Ratio of wizards in a population?

[joethelawyer]

In preparing to run a campaign centered on a war, and the characters activities in that war, some of us were discussing various ways to handle large scale battles and mid scale skirmishes.

one thing that has come up is that most everything we have read details rules for troops marching in formation, rank and file style, in blocks of units. most also have castles-like fortifications.

those things obviously come out of western european medieval history.

one point raised is that in a magical medieval society, with a decent amount of magic using characters (particularly wizard types), those types of army formations and fortresess wouldn't have evolved in the same way. such a formation is very vulnerable to fireball type attacks, for example. a low level wizard wuld wreak havoc on such a unit. i know the rules take this into account, but my point is that those formations wouln't exist in the first place unless it was troop v troop with no magic.

if fireballs would be equated to heavy mortar shelling from a distance, you see my point. this is one of the reasons why regular army units in the modern era doesn't march and fight like this today.

anyhow, all this isn't the purpose of my post.

what we theorized is that the similarity to historical medieval style armies and fortifications in dnd is inversely proportional to the amount of wizards (primarily, with clerics secondarly) in the campaign world.

the questions is:

1. what is the ratio of wizards to citizens in a nation, broken down by race, and

2. what is the percentage of those wizards who are willing and able to take part in war campaigns?

other than pc's of course.

any ideas?

 

[Crothian]

First, I think you need to look at what percentage of NPCs will have a character class be it Wizard or Fighter or whatever. Then you need to look at the setting and detemine how easy/hard it is to be a Wizard. Is anyone going to be a Wizard with less then a 16 Int for instance? If not then you need to figure out what percentage has that requirement and then you know that no more then that will be a wizard. Or would you want just flat numbers that applies acroiss all setting? Like 1 in 20 people have a character class and each character class is represented by the same number of people. So 1 in 160.

There are no right answers just what works best for your own setting.

 

[Stalker0]

Listen to Crothian for he is wise!! (and green!)

The funny thing about "true" dnd large war tactics is that they would look a lot like our do today.

When you have magical traps on the field (mines), fireballs (explosives), and summoned creatures (tanks)...then tactics will evolve to handle these threats just like a modern army does.

However, there is one big difference between 3e and 4e to note. In 4e, a wizard can do small blasts all day long but only has the big stuff once in a blue moon (once per day or once per encounter....in large battles are pretty much once per day).

A 3e prepared wizard could toss a lot of fireballs, a 4e wizard will have scorching burst, but that doesn't do the amount of damage with the large area of the 3e fireball. You couldn't assault a castle with those for example.

 

[Arnwyn]

the questions is:

1. what is the ratio of wizards to citizens in a nation, broken down by race, and

2. what is the percentage of those wizards who are willing and able to take part in war campaigns?

1) In whose nation? I'm supposing yours. The non-helpful but correct answer is: Whatever you want - it's your campaign world."

For me, it's approximately 25% of what's given in the population/class demographics listed in the 3e DMG. (Same with sorcerers, clerics, and druids.)

2) Again - up to you and your specific campaign world. IMC, it's a tiny, tiny fraction of that. Probably no more than 1% of the given wizards, etc, and maybe even less depending on the nation. Never more than that.

 

[Allegro]

It doesn’t have to have a modern feel to it at all. Perhaps using WWI as a starting point. WWI had cannons, guns, planes, juggernaut tanks, gas attacks, and trenches. The predominant tactics used during this time was still the mass rush, which is a very very old tactic. Perhaps troups are dug in and fortified because most magic will tear flesh apart (fireball) but doesn’t destroy fortifications. Also don’t underestimate the risk of sticking your neck out if you are a battlefield wizard. I’m assuming on the battlefield just like in the normal party, when in doubt kill the wizard first.

 

[Alzrius]

I invite you to look at this blog post I made on the subject of the demographics of the spellcasting population in the game world.

In that post, I worked the math, made a few baseline assumptions, and came to the conclusion that 96.20% of the world's population can't cast spells at all, 2.85% can cast divine spells, and only 0.95% can cast arcane spells. Just apply those numbers to the population of your nation, and go from there.

 

[Frostmarrow]

In my games the only wizards in existance are the ones that show up in the game. E.g. Merlin and Morgana.

 

[S'mon]

I typically use 1% of population are PC-class, and of those around 10% are full-progression Arcane casters, ie about 1 in a thousand. Of those, half are 1st level and a quarter 2nd, thus only 1st level spells and of little use on a battlefield, in my experience. ca 13% are 3rd, 6% 4th, and 6% 5th+, thus having access to fireball. So, around 1 in 16,000 people is potentially capable of casting fireball, concentrated in places where wizards are common, like big cities, which may have several. A minor baron won't have a magist capable of fireballing, but a powerful Duke will have several. They make close-order infantry less effective, and favour cavalry and skirmishers. OTOH, if you can take out the enemy wizards, the close order infantry can go to work.

 

[S'mon]

In my games the only wizards in existance are the ones that show up in the game. E.g. Merlin and Morgana.

I think this is a very good approach (contrary to Monte Cook's pronouncement in the 3e DMG), you can run a campaign set in basically a mundane medieval world, where the PCs and their antagonists are the exceptions. My new campaign setting is a bit like this.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I think a wizard needs special training, unlike a sorcerer. He must attend a college, or be apprenticed, or find a stash of ancient books on magical lore, or be instructed by a daemon, or whatever. So I think the way to approach the question is

• Are there colleges of magic in your world?
• Do wizards take apprentices? If so, is this an established tradition?
• Are there many stashes of ancient magical lore?
• Do genii impart knowledge to potential wizards?
• Are potential wizards sought out or recruited?

Which is to say, the relative prevalence of magic will inform your the rest of your campaign setting, so it's kind of up to you.