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I just realized that a nice combination (Spring Attack and the Scout (rogue archetype) ability "Skirmisher") may not be viable anymore after the updated Core errata. Is this the case or am I just needlessly worried?

thanks :)


James

My current Serpent Skull group might be splitting apart due to schedule conflicts. How would you suggest running Serpent Skull as a one on one game since one of my players REALLY wants to continue?

Also this player has developed a crush on Sasha and wants to ask her to marry him. As the developer of the AP how do you think she should/would respond?

Oh and one last question. In another game I'm playing in we have a human archer who's player insists on being the best archer in the party but I've realized that with the right combination of feats my rogue will quickly outpace him because of the sneak attack bonuses he'll be getting to his shots. Would I be evil to build my rogue this way, thus making the existing party archer obsolete?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Zark wrote:

If I wanted to try playing Call of Cthulhu, which version should I play?

The d20 version or something else?
What adventure/adventures should I start with?
Kind regards.

No contest. Use Chaosium's BRP "Call of Cthulhu" game.

As for what adventures... the two best adventures that Chaosium has published (and perhaps the two best adventures ever published for any RPG system ever) are "Masks of Nyarlathotep" and "Beyond the Mountains of Madness." Those are HUGE campaigns, though, and probably not a great way to just start out playing the game. Fortunately, Chaosium also has a lot of one-shot adventures, along with collections of adventures. Some of my favorite collections of adventures they've published include, "The Great Old Ones," "Mansions of Madness," and "Return to Innsmouth." Their Dunwich book is also quite fun. But honestly, pretty much ALL of their adventure compilations have some fun adventures in them, so you're pretty safe buying any of them.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

mathpro18 wrote:

James

My current Serpent Skull group might be splitting apart due to schedule conflicts. How would you suggest running Serpent Skull as a one on one game since one of my players REALLY wants to continue?

Also this player has developed a crush on Sasha and wants to ask her to marry him. As the developer of the AP how do you think she should/would respond?

Oh and one last question. In another game I'm playing in we have a human archer who's player insists on being the best archer in the party but I've realized that with the right combination of feats my rogue will quickly outpace him because of the sneak attack bonuses he'll be getting to his shots. Would I be evil to build my rogue this way, thus making the existing party archer obsolete?

Running any game as a one-on-one game is tricky. I grew up in a pretty remote part of the world, where there wasn't a lot of other kids my age (and thus a correspondingly small number of gamers) and most of the games I ran from 6th grade to 8th grade were one-on-one games with friends and family members. And after I moved up to Seattle, most of the games I ran were one-on-one games for my roommate from 1995 to about 1998 or so before I got into a larger group.

The main thing I learned from those two eras of running one-on-one games is that you really should build some NPCs to play along with the main character. They don't need to go on every adventure, but they can help out with monsters and healing and all that, essentially playing as sidekicks. You can even let the player run a few of these NCPs if you want.

You should also be careful using monsters that have paralyzation, petrification, stunnning, or other effects that temporarily negate a character; one of those on a solo character is more or less identical to instant death.

For Serpent's Skull in particular, I'd use the fellow castaways as the support NPCs, or perhaps other NPCs they've picked up along the way to join the expedition. If you're 100% sure the other players will never be coming back, you can even use their characters as the helper NPCs.

Having Sasha say yes to the PC is a great way to keep that NPC in the one-player party, assuming that she's already predisposed toward loving the PC in return. If she's not, then I would set up a bunch of quests for the PC to woo/impress Sasha by having her send him on some adventures akin to gathering dimorphodon eggs since she wants one as a pet. Sasha's one of the crazier NPCs from the first adventure, so she can have all sorts of weird, hard to satisfy urges and tastes.

An archer rogue is one of the HARDEST builds to get right, since the number one way of getting your sneak attack on, flanking, doesn't work for ranged weapons. If you think you've found a way to play a super tough archer rogue... go for it! If the fellow player is mature, he'll applaud you and enjoy the company in the archery stuff. THAT SAID, if the other player is immature and prone to tantrums, you might have to be the mature part of the party and try to make sure not to show off too much if you've got a great build.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

LazarX wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:


Dinosaurs are essential. Not necessarily the most important element, but they're more essential to have in a setting than nods to Tolkien by FAR.

They're about as essential as elves, which means that you can have a fantasy setting without either.

Go Talislanta!

Heh. Ahem. Dinosaurs and elves are essential if you want me playing in your game, of course! :-P

Which is to say... the only things that are essential in ANY game are things that you and your fellow players want.


James Jacobs wrote:
stuff

A big "thank you". You're the soul of Paizo.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

How is your Serpent's Skull game going?

Any exciting and spoilerific moments?

(I'll be GMing this later in the year with any luck).


What are the odds that within 2 years I will have a poster map to lay along the eastern edge of my new Inner Sea Campaign Guide map, thereby creating one large square map? I can imagine I am not the only one who has been waiting for that.

How many people made the following joke when the world guide came in from the printer: "Oh, they misspelled 'Reigon'" ? Are you going to have me killed for bringing that up, or is it happily in the past now with the new maps?

I'm not even that excited about Tian Xia, though some of my players are. I just desperately crave a big, unified map of the super-continent. Will I be appeased?

How about the Inner Sea Map Folio? Will that have a scale Tian Xia counterpart? How could Paizo possibly fill out that much adventure geography, when it took you years to detail the Inner Sea to the extent that it required such a map? Despite the challenge that poses, I hope one day to have a combined 8 poster map of the Inner Sea and Tian Xia. What are my odds?

Do I have an unhealthy preoccupation with maps, as my girlfriend claims?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

How is your Serpent's Skull game going?

Any exciting and spoilerific moments?

(I'll be GMing this later in the year with any luck).

Slow. We only play twice a month, in 6 hour sessions, so that's only 12 hours a month. And I've had to cancel the last two sessions, alas, due to work and freelance issues.

That said, it's still fun. They're most of the way through Racing to Ruin now... but...

Spoiler:

...instead of having them go through the adventure as written for Tazion, I'm swapping that out with the Temple of Death (AKA module X5) with some heavy modifications, and setting it up so that temple sits atop an underground tunnel that leads into the completely enshrouded valley of Saventh-Yhi, with the PCs coming into the map from the south rather than the north.

Sometimes, when the developer and co-author of some of the aventures is in your game (Rob McCreary, in this case) you have to take drastic actions to mix things up. I've already incorperated "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" into the adventure's first half, extending the whaler stuff out to include a haunted house and a boat.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

You're posting on the weekend! Don't you ever take a day off? :)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Evil Lincoln wrote:
What are the odds that within 2 years I will have a poster map to lay along the eastern edge of my new Inner Sea Campaign Guide map, thereby creating one large square map? I can imagine I am not the only one who has been waiting for that.

Probably zero, for two reasons:

1) We're not currently planning much for Casmaron, the region to the east of the Inner Sea.
2) Casmaron is MUCH larger than the Inner Sea region. A map that would fit along the eastern border of the Inner Sea map that matches perfectly to make the whole a square would, at my best guess, only be able to show a third or a quarter of Casmaron.

Evil Lincoln wrote:
How many people made the following joke when the world guide came in from the printer: "Oh, they misspelled 'Reigon'" ? Are you going to have me killed for bringing that up, or is it happily in the past now with the new maps?

Well... putting in 70 weeks for several weeks in a row to finish a hardcover book in time to the printer so it'll be available at Gen Con and then, within 2 minutes of getting the first hardcover copy in your hands, noticing a huge spelling error in giant sized letters at the top of the part of your game that you want everyone in the world to hang on their wall to show things off is not really joke material, in my opinion. It was actually incredibly depressing and frustrating, and while we can joke about it now without crying, it's still one of the most embarrassing things I've ever had a hand in causing to happen. At least we didn't find/replace mage for wizard, though.

Evil Lincoln wrote:
I'm not even that excited about Tian Xia, though some of my players are. I just desperately crave a big, unified map of the super-continent. Will I be appeased?

Not anytime soon. We WILL have a big map of Tian Xia available, but the fact that Tian Xia is much larger than the Inner Sea region means that the map of Tian Xia will have a much different scale than the Inner Sea maps do.

Evil Lincoln wrote:
How about the Inner Sea Map Folio? Will that have a scale Tian Xia counterpart? How could Paizo possibly fill out that much adventure geography, when it took you years to detail the Inner Sea to the extent that it required such a map? Despite the challenge that poses, I hope one day to have a combined 8 poster map of the Inner Sea and Tian Xia. What are my odds?

When we launched Golarion, it was several months before we had our first world book out, the 64 page Gazetteer. You can expect us to take a similar "start small, build up as demand demands" approach for Tian Xia.

Evil Lincoln wrote:
Do I have an unhealthy preoccupation with maps, as my girlfriend claims?

Perhaps.

Although it's not AS apparent on the world map we published in the Inner Sea World Guide of the world of Golarion as it is on the map of the world I drew onto a 24" circumferance beach ball in my office... the Inner Sea region is actually a VERY small portion of the total surface area of Golarion. Maps that present the other continents will HAVE to be different sizes, because if we decided to take the pretty unrealistic but still exciting-to-think-about approach of mapping all of Golarion on the scale and detail we did for the Inner Sea region... that would, at my best guess, require DOZENS of maps of that size.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
James Jacobs wrote:


Well... putting in 70 weeks for several weeks in a row to finish a hardcover book in time

James, where can I obtain these time manipulation powers you appear to have? ;)


James Jacobs wrote:
Well... putting in 70 weeks for several weeks in a row to finish a hardcover book in time to the printer so it'll be available at Gen Con and then, within 2 minutes of getting the first hardcover copy in your hands, noticing a huge spelling error in giant sized letters at the top of the part of your game that you want everyone in the world to hang on their wall to show things off is not really joke material, in my opinion. It was actually incredibly depressing and frustrating, and while we can joke about it now without crying, it's still one of the most embarrassing things I've ever had a hand in causing to happen. At least we didn't find/replace mage for wizard, though.

Well, I hope you some comfort in knowing that the new, immaculate map is already hanging in my study.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Enlight_Bystand wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:


Well... putting in 70 weeks for several weeks in a row to finish a hardcover book in time

James, where can I obtain these time manipulation powers you appear to have? ;)

Well maybe this might explain it:

1) We can only dream of working at Paizo.
2) Due to the power of our dreams there is a Paizo office in the Dreamlands.
3) James is the "Creative Director" in charge of the Dreamlands Office.
4) We are all unknowingly working for Paizo every time we go to sleep and James is the taskmaster.

A) 1 hour of sleeping is 1 week of time in the Dreamworld.
B) James is working in his sleep for at least 70 hrs a week.
C) So we now know James sleeps on average 10 hours a night to work our dream selves.

So that means James owes us all dream pay for our work. James how and when are we getting paid?


Zark wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
stuff
A big "thank you". You're the soul of Paizo.

I thought the soul of Paizo is what they use to power their golem?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

James Jacobs wrote:
Evil Lincoln wrote:
How about the Inner Sea Map Folio? Will that have a scale Tian Xia counterpart? How could Paizo possibly fill out that much adventure geography, when it took you years to detail the Inner Sea to the extent that it required such a map? Despite the challenge that poses, I hope one day to have a combined 8 poster map of the Inner Sea and Tian Xia. What are my odds?
When we launched Golarion, it was several months before we had our first world book out, the 64 page Gazetteer. You can expect us to take a similar "start small, build up as demand demands" approach for Tian Xia.

I would prefer a Gazetteer for each continent, before any more of the continents get the World Guide treatment. But why do Tian Xia first? Casmaron seems to have the most influence on Avistan and Garund. But in turn Avistan seems to influence Arcadia. Azlant seems to be quiet at the moment. And Sarusan seems to have no effect at all. And due to the nature of the Crown of the World, a 32 page Companion may be enough.

I can't wait for Arcadia myself. I just need a map with geography (and the few settlement locations), skraeling info, unique equipment, and broad strokes as to the rest. When can I preorder my gazetteer for Arcadia? I will settle for a few Paizo blogs instead...


The skymetal info from The Inner Sea World Guide didn't make the final cut (I assume for space reasons). Is there any chance we could see this as a future Golarion blog post?

""Pretty please. With a cherry on top." [/Scorpius]

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Enlight_Bystand wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:


Well... putting in 70 weeks for several weeks in a row to finish a hardcover book in time

James, where can I obtain these time manipulation powers you appear to have? ;)

I obviously meant 70 hours for several weeks. But the fact that I made that mistake in the first place might tell you how stressful and exhausting putting out hardcovers is.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:
So that means James owes us all dream pay for our work. James how and when are we getting paid?

You've been paid already. I pay your dream selves in dream money. It's not my fault if your dream selves spend all that money and then erase from your memory or hide from your waking mind all the cool things they've bought.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:
I would prefer a Gazetteer for each continent, before any more of the continents get the World Guide treatment. But why do Tian Xia first?

We'd do Tian Xia first because we have an adventure path, a novel, and more set there this year. So, doing Tian Xia first is a requirement to support several lines of products that are already deep into production.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

The skymetal info from The Inner Sea World Guide didn't make the final cut (I assume for space reasons). Is there any chance we could see this as a future Golarion blog post?

""Pretty please. With a cherry on top." [/Scorpius]

As I mentioned in that other thread... the skymetal info was never written. It was cut before it was written, which is how the job of creative director is supposed to work! :P (Cutting stuff after it's been written is a waste of time for a lot of folks.)

Anyway, since it hasn't been written, I can't just throw it up as a blog post. I'd have to write it, and then the editors would have to edit it. And as we're simultaneously trying to catch up on our schedule AND starting the ramp up for Gen Con/PaizoCon releases, I'm trying to minimize the extra workload stuff like significant blog posts like that.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

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Evil Lincoln wrote:
How many people made the following joke when the world guide came in from the printer: "Oh, they misspelled 'Reigon'" ? Are you going to have me killed for bringing that up, or is it happily in the past now with the new maps?

I believe Erik actually called each and every editor in the company over to the new map, one by one, and made them proofread that word in his presence, out loud.

Scarab Sages

James,

Will we see Osirioni Blade Binding (or binding as a combat maneuver) adapted for PFRPG in any upcoming supplements?

Thanks!


About the Dryad's Woodcraft ability, does the fact that she is treated as always having masterwork artisan tools mean that she gets a +2 bonus in addition to her +6 racial?
If not, why state "masterwork tools"? Normal tools would've been enough to have only the racial +6 and not the -2 penalty for lack of the tools.


Sorry. I didn't see this thread when I posted my original query.

So I'll repeat it here.............

As I understand it, in the Pathfinder World, when you shoot an arrow only about one third of them (a 1 or 2 on a die 6) can be recovered and re-used. Now, the reason for that is that wood breaks easily. And the reason they did not use Aluminum arrows during medieval times was that the technology did not exist to create them.

Now surely Aluminum is similar to Mithral in properties (at least in a Fantasy world). Does it not seem reasonable that smiths could make arrows out of Mithral, and therefore have their durability massively increased?

Granted, this would of course, considerably increase the cost of the arrows, but I think most archers would love the chance to get a hold of some arrows that they did not have to continuously replace.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

Shadowspawn1965 wrote:

Sorry. I didn't see this thread when I posted my original query.

So I'll repeat it here.............

As I understand it, in the Pathfinder World, when you shoot an arrow only about one third of them (a 1 or 2 on a die 6) can be recovered and re-used. Now, the reason for that is that wood breaks easily. And the reason they did not use Aluminum arrows during medieval times was that the technology did not exist to create them.

Now surely Aluminum is similar to Mithral in properties (at least in a Fantasy world). Does it not seem reasonable that smiths could make arrows out of Mithral, and therefore have their durability massively increased?

Granted, this would of course, considerably increase the cost of the arrows, but I think most archers would love the chance to get a hold of some arrows that they did not have to continuously replace.

That makes for expensive arrows to replace when you shoot someone and they run away with your arrow in them. :)

Shadow Lodge

JoelF847 wrote:
Shadowspawn1965 wrote:

Sorry. I didn't see this thread when I posted my original query.

So I'll repeat it here.............

As I understand it, in the Pathfinder World, when you shoot an arrow only about one third of them (a 1 or 2 on a die 6) can be recovered and re-used. Now, the reason for that is that wood breaks easily. And the reason they did not use Aluminum arrows during medieval times was that the technology did not exist to create them.

Now surely Aluminum is similar to Mithral in properties (at least in a Fantasy world). Does it not seem reasonable that smiths could make arrows out of Mithral, and therefore have their durability massively increased?

Granted, this would of course, considerably increase the cost of the arrows, but I think most archers would love the chance to get a hold of some arrows that they did not have to continuously replace.

That makes for expensive arrows to replace when you shoot someone and they run away with your arrow in them. :)

Hell, that makes for arrows valuable enough to taunt the local archer into shooting you so you can run off with his arrow in you and sell it off.


Just got the mental image of a family of hillbillies, and the youngest runs into the house, screaming "MAAAAAAAAAH! Billy-Joe done got shot in the bum again!"

Mother turns around and yells "It'd better be a Mithril arrow this time, Mazy be needin' the coin fer her fancy schoolin'!"

..................

*cue the dueling banjos*

Dark Archive

I remember you mentioning that Second Darkness wasn't a popular or well recieved AP. As it's among my favourites, I have a hard time comprehending why you say that. What was it about the AP that wasn't good?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jason Beardsley wrote:
I remember you mentioning that Second Darkness wasn't a popular or well recieved AP. As it's among my favourites, I have a hard time comprehending why you say that. What was it about the AP that wasn't good?

Popularity or the lack of it is not a definitive measure of quality. Two words... Jersey Shore.

Dark Archive

LazarX wrote:
Jason Beardsley wrote:
I remember you mentioning that Second Darkness wasn't a popular or well recieved AP. As it's among my favourites, I have a hard time comprehending why you say that. What was it about the AP that wasn't good?
Popularity or the lack of it is not a definitive measure of quality. Two words... Jersey Shore.

*shudders* Good point..

Paizo Employee Creative Director

weirmonken wrote:

James,

Will we see Osirioni Blade Binding (or binding as a combat maneuver) adapted for PFRPG in any upcoming supplements?

Thanks!

We have no plans to do much more with Osirioni blade binding, particularly in the context of it being something uniquely Osirion. The combat maneuver system, though, is robust enough that if you DO want to have this element in your game... just treat it as a disarm attempt that doesn't make foes drop their weapons.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Astral Wanderer wrote:

About the Dryad's Woodcraft ability, does the fact that she is treated as always having masterwork artisan tools mean that she gets a +2 bonus in addition to her +6 racial?

If not, why state "masterwork tools"? Normal tools would've been enough to have only the racial +6 and not the -2 penalty for lack of the tools.

The bonus granted by masterwork tools is not a racial bonus. It stacks, therefore, with her +6 racial bonus.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Shadowspawn1965 wrote:

As I understand it, in the Pathfinder World, when you shoot an arrow only about one third of them (a 1 or 2 on a die 6) can be recovered and re-used. Now, the reason for that is that wood breaks easily. And the reason they did not use Aluminum arrows during medieval times was that the technology did not exist to create them.

Now surely Aluminum is similar to Mithral in properties (at least in a Fantasy world). Does it not seem reasonable that smiths could make arrows out of Mithral, and therefore have their durability massively increased?

Granted, this would of course, considerably increase the cost of the arrows, but I think most archers would love the chance to get a hold of some arrows that they did not have to continuously replace.

Arrow recovery mechanics are an excellent part of the game that we deliberately oversimplified. Further, the concept of a mithral-shafted arrow, or an arrow with a shaft of anything other than wood, isn't something we touch on at all in the game. That's prime territory for house rules, honestly, so I would defer to your GM's response to this question.

If I were your GM, I would probably look at you a little annoyed and ask if you were REALLY that eager to track down your arrows? And if you replied "I have to because you never give us a chance to restock," then I would take that as an indication that I'd been neglecting giving the group a chance to resupply and make amends there, either allowing the group to go back to town more often, or including more armories in the adventures where you can resupply.

If a player REALLY wanted mithral shafted arrows, though, I'd probably charge him 500 gp per arrow. Because that's a lot of mithral to be slinging around, and hardly something that most bowyers will be able to easily make. And I'd say that you can automatically recover such arrows, unless, of course, you shot them into some place you can't go get them from. Whether or not that was the case, I'd have to decide on a case by case basis, and that'd probably get annoying real quick.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Jason Beardsley wrote:
I remember you mentioning that Second Darkness wasn't a popular or well recieved AP. As it's among my favourites, I have a hard time comprehending why you say that. What was it about the AP that wasn't good?

I say that because, almost invariably, when I see folks rank Adventure Paths in a "best to worst" list, the best ones vary (but usually between Kingmaker, Rise of the Runelords, and Curse of the Crimson Throne), but the one they rank as their least favorite is almost always "Second Darkness."

I think there's several reasons why Second Darkness is viewed as the least favorite AP—if I were to spell them out, they'd be:

Spoiler:

1) The start sets things up with the expectation that the PCs are going to be staying in Riddleport for a while by giving them a business to run in town. It then leaves Riddleport in the very second adventure and by the 3rd adventure never goes back at all. So that makes all the PCs who wanted to be involved with the Gold Goblin disappointed.

2) The AP starts with the expectation that the PCs are locals in a pretty lawless town, and that they're thus probably a bit on the non-good side. But then as the AP progresses, it assumes that these same PCs will be motivated to be good guys to help the elves and the world with no promise of rewards, something that the setup adventure does not set up at all.

3) Two of the adventures, parts 3 and 5, are exceptionally railroady. Part 5 is particularly bad at this, and is probably the MOST railroady adventure we've ever done—much of its length is basically telling the PCs they go from one encounter to another without giving them any choice on how to proceed at all. This is a completely valid complaint—I really wish I'd had some extensive re-writes on that adventure but we didn't have time at the time for that luxury.

4) The elves, as presented, are jerks and hard to sympathize with. Part of this is because the two big adventures where they have roles, they're presented as being antagonists almost as much as they are allies. Again, this is particularly prevalent in the 5th adventure, where the PCs essentially get thrown in jail as a reward for helping out the elves out of the kindness of their hearts in the previous two adventures. Of course, there's a lot more political stuff going on behind the scenes here, but the way the adventure was presented and played out, there's not much of a chance for the PCs to find any of that stuff out—they only see that they're thrown in jail for risking their lives to save the elves.

5) The fourth adventure, where the PCs disguise themselves as drow to infiltrate an evil society, left players of paladins and other exceptionally lawful or good characters with a sour taste in their mouth—the adventure didn't do a good enough job mollifying these types of characters to make them feel okay about using subterfuge and lies and working with evil creatures.

6) We'd assumed that drow themselves were more popular than we thought they were, but it turned out that they were NOT as popular. Perhaps because Driz'zt and the various drow novels WotC published burnt folks out on drow. For whatever reason, we just missed the popularity race on getting our big drow adventure into print.

So those are the six reasons that I take away from criticisms of Second Darkness. And they're all valid criticisms; we've been trying to avoid falling into any of those traps ever since.

That said... with the right players and the right GM—with a group who understands the nature of the adventure and with a GM who can handle the probably-too-subtle elven political stuff going on, and who is willing to ad-lib things when and if the PCs go off the rails... I still think Second Darkness is a fun adventure. I do wish I could go back and fix its problems, though.


James Jacobs wrote:
"Second Darkness."

If it helps at all, My group ran through it and quite enjoyed themselves.


James Jacobs wrote:
If a player REALLY wanted mithral shafted arrows, though, I'd probably charge him 500 gp per arrow. Because that's a lot of mithral to be slinging around, and hardly something that most bowyers will be able to easily make. And I'd say that you can automatically recover such arrows, unless, of course, you shot them into some place you can't go get them from. Whether or not that was the case, I'd have to decide on a case by case basis,...

Just to mess with the player, I'd be tempted to add:

"You can automatically recover the arrows (if in a recoverable location) - unless used to attack enemies in adamantine armor or an adamantine golem or objects with similar hardness: in those cases the usual arrow rules apply."

This will of course make the player aim to get adamantine arrows - which have the drawback that they are really hard to recover, owing to them easily penetrating mostly all substances and thus easily ending up quite deep inside rock.


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
"Second Darkness."

I happen to think that the first part of Second Darkness is an excellent adventure to use stand-alone if you want to start a campaign in Riddleport.

I also stole parts of the middle for when my planescape group visited a drow city. [I ran Dead Gods, and this really helped expand their Drow experience.]

I haven't played through SD as an adventure path, but I really enjoyed reading it and am still tempted to run it in the future. While it has some problems for some groups, I really don't think it is a bad AP.

Of course, it is to Paizo's credit that the APs are all of such quality that even the "worst" is pretty good.


James Jacobs wrote:
Jason Beardsley wrote:
I remember you mentioning that Second Darkness wasn't a popular or well recieved AP. As it's among my favourites, I have a hard time comprehending why you say that. What was it about the AP that wasn't good?

I say that because, almost invariably, when I see folks rank Adventure Paths in a "best to worst" list, the best ones vary (but usually between Kingmaker, Rise of the Runelords, and Curse of the Crimson Throne), but the one they rank as their least favorite is almost always "Second Darkness."

I think there's several reasons why Second Darkness is viewed as the least favorite AP—if I were to spell them out, they'd be:

** spoiler omitted **...

Thank you for this insightful response James. That was an extremely informative and useful answer. It shows how much you listen, but more importantly shows how much you really understand this game. I am consistently impressed by you guys.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Just to chime in about Second Darkness

Individually many of the adventures work great.

The first adventure is a brilliant way of getting non-good PCs invested in a city. This adventure works great as the opening to an urban campaign of any stripe, or a pirate campaign.

My "fix" for Second Darkness was to kind of mash it up with Shackled City. Shackled Darkness. Of course doing this takes a lot more work (especially since both these APs are 3.5).

In any case, my question is this:

James, which is your favourite of the eeeeevil races?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

James, which is your favourite of the eeeeevil races?

This changes quite often, as new inspirations come to me. If I had to pick one, I'd probably cheat and say "demons." If you don't count them, then aboleths are a constant favorite.

Dark Archive

I just finished reading the intro to Haunting of Harrowstone story intro. It is absolutely awesome. Was it Mr. Kortes who wrote that? And if so where could I send the proper accolades where the proper person responsible could see them?


James,

Is early 2013 a good time to look for an Irrisen AP?

Maybe even late 2012?

:)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:
I just finished reading the intro to Haunting of Harrowstone story intro. It is absolutely awesome. Was it Mr. Kortes who wrote that? And if so where could I send the proper accolades where the proper person responsible could see them?

I actually did a fair bit of rewriting on the adventure—including a significant amount on Harrowstone's backstory. So it's a combination of myself and Kortes who wrote it.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Watcher wrote:

James,

Is early 2013 a good time to look for an Irrisen AP?

Maybe even late 2012?

:)

Last time I announced an adventure path coming out that far in advance (Jade Regent was originally announced at Paizocon 2) it got pushed back 2 years.

So I'm not saying nothing about 2012 or 2013's adventure paths at all for at least 18 months.


James, WHEN OH WHEN is Paizo going to release Goblin plushies? My wife is chomping at the bit (figuratively. We're not into that kind of thing and no she is not a farm animal.) to get yet another fantasy collectible plush.


James Jacobs wrote:


Last time I announced an adventure path coming out that far in advance (Jade Regent was originally announced at Paizocon 2) it got pushed back 2 years.

So I'm not saying nothing about 2012 or 2013's adventure paths at all for at least 18 months.

I know.. I just watch the timeline and get excited.


Spoiler:
James Jacobs wrote:
arrow recovery stuff

Personally, in my own experience using aluminum arrows, and white wooden arrows, using them in a wooded area, unless you pay close attention to where you are shooting it is likely you will lose the arrow, as they have a tendency to slip under the grass and leaves after traveling far off, and the white ones can be easier to see, especially the orange tips, which I have on my aluminum ones, but I find that I lose a lot of arrows to being lost under trees or getting buried under the grass, occasionally I hit the wooden base under the target I shoot at (Or the back of the target sometimes) and occasionally need to unscrew the tip of the arrow and get a new one, I've shattered 2 arrows in this way, and a total of 10 of my arrows have been broken by smashing themselves on targets or trees, and an aluminum one I had bent itself into uselessness one time, but mithril wouldn't have that problem, but i guess my point is that there are other ways to lose arrows besides them breaking, and I would have it be a one in 20 that they get lost even after a thorough search, one in 10 if the characters do not do much searching, and probably higher if they were shooting inside, as hitting wood or stone kills high-velocity arrows, even 25 lb. ones


Level76mage wrote:
** spoiler omitted **

And adamantine arrows? No way. That'd be ridiculously heavy for an arrow. I'd say only a +5 Mighty Composite Longbow could fire them.

Dark Archive

James Jacobs wrote:
Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:
I just finished reading the intro to Haunting of Harrowstone story intro. It is absolutely awesome. Was it Mr. Kortes who wrote that? And if so where could I send the proper accolades where the proper person responsible could see them?
I actually did a fair bit of rewriting on the adventure—including a significant amount on Harrowstone's backstory. So it's a combination of myself and Kortes who wrote it.

Well it was super awesome and I appreciate it fully, and please tell Mr. Kortes the same if you see him :)

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