Creative Director
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1) So someone asked previously on your opinions on hypothetical Pathfinder CRPG, I have a question too: Would you prefer game being adaption of an AP or having original story?
2) Do people from all over the world come and try Test of Starstone or only people from Inner Sea? I'm wondering if anyone from Tian Xi even knows about it.
1) I'd prefer an original story, but one set in a familiar area.
2) All over, although the further from Absalom you get, the less likely it is you've heard of it and thus the fewer people come to try it out.
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Creative Director
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This was disappointing to hear, I must admit. I really enjoyed the rule set and that style of play. May we know the reasons behind why you would not wish to do another mythic PC Adventure Path?
4) Dunno. At this point I'm not too keen on doing another mythic PC Adventure Path at all though.
Because I was unsatisfied with how Mythic works when combined with high-level play. It simply didn't get playtested enough at the higher levels, and as such it ended up getting a fair amount of bad reviews and complaints, with such frequency (even if they may have been from a vocal minority) that I really feel bad about how it turned out and don't have much interest in disappointing people in that way anytime soon.
AKA: No plans due to customer feedback.
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Creative Director
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When running a campaign with a tighter theme, do you ever go off theme? How readily?
In my Carrion Crown campaign, I had a side quest come up that took the PCs to Cheliax briefly, to deal with a rogue Hellknight. It was tied into the campaign (it involved a PC's backstory and some machinations of the main villain), but it was still off-theme a bit. Given the heavily thematic nature of CC, would you do the same?
Thank you! :)
If the PCs go off theme and it sounds interesting what they're going for, I abandon the adventure and go forward with their own. If they go off theme and it sounds less interesting than the adventure, I either shift the adventure so that suddenly where they're going is still the adventure, or I let them tinker off theme a little until they get the point that they're on a side-trek that isn't gonna produce results.
In Carrion Crown... I would have had said rogue Hellknight be in Ustalav, so that at the very least, the PCs would stay in the nation.
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1 - Is there a definitive list of Hellknight ranks somewhere? I seem to recall seeing a list that had a few of them, but not a full one.
2 - Before/during the rise of House Thrune, the Order of the Pyre was effectively destroyed - were there any survivors who might remember the Hellknights from before House Thrune's ascension?
3 - Were they called Hellknights even before Asmodeus was the chief deity of Cheliax / when Aroden was still the main god worshiped there?
4 - This one is from a PFS scenario, but I'm hoping you might know... Scenario #2-10 Fury of the Fiend introduces an Andoran loyalist named Maladin Bane as a Hellknight infiltrator, but I've never seen anything talk about what happens to him. I don't suppose this is a NPC/character you know anything about?
As always, thank you *very* much for fielding all of everyone's questions, James!
1) At this point, Pathifnder #27 and #28 have the most definitive info for the Hellknights and their ranks.
2) Perhaps, but I doubt HIGHLY that any survive to the modern day.
3) Yes, they were called Hellknights from the start. The detailed history in Pathfinder #27 and #28 explains why.
4) I suspect he's merely a single NPC who appeared in that one scenario and was never expanded upon. Not everything we put in a scenario goes somewhere beyond that scenario.
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Creative Director
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If you'd make a cleric of the elven goddess Findeladlara, what domains would you pick for said cleric?
** spoiler omitted **
I'd not go to the Wiki. I'd go to Inner Sea Gods, which lists her domans as:
Air, Artifice, Chaos, Community, Good; subdomains Azata, Cloud, Construct, Friendship, Home Whimsy
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Creative Director
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I've asked you about AP narrative themes so often I forget which ones I have and haven't asked you about! Did I ask you about Legacy of Fire's primary themes and the narrative ideas it explores?
The size of this thread more or less means I don't really remember any answers I give for long.
Legacy of Fire's primary themes are:
How misguided or frustrated love can make monsters of us.
Fire.
How Rovagug's influence can bring about destruction both physical and societal.
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This was disappointing to hear, I must admit. I really enjoyed the rule set and that style of play. May we know the reasons behind why you would not wish to do another mythic PC Adventure Path?
4) Dunno. At this point I'm not too keen on doing another mythic PC Adventure Path at all though.
Because I was unsatisfied with how Mythic works when combined with high-level play. It simply didn't get playtested enough at the higher levels, and as such it ended up getting a fair amount of bad reviews and complaints, with such frequency (even if they may have been from a vocal minority) that I really feel bad about how it turned out and don't have much interest in disappointing people in that way anytime soon.
AKA: No plans due to customer feedback.
Ouch. :(
How would you fix Mythic?
Without PCs getting Mythic powers, how would there be an adventure path involving either of the most powerful Runelords?
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I've asked you about AP narrative themes so often I forget which ones I have and haven't asked you about! Did I ask you about Legacy of Fire's primary themes and the narrative ideas it explores?The size of this thread more or less means I don't really remember any answers I give for long.
Legacy of Fire's primary themes are:
How misguided or frustrated love can make monsters of us.
Fire.
How Rovagug's influence can bring about destruction both physical and societal.
Are there instances where misguided or frustrated love feature besides in the backstory with Jhavuul?
Contributor
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This was disappointing to hear, I must admit. I really enjoyed the rule set and that style of play. May we know the reasons behind why you would not wish to do another mythic PC Adventure Path?
4) Dunno. At this point I'm not too keen on doing another mythic PC Adventure Path at all though.
Because I was unsatisfied with how Mythic works when combined with high-level play. It simply didn't get playtested enough at the higher levels, and as such it ended up getting a fair amount of bad reviews and complaints, with such frequency (even if they may have been from a vocal minority) that I really feel bad about how it turned out and don't have much interest in disappointing people in that way anytime soon.
AKA: No plans due to customer feedback.
Ouch. :(
How would you fix Mythic?
Without PCs getting Mythic powers, how would there be an adventure path involving either of the most powerful Runelords?
Another vote of support here for more Mythic, tweaked system or not. WotR had other problems that tipped the scales. I'd like to see what you do the second time.
On the topic of the Runelords, the Sihedron was reassembled as a potent weapon against the threat of further waking Runelords.
Will it make an appearance when the Big Two show up?
Will their AP even be a sequel?
Will all of Runelord Sorshen's clones (save one) simultaneously awaken with her memory and power, like a far more sexy Manshoon?
Will Runelord Krune be resurrected by a returned Lissala... only to go back to bed for another millennium or so?
How will Xanderghul live up to expectations?
And on a more serious note: do we have to wait until you're out of Runelords before we go to Azlant?
More Azlant pls.
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Does the general consensus in this thread inspire any adventure ideas regarding the potential cisterns of Absalom?
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Creative Director
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This was disappointing to hear, I must admit. I really enjoyed the rule set and that style of play. May we know the reasons behind why you would not wish to do another mythic PC Adventure Path?
4) Dunno. At this point I'm not too keen on doing another mythic PC Adventure Path at all though.
Because I was unsatisfied with how Mythic works when combined with high-level play. It simply didn't get playtested enough at the higher levels, and as such it ended up getting a fair amount of bad reviews and complaints, with such frequency (even if they may have been from a vocal minority) that I really feel bad about how it turned out and don't have much interest in disappointing people in that way anytime soon.
AKA: No plans due to customer feedback.
Ouch. :(
How would you fix Mythic?
Without PCs getting Mythic powers, how would there be an adventure path involving either of the most powerful Runelords?
I'm honsetly not sure how I'd fix it.
And there are PLENTY of ways to bolster PC power to let them fight runelords. Even perhaps giving them 1 or 2 tiers. Mythic really gets out of hand at higher tiers and higher levels. I'd need more research.
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Creative Director
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Are there instances where misguided or frustrated love feature besides in the backstory with Jhavuul?
That's certainly the main one. There's others though, such as the harpy, perhaps, but also loyalty and love among the Templars themselves. Jhavuul's is the main one though.
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Creative Director
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Another vote of support here for more Mythic, tweaked system or not. WotR had other problems that tipped the scales. I'd like to see what you do the second time.
On the topic of the Runelords, the Sihedron was reassembled as a potent weapon against the threat of further waking Runelords.
Will it make an appearance when the Big Two show up?
Will their AP even be a sequel?
Will all of Runelord Sorshen's clones (save one) simultaneously awaken with her memory and power, like a far more sexy Manshoon?
Will Runelord Krune be resurrected by a returned Lissala... only to go back to bed for another millennium or so?
How will Xanderghul live up to expectations?
And on a more serious note: do we have to wait until you're out of Runelords before we go to Azlant?
More Azlant pls.
All of these questions' answers are currently TOP SECRET.
Make of that what you will! :-)
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Creative Director
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Does the general consensus in this thread inspire any adventure ideas regarding the potential cisterns of Absalom?
Not really. Absalom gets its drinking water mostly from rain barrels and cisterns and reservoirs. Mundane, but there's plenty not mundane in the city as it stands. It doesn't need help there with magic water systems.
Erm, you dodged the question :)
With those domains for a cleric of Findeladlara you mentioned, which 2 would you suggest to be more typical for the goddess of art & tradition?
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Creative Director
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Erm, you dodged the question :)
With those domains for a cleric of Findeladlara you mentioned, which 2 would you suggest to be more typical for the goddess of art & tradition?
They're all typical. That's why she grants them. Which ones any one cleric chooses to pick depends much more on the cleric's character than the deity's character.
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Creative Director
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How come Absalom's kept to the Isle of Kortos for millennia and never attempted to become an empire like Taldor or Jistka? One would think a city founded by the Last Azlant would fancy itself the seat of a reborn Azlanti empire or something.
Not every nation has expansionistic urges. Some are perfectly happy being small but powerful.
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How come Absalom's kept to the Isle of Kortos for millennia and never attempted to become an empire like Taldor or Jistka? One would think a city founded by the Last Azlant would fancy itself the seat of a reborn Azlanti empire or something.Not every nation has expansionistic urges. Some are perfectly happy being small but powerful.
I see.
How do I trust law enforcement officers now that the DOJ's findings have revealed how inexcusably corrupt a certain headlining police department truly was?
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Hi James, a few questions:
1. What was "Pathfinder CRPG" referring to upthread? (I glanced through, but couldn't find the reference.)
2. How difficult, in your opinion, will it be to set Hell's Rebels in Westcrown? (I'm excited for the AP, but would love to have it set in a metropolis.)
3. Do you ever miss any of the cities you developed for Greyhawk? In particular, Sasserine, Cauldron, and especially Scuttlecove?
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Creative Director
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How come Absalom's kept to the Isle of Kortos for millennia and never attempted to become an empire like Taldor or Jistka? One would think a city founded by the Last Azlant would fancy itself the seat of a reborn Azlanti empire or something.Not every nation has expansionistic urges. Some are perfectly happy being small but powerful.I see.
How do I trust law enforcement officers now that the DOJ's findings have revealed how inexcusably corrupt a certain headlining police department truly was?
Same way you did before, only with more skepticism and less unquestioning acceptance, I suppose.
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Creative Director
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Hi James, a few questions:
1. What was "Pathfinder CRPG" referring to upthread? (I glanced through, but couldn't find the reference.)
2. How difficult, in your opinion, will it be to set Hell's Rebels in Westcrown? (I'm excited for the AP, but would love to have it set in a metropolis.)
3. Do you ever miss any of the cities you developed for Greyhawk? In particular, Sasserine, Cauldron, and especially Scuttlecove?
1) A desire by some folks, me included, for there to some day exist a computer role-playing game set in Golarion.
2) Very difficult. Impossible, even. I wouldn't recommend it at all. There's a LOT of very strong reasons why Kintargo's the location for this AP, not all of which have yet ben revealed. Those reasons will be revealed in time, though.
3) I do miss Scuttlecove, since it alone of those three cities is the one that I basically "sold" to WotC from my homebrew setting. Had I not done so, I suspect Riddleport would be called Scuttlecove today.
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Creative Director
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1)Why do some people hate alignment and alignment restrictions? I think alignment and alignment restrictions add a lot of flavor to a class as will as increase the value of the class.
2)What do you think of alignment and alignment restrictions?
1) You'd have to ask them. Were I to guess, it would be the result of too many arguments with their GMs over the past few decades over the "correct" interpretation of an alignment.
2) I like them. I think they're important to the game and part of its tradition. I think they're an INCREDIBLY useful form of shorthand to summarize a creature, place, thing, nation, belief, deity, or much more with two single letters.
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James, why don't any of the gods or demi-gods have both the healing or animal domains?Because there's enough different domains that not all possible combinations can be represented.
There is only one solution. You must play a mythic character with the Divine Source mythic ability and BECOME the deity with both healing or animal YOURSELF! XD
Speaking of which, if such a character has levels of Cleric or another class that uses domains, do the domains they gain from Divine Source have to be the same as the ones they already have/use?
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Contributor
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Hi James, a few questions:
1. What was "Pathfinder CRPG" referring to upthread? (I glanced through, but couldn't find the reference.)
2. How difficult, in your opinion, will it be to set Hell's Rebels in Westcrown? (I'm excited for the AP, but would love to have it set in a metropolis.)
3. Do you ever miss any of the cities you developed for Greyhawk? In particular, Sasserine, Cauldron, and especially Scuttlecove?
1) A desire by some folks, me included, for there to some day exist a computer role-playing game set in Golarion.
2) Very difficult. Impossible, even. I wouldn't recommend it at all. There's a LOT of very strong reasons why Kintargo's the location for this AP, not all of which have yet ben revealed. Those reasons will be revealed in time, though.
3) I do miss Scuttlecove, since it alone of those three cities is the one that I basically "sold" to WotC from my homebrew setting. Had I not done so, I suspect Riddleport would be called Scuttlecove today.
Was the Cyphergate part of your vision for Riddleport from the start? Had its function been fully decided when you placed it there? And, if this is the Scuttlecove I remember from "The Porphyry House Horror", is your vision of Riddleport as... adult... as all that? It's not lost on me that the high priestess of Calistria there is also CE...
Thank you! :)
Hi James,
I noticed you were asked about sponsorship and the Test of the Starstone. Was the requirement of a divine sponsor recently revealed? What product was it in?
Thanks!
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Creative Director
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James, why don't any of the gods or demi-gods have both the healing or animal domains?Because there's enough different domains that not all possible combinations can be represented.There is only one solution. You must play a mythic character with the Divine Source mythic ability and BECOME the deity with both healing or animal YOURSELF! XD
Speaking of which, if such a character has levels of Cleric or another class that uses domains, do the domains they gain from Divine Source have to be the same as the ones they already have/use?
No. But that's weird enough and rubs me the wrong way enough that I probably wouldn't allow it in my games.
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Creative Director
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Was the Cyphergate part of your vision for Riddleport from the start? Had its function been fully decided when you placed it there? And, if this is the Scuttlecove I remember from "The Porphyry House Horror", is your vision of Riddleport as... adult... as all that? It's not lost on me that the high priestess of Calistria there is also CE...
Thank you! :)
It was. In fact, the goal was to have all 3 of the "cornerstone" settlements of Varisia to feature a significant Thassilonian ruin, so as to give all 3 cities an immediate and identifiable skyline that also lumps them all together into the same region, despite the fact that the three (Magnimar, RIddleport, and Korvosa) are very different cities. I added the Old Light to Sandpoint for the same reason—even though Sandpoint wasn't one of the 3 cornerstone settlements, I knew it was going to be important. (Kaer Maga, interestingly enough, was never intended to be a significant Varisian city, and it ended up being put into the area relatively late in the game, but I think it fits in pretty well!)
I had a vague idea of what the Cyphergate's purpose was (as well as the others in the other cities), but didn't nail it down in writing until Second Darkness. The idea there being that each of the first 3 APs would have their own Thassilonian ruin mascot—the Irespan for Runelords, the Grand Mastaba for Crimson Throne, and the Cyphergate for Second Darkness.
Indeed, Scuttlecove in my homebrew was very over the top and intense and very adult in theme and nature. It actually made the transition to print relatively intact, although with lots of the names changed since I couldn''t use deities like Norgorber or Rovagug or Zon-Kuthon or Urgathoa in a D&D product. Riddleport's a lot less over the top mostly because I wanted it to develop into a different city than Scuttlecove... but had I not used Scuttlecove for the 2 dungeon magazine adventures it appeared in, that would have changed.
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Hi James,
I noticed you were asked about sponsorship and the Test of the Starstone. Was the requirement of a divine sponsor recently revealed? What product was it in?
Thanks!
Mythic Origins is the only book so far that we've spoken significantly about the Test, so I suspect it came from there.
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Slightly different type of question: have you ever ruled that a PC couldn't make a Knowledge check to identify a monster or learn about it (presumably because they have no way of accessing that lore). Are there any situations on Golarion, especially in the APs, where this method would be appropriate? Pre-Jorgenfist Thassilon or Saventh-Yhi, maybe?
Thank you! :)
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Creative Director
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I see. Thank you! :)
If you could put Scuttlecove into Golarion now (without massive social backlash for content), would you do so? Would you replace Riddleport, or place it somewhere else (and where)?
I'd keep Riddleport and put Scuttlecove in the Shackles.
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Creative Director
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Slightly different type of question: have you ever ruled that a PC couldn't make a Knowledge check to identify a monster or learn about it (presumably because they have no way of accessing that lore). Are there any situations on Golarion, especially in the APs, where this method would be appropriate? Pre-Jorgenfist Thassilon or Saventh-Yhi, maybe?
Thank you! :)
Yes. There are certain topics that no one knows about, especially if the whole point of the adventure is to learn about things that no one knows about. Usually I just make these DCs ridiculously high.
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Since starstone seems to be sort of a topic now..
1) Gods who have ascended through starstone, do they have same level of power?
2) How strong starstone gods are on scale of divinity?
3) You probably can't tell this, but does starstone have some type of disturbing earth shattering dark secret?
4) Even though mythic rules haven't been as well received as other stuff, does paizo intend to continue supporting them somewhat at least? I mean for players, the use of them with monsters is already quite awesome.
I mean, it'd be quite disappointing if advanced class guide or classes like summoner wouldn't be supported/used in aps at all due to it having quite many haters <_<
5) So how accurate are 3.5 setting guides for Absalom, Darklands and other stuff for current setting? Heard some of 3.5 material is setting wise outdated as well, so I haven't bought them since I've been hoping new updated version of the at some point, but quite many GM materials refers them so...
6) I'm not really interested in blue evil elves, but I'm kinda curious as whether you would be interested in drow AP again. I mean, Second Darkness is first return of the drow, so I'm curious if you are interested in AP were drow are main antagonist and their existence is already known.
(Okay, okay, I admit I ask that since new Drow AP would increase chance for new updated Darklands setting book <_<)
7) So we do know that Golarion does have some type of polytheism, but does Golarion have a form of pantheism(the belief that everything in existence is divine or part of a god)?
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Yes. There are certain topics that no one knows about, especially if the whole point of the adventure is to learn about things that no one knows about. Usually I just make these DCs ridiculously high.Slightly different type of question: have you ever ruled that a PC couldn't make a Knowledge check to identify a monster or learn about it (presumably because they have no way of accessing that lore). Are there any situations on Golarion, especially in the APs, where this method would be appropriate? Pre-Jorgenfist Thassilon or Saventh-Yhi, maybe?
Thank you! :)
Interesting!
1) How do you present such restrictions or alterations? Is it more just a heads up at the beginning of a campaign, just how you do your games so your players "just know," or do you have a standard list of house rules you distribute even if it gets tweaked from campaign to campaign or even session to session?
2) Do you get deep into character builds and backgrounds with your players to really tailor make each one? Where do you like character backgrounds in terms of length, assuming quality regardless of word count?
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Yes. There are certain topics that no one knows about, especially if the whole point of the adventure is to learn about things that no one knows about. Usually I just make these DCs ridiculously high.Slightly different type of question: have you ever ruled that a PC couldn't make a Knowledge check to identify a monster or learn about it (presumably because they have no way of accessing that lore). Are there any situations on Golarion, especially in the APs, where this method would be appropriate? Pre-Jorgenfist Thassilon or Saventh-Yhi, maybe?
Thank you! :)
Are there any examples from Golarion, especially the APs, of foes or situations where Knowledge checks would go nowhere? I've been running all my campaigns in a shared Golarion continuity, so it comes up here and there.
How hard is it for a non-elf (or Forlorn) to know about drow, assuming the events of Second Darkness haven't yet occurred?
How limited is knowledge of Thassilon before the discovery of the library at Jorgenfist?
How limited is knowledge of Ydersius and the serpentfolk? The trained Pathfinder delver Eando Kline didn't know anything in his first encounter.
Are there any plans to reveal what Kline's "mysterious ioun stone" does or is for? Is there a canon version at all?
How old was Shensen when she was reincarnated? The NPC Guide says it happened when she was a child, but your earlier telling suggested it happened during play. Is this an example of her using artistic license? :)
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I got two new questions shortly after posting previous post <_<;
1) How do alu-demons and half-succubi(from Demons Revisited) differ from each other? Is latter for all succubi offsprings besides humans or is it a chance thing or a case of one of them being "natural" and one being from magic rituals?
2) So I read from reviews that in Wrath of Righteous, some magic book from King of Chaos novel is plot importan, right? I'm kinda wondering why mc guffin from a book is plot relevant in AP since you guys often talk about how PCs should be most important heroes of story so a mc guffin recovered offscreen sounds bit strange. Were you guys given a requirement to tie in the novel to the AP somehow or something similar?
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What creature type would you make Ridley from Metroid? Dragon, magical beast, monstrous humanoid?
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Hello!
So I just stumbled upon this thread:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2s1lz?Clerics-of-Razmir-Why-Not
and all the included links taught me why Clerics worship only one god always in Golarion.
Right on.
But, I do have a question! Imagine this hypothetical if you would:
•Party is about to take a voyage across (ie: not costal) the Inner Sea and said party includes a Cleric of, oh let's say Torag. Obviously, the party wants a blessing for safe travels across the treacherous waters, and as always, they turn to their holy man (cleric) for such a thing.
Does the cleric:
1) Pray to Gozreh, God/ess of the sea, because this is his/her domain and they don't want to incur his/her fickle wrath, potentially putting Torag in a foul mood with his devoted servant?
2) Pray to Torag, his chosen diety, even though Torag has nothing at all to do with the sea, potentially inviting Gozreh's fickle wrath for daring to shun him/her in his/her very domain?
(Or, tl;dr - If you live in a world where the existence of multiple gods is simply a fact of life, how do you totally devote yourself to just a single one without constantly stepping on the toes of the others? How does a Cleric cope with this?)
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Not really. Absalom gets its drinking water mostly from rain barrels and cisterns and reservoirs. Mundane, but there's plenty not mundane in the city as it stands. It doesn't need help there with magic water systems.
I guess I thought the consensus was that Absalom had cisterns, and I got to thinking about how cool the basilica cistern looks.
So what I suppose I meant to ask is, is there such an aesthetically pleasing cistern in Absalom? Would you ever set an adventure there? What sort of monsters might you insert? (Those medusa columns are quite suggestive, but there's something aboleth-y about those carp...)
Hello again James!
This time, a question about Hellknights, and their motivation.
1) Imagine a Hellknight order gains an opportunity to expand their influence and set up in a far away land, known for its "lawlessness" (Brevoy/River Kingdoms in this context). All under the patronage of a local ruler. How likely is that a Hellknigh order will send their Knights so far, and will they even consider it? Is overall expansion of order influence on their agenda?
2) Do Hellknight themselves have some form of a way to create sub-orders, vassal orders, or even new orders in general?
3) How many active members (a guess will do just fine) do orders usually have, and would be willing to spare for an above mention endeavor?
Thanks in advance.
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Since starstone seems to be sort of a topic now..
1) Gods who have ascended through starstone, do they have same level of power?
2) How strong starstone gods are on scale of divinity?
3) You probably can't tell this, but does starstone have some type of disturbing earth shattering dark secret?
4) Even though mythic rules haven't been as well received as other stuff, does paizo intend to continue supporting them somewhat at least? I mean for players, the use of them with monsters is already quite awesome.
I mean, it'd be quite disappointing if advanced class guide or classes like summoner wouldn't be supported/used in aps at all due to it having quite many haters <_<
5) So how accurate are 3.5 setting guides for Absalom, Darklands and other stuff for current setting? Heard some of 3.5 material is setting wise outdated as well, so I haven't bought them since I've been hoping new updated version of the at some point, but quite many GM materials refers them so...
6) I'm not really interested in blue evil elves, but I'm kinda curious as whether you would be interested in drow AP again. I mean, Second Darkness is first return of the drow, so I'm curious if you are interested in AP were drow are main antagonist and their existence is already known.
(Okay, okay, I admit I ask that since new Drow AP would increase chance for new updated Darklands setting book <_<)
7) So we do know that Golarion does have some type of polytheism, but does Golarion have a form of pantheism(the belief that everything in existence is divine or part of a god)?
1) No two gods have the exact same level of power. Once ascended, a new deity is usually about demigod level, but they often progress very quickly up to full deity status.
2) From CR 26 (a brand new demigod) up to infinity (full deities have no real power scale).
3) Unrevealed.
4) Going forward, you can expect to see us use Mythic now and then, but primarily for adventure elements and monsters and stuff. There are no plans at this point to do a significant amount of additional PC support for Mythic, but some tidbits might pop up here and there now and then. Also, keep in mind that the main focus of our game and support is the core rulebook... so it's kind of unavoidable that the more books we publish, the less support the contents of those books will get overall. Heck, this'd be the case even if we DID want to try to equally support everything entirely equal, since the number of rulebooks increases by 3 a year but our ability to produce the content pretty much stays static.
5) Flavor is pretty accurate. Particularly for Darklands; I can't think of ANY changes there, other than that we use morlocks exclusively now instead of grimlocks. Absalom's trickier but the book's certainly accurate enough that most of its content still works. The biggest thing we've ramped back on there, I think, is the cornucopia stuff. The updates to those books already kinda happened, in any event, with their entries in Inner Sea World Guide. No plans to update those books in partiuclar anytime soon, and if we DO we'll likely try to expand rather than simply reprint. Gods and Magic to Inner Sea Gods being a good example of how that transition goes. But again... no plans to touch Darklands or Absalom like that in the immediate future. And I'm bad enough at predicting the not-so-immediate future that who can say? Would folks LIKE an update to Darklands or Absalom?
6) Absolutely. I love drow. We'll do more with them now and then. Did a LITTLE bit in Shattered Star. As a main antagonist? Having a Big Bad End Drow is a lot more likely than having the entire drow nation in that role at this point... but again... the future is spooky and unknown...
7) There is pantheisim, yes. but it's not really widespread. If we have the capacity to dream up a religion or philosophy in the real world. that religion or philosophy has capacity to exist in Golarion, more or less.
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Yes. There are certain topics that no one knows about, especially if the whole point of the adventure is to learn about things that no one knows about. Usually I just make these DCs ridiculously high.Slightly different type of question: have you ever ruled that a PC couldn't make a Knowledge check to identify a monster or learn about it (presumably because they have no way of accessing that lore). Are there any situations on Golarion, especially in the APs, where this method would be appropriate? Pre-Jorgenfist Thassilon or Saventh-Yhi, maybe?
Thank you! :)
Interesting!
1) How do you present such restrictions or alterations? Is it more just a heads up at the beginning of a campaign, just how you do your games so your players "just know," or do you have a standard list of house rules you distribute even if it gets tweaked from campaign to campaign or even session to session?
2) Do you get deep into character builds and backgrounds with your players to really tailor make each one? Where do you like character backgrounds in terms of length, assuming quality regardless of word count?
1) If it's really a secret, then the players won't know about it at the start of the campaign. I might say something like "In this campaign, there'll be a certain amount of investigation and discovering of secret stuff," but that's it.
2) I generally provide a document similar to the Player's Guides we produce for an adventure path, that lists some good advice for types of characters that'll work well for the upcoming campaign and provides some campaign trait options or other boons/bonuses that the PCs can select and, in so doing, further tailor their characters for the game I have planned. I prefer a relatively short background, overall... over 900 words is a bit over the top, and actually prefer to see something more akin to a bullet list of goals and notable events and whatever so I can reference it easier.
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Yes. There are certain topics that no one knows about, especially if the whole point of the adventure is to learn about things that no one knows about. Usually I just make these DCs ridiculously high.Slightly different type of question: have you ever ruled that a PC couldn't make a Knowledge check to identify a monster or learn about it (presumably because they have no way of accessing that lore). Are there any situations on Golarion, especially in the APs, where this method would be appropriate? Pre-Jorgenfist Thassilon or Saventh-Yhi, maybe?
Thank you! :)
Are there any examples from Golarion, especially the APs, of foes or situations where Knowledge checks would go nowhere? I've been running all my campaigns in a shared Golarion continuity, so it comes up here and there.
How hard is it for a non-elf (or Forlorn) to know about drow, assuming the events of Second Darkness haven't yet occurred?
How limited is knowledge of Thassilon before the discovery of the library at Jorgenfist?
How limited is knowledge of Ydersius and the serpentfolk? The trained Pathfinder delver Eando Kline didn't know anything in his first encounter.
Are there any plans to reveal what Kline's "mysterious ioun stone" does or is for? Is there a canon version at all?
How old was Shensen when she was reincarnated? The NPC Guide says it happened when she was a child, but your earlier telling suggested it happened during play. Is this an example of her using artistic license? :)
In Rise of the Runelords, the idea is that Thassilon is a largely forgotten thing and no one really knows much about the source of the big ruins and those who DO are generally regarded as crackpots, so that as the AP unfolds, the PCs get to be the catalyst for re-introducing lore of Thassilon into the world. And in Serpent's Skull, the discovery that there were Azlanti colonists in Garund is intended to be a shock as well, so LOTS of what's in and under Saventh-Yhi should be things that no one can really know until they get there and explore.
It's pretty easy for anyone to know about the drow before Second Darkness... folks just don't believe the stories. It's like knowing about Bigfoot or alien abductions or the like in this world. They're creepy stories that some folks believe but overall are discounted as myths.
As mentioned above... VERY limited. Varisia at the start of Pathifnder was intended to be a frontier region with lots of exploration. It was a place for characters to come explore a new world in-game, but at the same time a place for PLAYERS to be introduced to the world of Golarion at large for the first time as well.
Knowledge of Ydersius is not common knowledge. As a forgotten god, it's at minimum a DC 20 Knowledge (religion) check to know about him. Serpent's Skull has more advice on how introducing him to a party in a campaign should work.
At this point, Kline's weird ioun stone is mostly a plot device we used to give his wandering travel and a purpose. We might say more about it in print some day, and it does have a canon version (I believe it was a lure, of sorts, planted by the serpent folk to encourage future explorers to come wander into their clutches)... but that vision may have drifted over the years.
Shensen was a young child in Golarion when she was reincarnated. Well under 100 years old. Probably under 50 years old. Old enough that she can remember time as a drow, but they're long past for her. That's the Golarion version. My character she's based on isn't EXACTLY the same one, since that character was a bard/fighter of Eilistraee or something like that in Jason Nelson's post-apocalyptic Forgotten Realms game. I played her for several years in the early 2000s, about 10 years ago, and her character sheet's probably around my place somewhere... but yeah. She was about 13th level or so when she got reincarnated. I ended up playing her till close to 20th level before I had to drop out of that campaign due, in large part, to personality clash with another player (which sucked, since Shensen's the character I'd played for the longest [and remains that character today] but ah well). In fact, yet ANOTHER incarnation of Shensen appeared in Shackled city; this one the full-on drow version, but there, she was an even more different character than Golarion's The Golarion version is a very accurate version of her as played by me in Jason's game, with the adjustment of game setting and some changes to her drow/half-elf switcharoo.
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I got two new questions shortly after posting previous post <_<;
1) How do alu-demons and half-succubi(from Demons Revisited) differ from each other? Is latter for all succubi offsprings besides humans or is it a chance thing or a case of one of them being "natural" and one being from magic rituals?
2) So I read from reviews that in Wrath of Righteous, some magic book from King of Chaos novel is plot importan, right? I'm kinda wondering why mc guffin from a book is plot relevant in AP since you guys often talk about how PCs should be most important heroes of story so a mc guffin recovered offscreen sounds bit strange. Were you guys given a requirement to tie in the novel to the AP somehow or something similar?
1) Alu-demons are full-on 100% outsider demons with racial hit dice. Half-succubi are a template that usually goes onto a humanoid creature with no racial hit dice. Demons Revisited lays out the specific conditions that must arise for a half-succubus or an alu-demon to be generated.
2) It was an experiment of sorts to tie the AP, the novel line, the Campaign Setting line, the Player's Guide line, the Rulebook line, and Pathfinder Society all together with Worldwound themes. It ended up being VERY complicated, and isn't likely to be something we try again. That said... the AP remains the "top" of that pyramid. The events in King of Chaos exist as backstory to explain how a specific item ends up in a place for the PCs to utilize. Had the novel tie-in not happened, the book would have simply been something the PCs were given anyway; the novel gave that element of the AP a bit more fun backstory is all. In any event, the fact that the novel characters basically had to give up the thing they quested for over 300 some pages to the PCs pretty much cements, in my mind, that the PCs are the most important heroes in the overall story.