Ripping apart the ELH...

[KarinsDad]

Look, I don't have a problem with you having a different opinion, but I do have a problem with you behaving like a jerk simply because I have a different opinion than yours.

I apologize. It was just a matter of you and I disagreeing so often recently combined with your opinion appearing to be blown smoke that got me in sarcasm mode.

Sorry about that.

Anyways, I do agree/disagree with one of your points though. Those smaller 3rd edition publishers you mentioned are indeed much better about proofreading their products, and catching the mistakes. However, I doubt many of those smaller companies put out near as many products per year.

Look at the sheer number of people involved in the credits for any of the WotC products. Then look at the number for the smaller companies. Either the people at WotC are not working that hard at making the editing excellent, or they each have too many products to work on. I suspect, but cannot prove, the former.

However, I agree with you in that a smaller company will no doubt work much harder and more diligently to make sure that their products are error free. When that company gets big, it also gets fat, and lazy, ala WotC (in some respects).

Agreed.

But, I must admit that WotC puts out some of the best artwork/layouts. Too bad their writers/editors do not put in that level of effort (IMO).

 

[James McMurray]

I think I once calculated the cost to put all arcane spells from the PHB into spell books and it came out to be something like 300,000+ GP (30 some books).

Hence, that one spell costs more (regardless of calculations) then all of the arcane spells in the core rules combined.

Have you calculated the cost to research all of the spells in the PHB? That might be a better comparison, since scribing is incredibly cheap compared to research, which is what the price in the Epic Spells refers to.

The epic spells are definitely expensive though. That kind of power should have a price tag attached though.

 

[KarinsDad]

Have you calculated the cost to research all of the spells in the PHB? That might be a better comparison, since scribing is incredibly cheap compared to research, which is what the price in the Epic Spells refers to.

No. In fact, the SRD states that it can be done, but with no description. Gotta go look that up.

The epic spells are definitely expensive though. That kind of power should have a price tag attached though.

At 3.8M GP (or even 530K GP), we are talking serious money. Probably not that much money (3.8M GP) minted in an average campaign world country unless you consider weird population city states like Waterdeep.

The largest real world medieval cities had at most 200,000 people during their most prosperous times. But Waterdeep has something like 1,400,000 people (if I remember correctly), requiring an average of 1400 tons of food to be brought in from the surrounding countryside every single day. That's 700 fully loaded wagon teams, when put end to end, stretches for over 2.5 miles, on average each day. Considering that most of the the farming portion of a society's diet can only be gathered during a few week harvest time, we are probably talking about a peak traffic jam of about 100 miles of wagons every day in the fall for several weeks straight (assuming all of those wagons can actually get into the city each day). Yikes!

With a 1 CP = $1 conversion rate (a fair, but debatable rate), the 3.8M GP comes out to $380,000,000. That's an astronomical amount of equivalent money for one individual (in a medieval society).

One way of looking at it is giving all 140 of the Palace Guards +5 Plate Mail.

Or in terms of weight (50 GP per pound), it's 76,000 pounds or 38 tons of gold. It would take 19 fully loaded Wagon teams (200,000 GP per wagon). That might not sound like a lot, but that wagon team would stretch for about 400 feet.

That's an awful lot of gold for one spell.


Sometimes, the problem with what is written in fantasy RPGs, especially with regard to economics, is that the designers do not take a step back and say "What did we just write?".

 

[doktorstick]

Sometimes, the problem with what is written in fantasy RPGs, especially with regard to economics, is that the designers do not take a step back and say "What did we just write?".

I totally agree. The cop-out is magic, of course.

Since you seem to have some time on your hands , how many clerics creating food would be required to sustain that population. You may be able to work it such that a population of 1.4M people is reasonable by combining farming and the ability to create food by the clerics and adepts.

/ds

Edit: Well, it seems that it is only 3 people/level. Not much. It would take a lot of spells. And they would be limited by the 10m casting time. How about a goodberry supplement from those druids?

 

[KarinsDad]

Since you seem to have some time on your hands

Actually, I have to head out for gaming, but I got a minute still.

how many clerics creating food would be required to sustain that population. You may be able to work it such that a population of 1.4M people is reasonable by combining farming and the ability to create food by the clerics and adepts.

Create Food and Water is a 3rd level Cleric spell, requiring a minimum 5th level spell caster. At 5th level and assuming a Wisdom of 16, a Cleric could cast this twice per day for a total of 30 people. With maybe half of the 5th level clergy having a 16 or higher Wisdom, that would mean an average of 22 people per 5th level caster or about 64,000 5th level Clerics doing this as a full time job.

A 20th level Cleric could cast maybe 35 3rd or higher level spells, getting 60 people per spell. That would still be almost 700 20th level Clerics whose full time job is to create bland food.

All in all, a rough guess is about 25,000 Clerics of 5th and higher level in a population of 1.4 million or one reasonably medium level Cleric (5th through 12th) for every 56 people. That's still a lot of clerics doing full time food production (during a protracted siege or whatever) and nothing else. With only a couple dozen or so Temples in Waterdeep with maybe a dozen plus clergy in each on average, that's still probably less than 1% of the city's food requirements.

But, as you said, it's magic. They probably have Portals to the Farming Dimension.

 

[James McMurray]

Just one quick question: who cares?

I play Dungeons and Dragons, not Hoes and Accountants. The economy works for the game, and that's all that really matters (at least to me).

 

[starwolf]

OOP's didn't read the rest of the thread...just ignore me...

 

[kreynolds]

Have you calculated the cost to research all of the spells in the PHB?

I think he got his original number from a post of mine from a few days ago. Somebody asked how much that would cost, and an NPC in a couple of my games has a pretty damn extensive spell library, and about 30 spellbooks is what he has. However, that surely isn't all of the spells in all the books, just a meager portion. Trust me.

 

[kreynolds]

I suspect, but cannot prove, the former.

I suspect it's a little of the former, but combined with the effects of their jobs probably not being as "fun" as they used to be. I also think it's the latter as well.

But, I must admit that WotC puts out some of the best artwork/layouts. Too bad their writers/editors do not put in that level of effort (IMO).

I couldn't agree more.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think he got his original number from a post of mine from a few days ago. Somebody asked how much that would cost, and an NPC in a couple of my games has a pretty damn extensive spell library, and about 30 spellbooks is what he has. However, that surely isn't all of the spells in all the books, just a meager portion. Trust me.

Are you smoking something again kr?

I know the difference between reading one of your posts (which I didn't btw) and vaguely remembering a calculation from a year plus ago.

Note the sentence: "the cost to put all arcane spells from the PHB into spell books"

The spells from the PHB, not from all books. The numbers were off a little due to me mis-remembering, but this is what it is:

Spell Level - Number of Spells - Number of Pages

0 - 16 - 16
1 - 42 - 84
2 - 41 - 164
3 - 37 - 222
4 - 38 - 304
5 - 39 - 390
6 - 35 - 420
7 - 28 - 392
8 - 26 - 416
9 - 22 - 396

2804 pages @ 100 GP per page = 280,400 GP = 29 books

This is not researching the spells like James asked, merely copying them into spell books.


As for your NPC’s 30 spell books being a meager portion, it might be if you consider all D20 sources, even then it would probably be more than 25%. But, if you just consider WotC sources, the PHB (and hence your NPC if his spell books are full) have a majority of the WotC spell pages generally available.

Tome & Blood

0 - 01 - 1
1 - 07 - 14
2 - 13 - 52
3 - 07 - 42
4 - 11 - 88
5 - 04 - 40
6 - 03 - 36
7 - 03 - 42
8 - 02 - 32
9 - 02 - 36

383 pages @ 100 GP per page = 38,300 GP = 4 books


Magic of Faerun (including those of FRCS)

0 - 04 - 4
1 - 17 - 34
2 - 22 - 88
3 - 19 - 114
4 - 16 - 128
5 - 12 - 120
6 - 11 - 132
7 - 10 - 140
8 - 09 - 144
9 - 07 - 126

1030 pages @ 100 GP per page = 103,000 GP = 11 books


Epic Level Handbook

10 - 47 - 940

940 pages @ 100 GP per page = 94,000 GP = 10 books (remember, this is only the copying cost, not the development cost)


Manual of the Planes

1 - 01 - 2
2 - 01 - 4
3 - 05 - 30
4 - 06 - 48
5 - 02 - 20
6 - 02 - 24
7 - 02 - 28
8 - 01 - 16

172 pages @ 100 GP per page = 17,200 GP = 2 books


So, if you look at the vast majority of WotC material (excluding Dragon magazine, of which most spells are eventually recycled into other material), the PHB at 28+ books consists of about 54% of the spell pages, even after skewing the data with the ELH spells (ignoring them since they will not be used in most campaigns results in the PHB having about 64% of the spell pages).

This percentage will drop over time and I probably missed a few arcane spells here and there, but 30 spell books is not exactly a meager portion of any collection of 3E D20 spells, even one that includes all 3E spells from all sources (internet, other D20 products, etc.). It's a good sized percentage.