D&D General D&D, magic, and the mundane medieval

[Maxperson]

You don't need magic. There are a million randomly flapping butterfly wings that could have made history look very different. But you can't have magic and expect societies that look remotely like anything in real world history.

Now imagine what it could have looked like if those wings were attached to butterflies!!

 

[Zubatcarteira]

The 2nd level Lesser Restoration spell can cure diseases.

 

[Cadence]

The 2nd level Lesser Restoration spell can cure diseases.

In one person per spell.

A lower level "detect disease" spell that could do a group of people feels like it would be huge!

 

[Oofta]

The 2nd level Lesser Restoration spell can cure diseases.

Yeah, my bad I glanced at the spell and missed the remove disease part. On the other hand, what percentage of the priest population is granted spells is still one of those things the DM has to decide. Do the gods want their clerics running around casting lesser restoration as often as possible or is there a limit to the god's power which includes restricting how many spells can be cast unless you are one of the chosen?

I assume adventuring clerics would be incredibly rare in most campaign worlds and personally don't assume there's a holy person that can cast spells in every village.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Wait ... weren't you just arguing that you were following the rules in the book which meant that individual campaigns have no bearing? But then when someone points out actual rules text that says that the default assumption that magic is rare you respond with "But individual campaign worlds can have a lot of magic"?

But that isn’t what I said. I pointed out that the worldbuilding advice in the dmg isn’t actually rules, that a “default” isn’t a meaningful argument against my argument about what makes sense, and then pointed out where the section in question doesn’t even unambiguously support Max’s assertion in the first place.

The PHB and supplements are packed full of magical low level options. Many of which necessitate some level of infrastructure.

The level of magic is going to vary from campaign world to campaign world. In my campaign world there's a lot of very low level barely noticeable magic but high level magic is relatively rare. How 'bout we all just say that we should do what makes sense for the worlds we build?

Okay. I’ve never said otherwise.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In one person per spell.

A lower level "detect disease" spell that could do a group of people feels like it would be huge!

Detect Poison and Disease is pretty low level…

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It matters as a response to people who say that in D&D spellcasters are not rare. They might not be rare in their games, but by default they are. It matters as a clarification to how the game is set up, not as some of prescriptive thing DMs are supposed to follow.

Okay, but you’re replying to me, and I’ve been arguing that it doesn’t make sense to imagine a world where the player options exist and PCs can use them and have all the available backgrounds (minus setting specific ones), where personal magic is also very rare.

Because it takes generations upon generations of mathematicians sharing knowledge, learning in schools and by way of tutors, ie it requires mathematicians not being very rare, to produce Isaac Newton. So even if we absurdly assume that the PC wizard is the only wizard in the world, or one of 5 globally, there has to be something less than a wizard proper who can cast some basic spells and understands enough fundamentals to teach them to kid wizard.

Because it does make sense. We see a lot of magic around, because magic endures for thousands or even tens of thousands of years. Over that period of time even rare spellcasters will leave a large footprint of magic on the setting.

That isn’t a coherent world, IMO.

Sorry. I was(still am) tired and trying to be a bit humorous.



Yes of course. That's why I've been saying that the DM can alter the default assumption if he wants to. Spellcasters aren't always rare, but the default is for them to be.

The default doesn’t matter.

Yes. But I've not been saying magic is rare. I've been saying magic is pretty common because the rare spellcasters have left a lot of it around the world over time. It's spellcasters, not magic, that are rare by default.

This is nitpicking. Magic here refers to personal magic that a person is doing.

A guild can be 5 guys in robes sitting around a fire in their tower swapping tales and spells that they've discovered in some ruin or other.

Irrelevant, the guild in question is much larger than that.

It doesn't present a multiverse without a default. It presents a multiverse with a default, but then provides options and suggestions for how to change the default if the DM wants, because not all universes follow the multiversal default.

It does. The 5e default has always been the multiverse, people just ignored it or didn’t notice until Fizban’s. And even the paragraph you quoted that talks about magic being rare does so in a way that makes it explicitly clear that only a vague “most” worlds actually fit that description.

This I agree with. It makes perfect sense to have spellcasters be rare, common or somewhere in-between. The prolific amount of magic in the world can be explained by all three.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It matters as a response to people who say that in D&D spellcasters are not rare. They might not be rare in their games, but by default they are. It matters as a clarification to how the game is set up, not as some of prescriptive thing DMs are supposed to follow.

I agree in theory, but when in the default setting (FR) you can't throw a rock without hitting a chosen of X god and or an archmage (and yeah some are both) it doesn't help.

One of the things I was hopeing for with Dragon Lance (and maybe if we ever get Birth right and dark sun) are worlds where the big names are NOT gods and casters.

A guild can be 5 guys in robes sitting around a fire in their tower swapping tales and spells that they've discovered in some ruin or other.

where this is 100% true, it is not what people think of when they hear guild...


JUST FYI, I run diffrent homebrew settings all the time, and I play 7 out of 10 times in homebrew settings... so in the last 37 years I have played in "burn the witch" games, and "Oh everyone has cantrips" games and everything inbetween... so I get that homebrew throws this all out.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah, my bad I glanced at the spell and missed the remove disease part. On the other hand, what percentage of the priest population is granted spells is still one of those things the DM has to decide. Do the gods want their clerics running around casting lesser restoration as often as possible or is there a limit to the god's power which includes restricting how many spells can be cast unless you are one of the chosen?

I assume adventuring clerics would be incredibly rare in most campaign worlds and personally don't assume there's a holy person that can cast spells in every village.

in my last 2 campaigns I had clergy mostly not be spell casters, so when the party (at 8th or 9th level) found a 'mirical worker' and it ended up being a 4th level cleric 1st level rogue... they were not impressed, but BOY were the towns folk

 

[Ancalagon]

PCs aren't special,

Are PCs special is a fundamental question that various GMs do not agree upon. It has a big impact on game, class and world structure.

5e, both in style and rule set, seems to favor the "PCs are special" - NPCs use different rulesets for instance (you fight veterans and bandit captains, not fighters and rogues). But it's not an absolute.