When it comes to D&D, I've always been an advocate of letting the rules dictate the setting rather than the other way around. One thing that really irritates me is the endless stream of people who do things like house-ruling out Raise Dead spells for the sake of the "realism" of their world. They want to play D&D - a game of high magic - in a setting indistinguishable from the dirt-filled and disease ridden world they imagine to be a "realistic" view of the Medieval period. Or they do it because they want death to be "meaningful".
Screw that. If you want to play dirt farmers and pigstickers then go play WHFRP, and if you want death to be all angsty then go play Vampire.
This is D&D.
So the setting should reflect game's elements, rather than the game being twisted and shoehorned into some setting that means you've got to handwave away most of the magic and bizarre stuff in order to keep a sense of "verisimilitude".
With that in mind, I've been going through the 5e PHB looking at the magic chapter to see what it actually tells us about the world...
Healing
The average peasant probably has ample access to healing magic. Even a first level clerical acolyte at the local temple or the local druid's apprentice can cast Cure Wounds; not to mention any bards that pass through regularly or live in the area. There are so many classes that can heal at first level that you can pretty much expect any non-life-threatening injury to be magically healed.
Similarly, poison and disease can now both be cured by a mere second level spell (Lesser Restoration) that is available to all three of the types of people mentioned above, so I would imagine that they would be easily available too.
None of the above spells have any kind of material component cost, so I wouldn't expect these sorts of things to follow the suggested cost of 10-50gp per casting. That might be the cost to go up to a total stranger and ask them to prepare and cast a random spell on your behalf, but I'd expect the local priests (less so druids and bards) to dish out healings for free.
Partly because it's in their interest to keep the locals happy with their religion; and also because that's the sort of thing that tithes are for. Then again I'm a Euro-socialist so I see free healthcare as fundamental right that good-aligned churches would provide.
Of course, severe injuries like people losing a leg in a ploughing accident might require a Regeneration spell, which is going to need a 13th level caster. That's the sort of thing that will require a short pilgrimage to the high temple or druidic enclave rather than something that can usually be done locally. Those who can't make the journey would have to wait for a high level priest or druid (or bard - bards are second only to clerics in terms of being able to heal) to visit the village. I would imagine that many religions would have one or two who travel the land healing people (as well as overseeing their local subordinates of course); so people are likely to be able to be healed even if it means it takes a year or two to be able to arrange it. As above, the spell has no cost to the cleric, druid or bard although in this case I'd expect some kind of "pay what you can afford to" donation to be expected. I see no reason why a cleric would refuse to heal someone because they can't afford the high price the cleric is demanding - not in any civilised society anyway.
Death
When it comes to actual deaths, things are a bit more complex.
Since stopping someone from dying is so easy (a simple curing spell or even a cantrip in the case of clerics) I'd expect dangerous events like childbirths to be attended by someone who can cast those spells in case of emergency.
When someone does die and there's no-one around to stop it (for example in an accident or in a feud) we're looking at finding a 9th level cleric to cast a Raise Dead. Ninth level clerics don't grow on trees, so while there may be one in charge of the local temple it's by no means guaranteed; so some travel may be involved. Unlike the lesser healing spells this one costs money - and a lot of it. It takes 500gp to cast the spell, and I can't imagine the various churches simply eating the cost for every prematurely dead person in their areas. However, they might subsidise the spell for the truly needy, or people might put some money aside each month as a form of "insurance". Maybe the churches themselves take this money on top of regular tithings.
Of course, this only works if the dead person is still whole (so if someone dies out in the woods and gets half eaten by wolves before the body is found it's too late) and if they are got to the priest within 10 days. Given the limited spell slots in 5e, the priest might already be "fully booked" for Raise Dead spells for the next few days so there might be some hard decisions to make in terms of who is more deserving.
A 9th level travelling bard that passes through could also cast a Raise Dead, but they're much more likely to demand the 500gp up front and the odds of one happening to pass through within the 10 day limit are quite low.
If you don't have the whole body, you might be able to get a Reincarnate from a 9th level druid, although the time limit is the same and the cost is twice as much at 1,000gp a shot. The fact that people are less likely to be tithing to druids and are therefore going to have to pay the full price; combined with the fact that the deceased will almost certainly come back as a different race; makes this a much less attractive proposition for the average commoner.
For those who can afford it, of course, a 13th level cleric or bard can do a Resurrection on your lost loved one. The big downside to this is that it costs twice as much as a Raise Dead (1,000gp) but on the plus side the time limit is a century and you only need a body part. 13th level clerics are harder to find than 9th level ones but that doesn't matter because you can spend a year or two saving up for the spell before going to the temple (or waiting for the travelling priest to do the rounds). As with a simple Raise Dead I'd expect that there would be various long-term-payment financial arrangements made with churches, but bards would probably want cash up front.
If there's no body at all, for example it was completely eaten or Disintegrated then the average commoner is pretty much out of luck. It's going to take a 17th level cleric to cast True Resurrection and that costs a whopping 25,000gp to cast. There are probably only a small handful of people in each country capable of casting the spell, but the price tag means that only the super-rich nobility and royalty can afford it anyway.
For that sort of rich nobility it's cheaper to plan in advance and buy a Clone spell from a wizard. At 3,000gp it's more expensive than a Raise Dead or Resurrection, but it's mostly guaranteed. You don't need to worry about people finding your body or it being intact because it's irrelevant. After you die you wake up in a clone body and you're fine.
On the flip side of the coin, what does this mean if you want to kill someone and keep them dead? If you're an assassin or simply a murderer, how do you stop your victim being raised after the deed?
You probably can't get away with simply smashing up the body. While that will stop a Raise Dead it won't stop a Resurrection or higher. However, destroying the body completely (either magically with a Disintegrate or physically by feeding it to your pigs) will prevent all but the most rich or prepared of people from coming back. The only ways back after that are True Resurrection or Clone.
If your victim is likely to have a clone body waiting for them or is likely to have allies willing to pay for a True Resurrection, you basically can't kill them permanently. Instead you have to arrange for something permanent but non-lethal to happen to them. Good candidates are petrification (but be careful because destroying the statue will kill them) or the Imprisonment spell. In either case, you're then going to need to hide them or put them somewhere where the sort of rescue party that can afford a True Resurrection won't be able to get to them.
Transport
There are very few long range transport magics available to the average person, and few that would be good for transporting goods or armies. In most cases we're looking at nothing better than a road network.
Teleporting is possible, but for all but the highest level casters this is going to rely on the Teleportation Circle spell. This spell needs a 9th level arcane caster to cast it, and although it only costs 50gp in components it can only take you to a permanent circle. Creating a permanent circle requires an arcane caster of that level to spend a year casting the spell every day in the same place. That's going to set you back 18,250gp in components alone plus whatever you pay the caster, so there aren't going to be too many of those around. You're likely to see them only in major cities. Given that these circles are the sort of places that dangerous people and creatures are likely to appear, they will be located in places with organised defence forces. It's likely that these places will also have casters able to cast the spell for a fee.
Other Magical Conveniences
The Continual Flame spell only costs 50gp and lasts forever (unless it's dispelled), and it only takes a 3rd level cleric or wizard to cast it. I'd therefore expect most towns and cities to be lit at night by these, and most families would have one or two that they use to light their houses (they can be covered or hidden at night). The 50gp cost would be expensive if they were being bought regularly, but since the odds of a commoner's house being subject to a dispel are remote in the extreme they can last a generation or two and are therefore cheap. In fact they're the sort of thing a couple might be given as part of a wedding ceremony to both help them set up a home and also be symbolic of their wedding vows.
Plant Growth requires only a 5th level druid, and can give all plants in a half-mile radius double yield for the year. With no material cost, I see that being cast on every field around every town every year. This basically means that we'll only see half the amount of farmland that you'd expect for a given population (and this in turn means more wilderness, so it's in the druids' own self-interest to do it for the people).
Speaking of food, while a 3rd level cleric can create food in an emergency with the Create Food and Drink spell, this doesn't scale well and isn't likely to be able to feed a town through a famine. However, Create Water only needs a first level cleric or druid and creates lots of water. With repeated application this could irrigate crops and stave off droughts.
Detective Work
Finally, how much does 5e magic mess up detective work and/or investigative situations?
Surprisingly not much. While a fifth level cleric can cast Speak With Dead, the corpse retains the personality of its former life and is under no obligation to answer questions or even tell the truth. So the old "kill them first and ask questions later" tactic won't work. It will still be useful when investigating murders, of course, so a murderer would have to make sure they aren't identifiable by the victim.
In terms of interrogating or questioning people who are alive (either in a judiciary manner or in the field) the two main spells that can be used are Detect Thoughts which requires a 3rd level wizard or sorcerer and Zone of Truth which requires a cleric or paladin of similar level.
In neither case are these infallible. Detect Thoughts can't be done sneakily in that the target knows that you're trying to read their mind and can make a saving throw to end the spell, and similarly while Zone of Truth forces people to tell the truth it does have a saving throw and the target knows the spell's effect when it hits them (although the caster knows if the target has saved and is therefore possibly lying).
In a formal interrogation, I'd see the former as less useful. Not only do you rely on the target not being able to trick the caster who's reading their thoughts, you also have to rely on the caster revealing what they've detected truthfully and accurately. The latter spell is much more effective, although while it can stop someone lying it can't stop the equivocating and giving technically-true-but-misleading answers and it can't stop them from simply refusing to talk.
There could be an argument that Zone of Truth could be combined with torture in less savoury environments since it gets rid of the problem of people simply telling you what you want to hear in order to get you to stop. Of course it doesn't get rid of the fact that torture is hideously immoral, and most clerics and paladins wouldn't be party to such activity. There are bound to be a few who would do it, though, but they're more likely to be on the protagonist end of the scale.
Screw that. If you want to play dirt farmers and pigstickers then go play WHFRP, and if you want death to be all angsty then go play Vampire.
This is D&D.
So the setting should reflect game's elements, rather than the game being twisted and shoehorned into some setting that means you've got to handwave away most of the magic and bizarre stuff in order to keep a sense of "verisimilitude".
With that in mind, I've been going through the 5e PHB looking at the magic chapter to see what it actually tells us about the world...
Healing
The average peasant probably has ample access to healing magic. Even a first level clerical acolyte at the local temple or the local druid's apprentice can cast Cure Wounds; not to mention any bards that pass through regularly or live in the area. There are so many classes that can heal at first level that you can pretty much expect any non-life-threatening injury to be magically healed.
Similarly, poison and disease can now both be cured by a mere second level spell (Lesser Restoration) that is available to all three of the types of people mentioned above, so I would imagine that they would be easily available too.
None of the above spells have any kind of material component cost, so I wouldn't expect these sorts of things to follow the suggested cost of 10-50gp per casting. That might be the cost to go up to a total stranger and ask them to prepare and cast a random spell on your behalf, but I'd expect the local priests (less so druids and bards) to dish out healings for free.
Partly because it's in their interest to keep the locals happy with their religion; and also because that's the sort of thing that tithes are for. Then again I'm a Euro-socialist so I see free healthcare as fundamental right that good-aligned churches would provide.
Of course, severe injuries like people losing a leg in a ploughing accident might require a Regeneration spell, which is going to need a 13th level caster. That's the sort of thing that will require a short pilgrimage to the high temple or druidic enclave rather than something that can usually be done locally. Those who can't make the journey would have to wait for a high level priest or druid (or bard - bards are second only to clerics in terms of being able to heal) to visit the village. I would imagine that many religions would have one or two who travel the land healing people (as well as overseeing their local subordinates of course); so people are likely to be able to be healed even if it means it takes a year or two to be able to arrange it. As above, the spell has no cost to the cleric, druid or bard although in this case I'd expect some kind of "pay what you can afford to" donation to be expected. I see no reason why a cleric would refuse to heal someone because they can't afford the high price the cleric is demanding - not in any civilised society anyway.
Death
When it comes to actual deaths, things are a bit more complex.
Since stopping someone from dying is so easy (a simple curing spell or even a cantrip in the case of clerics) I'd expect dangerous events like childbirths to be attended by someone who can cast those spells in case of emergency.
When someone does die and there's no-one around to stop it (for example in an accident or in a feud) we're looking at finding a 9th level cleric to cast a Raise Dead. Ninth level clerics don't grow on trees, so while there may be one in charge of the local temple it's by no means guaranteed; so some travel may be involved. Unlike the lesser healing spells this one costs money - and a lot of it. It takes 500gp to cast the spell, and I can't imagine the various churches simply eating the cost for every prematurely dead person in their areas. However, they might subsidise the spell for the truly needy, or people might put some money aside each month as a form of "insurance". Maybe the churches themselves take this money on top of regular tithings.
Of course, this only works if the dead person is still whole (so if someone dies out in the woods and gets half eaten by wolves before the body is found it's too late) and if they are got to the priest within 10 days. Given the limited spell slots in 5e, the priest might already be "fully booked" for Raise Dead spells for the next few days so there might be some hard decisions to make in terms of who is more deserving.
A 9th level travelling bard that passes through could also cast a Raise Dead, but they're much more likely to demand the 500gp up front and the odds of one happening to pass through within the 10 day limit are quite low.
If you don't have the whole body, you might be able to get a Reincarnate from a 9th level druid, although the time limit is the same and the cost is twice as much at 1,000gp a shot. The fact that people are less likely to be tithing to druids and are therefore going to have to pay the full price; combined with the fact that the deceased will almost certainly come back as a different race; makes this a much less attractive proposition for the average commoner.
For those who can afford it, of course, a 13th level cleric or bard can do a Resurrection on your lost loved one. The big downside to this is that it costs twice as much as a Raise Dead (1,000gp) but on the plus side the time limit is a century and you only need a body part. 13th level clerics are harder to find than 9th level ones but that doesn't matter because you can spend a year or two saving up for the spell before going to the temple (or waiting for the travelling priest to do the rounds). As with a simple Raise Dead I'd expect that there would be various long-term-payment financial arrangements made with churches, but bards would probably want cash up front.
If there's no body at all, for example it was completely eaten or Disintegrated then the average commoner is pretty much out of luck. It's going to take a 17th level cleric to cast True Resurrection and that costs a whopping 25,000gp to cast. There are probably only a small handful of people in each country capable of casting the spell, but the price tag means that only the super-rich nobility and royalty can afford it anyway.
For that sort of rich nobility it's cheaper to plan in advance and buy a Clone spell from a wizard. At 3,000gp it's more expensive than a Raise Dead or Resurrection, but it's mostly guaranteed. You don't need to worry about people finding your body or it being intact because it's irrelevant. After you die you wake up in a clone body and you're fine.
On the flip side of the coin, what does this mean if you want to kill someone and keep them dead? If you're an assassin or simply a murderer, how do you stop your victim being raised after the deed?
You probably can't get away with simply smashing up the body. While that will stop a Raise Dead it won't stop a Resurrection or higher. However, destroying the body completely (either magically with a Disintegrate or physically by feeding it to your pigs) will prevent all but the most rich or prepared of people from coming back. The only ways back after that are True Resurrection or Clone.
If your victim is likely to have a clone body waiting for them or is likely to have allies willing to pay for a True Resurrection, you basically can't kill them permanently. Instead you have to arrange for something permanent but non-lethal to happen to them. Good candidates are petrification (but be careful because destroying the statue will kill them) or the Imprisonment spell. In either case, you're then going to need to hide them or put them somewhere where the sort of rescue party that can afford a True Resurrection won't be able to get to them.
Transport
There are very few long range transport magics available to the average person, and few that would be good for transporting goods or armies. In most cases we're looking at nothing better than a road network.
Teleporting is possible, but for all but the highest level casters this is going to rely on the Teleportation Circle spell. This spell needs a 9th level arcane caster to cast it, and although it only costs 50gp in components it can only take you to a permanent circle. Creating a permanent circle requires an arcane caster of that level to spend a year casting the spell every day in the same place. That's going to set you back 18,250gp in components alone plus whatever you pay the caster, so there aren't going to be too many of those around. You're likely to see them only in major cities. Given that these circles are the sort of places that dangerous people and creatures are likely to appear, they will be located in places with organised defence forces. It's likely that these places will also have casters able to cast the spell for a fee.
Other Magical Conveniences
The Continual Flame spell only costs 50gp and lasts forever (unless it's dispelled), and it only takes a 3rd level cleric or wizard to cast it. I'd therefore expect most towns and cities to be lit at night by these, and most families would have one or two that they use to light their houses (they can be covered or hidden at night). The 50gp cost would be expensive if they were being bought regularly, but since the odds of a commoner's house being subject to a dispel are remote in the extreme they can last a generation or two and are therefore cheap. In fact they're the sort of thing a couple might be given as part of a wedding ceremony to both help them set up a home and also be symbolic of their wedding vows.
Plant Growth requires only a 5th level druid, and can give all plants in a half-mile radius double yield for the year. With no material cost, I see that being cast on every field around every town every year. This basically means that we'll only see half the amount of farmland that you'd expect for a given population (and this in turn means more wilderness, so it's in the druids' own self-interest to do it for the people).
Speaking of food, while a 3rd level cleric can create food in an emergency with the Create Food and Drink spell, this doesn't scale well and isn't likely to be able to feed a town through a famine. However, Create Water only needs a first level cleric or druid and creates lots of water. With repeated application this could irrigate crops and stave off droughts.
Detective Work
Finally, how much does 5e magic mess up detective work and/or investigative situations?
Surprisingly not much. While a fifth level cleric can cast Speak With Dead, the corpse retains the personality of its former life and is under no obligation to answer questions or even tell the truth. So the old "kill them first and ask questions later" tactic won't work. It will still be useful when investigating murders, of course, so a murderer would have to make sure they aren't identifiable by the victim.
In terms of interrogating or questioning people who are alive (either in a judiciary manner or in the field) the two main spells that can be used are Detect Thoughts which requires a 3rd level wizard or sorcerer and Zone of Truth which requires a cleric or paladin of similar level.
In neither case are these infallible. Detect Thoughts can't be done sneakily in that the target knows that you're trying to read their mind and can make a saving throw to end the spell, and similarly while Zone of Truth forces people to tell the truth it does have a saving throw and the target knows the spell's effect when it hits them (although the caster knows if the target has saved and is therefore possibly lying).
In a formal interrogation, I'd see the former as less useful. Not only do you rely on the target not being able to trick the caster who's reading their thoughts, you also have to rely on the caster revealing what they've detected truthfully and accurately. The latter spell is much more effective, although while it can stop someone lying it can't stop the equivocating and giving technically-true-but-misleading answers and it can't stop them from simply refusing to talk.
There could be an argument that Zone of Truth could be combined with torture in less savoury environments since it gets rid of the problem of people simply telling you what you want to hear in order to get you to stop. Of course it doesn't get rid of the fact that torture is hideously immoral, and most clerics and paladins wouldn't be party to such activity. There are bound to be a few who would do it, though, but they're more likely to be on the protagonist end of the scale.
[5e] Looking at the world through the prism of the PHB
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