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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8554860" data-attributes="member: 6704184">So, here’s some of why premodern farming and advancement assumptions don’t work in this discussion, if we go by the core books assumption that every other thorp and hamlet has someone who can cast 1st level spells or cantrips or something, and even up to 3rd level spells aren’t that uncommon. Food and drink are easy to store, and keep fresh, and recover when it does go bad.Irrigation is easier.Creating fire is easy and requires less fuel.People are cleaner and clerics and Druids and such have a better understanding of disease. Druids have an easy and obvious incentive to help farmers grow more efficiently and sustainably.Common magic items. Fast communication is easier.Just a bit of an aside. Food surplus isn't a modern invention. Malthus gets a deserved bad rap, because his reasoning never really held up in any sort of general way, and his understanding of people was cynical to the point of being anti-social. The idea that any increased production of food would just be eaten up by population growth only works with some very specific, dubious, assumptions. First, that the increase in production wouldn't come alongside an increase in quality of life and of life expectancy, which tends to slow population growth. Second, that there is no limit to how much people will just make more babies. Third, that there would not also be an increase in the technology of keeping food. Change those assumptions, and the entire picture changes. Using the magical assumptions of the 5e core books, the above assumptions don't really work. The other thing people tend to ignore in this discussion is that we aren't talking about a world that developed like Earth did up until some classical history date, and then magic started changing things. We are talking about a world where we evolved alongside magical creatures, and our first tools may have included rudimentary magics.</blockquote>

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