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Paizo Employee Creative Director

Joana wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Joana wrote:
Say a PC successfully casts charm person on an enemy bard, thus making the bard regard him as a trusted friend and ally. If the bard is using Inspire Courage, does this allow the charmer to benefit from the morale bonuses that accrue to the bard's allies?
No. The bard would have to re-activate his bardic performance for the bonuses to re-align to the new allies, but that's an excellent use of charm person.

So it's like a bless effect that only affects the allies who can hear him at the time the performance starts? We've always played it that summoned creatures or other late arrivals get the benefits of an ongoing performance.

I.e., if the wizard summons a creature in the middle of battle while the bard is performing, the creature's attacks get the Inspire Courage bonus.

That method works fine too.

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Why was Firefly canceled? WHY?

seriously, I managed to put my hands on the incomplete first season and this show was just really awesome! I even got a real itch to play in the setting with your Unspeakable Future game! and you didn't even publish it yet!

Did we somehow anger the gods? will an offering of a lamb be enough to coax them into allowing the show to renew (probably with a new cast but I can live with that)?

Mr. Wheddon refused to do Avengers 2. Surely that is because he is now working on the new Firefly TV show!

Spoiler:
RIGHT?

Sovereign Court

James Jacobs wrote:
RtrnofdMax wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
Does a 7th-level inquisitor with a Bane Baldric (UE) get early access to Greater Bane?
Dunno. You caught me at home where I don't have a copy of UE handy and it's not up on the PRD yet...

It doesn't look like you got back to this one. I too am interested. It has been posited elsewhere that since it gives Bane to a non-Inquisitor, it should give Greater Bane to an "effective" level 12 Inquisitor. Your take?

Edit: And if you still don't have your book.

Ah.

No, it does not grant early access to greater bane.

I know I caught you in the middle of answering questions, but seriously, a 30 min turn around is damn impressive.


James Jacobs wrote:
Cheapy wrote:

Since I think it got eaten by the dread "Last post on a page in an extremely popular thread" monster...

Regarding AP #44, trial of the beast, and AP #48, shadows of gallowspire

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks! I've been wondering about those ones for awhile.

I developed the first adventure for Carrion Crown, but not the rest of it, so I can't say for sure what's going on there... but the fact that the count can craft constructs is pretty much apparent. Since we didn't stat him up, we didn't have to give him the feat or explain how he gets the feat.

And alchemists can become liches. Their method of crafting the phylactery would be different than a regular spellcasting lich, though. It'd probably involve the need for a special (as yet undesigned by us) alchemist discovery.

carion crown spoilers:
This is one of the Wispering Way's more or less stated goals, to find an alchemical way to lichdom even for non-casters.

Lord Snow wrote:

Why was Firefly canceled? WHY?

seriously, I managed to put my hands on the incomplete first season and this show was just really awesome! I even got a real itch to play in the setting with your Unspeakable Future game! and you didn't even publish it yet!

Did we somehow anger the gods? will an offering of a lamb be enough to coax them into allowing the show to renew (probably with a new cast but I can live with that)?

Mr. Wheddon refused to do Avengers 2. Surely that is because he is now working on the new Firefly TV show!

** spoiler omitted **

Actually, Joss Whedon said he was undecided about Avengers 2 at the 10 year reunion of the Firefly cast and crew during the San Diego Comic Con in July. However, in August, Joss signed a contract to write and direct Avengers 2 and do T.V. series up through July of 2015.

Here ya go.


So I noticed you were briefly saying that perhaps the Test of the Starstone could be done using the Mythic Adventures, I find this rather amusing since in one of my current Mythic playtest campaigns I was going to have my players take the test as a way to further their Mythic status. They weren't going to complete the test, but they were going to be able to make it out of the cathedral alive and perhaps with some powerful items from inside.

That being said, would it be possible to get a brief idea on what one or two challenges inside the cathedral MIGHT be?

Shadow Lodge

Ok so it's tomorrow so now I must ask what subdomains would Isph-Aun-Vuln have?

Also how many subdomains do minor divinities have in comparison to full on gods?


James Jacobs wrote:
Third: That varies. For example: when a demon lord dies, it's life essence crystalizes into something called a Nahyndrian Crystal and its corpse ends up in an Abyssal Realm called the Rift of Repose. Some deities just cease to be when they die. Others leave remains behind and their corpses rot, as seen in Abaddon. Others might drift off into strange other planes. Others might become planets. It's something that we're intentionally not going to nail down as an exact equation so that we can customize things as we wish for adventures as we go.

The reason that I asked that question was that, for a possible PFS character I'm making (in the event I ever get a chance to do PFS), the character believes that just as mortal souls have an Outer Realm they are sent to when they die, there's an "Outer Outer" Realm that deities go to when they die and that's where Aroden is.

So if there's no concrete thing that happens to a deity upon death, is there at all a chance that a deity could be brought back? Say... if someone presented the Starstone with the Bloodstones of Arazni (which are said to still have some of Aroden's divine spark in them), could it be used to bring Aroden back?

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
Third: That varies. For example: when a demon lord dies, it's life essence crystalizes into something called a Nahyndrian Crystal and its corpse ends up in an Abyssal Realm called the Rift of Repose. Some deities just cease to be when they die. Others leave remains behind and their corpses rot, as seen in Abaddon. Others might drift off into strange other planes. Others might become planets. It's something that we're intentionally not going to nail down as an exact equation so that we can customize things as we wish for adventures as we go.

Nahyndrian Crystal? Where is that from (in terms of books mentioned) and what does it do? Can you use it to do anything? Like craft an awesome axe or something?


Does temporarily raising an ability score with owl's wisdom (or fox's cunning or eagle's splendor) suffice to make your casting ability high enough to cast a spell off a scroll you normally don't meet the requisite ability score for? Or does it have to be a permanent ability boost as from a headband?

Dark Archive

Wes Schneider included (introduced?) a game mechanic called manifestation in his articles on the archdevils featured in Kobold Quarterly. Is this a game mechanic we'll see in future Pathfinder products? Or will that game mechanic die with Kobold Quarterly, at least far as official Pathfinder products are concerned?

In case you're taking votes, I'm a fan of the concept. ;)


Speaking of Kobold Quarterly, how canonical are the articles on archdevils and other Golarion-specific material? Is the infernal duke Lau Kiritsu, for example, an "official" part of the Golarion setting?

I ask because I'm an active editor on PathfinderWiki, and I don't want to clutter it up with apocryphal or incorrect information (like the afore-mentioned retconned material that's since been written out of the setting but still creeps into the wiki).

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Lord Snow wrote:

Why was Firefly canceled? WHY?

seriously, I managed to put my hands on the incomplete first season and this show was just really awesome! I even got a real itch to play in the setting with your Unspeakable Future game! and you didn't even publish it yet!

Did we somehow anger the gods? will an offering of a lamb be enough to coax them into allowing the show to renew (probably with a new cast but I can live with that)?

Mr. Wheddon refused to do Avengers 2. Surely that is because he is now working on the new Firefly TV show!

** spoiler omitted **

Because Fox completely bungled the rollout of the show and because not enough viewers realized how awesome it was until well after it had been cancelled.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

ChaoticAngel97 wrote:

So I noticed you were briefly saying that perhaps the Test of the Starstone could be done using the Mythic Adventures, I find this rather amusing since in one of my current Mythic playtest campaigns I was going to have my players take the test as a way to further their Mythic status. They weren't going to complete the test, but they were going to be able to make it out of the cathedral alive and perhaps with some powerful items from inside.

That being said, would it be possible to get a brief idea on what one or two challenges inside the cathedral MIGHT be?

One of the reasons I've been pushing for Mythic Adventures, in fact, is BECAUSE I want to do a "Test of the Starstone" adventure. So to a certain extent, all of Mythic Adventures is being designed so that one adventure can some day be written.

I'm not ready to start talking in public about what the challenges inside it might be, though.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

doc the grey wrote:

Ok so it's tomorrow so now I must ask what subdomains would Isph-Aun-Vuln have?

Also how many subdomains do minor divinities have in comparison to full on gods?

Alas, I'm at home again. I forgot. Ask in the Subdomain thread though and I'll probably be able to answer better.

Deities have 5 domains and 6 subdomains.

Demigods have 4 domains and 4 subdomains.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Harrison wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Third: That varies. For example: when a demon lord dies, it's life essence crystalizes into something called a Nahyndrian Crystal and its corpse ends up in an Abyssal Realm called the Rift of Repose. Some deities just cease to be when they die. Others leave remains behind and their corpses rot, as seen in Abaddon. Others might drift off into strange other planes. Others might become planets. It's something that we're intentionally not going to nail down as an exact equation so that we can customize things as we wish for adventures as we go.

The reason that I asked that question was that, for a possible PFS character I'm making (in the event I ever get a chance to do PFS), the character believes that just as mortal souls have an Outer Realm they are sent to when they die, there's an "Outer Outer" Realm that deities go to when they die and that's where Aroden is.

So if there's no concrete thing that happens to a deity upon death, is there at all a chance that a deity could be brought back? Say... if someone presented the Starstone with the Bloodstones of Arazni (which are said to still have some of Aroden's divine spark in them), could it be used to bring Aroden back?

That's an interesting idea for a character... but I think it's more interesting an idea for a character in a home campaign than in PFS, frankly. My opinion, though.

Part of the reason, though, that we set it up so that there's no concrete thing that always happens the same to a deity when it dies is precisely BECAUSE we want to remain mysterious about what happened to Aroden.

A deity can absolutely be brought back from death. That's a little bit what Serpent's Skull is all about (although the deity in that one's not really dead... just decapitated).

Aroden though? He's dead. He's not coming back because that's not what we want to do with Golarion.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Stratagemini wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Third: That varies. For example: when a demon lord dies, it's life essence crystalizes into something called a Nahyndrian Crystal and its corpse ends up in an Abyssal Realm called the Rift of Repose. Some deities just cease to be when they die. Others leave remains behind and their corpses rot, as seen in Abaddon. Others might drift off into strange other planes. Others might become planets. It's something that we're intentionally not going to nail down as an exact equation so that we can customize things as we wish for adventures as we go.
Nahyndrian Crystal? Where is that from (in terms of books mentioned) and what does it do? Can you use it to do anything? Like craft an awesome axe or something?

That's a sneak peek into my homebrew setting and into the upcoming "Wrath of the Righteous" Adventure Path. What do they do? You'll see for sure in about a year. :P


James Jacobs wrote:
Lord Snow wrote:

Why was Firefly canceled? WHY?

seriously, I managed to put my hands on the incomplete first season and this show was just really awesome! I even got a real itch to play in the setting with your Unspeakable Future game! and you didn't even publish it yet!

Did we somehow anger the gods? will an offering of a lamb be enough to coax them into allowing the show to renew (probably with a new cast but I can live with that)?

Mr. Wheddon refused to do Avengers 2. Surely that is because he is now working on the new Firefly TV show!

** spoiler omitted **

Because Fox completely bungled the rollout of the show and because not enough viewers realized how awesome it was until well after it had been cancelled.

James, wouldnt it be a more accurate statement that if a show is good and on FOX it gets cancelled regardless of the 'reasons'? FOX somehow manages to cancel all of the best TV series. I don't even bother watching FOX anymore because of this.

- Gauss

Paizo Employee Creative Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Joana wrote:
Does temporarily raising an ability score with owl's wisdom (or fox's cunning or eagle's splendor) suffice to make your casting ability high enough to cast a spell off a scroll you normally don't meet the requisite ability score for? Or does it have to be a permanent ability boost as from a headband?

The minimum ability score for casting a spell doesn't care how you reach that minimum. Owl's wisdom and fox's cunning and eagle's splendor work perfectly for that use.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Ravenmantle wrote:

Wes Schneider included (introduced?) a game mechanic called manifestation in his articles on the archdevils featured in Kobold Quarterly. Is this a game mechanic we'll see in future Pathfinder products? Or will that game mechanic die with Kobold Quarterly, at least far as official Pathfinder products are concerned?

In case you're taking votes, I'm a fan of the concept. ;)

Since Wes wrote it, and since Wes was keen to write the next 7 entries in that series eventually... I suspect you'll see something like that show up in Pathfinder some day.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Filby Pott wrote:

Speaking of Kobold Quarterly, how canonical are the articles on archdevils and other Golarion-specific material? Is the infernal duke Lau Kiritsu, for example, an "official" part of the Golarion setting?

I ask because I'm an active editor on PathfinderWiki, and I don't want to clutter it up with apocryphal or incorrect information (like the afore-mentioned retconned material that's since been written out of the setting but still creeps into the wiki).

If they're written by me or Wes... they're 100% canon. Although they don't go through the same set of development processes that our published things do, so there might be weird inconsistencies here and there... but the intent is that they're Golarion canon.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Gauss wrote:

James, wouldnt it be a more accurate statement that if a show is good and on FOX it gets cancelled regardless of the 'reasons'? FOX somehow manages to cancel all of the best TV series. I don't even bother watching FOX anymore because of this.

- Gauss

That's mostly a good reason, but now and then you get a show like "24" or "Fringe" that isn't cancelled despite the odds... or a show like "Family Guy" that gets cancelled and then comes back better than before.


James: You have a point regarding Fringe. Family Guy I watch elsewhere. I felt 24 stopped being good after season 1 so it doesnt count in my book. Just too repetitive.

- Gauss


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
... we could come after you with our army of lawyers. :P

If you had to stat up Paizo's team [army] of lawyers, what would they be?

Liberty's Edge

A question about art objects and other similar items found in treasure troves in the published adventures.
The listed value is the normal sell price or the maximum value of the item and it is usually sold for half that?
As an example the famous succubus statuettes found in several AP.

I generally take the listed price as what can be gained selling the item on the general market, while trying to sell it through an action house or to a interested buyer can net much more. As that kind of sale require time and the right contacts it generally it would become trading time for extra cash.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Memento Mortis wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
... we could come after you with our army of lawyers. :P
If you had to stat up Paizo's team [army] of lawyers, what would they be?

Deities don't get stat blocks, remember?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Diego Rossi wrote:

A question about art objects and other similar items found in treasure troves in the published adventures.

The listed value is the normal sell price or the maximum value of the item and it is usually sold for half that?
As an example the famous succubus statuettes found in several AP.

I generally take the listed price as what can be gained selling the item on the general market, while trying to sell it through an action house or to a interested buyer can net much more. As that kind of sale require time and the right contacts it generally it would become trading time for extra cash.

Art objects, gemtsones, and other monetary treasures resell for full price. Only magic items, equipment, and the like resells for half price.


Hello again James
I have seen this answer:

James Jacobs wrote:
The closest thing aboleths have to deities are the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods. Which is, more or less, the same as how aboleths worked in "Lords of Madness," save that Paizo's not afraid of using names like "Yog Sothoth" or "Nyarlathotep" or "Azathoth" as part of the game setting.

And I would like to know if you had designed the Elder Evils in Lords of Madness to be equivalent to some Lovecraftian's entities, and so could you give the "equivalencies" (which one is which) ?

Shadow Lodge

Should shoggti qilppoth have a swim speed?


Why haven't the Witch and that Half-Orc Inquisitor been very talkative lately?

Then again, it's not like I'd care for the former, since she's not even a proper student of the arcane...


I have a couple of questions about Runelord Sorshen in relation to Shattered Star and Curse of the Crimson Throne. Spoilers for both (and Rise of the Runelords for one question) will ensue.

Spoiler:
In Curse of the Crimson Throne, it is mentioned that Ileosa used the Everdawn Pool as Sorshen did, or at least was trying to use it, and that her immortality would come from eternal youth, "locked in time" by a massive amount of magic powered by the blood sacrifice of possibly tens of thousands of Korvosans. Sorshen may also have used the Everdawn Pool to obtain other permanent benefits, such as, mechanically speaking, boosting all her ability scores or granting herself various abilities.

In Shattered Star, the players can come across a clone of Sorshen kept in stasis, and it is also possible that one of them might wind up in that body. It's also said that Sorshen has many clones scattered around as insurance policies, and that the one the players find is just one of them.

Would any of the physical benefits Sorshen gained from the Everdawn Pool, specifically the eternal youth, carry over into the new body, even if it is now inhabited by a different "soul" through an accident of magic traps? Would the "ability score increases" carry over, or at least the physical ones? It seems like it would be a waste of time for Sorshen to go through the ritual to re-gain her eternal youth every time she might have met with death (even for a Runelord with 20+ levels, it had to happen once in a while) if it was at all possible to ensure that clones created from her immortal and eternally youthful body could benefit from the same "locked in time" quality that she herself possessed.


Related questions:
Spoiler:
Since Ileosa did a great deal of research into Thassilon and specifically Sorshen herself, if Curse of the Crimson Throne was run after Shattered Star and Ileosa met with the player now in Sorshen's body, would she recognise them easily? How might she react to such an appearance as (apparently, to her) Runelord Sorshen come back to life? There's a reference in Shattered Star that those who might recognise the player as in Sorshen's body would assume the person had taken that image for vanity or some similar purpose, but Ileosa is a bit different because she's actually researching and attempting to find out a number of intimate details about Sorshen, her immortality, and to an extent Thassilon by proxy. It seems to me that somebody who has Sorshen's body, and has been to one of her fortresses/palaces, would be of great interest to Ileosa, who might want to work out exactly how it happened, why it happened, if it could be made to happen again, and possibly just details about the Lady's Light in general.

Spoiler:
As above, but for Rise of the Runelords, if that too was run after Shattered Star, or at least after going through Lady's Light as a side-adventure for a group. How might Karzoug react? Both before and after he works out that it isn't actually Sorshen, but just somebody using her body?

Spoiler:
As the question immediately above, but Sorshen herself, if she was accidentally awoken by a group of player characters who delved too deep?

Spoiler:
The ritual of the Everdawn Pool in Curse of the Crimson Throne involves blood magic and blood sacrifice as a fuel source. At the risk of sounding a bit too "Dragon Age Blood Magic" here, are/were there any plans to at some point give further rules and mechanics for using blood and blood magic in such a fashion? There is one third party prestige class, the Blood Caster, that does a bit of this, as well as the Bloatmage as a practitioner of hemotheurgy (although given the potential obesity/ugliness issue of it, I cannot imagine Sorshen - who used "blood magic" herself - to be willing to take such a route, when she could go in a different direction), and even a few spells here and there - Blood Money, Blood Transcription, Boiling Blood, Blood Rage, and so on. Will there ever be, or are there, specific sources that will look at blood magic (hemotheurgy, I suppose you'd call it) in detail like that? Or a Golarion prestige class? Surely the bloatmage method of becoming practically deformed isn't the only possible way to employ hemotheurgy?

Of course, given the existence of the Everdawn Pool and the way Sorshen/Ileosa (and possibly others) used/planned to use blood magic to grant themselves immortality, it seems very probable to me that other applications are definitely available, though they haven't yet had much detail provided on them.


Huh. Lots of text there. If you made it this far, then thanks for reading.

The Exchange

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Have you ever considered using the Mythic tier mechanic in other ways? Like Faction rankings with assoicated bonuses, or School training, et to add a new layer of complexity to characters with out going outside of the 20 level model?


MurphysParadox wrote:
He isn't talking about the mechanical abilities. He is wondering about how to roleplay a character focused on upholding the law. The original post is asking what are the laws for Ustalav. Like for example, is it lawful for a nobleman to kill a commoner for looking at him? If a shopkeeper declares someone a thief, do they get a trial or does the guard just take care of the problem there (and does he try to figure out if it is true or just take the shopkeeper's word)? Is bribery illegal or expected? And so on.

So, what kind of laws are there in Ustalav? Would help since we plan to run Carrion Crown after Kingmaker and others wanted to know, too.


Icyshadow wrote:
MurphysParadox wrote:
He isn't talking about the mechanical abilities. He is wondering about how to roleplay a character focused on upholding the law. The original post is asking what are the laws for Ustalav. Like for example, is it lawful for a nobleman to kill a commoner for looking at him? If a shopkeeper declares someone a thief, do they get a trial or does the guard just take care of the problem there (and does he try to figure out if it is true or just take the shopkeeper's word)? Is bribery illegal or expected? And so on.
So, what kind of laws are there in Ustalav? Would help since we plan to run Carrion Crown after Kingmaker and others wanted to know, too.

A good place to start would be to compare Ustalav to Victorian era Europe ,which is the vibe that they're going for "gothic horror" feel. Then look at the alignment of the nation being neutral evil. This largely implies that while there is a Victorian sensibility with laws, the country itself is largely self-serving to the point of abusing others privileges and rights.

So you could use a resource like this to get a feel for what established laws would look like, and then have people of influence and power completely go against them and use their money/power to disregard the laws. Basically, the laws apply when it is convenient to people who have the influence to abuse them. The common man has no one looking out for him.

This is different from a lawful evil society, where the laws would apply to everyone, but people of power and influence twist them to their advantage while staying within their bounds.


James, was the Construct Armor section in Ultimate Magic truncated at all for word count to become the way it appeared in the book? There's a lot of rules vagueness there and almost too many questions on how it works and interfaces with things.

With that said, I have like half a dozen questions about it:

1) A wizard wearing Construct Armor is hit by a fireball. Do both he and his construct armor make the save/take damage, or just the construct, since its HP is damaged first (ala temporary HP).

2) Targeted spells: Can the wizard inside the armor be targeted by spells that would not affect the construct?

3) The rules specifically state that the wearer of construct armor keeps their base attack bonus and saves. That seems to imply that other traits may carry over? Damage reduction? The construct's physical ability scores? It seems to make sense that if you are encased in a Clockwork Soldier you use its strength score instead of your own.

4) A wizard makes a suit of +1 heavy fortification full plate armor and casts animate object on it and turns it into construct armor. Does he get the enhancement bonus and special abilities of the armor while wearing it? Does it still only count as breastplate armor?

5) Can an alchemist use his infusions while inside the construct armor?

6) A magus inside of construct armor casts dimension door. Does the construct armor move with him?

I love the concept, but I feel like it needed a little more space/elaboration. FYI: I would by an entire 32-page book about this sort of stuff.


James Jacobs wrote:
TheLoneCleric wrote:
If/when you do Arcadia and the other land masses of Golarion is the plan to do them the say way Tian Xia was covered? AP, players guide, Bestiary tie-in, and setting books?
That would be cool! I've certainly got an Arcadia AP in mind (and have had one in mind that would work for Arcadia for about 6 years now). Maybe not a giant Bestiary tie-in, since we've already kinda done that with Bestiary 3... but absolutely a 64 page "Arcadia Gazetteer."

Speaking of which, what do you think of the Ulfen having introduced the concept of the sword to the Arcadians? Because I wanna see a pseudo-Iroquois brave wielding a great-sword running around killing mooks.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Does the strength of an individual, levels, have an effect on their soul in the afterlife? For example, is Throntar "Eater-of-Faces" the Chaotic Evil 15th level Barbarian going to progress from a larvae to a full-fledged demon of some sort faster than Bryan "Kicker-of-Puppies" the Chaotic Evil 2nd level commoner?


James, how would you write up a Bene-Gesserit from Dune? Basically, would you make it an archetype of monk or rogue or bard? Or maybe a prestige class? Whole new base class? How would your answer change for specifying one that's a full-on Reverend Mother?
Link for reminder of all the cool stuff they can do.

Dark Archive

Will pathfinder ever have climate/terrain based books similar to the frostburn book?


ulgulanoth wrote:
Will pathfinder ever have climate/terrain based books similar to the frostburn book?

Hope he says "Yes," as I loved Frostburn and it's content

Paizo Employee Creative Director

selios wrote:

Hello again James

I have seen this answer:
James Jacobs wrote:
The closest thing aboleths have to deities are the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods. Which is, more or less, the same as how aboleths worked in "Lords of Madness," save that Paizo's not afraid of using names like "Yog Sothoth" or "Nyarlathotep" or "Azathoth" as part of the game setting.
And I would like to know if you had designed the Elder Evils in Lords of Madness to be equivalent to some Lovecraftian's entities, and so could you give the "equivalencies" (which one is which) ?

As it turns out, that information DID get into Lords of Madness. It's right there on page 28. The fact that I couldn't just use those names for the elder evils is what annoyed me, but being able to put that section in anyway was a good consolation prize.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

doc the grey wrote:
Should shoggti qilppoth have a swim speed?

Nope. Shoggti don't live in the water, nor are they aquatic.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Chrysanthe Spiros wrote:

Why haven't the Witch and that Half-Orc Inquisitor been very talkative lately?

Then again, it's not like I'd care for the former, since she's not even a proper student of the arcane...

They either got busy doing adventures or work, or got bored answering questions, or maybe a little of the both.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Alleran wrote:

Spoiler:
In Curse of the Crimson Throne, it is mentioned that Ileosa used the Everdawn Pool as Sorshen did, or at least was trying to use it, and that her immortality would come from eternal youth, "locked in time" by a massive amount of magic powered by the blood sacrifice of possibly tens of thousands of Korvosans. Sorshen may also have used the Everdawn Pool to obtain other permanent benefits, such as, mechanically speaking, boosting all her ability scores or granting herself various abilities.

In Shattered Star, the players can come across a clone of Sorshen kept in stasis, and it is also possible that one of them might wind up in that body. It's also said that Sorshen has many clones scattered around as insurance policies, and that the one the players find is just one of them.

Would any of the physical benefits Sorshen gained from the Everdawn Pool, specifically the eternal youth, carry over into the new body, even if it is now inhabited by a different "soul" through an accident of magic traps? Would the "ability score increases" carry over, or at least the physical ones? It seems like it would be a waste of time for Sorshen to go through the ritual to re-gain her eternal youth every time she might have met with death (even for a Runelord with 20+ levels, it had to happen once in a while) if it was at all possible to ensure that clones created from her immortal and eternally youthful body could benefit from the same "locked in time" quality that she herself possessed.

Spoiler:
The clones have never been subjected to the Everdawn Pool, and as such don't have any benefits from it, because the Everdawn Pool doesn't work on clones. Had Sorshen been forced to start over in a clone, she would have had to redo the Everdawn Ritual. Whether that would have been a waste of time for Sorshen or not never really mattered, since she never had to use any of her clones.
Alleran wrote:

Spoiler:
Since Ileosa did a great deal of research into Thassilon and specifically Sorshen herself, if Curse of the Crimson Throne was run after Shattered Star and Ileosa met with the player now in Sorshen's body, would she recognise them easily? How might she react to such an appearance as (apparently, to her) Runelord Sorshen come back to life? There's a reference in Shattered Star that those who might recognise the player as in Sorshen's body would assume the person had taken that image for vanity or some similar purpose, but Ileosa is a bit different because she's actually researching and attempting to find out a number of intimate details about Sorshen, her immortality, and to an extent Thassilon by proxy. It seems to me that somebody who has Sorshen's body, and has been to one of her fortresses/palaces, would be of great interest to Ileosa, who might want to work out exactly how it happened, why it happened, if it could be made to happen again, and possibly just details about the Lady's Light in general.

Spoiler:
Ileosa would absolutely recognize the clone PC as a clone. She wouldn't be tricked into thinking it was Sorshen. She would react to the PC VERY poorly; she'd prefer to capture that PC, imprison them, mutilate their face and body to remove any resemblance to Sorshen, and would then probably brainwash the victim into being a loyal Gray Maiden. Or if that didn't work, she'd kill them. Just one of several reasons why running Shattered Star as a prequel to Crimson Throne would be... complicated.
Alleran wrote:
Spoiler:
As above, but for Rise of the Runelords, if that too was run after Shattered Star, or at least after going through Lady's Light as a side-adventure for a group. How might Karzoug react? Both before and after he works out that it isn't actually Sorshen, but just somebody using her body?

Spoiler:
Karzoug would be unlikely to be tricked. If he wasn't, he'd be amused and would try to take the PC alive to torture/force the truth out of the PC to find out how this happened. If he WAS tricked, he'd probably try to get the jump on "Sorshen" by killing her fast, counting himself lucky that he had the chance to get the initiative. And once it became apparent that "Sorshen" was not a mythic 20th level enchanter, he'd probably change his tactics to capture the PC alive as detailed above.
Alleran wrote:
Spoiler:
As the question immediately above, but Sorshen herself, if she was accidentally awoken by a group of player characters who delved too deep?

Spoiler:
She would probably attempt to dominate (or at least charm) the PC to recruit her into her harem, if she was in a good mood. If she were in a bad mood, she'd use some magic to kill the PC and put the body back into clone storage if possible.
Alleran wrote:

Spoiler:
The ritual of the Everdawn Pool in Curse of the Crimson Throne involves blood magic and blood sacrifice as a fuel source. At the risk of sounding a bit too "Dragon Age Blood Magic" here, are/were there any plans to at some point give further rules and mechanics for using blood and blood magic in such a fashion? There is one third party prestige class, the Blood Caster, that does a bit of this, as well as the Bloatmage as a practitioner of hemotheurgy (although given the potential obesity/ugliness issue of it, I cannot imagine Sorshen - who used "blood magic" herself - to be willing to take such a route, when she could go in a different direction), and even a few spells here and there - Blood Money, Blood Transcription, Boiling Blood, Blood Rage, and so on. Will there ever be, or are there, specific sources that will look at blood magic (hemotheurgy, I suppose you'd call it) in detail like that? Or a Golarion prestige class? Surely the bloatmage method of becoming practically deformed isn't the only possible way to employ hemotheurgy?

Of course, given the existence of the Everdawn Pool and the way Sorshen/Ileosa (and possibly others) used/planned to use blood magic to grant themselves immortality, it seems very probable to me that other applications are definitely available, though they haven't yet had much detail provided on them.

Spoiler:
No plans to go into further detail about the "blood magic," but it absolutely involves some element of vampirisim and vampiric stuff. It's not Dragon Age Blood Magic, nor is it Bloatmage magic. If we ever do something with Sorshen in print, we'll reveal more about that stuff.
Paizo Employee Creative Director

TheLoneCleric wrote:
Have you ever considered using the Mythic tier mechanic in other ways? Like Faction rankings with assoicated bonuses, or School training, et to add a new layer of complexity to characters with out going outside of the 20 level model?

Since Mythic tier mechanics are brand new and aren't yet set in stone, we haven't yet considered how we might branch those mechanics out into other rules. I'm not sure that's really necessary. Not sure faction rankings or school training need that extra level of complexity, or would benefit from it, ESPECIALLY since we haven't yet done a faction or school I would qualify as being Mythic and thus deserving that kind of expansion.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Icyshadow wrote:
MurphysParadox wrote:
He isn't talking about the mechanical abilities. He is wondering about how to roleplay a character focused on upholding the law. The original post is asking what are the laws for Ustalav. Like for example, is it lawful for a nobleman to kill a commoner for looking at him? If a shopkeeper declares someone a thief, do they get a trial or does the guard just take care of the problem there (and does he try to figure out if it is true or just take the shopkeeper's word)? Is bribery illegal or expected? And so on.
So, what kind of laws are there in Ustalav? Would help since we plan to run Carrion Crown after Kingmaker and others wanted to know, too.

Carrion Crown and Reign of Fear are the places to go for more Ustalav stuff.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Lucent wrote:

James, was the Construct Armor section in Ultimate Magic truncated at all for word count to become the way it appeared in the book? There's a lot of rules vagueness there and almost too many questions on how it works and interfaces with things.

With that said, I have like half a dozen questions about it:

1) A wizard wearing Construct Armor is hit by a fireball. Do both he and his construct armor make the save/take damage, or just the construct, since its HP is damaged first (ala temporary HP).

2) Targeted spells: Can the wizard inside the armor be targeted by spells that would not affect the construct?

3) The rules specifically state that the wearer of construct armor keeps their base attack bonus and saves. That seems to imply that other traits may carry over? Damage reduction? The construct's physical ability scores? It seems to make sense that if you are encased in a Clockwork Soldier you use its strength score instead of your own.

4) A wizard makes a suit of +1 heavy fortification full plate armor and casts animate object on it and turns it into construct armor. Does he get the enhancement bonus and special abilities of the armor while wearing it? Does it still only count as breastplate armor?

5) Can an alchemist use his infusions while inside the construct armor?

6) A magus inside of construct armor casts dimension door. Does the construct armor move with him?

I love the concept, but I feel like it needed a little more space/elaboration. FYI: I would by an entire 32-page book about this sort of stuff.

I wasn't involved in the Construct Armor section, so I can't say if it was truncated or what. That'd be a question for Jason or Sean.

1) The construct takes damage, the wearer does not. Essentially, Construct armor replaces the wearer in a battle.

2) Only if the spell can target something not in line of sight and not in line of effect.

....

The more I look at this ability, the more I agree that it's not very well thought out. I suggest not using it in your game if you aren't willing to answer a lot of questions via house rules. I wouldn't allow it in my game, partially because of this but mostly because if I want what's essentially a battlemech in my game, I'd make up brand new rules for it and treat it like a hybrid between armor and a vehicle, or I'd treat it as a magic item of some sort. If I wanted to treat it as a construct creature, I'd use mounted combat rules to figure out how it works.

That in mind, the rest of how I'd answer these questions would be:

3) Use the construct's stats EXCEPT you use your base attack bonus and your base saves, both modified by the construct's stats, except in the case of mental stuff which is modified by YOUR stats.

4) Once you animate object a suit of armor, you can either have it fight for you or wear it, not both. It keeps the enhancement bonuses.

5) No.

6) Only if he selects the construct as an additional creature to be dimension doored.


Should Aballonians (from Distant Worlds) have the robot subtype?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Voltron64 wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
TheLoneCleric wrote:
If/when you do Arcadia and the other land masses of Golarion is the plan to do them the say way Tian Xia was covered? AP, players guide, Bestiary tie-in, and setting books?
That would be cool! I've certainly got an Arcadia AP in mind (and have had one in mind that would work for Arcadia for about 6 years now). Maybe not a giant Bestiary tie-in, since we've already kinda done that with Bestiary 3... but absolutely a 64 page "Arcadia Gazetteer."
Speaking of which, what do you think of the Ulfen having introduced the concept of the sword to the Arcadians? Because I wanna see a pseudo-Iroquois brave wielding a great-sword running around killing mooks.

I think that's too close to real world mythology/history, but it's also not something I'm ready to make a decision on yet.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Squeakmaan wrote:
Does the strength of an individual, levels, have an effect on their soul in the afterlife? For example, is Throntar "Eater-of-Faces" the Chaotic Evil 15th level Barbarian going to progress from a larvae to a full-fledged demon of some sort faster than Bryan "Kicker-of-Puppies" the Chaotic Evil 2nd level commoner?

The power of an individual when they're alive almost never impacts what happens to them after they become a petitioner if they follow the typical live-die-judged-petitioner-outsider cycle. Becoming a petitioner like a larvae almost always wipes everything about the life away; petitioners are blank slates.

Exceptions exist as adventures and stories require them.

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