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Two-thousand and
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Two-thousand and
Adorable.
*tousles Aliizsa's hair*
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What browser do you prefer to use?
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What browser do you prefer to use?
Firefox. Though someone recently suggested I try a new one, but I forgot what it was. o_o
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What is your favourite RPG setting in terms of running/playing games in it?
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What is your favourite RPG setting in terms of running/playing games in it?
Would it be cheating to say my homebrew (Alvena)? >_>
If I need to pick a published setting, I'd probably say Forgotten Realms / Eberron (about tied, for different reasons).
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Would you mind describing Alvena? I'd like to hear about it.
You can turn anything into a number, that's how computers store information. Therefore at least some numbers are IPS.Touché.
Depends on how the stats are defined, I'd say.
Well, GURPS has three physical primary attributes and one mental primary attribute, which also feels a bit awkward.
And GURPS also has the concept of secondary attributes, and I see no indication of anything similar being here.
IP breach feels like a huge stretch here, really.
Ahh! You're right. Been a while since I played GURPS.
Have you thought about renaming "Armor Check Penalty" into "Lightly Armored Bonus" and adjusting all skills back to the same level(so that a naked human with, say, +3 unarmored bonus would have the same effectve skill bonus as an unarmored human now)? Humans are generally more accepting of positive things than negative, so that can be a nice thing to change.
Have you thought about renaming "Armor Check Penalty" into "Lightly Armored Bonus" and adjusting all skills back to the same level(so that a naked human with, say, +3 unarmored bonus would have the same effectve skill bonus as an unarmored human now)? Humans are generally more accepting of positive things than negative, so that can be a nice thing to change.
I like this idea.
Bonuses always feel nicer than penalties, even if there's effectively no difference.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Would you mind describing Alvena? I'd like to hear about it.
Sure. (^-^)
Alvena is a post-apocalyptic world that has been ravaged by war. It's rural landscape is dotted with echoes of a past world of wonder, with mighty spires and fortresses jutting from the planet's surfaces, ancient machinery and magical treasures scattered across the world, and the will to survive and thrive alive in the hearts of the broken.
The world's recent apocalypse was due to what has become known as "The Demon Wars" which began as a result of the high elves (the mightiest civilization in the world, who had actually advanced so far as to raise their cities into the very skies) becoming too arrogant and forgetting the warnings that the old gods gave when they shared magic with the mortal races. Deceived by the powers of hell*, they were tricked into opening a number of portals that served as staging points for a massive invasion of demons and devils, which led to their world being torn asunder in a fight for survival.
Alvena is a very cosmopolitan setting where you can find creatures as varied as drider, orcs, halflings, changelings, humans, and more traveling and adventuring together. This is primarily because at some level, everyone had a stake in the demon wars and countless old enemies met as allies on the battlefield of their earth, making a stand together against a common foe. Many old grudges died in the war as quickly as soldiers and that common unity still on some level binds many of the people's of Alvena, and no where is that more obvious than in the rag-tag bands of adventurers who explore the secrets of the ancient world.
It's a mixture of high magitech fantasy and low fantasy in a way that I really enjoy. The godlike beings (including the old gods) are all CR 25 and under, with most "gods" being around CR 16. Overall, the world itself is very much on the lower-end of fantasy, where the majority of the population is in the CR 3-6 range with the great heroes being upwards around 8-9, and anything above that typically being suitable for having their own cults and followers.
I'll try to draw something that will help with some visual concepts of the world and its peoples.
*: In Alvena, Hell is where all devils, demons, daemons, and similar critters reside. They are fundamentally similar but are born from different areas and share ideological differences and are constantly warring and scheming with and against one-another.
There is a difference in how intuitive the concept feels. I bet that for most people (who do not wear battle armor every day) it's more natural to think of armor as something that hinders movement. The naked, unencumbered body has the beautiful armor penalty of 0, rather than light armor bonus of [insert arbitrary number].
Though I understand the sentiment, I , personally, feel the intuitiveness of the naked body as the baseline of 0 is the most newbie-friendly option :3
I'm inclined to agree with this. The "check penalty" always felt natural because it instilled (in me at least) a sense of weight and heaviness above the norm.
It also feels very strange strange to describe encumbrance in terms of bonuses, and if armor and encumbrance weren't described in more or less the same way, I feel it could get really weird. (o_o);
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Have you considered adjusting things so that ac scales with attack bonus rather than remaining static without equipment?
Also, have considered any of the alternatives methods of handling armor, such as armor is dr? (personally I never like armor = evasion)
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Yes, come to think of it, that would involve naked condition to have a non-zero number, which would complicate it for new players.
On a related note, do you know of any attempts to make a proper Pathfinder tutorial? I.e. a dungeoncrawl-like module which introduces new mechanics step-by-step, like the famous tutorial from Portal? If you do know, can you tell us too? If you don't, do you plan to design such a thing? It would have an obvious effect of making it easier to introduce new players into the game.
And a second question. Suppose spellcasters from various settings decided to fight.
1 team: APL20 6-person balanced party from pathfinder(say, Bard + Paladin + Ranger + Cleric + Druid + Wizard)
2 team: lord Voldemort, Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Bellatrix Lestrange, Hermione Granger and Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody from Harry Potter.(they somehow settled their differences and decided to form a team in this case)
3 team: all 5 wizards from Lord of the Rings and Sauron.
Who would win?
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If saving throws are a thing, regardless of wizards, than PF wizards make a clean sweep (as they save successfully against 'Potterverse mage's best spells). The sheer nick er of tricks PF can pull out is insane, from time distortion, to hosts of creatures, to other such nonsense. With immunities, smiteousness, free-range shape shifting, and the power of song, nothing else has much hope.
If not, the answer is still the same, but they may lose more along the way. Potterverse has spells you seemingly can't fight - or at least can't win against - like the killing curse or mind-control, but that means little when the wizards in question must focus on the one or three targets they can control; and it's clear in the books and films that they must do exactly that. Besides, their magic has a host of quirky fail-points in it anyway, like "sacrificial love" which the PF wizards may or may not have. Hermione is, by far, the most frightening opponent on that team, but is likely to be overwhelmed by a number of things she just doesn't know.
LotR is not even close. They're awesome, but not able to overcome optimized L20 PF wizards - even on a low-grade of optimization. Sauron, for instance, is basically a lesser lich (lacking paralysis and a few other elements, and taking aaaaaaaaaaages to regenerate instead of just 1d10 days, and coming off more as that heavy-armor caster hellknight PrC with an emphasis on making corruption magic and mind-affecting/cursed magic items, than anything else. He probably cracks level twelve, but not too much beyond. The wizards are - like Sauron and the Balrog - outsiders with inherent magic. But using their magic isn't all that harmonious with nature's "song" (by Iluvetar), so it's limited and destructive, meaning they tend not to use it much beyond needing to.
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** spoiler omitted **
I wanted to go back to bed but...
But the real huge factor, is the speed. Pathfinder wizard can cast 1 or 2 spells in a 6 second period, but Potter Want cards can cast a lot more. Sure, they don't have spells like Time Stop or Gate, but they also don't need them as they also don't have any limit on spells per day either. They have infinite magic, and, magic that can't be healed. At least, not easily, anyway.
In addition, the sheer versatility of some of their magic is amazing, namely Transfiguration. You can flood the battlefield with conjured or transferred beasts, distracting, harassing, and killing their foes. Played to theirbest, I would give the edge to Potterverse if only due to the sheer volume of magic they can throw around.
You also underestimate Dumbledore, who is by far the most dangerous person on that list. Remember, Dumbledore was intelligent enough to plan out events that would lead to Voldemort's demise even after his own death. He is, essentially, a Schrodinger's wizard as he will know what you will do before you do. Also, keep in mind, he was able to duel and defeat Grindelwald despite his foe being the master of the Elder Wand. I would hazard a guess that Dumbledore, with the Elder Wand, is, more or less, unbeatable in a fight vs anyone in Potterverse and is probably unbeatable even without it. The wand grants you the power to, seemingly, break the rules of magic, such as being able to repair Harry's broken wand. Truly, Dumbledore is the most terrifying person in the lineup. He is, essentially, Hermione, but with over a century of experience and knowledge.
Also, for all the hype, Bellatrx isn't that dangerous, she's just b~%#&@@ crazy. She got bested by a 15 year old Wizard, and was killed in a 1 on 1 with a house wife.
I, personally, think Pathfinder vs Potterverse is a tie, with an edge got given to Potterverse. Remember, they can apparatus around a field with no limit and casts multiple spells a round. What they lack in world changing power, they make up for in mobility and an unending onslaught of spells.
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** spoiler omitted **I wanted to go back to bed but...
** spoiler omitted **...
While Dumbledore is insanely smart, he's that smart (and able to plan ahead) because he knows what and who he's up against. In this scenario, I'm presupposing that none of them have any actual idea about what they're up against - how could they? Other than "those guys use magic differently than us" it seems clear that nothing actually functions like the others say they do. Dumbledore could not plan out everything in advance, and did not - he planned as much as he could and had faith in others to do the right thing. In fact, despite his best efforts, there are a number of cases that he failed because he didn't have the information or understanding of people to plan everything out in advance.
The only reason that the 'Potterverse folks could win would be the same reason they could lose: the relatively arbitrary power of plot.
While the Elder wand is impressive, who would wield it? Dumbledore? If Voldemordt could ever get his stuff together, he might allow it, but the dude's mania would never allow anyone other than himself. I grant that we're presupposing they've agreed to set aside their differences for this, but the driving thing behind the 'Potterverse magic is ultimately the persons themselves - their skill magic is intimately tied to their personality as much as their genius. Changing that is changing who they are and how they wield their magic. In a similar way, Dumbledore and Harry and so on would never allow the imperious curse to be used.
But even if they did, the thing about that is, that's where immunity would come from. The paladin is immune to such things, and simple first level spells (easily spammed and can last all day) grant immunity to the others. Unless you suggest that the imperious curse isn't something that's mind-affecting nor a possession effect nor anything else that's halted by the protection line of spells. In which case we're just left to guesswork... but the 20th level PF people necessarily have better will saves (except maybe the ranger) than the 'Potterverse folk, as they all have good saves and are almost certainly rocking ability score enhancements.
Their transfiguration magic is powerful, yes, but Pathfinder has it too: it's called animate object and awaken - both of which are covered by the lineup presented above. In addition to those things, you have the ability to teleport, time stop, and so on.
One of the things I'm presuming is that these people are moderately able to do the things they're supposed to be skilled at. That means the wizard is a crafting wizard. At that point, at level twenty, they're either going to win this from infinite simulacra and cash (with infinite information-gathering resources), or they're artificially hamstrung by personalities that don't do that for arbitrary reasons.
That's the reason I give it to PF. Because if you start arbitrating limits on PF, you can easily give the whole thing over to the LotR crew - they are selfless, have ludicrously powerful wills, and are literally made out of divine benevolence and extraplanar essence given flesh - in that regard, it's a crapshoot whether or not they'd even be affected by the 'Potterverse spells, because they might not even work that way.
That's the problem with the 'Potterverse magic - things just start going wrong, weird, or off for arbitrary reasons that don't have any contextual cues except "In this specific situation, it works out this way, even though it may or may not have been hinted at earlier."
Don't get me wrong - I fully expected the 'Potterverse to take down more than one of the PF people.
As to casting more than one spell in six seconds... uh... they can? I've... I've never seen that happen.
In the books, they never actually showed them casting all that often - mmmmmmaaaaaayyyyybe when Bellatrix was spamming a stupid amount of death-curses around that managed to not hit anyone (which may or may not have been due to luck potion - I mean it was, but there's only so much luck can do).
But that's the thing - with enough Luck potion, the 'Potterverse could hypothetically win... but there's a reason that neither Dumbledore nor Voldemordt merely brewed an infinite amount of Luck Potion and used it. On the surface, that seems stupid... and an incredible oversight on the part of Voldemordt (as he's willing to do whatever it takes to be superior).
"But the Luck Potion can fail." is an obvious reason... and it's true. But that goes back to us leaving things down to narrative guesswork or by mechanics.
'Potterverse does have the (apparent) ability to spam their spells at will, but I've never seen their spells activate faster than once or twice every six seconds - either in film or book, with the possible exception of something that never actually worked in-narrative - but their spells are universally less potent (if saves are allowed) or are more limited in scope than those of the PF people.
I will submit that Dumbledore is more frightening than Hermione... but I don't agree that the group as a whole could really overcome the PF people outside of arbitrary narrative.
The main thing that the 'Potterverse has going for it is the Time Turner... except that, according to canon lore, using it for those exact sort of shenanigans leads to the people who do so vanishing from existence - a problem not shared by PF folks.
Trust me - I agree that the 'Potterverse is insanely powerful. It's just that its limits are so weird and arbitrary, that it relies on narrative ability to overcome the sheer numbers of PF... which is the same thing LotR would rely on.
That said, if you've got statistics for faster casting, I'd be all-ears.
(Also, the PF people can come back from the dead, and do so quickly, and set up the ability to do so in advance. LotR has that, but it's extremely finite and finicky - it may or may not work, and the people that come back might not quite remember everything they need to.)
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Neither lotr nor hp have level 20 characters. Gandalf is level 5, maybe 6. Sauron is hard to put into numbers but as the white council expected to have at least a chance at defeating him, he can't be more then 3-5 levels above them and the white council is probably only a level or two above gandalf since he could actually have a date to go fight with them. Making Sauron at most level 13. call it 15 to be generous.
Lotr magic seems to me to be a matter of knowledge, technique, but mostly willpower. Besides, just teleport without error frodo to the volcano and drop the ring in and the single most powerful lotr character is gone, unless you want to bring in the valar.
The potters have a better chance despite still being level 2-5, as their magic is more fluid and has more options of the subtle variety.
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You underestimate how dangerous that is on the battlefield. I have once heard that only 20% of soldiers actually shoot at the enemy in battle, because, apparently, not all people are psychopaths and aren't ususally okay with killing others. Psychopath with a weapon is way more dangerous than a non-psychopath with the weapon, simply because they will actually use it.
When it comes to who would actually win, I think it all comes down to who would get a drop on who. PF has a lot of spells that can wreck scores of unprepared opponents. Potterverse does too-there isn't much you can do against a volley of Avada Kedavras shot by those six Apparating behind you to get a surprise round.
However, PF still has an edge, in my opinion. And it does for the same reason Bellatrix is dangerous- high-level characters are just simply b#+#!$+ insane. Only ones who come close to them in Potterverse are Voldemort and Bellatrix. Think about it. How many sentient, thinking, living creatures did Dumbledore kill in the books? I don't remember any. How many did Hermione? None that I remember either. How many does your average druid on the way to lv 20? I would be surprised if it was less than a hundred.
They aren't really human anymore either-a lv 20 wizard can likely survive a fall from orbit, for example. By the time they reach lv 20, PF characters live and breathe combat. They don't just fight, they excel at it. With the variety of enemies and situations PF can provide, that party will likely be ready for pretty much anything you could think of, and be able to improvise a good enough solution to any problem they weren't prepared for. Potterverse? Not so much.
All those people from HP are quite experienced at fighting other wizards from HP. They aren't experienced at fighting a Dimension-Dooring Dire Tiger, which is one of the things they will meet immediately after the battle starts. They aren't expecting someone to Shatter their wands either. They don't usually engage in close combat-if you think about it, most fights in HP are wizards trading spells from behind cover, so even one combatant in their midst will absolutely wreck them.
Now, PF also doesn't expect some things, like teleport at will from enemy wizards...but there are outsiders in PF who do just that, so they wouldn't be that surprised. Ultimately, Potterverse would likely lose simply because they didin't spend their whole lives training to be the ultimate death-death-murder machines.
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Hmmm... a proper response to these posts will require an actual computer, not a mobile device.
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Also, note, Harry used the Imperious Curse to sneak into Gringotts. He isn't so Lawful Good that he won't use a useful tool, he absolutely would use the Imperious. Dumbledore may not be found of using Dark Magic, but he's not afraid to either. He used Fiendfyre to fight the undead in the lake when going after the Horcruxes with Harry.
You are right that casting speed isn't described well in the books, but there are a few examples. When Dumbledore and Harry went after the Horcrux in book 6, Harry spammed spells against the Inferi, casting a dozen or so spells in a very short time. In less time than necessary for the Inferi to scale the rock/island they were on, which wasn't very large. There is also when Draco and Harry fought in the bathroom in book 6 too. More of an inference, but the speed of casting relies only on wand movements, all of which are fairly simple, and vocalizations, again, very simple. If you can move the wand fast enough, and speak clearly, you can cast faster. Even then, you can learn to cast without vocalizing too.
You mentioned the movies, however, while I was only referencing the books. So here's Harry and the Order vs Death Eaters in OotP, pay close attention to the battle between Lucius, Sirius, and Harry. I clocked 3 spells a second, easy. Death Eater attack on the burrow is another good one. Oh, and Molly vs Bellatrix.
In the books, there are only a handful of examples of possible speed casting and some logical inferences; the movies, however, explicitly show multiple examples of it.
It's true that Potterverse doesn't have spells like Gate, or Wish, r Planar Binding etc, but they do have some doozies. Like Fiendfyre, a magical flame that is extremely difficult to control, amongst the most destructive forces in the Potterverse and will actively seek out sentient beings to feed on them. Or the spell Minerva used in both the books and the movie to animate an entire army of golems with a single cast. Or even the simple Finite or Finite Incantatem; essentially, constant Dispel Magic/Greater spam. Then there is the Portkey, oh God the Portkey. You realize this allows for a touch attack and teleport, no save, anywhere? Throw my dirty sock at you, hit *bloop* you're now in space. You might be able to survive the first one, but they can spam this, along with dispels to strip you of your magic.
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Fast Casting
1) In the first instance, I see a suspicious lack of encanting with those spells in the film... and the fastest "running" effects are rather similar... very akin to, say, a magic missile effect or scorching ray that allows multiple "events" per casting. And Bellatrix leaves Potter and company alone for a very long time after killing Sirius. A strangely long time.
2) The second one you linked rather directly displayed the problem with "at will dispel" as... it didn't, really, do that at all, against that wall of fire in the beginning. It's much more like at-will counterspelling, which isn't all that great to begin with. The fast-casting thing, again, can be related to multiple "attacks" related to a singular spell.
3) The Molly v. Bellatrix was pretty potent evidence in your court, but could also be evidenced of either iterative attacks (in which case Molly's a hasted best BAB caster) or multiple benefits from a singular effect.
Fiendfyr
1) How much damage does fiendfyr actually do, though? It could be roughly an incendiary cloud-equivalent spell. I mean, outside of "special effects" there's little that this actually does that a marginally uncontrolled incendiary cloud doesn't. I mean, 6d6 per round, is insane for most people. Looking at damaging objects, in fact, incendiary fire is actually more powerful: it has the ability to explicitly devour stone by dealing 3d6/round v. hardness of 8, whereas the fiendfyre curse actually doesn't (if you're watching how it interacts with the stuff in the film). It could be roughly "equivalent power" if the fiendfyre does something like 2d8 per round and a chain lightning-number of additional points of assaults over a number of rounds, while setting fire to stuff. This would equate to things we saw happening in-film (and in-book) without being anywhere near as powerful as deadly PF stuff.
2) This indicates that it's powerful, but might just burn itself out, like a normal fire. That, and the fact that it can be outrun, indicates a short initial range and a temporary living spell may well be the best representation of it.
Army of Golems
1) I assume you mean this spell? It seems suspiciously close to this spell with an arbitrarily large number of targets... objects that a certain witch had been spending an inordinate amount of time among... time that she had to prep, say, for a single repeatedly potent effect that she'd "always wanted to use"... and had plenty of time to prepare to do exactly that.
2) As far as I can see, she never did anything so potent before or since. Her skill at transforming "dozens of desks and suits of armor to help defend the school" seems like multiple castings of the same effect. This is basically the equivalent of a magic trap and is implied to be non-permanent (whereas the PF one can be made permanent).
3) If it was as potent as all that, why didn't the Death Eaters use it to wipe out the Order? Or vice versa? It's primary benefit seems to be to clog a combat with bodies and deal lots of low-grade melee damage (which is still frightening).
4) She wasn't in the lineup. :)
Level-Relevant Abilities
Yes, actually, levels 2-5, over-all. Their actual non-magic skills are relatively pedestrian.
1) Their actual spells are largely divorced from their hit dice/skills/etc. Their actual ability to deal with effects or interactions are (to date) limited to sixth-level or lower arcane effects (with one exception), with arbitrarily high CL or relatively "at will" effects. I mean, a basilisk's ability is considered extremely difficult to undo.
2) They have a demonstrably limited number of spells known. Not because they have a demonstrably limited number of spells they may know, but their magic is explicitly limited by what they learn and memorize over time, and even repeated exposure to basic spells doesn't guarantee a moderately competent caster can or will memorize them.
3) To me, this tends to indicate that their magical abilities have some sort of natural aptitude as well as a trained skill component, akin to linguistics and languages known. This fundamentally limits the number of spells they know, but also allows them to have a variety of spells known. (I would tend to guess that the "balance" is different, though - more akin to something like "INT-mod plus INT-mod per rank" than "INT mod plus ranks" - they certainly know more than sorcerers, but certainly don't know all.)
4) The exception to this is the ability of artifacts or magic items (the distinction is not always clear). This, again, compares to PF's ability to craft stuff that you don't have the CL for, spells to access, or similar - just so long as you have the <resources> and <spellcraft> ability (and feat), you can create the items that you need or want. And yet... weird limitations are constantly made on how those things are crafted. Portkey is impressive, but why didn't anyone in the 'Potterverse ever create a Portkey that drops someone into a volcano (or, if a more pedestrian location is needed, simply Azkaban) and drop them there? BAM: war's over. Beyond that, apparition is really useful, but is error-prone enough that the Death Eaters (who were both skilled and hateful enough to use the tactic) chose, instead, to fly (albeit that was only the film version), and, though flying or apparition were both hypothetical possibilities, the Death Eaters chose infiltration through a cabinet... indicating important limitations. Beyond that, apparition can be interdicted... kind of akin to, say, dimensional anchor.
5) Their toughness is not that much greater than that of normal humans, if it is. Swords and gun shots can can kill them, rocks falling can kill them. That falls are not more deadly are due more to the healing abilities of spells than anything else.
6) Relatively low-grade abilities like invisibility and speak with dead are considered artifact-level-exclusive abilities, beyond the scope of casters in general. This points to the "balance" of the magic being very different from that of PF, and disjoins it from their level... much like monster CL and hit dice.
Bellatrix
- Her insanity is greatly overrated, as justifiably terrifying as it is. It's terrifying because she's willing to use killing curse... a spell that "requires <...> an utter disregard for the sanctity of life to be used effectively" which she has. That is what makes her dangerous. And the PF group necessitate that in spades.
OVER-ALL
The 'Potterverse is very potent and versatile. It is limited by its own casters and unknown arbitrary rules. In PF, on the other hand, with a single caster, you've got all the things you see in 'Potterverse and more, only requiring preparation time... the same kind of preparation time (only less) as the people in the 'Potterverse demonstrably had prior to accomplishing their most potent feats. If the PF people are reasonably competent at their jobs, PF should have more stuff, over-all, than 'Potterverse. While 'Potterverse lacks controls or limits on its CL, exactly, it kind of makes up for this with greater unpredictability and difficulty to control or properly execute and arbitrary fail-points and limitations. The 'Potterverse is insanely powerful and can pull redonculous stunts. But it's still not quite as weirdly versatile as a 20th level group of casters and a paladin (oh, and a ranger).
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** spoiler omitted **...
Tels:
> the spell Minerva used in both the books and the movie to animate an entire army of golems with a single cast.
It seemed more like Command-activated Hogwarts protection system to me, to be honest, something original creators put in place for an occasion such as that.
>Or even the simple Finite or Finite Incantatem; essentially, constant Dispel Magic/Greater spam.
If it was that good, it would have been the go-to defencive spell. It's not, and I believe it is implied that it only dispels relatively simple effects.
>You realize this allows for a touch attack and teleport, no save, anywhere?
Target has to grab it for it to work. So it only works if your target grabs every object you throw at them. Not a valid tactic in combat.
Lion:
>1) How much damage does fiendfyr actually do, though?
I read the books quite some time ago, but in HPMOR(one of the most popular fanfictions) it allows a character to fly through enchanted walls at 150mph by casting it in front of them to make a corridor. That implies that it ignores hardness, energy resistance and deals ridiculous ammounts of damage per second. Let me see if I can find a quote.
> the Death Eaters chose infiltration through a cabinet... indicating important limitations.
I believe Hogwards is warded as...well, as the only school in the whole country would be, so you can't just apparate there.
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How will you handle Alignment?
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How much damage does Fiendfyre do? Unknown, but one of its properties is that it utterly destroys things it burns beyond any possible method of repair. It may simply be a fire that ignores resistance/immunity, bypasses hardness and deals full damage to objects. Fiendfyre and basilisk venom, are the only two known ways to destroy a horcrux, which are all but impervious otherwise.
There are, admittedly, a lot of things in the Potterverse that aren't used to its full potential, such as portkeys or dispels, or even Goblin Silver. I've read a lot of Harry Potter fan fiction over the years of authors exploiting these items, because it seems so obvious to others. Portkeys, for example, can be made so you need only touch it, to activate it, which is very dangerous in the right hands.
Why didn't they use Portkeys to go to Hogwarts or apparate? Because Hogwarts is awarded against magical travel. Only the Headmaster or Headmistress can allow such travel in the school, though House Elves can bypass wards freely. The Vanishing Cabinet was one way around these wards.
I somewhat agree with the level 5 thing, but at the same time, Quidditch, specifically bludgers plays merry hell with that. Also Draco being covered with multiple deep lacerations when he fought Harry and bled out for a minute or two before Snape showed up and survived. Or Harry falling over 100 ft to faceplate into the earth with only a few broken bones.
I honestl believe that a fight between Pathfinder and Potterverse is mostly a tie, but that Poterverse has a slight edge due to mobility and casting speed. Certainly, Pathffinder has more broken spells, but Potterverse has their own cheating spells too. Definitely a far better match than vs LotR.
[Edit] Ugh, screw mobile devices. Need to get me a new computer. Soooooo many autocorrect mistakes :(
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Hmmm... a proper response to these posts will require an actual computer, not a mobile device.
As for harry falling, falling damage is far more variable than in d20. Also, as children are always flying certain areas of the school grounds, there may be protections in place to lessen the damage of falling, not completely but reduce it to survivable levels. Then again, people have been known to survive landing at terminal velocity, normal mundane real life people. D20 caps falling damage at 20d6, so it can be inferred that 20d6 is terminal velocity, even rolling all ones, that would never allow an average mundane person to survive.
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Hmmm... a proper response to these posts will require an actual computer, not a mobile device.** spoiler omitted **
Not necessarily true. Assuming minimum damage, if they make an acrobatics check of DC 15, they negate the first 10 feet of damage, and the next 10 is nonlethal (18 lethal damage, 1 nonlethal) and if they fall into a yielding surface, such as mud, the next 10 feet is also nonlethal. So one could fall 200 feet and take 17 points of lethal damage, and 2 nonlethal, survivable even for 1st level characters, but they are very near death and bleeding out.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Not necessarily true. Assuming minimum damage, if they make an acrobatics check of DC 15, they negate the first 10 feet of damage, and the next 10 is nonlethal (18 lethal damage, 1 nonlethal) and if they fall into a yielding surface, such as mud, the next 10 feet is also nonlethal. So one could fall 200 feet and take 17 points of lethal damage, and 2 nonlethal, survivable even for 1st level characters, but they are very near death and bleeding out.Hmmm... a proper response to these posts will require an actual computer, not a mobile device.** spoiler omitted **
However, the real people are people for whom a solid sword strike is instant lethal, as in skip bleeding out and go straight to dead, yet in some cases they survive with minimal injuries. One raf pilot (admittedly crashed through branches and about a foot or so of snow) had only scratches, bruises, and possibly a twisted knee, and otherwise nothing else after falling for almost 20 thousand feet (I think it was 18 but not sure).
Admittedly, hp isn't exactly a good system for measuring though.
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I'm used to thinking that most commoners have 2-3 HD.
Obviously not the case in AP's, but gives a bit more realistic sturdiness to them.
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It isn't actually a more realistic sturdiness. Compare 1 hd to say a sword or other melee weapon, or even other sources of damage.
One of the great things abour 3.0 was how well (not perfect granted) you could be realistic with it. Only, realistic was developed over 4-5 levels, then those patterns and progressions were expanded to greatly exceed realism souch that you went from mundane to demigod.
Thinking of lvl 20 as realistically achievable will distort your appraisal of lower levels.
I suggest reading Calibrating Your Expectations by Alexandrian, he describes it better than me.
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Yes, come to think of it, that would involve naked condition to have a non-zero number, which would complicate it for new players.
On a related note, do you know of any attempts to make a proper Pathfinder tutorial? I.e. a dungeoncrawl-like module which introduces new mechanics step-by-step, like the famous tutorial from Portal? If you do know, can you tell us too? If you don't, do you plan to design such a thing? It would have an obvious effect of making it easier to introduce new players into the game.
I don't know of any modules off the top of my head, but I have taken a similar approach when introducing new players to the game. NPCs with the party can provide bits of helpful dialog, and encounters with enemies using certain tactics can help players learn as well.
For example, if I want to teach new players about flanking, a really good way to drive home the benefits is having NPCs flank. NPCs are typically much weaker than the PCs, so if a bunch of goblins with daggers are doing the flanking, there's little threat of them killing your students before they get the hint. :P
And a second question. Suppose spellcasters from various settings decided to fight.
1 team: APL20 6-person balanced party from pathfinder(say, Bard + Paladin + Ranger + Cleric + Druid + Wizard)
2 team: lord Voldemort, Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Bellatrix Lestrange, Hermione Granger and Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody from Harry Potter.(they somehow settled their differences and decided to form a team in this case)
3 team: all 5 wizards from Lord of the Rings and Sauron.
Who would win?
My money would be on the 20th level Pathfinder team. They are literally equipped to fight godlike beings at that point, and while I'm not the expert that many are on Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings (I'm a fan but not an 'expert' you see) I don't know of anything that they could do to really handle them.
I'm assuming that their magics interacted in usual fashions (where magic was pestered by things like spell resistance, subject to things like spell turning, etc).
I'm also assuming that outside of their spells, Team Potter is comprised of mostly human strength individuals.
At 20th level, a party of Pathfinder characters is very likely walking around with things like mind blank, death ward, spell resistance, and freedom of movement, either constantly or for short bursts throughout the day when they need them. They also have access to things like antimagic field which while not particularly great for fighting high level things in D&D land, would essentially leave them as 20th level dudes that could casually slice the heads off of normal people or put arrows through their eyes at 300 yards.
A 20th level party also has an entourage of things that could kill all the wizards in Harry Potter or those from Lord of the Rings matter o' factly. Things that are considered minor minions and servants like succubi or erinyes casually use magics that only the most incredible wizards in either of those other settings could dream of (succubi can casually traverse the ethereal plane, deliver 6d6 vampiric touch spells, and be anywhere they wish to be; while erinyes could literally kill a s#~@load of wizards by dropping an unholy blight spell that would kill everyone except the evil wizards from Harry Potter), and those are their minions. >_>
That's before you realize that high level D&D characters are kind of like this: Killed him?
Perhaps hilariously, the most death-defying shenanigans in Harry Potter and the like aren't particularly useful against a group of D&D characters. After you've accidentally nuked yourself because spell turning bounced a certain green laser beam back your way, they might just steal your soul. Or suspend you at the center of the planet for eternity. Or if they really, really don't like you, they might murder you, then transport themselves to heaven or hell or wherever you've gone, and murder your soul too. Because they can do that. :P
A Side Note
This is one of the reasons that I always find these sorts of comparisons kinda weird, because power dynamics don't always translate very well across settings. Often times these settings establish things within a certain narrative of power and they make sense in their respective settings, and the heroes can be the most powerful and amazing of their kind in their own setting, but they might not fare too well elsewhere since there are bigger fish in that universe.
For example, the old Superman vs Goku thing. The answer is Goku. It might have been a fair fight back when Vegeta and Nappa first came to earth and fought but only just maybe (characters at this point could already casually destroy planets, as seen by Vegeta just wiping some bug-ruled planet off the galactic map 'cause he felt like it, which puts them beyond things that even characters like Darkseid could do). Post namek, there would just be no hope. Since Superman's power is gained via our Red Sun, the moment he punches Goku and Goku teleports the two of them to somewhere without the sun, like King Kai's planet, Superman would just die as his heart explodes under the immense gravity.
In a similar vein, I saw a really insane thing on Screw Attack where they said Link from the Legend of Zelda would defeat Cloud Strife from FF7. The thing is, you gotta look at the scale of the things these characters deal with on a constant basis. This is Ganon, supreme badguy throughout the LoZ series and his various incarnations. This is the most powerful thing that Link ever faces off against after his heroic quests.
Meanwhile, over in FF7-land...
This massive thing is something Cloud can kill on his own fresh off the farm. This is Cloud's nemesis as you fight him in the end (and Cloud can solo him before level cap).
It's just not even on the same scale anymore. o_o
It's like pitting the strongest go-cart against the strongest eighteen wheeler in terms of pull strength. In their respective categories they're great, but swap them and things get silly quick.
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How will you handle Alignment?
Very carefully. (D-D)
Joking aside, I'm not really sure. On one hand, I really like that there are tangible forces of good and evil in the multiverse, so that you could have a holy sword and an evil fiend who needs to be impaled on said sword to truly die ('cause alignment regeneration is a thing in d20).
However, I have grown to despise alignment for its intended (and ever failing) purpose and the discord that it produces on internet forums and within individual groups. I revile the fact that entire character classes are banned from tables because of the problems it creates. I hold immense, unadulterated, contempt for the pervasive idea that alignment somehow affects your actions rather than the other way around.
Yet, perhaps ironically, I like the way alignment defines good and evil. Because of the rather clean definitions, it's not hard to decide overall how good/evil a character is and I like that it's separated from any sort of rule-based system of morality where things are simply absolutes (such as religious laws where it's a sin to wear polyester or eat lobster).
These days I see alignment as two very different systems. One representing things that are mechanically empowered or connected to the energies of certain planes, and one that represents your character's outlook, and the two happen to share names and some interactions, but they are fundamentally different (as seen by how you can have creatures whose Alignment differs from their [Alignment]).
Very likely, the moral alignment portion of the game will be gutted and replaced with a section discussing roleplaying your characters. The same altruism, respecting life, concern for others, and hurting, oppressing, and killing will of course show up, but a lot of the presentation will be different. It will have little (if any) mechanical effect on the game and serve primarily to tell a good story and help serve as a tool for people to make great characters with.
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I'm used to thinking that most commoners have 2-3 HD.
Obviously not the case in AP's, but gives a bit more realistic sturdiness to them.
As a side note, I generally tend to think of 1-3 HD being the range for human conditioning if we're trying to reflect our reality better, and by 5th level you've exceeded anything we've ever even remotely dealt with.
Commoners are a little sturdier in d20 legends though, because they have a base of 6 HP (rather than 3). In fact, everyone has a base of 6 Hp, but your chosen progression each level adds to that (so a nonheroic character is essentially level 0, has 6 Hp base, no modifiers, a few skills; a 1st level character then hase +X Hp, some modifiers, and some more skills).
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How will you handle Alignment?Very carefully. (D-D)
Joking aside, I'm not really sure. On one hand, I really like that there are tangible forces of good and evil in the multiverse, so that you could have a holy sword and an evil fiend who needs to be impaled on said sword to truly die ('cause alignment regeneration is a thing in d20).
However, I have grown to despise alignment for its intended (and ever failing) purpose and the discord that it produces on internet forums and within individual groups. I revile the fact that entire character classes are banned from tables because of the problems it creates. I hold immense, unadulterated, contempt for the pervasive idea that alignment somehow affects your actions rather than the other way around.
Yet, perhaps ironically, I like the way alignment defines good and evil. Because of the rather clean definitions, it's not hard to decide overall how good/evil a character is and I like that it's separated from any sort of rule-based system of morality where things are simply absolutes (such as religious laws where it's a sin to wear polyester or eat lobster).
These days I see alignment as two very different systems. One representing things that are mechanically empowered or connected to the energies of certain planes, and one that represents your character's outlook, and the two happen to share names and some interactions, but they are fundamentally different (as seen by how you can have creatures whose Alignment differs from their [Alignment]).
Very likely, the moral alignment portion of the game will be gutted and replaced with a section discussing roleplaying your characters. The same altruism, respecting life, concern for others, and hurting, oppressing, and killing will of course show up, but a lot of the presentation will be different. It will have little (if any) mechanical effect on the game and serve primarily to tell a good story and help serve as a tool for people to make great characters with.
So, after all, no Detect Evil, Regeneration/Good, and any other such things whatsoever?
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Also, what will you do regarding bestiaries? Obviously I have no basis to judge on, so I can easily be wrong, but I'd imagine making a bestiary is a massive amount of work (potentially comparable to the rules themselves), which can be a problem given your limited resources, while having a bestiary at hand is very convenient for a DM.
Do you have any ideas on how to handle this issue? I recall an idea of a quick and dirty PF->D20L conversion process being mentioned here - I think it might be really useful when tackling the issue of a bestiary.
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Beastiaries are fluff though. You kinda need all your mechanics down before building things almost entirely fluff.
It would be nice though to see monsters that aren't static though, that way you can use any monster at any tier.
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Beastiaries are fluff though. You kinda need all your mechanics down before building things almost entirely fluff.
It would be nice though to see monsters that aren't static though, that way you can use any monster at any tier.
I can't agree at all.
Bestiaries are statblocks first and foremost, their fluff is entirely irrelevant.You want a cool devil, but see a demon fitting your imagination? Swap out DR, refluff, and plug it in.
The fluff coming with the statblock is pretty much a suggestion the way I see it, not a strict guideline.
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For an example: you want a creature focused on mind control and seduction. The first similar thing you find in the bestiary is a succubus, which is a demon, even though you want, say, a plant.
Just rename it into a plant and maybe slightly alter it and you have a statblock that should work fine in terms of power when plugged into the campaign, but fits your story needs.
As far as I understand, this ability to quickly get things of normalised power is the main premise of a bestiary.
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Templates serve a similar purpose.
Say, I want a cyborg ninja pirate robot demon.
I take a demon, advance it with pirate and ninja levels and apply cyborg and robot templates. Done, quick work instead of hours of painful thought, and if the templates are done well, it should also work reasonably well.
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Beastiaries are fluff though. You kinda need all your mechanics down before building things almost entirely fluff.
It would be nice though to see monsters that aren't static though, that way you can use any monster at any tier.
I can't agree at all.
Bestiaries are statblocks first and foremost, their fluff is entirely irrelevant.
You want a cool devil, but see a demon fitting your imagination? Swap out DR, refluff, and plug it in.
The fluff coming with the statblock is pretty much a suggestion the way I see it, not a strict guideline.
Not quite what I meant.
There are three aspects to a game, mechanics, stats, and fluff.
Mechanics are the actions and the references for meaning, or basically they describe a process (such as rolling dice) and tell you how to interpret the results (you hit and can reduce this variable).
Stats are the initial states for variables in the processes described by the mechanics.
Fluff is the story, descriptions of the in-game.
You need fairly solid mechanics before you start making stat blocks, otherwise you'll have to keep fixing all the stat blocks everytime something changes.
Another way to think of it, mechanics are the functioning of a computer processor and the stats are software programs.
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Beastiaries are fluff though. You kinda need all your mechanics down before building things almost entirely fluff.
It would be nice though to see monsters that aren't static though, that way you can use any monster at any tier.
I can't agree at all.
Bestiaries are statblocks first and foremost, their fluff is entirely irrelevant.
You want a cool devil, but see a demon fitting your imagination? Swap out DR, refluff, and plug it in.
The fluff coming with the statblock is pretty much a suggestion the way I see it, not a strict guideline.Not quite what I meant.
There are three aspects to a game, mechanics, stats, and fluff.
Mechanics are the actions and the references for meaning, or basically they describe a process (such as rolling dice) and tell you how to interpret the results (you hit and can reduce this variable).
Stats are the initial states for variables in the processes described by the mechanics.
Fluff is the story, descriptions of the in-game.
You need fairly solid mechanics before you start making stat blocks, otherwise you'll have to keep fixing all the stat blocks everytime something changes.
Another way to think of it, mechanics are the functioning of a computer processor and the stats are software programs.
I'm not saying it should be done right here and now. I'm saying a bestiary will become an issue sooner or later, since it's an integral part of the game, thus some thought might be given to it now.
And I believe that fluff presented in the rules (and/or things like the bestiary) is not important (even though it's nice to have), since players are free to refluff stuff.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And 2Ashiel: would you allow a player to put the Throwing enhancement on an Amulet of Mighty Fists? If yes, how would it work?
Or Sharding or Anchoring for that matter.
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And 2Ashiel: would you allow a player to put the Throwing enhancement on an Amulet of Mighty Fists? If yes, how would it work?
Or Sharding or Anchoring for that matter.
I dunno about Ashiel, but I'd make em throw the amulet and have it do fist damage. Because I wanna see a Monk kickflip an amulet into someones face, have it bounce off then punch it right back into them again. Hacky sack em to death.
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I dunno about Ashiel, but I'd make em throw the amulet and have it do fist damage. Because I wanna see a Monk kickflip an amulet into someones face, have it bounce off then punch it right back into them again. Hacky sack em to death.And 2Ashiel: would you allow a player to put the Throwing enhancement on an Amulet of Mighty Fists? If yes, how would it work?
Or Sharding or Anchoring for that matter.
And what about Anchoring?
This special ability can only be added to a melee weapon or a thrown weapon. An anchoring weapon pins a target in place and prevents it from moving. As a swift action, the weapon can be fixed in place in a point in space, functioning as an immovable rod. This ability can also be used when the wielder hits a creature with a melee attack using an anchoring weapon. This anchors the target to the weapon, preventing it from moving away from the weapon. The target is not entangled or paralyzed; it simply cannot move from its location without first destroying the weapon or making a successful DC 30 Strength check as a full-round action to move with the weapon up to 10 feet. An anchoring weapon remains motionless and cannot be used to attack while it is anchoring a creature. An anchoring weapon has no effect on amorphous creatures, including elementals, oozes, and creatures in gaseous or liquid form. It also cannot anchor incorporeal creatures unless the weapon also has the ghost touch special ability.
In case of unarmed strikes, your whole body is a melee weapon.
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Another fun interaction is a Brilliant Energy AoMF, which should make you able to walk through walls.
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So, after all, no Detect Evil, Regeneration/Good, and any other such things whatsoever?
Actually, I was trying to say that those are things that would be kept. The mechanical part of alignment. They would be keyed off of things like alignment subtypes and such.
What's going to get removed from the rules and replaced with RP aids is the moral alignment stuff, which causes people to argue over things like whether or not it makes you an evil person to use a scroll with an [Evil] spell you found after defeating Evil McBadguy to cure a child of Leukemia.
This means that most things in the world that don't have alignment descriptors themselves (like people) would mechanically be considered Neutral. Spells like detect *alignment* would be primarily means of sensing things like outsiders, certain magic items, and certain spell effects, or things powered by that force, but wouldn't do much good if you wanted to find out the alignment of the queen you're talking to.
(Which isn't that strange since most people seem to forget that things like detect evil don't function on people with less than 5HD anyway.)
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Also, what will you do regarding bestiaries? Obviously I have no basis to judge on, so I can easily be wrong, but I'd imagine making a bestiary is a massive amount of work (potentially comparable to the rules themselves), which can be a problem given your limited resources, while having a bestiary at hand is very convenient for a DM.
Do you have any ideas on how to handle this issue? I recall an idea of a quick and dirty PF->D20L conversion process being mentioned here - I think it might be really useful when tackling the issue of a bestiary.
After revising a number of the core mechanics for monsters (mostly in terms of revising some core abilities and replacing their HD mechanics) it'll be a matter of rebuilding the monsters using the new rules which I would project will be more tedious than outright difficult.
An explanation for how to build your own (so you could convert anything you wanted) would be included of course (hopefully with explanations that are actually useful, unlike Pathfinder).
One idea that I also had to speed the process along would be to break the bestiary down into fractional supplements. Instead of trying to build a massive Bestiary, releasing mini-bestiaries for different types of creatures might allow us to pump out more content for people faster. For example, if we had smaller but separate pdfs for things like:
Angels, Archons, and Azatas
Animals & Vermin
Dragons
Demons & Devils
Plants
Humanoids
Etc.
Or maybe themed bestiaries like "creatures of the outer planes", "botanical beasts", or "GOBLINS!!!".
It's an idea anyway, with the gist of the idea centered around putting out more usable content without waiting for its neighbors to be created (so if all the animals were ready, ship it, so people can start using animals already).
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And 2Ashiel: would you allow a player to put the Throwing enhancement on an Amulet of Mighty Fists? If yes, how would it work?
Or Sharding or Anchoring for that matter.
For throwing, "Wave fists". Essentially you'd make ranged unarmed strikes. Mostly because you can't truly be rid of your unarmed strike, so "throwing" one and being unable to recover it is a moot point.
For anchoring, sunder the amulet to get free or make the DC 30 strength check (but you can't move either).
For brilliant energy, armor-ignoring auras would extend out from your limbs that delivered your attack through stuff. So while the armor may stay your fist, the kinetic energy continues unabated.
For sharding, pretty much the same as throwing.
"What's going to get removed from the rules and replaced with RP aids is the moral alignment stuff, which causes people to argue over things like whether or not it makes you an evil person to use a scroll with an [Evil] spell you found after defeating Evil McBadguy to cure a child of Leukemia."
Mt favorite soltion to this is to *se the motivational types, comm*nity, enlightenment, power, achievement, novelty, pleas*re, etc. They also tie into personality and flaws as well.
Note, for some reason I can't type the letter after "t" so I will restart my phone and maybe then I can fix the above.