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Would a Fire specialized Magus be a good representative for the Pyromancer class and build from Dark Souls or should I just build a new class from the ground up?theres a Pyromancer, a very neat 20 level class from fat goblin press!!
i enjoy it at all (also, the class brings a lot of new fire themed spells)
new fire spells? Yay! thankies, but the Pyromancer class from Dark Souls that I was referring to is more of an up close combatant (with an affinity for axes) so the magi made more sense for it.
4) You've mentioned before that in a hypothetical 2nd Edition, you think iterative attacks should be replaced by everyone getting the Vital Strike chain automatically. Do you think that, unlike the Vital Strike chain, bonus damage would get multiplied if this were implemented?
Actually, a question related to this... would it be that you get a choice to make one attack with more damage dice or a series of separate attacks, or would it be vital strike only base, with maybe a series of iterative attack feats?
Also, in pathfinder as it is, thoughts on houseruling vital strike to be one scaling feat instead of a series?
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James (back to an earlier skipped question from me), what is the strangest currency you have come across in a tabletop RPG?
Huh; thought I answered this one.
In an early version of my Unspeakable Futures, bullets were currency. But I quit that when several players got all weirded out by it and switched to generic "barter points."
No actually other weird currency comes to mind immediately.
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Ah! My Woohoo is thusly held in check now. I too was hoping for some sort of clinging rules. Mythic content maybe?I can tell by the tone of your WOOHOO that you're really eager for these rules. Gird your expectations. It's not a complete new rules set for fighting kaiju. It's 2 or 3 sentences of brief notes and advice on the topic. It's not a lot at all, as I said.
Bestiaries aren't the place to introduce complex new rules subsystems.
Nope.
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I have a Game master question, do you award experience points after every encounter or at the end of the session. just curious as to your view, i myself have been at the end but have been thinking about going the other route with Reign of Winter, which is great so far.
I almost always award XP at the end of a session. I sometimes award them in the middle of a session, such as when an adventure ends or something happens that the PCs need to have a chance to level up, but that's unusual.
Awarding XP after every encounter is too time consuming and disruptive to the flow of game play.
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1) In the Inner Sea World Guide, the Tower of Slant Shadows in Nidal is said to actually be a Star Tower used by Zon-Kuthon to help bind Rovagug. Was this done while he was still Dou-Bral?
2) Did his transformation into Zon-Kuthon change the nature of the Star Towers?
3) How do new gods emerge besides from the Test of the Starstone? If you can't reveal how it happens for Golarion, can you say how other campaign settings have handled it?
4) You've mentioned before that in a hypothetical 2nd Edition, you think iterative attacks should be replaced by everyone getting the Vital Strike chain automatically. Do you think that, unlike the Vital Strike chain, bonus damage would get multiplied if this were implemented?
5) Do you have an idea of how you would deal with balancing critical feats to compensate for the reduced number of chances to crit?
1) Unrevealed.
2) Unrevealed.
3) All sorts of ways. Irori, for example, self-achieved godhood. Lamashtu became a god by killing other gods. Urgathoa did so by becoming the first undead. And so on; there's lots of different methods tied to story elements.
4) Probably, but that'd also depend on a LOT of other stuff.
5) I wouldn't change them at all. Fewer attacks = fewer critical hits = a more stable game-play experience, which is good for game balance.
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Concerning the Assassin prestige class, would you allow someone who was basically taken and inducted into the organization at a young age but later escaped actually take levels in the prestige class once they hit the other requirements to represent all the training the went though or would they still have to be evil/ apart of an assassin team/group/organization?
Depends if they were written by/played by a writer as talented as George Martin.
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4) You've mentioned before that in a hypothetical 2nd Edition, you think iterative attacks should be replaced by everyone getting the Vital Strike chain automatically. Do you think that, unlike the Vital Strike chain, bonus damage would get multiplied if this were implemented?
Actually, a question related to this... would it be that you get a choice to make one attack with more damage dice or a series of separate attacks, or would it be vital strike only base, with maybe a series of iterative attack feats?
Also, in pathfinder as it is, thoughts on houseruling vital strike to be one scaling feat instead of a series?
No choice. Iterative attacks slow the game down and trick/force fighters and other martial characters into bad tactics and/or make combat boring AND overly complex.
Considering the fact that you dislike dwarves, how much do you dislike humans?
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James, you might want to considering doing a total full stop on any rules answer, because it's happening again.
I was wondering if you could clear up to me the various ethnicities of the human iconic characters.
I could figure out that Seoni is Varisian, Kyra is Keleshite, Seelah and Alahazra should be Garundi, Sajan is Vudrani, Valeros and Alain are Taldan, Amiri is Kellid and Hayato, Reiko and Feiya would most likely qualify for Tian-Min.
Only with Ezren I cauldn't tell. I didn't find his name particularly fitting with any of the naming conventions and being from Absalom is not exactly narrowing it down much.
Also interesting would be the human halves of Lirianne, Damiel, Seltiyel and Imrijka.Ezren is Taldan. Absalom is a true melting pot as far as names go.
Lirianne and Damiel likely had Taldan parents; Seltiyel definitely had a Chelaxian parent, and Imrijka probably had a Kellid parent.
I thought Damiel was a full Elf... No wonder Merisiel feels lonely. :(
oh; duh.
Yeah; Damiel is a full elf. I was tricked.
Ah, I wasn't aware. My bad.
Is there a limit to how many summoned monsters you can control?
Has Paizo been satisfied with the sales of the RotRL hardcover? Satisfied enough that you'd consider giving the same treatment to other hard-to-get APs in the future? What about an occasional (as in when you can allocate resources) AP that only appears in hardcover, such as the Emerald Spire book from the Kickstarter?
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Concerning the Assassin prestige class, would you allow someone who was basically taken and inducted into the organization at a young age but later escaped actually take levels in the prestige class once they hit the other requirements to represent all the training the went though or would they still have to be evil/ apart of an assassin team/group/organization?Depends if they were written by/played by a writer as talented as George Martin.
You have successfully intimidated me Mr. T-Rex Sir.
Hey James! I love your involvement with the community. Question for you:
Rangers don't get an animal companion till 4th level, and as you pointed out the selection was slimmer as well because Jason didn't feel Rangers needed a bad-ass companion. However with the introduction of the Mad Dog archetype, we now have a powerhouse Barbarian having a full druid list of animals to choose from and they get their companion at level 1.
1) Is there any ideas currently of creating a ranger archetype with a featured companion at level 1?
2) Do you have any input on class features that could be switched or removed to make having an animal companion at first level viable for a ranger? Currently there is the "Falconer" archetype, which restricts choices to only bird companions, and the companion is much weaker until the ranger hits 4th level.
Ideas that come to mind are reduced Favored Enemy bonuses (halved), pushing back the ability to cast spells till later (or reducing the number of spells per day). Alternatively, what about a Combat Style that focuses on an Animal Companion?
Thanks!
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James, you might want to considering doing a total full stop on any rules answer, because it's happening again.
I'm not gonna do a full stop on rules answers. I did make a post to the thread you quoted, but it was mostly to correct your claim that I didn't design the orginial alchemist class (I did—the design team was having trouble coming up with a niche for how the class would work, and since it was a class I'd been championing for inclusion in the book from the start, I wrote up the class so they could see my vision for it, which included extracts, bombs, poison use, and mutagens), or that I don't write any crunch (I do—in fact, I probably write as much crunch as anyone on the design team when you include all the new rules elements that go into Pathfinder Adventure Paths, modules, campaign settings, etc.).
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3) All sorts of ways. Irori, for example, self-achieved godhood. Lamashtu became a god by killing other gods.In line with this, Lamashtu was a demon lord (albeit an extraordinarily powerful one) before she achieved godhood.
1) Since gods go unstatted, how could a demon lord (which will be stattable when Mythic is released) defeat one, since you need to be a full deity to beat a deity?
2) Linked with the first question, how did Lamashtu manage to tear the portfolio away from Curchanus? It's a nonspecific "laid a trap" explanation at the moment.
3) It's said that Lamashtu stole Curchanus' "Beasts" portfolio, and as a result ascended to godhood. Is that linked to the four-domains-demigod, five-domains-true-deity aspect? So once she stole the domain, she instantly ascended to a full deity?
As an unrelated question:
4) Valeros and Merisiel tied in their bout in Pathfinder #7 (the comic). Is that a regular result of their practice, or does one or the other usually get the upper hand?
1) By using tricks, powerful magic, artifacts, and their own status as demigods and planar rulers to take out the god. Just because deities don't have stats doesn't mean they can't be killed... it just means that PLAYER CHARACTERS can't kill them. They can be killed all we want for the purposes of story or world-building.
2) Unrevealed. She did. Once we put rules to how she did it, it's no longer a "thing she did that was so unparalleled and powerful that myths and religions result."
3) Nope. The exact point and trigger that ascended Lamashtu from demigod to full deity is unrevealed.
4) Merisiel sometimes lets him win to keep his male ego from being hurt too badly, as seen in the comic.
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Im considering taking the Channeled Revival feat from Ultimate Combat page 92 on my PFS character, but im not quite sure about how it works and its not like i can rely on GM ruling it for every new game.
so do it have a 30 ft. range like channel energy or a touch range like breath of life?
It uses the standard 30 foot range of channel energy but only affects one target.
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Is there a limit to how many summoned monsters you can control?
Sort of.
There's no limit to the number of summoned monsters a character can control, but the GM is free to impose a limit on the number of summoned monsters a PLAYER can have in play at any one time, since that monopolizes the game and makes things less fun for the other players—each time you summon a monster, remember that you're essentially stealing "game time" from your fellow players, since the length of your session isn't expanding to make up for the fact that your turns in the combat are taking longer and longer to resolve.
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Has Paizo been satisfied with the sales of the RotRL hardcover? Satisfied enough that you'd consider giving the same treatment to other hard-to-get APs in the future? What about an occasional (as in when you can allocate resources) AP that only appears in hardcover, such as the Emerald Spire book from the Kickstarter?
We are very satisfied with the sales.
That's not what decides whether or not we do something like that again, though. The primary point of the RotR Anniversary Edition wasn't to make money, but was to celebrate our anniversary. We might do something like this again in the future for another anniversary or event, but at the same time we are VERY concerned about the perception that folks can stop buying APs as they're published so they can wait for the compiled edition. If that happens, no one gets any APs because we'd stop being able to publish them.
Why is that? Costs.
Look at it from the customer viewpoint first. What's easier on your wallet? Spending 22 bucks a month for 6 months for an AP? Or spending 132 bucks all at once for the same product?
The same goes for us, but it scales up dramatically, since we not only have to pay for every piece of art and every single word all at once if we were forced to switch over to doing full AP products because folks stopped buying the serialized ones... but we'd also lose 5 months of cash flow every six months. That's a good way to go out of business.
Considering the fact that you dislike dwarves, how much do you dislike humans?Humans are one of my four favorite races in the game—tied with elves, half-elves, and tieflings.
I'll forgive your transgression just because of that last part.
Though now if I may inquire, how do do you feel about...
1. Changelings
2. Dhampir
3. Aasimar
4. Fetchlings?
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Hey James! I love your involvement with the community. Question for you:
Rangers don't get an animal companion till 4th level, and as you pointed out the selection was slimmer as well because Jason didn't feel Rangers needed a bad-ass companion. However with the introduction of the Mad Dog archetype, we now have a powerhouse Barbarian having a full druid list of animals to choose from and they get their companion at level 1.
1) Is there any ideas currently of creating a ranger archetype with a featured companion at level 1?
2) Do you have any input on class features that could be switched or removed to make having an animal companion at first level viable for a ranger? Currently there is the "Falconer" archetype, which restricts choices to only bird companions, and the companion is much weaker until the ranger hits 4th level.
Ideas that come to mind are reduced Favored Enemy bonuses (halved), pushing back the ability to cast spells till later (or reducing the number of spells per day). Alternatively, what about a Combat Style that focuses on an Animal Companion?
Thanks!
1) No. I'm not aware of the mad dog archetype, but that's an interesting observation. Might be worth asking that question of the developers directly to see if that was just a slip up in their game design philosophy or what.
2) I generally do not have any input on this, since I'm busy doing other things. The one exception is when it's an archetype I'm designing or developing for a book I'm working on—that excludes the hardcover rulebooks.
Dragonne was reprinted in Bestiary 3 from 3.5 Monster Manual. Now this reprint dont match well with the stats given for Dragonne Animal Companion given in the Bonus Bestiary.
Is this was intent to make the Companion weaker or just forgot to update the Animal Companion stats in Bestiary 3?
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Would it be too far fetched to allow Fiendish creatures to take Tiefling feats and traits?
Likewise for Celestial creatures and Aasimar feats and traits.
Not from a game balance viewpoint, I guess, but from a story viewpoint I would say so. Those feats and traits are tiefling/aasimar traits for a reason.
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Considering the fact that you dislike dwarves, how much do you dislike humans?Humans are one of my four favorite races in the game—tied with elves, half-elves, and tieflings.I'll forgive your transgression just because of that last part.
Though now if I may inquire, how do do you feel about...
1. Changelings
2. Dhampir
3. Aasimar
4. Fetchlings?
1) Cool.
2) Cool.
3) AWESOME. They're probably race # 5 for me.
4) Meh.
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Dragonne was reprinted in Bestiary 3 from 3.5 Monster Manual. Now this reprint dont match well with the stats given for Dragonne Animal Companion given in the Bonus Bestiary.
Is this was intent to make the Companion weaker or just forgot to update the Animal Companion stats in Bestiary 3?
Stats for companions never really perfectly match the "monster" versions. They're meant to capture the flavor and feel of the companion but to present it in a way that keeps them balanced against other companion options. That sometimes means making changes to the companion version of the creature from its monster version.
Question I've been forgetting to ask for a while.
The Mythic Adventures cover - the iconics decked out in their high level gear is pretty neat. Seoni wearing a Robe of Stars, a cool, immediately recognizable item, is a great touch. Was the Robe of Stars part of the art order, or did Mr. Reynolds do that on his own initiative?
Since you are a fan of George R.R. Martin, have you read much of his horror? Any favorites?
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Question I've been forgetting to ask for a while.
The Mythic Adventures cover - the iconics decked out in their high level gear is pretty neat. Seoni wearing a Robe of Stars, a cool, immediately recognizable item, is a great touch. Was the Robe of Stars part of the art order, or did Mr. Reynolds do that on his own initiative?
I didn't do the art order, but generally we don't super-direct Wayne's covers. He knows the world pretty dang well.
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Since you are a fan of George R.R. Martin, have you read much of his horror? Any favorites?
I have. In fact, his horror work is what I knew him for first, long before I read Game of Thrones. "The Skin Trade" stands out as one of the better ones. It's also one of the better werewolf stories I've read.
"Pugwampis [would do the comically suicidal things you described]."
1. What about goblins or mites?
"If you use word puzzles in your game for the players to puzzle out, then you should use the number system the players are into."
2. No, I meant the script on the floor (M1, p.53). What's that based on?
3. Interested in seeing pictures of obnoxious pastry heads being tortured?
4. Is Taldane really identical to English?
5. If massive damage is an instant kill, is massive nonlethal damage instant unconsciousness?
6. Could I use the blood money spell in the final round of casting a 10-minute spell?
7. For all advanced familiars (e.g., paracletus), does the wizard need to be the exact alignment or can she be one step away from it?
8. Is programmed amnesia a viable 3.5E spell to import into Pathfinder?
9. What level would a wizard need for a succubus familiar?
10. Suppose I were to start an "ask [character] anything" thread for Sorshen (I know, I know. You can stop groaning). Any advice?
"Companies who defend their mistakes either come off as arrogant, ignorant, or stubborn."
Oh, the ranting I could go on about White Wolf...
Skin Trade is great (would make a really good movie). Meathouse Man would get my vote to his best "horror" story.
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"Pugwampis [would do the comically suicidal things you described]."
1. What about goblins or mites?
"If you use word puzzles in your game for the players to puzzle out, then you should use the number system the players are into."
2. No, I meant the script on the floor (M1, p.53). What's that based on?
3. Interested in seeing pictures of obnoxious pastry heads being tortured?
4. Is Taldane really identical to English?
5. If massive damage is an instant kill, is massive nonlethal damage instant unconsciousness?
6. Could I use the blood money spell in the final round of casting a 10-minute spell?
7. For all advanced familiars (e.g., paracletus), does the wizard need to be the exact alignment or can she be one step away from it?
8. Is programmed amnesia a viable 3.5E spell to import into Pathfinder?
9. What level would a wizard need for a succubus familiar?
10. Suppose I were to start an "ask [character] anything" thread for Sorshen (I know, I know. You can stop groaning). Any advice?
1) Sure!
2) I need a better reference, since it's been a bit since the first question... page 53 of what book?
3) Not really.
4) Nope, but for the sake of ease and clarity, it's easiest to assume that it's constructed the same way. Since we all need to use language to interact anyway. (Feel free to substitute "English" for your language of choice, of course.)
5) If by "massive damage" you mean "enough damage to knock someone to negative Con hp in one shot," then yes, the parallel among nonlethal damage is instant unconsciousness.
6) Nope, because casting blood money must be cast "just before casting another spell," not "just before you finish casting another spell."
7) As indicated in the text for "Improved Familiar," you need to be within one step of the alignment.
8) Any and every spell could be a viable spell to import into Pathfinder, regardless of original game system. It depends only on the GM's preference.
9) Can't. Succubi aren't options for familiars, ever. If you want a succubus minion and you're a wizard, the main options would be to either use planar binding, dominate/charm monster, or Leadership (which would require some GM adjudication).
10) I would rather not have a "ask Sorshen anything" thread start up, because I don't want just anyone answering for her, and I'd rather keep her on the mysterious side for now if possible.
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I believe you may have mentioned before what region catfolk would be found in. I'm wondering if you were to do a guide of that continent like the inner sea guide or dragons empire one would catfolk ve classed as one of the core races of that continent? (Like how Tengu Kitsune ect are in Tien-xia.)
Catfolk on Golarion are from southern Garund. If we do a Garund world guide, like we did with the Dragon Empires Gazetter, I am 99% sure we'll do with the catfolk there what we did with tengus—aka, make them one of the core PC race options for Garund.
"I need a better reference, since it's been a bit since the first question... page 53 of what book?"
Pathfinder #62.
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"I need a better reference, since it's been a bit since the first question... page 53 of what book?"
Pathfinder #62.
Ah.
Hmm.
I'm still not sure why knowing what script the writing in this room is based on is necessary to run the encounter... and I'm now further confused by the fact that you've referenced both area M2 and the "Chamber of the Seven" which is not area M2 but is, in fact, M1.
I swear I'm not trying to be difficult here. If you could endure my request to help me understand once more... maybe reply with the entire question rephrased?
"I swear I'm not trying to be difficult here. If you could endure my request to help me understand once more... maybe reply with the entire question rephrased?"
All right.
Pathfinder #62, p.53. M1 is referenced beginning in p.52 but goes into p.53. On p.53 there's a map (The Lady's Light -- Upper Level), the section on the left (M1 and M1a-h) has writing circling around a starburst.
Is this writing based on Arabic or Quenya?
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"I swear I'm not trying to be difficult here. If you could endure my request to help me understand once more... maybe reply with the entire question rephrased?"
All right.
Pathfinder #62, p.53. M1 is referenced beginning in p.52 but goes into p.53. On p.53 there's a map (The Lady's Light -- Upper Level), the section on the left (M1 and M1a-h) has writing circling around a starburst.
Is this writing based on Arabic or Quenya?
OH! I understand now.
I'm actually not sure. That writing is an artistic flourish that particular cartographer often puts onto his maps... much to my and the art team's consternation and frustration, because of this exact problem—it makes it look like there's information that we're hiding from GMs and that the writing is actually important and key to the adventure.
The writing is NOT important, and had I notice it, I would have asked the art director to ask the cartographer to remove it from the map, as I do for all the other unneded script that appears on maps. It's unnecessary—it looks pretty, but it's confusing.
Worse... if it's in a language we don't know... an artist or cartographer can hide hidden messages in there. WotC's had problems with that before, with other artists and cartographers thinking they were being cute by putting profanities or political rants in writing in their art or maps. In the modern age, it generally takes ten to twelve seconds from the book appearing on the shelf for someone on the internet to translate those words, and suddenly you can get in a LOT of trouble. And that doesn't even touch the legal problems a company might get in for using a trademarked font or language or something like that without paying the proper licensing fees.
The first time this cartographer did this on a map it completely sailed by all of us because we were totally not expecting it and the script was so small and subtle that it didn't even show up legibly in our relatively-low-end editing computers, but when the product was in print, the script was quite legible and it was obvious that there were a lot of characters used in that particular font that we didn't have access to, so several of the otherwise beautiful flowing script characters were printed instead as plain rectangles, which resulted in a (fortunately still subtle and relatively easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking for) pretty embarrassing error.
SO... long story short, I don't know what the script is, but it shouldn't be there and it's certainly not on the floor in-game for folks to see. My guess... the original map had a LOT more unneeded flourishes and script and art and stuff on it that we had the artist edit out (or simply had our art directors mask/clone out) and that one got missed.