Core Principle: Your Fantasy Economy is Bullshit

[virgil]

Looking it up, a 12th level wizard casting a 5th level spell costs 600gp.

[Danchild]

A wizard might live the lifestyle of a flamboyant transdimensional pimp. If he does, that is going to have a profound societal impact as well as an economic one. If he cruises around a fantasy setting in his tricked out wagon, it's golden wagonwheel rims spinning, his enchanted bling flashing, and a string of fiendish groupies catering to his every whim, it will attract attention. People will note his success and then attempt to emulate it. In other words, he will be creating a demand...One with a limited supply. That has an undeniable economic influence, regardless of whether or not it has an effect on the growth of a city.

Now the demographics generator in the DMG is completely insane, so we take it with a grain of salt. But it tells us that we only have 12th level or higher Wizards in regions with large cities or metropolises

Not just wizards. Adepts, Bards, Clerics, Druids and Sorcerers will also be present in similar numbers. By logical extension, Artificers, Psions, Duskblades, Warmages, Archivists and other casters will be in the city as well. As it stands, that is going to have some kind of influence on a metropolis, but it would be reasonable to assume that it would have the same influence on satelite towns and villages as well. I think that it would be irresponsible to assume that all of these spellcasters are using their magic for the betterment of society as a whole. Some of them may only be interested in personal gain. Other may only be interested in furthering the agenda of an institution such as a thieves guild or temple. Even those that have a desire to use their power for the betterment of society will be divided between various ideals. Some may espouse philanthropy and enlightened thinking, other may be focussed on developing a society for conquest and war.

[Username17]

1 - No Frank YOU stop being intentionally dishonest. I said that they could make a WAND. Wands cost less and are EASIER to make.

NO U!

Seriously: staves and wands have exactly the same cost in money and time. It's arbitrarily a different feat, and therefore requires a higher level dude, but it's still Level * Caster Level * 750 gp. If a staff is not economical, a wand isn't either because it is the same cost.

2 - Once again you're bringing in shit doesn't matter. He COULD make more gold THAT HE DOESN'T NEED, but as I JUST said I'm not getting into motivation. Bring up what he COULD be doing all you want but as I said I'm not getting into personal motivation especially if its over gold that the wizard doesn't care about. Yes the wizard COULD do something else with his time but it HARDLY takes time for him to cast the same spell 3 times in a row.

Casting a spell three times uses up a day. Yes, the casting only takes 18 seconds, but the preparation takes 9 hours, and filling the slots back up takes another 9 hours. That's actually a lot when you consider that the end result is just two and a quarter as much wall as some random dude can brick up in an eight hour day. If you were doing other things before and after, it literally took the Wizard spending 2 and a quarter workdays worth of time to get two and a quarter workdays worth of bricking.

3 - Again the best defense you can come up with is motivation. If he didn't CARE about peasants he wouldn't be the example now would he? What is and isn't a waste of time doesn't matter when we are talking about people. The point is he CAN do it and YOU can't come up with a reason that it isn't exponentially better when done with magic.

How is it better? You have all these serfs lying around. How is it better to have your wizard king go do shit personally and leave all those fuckers unemployed than it is to have him tell them to get it done? How?

In what way is spending 9 hours meditating to put 3 walls better than telling 3 peons to spend the next 9 hours putting up walls? Fuck, cone of cold is better at putting up walls than wall of stone is! Peasants will fucking die if you hit them with a cone of cold, so you can draft like 5 or 6 commoners to lay brick with just one spell slot.

4 - What his TIME is worth is 60 gold per casting. Its in the PHB, hirelings Look it up.

It's actually on page 129 under "Spellcasting and Services" and it's 50 gp per caster level per spell.

6 - I've exemplified Comparative Advantage in each part of my argument several times and you are actively choosing to ignore it. Technology simply replaces workers.

No you have not. And this isn't "technology." The wizard can't pass his spellbook over to normal masons and have them work 2.25 times as fast. This is personal skill. He's a high level wizard, and he is a much more productive worker than other people are. Some things he can work on at merely impressive rate (such as masonry), and other things he can work on at a rate so massive that it warps the economy of the continent (like fabricating textiles or creating iron). The fact that he can be a moderately effective tailor by using mending a few times a day is fascinating, but not economically relevant.

Again magic IS technology, a technology changes the economy, fundamentally and thoroughly.

This is you, again, failing to back your bullshit up with numbers. Using capital letters won't make you any less wrong. Magic is no technology. It's artistic skill. And the impact it has on the economy is very different from the impact of actual reproducible technological innovations.

- Lastly your example is not comparable to the discussion at hand but lets play along. So lets make the comparison a little more fair. These doctors should be able to out produce a worker's entire day's worth of food making, in seconds,

I'm going to cut you off there. Because you're doing the same bullshit you've been doing this entire thread. No. You aren't doing anything "in seconds" just because the casting takes seconds. The preparation takes nine hours. This is like saying that a chef produces a four course meal "in seconds" because it takes him seconds to take the cover off of the platter.

There are real economic powers that have been discussed. And those would be important. Fabricate on metal goods and textiles. Transmute rock to mud on major construction projects. Remove Disease, like, at all. Shrink Item and Teleport on spices. Al kinds of stuff. But the things where you've found some way for the 1 in 10,000 archmage to do the work of 2 or 3 random laborers? That's not meaningful.

-Username17

[MGuy]

1 - Yes a wand is cheaper and easier. It can be made at a LOWER LEVEL and therefore can COST LESS especially since I was going under the assumption that it was a spell level lower than it actually was. So yea, fuck you. I made a mistake, making retard blabs about a stupid mistake I've already admitted to making isn't helping you at all.

2 - I've already fucking addressed this. You're going to be going through both ANYWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. You're a wizard! Even on days you don't plan on doing shit you'll be sleeping/meditating AND preparing no matter what everyday. That is an undeniable fact of life for any wizard for ALL their spells not just those three. Wizards have done it most of their life, They're going to keep doing it, its necessary to get their spells, and to sleep.

3 - I've outlined how its better. Again and again and again. It's faster, easier, and turns out better. I can't point this shit out enough. Moreover killing people does not equate to building a castle. Don't act like it does. What USE does a King who isn't doing SHIT else with his time bother preparing a Cone of Cold to kill people if he wants something made? Fuck what are you even babbling about bringing Cone of Cold up?! It doesn't have shit to do with the conversation nor does it EQUATE to what's being done.

4 - My mistake you and the previous guy was right. So the price is 600 per pop. I'd still pay for the quick and absolutely flawless service then garner the materials and man power to get it done in a slow mundane way.

5 - Unquoted so I guess you accept it as the truth.

6 - .. Yes it is and he CAN. It just takes him to teach him what's in the book. You can PASS your knowledge on to an apprentice. An artisan can't pass tools and lumber to a peasant and have him build a good house because a peasant doesn't know how to. He can TEACH a peasant to craft just like you can teach a person magic.You give me lumber and a tool I can't make a desk. But I can learn. I figure if magic existed I could learn that shit too. And if I can get shit done instantly or craft a house wood plank by wood plank I'll go with the magic.

- No the big letters are to highlight shit you need to pay attention to. Magic is technology. Its a fucking science. You don't need to put SHIT in craft to have the perfect stone work. You don't have to be an artist to make the perfect illusion. You don't have to have the diplomacy skill to use charm. A Wizards STUDY MAGIC. Plain and simple. There is no margin of error for using magic unless someone tries to stop you from doing shit. No margin of error at all for most spells. You use fireball you're always gonna successfully do it. You want to make the perfect depiction of someone else with an illusion spell, you can. It isn't an art it is a science. It has experiments, exact procedures, exact symbols, etc. There is little to no evidence of it being an art form if you take it in as a whole and wonder why people with higher Intelligence can do it (Intelligence not representing artistic ability).

- Yes, you are doing it in seconds. Firstly there were no rules laid down for how the doctors are out producing the other workers but even if they had to prepare spells as a wizard, as I've said before they are already going to do it.

That last little bit? Fuck you. I was just plain showing that a wizard could OUT MINE more people and do it for practically nothing. YOU turned it into a conversation about building. And you'd have to ignore the times I said he had ANY NUMBER OF OTHER WAYS to speed up or positively affect the production of others AND that he doesn't have to do it alone. You've benn nothing but COMPLETELY DISHONEST this entire conversation. Purposefully misrepresenting my argument multiple times to the point I had to repeat what I've already said multiple times to get you to FAIL to come up with a counter point against it. The ONLY thing you've got me on so far was that crafting a staff is useless and doesn't yield the results of ordinary men doing a crappier job on the same project. I give that to you, crafting it is a waste of time when you can do it without for the same number of days and completely spank them in production.

The biggest point you're ignoring as that a single wizard is not alone. That any number of other people can develop the skills. You pointed out how there were BILLIONS of people out there in the ancient world and even compared a Wizard's skill to a doctor. Look at the world now, see how many doctors there are? I'm not talking about EMTs who learn a little but the PHD doctors. There are plenty of them and better yet there are multiple avenues to magic power so you're not pigeon holed into just one. Imagine all of them had the power of a god king. Even if you just had a few thousand in a given country that would be plenty to change things.

Now lets say magic WAS an art (which I heavily doubt it is).There are just as many, if not more, talented artists out there.Though DnD shows that artists CAN be casters (bards) or at least artistically talented (Sorcerers).

[RobbyPants]

2 - I've already fucking addressed this. You're going to be going through both ANYWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. You're a wizard! Even on days you don't plan on doing shit you'll be sleeping/meditating AND preparing no matter what everyday. That is an undeniable fact of life for any wizard for ALL their spells not just those three. Wizards have done it most of their life, They're going to keep doing it, its necessary to get their spells, and to sleep.

Yes, but most mid-level wizards don't make all of their top level spells Wall of Stone. There's an opportunity cost there.

What USE does a King who isn't doing SHIT else with his time bother preparing a Cone of Cold to kill people if he wants something made? Fuck what are you even babbling about bringing Cone of Cold up?! It doesn't have shit to do with the conversation nor does it EQUATE to what's being done.

He's talking about using it to conscript their services for free. He basically says: "build this wall for free or I kill you."

[RiotGearEpsilon]

Let's suppose that wizards could use spells to CREATE capital. Or maybe wizards can't, maybe you only get access to those spells if you have access to the Economancer class with it's interesting spells like Create Printing Press and Rary's Reverse Engineering. Either way, what happens then?

[RandomCasualty2]

The biggest point you're ignoring as that a single wizard is not alone. That any number of other people can develop the skills. You pointed out how there were BILLIONS of people out there in the ancient world and even compared a Wizard's skill to a doctor. Look at the world now, see how many doctors there are? I'm not talking about EMTs who learn a little but the PHD doctors. There are plenty of them and better yet there are multiple avenues to magic power so you're not pigeon holed into just one. Imagine all of them had the power of a god king. Even if you just had a few thousand in a given country that would be plenty to change things.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. You don't just need "a wizard" but a reasonably high level one. Fabricate and wall of stone are 5th level spells, meaning you're talking a 9th level wizard minimum. That's not your everyday caster and you're not going to have thousands of them in a single country.

[Username17]

Let's suppose that wizards could use spells to CREATE capital. Or maybe wizards can't, maybe you only get access to those spells if you have access to the Economancer class with it's interesting spells like Create Printing Press and Rary's Reverse Engineering. Either way, what happens then?

Exactly what happens if people invest in capital in any other way. Output would increase and quality of life would improve. How dramatically progress would advance would depend on what kind of work/capital exchange rate the economancer gets. If it takes them just a day or two to make a hybrid horse/ox that can plow faster and more effectively than either and have those things bred true, the entire world could be unrecognizable in a generation. If they simply upgraded a tool every day, then they'd probably just end up as some stable part of a guild somewhere.

But the bottom line is: the fact that a character is doing something "by magic" isn't really any different from the same character doing the same action "by skill."

-Username17

[MGuy]

2 - I've already fucking addressed this. You're going to be going through both ANYWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. You're a wizard! Even on days you don't plan on doing shit you'll be sleeping/meditating AND preparing no matter what everyday. That is an undeniable fact of life for any wizard for ALL their spells not just those three. Wizards have done it most of their life, They're going to keep doing it, its necessary to get their spells, and to sleep.

Yes, but most mid-level wizards don't make all of their top level spells Wall of Stone. There's an opportunity cost there.

True, most may not. But that's just the thing. They don't have to every day. It doesn't have to be a normal thing. There are 365 days in our year. I am doubting a given wizard who wants to build something out of stone is gonna waste any resources beyond his own to build something he can do faster, better, and essentially for free. Said wizard isn't likely to be questing 100% of his time. So any humble wizard who wants to help some people out or just build something he wants can just prepare it a few days and spend a few seconds of his, and this is important, down time working on a given piece of construction. It gets done perfectly, no margin of error, no resources beyond a spell slot for that day, and with any stone materials he wants to use.

What USE does a King who isn't doing SHIT else with his time bother preparing a Cone of Cold to kill people if he wants something made? Fuck what are you even babbling about bringing Cone of Cold up?! It doesn't have shit to do with the conversation nor does it EQUATE to what's being done.

He's talking about using it to conscript their services for free. He basically says: "build this wall for free or I kill you."

True he CAN force someone to. I'm not disputing this fact. But it is also factually true that he CAN do it himself in all ways better than mundane people. The wizards who just don't want to do it by themselves isn't what the discussion is about. The discussion isn't even supposed to be about a given wizard. Its about what magic CAN do and how it might affect the economy. Frank is just bullshitting because he wants to disagree.

@Riot - Anything you could fucking imagine. This is not "supposed" to be about a single wizard. This is supposed to be about widespread magic use. At least that's what I thought. My whole argument is that because one guy with magic can trump a bunch of people without, a bunch of people with magic can trump a bunch of people without. No matter HOW skilled they are they cannot compete. For every extra level of skill they may have the wizard's level accounts for a lot more. Not only in soloing it but in using their powers in tandem with other people. Imagine a world with widespread use of it. That's what I'm thinking about. And all I'm saying is that once people start using it all over the place, the economy just changes. It becomes something else like how technology changed our economies.

@Random - Yes I realize that. 9th level probably isn't your run of the mill talent. But if there were billions of people in a given ancient capital, not accounting for the satellite states,and you'd get 9th level talent 1 out of every 100,000 people, we're talking at least 10,000 people out of a billion. But to be generous I just said thousands (if you want to just say 1 in a million). And that's in one capital that, according to frank, held billions of people. I think you can get a 1000+ people together with 9th level talent or close to it together. And that's JUST wizards. Not accounting for Druids, Clerics, whatever.

[mean_liar]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Pointless, pointless, pointless.

[RandomCasualty2]

@Random - Yes I realize that. 9th level probably isn't your run of the mill talent. But if there were billions of people in a given ancient capital, not accounting for the satellite states,and you'd get 9th level talent 1 out of every 100,000 people, we're talking at least 10,000 people out of a billion. But to be generous I just said thousands (if you want to just say 1 in a million). And that's in one capital that, according to frank, held billions of people. I think you can get a 1000+ people together with 9th level talent or close to it together. And that's JUST wizards. Not accounting for Druids, Clerics, whatever.

Billions? No.

The population of the modern world is nearly 7 billion.

Ancient civilizations, let alone capitals, didn't even come close to that.

Your numbers are WAY off.

[A Man In Black]

True he CAN force someone to. I'm not disputing this fact. But it is also factually true that he CAN do it himself in all ways better than mundane people. The wizards who just don't want to do it by themselves isn't what the discussion is about. The discussion isn't even supposed to be about a given wizard. Its about what magic CAN do and how it might affect the economy. Frank is just bullshitting because he wants to disagree.

Doing something for yourself with no input from anyone else, generating no benefit to anyone else is not economic activity. The only economic impact here is that the wizardking who wants to build a tower and does so with spells won't be hiring any laborers.

So you're right, but it's irrelevant.

[violence in the media]

Billions? No.

The population of the modern world is nearly 7 billion.

Ancient civilizations, let alone capitals, didn't even come close to that.

Your numbers are WAY off.

Speaking of that, what would a census of D&D land look like? Excluding the limitless nonsense of the planes and only counting the things on one default world in the prime, what would the demographic breakdown be? How many Halflings are there? Mind Flayers? Blue Dragons? Sahaguin? Owlbears? How many level 16+ people are there? Level 12+? Level 8+? It seems like there could be a lot of curious answers to these questions.

[RandomCasualty2]

Speaking of that, what would a census of D&D land look like? Excluding the limitless nonsense of the planes and only counting the things on one default world in the prime, what would the demographic breakdown be? How many Halflings are there? Mind Flayers? Blue Dragons? Sahaguin? Owlbears? How many level 16+ people are there? Level 12+? Level 8+? It seems like there could be a lot of curious answers to these questions.

Overall it'd probably depend on the world. Forgotten Realms is based around the premise that you can't stumble around drunk without bumping shoulders with at least like 2 guys 14th level or higher. Every other barkeep is actually a retired 15+ level fighter and the nations of power have multiple epic archmagi. FR is basically the comic book world of D&D where all the authors create superpowered characters. The problem is however that the PCs are assumed to be playing standard characters, being the normals in a world of superheroes.

Eberron on the other hand is way lower as far as levels. The warforged "God", the lord of blades is only like mid level. There are a few uber characters, but seriously not too many.

Monster populations.. seriously who the fuck knows... I really don't have a clue. It'd have to be enough such that monsters can find breeding partners, but not so much that there's overcrowding. Though given the massive number of possible monsters, I don't even think it'd be possible to find a range for every single monster, at least not if you realistically expected them all to fit.

[Username17]

-Username17

[K]

Speaking of that, what would a census of D&D land look like? Excluding the limitless nonsense of the planes and only counting the things on one default world in the prime, what would the demographic breakdown be? How many Halflings are there? Mind Flayers? Blue Dragons? Sahaguin? Owlbears? How many level 16+ people are there? Level 12+? Level 8+? It seems like there could be a lot of curious answers to these questions.

Overall it'd probably depend on the world. Forgotten Realms is based around the premise that you can't stumble around drunk without bumping shoulders with at least like 2 guys 14th level or higher. Every other barkeep is actually a retired 15+ level fighter and the nations of power have multiple epic archmagi. FR is basically the comic book world of D&D where all the authors create superpowered characters. The problem is however that the PCs are assumed to be playing standard characters, being the normals in a world of superheroes.

Eberron on the other hand is way lower as far as levels. The warforged "God", the lord of blades is only like mid level. There are a few uber characters, but seriously not too many.

Monster populations.. seriously who the fuck knows... I really don't have a clue. It'd have to be enough such that monsters can find breeding partners, but not so much that there's overcrowding. Though given the massive number of possible monsters, I don't even think it'd be possible to find a range for every single monster, at least not if you realistically expected them all to fit.

This is not a valid criticism.

Yes, older settings have lots of high level characters, but that's only because those settings have novels, campaigns, and adventure for them for characters that got to level 20 and above. Give Eberron twenty years and it'll have just as many high level characters that need to be ported into the new edition's stats.

Lack of development doesn't mean lack of existence. I mean, once you start running a 15th level campaign you are going to need at the minimum some statted out 20th level characters for PCs to kill. You could make the design decision to say "well, none of those 20th level things are human or human-like races", but that just means that there is a 20th level Rakshasa or Dragon or something who is deciding whether to bork the economy of Shar.

Playing adventures at certain levels means you need a support cast of characters at those levels, and it's a flaw in your published setting if you don't do that. Remember, this is DnD and being nonhuman is not a non-starter when it comes to interacting with human civilizations.

[Crissa]

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

Prepared Hotdog at stand on the highway: $4
Package of eight hotdogs, unprepared, at retail store on same highway: $4
Package of same hotdogs, unprepared, at retail megastore in the valley near freeway: $2

It varies alot. But yeah, the cost of the food is seriously often the smaller component of the price of prepared food.

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).

There are approximately 12 cubic feet of granite per ton. Retail price of granite at the store on the corner is $350 to $4000 per ton of cut granite. So your spell, if it put out the very prettiest and hardest granite cut into 8" by 4' slabs, would get you maybe $12,000 on today's market.

-Crissa

[angelfromanotherpin]

Matt Riggsby wrote a bunch of articles about low-tech economies and how certain fantasy elements interacted with them. Should I see if I can dig those up?

[RiotGearEpsilon]

Yes, older settings have lots of high level characters, but that's only because those settings have novels, campaigns, and adventure for them for characters that got to level 20 and above.

Forgotten Realms had Elminster running around being a self-important epic level asshole from the first day it was published. So... There's a data point against you.

[Alansmithee]

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

Prepared Hotdog at stand on the highway: $4
Package of eight hotdogs, unprepared, at retail store on same highway: $4
Package of same hotdogs, unprepared, at retail megastore in the valley near freeway: $2

It varies alot. But yeah, the cost of the food is seriously often the smaller component of the price of prepared food.

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).

There are approximately 12 cubic feet of granite per ton. Retail price of granite at the store on the corner is $350 to $4000 per ton of cut granite. So your spell, if it put out the very prettiest and hardest granite cut into 8" by 4' slabs, would get you maybe $12,000 on today's market.

-Crissa

You can't make any comparison between modern prices and cost/value of goods in the typical D&D fantasy setting. The cost of granite you quote also involves the efficiency created from having advanced production techniques and logistics, as well as economies of scale due to mass production.

[K]

Yes, older settings have lots of high level characters, but that's only because those settings have novels, campaigns, and adventure for them for characters that got to level 20 and above.

Forgotten Realms had Elminster running around being a self-important epic level asshole from the first day it was published. So... There's a data point against you.

Forgotten Realms was Ed Greenwood's personal setting that he had been running for years and years, reusing it for campaign after campaign.
By comparison, Eberron was written from campaign notes in under a year, which is why it is so obviously a product of a campaign that never got past level 10.

Also, note that various NPCs have gotten leveled up over the years. I remember when Storm Silverhand was like 10th level, and now she's so epic level shes in the book.

But, by the same token Greyhawk has also had Mordenkainen. The older the campaign, the more DM self-insertion penis characters.

Of course, now that DnD is broken, no one is ever going to be adding high level characters again until some new edition where powerful characters are allowed to exist.

[A Man In Black]

By comparison, Eberron was written from campaign notes in under a year, which is why it is so obviously a product of a campaign that never got past level 10.

You don't even need to infer that. The idea that all the old heroes are dead is a explicit selling point of the setting from the initial pitch onward.

[K]

By comparison, Eberron was written from campaign notes in under a year, which is why it is so obviously a product of a campaign that never got past level 10.

You don't even need to infer that. The idea that all the old heroes are dead is a explicit selling point of the setting from the initial pitch onward.

The heroes are dead, but there are specifically epic dragons and epic spellcasting rakshasa around. They tried to make it a whole "we are a new kind of campaign world that addresses the things people didn't like", but they fell into the same traps.

[Crissa]

Actually, granite is a huge pain for modern society. We can even make the stuff, and we only know of one place in the world where it's being actively created by nature (the Himalayas). It used to be terribly cheap - because of the opposite of those effects you mention. You couldn't carry it anywhere.

Now it's horribly expensive and widely available. Expensive because you can't just slice up a rock and say 'hey, those are nice colors': Most of the time, the rock has cracks or poor colors or is badly located and cannot come to market. Granite can't just be melted and reformed like metals, even if we can make the stuff now - we can only use certain parts, and have to get the color right to sell it and that takes tons of energy.

It's not considered a 'green' solution to have manufactured granite, even if it lasts forever: Because it takes so much energy to produce.

Why can't you compare? People have been cutting multi-ton chunks of rocks and transporting them for millennia. No, really, what do you think are the oldest man-made structures known are made of? Or what many of the Roman and bronze age ships found sunken were carrying? Certainly, their chunks cost huge amounts to build, but they still did it.

However, a fantasy setting has fantasy teleportation, fantasy levitation, fantasy beasts of burden and fantasy means of production. So either it's impossible to compare, and we shouldn't try writing fantasy at all, or we can try to compare, and we can try to write fantasy, eh?

-Crissa

[virgil]

All this talk got me fascinated as to the logistics of a wizard going solo.

Castle Construction Employment: http://history.howstuffworks.com/middle ... astle5.htm
Modern Castle Construction w/Schematics: http://www.guedelon.fr/en/the-guedelon- ... re_01.html

It took about twenty minutes, but judging the curtain walls to be three meters thick, the primary tower to be five meters thick, and some other rounding assumptions; the entire castle requires a bit less than 30,000 cubic meters of material.

If a very independent 12th level wizard decided he wanted a stone castle, only occasionally using fabricate to use the trees on location or disintegrate to dig out the moat, it'll take him about 13,550 castings of his two highest level spell slots. He'll still have the spells of 4th level and lower to enjoy life with, & his actual work day isn't even an hour and a half (sleeping like everyone else doesn't count).

From what's they're figuring, it'll take 50 artisans 25 years of labour to construct their castle. It'll take the wizard about six years, by himself, using essentially just wall of stone; though he could reinforce the whole thing with an iron sheath without changing the time frame at all.

EDIT: Now, I have no idea what the time frame would look if the wizard instead hired a bunch of mud farmers with wagons to carry transmuted rock to fill in a wooden mould.