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Paizo Employee Creative Director

Icyshadow wrote:
And what about that fusion of Desna and Gozreh, Shmye-Magalla or whatever she was called? Mwangi deity fusion of some sort.

That's also something we're downplaying now that we've switched to Pathfinder and not D&D—further complicated by the fact that I never really wanted that type of "fusion deity" to exist in Golarion in the first place. It slipped into canon under my radar.

In the end, that's basically just a two deity pantheon that are worshiped as allies. If you're a cleric of that pantheon, you'd still need to pick Desna or Gozreh as your primary deity.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

VRMH wrote:
What is the Arcane Material Component of the Protection From Alignment spells? It used to be a pinch of silver in d20, but the Pathfinder PRD omits that line.

Heh; interesting. I'll get that errataed.

It should be a pinch of silver.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

nohar wrote:

just had a look at the Inner Sea Bestiary...curious about the syrinx, the progenitors of the stryx...

where on golarion are they common?...are they still enslaving the stryx or did more than the colony in Cheliax manage to escape?...were the stryx who encountered ancient Azlant emissaries of the syrinx or were they independent?

They're from Arcadia. We list where each of the Inner Sea Bestiary creatures are from down in their Environment line in most cases in that book. The few syrinxes in the Inner Sea region today are in disguise, hiding out, or otherwise scouting out things for various secret reasons we're not quite yet ready to reveal.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Diego Rossi wrote:

A question about chill touch and similar spells with an istantaneous duration and multiple touches.

The touches after the first round count as held charges and so disappear if you cast any other spell?

Chill touch is a weird spell. The touch attacks it grants do not function as "held charges." They don't disappear if you cast another spell, and the spell is pretty vague on how long the effects last—in theory, you could cast the spell on a Tuesday and still have some touches left over on Friday, for example, as long as you haven't made more touches than your level. Re-casting the spell when you still have charges left doesn't add to the existing charges—it merely resets your total available touches to its maximum.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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HangarFlying wrote:

Mr. Jacobs,

I know that weapons, armor, and magic items found in an adventure is sold for half of their purchase price. Coinage found is full value, obviously.

How much should the players receive for selling:

1) a painting that the AP says is valued at 500 gp;
2) jewelry (such as a dented crown valued at 20 gp);
3) a gold holy symbol valued at 100 gp;
4) a masterwork weapon that has an increased artistic value (say, a masterwork longsword that is valued at 800 gp).

I think I've hit the big examples I need. Thanks!

1) That's an art object. It sells for full price.

2) Also an art object; full price.
3) Also an art object; full price.
4) A masterwork weapon that's got an increased value should also sell for almost full price—you can halve the weapon's masterwork price if you want, but at that point, I wouldn't say that's necessary.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

James Jacobs wrote:
Thomas LeBlanc wrote:

What is the holy symbol for Count Ranalc?

Of the alternate channel abilities from Ultimate Magic, which fit his portfolio? I was thinking darkness for his shadow portfolio, but I am unsure of what the other choices may be available for a hidden priest to be played in PFS. The contracts/oaths could serve for betrayal, but nothing seems to work for his exile portfolio.

We haven't designed his holy symbol yet, so I can't say off the top of my head. Darkness is a good choice for his alternate channel.

Thanks again James! At least for the portfolio answer...

I begin to wait patiently for more Eldest information.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Nawtyit wrote:

Thank you for being so helpful in the past. I have another popular question for you.

Would a +4 or +5 bane weapon, becoming +6 or +7, bypass DR/Epic against a creature it was bane to?
(+4 magical beast bane weapon bypasses Tarrasque’s DR 15/Epic, for example)

Nope.


First, I'd like to thank you very much for making androids a playable race! /)^3^(\ If nothing else, it's good to see that something with Cha 6 can still be beautiful. Speaking of androids...

1. All androids come from Numeria, right? How would a newborn one avoid enslavement?

2. Are androids capable of purely cosmetic shapeshifting or are they stuck with the same hair, skin, and face?

3. How would Sorshen and Lorthact react to each other's presence in the same city?

4. What was the inspiration behind Korvosa?

5. Besides demons, what Pathfinder subjects could you go on and on about?

6. What is it you like so much about demons?

7. Are there any newspapers in Avistan?

8. Did Thassilon get any use out of ogres?

9. Do abilities that give a Knowledge bonus for one round work for checks requiring long time periods (e.g., true name research)?

10. If a monster has binding as a spell-like ability will it take 10 minutes to cast?

11. What sorts of good-aligned outsiders would be willing to guard a good-aligned wizard's lair?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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AlgaeNymph wrote:

First, I'd like to thank you very much for making androids a playable race! /)^3^(\ If nothing else, it's good to see that something with Cha 6 can still be beautiful. Speaking of androids...

1. All androids come from Numeria, right? How would a newborn one avoid enslavement?

2. Are androids capable of purely cosmetic shapeshifting or are they stuck with the same hair, skin, and face?

3. How would Sorshen and Lorthact react to each other's presence in the same city?

4. What was the inspiration behind Korvosa?

5. Besides demons, what Pathfinder subjects could you go on and on about?

6. What is it you like so much about demons?

7. Are there any newspapers in Avistan?

8. Did Thassilon get any use out of ogres?

9. Do abilities that give a Knowledge bonus for one round work for checks requiring long time periods (e.g., true name research)?

10. If a monster has binding as a spell-like ability will it take 10 minutes to cast?

11. What sorts of good-aligned outsiders would be willing to guard a good-aligned wizard's lair?

1) Androids come from somewhere far beyond Golarion's solar system—the current androids on Golarion are all from Numeria, though. Newborn androids are not babies—they're fully capable adults. The fact that they're created in secret, hard to get to areas in Numerian dungeons (AKA inside of parts of a fractured space ship) and then are dispersed to the world beyond via unrevealed methods means that there's not really a centralized android region. They're rare, few and far between, and don't have a part of their life spent as helpless newborns or children. Slavers have easier targets to target.

2) Androids can alter their appearances using the same tools (mundane and magical) as humans. There may well be some sort of technological type of feature-changing tool somewhere in Numeria that can recreate an android's appearance, but that's a function of that device, not the race itself.

3) With a power struggle that Sorshen would probably win.

4) In my homebrew setting, there's a city called Qel-Vasa. Originally, that was the name I was going to use for Korvosa, but I altered the spelling a little because I'd grown out of the "use a Q without following up with a U" phase of my life long ago. In my homebrew, Qel-Vasa/Korvosa was the capital of a nation called Senulda—a nation that was a powerful, aggressive expansionistic one similar to ancient Rome in many ways. Its leader was a queen who was obsessed with beauty and who was served by legions of scarred female soldiers dressed in armor. She seized control of the nation of Senulda after betraying her husband and then started an army against the rest of the continent, all to fuel her super-expensive plan to achieve immortality. I ran a campaign where the conflict between Senulda and the rest of the world was the primary theme of the middle section (the first section of that campaign would later go on to inspire chunks of Serpent's Skull, while the final section of that campaign which involved a god-slaying apocalypse cult allied with a race of vengeful exiled proto-angels has yet to manifest in print), using several of those elements as seeds to start up Curse of the Crimson Throne. A significant amount of all of that also helped to inspire Korvosa itself—when we decided to publish a book about Korvosa to support Curse of the Crimson Throne, I had a LOT of long meetings with Mike McArtor to work out how the city worked, looked, and felt.

5) Elves, Varisia, Red Mantis, the Darklands, the deities, qlippoth, Thassilon, aboleths, Kyonin/Tanglebriar, Numeria, Kintargo, and more!

6) The fact that they're taboo to a certain extent—demons are a big part of what made D&D so controversial back in the 80s. Further... in the 1st edition Monster Manual, Demogorgon was the toughest monster in that book at 200 hit points. That blew my mind that something could have 200 hit points. The fact that he's got dinosaur legs and octopus arms also really REALLY appealed to my sensibilities—and further, the rest of the demons had such a wide ranging look but were all bound by the common thread of being the baddest of the bad made them really fun. They've got lots of reptile elements to them as well. And bird elements. And bat elements. All sorts of cool bestial monstrosities. And so on.

7) Yup. Not mass produced. More like one-sheet style papers, and only in the largest cities.

8) Yes, mostly as low-ranking grunts or beasts of burden in armies or architectural projects where the actual artistic side of things was handled by more skilled giants (mostly stone giants).

9) No.

10) Yes.

11) Any of them that make sense for the setting and story and history and personality and needs for the adventure/NPC.


I have always been fond of large and magically powerful constructions.

Are there rules in any of the Golarion books for magic related to large scale constructions?

Such as power being held by the shape of a building or having various buildings whose locations combine to create large scale effects?

Perhaps something related to the monuments of Magnimar (sp?) and other places?

Any thoughts of including them if there are no such rules?
Could you possibly point me toward such rules (or toward such rules that might work for the PFRPG) if some such rules exist?

Thanks in advance.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

The Thing from Beyond the Edge wrote:

I have always been fond of large and magically powerful constructions.

Are there rules in any of the Golarion books for magic related to large scale constructions?

Such as power being held by the shape of a building or having various buildings whose locations combine to create large scale effects?

Perhaps something related to the monuments of Magnimar (sp?) and other places?

Any thoughts of including them if there are no such rules?
Could you possibly point me toward such rules (or toward such rules that might work for the PFRPG) if some such rules exist?

Thanks in advance.

Not yet. For the magical structures we've featured in our adventures and sourcebooks so far, we've just made the rules up as we go. There might be some more guidelines on this in the upcoming Ultimate Campaign hardcover... we'll see!


Mr. James Jacobs,

Can weak qlippoth eventually change into more powerful types of qlippoth or is each set into their form upon being spawned. On the same note do demons change their type? If I were to guess maybe from stock creature to unique type but not say dretch to succubus?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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The NPC wrote:

Mr. James Jacobs,

Can weak qlippoth eventually change into more powerful types of qlippoth or is each set into their form upon being spawned. On the same note do demons change their type? If I were to guess maybe from stock creature to unique type but not say dretch to succubus?

As a general rule, once demon or qlippoth is created/born/whatever, that's the shape it stays in until it's destroyed. At that point, its spiritual energy recycles into the Abyss to fuel new transformations.

Devils CAN change in this manner—essentially being promoted to more powerful forms, but other fiendish races do not.


James Jacobs wrote:
The Thing from Beyond the Edge wrote:

I have always been fond of large and magically powerful constructions.

Are there rules in any of the Golarion books for magic related to large scale constructions?

Such as power being held by the shape of a building or having various buildings whose locations combine to create large scale effects?

Perhaps something related to the monuments of Magnimar (sp?) and other places?

Any thoughts of including them if there are no such rules?
Could you possibly point me toward such rules (or toward such rules that might work for the PFRPG) if some such rules exist?

Thanks in advance.

Not yet. For the magical structures we've featured in our adventures and sourcebooks so far, we've just made the rules up as we go. There might be some more guidelines on this in the upcoming Ultimate Campaign hardcover... we'll see!

Thanks again.

Liberty's Edge

A question about magus, spell combat and haste effects.

Spellcombat is a full round action, haste give an extra attack when you use the full attack action.
Is it intended that magus will not get the extra attack when using spell combat or it is a unfortunate side effect of limiting the options available with spell combat than can be corrected with a FAQ?

- * -

Wyroot. Beside that material problems with the description it steal the blackblade capstone power.
While the black blade power is a bit stronger it require you to kill an opponent with half of your HD, a wyroot weapon work on any target.
It isn't a bit too much for a few thousand of GP?


James Jacobs wrote:
The NPC wrote:

Mr. James Jacobs,

Can weak qlippoth eventually change into more powerful types of qlippoth or is each set into their form upon being spawned. On the same note do demons change their type? If I were to guess maybe from stock creature to unique type but not say dretch to succubus?

As a general rule, once demon or qlippoth is created/born/whatever, that's the shape it stays in until it's destroyed. At that point, its spiritual energy recycles into the Abyss to fuel new transformations.

Devils CAN change in this manner—essentially being promoted to more powerful forms, but other fiendish races do not.

So a qlippoth can be destroyed and then later come back in a new state?

I have a story line in my head about a qlippoth that suddenly remembers when it was once a human and I am trying to get some details straight.

Also, what in game spells might be useful in forcing an outsider to remember it's past life as a mortal assuming it ever once was?


James,

Are there any publications where I might get more information about Zon-Kuthon?

Liberty's Edge

James Jacobs wrote:

1) That's an art object. It sells for full price.
2) Also an art object; full price.
3) Also an art object; full price.
4) A masterwork weapon that's got an increased value should also sell for almost full price—you can halve the weapon's masterwork price if you want, but at that point, I wouldn't say that's necessary.

Awesome, thanks!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Diego Rossi wrote:

A question about magus, spell combat and haste effects.

Spellcombat is a full round action, haste give an extra attack when you use the full attack action.
Is it intended that magus will not get the extra attack when using spell combat or it is a unfortunate side effect of limiting the options available with spell combat than can be corrected with a FAQ?

- * -

Wyroot. Beside that material problems with the description it steal the blackblade capstone power.
While the black blade power is a bit stronger it require you to kill an opponent with half of your HD, a wyroot weapon work on any target.
It isn't a bit too much for a few thousand of GP?

Haste would grant the magus an extra weapon attack as it does normally. It does not allow the magus to cast an additional spell.

As for wyroot... I think that it's priced about right.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
The NPC wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
The NPC wrote:

Mr. James Jacobs,

Can weak qlippoth eventually change into more powerful types of qlippoth or is each set into their form upon being spawned. On the same note do demons change their type? If I were to guess maybe from stock creature to unique type but not say dretch to succubus?

As a general rule, once demon or qlippoth is created/born/whatever, that's the shape it stays in until it's destroyed. At that point, its spiritual energy recycles into the Abyss to fuel new transformations.

Devils CAN change in this manner—essentially being promoted to more powerful forms, but other fiendish races do not.

So a qlippoth can be destroyed and then later come back in a new state?

I have a story line in my head about a qlippoth that suddenly remembers when it was once a human and I am trying to get some details straight.

Also, what in game spells might be useful in forcing an outsider to remember it's past life as a mortal assuming it ever once was?

Not really. A qlippoth, like all outsiders, is a creature whose soul and body are one—that's why outsiders can't be raised from the dead save by the most powerful of magic. When a qlippoth dies, the Abyss reclaims that lifeforce—absorbing it into itself, basically. The methods by which new qlippoth appear when the Abyss spontaneously spurts them out are, to a certain extent, fueled by this absorbed life force, but the process by which that occurs is a complete and total recycling, in the same way that a recycled tin can won't necessarily come back as a tin can... and even if it does, it's a completely different tin can than it was before it was recycled.

A qlippoth was never human, in any event. They existed long before humans... long before deities, in fact. One of their defining elements is that they're pretty much INhuman. Now, that doesn't mean that some strange Abyssal thing can't turn a human into a qlippoth, but that'd be an unusual localized thing. Demons, on the other hand, are specifically formed (in part) from sinful souls (including human souls), and so a demon that somehow recalls its previous incarnation as a mortal works much better.

In game, getting an outsider to remember its previous life as a mortal is pretty much miracle or wish territory. If that.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Pendin Fust wrote:

James,

Are there any publications where I might get more information about Zon-Kuthon?

His writeup appeared in Pathfinder #11.

He's got more info in Gods & Magic.

Additional information about his cult appears here and there in various adventures, such as (most recently) in Pathfinder #64.

The novel "Nightglass" also has some Zon-Kuthon stuff in it.


James Jacobs wrote:
Pendin Fust wrote:

James,

Are there any publications where I might get more information about Zon-Kuthon?

His writeup appeared in Pathfinder #11.

He's got more info in Gods & Magic.

Additional information about his cult appears here and there in various adventures, such as (most recently) in Pathfinder #64.

The novel "Nightglass" also has some Zon-Kuthon stuff in it.

Thank you! Forgive my ignorance but what is Gods & Magic?


Gods and Magic

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

James Jacobs wrote:


Two spaces after a period is correct if you're using a typewriter. Modern fonts have proper spacing between the period at the end of a sentence and the first word of the next, so one space is enough. Two spaces between sentences pretty much only exists in academia writing and someday those who cling to their typewriters will let it go. (Replacing the two spaces with one space is still something I have to do relatively regularly to manuscripts... although it's getting less common every year, thankfully.)

Why do you think two spaces after a period is now relegated to academia writing? I'm 40 and in school learned it was two spaces. I never even heard that one space was a potential legitimate form of punctuation until a conversation at Thanksgiving diner this year actually. While what you say about modern fonts makes sense, I would think that it will take another 30 years or so for those of us who learned two spaces to become a minority. In the professional publishing world, it might be common knowledge that the second space is no longer needed, but outside of it, I would say it's fairly uncommon to know that for people in their 30s and older.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

If you handwave the fact that they might not interact a whole lot, what does Sun Wukong, The Monkey King think of Cayden Cailean? A competitor, a young brash upstart, a drinking buddy? All three?

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

This is a somewhat morbid question, but what do you think an airline webpage displays if you check the status of a flight and the flight has crashed?


deuxhero wrote:

Some questions on Miracle

1: How does an item of miracle work? Does it use the deity of the creator or the user?
2: Short of harming himself, granting those with no existing magic abilities magic (this one I'm not even sure applies to him doing it instead of you), and helping Rovagug and his worshipers, is there anything Nethys won't do in a miracle?
3: What's Pharasma's stance on "generating" children as a miracle?

And another one I thought of: Am I correct that an Oracle's Miracle is granted by their "benefactor", regardless of actual religion?

Liberty's Edge

JoelF847 wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:


Two spaces after a period is correct if you're using a typewriter. Modern fonts have proper spacing between the period at the end of a sentence and the first word of the next, so one space is enough. Two spaces between sentences pretty much only exists in academia writing and someday those who cling to their typewriters will let it go. (Replacing the two spaces with one space is still something I have to do relatively regularly to manuscripts... although it's getting less common every year, thankfully.)
Why do you think two spaces after a period is now relegated to academia writing? I'm 40 and in school learned it was two spaces. I never even heard that one space was a potential legitimate form of punctuation until a conversation at Thanksgiving diner this year actually. While what you say about modern fonts makes sense, I would think that it will take another 30 years or so for those of us who learned two spaces to become a minority. In the professional publishing world, it might be common knowledge that the second space is no longer needed, but outside of it, I would say it's fairly uncommon to know that for people in their 30s and older.

I am over 50, I have learned typewriting in high school and never heard of this idea of using 2 spaces. I suspect it is something used in the US or maybe in the Anglo-Saxon world. So maybe the people that need to unlearn it isn't so numerous.


So my groups doing the Skinsaw Murders and is going to Magnimar soon. One of the most interesting little things there -aside from the epic city, adventures and everything- are obviously the Hellknights.

I know how I should describe the Order of the Nail Hellknights but I also gathered that the bulk of the Hellknights stationed there are only level 3-4: e.g. they're not full fledged Hellknights yet, merely Armigers.

Now what kind of outfit do the Armigers wear? Are they also entitled to the ebony armor with the horns and whatnot? Or do they wear an apprentice outfit or something like that since they're basically squires?

Thanks in advance!


James Jacobs wrote:

Not really. A qlippoth, like all outsiders, is a creature whose soul and body are one—that's why outsiders can't be raised from the dead save by the most powerful of magic. When a qlippoth dies, the Abyss reclaims that lifeforce—absorbing it into itself, basically. The methods by which new qlippoth appear when the Abyss spontaneously spurts them out are, to a certain extent, fueled by this absorbed life force, but the process by which that occurs is a complete and total recycling, in the same way that a recycled tin can won't necessarily come back as a tin can... and even if it does, it's a completely different tin can than it was before it was recycled.

A qlippoth was never human, in any event. They existed long before humans... long before deities, in fact. One of their defining elements is that they're pretty much INhuman. Now, that doesn't mean that some strange Abyssal thing can't turn a human into a qlippoth, but that'd be an unusual localized thing. Demons, on the...

Does the ability of the Iathavos falls into the unusual localized thing category?


I'm sorry but if I could ask two related questions:

How much Hellknights are there in the Order of the Nail? Because I have no idea. Hundreds, thousands? Are they a relatively large order?

Secondly, why are the hell knights in Magnimar? I know they don't concern themselves with petty crimes, so what grand overarching chaos (in their eyes) are they fighting? Or am I totally wrong?

Sorry for the double post.


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Two questions, completely unrelated:

1)

James Jacobs wrote:
For actual Numerian technology, I'd probably rely on Disable Device, but I'd also be tempted to introduce two new skills—Knowledge (technology) and something akin to Computer Use. I could, actually, see Knowledge (engineering) be a better choice than introducing Knowledge (technology), and Linguistics, perhaps, for Computer Use.

So does that mean I could add SQL or C++ to my list of known languages by taking a couple ranks of Linguistics?

2) A player in a homebrew campaign I'm going to be running in the near future wants to be a Cleric of Aroden, which would be fine considering the campaign isn't set specifically in Golarion, but I noticed that Aroden only has 4 listed Domains: Glory, Knowledge, Law, and Protection. Considering Aroden was one of the major deities of the Golarion pantheon before he died, what would be his 5th domain and his 6 subdomains?


Ok, so I was just reading up on the Hellknights, and the Hellknight Signifier.. etc. So, where does it say that a Paladin can't be a Hellknight? Cause... unless I'm missing something, it doesn't. Which means a Lawful Good Holier than Thou Paladin can totally learn to summon devils to "fight Evil with Evil"? Does a spell-like ability retain the evil descriptor?


Spells with a duration of Concentration: Once the spell is cast, the caster just has to use her standard action every round to maintain concentration? Or is she still in the position of having to make a Concentration check and have the spell end if she takes damage?

Dark Archive

Sjommieboy wrote:
Secondly, why are the hell knights in Magnimar? I know they don't concern themselves with petty crimes, so what grand overarching chaos (in their eyes) are they fighting? Or am I totally wrong?

While I won't presume to answer for James, Magnimar: City of Monuments implies that the Hellknights were intrigued by the notion of bringing law to a region that, with the exception of the major cities, was lawless. As I understand it, the Bastion of the Nail is as much a launching point for missions into the wild frontier that is Varisia as it serves to maintain law in Magnimar itself.


As an Urban Barbarian, can you cast spells and/or use bardic performances when in a controlled rage?

Sovereign Court Contributor

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I felt I need to share this with you, James.

Spawn of Azathoth!

Anyway, how related to Ghroth is Groetus? Are the similarities conscious?

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Hi James,

What happens if you manage to, some how, get a helm of opposite allignment onto a balor?

Liberty's Edge

What is a day in the life of a deity? Iomedae or Sarenrae for example.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

JoelF847 wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:


Two spaces after a period is correct if you're using a typewriter. Modern fonts have proper spacing between the period at the end of a sentence and the first word of the next, so one space is enough. Two spaces between sentences pretty much only exists in academia writing and someday those who cling to their typewriters will let it go. (Replacing the two spaces with one space is still something I have to do relatively regularly to manuscripts... although it's getting less common every year, thankfully.)
Why do you think two spaces after a period is now relegated to academia writing? I'm 40 and in school learned it was two spaces. I never even heard that one space was a potential legitimate form of punctuation until a conversation at Thanksgiving diner this year actually. While what you say about modern fonts makes sense, I would think that it will take another 30 years or so for those of us who learned two spaces to become a minority. In the professional publishing world, it might be common knowledge that the second space is no longer needed, but outside of it, I would say it's fairly uncommon to know that for people in their 30s and older.

It's common knowledge in the professional publishing world, yes. I learned about it myself after my writing for Wizards of the Coast really started to pick up speed in the late 90s, and it was a pretty rude awakening and a shock to me to learn that the way I'd been trained and taught to write in school was NOT the way editors and publishers in the real world need you to write.

Now, my college experience with this was, admittedly, 20 years ago, and a lot's changed in 20 years (such as the huge expansion of fonts and how publishing works)—I'm the same age as you and so my experience syncs up quite well.

But yeah, it's probably pretty uncommon knowledge for folks in our age range who aren't in publishing. That said... if they're not involved in publishing or writing for publication, there's no need for them to know otherwise, really.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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JoelF847 wrote:
If you handwave the fact that they might not interact a whole lot, what does Sun Wukong, The Monkey King think of Cayden Cailean? A competitor, a young brash upstart, a drinking buddy? All three?

10) They'd probably get along really well until they had a disagreement, at which point they'd become bitter rivals that wouldn't talk for years or decades or centuries until some great need arose that forced them to set aside their differences and team up again for one more mission.

20) They'd do that mission and becomes friends again.

30) Go to 10.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

JoelF847 wrote:
This is a somewhat morbid question, but what do you think an airline webpage displays if you check the status of a flight and the flight has crashed?

Delayed.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
deuxhero wrote:
deuxhero wrote:

Some questions on Miracle

1: How does an item of miracle work? Does it use the deity of the creator or the user?
2: Short of harming himself, granting those with no existing magic abilities magic (this one I'm not even sure applies to him doing it instead of you), and helping Rovagug and his worshipers, is there anything Nethys won't do in a miracle?
3: What's Pharasma's stance on "generating" children as a miracle?

And another one I thought of: Am I correct that an Oracle's Miracle is granted by their "benefactor", regardless of actual religion?

An oracle's miracles are a manifestation of their own faith, combined with whatever supernatural events interact with their lives. Could be granted by a deity. Could be granted by magically charged northern lights. Could be granted by the oracles 999 most wicked ancestors. Could be granted by the oracle herself channeling energy back to her younger self from the future. Could be anything.

That said... if an oracle actually worships a deity (not all do, nor do they have to), it's best to assume that her powers come from that deity.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Sjommieboy wrote:

So my groups doing the Skinsaw Murders and is going to Magnimar soon. One of the most interesting little things there -aside from the epic city, adventures and everything- are obviously the Hellknights.

I know how I should describe the Order of the Nail Hellknights but I also gathered that the bulk of the Hellknights stationed there are only level 3-4: e.g. they're not full fledged Hellknights yet, merely Armigers.

Now what kind of outfit do the Armigers wear? Are they also entitled to the ebony armor with the horns and whatnot? Or do they wear an apprentice outfit or something like that since they're basically squires?

Thanks in advance!

The bulk of the Hellknights who have a visible presence in Magnimar are full-on Hellknights who wear the armor. Those who aren't able to or aren't allowed to or simply can't afford their own suit of armor are not really visibly part of the organization—they don't really leave impressions on the locals, and aren't really used for public stuff anyway.

So yeah. Those Hellknights should be described as being in their armor.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

The NPC wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:

Not really. A qlippoth, like all outsiders, is a creature whose soul and body are one—that's why outsiders can't be raised from the dead save by the most powerful of magic. When a qlippoth dies, the Abyss reclaims that lifeforce—absorbing it into itself, basically. The methods by which new qlippoth appear when the Abyss spontaneously spurts them out are, to a certain extent, fueled by this absorbed life force, but the process by which that occurs is a complete and total recycling, in the same way that a recycled tin can won't necessarily come back as a tin can... and even if it does, it's a completely different tin can than it was before it was recycled.

A qlippoth was never human, in any event. They existed long before humans... long before deities, in fact. One of their defining elements is that they're pretty much INhuman. Now, that doesn't mean that some strange Abyssal thing can't turn a human into a qlippoth, but that'd be an unusual localized thing. Demons, on the...

Does the ability of the Iathavos falls into the unusual localized thing category?

It absolutely does. Great example.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Sjommieboy wrote:

I'm sorry but if I could ask two related questions:

How much Hellknights are there in the Order of the Nail? Because I have no idea. Hundreds, thousands? Are they a relatively large order?

Secondly, why are the hell knights in Magnimar? I know they don't concern themselves with petty crimes, so what grand overarching chaos (in their eyes) are they fighting? Or am I totally wrong?

Sorry for the double post.

I'm not sure we've said how many Hellknights are in any order. Pathfinder #27 and #28 are the best places to go to for information about the Hellknights, in any event. If I had to commit to a guess, I'd say there's probably hundreds of Hellknights in any one order, but that number probably skews lower more often than it does higher. They're a very famous (even infamous) group and a very visible one, but they're not super numerous, I don't think.

The Hellknights in Magnimar are there mostly as self-motivated mercenaries who seek to impose upon Magnimar some modicum of law. The city itself doesn't mind their presence in the city that much because the law that the Hellknights seek to impose isn't usually all that different from the city itself, but the Hellknights know they're on thin ice and don't go full-out on the crusading against all crime. They are, essentially, one of several groups that helps keep order and fights crime in Magnimar, which doesn't really have a single centralized government-funded police force that covers the whole city.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Harrison wrote:


Two questions, completely unrelated:

1)

James Jacobs wrote:
For actual Numerian technology, I'd probably rely on Disable Device, but I'd also be tempted to introduce two new skills—Knowledge (technology) and something akin to Computer Use. I could, actually, see Knowledge (engineering) be a better choice than introducing Knowledge (technology), and Linguistics, perhaps, for Computer Use.

So does that mean I could add SQL or C++ to my list of known languages by taking a couple ranks of Linguistics?

2) A player in a homebrew campaign I'm going to be running in the near future wants to be a Cleric of Aroden, which would be fine considering the campaign isn't set specifically in Golarion, but I noticed that Aroden only has 4 listed Domains: Glory, Knowledge, Law, and Protection. Considering Aroden was one of the major deities of the Golarion pantheon before he died, what would be his 5th domain and his 6 subdomains?

1) I doubt the crew of the crashed ship used Earth computer code any more than a Chelaxian would speak Itallian. So... no.

2) Generally, I prefer NOT answering those kinds of questions about Aroden, because I want to prevent the misconception that he might come back or might still be alive. But if I were to answer them, I'd say Aroden's 5 domains would actually be Community, Knowledge, Law, Nobility, and Protection. Glory is not really on-model for him. Then for subdomains, I'd say Home, Inevitable, Memory, Defense, Leadership, and Martyr.

Sovereign Court Contributor

James Jacobs wrote:
JoelF847 wrote:
This is a somewhat morbid question, but what do you think an airline webpage displays if you check the status of a flight and the flight has crashed?
Delayed.

Not "Late?"

That actually happened to my dad, once. He was waiting for a connection, I believe.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:

Ok, so I was just reading up on the Hellknights, and the Hellknight Signifier.. etc. So, where does it say that a Paladin can't be a Hellknight? Cause... unless I'm missing something, it doesn't. Which means a Lawful Good Holier than Thou Paladin can totally learn to summon devils to "fight Evil with Evil"? Does a spell-like ability retain the evil descriptor?

It doesn't say a paladin can't be a Hellknight. Nor do all Hellknights need to learn to summon devils. The flavor and purpose of the Hellknight prestige class is somewhat subversive. The lower level abilities of a Hellknight are not "tainted with evil," and a lot of them, such as detect chaos and smite chaos are actually REALLY knida helpful and handy for paladins. As a Hellknight gets higher level, none of the hard-coded Hellknight abilities, like Lawbringer or Infernal Armor or Hell's Knight actually have evil associations at all. The NAMES are kinda edgy, though, but there's nothing intrinsic to the Infernal Armor ability that is evil.

They ARE, though, the types of abilities that make it easier to slip from being good and start being evil, especially if you get hung up on the fact that words like "infernal" and "Hell" are in the title. A paladin who hits 10th level as a Hellknight knows better than to fall for that trick.

Now, looking at the various abilities granted by the disciplines, a few of those are actually evil. The summon devil spell-like ability you mention that's granted by the Order of the Gate is an evil act, and as a result, there are no paladins in the Order of the Gate. There's a LOT of orders though, and at least one of them (I forget which one, alas) is actually one that caters pretty well to paladins.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Joana wrote:
Spells with a duration of Concentration: Once the spell is cast, the caster just has to use her standard action every round to maintain concentration? Or is she still in the position of having to make a Concentration check and have the spell end if she takes damage?

Correct. Maintaining concentration (see page 216 of the Core Rulebook) is a standard action that requires no check to accomplish. It's a little unfortunate that both this and the thing you do to focus on spellcasting when you're being damaged or distracted both use the word "concentrate," though.

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