How do you explain that high level wizards don't simply

>>51103009
Nobility is made up of Sorcerers

God wills it.

>>51103009
>rule the world
because that sounds an awful lot like hard work

>>51103009
Because mathematicians don't rules ours either.
Wizards die too easily to assassins if they get uppity which is why they seclude themselves out of fear.

>>51103161
mathematicians = wizards

Wow, dnd really IS a nerd power fantasy!
You dumb fuck.

>>51103161
Mathematicians aren't omnipotent demigods.

>>51103009
1. Too much hard work
2. Lack of motivation
3. Paints a target on your back
4. The Gods, motherfucker
5. They already do

>>51103009
I use fantasy settings that haven't been infected with D&Ditis and wizards can't actually spam every spell that any literary mage has ever used.

Most nations are ruled by wizards. The ones that aren't are either ruled by some sort of comparably powerful monster, ruled my someone who commands the loyalty of one or more powerful wizards, or are just to irrelevant to bother with.

>>51103009

Even among wizards, magic isn't something you can just INHERIT.

It requires years of training. CLOISTERED training. Nobility are far better spent chasing glory on the battlefield where they can learn about what it's like to lead, and build relationships with other nobles and make a name for themselves.

Wizards make much more sense as a privileged class of skilled freemen like yeomen than it does the nobility, who must necessarily be willing to spend their lives and youths defending their lands.

It's like in the Witcher universe, they don't rule but they make puppets of the kings by acting as their "advisors" and making it so every king *must* have a wizard advisor. Besides, the common folk would rather follow a king than some magic slinging freak.

>>51103187
neither are wizards.

At least not in my setting.

Why, did you expect them to be?

Because they're all too busy ruling the multiverse to worry about so boring a place as our world.

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Political power is worthless compared to the power high level wizards already have. Actually conquering and ruling things has responsibilities attached, and that takes time and effort that could be better spent studying on a private demiplane surrounded by a succubus harem.

If it was me it would be because paladins or divine assassins would keep the wizards from gaining too much power. It's the same reason wizards don't get healing spells. The gods keeping a mortal down, ya dig?

>>51103009
Because anyone who tries will have to deal with other high-level characters of various classes. And gods. And dragons. And so on.

There's always a bigger fish.

Welllll in my settings.

>Mythic Fantasy
You're either empowered by the gods (and their servant), or seeking divinity (and thus their enemy).

>Dungeonpunk
Because the world is fucking huge and even with a huge outlay of time and magic on teleportation spells, you still can't be everywhere you're needed. You need to delegate power, meaning potential threats and mundane governments.

>Age of Sail fantasy
Because arcanists are cursed.

In typical D&D, it's because magic is HARD. You're not going to figure it out and also master economics and diplomacy unless you're truly exceptional. So 'ruling' is just not praxtical.

Because having access to powers doesn't mean one can use them all the time. Being able to magically do something once a day doesn't make you omnipotent.

Do what Ars Magica did. Once upon a time, wizards all hated each other. Until some hardcore motherfucker went around kicking heads and taking names until he managed to convince wizards to calm down and pursue the good things in life, like studying.

If one wizard steps out of line and tries to pursue worldly power, he's got a good fifty or so other mages nearby with a vested interest in fucking him up before he can say the word "spell".

Sure, it probably still happens from time to time, because of politics and idiots and any combination of the two. But giving any nearby wizard carte-blanche to do anything they want to you is a surprisingly good deterrent, I'd imagine, what with the vivisection and all.

>>51103009
To become a high level wizard a character needs to be obsessed with their magical research, they don't give a shit about power or pleasures of the flesh unless it somehow helps their research.

>>51103370
Nice try, Sorcerer Supreme.

>>51103463
>To become a high level wizard a character needs to be obsessed with their magical research

Uh...no? To become a high level, which I'm arbitrarily gonna pin at Level 15, you just need to go out and kill...lemme check...

3,300 ordinary wolves, or do tasks equivalent to killing 3,300 ordinary wolves (50 XP/wolf).

You don't even need to do any research. Hell, you don't even need to kill all 3,300 wolves at once. You can space it out.

>>51103515
Okay, go out into the woods and start your crusade against awookind and see how long your skinny twig ass lasts.

The wizards who are autistic enough to reach high level either don't care about ruling over people, or are so bad at it that they eventually give up after so many failed attempts at leading a country, and retreat to isolation.

>>51103535
D&D is not a real-life simulator. You don't get XP in real life, dude.

>>51103009
Because studying ancient tomes for 30 years doesn't actually make you a good leader, and even the most powerful wizards can only dominate a dozen people at most.

>>51103009
Because nobody trusts or wants to follow a fucking wizard, that's why.

>>51103561
>Because studying ancient tomes for 30 years doesn't actually make you a good leader

It doesn't even make you a good wizard. You don't get experience for studying a tome.

In D&D, the really powerful wizards are the ones who got out there and delved dungeons, fought dragons, saved damsels, etc.

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Why don't sorceress run the world? They have high Charisma. They don't require any skill or hard work to achieve their power.

Same with the Warlocks, who just make pacts with foreign entities.

>>51103589
And even those wizards generally don't get that far. Consider that in the average party, experience is split four ways, and foes are generally things that threaten the combined power of all four.

>>51103558
Take your wizard's ass out into the fantasy forest and have him fight wolves. See if he lasts more than a day before ten wolves maul his ass to death.

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Would half-dragons be the nobility/feudal lors? After all, feudalism is based on a contract between a mighty warlord and the peasant who give him food.

>>51103009
Because my setting doesn't fall under the simplistic political cliches that only a nine year old thinks would be clever and instead has actual politics instead.

I hear nine year olds sometimes make threads like this one too, come to think of it.

>>51103009
Why bother ruling the real world as a king when you can rule a personal demiplane as its God?

>>51103635
>wolves
>implying the forest spirits / fucking elves / dire wolves won't be the ones to do it

>>51103515
I use milestone leveling my dude

>>51103635
He probably wouldn't. My point, however, was that wizards don't gain substantial experience from studying tomes, if they get any at all. The only wizards who get to cast 9th level spells are the ones who AREN'T locked away in their towers, but instead are going out on epic quests with fighters, rogues, and clerics.

The wizards who spend their time locked away in towards are great at theorycrafting and understanding magic, but they're physically and mentally incapable of actually performing the great feats (high-level spells) that they've studied.

>>51103632
Exactly. The only wizards who get to high levels are the wizards who are capable of working with a team possessed of a diverse skill set.

Basically, the wizards who get powerful are the ones who get out there and make friends! Big adventure, tons of fun, beautiful hearts faithful and strong! Sharing kindness is an easy feat, and magic makes it all complete!

>>51103706
You're a dull and interesting person. Got it.

>>51103726
>and interesting

*uninteresting. Shit.

>>51103717
Man, I am not good at hiding my power level. If Anons had scouters, they'd explode every time I posted in a thread.

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>>51103717

>>51103009
Because the goddess of magic is a bitch and any wizard that gets too big for his britches gets bit by the backlash.

>>51103743
Just 'cause you don't like it doesn't mean it's wrong.

My point about wizards needing to adventure to get powerful, that is. I don't care about your opinion on MLP. But I do feel I make a good one about how sitting in a tower reading books all day isn't going to make you particularly powerful.

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>>51103717
There are options for non-combat exp gain, and the wizards that go out are assumed to be studying in addition to adventuring. Heck, there are rules that say for a city of a given size there's going to be a wizard of a certain level, and they don't have to do anything but exist. These are game mechanics that don't reflect the fluff, they make for a poor argument.

Also I would recommend against repeating that last paragraph.

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>>51103009
Why should they? There's bigger fish out there, and even the mightiest wizards can only push themselves so far.

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>>51103656
I don't get it, why'd you post a completely normal human for that picture?

>>51103726
>Actually making players roleplay and work for their levels instead of just killing wolves
>Dull AND interesting

I don't understand

>>51103726
Milestone leveling > Only rewarding XP for killing

>>51103878
My preference.

all gods are high level wizards in my d&d setting.

>>51103726
milestone leveling is by far more fun for the players, and it's more natural. the only time this might not be true is if you have a weird PC group of min/maxers that enjoy grinding, which is plausible.

I've nevet liked the way that lvl are handled. Lvl 9-12 or so is probably the pinacle of human achievement. Beyond that, you enter into the Wuxia/Demigod stories. Also no lvl cap.

>>51103009
Disinterest.

This is also why Boccob is a better Magic deity than Mystra ever will be.

Boccob's like a wizard. He doesn't really care about all that shit, he'd rather have his books and his magic and do his stuff, and wizards are like that.

Ruling a kingdom or the world is tedious and demands you deal with other people who, considering you are a high level wizard, are all VASTLY LESS INTELLIGENT than you and get on your nerves constantly.

Meanwhile you're perfectly capable of creating a pocket dimension in which you are god and a swathe of servants that do exactly what you want.

>>51103186
This entire thread is about how the existence of magic is OBVIOUSLY greater than anything else in the setting...
and the *math comparison* is the thing that makes you go 'power fantasy'?

>>51104284
>Ruling a kingdom or the world is tedious and demands you deal with other people who, considering you are a high level wizard, are all VASTLY LESS INTELLIGENT than you and get on your nerves constantly.
>everyone's so stupid

>>51103621

This.

>>51103009
They try. As it turns out, however, quite a lot of people want to end up ruling the world, and most end up murdering each other long before that.

>>51104284
>>51104840
>>51103383

Pretty much this especially in most versions of D&D. Generally speaking you quickly pass over the point where Magical power absolutely trumps anything most generic fantasy kingdoms could handle but also where ruling them would have any sort of notable benefit.Sure some PCs might run an individual kingdom but have you ever had a campaign delve into world conquesr? If you did how bogged down did it get by the logistics of running a world? Of course this assumes a DM that treats it as a living breathing world not just a bunch of flags the army captures which sadly is how most DMs treat the BBEGs marching army of doom

>>51103186
You seem butthurt by mere words.
Did most people ignore you in your daily life?

Why cant kings and the lords multiclass into wizards? Im sure they can afford the beast teachers of magic.

>>51105566
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPavMhfNHjI

>>51105203
I think the best example of this is the little blurb of text you find in the character info for a lot of the original Gygaxian Wizard PCs in the books, like Mordenkainen.

Something along the lines of "being an immensely powerful wizard, <insert name here> can find, acquire or obtain almost anything, given time". A bunch of them have it.

>>51103009
The meta-answer is that, contra >>51103515 , the rest of the fantasy world most D&D games operate in doesn't "actually" work according to the same rules as PCs.

For me it's that there aren't enough high level ones.

You hit a hard upper limit at around level 12 without becoming a godling and gaining mythic ranks. As soon as you become a godling you're more busy trying to not die than rule the world. This isn't to say there aren't a few godlings that do rules, but everyone with mythic ranks have a massive target on them as all godlings try and kill/consume one another.

>>51103515
Issue is you need to go up against a "reasonable threat". After a point wolves are no longer a reasonable threat.

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>>51105610
Found one.

Because Wizards are no more or less powerful then an equally leveled fighter, Thief, or cleric.

>>51105771

>>Not Bard
>>Not the class with the Cha and tons of spell casting plus all the skills
>>Doesnt know that Bards secretly run the world and orchestrate everything behind the scenes

Because the PCs stop them.

>>51103009
Well,using D&D universe for example; the same question can be asked about Clerics, and Paladins.Seeing how all three are drawing their powers from deities.

The real question is...how did humans survive as a species? Even if you say they have magic, and deities watching over them...so do the other races, hell even the monsters that kill them have magic, and deities. The majority of the other races live longer as well.

>>51105829
If a Cleric or Paladin would try to take over the world, assuming his deity even wants this (and to be fair, a lot of the evil ones do), then Clerics and Paladins of an opposing deity move to intervene.

I mean that's literally a pretty stock plot. Evil Deity Follower wants to take over world, followers of good deity are sent by their god to stop him.

>>51105829

In AD&D you would have a point. Thats the only one where Humans are completely inferior to everything around them outside of the shitstain that is st ed halflings as a fat hobbits that dont wanna leave their kitchen

From 3rd onward they get so much better that you wonder how the fuck Elves function in that universe

In 5E they suck shit again if you dont use variant Humans but nothing has an ungodly advantage even over the suckshit humans

>>51103009
there are infinite planes to rule and the Material Plane sucks ass, only mortals want to rule there
gg ez, next question OP

>>51103327

>At least not in my setting.

So you're not playing D&D?

>Why, did you expect them to be?

Because this is a thread about D&D

>>51103009
Because the other high level wizards won't let him. Que wizard cold war

>>51103009
Because when they're that powerful they often bugger off to other more interesting worlds to conquer and rule.

>>51103244
wizards might be better as advisers rather then rulers, especially when they neglect wisdom or charisma

>>51105852
And why wouldn't this apply to any mage that is trying to offset the balance the gods provide?
To wit, 2 official settings where the gods CAN NOT interfere, Dark Sun and Ravenloft, are the logical answers to OP's rather silly question.

>>51105919
Tut tut, anon, D&D does not consist of solely 3.PF, the only time OP's ridiculous statement could be remotely possible.
This is also ignoring that wizards are not the only powerful group in the setting. What about every powerful undead or worse in the world that would have qualms with an upstart human wizard taking what is rightfully theirs?

>>51105967
I mean it could, but the generic setting pretty much just has the gods interfering because it basically violates the "neutrality" of the material plane in that it is no one deities domain and because its an action done by their direct rivals. A mortal trying to rule it does not immediately interfere with the deities interest or stake in it unless he bans all worship of them. But my answer's already been given: Wizards aren't interested in ruling the material plane, it's a hassle and it's got nothing special to offer.

>>51105988
>What about every powerful undead
But liches ARE wizards :^)

Hasn't it been made clear in fantasy that becoming a ruler is more about ruthless ambition than your power level?

Also, arent there plenty of D&D kingdoms that are ruled by magic-users of some form? For god's sake, Kingdom ruled by Mages is a fantasy trope.

>this thread is just the age old caster vs martial clusterfuck bait.

Top tier wizards are locked in a struggle for dominance with reptilians

>>51103621

More spells = More better

A Wizard can learn all the spells he needs to make his tower assassin-proof and then only cast them the one time a month he needs to and have wasted no resources except the gold he needed to research and inscribe those spells

A sorcerer needs all his spells to be useful at all times because his slots are so limited.

That lack of flexibility is crippling, especially if what you're trying to do is secure yourself to hold power long term and not just go into dungeons to blast kobolds

>>51106015
There's Waterdeep of course. And Red Wizard fuckery in general.

Also Mordy's Circle of Eight basically wanted to make sure no single faction got too much power in the Flanaess, so I guess you could say they ruled over them, though its more like they being all wizardy were more powerful but decided they didn't wanna rule so much as make sure no one else can fuck it all up completely.

>>51105988

In 1st ed not much kept Wizards in check at high levels except the sheer invulnerability of Fighters. Fuckers made saving throws on a 2 or better because of gear had too many HP to stop and did 3X the damage of anything you could summon.. This made party play much more important since the Fighter still could fly travel the planes or turn himself back to flesh when he needed to 1/20 times

2nd ed the multitiude of metaplot based NPC bullshit that had infinite Super-God powers given them by Lorraine Williams to ensure you stayed on the rails and bought the next book kept them in line and then the company went bankrupt

In 3.PF only the sheer cluelessness of the designers kept their worlds together before the PCs showed up and buttraped a fireball and magic missile spamming Elminster

In 4th edition world conquest was a $29.95 expansion pack and the options were greyed out until that point unless you used a hacking tool which crashed the game

In 5E Bounded accuracy and the general nerfing of spells keeps it in check. Even a killer crazy Batman Wizard would be hard pressed to beat a bunch of guys with bows and arrows

Even being a sorcerer takes an incredible amount of work, and you're so squishy most probably die early on and never even reach a high level.

>>51106072
>Even being a sorcerer takes an incredible amount of work
Such as?

>>51106081
Getting the proper amount of rest to have spells at the ready, balancing the fact you basically can't wear armor and thus can trip and pretty much die and dealing with the fact you're extremely hated by nearly everyone.

I always assumed leveling up even as a sorcerer required a fair amount of studying to choose what spells to use.

>>51106103
>Getting the proper amount of rest to have spells at the ready
Wow, you must sleep like the rest of your race does (or doesn't, depending), how harsh.

>balancing the fact you basically can't wear armor
But you can. You absolutely can. It MAY restrict you with some spells, but not with others, and you can find ways to make it not restrict you at all. If you ever have to enter an unsafe environment there's nothing stopping you from putting on something for safety, either.

>dealing with the fact you're extremely hated by nearly everyone.
Incredibly charismatic, people naturally drawn to your exotic looks, and magic that can control peoples reaction or even minds.

>required a fair amount of studying to choose what spells to use.
In-world sorcerers do not choose what spells they manifest, they just gain it from their draconic ancestry.

It always bothered me that its not represented with bloodlines or heritage feats and that they can pick ridiculous spells no creature would naturally manifest, like Mordenkainen's Magnificient Mansion, but if you wanna change that is up to your houserules. As it stands though, none of your points accurately reflect Sorcerers.

>>51106103
>you basically can't wear armor
wearing light armor gives you like a 5 percent spell failure chance. gg ez

>>51106253
>failing 1 in 20 spells
GG retard, lern 2 math.

>>51106342
>succeeding 19 in 20 spells
gg ez, learn to count fag

>>51103009
I like the idea of noble bloodlines being bloodlines in which magic is more prevalent. In our world, nobles were the descendants of great warriors who carved themselves pieces of land after the collapse of Rome. I imagine in a fantasy setting, nobles would be the descendants of great wizards or perhaps even the union between ancient humans and dragons, demons or other such powerful creatures. So mages would already rule the world, and perhaps not every noble is a full blown wizard but the grand majority of them at least has some latent magical potential.

Perhaps this potential also exists among the commoners to a much lessser degree (bastards to happen), but unless they're very wealthy these commoners would simply be unable to afford the training to master their magic (even a sorcerer needs to hone is magic and learn to master his energies if he ever wants to learn anything more powerful than party tricks).

>>51106253
Light armor isn't good though, you're still getting killed.

>Wow, you must sleep like the rest of your race does (or doesn't, depending), how harsh.
Or in the middle of dungeons, constantly, because you've run out of spells for each (or important) levels.

>But you can. You absolutely can. It MAY restrict you with some spells, but not with others, and you can find ways to make it not restrict you at all. If you ever have to enter an unsafe environment there's nothing stopping you from putting on something for safety, either.
Have fun with no magical bonuses and failed spellcasting, though. I was wrong here, but instead of you I would have countered with mage armor and other spells. It's still wasting up valuable spells to make you only somewhat competent in protection.

>Incredibly charismatic, people naturally drawn to your exotic looks, and magic that can control peoples reaction or even minds.
This is high level magic. I'm assuming you're referring to spells like Dominate Mind.

Sorcerers are also known for being very, VERY arrogant, so that's death in dungeons right there.

>>51103009
They have better things to do.

>>51103621
>charisma
It's a worthless dump stat for everything that's not a charisma-based caster. You can't actually convince anyone to do anything they wouldn't normally do, according to the rules. Sorcerers would just use their spells to get any real convincing done. Wizards could achieve the same thing.

>>51106062
AD&D 1E fighter, best fighter. Also, Assassins in 1E are beasts.

>>51103849
Looks like a picture from Witcher 2. She's actually a dragon or something iirc

>>51106977

>You can't actually convince anyone to do anything they wouldn't normally do, according to the rules

This is why RAW diplomacy was so much better in 3.5

In that edition diplomacy wasn't about convincing people to do things, it was about making people more favorable towards you in general.

So if you improved their attitude of you to that of a friend they still wouldn't just do whatever the fuck you wanted, but they would do stuff for you that they would ordinarily do for a friend.

Makes a lot more sense than it just being non-functional mind-control.

>>51106977

What about happens when the spell ceases to be effective. You will still be an ugly wizard, while I'm still awesome. It is easier to believe that my charm convinced him than the wizard sperg. Remember, evil is ugly.

>>51107198
It literally doesn't matter because you can just cast it again and again, and he'll do anything needed and it won't matter what he feels about it afterwards when everything's done.

>>51107209

What if someone else figure it out. What if he moves out of town. You cant follow some peasont around all day to keep your spell in check. You are a dude with wizard robes, hat, and staff. You couldnt be any more suspicious.

>>51107238
Who gives a shit?

>>51107253

The town you are scaming, possibly the lord of the king t. I dont think people would tolerate wizards casually mindxontrolling people.

>>51107268
Then you'd have to persecute every single mage because for all farmer Joe knows, he could have been mindcontrolling him when he told him to pass that bag of bat guano.

>>51106052

The difference is that the Sorcerer can burn every single magical text in the world and still get along fine, because their magic comes to them naturally. Make researching magic impossible, because there simply isn't anything left to research.

It basically makes wizards an impossibility, and helps secure sorcerer dominance.

You 'wizard' is only even remotely relevant if you presume a setting in which 2 million other wizards before you have already done all the hard work before you were even born, inventing all of the magic you want to cast. Remove that magical history from your reach, and your wizard is just a bright commoner with dreams of what could have been.

>>51107289
Even if you only let wizards learn their designated number of level up spells, they're still retarded strong.

>>51107278

It wouldnt be the first time that people control mages with an iron first. Maybe there are even mage hunting guilds of assassins. Maybe the mages themselves do the policing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI0vtqxoG1k

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>>51103009
Because there are no high level wizards. All of the wizards blow up themselves in an unfortunate experiment long before they can reach high levels.

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>>51105566
>>51105566

>>51107330
Sounds easy as shit.

>>51106001
Or clerics, idiot.

1. Not all wizards want to rule the world. It's a lot of work and a lot of risk.

2. Wizards aren't the strongest people in existence. Even if you are as strong as a 10,000 man army, you are fucked if someone comes knocking on your door with 20,000 soldiers. Not to mention all the high level adventurers, gods and other wizards running around.

3. Still, some high level wizards rule kingdoms and empires anyway, they just use noblemen as puppets.

Why dont clerics run the world? They have all the advantages of the wizards, plus armor, rez spells, and blessing of the gods.

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>>51106977
Yes, because there would surely be no consequences for mind controlling people.

Surely.

>>51107365
Because writers refuse to take broken mechanics into account when writing settings.

>>51107289

You do realize that there's rules for making up your own spells, right?

Given enough time and money any wizard can just recreate all the destroyed spells.

>>51103009
Because

1. Wizards are exceedingly rare
2. Storywise a level 20 fighter poses a threat to a level 20 wizard through shear physical prowess
3. High level wizards would destroy the world when they get bashing their heads together
4. High level wizards WILL bash heads because of obvious ideological differences.
5. Because in most DnD type settings magic is at least common enough for high level martials to be able to gather dozens of anti-magic items to counter the wizards.

>>51107393
That anon's reasons why leveling up a sorcerer is "harder" are still nonsensical and ad hoc, though.

>>51107342
That's a cantrip. A 0th level spell. A commoner can learn it.

Martial arts are as easier than magic is, right,so everyone in the world should be a karate master, right?

>>51107365

This would make a lot of sense given how powerful a religious organization can become. Some go as far as to claim that the Roman Empire never felt, it just became the Catholic church.

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>>51103186
>not being a """nerd"""
>browsing 4chan in general

>>51107402
You have to be literally retarded to be unable to memorize 6 seconds of actions.

>>51107413
Sooo...everybody can do at least a little bit of magic then?

>>51107424
The spells that take longer than 6 seconds to cast are a minority.

>>51107413
So, what you're saying...

is you'd need to have 9 INT or less?

>>51107393

Rules which require access to a library of magical text, identical to what is required to research a spell.

By RAW, if there are no magical texts left then a wizard can't create new spells, because they don't have a library to do their work at.

Not everyone learns to read. Actually, who is the guy who teaches people to read? In real life it was mostly the church since it had monopoly on knowledge.

>>51107432
Okay? Not really relevant though. Everybody can do a little bit of magic, then.

>>51107413

It takes less than six seconds to do master-level calculus in your head.

So how retarded are you? Obviously that means you can do it, right?

>>51107454
>6 seconds of literally doing something with your hands and saying something aloud
>compared to doing calculus in your head
Are you retarded?

>>51107365

Because all the different Clerics all fucking hate each other and constantly work across purposes making any such dominance impossible.

>>51107449
>a weak spell takes 6 seconds of motions to cast
>a strong spell takes 6 seconds of motions to cast
>the argument is based on the fact that doing the latter is too hard for most people except it's the same shit
As I said, you're literally retarded if you can't memorize 6 seconds of actions. Clearly, this is not how things work.

>>51107440

How do we define "Library" and "Magical text" exactly?

Because the wizard could just make that himself as well.

>>51104018
I also find it easier to manage, especially if the players aren't always as up to speed with the rules as certain other players or yourself. Even if they're not the same level for some reason, they all still level up at the same time so you can go over stuff in between sessions if they want help.

>>51107470
It's how things should work, since memorizing 6 seconds of motions is trivial for non-retards. Magic ain't hard.

>>51107470
You have to make more motions and words are longer.
Long enough for you to forget.

>>51107591
It still takes 6 seconds, so clearly not. Are dancers and singers also all geniuses for being able to memorize songs and dances? This is retarded.

>>51107413
It's not just the actiosn. It's the pronunciation, the exacting repetition (because if you fuck it up even slightly you lose the spell). That's why casters generaly don't wear armor - all their lives they've trained to make these exact movements in this exact way so they get it right every time. you dump 25-30 pounds of iron on them and suddenly it' a lot harder to do those exacting movements. Armor training is a thing, though, so they CAN learn, most just don't bother.

>>51103009
Because a goverment where all higher ups secretly plan to kill each other wouldn't be very stable.
Not to mention governing sounds like work.

>>51107637
It's seriously not hard at all. Learning a martial art is a lot harder than learning how to say a verse and wiggling your hands for 6 seconds. This is not even remotely the barrier for spellcasting.

>>51107623
No, the skill and talent comes from being able to perform the songs and dances that they have memorized, just as a mathematical genius doesn't just write out equations by rote but does it through his intuition and method.

The gestures and vocalisations that a cantrip requires demand a certain degree of understanding and mental finesse. Wiggling your fingers and chanting is casting a spell only if monotonously droning the lyrics of a song is considered singing that song.

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>>51103009
I've toyed with the idea that mortal souls actually cause low-key magical interference in their immediate area. Not enough that standing next to someone in an empty field would keep you from casting cantrips, but enough that becoming proficient with magic requires becoming a hermit in the wilderness, or secluding one's self inside a large tower in the case of city-bound magic users.

At the same time, how powerful a spell is and how easily it can be executed are tied closely to the caster's own understanding of the world and how closely it matches reality. So in the stone age up to the iron age you have weak and varied mages running all over the place, spreading minor curses and causing hallucinations or bringing around pests; in the renaissance mages start to become rare oddities, sometimes successful alchemists or oracles but the background noise from a rising population has started to snuff out the weakest magical users; as you approach the gunpowder and industrial era they start to fade into myth. Magic becomes limited to figures of massive import or power, like the Pope who can perform legit miracles. By the modern era there are so many people that the interference is total and global, effectively bringing an end to the age of myth and magic.

Until a latent mage/atomic physicist enters space and accidentally's all of Mars.

>>51107470
>>51107623
>>51107530
False equivalence.

Saying "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" three time in a row while making three 6" circles with your hand in the "OK" sign to cast Prestidigitation is not the same as memorizing how to pronounce - correctly and repetitively - Agh!ftaghngo'kichmu Gramatnogua'lugn W'kidmarialous!ngyo (which you must know the meanings of and why those glottal stops and clicks are located in the places they are put in those words and names) while drawing a perfect circle with a heart drawing - not a shape, but a drawing of a human heart that is anatomically acurrate - in the air with your pointer finger while your index and thumb are pressed together and your ring finger is curled into your palm while you little finger is parallel to your index and ring fingers, while keeping the image of the victim's heart in your mind and then finishing by swiping the imaginary drawing out of the air while incanting the 23rd name of Death Personified to kill your victim dead.

Rote memorization is easy. Understandign what it is you are saying and doing and why it must be done in those exact manners, and then learning to do it EXACTLY that way on command every single time without fucking it up is not so easy. They both may take six seconds, but the results and understanding of what is going on are different.

>>51107664
See
>>51107745

>>51107745
While getting stabbed as well

>>51107764
Well, Finger of Death is a ranged spell, fortunately.

>>51103009
because I play 5e where the classes are mostly balanced

By the time a wizard attains a high enough level to make ruling the world a possibility, they're usually smart enough to realize that conquering the world is a highly overrated pursuit.

Leave terrestrial subjugation to the thick-headed warlords and sycophantic politicians.

>>51107745
Performing these actions again and again should make them easier to remember, but D&D wizards FORGET the spell after casting it which is retarded. You don't forget a song after you've learned to play it and performed it once!

>>51107745
Nope, still looks easy as shit. There is still nothing preventing someone from just using raw memorization for it, even if "understanding" it would make things easier. As I said, if going through 6 second motions was all that was needed to cast spells, everybody would be a wizard, since 6 seconds of doing/saying something is fucking easy to memorize, and because even the strongest spells generally take no longer than 6 seconds, everybody would be a powerful wizard.

>>51107836
No, they do not forget.

The act of preparing spells is the wizard layering magical energies in their mind to utilize with the spell they are repeating and moving with. When that energy is used up, they can no longer cast the spell. Learning how to layer those energies properly and preparing your mind to utilize them effectively is what a lot of wizard training is. You never forget the passes and words, you can't - you've been practicing with them all for years after all. You lose the energy for the spell out of your head, and THAT you can't get back without sleep and preparing magic once more. You get better at it as time goes on, and you learn to put together information you already have to create new spells, but the rote memorizatio is still required - it's just what everyone sees. what is actually happening is quite different, because normal people - and most wizards for that matter - don't see the spells prepared or the magic in the caster's mind. There are spells which can reveal that - Arcane Sight, for instance - which shows the layers of magical energy and the way they are put inside the wizards mind, in preparation for releasing the energy through those rote practices he's spent years learning how to do and manage properly.

And the fact that people just presume its just finger wiggling and rote words is why none of them are wizards.

Now if you'll excuse me I must meditate and prepare to deal with shoving eldritch power inside my head to prepare my memorized spells for twenty minutes straight for the next eight hours.

>>51107858
>looks easy
>has no idea how to actually pronounce those words in real life
Those exclamation points and apostrophes are not there for decoration, those are sounds you make when pronouncing the words.

Besides, the passes and the words are the easy part. Putting magic energy inside your brain for powering the spells, that's the part you can't do so easy. If it were easy, everyone would be a wizard.

>>51107914
>Besides, the passes and the words are the easy part. Putting magic energy inside your brain for powering the spells, that's the part you can't do so easy.
You're just making shit up now. Nothing of the sort was mentioned in >>51107330

>>51107932
Actually, the part about preparing spells is in every single RPG about magic ever.

>>51107945
And that's fine. Not really relevant to that line of posts, though.

>>51107899
Yeah that's retarded. You don't forget memorized words when you speak them aloud. How do you think people learn new languages? Ever tried learning Spanish, memorizing words makes speaking it EASIER not HARDER.

>>51107836
>>51107899
>>51107962
It should be noted Vancian casting is meant to be informed by the Discworld kind of casting. The point was spells were so fucking ridiculous, that nobody could remember how to cast them, not even Wizards. And it took ages to prepare, far too long to be actually useful in the heat of the moment. So what you'd do is prepare almost the entire spell, but leave the very end of it unfinished. When needed, you finish the spell off with a few gestures and utterances.

>>51107962
>>51107932
>>51107958
There's a method of creating 'unhackable' passwords that was being explored recently. It was a little long-winded, something like quoting a verse from a poem. The program would record the speech several times and based on the intonations, it would create a virtual profile not based on the voice alone but a whole variety of mannerisms, from how they breathed throughout it to how long they paused for between lines. The program would only accept the user logging in if they quoted the verse in a manner that agreed with the virtual profile. If there was a close enough connection, it would accept the login attempt.

I've got no idea if there was any success with this project, nor have I been able to track it down since then. But it would likely be a similar system with a wizard performing magic. Making the sounds and the gestures isn't enough, the magical system of the world needs to interpret the intonation and the subtleties and mannerisms properly, it needs to check that your actions are in line with your thoughts and that everything is in order before it gives the go-ahead and allows your hands to spit out a fireball.

>Wizard casts a spell
>Equally high level fighter makes save
>Makes 4 melee attacks
>Action surges
>Makes 4 more

So yeah.

>>51108141
>wizard casts a spell that rips open the world and sends out a torrent of angels to destroy the enemy army
>fighter hits someone with a big chunk of magical metal 8 times

So yeah.

>>51103878
No one said it was only for killing; I said that you have to either kill 3,300 wolves, by yourself, to reach high level; or else do tasks that are the equivalent of killing 3,300 wolves by yourself.

>>51104018
>milestone leveling is by far more fun for the players

As a player and a DM, I can certifiably say that's false. Between the two, I have always preferred gathering XP, because it means that I can point to definite tasks from which I measurably learned something.

>>51105637
>Issue is you need to go up against a "reasonable threat"

Not in 5e, at least, which is what I was using as my basis for the XP required to reach 15th level. In 5e, a wolf is always worth 50 XP, no matter what level you are.

However, that doesn't change my underlying point, viz., wizards need to do more then sit in a tower and study to gain meaningful amounts of XP.

>>51103009
The only thing stopping them is lack of will to.

Wizards mostly just want to keep to themselves and do their research. The nobility are fine with that, and just give them a tower, a budget, and access to the kitchens in exchange for their services as 'magical advisor'. Sure, ruling the kingdom WOULD give them more resources, but they'd have to actually rule it, and they're smart enough to see that they'd end up having to appoint someone else to do it, and still only get a percentage. And they'd still have to hire adventurers to do the dirty work of hacking magical components from creatures that are quite attached to their hearts, or delving in dungeons for ancient artifacts.
Is all that effort and death worth it for a few percent of GDP a year? Not really.
Let the nobles noble. Wizards hold the real power anyway, or so they think.

>>51108456
> Time needed to cast a single spell equals (1+ Spell Level) rounds
> Caster has to make the concentration checks all of the rounds while he is casting a spell
There you go, casters fixed.

>>51108673

Which 5e spell summons a torrent of angels?

>>51108673

Gee, almost like AD&D where casters weren't gods because the monsters had more attacks and could act more often than they could fire off their high level spells.

>>51105637
I just had a 3rd level player fight 12 goats, if he did not get initiative we was dead as fuck.

>>51108761
But Anon, literally everything you posted there applies to 5e, too.

>>51107473

That sounds like a catch 22, bro.

> trying to become a wizard
> don't know magic yet
> need to learn magic
> requires access to a library to study magic
> there are no books of magic
> if you knew magic, you could make your own books of magic
> you can't write any books of magic because you don't know magic because you can't find any books of magic to teach you how to do the magic you don't know yet

If there isn't any magical research readily available to steal notes from, you can never become a wizard in the first place.

>>51108673
>wizard stays behind 4 shields and casts a spell that ends an army
>it takes 9 turns and 9 easy to make rolls
>fighter has to hit 500 hobgoblins with a chunk of metal

>party needs to reinforce a town
>wizard uses magic to shape the walls up and fortify structures
>fighter moves a few bricks and tells the townspeople to get better at fighting

>party needs to get look for information
>wizard uses divination magic to locate target swiftly and safely, or uses magic to make people be willing to give him more information
>fighter has to resort to beating people half to death and using threats and doesn't get very far

>party needs to do any noncombat thing
>caster has a shitton of options
>fighter has very little

I don't think you fixed casters at all.

>>51103009
They're too focused on practicing magic to rule a country

>>51109417
>>wizard stays behind 4 shields and casts a spell that ends an army

In the time it took him to finish casting the second shield, he got hit with a bunch of arrows and died

>party needs to reinforce a town
>wizard uses magic to shape the walls up and fortify structures

Without anyone to man a competent defense of those walls, they are easily taken and the wizard dies. Walls are good an all, but without active defenders they are just an obstacle.

>>51108456
>>51109417
Name the spells.
No, seriously, name the specific spells.
Clearly, we're implying a DnD world here. So there are specific spells.
If you're not implying DnD, then the magic is as weak or as powerful as you want, which for purposes of this discussion, is kinda cheating.
If it's DnD? Name the fucking spells.

>>51103009
Because nobody likes or trusts them. Their influence reaches no further than the range of their spells.

Also, they're notorious for not working together. Every wizard wants to be a master of his own destiny, and none are happy to follow anyone else, eapecially another wizard. Wizards are a bit like beholders in that respect.

>>51109417
Okay, it takes 2^(1+Spell Level) rounds to cast a single spell.

A ninth level spell takes 1024 rounds to cast, so about 10 hours. And you have to make the concentration checks all the while.

>>51109866
Nobody likes or trusts inbred nobles either and their influence reached no further than the range of their weapon. Yet they still ruled. Either out of incompetence, laziness or both, authors, game designers and audiences are incapable of imagining worlds where people with power actually have and wield said power.

The notion that they'd have to sit on gaudy chairs wearing pretty head-gear in order to be the people in charge is honestly baffling. If everyone knows that your top dog and that what you say goes, whatever you choose to call yourself, or others choose to call you, is irrelevant.

>>51109793
>Name the spells.

Different Anon here - but okay. We'll stick to 5e. Please note that "an entire army" was hyperbole on the other Anon's part; that does not change, though, that wizards can deal with many more creatures at once than fighters can.

>Torrent of angels
In truth, this doesn't exist, though the various summoning spells can get you various supernatural beings.

>Spell that ends a [horde of baddies]
There are a few options here, but I'm going to go with Delayed Blast Fireball, Reverse Gravity, Symbol, Antipathy/Sympathy, creative uses of Control Weather, Incendiary Cloud, Gate (if you call in a big scary monster), Meteor Swarm, Wish (to duplicate any previously mentioned spell or any lower-level spell or achieve some other effect).

>Reinforce a town
Here taken to mean "improve its defenses without summoning creatures". Fabricate, Hallucinatory Terrain, Stone Shape, Wall of Fire, Aniamte Objects, Creation, Wall of Force, Wall of Stone, Disintegrate (to dig pits, collapse passes, etc.), Guards and Wards, Move Earth, Programmed Illusion, Wall of Ice, Reverse Gravity, Antimagic Field, Antipathy/Sympathy, Control Weather, True Polymorph (to turn chairs into warriors).

>Any noncombat thing
I mean, this is impossibly broad, but basically the point is that a wizard can do with a spell what takes a Fighter a skill check, or more. The wizard can also often do it faster.

>>51103009
Simple, I don't play D&D.

>>51111732
To be honest, it's not like other settings don't face similar problems with ridiculous magic-users.

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>>51111831
Usually, if the writer knows what they're doing, ridiculous magic has a price. Like, a real price, higher than 'needs a long rest'. Either the buy-in to being a wizard's really high, or it takes a great deal out of a person, or a great deal of time, or you don't have total control of the consequences, or so on.
Unless, y'know, you're an idiot writer, like pic related, in which case the price of magic is literally money, and wizards are demigods that don't rule the world because they would find it boring.

Does it have to specifically be D&D as the system? Because if not I would say it's because martials can actually defend themselves against wizards.

>>51103009
anti-magic is a thing that those in real power employ to control wizards
it's really that easy
the most powerful wizard in the world can be turned into a child by one anti-magic field without question

>>51103009
I was under the impression that they did. Certainly your classic Forgotten Realms and Dark Suns take wizard supremacy as read.

>>51111283

In 5e a wizard can maintain 1...one...uno concentration spells, and they potentially are lost if they take damage. Most evocation spells now have passes that you can make relatively easily (especially if you splash a lil Paladin on it) and you have ways of doing horrible things to casters.

Now if the OP had said Wizards could somehow rule the world by being really good at running away, I'd buy that. They're really good at that now.

Most do rule in name, but wizarding is so much more interesting than ruling so reagents take control and rule in their place while the wizard kings sit back and enjoy their researching with the funds of the kingdom. A wizard king coming out from his castle is a terrible thing that usually leads to disasters across the kingdom. Rarely the reagents may petition the king to appear on the battlefield, which has the unfortunate side effect of leaving both armies almost completely obliterated.

Wizard kings are kind of dicks.

>>51108527
Salty stupid wrong bitch

Because saying "I use magic" in a high fantasy setting is like saying "I use muscles" in the real world - no shit. More specifically, that's because high level wizards and dragons and whatnot usually have better things to do with their time, but sometimes they do decide to take over a country, whether out of altruism, pushing a political agenda, performing an experiment, or whatever other reason they might need large quantities of people otherwise beneath their notice.

>>51103009
There are like, 8 truly high level wizards, and both advancing in magic and maintaining those skills are more or less full time jobs. But even if they weren't, no man rules alone. You still need someone to collect your taxes and build your roads and raise your farms and, while magic use would reduce the number of key supporters you actually need, you still need key supporters to do those jobs, and they in turn need their key supporters doing the same thing on the level below them.
"I'm a wizard, I can build golems to build golems for me to build all the roads and farm all the food I need and act as the army and whatever" well, okay, now those builder golems are your key supporters, which you might have magically bound to serve you but that begs the question why would you even want to do this?

>>51103009
Other high level wizards...

Once you understand that.
See any published D&D setting.

>>51112448
Other nobles didn't stop nobles from ruling. Not for lack of trying, but they ruled all the same.

>>51112420
I think there is bigger problem should a wizard be able to build golems like that. That would be industrial revolution and not just industrial revolution, but AI revolution with full automatization. Not to mention possibility of golem revolution making other sentient species obsolote.

>>51107454
Calculus isnt hard desu.

>>51112583
I dunno. You don't see Warforged everywhere, and they're more alive and independent than golems are. It would only obviate species that are already not worth noting or lack strong magic. Even then, I doubt humans or halflings will just lay down and die just because they don't have to work anymore.

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Hold on, doesn't magic usually require catalysts and other rare materials? I know some high end stuff requires diamond and gold be sacrificed to make magic work in DnD itself.

Wouldn't that limit their powers?

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Magic is addictive. The better you get at magic, the more you want to use bigger and better magic. This leads to wizards only caring about studying magic to make better magic. To make matters worse, wizards don't like sharing with other wizards the good stuff, forcing wizards to conduct their own experiments. They eventually get tired of all the noisy bullshit around them that's not magic, and build a magic tower to lock themselves away in.

From there, they either ascend, blow themselves up, or have their souls eaten when they accidently an interdimensional soul leech.

>>51112384
A scathing rebuttal, sir.

>>51112361
>In 5e a wizard can maintain 1...one...uno concentration spells

You don't really need to concentrate to blow up a horde of dudes coming your way. A 15th level fighter can slaughter twenty goblins charging him easily, but he's gonna need a few rounds to do it. A 15th level wizard just casts a fireball or two.

With regards to reinforcing a town, the original point was that a wizard can do something like raise walls, create areas of reverse gravity, Disintegrate some pits or collapse some passes, and so on. The most that a Fighter can do is physically, with his own hands, take part in the town's construction of a pallisade or wall or digging ditches or whatever, and it would take him hours. And the thing is that there is nothing preventing the wizard from then doing whatever the fighter's doing as well. The wizard can create a Wall of Ice and then take part in physically digging a trench in front of it, for example.

The wizard has options the fighter doesn't, AND has the fighter's options. Even if he's not as good at it as the Fighter, the fact remains that for any X a fighter can do really well, a wizard can do X as well, not as good, but can ADDITIONALLY do thing Y and Z, which the fighter can't.

Now, mind, this actually segues into an economic law called Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage, which basically states that if you can do Thing X better than you can do thing Y, and another guy can do Thing Y better than he can do Thing X, but can ALSO do Thing X better than you can do Thing X, there will nevertheless be greater benefit if you just do Thing X and the other guy does Thing Y, rather than the other guy trying to do both things.

That does not change that the other guy is just better than you, though.

>>51103009
No such thing as magic, faget. Fuck off.

>>51112173
But that requires them to be wizards or to be supplied by wizard that makes scrolls/wands or similar devices.

>>51103244
>It requires years of training. CLOISTERED training.
Or you can start as another class, kill a few goblins, and multiclass into wizard at level 2. Sure it's risky but *some* people would be willing to try it. :^)

>>51103009
Most wizards in my setting have better things to do than run countries. Running a country is a lot of hard work that doesn't involve studying magic or exploring the cosmos, so most aren't interested in it.

The ones that get too uppity and think they can use their magic to overthrow a country and upset the natural order of things generally find themselves on the hit list of other powerful wizards.

>>51103009
This is why I made magic illegal in my campaign

>>51103009
They do, but not directly.

I kinda go by the Witcher's ideas where magic users often act as advisors to rulers and have their own secret cabals, but where they're often distrusted and there are entire military or police groups dedicated to killing them.

That and the fact that high level magic users are extremely rare. They often kill each other, and those seen as a threat by rulers and kings and such are usually assassinated.

>>51103849
The character is a dragon able to polymorph.

>>51112050
and the wizard guild would put the offenders upper jaw on a curb and proceed to stomp the shit out of their head, the bondsmagi do not play around

>>51103009
Competition. As soon as one steps up, another shoots him down.

>>51103009
By and large, three types of people become high level wizards; nerds, villains, and heroes. The nerds just want to read the books, the villains do try to conquer the world, and the heroes are too busy stopping the villains to try anything. And if they do try something, they become the villain and another hero wizard pops up to stop them.

>>51107278
>Then you'd have to persecute every single mage

like countries bans all guns because some people will use this thing to do evil stuff?

>>51103009
They don't exist or tend to cause accidents that kill them in the process when they take things too far.

>>51103009

Because ruling requires a surprising amount of effort, which takes time away from doing things that are actually interesting to powerful wizards, like dicking about with planar stuff

>>51103161
>Because mathematicians don't rules ours either.
You're an idiot. Mathematicians and wizards are not comparable. Knowing math doesn't let you shoot fireballs or fly or divine the future.
>inb4 engineering

>>51114903
sure thing pal

>>51107413
How many six seconds of actions can you memorize?

>>51103009
Ruling the world is a ton of hard work and any wizard worth his salt ain't got time for that shit.

How lonely do you have to be to constantly spam trollthreads every day....

>>51103009
There aren't very man high-level wizards. That level of power is hard to reach for a multitude of reasons, survival being a significant one.

>>51103009
If you are wizard, why the fuck do you'd want to get bogged down with the bureaucracy of ruling the world? You'd just rather stay in your tower and not give shit. More time for research and not giving a fuck about reality.

>>51103009
But they do.

>>51115730
>>51115473
>>51113982
>>51109671
>they're not interested in ruling the world

This is stupid.

There are bound to be megalomaniacal wizards who DO want to rule the world and dominate people.

>>51103009
They do.

>>51116600
No.

>>51103009
Mages must act with government oversight. Wherever established, they tend to exert an inordinate amount of political and social pressure and so they're not well liked. If you don't tow the party line, your years of casting spells are cut short.

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>>51112738
GP cost in D&D is actually representative of materials needed to source and purchase through various avenues of trade, though this is often done through a process of equal exchange in a very subtle Pay the item's worth and you'll make it sort of deal.

A while back this was detailed, in that gold was used not for all of item creation and spellcasting. And, there was presented information on what one could do to cut costs.

One of the biggest things to cheapen XP cost creation features is of course the creation of items that do this, and mass production/Industrialization, but some materials PC's can gain in quantity can contribute greatly.

Salt, is in fact the biggest example of this, as not many know that we didn't always have it at easy access at the table, it's used in so much magical creation and back in the day, it was NOT cheap or easy to get by any means.

So, if a PC has access to Salt, he could have a fortune in item creation materials and spell components, and can cheapen it using these resources.

I'll let you in on a neat little thing if you're ever in 3.5, If you're ever become a Dry Lich, you'll become a Millionare, they can make Zombies that turn people into fucking salt, and as a Lich you've access to unique salient abilities gained by age, including Lich only items to craft, and- spells. One of them lets you build massive tunnels underground with ease, for the sake of canal networks to graveyards which you just pick the buried caskets up from, it's actually quite impressive and circumvents all forms of Topside gravedigging, even allowing access into tombs and crypts avoiding wards and guardians.

>>51110199
Wizards don't rule for the same reason that swordsmen don't rule. Power resides where men believe it resides. Your ability to kill individual people is insignificant compared to the political forces that shape nations.

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>>51103009
Wizards become powerful enough to create entirely new worlds to rule over, with blackjack and hookers.

Why would you want to rule a world of faggots and peasantry?

>>51110199
Nobles don't rule by swinging their own swords, you idiot. Even the ones who have seen battle hardly ever get within sword's reach of an enemy. They rule by cultivating the public trust, perhaps through cultural identity, belief in divine right, or by focusing on keeping the army or other influential people happy. A ruler who knew some spells would use them no more often than other rulers would use a sword. That is to say, seldom or never.

>>51117292
/thread

>>51117374
That was my point. That the reach of their swords had jack shit to do with helping them rule, as would the reach of a wizard's spell. Public perception, cultural identity and assumptions, belief in magical superiority, etc, would help them rule just as well.

>>51103009


How do you explain that high level scientists don't simply rule the world in the real world?

>>51118063
They can't bend or break the laws of physics on a whim, for one. They're also not known to be equal to, or better than artillery.

While historians may find it hard to try to rule the world, time-travelers will likely have an easier time of it.

>>51114903
engineering

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>>51118063
How do you know that they don't?

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>>51118176
>They can't bend or break the laws of physics on a whim

Neither can Wizards in a typical DnD setting. A wizard who wants to make you explode needs components and prep time just like a scientist who wants to make you explode.

Just like scientists, wizards are specialists who mostly only care about advancing their own research. They don't have time to crush their enemies, enforce their will, or do any of the other things which fall under the rubric of "ruling". In theory they could take over the world, but in practice it's too much effort and risk for too little reward. Why bother when you can talk the existing political elites into funding your research in exchange for relatively minor contributions to national defense or health care?

>>51103009
What's the point of ruling the world? How does that effect your day to day life?

Big palace? servants to do things for you? Safety to travel the world and know that peasants will defer to your will?

Wizards already have all of these things. Leaders require the support of armies and serfs to achieve what Wizards can provide in a fully self sufficient manner.

Fuck off out of here with your mortal needs.

>>51118360
Hands-off ruling is more than fine. Wizard shows up, everyone scrambles to please their every whims and desires, wizard leaves with whatever/whoever it feels like, people are left to live life in whatever way the wizard has deemed fit. Rinse and repeat.

>>51118360
One thing worth noting that makes this analogy break down even further is that there are plenty of D&D settings were wizards do run countries, or even entire world. They don't all have an interest, but enough do that it's not going to surprise people if the king turns out to be a mind flayer or dragon or wizard - in a fantasy setting, it even makes it feel justified, because this person is individually powerful enough to threaten nations.

>>51118462
Util said wizard gets poisoned, killed in his sleep, or simply forced to use up his magic items and spells per day due to human wave attacks.

>>51118768
That's typically due to comic book tier storytelling. The "mind flayer or dragon or wizard" is simply a stock super villain (or hero) character

>>51119520
All of which can apply to anyone without magic even easier. D&D, after all, is a superhero setting where people can walk through lava, balance on thin air, and shoot mind bullets, so it's only natural that the people with hard power (above) would easily obtain soft power (money, politics).

>>51119520
Nobles get poisoned, killed in their sleep and worse as well. Doesn't stop them from ruling anyways.

>>51103009
>How do you explain that high level wizards don't simply rule the world in your typical d&d setting?

Because people have a hard time trusting them.
Especially other high level wizards. Letting nobles and the like rule is a means of preventing the issue from coming to a head.

>>51119949
Feels like a bad argument - why trust the nobles?

>>51114903
whatever that make your sleep at night alone.

>>51103009
too much work that gets in the way of their research

>>51105791

>Doesnt know that Bards secretly run the world and orchestrate everything behind the scenes
>orchestrate

I see what you did there.

>>51103009
Because there aren't any.

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>>51121177
>magicless setting

Why do you hate fun?

>>51103009
They do. The gods in my setting are wizards that got to end game power. They just make sure to stay in power by killing weaker wizards when they start to become threatening.

>>51103009
Kings that arent wizards are high level martials with a divine antimagic granted to them by their divine right to rule. If enough people believe in a person the gods will also unconditionally grant them that blessing. A rebel leader can be "destined" to be a king once he proves his worth and overthrows the current ruler.
All the gods consider mages as challengers to their power and are so rivalrous that they cant help undercutting any competition. Mages can be kings but its not worth the political intrigue so they mainly work against the people who would keep them from their rightful place on the top of the societal hierarchy and try to best the gods that actively hold them down.
Also normally divine magic is tied up its just that is one if the few things all the gods agree on to cause divine phenomena on the mortal plane.

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>>51119520
>not being immune to poisons
>not being immune to the weapons of peasants
>sleeping where peasants could even reach you
>not having a familiar that could solo an entire city while you comb your beard
>needing sleep at all

Look at Mr. Fancy Wizard here. Hasn't even graduated 12th level and thinks he can rule the world already.

>>51121617
The king is merely the cohort of his wizard "advisor."

>>51121936
Divine right of kings causes false prophecy that drives wizards insane, martial kings surround themselves with clergy. Succesful mage kings rule through force of will and essentially can conjure up so many defenses that even blessed rebels get torn to pieces after trying to kill illusions.

>>51103009
Define a "typical d&d setting".

In FR, there are wizards to busy fucking goddesses (Elminster), wizards who rule (elven archwizards), and wizards who want to be hardcore but the others won't let them (red wizards of Thay)

>>51103515
Hell, you don't even need to kill 3,300 wolves yourself. You just need to find a town that's having trouble with 3,300 wolves and, like, train them to defend themselves or something.

The DM's gotta give you credit for that. Probably partial credit, but if he only gives you 1000XP then it just means you need to find just over 4 towns with wolf problems.

And I think at level 15 you can make wolves.

>>51114369
Well, unless one of their members has been tortured and mutilated.
When that happens, they just stand around shrugging with thumb up ass going 'yeah, can't do anything about that! We can only go after people who *kill* one of our own!'
Genius setting and plot, there.

http://dyverscampaign.blogspot.com/2017/01/cowardly-dungeon-master.html

This blog feels vaguely related to the point.
The point being, not every setting needs invincible wizards, and most of this 'wizards are always the best' meme bullshit would be solved by a DM with an actual scrotum.