How do people survive outside the poles?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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johnlocke90 wrote:

In the environmental rules, characters are expected to make fort saves each hour they spend in temperatures above 90 degrees.failure inflicts 1d4 nonetheless damage. 90+ degree days are the norm in summer for much of the world.

Your average farmer has 10hp and a fort save of +1. The farmer will fail over half his saves. On a day with 10 hours of heat, that means collapsing unconscious. A mildly unlucky day is fatal.

A month of weather like this would kill most of the population.

Where do you get "fatal" from collapsing unconscious?

You're ignoring the other rules interacting with this, namely Survival checks and Equipment granting bonuses.
(clothing suited to environment, or even usage of water to cool by evaporation should grant bonuses.)
As mentioned by others, taking a siesta/rest in a cooler shaded spot is the norm in real world heat climates.

And if you're so interested in running mass-world simulations via the RAW, aren't you forgetting the weather table?
You can't just make up 10+hr/day 90+ F weather for months on end, you use the table for weather:
That says Temperate Climates Summer weather is normally "Warm" (60-85 during day) and only 5% of time has a "Heat Wave" (70-95).
In Desert Climates, the norm is always 85-110, but there is no "Heat Wave" occurence.
Claiming outrage at one corner of the rules while ignoring other rules directly relevant seems pretty silly.
Any game rule is meant to function in context of other game rules.

HOT WEATHER OUTFIT
The outfit provides a +2 bonus on Fortitude saves to resist warm or hot weather. This does not stack with any bonuses gained from the Survival skill.

SURVIVAL
DC 15 Gain a +2 bonus on all Fortitude saves against severe weather while moving up to half your overland speed, or gain a +4 bonus if you remain stationary. You may grant the same bonus to one other character for every 1 point by which your Survival check result exceeds 15.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Serisan wrote:
What always puzzles me about these rules is that cold resistance doesn't protect against cold weather as the exposure causes non-lethal damage. Ditto for fire resistance and hot weather.

I think the devs have states they intend or at least run with the resistances applying to the appropriate non-lethal damage.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
johnlocke90 wrote:
Bandw2 wrote:

I think part of this is, that they made the rules for PCs not farmers. They wanted weather to possibly have an effect on maybe a 5th level character, but be nothing for higher level characters.

they didn't want the effects to become irrelevant by 2nd or so level.

though they did this is a poor fashion.

I would note that you could remove the damage and it is still relevant due to the fatigue effect. Fatigue is painful regardless of level.

And 90 degrees is just such a low bar. You go out in summer in the majority of the world and its over 90 degreees. Heat damage should be 100+.

as i said, they did it poorly.


Yyyyup. I'm pretty sure cold weather deals cold damage, and hot weather deals fire damage. XD Nonlethal damage, but elemental all the same - and accordingly blocked by energy resistance. So, basically, any amount of energy resistance means you're fine in hot or cold climates.


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GM Rednal wrote:
Yyyyup. I'm pretty sure cold weather deals cold damage, and hot weather deals fire damage. XD Nonlethal damage, but elemental all the same - and accordingly blocked by energy resistance. So, basically, any amount of energy resistance means you're fine in hot or cold climates.

Nope. It (normally) does not deal energy damage.

Quote:
A character in very hot conditions (above 90° F) must make a Fortitude saving throw each hour (DC 15, +1 for each previous check) or take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage.

Nothing about it being fire damage. Look at the rules for extreme heat:

Quote:
Extreme heat (air temperature over 140° F, fire, boiling water, lava) deals lethal damage. Breathing air in these temperatures deals 1d6 points of fire damage per minute (no save). In addition, a character must make a Fortitude save every 5 minutes (DC 15, +1 per previous check) or take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage. Those wearing heavy clothing or any sort of armor take a –4 penalty on their saves.

One of the damaging effect is specifically called out as fire damage, while the other is just untyped damage. While energy resistance of the appropriate type should probably do something, by the rules it does nothing as the damage (in most cases) is untyped.

Quote:
Where do you get "fatal" from collapsing unconscious?

If you have nonlethal damage equal to you total maximum hit points, any additional nonlethal damage is converted to lethal damage. So if the environmental effects knock you out (which if uninjured means you have a total amount of nonlethal damage greater than your maximum hit points), any additional nonlethal damage would convert to lethal damage and begin killing you.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

all that's fine as long as no one runs it that way.


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Ah yes. White dragons die of hypothermia all the time.


Umbral Reaver wrote:
Ah yes. White dragons die of hypothermia all the time.

They shouldn't, but by the rules they do. The rules are wrong, but that is what they say.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Jeraa wrote:
Umbral Reaver wrote:
Ah yes. White dragons die of hypothermia all the time.
They shouldn't, but by the rules they do. The rules are wrong, but that is what they say.

even if they say that, like I said, the devs run them as if it does protect you.

de jure says you're unprotected, but de facto says you are.


Pathfinder rules are heavily abstracted, in this case too.
Some imagination required.


Jeraa wrote:


If you have nonlethal damage equal to you total maximum hit points, any additional nonlethal damage is converted to lethal damage. So if the environmental effects knock you out (which if uninjured means you have a total amount of nonlethal damage greater than your maximum hit points), any additional nonlethal damage would convert to lethal damage and begin killing you.

Which makes perfect sense, because if you pass out do to hypothermia or heat exhaustion, and there's no one around to help you, the odds are pretty good you're not getting back up.


The closest thing I have to how peasants dealt with heat is stuff my grandfather used to tell me about working on a plantation in Puerto Rico his youth. Down there, even with the island breeze, it can get extremely hot. Some of the stories he'd tell me were about them working early in the morning, usually around 4-5a, and they'd wear loose cotton and wide brim hats. They'd also have water nearby at all times. While a lot of the people would be used to the heat, there would be the occasional victim of heat sickness. And it would be at temperatures of 93-95. But even with being used to the heat, they'd try and be done by 1, because then things would get too hot.

I think one thing we have to remember is that in modern times, we have better fabrics and water to deal with the heat. Water bottles in coolers and such help. But also, there are a lot of factors to temperature that the Pathfinder rules can't realistically cover without getting into more complexities that a GM may not want to get into. 90F in Boston or London are different from 90F in Miami or Vegas.

Personally I'd prefer a more in depth ruleset that included heat index and wind chill while adding human acclimation. Then again, I trained to be a meteorologist, so I'm kinda into that thing :)

Sovereign Court

Umbral Reaver wrote:
Ah yes. White dragons die of hypothermia all the time.

Interesting critique of the interaction between evironmental rules and cold resistance.

I think however the white dragon's comfort/survival in arctic has less to do with its energy resistance and more to do with its asigned climate icon (snowflake=native environment is "cold").

Thanks to that designation, a creature lives/survives/thrives in the ice and snow even if it has no cold resistance at all.

Looking at it this way also gives more power to the GM rather than taking it away... the GM can use a coming storm as a ticking clock plot device to force even arctic critters like white dragons to seek shelter for a duration or by a deadline.


Daw wrote:

The environmental rules are a fail vs reality because they are simplified to make them gameable. Since even a minimal survival skill can mitigate most of it, it isn't so bad. You can actually have serious heat injury easily at 90F, if you aren't taking the right precautions or are susceptible. An active, armored individual toughing it out at 90F could reasonably die. Summer military trainiing events regularly have heat injuries, even with their focus on preventing them.

Honestly, considering that the core of most games is the, at best, surreal combat system, the environmental system is passable.

EDIT/ADD
Yes, adapting to changing temperatures is huge. Years ago at the SCA 30 Year event, I had friends from Southern California and from Moosejaw in Canada camping with me. At the very same time, comfortable to me, the Californians were bundling up while the wilting Canadians were asking if it ever cooled down.

Yeah, I have seen SCA fighters fall from 90% heat too. In fact I was a SCA heavy fighter, and I was sweating like a big dog in 80 degree. Not even in plate, just padded gambeson, full helm and chain.

Sure, I think change to 100 degrees might make more sense.


I've seen someone get heat stroke when the temperature was just in the high 80s (it was sunny and he wasn't wearing a hat). I have also seen people get badly sunburned at lower temperatures. I burn easily and learned as a child to wear a hat and use sun cream. In the shade it is different. I used to live in a flat that would get over 90F for a few weeks most summers. That was uncomfortable, but not damaging.

Maybe 90 in the sun, 100 in the shade?

BTW dogs don't sweat much.


After having heat exhaustion multiple times, yes, any temperature over 90F is lethal.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Jiggy, we never get under 0 degrees Farenheit in the Puget Sound region. Up in the Seattle Area temps under 10 are unheard of and under 20 are fairly rare.

I saw this and asked my girlfriend who is from the PNW what the winters were like. She said, "It gets cold, sometimes it snows." So yeah, sounds like a nice place to spend the winter.

Shadow Lodge

Wheldrake wrote:

Nobody *really* uses these lame environment rules anyway, do they?

This said, sure, 90°F isn't that bad, especially if you're used to it. But get above 110°F and you're looking at serious problems. So there *is* a place for such environment rules... they just need to be a little better thought out and graduated according to severity.

I've had DMs do so, which is why I get my hands on like 2-6 points of heat/cold resistance asap


I remember we were playing an urban fantasy game and someone looked up the local climate (somewhere on the USA's east coast.) Two people had to do their own searches and three make the F to C conversion before we all agreed that yes, the weather really was that extreme there.

We're in Wellington, NZ where there's thousands of miles of ocean in most directions & the temperatures just don't get that high or that low.


d'Eon wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
Jiggy, we never get under 0 degrees Farenheit in the Puget Sound region. Up in the Seattle Area temps under 10 are unheard of and under 20 are fairly rare.
I saw this and asked my girlfriend who is from the PNW what the winters were like. She said, "It gets cold, sometimes it snows." So yeah, sounds like a nice place to spend the winter.

Almost. Seems like she may have forgotten to mention we're overcast roughly 4 days out of 5 from mid-September to late-May. The severe lack of sun gets to some people.

[Do note that everything I've said here is specifically in reference to the Western side of the PNW, east of the Cascades it's more of a semi-arid cold steppe climate.]


Well, even in Seattle we fairly often have homeless or intoxicated people hospitalized for, and occasionally dying of, exposure with wet 50F weather conditions.

Also, stop talking up our climate, housing is expensive enough here.


Keep in mind that the health conditions that often afflict homeless people (including malnutrition) will decrease resistance to temperature extremes. Intoxication also impairs thermoregulation (at least in cold conditions). Sleeping out in the cold is also worse than being awake in the cold.

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