Well, that one is standard in lintaGolarian, not an innovation of ezerGolarion, and happens in an earlier continuity as well. We’ve reinterpreted a lot of mechanics like that for reasons of “They are not actually living in an RPG and experience points are not actually a thing.” Spell durations go up continuously rather than in discrete jumps per level, similarly.
Hmm… I am not quite sure how to take the “lintaGolarion” / “ezerGolarion” stuff (it doesn’t seem relevant? but possibly I am just not familiar enough with this terminology to get the implication)… but I think that perhaps I’ve not gotten my meaning across. Let me try again:
That the characters in Project Lawful are not actually living in an RPG and are not actually governed by literal game mechanics is clear enough. The same is almost to the same extent true of characters in an actual Pathfinder game, though! As mechanics in 3e-like systems, including Pathfinder, tend overwhelmingly to be associated, those mechanics do represent things that are ostensibly true from an in-world perspective.
With that in mind, here’s a concrete example. The blasphemy spell, which affects nonevil creatures, has an effect that is determined by the difference between the caster’s caster level and the hit dice of potentially affected creatures. If cast by, say, a 16th-level cleric, blasphemy will kill nonevil creatures of up to 6 hit dice (assuming they fail their Will save), but will only paralyze creatures of 7–11 hit dice (ditto).
We can accept that experience points are not actually a thing in-world, likewise “levels”, etc., but it remains the case that if an evil “eighth-circle” cleric walks up to Ione and casts blasphemy, and she fails her save, there does need to be an answer to the question: what actually happens to her? Does she die, or is she only paralyzed?
Of course you can evade this question by altering blasphemy to not be HD-dependent, or removing it entirely (but I think it’s been mentioned in the text already? but perhaps you could retcon that, if so); but then are you going to remove all HD-dependent or level-dependent effects that have discrete “breakpoints”? There are quite a few of those! Deciding to remove from Pathfinder all mechanics that force you to make determinations of what level a character is, or how many hit dice they have, etc., seems to me to commit you to making some rather substantial changes to the system (with non-trivial knock-on effects).
Let’s assume that you don’t make such sweeping changes, and in particular that you leave blasphemy unchanged. Well, we know that Ione is (at the start of the story, anyhow) a ~3rd-level wizard (again, we do not need to believe that “levels” are a real thing in-world, only that Ione’s relevant properties map, for the purposes of resolving interactions with spells such as blasphemy, to “3rd-level”, give or take a level). So if our hypothetical “eighth-circle” evil cleric walks up and casts blasphemy, and Ione fails her save, she instantly dies.
So far, so good. Now we read on, and see that Ione has been granted four oracle levels. Now if that same evil cleric walks up to Ione and casts blasphemy, and she fails her save, then… what? Does she still die (as would be the case if Ione gained the spellcasting ability[1] and class features of a 4th-level oracle, but did not gain any hit dice, nor increased in character level)? Or, is she now only paralyzed (as would be the case if Ione did gain character levels and hit dice)? Note, we’re still perfectly happy to concede that there’s no such thing as “character levels” and “hit dice” in-world, but “what actually happens to Ione in this in-world quite coherently describable scenario” does need to have some answer!
I can keep going, but I think my point should be clearer now (if not, by all means let me know and I’ll try to clarify further). Note that we can construct similar scenarios for the other questions I asked in my parenthetical, i.e. we can construct those questions in such a way that we’re asking about concretely describable, observable, in-world facts, rather than making reference to dissociated game mechanics. You can answer all of these, I’m sure; my point is only that however you answer them, it seems to me that you’ll end up with a setup which is, at least, very weird and not really anticipated by the Pathfinder system (and which is therefore likely to require unforeseen alterations, adjudication of unusual interactions, etc.).
Do we actually see Ione or Pilar cast any oracle spells, by the way? It now occurs to me that I can’t recall such a case, so perhaps they only gained the class features and not the spellcasting? Or did I miss them using oracle spells?
Well, that one is standard in lintaGolarian, not an innovation of ezerGolarion, and happens in an earlier continuity as well. We’ve reinterpreted a lot of mechanics like that for reasons of “They are not actually living in an RPG and experience points are not actually a thing.” Spell durations go up continuously rather than in discrete jumps per level, similarly.
Hmm… I am not quite sure how to take the “lintaGolarion” / “ezerGolarion” stuff (it doesn’t seem relevant? but possibly I am just not familiar enough with this terminology to get the implication)… but I think that perhaps I’ve not gotten my meaning across. Let me try again:
That the characters in Project Lawful are not actually living in an RPG and are not actually governed by literal game mechanics is clear enough. The same is almost to the same extent true of characters in an actual Pathfinder game, though! As mechanics in 3e-like systems, including Pathfinder, tend overwhelmingly to be associated, those mechanics do represent things that are ostensibly true from an in-world perspective.
With that in mind, here’s a concrete example. The blasphemy spell, which affects nonevil creatures, has an effect that is determined by the difference between the caster’s caster level and the hit dice of potentially affected creatures. If cast by, say, a 16th-level cleric, blasphemy will kill nonevil creatures of up to 6 hit dice (assuming they fail their Will save), but will only paralyze creatures of 7–11 hit dice (ditto).
We can accept that experience points are not actually a thing in-world, likewise “levels”, etc., but it remains the case that if an evil “eighth-circle” cleric walks up to Ione and casts blasphemy, and she fails her save, there does need to be an answer to the question: what actually happens to her? Does she die, or is she only paralyzed?
Of course you can evade this question by altering blasphemy to not be HD-dependent, or removing it entirely (but I think it’s been mentioned in the text already? but perhaps you could retcon that, if so); but then are you going to remove all HD-dependent or level-dependent effects that have discrete “breakpoints”? There are quite a few of those! Deciding to remove from Pathfinder all mechanics that force you to make determinations of what level a character is, or how many hit dice they have, etc., seems to me to commit you to making some rather substantial changes to the system (with non-trivial knock-on effects).
Let’s assume that you don’t make such sweeping changes, and in particular that you leave blasphemy unchanged. Well, we know that Ione is (at the start of the story, anyhow) a ~3rd-level wizard (again, we do not need to believe that “levels” are a real thing in-world, only that Ione’s relevant properties map, for the purposes of resolving interactions with spells such as blasphemy, to “3rd-level”, give or take a level). So if our hypothetical “eighth-circle” evil cleric walks up and casts blasphemy, and Ione fails her save, she instantly dies.
So far, so good. Now we read on, and see that Ione has been granted four oracle levels. Now if that same evil cleric walks up to Ione and casts blasphemy, and she fails her save, then… what? Does she still die (as would be the case if Ione gained the spellcasting ability[1] and class features of a 4th-level oracle, but did not gain any hit dice, nor increased in character level)? Or, is she now only paralyzed (as would be the case if Ione did gain character levels and hit dice)? Note, we’re still perfectly happy to concede that there’s no such thing as “character levels” and “hit dice” in-world, but “what actually happens to Ione in this in-world quite coherently describable scenario” does need to have some answer!
I can keep going, but I think my point should be clearer now (if not, by all means let me know and I’ll try to clarify further). Note that we can construct similar scenarios for the other questions I asked in my parenthetical, i.e. we can construct those questions in such a way that we’re asking about concretely describable, observable, in-world facts, rather than making reference to dissociated game mechanics. You can answer all of these, I’m sure; my point is only that however you answer them, it seems to me that you’ll end up with a setup which is, at least, very weird and not really anticipated by the Pathfinder system (and which is therefore likely to require unforeseen alterations, adjudication of unusual interactions, etc.).
Do we actually see Ione or Pilar cast any oracle spells, by the way? It now occurs to me that I can’t recall such a case, so perhaps they only gained the class features and not the spellcasting? Or did I miss them using oracle spells?