Creative Director
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I have searched the forums for days trying to find an answer to this -
If you are a mounted character wielding a lance what is your power attack? -1/+2 or -1/+3?
If James will forgive the intrusion, but this is answered in the FAQ:
In cases like this, it's probably better to PM or otherwise notify the original poster directly, since this thread can move fast. Especially when there's clutter. ;-P
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Creative Director
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I have searched the forums for days trying to find an answer to this -
If you are a mounted character wielding a lance what is your power attack? -1/+2 or -1/+3?
If James will forgive the intrusion, but this is answered in the FAQ:
Not to be argumentative, but this FAQ says that lances don't get the 2-handed bonus.
So, your mileage may vary.
And yet you ARE being argumentative, and giving a shinning example of why I specifically do NOT want folks posting non-questions here. Because it invites participation into the thread that isn't the thread's point—that's what the REST of these forums are for.
So.
Please keep this one to questions to me. Thanks!
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Creative Director
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I guess I'm just annoyed that the first thing some members of the party (which lacks a trap disabler) does when faced with a unknown or potentially dangerous situation is to call on the only NPC in the party to face it. More so as they had made a point to help the Paladin with his redemption quest before.
THERE'S your problem.
If you have no player characters in your group who can handle traps, you really shouldn't be putting traps in your adventures. Or if you do... you should make them more into puzzles the PCs can solve. Of COURSE the players are going to get frustrated if you keep hitting them with traps when they don't have the capabilities to deal with them other than simply triggering them.
My suggestion would be to replace those traps with monsters or hazard type situations they need to bypass via skill checks or other methods other than Disable Device.
Thanks for the advice. I'm going to plan ahead better for such encounters in the future. In retrospect I could have made this encounter into a puzzle solving one as you suggested.
I have to point out that this is the very first magical trap the party faced since the start of this campaign. There are very few traps overall in the campaign. The party is equipped to summon monsters and I have hinted to the party's wizard multiple times to pick up Aram Zey's Focus if he is concerned about traps.
The party have access to pretty much any official paizo resource they have.Sorry if I gave the impression that I'm hitting the party repeatedly with traps or unsolvable encounters.
I just wanted some GMing advice to avoid this situation repeating itself in the future.
No worries! Again, it sounds like the best way to fix it would be to invest personality and character into the NPCs then... make the players like them.
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Creative Director
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The Occult Adventures iconic pregens were just released (woohoo!). Have you playtested all of them yourself? Which is your favorite?
One of the pregen characters is a child. Are the limitations on character age for PFS play being considered for removal, or is that iconic character likely to just remain an exception to the rule?
I've not only not playtested any of them at all, but I've not read much about the classes either. I generally don't have time these days to be heavily involved in the RPG hardcovers; usually it's just one a year, and usually that's a Bestiary. This year it was Inner Sea Races instead.
I like the psychic the best, based purely on the art. The medium is my second favorite.
The complications about the child pregen were weirdly and obnoxiously frustrating and difficult to address... almost ENTIRELY because of the unfortunately necessary restrictions for Pathfinder Organized Play.
I fought hard to make sure that the young iconic did indeed have the ability score penalties that all young characters have, according to our rules, but in the end kinda had to settle for her being Small, which at one point was not gonna happen either.
In any event, the limitations on character age for PFS are not being removed, as far as I know.
James, did you work out any of Arueshalae's mortal background? She has some of her memories, thanks to Desna, so I was wondering who she was as a mortal, particularly where and when she lived.
I suspect some PC will ask if I don't know.
Also, how long ago was her encounter with Desna?
Thanks!
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Creative Director
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James, did you work out any of Arueshalae's mortal background? She has some of her memories, thanks to Desna, so I was wondering who she was as a mortal, particularly where and when she lived.
I suspect some PC will ask if I don't know.
Also, how long ago was her encounter with Desna?
Thanks!
I did a VERY heavy amount of development for Arueshalae, but pretty much all of that development and writing is in print. Who she was as a mortal is left intentionally vague for the GM to build upon—it might be fun to have her mortal life have some parallels to a PC's life, in fact.
Her encounter with Desna is relatively recent—within the last few decades, if I remember correctly. If not sooner. That too's left kinda vague, since she's tied to a trait in which she influenced/interacted with a PC at a younger age. Since this could be a few years (if the PC in question was human) or a few decades or more (if they were an elf), it is by necessity left vague so that the GM can adjust as needed in her campaign.
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Creative Director
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Demons don't actually need to eat, if I'm remembering correctly. Can they eat if they wish, say, if they wanna act indulgent or shock people by cannibalism or something? If so, do they have digestive systems that would process it, or do they have to puke the food out at some point?
All outsiders can ABSOULTELY eat or drink or sleep if they want to, and many do simply for the fact that doing so can be enjoyable AND can mess with mortals. In fact, some outsiders (nabasus, barghests, etc.) have built-in eating rules.
It's safe to assume that all outsiders have some way to digest food. Which means they also defecate and urinate, if they wish to. Since those bodily functions can also be used to shock or indulge.
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Creative Director
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So, is it a special attack for monkey demons to flng poo?Demons don't actually need to eat, if I'm remembering correctly. Can they eat if they wish, say, if they wanna act indulgent or shock people by cannibalism or something? If so, do they have digestive systems that would process it, or do they have to puke the food out at some point?All outsiders can ABSOULTELY eat or drink or sleep if they want to, and many do simply for the fact that doing so can be enjoyable AND can mess with mortals. In fact, some outsiders (nabasus, barghests, etc.) have built-in eating rules.
It's safe to assume that all outsiders have some way to digest food. Which means they also defecate and urinate, if they wish to. Since those bodily functions can also be used to shock or indulge.
Rules for poo flinging appear in Shattered Star, part one. It's goblins flinging the poo, but monkey goblins are a thing, so it should translate to monkey demons without problem.
why is this the case? I ask because over the years, I had to use math textbooks, cell bio, genetics, massive books, with an incredibly amount of complex information that were error free. are RPG books edited or created differently than text books?How about a Book of Traits. Book of Feats. Big Book of Classes and Archetypes. Mostly reprints, but include errata, fix typos, and maybe a little new stuff.
I'd buy one of each.....
I'm more interested in story content and world content and monsters. We already do books like you request; things like Ultimate Combat and the Advanced Class Guide and the Player Companion line should provide more than enough traits and feats and classes and archetypes.
A big book that simply gathers all that content together in one big book and "fixes errors" would be a frustrating waste of time in my opinion, since the bigger a book is, the more impossible it is to keep it error free. I'm more interested in the game itself, and playing it, and creating stories for it, and fixing the little errors myself as needed to make those stories work than I am obsessing over chasing a unicorn or other impossibility... such as a book that's error free.
The text book industry is a MUCH larger one than the tabletop RPG industry. I also suspect text book publishers employe a MUCH larger room full of editors than Paizo does.
But all you really have to do is look at the price tag difference between a typical RPG hardcover and a typical text book hardcover.
If we could get customers to buy in on having college textbook prices on RPGs, maybe we'd be able to afford larger editorial operations. And even then... the PACE at which we produce books is pretty breakneck...
In the end, though... an error in a RPG rulebook? Hardly in the same category as an error in a book about how to do brain surgery.
thanks that make sense, especially the price points and consequences of an error.
Hi James!
My next character will be a warpriest of Cayden Cailean, whose quest is to travel all the lands of Golarion to find what he deems to be the best alcoholic beverage, and offer it to the god on a special shrine.
Can you think of anywhere in Golarion especially sacred to Cayden that this important shrine might be?
Many thanks in advance! :)
Can you give a reason why the fiendish races do not fight each other?
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Creative Director
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Hi James!
My next character will be a warpriest of Cayden Cailean, whose quest is to travel all the lands of Golarion to find what he deems to be the best alcoholic beverage, and offer it to the god on a special shrine.
Can you think of anywhere in Golarion especially sacred to Cayden that this important shrine might be?Many thanks in advance! :)
Absalom.
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Creative Director
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Can you give a reason why the fiendish races do not fight each other?
Yes.
Here are 3. There are more.
1) The outer planes that the fiends dwell on are individually larger than the known universe we live in, and are separated by distances far vaster than that. As a result, they generally don't share territories and come into contact all that often. They can't just teleport to and from the other planes either—that requires plane shift or gate, abilities most fiends don't have easy access to.
2) Fiends have more pressing matters to tend to than bickering and fighting with other fiendish races, be it tending to the machinations of hell, hunting and feeding on lost mortal souls, working to destroy the works of mortal accomplishment, encouraging sin, or whatever.
3) Because goodness is a much more abrasive factor to a fiend than evil of a different flavor, and as long as there are things like angels and agathions and azatas and all them to distract fiends, they'll focus most of their violence in the direction of these good outsiders, given the chance, than being distracted by other evil outsiders.
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Creative Director
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I can understand why the changes to the Summoner were needed... all but one.
Is there a reason that the good aligned quadruped eidolons are barred from the mount evolution?
That's a question for the design team. I was not involved in the actual design work of the Unchained summoner, other than as one additional voice saying "Fix the summoner."
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The outer planes seem to be fairly scarce on low-CR creatures. Is this reflective of reality on those planes, i.e. in the devils' domain, there are the lemures and imps, and then the more powerful CR 6+ devils, and nothing in-between? Everything between the peons and the nobles has been killed away? Or does there exist a middle class, we just haven't seen much of them yet?
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Creative Director
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The outer planes seem to be fairly scarce on low-CR creatures. Is this reflective of reality on those planes, i.e. in the devils' domain, there are the lemures and imps, and then the more powerful CR 6+ devils, and nothing in-between? Everything between the peons and the nobles has been killed away? Or does there exist a middle class, we just haven't seen much of them yet?
The outer planes have always been "the place you go to to adventure when you're high level." So tradition in the game has a big role. But beyond that... they're SO far beyond the mundane that they kind of have to be outlandish. There needs to be places that challenge high level characters, and places where foes to challenge them come from, without making those places and foes commonplace to the low level stuff.
The majority of the low CR things you see, like quasits and lemures and imps and petitioners and the like, are either the "commonfolk" of the outer planes or are familiars. There ARE lower CR things like schir demons and so on, but the basic core assumption is, yes, the outer planes are inherently high level.
Can you give a reason why the fiendish races do not fight each other?Yes.
Here are 3. There are more.
1) The outer planes that the fiends dwell on are individually larger than the known universe we live in, and are separated by distances far vaster than that. As a result, they generally don't share territories and come into contact all that often. They can't just teleport to and from the other planes either—that requires plane shift or gate, abilities most fiends don't have easy access to.
2) Fiends have more pressing matters to tend to than bickering and fighting with other fiendish races, be it tending to the machinations of hell, hunting and feeding on lost mortal souls, working to destroy the works of mortal accomplishment, encouraging sin, or whatever.
3) Because goodness is a much more abrasive factor to a fiend than evil of a different flavor, and as long as there are things like angels and agathions and azatas and all them to distract fiends, they'll focus most of their violence in the direction of these good outsiders, given the chance, than being distracted by other evil outsiders.
Would you say that fiends hate their celestial opposites more than they do their celestial opposition? As in, Devils (LE) hate Azatas (CG) more than they do Archons (LG) because Azata are opposed to Devils on both the Chaotic and Good front?
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The majority of the low CR things you see, like quasits and lemures and imps and petitioners and the like, are either the "commonfolk" of the outer planes or are familiars. There ARE lower CR things like schir demons and so on, but the basic core assumption is, yes, the outer planes are inherently high level.
So, demographically speaking, how common would the high level devils or demons be? If you walk around a city in a fiend plane, will you 99% see lemures and manes and imps and quasits? If they're the "commonfolk", do they form the bulk of the population? And things like babaus and erinyes are "nobility", "celebrities" and generally rare to see?
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Creative Director
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Would you say that fiends hate their celestial opposites more than they do their celestial opposition? As in, Devils (LE) hate Azatas (CG) more than they do Archons (LG) because Azata are opposed to Devils on both the Chaotic and Good front?
I probalby would say something like that.
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Creative Director
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The majority of the low CR things you see, like quasits and lemures and imps and petitioners and the like, are either the "commonfolk" of the outer planes or are familiars. There ARE lower CR things like schir demons and so on, but the basic core assumption is, yes, the outer planes are inherently high level.So, demographically speaking, how common would the high level devils or demons be? If you walk around a city in a fiend plane, will you 99% see lemures and manes and imps and quasits? If they're the "commonfolk", do they form the bulk of the population? And things like babaus and erinyes are "nobility", "celebrities" and generally rare to see?
The "commonfolk" are actually the petitioners, not imps or quasits who are mostly familiars (or ex-familiars) to spellcasters.
And the outer planes are crazy enough that you can't say any one thing is the norm. It varies at the speed of plot.
I thought I read somewhere that there are mortals (like humans and other such creatures) on the outer plains as well, usually with the fiendish, celestial, resolute, or anarchic template applied, who live and die and so forth on those plains directly.
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Creative Director
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I thought I read somewhere that there are mortals (like humans and other such creatures) on the outer plains as well, usually with the fiendish, celestial, resolute, or anarchic template applied, who live and die and so forth on those plains directly.
There are in some places. Not everywhere.
Question about using the Summon Monster spells:
If summoned creatures are copies of a "perfect-ish" version of a creature, how does that work with the rule that says that - if the creature is killed while summoned - it takes 24 hours for the creature to reform and can be re-summoned? Would that type of creature be unable to be summoned at all, or would it simply just make a different copy?
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Creative Director
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How much of stuff from 3.5 Pathfinder materials isn't canon anymore in Pathfinder?
Like, I'd assume that Astarathian isn't canon anymore since he doesn't fit current Pathfinder's take on dragons being hermits?
Most of the 3.5 Pathfinder stuff remains canon. Some of it just won't be things we ever talk about again is all.
Even though we have no plans to ever talk about, say, Astarathian anytime soon (and probably never) doesn't make that dragon any less canon than something else. It just leaves the dragon's destiny firmly in the hands of the GM.
There's actually VERY LITTLE that we've excised from canon overall, and the bulk of what we have excised in this manner is either stuff that was just a fundamental error and/or typo and shouldn't have seen print int he first place, or was a poorly thought-out easter egg that stepped too close to copyrighted material. In either case, I'm not gonna mention details because that only perpetuates the information, and I'd rather see those errors fade away and be forgotten.
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Creative Director
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Question about using the Summon Monster spells:
If summoned creatures are copies of a "perfect-ish" version of a creature, how does that work with the rule that says that - if the creature is killed while summoned - it takes 24 hours for the creature to reform and can be re-summoned? Would that type of creature be unable to be summoned at all, or would it simply just make a different copy?
In those cases, it's a limitation as much as the spell or effect as anything else. If a rule says it takes 24 hours for the creature to be summoned again... that's the way it works. It cant make a "different copy" because the energies used to make that creature need to recharge or whatever.
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Creative Director
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James,I'm GMing a campaign with evil aligned PCs in Isger, and two questions have come up as I prep for this campaign:
1. What is the Hellknight's official stance on diabolism and devil-worship? Does it vary by order?
2. Are there any PF for growing settlements when the PCs are not rulers of an entire country? My PCs will be be taking over a PF conversion of The Keep on the Borderlands, but they aren't going to be rulers of a full country...how can they grow their single community?
Thanks!
1) Varies by order. Some oppose it. Some embrace it. Most think of it as a tool to be used to advance their own agenda.
2) Ultimate Campaign has the information you'll need for growing communities. You don't have to have the PCs themselves be rulers to use those rules to guide a growing community.
Are the Silver Ravens a small nod to the Jade Ravens from Savage Tide or are you just particular to ravens?
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Creative Director
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Are the Silver Ravens a small nod to the Jade Ravens from Savage Tide or are you just particular to ravens?
I'm just particular to ravens.
But also, the Silver Ravens are what they are because silver is anathema to devils, and because they use silver raven figurines to communicate.
But beyond all that... yeah, ravens are awesome.
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Creative Director
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Have you ever used a silver raven figurine as either a GM or a Player?Are the Silver Ravens a small nod to the Jade Ravens from Savage Tide or are you just particular to ravens?I'm just particular to ravens.
But also, the Silver Ravens are what they are because silver is anathema to devils, and because they use silver raven figurines to communicate.
But beyond all that... yeah, ravens are awesome.
Yes. Both.
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Are the Silver Ravens a small nod to the Jade Ravens from Savage Tide or are you just particular to ravens?I'm just particular to ravens.
But also, the Silver Ravens are what they are because silver is anathema to devils, and because they use silver raven figurines to communicate.
But beyond all that... yeah, ravens are awesome.
And adorable! They're one of the few animals who genuinely play, for fun, as opposed to just a means of "training." :)
The prohibition of metal armor to druids is well known, but I believe that druids are capable of wearing studded leather without breaking their oaths. Does this mean if a type of armor has metal components but where the majority of its protective power doesn't come from that metal, a druid can wear them?
I fought hard to make sure that the young iconic did indeed have the ability score penalties that all young characters have, according to our rules, but in the end kinda had to settle for her being Small, which at one point was not gonna happen either.
I'm pretty sure Ezren and Estra don't have ability mods for being older either, and I know PFS characters made older don't get ability mods.
Speaking of the ability mods for young age (+2 Dex, -2 STR, -2 CON, -2 WIS), do you use those, or did you have input on them? The -2 CON seems a little odd to me, since children tend to be pretty healthy and recover from injuries comparatively well and quickly.
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Creative Director
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Can you give a reason why the fiendish races do not fight each other?Yes.
Here are 3. There are more.
1) The outer planes that the fiends dwell on are individually larger than the known universe we live in, and are separated by distances far vaster than that. As a result, they generally don't share territories and come into contact all that often. They can't just teleport to and from the other planes either—that requires plane shift or gate, abilities most fiends don't have easy access to.
2) Fiends have more pressing matters to tend to than bickering and fighting with other fiendish races, be it tending to the machinations of hell, hunting and feeding on lost mortal souls, working to destroy the works of mortal accomplishment, encouraging sin, or whatever.
3) Because goodness is a much more abrasive factor to a fiend than evil of a different flavor, and as long as there are things like angels and agathions and azatas and all them to distract fiends, they'll focus most of their violence in the direction of these good outsiders, given the chance, than being distracted by other evil outsiders.
You say "The outer planes that the fiends dwell on are individually larger than the known universe we live in".
So how much larger are The outer planes compared to the Material Plane?
Big enough to encompass anything you need. Big enough that assigning a measurement to it, even via metaphor, lessens it.
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Creative Director
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I'm not sure if you're the person to ask about this and if not, i'd like to know who is but i have a question regarding the Variant Multiclassing Rules from Pathfinder unchained.
When using the Variant Multiclassing system does one gain anything beyond the secondary class features of the secondary class?
For instance, say i was a fighter with his secondary class being Wizard. Would all I gain be what is listed on the table for the wizard or do i also gain access to spells like a wizard does?
How about vice versa. If i was a wizard with a secondary class of fighter would i gain any of the weapon proficiencies that fighters normally do?Secondly,
How did you guys plan that this system would work in conjunction with things like prestige classes? Suppose i end up qualifying for a prestige class and i'm using the Variant Multiclass system already. Let's say I'm a cleric with the wizard subclass and i decided i want to prestige into Agent of the Grave. How should i go about doing that in this system?
You're right. I'm not the right person to ask about it. I've not even read those rules yet. Haven't had the need, desire, or time to do so yet.
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Creative Director
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The prohibition of metal armor to druids is well known, but I believe that druids are capable of wearing studded leather without breaking their oaths. Does this mean if a type of armor has metal components but where the majority of its protective power doesn't come from that metal, a druid can wear them?
That's a GM call.
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Creative Director
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The Illustrious Mr James Jacobs,
The shapeshifting hunter feat from ultimate combat says your Druid and ranger levels stack for selection of favored enemies. Does that also mean that a Druid 4/ ranger1 has two favored enemies both at +2, or one at +4 and one at+2. The wording of the feat implies only for selection of favored enemies, just wanted to know if you can increase your favored enemies bonuses past+2. Thanks so much you guys rock at paizo. Your she of worms modules are still my favorite!
That's a rules question; it should be asked in the rules forum so it can be FAQed and so the designers can see it.
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Creative Director
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I fought hard to make sure that the young iconic did indeed have the ability score penalties that all young characters have, according to our rules, but in the end kinda had to settle for her being Small, which at one point was not gonna happen either.I'm pretty sure Ezren and Estra don't have ability mods for being older either, and I know PFS characters made older don't get ability mods.
Speaking of the ability mods for young age (+2 Dex, -2 STR, -2 CON, -2 WIS), do you use those, or did you have input on them? The -2 CON seems a little odd to me, since children tend to be pretty healthy and recover from injuries comparatively well and quickly.
Then I'd quantify the lack of age mods for Ezren and Estra as sacrifices on the unholy altar of PFS normality and overprotective game balance.
I wasn't involved in the young character ability mods. I use them as written in my game. They are what they are, in large part, because penalties to STR and CON is how the game models creatures being smaller than normal.
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My players are currently in a campaign (published adventure path) that is taking them to distant regions for short moments at a time before rocketing them to the next distant region, even to distant planets from Golarion. My concern is that they may not feel that they are in a living world because the set pieces change so much and they more than likely won't see the impact of their actions.
What are some things I can do to make them feel like their actions will have an impact after they are gone, rather than them just feeling like they're being shuttled between sets when their business is concluded?
Is there a creative problem with non-humanoid, non-centuar shaped peoples in Galorian?
What about Awakened creatures that have full sentience? (and would an awakened creature's children be awakened as well)
I notice a distict lack of support in the race maker, (which seems more intended to modify the existing races than make new original ones.) and I was curious if that is something supported in the world and lore as a restriction or if it was purely a mechanical choice.
I have multiple non-humanoid races (not centaur like either) but I'm not sure just how much I'm twisting the lore in including them.