Magic at its Foundation is Flawed... end of story


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First, I feel its important to make it very clear that I have not play tested the new edition of pathfinder. So please keep that in mind as you read what I have to say. The details may not be complete, however this isn't about the details.

So, we begin with what everyone already knows. When it comes to magic, "Everything is Awesome". This is the most simple and basic truth when it comes to magic. It is fact. It can not be argued otherwise. When it comes to magic... everything is always awesome, all the time. I will elaborate more later.

I was inspired to write this after I read a thread about this "resonance" mechanic in the new edition. Now as I said earlier, I have not play tested the new edition. So the complete details escape me. However, they truly aren't important. What is important for this thread isn't the details, but the idea of resonance.

What is resonance at its most basic? Well that is simple, it is a control mechanic to balance magic. It doesn't matter how it works, or what problem it seeks to fix. It is a mechanic to control magic. But magic is, as we know, awesome. So it will fail. Doesn't matter how you work it or change it, it will always fail. Just like every control mechanic that has come before has failed.

What are spell slots? What are item body slot restrictions? These are simply put, attempts to control magic. Attempts to balance magic. Attempts that have all failed.

So why have they all failed.
They fail because it doesn't matter how many spell slots you have, or don't have. Magic is always awesome. It doesn't matter how many potions you can or cant drink in a day, because magic is always awesome.

All these "balancing" rules come at the end of the long road that is magic. You can not balance magic at the end of the road. Not when the foundation of all magic is... "everything is awesome".

You see, there is never not a reason to use magic. If you have magic, it is always a good idea to use that magic. Restricting access to magic doesn't change this. There are no situations where its not a good idea to use the magic you have. Magic is awesome. It doesn't matter how many spell slots I have for spells, if its always a good idea to use those slots. Players will always use them.

It doesn't matter how much resonance you have or don't have, you are always going to use what you have. And since magic is awesome, there is no reason to continue with out magic. Not when you can wait until you can use magic again, and then proceed. So restricting access to magic, will never balance magic. Restricting access to awesome, doesn't change how awesome it is.

Magic is pure advantage, and zero disadvantage. So players will always use any advantage they have, to its fullest. They will never not use advantages, and never not try to maximize advantage. That is just a logical fundamental of gamers.

How do you balance magic? You make it less awesome at its foundation. You make it have a disadvantage or consequence, at the foundation level that makes players have to consider alternate solutions for their problems. Or want to consider other solutions.

What is magic? How does it really work? How does it actually function in a realistic world that has magic?

Why doesn't every peasant in the land know a cantrip or a low level spell? There is no reason they shouldn't. Why don't clerics walk through the cities blowing their whole load of spell slots, on healing magic, before bed every night? Why isn't every king or queen layered with protective magic every moment of their lives? Why are their mundane healers, if clerics have magic? Why doesn't everyone use wands? Or use potions, for everything.

The questions go on and on. There are hundreds of questions like these, and never a reason to say no to magic.

You want to balance magic, then change the laws of magic. Make magic not be the end all be all perfect solution. Magic has to be a double edged sword. There has to be consequences to using magic all the time. There has to be a reason to just say No. There has to be a reason to respect magic, to say it isn't always the best solution. Players have to have a choice between wanting to use magic, or not wanting to risk it.

How would I do it?
Well, first what is magic if not pure mystical energy. So why is it okay to just run pure mystical energy through your body all the time, at any quantities you want with out any thought to how it will effect your body in the long term.

So why shouldn't using magic, or having magic used on you, have a negative effect in the long term.
Don't use a resonance pool to artificially instill a restriction on magic usage, like a water tap with an artificial off switch when you use to much. This doesn't stop players from wanting to use magic, or waiting for their recharge.

However, what if magic accumulates in the body. Using some magic isn't a problem, and in fact can be used all day every day... in moderation. However, if you over use far to much magic over short periods of time. Well then there are consequences to your health.

What if you have gauge, a tolerance to how much magic you can be effected by over the course of an hour and be okay, instead of a pool. You stay under your tolerance and you are fine, no problems. During fights or challenges, the gauge fills up as magic is used on you or you are exposed to magic. The gauge empties every hour you go without magic being used on you or around you.

The gauge has no hard limit. Players get to choose when and how much magic they are exposed too. So if they choose, they can go over their limit... and accept the consequences.

You go over your limit, and small things start to happen. You get sick, you suffer ailments, or your tolerance lowers. You go way over your limit... you overdose. You suffer major side effects. Physical and mental side effects. Long term side effects, that are real and have substance. Consequences that aren't just hand waved away with the use of magic spells.

When magic isn't always awesome, players will balance themselves. Suddenly its not the best option to blow through all your spell slots in one fight. Suddenly, you don't have worry about balancing how many spell slots wizards have... but how fast they use them. You don't need to limit the number of consumables the use in one day... but just how fast they should use them.

You make players want to stretch out magical resources over the length of a long day... instead of short 30 minute bursts. The key words are want to. You don't force, you give players a choice. But you make it a real choice. If magic isn't always the awesome, if it costs you... then its now a tactical choice of how and when do you use it. This creates opportunities to want to use mundane solutions. And it creates situations for non magic users to step up.

All of a sudden you create a reason why magic isn't everywhere. Why everyone doesn't just use magic. Even why people might not want to ever use magic or have it used on them.

Why isn't magic "healing" the go to healing for everyone... because in the long term it might be worse for your health or mental stability then what ever you are suffering from.

Why aren't the rich always guarded by massive protection magic all the time? Because they do not have that kind of tolerance. It can be dangerous. Maybe to dangerous.

Its a staple of fantasy fiction, that some wizards go to far with magic...take it to far and go crazy by magic. Or are even destroyed by magic. However, currently that's not possible. So make it possible.

Make magic a double edged sword, that it should be. Real, applicable consequences. Do that, and you change the fundamental truths of magic and how it is used in game. Only then do you have a chance at bringing magic under any kind of control, or balance.

.

Silver Crusade

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Please keep in mind as you read that I skimemd over... pretty much all of that, but sneaking these setting issues into talks about mechanics caught my eye.

Kong wrote:
Why doesn't every peasant in the land know a cantrip or a low level spell? There is no reason they shouldn't.
Why is everyone a peasant? Why aren't they all rich and live long happy healthy lives? Time. Opportunity. Cost. If you want to have a setting where everyone has easy and ample access to magic of all kinds then go for it, but it's not the default assumption for Pathfinder.
Kong wrote:
Why don't clerics walk through the cities blowing their whole load of spell slots, on healing magic, before bed every night?
Who says they don't? For Golarion I can easily see the Clerics of Good aligned Deities doing this.
Kong wrote:
Why isn't every king or queen layered with protective magic every moment of their lives?
They usually are. In fact pretty much every ruler and their surroundings I've seen statted up have magical protections full go.
Kong wrote:
Why are their mundane healers, if clerics have magic?
Time. Opportunity. Cost. Maybe all the Gods they know of are jerks, there could be lots of reasons for this. Lots of Clerics are also mundane healers as well.
Kong wrote:
Why doesn't everyone use wands?
Those cost a lot of money.
Kong wrote:
Or use potions,
Those also cost money.
Kong wrote:
for everything.

M O N E Y

Silver Crusade

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Back to your suggestion (somewhere in there) that magic actually be bad for people, interesting thought for a certain campaign, but certainly not something that would be good for a default for Pathfinder.


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Rysky is 100% right:

All of the things the OP said apply to a lot of things, and Rysky is right about the reply: Money.

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I need a series of surgeries and medical treatments. Why don't I get them? Money. I can't afford them.

This applies to the peasants and wands, or potions.

According to the book a peasant makes like 1 SP in a day of downtime.

If a minor healing potion costs 3 GP that means 30 days of savings with no money going out.

If we assume the average peasant pays out 50% of their funds for housing and food that means they have 3 SP 5 CP per week for savings barring other needs.

Of that we can assume 2 SP in miscellaneous expenses.

Leaving 1 SP 5 CP per week.

Assuming nothing else comes up that means in 20 weeks (5 months) a peasant can afford 1 minor healing potion.

Magic is awesome and expensive.


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Aside from the extra bookkeeping this would require (which is a bad thing)... you haven't played the playtest. Magic is distinctly less awesome than it has ever been. They nerfed it so hard that casters feel weak and uninspired now.

Pile this on top of it, and why would anyone bother?


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Rysky wrote:
Please keep in mind as you read that I skimemd over... pretty much all of that, but sneaking these setting issues into talks about mechanics caught my eye.
Kong wrote:
Why doesn't every peasant in the land know a cantrip or a low level spell? There is no reason they shouldn't.
Why is everyone a peasant? Why aren't they all rich and live long happy healthy lives? Time. Opportunity. Cost. If you want to have a setting where everyone has easy and ample access to magic of all kinds then go for it, but it's not the default assumption for Pathfinder.
Kong wrote:
Why don't clerics walk through the cities blowing their whole load of spell slots, on healing magic, before bed every night?
Who says they don't? For Golarion I can easily see the Clerics of Good aligned Deities doing this.
Kong wrote:
Why isn't every king or queen layered with protective magic every moment of their lives?
They usually are. In fact pretty much every ruler and their surroundings I've seen statted up have magical protections full go.
Kong wrote:
Why are their mundane healers, if clerics have magic?
Time. Opportunity. Cost. Maybe all the Gods they know of are jerks, there could be lots of reasons for this. Lots of Clerics are also mundane healers as well.
Kong wrote:
Why doesn't everyone use wands?
Those cost a lot of money.
Kong wrote:
Or use potions,
Those also cost money.
Kong wrote:
for everything.
M O N E Y

What cost?

Seriously, what cost? None of those spells truly costs anything to cast, none of them cost anything to cast (for the caster) but a spell slot.
Sure their are some arbitrary costs assigned to them. That doesn't change the fact that the spells themselves are basically free to cast. So you don't really need to have that amount of money to cast that spell, there is nothing stopping you for taking less cash to cast any one spell or another.

So why are clerics mundane healers at all. There is zero point to it. Unless you are out of spell slots, there is no purpose beyond say basic first aid, to know any mundane healing.

Nearly all the protection magic, do not actually cost anything for the caster to cast except time. Yet we have this idea that only the rich can afford them. Which just isn't true. You just need a caster willing to cast them. There is no down side to casting them, for the caster. Even at 10 percent the "going rate" they are still pure profit and basically take no time out of day.

The GM is left with coming up with all these reason why Gods don't do this or that. Why isn't this this or that way. Hundreds of questions that each need their own answer. Yet, if you change magic to have some kind of real consequence if it is over used. That one answer fixes nearly all of them.

Sure wands cost a lot of money to make, but they are literally every where in the world. And their is a reason why the wand problem is a problem.

Money is not a controlling factor. It just isn't, it has no substance to it really. The economy system in pathfinder/3.5 has always been one of the most broken parts of the game anyway.


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HWalsh wrote:

Rysky is 100% right:

All of the things the OP said apply to a lot of things, and Rysky is right about the reply: Money.

---

I need a series of surgeries and medical treatments. Why don't I get them? Money. I can't afford them.

This applies to the peasants and wands, or potions.

According to the book a peasant makes like 1 SP in a day of downtime.

If a minor healing potion costs 3 GP that means 30 days of savings with no money going out.

If we assume the average peasant pays out 50% of their funds for housing and food that means they have 3 SP 5 CP per week for savings barring other needs.

Of that we can assume 2 SP in miscellaneous expenses.

Leaving 1 SP 5 CP per week.

Assuming nothing else comes up that means in 20 weeks (5 months) a peasant can afford 1 minor healing potion.

Magic is awesome and expensive.

Money isn't a control factor. It doesn't work now, nor has it every really worked.

They book says a peasant a makes 1sp, sure. But that is just an arbitrary number that has no real basis in reality at all.

In 3.5 your average peasant farmer can make 250gp to 300gp a year, with out much of a problem. And that is with giving half his production to lord of the land. Nor does that take into account livestock and things like butter, cheese, eggs, and milk production.

The idea that a peasant makes 1 sp a year, is just idiotic. It shows how little effort paizo actually puts into the foundations of various game mechanics. And why what they build on top of has little substance.


Rysky wrote:
Back to your suggestion (somewhere in there) that magic actually be bad for people, interesting thought for a certain campaign, but certainly not something that would be good for a default for Pathfinder.

Why not?

You lay the baseline down like any other mechanic. Then you adjust to meet your campaign setting, like any other mechanic.

You can adjust the levels of tolerance, to meet you campaign setting. Then you can adjust the level of severity you wish the consequences to have to match your setting.

Its rather easy to do once you have a baseline. And takes no more or less effort then say a arbitrary resonance mechanic that is basically no different the spell slot limits, and will work as equally well as that mechanic. Which is to say it wont work.

Restricting use, does not make it less advantageous to use.


Tridus wrote:

Aside from the extra bookkeeping this would require (which is a bad thing)... you haven't played the playtest. Magic is distinctly less awesome than it has ever been. They nerfed it so hard that casters feel weak and uninspired now.

Pile this on top of it, and why would anyone bother?

Nerfing magic, doesn't change how awesome it is.

It is awesome because there is zero consequences for using it, period. There is never a reason or argument to not use a magical solution to fix any challenge you come across.
If you have a magical solution, its always worth it to use that solution. Tactically, why would you ever not use any solution you have to problem. You wouldn't.

Restricting its uses per day, doesn't mean players will stop using it... or decide to use other less effective solutions. They don't think that way. You restrict use, and all you do is shorten the adventure between breaks/sleeping. That's all you do.


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Golarion (and thus Pathfinder) is a high magic setting, so the sort of changes Kong is proposing will never be truly practical in this case, That’s not to say they’re a bad idea though. One RPG that quite effectively implements the idea of magic having major costs is Dark Heresy. Its casters (called psykers) have access to quite powerful effects with no daily limitations, but they remain fairly balanced. This is because every use of a psychic power requires a successful check to actually work, and even when it does it can have unpredictable and frequently nasty side effects. For example, in the second game of Dark Heresy I ever ran the party’s psyker was possessed by a very angry and very powerful demon, forcing everyone else to frantically flee to avoid being massacred. These factors make magic something that is only used when really necessary

All that to say that there are good systems that use Kong’s ideas, but said ideas are too divergent from Pathfinder’s base assumptions to work in its case.


The Sesquipedalian Thaumaturge wrote:

Golarion (and thus Pathfinder) is a high magic setting, so the sort of changes Kong is proposing will never be truly practical in this case, That’s not to say they’re a bad idea though. One RPG that quite effectively implements the idea of magic having major costs is Dark Heresy. Its casters (called psykers) have access to quite powerful effects with no daily limitations, but they remain fairly balanced. This is because every use of a psychic power requires a successful check to actually work, and even when it does it can have unpredictable and frequently nasty side effects. For example, in the second game of Dark Heresy I ever ran the party’s psyker was possessed by a very angry and very powerful demon, forcing everyone else to frantically flee to avoid being massacred. These factors make magic something that is only used when really necessary

All that to say that there are good systems that use Kong’s ideas, but said ideas are too divergent from Pathfinder’s base assumptions to work in its case.

You forgot the "in theory" part of Dark Heresy psykers being balanced by Perils of the Warp. In practice psykers were preposterously broken even after the worst of their excesses got curbed by errata.

Beyond that, agreed with the general thrust that reliable and ubiquitous magic is part and parcel with Golarion and Perils of the Warp (or Tzeentch's Curse for all you WHFB players) has no place in it. That said you do ideally need to find a sweet spot in what magic is capable so you don't end up with a preposterous Tippyverse (or you embrace that madness and go for an Earthdawn type game where they're up front about wizards [or Adepts in their words] are the only people worth a lick, PCs included)


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Kong wrote:
HWalsh wrote:

Rysky is 100% right:

All of the things the OP said apply to a lot of things, and Rysky is right about the reply: Money.

---

I need a series of surgeries and medical treatments. Why don't I get them? Money. I can't afford them.

This applies to the peasants and wands, or potions.

According to the book a peasant makes like 1 SP in a day of downtime.

If a minor healing potion costs 3 GP that means 30 days of savings with no money going out.

If we assume the average peasant pays out 50% of their funds for housing and food that means they have 3 SP 5 CP per week for savings barring other needs.

Of that we can assume 2 SP in miscellaneous expenses.

Leaving 1 SP 5 CP per week.

Assuming nothing else comes up that means in 20 weeks (5 months) a peasant can afford 1 minor healing potion.

Magic is awesome and expensive.

Money isn't a control factor. It doesn't work now, nor has it every really worked.

They book says a peasant a makes 1sp, sure. But that is just an arbitrary number that has no real basis in reality at all.

In 3.5 your average peasant farmer can make 250gp to 300gp a year, with out much of a problem. And that is with giving half his production to lord of the land. Nor does that take into account livestock and things like butter, cheese, eggs, and milk production.

The idea that a peasant makes 1 sp a year, is just idiotic. It shows how little effort paizo actually puts into the foundations of various game mechanics. And why what they build on top of has little substance.

First of all I have to agree with the above posters that this sort of change doesn't fit with the basis of pathfinder.

That being said to address a few issues, first, pf2e assumes a sp based economy not a gold piece functionally 1sp in pf2e is equivalent to 1gp in 3.x so the numbers you listed aren't really any different.

Second, cantrips for the most part are now useless to peasants there are a few that could possibly be used but most wouldn't impact their lives in any significant way.

Third, spellcastees have massively fewer slots now then they use to this couple with the fact that most casters in the world are of an extraordinarily low level means that access to any truly useful spells is not a common occurence to beginwith. On top of that is the issue that they might not be free to spend their spells slots however they dictate, perhaps they need the slots themselves, perhaps their church restricts how their low level clergy use them, or we get into the next issue.

Fourth, commoners and the general people without class levels effectively have their racial hp and that's all. Spending money on a healer or on a potion or wand is pointless when you can rest up for a few days and be alright. In cases where the healing is urgent? They wouls porbably recieve magical healing but those cases would come along far less often.

Fifth, magic is substantially less awesome in pf2e. Most of those defensive spells you keep mentioning those past mostly 1 minute now, some last 10 minutes. When all casters have a very limited number of slots bundled with substantially shorter spells means that casters have to spend their slots wisely.
It's going to be rare seeing that king or queen who wants a thousand spellcasters on staff to refresh a spell on them every minute.

Lastly, resonance which exists to fix the issue of people utilizing more cost efficient low level magic items and trying to deck out their magic item slots. The only problem is people decked out their item slots to get as much of an advantage as they could because to some extent the games math expected it. In 2e theirs so few bonus types that resonance isn't even necessary and consummables are still as cost inefficient as they always have been when looking at stronger versions of the same item. All that's led to is more clerics to replace the clw wands. Resonance as a whole woulsn' be necessary if the basic design philosphy wasn't attrition of hp, so they tried to limit item based magical healing which has sort of worked? It's made a decent bit of people dissatisfied, but ultimately they simply don' want infinite healing if the party has to stop and rest occasionally problem solved for them.

Oh, and one last thing the choice of continuing on and suffering major side effects or resting to spend spell slots later isn't anymore or less of a choice and limitation then the current systems. People will stop and wait over accepting side effects unless there's a time crunch in which case the same is true for the current systems. If the adventuring day is 8 hours or 30 minutes doesn't matter if you accomplished the same amount of work.

Silver Crusade

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What cost?
Cost to learn. Opportunity to go wizarding/Bard school. Having dragon blood in your lineage. There’s a cost. Not everyone has the oppurtunity, option, or luck to have magic easily at their finger tips.
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Seriously, what cost? None of those spells truly costs anything to cast,
What spells? You haven’t actually specified any.
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none of them cost anything to cast (for the caster) but a spell slot.
Which a) aren’t unlimited and b) require a caster willing to cast it.
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Sure their are some arbitrary costs assigned to them. That doesn't change the fact that the spells themselves are basically free to cast.
By that reasoning ALL labor is free.
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So you don't really need to have that amount of money to cast that spell,
You do if you want the spellcaster to cast the spell for you.
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there is nothing stopping you for taking less cash to cast any one spell or another.
Sure. You can work for free if you like. That doesn’t mean everyone works for free and to assume otherwise is ludicrous.So why are clerics mundane healers at all. There is zero point to it.For healing and mending that isn’t easily fixed with healing magic, not much but there are times when it comes in handy. The point is that they work in unison.
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Unless you are out of spell slots,
This is a good reason.
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there is no purpose beyond say basic first aid, to know any mundane healing.
Not everyone has healing spells, not everyone has enough healing spells.
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Nearly all the protection magic, do not actually cost anything for the caster to cast except time.
Which isn’t free.
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Yet we have this idea that only the rich can afford them.
Because they cost money.
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Which just isn't true. You just need a caster willing to cast them.
Which costs money.
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There is no down side to casting them, for the caster.
The fact that they’re not doing pretty much anything else productive with their time like making money, crafting, adventuring, etc etc etc anything.
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Even at 10 percent the "going rate" they are still pure profit and basically take no time out of day.
Depends on the spell being cast and what for. Which you haven’t mentioned yet. With a statement like this and by your own admittance that you haven’t looked at the Playtest I seriously call into question if you have any idea what you’re actually talking about or trying to suggest? Honest.
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Sure wands cost a lot of money to make, but they are literally every where in the world. And their is a reason why the wand problem is a problem.
Which doesn’t decrease the price of wands.
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Money is not a controlling factor. It just isn't, it has no substance to it really.
Spellcasters don’t work for exposure. They work for money. It has plenty of substance to it.
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The economy system in pathfinder/3.5 has always been one of the most broken parts of the game anyway.

It works for a game economy, and doesn’t detract from the fact that you’re suggestions simply won’t work just because you suggest them.

People die of exposure. Why would Spellcasters Work any differently?


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I understand exactly what he's talking about. The "cost" factor of magic doesn't make sense unless we all just "believe" it does. If spellcasters ever truly wanted to help people (assuming good alignment) they would cast these spells for free all the time. Even assuming there's 1 spellcaster of mid level in a city he could theoretically solve (or almost solve) all the towns problems for them. Like why have repairmen when you can just use mending? Why need pack Animals when you can just use Ant Haul? It doesn't solve all problems obviously but it does beg the question of why aren't they just helping? Are they just greedy? That opens up a load of other questions that need answering about morals and alignment and things like that.

In practice I really like the idea that he's talking about. There was once an additional system that removed spell slots but made each spell have the caster take nonlethal damage compared to the spell level. That means you could essentially cast spells all day but it would literally physically harm you to keep doing so. It had its own problem but it made a lot sense to me.

The problem is that the system is so finely tuned to how it works already a change like this would never happen. It would be a cool idea though to implement some sort of change as an optional rule.


To the OP: well, you just described, or re-invented every system other rpgs use, which, in fact, make magic a double-edged sword. Mage, Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Symbaroum... The list goes on.

there are two problematic points here:

1. Magic in those games is still stronger than anything else. In WoD, everyone treats mages as the most OP, given time for preparation. Shadowrun fans are whining about "magicrun". CoC is, well, CoC.

Thing is, you just can't make magic not-awesome, if you don't severely restrict it to be downright unfun to play. Magic is just a lot more flexible problem-solving tool in the hands of creative players, than anything mundane characters can do. Or you take the 4e way and make everything working along the same rules and I'm not a fan of that.

You can mitigate how strong magic is, with those double-edge mechanics, or things like esonance, but magic will always be more flexible and thus, stronger, in overall problem solving.

2. Those games are pointedly dark and gritty. D&D and PF are not necessarily. There's an expectation of awesomeness in a high fantasy game and playing magic-users and the abundance of magic in general is a part of that. I think you have more problems with the genre than with the rules themselves.

Edit: just to be clear, I love those games, with all my heart, I just play different games with different goals and assumptions.


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Rameth wrote:

I understand exactly what he's talking about. The "cost" factor of magic doesn't make sense unless we all just "believe" it does. If spellcasters ever truly wanted to help people (assuming good alignment) they would cast these spells for free all the time. Even assuming there's 1 spellcaster of mid level in a city he could theoretically solve (or almost solve) all the towns problems for them. Like why have repairmen when you can just use mending? Why need pack Animals when you can just use Ant Haul? It doesn't solve all problems obviously but it does beg the question of why aren't they just helping? Are they just greedy? That opens up a load of other questions that need answering about morals and alignment and things like that.

In practice I really like the idea that he's talking about. There was once an additional system that removed spell slots but made each spell have the caster take nonlethal damage compared to the spell level. That means you could essentially cast spells all day but it would literally physically harm you to keep doing so. It had its own problem but it made a lot sense to me.

The problem is that the system is so finely tuned to how it works already a change like this would never happen. It would be a cool idea though to implement some sort of change as an optional rule.

Of course magic has a cost. There are a limited number of people able to use it, and those people have a limited number of spell slots and a limited amount of time in which to use them.

To address your specific examples:
It may well be that a wizard using mending is more efficient than a mundane worker at repairing small items, but even the highest level wizard can only use it to repair objects of up to 2 bulk. Plenty of work left for normal workers.
Even using ant haul, you need to have something to cast it on. And because the spell slots used to cast it are a limited resource, they're going to cost money. Thus, it's probably more economical for a merchant to invest in pack animals that they can continue to use for years than to pay for lots of castings of ant haul every day.

Everyone, magic user or not, has useful skills and abilities that they can use to help people. You may say it's unethical not to give out those skills freely, but unless you're going to do away with capitalism altogether its necessary to charge money for those skills. Otherwise you'll starve.


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Kong, I posted this on the playtest facebook page, but a lot of what I stated here is what you are also stating.

From the Hobbit:
"Gandalf 'I am looking for someone to share and adventure I am arranging, and its very difficult to find anyone'

Bilbo 'I should think so - in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anyone sees in them!'"

So why should my wizard go on an adventure when he can make plenty of easy coin casting the cantrip Light (24 hours of light) 3-4 times a day, and 3-4 castings of Ant Haul (level 1 8 hours of 3 extra bulk). He would charge a meal, drink, and a CP (or equal) for the light, and 5-10 CP for the Ant Hauls. He would make about 3 SP easy a day or 8-9 GP a month without any problems.

And yes Rysky, all peasants would LOVE to be able to cast cantrips, Light, Ghost Sound, Mage Hand, Message, Prestidigitation, Produce Flame, Ray of Frost, Tanglefoot. All of these are great spells if you use them correctly, even in their nerfed forms for adventures. 24 hours of a light that gives you 20' of good light, without a Light Bulb. Can I have it now? Ghost Sounds 30' range up to 4 people shouting? Free Cheerleaders. Message, 120' private chat? Prestidigitation is cooking without fires, or cleaning without water, or minor conjuration? Yes please.

Ray of Frost, Produce Flame, Tanglefoot? Hell the police right now would love Tanglefoot, All of these unlimited casting with 30-60 foot range, and I can use ray of frost to make ice at anytime, letting me make iceboxes to keep food cold.

Magic is a force multiplier. You can now have people working 24 hours a day at a business, smithy, labor shop because you can see clearly at night. You can increase how fast you plow or harvest or increasing the yield. Thus a first level magic user can cause many people to work longer, faster, and not have a place idle to stop working.

End the end, most players look at magic as the Bang, not at what is being done all around them.


PMárk wrote:

1. Magic in those games is still stronger than anything else. In WoD, everyone treats mages as the most OP, given time for preparation. Shadowrun fans are whining about "magicrun". CoC is, well, CoC.

You have played Pathfinder, right? A wizard, given "time for preparation" is easily the most powerful class in the game.

The issue comes from creating a balanced system. I have heard that magic needs to be costly/dangerous, rare, or trivially weak if you don't want it to completely run your setting.

"Rare" doesn't work well in a TTRPG, because the best way to make magic "rare" is to ban PCs from using it. You COULD let one of your PCs be one of the few casters in the world, but everyone else is going to play second fiddle to them, unless the WHOLE party is casters.

People don't seem to like magic being trivially weak or costly/dangerous because everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too.

I personally love the idea that magic is powerful, but that it is dangerous to cast. Pathfinder lore implies that this is the case, yet we have zero mechanics to represent this.


I was hoping for a deep dive on the metaphysics beyond "it's awesome, end of story." That just doesn't seem foundational enough.


Great and sensible ideas, OP. It feels like tackling this question, "Are non-magicals even worth their salt in a party?", from the flip side.


Kong wrote:

First, I feel its important to make it very clear that I have not play tested the new edition of pathfinder. So please keep that in mind as you read what I have to say. The details may not be complete, however this isn't about the details.

So, we begin with what everyone already knows. When it comes to magic, "Everything is Awesome". This is the most simple and basic truth when it comes to magic. It is fact. It can not be argued otherwise. When it comes to magic... everything is always awesome, all the time. I will elaborate more later.

I was inspired to write this after I read a thread about this "resonance" mechanic in the new edition. Now as I said earlier, I have not play tested the new edition. So the complete details escape me. However, they truly aren't important. What is important for this thread isn't the details, but the idea of resonance.

What is resonance at its most basic? Well that is simple, it is a control mechanic to balance magic. It doesn't matter how it works, or what problem it seeks to fix. It is a mechanic to control magic. But magic is, as we know, awesome. So it will fail. Doesn't matter how you work it or change it, it will always fail. Just like every control mechanic that has come before has failed.

What are spell slots? What are item body slot restrictions? These are simply put, attempts to control magic. Attempts to balance magic. Attempts that have all failed.

So why have they all failed.
They fail because it doesn't matter how many spell slots you have, or don't have. Magic is always awesome. It doesn't matter how many potions you can or cant drink in a day, because magic is always awesome.

All these "balancing" rules come at the end of the long road that is magic. You can not balance magic at the end of the road. Not when the foundation of all magic is... "everything is awesome".

You see, there is never not a reason to use magic. If you have magic, it is always a good idea to use that magic. Restricting...

Sounds like you'd enjoy the psyker career in Dark Heresy. It's got a pretty great system for having things go wrong. Sometimes horribly wrong. Did I mention it was great?


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The OP's post is irrelevant, frankly. It has nothing at all to do with the playtest (which they havenot participated in, by their own words!), but it's a genre discussion, and one with faulty premises at that. I suggest you take it to another forum, where it may have more merit.


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I seriously recommend having a long perusal of the spell list, followed by a gander at the saves on the average monster, before attempting to mitigate the awesomeness that is magic any further than it has been already. Wizards no longer throttle the heavens. In fact, on most days they can barely stir up a dust devil with a particularly aggressive fart.


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Makarion wrote:
The OP's post is irrelevant, frankly. It has nothing at all to do with the playtest (which they havenot participated in, by their own words!), but it's a genre discussion, and one with faulty premises at that. I suggest you take it to another forum, where it may have more merit.

How is discussing how magic works thematically not a valid point of discussion in a playtest for a game where mechanics can change?

Also, as has been pointed out in numerous other threads numerous times, one does not have to have played the game to have valid criticisms of the game.


Its just basic economics. Why would I cast a cure spell on a peasant for 1 gp when I can have a knight pay me 10 gp? I have to eat too.


Knight Magenta wrote:
Its just basic economics. Why would I cast a cure spell on a peasant for 1 gp when I can have a knight pay me 10 gp? I have to eat too.

Because you're a good guy? (Not always, but MOST clerics known for casting healing spells are of good alignment.)

Quite honestly, if a PC had a "good" aligned character of a good deity in my game and they asked to be paid to cast a healing spell on a guy in need, I'd probably have him lose favor in his deity.


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thflame wrote:
Knight Magenta wrote:
Its just basic economics. Why would I cast a cure spell on a peasant for 1 gp when I can have a knight pay me 10 gp? I have to eat too.

Because you're a good guy? (Not always, but MOST clerics known for casting healing spells are of good alignment.)

Quite honestly, if a PC had a "good" aligned character of a good deity in my game and they asked to be paid to cast a healing spell on a guy in need, I'd probably have him lose favor in his deity.

So we shouldn't pay doctors because they are just good guys? I also said nothing about emergency circumstances. This is purely buying a cleric's spell slots.

Plus; What if I am a cleric of Abadar? Commerce is practically a sacrament.

Verdant Wheel

How do you choose who you cure ? If you cure a beggar´s knee now, maybe you miss the spell later when a dying orphan is brought to you.
Seven Days to the Grave proved us there si simply not enough spellcasters.
My guess is that there are charity healers around, they just don´t heal adventurers that have money to hire mercenary healers, or charge adventurers of compulsory donations to feed the poor.


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Kringress wrote:

Kong, I posted this on the playtest facebook page, but a lot of what I stated here is what you are also stating.

From the Hobbit:
"Gandalf 'I am looking for someone to share and adventure I am arranging, and its very difficult to find anyone'

Bilbo 'I should think so - in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anyone sees in them!'"

So why should my wizard go on an adventure when he can make plenty of easy coin casting the cantrip Light (24 hours of light) 3-4 times a day, and 3-4 castings of Ant Haul (level 1 8 hours of 3 extra bulk). He would charge a meal, drink, and a CP (or equal) for the light, and 5-10 CP for the Ant Hauls. He would make about 3 SP easy a day or 8-9 GP a month without any problems.

And yes Rysky, all peasants would LOVE to be able to cast cantrips, Light, Ghost Sound, Mage Hand, Message, Prestidigitation, Produce Flame, Ray of Frost, Tanglefoot. All of these are great spells if you use them correctly, even in their nerfed forms for adventures. 24 hours of a light that gives you 20' of good light, without a Light Bulb. Can I have it now? Ghost Sounds 30' range up to 4 people shouting? Free Cheerleaders. Message, 120' private chat? Prestidigitation is cooking without fires, or cleaning without water, or minor conjuration? Yes please.

Ray of Frost, Produce Flame, Tanglefoot? Hell the police right now would love Tanglefoot, All of these unlimited casting with 30-60 foot range, and I can use ray of frost to make ice at anytime, letting me make iceboxes to keep food cold.

Magic is a force multiplier. You can now have people working 24 hours a day at a business, smithy, labor shop because you can see clearly at night. You can increase how fast you plow or harvest or increasing the yield. Thus a first level magic user can cause many people to work longer, faster, and not have a place idle to stop working.

End the end, most players look at magic as...

This, absolutely. Between the wide variety of useful low level effects, the low barrier to entry to learn some magic, and the relatively low cost of making low level magic items in the pathfinder system Golarion should rightfully be more magic-punk than high magic.

Issues like basic sanitation, food safety, and clean water are solved by cantrips. These were all medieval killers. Food availability, animal labor and human labor, face to face communication, and skilled labor are all seriously enhanced by first level spells. For the average person, first level healing spells are better than modern surgery. By third level spells long distance communication issues are a thing of the past, small - high value - trade goods cross continents instantaneously, most disease is easily treatable, and divination spells can do a pretty good riff on minority report.

Things just get crazier from there. In a world where you can learn these capabilities in a school, even if that takes years, there is no chance the incentive and drive to do so doesn't exist. It would be a national imperative! Economies would rise and fall on the magical capabilities of citizens. Kings would pay people to study - the risk of falling behind would be too great.


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thflame wrote:
Quite honestly, if a PC had a "good" aligned character of a good deity in my game and they asked to be paid to cast a healing spell on a guy in need, I'd probably have him lose favor in his deity.

Good heavens, why is that cleric even out journeying on some frivolous adventure when they could be saving tens of people with channeling and Create Food and Water spells?!

Why doesn't Batman just use his seemingly infinite wealth to raise standards of living for all of Gotham so that crime becomes pointless to all but the most sociopathic criminals?

Superman: A transitional power source


Makarion wrote:
The OP's post is irrelevant, frankly. It has nothing at all to do with the playtest (which they havenot participated in, by their own words!), but it's a genre discussion, and one with faulty premises at that. I suggest you take it to another forum, where it may have more merit.

Genre discussions should definitely have a place in the playtest forums, seeing as how some of the changes 2E makes are directly relevant to who has access to magic and what effects it has. Mechanics should affect settings, and settings should have impact on how games are played.


In the Methyrfall setting for dnd3.5, magic relies on energies that are easy to control but exert strong long-time tolls on the body, which is why spellcasters try to conserve their magic and magic items are only donned during adventuring.

Even then, adventurers and spellcasters have to attempt yearly saves to avoid the negative consequence of excessive magic use - and if they were to make massive use of it, they'd have to do that more frequently.

Eventually, all powerful casters succumb to it, showing physical or mental deterioration in some form. Adventurers are most subject to this, but they rarely live long enough.

I loved Methyrfall. Awesome setting. Still use it, on occasion.


Knight Magenta wrote:
So we shouldn't pay doctors because they are just good guys?

That analogy doesn't work at all. Medicine has real world costs and doctors don't get their ability to practice medicine from a deity that desires that they perform good deeds.

Yeah, your cleric has to eat too, but that's what "create food and water" is for.


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thflame wrote:
Knight Magenta wrote:
So we shouldn't pay doctors because they are just good guys?

That analogy doesn't work at all. Medicine has real world costs and doctors don't get their ability to practice medicine from a deity that desires that they perform good deeds.

Yeah, your cleric has to eat too, but that's what "create food and water" is for.

But what about when the cleric wants a house, or a book, or a therapist, or a horse, or passage on a ship, or any of the other multitude of things that people use all the time other than food? Hmm... maybe they could trade their magic for those things? And maybe rather than making individual barter deals, they could simply ask for payment in a single, universally valuable commodity which they could then use to purchase the things that they can't make themselves? That sure would make things easier. Oh look, you just invented money.

And that's why spells have costs (aside from the fact that real people are mostly greedy, of course).

In case that doesn't convince you, think about it this way: the costs of a doctor's services (aside from said doctor's salary) come from the equipment they use. Why don't the equipment manufacturers just give their tools to the doctor for free? Because the materials they use cost money. Why don't the workers who extract those materials just give them to the equipment manufacturers for free? Because they need to eat too. At base, all costs come from the cost of labor.


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Just to point out that whole "why doesn't EVERYBODY study magic" line of thought.

Pretty much the same reason people don't all have STEM masters. Its hard, it requires devotion, and you need to feed yourself while you're learning it. Thats not even considering the places where "powerful mage wreaks havoc" is recent history. Or the rulers who maybe don't want their peasants shooting magic missiles when the time comes for an uprising.


.. I do gotta say the analogies to real world medicine kind of fall flat from the perspective of universal healthcare in most countries. XD

(Yes, materials and care still cost money, but it's more like charging the commoners a handful of silver every month to ensure that they always have the services of clerics, rather than charging them a pile of gold per healing spell.)


Ryan Freire wrote:

Just to point out that whole "why doesn't EVERYBODY study magic" line of thought.

Pretty much the same reason people don't all have STEM masters. Its hard, it requires devotion, and you need to feed yourself while you're learning it. Thats not even considering the places where "powerful mage wreaks havoc" is recent history. Or the rulers who maybe don't want their peasants shooting magic missiles when the time comes for an uprising.

I'm not sure a STEM masters degree is the best analogy for being able to cast a cantrip, and, given that you only need a few people in a community with the ability to cast cantrips to help ensure a much higher quality of life for everybody in the community, there's powerful incentives to learn.

There's no shortage of STEM master's degree holders, despite the difficulty and cost of the achievement, and they've revolutionized the world around me.

EDIT: This is getting a bit far afield though - bringing things back to 2E, I'm curious to see if the general nerfing of magic and systems like resonance will be reflected in Golarion and future APs, or if those changes represent a kind of retroactive justification for some of the discrepancies in the setting.


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It totally is. 6 years on average to get a masters, Characters with wizard, cleric, monk, druid roll 2d6 (avg 7) for starting age.

It requires roughly 5 years more effort to become a 9 level caster.


The difference between getting a STEM degree and learning to cast magic, is that getting a STEM degree doesn't give you skills that make supernatural tasks mundane.

Heck, unless you get a job in your field, most of that information is useless to you. An unemployed wizard can still cast spells.

Not to mention that the difference between the Average Joe and a STEM degree holder is NOTHING compared to the average peasant and a Wizard.

It also doesn't take 7 years to learn how to cast magic. Any fighter can go raid a tough dungeon and be able to cast spells shortly afterward, without ever having to have studied magic at all. (Yes, I know the lore says otherwise, but the game mechanics say no.)

At least in PF2 you have to have training in Arcana and 16 INT (though a fresh wizard can have a 10 in INT).

Regardless, game mechanics could definitely reflect the lore of Golarion better. A LOT better.

Granted, nobody would want to play a wizard if it took 10 levels to be able to cast cantrips without risking death or dismemberment.


I don't actually agree with OP's opinion here, but I do think that Paizo could've taken the opportunity to move away from Vancian casting.

It was definitely a missed opportunity to make magic actually something alive in the world affecting it in different ways (similar to what the OP suggested) not just being something PC's can use and it's effects on the world are really disjointed most of the time, unless the GM makes a lot of effort. It's kinda like the economy in the game as well.

There's nothing more exciting for me than a well explained and thought out magic system. I love what Patrick Rothfuss did with his Kingkiller Chronicle (there's actually several magic systems in the books. Sygaldry=written, Naming= the awesome magic without clear rules, Sympathy=very defined set of rules) or what Jim Butcher did with The Dresden Files, he managed to create a magic system having the best of both worlds, magic with very defined and balanced rules but also working through feelings and emotional weight put behind the spells, allowing pretty fantastic stuff and not being strictly limited by itself, Butcher's consistency is just the icing on the cake.


thflame wrote:

The difference between getting a STEM degree and learning to cast magic, is that getting a STEM degree doesn't give you skills that make supernatural tasks mundane.

Heck, unless you get a job in your field, most of that information is useless to you. An unemployed wizard can still cast spells.

Not to mention that the difference between the Average Joe and a STEM degree holder is NOTHING compared to the average peasant and a Wizard.

It also doesn't take 7 years to learn how to cast magic. Any fighter can go raid a tough dungeon and be able to cast spells shortly afterward, without ever having to have studied magic at all. (Yes, I know the lore says otherwise, but the game mechanics say no.)

At least in PF2 you have to have training in Arcana and 16 INT (though a fresh wizard can have a 10 in INT).

Regardless, game mechanics could definitely reflect the lore of Golarion better. A LOT better.

Granted, nobody would want to play a wizard if it took 10 levels to be able to cast cantrips without risking death or dismemberment.

Except commoners aren't going to go into a dungeon and come out learning to cast spells. They're going to take a far safer and slower path to learning. Also, the stuff you gain at a level is supposed to be stuff you've been working on in downtime.


To me making magic have a downside seems to be the good way to allow magic to be amazing while still not overshadowing the martial classes. Imagine we took away spells per day and made many spells much stronger but now you take the level of the spell times 5 mental damage every time you cast it. So 1st level spells do 5 damage 2nd level spells do 10 and so on.

Now the average Wizard of 5th level would have around 40+ HP, depending on stats, and would know 3rd level spells. Let's say he casts Fireball. Our reworked Fireball now does 8d6 damage in a 20ft burst, a really powerful spell. BUT the Wizard takes 15 damage every time he casts it. If he casts it twice that's almost all his HP. It really makes you want to save that spell for something really important if it's taking over a quarter of your health each time you cast it. Fly for an hour each time you cast it? Sure but take 20 damage, per person you cast it on. It makes you think.

Now obviously that isn't a perfect system but it puts the point across. Do I do cast this even though it will harm/burden me significantly? Nah I think I'll just stick to my Lvl 1 spells for this fight and just help out the Fighter and Rogue. If it could be done in a fun way I think I could really enjoy it.


Just so you know, that while you read this, know that I could not read through all this... and could not get past the first 5 posts before my head started 2 spin


I disagree with your premise. If you make magic volatile and dangerous you end up stripping martials of the limited access to magic that they have. IF magic is tainted and dangerous to use, how do you account of the ubiquitous of it in the game world? Would every martial be at risk for wielding a magic sword or wearing enchanted armor? For example in REH lore magic is alien and dangerous. Conan never uses enchanted swords and they are not required to battle monstrosities. Some are just too powerful to overcome and Conan usually ends up thwarting a long drawn out ritual spell BEFORE it takes effect. Are players going to be happy grinding out levels with no advancement to gear besides finding a legendary sword giving a +3 to hit? Are they really going to be happy if healing magic works less than 100% of the time and that you may end up harming rather than healing due to a poor result? If they do, then maybe more players are using the combat healer feat than I thought. No one in my playtest group has taken it because they feel the DC's are too high and they will likely hurt rather than help someone due to the critical fumble rule.

Also if magic is volatile and dangerous, it has to be way more POWERFUL that it is in either PF1 or PF2. The allure of such alien and dangerous magic is that it gives you a definite edge. Why risk your sanity and your soul bargaining with supernatural or alien creatures for scraps of eldritch power if you can barely equal a martial swinging a longsword and one swinging a greatsword completely dwarfs your power. The risk/reward factor of such a system has to be high for PC's to be enticed. NPC's are different because they are GM controlled and don't need a reason beyond GM storytelling for accessing such a dangerous system.

Be careful what you wish for. By trying to make magic more unreliable and dangerous you create problems for the game. Just look at the various threads on resonance and healing to get a glimpse of what this can of worms entails.


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Well, It's been a while since i've been here. But i think this post is worth the response.

I agree with Kong. Magic is broken, and i'm sorry, but i didnt find a single argument (and ive read all the responses) that gives such an excellent, deep and solid point of view as Kong's.

Most of the responses here are about the money cost wich, yeah, can be a hard time if your DM dont give you the money you should have per level. Or, in the other hand, we have those arguments saying that "making magic risky goes against pathfinder basis..." well guys, that's what he's talking about, changing the basis instead of adding more and more rules to controll the, by far, most unbalanced feature in the game.

That beign said, he also told us that this is only a primitive idea of a bigger thing. I totally applause his way to expose this "alfa" version of what magic could be in pathfinder, and i totally love it. Even if i'm a cleric player.

Also, he's not even talking about making damage to the caster, but putting some REAL price to magic instead of gold. I bet you will think twice if the lightning bolt you are about to cast will cost you a week of concentration checks because you are high on mistic energy. God, WHAT A WONDERFULL IDEA WE HAVE HERE, CASTERS WILL BE THE GODS OF THE TABLE NO MORE. And of course, high level casters will develop more resistance to this "magic toxicity". It reminds me to dragonlance a bit.

All in all, i love this way of thinking out of the box. This way of working will be easier, faster, and much more rich in terms of roleplaying. I hope paizo look at this post with critic eyes and find here a way to enrich the game.

And if they dont, me myself will try to develop a way to make this work with houserules, even if it's hard. My congrats and respect, Kong, you totally nailed it.

PD: Focus on the matter we are talking about here. Going around small arguments like the commoner example will only make this post boring and will end nowhere.

Silver Crusade

Graelsis wrote:
Most of the responses here are about the money cost wich, yeah, can be a hard time if your DM dont give you the money you should have per level.
No one was talking about PCs having access to magic, but to everyone else, the world as a whole. NPCs don't get the metagame choice of "No I'm not gonna be a Commoner, I'm going to put my first level in Wizard instead!".
Graelsis wrote:
Or, in the other hand, we have those arguments saying that "making magic risky goes against pathfinder basis..." well guys, that's what he's talking about, changing the basis
It changes the basis of Pathfinder and thus Golarion with already already established lore, and that goes for everyone using Pathfinder for their setting. Having all/most magic all of sudden hurt casters just for casting would be narrative/world shattering in its effects and changes, moreso than even the contentious introduction of Resonance. What happened, did every setting get hit with a Spellplagueblight?
Graelsis wrote:
It reminds me to dragonlance a bit.

If it does then that's fine for Dragonlance, but not every setting is Dragonlance. Pathfinder has its own setting, Golarion, while also being able to be used for numerous other settings.


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Alright, but is this not bit like reading inspirational scifi and then having the enlightenment that maybe things should not be so easily fixed? Free energy, flying cars and fantastic clean environments are clearly false and we need "real" scifi, skeptical scifi, question how future actually looks like. You get real, or maybe even cynical, and thus invent, to put it simply, cyberpunk.

Setting speak. This is not antagonistic, but everyone can get cynical about the absolute simplicity of a typical DnD magical system. The fact that the effects of DnD magic is not more deeply investigated and its effects examined, how it will affect societies, how it affects trades, how it gets political, this is not done because old DnD writers were lazy or stupid. You are just meant not to question it.

There will always be settings that are meant to be taken for face value. Is the wizard society in Harry Potter ACTUALLY functional? Is it believable? Do wizards control the parliament, are wizards immune to bullets? Rowling will introduce money, banks, wizard councils, but she will not have armed muggle soldiers fight wizards, because that is not actually part of the setting. You can create new settings by just doing the "twist spinning". I am sure you have not been the first one to think what "oh, what if magic was actually dangerous to use..."

But inspirational high fantasy is not inherently foundationally flawed because "it refuses" to put a skeptical spin on magic. It is perfectly normal to roll your eyes at a show where love conquers an obstacle. But on the same notion, that kind of catharsis is not flawed because you can point out that love cannot actually conquer all obstacle.


Rysky wrote:
Graelsis wrote:
Most of the responses here are about the money cost wich, yeah, can be a hard time if your DM dont give you the money you should have per level.
No one was talking about PCs having access to magic, but to everyone else, the world as a whole. NPCs don't get the metagame choice of "No I'm not gonna be a Commoner, I'm going to put my first level in Wizard instead!".
Graelsis wrote:
Or, in the other hand, we have those arguments saying that "making magic risky goes against pathfinder basis..." well guys, that's what he's talking about, changing the basis
It changes the basis of Pathfinder and thus Golarion with already already established lore, and that goes for everyone using Pathfinder for their setting. Having all/most magic all of sudden hurt casters just for casting would be narrative/world shattering in its effects and changes, moreso than even the contentious introduction of Resonance. What happened, did every setting get hit with a Spellplagueblight?
Graelsis wrote:
It reminds me to dragonlance a bit.
If it does then that's fine for Dragonlance, but not every setting is Dragonlance. Pathfinder has its own setting, Golarion, while also being able to be used for numerous other settings.

Your argumentation is pretty solid, and i thank you for taking the time to make a calm, strong and deep response.

I agree with you, not in the first message (because you know there are people here talking about the examples and only that), but with the second one.

Golarion has a stablished lore, and a world mechanic system, however, they are changing it and maybe, just maybe, this is the right time to introduce a solid and well planned change as this idea can be, instead of adding "patches" to those parts loosing water. We can think about resonance, for example. It will make the whole world act different around magic, as it will do the addition of goblins as a playable race. Those changes are worldblowing if we look backwards to how things have been done untill now.

IMO, they should take this kind of ideas instead of the ones they are taking in this affairs.

Silver Crusade

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Graelsis wrote:

Your argumentation is pretty solid, and i thank you for taking the time to make a calm, strong and deep response.

I agree with you, not in the first message (because you know there are people here talking about the examples and only that), but with the second one.

^w^
Graelsis wrote:

Golarion has a stablished lore, and a world mechanic system, however, they are changing it and maybe, just maybe, this is the right time to introduce a solid and well planned change as this idea can be, instead of adding "patches" to those parts loosing water. We can think about resonance, for example. It will make the whole world act different around magic, as it will do the addition of goblins as a playable race. Those changes are worldblowing if we look backwards to how things have been done untill now.

IMO, they should take this kind of ideas instead of the ones they are taking in this affairs.

They aren’t changing the lore though. We’ve had non-evil and playable goblins for awhile now, and Resonance doesn’t really affect NPCs as much as PCs due to using less magic items. And the setting is being updated with the completetion of 1st Edition’s APs. Completely changing how magic functions overnight, not just say moving from slots to points but having it actually damage you and changing the setting to match would not be well received. I was not being hyperbolic when I brought up the Spellplague.

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