BreakinStuff |
The Minis Maniac wrote:James I'm a GM and I discourage my PCs from picking certain monster races as PCs by telling them that society is likely to take issue with them. For example Sure you might be a nice drow but all the drow that have been heard of have been demon worshipping psychopaths. You enter that village and you're going to attract the attention of the guards. Who are constantly going to watch your every move at best and try and kill you at worst. I mean in a fantasy setting people generally don't care if your a good troll if every other troll they've heard of eats people. Is this fair?It's ABSOLUTELY fair. The game works best when it's in a setting the GM is passionate about.
So much James'answer. So very much James' answer. Cannot agree enough.
That being said, James, have you ever played in or run a campaign where a player ran a monster race in memorable (the good kind of memorable) fashion?
What was the most fun?
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs wrote:The Minis Maniac wrote:James I'm a GM and I discourage my PCs from picking certain monster races as PCs by telling them that society is likely to take issue with them. For example Sure you might be a nice drow but all the drow that have been heard of have been demon worshipping psychopaths. You enter that village and you're going to attract the attention of the guards. Who are constantly going to watch your every move at best and try and kill you at worst. I mean in a fantasy setting people generally don't care if your a good troll if every other troll they've heard of eats people. Is this fair?It's ABSOLUTELY fair. The game works best when it's in a setting the GM is passionate about.So much James'answer. So very much James' answer. Cannot agree enough.
That being said, James, have you ever played in or run a campaign where a player ran a monster race in memorable (the good kind of memorable) fashion?
What was the most fun?
Yes. It can be VERY fun if the campaign is appropriate. For example, I'm currently playing a tiefling in a Hell's Vengeance game. And I once played a drow in a Forgotten Realms game. In both cases, the GM was ready and able to fit that into the game in a fun way that made it workable without making it lame. In another game, Mike McArtor ran a monster PC game where the humans were the bad guys and the players got to choose ANY monster using the rules in Savage Species. I played an awakened deinonychus, but other players were things ranging from ogre magi to gold dragons to air elementals. It was a weird sort of experiment and the campaign self-destructed after a few months, in part due to the irreconcilable differences in power and ability between the various races.
Kavren Stark |
TSR... fragmented the player base with so many settings (Mystara, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Planescape, Birthright, some others I'm forgetting).
The ones she was forgetting were Ravenloft, Lankhmar, Council of Wyrms, and the non-European-flavored sub-settings within Forgotten Realms, Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, and Maztica.
And my question is, of the subset of those fourteen AD&D 2E settings with which you have at least a passing familiarity, which were your favorite(s) and least favorite(s), and what did you like/dislike about them?
James Jacobs Creative Director |
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AlgaeNymph wrote:TSR... fragmented the player base with so many settings (Mystara, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Planescape, Birthright, some others I'm forgetting).The ones she was forgetting were Ravenloft, Lankhmar, Council of Wyrms, and the non-European-flavored sub-settings within Forgotten Realms, Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, and Maztica.
And my question is, of the subset of those fourteen AD&D 2E settings with which you have at least a passing familiarity, which were your favorite(s) and least favorite(s), and what did you like/dislike about them?
There were, of course, even more settings than that. Jakandor, for example, or Ghostwalk are two that come to mind.
Favorite: Greyhawk, because it had the best representation of the type of game I enjoyed playing and running PLUS an excellent focus on demons and demonic stuff PLUS all the original adventures were set there so it increasingly felt like home.
Least Favorite: Spelljammer, due to the goofy jokes that the designers wrote into the setting. Made it feel like the designers were poking fun at the game and thus poking fun at me, someone who enjoyed the game.
Kavren Stark |
Can you come up with anything positive to say about Maztica?
How about, "At least they tried?" I don't think anyone had published a setting based on precolonial American civilizations before that, which considering the richness of their culture and mythology seems rather sad.
Mashallah wrote:A demon-worshipper using infernal healing doesn't feel right.Perhaps not, but clerics always have the option to prepare healing spells or use wands/scrolls etc.
I would think the reaction of the average demon-worshiping cleric to complaints about their relative lack of healing abilities would be something along the lines of "Bah! Healing magic is for the weak!" Does that sound about right to you?
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs Creative Director |
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I would think the reaction of the average demon-worshiping cleric to complaints about their relative lack of healing abilities would be something along the lines of "Bah! Healing magic is for the weak!" Does that sound about right to you?
Works for some, not for others. For example, a worshiper of Nocticula might say "Healing magic is for minions you charm or dominate as your slaves," while a worshiper of Zura or Kabriri might say "I don't need healing magic since I'm a ghoul or a vampire or whatever."
James Jacobs Creative Director |
Nightdrifter |
Nightdrifter wrote:Are you familiar with the term Samsquanch?
Unrelated: I assume the disappearance of Golarion in Starfinder is its big mystery equivalent of Aroden's death. Are those big mysteries related? Ie. if we understood how Aroden died would that then make it clear why the gods whisked away the planet in Starfinder?
Nope.
I'm not really involved with Starfinder, but I would really REALLY prefer that the Starfinder team NOT tie Golarion's disappearance to Aroden at all.
The term is from Trailer Park Boys. Anyways, any good documentaries on the subject of samsquanches sasquatches you'd recommend?
Mashallah |
Kavren Stark wrote:I would think the reaction of the average demon-worshiping cleric to complaints about their relative lack of healing abilities would be something along the lines of "Bah! Healing magic is for the weak!" Does that sound about right to you?Works for some, not for others. For example, a worshiper of Nocticula might say "Healing magic is for minions you charm or dominate as your slaves," while a worshiper of Zura or Kabriri might say "I don't need healing magic since I'm a ghoul or a vampire or whatever."
Speaking of Nocticula.
Since she can be venerated as a CN goddess of artists, outcasts, and the night, and actually gives spells to such followers, is a CG Cleric of Nocticula possible?I understand it would be absolutely heretical, but it does look possible to me at a glance.
Voyd211 |
James Jacobs wrote:Kavren Stark wrote:I would think the reaction of the average demon-worshiping cleric to complaints about their relative lack of healing abilities would be something along the lines of "Bah! Healing magic is for the weak!" Does that sound about right to you?Works for some, not for others. For example, a worshiper of Nocticula might say "Healing magic is for minions you charm or dominate as your slaves," while a worshiper of Zura or Kabriri might say "I don't need healing magic since I'm a ghoul or a vampire or whatever."Speaking of Nocticula.
Since she can be venerated as a CN goddess of artists, outcasts, and the night, and actually gives spells to such followers, is a CG Cleric of Nocticula possible?
I understand it would be absolutely heretical, but it does look possible to me at a glance.
Oi... Spoilers, mate.
Anywho, what were your contributions, if any, to Bestiary 5? I think my favorite thing from that book is the deep one hybrid. Shadow over Innsmouth is one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, second only to Dream-Quest.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs wrote:The term is from Trailer Park Boys. Anyways, any good documentaries on the subject ofNightdrifter wrote:Are you familiar with the term Samsquanch?
Unrelated: I assume the disappearance of Golarion in Starfinder is its big mystery equivalent of Aroden's death. Are those big mysteries related? Ie. if we understood how Aroden died would that then make it clear why the gods whisked away the planet in Starfinder?
Nope.
I'm not really involved with Starfinder, but I would really REALLY prefer that the Starfinder team NOT tie Golarion's disappearance to Aroden at all.
samsquanchessasquatches you'd recommend?
I've never heard of Trailer Park Boys so that explains that.
Best sasquatch documentary? "Legend of Boggy Creek."
James Jacobs Creative Director |
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James Jacobs wrote:Kavren Stark wrote:I would think the reaction of the average demon-worshiping cleric to complaints about their relative lack of healing abilities would be something along the lines of "Bah! Healing magic is for the weak!" Does that sound about right to you?Works for some, not for others. For example, a worshiper of Nocticula might say "Healing magic is for minions you charm or dominate as your slaves," while a worshiper of Zura or Kabriri might say "I don't need healing magic since I'm a ghoul or a vampire or whatever."Speaking of Nocticula.
Since she can be venerated as a CN goddess of artists, outcasts, and the night, and actually gives spells to such followers, is a CG Cleric of Nocticula possible?
I understand it would be absolutely heretical, but it does look possible to me at a glance.
Nocticula is Chaotic Evil, and that means she accepts clerics who are chaotic evil or very rarely chaotic neutral or neutral evil. In order for you to be a chaotic good worshiper of Nocticula, she must first rise from her demonic nature and become chaotic neutral. A cleric must be within one alignment step of her DEITY, not within one alignment step of her deity's most heretical worshiper.
(Personally, I wish clerics had to be the exact alignment of their deity.)
Being a chaotic good worshiper of Nocticula is beyond heretical. It's madness. You would gain no cleric abilities from such worship and you would either eventually drift to chaotic evil and/or end up going to the Abyss in your afterlife to be tormented forever.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
5 people marked this as a favorite. |
James Jacobs wrote:But not MANY more. A blase/eager spellcaster might switch alignments with only 1 or 2 castings, but a regretful one would probably take 3 or 4.So, does this mean the reverse is true? Would casting Celestial Healing push a character's alignment towards good?
No. It's harder to be good than evil.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
Mashallah wrote:James Jacobs wrote:Kavren Stark wrote:I would think the reaction of the average demon-worshiping cleric to complaints about their relative lack of healing abilities would be something along the lines of "Bah! Healing magic is for the weak!" Does that sound about right to you?Works for some, not for others. For example, a worshiper of Nocticula might say "Healing magic is for minions you charm or dominate as your slaves," while a worshiper of Zura or Kabriri might say "I don't need healing magic since I'm a ghoul or a vampire or whatever."Speaking of Nocticula.
Since she can be venerated as a CN goddess of artists, outcasts, and the night, and actually gives spells to such followers, is a CG Cleric of Nocticula possible?
I understand it would be absolutely heretical, but it does look possible to me at a glance.Oi... Spoilers, mate.
Anywho, what were your contributions, if any, to Bestiary 5? I think my favorite thing from that book is the deep one hybrid. Shadow over Innsmouth is one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, second only to Dream-Quest.
Not REALLY a spoiler, actually. Nothing was said in context.
The only things I did for Bestiary 5 were the three deep ones, the four dinosaurs, and the Leng ghoul. Glad you liked the hybrid! It's sort of based on one of the PC races for my "Unspeakable Futures" game.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
Are "old-school" curses where you have to puzzle out the circumstances that would break it from the vague wording and stuff hard to do in Pathfinder?
Nope. No more than, say, a haunt. They're just not things that we often do in the game, since we tend to handle curses a different way.
Lorewalker |
Disk Elemental wrote:No. It's harder to be good than evil.James Jacobs wrote:But not MANY more. A blase/eager spellcaster might switch alignments with only 1 or 2 castings, but a regretful one would probably take 3 or 4.So, does this mean the reverse is true? Would casting Celestial Healing push a character's alignment towards good?
So positive energy is less powerful than negative energy?
James Jacobs Creative Director |
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James Jacobs wrote:So positive energy is less powerful than negative energy?Disk Elemental wrote:No. It's harder to be good than evil.James Jacobs wrote:But not MANY more. A blase/eager spellcaster might switch alignments with only 1 or 2 castings, but a regretful one would probably take 3 or 4.So, does this mean the reverse is true? Would casting Celestial Healing push a character's alignment towards good?
Positive energy and negative energy are neither good nor evil—they are associated with good or evil as a result of the nature of undeath, but the energies themselves are unaligned, and thus saying "it's harder to be good than evil" has no bearing on the power of positive energy versus negative energy.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
I know that most deep ones and hybrids worship their elders or the Outer Gods/Great Old Ones, but are there any that worship Dagon? And I mean the ACTUAL Dagon, not the elder deep one stealing his name.
Because, you know, Innsmouth.
The Innsmouth deep one hybrids do indeed worship the elder deep one named Dagon, if you're applying Pathfinder characters and lore to Lovecraft's writings in that way.
There could indeed be deep ones who worship demon lord Dagon though.
Mashallah |
Mashallah wrote:James Jacobs wrote:Kavren Stark wrote:I would think the reaction of the average demon-worshiping cleric to complaints about their relative lack of healing abilities would be something along the lines of "Bah! Healing magic is for the weak!" Does that sound about right to you?Works for some, not for others. For example, a worshiper of Nocticula might say "Healing magic is for minions you charm or dominate as your slaves," while a worshiper of Zura or Kabriri might say "I don't need healing magic since I'm a ghoul or a vampire or whatever."Speaking of Nocticula.
Since she can be venerated as a CN goddess of artists, outcasts, and the night, and actually gives spells to such followers, is a CG Cleric of Nocticula possible?
I understand it would be absolutely heretical, but it does look possible to me at a glance.Nocticula is Chaotic Evil, and that means she accepts clerics who are chaotic evil or very rarely chaotic neutral or neutral evil. In order for you to be a chaotic good worshiper of Nocticula, she must first rise from her demonic nature and become chaotic neutral. A cleric must be within one alignment step of her DEITY, not within one alignment step of her deity's most heretical worshiper.
(Personally, I wish clerics had to be the exact alignment of their deity.)
Being a chaotic good worshiper of Nocticula is beyond heretical. It's madness. You would gain no cleric abilities from such worship and you would either eventually drift to chaotic evil and/or end up going to the Abyss in your afterlife to be tormented forever.
What about that one trait which allows treating Asmodeus as LN for purposes of worship and, by extent, even LG Paladins of Asmodeus? Shouldn't this be quite similar?
James Jacobs Creative Director |
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James Jacobs wrote:What about that one trait which allows treating Asmodeus as LN for purposes of worship and, by extent, even LG Paladins of Asmodeus? Shouldn't this be quite similar?Mashallah wrote:James Jacobs wrote:Kavren Stark wrote:I would think the reaction of the average demon-worshiping cleric to complaints about their relative lack of healing abilities would be something along the lines of "Bah! Healing magic is for the weak!" Does that sound about right to you?Works for some, not for others. For example, a worshiper of Nocticula might say "Healing magic is for minions you charm or dominate as your slaves," while a worshiper of Zura or Kabriri might say "I don't need healing magic since I'm a ghoul or a vampire or whatever."Speaking of Nocticula.
Since she can be venerated as a CN goddess of artists, outcasts, and the night, and actually gives spells to such followers, is a CG Cleric of Nocticula possible?
I understand it would be absolutely heretical, but it does look possible to me at a glance.Nocticula is Chaotic Evil, and that means she accepts clerics who are chaotic evil or very rarely chaotic neutral or neutral evil. In order for you to be a chaotic good worshiper of Nocticula, she must first rise from her demonic nature and become chaotic neutral. A cleric must be within one alignment step of her DEITY, not within one alignment step of her deity's most heretical worshiper.
(Personally, I wish clerics had to be the exact alignment of their deity.)
Being a chaotic good worshiper of Nocticula is beyond heretical. It's madness. You would gain no cleric abilities from such worship and you would either eventually drift to chaotic evil and/or end up going to the Abyss in your afterlife to be tormented forever.
That trait was not written to allow LG paladins of Asmodeus. That is a misinterpretation of the trait's rules that came about as a result of some unfortunate wording in the trait's language.
You cannot be a paladin of Asmodeus. There is no such thing.
Purple Dragon Knight |
Disk Elemental wrote:No. It's harder to be good than evil.James Jacobs wrote:But not MANY more. A blase/eager spellcaster might switch alignments with only 1 or 2 castings, but a regretful one would probably take 3 or 4.So, does this mean the reverse is true? Would casting Celestial Healing push a character's alignment towards good?
Yes, I always thought the plight of the bad man always rang a bit hollow... :)
Are you familiar with the Star Wars d20 RPG (came out around 2002 or 2003 I think) and the way they deal with alignment change? (i.e. going to the Dark Side and how much harder it is to come back to the Light Side)
Mashallah |
Mashallah wrote:That trait was not written to allow LG paladins of Asmodeus. That is a misinterpretation of the trait's rules that came about as a result of some unfortunate wording in the trait's...James Jacobs wrote:What about that one trait which allows treating Asmodeus as LN for purposes of worship and, by extent, even LG Paladins of Asmodeus? Shouldn't this be quite similar?Mashallah wrote:James Jacobs wrote:Kavren Stark wrote:I would think the reaction of the average demon-worshiping cleric to complaints about their relative lack of healing abilities would be something along the lines of "Bah! Healing magic is for the weak!" Does that sound about right to you?Works for some, not for others. For example, a worshiper of Nocticula might say "Healing magic is for minions you charm or dominate as your slaves," while a worshiper of Zura or Kabriri might say "I don't need healing magic since I'm a ghoul or a vampire or whatever."Speaking of Nocticula.
Since she can be venerated as a CN goddess of artists, outcasts, and the night, and actually gives spells to such followers, is a CG Cleric of Nocticula possible?
I understand it would be absolutely heretical, but it does look possible to me at a glance.Nocticula is Chaotic Evil, and that means she accepts clerics who are chaotic evil or very rarely chaotic neutral or neutral evil. In order for you to be a chaotic good worshiper of Nocticula, she must first rise from her demonic nature and become chaotic neutral. A cleric must be within one alignment step of her DEITY, not within one alignment step of her deity's most heretical worshiper.
(Personally, I wish clerics had to be the exact alignment of their deity.)
Being a chaotic good worshiper of Nocticula is beyond heretical. It's madness. You would gain no cleric abilities from such worship and you would either eventually drift to chaotic evil and/or end up going to the Abyss in your afterlife to be tormented forever.
What the hell else can it mean? It's pretty damn clear, no ambiguity here:
You may treat Asmodeus as if he were a lawful neutral deity for the purposes of determining your own alignment as a cleric , inquisitor , or other divine spellcaster. You may not select the evil domain unless your own alignment also contains an evil aspect.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
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James Jacobs wrote:...Mashallah wrote:That trait was not written to allow LG paladins of Asmodeus. That is a misinterpretation of the trait's rules that came about as a result of someJames Jacobs wrote:What about that one trait which allows treating Asmodeus as LN for purposes of worship and, by extent, even LG Paladins of Asmodeus? Shouldn't this be quite similar?Mashallah wrote:James Jacobs wrote:Kavren Stark wrote:I would think the reaction of the average demon-worshiping cleric to complaints about their relative lack of healing abilities would be something along the lines of "Bah! Healing magic is for the weak!" Does that sound about right to you?Works for some, not for others. For example, a worshiper of Nocticula might say "Healing magic is for minions you charm or dominate as your slaves," while a worshiper of Zura or Kabriri might say "I don't need healing magic since I'm a ghoul or a vampire or whatever."Speaking of Nocticula.
Since she can be venerated as a CN goddess of artists, outcasts, and the night, and actually gives spells to such followers, is a CG Cleric of Nocticula possible?
I understand it would be absolutely heretical, but it does look possible to me at a glance.Nocticula is Chaotic Evil, and that means she accepts clerics who are chaotic evil or very rarely chaotic neutral or neutral evil. In order for you to be a chaotic good worshiper of Nocticula, she must first rise from her demonic nature and become chaotic neutral. A cleric must be within one alignment step of her DEITY, not within one alignment step of her deity's most heretical worshiper.
(Personally, I wish clerics had to be the exact alignment of their deity.)
Being a chaotic good worshiper of Nocticula is beyond heretical. It's madness. You would gain no cleric abilities from such worship and you would either eventually drift to chaotic evil and/or end up going to the Abyss in your afterlife to be tormented forever.
Then I wish we never wrote the trait at all in the first place. Consider it cut from the game as far as Paizo's creative director cares.
Paladins of Asmodeus is a TERRIBLE idea.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs wrote:Disk Elemental wrote:No. It's harder to be good than evil.James Jacobs wrote:But not MANY more. A blase/eager spellcaster might switch alignments with only 1 or 2 castings, but a regretful one would probably take 3 or 4.So, does this mean the reverse is true? Would casting Celestial Healing push a character's alignment towards good?Yes, I always thought the plight of the bad man always rang a bit hollow... :)
Are you familiar with the Star Wars d20 RPG (came out around 2002 or 2003 I think) and the way they deal with alignment change? (i.e. going to the Dark Side and how much harder it is to come back to the Light Side)
I'm vaguely familiar with it.
I didn't initially use alignment in my "Unspeakable Futures" game and in all the campaigns I ran with it, PCs end up being, in effect, chaotic neutral. Which is kinda lame. RPGs benefit from having something like alignment in the game.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
I like that idea for in-character, but out of character, for telling my players which races they can select from. And stuff like that. Not trying to be difficult, sorry. But could you give a different suggestion? If not that's okay, I'll just come up with one myself.
I actually quite like the name "deep one hybrid" to be honest... it's why I've used it in "Unspeakable Futures" for over a decade. Any name I can think of to replace it feels lesser and false to me. So I can't help you, really.
Purple Dragon Knight |
I didn't initially use alignment in my "Unspeakable Futures" game and in all the campaigns I ran with it, PCs end up being, in effect, chaotic neutral. Which is kinda lame. RPGs benefit from having something like alignment in the game.
I'm having the same problems with my group. Everyone wants the lazy CN alignment. So in a homecampaign I just started, I went ahead and did the unspeakable thing: forced an 'any good' criteria during character creation.
I'm still getting flak for it every time I go online to manage the campaign boards...
So for those campaigns who are CN, what do you recommend? should a GM really ramp up the authorities going after these guys to sorta give them a sense that everything has a price in life? (and thus 'doing whatever you like' can hit you in the nose once in a while...)
Luthorne |
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What the hell else can it mean? It's pretty damn clear, no ambiguity here:
Quote:You may treat Asmodeus as if he were a lawful neutral deity for the purposes of determining your own alignment as a cleric , inquisitor , or other divine spellcaster. You may not select the evil domain unless your own alignment also contains an evil aspect.
You might want to see what F. Wesley Schneider and Crystal Fraiser said about that.
Back to actual James Jacobs questions...
1) Are you looking forward to trying out Starfinder?
2) In the most general of terms, what - if anything - did you work on for Horror Adventures?
3) Do cyclops have depth perception, despite only having one eye?
Kavren Stark |
Given that there are no current plans to do another Mythic AP, which AP(s) other than Wrath of the Righteous would make most sense for a GM who owns Mythic Adventures and wants to get more use out of it to adapt into a mythic quest?
Since I know you won't recommend non-Paizo products here, I'll go ahead and mention a couple myself for other readers interested in this question: EN Publishing's War of the Burning Sky and Zeitgeist APs both take a party to level 20 and feature threats that will literally end the world if the PCs fail, and Mongoose Publishing's The Drow War would practically require Mythic Adventures in order to adapt to PFRPG, since it goes to level 30 using the 3rd Edition Epic Level Handbook rules. Paizo's three Dungeon Magazine APs, The Shackled City, Age of Worms, and The Savage Tide, also go to level 20 and feature suitably mythic threats (I noted certain parallels between The Savage Tide and Wrath of the Righteous, such as the respective roles of Malcanthet and Nocticula).
James Jacobs Creative Director |
So for those campaigns who are CN, what do you recommend? should a GM really ramp up the authorities going after these guys to sorta give them a sense that everything has a price in life? (and thus 'doing whatever you like' can hit you in the nose once in a while...)
If the CN party is not being disruptive to the storyline, then just roll with it. If the CN party IS being disruptive, you should have let the players know before the campaign began that this kind of behavior wouldn't mesh with the game you want to run, but if it's too late for that, talk to the players and ask them if they really want to play the game you've set up. If they really do, then they'll adjust their play style to match the campaign's expectation. If they don't, then you can either rebuild the current campaign to mesh with their play style or end the campaign and start a new one more in sync with the players' expectations. In either of those cases, asking the players to give you a few weeks off from running the game to get things re-set is hardly asking too much.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
1) Are you looking forward to trying out Starfinder?
2) In the most general of terms, what - if anything - did you work on for Horror Adventures?
3) Do cyclops have depth perception, despite only having one eye?
1) Not sure I'll have time to do much at all with Starfinder.
2) I built pages 252-253—the list of horrific inspirations that folks can read or watch to get inspired to run horror adventures. Had pretty much nothing to do with the actual contents of the book.
3) They do not have depth perception; you need 2 eyes for that. It's biology.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
Given that there are no current plans to do another Mythic AP, which AP(s) other than Wrath of the Righteous would make most sense for a GM who owns Mythic Adventures and wants to get more use out of it to adapt into a mythic quest?
Since I know you won't recommend non-Paizo products here, I'll go ahead and mention a couple myself for other readers interested in this question: EN Publishing's War of the Burning Sky and Zeitgeist APs both take a party to level 20 and feature threats that will literally end the world if the PCs fail, and Mongoose Publishing's The Drow War would practically require Mythic Adventures in order to adapt to PFRPG, since it goes to level 30 using the 3rd Edition Epic Level Handbook rules. Paizo's three Dungeon Magazine APs, The Shackled City, Age of Worms, and The Savage Tide, also go to level 20 and feature suitably mythic threats (I noted certain parallels between The Savage Tide and Wrath of the Righteous, such as the respective roles of Malcanthet and Nocticula).
Any AP could potentially work for a Mythic Game, because we try to choose huge and epic storylines for ALL of our adventure paths.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
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Why do none of the Pathfinder APs go to 20th when the Paizo D&D APs did?
Because the format we settled on for Pathfinder APs—six part adventures that are about 50 pages long each—does not allow enough XP to get handed out over the course of those 300 pages to reach 20th level.
In order to do a 1st to 20th level campaign, we'd need to do one of the following 4 things:
1) Have an AP that lasts more than 6 parts. (We won't do this because the 6 part format is a HUGE strength of the brand—it means that if a customer isn't interested in one AP, they don't have to wait a year for the next one, and also this allows us to launch every other AP at Gen Con more or less).
2) Have an AP that has adventures longer than 50 pages. (This is physically impossible to do while continuing to work on a 1 month schedule—the size of the APs you see in print now are at the upper end of what a developer can handle in a year while keeping the volumes on a monthly schedule, because it takes more than a month to outline and develop and edit a single adventure.
3) Give out inflated XP awards. (This realllllllly REALLY angries people up. I've done it before, and folks hate it. So it's a terrible idea.)
4) Hard mode. (Build an AP that assumes the PCs will be pushed to their limits, with no easy encounters and frequent encounters that will really test your skill. We did this with Wrath of the Righteous and justified it because the PCs were mythic. We MIGHT some day try one where you aren't mythic and, perhaps, go in with eyes open that your PCs might not make it to the end... but that flies in the face of common sense and the simple fact that playing a character from the start to the end is what's so fun about APs.)
There is, in theory, a 5th option—build a "faster than fast" XP track. In fact, 3rd edition had this—part of the reason why the Dungeon Magazine APs went to 20 is that they had more room and ran for 12 parts but ALSO you needed fewer encounters overall to reach 20th level in 3.5 than you do in Pathfinder, even on the Fast XP track.
A 6th option—start the PCs at higher than 1st level—is a bad choice as well, because in order to end at 20th level, we'd have to start the AP at like 8th or 9th level, due to the fact that high level adventures are FAR less efficient at word counts due to the size of stat blocks and the increased complexity of the adventures themselves having to account for so many more PC options. And skipping out on half the levels is a worse situation than skipping out on 3, which is what we do currently.