Way too many Epic Level Spellcasters

[Darkness]

Re: Re: Way too many Epic Level Spellcasters

Yep it is. Relics and Rituals 2. Lovely picture of the spell in use btw. Basically if the caster of the mirror image spell fails his saving throw, his images start attacking HIM! (The images are no longer just illusions but actual shadow creatures.) It's Bard 3, Wiz/Sorc 3 spell.

Nice...

All a _player character_ needs to be a spellcaster is a primary stat of 10+. This rule exists basically to faciliate ease of character creation and multiclassing. There's no guarantee that the general populace gets things this easy, since PCs (and important NPCs) are usually assumed to be exceptional people.

Plus, I think they don't even train all eligible humans - just those of Mulan stock.

 

[tabrumj]

Heres my $0.02 on the whole thing.

1. Remember that a good portion of the population in Thay is made up of slaves. I would be willing to bet that testing among the slave population isn't incredibly thorough. Someone would have to reeally stand out to get tested.

2. Since they are testing for multiple qualities in students I would bet that they are looking for slightly above average statistics. Probably an Int of 14+ and a decent Wisdom and Dex. Anyone with the feaaat Spelccating Prodigy would be automatically grabbed by the Wizards. Of course not everyone will end up getting tested and I am sure there are cases of children being hidden from the testers.

 

[Storminator]

I have a campaign set in Thay. I think you're forgetting about the wretched evilness of the country. Young wizards are there to be used and abused, not trained to great power.

The wizard IMC hates returning to town to see his mentor, as the guy leeches XP to power magic item creation. The wizard in the party is considerably behind in XP. The poor wizard has to scribe scrolls and make potions at a furious rate every time he returns from adventuring.

The other wizard died, but not before he realized that all the undead servants in his master's manor were previous apprentices. He too was drained of XP.

And humans of Mulan stock are trained to become Red Wizards and can in power (assuming they survive apprenticeship). If you can't become a Red, don't go thinking you'll get powerful in Thay. Rasemi wizards are put on the front lines in war, and if they survive and get too strong, they'reput down like dogs.

Thay ain't for the faint of heart.

PS

 

[Irda Ranger]

I did admit that almost two-thirds of those who are able to start training to be Reds don't make it. That's what reduced the Epic Spellcasters from 1 in 9 to 1 in 25.

Making a lot of magical items does drain you of quite a bit of XP, I admit. That would slow you down.

I guess the point I am getting at is that WotC didn't really think things through when they said everybody is tested. I mean, all those "other" abilitities you need to be a spellcaster (strong will, manual dexterity) aren't reflected in the rules. A Wizard with an Int or 10 and a 3 in other every stat would not live to finish his apprenticeship probably, but would be legal under the rules.

What about Halrua? No wars. No infighting. No slavish requirement to make magical items. Now the ancient Empires of Netheril start to make sense ... its not a change in the magic, the FR is simply living in a barbaric dark age where the cultures don't know how to support a magical society. They don't know what they are missing ...

Irda Ranger

 

[Numion]

Aren't there only couple of thousand Red Wizards?

 

[jasamcarl]

His analysis also underestimates what a reasonable bell curve is here. People with Int 14 would be exponentially more rare than those with Int 12, etc. And there are inumerable reasons individuals with even sufficiently high intelligence would be unable or unwilling to enter the ranks of the Red Wizards. And how rigorous is this testing process..

That was the geek in me. Truth be told, I think this numbers game in entirely silly in terms of its arrogance, but who am i?

 

[cerberus2112]

From the Dungeon magazine writer's guidelins, there is a caution that in a perfectly balanced series of encounters (assuming 5% chance of death in any one encounter), a character only has a 50% chance of surviving to the next level. This fact dramatically reduces the number of characters of high level. Taking this into consideration as a general rule, you will find that from among this population:

of 2.56 million, 1.285 million survive to 2nd level
1.1525 million survive to 3rd level
531,250 survive to 4th level
265,625 survive to 5th level
132,812 survive to 6th level

66,406 survive to 7th level
33,203 survive to 8th level
16,601 survive to 9th level

8,300 survive to 10th level
4,150 survive to 11th level
2,075 survive to 12th level
1,037 survive to 13th level

518 survive to 14th level
259 survive to 15th level
179 survive to 16th level

89 survive to 17th level
44 survive to 18th level
22 survive to 19th level
11 survive to 20th level

5 survive to 21st level
2 survive to 22nd level

1 survives to 23+ level

Five Epic level characters (total, not just spellcasters) produced from the nation over the course of multiple generations. They won't all coexist through their epic careers. This seems much more reasonable, don't you think?

 

[Terraism]

From the Dungeon magazine writer's guidelins, there is a caution that in a perfectly balanced series of encounters (assuming 5% chance of death in any one encounter), a character only has a 50% chance of surviving to the next level. This fact dramatically reduces the number of characters of high level. Taking this into consideration as a general rule, you will find that from among this population:

[Long list deleted for space.]

Five Epic level characters (total, not just spellcasters) produced from the nation over the course of multiple generations. They won't all coexist through their epic careers. This seems much more reasonable, don't you think?

Of course, we have raise dead/ressurrection/true ressurrection for the characters as they get exponentially higher level... after all, I'd guess that at least half of all 19th level characters who die are brought back to life by something or other. Still, that is a bit more reasonable.

 

[Irda Ranger]

From the Dungeon magazine writer's guidelins, there is a caution that in a perfectly balanced series of encounters (assuming 5% chance of death in any one encounter), a character only has a 50% chance of surviving to the next level. This fact dramatically reduces the number of characters of high level.

5 survive to 21st level
2 survive to 22nd level

1 survives to 23+ level

Yes! Now this is a good argument for why there aren't so many Epic Red Wizards. If you think of the listed Tharchions (or whatever they are called) as the currently highest level Wizards, the numbers even work out a bit. I don't think its too much trouble to assume that most of the most talented folks in Thay go into the Wizards.

That still leaves the number of 1st-3rd level Wizards running into the hundreds of thousands. At the very least, that's a lot of folks who know how to use wands and such. If Thay exports X amount of magical items, how many do you think they use internally?

Irda Ranger

 

[mmu1]

Yes! Now this is a good argument for why there aren't so many Epic Red Wizards. If you think of the listed Tharchions (or whatever they are called) as the currently highest level Wizards, the numbers even work out a bit. I don't think its too much trouble to assume that most of the most talented folks in Thay go into the Wizards.

That still leaves the number of 1st-3rd level Wizards running into the hundreds of thousands. At the very least, that's a lot of folks who know how to use wands and such. If Thay exports X amount of magical items, how many do you think they use internally?

Irda Ranger

Ok, let's look at something here.

What you wrote:

"In Thay, all humans are tested for magical ability, and anyone who might have it is trained to be a Red Wizard."

What the relevant passage in the book is:

"All Thayan children are examined for magical aptitude at an early age. Those who show signs of potential are removed from their parents and subjected to ever more rigorous schooling in the arcane arts..."

So I think it's safe to say you misrepresented the matter just a tiny bit, or that you don't understand what aptitude and potential mean in this context.