James Jacobs's page

To Mr. Jacobs: Unless I misread the module the party will by Level 9 and Mythic Rank 2 by the time they face Eustoyriax, no APL 7. That gives them quite a bit more to work with. Even a bog-standard 15 point buy party with reasonable forethought should be able to handle a Shadow Demon.

That's moving the goal posts. I'm talking SPECIFICALLY against fights against shadow demons.

Note also that Eustoyriax is no CR 7 foe. He's CR 11, but brings with him all of the things that make a shadow demon tough, while simultaneously abandoning one of the shadow demon's greatest weaknesses.

It sounds like you, like Magnuskn, have a group that's a lot more experienced at the game than the average group, and as such you WILL need to either bolster the adventures as written or have your players use 15 or even 10 point buy for their characters—they're experienced players, after all, so having them play the game on hard mode is always an option.

Of course, many players don't enjoy that, so the onus falls on the GM to know what needs to be done to adapt the adventure.

Much as I hate to harsh everyone's kaiju buzz, ginormous critters like that would take an unbelievable toll on the ecosystem, so I'm guessing that there wouldn't be too many of them in the first place (apex predator = lowest population). People simply may not know about them because they don't see them that often. Sound reasonable, James?

Which is why kaiju spend so much time hibernating, first of all, but also why I spent a whole paragraph on page 165 of Bestiary 4 talking about how kaiju metabolisms work, and how they feed off of things other than meat and plants, and why they don't starve when denied "food" but instead go into hibernation.

The dwarven feats Dented and Cloven Helm allow crit damage to be applied to a Dwarf's helm. But I don't know of any rules for determining how many hit points a helm has.

Furthermore, what if said helm were a Dwarven Boulder Helmet? It's a light weapon, but it definitely isn't a blade, dagger, or hafted weapon. How many hit points does a Boulder Helmet have?

If your helm was a Dwarven Boulder Helmet, would you treat its hit points as those of a weapon, or some other amount as defined in the first question?

Table 7–12 on page 175 of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook lists hardness and hit points for common armor, weapons, and shields.

I'd say that a typical helmet is about on par with a typical buckler—hardness 10 (assuming a metal helmet) and 5 hit points.

If a dwarven boulder helmet is a light weapon, well... both types of light weapon listed on that table have only 2 hit points, so I'd go back to the buckler values.

Have you considered making a Sentai class to fight off Kaiju? Also, how long until there are giant robots piloted by gnomes to fight off Not-Godzilla? If this happens, please call their organization Gnome Force 5.

No plans, or interest, really.

How would one run an effective GMPC?

That is, without being overbearing or a Marty Stu.

I wouldn't run a GM PC. I've done it before and it is very unrewarding and frustrating and annoying.

Every time... EVERY time... that I've run a fight involving a shadow demon, it wrecks the party. The combination of incorporeal plus its resistances, spell resistance, immunity, and damage reduction make it a VERY strong foe against a typical APL 7 party. That's the reason that Staunton's journal pretty much lays it out like that—this is a foe that if the PCs aren't ready to deal with can really catch them off guard.

If you feel that your party is doing particularly well, is able to handle a foe like this, or deserves a "surprsie" then by all means let them face Eustoyriax without any foreshadowing. But as written, yes, the intent is absolutely that a group that is observant and pays attention should realize well beforehand what they're going to face and should have a chance to prepare for it accordingly.

Are you excited that a Warpriest of Desna can effectively use starknives in combat!?

I feel like I need to roll up a female drow Warpriest now

I've not looked at the warpriest at all, but then again, I never felt that a cleric of Desna couldn't effectively use starknives in combat. I don't have the same expectations for combat performance for characters that seems to be the norm on the internet though.

James Jacobs wrote:

Rysky wrote:

What does Nadiri's Holy Symbol look like?

It gets a description in the upcoming Inner Sea Gods book. I don't know if we'll be illustrating it though. And while I invented it... I don't remember what it was, since I invented a hundred or two more holy symbols that same day for the book.

So! Have patience; you'll find out in a few months!

Yay!

Also while we're on the subject care to give any tips when designing Un/Holy Symbols?

Be knowledgable in how real-world symbols work, and check out what sorts of symbols (holy or otherwise) others have invented for their games or worlds for inspiration.

Any idea when news of the pathfinder comics after Issue 12 will be announced?

Nope. What we have and haven't said about the comics out in public, or what we're gonna say in the future, is more of a question for Erik than me.

Mr. James Jacobs,

You have mentioned in the past that Churchanus' holy symbol has not been revealed. That's fine, but I was wondering, do you have any idea what his color scheme was? You know, Desna is blue and purple, Asmodeus is red and black, that sort of thing.

I would say Churchanus's colors were likely brown and green.

What does Nadiri's Holy Symbol look like?

It gets a description in the upcoming Inner Sea Gods book. I don't know if we'll be illustrating it though. And while I invented it... I don't remember what it was, since I invented a hundred or two more holy symbols that same day for the book.

So! Have patience; you'll find out in a few months!

SnowJade wrote:

Alexander Augunas wrote:

I CAN BUCKLE MY SWASH WITH A KATANA! I CAN BUCKLE MY SWASH WITH A KATANA!

I might just sacrifice a small animal to the Development Team in thanks. What sort of victims do Jason, Sean, and Stephen prefer?

On behalf of animals of every size, I strongly protest. Besides, practicing blood magic makes people look at you funny.

I was reading Erik's introduction to Visions of WAR, and he mentioned that he'd met WAR at what would turn out to be the last GenCon UK (I think it was in 2008, IIRC). What killed off GenCon UK?

Following GenCon UK 2008, the decision was made to ban the blood rites traditionally held in honor of the Gods of Gaming in which seven Englishmen would each sacrifice a sheep for good luck. Without the Gods' blessings, GenConUK 2009 was doomed to fade away into the deepest, most forgotten sands in the Dimension of Time.

For James Jacobs: On a scale of 1 to 10, how melodramatic am I?

6.32

I was reading Erik's introduction to Visions of WAR, and he mentioned that he'd met WAR at what would turn out to be the last GenCon UK (I think it was in 2008, IIRC). What killed off GenCon UK?

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm guessing it was the cost involved in setting up a convention overseas was too much.

1) If I was to make a Pathfinder RPG compatible campaign setting, could I include feats like Pirahna Strike in the campaign book and under what conditions?

1a) Would it need to have a different name?

1b) Would it need different wording?

1c) Or do I just need to reference the source book?

1) Pretty much all of our rules content is open content. You'd just need to follow the restrictions and guidelines of using the OGL in your product, and correctly cite the sources, and re-flavor the parts that aren't open content (the flavor text for the most part).

1a) In the case of something like "Pirahna Strike," no. But if the name utilized a proper noun from Golarion, yes. A feat like "Taldan Duelist" would need to be renamed to something like "Falcata Duelist." A prestige class like "Red Mantis Assassin" would need to renamed to something like "Crimson Assassin."

1b) Only the parts that draw upon specific world flavor. That particular feat has none, so you'd be fine.

1c) You need to reference the source in the OGL, but IIRC you can't cite page numbers in the body of your text. You'd have to read the OGL to be sure.

1) I understand that the drama of the worldwound involves heroic crusaders desperately facing off against hordes of demons. And I know that the gods generally tend to keep their battles off the material plane for fear of Mutually Assured Destruction. But if the Abyss is literally devouring a part of Golarion, why are there not tens of thousands of Archons storming Iz, Undarin, Drezen et cetera and stopping the demon's conquest? It just seems like good outsiders stay out of conflicts because the writers say so.

2) If you Earthfall'd the Worldwound like the Drow tried to do with Riddleport, would it help at all (As in killing the demons. it would screw up Golarion, obviously) or would it just make the demon problem worse?

3) Do the "demi-gods" of other outsider species (Primal Inevitables, Kyton Demagogues, Rakshasa Immortals, Oni Daimyo, Psychopomp Ushers, et cetera) have domains and favored weapons? Can you have clerics of them? If so, then will they ever be revealed?

4) We have Celestial Obedience and Demonic Obedience. Will we ever have Infernal and Daemonic Obedience too, or is that just a rabbit hole that we're not going down?

1) Because you're over-inflating the importance of Golarion in the eyes of Heaven, first of all. It's but one of countless worlds on which things like this, some less devastating, some more devastating, are happening. And because it's something of a test for mortals. And because an army of archons or whatever attacking the region would only give the Abyss more of an excuse to escalate and send even more demons and then suddenly you'd have nothing but ruins—celestials are not bound by human reactions and emotions, and they know that sometimes the best bet is to provide more subtle aid in the form of answering spells and conjurations and the like. And because that's not the game we're setting up to play. And because doing so would leave their own home and other projects undefended—who's to say that the whole Worldwound situation isn't at least partially a lure to distract Heaven or whoever so the demons can strike against whatever it is they had to leave unprotected? But the MAIN reason is that the higher powers move in ways mysterious to us; they're not human, and their knowledge of the situation is greater than ours, and a big part of faith is believing that they're doing the best thing for us by letting us fight our own wars.

2) It would kill a lot of the demons and a lot of the crusaders, but would not hurt the Worldwound—it might even make it bigger. Regardless, once the damage was done, the dead demons would more or less be immediately replaced by reinforcements, but this time there'd be no crusaders to oppose them. AKA: It would make it MUCH worse.

3) Yes—they're all demigods and have domains, subdomains, favored weapons, planar realms, and the like. We'll reveal more about them when the time is right (AKA when we do books about them).

4) I'd like to have obediences for all deities and demigods. But that's not something we ca do all at once. Have patience!

I CAN BUCKLE MY SWASH WITH A KATANA! I CAN BUCKLE MY SWASH WITH A KATANA!

I might just sacrifice a small animal to the Development Team in thanks. What sort of victims do Jason, Sean, and Stephen prefer?

1) It's the design team, not the development team, who's building that book and running the playtest.

2) Jason: Brauts and beer.
Sean: Vegetarian Chipotle burritos.
Stephen: Tears.

Where might one find Kaiju scholars?

How aware is the population of the Inner Sea that kaiju exist?

Mostly in Tian Xia.

Not really all that aware at all.

So, if a character learned a considerable bit about one of his ancestors, would you allow him to use his own blood (IOW, genetic material of the creature to be duplicated) to satisfy your material component requirement?

You would only be able to make a simulacrum of yourself that way. Making a simulacrum of an ancestor would require a body part from that ancestor. Simulacrum doesn't work off of science (aka genetics), but magic, after all.

James Jacobs wrote:

There is certainly room on Golarion for powerful skum overlords or the like—that role is, for the most part, played by aboleths, veiled masters, and the as-of-yet unrevealed entities that exist above veiled master in their overall power structure.

Will the "Occult Mysteries" book shed some light on these entities? I have a group of players who delight in doing "adventurer business" to any aboleth they happen to encounter, accidental or deliberate. I'd very much like some information that would shed some light on creatures higher up the chain that might find said PCs intriguing.

It will indeed shed some light. It won't reveal everything—that still for a later day—but it will reveal some things!

Dagon has a longer tradition in the game of being a demon lord than a powerful deep one—he was listed as a demon lord as early as in the 1st edition Monster Manual. Mother Hydra has NEVER been a part of the game, and both of them in their association with deep ones have never been a part of the game. So, for Dagon at least, he exists in Pathfinder as a demon lord, but he DOES have a lot of association and crossover with Cthulhu and other Lovecraftian elements, if only because his alignment, personality, and worshipers share so much in common.

Furthermore, I've always seen these versions of Dagon and Hydra as being very Earth-centered. Cthulhu as well, but since Cthulhu is from another planet and can dream across dimensions, he's got a MUCH wider net than do Dagon or Hydra, who in the stories strike me as purely earth species. In fact, the deep ones themselves strike me as purely earth species and not interstellar or interdimensional species.

There is certainly room on Golarion for powerful skum overlords or the like—that role is, for the most part, played by aboleths, veiled masters, and the as-of-yet unrevealed entities that exist above veiled master in their overall power structure.

But since neither skum nor deep ones are particularly extraterrestrial, directly involving the Dark Tapestry in their own mythos and stories doesn't make much sense to me.

I really enjoy playing games where I get Lifesteal abilities or self healing from dealing damage. Is there a reason why those mechanics seem so rare?

And why do they generally give Temporary HP rather than regular HP?

I believe that they're rare because of a perception that healing and damage at the same time is too powerful of an ability for player characters. It's why we abandoned allowing channeled energy the ability to heal allies and harm undead simultaneously. That's a better question for the design team for a more detailed answer though.

Giving temporary hp helps to prevent hp bloat, since they overlap.

James Jacobs wrote:

Bill McGrath wrote:

Would a kaiju dragon be an awesome monster, or would it be weird and clunky? Do the two categories not complement each other well?

I'd say King Ghidorah from the Godzilla movies would be a dragon kaiju. There's been plenty of other examples in kaiju movies too. I think it'd be fine but you'd want to keep in mind that it should be a low intelligence dragon if it's a kaiju.

Thank you James!

Have you listened to any good music recently?

Always! I have EXCELLENT taste in music! :-P

(And by "excellent" I mean "eccentric". Dead Can Dance, Pink Floyd, NIN, classical/soundtrack, Cake, the Beatles, Philip Glass, etc.)

As a 4th rank mythic creature, Eustoyriax should have 5 mythic abilities. Looking at a standard shadow demon statblock, I can see the following differences:

- Endure sunlight
- Possesion mastery
- Shadowblood
- summon shadows at-will

One of these should count as two mythic abilites (Possesion Mastery?), otherwise he is missing one.

Ok! looks like originally, he was going to have an "improved shadow blend" ability, but it got cut for space reasons and replaced by granting him "see in darkness." Which is a much better choice for him anyway.

1) Do you think that elves would tend to practice something like forest gardening over normal farming when the terrain is amenable, especially since they come from a jungle planet?

2) Given that dwarves and elves seem to have both evolved their respective civilizations in isolation from humanity, would you say that when the dwarves reached the surface and elves began to colonize Golarion that they brought with them various technologies like building techniques, magic items, spells, alchemical items, and other such that are now commonplace among humans despite their origins?

3) Have you decided anything about the origins and nature of doppelgangers in the Golarion setting? I think they're pretty interesting, given that they're not generally malevolent, but tend to be alien and distant, and seem to lack their own society, preferring to act as social parasites in humanoid societies...but one can't help but wonder why they do so (are they hiding? investigating? just part of their instincts for a viable survival mechanism?), how they find other doppelgangers to reproduce with, if they can reproduce with the species of the society they parasitize, and if so, what the nature of those children are, given that several other races (medusas, jorogumos, hags, skums, and harpies off the top of my head) also parasitize the reproduction of other humanoid races in order to reproduce...

1) Sure! They're also more likely to use magic in their gathering as well.

2) I think that would probably be inevitable.

3) Not really. We haven't done much with doppelgangers yet.

James Jacobs wrote:

xavier c wrote:

does the the simulacrum of a creature act like that creature

Not perfectly; it has incomplete skills of the original and no real memories of the original, and is under the complete control of its creator. It's personality is, therefore, decided by its creator.

So i can create artificial life anyway i want

If you're the GM or a mad scientist? Yeah.

If you're a player character, no.

Howdy again,

1) So, vishkanya's... are their fine scales and snake eyes from the mithridatism using mutagenic snake venom? Or do they also have some ophidian ancestors?

2) Since nagas are found in (East) Indian myths, would nagaji also be found in Vudra? Or are they pretty much a Dragon Empires-only race?

3) Is there anything we out here can do to nudge you at Paizo to visit completely new places like Nurvatchta and Averaka as oneshots in the new expanded quarterly modules, or as guest locations in an AP volume?

1) Unrevealed, but I'd say that it's probably a combination of both.

2) They'd be found in Vudra, yes.

3) By letting us know you want us to explore those places; by buying and giving good reveiews to products where we do go exotic places, and by convincing those you know to think the same way! :-P But perhaps most importantly, by just being patient. We'll get there eventually, but we have lots of other things we need to do as well.

James Jacobs wrote:

xavier c wrote:

does the the simulacrum of a creature act like that creature

Not perfectly; it has incomplete skills of the original and no real memories of the original, and is under the complete control of its creator. It's personality is, therefore, decided by its creator.

In your games, what limits the possible abuse of simulacra by your NPCs? Please note that I'm asking this question differently than from how it's usually posed.

Two things.

1) I've not yet had a player spellcaster take an interest in using the spell, due to it being only available to a select few classes, and due to it being a higher level and relatively expensive spell.

2) Me. I get to decide how it works. I generally also keep in a previous element of the spell from D&D, which is that you need a small portion of the creature you want to create, and you can only have one simulacrum of that creature active at one time.

A couple of multi-part (possibly) questions on mythic power "in context" with Golarion's setting:

1) A mythic individual might have a fount of mythic power within them, sure, but what is it? Generic "magic energy" that they call on? Unique to each individual? Are they just aware that they're "more capable" than others and can do otherwise-impossible things instinctively?

2) In line with the above, does Starstone mythic power, for example, feel different to Cenotaph mythic power? Or Mana Waste mythic power?

3) What sort of names does "mythic power" have in-setting? Do they actually call it "mythic power" and/or a person with it a "mythic individual" or can names vary? Do people in-setting even really understand it at all?

4) When a player picks Divine Source, is the character choosing to direct their "mythic power" towards attaining godhood? Or do they just "find out" one day that they've become a god and can grant spells because some hero-worshipper (heh) is praying to them? Is it a natural evolution, or something that they have to work towards becoming/ascending into?

1) It's different. In some cases it might be raw magic power left over from the creation of the world. In others it might be a god's blood. In others it might be weird interstellar radiation. In others it might be primal planar energies seeping into their bodies. In others it might just be an excess of soul. It's left entirely undefined so that the creator of a mythic character can make up something in character and suitably personalized. Until one actually becomes mythic, whether or not they know they have the potential depends on the creature. And on the needs of the story you want to tell about them.

2) Yes. They all have their different sensations and outward effects, mostly shown in how those who become mythic by them manifest their abilities. From a game standpoint, that sounds like I'm implying that each source of mythic power should have its own custom list of powers it can grant, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that from an in-game perspective—someone who became mythic from the Mana Wastes and gained Hierophant powers can build the exact same character from any other mythic power source, but it's up to the player and GM to incorporate the power source into the character's description.

3) Depends on the source. See #1 above—things like raw magic power, god's blood, planar seepage, old souls, and whatever.

4) Why a character takes Divine Source is up to them. It could be the first step toward becoming a true demigod and eventually beyond that a deity. It could just be a grab for power or a salve for that character's ego. That said, just as with any mythic power, they could well just find out they have the power one day after completing their trials.

For most of these, you'll note a recurring theme of "make it fit the story you want to tell with the character." That's very much the point of mythic adventures—this is a way to craft a unique and powerful story for a character that lets you bend and break rules now and then and here and there. And by keeping a lot of the details open like this, we don't hedge in every possible mythic NPC and PC into having to pick from the same pool of adjectives.

Atrocious wrote:

James, I've been thinking of the level distribution in Pathfinder from a population perspective (meaning how large a percentage are a certain level).

This is the possible distribution I came up with:

L1-5: 80%
L6-10: 15%
L11-15: 4.5%
L16-20: 0.49%
L21+: 0.01%

21+ would be anyone with sufficient mythic tiers to push them over the normal limit I suppose, if you aren't using epic level rules.

Actually, I'd expect mythic tiers to be more singular and unique in nature. You don't become mythic simply by clocking in time in an adventuring class, you become mythic through your exposure and participation in mythic campaign changing events.

And you'd have to tune this by world. In Golarion, the folks that are in the 16 and higher range are a short enough list that the staff probably has names for them all. Would that be close to a fair assumption?

Mythic tiers are indeed singular and unique. They defy categorization.

does the the simulacrum of a creature act like that creature

Not perfectly; it has incomplete skills of the original and no real memories of the original, and is under the complete control of its creator. It's personality is, therefore, decided by its creator.

Have you seen this before? Did it make you smile?

I had not. Yes it did! :-)

And another thought on alchemists - considering that the use of metals and alloys is a common thing in alchemy, do you think the class is more common among dwarves than in many other races?

(Could be one way to make Golarion-dwarves a bit different from traditional D&D ones without deviating from what we already know, is what I'm saying.)

Nope; if the class is more common among any race, it'd be gnomes, since they have a racial bonus to the skill Craft (alchemy).

Do you think Golarion alchemists make use of various symbols for elements and concepts like the real-world ones did?

(The one for iron, incidentally, shows up in the coat of arms of many municipalities in Sweden's mining areas which is what made me wonder.)

Yes.

In fact, we've got some similar symbols of our own for the planets in the system. But using those classic real-world symbols for alchemy is a great idea, especially since history has done the hard work of designing it all for us already.

Might you know any sites where an aspiring writer could speak with peers about how to go about making their story and such?

Our forums here are a great place to start, frankly. There are lots of others out there, but that's a better question for James Sutter or Chris Carey than for me.

James Jacobs wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Can Norgorber steal his own pants without even noticing?

He doesn't wear pants. So maybe he already did!

JUST AS I SUSPECTED!

Will there be APs in the future that have world-changing results for Golarion, similar to the ones in Kingmaker (a new kingdom emerges on Golarion), Skull and Shackles (there's a new Hurricane King in town) or Wrath of the Righteous (pretty sure the final module's going to have something to do with killing Deskari and closing the Worldwound for good)? I'd love to see an AP that fully explores a war and ends with PCs potentially shifting the borders of Golarion's nations.

All of the APs have the potential for world-changing results. Some much more so than others, but they all have this possibility. We don't "hard code" expected changes into our setting though—that's left to each GM to do as best fits the situation in his personal game.

1) Hi! How are you?

2) what fraction of the Golarion's population do lycanthropes represent.

3) In your opinion/words, how would you describe a world with more lycanthropes?

3.a) 1%

3.b) 5%

3.c) 10%

3.d) 25%

4) passed that it would probably be "why not make everyone a lycanthropes?"

5) thanks!

1) Fine; a little groggy. Coffee's not yet kicked in.

2) Unknown. Especially since we've only really detailed 3 of the 8 continents on the planet, and have barely touched the oceans or the Darklands overall.

3) I don't get this question, really. Once a world is so full of lycanthropes that I'm describing the world as "this world is filled with lycanthropes" then that percentage needs to be above 50%. If it's below, it's just 'there are lycanthropes on this world, but they're not everywhere." It's better and more informative to be able to say "Lycanthropes are quite common in this town/city/region/whatever."

4) Because of personal preference. In my opinion, lycanthropes work MUCH better when they are a vast minority. They're best as monsters, and best when they're treated as rarities. Even in a movie like Underworld or the Twilight series or George Martin's excellent "The Skin Trade" the lycanthropes aren't everywhere.

5) No prob!

James Jacobs wrote:

Rook13 wrote:

2) Are there plans for an AP based on material from the Distant Worlds sourcebook?

2) Already done; Reign of Winter draws heavily on Distant Worlds in its 4th adventure. As for an entire AP that's a "planet hopping" campaign... we haven't made any announcements of such yet.

Not an outright denial, not a "possible future product"--but that they "haven't made any announcements of such yet." Must not get hopes up, must not get hopes up....

{fails Will save} SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Quick to the Mikaze Signal!

Don't read too much into that. That's basically me saying "no, but I can't predict the future, so I'm not gonna say no since my word carries to much weight around her to be issuing ultimatums like that, so I'll couch the answer a bit."

Furthermore, we don't publicly talk about our future plans beyond the next 6 to 12 months, and we're on record all the way through January 2015 for our current APs. So don't expect ANY answers about what's beyond that until, at the very earliest, Paizocon 2014.

James, do dwarfs (humans with dwarfism) exist on Golarion? If they do, how are they treated/thought of?

They exist. How they're treated/thought of varies from region to region and person to person.

can the the (polymorph any object) spell polymorph a Pebble into a outsider

Yes. That's the same basic effect as "pebble to human" (tiny unliving object to larger living creature).

If you use the (polymorph any object) spell to polymorph a Pebble into a human do you have control of the human

No.

Does a simulacrum feel like the original creature(If i were to touch the simulacrum of a wolf would it feel like a wolf)

It feels exactly like the original; that's part of what the illusion is good at.

Ok I have a shart combat scenario for you and was wondering how you would run it as GM.

First combatant is a whip user with a 15' reach and likes to trip.

Second combatant is a great sword user who just saw his ally get tripped.

Great sword user decides to ready an action to make a sunder attempt on the whip when its within reach of him.

Lets assume that the whip user didnt see his target ready an action, or doesnt care, and attacks the great sword user.

How would this play out?

Now lets put in a twist. The great sword user doesnt have improved sunder.

Now how would it play out?

Thanks for your input.

Normally, you have to be adjacent to the weapon user to sunder a weapon, and if I were to try to have the dude sunder a whip when he wasn't in the right position, I'd tell the user of the whip, "This guy readies to sunder your weapon if it attempts to trip someone he's adjacent to—as long as you're all cool with me introducing that as a house rule. Feel free to sunder my NPCs' weapons at range like that if you want."

Best case scenario, I'd let the players know that before hand... as in before the campaign starts. It's kinda cheesy to change the rules on players in the middle of a game, especially since the rules are what the players had to obey in order to make their characters.

A much better solution would be just to have the greatsword wielder move up next to the whip user, or perhaps ready an action to attack the whip user if he does so.

The use of improved sunder doesn't make a difference on this situation; you can take the same actions with or without that feat.

Would a kaiju dragon be an awesome monster, or would it be weird and clunky? Do the two categories not complement each other well?

I'd say King Ghidorah from the Godzilla movies would be a dragon kaiju. There's been plenty of other examples in kaiju movies too. I think it'd be fine but you'd want to keep in mind that it should be a low intelligence dragon if it's a kaiju.

James Jacobs wrote:

xavier c wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

xavier c wrote:

Is the Vudra deity (Vineshvakhi) in the Inner Sea Gods Hardcover

I have no idea, but if I had to guess... no. Because Vudra deities aren't Inner Sea deities.

The island of Jalmeray is in the Inner Sea

Doesn't change a thing.

Gods from other parts of the world, and indeed gods from other worlds are worshiped in the Inner Sea region... but that doesn't make them "Inner Sea Gods."

AKA: The book is big, but not big enough to include everything.

Will there at least be gods we have not seen before

That's not the focus of the book. This book is meant to be the go-to reference book fro the deities we DO know about, after all. There will perhaps be name drops and other mentions of other deities, but that's not the book's purpose.

Shadow demons are plenty tough even without protection from evil. It's kinda cheesy to nerf that protection just because you want to possess a PC—it's better to let the PC feel like they're doing something right by letting their good fore-planning and skill at the game actually help make a difference.

So, tread carefully if you want to remove the protection from evil safety net, and keep in mind that there are higher level effects (such as the above mentioned one from Demons Revisited) that do what you want by expending monster resources (in that case, a feat slot).

Here, you all may be amused by this. We just picked up this sword in our game and there is a good chance that my character is going to wield it. However, he's going to be a Paladin/Silver Dragon Disciple... so he actually worships Apsu. Apsu's favored weapon is a bite attack, lol!

Currently, my GM and I are pondering having it work/look something like shyvana's weird dragon bite hand weapon from League of Legends, or maybe just be a helmet that enhances his bite when he has one.

And that's exactly why we give Apsu (and Dahak) two different types of favored weapon; in Apsu's case, the quarterstaff. Radiance would thus turn into a quarterstaff unless your GM wanted to do something weird.

James Jacobs wrote:

xavier c wrote:

Is the Vudra deity (Vineshvakhi) in the Inner Sea Gods Hardcover

I have no idea, but if I had to guess... no. Because Vudra deities aren't Inner Sea deities.

The island of Jalmeray is in the Inner Sea

Doesn't change a thing.

Gods from other parts of the world, and indeed gods from other worlds are worshiped in the Inner Sea region... but that doesn't make them "Inner Sea Gods."

AKA: The book is big, but not big enough to include everything.

A brief query on the Great Old Ones in B4 (I suspect you were probably the one who wrote their statblocks, yes?). They say that they "count as" mythic rank 10 creatures in their Great Old One subtype, but that doesn't mean they actually have the mythic subtype or get a bunch of mythic abilities (which, if they do, seemingly aren't listed anywhere), does it? They only count as possessing it when dealing with characters, spells and effects that do different things to mythic and non-mythic targets?

I did indeed design the great old ones.

All of them, along with the demon lords and empyreal lords, are "mythic equivalent" creatures. They don't directly use the mythic rules for their powers (with the exception of some mythic spell-like abilities), but they absolutely count as mythic creatures for the purposes of resolving attacks from mythic characters.

They do not have the mythic subtype. Their stats, along with all the other stats in the book, are complete—you don't need to "finish" them by adding the benefits from the mythic subtype.

After years of playing D&D and pathfinder, I am totally burned out on dungeon crawls to the point where I fell asleep during a session of Shattered Star. We have played all the adventure paths up to this. Are there going to be any not-dungeon crawl heavy APs coming? They're well written and all but there are only so many times I can spend an entire month (one game a week) or month and a half of game sessions searching a monster filled mansion, temple, cave system, etc...

Sounds like you might need to consider playing a different game for a while, honestly. Dungeons are a core part of Pathfinder, be they set underground or in derelict ships or old castles or whatever—the gameplay element of exploring a series of rooms with monsters and traps and tricks is not something we'll ever completely ignore in our adventures, because the game is BUILT for this type of play.

That said, Shattered Star is specifically intended to be a dungeon-heavy AP. It is, without a doubt, THE most dungeon-heavy AP we've ever published. By design, for a lot of reasons.

If you're looking for an AP with smaller dungeons/fewer dungeons, consider Curse of the Crimson Throne, Kingmaker, or Skull & Shackles. Note that there are STILL dungeons in those—in fact, each of them has one adventure that's a significant dungeon crawl.

Can Norgorber steal his own pants without even noticing?

He doesn't wear pants. So maybe he already did!