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The Stormwind Fallacy is the argument that trying to make a mechanically sound character or otherwise being concerned with mechanical power makes you a bad roleplayer intrinsically, or that being concerned with roleplay and character flavor makes you a bad player from a mechanical perspective.
Slight tangent, but since we are on the subject anyway...
Something else that people confuse with Stormwind Fallacy is the idea that out-of-combat character power should be valued lower or not at all.
Such as a class that has good social skills or extra skill feats also needs martial level weapons or caster level spell in order to be compensated. Because somehow being especially effective at out of combat challenges is 'just role play'.
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Everytime you write "Stormwind Fallacy" a nerd somewhere gets his first swirly.
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How does it not?The Stormwind Fallacy is the argument that trying to make a mechanically sound character or otherwise being concerned with mechanical power makes you a bad roleplayer intrinsically, or that being concerned with roleplay and character flavor makes you a bad player from a mechanical perspective.
You're... complaining about characters existing in the fiction of Golarion that you don't like.
There isn't even the remotest hint of a connection here.
If we're talking about making a character, doesn't a GM (or the adventure path) also make characters? Which means by proxy, can't the GM/AP also commit the Stormwind Fallacy? Meaning complaining about a character in fiction because their roleplay doesn't match their rollplay is certainly justified and can fall within the scope of the Stormwind Fallacy (or more accurately, the resolution that I mentioned when taking it to its logical conclusion, which is that roleplay and rollplay can be done in concert, and that there is no reason not to do so outside of personal ignorance).
More specifically, I am complaining about their lack of rollplay execution in determining what role they are meant to play in the grand lore of things. NPCs with the ability to do things that PCs otherwise can't will only work in a setting with things that are either without capacity or beyond the scope of what a PC can realistically accomplish within their 20 levels without some sort of mechanical reason for doing so. I can accept lacking PCs being able to do things NPCs can't in certain things because there is roleplay that backs it up; the most common example of this is Deities. They can do basically whatever they want to the point that statblocks or abilities become irrelevant. They are just that powerful, and both the roleplay and rollplay back this up. Heck, they're also considered relatively equal in power, too, so it makes sense that some deities can be killed/weakened/whatever by other deities. PCs not having those kinds of interactions with Deities (at least without macguffins) is also consistent with this. Nex and Geb can also fall under this paradigm by being explained away as being beyond 20th level, having special powers/abilities that PCs aren't able to access or acquire, etc. (I initially didn't come to this conclusion, but now I have and can accept it, even if I might disagree with the premise. Maybe Nex and Geb are Mythical and we'll need the relevant supplemental material to actually reach those levels? Maybe they're beyond even that as well?)
However, a standard Knight of Lastwall troop having an effective Animal Companion scout that it has become a commonplace tactic for them to use as an organization? You can't tell me that a player who has played such a PC with the RAW would actually accept this lore factoid without more information at the very least. In fact, we have had a few instances in actual gameplay where this wasn't true, either, and plenty of instances where even characters with some investment in scouting were ineffective as well, so suggesting that a pseudo-character is capable of doing things that a full character can still struggle with is a stretch in both roleplay and rollplay; but even if we use Handwavium on the roleplay, such as in this case, it doesn't excuse or remove the bad rollplay involved, meaning it's still a case of the Stormwind Fallacy.
And there's no excuse or justification for that to not be the case: They aren't some deity that transcends and largely doesn't care about the rules of mortals, or some extremely powerful unique character(s) with abilities or numbers that give them this capacity. They aren't given special tactics (such as polymorph effects), or feats (abilities that improve perception, communication, sense, etc.), or other in-lore explanations that justifies this. They're just soldiers of an area that serve as protectors and consequently raise animals to "scout" for potential sieges. There isn't anything here lore-wise that prevents the same applying to PCs, even ones that have come from or even served in Lastwall; the prevention comes specifically from mechanics, and nothing more. If the idea is that roleplay and rollplay are to be in concert (AKA taking the Stormwind Fallacy to its logical conclusion), then either A. The rollplay for Animal Companions and Familiars need to be buffed to reflect this lore statement to be an accurate piece of lore, or B. The roleplay needs to be retconned to reflect the idea that mechanically, Animal Companions and Familiars are poor scouts, for an otherwise insurmountable number of reasons. Otherwise, this is committing a contrivance well in-line with the Stormwind Fallacy, which is that the character(s) in question (The Knights of Lastwall) have such a concern with roleplay and character flavor (raising competent Animal Companion/Familiar scouts) that they are still bad from a mechanical perspective.
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** spoiler omitted **
Happy to go off topic.
I think it just takes a bit of patience. The Min Maxes I know do role play, but after they have the mechanics under their belt. Sometimes you just have to give them some out of combat air time to get them going.
I enjoy many different kinds of personalities.
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stuff
The justification is that pathfinder 2e is a fundamentally gamist system that prioritized mechanical systems and deprioritized narrative or logical consistancy. your players have player abilities because they are players, npcs have npc abilities because they are npcs, there is no in setting reason that they are built different; in theory your player wizard, in the setting SHOULD be able to do npc wizard things in the fiction. however because this is a game mechanics first system, that simply does not matter.
also... how on earth are gms committing the stormwind fallicy when they build npcs? like, optimizing npcs is not a thing? There is no list of discrete choices to make optimal choices from, simply general guidlines on what power levels are appropriate for a given creature level. You cannot "minmax" in that sort of free floating system because no true opportunity cost exists.
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And really, I don't express my opinions as a means of getting people to like me, it is a foolish endeavor only capable by the Charismatic,
Woof. This is a really sad self assessment.
Just as well, in a realm where logic does not exist, I am intrinsically bound to the creature of failure,
When multiple people are telling you across multiple discussions that your arguments don't make sense, I don't think you get to be the paragon of logic. Either your logic is bad, or you're doing a bad job communicating it. And if your logic is flawless but you can't make anyone understand it, it isn't worth putting the logic into words. The point of words is to be understood.
Plus, I can change opinions over the course of a debate. I thought more about the NPC Wizards point, and realized I didn't consider some things to justify NPC Wizards being more capable than PC Wizards.
This is an example of your poor communication. Prior to this, you never acknowledged you were wrong about wizard making better kings than fighters, you just started rambling about some spells being better than others. Even at this point, you aren't admitting to being wrong. You're framing it as though this was a conclusion you reached after deep self reflection, instead of a point that was spelled out you repeatedly by others.
Also, stop throwing around buzz words like gaslighting and arguing in bad faith. You're not using them correctly. (For the record, I don't think you're arguing in bad faith, despite my smooch to Alastar earlier. I just think you're bad at arguing.)
You can choose to disregard all this if you want to, but then be prepared for people here to disregard your posts.