James Jacobs's page

So far, the Vishkanya has not yet been officially placed in Golarion; it first showed up in Bestiary 3, and since that book is world-neutral... it doesn't talk about Golarion at all.

That said... they're from Vudra.

To be clear about something, guns can still bypass DR fully, as can melee weapons. The change is that melee weapons do an as yet undetermined amount of bonus damage whenever they do this, while guns don't. This also only applies to metal based DR, not any other type of DR.

Can you link me to any past discussions I could read to get a better idea of how players feel about DR?

I cannot, since my experience with players and DR comes from playing the game.

James, do you think it would be unbalancing to allow, on a case by case basis, Fey to have the Undead or another type and the Fey type at the same time, with an explanation of which features of which type override features of the other type (such as hit dice, skills, and BAB)? I plan to use Fey heavily, and I may stat out some from my books of folklore. However, IRL the lines between a Fey and an Undead were very, very blurred, and a lot of creatures classified as Fey in folklore would fit the Undead type as logically as they would fit the Fey type. Therefore, I'm considering allowing some Fey to multitype if it makes sense for the folklore behind them.

Not unbalancing, but philosophically wrong. An undead is undead, not a fey. Monster types are not intended to be "multiclassable." Best you could probably get would be to make heavy use of undead templates on fey creatures.

If Bioware made a Pathfinder CRPG in the vein of Mass Effect or Dragon Age two, featuring the iconics as recruitable NPCs:

1) What race/class would you play?

2) Which iconics would you keep in your 4 man party (remembering your character takes one of the slots)?

3) Which character's romance quest would you like to complete?

1) Human bard

2) Merisiel, Kyra, and Amiri

3) Merisiel's, of course!

James, I wanted to run something by you to see if it makes sense. In my campaign setting, I'm considering making advanced firearms the most common weapons, with melee being mostly a secondary method of fighting. However, I want there to be some melee combat, so I came up with an idea to encourage it. Make metal based damage reduction common for magical creatures that favour melee combat. A blade is larger than a bullet, and therefore has more of the metal that bypasses the DR. Therefore, whenever they bypass DR, they get extra damage that a bullet wouldn't get, because they have so much more of the harmful materiel.

Does this explanation for why melee weapons are deadlier against creatures with DR make sense? Do you think it would encourage melee combat it certain circumstances while leaving firearms as the more common weapons?

An interesting idea that I think would need to be playtested before one could say how it might work out. Players and the way they interact with and freak out about damage reduction is a weird arena of possibilities....

James Jacobs wrote:

Alan_Beven wrote:

James, one of the themes I enjoy in my fantasy settings is the conflict between paganism and monotheism. It seems to me that in Golarion there is no culture that worships just a single god, or I have yet to discover it?

There's some elements of this in Tian-Xia, and some races favor worshiping a single deity, but yeah, for the most part monotheism isn't widely represented yet on Golarion.

Where will monotheism be widely represented?

Lung Wa. Dragon Empires Gazetteer.

I know you tend to favor prestige classes for your PC's, but have you ever built one that uses one prestige class to qualify for another? There's an Arcane Archer build I've been playing around with, just to see what it looks like, that uses three levels of Eldritch Knight to get up to the prerequisite BAB. Instead of the usual path (one level of wizard or sorcerer, six levels of fighter or ranger to get to BAB 6), this character takes one level as a fighter or ranger, five as a wizard (or six as a sorcerer), and then three Eldritch Knight levels (or two for the sorcerer version) to achieve a BAB of 6.

She qualifies for Arcane Archer at level 10 instead of 8, but at that point she already has the spell ability of a seventh-level wizard or sorcerer, instead of a first-level one. At twentieth level (taking one more EK level after getting to AA10), you have a character with a BAB of 16, ~110 (+ Con bonus) hit points, and the ability to deliver seventh or eighth level AoE spells to a maximum range of nearly half a mile with a composite longbow due to the distance arrow enhancement. The sorcerer version doesn't get eighth level spells, but compensates by being a little less MAD: the save DC for Arrow of Death is Charisma-based, and any sorcerer worth his salt will invest far more in that ability than a wizard can afford to.

What do you think: overpowered, underpowered (is there something I'm missing?), or is that about right for a character approaching mythic level?

Using one prestige class to qualify for another can be a fun and interesting way to build a character... as long as you do so in a way that the GM doesn't think you're just level dipping. In this case... if I were your GM, I'd like to see some in-game roleplay to back up why you're only taking a few levels of the prestige class before switching to a second one; simply "because it lets me get ahead of the game on class #2" isn't good enough for me.

In Golarion, what gods claim to be the mightiest and that all other gods are lesser beings when confronted with them?

Aroden seem to have been one of them, at least claiming to be the mightiest god of humanity and that humanity was or was destined to be the mightiest race.

Any other candidate?

Aroden never claimed to be mightiest. His faithful may have claimed that, but he himself did not.

In fact, very few deities claim to be the mightiest of all the gods, because very few deities that last for any length of time are foolish enough to make that claim.

1)In the myths about the fairy relm there warnings about eating and/or drinking anything there. Does this aply to the pathfinder version, the first world? Is it a myth in Golarion? if so is there good reason for it?

2)Does Golarion have anything like the Colossus of Rhodes?

3)Are there any cities in the Innersea that have plumbing(hot and cold running water)? electricity? steam power?

4)How many "revisted" books do you guys do a year? Two?

5)What are the odds of seeing a book(64 pages or more) dealing with magical artifacts(both major and minor)?

6)Have you seen any of the following animated movies "American Pop", "The Illusionist", or "Planet Hulk"?

7)Have you seen any of the straight to video DC comics animated films? If so wich ones and did you like them?

1) Not yet, really. The First World is similar in some ways to the classic "faerie realm," but different in lots of others. We've made a VERY conscious decision to not totally ape the legends of things like the realm of the fey, since we at Paizo are kind of tired of that construction.

2) Yes. There are giant statues in LOTS of places. Varisia, for example, has the Lady's Light. Magnimar itself is filled with giant statues.

3) Most of the large cities have some sort of plumbing to a certain extent. No electricity or steam power though.

4) Usually 2 or 3.

5) 100%.

6) Nope to all three.

7) Nope; haven't seen them.

Can oni "put on the flesh" of planetouched races? Can you have tiefling oni, and would they wind up with ox or horse heads? (This could get needlessly recursive considering there can be oni-descended tieflings. Liable to give myself a migraine.)

First of all... oni don't "put on flesh." They manifest once when they first appeaar, and at THAT point the normally immaterial evil spirit becomes flesh and bone based on a humanoid. In that way, you can't have an oni that takes on tiefling traits in the same way that, say, an ogre mage takes on ogre traits or a fire yai takes on fire giant traits.

That said... you CAN have oni-blooded tieflings. They shouldn's end up with ox or horse heads though; that's more of a rakshasa thing (and, by extension, a rakshasa-blooded oni thing).

James, one of the themes I enjoy in my fantasy settings is the conflict between paganism and monotheism. It seems to me that in Golarion there is no culture that worships just a single god, or I have yet to discover it?

There's some elements of this in Tian-Xia, and some races favor worshiping a single deity, but yeah, for the most part monotheism isn't widely represented yet on Golarion.

Something I just saw on another thread that has me interested. From a Canon point of view could Phasmara have Dhampir as clerics (or a sorceoror with the undead bloodline who decided to multi class?) Also Would she allow her clerics to have the Undead subdomain (Via the heretic archetype?)

She'd probably allow a dhampir or undead-bloodline sorcerer worship her, since both of those are not TECHNICALLY undead and can actually die, she might feel sorry for them but she certainly won't punish them or bar them from worshiping her. Some of her more intolerant followers and specific churches would not be so understanding though.

She would not grant access to the Undead subdomain.

It's actually intended to be some sort of construct. We might stat it up some day. But for now... just a "generic scary animated statue" is all it is.

James Jacobs wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

OK, I can roll with that. But now, at risk of following an annoying trend: JAMES JACOBS! Can I haz an Irori Paladin code cheezburger? 'Cause that leaves them as the only Paladins without their code spelled out as per Faiths of ... books.

Irori's paladins don't have an organized "knighthood," which is the main reason they're rare. They're individuals. That said... I thought that we put an Irori paladin code into the Dragon Empires Primer... I know I requested one to be in there...

I've triple-checked the Primer and no code there, alas. I'd be super-happy if you guys could whip one up and post it here or even better ... blogify it for all to see!

Dang.

And unfortunately, "whipping one up" isn't easy. The act of designing and writing things like this takes a fair bit of time—which is why I'd been hoping to pay a freelancer to do so. Anyway... it apparently doesn't exist yet, so maybe someday we'll get around to doing an Irori paladin code...

... but at the same time, there's no organized Irori paladinhoods, so if ANY one of the deities who has paladins doesn't ever get a code writeup... Irori's the one.

I read about the printing woes, and understand the delays are not their fault - merely a bit puzzled on how paizo plans to go forward

By working extra EXTRA hard and taking some evasive maneuvers.

@TheWhiteknife: It sounds like you would be interested in this book: Villains: Rebirth. It's for 3.5, but has most of what you are looking for.

heh... Good times! My first RPG book! (There's a proto-Sandpoint in there, even...)

And by "oversight" I of course mean "forgot to request Sean put that into the article," so more like "oversight on MY part." :-P

OK, I can roll with that. But now, at risk of following an annoying trend: JAMES JACOBS! Can I haz an Irori Paladin code cheezburger? 'Cause that leaves them as the only Paladins without their code spelled out as per Faiths of ... books.

Irori's paladins don't have an organized "knighthood," which is the main reason they're rare. They're individuals. That said... I thought that we put an Irori paladin code into the Dragon Empires Primer... I know I requested one to be in there...

I'm noticing an uptick of "not questions for James" in the thread.

I'm also guilty (even in this post), but let's try to turn it around.

Yeah... this isn't a forum. It's a "Pick on James with questions" thread. If something comes up that folks wanna chat about... there's lots of other forums here that are more appropriate. ALSO we do PMs now so that works as well!

If you add an `Aegis of Recovery` (paying the 150% cost) onto an `Amulet of Natural Armor` is the entire amulet destroyed when you drop below 0 hit points?

** spoiler omitted **

Yes.

Another question made me think of this... What would you say to a player who wanted to play a Bladebound magus with a Black Blade that was legal for a creature bigger than them? Weapon size penalties might apply and they would not be able to do spells with off-hand but would the blade at least be legal?

I'd ask him what color the character's eyes were, what his first frightening childhood memory was, what his first childhood crush was, whether he'd ever seen a dead body, and then require him to tell me three points in his childhood that inspired him to become a magus.

If he impresses me enough with his backstory and imagination, I'm far more likely to reward him with weird rules bendings.

favorite melee class?

favorite ranged class?
favorite full arcane caster class?
Favorite full divine caster?
favorite 3/4 bab class?
favorite partial caster?
Favorite archytype?
Why for all answers?
diplomacy or disguise check (depending on which is harder for you to succeed at noticing to get you too tell us when mythic level handbook will come out. 1d20+10

Rogue, ranger, witch, cleric, bard, bard, dawnflower dervish, because I like them, that last one had no question mark.

I couldn't find this anywhere else, so thought I'd ask here. For the purposes of the Magus class and its one-handed weapon "requirement" for casting, would a lance used while mounted (can be used one-handed) be considered a one-handed weapon allowing its use in spellstrike and spell combat?

No. A lance is a 2 handed weapon. AKA: The magus's class abilities only care about the base classification of the weapon, not weird corner cases.

Am I right in recalling that a lot of the last-minute art in RotRL that doesn't meet the standard of quality set by later APs is being replaced with new and improved art in the anniversary edition, or was that wishful thinking on my part?

Correct. We're not only reordering a lot of the art that wasn't in the style we've now settled on, but a lot more art that we're re-ordering for other reasons as well (such as a desire to not run any vertical half-page illustrations). There's actually a LOT of new art in the Anniversary book.

There's a difference between art style and a character's look, though. So, Nualia's outfit isn't changing. Just the style in which it's illustrated.

James Jacobs wrote:

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:

James, I am going to be in Ft. Lewis for the next couple weeks. Have any recommendations for local tourist spots to hit in Seattle? So far I have been told the Underworld Tour and Tillicum Village are a must.

The Space Needle's pretty neat. Pike's Place market is also awesome, and the aquarium and Woodland Park Zoo are VERY good.

I very much loved Woodland Park Zoo! They got rid of all their cages and have all open habitats done up to be mostly natural environments for the animals. I unfortunately was there during the summer so the wolves were hiding from the children. They told me during the school year the wolves came out of their dens more, but still overall I loved it (and Seattle in general) that I set a White Wolf Werewolf game there and had a Glass Walker running a breeding program at Woodland Park Zoo to get more wolf blood into her tribe.

As for the space needle, is Sky City still the restaurant there? My mother and I ate there and it was much more expensive than we are used to, but the food was really good and the view was amazing.

Woodland Park Zoo is one of the best zoos in the nation, I hear. It's certainly not one of those depressing animal cage zoos.

And I think the restaraunt is in there... but yeah... EXPENSIVE.

What province of Tamriel would you like Bethesda to visit in the next Elder Scrolls game (or possible AddOn) after Hammerfell, High Rock, Morrowind, Cyrodill and Skyrim?

Elswyer, probably, since I like the idea of cities in giant migratory trees...

Although since my FIRST character ever was from the Summerset Isles back in Arena... that might be cool!

James Jacobs wrote:

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

Did you get any of the Pathfinder Battles minis?

Just the black dragon. I've actually got a LOT of minis already... I'm trying to fight clutter!

Whoa! You don't have Merisiel ?!!!

I thought the Gencon Sample may have landed on your desk.

I have the heroes package with Merisiel and the other 3, never fear!

Hello, James.

This is the first time I make a question in this thread so, there it goes.

1)Are Riddleport or Korvosa going to be visited in the Shattered Star AP?
2)Are Crystilan, Chorak´s Tomb or Viperwall going to be part of the adventure path?
3)Anything about Urglin?
4)Any possibility of having all the info about Varisia in a book in the campaign setting line?
5)Any new revisited product before the end of the year? Maybe Fey revisited?

Thanks in advance!

Hi, and welcome to the thread!

1) No and No. With the exception of Magnimar, we're not repeating locations used by other APs.

2) Nope, nope, and nope, although Chorak's Tomb ALMOST made it in.

3) Nope.

4) Yup, Absolutely.

5) Definitely. But not Fey Revisited.

Are any of the planets in Golarion's system named after ancient/lost/dead gods?

Not sure... but I'm sure Sutter could tell you. In person OR via "Distant Worlds."

So... first Faiths of Balance tells us that the only Neutral deity to have paladin followers is Abadar. We get the code and stuff.

Then we have Tide of Honor which gives us SKR's article on Irori (no paladins mentioned, monks, clerics and druids mentioned as clergy) and the adventure itself gives us... a paladin of Irori.

Is this an oversight in axing out the adventure writer's inconsistency with canon, OR are there any paladins of Irori after all?

Oversight on Sean's part, I suspect. There ARE paladins of Irori. Not a lot. Very few, in fact. But they exist.

Did you get any of the Pathfinder Battles minis?

Just the black dragon. I've actually got a LOT of minis already... I'm trying to fight clutter!

Hey James, a few questions about Ratfolk from Bestiary 3...

How common are they in the Inner Sea Region, and where in the ISR are you most likely to find them? Do they have much of a presence in or around Varisia?

Ratfolk are very uncommon in the Inner Sea region; wererats are a LOT more common there. Ratfolk on Golarion are more of a Tian Xia Darklands race.

I hate to ask a question that may have already asked but:

I have some Eidolon/Summoner questions. If it makes any difference they are all for a Society-legal Summoner.

1. What happens to an Eidolon that is hit by the Maze spell? My group decided that it would be stuck in the Maze as a normal character unless dismissed by the summoner. BUT the other opinion was that the Eidolon was no longer technically on the same plain as the summoner it is auto-dispelled as per the Life Link rules. (Because it is on another plane and in a sense more than 10,000 feet away.)

2. Does the Improved Damage evolution apply only to ONE set of natural attacks, or every set of the same name. IE if my Eidolon has two claw evolutions do they both benefit from a single Improve Damage: Claws evolution?

3. Do Improve Damage evolution and the Improve Natural Attack feat stack? Also is the INAttack feat Society legal to begin with?

3a. And at the same time, would the INAttack feat improve all natural attacks of the same type or just one set like question 2?

4. Can a quadruped with three Limb: Legs evolutions take two Claw evolutions or does it need to take Limb: Arms to be able to take multiple Claw evolutions?

1) The eidolon endures in the maze spell like a normal creature; the summoner can't dismiss it until it escapes.

2) One set of attacks at a time. Should probably work like the feat. Also, eidolons already are better than they should be so I tend to want to see these types of things default to the less optimal option.

3) I would say that they don't, because they're kinda the same thing. See the last sentence of #2 above.

4) Needs arms for claws.

Would a doll of a zombie be socially acceptable in Geb?

Probably. Geb's a pretty wild place.

Hey James Jacobs...

Does lycanthropy affect the lifespan of the base creature?

Nope.

Well... not unless you count being hunted down by angry mobs, I guess.

What are the chances of Paizo doing a book in the Revisited-line about the new dragons?

Imperial Dragons Introduced sounds like a cool title, and it feels like we could do with a bit more information about the eponymous dragons of the Dragon Empires. (And I'd certainly not mind finding out a bit more about the Primal ones either, for that matter.)

We could certainly talk a lot more about the Imperial dragons, but the trick there is the fact that our revisited lines have 10 chapters, and we only have five imperial dragons... Doing the five primals in the same book might be an interesting combo though.

According to the rules to add a spell from a scroll to her/his familiar a witch has to turn it into a tasty snack for the familiar.

If the familiar is an improved familiar such as a mephit or imp does the familiar still have to chow down on the scroll or are they able to commit it to memory?

Also is it possible to apply the rule to a wizards spell book.... Say for example a spell book is part of some phat loot and the witch whips up a nice caramelised lightning bolt and sautéed speak with dead on a bed of dried Mage armor out of the spell book..... Would there be a chance of the familiar adding these to its list.

An improved familiar would indeed have to learn the spell the same way, unless the GM decided to change that flavor text, of course.

As for that last question... you got a BIT too complicated and lost my train of thought... so NO!!!!!

Going to be in a 20th level game pretty soon here, and I was wondering if Two Weapon Rend works with Multi-weapon fighting since MWF replaces TWF?

Up to your GM. I'd say no, though, since multi-weapon fighting is already doing plenty of damage...

In purity of balance the Nethy's entry is the person standing there supposed to be a Gnome because I'm honestly not sure.

Dunno; assuming you're talking about Nethys's entry in Faiths of Balance... probably a gnome. But I don't have a copy here to be sure.

Another question, in the close-future would we be able to pay through Ideal aswel? Cuz I can't have a creditcard and asking my friends to buy products all the time is a long-slow-way of getting the books I want so I rather see Ideal-payment in the future so I can buy my own stuff instead of letting others with creditcards pay for it.

I'm not sure... there's a lot of security concerns with allowing alternate payment methods that we've looked into and didn't quite meet our standards for security; that's more of a webstore question in any case.

Are all new products announced in the Paizo Blog? Or is there a special place on this site where I can view all new products or released products so far?

They're not really announced on the blog as much as they are just in the store... not sure, acutely, what the best way is to view those announcements though now that I think about it.

You'll want to have Bestiary 2 and Bestiary 3 handy for sure.

There are very few (and there might not be ANY) NPCs with levels from classes from APG, UC, and UM. In fact, I know for a fact that there are no ninja, samurai, gunslingers, or magi in there. And while I can't remember for sure (at one point I know there was an oracle, but that character changed into something else), I'm relatively sure there are no alchemists, cavaliers, witches, summoners, oracles, or inquisitors. If there ARE... it's like one or two NPCs. In any event, if we DO use things like that, or archetypes, those NPCs will get full stat blocks anyway. Since they're NPCs.

But you'll need Bestiary 2 and 3 for certain. There are short stat blocks for things in Runelords that are from those two books.

James Jacobs wrote:

Cheapy wrote:

I meant my comment on in/out of combat as to why full BAB classes are better at tying ropes than Wizards. Although reading up on it...I'm not sure there are any rules for tying knots well. Just tying people up.

According to the conversion guide, Use Rope was split into Climb and Grapple. Guess there are no rules for tying ropes anymore.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the month after the current release schedule ends, and 10 being 2014, when do you hope for that next Numeria feeler to be?

Yes, I may be a bit obsessive.

Nope. If you want to tie a rope to another rope, you just do it. It's more or less automatic. Rules for tying ropes together existed, I believe, as a weird sort of way to help justify the fact that such a strangely hyperspecialized skill existed in the first place.

I don't hope at all. I know what the next "Numeria feeler" will be, and it's not a product we've announced yet, so I can't say without revealing something too early.

Is it not too early to announce it now?

No. Or yes. Whichever answer is more frustrating.

James, I am going to be in Ft. Lewis for the next couple weeks. Have any recommendations for local tourist spots to hit in Seattle? So far I have been told the Underworld Tour and Tillicum Village are a must.

The Space Needle's pretty neat. Pike's Place market is also awesome, and the aquarium and Woodland Park Zoo are VERY good.

Are there rules for low or high gravity? Do Golarionians have super-strength on Akiton?

(Is "Golarionian" even the right word?)

There are indeed gravity rules. Not a lot, since the book's not intended to be "Distant Gravities."

I meant my comment on in/out of combat as to why full BAB classes are better at tying ropes than Wizards. Although reading up on it...I'm not sure there are any rules for tying knots well. Just tying people up.

According to the conversion guide, Use Rope was split into Climb and Grapple. Guess there are no rules for tying ropes anymore.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the month after the current release schedule ends, and 10 being 2014, when do you hope for that next Numeria feeler to be?

Yes, I may be a bit obsessive.

Nope. If you want to tie a rope to another rope, you just do it. It's more or less automatic. Rules for tying ropes together existed, I believe, as a weird sort of way to help justify the fact that such a strangely hyperspecialized skill existed in the first place.

I don't hope at all. I know what the next "Numeria feeler" will be, and it's not a product we've announced yet, so I can't say without revealing something too early.

Will Kaer Maga show up in the Shattered Star Adventure Path?

Yes.

Some kind of "Use Rope" skill, you say? :)

I can totally see why they got rid of it, but I'm not sure why they decided to roll it into a combat maneuver. I mean, in combat tying? Sure, that makes sense. But for out of combat? I can't see the reasoning.

So perhaps Disable Device? That's the catch-all technical skill it would seem.

The ability to make CMB/CMD checks doesn't just vanish when combat turns off.

Also is shatterd star the ap where we finally find out what all those entwined succubus are about (Apologies if this has already been asked)

No. The Magnimar Book will be.

Has Paizo ever considered getting a second-party developer? Basically, a company that would be dedicated to creating content only for Golarion but would have to run all content past you at Paizo to maintain consistency and quality.

It would allow for quite a bit more APs and adventures to be made every year.

No. The development of Golarion is a complicated enough task that further complicating it by having off-site devleopers isn't something that would streamline the process, nor would it result in "better continuity."

Being physically located in Paizo's building is really really important for this kind of job.