Depends on the degree of verisimilitude you want.
As has been pointed out endlessly, even something as iconic as a castle wouldn't work in a high-magic PF world. Castles exist(ed) because high stone walls are an effective barrier against any troops and any weapons that existed prior to about 1200 CE. They remained useful because they're still useful against gunpowder weapons until the advent of rapid-firing artillery and airborne troops in roughly the First World War.
But if you expect that any opponent will have a flying, teleporting, fireball-flinging mage, a traditional castle is a waste of time and money. So either castles are very rare, or combat wizards are very rare -- take your pick.
It depends on what kind of castle you're talking about, many are large towers with complete roofs. If there is no exposed ground level from above, I don't see how flying circumvents the value of some kinds of castles.
For teleport there's the assorted solution like using Gorgon's Blood in the mortar, links of gold, or various other kinds of GM fiatted material that prevents one from teleporting through.
And Fireball is just an area of effect of magic flames. A fireball does not destroy buildings nor cause structural damage. Exposed troops should be concerned with fireballs, but castles not so much.
Similarly, plate armor disappeared when one could expect that opponents had matchlocks, because it's then a waste of time and money.
If your world is supposed to make sense, it wouldn't have knights in full plate and flintlocks encountering each other very often. So either full plate is very rare, or flintlocks are very rare -- take your pick.
In games where I include guns as a common weapon of war, plate armor is indeed no longer used. Gunfighters and knights are anachronistic elements that certainly do not belong together - and in my games, they never do.
The fact of the matter is that I generally don't play medieval settings and guns in the same game. If I want guns, its more like the Age of Sail or the arcane old west, where much of the melee martial classes simply don't exist as is. I generally would design custom archetypes for each class to accommodate the specifics of the setting.
In a proposed home game arcane Old West setting, for example, I've designed a Shootist (magus archetype) that uses revolvers as his preferred weapon, gains ranged spellstrike, but completely eschews normal spellstrike, as this character would never find a need to fight in melee combat ever - he's a gunfighter afterall. In such a setting armor would be mostly non-existent.
It depends on what kind of castle you're talking about, many are large towers with complete roofs. If there is no exposed ground level from above, I don't see how flying circumvents the value of some kinds of castles.Depends on the degree of verisimilitude you want.
As has been pointed out endlessly, even something as iconic as a castle wouldn't work in a high-magic PF world. Castles exist(ed) because high stone walls are an effective barrier against any troops and any weapons that existed prior to about 1200 CE. They remained useful because they're still useful against gunpowder weapons until the advent of rapid-firing artillery and airborne troops in roughly the First World War.
But if you expect that any opponent will have a flying, teleporting, fireball-flinging mage, a traditional castle is a waste of time and money. So either castles are very rare, or combat wizards are very rare -- take your pick.
Ask Bomber Harris. Or, for that matter,....
And Fireball is just an area of effect of magic flames. A fireball does not destroy buildings nor cause structural damage. Exposed troops should be concerned with fireballs, but castles not so much.
Remember that a fireball can be put through an arrow slit or the equivalent. I can easily depopulate a room simply by dropping a fireball down the chimney.
In essence, you're acknowledging my point. The classic/traditional castle, formally called the motte-and-bailey castle, has baileys for a reason. You could build dangerous outbuildings like forges and kitchen without having to worry about fires spreading. You could shelter animals in there for food supplies or cavalry support without trying to figure out how to build indoor stables. And, of course, the great amounts of empty bailey space in the castle meant that if someone did bring up siege engines such as catapults, they couldn't just drop firebombs on the roof as there wasn't much roof.
The fact of the matter is that I generally don't play medieval settings and guns in the same game.
I'm not surprised; the two don't work well together, as any military historian will tell you. (It's been suggested that the development of guns was actually the major reason that the medieval setting ended.)
But that, of course, gets back to the OP's question. If you want classic sword-sorcery-sandal fantasy, it's hard to reconcile that with a reasonably high level of technology.
How do they explain the limited uses per day (spell slots) going up per level? If it's technology, can't the characters just buy as many recharges as they can afford - and probably dirt cheap, too, given the ability to mass produce things?
Looking at the Programmer (wizard alternate class) that I am developing for use in a Santiago setting based sci-fi PF game requires a PPU (Procedural Processing Unit) that serves as a portable computer worn (in a body slot chosen by the programmer). Like all computers there is a limited amount of memory storage, and in this case holds storage space for a limited amount of spell slots. As a programmer levels he learns more efficient ways to use code so that additional spell slots can be accommodated within the same hardware.
This hardware would operate like a bonded item, but not as a magic item that carries charges, so it would be impossible to purchase charges or otherwise increase its capability beyond what your character class allows at each varying level.
I see the PPU having a voice activated holographic touchscreen that would serve as verbal and somatic technical procedure components. I would replace material components with nanobots that are inert, until a programmed code of instructions are provided by the programmer to give the nanobots a purpose - such as fly out 30 feet, become super heated and release the energy as a burst, hence fireball, for example.
Looking at the Programmer (wizard alternate class) that I am developing for use in a Santiago setting based sci-fi PF game requires a PPU (Procedural Processing Unit) that serves as a portable computer worn (in a body slot chosen by the programmer). Like all computers there is a limited amount of memory storage, and in this case holds storage space for a limited amount of spell slots.How do they explain the limited uses per day (spell slots) going up per level? If it's technology, can't the characters just buy as many recharges as they can afford - and probably dirt cheap, too, given the ability to mass produce things?
I think Joe was asking why the programmer can't simply buy more memory, a faster CPU, or whatever.
Remember that a fireball can be put through an arrow slit or the equivalent. I can easily depopulate a room simply by dropping a fireball down the chimney.
Just to respond for the sake of semantics, if a chimney is not a straight verticle path, rather having 2 90 degree turns, for example, would be an easy way to circumvent the possibility that a fireball would reach a targettable room. Since attack by fireball would be certainly a possibility, including options to straight shot chimneys would be a simple fix for that issue.
Also there shouldn't be an assumption that the inhabitants manning a castle are just mooks easily confronted with magical attacks. They may very well have asbestos coats over their armor, fire resistance or other magical defenses against such an attack.
Since magic as weapon of war must be contended with, equally magical defenses would be included in any standard castle construction in a fantasy world. I still don't see an obvious condition where castles are ineffective in an arcane world.
In essence, you're acknowledging my point. The classic/traditional castle, formally called the motte-and-bailey castle, has baileys for a reason. You could build dangerous outbuildings like forges and kitchen without having to worry about fires spreading. You could shelter animals in there for food supplies or cavalry support without trying to figure out how to build indoor stables. And, of course, the great amounts of empty bailey space in the castle meant that if someone did bring up siege engines such as catapults, they couldn't just drop firebombs on the roof as...
Every setting I play in has an analog historical timeline of available technology which is consistent. Motte and Bailey castles are a thing from early Norman history, in a time and place that guns did not yet exist, at least not in a practical form. Motte and bailey construction is ideal for a non-arcane, non-seige machine world. At least in my settings you'd never see motte and bailey and arcane attacks in the same setting. I'd only include motte and bailey castles in a low magic, non-gunpowder setting.
Looking at the Programmer (wizard alternate class) that I am developing for use in a Santiago setting based sci-fi PF game requires a PPU (Procedural Processing Unit) that serves as a portable computer worn (in a body slot chosen by the programmer). Like all computers there is a limited amount of memory storage, and in this case holds storage space for a limited amount of spell slots.How do they explain the limited uses per day (spell slots) going up per level? If it's technology, can't the characters just buy as many recharges as they can afford - and probably dirt cheap, too, given the ability to mass produce things?
I think Joe was asking why the programmer can't simply buy more memory, a faster CPU, or whatever.
And as I tried to explain the fix for lack of spell slots is not a hardware issue, rather it is programming knowledge issue attained with higher levels in that class. Having an infinite amount of money does not help when it takes knowledge and software coding to achieve the additional spell slots. The fastest possible CPU and memory storage already exists in the PPU, there's no way to make a hardware upgrade. All upgrades are programming solutions enabled by the programmer writing the code at the appropriate level.
Argue the math in the thread with the math in it alright? (don't want to thread jack) Just both to read the damn thing first -- I don't want to rehash old points (hint: Your current point is one already covered).This again? The 'average is not 3sp a dayCRB pp. 159 & 163
3sp per day is "the typical daily wage for mercenary warriors, masons, craftsmen, cooks, scribes, teamsters, and other trained hirelings. This value represents a minimum wage; many such hirelings require significantly higher pay."
1sp per day is "the typical daily wage for laborers, maids, and other menial workers."
assuming your average child is an unskilled 1st level NPC classed character with average scores in everything, they can make an untrained profession check, half the result they get in gold per week, or with no modifiers if they take 10, they get a result of 10 or 5 gold per week and well. 4 weeks a month, 52 weeks a year. and the child is likely helping their parent as an apprentice or something
so each nonprofessional child is racking up 520 Gold per year in trade goods by either helping their dad on the farm or helping their mom as a baker or something along those lines, 120 of which goes to expenses. leaving the child with 400 a year to contribute to the home. because children would not be sitting around as useless as they are in a modern society with even half of the same protections, plus they have to get their skill points somewhere.
Profession is an "Untrained No" skill, so you can't make an untrained Profession check.
Untrained: Untrained laborers and assistants (that is, characters without any ranks in Profession) earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.
I don't think it is so much that they are seen as incompatible, but many GM's have a certain idea of how they view their ideal fantasy world, and technology may not fit for them. Some just want pure(typical) fantasy in setting with castles, and with little to no technology. It is just a preference more than anything else, and different things bother different people.
Science is predicated on the natural and is a systematic enterprise that builds knowledge by repeatable experiment and observation.
Magic is not natural, not systematic (even if it is psuedo-systematic in pathfinder) and not always subject to observation.
As such it's not that they are incompatible in that they react violently against each other but more in that they operate in completely different circles.
Nah.
If magic is not repeatable or observable it ceases to be usable. A spell of any sort is only a spell if it does the same thing with the same actions. If there is no causal relationship between certain actions and certain outcomes then they are unreliable, and in fact all of reality is insane. If there *is* a causal relationship, then the scientific method and the methods of rationality still apply. A different rule set than physics doesn't mean there aren't rules.
Also, natural means "of nature," which magic totally is in fantasy-land where magic is real.
It's not systematic. I can do cast a spell twice and then not be able to again. I can cast a spell someone else can do the exact same motions and not get the same result. I can cast a spell more or less often than someone else. I can cast the spell multiple times in the same environment and not get the same result each time.
It's semi-repeatable, and it's pseudo-systematic but it's not fully repeatable and again it's not actually natural (hence why it's not labeled extraordinary instead of one of the magical choices).
It might be a fact of life but that doesn't mean it's actually covered by science.
Could science fine out why things happen differently with magic at different times -- possibly, after all science is a process -- but it would take much more information and study than we have now.
Similarly, plate armor disappeared when one could expect that opponents had matchlocks, because it's then a waste of time and money.
If your world is supposed to make sense, it wouldn't have knights in full plate and flintlocks encountering each other very often. So either full plate is very rare, or flintlocks are very rare -- take your pick.
This is only true if you ignore all the monsters that AC *is* effective against. In such a fantasy setting, one could very well conceive of people spending on full plate even though they may run into someone with a gun. It's the same reason my characters buy armor even though one of their enemies could be a gunslinger.
Profession is an "Untrained No" skill, so you can't make an untrained Profession check.
Untrained: Untrained laborers and assistants (that is, characters without any ranks in Profession) earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.
Check
You can earn half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession's daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems. You can also answer questions about your Profession. Basic questions are DC 10, while more complex questions are DC 15 or higher.
the only thing you need to be trained for is answering profession related questions with a DC higher than 10, not that you can't make 5 gold or more untrained per week. the silver piece a day is really a printing error. because if you apply common sense, untrained laborers would have to roll the check at some point, how else do you get trained laborers? all trained individuals start by rolling untrained rolls at some point.
One other thing, we are pretty aware from mundane history that at a certain level of development guns entirely replace swords as the primary weapon of the military.
If you want to keep your swords, you kinda have to make it so you can't buy an AR-15.
Everyone seems to be taking the question to the furthest extreme of "if you have machine guns, then you can't have knights."
WHY NOT!? YOU STILL HAVE MAGIC!
Would a repeating rifle from around the civil war era punch through traditional knight's armor? Sure! Knights are a product of the nobility though, and they tend to have access to the best money can buy. Why wouldn't their armor advance to a combination of modern tactical gear and full plate, made with webs of resistant fabric laid over enchanted steel? Why wouldn't the same enchanted steel, imbued with greater power through metallurgical science as well, be put in the hands of warriors who could slice through dragon hide?
If one thing advances then EVERYTHING advances. While the example given here is a little extreme it's important to remember that magic is still part of this equation. If you can mass-produce technology that makes magic more accessible, then the results don't have to follow the same course they have in our reality.
That said, I'm not saying that anyone has to do this or that I'm somehow "right"; I'm just pointing out that a lot of the panic over the knight disappearing into uselessness could be fixed with the application of the same progression of events that would make firearms more common.
The armor is a side issue. If you've got civil war era repeating rifles, why are we still using swords is the real question. The age of melee weapons is over. Your soldiers (and bandits and humanoid monster types) are all using rifles. Because killing your enemy from a distance is better than doing it close up. And that's when ranged weapons really became good enough to do that.
Also, while the high level elites might...
Because Bows are significantly cheaper, easier to use and deal about the same damage as early firearms.
In essence, you're acknowledging my point. The classic/traditional castle, formally called the motte-and-bailey castle, has baileys for a reason.Every setting I play in has an analog historical timeline of available technology which is consistent. Motte and Bailey castles are a thing from early Norman history, in a time and place that guns did not yet exist, at least not in a practical form. Motte and bailey construction is ideal for a non-arcane, non-seige machine world. At least in my settings you'd never see motte and bailey and arcane attacks in the same setting. I'd only include motte and bailey castles in a low magic, non-gunpowder setting.
Which again, is why so many people frown on guns-in-Pathfinder. Pathfinder is a fantasy role-playing game, sold to people who want to play fantasy games, which means, among other things, knights, dragons, and motte-and-bailey castles.
If that's what people want -- and they demonstrably do, since they're buying Pathfinder in the first place -- then the stuff that takes away from the knights, dragons, and motte-and-bailey castles is of little value, possibly of negative value.
If I picked up Legend of the Five Rings because I want to do samurai wuxia, I'm going to be annoyed if there's no practical way to strip elements of Galaxy Express 999 or Space Battleship Yamato out of the system. If my sword-and-sorcery simulator has too much Star Trek or Dragonball Zbaked into it, then it's not going to let me play Conan well.
And the people who want Pathfinder tend to be the ones looking for Conan, not Dragonball.
Because Bows are significantly cheaper, easier to use and deal about the same damage as early firearms.
But bows are nowhere near as effective as Pathfinder firearms.
Even in the real world, it only took until about 1500 before bows effectively disappeared from the battlefield. Indeed, full plate actually lasted something like a hundred years longer than the bow.
And as I tried to explain the fix for lack of spell slots is not a hardware issue, rather it is programming knowledge issue attained with higher levels in that class. Having an infinite amount of money does not help when it takes knowledge and software coding to achieve the additional spell slots. The fastest possible CPU and memory storage already exists in the PPU, there's no way to make a hardware upgrade. All upgrades are programming solutions enabled by the programmer writing the code at the appropriate level.Looking at the Programmer (wizard alternate class) that I am developing for use in a Santiago setting based sci-fi PF game requires a PPU (Procedural Processing Unit) that serves as a portable computer worn (in a body slot chosen by the programmer). Like all computers there is a limited amount of memory storage, and in this case holds storage space for a limited amount of spell slots.How do they explain the limited uses per day (spell slots) going up per level? If it's technology, can't the characters just buy as many recharges as they can afford - and probably dirt cheap, too, given the ability to mass produce things?
I think Joe was asking why the programmer can't simply buy more memory, a faster CPU, or whatever.
Well, that's not what you wrote earlier. You said that there's a limited amount of memory storage, and that's why there are a limited number of spell slots.
If memory isn't limited.... why can't I simply use canned software written by others that covers literally every possible contingency?
At a broader level,.... this pseudo-explanation is even less satisfying than "because game balance, dammit" to anyone with a high school knowledge of how technology works.
Which again, is why so many people frown on guns-in-Pathfinder. Pathfinder is a fantasy role-playing game, sold to people who want to play fantasy games, which means, among other things, knights, dragons, and motte-and-bailey castles.
Really? I have many published adventures, yet I haven't seen one motte and bailey castle map in any of them. Using a motte and bailey castle and a fully armored 15th century knight in the same setting is about as anachronistic as a viking long ship in combat with a Spanish galleon, each of those elements in history are separated by hundreds of years, if not a full thousand years. I've never met a person that preferred motte-and-bailey as their chosen castle type in a fantasy game (let alone they even knowing what a motte and bailey castle even is, despite that you and I do know.) In a consistent world that has motte-and-bailey castles, the knights are only wearing chainmail and shields, there were no fully armored knights at the same time as motte-and-baileys being erected.
If I picked up Legend of the Five Rings because I want to do samurai wuxia, I'm going to be annoyed if there's no practical way to strip elements of Galaxy Express 999 or Space Battleship Yamato out of the system. If my sword-and-sorcery simulator has too much Star Trek or Dragonball Zbaked into it, then it's not going to let me play Conan well.
And the people who want Pathfinder tend to be the ones looking for Conan, not Dragonball.
Well luckily that's not the case. Even from Paizo the Technology book is not in the Core, its a completely separate add-on book not intrinsically tied with the Core rules. Me, using the Santiago rules for my take on Sci-Fi isn't even the same publisher, and it is its own stand-alone book - as in use this to bring a certain flavor of tech in your game, not in these rules are now tied to the game and all future games must contend with technology in addition to magic. That is simply not the case, nor even suggested - not by Paizo, not by AE, not by EN Publishing, not from myself, nor anyone else. Who is suggesting that it is?
Which again, is why so many people frown on guns-in-Pathfinder. Pathfinder is a fantasy role-playing game, sold to people who want to play fantasy games, which means, among other things, knights, dragons, and motte-and-bailey castles.Really? I have many published adventures, yet I haven't seen one motte and bailey castle map in any of them.
Really? Check out The Frozen Stars, then.
Well, that's not what you wrote earlier. You said that there's a limited amount of memory storage, and that's why there are a limited number of spell slots.
You misunderstood what I stated. The maximum amount of possible storage space is included - it is still a limited amount (it not infinite). However, the amount of available spell slots is not a condition of the memory available rather it is the improved way to manage code allowing for more efficient use gained by the programmer when leveling up, and its the coding done by the programmer that allows for more spell slots. Its software and not hardware that makes this possible.
If memory isn't limited.... why can't I simply use canned software written by others that covers literally every possible contingency?
Well if you allow canned software by others, then you completely defeat the purpose of having a programmer class that is a conversion of the wizard class, which is what my programmer class is.
If wizards nolonger have to cast the spells they know, rather they can use any scroll (or something) created by a much higher level wizard to cast the spell instead of the wizards own knowledge level - you've just completely destroyed the concept of wizard as it has operated for the last 40 years. Allowing that, kind of defeats the purpose of playing a wizard or even how magic works in Pathfinder.
I want to create a class that is playable and doing so in parameters that can be easily understood within the confines of a PF game, and one that is comparable to the wizard.
If I allowed what you're suggesting it completely defeats the purpose and intended game mechanic to make the situation viable.
In the end, it is for the sake of balance, but done in such a way that can be explained and understood. It doesn't perfectly emulate real world technology, but then any game mechanic somewhat hand-waves some of the aspects of the real or fantasy world, and this game mechanic requiring a programmer to hand-code the improvements himself is a part of that game mechanic.
One could argue that code is personalized by each programmer and that "4th level" programs created by each individual programmer is completely unique and incompatible with other programmers software. So using someone elses prewritten program simply doesn't work. Each PPU must be custom programmed by its user, and cannot be used by any programmer once custom programming is encoded in a given PPU.
At a broader level,.... this pseudo-explanation is even less satisfying than "because game balance, dammit" to anyone with a high school knowledge of how technology works.
Yet, consider that gun technology for the most part had reached its maximum technological plateau a hundred years ago. There might be improvements on gunpowder, or use of better sights, or differing material (guns made from plastic instead of metal), however the basic configuration, internal parts, are hardly changed at all.
Right now, we're still in the early development of the computer, however, at some point, computers will reach the maximum capability possible. The programmer of my proposed game is using that maximum use computer at 1st level. The only improvements that can be made by the class design is through custom programming, not hardware.
If I do it any other way, it defies the way magic/tech works at all and how programmer/wizard works in game. I want to design a usable class that emulates wizard in a techie sort of way. I don't want to create an orange out of an apple.
actually, Star Wars was one of my favorite franchises when i was a small child and Outlaw Star was one of my favorite anime series growing up. what both have in common is you have a massive amount of species, high technology and powerful magic intergrated with the technology. for example, the Jedi are wizards who wield switchbladed swords that have blades made out of superheated Plasma and Gene Starwind Fires a heavy pistol that uses special arcane ammunition.
This.
And also a show that does technology and magic pretty well?
AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER and the LEGEND OF KORRA.
I think that's basically what he was objecting to. It's an obviously forced way to make a "Programmer" work like a wizard for no real reason other than "I want them to work like a wizard".
I also don't find that explanation covers why "programs" only work once. (Or why you'd need two copies to use it twice.) A limit on the maximum number you can have at once sort of works, but not for how many times you can use them.
If it works for you, great. Not to my taste.
I don't see it as forced, I see it as rather closely emulating a wizard using alternate magic - in this case software programmed tech. And done in such a way that could be emulated in how actual computer programming works as well - not perfectly so, but close enough. (Note: I am not a computer programmer).
Perhaps the PPU can only hold one-off programs that get erased once they are executed - its the way the tech works. Also, the batteries that power the PPU get used up once your daily allotment of programs get used, and requires you to recharge for 8 hours after 24 hours of use - again its the limitation of the hardware, that's how it works.
Comparably if a wand holds a maximum of 50 charges, why can't I place 51 charges - you can't because its a limitation of the hardware, same argument with my tech issues, so why do you see a problem with this?
I've never claimed that I was developing a system that would fit the taste of anyone other than my table. It isn't something that I intend to publish rather just use for a one-shot and maybe a short campaign for a homebrew only. My preferred game is standard fantasy with no guns and no technology. I'm not designing this for use in all my games, just this one homebrew AP. Not to sound dismissive, but that it doesn't suit your taste means absolutely nothing to my home game, which is the only reason I'm desiging this at all.
Regarding my point about custom code. Think of any website. Websites can be designed using HTML, XML, Wine, PHP, CSS (and other languages) and can be mixed codes Wine and XML for example. A given web designer might be familiar with one or more of those languages, whatever minimum amount is required to create an effective web page. However, a webpage designed in XML might be something that I have no knowledge of and cannot make upgrades simply because the code used is not compatible with my code, nor even a part of my knowledge base to build on. I can't just stick somebody else's PHP into my XML page, not necessarily anyway. So I can easily see custom programming of my PPU as not being compatible with other programmers software.
If memory isn't limited.... why can't I simply use canned software written by others that covers literally every possible contingency?Well if you allow canned software by others, then you completely defeat the purpose of having a programmer class that is a conversion of the wizard class, which is what my programmer class is.
Well, I'm not sure I buy into that "purpose." In fact, I'm pretty sure that I don't, for many of the reasons outlined upthread. The whole point of technology, historically, has been to make ordinary people capable of doing extraordinary things.
If wizards nolonger have to cast the spells they know, rather they can use any scroll (or something) created by a much higher level wizard to cast the spell instead of the wizards own knowledge level - you've just completely destroyed the concept of wizard as it has operated for the last 40 years.
Yes, and if miners no longer have to use shovels and picks and instead can use heavy equipment, I've completely destroyed the concept of miner as it has operated for the last four thousand years. And untold miners are very glad of that, as are the people who rely on mining products.
That's technology, in a nutshell.
Yet, consider that gun technology for the most part had reached its maximum technological plateau a hundred years ago. There might be improvements on gunpowder, or use of better sights, or differing material (guns made from plastic instead of metal), however the basic configuration, internal parts, are hardly changed at all.Right now, we're still in the early development of the computer, however, at some point, computers will reach the maximum capability possible.
Well, I try not to consider things that are obviously not true, as your gun analogy is. But the limitations you are imposing go beyond "well, computers will have a maximum capacity" to "computers someday will have a maximum capacity that we exceed today as a matter of routine."
For example, programs can be re-run. If I have a program in memory, I should be able to use it without limit.
More to the point.... even had firearms reached a technological plateau, there are still capacity limits imposed by convenience and price, not by technology. You can't fire infinitely many bullets out of a revolver, but only as many as the cylinder holds. You can't fire infinitely many bullets out of a magazine, either.... but you can buy larger magazines. And you can, of course, buy replacement ammunition -- as much as you can afford.
I want to create a class that is playable and doing so in parameters that can be easily understood within the confines of a PF game, and one that is comparable to the wizard.
If I allowed what you're suggesting it completely defeats the purpose and intended game mechanic to make the situation viable.
Yes, and that's exactly the point. Technology breaks "fantasy" verisimilitude, badly. You're deciding to break technology badly, instead -- in the sense both of it being very seriously broken, and also of it being very unskillfully broken -- and as a result doing a lot more damage to suspension of disbelief.
I can accept the idea that a magical spell somehow 'magically' removes itself from my mind, or that there's some magical daily limit on using mana. At the very least, I don't have direct experience of magic working the other way. It's much harder to believe that of a computer program, because that's not how Microsoft Office works, as literally anyone on this forum has experienced.
In the end, it is for the sake of balance, but done in such a way that can be explained and understood.
Yes, to the first. No, to the second. It's neither explicable nor understandable except as an attempt to make "technology" model a specific game structure.
Perhaps the PPU can only hold one-off programs that get erased once they are executed - its the way the tech works.
Except that's not the way tech works. The phrase "one-off programs" doesn't really exist outside of RPG's -- when programmers use it, they mean a program written for a single purpose or a single client.
Also, the batteries that power the PPU get used up once your daily allotment of programs get used, and requires you to recharge for 8 hours after 24 hours of use - again its the limitation of the hardware, that's how it works.
And we're back at the so buy more batteries, dammit! problem. Even my six year old understands the idea of having spare batteries.
Comparably if a wand holds a maximum of 50 charges, why can't I place 51 charges - you can't because its a limitation of the hardware, same argument with my tech issues, so why do you see a problem with this?
Because I can specifically buy as many wands as I like and can afford.
It gets back to JoeJ's question:
If it's technology, can't the characters just buy as many recharges as they can afford - and probably dirt cheap, too, given the ability to mass produce things?
With wands, you can buy as many recharges as you can afford -- there's no per-day limitation. Which makes sense, given what we know about literally everything in the world.
You answered by saying "tech is different, because tech is not limited by the hardware, but by the skill of the user." And of course it isn't, as you yourself just acknowledged ("the batteries that power the PPU get used up" is a hardware limitation). The easy and obvious solution is to buy better hardware.
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With a kingdom resources plus an unmagical royal family you could spend a fortune to locate a permanent anti-magic field extending 40 feet in all directions outside your castle. You may need to locate your mage outside the castle but you have 100% reliable protection against all magical assault. Curses, fireballs, invisible spies, scrying etc it doesn't matter because nothing magical breaches that and your back to physical armies assaulting with physical tech.
Even today swords are still partially around in the form of combat knives because guns can jam, run out of ammunition etc. In a world with magic it is the golf bag approach. Your firearm is the primary weapon against monsters, commoners, etc but against other nobility and certain creatures out comes the sword and it can be for a number of reasons. . .
1) Culture I.e Japan had guns and pretty much banned them for centuries. If your nobility has the concept of honour and duels using a gun against a knight could be the ultimate dishonour.
2) Magic enhancements I.e. Full plate doesn't help against a gun but +x full plate does.
3) Damage types there's a damage resistance/immunity to ballistic (firearms) so your AK-58 with infared sniper scope doesn't matter because your bullets just bounce off whereas a slashing/piercing weapon won't. Similarly there's a simple spell to protect against bullets and arrows that massively reduces their effectiveness.
So while guns will replace the older weapons those weapons will still be trained and used as a backup for the beings you can't shoot.
As for magic even if your words and gestures are different it still obeys rules. Without eschew materials every fireball uses the same ingredients, without metamagic every one has the same effects, with spellcraft we can still identify if someone is casting it. The rules are there even with a still, silent, eschew materials spell the effects are the same. So magic is the human applying their mind and will to manipulate energies to create an effect but the effect and conversion of that energy always obeys a set of rules. The whole wizard class is based on teaching anyone male/female/young/old/black/white/green to manipulate the energies to achieve these results. They just need to be intelligent enough to mentally maintain the complex thought forms required to achieve this manipulation.
Actually 40 yards being the same as point blank for purposes of aiming is pretty good. Military rifles have a 'max range' for aiming of about 300 yards, tops. It's nigh impossible for a human with unaided vision to hit something at that distance, however.
The range rules are for ease of hitting, not effectiveness. Just because a rifle bullet can go for a mile doesn't mean you're going to hit something that far away without at least a very, very good scope. Rifles that can do that have much, much higher range increments and maximum range, too.
==Aelryinth
Well, I'm not sure I buy into that "purpose." In fact, I'm pretty sure that I don't, for many of the reasons outlined upthread. The whole point of technology, historically, has been to make ordinary people capable of doing extraordinary things.
How does my premise not equal allowing oridinary people to do extraordinary things? I think it does just that.
Yes, and if miners no longer have to use shovels and picks and instead can use heavy equipment, I've completely destroyed the concept of miner as it has operated for the last four thousand years. And untold miners are very glad of that, as are the people who rely on mining products.
That's technology, in a nutshell.
Eliminating how an entire class works is not the same as changing how they've worked in the past and giving it a new twist. Your mining example is apples and oranges, as giving them heavy equipment improves mining it doesn't eliminate it.
Well, I try not to consider things that are obviously not true, as your gun analogy is. But the limitations you are imposing go beyond "well, computers will have a maximum capacity" to "computers someday will have a maximum capacity that we...
Well I'm no gun expert, though one of my friends who works for Remington is, and I was quoting his statements - he actually states that technology used in 19th century Remingtons is how they are still used in modern assault weapons, other than small tech improvements, for the most part gunpowder weapons reached its maximum tech a hundred years ago. Again I cannot support nor deny this, as this is completely outside of my knowledge. I'm just repeating what a socalled gun expert said to me.
Except that's not the way tech works. The phrase "one-off programs" doesn't really exist outside of RPG's -- when programmers use it, they mean a program written for a single purpose or a single client.
Actually that is how tech works... if you consider each spell its own program and you can agree that computers have a limit on how much RAM/temporary memory they can hold, if a single spell/program uses that entire memory space, there is no way to use a second program, unless you remove/erase the previous program and encode the new one - this is how I am suggesting this class and tech works.
Now that program can be stored for repeated use in the hard drive (which serves as the spell book for my purposes), but actively using the program in RAM is using temporary memory. Although while a program is opened I can use it repeatedly, once I want to use a different program, the previous one must be removed from temporary memory. This is how computers work, and this is what I mean the tech for the Programmer class works. I'm not breaking technology, I am closely emulating it in concert with using the wizards spellcasting game mechanics - just so that I'm still playing PF and not some other game.
And we're back at the so buy more batteries, dammit! problem. Even my six year old understands the idea of having spare batteries.
But if the batteries you currently have are the maximum size available holding the maximum amount of power, and there are no additional slots for extra batteries - buying more batteries serves nothing.
You can't stick a second motherboard into a computer, only the one fits and only one is configured to work at a time. If the technology you use has the best components available and all its slots being used - buying more batteries, memory chips, etc. will serve no purpose and grant no benefit.
Because I can specifically buy as many wands as I like and can afford.
OK, wand was a bad example, what if the charges are placed in a suit of armor. You can buy a second or third suit of armor, but you can only wear one suit at a time. The computer PPU for the programmer class is like a suit of armor, you can only use one PPU at a time. Having additional PPUs provides no gain.
It gets back to JoeJ's question:
If it's technology, can't the characters just buy as many recharges as they can afford - and probably dirt cheap, too, given the ability to mass produce things?With wands, you can buy as many recharges as you can afford -- there's no per-day limitation. Which makes sense, given what we know about literally everything in the world.
You answered by saying "tech is different, because tech is not limited by the hardware, but by the skill of the user." And of course it isn't, as you yourself just acknowledged ("the batteries that power the PPU get used up" is a hardware limitation). The easy and obvious solution is to buy better hardware.
I'm not saying tech is different, I'm saying that tech doesn't use charges, so there is no benefit in trying to buy more, the current tech has the maximum capability from the get go - there are no slots for additional add-ons to the tech.
If a given computer can only handle 64 GB of RAM, buying an extra 32 GB RAM chip won't fit anywhere, thus provides no benefit.
The only way to get more options out of the existing hardware is by the kind of coding/software you use, and for the programmer class creating code is what he does. And I don't see a problem with buying somebody else's software (despite what I previously posted), as that would be like learning spells from a different spell book and loading that spell into your spellbook/hard drive. However, what is in your spellbook doesn't allow you more spell slots. In the same way, no matter what software you have in your harddrive, doesn't give you more RAM capability - you're still limited by whatever maximum amount of RAM you can use. RAM is equivalent to spell slots.
However, in my version, programming can get more mileage out of existing RAM, but a programmer (wizard alternate) needs to level up to gain the knowledge of more efficient code and getting more use out of RAM. Again, hardware won't fix the problem, code will.
Are gods and Divine power Incompatible with Science?
Only in the real world, not in Golarion.
I'd also like to point out on the armor argument...PF severely undervalues the usefulness of armor in real fights, too. If you do have armor that can shrug off bullets (like, enchanted armor) you are going to be TERRIFYING in melee because your opponents aren't going to be able to fight you effectively there.
If you can reach them, they die.
I thought there was a magic armor that made you bulletproof, but I can't locate the name of it.
==Aelryinth
Are gods and Divine power Incompatible with Science?
Well since PF rules include arcane, divine, and science tech, obviously it is compatible.
For my Sci-Fi setting, gods are about as real as they are in the realworld... they could be real, but it could be just a belief system that has no real impact in the world. Since tech replaces magic in my setting, that includes divine magic being replaced as well.
But if the batteries you currently have are the maximum size available holding the maximum amount of power, and there are no additional slots for extra batteries - buying more batteries serves nothing.
Except that it is literally a three minute fix with a roll of duct tape and some wires to add additional battery slots to any electrically powered device if the batteries are accessible in the first place. [That's actually how the first iPod made it into space -- the standard iPod battery was not certified for flight, so they rigged up something to use AA batteries, which are flight-certified.]
And there's always the option of swapping batteries between spells to give me a much higher number of spells per day than would otherwise be possible -- burn my entire spell allowance during the first encounter, then swap batteries and burn them during the next one. Repeat until silliness.
Even adding more RAM to a system or a second motherboard is fairly simple if you know what you're doing. (A multi-motherboard system is just another form of a cluster.)
he only way to get more options out of the existing hardware is by the kind of coding/software you use,
You keep repeating this, and it continues to be utterly false. In fact, it's your major misunderstanding. It is always possible to get more options simply by spending money on whatever currently limits your options.
Are you sure? I have seen Religious ScientistAre gods and Divine power Incompatible with Science?Only in the real world, not in Golarion.
So have I. You didn't ask whether delusion was compatible with science.
I'd also like to point out on the armor argument...PF severely undervalues the usefulness of armor in real fights, too. If you do have armor that can shrug off bullets (like, enchanted armor) you are going to be TERRIFYING in melee because your opponents aren't going to be able to fight you effectively there.
If you can reach them, they die.
I thought there was a magic armor that made you bulletproof, but I can't locate the name of it.
==Aelryinth
Well PF gun rules defy reality in this way. Since the phrase "bullet proof" literally comes from the act of shooting armor with a gun and not penetrating, would suggest you don't need to enchant armor to make it bullet proof, well made mundane armor already is bullet proof. (Of course that's not how guns work in PF...)
Not really. If you're fighting a guy in magic bulletproof armor, (unless it's specifically anti-bullet only), you're not going to be able to hit or hurt him - unless you're either ridiculously skilled, strong, or have magic weapons of your own. Guess what? Anyone in a roughly CR equivalent fight with the guy with the bulletproof armor is going to have that.I'd also like to point out on the armor argument...PF severely undervalues the usefulness of armor in real fights, too. If you do have armor that can shrug off bullets (like, enchanted armor) you are going to be TERRIFYING in melee because your opponents aren't going to be able to fight you effectively there.
If you can reach them, they die.
The difference being...you won't have armor.
Taht's the point I'm trying to make. It simply ups the minimum cost level at which armor becomes desirable again. You don't want it when it doesn't affect touch AC...but you DO want it when it does, and when you reach that level, it's going to become awesome.
However, the number of people who will be able to use it effectively by then is going to be slim.
And on the other hand, you have Michael Carpenter, who wears plate armor backed with Kevlar.
==Aelryinth