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James Jacobs wrote:
Triphoppenskip wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Jeffrey Swank wrote:

Hi James,

Would the syrinx typically view ratfolk as food, potential slaves or vermin to be eradicated?

Why not all three? I would think that'd be a personal preference. :P

I prefer that they think of us as gods to be worshipped.

Now for my question. Any suggestions for combating the "Magic Mart" syndrome? Back in my old school days of gaming magic items were something we won in a hard fought combat after marching three days barefoot through the snow, uphill I might add. We never found a +3 sword of awesomeness just laying about gathering dust in a shop. Even in some of the bigger cities a plus 1 item was about the best we could expect to find. Or should I just give in and accept that times have changed and even the smallest hovel will have Discount Dan's Armor Clearing House where you can find racks and racks of armor of all sizes, materials, and enchantments.

*Edit I know that there are rules dealing with this in the core rulebook but I'm really wondering more about combatting the mindset that most of my players seem to have these days that if it has a gp vaule by it then it must be available pretty much anywhere items are sold.

Rebuild the entire game to divorce magic items from gold pieces for one. That means you need to engineer an entirely different way to quantify a magic item's power, unless you also want to remove player character magic item creation from the game as well, in which case you can simply say "No magic shops and no item creation in my game—you get what you find!" and then role-play out each and every time the PCs decide they want to sell their stuff and work out a different way to balance how much magical gear any one NPC owns.

In other words... if your're playing Pathfinder, you kinda have to be comfortable with the idea of PCs (and NPCs) being able to buy magic items in your world.

My favorite method of handling this is to custom build the items that are for sale...

Now that the message boards goblins have retreated I'm going to try again. I'm still going to cut out most of the message I wrote yesterday because it was just replies to some of what you said and cut to the follow up question. I'm going to use +1 equipment as a baseline here. SO how common would magic items be? Are there enough craftsmen with the ability to make +1 items they would be considered mass produced and therefore for sale at shops in most villiages or are they still rare enough that you have to travel to a fairly good sized city in order to find a few various items with the +1 enhancement?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Ross Byers wrote:
Short of finding a high level Abadarite to cast commune, how would you get a paternity test?
Isn't this one of Pharasma's portfolios as the goddess most concerned with births?
Perhaps... although childbirth is not the same as lineage. Childbirth is a part of the life/death cycle, while lineage is largely a social construct, and as such that's more of a thing that a deity of cities or society or civilization would be interested in promoting.

Let me rephrase then, the wife of an important noble or king in the Inner Sea is about to give birth. Who is most likely to be called into midwife, and who to record the birth and it's lineage, and are they necessarily different people?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Darius Darrenbar wrote:

James,

Been reading over Towns of the Inner Seas and some of the earlier adventure modules from way back when. What are the chances we're going to see an adventure path centered in Andoran in the next few years?

Falcon's Hollow has received a lot of development over the years, seems like it would be the perfect setting to start off. Especially considering a lot of the groundwork has already been laid out what with the history being flushed out for both the town and a many of its inhabitants. Would cool to see some more familiar NPC's (Ralla, the kobold children, Jeva, etc.) and what's become of them over the years.

Chances of an Andoran adventure path in the next few years are slim. You might see some Andoran themes or elements pop up here and there... but it's not something that's particularly high on either of our (Rob and I) lists of campaigns we're eager to present as Adventure Paths. We generally prefer to focus our Adventure Paths on areas or concepts that either haven't been well explored yet in print.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Who's cooler, Visigoths or Ostrogoths?

It's been about 20 years since I've had my head in the Visigoth/Ostrogoth space... that was back in college (my minor was in Medieval Studies). Since then, my Visigoth and Ostrogoth lore has been eroded away by two decades or so of similar stuff, ranging from movies to RPGs to novels.

SO. I had to look back to the internet to remind me who they were.

If I remember correctly... the Visigoths.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
snickersimba wrote:

Could you explain more about why cosmo is treated like hes such a psychotic lunatic? I actually want to understand more about the paizo staff. Explain your coworkers as best as possible, before I accidentally offend one of them.

I apologize for offending you if I have ever done so.

Also, pathfinder needs some more comedic moments, like, how the iconics know eachother/what they do in there downtime and how they interact.

Mostly I just want to see merishiel beat the crap out of valereos

Perhaps because he has a weird name? Perhaps because of the way he comports himself on the internet? He's not really treated like a lunatic in the real world. It's mostly some sort of internet phenomenon that I honestly don't really fully understand the history of, since Cosmo is an upstairs person, and what happens upstairs is often hidden from the eyes of us downstairsers.

No worries!

I do enjoy including comedic moments in our products now and then. In fact, I think that's part of why the goblins are so popular. But comedy is the HARDEST thing to write for an RPG. It's easy to do it wrong so it's just stupid (at best) or disrespects the game and us gamers (at worst), and I'd rather not do it unless it's great. There are very very very very few authors I've worked with who are consistently capable of producing true and excellent comedy. Rich Pett and Crystal Fraiser are two of them. There's maybe a few more. Maybe.

There's no "h" in Merisiel's name, and why would she beat up Valeros? They're friends!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Analysis wrote:
I came across something in the Wake of the Watcher Old Cults article which surprised me, which was that only three entities (Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Hastur) have cults of witches serving them. Or is it just that other Old One/Outer God witch cults are (even) rarer?

There are plenty other Old Cults who have witch cults serving them, but among those whom we talked about in that article, there's only three. There are absolutely lone witches who serve all of the deities, but a single witch, or even a single coven, does not make a cult.

It really has nothing to do with rarity, in any event. And in truth, if I were to revise that article, I might add witch cults to Yog-Sothoth and CERTAINLY to Shub-Niggurath.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
snickersimba wrote:

Could you explain more about why cosmo is treated like hes such a psychotic lunatic? I actually want to understand more about the paizo staff. Explain your coworkers as best as possible, before I accidentally offend one of them.

I apologize for offending you if I have ever done so.

Also, pathfinder needs some more comedic moments, like, how the iconics know eachother/what they do in there downtime and how they interact.

Mostly I just want to see merishiel beat the crap out of valereos

Perhaps because he has a weird name? Perhaps because of the way he comports himself on the internet? He's not really treated like a lunatic in the real world. It's mostly some sort of internet phenomenon that I honestly don't really fully understand the history of, since Cosmo is an upstairs person, and what happens upstairs is often hidden from the eyes of us downstairsers.

Now I'm waiting for the BBC America production of "Upstairs! Downstairs!, the Paizo Edition." I assume Cosmo would be played by Stephen Fry, and depending on your age, and five o'clock shadow status, you'd be played by either Tom Baker or David Tennant.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

4 people marked this as a favorite.
BigP4nda wrote:
This has probably already been asked so i do apoligize. What are the steps needed to take to ensure a future job at paizo? Preferably on the design team

It has indeed been asked before, but not for a while. No apology needed!

First... keep in mind that it's a VERY small industry, and that means that there's a lot of people out there who want the position, so competition for paid jobs at any RPG publisher is pretty intense. The following advice will skew toward "working for Paizo hints" but you can apply it toward "working for an RPG company" pretty easily by filing off "Pathfinder" and replacing the name of whatever game you hope to work for, of course.

I'll spoiler the following wall of text to keep this post's footprint down.

Spoiler:

Writing: Make sure you practice writing. Regardless of if you want to design rules or build worlds or write adventures. Write, write, write! If your writing is filled with inconsistencies, errors, bad grammar, and the rest, you're done. If you can't express yourself well in writing, that's a HUGE disadvantage. Focusing on a major in college that has you doing a lot of writing is a great way to prepare for this, as is simply writing every day. If you do the latter, make sure to share your writing with friends and critics and the like. Writing in college, you get feedback, and you don't get that if you just write on your own and never share your words. Learn from feedback, immerse yourself in cultures and groups of fellow writers, and write! As an extension to this... READ. You can learn a lot about writing by just paying attention to how authors you admire write. Again, doesn't matter what you're reading. RPG rulebooks, novels, non-fiction, comics, whatever. Read read read!

Know the Game: If you want to write for Pathfinder, you need to know the rules AND the world. That means more than just reading the books. You need to play the game. Preferably as a GM or a player. Preferably NOT in only one mode—someone who only plays PFS games will have a skewed outlook on what does and doesn't work in the game (or vice-versa), just as someone who never plays and only GMs will have a skewed outlook (or, again, vice-versa).

Have Specialties: Beyond being great at writing and knowing the game, it's good to have specialties that help further your breadth. Designing RPGs requires more than writing... a LOT more. When building worlds, being able to draw upon all sorts of skills is helpful, be they writing, math, astronomy, archeology, carpentry, fishing, dancing, whatever. If you're well-rounded and have a wide range of skills, you'll be able to bring that lore and skill to the game and help improve it in ways that others might not be able to.

Be Responsible and Dependable: This mostly means hit your deadlines. As with writing, practice is key here. Make sure you don't procrastinate; hit those deadlines, whatever they are. And if you think you'll miss them... let the person you're working for know that you'll be late.

Get Us to Know You: We tend to prefer to hire people who we know can do the job, and we find out they can do the job by working for us as freelancers. Working for other RPG publishers is an option as well. Showing us that you have the passion to create for the game, the skill to do so without making us rewrite your work, and the dedication to hit your deadlines (or keep us informed when you can't) is incredibly important, since we're a VERY fast-paced company, and if you've already proven to us that you know your way around the game, are creative, and are responsible, that not only takes a load of worry and doubt out of our heads, but it helps you hit the ground running if/when you do get hired.

Be Flexible: You might want to design rules and ONLY rules... but we need people who can do more than that. As schedules shift and new products come along, an employee might need to work on a rules book one week, then an adventure the next, then a novel the next, then a world book next. Sometimes as a designer, sometimes as a developer, sometimes as an editor. Of course, we work to avoid having folks tackle jobs that they aren't good at doing (since that just further delays things by forcing someone else to come in, put their own schedule off, and do the work themselves), but being able and being willing to do more than one thing is an incredible boon, and makes you an even more important asset to the operation.

Be Local: All of our full-time editor, developer, and designer positions are in-house. You need to be in the office for the 40 hours (or more).

Apply!: Of course, none of it is gonna go anywhere if you don't apply! Keep an eye on paizo.com for when we post new job openings, and when you see one you want, apply. Frankly, if you see one you might not want as much as the one you DO want, but know you can do that other job well... apply to that one too! I got my start at Wizards of the Coast doing Temp work, and was eventually signed on to work in the sales department doing order processing and sales support. I actually never did work for WotC's R&D department for D&D, but being an employee there allowed me to immerse myself in the corporate culture, got me known by the rest of the employees, let me take part in internal playtests and discussions, and most importantly, let me be in the same building as the people I was doing freelance work for—since I was right there, it was easy for me to talk to folks and get assignments once I proved to them I could write and could hit deadlines. And every single time a position opened for an editor or developer or designer in the magazine department or the D&D department, I applied. Again and again. I never got hired there, but doing so, combined with my freelance work for the game, got me known. So that one day, when Paizo needed to hire someone to help work on Dungeon magazine, my name was at the top of the list.

Be Patient: Going from my first published adventure in Dungeon to my first day at work at Paizo as a salaried employee who actually works as an editor took nearly two decades. Your path might be shorter, but it might be longer.

Luck: This is important too. You can hit everything above on the head, but with bad luck... it's all for naught. This is another way of saying "If you do everything perfect but don't succeed... keep trying!"

Paizo Employee Creative Director

The Cube of Rubix wrote:

Hello,

I had a question about Paladins and their Weapon Proficiency.
Now I had a discussion with someone on my own specific question board and they laid out why it was done but I was curious why not give Paladins their gods favored weapons?

I mean now, I know in core the favored weapons where all martial or simple and the class gains both freely. But with the new Inner Sea Gods and so forth, would it be reasonable to give a Paladin proficiency in their gods favored weapon?

Because paladins get plenty of stuff already, and because unlike clerics, paladins don't HAVE to worship a deity. I'd say most, probably 95%, do... but those who don't worship a deity shouldn't have a penalty in not getting a free weapon proficiency.

Furthermore, the bulk of the weapon proficiencies a paladin would get by such a power would be wasted bonuses anyway, since paladins already have full access to simple and martial weapons.

Also, unlike a cleric, who can't take an Exotic Weapon Proficiency at 1st level, a paladin CAN take that feat at 1st level.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Triphoppenskip wrote:

Now that the message boards goblins have retreated I'm going to try again. I'm still going to cut out most of the message I wrote yesterday because it was just replies to some of what you said and cut to the follow up question. I'm going to use +1 equipment as a baseline here. SO how common would magic items be? Are there enough craftsmen with the ability to make +1 items they would be considered mass produced and therefore for sale at shops in most villiages or are they still rare enough that you have to travel to a fairly good sized city in order to find a few various items with the +1 enhancement?

Magic items are not common enough to be considered to be "mass produced." A +1 weapon takes a MINIMUM of 2 days to build, and requires a pretty skilled person to do so—you pretty much have to be 5th level, regardless of the route you take to get the feat you need. Therefore... they're not that common at all.

Adventurers get a skewed look into this, since they don't lead common lives, and immerse themselves in those relatively rare situations where magic items ARE more common. But as far as the world itself goes, they're pretty rare overall.

You'll note that a +1 weapon of ANY type (barring ammunition, of course) is, at minimum, a 2,300 gp purchase. Looking at Table 15–1 in the Core Rulebook, we see that means that it takes a small city to even have something like that for sale in enough quantity to have a 75% chance of being available; in anything of Large town size or smaller, the only magic weapons for sale will be the ones you, the GM, place there for sale (perhaps as one of the town's specific minor, medium, or major items).

In other words, you'll need to be in a settlement with a population of AT LEAST 5,001 people before you can expect to see magic weapons show up for sale in shops. And even then... those weapons will be sold at only a few shops, not EVERY shop.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

LazarX wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Ross Byers wrote:
Short of finding a high level Abadarite to cast commune, how would you get a paternity test?
Isn't this one of Pharasma's portfolios as the goddess most concerned with births?
Perhaps... although childbirth is not the same as lineage. Childbirth is a part of the life/death cycle, while lineage is largely a social construct, and as such that's more of a thing that a deity of cities or society or civilization would be interested in promoting.
Let me rephrase then, the wife of an important noble or king in the Inner Sea is about to give birth. Who is most likely to be called into midwife, and who to record the birth and it's lineage, and are they necessarily different people?

Depends on the society she's a part of. Might just be the one midwife. Might be a midwife and a clerk. Might be a cleric. Might be a cleric and a midwife and a clerk.

It depends. Make the choice as best fits the story you want to tell. I don't expect us to publish "Births of the Inner Sea" or something like that anytime soon... but a book that covers all of the day-to-day stuff for the Inner Sea would be pretty cool... not sure it'd be pretty appealing to management is the thing. It's hard to sell a book about the day-to-day things that happen when instead you can use that time and energy to try to sell a book about fighting monsters.


James Jacobs wrote:
Triphoppenskip wrote:

Now that the message boards goblins have retreated I'm going to try again. I'm still going to cut out most of the message I wrote yesterday because it was just replies to some of what you said and cut to the follow up question. I'm going to use +1 equipment as a baseline here. SO how common would magic items be? Are there enough craftsmen with the ability to make +1 items they would be considered mass produced and therefore for sale at shops in most villiages or are they still rare enough that you have to travel to a fairly good sized city in order to find a few various items with the +1 enhancement?

Magic items are not common enough to be considered to be "mass produced." A +1 weapon takes a MINIMUM of 2 days to build, and requires a pretty skilled person to do so—you pretty much have to be 5th level, regardless of the route you take to get the feat you need. Therefore... they're not that common at all.

Adventurers get a skewed look into this, since they don't lead common lives, and immerse themselves in those relatively rare situations where magic items ARE more common. But as far as the world itself goes, they're pretty rare overall.

You'll note that a +1 weapon of ANY type (barring ammunition, of course) is, at minimum, a 2,300 gp purchase. Looking at Table 15–1 in the Core Rulebook, we see that means that it takes a small city to even have something like that for sale in enough quantity to have a 75% chance of being available; in anything of Large town size or smaller, the only magic weapons for sale will be the ones you, the GM, place there for sale (perhaps as one of the town's specific minor, medium, or major items).

In other words, you'll need to be in a settlement with a population of AT LEAST 5,001 people before you can expect to see magic weapons show up for sale in shops. And even then... those weapons will be sold at only a few shops, not EVERY shop.

Ahhh excellent. This fixes the problems I've been having immensely. Thanks a million.

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.

As usual, thanks for the answers on the previous questions. My apologies if I've been a pain with these.

Sorry if I seemed mean about the mi-go, I meant the question from an 'in universe' perspective. I figured insanely clinical fungus men from Pluto probably aren't ones to gather the biggest fanbase. I think every DM likes brain stealing fungal space jerks. :)

1.) Every DM I've seen seems to have types of monsters they like and dislike (Gygax and oozes springs to mind.) Is there a type that you feel is overused? Underused?

2.) From a dramatic perspective, how do you usually justify or mythologize the typical rpg situation where a group of doughty adventures gang up and kill foes who outclass them, but who they in turn outnumber?

3.) Do you ever see Paizo doing a splat book for adventuring in the hey-day of the Runelords?

4.) Do you personally prefer travelogue adventures with a wide variety of different locales and personalities or location based dungeon crawly stuff? IE: Say Reign of Winter style stuff vs the old AD&D Undermountain.

5.) What's your opinion on PCs who lose focus on 'adventuring' as a career or 'being a hero' as a vocation and become more focused on stuff like investments, running businesses and the like?
(a)Would you attempt to move them back towards 'adventure?'
(b)Or if they're enjoying it would you keep adjudicating as they built a financial empire?

Thanks for the answers. If I'm being a pain with these questions just PM me and tell me so.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Do you plan on seeing Second Son and/or Jupiter Ascending next weekend/near future?

What is the process for putting together the fiction in the APs? Do you have a broad outline for the story and give that to the selected Author? Or is it more of a "I want a story about pirate/snake people etc." and just send them on their merry way? Do you/Rob as the AP developer select the AP fiction or is that somewhat separate from your job developing the adventure (say a editor or someone is in charge of putting it together)?

Are you excited about the new content for Pathfinder Unchained? Have you gotten to see the changes to the classes (I think you referenced the summoner rewrite upthread)? Do you think you will prefer the "new" rogue/monk etc in your games or keep the old ones, or allow both?

Liberty's Edge

Question(s) about how you do NPC treasure for either AP development or your home game.

1) Assuming standard fantasy and Medium XP advancement, chart 14-9 on page 454 of the CRB indicates that the standard goblin from the bestiary (1st level warrior) should have a total gp value of 260 gp. Am I interpreting this correctly?

2) Assuming that is correct, and considering that is a lot more value that equipment listed in the bestiary, do you like to adjust the NPC's equipment to reflect the value, or do you take that extra gp and place it with some kind of treasure hoard? This question is primarily in reference to nonrecurring NPCs (random mooks, etc.).

3) What gp value would you recommend for a 1st level NPC in a game that uses the Slow XP advancement track? (The CRB recommends that Slow XP games should use a value as though the NPC were one level lower. Unfortunately, the table doesn't go any lower for 1st level NPCs on the Slow track).

4) For settlements, does the Base Value and Purchase limit reflect a standard fantasy campaign? Would it be reasonable to half these values in a low fantasy game (conversely, double in a high fantasy game)? What about the availability of Minor, Medium, or Major magic items: would these amounts be adjusted accordingly, as well?

Thanks.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
j b 200 wrote:

Do you plan on seeing Second Son and/or Jupiter Ascending next weekend/near future?

What is the process for putting together the fiction in the APs? Do you have a broad outline for the story and give that to the selected Author? Or is it more of a "I want a story about pirate/snake people etc." and just send them on their merry way? Do you/Rob as the AP developer select the AP fiction or is that somewhat separate from your job developing the adventure (say a editor or someone is in charge of putting it together)?

Are you excited about the new content for Pathfinder Unchained? Have you gotten to see the changes to the classes (I think you referenced the summoner rewrite upthread)? Do you think you will prefer the "new" rogue/monk etc in your games or keep the old ones, or allow both?

At this point, I plan on seeing both of those movies. Reviews will adjust my expectations, as will which ones do and do not show up at iPic, since I really don't enjoy going to the cinneplex-style theaters these days.

I'm actually not heavily involved in building the fiction for the APs; that's mostly handled by Adam, James Sutter, and/or Chris Carey. They're pretty well outlined though, as is my understanding; it's not a "write whatever you want as long as it's about robots (or whatever)."

I've read through the changes to the rogue, and it's more powerful than the previous rogue, so of course I like it better! (I've always believed that the rogue is fine as-is, just that it's a difficult class to play due to the tactics involved, and if you have a jerk GM or an inexperienced GM it's even harder to play.) Only glanced at the others. There's a few really interesting elements I'd like to try out in Unchained as well.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Spook205 wrote:

As usual, thanks for the answers on the previous questions. My apologies if I've been a pain with these.

Sorry if I seemed mean about the mi-go, I meant the question from an 'in universe' perspective. I figured insanely clinical fungus men from Pluto probably aren't ones to gather the biggest fanbase. I think every DM likes brain stealing fungal space jerks. :)

1.) Every DM I've seen seems to have types of monsters they like and dislike (Gygax and oozes springs to mind.) Is there a type that you feel is overused? Underused?

2.) From a dramatic perspective, how do you usually justify or mythologize the typical rpg situation where a group of doughty adventures gang up and kill foes who outclass them, but who they in turn outnumber?

3.) Do you ever see Paizo doing a splat book for adventuring in the hey-day of the Runelords?

4.) Do you personally prefer travelogue adventures with a wide variety of different locales and personalities or location based dungeon crawly stuff? IE: Say Reign of Winter style stuff vs the old AD&D Undermountain.

5.) What's your opinion on PCs who lose focus on 'adventuring' as a career or 'being a hero' as a vocation and become more focused on stuff like investments, running businesses and the like?
(a)Would you attempt to move them back towards 'adventure?'
(b)Or if they're enjoying it would you keep adjudicating as they built a financial empire?

Thanks for the answers. If I'm being a pain with these questions just PM me and tell me so.

1) Half-dragons are over-used. Qlippoth and dinosaurs are underused.

2) By assuming that the adventurers have luck, destiny, and skill on their side.

3) I kinda find the phrase "splat-book" offensive. It feels dismissive and diminishes the value of the book. "Splat" is a noise that something you don't want makes when you discard it. THAT SAID... a book that presents the world as it was before Earthfall would be, in extent, an entirely new campaign setting. One that we'd not really support, but would require as much work to create as was the Inner Sea World Guide. Not sure that's a great use of time and resources, unfortunately. But! Who knows what the future might bring?

4) I prefer location-based adventures that allow you as the player to get to know a region. Adventures that have you traveling all over the place I kinda call "Star Trek" adventures. Each adventure (episode) is in a different spot (planet) and that means that you have to abandon what you know about the setting to allow new stuff in. There's a reason folks often prefer the "mythology-heavy" episodes of a show like Fringe or X-Files or Buffy over the "monster of the week" episodes. Adventures that take place in familiar territory are more fun because they allow the story to grow, whereas campaigns that essentially shift campaign worlds each adventure feel too sporadic. They feel not so much like a single campaign as they do a bunch of short ones strung together.

5) If you want to be a banker or a baker, that's fine. But if you want to play in my game, that can, at best, be your second job. I ADORE when PCs start businesses or whatever in the down time between adventures, and often incorporate those elements INTO adventures... but the moment a PC says, "I can't go on the adventure because I prefer to stay at home and invest my money and run my business," well... that player's playing a different game than the one I want to run. If the WHOLE POINT of the campaign is "build a mercantile empire" or whatever, that's a different story; that one would have adventures built into the process.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

HangarFlying wrote:

Question(s) about how you do NPC treasure for either AP development or your home game.

1) Assuming standard fantasy and Medium XP advancement, chart 14-9 on page 454 of the CRB indicates that the standard goblin from the bestiary (1st level warrior) should have a total gp value of 260 gp. Am I interpreting this correctly?

2) Assuming that is correct, and considering that is a lot more value that equipment listed in the bestiary, do you like to adjust the NPC's equipment to reflect the value, or do you take that extra gp and place it with some kind of treasure hoard? This question is primarily in reference to nonrecurring NPCs (random mooks, etc.).

3) What gp value would you recommend for a 1st level NPC in a game that uses the Slow XP advancement track? (The CRB recommends that Slow XP games should use a value as though the NPC were one level lower. Unfortunately, the table doesn't go any lower for 1st level NPCs on the Slow track).

4) For settlements, does the Base Value and Purchase limit reflect a standard fantasy campaign? Would it be reasonable to half these values in a low fantasy game (conversely, double in a high fantasy game)? What about the availability of Minor, Medium, or Major magic items: would these amounts be adjusted accordingly, as well?

Thanks.

1) Correct.

2) Sometimes. I prefer to give NPCs the gear they need for the story I want to tell. Usually I can make that fit with their budget. Sometimes I can't, and the NPC is poorer or richer than you'd expect, in which case I try to balance things out by adding or removing treasure from elsewhere in the adventure.

3) NPCs don't use an XP advancement track. Doesn't matter. They have the same amount of baseline gp value regardless of what XP track you use for your adventures. A 1st level goblin warrior is still a CR 1/2 creature regardless of how fast you hand out XP, and as such should have the same amount of gear on average regardless of how fast you hand out XP. This DOES go against what the rulebook says, I get it, but giving NPCs gear is part of what helps you make those NPCs hit their expected statistic values by CR. Using the core rulebook method, an NPC in a slow-advancement game is less powerful than one that's in a high-advancement game, and as a result, the PCs will expend fewer resources on average defeating the NPC and combats will on average be shorter, and thus on average the PCs will have more encounters and thus end up gaining XP faster than someone gains XP on a faster track. A better solution would be to keep an eye on OVERALL treasure handed out for slow advancement. You don't want to overly nerf your NPCs by reducing their treasure, but you don't want to overload the PCs with too much gear. THAT SAID... if you wanna go by the rules... then just cut the gp value in half for a 1st level character.

4) Yes; those values HAVE to represent a standard fantasy campaign, because even if they didn't... they would since that's the baseline everyone would build their own games off of. I think rather than just adjusting values for low or high fantasy you'd do better to simply throttle or expand the magic available for purchase. If you wanted to do a campaign where everyone was poor and destitute, THEN you'd reduce the base values, I'd say... but a "Poor people" campaign is not always the same as a "low fantasy" one.

EDIT: I just noticed you asked about my home game. My answers above are mostly for "how you should do it in a core game." In my home games, I tend to give out a lot more treasure than the core game recommends, because I like giving my players' characters an edge in combat so that they're more likely to succeed. I'm more interested in seeing their characters have a complete arc through a campaign than having that arc cut short by a bad roll and a sudden death. The answers above still mostly work for me though.


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1. How much would you like to do a Qlippoth AP? (Not "is there a Qlippoth AP coming" or "tell me when the Qlippoth AP is coming, c'mon man." I'm sure you'd like to do a dinosaur AP but that's probably not coming for a long time)

2. What's your stance on a mythic character with Divine Source becoming their own Mortal Herald? Dumb, hilarious or working as intended?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Eoxyn wrote:

1. How much would you like to do a Qlippoth AP? (Not "is there a Qlippoth AP coming" or "tell me when the Qlippoth AP is coming, c'mon man." I'm sure you'd like to do a dinosaur AP but that's probably not coming for a long time)

2. What's your stance on a mythic character with Divine Source becoming their own Mortal Herald? Dumb, hilarious or working as intended?

1) I'd love to do a qlippoth themed adventure path... but frankly, having just done an entire AP with Abyss stuff... I'm kinda okay doing other things for now. AKA: don't expect a qlippoth AP anytime soon.

2) It's illogical. The whole point of a herald is that it's some one who serves as your messenger. If that's you... then that means you don't need a messenger in the first place because you obviously have time to do your own footwork there. And thus, by definition, are not a herald.

Liberty's Edge

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For the entirety of the Adventure Path line, you have had the pattern of 2-3 Avistan adventures, then 1 Garund adventure. Rinse and repeat four times over. And now we're possibly in the fifth cycle.

Has that pattern been intentional, or is it just a coincidence? (I'm not asking if the pattern will continue to hold in the future, just whether it's been intentional in the past.)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Samy wrote:

For the entirety of the Adventure Path line, you have had the pattern of 2-3 Avistan adventures, then 1 Garund adventure. Rinse and repeat four times over. And now we're possibly in the fifth cycle.

Has that pattern been intentional, or is it just a coincidence? (I'm not asking if the pattern will continue to hold in the future, just whether it's been intentional in the past.)

Coincidence.

Liberty's Edge

James Jacobs wrote:
Awesome NPC Stuff

Thanks for the response, it's really helpful!

So when creating a random encounter table, and one of the encounters is 1d6+3 goblins, each goblin would have approximately 260 gp of stuff (perhaps having 3 or 4 different packages of stuff to add some variety between goblins)?

Thanks again!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

HangarFlying wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Awesome NPC Stuff

Thanks for the response, it's really helpful!

So when creating a random encounter table, and one of the encounters is 1d6+3 goblins, each goblin would have approximately 260 gp of stuff (perhaps having 3 or 4 different packages of stuff to add some variety between goblins)?

Thanks again!

Pretty much. Although in most goblin-themed adventures, you'll be throwing LOTS of goblins at the PCs. And that can end up giving out too much treasure overall. You'll want to keep an eye on the total value you hand out over the course of a level to make sure the PCs wealth stays in the band you're comfy with.

And that said... it seems like lots of folks tend to not bother looting goblins, if things on other threads on these boards are to be believed... so maybe go ahead and give them nice things! :-P

Liberty's Edge

James Jacobs wrote:

Pretty much. Although in most goblin-themed adventures, you'll be throwing LOTS of goblins at the PCs. And that can end up giving out too much treasure overall. You'll want to keep an eye on the total value you hand out over the course of a level to make sure the PCs wealth stays in the band you're comfy with.

And that said... it seems like lots of folks tend to not bother looting goblins, if things on other threads on these boards are to be believed... so maybe go ahead and give them nice things! :-P

Truth.

I'm formulating a player-driven exploration/sandbox type game. So while goblins won't be the main theme, they'll be involved. I've just been using them as an example, though I plan on including the other standard evil humanoids, so the horde concept could apply to them as well.

I'll be including non-intelligent and other low treasure creatures on the tables, so that should, in theory help balance it all out.

I'm just trying to figure out that sweet spot between maintaining an organic and natural feel, quick GM prep, and keeping within reasonable WBL boundaries.

Thanks again!

Silver Crusade

James, is Pazio going to do anything related to casmorn in the nex two years?

I have a geographical/topographical question for you. Does the northern boundaries of Tien-xa meet the northern boundaries of avistan or is their a polar region in between?

I am thinking of plunking a new race in the most northern eastern portion of Minkai.
The gazetteer says Minkai is on the verge of a civil war I was woundering how you would think the populace would react to a highly milirstsic matriarchy lawful evil in nature appearing in their neighborhood?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Lou Diamond wrote:

James, is Pazio going to do anything related to casmorn in the nex two years?

I have a geographical/topographical question for you. Does the northern boundaries of Tien-xa meet the northern boundaries of avistan or is their a polar region in between?

I am thinking of plunking a new race in the most northern eastern portion of Minkai.
The gazetteer says Minkai is on the verge of a civil war I was woundering how you would think the populace would react to a highly milirstsic matriarchy lawful evil in nature appearing in their neighborhood?

Maybe... maybe not. We generally don't announce books further out than 6 months, with a few exceptions and those exceptions generally get announced at Gen Con or Paizocon. So... Not gonna say at this point if there's anything related to Casmaron in the next two years.

There is an entire continent that connects northern Avistan with Northern Tian-Xia. The Jade Regent Adventure Path is all about that, in fact, and Pathfinder #51's adventure, "The Hungry Storm," takes place on that continent, the Crown of the World. That volume also has a gazetteer of that continent.

Minkai's civil war is also a major element of the Jade Regent Adventure Path. We've said an awful lot about Minkai and how the nation would react to trouble in the government already, in other words... I'd suggest you check out that AP for more. ;-)

Dark Archive

James if a fallen evil empire left its secrets to an evil humanoid race which race would better fit this purpose, fire giants, hobgoblins or some other race and why?


What rule do you feel is one of the most misunderstood or misused?

Silver Crusade

1.) At any point in the future are there plans to enshrine in canon the results of certain APs? IE: Will there be development on golarian to represent say the establishment of a new hurricane king?
a.) If so, how would you determine the 'canon' response based on the amazing level of variation and individual adventures?

2.) I might be eating my foot on this one, since the last AP I finished reading through was the beginning of Wrath, but is there any plan for an AP that takes place entirely on the planes?

3.) I've noticed APs tend to be tied in with new pathfinder mechanics or elements (kingmaker and kingdom rules, iron gods with the tech guide, skull and shackles with ship to ship combat, etc). Is this intentional, or just a side effect of always trying to make the APs feel distinct?

4.) You've indicated in this thread that you aren't a huge fan of adventurers coming from the non-core races (goblin, kobold, etcs). Can you expound on that?

5.) As a DM, do you prefer the villains growing up along side (when you guys turned level 5, he went to level 9) the PCs from low levels or be already established high level baddies the party builds up to?


Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Do you think it would be appropriate for the PCs to encounter Qlippoth while in the Abyss in WotR?

WotR books 4 & 5:
I would assume Qlippoth would be uncommon in Alushinyrra (sic), but what about on the two other isles the player visit (names escape me at the moment)? How about in the Ivory Labyrinth? Again, I assume they would be very rare in the Ineluctable Prison (except maybe as prisoners) but what about in the wilderness areas of the Labyrinth, or "overworld" area if you will? How about in the City labyrinth?


I've noticed an issue in the slayer hybrid class archetype Sniper with the Deadly Range ability.
Here is the talent:

Slayer Talents wrote:
Deadly Range (Ex): A slayer with this talent increases the range at which he can deal sneak attack damage by 10 feet. A slayer can select this talent more than once; its effects stack. A slayer must be at least 4th level before selecting this talent.

And here is the ability:

Sniper Archetype wrote:

Deadly Range (Ex)

At 2nd level, a sniper increases the range at which he can apply his sneak attack damage by 10 feet. Whenever the sniper is able to select a new slayer talent, he can instead choose to increase this range by an additional 5 feet.

This ability replaces the slayer talent gained at 2nd level.

It does have the nice feature of allowing access to Deadly Range at 2nd. But the other option of increasing by 5ft in place of another talent makes no sense. Why would anybody in their right mind choose to increase their sneak attack range by 5 ft. over taking the talent again a increasing it by 10 ft.?

Is the talent supposed to only increase it once?
Or is the archetype ability solely meant to give you access to the talent at 2nd level?

Could you please clarify this for me?


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@BigP4nda, Deadly Range has just been addressed by the rules team.


Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?


Joana wrote:
@BigP4nda, Deadly Range has just been addressed by the rules team.

Oh wow I never knew. Cool thanks!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

ulgulanoth wrote:
James if a fallen evil empire left its secrets to an evil humanoid race which race would better fit this purpose, fire giants, hobgoblins or some other race and why?

I can't answer that question since the fallen evil empire you mention could be ANYTHING. It's thematically best if the heirs of a fallen empire are similar in size and shape though, so they can use the tools left behind by their predecessors more easily.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Triphoppenskip wrote:
What rule do you feel is one of the most misunderstood or misused?

The one where the GM is free to adjudicate rulings as best fit her/his game.

Close Runner Up: The rule of common sense.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Joana wrote:
@BigP4nda, Deadly Range has just been addressed by the rules team.

Thanks for saving me a "That's a question you should ask the rules forums for an FAQ" response.


Almighty Dinosaur, a while back there was a monster book that included stats for the Coatl, which was a Good outsider. I think it was in 3.5, and I am quite fuzzy on whether there is a Pathfinder version or what book it would be in. Might I call upon your superior knowledge base to identify the 3.5 sourcebook and answer whether or not there has been a Pathfinder version of the creature?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Spook205 wrote:

1.) At any point in the future are there plans to enshrine in canon the results of certain APs? IE: Will there be development on golarian to represent say the establishment of a new hurricane king?

a.) If so, how would you determine the 'canon' response based on the amazing level of variation and individual adventures?

2.) I might be eating my foot on this one, since the last AP I finished reading through was the beginning of Wrath, but is there any plan for an AP that takes place entirely on the planes?

3.) I've noticed APs tend to be tied in with new pathfinder mechanics or elements (kingmaker and kingdom rules, iron gods with the tech guide, skull and shackles with ship to ship combat, etc). Is this intentional, or just a side effect of always trying to make the APs feel distinct?

4.) You've indicated in this thread that you aren't a huge fan of adventurers coming from the non-core races (goblin, kobold, etcs). Can you expound on that?

5.) As a DM, do you prefer the villains growing up along side (when you guys turned level 5, he went to level 9) the PCs from low levels or be already established high level baddies the party builds up to?

1) We'll see.

1a) We'd generally assume the PCs won and make some executive decisions as to what results would be the most interesting for the world, which would conflict with the way it works out in your home games in some ways. Which is why we've been so hesitant to do so so far. Would folks LIKE us to do this? I honestly don't know.

2) We're hesitant about completely abandoning Golarion. It's served us VERY well so far. An AP that has more of a planar theme to it is possible, but I doubt very much it would abandon Golarion entirely.

3) It's intentional when we come up with an idea for a story that needs new rules. In pretty much all cases so far, the AP has been the driver of those rules being published.

4) I'm human. I identify with humans and understand the human condition. So are/do you. As does everyone else. The further from humanity your character gets, the less the adventure becomes about what you're doing on the adventure and the more it focuses on what YOU are. It takes the unusual and makes it ordinary, in other words, and creates a sort of "arms-race" when you have to come up with unusual plots for those increasingly outlandish characters, and it loses any touch with a baseline we can all relate to. Furthermore, the game itself is built assuming most player characters are human shaped and human sized. From magic items to the shape of doors to the size of a dungeon grid and beyond. The further you deviate from that and expand into strange options, the more complex your game needs to grow, and the less you can actually DO with the game. I prefer, in other words, to use the game to tell stories rather than simply keep building new player character options.

5) Both are compelling. I prefer a mix.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

j b 200 wrote:

Do you think it would be appropriate for the PCs to encounter Qlippoth while in the Abyss in WotR?

** spoiler omitted **

There's a qlippoth runestone in Midnight Isles, so... yeah. It's absolutely appropriate. Not appropriate enough for one to show up in the adventure though. But add them as you wish!

That said... they're pretty rare in regions ruled by demons, since they are basically at war with demons. A demon lord wouldn't tolerate many of them in his/her realm. So if you DO add some... add them in out of the way areas and not in great numbers.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Kajehase wrote:
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?

We do.

Spoiler:
We also rob cave fish of their sight, keep the martians under wraps, make Steve Gutenberg a star, and do a bunch of other stuff.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Theropod Cultist wrote:
Almighty Dinosaur, a while back there was a monster book that included stats for the Coatl, which was a Good outsider. I think it was in 3.5, and I am quite fuzzy on whether there is a Pathfinder version or what book it would be in. Might I call upon your superior knowledge base to identify the 3.5 sourcebook and answer whether or not there has been a Pathfinder version of the creature?

The couatl is in the Bestiary itself, and we devoted a chapter to it in Mythical Monsters revisited. Both of them are Pathfinder versions. So... yeah.

PRD link.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

Um, JJ, just for reference...a couatl is a flying snake with wings. It's 12 feet long with a 15 foot wingspan, right?

It'd pretty much have to be made out of gold to weigh 1800 lbs. Are you sure that's not supposed to be 180 lbs? Which is still waaaaaay more then a python of similar length and size would weigh, and that's if you count the wings!

==Aelryinth


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Have you ever just... played, with your minis? Like an 8 year old does? As in, got out the heroes and bonked them against the monsters making sound effects.

Think Toy Story, but with adults and more monsters.

Who would I have to give money to in order to see some of the Paizo people do this, but on a large scale with a bunch of monsters and minis?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Aelryinth wrote:

Um, JJ, just for reference...a couatl is a flying snake with wings. It's 12 feet long with a 15 foot wingspan, right?

It'd pretty much have to be made out of gold to weigh 1800 lbs. Are you sure that's not supposed to be 180 lbs? Which is still waaaaaay more then a python of similar length and size would weigh, and that's if you count the wings!

==Aelryinth

A couatl is a flying OUTSIDER with wings, not a snake, so anything is possible as far as its weight.

But yeah, that does seem excessive.

You're seeing the result of us trying to maintain backwards compatibility. Couatls weighed 1,800 pounds in the 3rd edition D&D Monster Manual, and for the most part when we built our Bestiary, we tried to keep as much as possible to keep backwards compatibility with previous 3.5 stuff.

I do think it's excessive, but it's not impossible, given that the couatl itself is in fact an impossibility.

Change it if you want; won't really break much game play in my opinion. It's not a change that's worth worrying about errata. It might be something we change if we ever do a 2nd edition, I guess... or it might not. Way too soon to say.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Tels wrote:

Have you ever just... played, with your minis? Like an 8 year old does? As in, got out the heroes and bonked them against the monsters making sound effects.

Think Toy Story, but with adults and more monsters.

Who would I have to give money to in order to see some of the Paizo people do this, but on a large scale with a bunch of monsters and minis?

Not significantly, or for any length of time, but as an idle distraction during a game, all the time.

And the money should go to whoever you want to see play with minis, I guess.

Liberty's Edge

I want to see a few adventures dealing with hell and devils, not chelaix, just devils and more or less going a bit deeper into detail about the nine layers.

Also, I want to see more details on the good outsiders and such

Generally, planar stuff interests me, the inevitables in particular

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Let's please keep this thread to questions, not comments or requests, in the hopes of keeping the thread on topic; thanks, all!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

How many T-rexes roam around on Mediogalti Island?

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