So in your interpretation, if 3 creatures were inside the area of the spell (for example), all 3 of them would need to fail their saving throws in order for the spell to work?Hey James,
how are you tonight? I have a question if you don't mind.
The pathfinder's version of the forcecage spell allows for a Ref save (negates) whereas the 3.5 version of the spell didn't. What happens if a character successfully saves against this spell? Would he be moved to somewhere outside the spell's area? Could he just walk off the cage on his turn?
I am not really worried about an errata or anything official, mind you. I am just looking for your advice (this question came up in my group's last session).
Ps.: as usual, please forgive my broken english.
Doing good tonight!
The rules are silent on this. My take: If someone saves against forcecage, they simply have managed to dodge aside of the cage before it managed to close around them, and the result is that the spell simply doesn't work; no forcecage is created if the spell fails.
Nope. Opinion revised.
If you make your reflex save you end up being somewhere outside of the forcecage's area of effect. Like blade barrier. I'd probably say that your position moves to the closest available square. If you're immobile, the weird thing is that you STILL get a reflex save, albeit with a penalty due to lowered Dex, in which case if you make the save I'd rule that you squirmed juts aside just barely and/or the spellcaster's aim was just off by a bit.
Thank you James!
Have a few weirdly specific calendar questions!
1- Barring the weird leap year every 8 instead of 4 issue, is the Inner Sea World Guide correct in saying that Golarion's calendar matches up for ours 1:1 in terms of the number of days in each month, or was that retconned at some point?
2- Is there an official calendar somewhere in the Paizo offices people glance at when they get the odd whim to actually pin a day of the week to a particular date in a player handout (i.e. Sunday, 29 Desnus, 4687), or is nobody quite obsessive enough to worry about that level of internal consistency?
2a- Extrapolating from that date, is my math right that 4707 matched our 2007 perfectly, but since Pharast/March '08 we've been one day off, making 4 Pharast 4713, for an easy example, a sunday?
3- Do Golarion's lunar cycles also match up with earth's on a 1:1 basis (other than those pesky leap years)?
3a- And do they share that same alternate leap-year drift where they've been a day off since '08?
4- Are there any particularly noteworthy calendars in use in Golarion besides Absalom Reckoning? i.e. Tien new year celebrated closer to spring? Ancient Garundi calendars measuring out cycles of hundreds of years? Some secret druidic calendar all about equinox tracking? Some pre-Absalom standard still used consistently by out-of-the-loop immortals?
5- How do denizens of the darklands measure the passage of time? I'd assume there's some fairly standard since it's hard to run a civilization without some sort of timekeeping, but with no celestial bodies to observe I can't think of anything that would do the trick beyond actual clocks, or maybe tides with a large enough body of water handy.
James, forgive me if you been asked this before, but what do you think of Game of Thrones? Do you watch the show? Have you read any of the books. Is Martin the Tolkien of the 21st century?I've read all the books and I've seen every episode of the HBO show.
They're probably my favorite fantasy books of all time. Hands down. Martin is a MUCH better writer than Tolkein, in my opinion. Tolkein's great at creating worlds, but not so great at the compelling characters or plotlines. Martin's his equal on world creation, but leaves him in the dust in pretty much every other category in my opinion.
That's an interesting perspective, because in my own opinion I've felt that Martain does a fantastic job of getting me excited for action and high-stakes battles ... only for them to occur off screen. Instead we're treated to various characters talking about what happened during those battles. My favorite characters in the story tend to be those where he subverts this trend for. (Arya, to name one.)
Yeah. I read those books for Arya, who is without a doubt one of the most likable child protagonists I have ever encountered in an adult novel.
Potential Story Time for/with James Jabocs?!
Can you think of a time when the dice just seemed to play out exactly as your character would have wanted them to, like out of a movie or something? Could you share the story if possible? I ask because I just had this experience happen to me for the first time, which is included in the spoilers if you're interested.
A few nights ago, my adventuring party was approached in the night by an elf who was an emissary for a jungle-dwelling tribe of elves. They had been at war with a legion of hobgoblins for several generations over a blood feud that had resulted in genocides on both sides. We were approached because we were seeking the hobgoblins' aid in clearing out an entire jungle colony of half a thousand vegepygmies and we had the means to locate the hidden hobgoblins. The elf basically wanted us to give away the hobgoblin's location in exchange for elven support against the vegepygmies, and my party left it to me to decide where to allow the elves to wipe out the hobgoblins for their support or continue to support the hobgoblins and earn the elves' ire.
I was having a tough time deciding what to do in this situation (5+ minutes of contemplation) when I decided to reflect upon my character's backstory. He's a kitsune cavalier who was raised by a family of elven diplomats (my GM had no place for the kitsune in his world at the time). Because of his background, I knew he would want to try to make peace between the two groups, but one look from my GM confirmed my suspicions that getting this emissary on my side would be in the realm of natural 20s. I signed and decided to do what I thought my character would try. I rolled the die, and it rolled right under a model ship. Slowly moving the ship as I held my breath, a natural 20 stared back at my face. A net total of a 39. I've never screamed so loudly at an RPG before.
Lost Kingdoms of Golarion has this in the Jistka Imperium section...
By infusing
the constructs with f iend-tainted compounds and fueling
them with the spirits of daemons, devils, and demons, the
artif icers were able to make semi-intelligent behemoth
golems that could stand against Ancient Osirion’s divs
and necromantic elemental outsiders.
Will we ever see anything more (stats?) about these necromantic elemental outsiders?
Alexander's question spurred my brain to think of this one:
Can you think of a time when the dice just seemed to play out exactly OPPOSITE as your character would have wanted them to, like out of a comedy of errors or something?
How do Desna and Gozreh feel about the gestalt Shimye-Magalla worship of them by the Bonuwat in the Mwangi?
Creative Director
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Dear James Jacobs,
I stumbled across a recording of a seminar you and Jason Bulmahn gave about your character creation processes. I found it to be really entertaining and it certainly and helped me to create PCs that were more interesting and fun to play. So it got me curious as to what you do on the opposite side of the GM's screen.
What is your basic strategy for writing/running a homebrew campaign? How do you outline and how much outlining do you do? Where on the spectrum of sandbox to locked-on-rails do your campaigns fall? Do you come up with your BBEG's ahead of time or do you let your players create their own foils out of NPCs they antagonize?
I'm about to embark on a homebrew AP project set in the River Kingdoms. Any insight or advice at all that you could provide would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
My basic strategy for writing/running homebrew campaigns is, when it's all written out, exactly what you see in an Adventure Path.
Lately, I've been using pre-published adventures with a few pages of outline and several more of random notes, and then I ad-hoc the encounters as I go, though.
My campaigns generally function as sandboxes, but I try to give the PCs a VERY compelling plot to follow and then let them handle the plot how they want. I'm pretty good at anticipating where they're gonna go, and they're pretty good at being on board with the adventure's plot, so whether or not its a railroad or sandbox never really seems to come up.
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Creative Director
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Have a few weirdly specific calendar questions!
1- Barring the weird leap year every 8 instead of 4 issue, is the Inner Sea World Guide correct in saying that Golarion's calendar matches up for ours 1:1 in terms of the number of days in each month, or was that retconned at some point?
2- Is there an official calendar somewhere in the Paizo offices people glance at when they get the odd whim to actually pin a day of the week to a particular date in a player handout (i.e. Sunday, 29 Desnus, 4687), or is nobody quite obsessive enough to worry about that level of internal consistency?
2a- Extrapolating from that date, is my math right that 4707 matched our 2007 perfectly, but since Pharast/March '08 we've been one day off, making 4 Pharast 4713, for an easy example, a sunday?
3- Do Golarion's lunar cycles also match up with earth's on a 1:1 basis (other than those pesky leap years)?
3a- And do they share that same alternate leap-year drift where they've been a day off since '08?
4- Are there any particularly noteworthy calendars in use in Golarion besides Absalom Reckoning? i.e. Tien new year celebrated closer to spring? Ancient Garundi calendars measuring out cycles of hundreds of years? Some secret druidic calendar all about equinox tracking? Some pre-Absalom standard still used consistently by out-of-the-loop immortals?
5- How do denizens of the darklands measure the passage of time? I'd assume there's some fairly standard since it's hard to run a civilization without some sort of timekeeping, but with no celestial bodies to observe I can't think of anything that would do the trick beyond actual clocks, or maybe tides with a large enough body of water handy.
1) Yes; it pretty much matches the Gregorian calendar. And I kinda wish I'd fixed the leap year stuff too.
2) Nope.
2a) Perhaps, although I generally don't bother with that level of detail in print.
3) Yes.
3a) I guess so.
4) Yes; elves and dwarves certainly have a calendar. There's a Thassilonian/Azlant one. There are more, but again... we don't do much with them.
5) Via biologic rhythms mostly. Or via having a chanter or timekeeper type person. Or via things like hourglasses or maybe even via magic... if time-keeping really matters to them in the first place, which it often doesn't.
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Creative Director
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Potential Story Time for/with James Jabocs?!
Can you think of a time when the dice just seemed to play out exactly as your character would have wanted them to, like out of a movie or something? Could you share the story if possible? I ask because I just had this experience happen to me for the first time, which is included in the spoilers if you're interested.
** spoiler omitted **
ha! Cool story!
And yeah, I've seen the dice totally make the story work out perfect lots of times. No particular story immediately comes to mind though... OH!
Back in the 2nd edition D&D days, I rolled up a fighter/wizard and his backstory was that even though he was the strongest guy in the village, he REALLY wanted to be a wizard. And then I rolled up an 18/00 strength for him, which was awesome.
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Creative Director
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Lost Kingdoms of Golarion has this in the Jistka Imperium section...
Will we ever see anything more (stats?) about these necromantic elemental outsiders?By infusing
the constructs with f iend-tainted compounds and fueling
them with the spirits of daemons, devils, and demons, the
artif icers were able to make semi-intelligent behemoth
golems that could stand against Ancient Osirion’s divs
and necromantic elemental outsiders.
Maybe. We often look to previous products that have tidbits like this when we're looking to do new rules content. The chances would expand significantly if we were working on a Jistka themed adventure, of course... but we have no plans to do that anytime soon.
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Creative Director
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Alexander's question spurred my brain to think of this one:
Can you think of a time when the dice just seemed to play out exactly OPPOSITE as your character would have wanted them to, like out of a comedy of errors or something?
Plenty of those too.
An example—in Jason Nelson's post-apocalyptic Forgotten Realms game, my character Shensen charmed a hook horror. She let it loose after she was done using it for various tasks, and it immediately attacked her and rolled awesomely enough to suddenly and without me having a chance to do anything totally destroyed my awesome sword—which sucked. Hard.
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Creative Director
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Any words of wisdom for GMing Solo campaigns? Solo as in one GM and one player
Hmmm...
Make sure to avoid using monsters that do things like paralyze or stun or the like—monsters that do things that kind of require other PCs to help.
Or consider running a helper NPC for the player.
Or make that player a Mythic character once those rules are out to give the PC a much needed edge.
Oracles get 4+INT Skill Points per level while clerics get 2+INT; given this, do you think it would be a reasonable house rule to bump sorcerers up to 4+INT? or is there some other balancing factor that I'm not considering that would rule that out?
Demons tend to have various feminine traits regardless of gender, and devils tend to have more masculine traits, regardless of gender.
Care to elaborate? I've never noticed anything to this effect.
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Creative Director
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Demons tend to have various feminine traits regardless of gender, and devils tend to have more masculine traits, regardless of gender.Care to elaborate? I've never noticed anything to this effect.
It's more of a case of Hell being very male themed, and the Abyss being female themed.
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Creative Director
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Oracles get 4+INT Skill Points per level while clerics get 2+INT; given this, do you think it would be a reasonable house rule to bump sorcerers up to 4+INT? or is there some other balancing factor that I'm not considering that would rule that out?
If you want to house rule that, go right ahead. I'm not sure all those are "balance" issues as much as they are flavor issues and theme issues for the classes.
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On a similar subject, the players in my Council of Thieves game have been carrying around ** spoiler omitted **For an angel that has fallen (but isn't quite evil yet), do they lose any of their special abilities?That's something that varies on a case-by-case basis. When an angel falls, or when a fiend is redeemed, the creature needs to be custom built and re-designed by the GM. This should be an INCREDIBLY rare event, and as such each time it happens the result should be a unique creature. No monster template can really capture the requirements of such a case.
So envious of that group.
You might want to start a whole thread for this question.
Simply for the purpose of just-for-fun homebrew...
Would the Evas from Neon Genesis Evangelion be considered outsiders, humanoids, monstrous humanoids, constructs, or something else?
Hey JJ, does the hold spells (Hold Person, Hold Monster, etc) count as offensive attack spells for the purpose of causing Invisibility to be dismissed?Absolutely.
Wouldn't a good rule of thumb be any spell that doesn't say "harmless" in the save info is probably an offensive spell?
Question about History of Ashes. Is the Guided property found in there melee only? I think it's around page 22, according to the archivesofnethys
With the coming Mythic rules, I'm very excited at the possibility of an adventure dealing with Tar-Baphon, who I've come to refer as the 'Final Boss of Pathfinder.' If and when a Tar-Baphon adventure is created, would it be more along the lines of an adventure path or a super-module?
If you want to house rule that, go right ahead. I'm not sure all those are "balance" issues as much as they are flavor issues and theme issues for the classes.Oracles get 4+INT Skill Points per level while clerics get 2+INT; given this, do you think it would be a reasonable house rule to bump sorcerers up to 4+INT? or is there some other balancing factor that I'm not considering that would rule that out?
Can you elaborate a bit on how you feel it goes against the flavor of sorcerer, and how that might be different from oracle?
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Creative Director
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I also have a blue beach ball on which I've sketched out the shapes of the entire world.Why are these not in the store yet? I must have one!
(Although, for ease of shipping, perhaps they should be inflatable and shipping uninflated...)
The complexities of shipping and producing globes aside... the reason it's not in the store yet is because it's still WAY in first draft form. I'm not interested in revealing anything that implies accuracy until I'm happy with the way it looks.
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Creative Director
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Wouldn't a good rule of thumb be any spell that doesn't say "harmless" in the save info is probably an offensive spell?Hey JJ, does the hold spells (Hold Person, Hold Monster, etc) count as offensive attack spells for the purpose of causing Invisibility to be dismissed?Absolutely.
Probably. Unless it ends up not being harmless after all, of course.
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Creative Director
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Question about History of Ashes. Is the Guided property found in there melee only? I think it's around page 22, according to the archivesofnethys
It's meant for melee only, yes.
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Creative Director
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Any words of wisdom for GMing Solo campaigns? Solo as in one GM and one playerHmmm...
Make sure to avoid using monsters that do things like paralyze or stun or the like—monsters that do things that kind of require other PCs to help.
Or consider running a helper NPC for the player.
Or make that player a Mythic character once those rules are out to give the PC a much needed edge.
On that note there definitely seems to be a tradeoff between characters advancing in class levelm and mythic tiers. say a Witch 6/3 as opposed to a Witch 9. I've been thinking of keeping a 2:1 ceiling ration on mythic tiers myself.
Do you have any comment on how Tiers should add to the APL of a character?
Nope. Haven't figured that out yet, in fact, and until I'm working on developing Wrath of the Righteous in about 3 weeks, I won't have a chance to start thinking about it. And the idea of running a solo mythic character is probably, alas, going to have to be something that folks try AFTER the book comes out. I'm hoping it works, but I'm not sure it will, and it's not a directly supported use of the rules. But it should probably work.
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Creative Director
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With the coming Mythic rules, I'm very excited at the possibility of an adventure dealing with Tar-Baphon, who I've come to refer as the 'Final Boss of Pathfinder.' If and when a Tar-Baphon adventure is created, would it be more along the lines of an adventure path or a super-module?
Unknown.
I wouldn't call him the "Final Boss of Pathfinder," though. That's probably a better title for Rovagug.
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Creative Director
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Can you elaborate a bit on how you feel it goes against the flavor of sorcerer, and how that might be different from oracle?If you want to house rule that, go right ahead. I'm not sure all those are "balance" issues as much as they are flavor issues and theme issues for the classes.Oracles get 4+INT Skill Points per level while clerics get 2+INT; given this, do you think it would be a reasonable house rule to bump sorcerers up to 4+INT? or is there some other balancing factor that I'm not considering that would rule that out?
In my opinion (which may be different from the design team—they may have other reasons for doing this), the sorcerer is not a scholar. She is someone who gained her abilities and relies heavily on them, and is defined by the flashy and powerful magic more than she is defined by her combat and skill use.
The oracle, on the other hand, has a tradition of being called upon for advice or hints about the future or other things. In that way, the oracle is someone who has magic powers, but is also traditionally someone you go to for answers, and therefore she needs more skills in order to be able to provide those answers, be they in the form of Knowledge checks or other skill checks.
One possible game balance thing that some folks might point out is that the sorcerer has a MUCH larger and MUCH more varied list of spells to choose from than does the oracle overall, and therefore the oracle needed a boost when compared to the sorcerer. I dont' really buy that argument though.
It might even have been as simple as a test or a typo. Dunno; you'd have to talk to Jason and the Design Team.
Well, the explanation for what they are is rather spoileriffic from what I know (I'm a spoiler hound), even if I keep it short.
The reason they resemble mecha is because they're wearing armor that restricts their power, because those souls powering them are still sapient. Eva-01 in particular has a tendency to go berserk, although this is mainly because the soul used belongs to its pilot's mother, so this is just mama-bear instinct at work. The first time we see Eva-01 in combat, her pilot is knocked unconscious and her first act of angry vengeance is to break the offending Angel's arm the way it did her own prior to her waking up.(the pilot can feel every injury taken by the Eva, so he felt that)
Also, both Angels and Evas have some sort of aura called an AT (Absolute Terror) Field, which I don't fully understand, although it makes them effectively invulnerable to anything besides each other. Even nukes are ineffective against the first Angel.
Also, Eva-01 becomes God at the end of the series, and helps everyone get hugged and turned into Tang. Makes just as much sense with the context.
Yes, that was the short explanation.
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Okay, more heraldry questions. Sorry if these are becoming annoying.
What's are the rules organizations like the Knights of Ozem, Aldori Swordlords or Eagle Knights, etc. have in regards to family crests? Is there a universal crest for the order that all members must wear on their shields or tabards like a uniform, or would individual knights retain their family crests, or design their own in the event that they don't have nobles like Andoran, or the rare instance of a commoner becoming elevated to the nobility for their deeds?
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Creative Director
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Okay, more heraldry questions. Sorry if these are becoming annoying.
What's the rule about organizations like the Knights of Ozem, Aldori Swordlords or Eagle Knights, etc. in regards to family crests? Is there a universal crest for the order that all members must wear on their shields or tabards like a uniform, or would individual knights retain their family crests, or design their own in the event that they don't have nobles like Andoran, or the rare instance of a commoner becoming elevated to the nobility for their deeds?
At this point, there are no rules. We haven't done much with heraldry at all in Golarion beyond what's been done in Knights of the Inner Sea.
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Creative Director
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I'm building a Synthesist, but I have stuck in a few questions, like saving throws and weapons.
1) The eidolon have his own good and bad saves, in a Biped the goods are Fort and Will, and the summoner have only Will as a good save. in the case of a Fort throw, I should use the eidolon or the summoner base test? And what if the eidolon's Con is lower than the summoner's, the test is made using which Con modifier?
2) The eidolon uses the summoner feats, the Weapon Training evolution says:
Weapon Training (Ex): An eidolon learns to use a weapon, gaining Simple Weapon Proficiency as a bonus feat. If 2 additional evolution points are spent, it gains proficiency with all martial weapons as well.
and all summoners know how to use simple weapons, this means that the Synthesist's eidolon can use simple weapons while fused?
Thank you for the answers!
This is a great set of questions for the rules forum so it can be FAQed.
And I have pretty much zero experience or isight into the synthesist archetype—I was not involved in its creation or development, and have never used the rules in games I play or products I've developed. So even if it wasn't a great set of questions for the rules team... I wouldn't be able to answer this apart to knee-jerk reactions to assume the LEAST powerful solution to each question since I feel that summoners are prone to being overpowered and overly complex.
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At this point, there are no rules. We haven't done much with heraldry at all in Golarion beyond what's been done in Knights of the Inner Sea.Okay, more heraldry questions. Sorry if these are becoming annoying.
What's the rule about organizations like the Knights of Ozem, Aldori Swordlords or Eagle Knights, etc. in regards to family crests? Is there a universal crest for the order that all members must wear on their shields or tabards like a uniform, or would individual knights retain their family crests, or design their own in the event that they don't have nobles like Andoran, or the rare instance of a commoner becoming elevated to the nobility for their deeds?
I see. So what would your personal opinion on the matter be?
Also, do you need to join the Aldori Swordlords to learn how to use an Aldori Dueling Sword? In some recent stuff there's been descriptions of the families like the Khatorovs who favor the dueling sword, but I think I remember that one of the requirements of joining the Aldori Swordlords is that you need to change your name to Aldori, abandoning your previous family ties and cementing your loyalty to the Swordpact and only to the Swordpact.