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The setting doesn't, and shouldn't, care about the magic item creation rules.
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The people who want to make themselves godlike are mostly killed off by the people who have already made themselves godlike; they don't like the competition.
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PF assumes that anyone beyond four levels in an adventuring class is super rare, and their statistics for populations certainly agree with that. If someone with sorcery in their blood is one in 1000, then a 5th level sorcerer is one in 10,000.
In addition to the suppression effect mentioned by Matthew Downie, here are a few other considerations:
Megalomania: Power, and the acquisition of such, is not usually the driving force in any person's life. Usually, those who devote themselves to it end up on the receiving end of a bunch of PC weapons/spells. People adventure for a reason and, while certainly glory and wealth are often reasons, people have a threshold for how much of those things they want/need. Some do it as a once off to have a comfortable life, others want fabulous wealth (quite often dying in the process.) People who adventure solely for power, without exception, do so to be stronger than something else, which implies opposition. Opposition is notably fangy, magicky, and stabby in Golarion.
Knowledge: Character Generation is 100% pure metagaming. It has to be, since we have to use outside knowledge of the game mechanics to build the character. In-world, this knowledge either doesn't exist, or is so esoteric and high-level, it is inaccessible to any but the gods themselves. They don't know they're part of a game, and they certainly don't chose the stats they're born with. Do you know, with certainty, your stats? More likely, you know what you have been able to do, and what you've failed at. Baba Yaga is as powerful as she is because she has lived a thousand+ lifetimes and travelled every existence. That much data, in the hands of someone intelligent enough, would grant her knowledge suitable to ascend her (and J, Jacobs has said she could if she wanted to, but she doesn't, which implies she knows even more than she should.)
Resources: Much in the same way that most NPC's don't get past 4th level in an adventuring class, so too do they not get access to higher level resources. Money, crafting supplies, etc. You gotta spend money to make money, but if you never had the money in the first place, no dice.
The House of Cards: Tarik Blackhands was entirely correct. Fantasy requires us to suspend our disbelief, or it will collapse.
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I've always viewed the game rules as applying only in the vicinity of PC's. The rest of the world runs on plot, not Pathfinder. The game rules exist to give PC's and GM's a common ground for creating stories/having fun, not to run the world.
I've always viewed the game rules as applying only in the vicinity of PC's. The rest of the world runs on plot, not Pathfinder. The game rules exist to give PC's and GM's a common ground for creating stories/having fun, not to run the world.
My preferred way of putting it.. PC's are the stars of the show, the storied protagonists. Everyone else is either an antagonist, supporting cast, or extras.
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Where are all the high level shenanigans in Golarion? They are the BBEG's in each AP. And ruling large empires such as the Queen of Cheliax.
The examples given are quirky exploits of a game mechanic from a gamer perspective - in "a real world" based on the rules such characters would be exceptionally rare - they seem to be motivated by wealth and if that's your goal, you can get wealthy enough to satiate any appetite with a lot less work. You don't have to be Warren Buffet or Mark Zuckerberg to have more money than you know what to do with.
Ranting on, the economic system is not "broken," it's incomplete. The rules describe sufficient economic structure for small scale transactions at an individual pc level. The system does nothing to account for supply and demand - the number of people interested in buying a +1 sword at even a fraction of its crafting cost is very small so you can't make money by mass producing them. The vast majority of Golarion's residents never have even 1000gp in their hand at any one time. If they need a sword, 15gp for a normal sword is almost as good as the +1 sword for a tiny fraction of the cost.
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I can really only think of a couple examples of characters who are like this in the canon.
If the setting would be full of very powerful NPCs, a player with their PC would feel like an ant first, and just average later on. You made up a high level wizard doing business on several planes? Hmm, nice, but then there would be like 200,000 of them (random big number). So after all this game time, invested brain power and risk of losing your PC you end up average. Would be quite demotivating for some players...
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I figure that quite a lot of high-powered PCs leave Golarion behind as they travel off to other worlds and other planes. (I mean, seriously, anyone who has enough Knowledge skills to make the check that his home world is a prison for a god-devouring monstrosity is likely to try and get out of there really really fast.)
Highly obnoxious high-powered PCs tend to meet unfortunate ends at the hands of, say, peasants with pickaxes doing a coup-de-grace when said PC is sleeping. Or something level-equivalent. (Yes, you can guard yourself from a lot of this, but most ways of doing it start by making yourself invisible and unnoticed so no one ever wants to come after you. There are a lot of name-level NPCs who are quite content with their life and not inclined to do worldbreaking stuff.)
And lots of crazy ambitious adventurers die before they get to the point where they start shaking the world... (Look at the obituary threads for the APs.)
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Pathfinder has a 16th level wizard who got sick of people and moved to live on the sun. There's Razmir, who you mentioned. Artokus Kirran is an alchemist who discovered the secret to immortality, has been alive for over three thousand years, and likely does about a month of crafting a year to support himself and five city-states. When high level casters REALLY start throwing their weight around, you get things like Nex and Geb- nations named after said mages, one of whom is missing and the other of whom is a ghost unable to move on until he kills his enemy properly. One nation is blasted and unable to grow much of anything at all, while the other is populated primarily by undead, and in the middle is a wasteland where they broke magic. Let's just say there's a reasonable incentive to keep a comparatively low profile. Irrisen is run by powerful witch queens, but Baba Yaga (who is technically at least a demigoddess, but refuses to grant anybody spells) keeps tabs on them and replaces them every century, so they do less than they might otherwise.
Answer: they've either left, are publicly doing shenanigans like you described, or are privately doing shenanigans like you described. Throw your weight around too much, and you might run into another powerful caster, and historically that has ended terribly for both parties and a couple countries in the vicinity.
Well considering Irori, Iomedae, Cayden Cailean, and Norgorber were all previous high level individuals who became Gods I think we know what happens to the really high powerful adventurers.
For those that do NOT become gods there is the issue of mortality to consider. Even a 20th level fighter will eventually grow old and die. Combine that with the fact that adventuring IS a profession were most individuals die young, not many reach the very high levels. Plus if you account for the amount of people that a normal adventurer has to kill to level up (seriously think about how many people a 1st level fighter has to kill just to reach level 2), combined with how much more experience it takes to reach each higher level, than you start to see why the levels for most individuals tappers off pretty quickly.
So you could say that part of the reason there are so few high level characters is because they tend to kill each other off before most of them can get really powerful.
There is also the 'fun' factor to consider, which is the main reason Paizo does not stat out a lot of high level NPCs (except for them to be killed). If there were a lot of high level NPCs running around, what is there for the PCs to do?
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Pathfinder has a 16th level wizard who got sick of people and moved to live on the sun. There's Razmir, who you mentioned. Artokus Kirran is an alchemist who discovered the secret to immortality, has been alive for over three thousand years, and likely does about a month of crafting a year to support himself and five city-states. When high level casters REALLY start throwing their weight around, you get things like Nex and Geb- nations named after said mages, one of whom is missing and the other of whom is a ghost unable to move on until he kills his enemy properly. One nation is blasted and unable to grow much of anything at all, while the other is populated primarily by undead, and in the middle is a wasteland where they broke magic. Let's just say there's a reasonable incentive to keep a comparatively low profile. Irrisen is run by powerful witch queens, but Baba Yaga (who is technically at least a demigoddess, but refuses to grant anybody spells) keeps tabs on them and replaces them every century, so they do less than they might otherwise.
Answer: they've either left, are publicly doing shenanigans like you described, or are privately doing shenanigans like you described. Throw your weight around too much, and you might run into another powerful caster, and historically that has ended terribly for both parties and a couple countries in the vicinity.
as a support - by the time you get on up there, you have other interests than just smashing the world wholesale.
Geb & Nex shoot up the power levels, and then decided to spend all their time trying to one-up the other... until Nex went and got himself stuck in some weird magic plane and Geb died (kinda).
There's other stuff to do when you start getting to world-breaking power... the best example is Razmir wants to live forever, and his magic can't do it for him. His example should be thought of when considering Golarion: the guy rules a nation, could probably wipe the floor with much of the known world, and is reduced to sending agents to an auction on the other side of the world for a precious vial for what he wants.
The setting has lots of checks right there for you to use. And remember, Tar Baphon, a true setting smasher level guy, got put down by a couple of lucky adventurers, who could be thought of as the immune system of fantasyland.
Also consider that at various points in history, the world was broken by high-level, PC-like shenanigans. The Runelords usurped Xin, taking control of Thassilon and basically messing up the place until it started collapsing under its own weight...in part because the Runelords were such horrible people that the only thing left for them to do was fight each other for control of their crumbling empire.
And then there was Earthfall, when the Aboleths decided "If I can't have it, no one can" and literally broke the world for over a thousand years.
Pathfinder has a 16th level wizard who got sick of people and moved to live on the sun. There's Razmir, who you mentioned. Artokus Kirran is an alchemist who discovered the secret to immortality, has been alive for over three thousand years, and likely does about a month of crafting a year to support himself and five city-states. When high level casters REALLY start throwing their weight around, you get things like Nex and Geb- nations named after said mages, one of whom is missing and the other of whom is a ghost unable to move on until he kills his enemy properly. One nation is blasted and unable to grow much of anything at all, while the other is populated primarily by undead, and in the middle is a wasteland where they broke magic. Let's just say there's a reasonable incentive to keep a comparatively low profile. Irrisen is run by powerful witch queens, but Baba Yaga (who is technically at least a demigoddess, but refuses to grant anybody spells) keeps tabs on them and replaces them every century, so they do less than they might otherwise.
Answer: they've either left, are publicly doing shenanigans like you described, or are privately doing shenanigans like you described. Throw your weight around too much, and you might run into another powerful caster, and historically that has ended terribly for both parties and a couple countries in the vicinity.
as a support - by the time you get on up there, you have other interests than just smashing the world wholesale.
Geb & Nex shoot up the power levels, and then decided to spend all their time trying to one-up the other... until Nex went and got himself stuck in some weird magic plane and Geb died (kinda).
There's other stuff to do when you start getting to world-breaking power... the best example is Razmir wants to live forever, and his magic can't do it for him. His example should be thought of when considering Golarion: the guy rules a nation, could probably wipe the floor with much of the known world, and is reduced to...
Except that in Razmir's case, it's more Razmir not wanting to take risks, likely. Guy's a single level away from 20th and the Immortality wizard discovery.
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Yeah, I'd have to disagree with OP's post, there are plenty of high-level world-shaping shenanigans, going on in Golarion. Baba Yaga and Razmir are just the starting point. You have the Runelords, the Wizard rulers of Geb and Nex that have also been mentioned, Tar Baphon who was only taken down by a God. Oh that's right, some people have literally ascended to Godhood in the setting.
The Inner Sea World Guide, pretty much has at least one such game-breaking (read world-changing) NPC per country. And I really loved that when I read it. Because I felt it helped to make sense why there was no singular BBEG, there's several dozen of them all at various stages in their plans for world domination/destruction/etc. and are often the primary antagonists in Adventure Paths.
And that's just Golarion, never mind the Mythic-tier nonsense that occasionally leaks in from other planes of existence.
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You want Elminsters? Because this is how you get Elminsters!
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Hear hear! Also, what's with this one ring shenaniganry? If one guy could make one, why aren't there, like, hundreds of guys in Arda cranking those things out? You've got to figure lots of people want to rule them all...
Come to think of it, if the exchange rate is one Shire for one mithril shirt, why hasn't some enterprising dwarf bought up dozens of Shires? Maybe set up some sort of Shires futures market, betting real estate against discoveries of more mithril veins in Khazad-dum?
Oh, the reports of Elminster's actual death were accurate.
He was replaced by a cabaret comedian from Waterdeep be a cabal from the Greenwood.
I've always viewed the game rules as applying only in the vicinity of PC's. The rest of the world runs on plot, not Pathfinder. The game rules exist to give PC's and GM's a common ground for creating stories/having fun, not to run the world.
This.
And to amplify it some - the rules exist to give the GM a clue in how to operationalize what the players want their PCs to do within the fantasy milieu. The reason NPCs don't exploit the rules is because they don't have a bunch of players trying to take advantage of the rules framework in order to do something it was not meant to do.
Except that in Razmir's case, it's more Razmir not wanting to take risks, likely. Guy's a single level away from 20th and the Immortality wizard discovery.
Things like that aren't known in character. It's not like Razmir wakes up one morning chanting to himself "One more level! One more level!" Many things about class mechanics are what players and authors decide for their characters, not things that characters themselves are aware of.
Most NPC's go up to a certain level and stay there, mainly because they are in a situation where nothing pushes them to improve. The 19th level wizard doesn't get experience points for burning peasants no matter how many he kills.
You know, a good chunk of what the Aboleth do looks a lot like PC shenanigans. Arguably bad-fun.
You mean why don't powerful NPCs act like douchebag players that want to destroy the game? I couldn't imagine why.
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So, my question is: where are all of the HIgh level shenanigans in Golarion? Where are the people who game the fundamentally broken economy to pump out thousands of gold pieces a day? Why isn't the pathfinder society, an organization created for the purpose of kicking down the door and looting treasure, filled with munchkiny "power gamers"
The real reason is that it's a game-world.
As a game-world, its purpose is to serve the needs of the players and GM to tell a fun and compelling story where the PCs are the progagonists.
If there are dozens of high-level NPCs already established in the world, what motivation do the PCs have to fight the bad guys? They could just say, "Huh. That's bad. Maybe we should call Mordenkainen, Beowulf, Conan, Elric, and the Gray Mouser and just let them take care of it!"
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I've never really thought of all the AP's actually taking place in the same continuity. The ISWG is just a setting with a series of hooks. Some of those hooks are AP's, but we can't play all of them with the same characters. By definition we only play characters who do exceptional things. All those other hooks that we don't play turn out not to be important.
If you're running, e.g., Curse of the Crimson Throne, then Sandpoint is merely a place where a Cathedral burnt down and was rebuilt and Karzoug never woke up, while over in Irrisen Baba Yaga is just late returning because her watch was slow, and Brinewall is just one of several towns in Golarion where there is no mystery: the people simply disappeared. No larger, more sinister story develops in these other places because in your continuity, the problem of the current age is centered around Korvosa.
PC's are the exceptions. AP's are the exceptions to the exceptions, where the PC's go from level 1 to 16+ in the span of a year or two, while they are still in their Earth-human-equivalent of their early 20's. That sort of thing doesn't happen a lot. It happens once in a generation, if that often.
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Except that in Razmir's case, it's more Razmir not wanting to take risks, likely. Guy's a single level away from 20th and the Immortality wizard discovery.Things like that aren't known in character. It's not like Razmir wakes up one morning chanting to himself "One more level! One more level!" Many things about class mechanics are what players and authors decide for their characters, not things that characters themselves are aware of.
Most NPC's go up to a certain level and stay there, mainly because they are in a situation where nothing pushes them to improve. The 19th level wizard doesn't get experience points for burning peasants no matter how many he kills.
You mean I burned down that entire kingdom for nothing? well not nothing they were rude. Yeah never mind they had it coming.
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I've never really thought of all the AP's actually taking place in the same continuity. The ISWG is just a setting with a series of hooks. Some of those hooks are AP's, but we can't play all of them with the same characters. By definition we only play characters who do exceptional things. All those other hooks that we don't play turn out not to be important.
If you're running, e.g., Curse of the Crimson Throne, then Sandpoint is merely a place where a Cathedral burnt down and was rebuilt and Karzoug never woke up, while over in Irrisen Baba Yaga is just late returning because her watch was slow, and Brinewall is just one of several towns in Golarion where there is no mystery: the people simply disappeared. No larger, more sinister story develops in these other places because in your continuity, the problem of the current age is centered around Korvosa.
note there are several APs that reference events in earlier APs. Shattered Star references the first 3 and the two recent cherish ones reference each other in at least rumor.
note there are several APs that reference events in earlier APs. Shattered Star references the first 3 and the two recent cherish ones reference each other in at least rumor.
Well, it was a nice theory, anyway.
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note there are several APs that reference events in earlier APs. Shattered Star references the first 3 and the two recent cherish ones reference each other in at least rumor.Well, it was a nice theory, anyway.
That only applies to the three you mentioned, Shattered Star is effectively a "sequel" to the 3 other Varisian APs and Hell's Rebels/Hell's Venegance take place at the same time, so they are unique in that regard. All the other APs are self contained stories.
Another reason why it doesn't happen is because PC's who are less optimized than NPC's who would play like very optimized PC's would kill a lot of gaming groups. The game would not be as fun for a lot of people if they were more likely to die, and the bar is where it is to give the PC's a high chance at success.
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That only applies to the three you mentioned, Shattered Star is effectively a "sequel" to the 3 other Varisian APs and Hell's Rebels/Hell's Venegance take place at the same time, so they are unique in that regard. All the other APs are self contained stories.note there are several APs that reference events in earlier APs. Shattered Star references the first 3 and the two recent cherish ones reference each other in at least rumor.Well, it was a nice theory, anyway.
mostly true... some of the novels tie in: King of Chaos events are happening at same time as wrath of the righteous, I think one of the pirate books also mentions events from wrath of the righteous (but could just be mentioning the other book). King of Chaos mentioned the Worldwound Gambit novel's events as well
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Here's a thought: how many cataclysmic events in Golarion's history are from PC's that failed in their AP's?
By my count? A lot.
Because the existance of munchkin PC types en masse violates the KISS principle.
Makes you wonder about the Dev's for this world, doesn't it. EarthFinder Society has really fallen flat on QC.
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mostly true... some of the novels tie in: King of Chaos events are happening at same time as wrath of the righteous, I think one of the pirate books also mentions events from wrath of the righteous (but could just be mentioning the other book). King of Chaos mentioned the Worldwound Gambit novel's events as wellThat only applies to the three you mentioned, Shattered Star is effectively a "sequel" to the 3 other Varisian APs and Hell's Rebels/Hell's Venegance take place at the same time, so they are unique in that regard. All the other APs are self contained stories.note there are several APs that reference events in earlier APs. Shattered Star references the first 3 and the two recent cherish ones reference each other in at least rumor.Well, it was a nice theory, anyway.
Well yeah but those are novels, not adventures.
Because players get all sad and weepy if there exists, or has existed, a good character in the setting that could accomplish a minuscule fraction of what their PCs could do. Everything has to not only revolve around, but be DIRECTLY affected by the PCs, if anything is to happen anywhere in the world - otherwise the PCs aren't the stars of the show.
This was formalized with 3.0, and has been the basic concept for all settings published since. Yes, that makes a setting full of only antagonists of decent level, and the heroes being the only ones to fight all that darkness.
Don't think about it too much.
Sissyl,
Disagree that that core premise of every setting has been totally PC centric. I do recognize there is a vocal, often to the point of rancorous, faction who will with great fervor (obstinacy) argue against any interpretation that places the PC as Part of the world, and not the central core of every possible thing.
Of course modules and adventure paths support this approach. Conservation of effort and resources is central to the idea of profit. It is much more work to publish a setting that has its own logic and motion independent of the characters, and doing so would not be popular among the Centrists.
While their approach isn't mine, or yours, it is just as valid, and their money is perhaps even more influential, since they will certainly spend more money on adventures than I will.
Just a question of what you want. Setting books thrive on NPCs, metaplot, current events timelines, etc etc etc. WoD explored this pretty heavily once. It seemed to work for them. In fantasy, all the published settings for AD&D used similar techniques.
But if the players absolutely MUST be the only competent people on the side of good IN THE ENTIRE WORLD so as not to be supporting cast, then sure, it won't work. I just don't see why that should be the case.
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Just a question of what you want. Setting books thrive on NPCs, metaplot, current events timelines, etc etc etc. WoD explored this pretty heavily once. It seemed to work for them. In fantasy, all the published settings for AD&D used similar techniques.
But if the players absolutely MUST be the only competent people on the side of good IN THE ENTIRE WORLD so as not to be supporting cast, then sure, it won't work. I just don't see why that should be the case.
eh.
it might also be that the PCs are the only good guys - the bad guys they aren't fighting aren't a-bad-guy-ing. ;-)
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Don't forget the principle that people will get promoted to their level of incompetence. . . .