The Introduction of magic into a D&D Economy

[DrakebloodIV]

Okay, here goes...

This thread is an idea spawn from reading several posts on this thread. which gave me an idea.

Those magical posts

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7 gold pieces per week = 1 gp per day. Assuming, for the moment, that he doesn't have a hut somewhere, just from the PHB, we can get...

1) Common Inn Stay (5 sp/night)
2) Common meals (3 sp/day)

That's.... "a place on a raised, heated floor, the use of a blanket and a pillow" and "bread, chicken stew, carrots, and watered-down ale or wine"

With 2 sp/day to spare.

If the poor guy has a hut (free lodging), then he can purchase good meals (5 sp/day), and have 5 sp/day left over.

If he's got a wife who can cook, clean, and maintain everything (Craft: Food, possibly Craft(Hut)... or no ranks and just takes 10 on a DC 10 task), then all he has to purchase is the actual materials - which are 1/3rd the cost of the base items. He's buying for two, but he's also paying less than half price - which means that 1 gp/day gets him good meals, again with a little left over.

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This is why magic needs to applied AFTER you've established a baseline non-magical economy, and then as you add more and more advance magic, the model becomes more and more sophisticated.

So I decided to do exactly as Elliott said, and produce a base economy in which magic is gradually introduced into. Starting with 0th level and working gradually up to 9th.

Following the base idea to Marxism, I decided to devide the world into three social classes.

The Low- 1st level commoners who make the basic 8gp/week, they buy low to normal quality food for their families (and/or rent a room) and produce income which at most goes to buying tools for their trade and paying taxes up to the Middle and High. Minimal skill in profession and craft skills, often forced to take 10. Life expectancy is low, as clerics dont exist to heal things and living conditions are sub par

The Middle- Higher level commoners, skilled in profession and craft skills. Make between 16 and 40 gp/week outside of producing goods on craft checks. Also includes the entertainment industry, which has high checks with decent ranks (12 ranks and +3 cha garuntees at least 1d10sp/night)

The High- Diplomats, Intellectuals and other such people. NO skill ranks in profession and rarely ranks in craft.


EDIT:
Note that the amount of magic wielding people is few, with about one mage/bard/druid/cleric per 30 people

[DrakebloodIV]

0th Level spells (Caster level still lvl 1)

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0th level Cleric/Druid spells(Orisons if you must)

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Create water- Only significantly economy shaking in a desert environment, and even then minimally so with only 2 gallons.

Cure Minor Wounds- Maybe used in emergencies, could improve the quality of life but economically unimportant.

Detect poison- Infinitely valuable to any unloved High class citizens, they would pay a hefty sum to be able to tell if their beverage was deadly.

Light- Valuable in low wood areas, but not very due to low duration.

Mending- High value, even a minimal amount of clerics would quickly outdate the repair industry and many smiths.

0th level Bard/Wizard/Sorcerer spells (Cantrips, I guess)

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See Light and Mending in the Orisons list

1st level spells

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1st level cleric spells

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Heal light wounds- Obviously a potent way to provide emergency medical response
Comprehend languages- Totally outdates any form of translator, international relations skyrocket

1st level Druid spells

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Goodberry- Incredibly useful because it isn't just one-shot, a druid can stash berries or occasionally even sell them. They also have the potential to be sold as a medical commodity

1st Level Sorcerer/Wizard spells

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Same as Cleric, suprisingly

MORE SOON, to tired to read through more tables on freakin d20srd

[DrakebloodIV]

also reserved 4 later

[DrakebloodIV]

this ones reserved just to annoy you

[Sstoopidtallkid]

this one taken to break the cycle. :p

[Yukitsu]

Taken to predict cantrips will mostly be influenced by clerics.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Taken for Great Justice!

And for the upcoming Proletariat Revolution

[Emperor Tippy]

Taken to explain the base failure of elliott20's post.

Magic has existed for a very long time. How long depends on the game. But if it is not a new invention (last thousand years or so) then it has already altered the economy to such an extent that their is no baseline, at all.

Teleporation Circle makes it so that moving goods by ship never even comes up. There is no reason to ever even think of sending goods by ship. Create Food and Water traps means that farming (if it exists at all) is only a specialty used to grow delicacies. The effects of teleportation on warfare means that nations never form in the traditional sense (a traditional nation can't defend it's claimed territory). Fabrication traps mean that the need for raw materials or even work are eliminated.

If magic is a new invention (or at least teleportation magic) then it's a different story. But if it's been around for thousands of years (or from the beginning of time) then you have to throw out the entire non-magical economy and start with the effects of magic.

If a single cleric can feed a nation by creating a single magic item then why does farming ever exist? Once the magic exists there is no reason for them not to use it. You go straight from a hunter gatherer society to a post farming society.

If a single wizard can make an item that spits out a suit of clothes made of the finest silks and of the finest manufacture every second then why does a cloth making industry ever come to exist?

If a single wizard can construct an entire city in under a week on his own (and do so better than any non magical builders) then why do people not have houses?

---
Ultimately economics and economies rest on the idea of a certain amount of non trivial work and effort being needed to produce a product that someone else needs or wants. Magic in D&D removes that base need. It's free energy.

[Yukitsu]

Level 0:
Create water: Clean water is a major issue in many societies, even today. The ability to produce enough water for about 6 people per day is phenominal. Especially because it's clean. This alone could cut fatalities due to disease in half. And we all know, diseased people are not productive people.
Cure minor wounds: No one in town need bleed to death. Of course, they only have a minute to grab a cleric and get him to the dying individual, but it's better than what they had as an alternative.
Mending: Don't need to have as many smiths working on constantly repairing broken objects. May get complaints from guilds from this one.
Purify food and drink: The other major one. You can take that old putrescent stuff that would either be tossed or which would make someone ill, clean it off with this spell, and it's as good as new. Efficiency would skyrocket.
Arcane mark: It's a hard to forge symbol that very few can make, and those that can make it can rarely forge.

[DrakebloodIV]

But for Purify food & drink and Create Water you have to take into account the pitiful amout. 1 in 30 people is a caster and last time I checked 2 gallons dosen't split up that well between that many people. Nor does one cubic foot of food/drink.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Tippy, I think the question is what if Magic were introduced into the RAW D&D economy.

So, no high level wizards or clerics (initially), but they suddenly start appearing as 1st level characters. What happens to the RAW economy as these first magic users level up?

A far more interesting question, IMHO.

EDIT:
I think the incidence of magic is too high, BTW. No higher than 1 in a 100, or you'll start getting natural concentrations even in smaller towns.

[Yukitsu]

Yes, I'm saying it supplements the current resources well. Besides, you can get either 3 castings of one, or a mix of both. 6 gallons of water, pure and clean for drinking is a significant difference compared to a dirty mallaria infected well for everyone. 3 square feet of food is a decent amount as well. A level 6 can feed the entire 30 and then some, and though he'll be rare, he'd still be literally sustaining a city block. And that's without "create food and water".

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Keep magic items in mind, too. The Altar to Vkandis, Bringer of Life, that grants all true believers who pray at it their daily bread, is 15,000 GP. Perfectly reasonable for a Temple in a major city to create ASAP.

[Yukitsu]

EDIT:
I think the incidence of magic is too high, BTW. No higher than 1 in a 100, or you'll start getting natural concentrations even in smaller towns.

1 in 30 is reasonable if you add the NPC class adepts.

[Oracle_Hunter]

1 in 30 is reasonable if you add the NPC class adepts.

I meant in terms of this thought experiment.

Or, at least, this thought experiment as I framed it. If you allow even small towns to gain significant concentrations of spellcasters, then you'll end up with a Tippy Society in no time; it'll be impossible for anyone to stamp them out within a few levels.

But if you keep them rare enough that they can be effectively repressed, then you end up with a more interesting situation. Large towns have substantial governments who may not appreciate individuals wielding so much power. As magical items start being invented, those in power will have a choice between leaving these things on the open market, or suppressing their public distribution and enslaving 'casters to produce weapons for their armies. How long could that state of affairs last?

Hell, this might even make for an interesting campaign setting, though I bet it has been done to death.

[DrakebloodIV]

I think the incidence of magic is too high, BTW. No higher than 1 in a 100, or you'll start getting natural concentrations even in smaller towns.

But its only 1 in 30 for ANY form of magic, so if you do the math there is only a one in 150 chance of each base magic class

[Yahzi]

Okay, here goes...

I think your thought experiment is great, but I think you need to re-examine your starting propositions.

The Low-

These are not the low. These are the middle class. The low live in peasant huts that they share with the family cow. Maybe you missed the post on how at least 60% of your people have to be growing food (or you could be just talking about townsmen, I guess).

The High-

Actually intellectuals in the medieval era didn't do as well as highly skilled tradesmen or merchants.

Note that the amount of magic wielding people is few, with about one mage/bard/druid/cleric per 30 people

Er... 1/30 is not particularly low. There is about 1 doctor for every 400 people in the USA. Yet that number is large enough to radically change society. If you want rare magic, you should be talking 1 per 1000 or so.

[Oracle_Hunter]

But its only 1 in 30 for ANY form of magic, so if you do the math there is only a one in 150 chance of each base magic class

But you really only need a small town to get 2 casters of the same type to really take off. They can "research" spells independently and then share them with each other. I suppose with Clerics it doesn't matter, but as soon as a Wizard finds a buddy, their potential knowledge begins to explode.

[Yahzi]

Large towns have substantial governments who may not appreciate individuals wielding so much power.

Except that the governments of those towns almost certainly are wielders of that kind of power themselves. That's why they're the government.

[Yukitsu]

I meant in terms of this thought experiment.

Or, at least, this thought experiment as I framed it. If you allow even small towns to gain significant concentrations of spellcasters, then you'll end up with a Tippy Society in no time; it'll be impossible for anyone to stamp them out within a few levels.

Yeah, adepts can't do the Tippyverse things. At least not normally. They have pretty much a bunch of useful trinket spells that help in cities, but very little that would help in a fight or a coup. basically, adepts are casters, but they need to keep their day job.

[DrakebloodIV]

But even so at lower levels there are very few game-changers. Im gonna make a new rule now just to make sure things stay pretty balanced.

AND THE HEAVENS DID THUNDER AND THE SKY OPENED UP AND THE DRAKEBLOOD4 DID SPEAK, SAYING

Only 1/2 of 1st level casters progress to be able to cast 2nd level spells, of those 2nd levelers only 1/3 make it to 3rd level spells and so on.

So it works something like this

{table] 1st | 1/30
2nd | 1/60
3rd | 1/180
4th | 1/720
5th | 1/3600
6th | 1/21,600
7th | 1/151,200
8th | 1/1,209,600
9th | 1/10,886,400
[/table]
Keep in mind that the population of large countries in that time was around five million, so a single ninth level caster would be earth shattering.

[DrakebloodIV]

Also, with the doctor comment. The reason that doctors are so rare is that there is little need to constantly go to the doctor if you are a healthy individual. One can easily cycle out people to go visit the doctor but one could not have a doctor catering to the entire 400 people daily. Not to mention all of the suppourting medical staff around a doctor that aren't technically doctors: Nurses, PA's, pharmasists, you name it.

[elliott20]

Taken to explain the base failure of elliott20's post.

Magic has existed for a very long time. How long depends on the game. But if it is not a new invention (last thousand years or so) then it has already altered the economy to such an extent that their is no baseline, at all.

Teleporation Circle makes it so that moving goods by ship never even comes up. There is no reason to ever even think of sending goods by ship. Create Food and Water traps means that farming (if it exists at all) is only a specialty used to grow delicacies. The effects of teleportation on warfare means that nations never form in the traditional sense (a traditional nation can't defend it's claimed territory). Fabrication traps mean that the need for raw materials or even work are eliminated.

If magic is a new invention (or at least teleportation magic) then it's a different story. But if it's been around for thousands of years (or from the beginning of time) then you have to throw out the entire non-magical economy and start with the effects of magic.

If a single cleric can feed a nation by creating a single magic item then why does farming ever exist? Once the magic exists there is no reason for them not to use it. You go straight from a hunter gatherer society to a post farming society.

If a single wizard can make an item that spits out a suit of clothes made of the finest silks and of the finest manufacture every second then why does a cloth making industry ever come to exist?

If a single wizard can construct an entire city in under a week on his own (and do so better than any non magical builders) then why do people not have houses?

---
Ultimately economics and economies rest on the idea of a certain amount of non trivial work and effort being needed to produce a product that someone else needs or wants. Magic in D&D removes that base need. It's free energy.

Hey, I'll admit my assumption here is not necessarily universal. The idea I had in my mind was that the RAW society seems pretty free of magic infrastructure and institution, and so an experiment of development from that point on would be interesting. In essence, I'm saying draw back to what happen when magic FIRST entered the equation. Now, let's not forget, when magic FIRST came around, we're not talking about a wizard who just pops out of the cosmos as a level 20, with all the crunch for making magical teleportation circles intact. That's why it's new.

If you want to just go straight to "level 20 wizards are everywhere, and has existed as long as humanity has" assumption, well, sure, tippy verse seems like a pretty logical conclusion, assuming again that people are not resistant to change, that all the infrastructural and institutional structures you've erected stay functioning, and actual get utilized at a high rate.

and just right there, you've already made a number of assumption that in any other situation, is highly unlikely as well. (That is, conditions that are BEYOND the RAW)

your society also assumes that

1. people will not want more from their magic after they've been clothed and fed. Well, maybe entertainment, but that's about it. That's a flawed assumption. Your magical effects on societal productivity doesn't just stop at your standard tippy-verse. If you wanted to, you can really just keep going.

2. that magic will not evolve either. Yes, it is a necessity for magic to evolve beyond the RAW if we are to use economic models to it's logical conclusion. At some point, somebody is going to come up with a way to block teleporters and such, i.e. Rich Burlew's own "Cloister" spell in OOTS. After all, there is a clear need for this kind of protection lest we are to all submit ourselves to the whims of wizards who think they know better. That is, the force of innovation will have unexpected affects on the plans you've proposed.

but again, these are issues that go beyond the RAW and quite frankly the RAW is just not equipped to deal with. Me? I think it's a reasonable method of going about constructing a magical society based off of an existing one, and add things on one by one, showing it's evolutionary progress. It also makes the model easier to work with, as opposed to have to swallow the tippverse in it's entirety without questioning.

[Emperor Tippy]

Actually RAW can deal with a pretty magical society (unless you throw in epic magic, when it still can but it gets different). The standard tippy-verse stops at the point it does not because I can't take it farther but because it makes gaming in it pretty difficult. The cities become effectively nut houses who do truly random and outrageous (apparently) things because they are bored. But if you interject a few little tweaks it becomes playable.

----
Let's assume that one day teleportation magic just appears. This is day 0. On day -1 the most advanced teleportation magic around was Dimension Door, and then on day 0 Boccob came down and now every mage can learn the teleportation line of spells.

On about day 1 a number of wars start and a number of leaders are assassinated as soldiers are teleported straight into cities and castles. These wars go on for a good chunk of time, until the cities become effectively armed camps that an enemy won't survive just teleporting into. Well now the surrounding villages become targets. Eventually those people head into the cities because they are at least relatively safe there. Well now the cities need a way to feed these people. Create Food and Water traps can take care of that. A disintegrate trap can take care of all the waste.

Well now that the people have food it's time to get them work. They can't go outside the cities because they won't be protected or safe. The armed men are needed to defend the city and so the local monsters have come back and reclaimed a lot of the previously inhabited territory. This means gaining raw materials is very difficult. So a mage whips up a fabricate trap that spits out blocks of various raw materials. At the same time the decision is made to whip up another one that spits out clothes. Well all those clothes (and any other goods you feel like making traps to produce) are identical. Only the poorest who can't afford custom clothes wear them.

Well now that everyone is making stuff it's time to deal with trade. Some cities want to be able to trade with or defend each other easier. So they construct permanent teleportation circles between each other to facilitate travel, as it's not possible to survive an overland journey.

There, you have the cities taken care of without going to the extreme of assassination games.

Now what about the monsters and people who aren't in the cities? Well the wilds is the area in between the cities and it's mostly ignored. None of the monsters out here are a real threat to the golem and warforged legions of the cities (built to defend against each other). So the smart ones tend to avoid the cities. And now they have a lot more ground to inhabit as most of the people who had been taking their territories are now in the cities. The people who either didn't want to go too the cities, left the cities, or are stuck in the wilderness live largely like standard greyhawk D&D. Magic is rare. Why? Because unlike the cities where most everyone is taught at least basic cantrips and the more capable are taught higher level magic, that kind of educational system doesn't exist. Sorcerers and druids are the main casters out here, with a number of psions and some clerics of the more nature oriented gods. But all magic is pretty rare. Continuous warfare with the various monsters, very little trade, and being relatively small groups living at subsistence level makes them a very minor irritant to the cities at best.

Every once in a great while a band of these people is more successful and settles down into a city. And eventually they connect to the network of teleportation circles and become a minor city (under the protection of one of the older cities that can defend it against other cities).

Likewise, every once in a great while a city is destroyed for any number of reasons. And it's population is now in the wilds, most likely thousands of miles from the nearest city, with minimal supplies or survival skills. Those that survive generally form new bands and continue the cycle.
---

The primary driver for magic altering the world drastically is not it's effects on the economy but it's effects on warfare. You can't defend against a teleporting army except by already having a sufficient force at the location attacked. And that means that cities get defended while smaller concentrations of population get sacrificed. And once you have the majority of the population living in the cities you have to feed them. Well you can't defend farms and the city. So you resort to magic. Same with gathering raw materials. Once that is taken care of you get to the economy.

[hewhosaysfish]

I hope I don't offend Tippy by saying this (although, if I do, then he's not the man I think he is....) but the whole "Tippyverse" concept is, in my eyes, an extremely logical and well-thought out excercise in completely missing the effing point.

If I may offer an analogy, suppose that as winter draws in and the days get shorter, you find you don't have enough light to read by at your favourite seat by the window. To fix this, you go out and buy a new lamp. However, on getting the lamp home realise that it doesn't really provide that much light. You then have, as I see it, 4 options:

1) Strain your eyes trying to read using the dim light available from the lamp.
2) Go out and buy a brighter bulb for the lamp.
3) Go out and buy another lamp. Maybe get a refund on the defective one.
4) Notice that the lamp may not give out much light but does give plenty of heat. Forget the books and sit by the window, warming your hands by the lamp.

We probably all have varying opinion about how long we should be prepared to try #1 (if at all) before going for #2 but equally probably we all agree that we would try #2 before #3, only trying #3 if the lamp turns out to use some non-standard bulb.
Who would go for #4? Not me. It seems weird and... well... kinda stupid. If I ever find myself needing a small space heater, I may remember that the lamp would serve that purpose to it. I may recommend it to my friends for that purpose and, when the give me a strange look say "No really, try it!"
But for the moment I want light to read by.

When we discover that our chosen roleplaying system is not as good as we'd hoped at representing a medieval-fantasy-with-knights-and-wizards-and-dragons theme what options do we have?
1) Handwave the problems when they come up and try not to think about it .
2) Houserule the bits that don't work.
3) Switch to a system that hopefully works better.
4) Abandon the medieval fantasy theme in favour of some sort of magitek, pseudo-cyberpunk distopia with Wizard's Guilds instead of megacorps (ok, to Tippyverse could lead to a utopia, assuming a benevolent dictator, but leaves little room to adventure).

Not a perfect analogy, I'l admit but it wil do for now.

[Emperor Tippy]

I hope I don't offend Tippy by saying this (although, if I do, then he's not the man I think he is....) but the whole "Tippyverse" concept is, in my eyes, an extremely logical and well-thought out excercise in completely missing the effing point.

If I may offer an analogy, suppose that as winter draws in and the days get shorter, you find you don't have enough light to read by at your favourite seat by the window. To fix this, you go out and buy a new lamp. However, on getting the lamp home realise that it doesn't really provide that much light. You then have, as I see it, 4 options:

1) Strain your eyes trying to read using the dim light available from the lamp.
2) Go out and buy a brighter bulb for the lamp.
3) Go out and buy another lamp. Maybe get a refund on the defective one.
4) Notice that the lamp may not give out much light but does give plenty of heat. Forget the books and sit by the window, warming your hands by the lamp.

We probably all have varying opinion about how long we should be prepared to try #1 (if at all) before going for #2 but equally probably we all agree that we would try #2 before #3, only trying #3 if the lamp turns out to use some non-standard bulb.
Who would go for #4? Not me. It seems weird and... well... kinda stupid. If I ever find myself needing a small space heater, I may remember that the lamp would serve that purpose to it. I may recommend it to my friends for that purpose and, when the give me a strange look say "No really, try it!"
But for the moment I want light to read by.

When we discover that our chosen roleplaying system is not as good as we'd hoped at representing a medieval-fantasy-with-knights-and-wizards-and-dragons theme what options do we have?
1) Handwave the problems when they come up and try not to think about it .
2) Houserule the bits that don't work.
3) Switch to a system that hopefully works better.
4) Abandon the medieval fantasy theme in favour of some sort of magitek, pseudo-cyberpunk distopia with Wizard's Guilds instead of megacorps (ok, to Tippyverse could lead to a utopia, assuming a benevolent dictator, but leaves little room to adventure).

Not a perfect analogy, I'l admit but it wil do for now.

Ok, that's I'll take issue with. The "tippyverse" (at least the base version) does a better job of modeling D&D and dealing with adventurers than any of the standard settings. D&D expects your players to have access to Ye Old Magic Shoppe, which the cities provide. It expects political intrigue to be possible, which is what the cities provide. It expects war's against monsters and defending villages against monsters, which the wilds provide. It expects delving into ancient ruins, which the fallen cities provide.

In fact, between the wilds and the cities it covers most everything that you can come up with for adventures without any alteration of the base setting.

And at high levels is continues to provide challenges to the PC's. Why do the PC's have to deal with the big bad monster out in the wilds? Because most people of their power level are in the cities and don't care about the wilds. Why can't the PC's just gut a city before breakfast? Because that cities collection of high level mages, legions of golems, and other defenses are an actual challenge.

[Riffington]

Tippy: how large a part of your world is traps abuse? If it turns out (for example) that traps must be harmful, or that traps with reset mechanisms have limited charges, how different does the world become?

If the DMG "Spoon that can produce oatmeal for 4" is really priced correctly, and farmers need acres of fields to remain unravaged by beasts... do cities still get to remain islands?

[Emperor Tippy]

Tippy: how large a part of your world is traps abuse? If it turns out (for example) that traps must be harmful, or that traps with reset mechanisms have limited charges, how different does the world become?

If the DMG "Spoon that can produce oatmeal for 4" is really priced correctly, and farmers need acres of fields to remain unravaged by beasts... do cities still get to remain islands?

At the moment? Most of it because it's the most efficient way to get the required magic. If you can't then just look at a custom magic item of use activated Create Food and Water at CL 20. It's much more expensive and those rules (unlike those for magical traps) are guidelines so it's up to the DM. If you can't do that you end up with farms, but farms far different than the standard. Arcane Genesis let's you feed everyone with that and using Warforged or Intelligent golems (thanks to Rudimentary Intelligence) to farm a plane where time passes at a rate of a year for every round that passes on the prime material and where the soil is perfect and the sun is always in the sky can let you produce the required food in safety.

[Yukitsu]

Actually RAW can deal with a pretty magical society (unless you throw in epic magic, when it still can but it gets different). The standard tippy-verse stops at the point it does not because I can't take it farther but because it makes gaming in it pretty difficult. The cities become effectively nut houses who do truly random and outrageous (apparently) things because they are bored. But if you interject a few little tweaks it becomes playable.

----
Let's assume that one day teleportation magic just appears. This is day 0. On day -1 the most advanced teleportation magic around was Dimension Door, and then on day 0 Boccob came down and now every mage can learn the teleportation line of spells.

On about day 1 a number of wars start and a number of leaders are assassinated as soldiers are teleported straight into cities and castles. These wars go on for a good chunk of time, until the cities become effectively armed camps that an enemy won't survive just teleporting into. Well now the surrounding villages become targets. Eventually those people head into the cities because they are at least relatively safe there. Well now the cities need a way to feed these people. Create Food and Water traps can take care of that. A disintegrate trap can take care of all the waste.

Well now that the people have food it's time to get them work. They can't go outside the cities because they won't be protected or safe. The armed men are needed to defend the city and so the local monsters have come back and reclaimed a lot of the previously inhabited territory. This means gaining raw materials is very difficult. So a mage whips up a fabricate trap that spits out blocks of various raw materials. At the same time the decision is made to whip up another one that spits out clothes. Well all those clothes (and any other goods you feel like making traps to produce) are identical. Only the poorest who can't afford custom clothes wear them.

Well now that everyone is making stuff it's time to deal with trade. Some cities want to be able to trade with or defend each other easier. So they construct permanent teleportation circles between each other to facilitate travel, as it's not possible to survive an overland journey.

There, you have the cities taken care of without going to the extreme of assassination games.

Now what about the monsters and people who aren't in the cities? Well the wilds is the area in between the cities and it's mostly ignored. None of the monsters out here are a real threat to the golem and warforged legions of the cities (built to defend against each other). So the smart ones tend to avoid the cities. And now they have a lot more ground to inhabit as most of the people who had been taking their territories are now in the cities. The people who either didn't want to go too the cities, left the cities, or are stuck in the wilderness live largely like standard greyhawk D&D. Magic is rare. Why? Because unlike the cities where most everyone is taught at least basic cantrips and the more capable are taught higher level magic, that kind of educational system doesn't exist. Sorcerers and druids are the main casters out here, with a number of psions and some clerics of the more nature oriented gods. But all magic is pretty rare. Continuous warfare with the various monsters, very little trade, and being relatively small groups living at subsistence level makes them a very minor irritant to the cities at best.

Every once in a great while a band of these people is more successful and settles down into a city. And eventually they connect to the network of teleportation circles and become a minor city (under the protection of one of the older cities that can defend it against other cities).

Likewise, every once in a great while a city is destroyed for any number of reasons. And it's population is now in the wilds, most likely thousands of miles from the nearest city, with minimal supplies or survival skills. Those that survive generally form new bands and continue the cycle.
---

The primary driver for magic altering the world drastically is not it's effects on the economy but it's effects on warfare. You can't defend against a teleporting army except by already having a sufficient force at the location attacked. And that means that cities get defended while smaller concentrations of population get sacrificed. And once you have the majority of the population living in the cities you have to feed them. Well you can't defend farms and the city. So you resort to magic. Same with gathering raw materials. Once that is taken care of you get to the economy.

This with one caveat:

Entire cities are forbiddanced, except for one vaulted room guarded by AMFs and the top tier fighters and beasts of the kingdom. This lets the city focus troops onto the walls.

Another aspect I ran into when I turned the world into in game, was that it was best to connect all cities via a hub created from a genesis. This way, an army could be ready without disrupting the cities, or taking up room in the cities.

[Dervag]

Tippy: how large a part of your world is traps abuse? If it turns out (for example) that traps must be harmful, or that traps with reset mechanisms have limited charges, how different does the world become?

If the DMG "Spoon that can produce oatmeal for 4" is really priced correctly, and farmers need acres of fields to remain unravaged by beasts... do cities still get to remain islands?

Nitpick: since most spells that cause harm to some creature will cause benefit to some other creature, it could be very tricky to have a rule like "traps can only cause harm." A Cure Wounds trap is a great idea in a hospital, but it also makes a good defense against attacking zombies. Is it a trap that causes harm, or not?
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That aside, this is a relevant point- the linchpin of a Tippyverse economy seems to be the ability to use certain spells over and over at the push of a button by putting them in traps.

Not that removing those traps changes everything. The idea of heavily defended magical citadels where all the powerful people live because they won't be safe from teleportation magic outside the citadels still makes sense, of course.

The difference is that if magical Create Food and Fabricate traps aren't available for infinite uses, then those citadels will be small. Powerful people and their immediate servants will live in the citadels, and they will be able to afford in-house casters that can see to their needs. So instead of magic cities, you get magic castles or fortresses or wizards' towers.
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Meanwhile, everyone else still lives outside the citadels, including a lot of leveled characters not powerful enough to rate a citadel of their own. So what you end up with is a setting where high-level characters are like the gods living on Mount Olympus, in towers you can't even get into without teleportation magic, defended by armies of golems and such.

Mid-level characters live in their own crude imitations of those citadels, places that look more like medieval castles. They provide good defense against purely physical threats like a bunch of rampaging ogres, but poor defense against the godlike scry-and-die wizards of the Tippyverse. On the other hand, mid-level characters aren't powerful enough to be much of a threat to Tippian superwizards, and aren't likely to wind up with enemies among that class of beings. So the fact that a Tippian wizard can kick your castle down around your ears doesn't matter much, because he doesn't do anything to offend said wizard.

Low-level characters need a citadel of some kind to stay alive, but the high-level types with the impregnable magic citadels aren't going to let them inside. Letting people inside is a security risk, and low level people don't have much to offer the godlike beings who rule the citadels.
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So the end result is something like what Tippy just described, but with a slight difference. You still get a traditional D&D world, but instead of huge magic cities you get small magic citadels. The majority of the population will live on farms and in city-states, ruled by mid-level types not powerful enough to rate their own magic citadel. The magic citadels and the city-states are practically in completely different worlds, though, because the citadels don't need anything the city-states can offer, and the city-states can't do anything that really affects the city-states.