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So I just discovered this amazingly awesome webcomic that apparently has been running since 2012, but I had never seen it before and just binge-read the whole thing...
Have you read/seen it before? WERE YOU HIDING THIS COMIC FROM ME?!?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Tacticslion wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:
What's your favorite part of Into the Darklands that Greg added. :-)
Hmmm... a LOT of options to choose from there, and it's been about a decade since we worked on it so I'm not 100% sure what parts were his or mine now. I believe he did the majority of the work on Nar-Voth though, and of those regions, I think I like the Court of Ether the best, since it's new and not a thematic inheritance from D&D.

As I was about to ask you about this exact thing before noticing. You mentioned it...

So: the court of ether. Would you tell me everything? :D
(And if not, would you please share any tidbits you find interesting and/or direct me to the proper AMA thread?

I won't tell you everything since there's not much more to tell at this point. What's in Into the Darklands is more or less it as far as my thoughts at this point. The adventure "Down the Blighted Path" has more info I think but I'm not sure. I suggested incorporating some Court of Ether elements into that adventure but I wasn't the one who developed it... still, might wanna check it out for more info?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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captain yesterday wrote:

What class and what mythic path did Savith take, at least in your head. :-)

Or is that something you haven't really thought of. :-)

At any rate, enjoy your retirement. :-)

Guardian, probably.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Tacticslion wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Ed Reppert wrote:
Have you read Time Enough for Love?

Nope. Never heard of it.

A glance at amazon.com tells me a little more, including that it's a Heinlein book, which explains why I've never heard of it. I've never read any of his books, and don't intend to anytime soon, if ever, since I've got more than enough books that I own TODAY that I probably couldn't finish reading them all before I died.

If I quit/get fired/become jobless and don't have to worry about income and can resist watching movies/playing video games/writing my own books enough, I'll of course read more novels and stories, but even then... chances are slim.

Okay. So this one implies the inference in the above to be a humorous aside. Yes?

('Cause I have no way of knowing how to react exatly if you're actually looking at retirement. You e done so much for this game... thank you, even and especially if you're not retiring, yet.)

((Incidentally, was this a reference either to Strange Aeons, Starfinder, or something else?))

I'm not actually looking at retirement at this time, no... but starting my 13th year at Paizo has put some things in perspective for me.

It wasn't a reference to anything in particular.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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137ben wrote:

So I just discovered this amazingly awesome webcomic that apparently has been running since 2012, but I had never seen it before and just binge-read the whole thing...

Have you read/seen it before? WERE YOU HIDING THIS COMIC FROM ME?!?

Never heard of it. But then again... I don't do webcomics really.


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What led to the decision to use Dahak over Tiamat as Golarion's evil dragon god of evil dragons?

What's your favorite non-core Golarion deity?

Grand Lodge

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1. What is the difference in Philosophy between Rovagug, Dahak, and the Daemons? Are there differences just a matter of wanting to be the last things standing?

2. Do you like to play as any small races? Which ones?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

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Do you ever get the wrong lyrics for a song stuck in your head? And if so, the funniest or most recent you can remember? Today's song is Mr. Mastodon Farm with lacedon replacing the Ice Age pachyderm...

Silver Crusade

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Is there any monster art Paizo has published which change your opinion of what a monster looked like because the art was superior to your imagination?

Sovereign Court

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James Jacobs wrote:
TheAlicornSage wrote:

Are there any brothels in Golarion that make use of Sheets of Nymph Summoning, or similar?

I heard about this happening in a game, the PC made the item then used it to make money. Creepy but funny.

First I've ever heard of "Sheets of Nymph Summoning." Sounds like something some GM made up for his homebrew game.

That said, there are brothels in Golarion, and there is magic in Golarion, so absolutely there are brothels that use magic in Golarion. That type of thing isn't something we cover in print though, due to the fact that sex gets people all weirded out here in the USA, so that element is left to each individual GM's style to add or not to their game as they see fit.

How do you reckon the nymph feels about this magic item?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Belltrap wrote:

What led to the decision to use Dahak over Tiamat as Golarion's evil dragon god of evil dragons?

What's your favorite non-core Golarion deity?

Tiamat answer below...

Spoiler:
The version of Tiamat that gamers know most is D&D's version—a five-headed chromatic dragon. She was a significant villain in the D&D cartoon in the early eighties, and the same design was the primary bad god in Dragonlance, arguably D&D's most well-known setting from a mass market view. Now, of course, Tiamat is a mythological figure, and as such we COULD have gone with her as a dragon deity (and in fact, in early Pathfinder products before we actually had our own game, we DID mention her now and then), but what we couldn't do was present her as a five-headed dragon that combines the five chromatic dragon types and keep her as a lawful evil ruler of Hell. THAT version of Tiamat is the intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast, and is thus off-limits to other companies. It is NOT off limits to home games, so if a GM wants to use that version of Tiamat in their game, they absolutely can. But if we went ahead and put Tiamat in our game in greater detail than what we've done so far, we would have to develop her in an entirely different matter—she could still be a dragon goddess, but that's about it. She'd be otherwise unrecognizable to the millions of fans out there who would want Tiamat in their game, and thus she'd be disappointing to those millions of fans. Furthermore, once we "canonized" her in this way, many GMs would not feel comfortable changing her in their game to resemble the 5-headed version. In effect, for many gamers, us doing our own version of Tiamat, even if it was closer to her mythological source, would ruin her for their game.

By instead going with Dahak, we avoid all of that. Dahak is from the same myth patterns as Tiamat, and so we retain a lot of that real-world crossover/inspiration, but also with no significant D&D baggage attached to the name, we can do what we want with the deity and develop it as makes sense for Golarion and Golarion's cosmology. And if folks do still want Tiamat in their games, they can do so without fears of going against written canon, which for some GMs is a significant barrier.

This is also why we've not done anything with Demogorgon, by the way.

Hard to choose a favorite deity from any list, since I made up so many of them... but recently, my favorite non-core deity is probably Nocticula, particularly in the ramifications of what happens if she rises up to chaotic neutral.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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IDTheftVictim wrote:

1. What is the difference in Philosophy between Rovagug, Dahak, and the Daemons? Are there differences just a matter of wanting to be the last things standing?

2. Do you like to play as any small races? Which ones?

1) Rovagug is about destroying the Material Plane and restoring reality to the qlippoth-only state it was long, long ago. Dahak is just about destruction on a micro-scale; he doesn't want to destroy worlds since he wants there to be more stuff to destroy; he's more about the cycle of eternal destruction. The Daemons are only interested in destroying life, and the act of death and eating souls. They don't care too much about the stuff left over.

2) Yup; halflings first, then gnomes.


I'm curious about mercenary companies (specific, named ones) in the River Kingdoms and Brevoy areas. Do you know any other than the Bloodstone Swords? Similarly, any that might be interested from Galt or northern Taldor or similarly nearby regions? I ask for our Kingmaker game - while we can use (and plan on using) the generic stats, we like tying things to Golarion lore. Thanks!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:
Do you ever get the wrong lyrics for a song stuck in your head? And if so, the funniest or most recent you can remember? Today's song is Mr. Mastodon Farm with lacedon replacing the Ice Age pachyderm...

I do, but they're not generally all that funny.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Ajaxis wrote:
Is there any monster art Paizo has published which change your opinion of what a monster looked like because the art was superior to your imagination?

That happens quite a lot. The tojinida for example. Or the brownie. Or the goblin. Lots of times.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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GeraintElberion wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
TheAlicornSage wrote:

Are there any brothels in Golarion that make use of Sheets of Nymph Summoning, or similar?

I heard about this happening in a game, the PC made the item then used it to make money. Creepy but funny.

First I've ever heard of "Sheets of Nymph Summoning." Sounds like something some GM made up for his homebrew game.

That said, there are brothels in Golarion, and there is magic in Golarion, so absolutely there are brothels that use magic in Golarion. That type of thing isn't something we cover in print though, due to the fact that sex gets people all weirded out here in the USA, so that element is left to each individual GM's style to add or not to their game as they see fit.

How do you reckon the nymph feels about this magic item?

It'd be a mix of enraged, violated, furious, vengeful, and astounded.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Tacticslion wrote:
I'm curious about mercenary companies (specific, named ones) in the River Kingdoms and Brevoy areas. Do you know any other than the Bloodstone Swords? Similarly, any that might be interested from Galt or northern Taldor or similarly nearby regions? I ask for our Kingmaker game - while we can use (and plan on using) the generic stats, we like tying things to Golarion lore. Thanks!

We haven't yet done much about specifically naming mercenary companies for any region, save for a few examples. For the most part, something like this is something we prefer to leave unsaid/vague until we need something for an adventure or story. OR if we were to do a book like "Mercenary Companies of the Inner Sea." The closest we've come to that in the setting would be the Rival Guide, I guess.

Grand Lodge

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Mr. Jacobs,

Can you please tell me where cigars originate in the Inner Sea region of Golarion? Are these cigars made of tobacco? Is tobacco grown in Sargava? Or is it found outside the Inner Sea region? Such as somewhere on the continent of Arcadia? What would be the cost of a stogie?

Are there also equivalents of chocolate and coffee on Golarion?

Warmest regards,

TritonOne

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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TritonOne wrote:

Mr. Jacobs,

Can you please tell me where cigars originate in the Inner Sea region of Golarion? Are these cigars made of tobacco? Is tobacco grown in Sargava? Or is it found outside the Inner Sea region? Such as somewhere on the continent of Arcadia? What would be the cost of a stogie?

Are there also equivalents of chocolate and coffee on Golarion?

Warmest regards,

TritonOne

As with so many resources, we haven't yet nailed down where things like tobacco (and thus cigars) originate from on Golarion. I hope some day to have the chance to do this, but it's a hard sell for management and a difficult thing to fit into most of our products; it was ORIGINALLY going to be a part of the Inner Sea World Guide (and that's where something like this makes the most sense to live) but there simply wasn't room or the time or resources to do so at the time.

So.

My current thought is that tobacco probably comes from western Garund, and has spread far throughout the world and is cultivated where it can be cultivated. The cost for a cigar would vary from very cheap to very expensive, like wine or anything else of that nature that has a wide range of qualities.

Same goes for chocolate and coffee—not their sources, but the fact that they're readily available throughout the Inner Sea Region.

I'm hesitant to nail down specifics here though, because I've not yet had the chance to think it all through. There are obvious analogies, of course; coffee could come from Casmaron or Arcadia, for example. At this point, feel free to make whatever choices make sense for your game; none of these things are rare or exotic enough to have an entire region in world be focused on their production and export, (like, say, Pesh, as an example) and so you can pretty much rest easy in assigning them to anywhere without worry that we'll some day in the future revise the world to say something like "Andoran is where coffee was invented and where it's mostly exported and Andoren coffee is regarded as the best." Because that's not something we've done yet, and would be a significant change to Andoran. More likely... coffee (or chocolate or tobacco or tomatoes or whatever) has been a part of the Inner Sea Region for so long that it's kind of ubiquitous now and its sources no longer really matter.

Grand Lodge

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A few questions James,

1. I know Zura was once an Azlanti queen and that she basically created vampires and I know that Sorshen has some magics that seem to absorb the blood of people for herself. My question is did Sorshen and Zura interact at all with each other and if so what was their relationship like?

2. If Nocticula were to become a goddess would the one Drow family that values her as their patron still continue to do so, (viewing her as being superior now to all other Demon Lords due to her ascension) or would they turn their backs on her?

3. Have you seen the documentary The Mask You Live In? If so what did you think about it? If not I would really recommend it for you. It talks about the problems of our society in regards for letting men express themselves emotionally.


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So I've been reading into the rules for weather and high winds, and strong windstorms automatically put out unprotected fire. My question is this : does the wind affect fire spells in any way? Reduced damage or possibly uselessness? Because it seems like that might be a thing.

Thoughts?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Therrux wrote:

A few questions James,

1. I know Zura was once an Azlanti queen and that she basically created vampires and I know that Sorshen has some magics that seem to absorb the blood of people for herself. My question is did Sorshen and Zura interact at all with each other and if so what was their relationship like?

2. If Nocticula were to become a goddess would the one Drow family that values her as their patron still continue to do so, (viewing her as being superior now to all other Demon Lords due to her ascension) or would they turn their backs on her?

3. Have you seen the documentary The Mask You Live In? If so what did you think about it? If not I would really recommend it for you. It talks about the problems of our society in regards for letting men express themselves emotionally.

1) Unlikely, but perhaps. Demons are more Alaznist's thing as far as the Runelords go, and I'm not 100% fond of confusing those themes by also associating them too much with Sorshen. At this point in time, though, no... there's no connection between Zura and Sorshen.

2) The drow family that worships Nocticula would suffer a significant blow to their standing and power, and they would be fragmented and replaced by a different family who worshiped a different Demon Lord... either one that's already established, or whoever moves in to take up the power vacuum Nocticula leaves behind.

3) Huh... interesting! Haven't seen it or even heard about it... and beyond my interest in it, I wish it was more well known overall. The fact that it remains obscure being a symptom of the overall problem, of course.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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AramilNuren wrote:

So I've been reading into the rules for weather and high winds, and strong windstorms automatically put out unprotected fire. My question is this : does the wind affect fire spells in any way? Reduced damage or possibly uselessness? Because it seems like that might be a thing.

Thoughts?

Nope; wind doesn't affect fire spells. It would affect fires that those spells create, of course. But unless a spell specifically says it's dispersed by high winds (such as in the case for several of the fog spells) magic trumps nature, more or less.


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Which is your favorite cover for Hell's Vengeance. :-)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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captain yesterday wrote:
Which is your favorite cover for Hell's Vengeance. :-)

Hell Comes to Westcrown.

Grand Lodge

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Can Compulsions be used to erase memories? For example suggesting that a memory isn't worth the trouble it brings or isn't that important, or commanding a dominated being to forget something?

Silver Crusade

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I absolutely ADORE Horror Adventures.

*hugs... and hopes T-Rex will hug everyone else involved on the project for me if it's not too much trouble*

That being said there's something I'm curious about, why is It Follows and The Great God Pan under Body Horror in the Horrific Inspirations section of the book?


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How do kinetic blasts with burn cost (because of an infusion or being a composite blast) interact with the Conductive weapon ability? Do you pay the burn once as normal, twice (because you are expending two uses) or none (as you are not using the blast)? It seems clear that you can use infusions, as if you use the right element(s) they are still spell-like abilities that require ranged touch attacks (or melee touch, if you use Kinetic Blade to use it in a melee weapon), but the interaction with the burn is not entirely clear.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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IDTheftVictim wrote:
Can Compulsions be used to erase memories? For example suggesting that a memory isn't worth the trouble it brings or isn't that important, or commanding a dominated being to forget something?

If the compulsion effect is specifically designed to do so, yes. See the spell modify memory in the Core Rulebook for a perfect example.

A suggestion couldn't erase a memory, but it could suggest someone ignore it or not act on a specific bit of knowledge (aka memory) for the duration of the spell.

Dominate cannot make you forget anything.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Rysky wrote:

I absolutely ADORE Horror Adventures.

*hugs... and hopes T-Rex will hug everyone else involved on the project for me if it's not too much trouble*

That being said there's something I'm curious about, why is It Follows and The Great God Pan under Body Horror in the Horrific Inspirations section of the book?

Glad you like it, but the only part of Horror Adventures I had anything to do with was the recommended viewing/reading 2-page appendix in the back.

Many horror movies can be categorized in multiple genres, but for the purposes of this list, I chose to categorize them into the category that, to me, they mostly fall under.

I tended to categorize all the disease/outbreak movies into body horror, since the disintegration of the body via sickness is one of the classic body horror tropes. "It Follows" is body horror because it's about a ghost that functions as a sexually-transmitted disease, and the idea of a haunted STD and being forced to have sex to spread the sickness is pretty disturbing. It could have easily fit into Psychological Horror or Ghost Story as well, but in the end I chose Body Horror. In some cases, when a movie like this fit into multiple categories, I'd also choose the one that would allow the words to fit more nicely on the page, of course. "It Follows" may have been one of the titles that bounced from categories and shifted to one page or column to another in order to make the words fit, in other words... which is fine, since as detailed above, it certainly qualifies for body horror.

"The Great God Pan" is under body horror because it's about the distortion/transformation/mutation of the body, in a way that directly inspired Dunwich Horror, which could also be categorized under Body Horror due to it's impregnation by aliens element.


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So today, WotC decided to start selling a 67-page, 17th level mini-adventure that you wrote. I had never heard of this adventure before today, but apparently it was released in some form in 2004.

1. Did you ever actually run this adventure, or did you just write it without running it?
2. If the answer to (1) was "yes," what did you think (in your totally biased opinion)?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Quairon Nailo wrote:
How do kinetic blasts with burn cost (because of an infusion or being a composite blast) interact with the Conductive weapon ability? Do you pay the burn once as normal, twice (because you are expending two uses) or none (as you are not using the blast)? It seems clear that you can use infusions, as if you use the right element(s) they are still spell-like abilities that require ranged touch attacks (or melee touch, if you use Kinetic Blade to use it in a melee weapon), but the interaction with the burn is not entirely clear.

Good question for the rules boards. I've not yet read one word of the kineticist class and have no idea how the class works... unlikely to change, too, until either I play one as a PC (very unlikely), have a player play one in a game I'm running (relatively unlikely), or have to develop one or put one in an adventure (most likely, but still not super likely).

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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137ben wrote:

So today, WotC decided to start selling a 67-page, 17th level mini-adventure that you wrote. I had never heard of this adventure before today, but apparently it was released in some form in 2004.

1. Did you ever actually run this adventure, or did you just write it without running it?
2. If the answer to (1) was "yes," what did you think (in your totally biased opinion)?

Ha! Interesting! At 67 pages I'd hardly call this a mini-adventure though.

I wrote that adventure over a decade ago for their website, as part of a strange sort of assignment where one of the staff cartographers wanted to create a map for a castle and then have someone build an adventure for that map. At the time, the adventure was free.

It ended up being a HUGE adventure because folks who don't actually write/develop adventures always seem to underestimate how many words it takes to build a good encounter. On average, an encounter takes 500 words. And one of my core adventure-writing philosophies is that every significant area on a map SHOULD be an encounter. I don't like reading "This room is empty" as an encounter's whole entry, nor do I like leaving interesting-looking rooms/areas on maps unlabeled.

And so I ended up putting encounters in ALL the rooms the cartographer created, and since I also wanted a strong story surrounding it, and since the castle he built was ENORMOUS, that ended up being a really big adventure. Since I was contracted at a flat rate to hand over an expected word count, but then went about 200% over my wordcount, and since it's a PDF and actual size wasn't a worry, I basically ended up getting paid half my normal fee for the adventure. Which was really pretty frustrating.

Anyway.

1) I never ran the adventure. As detailed above, it's conception was pretty unusual and the timeframe to create it didn't allow for playtesting.

2) N/A


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James Jacobs wrote:
Ha! Interesting! At 67 pages I'd hardly call this a mini-adventure though.

Yea, maybe I mis-wrote there. I just figured that for a 17th level adventure, a lot of space is going to be taken up by stat-blocks, treasure, and encounter descriptions, so the overall story would be pretty short compared to, say, a 67 page 1st level adventure. It's still long enough to be more than a $1 product, though, and longer in pages than a lot of "full-length" adventures.

Regardless, thanks for your answers.


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What is your opinion of The Thunder Below? I.e., does it suffer from its unusual genesis, or do you think it's as good an adveture as any despite being conceived backward, as it were?

Where would you set it if you were going to run it in Golarion?

Silver Crusade

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James Jacobs wrote:
Rysky wrote:

I absolutely ADORE Horror Adventures.

*hugs... and hopes T-Rex will hug everyone else involved on the project for me if it's not too much trouble*

That being said there's something I'm curious about, why is It Follows and The Great God Pan under Body Horror in the Horrific Inspirations section of the book?

Glad you like it, but the only part of Horror Adventures I had anything to do with was the recommended viewing/reading 2-page appendix in the back.

Many horror movies can be categorized in multiple genres, but for the purposes of this list, I chose to categorize them into the category that, to me, they mostly fall under.

I tended to categorize all the disease/outbreak movies into body horror, since the disintegration of the body via sickness is one of the classic body horror tropes. "It Follows" is body horror because it's about a ghost that functions as a sexually-transmitted disease, and the idea of a haunted STD and being forced to have sex to spread the sickness is pretty disturbing. It could have easily fit into Psychological Horror or Ghost Story as well, but in the end I chose Body Horror. In some cases, when a movie like this fit into multiple categories, I'd also choose the one that would allow the words to fit more nicely on the page, of course. "It Follows" may have been one of the titles that bounced from categories and shifted to one page or column to another in order to make the words fit, in other words... which is fine, since as detailed above, it certainly qualifies for body horror.

"The Great God Pan" is under body horror because it's about the distortion/transformation/mutation of the body, in a way that directly inspired Dunwich Horror, which could also be categorized under Body Horror due to it's impregnation by aliens element.

I had a suspicion that would be your answers, but I wanted to make sure ^w^

Thankies for answering.

Since you only did that part, are you really happy and excited with how the book turned out?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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137ben wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Ha! Interesting! At 67 pages I'd hardly call this a mini-adventure though.

Yea, maybe I mis-wrote there. I just figured that for a 17th level adventure, a lot of space is going to be taken up by stat-blocks, treasure, and encounter descriptions, so the overall story would be pretty short compared to, say, a 67 page 1st level adventure. It's still long enough to be more than a $1 product, though, and longer in pages than a lot of "full-length" adventures.

Regardless, thanks for your answers.

High level stat blocks do take more room than low level ones, and not just because of increased complexity. A bigger reason there's more stat blocks in high-level adventures is because there's not as many monsters, as a general rule, to just use right out of a book; this is something we've been trying to address in the Bestiaries by having more high level content, but for D&D at the time... things skewed that way. But still... the bulk of those 67 pages are not stat blocks.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Joana wrote:

What is your opinion of The Thunder Below? I.e., does it suffer from its unusual genesis, or do you think it's as good an adveture as any despite being conceived backward, as it were?

Where would you set it if you were going to run it in Golarion?

I like how the Thunder Below turned out, and wish it had more of a footprint/visibility as far as adventures go. I don't think it suffers at all from its "unusual genesis." In fact, for a lot of adventure writers, being handed a map to write an adventure to would make the road to development a lot easier, since the vast majority of adventure writers struggle making maps that are both legible and interesting.

And it wasn't conceived backward at all. If I had been told to write an adventure, I'd have drawn the map first anyway. Only difference here is that someone else drew the map for me. I was still the one who built the plot and decided on the level and all that, pretty much.

If I were to set it in Golarion, I'd set it on the edge of Belkzen in the mountains somewhere near Belkzen's border with Ustalav or Lastwall.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Rysky wrote:
Since you only did that part, are you really happy and excited with how the book turned out?

Haven't really looked through the book yet, but it does not look like the Horror Adventures book I would have created for Pathfinder. Some great content in there, though. Particularly Wes's chapter on how to run horror games.

Had I done the book, it would have skewed a LOT more toward being a GM book, with a significant bestiary section and a much smaller player option section.


James Jacobs wrote:
Quairon Nailo wrote:
How do kinetic blasts with burn cost (because of an infusion or being a composite blast) interact with the Conductive weapon ability? Do you pay the burn once as normal, twice (because you are expending two uses) or none (as you are not using the blast)? It seems clear that you can use infusions, as if you use the right element(s) they are still spell-like abilities that require ranged touch attacks (or melee touch, if you use Kinetic Blade to use it in a melee weapon), but the interaction with the burn is not entirely clear.
Good question for the rules boards. I've not yet read one word of the kineticist class and have no idea how the class works... unlikely to change, too, until either I play one as a PC (very unlikely), have a player play one in a game I'm running (relatively unlikely), or have to develop one or put one in an adventure (most likely, but still not super likely).

The problem is it IS in the rules questions forum, with no answer, that's why i decided to try luck here XDDDD.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Quairon Nailo wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Quairon Nailo wrote:
How do kinetic blasts with burn cost (because of an infusion or being a composite blast) interact with the Conductive weapon ability? Do you pay the burn once as normal, twice (because you are expending two uses) or none (as you are not using the blast)? It seems clear that you can use infusions, as if you use the right element(s) they are still spell-like abilities that require ranged touch attacks (or melee touch, if you use Kinetic Blade to use it in a melee weapon), but the interaction with the burn is not entirely clear.
Good question for the rules boards. I've not yet read one word of the kineticist class and have no idea how the class works... unlikely to change, too, until either I play one as a PC (very unlikely), have a player play one in a game I'm running (relatively unlikely), or have to develop one or put one in an adventure (most likely, but still not super likely).
The problem is it IS in the rules questions forum, with no answer, that's why i decided to try luck here XDDDD.

Not much I can do about that. Not everyone at Paizo answers questions as often/frequently/quickly as I do.

My general advice in cases like this where you need an answer ASAP is one of the following:

1) If this is for a home game, your GM should make the call.

or

2) If this is for PFS, you should build a different, less complicated character and save the complicated one for your home game where your GM can make the call.


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Quairon Nailo wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Quairon Nailo wrote:
How do kinetic blasts with burn cost (because of an infusion or being a composite blast) interact with the Conductive weapon ability? Do you pay the burn once as normal, twice (because you are expending two uses) or none (as you are not using the blast)? It seems clear that you can use infusions, as if you use the right element(s) they are still spell-like abilities that require ranged touch attacks (or melee touch, if you use Kinetic Blade to use it in a melee weapon), but the interaction with the burn is not entirely clear.
Good question for the rules boards. I've not yet read one word of the kineticist class and have no idea how the class works... unlikely to change, too, until either I play one as a PC (very unlikely), have a player play one in a game I'm running (relatively unlikely), or have to develop one or put one in an adventure (most likely, but still not super likely).
The problem is it IS in the rules questions forum, with no answer, that's why i decided to try luck here XDDDD.

I'm not James Jacobs, but you might try asking Mark Seifter in his thread, since he designed the class.

Back to James Jacobs questions...

1) Have you thought about what - if any - role the annunaki have had in Golarion's history?

2) If you had the option to know your exact date of death, but not the circumstances, would you want to know, or decline knowing that you could have known?

3) What's your favorite kind of lycanthrope, and why?


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Luthorne wrote:
Quairon Nailo wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Quairon Nailo wrote:
How do kinetic blasts with burn cost (because of an infusion or being a composite blast) interact with the Conductive weapon ability? Do you pay the burn once as normal, twice (because you are expending two uses) or none (as you are not using the blast)? It seems clear that you can use infusions, as if you use the right element(s) they are still spell-like abilities that require ranged touch attacks (or melee touch, if you use Kinetic Blade to use it in a melee weapon), but the interaction with the burn is not entirely clear.
Good question for the rules boards. I've not yet read one word of the kineticist class and have no idea how the class works... unlikely to change, too, until either I play one as a PC (very unlikely), have a player play one in a game I'm running (relatively unlikely), or have to develop one or put one in an adventure (most likely, but still not super likely).
The problem is it IS in the rules questions forum, with no answer, that's why i decided to try luck here XDDDD.

I'm not James Jacobs, but you might try asking Mark Seifter in his thread, since he designed the class.

Back to James Jacobs questions...

1) Have you thought about what - if any - role the annunaki have had in Golarion's history?

2) If you had the option to know your exact date of death, but not the circumstances, would you want to know, or decline knowing that you could have known?

3) What's your favorite kind of lycanthrope, and why?

WOW thank you, i didn't know that! I only knew about this thread and i feel like such a newbie (because i am XD).


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I have some Questions About the Alchemist.

I have been wondering about the Alchemist and his ability to do Item creation feats and whether or not he is counted as a full spellcaster. This is mostly in regards to the Wonderous item “Formula Alembic”

Where the Alchemist must be the creator of said item. Does this mean that you either have to take Master Craftsman first and then Craft Wondrous Items to do so. Or is more forcing you to Multiclass with an Arcane class to allow this without Master craftsman.

Also With the learning of extracts for the alchemist it states that he learns in the same manner as a Wizard does this mean that he is able to learn ‘Spells’ from scrolls.

Spells Copied from Another Spellbook or Scroll:
A wizard can also add a spell to his book whenever he encounters one on a magic scroll or in another wizard's spellbook. No matter what the spell's source, the wizard must first decipher the magical writing (see Arcane Magical Writings). Next, he must spend 1 hour studying the spell. At the end of the hour, he must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spells level). A wizard who has specialized in a school of spells gains a +2 bonus on the Spellcraft check if the new spell is from his specialty.

If so how do the checks apply to this manner as an Alchemist does “An alchemist does not need to decipher arcane writings before copying them.” Does that mean he does not need to decipher them at all or is he still required to decipher them before turning them into an extract.

Also we it comes to Learning from a Scroll as long as it’s on your list you can learn it. Does this mean that an Alchemist could learn from a Divine scroll as he has a equivalent on his Formulae list.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Luthorne wrote:

1) Have you thought about what - if any - role the annunaki have had in Golarion's history?

2) If you had the option to know your exact date of death, but not the circumstances, would you want to know, or decline knowing that you could have known?

3) What's your favorite kind of lycanthrope, and why?

1) Haven't thought about it at all. They fill a role that, personally, I prefer to be filled by elder things though...

2) I would not want to know, because it would depress me to realize that it would be so soon. AKA: No matter how far out it gets, it'll be too soon, and I'd rather not have that knowledge weighing on me.

3) Wererat, because of Fritz Leiber.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Azezyll wrote:

I have some Questions About the Alchemist.

I have been wondering about the Alchemist and his ability to do Item creation feats and whether or not he is counted as a full spellcaster. This is mostly in regards to the Wonderous item “Formula Alembic”

Where the Alchemist must be the creator of said item. Does this mean that you either have to take Master Craftsman first and then Craft Wondrous Items to do so. Or is more forcing you to Multiclass with an Arcane class to allow this without Master craftsman.

Also With the learning of extracts for the alchemist it states that he learns in the same manner as a Wizard does this mean that he is able to learn ‘Spells’ from scrolls.

Spells Copied from Another Spellbook or Scroll:
A wizard can also add a spell to his book whenever he encounters one on a magic scroll or in another wizard's spellbook. No matter what the spell's source, the wizard must first decipher the magical writing (see Arcane Magical Writings). Next, he must spend 1 hour studying the spell. At the end of the hour, he must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spells level). A wizard who has specialized in a school of spells gains a +2 bonus on the Spellcraft check if the new spell is from his specialty.

If so how do the checks apply to this manner as an Alchemist does “An alchemist does not need to decipher arcane writings before copying them.” Does that mean he does not need to decipher them at all or is he still required to decipher them before turning them into an extract.

Also we it comes to Learning from a Scroll as long as it’s on your list you can learn it. Does this mean that an Alchemist could learn from a Divine scroll as he has a equivalent on his Formulae list.

This is better asked in the rules forums; sorry!


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Would a Bard that worships Norgorber be an unusual / rare thing?

The books generally seem to imply he's mostly a deity of alchemists and rogues.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Icyshadow wrote:

Would a Bard that worships Norgorber be an unusual / rare thing?

The books generally seem to imply he's mostly a deity of alchemists and rogues.

Not unusual at all.

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