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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nikolai" data-source="post: 932985" data-attributes="member: 10130">You're all a bunch of utopians - think again!I think using high magic to clone modern technology and society is a pseudo-medieval context might not be the only or the most interesting way to go in terms of creating a high-magic campaign setting. Perhaps another way to approach the problem would be to sit down and work out who has the power and why and what they would use it to achieve.In fact, I think a high magic campaign wouldn't be the utopia almost all the messages are suggesting. Instead I think it'd probably be an incredibly nasty place for ordinary people to live.Take me for example (Wis 10, Int 10, Cha10). I'm raised by commoner parents in a village. As far as technology goes we've a plough and a wheel. There are other people in the world with godlike power and wealth who ignore us leaving us to face a cruel world (best case) or can do with us as they wish (worst case).There are people who have a hereditry power to weave magic, this doesn't manifest itself all the time (you still need Cha) but having people occassionally develop spontaneous powers - such as shooting fire from there finger-tips - is going to set them apart from everyone else. The ruling class may well have this power in their blood. I have no hope of developing any talent from this source.You can also learn magic. But I - as most people - do not have the intellectual ability for this. Those who do need to be taught it by someone who knows it themselves. This could develop in so many ways, I'm not going to even try to cover them all. But some sort of apprectice/slave system where the talented are abducted or are taken away from parents who plead for them to be taught it would perhaps develop. Controling who learns magic like this is also an incredible source of power. Getting to choose who gets taught Read Magic and controling access to spells is going to be really important.Lastly, you have religion. Again I have no hope of any power from this source. There's also the question of whether religion exists to serve the common people [pretty please - don't hijack the thread with a real world inspired flamewar!]. Clerics are going to serve gods first and foremost - and there will be good and bad gods. What the gods want is a question for your pantheon. But God-kings, a la ancient egypt and monarchs given the divine right of kings may be a possibilty. Also, presumably wisdom just isn't enough - you also have to pass though some sort of revelation before you get spellcasting.I'd also warn against the tree-hugging/agronomist druids everyone talks about. There's so may ways druids can be done. They can serve the gods of the wild and be opposed to civilisation, they can be guardians mediating between mankind and a cruel nature and dark fey, they can be friends of the forest spirits and indiferent to people etc. etc. etc. - they're not guaranteed to be bunny-loving famine busters.This other view suggest there'll be hugely powerful elites, who play their own games. Everyone else will just be ants. Creating technology and using it in the real world is at least sort of communal, here there would be individuals with huge power answerable to no-one.It might also be useful to pose some questions about how the use of magic got to where it is. The PHB just lays out a set of default rules to use with no background. Answering questions like where magic came from (did people invent it), how long humanity has been using it and the history of it's use would add a lot of flavour - just grabbing a medieval town and layering magic over the top doesn't quite cut it, the development of power like that wouild have a dramatic effect of history and society.I imagine the development of spells like planeshift and the first calling of fiends would be very traumatic experience for the world. Running a thought experiment where you start of in a small village with just commoners and then gradually layer in the history and development of magic and society over time could be a useful concept for another thread. yours,nikolai.</blockquote>

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