Results 121 to 150 of 275
Thread: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
-
2016-08-26, 11:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2011
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
You do realize we can use spells or even inexpensive magic items to create food and water right? Or that that are any of several ways of simply creating an area it's literally impossible for the pathetic earthlings to access? Or that for all your talk of far advanced we are we somehow manage to teach children to live in it actively in just over a decade of active teaching? Oh or that those same children didn't have the advantage of being provably smarter than any human in recorded history by orders of magnitude and divinations to work with?
Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
Thread wins: 2
-
2016-08-26, 02:20 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Private Demiplane, from which the Wizard is astrally projecting?
How is the Wizard feeding themselves?
Paying for any of their material costs? It's not like they have anything that anyone would consider money, and trying to pass gold or other metallic coinage would be placing a giant blinking red sign saying: I AM UNUSUAL YOU SHOULD CHECK ME OUT; which is probably the opposite of what this supposedly intelligent wizard is going for.
No matter how intelligent the Wizard is, it's going to take them years if not decades to catch up on physics and have even a passing comprehension of how most technology works. These are people who have to paying 1000 gold for a primative clock. Imagine how they'd react to seeing modern tech like a car or plane. Those would blow their medieval little minds. They'd probably end up insane.
Beyond that, when a Wizard uses magic, it's not some unconscious understanding of the energies involved, or magic in their blood, or ****ing super-music, it's a wizard using their understanding of how energy and magic interact and using that knowledge to make the universe its bitch. The wizard is more than aware of the existence of Artificers who can bind magic into items with ease...hell, even the wizard can make a "flying machine". Now, the speed of such things might impress the wizard, and he would look into learning how things weird magic items function (even in an antimagic field)...at which point the Wizard retrains as mentioned above.
Currently Recruiting WW/Mafia: Logic's Deathloop Mafia and Cazero's Graduates Of Hope's Peak - Danganronpa Mafia
Avatar by AsteriskAmp
My Homebrew
-
2016-08-26, 02:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2014
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
- Gender
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
-
2016-08-26, 04:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
- Location
-
2016-08-26, 04:29 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Originally Posted by ryu
What area that's impossible to access and doesn't throw up the huge red flag that something strange is in this location? There's no way to escape notice. Even people of average to below average intelligence will quickly figure out that something odd is going on and investigate further. You do realize the jig will be up before even a week passes by right?
It still takes time to read and the Wizard has to actually get the information. You do realize a wizard can't scry if they have no connection and no knowledge of the people in question right? And even when scrying that doesn't give a close up on any materials, so they won't be reading diddly squat unless the subject happens to be reading it (close up) as well.
You do realize that the Wizard has no means at all of learning anything about the world through scrying, and to gain the ability to scry they'd have to deliberately expose themselves to risk right?
-
2016-08-26, 04:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Note to self: convenient plot armor is apparently purchasable for 1250 gp.
What area that's impossible to access and doesn't throw up the huge red flag that something strange is in this location? There's no way to escape notice. Even people of average to below average intelligence will quickly figure out that something odd is going on and investigate further. You do realize the jig will be up before even a week passes by right?
It still takes time to read and the Wizard has to actually get the information. You do realize a wizard can't scry if they have no connection and no knowledge of the people in question right? And even when scrying that doesn't give a close up on any materials, so they won't be reading diddly squat unless the subject happens to be reading it (close up) as well.
You do realize that the Wizard has no means at all of learning anything about the world through scrying, and to gain the ability to scry they'd have to deliberately expose themselves to risk right?
Currently Recruiting WW/Mafia: Logic's Deathloop Mafia and Cazero's Graduates Of Hope's Peak - Danganronpa Mafia
Avatar by AsteriskAmp
My Homebrew
-
2016-08-26, 04:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
- Location
- Clockwork Nirvana
- Gender
-
2016-08-26, 05:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Between Everlasting Rations, Everful Mug, Replenishing Skin, and the Decanter Of Endless Water, there's a lot of things that can protect a person from starvation and thirst fairly easily and for cheap. Now, I didn't bring up the 3.5 stuff because this is a PF thread, and that's almost guaranteed to result in some whiner crawling out of the woodwork, and that would just undermine the point. Yeah, 3.5 can do it cheaper (hell, Necropolitan gives you starvation/thirst immunity, and a pile of other immunities, basically for free), but even in pure Pathfinder, with just Core material, it's dirt-cheap.
Currently Recruiting WW/Mafia: Logic's Deathloop Mafia and Cazero's Graduates Of Hope's Peak - Danganronpa Mafia
Avatar by AsteriskAmp
My Homebrew
-
2016-08-26, 05:02 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
- Location
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Are we seriously asking how a wizard who is capable of taking over a government by charming and dominating the right people could possibly get food and shelter?
Wazzier the Wizard walks up to the door of a building and speaks to somebody there, asking where he might find food and shelter. He either uses charm person or dominate person to make this person host him, or he takes their advice and goes to a hotel to which he's been directed; at said hotel, he uses a similar procedure to get the manager to give him a free room and free room service.
Now, the latter might draw attention, but nothing he couldn't deal with by vanishing to another locale, or carefully and intelligently controlling decision-makers who look too closely.
Next, he asks some questions about gathering information, and hears of "Wikipedia" and "google" and learns how to use a computer and the internet. He gets one of his new best friends to show him how to use their tablets, or to help him pick out a laptop. Perhaps he even trades some service or goods that he can pass off in a subtle enough way - by now, of course, he's realized that nobody believes in magic, here.
There are hazards. A wizard who makes some poor moves can get himself harassed and into a hostile situation before he's really prepared. This complicates his ultimate victory, but also necessitates that he actually pursue it. If he were uninterested in it before, and he managed to be subtle enough, he could insert himself anywhere in society (or outside of it) he chose, given even a modicum of time.
-
2016-08-26, 07:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
It feels to me like this battle ought to take place on some third world, neither D&D (where all that tech is likely converted into magical artifacts), nor this world. One where magic and technology both work as their practitioners expect.
Also, IME, in most scenarios like this, both sides are aware that there is something they need to kill.
To get more concrete examples instead of theoretical wizard 20... I know nothing of Pathfinder, but here's how some of my D&D characters would interact with this scenario (in the most straightforward ways possible):
Quertus @ 20 would let the Chinese army fire at him, reload, and continue firing until they were all dead. Because they literally cannot harm him.
If they started dropping nukes, Quertus might bother to do the humanitarian thing, and the nukes would all mysteriously fail to explode.
Oh, and Quertus already understands modern tech, as well as technology far beyond what us "primitives" have discovered.
Armus @ 20 would hide and try to gather intelligence. ****, I don't speak their language. ****, this reminds me of stuff Quertus tried to tell me about, but his lectures were just so boring .
Unless the Chinese army has some really obscure sights, Armus could simply avoid them until they all die of old age, and declare victory. And loot the bodies.
Seras would theoretically experiment with various spells, to determine which was most effective. Creating storms to sicken and down the army seem like winners.
In practice, however, he would be shot, and his contingency would send him home... where he would probably die, depending on how mortal wounds are interpreted.
Naradin @ 20 would take the army out in melee, and, as an unintended insult, animate the dead. Rules as given, give or take pf vs 3.x, they would be unable to harm Naradin.
Raymond @ 20... Well, shortly after the "game" starts, all the Chinese communications equipment would be hijacked by a voice, speaking flawless Chinese, that would explain to them that their only possible recourse was to defect to his side... or die. Anyone who wanted to live would be required to prove their conversion by slaying at least 100 of their countrymen.
Of course, this message would be so convincing, the entire army would immediately become Raymond's fanatical followers, and begin murdering each other. Raymond would just sit back, smile, and watch the carnage.
And, yes, all of my characters have custom spells. Pathfinder does still have that concept, does it not?
Make me wizard 1, under 3.x rules, but trapped in this world, and I might just hit wizard 20 within a day.
We have humans.
Eh, not all my wizards are tactical geniuses. But most like to gather at least some intel when it is feasible to do so.
Ok, you've got me beat... and stumped. Can you do the same in 3.x?
-
2016-08-26, 07:51 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
- Gender
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Human wizard 1 with a flaw. Take Precocious Apprentice (Ray of Stupidity), along with Sanctum Spell so I can cast it as a 1st level spell, and Forceful Magic to stack on Sanctum Spell, to cast it as a cantrip. Craft some scrolls, which now cost almost nothing to make, since you're crafting them as cantrip scrolls. Now go to the local zoo, "hunt" an elephant there using your spell slots (since ray of stupidity is an auto-defeat, if you can hit its extremely low touch AC with your decent to-hit, so just don't roll a 1), and proceed to gain several levels, just from one elephant. Now take things like Split Ray and Chain Spell. Now go on a safari in Africa by liquidating a handful of gold pieces (using the time in transit to craft more scrolls), and knock a few herds of elephants unconscious using multi-targeted ray of stupidity. Make sure you have levitate prepared, in case you miss with your rays of stupidity via a natural 1; cast levitate before the fight, knock the elephants unconscious, and reap the sweet XP. You can then quickly and easily reach a high enough level to planar bind an efreeti (as herds of elephants have a higher CR than just a single elephant), whereupon you can wish for "a thought bottle, already attuned to me, containing enough experience points to allow me to reach level X" (with "X" being whatever level you want to be).
And there you go.Last edited by MaxiDuRaritry; 2016-08-26 at 07:52 PM.
⚣ Tanuki in the Playground. ⚣
-
2016-08-26, 08:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2014
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Please use they/them/theirs when referring to me in the third person.
My Homebrew (PF, 3.5)
Awesome Bone Knight avatar by Chd.
Spoiler: Current Characters
-
2016-08-26, 08:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
- Gender
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Last edited by MaxiDuRaritry; 2016-08-26 at 08:38 PM.
⚣ Tanuki in the Playground. ⚣
-
2016-08-27, 02:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2013
- Gender
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Wizards who manipulate the power of the multiverse, see into the future and distant planes of existences, who can contact entities older than some universes and divine powers, raise the dead and enslave the living and master the supernatural powers of their planes into his service.
And you think that seeing a car or plane will would break a Wizard's mind? Heh not likely...try mastering the universe then we can see whether something so blatantly simple would scare a master of reality shaping. Heck every day a Wizard makes Creation into his little slave.
Technically I think Google ascended to divinity already. Take a look at Iron Gods from PF.
http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Iron_God
-
2016-08-28, 04:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Except that what you are doing is denying the Chinese "the properties you normally associate with them". One of the properties normally associated with the Chiense army is that, if they shoot a person a few time that person will be dead or badly injured. By granting the wizard the ability to simply so "no" to most of the army's powers, then it properties have effectively been altered.
If one were to design a series of rules for the real world, they would likely include things like "nuclear blast damages all creatures within its area of effect". Going back to the tactic proposed on the wizard being incorporal - there is a direct contrast between those rules. And in each case there is an underlying assumption that the magic outcome trumps the non-magic one.
Not only are you denying the chinese army its properties, but you are denying them even the opportunity to know that it is possible to deny those powers. I think that is a clear stacking of the deck.
To use one of your examples, Goku vs Superman. That runs into the exact same problem as this scenario - you have to decide which rules (or which canon, or however you want to put it) prevail. If the sceanrio is that superman's invulnerability to all but kryptonite (I understand that's the premise, though I am not expert on superman) means that nothing Goku can do will ever hurt him, then you ARE effectively denying Goku's powers. I am not particularly familiar with Goku, but presumably you could the same thing vice versa. That is essentially what you are doing here.
-
2016-08-28, 04:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2014
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
- Gender
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Not at all; the Chinese army can do all they want to do, but the fact is that the Wizard's powers are better.
You haven't altered the capabilities of the Chinese army by allowing the Wizard to do his thing, all you've done is allowed the Wizard to do what Wizards do.
If the Chinese shot the Wizard without any protection, he'd probably die. But you seem to be assuming that the Wizard's powers somehow interfere with the Chinese - they don't. It's just that the Wizard is more powerful.
It's like if we tried comparing the US military to the military of Ancient Rome, and you said we were altering Rome's properties because it could win a war against any other nation at the time. It's simply not true - bringing something more powerful into play does not in any way change anything else.
-
2016-08-28, 04:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- Finland
- Gender
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
That's a feature of the Wizard (or more generally, D&D characters) though, not the Chinese or their weapons. Their weapons work just fine, it's just that particular guy can take a lot more hits than a human has any business being able to. Not that it matters, again, the Wizard is able to make himself invulnerable enough to Earth weapons that it's a moot point anyways if he gets to use his magic.
Campaign Journal: Uncovering the Lost World - A Player's Diary in Low-Magic D&D (Latest Update: 8.3.2014)
Being Bane: A Guide to Barbarians Cracking Small Men - Ever Been Angry?! Then this is for you!
SRD Averages - An aggregation of all the key stats of all the monster entries on SRD arranged by CR.
-
2016-08-28, 06:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
That's not true. In the real world action X has effect Y. For a wizard action Z stops effect Y. If X and Z both happen, does effect Y occur? Whichever way you rule it, you have made a decision to nerf one side's powers. By saying the "Wizard is just more powerful" you are simply deciding that the wizard's powers prevail.
I have given an example previously - In the real world, if you heat a human up enough, he dies. In DnD a wizard can cast spells that grant protection/immunity to fire damage. The physics or rules of which world prevail. It does not naturally flow that the DnD rules prevail - that is just an assumption or ruling that you are making.
It's like if we tried comparing the US military to the military of Ancient Rome, and you said we were altering Rome's properties because it could win a war against any other nation at the time. It's simply not true - bringing something more powerful into play does not in any way change anything else.
The property of being able to "win a war against any other nation at the time" is not altered because altered if the Roman's are unable to beat an army from a different time. There is no clash between the physics or rules that apply to the Roman army and those that apply to modern armies.
There may be environmental issues in a roman army vs US army context. If the war was set 2000 years ago, the modern army would have no runways for its planes, no extra fuel for its vehicles and no extra bullets for its guns. But those difficulties are not nearly so difficult to overcome as a a wizard vs an army because at least the underlying rules and concepts are the same.
-
2016-08-28, 06:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
That's only true because you are taking it that the concepts from DnD to trump those from the real world.
For example, if the rule (I use the word rule so we can deal with this encounter in game terms) for nuclear weapons was "kills all creatures in its area of effect" and the wizard's spell said "avoids all damage from non-magical sources", there is a contradiction. I think most people here are coming from the assumption that the DnD rule prevails. I know that there are a myriad of ways people are saying the wizard could avoid attacks, but for most of those there is an inherent assumption that a DnD rule prevails over the ways things work in the real world (all of which could be re-conceptualised as rules).
As I said on the previous page:
Seems to me that there are three general ways of handling it:
1. This occurs on something that is the real world, but with the wizard inserted into it. There is no magic or planes or incorporality or way to trump physics by staying alive at thousands of degrees celsius. The wizard (who would still be a pf wizard despite not being able to use his magic) loses.
2. This occurs on something that is basically the DnD world (or the real world made to function by DnD rules), with the chinese inserted into it. The Chinese' understanding of the way the world functions is wrong and their weapons don't have the effects they ordinarily would. The Chinese have no opportunity to learn how to function on this world or to interact (resist or control) the new concepts therein. The Chinese lose.
3. This occurs on a hypothetical world where DnD concepts such as magic, planes and incorporality exist and are known to exist. Both sides have the opportunity to adapt to the altered surroundings. For example, if the rules of this world are that nuclear radiation effect incorporeals the wizard would probably know this and would not rely on incorporeality to avoid nuclear blasts, it may even research a resist radiation type spell. The Chinese would not employ magic themselves (that going against the core concept here) but may develop technological solutions to deal with some of the new concepts this world entails - maybe a technological way to change planes.
It seems to me that the first and second are like the shark and bear fight in deep water or on land. In either case the result is obvious because the environment stacks the deck. The third is far from perfect (what happens when physics conflicts with magic?, what tech solutions would the chinese have is they existed in the alternative world?) but it seems to be to be the only scenario where both parties have the opportunity to bring their power to bear on the other in any meaningful way. Maybe analogous to the shark vs bear in shallow water.
The original poster has clarified that he was thinking of the second scenario, or a variation thereof. That's fine, it's his thread. But in that case I think the answer is obvious.
-
2016-08-28, 06:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2014
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
- Gender
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
It's very simple.
It is not an intrinsic property of, say, bullets to be lethal. Bullets are only lethal to things that are vulnerable to slugs of metal moving at high velocities. It just happens that known all life forms in our universe are vulnerable to that. But a Wizard, with the powers attributed to a Wizard, can become immune to them. That doesn't change the properties of the weapon, or the army wielding the weapon, any more than becoming immune to poison changes the properties of a poison.
Following your earlier example, heat isn't inherently damaging or lethal; we're just vulnerable to it. Wizards can expressly become immune to the negative effects of heat, but that doesn't make heat any different.
-
2016-08-28, 06:58 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
The general assumption for things like this is that the real-world thing is represented with game statistics. The rules of D&D can be easily used to simulate the IRL Chinese army and all their weapons, but there's no baseline for knowing how a D&D character adheres to the rules of reality.
Our options are "real world thing is simulated using PF rules", "PF thing is simulated using real-world rules", or "real world thing and PF thing are simulated with a system of rules that oerfectly adheres to both IRL physics and PF rules". The third case is basically impossible to discuss, because RAW isn't fully on speaking terms with physicsor common sense; the second case is basically impossibleto discuss because the conversation would begin and end with "magic is impossible IRL, so they can't do magic"; only the first case, where everything is put into PF rules, can we have some idda of how the conflict would go down.
Currently Recruiting WW/Mafia: Logic's Deathloop Mafia and Cazero's Graduates Of Hope's Peak - Danganronpa Mafia
Avatar by AsteriskAmp
My Homebrew
-
2016-08-28, 07:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- Finland
- Gender
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
That requires doing magical things with technology to be possible; an assumption unsupported by the lack of such effects in the technological side of the various RPG systems or indeed, the lack of a known planar cosmology in real world as we know it as well as non-magical d20 variants. Chances are magic can do things that are impossible without it and thus the Chinese Army will, no matter how advanced, have to face an adversary with capabilities they can never match. Indeed, that tends to be the very definition of magic; producing matter/energy out of thin air, moving things instantaneously, creating worlds, ending worlds, resurrecting the dead, travelling back in time, et cetera. D&D magic at least doesn't seem to be superadvanced technology given all it takes is some arcane handwaving, bat guano and few choice words to shatter conservation of energy.
Anyways, if codifying things as rules, DnD has the rule of specific trumping general. That's how all immunities work. So if we have a rule "nukes kill everything" and another rule "doesn't die", "doesn't die" trumps the "kill everything" since "kill everything" is a generic effect that tries to do precisely what the immunity protects from; this applies regardless what system which rule comes from. Though this is a rather strange way to codify nukes: there are plenty of known nuclear survivors after all (of course not at the exact ground zero and these are from small oldschool fission bombs, not modern fusion bombs). Nukes just cause intense heat and extreme radiation; vast majority of the fatalities are due to heat. Lethal radiation overdose is a minor factor. If we have a Wizard who is utterly immune to heat, bringing out Radiation would be relevant but chances are radiation falls under some type of actual damage or attribute damage and is thus irrelevant with magical protections that address those generic categories
However, I posit that's all irrelevant too. As long as the Wizard's magic functions, I posit we can solve this in favor of the Wizard in any number of ways without a single shot being fired (at the real Wizard; shots are fired constantly in the real world so that probably can't be prevented in the short term). Being able to talk with deities, gate in angels, travel planes, teleport, become incorporeal, astrally project, resurrect, produce self-replicating undead, see the future, rewrite minds, etc. without needing any real equipment to speak of is all just on such a different level of power compared to anything our world has access to at the present that it is a non-contest. Like, even other similarly empowered creatures have trouble harming each other; let alone anyone unable to cast Disjunction.
Hell, even assuming it being physically possible to access other planes of existence...how long would it take for the world's best scientists to figure out how to access them? Without a real place to start (they probably don't have convenient deities to ask), pretty damn long I wager. 5 years? 10 years? Longer? We don't exactly have much for the physicists to go off; they'd have to create something from scratch. And then go from that to actually building usable technology to that end and then building scanners to actually locate extraplanar creatures and then to find this one particular creature on some plane... I don't see it happening in the time it takes for a Wizard to learn what he wishes to learn and then her projections, planar bound/gated fiends and company to dominate everybody relevant and bring about a nuclear apocalypse, shadowcalypse, wightocalypse, global flood, barren Earth or whatever (though I still don't get why she'd do that).Campaign Journal: Uncovering the Lost World - A Player's Diary in Low-Magic D&D (Latest Update: 8.3.2014)
Being Bane: A Guide to Barbarians Cracking Small Men - Ever Been Angry?! Then this is for you!
SRD Averages - An aggregation of all the key stats of all the monster entries on SRD arranged by CR.
-
2016-08-28, 07:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Gender
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Even if you kept the "rules" that modern rifles can instantly kill anything they hit and Nukes vaporize anything in their area with no chance of survival Etherial or not, I'd still be placing my bets on the Wizard once he starts playing Subtle. Nobody is going to nuke their own country for one unknown pointy hat guy and rifles arent going to do much against an invisible gnat controling people from hundreds of yards away.
-
2016-08-28, 10:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
I'm not sure that you are right that heat is not inherently damaging.
It is my understanding that it a principle of physics that all solids change their state when sufficient heat is applied. The change in state may be liquefaction, sublimation or incineration. That is not something that merely happens to people who are vulnerable, it's something that happens to all solids.
As such there is a direct contradiction between the physics/rules of this world and of the 3.5 world. This is just an example of many such contradictions.
What you are saying is the equivilent to me saying "all humans are immune to magic effects including compulsion, as are all objects and the environment of the real world". That is not an unreasonable assertion - for all we know it may be true (where I think we know with some certainty that there is nothing that it immune to heat). If I make this assertion, I could use your above words, but exchange a few words as so:
Following your earlier example, magic isn't inherently damaging or lethal; DnD creatures are just vulnerable to it. Real world humans are immune to the negative effects of magic, but that doesn't make magic any different.
-
2016-08-28, 11:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Rather than saying "putting things into pathfinder rules" it would be better to say "using a pathfinder rules system to govern both sides". The difference is, in my view, that not all conflicts between the real world and pathfinder must be resolved in pathfinder's favour. The pathfinder rules could accomodate, I assume, the concept of sufficient heat causing death regardless of spell protection. It could handle the concept of alternative planes not existing. etc
-
2016-08-28, 11:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
This seems to be the crux of the issue, which I brought up earlier: this topic (D&D thing IRL) is difficult to discuss because D&D works far too differently from reality; we either have to say one trumps the other (and deal with the ensuing whining from whichever side is getting the shaft) or we have to cobble together a system where D&D mechanics and physics can coexist without imploding. Naturally, putting up with some whining is far easier than attempting to design a system of rules that is fair to both 3.5 and physics. From there, we look at both sides and ask "if this side took precedence over the other side as a general rule, would that be easy to understand and would it lead to interesting discussion?"
If real-life physics takes precedence over D&D mechanics, we either have to figure out how magic adheres to physical laws, or we have to declare that it doesn't work because magic doesn't exist IRL. Magic that makes sense according to physics is difficult to understand, and declaring that magic just doesn't work IRL is not interesting to discuss.
Now, if D&D mechanics takes precedence over IRL physics, we have to figure out what the effective stats of IRL people are, or we have to declare that technology doesn't function because magic. The latter would require explaining why magic screws with nearby technology (difficult to explain properly) and would be boring to discuss anyway; the former (statting up IRL things) is easy; hell, half the work is done for us! Guns are already a thing in Pathfinder, and the well-known Alexandrian article "Calibrating Your Expectations" does a good job explaining why IRL people probably aren't ever more than the equivalent of 6th lvl or so. Using the rules of D&D, we can simulate real-world things in a way that's both simple to discuss and can lead to interesting discussion.
Edit: Just saying "well, sometimes one can have precedence and the other won't" isn't going to actually solve anything, because it gets people arguing about whether their precedent is more important than yours. There's no such thing as fire immunity IRL, so Wizards who have spelled themselves to be immune to fire shouldn't be able to bathe in lava, since that would kill a person IRL, right? But then, does that mean that a fire elemental (also immune to fire damage) is also not actually immune to heat? And if you say "well, the fire elemental is immune because it's made of fire, so fire doesn't hurt it", what if the wizard (who is a squishy human who cannot survive contact with lava) shapechanges into a fire elemental? Would a lava bath still kill him, since that's just him giving himself a buff for Fire Immunity, or should he live because now he's a fire elemental?Last edited by AvatarVecna; 2016-08-28 at 11:15 PM.
Currently Recruiting WW/Mafia: Logic's Deathloop Mafia and Cazero's Graduates Of Hope's Peak - Danganronpa Mafia
Avatar by AsteriskAmp
My Homebrew
-
2016-08-28, 11:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
First, I don't think that particular assertion on my part does require an assumption that it is possible to do magical things with technology. The idea that nuclear blast kills all things is not putting a magical property on it - that's simply what it does. My proposition is that we cannot assume that magic resists a nuclear blast.
Second, I disagree that there is little evidence of technology being able to replicate magic effects. In several DnD settings (this may not apply to pthfinder I admit) there are technological effects that replicate magic - I recall a gnome steam powered vessel from Dragonlance that went to the moon. Likewise, in real life we are able to do things that would appear magical to DnD people, like instant communication across continents.
Anyways, if codifying things as rules, DnD has the rule of specific trumping general. That's how all immunities work. So if we have a rule "nukes kill everything" and another rule "doesn't die", "doesn't die" trumps the "kill everything" since "kill everything" is a generic effect that tries to do precisely what the immunity protects from; this applies regardless what system which rule comes from. Though this is a rather strange way to codify nukes: there are plenty of known nuclear survivors after all (of course not at the exact ground zero and these are from small oldschool fission bombs, not modern fusion bombs). Nukes just cause intense heat and extreme radiation; vast majority of the fatalities are due to heat. Lethal radiation overdose is a minor factor. If we have a Wizard who is utterly immune to heat, bringing out Radiation would be relevant but chances are radiation falls under some type of actual damage or attribute damage and is thus irrelevant with magical protections that address those generic categories
On the other hand, it seems to me that radiation damage is quite specific - how does heat immunity help with it?
However, I posit that's all irrelevant too. As long as the Wizard's magic functions, I posit we can solve this in favor of the Wizard in any number of ways without a single shot being fired (at the real Wizard; shots are fired constantly in the real world so that probably can't be prevented in the short term). Being able to talk with deities, gate in angels, travel planes, teleport, become incorporeal, astrally project, resurrect, produce self-replicating undead, see the future, rewrite minds, etc. without needing any real equipment to speak of is all just on such a different level of power compared to anything our world has access to at the present that it is a non-contest. Like, even other similarly empowered creatures have trouble harming each other; let alone anyone unable to cast Disjunction.
Here though, you are addressing winning through less direct means. The next poster makes the same point, so I will address my answer to him so you can both see it.
Hell, even assuming it being physically possible to access other planes of existence...how long would it take for the world's best scientists to figure out how to access them? Without a real place to start (they probably don't have convenient deities to ask), pretty damn long I wager. 5 years? 10 years? Longer? We don't exactly have much for the physicists to go off; they'd have to create something from scratch. And then go from that to actually building usable technology to that end and then building scanners to actually locate extraplanar creatures and then to find this one particular creature on some plane... I don't see it happening in the time it takes for a Wizard to learn what he wishes to learn and then her projections, planar bound/gated fiends and company to dominate everybody relevant and bring about a nuclear apocalypse, shadowcalypse, wightocalypse, global flood, barren Earth or whatever (though I still don't get why she'd do that).
-
2016-08-28, 11:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
-
2016-08-28, 11:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
I agree with most of that except the bolded statement. The problem is that if we put everything in pathfinder terms (and don't give the chinese the opportunity to adapt to the new rules of the game) there is not much interesting discussion - the wizard simply wins. I also think it is just as easy to impose real world rules - but equally boring because then the wizard simply loses.
But you are right that there is no good alternative. The middle ground I proposed (and you address in your edit) is not a practical alternative because who is going to design the hybrid rules - there will certainly be no consensus.
-
2016-08-28, 11:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
Re: PF Wizard 20 VS China Army?
Honestly, the thing that makes this entire discussion difficult to have is that Wizards can be cheesed out enough to auto-win against our entire planet. I think if we limited the higher-op stuff, putting everything into D&D mechanics and discussing what happens would be much easier and more interesting. Of course, then we'd have an argument about what constitutes "high-op"...
I think the best way to limit the cheese factor would be to not allow full casters. Best you can get is a 6th lvl caster like a Bard. Yeah, that would be an interesting discussion: a PF Bard 20 appears in some secluded part of China, with a Geas placed on them to either take down the Chinese government, or to take over the world, or something similar. Using their relatively limited spellcasting, martial prowess, and utility belt full of skill tricks, can they succeed?
Currently Recruiting WW/Mafia: Logic's Deathloop Mafia and Cazero's Graduates Of Hope's Peak - Danganronpa Mafia
Avatar by AsteriskAmp
My Homebrew