So, did Paizo intentionally avoid giving death deities scythes as favored weapons, or did it just work out that way?
Is there any specific D&D property that you wish you could've used in the Pathfinder setting?
Creative Director
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What would happen if a group of elves lived in the Underdark but did not go all CE? Terms of appearance, mostly.
The Darklands are as much responsible for turning elves to drow as anything else; other elves that lived down there too long would probably change appearance to look quite similar to drow, but would not go evil.
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"I can't keep everything we've published about Sorshen in my head at once, so all these rapid-fire Sorshen questions WILL get some inaccuracies in there."
Ah. No problem then, perfectly understandable.
"Haven't looked at [nMage] in a LONG time... that's the comic with the redcaps in it, yeah?"
1. Are you being facetious? It wouldn't surprise me given the reception that nMage got (think similar to D&D 4e but with complaints about the fluff instead of the crunch).
2. What's Paizo's relationship with White Wolf?
3. What are you willing to talk about regarding other game systems?
4. Will Ultimate Campaign cover what a character can do with a city after she takes it over?
5. What's the total estimated population of Korvosa (~18K) and its holdings?
6. Will Ultimate Campaign have rules for determining what the Economy/Loyalty/Stability of a city are? I don't mean a player-built one but a canon-established one (e.g., Korvosa).
7. How did diplomacy work in Thassilon? Was it similar to proxeny?
8. How does diplomatic rank work in the Avistan/Inner Sea region? Is it similar to that established by the Congress of Vienna or does it vary by each country?
9. What's to stop a powerful wizard (level 19+) from simply going to Taldor and mind-slaving prince rat-face into forking over all his money?
10. Now that you and the other James have ask threads, I'm not entirely sure who to ask what (regarding Pathfinder). I know you're the go-to guy for demons and Varisia but what are your other specialities?
1) To me, I was assuming you were talking about an old comic, Mage. Was there something else you were talking about?
2) There's pretty much no relationship with White Wolf, really... aside from the fact that Lisa Stevens had a lot of connections to White Wolf back in the day. We don't really do anything with White Wolf today though. I've never really interacted with anyone from White Wolf while they worked for White Wolf.
3) I'm willing to talk about my experiences playing games in other systems if I enjoyed those experiences, but if I didn't enjoy them, I'd rather not talk about it in public. AKA: I'd rather say nice things about our competition or not say anything at all, I guess.
4) Not really. It's not about conquering cities. It's about building them.
5) Population figures are published on page 194 of the Inner Sea World Guide.
6) I don't think so... Because those three factors ONLY matter in the case of a city being built and run by PCs. That system isn't meant to work for non PC-kingdoms.
7) Nope; Thassilon wasn't all that open to diplomacy from other nations. The only two other nations really doing much at that time being Azlant (with whom they were not all that friendly) and Mierani (with whom they were only slightly more friendly).
8) Varies by country. In some cases, like the River Kingdoms, it varies multiple times per country.
9) The PCs. And the GM not wanting to tell that story in his or her campaign. And the fact that 19th level wizards have better things to do than galvanize an entire nation against them.
10) There's a LOT of cross-pollination between us creative folks here at Paizo, so you can pretty much get an answer from either of us regardless of the topic. If it happens to be something I think Sutter would be able to answer better, I'll do what I can and then say "But go ask Sutter for more info."
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Creative Director
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So, did Paizo intentionally avoid giving death deities scythes as favored weapons, or did it just work out that way?
Is there any specific D&D property that you wish you could've used in the Pathfinder setting?
Ummm... we gave Urgathoa a scythe. Technically, she's the goddess of undeath, but still... I'd say that counts.
I would have loved to keep Obox-ob as the main bad guy deity; he played that role in my homebrew, but since I "sold" him to WotC, I had to promote a different deity from my homebrew to that position—Rovagug.
Honestly? That's about it.
Each day that passes with me working on Golarion stuff, I miss the D&D specific properties less and less.
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Creative Director
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Okay, then I just have one more question...
It's a known fact that burning elves in sacrifice can sometimes appease the Dice gods. What about gnomes? I've heard they release a lot of heavy chemicals when they burn and this actually angers the Dice gods. Gnomes are a lot cheaper, but are they a valid substitute?
Dwarves work best as sacrifices in my experience, because not only do you get the boon of the sacrifice, you also get the boon of having less dwarves.
Hides Tyrion.
So if you had to choose one character from the following Books/Series to make a Parody/Homage to in a Pathfinder Module/AP which would you choose?
-Lord of the Rings.
-The Hobbit.
-A Song of Ice & Fire/A Game of Thrones.
-The Hunger Games Trilogy.
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Hides Tyrion.
So if you had to choose one character from the following Books/Series to make a Parody/Homage to in a Pathfinder Module/AP which would you choose?
-Lord of the Rings.
-The Hobbit.
-A Song of Ice & Fire/A Game of Thrones.
-The Hunger Games Trilogy.
As above, but add the Wheel of Time and the Dresden Files.
Hi James,
Are there any video games you are particularly looking forward to in 2013?
Have a great day!
What type of creature do you think the Firebird would be? Obviously the fire subtype, but would it be an outsider or fey?
Hey James, hope you're doing well!
RPG Questions:
1) Of the AP's, which ones have you played through all the way to the end, if any?
2) Should an adventure ever have any repeat encounters in it? Or should each be memorable in its own way?
3) Would you consider a villain who wants to return everything to the void so that people no longer suffer (and kills people if they get in the way of this plan for the "greater good"), pretty clearly chaotic evil? What about if they avoided killing people if possible but worked toward returning everything to the void?
Personal Question:
4) Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert? How intense is your introversion or extroversion?
Creepy question time!
5) On a scale of 1-10, how creepy would it be to find out that every question asked on this thread was asked by the same person on different accounts?
6) On a scale of 1-10, how creepy would it be to find out that *you* had created hundreds (maybe thousands) of accounts and asked yourself all these questions? [In the event that the two scores are equal, is there one that slightly edges out the other in creepiness?]
Would you give me some advice? I have recently found myself on the development staff for an upcoming game. I like to follow game devs on various social media, myself, and always wondered if they had more personal accounts separate from public face as game developers.
My question is, do you think I should have a personal e-mail/twitter et cetera? Or, do you find it to be unnecessary?
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Creative Director
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Hides Tyrion.
So if you had to choose one character from the following Books/Series to make a Parody/Homage to in a Pathfinder Module/AP which would you choose?
-Lord of the Rings.
-The Hobbit.
-A Song of Ice & Fire/A Game of Thrones.
-The Hunger Games Trilogy.
Song of Ice & Fire (either Tyrian or Arya—someone short and bad-ass in any event)
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Creative Director
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As above, but add the Wheel of Time and the Dresden Files.Hides Tyrion.
So if you had to choose one character from the following Books/Series to make a Parody/Homage to in a Pathfinder Module/AP which would you choose?
-Lord of the Rings.
-The Hobbit.
-A Song of Ice & Fire/A Game of Thrones.
-The Hunger Games Trilogy.
No change. I haven't read either of those two books so it wouldn't have mattered anyway.
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Creative Director
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Hi James,
Are there any video games you are particularly looking forward to in 2013?
Have a great day!
Just finished playing Tomb Raider like 5 minutes ago, and that was a fun one. I'm eager to start playing Bioshock Infinite. Looking forward to the next Metro game too. But the one I'm anticipating the most this year is Wasteland 2.
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Creative Director
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Would you give me some advice? I have recently found myself on the development staff for an upcoming game. I like to follow game devs on various social media, myself, and always wondered if they had more personal accounts separate from public face as game developers.
My question is, do you think I should have a personal e-mail/twitter et cetera? Or, do you find it to be unnecessary?
That depends on your preference—many of the folks here at Paizo maintain separate personal and work social media presences. I don't... but I dont' use social media all that much.
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Creative Director
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Hey James, hope you're doing well!
RPG Questions:
1) Of the AP's, which ones have you played through all the way to the end, if any?
2) Should an adventure ever have any repeat encounters in it? Or should each be memorable in its own way?
3) Would you consider a villain who wants to return everything to the void so that people no longer suffer (and kills people if they get in the way of this plan for the "greater good"), pretty clearly chaotic evil? What about if they avoided killing people if possible but worked toward returning everything to the void?
Personal Question:
4) Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert? How intense is your introversion or extroversion?
Creepy question time!
5) On a scale of 1-10, how creepy would it be to find out that every question asked on this thread was asked by the same person on different accounts?
6) On a scale of 1-10, how creepy would it be to find out that *you* had created hundreds (maybe thousands) of accounts and asked yourself all these questions? [In the event that the two scores are equal, is there one that slightly edges out the other in creepiness?]
1) I've run Savage Tide all the way to the end. I'm currently about 2/3 the way through running Serpent's Skull, and about 20% through Skull & Shackles as a player.
2) Depends, but I prefer making encounters unique. Only when there's space issues are there repeat encounters.
3) Returning everything to the void is pretty much chaotic neutral; sounds like the classic protean plot. Once you start enjoying that work though, you're also evil.
4) I'm very much an introvert, to the extent that I very much dislike crowds. Gen Con is my least favorite time of the year.
5) 9
6) 2. Not creepy at all. It would explain a lot.
Hmmm.
Okay, returning to my 'desert elf' question, when you say 'deeply tanned', which human ethnicity of Golarion would be closest?
Or is this a 'depends on the desert they're living in' answer?
Song of Ice & Fire (either Tyrian or Arya—someone short and bad-ass in any event)Hides Tyrion.
So if you had to choose one character from the following Books/Series to make a Parody/Homage to in a Pathfinder Module/AP which would you choose?
-Lord of the Rings.
-The Hobbit.
-A Song of Ice & Fire/A Game of Thrones.
-The Hunger Games Trilogy.
Sounds good. Me and Lini are feeling a bit lonely in that regard.
So if Elves physicaly adapt to their enviroment...what kind of changes do we see if elves that live in urbane settings?
...also, what's your favorite of the Core races?
What do you think of the "Wounds and Vigor" and "Armor as Damage reduction" variant rules?
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Dear James-
Do the Gods of Golarion have specific avatars as their "right-hand" help? and if so are they mentioned in any Paizo content books?
Also, if the Gods do have avatars AND should Paizo ever compile all of the Deity articles from the AP's with additional information in a 256 page count hardcover book, would these avatars possibly be stated up in such a wonderful tome?
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3) Returning everything to the void is pretty much chaotic neutral; sounds like the classic protean plot. Once you start enjoying that work though, you're also evil.
I've always found this bizarre, personally. My chaotic characters (and, in a sense, myself as a player and GM) have always blamed this kind of behavior on excessive lawfulness - when all is nothing, then nothing can be out of place; silence and oblivion is the ultimate order. Existence and life break the silence and introduce the concepts of randomness, chance, difference, and chaos; sure a lot of chaos involves destruction but I'd think an equal amount involves the creation of new things. (I have a long speech on the subject that my CN Chaos-worshiping Cleric on a Neverwinter Nights server called World Serpent Inn gave to a Dustman regarding the Inevitable End Of All Things and her stance on Order versus Chaos in the politics of Sigil, but it's on my computer at home.)
Why, exactly, is reducing everything to a state of still, stagnant nothingness associated with chaotic activity?
James,
In your homebrew campaign you mentioned earlier, what was the power source of Baba Yaga's hut?
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Am I weird if I think Elves are highly overrated? They are not TEH BESTEST RACE EVAR, they're just tall humans with pointy ears and an unwarranted sense of superiority. Give me a gnome any day of the week.
Just finished playing Tomb Raider like 5 minutes ago, and that was a fun one. I'm eager to start playing Bioshock Infinite. Looking forward to the next Metro game too. But the one I'm anticipating the most this year is Wasteland 2.Hi James,
Are there any video games you are particularly looking forward to in 2013?
Have a great day!
I backed Wasteland 2 on kickstarter. Did you? I do notice they'll have a Mac port. They're also doing a new shadowrun game with a Mac port? Interested? I know you had a rough experience with the pen and paper version so I didn't know if you had an interest in a video game version.
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Creative Director
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Dear James-
Do the Gods of Golarion have specific avatars as their "right-hand" help? and if so are they mentioned in any Paizo content books?
Also, if the Gods do have avatars AND should Paizo ever compile all of the Deity articles from the AP's with additional information in a 256 page count hardcover book, would these avatars possibly be stated up in such a wonderful tome?
We've not yet mentioned any avatars, but they do all have heralds, which are CR 15 outsiders designed to be things a cleric can conjure via greater planar ally.
That said, the fact that we now have Mythic Adventures availalbe in a few months means we can start considering adding avatars or something like that.
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Creative Director
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In the Faction Guide, it says that depending on your levels in Razmir's cult, you can be "blessed" by him with special powers and abilities. Specifically, the Eighth Step allows Enthrall as a 1/day spell-like ability, Twelfth Step allows Suggestion, and Fifteenth Step allows Mass Suggestion and a +1 bonus to Initiative checks (where they are blessed by Razmir in a special ritual).
Since Razmir is only a 19th level wizard, how might he be accomplishing this sort of thing? Is he using carefully-worded Wish spells? Or is he making deals with deities/beings of comparable power? Because it seems as though other 19th level wizards (or 17th level, or less depending on how he's doing it) should have either access to the same methods, or at least have access to the ability to determine a method that would provide the same results that Razmir is getting.
Additionally, is Razmir very interested in getting Oracles to side with him, as a "blessing of the divine Razmir" kind of deal? I get a mental image of Razmiran agents wandering the countryside, quietly snatching up Oracles as they find them when they're still children in order to indoctrinate them into the cult and give them the belief that their power stems from Razmir himself.
Wish can do a lot of things, as can artifacts, deals with powerful outsiders, or eldritch magical rituals. Or it could simply be the result of specialized training available only to high-ranking members of the faction. It's a story element, in other words, and one that if we ever do a "Kill Razmir" adventure, we may or may not reveal the secrets to.
Razmir's not all that keen on ANY divine characters "helping" him out.
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Creative Director
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3) Returning everything to the void is pretty much chaotic neutral; sounds like the classic protean plot. Once you start enjoying that work though, you're also evil.I've always found this bizarre, personally. My chaotic characters (and, in a sense, myself as a player and GM) have always blamed this kind of behavior on excessive lawfulness - when all is nothing, then nothing can be out of place; silence and oblivion is the ultimate order. Existence and life break the silence and introduce the concepts of randomness, chance, difference, and chaos; sure a lot of chaos involves destruction but I'd think an equal amount involves the creation of new things. (I have a long speech on the subject that my CN Chaos-worshiping Cleric on a Neverwinter Nights server called World Serpent Inn gave to a Dustman regarding the Inevitable End Of All Things and her stance on Order versus Chaos in the politics of Sigil, but it's on my computer at home.)
Why, exactly, is reducing everything to a state of still, stagnant nothingness associated with chaotic activity?
Because it's not "still, stagnant nothingness" that the proteans want to reduce reality to. That's an oversimplification. They want to reduce reality to nothing but churning chaos as seen in the Maelstrom. A different kind of "nothing" than "nothingness."
Because it's not "still, stagnant nothingness" that the proteans want to reduce reality to. That's an oversimplification. They want to reduce reality to nothing but churning chaos as seen in the Maelstrom. A different kind of "nothing" than "nothingness."3) Returning everything to the void is pretty much chaotic neutral; sounds like the classic protean plot. Once you start enjoying that work though, you're also evil.I've always found this bizarre, personally. My chaotic characters (and, in a sense, myself as a player and GM) have always blamed this kind of behavior on excessive lawfulness - when all is nothing, then nothing can be out of place; silence and oblivion is the ultimate order. Existence and life break the silence and introduce the concepts of randomness, chance, difference, and chaos; sure a lot of chaos involves destruction but I'd think an equal amount involves the creation of new things. (I have a long speech on the subject that my CN Chaos-worshiping Cleric on a Neverwinter Nights server called World Serpent Inn gave to a Dustman regarding the Inevitable End Of All Things and her stance on Order versus Chaos in the politics of Sigil, but it's on my computer at home.)
Why, exactly, is reducing everything to a state of still, stagnant nothingness associated with chaotic activity?
AH okay. That makes a bit more sense. The use of "void" made me think of "oblivion" or "nonexistence" more than "churning chaotic space soup". Thanks for the clear-up =)
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Creative Director
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James,
In your homebrew campaign you mentioned earlier, what was the power source of Baba Yaga's hut?
In Baria, magic flowed through reality along rivers called flowlines; these things functioned pretty much the same as ley lines. They were metaphysical rivers that flowed all over the place, and spellcasters and the like cold tap into them and reroute tiny trickles as they needed to make their spells work.
When two flowlines crossed, the more powerful ones absorbed the weaker ones into their flow, with a rare exception; when the two flowlines are PRECISELY EQUAL IN POWER they'd merge into a sort of crossroads called a flowline nexus.
Some spellcasters who discover a nexus can access the nexus's power to supercharge their spells.
When you had two nexuses in close proximity, they created a feedback loop of magic that caused strange things to happen in the world—a nexus focus. Unusually magical areas in Baria were almost always due to the presence of a nexus focus.
The RAREST of these was a triad focus—a point where three nexuses (usually those consisting of more than two crossed flowlines, in fact) are in close and equidistant proximity, making a triangle of nexus foci. At the heart of those three was a SUPER nexus type thing where the magic of those three was focused into the tirad focus. The site of a triad focus was where the most powerful effects of magic existed.
Nexuses and foci and triad foci are normally stable and immobile, but Baba Yaga found a way to uproot and transplant a triad foci and used that to build her hut around it. Her hut then carried its triad focus around in a deep chamber within, and Karzoug wanted access to that thing in order to become a god. The PCs defeated him, though, and one of the PCs used the triad focus to become a god of neutral magic.
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Creative Director
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Am I weird if I think Elves are highly overrated? They are not TEH BESTEST RACE EVAR, they're just tall humans with pointy ears and an unwarranted sense of superiority. Give me a gnome any day of the week.
You're not weird; there's plenty of other folks who feel the same way. Just as there are folks who think gnomes are the worst blight ever inflicted upon the game.
And for what it's worth, elves were never intended to maintain the Tolkein/Forgotten Realms "Sense of Superiority" in Golarion... but after 30 years of games playing them that way it's an uphill battle we're still fighting and still trying to train our writers to comprehend.
Anyway, elves are tied with humans for my favorite core race (as mentioned above). So as it turns out, I kinda do think they're one of teh bestest race evars.
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Creative Director
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I backed Wasteland 2 on kickstarter. Did you? I do notice they'll have a Mac port. They're also doing a new shadowrun game with a Mac port? Interested? I know you had a rough experience with the pen and paper version so I didn't know if you had an interest in a video game version.Just finished playing Tomb Raider like 5 minutes ago, and that was a fun one. I'm eager to start playing Bioshock Infinite. Looking forward to the next Metro game too. But the one I'm anticipating the most this year is Wasteland 2.Hi James,
Are there any video games you are particularly looking forward to in 2013?
Have a great day!
I missed the Kickstater, alas, but it's the Mac version of the game I've been planning on buying all along.
Not so interested in Shadowrun.
James,
Does Unspeakable Futures take place during, immediately after or way after the apocalypse? What caused the apocalypse? Was it the Lovecraftian, "The Star are Right", return of the Great Old Ones, more of a manmade event, like a nuclear war, or some of both?
Also, what was the level of technology at the time of man's fall in UF? You mentioned Androids and Nanotech, but was there any uber high-technology, like anti-gravity, force fields, or teleportation?
...also, what's your favorite of the Core races?That's a tie between humans and elves.
Greetings, Mr. Jacobs.
Taking for granted this, what is your view about half-elves?
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Creative Director
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| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
James,
Does Unspeakable Futures take place during, immediately after or way after the apocalypse? What caused the apocalypse? Was it the Lovecraftian, "The Star are Right", return of the Great Old Ones, more of a manmade event, like a nuclear war, or some of both?
Also, what was the level of technology at the time of man's fall in UF? You mentioned Androids and Nanotech, but was there any uber high-technology, like anti-gravity, force fields, or teleportation?
Unspeakable Futures is set about 60 years after the apocalypse, which itself took place in the first half of June, 2098.
There's a lot of advanced technology by 2098 CE, including cybernetics, nanotech, Jupiter tech (which is essentially gravity manipulation), and more.
The cause of the apocalypse was...
That background's still being tweaked and adjusted, but the first campaign I ever ran for the game (which went from 1st to about 20th level) was about the PCs finding out that...
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Creative Director
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...also, what's your favorite of the Core races?That's a tie between humans and elves.Greetings, Mr. Jacobs.
Taking for granted this, what is your view about half-elves?
I quite like them. My favorite ever character is a half-elf, after all. In fact, I think that half-elf might be my favorite race, since it combines the two.
Song of Ice & Fire (either Tyrian or Arya—someone short and bad-ass in any event)Hides Tyrion.
So if you had to choose one character from the following Books/Series to make a Parody/Homage to in a Pathfinder Module/AP which would you choose?
-Lord of the Rings.
-The Hobbit.
-A Song of Ice & Fire/A Game of Thrones.
-The Hunger Games Trilogy.
I hate to admit that it took me a minute to get who you meant by Tyrian...
Also I meant from Each Series not just one. And now I want to make a Dwarf Rogue based on Tyrion... Any Dwarf Subtype with a + to CHA? Arya I would say is fitting of a Halfling Rogue with a very potent Rapier.
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At what age do elves look/act like human adults in Golarion?According to the Core Rulebook, page 169, elves reach adulthood at 110 years.
Most D&D books had the same but different worlds had different ages they actually matured/aged.
Forgotten Realms had 30 year old elves who looked like grown up humans, for example, so I was curious what Golarion's take on this was.
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Creative Director
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Song of Ice & Fire (either Tyrian or Arya—someone short and bad-ass in any event)Hides Tyrion.
So if you had to choose one character from the following Books/Series to make a Parody/Homage to in a Pathfinder Module/AP which would you choose?
-Lord of the Rings.
-The Hobbit.
-A Song of Ice & Fire/A Game of Thrones.
-The Hunger Games Trilogy.I hate to admit that it took me a minute to get who you meant by Tyrian...
Also I meant from Each Series not just one. And now I want to make a Dwarf Rogue based on Tyrion... Any Dwarf Subtype with a + to CHA? Arya I would say is fitting of a Halfling Rogue with a very potent Rapier.
Oh.
I wouldn't make a dwarf based on Tyrion. I'd make him a Small human. And I'd make Arya a young human.
Lord of the Rings: Shelob as an intelligent magical giant spider.
The Hobbit: Smaug!
Hunger Games: I've only seen the movie so far, so I can't really say.