If you think a GM can stop them from breaking the world just by resorting to the published rules...You're mistaken.
I think you have a misprint in your edition, then. My version includes Rule 0.
which is GM fiat, which is not hard rules.
I stand by my statement.
==Aelryinth
which is GM fiat, which is not hard rules.
GM fiat is a hard rule. In fact, it's the only rule actually labelled as such in the book:
The Most Important
The rules presented are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of "house rules" that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt.
Actually, NPC's are level 1-3 for most of their lives. Level 1 assumes you just became an adult and never become better at anything for your entire life. That's not right. If so, people would never get better at anything.
Just FYI - I can buy someone being 1st level forever. Just means they got stuck in a dead-end task that they hate and they lack the means and/or will to get out of it.
Most folks are stuck with spending their lives as mediocre manual labor.
And there's also a matter that people often have limits with how far they can take something. NPCs don't gain XP; they could theoretically advance though training or some other sort of thing, but again, NPC advancement is purely by GM fiat.
Honestly?
Most NPCs simply don't have what it takes to actually become a spellcaster, much like most people simply don't have it takes to become a rocket scientist (or even an electrician).
GM Fiat is the ultimate soft rule, since it can mean anything. It is a guideline, since it defines NOTHING.
Hard rules are delineated and immutable. As such, they form the foundation for our entire discussion. Rule 0 is House Rules, which are not Hard Rules that apply to everyone, and so are outside this realm of discussion.
I stand by my statement.
==Aelryinth
In counterpoint: Which rule forbids players from teaching NPC's wizardry? I think that's the more relevant question.
Which rule forbids PC's from training NPC's at all? Because, you know, training and retraining rules are already in the game.
And all you have to do is gain a level to get trained.
==Aelryinth
What can they do to initiate their own industrial revolution?
Unseen servants and grain mills for starters.
Next, why don't we ruin agricultural sector while we are at it? For example, we can make a tractor.
Peasants are way cheaper. If you have 100,000 gold and can put it into a tractorgolem or lend it out at reasonable interest you will make FAR more money lending it out at reasonable interest than you will growing cabbages. Sometimes most effective and most cost effective aren't the same thing.
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Yes, we did eventually develop a society that values public education and realizes that child labour is bad. But it took hundreds of years and some places in the world still haven't caught up. It's easy to see the benefits of this system from where we're standing, but it was not obvious to people throughout history. This is not about the poor being stupid for failing to improve their prospects - in most human societies through history barriers to social advancement have been both widespread and pervasive and often supported by cultural indoctrination. And those who did see the benefits of change were fighting against a rather well-entrenched system that would be much harder to resist if the upper classes had access to godlike magical power, and were fighting to keep commoners from getting access to that power. I would not be surprised if some “cunning elder” trying to start a class struggle for equal access to magical education ended up imploding their entire country as a result (which would explain a good share of the ancient ruins lying around).
Which is not to say that the society you describe couldn't develop, but that it wouldn't be any easier than the development of widespread public education in real life, and would possibly be much harder.
And as someone pointed out earlier in the thread, fantasy settings can be placed in any point in a world's history. Most settings happen to assume that the kind of development – or magical or technological education – hasn't happened yet and that it isn't reay to happen for some time.
You're also thinking that farmers and commoners can't plan for the long term. I think you're ignoring the fact that they didn't have all our distractions, and planned for GENERATIONS of their family to work the land, agreements that lasted across decades and even centuries.
Planning for generations to work the same land is very different from the up-front costs involved in educating someone to a relatively high level for their time.
The 'poor' example falls down flat, too. You can have a communal family spellbook, or master one for the students. If magic is more common, the cost of teaching it will drop...it's an economic reality. Spellbooks last forever, and the amount of time and energy they save is more then worth the investment.
There is no evidence that the economy of magic behaves normally. For example, unlike mundane texts spellbooks can't be shared as you describe. It takes Spellcraft checks to prepare from a spellbook that you didn't personally scribe – and you can only attempt it if it's a spell the wizard “already knows and has recorded in his own spellbook.” Even if you didn't have to copy it yourself at least once, you have to make the Spellcraft check every time you prepare the spell from a borrowed book, and it's DC 15+level, so you need to be above level 1 or have an Int bonus to take 10 for even a cantrip. So practically, you need to spend at minimum the copying cost (5gp per cantrip or 10gp per 1st level spell) for every person who wants to cast a spell.
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GM Fiat is the ultimate soft rule, since it can mean anything. It is a guideline, since it defines NOTHING.
Hard rules are delineated and immutable. As such, they form the foundation for our entire discussion. Rule 0 is House Rules, which are not Hard Rules that apply to everyone, and so are outside this realm of discussion.
I stand by my statement.
==Aelryinth
Here I disagree. None of the rules are immutable. The rules exist as a tool box that I buy and can use as I want. If I want to build a cabinet with screws and not nails, then that is what I get to do. I can use the side of the box to pound things in instead of the hammer and toss the level because I don't care how my pictures look.
The book is a starting point. Even in discussions online, it's just a starting point as we start getting into interpretations like Bill Clinton working the definition of "is."
None of this matters, however, to the OPs question. How do you keep a fantasy setting from technological explosion? The GM and likely the players discuss it and say Yes or No to allowing all this. That's it. The book is mum on it because the book is a set of things to do mostly in combat. It wasn't set up to answer questions like "What should I do if my characters want to use this spell 100,000 times a day from a called Archon?" That is why they have someone with a brain, the GM, sitting there to adjudicate this instead of running it from an AI with a limited range of responses.
Despite the dislike on the forums for GM Fiat/Rule 0/whatever you want to call it, that is why the GM is there. To help the players with making a world and answer questions like this.
If your Rule O is everything, then there should be no Rules Forums, because there are no other rules.
Hence, Rule 0 isn't a hard rule, it's a guideline to modify the hard rules. It is HOUSE RULES.
The other rules form a standard we can talk about. Rule 0 basically means 'shut up' as far as rules talk goes.
==Aelryinth
Yes, we did eventually develop a society that values public education and realizes that child labour is bad. But it took hundreds of years and some places in the world still haven't caught up. It's easy to see the benefits of this system from where we're standing, but it was not obvious to people throughout history. This is not about the poor being stupid for failing to improve their prospects - in most human societies through history barriers to social advancement have been both widespread and pervasive and often supported by cultural indoctrination. And those who did see the benefits of change were fighting against a rather well-entrenched system that would be much harder to resist if the upper classes had access to godlike magical power, and were fighting to keep commoners from getting access to that power. I would not be surprised if some “cunning elder” trying to start a class struggle for equal access to magical education ended up imploding their entire country as a result (which would explain a good share of the ancient ruins lying around).
Which is not to say that the society you describe couldn't develop, but that it wouldn't be any easier than the development of widespread public education in real life, and would possibly be much harder.
And as someone pointed out earlier in the thread, fantasy settings can be placed in any point in a world's history. Most settings happen to assume that the kind of development – or magical or technological education – hasn't happened yet and that it isn't reay to happen for some time.
You're also thinking that farmers and commoners can't plan for the long term. I think you're ignoring the fact that they didn't have all our distractions, and planned for GENERATIONS of their family to work the land, agreements that lasted across decades and even centuries.Planning for generations to work the same land is very different from the up-front costs involved in educating someone to a relatively high level for their time....
The average magical society seems to be thousands of years older then our own. They've had the time. And equality is infectious. When the vast majority of people want to be more equal, things start to change. Proven throughout history.
And the 'elites' can be on the side of the poor, too. Especially when you have Good gods (and their churches), paladins, and sorcerors who can be born of ANYONE (and there's more poor people then wealthy).Realistically, there'd be changes.
Wyrm was doubting they could plan for the long term and weigh the importance of learning magic.
I refute him and I refute you. People can and do plan for the long term. America is weird in how UNclose families and relationships are, compared to the rest of the world. Long term planning was essential to survival, if you couldn't manage local resources, you died. We basically live in an era where a consumer culture doesn't want us planning for the long term, and it shows.
As for the spellbooks - it's money. Over time, even commoners can collect money, it's just not as much or as often as the wealthy... but parents and families sacrifice for the chance at a better life. If it's paid out of broad taxes, even better. But if the spellbook I'm referring to is the one you're being taught out of, how can you NOT read the thing? Because that's basically what I'm saying would happen.
Not that I think the gold cost would be an issue. There's been a lot of math done, and low level people aren't as poor as you think. Especially families, and motivated families even moreso.
The DC 15 check means he fails to copy all the spells he wants to from a particular book, btw. He can find a different book and try again. It's cantrips, and there will be dozens around. He'll get it right eventually. Not an issue.
+If you specialize in a magical school...+2 to spellcraft on spells of your school = take 10 auto pass at level 1.
Magical Aptitude feat, +2 = auto pass.
Skill Focus (spellcraft) = +3 autopass
Masterwork tools, spellcraft = +2, auto pass.
Is there a trait giving +1 to Spellcraft? if so, auto pass.
Int 12, auto pass. he can borrow the teacher's Int headband for an hour, fer Chrissake.
It's not a barrier, and people aren't dumb, they'll figure out the best way to do things.
And remember, context. You're teaching them to 1 skill rank. ONE. That's it. That's not education to a 'very high level'. That's learning one skill and the basics of a class. You are being precise and explicit and all you want is level 1. Render down the essentials and again, a 17 year old can be a wizard.
Only the higher levels of magic are rocket science. The lower levels are just cool science experiments in high school, and first year chemistry.
==Aelryinth
^Given the things that even many Cantrips/Knacks/Orisons can do that are beyond the grasp of modern technology, or at least beyond its ability to do without a lot of bulky and infrastructure-dependent equipment, actually they are BEYOND rocket science, let alone cool science experiments in high school(*).
(*)Not that we got much in the way of cool science experiments in high school in Georgia, even when the individual teachers had good intentions . . . .
Eh. Just because magic can do what science can't does NOT mean it is complex.
It's just different. Chemistry can do things electronics and mechanics can't, too. Doesn't have to be rocket science.
To be a MASTER of it, sure. But that's at 3 ranks+. I just want my lab assistant intern, you know?
==Aelryinth
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If your Rule O is everything, then there should be no Rules Forums, because there are no other rules.
Hence, Rule 0 isn't a hard rule, it's a guideline to modify the hard rules. It is HOUSE RULES.
The other rules form a standard we can talk about. Rule 0 basically means 'shut up' as far as rules talk goes.
==Aelryinth
Except you've moved beyond what the standard rules deal with. You've moved into "what if" territory, which is pretty much the realm of Rule 0.
It's a great intellectual exercise in "what if" and "I wonder" and "if only". But unless you have page numbers and exact rules for all of this, it's nothing more than that. Everything about this, other than bantering back and forth about how certain spells work, is House Rules.
Eh. Just because magic can do what science can't does NOT mean it is complex.
It's just different. Chemistry can do things electronics and mechanics can't, too. Doesn't have to be rocket science.
{. . .}
But with the right application of mechanics and raw materials, you can get chemistry, and then eventually electronics. In the far future, people MIGHT be able to make technology that does something like magic, but at the present time we can't even see a path to get there. Also, as science and technology advance, they become less comprehensible to people of a given educational level, so that even many of the engineers involved in the design and building are so specialized that they know very little about even closely related parts of their disciplines that are not exactly related. I have seen this happen in Modern Necromancy Life Science research (my line of work), and have heard that Microsoft even pretty much mandates this kind of specialization in their Electronic Spirit Conjuration Programming, to keep any one engineer or group thereof from knowing too much. Eventually we'll get to the point where technology might as well be magic for the great majority of people, and only an elite few will actually be able to control it . . . Except we probably still won't have cool stuff for creating water out of thin air, or refrigerating large amounts of stuff without a bulky and power-hungry machine, or rapidly healing injuries.
Your examples aren't too good.
This computer is so much like magic it's not funny. :) So is your smartphone. Or radar. Or a fighter jet. Or a rocket to the moon!!!
The difference is we know that a certain combination of materials and electricity put together makes this work.
magic can't do any of that stuff, either, at least the Paizo stuff. science is good at some stuff, magic is good at other stuff.
magic being intertwined with alchemy and linguistics (verbal and material comps! As well as Sleight of hand...?) doesn't mean those things don't stand on their own as totally separate disciplines, just like mechanics lead to chemistry led to electronics.
You're making the incorrect assumption that a wizard has to know WHY it works. Nope. He has to know HOW. If he knows HOW...he can cast. On the shoulders of giants, you know?
The WHY...is for the really smart people. Spell designers and researchers (i.e. physicists and programmers). We just need the techies. In 3.5, knowing the WHY was Epic Magic = 24 Ranks in the right knowledge skill, 9th level spells, and a Feat.
Apple was infamous for making Ivory Towers, it did NOT want workers talking to one another for fear of letting information out.
And to keep wages down.
And computer programs today have gotten so vast today that nobody really knows all of what one program does. But that's 7th+ level spell stuff.
I just want to play Pong.
==Aelryinth
^Well, like you said, we are getting to the point where technology might as well be magic (and the pointy-haired bosses are pretty far along in having iron-fisted control over it). But by analogy to this, most people, assuming that they have the talent to be able to use magic at all, would probably end up specializing in 1 or 2 Cantrips/Knacks/Orisons, BUT only with the assistance of a modern educational system to get them to even that point -- and if you don't already have such a system, it's really hard to get one. That took Humans on Earth thousands of years of recorded history; on Golarion, try tens or even hundreds of thousands of years of recorded history (assuming that Third Darkness doesn't hit the reset button on everything first).
And you just want to play Pong? These two visitors here named Kang and Koloth might be able to help you out . . . .
If your Rule O is everything, then there should be no Rules Forums, because there are no other rules.
Hence, Rule 0 isn't a hard rule, it's a guideline to modify the hard rules. It is HOUSE RULES.
The other rules form a standard we can talk about. Rule 0 basically means 'shut up' as far as rules talk goes.
==Aelryinth
Except you've moved beyond what the standard rules deal with. You've moved into "what if" territory, which is pretty much the realm of Rule 0.
It's a great intellectual exercise in "what if" and "I wonder" and "if only". But unless you have page numbers and exact rules for all of this, it's nothing more than that. Everything about this, other than bantering back and forth about how certain spells work, is House Rules.
Nooooooo...we're arguing about what the rules permit to happen. THEN we're adding realism to it via historical examples.
House Rules would say "this can't happen cause I say so." You're confusing 'setting events' with 'House Rules'. Different things.
==Aelryinth
^Well, like you said, we are getting to the point where technology might as well be magic (and the pointy-haired bosses are pretty far along in having iron-fisted control over it). But by analogy to this, most people, assuming that they have the talent to be able to use magic at all, would probably end up specializing in 1 or 2 Cantrips/Knacks/Orisons, BUT only with the assistance of a modern educational system to get them to even that point -- and if you don't already have such a system, it's really hard to get one. That took Humans on Earth thousands of years of recorded history; on Golarion, try tens or even hundreds of thousands of years of recorded history (assuming that Third Darkness doesn't hit the reset button on everything first).
And you just want to play Pong? These two visitors here named Kang and Koloth might be able to help you out . . . .
Golarion doesn't do it because of Setting Fiat and because it would break the game.
Seriously, the drive to make this happen would be MORE on Golarion, because you have actual Good powers around who would love to make this happen, lawful powers wanting more equality, and chaotic powers wanting to rip down the caste system divide.
The major influence against it would be the LE, NE and LN powers who want things to stay just the same way, and stagnate. Pretty much every other divinity would be on board or unopposed.
Did the two Klingons bring the tape deck to run the program from?
==Aelryinth
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You're making the incorrect assumption that a wizard has to know WHY it works. Nope. He has to know HOW. If he knows HOW...he can cast.
The failure in this argument, Ael, is that you're also making an assumption here. The rules are completely silent on what is actually involved with learning to cast. They don't stipulate whether one could (as you suggested earlier) just rote-learn a single cantrip or if a thorough groundwork of magical theory is in fact required to cast even a 0-level spell. Easy or hard, it's GM fiat either way, because the rules are silent on the matter.
Golarion doesn't do it because of Setting Fiat and because it would break the game.
Seriously, the drive to make this happen would be MORE on Golarion, because you have actual Good powers around who would love to make this happen, lawful powers wanting more equality, and chaotic powers wanting to rip down the caste system divide.
The major influence against it would be the LE, NE and LN powers who want things to stay just the same way, and stagnate. Pretty much every other divinity would be on board or unopposed.
Chaotic Evil also inhibits progress, and arguably Chaotic Neutral isn't too good for it either. Just because things with these alignments want their own freedom and toys doesn't mean that they want these things for anyone else. Technological advance brings the threat of increased enforcement of order, which is a threat to them. Whether or not Abadar actually would be in favor of technological progress, the idea of his advancing civilization and of technology or magitech being a possible tool for that would make the Chaotics poop in their pants.
Did the two Klingons bring the tape deck to run the program from?
Klingons? My most humble apologies -- I appear to have butchered theearir names -- how embarrassing. In my defense, though, those respirator helmets they wear don't conduct sound very well.
Kang and Kodos would like to show you their awesome new Pong invention. And yes, they brought the tape player . . . What, it's an8-track? Uh oh . . . .
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Those rules, and the rules for leveling up and XP and all the rest of it, are only for PCs. Explicitly so. (Well, and for cohorts, who are explicitly inducted into the PC XP system by Leadership's text.) The rules don't apply to NPCs by default, so there's still no way to use RAW to automatically justify the kind of widespread social changes being discussed here.
There's also this bit, from the same rules section:
Some of the options listed below involve retraining features of your character that are essentially permanent parts of your heritage, such as a sorcerer's bloodline. The cost of retraining these things presumably includes magical or alchemical alterations to your body. The GM might rule that these changes are unavailable in the campaign, are only available under rare circumstances, take longer, are temporary, require some sort of quest, or are more expensive than the listed cost.
As "being able to cast" may, in fact, fall under those rules, depending on the campaign's setting, it again comes back to something that may or may not actually be possible that cheaply or that easily.
To put it another way: the rules say that certain actions or costs are necessary to gain casting ability. That is not the same as saying those actions and costs are necessary and sufficient. The latter part is firmly in the realm of "your GM may vary."
Rocket science is just a bomb and a slide rule.
Bag of holding
Stock full of silver. Teleport over to china. Drop off silver. Pick up spices. Teleport back.
heloOOOoo market glut
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Bag of holding
Stock full of silver. Teleport over to china. Drop off silver. Pick up spices. Teleport back.
heloOOOoo market glut
Nah. Economics don't work in PF.
Like everything else, tea sells for the same price in China as back home.
Possibly indicating that magical market manipulation has already played out, and prices restablized afterwards =P
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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.
4. Because Thomas Edison was a dick and tortured an elephant with AC to prove the evils of AC at a worlds fair
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Embrace the explosion. If the start of the fantasy genre was in Lord of the Rings, fantasy writing is a critique of industrialization and rapid cultural changes. I'll point out a few places in Tolkien's peoples. (Yay, essays!)
Elves, Dwarves, Wizards, Men, and Hobbits (no halflings) (no, hobbits, its hobbits):
Looking at the large picture, the longevity of elves and the obsessive ancestry of dwarves is a foil to the short-sightedness of humans. The latter flourish in the third age while the former languish and eventually depart. Looking more closely, however, we can find the politics of the turn of the century England written into these three races.
The pastoral luxury of elves and their love of poetry and song lay parallel to the ideals of the Romantic period, which abandoned the city as a center of life/poetic inspiration and searched for a new Eden in the fields and farms. At the time of Tolkien's writing, this was the old high culture which shaped how elves came to be, why they were dying out, and eventually, would become something akin to a living memory in the West. Throughout the period of industrializing, people became more and more enamored with an unrealistic view of life in the country, which was more life from the past, as large scale farming replaced the old way.
Tolkien takes the industry and greed of dwarves much further, and deeper into the social realms of the England of his day. As a people, dwarves rely on the abundance of food from above the surface to sustain their profit making below. Industrialists were much the same, crude and cruel. Maintaining cashflow was not an option, but a necessity, when investments into new industry were forcing an ever fast pace of development. Therefore worker safety, international politics and security, all things were secondary to profit. These were dwarves who delved too deep, and cut themselves off from the rest of the world, very much a critique of the early 19th century way of business.
Then man, who seem more backwards and less refined than elves and dwarves, but somehow survived. If dwarven economy was a metaphor for the division between the country and the city, and the elves a spiritual flight from this division, then men were the embodiment of the civic mindedness of a city or state. Humans in Lord of the Rings do not seek profit, or refinement. Their glories are of ages past, without a hope of matching them. They wish to protect themselves and their people, and maintain the status quo at all costs, chiefly by doing what they had done in the past (Why Helmsdeep? Why?).
It was the first world war that defined much of the story line of Tolkien's work, as so many of men his age never returned from the war, both lower and upper class. Dread of defeat and uncertainty of victory, or even belief that victory could be achieved, these are the views of the protagonists in his books, and the experiences he and others endured. Moving his stories from the Shire to the larger world is his movement through life (as Tolkien himself did grow up in a small town in the country, which was not at all like pastoral poets described). Hobbits are children forced to grow up (and a useful focus for a book aimed at children learning about the real world, and at adults re-imagining their world). The Hobbits are a frame of reference for understanding the world that dwarves, men, and elves have made, and so move freely through their ideological and geographical boundaries, in the same way that the reader is invited to draw out parallels between Tolkien's world and ours.
Wizards then are the last part, the mysterious part that bridge these two worlds together. Their origins are rarely explained, and their purposes as well. They serve a higher power, although no one seems to know, or concern themselves which higher power that is. Tolkien did not put religion at the center of his books (for contrast see Lewis' Narnia), but they are embedded in it. Sensing right from wrong, turning aside power over others, trust and faithfulness, these are the qualities that saved Middle Earth from the power of the One Ring, and it is given uniquely to Hobbits, and to the reader. Modernism was at the time of Tolkien's writing, an academic subject. Picaso's Guernica and Eliot's Wasteland would embody these decades later. The idea that the world has, and will continue to change, not in the span of centuries, but in the span of our lives, was still, at the time of Lord of the Rings, new.
So embrace the explosion. Make it feel real in your games, have PC's and NPC's struggle with it. Make your campaigns around it, let it runaway with the plans you make for your campaigns. These profound changes to life are the beginning and end of the genre. Oh yeah, and re-read the Scouring of the Shire for Tolkien's own meta-plot commentary.
Best,
Oli
If your Rule O is everything, then there should be no Rules Forums, because there are no other rules.
Hence, Rule 0 isn't a hard rule, it's a guideline to modify the hard rules. It is HOUSE RULES.
The other rules form a standard we can talk about. Rule 0 basically means 'shut up' as far as rules talk goes.
==Aelryinth
Except you've moved beyond what the standard rules deal with. You've moved into "what if" territory, which is pretty much the realm of Rule 0.
It's a great intellectual exercise in "what if" and "I wonder" and "if only". But unless you have page numbers and exact rules for all of this, it's nothing more than that. Everything about this, other than bantering back and forth about how certain spells work, is House Rules.
Nooooooo...we're arguing about what the rules permit to happen. THEN we're adding realism to it via historical examples.
House Rules would say "this can't happen cause I say so." You're confusing 'setting events' with 'House Rules'. Different things.
==Aelryinth
Noooooo .. I'm arguing that the rules, by themselves, do not permit anything to happen without the GM (and usually players) signing off on it. You seem to be arguing along the lines of "The book says that you can do this, so we can extrapolate from there to this."
It still boils down to what the table/GM want to do with the game, not whether or not we can show that the book says whatever.
That doesn't mean that the discussion here is meaningless. It is interesting to see the direction that people are willing to take things and the inventive ways they imagine the game.
Knight, this is the General Discussion forum, where we refer to the hard and fast written rules.
It is not the Rule 0/House Rules forum, where you alter things willy nilly to fit your way. And 'not allowing' something permitted in the base rules IS House Rules.
So, we are arguing the published standard of hard rules, not how savagely and fast you can rule 0 something.
It looks like your argument is 'Rules 0 solves all problems, so there is no problem'. Which is pretty petty.
And the standard reply is "If the rules could be fixed so you didn't have to rule 0, then the problems would be fixed before they started." (Approximate credit to Kirth! He gets annoyed by your argument, he sees it too much.)
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Shisumo, there are NO rules restricting retraining to PC's. As a matter of fact, it is designed to be used extensively with Leadership, I assume. You invest money in your followers, just like magic items, and they get better.
Also, they DO give guidelines on learning magic, Shisumo.
You need a virtua rank in Concentration.
You don't need Knowledge (Arcane). So broad magical theory is out.
You DO need at least a rank in Spellcraft to copy your spells. But that's it.
And that's it. Those are the requirements. Oh, and INt 10 for 0 level spells. Forgot about that.
You're trying to work in that you need to be a genius and master of all underlying principles of magic.
it's level ONE. There's nothing that complex in learning the first level of ANYTHING. It's basic apprentice level knowledge, nothing more.
==Aelryinth
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Shisumo, there are NO rules restricting retraining to PC's. As a matter of fact, it is designed to be used extensively with Leadership, I assume. You invest money in your followers, just like magic items, and they get better.
The rules are solely addressed to "you" which is how the book addresses players, not NPCs. Even your assumption about Leadership (which I agree is likely the intent, for what it's worth) is exactly that, an assumption. NPCs don't even get downtime with GM consent - in fact, no one does, come to that - so they can't use the retraining rules regardless.
Also, they DO give guidelines on learning magic, Shisumo.
You need a virtua rank in Concentration.
You don't need Knowledge (Arcane). So broad magical theory is out.
You DO need at least a rank in Spellcraft to copy your spells. But that's it.
And that's it. Those are the requirements. Oh, and INt 10 for 0 level spells. Forgot about that.
As I said, that's what is necessary. But that is a different thing entirely from necessary and sufficient. This is an especially keen distinction where NPCs are concerned, as they have no innate level advancement and no innate ability to gain access to any particular character feature without the GM's active involvement.
You're trying to work in that you need to be a genius and master of all underlying principles of magic.
it's level ONE. There's nothing that complex in learning the first level of ANYTHING. It's basic apprentice level knowledge, nothing more.==Aelryinth
I'm not trying to work in anything. I've not articulated a position on the matter and have no intention of doing so. I'm just pointing out that you are making the same assumptions you are accusing others of making, but simply in the negative sense.
Technology, even when available, won't always spread.
Creeks had steam power and clockwork engines at 2000 years ago, which was used only toys and curiosites.
Egyptians had electricity about 4-5000 years ago and it was used to galvanize jewels and (with bit disbelief) maybe used to create light.
Again, you're playing the Rule 0 Card. Stop doing that. Saying a rules loophole is not a loophole because the GM says 'no' does not make it suddenly a non-loophole.
We're not talking GM consent/house rules/setting flavor. We're talking what is permitted by the Hard rules. I've noted that my OWN opinion on some of these rules differ or expand upon what is written.
GM consent is a SEPARATE, campaign issue. Not a rules issue. I'm not saying a GM can't rule otherwise. We are talking about rules, not GM rights.
The retraining rules allow you to retrain NPC's. The GM saying 'no' is a House Rule.
The requirements to be a wizard are in black and white. The GM saying there is more to it then that is a House Rule/setting rule.
A GM allowing/ruling yes/no is a totally separate issue then what the Rules Allow. Please stop throwing out 'GM Consent' on a rules discussion.
==Aelryinth
Technology, even when available, won't always spread.
Creeks had steam power and clockwork engines at 2000 years ago, which was used only toys and curiosites.
Egyptians had electricity about 4-5000 years ago and it was used to galvanize jewels and (with bit disbelief) maybe used to create light.
Yes, but those are notable because they are exceptions, not the rule, Bunny.
In general, technology (magic) advances over time, without extreme means/events to stop it.
==Aelryinth
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I'm really not talking about Rule 0, no matter how much you might want to keep throwing up that strawman.
It comes down to one extremely simple point:
There are no rules for how NPCs gain levels or classes (outside of Leadership). None. No matter what method is involved, it is a house rule. Moreover, retraining is solely for PCs. (The retraining rules are written in the second person. NPCs are always referred to in the third person. PCs are always referred to in the second. That's a fundamental style guide rule.) You cannot point to "hard rules" for how easy or difficult it is to gain levels in any class for any non-cohort NPC, because they simply do not exist.
The only characters that have a chance to "break" a tech-level setting in a given campaign are the PCs, unless the GM decides that one or more NPCs are going to, and then they are going to do it regardless.
Shisumo,
If you are resorting to nuances of English to try to prove your point, you don't have an argument.
The retraining rules reference NPC classes. Saying they don't apply to NPC's is a clear contradiction.
And you promptly just used, 'unless the GM decides', which is Rule 0 again.
NPC's CAN level up. Look at leadership. Guess what? They do so automatically as your Leadership goes up. No GM fiat required, and that's what you're trying to assert...GM Fiat required.
Nope.
And as a point to remember, NPC's and PC's follow the same rules in PF. Keep that in mind.
Stop using Rule 0 again, and please don't digress down to English nuances arguments. That is the last sign of a bad argument on the internet.
==Aelryinth
Knight, this is the General Discussion forum, where we refer to the hard and fast written rules.
It is not the Rule 0/House Rules forum, where you alter things willy nilly to fit your way. And 'not allowing' something permitted in the base rules IS House Rules.
So, we are arguing the published standard of hard rules, not how savagely and fast you can rule 0 something.
It looks like your argument is 'Rules 0 solves all problems, so there is no problem'. Which is pretty petty.
And the standard reply is "If the rules could be fixed so you didn't have to rule 0, then the problems would be fixed before they started." (Approximate credit to Kirth! He gets annoyed by your argument, he sees it too much.)
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We're not arguing anything here, though. We're asking "what if" and not much else. Any problems -- the ones I'm apparently being petty and saying they don't exist? -- are ones of interpretation of how to use the rules as written. Which is what you do in a game.
I get that you want to shut down the dreaded Rule 0 argument because it does, in fact, remove a lot of the issues with this particular thread. You want to say "Well, the rules say it so I guess this is how it would go."
I see that a lot too. And all due respect to Kirth, but I don't give much a damn whether he, you, or anyone else is annoyed by an argument. We all have our issues and dislikes about what people say. and you deal with it when you are having conversations on the forums. Especially in the Pathfinder RPG General Discussion area where we are babbling about something that isn't covered by the rules.
Given that you mentioned above that you've already house ruled things for your own game, I feel as if you are arguing just to argue so I'll leave you to it.
Black Swan, I say. How do you know which one is expection without knowing whole picture? But I agree with you. In general, even biology or believes advances over time.
But I don't agree with everything. Sometimes even small things can stop big things, if they hit on right places. Quirks, fashions and even personal issues are often send more advanced options into oblivion. Technology and ideas can prosper only, when time is fertile for them.
Sadly I dont remember the name of dokument which made great work to linking progress in mathematics, politics, art, religion and technology together and prooved how none of the new ideas could have survived without advancement in some other areas. And how the big steps made advancements in every area at same time.
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Embrace the explosion. If the start of the fantasy genre was in Lord of the Rings, fantasy writing is a critique of industrialization and rapid cultural changes. I'll point out a few places in Tolkien's peoples. (Yay, essays!)
Yeah - that's the part that I hate about Tolkien. Basically large chunks of it are his take on industrialization through the rose colored glasses of nostalgia combined with being part of the aristocracy.
Basically - he wanted to go back to the days when he can just sit around as landed gentry and have his loyal peasants do all of the work for him. "Why do we need all of those dirty machines? My life is great!".
Admittedly - it was also colored by him equating the horrors of WWI with industrialization. (Not that earlier wars were any less bloody. As a % of the population - not even WWI & WWII combined made the 20th century as bloody as previous centuries.)
Shisumo,
If you are resorting to nuances of English to try to prove your point, you don't have an argument.
The retraining rules reference NPC classes. Saying they don't apply to NPC's is a clear contradiction.
And you promptly just used, 'unless the GM decides', which is Rule 0 again.
NPC's CAN level up. Look at leadership. Guess what? They do so automatically as your Leadership goes up. No GM fiat required, and that's what you're trying to assert...GM Fiat required.
Nope.
And as a point to remember, NPC's and PC's follow the same rules in PF. Keep that in mind.
Stop using Rule 0 again, and please don't digress down to English nuances arguments. That is the last sign of a bad argument on the internet.
==Aelryinth
So when does the average commoner in town level up? Not someone's cohort or otherwise mechanically tied to a PC, but one of these normal NPCs you expect to be taking wizard levels.
I assume there are hard rules somewhere defining that?
Much like that mythical hard rule no one's been able to quote saying any NPC can take any PC class they choose.
The rules are there saying what is required for people to take a class.
That's all I'm saying. that's it. Zrrt. The pre-reqs are right there. Age 17, Int 10, Concentration, spellcraft.
Whether they WILL is a campaign issue. If there is a 'further requirement', that's a House Rule, also.
Whether they'd WANT TO is a realism issue - of course they'd want to. It's the same as the intelligent person having the choice between having access to technology or not having access. i don't want to live in a 3rd world country.
Can PC's retrain them? YES...rules say in 3 days?! As long as they get that first level, they are gold. Someone has to pay for it, but meh!
Seriously, it's probably easier and cheaper to take a level 1 commoner and retrain him to wiz/1 then it is to train a wiz/1...by the rules. We don't know how much that initial wizard training actually costs.
==Aelryinth
Hopefully you just have players that are playing their characters and what their character would know, instead of channeling their meta game 21st century knowledge into a much simpler setting. If its that big of an issue maybe u just need new players who are more interested in adventuring and playing the game.
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Honestly, the whole thread has gotten a bit weird; the idea of having to keep a fantasy setting from a technological explosion, and this derail about NPC class advancement, seem rely on the premise that RPG settings have some sort of autonomous progression outside the experience of the people playing. (I'm including the GM as one of the people playing.) The CRB doesn't grow NPCs if you leave it in the cupboard for too long.
If a PC wizard wants to use all his second level spell slots to cast continual flame for days on end and provide a settlement with gaslight era equivalent streetlights, I'm not going to stop him (Hell, I'll probably make him a local hero, with all the plot hooks that entails) but I'm not going to waste any time worrying about how to keep the NPCs in my setting from doing it.
Technology, even when available, won't always spread.
Creeks had steam power and clockwork engines at 2000 years ago, which was used only toys and curiosites.
Egyptians had electricity about 4-5000 years ago and it was used to galvanize jewels and (with bit disbelief) maybe used to create light.
Yes, but those are notable because they are exceptions, not the rule, Bunny.
In general, technology (magic) advances over time, without extreme means/events to stop it.
==Aelryinth
Actually technology didn't advance until communication got to the point where technology would spread before the civilisation that invented it snuffed out. That's why we don't know the full extent of the engineering techniques used in the Pyramids or by the Incans at Macchu Piccu. Over the 40-75,000 years of human history, the bulk of advancement was done in the last two centuries.
There's also the idiosyncratic factor. Where would be today if Vincent Cerf hadn't invented the tcp/ip protocol and a certain Senator didn't push Congress to throw money at developing a network that would use it? A reset that wipes out both technology and the memory of it, could wind up with history that takes a far different path.