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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 2521954" data-attributes="member: 22779">Really?  Most campaigns are Tolkienesque?   What's the population of Waterdeep?  Isn't Waterdeep considered a pretty  base campaign setting.  Granted, I believe Greyhawk the city is under the 100 k mark but, then again, IIRC, there are areas of Greyhawk with much higher populations.  The problem with the numbers you are using is they make absolutely no logical sense.  Or, rather, they only make sense if you refuse to apply the PHB to the general population.  The only reason that you don't is because, if you do, you wind up with ridiculous numbers.  I'll agree with that.  Even using your own numbers, it simply doesn't work. Or rather, it ONLY works if you play in a very sparsely populated area and concentrate on humans.  Why would only 1-2% of the spellcaster types work for the king?  If I'm the king, I've got lots of money, I'm going to make sure that I am going to hire as many spellcasters as I can.  It makes perfect sense for me to do so.  It actually makes no sense for me to allow spellcasters in my kingdom that are not under my direct control.  How many kingdoms would allow private citizens to wander around with the equivalent of tactical nuclear weaponry?The logical upshot of the existence of spellcasters is guilds.  Those guilds would be forced to work with the existing political system, or the existing powers would see them as a threat and eliminate them as fast as possible.  A wandering mage is an incredible threat to a kingdom.  Never mind a bloody cleric or druid.  Even Dragonlance took a stab at this in saying that all mages had to belong to the Order and would be hunted down if they didn't.Looking at your own numbers, that's about 250 spellcasters wandering the kingdom without any link to the king other than citizenship.  No king in his right mind would allow this.  The clerics have the protection of their churches, and since churches exist as political bodies, the king would have a fair bit of influence there.  But wizards don't have any ties.  A rogue wizard in a kingdom would become a major threat.  It makes no sense for the king to not actively recruit and/or kill wizards.  Even clerics and druids would be actively recruited, simply for the benefit of having their abilities to rely on.Imagine what I could do with a hundred wizards.  That's a whole bunch of power.  It doesn't really matter whether it's 100 or 1000, any king who wants to keep his kingdom is going to have to actively court these people or these people will take away his kingdom.That's one example of the logical extentions that get ignored by earlier campaign settings that are starting to be addressed in later ones.  And these things are starting to be addressed in fantasy literature as well.  They all result from the idea that magic is stable and functional.  The second you want to have a spell casting class in a fantasy game, you have these issues.</blockquote>

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