Why wouldn't Someone Learn Magic...

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In a world where magic really does exist, and can do the things it does in D&D, why would someone ever choose not to learn how to cast spells? Even just one level... For everyday purposes some of the 0th level spells seem pretty darn handy.

It almost seems like not learning to cast spells would be the equivalent of not learning to read...

Why doesn't everyone in our world learn how to repair and maintain their own car? Why don't they all find the resources to buy a high-end computer and learn how to use it at the power user level? Both of those are simpler than learning magic in D&D.

 

[Umbran]

I agree on a personal level with most of the ideas posted, however they still confict with the RAW.

It isn't as if the core rules explain everything, though - you can't conflict with a rule that isn't written. The rules say a character can have or take a level in a class. The rules do not say, "there can be no in-game impediments to a character taking a level". So, saying there's an impediment for some (or most) NPCs is not in conflict with the rules.

There are implicit and explicit differences between PCs and NPCs - check out the DMG guidelines on communities. In those guidelines are implicit restrictions on NPC class choices, in aggregate. They are not fully explained, so we have to interpret why they may be. In the end, I think there's a basic assumption in D&D - while any particular NPC can be anything, the rules suggest that the bulk of the people in the world just aren't the same as PCs, and don't have the full set of options, unless the DM specifically wills it to be so.

And, setting that aside, there's a simpler argument: Your own PCs only take so many levels in their lifetimes, right? They cannot have an infinite number of levels in all classes, so they must pick and choose, based upon their own goals, desires, and situations. The same applies to NPCs. If it doesn't fit their goals, desires, and/or situation, they won't do it.

 

[WayneLigon]

All very interesting ideas but . . . they are in conflict with the RAW!

Mmm, yeah. I think we can agree that the RAW refers to just PC's, not to the general state of all the people in the world.

OT

There's several ways of looking at it.

I think it's more helpful to think of magic as an art rather than a science. The vast majority of people have no artistic talent, and therefore cannot be artists or musicians even though they might want to. They can try and try, but at best they might be able to play a couple songs by rote rather than through true understanding of musical theory.

Certainly PC's can multiclass to Wizard whenever the GM lets them, but that's more of a metagaming shortcut than any indication that a person in the 'real' fantasy world could actually be able to do that.

There's also every indication that learning magic can be dangerous to your health - mess up a sonnet and you get booed off stage. Mess up a conjuration or evocation and you can easily die. That alone will keep most people from learning it.

Also, look to your fantasy novels for reasons why people would not do it. Wizards tend not to share their knowledge - they spent years learning it and they're not going to waste that hard-won knowledge on a bunch of farmers or by being shopkeepers. Such things are for lesser men.

There's a major chink in all of those explanations and it's called The Bard. The Bard doesn't study magic, he literally just picks up bits and threads of lore along the way and he's able to use them. He can even technically cross the arcane/divine divide that way.

There are several novels where people do, in fact, learn a bit of magic here and there. Most people might, in fact. Really, the idea that they would not is an artifact of D&D's class-based system where Joe Blow can't just spend a couple skill points and learn Light, or Mending, or Cure Minor Wounds.

It really depends on the tone you want in your fantasy world, the nature of magic itself, and several other factors.

 

[taliesin15]

Two things from personal real world experience here I think might help explain why not.

First, there's a lot of people who think what they write is "poetry". They even go out to open mic night performing it all the time. Suffice to say, I think there's a fair amount of consensus that most of it is doggerel, much of the rest is pretty good, but only a little bit has the magic of actual good poetry.

Second, as someone who used to have a desk job, and has now entered the service industry at middle age, I wonder all the time at how out of touch many people are with the struggle that many people deal with just to make ends meet. And I live in the first world. What about some poor farmer in Peru or Western Africa or Bangladesh? What about most of the common people in a quasi-mythical medieval society? In the middle ages in Western Europe, the daily diet consisted of gruel. Most people only ate meat a handful of days a year if their lord wasn't a total tyrant or assuming there wasn't some blight that led peasants to eating unthinkable things.

 

[Drowbane]

Why don't all PC multiclass 50/50 as spellcasters?

 

[fusangite]

I do think the D&D class system produces some odd sociological effects when it comes to things like the distribution of magic. But class advancement is natural law in D&D worlds; people do not change and grow over time in the way that people in this world do. The fact is that in D&D worlds, the relationship between what happens to you and what you learn is alien to how people in our universe learn.

To begin with, there is the fact that whenever you learn something really important, your body changes, becoming sturdier and more robust. You're not just more knowledgeable; you are physically more precise and nimble.

Learning, in a D&D world, is more like that theorized by monastic movements the world over. One moves closer to enlightment by quanta; whether you have been moving in that direction by reading the books, chanting the prayers or cleaning the chicken coop is deliberately left undifferentiated. A discipline of mind will yield a discipline of body; a discipline will yield a discipline of mind; knowledge will come to you in moments of enlightenment when your consciousness expands because you get closer to knowing the mind of God, the sole source of all true knowledge.

The difference is that in D&D worlds, this isn't an alternative perspective; it's physically hard-wired into the laws of the universe.

So, why do people not learn magic? Because they are not, in some fundamental way, ready. They have studied the word but they have not come to know the mind of God/the universe/the nous/the logos, because they have not learned to move their body in the right way to make the somatic gestures in harmony with the universe, because they have not disciplined their mind in the correct and particular way. I imagine D&D magic schools in arcane magic to begin with training in the arts of concentration and meditation (as represented by the most important magic skill in D&D: Concentration), to first prepare the mind so that it can even receive the knowledge of the fundamental laws of the universe.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

Mmm, yeah. I think we can agree that the RAW refers to just PC's, not to the general state of all the people in the world.

I disagree. My interpretation of the RAW is that it applies to all denizens. Why can't an NPC Commoner or Aristocrat take a level in Adept?

I think it's more helpful to think of magic as an art rather than a science. The vast majority of people have no artistic talent, and therefore cannot be artists or musicians even though they might want to. They can try and try, but at best they might be able to play a couple songs by rote rather than through true understanding of musical theory.

I personally agree with this idea and think it applies to the Sorcerer class per the RAW. In the AD&D 2nd Ed Viking & Celtic historical campaigns this was true for wizards.

Certainly PC's can multiclass to Wizard whenever the GM lets them, but that's more of a metagaming shortcut than any indication that a person in the 'real' fantasy world could actually be able to do that.

Have to disagree here. If we allow PCs to take levels in Cleric, Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, or Wizard whenever they level up, we should allow NPCs to take levels in Adept. Personally, it makes me sick to my stomach that a 1st level fighter can take a level in wizard because they hacked & slashed some orcs. I prefer the archetype of studying 20 years (like the historical Druids) before becoming a 1st level wizard.

There's also every indication that learning magic can be dangerous to your health - mess up a sonnet and you get booed off stage. Mess up a conjuration or evocation and you can easily die. That alone will keep most people from learning it.

Where is this reflected in the RAW? There are certainly some fantasy settings where magic is dangerous but I don't think it's a universal conceit and it's certainly not part of D&D.

Also, look to your fantasy novels for reasons why people would not do it. Wizards tend not to share their knowledge - they spent years learning it and they're not going to waste that hard-won knowledge on a bunch of farmers or by being shopkeepers. Such things are for lesser men.

And yet a 1st level fighter or rogue is not a 'lesser man'?

There are several novels where people do, in fact, learn a bit of magic here and there. Most people might, in fact. Really, the idea that they would not is an artifact of D&D's class-based system where Joe Blow can't just spend a couple skill points and learn Light, or Mending, or Cure Minor Wounds.

In the d20 Modern SRD there are feats which allow a character to cast 3 orisons or cantrips per day (Magical Heritage & Divine Heritage respectively).

It really depends on the tone you want in your fantasy world, the nature of magic itself, and several other factors.

QFT

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

What about some poor farmer in Peru or Western Africa or Bangladesh? What about most of the common people in a quasi-mythical medieval society? In the middle ages in Western Europe, the daily diet consisted of gruel. Most people only ate meat a handful of days a year if their lord wasn't a total tyrant or assuming there wasn't some blight that led peasants to eating unthinkable things.

These are the same societies that hold on to 'magical thinking.' The same societies that try to influence the weather, fertility (crops, animals, humans), and in the case of non-Muslim Africa and South Asia still perform traditional religious observations that the West refer to as 'superstitious' and 'witchcraft.'

My argument is that cantrips and orisons are more commonly practised in traditional societies (including historical Europe) that what D&D (all versions) allow. And in the US today, many churches have healing cermonies that look an awful lot like low level divine magic.

In a fantasy world where spells and magic are as pervasive as technology, I believe that most NPCs would know a bit of magic that directly improves their lives.

 

[fusangite]

I disagree. My interpretation of the RAW is that it applies to all denizens. Why can't an NPC Commoner or Aristocrat take a level in Adept?

If this were the case, why would anyone ever take a level in Commoner? By extension, wouldn't Commoners routinely take levels in Aristocrat? Indeed, why take a level in an NPC class at all, unless one's status as a PC or NPC is a matter of biological fact?

Have to disagree here. If we allow PCs to take levels in Cleric, Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, or Wizard whenever they level up,

I don't automatically permit these things. As a GM, I allow people to take cleric levels if they have ingratiated themselves with a specific temple of a specific god. The same goes from druid levels. For wizard levels, there has to be some initial access to a library. Sorcerors are born with innate talents, according to the RAW itself.

Personally, it makes me sick to my stomach that a 1st level fighter can take a level in wizard because they hacked & slashed some orcs.

Then put some brakes on it.

The RAW is silent on your right as a GM to make classes fit into some kind of social order. The fact that the RAW does not mention the sociological dimension of class advancement does not either permit or prohibit it. The rules are silent; and where the rules are silent, the DM should speak.

 

[fusangite]

These are the same societies that hold on to 'magical thinking.' The same societies that try to influence the weather, fertility (crops, animals, humans), and in the case of non-Muslim Africa and South Asia still perform traditional religious observations that the West refer to as 'superstitious' and 'witchcraft.'

We're much more advanced here in America where we know that praying to Jesus is the only way to do that. :\

In a fantasy world where spells and magic are as pervasive as technology,

Not according to the demography rules in the DMG. In most human societies, according to the RAW, casters are a tiny minority.