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.
There isn't a terminable end to said task. There are again, infinitely many points along any vector. Infinite = not terminable in this case when you are sampling randomly. So neither immortality of your helpers, nor number of helpers, makes this any easier for you.
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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.
You would never get a single tuning fork, as the time to find any one demiplane would be infinite with any amount of resources spent on any number of searchers.
(Incidentally, your resources are not infinite by the way. They may exponentially multiply, but they are not infinite. They are all based on traps and spells that have finite activations and arithmetic to them)
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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?
It goes off and searches forever and never finds anything. Easy. Tell me any number of years you wait. Doesn't matter, any number < infinite, so it hasn't found any yet, because it has still thus far searched an infinitely small proportion of the total number of places to search.
Not to mention of course that the campaign storyline isn't going to conveniently pause while you wait 50 trillion years anyway. Not that it matters.
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.
There isn't a terminable end to said task. There are again, infinitely many points along any vector. Infinite = not terminable. So neither immortality of your helpers, nor number of helpers, makes this any easier for you.
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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.
You would never get a single tuning fork, as the time to find any one demiplane would be infinite with any amount of resources spent on any number of searchers.
(Incidentally, your resources are not infinite by the way. They may exponentially rise, but they are not infinite. They are all based on traps and spells that have finite arithmetic to them)
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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?
It goes off and searches forever and never finds anything. Easy. Tell me any number of years you wait. Doesn't matter, any number < infinite, so iti hasn't found any yet.
You failed to answer the last question: what if I, as a PC in your game, decided to use Astral Projection to find a demiplane. If your answer is still, it's impossible, then you are not using the RAW, which is totally fine, but at that point you would be hard pressed to find players willing to believe that you were not simply using GM fiat to make your setting work as you desire.
You failed to answer the last question: what if I, as a PC in your game, decided to use Astral Projection to find a demiplane. If your answer is still, it's impossible, then you are not using the RAW
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The spell projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry onto the Astral Plane. Since the Astral Plane touches upon other planes, you can travel astrally to any of these other planes as you will.
^ As in my earlier post, you CAN take a car and drive to my house, as in you (JosueV) can physically drive to my (Crimeo's) house.
When can I expect you for tea? Quite a long time from now, because having the car doesn't mean you know where I live.
Astral projection says it gives you a means of transit, it doesn't say it gives you instant omniscient knowledge of every plane and its exact location.
Unlike the car and house example, though, there aren't just 1 billion houses to check. There are infinitely many possible locations, so having a means of transit alone is not helpful if you don't know where you're going. The "quite a long time from now" becomes "never" when possible locations increases to infinitely many.
Of course the spell isn't useless: if you have been there or otherwise know the exact address, then you can just drive/astralproject right on over.
You failed to answer the last question: what if I, as a PC in your game, decided to use Astral Projection to find a demiplane. If your answer is still, it's impossible, then you are not using the RAW
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The spell projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry onto the Astral Plane. Since the Astral Plane touches upon other planes, you can travel astrally to any of these other planes as you will.
^ As in my earlier post, you CAN take a car and drive to my house, like literally you can physically drive to my (Crimeo's) house.
That doesn't mean you know where it is.
Astral projection says it gives you a means of transit, it doesn't say it gives you instant omniscient knowledge of every plane and its exact location.
Unlike the car and house example, though, there aren't just 1 billion houses to check. There are infinitely many possible locations, so having a means of transit alone is not helpful if you don't know where you're going.
Player 1 casts: Astral Projection!
Player 1 casts: Find the Path!
Player 1 is overly stubborn and will spend the rest of his days searching and casting Find the Path over and over again... never to be seen or heard from again apparently...
At this point I would have to respectfully opt out of your campaign, but it still seems like a fun premise.
Good luck, and don't forget to keep on splitting my infinities!
I am not sure why you would wish to opt out of the campaign as a result. Obviously the campaign goals would not be such that succeeding in such a task is ever required for the quest hooks and storyline given.
For one, the culture of the world includes people memorizing "addresses" of intricate webs of demiplanes of their friends, allies, coworkers, etc. Getting around is viable and possible by political intrigue, basically. Similar to how you don't have to physically access a computer in order to control it anyway if you can hack people's passwords. Social engineering is at least one weak point here, there may be others in an actual world of imperfect mortals running things, even if no guaranteed physical method exists. For two, the main antagonists may be things that aren't necessarily relevant to demiplane hiding in the first place. Such as "Rovagug is stirring" for example. And so on.
I am not sure why you would wish to opt out of the campaign as a result. Obviously the campaign goals would not be such that succeeding in such a task is ever required for the quest hooks and storyline given.
For one, the culture of the world includes people memorizing "addresses" of intricate webs of demiplanes of their friends, allies, coworkers, etc. Getting around is viable and possible by political intrigue, basically. Similar to how you don't have to physically access a computer in order to control it anyway if you can hack people's passwords. Social engineering is the weak point here. For two, the main antagonists may be things that aren't necessarily relevant to demiplane hiding in the first place. Such as "Rovagug is stirring" for example. And so on.
To answer your question it comes down to a philosophical difference in the way you have presented yourself. In reading the whole thread, and yes I read all of it, you tried to force convince people using mathematics and the belief that you were correct in there being no possible way to reach another demiplane because (many, many reasons). While this is fine, and all well and good, I have played DnD since the early 80s and Astral Travel was always a relative thing, you didn't have to know your exact destination, and only had to make will saves to move in the proper direction (though they weren't called will saves at the time!). Look at the 3rd Party spell Astral Caravan and you will see more what I'm talking about. It uses Knowledge checks to make progress to a destination until magically arriving.
If instead you started out declaring that the Astral Plane was not the same Astral Plane that I have know and interacted with since 'Astral Plane' was used in conjunction with DnD/Pathfinder/d20 games of any type, then I would have no issues.
I think the majority of the resistance to your geometric view of the Astral Plane is more a legacy thing. There are many who have played various different incarnations of this game, and defining things to the level you do, while fascinating and a wonderful mental exercise, is completely irrelevant to the gameplay, especially considering you, in your capacity as GM, would categorically deny any attempt to 'break' your world system.
It boils down to a simple, because I said so... which again is totally fine, but when you ask people to find holes and then go on to deny that said holes exist its the social equivalent of asking for an opinion on an outfit and then when you hear something you don't like saying, 'Well, your opinion isn't worth squat!' and many people get offended by that, especially considering that an internet forum is a very difficult place to convey tone.
Hope that wall of text wasn't too bad... this is why I tend to lurk rather than post... *sigh*
Oh! I forgot to mention that I have two more ways to defeat the 'infinite' nature of the way you describe the Astral Plane.
1) Permanent Telepathic Bond, Find the Path, and Teleport.
Two creatures teleport on a line until they each have opposite directions on their Find the Path beacons, then take turns teleporting half the distance towards each other, waiting until the Find the Path beacon 'flips' as it were. How close do they have to be before they most certainly find the location?
2) Occult Adventures added this text for the Astral Plane to RAW:
Travel through the Astral Plane is a strange affair, as the plane's subjective directional gravity means that each traveler chooses the direction of gravity's pull. Creatures can move normally in any direction by imagining "down" near their feet and "falling" in that direction. In this way a creature "falls" 150 feet the first round and 300 feet on each successive round. Movement is straight-line only. A character can attempt a DC 16 Wisdom check to set a new direction of gravity or stop as a free action; this check can be attempted once per round. Any character who fails this Wisdom check on successive rounds receives a +6 bonus on subsequent checks until he succeeds. When moving in this manner, the traveler does not have the sensation of physical movement. Rather, the landscape of the Astral Plane (such as it is) seems to come toward, through, and past him. Scintillations of light are thrown off by the astral body as it moves along at great speed.
Therefore, once you have narrowed down the location with step 1, you can further simplify things by making your subjective gravity 'down' towards the demiplane and fall at 300 ft/rd straight towards it for the low cost of a DC 16 Wisdom check (just use 2 divine casters :-P)
its the social equivalent of asking for an opinion on an outfit and then when you hear something you don't like saying, 'Well, your opinion isn't worth squat!'
I'm asking for logical inconsistencies/broken rules more so than flavor or fashion opinions.
Using the clothing example, what I'm looking for is "We are going to a black tie event, and that's a sweatshirt" <--not a flavor opinion, but rather an objective flaw in the outfit. This would be like finding a spell that says "Yeah you can definitely just go anywhere that a person is simply by thinking their name without having any idea where they may be" for example. This would objectively break the concept.
As opposed to "I like purple sweatshirts better" <--flavor opinion but not logically flawed. This would be like "I prefer a world where the geometry is fixed by magical highway assumptions instead of 4D" Okay, so play a campaign with that, but it's not a logical flaw in the 4D option.
Or the third possibility: "I don't like your outfit because it has too many buttons" when it's a sweatshirt and doesn't have buttons. This would just be incorrect, such as claiming that find the path gives you an exact point or that demiplanes actually exist on the material plane.
Hopefully that is clearer. (Thanks for your feedback and pleasant demeanor!)
1) Permanent Telepathic Bond, Find the Path, and Teleport.
Two creatures teleport on a line until they each have opposite directions on their Find the Path beacons, then take turns teleporting half the distance towards each other, waiting until the Find the Path beacon 'flips' as it were. How close do they have to be before they most certainly find the location?
I don't think this one works. Because there are always still infinitely many points between the target and your current location still. So you'll just keep overshooting or undershooting.
It's not the same as Zeno's paradox, because time in this equation is not asymptoting toward one point (while in reality time can flow past that point). Rather, time is just adding up linearly and you're still not getting there.
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subjective directional gravity
THIS might actually be a problem... If you can use gravity to fall along vectors that are not perpendicular to the 4th dimension, then yeah you could just slide along the vector and hit it easily. The normal problem with projection/plane shift/teleport/whatever is that you wink out and wink back in at your destination without traveling in between, so you miss it. But if you actually slide along the intervening points, you wouldn't.
Since the subjective gravity is a property of the plane not the creature, it might not matter that you're 3D unlike the limits of your normal biological motion.
1) Permanent Telepathic Bond, Find the Path, and Teleport.
Two creatures teleport on a line until they each have opposite directions on their Find the Path beacons, then take turns teleporting half the distance towards each other, waiting until the Find the Path beacon 'flips' as it were. How close do they have to be before they most certainly find the location?
I don't think this one works. Because there are always still infinitely many points between the target and your current location still. So you'll just keep overshooting or undershooting.
It's not the same as Zeno's paradox, because time in this equation is not asymptoting toward one point (while in reality time can flow past that point). Rather, time is just adding up linearly and you're still not getting there.
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subjective directional gravity
THIS might actually be a problem... If you can use gravity to fall along vectors that are not perpendicular to the 4th dimension, then yeah you could just slide along the vector and hit it easily. The normal problem with projection/plane shift/teleport/whatever is that you wink out and wink back in at your destination without traveling in between, so you miss it. But if you actually slide along the intervening points, you wouldn't.
Since the subjective gravity is a property of the plane not the creature, it might not matter that you're 3D unlike the limits of your normal biological motion.
Rather weird, but plausible.
Kamikaze divebombing via subjective gravity... lol.
The Telepathic Bond would at least allow you to narrow the distance down to a realistic level where you are both on opposite sides and then you can just take bets at who will fall into the demiplane first via the gravity rules.
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?
I can't believe you waited a week before replying...
JJ is probably describing how he would run his personal campaign in the thread you linked. The actual written text indicates that Rovagug is more powerful. And actual written text >>>>>>> message board text.
Crimeo wrote:
...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?
In your houserules, there would never be any battles between the Astradaemons and defenders. If Astra's get there first, they win. If defenders get there first, the soul is saved. Only if both sides get there at the exact same moment would there be a fight, and even then the defenders would simply plane shift away with the soul to another slice unless the Astra wins initiative and manages to one shot the defenders.
This completely contradicts actual written text which indicates that these fights between Astras and defenders are relatively common.
Plus there would have to be defenders and Astras on numerous different slices at all times since according to you, each plane would have its own default slice. Thus there would be tons of inevitables hanging out near Maelstrom and Proteans near Axis. Archons would be hanging out near Hell and Abyss. And the good planes would have to tolerate tons of demons and devils hanging out just outside.
Needless to say, none of this has ever been mentioned in actual print.
The default Astradaemons work because the defenders have to escort the souls to Pharasma thus allowing the Astras to intercept anywhere along the journey.
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.
The computer simulation would fit the rules exactly without requiring the 4D. A spell of plane shift or gate would be simply telling the computer to change a few settings. And it would make sense that only a few characters in the simulation would be powerful enough to signal the computer to change those settings. The computer simulation would also explain why the elemental planes wouldn't be gigantic black holes whereas your house rules can't do it at all.
Geometry already doesn't explain the Pathfinder Universe so using geometry as your defense for making up unnecessary rules seems rather bizarre.
By the way, what "impossible contradictions" would there be with a 3D astral plane with the computer simulation?
Yup, exactly the point of Permanent Telepathic Bond + Find the Path. No distance is too far as long as you are on the same plane. In 3 dimensions 3 points can be used to triangulate exact distances... no idea how many it would take in 4d, but should be possible. Angles to demiplane plus distances between points (in this case bonded PCs) and bam!
Maybe 16 points for 4th dimension math? Ah, math is fun but 4d thinking is a tad outside my realm of expertise.
The actual written text indicates that Rovagug is more powerful.
I don't recall you posting any quote like "Rovagug is the most powerful god" from the text. If it doesn't say that, then anything you assume from circumstances is just that, an assumption.
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In your houserules, there would never be any battles between the Astradaemons and defenders. If Astra's get there first, they win. If defenders get there first, the soul is saved. Only if both sides get there at the exact same moment would there be a fight,
1) Not the exact same time in one spot. Anywhere within the "horizon" With no obstructions this would be like, hundreds of miles.
2) Should be very common during major death events like natural disasters and battles. Just like real life sharks and alligators gather wherever there's about to be a migration of prey animals.
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Plus there would have to be defenders and Astras on numerous different slices at all times since according to you, each plane would have its own default slice.
So?
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Thus there would be tons of inevitables hanging out near Maelstrom and Proteans near Axis. Archons would be hanging out near Hell and Abyss. And the good planes would have to tolerate tons of demons and devils hanging out just outside.
And how is this any different than in your conception of it? Astral touches all planes no matter what, so they're always neighbors to all these planes you listed in any interpretation.
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The computer simulation would fit the rules exactly without requiring the 4D.
Absolutely it would. But it also requires the invention of a whole major computer simulation storyline/context which is if anything more jarring and extensive of an addition than saying astral is 4D. I'm changing the dimension of one plane. You're changing the fabric of reality of everything universe-wide...
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Maybe 16 points for 4th dimension math? Ah, math is fun but 4d thinking is a tad outside my realm of expertise.
You only need 2 directional vectors to triangulate a point in any number of dimensions. (If it were non-directional, like GPS, it's more).
The precision wouldn't be good enough alone, but if you're going with a gravity interpretation, then you don't need the triangulation to do the job, just to get you within sane falling distance.
There is still one possible snag, though, having thought about it more: how do you know which way find the path is pointing you in, if the path cuts across the 4th dimension and you can only perceive 3-D cues? Like, what kind of arrow or mental indication or feeling or whatever could tell you the right direction in a dimension you can't perceive in a way you'd be able to work with? Similarly, how do you visualize/decide to fall into the 4th dimension with precision? Do you actually even know which way the 4th dimension "points" from your perspective?
That's getting very squishy and subjective, and I doubt there is any hope of a clear logical answer, but throwing it out there.
Also, if you're falling along, and you hit the demiplane at a part of it that is solid rock, do you just show up inside of solid rock and die? Or do you bounce off / not actually get to the correect slice as a result? This isn't that important, because it'd only happen a portion of the time and you could just send more dudes, but interesting.
Astral Projection gives you an incorporeal astral body, so hitting the demiplane at any speed is irrelevant. Once you arrive at the demiplane it creates a new temporary physical body, with a copy of all your gear so you could still wreak a lot of destruction. Unfortunately, this is why I said the cold war issue is still a thing, as you can literally go nova, and even if you die, as you are there via Astral Projection, you just snap back to your body with 2 negative levels, which are a minor nuisance to a high level character, Greater Restoration, and problem solved.
What's worse, there is a lvl 5 version that allows you to travel in the astral plane without going to the other plane, which means a much lower level caster can find a demiplane. Even if that only allows them to map the 'address' of said demiplane, it means trouble for the inhabitants, as there is no special kind of RAW spell that I know of that extends your senses to the astral plane unless you scry, but what if the BBEG sends a low level henchman you've never met, or even knew about? According to your setting lvl 9 is fairly common (most adults are 10th level) so this shouldn't be hard to accomplish.
I've found as a GM the more complex I make a situation, the harder my players try to unravel it... humans are a strange lot. If I leave things vague, I always have less issues with world breaking attempts.
Hope this little trick doesn't prevent you from running your game though!
I don't recall you posting any quote like "Rovagug is the most powerful god" from the text. If it doesn't say that, then anything you assume from circumstances is just that, an assumption.
When an alliance of all the deities including Pharasma fights Rovagug and only manage to seal him away while losing dozens of deities in the process, it's a pretty good indicator that he's more powerful than any single one of them. Until JJ's message board post, I've never seen anyone argue otherwise and his message board posting contradicts established printed material.
Crimeo wrote:
1) Not the exact same time in one spot. Anywhere within the "horizon" With no obstructions this would be like, hundreds of miles.
2) Should be very common during major death events like natural disasters and battles. Just like real life sharks and alligators gather wherever there's about to be a migration of prey animals.
Nope. If the Astras take even a single action to teleport in, the defenders simply plane shift away with the souls. And the Astradaemons don't have invisibility so visibility works both ways.
Sharks and alligators wouldn't have too much luck if the prey could be easily plane shifted away in a non-followable manner by dedicated defenders.
Crimeo wrote:
And how is this any different than in your conception of it? Astral touches all planes no matter what, so they're always neighbors to all these planes you listed in any interpretation.
All sides would have all their forces on the same plane. They wouldn't have to divvy them up in dozens of individual astral slices. And the natives would all mingle with each other rather than have dozens of smaller ecologies that are all similar but non-interactive with each other.
Crimeo wrote:
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The computer simulation would fit the rules exactly without requiring the 4D.
Absolutely it would. But it also requires the invention of a whole major computer simulation storyline/context which is if anything more jarring and extensive of an addition than saying astral is 4D. I'm changing the dimension of one plane. You're changing the fabric of reality of everything universe-wide...
I'm changing the fluff of everything, but no Pathfinder rules need to be changed. You can keep RAW as is.
You're changing the fluff of everything, but significant amounts of Pathfinder rules need to be changed. You can't keep RAW as is.
The computer simulation scenario is completely compatible with most Pathfinder campaigns since nothing needs to be changed. Your model is incompatible with most Pathfinder campaigns since many things need to change. The fact that NOBODY who has posted on this thread has agreed with you on the necessity of 4D Astral Space should be a clear indication of that.
What I've never heard explained is how a Tippyverse gets its arbitrary number of high level casters.
Following the RAW as "strictly" as it supposedly does, all of these people stay in their cities, essentially never doing more than activating some traps and trading. You can't gain significant experience that way.
I also have to wonder why anyone is banding together at all. A 20th level immortal wizard has no need of any humans. He can make his city populated with simulacrums, intelligent undead, or whatever he wants to keep him company, if he wants any company. He can do all of the item creation he needs personally, so I really don't get how these cities ever form.
I think that if this sort of stuff were to happen, you'd basically get a setting similar to any other, except the high level casters don't exist, because once they get strong enough, they go off and do their own thing.
What I've never heard explained is how a Tippyverse gets its arbitrary number of high level casters.
Following the RAW as "strictly" as it supposedly does, all of these people stay in their cities, essentially never doing more than activating some traps and trading. You can't gain significant experience that way.
I also have to wonder why anyone is banding together at all. A 20th level immortal wizard has no need of any humans. He can make his city populated with simulacrums, intelligent undead, or whatever he wants to keep him company, if he wants any company. He can do all of the item creation he needs personally, so I really don't get how these cities ever form.
I think that if this sort of stuff were to happen, you'd basically get a setting similar to any other, except the high level casters don't exist, because once they get strong enough, they go off and do their own thing.
Tippyverse was, as I recall, originally constructed according to RAW based on 3.5 - in that rule set, there are a set number of casters of an arbitrarily high level in the cities. Since that is, by default RAW; the mages are presumed to be there.
What's more; although a caster can do these things, they don't necessarily need or want to - high level casters are not monoliths of "I want to control everything" - instead, they can rely on other, "lesser" people to follow up on the paths they don't want to bother following up on - either arcane or divine.
Of course, some casters will likely follow your suggested courses. But then again, those casters who work with other casters will have more nigh-infinite simulacrums than those who decide to go-it alone. Because then they'll have multiple start-points due to multiple casters. Hence a higher order of nigh-infinite simulacra than the "lone" nigh-infinite.
Not to mention some level 20 casters might be benevolent Good-aligned folks who just like protecting other humans. Or they might just feel that simulacra make a poor substitute for real human companionship. Wizards have friends too.
When an alliance of all the deities including Pharasma fights Rovagug and only manage to seal him away while losing dozens of deities in the process, it's a pretty good indicator that he's more powerful than any single one of them.
Key phrase highlighted. "Pretty good", not RAW / canon / guaranteed. You're welcome to take pretty good clues as a basis for your choice of story lines, but pretty good clues are not a basis to call a system non-RAW.
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Nope. If the Astras take even a single action to teleport in, the defenders simply plane shift away with the souls. And the Astradaemons don't have invisibility so visibility works both ways.
Let me set the scene a bit more. There's a battle (or tsunami) on Golarion material plane. People are dying randomly over the course of HOURS, and showing up in a concentrated area in the astral. pop - there's a soul, scramble to go get to it first. POP there's another soul, run over toward it, etc. Every minute or two.
Yes, if a defender gets to one first, it oinks away to the boneyard, and wins. If a daemon gets to it first, it gobbles it up.
But what exactly do you think they're doing all the rest of the time in between racing to souls? Having tea together? No, they're battling one another, because if an astra can kill a defender or drive it away while waiting for the next souls to pop up, then that's one less competitor to rush to them first.
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All sides would have all their forces on the same plane. They wouldn't have to divvy them up in dozens of individual astral slices.
So you're arguing the nature of reality must be a certain way because it would make battle logistics easier?
I guess mountains must not exist then on Earth, because if they did, it would make supply lines to armies more complicated.
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I'm changing the fluff of everything, but no Pathfinder rules need to be changed. You can keep RAW as is.
Making the astral plane 4D does not require changing a single RAW rule that I can see.
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What I've never heard explained is how a Tippyverse gets its arbitrary number of high level casters.
Following the RAW as "strictly" as it supposedly does, all of these people stay in their cities, essentially never doing more than activating some traps and trading. You can't gain significant experience that way.
RAW doesn't say anything about how people must spend their days or choose to structure their society in response to specific stimuli? Why would it be necessary by RAW that they "sit around and only ever activate traps etc."?
Obviously people have a vested interest in becoming high level wizards in tippyverse, so they would set up challenging events for themselves, to get experience and gain levels.
Things don't have to be DEADLY to be challenging enough for experience. By RAW, if you solve a basic roleplaying social encounter that doesn't have an obvious solution, such as settling a dispute between some squabbling nobles with some diplomacy and such, you get XP as long as it was challenging.
People in Tippyverse I presume would set up challenges like obstacle courses and things for each other, scaled to be definitely challenging for the participant, but not very likely to kill him, until they all get as high a level as they need.
Nothing in the rules differentiates by the way between NPCs and PCs in experience gain. It just says "Characters gain XP when..." so there's not really any RAW basis either for some people's "I'm a special snowflake, PCs are different than everyone else" mentality in this respect. If your PCs get to level 2 by killing two silly rats and helping an old lady find her lost dog, then so do NPCs.
Not listed: creating adventures and expecting folk to run through them. Especially if they're played "for keeps" i.e. with full deadly force; even if they're offered effectively "free" resurrection and restoration afterwords, that can be really brutal, and there is always the chance that Pharasma just insta-judges; but on the other hand, it would be really effective - just like real adventures.
Full descriptions of earning XP and retraining are below.
Gaining levels, as needed.:
Earning XP wrote:
Earn XP
If you've missed a campaign session or otherwise fallen behind in XP compared to the other characters, you can spend downtime adventuring to help catch up to the other PCs. Usually downtime adventures feature encounters that are much easier than you'd normally expect as part of a group. For example, a 5th-level character might clear zombies out of a crypt or assist some lower-level adventurers with a problem that's a little too difficult for them.
Spending 1 day of downtime adventuring earns you XP as if you had defeated an opponent whose CR was equal to your character level. For example, if you are a 3rd-level character, you would earn 800 XP. You do not earn any treasure or other capital for downtime adventuring.
If using this downtime activity would increase your XP above the highest XP value among all the PCs in your party, it increases your XP to that value instead; any XP earned beyond this amount is lost. This activity allows you only to catch up, not to get ahead.
=============================
Retraining Class Levels wrote:
Class Level
One of the most critical choices you can make about your character is what class to choose when you gain a level.
In general, it takes 7 days to retrain one level in a class into one level in another class. Some classes are more suited for this kind of retraining, as they have a similar focus or purpose—this is called retraining synergy. If your old class has retraining synergy with your new class, retraining that class level takes only 5 days instead of 7 days. Determine class retraining synergies according to Table 3 –8: Retraining Synergies.
Most prestige classes have retraining synergy with base classes that share their common class features. For example, the arcane trickster prestige class requires and advances arcane spellcasting, so it has retraining synergy with all arcane spellcasting classes. It also requires and advances sneak attack, so it has retraining synergy with classes that grant sneak attack. The GM is the final arbiter of whether or not a prestige class has retraining synergy with a base class, but should err on the side of generosity—if you would rather spend time retraining levels over and over again instead of adventuring, that is your choice.
Key phrase highlighted. "Pretty good", not RAW / canon / guaranteed. You're welcome to take pretty good clues as a basis for your choice of story lines, but pretty good clues are not a basis to call a system non-RAW.
Much better than you taking a random message board posting that contradicts printed written material as the basis for your assertions.
At least written material has shown Rovagug feats and acts that indicate his power level. Is there any written material that shows the same for Pharasma?
Crimeo wrote:
Let me set the scene a bit more. There's a battle (or tsunami) on Golarion material plane. People are dying randomly over the course of HOURS, and showing up in a concentrated area in the astral. pop - there's a soul, scramble to go get to it first. POP there's another soul, run over toward it, etc. Every minute or two.
Yes, if a defender gets to one first, it oinks away to the boneyard, and wins. If a daemon gets to it first, it gobbles it up.
But what exactly do you think they're doing all the rest of the time in between racing to souls? Having tea together? No, they're battling one another, because if an astra can kill a defender or drive it away while waiting for the next souls to pop up, then that's one less competitor to rush to them first.
Why would a defender have to fight an Astradaemon if there isn't a soul around? The Astra has to use an action to get to them and there's nothing stopping them from taking their action to get away. There's nothing to be gained by fighting unless there is a soul around.
Crimeo wrote:
I guess mountains must not exist then on Earth, because if they did, it would make supply lines to armies more complicated.
Mountains exist because the RAW of Earth says they exist. 4D Astral planes with infinite 3D slices do not have RAW of Pathfinder saying they exist.
I can just state that the Elemental Planes have a bazillion slices as well and have just as much RAW backing as your 3D Astral slices (NONE).
Crimeo wrote:
Making the astral plane 4D does not require changing a single RAW rule that I can see.
Where in the RAW does it state infinite Astral slices and 4D Astral Space?
You absolutely are changing RAW if you disallow Find the Path from finding a location on the Astral Plane. NOBODY on this thread who has posted has agreed with you that RAW hasn't been changed.
Not to mention some level 20 casters might be benevolent Good-aligned folks who just like protecting other humans. Or they might just feel that simulacra make a poor substitute for real human companionship. Wizards have friends too.
No they don't.. they're all geeks still living in their (re-animated) mother's basement!
Much better than you taking a random message board posting that contradicts printed written material as the basis for your assertions.
At least written material has shown Rovagug feats and acts that indicate his power level. Is there any written material that shows the same for Pharasma?
It doesn't matter. The JJ comment doesn't matter, I was just answering your questions and being nice and exploring some interesting topics. But at the end of the day, in terms of what is allowed by RAW, I can do anything I like whatsoever with lore like this if it isn't actually contradicted. And it is not. I can simply say "I just FEEL like pharasma being the most powerful. And Pharasma didn't handle everything herself simply because wanted to give the other gods a learning opportunity" or maybe wanted to weed out the weak annoying ones. Whatever. Just as RAW-compliant as any other story that isn't contradicted.
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Why would a defender have to fight an Astradaemon if there isn't a soul around? The Astra has to use an action to get to them and there's nothing stopping them from taking their action to get away. There's nothing to be gained by fighting unless there is a soul around.
Uh there ARE souls around. There's a battle or tsunami going on on the material plane. Folks are dying left or right. The defenders and daemons both know full well that a dozen more souls are going to appear within like 1,000 feet of them in the next couple of minutes.
If you can kill the other guys wanting the same souls first, then you get 100% of those. If not, you get 50% of those (the ones that happen to pop in closer to you). They both want the 100%--they aren't just agreeing to share politely. So they battle.
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Mountains exist because the RAW of Earth says they exist.
No you were acting like the complexity of army operations PROVED astral didn't work some way. If that logic works, then the complexity of army operations on Earth PROVES mountains don't exist.
Since you admit mountains exist, then you admit complexity of army operations doesn't conflict with/prove/force anything about topography, then nor does the same logic work in pathfinder. Yes it makes their logistics more complicated. WHO CARES? How does this establish anything? They just deal with it...
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Where in the RAW does it state infinite Astral slices and 4D Astral Space?
We have been over this ad nauseum. RAW lays out a bunch of rules that can only all be true if either this is true, or if you add some other equally jarring and extreme change to the way we would intuitively think about things (such as "twist! we are all in the matrix!")
Simply saying "3D, and nothing else weird going on or added at all to our normal intuitions" doesn't work. It will logically violate one or more of the rules written about how planes connect.
I mean like... read the first half of the thread??? Which you were there for?
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You absolutely are changing RAW if you disallow Find the Path from finding a location on the Astral Plane.
Find the Path doesn't find locations. It finds paths. Hence the name (and description)... So no it is not changing RAW to say a spell can't do something it doesn't describe being able to do.
In normal usage, you move through intervening space as you walk and you don't have to be AT the singular point of an object to see or touch it. So in normal usage, the spell doesn't really have problems. When those things aren't true anymore, you begin to run into the limitations of only having a path not a precise location.
It doesn't matter. The JJ comment doesn't matter, I was just answering your questions and being nice and exploring some interesting topics. But at the end of the day, in terms of what is allowed by RAW, I can do anything I like whatsoever with lore like this if it isn't actually contradicted. And it is not. I can simply say "I just FEEL like pharasma being the most powerful. And Pharasma didn't handle everything herself simply because wanted to give the other gods a learning opportunity" or maybe wanted to weed out the weak annoying ones. Whatever. Just as RAW-compliant as any other story that isn't contradicted.
Ah, we're getting to the heart of this. Your FEELINGS is what your justification is for everything regardless of RAW or printed material. By the way, if JJ's comment doesn't matter, why did you bring it up in the first place? Clearly you were trying to use evidence rather than FEELINGS on this.
Crimeo wrote:
Uh there ARE souls around. There's a battle or tsunami going on on the material plane. Folks are dying left or right. The defenders and daemons both know full well that a dozen more souls are going to appear within like 1,000 feet of them in the next couple of minutes.
If you can kill the other guys wanting the same souls first, then you get 100% of those. If not, you get 50% of those (the ones that happen to pop in closer to you). They both want the 100%--they aren't just agreeing to share politely. So they battle.
Again, why would a defender have to fight? If an Astraldaemon approaches, they leave unless the soul is right there. And how would they know the souls would arrive within 1000'? The Astral Plane is a vast space.
Crimeo wrote:
Since you admit mountains exist, then you admit complexity of army operations doesn't conflict with/prove/force anything about topography, then nor does the same logic work in pathfinder. Yes it makes their logistics more complicated. WHO CARES? How does this establish anything? They just deal with it...
I admit mountains exist because the RAW says they do. I don't admit 3D slices exist because RAW doesn't say they do. YOU are the one saying that mountains somehow prove that 3D slices exist.
Crimeo wrote:
We have been over this ad nauseum. RAW lays out a bunch of rules that can only all be true if either this is true, or if you add some other equally jarring and extreme change to the way we would intuitively think about things (such as "twist! we are all in the matrix!")
Simply saying "3D, and nothing else weird going on or added at all to our normal intuitions" doesn't work. It will logically violate one or more of the rules written about how planes connect.
I mean like... read the first half of the thread??? Which you were there for?
We have been over this many times and each time you make an assertion, I and the rest of the board disagree with your assertion, and you then continue using that assertion for the rest of your arguments.
NOBODY else posting on this thread agrees with you on the necessity of 4D space. Just because you make an assertion doesn't mean the rest of us have to accept it.
Crimeo wrote:
Find the Path doesn't find locations. It finds paths. Hence the name (and description)... So no it is not changing RAW to say a spell can't do something it doesn't describe being able to do.
In normal usage, you move through intervening space as you walk and you don't have to be AT the singular point of an object to see or touch it. So in normal usage, the spell doesn't really have problems. When those things aren't true anymore, you begin to run into the limitations of only having a path not a precise location.
By RAW, a combination of Find the Path and Greater Teleport will eventually allow someone to get to any location on the same plane. Since your house rules doesn't allow for it, it violates RAW.
By RAW, a barbarian who is 5' away from an opponent on the same plane can attack that opponent in melee. Your houserules says that the opponent who is 5' away on the same plane can't be attacked if he's on a different slice. That violates RAW.
The description of how the various planes co-locate is fuzzy, but I disagree that an additional spatial dimension in the Astral is the cleanest way to do it. I think saying that they're really all occupying the same space is metaphysically the simplest. If you wanted to define a coordinate system that would capture this, you'd introduce another dimension but it would be a finite (and therefore discrete) dimension. It's categorically different from an additional continuous dimension.
If I accept the 4d model with infinite divisibility on that fourth dimension, being adjacent to each other would require either that they have some finite (i.e. not infinitesimal) extent or that there's some finite distance between them. The former would mean the "slice" model would eventually lack security while the latter seems to make travel between the standard planes difficult (unless I misunderstand your model pretty significantly). Also, this would that three separate planes cannot simultaneously be adjacent while leaving any other space. Going up in dimension can resolve some of these problems but at significant expense in complexity.
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 ^_^
I didn't do this before, but I wanted to welcome you! Hooray! Welcome to the forums! Please feel free to poke around, read stuff, and ask things!
Ah, we're getting to the heart of this. Your FEELINGS is what your justification is for everything regardless of RAW or printed material.
It's not "Regardless of RAW" it's perfectly consistent with RAW. As much as is your opinion of any other god being the most powerful. I'm getting particularly tired of even discussing this point as I can't even remember why on earth it matters whatsoever for the thread anyway... Please remind me or I'm just going to start ignoring this one.
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Again, why would a defender have to fight? If an Astraldaemon approaches, they leave unless the soul is right there.
I'm not sure how to phrase this in any new ways: because they want to stack the deck in their favor BEFORE the souls arrive. I am not claiming any fighting after a soul arrives, after that it's just a race and the winner wins. They fight ahead of time so that all of the soules that will show up later you get for yourself.
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And how would they know the souls would arrive within 1000'? The Astral Plane is a vast space.
The whole concept of why souls are in the default slice to begin with is that your soul just shows up in the physically closest spot on the astral plane to wherever you died. As in some blind physical force just launches it astral-ward and that's the part you hit first. So if you were all within 1,000ft of each other on the material plane when you died (in a localized battle or mudslide or whatever), then you all show up within 1,000ft of each other on the astral slice that is directly touching that area of the material plane once you're dead, and in order as you die. So once you've seen several souls pop up in quick succession, you can easily predict that more will probably nearby too. Plus these creatures can plane shift and know things about upcoming battles and whatnot anyway if they want to.
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I admit mountains exist because the RAW says they do. I don't admit 3D slices exist because RAW doesn't say they do. YOU are the one saying that mountains somehow prove that 3D slices exist.
The mountain thing is not a basis of anything, only a response to your seeming to think that complicated logistics mattered for anything. They don't. The astradaemons will have more complicated logistics, yes, and who cares? They will have to deal with it.
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NOBODY else posting on this thread agrees with you on the necessity of 4D space.
Well I wouldn't expect them to, since I don't even claim it is necessary. I have only claimed that SOME major addition is necessary, not THAT one. I just think that one is more in line with the project/thought experiment than the "in the matrix" addition is. Because it feels more physics-y and not-intentionally-designed, mainly, and the whole flavor of the project is just going with the flow of where physics/psychology/the rules/etc. take us. Pre-existing geometry rules seem much more thematically in line with that than some invented system that allows things to end up exactly where you want them to end up.
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By RAW, a combination of Find the Path and Greater Teleport will eventually allow someone to get to any location on the same plane.
RAW certainly doesn't directly say this. It does allow you to logically deduce it IF you start with the premise that you are in a 3D plane, which RAW doesn't guarantee and which is in fact impossible to conclude without adding some sort of other equally major unwritten change to the universe. (or at least if it is possible to do without that nobody has explained how yet)
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If you wanted to define a coordinate system that would capture this, you'd introduce another dimension but it would be a finite (and therefore discrete) dimension.
A discrete dimension is very strange, this does not fit the precedent set by every other spatial dimension. Yes you could just claim it anyway, but I don't see how it's somehow "more intuitive" or "cleaner" to both add a 4th dimension AND claim it works differently than every other dimension versus adding a 4th dimension that does work like every other dimension.
How can two unexpected additional rules be cleaner than one?
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being adjacent to each other would require either that they have some finite (i.e. not infinitesimal) extent or that there's some finite distance between them.
I was conceiving of something more like the latter, yes. But it's not a distance of planesspace, it's just a distance of nothingness, or what have you, whatever nothingness all these planes exist in. Transport magic then just takes you to the physically nearest point in the other destination by default. In terms of something-ness, they are as close as they can be, colloquially touching, in the same sense that my finger is "touching" the table basically when there aren't any other meaningful atoms (such as air) in between the two, and/or when it is within range for the electromagnetic force to reach an equilibrium with muscle strength. Or the analogy here being whatever force in the universe holds planes in a group in the first place (? doesn't say but there must be one) and whatever force stops them from just flying through one another etc (? doesn't say but there must be one).
But what it doesn't require is any sort of nonlinear intelligently designed "routing" system or whatever, like would be required if the planes didn't at least line up properly. You just go point to physically nearest point. Which seems much more consistent with a physics-like, uncaring, undesigned system. That's why I prefer this over other systems like "Matrix" or "Magic routes you to a corresponding but not nearest point somehow"
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 ^_^
I didn't do this before, but I wanted to welcome you! Hooray! Welcome to the forums! Please feel free to poke around, read stuff, and ask things!
Thank you, I've always wanted to avoid any unnecessary hostility, which sadly seems to be a theme on many forum boards all over the internet. However, while it seems that people are passionate about their opinions, this thread at least is trying to maintain an on topic bent.
I shall endeavor to be more involved in the future, as I hope this game continues to thrive and I have many more books to buy in the future!
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 ^_^
Tacticslion wrote:
I didn't do this before, but I wanted to welcome you! Hooray! Welcome to the forums! Please feel free to poke around, read stuff, and ask things!
JosueV wrote:
Thank you, I've always wanted to avoid any unnecessary hostility, which sadly seems to be a theme on many forum boards all over the internet. However, while it seems that people are passionate about their opinions, this thread at least is trying to maintain an on topic bent.
I shall endeavor to be more involved in the future, as I hope this game continues to thrive and I have many more books to buy in the future!
^_^
Fair warning: we're all extremely passionate nerds, here!
Tempers can get high, but we're a good bunch, and generally don't hold grudges.
(And, for future reference, no matter how hard or stridently I argue with you, please know that I probably like you, and am glad you're here. I'm just stubborn. :D)
Tippyverse was, as I recall, originally constructed according to RAW based on 3.5 - in that rule set, there are a set number of casters of an arbitrarily high level in the cities. Since that is, by default RAW; the mages are presumed to be there.
Good point. RAW dictates their existence in that case. Though I thought it didn't call out classes, just levels. Never really bothered with that in 3.5 anyways, so I'm sure my memory is fuzzy.
Tacticslion wrote:
What's more; although a caster can do these things, they don't necessarily need or want to - high level casters are not monoliths of "I want to control everything" - instead, they can rely on other, "lesser" people to follow up on the paths they don't want to bother following up on - either arcane or divine.
Again true, but I do wonder about the whole "sociopaths are the ones to seek power thing". Are the high level casters really all likely to work together well? And the difference in ability between a well built 20th level caster and several mediocre built 15th level casters is a lot more than the CR of them would suggest. I'd think cities would be a lot less stable than the Tippyverse suggests.
Another point about "non-monolithic" casters. The Tippyverse says that you might have casters start out in the wastelands, but of course they'll emigrate to the cities at some point. After all, no one has ever shown any loyalty to their homeland or people. /s
First thing I would like to point out Villagers through out History have always had to live with the fact that life was Dangerous and their village could be wipe out in an instant. Drought, Hurricanes, Earthquakes,locust nasty invaders, bloody civil wars , cruel overlords made a peasant life very unfun . But they some how survived. Adding a 20 level sociopath Wizard to the mix would just be one more thing to deal with.
Take the Ukraine for example, every hundred years or so a new blood thirsty invader(Huns, Goth, Vikings, Mongols etc) would show up killing and burning. The peasants would hide in the local swamps and forest till the invaders got tired then send their fairest maids bearing what meager gifts they had to the invaders, hoping to be able to farm in peace next year, and it almost always worked.
Could also point out until the last century it was legal for ANYONE in Japan to kill Etta, yet the Etta survive to this day. Why? Because most people ,except sociopath don't kill for no reason.
And your 20 level sociopath Wizard is not going to have friends and plenty of enemies, including Non Human ones. Having a dozen ancient Dragon decide you need to go is dangerous even for a 20 level Wizard.
Adding a 20 level sociopath Wizard to the mix would just be one more thing to deal with.
I agree.
However, adding NON-sociopath high level wizards to the mix would not be a liability, and the vast majority of people in the world are not sociopaths. Not sure why you'd fixate on that one scenario. Perhaps because it is historically relevant in large cities and countries. But in fact one of the whole points of not having a huge city is that the few rare random wackos are isolated in small pockets, and the large majority of villages are sociopath-free.
Yes the non sociopathic spellcaster would make thing a lot better for everyone. Even the vast majority of "Evil" Wizards know Healthy peasants pay more in taxes so would use their magic to insure no plagues broke out, there where No swarms of Locust etc. This would cancel out the rare wacko Wizard that showed up.
Cities I believe would still exist, but perhaps rarer and smaller then before. As some have pointed out, villages cannot support luxury items and some specialties. You want to see a good play you are going to have to go to a city, simply as that. Or you want a well craft set of Glass cups same thing. Perhaps some cities would develop "bomb shelters" for when a Mad wizard shows up.
Might point out most character by 10 level are going to have more gold then they can ever spend. So why keep risking life and limb when you can live in comfort for the rest of your life? Be like winning 5 million in the lottery and then deciding to go to Syria to fight ISSIS. I think the vast majority at 10th would retire and live happily ever after instead of risking death all the time.
As some have pointed out, villages cannot support luxury items and some specialties.
You can simply trade, you don't have to live shoulder to shoulder with specialty good makers. Both of you have tuning forks to a neutral trade demiplane. You go there, you trade, you go home, they can't follow you easily.
Now, yes, you can use objects you've touched and people you've met to gain possible ways of finding them, but this is not a huge deal, because you trade in tiers. Actual objects and in person meetings are done only with other near small villagey type neighboring communities, and you limit the number of them, and you also limit the clusters of trading groups to distinct groups, all to cut off "infection" of evil divinations and such if they crop up. But usually they won't in most groups of, say, ten 400 person groups.
Then in broader tiers, you trade things like knowledge, that can't be used to track or divine. You can do this with sending spells, without exposing yourself to physical contact that can be leveraged. You can safely trade knowledge in million person groups.
You can also build up caches of spare goods that have never been touched or seen by various subsets of a community, on planes they don't know about. So if A,B,C,D all live together, maybe ABC have a plane with some spare stuff, BCD do too, and CD have their own as well (and are married so they aren't worried about each other). If person A turns out to be sketchy, BCD can abandon him and burn all their stuff if paranoid, and just go to the BCD and/or CD caches. You can also imagine a very stoic culture where touchy-feely attitudes are rare. Touching somebody AT ALL is VERY INTIMATE because it means you gain a very real leverage in tracking them. Thus perhaps only family members, lovers, etc. actually extensively touch each others' things at all directly.
With things like the eidetic memory spell (memorize page), you can have hundreds of planes and subsets of people to fall back on, and the world is very navigable as more of a social maze than a physical one. People who are a!#~!@&s find out that those mazes quickly contract to single room prisons.
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So why keep risking life and limb when you can live in comfort for the rest of your life?
Nothing in the rules says you have to risk your life to get XP. You just have to be challenged. It even explicitly says purely RP challenges grant experience. Community members can set up challenging situations and obstacle courses, etc. to get to level 20 without having to risk anybody's life.
Remember the whole point of this project is taking rules to their logical extensions and people not self-handicapping for no reason. In a purely logical sense, going adventuring in any standard sense is a REALLY DUMB thing to do if all you want is XP. You'd usually only do it if the world were actually at stake, or if you just inherently enjoy it, or whatever. Not for XP and casting levels.
