Fred Ohm's page

Bumping this once again. I hope that a designer will rewrite the mechanics of these abilities so that a bard could be better (or at least not worse) at moving crowds than other charismatic characters just roleplaying it.

After all, Prone Shooter was finally fixed more than one year after it was published, maybe this will be fixed before two years have passed.

You did agree.

Quote:

They didn't intend to let another company compete against their next D&D edition, and take a large part of the market, by capitalizing on the work WOTC did for their previous edition.

They didn't intend that

WOTC made the OGL with the understanding that it'll allow 3rd-party publishers and non-commercial groups to publish additional material for their own game, making it sell more in the process. Players and DMs, WOTC and the other companies, everyone was supposed to be better off. But that's not what Paizo is doing.

That's why you can't claim the permission of WOTC, beyond the strict application of the copyright law.
It's like if the kid got the permission to use the car anytime, with the understanting that it's still owned by his dad. Then dad bought a new one, the kid left home, and took the old car (well he redid the paint, cleaned the engine and added accessories) against his dad's wishes. Except that the dad in this case can't go back on his formal permission to use the car "anytime", regardless of the fact that he isn't happy about losing control over it.
Then the other kid borrows the new car after being told not to.
Who's most in the wrong ? The father isn't happy about either.

That's the meaning of the permission to copy you have.

You said that copyright law nonwithstanding, copying is wrong.
You didn't make an exception for copying with permission, but it's understood that copying with permission is okay to you.
Problem is, the only permission you can claim for PF's core rules come under copyright law, and not from the good will of WOTC.
And copyright law is not the point. So your copying should be wrong too.

Seriously, did you guys go ask WOTC for its blessing when you decided to make Pathfinder ? Monte Cook did write something for you, but he was no longer in the company. Did they come over to pat you guys on the back and said "we hoped you'd do something like that" ? Maybe at some convention, if your offices are too far apart ?

Andrew tried to do something illegal (probably, I'm not a judge), Paizo did not. That doesn't mean that Andrew was wrong and Paizo is right.

Well, I wrote a long post, I spent maybe an hour thinking how to be flippant but polite, and exhaustive, and clear-cut in my explanations. Then, as I was almost finished, I scrolled the page to check if I didn't forget something, got back down, and pressed backspace to rewrite my last sentence. It sent me back to the previous page. This forum doesn't let my browser keep in memory the text in the reply form. It's making me frown. Especially because for the same reason, I had to retype this post too.

Okay. I think it can be summed up by answering SKR's last post.
We're still debating this point because you're contradicting one of your earlier posts.

I'm not talking about copyright law. I'm talking about copying... just because there isn't a law against something doesn't mean it isn't wrong. Copying someone else's work is wrong, even if there's no legal consequence (such as a violation of copyright law) for doing so.

Paizo is copying someone else's work and selling it. They don't violate copyright law, because of the OGL.

Noone has metioned Caustic Slur yet?

What bothers me most about this feat is not that it's purely detrimental to use, or that it's a trap option, or that uses a non-existing status effect.

It's the same problem as for the Helpless Prisonner feat (same book...).
Making up feats that replace roleplaying or skill uses, just to fill up pages and make players think they have always more options, is awful design. That's why I don't like 4e's powers system.
But I even suspect that Paizo is doing this not only because option bloat sells, but because replacing skill uses and roleplaying gives them a reservoir of underpowered feats that will not endanger the balance of the game even if they don't look twice for interactions and synergies. On the contrary of feats designed to be actual feats, requiring a particular talent or a significant training and achieving useful effects. Those also require more attention from designers.

Well, most feats are fine.

Paizo did what WoTC intended.

No. Certainly not.

Q: Could I publish the whole thing?

A: Sure. If you think someone would be willing to pay for it, you're more than welcome to try.

Does it sound like they expected another company to reprint 3.5 rules and sell it successfully?

Paizo has the legal permission to do what it does. Does it have the heartfelt blessing of WOTC and of the designers of 3.0/3.5 who didn't join Paizo ? No.
Is it more morally acceptable to copy something thanks to an oversight of the original company, than to copy something without its permission ? I don't think so, and I think it is hypocritical to say otherwise.

That being said, I don't think plagiarism and copying someone else's work is immoral, as long as it doesn't prevent creation. I think that TSR being sued for the hobbits, the balrogs and cthulhu mythos in the early books was not deserved. What paizo does is okay, even though WOTC doesn't like it, but what andrew did is too.
By the way, the beholder's creators, Gygax and Theron Kuntz, are not part of WOTC. If we ignore legal aspects, they're the ones whose agreement matter, not WOTC.

You are violating the Most Important Rule of the Paizo messageboards: don't be a jerk.

Also, Asmodeus is a devil, not a demon, and he existed in Earth lore thousands of years before WotC, therefore (as feytharn pointed out), Asmodeus is not one of "their" creations.

See your "I don't need to nitpick with Andrew" post. It was pretty rude.

I think it's too long.
In 6 seconds, a regular 10-th level fighter can only hit twice with its sword...

The Powerful Sneak talent was probably inspired by this 3.5 feat :

Deadly Precision [General]
You empty your mind of all distracting emotion, becoming an instrument of deadly precision.
Prerequisite
Dex 15, base attack bonus +5.
Benefit
You have deadly accuracy with your sneak attacks. You can reroll any result of 1 on your sneak attack’s extra damage dice. You must keep the result of the reroll, even if it is another 1.

I guess the designers thought it was too powerful.

Since it requires Augment Summoning and Spell Focus (conjuration), I suppose it was made to use with conjuration spells primarily.

It's somewhat out of line of most abilities in the game, but I want

Amazing Initiative (Ex): You gain a bonus equal to your dexterity score on your initiative.

I dislike any mythic bonus that does not augment a preexisting ability of the character, or that gives different characters of the same mythic tier the same bonus. I don't think a wizard or a full plated fighter should take the same benefit out of this ability than a monk.

A small town has the services of multiple spellcasters who can cast 4th level spells. And goes up fast too, to a base of 8th level spells in a metropolis, but can easily be 9th if qualities a used. So max human is 15+.

Max human is 20, since the PCs can reach that.

According to 3.5 rules, though, a large town (2001-5000) has 25% chances to have a 11 or 12th level fighter.
That makes a lot of people who can't figure out how to slash the hand of a big monster as it swipes at them.

I don't know any similar rules for PF, but in their NPC gallery, their max level fighter NPC, the "General" is 11th level and can use this feat.

Generals are the masters of the battlefield, expert and

veteran soldiers who conceive and execute tactical plans
and inspire their troops on to victory. Generals may
command from a rearward vantage point, but when
needed, may dive into the fray with sword in hand to turn
the tide through sheer puissance. Generals can be used
as arena champions, masters of fighting schools, or elite
warriors trained to fight with or against spellcasters.

Soldiers and knights can't, though.

Here's a bad feat because the guy who wrote it didn't pay attention to what he was doing.

Ferocious Summons (Orc/Half-Orc)
Your summoned creatures gain your ferocity.
Prerequisites: Augment Summoning, Spell Focus (conjuration), half-orc or orc.
Benefit: Creatures you summon gain the ferocity universal monster ability.

They still disappear when they reach 0hp, as per the summoning rules.

Fred Ohm wrote:

Profane Gift is underpowered...

A point was missed...

Mine ? Maybe I should have added a smiley.

why bargain with them at all if you can just give them indian burns until they say uncle?

Because sometimes the demon has a patron that cares, or maybe you chose some kind of outsider you have sympathies for.

Profane Gift is underpowered...

For player characters, one of the big downsides in calling angels, is that when they try (and they will) to take over your mission after deciding it's worth their time, you won't be able to get rid of them or convince them you're more competent than them to hold the leading role (barring chosen one shenanigans, and even then that's not sure).
When a demon tries to double-cross you, you've got no moral conflict in solving the problem the way PCs do.

That's one possible reading. Its not the reading i have. And its not the developers reading of it either.

Aspheteros +1.

Its a very narrow use of the skill by your reading. Almost non existant.

Not at all. Just because there is situations where the concerned creature is not looking at you, doesn't mean that there's no or almost no situations where it is looking at/for you. There's a lot.

And part of that simplification, which has been around since 3.0. is that perception is equal in all directions.

No. That's not stated and not implied.

He proposes that its possible to do by dm fiat , If it was doable by RAW this would be completely and totally unnecessary.

On this point I'll need to talk semantics : he proposes an adaptation of the rules to explicitly allow that situation. I think actual DM fiat would be better, as in the DM decides on the spot in his descriptions whether the creature can see the sneaky guy or not. RAW does not prevent it and it meshes well with the rest of the rules, so it is doable.

RAI, ironically (usually it's the RAW that is broken/clunky or disregards the story), assuming SKR had a decisive hand in the rewriting of Hide/Move Silently, does prevent it.

1)Yep, if observation prevents it, finding cover or concealment allows stealth. It does not mean nothing else allows it.
2)The camouflage ability allow a ranger to be hidden in plain sight, while the hide in plain sight ability does just what it says.
To use the same situation again, a ranger with camouflage can be hidden without finding cover/concealment when the goblin looks for him after having been distracted (assuming the room is one of his favored terrains). A ranger with HiPS doesn't need to distract the goblin and can hide while he's observed.
No need to give the goblin a 360 degrees vision to make those different abilities. On the contrary, if the goblin could see everywhere, then creating a diversion would be pointless : it's your reading which disregards the "observed" mention that lets you see the two abilities as redundant.

The facing rules were eliminated. They were abstracted into non existence.
No, they were abstracted into the flanking rules and some others, like the distraction use of the Bluff and Stealth skills and the All-around Vision ability. All rely on the creature looking in one or several directions at one given time. They can't be used to argue that all creatures can see everywhere all the time. But they do strengthen a common-sense based interpretation of the stealth rules in play.

Even if i have an orc at North, South-east, and south west, i can't see them all , but none of them get any combat advantage over me.
The point of covering facing with these "new" rules is to simplify the players and DM's work. Of course that means limiting the simulationist side (similarily to numerous other rules of the game), since [if opponents are on opposed sides of you...] is easier to get into play than [if opponents are not all within a 120 (180 if you are playing a creature with eyes on the side of its head, 90 if you lose an eye, but don't forget the -1 penalty to attack due to the lack of depth perception) degrees cone starting from your space...].
It's too complicated, as you said. So to simulate facing without adding a bunch of variables on the character sheets they made up the relatively simple flanking rules. It doesn't mean, again, that creatures see everywhere, since that's a specific ability.

Except that the rules dont [cover your facing for you], as the lack of any mechanism for sneaking up behind someone demonstrates.
On the contrary that lack is due to the fact that the rules cover facing without player intervention.
In 3.5, the distinction between moving silently and hiding made that easier to do on the fly by a willing DM, though.

Common sense that says you can sneak up on someone in a well lit room?
Yes it does. That's why SKR propose to rule that case as concealment - though it's a pretty bad idea IMO. And the game shouldn't (doesn't ?) assume that one would sneak only onto people searching actively for assassins.

Don't worry about going off. And please don't take offense if my tone is off too - I can't control it that well when I write in english.

Thanks for the ideas guys. It's funny Fred Ohm, I still refer back to WotC's FAQs occasionally for really obscure issues, but don't remember the golem thing at all. Now I sort of want to make an awakened flesh golem mage too - that'll really tick my players off.

Well, for that one there's the problem that Awaken Construct allows SR and as such doesn't work on golems...

Its not fair and its not raw are two completely separate issues. It says you need cover or concealment.

Of course those are separate issues. But it doesn't say you need cover or concealment. It says that, even though being observed prevent you from using stealth, finding cover and concealment (implied by the "against most creatures" : against creatures using sight to observe you) allows it.

You cannot simply say that there's nothing in rules that don't exist that contradict you so that your reading is raw.

Yet you're saying that because there's no rule to determine which direction a creature faces, that means that they observe every observable thing, though that rule doesn't exist.

On the facing rules and flanking and all-around vision...
First, RAI : it's not a coincidence that flanking replaces backstabs of previous editions rogues.
Second, RAW : it's not a coincidence that all-around vision prevents flanking.
Just because they abstracted the rules for facing doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
In the situation you describe, you're no longer flanked because you can observe every threatening opponent without having to turn around, which you couldn't do when there was threatening opponents on opposite sides of you. Because you play a creature that always faces a particular direction, even though you don't need to mention it (because the rules cover it for you).

Anywhere that the Goblin can see isn't an unobserved place.

Yes, but not at the same moment.

You cannot simply walk up to someone in the middle of a lit room and a sign that says "you can't see me"

That's what you say, not what the rules say. So, for lack of precise rules, I'd say one should rely on common sense and the DM's descriptions to say if the goblin is looking at you or not.

Paizo's decision to solve these problems with new feats is more flooring yet.

So, if you have a goblin standing in the middle of an open room , in the dark, by raw you can't sneak up on him and stab him in the back using stealth.

I disagree, RAW isn't clear on that. You can't do it if the goblin observes you. But there's nothing that says that the indeterminate facing rules (there is facing rules, that cover flanking and the all-around vision ability, they just don't allow to say exactly which direction a character faces at a given point) mean that the creature observes everything that's not concealed or behind cover.

"If people are observing you using any of their senses (but typically sight), you can't use Stealth. Against most creatures, finding cover or concealment allows you to use Stealth." seems to mean that cover or concealment is not a systematic requirement for stealth, but just a way to escape observation.

The PF rules say :

A creature's spell resistance never interferes with its own spells, items, or abilities.

The 3.5 FAQ says :

a golem’s magic immunity does not extend to magic the golem uses on itself (just as spell resistance doesn’t apply to such effects)

Yes. The sorcerer power allows you to grow poisonous fangs as a free action, whether you already have a pair or not.

As for the order, I'd say that it doesn't matter, the two fortitude checks should be done before damage is applied, but that's not in the rules.

The stealth rules are somewhat ambiguous. Being observed would suppose that the opponent sees you and actively keeps an eye on you, and it doesn't make sense to need to be observed before you're noticed; and the rules are unclear on when one can enter stealth or be noticed.

One could argue that being in plain sight does not necessarily means being observed.
Of course, realistically if you're in the field of vision of someone you're automatically noticed, and then observed. But fields of vision are limited (all-around vision ability excepted), and skill uses aren't always realistic.
The ability to sneak up to someone who's looking elsewhere is realistic and somewhat essential to the game (3.5 had a rule for that, but not PF).
You can also choose to use cinematic and non-realistic interpretations, too, if you ever want your players to sneak twice on someone digging for gold in a largely open graveyard, or something of the sort.

Paizo, as far as I'm aware, always refused to offer a clear explanation of what stealth allows you to do despite loooong threads about it and a lot of FAQ requests, maybe so that the DMs could make their own decisions on the matter.

If memories reside in the soul, does that mean that human characters have brains physically different from ours ?

For some reason, I always assumed that the soul in most DnD settings was just a spiritual copy of the creature's intellect and psyche, not a functional element of it. It probably has to do with the fact that some undead can lose or separate from their souls without losing much of their intelligence and personality.

The question is, is the troll's regeneration at its core a biological process, enhanced by magic, or a purely magical process akin to a resurrection ? If the former, the soul has nothing to do with it, memories do not grow with the brain, and it should work for any piece of troll (assuming a specific organ isn't necessary). If the latter, then we can handwave biology.
Regeneration being (Ex), I would say we should keep an eye on biology to make sense of it.

Of course, it must still be somewhat magic, because things don't grow that fast naturally, especially without nutrients. They might just be more directly connected to the positive energy plane. And rather than creating an adult-sized troll in a few hours, the pieces grow into trolls proportionnate to their original size or into some kind of larva that can feed on its surroundings, and then grow back into a normal troll in the following years, depending of how small it started.

Trolls would have to have interesting beliefs about life, death and the self.

Decanters of endless water everywhere can replace Control Weather.

The first troll that would get that idea in that world would WIN the world; he'd just spam the place with himself and suddenly... you're not playing Pathfinder or D&D or anything other than "Trolls All the Way Down."

That's far from given.

After all, there's a reason why real predators and other large animals did not evolve to reproduce constantly.

And I think it's a better reason than 'the soul goes in the biggest part, probably because it's more comfortable there'.

Bumping again.

You would have the entire crowd attack the target ?

No, their targets tend to voluntarily forgo their saving throws.

I remember the terms used to be "voluntarily fail". I won't check, that's irrelevant. Cure spells work more often.

why, is it not game breaking to you that someone can waggle their fingers and summon the ontological manifestation of a being from another dimension but it IS game breaking to you that traps and magic items are made differently?

I think there's been a misunderstanding at one point. Neither are game-breaking to me.

You may as well ask why some impossible to spot high CR trap of Cure Light wounds isn't placed under the city gates so the citizens of the city can "survive" the trap every time they walk through, gain xp every day, and quickly get to 5th level by the time they shave.

Close. I'm asking why some trap of cure lights wounds of normal CR and DCs (I don't think you can increase the CR of a magic trap, except by adding metamagic on the spell, or a higher level spell) isn't placed under the city's "hospital" gates so the citizen can get healed when they need. They shouldn't earn XP from this trap, I suppose, since it's non-threatening and not an achievement of any kind. And I'm asking this to the DMs that say that low-level D&D allow for middle-earth-like settings without needing the DM to correct the characters' (player or non-player) abilities.

I am, I repeat, not complaining about a game being broken, or trying to break it. THIS IS NOT MY POINT!

I didn't see the line about not letting players make traps. I saw the line about the reduced usefulness of immobile beneficial traps for adventurers, though.
The game is balanced so that traps, being less useful, cost less than rings or wondrous items. That's not perfect, and the cost rules for each type of item aren't either (see last post), but that's not so important. Even if you use wondrous items rules to build your create food and water item, you can still change the game world.

On the romans : I imagine those 800 pounds, and I don't imagine that would bring the guard to you (assuming we swapped to a typical fantasy setting) regardless of your precautions. Lead shared the costs of its extraction along with silver. Of course, there's high-level thieves too for the decanters, but at this point there's better stuff around to steal, it's only 9000gp in a regular market, and they're better off harvesting dragon scales and unicorn horns than getting all the high priests of the civilized world angered. They're easier to sell.

I was mistaken, I read too fast some posts about this, my bad once again.
Though rereading the rules...

Unless stated otherwise, activating a use-activated magic item is either a standard action or not an action at all. If the use of the item takes time before a magical effect occurs, then use activation is a standard action. If the item's activation is subsumed in its use and takes no extra time use, activation is not an action at all.

... the choice seems to be left to the DM and its player between a standard action and none. The activation action doesn't only depend on the type of the item, else a Trident of fish command (charm up to 14 HD of aquatic animals as per the spell charm animals) would require an attack action to activate. Since the effect of true strike applies on the caster/item user and he benefits of it on his next attack, it doesn't seem logical to me to apply the same mechanic as a Dagger of venom (poison as per the spell) and activate the use on a strike, even to gain the benefit on the next strike...

But that's not explicitely stated. So to come back on the original argument, yes, the price of a true strike effect that reactivates automatically for each attack should not be set according to the level of the spell. Too powerful by comparison to existing items, needs DM intervention.
But a create water trap, if i'm correct with the creation price of 250gp, since it has 1/15th of the maximum effect of a decanter (4500gp to create), is surprisingly close to the price estimated by comparison (4500/15=300).
For a create food and water (7500 to create), there's the Sustaining spoon that creates food for 4 persons per day, 2700 to create. By comparison, the trap should cost 29 millions. As a portable wondrous item it would cost 15000 (use-activated) or 13500 (command word). The difference of cost between the trap and the wondrous item seems acceptable considering the vulnerability and constraints of the trap version. It could be argued that the wondrous item version is underpriced too, but the comparison with the spoon is off too, so...
the DM arguing so will have to set its price, according to what he wants its players to do and its world to look like. Before high-level characters come into play.

.. how on earth do you not consider a true strike use activated sword to be game breaking?

By considering that they only add +20 on the first hit every other round. Powerful in certain situations, but far from game-breaking.

For Cure spells, when they are used to cure people, their targets tend to fail their saving throws.

Its kind of like asking why you can't make magic items cheaper, or why we can't violate the laws of conservation of energy.

It really isn't. Magic items are usually explained to have costly components, and physical laws are consistent.

There is nothing remotely "house rule" about saying that your paper thin excuse to cut a few GP off the construction costs of a magic item by renaming it a trap are now how the rules work.

There is. That rule isn't written, so it's a houserule. Beneficial traps are even mentionned in the 3.5 rules. The difference they make is that traps are set in one place and can't be carried off, not that they use offensive spells.

Newish paint or lime is quite common. Big fires more so. Permanent nondetection items won't resist many caster level checks against the high priest or his diviner, temporary nondetection won't be of much use. Locate object would work better on the decanter.

The fact that silver and lead were mined together don't make one free to mine. Only the rich romans used lead dishes and lead acetate flavoring, and not only for cultural reasons.

Not if there is a more or less fixed amount of the stuff that's available.

That's rare situation. Most things, when they become needed, can be obtained in larger quantities.

Did you get much use out of that ability ? A few enraged passer-bys don't sound to be of much help in CR-appropriate situations... maybe as a diversion ?

I think I'd rule something similar to your group's interpretation, but I do hope for an official ruling, or for more opinions in the meantime.

I think the continuous effect work only with spells with a duration of n rounds or longer.

If a continuous item has an effect based on a spell with a duration measured in rounds, multiply the cost by 4. If the duration of the spell is 1 minute/level, multiply the cost by 2, and if the duration is 10 minutes/level, multiply the cost by 1.5. If the spell has a 24-hour duration or greater, divide the cost in half.

It doesn't mention any other kind of duration.

An item that gives +20 insight bonus to hit would work all the time, no ? A true strike weapon requires a standard action to activate to give a +20 to hit on the first attack of the following round.

Almost a full order of magnitude less than your number.

A trap that creates water falls into the exact same fallacy as the ring that casts cure minor wounds, or the True Strike sword.

Fallacy ? Hm...

it is considerably easier and more powerful to cast damaging spells in most instances then it is beneficial ones. / Because hurting is easier than fixing.

Well, that's not entirely true. Sure, cure spells are not as powerful as damaging spells, but they don't require saving throws, and for that same reason buffing spells are more powerful than debuffing ones.

There's nothing stopping someone from inventing a mini decanter of a lot of water using the magic item creation rules... but as a magic item.

Magical traps are magic items. There's creation rules, nowhere does it say that they are not to be used. Banning them is the houserule, and a good one at that if it doesn't fit in your setting. All published settings I am aware of ignore a large part of the rules and thus require houserules if the DM value their internal consistency. That's what I expect.

On stone shape, stones, lead and clever thieves : stone shape can also be made into a trap, stones are not that easy to recognize under paint or lime and quarrying is a large part of their cost, lead is really easy to melt and mining isn't that cheap, decanters can be marked/recognized too, clever thieves are a constant and accepted risk in any society and usually don't prevent the use of valuable materials/equipment.

On the proposed explanations for the rarity of magic items : 1 and 2 are good. 3 raise a secondary problem, though, since an economy based on the use of magic items would also decrease the rarity and value of their components.

Diego rossi, your explanations are good too. I must admit that I like the tippyverse, and if it slowly falls apart on its own reasons, that makes it more interesting yet. "No you don't" houserules, on the contrary, make a setting less interesting for me...

Self-fertilization according to Lords of Madness.

Besides, Aqueducts are probably fused together into a single stone once they're completed.

There's any number of ways to do that in Pathfinder games.

That also means that they're that much more vulnerable to roaming monsters and humanoids.

you're still designing what is clearly a magical item around the trap rules. I don't think it breaks verisimilitude if a questionable application of the rules is not how the in universe rules actually work.

Magical traps are magical items, as per the rules. It's not questionable... It does pose a problem when your good cleric wonders why he can make harmful traps that cast spells once per round indefinitely, but not beneficial ones.

When you compare what a water powered stone cutting mill can do compared to stone shape it turns out that there really ARE reasons to have regular tech.

Hm... stone shape seems quite powerful, but also quite open to DM interpretation. How do you compare ?

Right, but you'd basically be stealing ROCK, probably on pain of death. The aquaducts value lies in the order that the rocks are placed in you, you can't steal that without ruining it. Something intrinsically valuable on the other hand can be stolen without ruining it.

Cut stones are valuable (especially if sawmills really are more efficient than Stone shape), pipes are too. Not as much as a decanter of endless waters, but still. And even if it's a capital offense, you'd still have to be caught.

Creating a magic trap requires Create Wondrous Items. It would cost 500gp less than a Scabbard of Keen Edges, and be usable all day... I would probably ask for a high Craft (trap) check, since the scabbard is small and exposed to impacts.
Or maybe I'd rule that traps can only be stationary. I suppose that some other spells could pose more of a problem, if the trap is set in a helmet or something.

Well, my point was that using the rules as a base for worldbuilding can create unexpected results, and that a DM that doesn't like those have to ignore or correct them, be it at high or low level.

For the statue of liberty, there's easier ways to steal copper than cutting bits of her dress. Aqueducts would be more exposed than this statue, because there's no easier way.

Where do you think those cure disease spells come from?

I meant the real-world examples...

I have really odd interests.

Well that's a good thing.

The Dungeonscape supplement has a page or two about "boon traps", set to cast beneficial spells on the monsters of the dungeon. So that idea occured to some developpers at least.

A decanter set on geyser produces 2,6 million gallons of water per day. As they would probably be placed in central points of the city, they could be guarded, or set in stone works, and quite harder to steal than the stones and pipes of out-of-town aqueducts.

A level 15 character (or even a level 10 character), compared to the average inhabitant of most campaign settings (level 2-3 commoner) might as well be a god. They can pretty much instantly solve nearly any problem that would plague such a person. They can also, if angered, wipe that person out without a moment's thought. They have power over life and death.

That's not the power of a god, that's the power of a common medieval lord. Gods' powers are actually defined by the fact that they do not solve problems...

things

I must admit I'm not that knowledgeable about waterworks.

If your well is poisoned you start digging elsewhere. If your adept dies you need to train a new one.

Or you call the next village's.

DGRM, sarcasm is just another way to say something. It doesn't make anything less valid : and the rules don't let 15th level characters act as gods, even if imagination might.

BigNorseWolf, Create water changes the world enough just by offering clean water for drinks, no need to use it to irrigate the deserts. Towns don't have to be built next to rivers, there's no need for aqueducts, the general health of the population improves dramatically... And travelling through arid regions (but also across seas, and regular wilderness) become much simpler, as you point out. After that, yes, clerics can die too, but wells can be poisoned and aqueducts destroyed.

According to the settlements rules, there's at least one 1st level divine/arcane caster available in a thorp of 20 people. 3rd level spells become available in villages of 61-200 people.

And those can make magic items, especially traps (I meant actual traps with a trigger and a spell, not DM traps) with automatic resets and no limit on spellcasting. That's the way they're supposed to replace the farmers in a rules-based universe. Also, rings of sustenance.

I agree. At level 15 the players are probably going to feel like Gods, by level 20 they will surely be like Gods.

How so ?

Hama: At that level of play I'd suggest that it would be more practical to simply stat up characters with the Deities and Demigods rules and run a titan/god-level campaign. I was in a game like that once where the party was basically gods from another world who got sucked into Earth's Ragnarok. It was pretty badass and a more reasonable way of handling events that were divorced (by several orders of magnitude) from what I'd realistically want to see in normal* high-level play.

Alter reality really isn't up to par with epic spellcasting... is it ? I never played with the Deities and Demigods rules but they didn't seem to allow what I would expect from a god.

It gets kind of boring when every single important building has to be 100% covered in ivy.

Not much more than it is when every single building has stone walls. You can introduce variations after that, covering your castle in other kinds of plants, in vermin, or making it one colossal golem.

I think I understand where you're coming from, though. But your view is partial.
First, the central trope of planar adventures, is that your home plane is not the center of the world. Most likely, if there's a central point in the universe, you're from the planet that it's farthest from. It's been done and redone, because after you fought your seventh necromancer/orc army/demon cult, you'll want to step up to new, bigger things, even if that means you're no longer the big hero - for a time. That won't make the lives you saved previously less important if your past encounters were more than series of randomized numbers. It's actually refreshing to be a clueless prime after having been a legendary hero.

It's also a common starting point for all kinds of adventures. On your planet, you came from your backwater farm to finally save the world. In the universe, you came from your backwater world to postpone the master plan of demogorgon or some other.

And on middle earth, you're an irrelevant hobbit from an isolationist and isolated shire, and you're going to defeat a fallen god in an adventure that will dwarf the heroes of your home.
But even if it will dwarf Bullroarer Took, it won't necessarily make a joke out of him. That only depends on the story you're telling, not on the comparative scale of the fights and powers involved.

Even Golarion is built on this assumption : Treerazer is one of the most powerful being around, because he was exiled from the abyss. Putting him in the shoes of Demogorgon would cheapen the entire multiverse, or make no sense at all. If the most powerful demon is on golarion, why didn't he take over ? If he's too weak to do so, why don't we send a host of paladins to conquer the abyss ? If we're at a stalemate with the abyss, why didn't we die of boredom ? There needs to be something elsewhere to make the characters and their opponents feel small.
Plus, saving a goddess from Graz'zt's grasp, using the rod of law against Miska the Wolf-spider, and jumping with swords drawn in the middle of a reunion between the main demon lords and Lolth's envoy, all before 15th level ? That would be ridiculous...

On the other hand, the usual repartition of NPCs and monsters by CR among the campaign world and timeline is not the best possible. Saying that "the most elite of guards shouldn't be more than 2nd or 3rd level Warriors" is completely arbitrary, and the proposed rules and models for attributing levels in published books are too. The skill system could be loosely used to simulate athletes and physicists at around 5th level, but that would be a joke. The skill system is one of the most easily abused and nonsensically abstracted parts of the game. So, I really don't see the problem with having a royal guard of 8th level fighters. The problem is with changing the usual NPC levels according to the level of the party during the campaign, but the very simple solution is to set them at the start (in accordance with their backgrounds of course) and then send the adventurers to different challenges at different points of their careers. That's why dragons come in different colors and age categories.

Of course, unlimited growth in power isn't the logical consequence of this. Treerazer can be easily defeated by 4 20th level wizards, but that doesn't mean that the characters will ever be able to reach the level necessary to bring down Asmodeus. Just because your rise in levels allowed you to travel to distant planes and meet bigger threats, does not mean you'll ever kill the Lady of Pain. You can play high-level characters without playing Goku.

James Jacobs, on the matter of the epic-level supplement, repeatedly said that there will be a new level cap. I think that makes sense, both for playability (leveling on and on can get boring, and you still get only a few actions per round) and for internal consistency of the setting (mortals shouldn't be able to reach godlike powers without becoming godlike entities). You just have to set the limit. J.J. proposed 36 IIRC, I would prefer 40 or something like E40, but that's up to DM. In any case, you have a skewed idea of what you call powergamers dream about, I think. And wanting to keep the same characters through increasingly epic adventures does not require us to be powergamers, and powergaming does not require more than 20 levels.

And with E6 you can keep the game world sane, in line with common expectations, avoiding "Tippyverse," rooted in medieval europe or other real world analogues, and keep adventuring until the campaign ends for some reason other than DM burnout at having to constantly top himself until its all just too ridiculous.

No you can't. Create Food and Water traps are available at level 5. You can't use the D&D rules to replicate movies and novels, at any level. Nor any real world period and place (the attempts to do so in Golarion are awful, though that's mostly unrelated to the rules). Even novels set in D&D settings are largely incompatible with the rules.

I mean, the Tippyverse isn't centered around high-level adventurers. Their BBEGs taking into account their powers is one thing, and it's not the same thing. Taking into account the game rules (from the aging penalties and saving throw mechanics, to the craft mechanics and the spells and monster abilities) during the worldbuilding part, that's building a tippyverse. And that's something that most DMs handwave perfectly.

And honestly, I think ivy-covered buildings look better, as far as my imagination goes, and don't take much away from the fantasy feel.

That, I think, is the problem for a lot of people. By the time you're done taking into account all these high level issues, you end up with a world that just doesn't feel like the classic fantasy setting. Or you end up with a world that just plain doesn't make sense.

That's not a problem with high-level play. D&D fantasy just isn't Middle Earth, and it starts at first level. The fact that the warlord had his architects plan for lead lining in the walls of his castle and a druid cover it with ivy isn't as much a problem as the availability of Create water, Purify food & drink, Comprehend languages, Cure light wounds, and let's not even speak of Color spray, Animate dead or Create food & water. The wizard class doesn't break the universe nearly as efficiently as does the adept.

Outside the Abyss: If a demon is killed on another plane,

its body eventually returns to the Abyss—unless trapped
through magical means, such as a dimensional anchor spell.
(See the Demonic Death Throes sidebar for more details on
how demon bodies sometimes disappear.) No matter what
happens to the demon’s body, if it is killed outside the Abyss,
its “essence” falls back into the raw chaos of the Abyss, where
it is then be reformed as a new demon.
It is unclear whether these reincarnated demons begin
again at the bottom of the cycle, or if they are just demoted,
but everyone seems certain that death can only be seen as
a failure for a demon, so it is unlikely to avoid punishment
altogether. Thus, when a demon dies on another plane, it risks
falling back into the general pool of demonspawn and can
find itself “demoted” in power and essence, which is not to be
taken lightly. For example, a vrock sent to wreak havoc on the
Material Plane faces a very real danger if it fails in its mission.
If the PCs defeat it and send it shrieking back to the Abyss,
it can fi nd itself back in the body of a dretch, a rutterkin, or
even a mane. Even balors risk this eternal cycle when they
battle for their Abyssal lords. Only the direct intervention
of a demon prince can possibly spare this punishment.
The important exception to all of this occurs when a demon
is summoned out of the Abyss magically, in which case it
simply returns unharmed when the spell ends (or when the
demon is destroyed), no matter what happens to it in the
meantime. Thus, demons summoned to the Material Plane
have little fear of death.
Within the Abyss: If a demon is killed while within the
Abyss, it is permanently destroyed—both its body and its
essence. For this reason, many demons are relatively more
cautious on their home turf than when wreaking havoc on
another plane. While a demotion through reincarnation is
not ideal, most demons view it as a much better option than
complete annihilation.

DEMONIC DEATH THROES
“. . . and as the marilith’s head fell from its shoulders, blood bubbled
forth. Tiny grubs swam in the gore, and as we watched, they consumed
the demon’s body and attempted to crawl away to freedom.
Revolted, we threw the stone table onto the corpse, hoping to squash
the foul creatures. Later, when we cleared away the broken stone,
we found only the demon’s swords and a spattering of black and red
blood. The larvae were gone.”
—“The Battle of Darkspur,” as related in the Black Scrolls
of Ahm

Spoiler:

When a balor dies, it explodes in a blinding flash of light and
flame that consumes its corpse and sends whatever soul it possesses
shrieking back to the Abyss. Few lesser demons die as
spectacularly, but neither do they usually just fall to earth and rot.
The following table includes suggestions of what might occur
when a demon dies outside the Abyss.
Demonic Death Throes
d20 Effect
1 The corpse melts into a pool of black, tarlike ichor.
2 The head (or what remains of it) begins cursing in
a dozen different languages and voices, after which
the corpse simply winks out of existence.
3 Two snakes force their way out of the killing wound
and begin devouring the corpse from either end. If
attacked, the snakes disappear along with the
remains.
4 The corpse crumbles to dust, leaving enough
powdery remains to fi ll a small bag.
5 The fl esh of the demon rots away (as if a hundred
years pass by in an instant), leaving behind only a
skeleton.
6 Half the demon’s body is engulfed in fl ame
(harmless to nearby characters), while the other
half freezes solid and falls to the ground, shattering.
7 A hole opens up in the fabric of the universe, and
an unseen force sucks the demon into the hole with
a loud “pop.”
8 The skin of the demon peels away, leaving its
muscles and organs exposed.
9 All the bones and muscle tissue in the demon leak
out its wounds in purple, smoking rivulets of blood.
The remaining sac of skin bubbles quietly on the
ground.
10 The body discorporates into a foul-smelling mist.
11 Sparks and lightning burst around the killing
wound, blackening the demon’s skin. In moments,
the lightning consumes the corpse, leaving a
smoldering spot on the ground.
12 The demon’s body immediately transforms into
stone and shrinks down to the size of a tiny statuette.
13 Vermin explode out of the corpse, consuming it and
then fl eeing in all directions.
14 The demon turns translucent and then disappears
in an explosive fl ash of light, leaving its shadow
image on all nearby walls.
15 The demon’s skeleton tears itself free of its fl esh,
takes three steps, and then crumbles into dust.
16 Shadowy hands reach up from the fl oor and pull the
corpse into the ground, leaving behind no sign of
the demon.
17 As the demon falls, its corpse explodes into tiny,
1-inch-high duplicates of itself. The tiny demons
immediately begin fi ghting among themselves until
only one remains, which then vanishes in a puff of
smoke.
18 Blinding, yellow light explodes out of the demon’s
eyes and ears. Cracks appear in the creature’s skin
as the light spreads, consuming the fi end’s body in
harmless but spectacular energy.
19 The demon falls to the ground, and its fl esh rots
away in an instant, leaving behind a sickly odor.
The bones remain, but they will turn to dust at the
slightest pressure.
20 Nothing special. The demon expires as if it were a
normal, Material Plane creature.

I like this page, so there. I don't remember any other mention of a dimensional anchor effect on outsider corpses, in 3.5 or pathfinder, but we can assume it's the same, except for the death throws.

High-level adventure paths would make it easier, too...

A laptop and a dice roller.

Pregenerated maps.

Pregenerated NPCs.

For that last one, I think a NPC gallery gathered from this boards' gm's campaigns could be useful. I mentionned it in a previous thread and it didn't raise enthusiasm though.

We should make a 2000 NPCs thread around here, and then a database (maybe on d20pfsrd ?) collecting the contributions and organizing them per class, CR, creature type/subtype/kind, environment, combat role, social role/organization, and (importantly) expected survivability for the party and the NPC.
Each could be made on the model of the NPC gallery of the gamemastery guide, with a short description description of its background, tactics and observed effect in combat.
It could include organizations, displayed as clouds of codified relations between major NPCs and stereotyped mooks.

That could save a lot of time, as models for more campaign-specific NPCs or as directly usable ones. The published NPC gallery and NPC guide lack high-level characters.