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will there ever be gargantuan, collosal pawns?Unlikely, since we don't have a good way to get bases of that size out there, and since the logistics make producing and selling pawns of that size (and bases of that size) impractical.
James, how do you represent massive creatures on the table in your home games? Can you provide a specific example? Thanks.
So it IS a good action to kill orc toddlers in Golarion? Lame.That's absolutely not what I said at all.
It's not a good action to kill defenseless young of any species. It's an action good characters might be forced into taking now and then, if only by proxy by killing the providers for a group of evil characters. It's one of those tough moral decisions that groups need to wrestle with. Most groups just gloss over it, of course.
But it's not a good action to orc babies.
I have a follow up question. Weren't the orcs from the hold of belkzen pursuing trade and caravansaries? How does that work if they are chaotic evil and violently dangerous all the time? How could they stay calm enough to negotiate trade and exchange?
Seems odd and not to work with the newly 'civilised' trade-pursuing orcs.
I apologize in advance if I sound angry when asking this.
Why would anyone ever want to play a Paladin of Shelyn in Golarion?
They would try to redeem nearly any being, even those you mentioned are near impossible to redeem.
Actually, why would anyone even bother playing a Good Alignment when it's impossible to behave like an actual hero?
From the way things seem to be going, a "Good" character in Golarion is usually just a glorified murderer (like most Neutrals are), not a real hero.
Good shouldn't be easy. Good shouldn't be impossible either. But the way I've seen discussions go, Good is easy because all you need to do is "kill the bad guys" and call it a day.
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Will we ever see the dungeons exampled in "Dungeons of Golarion" as fully laid out superdungeons similar to the Emerald Spire or were they meant purely as inspirational fluff? Was the Emerald Spire profitable enough that Paizo will consider publising more superdungeons in the future? Would it be feasible to design an AP to take place entirely within a superdungeon?
P.S. Hollow Mountain... *Droolface*
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A couple questions
1. What types of dragons are found in or around the western edge of the Kodar mountains.
2. If you were going to use Xanderghul what type of forces do you think he would use in his forces/ what random encounters would the party most likely face on the way to confront him.
3. It says his Capitol was either a floating castle or a impossibly tall tower who h one do you think I should use.
Let's Say Nocticula was driven to increase her presence in the Worldwound.
Would she call upon her Drow worshipers?
Are there an easily accessible routes from the Darklands to the vicinity of the Worldwound?
And a few other semi-related questions.
How would a powerful demon lord go about gaining divinity?
Was there a methodical plan enacted by Lamashtu in order for her to gain her divinity?
Thanks again for answering questions!
James when you answer a question with "unrevealed", does that usually mean "we haven't decided yet"? And please don't answer unrevealed...It generally means one of the following:......
5) Unrevealed.
Are you half Troll?
Given that magic permeates the Pathfinder universe and seems to inhibit technological growth, is a society like Androffa (ie a civilization that developed with no prior experience or knowledge of magic at all) extremely rare in the universe?
Creative Director
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What do you think of a Lawful good god of empires,conquest,Prosperity,unity and harems?
Seems like someone randomly rolled an alignment and randomly rolled up areas of concern.
Doesn't mean it can't be an interesting deity, but it does mean that you need to put a lot of work into writing up the religion and justifying what seems like several random things mixed with a random alignment.
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Creative Director
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James, how do you represent massive creatures on the table in your home games? Can you provide a specific example? Thanks.will there ever be gargantuan, collosal pawns?Unlikely, since we don't have a good way to get bases of that size out there, and since the logistics make producing and selling pawns of that size (and bases of that size) impractical.
In one game, the PCs were up against an enormous, 300 foot tall statue controlled by Treerazer. They had to explore the chambers inside the statue to figure out how to destroy it; there were lots of monster fights in there as well. Basically, the giant creature becomes the terrain/dungeon.
I've had PCs fight enormous monster parts before; just a giant tentacle, for example, of a much larger creature, and defeating the tentacle just makes the monster lose interest.
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Creative Director
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So it IS a good action to kill orc toddlers in Golarion? Lame.That's absolutely not what I said at all.
It's not a good action to kill defenseless young of any species. It's an action good characters might be forced into taking now and then, if only by proxy by killing the providers for a group of evil characters. It's one of those tough moral decisions that groups need to wrestle with. Most groups just gloss over it, of course.
But it's not a good action to orc babies.
I have a follow up question. Weren't the orcs from the hold of belkzen pursuing trade and caravansaries? How does that work if they are chaotic evil and violently dangerous all the time? How could they stay calm enough to negotiate trade and exchange?
Seems odd and not to work with the newly 'civilised' trade-pursuing orcs.
You can be organzied and chaotic evil. That's how lots of gangs work, for example. The rule of Might Makes Right more or less; your strength and the fear of your underlings keeps things running.
Furthermore, chaotic evil does not mean "impatent and stupid." You can calm down to take care of things like trade and the like if you want.
Insanity is an entirely different set of rules from alignment.
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Creative Director
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I apologize in advance if I sound angry when asking this.
Why would anyone ever want to play a Paladin of Shelyn in Golarion?
They would try to redeem nearly any being, even those you mentioned are near impossible to redeem.
Actually, why would anyone even bother playing a Good Alignment when it's impossible to behave like an actual hero?
From the way things seem to be going, a "Good" character in Golarion is usually just a glorified murderer (like most Neutrals are), not a real hero.
Good shouldn't be easy. Good shouldn't be impossible either. But the way I've seen discussions go, Good is easy because all you need to do is "kill the bad guys" and call it a day.
You don't have to want to play every combo yourself. The game is for more players than just you. So if you don't want to or can't see a reason to play a paladin of Shelyn, don't. Doesn't mean other folks agree.
And it strikes me that, when you say "they want to redeem nearly any being," you're actually asking about paladins of Sarenrae; she's the goddess of redemption, not Shelyn.
It sounds almost like you've been spending too much time reading alignment argument threads on the internet and not enough time playing the game or reading adventures.
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Creative Director
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Will we ever see the dungeons exampled in "Dungeons of Golarion" as fully laid out superdungeons similar to the Emerald Spire or were they meant purely as inspirational fluff? Was the Emerald Spire profitable enough that Paizo will consider publising more superdungeons in the future? Would it be feasible to design an AP to take place entirely within a superdungeon?
P.S. Hollow Mountain... *Droolface*
Yes. We have expanded some of them already, in fact. I believe we've done a scenario for PFS set in the Red Redoubt, for example. And I've long wanted to do a megadungeon of Hollow Mountain. That would be FAR MORE detailed than Emerald Spire.
I think a megadungeon would make a great place to focus an entire AP.
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A couple questions
1. What types of dragons are found in or around the western edge of the Kodar mountains.
2. If you were going to use Xanderghul what type of forces do you think he would use in his forces/ what random encounters would the party most likely face on the way to confront him.
3. It says his Capitol was either a floating castle or a impossibly tall tower who h one do you think I should use.
1) Any of them could conceivably be found there, but the most common would be white, blue, red, silver, bronze (in that order).
2) I'm not ready to reply to this question. AKA I have been planning on using Xanderghul for something since Day 1, and I don't want to spoil my exact plans yet.
3) Which ever one you feel would be more fun to map, or that you feel your players would enjoy exploring more.
I apologize in advance if I sound angry when asking this.
Why would anyone ever want to play a Paladin of Shelyn in Golarion?
They would try to redeem nearly any being, even those you mentioned are near impossible to redeem.
Actually, why would anyone even bother playing a Good Alignment when it's impossible to behave like an actual hero?
From the way things seem to be going, a "Good" character in Golarion is usually just a glorified murderer (like most Neutrals are), not a real hero.
Good shouldn't be easy. Good shouldn't be impossible either. But the way I've seen discussions go, Good is easy because all you need to do is "kill the bad guys" and call it a day.
You don't have to want to play every combo yourself. The game is for more players than just you. So if you don't want to or can't see a reason to play a paladin of Shelyn, don't. Doesn't mean other folks agree.
And it strikes me that, when you say "they want to redeem nearly any being," you're actually asking about paladins of Sarenrae; she's the goddess of redemption, not Shelyn.
It sounds almost like you've been spending too much time reading alignment argument threads on the internet and not enough time playing the game or reading adventures.
It's not just a player problem. I would have a hard time letting anyone play a Paladin (of Sarenrae or any other deity) as DM and NOT have everything go wrong.
You yourself said more than 99% of Orcs are Evil. Pretty much every attempt to make one Good will fail, and players that try to redeem and fail EVERY time will give up eventually.
Are you saying that I should ignore canon conventions to give my players a break? Why would you want me to go against what you said is true of the setting? That's what I am asking. I'm getting mixed messages here.
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Creative Director
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Let's Say Nocticula was driven to increase her presence in the Worldwound.
Would she call upon her Drow worshipers?
Are there an easily accessible routes from the Darklands to the vicinity of the Worldwound?And a few other semi-related questions.
How would a powerful demon lord go about gaining divinity?
Was there a methodical plan enacted by Lamashtu in order for her to gain her divinity?Thanks again for answering questions!
She's not really into a mass show of power. She and her faith are more about sublety, seduction, and stabbing silent from shadows. She could very well call upon some of her drow worshipers, but it'd be more likely to be worshipers drawn from all over (which would include drow).
The transition from demigod to deity is one that varies and changes. From my stance, the route taken is whatever provides for the best story, and each demon lord has its own implied story that would be fun to explore. It's not something you can pin down to a "methodical plan" that all demons would take, and in fact doing so would ruin it.
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It's not just a player problem. I would have a hard time letting anyone play a Paladin (of Sarenrae or any other deity) as DM and NOT have everything go wrong.
You yourself said more than 99% of Orcs are Evil. Pretty much every attempt to make one Good will fail, and players that try to redeem and fail EVERY time will give up eventually.
Are you saying that I should ignore canon conventions to give my players a break? Why would you want me to go against what you said is true of the setting? That's what I am asking here.
Part of the job of being a GM is learning how to work with players who might really want to play a character type that you yourself are no fan of.
Frankly, a campaign plot to redem an orc nation would be REALLY cool, and once that happens, then obviously there's gonna be a lot more non-evil orcs. But you can't do that campaign at all, and indeed it becomes MUCH less interesting, if the baseline you start with is "there's already lots of non-evil orcs." It's better in that campaign if the world is filled with evil orcs, and that way the goal is something world-changing.
We wouldn't present something like that as a baseline campaign assumption for that reason. We WOULD have no problem doing an entire adventure path about redeeming Belkzen. We've done plenty of other APs that change the campaign. In fact, that's one of the great things about APs; we DO get to change the setting. Be it closing the Worldwound, transfering power from existing rulers to new rulers (Jade Regent, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Skull & Shackles), possibly destroying major cities (Shattered Star), adding entirely new kingdoms to the map (Kingmaker), or even bringing about the end of the world if the PCs fail (Wrath of the Righteous, Shattered Star).
If you want to tell a story about how the player characters' actions change the world, well... that, as far as I'm concerned, is the WHOLE POINT of doing a campaign. After playing from 1st to high level over the course of a year or so, the world SHOULD be a different place due to the actions of your player characters. Maybe just slightly different. Maybe fundamentally different.
What's true in the setting is only what's come before. We've set all that up so that YOU get to decide what's true next.
If you don't allow your players or even yourself to change Golarion, then it's not an interactive campaign setting at all, and there's no reason to play the game.
Hope that clears things up?
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Creative Director
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Regarding Age of Worms. Will that original adventure path ever be put into a single compendium for Pathfinder?
Not by Paizo.
Wizards of the Coast owns Age of Worms. They get to decide if and when that gets compiled into a hardcover, and I really doubt they'll let us touch it again OR update it to Pathfinder.
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Creative Director
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Given that magic permeates the Pathfinder universe and seems to inhibit technological growth, is a society like Androffa (ie a civilization that developed with no prior experience or knowledge of magic at all) extremely rare in the universe?
At this point, there are 2 systems in our universe where technology is the norm (Earth's and Androffa's) and 1 where magic is the norm (Golarion's). So at this point... magic is the rare one.
*Reply to question and other cool stuff*
Hope that clears things up?
It does. Thank you for your time and patience.
And yeah, I guess I should stick out of alignment threads for a while.
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Creative Director
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The point that the player was making seemed to be that a Paladin of Shelyn (or Sarenrae as you corrected) could not function as a normal Paladin because in every combat he'd have to try to redeem the creature first.
As a "normal" paladin? No. But as a paladin of Sarenrae? Yes.
That said, she's neutral good, not lawful good. Paladins of Sarenrae are already sort of heretics to her faith, and as such they SHOULD be quite rare. The fact that many players prefer to play the "quite rare" role means those options are disproportionally present in this world, but in game they're not.
As for how a paladin of Sarenrae can function in a typical group... looking at her paladin code on page 137 of Inner Sea Gods, it seems to me that she shouldn't have a big problem beyond the typical clashes a paladin will have with a group who's not all lawful good.
She protects her allies (no problem).
She destroys things associated with Rovagug (no problem unless there's a PC worshiper of Rovagug).
She is fair to others (no problem).
She fights to win and fights fairly (no problem).
She seeks to redeem the ignorant. This one COULD be a problem if the other players are impatient. But at the same point, a paladin of Sarenrae isn't mindless; if she comes to the decision that a creature can't be redeemed, or more to the point, that time spent TRYING to redeem it would allow it to work greater evils in the interim, then she's justified in putting the creature down as long as she does so as quickly and efficiently as possible (AKA she can't torture or torment the thing).
She does not abide evil and combats it when words aren't enough (no problem).
She is merciful (could be a problem, but no more so than for any paladin).
Each day is a new opportunity toward glory (no problem).
It seems to me that the "problems" are arising not because the paladin worships Sarenrae, but becuase it's a palaidn, and other players are setting impossible expectations and perhaps eagerly and actively hoping to see a paladin fall. I've seen this behavior a lot—it's one of the reasons the class is my least favorite—it tends to promote disruptive play for a lot of reasons.
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I seem to be getting the impression that on Androffa, something different and far more horrific than either is the norm now.
Was Destiny a failed attempt at building a lifeboat for a dying world?
Had Destiny's launch been delayed for about 25 years... then yes. At the time, though, it was not a lifeboat for a dying world.
Okay you both made the same typo (unless it's a reference or deliberate) so I gotta ask: was the ship originally called Destiny by you guys?
Also totally called Androffa imploding. Hope it's not a sterile, barren wasteland even 9,000 years later, that would be very depressing :(
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I apologize in advance if I sound angry when asking this.
Why would anyone ever want to play a Paladin of Shelyn in Golarion?
They would try to redeem nearly any being, even those you mentioned are near impossible to redeem.
Actually, why would anyone even bother playing a Good Alignment when it's impossible to behave like an actual hero?
From the way things seem to be going, a "Good" character in Golarion is usually just a glorified murderer (like most Neutrals are), not a real hero.
Good shouldn't be easy. Good shouldn't be impossible either. But the way I've seen discussions go, Good is easy because all you need to do is "kill the bad guys" and call it a day.
Shelyn is one of the goddesses I rather like. It is a reskinned Sune. The glaive is also an excellent weapon for clerics.
There is a lot more to Shelyn and her faith that always having to redeem everything:
"Shelyn encourages creativity and inspires the world. She challenges her faithful to test their limits, share what they create, and delight in the gifts of others. Shelyn preaches (and practices) that true beauty comes from within, and she favors romances not based solely on lust. Clerics of Shelyn endeavor each day to create something of beauty, whether artistically or through unconventional forms, such as a gardener tending a flower garden". Create, push yourself, break your limits and delight in the joy and beauty of the world. That gives a pretty good justification to kill all that is evil and threatens what has been created from a pure heart.
So it IS a good action to kill orc toddlers in Golarion? Lame.That's absolutely not what I said at all.
It's not a good action to kill defenseless young of any species. It's an action good characters might be forced into taking now and then, if only by proxy by killing the providers for a group of evil characters. It's one of those tough moral decisions that groups need to wrestle with. Most groups just gloss over it, of course.
But it's not a good action to orc babies.
I have a follow up question. Weren't the orcs from the hold of belkzen pursuing trade and caravansaries? How does that work if they are chaotic evil and violently dangerous all the time? How could they stay calm enough to negotiate trade and exchange?
Seems odd and not to work with the newly 'civilised' trade-pursuing orcs.
You can be organzied and chaotic evil. That's how lots of gangs work, for example. The rule of Might Makes Right more or less; your strength and the fear of your underlings keeps things running.
Furthermore, chaotic evil does not mean "impatent and stupid." You can calm down to take care of things like trade and the like if you want.
Insanity is an entirely different set of rules from alignment.
Thank you for your reply, it answered my question and it seems some orcs are moving away from the blood-lust, stupidity and moving into areas of calmly pursuing advantage.
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As a player whose first choice for a character is usually Paladin or Cleric I'd like to add that I love Sarenrae and Shelyn as choices in Golarion instead of just the LG gods.
Here in PbP games I'm playing one of each and they play a little bit differently both RP wise and Mechanics wise.
Do you like the addition of NG/CG gods as having Paladins? Or would you prefer only the LG gods to have Paladins?
I have something I'd like to add to GM Niles' question. I've been kicking around a build idea for awhile basically a very antiundead paladin and was wondering if a Paladin could possibly worship Pharasma? Now that the warpriest is a thing I may shift my build to that if it is impossible to have a Paladin of Pharasma but the paladin class does fit my character idea better.
Hi, James! Any chance you'll be at pax East this year?
Do you have any allergies you wouldn't mind mentioning?
How do you feel about those damn kids on your lawn?
OK, I have a real rules question, too. Here we go. It has a few moving parts.
Tower Shield Training (Ex): At 3rd level, a tower shield specialist gains armor training as normal, but while he employs a tower shield, the armor penalty is reduced by 3 and the maximum Dexterity bonus allowed by his armor increases by 2. The benefit increases every four levels thereafter as per standard armor training; if the tower shield specialist is not employing a tower shield, the benefits to armor training revert to the normal bonuses.
I see a huge hole.
Let's say I'm wearing full plate, I'm carrying a light load, I'm level 7, and I'm carrying a tower shield.
My armors max dex bonus raised. My tower shield, stuck at +3, did not.
It seems nonsensical to me that they would grant an ability that does nothing. If, in the worst armor for dex bonuses, this benefit invalidates itself (for extra bonus, you have to carry a limiting factor?
Does this bonus extend to my shield? Help me make sense of it, please!
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Okay you both made the same typo (unless it's a reference or deliberate) so I gotta ask: was the ship originally called Destiny by you guys?
Also totally called Androffa imploding. Hope it's not a sterile, barren wasteland even 9,000 years later, that would be very depressing :(
No. It's always been Divinity. I made the typo because I was rushing.
I'm not sure where the "Destiny" typo crept in, but it's "Divinity." For lots of story reasons that should make sense once the whole thing plays out. Including the title of the last adventure.
Androffa is not a sterile, barren wasteland today, but it IS a very different world than it was when Divinity launched.
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As a player whose first choice for a character is usually Paladin or Cleric I'd like to add that I love Sarenrae and Shelyn as choices in Golarion instead of just the LG gods.
Here in PbP games I'm playing one of each and they play a little bit differently both RP wise and Mechanics wise.
Do you like the addition of NG/CG gods as having Paladins? Or would you prefer only the LG gods to have Paladins?
The addition of NG or LN gods having paladins is something that I've had in my homebrew for decades, and is something I wanted to include in Golarion because that allows for paladins who, while they're still lawful good, focus more on the good or more on the law side of things. It makes the class more interesting and gives it a bit more room to branch out.
You can't be a paladin of a chaotic good god though, since you still have to be lawful good to be a paladin and if you're lawful good, you're not devout in your worship of a chaotic deity, and therefore not behaving in a lawful manner, and thus not a paladin.
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I have something I'd like to add to GM Niles' question. I've been kicking around a build idea for awhile basically a very antiundead paladin and was wondering if a Paladin could possibly worship Pharasma? Now that the warpriest is a thing I may shift my build to that if it is impossible to have a Paladin of Pharasma but the paladin class does fit my character idea better.
No.
If you want an anti-undead paladin, Sarenrae's probably the best choice, thematically. Or perhaps one of the LG or NG empyreal lords who is all about killing undead. Or even a paladin of an ideal or non-deity-based philosophy or faith.
Pharasma, though, does not have paladins.
I have something I'd like to add to GM Niles' question. I've been kicking around a build idea for awhile basically a very antiundead paladin and was wondering if a Paladin could possibly worship Pharasma? Now that the warpriest is a thing I may shift my build to that if it is impossible to have a Paladin of Pharasma but the paladin class does fit my character idea better.No.
If you want an anti-undead paladin, Sarenrae's probably the best choice, thematically. Or perhaps one of the LG or NG empyreal lords who is all about killing undead. Or even a paladin of an ideal or non-deity-based philosophy or faith.
Pharasma, though, does not have paladins.
I'll probably shift him to a warpriest then. I really like Pharasma so I want to keep her as my character's god and I think I can make a warpriest work for what I have in mind. Thanks for your input.
Hiya James,
quickie question. Are the stats for Kulgara and the Black Sovereign made with rage already activated?
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James,
1. What was Arazni's favored weapon when she was still a demigod?
2. What is the proper adjective for referring to people, places, or things related to Arazni: Araznean; Araznian; Araznan; something else entirely; or “please don't do that”? (contextual e.g., something like The Araznean Order of Swift Justice for an order of Knights of Ozem.)
Thanks again, as always.
1. I have this thing in my head about divine spells: that they are in essence prayers to one's deity, or rather, answers to those prayers. I'm sure that's not canon, because it causes a dilemma: you can have a "non-deity-based philosophy or faith". Or you can, I suppose, pray to an empyreal lord or other… demigod? Godling? But how do you pray to a philosophy? How does it hear your prayers?
I guess what I'm asking is, if you're a divine spellcaster who does not get your spells from a deity or other sentient, how does it work?
2. Spells have levels. They show, I think, the power of the spell. But some spells have different levels for different casters. How does that work? What's the rationale behind it?
3. Where does arcane power come from?
What is the weirdest non-Japanese thing you've seen on the internet?
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Is allowing players and npcs to add nexavar to bronze to overcome cold iron damage reduction something interesting?
How long have the properties of Nexavar been known?
Since Nexavar makes a blueish metal is allowing it to make a blue glass a good idea?
Actually... nexavar is no longer part of Golarion. (I felt it was a far too convenient and kind of lazy way to explain why the Worldwound hasn't expanded, and also sort of undermined the accomplishment of the Iomedan crusade as a result, and so it's been removed from the world as of Inner Sea World Guide.)
Since nexavar is not part of Golarion anymore... I don't really have much else to say about it—if you want to keep its presence in your version of Golarion, though, that's fine! :-)
So...
A PFS boon came out at Gen Con 2013 that involved characters receiving weapons made of Nexavarian Steel. I know that the novella "Certainty" came out in 2010 and you made the above comment in 2012, but with the focus the Worldwound is getting with Wrath of the Righteous and PFS Season 5...has something changed regarding Nexavarian Steel / Nexavar?
Thanks!
Ugh... Yeah, I had a conversation at the Con with someone about this. This is an unfortunate case of someone writing up a boon without realizing we've essentially retconned Nexavar out of the campaign setting for being a FAR to convenient mechanism to explain why the demons are stuck in the Worldwound and also marginalizing the crusaders' accomplishments in holding the line by having a far-too-convenient deus ex machina in the rivers surrounding the Worldwound.
I took Nexavar out of the setting because it weakened the crusaders' accomplishments, felt too lazy in world design, and simply wasn't as interesting as having the demons and crusaders rely on other means that weren't completely circumstantial, almost accidental...
It occurs to me that I never asked my follow-up question to this! (I think I was planning on asking you in person at GenCon 2014 but with the lines so long and GMing 8 PFS slots, I never got to see you...)
Since it's been written out of continuity anyway, would you be willing to share what nexavar was, originally? Or is it in the old campaign setting book (in which case I'll go search that when I get home)?
Thanks!
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Creative Director
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Aside from the power outage did you guys do okay in the storm?
The power outage yesterday was a sneak preview. The storm hasn't actually hit us yet; it's coming up from the south and should be reaching us this afternoon. If you can't get on the website this afternoon, that's a good sign we lost power again.
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Creative Director
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You've mentioned good orcs and how rare they are but what about animals and magical beasts who are CE naturally. Would a good version of some of these creatures be possible or are they just wired towards maliciousness
Unless a creature has an alignment subtype, their actual individual alignment can be anything; the alignments listed in the book are the most common ones, so if you DO go against those listed alignments, you just need a reason to justify the change, in the same way you'd need to justify a creature having different feats or skills or a template.
If a creature DOES have an alignment subtype, they can STILL be a different alignment than listed, but that's VERY VERY VERY rare.
If the creature is undead, it should be evil. Ghosts are the undead most often not evil. Others can be non-evil, but they need outsider-level justification for it.
Creatures of Intelligence 2 or 1 or less are almost always neutral, save for weird cases where the creature is the product of a powerfully evil effect (such as is the case with skeletons or zombies).
All that said... one of the BEST ways to adapt the game to your world and to make your world different and uniquely yours is to change alignment expectations. But once you set those expectations down, your world deserves the respect of adhering to your choices; that's one way you set your world's "brand" and personality, after all. Changing the alignments of creatures all the time is almost like changing the name of your gods or nations all the time. It wrecks verisimilitude and makes it increasingly tough for the players to identify with and get used to the world, since in a way, your'e remaking the world each time you make such a big change.
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James,
1. What was Arazni's favored weapon when she was still a demigod?
2. What is the proper adjective for referring to people, places, or things related to Arazni: Araznean; Araznian; Araznan; something else entirely; or “please don't do that”? (contextual e.g., something like The Araznean Order of Swift Justice for an order of Knights of Ozem.)Thanks again, as always.
1) Rapier
2) Not sure we've decided. I would go with Araznian.
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Creative Director
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1. I have this thing in my head about divine spells: that they are in essence prayers to one's deity, or rather, answers to those prayers. I'm sure that's not canon, because it causes a dilemma: you can have a "non-deity-based philosophy or faith". Or you can, I suppose, pray to an empyreal lord or other… demigod? Godling? But how do you pray to a philosophy? How does it hear your prayers?
I guess what I'm asking is, if you're a divine spellcaster who does not get your spells from a deity or other sentient, how does it work?
2. Spells have levels. They show, I think, the power of the spell. But some spells have different levels for different casters. How does that work? What's the rationale behind it?
3. Where does arcane power come from?
1) Divine spells are manifestations of your faith in your belief, not direct gifts from a deity. Arcane spells are manifestations of your intellect, and psychic spells are manifestations of your inborn magical ability. Those two aren't gifts from things other than you, and thus divine spells aren't either. It's your faith that allows you to manifest the effects from the world's magic.
2) Some spellcasters are better at doing effects than others, and thus get the ability to cast the spells at an earlier level. Alternately, some spellcasters might learn the spell at a lower level, but have to wait until a much higher character level to gain that skill; that's a case of the magic coming easier to that class but the class not being all that great at using magic compared to a full spellcaster.
3) Magic. Same place divine and psychic magic comes from. The latent magical energies that suffuse much of the world.
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What is the weirdest non-Japanese thing you've seen on the internet?
I think it's an error to assume that nationality has direct correlations to meat-space nations.
That said... I've seen PLENTY weird on the internet, and picking the weirdest? Can't do it. I can pick the first one that comes to mind though...
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Creative Director
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It occurs to me that I never asked my follow-up question to this! (I think I was planning on asking you in person at GenCon 2014 but with the lines so long and GMing 8 PFS slots, I never got to see you...)
Since it's been written out of continuity anyway, would you be willing to share what nexavar was, originally? Or is it in the old campaign setting book (in which case I'll go search that when I get home)?
Nexavar was a kind of lazy made-up material to explain why the demons of the Worldwound stopped at the border and didn't go further. It was kinda poorly thought out (why, if it's something that runs along the river, don't the demons go north or west where there is no river?), was never really given any rules, and as such didn't really follow my design philosophy of "If you make it up, back it up with rules design."
It was never really explained or described, and that's part of the reason I dislike it and excised it from the setting. But more to the point, I'd always had in my mind reasons why the demons don't go further than the Worldwound (those reasons are revealed, finally, in Wrath of the Righteous), and it has more to do with demons being smarter and much more manipulative than humans give them credit and less to do with "lucky that river just HAPPENED to be infused with anti demon stuff!"