D&D 5E What high-level spells could warp society?

[Micah Sweet]

wishes are iffy at best so wishing things to existance isn't going to work reliably. Assuming a bell curve for whatever it is that required to be able to cast 9th level spells, int, raw talent etc. Your going to get way less than 1 percent of the population able to even cast 7th level spells even if we send everyone to school. Remember coders were going to fix the economy..LOL. I don't see billionaires trying to solve all of societies problems, so I find it unlikely that the super smart "rich kid" "powerful" mages are going to jump in and start turning into wish bots for the masses let alone waste all thier high level magic for everyone else who doesn't have it.

I do agree you'd see some magical technology but I suspect if you read the book "Operation Chaos" by Poul Anderson it would be far more like that. If you like that he did a sequel called "operation Luna" later. Operation Chaos takes place in an alternate earth where magic has always existed during thier version of WWII. Lots of cool technology and magic and still the same old problems we have. The most likely outcome. Though Wall of Iron spells would be a straight ticket to a quick payday.

But none of those things are required to cast 9th level spells. There are no stat requirements to be a 17th caster. All it takes is deciding to be a caster and somehow earning the levels.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't see billionaires trying to solve all of societies problems, so I find it unlikely that the super smart "rich kid" "powerful" mages are going to jump in and start turning into wish bots for the masses let alone waste all thier high level magic for everyone else who doesn't have it.

I agree that none of these high-powered mages would do things just to be helpful and for the betterment of society... but rather they would do it to make lots and lots of money. But that's the thing... other than a little bit in Eberron involving the dragonmarked houses... we never even see businesses and companies spring up and form around powerful magic businesses to make themselves money. Where's the Thomas Edison of magic? The Henry Ford? Creating companies and putting money into new discoveries and advances in magic to make themselves even money, and then other companies building on those discoveries to take magic even further still.

There is so much money to be made in the magic trade that it is silly to think that people would let this goldmine of an industry just sit sallow for centuries except for a handful of people each year deciding to become mages and then go off "adventuring". Why make money by becoming a captain of magical industry when you can instead keep risking your life every week looking for abandoned gold coins left in old caves and guarded by creatures that want to rip your face off instead? Makes perfect sense! And this doesn't even bring up the entire military magical complex, with governments funding advancements in magical technology to better defeat their enemies. Leaders would be paying for the best and brightest to learn about all this new-fangled magic and then find ways to use it for national defense-- which would then lead to those inventions arriving into the private sector and pushing society forward from there.

Look, I know trying to apply logic to the evolution of magic as we saw with the evolution of technology in the "real world" makes for less interesting storytelling. But even if we wish to keep our heads buried in the sand just to keep our knights and horses fantasy stories alive... we can at least admit to ourselves that it makes no sense. Hell... we see the same thing in Star Wars, where the exact same people wear the exact same clothing, use the exact same weapons, and have the exact same types of space ships over tens of thousands of years from the Old Republic all the way through to the New Jedi Order... and where society and culture has not advanced at all. Yeah, we want to keep Star Wars as Star Wars no matter when we set it and with absolutely zero evolution... but at some point we have to just admit that it just doesn't make a lick of sense.

 

[smetzger]

I skimmed... but didn't see that anyone mentioned Tippyverse.
Tippyverse is the 3.5e version of what you are talking about.

Taking the rules to their extreme conclusion on how it effects the setting. Look it up it will give you some ideas.

 

[MGibster]

Fair enough. It does beg the question, "if combat rules don't define the physical limitations of what can happen in a 6-second combat round, what does?"

In all the years you've been gaming, in order to create a fun gaming experience, how often have you really needed to answer this question?

 

[kigmatzomat]

I skimmed... but didn't see that anyone mentioned Tippyverse.
Tippyverse is the 3.5e version of what you are talking about.

Taking the rules to their extreme conclusion on how it effects the setting. Look it up it will give you some ideas.

Tippyverse doesn't apply as as such because 5e teleportation is much weaker than in 3e. A permanent 3e teleport circle did not require a caster present nor spell slots to operate so it was essentially a permanent worm hole.

Meanwhile in 5e land, ten 20th level wizards can, at most, keep a teleport circle open for 11 minutes a day, and that includes using Arcane Recovery. And unlike 3e where circles can be made permanent in just a few minutes, in 5e it requires a year of work.

I don't think 5e has the same "infinite spell magic traps" that were a thing in 3e that acted as the tippyverse replicators.

5e Glyphs of Warding do provide some ways for 5e casters to "save spells for a rainy day" but they are essentially charged items.

I personally hold that even in 5e where circles are destination points, they should only exist juuuuust outside the official borders of a state, where a ton of defenses are aimed. If enemies appear there it's not awesome, but not the worst thing. Goods and troops can be teleported from anywhere in the heartland to the borders, creating some economic and military benefit while limiting incursions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In all the years you've been gaming, in order to create a fun gaming experience, how often have you really needed to answer this question?

More than once. Six seconds isn't very long, but folks are always trying to squeeze so much stuff into it.

 

[CreamCloud0]

this thread made me think, we've been discussing if everyone had adventuring class levels, do people think 5e lacks for not having NPC classes? stuff like craftsman, farmers, aristocrats, scholars or merchants. does a 20th level scholar have their own little list of spells? casting legend lore and scrying, or are there even more spells about that simply aren't on the official list, because they're far too niche or having barrier to entry for adventurers to learn (if it's only possible for a 15th level druid to cast animal shapes why would it be so out there that a 15th level scholar could learn 'Briergurn's Library of Memory' or something.

 

[Micah Sweet]

this thread made me think, we've been discussing if everyone had adventuring class levels, do people think 5e lacks for not having NPC classes? stuff like craftsman, farmers, aristocrats, scholars or merchants. does a 20th level scholar have their own little list of spells? casting legend lore and scrying, or are there even more spells about that simply aren't on the official list, because they're far too niche or having barrier to entry for adventurers to learn (if it's only possible for a 15th level druid to cast animal shapes why would it be so out there that a 15th level scholar could learn 'Briergurn's Library of Memory' or something.

I do think there is room for the kinds of NPC classes they had in 3e, in one form or another. You would likely level more slowly than PCs if you aren't getting your xp from adventuring, but access to some form of class abilities, including spellcasting if appropriate, makes sense.

 

[kigmatzomat]

3e had that, and a table of demographics you rolled on to see what the highest level person of all classes, PC and NPC, was. Then there was simple pattern to determine the number of lower level people of each class. By default, most of the population was Commoner-1.

The demographics ultimately supported the insane levels of magic available in the magic item availability rules as written. As Tippyverse showed, the magic item economy was more restricted than the game RAW covered. Though one core conceit of the Tippyverse is the gods are hands-off, while most GMs of 3e said their gods would get upset over Tippyverse-like capers. Matter of fact, where do you think those ruins full of magic items came from?

5e hand waives that away with the "game is not an economy". I give the devs the fact that it's impossible to make a game that isn't abusable. Mainly because it is also impossible to make financial laws that someone can't abuse. (I give you the "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich" tax cheat) but I would like some thing more thought out even if it nothing more than "these abuses offend gods of relevant domains, which is never a good idea."

I prefer some framework for providing the common competencies of non-adventurers. It could be something like a typical set of professions with the attack bonus and the value of their primary and secondary skills. Like, is a typical adult commoner +2/d4+0, +3, +1 while a royal bodyguard is +10/2d6+5, +8, +3, a royal advisor is +4/d6, +12/+4 and a king is +5/d8+2, +9, +4? This would have the king highy skilled & trained somewhat in combat for self defense but the bodyguard is a better brawler and the advisor is an Expert in their field.

You could even flip it around and use difficulty classes for primary/secondary. Commoners are Moderate/Easy, Seasoned professionals are Hard/Moderate, elites are Very Hard/Moderate and legendary figures are Nearly Impossible/Hard. Those correspond to skill modifiers of -5, +0, +5, +10, +15, +20 so you could either do opposed rolls or just use the standard DC.

 

[TwoSix]

I skimmed... but didn't see that anyone mentioned Tippyverse.
Tippyverse is the 3.5e version of what you are talking about.

Taking the rules to their extreme conclusion on how it effects the setting. Look it up it will give you some ideas.

I'm aware of Tippyverse, but I just don't think 5e has enough RAW material to get to that level of heightened fantasy.