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as pathfinder goes on, do you see any beings passing the test of the Starstone and ascending to godhood? this made me think of another question. Do non humans try the test?
Anyone can try the test.
A new character passing the test? That's a SIGNIFICANT event, and one that at the bare minimum would be an element, if not THE element, of an entire Adventure Path. No plans to do something like this anytime soon.
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4)I know you where not going to detail it.But would you say that Absalom, Nex, Jalmeray, Qadira are the most likely Nations one would find such brothels?
You know i think i'm going to make a thread asking people what they think about sexuality in the setting to get an idea of the different views of the forum community
Absalom and Katapesh would probalby be the most likely to host such brothels... or perhaps the Shackles, since that's where Scuttlecove would be.
Go ahead and fire the thread up, but don't be shocked if the community can't handle it and it gets locked once immature folks get in there and can't resist being jerks. Yes, Internet, that's a challenge. PROVE ME WRONG!
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Do you think it would have been funny for all the Iconics for Giantslayer to have been all small races?
More frustrating than funny, since the whole point of giants is that they're big when compared to humans. Skewing that perspective by having extra small heroes would not only wreak havoc on illustration scale throughout the AP, but would kinda ruin the whole point of them being giants in a humanocentric world.
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1)so almost all of them. what does a Choir of worshiper of Lamashtu look like? can gnolls sing?
2)What? whys that? other celestials can't sing or something?
1) A choir looks pretty much the same on a fundamental level regardless of religion; a group of singers in line all dressed the same. The holy/unholy raiments would change, as would the location in which they're singing. And pretty much anything capable of speaking a language can sing.
2) I think you're confusing the difference between a choir (a bunch of folks singing) and a Choir (a specific subdivision of powerful supernatural beings—in particular, a subdivision of angel). The lower-case version of the word is one you'd apply to religious singers, and those would VASTLY skew toward mortal worshipers. The upper-case version of the word is the one associated with a grouping of angels, and that, as far as I know, isn't something we've done much with yet in Pathfinder... but since the real-world mythology of that is "angels," we wouldn't use it for other outsider races.
I thought that I had all the Shackles books. What's Scuttlecove?
So there very well might be a choir of Agathions or Azatas, but not a Choir. Gotcha.
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Creative Director
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I thought that I had all the Shackles books. What's Scuttlecove?
Scuttlecove is a location from my home-brew game that I more or less sold to Wizards of the Coast. It's the setting of the Book of Vile Darkness tie-in adventure I wrote for Dungeon, "The Porphyry House Horror," and I brought it back again for an adventure in the last third of Savage Tide in Dungeon.
It's a pretty adults-only kind of town. It would fit PERFECTLY into the Shackles.
I see that Arcadia is an a fantasy analog of the Americas, Garund is a fantasy analog of Africa, Tian xia is a fantasy analog of Asia, so is Sarusan a fantasy analog of Australia or something completely different?
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If a familiar is capable of speaking one of its master's languages at first level (like a raven or thrush, for example), is it capable of saying complete sentences and and communicating complex thoughts in that language, or is it imitating phrases without understanding them, much like how such birds do in the real world? Just how smart IS a bird familiar at first level anyhow?
@ Zousha: Int 6, like all the other animal/vermin familiars. Check the familiar rules.
1) Was Rovagug sealed before, during, or after the rise of the dinosaurs on Earth?
For some reason I'm thinking before - I guess an assumption that dragons rose on Golarion around the time Earth got dinosaurs...
2) Does Golarion's atmosphere have a much higher oxygen content than Earth's?
Oh I know, though
And to be sure to have a question...
Is Calistria an ascended azata? (Or, considering her CN alignment, an ascended fallen azata?)
A serious question, which I posted on another thread and never got a full answer to.
I don't know if this is the right place for this question. But I suspect its a place where there are knowledgeable creatures who will know the answer, which makes it the absolute right place in one sense.
The question is, is there an equivalent ruling to that allowing SLA to count for fulfilling the pre-reqs for Mystic Theurge for innate psionic powers and Cerebremancer.
And if the answer is no, do people agree with me that the same logic should apply?
If this works, or your GM says it can, there are two races in the Psionics unleashed book capable of manifesting a 2nd lvl power at lvl 1. Half Giants and [psionic] Duergar.
Now there is a trait allowing you to take a racial trait you are not. Can't recall its name at present. Most GMs I know won't allow it, but if your GM is more benign or you can convince your GM, bribery, sexual favours, threats, whatever it takes, to allow it you can fulfill the pre-reqs for both PCs by level 3.
You can come up with a mystic theurge idea on steroids like this.
You start as a [psionic] Duergar with the [say]Tiefling SLA. you pump your wis to the max, obviously.
You take your first lvls as-
1 Cleric, Trickery Domain
2 Vitalist
3 Empyreal Sorcerer
4-13 Cerebremancer
14-20 Mystic Theurge
At lvl 20 you have 18 caster lvls as sorcerer, 8 as cleric and 11 manifesting levels as a vitalist.
That is real good power as a sorcerer with tremendous depth, flexibility and efficiency for your main stat. You can reverse around the order of Cerebremancer and Mystic Theurge as desired, getting more and earlier divine spells. Also, you can use both divine and arcane items w/o a skill or roll.
You are, however, stuck with having sorcerer as the primary class.
Thoughts?
And more in the spirit of most stuff here-
Is this statement true?-
"This statement is not true."
@ Zousha: Int 6, like all the other animal/vermin familiars. Check the familiar rules.Oh, I know, but what does that MEAN in terms of roleplay? How do you roleplay an Int of 6? Can they speak complete sentences or do they act more like "Master, hungry" or "This thing magic?"
The probability distribution for 3d6 looks about the same as the probability distribution for IQ, which suggests an Int score of 6 correlates to an IQ between 79 and 80. Compare this to Forrest Gump's stated IQ of 75.
James, inside the pathfinder have some kind of math hidden?
Like, lvl 1 fighter - Full bab = 1 point;
lvl 1 wizard - full caster = 1 point;
lvl 1 bard - half caster/ half bab = 1;
???????
I thought that I had all the Shackles books. What's Scuttlecove?Scuttlecove is a location from my home-brew game that I more or less sold to Wizards of the Coast. It's the setting of the Book of Vile Darkness tie-in adventure I wrote for Dungeon, "The Porphyry House Horror," and I brought it back again for an adventure in the last third of Savage Tide in Dungeon.
It's a pretty adults-only kind of town. It would fit PERFECTLY into the Shackles.
Aha. Thanks! I'll have to dig out my old copy and take a look at it as I'm running S&S now.
What do you do with wealth, or magic items more specifically for incoming new PCs? And what to do with deceased PC items?
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Creative Director
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I see that Arcadia is an a fantasy analog of the Americas, Garund is a fantasy analog of Africa, Tian xia is a fantasy analog of Asia, so is Sarusan a fantasy analog of Australia or something completely different?
Correct. Sarusan is somewhat inspired by Australia, but more the dreamtime mythology of Aboriginal Australia than anything else.
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If a familiar is capable of speaking one of its master's languages at first level (like a raven or thrush, for example), is it capable of saying complete sentences and and communicating complex thoughts in that language, or is it imitating phrases without understanding them, much like how such birds do in the real world? Just how smart IS a bird familiar at first level anyhow?
Since it starts with an intelligence of above 2, yes, it can speak in full sentences and communicate complex thoughts.
Intelligence 6 is smart enough to go adventuring or interact with society.
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Creative Director
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@ Zousha: Int 6, like all the other animal/vermin familiars. Check the familiar rules.
1) Was Rovagug sealed before, during, or after the rise of the dinosaurs on Earth?
For some reason I'm thinking before - I guess an assumption that dragons rose on Golarion around the time Earth got dinosaurs...
2) Does Golarion's atmosphere have a much higher oxygen content than Earth's?
1) Unrevealed.
2) Nope. For all things scientific, Golarion is the same as Earth, becasue no one at Paizo is as smart as the collective internet when it comes to determining ALL of the ramifications of what would have to change in the world if there was more oxygen. Or if there were two moons. Or if the planet were twice as big. Or if plate tectonics didn't exist. ETC.
It's much better to assume "same as Earth" and then explain the differences via magic or supernatural than change things and get it wrong and then have to explain that "error" as being caused by magic, in my opinion.
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Hey Mr. Jacobs, I've got some weird questions myself... I hope they haven't been asked yet in the rest of this 1000+ page thread yet.
1.) Are Inevitables ever created to ensure other inevitable concepts besides the ones normally listed. The constant of entropy for example. I will admit that in my personal campaign I nicked Coaxmetal from Planescape Torment to be the Paradigm Inevitable of Entropy.
2.) Since Pharasma does the heavy lifting on assuring the safe disposition of souls in Golarian, does this mean all death rituals are intrinsically Pharasmic, or are there specialized ones for each religion?
3.) Back on the Inevitables again, do inevitables ever errantly trigger the ire of other inevitables. Say a Kolyraut enforcing a contract that ensures the bearer has to survive for a certain period of time beyond his life span who also has a Marut sicced on him by axiomite hierarchy.
4.) Am I an evil bastard of a DM for occasionally trapping players in the Zelekhut death spiral,where destroying a Zelekhut sent after them for commission of a crime results in additional Zelekhuts being dispatched to punish the destruction of the prior Zelekhut as well as replacement Zelekhtus fulfilling the original Zelekhut's mission? Thus forcing the heroes to have to lawyer their way out of their problem.
Thanks in advance for answers. My apologies for the Inevitable obsession in the questions, I love those guys.
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Oh I know, though ** spoiler omitted **
And to be sure to have a question...
Is Calistria an ascended azata? (Or, considering her CN alignment, an ascended fallen azata?)
Nope. Not all deities are ascended outsiders. In fact, very few of them are. Sarenrae's an ascended angel. Rovagug an ascended qlippoth. Lamashtu an ascended demon. And Asmodeus an ascended devil. That's about it for the core 20.
Calistria has always been a goddess.
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Creative Director
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A serious question, which I posted on another thread and never got a full answer to.
I don't know if this is the right place for this question. But I suspect its a place where there are knowledgeable creatures who will know the answer, which makes it the absolute right place in one sense.
The question is, is there an equivalent ruling to that allowing SLA to count for fulfilling the pre-reqs for Mystic Theurge for innate psionic powers and Cerebremancer.
And if the answer is no, do people agree with me that the same logic should apply?
If this works, or your GM says it can, there are two races in the Psionics unleashed book capable of manifesting a 2nd lvl power at lvl 1. Half Giants and [psionic] Duergar.
Now there is a trait allowing you to take a racial trait you are not. Can't recall its name at present. Most GMs I know won't allow it, but if your GM is more benign or you can convince your GM, bribery, sexual favours, threats, whatever it takes, to allow it you can fulfill the pre-reqs for both PCs by level 3.
You can come up with a mystic theurge idea on steroids like this.
You start as a [psionic] Duergar with the [say]Tiefling SLA. you pump your wis to the max, obviously.
You take your first lvls as-1 Cleric, Trickery Domain
2 Vitalist
3 Empyreal Sorcerer
4-13 Cerebremancer
14-20 Mystic TheurgeAt lvl 20 you have 18 caster lvls as sorcerer, 8 as cleric and 11 manifesting levels as a vitalist.
That is real good power as a sorcerer with tremendous depth, flexibility and efficiency for your main stat. You can reverse around the order of Cerebremancer and Mystic Theurge as desired, getting more and earlier divine spells. Also, you can use both divine and arcane items w/o a skill or roll.
You are, however, stuck with having sorcerer as the primary class.
Thoughts?
I think that allowing spell-like abilities to count for fulfilling ANY pre-reques for prestige classes is a mistake, and I'd thought we'd rolled that back. If not, I need to crusade some more. The game was never designed with that assumption. When something says it requires a spell as a prerequisite, it means a spell... NOT something LIKE a spell. Using spell-like abilities to qualify for spell prerequisites for prestige classes is, basically, cheating against the intent and spirit of the rules.
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And more in the spirit of most stuff here-
Is this statement true?-
"This statement is not true."
I wouldn't say that's in the spirit of most stuff here at all. The majority of the questions asked on this thread are interesting and have answers I can supply and are looking for insight or the like into the game, Golarion, or my own philosophy. This question is none of those.
And Asmodeus an ascended devil.
Wait, so Asmodeus actually is just a really powerful devil and not a deity from the very dawn of time? All his claims about once belonging to a dualistic pantheon that created the multiverse truly are lies?
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@ Zousha: Int 6, like all the other animal/vermin familiars. Check the familiar rules.Oh, I know, but what does that MEAN in terms of roleplay? How do you roleplay an Int of 6? Can they speak complete sentences or do they act more like "Master, hungry" or "This thing magic?"
I think that sounds more like Intelligence 4 than 6. I'd play an Intelligence 6 thing, perhaps, with a child-like personality or simply as ignorant of most things it hasn't had direct interaction with. And in its actions, I'd play it like a SUPER smart bird, one capable of, say, playing jokes on people or having complex emotions.
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The probability distribution for 3d6 looks about the same as the probability distribution for IQ, which suggests an Int score of 6 correlates to an IQ between 79 and 80. Compare this to Forrest Gump's stated IQ of 75.@ Zousha: Int 6, like all the other animal/vermin familiars. Check the familiar rules.Oh, I know, but what does that MEAN in terms of roleplay? How do you roleplay an Int of 6? Can they speak complete sentences or do they act more like "Master, hungry" or "This thing magic?"
Also... let's keep the thread to questions for me. I know it's a big thread, but I don't want to clutter it up with side discussions and conversations.
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And Asmodeus an ascended devil.Wait, so Asmodeus actually is just a really powerful devil and not a deity from the very dawn of time? All his claims about once belonging to a dualistic pantheon that created the multiverse truly are lies?
He can be both. Devils are among the oldest of the outsider races, after all.
But I'll let you in on a (not very secret) secret. He's a really good liar.
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I thought that I had all the Shackles books. What's Scuttlecove?Scuttlecove is a location from my home-brew game that I more or less sold to Wizards of the Coast. It's the setting of the Book of Vile Darkness tie-in adventure I wrote for Dungeon, "The Porphyry House Horror," and I brought it back again for an adventure in the last third of Savage Tide in Dungeon.
It's a pretty adults-only kind of town. It would fit PERFECTLY into the Shackles.
Aha. Thanks! I'll have to dig out my old copy and take a look at it as I'm running S&S now.
What do you do with wealth, or magic items more specifically for incoming new PCs? And what to do with deceased PC items?
I let the players decide what to do with a deceased PC's items... then I audit the party, find out what their average wealth is, and let the new player come in at that average (or maybe a little less, since being able to customize your gear all at once is more efficient than over a campaign). At that time, if there's a player who's VERY low compared to the others, I'll engineer in game for some custom treasure perfect for that character to pop up. And if the PCs start to get too much treasure, I ramp back the treasure.
My play style, though, does not have a lot of player character deaths happen. They DO happen, but there's usually options (be they quest rewards or divine intervention or hero points or plot twist cards or Harrow deck fates) to fix the death relatively quickly, often at a cost (to resources or story elements or gold or hero points or whatever), so that the PC gets to continue the story. Having a character die in a game is penalty enough; it's humiliating and you have to stop playing the game, often for hours, while the rest of the table keeps going. Further punishing that player by forcing them to build a new character and abandon their previous build is really lame, and as such, I use the above methods to try to keep PCs in the group. Of course, if the PLAYER wants to take advantage of the death for story reasons or to start a new character, that's fine.
But as a result, I don't often have to deal with how PC wealth gets recycled into the party.
USUALLY when it happens, my players opt to keep any "plot-important" items the dead character had, and then do the "bury the dead with his/her stuff" solution to not only keep themselves from being bloated with gear (and as a favor to me), but as a side joke, to help enable future adventurers who might want to loot the dead; it helps explain why so many tombs are filled with treasure. Other times, the players opt to have the character's loot given as an inheritance to his family... and sometimes, that means that the new PC gets the old PC's gear to use or sell as they see fit.
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Hey Mr. Jacobs, I've got some weird questions myself... I hope they haven't been asked yet in the rest of this 1000+ page thread yet.
1.) Are Inevitables ever created to ensure other inevitable concepts besides the ones normally listed. The constant of entropy for example. I will admit that in my personal campaign I nicked Coaxmetal from Planescape Torment to be the Paradigm Inevitable of Entropy.
2.) Since Pharasma does the heavy lifting on assuring the safe disposition of souls in Golarian, does this mean all death rituals are intrinsically Pharasmic, or are there specialized ones for each religion?
3.) Back on the Inevitables again, do inevitables ever errantly trigger the ire of other inevitables. Say a Kolyraut enforcing a contract that ensures the bearer has to survive for a certain period of time beyond his life span who also has a Marut sicced on him by axiomite hierarchy.
4.) Am I an evil bastard of a DM for occasionally trapping players in the Zelekhut death spiral,where destroying a Zelekhut sent after them for commission of a crime results in additional Zelekhuts being dispatched to punish the destruction of the prior Zelekhut as well as replacement Zelekhtus fulfilling the original Zelekhut's mission? Thus forcing the heroes to have to lawyer their way out of their problem.
Thanks in advance for answers. My apologies for the Inevitable obsession in the questions, I love those guys.
1) There are absolutely inevitables out there we haven't detailed yet. Just as in-world they might not have been created yet since the conditions that require them to be created haven't yet occurred, we haven't invented them yet because we haven't yet told a story where that role is needed.
2) Nope. Death rituals are entirely dependent on the faith. They might influence Pharasma's ruling... they might prevent the soul from becoming undead... or they might do nothing but soothe the emotions of the living. But only the death rituals of worshipers of Pharasma are intrinsically Pharasmin death rituals.
3) Yes. They can have arguments and fights.
4) Kinda. Although, I'd say rather than evil, you're at risk of becoming predictable and boring. Which is kinda worse. ;P
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4) Kinda. Although, I'd say rather than evil, you're at risk of becoming predictable and boring. Which is kinda worse. ;P
Man if my players find out you said that about me, I'm never going to live it down. ;)
Another quickie question. I apologize if I'm glutting or hogging the mic here.
> You've mentioned repeatedly you want to avoid Golarian becoming a 'world where anything can happen.' The setting has a pretty wide net (pirates, robots, cthulhu) as is, so what would you say is your campaign mission statement for what you wanted to accomplish with it?
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4) Kinda. Although, I'd say rather than evil, you're at risk of becoming predictable and boring. Which is kinda worse. ;PMan if my players find out you said that about me, I'm never going to live it down. ;)
Another quickie question. I apologize if I'm glutting or hogging the mic here.
> You've mentioned repeatedly you want to avoid Golarian becoming a 'world where anything can happen.' The setting has a pretty wide net (pirates, robots, cthulhu) as is, so what would you say is your campaign mission statement for what you wanted to accomplish with it?
HA! Them's the dangers of the internet! Take it as a challenge to prove me wrong! :-)
Also... no such thing as hogging the mic here. Ask away!
As for Golarion... I want it to be a setting where I can tell any and all of the stories I personally would want to tell in as many possible Fantasy-themed games that I could ever run, while simultaneously making sure the same is true for everyone else who enjoys the setting. I figure I have enough variety in what I do like that there's enough overlap with everyone else that folks will end up enjoying it more despite the possibility of there being something missing from the setting that they would enjoy, such as a nation of good-aligned orcs, a wide network of airships, or so on.
I just picked up a stack of old Dungeon magazines at my local FLGS, among them Dungeon #12 with your solo adventure! I also picked up #15 with a Wolfgang Baur adventure, but not sure if that's his first published work.
How excited were you when issue #12 came out? I'm looking forward to reading it later!
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I just picked up a stack of old Dungeon magazines at my local FLGS, among them Dungeon #12 with your solo adventure! I also picked up #15 with a Wolfgang Baur adventure, but not sure if that's his first published work.
How excited were you when issue #12 came out? I'm looking forward to reading it later!
VERY excited. I was disappointed it had green cows on the cover, but was vindicated when issue #24 had the best cover since #1 and it was for my adventure..
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And Asmodeus an ascended devil.Wait, so Asmodeus actually is just a really powerful devil and not a deity from the very dawn of time? All his claims about once belonging to a dualistic pantheon that created the multiverse truly are lies?He can be both. Devils are among the oldest of the outsider races, after all.
But I'll let you in on a (not very secret) secret. He's a really good liar.
See, that's the trick though, isn't it? With a really good liar, they can tell you the honest truth to your face and you won't believe them. Asmodeus is so well-known as a liar that is impossible to tell his lies from his truths, and he has every reason to tell the truth (or something close to it) now and then, both to make people doubt it, and to strengthen the power of his lies.
As for questions.... is there a story behind your certainty that the menagerie in Magnimar has velociraptors in it? Or is it just because it's your home turf?
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As for questions.... is there a story behind your certainty that the menagerie in Magnimar has velociraptors in it? Or is it just because it's your home turf?
It's because it's my home turf, and because if I were playing a druid in Varisia, I'd sure as HELL want a velociraptor animal companion. ;)
In Shattered Star, the whole party starts out as junior members of the Pathfinder Society. What's your opinion on having one or two members of the party in other adventure paths belonging to the Society and writing down their exploits for publication in the Chronicles? Has anyone in your own campaigns ever done that?
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In Shattered Star, the whole party starts out as junior members of the Pathfinder Society. What's your opinion on having one or two members of the party in other adventure paths belonging to the Society and writing down their exploits for publication in the Chronicles? Has anyone in your own campaigns ever done that?
I've never had anyone in my campaigns be members of the Pathfinders, but I've only run four campaigns for Pathfinder so far.
That said, the whole POINT of the Pathfinders is that they should be adventurer-friendly and a good support structure for them. It's unfortunate that they aren't thought of that way, alas, due to some unfortunate portrayals in PFS.
VERY excited. I was disappointed it had green cows on the cover, but was vindicated when issue #24 had the best cover since #1 and it was for my adventure..I just picked up a stack of old Dungeon magazines at my local FLGS, among them Dungeon #12 with your solo adventure! I also picked up #15 with a Wolfgang Baur adventure, but not sure if that's his first published work.
How excited were you when issue #12 came out? I'm looking forward to reading it later!
If they had pushed your adventure back to issue #13, then it would have been in the issue with the T-Rex on the cover which would have been kind of funny now in hindsight. I'll have to look for issue #24- there's still a bunch of early issues left at the store I went to.
Question: Out of the following three Thomas Ligotti collections, which one was your favorite- Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, Noctuary?
I really enjoyed Grimscribe a lot more out of those three.
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Question: Out of the following three Thomas Ligotti collections, which one was your favorite- Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, Noctuary?
I really enjoyed Grimscribe a lot more out of those three.
I've actually read all my Ligotti fiction in anthologies or from "The Nightmare Factory" which is an omnibus of those three books, I believe, so I don't really have a favorite of those collections.
My favorite Ligotti stories though are "The Prodigy of Dreams" and "Last Feast of Harlequin." I've not read NEAR enough of his stories though.
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Thanks for the info on familiars, James! It's really helpful. :)
And now for a question:
Can Golarion halflings grow beards? I've seen at least one bearded halfling illustrated in the NPC Codex, and there IS a precedent for them in Tolkien (the Stoor subgroup, specifically), but I'm curious as to whether that's intentional on Paizo's part or if it's just something that's slipped past editors into the book, especially since I know you don't care for Tolkien that much.
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Can Golarion halflings grow beards? I've seen at least one bearded halfling illustrated in the NPC Codex, and there IS a precedent for them in Tolkien (the Stoor subgroup, specifically), but I'm curious as to whether that's intentional on Paizo's part or if it's just something that's slipped past editors into the book, especially since I know you don't care for Tolkien that much.
Yes, they can grow beards. They tend to shave, though. To a halfling, foot hair is more interesting than chin hair.
So do hipster halflings dye their foot hair in alternating stripes or shave it into creative patterns?
How does one become a druid? Martial classes are clearly combat training, clerics and inquisitors go through religious training, sorcerers and oracles spontaneously develop powers, wizards and alchemists study etc, but druid? I mean, druids are usually reclusive loners who rarely congregate for major issues, but how does a layman get introduced to druidism in the first place, let alone get trained to harness nature itself?