The Mother Of Invention: Spell Resistance?

[Samloyal23]

I've seen a lot of crossover fantasy stuff that blends magic with either hi-tech sci-fi or retro "steampunk" and it occurs to me that given the sophistication of magic in the average D&D fantasy setting there would no motivation for anyone to invent something even as complex as printing press, let alone a locomotive or a computer. So how do you get that gnomish engineer to actually want to be bothered with hard technology when he can do more with a spell? The only logical answer I can come up with is spell resistance. There has to be a reasonably common situation in which it is either impossible to cast the spell or a target is able to resist it. So in a fantasy setting only a race that had a high resistance to magic and poor ability to cast spells would have the need or drive to create even simple machines. Throw in a magic resistant material like cold iron and maybe there would be enough cause for concern to make canny berk experiment with a aeliopile long enough to make it do something useful... Thoughts?

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Another theory is that the average Joe non-adventurer with some levels in Expert, in a world where magic exists but is really only tapped into by 1~5% of the population, isn't satisfied to wait for the Gnome wizard to do what he feels needs to be done.

It really comes down to your specific game world, But in a land where magic exists but is inaccessible by all, those without it still have imagination and desire to make things happen. A king could choose to hire out a Wizard to make his mass communications happen, or he could hire out whoever is the Leonardo Da Vinci of his day. The difference is, Leonardo doesn't have the power to level his kingdom with a single thought. Lets go with the mundane genius over the magical one.

 

[Sekhmet]

Supposing [MENTION=21432]Samloyal23[/MENTION]'s hypothesis is correct, why in the world would wands, staves, magic swords and armor and wondrous items exist?

It is pretty simple. They allow people (in general, not just casters) to have access to magic, and they allow casters to use magic without expending their spell slots.
Likewise, a computer can do complex calculations and "think" faster and more accurately than several humans combined, and reduces the necessity for books and other research materials - very valuable qualities to an inventor of any kind.

The flying machine (airships, balloons, etc) and the locomotive are ways to transport large amounts of people or (especially) goods without the use of magic, which will increase the bottom line profit margin of a trade organisation or the speed at which a military can respond to a border threat.

Technology, even with magic, has many uses. Some things may be less useful than in a world without magic, but most of the things you're worried about can still be desirable.

 

[Greenfield]

Supposing @Samloyal23 's hypothesis is correct, why in the world would wands, staves, magic swords and armor and wondrous items exist?

It is pretty simple. They allow people (in general, not just casters) to have access to magic, and they allow casters to use magic without expending their spell slots.

Except that, of the three types of items listed, only Rods can be used by non-casters (other than through UMD skill.)

I think that the big difference between magic and technology is that once you invent a piece of technology it can be made available to everyone. It may take a master craftsman to create it (and repair it), but it can be used by anyone and it doesn't drain the person's "creative energies" (i.e. cost Experience points) to build.

At the same time though, a lot of the theory behind the scientific method would have a hard time evolving in a world where magic worked.

Reproducibility is the issue. The scientific method is based, at least in part, on the idea that if you reproduce the circumstances/conditions of an event, the event will be reproduced. But Qwaddlequirch the Wizard can wriggle his fingers and say a few words and produce fire, yet when Bliffenfeddle the blacksmith repeats the exact same gestures and words, nothing happens. What's more, Qwaddlequirch can repeat the exact same gestures and words and nothing will happen, unless he memorized that spell more than once today.

In the world of Qwaddlequirch and Bliffenfeddle, it would be hard to come up with the theory of reproducibility, when plain observation shows that it simply doesn't work that way, at least not consistently. "Reproducibility" is itself not reproducible, and that is one of the foundation stones of technological development, particularly of mass production.

So technology, in whatever form it may exist, will be more of an art than a science.

 

[Sekhmet]

Yes, however they all require some form of training to use. If you'd never seen or heard of a modern day computer, and happened to stumble onto it somehow - you would be completely in the dark, just as if you'd had no ranks in UMD and were trying to use a Wand.

If you found a modern day smart phone, the same problem would occur.

Using the scientific method, all conditions must be met for reproduction to occur. Removing a constant from an equation changes how it occurs. If a chemist combined cyclotrimethlyne trinitramine with diethylhexyl, polyisobutylene, and motor oil, he would create C4.
If he attempts to combine the materials without a catalyst, it is suddenly just a wasted lump of chemicals. This is the "prepared spell slot", in effect. An important ingredient in the end result - the fireball. What you're proposing is that the memorized spell is an unimportant variable in the end result, which it is not. The spell slot can be considered a catalyst, which has a "cooldown" period between uses - a common enough process in science.
A blacksmith can't produce the fireball because he is unable to provide all of the necessary conditions. For a more mundane example, it is as if he were trying to melt a rod of iron at his forge. Performing the exact physical motions has no effect without the catalyst, the heat from the forge.

 

[Greenfield]

Actually what I was saying is that it isn't apparent to the observer whether or not the spell slot is prepared/available.

The actions and reactions of living creatures generally fall outside of the reproducibility rule of the scientific method. The chaos factor is too high to actually reproduce all the circumstances.

I mean, if that wasn't the case then every golfer would be able to score a hole in 1 on any hole they'd ever seen it done on, and they'd be able to do it every time.

Look how long it took for the idea of observation/experimentation/replication took to catch on in our world. How much longer would it take in a world where errant deities or unseen spirits might mischief your experiment, and where the most significant force in your world was subject to the variability of human thought and reaction?

 

[Sekhmet]

The last point is already true of our world. It is our thoughts and reactions to those thoughts that determine all advancement.

The "problems" you seem to be looking at would be negligible. How many Gods have so little to do with their time that they would even bother to alter some insignificant lawn mowing device? How many spirits want to hang around and move/alter your things/experiments?
These entities have other things to do, and even still, you could consider them to be the entropy of the D&D Universe. Uncontrollable, unforeseeable circumstance that can sometimes, but not always, effect your experiments.

"Chaos" has nothing to do with golf. No one can control their muscles so well that they could produce the perfect swing every time, no one can calculate the exact force and angle to hit the ball to counter the wind speed and drag offset by the ball, no one can determine the effect of friction of the current condition of the green and the ball without first observing them both at the state they will be in at the time the ball touches down. These are machine predictable circumstance that are just too complex and minute for human replication on the fly.

There are a lot of things in our own universe that an observer cannot see, but are still observed through other senses or with instruments. The spark of magic, or the Weave, is one of those things in the D&D universe.

Also, the actions and reactions of living creatures follow predictable patterns. While minutiae may change, the function remains the same. This is why psychology was born out of the scientific method, and why it is starting to become accepted as a legitimate science.
We may not yet be able to fully predict and reproduce, but in time we will. 2,000 years ago, we'd all be considered wizards with our gadgets and knowledge. In 2,000 years, we'll probably be able to create a human ego from the year 0.

 

[Greenfield]

The "Chaos Factor" is a term used in explaining chaos mathematics. Simply put, the theory says that if you reproduce the circumstances, the results should also reproduce. The reality is that we can't *perfectly* reproduce anything, so the above becomes "Approximately similar circumstances produce approximately similar results".

The "chaos" in the game of golf is that, as you say, nobody can control their muscles enough to perfectly recreate the circumstances of a hole in one. We try to go through the same motions, but we can't. Not even the same golfer two times in a row. We're a little more tired, were a little older, the temperature is fractionally different making the air density a little different, the two balls aren't *exactly* the same, you can't place them both on the tee exactly the same way, etc.

Just too many variables that are beyond control.

Now I never said that a deity would decide to mess with your lawn mower. But the intervention or incidental effect of such spirits may well interfere well before you ever reach the concept of a lawn mower. These things may prevent the formation of the basic theories that would lead to such an invention.

More to the point, it might keep anyone from thinking that a second one would work the same way the first one would. Someone might tinker one together, but the idea of interchangeable parts isn't there yet, so the design of such a device would be more of concept than strict mechanical drawing.

 

[Samloyal23]

I'm thinking in the typical D&D setting there is very little natural motivation to create new technology largely because of the abundance of magic. Storywise, for creating a setting, there needs to be an additional instigator for the creation of something like a steam engine. A local failure of magic could do that, as could being unnaturally inhibited by spell resistance. Let's say you live in an area where a mineral blocks casting. This mineral gets in your food, your water, mother's milk, and ends up in your bones. Sure it protects you from magic, but it also makes it harder for you to use any. Your enemy across the river has no problem making magic weapons and flying carpets to bombard you with exploding sling-stones. What do you do? You make a blimp to fly over his town and drop a few rocks on his roof...

 

[Greenfield]

Some worlds have more magic than others. Spell casters of any level are extremely rare in any world that complies with the old World Builder's Guide.

For most people, the vast majority of people in a WBG type of world, magic simply isn't available. Look at the table listing the cost of spell casting services in the PHB and compare that to the earning potential of the average peasant worker, or even the average skilled craftsman.

Now I know that it's dirty pool citing the D&D economy as a "reason" for anything. There's nothing even slightly reasonable about it and there never has been. But it's the only written guideline that can even give us a clue about how common or plentiful magic is for the common man.

On a different tangent, the steam engine, as we know it, was almost a side effect of a scientific study into how much fuel/heat it took to boil a gallon of water. The study was commissioned in Scotland, by the distilleries. Wood and coal were getting expensive, and the art of making whiskey was exactly that, an art.

It took hard, rigorous study to establish the working tables that the distilleries wanted, the kind of study that presumes predictable cause and effect, that the amount of fuel needed will be predictable and stable, the same every time.

That basic presumption was considered something radical at the time, almost a sacrilege. This was a product of the "Age of Reason" type of thinking. Before that people were still talking about "Caloric" as a "magical fluid" that could move from one object to another by contact, and Philogiston that was consumed when fuel burned, another "magical" material that sometimes had weight and sometimes didn't.

Man had been boiling water for thousands of years at that point, and even the distiller's art dated back to 500 B.C., but nobody had ever put it together that predicting the amount of fuel needed, precisely, was even a possibility.

There were "steam engines" of a sort in ancient Egypt, but they were toys, steam powered pinwheels with no practical application. And even they were works of art, not of science.