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First off... art's subjective. What's pleasing to one person isn't to the next. That's what makes it art, and not math. It has different effects and influences.
What about this exchange?
"Bad art is a distraction. Great art changes people."
"But how can we change people when there's so much crap?"
"Patience. For every two-dozen Phantom Menaces there is a Return of the King. For every two-bit Shyamalan a Stanley Kubrick is born. For every poor soul who groans during an Adam Sandler-funded Rob Schneider vehicle, there's a child crying life-affirming tears when Bambi's mom is shot. Somewhere out there are film students finding out what Rosebud means for the first time. A man is pausing as Fredo says a Hail Mary on a boat over Lake Tahoe. A woman grasps her heart as Bogey's love flies off in the foggy night. All it takes is one moment to change a person, and that one moment, no matter how fleeting, is worth a thousand Transformers."
It seems to me that there has to be some kind of standard, or comparisons like this are meaningless and everything is good.
As for whether or not enjoying a person's creative talents when the person is or isn't a jerk? That's not something that's really worth considering, I think... I prefer to let art stand on its own merits if possible. Only when someone uses that art to advance a reprehensible agenda or the like do I avoid art I'd otherwise like.
Which brings us back to the question as to whether the art even is likable to begin with. Do I enjoy the comedy of errors in Menage a 3, or am I just following the series out of habit and a desire to see some resolution for characters that ultimately frustrate me with their inability to talk to one another about the psychological issues at the heart of their behaviors, just to give an example? Or just for cheap titillation? By reading Looking For Group, am I reading a good story, or just putting more money into the pocket of a man people claim is a misogynistic and arrogant fraud?
Can I consider myself a person who appreciates good storytelling and a tolerant, liberal intellectual if I frequent sites that my peers say caters to a lowest common denominator and only encourages sucky people to continue to suck despite their repeated calls for said sucky person to get their act together, improve their drawing skills, stop e-begging, be more respectful to women and minorities in their writing, etc?
And yes; the Second Darkness player's guide was a 3.5 product. As was Legacy of Fire, which came after that one.
As that's the case, what would be apropriate bloodlines for sorcerer characters in that AP, especially considering the themes you mentioned earlier?:
Racial shame.
Lowlives rising from their low upbringing to become legitimate big damn heroes.
Devastating ancient secrets.
Falls from grace.
Learning or not learning from history's mistakes.
Discovering ancient truths.
Hi james
i was wondering im creating a gnome npc i want them to be a inventor..what class should i make them..wizard? i want them to use magic
thanks
Creative Director
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First off... art's subjective. What's pleasing to one person isn't to the next. That's what makes it art, and not math. It has different effects and influences.What about this exchange?
"Bad art is a distraction. Great art changes people."
"But how can we change people when there's so much crap?"
"Patience. For every two-dozen Phantom Menaces there is a Return of the King. For every two-bit Shyamalan a Stanley Kubrick is born. For every poor soul who groans during an Adam Sandler-funded Rob Schneider vehicle, there's a child crying life-affirming tears when Bambi's mom is shot. Somewhere out there are film students finding out what Rosebud means for the first time. A man is pausing as Fredo says a Hail Mary on a boat over Lake Tahoe. A woman grasps her heart as Bogey's love flies off in the foggy night. All it takes is one moment to change a person, and that one moment, no matter how fleeting, is worth a thousand Transformers."
It seems to me that there has to be some kind of standard, or comparisons like this are meaningless and everything is good.
As for whether or not enjoying a person's creative talents when the person is or isn't a jerk? That's not something that's really worth considering, I think... I prefer to let art stand on its own merits if possible. Only when someone uses that art to advance a reprehensible agenda or the like do I avoid art I'd otherwise like.Which brings us back to the question as to whether the art even is likable to begin with. Do I enjoy the comedy of errors in Menage a 3, or am I just following the series out of habit and a desire to see some resolution for characters that ultimately frustrate me with their inability to talk to one another about the psychological issues at the heart of their behaviors, just to give an example? Or just for cheap titillation? By reading Looking For Group, am I reading a good story, or just putting more money into the pocket of a man people claim is a misogynistic and arrogant
...
Your wall of text and embeeded quotes make it too complicated to re-quote your entire post on a Monday morning, so you might need to backtrack to make sense of my answers...
There are indeed standards, and for the most part folks accept them as baselines... but there's still folks who hate Alien and love musicals, so as far as I can tell from where I'm sitting... art remains at its core something you can't actually say definitively something like "EVERYONE agrees art of this type is best."
And any bloodline works well with Second Darkness... but if you're looking for something that might tie in really well to the AP... I'd go with Abyssal.
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Creative Director
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Hi james
i was wondering im creating a gnome npc i want them to be a inventor..what class should i make them..wizard? i want them to use magic
thanks
If you want to invent magic items, then yes, wizard is the best bet since you get more access to Craft Magic Item feats every 5 levels.
If you want to invent alchemy stuff, then alchemist is your best choice.
If you want to invent gadgets and gizmos, then any class that maxes out the appropriate Craft and Profession skills works best.
If you want to invent guns and black powder stuff, then gunslinger's the best choice.
If you want to invent high-tech gadgets and gizmos, then you'll need to wait a half year or so for the rules.
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How's the Vancian Psionic stuff coming along?
If you want to invent high-tech gadgets and gizmos, then you'll need to wait a half year or so for the rules.Or just refluff magic items. A friend of mine did a lot of hi-tech just playing an alchemist from Numeria.
It's not. No one said it was, in fact.
You could do that, but if you're going to embrace high-tech stuff... it's more fun to go in all the way and treat them as an entirely new category of item.
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Really? I know there was mention of paizo doing their own version of psionics somewhere, and that is wasn't going to be power points. Maybe I'm misremembering.
I've said before that I'm not a fan of 3.5's power point system because it's too easy to abuse and reinvents the proverbial wheel when the wheel still works fine, if not better, than the alternative.
That's not the same as "We're working on psioncis."
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But you said evil gods don't care if there worshipers are happyWhich of the core neutral(LN,CN) gods care if there worshipers are happy?All of them.
Deities who don't care about their worshipers are self-limiting themselves from EVER being part of any core grouping.
You asked about neutral gods there, though. Also... this thread is far too large for me to even bother double-checking against previous answers.
So let me amend that answer.
"Deities who don't care about their worshipers are self-limiting themselves from EVER being part of any core grouping, unless, of course, they're evil deities, in which case they have other methods of making a splash and being part of a core grouping."
But you said evil gods don't care if there worshipers are happyWhich of the core neutral(LN,CN) gods care if there worshipers are happy?All of them.
Deities who don't care about their worshipers are self-limiting themselves from EVER being part of any core grouping.
You asked about neutral gods there, though. Also... this thread is far too large for me to even bother double-checking against previous answers.
So let me amend that answer.
"Deities who don't care about their worshipers are self-limiting themselves from EVER being part of any core grouping, unless, of course, they're evil deities, in which case they have other methods of making a splash and being part of a core grouping."
The dark side has cookies. It's their primary method of recruitment.
What's the price of lead in Avistan?
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Your wall of text and embeeded quotes make it too complicated to re-quote your entire post on a Monday morning, so you might need to backtrack to make sense of my answers...
There are indeed standards, and for the most part folks accept them as baselines... but there's still folks who hate Alien and love musicals, so as far as I can tell from where I'm sitting... art remains at its core something you can't actually say definitively something like "EVERYONE agrees art of this type is best."
And any bloodline works well with Second Darkness... but if you're looking for something that might tie in really well to the AP... I'd go with Abyssal.
I've just been feeling so insecure about my tastes and my identity lately. People judge other people based on tastes and other stuff, and I fear that if I willingly consume bad art, I'll be judged based on it.
Abyssal because of the demons peppered throughout, right?
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Creative Director
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What's the price of lead in Avistan?
Marginal and low. It's not something that adventurers should really ever think of as treasure unless the lead has been worked into a work of art, in which case it's the value of the artwork that sets the price.
Current real-world costs for lead look like 50 cents a pound for my super brief research. Iron on the other hand is about 10 cents a pound, again, according to my spurious research.
Saying lead is 5 times the cost of iron is a fine solution, in other words. That does have the nice side effect of basically making the out-of-pocket price for using a philosopher's stone to turn iron into silver or lead into gold have the same buy-in price.
SO. Since 1 pound of iron costs 1 sp... that means 1 pound of lead costs 5 sp.
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Creative Director
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Your wall of text and embeeded quotes make it too complicated to re-quote your entire post on a Monday morning, so you might need to backtrack to make sense of my answers...
There are indeed standards, and for the most part folks accept them as baselines... but there's still folks who hate Alien and love musicals, so as far as I can tell from where I'm sitting... art remains at its core something you can't actually say definitively something like "EVERYONE agrees art of this type is best."
And any bloodline works well with Second Darkness... but if you're looking for something that might tie in really well to the AP... I'd go with Abyssal.
I've just been feeling so insecure about my tastes and my identity lately. People judge other people based on tastes and other stuff, and I fear that if I willingly consume bad art, I'll be judged based on it.
Abyssal because of the demons peppered throughout, right?
I'm afraid I don't have much advice on insecurity and the like, other than to say that's something we all go through, and it's something that age and time will fix on its own, at least in my experience.
And yes, Abyssal because of the demons, but also because drow are so heavily involved in demons. Bloodlines associated with destiny, outer space, or the Darklands work fine as well.
Really? I know there was mention of paizo doing their own version of psionics somewhere, and that is wasn't going to be power points. Maybe I'm misremembering.I've said before that I'm not a fan of 3.5's power point system because it's too easy to abuse and reinvents the proverbial wheel when the wheel still works fine, if not better, than the alternative.
That's not the same as "We're working on psioncis."
Although when you do psychic magic I will buy it. So we are getting the Technology guide. So I guess the 64 page Numeria book and AP weren't enough space to introduce all of the necessary technology?
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So we are getting the Technology guide. So I guess the 64 page Numeria book and AP weren't enough space to introduce all of the necessary technology?
In fact... there's pretty much NO technology rules in the Numeria book at all. Other than some new monsters like some robots and stuff. All of the technology gear and other stuff is in the Technology Guide... but at 64 pages, it's not gonna be enough on its own to cover everything. Fortunately, each volume of Iron Gods has capacity to add more items.
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1)you're adding Technology to the setting so how does Technology interact with magic(specifically divine magic)?
2)what effect will Technology have on class like the Cleric and Druid or the Paladin or Summoner?
3)what is the relationship between the gods and Technology?
4)Please tell me iron gods won't boil down to science VS religion?
1) That's a huge question, and one whose themes and implications are a big part of the Iron Gods Adventure Path. You'll have to wait and see when those books come out for the answer; I don't want to spoil things yet.
2) None. Those classes will play the same if you don't want to use technology... but if you do, then you'll see plenty of examples coming soon!
3) That's a huge part of the Iron Gods adventure path, and beyond that I'm not gonna say anything more yet.
4) Technology mixing with Religion is indeed one of several themes in Iron Gods... but it's got a lot less to do with the two fighting against each other than it does with the two teaming up together.
Will Iron Gods address the issue of 'why hasn't technology advanced in 10,000 years' that most other campaign settings shy away from?
Having a fantasy setting is all well and good, but most settings like to toss around numbers in the thousands when they talk about ancient relics, and you have to wonder, why hasn't technology advanced much in the 15,000 years since?
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Like the popular SiFi trope where technology becomes managed by a dystopian expy of the Catholic Church because everyone else is ignorant?
4) Technology mixing with Religion is indeed one of several themes in Iron Gods... but it's got a lot less to do with the two fighting against each other than it does with the two teaming up together.
Nope.
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Will Iron Gods address the issue of 'why hasn't technology advanced in 10,000 years' that most other campaign settings shy away from?
Having a fantasy setting is all well and good, but most settings like to toss around numbers in the thousands when they talk about ancient relics, and you have to wonder, why hasn't technology advanced much in the 15,000 years since?
Technology HAS advanced in that amount of time, as has civilization. Just not as far as it has in the last 1,000 years of our own world.
The reason that tech hasn't advanced in Golarion (and in most fantasy settings of a similar nature) is the fact that magic exists in this world. There's no real need to build a flamethrower when a first level wizard can cast burning hands, in other words.
The fact that Golarion's timeline is so extended and enormous is a different issue entirely; we set it to such an extreme because we wanted to leave ourselves room to work with as the years went on. In hindsight, I suspect we could have cut that 10,000 years down to 3,000 years (or less) with no problem and without impacting much in the world... but that ship has sailed years ago.
In all the thousands of years that we've had technology, 90 percent of our advancement has been in the last century and a half.
[citation needed]
In hindsight, I suspect we could have cut that 10,000 years down to 3,000 years (or less) with no problem and without impacting much in the world... but that ship has sailed years ago.
I've been kind of mentally subtracting a zero from times before the disappearance of Aroden, making Thassilon/Azlant a 'mere' thousand years old.
But I like your 3,000 better. Partially because it matches historical timescales: people in the 'present' would view Absalom in a similar way that we view Rome, and makes Arodden into kind of a Jesus expy. It makes Thassilon/Azlant into the half-forgotten memories of another age, but one where ruins can still be expected.
It is a lot harder to shift on the fly, though.
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In hindsight, I suspect we could have cut that 10,000 years down to 3,000 years (or less) with no problem and without impacting much in the world... but that ship has sailed years ago.I've been kind of mentally subtracting a zero from times before the disappearance of Aroden, making Thassilon/Azlant a 'mere' thousand years old.
But I like your 3,000 better. Partially because it matches historical timescales: people in the 'present' would view Absalom in a similar way that we view Rome, and makes Arodden into kind of a Jesus expy. It makes Thassilon/Azlant into the half-forgotten memories of another age, but one where ruins can still be expected.
It is a lot harder to shift on the fly, though.
And frankly... the EASIEST solution is to just go with the current timeline. It's a game world, after all... and there's a lot more "unrealistic" about Golarion than its long history.
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Your wall of text and embeeded quotes make it too complicated to re-quote your entire post on a Monday morning, so you might need to backtrack to make sense of my answers...
There are indeed standards, and for the most part folks accept them as baselines... but there's still folks who hate Alien and love musicals, so as far as I can tell from where I'm sitting... art remains at its core something you can't actually say definitively something like "EVERYONE agrees art of this type is best."
And any bloodline works well with Second Darkness... but if you're looking for something that might tie in really well to the AP... I'd go with Abyssal.
I've just been feeling so insecure about my tastes and my identity lately. People judge other people based on tastes and other stuff, and I fear that if I willingly consume bad art, I'll be judged based on it.
Abyssal because of the demons peppered throughout, right?
I'm afraid I don't have much advice on insecurity and the like, other than to say that's something we all go through, and it's something that age and time will fix on its own, at least in my experience.
And yes, Abyssal because of the demons, but also because drow are so heavily involved in demons. Bloodlines associated with destiny, outer space, or the Darklands work fine as well.
Age and time seem to be working against me. All I can feel is my enthusiasm for entertainment draining as all I want to do when I get home from work is play-by-post Pathfinder games, read trashy webcomics and surf DeviantArt looking for pictures of cool knights and attractive women while listening to YouTube videos about atheism, feminist philosophy, pseudoscience and internet drama...
New product roster for Quarter 3 looks nice.
So when can I skip the formalities and sell myself into serfdom to Paizo for new Pathfinder stuff?
Will Iron Gods address the issue of 'why hasn't technology advanced in 10,000 years' that most other campaign settings shy away from?
Having a fantasy setting is all well and good, but most settings like to toss around numbers in the thousands when they talk about ancient relics, and you have to wonder, why hasn't technology advanced much in the 15,000 years since?
Technology HAS advanced in that amount of time, as has civilization. Just not as far as it has in the last 1,000 years of our own world.
The reason that tech hasn't advanced in Golarion (and in most fantasy settings of a similar nature) is the fact that magic exists in this world. There's no real need to build a flamethrower when a first level wizard can cast burning hands, in other words.
The fact that Golarion's timeline is so extended and enormous is a different issue entirely; we set it to such an extreme because we wanted to leave ourselves room to work with as the years went on. In hindsight, I suspect we could have cut that 10,000 years down to 3,000 years (or less) with no problem and without impacting much in the world... but that ship has sailed years ago.
Personally, I've never had much of a problem reconciling the timelines, but I do know other people do and I see it come up from time to time when people talk about Golarion or other fantasy settings. I know many people don't accept the idea that 'magic makes science unnecessary' because they think science should take even more of a precedent, if only to help the non-magical combat science.
I figured I'd ask, because the release of Iron Gods, the Technology Guide etc. would kind of be the perfect time and place to address this complaint.
The reason that tech hasn't advanced in Golarion (and in most fantasy settings of a similar nature) is the fact that magic exists in this world. There's no real need to build a flamethrower when a first level wizard can cast burning hands, in other words.
Technology's more than weapons. What about assembly lines? How can low-level wizards surpass those?
Not certain if this was ever asked anywhere in the thread (it's a long thread), but does Paizo have plans to return to Tian Xia, or even go to Vudra? I feel like everything east of the World's Edge Mountains in Golarion is frightfully underrepresented in the modules and adventure paths.
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Does the design team ever get frustrated with the rules forum?
What is the most frustrating thing to deal with at work for you (other than deadlines, naturally)?
Have you been DM when a TPK happened, and if so, how did you feel about it?Random questions I've wanted to ask for awhile...
Yes.
Other than deadlines? The normal frustrating things that happen in any office environment, such as personality conflicts or arguments over where to go/what to do with a product. It doesn't happen often at Paizo, fortunately, but it doesn't NEVER happen.
Yes. A weird combination of exhilaration and guilt accompanied it.
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Creative Director
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New product roster for Quarter 3 looks nice.
So when can I skip the formalities and sell myself into serfdom to Paizo for new Pathfinder stuff?
We're still working out a few bugs on or serfdom program. We've had too many loopholes that let the slav... ah... serfs get away from work.
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Will Iron Gods address the issue of 'why hasn't technology advanced in 10,000 years' that most other campaign settings shy away from?
Having a fantasy setting is all well and good, but most settings like to toss around numbers in the thousands when they talk about ancient relics, and you have to wonder, why hasn't technology advanced much in the 15,000 years since?
Technology HAS advanced in that amount of time, as has civilization. Just not as far as it has in the last 1,000 years of our own world.
The reason that tech hasn't advanced in Golarion (and in most fantasy settings of a similar nature) is the fact that magic exists in this world. There's no real need to build a flamethrower when a first level wizard can cast burning hands, in other words.
The fact that Golarion's timeline is so extended and enormous is a different issue entirely; we set it to such an extreme because we wanted to leave ourselves room to work with as the years went on. In hindsight, I suspect we could have cut that 10,000 years down to 3,000 years (or less) with no problem and without impacting much in the world... but that ship has sailed years ago.
Personally, I've never had much of a problem reconciling the timelines, but I do know other people do and I see it come up from time to time when people talk about Golarion or other fantasy settings. I know many people don't accept the idea that 'magic makes science unnecessary' because they think science should take even more of a precedent, if only to help the non-magical combat science.
I figured I'd ask, because the release of Iron Gods, the Technology Guide etc. would kind of be the perfect time and place to address this complaint.
Honestly, I've not heard this compaint as a complaint NEARLY enough to even consider it needing to be addressed. I feel like most folks are fine with it.
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The reason that tech hasn't advanced in Golarion (and in most fantasy settings of a similar nature) is the fact that magic exists in this world. There's no real need to build a flamethrower when a first level wizard can cast burning hands, in other words.Technology's more than weapons. What about assembly lines? How can low-level wizards surpass those?
It's not the game world we want to build. That's how.
Sorry if that seems arbitrary.
But my philosophy on game design is to spend the bulk of the time defining the fun and interesting and cool parts of the setting, and to not spend too much of that time justifying it by getting too overwhelmed with trying to make it all work as if it were really real.
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I guess your publishers aren't exactly the kind of folk that would have made Cybergeneration (a Cyberpunk 2020 sequel featuring nanite evolved children taking on Edgerunner roles) then?I'm aware you didn't write the rules. That's why I asked for your perspective as a player/GM, since I didn't want to sound like I was accusing you of making rules I didn't like or something. Sorry if it came across that way. What about the other rules, like the attribute penalties and stuff? What, in your opinion, are the most important things that are there to keep to differentiate a Young character from an adult? The addition of PC classes doesn't unbalance things mechanically, in your opinion?I think the attribute penalties are pretty spot on. The addition of PC classes doesn't unbalance a thing. I suspect part of the reason that young characters weren't part of the game before was that publishers were timid about the whole "putting children in danger" scene that seems to make RPG publishers nervous.
Since we don't yet have rules for Edgerunners, and since 2020 is in our future and in Golarion's past... nope.
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I can't seem to find the answer to this question. If I have Codex of the Infinite Planes and get Greater Create Demiplane, how long does it take to make a demiplane? According to the Universal Monster Rules at:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/universalMonsterRules.html#_spe ll-like-abilities
it reads: "Reactivating a constant spell-like ability is a swift action. Using all other spell-like abilities is a standard action unless noted otherwise, and doing so provokes attacks of opportunity." But under Magic at:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/magic.html#_special-abilities
it reads: "A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description."It seems like the description might explain a reason for it to take longer to cast, like having different versions. If it is the Casting Time listed for the spell, it really reads in a strange way. So is it, "The default casting time of a spell-like ability is 1 standard action, unless it says otherwise in the ability description or if it duplicates a spell that has a longer casting time." or is it, "A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability description or in the text description of the spell."?
Thanks in advance for the help.
Using a spell-like ability uses the same casting time as the spell. That's why the ability is a spell-like ability; it's "like" a spell. When a spell has a casting time of other than one standard action, that's the rules noting otherwsie.
Also... this question REALLY REALLY REALY Needs to be posted to the rules forum so the rules team can see it.
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Not certain if this was ever asked anywhere in the thread (it's a long thread), but does Paizo have plans to return to Tian Xia, or even go to Vudra? I feel like everything east of the World's Edge Mountains in Golarion is frightfully underrepresented in the modules and adventure paths.
We've made no announcements to do so yet, but that doesn't mean we do or don't have plans to return there.
So, while I'm here I guess I'll ask. I was chatting with a friend about Mythic Realms and the Starstone, and we're both curious: Just what does the Starstone do, canonically in the Pathfinder campaign setting? Does it straight grant divinity as it did for Iomedae, Norgorber, and Caiden Caylean (apologies if I misspelled that one)? Or has it always granted mythic tiers, and those three ascended to godhood through writer's fiat?
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So, while I'm here I guess I'll ask. I was chatting with a friend about Mythic Realms and the Starstone, and we're both curious: Just what does the Starstone do, canonically in the Pathfinder campaign setting? Does it straight grant divinity as it did for Iomedae, Norgorber, and Caiden Caylean (apologies if I misspelled that one)? Or has it always granted mythic tiers, and those three ascended to godhood through writer's fiat?
Beyond what we said in print about it in Mythic Realms, I'm not ready to say more. Now is not the right time or place for that information... but its powers are MUCH closer to "it does whatever we want it to do for the story" than "It follows rules."