As is common, common enough that GreyKnight wrote a post about it, I’m revisiting an earlier post. What are the odds this one will be different?
(Hint: pretty good)
I’m pretty happy with my descriptions of manifestation building block grades, but they’re not quite there. Happily, I know people I can talk with about these things, and I’ve gotten some feedback and ideas.
Tiered Grades
One takeaway/suggestion is that the grades can hint at what level range characters can handle it easily. They might need specific preparation, but they can do it.
This actually fits the tiers I defined for Echelon pretty well. The tiers are calibrated for D&D 3.x/Pathfinder 1e:
- Veteran tier (D&D level 1-4), more or less real-world capabilities.
- Heroic tier (D&D level 5-8), larger than life (some exist in real life, but few and far between).
- Champion tier (D&D level 9-12), superhuman.
- Paragon tier (D&D level 13-16), superheroic.
- Legendary tier (D&D level 17-20), near-deities.
(Actually, looking at what deities of various mythologies actually do in the stories, they can be considerably lower levels… but that’s a topic for another time.)
Anyway, under this model, veteran tier characters can be expected to handle Grade 1 — faint — manifestations. I imagine these can be environments we see in the real world but consider pretty inhospitable, but are populated. People with the right training can survive there, and even thrive to an extent. Nunavut territory in the north of Canada is cold and most people would not do well… but there are entire communities that do just fine.
Antarctica, on the other hand, takes much greater preparation, training, and supporting resources. It’s about seven times the area of Nunavut, but has a population approximately 1/20 of Nunavut’s. Where the populace of Nunavut — mostly Inuit — can survive off the land, that’s not really possible in Antarctica. In this model, I’d be willing to consider this ‘Grade 2 manifestation’.
… at this point I run into trouble with the model. I have difficulty imagining realistic examples of even more inhospitable locations on the planet. Or for that matter, people who can easily manage them. Marianas Trench, I suppose, would count. Sure, let’s call this Grade 3.
Then outer space for Grade 4? Sure. Even if people have been to space than have been to the Marianas Trench. The infrastructure and support needed is much higher to reach space, we just haven’t wanted to go deep.
Grade 5… surface of the sun?
Closing Comments
I think this means I have a calibration challenge.
The manifestation grade effects in Portals & Planes don’t seem to go this far. The far ends of the scales in Classic Play: Book of the Planes do.
Should ‘Champion tier’ (level 9-12) characters be capable of traveling to the Marianas Trench? ‘Paragon tier’ (level 13-16) characters go to space? ‘Legendary tier’ (level 17-20) characters visit the sun?
Even though I haven’t seen it happen in many games, I’m having a hard time saying ‘no’.
Which leads to ‘why aren’t we doing this?’