James Jacobs's page

Thomas Seitz wrote:

Too bad we can't Dark Young and Dimensional Shambler again...

But still! I look forward to seeing what we do get regardless in this adventure.

So does that mean that the creatures licensed by Chaosium won't appear in any other adventures?

Actually, it COULD happen. We'd just need to repeat the legal text and arrange it, but we've got a really good relationship these days with Chaosium so I doubt that'd be a problem.

Rust monsters: Misunderstood cuties or horrible abominations to be shot on sight?

Depends entirely if I'm in druid mode or not.

Who would Serpentfolk worship besides Ydersius?

Would they be inclined to ally with a member of another race, if that individual was telepathic and had similar outlooks on life?

Beyond Ydersius, there's not really any one obvious choice. Serpentfolk are themselves neutral evil, so Urgathoa and Norgorber are both good choices. They aren't really about daemons or apocalypse stuff and wouldn't normally worship the Horsemen. I could see some of them worshiping arch devils or demon lords though. The version of Yig we've incorporated into the setting is, unlike the version of Yig in other games, NOT likely to have serpentfolk worshipers, for Yig and Ydersius are enemies, not allies. The rare few serpenfolk who would worship Yig would be chaotic neutral and traitors to their nation and kind.

Serpentfolk are control freaks, and while they'd certainly not be above allying with other races that share their outlooks, they'd want to stay the ones in charge. To a serpentfolk, a slave is MUCH better than a friend.

James Jacobs wrote:

Rysky wrote:

What did you think of Dagon?

I love the movie. It's not perfect, but it's no-contest in my top 5 Lovecraft adaptions.

What would be the other 4?

Re-Animator

Did you like the Atropal, the undead one?

The atropal is pretty outrageously creepy. So of course I liked it.

James Jacobs wrote:

Rysky wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

What's better, the halberd or the longspear?

Halberd.

Did you hold this opinion before or after you fought Gundyr? :3

I'm not sure who you're talking about... and then I realized you were asking about Warcraft weapons and not just the generic weapons themselves. The halberd is better becasue it's more interesting looking than a longspear. I have no opinion about Warcraft versions of them since my character uses a bow.

?

I was actually referring to the Gundyr fight in Dark Souls 3 (you fight him as the first boss)

** spoiler omitted **

Oh. That was even further from my mind. I found the bosses in Dark Souls 3 to be the least memorable of all the souls games, alas—too many of them were just "oh another big person in armor."

Hi James

On average what's the ball park amount the sun orchard elixer would fetch? We talking hundreds of thousands orbwre talking millions?

That's not a sum we've published, because of the game's hesitance for publishing gp values for artifacts. It sells for "market value" and that changes each time one goes up for sale, but as mentioned in the Inner Sea World Guide on page 301 where we present rules for the elixir, no dose has ever sold for less than 50,000 gp.

Are you familiar with Undertale?

I know about it, partially because it sometimes shows up on Steam, but mostly because Wes plays it a lot and has fun with it. I've never played it; not all that interested in its style or mechanics or themes, frankly.

James Jacobs wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

What's better, the halberd or the longspear?

Halberd.

Did you hold this opinion before or after you fought Gundyr? :3

I'm not sure who you're talking about... and then I realized you were asking about Warcraft weapons and not just the generic weapons themselves. The halberd is better becasue it's more interesting looking than a longspear. I have no opinion about Warcraft versions of them since my character uses a bow.

While you've said that it's very unlikely that Paizo will publish rules for epic level I did just find out that the Epic Level Handbook is OGL.

What are your opinions on the Abomination Type of creatures from that book?

I will, in fact, go as far as to say that Paizo will NOT Publish epic level rules. It's not something we're interested in. Mythic Adventures is our solution to that play style.

I think that the Abominations have some individually interesting monsters in there, but that the category doesn't make much sense and is too loosely defined. Furthermore, the whole design element for epic that there is no level cap means that no matter WHAT you do to design ANY monster for that system, you're guaranteed to have your monster be either ridiculously overpowered or ridiculously underpowered for the vast majority of gamers who use Epic Rules (which is my #1 reason for not liking how the Epic Level rules work—add in a PC level cap, and my dislike of the rules amps down a LOT).

James Jacobs wrote:

The NPC wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

The NPC wrote:

Mr. James Jacobs,

In your estimation is there a way to do a Shadow Over Innsmouth type story set in the modern day while keeping the classic prejudices out of it?

Yes.

Any hints in that regard?

Not really, since I don't really see Shadow Over Innsmouth as having any "classic prejudices" in it (unlike, say, Horror at Red Hook).

There's been more modern movie adaptations of Shadow Over Innsmouth as examples—Roger Corman's "Humanoids from the Deep" and Stuart Gordon's "Dagon" both come to mind immediately. Looking to our own products, I suppose "Wake of the Watcher" and "From Shore to Sea" would be the best examples of a Pathfinder version of this story.

And of course, it's one of Lovecraft's most famous books, and there's been a LOT of other authors expanding on the themes of Shadow Over Innsmouth over the years. In fact, there are entire anthologies about this very topic. In particular, the follwoing three anthologies:

Shadows Over Innsmouth

Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

There's LOTS of examples in those books on how to do the story differently.

What did you think of Dagon?

I love the movie. It's not perfect, but it's no-contest in my top 5 Lovecraft adaptions.

The T-Rex has excellent taste in movies :)

Does that change when I point out I adore C.H.U.D.?

Dear "Jurassic" James Jacobs,

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere: Whatever happened to the Medium we saw in the Occult Adventures Playtest PDF? Even if it was limited to being themed after the Harrow deck, I liked it much, much better than the Medium we got, which as a big fan of 3.5 Pact Magic in all its glorious, spooky, readily-expanded weirdness (who never really got a good chance to play with it), I was very disappointed with. I would have loved to play with the Waxworks and Devil's Lantern Spirits, for instance, whereas the super-generic 6 we got hold little to no appeal to me.

As a T-Rex, it is my sworn duty to correct you and point out I'm from the Cretaceous, not Jurassic.

The Playtest PDF Medium went away. One of the whole points of a playtest is to test how these things work, and the playtest revealed to us that the initial version of the Medium was not the right version and it was riddled with design errors or false starts or we simply came up with better ideas as a result of the playtest. I do know that linking it to the Harrow deck
made the class ridiculously enormous to the extent that it was unpublishable, so the decision to ramp it back and rebuild the class so it was at least closer to the complexity and size of most other classes was a no-brainer. Furthermore, the Harrow is a Golarion continuity element, and we have traditionally shied away from including too much Golarion continuity in the hardcover rules. The "playtest PDF medium" was an experiment—a rough draft, and it's gone, replaced by the final version.

Axial wrote:

I can see Entothropes being favored by Deskari worshippers and spider Entothropes specifically being prevalent among Drow and followers of Atlach-Nacha.

Wait, Atlach-Nacha exists in the game? I thought they were replaced by Mazmezz.

Though I always did enjoy old A-N was depicted in CAS's classic 'The Seven Geases'.

Atlach-Nacha has never been a drow deity. Mazmezz is meant to replace Lolth, more or less, but is much more obscure even among drow, who aren't 100% spider themed in Pathfinder.

That said, yes, Atlach-Nacha is one of the six Great Old Ones we're publishing in the Strange Aeons Adventure Path, as part of our connection/agreement/team-up with Chaosium. (Since Clark Ashton Smith's creations are not yet in the public domain, we worked with Chaosium to use their license to do game-related content of their versions of his creations.)

In every single picture of a dwarven woman we've illustrated. A picture's worth a thousand words, or so they say, so by that metric we've published MANY thousands of words that say "Dwarf women do not have beards."

If I wanted to run an adventure path and use all the miniatures Paizo will eventually release that are designed for said AP how long do I need to wait after the AP's release? 2 years? 3?

I suspect we'll never have all of the characters in an Adventure Path available as miniatures.

Do you enjoying combing real-world legends/history when looking to come up with in-game battlecries, aphorisms,and so forth? (Obviously publishing them can be tricky/questionable, but for home games...)

By way of example- many of my Desnans lift the old Dakota "you cannot harm one who has dreamed a dream like mine," my Shelynites get a bit of Navajo paraphrasing in-"In beauty I walk. With beauty before me, I walk. With beauty behind me, I walk. With beauty below me, I walk. With beauty above me, I walk. With beauty all around me, I walk. It is finished in beauty," Gorumites get to belt out "It is a good day to die!" my Linnorm Kingdom residents get "If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance," and so on.

Yup.

James Jacobs wrote:

The Doomkitten wrote:

Would "On the wings of life, by the hands of hope, by the brightest light, from the brightest sun," be a good oath/battlecry for a devout worshiper of Sarenrae?

Do you like Varric because he doesn't really act like a dwarf at all, and his questline in DAII is all about pointing out how screwed up dwarf society is?

There's nothing in that battlecry that a worshiper of a goddess of healing, honesty, redemption, and the sun would take offense at, and a lot they'd like, so yes it's a good one.

I like Varric because he's snarky, because he's well-written, because he uses profanity, because he has a cool and amusing relationship with his crossbow (a non-traditional dwarf weapon), because he doesn't have a huge beard, because he questions dwarven traditions, and because he's a storyteller in a bard-sort-of-way. I like him because a lot of his characteristics are NOT classic dwarf tropes.

What do you think of Harsk and Shardra?

I like that they're non-standard dwarves, but neither is in my top 10 Pathfinder iconic list.

Could the Dehydrating Touch power from the aquatic bloodline be use to extract water from a drowning person's lungs?

Nope. It's not NEARLY that precise an ability.

Hey, someone else that liked "Let Me In", +1 for JJ :).

I would just like to mention, there was a certain PC game, from "the worlds most well known TTRPG" folks, which featured a ghost who was not evil unless you happen to be a jerk to her (and why would you, she was or still is, your wife. (for those who have never played it, play Planescape Torment, I promise you will not regret it, even if it does not use PF rules)

I like both "Let Me In" AND "Let the Right One In" in fact, and often accidentally confuse the two titles because they are basically the same movie, but different in ways make each one interesting.

AKA: Sometimes remakes are as good as the originals.

I'm going to be running Rise of the Runelords soon, and I'm wondering what is Shalelu like, personality wise? I ask because I can see the parties Elf Wizard falling for her, so I'm expecting the party would be interacting with her pretty often.

Beyond the information about her in Rise of the Runelords, Shalelu has also appeared in Second Darkness (part 3) and Jade Regent. She has a full NPC entry, including lots of details about how she would interact with a party, in Jade Regent #1.

The goblins dragged it through after beating it unconscious, if I recall correctly.

This is correct. When the horse healed up enough to wake up in the room it ended up in, the goblins realized they'd made a huge mistake.

I know that all the Chaosium creatures in Strange Aeons and Carrion Crown's " Wake of the watcher" can only be in those bestiaries, But does that mean they can't be in any other adventures, except the ones whose bestiaries they are in?

It means that we can use them all we want in print, but whenever we do, we have to attribute Chaosium. Further, I'd drop in thanks and maybe advertisements to them as well in such a case. They aren't open content, so they're not good candidates for inclusion in a Bestiary unless they are specifically creatures inspired by Lovecraft or another public-domain author (of which there ARE a few such critters in there).

Third party publishers cannot use them in their products unless they get permission from both Chaosium AND from Paizo to reprint them. Home games can use them all they want.

James Jacobs wrote:

JoelF847 wrote:

If an animal species were to "evolve" into a humanoid version of themselves and take over the world, making humans second class citizens/slaves, similar to Planet of the Apes, which animal would be your preference, and which animal would be the worst choice if you had to live in that world?

Lizards or cats would be my preference.

Dogs would be the worst choice. Or maybe cows.

Cats? would you really want to be subjugated by something that would consider you a meal?

Have you ever read the Pierre Bournelle book the movie and remake were based on?

Cats are awesome, but since we're currently talking about a poorly-defined what-if future, my assumption was that I would be allied with my new feline overlords, based purely on my current real-world preference for the company of cats and the fact that I have plenty of cat friends.

I've never read the original book.

I have three questions, all related to a character I've created: "Frogface" Saul Gorshnik, an elderly deep one hybrid sorcerer with the aquatic bloodline.

One: What do you think of a sorcerer's bloodline manifesting in physical ways? In Saul's case, seawater is constantly oozing from his body and filling his mouth; sometimes he has to spit it out to make himself understood.

Two: Saul is old, so what would happen if somebody cast Sands of Time on him? Would he fully transform into a deep one? If so, would it be permanent or just for the spell's duration?

Three: Do deep ones and their offspring have any familial bonds? I gave Saul a quirk that he writes letters to his deep one mother and sends them adrift in bottles.

One: I think that having a bloodline manifest physically is neat, and that's always been my assumption. Many bloodlines specifically have physical effects built into their powers already, so it's not a big stretch to say they have other cosmetic influences.

Two: I'd say it'd be permanent, and would transition your character into an NPC. Your GM may well have a different interpretation.

Three: They do indeed have familial bonds.

Would "On the wings of life, by the hands of hope, by the brightest light, from the brightest sun," be a good oath/battlecry for a devout worshiper of Sarenrae?

Do you like Varric because he doesn't really act like a dwarf at all, and his questline in DAII is all about pointing out how screwed up dwarf society is?

There's nothing in that battlecry that a worshiper of a goddess of healing, honesty, redemption, and the sun would take offense at, and a lot they'd like, so yes it's a good one.

I like Varric because he's snarky, because he's well-written, because he uses profanity, because he has a cool and amusing relationship with his crossbow (a non-traditional dwarf weapon), because he doesn't have a huge beard, because he questions dwarven traditions, and because he's a storyteller in a bard-sort-of-way. I like him because a lot of his characteristics are NOT classic dwarf tropes.

When designing feats, do you prefer to focus on the mechanic effect (and it's impact) or the rule of cool?

Almost ALWAYS the flavor today. There are several core feats that exist to do specific things that are sort of required, classically, by feats (things like Iron Will and Toughness and Power Attack), but we've had HUNDREDS of feats in that category. Today, I prefer a feat to start life as a cool flavorful idea and then, if all goes well, the mechanics are born out of that and are fun as well.

What happens if a dying creature receives temporary hit points?

Do they stabilize?
Can they regain consciousness?
What happens when the temporary hit points expire?
If they regain conciousness but do not stabilize, do they keep the dying condition and lose 1 hit point per round? The "loss" of hit points will go on the temporary hit points or his real hit points?

That's a great question! I'd say that they can regain consciousness provided the temporary hit points would technically put them at or over an effective hp of zero, but do not stabilize. They would continue to lose 1 hp per round until they stabilize, but the hp per round they'd lose would come first from temporary hit points, so when the temp hp are used up or expire, they just go right back to whatever negative hit point total they were at before they went under.

Also I'm hoping to get a mini-player's guide type thing up as a blog post in a bit that'll help fill the gap. No promises yet though, but it's my goal, and I'm working with Chris to make it happen.

The Doomkitten is 100% correct.

The act of intentionally creating undead is evil, and as a result most undead are evil, because they're filled with a burning desire and need to bring harm to life and to consume living energy and spread pain and sickness and so on.

But ghosts aren't usually intentionally created. They arise when a spirit is unwilling to move on, when a soul is not allowed to rest due to a great injustice. As detailed in the bestiary...

"Although ghosts can be any alignment, the majority cling to the living world out of a powerful sense of rage and hatred, and as a result are chaotic evil—even the ghost of a good or lawful creature can become hateful and cruel in its afterlife."

The primary reason why most undead (and even most ghosts) are evil is simple—that's the classic role they play, and the role undead are most well-suited to play. Look at all the world's stories about undead. Yes, there are examples of them being non-evil, but those examples are not the majority, and I can think of several that portray undead as non evil that are common targets of ridicule, which hardly makes them a good contender for something to aspire to.

For me, as creative director of Paizo, I prefer the stories where the undead are evil, where they propel horror stories, since "fear of death" is at the core of all undead stories. But there are exceptions, and in most cases, those exceptions are ghost stories. I can think of MANY ghost stories that are great but don't portray evil ghosts, but even then most ghost stories are about bad ghosts.

Beyond ghosts, I'd say that vampires probably come in second in the "sometimes they're not evil" but that's both rarer AND (in my opinion) easier to turn into something ludicrous than a non-evil ghost. (For the record, when I say good movies about non-evil vampires, I'm specifically referring to "Near Dark" and the Underworld movies and "Let Me In," but whether or not the vampires in those movies are actually good or are just not-all-out-evil is kind of a matter of opinion.)

When creating a monster, and using the monster statistics by CR table as a guideline, how do you count spells and SLAs which directly impact one of the listed stats?

For example, if the monster has the ability to cast shield 3/day, do you count that +4 shield bonus to AC as part of its baseline stats when determining how well it meets the suggested value, or not, since it's only on sometimes, and can be dispelled, compared to an actual shield used, which only doesn't apply to AC in more limited circumstances like being sundered and destroyed.

I don't count that as its baseline stats unless it's a constant spell-like ability.

If an animal species were to "evolve" into a humanoid version of themselves and take over the world, making humans second class citizens/slaves, similar to Planet of the Apes, which animal would be your preference, and which animal would be the worst choice if you had to live in that world?

Lizards or cats would be my preference.

Dogs would be the worst choice. Or maybe cows.

James Jacobs wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Another question. When Aroden was alive, and before he became a god and stuff, what kind of wizard was he? A specialist or universalist? If he was a specialist, what school did he specialize in?

Universalist.

So did he do that Hand Of The Apprentice thing with his sword?

He could have if he wanted. But. He had better things to do, being a powerful wizard, than that.

James Jacobs wrote:

The NPC wrote:

Mr. James Jacobs,

In your estimation is there a way to do a Shadow Over Innsmouth type story set in the modern day while keeping the classic prejudices out of it?

Yes.

Any hints in that regard?

Not really, since I don't really see Shadow Over Innsmouth as having any "classic prejudices" in it (unlike, say, Horror at Red Hook).

There's been more modern movie adaptations of Shadow Over Innsmouth as examples—Roger Corman's "Humanoids from the Deep" and Stuart Gordon's "Dagon" both come to mind immediately. Looking to our own products, I suppose "Wake of the Watcher" and "From Shore to Sea" would be the best examples of a Pathfinder version of this story.

And of course, it's one of Lovecraft's most famous books, and there's been a LOT of other authors expanding on the themes of Shadow Over Innsmouth over the years. In fact, there are entire anthologies about this very topic. In particular, the follwoing three anthologies:

Shadows Over Innsmouth

Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

There's LOTS of examples in those books on how to do the story differently.

James Jacobs wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

What would you say are the best APs for elf PCs?

Second Darkness and Ironfang Invasion I guess. That said, they're all pretty good for elves (or dwarves or gnomes or whatever—that's part of being a core race).

Well, I know what I'll play for Ironfang Invasion now! Thanks, James! :D

Elves in Nirmathas'd be Forlorn, right?

Elves are Forlorn when they are raised by non-elves. An elf can be raised by elves in any region of the Inner Sea Region, or by non-elves in any region of the Inner Sea Region. Whether or not your elf is forlorn is up to you, in other words.

James Jacobs wrote:

It's important mostly in the same way that an interstate is important—it allows for relatively swift travel between planes and between different areas in those planes. If you know how to navigate the Styx, traveling from one Abyssal realm to another, or from Hell to Abaddon, or whatever combo you want, is something you can do relatively swiftly rather than having to resort to gate or plane shift or the like.

Would you as a GM allow Lore: Styx River checks to properly navigate* the Styx and travel through the lower planes, Axis, Maestrom? (Lore is a new Int-based skill outlined in Unchained)

*Only for navigation checks (i.e. you'd still need someone else with Profession: Sailor or Boater to actually control whatever Styx-worthy vessel you may use for this.

I'm not familiar with the Lore mechanic in Unchained, but I'd certainly allow Knowledge (planes) to do this or even Profession (sailor) at a much higher DC.

Mr. James Jacobs,

In your estimation is there a way to do a Shadow Over Innsmouth type story set in the modern day while keeping the classic prejudices out of it?

Yes.

Thanks Kalindlara. And while it's likely impossible, I'd love to see references to Mythos material by Brian Lumley like Yibb-Tstll or Bugg-Shash -- what? I like his stuff; it has a very fantasy feel to it. Ramsey Campbell did some amazing work as well, though I suppose Glaaki is still stuck on Earth.

Our license with Chaosium does not extend to using mythos content from Lumley or Campbell for Strange Aeons, but that doesn't mean that some day in the future for some other product we can't pursue license agreements with either of them to do more with their creations in another book, I suppose. I would LOVE to do more with Campbell's creations in particular some day.

Good afternoon,

I'm DMing a Wrath of the Righteous campaign and the party is in the final chapter. The paladin failed a save to an imprisonment spell and was imprisoned "deep beneath the ground" but then that ground in IZ collapsed into a rift. My question is two fold: 1 Does the imprisonment globe go even deeper to be underground or was it deep enough to begin with? And 2. since a freedom spell needs to be cast in the area that the imprisonment occurred that seems to mean some method of flight is now necessary for both the liberator and the imprisoned character to be freed as nothing indicates they are freed in the nearest safe location or nearest solid surface(at least that is where I am leaning)?

1) Imprisonment goes as deep as it needs go go. I've always assumed that it's below the Darklands even. In any case, easily deep enough to not be impacted by the collapse of Iz.

2) Yup; you need to be in the basic area where the effect first came into being. In this case, a fly or levitate or similar spell would be required... but the wording is kinda vague, so in theory, and at the GM's whim, the "locale" could either refer to the 5-foot-square where the paladin was last standing or simply the area—so you could be standing on the new ground where Iz collapsed to or on a cliff's edge looking over the new chasm.

Another question. When Aroden was alive, and before he became a god and stuff, what kind of wizard was he? A specialist or universalist? If he was a specialist, what school did he specialize in?

Universalist.

What would you say are the best APs for elf PCs?

Second Darkness and Ironfang Invasion I guess. That said, they're all pretty good for elves (or dwarves or gnomes or whatever—that's part of being a core race).

James Jacobs wrote:

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

In Legion instead of going through infinite weapon replacements, you'll be just using one weapon per spec. I've obtained the artifact weapon for two of my specs and will soon be going for the third and last.

Yup, and in my case only ever using the bow, since I'm not all that into switching specs.

I assume that your prefered spec is Marksman than. There's a lot of lore for the Marksman weapon, you should enjoy it.... and the NPC reactions to you having it.

It's a great time to be an elf, either night or blood.

Yup; I've preferred Marksman since day one, more or less. I played a little bit with Beastmaster back in one of the first expansions since it let you tame Devilsaurs, but got tired of it and went back to Marksman. I've never enjoyed survival. If I wanted to do melee, I would have played a rogue.

In Legion instead of going through infinite weapon replacements, you'll be just using one weapon per spec. I've obtained the artifact weapon for two of my specs and will soon be going for the third and last.

Yup, and in my case only ever using the bow, since I'm not all that into switching specs.

As for Slavelords, are you converting the collected volume over? And if so, any interesting ideas on how to handle the party at Dame Gold's?

I haven't 100% decided yet. I have the recent hardcover reprint from WotC and might just use that, but I might use the brown-cover compilation that came out after Temple, if I can find my copy.

As with the previous one, I'll be running it as close to as-is in print as I can. Unlike Temple or Queen of the Spiders, though, I've actually NEVER run the Slavers adventures and haven't read them in ages, so I have no idea what the "party at Dame Gold's" is referring to off the top of my head. So, no interesting ideas at this point.

is that why outsiders with their mortal memories so rare? They seem to be a bit of a wild card, would those rare outsiders still possess there mortal free will? Or would they mostly behave like the outsider they are but just remember their former life?

Nope. It's rare for an outsider to retain mortal memories because that's not the norm, and in almost all cases the process of going from mortal to soul to outsider is so potent that it wipes things clean.

An outsider that DOES retain its memories is much more likely to behave in more familiar ways and forge more relationships outside of their expected role; these outsiders tend to be movers and shakers among their kind as a result, but also tend to attract enemies faster as a result as well.

James Jacobs wrote:

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

Wow Hunter Spoiler ** spoiler omitted **

Neat!

And too late on the motivation. I caved in and bought Legion and reactivated my subscription and am now playing again! :-P

If you have any problems with how the artifact weapons look, they can be transmoged. I'm thinking of transmogging the beastmaster artifact weapon into the Ironfeather bow I picked up from my adventure into the Kaldorei past in Cataclysm.

Yup; been tinkering a little bit with transmogs but then immediatley found better gear so for the moment I'll be holding off on that. That said, I can't imagine replacing my bow, so maybe I'll get it fancied up... not sure yet.

James Jacobs wrote:

'd like to say "Finishing off my Temple of Elemental Evil" game and setting the stage for the transition to the Slavelords game,

How far did your party of players get to in the old grand ToEE James?

Were you able to throw some cool plot twits at them?

What were their most noteworthy accomplishments?

Did they get to reach the nodes?
Did they free the trapped prince?
Did they free Zuggtmoy, and who was your Golarion stand in for Iuz?

They got to nearly the end. In fact, tonight is the last session, and they're going to finish it off so that in 2 weeks they'll be starting on Slave Lords.

My goal for the game was not to do too many adjustments or tweaks to the game, but to present it as-is, with as little adjustment to the story as possible. There's plenty of cool plot twists in the adventure, obviously, but I didn't create any new ones really. There have been some fun unexpected combat results (such as Rob using his wand of a wonder to create a tree in the middle of a fight with a demon and using that as a "throne" of sorts to pump up party morale so that rather than flee they fought the hezrou and, with the aid of a stack of plot twist cards, managed to win the battle), but nothing that I've intentionally added to the plot to deviate things from the text as written.

I'm not including the nodes, after some consideration. That whole section of the adventure is very much set up as a "Now do the rest of this yourself; have fun!" which on one level is very cool for a GM who has lots of time and the energy and will to make the last four huge regions his/her own... but that's not of much interest to me. I want to show the players the original 1st edition feel and have fun glorying in nostalgia, and the nodes don't have that since they're not actually detailed in print.

They haven't found the trapped prince. I doubt they will.

The Zuggtmoy stuff happens tonight. My Golarion stand-in for Iuz is Lamashtu.

Dear JJ,

Just need a bit of advice with a dog-themed PFS character I'm making...

If you were to make a character with a Tiny-sized dog familiar for PFS (say, a pug, since I recently got a miniature for one off Reaper Mini and inspiration struck like a lightning bolt!), would you "re-skin" another animal's stats (if so, which one?) or just modify its stats down as though a Small dog had a size reduction?

PFS is not a great place to do things like this, frankliy, where the game demands so much exact rules. You might get a GM on day one who's okay with your reskinned tiny dog, but the next day your GM might think you're tyring to pull some sort of fast one and won't allow your dog, and on day three you might have a GM who doesn't care but hits your party with a fireball and kills your dog outright, not knowing (or even not caring) how much of an attachment you've formed with the dog.

I would save this character concept for a non PFS game, or if you MUST do it, just say you have a pet pug but he stays at home and doesn't show up on screen in the game.

(If this was a game I was running, I would ABSOLUTELY just have you size down a Small dog to Tiny, and be done with it. But I can't vouch for how any one of any number of random PFS GMs might respond to the situation, and there aren't specific rules in the game for Tiny dogs, so you're kinda out of luck.)

Hi James

I'm curious about what kind of lives the good outsiders live. Do they have free will like mortals do or are they bound to serve a god?

Do they do anything for fun or do they just live to fulfill their purpose based on type and to combat the forces of evil?

What kind of intra personal relationships do they have with each other? Is their concept of friensip and romance the same as ours or different?

If they fall in love with a mortal( it must happen time to time given half cilestials and asimar) how free are they to asume a human form, if they have that ability, and live amongst mortals with that person?

If they can plane shift, and do have some mortal friends, how much freedom do they come to the material plane and pop in for a drink or two or just hang out and have fun?

Outsiders don't really have much free will—they're driven by their alignments. That's why it's so rare to see an outsider of an unexpected alignment; those are the very rare few outsiders who manage to escape their nature. Outsiders don't need to eat or drink, either. Their lives are VERY different than mortal lives as a result. For the most part, what they do is what's detailed in their description—they do that more or less all the time, and to them, doing what they were made to do IS "fun" for them. Some of them can have relationships with others, but relationships outside the norm of their themes would tend to be unusual.

For example, a hound archon is a soldier and a sentinel. He may well have buddies who are also soldiers and they might share battle stories or the like, and enjoy each other's company in the way soldiers do, but they would be unlikely to have a family they'd go home to since heaven's army IS their family. On the other hand, a lillend is a tale-teller and artist, so she'd likely spend her time studying about art history or seeking out new performances or art to admire or creating them herself, perhaps sharing that time with fellow artists seeking inspiration. She'd be unlikely to have "war stories" and probably does have a small group of particularly inspiring friends that help her with her art.

Falling in love with a mortal does happen for outsiders, but it's very rare, and as such tends to be the type of thing significant stories are told about or that have long-term repercussions on things both from the outsider and the mortal side of things.

When it says....

"All six chapters of the original Adventure Path, expanded and updated for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game"

Does that mean it is no longer using the DnD Monster Manual and is actually using the Pathfinder Bestiaries? I am a third of the way through running this and if it updates. I will be getting it for sure.

Indeed, the primary purpose of this updated version is to update it to use the Pathfinder Rules. That includes the Pathfinder Bestiaries.