Gailbraithe,
You happen to know a decent bit about certain things and relate that to the game. That is fine. But where do you draw the line? A multitude of things have been brought up such as in my case a Pegasus. Do you actually think that a pegasus could fly? What about giants and their height/mass? What about something as simple as EVERY first level human barbarian with the run feat being a world class runner able to run at 22.73 miles per hour (33.33 feet/sec)? And that is while wearing a chain shirt, and 13 lbs of extra gear (assuming only an 11 strength)!!!
There is a certain amount of fudging in the world of pathfinder as it is NOT THE REAL WORLD!! Yes, I DM as well. I work in a profession where distances and maps and math are things I deal with each and every day, but that doesn't change the fact that I am going to use a square for reach even though the hypotenuse of the diagonals is going to make their reach about 2' further than they actually have.
And for the record James (if you are still perusing this thread) I agree with your picks on alignment for said characters!
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Gailbraithe,
You happen to know a decent bit about certain things and relate that to the game. That is fine. But where do you draw the line? A multitude of things have been brought up such as in my case a Pegasus. Do you actually think that a pegasus could fly? What about giants and their height/mass?
I'm aware of the implausibility of those things, but I'm able to suspend disbelief when it comes to well-established fantasy tropes.
I just generally assume that implausibly gigantic creatures and flying creatures are inherently magical. I assume that if you caused magic to cease to exist in the default D&D setting, pegasi and giants would cease to exist. They'd just go *poof* and vanish (or possibly all fall out of the sky with horrific and gross results).
But snake barding is being discussed as no different than horse barding, and if you took magic away from the world and made it non-fantastic, I would expect horse barding to still exist. Snake barding as being discussed (and notice I'm not arguing with the people arguing for magical armor for snakes that uses magic to overcome the implausibility) should work in the real world...but it can't.
Which is why it bothers me. It's being presented (by some people) as something completely mundane and plausible without magic (like horse barding is), and being defended from the argument that its not realistic by claims that are, in my opinion, extremely weak.
There is a certain amount of fudging in the world of pathfinder as it is NOT THE REAL WORLD!! Yes, I DM as well. I work in a profession where distances and maps and math are things I deal with each and every day, but that doesn't change the fact that I am going to use a square for reach even though the hypotenuse of the diagonals is going to make their reach about 2' further than they actually have.
I agree, but consider this: The fudging you're describing here has a very real purpose. Doing the math to calculate reach realistically, rather than using a square grid with its inherent distortion, has a very noticeable effect on gameplay -- especially for those of us who don't use math for a living! It slows thing way down and makes the system progressively more difficult to use, which has the effect of making the system less enjoyable for an increasing larger group of players. At the same time, those of us who remember previous editions of the game where these things weren't covered by rules know that lacking clear rules on the topics like weapon reach leads to difficult to resolve or unresolvable arguments.
So a compromise between an accurate simulation of reality and a usable game mechanic has to be developed. The current reach rules may seem less than ideal to you than to me, since you're obviously a lot more math inclined, but we can both surely agree that some kind of reach rules are necessary. And hopefully we can both agree that while this playability compromise means that the reach rules don't perfectly model the real world, they are at least trying to model something in the real world.
It's the same thing with the barding rules. The barding rules imperfectly but effectively model something in the real world. There are lots of different types of animals that could plausibly wear barding - horses, dogs, and elephants are real world examples. The list of animals and monsters that could plausibly wear barding is pretty extensive, and it makes sense from a design efficiency and ease of play standpoint to simply have a one size fits all rule for purchasing barding rather than having detailed rules.
The problem with using a one size fits all rule is that one size never actually fits all - there are always weird and bizarre corner cases that don't make sense. These are artefacts of the compromise between simulation of reality and efficiency of play.
Snake barding is one of those artefacts. So is thrush armor. Common sense indicates that one should generally disregard these kinds of things as accidental and nonsensical byproducts of the rules, and especially when eliminating them doesn't require additional complexity in the rules. Gaming tradition says its the DM's responsibility to overrule the rules system when it produces these kind of by-products - its one of the primary reasons DM fiat exists at all.
The extra 2" of reach is also one of those artefacts, but there is a very real and obvious difference between the snake barding artefact and the extra 2" of reach artefact: Eliminating the 2" of extra reach artefact require significant changes to the rules that will dramatically affect gameplay, making it more complex. Saying "there is no such thing as snake barding" requires no additional changes to the rules and has no meaningful effect on gameplay.
So if you want a line drawn, there it is.
Director of Game Design
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So.. it kinda feels like the OP got his answer and the rest of this thread has devolved into a rather pointless debate and mild flaming.
The final answer is, the rules do not, as currently written, disallow armor on a snake. Your GM might say otherwise, as is their discretion.
This thread is closed.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
I removed some posts.