Magic is a known phenomena

How long does it take a programmer to learn how to, using their mind and not any chemicals, point at a spot and have it explode with the force of several sticks of dynamite?

>Engineering, STEM etc, require major personal investments in resources

And learning magic doesn't? In many settings, magic takes a lot of time and effort to learn to any effective degree.

>Magic, on the other hand, can be learnt by people of even average intelligence.

[citation needed]

Well Mr. Pedantic Shitlord, Magic is universally described as requiring intense study, libraries of magical lore, and towering intellect to use.

So it's really actually a great comparison and you're a dickhead.

You're making a lot of assumptions about this magic system.
That it can be cast freely, learnt by anyone and has lifespan increasing qualities.

It is rare that those qualities are true, and more so for them all to be. So tell me, which setting are you actually mad at? Because you're currently whining about an unlikely up hypothetical right now.

I think the problem comes with the definition of "average" intelligence and people ignoring the time it normally takes to learn magic. This, of course, is coming from a background of PF, so any problems I have can be solved by not playing PF. It takes at least 2 years to become a caster class that has to be "trained" for a human, and your casting stat has to be at least 1 over average (10) to cast a 1st level spell. That means you need a master and above average mental stats to learn magic beyond cantrips. Most people can't afford to blow 2 years not working. And that's a minimum. 2d6 years past adulthood to be properly trained. That is why most rural villages dint have casters. Other classes are determined by fate. Bloodlines, being contacted by a patron spirit, some type of occult whatever. People in cities should be more magically inclined than they are, though. Prestidigitation is just too fucking useful.

In 2nd, anyone with an INT of 10 or greater could learn magic. 10 was the average. Therefore, people of average intelligence would learn magic.

Bards

What if you need a degree to use magic?

I suppose I'm in the 10%? Magic is pretty tough to do and somewhat dangerous. It's based on petitioning/bribing minor spirits to get supernatural things done on your behalf, and there's always the danger that they'll get out of control or be offended by your request and make a mess of things.

>There is a 90% chance this is how your setting works
>t. XCom recruit
Of my entire library of PDFs, and all my half-finished heartbreaker settings, I have no setting that works like that.

Read the fucking OP.

>And learning magic doesn't?
He literally said it can be learned by people of even average intelligence. Moreover, we both know the kinds of investment I'm talking about are different. Learning STEM to any serious degree takes at least 4 years of dedicated study at a college and tens of thousands of dollars of debt. A peasant that spends a few hours a day listening to the local wise-person ramble on can learn a minor cantrip to a level 1 cure. This solves, again, 90% of his problems. A level 1 growth spell for his food? His crop harvest has increased enormously. A simple trick to animate tools? His workload has plummeted.

All they need to do is listen to minor tricks and charms and their freetime increases enormously. Then they just need to share it with their neighbours sometimes, if at all. Just don't let it get lost by your children. And why would they lose it? They cast it every day on their crops & tools and shit before hitting books.

It requires intelligence and talent that few have, and the good teachers are almost always recluses or in expensive schools the peasantry can't afford.

They also study, do they not? They're not sorcerers.

If not, then a better question would be why aren't ALL musicians bards? Why would you ever settle for nonmagical music?

>A peasant that spends a few hours a day listening to the local wise-person ramble on can learn a minor cantrip to a level 1 cure
SINCE FUCKING WHEN

Not even D&D 3.5 works like that.

A couple things. First is that learning magic also requires quite a lot of resources. Spellbooks alone cost quite a bit of gold, and actually finding a teacher to copy spells from is also difficult and costly.

Further, without a great deal of intelligence, you won't be able to use very much magic. This depends more on the edition, but it isn't as ubiquitous as you'd think.

It also takes years to get to even 1st level wizard status, and in this time you're doing nothing but studying, hence the 1d4 hitpoints. No time for any other combat training or doing labor, which in turn means you need even more income to become a wizard as you'll have to pay for meals in addition to the costs of training.

As for the last thing, most magic used to lengthen lifespans are either divine in nature, focusing on the healing aspects which are an entire different field of study, or involve complicated rituals that are both high level and generally seen as risky or evil, such as deals with demons or becoming a lich.

It's all very demanding, and for an NPC, the most benefit you'll get out of it is maybe being able to fling some sparks at someone. All that investment of time and money for a low level spell, which might save you maybe a few minutes of work or a few coppers.

>That's not true for many STEM subjects
Yes it is.

Pathfinder does... and that's the only one I think.

>Read the fucking OP.

We did. Did you miss the part where he said
>There is a 90% chance this is how your setting works. Explain yourself.

>lifespan increasing qualities.

A healing spell increases your effective lifespan by preventing you from dying to infections caused by minor injuries.

It is extremely rare for healing spells not to be present. It equally rare for low-level spells to be difficult to cast.

Not in the settng OP described. Nor in settings where magic highschools are thing.

That doesn't make sense.

>SINCE FUCKING WHEN

If they ask the guy to cast the fucking spell, what do they have to do all day? Explain. Why can't they just ask him to teach them the thing? Explain.

We're talking about the 90%, idiot. Fucking hell. The 10% don't need explaining; they've already provided justifications.

Yea, with intense study.
People of average intelligence can also learn STEM fields, too, but most don't because of the time commitment. (And likely other opportunity costs.)

Bards do indeed study, picking up spells from a variety of sources. It likely requires years of wandering and luck to pick up enough hedge magic to really call yourself a Bard, and even first level bards don't have that much to begin with.

>He literally said it can be learned by people of even average intelligence. Moreover, we both know the kinds of investment I'm talking about are different. Learning STEM to any serious degree takes at least 4 years of dedicated study at a college and tens of thousands of dollars of debt.
But not particularly impressive intelligence. Just time, dedication, and tuition.
>A peasant that spends a few hours a day listening to the local wise-person ramble on can learn a minor cantrip to a level 1 cure.
And anyone with access to the internet can learn to code. But most people don't.

Why is everyone using D&D setting economics - probably the worst actual part of any setting (especially in 3.5) - as the defense to this?

The real answer is that the well established rich nations would have tons more wizards and shit and it would be easier to become one. In the fantasy Africa analogue not so much. Divine magic is probably more evenly spread out.

>Why can't they just ask him to teach them the thing? Explain.

Because in a typical D&D setting, learning a spell from a Wizard requires a spellbook of your own, along with years of study to understand the basics of magic.

You're continually saying that 90% of settings work this way, but even by the basic rules of any D&D edition you're easily proven wrong.

>You can't just learn this shit from online

Sure you could.

In (real life), anyone with (average grades) could learn (engineering). (average grades) were the average. Therefore, people of average (grades) would learn (engineering).

>to people reading the op post replies
OP has no idea how magic works in most settings and is bitching about this bizarre hypothetical setting he's made up where peasants can become first level wizards by reading a book once and then bitches that people aren't wizards deposits this being entirely obvious.
Also magic requires no reagents, has no ill effect on soul or psyche, is easy to learn by the vast majority of people from ramblings, and cure spells make you live forever.

Do not enter this thread. OP is a lunatic. Or enter, I'm not the boss of you and he's sort of amusing in that "I'm sure glad he's on the opposite side of a screen because I wouldn't want to be physically close to this drooling retard" kind of way.

>>Magic is a known phenomena
Yes.
>>Has innumerable powerful and practical uses
Yes.
>>Teachings and learning resources are not kept secret
Yes and no. It's hard as shit to mass-produce books on magic, and most magic-users aren't intent on simply giving away the knowledge that keeps them in business. Technically, it's not secret, but it's as good as given that you need to have a shit-ton of books to start and years to spend practicing.
>>There is little danger in practicing magic
The possibility of blowing yourself up on a regular basis does exist if you don't know what you're doing.
Also, there's a hidden danger to magic in general most people don't know about.
>>Anyone of average intelligence is able to learn it
Maybe TECHNICALLY under 5e rules, but not in practice. PCs are freaks of nature.
>>Less than 5% of the population practice it
Higher than that, though most are hedge wizards or the like.

Someone of average intelligence could only cast level 0 wizard spells.
That doesn't seem worth all the time and effort it takes to become a wizard, just to be an incredibly mediocre one, instead of learning a trade.

>magic is a known phenomenon, but setting is low-magic
>magic is inherently corruptive
>magic is has some good utility, but has a more restrictive leash than a high-magic setting
>prolonged and unlucky influence can result in permanent corruption, which can manifest as horrible physical stigma
>it's possible to mitigate this corruption through extreme methods, but impossible to be truly cleansed of it
>those with stigmas are hunted before they can go full abomination and fall to the corruption
>it's much easier to hide stigmas and corruption than to remove corruption
>even practitioners of sanctioned magical practices are looked to with suspicion on occasion
>teachers exist, but resources are harder to come by
>there is great danger in practicing magic, and it's commonplace for anyone who uses it for long enough to end up marked or thoroughly corrupted by it
>magical artifacts are rare, but usually grant good utility at the cost of corrupting the bearer
>anyone can learn it, but those who dabble without a strict discipline of study are likely to gain corruption fast and manifest stigmas easily

>magical practitioners are uncommon, but not exactly rare, although certainly not 5% of the populace uses or dabbles in magic

Symbaroum seems to deal with it somewhat realistically, albeit in a dark, threatening, and ultimately depressing manner.

Pic related

You're taking for granted the fact that, in our modern world, we have access to an insane amount of information through the net. And I don't just mean "commoners can't google Spellcasting for Dummies", I mean that most common folk just wouldn't know where they'd learn magic in the first place. Magical schools are rare because magic is typically expensive (spell components for practicing with), so a farmer could live his entire life only a dozen miles from the best magical education facility in the world without knowing it.

To learn magic, you have to go to where magic can be learned, which means you have to know where that is, which you couldn't learn in the past without being well-connected or extremely lucky.

>Just time, dedication, and tuition.
Time that could easily be gained if a mage, any, was willing to cast a minor self-animation spell on tools and a growth spell on fields. That basically guarantees everyone in the town as much freetime as the spell lasts.

"Dedication" is kind of fair; all you need to do is kill a few hours listening to a guy lecture you about TWO SPELLS. Three at most if you MUST have cure. Tuition is free since you can just pay in your infinite crops, or just ask the guy who paid to share the knowledge. Or just find a kind mage. There is no reason why someone with an interest in getting the most from their land (lords, kings, merchants etc) wouldn't hire a mage.

This takes even less effort for much, much higher guaranteed reward than coding.

You can learn it; you can't apply it in many cases due to needing accredation. Programming is a different case, yes, but you can't take your self-made engineering curriculum and get a license.

>if a mage, any, was willing to cast a minor self-animation spell on tools and a growth spell on fields.
If I spent years learning those spells like fuck I'm going to use them for the benefit of some random peasants.

Yeah sort of. Except more "holy shit is this nigga serious" than mad.

>you can't apply it in many cases due to needing accredation

You can't get a job or whatever, but you can still experiment or engineer or whatever the fuck on your own, just as with learning magic you could cast spells or whatever the shit. You can learn to cast fireball, but Duke Longindong won't hire you on as his court wizard if you don't have a diploma from the Unseen University.

>Minor self animation spell
Is it really that minor? Creating tools that perpetually do work without constant oversight seems like an incredibly hard piece of magical engineering to do. Plus the caster will need to know farming so they know what the hell the tools should be doing.
Honesty it seems easier to just skip the enchanting and give the tools to some peasants.

>That doesn't seem worth all the time and effort it takes to become a wizard, just to be an incredibly mediocre one, instead of learning a trade.

If level 0 is enough to make your fields till, tend & plant themselves, you've learnt more than enough for your time to be well-spent. If only one of those things is true, you've learnt more than enough. If only half of one of those things is true: Time. Well. Spent.

You don't have to. Get paid. By Lords. Merchants. Kings. Whoever.

You don't need it. As I said, the applications for magic in the real world are just too broad to let yourself be shackled to Duke Longindong. If you spent a decade traipsing around the countryside making fields work themselves...

Only one person needs to know farming: that person needn't be you. That's what consultants are for. Lords, Merchants, Kings etc would have a few on hand to tell you what your tools would need to be able to do.

It's a large cost now, for infinite long-term profit. It only takes one person with a modicum of foresight to change the game completely.

>You don't need it. As I said, the applications for magic in the real world are just too broad to let yourself be shackled to Duke Longindong. If you spent a decade traipsing around the countryside making fields work themselves...

That's a good way to get on the wrong side of the Arcane Administration Bureau. Ever since that incident in Southshire, they've really been cracking down on unlicensed magic users. Can't have anymore harvests destroyed just because some self-taught wannabe hedge wizard fucks up a rune and makes it rain frogs for nine days straight.

If they want that kind of thing to stop, they should actively make an effort to teach people about safe & responsible magic use.

Oh, not another one of you "free arcane education" assholes. Let me guess, you want a one payer system to cover everyone's leech treatments, too.

Fuck off back to Elfland, you socialist.

Let's say this saint of a mage fixes up a town. Nobody in this town has to work anymore.

Why would they try and learn wizardry, specifically? Maybe they'd prefer to focus on music, or other arts. Just beause a mage got rid of all the work doesn't mean they'd immediatly start to study.

>all you need to do is kill a few hours listening to a guy lecture you about TWO SPELLS. Three at most if you MUST have cure

It's more than that, and being lectured isn't enough. You need a spellbook in order to memorize them. And it will only be two because Wizards don't learn cure spells.

>Tuition is free since you can just pay in your infinite crops, or just ask the guy who paid to share the knowledge. Or just find a kind mage

Except it isn't, because infinite crops means they aren't really worth that much. It'll keep you fed, but if you knew engineering skills and somebody offered you a mountain of corn that they seemed to have an unlimited amount of, would you really teach them at the market price of corn?

Further, even if the mage is kind, spellbooks are hundreds of gold. You're only saving that up over a long period, and a generous mage would surely only want to teach someone who has talent. They're going to take the 15 Int peasant as an apprentice and ignore everyone else.

It is not something as simple as taking a highschool class. It is not the sort of thing you can listen to a lecture on for a couple hours and suddenly know how to do it.

It takes much more effort than learning to code, as learning to code doesn't require rare ingredients and someone to teach you over the course of years. It's also debatable if it's even more of a reward than learning to code.

Name a couple beginning level wizard spells that will make a peasants life drastically easier by being able to use the once per day. Comapre that to learning a trade and hammering out swords for a good profit as a Blacksmith, or learning an instrument and performing for money at the Inn.

>Magic, on the other hand, can be learnt by people of even average intelligence.
I like D&D too user but its rules don't apply to everything

>If level 0 is enough to make your fields till, tend & plant themselves

BUT IT ISN'T

That's what you don't understand. You are spending YEARS of study, and hundreds of gold, to cast Light once per day. If you're lucky? You learn Prestidigitation, and can clean your clothes and house with ease, saving you a couple hours of work each week.

Don't you know? You can learn Wish for free from a dude in a lecture hall by attending night classes, thereby immediately entering a post scarcity society.
Clearly I am a genius and I have found the flaw in your "fantasy magic".

Now, it probably isn't this difficult in user's fantasyland where magic is something anyone can pick up in a few weeks of lectures, but using Ars Magica as a basis (since it has a fairly detailed system):
>base level of effect of animating wooden tools to move with purpose is 10
>to make this a constant enchantment in the tools would be level 24
>a magus just out of their gauntlet who slightly specialized in Rego Herbam may barely be able to manage 25, but we'll say they can find a Lab Text to copy it from
>this means they can create one tool (not, I must specify, one SET of tools) per season of work
>at the cost of 3 pawns of vis, which isn't a negligible amount if they want to make enough to replace a village
Although AM has plenty of other reasons why people wouldn't pick up wizardry. We'll even be generous and ignore the vis cost and bump the time cost from seasons to months. That's still 12 magic hoes or rakes or whatever a year. Not exactly enough to break the local economy over your knee, and not enough to justify spending lodsofemone on a magic education rather than a new draft horse and some plows.

>You are spending YEARS of study
Or start as literally any other class, eventually get to level 2 just doing that job, and multiclass into wizard overnight. Nothing is stopping you from choosing to take a level in wizard.

Would those tools require maintenance or does the magic make them impervious to mundane weathering?

IIRC, you'd already need fairly well-built tools (another step off from perfect post-scarcity economy), but the tools would be much more resilient than their mundane counterparts. On the downside, if some jackass so much as cracks it, the enchantment breaks too.

Fluff =/= Crunch.

About 6 months. I've only been a programmer for 4 months, but I feel that something is building up inside of me.

And the vast majority of NPCs never make it to level 2, since they aren't out adventuring and gaining xp outside of that is incredibly slow. Also in 5e, you actually need 13 intelligence in order to do that, which is out of the reach of standard NPCs

Not to mention other classes will still require quite a bit of effort to attain, and it's pure metagaming to randomly multiclass into wizard for no reason with no knowledge anyway.

No such luck, I'm afraid.
I've been programming for over two years, and believe me, if I could focus my hatred for a particular computing bug into an explosion, I would.

Still, wood isn't known for it's brilliant tool creation properties beyond handles.
Indeed it's quite likely to warp, split or rot in the wet. Not a good property for farm equipment.

Now you could treat the wood but you're not really escaping the fact it's a wooden tool. So why not steel? Like many tools throughout time have been made of.
I'd guess that only increases the base level for enchanting an item of greater base durability.

Wow, it's almost like creating these items is incredibly difficult and they'd be prized by farm owners.

in any setting i run wizards are weird recluses who are of the specific temperament required to sit on their own in a room for years reading books, most of them are basically scientists(more like physicists and chemists) or mathematicians with little interaction with anything outside of their circle of friends who are also wizards that spend all of their time researching, the only wzards people are likely to meat are like engineers who take what the others learn and apply it to the real world or adventurer wizards who are drop outs who couldnt deal with the lifestyle. A lot of the things wizards try to do they either dont fully understand and therefore can have huge side effects or are more of a hinderance because they dont understand the rest of the world.

Basically being a wizard is really difficult in the sense of having the required intelegence and basically impossible for the majority of people to deal with the lifestyle.

With the right equipment it's a matter of weeks.

Hell yeah that's what I am talking about my nigger

Electrical engineers are evocation, programmers are illusion?

Not everyone works for DARPA, but enough people can fix their own lawnmowers and computers.

Here is the answer for all of the major magics.

For wizards, magic is jealously guarded and learning it is an extreme privilege. It's tied, incredibly hard, to the hierarchy of society. It's very rare for a wizard to not be someone of noble birth or high standing.

For the church, the same is kept. Becoming the kind of priest who can cast miracles is not something you stumble upon by pure faith. There are rituals, there are pacts, and the keys to them are jealously guarded. You need to make the right connection, and prove yourself in the right ways to the right people. This, likewise, holds true for Paladins.

Ancient druid covens are much the same, though less formal. Their secrets of making pacts and unlocking powers are their keys to power, and they are hesitant to share these keys just because. Not to mention that druidism has been pushed to the edges of society. Becoming a member of a circle, let alone being given power, is not something that's done without proving ones commitment.

And then there is sorcerers. Sorcerers don't go through any of that. No one quite knows how sorcery happens. One day, a person wakes up, and they have power. Not unlimited power, but power. And of course, the powers that be have more than eagerly been able to provide explanations. Nothing good, of course. Sorcerers are cheaters - they didn't have to position themselves through politics, didn't have to prove their worth and usefulness to masters, while both sides wonder how will stab the others first. So sorcerers are branded as evil - as those who are without souls, or those who made deals with the devils, or simply monsters in human forms. Whatever lie the locals will believe to kill these cheaters.

The only oddity that hasn't been explained is bards. Rare enough, and subtle enough, no one quite knows where bards come from or where they get their powers. There is an answer, but I'm running out of space.

>Verily, the written worde be knowne
>'t hast many pow'rful and practical uses
>the Latin tongue is nay secret
>th're is dram dang'r in writing
>anyone can writeth

>Hark! Not one in a score of the king's men write!

Explain thineself

it's easy as "import magic" in Python?
Emacs has it binded to meta+ctrl+M?
My vim binding for it is MM?

It's easy niggah

I refuse to sleep, so I'm continuing this.

Funnily enough, it's just as easy to make the enchantment, assuming it's a lesser enchantment. But let's bring back in the time and vis costs for another example.

Let's say this agrimantic savant decides to make a tool that uses itself, and can be changed into different types of tools. That's probably going to be more efficient, right?

First off, to give an item multiple enchantments, it needs to be an invested item. This means a season of work and pawns of vis based on the object. If we wanted to enchant a wooden staff, thats 8 pawns. For an iron toolhead, it would be 10 or 15. However, our new apprentice can only use 6 pawns a season (limited by Magic Theory, which is usually 3 out of apprenticeship). So our apprentice will need to study for ~3 seasons to even enchant a flint shovelhead. Opening the item takes another season, which has already put us 1 year and 8 pawns of vis deep into this project.

Now the enchantments. The field-working enchantment is above, but Rego Terram this time, and 1 magnitude less on account of stone being easier to work than metal. So that's another season (still assuming lab texts) and another 2 pawns of vis.

The enchantment to make the tool change shape is another Rego Terram effect, with a total cost of 4. This gives us an enchantment that lets us change the tool once a day into another tool of any shape (although it's still made of flint, so it won't be perfectly useful). The problem is: making the tool useful will take a Finesse roll by the user. Most peasants do not have Finesse trained, because it's only used in magic. Sure, you can train them, but we've spent a year and a half, plus 11 pawns of vis, for a tool that requires a trained specialist to be much more useful than the automatic tools above.

Magic is hard.

It's really hard.
Sure, you can learn it even if you aren't a genius, but it might be years before you can manifest a simple precursor to prestidigitation. Only after you start to really get into it do you start to get increasing returns. Your knowledge reaches a critical mass, so to speak, and you finally start to make progress. Not many people have the patience to reach that point, despite the incentives. And in a world where magic is a known phenomenon, those incentives are really not a big deal. If you can't un-break a jar yourself, you can just get your uncle's weird friend Trevor to do it for you.

For demographics with more access to quality education, like nobles, the percentage of practitioners is actually greater than 5%.

Putting your kids into training to be mages is a very likely case for nobles, as they'd have the resources to school them in the early years to prepare them for such an education, as well as the excess capital to afford the services of a teacher along with any required materials.

>Magic is a known pneumonia
>It requires extreme precision when invoked or it can cause disastrous side-effects
>The act of utilizing it alone shortens the user's lifespan for every cast
>Magic users rarely make it to a middle age and often die young due either to the strain of magic or an unintended side effect of a failed invocation

Pretty much.

Glorantha's magic is once again the best in fantasy gaming.

I'm sorry that people lost the point of your thread after only a few posts.

Guns in most societies now are comparable to magic in most settings

Expensive entry costs.
Especially finding a tutor or academy tuition. Not to even mention gaining acceptance.

After all, my stereotypical medieval fantasy setting does not include public education, which didn't become a major thing until the industrial revolution hit, when they were needed for supplying factory work.

You have to understand, in many countries, that's a very distinct possibility.

>Magic is a known phenomena
Yes. However most mages are now commissioned by kings and nations to investigate the cataclysmic event that fucked the world up 8 years ago.This has currently tied up a lot of wizards and druids.

>Has innumerable powerful and practical uses
Totally. In my Not!Arabia nation magic is used to make life easier on the citizens anything to encourage laziness, decadence, and not asking questions to your government. For peasantry its better off to ask a cleric or druid than a wizard; druids and clerics have better low level spells that would help farming and transportation than wizards. However druids are most likely investigating said event from above, and clerics are just too spread out to be effective.

>Teachings and learning resources are not kept secret
Eh...you have to go to a school or get a teacher. It's not like there's a library with "Magic 101 for idiots" books. Also, learning is not free nigga.

>There is little danger in practicing magic
Casters know this, public perception may vary. For example in Not!France the public hates necromancers and spread that hate to mages in general. Not!Spain magic users not sanctioned by the church are hunted down.

>Anyone of average intelligence is able to learn it
I mean sure, anyone can mechanically take the feat that gives them cantrips or multiclass. But even then the amount of spells you get are negligible in terms of help. Mending would be the most useful cantrip desu, but it merely aids, I don't see it elevating peasants up the economical ladder.

>Less than 5% of the population practice it
Honestly don't know, add in all the clerics, bards, paladins, rangers, wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks? I dunno, I guess my answer is the number of practicing casters is as what the story demands.

Plant Growth is the one spell I can see that would make farming and food supply easy for everyone and you can easily rotate casters to do it.

Winner

Sure. Why not give everyone a few basic cantrips just like how Dark Sun gives everyone a few psionic abilities?

RuneQuest is a setting which does exactly that with Folk Magic.

>even those who write Excel macros don't need to worry about food, water, or shelter
I am capable of this skill. Tell me how to make this my job so I can stop selling fish at a Ralphs and do something closer to my actual skillsets.

See, now that's not wholly fair. It's mind, and then vocal components and somatic components, and anything you could find in a spell component pouch.

And using the two of those, air gesture and text to speech, and treatingbthe ever-handy phone as a component pouch equivalent, I could re-write that virus that disables a computer's temperature sensor then overclocks the cpu til it spontaneously combusts. Or just script kiddy it. Why cast it yourself when unlimited use scrolls exist?

So with how many devices have some sort of electronics in them, and increasingly many having an internet connection, my sphere of "can explode by waving my hands and chanting esoteric babble at it" grows ever larger.

>A simple trick to animate tools
That's like a 5th level spell.

>If level 0 is enough to make your fields till, tend & plant themselves, you've learnt more than enough for your time to be well-spent. If only one of those things is true, you've learnt more than enough. If only half of one of those things is true: Time. Well. Spent.
You've only ever played martials haven't you.

The closest any level spell gets to anything remotely that useful is Create Water, and that's a cleric orision. You don't study that, a good decides it likes you enough to give you miraculous aid in the form of spells.

Next lowest i'd say is maybe spark, but it's replacible with a single copper tindertwig, or for something slower but multiple use, a flint and steel.

Or message? With its poor range though, it's basically a quiet walky talky at best.

Probably about the same amount of time it takes a wizard to develop a system to share information instantaneously with anyone anywhere in the world that's used by almost the entire population.

If you grew up in a world with magic, you'd find it as exciting as people find programming in this world.

first post is once again best post.

Does that make data scientists diviners?

>Magic makes sense, but needing a degree to wield it doesn't
If this is bait it's pretty poor bait. You just sound like an autistic idiot.

That's like saying you need a degree to be able to program. If magic is a skill in itself, why would you need the approval of others before you're able to use it. Are they giving it to you? Teaching it? If so, that's one thing. I'm asking why you'd need their sanction to physically do it. There's no reason for that.

Maybe doing magic without a license is illegal and harshly punished by, like, the gods, or whatever.

You don't technically need a degree to do engineering either. You just need it to show people that you know your stuff and for them to let you engineer for them.

Same with magic. Yeah, you might be able to self-teach wizardry, but without a formal education you're probably going to die when you accidentally magic missile yourself.

"Anyone" can become a magician in the same way "anyone" can become a neurosurgeon. There's no inherent danger in it and it doesn't require a special bloodline but you have to be extremely talented to even have a shot at doing it effectively.

Actually if we're talking D&D by definition you have to have above-average intelligence to learn even a single spell.