Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
I think this is very table dependent. In my game there are only ever 4 PCs in the entire world, so having them be among the small handful that can learn magic isn't an issue, especially since not all 4 will.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.
If you run a game where PCs aren't really a thing and are exactly the same as NPCs, then it can make sense or not, depending on how you run it. Since spellcasters are rare in my game, were I to run a game where PCs and NPCs are the same, I'd have the players roll percentile dice and if a 00 is rolled, then that player would have the option to be a spellcaster.
That kind if game seems boring to me, I choose to just assume that 00 has been rolled by each player and give them the choice to pick a spellcaster or not.
Why are you assuming spellcasting is as complex as physics? If talent is the primary limiter, it could be really, really easy to use magic and it would still be rare. Or it could be moderately difficult after 1st level, but practice and experience allows increases in power and knowledge of spellcasting.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.
Whether it is or isn't is entirely up to you. It functions both coherently and well in my game.That isn’t a coherent world, IMO.
Then under that definition, magic is rare. Even if every adventure that WotC makes has multiple spellcasters in it, that doesn't in any way invalidate what I am saying for a number of reasons.This is nitpicking. Magic here refers to personal magic that a person is doing.
1. PCs encounter a much higher concentration of rare creatures and beings that the general populace. That's just how the game is played in order to not be really boring.
2. For every spellcaster in the adventure, there can be a million people outside of it that aren't spellcasters.
3. Like often attracts like. If you were the rare one in a million person, you'd want to be around someone who could relate, so you'd seek out other spellcasters to hang around with and talk to. Those three spellcasters in the abbey could be working together because of that.
Or if you want magic to be common, you can assume that there are tons of spellcasters outside of those adventures.
Says who? Nothing in that paragraph says that there are dozens or hundreds of arcanists who want to make magic more accessible. It could just as easily be 5 who are looking for the next 1 in a million apprentice.Irrelevant, the guild in question is much larger than that.
Most still = default. When I got my Lexus, the default model was the base one that was most commonly sold. I wanted the blind spot mirrors and proximity sensors, so I upgraded to one of the non-default models.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.