in capability to a modern biowarfare project (replacing our technology with their magic) and there was thus no evidence that they could do any beneficial microbe stuff we haven't done in the real world. And we haven't worked any major miracles as of yet.
It doesn't matter if we can do it, they can. Magical diseases have been created. Beneficial diseases exist. Thus, beneficial magical disease can be created.
I'm skeptical to some degree. It's a very specialized item, and lacks the ability to make Craft or Profession checks. That makes what it can actually achieve in terms of skilled labor (rather than unskilled stuff) extremely mechanically ambiguous.
It can achieve buildings, which can be marvelous feats of complex engineering much more difficult to create than a boat. They also require craft and profession checks. So, a boat is definitely in the wheel house for that item. But let's move past that for now. Think about how easy it would be to establish a new colony with one or two Lyres? How quickly sections of a city could be renovated, or new sections built. Keep all that in mind with the laundry list of other effects out there.
Okay. Let's assume that it does work this way. I'm not sure how that instantly results in a government offering them the training necessary to do this.
Many governments certainly fail to provide training necessary to be skilled workers in the real world, especially when a profession becomes obsolete.
It doesn't instantly result in that. In exactly the same way the industrial revolution didn't instantly have all governments offering education and training. Governments do however has a large incentive to provide that education and training, as the investment is relatively minimal and would be massively beneficial.
You'd certainly have countries in the world that are hundreds of years behind other countries. But the existence of banana republics are hardly an argument against the benefits of education.
Whoah, hold on. How does a laborer getting a bit of training suddenly allow him to perform magic? That requires either a bloodline or something like 10 years of advanced schooling and above-average Intelligence to start with.
Even magic item crafting with Master Craftsman requires being 5th level, and getting someone to 5th level is not as simple as basic training.
Again, it doesn't suddenly allow him to perform magic. It allows him to focus on other areas. To gain more education, or to use his increased resources to give his children education. That is what gives them the ability to cast spells. A human can become a Lv 1 wizard as early as 17. That 17 year old lv 1 wizard can become lv 3 with a trip in to the forest to help his friends deal with a goblin problem. Sure, maybe that's a bit meta, but the point is that years of education and some on the job experience can get someone to lv 3. Lv 3 with their racial to Intelligence gets them 2nd level casting and access to craft wondrous item, which is more than enough to have them work in a magic item trade.
This also doesn't suddenly change things. But it does allow for an increase in convenience and productivity which frees up more labor to become educated and skilled workers. So on and so forth. I really feel like I've said this part like 4 times now.
Okay. You're assuming magic items to do all this? None of those are available as at-will magic items for less than a couple of thousand GP. 100s of them is an extraordinarily expensive infrastructure undertaking. Which is a serious short term problem, and one the people of Golarion appear not to have overcome most places (which is perfectly believable, just because something can be done it does not follow that it will).
There's also the economic problem of breakage. Do they get broken more than once every, say, 4 years? If so, hiring people is flatly cheaper, and requires no initial cash investment. Given that Unseen Servants are mindless, I can't imagine there would be less breakage than that. So this is not economical in the most direct fashion.
A government with foresight might well do it and then train people in more skilled trades, but the benefits are gonna take a generation or more to become real and there's gonna be serious cash flow issues in the interim.
And frankly, you have a higher opinion of people than I do if you think most governments plan a generation ahead in an effective manner like that. None having done so is eminently plausible.
Additionally, the long term problem with using magic automation for more than the very basics is that most people are literally incapable of meaningfully creating it. Making most people unemployable creates an undserclass, and a very angry one. Revolution is pretty inevitable at that point. Magic might help you win it...or it might not. And courting revolution is never a smart plan.
Yeah, infrastructure is expensive and takes time. It will be hundreds of thousands of gold, possibly millions to set this up for a city. What do you think it took to set up the infrastructure of the city you live in? The time, effort, expense, and planning?
Who cares about thinks breaking. Send out a maintenance Wizard to rub her hands together and magically fix it.
Again, most people are incapable of creating it now. But the more education and training, the more people can create automation. The more automation is created, the more you can educate and train people. Automation creating issues are certainly a possibility. One we have dealt with before and are about to deal with again. How that would play out starts to get pretty specific and culture plays a not insignificant part. Good and Evil being tangible things also mixes things up a bit. New jobs and tasks could balance things out, as could other pleasant and not so pleasant options. You might end up with Elysium or Shadowrun, but you could also end up with Star Trek. Revolution is hardly inevitable however. And as for creating an underclass, exactly what do you think commoners and serfs are?
Most farmers don't use magical means of crop production, but then they don't need to. They make a few thousand GP a year from farming. Golarion is apparently super fertile or something. Which actually makes a lot of sense with lots of other things.
Also, in terms of magic food producers, Absalom has a couple, which is how it gets by as an island city.
But magical means of crop production would increase yields and profits. It also reduces the need for so many farmers, again allowing them to focus on other areas. But it isn't just creating farming. With enough magical infrastructure, you might not need any farmers at all.
It really doesn't. It remains pre-industrial, sure, but medieval? No.
No, the societal structure of a good portion of the Inner Sea remains medieval. I could see an argument for it being at the tail end where things merged with the Renaissance, but it's definitely not full blown in the Renaissance yet.
Sure, but it's clearly also true for random NPC farmers and the like. It is true in universe.
Yes, but it doesn't amount to much.
Could and will are very different things. We have sufficient technology and resources to ensure nobody on Earth ever goes hungry and provide free basic medical care for pretty much everyone on Earth. Neither of those things actually occurs.
It's a fair point, but not a strong argument. Feeding everyone in the real world currently involves essentially resolving all global conflict. Providing infinite food and medical care for a population center could be done in the setting with one or more 50k hallways. Feeding the entire world can build up from there.
Actually, hereditary monarchies are a minority of Inner Sea nations. But more importantly, only Taldor is even sort of feudal. That's a huge change and is one of the major things that creates the the concept of the modern nation state rather than being loyal to someone purely local who is then loyal to the next link up the chain. It's a sea change in people's perceptions and loyalties as they really begin to think of themselves as citizens of their nation.
Sociologically, we're talking late 1700s to early 1800s (as Andoran demonstrates).
It doesn't matter if they are hereditary, they are still mostly city states and Kingdoms. Neither of which require rule to be passed based on bloodlines. And most all of them are ruled, officialy or effectively, by a noble class.
This part I agree with, though in-setting alignment being objective and the Good Gods having some influence make this make a lot of sense.
Which raises some questions about all that slavery that still exists.
And what would those be? Are you talking teleportation circle networks? Because those are basically only available to 17th or higher level Wizards, and there are precious few of those on the whole planet of Golarion. Most of whom are not that interested in setting such a network up. Some of the ancient empires may well have had one (indeed, Thassilon probably did), but nobody around right now is super interested in setting one up.
Everything except those is only workable in small numbers for the most part, and thus useful and couriers and messengers, but not for trade.
Teleportation networks are up there. Sure there aren't that many 17+ Wizards, but they do exist, and would have use for such networks. Especially if a good or evil wizard got an idea in their head that they should fix things up. Not much reasons for Razmir to not get up to shenanigans. But even just teleport could change things up. Teleport doesn't have a weight limit, each creature can carry their maximum load. Get some strong guys, cast ant haul on them, and you can teleport rather large amounts of materials vast distances. That combined with the Lyre could easily allow for the establishment of new colonies. Military strategy would have to take in to account the ability for powerful strike teams to drop in. There is just a lot that could do.
But why would Wizards do that you say? Because it's an easy way to make money that doesn't involve much time or work and leaves them time to research or banging. Also, not nearly as many people try to kill them for doing that, nor does it attract the attention of outsiders. Or maybe their are just civic minded?
Long range communication would obviously have similar effects as it did in our own world. The effects aren't really based on the magical nature of the communication. Technical a lot of it is "instant", but not effectively more instant than a phone or radio for most situations.
Prestidigitation could replicate washing machines, ice boxes, and other devices. The ability to create minor objects would allow for easy training of translating your thoughts to physical objects. This would have numerous artistic and machining applications.
A decanter of endless water and a water wheel is a perpetual motion machine. Set it to pour out sea water and put an evaporator bed on the other end of that water wheel for perpetual salt.
Really though it boils down to magic being able to easily replicate industrialization. And has been able to easily replicate it for hundreds to thousands of years.
Also, the destructive power of magic could make warfare so terrifying and inhumane that it would no longer be considered an option. Nukes didn't do it, so it feels unlikely, but you can do some really nasty, really personal things with magic that I can't rule it out
Production? No. Education? Every tiny town has a schoolhouse and major cities often have universities. That may not be modern, but it's definitely more 19th century than medieval.
Most villages don't have a school house listed. Universities are much older than 19th century.
Both of those assume common access to magic for most people. They assume it's generalizable in a way that Golarion does not. Magic in Golarion is certainly impressive, but the number who can wield anything beyond the most basic level is very small per capita, and most of them can't craft any permanent magic items.
Because they both assume magic from the start. The only thing stopping the average person from casting arcane spells like a wizard is education. You don't need special powers, and you don't need an int higher than base plus racial to get things started. Saying their aren't many spellcasters is not an argument for my stance that the means magic creates easily allows for exponential growth, similar in aspect to technologies effects.
Yes, there are not many Wizards now, but all the ingredients to have all those Wizards and magic items are there. And have been there for hundreds of years, possibly thousands.
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It seems like if wands have charges and use resonance, that a lot of parties are going to have retainers of low level casters to spam cure light wound wands and the only thing that changes is that Parties will be setting up active camps outside of dungeons with all of their support personnel. Personally, I think that is kind of cool and more representational of "adventuring expeditions" in the real world, but I think a lot of folks will cry foul.
It seems like if wands have charges and use resonance, that a lot of parties are going to have retainers of low level casters to spam cure light wound wands and the only thing that changes is that Parties will be setting up active camps outside of dungeons with all of their support personnel. Personally, I think that is kind of cool and more representational of "adventuring expeditions" in the real world, but I think a lot of folks will cry foul.
The only logical reason not to bring a support camp is if you're adventuring in an area that's extremely dangerous for miles and miles in all directions, or you're too close to an already established settlement.
A moderately leveled group (where they can start affording multiple wands of CLW) will have no trouble affording the services of a band of hirelings, and there are many reasons to do so.
They can make camp, prepare real food, act as a mail service, care for animals, do repairs, maintain a relatively safe zone, make supply runs, help sell all kinds of loot, and much more. Having them contribute to healing isn't much of a stretch.
It seems like if wands have charges and use resonance, that a lot of parties are going to have retainers of low level casters to spam cure light wound wands and the only thing that changes is that Parties will be setting up active camps outside of dungeons with all of their support personnel. Personally, I think that is kind of cool and more representational of "adventuring expeditions" in the real world, but I think a lot of folks will cry foul.The only logical reason not to bring a support camp is if you're adventuring in an area that's extremely dangerous for miles and miles in all directions, or you're too close to an already established settlement.
A moderately leveled group (where they can start affording multiple wands of CLW) will have no trouble affording the services of a band of hirelings, and there are many reasons to do so.
They can make camp, prepare real food, act as a mail service, care for animals, do repairs, maintain a relatively safe zone, make supply runs, help sell all kinds of loot, and much more. Having them contribute to healing isn't much of a stretch.
Hmm. A lot of this will depend on how one activates wands. In PF1 you could only do it reliably if you were that kind of caster, and even if you can do it with skill checks reliably without breaking the wand, you are now talking about a more expensive brand of hireling. In fact, you may have moved from hireling to spellcasting services.
More broadly speaking, things like resonance or limited numbers of spell slots don't really change the narrative or introduce new problems with pacing an adventure. In any game with daily resources (be they HP, spells, or whatever) the 15 minute adventure day can rear its head. No matter how many spell slots a wizard gets, the only thing preventing them from nova'ing all their top slots and then sleeping for every encounter are adventure specific narrative constraints. Stuff like time limits or not having the safety to camp.
But the larger the resource pool becomes, the harder it is for a GM to wear you down in a meaningful way. Having 8 back to back encounters just to have a challenge in the final fight gets old pretty quick. Granting less spell slots and limiting consumable use makes it easier to have encounters be meaningful if not necessarily deadly.
Hmm. A lot of this will depend on how one activates wands. In PF1 you could only do it reliably if you were that kind of caster, and even if you can do it with skill checks reliably without breaking the wand, you are now talking about a more expensive brand of hireling. In fact, you may have moved from hireling to spellcasting services.
More broadly speaking, things like resonance or limited numbers of spell slots don't really change the narrative or introduce new problems with pacing an adventure. In any game with daily resources (be they HP, spells, or whatever) the 15 minute adventure day can rear its head. No matter how many spell slots a wizard gets, the only thing preventing them from nova'ing all their top slots and then sleeping for every encounter are adventure specific narrative constraints. Stuff like time limits or not having the safety to camp.
But the larger the resource pool becomes, the harder it is for a GM to wear you down in a meaningful way. Having 8 back to back encounters just to have a challenge in the final fight gets old pretty quick. Granting less spell slots and limiting consumable use makes it easier to have encounters be meaningful if not necessarily deadly.
What exactly means "have encounters be meaningful". I know lots of people have an issue with having 15 min adventure day, but I think it should really consider the type of adventure being run.
Do you need to go and save the princess for the evil cultists? Then yeah, you need to hurry and cannot afford to delay resting.
Are you exploring some ruins in order to grab some treasure? Then why would you risk your life by going on when you are not at your best? Forcing encounters in this kind of situations breaks suspension of disbelief for me, adventuring is dangerous, characters should want to maximize their chances of success.
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I overheard this exchange at the bar at the Shady Dragon Inn last night
One fellow: "have you seen the comments on wands and their availability on the paizo forums? Wow, some of those people have a deep interest in macro economics."
Other fellow: "I read some of them, and I admit a lot of what they are saying goes right over my head. I mean the percentage of residents able to cast necessary spells for crafting unique magic items is a complex derivative."
One fellow: "Tell me about it, I mean is there a school for this sort of deep study of Magical Economics in diverse population sizes?"
Dwarven drunk sitting two chairs away: "Yeah, it's called the Keynesian school."
Sick burn on Keynesians, Terquem. Those jerks way overestimate the short run effects of fiscal policy. At best, fiscal policy has a middle run effect on GDP and no effect in the short run and the true long run, says I!
If you want short run effects, you gotta turn to monetary policy. Ya gotta talk to them reserve banks. Ya gotta print dat scrilla.
Take up the whole page by yourselves you two!
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It doesn't matter what the need to be able to do, what matters is that they RAW can. Which goes back to that whole the rules are the physics thing. Infinite magic traps do exist, and that would impact society more than the setting has presented. Because if you can make an infinite negative energy trap, you can make an infinite positive energy trap, and that would be awesome.
By RAW? Sure. But that's clearly a flaw. An error unintended by the creators of said rules. Something to be corrected. An area in which the rules make the world make no sense. And one that PF2 will probably fix.
It's pretty much the only such rule, though. Or one of very few, anyway.
And every trap that has been shown to exist would still work fine with my aforementioned House Rule that prevents infinite healing abuses, making fixing it require only a minor rules change rather than a setting change.
Again, it doesn't suddenly allow him to perform magic. It allows him to focus on other areas. To gain more education, or to use his increased resources to give his children education. That is what gives them the ability to cast spells. A human can become a Lv 1 wizard as early as 17. That 17 year old lv 1 wizard can become lv 3 with a trip in to the forest to help his friends deal with a goblin problem. Sure, maybe that's a bit meta, but the point is that years of education and some on the job experience can get someone to lv 3. Lv 3 with their racial to Intelligence gets them 2nd level casting and access to craft wondrous item, which is more than enough to have them work in a magic item trade.
And here we come to what I believe is our fundamental point of disagreement:
Intelligence is not a skill. It cannot be learned or trained and people do not decide to take it as their racial bonus. That is not how the universe works. Nor does going and doing dangerous things inherently 'level' people in the way it does PCs. And, indeed, the vast majority of NPCs are actually of NPC Classes and, by the evidence, can't manage a PC Class even if they tried.
Some of the stuff you suggest is how PCs work to some degree, but that's due to how the game rules interact with the player, not the character.
In-universe, like in real life, raw intellect (the necessary component of training a Wizard), cannot generally be increased via any training we can manage, certainly not enough to make average people notably smarter. Most people average 10 in Abilities. In fact, they average their stats based on rolling 3d6 for stats. This puts people with Int 11 or less at 62.5% of the population. Assuming Racial Bonuses are also distributed randomly, that brings it back to right around 50%.
So only half of people are even theoretically capable of what you suggest by intellect. And, by population demographics only 1 in 20 people is of a PC Class, and no more than that are probably even capable of being a PC Class. 1 in 40 people are at 3rd level or higher. So, assuming you train everyone who possibly can learn to be a Wizard to be a Wizard, you have 1 in 80 people at most who can meaningfully engage with the 'magic economy' you suggest.
Realistically, since some people will rebel against training, we're talking more like 1 in 100. 1% of the population. That's not enough people to support the kind of mass produced magical effects you suggest (certainly not without the trap rules mentioned above).
If you can actually mass produce Wizards, then you're totally right about what the world should look like, but mass producing Wizards is not actually something the game even implies is possible. Quite the opposite, if anything.
And I think this issue is at the core of our disagreement, really. Almost all other issues stem from this one.
Teleportation networks are up there. Sure there aren't that many 17+ Wizards, but they do exist, and would have use for such networks. Especially if a good or evil wizard got an idea in their head that they should fix things up. Not much reasons for Razmir to not get up to shenanigans.
There are several reasons for Razimir not to waste any time given that he's desperately trying not to die and running out of time. Other Wizards could theoretically do this, but keeping it going in any useful fashion requires people to trust the Wizard in question and the people on the other end of the circle (since they make great ways to get someone or something nasty into the middle of your city), and nobody to want to destroy the circle (since they're easily destroyed compared to how hard they are to create...an 8th level Wizard can do it with some determination and a few days).
Logistically, they tend to only work within a well-established and stable political body. And require nobody to put the effort into breaking them. They're mostly just not practical as an every day thing. Too expensive and prone to being destroyed.
But even just teleport could change things up. Teleport doesn't have a weight limit, each creature can carry their maximum load. Get some strong guys, cast ant haul on them, and you can teleport rather large amounts of materials vast distances. That combined with the Lyre could easily allow for the establishment of new colonies. Military strategy would have to take in to account the ability for powerful strike teams to drop in. There is just a lot that could do.
A ship can transport hundreds of tons of goods. No amount of ant haul makes the amount an individual can carry anywhere close to that. Especially not if the Wizard is charging fair market prices for that teleportation (450 gp a pop, minimum, so 900 gp round trip...lots more for Greater Teleport). It'll certainly get used for small, high value, items, but it doesn't replace non-teleport transports.
A team and a Lyre of building can theoretically set up a colony, yes. Peopling your colony is probably easier via ship, though. Certainly cheaper than the 300 gp a pop teleporting people places winds up costing.
But why would Wizards do that you say? Because it's an easy way to make money that doesn't involve much time or work and leaves them time to research or banging. Also, not nearly as many people try to kill them for doing that, nor does it attract the attention of outsiders. Or maybe their are just civic minded?
Some Wizards might absolutely work as couriers. But a Wizard (or Sorcerer) who can even teleport is one in 5,000 to 10,000 people. How many are going to pick this route to make money? One in five? That's one in 25k at the most. That means most cities don't have a Wizard to do this. Countries as a whole certainly have a few, but they're a scarce resource. Those with Greater Teleport are more like 1 in 90,000 at most, and if we again assume one in five do this, we're talking 1 in 450,000, or about two per million...and Golarion's population is not especially high.
Let's not even get into how many 17th level or higher Wizards there are (hint: most countries probably don't even have one).
Long range communication would obviously have similar effects as it did in our own world. The effects aren't really based on the magical nature of the communication. Technical a lot of it is "instant", but not effectively more instant than a phone or radio for most situations.
Uh...it has? Long range communication is a bit pricey in Pathfinder (requiring a 5th level spell, which again costs 450 gp a pop), making it not usually economical for individuals, but it's very much taken into account in how the world works on a geopolitical scale. Military commanders are much less independent of their political masters since they can send home for orders, for example. This is explored several places in various Pathfinder stuff.
Prestidigitation could replicate washing machines, ice boxes, and other devices. The ability to create minor objects would allow for easy training of translating your thoughts to physical objects. This would have numerous artistic and machining applications.
I'm pretty sure prestidigitation won't work very well for machining (or other crafting). But magical ice boxes are probably a thing, yeah, as are some other useful devices.
They're usually reserved for the rich since they cost as much as a house (or at least half as much, we're talking 500 gp or so minimum for most such items).
A decanter of endless water and a water wheel is a perpetual motion machine. Set it to pour out sea water and put an evaporator bed on the other end of that water wheel for perpetual salt.
Sure I guess? Perpetual motion is of only limited use when you only have a limited tech base to take advantage of it. And I can't recall any examples of major cities suffering salt shortages.
Really though it boils down to magic being able to easily replicate industrialization. And has been able to easily replicate it for hundreds to thousands of years.
It's not, though, because it can't be mass produced. If you could mass produce Wizards it could, but you can't (see above for my explanation why), so it can't. Not without abusing the magic trap rules, anyway.
Also, the destructive power of magic could make warfare so terrifying and inhumane that it would no longer be considered an option. Nukes didn't do it, so it feels unlikely, but you can do some really nasty, really personal things with magic that I can't rule it out
This is vanishingly unlikely. People never really believe bad things will happen to them personally.
Most villages don't have a school house listed. Universities are much older than 19th century.
Most villages don't list every building/service. To my knowledge every single one that does so has a school house (including the 388 person small rural Taldan village in The Dragon's Demand). This is not treated as unusual in their presentation, but as completely ordinary.
Most villages don't have a school house listed. Universities are much older than 19th century.Most villages don't list every building/service. To my knowledge every single one that does so has a school house (including the 388 person small rural Taldan village in The Dragon's Demand). This is not treated as unusual in their presentation, but as completely ordinary.
Most descriptions of villages list only what interests the typical player, such as what items can their characters buy and what officials those characters might negotiate with.. I checked the description of the 4,320-resident town of Torch in Fires of Creation and it does not list a school. It does mention that the wizard Khonnir Baine was teaching his 13-year-old daughter himself. Since two party members grew up in Torch, I added that the local temple of Brigh, god of invention, ran a school that both had attended.
Not only did some of my PCs grow up in Torch, the party used the town as their home base and invested in businesses there. I had to fill out the economy in realistic ways. For example, my party smelted adamantine out of glaucite (an iron and adamantine alloy used in Androffan spaceship hulls--and Pathfinder lacks rules for smelting) and made their own adamantine weapons. Adamantine weapons have a high Craft DC, so they used the Crafter's Fortune spell, which the party skald could cast once per day via Spell Kenning. If she was using her Spell Kenning for something else daily, then they wanted to buy potions of Crafter's Fortune. Would those be available in town? (1) The gazeteer mentioned a few prominent 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th level characters, including an alchemist and wizard. (2) A 1st-level Alchemist or 3rd-level Wizard could make a potion of Crafter's Fortune. (3) The main industry of Torch was smithing. (4) We had a supply and a demand for potions of Crafter's Fortune. Yes, the potions were available. I could have just made a 75% die roll, but sometimes I need to know why sometime is or isn't available.
Likewise, large cities could produce wands of Cure Light Wounds and ship them to large towns for sale, even without the full magic-based economy of the Tippyverse. Most town guards would want a wand of CLW on reserve for emergency healing.
A decanter of endless water and a water wheel is a perpetual motion machine. Set it to pour out sea water and put an evaporator bed on the other end of that water wheel for perpetual salt.Sure I guess? Perpetual motion is of only limited use when you only have a limited tech base to take advantage of it. And I can't recall any examples of major cities suffering salt shortages.
My party also bought land on a stream with a waterfall and build a workshop with a waterwheel. In most places natural sources of wind and water power are much cheaper than magic items.
It doesn't matter what the need to be able to do, what matters is that they RAW can. Which goes back to that whole the rules are the physics thing. Infinite magic traps do exist, and that would impact society more than the setting has presented. Because if you can make an infinite negative energy trap, you can make an infinite positive energy trap, and that would be awesome.By RAW? Sure. But that's clearly a flaw. An error unintended by the creators of said rules. Something to be corrected. An area in which the rules make the world make no sense. And one that PF2 will probably fix.
It's pretty much the only such rule, though. Or one of very few, anyway.
And every trap that has been shown to exist would still work fine with my aforementioned House Rule that prevents infinite healing abuses, making fixing it require only a minor rules change rather than a setting change.
Unmaintained traps are always hard to swallow. In Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana set off the trap with the gold figurine, what is the chance that that trap would not have rotted or jammed decades before Mr. Jones arrived? The traps have to be unreasonably effective to remain awesome. If we put a reasonable limitation on magic traps that they trigger only 3 times per day, then some parties will summon three creatures to walk in front of them.
I noticed a similar problem in my Iron Gods game of which my party took advantage. All the technological items in the Technology Guide were either single-use, consumed power charges, consumed nanite cannisters, hooked up to artifact-level power generators, or were cybernetic implants or robots. The power source was always an important consideration and limitation, except for those last two categories, where it was ignored. Once a technological item behaved like a creature, it apparently gained endless energy. And my party of technological experts was perfectly capable of opening up a robot and extracting its internal power generator.
The 1st module, Fires of Creation, had its own in-module rule that the robots in the spaceship beneath Torch used power broadcast from the spaceship. The adventurers could disable all robots by shutting off the power at the right control panel. The other modules had no such broadcast power for robots. I ruled that every robot short of the annihilator robots was solar powered and had to spend several hours basking in the sun. So the party created a few solar-powered installations with scavenged solar cells. As for the annihilator robots, the party extracted their nuclear power cores and built a dedicated adamantine smelter. (The Technic League had no chance against those inventive PCs. Brigh was proud.)
A limitation that an overpowered trick, such as a magical trap or a powered robot, can work only against a party underestimates the ingenuity of the players. If an unlimited negative energy trap exists, the players will create a party of vampires and necromancers and take full advantage.
By RAW? Sure. But that's clearly a flaw. An error unintended by the creators of said rules. Something to be corrected. An area in which the rules make the world make no sense. And one that PF2 will probably fix.
I had to respond to this. I disagree with this idea - or the idea that something like this should even be a consideration.
Build rules that are fun, provide a challenge, and a good game - not necessarily in that order.
World building shouldn't rely on RAW - it can even break RAW if needed - we don't play an economic simulation game. Those exist - this isn't it. There is no reason what ever to try and alter the rules to make the world more realistic for this kind of game. In fact that would ruin the game in my opinion.
By RAW? Sure. But that's clearly a flaw. An error unintended by the creators of said rules. Something to be corrected. An area in which the rules make the world make no sense. And one that PF2 will probably fix.
It's pretty much the only such rule, though. Or one of very few, anyway.
And every trap that has been shown to exist would still work fine with my aforementioned House Rule that prevents infinite healing abuses, making fixing it require only a minor rules change rather than a setting change.
What is clearly a flaw about it? That you don't like it? Because the developers chose to keep the resetting rules from previous editions. They chose to make automatic resetting negative energy devices a thing in their setting.
Intelligence is not a skill. It cannot be learned or trained and people do not decide to take it as their racial bonus. That is not how the universe works. Nor does going and doing dangerous things inherently 'level' people in the way it does PCs. And, indeed, the vast majority of NPCs are actually of NPC Classes and, by the evidence, can't manage a PC Class even if they tried.
In real life, you don't need a certain Intelligence score. And IQs are in no way equivalent to how Int scores are presented. You need education and training. Not every doctor, engineer, researcher has a 160+ IQ. In fact, you'd find that the majority of them have average or near average IQs and merely applied themselves and received the necessary training. You have to have a fairly low IQ to not be able to perform a task given enough time and training. Pointing to a group of people who lack training at a task does not provide any evidence that they can't perform a task. Simply that they don't know how, which is where the education comes in. So yeah, pointing at Int scores and then trying to say you can increase your base intelligence in the real world is not an argument that holds weight. Because you can increase your knowledge and training.
So I'm going to need another argument for not being able to mass produce Wizards. Because a lot of false assumption and mixed comparisons with the real world is not convincing. Especially from someone who claims to view the rules as physics. Which, yes, do say you can pick your stats and level up by going in to the woods. Because that's the physics of the world remember?
A ship can transport hundreds of tons of goods. No amount of ant haul makes the amount an individual can carry anywhere close to that. Especially not if the Wizard is charging fair market prices for that teleportation (450 gp a pop, minimum, so 900 gp round trip...lots more for Greater Teleport). It'll certainly get used for small, high value, items, but it doesn't replace non-teleport transports.
A team and a Lyre of building can theoretically set up a colony, yes. Peopling your colony is probably easier via ship, though. Certainly cheaper than the 300 gp a pop teleporting people places winds up costing.
They also take lots of time to do that, often are raided or crash, have to be maned by trained crews, are reliant on terrain, have to deal with the weather, have to deal with literal giant monsters, etc. Plus, according to you, take a lot of time to build. I'm not sure how transporting materials and people via ship is easier than teleporting them there.
You know what is easier? Having the infrastructure of a colony set up before people travel there.
Some Wizards might absolutely work as couriers. But a Wizard (or Sorcerer) who can even teleport is one in 5,000 to 10,000 people. How many are going to pick this route to make money? One in five? That's one in 25k at the most. That means most cities don't have a Wizard to do this. Countries as a whole certainly have a few, but they're a scarce resource. Those with Greater Teleport are more like 1 in 90,000 at most, and if we again assume one in five do this, we're talking 1 in 450,000, or about two per million...and Golarion's population is not especially high.
Again, pointing to the rules as evidence for your numbers doesn't do you much good when my entire argument is that the setting doesn't accurately represent. The ability to do the things I'm presenting in my arguments has existed for hundreds to thousands of years. Which is one of the main problems for the setting as presented. If magic and civilization being at their current levels were a relatively new thing, I would cede some points and could admit that things might not have played out yet. But that simply isn't the case in the setting. So again, "but their aren't that many wizards now" is not an argument that holds water. Because there easily could be many more wizards.
And the permanent nature of magic items means we don't need a bunch of level 17 wizards. In reality, we only need one to have wanted to do any of this in the last few thousand years.
There are several reasons for Razimir not to waste any time given that he's desperately trying not to die and running out of time. Other Wizards could theoretically do this, but keeping it going in any useful fashion requires people to trust the Wizard in question and the people on the other end of the circle (since they make great ways to get someone or something nasty into the middle of your city), and nobody to want to destroy the circle (since they're easily destroyed compared to how hard they are to create...an 8th level Wizard can do it with some determination and a few days).
Logistically, they tend to only work within a well-established and stable political body. And require nobody to put the effort into breaking them. They're mostly just not practical as an every day thing. Too expensive and prone to being destroyed.
Razimir has been around for awhile, and took the time to set up his own country. Plenty of tippyverse shenanigans would have helped with that. There are also so many shenanigans to gain actual or effective immortality that I'm curious as to what Razimmir has been faffing about doing?
All the same things apply to society at large and public transportation in the real world. Yet we can clearly see the benefits outweigh the risks. California is spending 10 billion on a high speed rail that could be taken out by a few rednecks with easily home made bombs.
Uh...it has? Long range communication is a bit pricey in Pathfinder (requiring a 5th level spell, which again costs 450 gp a pop), making it not usually economical for individuals, but it's very much taken into account in how the world works on a geopolitical scale. Military commanders are much less independent of their political masters since they can send home for orders, for example. This is explored several places in various Pathfinder stuff.
Crystal Balls of Telepathy are a 70k item. Any city state could afford multiple of those. And again, they last forever, so you just keep stock piling them. Long range communication has barely been touched on my Pathfinder.
I'm pretty sure prestidigitation won't work very well for machining (or other crafting). But magical ice boxes are probably a thing, yeah, as are some other useful devices.
They're usually reserved for the rich since they cost as much as a house (or at least half as much, we're talking 500 gp or so minimum for most such items).
It won't work for actual machining, it works as a training mechanism for maching and other crafting, art as well. It is a decent enough analogy to Auto-CAD and other 3D modeling programs. They can easily form 3D constructs with the spell. This allows a lot of training of turning the images in your head to physical realities without the need for tools or other resources. This allows for more skilled craftsmen to exist.
And AGAIN, you are viewing this as the economy presented in the setting. Not the economy that could easily be created giving the rules and time frame provided. Yeah, to begin with those items would be reserved for those with the means. But increased production and a better economy opens these things up to more and more people as time goes on. Which only serves to help increase production. Let us not forget that cars began as a device available only for those with means. That very quickly changed. It's that whole exponential growth thing I've mentioned multiple times.
Sure I guess? Perpetual motion is of only limited use when you only have a limited tech base to take advantage of it. And I can't recall any examples of major cities suffering salt shortages.
Wow it's almost like I've been talking about all the ways the setting could increase their tech base. Perpetual motion equates to free energy. That might have a tiny impact on society. Especially since the concept is proven and thus able to be expanded upon. Especially especially since these machines last forever and can be easily fixed with magic if they do break.
Who cares if there are shortages? Working in salt mines is horrible, and processing from the sea you have to worry about contaminents and all the giant monsters in the water. Again, none of these things are a Tippyverse button. They add together to create such effects. Also, it's not like I've heard about any of the major cities having a salt surplus. And I've certainly never heard about small villages have a salt surplus. Salt was one of the most valuable materials until the means to regularly produce it became available.
It's not, though, because it can't be mass produced. If you could mass produce Wizards it could, but you can't (see above for my explanation why), so it can't. Not without abusing the magic trap rules, anyway.
Except that that they can be, and your argument that "You can't increase IQ in the real world therefore you can't increase your intelligence modifier in the setting" doesn't hold any water. You know what else you can do in the real world? Work out to increase your Strength. And it isn't abusing the magic trap rules, it's using them. Unless Paizo abused the rules when they made a infinitely resetting negative energy trap?
The fact that the magic items last forever and can be easily repaired with magic also really lowers the need for mass production. This is especially true when considering that the tools for doing all of this have existed for hundreds to thousands of years.
This is vanishingly unlikely. People never really believe bad things will happen to them personally.
Very true, but magic can get real personal so I can't rule the possibility out.
Most villages don't list every building/service. To my knowledge every single one that does so has a school house (including the 388 person small rural Taldan village in The Dragon's Demand). This is not treated as unusual in their presentation, but as completely ordinary.
Any village with a map typically does. And again, most of them do not list a school. Having one example of a village with a school does little to serve as an example that there is a wide spread education system.
And once more, these are all still off handed examples. The list of things you can do go on and on and on and on. The people with the power to do this exist, and many of them have existed for some time. I mean hell, if Baba Yaga got a bug up her ass she could probably turn the setting in to the Tippyverse on her own. I also have to say, I really don't believe you view the rules as physics as you claim.