@ Jiggy - the entire crew being spell casters who somehow are all able to target him is assuming a pretty specific set of circumstances.
And if he's a high level character and hasn't bothered to pack counter measures in a world with entire ship crews of spell casters, then frankly he deserves to die for his poor planning and general incompetence.
Because he clearly only made it to high level through dumb luck. =P
Edit: And for his bad tactics! Why is he choosing to stand on the one part of a deck where an entire enemy fleet can target him when he can just Kool-Aid Man through a ship's hull and work his way up (or scuttle the ship)? Wood doesn't have that much HP, all things considered =P
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@ Jiggy - the entire crew being spell casters who somehow are all able to target him is assuming a pretty specific set of circumstances.
And if he's a high level character and hasn't bothered to pack counter measures in a world with entire ship crews of spell casters, then frankly he deserves to die for his poor planning and general incompetence.
Because he clearly only made it to high level through dumb luck. =P
Who said anything about the whole crew being spellcasters? I was assuming a relatively even distribution from among what exists. There's a lot of people in a pirate fleet, some decent number of them are going to be casters. You only need a handful of castings of any given spell before it starts getting really unlikely that the martial is gonna make all his saves, and you don't need unreasonable distributions of casters among a fleet of pirate ships in order to hit that critical mass.
The scenario is not nearly so contrived as you're pretending it is.
Edit: And for his bad tactics! Why is he choosing to stand on the one part of a deck where an entire enemy fleet can target him when he can just Kool-Aid Man through a ship's hull and work his way up (or scuttle the ship)? Wood doesn't have that much HP, all things considered =P
The 3rd-level cleric of Besmara that there's probably one of per ship can target him from 130ft away. The 4th-level bards among the various crews can target him from 140ft away. The 5th-level wizards acting as sage/advisor to the top captains and/or pirate lord can target him from 150ft away. How close does the martial have to get before he can "Kool-Aid Man through" the hull?
Ah, I thought you were talking the crews having dozens of casters all simultaneously fishing for that natural 1.
(And probably discounting the martial having anything that might let him ignore or reroll a natural 1.)
Though at this point, I have no idea what numbers you have in mind.
Heh. Though their efforts are pointless if the high level guy bothered with any counter measures at all, like an unfettered shirt.
Though frankly, if the martial isn't actually stupid then he should be going for the boat itself with a maul of a titans -- sinking the boat itself is way, way faster than killing 160+ crewmen =P
Edit: While I might be getting something mixed up, a barbarian that bothered to pop haste and fly potions (assuming he's not getting those items or other sources) should be pouncing the side of a ship for a few hundred damage (though that's low balling it, I'd expect closer to a 1,000 if the guy's optimized) from about 180 ft off?
I've always run haste as helping fly speeds in my games.
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Does anyone else hear, "The Most Feared Swordsman in the Land", and instantly assume it is GROO?
Sergio Aragonés must have warped my young mind!
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(And probably discounting the martial having anything that might let him ignore or reroll a natural 1.)
What, like being a samurai with his Resolve ability? Get that wuxia crap outta mah Toll-keen! ;)
Heh. Though their efforts are pointless if the high level guy bothered with any counter measures at all, like an unfettered shirt.
Which feeds into the separate issue of asking for "Oh crap, it's the guy who's so badass he can take on the fleet despite us having him outnumbered and outmagic'd!" but instead getting "Oh crap, it's the guy who's wearing more magic than we have among the spellcasters in our crew, so we might actually have to engage him!"
Now, that does enable another fun type of story: the rich noble who oppresses people via power that he bought in the form of magic items can be a fun villain. (Though Pathfinder has issues with that as well, now that I think about it...)
But I'm still not seeing "badassery as a function of level" instead of "badassery as a function of how much magic you have access to, whether in-class or in a bottle".
Though frankly, if the martial isn't actually stupid then he should be going for the boat itself with a maul of a titans -- sinking the boat itself is way, way faster than killing 160+ crewmen =P
Now, see, what would be cool is if there were feats or martial class features that could give you a swim speed, vastly increase how long you could hold your breath, and take away the penalties for underwater combat. Then you could have a high level martial who dives into the water before getting into the fleet's spell ranges, then suddenly the ships start sinking.
Edit: While I might be getting something mixed up, a barbarian that bothered to pop haste and fly potions (assuming he's not getting those items or other sources) should be pouncing the side of a ship for a few hundred damage (though that's low balling it, I'd expect closer to a 1,000 if the guy's optimized) from about 180 ft off?
I've always run haste as helping fly speeds in my games.
See what I mean? Badassery in Pathfinder isn't about how high your level is, it's about how much wizard you can get into your character. Whether in actual wizardry or bottled wizardry, there's a sign at the entrance that says "You must be at least this tall wizardy to be a fantasy hero".
Not that there's anything wrong with that type of story; I like Harry Potter as much as the next guy. But I don't want all my stories in that setting.
@ Jiggy - Barbarians can get a swim speed from their rage powers. Don't know of any others at the top of my head. (Cavalier with a shark mount I suppose?)
And it's not "we might actually have to engage him," it's "he's going to sink the entire fleet and we can't stop it."
Bad-assery's a function of both level and resources in Pathfinder. The high level character with good gear is objectively better than the low level character with the exact same gear. But a low level character with good enough gear could challenge higher level characters.
I don't have a problem with that =P
(And frankly, a lot of it also depends on having the right magic. A 20th level caster is just as much at the mercy of those natural 1s if he didn't bother to cast appropriate counter measures, some of which he's probably getting in a bottle or its equivalent.)
A character that refuses to use magic in Pathfinder is kind of like someone in Rifts who's refusing to use a megadamage weapon - sure, you can technically do that to yourself, but why?
I've had a very satisfying time playing and DMing in the PF environment. I own and play many many games, and RPG's are my favorite, despite being the hardest to keep groups together due to the amount of time and people it takes.
PF has weaknesses and strengths. It's been worth my investment.
My measurement of a good game is time per $. If i get 2 hours of fun for every $15 of investment, I'm pretty happy. DND and PF blow these numbers WAY out of the water, as I often invest 20 hours into character creation alone.
If someone added the fun of filling out a 1040 Form every time you passed "Go" in Monopoly... it would explain how I feel about Pathfinder.
I WANT this game to be FUN... I WANT to make friends playing PFS...
So far... its not.
(Older beginner player)
+1 Seriously.
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But a low level character with good enough gear could challenge higher level characters.
I don't have a problem with that =P
...
A character that refuses to use magic in Pathfinder is kind of like someone in Rifts who's refusing to use a megadamage weapon - sure, you can technically do that to yourself, but why?
Exactly. And I don't necessarily have a problem with that type of setup, but I'd like to also be able to tell different kinds of stories: where impressive armor/weapons/etc are used by people who lack either the time or the resolve to work for higher levels, and the real badasses only require the barest essentials (i.e., a swordsman needing a sword, and even then he can punch out a mook and just use his); and where magic isn't the only currency with which to buy entrance into fantasy-level stories.
As you say, Pathfinder is set up such that a certain level of magic is required, and gear is a significant part of character power. So when that's the kind of story I want to tell, Pathfinder's got me covered. All I'm saying is there are a LOT of types of stories that don't fit that model, and I want to tell those too. For those, I have to look elsewhere.
Fair enough.
Yeah, if you want a martial that fights like something right out of Wuxia/anime, you're actually better off skipping the martials altogether and going with the magus instead.
(Aside: <3 Magus.)
(Or there's mythic, I suppose. While I wouldn't want to run that myself, I'm curious as to how a game where martials become mythic and casters with 1-6 or better casting can't (to the point that multiclassing into such a class results in loss of all mythic tiers) would work out.)
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But a low level character with good enough gear could challenge higher level characters.
I don't have a problem with that =P
...
A character that refuses to use magic in Pathfinder is kind of like someone in Rifts who's refusing to use a megadamage weapon - sure, you can technically do that to yourself, but why?
Exactly. And I don't necessarily have a problem with that type of setup, but I'd like to also be able to tell different kinds of stories: where impressive armor/weapons/etc are used by people who lack either the time or the resolve to work for higher levels, and the real badasses only require the barest essentials (i.e., a swordsman needing a sword, and even then he can punch out a mook and just use his); and where magic isn't the only currency with which to buy entrance into fantasy-level stories.
As you say, Pathfinder is set up such that a certain level of magic is required, and gear is a significant part of character power. So when that's the kind of story I want to tell, Pathfinder's got me covered. All I'm saying is there are a LOT of types of stories that don't fit that model, and I want to tell those too. For those, I have to look elsewhere.
The easiest way to change that dynamic is one not in Unchained - but a simple one I've heard on these boards.
1st - get rid of magic items. All of them except maybe limited use items (potions/wands etc).
2nd - look at the WBL table and instead of getting that much gold - every player gets that much 'moxie' or 'awesomeness' or whatever at that level.
3rd - The players can then spend their 'moxie' on getting inherent effects equal to gear of the same gold value.
Mechanically it's pretty much the same thing - but with an entirely different vibe.
As for how to actually address Jiggy's concerns:
For the first one, you could go through every spell in the game and ban all those that can break the plot, but that is a lot of work for a system you are paying for. A better solution would be to drop the Vancian spell list altogether and use the many alternate casting systems in circulation. Strange Magic, Talisman and Petition magic, and Spheres of Power all do what it sounds like you want without much work on your part. Ultimate Psionics does to a lesser extent.
I've been working my way through the spells and removing/adjusting those that I dislike, those that I feel break things, or otherwise create problems. But then, I tend to keep a tighter hand on magic in general and don't just allow you to pick any spell you want either.
When not every magician has access to every book's spell list, I've found that players have to get creative in their solutions. That and those magicians that are interested in certain spells have a new goal: find or develop the spell themselves.
Is it perfect? No, but it certainly changes the idea that spell caster's are omnipotent.
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If the game doesn't do what you want, don't play it!This is what I said my solution was, and people wanted to challenge me on it. I've just been dialoging since then to elaborate on the "why"s because people asked. :)Heh, yeah I never find that the "why" is good enough for some people. It's like "I don't like Pink Floyd."
WHY!?!?
Because I don't like Pink Floyd. I tried it, I don't like it.
Have you listened to X song?
I don't like Pink Floyd. I am pretty sure that I won't like that song.
But Why??
I try to just leave it at I don't like something rather than having to justify it. There are people that will try to force you to like it as if they are your Mom trying to get you to try new food when you are a kid.
Wait, hold everything - you don't like Pink Floyd?
But . . . why?!
(OK, I made the obvious joke. It's now copyrighted and no one else can make it without paying me a royalty.)
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Wait, hold everything - you don't like Pink Floyd?
But . . . why?!
Personally, when it comes to color, I've always been more into Deep shades of Purple...
I would say yes, in a fashion. I like the popularity of the system, I love the easy tolerance of third party publications, and I love the spellcasting classes Pathfinder does well. In particular, I like the Alchemist, Witch, and Shaman, and I really like Occult Adventures. That said, I'm not so much a fan of how martials are handled, though that is a holdover from 3rd and something I address with houserules or 3PP. I am also not afraid to not allow something.
First, as you guessed, there are issues of "I can't tell a story about (or involving) obstacle X, because some classes just cast Mordenkainan's Obstacle X Overcomer and that's that."
I get around that by removing some spells. A divination spell that makes mysteries easy to solve isn't going to be allowed, and neither is teleport.
For the first one, you could go through every spell in the game and ban all those that can break the plot, but that is a lot of work for a system you are paying for. A better solution would be to drop the Vancian spell list altogether and use the many alternate casting systems in circulation. Strange Magic, Talisman and Petition magic, and Spheres of Power all do what it sounds like you want without much work on your part. Ultimate Psionics does to a lesser extent.
I do plan to go through the spell lists at some point and excise spells that do things that break the focus of my campaign setting. That said, I own Spheres of Power. Like it, but I'm afraid that if I use it, it will make what is already a niche campaign setting too niche to easily recruit players.
Granted, I have to scan the arcane spell lists by hand and modify the psychic spell lists anyway, because I established setting lore that only psychic casters can summon demons or create undead.
Fair enough.
Yeah, if you want a martial that fights like something right out of Wuxia/anime, you're actually better off skipping the martials altogether and going with the magus instead.
(Aside: <3 Magus.)
(Or there's mythic, I suppose. While I wouldn't want to run that myself, I'm curious as to how a game where martials become mythic and casters with 1-6 or better casting can't (to the point that multiclassing into such a class results in loss of all mythic tiers) would work out.)
That's certainly an interesting question.
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Fair enough.
Yeah, if you want a martial that fights like something right out of Wuxia/anime, you're actually better off skipping the martials altogether and going with the magus instead.
...Who is a spellcaster.
Which is the EXACT PROBLEM he's talking about.
Pathfinder doesn't support high fantasy martial characters. You have to be a spellcaster to do anything cool.
Pathfinder only supports a very narrow, specific type of Fantasy. It doesn't support Epic Fantasy, myths of any sort (even Mythic is pretty bad at that), or any sort of fantasy where magic isn't the single powerful force of the universe.
Which, again, is the problem that Jiggy is talking about.
No snark here, just a question: Which game is it that supports the other versions of fantasy? From what I've heard 5E does some of that, but has other issues. 4E didn't do it for people, and there is a lot of side-eye given to GURPS or HERO (jack of all, master of none) systems.
Is it a matter of getting Paizo to put out supplements that cover what people want, or are people just unhappy that no one in the industry is doing the type of game that they want?
Actually, I should probably ask this:
Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character?
And how many of those high fantasy martial characters aren't using ki or artifacts or divine heritage or some other thing that's just magic under a different name as their power source?
Pathfinder martials tend to modeled much closer to Fafhrd, Conan, Musashi, Lu Bu, or King Arthur than they are to, say, Elric (who happens to be a spellcaster, but solves his problems with swordplay) or Sun Wukong (who happens to be a spellcaster, but solves his problems by beating them with a pillar of heaven.)
Random thought: A pretty easy house rule to enable "I want lone dudes to kill entire armies" is to get rid of automatic successes and automatic failures.
Which would eliminate both lucky shots (outclassed enemies rolling 20s) and embarrassing mishaps (no misses or failed saves against goobers from natural 1s).
Edit: A similar house rule my group used for some years (though it kind of fell by the wayside when we were trying out 4E) was natural 1s counted as -10, and natural 20s counted as a 30, for determining success or failure. You could go with 1s as 1s and 20s as just 20s for enabling The Man crushing the Little Guy sooner, of course.
Maybe FATE?
FATE's neat, but I could see so much bellyaching over the magic system, which explicitly allows for solving or bypassing problems that don't have a mundane solution.
In FATE (or at least the Dresden Files's license of it), magic can do pretty much anything you can talk the Storyteller into allowing, while mundane skills have limits, and most supernatural powers that aren't outright magic just make your mundane skills better in various ways =P
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Actually, I should probably ask this:
Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character?
And how many of those high fantasy martial characters aren't using ki or artifacts or divine heritage or some other thing that's just magic under a different name as their power source?
Before I answer this, I'd like to point out that often, when a subtopic like this comes up, examples tend to go like this:
Person A: "So-and-so can do X without magic."
Person B: "Well, X is unrealistic, therefore really it's just reskinned magic/ki/etc, therefore so-and-so isn't really an example of a nonmagical high fantasy character."
[repeat until Person A is out of examples]
Person B: "So since you can't actually come up with any examples of this type of character, why should fantasy games try to enable that concept?"
So let's be clear:
Is the question "Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character whose exploits are entirely realistic and therefore nonmagical?"
Or is the question "Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character who is identified in their setting's canon as not using whatever counts as 'magic' in that setting?"
That's a good metric to get down.
For example, Ki in most settings is NOT magic, it's a natural force that allows for super-human feats.
Dragonball for example. There is a very clear dichotomy between magic and Ki. Piccolo can use magic for example, and conjure clothing and weapons from nothing with just the power of his mind. This is explicitly magic, and not something Ki users can do. Magic being rare, and Ki being something anyone can learn to use (meaning anybody on earth has the potential to earn how to fly and shoot energy beams...kind of a terrifying thought out of context).
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Random thought: A pretty easy house rule to enable "I want lone dudes to kill entire armies" is to get rid of automatic successes and automatic failures.
Standing still and killing mooks is something everyone can already do, and it's sort of the least important part of the game. I've said this before, but I'd like to see "benchmark" challenges for levels x, y, and z, and see different ways that different characters could meet that benchmark.
For example, overland flight and teleport are 5th level spells. That says to me that, by 9th or 10th level, PCs are not intended to really have to worry about overland travel anymore. Which means that, by that level, every fighter should have a griffon steed or something, every rogue should have a carpet of flying, and so on -- without having to spend additional wealth, feats, etc. on it. If they can't do that by rule (rather than by DM largesse), then the rules are uneven in that regard.
It would maybe be OK if one or two benchmarks could only be met by one or two classes, if there were others that were limited to other, non-overlapping classes. For example, fighters can't bypass terrain without magic help, but wizards correspondingly have no direct means of killing armies. But instead, we have a game in which "standing still and killing stuff" is the one benchmark everyone can reach, and "anything else" is a benchmark that fighters generally always fail to reach by RAW, and that rogues can't meaningfully reach past 4th level or so, etc.
How about we go with Rock Lee? His entire schict is that he's a powerful man who is literally unable to perform magic, but still keeps up.
The Warrior of Light in FF14, who depending on what class you pick is so good at fighting they canonically defeat "deities"?
One Piece?
Actually I just realized, is it a Japanese trope to have people who are so good at X that they defy all logic and reason? I'm having a hard time thinking of examples from English speaking countries.
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Here's a crazy thought... what if rangers were actually really good at tracking? By which I mean that locate person, find the path, discern location, trace teleport, et al. stopped being spells, and become ranger class features instead?
What if rogues were really the best at rogue stuff? So that invisibility, spider climb, freedom of movement, et al. stopped being spells, and became rogue class features instead?
Or, if those abilities should be available to everyone, then so should the caster-only tricks.
Why not both?
For example, One Piece actually has both.
Usopp's a marksman who's deeds are often highly improbable, but usually not impossible. (Usopp pretty much never misses, and uses it to great effect.)
Zoro's a swordsman whose deeds are casually impossible. He's not considered supernatural (that's the realm of the devil fruit users), but the power gap between him and the actual "normals" (like Usupp, above) is ludicrously vast.
Zoro would be pretty much impossible to model in Pathfinder without using magic or mythic rules.
But he's also in a world where all of the effective spellcasters are monstrous humanoids =P
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Actually I just realized, is it a Japanese trope to have people who are so good at X that they defy all logic and reason? I'm having a hard time thinking of examples from English speaking countries.
I think that's more because modern western fantasy tends to be lower powered in general. While there is often powerful magic - it usually requires either an elaborate/lengthy ritual and/or a mcguffin of power.
Of course - there are all sorts of similar things in superhero mythos - but we tend to keep that separate from our fantasy. And most gained their 'superpower' through something other than pure training. (Except for Batman. But even he has gadgetry.)
Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character?
And how many of those high fantasy martial characters aren't using ki or artifacts or divine heritage or some other thing that's just magic under a different name as their power source?
Red Sonya (although she was blessed with supernatural strength).
Conan.Beowolf.
Vlad Taltos (although many used magic in that series, less Spells and more Artifacts)
Given time, I could come up with more (and likely better) examples.
Look at fiction outside that published for d20 based systems and you will find many examples. Stories where having a golfbag of weapons made of different materials isn't a requirement for a martial character to survive.
Well in the case of Superheros we still have a huge disparity of power.
In terms of effectivness their are definite tiers of power.
You got Daredevil
Then a step above is Captain America
Then another stop is Spiderman, who essentially is Captain with limited Precog and a genius IQ+education.
A few more steps and we have characters like Magneto, Professor X, ect
Superhero examples often aren't used because it has similar shortfalls to Pathfinder. Yes you can be a badass normal guy, but you're still a mundane in a world with crazy magic stuff.
Next time we get a hero that's a normal dude who on power tier with people like Professor X because they trained hard and worked at it... We'll be talking about Rock Lee because that doesn't exist in Pathfinder or Superhero stories.
And Rock Lee outright lost to the geomancer dude.
(Rock Lee got robbed. I stopped watching that show after that fight =P)
That doesn't count lol.
He was so competent it took a plot shield powered by a mythical creature to stop him.
Well... Rock Lee suffers from a curse that makes sure he can probably beat any potential opponent... Except the one he ends up fighting (Really... Other than Gaara, I doubt any genjin could beat Rock Lee at that time).
And Rock Lee outright lost to the geomancer dude.
(Rock Lee got robbed. I stopped watching that show after that fight =P)
You didn't pick the worst time to bail, but Gaara beating him isn't a surprise (that series was way better at starting things than ending them). Gaara was probably the strongest person there at the time of the fight.
And Rock Lee outright lost to the geomancer dude.
(Rock Lee got robbed. I stopped watching that show after that fight =P)
Lee losing to Gaara made sense (Gaara has the One Tailed Beast, which while weaker than Naruto's Nine-Tails is still that series' equivalent of a WMD).
Still pissed off about it because Lee was my favorite character and yeah, he DID get robbed (had he gone up against ANYONE else, including Naruto or Sasuke, he would have wiped the f#!!ing floor with them at that point).
That said, post-timeskip every time Might Gai gets in a fight he wipes the floor with the poor unfortunate who aroused his ire (including the setting's equivalent of a DEITY. Even though there was one "over deity" stronger than him after that, beating the second strongest being in a series of beings that can destroy mountain ranges by sneezing with nothing but spunk and martial arts ass kicking is something to commend), so that make sup for it a bit. Maybe Lee will fill that role in the new series.
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Actually I just realized, is it a Japanese trope to have people who are so good at X that they defy all logic and reason?
I've pondered this myself, and the only theory I've come up with is that Japan has a very old martial history. Perhaps that history holds a stronger, fonder place in their collective culture than do the various western historical warriors. That's just a guess, but if it's true, it would explain their fantasy taking the form of extreme martial prowess.
I'm having a hard time thinking of examples from English speaking countries.
The one I keep coming back to in these types of discussions is Pecos Bill, whose stories include lassoing a tornado and then riding it. But of course, if you suggest something like that without the obvious Wild West trappings (lasso, etc), people will start crying "too wuxia" or "too weaboo" or whatever.
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Even with the Wild West trappings, you'd obviously need some kind of magic to do that.
Or just be so amazing at lassoing that even a mighty tornado fails to defeat your prowess.
Even with the Wild West trappings, you'd obviously need some kind of magic to do that.
Except for the fact that, you know, none of the people in these American folklore tales were magic. Pecos Bill, John Henry, Paul Bunyan, etc.
I personally love it when someone is "just that good" at something.
Once again: "people who are so good at X that they defy all logic and reason"
Like Sanji who needed to run away from something so badly, that he ran where he couldn't be followed... into the sky.
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Obviously they had some kind of innate magic. It's impossible to be "so amazing at lassoing". The laws of physics are the laws of physics and you can't break them without magic.
Like I said:
Actually, I should probably ask this:
Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character?
And how many of those high fantasy martial characters aren't using ki or artifacts or divine heritage or some other thing that's just magic under a different name as their power source?
Before I answer this, I'd like to point out that often, when a subtopic like this comes up, examples tend to go like this:
Person A: "So-and-so can do X without magic."
Person B: "Well, X is unrealistic, therefore really it's just reskinned magic/ki/etc, therefore so-and-so isn't really an example of a nonmagical high fantasy character."
[repeat until Person A is out of examples]
Person B: "So since you can't actually come up with any examples of this type of character, why should fantasy games try to enable that concept?"So let's be clear:
Is the question "Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character whose exploits are entirely realistic and therefore nonmagical?"
Or is the question "Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character who is identified in their setting's canon as not using whatever counts as 'magic' in that setting?"
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Even with the Wild West trappings, you'd obviously need some kind of magic to do that.Or just be so amazing at lassoing that even a mighty tornado fails to defeat your prowess.
I think that's a big part of the divide for many people. There's the "I can never do any version of that, so it has to be magic if someone does it" and the "sure, I can't do that, but it's a fantasy setting and there's no reason my fantasy hero can't do things that wouldn't be possible in my world".
Actually, I should probably ask this:
Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character?
And how many of those high fantasy martial characters aren't using ki or artifacts or divine heritage or some other thing that's just magic under a different name as their power source?
Before I answer this, I'd like to point out that often, when a subtopic like this comes up, examples tend to go like this:
Person A: "So-and-so can do X without magic."
Person B: "Well, X is unrealistic, therefore really it's just reskinned magic/ki/etc, therefore so-and-so isn't really an example of a nonmagical high fantasy character."
[repeat until Person A is out of examples]
Person B: "So since you can't actually come up with any examples of this type of character, why should fantasy games try to enable that concept?"So let's be clear:
Is the question "Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character whose exploits are entirely realistic and therefore nonmagical?"
Or is the question "Who would you consider to be an example of a high fantasy martial character who is identified in their setting's canon as not using whatever counts as 'magic' in that setting?"
Check that out Samy. Sounds like you prefer option 1 above option 2 and that's fine. Unfortunately that's also denying a trope that honestly belongs in Pathfinder.
If we have Wizards so mighty they can create whole dimensions, why don't we have Fighters so skilled they can slice a hole into a new dimension with nothing but a sword and some elbow greese?
Obviously they had some kind of innate magic. It's impossible to be "so amazing at lassoing". The laws of physics are the laws of physics and you can't break them without magic.
Except you can, in much of fantasy, including folklore and myth.
It's not "innate magic", because magic in most of these things is EXPLICITLY SEPARATE from these feats, like beating the shit out of the sun with a jawbone so it doesn't move as fast. You're just trying to back-justify things from your pre-created conclusion.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I think that's a big part of the divide for many people. There's the "I can never do any version of that, so it has to be magic if someone does it" and the "sure, I can't do that, but it's a fantasy setting and there's no reason my fantasy hero can't do things that wouldn't be possible in my world".Even with the Wild West trappings, you'd obviously need some kind of magic to do that.Or just be so amazing at lassoing that even a mighty tornado fails to defeat your prowess.
AKA "Harry Potter versus Pecos Bill". :)