1) How stupid or insane would Baphomet have to be to think that he can kill Asmodeus? That seems more or less impossible. I mean, killing Barbatos or something..that's a lofty goal, but at least it has a possible outcome other then "you fail, miserably."
2) Moreover, if he hates Asmodeus more then anything, then what's he doing with the Worldwound? Why not have the Templars infiltrate Cheliax?
3) How possible would it be to play an ex-Templar defector in WoTR?
4) Are there paladin orders dedicated to specific Empyreal Lords, especially serving in the crusade against the Worldwound?
5) How can followers of a Demon Lord like, say, Shax be Chaotic Neutral? He seems so brutal, twisted, and horrific that being a Complete Monster is a prerequisite for worshiping him. The reason I ask is because a player in my campaign attracted the attention of Pazuzu, who demanded that she serve him or face his wrath. Someone pointed out that the (CN) player could still worship him and not be evil.
6) So the ancient Osirion gods are literally the Egyptian pantheon. Are any of them Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, or Neutral Good? Basically, can I play an Egyptian Paladin? Or failing that, a really useful cleric. Because undead are going to be a major enemy in Mummy's Mask, and Ra obviously has the Sun domain.
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Favorite Legend of Zelda game?That is, if you have one.
Bonus, can you think of anything in D&D/Pathfinder that might draw its inspiration from a Zelda game?
I guess the first one? I never really had access to a Nintendo, so I never played any of them save the first one, which I played over one weekend that I borrowed a friend's Nintendo and rented the first Zelda game. Alas... I got to the ghost sword in the graveyard in the upper right corner and either because of a bug in the game or because I did something wrong, I couldn't pick it up, and thus couldn't finish the game. I bought a Wii many years ago, along with the first Zelda game for it, but I never even peeled the shrink-wrap off that game, I think.
There's plenty in tabletop RPGs that draw inspiration from Zelda, and vice versa. Not sure I'd recognize them though; that's a better question for Wes.
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I was totally expecting the link to go here.Sure! The vast majority are magical beasts, but there could well be humanoid kaiju.
For example, click here.
Also a good example... but she's shorter and less prone to eating people and spitting out their clothes.
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So, speaking of Kaiju, I remember seeing the art for this guy up on the store blog at some point.
http://daveallsop.deviantart.com/art/Kaiju-281750389?q=gallery%3ADaveAllsop %2F21353800&qo=25
Was that Kaiju originally planned for Bestiary 4, then cut for space? Does it represent one of the Kaiju named Kaiju from the side bar? Any chance we'll see it in the future?
The Kaiju was originally planned for Bestiary 3, and that's the art we got. Unfortunately, at that point, the idea was that Kaiju was to be a template, and as it turns out, not only is that an impossible template to do in 2 pages, but it's also just a bad idea for the same reasons a "dire animal" template is a bad idea. Kaiju are and should be all unique, and templates tend to make things kinda samey—that's the whole point of a template.
FURTHERMORE... if the kaiju in that book was to be a template... what the heck would the base monster be in that case? A fire-breathing cthulhu needs to be something that is recognizably from a base creature, and there's not really any good choices... which meant that the template would have to so alter the base creature that whatever the base creature was would become meaningless. Furthermore... we've had plans to do stats for Cthulhu for many years, and I didn't want to muddy the waters by having stats for Cthulhu AND stats for a fakey-kaiju-Cthulhu. So... the kaiju was cut from Bestiary 3, and I became it's champion for Bestiary 4 (I wasn't the champion for its design in Bestiary 3, which I guess might be part of the reason why there were so many mis-steps in its conception there).
That all said, it's certainly a cool piece of art. It's just not one we'll be using in a Pathfinder product since it's just not something we need. It does not represent one of the other kaiju—it's too close to Cthulhu and we have one of those already.
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1. Have you ever considered an adventure path where the downtime activities were the main focus of the campaign?
2. Would Sheila Heidmarch trust anyone besides pathfinders with finding about Natayla? i.e., What if the PCs have some other group affiliation?
3. Did anyone complain that Skull and Shackles was too low-level like they did with Council of Thieves?
4. How worried should I be about accidentally repeating what someone else did for RPG Superstar?
5. Do empyreal lords have holy texts like full deities do?
6. I've no problem with Ghenshau, a LG empyreal lord of ignorance of all things, but how would that work out?
7. Which empyreal lords did you create?
8. Besides the above, which empyreal lords do you know well enough to comment on?
9. What sort of room would I use for a beauty parlor? (Hairstyling, waxing, massage, etc.)
10. What are the most advanced sanitary wipes available in Golarion, and where specifically can I find them? Yes, I think about this sort of thing frequently.
1) Kingmaker. We also used proto-downtime stuff all the way back in Legacy of Fire. I've considered an AP that focuses even more on Downtime... but that starts getting weird. It's far away from the core strength of the game, first of all... and it also starts requiring a LONG time in-game to play out. Years or even decades if you take it to the extreme, and once we officially have an AP that takes decades in game to resolve... that starts to get weird with the question of "what's going on with the rest of the world?"
2) She's friendly and discerning. She'd trust any group of PCs who seems legit and wants to help, regardless of their affiliation with the Pathfinders. AKA: You don't have to play Pathfinders in Shattered Star.
3) Not that I've seen. Skull and Shackles isn't low level like Council of Thieves. Council of Thieves caps out at about 13th level, while Skull & Shackles caps out at 15th or even 16th level. Those two levels make all the difference.
4) Less worried than doing the best job you can on your creation. It's not so much the idea that we're looking for in RPG superstar, but the contestant's ability to convey and present that idea in an awesome way. We're looking for great, well-rounded writers and game designers, not idea generators.
5) Most do. Holy texts are pretty much a given once your religion is organized and civilized.
6) I'd probably start with the phrase "Ignorance is bliss." Bliss is a good thing.
7) Sarenrae, Ashava, Soralyon and Ylimancha. Although I believe I only invented one of those names (Sarenrae). And the sum total of my design work on the other three is one sidebar in Magnimar. I did no writing or development at all on Chronicle of the Righteous.
8) That's pretty much it... and of the four above, Sarenrae's the only one I really know a LOT about. I guess I'd add Pulura to the list since I read up on her a bit for the Worldwound stuff. But with the exception of Sarenrae... pretty much any significant question about any Empyreal Lord is something I'd need to go to Chronicle of the Righteous to read up on and then give my best guess as to how I would reply... which wouldn't necessarily match the original intent. But since I'm the Creative Director, my reply would likely then become and REPLACE the original intent... and since I don't always want to do that... since often I want to involve those who have more invested in a topic to let them make those decisions... I tend to get a bit cagey and unwilling to provide answers of significance. And say things like "That's a Wes question."
9) Any of these would work, depending on the flavor you want: Alchemy Lab, Altar, Artisan's Workshop, Ceremonial Room, Classroom, or Office.
10) Strips of cloth, probably. Until you go magic, in which case I guess a wand of prestidigitation or some sort of item that lets you cast prestidigitation would do the trick.
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1) Approximately how long does it take a god to create/elevate an demi-diety or quasi-diety? Desna allegedly created Black Butterfly; Asmodeus created most of his archdukes (Geryon and Barbatos are the outsiders, IIRC); Lamashtu elevated both Nightripper and Baphomet from petitioners directly to nascent demon lords.
2) Do you picture this as being a lengthy and time consuming process? A quick but extremely intense process?
3) Is it rarely done because of the time/energy commitment involved?
4) Is it rarely done because of the scarcity of suitable materials (souls)? (Ex. Nightripper, the greatest serial killer of all time, and Baphomet, the first minotaur, were pretty damn exceptional as mortals to begin with, and so perhaps met some threshold requirement.)
1) Varies. Depends on the story we want to tell. There aren't rules for that SPECIFICALLY so we can tell the story "the god created a demigod in the blink of an eye" AND "the god created a demigod after a million years of toil." Both are cool story elements and both serve different goals and themes, and both are valid.
2) See above. Depends on the story we want to tell.
3) It's rarely done because it's really difficult and can't always happen. The skill and time and location and so much more need to be just right.
4) Nope.
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In Brevoy, do the Aldori Swordlords have alliegence to one of the families, or are they their own faction with their own lands?
I feel like Brevoy is built for a Nation wide campaign as opposed to Varisia's very nice fleshed out regional AP's, do you agree or are there good threads to pick out a smaller city for a campaign?
The Swordlords are kinda their own thing; they have alliances and rivalries with the Brevic families but not really one sworn allegiance to them.
I think ALL of our regions are built for nationwide campaigns. That's why we built them.
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James, we know that most Archdevils were once Angels (I think Geryon and Barbatos are the exception). My question is, are there any Demon Lord that were once celestials? (besides Nocticula, that may or may not be one)
The only demon lord that I think was for sure once a celestial was probably Sifkesh... and she was a devil in the middle somewhere there as well, I suspect.
Whether or not Nocticula started as a powerful azata or not is unrevealed. Yet.
James,
Quick question:
1) Can a native outsider be bound by planar binding and similar spells?
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Creative Director
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1) How stupid or insane would Baphomet have to be to think that he can kill Asmodeus? That seems more or less impossible. I mean, killing Barbatos or something..that's a lofty goal, but at least it has a possible outcome other then "you fail, miserably."
2) Moreover, if he hates Asmodeus more then anything, then what's he doing with the Worldwound? Why not have the Templars infiltrate Cheliax?
3) How possible would it be to play an ex-Templar defector in WoTR?
4) Are there paladin orders dedicated to specific Empyreal Lords, especially serving in the crusade against the Worldwound?
5) How can followers of a Demon Lord like, say, Shax be Chaotic Neutral? He seems so brutal, twisted, and horrific that being a Complete Monster is a prerequisite for worshiping him. The reason I ask is because a player in my campaign attracted the attention of Pazuzu, who demanded that she serve him or face his wrath. Someone pointed out that the (CN) player could still worship him and not be evil.
6) So the ancient Osirion gods are literally the Egyptian pantheon. Are any of them Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, or Neutral Good? Basically, can I play an Egyptian Paladin? Or failing that, a really useful cleric. Because undead are going to be a major enemy in Mummy's Mask, and Ra obviously has the Sun domain.
1) It's not stupidity or insanity in Baphomet's case as much as it is an overinflated sense of ego and hubris and pride. That said... it's not impossible for a deity to be killed by a demigod. It's happened before (Lamashtu killed Curchanus, for example). It'll happen again.
2) He hates a lot. He's kinda afraid of Asmodeus though... he was humiliated by Asmodeus pretty badly, and he's not all that eager for a re-match anytime soon. Everything he does could well be seen as preparations of some sort for that rematch though...
3) Possible... but since a big part of WotR is having the PCs find out about the Templars... I'd say it would be a bad idea, since an ex-templar would already have a lot of the answers that are supposed to be learned over the course of the campaign. Further... an ex-templar who's 1st level would probably not have managed to ever become a templar in the first place since he's kinda low level. And it's not really on theme with the story anyway. I'd say don't do it.
4) Yes. None of those orders are as widespread or as powerful as those serving the deities, but many Empyreal Lords have specific paladin orders. I've done zero thinking about those orders though, beyond what I just wrote in answer for this question! :-)
5) It's very difficult, and very rare. Those followers would by definition be heretics and borderline-blasphemers, or might worship the demon lord out of fear. If I were to put an NPC like that into an adventure, there'd be a LOT of space used talking about how and why that works. It'd be a big deal. I'd say that probably 99% of demon lord worshipers are chaotic evil, and 0.999999% are neutral evil. The rest are chaotic neutral. I generally don't allow PCs to worship demon lords in my games, because I want them to be for the bad guys. It should be very difficult to remain non chaotic-evil and still worship a demon lord.
6) We'll be revealing full details of these deities in the 2nd Mummy's Mask adventure. They're not really intended to be PC choices, though... these deities have, after all, moved on and no longer really have all that big a presence in modern Golarion. The intention for Mummy's Mask is that PCs still worship the Golarion deities, and start uncovering lore and the like about the old gods of Osirion as they play. (If we'd intended for these deities to be choices for PCs, we wouldn't have put them in the 2nd adventure... we would have put them in Inner Sea Gods and elsewhere. Which we didn't. You can, of course, still play worshipers of them... you just have to wait for the 2nd Mummy's Mask book to learn more is all.)
What's the closest someone you managed/oversaw has come to outright revealing info way before it was time?
Have a good weekend!
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James, did you ever see Doctor Strangelove (from 1964)? If so, what did you think of it?
I saw it for the first time today and loved it, heartily recommended if you haven't seen it.
I've seen it several times. It's VERY EXCELLENT. One of my favorite of Kubrick's movies. For some reason that I can't explain, the scene where George C Scott says on the phone "Tell ya what ya do" and slaps his gut delights me to no end... but the whole movie is super awesome.
Have you ever gone as far as to map out a family tree of important relatives for one of your characters?
Are you going to have more impact on the Advanced Class Guide before it ships?
I've seen it several times. It's VERY EXCELLENT. One of my favorite of Kubrick's movies. For some reason that I can't explain, the scene where George C Scott says on the phone "Tell ya what ya do" and slaps his gut delights me to no end... but the whole movie is super awesome.James, did you ever see Doctor Strangelove (from 1964)? If so, what did you think of it?
I saw it for the first time today and loved it, heartily recommended if you haven't seen it.
Have you ever fought someone in the war room?
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Have you ever gone as far as to map out a family tree of important relatives for one of your characters?
Are you going to have more impact on the Advanced Class Guide before it ships?
Nope; not for one of my characters. I've determined parents and siblings before, but that's about it.
I'm unlikely to have much of any impact at all at this point onward on Advanced Class Guide. Pretty much the bulk of my time is currently focused on Iron Gods and orchestrating how technological stuff works in Pathfinder in various places. The Advanced Class Guide is pretty much entirely Jason, Sean, and Stephen. I'll have a chance to do approvals here and there along the way, and I get to approve/choose the iconics' names, though. Note that their backstories are not gonna be part of the ACG at all... I'll be heavily involved with that process at least.
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Have you ever fought someone in the war room?I've seen it several times. It's VERY EXCELLENT. One of my favorite of Kubrick's movies. For some reason that I can't explain, the scene where George C Scott says on the phone "Tell ya what ya do" and slaps his gut delights me to no end... but the whole movie is super awesome.James, did you ever see Doctor Strangelove (from 1964)? If so, what did you think of it?
I saw it for the first time today and loved it, heartily recommended if you haven't seen it.
HA. Nope. I value my bodily fluids too much.
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Have you ever gone as far as to map out a family tree of important relatives for one of your characters?
Are you going to have more impact on the Advanced Class Guide before it ships?
Nope; not for one of my characters. I've determined parents and siblings before, but that's about it.
I'm unlikely to have much of any impact at all at this point onward on Advanced Class Guide. Pretty much the bulk of my time is currently focused on Iron Gods and orchestrating how technological stuff works in Pathfinder in various places. The Advanced Class Guide is pretty much entirely Jason, Sean, and Stephen. I'll have a chance to do approvals here and there along the way, and I get to approve/choose the iconics' names, though. Note that their backstories are not gonna be part of the ACG at all... I'll be heavily involved with that process at least.
Will we be seeing the new Iconics and backstories anytime soon or are they all being saved for Paizocon/Gencon/release?
What 2-3 colors would you associate with Sarenrae, Iomedae, and Desna? I have an artist friend who might be doing portraits for my group's Wrath of the Righteous characters (who worship these deities) and we were trying to figure out what their outfits may look like.
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What 2-3 colors would you associate with Sarenrae, Iomedae, and Desna? I have an artist friend who might be doing portraits for my group's Wrath of the Righteous characters (who worship these deities) and we were trying to figure out what their outfits may look like.
Every god associated with the Inner Sea gets 2 colors associated with them in Inner Sea Gods. There's a HUGE table that has info like that.
AKA: I've selected these colors for all the gods, but I don't have them all memorized.
As best I recall...
Sarenrae: Blue and gold (The colors of the sky and the sun)
Iomedae: Red and white (the two various colors of her cape)
Desna: Blue and silver (the colors of the sky and stars)
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In Brevoy, do the Aldori Swordlords have alliegence to one of the families, or are they their own faction with their own lands?
I asked James very similar questions earlier in this thread. His answer was basically that the Aldori Swordlords are their own faction based out of Restov, and to join them, you have to forswear all connections to your family. You even change your name to Aldori to reflect this. Your fellow swordlords are your brothers and sisters. The swordpact is your mother and father. At least, that's what I got out of it.
James, how much with dragons is nature and how much is nurture? Say an ethically-gray PC slays a dragon with eggs and the eggs hatch, would there be a chance that these dragons could be raised to be a different alignment? Given the examples of Mengkare and other types, it seems dragons are a lot more individualistic than in previous versions, and thus their alignments aren't purely based on their instincts..
1. I don't think this is a spoiler for Jade Regent, so I'll ask in the open. According to the history in the Dragon Empire Gazetteer, Shizuru gifted the five imperial families with the right to rule in the year 100 AR, and twelve years later the Teikoku Shogunate is established. Now, were only members of House Teikoku allowed to rule? If so, how did the other four houses feel about this? How did Shizuru feel about it? If they weren't happy about the situation it took them an awfully long time to act on it.
2. What was the impetus for the fall of the Teikoku Shogunate?
3. Which Oni is your favorite?
4. This question might be a bit too rules-y so feel free to ignore it, but how do you feel about creatures with the shape change supernatural ability interacting with detect magic? By rules, they should show up as magic (I think) but I do feel like that kind of ruins a lot of stories. How would doppelgangers and rakshasas infiltrate societies when the most basic magic user could point them out?
5. How did Hobgoblins get to Tian Xia?
6. Judging by its Bestiary entry, I'd wager Bezravnis is in Shaguang. Am I right? And does he have to share all that desert with any other Kaiju buddies?
Thanks for all you do, best of luck with what you're working on!
Do followers of Archdevils also follow Asmodeus, albeit indirectly?
How do followers of different Horsemen get along?
I'd say that probably 99% of demon lord worshipers are chaotic evil, and 0.999999% are neutral evil. The rest are chaotic neutral.
Hmm... why the strong preference of evil over chaotic?
Every god associated with the Inner Sea gets 2 colors associated with them in Inner Sea Gods. There's a HUGE table that has info like that.
Does this also apply to lesser beings, with demigod status?
Would you care divulge the colors associated with Nocticula? With Shamira?
I'd say that probably 99% of demon lord worshipers are chaotic evil, and 0.999999% are neutral evil. The rest are chaotic neutral.Hmm... why the strong preference of evil over chaotic?
Mathematics Man chiming in here; that's not a strong preference of Evil over Chaotic.
Let's pretend that there are 10,000 demon lord worshipers in the Inner Sea. (That's probably pretty generous.)
According to James, 9,900 of those worshipers are Chaotic Evil. Of the remaining 100, 99 of them are Neutral Evil and 1 man, who's name is probably Frank, is Chaotic Neutral. That means that 9,999 demon lord worshipers prefer Evil and 9,901 demon lord worshipers prefer Chaos, because the ones who are Chaotic Evil prefer Chaos and Evil.
As the number of demon lord worshippers in the Inner Sea shrinks (for example, if there is only 1,000), the difference that James is describing also shrinks to what is essentially nothingness.
What is your favorite part of your job (excluding this thread please!)?
James
Two questions
1)Can a Thassilon specialist select his school powers from a wizard subschool (such as admixture instead of evocation)?
2)What action, if any, is required to activate the Versatile Evocation school power?
For your convenience:
"Versatile Evocation (Su): When you cast an evocation spell that does acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, you may change the damage dealt to one of the other four energy types. This changes the descriptor of the spell to match the new energy type. Any non-damaging effects remain unchanged unless the new energy type invalidates them (an ice storm that deals fire damage might still provide a penalty on Perception checks due to smoke, but it would not create difficult terrain). Such effects are subject to GM discretion. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier".
How do you handle the Paladin's Detect Evil ability?
At will, a paladin can use detect evil, as the spell. A paladin can, as a move action, concentrate on a single item or individual within 60 feet and determine if it is evil, learning the strength of its aura as if having studied it for 3 rounds. While focusing on one individual or object, the paladin does not detect evil in any other object or individual within range.
I see three potential interpretations to it...
1) As a single ability, requiring a move action to use.
2) As 2 separate abilities... The normal Standard action Detect Evil replete with all of the concentration time for info gathering, or the "quick" method for single target detection.
-Or-
3)Standard action to use Detect Evil, followed by a move action during its duration to gain fast info on a single opponent. Hedging out info on all others in the area of effect.
P.S.
And thank you for your previous reply to my previous question, though it started to create more questions in my head related to the subject.
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James, how much with dragons is nature and how much is nurture? Say an ethically-gray PC slays a dragon with eggs and the eggs hatch, would there be a chance that these dragons could be raised to be a different alignment? Given the examples of Mengkare and other types, it seems dragons are a lot more individualistic than in previous versions, and thus their alignments aren't purely based on their instincts..
I'd say that dragons are probably 75% nature, 25% nurture. They're pretty predisposed toward their alignments. But not nearly so as outsiders, which is more like 99.999999% nature, 0.000001% nurture.
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Do followers of Archdevils also follow Asmodeus, albeit indirectly?
How do followers of different Horsemen get along?
Nope; followers of archdevils don't follow Asmodeus, although what they do might please him or push forward his goals. Hell's not a pyramid scheme, as appropriate as taht might be.
The followers of the horsemen can bicker or ally as needed, but mostly they stick to themselves in that regard.
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1) If you can use planar binding to bind a native outsider, does that native outsider have to be on a different plane than you are currently on to do so? I think the notion of someone from Tian Xia binding kami or oni is thematically suitable, for example, but the spell does seem to imply that you're specifically calling an outsider from a different plane. Hopping over to the ethereal plane or something along those lines to do so feels a bit silly/legalistic, though...
2) Are there any 0-HD races you'd particularly like to be able to go over in more depth sometime? I think you said earlier when I asked about samsarans that you hoped that sometime in the future that there would be the chance to go over them in more depth...is that still true, and what others interest you?
3) I was looking at the simulacrum spell, and it doesn't seem to have much in the way of limits about what the caster can and can't make a copy of, but that seems kind of problematic...how much information should the caster have to have about the creature he's making a duplicate of? Could you just make a simulacrum of one of the Runelords, for example, despite only knowing of them via myth and legend, and learn all kinds of information about lost magic? Make a duplicate of someone you don't know anything about but can infer the existence of, like 'the creator of this magical item'? Does it have to be someone or something you've personally met?
1) The outsider can be on the same plane you're currently on. Regardless of if the outsider is a native or not.
2) Samsarans and androids and tengu all intrigue me greatly.
3) There's not, which is indeed problematic. I feel like it got oversimplified. The previous edition of the game required you to have a fragment of the target creature to be within the simulacrum, which is cool flavor AND a cool control. In the end... what you can and can't make a simulacrum of is up to the GM. He gets to say yes or no. In my games, I do indeed require you to have a fragment of the target, and the creature created has half the skills and all that but none of the memories or hidden knowledge possessed by the original. So in my game, a simulacrum of a runelord would look pretty similar to the source (assuming you somehow managed to find a runelord fragment), but would behave in most ways as a generic wizard. He'd know where he was from, and might be bitter and curious about what the real runelord knows, but wouldn't be able to tell you the source runelord's passwords to his treasuries.
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I'd say that probably 99% of demon lord worshipers are chaotic evil, and 0.999999% are neutral evil. The rest are chaotic neutral.Hmm... why the strong preference of evil over chaotic?
Every god associated with the Inner Sea gets 2 colors associated with them in Inner Sea Gods. There's a HUGE table that has info like that.Does this also apply to lesser beings, with demigod status?
Would you care divulge the colors associated with Nocticula? With Shamira?
Because that makes them all the more inapporpriate for PCs, and because I feel like evil is the stronger source driving a demon than chaos. And I'd hardly say that what I listed above is a "strong preference of evil over chaotic." It's a strong preference for chaotic AND evil. Fractions of percentages compared to a nearly unified whole aren't strong anything.
Yes. Said table includes areas of concern, alignment, domains, subdomains, favored weapons, 2 sacred colors, sacred animals, holy symbols, and maybe more but I think that's it for PAGES AND PAGES of deities and demigods. Hundreds of them. I don't know the exact number, but it's over 300 and probably under 400. The table pretty much includes all deities we've talked about except those specifically associated with ancient Osirion, Tian Xia, Casmaron (including Vudra), Azlant, and other places beyond the Inner Sea, but DOES include deities from those regions who have a more than infinitesimal role in the Inner Sea. Like Irori, as an obvious example. There are some VERY obscure deities on the list. All of the demon lords and empyreal lords and eldest and great old ones and all those types of similar demigods, on down to things like nascent demon lords and whore queens.
I don't remember Nocticula and Shamira's colors, and I don't have the list here at home. The book'll bee here soon though!
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Brief question on Amaya Kaijitsu and Jade Regent: what is it specifically that prevents Amaya from being recognised as a legitimate heir unless the Amatatsu Seal invests her with power in comparison with Ameiko? She's still a blood relative to her sister and thus a direct descendant of the Amatatsu family, after all, even if she was born "out of wedlock" as a result of her father's affair. It's not as if the Jade Regent has a claim that's any better than hers, if at all. If the Seal has to invest her with the right to rule and she isn't worthy of it otherwise, why is she then preferred over any of the PCs as potential options?
Or is it just to ensure that she's a safety measure in case Ameiko died in a home campaign storyline and her ineligibility is a result of the need to keep her sister alive over the course of the campaign, and provide some measurable penalty to failure? (As in, Ameiko and the PCs dying means the Jade Throne allows the Regent to sit upon it.)
If Ameiko dies, then Amaya could well take on that role, sure. But being born "out of wedlock" is indeed enough to make her claim shaky, at least as far as the seals and traditions are concerned. As a half-sister, she doesn't have as "full" an imperial bloodline as Ameiko.
And in large part, Amaya is indeed a "safety measure" if in your game you did away with Ameiko and still wanna run Jade Regent.
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I'd say that probably 99% of demon lord worshipers are chaotic evil, and 0.999999% are neutral evil. The rest are chaotic neutral.Hmm... why the strong preference of evil over chaotic?Mathematics Man chiming in here; that's not a strong preference of Evil over Chaotic.
Let's pretend that there are 10,000 demon lord worshipers in the Inner Sea. (That's probably pretty generous.)
According to James, 9,900 of those worshipers are Chaotic Evil. Of the remaining 100, 99 of them are Neutral Evil and 1 man, who's name is probably Frank, is Chaotic Neutral. That means that 9,999 demon lord worshipers prefer Evil and 9,901 demon lord worshipers prefer Chaos, because the ones who are Chaotic Evil prefer Chaos and Evil.
As the number of demon lord worshippers in the Inner Sea shrinks (for example, if there is only 1,000), the difference that James is describing also shrinks to what is essentially nothingness.
Thanks for the support, Mathematics Man!
There are some VERY obscure deities on the list. All of the demon lords and empyreal lords and eldest and great old ones and all those types of similar demigods, on down to things like nascent demon lords and whore queens.
I don't remember Nocticula and Shamira's colors, and I don't have the list here at home. The book'll bee here soon though!
Not soon enough! Grr... I wish I had a TARDIS.
Any chance you remember the colors and/or animals for Sifkesh, Shax, Xoveron or the Great Old Ones?
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Creative Director
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What is your favorite part of your job (excluding this thread please!)?
Ha! Believe it or not, this thread isn't my favorite part of my job.
My favorite part is the fact that I get paid to do what I'd be doing even if I weren't being paid. Being paid to play and write games is pretty awesome.
That's also probably my least favorite part of the job, though... mixing your favorite hobby with work can sometimes turn your favorite hobby INTO work if you're not careful.
I also like the fact that I get to show up at work at 11:00 in the morning instead of earlier. And that my coworkers are so super awesome.
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Creative Director
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We know that prophecy got unreliable around the time of Aroden's death. How reliable was it before then? Was it somewhat better than what Golarion has now, never failing, or somewhere in between? Could history be altered back when prophecy was reliable if somebody had knowledge of it and went out of there way to change what prophecy stated was going to happen?
It was as reliable as you see it being in all the cliched fantasy stories where cliched prophecies do their thing.
And that's the real reason we "killed prophecy" in Golarion. It was the least favorite/most-hated fantasy cliche among those of us who were designing the world.
On top of that, PCs are notorious for breaking GM plot lines. AKA Prophecies. The arrival of PCs in our would is REALLY what broke prophecy.
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Creative Director
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James
Two questions
1)Can a Thassilon specialist select his school powers from a wizard subschool (such as admixture instead of evocation)?
2)What action, if any, is required to activate the Versatile Evocation school power?
For your convenience:
"Versatile Evocation (Su): When you cast an evocation spell that does acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, you may change the damage dealt to one of the other four energy types. This changes the descriptor of the spell to match the new energy type. Any non-damaging effects remain unchanged unless the new energy type invalidates them (an ice storm that deals fire damage might still provide a penalty on Perception checks due to smoke, but it would not create difficult terrain). Such effects are subject to GM discretion. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier".
1) Nope. A Thassilonian specialist MUST select his school powers from one of the 7 Thassilonian schools. That's what makes the character a Thassilonian specialist, after all.
2) If an ability doesn't specifically say what type of action is required to activate it, it's always a standard action to activate it. That said, Versatile Evocation DOES say what type of action—it activates "when you cast an evocation spell that does acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage." AKA: it's part of casting that spell that triggers this power—it doesn't require an action at all since it automatically modifies the actual casting of the spell itself.