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What happens when all of the iconics get together and get themselves completely hammered?
I'm going to guess that the mess is very expensive.
James,
Of all of the upcoming books that you folks HAVE announced, which one are you the most excited about?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how cool do you think the idea of a Shieldmarshal Paladin is?
(Paladins can pull it off either with one level in Gunslinger or 11 levels of the Holy Gun archetype, or some combination of the two! I like how relatively cut-and-dry that one is to enter.)
Also what's the Best way to convince people to take CE creatures more seriously?
Most if not all of the people in my group seem to work under the assumption that CE = crazy stupid evil.
I'm not James, but I'd suggest putting them up against a cruel, long-term enemy like a Glabrezu...that'd learn 'em to dismiss CE as "chaotic stupid" >:)
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I'm not James, but I'd suggest putting them up against a cruel, long-term enemy like a Glabrezu...that'd learn 'em to dismiss CE as "chaotic stupid" >:)Also what's the Best way to convince people to take CE creatures more seriously?
Most if not all of the people in my group seem to work under the assumption that CE = crazy stupid evil.
I've tried but they don't seem to catch on in games I run, probably should have stated how best to convince as a fellow player or even outside the game.
Hey James,
Any internal talk of expanding the druid weapon list? In my opinion, the terbutje thematically fits the class especially well. Any official rulings on this weapon in particular?
Thanks :)
Hey James,
Any internal talk of expanding the druid weapon list? In my opinion, the terbutje thematically fits the class especially well. Any official rulings on this weapon in particular?
Thanks :)
If I understand it, druids can train to use any weapon,its only in Armour where it becomes an issue.
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Will there be a Game Designer contract-contest for 2014? Is there any other avenue for gainful employment at Paizo inventing new Pathfinder(TM) spells, equipment, Feats, etc. or writing; and if so, where are the submission guidelines...
James,
Of all of the upcoming books that you folks HAVE announced, which one are you the most excited about?
+1!
And how are you feeling?
Did James know we are finally going to get PROMETHEUS 2? Yay.
http://www.prometheus2-movie.com/news/1237
Hi, James!
I have a question about a minor design choice in Wrath of the Righteous. I don't think it's all that spoiler-y, but I'm going to put it behind a spoiler tag anyway...
I know you don't usually watch YouTube video links at work, but this made me think of a British comedy sketch by Mitchell & Webb, where two German officers in WWII come to a startling realization while examining their own uniforms...
What APs have you run or played in yourself? Who were the other players? Were they ever completed?
Hey James, i have this question elsewhere but one of the GMs suggested i re-post the question here for your feedback as the FAQ is a bit confusion. Please share your thoughts...
Holy wall of text! I can tell you James will either A) Direct you to the Rules forums to post your questions, B) suggest you use a house rule that works for your group, or both.
James: What do you do when your players begin to exhibit fatigue with a certain AP or adventure (if it all)? Do you have suggestions to breath new life into something being currently played?
@neferphras, where's your thread asking for a FAQ clarification? I think your point is worth the FAQ click, so I would be happy to add my vote.
James, I'm looking at a 'semi-random' encounter for a party trying to go directly to Orcus for an audience. How would you go about building that encounter? This is quite a bit beyond my experience since I'm stepping in for a DM late in the AP. The characters are high-level, which is probably obvious, but I don't remember the exact levels at the moment.
Creative Director
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On a scale of 1 to 10, how cool do you think the idea of a Shieldmarshal Paladin is?
(Paladins can pull it off either with one level in Gunslinger or 11 levels of the Holy Gun archetype, or some combination of the two! I like how relatively cut-and-dry that one is to enter.)
8. That number increases the more like Roland of Gilead the character gets.
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Creative Director
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Also what's the Best way to convince people to take CE creatures more seriously?
Most if not all of the people in my group seem to work under the assumption that CE = crazy stupid evil.
I dunno if it's the BEST way, but one way would be to give them Demons Revisited to read, or to run them through Wrath of the Righteous, since "Hey look, CE doesn't mean crazy stupid evil at ALL" is one of the primary things I'm trying to accomplish there.
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Creative Director
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Hey James,
Any internal talk of expanding the druid weapon list? In my opinion, the terbutje thematically fits the class especially well. Any official rulings on this weapon in particular?
Thanks :)
No talk of it whatsoever at all.
The druid list is what it is not because of balance, but because of theme... which includes the fact that they're heavilly inspired by Celtic and other European myths and traditions.
The best way to expand the druid weapon selection (beyond just taking a weapon proficiency or multiclassing) is to do an archetype that does it.
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Creative Director
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Will there be a Game Designer contract-contest for 2014? Is there any other avenue for gainful employment at Paizo inventing new Pathfinder(TM) spells, equipment, Feats, etc. or writing; and if so, where are the submission guidelines...
We do the RPG Superstar contest every year... or have so far. We haven't made any announcements about the next one... but Stay Tuned!
There's not a lot of other ways to gain employment at Paizo, other than working a lot to get your work published by other companies, seeking us out out at conventions to chat with us and attend our seminars, and then apply for job positions as they open up.
We aren't currently accepting submissions at all for any of our print lines. All of those products are outlined by us and assigned by us to freelancers.
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Sorry to bother you with this but how much the does the Drakainia's Mutation affect the CR of it's spawn?It doesn't affect the spawn's CR at all. That CR boost is technically part of the Drakainia's CR.
K but what if the spawn wern't encountered with the Drakaina? The idea I got is for her to be running a country entirely populated with her spawn.
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Creative Director
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Hi, James!
I have a question about a minor design choice in Wrath of the Righteous. I don't think it's all that spoiler-y, but I'm going to put it behind a spoiler tag anyway...
Spoiler:In the magic items section of Sword of Valor, there are descriptions of the various righteous medals that can be awarded to heroes of the Fifth Crusade. One thing that threw me about the medals is how creepy-looking the item descriptions are for several of them. Why would lawful good servants of Iomedae award medals adorned with grinning demonic visages? Shouldn't the medals have images that inspired hope, courage, and, um, righteousness? For example, the Righteous Medal of Agility is described as a "triangular iron medal [that] shows a demonic face surrounded by three swords." Wouldn't a more appropriate image be of, say, a rearing white stallion in golden barding?
I know you don't usually watch YouTube video links at work, but this made me think of a British comedy sketch by Mitchell & Webb, where two German officers in WWII come to a startling realization while examining their own uniforms...
Lawful good doesn't automatically mean "Must look cute and friendly and pretty." Look at the couatl or the guardian naga for examples!
One of the (many) themes I wanted to include in Wrath of the Righteous is precisely that—sometimes, good is ugly and evil is beautiful. Making some of the rewards you get as medals look scary or creepy is part of that effort.
Something like the "triangular iron medal of 3 swords surrounding a demonic face" is more grim and spooky and more accurately represents what's going on in the Crusade. It's NOT a happy place... it's a tough and brutal place. The idea of a demonic head surrounded by three longswords (Iomedae's sword) is akin to a demon being trapped and rendered powerless in a magic circle, in any event, or that it's surrounded on all sides by Righteousness.
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What APs have you run or played in yourself? Who were the other players? Were they ever completed?
I ran Savage Tide from start to finish.
I ran Serpent's Skull, starting as a playtest for my adventure "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv." We got to midway through part 4 earlier this year but I had to cancel it due to lack of time to run it, alas.
I'm currently playing in Skull & Shackles. Up to the midway point of the 2nd adventure there.
I played in a Kingmaker campaign that fell apart halfway through the 1st adventure when Rob, the GM, wanted to run Skull & Shackles instead.
Beyond that, significant elements of some of the Adventure Paths we've published were first homebrew campaigns and adventure paths I ran for my group over the years, including the Karzoug stuff from Runelouds, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and the serpentfolk elements from Serpent's Skull.
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Hey James, i have this question elsewhere but one of the GMs suggested i re-post the question here for your feedback as the FAQ is a bit confusion...
Unfortunately, this isn't the proper place to get FAQ confusion cleared up. In times before when I've directly attempted to do this, it's ended up causing certain folks here MORE confusion and frustration, since my interpretations aren't always 100% in line with the "official" interpretations by the rules team. And since I'm the Creative Director, no matter how much I say "Here is MY OPINION ONLY," that doesn't solve things since people either ignore that or say "Your opinion doesn't matter then and we want Jason to explain it."
So... I don't.
Your question needs to be directed to the rules team and the FAQ. And frankly, if the GM says otherwise and you have great respect for them, there's no better way to PROVE that respect than by saying, "Yup, you're right; let's go with your interpretation of it instead of the FAQ, since your interpretation makes more sense." There's nothing wrong with that at all. I don't use all the FAQ or rules as written in my home games even... NO GM should feel forced to do that.
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James, I'm curious ...
When you play a session of your home campaign (or are playing in someone else's home campaign) are you able to 'turn off the professional game designer' in you and just have fun or is a part of you always observing and evaluating rules and such?
I's be curious if this is something other professional designers and developers have to deal with as well ...
Hi, James!
I have a question about a minor design choice in Wrath of the Righteous. I don't think it's all that spoiler-y, but I'm going to put it behind a spoiler tag anyway...
** spoiler omitted **
Lawful good doesn't automatically mean "Must look cute and friendly and pretty." Look at the couatl or the guardian naga for examples!
One of the (many) themes I wanted to include in Wrath of the Righteous is precisely that—sometimes, good is ugly and evil is beautiful. Making some of the rewards you get as medals look scary or creepy is part of that effort.
Something like the "triangular iron medal of 3 swords surrounding a demonic face" is more grim and spooky and more accurately represents what's going on in the Crusade. It's NOT a happy place... it's a tough and brutal place. The idea of a demonic head surrounded by three longswords (Iomedae's sword) is akin to a demon being trapped and rendered powerless in a magic circle, in any event, or that it's surrounded on all sides by Righteousness.
Thanks for the explanation!
I really do get the "good can look ugly" angle. I never meant to imply that LG creatures had to be refugees from My Little Pony. My favorite paladin that I ever played (back in 2nd ed AD&D, IIRC) was "Duke," a grim, gruff, cigar-chomping, no-nonsense character who wore lots of leather that I modeled on "The Man With No Name" from the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns. His catchphrase was "I never said I was nice."
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James: What do you do when your players begin to exhibit fatigue with a certain AP or adventure (if it all)? Do you have suggestions to breath new life into something being currently played?
It kinda sucks... but usually the best thing to do here is to shelve the campaign and start something new. Just did that with my Serpent's Skull game, in fact.
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@neferphras, where's your thread asking for a FAQ clarification? I think your point is worth the FAQ click, so I would be happy to add my vote.
James, I'm looking at a 'semi-random' encounter for a party trying to go directly to Orcus for an audience. How would you go about building that encounter? This is quite a bit beyond my experience since I'm stepping in for a DM late in the AP. The characters are high-level, which is probably obvious, but I don't remember the exact levels at the moment.
I'd grab a copy of Dungeon #149 if I were you, since that adventure has this exact encounter—the PCs going directly to Orcus for an audience—in it. You can probably lift that whole section from the adventure "Enemy of My Enemy" for use.
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Hi, James. : )
I recently realised that The Red Hand Of Doom was one of your's. While I loved reading through it, and imagined it'd be great to run, my DM skills are no match for the task; I'm a player first and foremost.
One particular thing gave me a great deal of difficulty: the phylactery!
The adventure assumes that when the PCs recover it, they'll return it to you-know-who in order to sabotage his (forced) alliance with the BBEGs. Seemed obvious to me, but not my players. They just wanted to destroy it.
Not being a very good DM, I tried to explain what the arguments were, as I felt that the characters would know the score and didn't want to punish the PCs for something the players don't know.
1.) Do liches know if their phylactery is destroyed, despite the hundred miles or so separating lich and phylactery?
2.) Can a lich make a new one if the old one is still intact?
3.) Can they make a new one at all? Even if the old one is destroyed?
4.) Does destroying the phylactery harm (or somehow alert) the lich?
5.) If it was destroyed, how would the lich know who did it? My players said that surely the lich would assume that the same BBEG that had it stolen also had it destroyed, so their alliance would suffer anyway.
Well, in the end I felt like I basically railroaded my players to return the phylactery, just to keep the adventure on course. Not my proudest moment, but due to my lack of skill not my worst either. : )
You'll be glad to know that the reason that adventure got abandoned had nothing to do with the adventure itself. You'll also be relieved to learn that I've stuck to being a player ever since. : )
1. Is the first hex already claimed when I found my nation in Kingmaker? Also, do I have to pay Consumption at the start of my first turn (before I've even built anything)?
2. Is it possible for a LG settlement with the pious quality to discriminate differently? For example, a LG city devoted to Winlas (whose big thing is orthodoxy of good-aligned faiths) discriminating as against non-good faiths instead of 2+ alignment steps away.
3. How close can I place settlements with stockyards next to each other? Also, why do stockyards reduce stability?
4. How much does it cost to raise an army? All I can find is how much it costs to maintain one.
6. How would a prison deal with spellcasters who don't need spellbooks?
7. How much humiliating poetic justice can a paladin get away with? (e.g., making a corrupt noblewoman auction off her wardrobe piece by piece.)
8. What kingdom benefits do I get for annexing Pitax? Pathfinder #35 doesn't mention any.
9. Why did Paizo choose the empyreal lords it did for Bestiary 4? (Not complaining, just curious.) Also, what sort of empyreals won't be in a Bestiary? I'm hoping the prudes who prompted the "dance hall" change don't scare Paizo away from Arshea.)
10. Speaking of empyreals, why are the mental ability scores so low for Cernunnos and Videlis?
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Creative Director
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James, I'm curious ...
When you play a session of your home campaign (or are playing in someone else's home campaign) are you able to 'turn off the professional game designer' in you and just have fun or is a part of you always observing and evaluating rules and such?
I's be curious if this is something other professional designers and developers have to deal with as well ...
I don't have a big problem turning off the professional game designer part of my brain when I run a game. Often I'll wing rules or make things up as I go rather than pause the game to track down a rules element, in fact. I'll even deliberately break rules in some ways to throw off players at my table who are pretty deep into the rules, just to try to get them to think less of rules and more of the experience as a whole.
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Creative Director
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1.) Do liches know if their phylactery is destroyed, despite the hundred miles or so separating lich and phylactery?
2.) Can a lich make a new one if the old one is still intact?
3.) Can they make a new one at all? Even if the old one is destroyed?
4.) Does destroying the phylactery harm (or somehow alert) the lich?
5.) If it was destroyed, how would the lich know who did it? My players said that surely the lich would assume that the same BBEG that had it stolen also had it destroyed, so their alliance would suffer anyway.
Well, in the end I felt like I basically railroaded my players to return the phylactery, just to keep the adventure on course. Not my proudest moment, but due to my lack of skill not my worst either. : )
You'll be glad to know that the reason that adventure got abandoned had nothing to do with the adventure itself. You'll also be relieved to learn that I've stuck to being a player ever since. : )
1) Yeah, they would know. It'd be like having a cold chill run up your spine or a sudden looming sense of dread.
2) They could, but once the new one is finished, the old one stops being a phylactery and the new one replaces it.
3) Yes.
4) Destroying a lich's phylactery doesn't hurt it, but does freak it out and angry it up.
5) The lich would only know it was destroyed; he'd have to use magic and minions and investigations (all things liches are VERY good at, fortunately) to track down who was responsible. The assumption that the same BBEG destroyed it is just that... an assumption. The PCs would be well-advised to plant additional evidence to frame said BBEG. In any event, once a lich's phylactery is destroyed, he would likely retreat into safe seclusion and avoid conflicts until he can repair the phylactery... he CERTAINLY wouldn't rush out to join a war!
4.) Does destroying the phylactery harm (or somehow alert) the lich?2) They could, but once the new one is finished, the old one stops being a phylactery and the new one replaces it.
Aw, so that means no Harry Potter style "Seven Phylacteries" for a Mythic Lich? ;-)
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Aw, so that means no Harry Potter style "Seven Phylacteries" for a Mythic Lich? ;-)4.) Does destroying the phylactery harm (or somehow alert) the lich?2) They could, but once the new one is finished, the old one stops being a phylactery and the new one replaces it.
No that just means artifacts come into play :3
The Iron Gods Adventure Path.James,
Of all of the upcoming books that you folks HAVE announced, which one are you the most excited about?
Yay! I'm excited about that, too :)
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Creative Director
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1. Is the first hex already claimed when I found my nation in Kingmaker? Also, do I have to pay Consumption at the start of my first turn (before I've even built anything)?
2. Is it possible for a LG settlement with the pious quality to discriminate differently? For example, a LG city devoted to Winlas (whose big thing is orthodoxy of good-aligned faiths) discriminating as against non-good faiths instead of 2+ alignment steps away.
3. How close can I place settlements with stockyards next to each other? Also, why do stockyards reduce stability?
4. How much does it cost to raise an army? All I can find is how much it costs to maintain one.
5.
Spoiler:Let's say I get rid of Drelev's guards and giants (Pathfinder #34). Would I be able to get the citizens of Fort Drelev to make sure no food gets into Drelev Keep?
6. How would a prison deal with spellcasters who don't need spellbooks?
7. How much humiliating poetic justice can a paladin get away with? (e.g., making a corrupt noblewoman auction off her wardrobe piece by piece.)
8. What kingdom benefits do I get for annexing Pitax? Pathfinder #35 doesn't mention any.
9. Why did Paizo choose the Empyreal Lords it did for Bestiary 4? (Not complaining, just curious.) Also, what sort of Empyreals won't be in a Bestiary? I'm hoping the prudes who prompted the "dance hall" change don't scare Paizo away from Arshea.)
10. Speaking of Empyreals, why are the mental ability scores so low for Cernunnos and Videlis?
1) IIRC, you have to claim that first hex normally... but until you have something that uses consumption, you don't have to pay it (AKA the first turn is free.)
2) That's up to your GM.
3) Why would there be a limit? And they're a new addition to the rules—they weren't in the original Kingmaker rules, and therefore since I wasn't involved in the Ultimate Campaign version I can't say why they reduce stability... it might be a typo. That's a good FAQ question for the rules boards.
4) The cost to maintain the army on the first time you pay it is essentially the cost to raise it.
5) With the right amount of roleplaying and siegework, sure.
6) Taking away spell components or divine focuses. Cutting out tongues. Gagging. Breaking fingers. Binding them tight. Cutting off hands. Sleep deprivation. Keeping the prisoner unconscious. Robes of powerlessness. Antimagic.
7) As much as the GM allows, which should not be a lot. Humiliating someone isn't a good act.
8) None, really, other than removing an enemy from the board.
9) I believe Wes picked them, so you'd have to ask him. I do know we had a last-minute change and swapped in Vildeis to replace one that was not working out. Arshea is a good example of one we'd probably not do in a hardcover but might some day in the Campaign Setting line.
10) Because that's what the designer did. I didn't design them... in hindsight, I should have, since I designed ALL the other demigods in the book.
Why are the mental ability scores so low for Cernunnos and Videlis?Because that's what the designer did. I didn't design them... in hindsight, I should have, since I designed ALL the other demigods in the book
1. So who was the designer? Speaking of which...
2. In the bestiary credits, what's the difference between being an author and member of the design team?
You: "Why would there be a limit [to settlements with stockyards]?"
Each settlement with a stockyard buffs all adjacent farmland, with each farm lowering Consumption by 3 instead of 2. Now imagine a lot of stockyard settlements in areas with a lot of farms...
Not that I'd mind.