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There are a lot of intelligent people who believe this game is broken at high levels. Actually the only serious disagreement on this is where you draw the line. E12 seems to be the standard, but even E6 doesn't really raise any eyebrows. I believe the problem is always there, it is just at what point it breaks it for you.
I will respectfully disagree from the start. I've run several campaigns, including one where the players hit level 18/mythic 1, and none of them were ever "broken" except Wrath of the Righteous, which is written to be broken...
I've just never had an issue running 16th-18th level characters the exact same way I run 6th-8th level characters.
I don't think hyperoptimization is the problem,
Yet again, I will politely disagree. My players have never asked for Simulacrum, nor Limited Wish, nor Planar Binding, nor any other spell that "breaks" the game. They choose spells that ensure that THEY are still in the fights, THEY are still in danger, and THEY have to accomplish what they set out to do, rather than sending in someone else while remaining totally safe. I've never had players create their own crafting demiplanes, nor take Leadership to create a sweatshop of low-level wizards to craft for them.
I so often see the statement, "The game breaks after xxx level", and the whys always seem to involve spells my players just have no interest in, because it becomes, "I send in someone else to do my job for me," and they choose not to do that. Without my guidance.
I think the problem goes down to a basic common assumption. The assumption is that everything written always and only works as written. We get hundreds of posts on various threads in the forums on how even first level spells MUST always work.
I'll disagree slightly here. It's more of an, "If it's in the book, then I can have it and you can't stop me," approach to being a player.
I have seen intelligent people bemoan the fact that the create water Cantrip breaks desert games, but if you suggest that water magic may not work well in a desert you should probably have your lawyer present.
While I personally would allow Create Water to work and would think of other ways to harass the party in a desert, if a GM feels that Create Water breaks their game, from the outset they should simply say, "These spells are not available in my campaign."
I'd be much happier with that than a "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't" approach.
What do you think?
Can you think of other reasonable situations that certain types of magic should be unreliable?
Check out the PRD on Planar Adventures; in particular the section on impeded magic. That might be just what you're thinking of.
As a whole, I've found that a common goal between GM and player of telling a delightful, enjoyable story with the two parties cooperating works far better than trying to espouse a confrontational attitude and then delineate exactly what is "legal" and "not legal".
It's a lot easier when a player comes up to you and says, "I'm thinking of taking xxx. Will that work OK in your campaign?" and you can give a reasonable yes/no answer with reasons.
Communication and cooperation work wonders.
Even the broken options are in the book, since none of my players have used them the game is obviously not broken.
The game does break at higher levels. If your games avoided the broken parts of high level play and didn't use any of their high level options to simply overcome the trials that they had problems with 10 levels ago and let them still be trials that's your group.
Example of something not even that high level.
GM had a building that we were supposed to work through a bunch of puzzles to open the doors to get to the end of the building. We walked around the building and used adamantine weapons to break the wall quickly to get to the end.
Had we not used a "creative" solution then the scenario would have gone like it would have many levels ago, where we had to figure out the puzzles. But since we have new toys now we easily "broke" the plan by using them.
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Even the broken options are in the book, since none of my players have used them the game is obviously not broken.
Close. There are ways to break ANY game. It is up to your players to choose not to use them. Name any published RPG. I'll find a way to break it.
It's a trust relationship between you and your players, not, "Because my players can find a way to break this game, this game sucks!"
The game does break at higher levels. If your games avoided the broken parts of high level play and didn't use any of their high level options to simply overcome the trials that they had problems with 10 levels ago and let them still be trials that's your group.
Again, close. The game provides tools to bypass issues that would have been difficult or impossible at earlier levels. Fly, Dimension Door, and Teleport are three biggies.
Example of something not even that high level.
GM had a building that we were supposed to work through a bunch of puzzles to open the doors to get to the end of the building. We walked around the building and used adamantine weapons to break the wall quickly to get to the end.Had we not used a "creative" solution then the scenario would have gone like it would have many levels ago, where we had to figure out the puzzles. But since we have new toys now we easily "broke" the plan by using them.
As a GM, I would have appreciated your creative solution. If the GM hadn't wanted you to come up with something so creative, the building would have been underground.
As a GM, it's not my job to have a "plan". It's my job to have a world with which you as a player can interact.
Your genius in solving a puzzle in a way I hadn't anticipated is not a "problem" for me. It's a delight.
EDIT: One of my co-GMs who's been running for decades says his major job is coming up with problems he considers "unsolvable". He pretty much always sees the PCs come up with solutions he hadn't anticipated. He considers this "par for the course".
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1 Rank, 3 Class Skill, 2 from being a Druid, 4 Wisdom, 2 Aid another , is +12. if more than one person can aid you can't fail, at first level without needing to take 10.
Which is fine. You built for it and you have help. You should be able to make a DC 15 check.
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Which is fine. You built for it and you have help. You should be able to make a DC 15 check.1 Rank, 3 Class Skill, 2 from being a Druid, 4 Wisdom, 2 Aid another , is +12. if more than one person can aid you can't fail, at first level without needing to take 10.
It was more just a point to how easy it is to trivialize surviving in the wild with minimal investment. Or as I put it earlier, how Pathfinder is bad at doing gritty wilderness survival as you practically have a built in "ignore this issue" button.
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It was more just a point to how easy it is to trivialize surviving in the wild with minimal investment. Or as I put it earlier, how Pathfinder is bad at doing gritty wilderness survival as you practically have a built in "ignore this issue" button.
I still think you're discounting what the system is capable of as well as what's possible with "gritty survival."
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It was more just a point to how easy it is to trivialize surviving in the wild with minimal investment. Or as I put it earlier, how Pathfinder is bad at doing gritty wilderness survival as you practically have a built in "ignore this issue" button.I still think you're discounting what the system is capable of as well as what's possible with "gritty survival."
Could you elaborate?
As per the survival skill I can live in a Desert indefinitely without fear of running out of food or water. Heat stroke is another matter.
But in terms of starving / getting lost / falling prey to quicksand /avalanches / other natural hazards (discounting monsters) a Pathfinder character whose invested minimally in survival is covered. Those aspects of survival can be ignored and don't need to be interacted with as their own challenge, because they simply aren't a challenge on their own.
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Pathfinder is not a ruleset for survivor fantasies.
There are other systems if you just want to adapt The Revenant or The Long Dark into a tabletop rpg experience.
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It was more just a point to how easy it is to trivialize surviving in the wild with minimal investment. Or as I put it earlier, how Pathfinder is bad at doing gritty wilderness survival as you practically have a built in "ignore this issue" button.I still think you're discounting what the system is capable of as well as what's possible with "gritty survival."Could you elaborate?
As per the survival skill I can live in a Desert indefinitely without fear of running out of food or water. Heat stroke is another matter.
But in terms of starving / getting lost / falling prey to quicksand /avalanches / other natural hazards (discounting monsters) a Pathfinder character whose invested minimally in survival is covered. Those aspects of survival can be ignored and don't need to be interacted with as their own challenge, because they simply aren't a challenge on their own.
Still wouldn't say you could anticipate the avalanche. Quicksand is at your feet. Something moving at you at roughly 60 mph through a dense forest with occluded sight and or on a snowy mountain top that's a loud environment, not so much. That's how I'd rule it. Don't like it? Don't play in my games. ;)
As to the elaboration, just going down the environment chapter we have
- dungeons
- traps
- wilderness
- urban
- weather
- the planes
- general rules
I wouldn't really do urban in a gritty survival. A diversion into the planes in a gritty survival through some kind of natural portal or some such could be really cool, though.
Taking a jaunt over to the GameMastery Guide, the given disasters are
- volcanoes
- tsunamis
- undead uprisings
and hazards include
- accursed pools
- bad air
- dweomorsink
- ear seekers
- magnetized ore
- mnemonic crystals
- poison oak rot grubs
Survival alone isn't getting you through all that.
So, the rough elements are there. Add ALL the other stuff for haunts and the other books and it's not hard to conceptualize what a survival campaign might entail. The harder part, as I'm sure is most likely for campaigns in general, the story to weave them together, not them simply existing.
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I would contest that it's not about specifically seeing the hazard in question but identifying the telltale signs of one.
But yes by and large you need to change the rules/rulings to make surprise hazards a threat against a party that has at least one person with ranks in survival.
The elements are there yes. I haven't contested that, but in-order for them to be both interesting and challenging you need to add additional things.
The hazards you listed can be identified and subsequently avoided with the survival skill assuming you are diligent and making your checks. However there may be cases where due to other circumstances you need to brave the avalanche zone or pass through the bad air cavern but in that case they would be an obstacle but not the main antagonist. It's not so much about surviving the environment but overcoming the obstacles the environment poses. As pointed out almost anyone can just survive in the wild.
In the end those rules are there to support the games main focus which is killing monsters and taking their stuff.
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I'm playing a survival-based PF game (jungle), and DMing another (desert). Both are going well. We're all having a great time and it feels gritty. I don't think either will be as gritty in a few levels but that's the way it goes. Survival becomes an afterthought as new higher-level concerns arise.
Agree with NobodysHome and others on player-DM trust and investment.
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Indeed, cursed terrain, demonic/haunted forests, and so on are totally a thing. Any quest to take on Treerazer would certainly entail such things.
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And if it's a survival game which class is getting a better survival skill than a druid or shaman putting ranks into survival? Now factor in that they have spells to help them find/make food and other really handy spells to have when trying to survive. Removing take 10 doesn't stop casters from easily trivializing a survival game.
Druids don't have any create food spells in an environment where there aren't berries to pick. And the spell does specify that the berries must be freshly picked.
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again, I think the probalem with the system a lot of people are having is that they want the system to do something it wasn't designed to do. If you want to surprise your players with sudden swerves in what skills and spells are capable of doing, Pathfinder is not your system.
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And if it's a survival game which class is getting a better survival skill than a druid or shaman putting ranks into survival? Now factor in that they have spells to help them find/make food and other really handy spells to have when trying to survive. Removing take 10 doesn't stop casters from easily trivializing a survival game.Druids don't have any create food spells in an environment where there aren't berries to pick. And the spell does specify that the berries must be freshly picked.
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And if it's a survival game which class is getting a better survival skill than a druid or shaman putting ranks into survival? Now factor in that they have spells to help them find/make food and other really handy spells to have when trying to survive. Removing take 10 doesn't stop casters from easily trivializing a survival game.Druids don't have any create food spells in an environment where there aren't berries to pick. And the spell does specify that the berries must be freshly picked.
Backed into starvation's corner after a short segue away from the party, my Druid may emerge and declare that he has, in fact, recently picked these here "Dingle" Berries. And the party had damn well be grateful.
It pays to be a harvester of fallen enemies (basically makes me a NE Druid because of "cannibalism". For the record, I've never consumed my own species/genus in a campaign)... I've been in plane-locked survival-horror dungeons. Don't worry, it was just the DM's thing and we regarded it lightheartedly because that's the type of campaign he was known for. Compartmentalized and very controlled. All I had to do as a Player was plan accordingly to be viable within those parameters and oh yeah, may be able to keep the rest of the party alive.
Being serious and contributing to the current phase the thread is in: yeah, PF is definitely what we would call "NobleBright" as a High Fantasy setting. Players should always have a chance of success that they can reasonably understand and strive towards. If the Party is ever reduced to Nat 20 or 15+ rolls to succeed at combat and have achievable skill targets, then the DM has failed to adapt to his Party. Likewise, if the DM is constantly blindsided and have the narrative bypassed constantly, then the Party is actively killing the DMs motivation to run the game.
Give and take.
I've played along with what I think are DUMB phases... hell, sometimes I've deliberately proposed stupid courses of action. Why? Because everyone would love it and it's up to me to find the silver lining and have fun with them.
EX:
Objective: River Captains are currently holding a VIP captive. Client wants VIP rescued. Emphasizes non-violence. Wants to maintain peace and work relationship with River Captains.
Group: DMNPC is high CHA. My Oracle is a pint-size cloudy-eyed floating Demagogue. Rest are demi-casters and martials built for PVE. Oh, and a kleptomaniac Sylph.
META: DIPLOMANCY with both loveable PCs.
How to keep everyone engaged instead: Conduct Cheeseake Burlesque Fighting Tournament to keep every distracted by our charismatics and our Martials and send our stealth specialists to sneak out VIP.
"Beauties versus Brawnies" was a campaign moment I'll cherish forever. We got the mission done, the River Captains loved us, and our group made a positive first impression into our foray into the River Kingdoms. By the time they figured out that they were hoodwinked, both sides were laughing about it on the shoreline.
Did we need a convoluted set of hard rules to facilitate that? I'm sure the DM was making up the target rolls, but the Players took it upon themselves to sell the idea and perform it the best they can.
The title fight was between a Half-Orc Brawler and the Sylph lesbian Roguette. With our DMNPC "Princess" Dhampir Gunslinger coerced to be the dancing ring-girl and my Oracle the overly-enthusiastic EmCee.
Our DM was near tears that we actually did not deliberately curbstomp an encounter that night and actually drove him to freestyle a social encounter.
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There are a lot of intelligent people who believe this game is broken at high levels. Actually the only serious disagreement on this is where you draw the line. E12 seems to be the standard, but even E6 doesn't really raise any eyebrows. I believe the problem is always there, it is just at what point it breaks it for you.
I don't think hyperoptimization is the problem, though I do think it is a symptom/effect of the problem. I think the problem goes down to a basic common assumption. The assumption is that everything written always and only works as written. We get hundreds of posts on various threads in the forums on how even first level spells MUST always work.
I have seen intelligent people bemoan the fact that the create water Cantrip breaks desert games, but if you suggest that water magic may not work well in a desert you should probably have your lawyer present.
What do you think?
Can you think of other reasonable situations that certain types of magic should be unreliable?
To be honest, I think that a lot of the Unreliability of the game, (much of it something Paizo specifically inserted from 3.5) is a major factor in breaking the game. Now, let me explain. I tend heavily towards playing Divine characters, mainly Clerics, Warpriests, Paladins, and lastly Oracles. Pathfinder gave Clerics Channel Energy as a method of allowing Clerics (and other related classes) to focus more of their spellcasting on spells they want or are needed, but at the same time they absolutely gutted the Cleric spell list, but also many Domains, robbing them of much of their utility.
Most status removal spells now require a check of some sort, typically a Caster Level check in order to function. Status Removal spells have always been an issue, as IF the caster even has the right one(s) prepared, they usually do not have enough to go around. It's usually not just one character that gets hit with Disease, or Poison, or whatever. And Paizo amplified that, because now, even if they do happen to have those spells ready, there is a significant chance that casting them simply does nothing. Worse, they made purchasing scrolls of them, which many casters needed to do once they could reasonably afford them (in order to hopefully have enough to go around, and it's a built in factor for expected difficulty and adventuring), now go off of the lowest Caster Level possible. Spending resources that do absolutely nothing is not fun. It's annoying to everyone. And it's unreliability like this that increases the "5 min work day".
So, in practice, I just stopped prepping spells like Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Neutralize Poison, and similar options which the party is generally considered expected to have. Lesser Restoration is just a better option, as it at least does something 100% of the time, but it's also something I will not be using in combat. For diseases, poison, etc. . ., it's just better to get back to town, provide Long Term Care with the Heal Skill and also add a bunch of bonuses. They are no more reliable than the spells, (I can always roll poorly), but it doesn't cost me or the party anything (higher level spells in the middle of adventuring).
Another example is 3.5 Death Ward vs PF Death Ward. It used to be a reliable, but costly higher level spell, and now it offers a +4 Morale bonus to saves. Morale bonuses are pretty typical, so that's already one black mark against it, but the fact that it only offers a chance of doing anything means I'm going to find another use for that level's spell slot for something I can actually count on.
A lot of Divination spells are the same, with Pathfinder not really mucking with the spells as much as written in a lot of flavor and supplemental rules (Ultimate Intrigue) to counter them, or more importantly to make them not really be worthwhile. It's different, but the problem with Divinations is that they are often costly outside of just wasting a spell slot, (many have expensive Materials Components or Foci), and it's extremely annoying and off putting to spend a resource, and also pay for it to have little or minimal return, ESPECIALLY when it's just because the DM doesn't want their precious story ruined by fairly typical means. That is, it becomes a situation where it's mostly Player vs DM, and all the DM is doing is saying the equivalent of "I'm DM, rocks fall, no save".
So, the only real result this mentality has done is to make me not even bother with those spells in favor of things that I will or have a better chance of actually having some effect.
However, another point I do want to bring up, this one in regards to the DM arbitrarily trying to change the basic assumptions of the game to keep things challenging or highlight their story is that it tends to put some classes into permanent situations where they can't really contribute, survive, or have fun.
In a desert game where something like Create Water is unreliable, Clerics, Fighters, Paladins, and many other classes that only have 2+Int Skills, and Int is not a primary stat can not afford to put <a lot of> Ranks into Survival, and it's not a Class Skill. Normally they have spells like Create Water, Spark, Create Food, Endure Elements, ect. . . to compensate, but if the DM just remove them, fully or partially from play, they don't really have a good way to not be a massive liability to the party and group. Yes, they can forsake other options, (that they are expected to have) to compensate, but that JUST makes them overall worse and less fun to play. Other classes that are NOT hit with these somewhat arbitrary limitations typically do not get any penalties, too, so the end result is that some classes are just better than others, all because the DM was attempting to make things more fair and challenging. For example, ad I believe someone basically mentioned this, Druids just don't loose much for not getting access to Create Water, because they can easily just use Survival instead, and realistically, most probably would anyway so that they can pick other spells for more overall utility.
So, if you are going to do this sort of thing, you should probably also give those classes that take the most hit some sort of compensation to put them more on par with other classes. An easy way to do it might be to say that Clerics, Fighters, Paladins, etc. . . in your desert setting get 4+Int skills, and Survival is a Class Skill for everyone. You are probably going to also need to go through and swap out some Domain spells, too.
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Why is it that any talk about setting up reasonable and predictable limitations to magic is so often portrayed as arbitrary and bad GMing? **
It is just like applying situational modifiers to skill use and combat really. I suppose, reading some of the posts, maybe that is bad GMing too. **
** This has has fortunately been from a minority of the posters.
DM Beckett, you posted a thoughtful and reasoned argument. As I disagree with your premise that "not reliable in every instance" equates to worthless, I cannot agree with your conclusion. I do thank you for the post though, more of the objections make sense now.
I won't post my full GM rules, but here are some.
I expect all characters be multifunctional to a degree. You shouldn't try to be the master of every situation, but being a one trick pony will make the game less enjoyable for you.
Bullying your fellow players will not be allowed, period. This has been the most common reason for temporary or permanent ejection from the game. They decide what is bullying, not you. (Being IN CHARACTER is no guarantee of immunity to this rule.)
The rules do not trump the GM, but I endeavor to never be arbitrary.
I believe the game is funner when the party does well, provided they are challenged.
You will almost always have warnings that you are going into a situation where the rules are significantly affected. Make an effort to gather information.
(Purely mechanical here"
No character ever gets less than 4 skill points per level (with no intelligence penalties.)
2 point classes get 2 extra points that can be spent on skills based on their main stat. (Wisdom for Clerics, Strength or Dexterity for Fighters, etc.)
Done with the boring cut and paste, thanks for your time and interest.
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Why is it that any talk about setting up reasonable and predictable limitations to magic is so often portrayed as arbitrary and bad GMing? **
9/10 times, it's the reason they are doing it.
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Why is it that any talk about setting up reasonable and predictable limitations to magic is so often portrayed as arbitrary and bad GMing? **
It is just like applying situational modifiers to skill use and combat really. I suppose, reading some of the posts, maybe that is bad GMing too. **
** This has has fortunately been from a minority of the posters.
DM Beckett, you posted a thoughtful and reasoned argument. As I disagree with your premise that "not reliable in every instance" equates to worthless, I cannot agree with your conclusion. I do thank you for the post though, more of the objections make sense now.
Reasonable and predictable limitations can be ok. I think folks tend to jump towards it being arbitrary and/bad GMing simply because there have been so many examples and bad experiences of it, and while it is more of the extreme end of a spectrum, it's also one that gets hit a little too often. It also discounts a great deal of reasonable things, (like if the desert is so deadly and magic resistant, why do people live there instead of the next desert over that doesn't have that issue?
Situational modifiers are a different issue. Just speaking for myself, if Remove Disease worked, curing the Disease, and I encountered a type of Undead whose Disease was an uncommon Curse + Disease, making me have to roll to overcome it, I'd have no issue then prepping Remove Disease, because most of the time it actually functions when used. However, if it starts out as a 50/50 sort of thing like it is in Pathfinder, half the time I cast the spell absolutely nothing happens, not because the Spell failed, or the target resisted it, or anything like that, but because I rolled poorly, (in addition to using a spell slot, and everything else), that's not fun, and the game itself is teaching me not to use that option.
I do want to point out that I'm in no way accusing you of being a bad GM, unreasonable, or anything of the sort. I was simply answering some of the general questions posted, and explain why I might be against some things. Really the only concern I might have, as a player in a desert campaign where Create Water didn't work would be to be clear on what else might be affected up front, and then to try to find reasonable ways for my character to at least be self sufficient enough to survive in the wilds for a week alone, if they had to, but at the same time doing so in a way that doesn't strip many of the other basic functions from the class to do so.
Deserts aren't a problem of availability of water - you can have a river running through a desert without it changing much of the surrounding territory. Deserts are a problem of water distribution - i.e. it doesn't fall from the sky over every part of the landscape and soak into the ground to be stored for deep rooted plants to access.
Create Water won't do jack for deserts, even if the water didn't disappear after 24 hours. Control Weather could do it, but that requires a much higher level caster, and won't change the climate factors that formed the desert in the first place - like the rain shadow formed by mountains or the prevailing winds. So you'd need on-going maintenance to keep it from turning back into a desert.
Pathfinder is simply a game where past a certain power level, mundane annoyances can be entirely removed. Create Water and Endure Elements make desert survival trivial - so what? You never lack for OTHER challenges.
People also often complain about magic 'ruining' mystery plots. This is because Pathfinder was designed to be about hitting monsters in the face. Mysteries isn't wrongbadfun, but Pathfinder wants you to be able to solve mysteries fast and get back to hitting monsters in the face.
DM Becket,
Perhaps I need to consider mechanisms to improve odds on remove disease, perhaps a successful diagnosis would give your roll a kick up.
Will have to think on it.
People tend to live in marginal places because there is competition for better spots, and sometimes just to be left to live how they want to.
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Why is it that any talk about setting up reasonable and predictable limitations to magic is so often portrayed as arbitrary and bad GMing? **
To be honest, normally limitations discussed in threads like this tend not to be "predictable" and generally sound completely arbitrary.
There are a lot of intelligent people who believe this game is broken at high levels. Actually the only serious disagreement on this is where you draw the line. E12 seems to be the standard, but even E6 doesn't really raise any eyebrows. I believe the problem is always there, it is just at what point it breaks it for you.
I don't think hyperoptimization is the problem, though I do think it is a symptom/effect of the problem. I think the problem goes down to a basic common assumption. The assumption is that everything written always and only works as written. We get hundreds of posts on various threads in the forums on how even first level spells MUST always work.
I have seen intelligent people bemoan the fact that the create water Cantrip breaks desert games, but if you suggest that water magic may not work well in a desert you should probably have your lawyer present.
What do you think?
Can you think of other reasonable situations that certain types of magic should be unreliable?
I don't think reliability is inherently breaking the game, though it may contribute. The fact that magic always works but a 20th level fighter still might miss a CR 1 ooze bugs me. I think taking away some of this reliability isn't a bad idea if everyone knows what they are getting into. But deciding partway into the campaign certain things don't work because they will spoil the plot isn't very fun for players. I have always liked the idea of wildmagic myself, so that casters don't simply do nothing when they fail to cast, but won't do what they want either.
But the fact that a given spell always works isn't the problem with game balance. If you make a spell only work in some situations, a determined party will set up said situations if they want said spell. I imagine many things contribute to the game breaking down eventually, including class imbalance, GM skill, player preferences, and campaign preferences*. Only one of these problems can be fixed by rules, the others take practice and effort.
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I don't think reliability is inherently breaking the game, though it may contribute. The fact that magic always works but a 20th level fighter still might miss a CR 1 ooze bugs me.
Except that, with few exceptions, any spell that a 20th level wizard asts on a CR 1 ooze might fail as well. Attack spells almost always require a saving throw or to-hit roll.
The "problem" that people are complaining about is that utility spells are too useful and reliable, but their mundane equivalents (skill checks) are also reliable (if not nearly as useful). There was a build posted above that, at level 1 and with the assistance of a masterwork tool, would never fail to find food/water in the desert. (Remember that rolling a 1 is not an automatic failure on a skill check.)
But that, of course, is what "utility" things are supposed to do. No one complains when tindertwigs always light as they're supposed to, so why is the light cantrip a problem?
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Why is it that any talk about setting up reasonable and predictable limitations to magic is so often portrayed as arbitrary and bad GMing?
As Ashiel has said, it's usually because the GM's reasons are arbitrary and bad.
Also, we're not talking about reasonable limitations here. You don't get to insert adjectives when it comes to debated topics. You're drawing a conclusion within the question, which is naughty.
Again, the most frequent reason GMs restrict or limit spells is because they have an agenda, and instead of writing stories around a system that empowers and enables players, they stick to their guns and excise that empowerment. Instead of "you can create water", it becomes "you can't create water". The system already has built-in structure that codifies how such a spell works.
Understand, we're not talking about the "I wanna run a low-magic campaign", which is already a statement that has me asking "so why do you want to use a game system that is high-magic?" We're talking about "there are a handful of spells that I can't think around, so I'm removing them."
The true example would be "I don't know how to defend against players who can move then use ranged attacks against my all-melee monsters, so I am removing bows from the game." It's not bad GMing in the sense of "that GM is a horrible person", like the adversarial "PCs must die" GMs. But it's the "this GM could probably benefit from some advice, instead of splicing in houserules."
And that, is basically the conclusion. There are two types of GMs who run up houserules; those who are inexperienced and don't know the system well enough to be comfortable with it as it exists, and those who are very familiar with it, and have over time found various subsystems that they prefer to tweak to suit their players and themselves. Ashiel's 9/10 GMs who limit spells are in the first group. YOU may not be. I am not asserting that as I can't know that.
I don't think reliability is inherently breaking the game, though it may contribute. The fact that magic always works but a 20th level fighter still might miss a CR 1 ooze bugs me.Except that, with few exceptions, any spell that a 20th level wizard asts on a CR 1 ooze might fail as well. Attack spells almost always require a saving throw or to-hit roll.
The "problem" that people are complaining about is that utility spells are too useful and reliable, but their mundane equivalents (skill checks) are also reliable (if not nearly as useful). There was a build posted above that, at level 1 and with the assistance of a masterwork tool, would never fail to find food/water in the desert. (Remember that rolling a 1 is not an automatic failure on a skill check.)
But that, of course, is what "utility" things are supposed to do. No one complains when tindertwigs always light as they're supposed to, so why is the light cantrip a problem?
It seems that I phrased things poorly. That part was meant to be an afterthought more than anything. But, for fairness' sake, many spells still do something on a successful save. Sometimes it is half damage, or a reduced effect, but it is something. Few melee attacks do anything on a missed attack.
Why is it that any talk about setting up reasonable and predictable limitations to magic is so often portrayed as arbitrary and bad GMing? **
You might want to list some examples of "reasonable". It seems right now that the GM's in question definition of reasonable was different from those who disagreed with them.
Grove of Respite.And if it's a survival game which class is getting a better survival skill than a druid or shaman putting ranks into survival? Now factor in that they have spells to help them find/make food and other really handy spells to have when trying to survive. Removing take 10 doesn't stop casters from easily trivializing a survival game.Druids don't have any create food spells in an environment where there aren't berries to pick. And the spell does specify that the berries must be freshly picked.
To be frank, I'm not that sure I'd allow that spell. It seems too.. I don't know... "wizardy" or unnatural for my taste. At the very least, I'd bump it up three spell levels. Druid spells are supposed to be working with the environment... not conjuring it out of nothing. I'm especially sure that I would not allow the goodberry spell to be used from anything other than naturally occurring plants.
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To be frank, I'm not that sure I'd allow that spell. It seems too.. I don't know... "wizardy" or unnatural for my taste. At the very least, I'd bump it up three spell levels. Druid spells are supposed to be working with the environment... not conjuring it out of nothing. I'm especially sure that I would not allow the goodberry spell to be used from anything other than naturally occurring plants.Grove of Respite.And if it's a survival game which class is getting a better survival skill than a druid or shaman putting ranks into survival? Now factor in that they have spells to help them find/make food and other really handy spells to have when trying to survive. Removing take 10 doesn't stop casters from easily trivializing a survival game.Druids don't have any create food spells in an environment where there aren't berries to pick. And the spell does specify that the berries must be freshly picked.
The grove's berries are Goodberries so you don't need to cast 2 spells.
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OK, I will pull some examples from some old campaigns. Generalizing some because most of these were way pre-PFRPG.
Remember that the players had all this info before they even set up their expeditions.
(Notable exception being a really arrogant convention group who had a treasure map, and any research was just a waste of time. It would have been a TPK without the cleric's word of recall scroll. The wizard SBId after he d-doored into a rockeater raptor nest to scoop up all the gem-eggs. His rather impressive loot list is still there...) Normally a well inbformed party didn't have any serious problems working around the limitations of the area.
Desert of Gems
* The desert inhibits water magic and cold magic. It doesn't even get cold at night.
*. Most "natural" inhabitants are varieties of rockeaters, feeding directly on sand and stone, and most are water-phobic.
*. The only place in the desert that water and cold magic are completely blocked is the area around the Temple of Crystal.
**. Hydrocarbon based creatures need protection there to avoid dessicating away.
*. There are nomadic humanoids living there.
**. They keep moving as the areas they move through get temporarily depleted by their water spells.
**. The nomads know the places where water magics work best
***. It is rumored that they know the locations of Deep caverns where free water exists within the desert.
The desert anti-water magic was just flavor to a prepared party.
On the other end of the scale was the:
Thrice Lost City. (TLC the acronym was a campaign joke)
The TLC was an ANCIENT kingdom's capitol city.
*. Someone very nearly completely non-existed the entire city.
**. The city literally did not exist for thousands of years outside of a few references in a few highly magically protected libraries.
**. The city was brought back into existance by a powerful and clever cabal of magic types.
**. The resulting magewar caused serious temporal, dimensional and magical instabilities. Using strong magic, and even magic items was risky.
***. Divinations always failed there because reality was always shifting.
3 convention groups TPKd, or very nearly did. One player who was in the two of the wipeouts worked out the underlying logic. He came back for the last TLC game and totally succeeded. It wasn't a cakewalk, but they were able to use most of the backlash and similar effects for the pary's benefit. The only complete TPK was in a group where three of the players insisted on playing the Awful Stupid allignment. I gave the two players who died through no fault of their own the opportunity to "Never Happened" the run for their characters. (BTW "Never Happened" was actually a built in part of the TLC effect. It had happened in game for good or ill previously in runs.)
These effects were always considered challenges, but perhaps not one suited for a rules centric play-style.
I agree that springing my rules-style on a group without warning and opportunity to bail out would be arrogant and stupid. I even swung a priority placement chit for one player who very quickly realized the game wasn't for him.
Does this answer any questions?
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But it is consumed. It's consumed by vast numbers of plants as they respire, upcycling that additional water into the atmosphere. Some of that moves on to other areas by way of prevailing winds, some of that lingers as a more humid atmosphere and condenses upon nightfall as dew that further hydrates more plants and soil biota.
Keep this up for one generation and you no longer have a desert, you have a jungle. Couple it with earth-shaping to retain the water [as opposed to the deep channels that carry desert flash floods] and for so long as the region isn't deforested your jungle should remain.
You read too much Dune. Most deserts are deserts exactly because the prevailing conditions prevent rain from falling in significant amounts - such as a mountain's rain-shadow or great stretches of land that get all the rain first. Desert soil is also notoriously bad (as a result of winds stripping away stuff like topsoil), so only the hardiest of plants will get a foothold.
Irrigation can make a desert green, but it's still a desert. The moment you stop irrigating, it will revert unless the overall climate has been changed. It doesn't change the terrible heat (or cold, let's not forget cold deserts), the prevailing winds, mountains, altitude, etc., because you have to change LARGE areas of the desert to have any effect in this regard.
A Decanter of Endless Water could usefully irrigate exactly the area the water can spread in 24 hours. In Geyser mode it creates 300 gallons of water a minute. An acre of corn takes 600000 gallons of water to bring to maturity and takes 60-100 days to grow. Note that comes out to about 22 inches of rain over its growth cycle.
If we assume 100 days, that's 6000 gallons of water a day. It takes the geyser 20 minutes to produce that much water, so in 24 hours it can irrigate 72 acres of corn - assuming no time is lost in the water getting to the corn. You could get roughly twice as many acres of wheat from the same water, so 144 acres - still less than 1/4 of a square mile.
Create Water creates 2 gallons of water per level - that's 20 gallons of water per minute by a first level caster. Assuming he could cast that spell for 8 solid hours (every day), he's still 1/45th the output of the Decanter of Endless Water, so he could irrigate barely 3 acres of wheat. Note that simple weeds need plenty of water too, so just irrigating scrub-land is a monumental task.
So a full time water conjuring cleric could irrigate roughly 3 acres of wheat per level, while the Decanter of Endless Water can irrigate about 1/4 of a square mile (a village). That's not changing the climate of anything.
theres a specific thing covering create water and deserts, it doesn't work because the water from create water disappears
"This water disappears after 1 day if not consumed."
But it is consumed. It's consumed by vast numbers of plants as they respire, upcycling that additional water into the atmosphere. Some of that moves on to other areas by way of prevailing winds, some of that lingers as a more humid atmosphere and condenses upon nightfall as dew that further hydrates more plants and soil biota.
Keep this up for one generation and you no longer have a desert, you have a jungle. Couple it with earth-shaping to retain the water [as opposed to the deep channels that carry desert flash floods] and for so long as the region isn't deforested your jungle should remain.
When your magic is strong enough to reshape mountains in such a way as to turn deserts into jungles, survival is no longer a problem. Until then you still have a number of issues. After that you have to deal with druid sects hunting you for tearing down mountains and building jungles.
Helic, Kirt-Ryder's statement is fairly accurate.
Examples:
Lebanon was a forest until the Cedars of Lebanon were cut down, now a desert.
Low estimate for the growth of the Sahara desert caused by overgrazing by now non-nomadic tribal herders in the last 2 centuries is 10%, high estimate is over 30%
Iran was pushing back the desert by reforesting at heavy social costs. The new trees were cut down deliberately after the revolution.
Israel and Utah have both been successful in reclaiming desert, and these reclaimed areas are becoming self sustaining.
Much of agricultural Northern China was reclaimed from the desert hundreds of years ago.
The Mojave forest was burnt down when the Native Americans moved southward and tried to burn out the undergrowth like they had been doing successfully in Northern forests.
Thus my point about changing LARGE areas of the desert to have any effect on the climate. The math shows that magically conjured water is literally a drop in the bucket in terms of water requirements. If you're willing to divert rivers, you can make changes.
Helic, Kirt-Ryder's statement is fairly accurate.
Examples:
Lebanon was a forest until the Cedars of Lebanon were cut down, now a desert.Low estimate for the growth of the Sahara desert caused by overgrazing by now non-nomadic tribal herders in the last 2 centuries is 10%, high estimate is over 30%
Iran was pushing back the desert by reforesting at heavy social costs. The new trees were cut down deliberately after the revolution.
Israel and Utah have both been successful in reclaiming desert, and these reclaimed areas are becoming self sustaining.
Much of agricultural Northern China was reclaimed from the desert hundreds of years ago.
The Mojave forest was burnt down when the Native Americans moved southward and tried to burn out the undergrowth like they had been doing successfully in Northern forests.
Dessert reclamation needs water on the order of diverted rivers. Create water doesn't pour out that kind of water. At least not without dozens of casters working in concert. And if dozens of casters ARE working in concert to change part the world, why shouldn't they? That's like the power of a small nation right there (not to mention the apparent backing of at least one diety who would otherwise be perturbed that a significant number of his or her empowered agents on the mortal plain are spending their time watering the dessert).
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Just saying, a Decanter of Endless water is 9,000GP. Its things like that a DM really needs to consider. Maybe it was tried before, (in a different area) and it destroyed the area, having a very different result. Or it was too devistating on the ecosystems.
Or perhaps the desert is right in the middle of some warring or cold warring countries, and they each see the large, deadly desert area as a combination of neutral territory and natural defenses. Its easier to set up provision lines to go half way in and back to meet, but to try to transverse the desert with an army, even with the ability to teleport some people, is just too risky. There are also the natives, and so no one really wants the desert to be made more habitable, as it would mean they can be attacked from multiple sides with much more ease and from surprise.
Deserts aren't a problem of availability of water - you can have a river running through a desert without it changing much of the surrounding territory. Deserts are a problem of water distribution - i.e. it doesn't fall from the sky over every part of the landscape and soak into the ground to be stored for deep rooted plants to access.
Create Water won't do jack for deserts, even if the water didn't disappear after 24 hours. Control Weather could do it, but that requires a much higher level caster, and won't change the climate factors that formed the desert in the first place - like the rain shadow formed by mountains or the prevailing winds. So you'd need on-going maintenance to keep it from turning back into a desert.
Pathfinder is simply a game where past a certain power level, mundane annoyances can be entirely removed. Create Water and Endure Elements make desert survival trivial - so what? You never lack for OTHER challenges.
People also often complain about magic 'ruining' mystery plots. This is because Pathfinder was designed to be about hitting monsters in the face. Mysteries isn't wrongbadfun, but Pathfinder wants you to be able to solve mysteries fast and get back to hitting monsters in the face.
Mysteries work well in Pathfinder. As GM you just need to think like you are in world with magic. Also think of it like today. Not only can you scry on people via cameras every where with geo locations but you can go back in time watching recorded video. So think of world where you can scry like that and speak with the dead. A mystery will take all that into account.
Just saying, a Decanter of Endless water is 9,000GP. Its things like that a DM really needs to consider. Maybe it was tried before, (in a different area) and it destroyed the area, having a very different result. Or it was too devistating on the ecosystems.
Or perhaps the desert is right in the middle of some warring or cold warring countries, and they each see the large, deadly desert area as a combination of neutral territory and natural defenses. Its easier to set up provision lines to go half way in and back to meet, but to try to transverse the desert with an army, even with the ability to teleport some people, is just too risky. There are also the natives, and so no one really wants the desert to be made more habitable, as it would mean they can be attacked from multiple sides with much more ease and from surprise.
5 gallons per second (30 gallons per round) is not going to change an environment. The amount of water used for such projects in the US is measured in acre-feet. As in the amount of water that would fill a one acre space to a height of 1 foot. And not like a couple of these. But millions of them.
As an example, the state of Arizona (a US state that is basically 4 deserts) uses approximately 1.75 trillion gallons of water on agriculture annually to make a PORTION of its land suitable for things to grow. That comes out to about 55,492 gallons a second if I did my arithmetic right. And that is an ANNUAL use. As in just pouring water on this land and planting crops, does not become self sustaining. They need to continue to pour the water on the land every year.
So actually my original thought of several dozen clerics is inaccurate. You would need something like eleven THOUSAND decanters of endless water to make progress on making a dessert not a dessert. Or Something like all the divine casters on golarion working in concern.
Clerics aren't going to turn a desert into not a desert with a cantrip. Short of a literal global effort on the scale of the mendevian crusades or an actual act of a diety, no one is turning a desert into farmland.
Mysteries work well in Pathfinder. As GM you just need to think like you are in world with magic. Also think of it like today. Not only can you scry on people via cameras every where with geo locations but you can go back in time watching recorded video. So think of world where you can scry like that and speak with the dead. A mystery will take all that into account.Deserts aren't a problem of availability of water - you can have a river running through a desert without it changing much of the surrounding territory. Deserts are a problem of water distribution - i.e. it doesn't fall from the sky over every part of the landscape and soak into the ground to be stored for deep rooted plants to access.
Create Water won't do jack for deserts, even if the water didn't disappear after 24 hours. Control Weather could do it, but that requires a much higher level caster, and won't change the climate factors that formed the desert in the first place - like the rain shadow formed by mountains or the prevailing winds. So you'd need on-going maintenance to keep it from turning back into a desert.
Pathfinder is simply a game where past a certain power level, mundane annoyances can be entirely removed. Create Water and Endure Elements make desert survival trivial - so what? You never lack for OTHER challenges.
People also often complain about magic 'ruining' mystery plots. This is because Pathfinder was designed to be about hitting monsters in the face. Mysteries isn't wrongbadfun, but Pathfinder wants you to be able to solve mysteries fast and get back to hitting monsters in the face.
Mysteries work about as well in pathfinder as they do in most rpg systems. Namely, they work well if the DM is very good at telling mysteries, and the players are good at (and enjoy) figuring them out. A mystery works when the protagonist comes upon timely clues a bit at a time, slowly unraveling the plot, and the reader can slowly figure things out as an audience. The problem here is that in this case the audience and protagonist are the same people. Which is MUCH harder to balance.
Remember, ACTUAL investigation (the kind done by real detectives) is INSANELY boring. With huge amounts of dead ends and a lot of sitting around waiting for things to develop. When your detective isn't being guided by the plot, but is the protagonist, the audience, and the driver of events, the chances of a satisfactory pace for a mystery plot with the fun AHA I figured it out moment, is super slim.
Then there is the whole roleplaying thing. I may be X good at figuring out mysteries. But my character, the Investigator with a 24 intelligence and all of the knowledge, is smarter them me. The same way my half orc barbarian is way better at hitting things with an axe then I am. So if I am playing a character that is smarter then I actually am, his (or her) ability to figure out mysteries ought to be way better then mine. Which leads to clues being sorted out via dice rolls. Which takes literally all the satisfaction out of a mystery plot. Which also leads to dms unable to cope with such a situation trying to limit a characters abilities to use the tools and skills they have to solve the problem, which creates the conflict this whole thread is mostly about.
Relatively few rpgs that are not explicately designed for the purpose, are good at telling fun mystery stories.
Mysteries work about as well in pathfinder as they do in most rpg systems.
Mysteries work well in Pathfinder. As GM you just need to think like you are in world with magic. Also think of it like today. Not only can you scry on people via cameras every where with geo locations but you can go back in time watching recorded video. So think of world where you can scry like that and speak with the dead. A mystery will take all at into account.
I'm not even sure about this. Even mystery novels don't work as well in a high-surveillance environment (which is one reason we've seen a resurgence of "period" mystery novels recently, whether set in ancient Rome, feudal China, medieval Europe, the American guilded age, or whatever).
As you correct point out, mysteries are about finding clues at an appropriate pace, which is very hard to do when you can just retroactively watch the crime take place via retrocognition or use divination magic to ask God for the answer.
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Suitable to grow arable crops that require especially high water inputs while sacrificing immense amounts of that water to evaporation both during application [unfortunately aerial spray irrigation is still a thing even in arid climates] and thereafter due to bare-soil cultivation.
Or beginning to create a river/lake, (you don't have to turn it off). The issue that an item like this would present is that it's not terribly expensive, (9,000GP is well within reason for a town to have constructed by just not filling in pot holes for a month or two, or ten).
But the point I was trying to make is two-fold. 1.) It's not just Create water, or spells, or a Class, and 2.) that there needs to be a pretty good reason that these fairly simple things are not done. NOT that the DM says they don't work or are not allowed in the game, but instead that they have been tried and led to something bad/worse, or there is an in game (and logical) reason for it.
Or just...they've been done. Why shouldn't a village buy Decanters of Endless Water to irrigate their crops?
And simultaneously WHY WOULD THEY use it to terraform the whole desert? It's not their problem (and makes it hella harder for bandits to get at them).