D+D fiction/setting material that addresses how magic/abilities affect the world?

[Alex319]

I'm interested in D+D setting sourcebooks or other material that focuses on how the world works and how the existence of magic and other special abilities affect the world. What I mean by this is questions like:

- A 1st level Druid with the Goodberry spell can provide nourishment for 20 people each day. (10 goodberries * 2 spell slots) Thus, a community consisting of only 5% druids would no longer require any other source of food to survive. (If this were widespread, it would drastically change social structures: e.g. farmland and irrigation would become much less important). Similarly, an army with a small number of druids brought along for this purpose would have a drastic strategic advantage as it would require much less logistical support. Is the number of druids significant for this to happen? If not, there would likely be a major effort to teach more people how to be druids, or to identify people who might grow up to be able to be druids, etc. to gain this advantage. Has this been tried? What are the barriers to it? What were the results?

- The heat metal spell is very powerful against targets with metal armor because they can't easily stop the damage by taking it off. Presumably, if this spell was well-known, people might try developing techniques to mitigate it, such as putting an insulating layer under the armor, developing armor made of non-metal materials, or having some sort of quick-release mechanism to easily remove it. Is the heat metal spell well enough known/used often enough that a typical leader of a military force would know about it and know to plan for it? Have techniques like the ones I have talked about been tried, and if so what were the results?

- The wide variety of abilities in D+D used for rapid healing, escape, and teleportation makes it very difficult to safely accept surrender. If a party is losing a battle and agrees to let themselves be captured rather than killed, it is almost impossible for the opponents to imprison them - if the opponents turned their eyes away even for a few seconds, that could be enough for them to cast a spell, slip out of their bonds, use bluff/diplomacy to trick someone into releasing them, and so on. (Even if the party does not have any of these powers or does not intend to try to escape, they have no way of proving this to their opponents.) How does this change how campaigns are waged and how battles are fought? Does the D+D world have an equivalent of the Geneva Conventions rules against perfidy, to deal with this kind of situation? Have they tried to create one, and if so how well has it worked?

- Even low level abilities like Minor Illusion and Minor Alchemy are very useful to do things like make fake noises to trick enemies into thinking that reinforcements are coming, or turn silver pieces into gold pieces temporarily to rip off merchants, and so on. How has the possibility of illusions in combat affected military training and tactics? Do combatants frequently receive training on what effects magic can create, so if they see, e.g., a gout of flame with a certain shape coming up out of the ground, they will likely know "there's a real spell that does that, best stay away" versus "there's no spell that looks like that, it's probably an illusion?" (Even a combatant that didn't know or have any intention of casting any spells might still benefit from focused training specifically at identifying whether something might be an illusion or not.) What sorts of scams have people come up with and how do people try to protect themselves. (For instance, is it standard practice to make someone wait an hour for large transactions, to see if their pile of gold coins turns back into silver coins, before giving them their item and letting them leave?)

To clarify this question:

- I'm less interested in the specific items mentioned above than in that general category of question - how has all this magic and powers affected how systems work?
- I'm less interested in visible but "decorative" aspects (e.g. "the streets of Eberron are lit with magical lamps with light spells on them") and more on underlying systems and behavior ("if healing is so easy to accomplish, how does that affect how they think about risk?")
- I'm less interested in "how you would run this in your games" - I'm more interested in actual written fiction or setting material that goes into these kinds of details.

What sorts of setting material exists for D+D that talks about this?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

AFAIK, most of that is discussed only between gamers, or maybe in articles in Dragon. Not so much in terms of “scholarly” sourcebooks.

 

[clearstream]

I'm interested in D+D setting sourcebooks or other material that focuses on how the world works and how the existence of magic and other special abilities affect the world. What I mean by this is questions like:

- A 1st level Druid with the Goodberry spell can provide nourishment for 20 people each day. (10 goodberries * 2 spell slots) Thus, a community consisting of only 5% druids would no longer require any other source of food to survive. (If this were widespread, it would drastically change social structures: e.g. farmland and irrigation would become much less important). Similarly, an army with a small number of druids brought along for this purpose would have a drastic strategic advantage as it would require much less logistical support. Is the number of druids significant for this to happen? If not, there would likely be a major effort to teach more people how to be druids, or to identify people who might grow up to be able to be druids, etc. to gain this advantage. Has this been tried? What are the barriers to it? What were the results?

- The heat metal spell is very powerful against targets with metal armor because they can't easily stop the damage by taking it off. Presumably, if this spell was well-known, people might try developing techniques to mitigate it, such as putting an insulating layer under the armor, developing armor made of non-metal materials, or having some sort of quick-release mechanism to easily remove it. Is the heat metal spell well enough known/used often enough that a typical leader of a military force would know about it and know to plan for it? Have techniques like the ones I have talked about been tried, and if so what were the results?

- The wide variety of abilities in D+D used for rapid healing, escape, and teleportation makes it very difficult to safely accept surrender. If a party is losing a battle and agrees to let themselves be captured rather than killed, it is almost impossible for the opponents to imprison them - if the opponents turned their eyes away even for a few seconds, that could be enough for them to cast a spell, slip out of their bonds, use bluff/diplomacy to trick someone into releasing them, and so on. (Even if the party does not have any of these powers or does not intend to try to escape, they have no way of proving this to their opponents.) How does this change how campaigns are waged and how battles are fought? Does the D+D world have an equivalent of the Geneva Conventions rules against perfidy, to deal with this kind of situation? Have they tried to create one, and if so how well has it worked?

- Even low level abilities like Minor Illusion and Minor Alchemy are very useful to do things like make fake noises to trick enemies into thinking that reinforcements are coming, or turn silver pieces into gold pieces temporarily to rip off merchants, and so on. How has the possibility of illusions in combat affected military training and tactics? Do combatants frequently receive training on what effects magic can create, so if they see, e.g., a gout of flame with a certain shape coming up out of the ground, they will likely know "there's a real spell that does that, best stay away" versus "there's no spell that looks like that, it's probably an illusion?" (Even a combatant that didn't know or have any intention of casting any spells might still benefit from focused training specifically at identifying whether something might be an illusion or not.) What sorts of scams have people come up with and how do people try to protect themselves. (For instance, is it standard practice to make someone wait an hour for large transactions, to see if their pile of gold coins turns back into silver coins, before giving them their item and letting them leave?)

To clarify this question:

- I'm less interested in the specific items mentioned above than in that general category of question - how has all this magic and powers affected how systems work?
- I'm less interested in visible but "decorative" aspects (e.g. "the streets of Eberron are lit with magical lamps with light spells on them") and more on underlying systems and behavior ("if healing is so easy to accomplish, how does that affect how they think about risk?")
- I'm less interested in "how you would run this in your games" - I'm more interested in actual written fiction or setting material that goes into these kinds of details.

What sorts of setting material exists for D+D that talks about this?

I think the "Gritty Realism" text in the DMG could indicate that the designers expect a slower spell cadence to result in a campaign that feels more realistic. Once long rests take a week, the strategic impact of healing and spells like goodberry becomes more manageable. If "Gritty Realism" is supposed to move toward "realism", then by implication the PHB version is a step removed from realism. That implies that underlying systems and behaviour might be wonky: it might not be possible to stitch the world back together in terms of reasonable systems and behaviours.

Take a look at the list of Forgotten Realms NPCs pulled from the written fiction. I don't know if that is a complete list, but it includes a score of epic NPCs. Contrast that with the estimated Faerun populations from the written fiction, e.g. nearly 2 million occupying Greater Waterdeep (the City, and the densely populated province around it). Goldenfields is a nod toward the use of magic in agriculture in feeding such numbers, especially in summer when the City population triples or quadruples. That aside, I think a central factor in answering your question is deriving from the fiction some guesses at the total numbers of class-equivalent NPCs (they needn't be character classes, but also such as Mage from the DMG). The Code Legal from Dragon Heist suggests they are common enough to require a law such as "Using magic to influence a citizen without consent: fine or damages up to 1,000 gp and edict."

Honestly, I believe the baseline version of the world (i.e. without Gritty Realism) requires each author/DM to make their own guesses. One can with equal justice support many different conclusions about systems and behaviour. With reduced spell casting - either from the optional fiction like Gritty Realism, or from a close reading of the written fiction assuming the least number of casters possible, it might be possible to "settle" on a narrower set of likely world states. And magic is not your only concern: feats like Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter, were they available to a military, would bend the world tech toward them.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Usually magic is too expensive to be used by most of citizens, and gods defend kings and noble houses to avoid a "Superman17 effect" ( = when a character is so powerful what he can change History, like the comic where Hitler was arrested by Superman and sent to UN to be judged).

 

[MarkB]

Take a look at the Eberron campaign setting. It's a setting that assumes wide availability of low-level magic, and does a decent job of incorporating its effects into society.

 

[Arilyn]

In the typical D&D world, best not to look to look too closely. There is just too much weirdness and contradictions. Magic, at the D&D level would change society, warfae, health and wealth. Yes, wielders are supposed to be rare, but since this stuff works, in very predictable ways, rulers would presumably look for ways to train more. Most published settings claim to be mirroring medieval Europe, but there is equality, elected officials, extremely high rates of literacy, and plenty of gold. Gods are real, there is a lot of them, and they are interferring. The ecology makes no sense, as there are just way too many dangerous beasts, that are not fitting together in any logical, real world fashion. There is a mish mash of weapons and armour from a variety of places and time periods. I could go on and on.

One could create a more logically consistent world from the ground up, and that could be an interesting study in what a world with magic would be really like. But with the more typical places like Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, best not to ask too many questions.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I'm interested in D+D setting sourcebooks or other material that focuses on how the world works and how the existence of magic and other special abilities affect the world. What I mean by this is questions like:
To clarify this question:

- I'm less interested in the specific items mentioned above than in that general category of question - how has all this magic and powers affected how systems work?
- I'm less interested in visible but "decorative" aspects (e.g. "the streets of Eberron are lit with magical lamps with light spells on them") and more on underlying systems and behavior ("if healing is so easy to accomplish, how does that affect how they think about risk?")
- I'm less interested in "how you would run this in your games" - I'm more interested in actual written fiction or setting material that goes into these kinds of details.

What sorts of setting material exists for D+D that talks about this?

Some of this sort of thing has been discussed in Eberron, its associated Dragonshards, and in Keith Baker's blog and podcast. However only the blog and podcast go into 5e-specific rules: The base setting info and Dragonshards are set up to explain things from a 3.5ed point of view.

However, I'm not aware of any more general official discussion of how rules mechanics designed for PC parties might change base setting assumptions and similar.

- A 1st level Druid with the Goodberry spell can provide nourishment for 20 people each day. (10 goodberries * 2 spell slots) Thus, a community consisting of only 5% druids would no longer require any other source of food to survive. (If this were widespread, it would drastically change social structures: e.g. farmland and irrigation would become much less important). Similarly, an army with a small number of druids brought along for this purpose would have a drastic strategic advantage as it would require much less logistical support. Is the number of druids significant for this to happen? If not, there would likely be a major effort to teach more people how to be druids, or to identify people who might grow up to be able to be druids, etc. to gain this advantage. Has this been tried? What are the barriers to it? What were the results?

Generally Druidic beliefs do not gibe with the level of organisation, and being a full Druid is often something that you are called to be rather than something that you can be trained to be.
In many settings, only the most rural/wilderness areas might have a population density of Druids capably of this being a factor. - Bear in mind that the actual chance of a given NPC having any PC class levels may be around 10%.

I'm pretty sure that it has been mentioned that one of the factors that allowed the Eldeen Reaches to gain independence from Aundair were the logistical support provided by the druids taking part in the conflicts, removing the need for supply trains etc.

- The heat metal spell is very powerful against targets with metal armor because they can't easily stop the damage by taking it off. Presumably, if this spell was well-known, people might try developing techniques to mitigate it, such as putting an insulating layer under the armor, developing armor made of non-metal materials, or having some sort of quick-release mechanism to easily remove it. Is the heat metal spell well enough known/used often enough that a typical leader of a military force would know about it and know to plan for it? Have techniques like the ones I have talked about been tried, and if so what were the results?

Generally one of your opponents' few and valuable spellcasters burning a spell slot on killing a single grunt in your army is a tradeoff that most military leaders would be happy to accept.
Unless a force consisted of a small number of powerful champions going up against a foe known to emphasise that spell, its unlikely that any general countermeasures would be taken, particularly if they would be a tradeoff against defending yourself against a much more likely form of attack: Getting stabbed by an enemy soldier.
Elite forces going up against opponents known to make widespread use of the spell are a pretty edge case, but would probably be considered more like a party of PCs and would take the sort of precautions that PCs might.

(Note that all metal armour will have a fairly substantial level of padding underneath it as standard. Trying to increase insulation is likely to run into heatstroke or mobility issues, or both.)

- The wide variety of abilities in D+D used for rapid healing, escape, and teleportation makes it very difficult to safely accept surrender. If a party is losing a battle and agrees to let themselves be captured rather than killed, it is almost impossible for the opponents to imprison them - if the opponents turned their eyes away even for a few seconds, that could be enough for them to cast a spell, slip out of their bonds, use bluff/diplomacy to trick someone into releasing them, and so on. (Even if the party does not have any of these powers or does not intend to try to escape, they have no way of proving this to their opponents.) How does this change how campaigns are waged and how battles are fought? Does the D+D world have an equivalent of the Geneva Conventions rules against perfidy, to deal with this kind of situation? Have they tried to create one, and if so how well has it worked?

PC-level opponents (or even PC-classed opponents) are rare. Certainly too rare for special rules to be introduced to military conflicts most likely.
Methods of restricting spellcasters probably consist of hoods, gags, and manacles with built-in metal gloves. However people skilled enough to conceal thieves tools from a search and picking the lock are very unusual. Its fairly unlikely that an obvious prisoner would even get to roll for a bluff/persuasion check to be released.

If a military leader was put in the sort of position where they had captured a group of powerful PCs, they would probably go with either some form of honourable parole agreement, nonlethal beatings to keep them unconscious, ensuring that they couldn't get a full long rest, or just executing them and claiming that they fought to the death if asked.

- Even low level abilities like Minor Illusion and Minor Alchemy are very useful to do things like make fake noises to trick enemies into thinking that reinforcements are coming, or turn silver pieces into gold pieces temporarily to rip off merchants, and so on. How has the possibility of illusions in combat affected military training and tactics? Do combatants frequently receive training on what effects magic can create, so if they see, e.g., a gout of flame with a certain shape coming up out of the ground, they will likely know "there's a real spell that does that, best stay away" versus "there's no spell that looks like that, it's probably an illusion?" (Even a combatant that didn't know or have any intention of casting any spells might still benefit from focused training specifically at identifying whether something might be an illusion or not.) What sorts of scams have people come up with and how do people try to protect themselves. (For instance, is it standard practice to make someone wait an hour for large transactions, to see if their pile of gold coins turns back into silver coins, before giving them their item and letting them leave?)

Knowing what effects what spells can do is a function of Intelligence (Arcana) checks, and few soldiers would have proficiency in that. In an environment where many soldiers won't see a spell, trying to cover all possible effects of all known spells, on the off-chance that a caster might throw an illusory damage spell probably isn't worth it.
Illusions are probably more valuable used to create terrain features, or reserve units than throwing a fake fireball.

Using magical means to commit crimes such as defrauding or forgery are probably covered in the laws of a nation, and a crime committed by use of magic will often have harsher penalties.