Core Principle: Your Fantasy Economy is Bullshit

[PoliteNewb]

I'm not sure that's true. The D&D Laborer earns 1 silver piece a week - one fiftieth of a pound of silver. The English Peasant Laborer earned one shilling per week - worth one twentieth of a Pound of silver. In terms of actual precious metal, the low end of payment appears to be about 2.5 times higher under the royally decreed fixed wages of England than they are in the basic D&D lists.

Where did you get the 1 sp/week figure? Because my PH lists an untrained hireling (described as a menial worker) at 1 sp per day. That's roughly 1/10 a pound of silver, or about twice the English peasant.
Not to say I didn't miss/forget something, because I never really paid much attention to those listed pay scales.

Not to mention, D&D pricing for goods and services is kind of shit anyway...hell, the same PH chapter (Equipment) says that 1 sp will buy "a poor meal of bread, baked turnips, onions, and water"...while ignoring the fact that it will also buy 5 chickens (at 2 cp each), which you can roast and eat. I'm having a hard time reconciling that one.

Final thought...if you want to know the purchasing power of the average D&D inhabitant, what about analyzing it through use of the Profession skill, which gives you a straight up game mechanic formula to determine how much money people can make?

[FatR]

Contrast this with the real-world feudalism model, where the lord basically lets his peasants starve and be totally incapable of defending themselves, when most of them could be effective soldiers (as effective as the lord) with proper food, equipment and training. There it just doesn't make sense to hoard the wealth.

The real-world feudalism model displaced tribal militias most of the times states formed and imposed some sorts of laws, precisely because it was more effective in year-to-year life and, therefore, more convenient. For both the lord and the peasants. Skills peasants needed in everyday life did not intersect with skills needed to be effective warriors. And before gunpowder and drill, the difference between a trained, well-equipped professional warrior and just a strong dude shown how to use a cheap weapon was staggering. So no, lords weren't starving their peasants to make them incapable of defending themselves (peasants mostly had better standards of living in high Middle Ages than they had after that and until the positive effects of the Industrial Revolution began to tell, anyway). They didn't need to.

Of course, this model doesn't work that well in DnD because a strong peasant with a repurposed farm implement can, with luck and determination, become far more badass, that a lord's son that was trained from childhood. In a space of days or weeks. Therefore the society needs to make more provisions for elevating people of exceptional merit (unless it is maintained solely by the strength uber-powerful magic overlords, who oppress everyone equally and don't want rivals - but the model with the ruler being constantly hostile to his own subjects doesn't look very efficient).

[Crissa]

A hireling is an untrained peasant leaving their life for an adventurer's life expectancy.

Obviously, they know either how dangerous it is, or they have it better than at first appears.

-Crissa

[Username17]

I'm not sure that's true. The D&D Laborer earns 1 silver piece a week - one fiftieth of a pound of silver.

You just said yourself, that the amount of precious metals in circulation isn't that important. And I don't even care about PHB prices for mundane stuff, if only because editions come and go (never mind that no one put much thought in them).

So you only accept numbers you pulled right out of your ass? Because from where I'm standing, the prices of stuff are rather high, while the wages are rather low. The actual numbers given imply an economy that is even more depressed than the early renaissance England and France it is supposedly based upon.

But we know for a fact, that hunger due to poor harvests is practically unknown in DnDland,

Why the fuck do we know that? "The People Are Starving, blah blah blah" is standard D&D plot #4. It comes right after "The Mayor's Daughter has been kidnapped by savage humanoids" and right before "A bunch of undead are rising from the graves outside of town."

that relatively small plots of non-monsterinfested land can feed huge metropolises,

Wait... how do we know that? Seriously, what the hell? First of all, the DMG's "major metropolis" only goes up to 25,000+ people. That's the end of the damn chart. That's one twentieth the size of Teotihuacan. From the standpoint of actual ancient civilization, actual major cities don't even seem to exist. The population of Pre-Plague England was about four million.

In Eberron, Aundair has a population of 2 million. Breland has a population of 3,700,000. Cyre has a population of 1.5 million. Karranath has a population of 2.5 million. Thrane has a population of 2.3 million. None of the five nations maintains the population of pre-plague England (although Breland is close). Of which, the largest city of the largest country pops in at 80k. Not a tiny city by pre-industrial standards, but no big shakes by ancient world standards - historical Rome was more than 12 times that size.

that many states maintain massive standing armies of professional soldiers (too expensive for RL medieval states)

Well, D&D usually takes place during wartime, so it's not really clear how many soldiers are really standing army. But in any case, the kinds of grinding poverty that people in D&D land apparently live under is quite consistent with setting up a payment plan for a large standing army.

that standards of healthcare at least include epidemic prevention.

Why do you say that? "There's a Plague!" is another pretty common D&D adventure.

And that nearly all settlements of any size maintain contantly operating inns, which means that people with surplus wealth they can spend on ale and wenches are commonplace .

Ale and wenches do not indicate much of a surplus, especially in medieval times. Ale is part of your daily rations, and wenches are available in all economies regardless of wealth or poverty because they are a natural percentage of the population.

-Username17

[Prak]

Not to mention, D&D pricing for goods and services is kind of shit anyway...hell, the same PH chapter (Equipment) says that 1 sp will buy "a poor meal of bread, baked turnips, onions, and water"...while ignoring the fact that it will also buy 5 chickens (at 2 cp each), which you can roast and eat. I'm having a hard time reconciling that one.

That actually totally makes sense. One can, even now, go out and buy steak (decent steak at that) and sides for two for like $10-15 if they're willing to cook it themselves, where as if you go to a restuarant, you're easily paying that much for one person, because your paying someone else to do the prep work for you.

Or bread. A 5 lb. sack of flour is $3 or so, and Water is free-cheap, depending on where you are, yeast is also cheap. For maybe ten bucks, you make at least ten loaves of bread, where as if you go buy a loaf, you're lucky if, in my area, anyway, if you can get a loaf for $2.

[RandomCasualty2]

Of course, this model doesn't work that well in DnD because a strong peasant with a repurposed farm implement can, with luck and determination, become far more badass, that a lord's son that was trained from childhood. In a space of days or weeks. Therefore the society needs to make more provisions for elevating people of exceptional merit (unless it is maintained solely by the strength uber-powerful magic overlords, who oppress everyone equally and don't want rivals - but the model with the ruler being constantly hostile to his own subjects doesn't look very efficient).

Well no.

Ability scores matter a lot. If you're a dumbass wizard you wont' get that far, no matter how much training. Similarly if you're a weak, clumsy fighter you're just not going far.

And this shit is basically based around your parents. If you had good parentage chances are you're going to be smart or strong or whatever. Not surprisingly, the children of adventurers and major people tend to be better than the children of peons.

Seriously, genetic disposition is way stronger in D&D than even in real-life. D&D is a world where you don't get any stronger by lifting weights. Seriously, if your strength is 8, it's gonna stay that way no matter how much you work out or train. Your only way of raising it is to gain 4 levels.

[FatR]

So you only accept numbers you pulled right out of your ass?

To be honest, I don't even care about them enough to pull them out of my ass, until PCs interact with them somehow. And they usually don't. The very notion of mundane goods and services costing the same for all settings is beyond laughable, and prices itselves are already pulled out of the ass anyway, but, thankfully, role of these goods and services in the game is small enough to not care about how you can make a profit by separating ten-foot ladders into ten-foot poles and selling the latter.

In other words, judging how settings should look like on the basis of inconsequential and poorly thought-out rules is stupid. While rules and settings should be generally consistent with each other, this does not mean that the latter should adapt to the former and not vice versa. Particularly if we're houseruling shit of 3.X left and right anyway.

Why the fuck do we know that? "The People Are Starving, blah blah blah" is standard D&D plot #4.

OK. Then provide the examples of published adventures with this plot. The starvation shouldn't be caused by evil magic or raiders that prevent people from working the fields, too. Ten examples or so should suffice, as there are thousands of DnD adventures out there and you state this is their fourth most common plot.

Wait... how do we know that?

FRCS 3E p. 178. "City of Waterdeep, Metropolis, 132,661". And Waterdeep isn't an uniquely big city. And it is supported by the (densely populated) stretch of land 30-40 miles in diameter. And if your fantasy economic doesn't at least try to explain how this works, instead of saying it shouldn't work for such-and-such reasons that aren't applicable to a high-magic world, there is no reason to care about it for me.

In Eberron, Aundair has a population of 2 million. Breland has a population of 3,700,000. Cyre has a population of 1.5 million. Karranath has a population of 2.5 million. Thrane has a population of 2.3 million. None of the five nations maintains the population of pre-plague England (although Breland is close). Of which, the largest city of the largest country pops in at 80k.

Sharn is 200k. Anyway, Eberron is just two years out of a century-long war that saw the use of magical WMDs.

Well, D&D usually takes place during wartime, so it's not really clear how many soldiers are really standing army.

Even in Eberron there is theoretically peace now.

But in any case, the kinds of grinding poverty that people in D&D land apparently live under is quite consistent with setting up a payment plan for a large standing army.

Can you, like, offer any proof of grinding poverty in DnDland, besides prices in PHB of a single edition?

Why do you say that? "There's a Plague!" is another pretty common D&D adventure.

Again, can you drop a half-dozen or so examples, if it is pretty common? I can remeber one, and there the plague was caused by a magically-bred virus deliberately spread by corrupt authorities, so it doesn't really count.

Ale and wenches do not indicate much of a surplus, especially in medieval times. Ale is part of your daily rations, and wenches are available in all economies regardless of wealth or poverty because they are a natural percentage of the population.

They do. If ale is part of your daily rations, then you have a significant surplus of the grain above the survival levels. If your wenches (and inkeeper and whatever) can serve in the inn, then your village is rich enough for them to not work in the fields.

[MGuy]

Even in Eberron there is theoretically peace now.

As I understand it the people of Eberron have quite a few reasons to still have their guard up.

[hogarth]

I'm not sure that's true. The D&D Laborer earns 1 silver piece a week - one fiftieth of a pound of silver.

Where did you get the 1 sp/week figure? Because my PH lists an untrained hireling (described as a menial worker) at 1 sp per day. That's roughly 1/10 a pound of silver, or about twice the English peasant.
Not to say I didn't miss/forget something, because I never really paid much attention to those listed pay scales.

Yes, Frank's off by a factor of 5.

[Blicero]

Sharn is 200k. Anyway, Eberron is just two years out of a century-long war that saw the use of magical WMDs.

Sharn is by far the outlier, though. Fairhaven, Wroat, Rhukaan Draal, Korth, Karrlakton, all these have populations solidly in the 70-90K range. Sharn and Flamekeep are really the only outliers. And the rest of the described cities are all like 20-30000 at the most. It's like the writers thought, "Hey, let's give each nation one or two really big cities, but the rest we'll just put in more normal D&D terms!" I suspect a lot of it comes from the problem that the designers and writers couldn't really ever come to a consensus if Eberron was going to be more traditional D&D with a couple of extra steampunk-esque touches or full on Industrial Revolution if not later era steampunk a la The Light Ages or something. Eberron reminds me a lot of, say, early 20th century Europe in things like nationalism, but it's populations are resolutely medieval.

And I suspect that the Last War was not significantly damaging to any of the Five Nations' populations. From the campaign book (admittedly the only thing I've read), I get the impression it was much more like the 100 Years War or something, only on a larger scale. Ie, occasional big battles that were really damaging stretched out in between longer periods of simmering intrigue, sabotage, and skirmishing. This site (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#European) states that there were about 185000 combined casualties in that war. That's like less than 10% of the population in the cases of most Eberron countries. And casualties of this nature were probably more accurate for Eberron than other fantasy words, because Eberron emphasizes low-level dudes slugging it out being the common trend.

You really need to go to, say, Sengoku Jidai-era feudal Nippon if you want casualties that were more than 20-30% of the population.

[PoliteNewb]

A hireling is an untrained peasant leaving their life for an adventurer's life expectancy.

Obviously, they know either how dangerous it is, or they have it better than at first appears.

-Crissa

Aaaand...where did you get that from? Again, my PH defines "hireling, untrained" as "laborers, porters, cooks, maids, etc"...which are the sorts of things adventurers might throw money away on, in town. I don't recall a D&D adventurer ever taking a chambermaid with him to go slay wyverns.

Maybe you're thinking of "hireling, trained" which specifically includes mercenary warriors", but they get higher wages...and still too low, at that. Earlier editions of D&D had wages of seriously 10x higher, because killing people is a risky job for NPC slobs.

[Ganbare Gincun]

So what does an economy for a fantasy setting with magic actually look like, then? Do we basically end up with something like Eberron or Ivalice where it's basically like our world now, but with magic instead of technology? Or a blend of both?

[MGuy]

Well speaking generally across the board. I'd think we should just leave it at a "it depends". Magic isn't a hard coded term. Different system's settings, set ups have different styles of "magic" that do various things and have varying limits and uses. I'd think it would be impossible to determine what anything looked like until we know exactly what "magic" CAN do in a given setting.

[Username17]

Well speaking generally across the board. I'd think we should just leave it at a "it depends". Magic isn't a hard coded term. Different system's settings, set ups have different styles of "magic" that do various things and have varying limits and uses. I'd think it would be impossible to determine what anything looked like until we know exactly what "magic" CAN do in a given setting.

That's a tautologically true but ridiculously unhelpful statement.

I think it's very important to note that magical creation is just a job. It creates wealth, but so does farming. Most of the wealth creation tricks really aren't even that big a deal. I mean seriously, wall of stone? It's 37.5 cubic feet of stone. That's nice... and it's even cooler that it comes pre-installed. But there isn't a quarry on the planet that would wipe its ass with that kind of power.

-Username17

[kzt]

A hireling is an untrained peasant leaving their life for an adventurer's life expectancy.

Obviously, they know either how dangerous it is, or they have it better than at first appears.

-Crissa

Virtually all young men think that they are invulnerable, and while bad things might happen it won't happen to THEM. Eventually, if they survive long enough, they realize that they were wrong and start behaving differently.

[Crissa]

Virtually all young men won't take a deal that doesn't include food. And if food when you're out of town costs a silver piece a day...

-Crissa

...You do know that people who grow wheat/rice/whatevergrain have spare time, right? And beer is like bread. Only you drink it. It doesn't go bad as quickly as water, it shouldn't taste especially bad, and it staves off ailments in the real world (or it did back then). Think of it as pickled water.

[PoliteNewb]

That actually totally makes sense. One can, even now, go out and buy steak (decent steak at that) and sides for two for like $10-15 if they're willing to cook it themselves, where as if you go to a restuarant, you're easily paying that much for one person, because your paying someone else to do the prep work for you.

Or bread. A 5 lb. sack of flour is $3 or so, and Water is free-cheap, depending on where you are, yeast is also cheap. For maybe ten bucks, you make at least ten loaves of bread, where as if you go buy a loaf, you're lucky if, in my area, anyway, if you can get a loaf for $2.

No, it doesn't make sense to me. Let's look at some numbers.

We'll start with your bread example...you have demonstrated that buying bread by the loaf as opposed to making it costs roughly twice as much. Okay, great. But that's not D&D land. Over there, you can buy FIVE loaves of bread for the same price as a poor meal involving bread (I'm guessing less than a full loaf). For extra crazy, 5 lb. of flour costs 1 sp, whereas a loaf of bread costs 2 cp. In our world, instead of a loaf of bread costing 2/3 as much as a 5 lb. bag of flour, it costs 1/5 as much. So making your own bread makes LESS sense than just plain buying the loaf.

Since other people were discussing ale, let's look at that. One mug of ale costs 40% of a menial laborer's daily wage (4 cp, compared to 1 sp). In our modern terms, let's say that laborer makes $4/hour, and works 10 hour days ($40/day). So his mug of ale, in D&D land costs...$16? Sound about right? And a meal that serves ale (watered, along with crappy chicken stew and bread) costs $120.

Finally, your steak example...you demonstrated that ingredients are perhaps half the price of buying the prepared meal. Well, in D&D land you can buy a whole chicken (2 cp), a quart of ale (5 cp), and a loaf of bread (2 cp) and have ingredients for a hearty meal for around a silver...but somehow a meal of thin chicken stew, bread, and watery ale costs 3x that amount.

Does that make any kind of sense?

[Crissa]

Prepared food normally costs more than the ingredients.

-Crissa

[kzt]

Prepared food normally costs more than the ingredients.

IIRC, cost of the food at a restaurant is "typically" about 15% of the bill. I'm sure it varies a huge amount....

[MGuy]

Well speaking generally across the board. I'd think we should just leave it at a "it depends". Magic isn't a hard coded term. Different system's settings, set ups have different styles of "magic" that do various things and have varying limits and uses. I'd think it would be impossible to determine what anything looked like until we know exactly what "magic" CAN do in a given setting.

That's a tautologically true but ridiculously unhelpful statement.

I think it's very important to note that magical creation is just a job. It creates wealth, but so does farming. Most of the wealth creation tricks really aren't even that big a deal. I mean seriously, wall of stone? It's 37.5 cubic feet of stone. That's nice... and it's even cooler that it comes pre-installed. But there isn't a quarry on the planet that would wipe its ass with that kind of power.

-Username17

It is unhelpful but it is the truth. You can't begin to discuss magic's involvement in the economy WITHOUT having a specific system to reference. So you cannot make a general statement about it. You've only proven my point by immediately referencing DnD after the first statement.

However even in terms of DnD I disagree with you, a lot. Casting, item creation, blah blah blah may just be "a job" but it is an undeniably and significantly BETTER job. With magic you can break past the limits, risks, and times that are set upon people by generic life. Yes a quarry HAS more material than a single casting of Wall of Stone but you have to get a LOT of man power and other resources to mine it in a fashion that would trump what an equal group of mages could produce. Then you face environmental hazards, weather, famine, having to protect shipments from ne'er do wells etc. When, on the flip side, you get enough people crafting wand of Wall of Stones and train not-so-high-level people to be able to use those wands and you've created a steady flow of whatever material you need that you can change at your leisure (i don't believe the spell designates what kind of rock you can produce). Doing so you don't have to worry about weather, famine, protecting the mine, destroying the landscape, endangering lives, etc etc. More over you can apply it DIRECTLY where you want it in the shape you want it in no muss no fuss.

But lets say you skip the Wall of Stone thing and want to get back with the quarry anyway. With magic added you can multiply your production by being able to divine WHERE the stone you're looking for is, being able to create instant tunnels where ever you need them, preventing health risks, guarding and warding from animals and beasts both under the ground and around it (because you may slip into the under dark or some thing's cave and I doubt magicless miners can defend themselves. Everything is made easier, better, and more efficient with the most rudimentary applications of Magic in DnD. So much so I have no idea how you can keep to the thought that markets would be largely unchanged by it.

[Prak]

That actually totally makes sense. One can, even now, go out and buy steak (decent steak at that) and sides for two for like $10-15 if they're willing to cook it themselves, where as if you go to a restuarant, you're easily paying that much for one person, because your paying someone else to do the prep work for you.

Or bread. A 5 lb. sack of flour is $3 or so, and Water is free-cheap, depending on where you are, yeast is also cheap. For maybe ten bucks, you make at least ten loaves of bread, where as if you go buy a loaf, you're lucky if, in my area, anyway, if you can get a loaf for $2.

No, it doesn't make sense to me. Let's look at some numbers.

We'll start with your bread example...you have demonstrated that buying bread by the loaf as opposed to making it costs roughly twice as much. Okay, great. But that's not D&D land. Over there, you can buy FIVE loaves of bread for the same price as a poor meal involving bread (I'm guessing less than a full loaf). For extra crazy, 5 lb. of flour costs 1 sp, whereas a loaf of bread costs 2 cp. In our world, instead of a loaf of bread costing 2/3 as much as a 5 lb. bag of flour, it costs 1/5 as much. So making your own bread makes LESS sense than just plain buying the loaf.

Since other people were discussing ale, let's look at that. One mug of ale costs 40% of a menial laborer's daily wage (4 cp, compared to 1 sp). In our modern terms, let's say that laborer makes $4/hour, and works 10 hour days ($40/day). So his mug of ale, in D&D land costs...$16? Sound about right? And a meal that serves ale (watered, along with crappy chicken stew and bread) costs $120.

Finally, your steak example...you demonstrated that ingredients are perhaps half the price of buying the prepared meal. Well, in D&D land you can buy a whole chicken (2 cp), a quart of ale (5 cp), and a loaf of bread (2 cp) and have ingredients for a hearty meal for around a silver...but somehow a meal of thin chicken stew, bread, and watery ale costs 3x that amount.

Does that make any kind of sense?

Was I talking about D&D-world? No, I was explaining something in D&D-world using the real world. It still works the same way, even if the examples don't translate over.

[Username17]

However even in terms of DnD I disagree with you, a lot. Casting, item creation, blah blah blah may just be "a job" but it is an undeniably and significantly BETTER job. With magic you can break past the limits, risks, and times that are set upon people by generic life. Yes a quarry HAS more material than a single casting of Wall of Stone but you have to get a LOT of man power and other resources to mine it in a fashion that would trump what an equal group of mages could produce. Then you face environmental hazards, weather, famine, having to protect shipments from ne'er do wells etc. When, on the flip side, you get enough people crafting wand of Wall of Stones and train not-so-high-level people to be able to use those wands and you've created a steady flow of whatever material you need that you can change at your leisure (i don't believe the spell designates what kind of rock you can produce). Doing so you don't have to worry about weather, famine, protecting the mine, destroying the landscape, endangering lives, etc etc. More over you can apply it DIRECTLY where you want it in the shape you want it in no muss no fuss.

You just totally proved my point. The idea that you cast a spell so the results have to be "undeniably" better than just doing things the mundane way is bullshit. And you just swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, even while you were giving a valid counterexample.

Sure, let's use that fucking D&D Stone Wall spell. Those wands you want to make (well, staves to be honest, but whatever)? They cost 13.5 pounds of gold per charge. Crafting a charge requires 2/3 of a day's work by a 9th level wizard and almost 7 pounds of gold. You know how much 37.5 cubic feet of stone cost? I'll give you a hint: it's less than 98.4 ounces of pure gold (~$123,600 at today's prices).

As was pointed out in the original post: waving a wand around and saying "bibbity bobbity boo!" and conjuring water or stone or whatever is really impressive. But it's just a job. And when you factor in the mana, charges, cooldown time, or power crystals that various game worlds saddle magic with - it's often not even a particularly well paid job. There are few game worlds indeed where mastering elemental power and using it for conjuring water is competitive with sending a village kid to the stream a few times with a bucket.

Just because something appears in a fountain of magic sparks and looks awesome when it shows up, doesn't mean that's the most efficient way to get that task accomplished. Sure, Michael Jordan can use his amazing athleticism to mow your lawn, but economically it makes no sense to do that - you'd be better off getting it done slightly slower by farming the job out to some neighbor's kid.

-Username17

[MGuy]

However even in terms of DnD I disagree with you, a lot. Casting, item creation, blah blah blah may just be "a job" but it is an undeniably and significantly BETTER job. With magic you can break past the limits, risks, and times that are set upon people by generic life. Yes a quarry HAS more material than a single casting of Wall of Stone but you have to get a LOT of man power and other resources to mine it in a fashion that would trump what an equal group of mages could produce. Then you face environmental hazards, weather, famine, having to protect shipments from ne'er do wells etc. When, on the flip side, you get enough people crafting wand of Wall of Stones and train not-so-high-level people to be able to use those wands and you've created a steady flow of whatever material you need that you can change at your leisure (i don't believe the spell designates what kind of rock you can produce). Doing so you don't have to worry about weather, famine, protecting the mine, destroying the landscape, endangering lives, etc etc. More over you can apply it DIRECTLY where you want it in the shape you want it in no muss no fuss.

You just totally proved my point. The idea that you cast a spell so the results have to be "undeniably" better than just doing things the mundane way is bullshit. And you just swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, even while you were giving a valid counterexample.

Sure, let's use that fucking D&D Stone Wall spell. Those wands you want to make (well, staves to be honest, but whatever)? They cost 13.5 pounds of gold per charge. Crafting a charge requires 2/3 of a day's work by a 9th level wizard and almost 7 pounds of gold. You know how much 37.5 cubic feet of stone cost? I'll give you a hint: it's less than 98.4 ounces of pure gold (~$123,600 at today's prices).

As was pointed out in the original post: waving a wand around and saying "bibbity bobbity boo!" and conjuring water or stone or whatever is really impressive. But it's just a job. And when you factor in the mana, charges, cooldown time, or power crystals that various game worlds saddle magic with - it's often not even a particularly well paid job. There are few game worlds indeed where mastering elemental power and using it for conjuring water is competitive with sending a village kid to the stream a few times with a bucket.

Just because something appears in a fountain of magic sparks and looks awesome when it shows up, doesn't mean that's the most efficient way to get that task accomplished. Sure, Michael Jordan can use his amazing athleticism to mow your lawn, but economically it makes no sense to do that - you'd be better off getting it done slightly slower by farming the job out to some neighbor's kid.

-Username17

First off my mistake, I had thought Wall of Stone was 4th but it indeed is 5th level so yes Staff so the caster would have to be 12th level to make it. Now with that in mind I'd firstly state that at this point a caster wouldn't give a fuck about how much gold a project charges him because he can have an infinite amount. But say this caster was worried about it - and for some reason the kingdom itself wasn't a giant company that could channel its own gold into itself (seeing as though they basically own the people this gold is being paid to/coming from), and that somehow gold mattered more than the simple production of finished goods that could enrich the lives of all involved, that the actual transference of gold in this process actually mattered, and that the caster can't just produce the gold needed himself - then the caster could make this stone (which at this point I'm wondering why not iron since they probably need that more) into diamonds or whatever precious stone they need that's valued many times more than gold to offset the costs.

What's more, you are completely ignoring the fact that this caster, as a job, could produce this by himself, no added hands, no having to wait for it to get here or there, no having to find it, no loss of life, no slaves, no feeding anyone, having to pay people to watch other people, paying for transportation, whatever it costs to work on the stone, no muss no fuss. And it will be done in the exact fashion, and in the exact place you want it.

It gets better. By the time a caster is at 12th level it could happen 3 times on a given day without crafting a staff. And this happens with no monetary input outside of a few slabs of stone, and whatever he's charging (60 gold a pop by PHB standards using caster level 12). Sure, given a few months of set up a large group of slaves, people paid to watch the slaves, people paid to move the stone, people paid to work the stone could maybe produce more. If famine, weather, war, conflict, or finding a rich vein of it doesn't get in your way. But in the time, the tools, the man power, transport costs, and other things come into play I'd have to say I'd rather spend my gold on having the hirelings do it. And you could do it ANYWHERE you need the stone. You don't have to worry about procuring and securing the land. You don't have to worry about wandering beasts and even if you do your wizard is right there under employment.

And all this is ignoring the fact that you could use magic to help you mine better anyway. Magic is essentially technology. Tachnology changes production, which changes your economy. By continuing to argue against this simple fact you are basically saying, "yea you COULD take the magic train way out there but its no better than using a horse". Its true that you could get pretty much the same places with a horse and buggy but that doesn't mean riding the magic rails doesn't FAR outclass the horse in every way possible. I'm not saying that its better "because its magic" I'm saying it is better because, in the DnD system, it just plain is.

[Username17]

Mguy, don't be retarded. It makes you look bad. It makes us look bad. It makes this board in general look bad when people on it advance stupid arguments.

In arguing against the statement that "magic isn't as big a deal on the economy as you think it is" and the similar statement "just because you can keep doing something, doesn't mean its value is infinity" you have fallen into exactly those fallacies described. For fuck's sake, do some fucking math.

Here's our D&D Wizard. He can get himself a bunch of gold. He can't actually get infinity gold, because actually getting gold uses up his time and his spell slots, and that costs time too, because it takes 9 fucking hours to get spell slots. In any case, most of his wealth accumulation tricks are in fact crap like making Walls or Iron and selling them as ore, which as previously noted is exactly one of these fucking jobs where he is competing against mundane labor in a market where labor resources are utilized so far below capacity that people haven't even invented the idea of labor markets.

So sure, let's just assume that one way or another your wizard has seventeen thousand gold pieces burning a hole in his pocket, and he has thirty four days to get some construction done. One option would certainly be to spend that money on dragon shards and shit and spend the next 34 days crafting a Caster Level 9 Staff of Stone. And then spend five minutes at the end putting together some sort of awesome building. The alternate plan is to hire five hundred skilled craftsmen at a gold piece per day to spend the next 34 days building shit, and then spend that entire time snorting cocaine off the ass of a succubus.

Seriously, which do you think is a better expenditure of the wizard's time and resources? Why?

-Username17

[MGuy]

I can't believe this. Are you doing this shit deliberately? Why are you obscuring my point with bullshit? And yes magic IS a big deal on the economy. Its inclusion CHANGES it just like modern technology has changed our technology.

You're not even meeting me at the points I clearly set down. We were talking about MINING and now you're talking about BUILDING. And even with the subject switch the wizard STILLLLLLLLL trumps 500 hundred skill craftsman over a month in BUILDING SHIT! Do I even have to start pointing out how he can build whole castles by himself with no assistance in "Maybe" a matter of days that would take these craftsmen months if not years? What is more, he could choose not to just trump them but to help them get significantly MORE done with their time. And its insane that you're insinuating that I'm saying a wizard can do anything to infinitum. We're not even talking years we're talking MONTHS. AND it doesn't MATTER how much GOLD it costs because even if he DIDN'T use infinite gold, summon tricks he could MAKE ANY PRECIOUS STONE HE WANTED well beyond the price of actually building the god damn staff that, really, he doesn't need to build in the first place to get his shit done.

You know what I think would be the best expenditure of any kingdom's, hell wizard's resources if they wanted a better kingdom, put those skilled craftsmen in a wizard's academy. Teach as many fucking people as you can how to use magic. Have them teach as many as they can, until so much shit can be done by magic the need for normal physical labor is gone.