Why wouldn't Someone Learn Magic...

[WayneLigon]

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.

There is virtually no information about the actual training times and methods for the various classes, probably because we're talking broad archetypes here and such information would be a closer step towards making the basic game more concretely tied to a specific world - a bad idea for a game that can be used to represent a startlingly broad range of fantasy.

You can, however, look at scroll mishaps and the possible negative effects one can suffer as a result of a failed Use Magic Item check to see that someone who is fooling with magic beyond their capacity to use, or beyond their normal capability to use, can suffer severe negative effects if they fail to do everything exactly correct. They can even die from it.

Later on, you point up some stuff from d20 Modern. If we want to consider ideas from it as well, I'll submit that the d20 Modern system of Incantations (you can see those in the d20M SRD) is much closer to the way magic works in most works of fiction and tales than D&D's stock method. There are many hazards that a failed Incantation can cause, and those are with a trained and ready spellcaster, much less a green apprentice.

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

It depends on which 'philosophy' of D&D you subscribe to. I generally subscribe to the one that the various PC classes are a far cut above the common run of humanity, even at 1st level.

 

[fusangite]

Fusangite, this is a great post and I'm going to save it. My thanks to you.

Thanks. I find it unendingly fun to look at the rules and then figure out what they would entail sociologically rather than trying to shoehorn them into a social system with which they do not fit.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Scribble, good point. If we assume that everyone in a D&D world has the same choices and options as a PC, then there is no reason for a developed society not to be dominated by magic, just the way that ours is by technology. The one exception to this would be culture, the "burn the witches" idea pointed out by Loki and others.

Bill Slaviscek and others recognized the same point as you're making. One of the aims of Eberron was to make a world where the D&D rules "made sense" with respect to society, or at least made more sense than they did with respect to the typical medieval European society.

I would like to see the books come out and say, "PCs are special, they're heroes, and with the exception of a few super-villain NPCs, other people can't advance like this." Or can't cast spells. Or can advance at most 1 class level per every five game years (or decades, for the long-lived races*). Or must roll a natural 20 to cast a spell. Or some sort of restriction like that. I think that would solve it for me.

But many people don't like to say that the PCs are special. I agree with them that there is a certain elegance to having the same advancement rules apply to NPCs and PCs. And it is aesthetically pleasing to amend or qualify the rules as little as possible. But to me, the disconnect between the "rules are for every creature" and the typical D&D assumed milieu is large enough to be irksome, and the amendments required to fix that (assume that the PCs are special heroes) are not odious.

*which, by the way, these (the long-lived races) are another thing that do not reflect the rules in a typical assumed D&D milieu.

 

[ruleslawyer]

See, this is why I like Iron Heroes. IH does come out and just say the PCs are special and that only certain exceptional villains and such are entitled to the same powers (even then, the villains usually use the villain classes, which are a different thing entirely).

That said, I do believe that it's pretty strongly hinted in the D&D core rules that PC-classed individuals are exceptional individuals; don't the descriptions of the adept and warrior NPC classes have something to this effect (IDHTBIFOM)?

 

[Banshee16]

I would like to see the books come out and say, "PCs are special, they're heroes, and with the exception of a few super-villain NPCs, other people can't advance like this." Or can't cast spells. Or can advance at most 1 class level per every five game years (or decades, for the long-lived races*). Or must roll a natural 20 to cast a spell. Or some sort of restriction like that. I think that would solve it for me.

But many people don't like to say that the PCs are special. I agree with them that there is a certain elegance to having the same advancement rules apply to NPCs and PCs. And it is aesthetically pleasing to amend or qualify the rules as little as possible. But to me, the disconnect between the "rules are for every creature" and the typical D&D assumed milieu is large enough to be irksome, and the amendments required to fix that (assume that the PCs are special heroes) are not odious.

*which, by the way, these (the long-lived races) are another thing that do not reflect the rules in a typical assumed D&D milieu.

The game breaks down though, if the PCs are the only ones capable of doing these things? Then where did the magic items they find in the dungeon come from? Who taught the PC wizard how to use spells? Why isn't a civilization of lvl 1 commoners wiped out by the first orc horde that comes along, given that 1st lvl PCs won't be powerful enough to take down an orc horde?

And they get to be so powerful at higher levels that there would be no reason why PCs wouldn't become the ultimate rulers of the land when they're getting to high levels.

The PCs are special....but they don't exist in a vacuum. I don't think I'd like a game where they did..

Banshee

 

[hexgrid]

But why would any NPC in his right mind take more than one level in commoner? Unless there are social forces outside the rules forcing NPCs to take more than one commoner level, nobody would.

NPCs, by definition, don't get to choose their own classes- it's chosen for them by the DM. And if there's no DM, the concept 'NPC' is meaningless.

 

[Turanil]

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...

No, not learning spells is not the equivalent of not learning to read. Not learning spells is the equivalent of not going to the university and become a high grade professionnal. As others already pointed out: why in real life someone wouldn't strive to become a surgeon or lawyer instead of being just a barmaid? It's the same thing in the fantasy world for not everyone being a wizard.

 

[fusangite]

NPCs, by definition, don't get to choose their own classes- it's chosen for them by the DM. And if there's no DM, the concept 'NPC' is meaningless.

Everything except the PCs is created exclusively by the DM. So let's not talk about how or why anything happens anywhere in any D&D world at any time anymore here on ENWorld. You have answered all possible questions: because the DM says so.

What a ridiculous bit of sophistry!

 

[Aaron L]

They really need to impose an age requirement on wizards mand clerics. Learning magic shouldnt be something you can just pick up with a few years of schooling. It should take decades. I remember the age chart in the 1E DMG, magic-users were supposed to start out somewhere in thier 40s or 50s if I remember correctly. The 3e starting ages are a bit to low for my taste.

Also, lack of talent and/or lack of lack of ambition, as others have said.


In my game I set an age requirement, 30+1d12, for all spellcasters and psionicists. (I also give a slowed aging rate to spellcasters and psionicists based on caster/manifester level, using the slowed aging rate for Channelers from the Wheel of Time game) Then I make allowances for the Spellcasting Prodigy feat; if you take the feat then you can start out much younger, so you can play a Raistlin type character born to master magic.

Elven wizards in Alterra live a long, long time

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I see no problem with the idea of real "hedge magics" in a D&D world. The Incantations in Unearthed Arcana Gave a mechanical model for such a thing, it just needs to be massively scaled down to the level of day to day commoner spells. Not everyone would put ranks in "Knowledge : Hedge Magic" and its uses would be too time comsuming and minor to have balance effects, but my answer to "why doesn't everyone use magic?" would be "they do, it just doesn't have a big game effect." Or rather it can be conviniently used to explain away game rule artifacts.

Why are there no rules for wound infection and injuries getting worse over time (aside from mortal wounds)? Because any character can run a white stone, birch stick or white feather in a pattern carrying fever out of the wound while reciting whichever version of the cleaning rhyme he was taught as a kid and the would will be cleansed. Why don't female PCs have to worry about "women's issues"? Because their moms taught them the simple ritual to control their fertility cycle same as their grandmothers before them.

Everyone isn't a doctor, or a chemist, but plenty of people know that ginger can settle an upset stomache or hydrogen peroxide cleans up a tee shirt you got a nosebleed on. I think a magical world without little hedge magics is missing something, but luckily there's nothing unbalancing about including them.