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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1607696" data-attributes="member: 3146">I can see that many wondrous items, magic weapons and armor, would have similar effect to technological items performing similar functions. Where I differ  with your analysis is in thinking that the concentration of power in the person of the wizard which is far more dramatic than any concentration of similar power possible with technology would have a direct and decisive impact on the ways in which magic is used and the ways in which it effected society.The difference between the rogue nuclear scientist and the rogue wizard is that the rogue nuclear scientist needs other people in order to be obnoxious. He needs a buyer. The buyer needs to get access to weapons grade fissile material. Then he needs a delivery system, etc. The rogue wizard is potentially the buyer, the weapon, and the delivery system all in one. Thus the potential for abusing magic is dramatically greater than that of abusing technology because no conspiracy is needed.Only if you assume that flying carpets are analogous to fighter jets. I'm asserting that, for modest D&D economies, the wizard himself is analogous to the jet. A minor baron can afford to hire a wizard of 5th to 7th level far more easily than to buy a flying carpet. (If your PC wizard were the mercenary type, would he fight a few battles for a baron for 5,000gp or 10,000gp? I suspect a lot of wizards might well do so). Furthermore, if one insists that items be the proper comparison, the primary items that would be analogous to modern weaponry in D&D are not wondrous items but rather spell-trigger items. The Wand of Fireballs can only be used by a wizard.Now, if you assume that anyone with an 11+ int and some schooling can become a wizard, the wizard may become analogous to a fighter pilot--highly trained, but ultimately replacable help. However, there are several important dissimilarities to consider. First, wizards make the wands of fireballs. So the wizard is necessarily both the defense industry workers who build the fighter jet and the pilot who flies it. Second, wizards are more versatile than fighter pilots. The wand of fireballs may be artillery but a wand of Charm or suggestion can also enable the wizard to fulfill other functions. A wand of summon monster or scrolls of planar binding would enable the wizard to fill the  usual roles of an entire military (taking and holding ground as well as bombardment). That concentrates significantly more power in the hands of the wizard. He is, in effect, the entire military-industrial complex rolled into one person.I don't think that the broad similarity between the responses is particularly relevant if the specifics would be necessarily different due to the dramatically different concentrations of power. If a society responded to the printing press with copyright law, it's perfectly conceivable that another society might respond to a copy spell by licensing all wizards and only allowing certain wizards to learn the copy spell. They are both responses to the same problem but they're not similar in any particularly meaningful way.Furthermore, if the people who have the copy spell ARE the entire military/industrial complex of your society, your options are a lot more restricted. Printers were generally burghers. Had they been simultaneously, the industrialists and the mercenary captains of their day, the possible range of responses would have been dramatically different.</blockquote>

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