RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I love the Rod of Wonder, but feel unsatisfied with the list of random powers.
I see that you also love the Rod of Wonder. Do you have any expanded or alternate lists of Rod of Wonder powers you would be willing to post here? If you do, will you please post them?
Creative Director
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1. I've played long term with a group of people and it seems that the more we've played the more often our characters end up causing rifts in the party. Do you have any recommendations on how to fix this? It hasn't happened in every campaign but it's happened enough to make notice of it.
It's possible that over the course of the years, some of the group has started to get tired of each other due to tiny personality conflicts and the like that, over the course of years, just fester. Nothing that any long-term relationship, be it siblings or spouses or roommates or gaming buddies or teammates or whatever might develop. One way to fix this is to have a different group dynamic—let someone else be the GM, play different games, or play less often/shorter sessions.
2. I'm still whittling away at material I hope one day to publish under the Pathfinder Open Game License. I know the steps listed here on the site about getting a license to do so, but that's not my quandary. Do you know what other steps someone has to take to legally sell material online? By that I mean taxes, business licenses, etc.
I know that they're complicated and vary in complexity by city, county, and state. I don't know nearly enough about the topic to provide any actual advice, alas.
3. My group has considered from time to time doing a co-GM game but I'm not so sure about how it'd work well. Have you ever played in a game with two GMs? How did it work?
I have; they don't work well at all. The game is strengthened immeasurably not only by having ONE mind behind the world (the GM) but by having a stable party that doesn't change makeup or composition (which happens a lot if you keep swapping players and GMs). Much better to run shorter campaigns and swap GMs AND characters each time you change things up.
4. I've gotten my hands on some Lovecraft material. What do you think is the best story to read first? Also what is your least favorite Lovecraft story?
My favorite Lovecraft story is "At the Mountains of Madness," with the three closest runners up being "The Colour out of Space," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "The Dunwich Horror." Of his stories, I'd say that "The Dunwich Horror" is probably the easiest to get started with.
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I don't. They exist though. Primarily in the form of some cool older Dragon magazine articles.I love the Rod of Wonder, but feel unsatisfied with the list of random powers.
I see that you also love the Rod of Wonder. Do you have any expanded or alternate lists of Rod of Wonder powers you would be willing to post here? If you do, will you please post them?
There's an app for a d1000 Greater Rod of Wonder on rpg.net
Dear James,
Any plans on making more Pathfinder Art available thru your store? Rynalds and the rest are such amazing artists, and I have so many empty places on my walls...
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Ok so I've been trying to figure out a good use for my Trygon for my Worldwound/ Mendev campaign. What do you think about a nascent demonlord follower of Deskari? Any cool name ideas?
It's possible that over the course of the years, some of the group has started to get tired of each other due to tiny personality conflicts and the like that, over the course of years, just fester. Nothing that any long-term relationship, be it siblings or spouses or roommates or gaming buddies or teammates or whatever might develop. One way to fix this is to have a different group dynamic—let someone else be the GM, play different games, or play less often/shorter sessions.
Hm... I do know there have been some personality 'rough' spots occasionally. Mainly the Rollplayers versus the Roleplayers :p
We did just start a new game and I think some of the trouble this time has been nobody consulting on backstories and party alignment. I think we're going to try and sit down this week and talk it out, so hopefully all goes well!
I know that they're complicated and vary in complexity by city, county, and state. I don't know nearly enough about the topic to provide any actual advice, alas.
Yeah I've read a lot of the material for my state before. I may just need to go to the local offices and have a chit-chat. One of my old professors was a lawyer and I may ask to see if he has any advice. I think the hard part is that the business will be a side job not my primary (well when I can find a job :p).
EDIT: If all else fails and I can't get such things done I'll just release it for free. While I could definitely use the money to help with bills I don't want to make the material (which I hope to either way) and then not share it with everyone.
I have; they don't work well at all. The game is strengthened immeasurably not only by having ONE mind behind the world (the GM) but by having a stable party that doesn't change makeup or composition (which happens a lot if you keep swapping players and GMs). Much better to run shorter campaigns and swap GMs AND characters each time you change things up.
It definitely makes me glad to hear from someone with experience. Some of the things you brought up are what I was worried about. I may suggest to the group that we run a series of short campaigns. Definitely helpful, thanks!
My favorite Lovecraft story is "At the Mountains of Madness," with the three closest runners up being "The Colour out of Space," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "The Dunwich Horror." Of his stories, I'd say that "The Dunwich Horror" is probably the easiest to get started with.
I've been a huge fan of Call of Cthulhu and Arkham Horror for a while now and was wanting to read up on some of the lore. That and I love the idea of incorporating some of the concepts into the next game I run.
Sadly I only own the latter two. I'll make a note that if I can get a copy from a friend I'll check out "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Colour Out of Space."
Thanks for all the help! I must say that seeing a lot of the Paizo workers actually taking such an active role in their gaming community and the company's entire set of policies have definitely made me glad I made the move to Pathfinder. It's nice to see a group of people that care about their product and customers so much.
Would you consider taking on the moniker, "The GM of GMs"?
In this thread:
Do you need Heavy Armor Profiency to wear a Mithril Breastplate + Mithril Armored Kilt? Are you lightly or mediumly encumbered as a result?First... armored kilts are, in my opinion, silly and goofy. The game isn't built around a piecemeal armor system, so the addition of something like an armored kilt is kinda bad design. Since it causes weird confusing situations like this one. Which is why I didn't include them in the Inner Sea World Guide.
That said, if you still use them in your game... making an armored kilt mithral doesn't affect the fact that you're still wearing more armor than you normally would. A mithral breastplate is light encumbrance, but that plus a mithral armored kilt is medium encumbrance.
Thanks. What about the required armored proficiency?
And the weirdness caused by armored kilts continues—exhibit #32 why they should go away. :-)
If an armored kilt increases the armor's effective type from light to medium or from medium to heavy, you need proficiency in the final result in order to effectively use the armor.
A normal Armored Kilt and a Mithril Armor Kilt will increase the required armor proficiency of a piece of armor by one category. Therefore a Mithril Breastplate with a Mithril Armored Kilt does indeed require a Heavy Armor Proficiency to wear, but for movement is considered Light Armor.
fin
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Creative Director
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Ok so I've been trying to figure out a good use for my Trygon for my Worldwound/ Mendev campaign. What do you think about a nascent demonlord follower of Deskari? Any cool name ideas?
A nascent demon lord minion of Deskari would be cool. No real suggestions on names, alas. Start spelling words backwards!
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Same thread. Same problem with perception.
Some of the guys in it say (approximately) that failing a perception check has no negative effect as it is listed under Taking 20 for a skill (bit of circular logic from my point of view) so if you fail a perception check when searching for traps and the trap is activated by perceiving it (like the Symbols series of spells) you suffer no ill effect.
To me it seem a bit silly, but really there is no rule on what you see/don't see when you fail a perception check.
You want to try a Dispel confusion on the thread?Second page start here and the first post in that page is the perfect example of that kind of reasoning.
Failing a perception check DOESN'T have immediate negative effects... other than perhaps the false impression that there's no trap to be aware of when there is.That said, when a rule says "looking at something makes it hurt you" or the like, it doesn't matter if you make or fail a perception check. A symbol spell, when it's set up correctly, doesn't need a perception check to notice at all. In other words... perceiving the symbol is automatic, but noticing it's a trap before it activates is not.
Feel free to repost this over on the other thread if you want. I have no idea where said thread is since you didn't provide a link, and furthermore, I'm not 100% convinced me stepping in to provide rulings on rules threads solves as many problems as it tends to create these days.
Sorry, here is the missing ling in clear (but you are right I doubt your intervent would resolve anything):
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/rules/taking20OnPerceptionChecksToDiscoverTraps&page=2#95Something that you can resolve is this:
Symbol spell
Note: Magic traps such as symbol of death are hard to detect and disable. [b]A rogue (only)[b] can use the Perception skill to find a symbol of death and Disable Device to thwart it. The DC in each case is 25 + spell level, or 33 for symbol of death.
All the symbol spells have this note, maybe a legacy of the old 3.5 version.
A lot of people have doubts if it is still valid.
So what is needed to discover a trap of this kind:
- a Rogue?
- a guy with the Trapfinding class feature?
- anyone can detect it if he can make the perception roll?
Second thing, searching for traps.
It is 1 check for 5'x5' area or a larger area?
The rules say nothing explicitly. Some of us go for legacy rules, other say you can search a larger area in one go, up to the poind of checking a whole room with one check.
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Creative Director
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Something that you can resolve is this:
Symbol spell
Note: Magic traps such as symbol of death are hard to detect and disable. [b]A rogue (only)[b] can use the Perception skill to find a symbol of death and Disable Device to thwart it. The DC in each case is 25 + spell level, or 33 for symbol of death.
All the symbol spells have this note, maybe a legacy of the old 3.5 version.A lot of people have doubts if it is still valid.
So what is needed to discover a trap of this kind:
- a Rogue?
- a guy with the Trapfinding class feature?
- anyone can detect it if he can make the perception roll?Second thing, searching for traps.
It is 1 check for 5'x5' area or a larger area?
The rules say nothing explicitly. Some of us go for legacy rules, other say you can search a larger area in one go, up to the poind of checking a whole room with one check.
People in that thread seem a bit too eager to perpetuate the conversation/argument. Me weighing in there won't stop that.
That said, I guess I'll try here anyway.
In order to discover a symbol, you need to make the right Perception check DC and you need to be a rogue. That's the rule as written. Personally, I think it's kind of a crappy rule, and I suspect its a legacy rule that probably should have been stripped from the game. So if you're a rules-obsessed GM, yeah, you have to be a rogue in order to notice a symbol trap and thus be able to disarm it. That said... it's a pretty obvious rule to house rule in my opinion, since I'm not a fan of making ANY character class "indispensable" in any situation.
As for how much of an area you can search with one Perception check... go with the GM's decision. And the GM should make that decision based on what makes for speediest and most fun game play. Forcing players to make different Perception checks on every single 5 foot square area is lame lame lame.
Hey James,
is there any chance there will be a potion price list in an upcoming book for the new casters from APG? and the Magus, if he is able to make them?
Hey James,
is there any chance there will be a potion price list in an upcoming book for the new casters from APG? and the Magus, if he is able to make them?
The 3.5 SRD has a list and potions are the same price as in pathfinder. If the exact potion is not listed then find an equivalent level spell and use that price.
Wizards and witches would have the same pricing. Summoner would go off of bard pricing.You could also use the formula to figure spells by level if there is not on in the PRD which I think there is.
PS:There is a chart here that covers all levels. click me
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3. My group has considered from time to time doing a co-GM game but I'm not so sure about how it'd work well. Have you ever played in a game with two GMs? How did it work?
This depends on if you mean a game with gms swapping into sessions then yeah I agree with James that that won't be good.
If you mean two GMs at the same time, that can be fun if done well. For example, I was in a Buffy game several years back. a friend of ours turned up for the session 'just to watch'. Part way into the session several of our characters got pulled into a dream/alternative reality thing, which it turned out our freind was running. This meant that he could deal with the weird stuff there, whilst our regular gm could deal with what was going on in reality. It created a real sense of mania in the session, and meant that it wasn't a question of switching the focus between to two groups, slowing everything down.
Also, playing a giant game with four sets of players and four gms through four instances of the same dungeon with player swapping was great fun for a one off...
If you created any new class (base or prestige) regardless of how outrageous or crazy, what would it be?
Do you have favourite words that should be used more by your writers and are there words that get over used?
Do you have a dictionary of the words for the ancient languages that you have used in Golarion to maintain consistency? Xin, sihedron, (Shoanti maybe)and so on are Thassilonian.
Looking at the etymology of the word Thassilon, leads me to wonder if it derived from the Greek work Thalassa (The primordial sea) or the Greek region Thessaly?
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Creative Director
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If you created any new class (base or prestige) regardless of how outrageous or crazy, what would it be?
I've created quite a few for my apocalyptic world game, "Unspeakable Futures." The craziest class in that game is probably the Scavenger. He's a guy who has all sorts of tinker type abilities, and builds all sorts of things out of the junk he finds in the wasteland. He gets a robot companion (kinda like how an animal companion works) and also builds his own custom-made futuristic gun out of spare parts (one that works only for him, but can be customized to whatever he wants).
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Creative Director
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Do you have favourite words that should be used more by your writers and are there words that get over used?
Do you have a dictionary of the words for the ancient languages that you have used in Golarion to maintain consistency? Xin, sihedron, (Shoanti maybe)and so on are Thassilonian.
Looking at the etymology of the word Thassilon, leads me to wonder if it derived from the Greek work Thalassa (The primordial sea) or the Greek region Thessaly?
I have lots of favorite words. Many of them were also Lovecraft's favorite words as well. Three of my most favorite would be "eidolon," "cyclopean," and "squamous." Those also get overused a lot as well.
If you ask the editors, though, my favorite word is "althoguh." They even have a mini-mythology built up about what "althoguh" might be. Current guess is a giant eye surrounded by tentacles.
I don't have a dictionary of Thassilonian words. Don't need one yet, since there's not many words we've invented in that language yet. I'm trying really hard to keep it that way.
Thassilon is actually inspired by Clark Ashton Smith, who (like Lovecraft and Howard and several others of that era) made up a bunch of deities for his stories. One of those deities was Thasaidon, a dark god worshiped in the necromancer realm of Zothique. I made up the name originally to serve as the name of a mighty ancient empire in my homebrew world of Baria, although it was a good guy empire in that setting (it got mixed up with a different ancient empire from my homebrew, the Impyrium, to turn into the Thassilon of Golarion).
Since I suspect that Clark Ashton Smith himself came up with the name of his deity Thasaidon from the Greek root word, though... yeah, in a plinko-brain sort of way, I suppose Thassilon was indeed inspired by Greek words.
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Creative Director
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If the good nations of the Inner Sea got their act together and focused on eliminating the evil nations, who'd they target first?
Probably the least good of their own alliance. Golarion's not a place where good guys team up to effectively "fix the world," since that job should be the PCs'job,
That said... the Worldwound is probably the evil region most in need of some quick action.
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If the good nations of the Inner Sea got their act together and focused on eliminating the evil nations, who'd they target first?Probably the least good of their own alliance. Golarion's not a place where good guys team up to effectively "fix the world," since that job should be the PCs'job,
Hermea?
If the good nations of the Inner Sea got their act together and focused on eliminating the evil nations, who'd they target first?Probably the least good of their own alliance. Golarion's not a place where good guys team up to effectively "fix the world," since that job should be the PCs'job,
That said... the Worldwound is probably the evil region most in need of some quick action.
Would you find Hell Knights fighting chaos at the world wound?
If the good nations of the Inner Sea got their act together and focused on eliminating the evil nations, who'd they target first?Probably the least good of their own alliance.
That is probably my favorite response from this entire thread.
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Creative Director
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Would you find Hell Knights fighting chaos at the world wound?If the good nations of the Inner Sea got their act together and focused on eliminating the evil nations, who'd they target first?Probably the least good of their own alliance. Golarion's not a place where good guys team up to effectively "fix the world," since that job should be the PCs'job,
That said... the Worldwound is probably the evil region most in need of some quick action.
Not a lot. Maybe a very few. Hellknights are mostly concerned with Cheliax, with some bleedover into Isger and Varisia. Beyond that, they get increasingly uncommon.
Mendev and Iomedae's crusaders are the primary force facing off against the Worldwound.
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Creative Director
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OK, creator of Obox-ob, who has fessed up to using Obox-ob as a main villain of his home game:
What kind of miniature did you use for Obox-ob? Link pics or it never happened :)
Obox-ob didn't show up often in my games, because he's a god. Gods don't need minis.
He DID show up at the end of a big campaign I ran in college, though, that was all about him trying to directly manifest in the big city of Eltrun. At the climax of the campaign, the divine portal at the bottom of his temple dungeon opened up wide enough for a single eye to peek through. One of the PCs shot a meteor swarm at it, but did no damage. They managed to close the portal anyway, even with one of the PCs having switched sides and joining forces with Obox-Ob.
Anyway... never had to use a mini for him is what I'm saying. So there's no pics to show!
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Obox-ob didn't show up often in my games, because he's a god. Gods don't need minis.
He DID show up at the end of a big campaign I ran in college, though, that was all about him trying to directly manifest in the big city of Eltrun. At the climax of the campaign, the divine portal at the bottom of his temple dungeon opened up wide enough for a single eye to peek through. One of the PCs shot a meteor swarm at it, but did no damage. They managed to close the portal anyway, even with one of the PCs having switched sides and joining forces with Obox-Ob.
Anyway... never had to use a mini for him is what I'm saying. So there's no pics to show!
Thanks. I was hoping for some inspiration to make the
Obox-ob's totally the creepiest of the demon lords, btw. Nobody except FC2 Dagon even comes close. So fair play to you!
Not a lot. Maybe a very few. Hellknights are mostly concerned with Cheliax, with some bleedover into Isger and Varisia. Beyond that, they get increasingly uncommon.
Mendev and Iomedae's crusaders are the primary force facing off against the Worldwound.
I was going to ask a similiar question but was ninjad by The 8th Dwarf.
But I do have a follow up question.
What would the reaction of Mendev and the Iomedae's crusaders be if the church of Asmodeus and Chelix organized a new order of Hellknights to deal with the Worldwound issue?
Also in the newest The Inner Sea World Guide the Hellknight Prc's special requirement require it to kill a devil of equal HD....is that suppose to be a demon?
Unlikely. Price lists like that take up a lot of room, and potions are already the easiest magic items to price out anyway.Hey James,
is there any chance there will be a potion price list in an upcoming book for the new casters from APG? and the Magus, if he is able to make them?
Can find the post, but in the Rules section we already classified the APG classes to their Core classes in the Potion Cost chart.
Basically look at the spell lists for the APG class to determine which column to read from was the general consensus.
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Creative Director
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What would the reaction of Mendev and the Iomedae's crusaders be if the church of Asmodeus and Chelix organized a new order of Hellknights to deal with the Worldwound issue?
Legitimate skepticism combined with concern, since it's just as easy to imagine Asmodeus's church joining forces with Mendevian crusaders to fight demons as it is to imagine Asmodeus's church joining forces with the demons to fight Mendevian crusaders. In the end, Iomedae's crusaders would probably resist the "help"... and they'd probably be right to do so, especially since trouble in the Worldwound won't really impact Cheliax much but it WOULD weaken Iomedae's church if things go bad for the Mendevian crusaders which would be much to Iomedae and Cheliax's good fortune and delight.
Also in the newest The Inner Sea World Guide the Hellknight Prc's special requirement require it to kill a devil of equal HD....is that suppose to be a demon?
Nope. It's supposed to be a devil.
The Hellknights don't actually see themselves as "devil allies." They see themselves as "devils in the flesh" if anything; they take the order and intimidation and philosophy of Hell and devils and strip away the evil, leaving behind the law and focus on THAT. They see devils as tools for the most part, not allies. By defeating a devil, a hopefull Hellknight not only proves he's a talented combatant, but also metaphorically shows how he's superior to devils.
On a side note... there's not really much in the way of Devil vs. Demon conflict in Golarion, really. That concept is mostly the Blood War, which is part of Wizards of the Coast's intellectual property. Pathfinder Demons and Devils don't necessarily always get along, but neither are they always at war.
James, do a familiar's racial abilities advance with their "effective hit dice?"
For example, would an imp's poison DC go up? Would a silvanshee gain increased healing from it's lay on hands ability?
What about more basic stats? Do they get +1 ability score boost every four hit dice? A new feat every odd hit dice?
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Creative Director
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James, do a familiar's racial abilities advance with their "effective hit dice?"
For example, would an imp's poison DC go up? Would a silvanshee gain increased healing from it's lay on hands ability?
What about more basic stats? Do they get +1 ability score boost every four hit dice? A new feat every odd hit dice?
The rules say: "For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master's character level or the familiar's normal HD total, whichever is higher."
This means that effects that target HD, such as cloudkill or circle of death or sleep, target your familiar as if it has your level in HD or its racial HD, whichever is higher. It's ACTUAL racial HD do not change at all, and thus it doesn't gain ability score boosts or new feats, nor does the DC associated with its special abilities increase.
To increase those, the familiar's actual HD need to go up. There's not really a way in game at this point to really do this, but that might change at some point.
What would the reaction of Mendev and the Iomedae's crusaders be if the church of Asmodeus and Chelix organized a new order of Hellknights to deal with the Worldwound issue?Legitimate skepticism combined with concern, since it's just as easy to imagine Asmodeus's church joining forces with Mendevian crusaders to fight demons as it is to imagine Asmodeus's church joining forces with the demons to fight Mendevian crusaders. In the end, Iomedae's crusaders would probably resist the "help"... and they'd probably be right to do so, especially since trouble in the Worldwound won't really impact Cheliax much but it WOULD weaken Iomedae's church if things go bad for the Mendevian crusaders which would be much to Iomedae and Cheliax's good fortune and delight.
Is that a typo?
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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The rules say: "For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master's character level or the familiar's normal HD total, whichever is higher."
This means that effects that target HD, such as cloudkill or circle of death or sleep, target your familiar as if it has your level in HD or its racial HD, whichever is higher. It's ACTUAL racial HD do not change at all, and thus it doesn't gain ability score boosts or new feats, nor does the DC associated with its special abilities increase.
To increase those, the familiar's actual HD need to go up. There's not really a way in game at this point to really do this, but that might change at some point.
That would mean that Celestial familiars don't get any of the increased HD bonuses from the Celestial template (higher energy resistances, DR/Evil), right?
James,
Pathfinder #5 Spoilers
Where is Runeforge situated cosmologically? (I'm toying with putting it in the Diaspora in my campaign, but I really would love the C.D.'s answer too)
What does it look like from the exterior (the "void of entropy")? Is it like a giant potato asteroid, or does it have architectural elements?
Are the different sections visibly connected (from the exterior), or are the halls that link them like magic portals?
Do the different wings displace each other physically (on a static map with halls of about 100 feet, it appears that they would overlap, or else one would have to be higher than the next, which results in a pretty cool shape)?
Is the stone texture of the map representative of the basic stuff that Runeforge is composed of?
Is there anything more to know about Runeforge that ended up on the cutting room floor?
Is there something cool about Runeforge that is so obscure I don't even know to ask about it?
If you were going to populate the "missing" dungeon of sloth, what kinds of encounters might you put there?
Thanks!
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Obox-ob didn't show up often in my games, because he's a god. Gods don't need minis.
He DID show up at the end of a big campaign I ran in college, though, that was all about him trying to directly manifest in the big city of Eltrun. At the climax of the campaign, the divine portal at the bottom of his temple dungeon opened up wide enough for a single eye to peek through. One of the PCs shot a meteor swarm at it, but did no damage. They managed to close the portal anyway, even with one of the PCs having switched sides and joining forces with Obox-Ob.
Anyway... never had to use a mini for him is what I'm saying. So there's no pics to show!
Thanks. I was hoping for some inspiration to make the ** spoiler omitted **
Obox-ob's totally the creepiest of the demon lords, btw. Nobody except FC2 Dagon even comes close. So fair play to you!
not really Big D, but Great Cthulhu mini
not perfect, but any means, but it should do...
There was a discussion going on about unarmed strikes and some stacking stuff here.
Basically the discussion is whether Enlarge Person, Strong Jaw, Monk's Robe, Amulet of Mighty Fists, and Brass Knuckles all stack together.
Is this something that just happens to work through finding that perfect hole or is there something in the rules that forbids it?
I love monks and know they need love, but this has left me feeling like there might be a loophole found here for some crazy stacking. Of course if it is possible it doesn't mean all of it would be available to said PC monk in a game.
Thanks for the help!
Also, I'm loving the Lovecraft :D
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Creative Director
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The rules say: "For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master's character level or the familiar's normal HD total, whichever is higher."
This means that effects that target HD, such as cloudkill or circle of death or sleep, target your familiar as if it has your level in HD or its racial HD, whichever is higher. It's ACTUAL racial HD do not change at all, and thus it doesn't gain ability score boosts or new feats, nor does the DC associated with its special abilities increase.
To increase those, the familiar's actual HD need to go up. There's not really a way in game at this point to really do this, but that might change at some point.
That would mean that Celestial familiars don't get any of the increased HD bonuses from the Celestial template (higher energy resistances, DR/Evil), right?
Correct.
Familiars aren't really meant to be combat buddies. They're not supposed to be things you want to be doing things in combat. Improved Familiars are a little better at it... but they also have access to abilities that help them get away from a fight as well.
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Creative Director
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James,
Pathfinder #5 Spoilers
Answers inside the spoiler.
Where is Runeforge situated cosmologically? (I'm toying with putting it in the Diaspora in my campaign, but I really would love the C.D.'s answer too)
It's a demiplane, so it's actually situated inside itself. There's nothing to see if you burrow out of it, since beyond its edges is nothing. If you put it in the Diaspora, it's still on the Material Plane so you'd need to adjust lots of stuff. Demiplanes can't normally be reached except via portals and plane shift type effects.
What does it look like from the exterior (the "void of entropy")? Is it like a giant potato asteroid, or does it have architectural elements?
There is no "exterior" to Ruenforge. All that exists is what's inside the map.
Are the different sections visibly connected (from the exterior), or are the halls that link them like magic portals?
The various wings of the dungeon are visibly connected, I believe, but there's a bit of weird alien geometry going on that prevents the various wings from overlapping each other.
Do the different wings displace each other physically (on a static map with halls of about 100 feet, it appears that they would overlap, or else one would have to be higher than the next, which results in a pretty cool shape)?
Again... there's weird noneuclidian geometry going on; the halls that connect the wings to the center extend through weird warpy type things that basically place each wing more distant from each other than they might appear to be.
Is the stone texture of the map representative of the basic stuff that Runeforge is composed of?
Beyond the dungeons of Runeforge it's stone, which is modeled after the stone that surrounded the dungeon when it was first built and before the runelords catapulted it from the Material Plane into its own unique dimension. For a certain way if you tunnel into that stone, it behaves just like stone. Whether or not the stone continues forever or it comes to a dead end of nothingness or loops back on itself from the other sid like an old Atari video game is up to the GM.
Is there anything more to know about Runeforge that ended up on the cutting room floor?
That was 3 years ago... nothing comes to mind, although we DID do a magic of Thassilon web-enhancement for that volume. Mostly because the adventure was too big so we had to cut from the support article.
Is there something cool about Runeforge that is so obscure I don't even know to ask about it?
Yup.
If you were going to populate the "missing" dungeon of sloth, what kinds of encounters might you put there?
I'd certainly look at demons, since they're closely tied to the seven deadly sins. Also undead and constructs. All of those guys don't need to eat or breathe or drink, and thus they can live in Runeforge forever if they want.
Thanks!
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Creative Director
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The WOW D20 game actually did incorporate a piecemeal armor system in order to emulate the armor sets found in the game. the basic mechanics is OGL. Each piece of armor added a set amount to AC. If you had certain combinations of pieces the armor type would change from light to medium, or from medium to heavy as applicable.
Since piecemiel armor is the primary and central mechanic of World of Warcraft's magic item system, that makes sense that the d20 version would adopt it for their version of the game.
It's a nifty system in the MMORPG... even if it does have the unfortunate side effect of making everyone look the same in the end once everyone has the "best" armor.
It's also a bit too complex, in my opinion, for a pen and paper game. It'd certainly need a complete reworking of the armor system in the game to accommodate armor bonuses from all of those piecemeal slots; since you'd want each armor to give no less than +1 to AC and in many cases you'd want it to give more (leather gauntlets should give more AC than plate mail ones), the end result would be that armored creatures would end up with a MUCH higher AC than non-armored ones. Which means that building monsters would get more complicated, and which means we'd have to completely rebuild how base attack bonuses and attack rolls are calculated.
It's a can of worms that's best not opened, in my opinion, unless you're rebuilding the entire game from the ground up. That ship has sailed already for Pathifndier. It actually sailed before we started working on the game, in fact, since we didn't want the PFRPG to completely obsolete the work we'd already done on Golarion.
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Creative Director
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Just remember when it came to Victorian Speculative Fiction, you weren't anybody if you didn't make some use of the word Antediluvian in your body of work.
I have lots of favorite words. Many of them were also Lovecraft's favorite words as well. Three of my most favorite would be "eidolon," "cyclopean," and "squamous." Those also get overused a lot as well..
Antediluvian is a GREAT word. It's also kinda inappropriate to use in Golarion... kind of like how we can't really talk about Adam's apples or Greek fire, since when you dig in to what the word means, it doesn't make sense in a world without a primordial flood, a first human named Adam, or a place called Greece.