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It's important to remember that not every god needs to be perfect for every character (or player). With Golarion, we've really tried hard to create a world that feels real, and one of the key ways to do that (in my opinion) is to introduce some moral ambiguity.

In this particular instance, you've got a lawful good god that does lots of great things, but is also unfortunately socially conservative and unfairly marginalizes a large group of people. Since this perfectly describes how I view several major religions in our own world, I'd think my gaming experience would be lessened if there wasn't an analogue in Golarion that I could use to build characters.

If you really want to play a cleric of Erastil and don't want to deal with that conservatism, don't. Your GM has the power to say "Erastil doesn't believe that in my world." But you might also want to consider playing a character who's a religious reformer, or conflicted over her god's offensive social views, or an arrogant but generally well-intentioned jerk who's trying to spread the gospel "for people's own good."

Perfect gods are boring gods. Abadar won't heal you unless you can pay. Cayden Cailean's a drunkard. Iomedae's probably a little too self-righteous. Sarenrae's all about jihad. Shelyn's a libertine, Torag's a workaholic weapons-nut, and Desna doesn't give a #$&@. And those are just the "good" gods. To me, the fact that Erastil's "traditional family values" stance makes me mad is part of what makes him fun.

(Of course, I'm also the one who nearly broke Mike McArtor's brain with my insistence that Mengkare, the eugenics-espousing dragon lord of Hermea, could still be considered "good" by certain standards, so take my comments with a grain of salt....)

I've never put much stock in that whole tier thing.

It's certainly interesting, but mostly just in an academic, geeky, theorizing-just-for-the-sake-of-theorizing sort of way ...

Kind of like those 'what number comes up most if I roll a given dice 1,000 times' theories you used to see.

Lisa,

Considering how emotional that tale reads eight years later, it's fairly easy to tell just how much that year hurt.

From all your fans, thank you for not giving up.

Sure. Design goals are something that everyone wants to take mechanically and nobody wants to take flavorfully.

Gromulan Pukemage

Legendary for their mechanical superiority and off-putting flavor, the Gromulan Pukemagi were the worst thing to ever happen to Golarion. Commanding powerful arcane forces, clearly busted mechanics, and a variety of incongruous and just plain weird motifs, the order of Pukemagi has throughout the years attracted a huge number of very, very reluctant acolytes.
Role: The Pukemage fills largely the same role as the wizard, just better.
Alignment: Gromulan Pukemagi may be of any alignment, provided that nobody else in the party is that alignment.

Requirements

To qualify to become a pukemage, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.

Skills: Heal, 5 ranks.

Spells: Able to cast 3rd-level prepared arcane spells.

Class Skills

The Pukemage’s class skills are:
Bluff, Intimidate, Swim

½ BAB, Good Fort save, Poor Reflex save, Good Will save, d6 Hit die

Spellcasting:
At every level, the Pukemage gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class he belonged to before adding the prestige class. He does not, however, gain other benefits a character of that class would have gained, except for additional spells per day, spells known (if he is a spontaneous caster), and an increased effective level of spellcasting. If he had more than one arcane spellcasting class before becoming a pukemage, he must decide to which class he adds the new level for the purpose of determining spells per day. Seriously, every level.

Sagari Familiar:
At first level, the Pukemage acquires a Sagari as a familiar, replacing whatever the heck he had before, if anything. The Pukemage adds his Pukemage level to the level of any other class granting him a familiar to determine this familiar’s abilities. (The Sagari is the thing with a horse head for a head and a tentacle for a body.)

Horse Head:
At first level, the Pukemage’s head is replaced with a horse’s head. This gives the Pukemage a bonus to intimidate and bluff equal to his pukemage level, but only against things without horse heads for heads.

Summon Sangria:
At first level, the Pukemage adds Create Water to his spellbook or familiar. Whenever the Pukemage casts Create Water, he instead creates ½ the equivalent volume of sangria, or 1/10 the equivalent volume of tequila.

Boozecaster:
At second level, whenever the Pukemage imbibes an alcoholic beverage, his caster level is treated as being equal to his actual caster level plus 2 for the next 24 hours. This bonus increases by 2 at every second Pukemage level, up to a maximum of 10 at level 10. Who thought this was a good idea?

Droolpool:
At third level, whenever a Pukemage imbibes an alcoholic beverage, the next time he prepares spells, he may prepare a spell of a level no greater than his Pukemage level, even if the spell is not in his spellbook or known to his familiar (if a prepared spellcaster, such as a wizard or witch), as long as the spell is on his class list. He may do this once per alcoholic beverage consumed in the past 24 hours. At any time, he may consume an alcoholic beverage to exchange a prepared spell for another spell. Any spell on the class list.

Equine Resilience:
At fifth level, the Pukemage gets a +2 bonus to saves against the spells and spell-like abilities of things that don’t have horse heads for heads.

Horse with a Person Head for a Head Companion:
At seventh level, the Pukemage gains the service of a loyal horse with a person head for a head. He gains a Foo Horse as a companion, as the druid ability. Treat his character level as his druid level for the purposes of this ability. While able to see and hear his horse with a person head for a head, the pukemage gets a bonus to initiative equal to his pukemage level.

Improved Droolpool:
At ninth level, once each day the Pukemage may use his Droolpool ability to prepare a spell not on his class list.

Equine Apotheosis:
At tenth level, the Pukemage becomes more human with a horse for a head than human. He may choose to treat his type as his natural type or as animal, whichever is more advantageous, for the purpose of mind-affecting spells. He gains a bite attack (1d6 for a medium pukemage; 1d4 for a small pukemage), even though horses don’t have one of those. His spells also ignore spell resistance, but only agaisnt creatures that don't have horse heads for heads.

Between Distant Worlds, Mass Effect, a sizable amount of excitement over seeing Ridley Scott and H. R. Giger collaborating again, and some recent and very uncomfortable dreams, this crossed my mind.

Instead of tying the Dominion of the Black into the Lovecraft Mythos, is anyone else going with a different approach with them? Just some half-formed thoughts here, but....

Kind of imagining them with a bit of the Reaper's MO: Inscrutible beings lurking in dark space who manipulate the inhabitants of starlit worlds(be they living organics, undead, or mechanical) and periodically harvest them. But that's where the similarities mostly end. Mostly, their actual goals, methods, and philosophy are things words fail to capture. But a certain eccentric Swiss artist with his own night terrors as his muse can.

Look at their ships as seen in Distant Worlds. What if, instead of being a singular organism serving as a living starship, they were composed of an amalgam of beings from different species from different worlds. All of them broken and/or engineered almost beyond recognition, seamlessly melded with technology and fused together, all with their wills bent in subservient madness to the Dominion, all to form one terrible machine. Victims of the Dominion typically aren't given the luxury of death. They lose almost all that they are save for what the Dominion wishes to keep, and are taken and made a part of the Dominion's very flesh.

That ship in Distant Worlds isn't one being. It's many. All pressed and fused together into one behemoth of flesh and metal and shackled to the will of uncaring masters. No two ships look exactly alike, though there is an unsettling regularity to their symmetry. One ship's hull might be lined with humanoids fused with black steel and tubes, the limbs of converted spellcasters swaying and summoning protective wards to protect the rest of the hull's relatively delicate arms/manipulators from debris impact. Another ship could be using two converted oma as twin thrusters.

This is actually how the Dominion reproduces and evolves. Whatever aspects other beings may possess that they envy they make their own. They might encourage whatever race and/or culture catches their attention to continue to evolve along lines that strengthen these desired traits, allowing their victims to "ripen" or replenish the stock.

They're never about wiping out life. Not about killing for the sake of killing. Any (probably horrible) death they cause has to be a (probably horrible) source of new (probably horrible) life in their eyes. Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on death, so to speak.

We know the Dominion of the Black has probable connections to the abomination-planet Aucturn, which has a horrifying tendency to induce mutations in visiting life forms. Then there's The Loving Place, which beyond the obvious badness is probably a hotspot for new and exciting perversions of organic life. And the subsuming of TLP's inhabitants' minds to its horrific mating cycles might as well be a warm-up for the regulated bio-mechanized version awaiting them or their descendants once the Dominion farms them for parts. Perhaps the Dominion-claimed beings can still reproduce after conversion. Perhaps they can't and the sole reason for such configurations is so that the Dominion can experience something that's otherwise unknown to them.

Then there's the Aballonians and the mystery of their original creators. Could the Dominion have had a hand in their creation, with both factions of the Aballonians in fact veering away from their originally intended purpose of being a self-renewing source of mechanical components to regularly harvest? Or perhaps the Dominion was something that happened to their creators, hence why they've been gone so long?

Then there's the Osirion connection. Besides getting their foot in the door and having an entire civilization possibly co-opted to possibly have a sizable population to regularly sample, Osirion's rise after the Age of Darkness may have also been something to invest in as far as bringing humanity safely back from the brink of extinction.

Why do the Dominion do any of this? Perhaps it's the only way they can be capable of change and evolution? Perhaps they're sense-freaks. Maybe they're a combination of both, essentially being a sort of alien version of kytons? Perhaps it's best to leave that as an unknown and only confront players with the effects of their passing through the solar system?

edit-Noting bolded words. Oh cra-

I'm not a fan of Lovecraftian elements in PF. Mainly because I believe that a core concept of the Mythos is the fact that humans are completely insignificant next to the Great Old Ones, unable to comprehend their cosmic madness and ultimately, powerless to stop them.

This is very much not the situation in high-power fantasy RPGs, where you can implode realities and swing swords 10 times per second while surviving dragon breath and demonic hordes.

Don't let back-seat drivers rattle your confidence. Unless you're running PFS (or other league) scenarios, you're under no obligation to ref a module as written. I can think of a few pretty good reasons NOT to. Anyway, if I had a player who had been metagaming so hard as to actually read the modules and gripe about it afterward, I'd do whatever I could to mess with their head on general principle.

You might find, as I did, that since the advent of 3e-3.5e-4e some players have a real sense of entitlement. I've encountered one or two at the gaming table though it seems they mostly show up online. Don't let that throw you; just find some players who respect the preparation, organization and hard work it takes to ref a fun game.

Zo

The Book of Exalted Deeds was horrible. In my opinion, evil should have a slight edge in terms of power, otherwise there would be little reason to chose it. That is, if you want good and evil to have any difference instead of just being palette swaps (as BoED did with stuff like ravages).
I'd prefer the equivalent of the Book of the Damned for nonevil outsiders instead of a generic good guy book. A bit more conflict between them certainly would not hurt. Not Blood War level, but working against each other. They seem a bit to uniform otherwise.
As for the agathion look, I liked the Leonal and the Avoral from the Bestiary 2. The Silvanshee is fine, too.

No, please.

We are not fans of technological restraints like that. Frankly, if you can't keep your yap shut you don't get to work on NDA'd projects. (Also, I am too lazy to bother writing that code.)

I am constantly annoyed at how basic customer service is dying in america. It is on its last, gasping breaths. You go to a store and the sales staff don't help you, at the checkout counter the cashier doesn't make eye contact and practically throws your change (or credit card) back at you. There's no hello, thank you, or come again. I hate when I get an automated system that says,"in order to serve you better". If they really wanted to serve me better, I would be talking to a person not chosing selection #5.
But Paizo is different. They think of me. I don't mean they think like a gamer (which they do), I don't mean they produce great product (which they do), and I don't mean that they make sure the afformentioned product is affordable (which they do). I mean they think of ME. Dax Thura. They seek my input on product they create based off my suggestions. Sure they have some great ideas on their own, but even in those they ask what I think.
I don't know if its true, but they make me feel like I matter. That is a great philosophy. I wonder if it is their mission statement. In any case, I am loving it. I am loving them.

PS. Do they ever sleep? I've seen posts from them at all hours of the day and night all over these boards.

We're trying a new approach toward moderation of political and other hot-topic threads like alignment or paladins being jerks or role- vs. roll-playing or whatever. The new approach is basically, keep it on topic. The theory is that threads tend to get more out of control if multiple tangents are pursued simultaneously and the arguments kind of snowball into a giant mess.

I still have hopes that we can have civil, lively, engaging, non-threatening discussions here even for contentious topics. If we can't then maybe we will institute a ban on things our community just can't talk about well. But that feels like admitting defeat and conceding that jerks are a greater force for chaos than the rest of us for having a civil society. And I don't want that.

Now if it turns out that we actually can have political discussions without creating a "here there be a+$++#$s" section of the board, then the chances of us actually making a separate forum for political discussions starts to rise. But there is no way we're making one if it's just going to be full of unrelenting grar.

Keep in mind that neither Paizo nor Wizards of the Coast are likely to post in this thread any secret future plans, so everything posted in here is going to be pure speculation, based on pure speculation.

So when you feel like disagreeing with someone (and you probably will, I can tell it has the potential to be that kind of thread), keep in mind that it's just their opinion. They're no more privy to the truth than you are.

And when you post your awesome idea that Paizo absolutely must do or else we're going to go out of business, please have faith in Lisa, Erik and the rest of us that we got to this point because we're not stupid.

We *just* rolled them out. As GMs visit their gameplay, recruitment and discussion threads, they'll be prompted to hook them up to campaigns, which enables the nifty display of players and characters, and the tabbed interface for all threads related to the campaign.

Also new are the Aliases and Campaigns tabs on your profile page, which should hopefully make it a bit easier to manage multiple play-by-posts.

Personally, I'd suggest a Worldwound crusade AP whereby the BBEG at the end is a demon-possessed ancient wyrm...preferably a red. The campaign would have undertones of "Dragon Age" to it (obviously)...but not a simple duplication, mind you. It would just play well for those already familiar with that game.

The AP would also avoid having dragons in every adventure. But I'd spend the "capital" provided by the BBEG by demonstrating the dragon's handiwork in every adventure. That way, the PCs know from the beginning what they're up against. In fact, I'd make it a "dragon hunt" on top of the crusade. And, the PCs would very likely have to set off on that adventure already assuming they'd give their lives to defeat such evil and protect their friends and family back home.

General Outline:

But that's just my two cents,
--Neil