Quality of Life and Magic in 5E

[Bigmouth]

Random thought for the day:

In a 'standard' D&D setting, does the presence of magic significantly alter the quality of life for average citizens?

I imagine the first thing to do when ruminating about this question is figuring out what kind of percentage of the population is leveled up. I don't know of anything in 5E that gives any kind of numbers for this sort of thing. I seem to remember earlier editions having numbers. How common are the magic casting classes, how common are people above level one?

So, Dungeonville has a population of 10,000. Would there be any clerics, paladins, wizards, etc. there? How many? Enough to matter?

Is there enough healing magic available to have any impact on society? Lots of potential sources for cure wounds and other HP recovery tools for the victims of accidents. Fewer sources for curing diseases, which I think would be the one that would have a bigger impact.

What about food? It doesn't seem like there are many ways to do much about helping people with food. On the level of feeding a party, sure, but helping with famine and the homeless less so.

Mold Earth would definitely be incredible for civil engineering.

What other spells would make a difference in the QoL of Dungeonville?

Lastly, my own guideline for demographics is that there needs to be enough sources of magic healing that a healer in the party isn't constantly under pressure to stop adventuring and settle down to curing disease, healing broken legs, curing blindness etc.

[blackjack50]

Random thought for the day:

In a 'standard' D&D setting, does the presence of magic significantly alter the quality of life for average citizens?

I imagine the first thing to do when ruminating about this question is figuring out what kind of percentage of the population is leveled up. I don't know of anything in 5E that gives any kind of numbers for this sort of thing. I seem to remember earlier editions having numbers. How common are the magic casting classes, how common are people above level one?

So, Dungeonville has a population of 10,000. Would there be any clerics, paladins, wizards, etc. there? How many? Enough to matter?

Is there enough healing magic available to have any impact on society? Lots of potential sources for cure wounds and other HP recovery tools for the victims of accidents. Fewer sources for curing diseases, which I think would be the one that would have a bigger impact.

What about food? It doesn't seem like there are many ways to do much about helping people with food. On the level of feeding a party, sure, but helping with famine and the homeless less so.

Mold Earth would definitely be incredible for civil engineering.

What other spells would make a difference in the QoL of Dungeonville?

Lastly, my own guideline for demographics is that there needs to be enough sources of magic healing that a healer in the party isn't constantly under pressure to stop adventuring and settle down to curing disease, healing broken legs, curing blindness etc.

I have pondered this myself. In fact, my specific reason for asking the same question? How would goods be transported between places? Would it still be horse and buggy? There is magic...so why? The consensus of the thread was along the lines that not many people would be leveled up enough to matter. Certainly not beyond 5.

The thing is...the world is dangerous and most people are poor. So those 2 things don’t help. I think...to me? Quantity and quality of food, water, and then cleanliness/absence of disease would mean that an average someone who lives in the 1400s may very well be FAR better off than someone of a similar era...just because of magic.

[Seekergeek]

That's a slippery slope to start examining with real-world logic. The slant I typically take in my homebrew campaigns is that the existence of magic is the reason for the complete stall in technological or social development. Why invent the lightbulb when someone can cast continual flame and sell them at the local store? Why develop penecilin when the local druids can cast lesser restoration? The proliferation of magic and its impact is, to me, directly tied to the stagnation of the development we saw in the real world. That's not going to be true for everyone's table, or for the Forgotten Realms cannon necessarily, but that's what makes sense to me.

Certainly FR, the default 5e setting, has an abundance of magic. I'd say it has made life as good as necessary to preserve a perpetual status quo on societal advancement.

[Trask]

Its good to keep in mind that i any given pre-modern society (which D&D worlds typically ape) has near 90% of its population working agriculture. The remaining 10% are craftsmen, merchants, warriors, priests, and nobles.

In a D&D setting, you have a lot of flexibility. Maybe magic eases the labor of agriculture greatly and more people are craftsmen and warriors and the society takes a turn for the pre-industrial, or maybe the use of magic is so rare in comparison to population size that seeing it is a once in a lifetime thing for the average person. There really are no rules, its completely arbitrary and up to the DM to decide this, although they do evoke very different setting styles.

One thing I always try and keep in mind that I feel a lot of settings dont, is that if magic is ubiquitous and everywhere then so are evil magic users and monsters.

The average peasant may not worry as much about the failed harvest by blight, but instead has to fear that some necromancer will send a swarm of necro-locusts to devour his crops and to feed his hungry pets.

Farmers in the real world worried about lions eating their cattle, now they have to worry about ogres and hill giants scooping up two at a time and demanding a weekly tribute.

Wars between feuding lords or states used to be a matter of spears, now its a near apocalytic event with spellfire scorching the earth and summoned monsters ravaging the lands while high level heroes single handedly cut down dozens of terrified peasants pressed into service.

The everpresence of magic and the supernatural is a two way street when it comes to quality of life.

[Damon_Tor]

I've always preferred settings where magic is unusual. Instead of Wizard's Schools churning out first level wizards, it's a trade passed on from a master to an apprentice over years and years: each wizard might only take on two or three apprentices over their lifetime, so even first level "journeyman" wizards are quite rare, and most never make it past first or second level. A cleric is uniquely endowed by his God, what we would call a "Saint" or a "Prophet" and are as rare. Most people who try to make a pact with a being for power fail to do so in a way that doesn't result in a deal so bad no powers are given and their lives are immediately forfeit, so coming out with something to show for it is highly unusual.

[diplomancer]

Magic Initiate, and variant humans ability to have a free feat, can make a dramactic effect in human societies. A DM might have some worldbuilding fun with that idea, like imagining rival civilizations with different Magic Initiate (class) feats taught in their education system.

[Catullus64]

My take on such questions is to remember that a certain quotient of spell casters per populace does not translate directly to the availability of magical services in that populace, unless your D&D realms have fallen prey to the evil scourge of communism. Magic requires resources, training, and in some cases supernatural patronage. Magic powers are going to be concentrated in the hands of whatever elites this society possesses, whether that be commercial, political, or religious; and elites are seldom keen to have their special prerogatives and resources commonly distributed. Deities and other supernatural entities capable of granting magic to mortals also have various interests in magic being unevenly distributed. Hence, it's not too illogical to have a magic-abundant world still have the majority of its people living in an undeveloped (by modern standards) condition.

[47Ace]

With regards to food availability Plant Growth is a third level druid spell that when cast for 8 hours doubles plant yield in a half mile radius. That really is a huge change given that in medieval times it took 2 people to feed 3 doubling yield would let those same 2 people feed 4 quadrupling the number of people who can do something other than farm.

[Catullus64]

With regards to food availability Plant Growth is a third level druid spell that when cast for 8 hours doubles plant yield in a half mile radius. That really is a huge change given that in medieval times it took 2 people to feed 3 doubling yield would let those same 2 people feed 4 quadrupling the number of people who can do something other than farm.

If you have double the yield, that in turn requires an increase in the number of man-hours spent harvesting, not to mention clearing the immense quantity of weeds that this spell would produce. I'm no farmer, so I don't know the exact proportions, but my guess is that the gain in overall efficiency would be marginal (even if you don't count the amount of resources, risk, and time required to get a Druid up to fifth level.) Like all specialized skills, the cost of magic includes the cost of producing a person capable of doing it.

[Keravath]

The question isn't really how many leveled characters there are in society but rather how easy is it to learn a cantrip and how widely are these available.

Do only characters/citizens/people capable of leveling up have the ability to learn a cantrip? Can cantrips be taught? Especially wizard cantrips?

Cantrips can be performed indefinitely, as often as you like, they are not limited by spell slots.

- Prestidigiation - cleans clothes, creates great tasting and looking food, warms or cools things - it has an immense number of day to day applications
- Mold Earth - this is ridiculously powerful in terms of civil engineering, constructing anything, clearing fields, building ditches and irrigation, creating dikes to control flooding
- Mending - extremely useful for repairing boots/clothes - if anything breaks put it back as good as new
- Light - massive boost to productivity since people no longer have to go to sleep when the sun goes down if they can't afford fuel for lights.
- Message - useful for transferring messages within an organization
- Mage Hand - useful for little tasks around the house while not needing to get up to do it yourself
- Create Bonfire
- Shape Water
- Spare the Dying

This also doesn't get into the first level ritual spells. Even first level characters have to be very uncommon or the following spells could reshape aspects of society.

- Unseen servant
- Tensor's Floating Disk
- Purify Food and Drink

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Teetering on real world examples here but....

Think about the turmoil caused by the constant attacks and warfare that seem prevalent in most D&D settings. That must have an effect on the general wealth.

Also think of the distribution of wealth some places.

THEN as soon as some city state gets their stuff together and has a 30 year period of only minor foreign wars here comes some dragon or Lich with plans to extort your local Federal Reserve or Fort Knox!

Imagine trying to set up a trusted banking system or stock market in that world.

[AdAstra]

This is definitely one of those questions that has a different answer in each world. A few major factors that would help define some numbers:

How many people have the ability to learn magic in the first place? Can basically any humanoid learn it with enough training or is there an x-factor of magic potential?

How much training does it take to achieve a certain level of magical ability? There's a weird assumption a lot of the time that you can just "know" magic with no added effort, that a blacksmith could obviously take some time out of their schedule to learn Heat Metal. That really doesn't hold up. Magic is a skill that needs to be learned, and is itself somewhat of a career path.

How easy is it to craft/maintain magic items or other such constructs? If you can "store" magic and easily distribute it, that will dramatically change how accessible it is. There's a massive difference between having to hire the local mage for a day, and being able to purchase a Wand of Whatever at the store. Could you use Golems as autonomous construction equipment with no need for fuel or repair? The ability to have a Magical Industrial Revolution would primarily depend on the ability to make magical constructs. Otherwise you can't automate/distribute magical labor/effects

[47Ace]

If you have double the yield, that in turn requires an increase in the number of man-hours spent harvesting, not to mention clearing the immense quantity of weeds that this spell would produce. I'm no farmer, so I don't know the exact proportions, but my guess is that the gain in overall efficiency would be marginal (even if you don't count the amount of resources, risk, and time required to get a Druid up to fifth level.) Like all specialized skills, the cost of magic includes the cost of producing a person capable of doing it.

OK 4 times is a bit of an exaggeration bit the difference would be nontrivial. It magicly doubles the yield when harvested I see no reason that would affect weed levels. For fruit like grapes and apples that are picking by hand yes the harvesting time would double unless the change is primarily in reducing the number bad or infected fruit. Then the time may be saved in sorting. Now for staples like wheat and barley the change would primarily be in the number and size of the grains so for no change in scything time and a small increase in weight you would get twice as many grains at the end of threashing.

Now for available number of 5th level plus druids good question we have no standard for that except low magic which could mean anything from 10% of population is magic and only 10% of them reach level 20 to only one in 10 000 people can cast cantrips. If 5th level plus adventures are rare then you have the problem of what do adventuring groups do, why would anyone hire 4 people who claim to be able to accomplish things well above what you would expect a group of 4 people to be able to do. Further if anyone does in your group of 5th level plus adventurers how do you find a replacement if they are so rare. Another problem with rare adventures is that it means that all Palidins should quit adventuring at level 3 when they get the ability cure desease 3 times a day as curing desease would be by far the most good they can do.

Baised off of my experience with LMoP adventures an group of level 1 adventures are expected to hit level 5 in a few weeks after taking their first mission. Now oviously that implies an absered easyness of producing level 5 druids. But it is the only real metric from WOTC I know of.

[8wGremlin]

Ah my favorite thread subject...

I find it facinating that we have developed a psudo medieval fantasy worlds, with out thinking oh how these came to be, and what the impact of magic has.

I think looking at the very lowest of magic, cantrips and 1st level spells and how they affect the QoL is amazingly interesting, and can generate great plots, thought experiments and world building.

with the introduction of Eberron, we see that some races now have even more access to minor magics.

Some older posts:
Discussing a militia and how race affect them:

Look at the racial traits available.
for instance

Humans (variant) get a FEAT:
Some Elves get Wizard, or Druid cantrips etc.

Your 100 strong Militia with Magic Initiate.
some 1st level choices

• Find familiar - scouts, help other, message system
• Sleep - when not in combat, use this to get kids to sleep! although i'm sure they have advantage on the roll ;-)
• Tenser's Floating disk
• Unseen Servent
• Alarm
• Entangle
• Goodberry (feed 9 other people, with no need for agriculture)
• Faerie Fire
• Wild Cunning
• Purify food and drink
• Bless
• Cure Wounds
• Create/Destroy water
• Armor of Agathys

as well as 2 cantrips

• Eldritch blast
• Fire Bold
• Word of radiance
• Prestidigitation
• Booming blade
• Shillelagh (magic damage!)
• Mold earth
• Control flames
• Shape water
• Mending
• Minor illusion

Look at some of the other feats:
Your militia armed with hand crossbows and the 'Crossbow mastery' feat (2 attacks a round!)
or your Spearmen armed with 'Spear Mastery' feat.
'Lightly Armoured' (now they can wear studded leather, and have a dex of 12!)
or 'Blade Mastery' or 'Healer' feat.

You can see how Human town of just commoners can be very potent.

I often ponder about how the societies evolved, go back to cave-man (or cave-elf)

Imagine the effect on racekind if you started earlier in history.

Imagine cave-gnomes, how effective pit traps could be, or signalling over long distances with minor illusions

Or cave-high elves with their one wizards cantrip

Or cave-variant humans with their one feat With Ritual caster or magic initiate

How would those societies develop

How would npc commoners be with their races added. I disagree that feats are only available to pc’s as you get to add race to commoner stats and variant human is a race.

Taking these cave-kin and seeing how they would develop would be a cool and interesting thought experiment or mini campaign

What are your thoughts.

[deljzc]

We use the middle ages as the motif to simplify explanation.

Otherwise (and this is certainly, realistically, possible), you have to create a world/society from scratch with only YOUR ABILITY TO DESCRIBE it as a means to base a campaign.

Honestly, if cantrips are widespread, it WOULD create an entirely different world than any human history on earth. Throw into the fact there are hundreds of intelligent species, living gods, planar deities and who knows what else and you have a recipe for not only different than Earth, but VASTLY different than Earth.

So yes, it would be different, but unless you are willing to invest the time to create the alternative (literally, novels of books and histories) and then expect your PC's to read those novels and understand/by-into them enough to role play in them correctly, it is just easier to say "Middle Age Earth" and everyone basically knows what you are talking about and acts accordingly.

[Evaar]

In general, no. Most of the baseline fantasy settings like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms are based in the concepts of high or medieval fantasy without a lot of consideration as to the practical effects of the magic system as presented in an economic sense.

This is what Eberron as a setting seeks to explore and resolve. That's why it annoys me when people call it Steampunk, because it explicitly isn't. It examines the magic system described in D&D and extrapolates from that with an economical and sociological perspective.

[KorvinStarmast]

I've always preferred settings where magic is unusual. Instead of Wizard's Schools churning out first level wizards, it's a trade passed on from a master to an apprentice over years and years: each wizard might only take on two or three apprentices over their lifetime, so even first level "journeyman" wizards are quite rare, and most never make it past first or second level.

A cleric is uniquely endowed by his God, what we would call a "Saint" or a "Prophet" and are as rare. Most people who try to make a pact with a being for power fail to do so in a way that doesn't result in a deal so bad no powers are given and their lives are immediately forfeit, so coming out with something to show for it is highly unusual.

Yeah, I tend toward this model.

Most people in the fantasy world are, in Hollywood of the 50's terms, a member of the "cast of thousands." The unusual people whom the camera tends to focus on are the PCs/protagonists, and the few antogonists.

{Eberron} examines the magic system described in D&D and extrapolates from that with an economical and sociological perspective.

I think that Eberron ports in some serious high magic setting assumptions - the trains and airships are seriously high magic things - with a bit of hand waving vis a vis 5e's three core books. As a setting, kind of like Dark Sun, it's an intreresting look at how to apply magic to a fictional universe. Porting that into a setting like Greyhawk or FR is a little bit jarring, though I think it would port into Planescape OK beyond the issue of deities being shoved into a corner over there ----->

[Mjolnirbear]

I explored this once.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...agical-Society

It was a lot of fun and is one of my highest-replied posts. Enjoy!

[KorvinStarmast]

In general, no. Most of the baseline fantasy settings like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms are based in the concepts of high or medieval fantasy without a lot of consideration as to the practical effects of the magic system as presented in an economic sense.

This is what Eberron as a setting seeks to explore and resolve. That's why it annoys me when people call it Steampunk, because it explicitly isn't. It examines the magic system described in D&D and extrapolates from that with an economical and sociological perspective.

I explored this once.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...agical-Society

It was a lot of fun and is one of my highest-replied posts. Enjoy!

FWIW, Hickmann and Weiss explored that in the Darksword trilogy.

[ad_hoc]

Magic Initiate, and variant humans ability to have a free feat, can make a dramactic effect in human societies. A DM might have some worldbuilding fun with that idea, like imagining rival civilizations with different Magic Initiate (class) feats taught in their education system.

PCs and NPCs follow different rules.

The character creation rules are for PCs.

NPCs have no character creation rules. They are just what the DM determines them to be.

[CNagy]

The question of how much magic affects the QoL in D&D is really a question of how much of the population is sufficiently talented to wield magic/become adventurers. While unlimited casting of cantrips and (to a lesser extent) rituals, rarity of casters/magic potential determines whether every town has some element of Move Earth (as an example) involved or if it is the province the of the rich and/or powerful.

[diplomancer]

PCs and NPCs follow different rules.

The character creation rules are for PCs.

NPCs have no character creation rules. They are just what the DM determines them to be.

Sure. Which means the DM can determine that all NPCs get their racial abilities, regardless of class. In the case of humans, he can decide that some cultures or classes are mostly variant humans, while other cultures or classes are regular humans.

I am way too busy for worldbuilding these days, but I like to think that the variant human feats would be a neat way to differenciate human cultures. It's also an easy way to explain human dominance, if your setting has that assumption.

[Bigmouth]

If healers/clerics are as rare as saints, I'd tend to think that they would be treated like such...which definitely could be an interesting way to run a game, but certainly far different than how D&D is normally perceived.

10th level of epic dungeon, about to storm into final room and confront the boss: "Pardon me your most holiness, but could you spare a moment to heal my baby girl?" (First in the line of devotees that have followed the Saint into the dungeon).

YMMV but the reality of how desperate people would be to get magical healing for themselves and even more so for loved ones is probably the thing that sets my lowest possible numbers for magic usage. If you were the only source of magic healing, curing of diseases could you possibly be good and not stop adventuring to tend to the needy unless every adventure you went on was massively important?

[ad_hoc]

Sure. Which means the DM can determine that all NPCs get their racial abilities, regardless of class. In the case of humans, he can decide that some cultures or classes are mostly variant humans, while other cultures or classes are regular humans.

I am way too busy for worldbuilding these days, but I like to think that the variant human feats would be a neat way to differenciate human cultures. It's also an easy way to explain human dominance, if your setting has that assumption.

The DM can also decide that all NPC humans have 3 feats or that all of them have wings.

None of that has anything to do with PC creation rules.

There is no such thing as a 'variant human' NPC.

[8wGremlin]

There is no such thing as a 'variant human' NPC.

The Variant Human is a subrace of human with the proviso of

Variant Human
If your campaign uses the optional feat rules from the Player’s Handbook, your Dungeon Master might allow these variant traits, all of which replace the human’s Ability Score Increase trait.

So there can be a variant human NPC, if your campaign uses feats, and the DM allows this human subrace.

NPCs have no character creation rules. They are just what the DM determines them to be.

Again is isn't true, https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/ba...sterStatistics

look at the NPC entries and it states (ANY RACE) it goes on to say

Racial Traits
You can add racial traits to an NPC. For example, a halfling druid might have a speed of 25 feet and the Lucky trait. Adding racial traits to an NPC doesn't alter its challenge rating. For more on racial traits, see the Player's Handbook.

[HappyDaze]

I think that Eberron ports in some serious high magic setting assumptions - the trains and airships are seriously high magic things - with a bit of hand waving vis a vis 5e's three core books. As a setting, kind of like Dark Sun, it's an intreresting look at how to apply magic to a fictional universe. Porting that into a setting like Greyhawk or FR is a little bit jarring, though I think it would port into Planescape OK beyond the issue of deities being shoved into a corner over there ----->

FR had flying airships (Halruaan Skyships) and even entire floating cities (last known one was the Shade Enclave).

[ad_hoc]

The Variant Human is a subrace of human with the proviso of

So there can be a variant human NPC, if your campaign uses feats, and the DM allows this human subrace.


Again is isn't true, https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/ba...sterStatistics

look at the NPC entries and it states (ANY RACE) it goes on to say

People on this board really want the game to be 3e.

For the actual rules of the game start reading at pg. 89 of the DMG.

I'll sum up: An NPC can be whatever you like with whatever statistics you like. Here's a bunch of stuff to use as a starting point.

[8wGremlin]

I'll sum up: An NPC can be whatever you like with whatever statistics you like. Here's a bunch of stuff to use as a starting point.

Absolutely agree, but you stated that there weren't character creations rules for NPCs and that there was no such thing as a Variant Humans NPC.

I just showed you that the rules state that there can be.

I'm not disagreeing with your statement about NPC can be whatever you want them to be, just pointing out that the game does have rules for some of them. You're free to make anything up, it's your game, you play it how ever you like.

But don't say something isn't true, when it is.

[ad_hoc]

Absolutely agree, but you stated that there weren't character creations rules for NPCs and that there was no such thing as a Variant Humans NPC.

I just showed you that the rules state that there can be.

I'm not disagreeing with your statement about NPC can be whatever you want them to be, just pointing out that the game does have rules for some of them. You're free to make anything up, it's your game, you play it how ever you like.

But don't say something isn't true, when it is.

It isn't and there aren't.

It isn't houseruling to decide what properties NPCs have. There are rules about what CR an NPC is. That might be where you are confused.

'Variant Human' NPC is nonsensical. It's a PC rule.

PC rules do not dictate world building. A human NPC can have a feat, 3 feats, or abilities that aren't even feats. The DM decides. They're all still humans if the DM wants them to be.

There isn't a mandate for X number of variant human to human in the world and the humans only have Y abilities if they have class levels which give them those abilities. And there are humans of specific class levels based on population. Etc.

If the DM decided that all NPC halfling get feats then they do. What do you call them? Halflings.

If a Human NPC has a feat there is nothing saying that they need to be anything more than human.

Variant human is called that because it is a variant rule. That's it.

[Sigreid]

That's a slippery slope to start examining with real-world logic. The slant I typically take in my homebrew campaigns is that the existence of magic is the reason for the complete stall in technological or social development. Why invent the lightbulb when someone can cast continual flame and sell them at the local store? Why develop penecilin when the local druids can cast lesser restoration? The proliferation of magic and its impact is, to me, directly tied to the stagnation of the development we saw in the real world. That's not going to be true for everyone's table, or for the Forgotten Realms cannon necessarily, but that's what makes sense to me.

Certainly FR, the default 5e setting, has an abundance of magic. I'd say it has made life as good as necessary to preserve a perpetual status quo on societal advancement.

In always figured in a world with magic, the minds capable of technological leaps would mostly focus on magic. It's also possible that the powers of magic would actively suppress technology that can present a threat to their power.