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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9596749" data-attributes="member: 6790260">How many people in that thorp have the potential to become sorcerers?Any character can take a level in sorcerer at any time. Does that mean every person is descended from every possible sorcerous bloodline? If so, why does anyone ever bother doing any other form of magic? If not, how come any character can take three levels of the class and then pick any bloodline?The fundamental answer to these questions is the same as the fundamental answer to your initial question: It cannot be answered in the generic because there is no answer in the generic. We have no way of knowing how many of the people in that thorp might cross that line--or indeed any line--purely through training. Perhaps in some settings or some villages, the answer is all of them. Perhaps in other settings or other villages, the answer is none of them. Perhaps there's some insight or revelation or achievement that does it. Perhaps having to endure unexpectedly brutal trials and tribulations is the only way to find out--which means the entirely artificial "training" you speak of here cannot ever produce such a thing, only the actual rigors of adventure can. Plenty of things work like this in real life, things where no amount of structured, artificial, isolated processes can replicate the real deal. As an example, there are nickel-iron crystal structures you can find which prove that the metal must have come from a meteorite, because those crystals cannot form on Earth (they require the extreme cold, microgravity, and nil-atmosphere conditions in space)--even though said structure is totally mundane, it is impossible to artificially create on Earth, no matter how hard you try. (For reference, they're called "Widmanstätten patterns", and as noted, they require conditions which cannot occur anywhere on Earth. Even the extremely rare rocks that partially resemble these meteoritic crystals will always be clearly distinguishable from the real McCoy.)Or, for the pithy referential answer, "There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer." The question cannot be answered in the way you have structured it, because it does not have answers of the kind you're asking for. It has other kinds of answers, but not that kind.Why does lightning strike one tree, and not another? Why does one dead dinosaur fossilize beautifully, and another rots away, never to be seen again? How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?</blockquote>

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