Unearthed Arcana Why UA Psionics are never going to work in 5e.

[FlyingChihuahua]

Economics only slows down the increase. It doesn't stop it. There are too many merchants and nobles that could afford it.

Would those nobles and merchants increase though?

 

[Maxperson]

Would those nobles and merchants increase though?

There would be more spellcasters to take apprentices and have children that went into the spellcasting, even if not all of the kids chose to learn. Even if they only learned a little bit, say the equivalent of Magic Initiate feat, spellcasting would spread.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

There would be more spellcasters to take apprentices and have children that went into the spellcasting, even if not all of the kids chose to learn. Even if they only learned a little bit, say the equivalent of Magic Initiate feat, spellcasting would spread.

But then you'd still hit a wall, because remember, people die and in a medieval society, the merchant class wouldn't really increase much, and a noble class would increase even less so, so you wouldn't end up with as many spellcasters as you might expect, and again, you'd end up with people mainly just having the Magic Initiate feat, which isn't a lot of magic. Plus I would say that someone with the Magic Initiate feat would be unable to teach others magic and cannot create magic items.

Again, there is also the fact that a wizard might just tell the noble/merchant to go pound sand because they have more important things to do rather than teach some brat magic that they probably don't even care about at all.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Like we noted before @FlyingChihuahua , money only slows it, being difficult to learn only slows it, the only true way to stop every setting from becoming a post-industrialist setting with magic-users popping out of their seams is for people to be born with magic.

Well, either born with magic weak enough that they need to be taught or born with magic powerful enough they don't need to be taught.

And they have to be born with magic to be able to learn the ways of the druids or the the ways of bards.

Luckily they don't need to be born special to be a cleric, the Gods just pick those that are special... wait, probably get born with that magic too. Might need to be born with magic to get magic from a warlock pact too, I mean, otherwise someone might have just gone to a celestial to get magic in a celestial pact and then you have a society of people who can just learn magic and boom, Ebberron.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Like we noted before @FlyingChihuahua , money only slows it, being difficult to learn only slows it, the only true way to stop every setting from becoming a post-industrialist setting with magic-users popping out of their seams is for people to be born with magic.

Well, either born with magic weak enough that they need to be taught or born with magic powerful enough they don't need to be taught.

And they have to be born with magic to be able to learn the ways of the druids or the the ways of bards.

Luckily they don't need to be born special to be a cleric, the Gods just pick those that are special... wait, probably get born with that magic too. Might need to be born with magic to get magic from a warlock pact too, I mean, otherwise someone might have just gone to a celestial to get magic in a celestial pact and then you have a society of people who can just learn magic and boom, Ebberron.

But how long would that take?

Honestly, this just seems like "because it can happen, that means it will happen" while ignoring any potential things that might happen to mess things up, like say for example, one half of the game's name.

 

[Maxperson]

But then you'd still hit a wall, because remember, people die and in a medieval society, the merchant class wouldn't really increase much, and a noble class would increase even less so, so you wouldn't end up with as many spellcasters as you might expect, and again, you'd end up with people mainly just having the Magic Initiate feat, which isn't a lot of magic.

People with the Magic Initiate feat qualify as spellcasters and they would be seen by those remote villages.

Plus I would say that someone with the Magic Initiate feat would be unable to teach others magic and cannot create magic items.

This I agree with. But there would be enough true casters to keep things going where most people at least have some magical casting ability.

Again, there is also the fact that a wizard might just tell the noble/merchant to go pound sand because they have more important things to do rather than teach some brat magic that they probably don't even care about at all.

That's why they would go to the schools, guilds, etc. in major cities if they needed to. There would be enterprising wizards willing to teach classes. It only takes a few to make a school.

 

[Chaosmancer]

But how long would that take?

Honestly, this just seems like "because it can happen, that means it will happen" while ignoring any potential things that might happen to mess things up, like say for example, one half of the game's name.

Well Max told us, remember?

It would take as soon as we started adventuring in the world. I mean, magic has existed for millenia, and ancient magical empires have fallen, so it would clearly have already happened as soon as you start session zero of your game.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Well Max told us, remember?

It would take as soon as we started adventuring in the world. I mean, magic has existed for millenia, and ancient magical empires have fallen, so it would clearly have already happened as soon as you start session zero of your game.

Yeah, but there might be a reason why those ancient magical empires are not current magical empires.

Actually... that's an interesting wrinkle to Eberron... What if it's basically taking place in the "ancient magical empire" that a lot of other worlds have and is close to the cataclysm that would result in the current state of most D&D worlds...

 

[Maxperson]

Well Max told us, remember?

It would take as soon as we started adventuring in the world. I mean, magic has existed for millenia, and ancient magical empires have fallen, so it would clearly have already happened as soon as you start session zero of your game.

I just got modded for mocking and being unnecessarily hostile. Don't you think you should stop the antagonizing and mocking posts as well?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Economics only slows down the increase. It doesn't stop it. There are too many merchants and nobles that could afford it.

No, that's not how economics works.

A certain amount of wealth* is generated. You can use that wealth to train 10 wizards or 1000 peasants. If you spend it all on wizards the wizards will all die because there is no food. If you spend it all on peasants then they will all die because without wizards dragons will come and eat them all. So you need to balance the production of wizards and peasants.

*wealth is not the same as money. It is a combination of money, time and expertise. Merchants do not usually become wizards because they do not have time to study, because they are too busy making money. If they stop making money in order to study they will become poor and not be able to afford it. They vast majority of wizards will be from noble backgrounds, but only a small fraction of the population can be nobles - if you don't have enough peasants growing food the nobles will starve.