Adventurer Economy

[Previn]

Eh, it's not really more so than any other profession, if that. A 16 year old can, before he hit his 17th birthday, be able to cast Wall of Iron and have 15 ranks in Craft. He can do that having no ability in either when he was 15. So it's about 1 years mechanically speaking.

Pure casters take about twice as long as any other class to get started on their career, and then like all of the others require a rather steady influx of death-defying combat; over a hundred in fact.

Sorcerers start at 15 years +d4 years of age. A wizard starts at 15+2d6. Characters advance in levels crazy fast in D&D as adventurers. Hitting 12th level from 1st in under a year is not inconceivable. At 13 encounters per level, to gain 11 levels would be 143 encounters. Even at 1 encounter every 2 days, that's less than a year. Further, you could spend most of that time doing nothing related to crafting (putting no ranks into it) and just drop them in the last 3-4 levels, so maybe 3 months to become an extremely good ironworker. It sure as heck doesn't take years mechanically.

It's a pound of gold to get start with walls. I don't think it's consumed in the casting.

It's a material component. Yes it is.

Ah, so it is. Still really only a startup cost as you'll recoup the investment after the first go-round.

Actually, I think that's called Altruism, and I'm pretty sure it happens pretty regularly on a day to day basis among both the rich and the poor. Even if you reject pure altruism, and say that there is personal gratification in the act for the individual, the end outcome is the same.

Random altruism isn't going to be consistent or efficient. If a horde of mud covered farmers become economically desperate enough to grovel before a demi-god, quotidian crap like nails aren't going to be on their Christmas Wish List.

So we don't have charities in our world? Non-profits? Religions that espouse it and actually live by it? We don't have people giving up money to do something else out of charity, duty, morality, or simple emotional attachment? I'm very confused why you seem to think it's so rare that not everyone is a giant asshole that cares only about the bottom line and what they can get out of the world.

[Nath]

In actual history, the Sun King refused to spend six seconds giving the order to hand out bread. He refused that so hard that starving people of France cut his fucking head off.

In actual history, the Sun King was Louis XIV (the 14th), who died in his bed (from gangrene, but still). It was his great-great grandson Louis XVI (the 16th) who was beheaded.

Not that it really matters for the topic discussed.

[virgil]

Read Angelfromanotherpin's response on the advancement speed you're assuming to common and easy.

So we don't have charities in our world? Non-profits? Religions that espouse it and actually live by it? We don't have people giving up money to do something else out of charity, duty, morality, or simple emotional attachment? I'm very confused why you seem to think it's so rare that not everyone is a giant asshole that cares only about the bottom line and what they can get out of the world.

Real world charities don't maintain a society or an economy. We're actually fully capable of feeding everyone, but we don't, and the soup kitchens don't even get rid of hunger in their immediate area. That's because non-profits and charities are evenly distributed in neither location nor capability, nor are they inter-organized enough to efficiently adjust in relation to each other to account for the demands of society; all flaws that would be even more severe in a D&D universe. Add on top of that that charities do not have to function in the face of dragon attacks.

[Previn]

Read Angelfromanotherpin's response on the advancement speed you're assuming to common and easy.

I said nothing about common and easy? I pointed out that mechanically speaking, it does not take years of training, which is true. How 'difficult' it is will fluctuate wildly given how CR works. Combat is also not the only way to earn XP, though it is the only way with specific rules laid out.

You can seriously still get XP as an 8th level PC by killing a CR1 creatures one at time. You can get to 12th level without ever facing a CR over 5, and not having to face anything with a CR5 until you're 9th level, so I'm not sold on it not being 'easy' either.

Real world charities don't maintain a society or an economy. We're actually fully capable of feeding everyone, but we don't, and the soup kitchens don't even get rid of hunger in their immediate area. That's because non-profits and charities are evenly distributed in neither location nor capability, nor are they inter-organized enough to efficiently adjust in relation to each other to account for the demands of society; all flaws that would be even more severe in a D&D universe. Add on top of that that charities do not have to function in the face of dragon attacks.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what that has to do with whether altruism exists or not? I didn't say altruism will solve everything and all wizards would do it. I pointed out that there would be casters who do stuff like take time off from doing wonder drugs off a succubus's fanny to go make nails for the local village just because. And some wizards will turn down a 450gp planeshift to the plane of whores because they want to help their community by making nails for free. Heck, some would do it all day every day.

How many would do it, and how large of an area they could support/sustain would be open to debate, but I didn't go into that because anything in that area because I don't know it. I do think that primary casters would be much, much better at altruism that their real world counter parts because of magic.

[virgil]

I said nothing about common and easy? I pointed out that mechanically speaking, it does not take years of training, which is true.

Are you fvcking simple? Even you noticed that wizards start at age 15+2d6, and that +X varies from class to class, showing an actual variance in training. Assuming you can count, 2d6 or even 1d4 is greater than "less than a year."

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what that has to do with whether altruism exists or not?

It has to do with the fact that it's not going to be enough to make a real difference in the peasants' lives.

If the wizard in interested in making enough money to maintain a certain lifestyle because it's easier to spend it than it is to cast spells, then he's not going to produce enough of anything before all of his physical comforts are accounted for. That means nails are never going to come up as worth his time to even acknowledge, and this is a fairly nice wizard as things go, because he's choosing not to incinerate the town to keep his palace polished.

If the wizard is one of those uncommon altruistic types who takes the time off for spontaneous charity to the economically depressed peasantry, neither party is going to prioritize nails over major things like feeding their hungry or building a house; or the deed they can't actually do on their own, killing the manticore.

The only wizard who's going to be making nails is the one so invested/obsessed in fulfilling the material needs of a community, that he actually ran out demand for buildings, safety, weapons, armor, clothing, vehicles, food, water, lighting, furniture, and who knows what else that rates higher than nails. This is not a wizard with a bit of altruism, but an expy from Red Son, placing an entire city in a bottle under his control.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I said nothing about common and easy? I pointed out that mechanically speaking, it does not take years of training, which is true.

Are you fvcking simple? Even you noticed that wizards start at age 15+2d6, and that +X varies from class to class, showing an actual variance in training. Assuming you can count, 2d6 or even 1d4 is greater than "less than a year."

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what that has to do with whether altruism exists or not?

It has to do with the fact that it's not going to be enough to make a real difference in the peasants' lives.

You're being intentionally dense, aren't you, for argument's sake? A wizard, by the rules, starts out somewhere between 17 and 27 years old. That's a range. You don't have to roll for it, you can say "My wizard got out of apprenticeship early" and make him 17. Hell, that range isn't even binding, you can say "My character is a magical wunderkind" and start out at any age you can convince the GM your character is.

But that's irrelevant to the fucking point anyway because whatever age you start your character in, it's totally possible and even likely that your character will hit the level nessissary to cast Wall of Iron and Fabricate within a year of game-time.

[shadzar]

Why would a wizard be making swords and shit anyway? Why wouldn't a wizard use his money to make more exquisite and expensive things that take less?

A wizard out to make money would do nothing the like what has been discussed so far. He would likely take some marble, transmute rock to mud, shape it into some sort of pottery and then dispel magic on it to create works of art. Who else could make pottery out of marble in about an hour and each piece sell for about 1,000 GP each?

How many urns or vases could be made out of 9 20-foot cubes of marble? how about slabs for a floor? doors for a palace/temple? columns? you have someplace to make money from its nobility and they would buy art and not likely try to challenge a level 9 wizard.

shaping "clay" as the mud will and could me is something a wizard has to do for MANY spells, so it doesn't take any sort of outside work like a fabricate spell would to make works of art.

Articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship (jewelry, swords, glass, crystal, etc.) cannot be fabricated unless the wizard otherwise has great skill in the appropriate craft.

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

fabricate swords? why even mentioned that? a 9th level wizard then spends years as an apprentice blacksmith just to fabricate swords?

[flare22]

ok fair point i was a little hasty there. standing armies were in existence i was being stupid and said some contradictory stuff sorry about that. what i was trying to say before i said something stupid was that there were very few national armies standing or otherwise. this is because most nations operated on the feudal system every lord had there own personal troops and so did the king. to me a standing army implies that the national government is in control. since the king did not control the lords armies directly there really was no national army. a good example of this is the duke of Normandy. William the Conqueror invasion of England was a Norman invasions yes he was technically a french noble but his army listened to him first hes had not help from the french king or during the battle of Hastings.

also like i said professional soldiers existed but in very limited numbers they were either knights or men at arms in the employ of a noble in witch case there weapons armor training room board and everything else was covered by there lord. these forces were only as large as there nobles could afford to keep year long. or they were mercenaries in which case the mercenary captain was in charge of paying for everything or in the case of sell-swords AKA individual mercenaries not belonging to a company they paid for there own gear. Sell-Swords are the closest thing i can think of to compare adventurers two they worked as bodyguard caravan guards and even bounty hunters. now both mercenaries and sell swords unlike the nobility often did have access to skilled smiths and even if they did there nomadic nature prevented them from setting up a decent forge so how did they equip themselves? steeling weapons is not exactly the best of options if you want to keep from getting executed so im guessing those that could often had to hire smiths as they passed through and area. since carrying large amounts of grain or trade goods was impractical as a means of trade they paid in coins witch were much for portable in fact smiths have been accepting coin in exchange for gear since long before the middle ages. for example in early Rome soldiers were expected to buy there own gear and they typically paid in silver coins.

[Previn]

I said nothing about common and easy? I pointed out that mechanically speaking, it does not take years of training, which is true.

Are you fvcking simple? Even you noticed that wizards start at age 15+2d6, and that +X varies from class to class, showing an actual variance in training. Assuming you can count, 2d6 or even 1d4 is greater than "less than a year."

A SORCERER starts at age 15, and gets +1d4 years for starting age. A SORCERER starts level 1 at age 16 roughly 25% of the time if you randomly roll. To get to level 12 takes less than a year if you aveage a single appropitae CR encounter once every 2 days with time left over. Learning how to go from level 1 to level 12 does not take multiple years. In fact it takes less than a year. That's also ignoring that you can choose your character's starting age, as per the rules.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what that has to do with whether altruism exists or not?

It has to do with the fact that it's not going to be enough to make a real difference in the peasants' lives.

So... spending two weeks and making a Create Food and Water trap that's pressure activated and self resets, feeding a small city doesn't make a difference in peasant's lives? That is seriously capable of producing enough enough food for more than 43,000 people each day, more than twice the base amount for a metropolis according to the DMG.

Making nails wasn't the point. It was the example that a caster could do stuff for other people, and could even do so if it didn't directly benefit them. If you want to move the goal post to on what the wizard has to be doing to provide better conditions for the peasants... you're not interested in having an honest discourse, or you're missing the obvious point that casters can and some will do nice stuff for people, just because.

[virgil]

First, fix your quote tags.
Second...

So... spending a week and making a Create Food and Water trap that's pressure activated and self resets, feeding an entire city doesn't make a difference in peasant's lives?

Fvck your Tippyverse navel-gazing. I've repeatedly stated that this whole conjecture changes if you presume a high density of reality-shapers, at which point the setting has no predictable output, and I've been trying to ignore your repeated magic trap 'gotcha'. The moment 3rd level spellcasters are readily making limitless food/healing/housing machines because of crappy rules, you have nothing but a wasteland because shadows ate everyone. Either that, or you have a completely different setting that won't resemble D&D at any angle. In either situation, the conversation is pointless because we have to start asking Mother-May-I on every single major rule that drastically changes the setting; be it 3.5's wish abuse, Shadow Over the Sun, simulacrum of an entire pantheon in front of a mirror of opposition...

[Omegonthesane]

Fabricate doesn't cost "practically nothing". It's very expensive. It's years of time to study iron working and spellcraft to be able to cast it at all. It's a pound of gold to get the wall of iron, it's an hour of work to prepare spells. Actually casting the spell is just six seconds, but now you're left with a huge heap of nails or some shit and it'll take hours to pack that up into something that makes sense to trade or distribute.

What it actually costs is "no training time, because I trained to be a wizard so I could make reality my bitch, Fabricate's a minor side effect" and "no resources, the plebs gathered a block of iron for me and I fabricated it for my amusement".

And don't forget the opportunity costs! Every time your Cleric of Vulcan uses a spell slot to make a pile of flatware for the Plebs, he could have made 450 gp for planeshifting a rich dude to the plane of whores.

Chump change, he's already in the Wish Economy by this point if he's casting level 5 spells.

The idea that spellcasters (plural) would spend any of their time donating their spellcasting prowess towards the end of increasing societal standards of living is deeply absurd. In actual history, the Sun King refused to spend six seconds giving the order to hand out bread. He refused that so hard that starving people of France cut his fucking head off. What the fuck is someone who has real power going to do in the face of much smaller numbers of starving peasants who aren't even capable of chopping his head off no matter what?

Bad enough that you're completely misrepresenting and oversimplifying the wholesale economic crisis that led to the French Revolution, at least get the King right. Louis XIV presided over a period of prosperity, hence getting called the Sun King.

Furthermore are you in fact saying the amounts that Bill Gates donates to charity are in fact deeply absurd, and would be deeply absurd if they were measurable in tens of cents rather than thousands, possibly millions of dollars?

What percent of the population would Mitt Romney have derided as useless leeches if he wasn't even trying to win an election and the people in question didn't even make his coffee or gas up his car?

I'm going to take a wild guess and say "none" because that sounded like a backfired political move to explicitly gain votes, but I didn't watch the US election closely.

[MGuy]

It doesn't just take altruists. There are any number of reasons a Wizard or casters in general could decide to make the world a better place. Clerics could do it to appease their gods. They could do it because they are bored. Some might want to just own a kingdom and make it the best damn kingdom they can. Yes they could go do planar things and start playing reality stratego but some wizards might just settle for having mundane whores and blow in mundane land because it is much easier to get, and maintain control of the normies than it is to go playing around in the planes. There are people RIGHT NOW spending hours of time going over rules minutia of obscure games that have billions of other things they could be doing right now. I can EASILY imagine a person with capabilities rivaling the gods of myth deciding to make the world around him a better place for others especially when they can do it, pretty much, by themselves. They barely need any help outside of maybe the compliance of the very people they are trying to help, people who are MUCH much weaker than they are.

[virgil]

I can EASILY imagine a person with capabilities rivaling the gods of myth deciding to make the world around him a better place for others especially when they can do it, pretty much, by themselves. They barely need any help outside of maybe the compliance of the very people they are trying to help, people who are MUCH much weaker than they are.

Will the wizard stay and enforce free distribution? Because the more hands all of these clothes and iron ingots go through, the sooner the supply will suddenly stop and rot in a warehouse until the holder gets paid. The Debeers business model is not a recent innovation.

And this discussion does an excellent job of ignoring the inevitable dragon burning down the city for the piles of metal goods, gelatinous cubes overrunning the land when they get ahold of the food stores, and sahuagin raiding the distribution chain. Unless of course all of these SimWizards 'obviously' outnumber every powerful force that doesn't actually give a flip about civilization.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Will the wizard stay and enforce free distribution? Because the more hands all of these clothes and iron ingots go through, the sooner the supply will suddenly stop and rot in a warehouse until the holder gets paid. The Debeers business model is not a recent innovation.

Depends on the dedication and attention span of the wizard. But rest assured, the Elminster Problem applies here even more than it does to petty little orc incursions on the kingdom. If a caster has decided to set up their perfect little communist utopia, people who decide they can game the system to become really rich in the process better be really damned subtle about it if they don't want that caster to fuck them up the ass with hot magic energy.

And really, this is not that different from the stock plot in fantasy going back forever where there is a benevolent kingdom held together by the will, charisma and idealism of a good king, and what happens when that king goes the way of all flesh. Yeah, it's going to fall apart when the wizard gets busy/distracted/bored/dead, but that happens in fantasy settings all the damned time.

[virgil]

And really, this is not that different from the stock plot in fantasy going back forever where there is a benevolent kingdom held together by the will, charisma and idealism of a good king, and what happens when that king goes the way of all flesh. Yeah, it's going to fall apart when the wizard gets busy/distracted/bored/dead, but that happens in fantasy settings all the damned time.

And that's something I've acknowledged as the exception that does fit, isolated bubble kingdoms that don't fundamentally change the setting; because they're going to be dictatorships where the wizard swoops down to incinerate price gougers and discourages significant contact with the outside world because totally open borders invites all manner of civilization-destroying threats on an already busy schedule.

[MGuy]

I can EASILY imagine a person with capabilities rivaling the gods of myth deciding to make the world around him a better place for others especially when they can do it, pretty much, by themselves. They barely need any help outside of maybe the compliance of the very people they are trying to help, people who are MUCH much weaker than they are.

Will the wizard stay and enforce free distribution? Because the more hands all of these clothes and iron ingots go through, the sooner the supply will suddenly stop and rot in a warehouse until the holder gets paid. The Debeers business model is not a recent innovation.

And this discussion does an excellent job of ignoring the inevitable dragon burning down the city for the piles of metal goods, gelatinous cubes overrunning the land when they get ahold of the food stores, and sahuagin raiding the distribution chain. Unless of course all of these SimWizards 'obviously' outnumber every powerful force that doesn't actually give a flip about civilization.

Wizard can train other wizards, enlist immortal help, the people can actually get off their asses and I don't know HELP keep things together. Other wizards might decide to 'compete' to make the best kingdom cause LOL boredom/it's fashionable/popular. Wizard could be working with a team of adventurers to keep shit together. Etc, etc, blah blah blah. There could be ANY NUMBER of reasons why it happens to succeed or why it might fail but if the question is would it happen that a demigod decides to help civilization (even if it's only one civilization) then I'd have to insist that, not only is it plausible, that it is probably even inevitable barring any force that purposefully keeps such a thing from happening. Even an evil wizard running a kingdom could actually force their people into some kind of progressive society. I mean we have real world examples of that and we don't even have wizards.

[Whatever]

What percent of the population would Mitt Romney have derided as useless leeches if he wasn't even trying to win an election and the people in question didn't even make his coffee or gas up his car?

I've heard 83% from a different Mormon. Well, technically, he praised the ~17% who actually contribute, and had this digression about how 2/12 is about 17% and the tribes of israel something something bible something. It sounded like it might have been an actual talking point.

[Previn]

Fvck your Tippyverse navel-gazing. I've repeatedly stated that this whole conjecture changes if you presume a high density of reality-shapers, at which point the setting has no predictable output, and I've been trying to ignore your repeated magic trap 'gotcha'. The moment 3rd level spellcasters are readily making limitless food/healing/housing machines because of crappy rules, you have nothing but a wasteland because shadows ate everyone. Either that, or you have a completely different setting that won't resemble D&D at any angle. In either situation, the conversation is pointless because we have to start asking Mother-May-I on every single major rule that drastically changes the setting; be it 3.5's wish abuse, Shadow Over the Sun, simulacrum of an entire pantheon in front of a mirror of opposition...

Ok, at this point I have to ask if you have any reading comprehension what so ever, of if you are really just this stupid. My points, very clearly are that:
1) It does not take a large amount of time (i.e. years) to learn to do something in D&D land.
2) Not all casters are going to pass up a less or no profit task to instead just make more money.

That's it. I didn't say anything about how many casters are going to be generous, or what their effect on the world is. I was pointing out that hey, there are non-assholes in the world who do charity and act in altruistic manners.

You seem to have some big problem with those, but can't actually argue against them, so you're setting up lots of strawmen instead.

[virgil]

Ok, at this point I have to ask if you have any reading comprehension what so ever, of if you are really just this stupid. My points, very clearly are that:
1) It does not take a large amount of time (i.e. years) to learn to do something in D&D land.
2) Not all casters are going to pass up a less or no profit task to instead just make more money.

For #1, when you start ignoring the guidelines and setting the age for whatever, training doesn't exist, and you have six year old wunderkinds spontaneously summoning badgers or seeing the darkness in a man's heart. When your suppositions take the unique snowflake protagonist assumption, nothing matters.
I have not argued against your point on #2, only on its importance. If you're not taking a stance on its influence on the setting, then you might as well be talking about wizards dying from heart failure or paladins falling from grace because a child kept singing "The Song That Never Ends" around him. Neither are impossible, but belaboring the point that it exists while steadfastly refusing a stance on its importance or likelihood makes the whole point deserve a "so fvcking what."

[MGuy]

Ok, at this point I have to ask if you have any reading comprehension what so ever, of if you are really just this stupid. My points, very clearly are that:
1) It does not take a large amount of time (i.e. years) to learn to do something in D&D land.
2) Not all casters are going to pass up a less or no profit task to instead just make more money.

For #1, when you start ignoring the guidelines and setting the age for whatever, training doesn't exist, and you have six year old wunderkinds spontaneously summoning badgers or seeing the darkness in a man's heart. When your suppositions take the unique snowflake protagonist assumption, nothing matters.
I have not argued against your point on #2, only on its importance. If you're not taking a stance on its influence on the setting, then you might as well be talking about wizards dying from heart failure or paladins falling from grace because a child kept singing "The Song That Never Ends" around him. Neither are impossible, but belaboring the point that it exists while steadfastly refusing a stance on its importance or likelihood makes the whole point deserve a "so fvcking what."

Virgil your reaction to the first part is a bit confusing. What the fuck does starting age matter? People are unlikely to do things as kids. So the fuck what? That doesn't change the fact that people can take up wizardry and become a planes walker within a year after that. What position on this are you attempting to break down?
Second: your position that high level people's activities don't have an effect on the overall setting is very odd and I can't fathom exactly how you can stand by that position without making quite a few assumptions about how status quo a setting is dedicated to being. Maybe in a setting like Dark Sun it would be difficult to change things overall but in D+D I could imagine it being done. The thing is most people probably don't want that to happen because people want to use the setting as is, or at least pretty close to as is, so significant change would harm that.

[Previn]

For #1, when you start ignoring the guidelines and setting the age for whatever, training doesn't exist, and you have six year old wunderkinds spontaneously summoning badgers or seeing the darkness in a man's heart. When your suppositions take the unique snowflake protagonist assumption, nothing matters.

The RULES say that a sorcerer's randomly determine starting age is 15+1d4 years. DMG, pg. 109. They then go on to tell you the minimum age you can take for a starting character. In fact they say you can choose your age in the every first line under the Age.

You can choose or randomly generate your character's age. If you choose it, it must be at least the minimum age for the character's race and class (see Table 6-4 Random Starting Ages).

15 is considered adulthood in D&D. It's also entirely possible to have a wizard that is only 16 years old, by taking a another class with a lower starting age first and then multiclassing.

I have not argued against your point on #2, only on its importance. If you're not taking a stance on its influence on the setting, then you might as well be talking about wizards dying from heart failure or paladins falling from grace because a child kept singing "The Song That Never Ends" around him. Neither are impossible, but belaboring the point that it exists while steadfastly refusing a stance on its importance or likelihood makes the whole point deserve a "so fvcking what."

We seriously talk about wizards fucking really in the butt as a regular thing, at like level 5. The Den invented the Wish economy concept. I seriously showed an example that let a 12th level caster with 2 weeks of work provide food for the largest of cities and large metropolises in D&D forever with no more work. No sane person would postulate that a caster couldn't influence the setting to their hearts desire, limited only by the influence of outside actors.

I'm done. Think whatever you want, there is clearly no oint in trying to have this conversation with you.