Hey Krusty
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Tangentially, yes.
While Fire is Fire, standing on the surface of the Sun would not just deal fire damage* but would come with crushing Gravitic Damage, Electromagnetic Bombardment, Crazy Pressure and the effect of constant nuclear explosions going off.
*Also according to this next video
the sun is NOT actually on fire.
On our trip through the sun, we'll visit the corona, chromosphere, photosphere, convective, and radiative zones, as well as the core.
www.businessinsider.com
Indeed they would be. There are myriad other problems associated with going near a star, but with sufficient spellcasting, protections or immunity the worst of the issues would be negated.
Did they explain the gravity, pressures, electromagnetism and nuclear explosions that would be acting upon creatures and characters?
Most source books treat the sun as dealing heat damage and even being inhabited by fire elementals and Jyoti, it does deal pressure damage as well. The Pathfinder source material does state that fire elementals, Efreeti and Salamanders seem to be immune to the radiation, disintegration etc etc of the sun and that it's possible for Spellcasters to go there.
Sun - PathfinderWiki
I'm not making up stuff on the fly. I'm trying to mechanically explain gravity, pressure, electromagnetic waves and nuclear explosions in D&D.
Heavy Gravity, Electromagnetic Waves, Constant Nuclear Explosions, Insane Crushing Pressure...four things the Plane of Fire doesn't have.
According to you a Ring of Elemental Immunity is all we need to survive Planck Temperature.
You are kind of making all this up on the fly though, on a very basic level, you're the one who penned what does what and how right? So if you wanted to have gods only 'kind of immune' then why didn't you write that in at the time?
And it's not just according to me, you're either immune to something or not. Even source material allows a fire elemental or other fire subtype creature to survive any level of heat, that doesn't mean they won't just die anyway from the universe itself delaminating at the planck temp but the heat won't be the thing that kills them.
I don't have a problem with gods being immune to fire. But that won't let you survive the surface of the sun.
You seem to, and it kind of does, that and a high enough Damage Reduction and lightning resistance will reduce the majority of a star's effects.
Plasma, which the corona of the sun is made of, according to PF deals half lightning and half fire damage, both of which could be handled by a ring of elemental immunity or by polymorphing into a plasma elemental. The radiation poisoning should be able to be handled by a simple immunity to poison, or again by polymorphing into a plasma elemental, or Ersatz, the bludgeoning damage from the pressure wave could be handled by a high enough DR or regeneration.
The only thing that remains is the Disintegration aspect which may be more difficult to deal with indeed but is that disintegration simply an effect of the previously stated aspects of the star itself? If it isn't and it's treated as actual disintegration damage, what are we treating that as? Magic? Or a non-elemental non magical untyped effect? If we're treating Disintegration as it's own element now and not a by-product of other energies ferocity then that adds a whole additional level to this but one without a clear means of handling, but as beings already exist comfortably on the sun itself, this becomes a problem and one that either has to be defined or ignored.
I do have a problem with gods being immune to gravity, pressure, nukes and other such fundamental forces because it renders stellar phenomena utterly irrelevant.
Then why make them gods? Why have them called gods if they're barely stronger than people? This is the fundamental crux of my position, right here? Why make or call them gods if their power is almost equivalent with a human? Demigods or lesser beings I can get your point. Hercules certainly shouldn't be able to survive any of that. But Apollo? Zeus? Pelor? Come on.
Its not about stopping fire damage, its about taking all the other forms of damage into account.
I get that, but I'm saying, how is that fun? If you don't trivialize some of the insane aspects of reality, you can't actually
tell the story you are setting out to tell, you know, the point of dnd? You get inundated with mechanics and turning the game into a science simulator, which to a degree I like, and I think you should throw some science in, but to the effect of getting in the way of the campaign I disagree with. Adding in the color shift when travelling light speed for example is a nice touch to add, making the players feel the pressures and all of that is great whenever I have the players go into the atmosphere of a gas giant for example, which recently happened which is why I bring it up, I explain the way the character can feel the crushing gravity and the solid rains of ice and particulates, the thousand mile per hour winds, and the miles wide lightning bolts of tremendous intensity, but it isn't something that is a danger to them, they wouldn't explore these places if they were and given that one character is literally a planar cartographer, that would be unfortunate. No one wants to spend years on a character to have them die an ignoble death on some backwater gas giant pointlessly. Bogging everything down just makes the game unplayable unless you want to have everything taking place planetside which seems like a lot of basic humans are going to constantly die and the planet will have to be infinitely be wished back into existence with all the damage divine level characters can dish out.
I have no intention of retconning anything in the IH.
But if you wanted to replicate an epic environment (such as the surface of the sun), immunity to fire won't suffice.
My goal here is to make challenging epic environments for epic mortals, gods and potentially even sidereals. If we carte blanche say they are immune to everything then that becomes a pointless waste of time AND a missed opportunity, because having the environment be a hazard is a great part of D&D.
Fighting on an event horizon would be cool, but if it has ZERO mechanical effect upon characters then it becomes WORTHLESS.
Just because it doesn't present a danger to the party doesn't make it a worthless mechanic, it's like I said about hamhanded storytelling and using finesse as a DM the other day. You just have to use the tools at your disposal to make a story, it doesn't always have to be a possible threat to the players.
Having used these settings multiple times over the years i can say from experience that in reality it makes for new and exciting storytelling for both the DM who can let their imagination run wild and the players who suddenly will have a great story about fighting a god of death on the surface of a black hole.
Moreover as something with intention can be used in my settings if a player was to throw an enemy into the black hole, I might very well allow it to work properly for that as there suddenly is an intent behind it vice a mindless mechanical effect.
It might be interesting on an intellectual level for the DM to have it work exactly like a real life black hole, spaghettifying everyone who gets close god and mortal alike, but to the players it's going to come off as unfun and suck ass to have their character permanently pwned. Black holes warp time itself, a god who fell in would be stuck as relative time would seem to speed up for them and universe would go on without them, they'd permanently die from the encounter, which I suppose if you're an naughty word you might find fun to, like tearing the legs off of an ant, do to your hapless players but I personally think that wouldn't be cool.
Let me give a lower level example:
If you have a setting underwater for example in basic 3.5/Pathfinder and want to incorporate Aquatic Elves and Aboleth, then making the party constantly check the equivalent of pressure gauges is only A) going to dissuade players from wanting to attempt it, especially careful players and B) going to cause a headache for yourself in terms of making the setting playable. Don't you see that? You'll lose the story you're trying to write by making it so self involved. All the time and energy and love you put into a story or a part of a story can disappear in an instant if the players don't feel like it's actually feasible to succeed.
Ultimately the players need to actually be able to access areas effectively to do anything with them at all, otherwise it's entirely masterbatory.
I'm not retconning the IH or 3.5E. I already know its complex (overly so in my opinion).
Then why make the argument in favor of it then?
The question is not who's mind is made up. The questions are:
1. Do we have mechanics to replicate the surface of the Sun, event horizon of a black hole etc.
2. Would epic environments be a fun addition to epic/immortal/sidereal and if so what would they be?
According to you that's the question, but that's not the question I asked, is it?
To answer your question however, let me answer your question with a question:
Conflicting source materials and choosing between a playable place a PC could actually go compared to a simulation of the actual effects of the sun itself is the actual question a DM will be faced with. If they want to actually use the sun in any playable way before level 120, they'll have to tone down the effects of the sun itself or allow things like Planar Adaption, the dreaded Natural Immunity and/or that pesky ring of Fire Immunity to simply suffice. Or the party will have to polymorph into beings already found on the sun itself. Otherwise it's utterly inaccessible and therefore mechanically irrelevant.
Perhaps every Sun is simply an 'atom' of the demiurge?
That'd be cool af actually.
There you go, then use that. All stellar phenomenon are in some part magical or sentient or derived from some magical sentient source.
Well, as I said, I'm not in favor of this, so I'm gonna decline on that one.
Exactly, at a certain level an immortal will be immune to a given environment. But at THAT point using such environments becomes pointless. Which then necessitates we come up with a NEW environment that DOES impact them.
Not at all, Abrogate can definitely be used to negate someone's Divine Immunity I'd argue. Send their little asses hurtling towards certain doom in a poof. lol. And why wouldn't a god use abrogation to use the environment as a weapon?
Maybe I'm going senile in my old age amigo.
I want gods to fight on the surface of the Sun, even on an event horizon of a black hole. Those things should be EPIC encounters not interchangeable backdrops of irrelevance.
DM: "This week you are battling an overgod on the event horizon of a black hole"
Player: "Cool...so what effect does fighting on the event horizon have?"
DM: "...well...none actually."
Player: "
"
You're the only one who thinks like that man, maybe other people in this particular thread but I'm telling you, my players enjoy being able to freely explore space and do so without feeling like they're constantly going to die. Why would anyone think that's fun?
Moreover it isn't irrelevance. The before mentioned Superman reference from yesterday or whatever, an evil god may need an item that's falling into a black hole, they may have followers on worlds being bombarded by strangelets or Q-balls, a ship may have their mortal family onboard etc, it really isn't hard to add the danger aspect in whatsoever, you just find something the player cares about and exploit that.
Or like I just previously stated, abrogate their ass. OR have a black hole with a dead zone around it or a sidereal in it's core. It's not hard.
Something doesn't sit well with me when a deity can supposedly take a nap in the core of the Sun, but would take damage from a fireball from a 5th level wizard. I know why I went with it at the time, but I'm having trouble justifying it in my head.
At the end of the day we can just use the "its a divine sun, or its a magical black hole" excuse, but if everything worth doing should be difficult, then the only time we will ever use a sun or black hole as environments is when they are magical...which defeats the point of having non-magical suns or black holes.
No it does not.
They're some of the most interesting effects in the cosmos, being able to actually explore them is a very cool thing, it's why shows like Star Trek gained popularity. Also since only Gods have Divine Immunity it gives the players the ability to make safe divine realms and other places where only they can go, which gives them a very useful tool. It also allows for things like bad ass solar temples literally in the heart of a star to exist or a hammer forged in a black hole or a golem made in the center of the earth to actually make sense, otherwise they're entirely impossible to make unless you're level 320, at which point, why would you bother making those items?
