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Any chance the Calistrian church's text would be called The Book of Erotic Fantasies?Does Golarion have it's own version of the Kama Sutra?Yes. I suspect that the church of Calistria has one in particular. And no... there are no plans for us to publish much about these books anytime soon.
It's called The Book of Joy.
And a question for James, since I'm feeling better after that majorly depressive one:
The general rule regarding half-human or human-blooded races intermingling is that any children between them will be human the majority of the time, but that the non-human traits may resurface in future generations, so a family of humans for example might have a half-orc child because one of the parents had a half-orc grandparent or something, is that correct?
Creative Director
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Any chance the Calistrian church's text would be called The Book of Erotic Fantasies?Does Golarion have it's own version of the Kama Sutra?Yes. I suspect that the church of Calistria has one in particular. And no... there are no plans for us to publish much about these books anytime soon.It's called The Book of Joy.
And a question for James, since I'm feeling better after that majorly depressive one:
The general rule regarding half-human or human-blooded races intermingling is that any children between them will be human the majority of the time, but that the non-human traits may resurface in future generations, so a family of humans for example might have a half-orc child because one of the parents had a half-orc grandparent or something, is that correct?
Good to hear you're feeling better!
That's more or less correct. That said... this is a GREAT reason to break out Advanced Race Guide and use the race builder to generate any sort of 10 point (or whatever) hybrid race you want.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I recently read People of the Stars, and was thinking about the description of androids that while their bodies don't age and wear out, their minds effectively turn off after about a century, and a few weeks later turn back on allowing a new soul to enter the android body. Would this potentially allow newly "born" androids to have much higher starting wealth than a typical character?
I wouldn't allow something like that for a PC in one of my games, but thought it could be interesting for an NPC android.
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I recently read People of the Stars, and was thinking about the description of androids that while their bodies don't age and wear out, their minds effectively turn off after about a century, and a few weeks later turn back on allowing a new soul to enter the android body. Would this potentially allow newly "born" androids to have much higher starting wealth than a typical character?
I wouldn't allow something like that for a PC in one of my games, but thought it could be interesting for an NPC android.
No more so than the friends of a deceased character looting the body.
A better analogy would be: no more than the child of a human adventurer inheriting the parent's gear and magic.
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1. As a member of Paizo, I'm sure you are proud of the product you put out, but as a GM, is there anything you wave the ban-stick at for reasons other than story/setting inappropriate/etc?
2. What are your always-on house rules?
3. If the answers to 1 and 2 are not "nothing", do you feel in any way disloyal that you're not using the product you were a part of creating as-is?
4. My search-fu was successful for what would have been this question, and I discovered that you like green tea. As my display name would suggest, I very much approve of this. So instead, I ask, what is your favorite brand of tea?
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Hey James, I picked up Hans Biedermann's Dictionary of Symbolism at your recommendation and I love Barbara Walker's Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Do you have any other suggestions for resources like these? I'm an English major and with finals upon me I can never be surrounded by enough books. Thanks!
Much more like the pulp versions. MUCH more. Distant Worlds has more info.James,
Are Mars and Venus in Golarion's universe like the real Mars and Venus, or are they like Mars and Venus in pulp sci-fi novels?
After playing Eyes of Ten Part 3, I can only say this
** spoiler omitted **
Is that a society scenario? And I didn't realize Distant Worlds covered things outside of Golarion's system.
EDIT: To clarify, I know Akiton and Castrovel are based on pulp mars and venus; I'm asking about the actual Mars and Venus in Earth's solar system in Golarion's universe.
In the ARG, for the alternate Duergar racial trait "Dwarf traits", giving up Duergar Immunities lets you choose dwarf racial traits that replace the hardy dwarf racial trait. That doesn't include the hardy trait itself, does it?
Time for some hot-button, forum-dividing issue questions. These are the abortion and gun rights of Pathfinder...they polarize at the core.
1. Alignment...is it necessary?
2. Exp...hand-wave it away and level up when the GM says: good idea?
3. The rogue...outclassed in every way by all the other rogue-esque classes, or she still has something she legitimately does best?
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Would you rather have the narrators from Little Shop of Horrors singing about the story of your life as you lived it or a band of mariachi players in full costume that followed you around emphasizing your speech with dramatic music everywhere you went?
If you could have theme music that everyone would hear when you walked into a room, what would it be?
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1. As a member of Paizo, I'm sure you are proud of the product you put out, but as a GM, is there anything you wave the ban-stick at for reasons other than story/setting inappropriate/etc?
2. What are your always-on house rules?
3. If the answers to 1 and 2 are not "nothing", do you feel in any way disloyal that you're not using the product you were a part of creating as-is?
4. My search-fu was successful for what would have been this question, and I discovered that you like green tea. As my display name would suggest, I very much approve of this. So instead, I ask, what is your favorite brand of tea?
1) I don't allow summoners in my games.
2) I don't have many always-on house rules, on account of the fact that working at Paizo as Creative Director means I tend to get my house rules turned into actual rules... but two that come to mind:
2a) Breath of life is called cure deadly wounds, so that clerics can swap it out.
2b) When a bard gets a new versatile performance he can reallocate ALL of his skill ranks to accommodate the new performance.
3) No.
4) My current favorite brand of tea is Teavana.
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Hey James, I picked up Hans Biedermann's Dictionary of Symbolism at your recommendation and I love Barbara Walker's Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Do you have any other suggestions for resources like these? I'm an English major and with finals upon me I can never be surrounded by enough books. Thanks!
There's a LOT of great books in this vein available from McFarland books. My favorite of their offerings is hands-down the Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology.
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Creative Director
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Much more like the pulp versions. MUCH more. Distant Worlds has more info.James,
Are Mars and Venus in Golarion's universe like the real Mars and Venus, or are they like Mars and Venus in pulp sci-fi novels?
After playing Eyes of Ten Part 3, I can only say this
** spoiler omitted **Is that a society scenario? And I didn't realize Distant Worlds covered things outside of Golarion's system.
EDIT: To clarify, I know Akiton and Castrovel are based on pulp mars and venus; I'm asking about the actual Mars and Venus in Earth's solar system in Golarion's universe.
OH! That wasn't clear. Mars and Venus are NOT as they are depicted in the pulps, because we're doing that with Akiton and Castrovel. Nor are Mars and Venus 100% scientifically accurate, cause that makes them kinda boring places to adventure.
We haven't actually decided what they're like in the game, and in fact the question has never come up until today. My preference would be for them to be science fictiony in some way, with some sort of something going on there to justify adventures beyond just survival.
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hello sorry if it has been said somewhere else but what is the Razmir sacred weapon or at least one associated with his religion? also what classes would be most prominent amongst his clergy
thanks in advance
-cc
The most prominent classes among his "clergy" would probably be bards or maybe rogues or sorcerers; classes that are good at tricking others. Bards are the best suited, since they can cast healing spells and are good at trickery.
He doesn't have a favored weapon. His followers tend to skew toward the use of daggers and quarterstaves I believe.
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James,
Do you ever worry that, with Bulmahn's love of minotaurs and mazes, he might rearrange the warehouse into a labyrinth and begin stalking the interns?
Nah. That's a lot of work, and Bulmahn also has a love of not engaging in physical labor.
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Time for some hot-button, forum-dividing issue questions. These are the abortion and gun rights of Pathfinder...they polarize at the core.
1. Alignment...is it necessary?
2. Exp...hand-wave it away and level up when the GM says: good idea?
3. The rogue...outclassed in every way by all the other rogue-esque classes, or she still has something she legitimately does best?
1) Yes.
2) Bad idea.
3) Sudden bursts of high damage is what she does best.
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Would you rather have the narrators from Little Shop of Horrors singing about the story of your life as you lived it or a band of mariachi players in full costume that followed you around emphasizing your speech with dramatic music everywhere you went?
If you could have theme music that everyone would hear when you walked into a room, what would it be?
Neither. I'd rather put ice picks in my ears.
If I COULD have theme music? The Rains of Castamere seems like a fun choice.
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Do Oracles get that spell as their free known spell as opposed to Mass Cure Light Wounds?
2a) Breath of life is called cure deadly wounds, so that clerics can swap it out.
It's never come up in any games I run since I've never had an oracle reach that level in a game I run... but no they wouldn't. They'd have to choose it as a spell they know. I might let the player swap out mass cure light for cure deadly wounds if they asked nicely though.
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I recently read People of the Stars, and was thinking about the description of androids that while their bodies don't age and wear out, their minds effectively turn off after about a century, and a few weeks later turn back on allowing a new soul to enter the android body. Would this potentially allow newly "born" androids to have much higher starting wealth than a typical character?
I wouldn't allow something like that for a PC in one of my games, but thought it could be interesting for an NPC android.
No more so than the friends of a deceased character looting the body.
A better analogy would be: no more than the child of a human adventurer inheriting the parent's gear and magic.
The souls that would "refill" such an Android, would they be Golarion or Androffan? And presumably they would inherit any permanent damage the vessel had suffered previously?
If the answer is the latter, is this how the complement of the starship are living on?
Souls aren't tied to nations. The new android would be a blank slate whose nationality and personality would be molded by the region and nation she was born into. No permanent damage would remain.
Remember, ONLY androids who die of natural causes are recycled int his way, and part of the process of recycling involves rebuilding and repairing the body so that it's "young" again. This would generally include the regrowth of missing body parts... UNLESS the missing part was what caused the death, in which case the body won't recycle because it died not of old age but of violence.
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It's kind of an odd property, given that the ship despite it's present condition still seems to have the capability of creating new androids. Is this a byproduct of Golarion's magic interacting with their nanotechnology?
Nope; its a byproduct of parts of the ship's structure being so well-made that they still function so long after the crash. The fact that very few of them DO still function is why androids are so rare.
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1. Is there any kind of centralized leadership that oversees and coordinates the activities of the seven major Hellknight Orders?
2. Which order is your favorite?
3. Is "Hell's Rebels" going to have much hellknight shinanigans (on a scale of 0 [none] to 10 [Council of Thieves])?
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Creative Director
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1. Is there any kind of centralized leadership that oversees and coordinates the activities of the seven major Hellknight Orders?
2. Which order is your favorite?
3. Is "Hell's Rebels" going to have much hellknight shinanigans (on a scale of 0 [none] to 10 [Council of Thieves])?
1) No. The orders are all pretty self-contained, and they don't have much oversight into each other.
2) At this point, probably the Order of the Rack or the Order of the Torrent.
3) I would actually put Council of Thieves at a 5 on that scale, since the Hellknights are not a major part of the overall story, and only really play roles in a couple of adventures and never get a cover character spot. They're an "average" presence in there as a result. By that measuring stick, Hell's Rebels would get a 7. With a 10 being a theoretical Hellknight AP where you play members of the Hellknights who fight against another order of Hellknights.
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So if we are lucky enough to get the Hollow Mountain done up as a full, all the bells and whistles mega-dungeon. Do you think Lisa Stevens could be convinced to do the first level as in Emerald Spire?
No.
Because Hollow Mountain's one of MY playgrounds. If it happens... it's 'cause I got to write the whole thing.
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Even better. Though for Breath of life I am surprised you do not call it Cure Lethal Wounds.
Cure Mortal Wounds is another option.
But by calling it Cure Deadly Wounds, it abbreviates to CDW. Which doesn't overlap Light, Moderate, Serious, or Critical. (Which both Deadly and Lethal do.)
Where is Thalassic Park?
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It's been a while since I've read WotR, but could you hint me at where this reason is mentioned? I can't seem to bring it out of my brain's memory right now....
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!"
Page 7 of "The Worldwound Incursion," in the adventure background, is where it's first mentioned. It comes up many more times as the AP progresses.
Short version: "The demons played humans for fools and lulled them into a deliberate sense of false security, since a long drawn-out war was a much better way to get more humans to fall to sin than simply killing them. Better for sinful humans to die and fuel the Abyss than to kill them before that point and waste the souls going to heaven."
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Page 7 of "The Worldwound Incursion," in the adventure background, is where it's first mentioned. It comes up many more times as the AP progresses.
Short version: "The demons played humans for fools and lulled them into a deliberate sense of false security, since a long drawn-out war was a much better way to get more humans to fall to sin than simply killing them. Better for sinful humans to die and fuel the Abyss than to kill them before that point and waste the souls going to heaven."
Oh, right! Was the attack on Kenabres more out of boredom then, or an actual effort to win the war? It seems to me like slow gains would have been better for them in the long run.
** spoiler omitted **
The "slow gains" have been building for about a century. That's long enough for the demons, and the attack on Kenabres was indeed an intentional start of the endgame, set into motion by the discovery of Nahyndrian's uses. Plus, someone wanted to kill a dragon.
I learned one!