Creative Director
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James,
What, in your opinion, would be the most compatible mythic path for a Medium?
The one that's most fun for the character involved. For me, "most compatable" depends on personality and theme and the like as much or even more than the class.
I'm also not familiar enough with how the medium works to say based solely on class mechanics.
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Creative Director
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Different question this time. When calculating the treasure of a monster with class levels, do you calculate the treasure based off their monster treasure rating, using their total CR (such as a Minotaur Barbarian 5 would be CR 9, awarding 4,250 gp in a Medium XP game), or should you add their racial HD to their effective class level for NPC wealth by level, or should you mix the two, calculating the racial HD treasure separately from the NPC wealth?
I generally look at the monster's finalized CR and then give it NPC gear as if it were an NPC of that level. So, a rakshasa bard whose final CR ended up being CR 15 would get gear worth 45,000 gp—same as for a 15th level NPC.
In the end, as long as the gear you give the monster doesn't knock their Table 1–1 expectations way off whack and doesn't overdo the treasure count overall in the adventure, there's a LOT of wiggle room as for how much or how little to gear up a monster NPC.
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Creative Director
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What about a line of books for character archetypes, like the Complete Scoundrel was? It wouldn't be aimed at any one class in particular, but for types of character personalities. Kind of like what you guys have done with the Dirty Tactics Toolbox, or even the Ultimate Intrigue book. I mean, obviously those books heavily favor certain types of characters, but any class can draw from them.Yeah, I guess this works better and I want to second it...
Ultimate Intrigue is obviously aimed at Rogues and the like.
Dirty Tactics is as well.
Maybe Ultimate Valor?
Honorable Tactics?
Meh.
I'm 100% more interested in story-based books (aka adventures) or books that expand upon the world (most of the books we publish in the Campaign Setting line). Books that merely regurgitate another hundred or two hundred or more pages of an increasingly dizzying array of character options that aren't really tied to any specific and flavorful theme? Kinda bored with those books.
Occult Adventures and the upcoming Horror Adventures are good examples of books that break that boring repetition; they use a VERY flavorful theme to bind together their options, and beyond that contain a lot more info in their pages than just more feats and spells and archetypes.
You are a great man for putting off your War Never Changes Day just to answer our questions. Thanks for being awesome, James!
What's the best part about Fallout 4 so far?
...War Never Changes...
That's my line!
Okay...Let's try a different kind of question...
Morgan Freeman, Sean Connery, James Earl Jones, and Patrick Stewart are abducted from their homes by aliens and forced to participate in a four way gladatorial battle to the death, but the winner is guaranteed all narration jobs on earth until their death.
They start with no weapons whatsoever, but every five minutes a weapon is dropped fifteen feet from the participants, starting with a rock and growing more advanced if the fight manages to last longer.
Who wins? Who dies first, second, and third? Why?
Aroden's death marked the beginning of the Age of Lost Omens, where the prophecies don't work properly anymore.
But is the prophecy's failure effect limited to Golarion only since Aroden was a God of Humanity? Or is this effect extended to the entire Material Plane or even to the entire Great Beyond?
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Creative Director
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You are a great man for putting off your War Never Changes Day just to answer our questions. Thanks for being awesome, James!
What's the best part about Fallout 4 so far?
The fact that it's out!
Ha. Some other contenders...
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Creative Director
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How long of a wait do you think we will have till we finally see an adventure path that is not set in the Inner Sea?
Many years. The Inner Sea is our campaign setting, after all, and while we'll certainly do APs that touch upon or visit realms off the map (Strange Aeons is the next one that'll be doing this for about 1/3 of its length), an AP that's set ENTIRELY outside of the Inner Sea Region is unlikely to happen anytime soon. If ever. We'll see!
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Creative Director
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Aroden's death marked the beginning of the Age of Lost Omens, where the prophecies don't work properly anymore.
But is the prophecy's failure effect limited to Golarion only since Aroden was a God of Humanity? Or is this effect extended to the entire Material Plane or even to the entire Great Beyond?
The failure of prophecy extends more or less to pretty much everything we'll publish. So ... yes.
(The real-world reason is, of course, the fact that we find prophecy to be too cliche and lazy a crutch in the fantasy genre, and by omitting it from Golarion, we hopefully create a setting that avoids those cliches and crutches and, in so doing, helps to establish Golarion in one way as being unique or different from the wide range of other competing and similar shared worlds. Furthermore... from a practical standpoint, while prophecy as a story element can be handled in a novel or movie where the plot is controlled, or even in a computer RPG... in a tabletop RPG, the nature of how the players interact with the rules and the setting makes prophecies not only difficult to pull off, but in most cases unsatisfying and frustrating and unrewarding.)
That name does not fill me with confidence...
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Creative Director
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Okay...Let's try a different kind of question...
Morgan Freeman, Sean Connery, James Earl Jones, and Patrick Stewart are abducted from their homes by aliens and forced to participate in a four way gladatorial battle to the death, but the winner is guaranteed all narration jobs on earth until their death.
They start with no weapons whatsoever, but every five minutes a weapon is dropped fifteen feet from the participants, starting with a rock and growing more advanced if the fight manages to last longer.
Who wins? Who dies first, second, and third? Why?
Sean Connery dies first, because of karma for the crappy things he's said and done near the end of his career. Next to go is Patrick Stewart, because he knows that Morgan and James have better voices for narration and because he's got the class to realize this and thus step aside or throw the fight, ensuring that no matter who wins, we get a great narrator.
So, it's down to Morgan Freeman vs. James Earl Jones. It's a tough fight, but in the end... hmmm... Flip a coin!
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Creative Director
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Will Strange Aeons AP use the research sub-system from the Mummy's Mask AP? Or some other research rules (I'm assuming that there will be some part of the AP that involves research).
Here and there, yeah, it'll likely use the research system. Hell's Rebels does a little bit too, sorta.
What happens to the souls of undead after they die? Is Pharasma harsher on them or does she judge on the life, not the undeath?
What about the unwilling undead (Ghouls, zombies raised against their will, so on)?
What about Attic Whisperers (Created by a Koblak), our party LN necromancer is arguing that since they're technically NE undead Pharasma would probably pass them right on to Urgathoa or at least Abaddon and thus end up being damned, for the sin of being victims of a serial killer. The Pharasman Priest is claiming Pharasma wouldn't be that cruel or unyielding in her judgement (And implied she has a soft spot for children since the Midwife aspect).
Would destroying them snuff their souls out or send them to their peace? Is it kinder to 'raise' them in a sort of twisted orphanage-esq relationship? I know there's been Poor Eledia from Undead Unleashed, who was TN, so Attic Whisperers aren't all evil all the time, which either implies that there may be hope for their souls, or that they can be non-evil (and thus not dangerous to those around them enough to bring up)
What'd be the general thrust of word of god on this one?
What, good sir, is your favorite class from Occult Adventures.
1. Suppose I were to be warped through time and space to Golarion circa 4708 AR, without even the clothes on my back or knowledge of Taldane. Where would be the safest place in the Inner Sea region I can end up? (I'm guessing Almas.)
2. Please rank the following from most to least evil (and no cheating by giving them equal rank):
a. Socothbenoth worshiper.
b. Zepar worshiper.
c. Szureal worshiper.
d. Atheist who really hates Desna.
Correction to 2c above, I meant Szuriel.
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James does your Fallout 4 gameplay for the launch look anything like this?
(That is spoiler free)
And as a gift to your character, the easy to find location of the Perception Bobblehead, and the harder to find Strength Bobblehead.
Hello James, Jusick question.
When Aroden was still kicking, what was his relationship with Abadar?
Thanks in advance.
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Creative Director
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What happens to the souls of undead after they die? Is Pharasma harsher on them or does she judge on the life, not the undeath?
What about the unwilling undead (Ghouls, zombies raised against their will, so on)?What about Attic Whisperers (Created by a Koblak), our party LN necromancer is arguing that since they're technically NE undead Pharasma would probably pass them right on to Urgathoa or at least Abaddon and thus end up being damned, for the sin of being victims of a serial killer. The Pharasman Priest is claiming Pharasma wouldn't be that cruel or unyielding in her judgement (And implied she has a soft spot for children since the Midwife aspect).
Would destroying them snuff their souls out or send them to their peace? Is it kinder to 'raise' them in a sort of twisted orphanage-esq relationship? I know there's been Poor Eledia from Undead Unleashed, who was TN, so Attic Whisperers aren't all evil all the time, which either implies that there may be hope for their souls, or that they can be non-evil (and thus not dangerous to those around them enough to bring up)
What'd be the general thrust of word of god on this one?
Depends on what the undead was when they were alive, and if their change into undeath was welcome or intentional.
If it wasn't welcome or not intentional, a soul that was undead goes on to be judged more or less the same way as it would have if it had just died in the first place, but likely with some leniency, since "time served" as undead might offset some other sins or whatever that would have possibly resulted in a harsher judgment.
If undeath WAS welcome or intentional (such as a lich), or if undeath wasn't but the victim ended up reveling in it (most vampires), then they're still judged the same way they would have when they were alive, but perhaps a bit more strictly, since "time served" as undead in this case furthers your chances of a bad afterlife. An exception would be if, for example, you worshiped a deity like Urgathoa or followed a credo like the Whispering Way, where becoming undead IS what your soul was destined for, in which case you might be judged with leniency. Pharasma does not like undeath, but she doesn't go out of her way to inflict "revenge judgments" on them when they are destroyed.
In the case of your attic whisperer, Pharasma wouldn't care if you resurrected them or destroyed them. It's all the same to her, since what your party chooses is what was destined for those souls all along in the first place. What she WOULDN'T approve of would be leaving the attic whisperers as-is to do as they pleased as undead.
The alignment of the undead doesn't make a whit of difference to Pharasma. They're all equally unpleasant and blasphemous and wrong to her and her followers.
Nor is she interested in "kindness" at all.
The general thrust of her teachings in this case would be to make the attic whisperers NOT undead. How you do that, be it destroying them or resurrecting them or whatever, that's up to the individual worshiper.
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Creative Director
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1. Suppose I were to be warped through time and space to Golarion circa 4708 AR, without even the clothes on my back or knowledge of Taldane. Where would be the safest place in the Inner Sea region I can end up? (I'm guessing Almas.)
2. Please rank the following from most to least evil (and no cheating by giving them equal rank):
a. Socothbenoth worshiper.
b. Zepar worshiper.
c. Szureal worshiper.
d. Atheist who really hates Desna.
1) Depends entirely who you are, what your race is, what your gender is, what your personality is. For me, it'd be Sandpoint. For you, who knows. I don't know you, but if you feel that Almas works for you... there ya go.
2) You've pretty much ranked them as I would. Socothbenoth is the most evil, the atheist is the least evil and might actually be good aligned. It's not "evil" to be an atheist, nor is it automatically evil to hate Desna. Both of those are beliefs that I personally wouldn't like or approve of or like to see spread... but that absolutely doesn't make them evil at all.
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Creative Director
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Just read the first hollow mountain comic and was wondering 1, If you have had a chance to read it yet 2,If you had any imput in the story Since it does briefly feature
** spoiler omitted **
I read all of the scripts and worked with Erik, Sutter, and Wes to work out problems and offered suggestions during the script-writing phase. I essentially had an "approval" stamp for them all.
Haven't actually written any of them. One of these days I hope to be able to write one of them... but so far, it just hasn't been in the cards for me for various reasons.
And yeah... there's a fair bit of writer's jealousy going on there... ;P
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Creative Director
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James does your Fallout 4 gameplay for the launch look anything like this?
(That is spoiler free)
And as a gift to your character, the easy to find location of the Perception Bobblehead, and the harder to find Strength Bobblehead.
** spoiler omitted **
HA! Awesome.
I didn't click on the bobblehead links. I've got the Prima guide for when it comes to that, but I'm doing the first bit as much as possible to go through without "cheating". I've found the Perception bobblehead and the Repair one so far.
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Creative Director
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Hello James, Jusick question.
When Aroden was still kicking, what was his relationship with Abadar?
Thanks in advance.
Friendly, but not friends.They had a fair amount of overlap, but I suspect that Aroden got frustrated with Abadar whenever he did anything with non-human cities or whatever.
So being the god of humanity...how racist was Aroden? What did his religion say about non-humans?
What's the difference between knowing the future and prophecy?
Like in Giantslayer there is an NPC that knows the PCs are going to arrive, and also, impossibly knows about their past. Always struck me as very close to prophecy.
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In the 3.5 era Great Beyond Paizo put Formians as one of the three major inhabitants of the plane of Axis. They also showed up in Axis as background in the novel Death's Heretic.
But in Bestiary 4 Formians are interplanetary invading monstrous humanoids, not outsides. This is in line with their role on Castrovel as well.
Is Great Beyond effectively obsolete/overruled on this point by now? Should we regard Formians on Axis as a continuity point with 3.5 that has since been abandoned and that should be removed if your campaign allows?
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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I'm interested in the notion of a soul's destiny when it comes to Pharasma; more specifically, I'm confused how there can be a deity of Fate and Prophecy when prophecies don't come true on Golarion after Aroden's death. Do prophecies not come true, but it's because they misread an existing Fate? How does that interact with divination spells like augury that are supposed to tell the future (or a portion of it)?
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Creative Director
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What's the difference between knowing the future and prophecy?
Like in Giantslayer there is an NPC that knows the PCs are going to arrive, and also, impossibly knows about their past. Always struck me as very close to prophecy.
Prophecy is something that SHOULD happen, and is usually cloaked or veiled in obfuscation or metaphor so that regardless of what happens it might still be accurate.
Knowing the future is not cloaked in metaphor at all. You just know what will happen.
As such, the ability to know the future is MUCH more powerful and reliable than prophecy, and is also a lot less interesting, frankly, from a storytelling persepctive.
Prophecy is, in other words, a set of hints or a riddle that foreshadows the ending of a story.
Knowing the future is skipping to the story's last page and reading it.
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Creative Director
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In the 3.5 era Great Beyond Paizo put Formians as one of the three major inhabitants of the plane of Axis. They also showed up in Axis as background in the novel Death's Heretic.
But in Bestiary 4 Formians are interplanetary invading monstrous humanoids, not outsides. This is in line with their role on Castrovel as well.
Is Great Beyond effectively obsolete/overruled on this point by now? Should we regard Formians on Axis as a continuity point with 3.5 that has since been abandoned and that should be removed if your campaign allows?
In the 3.5 era, we used the Monster Manual from Wizards of the Coast, and as such were bound to choices they made for monsters that we didn't really 100% agree with.
In the Pathfinder era, we got to make those choices ourselves.
There can still be formians on the outer planes, just as there can be humans or elks or aboleths or snakes on the outer planes. But in Pathfinder, formians are monstrous humanoids. Those on Axis might have the Extraplanar trait when visiting the Material Plane, or might even be axiomatic creatures... but they're as detailed in Bestiary 4 as an example.
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Creative Director
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I'm interested in the notion of a soul's destiny when it comes to Pharasma; more specifically, I'm confused how there can be a deity of Fate and Prophecy when prophecies don't come true on Golarion after Aroden's death. Do prophecies not come true, but it's because they misread an existing Fate? How does that interact with divination spells like augury that are supposed to tell the future (or a portion of it)?
Fate and Prophecy are different things.
Basically, fate is your destiny, where as prophecy is a story about your destiny.
Fate is fact. Prophecy is metaphor.
The fact that prophecy can no longer be trusted on Golarion is not the same as "ALL PROPHECIES NEVER WORK." Some can still work.
But prophecies as a story construction, in our opinion, are cliched and we avoid using them in our publications in the same way you see them show up all the time in non-interactive fantasy stories.
Atheist who really hates Desna.
How can one hate something that does not exist?
I have a question about a particular mechanic in the Hell's Rebels module. In the Players Guide, under the 'Team' definition on page 23, it states that "in the space for 'Bonus', record the manager's Charisma bonus (minimum of +0); the team modifies all Organization checks made when taking a rebellion action using this bonus".
My question is: does the Charisma bonus apply to ALL subsequent Organization checks, or only the ones that that particular Team unlocks for the Ravens? If, for example, my resident Cha 18 Bard manages 4 teams, would that give my Rebellion a +16 to all Organization checks? Because that would make almost every single action a non-issue, removing a major source of tension to an otherwise fun subsystem.
I bring this up because one of my players brought this to my attention, and I house-ruled that the Bonus only applies to the specific actions. It's just not delineated clearly in the Players Guide.
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Creative Director
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I have a question about a particular mechanic in the Hell's Rebels module. In the Players Guide, under the 'Team' definition on page 23, it states that "in the space for 'Bonus', record the manager's Charisma bonus (minimum of +0); the team modifies all Organization checks made when taking a rebellion action using this bonus".
My question is: does the Charisma bonus apply to ALL subsequent Organization checks, or only the ones that that particular Team unlocks for the Ravens? If, for example, my resident Cha 18 Bard manages 4 teams, would that give my Rebellion a +16 to all Organization checks? Because that would make almost every single action a non-issue, removing a major source of tension to an otherwise fun subsystem.
I bring this up because one of my players brought this to my attention, and I house-ruled that the Bonus only applies to the specific actions. It's just not delineated clearly in the Players Guide.
If your bard manages four teams, each team gains your +4 Charisma bonus to any Organization checks they makes; these bonuses don't stack with each other by having multiple teams under the same manager.
Being able to manage multiple teams isn't a way to get higher bonuses. It's merely a way to handle multiple teams.
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Creative Director
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If you were going to make another mythic adventure path right now, where would you set it and why? It should be noted that I am not asking where you will set the next mythic adventure, I just want to know what you would enjoy.
I wouldn't really enjoy developing another mythic adventure path at this point, so there's not a region I would set one in.
Even if I were to do a "Test of the Starstone" adventure path... I'd avoid making it a mythic AP if I could at this point.
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If you were going to make another mythic adventure path right now, where would you set it and why? It should be noted that I am not asking where you will set the next mythic adventure, I just want to know what you would enjoy.I wouldn't really enjoy developing another mythic adventure path at this point, so there's not a region I would set one in.
Even if I were to do a "Test of the Starstone" adventure path... I'd avoid making it a mythic AP if I could at this point.
What was it about mythic that you didn't enjoy?
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Creative Director
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What was it about mythic that you didn't enjoy?If you were going to make another mythic adventure path right now, where would you set it and why? It should be noted that I am not asking where you will set the next mythic adventure, I just want to know what you would enjoy.I wouldn't really enjoy developing another mythic adventure path at this point, so there's not a region I would set one in.
Even if I were to do a "Test of the Starstone" adventure path... I'd avoid making it a mythic AP if I could at this point.
The customer backlash against it.
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That's so strange that people would object to something that's different and optional. Now that I think about it I guess I am not that surprised. But, thank you for coming up with such a cool and different set of rules. It really adds a great flavor to your world. I find it fun.
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1. Suppose I were to be warped through time and space to Golarion circa 4708 AR, without even the clothes on my back or knowledge of Taldane. Where would be the safest place in the Inner Sea region I can end up? (I'm guessing Almas.)1) Depends entirely who you are, what your race is, what your gender is, what your personality is. For me, it'd be Sandpoint. For you, who knows. I don't know you, but if you feel that Almas works for you... there ya go.
How is Sandpoint safer than Almas? It's on the border between two feuding runelords (who are quite due to wake up), within groping distance of another (who's also due), frequently attacked by goblins, built over an ancient evil temple, and worst of all doesn't even have a sewer system.
Any hope for a Paladin sourcebook anytime soon? In the vein of the old: "Complete (insert here)'s Handbook"
Didn't they already cover this in the Player's Companion books: Champions of Purity and Champions of Balance? (There's also Champions of Corruption, but I think that strays away from true Paladins.)
Those are my go to for Paladin flavor.
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The customer backlash against it.What was it about mythic that you didn't enjoy?If you were going to make another mythic adventure path right now, where would you set it and why? It should be noted that I am not asking where you will set the next mythic adventure, I just want to know what you would enjoy.I wouldn't really enjoy developing another mythic adventure path at this point, so there's not a region I would set one in.
Even if I were to do a "Test of the Starstone" adventure path... I'd avoid making it a mythic AP if I could at this point.
Which is a shame, since I think Mythic is the coolest thing added to Pathfinder since the APG. I always want more high level or mythic content.
Who's your favorite companion in Fallout 4?
I'm hung up between Dogmeat, Codsworth, and Piper...