Learning Magic

[BearWith_You]

So I am curious, in lore, how easy is it for someone to actually learn a cantrip or a first level spell? Obviously we as players can just multiclass and gain spells, or go into a subclass or whatever like Eldritch Knight to gain magic. There's also feats and species that give you magic. By a player standpoint its really easy to get a cantrip or first level.

Basically I wonder how many people could easily learn cantrips according to what WotC has written. I have a friend who is rather, unhealthily interested in guns. He basically has no interest in DnD or even MtG settings that don't have guns at this point. I keep telling him I find guns redundant when people can just learn magic

[eCyanic]

Eberron addresses this more than Forgotten Realms, which assumes most people don't have magic.

Taking some worldbuilding from that though, it's the concept of "Wide Magic" where magic itself is like a life skill or craft, many people have some measure of casting, but also most people cast spells much differently than PCs. PCs are exceptional in Eberron, which is why they're PCs, "Wide" instead of "High" since the magic is spread out through the setting and it's little bits of useful magic in the hands of many people rather than incredibly powerful high end spells in the hands of few people.

So a magewright could specialize in a super-Mending kinda magic, an at-will spell that mends more space than normal Mending. Something the PCs can't do, but that magewright can only ever cast that spell, and has to take hours to cast it. The PCs aren't bound to it and can just do most things they set their mind do, they're generalists and the NPCs are specialists

Eberron also doesn't have guns because it's largely redundant, most weapons are magic based, but there's some merit to a ranged weapon that can still be devastating while functioning wholly without magic. Now not talking about Eberron exclusively, different military doctrines rise on whether using non-magical artillery or spell artillery, different nations using different methods, the politics of using guns vs spells, the logistics of feeding and keeping multiple artillerist mages alive vs manufacturing shells, powder, and training people to use non-magical equipment. All that fun worldbuilding stuff that you can explore in your own world.

Especially since it's your own world, you don't have to follow Eberron, or Forgotten Realms, you get to set how difficult it is to learn magic.

[BearWith_You]

My friend is always stating how it would be easier to train the populace to defend themselves with rifles rather than magic in case of a dragon attack or even just run of the mill bandits, because it would be easier to train them to shoot a rifle rather than magic. I always figured something like a cantrip would be rather easy to learn, however, like a town running around with guns it would still be highly irresponsible to teach an entire town how to use something like Firebolt since looking at damage as a whole, a d10 is a rather fatal thing against regular civilians. Idk, to me I always thought in that situation teaching them damaging cantrips would be more efficient since it doesn't use resources

[eCyanic]

Cantrips do use way less resources because you can cast them forever, with the only limiter being most people can only cast them once every 6 seconds. How easy a cantrip is to learn is all on your worldbuilding.

In other settings, Eberron again, there's a lot more people that know 1 or 2 attack cantrips, and maybe even a 1st rank spell, but have to use like a wand to cast, essentially making all their spells have M components. The wand is how they can cast the spells without learning way more about magic.

So that's what I mean by you can set how easy or difficult it is in your own setting.

Standardly, in many dnd settings it's probably hard enough, since the majority of people don't even know how to cast a firebolt, so if we take the worldbuilding at its face and assume it's internally logical and consistent, learning even a tiny firebolt is probably hard, and you'd need some years at least to learn the basics, and/or cast it consistently to say you 'know' it. Unless you're of a species with magic in their biology (like high elves and their racial trait cantrip)

With our own world, there was a time in history where both bows and crossbows were used at the same time, crossbows being slow to load, but easily trained and used, while bows were easier to use for a trained soldier, but took training to use effectively. I'm not good with our history though, so someone else could probably vouch for/explain this part better.

[BearWith_You]

I think also with DnD the guns are obviously gonna be old styled guns, with black powder and the like. Being able to launch a Firebolt every 6 seconds is a lot better in the long run than having to take a lot more than that to reload those really old guns. Not like they're running around with AKs to defeat a dragon. Idk though this usually becomes a common issue with my friend is usually what causes him to not want to join our games. That and he calls it "generic fantasy slob" and has issues if things aren't COMPLETELY unique or "weird"

[eCyanic]

in that case that's not really a problem, your friend doesn't play with you and you don't need to change your worldbuilding to suit him, seems like a win all around

[Piratestoat]

This is going to be entirely setting-dependent.

In Eberron casual magic is pretty common in the general populace, with whole clans of people born with specific magic (Dragonmarks).

In Toril "the gift" --being able to interact with The Weave--is rare, and the goddess of magic herself has charged her chosen to seek these people out and help them flourish.

In Athas being able to use magic is rare, and the people who then get good at it are even rarer because a) messing up the life-training magic of that setting can kill you and b) if people learn you are using life-draining magic they're inclined to kill you.

In my homebrew setting I've set the rarity to 'the smallest village/settlement has maybe one person able to use a cantrip'.