How strong is gravity on Palladium?

[donJulio]

Is it comparable to earth's gravity? I have been lurking these boards for a while and have wondered what else their is on the Palladium world. Being a lurked, I have read that their is some sort of wall in the sea that surrounds the continent. Supposedly mention is made in Island at the Edge of the World, but I don't own that book and don't anticipate buying it, being that it is first edition.

I figure if we know how strong gravity is, we can calculate the mass of the planet, and from there, it's radius, surface area, etc. The continent in the main book appears a bit larger than North America, but if the gravity is similar to earth's, then there must be MUCH more out there. Even if we don't know what IT is, it would be nice to know how BIG that unknown surface area of the planet is.

Or am I thinking too technically?

[J. Lionheart]

Gravity is demonstrably on par with Earth's, as things with the same mass in both places (PF and Earth) have the same weight as as well. In terms of the size of the world, the "known world" map covers approximately a quarter of a globe. It is one half of the northern hemisphere of the planet they are on. There is one moon, and one sun. The landmass of the known world continent is around 6,000,000 square miles.

You are thinking too technically for game purposes, but that's ok. I do the same thing for fun There is a great deal out there elsewhere on the planet, but it remains unknown. You're quite right about the Wall. The Wall surrounds the known world, annihilating anything that touches it. It's not only "mentioned" in Island... World, it's the entire point of the book. There's another thread around here somewhere where a couple of us go off on a rant about people today being spoiled by ease of travel. 6M square miles is more than enough for all the gaming you could do in a lifetime. Europe packs 43 independant countries into less than two-thirds of that space!

[donJulio]

Obviously the continent described in the game would be in the northern hemisphere, but I would not be surprised to discover that the planet was a little smaller than Earth. Elves are tall. There are all sorts of giants as well, and I think a smaller planet, with less gravity, would be conducive to these larger organisms. Hell, there is a tree in the Eastern Territories book that is 800 feet tall! I know it is magical and all, but having simple physics be part of the answer would be neat also I have also looked at the speed conversion chart in Book 1, where they convert speed attribute to mph and kmph, and it seems like the gravity would be less in order to be able to run that quickly. I've also looked at the weight limits for carrying/lifting and it seems a little too easy to lift heavy weight than on Earth. Imperial Janissaries need a PS of 20 to wield their shields w/o penalties, but a person w/ a PS of 20 can lift 800 lbs! I don't think too many people can do that in the armed forces, much less the entire planet Earth. It seems like it must be relatively common on Palladium, at least for specialized Men-of-Arms. I am just making my case for a smaller than Earth Palladium I guess, but didn't know if there was any hard information on this subject.

[The Dark Elf]

Ive never thought of Palladium as being a planet. I always thought of it as being a realm. Created by some god or AI or whatever so the ideas for physics have been stolen from what they know of other planets but arent generated when the "world" was created.

YOu can never think TOO technically - as long as you dont include "bog down" rules in your games

Lionheart is correct everything weighs the same as Earth equivalents (except when you fail scroll conversion and it adds 300lbs).

[donJulio]

If it has a moon, and a day-night cycle, to me it's a planet

[azazel1024]

Well hell the strength and other attributes are pretty damned unrealistic in palladium anyway. A basic human with just 3d6 for their attribute means there is a 1 in 18 chance of having a PS of 18, the percentage of people who can lift 740lbs is a heck of a lot smaller then that in the world, probably more like 1 in 10,000 or less.

As for a penalty, if you simply assume a PS of 20 is just a very strong person then it makes sense (10 being average, 15 would be someone who works out a lot and keeps in great shape, 20 being someone massively strong, think say pro-weight lifter or similar type of build person). Also gravity wouldn't be impacting the penalties of using their sheild, its about inertia. Try using a medieval weapon. A 4lb sword doesn't sound like much, but when you realize it is maybe 4, 4 1/2ft long for a long sword that is a lot of steel to swing around and hard to do really fast (you have to be quite strong). Now consider an iron/steel kite shield. If you want it thick enough to stop a thrust from a two handed sword, the beak of a war axe or point of a spear, lance or halberd it has to be pretty thick. A 2mm steel breast plate will be penetrated by any of the above from a strong person, though maybe only enough for a very minor wound (say 1/2-1 inch of penetration). To prevent penetration your going to want around 3-4mm of steel, probably 4 mm to be sure and heck lets round up to a full 3/16" steel (4.7625mm).

A 3/16" steel plate is 7.66lbs per sq-ft. If the kite shield is 5ft high and 2ft wide you have 10sq-ft, that is a 76.6lb shield! Heck, even if you made it thinner with a tapered bottom to reduce the size to 8sq-ft and 3mm steel you still talking around 30lbs for the shield. I consider myself a fairly fit person, but I curl 50lbs an arm when lifting weights, I most certainly wouldn't want to be swinging around a 30lb shield to try to block attacks, etc for very long, let alone a 60-70lbs shield if you wanted to make it completely proof to any physical hand to hand attacks. Holding it would be hard, but the inertia is what would really be killer. So a PS of 20 to effectively use a kite shield I can totally see, especially a really thick/large kite shield.

Also for arrow ranges and others, they are identical between PFRPG and other Palladium games. For Elf heights and others, we are talking magical creatures. To really influence any of this in a meaningful way you'd have to have gravity at well below 1g, probably in the .4-.6g range, which would make humans mutants from its effect and radically alter everything.
-Matt

[azazel1024]

All I hear is "blah, blah, blah, Matt doesn't know how to do basic math, blah, blah, blah"



Okay, 1 in 16.
-Matt

[Soldier of Od]

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

There is a 1 in 216 chance of having a P.S. of 18 (of course, if you get an 18, you'll get to roll an extra die anyway, so it won't actually be an 18. So the only chance of getting an 18 is to roll a sixteen or seventeen and then get a two or one respectively to bring it up to 18, and that's not including possible skill bonuses... argh!... too...much...maths!).

Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that the Palladium world has the same gravity as earth; as already mentioned, items whose weight has been stated weigh the same as in real life and/or Earth based Palladium games. Palladium having tall inhabitants isn't really much of an argument for low gravity; it also has plenty of short inhabitants - gnomes and dwarves prove that it has a high gravity! And the millennium tree in Eastern Territory is much smaller than the equivalent trees in rifts, which is on Earth and has normal Earth gravity. It's about levels of magic/P.P.E., not gravity.

Lifting and carrying weights for P.S. are very high, but if I'm right, they are standard throughout all Palladium games, including those set on earth like HU, N&S and Rifts. So that doesn't say anything about the gravity on the Palladium world.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but gravity is linked to density, so it might be possible that the Palladium world is smaller, if it is denser; it would still have the same gravity (what a lucky coincidence!).

[MADMANMIKE]

Palladium is a planet, Kevin has plans for the world outside the barrier, but I wouldn't hold my breath for them to come around in the near future.

If the RIFTS movie gets made, there's a good chance it will create a paradigm shift in the way things work at Palladium and that could bring more Fantasy books sooner, but that's still an if. <------- Speculation.

-Mike <8]

[The Dark Elf]

If Palladium is a planet...

Earth is named after all the, well - Earth that there is on the planet.

Do you think Palladium has a shed load of palladium on the planet? It would look way more shiny from above.

P.S. Dont answer that as its off topic (or in another post).

[azazel1024]

The residents of Palladium are just more creative then us Earthlings. We named our planet after dirt, they decided to come up with something a bit more fun.


-Matt

[drewkitty ~..~]

The Palladium world is a bit larger in surface area then earth, but still has a 24 hour day and the surface gravity is close to that of earth's.

(I didn't do the figuring on the size of the PF setting world, others here did that. The map presented in the book represents as much of the world as does eurasia does on earth. or one quarter of the surface area.)