Scientific magic and exciting new breakthroughs


General Discussion


I'm hoping that we'll get to see some creative use of magic. One of the features you tend to see as technology advances is increasing complexity or refined simplicity. I'd like to see this happening with magic, rather than see the old pathfinder spells..

I'm thinking that more complicated magic might be available at lower level etc.


I would assume not actually. More complicated magic at a lower lever makes magic more competitive against the technology aspect and i get the feeling the want to go the opposite route. I could see a lot of magic powered tech but one of the themes i expect is technology supplanting magic as a staple phenomena. To support that change there could even be an in setting explanation of magic becoming tame or lessened, either with the increased use of technology across the prime material plane, the changing in the prominence of various gods affecting how magic presents or even an "oops" moment from the creation of hyperspace blocking off a lot of magical power. however it is handled, no more 9th level casters running around with a spell for every single situation that could possibly come up... and just hiding those 9th level spells as 6th level spells for 2/3 casters doesnt work either.

I'd like to see the effects of magic dampened. You can still fling around fireballs and lightening bolts, those are rarely the balance shattering effects anyways, but how about less in the conjuration side of things.

It gets into something of a sidebar conversation but in my experience magic is the main culprit for up-ending game balance and i would further narrow it down to Conjuration and Divination as doing the most to disrupt tables. I wouldnt want to see those effects bumped down to lower level spells.


In order for magic to be supplanted, technology would have to supplant it outright in the ability to manipulate the local universe.

And it has to do so on every front, otherwise there's no reason you wouldn't just have magitech.

It gets particularly spurious an explanation if magic is just "um, not allowed" or "whoopsied"; that kind of thing was what they pulled with "the weave" on Toril, and basically is just *begging* to just blow back entirely with "AND THEN MAGIC BECOMES SUPREME AGAIN, SEE JUST HOW WORTHLESS S$!# YOUR LASER USING CHARACTER BECOMES ONCE MORE" from a single adventure path or splatbook "unlocking" it back to full power. You definitely don't want that sword hanging over the setting's neck.

Conjuration will only be matched once you've got full-fledged replicators and transporters... except not even then, because one is the person themselves doing all of that and even calling in fully sentient entities, while the other requires massive amounts of reactor power, large machinery and computing, and often isn't even instant.

So the safest and most reasonable path is to have areas where science wins out a little, but a majority of areas (research-wise, not "places") where "magic" is no longer "magic", just a well understood part of the universe's physical laws. That little eternal flame inscription will last longer than an LED, that "fireball wand" is now fully rechargable (it's advanced enough we can build'em without that "burning out" problem), and with enough data that central computer 'augury' is far less likely to lie to you than any deity.

In other words; just like wizards first researched metamagic, thus applying "science" to their spells, technology continues to advance with full understanding that the 'metaphysical' stuff is nothing more than one of the many sets of laws they can exploit to achieve certain effects. After all, science is just the process, and technology is just advances. The first magic staves were a technological advancement, just, in a universe with "magic" in it is all.


Hmm. In the setting I could see technology advancing without magic diminishing, easier to use and available to all. But for a group of PC's the default assumption was pretty much always that magic would be available. So to an adventuring group what difference does it makes if technology exists because we've never seen technology that compared against spells. If technology can mimic everything magic can than what's the point of making the distinction in the first place? Technology should be competitive against magic but have different effects. I still think that would be easier to pull off if magic was rebalance in what it's capable of. I can't speak to the setting they are still writing but it looks like cross dimensional effects being locked into technology or crossing the hyperspace barrier resulting in greatly diminished magical effects as a possibility.


I blame arcanum for this.


tech should outpace magic at first. in the middle of a casters career be somewhat equal. then after 14th level magic should do things tech cant. ie resurection, wish....


Jamie Charlan wrote:
I blame arcanum for this.

Well, i would view it more of thematically, what difference is there between tech and magic, why would someone choose one over the other. Magic in Pathfinder is pretty much able to outclass technology in all regards. As you go up in levels magic takes an even greater lead. you could argue that technology is easier to use but its not really, magic potions and elixers are pretty easy to use and many more complex magical devices will tell you their activation word when you pick them up. Its really only the staves, scrolls and wands that present a problem for non magic users and that can be gotten around through wonderous items. Heck, its an accepted part of Golarion's history that an elf cranked out a fully operational magical spaceship after a few crazy dreams gave him the notion of trying it. The only thing tech really has is that, if you invest in it to a ridiculous degree, you can mass produce it but you could probably do the same with magical devices if you got a nation that interested in doing so. Even then, at this point we are discussing the flavor of the setting since either way the thing will be available to PCs at every town they come across. So it comes back to, how do you make them feel different and convince someone that specializing in this new technology stuff is a better bet than using the magical version of the same thing like everyone has been since ever? With magic capable of pretty much everything you could ever want to do, how do you compete?


The problem there is forgetting the old adage "any sufficiently advanced technology..." (and its reverse). Feels like people are looking at it thematically and going:
>Magic can do everything
>Only magic should be able to do certain of these things because it's magic and magic is special
>If technology could do these things magic would not be special
>Magic can do everything
>Therefore why tech

But WHY? Why can magic do everything better than anything else? Other than because of bad balancing based on a misapplication of the Vancian roots of the magic being used here I mean. WHY should only magic be able to raise the dead (and why should it be the cheaper version too)? Why should only magic allow, say, hyperspace travel? Why should only magic be capable of everything? Why is it wrong for anything else to step on its toes when it can already do everything?

Why is it cheaper/better to use resurrection than to, say, simply take the last functional copy of someone's transporter buffer pattern and at most they've lost the last few hours or a day or two, instead of months of experience and training? Because of levels? If that transporter operator is the same level, he should have the same amount of relative power or impact upon the setting. That's what level represents after all.

And for other spells: Look at the cost of making a basic magical item (and at least halve it again to account for the fact that they're going to craft it using the downtime rules so we're at least down to like 20%):

Why can't a flashlight be cheaper than magically creating a wand of light? Why can't a laser(20k!!!!!) be cheaper than a stick of at-will 5 magic missiles (16200 base I believe, for a command word item that won't run out)?

The majority of tech's disadvantages are/were implemented deliberately, to trap those wishing to use them in pathfinder. You'll notice those robots never run out of juice, and yet recharging a battery requires artifacts if you're a player.

But they don't *have* to be traps. A frag grenade could be a mere tenth of the cost of the stim-patch you'll need to slap on if that equally-powerful fireball takes 3-4 drain. A rocket could easily put that fireball to shame, and doesn't require you to fry half your physical track in the process. A hand phaser could recharge itself and tell you about the weather; hell artificial intelligence might be significantly cheaper than making a magic item smart.

But in the end, it still doesn't change that technology is nothing more or less than the practical application of knowledge: a wand or staff or magic item *ARE* technology, because magic is part of that universe. If the light emission in that laser can be done cheaper with a psionic crystal light than with some diodes, maybe that's how lasers get built by most companies. If material components can be refined for higher efficiency, maybe your bat dung, piece of sulfur and little glass rod with fur are handily pre-packaged and with all impurities baked out. Maybe nothing makes an acid arrow spell happier than being force-rammed through a charged hyperdrive, making the acid nearly an afterthought after the relativistic liquid death lances your hull.

In fact, let me make a proposal here, and to clear our heads of the usual issues of "it's magic I ain't gotta explain s&%&" (even though learning to be a wizard kind of explicitly requires magic to "gotta explain s+%#") and take the word out entirely:

A simple change of words can make the discussion much easier; people willingly argue whether it's right or wrong or balanced or imbalanced for psionics to have certain effects, but the word "magic" tends to immediately stunt arguments with the idea that "it can do anything and that's how it should be".

Let's call it, I dunno, "mana tech" or something.

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