+1 to all of those.
But of higher priority, where are the washrooms in this world? I have the theory that because of the amazing feats and tricks these heroes pull off, and because of their supernatural healing abilities, there is only one solution: People in pathfinder have a 100% efficient digestive system. No waste, all energy conversion. What say you to that?
Wod better not ever take a dump....
Wod better not ever take a dump....
<Flicks a piece of turd at Shenker.>
hurrrm.
it never rained....this.
There aren't 118 elements in Golarion. There are four: air, earth, fire, water.That's what the hydrogen elementals want you to think.
I lold irl at that one. ;)
Alert! Long rant! (somebody handle me a soap box please)
If we are at elements... are those really elements and reactions as we see them in modern scientific sense?
What if magic was raw power to which the magician could tap and use it to bend reality to his own will?
What if the acid splash is really a chunk of creative power (the initiated call this type of magic conjurative, or so I've heard) hurled at the target with casters intention to see the material dissolving while releasing some smelly vapors and the world just inserts whatever substance is necessary (from the surroundings or perhaps from the reserves from the time of creation or latent creation reserves aka elemental planes).
Evocation could really be those friction increasers as someone mentioned already and whatever could be their source. It could be magicians will or the eternal dance of celestial bodies.
How to make a lightning and make it travel along the hallway above metal floor for 120 ft to boot? Well can the magic make molecules dance faster or slower? And what if it can make them all turn one way and for a blink of an eye stay aligned? It's air magic! A tunel of ions gathered from all around and an enegy spark created by all the frction of particles quickly aligning? KAZZAP? But how was that achieved? was that telekinesis?
I think the best way to handle this would be that the magician has released properly prepared stored energy... power... might... no, bad words really. Properly prepared stored magic fused with intention and the world complying to it's best ability within the amout of energy given to it to do that. Perhaps understanding of real world physics can help the magician to manipulate everything with great precision and smoothnes, while primitive magic is really magicians raw imagination, which can be just as powerful, but simetimes with unforseen consequences, as the effect clashes with reality? Who knows?
That line of thinking would of course lead to basic nature of magic. Are there eigth types of magic? Is there just one with eight different general ways of use? Is it the power of change? Is it a latent reservir of universe creation stuff? Is it the weave?
Heck even the DM doesn't have to know for sure and can just roll with it and let the different traditions coexist or clash with or even supersede one another. The rules for magic are here to say what a character should be able to achieve by doing magic stuff and somewhat stay balanced within a group and challenges to make thing manageable for everyone. How do you really describe what's going on (or if you even bother with that) doesn't have anything to do with that. I can imagine having an evoker wizard meticulously arranging molecules and a dreamy sorcerer shooting fairytale-pony-sparks to make a lightning bolt working alongside eachother and each believing that their magic is the real thing. And seriously... why not?
If you want to understand the world presented by the D&D rules set, especially in 3.5/PFRD, you'll be better served reading things like The Magician's Companion than any science text.
Fantasy worlds are ruled by metaphysics, not physics. There aren't 118 elements in Golarion. There are four: air, earth, fire, water. So steel isn't an alloy of iron and carbon, steel is elemental earth tempered by elemental fire to produce a rarefied earth. This is why magic can impart the spiritual essence of steel into glass, creating glassteel, or into wood, creating ironwood. Because this is not physics, its metaphysics.
Chemistry does not work in Golarion. A chemist transported to Golarion would go mad if he could not change his entire worldview. In Golarion the medieval alchemists were right, and the world functions as the result of elemental interactions guided on a spiritual plane by the actions of gods, angels and devils.
Same goes for physics. Gravity isn't a function of mass, it's a function of the gods' will that stuff not float all over the place. Which is why a magician can master incantations and gestures that allow him to slip free from the bond's of gravity, and why a ninety foot long dragon that weighs ten tons can fly on wings that span only sixty feet.
Just go with it.
There are actually an infinite number of Golarons, in an infinite number of universes. The Golaron that is in our universe, science and chemistry and physics all work. The Golaron that is in the same universe as Oerth and Toril, maybe that's not the case.
I got a lot of acid damage at OzzFest. My bro hooked me up and I picked a fight with three bikers ... *groan*
Zmar, what you describe is a lot like how magic is portrayed in the Dresden Files. Life force, and a sentient will behind it, is ultimately what drives the effects of magic, but it's basically lining up the science so that it works.
Illusions might be light and sound being redirected or refracted to fool the senses.
Rings of the Ram that are essentially a focus item that gathers residual kinetic forces from movements of your arm, to be released all at once in an instant burst later down the road.
Or a cloak that spreads kinetic force from a strike across the entire surface area... great against bullets, but explosions are already "whole surface area" so not so good there.
Science and Magic, done right, can mix together and make something like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
it is best assumed that to understand magic missile you would need to understand it's greater cousin: Wall of Force.
It is a "force" that renders an area of open space impregnable by making the electrons in such area just repel anything that would try to cross it much like a real wall, but with the "air". Magic missile could be understood as an encapsulated version of wall of force on which a pea-size amount of "air" is affected to repel anything in it's path.
I was just trying to help the more scientifically minded people to bend their minds around it. I have yet to see or read the Dresden files, but they sound interesting.
Personally I think that this is all about your inner understanding of magic and how you describe it to yourself, but it doesn't come up ingame that often unless your group really enjoys describing their actions in detail.
Pretty simple actually. Basically, 1 large dose =/= multiple maintenance doses. Still, there are some other ways of providing long duration of effect for certain drugs and formulations, but even then nobody wants a permanent effect.
So after alchemists that make medicine that will have no effect on anyone but themselves - or supersteroids that make the alchemists themselves stronger but everyone else nauseous - and the durations of the effects improving proportionally with the alchemist's experience, not to mention that one day, they learn to accomplish stuff they used to take days suddenly take only a few seconds, and this is what gets you down?
Those are fantastic alchemists. They can turn lead to gold and create a potion of eternal youth. They combine all that bogus stuff about pharmacy with actual magic, which makes everything work better!
Dilution is more of a common sense; if you dilute something, you reduce its concentration and therefore the maximal effect and the duration of effect. For whatever the reason, in PF world of chemistry, diluting something just lets you use it one more time for the same benefit.
Again, magic. Expensive magic, actually - dilution costs gold. It's like having hot chocolate and adding some milk and cocoa to make more, except that it's magical cocoa that costs more than a craftsman earns in a year.
Edit: it's kinda like a physicist watching Star Wars, if you may.
Bad analogy. Because Star Wars has magic, too. It's called The Force and has silly rules associated with it, but it's still magic. It makes physics its little b&@&~.
If you want to give an example where realism can actually be used as a valid argument, use Star Trek. They have a lot less magic around (mostly limited to some low-level telepathy and a few omnipotent races) and pretend to actually use proper physics (while using a mode of propulsion that would take more energy to power than the universe contains).
What kind of force is a magic missile? Gravitational? Electro-weak? Strong nuclear? :Pa contact force. aka released kinetic energy.
And what's it about those contact forces that makes them hit ghosts?
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What kind of acid is acid damage?Fantasy acid.
Also, fantasy electricity and fantasy fire.
Pathfinder does not have real world physics.
Yup. Just as a lightning bolt doesn't swerve towards metal and does the same damage to a flying creature that isn't grounded as it does to one that is grounded, nor does it conduct through water on a wet surface to affect people standing nearby, and a scorching ray or fireball never accidentally sets anything on fire, the acid of an acid arrow or acid fog just does what it does. Maybe it's pure corrosive matter-dissolving liquid imbued with the power of entropy from the negative energy plane or something. Maybe it's the tears of Far Realms children. Whatever. No dangerous fumes that can cause permanant lung scarring and eye damage. No scorched blackened or reddened flesh that will never heal back into its original appearance. No immunity for glass items, or gold, or whatever. No toxic remnants seeping into the groundwater.
It only has affects as the rules and story require. So if I want to run a story set in an area that has been environmentally devastated by toxic runoff from an alchemist's lab, then I can, but if the PCs want to cast acid cloud underwater, it only dissipates into the surrounding water (and destroys the local ecosystem that the elusive lake monster they are searching for depends on to survive), if I say so. Such is the power of the GM. :)
fireball never accidentally sets anything on fire
No? Why not?
The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze.
In planning my 17th Century game, I find some ideas from Mage: the Ascension helpful in figuring out how the Alchemist class works.
The setting actually has three types of Alchemists. The first type are Wizards who specialize in Transmutation, and use alchemical preparations for their spells. Their spellbooks are alchemical texts, they prepare spells by mixing materials together while reciting their alchemical mumbo-jumbo, and cast their spells by releasing the energy that has been stored in their preparations. If a modern scientists tried to copy this, without the years of effort to understand and master the mystical forces involved, very little would happen.
The second type are those who use the methods of Rene Descartes and other philosophers to carefully note and record what happens when they do experiments. They haven't come up with much, yet, but their work is repeatable, and eventually they will evolve into the modern chemists with scientific texts and industrial processes.
The third type are the Alchemist class described in the Advanced Players Guide. Like the second type, they've left behind the mumbo-jumbo of the first type, but unlike the second type, the Alchemists rely on bursts of inspiration and making dramatic things happen, and don't worry too much about things like disciplined methodology and careful notes.
From Mage: the Ascension, I got the idea that the first type are allies of the Celestial Chorus, but will eventually evolve into the Technomancy, while the third type will evolve into the Sons of Ether. It is part because of what the alchemists believe that powers what they do, so the alchemical preparations work because they believe that it works.
fireball never accidentally sets anything on fireNo? Why not?
The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze.
'cause most gm don't want to count the durability/hp of every object in a fireball area and because nudity is not proper heroes behaviour... ;)
nudity is not proper heroes behaviour
One more reason to root for villains instead.
Fireball doesn't make people nude, it makes people invisible (ask Elan the Bard from OotS for details).
Fireball doesn't make people nude, it makes people invisible (ask Elan the Bard from OotS for details).
I'd ask him, but I can't find him.
Zmar, what you describe is a lot like how magic is portrayed in the Dresden Files.Whether it does or not... Golarian, Greyhawk, and other worlds like it don't model Dresden's world any more than they do ours.
It could use any really as it wasn't stated in detail anywhere I can remember.
Fireball doesn't make people nude, it makes people invisible (ask Elan the Bard from OotS for details).I'd ask him, but I can't find him.
Just call his name and for the love of sanity keep your eyes closed.
nudity is not proper heroes behaviourOne more reason to root for villains instead.
+1!
Just call his name and for the love of sanity keep your eyes closed.Fireball doesn't make people nude, it makes people invisible (ask Elan the Bard from OotS for details).I'd ask him, but I can't find him.
I think I missed my Perception check.
I'VE GOT A 4!