James, what's your favorite cantrip and why? Have you used it in a novel creative way?Prestidigitation, because it's very open to application, but mostly because you can use it to clean up after things get messy. I've used it to clean off hazardous spores and slimes. Very handy.
evidence removal?
Do you think music played during gaming sessions can be an enhancement to the experience, or a distraction from it?
GM asking every player for a character's "Theme Song" to play when they use a hero point, do something awesome, or otherwise shine for the party...cool, or lame?
Since you are a Futurama fan (or at least a follower, by your answer to my earlier question on their cancellation), would you agree with me when I point to Bender as the world's most extreme example of Chaotic Neutral?
James,
if Neutral Good Petitioners "take on the forms of animals that closely approximate their personalities," should that be reflected in their stats in size, speeds (including fly and swim), and natural attacks? Most of the petitioner types stay pretty close to their original form, so the lack of changes is appropriate, and for Larvae it's somewhat covered by them getting a bite attack instead of a slam (though it seems like they might be better with a slower speed and/or information on if they have any limbs), so it's the Cleansed who stand out to me as a "how would that affect their stats?" issue. I had a thing I was going to try and do with petitioners, and I have a couple ideas of how it could be handled or how to get around it, but I'm curious if you have any advice or input.
Actually, second petitioner question that occurred overnight: Does the deity you worship override your alignment in life in determining what kind of petitioner you become? Only for devout worshippers, or for most?
Also, what about deities whose alignment is different from the alignment of the plane their realm is on (you have at least three; Gorum and Calistria are in Elysium, probably in part because building in the Maelstrom is hard, and Norgorber is in Axis, so as to better have civilization to skulk about in)? Do their petitioners usually become the type matching the plane, or matching the god?
would you say you're going to have a Smurfy Christmas
or is it going to be Smarf-tacular!
or maybe smaurf-ariffic!
whichever one it is i hope you have a Great Christmas:-)
Merry Christmas, Mr. Jacobs. I hope you have an opportunity for some well-deserved downtime (i.e., doing what you want to do, not what you have or need to do).
No question.
Peace.
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how was Tar-Baphon became such a threat that a God had to directly intervene? how was he able to fight a God head on or did Aroden took human guise (and powers) to face the him?
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On that note, do gods ever create "avatars" who are basically heroic individuals that when they reach the apex of their power realize, "I remember now. I am Iomedae/Pharasma/any other god, becoming mortal for a time. It's time to shed this mask and return to my divine realm and use the perspective and experiences of my time as this individual to make better decisions as a deity?" Like Vishnu, yanno?
Also, which is more representative of the hooked axe exotic weapon?
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Happy Holidays, Mr. Jacobs. :)
1) What do you think of "enemy" PCs like Kobolds, Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Drow et cetera? Do you encourage, discourage, or not care one way or the other when people play as them in your games? And why do people see them as "special snowflake" characters?
2) Can planar cities support mortal life? I.E outsiders don't need food or drinks so would mortals be able to live there without starving and how?
3) If it was a city in the Abyss ruled by demons and primarily populated by mortals, could they even live there or would the demons invaribly slaughter them?
4) If the demons don't kill them, what would be the reason they wouldn't? Why would demons keep a whole city full of people alive?
5) If there was to be a Worldwound opening up anywhere on present day Earth, where would you place it?
6) If the answer to 5 was outside America, where in America would be a good place, thematically, for a Worldwound to open up?
5) If there was to be a Worldwound opening up anywhere on present day Earth, where would you place it?
6) If the answer to 5 was outside America, where in America would be a good place, thematically, for a Worldwound to open up?
America (the continent) or the United States (the country)?
James - don't you hate when you take a day or two off, but nobody covers your work for you, so then you come back, and there's a ton of work for you to do, and you have to stay late or whatnot to make it up, and you frankly might as well not have had the day off anyway, because for all your stress went down from vacation, it went back up with the extra work you have to make up in the meantime?
Inspired by my noticing how your questions keep piling up despite it having been Christmas.
What do True Dragons think of Linnorms? They seem pretty smug concerning non-true dragons, but Linnorms seem like the only ones that would give them any significant trouble.
America (the continent) or the United States (the country)?
5) If there was to be a Worldwound opening up anywhere on present day Earth, where would you place it?
6) If the answer to 5 was outside America, where in America would be a good place, thematically, for a Worldwound to open up?
In English, "America" exclusively refers to the country known as the United States of America. The "Americas" is used for what you define as one continent, while most native English speakers refer to two different continents, North America and South America.
I presume you either natively speak Spanish or Portuguese, so while you're in an English-speaking board on an American (official demonym for citizens of the United States of America), you should just assume he is using it to mean the United States of America.
Any thoughts on how Comprehend Languages could fail to decipher a language?
I'd love to base an adventure around the PCs working to decipher the language on a stele they found in a dragon's horde (patterned after the Rosetta Stone).
My players found a curiously carved tablet in a dragon's horde:
At the top of the stele there are 23 lines of Aklo. Only the bottom seven are intact enough to read:
14. ... Focus-ing (?)
A - Will be commemorated with the (Ptolemy/Priestess)-{stone/complex}
B - As {monoliths} coincide-{sideways}
C - When Ssoth {shade} falls long.
[Other fragments include words that are evocative of travel, migration, and history ancient even when the stele was made]
In the middle are 85 lines of an unknown script, ancient and alien in origin.
At the bottom of the stele 52 lines of draconic script of which only 14 survive completely intact.
"Anya, daughter of the Ptolemy priestess of Ssoth, the lover of her father; day this Decree, being Directors (superintendents) of services (?), the Prophets-(hidden things)..., the Priests who go in the Holy Shrine to "Robe the Gods"-(statues), Scribes of the Gods, Sages of the 'House of Life', (the Pr-Ankh)-{pr-House (hieroglyph), the Library, the storing of secret, priest scrolls."
1. Anya did great things, for Ssoth-Lands, of all [People]-(under her control),
A - being like a God, daughter of Gods, II...
B - Gifts to Soldiers, in her authority, according to their rank
2. Citizen taxes remitted
A - Taxes of Nobles, that concerned Ssoth-daughter, remitted ...
B - Others, absolved ...
... Army (Soldiers), and Citizens "comfortable" in her period of sole ..."
[The rest is impossible to make out without further context]
Hi James,
I've read that the syrinx owl race is from Arcadia, but would you suggest where a settlement of them would most likely be if they were to cross over the ocean?
Mr. James Jacobs,
Do you in general like fantasy westerns? Assuming a positive to the previous question, is it in the realm of possibility that in 2 or 3 years time that you would contribute to a kickstarter to help me make a fantasy western film?
Creative Director
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Is it possible to have a Chaotic good god of Slavery?.I ask this because pathfinder seems to have a lot of gods that have things in there Divine Portfolio that you would not think went will with there Alignment.Like the Empyreal Lord Neshen who is a god of Suffering or the god Minderhal who is a LE god of Justice.
I want to know how liberal can you get with a god's Divine Portfolio and Alignment
It's certainly possible; assigning unusual domains or areas of concern to a deity is one great way to give that deity a unique or unusual personality quirk. Just make sure you justify unusual choices with good stories!
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1)How big is the First World?
2)I now there are not a lot of them but what do you think a good efreet would be like?
3)Does Sarenrae have any fey worshipers?
4)Pharasma being a goddess of birth. is she a fertility god? and what role does Sexuality play in her religion?
1) Unrevealed... but bigger than this world, most likely. If not PHYSICALLY bigger, then metaphorically bigger.
2) Rare and unusual and outcast from his/her society. As such a rare and unusual outcast, his/her personality would be unique, AKA anything goes.
3) Yes.
4) She isn't so much about fertility (that's more Shelyn) as much as she is the event of childbirth, and the cycle of life. Sexuality is important to her faith in as much as it allows for birth to occur; she's pretty much neutral on it as regards all other aspects.
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James,
I hope you're having a good holiday season. I'm curious, though, what seems to have prompted the change in city design from Paizo's 3.5 days to Pathfinder. The things I'm talking about are things like no longer including total city assets in the city block, dropping populations from millions to hundreds of thousands, seemingly capping city economies and so on.
1) Was this in any way connected to the OGL or other license agreements?
It was a bit jarring seeing Absalom, for example, reduced from what it was to be on par with places like Riddleport while maintaining the city Capital of the World. I realize geopolitically it can maintain that title but the numbers of yore helped reinforce that.
2) Do you have any advice on running those two places to reconcile the new statistics but maintaining their distinct atmospheres?
1) For the most part, we wanted to set things up to be a bit less restrictive on city design. But we didn't adjust ANY population sizes that I know of in the shift from 3.5 to Pathfinder. Absalom was and still is at about 315,000 people, while Riddleport is and was always closer to 10,000.
2) Again... I think you mis-read some statistics. Riddleport and Absalom were NEVER similar in size.
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how was Tar-Baphon became such a threat that a God had to directly intervene? how was he able to fight a God head on or did Aroden took human guise (and powers) to face the him?
Aroden wasn't as powerful at that point; he was still a demigod, and Tar-Baphon was more powerful at that point. His current stats represent him after a pretty sound defeat, remember.
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On that note, do gods ever create "avatars" who are basically heroic individuals that when they reach the apex of their power realize, "I remember now. I am Iomedae/Pharasma/any other god, becoming mortal for a time. It's time to shed this mask and return to my divine realm and use the perspective and experiences of my time as this individual to make better decisions as a deity?" Like Vishnu, yanno?
Also, which is more representative of the hooked axe exotic weapon?
Yes, gods do and can create avatars. We haven't done rules for them yet though. And when/if we do... we'll probably just create them as unique creatures at whatever CR is needed for the story.
And I'm not sure what weapon the design team had in mind when they created the hooked axe. I wasn't involved much in that book's creation at all. The first picture you linked looks more exotic than the second one, so I'd go with that.
Hi James,
Hope you had a great relaxing Christmas!
I was reading about the Pact Primeval earlier today, giving Asmodeus the duty of taking care of evil souls so the celestials don't have to worry about it. I wondered, did this agreement occur in the Golarion cosmology or is it strictly a 3.5 thing?
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Happy Holidays, Mr. Jacobs. :)
1) What do you think of "enemy" PCs like Kobolds, Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Drow et cetera? Do you encourage, discourage, or not care one way or the other when people play as them in your games? And why do people see them as "special snowflake" characters?
2) Can planar cities support mortal life? I.E outsiders don't need food or drinks so would mortals be able to live there without starving and how?
3) If it was a city in the Abyss ruled by demons and primarily populated by mortals, could they even live there or would the demons invaribly slaughter them?
4) If the demons don't kill them, what would be the reason they wouldn't? Why would demons keep a whole city full of people alive?
5) If there was to be a Worldwound opening up anywhere on present day Earth, where would you place it?
6) If the answer to 5 was outside America, where in America would be a good place, thematically, for a Worldwound to open up?
1) I discourage it. There are certain races that work well in this regard, like tieflings or even duergar or drow, but I tend to prefer my players to make characters from the core races, aasimar, tiefling, changeling, or other relatively non-exotic, non-outlandish races. The region the campaign is set in matters too. I might allow a catfolk PC (and indeed I have done so) in a campaign set in Osirion, but not if that game was set in Varisia. The player needs to also convince me with a cool background for the unusual character choice, of course.
2) Yes; that's part of what makes them cities; that they can support visitor life from all over.
3) If the city wanted to encourage trade, yes. Nocticula's city of Alaushinyrra (or however it's spelled) is a good example of a relatively "safe" Abyssal city. See Wrath of the Righteous #4 for details on it.
4) Because of trade or other reasons, or because the ruler of the city wants to create an area where mortals can come to, perhaps, be tempted or harvested or otherwise associated with. Again... see WotR #4 for more details.
5) Depends entirely on the type of story I'd want to tell. Different stories suggest themselves with different locations.
6) Same as 6 above. It'd vary on if I wanted it to be postapocalyptic or survival horror or action or mystery or war or what genre.
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I know you guys will make a new the great beyond Hardcover one day.But what do you think of instead of making one Hardcover book. You guys made a Hardcover book for each of the Inner planes and the Outer planes over time?
Like the elemental Plane of Fire gets it's own Hardcover book or Heaven,The Abyss, or Axis get there own Hardcover book.
Maybe we will, maybe we won't. I for one would LOVE to make a giant hardcover book about the other planes... I wouldn't want to split that into multiple books though since it'd take us too long between releases to get them out; the topic wouldn't be served well by having a year or more between volumes. One book is better.
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Ever been to a showing of Rocky Horror?James,
How do you feel about the movie A Christmas Story?
Would you be jealous if I told you my brother and I went to a Quote-Along Screening last night?
Might you be jealous if I told you the same theater was going to have a Monty Python's Holy Grail quote along on January 2nd?
It's entertaining, but not in my top 100 movies.
Nah. In fact, I don't really enjoy watching movies with outher people talking during them AT ALL, unless they're professionals at it and make MST3K or Riff Trax.
Nope. In fact, the idea of watching a movie I DO like and IS in my top 100 while a theater of people talk along with it kinda makes me queasy. ;P
Absolutely not. For the above reason, plus the fact that it drifts too close to the "Musical" genre for my interest.
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James - don't you hate when you take a day or two off, but nobody covers your work for you, so then you come back, and there's a ton of work for you to do, and you have to stay late or whatnot to make it up, and you frankly might as well not have had the day off anyway, because for all your stress went down from vacation, it went back up with the extra work you have to make up in the meantime?
Inspired by my noticing how your questions keep piling up despite it having been Christmas.
As long as I can plan for the time off, no.
When things are backed up and deadlines are suffering and I'm forced to step away from work (as is usually the case for Gen Con... usually NOT the case for Holidays)... then yes, I do kinda resent it.
Answering these questions that have backed up isn't gonna take but half an hour, if that... and answering them from a big comfy chair in my parent's house after a fun day trip up the coast is hardly feeling like work.
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What do True Dragons think of Linnorms? They seem pretty smug concerning non-true dragons, but Linnorms seem like the only ones that would give them any significant trouble.
It would vary by the dragon, but for the most part, they'd either regard them as frighting wild beasts or dangerous feral cousins. Kinda the same way we'd regard the axe-wielding hillbilly in the woods, I guess?
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Any thoughts on how Comprehend Languages could fail to decipher a language?
I'd love to base an adventure around the PCs working to decipher the language on a stele they found in a dragon's horde (patterned after the Rosetta Stone).
** spoiler omitted **
If you don't want to just make it a magical language, just make the message itself encoded. You could decipher it, but comprehend languages only imparts the knowledge of the letters themselves. Just as you can't read a coded message in your own language, you can't read a coded message in a language you've translated magically.
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Mr. James Jacobs,
Do you in general like fantasy westerns? Assuming a positive to the previous question, is it in the realm of possibility that in 2 or 3 years time that you would contribute to a kickstarter to help me make a fantasy western film?
I like all sorts of westerns, be they "normal" ones or fantastic ones.
As for contributing to kickstarters... sorry, but nope. I've got more than enough going on already with my non-work writing stuff.
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What do True Dragons think of Linnorms? They seem pretty smug concerning non-true dragons, but Linnorms seem like the only ones that would give them any significant trouble.It would vary by the dragon, but for the most part, they'd either regard them as frighting wild beasts or dangerous feral cousins. Kinda the same way we'd regard the axe-wielding hillbilly in the woods, I guess?
This is now my most favourite description of Linnorms ever.
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Questions like this one are best asked on the rules forum for an FAQ tag.- in the spell description the class are cited are only those of the Core book.
What spells are available to non-core classes?
Burning arec seem a good candidate for a Magus;
Cultural Adaption maybe for the Witch and Inquisitor
Summon Totem Creature for a summoner.Ummm... summon totem creature is indeed a summoner spell. And while burning arc and cultural adaptation might make sense for other classes (and if you want to make them available in your game, go for it!)... we chose NOT to extend them to those classes.
- Ablative Sphere:
while it is an interesting spell it is decidedly unclear.
When the sphere take damage?
From area spells?
Melee and missile attacks?
The attacks should be aimed at the sphere or at the protected guy (and the sphere is damaged when its AC bonus protect the caster)?
If you must aim to the sphere to damage it, what is its AC?The sphere takes damage whenever it's hit by anythign that does damage, be that an area effect spell or any attack that hits you (kind of like how stoneskin's hit points or protection from energy's hit points deplete as you are hit).
You can certainly aim attacks at the sphere itself, but if you just want to attack the person it's protecting you can do that as well. If you hit, you do damage to the creature AND to the sphere.
Ablative Sphere is confusing. It says immobile sphere, does that mean the caster cannot move from their spot?
And does the spell also give improved cover to targets outside the sphere from the caster?
So it's been 4 months and nothing on this. I feel like a quick office trip or phone call to the authors of this particular spell in Humans of Golarion could have answered this in less than 5 minutes of discussion. Yet there is nothing.
So my question is, is Paizo looking into ways of answering entirely unclear rules questions a lot faster? (considering most rules questions are already answered or require a judgment call anyway)
Yes, we're working on ways to answer these questions... and empowering those of us NOT in the design team to answer questions about the products we worked on is likely the answer, but that's not something we're quite ready to move on at this point.
A quick office trip or phone call would have likely answered the question, yes... as would me answering it here on the boards. That's not the problem. The problem is that when an answer we provide ends up being used by everyone out there in different ways to interpret rules in different ways, especially if the answer we provide ends up being one that might not be the same as the design team itself would reply, because that ends up providing multiple answers to the world.
And that's because there ARE multiple answers to most of these questions. The right one for your table is not the right one, necessarily, for my table or someone else's table.
Your GM knows your table's preferences better than we do, after all. I don't understand why so many GMs are so quick to declare that they don't need published adventures because their adventures are better, but at the same time don't seem confident enough to make rulings as appropriate for their own table. Seems like a double standard to me.
In any event, yes, this is a situation we ARE looking to solve. And the solution, as far as I can tell, is to allow more than just the design team to provide answers... but at this point, the design team is still kinda nervous about that.
We'll see what the new year brings.
In the meantime, this being the middle of the holiday season... I wouldn't expect a solution anytime soon.
This is now my most favourite description of Linnorms ever.What do True Dragons think of Linnorms? They seem pretty smug concerning non-true dragons, but Linnorms seem like the only ones that would give them any significant trouble.It would vary by the dragon, but for the most part, they'd either regard them as frighting wild beasts or dangerous feral cousins. Kinda the same way we'd regard the axe-wielding hillbilly in the woods, I guess?
Agreed, that is brilliant.
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Hi James,
Hope you had a great relaxing Christmas!
I was reading about the Pact Primeval earlier today, giving Asmodeus the duty of taking care of evil souls so the celestials don't have to worry about it. I wondered, did this agreement occur in the Golarion cosmology or is it strictly a 3.5 thing?
The majority of our 3.5 world content is edition neutral. Very little of it, in fact, is stuff we've abandoned.
That said, we've deliberately given multiple takes on some of this metaphysical stuff to deliberately confuse you mortals as to which one is right. That's why we've published so many different creation myths, after all. ;-)
Hi James,
Hope you had a great relaxing Christmas!
I was reading about the Pact Primeval earlier today, giving Asmodeus the duty of taking care of evil souls so the celestials don't have to worry about it. I wondered, did this agreement occur in the Golarion cosmology or is it strictly a 3.5 thing?The majority of our 3.5 world content is edition neutral. Very little of it, in fact, is stuff we've abandoned.
That said, we've deliberately given multiple takes on some of this metaphysical stuff to deliberately confuse you mortals as to which one is right. That's why we've published so many different creation myths, after all. ;-)
I see! Awesome, thanks for the response!!
Can I be cheeky and ask, if you were a mere mortal, which of the many you'd be inclined to believe? ;D
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James, what ways are there to advance golems to tougher at higher levels/increase their CR? Besides adding HD. Can they have templates added to them like the Advanced Simple Template and the Simple Class Templates?Hey, James. Reposting this as it was missed earlier tonight.
A golem can absolutely gain templates, provided that said golem qualifies for the template.