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I'm not sure that the cavalier image is supposed to be either. Just because it's on the same page, doesn't mean they're related. Seems more like Honor Guard maybe? If I had to guess (and I do; although I wrote most of the cavalier section, I didn't pick the artwork), I'd say that the the cavalier artwork is an emissary, wearing a set of scale or piecemeal armor.
No, gendarme get x4 at 20th level. It's not. Not exactly, anyway. Regular character: Regular damage on a mounted charge; double with a lance. Regular character w/ Spirited Charge: Double damage on a mounted charge; triple damage with a lance (this is because the lance itself does double damage on a charge, and the feat gives double damage--multiplication rules in Pathfinder mean that a doubled-double (x2 and x2) is triple (x3). 20th level Cavalier: Same as Spirited Charge, but it's not a bonus feat, which means the cavalier could pick up Spirited Charge and increase the multipliers by one each (x3 damage, or x4 with a lance). 20th level gendarme: Same as a cavalier with Spirited Charge; the archetype is set up so that the gendarme will have the feat by 20th level. The damage is not the focus of the ability--it's noted because the gendarme gets the same benefit of increased damage as a normal cavalier, but has a different effect on a confirmed critical. (Although some people think, that a 20th level cavalier with spirited charge and a lance deal x5 damage on a charge.) As much fun as that would be, it's really not the way that multiplication rules work. Spirited Charge doubles the lances double damage (to triple damage). The cavalier's 20th level ability doubles the same damage (to triple, or quadruple if the cavalier has Spirited Charge).
Anything for Cavalier allowing something like Houndmaster, i.e. non-Mount Animal Companions? Was the Falconer a Cavalier Archetype or another Class? Well.... Not exactly. The beast rider allows for a wide selection of different mounts, and there's nothing that requires the cavalier to actually ride his mount. In fact, if a beast rider were to select the emissary or luring cavalier archetype (or both) on top of the beast rider archetype, you'd get a very different picture of what a cavalier can do than the base class. I'm waiting to see what sort of fun characters people put together with these archetypes. They were designed to allow for a mix-and-match approach, where possible. Let the games begin!
So, flipping around amazon.com earlier, I decided to look at some current and upcoming Paizo books. Strangely, most of the ones I looked at had the wrong release date. All of the following current releases (that is, books that released in May or June) have a listed release date of January 10, 2012, and are currently available only for pre-order: Hunt the Space-Witch
The following July releases are also listed with a publish date of Jan 10, 2012:
Are these dates set by Amazon? By Paizo? By random guessing-games performed by the distributor? I know retail dates are usually 2-3 weeks after the on-sale date for Paizo.com, but we're talking almost 6 months difference here.
Written to exclude all benefits when wearing medium or heavy armor, the feat should be worded this way:
Or this way: Benefit: While wearing light or no armor: you do not need to make Ride skill checks for any task listed in the Ride skill with a DC of 15 or lower; you do not take a –5 penalty for riding a mount bareback; and you can make a check using Mounted Combat to negate a hit on your mount twice per round instead of just once. I can't speak to what the design intention of the feat was (I didn't write it), but in general, exceptions only apply where they show up. Because the exception is only on the Ride check for DCs of 15 or lower, it only applies to that particular benefit. Personally, I think Trick Riding applies as written, and as written, I read it to say that if you're in medium or heavy armor, you still make your DC 15 or lower checks, but get the other benefits. Otherwise, you've wasted a feat on the way to Mounted Skirmisher. ;)
First off, I'm incredibly happy to hear that you enjoyed the adventure. I'll do what I can to address your concerns, but even if I can't, thanks for taking the time to read and review it! While i think it is great that they put out a map pack for this adventure, the map pack only covers pretty much half of the adventure. The rest of the adventure uses a map that is not covered in the map pack. I personally think that Paizo should utilize more of the map packs inside the adventure and AP's, but to do so i think that the map packs should cover the whole adventure, not just part. This is a fair criticism, I think, but you may be asking for more than is feasible, given the current product constraints for the Map Packs and Pathfinder Modules. [Disclaimer: I don't speak for Paizo here. I'm just a freelancer.] Academy of Secrets already uses 5 of the 6 maps possible from Magic Academy (the 6th, I'm afraid, isn't really appropriate for the plot). Of the 18 tiles, it utilizes 15 of them, and that still only covers about half the adventure. By comparison, the final map of the adventure would require 15 tiles all on its own to fit every square on it (and remember: Map Pack tiles are double-sided, so tile-flipping is just about guaranteed--a huge pain if the party foolishly decides to split up). Product integration is a wonderful thing, but asking for the Map Packs, as currently designed, to cover a full 32-page adventure might be expecting too much. Map Pack tiles create discrete, rectangular spaces that are great for individual buildings or chambers within and adventure, but far less useful for larger, interconnected complexes. While you certainly could have an adventure that was composed entirely of Map Pack tiles, in order to make that adventure fit, we would either have to a) repeat the use of rooms (making for a less-exciting adventure), b) dramatically increase the number of tiles in a Map Pack (with a commensurate increase in price), or c) force GMs to constantly reshuffle tiles to make new rooms (meaning that the Map Pack would need to designed for modular room-building, not drop-and-play spaces). For AP adventures, which are significantly longer than Pathfinder Modules, these problems only get larger. I'm thrilled to pieces that you like the adventure, Christa. And I think that a greater degree of integration with Map Packs might be possible. I don't know that an adventure composed entirely of 18 Map Pack tiles would be all that interesting to play through, though, and while it's important to make all those interconnected products useable together, the first job of a module is to provide an exciting gaming experience for the groups playing through it. Thanks again. Game on!
I'm glad to hear that people are interested in their stories. Working up 20th-level stat blocks is fun, in its own way, but getting inside the head of people that powerful... that's the rewarding part. Well, that, and the stories I'll get at GenCon about TPKs. ;) Oh, and add me in as #6 who'd love to give it another go around. Maybe next time I'll even allow my NPCs to multiclass!
I first want to say I basically love this book. Second making blocks of statistics and powers is not my problem, coming up with interesting characters and stories that are not 1 dimensional is, I envy good script writers which is why I buy product. I know it's a GM's job to flesh things out......but a 20th level cleric who is basically described simply as a bully who graduated to better foes? That's it? For a 20th level character? I like the crunch being worked out, but just a little more interesting fluff would be nice too.. Actually, the 20th level characters all had the appropriate word count (give or take), but that was without the benefit of being part of the layout, art direction, or editing process. A 20th level stat block naturally takes up more words than, say, a level 5 stat block. More than that, though, the words for a stat block take up more space than those in prose. Hard returns for different stat lines means that a 20th level stat block can take up well more than half a page. Add in art, headers, background, various pagination requirements, page numbers, and all that other fun stuff, and fitting in more than a small amount of background information would force the one-page character descriptions on to an additional page--or necessitate the use of minuscule fonts. Barring choices that would make the characters either unreadable, or violate the premise of the book (a kind of bestiary of 40 one-page NPCs with additional support information), the only reasonable thing to do was to cut out a bit of text. And, seeing as I wrote it, I'm okay with them cutting out my beautiful, beautiful words. Especially if they're going to put art like that on my characters. That said, if people really do want to know more about Inaris Jerveel and Echean Ansolandi, Paizo knows a bit of their stories. How much they want to reveal is entirely up to the developers. Personally, I think they'd make an awesome blog post--since it's doubtful the backgrounds for these characters will appear anywhere else--but that would depend on how much outcry there is from the fan base, and how much willingness there is from the team at Paizo to release information cut from the book for space. Unfortunately, sometimes the need to meet the expectation of the book trumps the expectations of certain readers. In this case, the cleric in question needed to fit on one page, and between art, background, and stat block, only the background could be sacrificed. -Brian
Staying above the debate about the 'offensiveness' of gender equity for the moment:
We specifically chose to have half men and half women iconics to keep the gender split as even as possible. Technically, with the addition of the ninja, the samurai, and the gunslinger, we're at an odd numbered mix of iconics now, and that means we have one more female iconic than male. If and when we do another one, chances are 100% that he'll be a guy. Technically speaking, there are 22 iconics, with 11 female (Alahzra, Amiri, Feiya, Imrijka, Kyra, Lini, Merisiel, Seelah, Seoni, plus the gunslinger and ninja iconics from Ultimate Combat), and 11 male (Alain, Balazar, Damiel, Ezren, Harsk, Nakayama Hayato, Lem, Sajan, Seltyiel, Valeros, and the unnamed antipaladin from APG). That is, if we're counting iconic characters from alternate classes as iconics. Which we are. So: hooray, equality!
Hee hee hee! Oh, this is awesome. I am most pleased.
Regardless of the source, an increase in Int comes with all of the standard bonuses, such as additional skill points. For the sake of completeness (this is a FAQ, after all), I should point out that 'additional skill points' just means a lower Int penalty. Since animals only get 2+Int modifier skill points, that means they have the same number of skill points per animal HD from Int 1 all the way to Int 9: 1. Since the now-intelligent animal might gain class levels (which could theoretically grant more skill points than its usual animal advancement), they could certainly get more skill points, but a standard animal whose Int is increased doesn't necessarily get more skill points as a result of that increase.
(Keeping in mind that the reference to "-4 racial bonus" is a typo). Does a human (30' move) wearing platemail (20' move) incur this penalty? The human's "base land speed" is 30'. The table below provides reduced speed figures for all base speeds from 5 feet to 120 feet (in 5-foot increments). I'm uncertain if this above paragraph is read as either: "Reduce a character's base speed as per the speed adjustment given in the table"; or "Reduce a character's speed as per the speed adjustment given in the table" In short, was the reference in the table to "Reduced Speed" instead of "Reduced Base Speed" intentional? Although I originally thought armor and encumbrance did affect base speed, I am now thinking it does not. If it doesn't, then the reference on Page 88 to the bonus being a racial bonus would be more supportive of this. A creature's base speed is based only on its race and effects or abilities that directly affect base speed. This includes the Travel domain, the Fleet feat, the longstrider and expeditious retreat spells, and horseshoes of speed, among other things. However, the bonus to Acrobatics applies only when base speed is increased. Anything that does not specifically reference base speed (the haste spell, for example, does not, nor do the monk or barbarian's fast movement abilities--the latter of which should probably get some form of errata) The encumbrance table on p. 170 is an extension of the data on Table 6-6; if you have a base speed of 20 or 30, you use p. 6-6; if your base speed is something other than 20 or 30 (because you're under a longstrider spell, or you're a warhorse, or you've used every one of your feat selections to choose Fleet), then you use 170. In neither circumstance does the encumbrance reduce your base speed. If it did, the table would say so. Nothing affects base speed unless it is specifically mentioned in the text.
It's far too early for me to spill any details about the adventure, its setting, or the potential rewards, except to say that we're going to do our best to make this module be useful to the widest possible audience, and to meet the expectations of those that play through it.
*puts on his German soldier costume* I vill tell you nahsink! Nahsink!! /Schulz More seriously, I'm not so sure how much I can or should share, so I'll just say that I was in on the book, too. And... that's it. Hopefully, our friends at Paizo will have some nice, juicy tidbits to share as we get closer to the release this Spring.
Okay, now I know some folks are already crying out that the magus should be able to do more in a given round, and that there aren't enough swift actions to go around, etc., but I'm more concerned with balance and sanity at the table than I am with how 'cool' the magus is to play, so I'm going to come right out and express my problem: The spell combat ability, as written, gives the magus too much power. A Quicken Spell, once per round, every round--so long as the magus takes the full attack action--is powerful enough (and yes, I know the character takes a penalty to attacks; that penalty becomes moot as the character advances in level, and is still not the equal of the Quicken Spell increase for spell slots). Its power is increased by an order of magnitude if it doesn't take a swift action to cast the spell. On the whole, the magus is a pretty darned cool class, but I think the way it currently reads is as a class that's going to take a full attack action every round, even with the penalty. It's possible I'm wrong, and all but certain I'm in the minority, but this is playtest time, after all, and I've gotta speak my peace.
Umm, what's the meme on this sort of thing again? Oh, right: "Pics, or it never happened!"
As the original designer of the urumi (which has undergone significant alteration since PF #9, and did even before it was published), here are my two cents about the weak/useless concerns: The weapons in 3.5/PRPG use a certain calculus to determine their abilities. One of the conceits is that adding a benefit (such as higher crit range, or increased damage dice) also adds a restriction to use (increasing a simple weapon to martial, a martial or exotic, a one-handed to two-handed, etc.). The urumi is a longsword with:
That's three benefits, the last of which is fairly minor. At the very least, that warrants at least one increase. Keeping this a martial weapon would presume that you can improve any weapon in the game, and not require any sacrifice for use (and, as a result, you'd have a significant number of urumi-adopters switching from the longsword, but for flavor reasons stopping them). By another calculation, the urumi is a scimitar with an increased damage die (d8 vs. d6) and the benefits to disarm and sundering. Again, keeping this as a martial weapon can't be justified according to the calculations governing weapon balance. If you don't think the benefits are worth the feat, then don't take the feat. The same argument can be made for a bastard sword--if the increased damage die doesn't seem worth the feat, you don't wield it one-handed with Exotic Weapon Proficiency. Feeling that the feat isn't worth it for you or your character isn't an indication of weakness or imbalance; it's an indication that you're weighing the cost (a feat) against the benefits (increased damage, better disarming)--which is what you're supposed to do in the first place.
Anyone notice that Goreclaw of Thercerrod is a +4 total bonus weapon that costs around 24kgp?That's a typo. My guess is that it was supposed to be double that (46,305 gp) and that the construction cost somehow got displaced twice or something. Actually, my goof was slightly worse than that. I calculated the weapon at a +3 bonus instead of +4 (for some reason, wounding was at a discount that day?). Had my math been correct--not accounting for any disagreements on pricing on the non-weapon property of the goreclaw, of course, the cost should have been 40,305 gp, with a creation cost of 20,305 gp. Apologies for the confusion.
The system isn't perfectly mathematical, but there is a sort of calculus. Your 'base' weapons are the one-handed martial weapons we all know and love, the longsword. 1d8 damage, 19-20 crit range, x2 critical multiplier. As the base weapon, this effectively sets the ground for any shifting. Basically, any shift in the abilities of the weapon require an equivalent reduction in effectiveness. Things that constitute improvements include: increasing the damage die by one size, expanding the critical range by one, increasing the critical multiplier by one, reducing the size of the weapon, and adding a special effect or ability. Note that not all abilities are created equal in this regard; the ability to set spears and similar weapons against a charge, for example, seems not to have anything taken away from the base weapon, while the ability to throw the weapon effectively (i.e. with a range increment greater than 10) does. Things that constitute reductions include: decreasing the damage die by one size, increasing the size of the weapon, removing a special effect or ability, and reducing the critical range or multiplier by 1. There are, of course, exceptions, but let me run through a few examples using the above assumptions. The longsword is d8 19-20 x2. From this weapon, we get:
Then things get a little wiggly. The weapon "up" in size and damage from the longsword isn't the greatsword; its the bastard sword (d10/19-20/x2). The reduction in effectiveness is the increase in size from one to two-handed OR Exotic Weapon Proficiency. The weapon up from that is the greatsword, which is two-handed only. [Note that the same set of steps takes the battle axe to the dwarven waraxe to the greataxe.] A great many weapons fit into this schema, but as I said above, it's not a perfectly mathematical progression. Some judgment is needed, particularly because so many niches are already filled by existing weapons. It is there, though. Just don't look at the greatclub as an exemplar of the system; the club and greatclub are perhaps the least effective members of their respective weapon groups.
Nope. Special materials don't alter item statistics or uses beyond what is stated in the item. If it were the case that you could gain additional benefit from mithral as a material, you'd also need to start hacking away at the other weight-based properties of mithral items. For example, a mithral warhammer probably deals less damage due to its reduced mass, and mithral rapier could potentially be so light as to be ineffectual. On the flipside, you'd have people arguing for Weapon Finesse on mithral longswords, or that mithral bastard swords can be wielded one-handed without Exotic Weapon Proficiency... I'd go with the rules as written here.
You can't have a Paladin to Asmodeus either. He's LE.So? Paladin's don't have to be within one step of the deity they worship. Yes, but this raises issues about the question of shades of alignment. A LN cleric can serve a LE deity. But more than likely, in the service of that deity, he's occasionally going to lean toward LE. At best, he's going to be a very strict LN--concerned only with order and not with goodness for its own sake. A LN cleric that leans towards LG is going to get Asmodeus ticked pretty quickly. A LG paladin can lean NG or LN, but only lean very slightly; his alignment needs to stick to LG, which means he can incrementally favor goodness over law, or vice-versa, but essentially he's got a narrow road to walk. He can, of course, translate that leaning into a religious choice, but picking a LN god means that the paladin's already following a deity for whom moral ambiguity is okay. Now, that's not to say that a LE god couldn't somehow masquerade as a bulwark of pure order and get some paladins under him (some deities, like Bane from FR, manage to pull this off, until someone looks at their report card). In fact, that'd be a pretty nasty force to deal with, as even the lay followers might think they were righteously opposed to your attacks against the religion. Paladins of such a god are simply corruptions waiting to happen, shining knights on their way to being irrevocably tarnished. Asmodeus, however, is not a LE god that's somehow tricked people into thinking that he's LN. He's the ruler of Hell and chief archdevil. He is, to many minds, THE Big Bad. It can be argued that the very act of worshiping Asmodeus as your patron is an evil act, to say nothing of the things you'd need to do in order to fulfill your religious obligations. Paladins don't follow orders from higher clerics and no one else; particularly in lawful religions, there are complex hierarchies involved. Your hypothetical LN cleric of a LE god is likely to be branded a heretic by others, if she begins to pervert the message of the deity, and could well find himself drummed out of the church when a higher priest finds out what she's been teaching. So, sure, you can have a paladin of Asmodeus. Such an individual, though, is probably not destined to be a paladin for very long, without leaving the church of Asmodeus for good.
Oooo, who else is on the authors list for this one? I like who I've seen so far. I don't want to spill anyone's beans, but I got to do the vorpal sword. And it was fun.
“Do you want me to send you back to where you were - unemployed in Greenland?!” You never had it so good.
Page 3 states that the Histaqen horse race in Katheer predates the Kelish satrapy of Qadira in -43 AR, but page 16 says the first Histaqen was recorded in 1290 AR. Is this an error or am I interpreting them wrong? You're not interpreting wrong so much as reading more into the text than is there. Page 3 states that Katheer "became the site of a great annual horse race." It doesn't mention the Histaqen by name because that race was formalized into its current state until 1290. Like most famous cultural events, the race that became the Histaqen has undergone a great deal of change--from a means to settle disputes and tribal rivalries to betting to political turmoil. The satrap finally put his foot down in 1290, and standardized the race's rules, procedures, and waypoints. The traditions, however, are much, much older. The Histaqen is essentially the Qadiran Super Bowl. I could have written an absurdly-detailed 16-page dossier on the Histaqen, but frankly, that would've made for boring game reading.
Gen Con ended on Sunday, the Paizo folks were supposed to be back on Monday but their flight (or, at least, one of said flights) was delayed until Tuesday. More importantly, knowing who we're dealing with, having things not come out perfectly the first time is going to mean extra time spent on getting it right, so that the final PDF really is the final PDF, with any and all errors taken care of before it gets released. And then the servers shall weep blood.
No, McArtor's bionic. I have natural-born superpowers and do not need to rely on technology to kick ass. ;) That doesn't stop him from occasionally staring off into the distance and whispering "manananah..." though. :P
I think you skipped the line that says all suli spontaneously convert into true elementals at level 5, so the issue you're talking about will never actually occur. Sean was being sarcastic. That's SKR-speak for "the suli's powerful enough."
Brian, I have a question about the Suli's Elemental Assault. The text says that it is once per day for 1 round per character level. So a 20th level Suli use's her Assault and her arms are covered in acid or whatever for 20 rounds. Now, if she only needs acid arms for 5 rounds, then dismisses them, she's out 15 rounds of her acid kung-fu for the day. I was wondering, from a design/level adjustment stand point, why you went with 'once per day' with a round total instead of independent number of rounds per day? This was to prevent the suli from being a one-trick pony. While the imagery of the suli as a flame-wreathed menace is awesome (love that illustration), I didn't want it to become a situation where players were switching elemental types every other round to suit which enemy they were attacking, or using it for every fight every day. From a story standpoint, the suli is only tenuously connected to the elements. This results in some minor resistances, and into a once-a-day ability to 'open' himself to a particular elemental energy and infuse his attacks with it. If he kills the bad guy after two rounds, then great, but he can't 'bank' the rest of his fire (or ice, or whatever) for later on. He can dismiss it, to let it expire naturally. From a game design standpoint, this was a race designed specifically to balance with the core races. Elemental resistances and no ability score penalty are already a big deal. Allowing the suli to turn the elemental assault ability on and off tips the scales too far, IMO, which is why I didn't design it with the ability to use it as many times as desired.
One last thing: For those of you that have opinions on the book as a whole--good or bad--I encourage you to review the book on its product page. I appreciate feedback (it lets me know what I'm doing right, and what I need to improve on), and those shiny stars control the very basis of my self-esteem. For those of you that are enjoying the book, I'm glad. For those that aren't, or feel that something's missing, please: say so. For those that haven't picked up the book yet: What're you waiting for? ;)
I like playing with language, especially when it comes to the meeting of cultures. The explanation of the naming of Qadira is far longer than there was room for in the book. The original name of the city was pronounced with a very soft "th," like the English word 'thee,' as opposed to the modern pronunciation (which has a hard -th, like in the word 'with'). Like most conquerors, Kelesh was unconcerned with what the natives called their homeland, and hadn't yet picked up on the local dialects. Over time the city of Katheer (soft -th) gave its name to both the Keleshite city of Katheer (hard -th) and the nation of Qadira. Most Qadiras can pronounce the -th sound (as can many other Keleshites, when they bother to try), but only those who cleave to older traditions, like the tribesfolk of the Paresh, do so regularly or proudly.
-Possible Errata Is the intent that Wizards no longer automatically gain new spells? That seems harsh, but then I realized if they're able to Scribe the Gen-Fetched Spells, they would definitely NOT be worse off or hampered... ??? No. The intention is to make it clear that spontaneous casters do get additional spells known, not that wizards don't. I'm not entirely sure how PrCs in PFRPG interact with the "2 spells per level" that wizards are supposed to get, because that's technically a function of the character's level in the wizard class, not a function of spellcaster level. You'd need to ask the Paizo folks for an official ruling. Possible Errata: The Elemental Attunement (Resist 5 vs. one element @ Daivrat Lvl 4) seems to be designed to automatically match your 'chosen' Element (the 10th level Genie-Kin supports this), but the actual wording just says "gains Energy Resistance 5 against acid, cold, electricity, or fire" which literally read would be a free choice independent of the 'chosen' Element. Minor detail. There are two sets of paired abilities on the class: Elemental Attunment ability (level 4) is connected to the Genie-Kin ability (level 10), and Elemental Focus (level 1) is connected to Greater Elemental Focus (level 7). The daivrat is free to choose to use the same element for both, or to go with different onee. For example: a daivrat that is allied with djinn and jann but opposes efreet might seek fire resistance, but prefer to improve her spellcasting with cold spells.
It should remain a natural armor bonus. Sean and I agreed that improving armor bonus proved too much of a problem in the original design, and since this is a favored item of dervishes (many of whom where no armor at all), I think natural armor is the better choice. Post #3 coming...
Having downloaded the PDF, I think this is a GREAT product for 32 pages, it really 'picks up the ball' of al-Qadim, and of course Qadira is really just the 'toes' of the Kelish Empire, which sounds nearly as large and diverse as Avistan itself. al-Qadim is easily one of my favorite D&D settings, so having this as a BEGINNING for it's analogue re-incarnation in Golarion makes me very glad :-) Thanks for the kind words! To answer a few of you concerns:
Different members of the PrC have different attitudes. You can play summoned genies as pre-arranged agreements, as willing soldiers in the daivrats battle for genie-rights, or even as a daivrat exploiting his 'friendship' with genies to get what he wants. The daivrat can exploit genies. There is no code of conduct for the class, or alignment restriction, and that's on purpose.
No. It's a minor bonus, which increases the duration of the summon spells. More next post.
Here's an easy enough question to answer then, since this was supposed to be a 3.5 book. What LAs were the half-janni and Suli supposed to have under 3.5? The half-janni and suli were originally designed to be the genie analogue for the half-celestial and aasimar, at +4 and +1 respectively. I did note in the turnover a few places where there'd be a clear difference between 3.5 and PFRPG, and one of them was the LA of the suli-janni, which could easily be tweaked to match up with the core races (in PFRPG).
Personally, though, the idea of the Material Plane's effects on the situation there just kind of rubs me the wrong way. It feels to me like saying Tieflings and Aasimar should be the same race because the neutrality of the Material Plane will smooth away the diametrically opposed natures of the disparate bloodlines. The descendants of Good, or Law, or Fire shouldn't be the same as Evil, or Chaos, or Water. Something that filtered out of the book in editing (a nugget I picked up from Wolfgang Baur's genie piece, alsp pre-editing) was that the descendants of a (non-janni) genie pairing with a human created a janni as well. The idea that I picked up on and ran with--and it's one that I think is compelling, at the least--is that genies aren't simply beings of pure element, the way that a fire elemental or an air elemental is. They are elemental, yes, but also something else. Their associated elemental nature isn't necessarily an entirely hereditary trait. Perhaps it's influenced by the plane of their birth, or many generations of family influence. And if it's not necessarily hereditary, well, then it's somewhat mutable. As regards tieflings and aasmiar, these races are generalized, to a degree; tieflings gain the same abilities whether they are descended of a pit fiend or a succubus, and aasimar have the same powers if they come from a deva, a hound archon, or a ghaele. Fiends (demons and devils) and celestials (of all types), for better or worse, are 'lumped' for their distant mostly-human kin. Remember that genies aren't elementals; they're outsiders with associated elemental types. As I said above, it'd be perfectly fine to have a race of genie-kin that were more strongly associated with a particular element (due to a predominantly influential genie type in the bloodline), and we'll see that down the line, I'm sure. But I'm hinting at something else here. Qadira goes into the particular relationships in a bit more detail (if you read closely), but essentially, the farther one gets away from 'pure' genie blood, the less elemental-specific one becomes; the influence of the Material Plane tends to balance out the equation somewhat. By the time one gets down to suli-jann, they're at least three generations removed from a full-blooded, elemental-specific genie (djinni, efreeti, marid or shaitan), and the influence of their mixed surroundings shows.Which has the intriguing implications that elemental-specific genies are *specialized* members of genie-kind, and that their original form (many millenia ago) may have been less specific. It does, now, doesn't it? ;)
The only issue I could see for someone looking for a Genasi-ish race is that the Suli-Jann are touched by all four elements simultaneously, not just one specific one. True enough, but this is intentional. Qadira goes into the particular relationships in a bit more detail (if you read closely), but essentially, the farther one gets away from 'pure' genie blood, the less elemental-specific one becomes; the influence of the Material Plane tends to balance out the equation somewhat. By the time one gets down to suli-jann, they're at least three generations removed from a full-blooded, elemental-specific genie (djinni, efreeti, marid or shaitan), and the influence of their mixed surroundings shows. That isn't to say that there aren't or shouldn't be more elementally-focused elemental kin out in the world. Just that this isn't what the suli-janni is meant to be.
does Pathfinder have them? where? Genasi are intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast, and not being Open Game Content, cannot appear in Pathfinder material. There is, however, a similar race created specifically for Golarion that appears in Qadira: Gateway to the East. The race is called the suli-jann, and he showed up in this picture back in April. They don't exactly mirror the abilities of the FR genasi, but they're a different race made for a different world.
#2 on the Hot Sellers now, having past the Bonus Bestiary. I know that little ole Qadira will never get past the much-anticipated PFRPG book, but sneaking past a *free* download (even one a month old) is fricken awesome. Thanks, guys! I'm anxious to see what all of you folks actually think about the book.
So this is for the PF RPG, not 3.5? Despite the July release date? Yes. The release date for the book was intially for June, but when Paizo's staff descended en masse on the PFRPG core book, some things got bumped, not least of which was my little 32-page Companion. Fortunately, there isn't a whole lot of mechanical difference between 3.5 and PFRPG, so while writing I was able to add notes to the developer (Sean) saying "this is written for 3.5; if you need the PFRPG equivalent, it's XYZ." Not that he needed it--most conversions are 1-to-1--but it helped me to remember that my intentions needed to be clear. Anyway, when the book was bumped to July, they decided to make it PFRPG, both to increase the usability of the book going forward and to make sure that if any other delays hit, it would be current-edition (PF). The vast majority of the information in the book is edition-neutral (between 3.5 and PFRPG; using the traits in 2E might be difficult), and most of it is easily converted (like monsters and skill references). The real difference would be seen on player-side material, namely the Daivrat PrC and the suli-jann; I know the latter was specifically noted in the turnover as a +1 Level Adjustment race for 3.5, but to lose the LA for PFRPG due to the increase in the abilities of PC races for the new game. I hope this overly-detailed explanation helps. :P
Also I cant for the life of me figure out why there is a bestiary in a player companion. The short, unsatisfying answer is 'I was asked to write one.' The longer answer is that this book was intially written back in the winter, before the decision to shift the Companion to a player-focused format was made. Part of the assignment was to get some summonable genies of lower level onto the table (the gen), and possibly a PC-appropriate genieblooded race (the suli-jann). The half-jann was to round out both the ecological niche for genies (and give the excuse for explaining the various breakdowns of human/genie relations). There were, intially, other monsters as well, but they were cut because the book's focus shifted to be more player centered. For better or worse, you can't really talk about Qadira without dealing with their genie population. I suppose stats for the half-jann and suli-jann could have appeared elsewhere (the gen are necessary, because of their use in the daivrat PrC, so either way there'd be a bestiary of some length), but they were left in--I assume because there's not going to be the chance to address them again for some time, and had they not been included, there would have been requests for their stats. My best guess is that the Paizo guys decided to leave the stats in for those creatures that were relevant to the book (the gen as a familiar, the suli-jann as a playable race, and the half-jann as a creature mentioned elsewhere in the book and as a foundation for the NPC presented), but they'd need to give you a more definitive answer.
Hmm bit of a mixed bag for me. Now don't get me wrong it's a good book fluffwise it just seems a bit scattered for lack of a better word mostly in regards to the the traits with some on one page in one chapter more in a different chapter same with feats as well. It works better if all the traits are in one place but with this one a player will be flicking all over the book to find them. The traits and feats are divided out primarily because the book is written to avoid such flipping. There are basically two philosophies when it comes to this stuff: 1) Put all similar mechanical artifacts (feats, traits, etc.) in one spot, and let readers flip to find them. 2) Put mechanical artifacts as close to the relevant prose text (i.e. religious feats near religious descriptions, magical school traits near descriptions of those schools, etc.), and allow readers to flip to them only during character building. As a writer, my preference is for the second philosophy, at least for small books. Larger books can get away with chapters of feats or a two-page spread of traits, but I like to see (and place) such things in context. Of course, everyone has their own preference, and I don't expect folks to agree with every choice I make, but I'm kind of glad the folks at Paizo left things where I put 'em.
Just downloaded the PDF and skimmed thru it. This is the first PFRPG product right?? I believe that it is. The Bonus Bestiary is technically first, but this is the first one you have to pay for. :D Check it out!! Yes. Please, do!
Actually, the problem in this case was the Tarrasque itself (which, according to most accounts, is not the threat it ought to be), not the classes. We tested this book at multiple levels against core parties of the same roles and levels, and found the results--in terms of damage, survival, and playability--to be roughly equal. In this case, it's the target monster that was the issue, not the characters we used against it. Other monsters and encounter groups provided significantly more challenge during the playtest sessiosn.This book was a fun one to work on, especially when the playtest characters completely embarrassed the Tarrasque. If you decide to pick it up, I hope you enjoy!That isn't a good thing, the Tarrasque is supposed to be tough, if he was embarrassed by the play test characters, they were either over level, or over powered, and if they are over powered, as a DM I'm not going to let this book into my campaign. Cool sounding flavour, check, but don't make 3rd party juiced splat book classes please. Any designer, if worth the name, attemps to make classes that are flavorful and balanced. A bland, balanced class is no fun to write, and an overpowered, flavorful class is no fun to play. This book isn't 'juiced,' by any stretch, but you're entitled to check the preview on the Goodman Games site and ddecide for yourself. I'm curious if the new WOTC licence would have allowed you to make Death Warden and Necromancer as class variants instead of classes unto themselves (variants of the Warlord (?) and the Wizard (or Sorc)) much like the * Powers books add variants to the classes. The deathwarden is very different from the warlord--enough so that making it a variant of the warlord wouldn't have worked (in fact, I know Tavis specifically worked on making it a not-warlord). The necromancer might have been workable as a wizard build, but that's not how the class was designed. I'm quite certain, however, that variant builds and powersets for WotC classes would be permissible under the current license. I don't think that all concepts work as variants, though.
This book was a fun one to work on, especially when the playtest characters completely embarrassed the Tarrasque. If you decide to pick it up, I hope you enjoy! [Paizo/Vic: The fourth author's name should be "Greg Tito."]
Hmm, let's see. Because of Paizo, I got to write Dungeons & Dragons stuff. Because of Paizo, I got to write Forgotten Realms stuff. Because of Paizo, I have my name on a fricken' book--something I was never sure was going to happen. It's pretty much because of Paizo that I have anything resembling a writing career (yes, and you too, Sean...). I can't say anything but good things about these guys. They've let me be involved, in some way (however small), in every Adventure Path so far, from pieces in PF #5 and #9, to a Companion article for LoF, to getting to close out two of the first five APs. So, me and Paizo? We cool.
Wow, shot up to #5 on the Top Sellers almost overnight. Come on, guys, I wanna see this baby up at #1! It's a vanguard product, with PFRPG content even before the rules release...
I would say that there is a certain level of material (particularly with regard to the genies connection) that can absolutely be incorporated into LoF. In particular, there are feats and traits that PCs in that AP might want to pick up, especially if they are Qadiran (or just Keleshite in general).
In fairness to Mikaze, the art order for Spoiler: called for her to appear seductive, despite her clearly monstrous appearance.
Atendri I'm not sure which of the artists supplied that pic, but it certainly does its job.
Umm, I'm <i>still</i> waiting for someone to pick me up... In New York. Taxi?!?
Yeah. As I recall, the ring of true strike was also one of the cardinal sins we briefly discussed at the spells and magic item seminar we did at Gen Con a few years back. In general, any spell that has a duration of 1 round or instantaneous is completely inappropriate except as a charged (exhaustible charges, or per day) item. This was something that should have been considered in the original formula, wasn't, and has led to this kind of "ooh, can I get away with this?" conversations at countless tables ever since. As a general rule, if you'd conceivably use a given item more than the baseline 5 times per day* (which is what the formula is really based on), you should construct the item differently *See also chalice of cure light wounds.
Hey, folks!
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