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Hi, I've been recently doing a lot of thinking on what an ACTUAL logical Golarion would be like, if spells were used industrially and with common sense, both for public good and for profit. In my research, I came across this Tippyverse concept recently. Interestingly, what I had been thinking of was almost the polar opposite of it, and remains so after reading about it all day. So maybe this is of general interest, and I'm hoping for some brainstorming possibly.
If you don't know what Tippyverse is, it's here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-t o-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy
Basically, a world where all spells are ruthlessly exploited. Permanent teleport circle networks, beneficial food spell "traps", fabrication factories, traps that cast wishes for rings of three wishes, etc.
The goal is a game setting where munchkins can be themselves and not hold back for fear of "breaking the world" and annoying people, because this world's citizens expect nothing LESS than people trying to break the world! And it's already ready for that.
What I concluded on my own though was very different for how the world might turn out:
* If you have a tiny village that everyone knows about, and there are instant teleporting armies toting rocket launcher spells, then you're screwed. You live in constant fear.
* If you live in a large city that everyone of course knows about, then you invite inevitable, tragic, oblivion, because your safety is so... "swingy". one wizard army 20% larger than yours just one time, with one exploit, and it all burns. Far too unstable. And just a few greedy folks are enough to ruin 99.99% of people being happy with utopia.
* There's no reason to trade anyway. Tippyverse is built entirely on a city concept built off of the concept of trade, but then it describes automated spell trap factories etc. that remove the need for trade... so... why would the cities develop around something that isn't needed anymore?
All of the above seem unstable to me. Instead, I lean toward a more likely outcome of:
Security by obscurity
1) Form a community as small as you can that still covers all the jobs and that can afford the free time-creating food and water traps and basic matter fabricators, with wizards of sufficient skill to maintain it.
2) Make it completely impossible to ever find that community.
3) Everyone does that. The world is a seeming sprawling primordial wilderness everywhere outside of communities, but secretly full of thousands of small warded, illusioned, hidden, protected, self-sustaining enclaves. Maybe in demiplanes, maybe in extra dimensional space. Maybe just in some mage's sanctum on steroids underground. Not sure. But ideally you can't find the without invites.
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What I could use some help with is firstly, does this make any sense? And secondly, is there any mechanical way to hide a small plot of land from ANYBODY trying to look for it? Ideally even if they know its name, etc. But if necessary, complete lack of contact and people not even knowing you exist or WANTING to look for you can be part of the equation too.
Assume 9th level spells and infinite material resources. And it can't be a dead magic plane, because we still need our magical food traps and things.
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Typpyverse addresses those points explicitly
1) Villages are not defendable, so they actually do not exists. Allpopulation ic centerent into Megalopolis. Those are protected from outside interferences by powerfull spells like Interdictions and the likes. Anything inbetween is The Wild
2)Cold-War balance mentaly: basically, total destruction is so easy to achieve that those in power have nothing to gain from starting a war, and they make sure there are no splinter fanatist trying to make it happen.
3)You trade base materials because with Teleportation circles, is more easy than having to create it. You trade in finished product because each city might have a higer expertise in a certain area (higer craft rank) and as such they produces (even if magically) higher grade products. With transportation cost so low, even being slightly better is reason enaugh to be traded. Also, you trade "services" like adventuring parties, access to libraryes or other "intangible" stuffs.
Quote: Villages are not defendable I don't want to defend it. I want to hide it. Is there any way to hide it? This is my main question. Including a lack of loose lips, in conjunction with magic. In my opinion, if you're to the point of actually trying to "defend" anything in pathfinder universe, you've already lost. Rocket tag magic is simply too unpredictable (remember, actual historical figures wouldn't be getting conveniently scaled CR+1 encounters. Real NPCs evenly matched are 50% likely to die...). A smart high level wizard never, EVER puts himself in a position of having to participate in rocket tag, period. Unless he is tired of life.
Quote: Cold-War balance mentaly Yeah and the cold war lasted a few decades and almost DID blows us all up more than once. Magic has existed for thousands of years. This is not an acceptable or effective thing to rely on. It would maybe work for 20 years at a time at any point before the next time it rapidly and predictably crumbles and millions of people die again. I'm not living in one of those deathtrap cities. Even if they do exist. You can knock yourself out, but I want to hide. How might I and any likeminded people go about doing that?
Quote: You trade base materials because with Teleportation circles, is more easy than having to create it. Even if true, not worth it. Open doorways and invitations = fiery death. Today, tomorrow, next year, but fiery death, guaranteed.
I don't need a slightly nicer t-shirt that badly. Once all the actual needs are covered, which they are with very low cost traps, luxury isn't worth the insane security risk of being on the map. Plus we will still get the luxury anyway, it just takes slightly longer to craft the full variety of fabrication traps with fewer people.
There may be a way to hide villages. Permanent demiplanes. Traveling to a demiplane, assuming no permanent portal is made, requires plane shift. This firstly limits who can reach you to requiring at least 9th level clerics. More importantly, you need a forked metal rod attuned to the plan you're traveling to. No one really brings up this focus component as an issue, but I have long held that for a demiplane it should probably be quite difficult to learn about it's existence and then obtain a tuning rod attuned to that plane, as there could be literally an infinite number of them.
Also, considering the tippyverse it should be possible to have multiple large permanent demiplanes that one could move. Retreating from one to the next, if it were ever invaded. Carefully laid traps/magic items/whatever could be set such that in the event of invaders the item simply planeshifts all inhabitants to the next of the line of demiplanes.
Then the invader must go and research the next demiplane and attune a new tuning rod to it.
A multiverse game of cat and mouse.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Claxon wrote: There may be a way to hide villages. Permanent demiplanes. Traveling to a demiplane, assuming no permanent portal is made, requires plane shift. This firstly limits who can reach you to requiring at least 9th level clerics. More importantly, you need a forked metal rod attuned to the plan you're traveling to. No one really brings up this focus component as an issue, but I have long held that for a demiplane it should probably be quite difficult to learn about it's existence and then obtain a tuning rod attuned to that plane, as there could be literally an infinite number of them.
If you want to find it that badly, that's what Wish is for... If need be two wishes, the first to cancel out that the plane not be found by wishes, and the second to create the tuning fork, or just wish a Gate to said plane.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Tippyverse is based on readings of RAW that I'd never allow... Create Food and Water traps and other forms of RAW abuse.
More importantly, from my point of view, neither the Tippyverse or this suggestion sound like very fun worlds to set a game in.
I know that's not really the point, but still.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
thejeff wrote: More importantly, from my point of view, neither the Tippyverse or this suggestion sound like very fun worlds to set a game in.
Unless the game is Papers and Paychecks, which seem to be the driving theme of the original concept.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
There's no way to maintain permanent complete obscurity, unless your village has a population of one. Someone at sometime will breach, either because of cabin fever, or someone in a number 2 position wants to become number 1, and is more than willing to bring in outside help to do so.
LazarX wrote: Claxon wrote: There may be a way to hide villages. Permanent demiplanes. Traveling to a demiplane, assuming no permanent portal is made, requires plane shift. This firstly limits who can reach you to requiring at least 9th level clerics. More importantly, you need a forked metal rod attuned to the plan you're traveling to. No one really brings up this focus component as an issue, but I have long held that for a demiplane it should probably be quite difficult to learn about it's existence and then obtain a tuning rod attuned to that plane, as there could be literally an infinite number of them.
If you want to find it that badly, that's what Wish is for... If need be two wishes, the first to cancel out that the plane not be found by wishes, and the second to create the tuning fork, or just wish a Gate to said plane. Does the tippyverse necessarily postulate high level characters? Or just abused magic?
Because it's not as though 17th level casters are just walking around flush with cash to search out every hidden village. In fact, I would postulate that the time and money required would mean they would probably need to limit it to groups they were actually interested in for whatever reason. Like having fought them in the past. I don't think it's quite so straightforward.
Also, I hate wish. Because no one agrees on what wish can do. Some people treat it as a "can do anything" while it's definite power level comes in around casting any 8th level spell, etc. It's hard to counter a theoretical wish because of that.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Claxon wrote: LazarX wrote: Claxon wrote: There may be a way to hide villages. Permanent demiplanes. Traveling to a demiplane, assuming no permanent portal is made, requires plane shift. This firstly limits who can reach you to requiring at least 9th level clerics. More importantly, you need a forked metal rod attuned to the plan you're traveling to. No one really brings up this focus component as an issue, but I have long held that for a demiplane it should probably be quite difficult to learn about it's existence and then obtain a tuning rod attuned to that plane, as there could be literally an infinite number of them.
If you want to find it that badly, that's what Wish is for... If need be two wishes, the first to cancel out that the plane not be found by wishes, and the second to create the tuning fork, or just wish a Gate to said plane. Does the tippyverse necessarily postulate high level characters? Or just abused magic?
Because it's not as though 17th level casters are just walking around flush with cash to search out every hidden village. In fact, I would postulate that the time and money required would mean they would probably need to limit it to groups they were actually interested in for whatever reason. Like having fought them in the past. I don't think it's quite so straightforward.
Also, I hate wish. Because no one agrees on what wish can do. Some people treat it as a "can do anything" while it's definite power level comes in around casting any 8th level spell, etc. It's hard to counter a theoretical wish because of that. When your basic world postulate is the abuse of trap rules to provide endless wealth, food, and water or any other need, wish magic is a trivial concern. And since the Tippyverse does include teleportation circles, you're talking 17th level wizards at minimum.
I don't like the Tippyverse concept myself. It's in the same vein as that comic about Superman being a Transitional Power Source rather than a hero. When magic is just another form of technology, you might as well be setting your games in the "real" world and at that point, your game world should probably look more like star trek and dramatic conflict should give way to reasoning and problem solving as a means of overcoming challenges. Which is all well and good if that's what you want, but it's not what I play Pathfinder for.
Pathfinder is all about reasoning and problem solving.
With a sword and a spell.
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Crimeo wrote: What I could use some help with is firstly, does this make any sense? Even in the Tippyverse it would make sense that some would choose the option of "dig a hole and pull it in after yourself" to protect themselves.
What you have to remember is that prior to reaching Tippyverse levels of magical utopia, these communities would have grown naturally. Once faced with magically backed annihilation, they would face a choice:
- Become individually big/bad enough that they could match any attacker
- Form an alliance with other cities to deter attackers with mutual destruction
- Your option of disappear and hide
- Ignore it, hope it goes away, and/or be destroyed
Your option is the lowest initial risk option, but it relies entirely on a single fail point - not being found, EVER!
This means no one ever leaves the community. Anyone who finds your community must never be allowed to leave. And if they find it remotely without ever actually being where you can get at them, then it is game over.
What this means is that your hidden community would actually have been a subset of a larger community that broke off and disappeared. The rest of the Tippyverse would still be out there. Maybe it would end with last man standing final showdown, maybe it would destroy itself and the cycle would start over (unless someone managed to destroy magic). That's not your concern because you are secure in your vault hidden community.
But war, war never changes...
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Quote: Tippyverse is based on readings of RAW that I'd never allow... Create Food and Water traps and other forms of RAW abuse. I don't think it actually depends on these things. They're just the most convenient way.
If you had no traps, then you could still easily feed everyone by using "Restore Corpse" on an obese pony skeleton, then the cantrip "Purify food and water" to make it unrotten, then butcher it, then repeat. Each 1st level restore corpse feeds like 400 people for a day and needs no external resources.
For general health, a channel can reach ~1,000 people in a spherical scaffold structure.
For disease, blindness, etc you can use metamagic lingering spells of remove disease or its ilk, on a cow on a railroad track, then push it out of the way and release the brakes on the rollercoaster full of 300 diseased people you set up beforehand to fly through the lingering area in the next 6 seconds.
A small field full of no plants except sprouted acorns + Plant Growth gives you about 1.5 acres of wood dense enough that "it needs to be chopped through" - with that raw material, a Lyre of Building can now put together a whole city district. (Or just lyre buildings out of the living bedrock)
Etc. etc. None of the above involves permanency, wish, OR traps! Magic still solves everybody's everyday problems in a million ways without those.
Quote:
More importantly, from my point of view, neither the Tippyverse or this suggestion sound like very fun worlds to set a game in.
I know that's not really the point, but still.
It is actually the point for me. When I play D&D, I think "Hey, why aren't people doing [all the stuff written above]? I guess they're just dumb. I will do it and make millions or help all the poor or whatever."
But I know I can't actually do that, because it will piss off the DM or other players who designed characters for this world as is, rules will get frantically changed mid game, etc. So I have to consciously suppress constant feelings of how ridiculous this game world is and how there are 50 ways to solve everything that are just being ignored for having crossed over some invisible line in the sand for "too easy"
It becomes a game of "trying to figure out what exactly the DM's and players' levels of delusion are", sometimes, more than solving actual puzzles. Or they may even feel the same way. Maybe nobody is deluded, but just nobody wants to disrupt the fragile glass ecosystem of the setting.
But if the universe is full of NPCs that do not hold back, that of course, like humans would, leverage magic to make their lives better in every way they can, then players don't have to hold back anybmore or arbitrarily not do common sense things for metagame reasons. You can just play an ACTUAL non idiot character. That's my motivation, though this time I'm considering it from a DM perspective soon.
Quote: This means no one ever leaves the community. Anyone who finds your community must never be allowed to leave. And if they find it remotely without ever actually being where you can get at them, then it is game over. Yes this is bad. Is there any way to more effectively modify memory other than modify memory? If so people could be allowed to leave if they agree to not remember it later.
That plus the tuning rod needing to be tuned to the right place in the material focus for plane shift plus literally only having one entrance (which goes through a maze of telekinetic warning spells in other demiplanes, etc.) so no angsty teenagers can possibly run off, might do it.
Quote: Also, I hate wish. Because no one agrees on what wish can do. Some people treat it as a "can do anything" while it's definite power level comes in around casting any 8th level spell, etc. It's hard to counter a theoretical wish because of that. Wish probably has to just be ruled out. I know the point is "what does RAW predict" but in Tippyverse as well, it just served as the main source of argument for dozens of pages over many threads. Wish wish wish. So vague, so stupidly powerful to some people, not really actually fun at all. Why can't I just wish that wishes can't find my hamlet? Etc. If left in, I don't think a world with Wish would lead to Tippyverse or my version, OR Paizo's version. I think it would lead to a barren Mad Max wasteland of utter chaos OR eventually all magic users just gone and Earth as we know it now.
Given that Wish has a built in "do not abuse" rule, I'm not convinced it is the be all end all spell people think
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I actually like the idea of tippyverse, though generally I scale it down to 5th level rather than 20th level magic. Though in one of my settings it's 14th level magic.
thejeff wrote: More importantly, from my point of view, neither the Tippyverse or this suggestion sound like very fun worlds to set a game in.
I know that's not really the point, but still.
Note: People do play in the Tippyverse, and do enjoy it.
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Milo v3 wrote: I actually like the idea of tippyverse, though generally I scale it down to 5th level rather than 20th level magic. Though in one of my settings it's 14th level magic.
thejeff wrote: More importantly, from my point of view, neither the Tippyverse or this suggestion sound like very fun worlds to set a game in.
I know that's not really the point, but still.
Note: People do play in the Tippyverse, and do enjoy it.
Me and a couple freinds did this once! It basically turned into a weird yet fun Pathfinder/Shadowrun hybrid.
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Alf-of-the-Squirrels wrote: Milo v3 wrote: I actually like the idea of tippyverse, though generally I scale it down to 5th level rather than 20th level magic. Though in one of my settings it's 14th level magic.
thejeff wrote: More importantly, from my point of view, neither the Tippyverse or this suggestion sound like very fun worlds to set a game in.
I know that's not really the point, but still.
Note: People do play in the Tippyverse, and do enjoy it.
Me and a couple freinds did this once! It basically turned into a weird yet fun Pathfinder/Shadowrun hybrid. So you're saying it was more trippy than tippy.
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First, yes, it does make sense. It won't work, but it does make sense people will try to do that.
Second, I think private demiplanes are the only way to go. Any illusion spell has a save, and someone will eventually make it (especially the kind of people that wander blasted hellscapes). There is no part of the world you can live in that some creature doesn't live natively (air, underground, underwater, on the surface). You can't hide just by being somewhere remote. Hell, I think we have rules for space-faring monsters at this point. You could also throw yourself on another plane but the same problems as the material plane exist (something lives there and will bump into you eventually).
Here's what happens if they don't all go to private demiplanes. One guy decides he wants to be a warlord and goes on a conquering spree. Each village is eventually found (by blind luck if nothing else) and absorbed into the larger whole, making conquering future villages easier. Given enough time, everyone flees the planet or gets absorbed and you're basically back to the tippyverse.
Here's what happens if they do all go to private demiplanes. Nothing happens. Absolutely nothing happens to anyone, anywhere, ever and it's boring as @#$%. Demiplanes can be expanded without limit and anything one demiplane provides, any other demiplane can also provide. There is no incentive to conquer because you wouldn't gain anything. There's also no incentive to visit the planet and reveal your location because the demiplane provides everything. And you would reveal your location, because you'd have to be holding a tuning fork pointing straight back to your location. Perhaps some security through obscurity and have the tuning fork point back to a demiplane full of tuning forks and only authorized people would know which the right one out of hundreds was. But that only stops a lazy attacker, a dedicated attacker would still break it eventually. Now, there's absolutely a chance that some demiplane would take it upon themselves to take back the material plane (no idea why) but they'd either be unopposed or we'd be right back to the previous paragraph, except with "and then hunt down their private demiplane and wipe them out" added on to it. The best case I see is the material plane becoming planar australia, the dumping ground for the demiplanes' undesirables.
True be told, tolkien-esque fantasy settings make little sense with PF levels of magic.
Like, there should be very minimal situations that a person dies of dehydration.
Granted, i do love the justification of a kingdom with guns in Golarian :p
Quote: Any illusion spell has a save, and someone will eventually make it (especially the kind of people that wander blasted hellscapes). There is no part of the world you can live in that some creature doesn't live natively A level 20 gnome wizard with 30+ intelligence (all headbands, temporary spells, luck effects, etc.), racial bonuses, and a bunch of caster level boosts, and spell focus and greater spell focus is going to have an illusion DC of like... 75 or something. On, say, a couple Screen spells. Amongst other things.
No random wild animal will ever, ever make their save (One of the minimal house rules would almost certainly have to be no crits on saves, for such a setting to be in any way stable). Only a specially trained and prepared creature boosted for the purpose of making will save like a wizard or ancient dragon or whatever would have a chance. And those don't routinely cover every corner of the planet. Probably 90% of the planet has never even been set foot upon by anyone of such power in all of time.
In the meantime, Screen completely stops any scrying at random to hunt for villages, because you get NO save on scrying, so you really do have to actually go there, unless I'm missing something.
Quote: One guy decides he wants to be a warlord and goes on a conquering spree. Each village is eventually found (by blind luck if nothing else) One guy is going to cover every square mile of an entire planet in a lifetime? 10 lifetimes? 1,000,000 lifetimes? No chance. He could have helpers, but they need to be able to pass DC 75 will saves etc... not many helpers can do that. Even without that, huge armies couldn't cover any appreciable area efficiently in any reasonable amount of time.
Plus even the spots they cover, people can move into after they leave. It's not like once you finish your tour, everyone is gone.
And will anybody ever search 1/2 mile under solid rock in a place with no natural caves (stone shaped bubble underground)?
Maybe in the area he can cover, he does randomly stumble upon a village, after a year of searching at random, so what? 1,000 more could have been established in the meantime. Hell, every village could actually maintain 3 or 4 locations and if anybody starts tripping alarms, you all break your refuge items and ZOIP! Another world-wide search to find you... Even if not, he slaughters all 400 people living there. Okay...? What now? Another year of random searching, during which everyone you just killed is replaced with population growth and new settlement.
Quote: Here's what happens if they do all go to private demiplanes. Nothing happens. Absolutely nothing happens to anyone, anywhere, ever and it's boring as @#$%. Possibly. If the logical conclusion is that nothing interesting would happen for gameplay, then I think the next step would be to begin removing the most relevant spells, one by one, until the world approaches a sweet spot of not completely boring but also not completely unstable.
Although alternatively, the player party could be sallying forth on an adventure from one of the protected realms into the chaos-torn wilds/cities for some quest due to a change. The tippyverse or my own version or whatever are just baselines. Any given campaign can then be based on "Oh somebody just upset the balance by researching a new spell" etc. from that baseline.
Crimeo wrote: (One of the minimal house rules would almost certainly have to be no crits on saves, for such a setting to be in any way stable). Okay, we're introducing houserules now? You need to include those up front, because in the system as currently written every creature has a 5% chance of making the save, regardless of what the save is.
Crimeo wrote: One guy is going to cover every square mile of an entire planet in a lifetime? 10 lifetimes? 1,000,000 lifetimes? No chance. He could have helpers, but they need to be able to pass DC 75 will saves etc... not many helpers can do that. Even without that, huge armies couldn't cover any appreciable area efficiently in any reasonable amount of time.
Plus even the spots they cover, people can move into after they leave. It's not like once you finish your tour, everyone is gone.
And will anybody ever search 1/2 mile under solid rock in a place with no natural caves (stone shaped bubble underground)?
Maybe in the area he can cover, he does randomly stumble upon a village, after a year of searching at random, so what? 1,000 more could have been established in the meantime. Hell, every village could actually maintain 3 or 4 locations and if anybody starts tripping alarms, you all break your refuge items and ZOIP! Another world-wide search to find you... Even if not, he slaughters all 400 people living there. Okay...? What now? Another year of random searching, during which everyone you just killed is replaced with population growth and new settlement.
No. One immortal (immortality discovery) with an army of golems, animated objects, simulacrum, and other minions who don't age or die from anything but damage. He has 1,000,000 lifetimes, if he wants them, and his minions only grow with each passing year. Again, assuming saves aren't houseruled. If they are, he has an army of simulacrumed <something with a high save>. As for underground? Earth, Mud, and Magma Elemental, Xorn, Shaitan, Ankheg, Bulette, Purple Worm, @#$%ing badgers, anything with earth glide or burrow. And there's a lot. He doesn't have to kill them. His goal is their natural resources (maybe later enslaving them). Once they leave, he has their natural resources. And a defensive war in which you repeatedly retreat from the enemy while giving them your stuff is a really, really dumb idea. That's why I said, at some point everyone either retreats off-planet to a demiplane or gets absorbed.
As for the rest, it's all a matter of timing. I'm speaking of the eventual result of what you've proposed. If you want to set yourself in the "demiplanes have just now decided to go back to the material plane" you're basically playing fallout. You can also set yourself in "some warlord has decided to take over the world" and your players have to decide to fight them or help with the retreat. You can pick and choose your point in the timeline.
Quote: Okay, we're introducing houserules now? You need to include those up front, because in the system as currently written every creature has a 5% chance of making the save, regardless of what the save is. Consider it a probationary house rule, I guess. To be invoked if a solution is impossible without it. Otherwise not. The end goal here is an actual playable game which requires some stability, it's not just a thought experiment. So if I'm forced to, I'm forced to.
Quote: No. One immortal (immortality discovery) with an army of golems, animated objects, simulacrum, and other minions who don't age or die from anything but damage. The obvious result of a tippyverse IMO is continuous, constant, catastrophic destruction of anybody who leaves their presence openly known. That includes this guy. He is a dime a dozen! First slip up he makes = dead. And the stronger he gets, the more unified everyone is in making sure he's the first one that gets dead.
The other main problem with this is his lack of any motive to find me:
Quote: Once they leave, he has their natural resources. This doesn't make sense. In order to find them all he literally has to make enough golems, etc. to cover one per every few square miles of the planet nearly simultaneously, or else we can just fill in behind him.
Why spend billions or trillions of gold pieces to find villages with some dudes who are hanging around with like, 3,500 gp or whatever create food traps? ...Is he hungry?
Quote: I'm speaking of the eventual result of what you've proposed. If evil guy is never defeated by anyone, and is given thousands of years of somehow (???) not being defeated or ever making a single mistake, to the point where he can simultaneously cover all the planet with spies, then yes.
If he only ever gets enough to do periodic sweeps before being put down, then no. Hideouts will simply re-fill in behind his sweeps. People have babies. And there would be enough to produce high level casters to continuously plot new ways to eventually trip you up.
He may not die of old age. He will die of assassination sooner or later.
Also it's not all or nothing. There can and would be some on Earth and some groups in demiplanes So even if he does succeed on earth, demiplane assassins still come in and try to assassinate him routinely too. At some point, one does it, and people repopulate earth hideouts.
It's a cycle at worst, and my story can simply take place during whatever point in the cycle is most fun, easy.
So how do you reconcile everyone existing in isolated communities with no contact with each other with everyone ganging up on the warlord? What's to stop them from continuing to team up and forming their own empire?
Yes, the warlord is a dime a dozen. And for every million that make a mistake, one doesn't. And that one takes over the @#$%ing world and rules it with an iron fist. Unless, as I've said, a bunch of other communities have somehow banded together into one larger community and we've once again taken a hard left turn away from "isolated hidden villages".
In case you've missed it, the tippyverse assumes unlimited wealth but not necessarily unlimited resources (as I recall there's no way to create permanent usable metal in pathfinder). There are still ways to create infinite wealth in pathfinder, I believe, so there's no reason to assume this isn't still true. But even without that, my example warlord isn't hunting down people or villages. They're hunting down resources (which may include people, depending on if they have a use for them). Villages are pinatas full of resources and so are a nice juicy target if they happen to be found but aren't the main focus. Absolutely, a town buried deep in solid rock near nothing useful would probably never be noticed. That's just the example warlord I was using though. What about one who just wants power over people? He'd ruthlessly hunt down anyone he could get his hands on to force them to serve him. The money isn't the point, the power is. He would throw millions of gold at subjugating a tiny village.
Again, the first warlord to succeed can completely eliminate the planet-based groups if they feel like it. He couldn't be counted as successful unless he could. If they're trying to kill him, he probably will. Hideouts will refill, except it'll be the warlord filling them with his own people/constructs. Or just leaving a construct there to watch it. Look, I've been talking about a wizard with at least 30 Int here. I know I'm not that smart, I'm making an educated guess you're not that smart, I'm almost positive nobody on Earth even comes close. If I can think of this stuff, the warlord already has and already has an even better counter. And the warlord who conquers the world now has full control of the resources, and the "demiplane assassins" would be far better off as miners or thieves because actively trying to kill someone who controls a world is a suicide mission, at best. At worst it's a declaration of war for a community that shouldn't actually need anything from the planet. And anything they do need should be in small enough quantities to steal/gather quickly and get off planet, not declare open war on the guy running the planet. Demiplanes provide everything you need to live comfortably, there's very little reason to leave them and even less reason to risk your nice home by kicking Cthulhu in the shin.
For the same reason I proposed private demiplanes to stay safe, there's nothing anyone can do to stop a warlord until they start moving. They just need to stay on their demiplane, build as many constructs as they feel like, and nobody will ever notice them until they invade. They can also make the plane Timeless with respect to magic and build up an infinite stock of summoned monsters (though now that I think about it, how does Timeless interact with the Create Demiplane spell itself?).
And yes, I've already said you can pick and choose which part of the timeline you want to drop in on. But the eventual result of your idea ends with some petty warlord ruling over the planet while everyone else hides in a demiplane somewhere. The demiplanes might invade but I can't for the life of me figure out why. Demiplanes are very nice. They can take any special shape, feed 10 people/level (or 20 for Greater Create Demiplane), support plant and animal life, and prevent aging (Timeless). Why would you leave? You can force it for story reasons but then you need to deal with the issue of what happens when a warlord finally succeeds in wiping out the demiplanes that want to kill him. Same as the one warlord in a million who doesn't slip up on taking over the world, one is going to not slip up on wiping out the demiplanes.
If you don't want this to happen you need to remove Create Demiplane, period, and probably Plane Shift for that matter. A LE wizard could probably find a sympathetic ear and some lab space in Hell to build their infinite construct army to invade the world. Especially if they're promising lots of free souls in return. Second you need some kind of alliance of powerful wizards but also some reason they don't trust each other. Otherwise it's straight to the tippyverse if they decide to cooperate or straight to a horror movie plot when the warlord picks them off one by one, village by village if they never talk to each other. Third, you need to houserule some way to make illusions work. You can take away a nat 20 always succeeding, but what about detect magic detecting the illusion spells (and identifying it as the illusion school)? What about things with at-will dispel magic throwing it around at everything? You can sort of baffle this with magic aura on random non-magical things but any effort in an area will just reveal that someone is there. Probably need to ban Simulacrum and Planar Binding/Ally if you can't find a good answer to those (since those are the easy source of infinite Detect Magic/Dispel Magic).
To the original poster, I think the problem is that magic is too easy in the 3.x system.
It probably has been in all the iterations of d&d. I've seen the kind of things the Tippyverse covers going back to 1e. But 3.x is the most magic biased of any d&d system so far.
Look for one of their recent reboots, DC hired Michael Moorcock to give them advice on ... I guess how they should handle magic in their universe. He told them "Magic has a price." They promptly never bothered to do anything with the advice they paid for but whatever.
The Tippyverse stuff doesn't come up in myths and legends because the storytellers didn't want to tell that kind of story (usually I guess). The same for writers of fantasy, though almost every fantasy story I've ever read somehow uses the "Magic has a price" concept in some way. But in the end the writer almost always doesn't want to go there. For flavor purposes.
When you codify what magic can do you open yourself up to the Tippyverse. The old myths and legends are really vague about what magic can do. But good old 3.x isn't.
So if you are playing 3.x type systems, you just have to make a gentleman's agreement not to go there.
Or you are going to be doing so much tinkering with the system that you have a whole new one.
Bob Bob Bob wrote: So how do you reconcile everyone existing in isolated communities with no contact with each other with everyone ganging up on the warlord? Never said they should have no contact. They just don't visit each others' homes. They meet on neutral ground to share knowledge etc., and maybe to team up or recoordinate stuff. But you go back to your home, and I to mine. I don't know where you live. YOU might not know where you live (some other guy hands you the tuning fork back at your customs station). We don't mix that, we don't breed across, we don't visit, we thoroughly scan and decontaminate etc. anything we bring back on a holding demiplane (customs), we don't risk any meaningful two way interconnectedness through which corruption can spread like wildfire. That's the problem with Tippyverse.
Quote: In case you've missed it, the tippyverse assumes unlimited wealth but not necessarily unlimited resources Infinite resources are easy. Fabricate traps. The raw mats ARE the material component, which means you pay their cost 100x once, then you don't. A trap that fabricates, say 1b of adamantium into a tiny adamantium violin takes ~1 year to build, but then it will just spit out free adamantium violins forever, with no input. Melt them down and make whatever you want.
Which is precisely why it's ridiculous to control the world. There's nothing to gain. It's just completely stupid. Mining LOSES you money, because it's slower than stepping on a trap.
You pretty much answered your whole post yourself when you wrote this:
Quote: The demiplanes might invade but I can't for the life of me figure out why Exactly. Any warlord doing so has absolutely no reason to. Thus, he must literally be completely insane. Insane people aren't that hard to outwit.
Nor are they hard to match in their stats or equipment, since you have a finite number of magic item slots, and +68 headbands don't exist. The guy caps out at the same power as the demiplane residents, same items, same INT, except 1) There's way more of them, and 2) He's insane, so as soon as he pokes his head out, he is slaughtered. In like, probably 2 or 3 days, honestly. Preparing more is irrelevant, he still caps out in power then just has a bunch of leftover gold that doesn't buy him anything in a duel.
Why do they slaughter him? Well actually they might not bother. But although the planet is useless for resources, it's a convenient place for independents to meet up without melding into one unsafe group. And they don't want that inconvenienced.
They could just make a public meeting demiplane, but then all the same stuff would happen there, it really is inconsequential where/which public place we are talking about, in the end. Maybe it's just... sentimentality?
Or maybe not and nobody gives a s*~& about planets and they just shrug and make a new meeting plane whenever one is taken over, and don't invite that guy again.
I kind of like the sentimentality thing though. Edit: Also, archaeology. History. Knowledge, it's what people care about now. A lot of it's on the planet.
Quote: what about detect magic detecting the illusion spells (and identifying it as the illusion school) Given up on the illusions anyway, I think, for the most part. If villages were on the planet, they'd more likely be under a mile of solid stone, and then just protected from scrying (Screen, Sanctum, etc.). Enter via refuge tokens. Leave by TC. Thus nothing to find on the surface at all. You find the village itself, or nothing. Nothing to throw dispels at. Certainly nothing a 60 ft dispel magic cone will help with. Unless you dig every cubic foot of stone down to the mantle or something.
But then again, maybe not bother, maybe only demiplanes upon demiplanes with meeting place demiplanes, shifting as necessary. You may be right about that. Still, not necessarily boring, that, and not necessarily unplayable.
sunbeam wrote: Or you are going to be doing so much tinkering with the system that you have a whole new one. The whole point though is not tinkering with it AT ALL. Or minimally. Since I think I've given up on illusions, the houserule about save criticals can be tossed out.
Which leaves us with pretty much just the houserules:
1) Wishes can't do more than replicate spells
2) .... pretty much nothing else.
Tippy suggested that "the divines are silent" should be a rule, but I think that many of the divines would be all about industrialized magic, so this isn't even necessary. Simply worship Nethys, Brigh, Apsu, or Droskar for your industrialized divine spells, and they'll be happy or indifferent about it, while matching your outlook if you live in this new world.
In reality, it's like... the LEAST tinkered with game I'd ever play.
sunbeam wrote: To the original poster, I think the problem is that magic is too easy in the 3.x system.
It probably has been in all the iterations of d&d. I've seen the kind of things the Tippyverse covers going back to 1e. But 3.x is the most magic biased of any d&d system so far.
Look for one of their recent reboots, DC hired Michael Moorcock to give them advice on ... I guess how they should handle magic in their universe. He told them "Magic has a price."
I agree with this - magic as written in the rules is a little too mundane. I've always found the best solution for this is to make sure that the PCs are the focus of magic in the setting. Spellcasters in my game are the exception rather than the rule. If there are any high-level casters running around in my milieu, they are either PCs or adversaries for the PCs. Spellcasters (arcane or divine) also attract weird stuff to them. They tend to lead dangerous lives on account of their power and are often less inclined to use it for mundane matters as a result.
Wolfsnap wrote: sunbeam wrote: To the original poster, I think the problem is that magic is too easy in the 3.x system.
It probably has been in all the iterations of d&d. I've seen the kind of things the Tippyverse covers going back to 1e. But 3.x is the most magic biased of any d&d system so far.
Look for one of their recent reboots, DC hired Michael Moorcock to give them advice on ... I guess how they should handle magic in their universe. He told them "Magic has a price."
I agree with this - magic as written in the rules is a little too mundane. I've always found the best solution for this is to make sure that the PCs are the focus of magic in the setting. Spellcasters in my game are the exception rather than the rule. If there are any high-level casters running around in my milieu, they are either PCs or adversaries for the PCs. Spellcasters (arcane or divine) also attract weird stuff to them. They tend to lead dangerous lives on account of their power and are often less inclined to use it for mundane matters as a result. Or more generally that magic as presented in the system was designed for adventuring, not with the world economy in mind. Much like the rest of the system.
I like to kick around the idea of living in an Emerging Tippyverse rather than a full blown functional one (which is likely to be static and boring).
In an Emerging Tippyverse, the powers that be are discovering all these cool neat ideas of things they can do with magic (think Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, etc). Old paradigms are going to shift or be rendered outright obsolete. Players themselves have an opportunity to put their own Tippy-mark on things too.
Some leaders and countries will catch on to what's happening, the slower ones, well - what happens there may present the seeds for adventures. Old ways of diplomacy will need to give way to newer ideas (like Mutual Assured Destruction). Intricate webs of diplomacy not unlike Europe during Bismarck's time may arise between countries and city-states.
Consider if just a few countries get launched up the Tippyverse development curve - say, Cheliax, Andoran, something that emerges from the River Kingdoms (and takes out Brevoy), Absalom and a couple of regional powers out to the East? Or maybe some of the Eastern cultures fail to "get it" and we have a modern Absalom encountering an antiquated Qadira (or whatever).
I think if presented in the right time-frame/context, you can have a blast with the Tippyverse concept. Though when you are done, Golarion is going to need some serious Aboleth/Inevitable intervention to blast everyone back to the stone age (and start anew!).
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I don't think you should pick anti-tippyverse over tippyverse, or vice versa. What makes for a good gaming world isn't its ability to stay static. I think a better (gaming) world is one that fluctuates between the two. Let me elaborate:
In both systems, you will need some means of balance so that characters don't quickly find themselves becoming Capstone or Mythic characters. Since RAW already exist, lets try using it.
In the Tippyverse, since the gods are mostly silent, that means that all divine classes are less than desirable to play. In other words, players lose a quarter of their options. Most players won't like that. So , just write it in that there is a general turn of the peoples away from divine worship (to which their characters are allowed to be the exceptions.)
Also, if Epic magic (which could mean mythic magic) doesn't exist, then there is also a built-in ceiling on how high characters can progress. This is definitely the GMs prerogative, but there's no need for her to paint herself into a corner before the game starts.
And lastly, the Tippyverse introduces the rise of major cities from the advent of teleportation circles.
I say let the characters witness the rise of the great magic age and even benefit from its magic for a stint.
Real history is chalk full of allegories ripe for conversion into game-world simulacrums. For instance, Teleportation circles are akin to the rise of speedy transportation, Imagine if teleportation circles popped up overnight in our lifetimes. This disruptive magic would bring with it mass exoduses, rising suspicion, overpopulation, immigration challenges, transportation accidents, smuggling, polarized elitism/poverty, points of planned thievery, and finally targets for acts of terrorism.
And just what runs these magic engines in these major cities. Well it better be elements that
are out of reach of the characters, otherwise your game will degenerate into Magic the Tycoon game. You should probably adopt the following conventions:
1) the factories have at their heart either artifacts or rituals that require more individuals to run than is the party's size.
2) The cost to run these factories (and maybe also the teleport circles) should have a cost outside the players desires – Souls, character levels, or age are all costs characters won't want (or rarely want) to pay, but the desperate populations might (or at the least not recognize the costs until its too late.)
3) In time, the factories also create a negative byproduct: "curse waste", soulless or possessed workers, or rifts that leak extra dimensional undesireables.
Many problems will arise that are beyond the scope of the characters. That's okay. They'll see it as outside the scope of their current missions. It will just serve as foreshadowing of what is to come next...
Let the characters experience the perks of Tippyverse society, then let them deal with the costs of a Tippyverse, then let them witness their 'verse tipping in the other direction.
The decline of the factory cities can correlate with the groups fleeing into Anti-Tippyverse demiplanes. and the resurgence of divine populations. If you present it this way, its not just a backstory, it's living history. You can even have their 'verse tip over and over as each cities' solutions and problems come to fruitition.
I always thought Tippyverse was a lot like Star Trek, TNG onward.
Create Food and Water = Replicators
Teleport Circles = Transporters
Scry + Fry = Warping in Warships/bombs
Nondetection = Cloaking
Magic = Technology
...I think it kinda fits.
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AlaskaRPGer wrote: I always thought Tippyverse was a lot like Star Trek, TNG onward.
Create Food and Water = Replicators
Teleport Circles = Transporters
Scry + Fry = Warping in Warships/bombs
Nondetection = Cloaking
Magic = Technology
...I think it kinda fits.
It is rather fitting, since I've always said that Star Trek is actually full of wizards who just use technobabble as the verbal component of their spells.
Oh, you want reality instead of forcing the setting? If you're including infinite fabricate traps, everyone lives on their own demiplanes, has no reason to leave them, has no reason to talk to anyone else, and has no reason to live on-planet. Period. You can't say the warlord is automatically insane for wanting to conquer the planet unless everyone else living on the planet is as well. Because what other reason do they have to be there? Why would they be on the planet if they apparently need nothing from it? Demiplanes are safer, more comfortable, and can be altered to suit you much easier.
But that's a really boring setting. It starts with "everyone leaves for their own private demiplane" and ends "and stays there forever". The only time you could set the game in is during the 6 hours it takes to cast the spell before everyone disappears forever. I was trying to come up with a reason the planet might be important but if you're saying it's not then there's no reason anyone, ever, would leave their demiplane to return to the planet. And that's a boring setting.
Quote: everyone lives on their own demiplanes, has no reason to leave them Knowledge, art, are reasons to visit one another (i.e.e other demiplanes that would otherwise be a dangerous critical mass to LIVE with but not visit).
And a reason to visit the home planet is its archaeology. It has tons of knowledge of your past and heritage.
Learning and culture is all people care about, and a ton of it is planetside and/or with neighbors.
So they don't need minerals from the planet. They do seek knowledge from it. But there's no reason to INVADE for that, that's still irrational.
Crimeo wrote: Quote: everyone lives on their own demiplanes, has no reason to leave them Knowledge, art, are reasons to visit one another (i.e.e other demiplanes that would otherwise be a dangerous critical mass to LIVE with but not visit).
And a reason to visit the home planet is its archaeology. It has tons of knowledge of your past and heritage.
Learning and culture is all people care about, and a ton of it is planetside and/or with neighbors.
So they don't need minerals from the planet. They do seek knowledge from it. But there's no reason to INVADE for that, that's still irrational. Art and knowledge fine, but that means they meet at some neutral demiplane, trade stuff, and... well, that's it. Doesn't change "live on private demiplane, never need to go out".
History and archeaology... why? There exist beings older than all human civilization and you have them on speed dial. And that's for the super rare stuff, "Know obscure or ancient historical event" is only a DC 20 check. What would the planet actually give you? Why would anyone use the far more risky method when a safe, easy, and effective method exists. Same level as Plane Shift too, so no reason you'd have one and not the other.
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AlaskaRPGer wrote: I always thought Tippyverse was a lot like Star Trek, TNG onward.
Create Food and Water = Replicators
Teleport Circles = Transporters
Scry + Fry = Warping in Warships/bombs
Nondetection = Cloaking
Magic = Technology
...I think it kinda fits.
One of Rick Berman's chief complaints about Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek canon was that it ended up restricting what conflicts could be written about. That's how "Enterprise" was born (which is basically a turn back in time when conflicts were more prevalent). That's also why J. J. Abrams et al chose to galactic reboot the franchise.
Bob Bob Bob wrote: And that's for the super rare stuff, "Know obscure or ancient historical event" is only a DC 20 check. What would the planet actually give you? You don't GAIN knowledge from a knowledge check. A knowledge check represents remembering stuff you learned earlier.
If nobody has ever actually dug up an archaeological site or whatever to have foudn XYZ information in the first place, then it is impossible to do a knowledge check for it, because you cannot physically remember things you never learned. Nor can you look them up in a library, or anything else. You have to go out and find the evidence.
And the gods in general are not omniscient. This is clear from the entry on Nethys, which says he has omniscience in particular, necessarily implying the other gods do not. Also, the commune spell states ""The answers given are correct within the limits of the entity's knowledge. “Unclear” is a legitimate answer, because powerful beings of the Outer Planes are not necessarily omniscient.""
Nethys went insane from it, too, so he's liable not to give you any coherent or reliable answers if you ask him stuff (ambiguous in text how cogent he is, in my setting he would be interpreted as quite insane for exactly this reason). Also, it's not even clear from the text if he is omniscient about the past, it may only be the present, going back to when he achieved omniscience. Thus, some things before that may still not be known by anyone, potentially, mortal or immortal. let alone getting access to such information.
Bottom line: certain questions will require actual planetary expeditions and digs and research. Which means there is a motivation to sweep out the baddies from the home planet.
Any other demiplane that gets overrun though can just be cut off from the network and abandoned, although they would probably avoid doing that if the evil could be vanquished instead, to save innocent lives. The home planet holds unique information though.
Crimeo wrote: Bob Bob Bob wrote: And that's for the super rare stuff, "Know obscure or ancient historical event" is only a DC 20 check. What would the planet actually give you? You don't GAIN knowledge from a knowledge check. A knowledge check represents remembering stuff you learned earlier.
If nobody has ever actually dug up an archaeological site or whatever to have foudn XYZ information in the first place, then it is impossible to do a knowledge check for it, because you cannot physically remember things you never learned. Nor can you look them up in a library, or anything else. You have to go out and find the evidence.
And the gods in general are not omniscient. This is clear from the entry on Nethys, which says he has omniscience in particular, necessarily implying the other gods do not.
He went insane from it, though, so he's liable not to give you any coherent or reliable answers if you ask him stuff (ambiguous in text how cogent he is, in my setting he would be interpreted as quite insane for exactly this reason). Also, it's not even clear from the text if he is omniscient about the past, it may only be the present, going back to when he achieved omniscience. Thus, some things before that may still not be known by anyone, potentially, mortal or immortal. let alone getting access to such information.
Bottom line: certain questions will require actual planetary expeditions and digs and research. Which means there is a motivation to sweep out the baddies from the home planet.
Any other demiplane that gets overrun though can just be cut off from the network and abandoned, although they would probably avoid doing that if the evil could be vanquished instead, to save innocent lives. The home planet holds unique information though. This bolded part right here. How is this any different from the Tippyverse, just set on demiplanes instead of the planet?
It's different from tippyverse because:
1) They don't just let random people into their cities for such trivial things as delivering packages, that's dumb. For the most part, inner sanctum access is just for people born there. Very local trades may occur between trusted neighbors for vouched for young adults known their whole lives to immigrate once and increase genetic diversity.
2) The size of a core community is only 500-1,000 people, not 10,000,000. You need to be able to know everyone, if the city is going to provide any protection at all, really. Otherwise, block yourself out all you want from the outside, it won't matter. Evil will arise from within and potentially strike too quickly to stop it, if you don't know everyone to get a sense when something is wrong. Also, if anyone does screw up, you lose 500-1,000 people, not 10,000,000 at once.
An example of evil that can't be responded to quickly enough: Put a permanent wall of fire in a portable hole, close it up for 10 years. With nowhere for energy to go but it keeps being generated, the temperature will reach quadrillions of degrees celsius or whatever.
"Contingency: as soon as I teleport out of the city, cast mage hand to unroll the portable hole on my living room rug."
BOOM city just vaporizes instantly in one round, portable holes don't roll initiative, you're all just dead, the end. A small community is less of a loss if so, and they are more likely to sense when somebody is going down the path of contemplating such things, since they're all friends.
3) Tippy was fixated on trade, which I think is totally irrelevant. Knowledge is more important. "Sending" is a more important spell than "Teleportation circle" is.
4) Planes can be rerouted in location compared to one another, effectively. Cities cannot.
5) You can't hide a publicly known city, people will find a way in (then see aforementioned portable hole nuclear bomb, or similar shenanigans). You can hide a tuning fork frequency from the world. The entire core concept of tippyverse is supposed to be that troops can show up anywhere instantly, but that is not true in a demiplane. Thus altering everything that served as the basis for society organization in tippyverse.
Similar in some ways though sure.
Major problem with any settlements planetside, even a mile underground: The spell "Find the Path" Ugh, forgot about that.
No saves, no protection, just a lit up neon sign pointing down above my air bubble.
This might have to relegate all planetary activity to only brief excursions, no settlements. Or something the size of a small safe house / base camp closer in size to a hunting cabin and not a logging camp.
The problem with going small is that there are not enough high level caster to pull this off. I can not see there being more then 1 guy in a million who can cast 9th level spells. That means that a tippy city has about 10 to 100 (the stack up over time due to immortality) in it.
I just looked at the rules for magic item creation. By formula an item that can make a greater demi-plane once per day only costs 55080 GP. You need a guy with spellcraft of 22 simply take 10.
3 ranks + 4 trained +5 item +5 int +5 feats=22 I guess a 3rd level caster could pull that off. I guess anything larger then village could pull off this trick.
Okay, lets say that 99.9 percent of the world does just this and are never seen again. That .1 percent is still left as the world.
The CL requirement should be able to be skipped. Also traps should require source for the spell such as wand, staff, or charges per day type item.
Those are not very anti tippy but they would cut back on some of the crazier stuff.
Also, how do you keep the population in these isolated demiplanes limited?
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Pixie, the Leng Queen wrote: True be told, tolkien-esque fantasy settings make little sense with PF levels of magic.
:p
There are very few settings that make sense with the wargaming style of magic of D20/Pathfinder. The only ones that do, have in-setting restrictions on the magic.
Quote: I can not see there being more then 1 guy in a million who can cast 9th level spells. Nope, way more than that. The rules for pathfinder include a price and availability formula for hiring spellcasters. If you do the math on how many it says are available in different sized cities, and then assume that not all spellcasters that exist are for hire (multiply by 2-3) it comes out to about 1 17th level spellcaster ofr 30,000 people or even fewer.
Also you have to consider that those are the numbers suggested for the illogically low-magic Golarion setting. Given that the whole basis of this concept is that we are throwing out any illogical limitations assumed by Golarion, the number should be well above that, even. 1 in 5,000 to 10,000 casting 9th level spells is not unreasonable in Tippyverse or this experiment.
Hell, it could be even higher than that! What's actually STOPPING people from being super high level?
1) Intelligence - no problem, we have near infinite wealth, everybody gets +6 headbands and stuff on their 10th birthday parties. So every average joe can pretty much meet this requirement.
2) Experience - no problem, we can have magic summoning traps set up with carefully controlled easy-to-kill creatures in an organized progression so that you can safely sit around and kill CR+1 (consider that they have WAY over their level in gear) over and over again until anybody can level up without much risk.
3) Access to the knowledge banks, books, mentors, leisure time in which to learn? Everybody in this setting has leisure time, nobody has to farm or anything. And knowledge is the main currency. Every tiny group of people would have a huge library, that's what they DO all day long.
4) Basically it just comes down to just work ethic and not much else.
It's not unreasonable to even postulate you could get 1/10 or 1/5 people casting 9th level spells realistically in such a society.
Quote: Also, how do you keep the population in these isolated demiplanes limited? Magical trap of bestow curse:infertility --> Go have fun --> Magical trap of remove curse when needed.
Might want to read a little more carefully. Spellcasting Services wrote: Not every town or village has a spellcaster of sufficient level to cast any spell. In general, you must travel to a small town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4th-level spells, a large city for 5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells. Even a metropolis isn't guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells. 1. Intelligence has no bearing on levels. If you're saying everyone can cast 9th level spells, you need to throw in the +5 tomes as well.
2. Summoned monster traps don't provide exp for killing the monsters. They do provide exp for disabling the trap. Same way that killing an NPC's summoned monsters doesn't provide any extra exp over killing the summoner. Also, it says: Awarding Experience wrote: ...although you should never bother awarding XP for challenges that have a CR of 10 or more lower than the APL. It also says that you should adjust CR based on the difficulty of the encounter. What adjustment does "the monsters pose no threat and can't hurt anyone" deserve?
3. Access to infinite stores of knowledge... provides a minor bonus to knowledge checks and lets you bypass the DC 10 limit. That's it. Knowledge wrote: Equipment (Library) If you have access to an extensive library that covers a specific skill, this limit is removed. The time to make checks using a library, however, increases to 1d4 hours. Particularly complete libraries might even grant a bonus on Knowledge checks in the fields that they cover.
Quote: Even a metropolis isn't guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells. I read it just fine. A metropolis is anything more than 25,000 people, and the majority of them statistically would be close to 25,000 people (bell curves)
"Isn't guaranteed to have" just means <100% chance, which isn't very meaningful. But if you extrapolate from the curve you can solve from the lower levels that they give actual numbers for (which I did), it ends up coming out to about a 50% chance of finding one in a metropolis of 50,000 people.
Which = 1/100,000
BUT notice that this whole rules section is only talking about spellcasters available for hire. There are also of course going to be many spellcasters not available for hire, in fact almost certainly most of them, because 9th level casters are not exactly poor generally and in need of 9-5 jobs. So multiply this number by like 3 or so.
And you end up with ~1/30,000 spellcasters in the population (not all with their services for hire) being able to cast any one given 9th level spell.
Also notice that not every caster has access to every 9th level spell, so that would actually be more like 1/30,000 is a wizard, and then another 1/30,000 would be a druid, etc. Which I didn't even take into account above.
Quote: although you should never bother awarding XP for challenges that have a CR of 10 or more lower than the APL. It's not 10 below APL...? Where are you getting that from? I was saying it would be appropriate for the level, CR or CR+1. It is not trivial slaughterhouse. But it's also very low risk of actual death. On par with the majority of D&D actual encounters (which are by design already stacked well in favor of PCs, I'm not adding that here).
The main difference is you can manufacture them in the village in an arena type situation, without having to go range far and wide to find such challenges, that's all.
Quote: Access to infinite stores of knowledge... provides a minor bonus to knowledge checks and lets you bypass the DC 10 limit. That's it. Mentioned purely for backstory, getting tons of people the wizard class level 1 in the first place. Not numerical bonuses.
One might say "In Golarion, most people have to work for a living and can't leisurely sit around introducing themselves to the arcane arts, they simply don't have access or time" as an explanation for few people taking PC levels to begin with.
Same for "Oh they aren't smart enough to even learn the 1st level spells to begin, since you have to be 11 INT which is above average" -- unlike golarion, not a problem, we have tons of int boosting items.
So here, those excuses do not hold sway, so PC class levels would be abundant in wizardry, thus very much skewing up the already not-uncommon 9th level caster numbers from the level they are in the Golarion setting.
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