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Clistenes
2019-08-05, 08:02 PM
I was thinking of a world like 3.5, where everybody follows PC rules, rather than a world like 5e, where NPCs don't follow PC rules.

I have read about the Tippyverse, or course, but what intrigues me now is, how would a society where you could acquire superpowers by beating challenges look like?

Of course, there would be people who couldn't be bothered to try... there are people who can't be bothered to study or to learn a proper job in real life, and many of us live shorter lives because we can't be bothered to exercise regularly...

But people who did bother to try could become very powerful by facing challenges under controlled conditions... colleges, universities, academies and training camps would send their pupils to megadungeons built with the held of successful alumni... said megadungeons wouldn't even need to be slaughterhouses like classical D&D dungeons, but just a sort of obstacles and challenges circuit...

If said colleges didn't exist... well people could still explore the wilderness in search of challenges, fight each other (Fight Club style) or enlist in the army during war (or what the hell, start a war so they have people to fight!).

And if people of power tried to use force to stop commoners to level up... they would risk creating their own nemesis, by sending challenges on the way of their future enemies...

Mmmm... that kinda reminds me of the world of Wuxia and Xianxia chinese novels...

Elves
2019-08-05, 08:42 PM
Not interesting because the xp rules are already based on a simplified abstraction of reality. Literalizing that abstraction and then feeding it back out gets you something either cartoonized or parodic.

As far as settings like Tippyverse that don't take the rules themselves literally, just try to reason out the effects of the world they describe, I think that can be more fun and this thread tries to detail that more for 3.5 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?593513-Sketching-Out-A-High-Magic-Setting).

Mechalich
2019-08-05, 08:55 PM
To properly conduct this sort of thought experiment you have to do more than simply say that the world operates by 3.5 rules. You also need to very clearly determine the start conditions for your experiment in order to determine how your world might evolve.

The most common scenario for a 3.5 world starts with some not-even-close-to-human race or races in power (aboleth, dragons, etc.) and, because they have vastly enhanced capabilities to any humanoids below them, so long as they are suitably vigilant they'll rule forever without outside intervention.

Assuming some form of outside intervention happens, they you've triggered the race for ultimate magical power, as the first person to hit 9th prepared casting can make themselves a demiplane, coat the world in simulacra, and then remake the world in their image pretty much un-oppossed.

ElFi
2019-08-05, 08:58 PM
Please ignore any responders that preface their post with "not interesting". No point in engaging with people who can't be bothered to engage with you. As for your question...

The Wandering Inn (https://wanderinginn.com/) is a web serial that essentially takes that exact question (what if classes, levels, etc. were real concepts that could be qualified and organized?) and applies it to a mostly-realistic fantasy setting. What changes? Not much, really, though you're free to read it for yourself if you'd like to see how the writer handles everything.

Outside of that particular world, I think it depends on how much people would try to game the system, and how exploitable it is in the first place. Does XP from lower-level threats yield diminishing returns, or do adventurers (and enterprising monsters) scour low-level villages to reap tons of experience for little work? Is multiclassing an option, and if so, how do you qualify for multiple classes? Do you have a class from birth, or (as the rules seem to apply) start as a Commoner and then trade your single level for another class when the option presents itself? It's a lot of questions, and a little late for me to try and answer most of them. But I think workshopping that sort of thing out would yield a lot of potential answers.

Vknight
2019-08-05, 09:42 PM
Order of the Stick i would say or at least early order since anyone can have pc stuff and everyone rolls stats

Lord Raziere
2019-08-05, 09:54 PM
If everyone was a PC?

lets assume that something interesting happens for starters, and that its sufficiently different from the real world as to be worth thinking about it. I will ignore all comments vaguely saying "no that wouldn't happen" as a result. I am not going to waste time justifying why this happens instead of this other thing that might happen.


I was thinking of a world like 3.5, where everybody follows PC rules, rather than a world like 5e, where NPCs don't follow PC rules.

I have read about the Tippyverse, or course, but what intrigues me now is, how would a society where you could acquire superpowers by beating challenges look like?

People would value the superpowers and try to figure out the ways to acquire them. they will name the process of acquiring them something like "Enlightenment" of "Epiphany" or "Revelation" or something to that effect- that when put in the situation and forced to try, you just suddenly.....get it. and that no amount of practice can prepare you for this. so they have to make these situations as life like as possible.....until they're just flat out recreating the situation because, the more danger, the more authenticity, the more challenge involved. no risk, no reward. So they make these dungeons as trials and coming of age rituals, there is no such thing as colleges or academia- those don't really make sense. all that you learn is through doing, through having a sudden revelation after overcoming something. the only books that are written are the ones that are challenging and dangerous to read, because those are the only ones you learn anything from.

every book poses a danger to you. a geography book is only useful by putting you in a situation where you need to use geography to survive and overcome a challenge. or books that are so cryptic that the only way to learn by anything is by deciphering the intentionally hard to figure out ways it teaches the material.

thus a "fly or die" mindset is the name of education in this world. rote learning and tests simply do not work. all learning is in application. if you don't do it, you simply fail and probably die. all learning is risky, all lessons require bravery. Therefore education and learning favors the bold, the courageous and the foolish. the cautious simply do not learn anything because they don't try anything. knowledge is delivered in leaps and bounds through sudden revelations rather than slow tidbits of memorization. Therefore children would be encouraged to be as brave and reckless as possible, its the only way they will learn anything in this world. a parent who keeps their children safe would simply never arise or at least, not be a successful parent!

This leads to an alien world, children grow up being told to be as reckless as possible as fast as possible to prove that they can learn anything at all from overcoming challenges and are sent out at early ages to the trials to prove which classes challenges they are most talented at overcoming thus leading to early Epiphanies, but also many deaths and the families not mourning them very much because hey those children didn't live long now if they lived long, and had more promise and were showing they were incredibly talented at overcoming challenges that would be more sad, but you can't raise a child without making sure they experience the most dangerous scenarios possible to awaken their potential or they won't learn anything just staying in a room reading this or that or listening to someone else speak unless your throwing them into another culture so they can overcome the massive challenge of learning that culture all on their own including their language.

in fact, why even raise the child yourself at all? you care too much about them, you as a parent will keep them too safe of an environment to allow them to grow. the most optimal parenting strategy in this world is to in fact, take your child once they can speak, so about 5, and abandon them in a nation where they know no one, can't speak the language and need to figure how to do everything in life all by themselves and work their way up from nothing without any protection or guidance, I mean if you want to be able to see them you can be lazy and abandon them at the local military trial dungeon and hope they survive, but then they will miss out on important life skills because they weren't challenged enough to develop them like social skills or how to make friends.

Therefore it inherently leads to a culture of recklessness, abandoning children, encouraging people to do dangerous stupid things for the sake of maybe learning something from it, and the smartest most educated people also being the most foolish and fearless. and since they're the most educated people, they are the ones that are the most right, therefore their reckless advice and smarts is what is taught over and over again, therefore that recklessness is whats passed on, and it leads to a species of people that have little if any concept of caution or running away when overcoming danger and challenges is how they learn and thus gain positive reinforcement through. safety precautions would fall by the wayside so as to optimize potential challenge people can face in any situation and thus learn and grow stronger, all of society would become a death trap, and anyone who protests against this would be seen as cowardly.

you'd get an entire civilization of shonen protagonists. to us they would look incredibly stupid and without any survival instinct.

NichG
2019-08-05, 10:16 PM
To properly conduct this sort of thought experiment you have to do more than simply say that the world operates by 3.5 rules. You also need to very clearly determine the start conditions for your experiment in order to determine how your world might evolve.

The most common scenario for a 3.5 world starts with some not-even-close-to-human race or races in power (aboleth, dragons, etc.) and, because they have vastly enhanced capabilities to any humanoids below them, so long as they are suitably vigilant they'll rule forever without outside intervention.


Perhaps by the fluff, but by the rules almost all of the monstrous races are massively underpowered compared to your garden variety human. LA and RHD are huge disadvantages and dragons are stuck on a fixed level-vs-time curve that means they'll be waiting years or decades for their next HD, while other characters could readily be shooting up in levels over the course of a few weeks.

If anything, I think the scenario looks more like the spread of antibiotic-resistant diseases in the modern world. You might have an established power who can at their whim wipe out large portions of the unleveled masses of the LA-0 races, but every time they exercise that power anyone who was at the fringes of their purge and got lucky enough to survive or run away makes significant progress towards their next level. The more those powerful creatures actually try to exercise their power, the more rapidly resistance appears on a timescale that outpaces their own growth scale so much that, should they allow a Lv9 or Lv10 character to exist, they're basically done for.

Mechalich
2019-08-05, 10:34 PM
Perhaps by the fluff, but by the rules almost all of the monstrous races are massively underpowered compared to your garden variety human. LA and RHD are huge disadvantages and dragons are stuck on a fixed level-vs-time curve that means they'll be waiting years or decades for their next HD, while other characters could readily be shooting up in levels over the course of a few weeks.

If anything, I think the scenario looks more like the spread of antibiotic-resistant diseases in the modern world. You might have an established power who can at their whim wipe out large portions of the unleveled masses of the LA-0 races, but every time they exercise that power anyone who was at the fringes of their purge and got lucky enough to survive or run away makes significant progress towards their next level. The more those powerful creatures actually try to exercise their power, the more rapidly resistance appears on a timescale that outpaces their own growth scale so much that, should they allow a Lv9 or Lv10 character to exist, they're basically done for.

I don't think you're quite considering the start conditions properly. Yes, if humanoids start in a quasi-medieval scenario with magic, and steel, and the ability to make magic items from the beginning, they have all the power, but if you start in the Stone Age it's rather different.

First of all, the numeric considerations change, as the masses of humanoids become a lot less massive when they're restricted to hunter-gatherer existences. If the total population of the planet is only 5-10 million humanoids, a few thousand aboleth or a few hundred dragons could easily exterminate or enslave them all before they power up to anything useful. Especially given how much lower-powered the first generation of adventurers would be. Whole classes simply are not possible because the technologies aren't available, most significantly all prepared arcane casters, and divine casters stuck with stone age weapons and only the very basic magic items they can make themselves are so much weaker. And of course, without proper weaponry and spell support the chances of surviving your way up the level curve as an LA +0 species are drastically reduced. Heck, even if people somehow manage to hit level 9, you still can't raise the dead in a stone age environment because most of the world has no access to diamonds yet.

Vknight
2019-08-05, 10:42 PM
I like the ideas we are getting from this

NichG
2019-08-05, 10:58 PM
I don't think you're quite considering the start conditions properly. Yes, if humanoids start in a quasi-medieval scenario with magic, and steel, and the ability to make magic items from the beginning, they have all the power, but if you start in the Stone Age it's rather different.

First of all, the numeric considerations change, as the masses of humanoids become a lot less massive when they're restricted to hunter-gatherer existences. If the total population of the planet is only 5-10 million humanoids, a few thousand aboleth or a few hundred dragons could easily exterminate or enslave them all before they power up to anything useful. Especially given how much lower-powered the first generation of adventurers would be. Whole classes simply are not possible because the technologies aren't available, most significantly all prepared arcane casters, and divine casters stuck with stone age weapons and only the very basic magic items they can make themselves are so much weaker. And of course, without proper weaponry and spell support the chances of surviving your way up the level curve as an LA +0 species are drastically reduced. Heck, even if people somehow manage to hit level 9, you still can't raise the dead in a stone age environment because most of the world has no access to diamonds yet.

That seems like the injection of fluff details that disagree with the rules. Again, if we're talking about the fluff, I don't necessarily disagree with this position. But the rules say that someone can pick Wizard as their class and will start with a spellbook, a couple of spells, etc - and that this action of choosing one's class does not have any explicit dependence on the existence of wizarding schools, access to industrial process, etc. There are plenty of 'alternate spellbook' options in Complete Arcane that expand the starting possibilities to lower tech levels (you can record your spells in tattoos, for example), but if we're talking about the world predicted by the rules rather than the world predicted by D&D's fiction, then e.g. 'the ability for characters to pick their class' has to be preserved by any valid 'starting condition'.

Anyhow, you really don't need masses of humans. 1 million humanoids by the DMG demographics means you're going to have about 1 Lv20 character of a random class (I rolled one up on d20srd and got a Lv20 Commoner, but I also got 3 Lv16 Wizards).

If we don't take those demographics as strict rules, but rather simulate individual histories of characters, then we could imagine a 'death-match to godhood' type of situation where we ask how many fellow humans one human would have to kill to hit Lv20. It's four encounters against equal CR opposition per level (these don't strictly speaking have to be to the death). If we do this by pairing up equal-CR opponents, we can burn 1 million lives to make a single Lv11 character, 4 Lv10 characters, 16 Lv9 characters, 64 Lv8 characters, etc. I'd probably not bother to go above Lv5 or so if this was my strategy for killing the dragon overlords - get large armies of wizards using Hail of Stone (Spell Compendium version) to take out high-level targets in a way that ignores SR, saves, DR, and AC. This would give me about 4000 such wizards; each does 12.5 unavoidable damage on their action at 150ft range, so groups of 20 of them will do for most threats in the Monster Manual.

A much more efficient strategy would be to rush Last Breath so that the fodder of these death matches can actually be raised at the same level to provide a challenge for the next group. At that point, you could basically train a Lv20 army in a year; you'd basically totally blow past the DMG demographics though.

Mechalich
2019-08-06, 03:23 AM
That seems like the injection of fluff details that disagree with the rules. Again, if we're talking about the fluff, I don't necessarily disagree with this position.

The rules are meant to represent a D&D world (or worlds, actually, since Planescape and Spelljammer establish a shared multiversal history) that has been around for a while and has evolved to it's current status, not one that's created ex nihilo. The gods don't roll on the demographics tables and 'bamf' a bunch of high-level beings into existence.

I mean, I suppose you could run that thought experiment, but it's fairly bland. Only people with 9th level prepared casting matter (assuming no epic levels, which you must assume or everything becomes exponentially more ridiculous), and they fight it out in a giant 5d-chess death match that resolves in a matter of a few days at most and tears the world mostly apart in collateral damage. Someone or some faction wins and gets to keep the planet, everyone else either dies or flies off into the depths of the multiverse, the winners reshape the world according to their designs.

3.X D&D magic is simply too powerful to allow stability. High-optimization prepared casters with access to 9th level spells are both unstoppable forces and immovable objects at the same time and the inevitable conflicts between them involve energies larger than can be contained in that slim sliver of planet between the crust and space. Any setting that exists with any high level Tier I characters cannot be stable save through special pleading. The Forgotten Realms is the most open about this - Ed Greenwood used Elminster as his mouthpiece in the sidebar of the campaign setting labelled 'the role of the mighty' - but they all need it, even Planescape, which relies on the tacit acknowledgement that 99.9% of the multiverse is controlled by almighty overlords with infinite spells and minions and you're playing in the 0.1% that might be shifted back and forth.

NichG
2019-08-06, 04:10 AM
The rules are meant to represent a D&D world (or worlds, actually, since Planescape and Spelljammer establish a shared multiversal history) that has been around for a while and has evolved to it's current status, not one that's created ex nihilo. The gods don't roll on the demographics tables and 'bamf' a bunch of high-level beings into existence.

Well, it doesn't have to be quite so direct, but generally if we're discussing 'what if by RAW' type things, we should assume that any hidden or unstated aspects of the world give rise to outcomes consistent with whatever is stated explicitly. So the generative method to get the demographics may be e.g. 'these represent the distribution of latent talent and inclination that governs the decisions of NPCs - on average, NPCs make life decisions that give rise to this distribution'.

We could just as well have a thread 'what would the D&D rules look like if the world they produced matched D&D's presumed fictional tropes?'. Actually, I think that would be an interesting thread and probably a constructive thing given that many people might want to run such a world but be stymied by RAW exploits and the like.



I mean, I suppose you could run that thought experiment, but it's fairly bland. Only people with 9th level prepared casting matter (assuming no epic levels, which you must assume or everything becomes exponentially more ridiculous), and they fight it out in a giant 5d-chess death match that resolves in a matter of a few days at most and tears the world mostly apart in collateral damage. Someone or some faction wins and gets to keep the planet, everyone else either dies or flies off into the depths of the multiverse, the winners reshape the world according to their designs.

3.X D&D magic is simply too powerful to allow stability. High-optimization prepared casters with access to 9th level spells are both unstoppable forces and immovable objects at the same time and the inevitable conflicts between them involve energies larger than can be contained in that slim sliver of planet between the crust and space. Any setting that exists with any high level Tier I characters cannot be stable save through special pleading. The Forgotten Realms is the most open about this - Ed Greenwood used Elminster as his mouthpiece in the sidebar of the campaign setting labelled 'the role of the mighty' - but they all need it, even Planescape, which relies on the tacit acknowledgement that 99.9% of the multiverse is controlled by almighty overlords with infinite spells and minions and you're playing in the 0.1% that might be shifted back and forth.

Planescape has the interesting stabilizing factor that it throws around infinities like popcorn. Those infinities make it hard to make statements like 99.9% is controlled, 0.1% isn't, because 0.1% of infinity is still infinity. So godlike casters only have the ability to matter globally through lynchpins that connect the finite to the infinite. Otherwise, they dominate locally, but that 'local' only extends inasmuch as they personally and directly choose to care about. Plus the setting has a number of local->global lynchpins that are essentially under limited permission engagement (e.g. Sigil, where if you do throw around spells that could tear apart reality, there's an explicit 'you get killed by something that doesn't bother to follow the rules of cause and effect' clause in the form of the Lady). So in Planescape at least, I think the results are legitimately quite heterogeneous and complex in principle via a combination of bypasses, stability through negligence, and general methods for dilution. The graph of threats you need to personally worry about when living your life in Planescape is more about who you have interacted with than where you are physically (since you can always lose yourself in an infinite space, but someone who specifically knows that they want to find you can always in principle do so).

In more confined settings, yes, you're generally going to be looking at a fundamentally unstable world. But actually, that's pretty standard RPG fare, right? Every week the heroes have to save the world against whatever the next threat is. And if that threat wins and establishes a world-wide dominance, its own enforcers find that they too need to defend against a threat to overthrow them on a weekly basis. Only total annihilation is stable, and that's actually quite hard to achieve since high level D&D magic tends to provide more absolute protections than absolute attacks on the whole. So that too might have some interesting consequences.

Xuc Xac
2019-08-06, 02:56 PM
Geometry would be a lot easier because pi equals exactly 4.

RedMage125
2019-08-06, 04:27 PM
Geometry would be a lot easier because pi equals exactly 4.

You always round fractions down in 3.5.

Particle_Man
2019-08-06, 04:42 PM
I wonder if governments would sponsor more armed forces martial arts and mma and paintball tournaments to get more “levelled up” soldiers. Assuming you get xp for such non-lethal tournaments.

I also wonder if we might eventually get a One Punch Man who simply has no credible challenges to level up on.

It might also depend on what classes are “allowed” in this world. A world of leet fighters and monks will look different from a world with archmages and CoDzillas. (The latter would be difficult to comment on without breaking the forum rules).

Xuc Xac
2019-08-06, 05:27 PM
You always round fractions down in 3.5.

It's not a fraction. It's 4.

Particle_Man
2019-08-06, 06:59 PM
It's not a fraction. It's 4.

But Pi would round down to 3.

SimonMoon6
2019-08-06, 06:59 PM
Races would be very boring to watch. They would mostly be won by the initiative roll. One person might win a race before anybody else has even left the starting area because he went first.

Talking to people would be very strange. It would be impossible to make friends with anyone, since PCs are immune to Diplomacy, so if everyone uses the rules for PCs, everyone is immune to Diplomacy.

Tvtyrant
2019-08-06, 07:10 PM
I'm reasonably certain that RAW there are no rules for reproduction so everything dies out except undead within a few millenia :smalltongue:

Taken more seriously, the entire universe is dominated by outsiders. Angels, Demons and Devils murder everyone who could become a threat to the cosmic order and the universe is massive but stagnant. People have to join giant blood domes to kill enough to hit safe levels before they are spotted, midlevel monsters are an unstoppable threat except for the protection outsiders give mortals.

MattKingCole
2019-08-06, 07:29 PM
There are a lot of facets to consider. I will assume that the planet in question has semi-stable societies of the Core Races.

Personally, I think the long lived races like Elves and Dwarves would be in charge or have the influential positions. My reasoning is that generally, the longer you live, the richer you get because you are exchanging your time for wealth. Wealth usually translates into power/influence. As well, the longer lived races have more time to enjoy being 20th level. The longer a person has to enjoy 20th level, the more power and influence they will accrue.

I don't know whether or not a bunch of people with 9th tier spells would fight and tear apart the world or not. It hasn't happened yet here(nukes). I also don't think it's the most useful assumption when creating a campaign setting. It could be very likely though.

I don't know about the Tippyverse's use of traps to produce limitless food, but I agree with the ideas surrounding Permanent Teleportation Circles. I think they would facilitate trade and open borders.

Anyways, those are the things that stood out to me. I'm sorry this wasn't an exhaustive list.

Xuc Xac
2019-08-06, 09:22 PM
But Pi would round down to 3.

No, because in the D&D rules, pi equals exactly 4. In our world, it's 3.14159 and so on, because circles are round. Pi is the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter. In D&D, a 30 foot diameter circle has a circumference of 120 feet. Check out any circular spell effect template and count the 5 foot sections around the outside.

Vknight
2019-08-07, 04:06 AM
No, because in the D&D rules, pi equals exactly 4. In our world, it's 3.14159 and so on, because circles are round. Pi is the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter. In D&D, a 30 foot diameter circle has a circumference of 120 feet. Check out any circular spell effect template and count the 5 foot sections around the outside.

where are you getting the 4 thing?

Also yeah PI. equals 3 is from the bible

Mastikator
2019-08-07, 04:42 AM
where are you getting the 4 thing?

Also yeah PI. equals 3 is from the bible

PI = circumference / diameter
In D&D that is exactly 4 because circles are squares

There's no rounding involved, only strange non-Euclidean geometry

Vknight
2019-08-07, 04:44 AM
PI = circumference / diameter
In D&D that is exactly 4 because circles are squares

There's no rounding involved, only strange non-Euclidean geometry

Whelp that is an answer but yeah the 3 one is from old biblical passages which would cause bottles to explode where in D&D then everything would be bigger

NNescio
2019-08-07, 04:51 AM
No, because in the D&D rules, pi equals exactly 4. In our world, it's 3.14159 and so on, because circles are round. Pi is the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter. In D&D, a 30 foot diameter circle has a circumference of 120 feet. Check out any circular spell effect template and count the 5 foot sections around the outside.


PI = circumference / diameter
In D&D that is exactly 4 because circles are squares

There's no rounding involved, only strange non-Euclidean geometry

Well, strictly speaking by RAW (3.X or 5e) the AoE rules doesn't describe the actual topology of spells. It's more like topology-of-squares-where-creatures-standing-in-them-are-considered-to-be-within-the-spell-area. So, the perimeter/surface area of the tessellated(packed)-squares(cubes)-that-approximate-the-spell's-area(volume) isn't necessarily the same thing as the actual perimeter/surface area of the spell.

Mastikator
2019-08-07, 05:00 AM
Well, strictly speaking by RAW (3.X or 5e) the AoE rules doesn't describe the actual topology of spells. It's more like topology-of-squares-where-creatures-standing-in-them-are-considered-to-be-within-the-spell-area. So, the perimeter/surface area of the tessellated(packed)-squares(cubes)-that-approximate-the-spell's-area(volume) isn't necessarily the same thing as the actual perimeter/surface area of the spell.

It is if we're taking the D&D game rules as physical laws of the universe.

What's more that hasn't been mentioned is that location is fully quantized on a macroscopic scale. You can only exist while stationary precisely in the middle of a 5 foot square, if you're bigger then you still exist precisely in the middle of 2x2 or 3x3 or 4x4 ect squares. You can't move 1 cm to the side, only 5 feet exactly

Xuc Xac
2019-08-07, 05:50 AM
It is if we're taking the D&D game rules as physical laws of the universe.

What's more that hasn't been mentioned is that location is fully quantized on a macroscopic scale. You can only exist while stationary precisely in the middle of a 5 foot square, if you're bigger then you still exist precisely in the middle of 2x2 or 3x3 or 4x4 ect squares. You can't move 1 cm to the side, only 5 feet exactly

So, not only is pi equal to 4, but the Planck length is five feet? This is probably why lightning bolts travel in straight lines.

Quertus
2019-08-07, 05:53 AM
A much more efficient strategy would be to rush Last Breath so that the fodder of these death matches can actually be raised at the same level to provide a challenge for the next group.

Um, the version I read said that they lost a level. So Revivify, maybe?

Mastikator
2019-08-07, 06:10 AM
So, not only is pi equal to 4, but the Planck length is five feet? This is probably why lightning bolts travel in straight lines.

It's also why all structures conform perfectly to 5feet squares even when it looks like they don't and shouldn't. It also has some other funny implications like the hypotenuse of a rectangle is equal to the sum of sides.

NichG
2019-08-07, 06:42 AM
Um, the version I read said that they lost a level. So Revivify, maybe?

Yes, that's much better.

RedMage125
2019-08-07, 09:35 AM
No, because in the D&D rules, pi equals exactly 4. In our world, it's 3.14159 and so on, because circles are round. Pi is the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter. In D&D, a 30 foot diameter circle has a circumference of 120 feet. Check out any circular spell effect template and count the 5 foot sections around the outside.

You're confusing the use of a (5 foot suares) battle grid and determination of which creatures are affected by a circular AoE spell (by virtue of 50% or more of the "square" they are in being within the circle), with the actual shape of said AoE effect.

AoE effects are still circular. A 20' radius fireball may only affect a max of 40 Small or Medium characters on a battle grid due to how spell effects are calculated when using the absrtraction of a grid, but in-game, it's still an actual circle.

I was being cheeky when I pointed out that fractions round down in D&D (but they do, for real). Because even in a world that followed the rules of D&D, pi would STILL be 3.14etc, because circles are still circles. Not everyone uses a battle map.

Clistenes
2019-08-09, 09:52 AM
Personally, I think the long lived races like Elves and Dwarves would be in charge or have the influential positions. My reasoning is that generally, the longer you live, the richer you get because you are exchanging your time for wealth. Wealth usually translates into power/influence. As well, the longer lived races have more time to enjoy being 20th level. The longer a person has to enjoy 20th level, the more power and influence they will accrue.

About Elves, I try to justify they not being uber-powerful and controlling the world because:

1.-Due to their chaotic, freedom-loving nature, elves reject standarized, disciplined, organized education; they learn by observing their elders and by playing... so they learn reaaaaally slowly. Young elves only learn something if they enjoy it, or if they feel an urgent need to do so... That's the reason you find 120 years old elves with the same level of education as a 21 years old human...

2.-Even if an elf seriously wants to learn, finding a teacher can be hard... Elves don't have taxes, written laws or an administration... their "kings" and "queens" are highly charismatic, powerful individuals who gather the support of a fanatical loyal fandom who listen to them and support their decisions... So there aren't public schools, and even private schools would be too restricting, organized and disciplined for elven tastes... so their learning is done by seeking a master that will accept disciples, and that relationship can be broken at any time by either disciple or master...

Most highly skilled elves learnt their craft from a powerful older relative, or a close friend of an older relative, or even from an older lover... Elven "aristocracy" is made of families who have a lot of highly skilled, powerful individuals who teach their progeny, hence power tends to remain within the same families...

3.-In order to be truly free, you need to be able to fend by yourself in all circumstances, without relying on others, so elves tend to become jacks of all trades. A medium level elf NPC with levels as Fighter, Ranger, Thief, Wizard and Bard isn't unusual...

4.-Elves don't mint money of their own, don't hold land and keep very little in the way of private property, so their ability to use wealth to influence others is limited. Elven "aristocracy" keep magic items and spellbooks as family heirlooms, which is the most important form of privately owned wealth.

RedMage125
2019-08-09, 11:41 AM
Clistenes,

I don't know why this didn't occur to me to mention before, but there is a setting, called X-Crawl that is exactly this. It was originally published by Goodman games for 3.0. It was never updated to 3.5e, but there were some fan-adpatations to 4e that looked very balanced.

However, they did a Kickstarter project to update the setting to Pathfinder rules a few years ago, and called it Maximum X-Crawl. it's very good. And all of the lore and history from the first (3.0) version is still good.

Basically, imagine our world, but if D&D magic and rules had always been real. The Roman Pantheon is still the dominant faith in Western Culture (because, you know, they can actually appear and talk to people and grant spells), so Judeo-Christian faith never really took off (they exist, but most people think they're a crazy cult). When the Brtish colonies revolted, instead of making a Republic, it became the north American Empire, under Emperor George Augustus I. Orcs and Half-orcs are second-class citizens, Elves are very popular with the nobility (and always fashionable to imitate), technology has advanced somewhat, but not as far as we have IRL, and is often blended with magic.

An X-Crawl (whgere the setting gets its name) is a Pay-Per-View bloodsport of teams of adventurers (who sometimes have corporate backing) who go through dungeons organized by DJs (Dungeon Judges), and get fame, wealth, and fabulous prizes. Imagine getting through a trapped hallway while a crowd watched breathlessly, getting through the door, and then fighting a big onster that some monster rancher captured in the wild, only to win...a year's supply of car wax!

It's a great setting for both one-shot drop games with short notice. Because your GM can just whip a random dungeon together, with no rhyme or reason or continuity between creature types or terrain (orcs in one room, icy terrain creatures in the next, and a desert creature after that...why not?), just have people make characters and call it "The Tennessee Invitational". But the setting also works great for a long-term campaign where the PCs must also navigate the perils of fame, negotiate with sponsors, and possibly uncover dark political schemes in the world (because the games may be a source of media distraction for the public while the government does shady things).

PM me if you want more info, I can direct you to some sites where you may be able to get a good deal on the books or pdfs of them.

GreatWyrmGold
2019-08-09, 02:05 PM
The noncombat XP rules are a bit squirrely outside of adventuring contexts, so we'd have to tighten them up before we could give a meaningful answer. For instance, how long would a wizard generally need to spend working at an apothecary, serving a royal court, or researching the edges of her field to gain a level? Would it be the same no matter what kinds of jobs you were doing? What about other professions?
Also, how much of the player's power is invested in the characters? The players make loads of conscious choices that are either not conscious or not choices at all (including some that may or may not be in-character conscious choices depending on interpretation). How much control do people have over whether they become e.g. a nature cleric or a druid, or what feats they pick up, etc?

The question is incomplete if you want good answers.

Jay R
2019-08-09, 02:41 PM
The most common scenario for a 3.5 world starts with some not-even-close-to-human race or races in power (aboleth, dragons, etc.) and, because they have vastly enhanced capabilities to any humanoids below them, so long as they are suitably vigilant they'll rule forever without outside intervention.

This notion is based on some unexamined assumptions.

Dragons can't rule the world for the same reason that America, UK, France, China, and Russia can't rule the world together -- they aren't on the same side.

"Outside intervention" won't stop them; inside intervention will. Any faction with gold dragons is opposed by a faction with red dragons.

And aboleths won't rule humans for the same reason that whales won't rule gorillas. Yes, they are bigger, smarter, stronger, and more powerful, but they don't live in the same place.

Also, there are lots of potential aquatic enemies that aboleths care about a lot more than the care about humans.

Besides, as soon as you have two answers to who will rule the world, you have none. If the dragons rule the world, the aboleths won't, and vice versa.

-------------------

Getting back to the original question: What would a world that followed the rules of D&D look like?

Consider a similar question: What would a world that followed the laws of our universe look like?

It should be clear that every single culture that has ever existed is a real answer to that question. And they are all different.

There are just as many answers to the OP's question, all different, and all perfectly good answers.

We know, from our own world's history, that the laws of the universe do not determine the culture or political structure of the world.

GreatWyrmGold
2019-08-09, 04:13 PM
Getting back to the original question: What would a world that followed the rules of D&D look like?

Consider a similar question: What would a world that followed the laws of our universe look like?

It should be clear that every single culture that has ever existed is a real answer to that question. And they are all different.

There are just as many answers to the OP's question, all different, and all perfectly good answers.

We know, from our own world's history, that the laws of the universe do not determine the culture or political structure of the world.
There's an extent to which that is true, but it has a limit. For instance, a culture without agriculture cannot conquer a culture which does have agriculture; the advantages of agriculture (from intensive food production to enabling sedentary settlements) make the agricultural culture almost immeasurably stronger. The hunter-gatherers would need to marshal an impossibly large coalition to defeat the farmers if the latter have had time to settle into truly being a "farming culture," with that impossibility coming from the difficulties of forming a system of rule extending beyond one community when every community constantly moves.
Similarly, superior crops lead to superior societies. If one continent has several types of plants that can be domesticated easily and another's future staple crop takes millennia to reach that level, the latter continent will be millennia "behind" the former in its formation of complex social structures and whatnot.
There are countless little trends that are etched into our world by the laws of nature. Steel trumps stone. You can't build Rome in a day. Tactics win battles, and logistics win wars. But above all, societies and cultures which are more prosperous, populous, and generally better at thriving will tend to either crush neighbors which are less "fit" if those neighbors do not adopt the more successful strategies.

There are a wide variety of possibilities for any given set of universal rules, even if those rules are concrete and unambiguous in a way no edition of D&D has ever been. But those rules still put constraints on the types of worlds that can arise.

Jay R
2019-08-10, 11:48 AM
There's an extent to which that is true, but it has a limit...

There are a wide variety of possibilities for any given set of universal rules, even if those rules are concrete and unambiguous in a way no edition of D&D has ever been. But those rules still put constraints on the types of worlds that can arise.

Yes, it has a limit, and yes, it puts constraints on the possibilities.

In our world, those limits and constraint are broad enough that every single culture and civilization there has ever been fits comfortably within them.

There is no reason to believe that the rules of D&D have limits and constraints that are any less broad.

Certainly, most cultures will not last forever. no culture will last forever. We are a ever-changing people, on an ever-changing world.]

In fact, changing cultures and civilizations have always been built into the D&D structure. The mere fact of lost temples and abandoned ruins to explore implies that older civilizations have died. And the presence of wars, raids, and marauding monsters implies that the current ones are not stable, either.

But as long as you aren't planning to set your D&D world after the last cultural change ever, then that simply doesn't restrict your options.

Xuc Xac
2019-08-10, 02:20 PM
In fact, changing cultures and civilizations have always been built into the D&D structure. The mere fact of lost temples and abandoned ruins to explore implies that older civilizations have died. And the presence of wars, raids, and marauding monsters implies that the current ones are not stable, either.


If the real world had older, dead civilizations like in D&D, they would have opened King Tutankhamun's tomb and found an AK-47 instead of an iron dagger and Ötzi the iceman would have had a Glock tucked into the belt of his fur outfit.

NNescio
2019-08-10, 03:03 PM
If the real world had older, dead civilizations like in D&D, they would have opened King Tutankhamun's tomb and found an AK-47 instead of an iron dagger and Ötzi the iceman would have had a Glock tucked into the belt of his fur outfit.

It was kinda like that in Western Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. At least until the 8th or 9th century or so (before that discovering a Roman iron sword can be kinda like getting a magic item), and even then it still took quite a while for non-military tech (including abstracts like civics) to catch up. Some of the architecture stuff are still amazing by our current standards, and there is interest in trying to reproduce Roman concrete (not just the academic kind of interest, unlike, say, Greek Fire or the Antikythera mechanism).

GreatWyrmGold
2019-08-11, 09:51 AM
Yes, it has a limit, and yes, it puts constraints on the possibilities.

In our world, those limits and constraint are broad enough that every single culture and civilization there has ever been fits comfortably within them.

There is no reason to believe that the rules of D&D have limits and constraints that are any less broad.
...What's your point? Culture worldwide have a lot of variation, but also plenty of patterns. Patterns in history, in social structure, in discovery...heck, the mythologies of people whose most recent common ancestor was tens of millennia dead have parallel themes and motifs!
The OP wants us to discuss the D&D equivalent of those patterns. Why does the existence of broad flexibility within those patterns make this discussion somehow pointless?


I'll take a crack at describing the world defined by "D&D rules," even though the OP doesn't seem to have noticed my request that he be more specific.
The big thing about magic, according to D&D rules, is that there doesn't seem to be any way to increase the power of next generation's mages. (There's spell research, but all level X spells need to be of about the same power level.) For mundane skills, each generation can develop new tools and techniques and teach the next generation how to build and practice them; this is the basic mechanism behind society changing over long stretches of time. (Social movements cause great change over the course of decades or centuries, but they can be reversed over the course of centuries or millennia if they aren't responding to tension caused by technological or similar developments changing the fabric of society.) The only ways for one's apprentices to surpass their masters are for the master to give them powerful magic items they made or for the apprentices to level up quickly.

I imagine that, by the end of the D&Dolithic period, all relevant qualities of "leveling up" would be known, if not understood. They would know whatever ways were more effective at leveling people up, and how to increase the odds of getting into a good class.
In our world, proto-governments started with some people in a village of equals being more equal than others. They were charismatic enough that the rest of the village would usually listen to them and go along with what they said. In a D&D world, these people would probably be high-level; it's easy to get someone's ear if you just beat up a dragon that was about to eat them. This would set a precedent for rule by the strong, which implies that most places would have a rather tumultuous political history if they didn't establish some stabilizing precedent to counteract the right of conquest.