Way too many Epic Level Spellcasters

[Lannon]

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.

Actually he didnt missread or misunderstand what aptitude or potential mean. In fact, Mr. Ranger seems to have recognized that the sole means of determining magical aptitude and potential according to the D&D rules is the INT stat. There is nothing else, according to the rules, that would help determine one's "magical aptitude." If you want to attack the rules then you might as well bring up the absurd insistence, insisted upon by the rules , that it is impossible for pc's or npc's to gain experience and therefore skills and abilities without going on "adventures." Why must some thayvian wizard need to go slay dragons in order to learn more spells of higher level? Truly, a remarkable quandary.

 

[Avarice]

Actually he didnt missread or misunderstand what aptitude or potential mean. In fact, Mr. Ranger seems to have recognized that the sole means of determining magical aptitude and potential according to the D&D rules is the INT stat. There is nothing else, according to the rules, that would help determine one's "magical aptitude." If you want to attack the rules then you might as well bring up the absurd insistence, insisted upon by the rules , that it is impossible for pc's or npc's to gain experience and therefore skills and abilities without going on "adventures." Why must some thayvian wizard need to go slay dragons in order to learn more spells of higher level? Truly, a remarkable quandary.

Actually, I think mmu1 may be on to something here. I was thumbing through the FRCS book the other day and came across a passage stating that wizards were rare in a certain place (Harrowdale?) in part because few among the younger generations had the aptitude for it. Does this mean that the younger folk of this land are all morons? Is there something in the drinking water? It would seem to suggest that in the Realms there is some other component besides intelligence associated with magical aptitude. What that might be I haven't a clue, but it provides some justification for why there aren't archmages hawking their magical wares on every streetcorner in the Realms.

 

[Graf]

Leaving aside the Dungeon magazine point (perfectly balanced encounters?) the experience point system in D&D in the core worlds only apply to PCs.

the core worlds refer to FR, GH, etc. (probably SL too) There may be homebrews where this isn't true.

As people have pointed out RttToEE or the City of the Spider Queen basically drive character's levels from lowish (5-8 or so) to high (15 or more) in less than a year. This sort of system will produce extremely high level populations.

But WAIT! (I can hear a voice already....) once they get to 7th level they stop getting experience because a CR 1 encounter etc. etc.
Except.... everyone else on the planet is also advancing at the same rate. The diplomat comes back in a year's time having turned 7th level and his old rival from the merchant house has also gained a level. If two 1st level characters get xp for negotiating with each other then why wouldn't 7th level characters.
That's not just humans either.... Elves and Dwarven populations (dwarves with their con bonuses and resistence to disease and poison in particular) will also be much higher level that Conventional Wisdom would indicate. It would be a rare elven family which didn't have mulitiple members in or approaching epic levels.

Its not the PHB races only either this would wind up affecting everything in the world that advances as a class.... Those orcs running around and raiding everything in sight? They're getting pretty butch...

A Gnoll that's lived for 10 years (the normal mangy black furred demon worshiper kind) is going to be a real menace.

So there is no system and it has to be ignored or else you do something else that acts as a curb on leveling.

BTW
SKR has a system on his site which basically would mean an average human commoner becomes 7th level around the time they die of old age just from doing what they do (pesant stuff like tilling the fields, etc).... which is great for explaining humans.

 

[hong]

Actually he didnt missread or misunderstand what aptitude or potential mean. In fact, Mr. Ranger seems to have recognized that the sole means of determining magical aptitude and potential according to the D&D rules is the INT stat. There is nothing else, according to the rules, that would help determine one's "magical aptitude."

There is nothing to indicate the rules are meant to be used for the purpose of world building. They're there to help people play the _game_, nothing more, nothing less. World-building assumptions are entirely up to the DM.

 

[jgbrowning]

There is nothing to indicate the rules are meant to be used for the purpose of world building. They're there to help people play the _game_, nothing more, nothing less. World-building assumptions are entirely up to the DM.

have to disagree with ya hong, the rules do dictate world building to an extent. you cant have wizards with 10 int. its simple, but its still a dictation.

joe b.

 

[hong]

have to disagree with ya hong, the rules do dictate world building to an extent. you cant have wizards with 10 int. its simple, but its still a dictation.

A rule that nobody with 10 Int can be a wizard does not imply that anybody with 11 Int can be a wizard.

 

[Lannon]

A rule that nobody with 10 Int can be a wizard does not imply that anybody with 11 Int can be a wizard.

No, but a rule that states that anyone with 11 or greater int can be a wizard does .

 

[hong]

No, but a rule that states that anyone with 11 or greater int can be a wizard does .

Any _player character_ (or significant NPC) with 11 Int can be a wizard. PCs are special.

 

[mmu1]

Actually he didnt missread or misunderstand what aptitude or potential mean. In fact, Mr. Ranger seems to have recognized that the sole means of determining magical aptitude and potential according to the D&D rules is the INT stat. There is nothing else, according to the rules, that would help determine one's "magical aptitude." If you want to attack the rules then you might as well bring up the absurd insistence, insisted upon by the rules , that it is impossible for pc's or npc's to gain experience and therefore skills and abilities without going on "adventures." Why must some thayvian wizard need to go slay dragons in order to learn more spells of higher level? Truly, a remarkable quandary.

Oh, of course... Testing for magical aptitude and potential is seeing whether someone has an INT of 10 or more...

I'm sure if someone said that "The children were tested for scholastic aptitude and those who showed signs of potential were sent on to the university." the image you'd get would be of anyone who could write in block letters and do the multiplication table headed for higher education, right?

Again, the both of you ought to stop misrepresenting a bit of flavor text and pretend that it is, in fact, a literal rule, when the very wording of it implies high selectivity.

And that's going to be it for me and fools or trolls for today, I think...

 

[Irda Ranger]

Few! For a while there I thought I was crazy ... I still do, but I see that I am not alone

I apologize in advance if this post/rant is too long.
---------------------------------


mmu1 has hit the nail on the head with the observation that all folks with the right "aptitude" are trained for magic. Of course, in the rules, the right "aptitude" means an Int of 10+.

Of course the Thayvians are practical (as well as efficient, cruel and sadistic), so they would never bother to train anyone who could never learn more than cantrips until 4th level. So, Int 12 it is for the "aptitude" bit.

For world building and "fluff" bits you have to use the rules that you have, or the system starts to break down. Not in the course of a single dungeon delve of course, but over the course of a major campaign it seriously becomes a problem. How do you justify the number of skill points that is required to do what societies need to do (build bridges, roads, collect taxes, etc) when the rules do not support it? What do you do when the rules (as given) do not lead to the logical conclusions that the campaign settings claim is the end result?

If you set the PCs free in such a world, without considering this first, the man behind the curtain becomes apparent when you are forced to reign them in. Of course, you could choose to not reign them in, but then they turn the campaign world on its ear when the holes in the system become apparent. This would happen all the time if more DMs understood what would happen to a small, local economy that the PCs just drop the proverbial Dragon's Horde onto. The price of gold goes through the floor, hyper-inflation, a rush of liquid capital that spreads ripples throughout the kingdom, etc. etc.

In the PHB or DMG they never said "Ok, here are the rules for you, and here are the rules for everyone else", did they? A simple House Rule, like "Everyone who has an Int of 10+ has a 10% chance of having the 'aptitude' for Magic, and all PCs are assumed to be in this 10%". That keeps things more managable from a societies' level, but its a House Rule, and we are discussing the Core Rules here.

hong: I have always enjoyed your little quotes (and thanks to your strange sense of humor, I still don't know if you are Austrian or Australian), but I have to disagree with you here. The rules in the published adventures and and campaign settings make it very clear that NPCs follow all the same rules that PCs do. Otherwise, how would a DM be able to play them? The belief that PCs are "special" is fluff text, just like the bit about Harrowdale's drought of Wizardly talent. It is not represented in the rules.

Can anyone find something that shows I am wrong here? The DMG preaches a concept of there being a very limited number of "high level" folks, but how can you justify there being 90% 1st level NPC folks in a world of Orcs and Goblins. Just by the numbers the human race is toast. Why haven't they been over-run by Beholders and Mind-Flayer, etc ad nauseum?

I think that this is a chance to explain why. The humans have never been overrun because their agriculture allows them to feed anough people that a large number of them reach Epic Levels. Adjust the FR to fit.

Well, the wife is calling me to bed. I love all you guys, but this is more important. Cheers.

Irda Ranger