Magic for the Masses, An Age of Industrial Enlightenment

[Hussar]

The thing about D&D magic, is not so much that it's expensive, but that it's permanent. It doesn't really matter how expensive it is. Even with a community only making one permanent light source per year, you'll blanket the town within a couple of generations. One Decanter of Endless Water and you've just massively improved the life of a community, for a very long time.

Take a fairly long lived society, like the Romans, or, even more, the Egyptians. When you have histories centuries long, it isn't that hard to fill up with low level magic.

 

[Hussar]

/later thought

I think where the bigger issue is, isn't so much magic items, but, fantasy creatures. With so many fantastic critters out there, the opportunity to domesticate/train these things is incredible. For example, giant beetles. Amazing source of protein and, well, they're beetles, they are a heck of a lot hardier than cows or sheep. Or, if you want light in your community, use fire beetles, which provide free, safe light and, in lean times, provide a nice source of protein for your populace.

Never mind the kinds of deals you could get from intelligent creatures. Imagine giants as siege engines or workers. Pegasi as couriers, or Roc's for that matter. That sort of thing. There are so many opportunities here.

 

[Dozen]

The thing about D&D magic, is not so much that it's expensive, but that it's permanent. It doesn't really matter how expensive it is. Even with a community only making one permanent light source per year, you'll blanket the town within a couple of generations. One Decanter of Endless Water and you've just massively improved the life of a community, for a very long time.

I light of my theory on common magic's effects on primes, magic items would get stolen, ransacked or destroyed on a weekly basis. The plan sounds nice and jolly in a vacuum, but nowhere else.

I think where the bigger issue is, isn't so much magic items, but, fantasy creatures. With so many fantastic critters out there, the opportunity to domesticate/train these things is incredible. For example, giant beetles. Amazing source of protein and, well, they're beetles, they are a heck of a lot hardier than cows or sheep. Or, if you want light in your community, use fire beetles, which provide free, safe light and, in lean times, provide a nice source of protein for your populace.

Never mind the kinds of deals you could get from intelligent creatures. Imagine giants as siege engines or workers. Pegasi as couriers, or Roc's for that matter. That sort of thing. There are so many opportunities here.

At a smaller scale, that's already in motion. But I think we can lay down a rule of thumb here:

In any plane where Evil creatures significantly outnumber the rest, any technological achievement revealed to and used by the general public worsens the state of life for all sides.

I'm sure you get my point. As long as more evil people are enlightened, the more suffering is brought to the world, and there aren't enough heroes to offset it. As frightening as it may sound to have Wis-as-a-dumb-stats hold the torch, the secrets of the world should remain in the hands of our orthodox, secretive and healthily paranoid arcane casters. People are better off the way things work now until the planes are restored to a semblance of balance between morals.

 

[MDK]

(Consider if a freeware program for learning a new language was released as good as a program you had to pay for, or work hard to receive. The free version would run rampant, and beat out the competition. Imperfect analogy but it's what comes to mind this late in the evening.)

Well... In the real world, Linux still hasn't tossed out Windows, and LibreOffice hasn't replaced Microsoft Office either. Their existence certainly had a lot of impact, but obviously simple availability of a free alternative is not the only factor here. And these are freely downloadable programs that are easy to obtain and install, unlike having to move to another area or even another country so you could attend a wizard's school, in a setting where most people rarely even leave their village.
Not that I haven't done exactly as you suggest in my campaign, but hey

 

[DM Howard]

Over time the school grows a village as students flock in, having heard about this education. Artificers, professionally trained, are employed from a school-owned company. Now this region, which has been growing in stability, possesses an export product- Magic items and magical services. The retired heroes have become Lords of their land, using their public influence, wealth and power from being high leveled adventurers to maintain a kingdom founded upon magical education and life-improving products. A hospital based off a few healing spell wands and divine casters, numerous businesses and trade, a factory operating off of use of the Fabricate spell... neighboring kingdoms cannot compete.

Because the education is public, other nations learn. The pattern is replicated. The world is changed.

...is this line of thinking practical and possible, or am I missing something?

What about groups and organizations that hear about said magic-item crafting and exponential growth? Don't you think someone would say "Hey, I want that stuff! Give it to me or else!"

Also in terms of other nations learning, at least in a medieval environment knowledge transfer is very slow due to all the external properties involved, along with the simple distrust of that "kingdom over there". The best I could see happening is a development of magical knowledge for technical and mundane application based on a vast series of conflicts like in Eberron.

 

[Greenfield]

Shhhh! He's on a roll, don't disturb him. He's busy inventing Communism, and we all know how well that works.

 

[Hussar]

I light of my theory on common magic's effects on primes, magic items would get stolen, ransacked or destroyed on a weekly basis. The plan sounds nice and jolly in a vacuum, but nowhere else.

Meh, you make your Decanter of Endless water as a stone fountain.

I mean, real world pretty stuff got made and kept all the time. No one destroyed the aqueducts of Rome on a weekly basis. The Egyptians made these honking huge tombs and filled them full of treasure. Granted, they did get ransacked eventually, but, again, not on a daily or weekly basis. On and on and on.

Look, if we posit a world where it's possible to make castles, is it really that much of a stretch to think that they would also make minor magic items? If the world has valuable art objects, again, it's not terribly difficult to imagine magic items.

And, like castles and art objects, they tend to last for quite a while.

 

[Dozen]

Shhhh! He's on a roll, don't disturb him. He's busy inventing Communism, and we all know how well that works.

I don't know what they say about Communism on the West, but here, in an ex-communist country it's generally accepted that the idea in itself is not so bad. Unfair, but not bad. The ones who wanted to make it work just happened to be asshats or stupid as an orchish infant(even more so than politicians in general). RUMBLETiGER is at least marginally better than Stalin! (He can quote me on that.)

Meh, you make your Decanter of Endless water as a stone fountain.

I mean, real world pretty stuff got made and kept all the time. No one destroyed the aqueducts of Rome on a weekly basis. The Egyptians made these honking huge tombs and filled them full of treasure. Granted, they did get ransacked eventually, but, again, not on a daily or weekly basis. On and on and on.

Look, if we posit a world where it's possible to make castles, is it really that much of a stretch to think that they would also make minor magic items? If the world has valuable art objects, again, it's not terribly difficult to imagine magic items.

And, like castles and art objects, they tend to last for quite a while.

That's because they wanted castles and pretty decoration for themselves when they eventually move in. But when they don't or can't take it, they destroy it. There are plenty of instances of that too. Sometimes the owners themselves blew forts and castles up with explosives so others couldn't have it, and not just out of spite either. I refer to Harpies especially(they think of smacking useful things into pieces as a sort of religious ritual), but from a logical standpoint it's easy to see the strategic advantage of neutralizing a potential war asset, let it be fortifications, a permanent magical water source, or a magical horsehoe or whatever. If there is conflict(and in D&D, there is more often than not), what is spared and what isn't depends on what the offensive side can afford to spare so they can use it later.

 

[Greenfield]

The west's view of Communism? We're treading dangerously close to a political discussion, which is off limits here, but...

The only thing needed to make Communism work is a change in human nature. Any more discussion of the topic should take place in game context, and without heat or ideology.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't think this is necessarily inevitable given the relative rarity of spellcasters in 3e RAW...

...however, I do think you basically described Eberron. So there's that.