Creative Director
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Currently me and my group are playing through a Mongoose Publishing campaign known as, The Drow War. It has an incredibly epic story and we've had some of our best D&D moments in it. Unfortunately, I've hit a few snags. One top of the fact that they made the horrible error of forgetting maps to key places they also have some extremely bad enemies(the final boss in the first book had only 35hp and was designed to fight a party of lv10 characters)and many more problems. I have done my best converting as much of the book I can to Pathfinder but the work becomes strenuous and time consuming.
SO, my question to you is: Do you have any advice to make converting it easier?And assuming you still game quite often, when you play D&D, do you call it D&D or Pathfinder?? Regardless of what system we play I always call it D&D.
Building Adventure Paths is a complicated job. It might be the most difficult game-related thing I've done in my years of game design, in fact. Every time I work on an Adventure Path, I learn valuable new skills and tricks and stuff.
Mongoose attempting an adventure path as expansive and immense as the Drow War right out of the gate was probably more ambitious a project than I would have recommended for a company's first stab at adventure paths, but they got it out nevertheless. Doesn't surprise me that there's rough spots, though.
My only advice is to read and study each adventure carefully before you run it if you don't trust the company to provide error-free content, and when/if you identify a possible problem, fix it. Not very HELPFUL advice, I guess, but there's not a magic set of guidelines to make Adventure Paths work. Other than work, that is.
When I play Pathfinder, I call it Pathfinder, not D&D. I hope, someday, folks around the world who play Pathfinder will do the same! :-)
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Creative Director
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Looks like it's 20-30 miles off the coast near Eleder.I don't remember off the top of my head... but the island's on the new Inner Sea map, and will also be on the map in the Inner Sea World Guide, so folks out there can probably provide the actual answer before me.
I believe, though, that I put it far enough out to see that you can't see any other land on the horizon.
Cool. Then assuming Golarion's curvature is similar to the earth's you totally CAN see it on a clear day.
(Based on being able to see Catalina Island at 26 miles off the coast from the beach outside Los Angeles)
Golarion's curvature is exactly the same as Earth's.
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Creative Director
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Have you heard Gamera is friend to children?
How would you stat Gamera, anyway? Would you just advance and template a dragon turtle or would you make a unique monster?
I've heard that. Although I much prefer the late 90s Gamera trilogy, where his friendship to children isn't the focus, and the dark, edgy, gritty nature of kaiju films IS the focus.
I would stat Gamera using one of the various kaiju templates that have been published over the years (one's in Wayfinider, and another one is one I wrote for Dragon several years ago), using a dragon turtle as the base creature.
Hidden Trivia Time! In the sixth Savage Tide adventure, there's a particularly large and hungry dragon turtle named Emraag. Anagram fans will quickly get the reference.
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Creative Director
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On a related note: James, have you ever attended the F***ing Catalina Wine Mixer? If Yes, see question (A). If No, see question (B).
(A) What was your favorite wine? And did you ride a helicopter and/or boat to get there?
(B) Why the hell not? Are you afraid of helicopters and/or boats?
EDIT: Bonus question - Do you like flowcharts? Being able to flowchart would make my posts better. I love flowcharts. Will you direct someone to make some pretty Pathfinder flowcharts for me?
Nope. (Not afraid of helicopters OR boats... in fact, I hope some day to OWN a boat.) It's more a factor of me not having spent much time in southern California at all. Northern California is superior.
Flowcharts are helpful. Jason Bulmahn is good at them too. He's not doing anything these days. I'll send him out to your house this afternoon to help, unless he's in a bad mood and hates you, in which case I did what I can.
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Creative Director
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James Jacobs:
I've been going through Cities of Golarion in some detail, and I'm concerned that the Nisroch section goes over the top on the horror/gratuitous gore side. It may be that I wouldn't find it so much of a problem if it were in a book like Lords of Chaos or perhaps Classic Horrors Revisited where the whole book is at least orientated in that direction, but in the general context of Cities of Golarion I find the writing and the in-your-face-adjectives-for-the-sake-of-adjectives (E.g. the over-diocesan's mask mentioned on page 40) to be jarring and a bit excessive. In a manner of speaking, it's the Hook Mountain Massacre dropped into the Rise of the Runelords adventure path, except more so in terms of being out of tune/character with the rest of the material presented. :-?The Whitethrone section manages to stay the right side of the line on the descriptive side for me. I don't know though if having read Winter Witch first may have predisposed me to feel more at ease with the writing here, or if it's that the material is handled in a different manner.
I'm not sure if there's a question here, but some of the finer detail of Nisroch's bothered me sufficiently that I wanted to make some comment about it.
Nisroch is a horrifying place. There are parts of Golarion where violence is more prevalent, and when we cover those, we don't sugarcoat things. Furthermore, Golarion isn't meant to be a kid's world—it's meant to be a world for adults. And that means that, periodically, we'll drift toward the edge when it comes to mature content.
Irrisen isn't nearly as grim, gritty, and dark a place as Nisroch. It's evil, yeah, but in a more fantasy/whimsical way than the edgy way of Nisroch, so it's appropriate that an article dealing with Irrisen isn't as gory.
Sorry the gore/violence in Nisroch bothered you, in any case... but there's some areas of Golarion where violence can't be avoided. Especially when we're talking about nations who worship someone like Zon-Kuthon.
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Creative Director
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Are NPC's for the APs ever past Paizo employee PCs? Like Klorak the Red?
Or do you guys dream them up specifically to be NPCs?
NPCs in Adventure Paths are created specifically for the Adventure Paths. Some of our authors may have snuck some based on real people in, but I hope not. That's not a very classy move.
Klorak, in any case, is 100% brand new invented-for-Smuggler's-Shiv NPCness.
Temauhti-tecuani...... Are you sure that particular "NPC" is not based on you? :-)
No way! I still have both my hands!
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Creative Director
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Does this count for Magic Jarring someone as well? Like if you're fatigued when you take over their body, are you still fatigued in your new body?
I would say no, you're not. Because you have a brand new body. One that even has its own hit points and Constitution score. Those are much more drastic changes than your fatigue level.
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Creative Director
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What happens when a good and evil outsider gets that special feeling for each other? What if it's a near-divine copulation? Has this ever happenned in Golarion?
I'm sure it's happened before in Golarion, or more likely, the Great Beyond. It's not been something we've covered in any books yet. And if the special feelings the two outsiders have for each other are genuine... then I suspect one of the two will change alignment to match the partner.
What was your worst character death?
What was your best character death?
What is your best RPing horror story in regards to a bad DM?
What is your best RPing horror story in regards to a bad player?
What is the worst mistake you ever made running a game?
Do you have any rules when running a game as a GM? Sorta like my rules of all rules arguements happen after the game.
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Creative Director
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What was your worst character death?
What was your best character death?
What is your best RPing horror story in regards to a bad DM?
What is your best RPing horror story in regards to a bad player?
What is the worst mistake you ever made running a game?
Do you have any rules when running a game as a GM? Sorta like my rules of all rules arguements happen after the game.
1) A Call of Cthulhu replacement character (the previous character having gone insane)—a big game hunter—who I had built a really cool backstory for and who I found the PERFECT picture in a magazine to illustrate even, who was killed within 5 minutes of being introduced to the game when an animated patch of skin jumped onto his face and grew over his mouth and nose, suffocating him.
2) The one where my hafling river druid was killed by a water elemental in a river. She couldn't have gone out any better.
3 and 4) Bad GM and bad player horror story are the same—the one where the GM and the player conspired to kill of another player's character in a Shadowrun game. I've recounted this story earlier in this thread. It sucked, and forever tainted my opinion of Shadowrun.
5) Worst mistake: agreeing to run two side-by-side campaigns just because two players didn't get along with a third player in the group. Ended up being WAY too much work, and also ended up straining friendships (this is also tied into the story revolving around that cursed Shadowrun game, also recounted earlier in this thread).
6) I have plenty of rules when I GM. One of the big one is that what I say, goes; if you think I did something wrong, by all means point it out in game, but if you don't immediately have the rules to back up your claim, you need to be able to accept the fact that I'll rule on the spot whether or not that's by the rules as written. Also, don't be a jerk.
3 and 4) Bad GM and bad player horror story are the same—the one where the GM and the player conspired to kill of another player's character in a Shadowrun game. I've recounted this story earlier in this thread. It sucked, and forever tainted my opinion of Shadowrun.
Sigh that mean I have to go though131 pages with 6525+ posts to find it....sigh.
I understand you don't want to go though it again. I was looking for more amusing stories....
But anyway thanks for the answears.
How do you intend to spend all the good karma you are harvesting by applying yourself to this thread?
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Creative Director
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Sigh that mean I have to go though131 pages with 6525+ posts to find it....sigh.
I understand you don't want to go though it again. I was looking for more amusing stories....
But anyway thanks for the answears.
It was actually one of the longest posts I put onto this thread. Several hundred words. Took me over an hour to type, in fact.
Maybe if we ask nicely, someone else on this thread will provide a link to that post, or perhaps quote it?
What happens when a good and evil outsider gets that special feeling for each other? What if it's a near-divine copulation? Has this ever happenned in Golarion?I'm sure it's happened before in Golarion, or more likely, the Great Beyond. It's not been something we've covered in any books yet. And if the special feelings the two outsiders have for each other are genuine... then I suspect one of the two will change alignment to match the partner.
Hmmm... but what would te offspring be like?
this?
Thanks...
Yeah that is a horrid story...though really I think it was mostly due to bad player and a bad GM...I mean take out the element of PvP and Shadowrun...and you would get the same horrid story.
But yes our experience always shape our like and dislikes.
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Sigh that mean I have to go though131 pages with 6525+ posts to find it....sigh.
I understand you don't want to go though it again. I was looking for more amusing stories....
But anyway thanks for the answears.
It was actually one of the longest posts I put onto this thread. Several hundred words. Took me over an hour to type, in fact.
Maybe if we ask nicely, someone else on this thread will provide a link to that post, or perhaps quote it?
We gamed down in the common area of the dorm on the 1st floor on Friday nights. And since we gamed on the 1st floor, the Shadowrun GM and Sulky and a few other players of the now disintegrating Shadowrun game noticed. A few of them stayed away, but some of them approached me to join my game, and even had the audacity to ask Happy to join HIS game.
At this point, I didn't really know about the whole assassination scene over in the Shadowrun game, so I said yeah. And they all played in my game for months. Without the power of the GM, the Shadowrun GM ended up being a pretty minor annoyance (his gaming style was SUPER timid and hesitant, because he assumed that other GMs did the job the way he did, I guess, and he was expecting GM treachery at any second the whole time, I guess), while Sulky ended up making a brooding assassin type character in my game.
Now, after several months, it became obvious that Sulky and Happy, who had essentially made the same types of characters they'd made in Shadowrun, were getting on each other's nerves. Sulky's player was a master manipulator and he did EVERYTHING he could to get on the GM's good side, while Happy's player just wanted to play the game but was too much of a class act to directly confront Sulky. No one really told me about the assassination scene, but as time went on, I started piecing together the details of what happened.
So when Sulky decided it was time, he started messing with other PCs; particularly Happy. I let him do so, but only when the players were there to react to it; as a result, Sulky never built up the guts to actually engage in PVP in my game. Eventually, Happy and one other player who didn't really like Sulky asked me if I could run a secondary game for them; they weren't enjoying gaming with Sulky, after all, but were having a great time in my game. I said sure.
Now I was running two side-by-side games. One (the larger group of 4 or 5 players) included Sulky and the ex-GM and three other close friends; all of us lived in the same dorm. The other (the smaller group of just Happy and one other guy who I didn't really know all that well) took place in the third guy's dorm across campus (a not insignificant minute bike ride; UC Davis is the largest of the Universities of California!) In time, the complications of running two games while at the same time actually trying to be a college student got to be too much and I had to cancel one of the two games. Since one group had 2 players and was far away and the other had 5 players and was right in the building I lived in, I canceled Happy's game.
As a result, Happy and I grew more and more apart over the months and year to follow, while ex-GM and Sulky and the other three gamers in that group became a pretty tight-knit group. Without Happy to annoy him and to pick on, Sulky was less of a jerk; perhaps also because he saw that I wasn't going to let him be a sneaky bastard he mellowed out as well. In any case, when it came time to move out and find a real apartment off-campus the next year, three of us (another friend from the game who we'll call the Wizard AND Sulky) decided to get a 3 bedroom apartment.
Now, you learn a lot more about someone living with them then you do gaming with them. And over the months that followed, it became increasingly obvious that, while Wizard was a great friend, Sulky was a grade-A jerk. Not a pleasant guy. Very self-centered and even MORE manipulative. The living situation grew worse and worse, with me and Wizard actively avoiding Sulky (at one point Wizard triumphantly told me "I went for a whole week without seeing Sulky except for one point where he walked by my room down the hall and I saw his reflection passing by in my computer monitor!"), until finally Sulky announced to us that it was time for a "roommate meeting." Turns out, he was breaking the lease by about 4 months to move in with his shrill and annoying girlfriend, but that it was okay; he'd found us a new roommate to take up his lease.
That new roommate turned out to be a guy who kept odd hours and let his alarm clock trill forever before waking up, had a bunch of creepy tweaker friends, and who smoked heavily.
When the lease came up, Wizard and I fled.
In the end, I rapidly fell out of contact with Sulky, and slowly started to patch up my friendship with Happy. We eventually started to game again (mostly Magic or Call of Cthulhu), but we never did really get to be good friends again. I see Happy now and then, mostly at Gen Con; he lives now in Atlanta and has a wife and kids and seems pretty content with his life. Wizard moved up to Seattle and I went with him on a half-baked idea that it'd be cool to work at Wizards of the Coast (they bought TSR a few years later and I did eventually start working for them); Wizard now lives with his girlfriend in a house over in Renton and seems pretty content with his life as well. Ex-Shadowrun GM stayed in California and worked at various jobs in Silicon Valley; I hear from him once in a while via e-mail and he's still the same guy, spending his off hours trying to build 3D Spelljammer ships in computer programs and constantly shifting jobs. I lost touch with Sulky entirely.
I guess the silver lining is that in a weird kind of way, all of those events led to me sitting at a computer in Redmond in 2011 with a job as Creative Director of an RPG company... but it's hard not to think of the events instead as tainting my opinion about Shadowrun, forcing me to endure 4 months of living with a tweaker smoker, and as costing me what could have been a lifelong friendship.
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Creative Director
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Hmmm... but what would te offspring be like?What happens when a good and evil outsider gets that special feeling for each other? What if it's a near-divine copulation? Has this ever happenned in Golarion?I'm sure it's happened before in Golarion, or more likely, the Great Beyond. It's not been something we've covered in any books yet. And if the special feelings the two outsiders have for each other are genuine... then I suspect one of the two will change alignment to match the partner.
Likely either half-celestials or half-fiends, depending upon the dominant alignment of the parents.
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Creative Director
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Do you have any thoughts or opinions on the controversial Dead Island trailer?
I think it's one of the most awesome game trailers I've ever seen. It's REALLY well done. Very artistic and compelling and provocative. I will absolutely be purchasing this game to play it when it comes out. BRAVO!!!!
What happens when a good and evil outsider gets that special feeling for each other? What if it's a near-divine copulation? Has this ever happenned in Golarion?I'm sure it's happened before in Golarion, or more likely, the Great Beyond. It's not been something we've covered in any books yet. And if the special feelings the two outsiders have for each other are genuine... then I suspect one of the two will change alignment to match the partner.
Is this how we got erinyes?
Is the Aldori Dueling Mastery (Local) feat from Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting Hardcover page 67 going to be updated at some point to a feat or is the Aldori Duelist Archetype from the Inner Sea Primer the update too a different game mechanic?
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Creative Director
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Is this how we got erinyes?What happens when a good and evil outsider gets that special feeling for each other? What if it's a near-divine copulation? Has this ever happenned in Golarion?I'm sure it's happened before in Golarion, or more likely, the Great Beyond. It's not been something we've covered in any books yet. And if the special feelings the two outsiders have for each other are genuine... then I suspect one of the two will change alignment to match the partner.
Nope.
Erinyes come into being like all other devils. (See Book of the Damned 1)
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Creative Director
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Is the Aldori Dueling Mastery (Local) feat from Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting Hardcover page 67 going to be updated at some point to a feat or is the Aldori Duelist Archetype from the Inner Sea Primer the update too a different game mechanic?
Yes. It's in the Inner Sea World Guide.
And yes, it has indeed changed to a different game mechanic.
Prereqs: Exotic Weapon proficiency (Aldori dueling sword), Quick Draw, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Aldori dueling sword)
+2 Initiative (as long as you start combat with an Aldori dueling sword in hand)
+2 shield bonus to AC (as long as you wield an Aldori dueling sword in one hand; this drops to a +1 shield bonus if you wield the sword 2-handed, and before you get any ideas, remember that shield bonuses don't stack)
Treat the sword as a piercing weapon when determining the effects of weapons used by a duelist.
James,
I am busy converting S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth to PFRPG and playing in the end game adventures of STAP. One burning question has bothered me for decades. Who is Drelnza's father, or was daughter just a term of enderment used by Iggwilv? I have always felt it was the later, and that perhaps she was a favored apprentice.
Dwarvern Women...beards or no beards?
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Creative Director
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James,
I am busy converting S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth to PFRPG and playing in the end game adventures of STAP. One burning question has bothered me for decades. Who is Drelnza's father, or was daughter just a term of enderment used by Iggwilv? I have always felt it was the later, and that perhaps she was a favored apprentice.
That's a very good question. It's not canon... but I would be tempted to say Zagig was Drelnza's father. I'd have to double check the timeline to confirm that, though...
We DO know that Drelnza is human, though, which means her father, like Iggwilv, was human. So that rules out Graz'zt.
Dwarvern Women...beards or no beards?No beards.
Not even cute little sideburns?
I just had a bot try to solicit me for sex over AIM. An idiot bot. Pinged me twice with the same script. First time I ignored it, second time I confused it by asking for its specs. Something similar ever happen to you? Ever been solicited for sex by a poorly programmed AI?
I just had a bot try to solicit me for sex over AIM. An idiot bot. Pinged me twice with the same script. First time I ignored it, second time I confused it by asking for its specs. Something similar ever happen to you? Ever been solicited for sex by a poorly programmed AI?a/s/l?
Only somewhat more sophisticated than that.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Nope. (Not afraid of helicopters OR boats... in fact, I hope some day to OWN a boat.) It's more a factor of me not having spent much time in southern California at all. Northern California is superior.
Flowcharts are helpful. Jason Bulmahn is good at them too. He's not doing anything these days. I'll send him out to your house this afternoon to help, unless he's in a bad mood and hates you, in which case I did what I can.
He better not go to my house! He might scare the wife. But you can send him to my tent, make sure he brings a helmet and body armor, its required. You can tell Jason I will keep the Taliban from him while he makes flowcharts. That is of course, if he is a good mood. And I don't know of any reason he would hate me, he hasn't had to DM when I have played a Tinker/Illusionist gnome...
Back to serious matters:
1. What kind of boat?
2. Ocean going or freshwater?
3. Powered by oars, wind, steam, petrol, or nuclear?
4. Will it be used for lounging, racing, fishing, living, partying, smuggling, or piracy?
Now have Jason build you a flowchart to determine what kind of boat fulfills your requirements.
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I suppose that discordant or otherwise out-of-place material is an unhappy but inevitable consequence of multiple authors and editors working on one project though...
:(
I would assume the lead editor(s) knew exactly what they were getting from Tim when they incorporated Nisroch into the book. Same when Logue submitted his material that would eventually become Hook Horror Massacre for the "traditional fantasy" RotRL AP. It's one thing to miss spelling errors, incorrect sentence structures, and formatting, but such...intense...scenarios as above?
Dwarvern Women...beards or no beards?No beards.
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Creative Director
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I just had a bot try to solicit me for sex over AIM. An idiot bot. Pinged me twice with the same script. First time I ignored it, second time I confused it by asking for its specs. Something similar ever happen to you? Ever been solicited for sex by a poorly programmed AI?
Hmmm. Looks like I have to upgrade my bot's AI again.
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Creative Director
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Back to serious matters:
1. What kind of boat?
2. Ocean going or freshwater?
3. Powered by oars, wind, steam, petrol, or nuclear?
4. Will it be used for lounging, racing, fishing, living, partying, smuggling, or piracy?
1) A medium size one. For fun!
2) Ocean.3) Diesel, probably.
4) Lounging, fishing, living, partying, and looking for sea monsters.
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Creative Director
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I would assume the lead editor(s) knew exactly what they were getting from Tim when they incorporated Nisroch into the book. Same when Logue submitted his material that would eventually become Hook Horror Massacre for the "traditional fantasy" RotRL AP. It's one thing to miss spelling errors, incorrect sentence structures, and formatting, but such...intense...scenarios as above?
Correct. We got what we wanted with Nisroch. This is also the first time I've heard these complaints about the article, so not to make light of them... but the book's been out for a while, so I had assumed that it wasn't all that harrowing of an entry.
Again... sorry if you didn't enjoy it. But the more Paizo products you read, the better the chances are of coming across something you don't like; we can't make perfect products for everyone every time.
Why is the (admittedly) powerful "Ring of Invisiblity" (PathfinderRPG p. 481) discounted?
By the book it is 20,000gp. But, by the formula (PathfinderRPG p. ) it should be (3rd Level caster * 2nd Level spell * 2000gp *2 (duration in minutes)) 24,000gp
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Why is the (admittedly) powerful "Ring of Invisiblity" (PathfinderRPG p. 481) discounted?
By the book it is 20,000gp. But, by the formula (PathfinderRPG p. ) it should be (3rd Level caster * 2nd Level spell * 2000gp *2 (duration in minutes)) 24,000gp
The discount is there to make up for being hunted down by Black Riders.
Them's the breaks.
James, when you play We Be Goblins, what will your character be like?
what are the chances of you writing a complete adventure path by yourself?
What are the chances of us seeing an adventure path with a halfling as the final big bad?