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.
Since Arueshalae is a demon that would have made her chaotic evil in her mortal life right? Since she would have become a larva in the abyss. Or ore there other ways for human souls to be damned to the abyss and become eventual demons?
Okay James, you have hours to spend million dollars. What do you spend it on?
hey James,
we ever going to get a meet the iconics for the Anti-Paladin? Seems different enough from the Paladin to warrant some delving into.
Hell's Vengeance might be a good time for this, actually, do you agree? Especially since we now have both a LE and a NE one, a CE Antipaladin would fill out the chaotic side of the "token evil teammate" array.
On a related note, since I was going through the demographics list I made, James, are the religions and ethnicities of all the iconics established? I couldn't find the faiths of a few or the human ethnicities of a couple, especially of the Occult ones (though it's impressive how much information we DO have about them).
Creative Director
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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?
Let them spend more time in each of these sites. I've played in campaigns like that before, and indeed it's dissatisfying to not have the time to get to know any place. I'd strongly consider letting them spend, at the very least, a level's worth of time in a location before moving them on...
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Any chance Ultimate Intrigue will include either trick arrows or some form of compact grappling hook launcher?
Also; have you had a chance to try out the Vigilante yourself yet?
I have no idea; Ultimate Intrigue is being handled pretty much 100% by the design team. I'm unlikely to have any input in it, but I do hope they'll look at a lot of the intriguey stuff I've already done over the past several months for Hell's Rebels.
I haven't looked at or tried out the Vigilante yet, other than to be worried about how to do a stat block for one in print without filling four pages.
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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.
Your first question is confusing. "Non-humanoid, non-centaur shaped people" would include things like intellect devourers and dragons and xorns and aboleths and lots more. There's plenty of things that aren't humanoids or aren't centaurs in the game.
Awakened creatures appear in the game now and then, but not often. There's an awakened dinosaur in an upcoming adventure in fact. Whether or not an awakened creature's offspring are smart is up to the GM, but my take is no, they would not be.
A lack of support for WHAT in the race maker? For creating centaurs? That's because centaurs have racial Hit Dice and are not appropriate for many choices as a zero HD race as a result.
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Since Arueshalae is a demon that would have made her chaotic evil in her mortal life right? Since she would have become a larva in the abyss. Or ore there other ways for human souls to be damned to the abyss and become eventual demons?
She was indeed chaotic evil in her mortal life before.
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hey James,
we ever going to get a meet the iconics for the Anti-Paladin? Seems different enough from the Paladin to warrant some delving into.
No. We don't currently have an iconic antipaladin, in fact. We don't consider the illustration we've used for him as an iconic, mostly at this point because Wayne Reynolds hasn't painted him, and we require all of our iconics to be created by Wayne because that gives them all the same artistic baseline.
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hey James,
we ever going to get a meet the iconics for the Anti-Paladin? Seems different enough from the Paladin to warrant some delving into.
Hell's Vengeance might be a good time for this, actually, do you agree? Especially since we now have both a LE and a NE one, a CE Antipaladin would fill out the chaotic side of the "token evil teammate" array.
On a related note, since I was going through the demographics list I made, James, are the religions and ethnicities of all the iconics established? I couldn't find the faiths of a few or the human ethnicities of a couple, especially of the Occult ones (though it's impressive how much information we DO have about them).
In fact, one of the six characters we'll be getting for Hell's Vengeance is, I believe, going to be an antipaladin. I'm not 100% sure. It will be a completely different antipaladin though ,I suspect.
The regions and ethniciteis of the iconics are indeed all established. We published those a while back for the originals when they showed up in Adventure Paths as pregenerated characters, but the new ones I'm not sure we've ever published unless they're buried in their Meet the Iconics blog posts.
But we do know all their alignments and ethnicities and homelands. We keep that info in a large spreadsheet. It's on Wes's computer and he's not in the office till after Gen Con, and I'm not ready to post that here in a post anyway. Maybe we'll reveal that list as a blog post someday.
Do giants worship or otherwise venerate titans?
I note that the Blackguard is not among the normal Prestige classes listed for Paizo.
Was this deliberate so you couldn't have a base Evil class at the time, and has been perpetuated since?
The blackguard is basically a means to convert any Evil fighter type, esp fallen paladins, to an 'evil paladin' format.
If so, Hell's Rebels would be a perfect time to bring it back, in a way.
==Aelryinth
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I note that the Blackguard is not among the normal Prestige classes listed for Paizo.
Was this deliberate so you couldn't have a base Evil class at the time, and has been perpetuated since?
The blackguard is basically a means to convert any Evil fighter type, esp fallen paladins, to an 'evil paladin' format.
If so, Hell's Rebels would be a perfect time to bring it back, in a way.
==Aelryinth
It was deliberate because the blackguard was 3rd edition D&D's take on the antipaladin, and we knew even in the Core Rulebook that we wanted to do our own version of it, and so didn't bother updating the blackguard as a result.
No plans to bring it back. Hell's Rebels has more than enough bad guys as it is.
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.
Your first question is confusing. "Non-humanoid, non-centaur shaped people" would include things like intellect devourers and dragons and xorns and aboleths and lots more. There's plenty of things that aren't humanoids or aren't centaurs in the game.
Awakened creatures appear in the game now and then, but not often. There's an awakened dinosaur in an upcoming adventure in fact. Whether or not an awakened creature's offspring are smart is up to the GM, but my take is no, they would not be.
A lack of support for WHAT in the race maker? For creating centaurs? That's because centaurs have racial Hit Dice and are not appropriate for many choices as a zero HD race as a result.
I meant as player suitable races. There are plenty as monsters but not any I know of that are treated as suitable for PCs nor any that have "civilized" societies.
As for the race maker, it actually does support centaur like beings, but if I want a creature that has no arms, such as tiger shaped race, nor a creature with no legs, such as a race with a snake body instead of legs. I just wasn't sure if it was a mechanical decision or a creative one.
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What would you think of a race with the form of winged tigers?
Can we look forward to more expansions to the Equipment Trick feat and, if so, what sort of things?
Might there be more hybrid type classes in the future?
Why do Changelings not have the ability to change their form? They have no racial or SLA to shapechange.
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Creative Director
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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.
Your first question is confusing. "Non-humanoid, non-centaur shaped people" would include things like intellect devourers and dragons and xorns and aboleths and lots more. There's plenty of things that aren't humanoids or aren't centaurs in the game.
Awakened creatures appear in the game now and then, but not often. There's an awakened dinosaur in an upcoming adventure in fact. Whether or not an awakened creature's offspring are smart is up to the GM, but my take is no, they would not be.
A lack of support for WHAT in the race maker? For creating centaurs? That's because centaurs have racial Hit Dice and are not appropriate for many choices as a zero HD race as a result.
I meant as player suitable races. There are plenty as monsters but not any I know of that are treated as suitable for PCs nor any that have "civilized" societies.
As for the race maker, it actually does support centaur like beings, but if I want a creature that has no arms, such as tiger shaped race, nor a creature with no legs, such as a race with a snake body instead of legs. I just wasn't sure if it was a mechanical decision or a creative one.
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What would you think of a race with the form of winged tigers?
The game assumes human-shaped PCs. From the assumption that every PC can navigate ladders, human-sized doors, and sleep in a bed to the fact that magic item slots are focused on the human shape to the fact that our campaign setting assumes human or near-human races are the dominant and most common species on the planet, because when the baseline assumption of "human" is established, the fantastic feels fantastic. If the baseline assumption is an exotic or fantastic or non-human race (aka if centaurs were common and all over and core player races), then an increasing amount of the fantastic in the setting becomes commonplace and mundane and, in my opinion, less interesting.
It's both a mechanical decision AND a creative one, in other words.
I think a race of flying tigers is an interesting idea for a monster race, be it a more animalistic species like griffons or wyverns or an intelligent species that might have its own society... but as a PC option? Not really interested in that.
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Can we look forward to more expansions to the Equipment Trick feat and, if so, what sort of things?
Might there be more hybrid type classes in the future?
We might drop in more Equipment Trick stuff in a random Player's Companion now and then, but at this time there is no specific plan to do so as far as I know. Talk to Owen if you want to see more of these in the Player's Companions.
No plans to do more hybrid classes. Advanced Class Guide was kinda built to get all the ones out we wanted out in one book, rather than spread them out.
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Why do Changelings not have the ability to change their form? They have no racial or SLA to shapechange.
Because changing shape is not part of their theme, nor is it intended to be, despite the fact that the word "change" is in their name. Pathfinder changelings are based on the real-world mythological changeling... a creature left with a human family to be raised by humans, who despite looking human herself, is not a human.
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As a GM do you consider an unconscious opponent a valid target for a summoned monster? Without a common language between you and your summoned monster to communicate with can you direct said summoned monster to attack a prone unconscious opponent.
Generally no. That's kinda a jerk move to pull for starters. Unless I want an NPC to be perceived by the players as VERY EVIL, I generally don't have them attack unconscious PCs when conscious ones are still around and threatening and thus more appropriate targets. If the entire party is unconscious, I might have the NPCs capture then and shift into something like a prison break game, or I might TPK the party and start a new campaign depending on the tone and the players' preference.
For a PC-summoned creature, I do the same; if they're just summoned without having any way for the PC to communicate, the summoned creature defaults to attacking the summoning character's obvious foes. It won't seek out an invisible or hidden foe, nor will it attack foes that are not threatening the PC (as in the case of an unconscious foe), since the summoned creature does not consider an unconscious foe to be threatening. If the PC can communicate with her summoned creature, of course, it will do whatever it's commanded to do.
Prone is not the same as unconscious. A prone but conscious character is still a threat and likely will be continued to be attacked by a summoned monster, but it really depends on the situation, the summoned monster's personality and intelligence, and the positioning of foes on the battlefield.
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As a GM do you consider an unconscious opponent a valid target for a summoned monster? Without a common language between you and your summoned monster to communicate with can you direct said summoned monster to attack a prone unconscious opponent.Generally no. That's kinda a jerk move to pull for starters. Unless I want an NPC to be perceived by the players as VERY EVIL, I generally don't have them attack unconscious PCs when conscious ones are still around and threatening and thus more appropriate targets. If the entire party is unconscious, I might have the NPCs capture then and shift into something like a prison break game, or I might TPK the party and start a new campaign depending on the tone and the players' preference.
For a PC-summoned creature, I do the same; if they're just summoned without having any way for the PC to communicate, the summoned creature defaults to attacking the summoning character's obvious foes. It won't seek out an invisible or hidden foe, nor will it attack foes that are not threatening the PC (as in the case of an unconscious foe), since the summoned creature does not consider an unconscious foe to be threatening. If the PC can communicate with her summoned creature, of course, it will do whatever it's commanded to do.
Prone is not the same as unconscious. A prone but conscious character is still a threat and likely will be continued to be attacked by a summoned monster, but it really depends on the situation, the summoned monster's personality and intelligence, and the positioning of foes on the battlefield.
Thanks for the reply. I added prone because there are some extreme corner cases where you can be unconscious but upright.
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Thanks for the reply.
I'm just getting bored with human and human look alikes I guess. Everywhere I go whether fantasy or scifi it's always human look alikes. Kinda reached generic for me now I guess.
Do you think Marvel and DC have inundated the movies too much yet?
Who do you think should be the next Spiderman actor?
Why can't we get a good Punisher movie? Batman works (at least with Keaton or Bale), and Iron Man works, but Punisher movies are garbage. America loves non-powered heroes. America loves antiheroes. Why don't we get a good non-powered antiheroes movie?
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Do you think Marvel and DC have inundated the movies too much yet?
Who do you think should be the next Spiderman actor?
Why can't we get a good Punisher movie? Batman works (at least with Keaton or Bale), and Iron Man works, but Punisher movies are garbage. America loves non-powered heroes. America loves antiheroes. Why don't we get a good non-powered antiheroes movie?
Nah.
I think DC hasn't quite figured it out yet, in fact, unless Christopher Nolan is directing.
I was never really all that into superhero comics though and so don't really have many expectations.
I don't really have an opinion on who should be the next Spiderman.
And the problem with the Punisher movies is that there just hasn't been the right combination of director/actor/script yet, I guess.
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What was your favorite Shepard backstory in Mass Effect (Earthborn/Colonist/Spacer and War Hero/Sole Survivor/Ruthless)?
Do you have a favorite Knight of the Round Table? If so, who and why?
Speaking of Brevoy and stuff, is Iobaria an area of influence for you too, or is that more someone else's purview? I know Reign of Winter was one of Rob's APs, but Kingmaker was one of yours. I have a question about styles there, and I wanna make sure I ask the right person about it.
Thank you! :)
if you where a cleric for a evil aligned god, fiend whatever who would it be and what alignment would you be?
I know you don't like Cons in general but is there anything you are looking forward too this Gencon?
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What was your favorite Shepard backstory in Mass Effect (Earthborn/Colonist/Spacer and War Hero/Sole Survivor/Ruthless)?
Do you have a favorite Knight of the Round Table? If so, who and why?
Spoiler:Since Brevoy's one of your areas of influence on Golarion, do you have in your mind who/what Choral the Conqueror truly was/how he was able to get a pair of dragons to do his dirty work? I feel like that one endgame of Kingmaker where a red dragon shows up claiming to be him seems unusually specific. But then again, the one where they go around doing favors for the Eldest is unusually specific too, so maybe I'm just inadvertently spinning conspiracy theories and projecting them onto you.Speaking of Brevoy and stuff, is Iobaria an area of influence for you too, or is that more someone else's purview? I know Reign of Winter was one of Rob's APs, but Kingmaker was one of yours. I have a question about styles there, and I wanna make sure I ask the right person about it.
Thank you! :)
Sole Survivor was the one I picked, I think... but that was back when Mass Effect 1 came out ages ago so it's hard to remember for sure. Might have been Colonist.
I don't have a favorite Knight of the Round Table. I never really got into the Camelot stuff.
Rob's the one who's more or less been championing Iobaria. And Kingmaker is not really a Brevoy AP, but a Stolen Lands AP. Brevoy is just adjacent, and barely figures into the plot of Kingmaker at all.
What is it about Batman that makes you think he's chaotic good instead of neutral good?
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James, I have some questions about The Carrion Crown "Ashes At Dawn" path module. SPOILER ALERT to those who read further.
1. Is there a Nosferatu Vampire court that opposes Lord Seirvage's court locally in Caliphas? Or are the more prevalent in Varno, Sinaria and Ardeal?
2. When General Seirvage defected from Tar Baphon at the end of The Shining Crusade, how many Moroi vampire nobles left with him to Caiphas?
3. How does Doctor Low's Tong cooperate with the vampires or is there a treaty there?
4. How many Moroi nobles are left in Caliphas at the time of the AP?
5. Are there Drow or Duergar vampires in Caliphas?
6. How does Mother Thestia and her branch of the church view Lord Seirvage? Is there an uneasy peace treaty or does she want him eradicated? Is our favorite Iconic Half Orc Inquisitor part of Mother Thestia's Cathedral?
7. Is Mother Thestia part of the Esotaric Order?
Thanks again.
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James, I have some questions about The Carrion Crown "Ashes At Dawn" path module. SPOILER ALERT to those who read further.
** spoiler omitted **
Thanks again.
For these questions, I won't be able to give you answers as I only developed the first adventure in Carrion Crown, and haven't even read the other five other than a quick brief glance through the contents during the approval process many years ago—Rob was the one who developed this AP in large and it's to him that you should ask these questions. Wes can also reply too, but he's out of the office till mid next week...
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Looks like you're officially onboard for Legendary Planet! Very excited to see what you bring to it!So Erik Mona is writing the introduction to Legendary Planet. Are you and he coordinating your contributions or are you working on separate pieces?
Separate pieces. When Jason contacted me to join the project, he basically said I could write anything I wanted for it. It's not going to be a huge amount—about 3,000 words or so (that translates into about 6 pages of content). As for what it is I'll be contributing to the final product... not sure yet. I suspect that I'll have a better idea after Gen Con... especially since my roommate at the show is the guy who'll be developing the project!
