Level Up (A5E) Spells that would ruin the world
Faolyn
(she/her)
Yep. In In The Cage: A Guide To Sigil, the "light boys" are kids who have managed to procure continual light wands, and they rent themselves out as torchbearers, because Sigil is such a dark and gloomy place and the dabus no longer maintain the streetlights. They typically will fight amongst themselves for possession of one of these wands and steal them when they can.
Now, a more typical type of town has normal daylight and so doesn't need constant lighting. But if continual flame torches are used as streetlights, there could still be people who steal them. After a while, a city may not want to bother replacing them, especially not in poorer sections of town. It may be only the richest areas have them.
thinking about ascendance of a bookworm, the baptism ceremony used there is another great example of adapting low level everyday magic to solve "modern" problems, Tuli & Main go through it in the earlier books but it's not until things shift to life in the church later on that you really learn the details.
The local police don't need to invest in all of that expensive stuff because some group of PCs will eventually barter access to something or barter their wayout of a problem with it.
I once saw a Mine Resistant Armored Personnel Carrier done up with boca raton florida PD paint making a left totally out of place at this intersection, it was surprising how close to hitting the stoplights it came. They got it so the military could make a bit of money rather than having to need to pay to store or dispose of a thing they no longer needed. PCs ditch stuff like that all the time when they outgrow it or don't think it would be useful.
The local police don't need to invest in all of that expensive stuff because some group of PCs will eventually barter access to something or barter their wayout of a problem with it.
TYP
Villager
Desperately hoping not to get political here, but also, the police of the USA are not a representative sample of what law enforcement looks like.
I agree with Stalker's analysis about the economic implications of having to kit out guards with magic detection gear. It is absolutely doable, and it makes perfect sense for there to be elite units trained to detect and deal with magical dangers to lords, wealthy individuals, clergy, etc. Faolyn's non-magical suggestions regarding scent are brilliant ways for people to deal with the problem of a face changing criminal. What bothers me about the magic is the starting point: do people know what they're dealing with? This is another aspect of what makes this kind of magic horrifying to me.
Let's start by assuming that people are aware that this magic exists, and are aware enough to know that unscrupulous people can use it for malice. Talk about trust issues! It makes me think of identity theft, and how yeah, I'm wary, because my identity has not been stolen, but someone who has had their identity stolen will be cautious to the point of appearing paranoid. People with the means can protect themselves (which rings too true), but that leaves many vulnerable. And up until now, I've been thinking of person to person violence, but imagine what it would be like trying to track down a con artist who can change their face, or changing your face to look like someone to steal their possessions (see above about speaking to the dead to get past the banker). Terrifying.
Personally, though, I've always considered magic to be exotic to common folk. They are aware it exists, but likely haven't seen much of it up close - I know this has changed in recent editions, but it's what I default to. I also think it's cool to have that kind of mystery in the world, but that's just me. Either way, if common folk don't know that much about magic they might not even know what to look for. Maybe they are so baffled they don't even know to call for help, and assume the person just got away. Maybe they ascribe it to other supernatural forces and, in a superstitious panic, start witch hunts or mob killings.
And either scenario assumes people actually are able to accurately perceive what happened, which is a big if. Human perception is so unreliable that it's a bit of a handwave to assume the NPCs would have seen and understood enough of what was happening to put together that a guy who looked like this went in, and a girl who looked like that came out. A well prepared person could avoid detection for ages. I shudder.
And again, yes, there are many ways a GM can handle it. I just think a world where those kinds of things would become inevitable responses to a threat is horrifying.
Changing the subject somewhat, let's just all be glad that Arcane Eye is a fourth level spell that teenagers are unlikely to be able to learn.
I agree with Stalker's analysis about the economic implications of having to kit out guards with magic detection gear. It is absolutely doable, and it makes perfect sense for there to be elite units trained to detect and deal with magical dangers to lords, wealthy individuals, clergy, etc. Faolyn's non-magical suggestions regarding scent are brilliant ways for people to deal with the problem of a face changing criminal. What bothers me about the magic is the starting point: do people know what they're dealing with? This is another aspect of what makes this kind of magic horrifying to me.
Let's start by assuming that people are aware that this magic exists, and are aware enough to know that unscrupulous people can use it for malice. Talk about trust issues! It makes me think of identity theft, and how yeah, I'm wary, because my identity has not been stolen, but someone who has had their identity stolen will be cautious to the point of appearing paranoid. People with the means can protect themselves (which rings too true), but that leaves many vulnerable. And up until now, I've been thinking of person to person violence, but imagine what it would be like trying to track down a con artist who can change their face, or changing your face to look like someone to steal their possessions (see above about speaking to the dead to get past the banker). Terrifying.
Personally, though, I've always considered magic to be exotic to common folk. They are aware it exists, but likely haven't seen much of it up close - I know this has changed in recent editions, but it's what I default to. I also think it's cool to have that kind of mystery in the world, but that's just me. Either way, if common folk don't know that much about magic they might not even know what to look for. Maybe they are so baffled they don't even know to call for help, and assume the person just got away. Maybe they ascribe it to other supernatural forces and, in a superstitious panic, start witch hunts or mob killings.
And either scenario assumes people actually are able to accurately perceive what happened, which is a big if. Human perception is so unreliable that it's a bit of a handwave to assume the NPCs would have seen and understood enough of what was happening to put together that a guy who looked like this went in, and a girl who looked like that came out. A well prepared person could avoid detection for ages. I shudder.
And again, yes, there are many ways a GM can handle it. I just think a world where those kinds of things would become inevitable responses to a threat is horrifying.
Changing the subject somewhat, let's just all be glad that Arcane Eye is a fourth level spell that teenagers are unlikely to be able to learn.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
speak with dead requires the corpse has a mouth - so murderers might have a habit of removing the lower jaw from there victims, the spell also puts the corpse under no compulsion to tell the truth
The other spells cited are net boons but does support the idea thatmagical societies would be more advanced than classic medieval but might also lack certain technologies due to magical substitution.
Steampunkettes listing of presdigitation et all is a far more disconcerting look at things
Of corpse before that happens the world is going to be taken over by an endless horde of auto-spawning Shadows
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Faolyn
(she/her)
In the real world, people had all sorts of wacky ideas as to what would stop magic. The touch of cold iron, a line of salt, a horseshoe above the door, things like that. Probably a lot more in cultures other than Western European as well. Now, D&D and LU don't have those sorts of weaknesses as part of the rules, but it wouldn't be hard to homebrew them. The touch of cold iron on an illusion requires a concentration check or the illusion is dispelled, for instance (even if it's not a concentration spell). I wouldn't add such rules to an existing game unless the players were cool with it, but for a new game, sure.
Also in D&D and LU, well, since magic exists and actually follows rules, then at least some of those rules will be known, unless spellcasters really go out of their way to prevent the mysteries from being exposed.
Or optionally, people might be so paranoid about magic that anything out the ordinary could be seen as potentially dangerous. Communities could have contingency plans as to what to do should spellcasting be suspected. This could be bolstered by having natural things that reveal the presence of magic. In one of the Ravenloft Gazetteers (the one for Tepest, IIRC), there were mushrooms that slowly grew around the homes of spellcasters and people who had consorted with the fey. Something similar could very well exist in a more typical setting, which means that anyone whose home (or room at the tavern) has some of these mushrooms growing around it would be automatically suspected, which may give people an expertise die on certain saves against their spells.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
Remember when the 1e Barbarian could see through illusions and detect magic but refused to work with magic users until level 6 or so? The armour restrictions on spellcasters were also, partially, a nod to the effects of cold iron.
Maybe a barbarian style anti-magic feat needs to be added in to the game
Imc I assume that priest regularly cast Hallow and similar anti-magic wards on towns and major buildings, theres probably runes or other sigils protecting settlements too
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Faolyn
(she/her)
A lot of the Tempered Iron tradition is built around stopping magic, and unsurprisingly, both berserkers and heralds have access to it. I'm not sure what else such a feat could do, except perhaps cause extra damage to a spellcaster if you successfully made them lose concentration.
Well, detect magic is cheap. Clerics, Paladins, Bards, all have access to it. Two a hat of disguise just makes it harder to detect. You look like someone else, your accent, gait, and gear all stay the same. Most high level characters could be identified by anyone of thier magic items in a low magic world. And potions are even cheaper, just make sure every guard post has at least a few detect magic potions to use if things seem hinky enough. Or if the city leadership is willing to deal they could make deals with the local thieves guild and pay out Bounties for anyone using such magic. If every thief,bounty hunter and poor person in the city knows they can get 50gp for turning you in using such things would get dangerous really quickly.So lets play that out then. Ok our villain has a hat of disguise, what could our law enforcement have to counter it?
And remember we can't go too expensive here. If every police force has to have 5k in magic items to counter a few hundred... your quickly on the losing end of the economics war.
Now what might make more sense is an "FBI" like group. A special forces under the king lets say, that deals with special magical crimes. So after a few times of this "thief who seems to have 1000 faces", perhaps the special forces are brought in, with their specialty equipment, to deal with the case. That could be a fun campaign idea actually, the CSI of dnd
WarDriveWorley
Hero
You mean like Spellbreaker? I mean it's not the hard denial the 1e Barbarian had, but it is very useful against casters.
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