Quote from: Sacrosanct;762059It seems to me your big issue is one based on theorycrafting, rather than what happens in actual game play.  The likelyhood of a 5e mage just sitting around all day casting ray of frost doesn't seem to be logically any different than a mage in 1e sitting at home casting all of his spells every day.  Rinse, repeat.

The reality is that neither of these actually do happen.  Theorycrafting.

Why not?  

If it can happen, and there is a benefit if it does happen, why doesn't it happen?

That's what I mean by 'break the setting'.  If it could happen, but the setting relies on it NOT happening, how is that a good thing?  

Better to make it not possible or make sure it doesn't break the setting.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;762066Why not?  

If it can happen, and there is a benefit if it does happen, why doesn't it happen?

That's what I mean by 'break the setting'.  If it could happen, but the setting relies on it NOT happening, how is that a good thing?  

Better to make it not possible or make sure it doesn't break the setting.

Regardless of how big a change in a setting it might cause, it seems reasonable to consider the possible effects.

To me it's a lot like accounting for the fact a 'typical' dnd setting has a metric ton of spellcasters living in the setting.

For example, if there are even a handful of level 9 clerics, wouldn't the kings and the wealthy be raised from the dead pretty often?

Are plagues a real threat if there are paladins, clerics, and druids capable of cure disease?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;762066Why not?  

If it can happen, and there is a benefit if it does happen, why doesn't it happen?

Why don't legions of low level clerics solve the food problem in every campaign setting?  Why don't high level mages to control the weather every day to whatever they want?


There's your answer.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;762075Why don't legions of low level clerics solve the food problem in every campaign setting?  Why don't high level mages to control the weather every day to whatever they want?

The answer is because they can't. In the former case it's not enough water and food (and a 3rd level spell requiring a 5th level caster) to do what you're suggesting, in the latter case a 6th level spell (requiring a 12th level caster) that typically doesn't last all day. None of these options are a) unlimited casting, or b) available to 1st level characters (of which there are vastly more of in a campaign world).

I'm not saying such spells don't have an impact on the setting - quite the opposite - but that any effect is vastly magnified by being available at first level, and being effectively unlimited.

Quote from: Bobloblah;762091The answer is because they can't. In the former case it's not enough water and food (and a 3rd level spell requiring a 5th level caster) to do what you're suggesting, in the latter case a 6th level spell (requiring a 12th level caster) that typically doesn't last all day. None of these options are a) unlimited casting, or b) available to 1st level characters (of which there are vastly more of in a campaign world).

I'm not saying such spells don't have an impact on the setting - quite the opposite - but that any effect is vastly magnified by being available at first level, and being effectively unlimited.

Create water is a 1st level cleric spell in 1e, 4 gallons created per level, and it's permanent.  So why don't all these low level priests just eradicate problems in dry desert areas?  A lowly curate (4th level) can create 48 gallons of water per day with just his first level spells, and can do even more with the 3rd level spell, in addition to creating 8 cubic feet of food.  He can do this every day.

So a temple of clerics, even if all but the curate is 1st level, should be able to do game breaking things.  So why don't they?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;762066Why not?  

If it can happen, and there is a benefit if it does happen, why doesn't it happen?

In many cases, opportunity cost.

Having a wizard sit and make a pot bubble all day is more labor intensive than just lighting a damn fire.  There's more useful things for the wizard to do.

Also, most of these theorycrafting/Tippyverse scenarios presume a large number of wizards who find this the most useful thing to do with their time.  The general availability of wizards as PCs does *not* necessarily imply that they are common within the population.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;762095Create water is a 1st level cleric spell in 1e, 4 gallons created per level, and it's permanent.  So why don't all these low level priests just eradicate problems in dry desert areas?  A lowly curate (4th level) can create 48 gallons of water per day with just his first level spells, and can do even more with the 3rd level spell, in addition to creating 8 cubic feet of food.  He can do this every day.

So a temple of clerics, even if all but the curate is 1st level, should be able to do game breaking things.  So why don't they?

*sigh*
You cited Create Food and Water, which is a 3rd level spell. I actually wrote my response to include the 1st level spell, but then saw you were actually referring to the 3rd level spell and changed what I wrote before posting it. The why is the same: there are limited numbers of castings available, and it doesn't produce enough to completely disrupt things. A 1st level Cleric can produce enough to supply 3 other people with their daily water, assuming it's not a dry climate. But then, if it's not a dry climate, why is every fourth person a Cleric dedicated to this when the populace can get their water for free? Can the same be said for the ice that can presumably be produced through infinite castings of Ray of Frost?

And all of that is just theorycrafting if it never actually happens in game.  And the only thing that makes it happen in game is the DM.  A mage with an at will ray of frost doing nothing but casting it all day long is just as likely as a caster in any other edition casting all of their magic all day long.  Both can technically do it, but how many NPC casters go through all of their spells every single day while sitting at home?  Probably none.  And that would be totally up to the DM anyway.

Point is, if casters in AD&D aren't breaking the game world when they have the capacity to do so, why would you think 5e casters would?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;762095Create water is a 1st level cleric spell in 1e, 4 gallons created per level, and it's permanent.  So why don't all these low level priests just eradicate problems in dry desert areas?  A lowly curate (4th level) can create 48 gallons of water per day with just his first level spells, and can do even more with the 3rd level spell, in addition to creating 8 cubic feet of food.  He can do this every day.

So a temple of clerics, even if all but the curate is 1st level, should be able to do game breaking things.  So why don't they?

It would take literally thousands of high level clerics casting Create Water a hundred years to put a dent in even the smallest desert. They don't do game breaking things because it's fucking hard. Clerics have more important things to do than waste time on lost causes.

I have argued this before - clerics and druids could elimate deserts.  Or certainly remove the need for an oasis.

Why don't they?  Bad writing.   That's it.  There's this magic that should make their society basically unrecognizable from medieval times.

Take materials for example.  In a world where magic exists, why are they still using preindustrial metalworking?  It can't be the temperature involved because they can open gates to the plane of fire itself.  Shouldn't be know-how with divination spells around.  So why?

And you can't make the "easier" argument for the blacksmithing method.  Blast furnaces exist for a reason.

Air travel is another one.  Benefits here are obvious.  Flying carpets and the like would quickly replace horses unless the carpets are too hard to come by.  And maybe even then.  Bandits would have to become sky pirates because only the poor would be on the ground.

It goes on and on.

And rather than starting a new thread about Wizards, WotC has the wizard preview up.  It's the first I had heard of the semi-vancian system.  What becomes of sorcerers?

robiswrong is right to talk about opportunity cost.  

Using up all of my spells everyday (when I might be attacked, or might need to heal someone) has a high opportunity cost.  But even if I did use all of my spells everyday, the impact to the setting is small if the number of people able to use these spells is small.  A few dozen high-level wizards might be able to deliver important parcels 'next day air' like Fed-Ex if they didn't need their teleport for something else.  

A cleric creating 48 gallons of water in the Sahara, even daily, isn't going to do much.  

If they are instead able to cast the spell 11,520 times (16 hours @ 1/6 seconds), producing 46,080 gallons daily, that's going to make a big difference.

For math folks, the 46,080 gallons is equivalent to roughly 6,227 cubic feet of water.  The flow-rate of the Nile is roughly 100,000 cubic feet/second.  

If we had a temple of 400 1st level clerics trying to bring 'bloom' to the desert, we'd be looking at 18,432,000 gallons daily - or roughly 213 gallons/second or ~29 cubic feet/second.  We're still not going to get another Nile from these types of numbers - but we will get the equivalent of the American River in California.  Let's look at what kind of difference it can make.

If people need roughly a gallon of water per day, you can support a much larger population in the desert with this type of spellcasting.  Even at the 80-100 gallons Americans use daily we're looking at a desert not being a desert anymore.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;762115And all of that is just theorycrafting if it never actually happens in game.  And the only thing that makes it happen in game is the DM.  A mage with an at will ray of frost doing nothing but casting it all day long is just as likely as a caster in any other edition casting all of their magic all day long.  Both can technically do it, but how many NPC casters go through all of their spells every single day while sitting at home?  Probably none.  And that would be totally up to the DM anyway.

Point is, if casters in AD&D aren't breaking the game world when they have the capacity to do so, why would you think 5e casters would?

You're wrong. It does happen in game, just not by the players, because players get to choose what their characters do. Players are there to have a good time, whether that's by fightin' stuff, meddling in others' bidness, or generally making a nuisance of themselves. NPCs? Not so much.

The assumptions of one's ruleset can presumably have an impact on the setting. I know you're not entirely blind to this, as I've seen you post about AD&D's implied setting before. For some people this is more important than for others. I get that you think it's unimportant. That's fine. For you. On the other hand, you seem blind to the fact that it might not be okay for someone else. That's not theoretical at all. One of many reasons I appreciate ACKS as much as I do and play it to the exclusion of other versions of the game is that it actually looks very carefully at what some of these implications are and accounts for them (e.g. why aren't castles just built by Walls of Stone? Why aren't magic items mass produced and sold? How many 5th level Clerics are there in a decent sized city? How many light infantry can you hire in a month?).

For me, unlimited Cantrips of a certain sort (e.g. Ray of Frost) cross the line. They imply something considerably different about the setting from earlier versions of the game (lets ignore 4e, considering you're on record as having no more use for it than I do). This isn't the first time this has happened, either. 3.x did something quite similar with the rules surrounding magic item creation. Magic items (using RAW) became much more common. In that case it took the players actually doing it for me to realise how significant the changes were.

For 5E, if I felt at will magic was undesirable, I would just make the at will cantrips essentially level zero spells, with 6 slots per day or whatever.

For me, it would depend on if I was going for a magic heavy, or magic light setting.

As Ive pointed out elsewhere.

One of the big limiters on all this is the absurdly high mortality rate of adventurers. Especially magic users.

But. Once you start industrializing a fantasy world you might get something like Tom Wham's Iron Dragons setting with magically powered trains. Or even the setting of Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson which was a fantasy world extrapolated if it evolved into the modern era. Crystal Balls instead of TV. Flying Carpets instead of cars/planes, and so on. Which I think was the inspiration for TSR's AE Magitech setting. Think there was an Alternity AND a  d20 Modern mini-setting based on the same premise.