Any player efforts to craft high tech items could end up as your setting historical curiosities like the Baghdad Battery.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery
Don't condemn me for using wikipedia, they use sources..
Battery, Electroplating, Bitumen as insulator or storage vessels for scrollsthose are the four hypotheses about "a ceramic pot, a tube of one metal, and a rod of another."
and
"The current interpretation of their purpose is as a storage vessel for sacred scrolls from nearby Seleucia on the Tigris."If you're going to reference smth, check if it's still true.
I think you mean accepted, not true.
My whole point with BB was that you can use the components to generate enough current to electroplate metal, which is, original use or not, a HUGE historical curiosity. Like, one hell of a coincidence. About as coincidental as it's possible to get; I find a Piltdown Man style hoax more likely, tbh.
So, my point relating to fantasy settings and technological explosions is, every single inhabitant of a fantasy setting might look at a car aerial and say, "What's a 'radio antenna?' That's obviously a wand that's consumed all its charges, or maybe the single worst exotic weapon I've ever seen."
First of all, making a Fabricate Trap isn't an option. Remember, you have to compare cost/ease of use, and similarity to existing items.
You're obviously NOT doing that. You're doing the same thing as the guy with a Cure Light Wounds trap giving out unlimited healing.
secondly, 'magic item crafting materials' aren't materials. Fabricate creates processed goods, and who says the materials used in Fabricate are all processed? Plus, you'd end up doing mass amounts of one kind of material going into one kind of processed good at a time, so hello to a LOT of book-Keeping.
Given that Fabricate 'creates wealth' instantly, the potential cost of such a Wondrous Device would likely be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of gold.
Thirdly, the device doesn't have skill ranks, exactly how is it going to make something? The only way you can give it skill ranks is to make it an intelligent creature, and then there will be a limit on how many ranks you can give it, and of course giving it those ranks would cost even more money.
Given how bad it could break an economy, an unlimited use Fabricate Item with multiple skill ranks at least 11 so it can take 10 and make Masterwork items is probably going to be in the One Million+ Gp range. You know, like that True Strike sword people keep lusting after.
==Aelryinth
So, yes, there's no "need" in Golarion to invent gas-powered street lights (or electrical ones, for that matter), because for a low, low price of only 75 gp, you can put a continual flame spell on any street corner you like.
You mean, for the Low, Low Price of Calling in a Torch Archon to help you bring light to the world, you can COntinual Light up a city for nothing. (SLA for Torch Archons).
==Aelryinth
Though
When the spell that summoned a creature ends and the creature disappears, all the spells it has cast expire. A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have.So you must do a lesser planar ally (2,000 gp to the archon for borrowing it from Heaven for a few days) or lesser planar binding spell (costing whatever the wizard abducting a lantern archon wants to charge you, expected minimum of 1,080 gp for casting the three spells it takes to actually abduct a lantern archon) to get it done for realsies.
And either way, you need a 9th level caster, which may be a hurdle for most small settlements.
IN lieu of paying the Torch Archon anything, you can offer to perform a counter-service of equal merit, and besides, you're bringing it in to do good work.
And yes, you are Calling it, not Summoning it. My language was quite precise. Since over the space of 3 days it could drop 40K+ Continual Lights, it's definitely cost effective even to pay 2,000 gp for it. You could sell the Lights at 15 gp a pop and still make oodles and oodles of money. Or donate them to the churches and poor towns that can't afford a level 9 Caster. You'll make the money you spent on the Archon back one way or another.
Effectively, the Torch Archon is a cost-free way to light up the world.
==Aelryinth
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I find it funny that you are giving the 5th level wizard that much wealth. Why would the Village put all the eggs in once basket with that wizard?
What if he dies? What if he leaves?
The village is going to pump money into something more reliable and they can all use. Hell your wizard is now the dictator of this village because the villages rely on him to do everything for them?
Mind you need needs them to supply all the rough materials for him. Your wizard would also have to be 9th level to get fabricate since it is a 5th level spell.
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Has anyone else been reading Max Gladstone's novels? They're an alternate earth that seems 20th/21st Century-ish, but use magic for a lot of their industry and infrastructure. They use magic runes to turn the water on and off, they use captured deities to power desalination plants, and deal with demonic infestations of their reservoirs and tap water.
Wizards are lawyers, some CEOs are liches, and some corporations have killed gods.
This is just one series of novels, but it has lots and lots of cool ideas combining modern infrastructure and sorcery.
A lot of other fantasy worlds have high levels of technology.
A lot more don't.
And some have their high tech hidden from most of the world, like Draegera (sp?).
Just set your fantasy world's technological level to where you want it to be, and be happy! :-D
Science is discovery, a knife that cuts into the structure of nature to explore it.
There is really no good reason for a setting to not progress. Only way for fantasy world to avoid progression is to make it inherently simple. Everything is merely energy, or something similar.
The idea that magic will keep status quo is usually very bad explation because it relies on the idea of "god of status quo". While tech vs magic makes an interesting conflict in some cases, it always makes pretty one dimensional worlds because the world was made for the conflict and not the other way around.
Science is discovery, a knife that cuts into the structure of nature to explore it.
There is really no good reason for a setting to not progress. Only way for fantasy world to avoid progression is to make it inherently simple. Everything is merely energy, or something similar.
Well in real life there are plenty of examples where settings didn't progress. Social and cultural norms, dogma, disasters, economics, absence of appropriate resources, and just bad luck and failure to come up with a specific idea have all led to sometimes lengthy periods of times where certain technologies were either lost completely or not innovated in a useful way.
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You could argue that Einstein (or Edison or Franklin or DaVinci) could have used their genius to industrialize (or perhaps in Einstein's case, vastly improve industrialization) for the sake of churning out super machines and making vast products using their genius to mass produce cool stuff. In fact, I think they were smart enough to do that very thing.
But they didn't want to. They had better things to do.
DaVinci didn't have the industrial base to work off of. Einstein's genius was mostly theoretical. Edison & Franklin basically did just that.
Franklin especially did A LOT to improve life through industrialization in lots of little ways. Think how much the franklin stove (and far more the intellectual descendants of it) improved lives through (then) modern industry. Heck - people were basically using improved versions of it up through the early 20th century. And that was just one of his many inventions.
Well in real life there are plenty of examples where settings didn't progress. Social and cultural norms, dogma, disasters, economics, absence of appropriate resources, and just bad luck and failure to come up with a specific idea have all led to sometimes lengthy periods of times where certain technologies were either lost completely or not innovated in a useful way.Science is discovery, a knife that cuts into the structure of nature to explore it.
There is really no good reason for a setting to not progress. Only way for fantasy world to avoid progression is to make it inherently simple. Everything is merely energy, or something similar.
Yes sure. Different regions develop at different rates, social policies and cultures change the progress, yet still there is some sense of discovery to be made.
You should not oppose scientific progress in fantasy because you don't want real life technology. There are plenty of games, and sci-fi in general, as proof of being able to take science into a direction that keeps fantasy still as fantasy. You do not have to go full tolkien and kill off all fantasy from your world because someone wanted to do a bit inventing.
Best way to avoid typical "guns and explosives!" future is to establish early that the world is alien in the way that the typical fuselages are scarce.
I really love what Endless Legend did. Even if civilizations go to pretty industrial techs, the land lacks the typical elements used to make our real life technology. Instead, fantastical materials and "magic fuel" is used to make fantasy stuff.
For example, "Although the exact mechanism is still poorly understood, weapons and armors forged with small quantities of Quicksilver have some capacity to learn from battle experiences.". Material that makes equipment slowly sentinent is a cool thing, especially if you made up ways to refine it for magical Quicksilver based AI.
Oh, my favorite. "A lichenous growth, Redsang has long been known to make a pungent spice used to pep up bland meals. Only recently discovered, however, is the fact that fecal waste produced after ingestion teems with Dust." Dust being gold, sand-like substance that works as said magic fuel.
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Progress is not inevitable without the right culture to back it.
There's cultures in Polynesia that emigrated from other islands, and then LOST The ability to make boats and even some types of weapons. It was assumed that the knowledge rested in the hands of a few people, and they died wihtout passing it on - a completely believable, selfish way of preserving your status in a society until the very end.
It's one of the characteristics that separates the orient from the west. In the East, if you discover something great and powerful, you attempt to monopolize it and keep it secret inside the family, going to great lengths to suppress anyone copying what you do.
In the West, such things are EXCLAIMED and passed around like new toys being discovered, and so things advance. The 'rights' to make money off such stuff are enshrined in copyright laws here, but such rights go away after a time so a new generation takes over, and helps spur innovation.
In China, copyright laws are enforced at the point of a gun or knife, and have very little bite otherwise...especially FOREIGN copyrights. Copying what foreigners do and making cheaper versions is a Chinese national pastime that has been going on for literally centuries!
==Aelryinth
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Meteors killed the dinosaurs, so they don't need a cure for cancer!
They need a cure for meteors.
Or was it an asteroid?
Or time-traveling Predators?
I'm now imagining another method.
First: assume current tech settings in wherever you are. Let's say Sandpoint because who here hasn't had at least one adventure there.
Second: your PCs want to kick-start a tech boom. Make them explain it. And then enforce skill rolls at appropriate DCs IF they give a good explanation. But no making smokeless powder yet unless they can explain just why they're getting that idea, and what it's being based on. Especially if you're only begrudgingly allowing gunslingers in the first place.
Don't forget to spice it up with the occasional actual explosion if the rolls are bad enough. Make use of the downtime rules to make sure they're paying for things, too. Especially the explosions. 'Sorry, but the last mix took out 75% of your walls. The remaining 25% quit in frustration. In the mood to rebuild?'
Explosions might not always be involved, of course, but I think there's ways to handle it even with game mechanics. I've seen GURPS do something similar.
The dinosaurs died because they didn't develop space travel.Meteors killed the dinosaurs, so they don't need a cure for cancer!
They need a cure for meteors.
Or was it an asteroid?
Or time-traveling Predators?
Or sturdily built umbrellas.
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Why didn't we embrace Tesla's alternating current sooner? Why aren't we building more local solar panels? Why aren't we cloning our beef? These are things that would, objectively, benefit our society, but progress in a society isn't usually dictated solely by reason or long-term interest. Prejudices, personal interests, and and an established way of doing things coupled with a common aversion to large change usually does a lot to stop this sort of thing from catching on. It's true in our world, and I don't imagine it would be different in a fantasy world.
If you start looking at what would logically happen in a fantasy setting with the resources available, it's easy to snowball with speculations on how things would "really be," but the same social and cultural problems that impede such development in the real world can be just as applicable in a fantasy setting.
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Most fantasy realms are based on medieval Europe or a similarly functioning culture. What people forget is that the "medieval" era was a post-apocalyptic society. There had been much better technology, communication, health, and political stability in the past, but when the Roman Empire collapsed it all degenerated into what many felt was barbarism. (Not entirely nor exactly, but go with me on this)
So all fantasy realms are in a sense post-apocalyptic. Something bad has happened and society is currently in a re-grouping or recovering period, struggling to survive and rise once more. That's the period in which your campaign's "story" takes place.
So yes there is technology, but it's crude compared to what people used to be able to do, and re-discovering those secrets could be quite an adventure.
And maybe there is magic, but what mages can do today is nothing compared to the old times, and its up to the PCs to rediscover those ancient arts and rise to that kind of power once more.
And, of course, because it's a post-apocalyptic kind of era, old technology and old magics are DANGEROUS, because obviously that's what caused the last collapse.
If you've never read "A Canticle for Liebowitz", it may be worth checking out, because it deals with the ideas of rises and falls of civilization over long cycles. So the campaign world may have suffered more than one apocalypse, but good luck finding information that goes beyond the last one.
Mark Lawrence's "Prince of Thorns" series is super-post-apocalyptic with ruined remnants of a technological society left behind.
It's worth checking out. In the sequel series "Prince of Fools" the aristocrats living in what-was-France do not speak whatever-happened-to-French, so when a surly native calls the knavish Prince a "merde-tete" he's like "what's a murder tit?" And hilariousness ensues.
Most fantasy realms are based on medieval Europe or a similarly functioning culture. What people forget is that the "medieval" era was a post-apocalyptic society. There had been much better technology, communication, health, and political stability in the past, but when the Roman Empire collapsed it all degenerated into what many felt was barbarism. (Not entirely nor exactly, but go with me on this)
{. . .}
Rome was actually rather backwards technologically -- better weapons and armor, better horse harnesses, and other things developed in the Middle Ages (and even the Dark Ages). I think Prime Mover: A Natural History of Muscle is the source where I read this, but it is no longer available to me to check this for sure. What Rome had over the surrounding civilizations was organization. But when the surrounding civilizations advanced, they caught up with, closed in on, and eventually crushed Rome (and much later, Constantinople). Now what could happen is that as technology gets more incomprehensible under the hood to the average person, and intellectual property gets more locked up out of the hands of those pesky 99%-ers, eventually technology becomes like magic to all but an elite, who do not even fully understand what they are working with because they are so highly specialized (and because their pointy-haired bosses don't want them to understand too much, because then they are not as easily controlled -- actually this is happening already). As resources get more scarce, the hyper-elites make sure that they and no one else get the benefits of the technology all to themselves, and everyone else gradually loses out on its benefits and is reduced to abject ignorance, poverty, and slavery, thereby conserving the resources that the hyper-elites need to a sustainable level of consumption. Think Panem of Hunger Games, but the Mockingjay rebellion either fails or devolves to a situation analogous to that of Syria. Eventually, the surviving hyper-elites and/or rebels who managed to replace them as new hyper-elites achieve effective divinity over the remaining masses. Of course, they are likely to retain memory of how the masses used to be able to use education, social media, and other communication technology to empower themselves against hyper-elites in the past, and they will institute draconian programs to make sure that such things can never happen again.
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I knew I was forgetting something important about this, and it's been in D&D (and Pathfinder) ever since 1st Edition: the Rust Monster! This pest will cause nightmares for anyone attempting to advance civilization to use a lot of metals. (And Pathfinder added a tougher variant for good measure.)
You're not building any railroads, metal pipelines, metal bridges, skyscrapers, or ironclad ships with these around, unless you can first figure out a way to rustproof the metal (has to work even when scratched), poison it to kill the Rust Monsters, or hunt them all down. Wonder if Rust Monster corpses have any use for anyone other than Necromancers . . . .
Do they make Rust Sea Monsters to go after ironclads?
Because if they don't, they should! How horrifying would that be?
All of the horrifying.
Rust Sea Monsters would be a good addition, although this isn't strictly necessary (ships have to dock some time, unless you are incredibly strict about keeping them offshore and oly going out to them with non-metallic boats. And that's not counting the need to use ironclads in lakes and rivers, where the waters may often be still enough that normal Rust Monsters might be enticed to swim out for a feast -- and if that happens, it could catalyze evolution to a strain of Rust Monster more suited to amphibious operations . . . Assuming that some enterprising but under-equipped nation or terrorist organization doesn't get the idea to breed/engineer them for this first.
I knew I was forgetting something important about this, and it's been in D&D (and Pathfinder) ever since 1st Edition: the Rust Monster! This pest will cause nightmares for anyone attempting to advance civilization to use a lot of metals. (And Pathfinder added a tougher variant for good measure.)
You're not building any railroads, metal pipelines, metal bridges, skyscrapers, or ironclad ships with these around, unless you can first figure out a way to rustproof the metal (has to work even when scratched), poison it to kill the Rust Monsters, or hunt them all down. Wonder if Rust Monster corpses have any use for anyone other than Necromancers . . . .
Keep in mind that a rust monster can rust gold. It prefers ferrous metals but can destroy any metal.
(And then there's its spiritual cousin, the disenchanter, who eats magic.)
And god forbid if someone dies while you construct your factory and it literally becomes haunted.
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The dinosaurs died because they didn't develop space travel.Meteors killed the dinosaurs, so they don't need a cure for cancer!
They need a cure for meteors.
Or was it an asteroid?
Or time-traveling Predators?
Correction, the dinosaurs disappeared because they discovered space travel. Won't we be surprised when they return?
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NEVER apply real world logic to Fantasy Worlds!
If you do they will crumble to dust..
Pathfinder is no "Real World Dynamc simulation" and if you try, it will fall, it will destroy itself by thousands of logic loopwholes.
Simply don't do it!
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Why didn't we embrace Tesla's alternating current sooner? Why aren't we building more local solar panels? Why aren't we cloning our beef?
1. Because there was already a DC infrastructure in place, and they needed to prove that AC was superior to go to the expense of an entirely different infastructure. (It took what - a few years? Sounds pretty fast to me.)
2. Because solar panels cost WAY more. The rule of thumb for investments is that they need to earn back their money in 7 years. 10 years at the outside. Solar panels take far longer. If they ever get production costs down enough for that - solar will take off.
Edit: I wasn't clear before - the 10 year return would only be viable for something like solar panels if a company thought that the PR value was worth the hit to their bottom line.
3. Pretty much ditto to #2. Way too expensive.
Cloning beef is becoming increasingly more cost effective
When 5 years ago an hamburger was $200000, nowadays is at most $100
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2. Because solar panels cost WAY more. The rule of thumb for investments is that they need to earn back their money in 7 years. 10 years at the outside. Solar panels take far longer.
Depends on where you are installing your solar panels;
This map of payback times for the US is a few years old
Since that map was created, solar costs have fallen about 20%. Even conservative estimates suggest that solar will be cost-competitive with fossil fuels for almost the entire US (maybe not Alaska) before 2020. In several states it already has been for a few years now. Same thing for the world at large... sunny regions are already going big into solar and areas further from the equator will do so in the next decade as prices continue to decline. Heck, even Saudi Arabia is using solar to replace fossil fuel electricity generation.
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2. Because solar panels cost WAY more. The rule of thumb for investments is that they need to earn back their money in 7 years. 10 years at the outside. Solar panels take far longer.Depends on where you are installing your solar panels;
I've seen similar - but I think that's based upon the artificially low costs of solar panels due to gov subsidies. (Not saying that it won't be viable eventually - just that it'll be awhile.)
I must say though - as someone who lives in the rather cloudy state of Ohio - I'm rather dubious that solar panels are more efficient here than in Arizona. My only thought is that Ohio must have more solar subsidies.
Anyway - sorry for the tangent. In my above post I just meant to point out that how all three of those things have worked out ARE logical.
I knew I was forgetting something important about this, and it's been in D&D (and Pathfinder) ever since 1st Edition: the Rust Monster! This pest will cause nightmares for anyone attempting to advance civilization to use a lot of metals. (And Pathfinder added a tougher variant for good measure.)
You're not building any railroads, metal pipelines, metal bridges, skyscrapers, or ironclad ships with these around, unless you can first figure out a way to rustproof the metal (has to work even when scratched), poison it to kill the Rust Monsters, or hunt them all down. Wonder if Rust Monster corpses have any use for anyone other than Necromancers . . . .
Keep in mind that a rust monster can rust gold. It prefers ferrous metals but can destroy any metal.
(And then there's its spiritual cousin, the disenchanter, who eats magic.)
And god forbid if someone dies while you construct your factory and it literally becomes haunted.
On the other hand, industry could hunt them extinct.
If the world fights back, you fight the world then.
I mean it can in some settings be a shame if the world is a living entity but business needs to be made so sorry.
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I've seen similar - but I think that's based upon the artificially low costs of solar panels due to gov subsidies. (Not saying that it won't be viable eventually - just that it'll be awhile.)
The US government actually spends vastly more subsidizing fossil fuels than it does solar. That said, yes if subsidies for solar were eliminated (while those for fossil fuels continued) then the difference would roughly offset the decrease in solar costs since that map was created.
As to cost differences between various states. Yes, incentives play a part in that, but the biggest factor is actually vastly different permitting and installation costs due to local regulations and fees/taxes. A good example of this can be seen in this comparison of solar installation costs for Germany vs US average.
Germany gets less sunlight than any US state except Alaska, but solar still costs less than fossil fuel electricity there because they've cut down on regulatory roadblocks and costs.
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I've seen similar - but I think that's based upon the artificially low costs of solar panels due to gov subsidies. (Not saying that it won't be viable eventually - just that it'll be awhile.)The US government actually spends vastly more subsidizing fossil fuels than it does solar.
I've seen that before - but that's only true (at least proportionally) when you include allowing deductions for exploration etc. as subsidies. (All other businesses get to deduct their expenses as well - oil/gas etc. just do oddly since they sometimes explore for years without success. Admittedly - it is sometimes used as a tax shelter by those in high tax brackets.)
I have read that solar will become competitive by 2025 or so. (Though that was said by solar experts - and experts in a given field are nearly always overly-optimistic. Plus it assumes no changes in the rest of the energy industry. I'm still hoping that they get fusion to work for energy production.)
I knew I was forgetting something important about this, and it's been in D&D (and Pathfinder) ever since 1st Edition: the Rust Monster! This pest will cause nightmares for anyone attempting to advance civilization to use a lot of metals. (And Pathfinder added a tougher variant for good measure.)
You're not building any railroads, metal pipelines, metal bridges, skyscrapers, or ironclad ships with these around, unless you can first figure out a way to rustproof the metal (has to work even when scratched), poison it to kill the Rust Monsters, or hunt them all down. Wonder if Rust Monster corpses have any use for anyone other than Necromancers . . . .
Keep in mind that a rust monster can rust gold. It prefers ferrous metals but can destroy any metal.
(And then there's its spiritual cousin, the disenchanter, who eats magic.)
And god forbid if someone dies while you construct your factory and it literally becomes haunted.
On the other hand, industry could hunt them extinct.
If the world fights back, you fight the world then.
I mean it can in some settings be a shame if the world is a living entity but business needs to be made so sorry.
I guess you already know who you're going to call for the haunted factory, then. Time for Exotic Weapon Proficiency (proton pack) ...
As far as rust monsters at sea? All you need is:
1: Rust monster
2: Wooden ship
3: Catapult
But this does illustrate ... magic (and magical beasts) can 'nudge' technology in different directions. If what to us was a huge development doesn't get a chance due to the environment, someone will work around that. Or just not go that route and stick to what's been tried and true.
Wall of iron don't produce pure iron:
Iron created by this spell is not suitable for use in the creation of other objects and cannot be sold.The simplest interpretation for that is that it is very impure iron and that to be used for crafting something it need to be purified, like raw ore.
It may be simple, but it's also inaccurate. The material of Wall of Iron is not "potentially useful" with a bit of forgework. It's not suitable for anything period. A simple and ACCURATE interpretation would be that if you tried to break down a Wall of Iron to salvage it's material what you get out of that is useless flakes that are good for nothing other than landfill.
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It may be simple, but it's also inaccurate. The material of Wall of Iron is not "potentially useful" with a bit of forgework. It's not suitable for anything period. A simple and ACCURATE interpretation would be that if you tried to break down a Wall of Iron to salvage it's material what you get out of that is useless flakes that are good for nothing other than landfill.
Wall of iron don't produce pure iron:
Iron created by this spell is not suitable for use in the creation of other objects and cannot be sold.The simplest interpretation for that is that it is very impure iron and that to be used for crafting something it need to be purified, like raw ore.
It's good for feeding your pet rust monsters which you use to sabotage any large working of your competitors!
Why didn't we embrace Tesla's alternating current sooner? Why aren't we building more local solar panels? Why aren't we cloning our beef?1. Because there was already a DC infrastructure in place, and they needed to prove that AC was superior to go to the expense of an entirely different infastructure. (It took what - a few years? Sounds pretty fast to me.)
See War of Currents. Although most of the battle went in favor of AC fairly quickly (in the 1890s), but some cities (notably New York, Helsinki, and parts of Boston and San Francisco) retained DC power well into the 20th Century, with Consolidated Edison having to provide DC power to some customers into the early 2000s. (This does not include DC railway/streetcar electrification systems, high-voltage direct current transmission systems, or systems using local power generation or AC-to-DC conversion, all of which continue to be built to the present day, and which have for decades used technology that did not exist during the War of Currents.)
2. Because solar panels cost WAY more. The rule of thumb for investments is that they need to earn back their money in 7 years. 10 years at the outside. Solar panels take far longer. If they ever get production costs down enough for that - solar will take off.
Edit: I wasn't clear before - the 10 year return would only be viable for something like solar panels if a company thought that the PR value was worth the hit to their bottom line.
This could have been done a lot sooner if not for policies that stunted research that could have lowered the cost while subsidizing the existing competition (and continue to do so into the present day). Which brings up an offshoot of above-discussed ways of holding up technological progress -- entrenched interests that see the potential new technology as endangering their bottom line (or feudal equivalent) and don't want to go to the trouble to adapt to it will do everything in their power to squelch it.
3. Pretty much ditto to #2. Way too expensive.
AND
Cloning beef is becoming increasingly more cost effective
When 5 years ago an hamburger was $200000, nowadays is at most $100
As one who works in Modern Necromancy Life Science Research, I doubt this, because I have to order reagents for growing substantial amounts of mammalian cells, and reagent costs haven't come down since hearing a $100000 cost per cloneburger on the radio a few years ago (OnPoint -- I called in to say that no matter what your visceral reaction to cloned meat is, this scheme just isn't going to make economic sense in the near future). Create Food and water is very advanced technology ideed . . . .
My buddy (Silkinsane on the forums) had an answer for that. He blamed the muses.
Mortals commonly associate the muses with inspiration and creativity, but in his setting they're far more Neutral in ability. Rather than representing unfettered creativity, the muses make sure that eidolons only happen when they believe that the "time is right" for them, and if someone invents something that the muses don't feel that the world is ready for, they kill that individual and erase their accomplishments from history.
As someone in this thread said, I think there's an inevitable that does something similar.
Ironwood hull ships might protect against rust.
As someone in this thread said, I think there's an inevitable that does something similar.
Yes, the Yarahkut. It's statted in the last chapter of Iron Gods
NEVER apply real world logic to Fantasy Worlds!
If you do they will crumble to dust..
... and yet fantasy worlds have consistently had real-world logic applied to them for years without crumbling. How else can you have any advancement whatsoever? A certain amount of process - real-world logic - is required, if only because those who create fantasy worlds come from our real world. Explanations are variously given. In Steven Brust's Dragaera, weapons tech hasn't advanced to the point where even the bow and arrow are in general use, because combat magic tech is both a) easier and b) readily available to the common man; as well, the gods are specifically keeping a lid on advancement in order to keep their positions consolidated. (One CAN learn to become a god, there.) In the Belgariad universe, all of time had become essentially stuck in a process-loop - things simply couldn't evolve past a certain point, because the universe was literally divided on how it should advance.
Pathfinder is no "Real World Dynamc simulation" and if you try, it will fall, it will destroy itself by thousands of logic loopwholes.
Loopholes.
And that's fine for Pathfinder - not that I think you're correct about it, because of the way so many PF elements are based on ones from RL, or RL theories about post-apocalyptic survival, adapatation, and recovery. But y'know, if magic doesn't interfere, most of PF works off standard RL physics, social dynamics, and the like ...
Simply don't do it!
... see, I can't understand this. Asking simple, basic questions - 'what if ... ?' - is how things get developed; heck, it's how you actually play the game!! Unless all you do is play in or run Pathfinder Adventure Paths, you're going to have to bring some element or version of real world logic into it, just to imagine a character and what that character would do in whatever situation they're in ...
NEVER apply real world logic to Fantasy Worlds!
If you do they will crumble to dust..... and yet fantasy worlds have consistently had real-world logic applied to them for years without crumbling. How else can you have any advancement whatsoever? A certain amount of process - real-world logic - is required, if only because those who create fantasy worlds come from our real world. Explanations are variously given. In Steven Brust's Dragaera, weapons tech hasn't advanced to the point where even the bow and arrow are in general use, because combat magic tech is both a) easier and b) readily available to the common man; as well, the gods are specifically keeping a lid on advancement in order to keep their positions consolidated. (One CAN learn to become a god, there.) In the Belgariad universe, all of time had become essentially stuck in a process-loop - things simply couldn't evolve past a certain point, because the universe was literally divided on how it should advance.
Pathfinder is no "Real World Dynamc simulation" and if you try, it will fall, it will destroy itself by thousands of logic loopwholes.Loopholes.
And that's fine for Pathfinder - not that I think you're correct about it, because of the way so many PF elements are based on ones from RL, or RL theories about post-apocalyptic survival, adapatation, and recovery. But y'know, if magic doesn't interfere, most of PF works off standard RL physics, social dynamics, and the like ...
Simply don't do it!... see, I can't understand this. Asking simple, basic questions - 'what if ... ?' - is how things get developed; heck, it's how you actually play the game!! Unless all you do is play in or run Pathfinder Adventure Paths, you're going to have to bring some element or version of real world logic into it, just to imagine a character and what that character would do in whatever situation they're in ...
Good points, but Brust has said his characters use rapiers and shuriken because he like writing about rapiers and shuriken more than he like writing about platemail and longbows.
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Solar proponents, when almost 100% of solar energy so current viability is due to subsidies...
Again, this is simply false. Solar is doing fine in many areas even without subsidies. For example, it is by far the least expensive source of electricity available in Hawaii.
...complaining that solar isn't taking over due to other forms getting subsidies is a bit on the rich side wouldn't you say?
No. Right now, wind power is "taking over". Solar will start to do so in a few years. At this point, the only part subsidies play is determining the exact year of the transition... call it 2022 +/- 4.
Through November, new electricity production brought online in the US for 2015 was;
44% wind
36% natural gas
15% solar (utility scale only)
5% other renewable
Coal, oil, and nuclear combined were at less than 0.2%.
If residential and commercial solar installations are included, solar is currently about even with natural gas.
Similar patterns can be seen worldwide except that natural gas is more expensive and coal cheaper... but wind and solar are now undercutting both in ever growing portions of the globe.
The subsidy values you cited were value per total generation... think about that for a moment and you should see how deceptive it is. If you want to see which power sources are being 'propped up' by subsidies you need to look at how much money they are getting each year relative to how much NEW power they are generating.