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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 280584" data-attributes="member: 2011">I think you have to ignore the magical portion of the world food production and just assume that it takes just as many people in a fantasy world (unless it is specifically created by the GM to be unusual) as it did in the real world.Since we do not actually live in a magical world, we do not know the consequences of using magic for food production.For example, if a Druid increases the size of plants, large flying monsters might find that more appealing. Hence, they might find normal sized plants too small to bother eating, but giant sized versions easier. Suddenly, you have a hit on your food production in the fields with larger plants, plus, you may attract other carnivorous creatures (who are attracted to the creatures eating the larger plants).Also, just because the plants are bigger does not mean that you do not have the same mass of food feeding the same population. This would not decrease the number of people required to gather the food by a third, that number would stay the same. It might decrease the number of people it takes to maintain the fields, but then again, with larger plants, it might take more people (depending on the type of plant, people might have more difficulty tending the fields for extremely large plants).In another thread, it was illustrated that each Cleric (assuming a relative distribution of Clerics levels 5+) on average could probably only create enough food and water to feed 50 people or so. Hence, Clerics could not even feed everyone in a city (assuming a normal distribution of Clerics to other people) during a siege if all of their 3rd and higher level spells were used for Create Food and Water.The point is that it would seem that using magic to supplement food production would be done in limited amounts and doing that would be offset by having a world of magical monsters competing for food. In other words, for every advantage magic could give would probably be offset by having food predators that did not exist in the real world.</blockquote>

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