Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Seghan 08-02-07, 01:41 PM	Does anyone share any consensus on the number of magic users in Khorvaire as a proportion of the population. I've been working over some numbers. As far as I have worked it, the proportion of magic users on the continent could be in the neighborhood of 3% of the total population. Unfortuntely, these figures are largely arbitrarily derived and bound in my own tastes. With that in mind, I'd love some outside opinions. I based everything off the dragonshards entry listing magewrights as the most common arcane class, and comprising 1% of the adult workforce. I estimated the adult workforce as two thirds of the total listed population, a similar proportion to age 18-65 in modern USA. I also took the populations of various druid sects from the Player's Guide, with the gatekeepers and greensingers estimated. I have not added any more to account for Druids of other traditions yet. I have been filling in the rest based on my own guesses as to the relative ranking of all PH magic using classes as well as Artifacer. I have chosen to assume for now that most or all other sourced classes are too specialized to exist in appreciable numbers (this assumption being for convenience's sake as much as anything). As I stated, all figures are basically initial knee jerk guesses with the exceptions of Magewrights and Druids. Anyway, current proportions to total population are as follows: Magewright .66% Adept .33% Artifacer .26% Gleaner .20% Druid .09% Cleric not figured yet Ranger not figured yet Wizard .07% Sorcerer .06% Bard .05% Paladin .05% As I said, these are all very preliminary, and on the conservative side I think. It is also worth noting that I haven't considered the effect of dragonmarks. The current total is 1.77% of the total population, but I'm forcasting that after adding Clerics and Rangers, and maybe upping a few of the counts, the total will be in the 3% range or so. I know I tend to prefer a setting where magic users are a little rare, focusing on the disproportion of power they inject into society. So if the numbers seem a bit light to anyone, then that is why. I'd love to hear feedback on this. Especially praise!
DBlizzard 08-02-07, 02:19 PM	The best tool is definitely the Demographics Dragonshard (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20040712a). It's not perfect because you need to estimate how many people are living in a metropolis. However, it will give you a good idea. This Demographics Generator (http://www.coveworld.net/eberron/demographics.html) uses the information from that Dragonshard to generate its data. A key quote is: The remainder of the population should be divided into 1st-level characters as follows: 90% commoners, 5% warriors, 3% experts, 1% magewrights, and 1% divided equally between adepts and aristocrats.
Seghan 08-02-07, 03:30 PM	The remainder of the population should be divided into 1st-level characters as follows... and 1% divided equally between adepts and aristocrats. Reply With Quote Thanks, I forgot all about that. Interestingly, a half percent is what I assigned to adepts off of my own head (I thought), so maybe my brain latches on to things more than I know. Adepts are #2 on my list, so every other class includes less than that apiece. Edit: That is a half percent of the adult workforce, like magewright. The figure posted is vs. total population
JulesCARV 08-02-07, 03:32 PM	Bear in mind that from levels 1 to 3, rangers and paladins are not spellcasters at all. Also, there might be a few psions and wilders here and there, although I'm not sure how many.
Nightshade 08-02-07, 04:49 PM	I think your numbers on Wizards, Sorcerors, Artificers and other arcane spell casters may be low. But then again maybe not... Anyway, your reasoning stems from the number of druids present in the Eldeen Reaches, which is certain to have the largest proportion of druids to the population out of anywhere on the continent. However, since the continental population centers around the 5 (now 4) nations, and due to the presence of numerous guilds, schools of magic, (such as Morgrave, Arcanix, and the Twelve) and apprentice type situations, I think the ratio of arcane users to overall population should increase. Schools tend to add structure while also increasing the ability to teach in greater numbers. As far as I know, all druids are taught only in an apprentice-type relationship. One might think that the Wardens of the Wood could have a school of sorts but that's up in the air. Then again, the Last War would have affected arcane casters for a longer period of time than it did druids (but whether that would have decreased the number through deaths or increased it through demand is also debatable). [EDIT: Ooops... missed the last few sentences of your post. Silly me.]
The Dreaming Duck 08-04-07, 05:59 PM	I think your numbers on Wizards, Sorcerors, Artificers and other arcane spell casters may be low. Meanwhile, I'm OK with wizards, but think the number of artificers is too high. We're constantly told how rare PC classes are in Eberron; I don't see a reason why you'd have more artificers than wizards, and why either world be close to the number of magewrights. So personally, I'd drop the number of artificers down to that .06 level. Even then, that gives you a combined wizard-sorcerer-artificer value of .19, meaning that you'd have around one PC-classed arcane spellcaster/artificer for every 3.5 magewrights, which still seems a little high to me. Likewise, I personally would drop the number of paladins, who I feel should be the rarest class around. Keith Baker discussed this on this thread (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=895717&page=2) (message 56): The problem is that it's tricky to do paladins the way I'd like to do them. I want there to be a handful of midlevel paladins in Khorvaire, so you can't simply drop the base die roll. At the same time, I personally strongly dislike the image of hundreds of first level paladins milling about. I prefer them to be rare and exceptional - not necessarily as rare as player characters, but still, few in number and more skilled than the average shmoe. Frankly, my inclination is simply to utterly disregard the Demographics tables when dealing with paladins and flat out say that it's up to the DM. The ECS notes that paladins are called where they are needed. If there's no need, they shouldn't be called... If there's great need, there should be more of them. I see them as the rarest of all PC classes, and I'd reflect that in demographics... perhaps replacing the paladin with the knight for standard demographic purposes. With that said, the point that many of those first level paladins may be FAILED paladins - people who have heard the call, but simply not had the strength to take up the burden - is an interesting one. Following this, I'd personally drop the paladin down to the range of .01% - significantly lower than any other class. But it's all in how you see paladins. And as others have said, if you're only count SPELLCASTING paladins and rangers, I'd expect that number to be VERY low. I'd love to hear feedback on this. Especially praise! I'm certainly impressed by the level of work you've put into it. I'd just raise the number of magewrights. The magewright allows some of the basic benefits of magic to be present in society without having people casting magic missile, charm person, or burning hands on every corner. And from what I've seen, that's the point of magewrights; they're the working class spellcasters, while wizards and such are the impressive speciallists. I'm not going to try to do the math - again, impressive work there - but following the "1% of general population" combined with them being on the list for generating higher level characters, I'd expect magewrights to be at least in the range of .85%.
Seghan 08-04-07, 08:10 PM	Thanks for the words, Duck. I was unaware of Keith's statement about paladins, I am quite happy about it. Now I feel justified to really cut the numbers of paladins. I cut artificers as well as they are a pc class, although I still maintain them in higher numbers than wizards. The feeling I get from Eberron is that artifice is a reasonably significant outlet for magic. Much of the everyday magic in the world is tied to material edifice, and it seems a lot of the higher power spellcasters in magic-as-industry would be specialists in material magic. Wizards on the other hand are the highest stratum of spellcasters. In modern terms, Artificers would be more like computer programmers and software engineers, while wizards would be phd level computer science theorists. Not a perfect analogy by any stretch, but I think it gets my idea across. I would tend to maintain magewrights where they are. The dragonshards article states they are 1% of the adult workforce, which I estimate would equal out to around .66% of the total population including children and the elderly. This is based on the recent demographics of the USA as a model.
Seghan 08-04-07, 08:23 PM	My other issue is with some of the more specialized classes. The Gleaner, for example, seems like a good candidate for #3 on the list as (s)he is a low powered spellcaster who fits into the day to day setting of Khorevaire quite unobtrusively. On the other hand, it may be so specialized a class that it would be less common than its power level would suggest. The natural talents might manifest only occasionally. On the one hand, gleaners might be the only spellcaster common enough for people in some ought of the way agricultural communities would see. On the other, perhaps rural settlements that benefit from a gleaner are few and lucky. (The gleaner class is available at the link below, btw. It is the only non-wizards npc class that we use.) The bard gives me similar issues. I would tend to want to make that class rather rare, with other specialist classes like ranger and the many classes too rare to even register on the list. I'm sure most "bards" in the world are just experts with perform ranks, but in may be tempting to inflate their numbers as low power spellcasters. My current off the cuff calculations has just over 7000 bards and just over 1000 paladins compared to 10,000 wizards and 102,000 magewrights in the world. I'd be tempted to reduce the number of paladins in particular even more. The Gleaner: http://www.giantitp.com/articles/gk7uKJeF296jRcx1NJw.html
Seghan 08-04-07, 09:29 PM	Here are some revise percentages of the whole population Magewright 1% Adept 0.33% Gleaner 0.198% Druid 0.09794% Artifacer 0.0594% Cleric 0.0528% Wizard 0.0462% Sorcerer 0.0396% Bard 0.033% Paladin 0.00594% Ranger 0.00528% This is higher than the dragonshards estimate for magewright, as the stated 1% of adult workforce I estimated at around .66% of total population.. It produces less than ten thousand of most classes, less than a thousand apiece spellcasting paladins and rangers, around 7000 wizards, and an additional 1000 druids outside the Eldeen Reaches, which may be an overly liberal estimate. Furthermore, it produces about 6.88 magewrights per arcane spellcasting pc's and 4.49 total npc spellcasters per pc spellcasters, which seem a bit high for pc's in both cases.
OctaviusIII 08-05-07, 03:36 AM	Nice work! I've never quite wrapped my head around just how rare spellcasters are, so I want to apply these numbers to what it would look like if this were the US population, and a similar US industry (according to the US Department of Labor (http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/indchar.htm)). These are all American industries, not Eberronian. Magewright: 3,000,000; same as all non-food store clerks Adept: 990,000; the entire telecommunications industry Gleaner: 594,000; the chemical manufacturing industry Druid: 293,820; the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry Artificer: 178,200; cement masons/concrete finishers Cleric: 158,400; kindergarten teachers (or the steel manufacturing industry) Wizard: 138,600; high school special ed teachers Sorcerer: 118,800; roofers Bard: 99,000; high school shop teachers Paladin: 17,820; fishermen (or all reporters, correspondents, and news analysts) Ranger: 15,840; twice the number of podiatrists (foot doctors) Now, think of how often you'd meet someone like this in everyday life. How often do you meet a podiatrist? Or a roofer, for that matter? Or a fisherman? To give some perspective on the magewrights, by the way: the agriculture industry employs 2.1 million people in the US, and the magewright industry would comprise 3 million. It's a lot. If you want to look up the statistics yourself (http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/indchar.htm), the links are on the right and the table of industry and sector employment is below.
Seghan 08-05-07, 08:55 AM	Nice work! Magewright: 3,000,000; same as all non-food store clerks Adept: 990,000; the entire telecommunications industry Gleaner: 594,000; the chemical manufacturing industry Druid: 293,820; the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry Artificer: 178,200; cement masons/concrete finishers Cleric: 158,400; kindergarten teachers (or the steel manufacturing industry) Wizard: 138,600; high school special ed teachers Sorcerer: 118,800; roofers Bard: 99,000; high school shop teachers Paladin: 17,820; fishermen (or all reporters, correspondents, and news analysts) Ranger: 15,840; twice the number of podiatrists (foot doctors) Nice work right back at you! I had a little seed of wanting to do something like that in my mind, but felt a little daunted. I did calculate out according to the US population at one point, but actually comparing it to real word jobs makes the difference. It also might be instructive to go into the stats and compare the actual numbers in Khorvaire with the actual numbers in the US, which I think I'll do now.
OctaviusIII 08-05-07, 02:29 PM	I think the main lesson to learn is that it shouldn't be hard to find these people. You don't often run into podiatrists on the street, but you know where to find them when you need one.