Synergy in Fantasy

Magic can do a lot in fantasy gaming. Not everything, but a lot. And where it's lacking, is where technology comes in. We were talking about this with a friend when dealing with world-building, and he was discussing making it low-tech. We asked, 'why?'

"Well, there's magic, so tech isn't needed."

If this were true, then you're talking about a stone age culture, right?

"Well, no. They have swords and armour, and stuff."

That's technology. So, where do you draw the line, then?
Our thought is... you don't. And we explained it to him.

First and foremost, magic isn't omnipresent. It doesn't permeate every aspect of society. Farmers don't wave a hand to seed their fields or harvest. Masons and architects don't cast spells to build temples and palaces. Swordsmiths don't chant to mould a bar of steel into a sword. Scribes don't use spells to copy books.

Are there spells that do any of that? Just maybe. Is it common? Most likely not. And where there are gaps, there are people to fill those gaps, people with ideas on how to make a job simpler, or how to do more with the proper tools. "Necessity is the mother of invention", after all.

"Well, the kingdom / gods / whoever would put a stop to it."

Why? Why would you not want better harvests? Why would you not want superior steel? Why would you not want more stable and more lavish buildings? Why would you not want your tomes to be copied so they don't get wiped out in a single fire? That's counter-intuitive. If you're a ruler, you want your culture thriving, and unless you've got an army of 10,000 mages and clerics running around doing maintenance 24/7, someone's going to invent something.

And that aside?
Even mages would be into inventing stuff, too.

1) A spell or magic item to increase your intellect and / or wisdom.
2) Which also augments a type of knowledge you possess or grants that knowledge.
3) And a divination to foresee where trouble may happen in the invention and circumvent it.

D&D and Pathfinder both have this. Especially Pathfinder:
"This item gives you +6 Intelligence and Wisdom, and grants you your level in ranks in Craft (Architecture) and Craft (Woodworking).  And since that's an Int skill, you're actually going Level + Int Mod + 3, with an extra +3 if it's a Class Skill (Pathfinder).

5e? Boosts your Intelligence to 18 (or possibly even 20), and gives you proficiency in one or both of the above.

Congrats, your mage is now an absolute savant in architecture and woodworking. They'll be able to craft and invent stuff nobody would have thought of for decades or more.

Now, if you want medieval fantasy, sure, go ahead. But here's a question then.
How much has magic / miracles impacted society. How has magic changed how society functions? How much has it altered the course of human civilization?

Because... if it hasn't? If it's just 'medieval but there's a few spell tossers and monsters' then there's going to be technology. Because magic obviously isn't filling the needs society has. And if monsters exist, damn straight humanity's going to be inventing really brutal and creative ways of dealing with them.

"Oh, dragon? Yeah, so we've got these tower shields that are heat / acid resistant, and we've got this ballista that fires a net with wire filament woven into it so it's resistant to being shredded, and weights on the end to wrap around the thing.  That usually slows the dragon down long enough for the other ballista to run it through." or something like that. Because damn right there's going to be people working on how to take down the monsters.

Magic makes it easier, but magic isn't always there.

This is why we think world building is important. Like, we look at Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms and the like and we go... "so, what's magic actually done for civilization?" and the usual answer is "fuck all". Which means you're going to have people pushing the envelope on a more mundane level, because... it's kind of necessary for survival.

Hey, let's give you an example.
In one of our settings, there's a lich queen ruling over her people. In her society, when you die, your body is carefully wrapped in bandages, dressed up in finery, and animated to act as a civil servant. They handle the general cleanliness and upkeep of the city and do simple tasks and such. The family gets paid wages based on the work the corpse does. It's considered an honour to have a family member to carry on, and the wealthier the family, the better the corpse is going to look - silk bandages, even more finery, ornamentation, preservation magic to keep them from rotting, etc. An entire kingdom with the undead for manual labour.

Why? Because it makes sense. You have magic, you have a culture that respects the dead, you have a lich queen, you have necromancers. Put it all together, and you've got a society that's rather unusual for people who aren't used to magic being so finely integrated into society.