The PCs are already not normal people. A normal person is a NPC class.
That aside, just assume that sciences like physics and biology work differently in a fantasy world, if they work at all. The humans of RPGs are simply different than the humans of the real world. So, where in our world Lava is at least 700C, in a fantasy world it's just "really hot". While terminal velocity in the real world is 56m/s, in a fantasy world it's just "rather fast".
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Do we need a reason?
Yes I do.
Everything must have a reason for otherwise the world makes no sense. If putting the system under scrutiny harms immersion, then there is something wrong with the system. If my character can survive lava, then it must sell me why I could do it.
It is the duty of the author to make the system immersive. And if he cannot explain the power increases, he is breaking immersion. Hell, someone said that older players do not care about that, I have seen it and most of the time it is just because they are apathetic about it.
"Hero was not killed by falling into magma, invisible magical shards he has absorbed from dead enemies have given him so thick skin that the lava merely glanced him and he is without bad burns."
Or
"Magma in Golarion is not the same hot stuff like in real live. It is more like just very hot jelly".
Neither is actually good, but they are at least reasons right?
Do we need a reason?Yes I do.
Everything must have a reason for otherwise the world makes no sense. If putting the system under scrutiny harms immersion, then there is something wrong with the system. If my character can survive lava, then it must sell me why I could do it.
It is the duty of the author to make the system immersive. And if he cannot explain the power increases, he is breaking immersion. Hell, someone said that older players do not care about that, I have seen it and most of the time it is just because they are apathetic about it.
"Hero was not killed by falling into magma, invisible magical shards he has absorbed from dead enemies have given him so thick skin that the lava merely glanced him and he is without bad burns."
Or
"Magma in Golarion is not the same hot stuff like in real live. It is more like just very hot jelly".Neither is actually good, but they are at least reasons right?
Why can't that reason be that they adventured and got stronger after going through tonnes of hardships? It's just that in that setting, the ceiling for power is higher than the ceiling for power in real life.
Yes I do.
Do we need a reason?
And the link I posted is a reason: in fantasy we don't need an upper limit to what is attainable by training. We can justify it as a different biology. Attaining experience and levels in Golarion is tied to the soul to begin with anyway.
The 20d6 damage from lava is instant death for normal human beings - an average of 70 damage a round to someone who only has 4 to 6 HP. Or even 20-30 HP if they're a bad-ass.
High level adventurers are superhuman. Going for a lava swim without magical protections will still kill them, it just might take up to 30 seconds or more.
And the link I posted is a reason: in fantasy we don't need an upper limit to what is attainable by training. We can justify it as a different biology. Attaining experience and levels in Golarion is tied to the soul to begin with anyway.
Source?
Why can't that reason be that they adventured and got stronger after going through tonnes of hardships? It's just that in that setting, the ceiling for power is higher than the ceiling for power in real life.
Yet the whole "no pain, no gain" idea is not true. Getting wounded does not make you tougher, getting burned does not make you resistant to fire. If you want to make everyone special, there has to be a concrete reason for it. Nobody becomes superhuman without a reason. Either you present the radioactive spider or you don't.
untrue. getting hit and getting burned is the very essence of resistance training.
In a magical universe, you then adapt and evolve and overcome.
As thejeff put it, magic is everywhere in a magical universe. If the magic is more subtle in the martial classes, with less flash and bang, that doesn't make it any less magical.
IMC, the 'first ceiling', of passing level 6, is well known, because of 'the dance'. It's when Melee get multiple attacks, their mind starts working faster then their body, time seems to slow down whenever combat is imminent. They don't move that much faster, but they move more efficiently.
The Second ceiling is level 10...getting past that is nigh impossible for the vast majority of people...they simply can't do it. Getting past this limit moves you beyond what it really means to be human, your soul is in essence far stronger then your body, and your body goes along with it.
All classes are learned skills. Everything, from BAB to saves to class features, is learned and trained and improving, until there is NO 'scientific' foundation for being as good as they are. You are improving past human limitations, and the only explanation is 'magic'.
So, no, you don't need the radioactive spider. Learning superhuman abilities is actually an old, old tradition in the east, where you don't have to be the child of a god or bathed in radiation to be clearly more then most humans. You have to have a wise teacher and learn ancient secrets passed down in a great tradition, and can then exceed your mortal bounds.
==Aelryinth
Cu Chulainn is an old Irish hero who's really, really awesome. If you've ever seen Fate/Stay Night, he's Lancer.
Cu Chulain isn't as much Irish as pure Celtic before the coming of Christ to the Irish Isles.
Lancer is nothing like Cu Chulainn. The closest you're going to find him in contemporary fiction is Slaine the Berserker. Cu Chulain is one of the iconic berserkers of Mythology, and his unstoppable spear Gae Bolt which he throws with his toes one of the iconic weapons.
His sage is one of the great mythologies of Europe, the Ulster Cycle. Definitely worth a read. You see the ancient power of Druids on full display in there.
==Aelryinth
Yet the whole "no pain, no gain" idea is not true. Getting wounded does not make you tougher, getting burned does not make you resistant to fire.
That's the science of our world. "Humans" of fantasy worlds may very well work in strange ways. In fact there are many fantasy worlds where that just is how biology works.
My understanding is that there's a number of mythic abilities that are direct homages to Cu Chulain. (SKR called out Titan's Rage as one of them, IIRC.)
Heh. Cu Chalain's 1E statblock (courtesy of Deities and Demigods) makes him ranger 18/illusionist 12/bard 8 with a spear that deals 4d10 as its base damage.
It was a mistake on my part to bring science into this. Disregard that, it muddles the message I meant to convey but failed to.
To become emotionally invested into something, the one thing any narrative needs to be is serious. Serious is different from "realistic" or "scientific" because it is not mutually exclusive with non-scientific settings or unrealistic ones. Seriousness is a fragile thing, that can be easily shattered if you are not careful with it.
Good example why I do not buy the whole "Train to get more power level" is hilariously mocked in a manga by the japanese artist ONE, One Punch Man. The manga became much more popular after Yusuke Murata began his remake of it. What if you truly can get ultimate power through very mundane means, just doing 100 squats and 100 pushups everyday? His existence is a problem to "true" heroes who have a classic reason for their powers, being cyborgs, mutants, musashi-copies, etc. because he undermines the real dramas and tragedies of the world he is in. Saitama, the protagonist, does not put effort into being taken seriously and thus dangers the whole idea of superheroes because him saving people makes other heroes look like jokes.
Bridge this to pathfinder. Yes, if you really want to go with it, you can try to explain player progression as shortly as you can. You are the fighter, you level up, why does he do things better, because he is the fight man who learned how to fight better. How big can this character grow without making it feel like a gag rather than a real character? What if Fighty Man hits lvl 20 by just killing NPCs with cheap magic items with his friends, gears himself in correct WBL? Not getting into fights over how much lvl 20 fighter can do, but the Fighty Man never did anything special in his life, but holds power in his muscles to topple over ancient creatures of massive power, alone. No setting can have its own One Punch Man and still be taken seriously.
And do not take this as bashing fighters. Sometimes I takes just one wizard to pretty much unconditionally ruin a whole setting if you ask me
Yeah, One Punch Man is silly because he is doing mundane exercises to become a god-like super hero. Fighting and surviving against monsters and dangerous folk is anything but mundane. If you fight, you will get better at fighting. As you face greater challenges you will become even greater yourself. I just don't understand your problem with this.
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This is the setting with a guy who attained godhood while completely smashed.
It's not 100% serious all of the time =P
Source?
And the link I posted is a reason: in fantasy we don't need an upper limit to what is attainable by training. We can justify it as a different biology. Attaining experience and levels in Golarion is tied to the soul to begin with anyway.
The first that comes to mind is the Technology Guide, in the Clonepod description: if you manage to transfer the consciousness of a dead creature into a clone but after that its soul has been judged in the afterlife, you generate a soulless replica of the original: still sentient, with the same personality and the majority of memories, but with the Charisma permanently reduced by 2 and has no ability to grow more powerful or gain levels.
This is the setting with a guy who attained godhood while completely smashed.
It's not 100% serious all of the time =P
Welcome to the church of rock n' roll.
The first that comes to mind is the Technology Guide, in the Clonepod description: if you manage to transfer the consciousness of a dead creature into a clone but after that its soul has been judged in the afterlife, you generate a soulless replica of the original: still sentient, with the same personality and the majority of memories, but with the Charisma permanently reduced by 2 and has no ability to grow more powerful or gain levels.Source?
And the link I posted is a reason: in fantasy we don't need an upper limit to what is attainable by training. We can justify it as a different biology. Attaining experience and levels in Golarion is tied to the soul to begin with anyway.
Huh.
That's not far removed from how a simulacrum works.
Neat.
Pre WotC D&D was heroic fantasy not unlike Tolkens Lord of the Rings stories.
Post WotC D&D was high-powered super-hero action similiar to most animies.
This is just my opinion.
Funny, I was thinking a similar thing just today.
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In your games do you assume a transformation into superheroes or do you use some combination of flavor and/or handwaving certain things that are beyond any human with regard to taking damage?
We have a GM and if something seems like an auto death (and generally we at the table all realize what these are when they happen) then you die. The only out at that point is we use Hero Points and 2 will save you.
Now that said we have had such a case come up once in over 10+ years of gaming together and that player had 2 hero points so she lived. Our GM pretty much never puts us in auto death situations. But we do have a player who has an amazing ability to put HERSELF into them. She ALWAYS keeps a minimum 2 Hero points.
Pre WotC D&D was heroic fantasy not unlike Tolkens Lord of the Rings stories.
Post WotC D&D was high-powered super-hero action similiar to most animies.
This is just my opinion.
3.0 was a serious increase to player survivability on every front. Before that you stopped getting hit dice after level 9-11 depending on your class and your con bonus was directly tied to your hit die so if you got no hit die you got no con bonus either.
Plus unless you were a fighter class, your maximum constitution bonus was +2 per hit die, no matter what your constitution was.
Plus they increased wiz hit die to a d6 from a d4. 50% base HP increase was nothing to complain about.
So assuming a 'Magic User' in pre 3.0 even had a 16+ constitution, their absolute maximum HP's at level 20 was: 75. That was maximum. Their max at level 11 was 66. Yes that meant 'Magic User's got ONE hit point a level from 12-20. More Realistically an 'MU' at level 10 would not have a con bonus at all and would have average HP of 25.
Fighter Hit die stopped at 9 and they got 3 per level from 10-20 so assuming an 18 con their max was 159 at level 20 or 126 at level 9. Only dwarves could get a 19 con so they could have up to 9 more hp's.
Again it was more than likely if they got lucky and had a 15 con then at level 9 a fighter would have 59 HP on average.
Yeah survivabilty got a LOT better with 3.X. Hell even healing got a massive boost.
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1E statted out the gods and had an adventure path that ended with killing a demigoddess (who only had 66 HP) in her spider-mech-fortress built of damned souls.
1E DID go super hero, it just took longer.
Plus they increased wiz hit die to a d6 from a d4. 50% base HP increase was nothing to complain about.
This is PF only. As someone who has played them, trust me 3.0/3.5 Wizards only have 1d4 hit dice. Not that it matters past the early levels, since your CON bonus will matter a lot more.
1E statted out the gods and had an adventure path that ended with killing a demigoddess (who only had 66 HP) in her spider-mech-fortress built of damned souls.
Ah Queen of the Demonweb Pits. What a memory. The penultimate module to the first real 'adventure path' TSR ever made. Started with the Slavers Series, then 'Against the Giants' and then into the underdark for the 'Vault of the Drow' series and then ended with going into Lolth's slice of the abyss to try and defeat her.
Yes she had only 66 HP but she also had the best AC possible in the entire game and that was damn hard to hit back then. And with her magic resistance, magic items, demonic and drow servants and especially her handmaidens, the Yochlol, she was by no means a push over.
Course back then she was just a demigod. She got TONS bigger as editions grew (and as Drizzt sold more books)...
This is PF only. As someone who has played them, trust me 3.0/3.5 Wizards only have 1d4 hit dice. Not that it matters past the early levels, since your CON bonus will matter a lot more.
Your right, still D4 but the extra 9 hit dice and the increase on con bonus still made significant difference even then. Going from 75 Max at level 20 with an 18 con to 160 seems like a nice jump to me and with 72 HP being AVERAGE with an 18 con at level 11 it is a considerable upgrade.
Yeah, One Punch Man is silly because he is doing mundane exercises to become a god-like super hero. Fighting and surviving against monsters and dangerous folk is anything but mundane. If you fight, you will get better at fighting. As you face greater challenges you will become even greater yourself. I just don't understand your problem with this.
But monsters and dangerous folk cam be are utterly mundane, if we focus on most of the low CR ones. Killing low CR critters daily is no different from how Saitama got his powers. Especially if you spread over killing all those monsters over some years.
Entryhazard, I wish Paizo elaborated on that more if it is really how it is going to be.
Also Zhangar, I do not see Cayden as silly thing at all. His existence is perfectly serious example of the forces of chaos. Even the most rigorous and lawful tests can be ruined by unpredictable whim.
Really, falling off a building (or from space, for that matter) and falling into lava are probably the most legit "You're just dead" scenarios I can imagine.As a GM I'm a handwave it/superhero kinda guy. I like the action adventure, over the top heroic feel. Realism is for mooks not Heroes.
As a player I'm not a big fan of a GM who just tells me "you die" when the rules tell me I should be fine. I'd be a lot happier with the massive damage rule imposed. Only issue is that, if that kind of thing bothers you, at that level the save DC is maybe a little low so maybe scaling saving throws (scroll down a little).
Arsenic is DC12 1d2 CON. Any 12th level fighter can literally drink arsenic-cola with minimal worries.
On the other hand, a 12th level fighter with standard array will grapple a rhinoceros with a hand tied to his back too, so it's not like 12th level fighters are bound by natural world rules anymore. Rhinoceros CMD = 20. 12th lvl fighter with 13 str +2 human +3 lvls = 18str = +4 bonus, +12 BAB = +16 CMB. -4 for not having two free hands (a hand tied to his back) = +12. Need to get an 8 to grapple the rhinoceros. And that's a 12th lvl fighter with starting str 13, no magic item, and not a single feat devoted to grappling.
In practice it comes out to a 1 point per level increase, not fifty percent.Plus they increased wiz hit die to a d6 from a d4. 50% base HP increase was nothing to complain about.This is PF only. As someone who has played them, trust me 3.0/3.5 Wizards only have 1d4 hit dice. Not that it matters past the early levels, since your CON bonus will matter a lot more.
Pathfinder also added favored class bonus, which is another hp per level, and toughness is 1 hp per level instead of 3hp too, which means almost any wizard character that wish to do so can have +3 hp per level compared to a 3.5 equivalent even without CON bonus
In practice it comes out to a 1 point per level increase, not fifty percent.Plus they increased wiz hit die to a d6 from a d4. 50% base HP increase was nothing to complain about.This is PF only. As someone who has played them, trust me 3.0/3.5 Wizards only have 1d4 hit dice. Not that it matters past the early levels, since your CON bonus will matter a lot more.
Average on a D4 is 2.5. Average on a D6 is 3.5 so your right it is a 40% increase looking at only mathematical average but it is close enough that I stand by my statement, especially as the die size IS a 50% increase over the D4. 150% of 4 = 6.
In the end I do not think anyone can say that 3.X did not vastly increase character survivability compared to the previous editions, especially if you take into account the offensive increase handed to martial characters as compared to their pre 3.X counterparts. Overall better stats for your class from the point creation system, the assumption of stat improving items as the norm rather than luck because of the wealth by level guidelines, the ability to have stats past 18 and the increase of the value of stat bonuses along with the standardization of stat bonus distribution (a 16 strength before 3.X only gave a +1 damage for example).
I can't help wondering if there's any correlation between people who want "realistic" explanations of HP and people who felt the introduction of midichlorians was a good thing.
Oh come on we all know midichlorians was not a good thing. Don't we? By the Force I hope we do...
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I can't help wondering if there's any correlation between people who want "realistic" explanations of HP and people who felt the introduction of midichlorians was a good thing.Oh come on we all know midichlorians was not a good thing.
But more importantly, why?
But more importantly, why?I can't help wondering if there's any correlation between people who want "realistic" explanations of HP and people who felt the introduction of midichlorians was a good thing.Oh come on we all know midichlorians was not a good thing.
I believe it took away the mystical aspect of The Force, making it the result of biology.
But more importantly, why?I can't help wondering if there's any correlation between people who want "realistic" explanations of HP and people who felt the introduction of midichlorians was a good thing.Oh come on we all know midichlorians was not a good thing.
Because it was at its core, a bad explanation.
But you cannot use it as an excuse to beat to death the whole idea of having explanations. Midichlorians being a stupid idea does not mean trying to explore the nature of The Force itself is a stupid idea.
But more importantly, why?I can't help wondering if there's any correlation between people who want "realistic" explanations of HP and people who felt the introduction of midichlorians was a good thing.Oh come on we all know midichlorians was not a good thing.Because it was at its core, a bad explanation.
But you cannot use it as an excuse to beat to death the whole idea of having explanations. Midichlorians being a stupid idea does not mean trying to explore the nature of The Force itself is a stupid idea.
Midichlorians made the force into 'Dragon Ball Jedi' for me. And I personally am not a fan of DBZ. Too much grunting and staring with prettypretty lights.
Midichlorians are bed because they were introduced in Episode I
And I personally am not a fan of DBZ. Too much grunting and staring with prettypretty lights.
I thought I was the only one who noticed the grunting all the time.
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And I personally am not a fan of DBZ. Too much grunting and staring with prettypretty lights.I thought I was the only one who noticed the grunting all the time.
It's like half the show was gastrointestinal distress.
In practice it comes out to a 1 point per level increase, not fifty percent.Plus they increased wiz hit die to a d6 from a d4. 50% base HP increase was nothing to complain about.This is PF only. As someone who has played them, trust me 3.0/3.5 Wizards only have 1d4 hit dice. Not that it matters past the early levels, since your CON bonus will matter a lot more.Average on a D4 is 2.5. Average on a D6 is 3.5 so your right it is a 40% increase looking at only mathematical average but it is close enough that I stand by my statement, especially as the die size IS a 50% increase over the D4. 150% of 4 = 6.
I think his point was that, at higher level, your con bonus end being much more important than the die roll.
For example, if you have CON 14 and a +6 CON belt, not counting toughness and favored bonus, you have 1d4+5 or 1d6+5, which means 7.5 vs 8.5, or 13% more
It's like half the show was gastrointestinal distress.And I personally am not a fan of DBZ. Too much grunting and staring with prettypretty lights.I thought I was the only one who noticed the grunting all the time.
I'm not sure if he was being sarcastic, because pretty much anyone who's ever watched the show has noticed that. At least DBZ grunting has a reason. The comic was being made at the same time as the cartoon based upon it, and cartoons usually come out faster. This left the show runners scrambling to fill up time to slow the show down and not get ahead of the comic. Instead of adding a bit more dialogue or action, you just insert grunting. The other usual option is to create filler episodes, which has its own issues, as the quality is almost always worse. The rarely taken option is to go completely off the rails and just leave the comic behind. This is the path that Full Metal Alchemist took. And Game of Thrones is having to do the same thing.
For whatever reason, I just couldn't bear to watch it because of it. My son was young when it was first airing and he really enjoyed it. I much preferred the Pokemon show to it.
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Arsenic is DC12 1d2 CON. Any 12th level fighter can literally drink arsenic-cola with minimal worries.
That's one of the reasons I prefer the way that the pre-3.0 editions dealt with poison. You might make your save, but it's still poison, and most of them still had some sort of effect.
An interesting, completely non-RAW, take could be that certain types of damage (falling, poison, lava, etc), instead of causing a fixed amount of hit point damage, instead cause damage equal to a percentage of your at-full-health hit points.
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It's like half the show was gastrointestinal distress.And I personally am not a fan of DBZ. Too much grunting and staring with prettypretty lights.I thought I was the only one who noticed the grunting all the time.
From what I know about the show, Goku can beat anyone if he spends enough episodes in a state of severe constipation to prepare for the fight.
Arsenic is DC12 1d2 CON. Any 12th level fighter can literally drink arsenic-cola with minimal worries.That's one of the reasons I prefer the way that the pre-3.0 editions dealt with poison. You might make your save, but it's still poison, and most of them still had some sort of effect.
An interesting, completely non-RAW, take could be that certain types of damage (falling, poison, lava, etc), instead of causing a fixed amount of hit point damage, instead cause damage equal to a percentage of your at-full-health hit points.
Poison already does that, to some extent. It does CON damage, so it adds up quickly, and pure level isn't a factor, just constitution.
The problem, though, is the DC, a high level Char will pass it. It's a high fantasy game, which brings your character from fearing for his life when a goblin hits him with a shortsword, to being able to take multiple hits from colossal sized dragons. Those are two really different kind of challenges, and therefore the kind of challenges that scare you when you are afraid of goblins don't work well when you aren't afraid of dragons.
It's not only damage, though. A 5th lvl fighter can grapple a bull. A 10th lvl fighter can grapple a rhinoceros. A 15th lvl fighter can grapple an elephant. A 20th lvl fighter can grapple a whale.
Again, I don't think this is "all or nothing, black and white". I can have certain aspects be more realistic (like injury), but that doesn't mean I want to take away my fighter tearing his way out of a giant lizard (a thing that happened in a game). You can draw lines and say "I'm only going to do this differently" and be fine.
In short, the slippery slope can bite me.