Hi james,, i know youve been asked things like "how does someone get a design job, or a writing job at paizo" what i would like to ask is how does someone get a sweeping the floor, working in the warehouse, etc kind of job at paizo
thank you
Creative Director
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Hi james,, i know youve been asked things like "how does someone get a design job, or a writing job at paizo" what i would like to ask is how does someone get a sweeping the floor, working in the warehouse, etc kind of job at paizo
thank you
Keep an eye out for job postings, same as the rest. I don't have much insight into how best to prepare for jobs I don't know how to do, though, so my advice there beyond "apply when you see a job you believe you're qualified for" and "be local" is pretty limited.
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Creative Director
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Two questions, semi-related as they both involve the WotR path
1.Longevity doens't stop you from aging per se, but stops any negative physical effects(ok, third question: would that include senility?)...Immortal means you can't die (easily).so is it fair to assume if you take both, you just stop aging at all, or is that a "left to GM's discretion" thing? being an unkillable demigod that still keeps gettign older would kinda suck.
2.)the concept of Nocticula redeeming/somehow transforming herself into more than just another demon lord has come up several times, both in the AP and out of it...is there a definitive resolution/attempt in the works for this reoccuring plot thread?
1) Left to the GM.
2) Unrevealed... but I DO keep mentioning it here and in print, don't I? What could that even mean? I wonder! Hmmm...
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Mr. James Jacobs,
How many T-Rexes does it take to get the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop?
Hey James,
Iron Gods spoilers
So how much does Casandalee know about Unity's plans? Does she know specifics (ie using the Divinity Drive and a shuttle)? Does she know how he plans on making his religion literally contagious? The final book goes into a bit of detail about what she knows (and doesn't know), but I'm not sure if she knows about the big juicy details of what Unity wants to do.
When designing adventures, do you give much thought to ecology concerns like, "hmm, as apex predators, these t-rexes would be competing for the same food as this dragon, so they should be a bit more spread out"? I love how is almost always quite obvious how various creatures fit into the local ecology in Paizo's APs, and I'm curious if that's intentional or not.
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James,
Not sure if you're a big comic book fan or not, but do hints of Cthulhu Mythos in the Dr. Strange movie interest you?
James,
You've got a large role shepherding one of the APs every year. But, you are also the Creative Director for all of Golarion. How large is your role in working with the other AP every year and with the other product lines that take place in Golarion but aren't APs, like Campaign Setting, Tales, and Player's Companions?
Androffa from Iron Gods is your home campaign world before a major apocalypse creates problems. Does Unspeakable Futures take place on same world at the same time or somewhere totally different?
Hi James,
Is adamantine magnetic?
Hi James
1. whats your favortie classic rock band..whats your favortie song by that band
2. do you like any country music, if so what
3. jeff grub or ed greenwood for best creator
4. what do you collect if anything
5. whats your favorite western
6. did you like the ending of stephen kings dark tower books
7. do you think black 13 is in a locker in the world suzanna was transported to allowing her and eddie to find it and try to break the cycle that roland loops through
8. do you have any original fantasy art from any of the artist that work for paizo
9. would you like to write the adventures of young lovecraft and howard if the estates gave you permission
10. do you read zombie novels..if so whats your favorite
well thats my top ten for now....thanks
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Creative Director
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Hey James,
Iron Gods spoilers
** spoiler omitted **
She should know enough about Unity's plans that she can report them to the PCs so that they feel the need to stop it, but doesn't know all of its defenses and resources. The last book in the AP gives a fair list of information about what she does and doesn't know near the start.
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Creative Director
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When designing adventures, do you give much thought to ecology concerns like, "hmm, as apex predators, these t-rexes would be competing for the same food as this dragon, so they should be a bit more spread out"? I love how is almost always quite obvious how various creatures fit into the local ecology in Paizo's APs, and I'm curious if that's intentional or not.
I do, actually. It's sometimes tough to balance the realisim of an ecosystem with building an area for adventures. I went through a bit of back and forth here, for example, designing the island in "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv."
In any event, yeah, it's pretty intentional. We try to make regions make sense logically so that the magic and weird stuff is more acceptable. If you have a believable baseline, it makes the rest easier to accept.
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Creative Director
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James,
Not sure if you're a big comic book fan or not, but do hints of Cthulhu Mythos in the Dr. Strange movie interest you?
Not a huge comic book fan, but I do read some of them. I tend not to read the superhero stuff. My current favorites are "Saga" and "Rat Queens." I do enjoy the Marvel movies for the most part, and I'm delighted to see more Lovecraft creep into the mass market! :)
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Creative Director
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James,
You've got a large role shepherding one of the APs every year. But, you are also the Creative Director for all of Golarion. How large is your role in working with the other AP every year and with the other product lines that take place in Golarion but aren't APs, like Campaign Setting, Tales, and Player's Companions?
Androffa from Iron Gods is your home campaign world before a major apocalypse creates problems. Does Unspeakable Futures take place on same world at the same time or somewhere totally different?
My role in the other AP is mostly in an advisory capacity. Rob and I chat QUITE a lot about the APs he works on, and I often help him work through particularly tricky or frustrating or difficult development or plot problems. Same with the other lines. I have approval over everything that we do, and sometimes step in to outline those other books or help develop them as needed.
Unspeakable Futures takes place on Earth. Post-apocalypse games are lame if they're not on Earth, in my opinion, because the thing that's compelling about that genre to me is seeing how this familiar world gets turned on its head after whatever apocalypse took it down. Setting the genre on another world doesn't make sense to me, since there's no context. No one knows what things were like on that other world before the apocalypse, so it doesn't feel "post." It's just the way the world is.
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Creative Director
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Hi James
1. whats your favortie classic rock band..whats your favortie song by that band
2. do you like any country music, if so what
3. jeff grub or ed greenwood for best creator
4. what do you collect if anything
5. whats your favorite western
6. did you like the ending of stephen kings dark tower books
7. do you think black 13 is in a locker in the world suzanna was transported to allowing her and eddie to find it and try to break the cycle that roland loops through
8. do you have any original fantasy art from any of the artist that work for paizo
9. would you like to write the adventures of young lovecraft and howard if the estates gave you permission
10. do you read zombie novels..if so whats your favorite
well thats my top ten for now....thanks
1) Rolling Stones. "Paint it Black."
2) Nope. Country is my least-favorite genre, and more or less the ONLY genre of music that I pretty much do not like all the way through.
3) No preference; they're both incredibly creative.
4) Godzilla stuff, bigfoot stuff, Lovecraft books, dinosaur stuff, Fighting Fantasy books, RPG books.
5) The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
6) Yes.
7) I read those books so long ago, and the question has no punctuation, both of which confuse me and thus leave me unable to answer the question.
8) Yes. I own 2 original pieces from Steve Prescott (two illustrations from Age of Worms), 4 original pieces from Wayne Reynolds (the hunting horror attack in the church from d20 Call of Cthluhu, the cover of the last Age of Worms installment, the goblins from the cover of Pathfinder #1, and the iconic illustration of Merisiel), a custom illustration of my character Shensen from Andrew Huerta (one of the artists from the Pathfinder comics), a page of dinosaur sketches by Ben Wootten, a line-drawing portrait of Merisiel from Jim Zub, and a cute little Godzilla from Crystal Fraiser. I might be forgetting some, but that's the bulk of it.
9) I'm not sure what you're asking... adventures where Lovecraft and Howard get into hijinks together? Not a big fan of metafiction like that...
10) I don't read a lot of them, no. My favorite would probably be a tie between "Cell" and "World War Z."
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Wait Androffa is James's home campaign world? What did I miss?
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Here's a random grab bag of questions:
What oracle curses are most common among Shoanti oracles (and among the Sklar-Quah more specifically)?
Why is Kelmarane's market a "battle-market?"
Which is the more wretched hive of scum and villainy in your opinion, Riddleport, Urglin or Kaer Maga?
What are the religious traditions of Varisia's Velashu Horselords? Do they worship conventional gods? Ancestor worship? Animism like their Shoanti kin?
What kinds of weapons do the Velashu favor? What do they dress like?
Is there any truth to the rumor I've heard that Korvosa's pseudodragon population scratch silver off rooftop decorations to coat their natural weapons and drink holy water from outdoor fonts to give them an edge over the city's imp infestation?
Would a Korvosan Acadamae student be forced to take an imp as a familiar, or would they just be ridiculed for taking something else (like a pseudodragon!)?
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I see that Arcadia is an a fantasy analog of the Americas, Garund is a fantasy analog of Africa, Tian xia is a fantasy analog of Asia, so is Sarusan a fantasy analog of Australia or something completely different?Correct. Sarusan is somewhat inspired by Australia, but more the dreamtime mythology of Aboriginal Australia than anything else.
6) Brain Oozes come pretty close, and the idea of thoughts being transformed into physical life is something that we'll be doing more with in the future.
I love where this is going. Desna might surpass my beloved Dawnflower in coolness (though not enough to become my true favorite) if this keeps up.
Now the Question: Have you read Nick Harkaway's The Gone Away World ? There are some seriously relevant themes in there.
If you did another journey to Earth in an adventure path like Reign of Winter, what are some time periods/locations you'd like to do?
Hello again,
This might be out of your scope I don't know. But my question is about the Kasatha, I have a player who is absolutely in love with the idea of the race (He is building one named Tars Tarkas)
But I had to ask, Multi-Arms and Multiweapon fighting.
Am I to understand that because of Multi-Arms a Kasatha gets 4 attacks a turn? With Multiweapon fighting just reducing those to the -2/-2 of the TWF feat?
I saw another of your posts say something about this but I lost that post, I think it had to do with how Improved TWF works with that.
EDIT: In that vein my player doesnt mind the idea of using the RP build version. But upon finding the Stat block for the Kasatha he has said he would like to use that, better stats and all and the d8 is class dice so not a RHD.
So why is that?
When designing adventures, do you give much thought to ecology concerns like, "hmm, as apex predators, these t-rexes would be competing for the same food as this dragon, so they should be a bit more spread out"? I love how is almost always quite obvious how various creatures fit into the local ecology in Paizo's APs, and I'm curious if that's intentional or not.I do, actually. It's sometimes tough to balance the realisim of an ecosystem with building an area for adventures. I went through a bit of back and forth here, for example, designing the island in "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv."
In any event, yeah, it's pretty intentional. We try to make regions make sense logically so that the magic and weird stuff is more acceptable. If you have a believable baseline, it makes the rest easier to accept.
It definitely shows, at least in the APs I've purchased and read. (Not as sure about Carrion Crown, Legacy of Fire and a few others, but I assume they're also top-notch.)
If you had an extra two pages per AP book to use as you saw fit, with the caveat that you couldn't add more adventure and they had to all be used for the same thing each and every time, what would you add?
First of all, thanks for answering so many questions, its great to be able to get information word of god when things come up.
Now, my question is, if someone was to make a cube out of walls of force and put a bag of holding inside it, what would happen if you put that in a bag of holding?
One of my friends and I are having an argument over it, my argument is that its like putting a solid object in a bag of holding, the wall of force stops the bag of holding 'detecting' anything inside it, so there's no explosion or problems. Kinda like putting a glass ball filled with sodium in a swimming pool, the glass is a barrier, it stops any reactions, but the sodium is still in the swimming pool. After all, magic can still go under/over/around a wall of force so there's nothing stopping one existing in an extradimensional space, not like its a wall of anti-magic that'd just ruin the bag.
His argument is that it the stuff inside the wall of force just doesn't get put into the extradimensional space, since its immune to the magic and so its like putting stuff in a normal bag or that the wall of force doesn't keep out the magic that causes the reaction so you get an explosion anyway.
It's one of those weird little arguments you get sometimes when people are trying to do stuff. Whats the 'canon' answer to the problem?
Just popping this in if it ends up being overlooked, but with Hell's Rebels coming up you might want to somehow give Milani some Divine Obedience love beforehand. A lot of players will be asking about this around then.
So James, in a different (and much earlier) thread you said the following:
A touch spell won't negate the benefit of the feat, unless that touch spell specifically gives you a weaponlike attack, such as flame blade does. Furthermore, the flavor of Dervish Dance implies that you're simply attacking with one weapon. If you use a spell to try to trick the feat into letting you get away with using two weapons, the GM is well within his rights to say that the effects of Dervish Dance don't function as long as you're doing two-weapon fighting.
Dervish Dance isn't supposed to reward tricky-thinking two-weapon fighters, after all. It's supposed to make fighting with a single weapon more attractive, so as soon as you start trying to game the system to get an off-hand attack, you're breaking the spirit of Dervish Dance and the feat should stop working. You can certainly still cast spells with your off hand and make touch attacks, but making touch attacks with spells is generally not something you can do with two weapon fighting.
With the Advanced Class Guide release, the Magus gained access to the Swashbuckler's Precise Strike ability through the deed arcana. I was wondering about your interpretation of how this would interact with the spell combat ability. As in, would you be able to cast that spell in your off-hand while retaining precise strike's benefit? Or when using your off-hand to deliver touch spells? Or do you think I would only be able to do this when combined with the spellstrike ability (i.e. only for melee touch spells)?
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This has probably been asked already, so sorry about asking it, but I want to know
1) Will 3.5 based APs eventually get conversion to Pathfinder's rules or is that something up for gms?
2) Is Mhar eventually going to be statted? I kinda want to know what it looks like because I like idea of possible "things went horribly wrong" alternate ending to Rise of the rune lords
3) Speaking of rise of the runelords, not sure if this is correct place to ask, but I'm confused:
So like, does that mean if you destroy lens, Karzoug can get blinded if he fails the save? That ending proceeds otherwise same, but Karzoug is still there attempting to fight pcs who may or may not fight back?
4) Also, how do you escape
5) So does Pazuzu ever consider killing some other god than Lamashtu for godhood or is it matter of pride for him that he has to kill Lamashtu specifically to get godhood? Or is it outside his ability to target any other deity?
6) Are there any usually evil non-outsider races you feel should be used more often?
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Creative Director
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Here's a random grab bag of questions:
What oracle curses are most common among Shoanti oracles (and among the Sklar-Quah more specifically)?
Why is Kelmarane's market a "battle-market?"
Which is the more wretched hive of scum and villainy in your opinion, Riddleport, Urglin or Kaer Maga?
What are the religious traditions of Varisia's Velashu Horselords? Do they worship conventional gods? Ancestor worship? Animism like their Shoanti kin?
What kinds of weapons do the Velashu favor? What do they dress like?
Is there any truth to the rumor I've heard that Korvosa's pseudodragon population scratch silver off rooftop decorations to coat their natural weapons and drink holy water from outdoor fonts to give them an edge over the city's imp infestation?
Would a Korvosan Acadamae student be forced to take an imp as a familiar, or would they just be ridiculed for taking something else (like a pseudodragon!)?
None are significantly more common than the other.
Because its structure is based on an arena, and the "battle" in this case casts the practice of haggling and trade as a metaphor for gladiatorial fighting.
That's pretty undeveloped territory; they likely worship Desna and several chaotic good empyreal lords, although I've done close to zero thought on it so I reserve the right to change my mind in the future.
See above; they'd favor weapons and clothing that mesh well with mounted combat though.
That's correct. The pseudodragons have to be cagey and sneaky and tricky in order to kill those pesky imps. If they didn't, the imps wouldn't be threatened by the pseudodragons, right? And it wouldn't be a conflict worth writing about.
They'd likely be ridiculed by the other lawful evil students, but each year that passes and with each year Korvosa drifts a little further from Chelish influence, that ridicule grows less and imps are less commonly conjured as familiars.
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Creative Director
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If you did another journey to Earth in an adventure path like Reign of Winter, what are some time periods/locations you'd like to do?
We've locked in the time period; time flows the same on Earth as it does Golarion, so going forward, we'd stay at that same progression. As for locations... depends on how outlandish I wanted to get. But it'd be influenced by real-world events of the year we decided to do the crossover.
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Creative Director
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Hello again,
This might be out of your scope I don't know. But my question is about the Kasatha, I have a player who is absolutely in love with the idea of the race (He is building one named Tars Tarkas)
But I had to ask, Multi-Arms and Multiweapon fighting.
Am I to understand that because of Multi-Arms a Kasatha gets 4 attacks a turn? With Multiweapon fighting just reducing those to the -2/-2 of the TWF feat?I saw another of your posts say something about this but I lost that post, I think it had to do with how Improved TWF works with that.
EDIT: In that vein my player doesnt mind the idea of using the RP build version. But upon finding the Stat block for the Kasatha he has said he would like to use that, better stats and all and the d8 is class dice so not a RHD.
So why is that?
First, letting a player play a four-armed race is VERY unbalanced unless you let all players do the same. And while if you let them all do this they'll be balanced with each other, they will do better overall in fights so you'll need to amp things up there as well. I don't recommend letting 4 armed PCs unless you're an experienced GM, ready to do some significant work adjusting game play experience, and open to the possibility of a campaign going off the rails due to power balance issues.
That all said...
The game is built assuming 2-armed PCs, and thus there's not a lot of support for a 4 armed race fighting with multiple weapons like there is for 2 armed characters fighting with 2 weapons.
And yes... a Kasatha can attack with 4 weapons in its hands. That's what makes them so powerful as a PC option. They're better serving in your game as monsters...or at most, NPC allies.
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Creative Director
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First of all, thanks for answering so many questions, its great to be able to get information word of god when things come up.
Now, my question is, if someone was to make a cube out of walls of force and put a bag of holding inside it, what would happen if you put that in a bag of holding?
One of my friends and I are having an argument over it, my argument is that its like putting a solid object in a bag of holding, the wall of force stops the bag of holding 'detecting' anything inside it, so there's no explosion or problems. Kinda like putting a glass ball filled with sodium in a swimming pool, the glass is a barrier, it stops any reactions, but the sodium is still in the swimming pool. After all, magic can still go under/over/around a wall of force so there's nothing stopping one existing in an extradimensional space, not like its a wall of anti-magic that'd just ruin the bag.
His argument is that it the stuff inside the wall of force just doesn't get put into the extradimensional space, since its immune to the magic and so its like putting stuff in a normal bag or that the wall of force doesn't keep out the magic that causes the reaction so you get an explosion anyway.
It's one of those weird little arguments you get sometimes when people are trying to do stuff. Whats the 'canon' answer to the problem?
You'd get an opportunity for the GM to come up with a cool special effect. This is the type of corner case that's best served NOT being described and defined, so that the GM can roll with it and do something unexpected and neat for the story.
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Creative Director
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Just popping this in if it ends up being overlooked, but with Hell's Rebels coming up you might want to somehow give Milani some Divine Obedience love beforehand. A lot of players will be asking about this around then.
Chances are pretty much 100% that I thought of this many, many months ago.
Never fear.
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Creative Director
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So James, in a different (and much earlier) thread you said the following:
With the Advanced Class Guide release, the Magus gained access to the Swashbuckler's Precise Strike ability through the deed arcana. I was wondering about your interpretation of how this would interact with the spell combat ability. As in, would you be able to cast that spell in your off-hand while retaining precise strike's benefit? Or when using your off-hand to deliver touch spells? Or do you think I would only be able to do this when combined with the spellstrike ability (i.e. only for melee touch spells)?A touch spell won't negate the benefit of the feat, unless that touch spell specifically gives you a weaponlike attack, such as flame blade does. Furthermore, the flavor of Dervish Dance implies that you're simply attacking with one weapon. If you use a spell to try to trick the feat into letting you get away with using two weapons, the GM is well within his rights to say that the effects of Dervish Dance don't function as long as you're doing two-weapon fighting.
Dervish Dance isn't supposed to reward tricky-thinking two-weapon fighters, after all. It's supposed to make fighting with a single weapon more attractive, so as soon as you start trying to game the system to get an off-hand attack, you're breaking the spirit of Dervish Dance and the feat should stop working. You can certainly still cast spells with your off hand and make touch attacks, but making touch attacks with spells is generally not something you can do with two weapon fighting.
I'm not familiar enough with Spell Combat to comment on it, but my personal philosophy is that if something works on day one, and then something is introduced on day two that ruins it... the thing on day two needs to be fixed so that it doesn't break what happened on day one.
There are, of course, plenty of exceptions (such as the thing from day one might be lame to begin with, and the thing on day two might just point that out).
But in any event... this is better asked on the rules forums.
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Creative Director
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This has probably been asked already, so sorry about asking it, but I want to know
1) Will 3.5 based APs eventually get conversion to Pathfinder's rules or is that something up for gms?
2) Is Mhar eventually going to be statted? I kinda want to know what it looks like because I like idea of possible "things went horribly wrong" alternate ending to Rise of the rune lords
3) Speaking of rise of the runelords, not sure if this is correct place to ask, but I'm confused:
Spoiler:The book says that if soul lens is destroyed, the blinding flash thing that also happens if Karzoug happens, well, happens. But book also says that if lens is destroyed, Karzoug is trapped in the eye of avarice forever and tries to kill pcs for revenge.So like, does that mean if you destroy lens, Karzoug can get blinded if he fails the save? That ending proceeds otherwise same, but Karzoug is still there attempting to fight pcs who may or may not fight back?
4) Also, how do you escape
Spoiler:Eye of Avarice? I think I might have bad reading comprehension since I can't find mention of how to do it once Karzoug is goner ^^; Is it just up to gm to make something up?5) So does Pazuzu ever consider killing some other god than Lamashtu for godhood or is it matter of pride for him that he has to kill Lamashtu specifically to get godhood? Or is it outside his ability to target any other deity?
6) Are there any usually evil non-outsider races you feel should be used more often?
1) That's pretty much up to the GMs.
2) As a Great Old One, we COULD stat up Mhar. I'd probably make him CR 28 or CR 29. Not sure. Whether or not we ever do, I can't say. No plans to do so anytime soon, in any event.
3) Yup.
4) If I recall correctly, that just merges the Eye back with reality and the PCs return to the real world. Either that, or the PCs get to leave the same way they got there. It's been years since I've worked on/read the encounter, though. At the very least, the GM shouldn't punish the PCs at this point. Let them escape after a job well done.
5) Killing a god is not something most demigods can do. Pazuzu is powerful, but even he can't just "kill a god." He has to undergo complex plans to do so, and those plans are different depending on the deity.
6) Yes. ;)
Question: Why are Monk's not given profiency with all weapon of the Monk fighter Group?
The Unarmed fighter is given profiency with them, which seems like a slap in the face to the Monk who has to burn a feat to get something like Emei Piercers
which leads me to Question 2:
Benefit: The ring prevents the wielder from being disarmed and turns unarmed strikes into piercing attacks.
Does this mean when attacking with this weapon.. you can instead use Unarmed Strike instead of the damage listed?