A few people talk about how magic would effect the world in a D&D setting. Most campaign settings, including Greyhawk, don't seem to reflect the standard rules for the prevelance of magic. This article is an attempt at looking at the effects of magic on campaigns, in particular cities.
People talk about high magic and low magic campaign styles in fantasy gaming. Uncle Figgy has a an excellent article on the different styles of campaigns. What I have not seen is a quantitative look at implementing such ideas. This article is an attempt at building high magic or low magic campaigns by modifing the standard d20 D&D rules.
The level of the campaign is determined by 1) the total number of spell casters in the world as a percentage of population, and 2) the level spread of the spell casters and 3) for d20 rules, how willing are spell casters to spend experiance points to create magic items. Both numbers when combined with the age of the world will influence the prevelance of magical items available. A world with lots of spell casters of high levels that is very old will have lots of magical items. A young world with few high level casters, but lots of low level casters will have some scrolls, potions and wands, but few weapons or wonderous items.
D20 is probably the most well known rules system. It also has a huge body of work.
In all the tables below I have combined the various types of spell casters. For purposes of this article there is not much difference between a cleric, a druid, wizard or sorcerer. At high levels all of them can create permanent magic items. These tables do not take into account the age of the world.
The first step is to lay out the assumptions to judge this by. I'll be using the d20 3.5 Core Rulebooks plus The Stronghold Builder's Guide. The Core Rulebooks are the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual. In particular this means the size of cities and the number of NPC spellcasters using the tables on pages in the DMG. Also the cost of magic spells and magic items in both gold and experiance. There is also an assumption that NPC spellcasters have to follow the same rules as PCs. Specificially NPCs must earn XP, and expend XP to make magic items and to cast certain spells. The opposite is also true, in that PCs have to follow the same rules as NPC spellcasters. If NPCs are restricted by law, oath or organization then PCs are also restricted. Restrictions will be covered again later on in more detail.
The first pair of questions to consider with these assumptions are the population of the world, and how large are the cities in the world. The size of the world population is partially dependent upon the age of the world, and recent cataclysms such as the fall of an empire, the Black Death in Europe during the 1300s, Mongol invasions or similar. An old world that has not had a major cataclysm should have a large population, consistent with other factors such as climate, technology and transportation. From history, we know that the size of cities has varied during certain periods and by location. During the Roman Empire period the trans-Alpine region (modern day France and Germany) was lightly settled. The average village was 100 people, and there were really no large towns, let alone cities. Meanwhile cities in the Mediterranean region of the Roman Empire was often in the 25,000 person range, with major cities like Rome being at or close to a million (1,000,000) people.
The next question is wether spellcasters will expend XP, or if so, how much. This is well within the choice of the world designer, and is not specifically covered by the rules. The rules do cover the cost, 5 GP per XP, but do not say wether they'll accept the job. The obvious issue is that if XP is not going to be expended by NPCs, then there should be very few magic items. This would include scrolls, wands, arms and armor and such. A mitigating factor is that magic items are permanent, and time will allow the growth of the inventory. In this case, scrolls and wands would be rare since they are not truely permanent, while wonderous items and arms and armor would be at normal distributions. .
The level of the campaign is determined by 1) the total number of spell casters in the world as a percentage of population, and 2) the level spread of the spell casters and 3) for d20 rules, how willing are spell casters to spend experiance points to create magic items. Both numbers when combined with the age of the world will influence the prevelance of magical items available. A world with lots of spell casters of high levels that is very old will have lots of magical items. A young world with few high level casters, but lots of low level casters will have some scrolls, potions and wands, but few weapons or wonderous items.
D20 is probably the most well known rules system. It also has a huge body of work.
In all the tables below I have combined the various types of spell casters. For purposes of this article there is not much difference between a cleric, a druid, wizard or sorcerer. At high levels all of them can create permanent magic items. These tables do not take into account the age of the world.
Town Size |
Population Range |
Community Modifier |
|---|---|---|
Thorp |
20 - 80 |
-3 |
Hamlet |
81 - 400 |
-2 |
Village |
401 - 900 |
-1 |
Small Town |
901 - 2,000 |
0 |
Large Town |
2,001 - 5000 |
+3 |
Small City |
5,001 - 12,000 |
+6 (roll twice) |
Large City |
12,001 - 25,000 |
+9 (roll three times) |
Metropolis |
25,001+ |
+12 (roll four times) |
Class |
Level |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleric | 1d6 +community modifier |
|||
| Druid | 1d6 +community modifier |
|||
| Sorcerer | 1d4 + community modifier |
|||
| Wizard | 1d4 + community modifier |
|||
| Spell Casters | 1d4 + community modifier |
|||
One method suggested by 77IM to keep magic from greatly effecting the world is to restrict spellcasters. In keeping with the assumption about using standard rules, the ideas about limiting spellcaster's powers thru changes to the magic system rules or advancement rules will not be discussed. What is open is the social and legal restrictions on spell casters. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, these would apply to both NPC and PC spellcasters.
If the DM sets a restriction that social pressure discourages spellcasters, then the DM has to impose some social pressure on the PCs. Note that this does not work very well the standard rules that say each town has a certain number of casters. If the spellcasters exist, but are hidden, it would take some effort for PCs to find these spell casters, and the PCs will have to hide their own spellcasters.
It was suggested that DMs impose an oath or guild to regulate magic use. If so, the PCs need to follow the same code. In many ways they'd be prohibited from casting the spells they know, and if they do they'll be punished. I feel many players would not want to accept such restrictions based upon reactions to similar ideas.
Related to this is the effect of magic as technology.