The Common Commoner

diaglo · Aug 12, 2004

Quasqueton said:
And what happens when there's a goblin raid in the night -- oops, I used my spells to heal the simple accident victims at sundown. The wounded militiamen are screwed now.

Danger doesn't just happen in the daylight hours. There are plenty of threats that can come at night.

How many times have PCs been caught spelled-out at night because the cleric burned all his cure spells before laying down to sleep in the wilderness?

Quasqueton

as long as the DM and the players realize that there are costs to their spells per day when cast within 8 hours per the DMG.

GlassJaw · Aug 12, 2004

PC's are OBSCENELY wealthy compared to NPC's

So true. I've been trying to cut back on treasure but I still think I give out too much "stuff". I just feel guilty not giving the PC's some coins after they defeat soemthing. :\ I need to get a backbone.

GSHamster · Aug 12, 2004

I see your point. But then, don't these two points contradict each other?

Kamikaze Midget said:
As per the DMG, following the Rules As Written:
* "Small communities are much more common than larger ones. In general, the number of people living in small towns and larger communities should be about 1/10 to 1/15 the number living in villages, hamlets, thorps, or outside a community at all. You might create a metropolis at the civilized center of the world with 100,000 people, but such a community should be the exception, not the rule."

* 70% of all communities have populations 2,000 and below. Their markets don't sell anything over 800 gp at the highest end (a potion emporium, perhaps). 50% of all communities have populations 900 and below. Their markets don't sell anything over 200 gp at the highest end (getting so you can't even afford ARMOR in most towns...)

If 50% of communities have populations 900 and below, 50% have populations greater than 900. That means that at least 50% (and probably much higher) of the population lives in small towns, directly contradicting your first point of only 1/15.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I just think that there is something funny with your numbers.

mmadsen · Aug 12, 2004

Quasqueton said:
And what happens when there's a goblin raid in the night -- oops, I used my spells to heal the simple accident victims at sundown. The wounded militiamen are screwed now.

No matter what time a Cleric prays for new spells, there is a time just before that where he can use up his old spells. It may be dusk, it may be right before bed, it may be first thing in the morning, but it obviously exists.

Quasqueton said:
How many times have PCs been caught spelled-out at night because the cleric burned all his cure spells before laying down to sleep in the wilderness?

PCs are intentionally marching into the mouth of danger.

Brother MacLaren · Aug 12, 2004

Excellent post, KM. I'm one of the guys usually complaining about the huge power levels assumed in the DMG demographics. I see that I was being a bit chauvanistic - thinking that life in the towns and cities defined life for the "average person." Probably a city-dweller's bias on my part, combined with the fact that much of what I know from ancient and medieval history I associated with cities (Ur, Nineveh, Babylon, Athens, Rome, London).

Looking at your conclusions, I'd have to say that one consequence would be that peasants are less powerful than the city dwellers even moreso than was true in history. Once you get to the "large town" level, you really have the spellcasters capable of casting world-changing spells such as teleport.

Now, a related question for you all - which low-level spells would have the greatest effect on a world like ours? That is, which ones can do things that technology cannot yet do?

I'd say Comprehend Languages is something technology can't do (Linear B, for example) but it wouldn't be all that world-changing. Detect Lie (or whatever it's called now) is another one that technology can't do (polygraph is more like a +4 bonus to Sense Motive, because unlike Detect Lie a skill check can give false positives), but it does allow a save. Cure Disease is probably the top low-level spell in this regard - imagine being able to cure any ailment even once per day.

Quasqueton · Aug 12, 2004

as long as the DM and the players realize that there are costs to their spells per day when cast within 8 hours per the DMG.

I know this.

No matter what time a Cleric prays for new spells, there is a time just before that where he can use up his old spells. It may be dusk, it may be right before bed, it may be first thing in the morning, but it obviously exists.

See above - that time is 8 hours before prayer time.

Timing for spell preparation doesn't change the fact that it can be wise to save spells for possible night time trouble than to blow it before bed down.

Villages average two encounters each day -- but "day" does not necessarily mean "during sunlit hours".

Quasqueton

ph0rk · Aug 12, 2004

I followed those rules for the most part when I ran my last campaign, (town size, cash on hand, amount of magic around, etc).

It pretty much just resulted in the party getting the hell out of half the towns as quick as they could.

As for the starting as npcs or 2nd level commoners thing, whatever floats your boat, but I doubt I'd enjoy running or playing a game like that.

Aren't fighters and bards common enough?

Piratecat said:
Ithink I disagree. All those people in the city are insular. It is the people in the hamlets and villages are are creating food for all the city folks to eat. They are also who the PCs will run into 9 times out of 10 when travelling anywhere. When natural disaster or monsters strike, it's going to be the villages that have the most trouble resisting. . . and then what happens to the city folk next harvest-time?

If you go by one of the lattice-like settlement patterns (http://mayagis.smv.org/settlement_patterns.htm has some nice examples using real data about Mayan culture), once adjusted for average mobility (everyone have horses) and of course for things like mountains, which suck to settle on, but don't matter much for figuring out what settlements the party runs into as they most likely aren't crossing the mountain just because its there (and if they are, well, thats a fun group!) Then the party will never be too far from a big city, or at least a moderately sized one.

The idea is the small hamlets and such all surround big cities. It is pretty rare for super tiny hamlets to be out in the middle of nowhere; most hamlets are where the farmers that feed the local city live, and obviously the farther from the big city market the harder it is to sell your crop.

What's the point? Even when the party is in a one-horse town, they can still ask a villager where the nearest city market is, and there will likely be one less than a day away. (Assuming no recent bridge destructions, hell-balls, etc)

Heck, there is even a real good chance they could see the big city, as most small-time hamlets have cleared nearly all the land for farming. (And most big cities have done the same).

LostSoul · Aug 12, 2004

Kamikaze Midget said:
A god certainly doesn't wish people to become dependant on one man, ne?

An Evil god does. (You could also argue that a Lawful god might as well.)

If the church wants to increase its power, or reduce the power of a church with an opposing philosophy, the church is going to have to compete. While the churches are competing with each other, there's no reason why they should charge for spells without valuable components. (And I think that the church may not even force all the cost of a Raise Dead or similar spell onto the consumer.) If they do start charging for spells, somebody else is going to come into town and do everything for free. Or at a much lower price.

Alenda · Aug 12, 2004

Quasqueton wrote:
"I would think the cleric (assuming he is a good guy, serving/protecting the village) would reserve his spells for times when really needed. I could see even a cleric of healing refusing to cure someone of an injury that is not life-threatening, and will heal on its own."

----

This sounds like it could be a REALLY interesting character to play. Just say the cleric was determined to "save" her spells in case of an overnight attack or raid. She has refrained from magically healing broken legs and cracked ribs all day long for this very purpose. Then the night passes uneventfully and her spells go unused. She would undoutedly feel guilty for "wasting" her spells.

Also, just say there was a farming accident earlier in the day that required her to use all of her spell slots to save fatally wounded people. She will undoubtedly be worried all evening about the possibility of a raid and how she would be unable to magically heal anyone.

It's a real "Catch-22."

mmadsen · Aug 12, 2004

Kamikaze Midget said:
But such is not the case, when following the rules as they are written for generating towns, for the income of commoners, for finding out how common to the everyday commoner magic really *is* in D&D. So I present to you my findings, based on the Rules As Written.

Of course, another question is whether the rules for communities, etc. follow from other assumptions of the game. What could a single, industrious 2nd-level Cleric do to build and transform a community?

Kamikaze Midget said:
My thesis: Magic isn't common to the everyday person, but it is common to the PC's, who AREN'T everyday people.

I think that's a reasonable assumption and a reasonable way to play the game. Of course, these assumptions lead to a game world where owning any magic at all, for instance, means you're insanely wealthy -- and a target.

Kamikaze Midget said:
With this capacity, half of the places in the entire world do not have access to 2nd level spells. You'd be shelling out about 10-20 gp to get any spell cast -- still far beyond the limits of even your most industrious commoner, who makes 1 sp/day, maybe slightly more often for the aristocrat (but it's still a BIG investment.) He might be able to afford a Cure Light Wounds once or twice a month. Same with create water. Assuming a good 700 people, that's enough to keep the local cleric, druid, or adept busy watering fields, healing wounds, giving good luck and bad luck, repairing an expensive peice of jewelry.

I would assume that regular tithing takes the place of insurance and (some) local taxes. The Cleric receives regular pay, and he cures the sick, etc.

Kamikaze Midget said:
Monsters raid your village about twice per day. Now monsters enter the equasion. The random wilderness encounter table says that in verdant/civilized areas, there's a 10% chance per hour of having 'an encounter.' Which is extrapolated to once in every 10 hours, or about twice per day. This meshes up with the dungeon encounters, so it basically means that 'when the area's got critters, you'll meet 'em about twice a day'. This is why 'adventuring' exists as a profession after all...

I think it's quite a leap to go from "adventurers wandering the countryside have a 10% chance of an encounter" to "monsters attack farms twice daily." Even if a monster attack only had a 1% chance of killing one person, monsters would kill seven people per year. Real raids, which you'd expect to kill multiple people, would wipe out a 1,000-person community in a few months.

Kamikaze Midget said:
They've never seen a magic sword in their lives. On to magic items...they have 200 gp as the most expensive item in the community, and that's not even enough for half-plate...

It's fair to say that no one in the community owns a magic sword or knows how to make one. Unless no one passes through town and no one ever leaves town though, I'm sure they've seen a magic sword. After all, their feudal lord probably has one -- he's not a 1st-level Commoner.