Re: [dq-rules] Idiot-Savant Assembly Line Wizardry

[Jason Winter <Alarian@harbornet.net>]

At 07:39 AM 9/12/02, you wrote:
>Okay, maybe it's because I'm out of work and have a lot of time to
>think.  Or, maybe it's because I've been re-reading some of the Ethshar
>books by Lawrence Watt-Evans and that got me thinking about how magic
>should work in a fantasy world.  In any case, here's a concept I'd like
>some opinions on...
>
>Is there any reason an enterprising, and very skilled, wizard would not
>be able to herd together some suckers, er "apprentices", and teach them
>one or two spells that they learned to cast really well?  Then, put said
>savants into an assembly line enchanting items?  What would prevent
>something like that from happening in DragonQuest?  A person could make
>a killing in the magic weapon business that way....
>Seriously, though, it occurs to me that the rules point toward setting
>that up as a possibility.  Thoughts?

A good example of this happening, albeit on a smaller scale, happened in my 
campaign.  After 3rd edition came out, one of my players decided he wanted 
to play a shaper.  The campaign had been running for quite a while at that 
point, so he came in at about mid-level.  After about a year of him playing 
the shaper, I had to ask him to retire the character because he was pumping 
out so many magic items, it was becoming a joke.  Nothing super powerful 
mind you, but enough so that all the party members were almost bursting 
with crap, it totally screwed up the game.  Fortunately he agreed with me 
and retired the character.  Since then, Shapers are an NPC only college.

The assembly line thing reminded me of another similar thing that happened 
recently in a game I was playing.  We were exploring some cult activity and 
some abductions near a city we were based out of and came across the 
cult.  Much to our surprise when we went to "solve the problem" they were 
all black mages!  It had never occurred to me that black mages don't have 
to go through all the stuff all the other colleges do to become spell 
casters.  All they have to do is take the lesser pact.  It turns out the 
leader of the cult, a black mage, had been going through the city finding 
beggars and the like and promising them great power if they 
joined.  Granted they all were rank 0 or 1 in all their spells, but we were 
shaking in our boots for a while when every cult member not engaged with 
someone in the party began casting spells on us!



Jason Winter
Alarian@harbornet.net
http://www.darkrealms.com/~alarian/