Crimeo wrote: Yes exactly, M,E,S are the same size. When it says the planes overlap completely, it simply means that the ethereal is not bigger than the material, or vice versa, etc. Actually when they say "Overlap", I think it means they overlap.
Crimeo wrote: Yes exactly, M,E,S are the same size. When it says the planes overlap completely, it simply means that the ethereal is not bigger than the material, or vice versa, etc. There are no little bits "sticking out" from the lineup such that there wouldn't be any corresponding bits to travel to on the other plane(s).
Quote: I'm not seeing it unless you give the Material plane the same dimensions as the Astral plane. Easy, the astral plane and material plane are not described as coexistent with one another, so they don't have to overlap completely or be the same size... only M,E,S planes are described with that language. And those ARE all the same size and perfectly lined up in my model, with the larger astral blanketing them all.
You do realize you also said this less than eight hours ago: Crimeo wrote: Planes simply touch, they never actually share the same space. And for your information, the Shadow plane is not the same size as the Material plane. It occupies the same "metaplanar" space but distances on the plane are explicitly shorter than their Material plane equivalents.
Also, again, your model doesn't account for this at all. Your model has the Ethereal, Shadow, and Material on different parts of the Astral. Again, to quote yourself, less than eight hours ago:
Crimeo wrote: Quote: If there are multiple "default slices", one per plane, it would sorta defeat your entire idea. There's only one per plane. I said there could be up to two planes per default slice. Not 2 default slices per plane. The statement is not automatically reversible.
This is why people are arguing with you.
Crimeo wrote:
It doesn't matter if it's a dream. To play a game in a dream, we would still ideally want to have descriptions of as many ordered, consistent rules within that dream as possible for most consistent and strategic, etc. gameplay.
You can get perfectly consistent and ordered rules using the Pathfinder default with the dreamscape. The deity just dreams you to whatever plane you want to be at.
Or an alternative would be a gigantic computer simulation. NO magic required which according to your criteria makes it FAR superior to your model. Changing planes would be a simple matter of the computer code giving you a different location status. No 4D necessary at all.
Crimeo wrote:
Emphasis mine. There is no reason to have to commit to it being designed for this or any purpose, so I do not commit to that and it does not qualify. It is entirely possible that it is just a side effect of a plane that connects everything, later exploited by mortals for means it was not designed for.
If you pick a unique set of coordinates that needs to be known before use, that is encryption. It doesn't matter whether you pick it deliberately or randomly.
Crimeo wrote:
More powerful than astradaemons is all that matters. JJ has also recently said she is the most powerful deity, so whoever is in charge of the astradaemons is also less powerful than her.
I would dispute that she is most powerful. Rovagug and Azathoth are definitely more powerful. The fluff indicates that Asmodeus is at least as powerful.
The 4 horsemen collectively have driven off an invasion by Lamashtu. That indicates that all daemonkind collectively can fight a deity effectively.
Crimeo wrote:
If you prefer, the souls simply hang out on default astral slice in some cases for quite some time, before pharasma gets around to guiding/aiding them. Where the daemons can find them / defenders can find them. Or if you don't like souls "hanging around" then you should have the same problems with this in YOUR conception as well, so just edit out astradaemons for being poorly conceived in the first place. Either way.
If you have to change actual RAW/fluff just to accommodate this, it's a good indication that it's a houserule. If you want a houserule to allow this, fine but don't argue that this is in any way RAW.
Crimeo wrote:
No they can be on opposite sides of the plane from one another, thus both touching the same line. Though this would be weird, it is possible in the model. I would generally probably say it doesn't happen for simplicity in an actual campaign.
Planes simply touch, they never actually share the same space. The planes are all "sitting" directly "on top of" (or weirdly, below) the astral, not sharing its exact space. Thus there is room for 2 if astral is 4D (above and below) but no additional room to cram in any more.
There is no "opposite side" of the plane. If you allow that, then a single plane can accommodate all lines by just tilting the plane at a different angle for each line. In which case you don't need dimensional slices at all.
Milo v3 wrote: Actually when they say "Overlap", I think it means they overlap. Yeah... which means two things are the same size and touching and lined up. I just provided a dictionary definition and multiple examples in normal sentences, do you disagree with all those?
Quote: You do realize you also said this less than eight hours ago: I said that they touch and don't share the exact same space, and then 8 hours later, I said they touch and don't share the exact same space, yes. And?
Quote: Also, again, your model doesn't account for this at all. Your model has the Ethereal, Shadow, and Material on different parts of the Astral. Again, to quote yourself, less than eight hours ago: Yes, they are on different parts of the astral plane, directly touching one another. Imagine gluing three sheets of paper directly together. Do they take up the same exact space as one another? No. Are they both touching and overlapping one another and meeting the definition of Paizo-cooexistence? Yes.
Quote: the Shadow plane is not the same size as the Material plane. It occupies the same "metaplanar" space but distances on the plane are explicitly shorter than their Material plane equivalents. Okay well Paizo doesn't know what the word "overlap" means then. What do you want from me? Even saying "because magic" doesn't solve that any better. It's just straight up contradicting itself within a single sentence. By just the meanings of the words, two things cannot fully overlap one another without being the same size. Unfortunately that requires making some judgment call as to the minimal change that makes it not contradictory. Could be "same size but you move faster" for example.
The same paragraph also says it's a "reflection" and a "duplicate" neither of which really make sense either with being a different size. Whole section is just a mess. Again probably the smallest fix being "same size but faster" as it would address all of these in one swoop.
Quote: The deity just dreams you to whatever plane you want to be at. So you're eliminating the spells Plane Shift, Gate, etc.? I only have to want to be there?
Quote: Or an alternative would be a gigantic computer simulation. NO magic required which according to your criteria makes it FAR superior to your model. Changing planes would be a simple matter of the computer code giving you a different location status. No 4D necessary at all. This is no different. Either you're talking about the literal data on the harddrive, etc., in which case you've violated RAW because there would be no such thing as a plane being "between" or "larger than" another from this perspective.
Or you're talking about the virtual simulation, in which case you're right back to "Okay well what are the rules of the simulated world..." and I'd want those to be as explicit and objective and consistent as possible for the best gameplay.
Quote: I would dispute that she is most powerful. I tell you the creative director of Paizo confirms she is most powerful and your response is "I would dispute that"?
And yes maybe if ALL the daemons band together, they can beat the most powerful god if she were forcing them to do so by INVADING. But who said anything about invading? We are talking about teleporting individual souls to safety from the clutches of individual non-divine astradaemons, in a neutral plane (i.e. no invasions, no attacks, etc.). That's no contest whatsoever.
Quote: If you have to change actual RAW/fluff just to accommodate this, it's a good indication that it's a houserule. If you want a houserule to allow this, fine but don't argue that this is in any way RAW. The thing I just described is consistent with fluff. The astradaemons hunt around on the astral plane and gobble up souls there. Throw some defenders whatever they are in the default slices too if you like.
Quote: There is no "opposite side" of the plane. If you allow that, then a single plane can accommodate all lines by just tilting the plane at a different angle for each line. In which case you don't need dimensional slices at all. Of course there are opposite sides of a plane. There are opposite sides of everything, point, line, plane, cube, that have finite size. I do not know what you're talking about with the rest of this post. If other planes approached to the point of touching the exact same spot on the astral plane, on the same side, then those other planes would now be taking up precisely the same space, and would thus just be one plane.
...there is no such thing as the "opposite side" of a point. Period. Pun not intended. If you don't understand math, please stop trying to use it.
Your answer to the rules that disagree with your point cannot be "they don't know what they're talking about". Let me show you. Material plane: x, y, z. Shadow plane: 1/2 x, 1/2 y, 1/2 z. Look, the Shadow plane is 1/8th the size of the Material plane while still occupying all of the same values for x, y, and z! This is a very basic scalar transformation. Again, if you don't understand the math, please stop trying to use it.
You still haven't addressed how every point in the Material "covers" a point in the Ethereal and Shadow and is also "covered" by a point in the Ethereal and Shadow without them occupying the same space. That was the definition for overlap you provided. Coexistent requires that they both overlap each other. That means that every point on the the Material must cover a point on the Ethereal and Shadow and be covered by a point on the Ethereal and Shadow. This requires you to pick an orientation for "up", at a bare minimum, but should also include how to derive the relationship between the points. I can think of a few ways to do it with rings but it doesn't matter, because you didn't. And that means your model doesn't address it. We are using your definitions and your model and it fails. The paper example? They don't overlap each other. Either they don't cover each other at all (sideways, like this |||) or the top one covers two and the middle one covers one and the bottom one covers none. All three pieces of paper need to "cover" the other two. They do not. "Overlap" and "cover" require an orientation and an "up", and no value for "up" will make your paper model work. I used the normal "away from the Earth" up but for whatever "up" you pick the only orientations are either going to be "all three edges face 'up'" or "'up' reaches one of the three planes last and that plane covers nothing".
Quote: ...there is no such thing as the "opposite side" of a point. A point on a number line has numbers greater than it, and numbers less than it, agree? Disagree?
You may be thinking of a point in a 3D space, but don't. Think of a point along a line, because that's all I'm modeling here. We want the universe to fit in as low dimensional of a space as possible. So since we only NEED a line to spread out the astral from the other ones, we should only propose one extra line to spread them out on. And any point on a line has exactly two sides to approach from. There are no "other angles" etc. to worry about.
Yes one could just say "Oh why not let's have 37 dimensions!" and that would change things, but that would be needlessly complex without buying us any less magical of a universe or any more consistent rules, so it shouldn't be done.
Quote: Your answer to the rules that disagree with your point cannot be "they don't know what they're talking about". When they misuse words that they have given no special definition for / defy logic, it can.
If the rules said "Grass is ALWAYS green in Golarion!" And then in the next sentence "By the way, grass is NEVER green in Golarion!" Then they would just be wrong and if any player asked in game what color grass was or cast prestidigitation to make some orange, you would have to alter some rule in the book to proceed. In this case, the simplest alteration I can think of is the shadow plane is the same size but things just move faster in it.
Quote: Material plane: x, y, z. Shadow plane: 1/2 x, 1/2 y, 1/2 z. Look, the Shadow plane is 1/8th the size of the Material plane while still occupying all of the same values for x, y, and z They no longer "completely overlap" each other. It completely overlaps one way, but the other way it only overlaps 1/8. Even if you have magical connections linking all the scaled points for travel purposes, the actual planes still could not be overlapping each other "completely"
Quote: Either they don't cover each other at all (sideways, like this |||) or the top one covers two and the middle one covers one and the bottom one covers none. All three pieces of paper need to "cover" the other two. They do not. "Overlap" and "cover" require an orientation and an "up", and no value for "up" will make your paper model work. A covers B from the left, B covers A from the right. There is no privileged perspective in cosmic space that we need commit to or respect over any other.
Also just what the hell would it even mean for the shadow plane to be 1/2 size anyway, in terms of role playing? What does it look like when I go there?
Does everything look like a doll house? It doesn't sound like it. (and if so, what if I go there while standing in a tiny cave that barely fits me? Is my head now in the ceiling and I am suffocating, minecraft style?)
And if it's not like doll houses, then that means I'M smaller too. But if I'M smaller, then wouldn't I be moving more slowly...? Thus negating the whole concept of using it for fast travel? 1/2 plane, I'm 1/2 size, moving 1/2 speed, I still get to my destination in exactly the normal time...
It doesn't even make sense from a story perspective before you even get to the cosmos issue.
Yes, a point on a number line does have points on two different sides. A point itself does not have sides. It doesn't have dimensions. Therefore it cannot have opposite sides. That's the definition of a point. Your example is opposite sides of a line with respect to a point. Not the same thing.
Except in this case they're not wrong. The Shadow and Material still completely overlap each other. The reverse scalar is just doubling all values of the Shadow plane. You can prove me wrong with any single point on the real 3D plane that doesn't exist on both the Material and Shadow plane, but I know you can't. Because I can double or halve any number you come up with. That's how real numbers and infinitely small work.
You move faster on the Shadow plane because you move your normal speed and when you transfer back, you've actually moved twice as far (or whatever the scalar is). If you walk 30 feet on the Shadow plane and come back to the Material plane, you're 60 feet away (again, assuming half size) from where you started. You're not moving faster, you're moving the same speed on a smaller scaled plane.
Let's go back to the paper example. Assume it's ABC. Even if we allow you to change what orientation "up" is for each plane (which is debatable), B can never cover both A and C at once. You cannot have two different orientations for "up" for the same plane. I already said that there might be some way to do it with nonorientable surfaces but that's not what your model uses. If there's some way your model addresses this, by all means clarify it. But I'm not seeing it and neither is anyone else who's come to this thread.
Quote: You can prove me wrong with any single point on the real 3D plane that doesn't exist on both the Material and Shadow plane, but I know you can't. What? If Material spans from coordinate 0-100 on three dimensions, and shadow is 1/4 scale and thus spans from, say, coordinate 0-25 on three dimensions, then, for example, point (75,75,75) is in the material plane and not in the shadow plane. This seems obvious.
If they have all the same points, that would be called "Being the same size"...
Quote: B can never cover both A and C at once. ? B covers A from the left, and B covers C from the right. This is indeed happening at once, from two perspectives that exist at once.
Crimeo wrote: Quote: You can prove me wrong with any single point on the real 3D plane that doesn't exist on both the Material and Shadow plane, but I know you can't. What? If Material spans from coordinate 0-100 on three dimensions, and shadow is 1/4 scale and thus spans from, say, coordinate 0-25 on three dimensions, then, for example, point (75,75,75) is in the material plane and not in the shadow plane. This seems obvious.
If they have all the same points, that would be called "Being the same size"...
Quote: B can never cover both A and C at once. ? B covers A from the left, and B covers C from the right. This is indeed happening at once, from two perspectives that exist at once. I feel like Morboing this.
That is not how math works!
(75, 75, 75) exists on the Shadow plane as (37.5, 37.5, 37.5). It doesn't matter if the Material plane spans 0-100 and the Shadow plane spans 0-50, they have the exact same number of points. That's how infinity works. And that means they occupy the same amount of space.
B cannot have two different orientations at once. Period. That's not how orientation works. Again, if you don't understand the math stop trying to use it.
Quote: It doesn't matter if the Material plane spans 0-100 and the Shadow plane spans 0-50, they have the exact same number of points. You can't do arithmetic on infinity, it is not a number. "Infinity - infinity = 0" isn't a thing. Undefined / invalid. It is just a concept you talk about when something does not have a finite limit. So they don't have the same number of points, because they don't have ANY specific number of points. They both have infinite/abstractly unquantifiably many points.
What you can quantify though, is that one of them definitely has a point that the other one doesn't have (75,75,75) And also one is bigger than the other: because size is based on multiplying all dimensional lengths together and has nothing to do with "number of points"
(Points have 0 volume, ANY number of them thrown in a bowl = zero volume. So you can't even talk about volume that way.)
Quote: And that means they occupy the same amount of space. So anything of any size has the same number of points because "that's how infinity works" and then everything with the same number of points takes up the same amount of space, huh? Ergo, everything in the universe is the same size? This is why you don't treat infinity as a number, you get very silly results like this.
Quote: B cannot have two different orientations at once. Why not? There is no privileged perspective or gravity. So I can be standing over there oriented one way and you can be standing over there oriiented the other and we can both very well at the same time say "yup, overlapping!"
I understand why you don't like that, but it's the best you can do and is fairly reasonable. Overlapping was never ever intended to be used in such a situation or appropriate or well defined at all for that reason. Paizo decided to use terms that were not developed for rigorous mathematical purposes, in order to not come across as opaque to normal customers.
And maybe it worked great for business purposes, people skim the text and go "cool!" and move on. But when you examine it carefully, it backfires and you get silliness that doesn't actually add up to anything that can quite make sense technically. Such as saying nonsense like "both overlap each other completely and are not the same size."
There's nothing you or I can say that makes it suddenly not illogical or suddenly turn it into some rigorous technical description. It's okay man, we can let go... it's just an imperfect book. Gotta staple up the wound and move on.
Crimeo wrote: You can't do arithmetic on infinity, it is not a number. "Infinity - infinity = 0" isn't a thing. Undefined / invalid. It is just a concept you talk about when something does not have a finite limit. So they don't have the same number of points, because they don't have ANY specific number of points. They both have infinite/abstractly unquantifiably many points.
What you can quantify though, is that one of them definitely has a point that the other one doesn't have (75,75,75) And also one is bigger than the other: because size is based on multiplying all dimensional lengths together and has nothing to do with "number of points"
(Points have 0 volume, ANY number of them thrown in a bowl = zero volume. So you can't even talk about volume that way.)
I did arithmetic on infinity on a very regular basis. It's called the real numbers, I'd use the proper symbol but I have no idea how to get mathematical symbols on this keyboard.
Again, (75, 75, 75) is just (37.5, 37.5, 37.5) on the Shadow plane.
There are exactly as many points on the real line between 0 and 100 as there are between 0 and 50. I can even write a quick mapping. Let n belong to the real numbers between 0 and 100. Let x belong to the real numbers between 0 and 50. The mapping is x=n/2. Let me know if there's any value of x or n that doesn't work. Yes, yes it's weird. That's how infinity works.
We can absolutely talk about an infinite summation of zero volume things. It's called integration. It's fairly widespread. Crimeo wrote: So anything of any size has the same number of points because "that's how infinity works" and then everything with the same number of points takes up the same amount of space, huh? Ergo, everything in the universe is the same size? This is why you don't treat infinity as a number, you get very silly results like this.
Well, specifically, I can create a one to one mapping between two spaces, yes, depending on the spaces and the property of the spaces. Hell, for instance, may have a one to one mapping with the Material plane, while the Abyss may not (it's generally the difference between countably infinite and uncountably infinite). Crimeo wrote: Why not? There is no privileged perspective or gravity. So I can be standing over there oriented one way and you can be standing over there oriiented the other and we can both very well at the same time say "yup, overlapping!"
I understand why you don't like that, but it's the best you can do and is fairly reasonable. Overlapping was never ever intended to be used in such a situation or appropriate or well defined at all for that reason. Paizo decided to use terms that were not developed for rigorous mathematical purposes, in order to not come across as opaque to normal customers.
And maybe it worked great for business purposes, people skim the text and go "cool!" and move on. But when you examine it carefully, it backfires and you get silliness that doesn't actually add up to anything that can quite make sense technically. Such as saying nonsense like "both overlap each other completely and are not the same size."
There's nothing you or I can say that makes it suddenly not illogical or suddenly turn it into some rigorous technical description. It's okay man, we can let go... it's just an imperfect book. Gotta staple up the wound and move on.
Because you chose a definition for overlap that uses the word "cover". Cover requires that there be an "over" which in turn requires that there be an "up". Gravity and perspective do not enter into it. You need the entire plane to cover the other plane which means you're observing from somewhere outside of both planes. And on that somewhere outside you only have one "up". Therefore the sandwiched plane cannot cover both of the two outer planes. Again, assuming you're allowed to choose a different "up" for each plane, which I have yet to see any argument for.
Paizo, presumably, assumes that all of the Material/Ethereal/Shadow occupy the same space, dimension shifted just a little, and the Astral space is like outer space, except between the planes. Which is what I've said is the much easier solution and actually works. This is not the book's problem. This is your model's problem, and you have not made any effort to fix it.
You guys realise the shadow changes dimensions based on the people within right? You cannot use math with how planes work in PF, they do not function logically.
Crimeo wrote:
"The deity just dreams you to whatever plane you want to be at."
So you're eliminating the spells Plane Shift, Gate, etc.? I only have to want to be there?
Those spells are the signal to the dreaming deity to translate you. It dreams you to the next plane and doesn't need any 4D space.
Crimeo wrote:
"Or an alternative would be a gigantic computer simulation. NO magic required which according to your criteria makes it FAR superior to your model. Changing planes would be a simple matter of the computer code giving you a different location status. No 4D necessary at all."
This is no different. Either you're talking about the literal data on the harddrive, etc., in which case you've violated RAW because there would be no such thing as a plane being "between" or "larger than" another from this perspective.
Or you're talking about the virtual simulation, in which case you're right back to "Okay well what are the rules of the simulated world..." and I'd want those to be as explicit and objective and consistent as possible for the best gameplay.
Do you understand how computer simulations work? If you want to be in another plane and have the proper in-game powers, the computer just immediately changes a few settings and you're there.
The default rules work just fine in being consistent and objective with the computer simulation. The Astral plane is one huge plane instead of having infinite layers. There are no "slices".
And since you've already declared "no magic" > "magic", you pretty much have to accept the computer simulation model of the Pathfinder Universe.
Crimeo wrote:
"I would dispute that she is most powerful. "
I tell you the creative director of Paizo confirms she is most powerful and your response is "I would dispute that"?
And yes maybe if ALL the daemons band together, they can beat the most powerful god if she were forcing them to do so by INVADING. But who said anything about invading? We are talking about teleporting individual souls to safety from the clutches of individual non-divine astradaemons, in a neutral plane (i.e. no invasions, no attacks, etc.). That's no contest whatsoever.
Show me a link to JJ's exact quote. Because in Golarion Canon, Rovagug was barely stopped by all other deities combined including Pharasma with many deities perishing in the battle. This is EXPLCITLY STATED in the sourcebooks.
And Azathoth is canonically the most powerful deity in the universe if Lovecraft is introduced which Pathfinder has done so.
Crimeo wrote:
The thing I just described is consistent with fluff. The astradaemons hunt around on the astral plane and gobble up souls there. Throw some defenders whatever they are in the default slices too if you like.
You described Astradaemons continually on the material plane using deathwatch while visible on a continual basis within 30 feet of dying people and then plane shifting at the exact moment of death. To be consistent with fluff, there would have to be millions of Astradaemon sightings every year on Golarion. And millions of sightings of demons/devils/angels/archons/etc as well who sportingly wait while the Astradaemons hunt until the shift to the Astral Plane.
Show me anywhere in the fluff that millions of Astradaemons and defenders are sighted every year on Golarion.
Crimeo wrote:
Of course there are opposite sides of a plane. There are opposite sides of everything, point, line, plane, cube, that have finite size. I do not know what you're talking about with the rest of this post. If other planes approached to the point of touching the exact same spot on the astral plane, on the same side, then those other planes would now be taking up precisely the same space, and would thus just be one plane.
These lines, planes, volumes, etc do not have finite size.
What would be the "opposite side" of an infinite volume containing a plane?
Looking for one of these?
∑∆ƒ≈∫∞
Each of you should be able to copy & paste as needed. I generated them in a word processor and ported them over.
Personally, I'm enjoying our journey around the ∑∞ .
Couldn't you just secure your earthly town from teleport attack via witchgates strategically placed? Obviously you'd have to have a way to bypass them, some kind of "key" or marking, maybe even a passport. Or you could run them as pseudo-customs agencies and force anyone who's not a high ranking military official to stop at each witchgate and have their papers checked.
Obviously this is in a scenario where demiplanes aren't an option, either by fiat or from some underlying fluff source of magic (gods don't want the worshippers from whom they draw power to suddenly leave the plane they get their greatest amount of energy from).
Crimeo wrote: 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:
Huh? No. That isn't how fabricate works.
Fabricate turns a material into a good, it does not simply synthesize the good and leave you the material. Even if you were to create a fabricate trap, you are stretching pretty far to suggest that it no longer needs a target (which is the material component as well).
I don't think even by the tritest RAW ruling you could find an argument that supports this, given how fabricate is written in both target, component, and text.
Crimeo wrote: 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.
Those headbands still take 16 (or is it 18, I haven't used those items in a game in years) days (at minimum) of 8 hour crafting to create.
Quote: Huh? No. That isn't how fabricate works.
Fabricate turns a material into a good, it does not simply synthesize the good and leave you the material. Even if you were to create a fabricate trap, you are stretching pretty far to suggest that it no longer needs a target (which is the material component as well).
I suppose it might still need the target, yes. It doesn't really matter, though, because I can just do true creation traps. They merely take longer to build, so I was favoring the faster cheaper way.
Quote: Those headbands still take 16 (or is it 18, I haven't used those items in a game in years) days (at minimum) of 8 hour crafting to create. So? People live for like 80 years. And once I'm another powerful wizard, I can give back to my community with more gear.
Quote: These lines, planes, volumes, etc do not have finite size.
What would be the "opposite side" of an infinite volume containing a plane?
Some of the planes (IIRC) are infinite in three dimensions. Not in any additional dimension, though. So a plane can have sides along dimensions beyond it. For the astral, it has two sides along the 5th dimension (the unnamed space/box holding all the planes is 5th dimensional)
Also, apparently at least one of the planes is NOT infinite in 3-dimensions, because otherwise it wouldn't make sense to say "The shadow plane is smaller than the material plane." Shadow cannot be infinite as written.
Quote: You described Astradaemons continually on the material plane using deathwatch while visible on a continual basis Yeah and you talked me out of it, so now I'm describing them as just swimming around in the default slice hunting souls that also swim around in the default slice due to pharasma's laziness in saving or guiding them promptly. Which is consistent with fluff.
Quote: Show me JJ's exact quote He has said it in a few places, but here is one. Sorry I don't know how to link an exact quote. It's a few posts down. It does explicitly say "even more so than Rovagug"
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2svut&page=1?Power-level-of-various-gods
Quote: The default rules work just fine in being consistent and objective with the computer simulation. The Astral plane is one huge plane instead of having infinite layers. There are no "slices". Yes it would work mechanically. "Because [unspecified] programming" is precisely the same as your earlier "Because [unspecified] magic" and again the same as "Because [unspecified] dreamer's rules" I agree with this just like I agreed "because magic" would work mechanically quite awhile back.
But none of those are any better or different to me than "because magic." I want to EXPLAIN things and specify them within a set of state-able rules that make sense, so that players can extrapolate more things from those rules, predict from them, and engage with them directly. I find this to be a more desirable gameplay goal than handwaving, because my players cannot engage with handwaving, making it a less rich world.
Quote: You guys realise the shadow changes dimensions based on the people within right? I do not realize this? Where are you getting this from? And how exactly does it work in a way that explains things?
Quote: I did arithmetic on infinity on a very regular basis. It's called the real numbers, I'd use the proper symbol but I have no idea how to get mathematical symbols on this keyboard. I know what a real number is. If anything real numbers are actually a great example of how infinity DOESN'T work arithmetically like this. Because there are infinitely many integers numbers, and also infinitely many real numbers, but indisputably MORE real numbers than integers.
Infinity - infinity =/= 0. Whoops!
Quote: Again, (75, 75, 75) is just (37.5, 37.5, 37.5) on the Shadow plane. It connects or maps, perhaps, if you are invoking non-constantly-scaling teleporting rules (as per "because magic").
It is not the "same" point, though, nor does it match on any coordinates. No more than a (magical instant) railroad connecting two cities makes them share a location nor indeed necessarily share either latitude or longitude. London and Sheffield are connected, but do not "overlap" along any dimension. So talk about whatever magical transit map you like, it will not address the issue of the "overlap" requirement, which is an actual spatial relationship, not a functional one.
Quote: There are exactly as many points on the real line between 0 and 100 as there are between 0 and 50. You can keep saying this. It will still not be true. And I have no intention of continuing to debate the simple fact that infinity is not a number, at least not for any of the purposes you are wanting to use it for. You can assign a direction to it and a couple other things, but this is not how finite integrals are defined, not how you measure volume, and not how you compare sizes.
Crimeo wrote: Quote: Huh? No. That isn't how fabricate works.
Fabricate turns a material into a good, it does not simply synthesize the good and leave you the material. Even if you were to create a fabricate trap, you are stretching pretty far to suggest that it no longer needs a target (which is the material component as well).
I suppose it might still need the target, yes. It doesn't really matter, though, because I can just do true creation traps. They merely take longer to build, so I was favoring the faster cheaper way. Cute, a spell that only exists in a campaign setting splatbook from 3.5? Anything else you'd like to bring out to show that there is no need at all to gather raw materials?
Crimeo wrote: Quote: Those headbands still take 16 (or is it 18, I haven't used those items in a game in years) days (at minimum) of 8 hour crafting to create. So? People live for like 80 years. And once I'm another powerful wizard, I can give back to my community with more gear.
Yeah, except they don't need you to give back. In fact, it is more trouble to turn you into a powerful wizard than it is worth. Even presuming that anyone with the required intelligence can become a wizard, because we are going pure RAW here, what is the incentive to put the time and effort into training you?
It is much more likely that you will see a vicious oligarchy than some Utopian paradise. Power concentrated in specific hands that are reluctant to let it go.
True creation is a Paizo spell as well, not just 3.5. Yes it's a weird book, but the point of the Tippyverse/this project is "pushing technical RAW to the extremes while culling a minimum of inconvenient things"
If you prefer, you can also generate matter of any sort by creating demiplanes and specifying with the "Structure" parameter whatever stuff you need, then digging it up, carrying it elsewhere, and abandoning the demiplane. It specifically lists "Giant tree" "Mountain" (mountains have ores), etc.
Other known spells too create things that are composed of many useful constituent materials. Create food can make iron-rich bloody steaks (indeed whole dead creatures) as well as wood and other such things (awaken a termite and give it a scroll--yes you can awaken vermin in a roundabout way), wall of stone can make any rock (hematite is a rock...), etc. You may require mundane or semi-mundane (magically provided acids, labor, etc.) industry to extract this stuff, making it less efficient than above, but still infinite and contained in your demiplane(s).
Quote: what is the incentive to put the time and effort into training you? People love their children and care about future generations? Why does anybody pay for a kid's college or food? They're just filthy little parasites and I'm going to be dead anyway after all!
Even if you don't have kids, you pay taxes for education, parks, etc. in real life. I do not see why you would not expect similar values and systems in such villages. Especially when it takes 2 stupid weeks to make a headband and stuff. It's not like 40 years.
Crimeo wrote: True creation is a Paizo spell as well, not just 3.5. Yes it's a weird book, but the point of the Tippyverse/this project is "pushing technical RAW to the extremes while culling a minimum of inconvenient things" Yeah, it was in a Paizo book from 3.5. The campaign setting, published in 2008, a year before Pathfinder came out.
Crimeo wrote: If you prefer, you can also generate matter of any sort by creating demiplanes and specifying with the "Structure" parameter whatever stuff you need, then digging it up, carrying it elsewhere, and abandoning the demiplane. It specifically lists "Giant tree" "Mountain" (mountains have ores), etc. I've never denied this. On the other hand, it is no more efficient (and likely far less efficient) than simple mining and resource gathering, which was the very point you were contending against.
Yes, Tippy and traps and other nonsense can produce huge wealth and goods relative to investment, but it not unlimited and not without raw goods that still require a fair bit of effort.
Crimeo wrote: Other known spells too create things that are composed of many useful constituent materials. Create food can make iron-rich bloody steaks (indeed whole dead creatures) as well as wood and other such things (awaken a termite and give it a scroll--yes you can awaken vermin in a roundabout way), wall of stone can make any rock (hematite is a rock...), etc. You may require mundane or semi-mundane (magically provided acids, labor, etc.) industry to extract this stuff, making it less efficient than above, but still infinite and contained in your demiplane(s). You're reaching a bit here, but essentially agreeing with the original contention you so casually dismissed - that raw materials still have to be gathered and worked (and it is almost certainly easier to mine iron than to try and refine it out of... steak? Steak that only questionable falls under bland simple food, but we'll ignore that.
Crimeo wrote: People love their children and care about future generations? Why does anybody pay for a kid's college or food? They're just filthy little parasites and I'm going to be dead anyway after all! Sure. Their children. Important terms. People are also happy to watch the children of poor literally die in the streets while they sit on literally billions of dollars. Are you really arguing that simply because resources are available that altruism will reign? I doubt it, especially since the entire 'revolution' as it were is concentrated in the hands of those with wealth and magical power at the start.
Oligarchy is more likely.
Crimeo wrote: Even if you don't have kids, you pay taxes for education, parks, etc. in real life. I do not see why you would not expect similar values and systems in such villages. Especially when it takes 2 stupid weeks to make a headband and stuff. It's not like 40 years. People do everything in their power to avoid paying taxes, even advocates for higher taxes like Warren Buffett, and I can assure you that when most people carve off a portion of their income for the government they are not likening it to charity.
I question the analogy though in the first place, since tippy essentially argues that things like roads, farms, and any kind of essential element of modern socialization is obsolete.
Quote: I've never denied this. On the other hand, it is no more efficient (and likely far less efficient) than simple mining and resource gathering, which was the very point you were contending against. It's definitely more efficient to make a demiplane shaped like a glittery abnormally ore-rich mountain already full of pre-dug mineshafts than it is to go mining in a real planet. And more important to the society organization is being on a safe demiplane. The earlier issue was evil automatons strip mining and competing. That is not an issue with this.
Quote: Sure. Their children. Important terms. People are also happy to watch the children of poor literally die in the streets while they sit on literally billions of dollars. Are you really arguing that simply because resources are available that altruism will reign? No I'm arguing that since everybody can easily be filthy rich with little to no effort, and since one altruistic person is enough to remove tens of thousands of (hypothetical) people from the cycle of poverty, and since more than one in every tens of thousands of people is altruistic enough to do some trivial things like making a few basic needs traps, people won't be "poor" in the first place. It's virtually impossible.
So all you really need to care about is your relatives or best friends for 99% of people to be taken care of.
The orphans are then easily taken care of by whatever minority of folks happen to be altruistic. Or they starve/don't make anything of themselves and it doesn't really impact society much. Or society ponies up the 0.001% taxes needed to help them, like it does in real life but with a much lower tax rate needed. Any of the above, not really that important.
Crimeo wrote: It's definitely more efficient to make a demiplane shaped like a glittery abnormally ore-rich mountain already full of pre-dug mineshafts than it is to go mining in a real planet. And more important to the society organization is being on a safe demiplane. The earlier issue was evil automatons strip mining and competing. That is not an issue with this. I suspect that perhaps you should bone up on what the actual limitations are behind demiplane creation, because your descriptions here conflict utterly with the text of the spell even at its most powerful 9th level iteration. In Pathfinder demiplane explicitly creates a largely flat featureless plane, not an ore-rich mountain honeycombed with mineshafts, and once more I cannot see even the most egregious and generous reading of RAW possible as supporting what you're suggestion. The closest you could possible reach is the 'structure' heading, and while it permits you to pick a theme, it says nothing about changing the terrain present from the 'normal terrain' of the original spell.
Even if one did submit to the idea that such was possible - e.g. that you could create mineral rich demiplanes on a whim (something not supported by the rules) perhaps you should examine what 400 10ft. cubes actually looks like, relative to the scale of a mining operation. I suspect the results would surprise you.
Respectfully, this is not the first time you've made broad sweeping claims about the ability or existence of a spell or effect to completely trivialize these things, and it is not the first time that you've been demonstratively wrong about how a spell actually functions.
I don't know if you are simply parroting opinion or ideas you've seen from others, or if you genuinely are simply misconstruing the limits of various of effects, but perhaps in the future a bit of due diligence is in order before making such claims?
Crimeo wrote: No I'm arguing that since everybody can easily be filthy rich with little to no effort, and since one altruistic person is enough to remove tens of thousands of (hypothetical) people from the cycle of poverty, and since more than one in every tens of thousands of people is altruistic enough to do some trivial things like making a few basic needs traps, people won't be "poor" in the first place. It's virtually impossible. Presuming that no one stops them? History tends to show that those with wealth and power are not inclined to share it, even at little cost. People enjoy having others they can look down on, as part of holding themselves up in their superiority. It was an underlying issue in, for instance, the American Civil War, in that many southerners who had no financial stake in slavery still embraced the institution and were willing to fight to protect it because it elevated them to a class above others. And this is in a world that doesn't have objectively 'evil' religions and ideals that some fervently believe in.
Alternatively, even if you submit that those eager to raise people up are above to overpower or otherwise avoid those eager to keep most in the mud, do you also submit that they are also all eager to give others what amounts to weapons of mass destruction? Imagine a society in which every person was capable of leveling a city block with a handful of gestures and a word. Is that something you'd like to create, or would you be more inclined towards limitations in the spread and use of magic?
Quote: The closest you could possible reach is the 'structure' heading, and while it permits you to pick a theme, it says nothing about changing the terrain present from the 'normal terrain' of the original spell. This, and yeah it does. it says you can make floating fricckin castles, a giant Riven-eqsue world tree, a labyrinth a mountain. How is "a mountain with holes in it" not within the scope of "mountains or labyrinths?" I am directly combining two of it's listed examples...
By mineral rich btw I just mean like "The most mineral rich Earth mountains", not pure walls of emerald or something.
Quote: Even if one did submit to the idea that such was possible - e.g. that you could create mineral rich demiplanes on a whim (something not supported by the rules) perhaps you should examine what 400 10ft. cubes actually looks like, relative to the scale of a mining operation. I suspect the results would surprise you. Why does it need to be large? I'm only mining it for 20 days since I'm sure as hell not paying for permanency on my throwaway mining plane. if it gets mined faster than that, I ditch it and cast a new one. Which I could do up to multiple times per day if necessary. Or not, if mining is slower. If they don't finish in time, whatever, make a new one with a fresh timer. They're free for goodness sake (Blood money). We only need the materials for fabricating and such.
Quote: perhaps in the future a bit of due diligence is in order before making such claims? I know what the spell says.
Quote: History tends to show that those with wealth and power are not inclined to share it, even at little cost. History didn't happen in a world where anybody disgruntled can literally disappear out of reach forever from you, overnight, and make do just fine, meeting all their needs again with 5 minutes' effort.
If you're a big enough a!&&+~@, you're going to find yourself alone in an empty demiplane very quickly without anybody's phone numbers Have fun feeling superior over simulacrums of yourself and volleyballs with sharpie'd faces.
Notice also that this guy doesn't end up breeding. What does that do to our gene pool eventually? (Golarion's been around like 40,000 years or something with actual civilization hasn't it?)
Once the group is in a new place, maybe another douchebag develops slowly. Plenty of time to *poof*.
By the way: everybody has previous visited a whole bunch of neutral demiplanes in the meantime, which they accumulate whenever they settle down, and share whenever they meet other groups. Different combinations of these are shared between different subsets of people. Whenever you need to abandon one or two people, you do so, send text messages (sending) to your friends telling them to cross the ones that guy knew off their list, but now you can still meet up with the good eggs ono the ones not shared with him, and repopulate your lists. The eidectic memory spell is good for this. Whole page of descriptions of places you've seen to remind you and lists of who else has access, then burn it.
Crimeo wrote:
Some of the planes (IIRC) are infinite in three dimensions. Not in any additional dimension, though. So a plane can have sides along dimensions beyond it. For the astral, it has two sides along the 5th dimension (the unnamed space/box holding all the planes is 5th dimensional)
Also, apparently at least one of the planes is NOT infinite in 3-dimensions, because otherwise it wouldn't make sense to say "The shadow plane is smaller than the material plane." Shadow cannot be infinite as written.
The shadow can be infinite and still be smaller than the material.
I think your "opposite sides" doesn't make sense. If a point is on a line, the "oppositie side" of the point is exactly that point. If it differed even by a little, it wouldn't be the same point. Similarly for lines on a plane. To be on the "opposite side", it would still have to be the exact same line if it were touching.
Crimeo wrote:
Yeah and you talked me out of it, so now I'm describing them as just swimming around in the default slice hunting souls that also swim around in the default slice due to pharasma's laziness in saving or guiding them promptly. Which is consistent with fluff.
Even if Pharasma is lazy, that doesn't stop any of the soul's defenders from plane shifting the souls they are protecting safely away to another slice. And the Astradaemons can't follow by your own rules. Not consistent with fluff.
Crimeo wrote:
He has said it in a few places, but here is one. Sorry I don't know how to link an exact quote. It's a few posts down. It does explicitly say "even more so than Rovagug"
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2svut&page=1?Power-level-of-various-gods
JJ contradicts printed material then. Because actual printed material explicitly says it took all deities combined to seal away Rovagug with many perishing in the fight. Unless that line is errata'd away, I think it's still valid. Just like when JJ gives his opinion on a rule, it doesn't become an official rule until it's part of the errata or at least the FAQ.
Crimeo wrote:
Yes it would work mechanically. "Because [unspecified] programming" is precisely the same as your earlier "Because [unspecified] magic" and again the same as "Because [unspecified] dreamer's rules" I agree with this just like I agreed "because magic" would work mechanically quite awhile back.
But none of those are any better or different to me than "because magic." I want to EXPLAIN things and specify them within a set of state-able rules that make sense, so that players can extrapolate more things from those rules, predict from them, and engage with them directly. I find this to be a more desirable gameplay goal than handwaving, because my players cannot engage with handwaving, making it a less rich world.
Now that you're admitting it's just a house rule rather than RAW, it doesn't matter any more. You can play with whatever house rules you want and nobody will care. It's claiming that it is RAW that people were arguing.
Crimeo wrote:
"There are exactly as many points on the real line between 0 and 100 as there are between 0 and 50."
You can keep saying this. It will still not be true. And I have no intention of continuing to debate the simple fact that infinity is not a number, at least not for any of the purposes you are wanting to use it for. You can assign a direction to it and a couple other things, but this is not how finite integrals are defined, not how you measure volume, and not how you compare sizes.
A lot of actual professional mathematicians will disagree with you on this. There are as many points on a 1" line as there is in a 1 light year line.
In the real world, that might possibly not be true if you believe the Planck Length is the shortest distance possible, but in pure mathematics it's true.
About planar physics:
Options other than infinite points and 3d slices:
1) When you enter the astral plane, you become a 4d creature. The magic does this so that you can survive there. Bam. Now you can use find the path.
2) All the planes are 3d. When you plane-shift, the magic takes you from one, applies coordinate mapping and puts you in the other. All the theories that creatures that live in those planes have are mistaken because they can't access the mechanism that contains the planes.
Ghosts and stuff that occupy multiple planes at once are literally copied into both planes, though their soul (that is their thinky bit) is singular so they can't tell and act the same in both planes.
Just because a 4d plane seems elegant does not mean it is the only solution.
Quote: JJ contradicts printed material then. Because actual printed material explicitly says it took all deities combined to seal away Rovagug with many perishing in the fight. It is not contradictory for being A to be more powerful than being B but for A to still get others to help in sealing away B. It could simply be more convenient, faster, easier. Like, maybe it would've taken Pharasma a year to deal with him alone, but together, they did it in a month.
Those 11 additional months would have meant a lot more death and destruction for the world, so there would be no reason for her to do it alone, even if she could have pulled it off. If there's a gunman at the shopping mall, do you send ONE cop even if you knew for a fact he was a better shot and better tactically trained and geared than the gunman? No, you send 100 of them.
Quote: Even if Pharasma is lazy, that doesn't stop any of the soul's defenders from plane shifting the souls they are protecting safely away to another slice. And the Astradaemons can't follow by your own rules. The defender simply doesn't get there first every time, simple enough.
It would be easier to discuss this with more certainty though if I actually knew what a "defender" was. Where is their stat block and where are they mentioned? I've never heard of them unlike pharasma and astradaemons. And astradaemons have like 10 paragraphs of ecology text and no such beings seem to be mentioned at all in it, nor in Pharasma's text.
Quote: 1) When you enter the astral plane, you become a 4d creature. Okay sure, now explain how anything works in game with 4d creatures. You need to now make up a whole new fly skill and combat system and perception system and not being able to do anything at all on a tabletop etc. etc.
If you want to change minimal rules, this ain't a good solution, because you'd need to add scores of new rules for 4d play. It costs way more than it saves in complexity.
Quote: All the theories that creatures that live in those planes have are mistaken because they can't access the mechanism that contains the planes. This works, but it would be unnecessarily removing RAW rules (which say the planes are that way, not that they are believed to be that way), and it is the goal of this project not to do that.
Quote: Now that you're admitting it's just a house rule rather than RAW, it doesn't matter any more. You can play with whatever house rules you want and nobody will care. It's claiming that it is RAW that people were arguing. It definitely isn't RAW. But it is as close to RAW as you can get, because there IS NO possible way to resolve the gameplay rulings that is "only RAW." You must either add my rules, or add a rule about how it's a dream, or add a rule about how it's a computer simulation, or add a rule about how it's a magic, non-contiguous transit system, and then also add or change more rules to deal with the shadow situation with any of the above, etc.
If "just use RAW only" were a logically possible option, then I would do that. It's not. Something must be added, so then you're stuck with "which added thing is best?"
And since the whole flavor of the project is all about not handwaving in the first place (not handwaving society, initially), a handwaving solution to the above definitely seems not best for the project, if a less handwaving solution is available.
Quote: A lot of actual professional mathematicians will disagree with you on this. There are as many points on a 1" line as there is in a 1 light year line. I'd love to see a written statement from a professor of mathematics that says every two objects in the universe are the same size. Since that is ultimately the only part of this that actually matters for the current situation let's just cut right to the chase.
There is nobody to make magic items for people in the Tippyverse. You don't get anything for making them as money has no value. So nobody is making +6 headbands and nobody can buy them.
Why have a shop if I can get unlimited food, gold, and raw materials? Why work at all? Why sell anything?
Personally I'd run around and dispel traps wherever I found them.
Infinite food? *zap* Not anymore.
Wish: I wish every magical trap in the world stopped working.
The setting is simply ludicrous.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
I'm not a professor of mathematics, but my wife is. I left grad school after 4 years with only a Master's to get a job. The simple version is that the thing you said wasn't true is true. The thing you care about and want to simplify it to isn't.
I have studied enough differential geometry to say this with confidence without consulting her, though. The fact that there's a point-to-point correspondence means that as sets, they're the same size. As in, there are the same number of points in the Material and Shadow planes. But, because that mapping doesn't preserve distance, that doesn't mean they're the same size in a meaningful sense. If they're really infinite, though, volume ceases to be particularly meaningful since we can choose a mapping other than the natural "they overlap" one. But since plane shifting to the plane of shadow doesn't make you feel like a giant when in the corresponding space, I think it's safe to say that it's a little strange as a space - on small scales distances are preserved (e.g. height) but on large scales, they aren't. How does that work?
I'm not going back far enough to see the origin of this argument, but you can pair up the points on a 1" line and on a 1 light-year line, so they have the same number of points (that's how we talk about sizes of infinity). When you said that wasn't true, it may not have been meaningful for the conversation you were having, but pretty much only transfinitists (people who reject the axiom of infinity from ZF set theory and claim that we only get to play with finite numbers, i.e. people who are being difficult to be difficult :-)) are going to look at that statement for more than a second.
Crimeo wrote:
Quote: All the theories that creatures that live in those planes have are mistaken because they can't access the mechanism that contains the planes. This works, but it would be unnecessarily removing RAW rules (which say the planes are that way, not that they are believed to be that way), and it is the goal of this project not to do that.
Ah, but RAW says nothing about the astral plane being 4d. And my explanation makes the planar cosmology function exactly as the rules say it does. RAW tells us how things work, not why. So really, both of our explanations are guesses, and thus equally possible; you can't assert that your way is correct. And Occam's Razor tells us that since there are no rules for 4d combat / motion, we should not assume that it is a thing we should care about.
Crimeo wrote:
It is not contradictory for being A to be more powerful than being B but for A to still get others to help in sealing away B. It could simply be more convenient, faster, easier. Like, maybe it would've taken Pharasma a year to deal with him alone, but together, they did it in a month.
Those 11 additional months would have meant a lot more death and destruction for the world, so there would be no reason for her to do it alone, even if she could have pulled it off. If there's a gunman at the shopping mall, do you send ONE cop even if you knew for a fact he was a better shot and better tactically trained and geared than the gunman? No, you send 100 of them.
Based on the text, she didn't do any of the heavy lifting. It was Sarenrae and Asmodeus who did the actual work.
JJ's opinions are just that unless there is errata/FAQ. He's made plenty of rules opinions on these boards, but they're not official until errata is released.
Crimeo wrote:
The defender simply doesn't get there first every time, simple enough.
It would be easier to discuss this with more certainty though if I actually knew what a "defender" was. Where is their stat block and where are they mentioned? I've never heard of them unlike pharasma and astradaemons. And astradaemons have like 10 paragraphs of ecology text and no such beings seem to be mentioned at all in it, nor in Pharasma's text.
There wouldn't be pitched battles over souls if the defender wasn't there first.
I believe it is the Great Beyond sourcebook that states that the different demons/devils/archons/angels etc have patrols that attempt to protect the souls from astradaemon predation. I'll have to check my sourcebooks when I get home.
Crimeo wrote:
I'd love to see a written statement from a professor of mathematics that says every two objects in the universe are the same size. Since that is ultimately the only part of this that actually matters for the current situation let's just cut right to the chase.
Now you're moving the goalposts.
Bob Bob Bob stated:
Quote: There are exactly as many points on the real line between 0 and 100 as there are between 0 and 50. And you replied:
Crimeo wrote:
You can keep saying this. It will still not be true.
Distance and size was not mentioned. You are the one adding this in.
If you're going to move the goalpost, please have the courtesy to acknowledge that your original point was wrong and specify that you're moving on to a new point.
Crimeo wrote:
It definitely isn't RAW.
THANK YOU! If you had just stated this at the beginning, we wouldn't have needed so many posts in this thread.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
HWalsh wrote: There is nobody to make magic items for people in the Tippyverse. You don't get anything for making them as money has no value. So nobody is making +6 headbands and nobody can buy them.
There are other things of value besides money. A major part of midieval economy that many people are not aware of is that cash paid a much less role than it does now. Barter, exchange of obligations, and favor were together far more important.
And no matter how free the necessities might be, there is always someone who craves power or simply things that others can't have. No matter how much money you may have, there is only one true painting called the Mona Lisa. That conveys value.
LazarX wrote: HWalsh wrote: There is nobody to make magic items for people in the Tippyverse. You don't get anything for making them as money has no value. So nobody is making +6 headbands and nobody can buy them.
There are other things of value besides money. A major part of midieval economy that many people are not aware of is that cash paid a much less role than it does now. Barter, exchange of obligations, and favor were together far more important.
And no matter how free the necessities might be, there is always someone who craves power or simply things that others can't have. No matter how much money you may have, there is only one true painting called the Mona Lisa. That conveys value. Exactly this. Then enchanter's time is valuable. Ergo, other people will offer him something of similar value to compensate him for it. Whether the compensation is "I'll give you X Gold Pieces" or "A favor for a favor" is a non-issue.
Quote: There is nobody to make magic items for people in the Tippyverse. You don't get anything for making them as money has no value. So nobody is making +6 headbands and nobody can buy them. Several options. If you're not an orphan, your parents make one for you most often. Or you could "buy" things by putting in time for other things that are too petty for the higher wizards (like other crafting. Crafting mundane boots may not be worth a fabricate trap, for instance, when kids can do this to earn their headbands). Or if you are an orphan, then you and the other half dozen orphans in the larger community are likely to get headbands from any ONE guy out of hundreds or thousands altruistic enough to spend a few weeks turning around the lives of these kids. Which will easily happen. OR orphans are just screwed and why does it matter? Etc. etc. many ways it could work. Maybe all of the above, across different diverse communities.
Quote: Why have a shop if I can get unlimited food, gold, and raw materials? Why work at all? Why sell anything? I didn't say anybody did have a shop or sell things, necessarily.
Quote: Personally I'd run around and dispel traps wherever I found them.
Infinite food? *zap* Not anymore.
And for being an evil a~%$%$$ that is trying to starve people, the rest of your immediate community would make a new demiplane while you were sleeping, and leave you alone forever. You are now a harmless exile to them and totally screwed.
Quote: Wish: I wish every magical trap in the world stopped working. This is addressed in the very first post.
Quote: If they're really infinite, though, volume ceases to be particularly meaningful I don't think any of the inner planes are supposed to be infinite.
Quote: The fact that there's a point-to-point correspondence means that as sets, they're the same size. As in, there are the same number of points in the Material and Shadow planes. But, because that mapping doesn't preserve distance, that doesn't mean they're the same size in a meaningful sense. I'm not talking about anything as sets, because that would be an absurd interpretation of what Paizo could possibly be talking about in a rulebook for a RPG sold to people to play in their living rooms.
When they say size, they're obviously talking about dimensional length, area, volume.
Also, even if in they WERE bizarrely intending to talk about sets, saying that shadow plane was a different size would still break everything anyway, because that would mean there's not a full correspondence of points and thus you cannot spell travel from anywhere in it to the material plane, etc. But you can, by the spells.
So either interpretation is contradictory with rules as written and it needs to be altered anyway. "size = volume"? Doesn't overlap, then. "Size = set size"? Contradicts the spell abilities and travel rules.
Quote: Ah, but RAW says nothing about the astral plane being 4d. And my explanation makes the planar cosmology function exactly as the rules say it does. Nor does it say it is 3-dimensional. Neither removes any rules, but "creatures become 4d" requires adding far more rules.
Quote: Based on the text, she didn't do any of the heavy lifting. It was Sarenrae and Asmodeus who did the actual work. And? Maybe she doesn't care about the speediest resolution, but instead cares about giving her weaker padawans a chance to learn how to overcome a particularly huge challenge mostly by themselves. She's just around to spot them if they fall.
Quote: JJ's opinions are just that unless there is errata/FAQ. Unless you have RAW or errata saying that any other god is the most powerful, the opinions of JJ are the only thing we have addressing this issue directly. I agree to defer to RAW if there was one but there isn't. Only vague assumptions based on actions with motives that you don't know.
Quote: THANK YOU! If you had just stated this at the beginning, we wouldn't have needed so many posts in this thread. I explained like 3 pages ago that I do not think it is RAW, and that I also would not call it a house rule. I see a gradual progression from "Rules as written in one place" --> "Rules as deductively required from writing in more than one place taken together" --> "Rules as clearly implied" --> "Rules that necessarily require filling in blanks or removing contradictions" --> "Rule changes that are totally optional"
And I would call the last of those house rules, only the first two "RAW" and the ones in between as neither of those terms. You wouldn't label it the same way. It is a semantics disagreement, which doesn't matter anymore now that I laid out a much more precise description than either term of exactly what level of rules-relevance I was talking about.
Crimeo wrote:
Unless you have RAW or errata saying that any other god is the most powerful, the opinions of JJ are the only thing we have addressing this issue directly. I agree to defer to RAW if there was one but there isn't. Only vague assumptions based on actions with motives that you don't know.
We have the relevant text which says that the gods viewed Rovagug as such a threat that they all had to combine to stop them. This is official printed material. JJ's opinions aren't official printed material.
Crimeo wrote:
I explained like 3 pages ago that I do not think it is RAW, and that I also would not call it a house rule. I see a gradual progression from "Rules as written in one place" --> "Rules as deductively required from writing in more than one place taken together" --> "Rules as clearly implied" --> "Rules that necessarily require filling in blanks or removing contradictions" --> "Rule changes that are totally optional"
And I would call the last of those house rules, only the first two "RAW" and the ones in between as neither of those terms. You wouldn't label it the same way. It is a semantics disagreement, which doesn't matter anymore now that I laid out a much more precise description than either term of exactly what level of rules-relevance I was talking about.
Since your rules aren't necessary to fill in blanks or remove contradictions (I gave at least 2 other rule sets that would do the same thing and others in this thread have done so as well), your proposal is number 4 which even you agree is a house rule.
BTW, the Great Beyond sourcebook is the one that describes defenders fighting off Astradaemons for souls. Read the section on the Astral Plane and the section on Astradaemons.
Quote: We have the relevant text which says that the gods viewed Rovagug as such a threat that they all had to combine to stop them. It says "He was opposed by a collection of gods." Not that he needed to be or that he was more powerful than them, or that any one of them ever even attempted 1 on 1 combat, etc. And I've given more than one reason he might not have been more powerful than some of them consistent with this text without JJ having to have said anything. Though of course JJ also did and is head of that department.
I am simply ignoring anything about semantics now. Asked and answered like 12 times.
Defenders: Yeah that's book astradaemons are in. I do not see any creature introduced in this book fitting your description. It introduced astradaemons, axiomite, lurker in the light, keketar protean, vulpinal agathion. And the astradaemon text from this same book doesn't say anything about it. I am not inclined to pay $20 to find one sentence somewhere that does not AFAIK now present any problems, since these [unknown] defenders can simply have their pitched battles [of unknown frequency] on the default slice along with the daemons and the souls, whatever they are.
Crimeo wrote:
Quote: Personally I'd run around and dispel traps wherever I found them.
Infinite food? *zap* Not anymore.
And for being an evil a&~*@~@ that is trying to starve people, the rest of your immediate community would make a new demiplane while you were sleeping, and leave you alone forever. You are now a harmless exile to them and totally screwed.
Its not about starving people. It is about freeing them from dependence. People who would live here would be dependent on these magical traps, if destroying them would make people starve, then there is a serious problem and it isn't with dispelling them.
Also their parents can't make them +6 headbands. You need to be freaking CL 8 minimum to even think about that.
Most characters aren't 8th level. They certainly aren't 8th level spellcasters. Level 8 is actually pretty darn high level.
Your average peasant is CL 0, meaning they can't do that, or is everyone in the Tippyverse also high level spellcasters too? Also creating Demiplanes isn't easy either.
Just... The more and more I hear of the concept the less and less sense it makes. It is actually horrifying as a setting. Its not a utopia, its a setting where people are dependent on magical spells for everything, where there is little reason to work, there darn sure isn't reason for people to go adventuring. On top of that there is little to no reason for anyone to be a fighter and the only thing anyone is are Mages and it seems, by your description, everyone is at least an 8th level spellcaster.
What happens in the Tippyverse when a Dragon sporting an Antimagic field decides that its tired of these uppity humans and it declares itself emperor and takes over a city and drops an AM Field? Nobody would be able to fight it.
Crimeo wrote: Quote: We have the relevant text which says that the gods viewed Rovagug as such a threat that they all had to combine to stop them. It says "He was opposed by a collection of gods." Not that he needed to be or that he was more powerful than them, or that any one of them ever even attempted 1 on 1 combat, etc. And I've given more than one reason he might not have been more powerful than some of them consistent with this text without JJ having to have said anything. Though of course JJ also did and is head of that department.
I am simply ignoring anything about semantics now. Asked and answered like 12 times.
Defenders: Yeah that's book astradaemons are in. I do not see any creature introduced in this book fitting your description. It introduced astradaemons, axiomite, lurker in the light, keketar protean, vulpinal agathion. And the astradaemon text from this same book doesn't say anything about it. I am not inclined to pay $20 to find one sentence somewhere that does not AFAIK now present any problems, since these [unknown] defenders can simply have their pitched battles [of unknown frequency] on the default slice along with the daemons and the souls, whatever they are. From Inner Sea Gods:
While wily Calistria distracted the terror and countless
now-forgotten gods gave their lives to aid her, Torag and
Gorum forged an unbreakable prison in the heart of
Golarion, and Asmodeus and Pharasma drew upon the
power of the planes to fit it with potent magical locks and
wards.
Pharasma had to just assist in forging a prison for Rovagug. The flavor text clearly showed she was just one of many and didn't contribute any more than the rest. Unless you can show me actual printed text that Pharasma is more powerful, then this passage plus passages from other actual printed text takes precedence over a mere board message from JJ.
I'm glad we got the acknowledgement of your houseruling out of the way.
I don't want to print too much text from The Great Beyond since it might be against board rules, but there are numerous mentions of "stewards", "guardians", "guardian armies", "guardians of the river of souls" etc and mentions of what the astradaemons do to the guardians if they win the fight and capture said guardians.
And if these guardians exist, there would be no need to have them fight the Astradaemons. They could simply take their charges to another astral slice in your house rules and the Astradaemons could never follow.
HWalsh wrote: Its not about starving people. It is about freeing them from dependence. People who would live here would be dependent on these magical traps, if destroying them would make people starve, then there is a serious problem and it isn't with dispelling them. Okay, and anybody you can convince with your rhetoric may not leave you in exile. Everybody else will leave you. So what? You were describing that as if an argument for society breaking down, but people grouping together into like mindedness =/= society breaking down.
Quote: Also their parents can't make them +6 headbands. You need to be freaking CL 8 minimum to even think about that. Yeah, they all are CL 8+, because XP is trivially easy to come by, they got their own +6 headbands when young in a world of near infinite-wealth, etc. What's holding them back?
Quote: Most characters aren't 8th level. They certainly aren't 8th level spellcasters. Level 8 is actually pretty darn high level. This is not consistent with following the written rules for XP gain and leveling. The rules do not say anything like "roll two d100s to see if you're a special enough snowflake to start gaining experience." They just say "characters gain experience for..." Same rules apply for everyone. And following XP rules to their logical extension, pretty much every adult in this society would be at least like level 10.
The only thing suggesting otherwise are standard setting descriptions, and this project is explicitly not the standard setting. In fact, the whole original motivation of Tippyverse is that the setting doesn't follow from the rules.
Quote: Just... The more and more I hear of the concept the less and less sense it makes. It is actually horrifying as a setting. Its not a utopia, its a setting where people are dependent on magical spells for everything, where there is little reason to work Why is that bad...? Most people don't like work. Or if you do, nobody's stopping you from working for personal fulfillment. Everybody wins.
Quote: , there darn sure isn't reason for people to go adventuring. Normally no, but this is just describing the background setting. For the campaign itself, something would be changing. For example, maybe Rovagug is stirring. Normally we wouldn't care about planetside threats that can't hurt us, but Rovagug is a god and deities can find demiplanes since they exist outside normal rules. And for whatever reason, other gods aren't obviously stopping him. So something now DOES have to be done. Maybe the lowish level young PCs have to deal with it, because they're the only ones who know, and were cut off from going home, and can't assume anybody else found out or is working on it. Etc.
Quote: On top of that there is little to no reason for anyone to be a fighter and the only thing anyone is are Mages and it seems, by your description, everyone is at least an 8th level spellcaster. You can be a fighter if you want, but yeah, it seems like not a very wise choice. So?
Quote: What happens in the Tippyverse when a Dragon sporting an Antimagic field decides that its tired of these uppity humans and it declares itself emperor and takes over a city and drops an AM Field? Nobody would be able to fight it. It has to find you first. Refer to the rest of the thread?
Quote: Pharasma had to just assist in forging a prison for Rovagug. The flavor text clearly showed she was just one of many and didn't contribute any more than the rest. Have you ever played with legos with a small child? Did you push them out of the way and say "you're so slow and bad at this lol!" and build the whole thing yourself perfectly?
Or did you just assist when needed to let them learn and develop their own abilities, etc.?
Your quote does not establish Pharasma as less powerful, unless you can rule out a dozen other motivations as to why she may have been CHOOSING to not use all her power. Ones you cannot rule out because you have no written basis for doing so.
So by RAW: We don't know
By JJ: She's the most powerful.
Can you remind me why we even care for this thread if Pharasma is more powerful than X?
Quote: And if these guardians exist, there would be no need to have them fight the Astradaemons. They could simply take their charges to another astral slice in your house rules and the Astradaemons could never follow. If they get to the soul before they get to the astradaemon, sure. I'm not sure why you think that's trivial necessarily. This would depend on all sorts of details like "Can souls be grappled?" "How easy or hard is it to pinpoint a soul, since it's not a creature and we don't have any rules for what magic is involved?" Etc. none of which is in RAW. We don't even know what powers defenders have, since you have no stat block.
Maybe they only know where the soul is within 300 3-dimensional miles, and have to go manually look around, meanwhile running into astradaemons also looking around.
Or any of a million other possibilities.
HWalsh wrote: Crimeo wrote:
Quote: Personally I'd run around and dispel traps wherever I found them.
Infinite food? *zap* Not anymore.
And for being an evil a&~*@~@ that is trying to starve people, the rest of your immediate community would make a new demiplane while you were sleeping, and leave you alone forever. You are now a harmless exile to them and totally screwed.
Its not about starving people. It is about freeing them from dependence. People who would live here would be dependent on these magical traps, if destroying them would make people starve, then there is a serious problem and it isn't with dispelling them. Does that mean you go around fire-bombing supermarkets to free people from their dependence on technology?
HWalsh wrote:
Just... The more and more I hear of the concept the less and less sense it makes. It is actually horrifying as a setting. Its not a utopia, its a setting where people are dependent on magical spells for everything, where there is little reason to work, there darn sure isn't reason for people to go adventuring. On top of that there is little to no reason for anyone to be a fighter and the only thing anyone is are Mages and it seems, by your description, everyone is at least an 8th level spellcaster.
I actually quite like the basics of the setting itself, and (having played in it), it's not a bad setting in its original iteration, when it actually does make sense (or as much sense as any game setting does).
The problem is that it attracts a lot of madness from other people, which bends it out of shape. I particularly feel that the way players expect people in the world to act is not how people would actually act.
Quote: The problem is that it attracts a lot of madness from other people, which bends it out of shape. Intriguing. Do you have anecdote examples, so as to potentially avoid this?
Crimeo wrote:
Have you ever played with legos with a small child? Did you push them out of the way and say "you're so slow and bad at this lol!" and build the whole thing yourself perfectly?
Or did you just assist when needed to let them learn and develop their own abilities, etc.?
Your quote does not establish Pharasma as less powerful, unless you can rule out a dozen other motivations as to why she may have been CHOOSING to not use all her power. Ones you cannot rule out because you have no written basis for doing so.
So by RAW: We don't know
By JJ: She's the most powerful.
JJ clearly wasn't talking about the default Golarion setting in his post. From the thread you linked earlier:
James Jacobs wrote:
Because she didn't care if he was imprisoned or not. She didn't help put him in prison, but neither did she help keep him out. That was a problem for the other folk.
This is a clear contradiction with Inner Sea Gods which explicitly states that Pharasma helped prepare the prison for Rovagug and was in the alliance. It's pretty hard to assert that she didn't care about imprisonment when she was actively preparing the prison!
When JJ's message board statement is in direct conflict with actual written text, then actual written text wins unless there is errata/FAQ.
Crimeo wrote:
If they get to the soul before they get to the astradaemon, sure. I'm not sure why you think that's trivial necessarily. This would depend on all sorts of details like "Can souls be grappled?" "How easy or hard is it to pinpoint a soul, since it's not a creature and we don't have any rules for what magic is involved?" Etc. none of which is in RAW. We don't even know what powers defenders have, since you have no stat block.
Maybe they only know where the soul is within 300 3-dimensional miles, and have to go manually look around, meanwhile running into astradaemons also looking around.
Or any of a million other possibilities. If the defenders didn't get to the souls first, it would be too late. Astradaemons would've already consumed them. If you haven't noticed, Astradaemons are quite powerful.
Sure you can state out any of a million other possibilities. There's nothing stopping you from house-ruling whatever floats your boat. It would just be different from the RAW of the setting.
Quote: This is a clear contradiction with Inner Sea Gods which explicitly states that Pharasma helped prepare the prison for Rovagug and was in the alliance. It's pretty hard to assert that she didn't care about imprisonment when she was actively preparing the prison!
When JJ's message board statement is in direct conflict with actual written text, then actual written text wins unless there is errata/FAQ.
Fair enough, but at most this simply returns us to square 1 of "We have no idea who is the most powerful, Pharasma may still very well be, or not." So what? What does not knowing anything for sure about it have to do with the thread or any contradiction?
Quote: If the defenders didn't get to the souls first, it would be too late. Astradaemons would've already consumed them. If you haven't noticed, Astradaemons are quite powerful. ...And? Sometimes the astradaemons get there first and win. Yes. Sometimes the defenders get there first and win.
What is your objection or point here? Where is there any contradiction / how is this description of things any "different from the RAW of the setting"? I have accounted for astradaemons and defenders battling one another, and sometimes one winning, sometimes the other, in the astral plane. What else is missing or not to your satisfaction?
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Crimeo wrote: 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. Thor actually did that, but with goats instead of a pony. Then he ressurected them afterwards.
Just saying,
First off, I'd like to say this thread is enthralling, and has pulled me into actually posting for the first time ever, and I've played Pathfinder since it came out, albeit only homebrew, but eh, fun thread ^_^
Crimeo, how is the demiplane concept any different than the default cold war status of the Tippyverse described on the first page? It specifically states within the Create Demiplane line of spells that Astral Projection can travel to them, and in astral form, 4d travel has to be possible, so Find the Path plus Astral Projection should RAW lead to the discovery of any demiplane that can be named.
More insidiously, you bind a being capable of astral travel with at will Greater Dispel, and pay said outsider to travel to X demiplane and dispel each and every Permanency spell holding the plane together. Who needs to dispel the demiplane itself if you can simply stealthily remove the magic supporting its very existence? Under binding an outsider, if the task has a definite completion, the duration isn't just 1 day/level.
If you simply want to force the hand of the other demiplane, then instead of destruction, you can send an outsider there simply to attune a fork for Plane Shift. Probably much cheaper that way too, as the task is travel, cast a spell, teleport back to me and give me the attuned fork.
Overall, its an interesting mental exercise, but I don't see a way to remove the vulnerability of annihilation if you only play RAW, even with the limitations you place on Wish and Miracle.
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Quote: It specifically states within the Create Demiplane line of spells that Astral Projection can travel to them Quote: in astral form, 4d travel has to be possible I agree that 4d travel is possible using the listed spells. But you don't know the "address" is the problem. For example, physically, I can travel to your house using boats/cars/whatever, but if you don't tell me where it is, I'm not actually going to be able to get there.
So if you haven't seen or visited or have the "tuning fork frequency" or whatever for the demiplane, how are you specifying how to get there? The exact rules on what is necessary to specify is pretty vague, but that just means I have the freedom to fill in the blanks for what I find most convenient to the gameplay, which in this case is "you need explicit information similar to an address"
You could attempt to just wander around hoping to stumble upon it, but with infinite volumes of 3D space existing in a 4D hypercube, it will take you infinite time to find randomly, since you need to hit the 4D coordinate exactly to see anything. Even along a given vector of find the path, it would take infinitely long (see below)
Quote: Find the Path plus Astral Projection should RAW lead to the discovery of any demiplane that can be named. Find the Path gives you a bearing, it doesn't give you a distance. I.e. it specifies a vector at any given time, and you need a point, of which there are always infinitely many along a vector. So yeah you can hop around with those various spells along that vector, but you don't have specific enough info to hop to the exact right place. and since you are a 3D creature, you can't see it or reach it at all no matter how close you are on the 4D dimension unless you are at exactly the same coordinate. If it were 3D you would only need to get within 5 feet and swing your arm for the spell sunder, but since you can't swing your arm in 4 dimensions, that's not good enough here.
Just like Mario cannot see or reach objects outside of the TV screen even if it is only 1 millimeter in front of the TV.
Quote: pay said outsider to travel to X demiplane Outsiders don't have specific enough info to get there any more than you do, so they don't really function any differently. GODS would, but as GM, I can just say that they don't feel like helping you.
Since we are going strict RAW, the astral does works like a 3D plane. For it to act otherwise would require a rule. Your 4D work leads to a game that is simply to complicated. Nothing published makes any reference to it. If it did exist your way it would have to be mentioned and a rules set written for dealing with it.
Quote: Since we are going strict RAW, the astral does works like a 3D plane. Where does it say in RAW that the astral plane is 3D? It does not. Normally, obviously, I would be biased to assume that it is all other things equal. But since the geometry simply doesn't work out that way, it must either be 4D, or we must assume a bunch of non-geometric magical highways that also aren't ever mentioned.
Both ways involve adding major elements that are not described, there's no getting around that. So I may as well add the element that helps me create the game environment that seems more interesting/fun/consistent with the spirit of the project.
Simply "not adding anything and going by RAW only published stuff" is of course our first priority when possible, but here it is not an option, because a nothing-at-all-added 3D astral plane leads to impossible contradictions as written. SOMETHING major must be added.
Crimeo wrote: Quote: It specifically states within the Create Demiplane line of spells that Astral Projection can travel to them Quote: in astral form, 4d travel has to be possible I agree that 4d travel is possible using the listed spells. But you don't know the "address" is the problem. For example, physically, I can travel to your house using boats/cars/whatever, but if you don't tell me where it is, I'm not actually going to be able to get there.
So if you haven't seen or visited or have the "tuning fork frequency" or whatever for the demiplane, how are you specifying how to get there? The exact rules on what is necessary to specify is pretty vague, but that just means I have the freedom to fill in the blanks for what I find most convenient to the gameplay, which in this case is "you need explicit information similar to an address"
You could attempt to just wander around hoping to stumble upon it, but with infinite volumes of 3D space existing in a 4D hypercube, it will take you infinite time to find randomly, since you need to hit the 4D coordinate exactly to see anything. Even along a given vector of find the path, it would take infinitely long (see below)
Quote: Find the Path plus Astral Projection should RAW lead to the discovery of any demiplane that can be named. Find the Path gives you a bearing, it doesn't give you a distance. I.e. it specifies a vector at any given time, and you need a point, of which there are always infinitely many along a vector. So yeah you can hop around with those various spells along that vector, but you don't have specific enough info to hop to the exact right place. and since you are a 3D creature, you can't see it or reach it at all no matter how close you are on the 4D dimension unless you are at exactly the same coordinate. If it were 3D you would only need to get within 5 feet and swing your arm for the spell sunder, but since you can't swing your arm in 4 dimensions, that's not good enough here.
Just like Mario cannot see or... No where did I state that said outsider would travel via spells (other than Astral Projection to get an astral body), simply physically in the direction of the Find the Path spell. Time is immaterial if the creature so tasked is immortal. Which is why I pointed out that if a tasked creature has a terminable point to said task, then there is no listed duration to a planar binding instead of the 1 day/level for a task such as: guard this location.
If you wish to simply state that nothing can find the Demiplane, that is your prerogative as world creator and GM, but in a world of infinite resources as a canny spellcaster I would always send out some bound immortal creature to follow the path, yes mundanely if necessary, until I had a tuning fork for each and every demiplane that I knew existed. If I'm immortal, who cares how long it takes? If I have infinite resources, who cares how much it costs?
You were looking in your original post to see if there were any problems with the premise and if you could avoid a cold war style standoff, but with said infinite resources and time, the answer is no.
Your reply will probably include some iteration of: they can simply make a new plane, and yes that is true, but we are just getting back into the fact that there is a counter to everything. No matter how many times you wish to say, but this, anyone can come back and say, but that.
At this point it has been definitely answered: the setting works wonderfully if you desire it to do so. It seems like a fun way to design a world as well, especially if you play up the demiplanes and have different styles and themes all the time.
Let me put it to you this way: if I were playing in your setting and said I was going to bind an outsider and task it with making a tuning fork of demiplane X, and I didn't care how long it took, how would you handle it?
What if instead I decided to go myself via Astral Projection, which has no set time limit? Would you simply say my character is dead, or will be traveling an infinite amount of time and so is effectively dead? I'm immortal and patient, and what else is there to do?
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