>>Ask *James Jacobs* ALL your Questions Here!<<


Off-Topic Discussions

56,851 to 56,900 of 83,732 << first < prev | 1133 | 1134 | 1135 | 1136 | 1137 | 1138 | 1139 | 1140 | 1141 | 1142 | 1143 | next > last >>

James,

Most things requiring Will saves are Mind-Effecting, in fact I can't think of any off the top of my head that aren't. Do any come to mind for you?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

The Golux wrote:

James,

Most things requiring Will saves are Mind-Effecting, in fact I can't think of any off the top of my head that aren't. Do any come to mind for you?

Channeled energy and inflict wound spells. Harm. Holy Word. Mislead. Plane shift.

The Exchange

Okay oh Great Sage James of the Paizo Temple, I have a question for your sagely wisdom:

In an mainly undead baddy campaign, how will the following plan of action of one of my new players that is looking to play a 10th level wizard affect the undead:
1) The wizard wants to use the spell Unprepared Combatant in round 1 to lower the undead baddy's initiative place in the next round of combat.
2) Then, using the dazing spell metamagic feat, he wants to then cast a spell with this and daze the creature due to lowering it's reflex save by 4.

Would this work on say: Ghouls, Ghasts, Wights, Liches, Vampires and Zombie Lords? Or would Dazing Assault work better as a feat?

Thanks for your grizzled veteran designer wisdom (as you can tell, I am laying it on thick going into Gencon lol).


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Hi James!

Will you be using the word "cyclopean" during your AP seminar at GenCon?

Hope you enjoy some part of the weekend, and get some time to relax. I'll be watching the internet news feeds closely for your announcements, trying not to feel too jealous of the people in attendance...

Radiant Oath

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Odd question involving Mass Effect: Should I make my commander Shepard black-haired or dishwater blonde?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Flynn Greywalker wrote:

Okay oh Great Sage James of the Paizo Temple, I have a question for your sagely wisdom:

In an mainly undead baddy campaign, how will the following plan of action of one of my new players that is looking to play a 10th level wizard affect the undead:
1) The wizard wants to use the spell Unprepared Combatant in round 1 to lower the undead baddy's initiative place in the next round of combat.
2) Then, using the dazing spell metamagic feat, he wants to then cast a spell with this and daze the creature due to lowering it's reflex save by 4.

Would this work on say: Ghouls, Ghasts, Wights, Liches, Vampires and Zombie Lords? Or would Dazing Assault work better as a feat?

Thanks for your grizzled veteran designer wisdom (as you can tell, I am laying it on thick going into Gencon lol).

Dunno. I'm not familiar with those feats and spells and options off the top of my head, and that sounds like a bunch of questions that'd better be asked on the rules fourms anyway; sorry!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:
Odd question involving Mass Effect: Should I make my commander Shepard black-haired or dishwater blonde?

Black-haired.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

shadram wrote:

Hi James!

Will you be using the word "cyclopean" during your AP seminar at GenCon?

Hope you enjoy some part of the weekend, and get some time to relax. I'll be watching the internet news feeds closely for your announcements, trying not to feel too jealous of the people in attendance...

You'll have to wait and see. As for Gen Con... I don't really regard it as a time to relax. It is, in fact, the week of the year that I'd nominate as the exact OPPOSITE as relaxing.

Radiant Oath

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
Archpaladin Zousha wrote:
Odd question involving Mass Effect: Should I make my commander Shepard black-haired or dishwater blonde?
Black-haired.

Thanks! :)

Which Inner Sea nation has the best pants? Like, if my character wanted the best pair of pants possible, where would he/she shop for them?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Archpaladin Zousha wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Archpaladin Zousha wrote:
Odd question involving Mass Effect: Should I make my commander Shepard black-haired or dishwater blonde?
Black-haired.

Thanks! :)

Which Inner Sea nation has the best pants? Like, if my character wanted the best pair of pants possible, where would he/she shop for them?

Absalom or Katapesh.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

James, you need to have a talk with the customer service people. I ordered a deinonychus from the Dungeons Deep Battles and the order information sheet lists a velociraptor...

Thankfully, I received a deinonychus and not a velociraptor. Looking for something more animal companion sized rather than familiar sized.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:

James, you need to have a talk with the customer service people. I ordered a deinonychus from the Dungeons Deep Battles and the order information sheet lists a velociraptor...

Thankfully, I received a deinonychus and not a velociraptor. Looking for something more animal companion sized rather than familiar sized.

The reason for the mixup is that somewhere along the line during the creation of that mini there was a miscommuniciation. It was originally supposed to be a velociraptor, but then the mini was cast as a Medium figure, not a Small, so we had to change the name from "Velociraptor" to "Deinonychus" at the very last minute. Obviously, all those changes went through fine and well as far as the physical product is concerned, but apparently there's a few places where the original name remained stuck in the system here and there.

That said... 10:55 in the night, 5 hours before I'm due to head to the airport for Gen Con is about the exact right time for me to not be all that interested in sending customer service a change request, even if that were my job. My suggestion would be to drop them a note to let them know that the order info sheet has an error on it, if it's really that important to you. You got the right mini, though, and since there IS no Small velociraptor mini from Paizo at this point anyway, I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be a problem...


Hey James.
Not sure where to post this, hope this isn't too wrong a place.

Having now published Occult Adventures, does that mean that going forward there will be no Psionics in the style (mechanical, or flavour wise) of early D&D editions?

The Exchange

James Jacobs wrote:
Flynn Greywalker wrote:

Okay oh Great Sage James of the Paizo Temple, I have a question for your sagely wisdom:

In an mainly undead baddy campaign, how will the following plan of action of one of my new players that is looking to play a 10th level wizard affect the undead:
1) The wizard wants to use the spell Unprepared Combatant in round 1 to lower the undead baddy's initiative place in the next round of combat.
2) Then, using the dazing spell metamagic feat, he wants to then cast a spell with this and daze the creature due to lowering it's reflex save by 4.

Would this work on say: Ghouls, Ghasts, Wights, Liches, Vampires and Zombie Lords? Or would Dazing Assault work better as a feat?

Thanks for your grizzled veteran designer wisdom (as you can tell, I am laying it on thick going into Gencon lol).

Dunno. I'm not familiar with those feats and spells and options off the top of my head, and that sounds like a bunch of questions that'd better be asked on the rules fourms anyway; sorry!

No problem oh sagely contemplator of all things Mead, Ale, Beer, and Unique. I will take it there and see what that crew can come up with:)

Franchisee - Game Kastle College Park

T-Rex just got even more awesome


Hi James

In our game my character just died and was brought back via raise dead a few days later. She is true nutral and follower of calistria, who is a Sylph rogue/ duelist. My main question is how long would it take for pharasma to sort her soul and send her to purgatory, and how much would she remember about the experiance when she comes back? I know as a petitioner of that plane she would become a skeleton basically and it's the plane of the aeons. Wich is like a vast bleak graveyard. Not something that's very pleasant but not torture Thule the abyss would be. Would she remember enough to Warnent a change of heart towed good or would she remember nothing and go on as she is, a lusty somewhat vengeful pirate captain? (Playing skull and shackles by the way)

Dark Archive

Okay, James STOP THE ADVANCED RACE GUIDE FROM GOING TO PRINT, you can do that right? They screwed up the Aasimar/Dhampir/Tiefling ages even worse...

It's possible, if the GM makes you roll your starting age, to roll an 80 year old dhampir wizard. Yet, they age as humans... so um... yeah my wizard starts out venerable and then the DM rolls 1d20+70 to see if I am actually already dead for 9 years?

The errata document just says what's changed (otherwise as human) so it's fine, but the actual PDF I just downloaded didn't change the ROLLS for starting age!

I know you aren't the 'rules guy' but I wasn't sure how else to get quick contact with someone from Paizo than your thread...


Would you say a legendary vampire noble wouldn't be out of place as an NPC with 15 Player Class levels, like Wizard or Ranger? I planned to make character-focused side quests for my Carrion Crown campaign, but the player of a Dhampir Inquisitor insisted that the father of his character is someone out of the reach of the main story-line of the campaign so the side quest would not actually come into play directly. It feels a bit arrogant in my opinion to ask for his PC to have such a strong parent but I figured I could have said vampire do a cameo or get a mention in Ashes at Dawn, if nothing else.


Do you think that the Arcane Spell Failure Chance of armor is arbitrarily specific? The flavor behind the mechanic is that the armor's encumbrance makes it more difficult to enact the precise movements necessary for spellcasting right?

Wouldn't this logically extend to other aspects of precision? Such as precision damage or critical hits, for example? If armor restricts the movement of hands when it comes to casting spells, shouldn't it also make it more difficult for precision characters, such as rogues or swashbucklers, to use their precision abilities as well?

Sure, one might say, "Well, they've trained to wear armor!" but the only indication that this is true is the class granting armor proficiency. If granting armor proficiency allows for precision classes to ignore the encumbrance of armor when it comes to striking with precision, then shouldn't it also ignore the spell failure of armor?

Of course, this could also only make sense in my sleep addled mind as I've been awake since 3 AM and it's currently 12:17 AM.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

James Jacobs wrote:
Thomas LeBlanc wrote:

James, you need to have a talk with the customer service people. I ordered a deinonychus from the Dungeons Deep Battles and the order information sheet lists a velociraptor...

Thankfully, I received a deinonychus and not a velociraptor. Looking for something more animal companion sized rather than familiar sized.

The reason for the mixup is that somewhere along the line during the creation of that mini there was a miscommuniciation. It was originally supposed to be a velociraptor, but then the mini was cast as a Medium figure, not a Small, so we had to change the name from "Velociraptor" to "Deinonychus" at the very last minute. Obviously, all those changes went through fine and well as far as the physical product is concerned, but apparently there's a few places where the original name remained stuck in the system here and there.

That said... 10:55 in the night, 5 hours before I'm due to head to the airport for Gen Con is about the exact right time for me to not be all that interested in sending customer service a change request, even if that were my job. My suggestion would be to drop them a note to let them know that the order info sheet has an error on it, if it's really that important to you. You got the right mini, though, and since there IS no Small velociraptor mini from Paizo at this point anyway, I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be a problem...

Meant in a joking manner. Hope the trip isn't too excruciating! Just think of a happy kitty belly that will await your return. Now off to bug someone about getting a velociraptor mini in a later Battles set...


I guess my previous question no longer matters. The player didn't want to even name an individual as his character's father, so I have to toss the side quest idea aside.


Just curious about the last names of dwarves: are they both the family name and clan name of a dwarf? For example Norasha Mountainrunner is a dwarf paladin of Bolka I'm going to start playing, and I was just curious: is Mountainrunner both her family and clan names? Just trying to make sure I have the lore about dwarves of Golarion correct that's all.

Do you remember all of the characters you played in each of the Adventure Paths y'all have published so far? If so, who were they?


Hey James, would you let Simulacrum have any interaction with stat boosting items or effects? I've got an idea for an NPC that has used various intellect boosting headbands with different skills to make Simulacrums of himself with different skill sets.

For example, putting on a +2 headband that gives him ranks in Diplomacy, then, the following day, making a Simulacrum of himself, giving the Simulacrum ranks in Diplomacy. Then he can put on a +2 headband with ranks in, say, Appraisal, and make a Simulacrum, and now he has one to handle negotiations, and another to determine the value of things.

Or should he put the headbands on the Simulacrums directly instead?


Assuming the players and GM are all on board, how would Hell's Vengeance accommodate someone who serves Zepar, Socothbenoth, or someone similarly vile.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Hello James, I want your opinion on resistances, immunity and endurance.

The question is, RAW resistance and immunity only saves from energy damage, but isn't it logical that a creature with, say, resistance 10/immunity to cold is somewhat immune to the effects of an arctic climate or will he continue to receive nonlethal damage from extreme cold weather? Say a Frost Giant who has +14 fort, but can still fail on a natural 1 his cold weather check, and get the sniffles or a bit of nonlethal damage.

Same for fire immune/resistant creatures like Efreeti and extremely hot environments, like the sandy deserts in high noon.

Where does this put animals, monster and humanoids native to those environments, when some have endurance, while others don't?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

So they are finally letting you do the Lovecraft AP, huh? Anything you want to spill? Do we get to fight Cthulu or Dagon, cuz I have miniatures for those? :)

Silver Crusade

STRANGE AEONS! YAY!

Are you a happy T-Rex now?


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

While I expect it will be hush-hush, is there any chance of seeing SKR do write ups for two of the Old Gods? And will be be seeing new Great Old Ones in the Beastiaries?


Do Mestama, Nurgal, and Areshkiggal have artwork laying around anywhere? Are they likely to anytime soon? Any plans for stats?

Radiant Oath

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Do Spaghettios really contain fun in every bite?

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

Do mindless creatures have souls? Such as vermin or oozes? Obviously constructs normally don't, but not sure about the others.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
shadram wrote:

Hi James!

Will you be using the word "cyclopean" during your AP seminar at GenCon?

You'll have to wait and see.

Haha, I expected Lovecraft themes to feature in the AP (when don't they?) but had no idea I'd get that close!

Do you find that announcing APs so early takes away from the excitement of the ones releasing before it? Personally, I'm really looking forward to Hell's Rebels, but now even more looking forward to Strange Aeons... I guess it won't stop me buying them all, though...


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I've heard that writers are only allowed to make up one name with an apostrophe in it as long as they work for Paizo. Have you used your apostrophe yet?

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

James, while you normally aren't involved in the RPG hardcover line, with the announcement of Horror Adventures, will you be writing any? Such as the Lovecraftian or insanity rules?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

James, I finished reading Occult Adventures and some of the ideas behind Strange Aeons look to be entrenched in the same lore. So I took a detour into the Great Beyond, read up on aeons in Bestiary 2, Great Old Ones in Bestiary 4, the River of Souls in Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh (AP 84) and the Groetus article from Beyond the Shattered Door (AP 64). I have come to the following conclusions:

1) Groetus may be some form of aeon tasked with finishing the current cycle of creation.

2) Cthulhu himself is a twisted aeon (hence, why he is an aberration) locked away by uncorrupted aeons that were unable to destroy him.

Now the questions:

A) Do aeons worship a deity?

B) Was/is there a being responsible for starting creation? (If Groetus is tasked with ending it.)

C) How do incorporeal undead end up in the accretion disks of black holes?

D) Could you thank whoever wrote the Esoteric Planes articles in Occult Adventures for me?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Shmenton wrote:

Hey James.

Not sure where to post this, hope this isn't too wrong a place.

Having now published Occult Adventures, does that mean that going forward there will be no Psionics in the style (mechanical, or flavour wise) of early D&D editions?

Correct. Check out Dreamscarred Press's Psionics rules for that. Paizo's psychic rules are in Occult Adventures.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Alundrell wrote:

Hi James

In our game my character just died and was brought back via raise dead a few days later. She is true nutral and follower of calistria, who is a Sylph rogue/ duelist. My main question is how long would it take for pharasma to sort her soul and send her to purgatory, and how much would she remember about the experiance when she comes back? I know as a petitioner of that plane she would become a skeleton basically and it's the plane of the aeons. Wich is like a vast bleak graveyard. Not something that's very pleasant but not torture Thule the abyss would be. Would she remember enough to Warnent a change of heart towed good or would she remember nothing and go on as she is, a lusty somewhat vengeful pirate captain? (Playing skull and shackles by the way)

The amount of time it takes is fluid, and never gets in the way of any spells that bring folks back from the dead unless the controller of that character (you in this case) says otherwise.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Zelda Marie Lupescu wrote:

Okay, James STOP THE ADVANCED RACE GUIDE FROM GOING TO PRINT, you can do that right? They screwed up the Aasimar/Dhampir/Tiefling ages even worse...

It's possible, if the GM makes you roll your starting age, to roll an 80 year old dhampir wizard. Yet, they age as humans... so um... yeah my wizard starts out venerable and then the DM rolls 1d20+70 to see if I am actually already dead for 9 years?

The errata document just says what's changed (otherwise as human) so it's fine, but the actual PDF I just downloaded didn't change the ROLLS for starting age!

I know you aren't the 'rules guy' but I wasn't sure how else to get quick contact with someone from Paizo than your thread...

Advanced Race Guide 2nd printing went to print ages ago. It's way too late to fix that.

As far as I know, the changes to the Aasimars and Tieflings are correct. Just use human starting ages to determine the starting age for them. Sometimes common sense needs to take hold.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Icyshadow wrote:
Would you say a legendary vampire noble wouldn't be out of place as an NPC with 15 Player Class levels, like Wizard or Ranger? I planned to make character-focused side quests for my Carrion Crown campaign, but the player of a Dhampir Inquisitor insisted that the father of his character is someone out of the reach of the main story-line of the campaign so the side quest would not actually come into play directly. It feels a bit arrogant in my opinion to ask for his PC to have such a strong parent but I figured I could have said vampire do a cameo or get a mention in Ashes at Dawn, if nothing else.

Depends entirely on your campaign. In Golarion, a 15th level vampire anything isn't out of place. And the player of ANY campaign needs to play along with the GM, in any case, when coming up with details for his PC.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Tels wrote:

Do you think that the Arcane Spell Failure Chance of armor is arbitrarily specific? The flavor behind the mechanic is that the armor's encumbrance makes it more difficult to enact the precise movements necessary for spellcasting right?

Wouldn't this logically extend to other aspects of precision? Such as precision damage or critical hits, for example? If armor restricts the movement of hands when it comes to casting spells, shouldn't it also make it more difficult for precision characters, such as rogues or swashbucklers, to use their precision abilities as well?

Sure, one might say, "Well, they've trained to wear armor!" but the only indication that this is true is the class granting armor proficiency. If granting armor proficiency allows for precision classes to ignore the encumbrance of armor when it comes to striking with precision, then shouldn't it also ignore the spell failure of armor?

Of course, this could also only make sense in my sleep addled mind as I've been awake since 3 AM and it's currently 12:17 AM.

Any number would be "arbitrarily specific" since there's no real-world thing to base spellcasting in armor on.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

SCKnightHero1 wrote:

Just curious about the last names of dwarves: are they both the family name and clan name of a dwarf? For example Norasha Mountainrunner is a dwarf paladin of Bolka I'm going to start playing, and I was just curious: is Mountainrunner both her family and clan names? Just trying to make sure I have the lore about dwarves of Golarion correct that's all.

Do you remember all of the characters you played in each of the Adventure Paths y'all have published so far? If so, who were they?

For dwarf names, they can be both, but not all family names are clan names.

I've only played characters in 3 APs so far; Echo Sidrah in Kingmaker (that AP stalled out at 3rd level), Sasha Dracktus in Skull & Shackles (TPK halfway through the 2nd adventure), and Asenath Mercadicus in Mummy's Mask (currently just getting into the 2nd adventure).

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Tels wrote:

Hey James, would you let Simulacrum have any interaction with stat boosting items or effects? I've got an idea for an NPC that has used various intellect boosting headbands with different skills to make Simulacrums of himself with different skill sets.

For example, putting on a +2 headband that gives him ranks in Diplomacy, then, the following day, making a Simulacrum of himself, giving the Simulacrum ranks in Diplomacy. Then he can put on a +2 headband with ranks in, say, Appraisal, and make a Simulacrum, and now he has one to handle negotiations, and another to determine the value of things.

Or should he put the headbands on the Simulacrums directly instead?

Yes. That's perfectly legal.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

AlgaeNymph wrote:
Assuming the players and GM are all on board, how would Hell's Vengeance accommodate someone who serves Zepar, Socothbenoth, or someone similarly vile.

That'd be a pretty terrible choice. Save those character concepts for Hell's Vengeance.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Keydan wrote:

Hello James, I want your opinion on resistances, immunity and endurance.

The question is, RAW resistance and immunity only saves from energy damage, but isn't it logical that a creature with, say, resistance 10/immunity to cold is somewhat immune to the effects of an arctic climate or will he continue to receive nonlethal damage from extreme cold weather? Say a Frost Giant who has +14 fort, but can still fail on a natural 1 his cold weather check, and get the sniffles or a bit of nonlethal damage.

Same for fire immune/resistant creatures like Efreeti and extremely hot environments, like the sandy deserts in high noon.

Where does this put animals, monster and humanoids native to those environments, when some have endurance, while others don't?

It sure is logical. If you have energy resistance to cold, you can exist without worry in cold temperatures and vice versa for fire and hot temperatures, provided the damage you're taking each shot isn't more than the max resistance.

Creatures native to those environments are acclimated and are immune to the environmental effects but not magical cold damage.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Justin Franklin wrote:
So they are finally letting you do the Lovecraft AP, huh? Anything you want to spill? Do we get to fight Cthulu or Dagon, cuz I have miniatures for those? :)

Actually... while I wrote the outline for Strange Aeons, I'm neither going to be writing any adventures for it nor am I going to be developing it—Adam Daigle will be developing it. As it turns out, while I'd thought I would be able to develop it, there's another project I need to work on instead.

So... it's happening, and I'll be helping Adam out on it here and there, but technically, "they" aren't actually letting me do it.

At this point, I don't have much more to say about the AP though... it's over a year away. Have patience!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Rysky wrote:

STRANGE AEONS! YAY!

Are you a happy T-Rex now?

Equal amounts happy and frustrated (see my previous post).

Paizo Employee Creative Director

FallenDabus wrote:
While I expect it will be hush-hush, is there any chance of seeing SKR do write ups for two of the Old Gods? And will be be seeing new Great Old Ones in the Beastiaries?

No chance at all. Those write ups are going to be written by someone else. If I can swing it, they'll be by me.

There will be at least one new great old one in the bestiary, but that's probably going to be it. We'll see.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Wannabe Demon Lord wrote:
Do Mestama, Nurgal, and Areshkiggal have artwork laying around anywhere? Are they likely to anytime soon? Any plans for stats?

Nope.

No.

Nope.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Archpaladin Zousha wrote:
Do Spaghettios really contain fun in every bite?

Absolutely not.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

JoelF847 wrote:
Do mindless creatures have souls? Such as vermin or oozes? Obviously constructs normally don't, but not sure about the others.

I think so... but can't remember. See the article about souls we did in the last Mummy's Mask adventure for more details.

56,851 to 56,900 of 83,732 << first < prev | 1133 | 1134 | 1135 | 1136 | 1137 | 1138 | 1139 | 1140 | 1141 | 1142 | 1143 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Gamer Life / Off-Topic Discussions / >>Ask *James Jacobs* ALL your Questions Here!<< All Messageboards