You fail to take into account that the vast majority of folks do not live in a metropolis. When doing a demographics you need to account for all the villages and towns and hamlets as well as metropolises. I stand by my 1 in a million figure.
Mathius wrote: You fail to take into account that the vast majority of folks do not live in a metropolis. When doing a demographics you need to account for all the villages and towns and hamlets as well as metropolises. I stand by my 1 in a million figure. When you calculate the relationship between caster and population sizes of towns, it is just slightly off of linear.
Basically, the numbers suggest that there is virtually no special concentration of magic users in mega cities in particular, nor the opposite. Interestingly, not even for druids vs. wizards: the availabilities are equal for divine vs. arcane spells too for any location.
Thing is, you don't even need tonnes of 9th level casters. Just need a couple of command word wish item.
Quote: 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. Eberron.
Knitifine wrote: Quote: 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. Eberron. Ugh, no it wouldn't. It would be a lot more magic filled than just steampunk with manapunk paint.
Milo v3 wrote: Knitifine wrote: Quote: 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. Eberron. Ugh, no it wouldn't. It would be a lot more magic filled than just steampunk with manapunk paint. Bad oversimplifications will get you nowhere. Eberron is brimming with magic.
Knitifine wrote: Bad oversimplifications will get you nowhere. Eberron is brimming with magic. Nowhere near enough magic. They don't even have a magical items that are equivalent to computers, despite the fact a futuristic computer could be created with just level 1 spells.
Milo v3 wrote: Knitifine wrote: Bad oversimplifications will get you nowhere. Eberron is brimming with magic. Nowhere near enough magic. They don't even have a magical items that are equivalent to computers, despite the fact a futuristic computer could be created with just level 1 spells. Surprising no one, a setting that takes place in it's world's industrial age does not have computers.
Milo v3 wrote:
Nowhere near enough magic. They don't even have a magical items that are equivalent to computers, despite the fact a futuristic computer could be created with just level 1 spells.
How?
Schadenfreude wrote: Milo v3 wrote:
Nowhere near enough magic. They don't even have a magical items that are equivalent to computers, despite the fact a futuristic computer could be created with just level 1 spells.
How? WONDER TOME
Price 6000 gp; Slot none; CL 1st; Weight -; Aura faint illusion
When this book is open it projects an illusion above it based on the instructions within it, and is constantly analysing the area of the illusion for a wonder glove signal. If a wonder glove signal is detected interacting with it's illusion, the book immediately updates with new text in arcane writing as appropriate for the interaction, causing the illusion to immediately update as instructed in the text. With proper use, this allows the device to be programmed in the manner of a modern computer. When input is applied to the wonder tome, it is in the form of immensely tiny text that is effectively unreadable, and simply appears like tiny dots on the page, so storage space is not a concern for most wonder tomes. In addition to the above, a wonder tome has a small pocket attached to the inside of the back-cover, allowing an individual to slide a wonder patch into it.
Construction Requirements
Cost 3000 gp
Craft Wondrous Item, arcane mark, detect magic, silent image
+
WONDER GLOVES
Price 1800 gp; Slot hands; CL 1st; Weight -; Aura faint illusion
On command these gloves can generate a magical signal specifically designed to be detected by a wonder tome, allowing it to interact with the wonder tome's illusory interface.
Construction Requirements
Cost 900 gp
Craft Wondrous Item, magic aura
There. Laptop sized computers with perfect graphics, holographic display and interaction, and infinite memory space. Originally there was an issue of the text causing poor memory space, but Mark Seifter helped be realize I could have the text be infinitesimal and thus be effectively infinite in storage space. There are also other little modifications and associated items that can go along with these two, but these two are crucial.
With proper use of spells and custom item rules you can make so much... Eberron especially annoys me because it made up new mechanics that were unnecessary like schema or that feat for elemental binding items, when both should have been done through the current item creation rules, and pretends it's all amazingly high magic when it's really just steampunk with magical flavour instead of steam. Schema should just be using craft wondrous item. Elemental binding would have been as easy as adding Planar Binding to the items list of prerequisite spells.
Milo v3 wrote: Schadenfreude wrote: Milo v3 wrote:
Nowhere near enough magic. They don't even have a magical items that are equivalent to computers, despite the fact a futuristic computer could be created with just level 1 spells.
How? WONDER TOME
Price 6000 gp; Slot none; CL 1st; Weight -; Aura faint illusion
When this book is open it projects an illusion above it based on the instructions within it, and is constantly analysing the area of the illusion for a wonder glove signal. If a wonder glove signal is detected interacting with it's illusion, the book immediately updates with new text in arcane writing as appropriate for the interaction, causing the illusion to immediately update as instructed in the text. With proper use, this allows the device to be programmed in the manner of a modern computer. When input is applied to the wonder tome, it is in the form of immensely tiny text that is effectively unreadable, and simply appears like tiny dots on the page, so storage space is not a concern for most wonder tomes. In addition to the above, a wonder tome has a small pocket attached to the inside of the back-cover, allowing an individual to slide a wonder patch into it.
Construction Requirements
Cost 3000 gp
Craft Wondrous Item, arcane mark, detect magic, silent image
+
WONDER GLOVES
Price 1800 gp; Slot hands; CL 1st; Weight -; Aura faint illusion
On command these gloves can generate a magical signal specifically designed to be detected by a wonder tome, allowing it to interact with the wonder tome's illusory interface.
Construction Requirements
Cost 900 gp
Craft Wondrous Item, magic aura
There. Laptop sized computers with perfect graphics, holographic display and interaction, and infinite memory space. Originally there was an issue of the text causing poor memory space, but Mark Seifter helped be realize I could have the text be infinitesimal and... Made up magic items do not prove any point. You can make the excuse of that any spell can build practically any item with this line of thinking.
Knitifine wrote: Made up magic items do not prove any point. You can make the excuse of that any spell can build practically any item with this line of thinking. You should note that every effect the item does works based on the spells, the detect magic senses the magic aura, which activates the arcane mark, which updates the silent image.
Also... eberron get's made up items, why can't "setting that uses magic logically and industrially" get custom items? Especially ones that aren't far fetched, and function through interaction between the individual spells rather than just having thematic prerequisites like many items.
Milo v3 wrote: Knitifine wrote: Made up magic items do not prove any point. You can make the excuse of that any spell can build practically any item with this line of thinking. You should note that every effect the item does works based on the spells, the detect magic senses the magic aura, which activates the arcane mark, which updates the silent image.
Also... eberron get's made up items, why can't "setting that uses magic logically and industrially" get custom items? Especially ones that aren't far fetched, and function through interaction between the individual spells rather than just having thematic prerequisites like many items. Well, except for the part where you're handwaving the whole programming and making it do stuff part.
A "laptop" that you can open up type stuff into and read the stuff you'd previously typed into it isn't really a computer in any normal sense of the word. If I can type in a program and make it run and actually do something, then it's a computer. Which yours does do, but only through vigorous handwaving. None of the actual spells have anything to do with making your typed in programs work.
thejeff wrote: Well, except for the part where you're handwaving the whole programming and making it do stuff part.
A "laptop" that you can open up type stuff into and read the stuff you'd previously typed into it isn't really a computer in any normal sense of the word. If I can type in a program and make it run and actually do something, then it's a computer. Which yours does do, but only through vigorous handwaving. None of the actual spells have anything to do with making your typed in programs work.
I'm not handwaving any of that. You have to put programming into it by modifying the illusion, to put basic instructions in and add in an operating system. That was the reason why the storage space thing was such an issue, because previously, my character trying to add in the operating system ran out of pages...
The posted item is simply a blank computer. It starts with only the basics of, display what the book says and take inputs from a glove interacting with your display. Everything else the people in the setting would need to program.
Milo v3 wrote: thejeff wrote: Well, except for the part where you're handwaving the whole programming and making it do stuff part.
A "laptop" that you can open up type stuff into and read the stuff you'd previously typed into it isn't really a computer in any normal sense of the word. If I can type in a program and make it run and actually do something, then it's a computer. Which yours does do, but only through vigorous handwaving. None of the actual spells have anything to do with making your typed in programs work.
I'm not handwaving any of that. You have to put programming into it by modifying the illusion, to put basic instructions in and add in an operating system. That was the reason why the storage space thing was such an issue, because previously, my character trying to add in the operating system ran out of pages...
The posted item is simply a blank computer. It starts with only the basics of, display what the book says and take inputs from a glove interacting with your display. Everything else the people in the setting would need to program. Yeah, you type programs in. What's the processor? What's your CPU-equivalent?
Unseen Servants on permanency lists = programming
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Crimeo wrote: Unseen Servants on permanency lists = programming That's not how programming works.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
A Turing machine is a major conceptual hurdle. The implementation of it given the concept is not. I agree that all the parts of a computer can be handled by magic. That doesn't mean that a theoretical fictional character will come up with it independently.
Knitifine wrote: Crimeo wrote: Unseen Servants on permanency lists = programming That's not how programming works. It's not how modern Earthly programming languages work (giving verbal commands about tasks to be carried out to a soul-like entity), no, obviously.
It would, however, be able to replicate all of the same end results. An unseen servant can easily act like a transistor if you really want it to. And they can carry out the same simple instructions forever and ever if they are on the permanency list. It can also easily take inputs and adjust outputs (too complicated for one of them to do all that, but a team yes). So once you acknowledge all that, it becomes obvious that there is at least one way to make it replicate computers. Although with its capabilities, I imagine there are much much more efficient shortcuts that would provide the same computing ability with far fewer servants than transistors in comparable machines.
As Berinor says, expecting magicians to actually invent this in that setting would be fairly absurd. The same things you can do with computers would probably be better circumvented entirely by just asking gods questions or calling in various outsiders, or divination, etc. But physically, it can certainly be done.
Crimeo wrote: Knitifine wrote: Crimeo wrote: Unseen Servants on permanency lists = programming That's not how programming works. It's not how modern Earthly programming languages work (giving verbal commands about tasks to be carried out to a soul-like entity), no, obviously.
It would, however, be able to replicate all of the same end results. An unseen servant can easily act like a transistor if you really want it to. And they can carry out the same simple instructions forever and ever if they are on the permanency list. It can also easily take inputs and adjust outputs (too complicated for one of them to do all that, but a team yes). So once you acknowledge all that, it becomes obvious that there is at least one way to make it replicate computers. Although with its capabilities, I imagine there are much much more efficient shortcuts that would provide the same computing ability with far fewer servants than transistors in comparable machines.
As Berinor says, expecting magicians to actually invent this in that setting would be fairly absurd. The same things you can do with computers would probably be better circumvented entirely by just asking gods questions or calling in various outsiders, or divination, etc. But physically, it can certainly be done. Assuming the caster stays within close range lest the spell end.
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Crimeo wrote: An unseen servant can easily act like a transistor if you really want it to. Do you have any idea how many transistors are in anything resembling a computer made after you were born?
If your guess isn't at least in the millions, you're way off.
The problem with the Trippyverse is that the concept is supposed to be, "What if people did everything RAW and everyone power gamed the system?"
But then nobody takes into account the actual society or how society would react.
There would be rules on what spells wizards can learn, rules meaning Wizards would be subjected to random searches of their spell books by the constabulary and any spells that were in there that the city/kingdom had determined contraband would be dealt with.
"'ello 'ello 'ello wots this then? Teleport? Don't you know that's a military restricted spell? Oh yer in trouble now. Ye don't have the proper clearance for this spell." Spell is ripped out of the spell book.
Magic would be outright banned more or less in this setting. You would only be allowed to legally learn magic if you were a member of the military of a kingdom and then you'd be subjected to all kinds of searches and such before, and during, your work.
The economy would be wrecked beyond belief.
Every major city would be covered in Permanent Teleport Traps simply by dint of common sense. Anti-magic fields would be constructed very commonly and made permanent in zones, specifically ones that the peasantry inhabited. (That way they couldn't rise up against the nobles.)
Adventuring Taxes would be insane. I don't even want to think about how that would work.
Don't get me started on what the rules on alignment would be. I imagine in such a setting everyone entering a city would be subjected to some kind of alignment scan.
"Oh, you're Evil. Nope. Denied entry. Next!"
"Oh? You're Chaotic? Nope. You're going to cause problems. Denied. Next!"
Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:
Assuming the caster stays within close range lest the spell end.
Okay I hadn't thought of that. You may be able to make an unseen servant trap, if interpret a fixed set of instructions (transistor behavior instructions) to be able to be baked into the trap.
Probably not going to work, you're right. (Why are we trying to make computers again anyway though?)
Quote: "'ello 'ello 'ello wots this then? Teleport? Don't you know that's a military restricted spell? Oh yer in trouble now. Ye don't have the proper clearance for this spell." Spell is ripped out of the spell book. More like "ello ello wot's... oh." [wizard has teleported away]. OR alternatively "ello ello, wot's in your spellbook" "What spellbook" "Yer a wizard!" "No I'm not, look, no spellbook no pointy hat no lightning bolt scar" "Oh... well I've got me eye on ye" [wizard studied spells this morning and then didn't carry his book with him, because he's not an idiot. Also, bookplate of recall means he never even has to go back and fetch it.]. Also due to near infinite wealth in tippyverse, I would have like 40 spellbooks that are duplicates.
I'm not sure how you propose all these draconian police state rules of yours to actually be enforced...
Quote: Anti-magic fields would be constructed very commonly and made permanent in zones Anti magic field is A) personal emanation only, not able to be cast on a location. And B) not on the permanency list (GMs can add by RAW, but why would you add that spell of all things)
Quote: Don't get me started on what the rules on alignment would be. I imagine in such a setting everyone entering a city would be subjected to some kind of alignment scan. Mind blank, dude. Everyone scans as neutral no matter what. Having a permanent mind blank up is like tippyverse 101. You don't even have to be able to cast mind blank, just have any friend with a mind blank trap.
Not to mention alignment detection doesn't work on most low-level entities anyway. If you're high-enough level to have an alignment aura, you're also high-enough level to have access to alignment-obscuring tricks.
But yeah, I would love to hear an explanation for how the level 1 Warrior town guards can force a level 9+ Wizard to remove spells from his spellbook. And even if that worked, there's still divine casters, sorcerers, etc.
Removed a post. Please don't make personal attacks against other posters, and be civil in this thread.
Chengar Qordath wrote: Not to mention alignment detection doesn't work on most low-level entities anyway. If you're high-enough level to have an alignment aura, you're also high-enough level to have access to alignment-obscuring tricks.
But yeah, I would love to hear an explanation for how the level 1 Warrior town guards can force a level 9+ Wizard to remove spells from his spellbook. And even if that worked, there's still divine casters, sorcerers, etc.
Because of how things operate. Think, in a universe like this, they would put level 1 warrior guards at the gates?
Heck no. These guys would be terrified of magic and magical threats. Remember the PCs start at level 1 not level 16 with all spells in hand.
Think logically about a world like this. Magic would be a capital crime for anyone who isn't authorized. Either be a drone for the king and do what you are told or you get hunted.
Unlimited wealth? How? You can't sell anything unless it's on the black market. The city would confiscate anything and everything.
They would *have to* because they need a functional society. They can't have that with mega-PCs running around with little to no regulation.
So you teleport away. Cool. Now you are a wanted fugitive with a price on your head and the guy going after you is just as high level, just as optimized, and has access to resources you don't have.
Then there is the propaganda aspect. They'd quickly turn the megacities into police states. Magic is evil, sick, and vile! Unless used by the crown of course. Your friends, families, even people you want to work for would turn you in.
That's why the Trippyverse is probably the most unrealistic setting. It assumes everyone is optimized... Save for those who seek order and stability... Those guys, for some reason, are always super weak in the setting.
I recommend looking at Rifts and their CS faction to see what would happen in the Trippyverse.
You're just like... telling us "this is what's logical" but not explaining why it is the obvious logical conclusion.
It's possible that you may be onto something, and that's why I made the thread to consider other angles, but I can't buy into it without SOME kind of justifications.
1) WHY is the government trying to lock everything down? You're describing what a lockdown might ideally look like, but you have not described motivations for this clearly to me
2) What stops me from just meeting one single criminal that knows anyone who can make a private demiplane, and then going there and now being completely inaccessible to your city police/king? Now we can run around and make all the fabrication traps we like and blah blah without being pestered.
3) Once everybody else does this, and the king now has like 12 people in his kingdom still willing to put up with him, why is he still king?
Quote: Save for those who seek order and stability The only thing I see unstable about tippyverse was allowing Wish and Miracle to not be limited in scope. Since in that form, they have no rules, they leave you with chaos because nothing ever reaches a stable resting equilibrium when wishes keep morphing to new things. Which is why I made that my one houserule in my version that wishes only replicate other spells.
What else about this is destabilizing?
Crimeo wrote: You're just like... telling us "this is what's logical" but not explaining why it is the obvious logical conclusion.
It's possible that you may be onto something, and that's why I made the thread to consider other angles, but I can't buy into it without SOME kind of justifications.
1) WHY is the government trying to lock everything down? You're describing what a lockdown might ideally look like, but you have not described motivations for this clearly to me
Stability.
Okay, let me try to explain. Society works on a system that, fundamentally, is a giant game of resource management. Space, currency, etc. You want to keep this relatively stable. This is why certain things in real life seem so odd, such as why a country would give another country money when there are problems in their home country that money could help with. The reason is usually in order to stabilize the region to improve trade to ensure that resources can be acquired that, without, would cause local disruption.
It is super complicate but in the Trippyverse, without very strict controls, the entire system would break down. Unlimited, easy access, food means that farmers find that their crops are worth a lot less and as such they cannot maintain their standard of living off of selling crops. Thus they convert their farmland into land for other uses. (We know this happens IRL btw) This causes other industries to start suffering as more competition enters the market which also can devalue certain entire industries (If farmland converts to housing, suddenly all housing in the area is less valuable. This can lead to certain industries becoming non-viable but necessary and this is why in real life we have things like farming subsidies, to keep industries that are still necessary viable in an unfavorable fiscal climate.) which causes civil unrest overtime due to the circumstances surrounding it.
You see, even currency is a finite resource. There is only a set amount of coins in the realm after all. Without enough of that in circulation businesses cannot function. When industries devalue without subsidized aid eventually that means more wealth gathers, and stagnates. Without currency continuing to circulate without things like taxes and what not that typically don't work in a fantasy world where people aren't putting their funds in banks that can report wealth you see widespread squalor. (We know IRL this happens because there is a long history of it happening in most countries pre-industrial revolution.)
Thus controls have to be set in place by governing bodies to restrict and regulate anything that can cause such destabilization. Even simple spells like, "Create Food" could, if used wide-spread, create a financial sector collapse.
Or to put this in common terms - Magic, in and of itself, can, over-time, create serious problems in the wide spread.
Imagine the following:
If you can create your own food (for free), your own housing (for free), tend to all of your own needs (for free) then of course you would likely do so. You would also suddenly find yourself with a lot of extra income. Good for you. Bad for the farmer (who you aren't buying food from), bad for the land owner (who you aren't rending/buying from), bad for the government (who you aren't paying land taxes to), bad for the needs suppliers.
This creates, societal, a situation of haves and have-nots. Either you have magic, or your do not. Those who are still supplying the non-magical way have a reduced population to sell to, which means they will have to raise prices, which creates its own set of problems for the peasantry.
Alternatively if the haves are supplying the have-nots with free food and services then the people who supply those things non-magically have their products devalued.
It would take me far more than a forum post to get into every detail but I think this serves the purpose needed for why they'd get paranoid. Because widespread magic in the way the Trippyverse uses it would create a very unstable society.
Quote: 2) What stops me from just meeting one single criminal that knows anyone who can make a private demiplane, and then going there and now being completely inaccessible to your city police/king? Now we can run around and make all the fabrication traps we like and blah blah without being pestered. Realistically you can't. There is always a way to locate the demiplane. If you return to the main plane then you are vulnerable. The criminal is vulnerable. There are always counters to everything, sooner or later you'd get caught. You might be successful for a while but sooner or later you make a mistake, the criminal you work for makes a mistake, someone squeals, etc and then the jig is up.
Quote: 3) Once everybody else does this, and the king now has like 12 people in his kingdom still willing to put up with him, why is he still king? At that point you have total anarchy. You wouldn't have "12 people in his kingdom" you'd have just as many people, just as powerful as you, who want things to remain orderly who are on board with the king. On top of that you'd have the entire peasantry population who would mostly support the king.
Even worse, if everyone did as you said, what would eventually happen is a turf war between the factions who all did as you said and they would be slinging around powerful magic and the collateral damage would be immense. We know that happens because in similar real-world situations that is exactly what happens.
Quote: Save for those who seek order and stability The only thing I see unstable about tippyverse was allowing Wish and Miracle to not be limited in scope. Since in that form, they have no rules, they leave you with chaos because nothing ever reaches a stable resting equilibrium when wishes keep morphing to new things. Which is why I made that my one houserule in my version that wishes only replicate other spells.
What else about this is destabilizing? See all of the above.
Quote: which causes civil unrest overtime due to the circumstances surrounding it. Why would the destabilization of industry lead to civil unrest? This only makes sense to me if people need to work to feed themselves. They don't in tippyverse: food, shelter, and healthcare are all mind bogglingly cheap/free. As in like, a fraction of a copper per day, thanks to automatic magical traps. ONE create food trap can fee like... 100,000 people a day, and has a trivial one time cost. So I don't NEED money, nor do I need a job. Thus, I don't care if I'm unemployed and I have no reason to revolt if I am.
Quote: If you can create your own food (for free), your own housing (for free), tend to all of your own needs (for free) then of course you would likely do so. You would also suddenly find yourself with a lot of extra income. Good for you. Bad for the farmer (who you aren't buying food from), bad for the land owner (who you aren't rending/buying from), bad for the government (who you aren't paying land taxes to), bad for the needs suppliers. No not bad for any of them. Great for all of them. They ALSO have free food, housing, and everything else. So they don't give a damn that they are out of work.
Quote: This creates, societal, a situation of haves and have-nots. Either you have magic, or your do not. Everyone has magic, because the basic needs traps are simply build all over the place on the street. You don't even need government for that to happen. Any single nice guy out of millions of people is enough to meet all of their needs for eternity.
Quote: "Create Food" could, if used wide-spread, create a financial sector collapse. So what? We don't need a financial sector anymore. We don't need industry anymore. We don't even really need currency or economics or taxes anymore, if all needs are trivially taken care of with infinite, bottomless traps that cost a pittance to set up.
Quote: There is always a way to locate the demiplane. Like what? You need a tuning fork tuned to the frequency of the plane, only a couple people would know the frequency (likely only permanent residents). What are these ways, specifically, that you're thinking of?
Also realize that there is not one demiplane, but probably like 50,000 of them, all with separate security and guest lists.
Quote: Even worse, if everyone did as you said, what would eventually happen is a turf war We literally magically create our own turf. Why would you have a war over something that is infinitely abundant and effectively free (fabricate traps can make both forks and diamond dust).
Quote: At that point you have total anarchy. Globally, yeah, pretty much. (Though within each demiplane there should be government still, just more like local fairly chill government, since it's easy to just exile people)
"It would be total anarchy" is not an argument against this reality happening. You act as if anarchy is physically impossible, or something, when in fact it was the natural state of existence for BILLIONS of years (and millions of years with sapient hominids around) versus governments only being around for 5,000-10,000 or so, depending on location.
Anarchy is neither impossible, unstable, nor even necessarily a bad thing, if the need for government has passed.
Yeah, the Tippyverse has a post-scarcity economy; there's pretty much nothing that can't be obtained in unlimited quantities for free by using magic, once the initial startup costs are taken care of.
The world would end looking more like Star Trek TNG.
As for finding the demi-planes. Go to the astral or ethereal plane and cast find the path.
As far as I can tell nothing will stop a find the path effect nor can commune be prevented.
Find the path with respect to the nearest inhabited demi-plane. From there use commune to figure the range and then teleport nearby. From there a standard search should turn it up.
I am not sure if you can simply change planes while on the astral or ethereal but a wish will do it.
Quote: Go to the astral or ethereal plane and cast find the path. That doesn't help you enter the plane, it just shows you where the (impassable) boundary is.
To get into the plane, you still have to cast plane shift, which requires as a material component a fork tuned to the plane's frequency, which you still don't know, even if you're looking right at the edge of it. Gate says "like the plane shift spell, except [differences that don't matter]" And I don't intend to leave a permanent portal to this demiplane for you to find. So how are you getting in?
Quote: I am not sure if you can simply change planes while on the astral or ethereal but a wish will do it. My one and only house rule as described in the OP is that wishes and miracles are restricted to replicating other spells only. That is absolutely critical for any sort of stable society, for exactly this sort of reason.
Just bring along a high level barbarian to the astral/ethereal plane and have him/her Spell Sunder each demiplane one at a time at the boundary. It doesn't matter if you can't enter the demiplane if you can destroy them at will.
Celanian wrote: Just bring along a high level barbarian to the astral/ethereal plane and have him/her Spell Sunder each demiplane one at a time at the boundary. It doesn't matter if you can't enter the demiplane if you can destroy them at will. That is an excellent idea.
However, looking at follow the path more carefully, it says "The location must be on the same plane as you are at the time of casting."
So the spell should not "know" what's going on in other planes, and shouldn't be able to distinguish which of the plane membranes out there is the one that corresponds to the plane with Johnny Finnigan in it.
Thus, what do you tell it? What's your target location? "The outside of the plane with Johnny Finnigan in it" "Who is Johnny Finnigan? I [the spell] don't know who that is, there's nobody by that name in the astral plane right now, so I don't know which plane boundary you refer to." *fizzle*
An additional solution if that doesn't work for some reason would be to instead of living in ONE plane, live in 3,000 tiny planes that are all slightly smaller than a hunting lodge, with permanent portals between them (but not to outside the network). In the astral plane, these should be scattered around individually, and thus NONE of them is a "significant/notable" enough location as per Find the Path. But functionally, they still serve us just as well.
That's where simulacra/gate abuse can kick in and you have thousands or millions of hunter killer groups hunting these demiplanes.
YMMV, but a permanent 9th level spell effect certainly sounds like it'd be significant/notable enough for Find the Path to locate.
Another issue: The astral plane MUST be at least 4th or 5th dimensional. There is no other possible way for it to border the ethereal, material, and shadow all at once and also those border one another, at every point in 3D space.
Thus, one could also just rule that "As 3D creatures, your hunter squads only ever see an infinitely thin 3D slice of the astral plane in which ZERO other plane boundaries are ever visible. It is empty sky literally forever. To move in the other dimensions requires magic for 3D creatures"
Think of it like the material plane being 2D and us all being Mario characters. The astral plane is then a giant living room with 100 different TV screens all playing platform games. When Mario leaves a TV screen using magic, he can still only see an impossibly thin 2D slice of the living room, just a different one, because he's still only 2D. And if all the screens are lined up, he will likely never see any part of any other TV screen no matter how far he travels mudnanely (in 2D for him). He must always use magic to move otherwise, and the only magic that exists for that only allows you to type in a location, not to wander freely. Plus, even if you could wander freely, the "single frame" of another plane boundary passing by would be infinitely brief and impossible to see.
Crimeo wrote: Another issue: The astral plane MUST be at least 4th or 5th dimensional. There is no other possible way for it to border the ethereal, material, and shadow all at once and also those border one another, at every point in 3D space.
Thus, one could also just rule that "As 3D creatures, your hunter squads only ever see an infinitely thin 3D slice of the astral plane in which ZERO other plane boundaries are ever visible. It is empty sky literally forever. To move in the other dimensions requires magic for 3D creatures"
Think of it like the material plane being 2D and us all being Mario characters. The astral plane is then a giant living room with 100 different TV screens all playing platform games. When Mario leaves a TV screen using magic, he can still only see an impossibly thin 2D slice of the living room, just a different one, because he's still only 2D. And if all the screens are lined up, he will likely never see any part of any other TV screen no matter how far he travels mudnanely (in 2D for him). He must always use magic to move otherwise, and the only magic that exists for that only allows you to type in a location, not to wander freely. Plus, even if you could wander freely, the "single frame" of another plane boundary passing by would be infinitely brief and impossible to see.
If you want to houserule it this way fine, but you should be very clear this is a houserule. By the way, the game defines "coterminous" as "touching at some point". Not what it normally means.
The Shadow and Ethereal planes are coterminous and coexistent with the Material plane because they all overlap and exist in the same space. The shadow plane is the material plane, just smaller and evil. The ethereal plane is the material plane, just ghosty.
The Astral plane is coterminous with every plane because it overlaps with everything. It's the background of the universe. Presumably it was originally based on the classical concept that empty space was instead some magical substance (aether). But it's not some higher dimensional construct. It's just infinite and overlaps with everything.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Crimeo wrote: To get into the plane, you still have to cast plane shift, which requires as a material component a fork tuned to the plane's frequency, which you still don't know, even if you're looking right at the edge of it. Gate says "like the plane shift spell, except [differences that don't matter]" And I don't intend to leave a permanent portal to this demiplane for you to find. So how are you getting in? Cast wish for a tuning fork keyed to the plane... Job done.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
sunbeam wrote:
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.
That's because in essence DC has absolutely no interest in writing in Moorcock's style for their superhero lines. To be fair, they have used that approach extensively in their horror comics.
Comics Derail:
On-topic, using Wish to get a tuning fork attuned to a certain plane runs afoul of the general "don't use Wish for things other than replicating spells and inherent bonuses" rule. After all, leaving Wish too wide open results in utter insanity.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Chengar Qordath wrote: Comics Derail:
** spoiler omitted **
On-topic, using Wish to get a tuning fork attuned to a certain plane runs afoul of the general "don't use Wish for things other than replicating spells and inherent bonuses" rule. After all, leaving Wish too wide open results in utter insanity.
And you have no problems with the Tippyverse's abuse of magic traps???
Bob Bob Bob wrote: If you want to houserule it this way fine, but you should be very clear this is a houserule. By the way, the game defines "coterminous" as "touching at some point". Not what it normally means.
The Shadow and Ethereal planes are coterminous and coexistent with the Material plane because they all overlap and exist in the same space. The shadow plane is the material plane, just smaller and evil. The ethereal plane is the material plane, just ghosty.
The Astral plane is coterminous with every plane because it overlaps with everything. It's the background of the universe. Presumably it was originally based on the classical concept that empty space was instead some magical substance (aether)....
I don't see how that's a house rule. House rule implies specifically breaking/changing RAW. This simply isn't specified in detail in RAW at all, and I'm deducing a logical interpretation from the facts given.
It's literally geometrically impossible for the astral plane to be any less than 5 dimensional.
Since the shadow and ethereal planes touch the material plane at EVERY point (we know this because, say, the blink spell works at any location), the minimal possibility is that they immediately sandwich it on either side in a 4-dimensional space (that would be the astral plane, the space where the other planes reside). But that would mean no means of approach otherwise left open if only a 4D space, so given the fact that you can travel from points in the material plane to other planes besides those requires at least a 5th dimension to provide other angles of access to the material plane.
So once we have established that both the astral plane is 5+ dimensional, and that you MUST travel through those 4th and/or 5th dimensions to move between at least the three most common planes, then we can also deduce that movement across those other dimensions must require some sort of magic, since normal animals and such cannot just hop planes randomly. (But magical beasts like phase spiders and ghosts can in a limited fashion).
Thus, a barbarian and a wizard can be deduced not to be able to just fly around in all 5 dimensions in the astral plane at will. They can reasonably move in 3, but would need planar travel magicks to move across the other ones, just as normal. Basically "Plane shift" and similar ARE simply spells that move you some distance through the 4th or 5th dimension. And they are actually described as such more or less in Paizo materials.
So if those demiplanes are not in the same 3D slice of the astral plane that you are in right now, then you can't get to them. And if demiplanes are scattered around the existing planes throughout the 5 dimensions when made (pretty reasonable), then there's an infinite % chance that the one you want is not on the same 3D slice as you at any given time.
Find the Path will do effectively nothing, because it will be tracing the most direct path to the target in 5D space, a path of which you can only see a single point in your 3D slice. You can't even see which direction it is going, much less follow it.
LazarX wrote: Chengar Qordath wrote: Comics Derail:
** spoiler omitted **
On-topic, using Wish to get a tuning fork attuned to a certain plane runs afoul of the general "don't use Wish for things other than replicating spells and inherent bonuses" rule. After all, leaving Wish too wide open results in utter insanity.
And you have no problems with the Tippyverse's abuse of magic traps??? Apples and oranges. Tippyverse traps are technically RAW, while using wish beyond the parameters of spells and inherent bonuses is pure GM fiat. Not to mention unrestrained use of wishes it would quickly reduce the game to absurdity.
"I wish to become King!"
"Well I wish to become Empress!"
"Then I wish to become a god!"
Sure, the Tippyverse stretches RAW to the max, but it does so to create an interesting fantasy setting with a post-scarcity economy created by ubiquitous magic. And by doing so also addresses all the ways magic should change the traditional medieval stasis setting fantasy tends to be stuck in.
Quote: Cast wish for a tuning fork keyed to the plane... Job done. As mentioned above, there is one house rule here mentioned in the OP: Wish only replicates other spells, nothing else.
Without that one house rule, no possible stability can be obtained, so it is unfortunately necessary. Traps and everything else, on the other hand, have limits. High limits, but limits. Thus, equilibrium is still possible with them.
Crimeo wrote: I don't see how that's a house rule. House rule implies specifically breaking/changing RAW. This simply isn't specified in detail in RAW at all, and I'm deducing a logical interpretation from the facts given.
It's literally geometrically impossible for the astral plane to be any less than 5 dimensional.
Since the shadow and ethereal planes touch the material plane at EVERY point (we know this because, say, the blink spell works at any location), the minimal possibility is that they immediately sandwich it on either side in a 4-dimensional space (that would be the astral plane, the space where the other planes reside). But that would mean no means of approach otherwise left open if only a 4D space, so given the fact that you can travel from points in the material plane to other planes besides those requires at least a 5th dimension to provide other angles of access to the material plane.
So once we have established that both the astral plane is 5+ dimensional, and that you MUST travel through those 4th and/or 5th dimensions to move between at least the three most common planes, then we can also deduce that movement across those other dimensions must require some sort of magic, since normal animals and such cannot just hop planes randomly. (But magical beasts like phase spiders and ghosts can in a limited fashion).
Thus, a barbarian and a wizard can be deduced not to be able to just fly around in all 5 dimensions in the astral plane at will. They can reasonably move in 3, but would need planar travel magicks to move across the other ones, just as normal. Basicall "Plane shift" and similar here ARE simply spells that move you some distance through the 4th or 5th dimension.
So if those demiplanes are not in the same 3D slice of the astral plane that you are in right now, then you can't get to them. And if demiplanes are scattered around the existing planes throughout the 5 dimensions when made (pretty reasonable), then there's an infinite % chance that the one you want is not on the same 3D slice as you at any given time.
Find the Path will do effectively nothing, because it will be tracing the most direct path to the target in 5D space, a path of which you can only see a single point in your 3D slice. You can't even see which direction it is going, much less follow it.
Making up a rule where none exists is still a houserule. You can claim it's the "logical interpretation" but it's your interpretation, making it your rule. Thus, houserule.
The astral, ethereal, shadow, and material plane are all identical in dimensionality. If you insist they're 4th dimensional because you can use magic to travel between them, sure, but none of the planes actually grant you the ability to do that natively. All of them require magic to do it, and all of them require the same magic, so they're all identical in that respect.
The ethereal and shadow planes do not "sandwich" the material plane. They're coterminous and coexistent. They perfectly overlap every point on the material plane, just shifted a dimension away. The shadow plane also shrinks its own dimensions, but that's irrelevant. The astral plane touches (but doesn't necessarily overlap) with every plane, though anywhere that teleport or dimension door functions has to be connected to the astral plane as well (meaning the astral plane overlaps pretty much every plane). It doesn't change its dimensionality in any way. The Earth does not have an extra dimension over any individual country in it.
Someone on the astral plane has control over 3 dimensions and exists in 2 more (time and which dimension). That's exactly the same as every other plane in existence. There might be more dimensions but nothing in your explanation shows how the astral plane would be any different than every other plane in that regard.
Tippyverse runs using 3.5 rules. It'd be a good idea to look at the correct rule set before commenting on how Trippyverse doesn't work in a different rule system. Of course the rules are different.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm
Quote: Making up a rule where none exists is still a houserule. The point of Tippyverse is to deviate from the book as little as possible, and see what results. In the case of critical details simply not being provided, the only way to "deviate as little as possible" is unfortunately still going to involve making a bunch of assumptions about any details not specified by the company.
Call it whatever you like, it doesn't matter for purposes of this thought experiment, because it is still the best you can do. You can only choose based on which one flows most logically from whatever is actually specified in RAW, nothing more.
Quote: The astral, ethereal, shadow, and material plane are all identical in dimensionality. Sure, I guess you could conceive of them as all being equal dimension planes inside some other (unnamed) larger dimensional holding space, and not the astral plane containing the others, while not breaking any of the listed rules. I find that less elegant (because it requires another unnamed space and I don't see why the wizards and such wouldn't have named it), but I admit it is consistent.
However, it doesn't matter for our purposes, because the barbarian thing will still not work if you're assuming this. "Find the Path" spell cannot find the other plane in this case, because the spell can only find the path to things inside the plane in which it is cast. So, plan fizzles.
That plan only made sense to begin with if the astral plane CONTAINED the other planes, not just touched them.
Where in RAW does it state that the Astral Plane has 5 dimensions? Where in RAW is "3D Slice" even defined and where is it stated that you can't get to another "3D Slice"?
Celanian wrote: Where in RAW does it state that the Astral Plane has 5 dimensions? Where in RAW is "3D Slice" even defined and where is it stated that you can't get to another "3D Slice"?
It doesn't. It doesn't say how it's shaped one way or the other. I was deducing the only possible conclusion that would allow for all of the stated spatial relationships to work, while also allowing the astral plane to contain the others.
As in my reply above, I admit it is alternatively possible that the astral plane simply neighbors all other planes, while still being only 3-dimensional, and all of them are within some other, unnamed, higher dimensional space.
Either way, though, the barbarian thing doesn't work, so meh.
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