Mark Moreland's page

Quite excited to get my copy of this book. I'm glad there are at least a few mythic options sprinkled in there.

Can we expect to be seeing more support for the mythic ruleset in further releases?

When appropriate, yes, in the same way we support firearms, performance combat, and other rules subsystems presented in past books. There are currently no plans to do a book entirely of new mythic content, however.

Profound sadness...

You might try contacting Customer Service ASAP to see if they can switch your preorder to a subscription starting with this book. The ship may have sailed to do that, but it's worth a shot.

Theres a typo on the third paragraph, it says inner sea combat instead of gods.

eh, it happens. Most of our editing resources are currently aimed at our Gen Con releases, so a slip up here and there on the blog is inevitable.

Unfortunately, I went to sign up for subscription to start with this book because so many of the next several are books I want and it is already not one you can start with. This makes me sad.

I believe that customer service can manually start your subscription with a different product in a month when more than one product in a given line ship (as is the case this month with this and Inner Sea Combat. It may be worth your while to email or call them, or to start a thread regarding this issue in the Customer Service section of the message boards.

Please remember that this is a product thread. I love Final Fantasy as much as the next person, (but not as much as Liz, I don't think), but this isn't the place for such a tangent. We have a whole section of the message boards for discussion of video games where such a discussion would likely flourish without derailing this thread.

Thanks!

We do not accept unsolicited proposals for books like that. You might try pitching it to one of the many third-party publishers who produce Pathfinder RPG content under the Pathfinder Compatibility License. Paizo cannot even open any submission sent to us that isn't part of an existing open call, to protect both ourselves and the submitter.

Hmmm...we don't have an intersexed iconic yet...

still holding out hope she's secretly a tiefling

Says who? You don't know the conversations that have gone on behind closed doors.

Will we be getting a preview of this book in the coming weeks?

Yes, though I'm not sure when.

Just hoping for some more Aldori love.

I think you'll find a few bits of Aldori love in here.

The fiction portal on PathfinderWiki is kept up to date and lists all novels, Pathfinder Tales novellas, and web fiction stories, in chronological order of release, no less! Might be easier for folks who like to stay abreast of these lists to bookmark the page rather than continue updating lists on the boards that can't be added to after an hour.

James Jacobs wrote:

doc the grey wrote:

Also does that mean we can follow the Outer Gods in PFS now?!

This book doesn't change anything regarding what is and isn't legal in PFS.

I cried a little bit at this. My plans of making an Cleric of Azathoth and saving the world from destruction today so Azathoth could destroy it tomorrow (or at a later date) have been foiled again.

You should really ask Mike (or John) what will and won't be legal from this book. As James isn't the final arbiter of what appears in the Additional Resources list for the campaign, he's in no position to foil your plans.

Honestly, I'm probably going to buy this book because I play a lot of divine characters and divine options are yummy.......however, I’m scared that it will be regurgitated information. Something have noticed about Paizo is that they release the same information in several sources with only a little bit extra in each source.

Because the basic information about the setting's deities have not changed, much of the information (especially on the core 20 deities of the Inner Sea region) will not be new. That isn't to say there won't be anything new in these sections (we specifically added new details that hadn't been introduced before), but descriptions of the gods' appearances, faiths, followers, and so forth will be largely the same. This book does present a large number of new mechanics, including a few picked up from other sources due to their thematic appropriateness, and either updated from 3.5 or kept largely the same.

When making a book of this size, unless it's on something completely new, like an as-yet-unexplored continent of the setting, a certain amount of "regurgitation" is inevitable. We'd be doing a disservice to people who purchased this book under the pretense that it was the definitive tome on religion in the Inner Sea region if it simply referred them to the 20+ deity articles in the pages of Pathfinder Adventure Path instead of presenting the information they'd expected. That does mean that some folks will be upset that they "paid twice" for something, but in large part, it's unavoidable.

Having gone over the entire book a number of times in the process of development, I'm confident there's enough new or updated content in this book that the elements which are reprinted or repeated from previous sources won't be what most readers notice, and will thus feel they've gotten their money's worth.

Have you checked out the first few Pathfinder's Journal ePubs? There are new rules elements in both The Compass Stone and Dark Tapestry.

This thread is really not the place to debate the effectiveness and cost-to-usefulness ratio of existing magic item properties. Please take such concerns to the Pathfinder RPG rules forum.

As it stands, we are going to be hard pressed to fit everything that is written for this book into 64 pages. The priority is going to be those items which appear in the Iron Gods Adventure Path, since supporting that AP with technological rules is the primary reason we're even doing this book. As such, we are already in a situation where we will likely need to cut content to get it all to fit and get the book out on time, thus we won't be adding new items at this time. There are suggestions within the book on how to expand the technology rules to create new items you as a GM feel would be appropriate for your campaign, and those can easily be applied to the creation of an energy sword. As it stands, there are several technological melee weapons that resolve against touch AC and deal energy damage, but that aren't light sabers or Thundarr's sword. If those are items you want in your game, as James has said above and elsewhere, they may be able to be added to the AP in a later volume, or you can extrapolate from the rules that are presented in this book and Iron Gods to formulate your own.

Just curious why the table doesn't include inquisitions for the Deities?

There simply wasn't room to include such for the hundreds of deities in the book and keep each entry to a single line, especially considering that inquisitions are a much smaller explored space within the rules. We have dozens of domains and subdomains to divide up among all the gods, but far fewer inquisitions.

The image with the filename, Aroden, is in fact a cleric of Tsukiyo. It appears in the book on the page on other human deities, illustrating those worshiped by humans in Tian Xia.

[EDIT - well that Pathfinder WIki entry on the Dominion of the Black is suitably uninformative. How refreshingly elliptic. /EDIT]

Luckily, being a wiki, if you feel there's information on the topic that hasn't been posted, you are free to add it so other readers gain the benefit of your expertise down the road. You can also ask on the wiki (follow the link on the lefthand sidebar) and one of the wiki's editors will answer your question or update the article to accommodate your request.

Ack! That's my error. Ameiko appears on the cover of the third installment of the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Legends series, "The Hook Mountain Massacre." And on the cover of the Pathfinder Adventure Path volume, "The Brinewall Legacy." I'll see about getting that corrected in the blog tomorrow when there are folks in the office who can make such an adjustment. Sorry for the confusion.

Does anyone know when subscribers will have their copies shipped this month?

See this Customer Service sticky thread for an up-to-date estimate of the month's new release schedule.

Great work on that terrain, Shifty! I'm seriously impressed. I hope your players appreciate it!

At one point, Paizo didn't make rules for laser guns either.

How about 3 blogs over 3 weeks?

They can't explore Jormurdun until they lead their army from this base of operations to its gates. Then they have to actually gain entry into the chambers within. One step at a time!

What TwoWolves said. If we were doing a PACG set that took place entirely in a remote Isgeri orphanage (which I can't imagine us doing), we'd likely release other products about orphanages, Isger, and other related topics. This is the same thing, just about pirates. It allows us to explore some of the new content presented in the PACG in a Pathfinder RPG adventure format. Other than involving some of the same themes, locations, NPCs, and so forth, this adventure and the Skull & Shackles Base Set won't interact.

Yes, but fluff and description matter when playing a game of imagination. Describing an item as something that shoots forth a magical bolt of flame vs that emits a laser beam vs a ranged touch attack that does 4d6 fire damage mechanically may be the same but it does matter. In a game meant to be played partially in your imagination, how it's described is crucial. For some people the description that juxtaposes different genre's breaks their immersion. In this supplement you are not talking about strange magical treasures from another world you are talking about technological devices.

Which is why my example included a GM obscuring what the item was for the players' benefit. This is a GM-oriented book in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting line, so we'd be remiss in our job if the book didn't give the GM all the information. It will call the laser guns laser guns so that GMs including them in their campaigns know what they are and can use them (by whatever name or description they choose) as they see fit. Again, the point of my post was to illustrate that how we describe technology to the GM isn't necessarily how the GM will describe it to her players.

It's a good thing that particular discussion happened here, where both James and I noticed it, as the deadline by which we can no longer make changes to this book is quickly approaching. But yes, further rules discussion should take place in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting boards. Feel free to link to such discussions here, but conduct them in full elsewhere.

A laser is not a source of light. It provides no illumination. It is a ray just like scorching ray and acid arrow, it's just made of super-focused light rather than magical fire or conjured acid.

Just because we're publishing a 64-page rulebook full of technological items doesn't mean everything in this book is anywhere close to common in the Inner Sea (and even within Numeria). What makes these items special in the world is that they're super rare and mysterious. In the same way you need to build roads to be able to drive a fancy new sports car, we have to publish this to give ourselves the tools we need to tell the Iron Gods story. Just because the roads are there doesn't mean you have to drive on them, nor will anyone force you to. To those concerned about this gear flooding Pathfinder Society play, please be patient and have faith in Mike and John's ability to determine what's best for the campaign.

Imagine you build up a fantasy character—a wizard, let's say—who's all about researching the ruins of ancient civilizations to discover lost knowledge that no one else in the world knows. Researching arcane lore, and all that. You take that character to your GM and she thinks he will fit in the campaign, so you play the wizard for a while.

In one dungeon, you find a strange relic from the past that your PC has never heard of before. It's a brand new discovery—exactly what he wants to do. This weird item can clearly be held by a humanoid hand, but doesn't look like any weapon you've ever seen before. It doesn't radiate magic, so it's likely just some piece of ancient junk. Until you accidentally put pressure on one part of the item, and it shoots what looks to you, a wizard with maximum ranks in Spellcraft, like a scorching ray. If you could unlock this ages-old enigma, you'd be known the world over for your intellect. Heck, the device might even get named after you!

That's the end of the night, as the GM needs to work early tomorrow and the woman playing the fighter needs to make the last train home. You thank the GM for an incredible adventure, noting that you're so used to knowing every page of every rulebook that nothing seems to surprise you anymore, but that tonight you got to experience the wonder of discovery along with your character. Your GM just smiles and says knowingly, "just wait until you see what that strangely etched coin you found does."

If this book were called "Treasures of Numeria" and we hadn't told you that Numeria was home to a crashed spaceship and had laser guns and robots in it; if this product description didn't pull back the curtain and say, outright, that these are technological items one would expect to find in a science fiction setting; if a sword made of light and an invisible field of force were describes as magic instead, would there still be the same negative reactions to it?

Food for thought...

This will tie into the card game in the same way that the Pathfinder RPG version of Burnt Offerings ties into the first adventure deck of the Rise of the Runelords Base Set. For those who don't play the card game, this module will be completely playable as a standalone pirate adventure, or can be integrated in whole or in part into an ongoing Skull & Shackles game. Those playing the card game are likely to see locations, characters, and plots from this adventure appear in some form in the Skull & Shackles AP during its 6-month run.

I really hope none of these listings are April fools jokes, because people would buy this stuff.

If this is an April Fools' joke, it's been going on for weeks as I crunch all the numbers in the book to get it ready for print in time for the Gen Con deadline. In such a hypothetical, the joke would surely be on me.

Mark Moreland wrote:

Lion Blades are a bardic organization, and as such are not included in this book.The Ulfen Guard, also from Taldor, do get some new material.

*does the Arrested-Development/Charlie-Brown sad walk*

-Matt

That we (overeagerly) included the Lion Blades in the solicitation for this book should be reassuring, because it shows that we very much want to do more with the organization and update the existing 3.5 rules on the PrC. This just wasn't the right book for them, and by the time we finished the outline and realized it wasn't a good fit, the book had already been announced. Sorry if that got your hopes up, but better for us to manage expectations now rather than after you've got the book in your hands.

Quote:

In the Inner Sea NPC codex (Fierani Demon Hunter), it says they kill anyone who persists in trying to enter, because they think it's solely an issue concerning the elves.

Wait, so there's no exceptions to this rule? Didn't Count Varian, Radovan, and even a gnome from Greengold enter the Tanglebriar with three other elves or am I mistaken on this?

There are exceptions, but they are rare. If you recall, Varian and company had a lot of negotiating to do to be allowed to explore Kyonin too heavily.

Lion Blades are a bardic organization, and as such are not included in this book.The Ulfen Guard, also from Taldor, do get some new material.

I don't think they're the final recordings because the pronunciation of "Cayden Cailean" changed from this sample to the one on the CD. There also aren't background effects in these samples, where they are present in the final release.

Sad news. :-(

90s X-Men, all the way. Specifically Blue Team.

There is more information on Apsu in this book than has previously been published on him.

I got a PM from someone who seems to have cracked it, but I'll let that poster submit his or her theory publicly. I'm as intrigued by this as anyone else, but so far the best shot at cracking the code seems to be kept to my inbox.

How rude! We sacrifice our game time to allow others to game in our stead.

Those interested in special features should note that in addition to the excellent audio drama, this release also includes two instrumental music tracks from the drama's score which would make an excellent background for a Pathfinder gaming session (or, in my case, development).

It's not like any of these books actually exist, anyway. It's not like I can turn to Chapter 9 of The Book of Numbers.

You can't, but I can. I just have to type a few things up here on my trusty old computer, call it canon, and, voila!

I listened to this three times tonight on a grueling, unexpectedly long commute. It finished and I just let it repeat. I've listened to a lot of the Doctor Who audio dramas, and I felt the production on this was much better.

My wife still blames you when I get sucked into a Skyrim binge. I will never be able to repay you, however, so it sort of evens out. Thanks for all the great work you've done for me in the past (and in the future... right?)

One last question, Is there anything extra on the cd that is not in the digital download?

A jewel case?

I see you've signed up for an account on PFWiki, Nihimon. Looking forward to working with you and other editors on your project. As we get closer and closer to Early Enrollment, the time to get info up is ever approaching, and while we may not have all the details on the mechanics of the game yet, laying a foundation upon which to add that information would benefit both our projects.

Does anyone have a link to this other wiki? I've done a number of web searches for them, and the only wiki to date that comes up for Pathfinder Online and wiki is PathfinderWiki itself. Is it hidden behind Sivanah's seventh veil?

*Picks jaw up off floor*, wow..these pieces are fantastic, if all of the pieces in the book are like these it'll be worth picking up even if the text sections are blank.

Good news, everybody! The text sections are not blank!

I'm sad that this is only a 3-part story. I want moar Jendara!

That topic is covered quite extensively throughout Osirion, Legacy of Pharaohs.

If you play a ninja and say he's a paladin, that's cool, until such time as there's an effect that specifically affects ninjas. At that point, you can't say, "I'm immune to that effect. I'm a paladin." While you can, in character, call your equipment, your class, your race, or your animal companion anything you want, you must always be up-front with the GM and cannot skirt mechanical effects by being an elf one minute to avoid a sleep effect and then reveal yourself to really be a human in disguise the next combat when faces against a ranger with humanoid (elf) as a favored enemy. That's the difference folks are eluding to. Roleplay is encouraged, but not when it means your "pig" animal companion (which uses dog stats) is immune to goblin attacks specifically designed to target dogs due to racial hate.