1) How many months / years of work was put into making Golarion as a campaign setting, and how many people were involved?
I'm finding challenges here and there with the creation of my own campaign world, but a friend has volunteered to collaborate with me.
2) Since Aroden was THE god of humanity and Iomedae is the one who inherited his will so to speak, would that not make her the new god of humanity?
Then again, my cynical side says Norgorber is the real god of humanity, since I have a rather bleak outlook on humans as a whole.
At least elves, dwarves and gnomes are usually of a good alignment according to the Core Rulebook and Advanced Race Guide.
3) If Lissala is technically a homage to Wee Jas, why is her alignment Lawful Evil and not Lawful Neutral?
4) Which one do you prefer, Arcane or Divine magic?
5) How much concern do you think one should put in deities having overlapping spheres of influence?
Nurgal and Sarenrae are both solar deities, but they seem to represent different aspects of the sun as a whole.
6) Have you ever played Demon's Souls? I don't recall if you've played Dark Souls either.
7) Has there been any other expeditions akin to that of those of Taldor on Golarion?
They reminded me a bit of that period in history when Christopher Columbus and other people started "discovering" the other continents.
8) What's your opinion on moral ambiguity / grey areas in a campaign? I do not mean the orc baby scenario or the prisoner dilemma (those are just silly), but something like the party being hired by the church of Iomedae to kill or neutralize an evil person they know of only to find that said person isn't exactly as evil as claimed. On the contrary, the person is selfless but has tried to go about doing good the wrong way, such as by wielding an evil magic item to do so. Those who this person has managed to help consider him/her a hero, and defend said person almost fanatically from the party they consider to be the real villains, perhaps even causing them to question the nature of their mission.
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The game is really built to support battles where the participants take up one five-foot-square. The more squares things take up, the weirder things get.
Would some sort of house rule that a creature can take a 'step' equal to half of it's space (minimum 5 ft.) perhaps help here?
A horse or ogre with a 10 ft. space, or even a hydra with a 15 ft. space would still only get a 5 ft. step, but an ancient blue dragon with a 20 ft. space would be able to take a 10 ft. 'step' and full attack and the colossal Tarrasque with a 30 ft. space could take a 15 ft. 'step' and full attack.
If not as a generic rule applying to all size Gargantuan+ creatures, would it perhaps make a suitable specific monster ability usable by certain kaiju?
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1-) d20 critics argue that the HP system eliminates some of the dramatic elements and lets PCs to feel secure. Low-levels are fine, your life is one step away from a critical hit. But the scaling makes a great power difference between high and low levels. As a GM you should try to challenge the party with appropriate CR encounters, but sometimes the setting and your story don't allow you to scale enemies in order to challenge them (For example, in A Song of Ice and Fire setting it is ridiculous that just a minor noble house has a bunch of level 13 fighter henchmen) Sometimes my campaigns get to a point where their argument become true. It is seriously hard to kill a high-level PC with a low-level NPC even if PCs are not aware of them. I find myself compelled to let one of my NPC to have some sort of magical creature's service for no reason but to make my PCs to feel the fear of death and severity of the case. Saving Throws and AC have a similar problem. What is your opinions and suggestions about it?
2-) Do you use homebrew rules? If so, could you tell some of your favorite ones?
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Isn't there a creature type in bestiary 2 (or maybe 3...) that's all about being giant, civilization-consuming monsters sent by vengeful gods? and aren't they all CR 20 or lower? How are Kaiju different than those monsters, except in scale?
I actually know nothing about Kaiju on Golarion. is that information public yet, or will it be revealed in the bestiary 4?
Those are the behemoths. They're different in theme, presentation, and scale from kaiju, in the same way an ogre is different than a hill giant, or a young red dragon is different than a great wyrm red dragon, or an iron golem is from an adamantine golem.
There's very little information about kaiju yet; they're mentioned in Dragon Empires Gazetteer as being one of many creatures that live in the Valashmai Jungle, but that's pretty much it. Bestiary 4 is the place we're debuting them, at which point the differences between kaiju and behemoths and spawn of Rovagug will be clear.
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what kind of tropes do you think fantasy settings (in general, and looking at Golarion) are missing out on?
Before Game of Thrones came along, I would have said "Mature topics for grown-ups—AKA fantasy stories that are rated R and aren't aimed at children." But thank Desna for HBO!!!
I DO wish we could get away with doing more mature content than we already do in Golarion—I think we've pushed things pretty far as it stands, though, which is a nice change from the "safer" fantasy that has held back D&D in times past.
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1) Are we going to get some more definitive information on Casmaron, Southern Garund or the Azlanti Archipelago anytime soon ?
Say, like an Explorer's guide (Pathfinder's guide to far-off realms^^) ?
2) Despite JJ not being the greatest of Dwarf fans, any chance for some more dwarf-love, or expanded take on their background and society outside the five kingdom mountains ? Or any expanded race books at all - not more races, but more insights in what makes them tick, Golarion-wise ?
3) Any expanded information coming up for Galt, Molthune etc ?
1) Not to the extent you seem to be asking for. We'll have bits and pieces here and there, but not a lot.
2) Again, here and there, but not a book focused on the topic. For example, there's a dwarven castle in Castles of Golarion—that book isn't a dwarf book, but 10 of its pages are pretty dwarfy. We'll doubtless be doing other dwarfy things in the future as parts of books here and there, but nothing we've annoucned yet is all dwarf all the time.
3) Not in anything we've announced.
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The game is really built to support battles where the participants take up one five-foot-square. The more squares things take up, the weirder things get.Would some sort of house rule that a creature can take a 'step' equal to half of it's space (minimum 5 ft.) perhaps help here?
A horse or ogre with a 10 ft. space, or even a hydra with a 15 ft. space would still only get a 5 ft. step, but an ancient blue dragon with a 20 ft. space would be able to take a 10 ft. 'step' and full attack and the colossal Tarrasque with a 30 ft. space could take a 15 ft. 'step' and full attack.
If not as a generic rule applying to all size Gargantuan+ creatures, would it perhaps make a suitable specific monster ability usable by certain kaiju?
My preference:
We scrap the terminology "five foot step" entirely and replace that with something else. 4th edition uses the word "shift" and that'll do for the purposes of this discussion.
And then, I'd say that you can shift without provoking an attack of opportunity a distance equal to your reach.
For the majority of Small and Medium creatures, and for several Large creatures, that means you're still moving the five foot distance.
Larger creatures can thus move more, so if you have a creature that's Space/Reach 30/30, it can shift a single 30 foot square without provoking an attack of opportunity.
Of course, that also brings up other design complications, such as a requirement that all creatures should either have a land speed that's at least equal to their reach (so they can't shift faster than they can walk), or a rule that you can't shift more than your base speed or more than half your base speed or something like that.
But even then, that only touches the tip of the iceberg for how weird things get when monsters get that big.
Do kaiju gain a +1 bonus to hit for higher ground if they stand on a 5 foot tall platform?
Do kaiju treat difficult terrain the same as Medium creatures do, even though its foot might be big enough to crush that rubble or tangled low undergrowth flat?
How do monsters that big interact with emanations and auras?
Can you climb around on something this big?
Etc.
The kaiju subtype in Bestiary 4 provides some answers to some of these questions... you're just gonna have to wait to see what they are though.
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1-) d20 critics argue that the HP system eliminates some of the dramatic elements and lets PCs to feel secure. Low-levels are fine, your life is one step away from a critical hit. But the scaling makes a great power difference between high and low levels. As a GM you should try to challenge the party with appropriate CR encounters, but sometimes the setting and your story don't allow you to scale enemies in order to challenge them (For example, in A Song of Ice and Fire setting it is ridiculous that just a minor noble house has a bunch of level 13 fighter henchmen) Sometimes my campaigns get to a point where their argument become true. It is seriously hard to kill a high-level PC with a low-level NPC even if PCs are not aware of them. I find myself compelled to let one of my NPC to have some sort of magical creature's service for no reason but to make my PCs to feel the fear of death and severity of the case. Saving Throws and AC have a similar problem. What is your opinions and suggestions about it?
2-) Do you use homebrew rules? If so, could you tell some of your favorite ones?
1) Depends entirely on the type of game you're playing. Both "what game system are you using" and "what theme is the game you're playing?" In Call of Cthulhu, the fact that your hp never increase means that this argument is valueless. But honestly, even in the games I'm running here for Pathfinder, where the players are professional game designers and their characters have grown from 1st level up to 14th, they still feel nervous about character death. I don't think the argument is true for everyone—it's only true if you let it be true.
2) I use very few homebrew rules, since I'm in a position where most of the homebrew rules I use end up in the game anyway. A few that I use that AREN'T in the rules:
a) Breath of life is renamed to cure deadly wounds so that clerics can swap out to cast it without having to prepare it.
b) When a bard gains a new versatile performance, he gets to reallocate his skill ranks as he wishes to take advantage of his versatility more.
c) When you roll your hp for a new level, you ALWAYS get to reroll ones, and if you feel like your hp are too low and it turns out your hp is below average, I generally just bump your hp up to average for your level.
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1) How many months / years of work was put into making Golarion as a campaign setting, and how many people were involved?
I'm finding challenges here and there with the creation of my own campaign world, but a friend has volunteered to collaborate with me.
2) Since Aroden was THE god of humanity and Iomedae is the one who inherited his will so to speak, would that not make her the new god of humanity?
Then again, my cynical side says Norgorber is the real god of humanity, since I have a rather bleak outlook on humans as a whole.
At least elves, dwarves and gnomes are usually of a good alignment according to the Core Rulebook and Advanced Race Guide.3) If Lissala is technically a homage to Wee Jas, why is her alignment Lawful Evil and not Lawful Neutral?
4) Which one do you prefer, Arcane or Divine magic?
5) How much concern do you think one should put in deities having overlapping spheres of influence?
Nurgal and Sarenrae are both solar deities, but they seem to represent different aspects of the sun as a whole.6) Have you ever played Demon's Souls? I don't recall if you've played Dark Souls either.
7) Has there been any other expeditions akin to that of those of Taldor on Golarion?
They reminded me a bit of that period in history when Christopher Columbus and other people started "discovering" the other continents.8) What's your opinion on moral ambiguity / grey areas in a campaign? I do not mean the orc baby scenario or the prisoner dilemma (those are just silly), but something like the party being hired by the church of Iomedae to kill or neutralize an evil person they know of only to find that said person isn't exactly as evil as claimed. On the contrary, the person is selfless but has tried to go about doing good the wrong way, such as by wielding an evil magic item to do so. Those who this person has managed to help consider him/her a hero, and defend said person almost fanatically from the party they consider to be the real villains, perhaps even causing them to question the nature of their mission.
1) We started working on Golarion in earnest back in 2006, and have been working on it ever since. Today, we've got about 20 folks down here on the ground floor working on various aspects of the word side, and more upstairs on the art side. But significant portions of Golarion have been worked on for much longer—when we started, I more or less donated large portions of my homebrew campaign setting to Golarion so that we could get a pretty big jump start on things to get it all rolling. Significant parts of Varisia, Mediogalti Island, Kyonin/Tanglebriar, the Hold of Belkzen, and the Darklands, for example, are all from my home brew setting, as are about 2/3 of the gods. And I've been working on THOSE since about 1983 or thereabouts... So it's not inaccurate to say work on Golarion's been going on for 30 years.
2) One of the things that shifted in the world with Aroden's death was that humanity no longer had a single "representative" among the gods, and that the "god of humanity" is now more or less something shouldered and shared by the core 20 deities. Which include Iomedae, who already had plenty of things going on when Aroden died and didn't have the bandwidth to add "goddess of humanity" to her already heavy schedule.
3) Lissala isn't an homage to Wee Jas. At least, not on purpose. Pharasma is more inspired by Wee Jas than any other deity in the setting, although without any of the vanity or magic stuff.
4) Divine magic.
5) Deities with overlapping spheres of influence are interesting and compelling. That not only sets up some implied competition and/or alliances between the gods, but it also models the fact that certain aspects of the world can be worshiped in fundamentally different ways—you can worship the sun as a bringer of life (in that it lets plants grow and prevents us from freezing) or a bringer of death and pain (in that it causes droughts and skin cancer and blindness) without fundamentally changing what the sun is, but those two ways of looking at what it is suggest DRASTICALLY different religions.
6) I actually just finished playing Demon's Souls a few weeks ago. I played Dark Souls back when it came out, and am about half-way through the NG+ content. They're both VERY fun games—I like Dark Souls better, but Demon's Souls is brilliant as well. Among the best videogames I've played; both are probably in my top 20 list, and Dark Souls is probably in my top 10.
7) Not to the scale and number that Taldor did... but there have been some significant explorations from Minkai to the Land of the Linnrom Kings over the Crown of the World, and several expeditions to Arcadia from the Linnorm Kings, Cheliax, Andoran, and Taldor.
8) I love them. Moral ambiguity and gray areas are excellent sources of conflict and drama. They're best, of course, when you have players who are interested in them as well—they can be frustrating when, say, you have a player who's not interested in anything of the sort and plays a paladin mostly because he views that as rules-permission to PVP anyone who's not both lawful good and subservient to his paladin's opinions and commands.
Many class abilities obtained through class features such as Sorcerer Bloodline or Cleric Domains grants the character spell-like abilities. However, many of these "... Ray" or "Touch of ..." don't emulate existing spells, but their descriptions also don't list what level of spell it should be treated as (such as Elemental Ray or Touch of Chaos) or what kind of effect type they carry (such as Vision of Madness).
I am not sure whether I missed something or whether this was intentional, since sometimes things come along like the Sage Bloodline's Arcane Bolt ability, which describes both the spell level and effect type for it. In any case, how should I determine the level or effect types for these abilities should they be subject effects like Spell Turning, Globe of Invulnerability, or Mind Blank?
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James, as a dinosaur aficionado did you ever see a movie called "A Sound of Thunder"? If so, what did you think of this "gem"?Is that based on the Ray Bradbury story? I believe it was done as a short on Ray Bradbury Theatre. You really have to work to go wrong with Bradbury.
It is based on a Ray Bradbury story. And I don't know how much work it actually took to go wrong...
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Creative Director
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James, as a dinosaur aficionado did you ever see a movie called "A Sound of Thunder"? If so, what did you think of this "gem"?
I was eagerly awaiting that movie's release for like 2 years. It's production cycle was VERY troubled, including having a major flood hit during filming that caused huge delays.
That said, I saw it back-to-back with another movie, one called "The Cave." I saw The Cave first, and got out of it thinking it was a really pretty bad movie.
"A Sound of Thunder" made "The Cave" look like the best movie of the year. "A Sound of Thunder" was probably the WORST movie I'd seen all year. It pretty much did nothing right, which really frustrated me, since the original Bradbury short story it was based on is probably my FAVORITE of his short stories.
Terrible movie.
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Many class abilities obtained through class features such as Sorcerer Bloodline or Cleric Domains grants the character spell-like abilities. However, many of these "... Ray" or "Touch of ..." don't emulate existing spells, but their descriptions also don't list what level of spell it should be treated as (such as Elemental Ray or Touch of Chaos) or what kind of effect type they carry (such as Vision of Madness).
I am not sure whether I missed something or whether this was intentional, since sometimes things come along like the Sage Bloodline's Arcane Bolt ability, which describes both the spell level and effect type for it. In any case, how should I determine the level or effect types for these abilities should they be subject effects like Spell Turning, Globe of Invulnerability, or Mind Blank?
Yeah, that's a problem that we didn't realize was a problem until too late. You'll note that when we do this now, such as for unique monster spell-like abilities, we assign effective spell levels.
It's not intentional.
The best way to handle it is to basically assume that spell-like abilities granted in this manner are equal to the minimum spell level a character of that level could cast. So if you get one of these things at 1st level, it's a 1st level spell. If you get one at 7th level, it's a 4th level spell. If you get one at 14th level, it's a 7th level spell. And so on.
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James, as a dinosaur aficionado did you ever see a movie called "A Sound of Thunder"? If so, what did you think of this "gem"?Is that based on the Ray Bradbury story? I believe it was done as a short on Ray Bradbury Theatre. You really have to work to go wrong with Bradbury.
Turns out, they knew what they were doing when they made the movie as far as "going wrong."
Crappy effects.
Crappy screenwriting.
Crappy acting.
Crappy makeup.
Crappy direction.
Crappy soundtrack.
And then they capped it all off by adding a whole "timequake" element to extend the movie's plot out far beyond what the short story did.
It is, in fact, a good movie to watch so that you know where to set your expectations for any movie. It helps give perspective to movies you might think are bad but aren't that bad.
what kind of tropes do you think fantasy settings (in general, and looking at Golarion) are missing out on?Before Game of Thrones came along, I would have said "Mature topics for grown-ups—AKA fantasy stories that are rated R and aren't aimed at children." But thank Desna for HBO!!!
I DO wish we could get away with doing more mature content than we already do in Golarion—I think we've pushed things pretty far as it stands, though, which is a nice change from the "safer" fantasy that has held back D&D in times past.
As you probably know White Wolf had an imprint called Black Dog that they used to publish their more mature content. Do you think that something like that could work for Paizo to allow a release of more mature content?
Hey James, has anyone at Paizo ever unofficially statted up Calistria's one herald that's a, um, "variant" chaos beast? Y'know, the one that's...friendly, shall we say?
I was looking for some info on jungle adventures and stumbled upon your articles on WotC's website about jungle adventuring on Far Corners of the World. So here is my dilemma.
I am running a Kingmaker game that takes place on a Caribbean island with rainforests. The players are exploring and I'm trying to come up with some good encounters that don't just involve 'ancient jungle ruins'. What ideas do you have in mind?
So since you do know about Demon's Souls, I shall ask...
Dear Mr. James Jacobs,
Did you ever watch the movie Dracula 3000? If so what did you think?
Would some sort of house rule that a creature can take a 'step' equal to half of it's space (minimum 5 ft.) perhaps help here?
A horse or ogre with a 10 ft. space, or even a hydra with a 15 ft. space would still only get a 5 ft. step, but an ancient blue dragon with a 20 ft. space would be able to take a 10 ft. 'step' and full attack and the colossal Tarrasque with a 30 ft. space could take a 15 ft. 'step' and full attack.
That is the exact houserule I've been using for a while now. It works for most situations but still only works about 75% of the time for Colossal monsters since some Colossals are much bigger than others.
The kaiju subtype in Bestiary 4 provides some answers to some of these questions... you're just gonna have to wait to see what they are though.
Thank you so much. I was really hoping you'd do this for the Kaiju. Without asking for specifics, may I ask if something similar is being applied for the Oliphaunt of Jandelay when it debuts in Mythic Realms?
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As you probably know White Wolf had an imprint called Black Dog that they used to publish their more mature content. Do you think that something like that could work for Paizo to allow a release of more mature content?what kind of tropes do you think fantasy settings (in general, and looking at Golarion) are missing out on?Before Game of Thrones came along, I would have said "Mature topics for grown-ups—AKA fantasy stories that are rated R and aren't aimed at children." But thank Desna for HBO!!!
I DO wish we could get away with doing more mature content than we already do in Golarion—I think we've pushed things pretty far as it stands, though, which is a nice change from the "safer" fantasy that has held back D&D in times past.
Heck... White Wolf's baseline products were pretty mature content, if I recall correctly.
And Chaosium regularly delves into some pretty mature content in their Call of Cthulhu game.
I think using an imprint could perhaps work for Paizo, but I'd shift over to that imprint if I could which would perhaps have an impact on stuff going on here at Paizo, so I think that in the long run such a move would perhaps not be in the best interest of the company's work flow. ;-)
I'd rather just have Paizo publish it.
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So since you do know about Demon's Souls, I shall ask...
** spoiler omitted **
I really REALLY love how both games mix up the expectations now and then by having "boss fights" that either make you feel guilty or make you question whether you're doing the right thing. "The Last of Us" is another game that pulled this off.
To answer the spoilered question...
James,
Are Linnorm Death Curses removable normally by Remove Curse with the appropriate caster level check vs its DC?
Do Linnorm Kings usually resist the curses or have them removed, or do they live with them if they are affected?
How strict is the requirement for the linnorm kill needed to become a linnorm king to be single combat? Does it forbid any assistance before or immediately afterwards?
I never did. There's ALL SORTS of warning flags on that movie that kept me from watching it.Dear Mr. James Jacobs,
Did you ever watch the movie Dracula 3000? If so what did you think?
Such as?
Although I will say it is the second worse movie i've ever seen.
How common is the knowledge that the Aboleths were responsible for Earthfall?
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Hi James, I have a few questions.
1) Is there any chance of seeing more info on the Technic League, Numeria, or the the technology of the Technic League between now and next August?
2) Along the same lines of question #1 any chance of seeing some character type options (feat, items, or Archetypes) for technology minded Pathfinders in the next year?
3) any chance of some space/Dark Tapestry type content coming out in the next year?
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James,
Are Linnorm Death Curses removable normally by Remove Curse with the appropriate caster level check vs its DC?
Do Linnorm Kings usually resist the curses or have them removed, or do they live with them if they are affected?
How strict is the requirement for the linnorm kill needed to become a linnorm king to be single combat? Does it forbid any assistance before or immediately afterwards?
Yup; they're hard to remove due to their high DC, but they're still just curses.
The badass kings make their saves. The other ones have to find ways to get them removed or just live with them.
More details on linnorm hunts appear in "Lands of the Linnorm Kings."
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I never did. There's ALL SORTS of warning flags on that movie that kept me from watching it.Dear Mr. James Jacobs,
Did you ever watch the movie Dracula 3000? If so what did you think?
Such as?
Although I will say it is the second worse movie i've ever seen.
To pick three:
1) The title reeks of goofy.
2) Its 2.0 rating on IMDB.
3) Casper Van Dien.
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Hi James,
I need clarification:1) A Haunt, regardless of how it was created (haunted house, haunted chair, etc.) the only way to identify it is by casting Detect Undead and/or Detect Alignment at a -4. Correct?
2) A cursed item, in order to identify it you need to roll 10 above the normal DC. If not the PC only identifies the normal magical properties. Correct?
I have this chair item. Whoever sits on it gains the Fast Healing 2. Also, I added a Poltergeist (site bound to the chair).
How do I consider this chair. Is it a cursed item or a haunt?
Many thanks for your help.
1) True seeing would work, I would say. There could be other methods as well, depending on your preference. The whole point is that they should be creepy, and if allowing the PCs to notice a haunt before it manifests or to identify its powers via, say, a Perception check or a Knowledge (religion) check increases the creepy factor, by all means do it!
2) Correct.
3) Your chair is a magic item guarded by a monster. No haunts or curses involved.
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Hi James, I have a few questions.
1) Is there any chance of seeing more info on the Technic League, Numeria, or the the technology of the Technic League between now and next August?
2) Along the same lines of question #1 any chance of seeing some character type options (feat, items, or Archetypes) for technology minded Pathfinders in the next year?
3) any chance of some space/Dark Tapestry type content coming out in the next year?
1) There's a chance for ANYTHING to happen. Since more info on the Technic League, Numeria, or the tech of the region are all "things" then yes, by definition, there's a chance.
2) There's a chance for ANYTHING to happen. So... sure, why not?
3) That, to some degree, depends on how folks react to the Dark Tapestry elements that we're putting out this year in Doom Comes to Dustpawn and Dragon's Demand. And there's a little bit more showing up in a small part of "Demon's Heresy," part 3 of Wrath of the Righteous.
How common is the knowledge that the Aboleths were responsible for Earthfall?Not common at all. In fact, knowledge that aboleths even exist is not common knowledge.
One of the rumors in one of the Skull and Shackles volumes is about a fisherman who caught a "Three-Eyed Tentacle Shark" and subsequently disappeared.
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1) True seeing would work, I would say. There could be other methods as well, depending on your preference. The whole point is that they should be creepy, and if allowing the PCs to notice a haunt before it manifests or to identify its powers via, say, a Perception check or a Knowledge (religion) check increases the creepy factor, by all means do it!2) Correct.
3) Your chair is a magic item guarded by a monster. No haunts or curses involved.
Hi James,
Thanks. So, if its a magic item guarded by a monster, a detect magic spell or spellcraft to ID will determine the magical property. Only way to detect the monster (poltergeist) in this case is after it manifest and if they see it. Correct?
Yup; detect magic followed by the normal Spellcraft check will reveal what the chair does. They can defeat the poltergeist in the normal way you defeat monsters—combat!
Are there any coliseums on Golarion? The party I run is nearing Korvosa by boat and is getting dangerously close to helping stage a mutiny, which could get them throw. In the coliseum as punishment. Any thoughts?
James, looks like you might've missed my question. I'll repost it.
I was looking for some info on jungle adventures and stumbled upon your articles on WotC's website about jungle adventuring on Far Corners of the World. So here is my dilemma.
I am running a Kingmaker game that takes place on a Caribbean island with jungles. The players are exploring and I'm trying to come up with some good encounters that don't just involve 'ancient jungle ruins'. What ideas do you have in mind?
I am running a Kingmaker game that takes place on a Caribbean island with jungles. The players are exploring and I'm trying to come up with some good encounters that don't just involve 'ancient jungle ruins'. What ideas do you have in mind?
Traders wash ashore and involve the PCs in a trade dispute. Eventually the PCs end up stumbling uncontrollably into allowing their own chancellor to seize absolute power right out from under their noses.
An acquaintance of the party stumbles upon an offshore reef full of dangerous intelligent jellyfish and cries out for help!
A small craft operated by two crew and carrying five passengers on a short crew is wrecked in a storm and they become castaways near the PCs encampment. Hilarity ensues.
Sahuagin Attack! - attack of the killer sahuagin.
*insert pirate-related trope-encounters here* - corsairs, perhaps "Against All Flags" style instead of Johnny Depp wacky zaniness. Or maybe "War Rafts of Kron"
The PCs stumble upon the Isle of Lost Souls, full of uplifted, awakened anthro-beasts (are they not men?) under the thumb of an evil Druid.
I am running a Kingmaker game that takes place on a Caribbean island with jungles. The players are exploring and I'm trying to come up with some good encounters that don't just involve 'ancient jungle ruins'. What ideas do you have in mind?Traders wash ashore and involve the PCs in a trade dispute. Eventually the PCs end up stumbling uncontrollably into allowing their own chancellor to seize absolute power right out from under their noses.
An acquaintance of the party stumbles upon an offshore reef full of dangerous intelligent jellyfish and cries out for help!
A small craft operated by two crew and carrying five passengers on a short crew is wrecked in a storm and they become castaways near the PCs encampment. Hilarity ensues.
Sahuagin Attack! - attack of the killer sahuagin.
*insert pirate-related trope-encounters here* - corsairs, perhaps "Against All Flags" style instead of Johnny Depp wacky zaniness. Or maybe "War Rafts of Kron"
The PCs stumble upon the Isle of Lost Souls, full of uplifted, awakened anthro-beasts (are they not men?) under the thumb of an evil Druid.
A Giant Squid has started harassing the shipping lanes to the island kingdom. Perhaps the increased traffic has frightened much of it's food source away and the squid has become irate. Maybe it is the envoy of something from the depths that could be a repeat threat to the party/kingdom.
A horde of goblins from a neighboring isle have landed ashore and are making themselves a nuisance in the jungles. Setting up pit traps, snares, using poisoned darts. Think this but Pathfinder.
Freak storm hits the island, PCs have to rescue civilians and get them to safety; have them makes ability checks, skill checks and saves to avoid blowing objects, climb over debris, withstand the wind etc. Afterward, sea-monsters have been washed ashore and need to be removed/killed before repairs and normal life can happen.
Lesser storm beached fishing vessels, and the village needs to gather to help put the boats back. During the ordeal, some of the afore-mentioned goblins attack, and the PCs need to drive them off.
A crazy cannibalistic druid has made his home in the jungle and has been capturing and eating villagers. He's bred himself a small army of jaguars (panthers) to hound the farmers and villagers. Other possibility is a Witch that seduces then kills and eats the villagers, while maintaining a pack of jaguars.
Zombies originally come from voodoo so you could maybe have an attack from JuJu Zombies.
Lots of ideas for island adventures.
Luckily, I do have jaguars statted up to be slightly different, but the same CR, as a leopard.
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Creative Director
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Are there any coliseums on Golarion? The party I run is nearing Korvosa by boat and is getting dangerously close to helping stage a mutiny, which could get them throw. In the coliseum as punishment. Any thoughts?
Absolutely; most of the larger cities actually have some form of arena or coliseum. Magnimar has the Serpent's Run, for example. Tymon in the River Kingdoms has a famous one, as does Absalom. They're all over.
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Creative Director
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James, looks like you might've missed my question. I'll repost it.
I was looking for some info on jungle adventures and stumbled upon your articles on WotC's website about jungle adventuring on Far Corners of the World. So here is my dilemma.
I am running a Kingmaker game that takes place on a Caribbean island with jungles. The players are exploring and I'm trying to come up with some good encounters that don't just involve 'ancient jungle ruins'. What ideas do you have in mind?
Well... some of those Far Corners articles about jungles or islands or the tides have some of my older ideas.
And "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv," which takes place on a tropical island, has a bunch of others.
