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A second Empyreal Lord question: how would Golarion society view Empyreal worship compared to actual dieties such as Sarenrae and Iomedae? Angel worship didn't seem very popular with only 30 worshippers in large cities and small shrines, as opposed to large temples and such. Is it a thing like why worship the angel Gabriel when you could worship God himself? (This is all basically the first question)
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A second Empyreal Lord question: how would Golarion society view Empyreal worship compared to actual dieties such as Sarenrae and Iomedae? Angel worship didn't seem very popular with only 30 worshippers in large cities and small shrines, as opposed to large temples and such. Is it a thing like why worship the angel Gabriel when you could worship God himself? (This is all basically the first question)
Depends entirely on the region, but as a rule, they'd treat them/view them in the same way they view worship of any good deity. Remember, Sarenrae is herself actually an empyreal lord. There's just not as many worshipers, overall, of empyreal lords that aren't also Core Deities. There are exceptions, of course. Magnimar's got more empyreal lord worship than the norm, for example.
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Hey James, any update on when the Age of Worms overload will be released?
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Hey James, any update on when the Age of Worms overload will be released?
I have no idea if you're asking an honest question or joking around, so I'll assume the former.
Age of Worms is owned by Wizards of the Coast, and it's not something we have any input on or say about anymore. If you've got questions about Age of Worms, you'll need to ask them, not us.
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Sorry, it was a joke. I have a warped sense of humour. Just dug up my old Dungeon 123, and there was a note about an age of worms overload file, and then I remembered for months afterwards on the board there were people bugging you and Erik about when the file would be released.
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Perchance will the next Hardcover that's not a Bestiary focus on more magic school stuff? IE what comes after Ultimate Magic if anything?
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Perchance will the next Hardcover that's not a Bestiary focus on more magic school stuff? IE what comes after Ultimate Magic if anything?
The next Hardcover is Planar Adventures. There'll be some spells in it, but not a lot; the focus is providing world context and information on the Planes. Think of it as a "Great Beyond" version of "The Inner Sea World Guide" I guess.
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I kind of meant AFTER that but thanks again for plugging Planar Adventures! :)
James, barring that this doesn't make any actual sense (we'll just use "hand-wavium" to make a square peg/round hole fit): if you, in real life, could have the nearest equivalent of 20 levels in a class, but had to have an archetype from a completely different class (again, ignoring specifics; presuppose you get the benefits and rrrroooouuuugggghhhhllllyyyyy equivalent losses) which class and which archetype (from what other class) would you choose? Similarly, if you gained the equivalent of 20 levels, but ten had to be in a Prestige Class, which class and prestige class?
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James, barring that this doesn't make any actual sense (we'll just use "hand-wavium" to make a square peg/round hole fit): if you, in real life, could have the nearest equivalent of 20 levels in a class, but had to have an archetype from a completely different class (again, ignoring specifics; presuppose you get the benefits and rrrroooouuuugggghhhhllllyyyyy equivalent losses) which class and which archetype (from what other class) would you choose? Similarly, if you gained the equivalent of 20 levels, but ten had to be in a Prestige Class, which class and prestige class?
Bard with the swashbuckler rogue archetype.
OR
10 levels of rogue and 10 levels of master spy.
AWESOME! Thanks! :D
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Hi James. In your opinion, what are the best regions of Golarion to find rougarous, astomois, orang-pendaks and nayads?
Rougarous: Probably Arcadia
Astomois: Probably on another planet entirely
Orang-Pendaks: Minata (Tian-Xia)
Niads: Anywhere there's rivers
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Will Planar Adventures shed some light on the homes of the lesser known gods. Like will we find out the where the realms of Lissala, Alazhra and Nivi Rhombodazzle are in the book?
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What would a Zoomer do?Thank you :) only another question: if you could design a new class all by yourself, what concept would you like to explore?Zoomer!
She'd zoom. In vehicles. (It's a Stranger Things 2 reference, for those who missed the in-joke.)
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background
Just read a not complementary review of Ultimate Wilderness (which I have not read yet) where the person complained that the seeker class was not flexible, specifically saying "why am I stuck with claws if I want to make a frog or shark based shifter."
I it took me two seconds to come up with a solution in general terms. My answer--Eidolon style evolution points.
The second thought was, if I were a designer, given the comments I've heard over the years, my would be editors at Paizo would not be fond of an approach using that subsystem.
Question:
If you were me, how would you approach approaching an editor with an idea outside their comfort zone (regardless of what the idea is)
or
Do you not approach the editor and start using it to design (in this case) Pathfinder: Superheroes of not Golarion?
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James,
What's the likelihood we'll *eventually* get a player's companion or campaign setting book dealing solely with sin(rune) magic? And yes, I have thought about how it's possible to fill a 64 page book on just sin magic stuff lol.
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Now that Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos is out to backers, could you remind us which parts you wrote? I recall there was the bit on Deep One Culture and the Great Old Ones (which are awesome BTW!) but I feel like I'm forgetting something.
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background
Just read a not complementary review of Ultimate Wilderness (which I have not read yet) where the person complained that the seeker class was not flexible, specifically saying "why am I stuck with claws if I want to make a frog or shark based shifter."
I it took me two seconds to come up with a solution in general terms. My answer--Eidolon style evolution points.
The second thought was, if I were a designer, given the comments I've heard over the years, my would be editors at Paizo would not be fond of an approach using that subsystem.
Question:
If you were me, how would you approach approaching an editor with an idea outside their comfort zone (regardless of what the idea is)
or
Do you not approach the editor and start using it to design (in this case) Pathfinder: Superheroes of not Golarion?
I assume you're talking about the shifter class, not the seeker class.
And the thing is, as with ALL classes, there's an immense design space for the shifter. Immense enough that not every possible option would fit in one book. Ultimate Wilderness's job was, in part, to introduce the shifter. Later books can produce things like archetypes that allow for things like a shark- or frog-based shifter, a shifter that focuses on something other than claws, and anything else the authors are interested in exploring. To expect a single book to contain all options right out of the gate is unrealistic; we didn't put elementalist wizards in the Core Rulebook, for example, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't ever exist... and then Advanced Player's Guide comes along, and presto, there they are.
If folks want to see variant shifters that have shark powers or whatever, just let us know. PRO-TIP: Letting us know in a non-antagonistic way makes you look like a better person and is more likely to inspire us rather than depress us.
As for your question, though... I am confused by it. Are you, in effect, asking, "How do I suggest an idea for a book to someone when I suspect they aren't interested in the idea?" (This is not what editors do, by the way... determining what products to produce for a publishing company is the publisher's job.)
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James,
What's the likelihood we'll *eventually* get a player's companion or campaign setting book dealing solely with sin(rune) magic? And yes, I have thought about how it's possible to fill a 64 page book on just sin magic stuff lol.
Very unlikely. In fact, I doubt it'll ever happen. Because of 2 things:
1) There's actually not a lot TO Thassilonian Magic (that's the term we prefer to use, not "sin magic" or "rune magic") that's different than the baseline magic of the core game. Thassilonian Magic is just a philosophical way to organize the schools of magic in a way that's different and a bit more organized than the Core Rulebook's "Here are 8 schools and they don't have any relationship to each other" method. In another way of thinking, every time we design a new spell for a wizard that's of any school other than divination or universal, that's an expansion to Thassilonian Magic.
2) Thassilonian Magic is more of a thing for NPCs, thematically. It's an antiquated way of looking at magic that has not really been in style for 9,000 years or so. While there's perhaps not a lot of direct rules stuff to add to it, there's an INFINITE amount of flavor stuff to add to it, but the best way to do that is in the form of adventures and supplements for GM use, not for players, because to me, the interesting thing about Thassilon is how it enables adventures, not as a thing that just gives PCs more stuff to play with.
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Now that Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos is out to backers, could you remind us which parts you wrote? I recall there was the bit on Deep One Culture and the Great Old Ones (which are awesome BTW!) but I feel like I'm forgetting something.
Woo! It's out, is it? Hope folks like it!
I haven't seen the final product yet, and I did the writing for it last year, but my recollection is:
I wrote most of the rules portions for the monsters. I THINK I ended up writing all of them, but again, I'm not sure what ended up in the final book yet so I can't say for sure.
I designed the mechanisim for the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods' manifestations, and wrote all the rules text for them, based on Sandy Petersen's incredibly inspiring flavor text for how they should function.
I wrote a large chunk of the rules mechanics for the insanity system, along with a fair chunk of the archetypes and other class options.
I wrote up most of the PC race stuff. In some cases, like for the ghouls, I wrote it all based on an outline of ideas and some brainstorms we had. In other cases, like for the gnorri and cats, I expanded on an existing set of ideas.
It was, overall, a pretty organic process and it's really difficult to pin down what sections I wrote today, but my files I turned over to them were a total of about 100,000 words when all was said and done.
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Seeing as how you wrote up some rules for the Mythos book as shown above, which do you prefer at this point in your career, writing up rules elements for stuff you love, or writing purely 'flavor/fluff/descriptive' elements for stuff you love, regardless of setting or system?
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Seeing as how you wrote up some rules for the Mythos book as shown above, which do you prefer at this point in your career, writing up rules elements for stuff you love, or writing purely 'flavor/fluff/descriptive' elements for stuff you love, regardless of setting or system?
I prefer writing flavor.
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If folks want to see variant shifters that have shark powers or whatever, just let us know. PRO-TIP: Letting us know in a non-antagonistic way makes you look like a better person and is more likely to inspire us rather than depress us.Question:
If you were me, how would you approach approaching an editor with an idea outside their comfort zone (regardless of what the idea is)
or
Do you not approach the editor and start using it to design (in this case) Pathfinder: Superheroes of not Golarion?
Umm, sorry, I really didn't expect it to be seen as antagonistic and I am sorry for that. I was honestly giving the background in order explain the question.
Truthfully, I do not care whether there are shark or frog powers or whatever, which is why it was carefully framed as not the question. But I am glad you know now. I'm sure it will make some another gamer happy. I hope that inspires you.
I was honestly asking, how do you carefully suggest the re use of a subsystem in an innovative way as a solution to a design problem if you're not sure an editor would be open to the idea?
As for your question, though... I am confused by it. Are you, in effect, asking, "How do I suggest an idea for a...
If think you may face a hostile reception to the idea, is it better go to third party publisher? And yes, it's because suddenly I thought evolution points would work great for a superhero/fantasy blend game (much like Shadowrun is a blend of Cyberpunk/Fantasy)?
Thank you in advance for your response.
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Now that Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos is out to backers, could you remind us which parts you wrote? I recall there was the bit on Deep One Culture and the Great Old Ones (which are awesome BTW!) but I feel like I'm forgetting something.Woo! It's out, is it? Hope folks like it!
It is, and it is awesome! I was very happy to have the Great Old One manifestation rules, I think they'll provide a lot more flexibility. Who was your favourite Great Old One to write for this book?
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What are Ileosa's ideals Gray Maidens uphold that are mentioned few time? I think Adventurer's Guide mentioned they originally had racial purity as well, but otherwise I can't really find mention that explains what exactly were they
Racial purity isn't part of the Gray Maidens at all.
The ideals that they upheld while they served Illeosa were pretty much "OBEY THE QUEEN."
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If folks want to see variant shifters that have shark powers or whatever, just let us know. PRO-TIP: Letting us know in a non-antagonistic way makes you look like a better person and is more likely to inspire us rather than depress us.Question:
If you were me, how would you approach approaching an editor with an idea outside their comfort zone (regardless of what the idea is)
or
Do you not approach the editor and start using it to design (in this case) Pathfinder: Superheroes of not Golarion?
Umm, sorry, I really didn't expect it to be seen as antagonistic and I am sorry for that. I was honestly giving the background in order explain the question.
Truthfully, I do not care whether there are shark or frog powers or whatever, which is why it was carefully framed as not the question. But I am glad you know now. I'm sure it will make some another gamer happy. I hope that inspires you.
I was honestly asking, how do you carefully suggest the re use of a subsystem in an innovative way as a solution to a design problem if you're not sure an editor would be open to the idea?
As for your question, though... I am confused by it. Are you, in effect, asking, "How do I suggest an idea for a...If think you may face a hostile reception to the idea, is it better go to third party publisher? And yes, it's because suddenly I thought evolution points would work great for a superhero/fantasy blend game (much like Shadowrun is a blend of Cyberpunk/Fantasy)?
Thank you in advance for your response.
And again, I wouldn't ask an editor. I would talk to the developer and/or the designer of the book. And in fact, as a developer, talking to authors/designers of books to rebuild/change the way things work to make them better for the game is a big part of what a developer does. So for me? I'd just go talk to the designer/developer and work it out.
But then, by reading the last part of your post, I realized you're asking not "How do I do it?" but "How can a person approach a company with an idea for a game product?" or to be more precise, "How can a person submit an idea to Paizo to change the game or to create new content?"
The answer to that is that you can't. We create all of our content in-house or hire established freelancers to write content for us, after which we develop that content as needed. We don't currently accept unsolicited manuscripts or ideas for new products or the like.
If you have an idea to create a game based on the Pathfinder or Starfinder rules that is a superhero game, your best bet would be either to approach a third-party publisher you admire and that you think would be interested, or to simply self-publish it.
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Who was your favourite Great Old One to write for this book?
Hmmm... good question. I can't really remember one in specific as being more fun than others. Cthulhu was the first one I did, and he was the one where I worked out the basics of the rules to make sure they'd do what I needed them to do, so he was fun. Hastur's powers, as envisioned by Sandy, were probably among the most challenging to design, but figuring out how he worked was a lot of fun as well. In fact, a LOT of these guys were all about "How do I quantify in rules these really cool and imaginative and innovative ideas that Sandy had into rules for Pathfinder?" The more incredible his ideas were, the more fun they were to create rules for.
But the most fun? Probably Byatis, since that was a Great Old One invented by one of my favorite authors, Ramsey Campbell, and not one that I'd yet had the chance to play around with in Pathfinder.
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How do followers of Gozreh and of the Green Faith regard each other, and are there differences of approach (other than the obvious one following a deity and the other not) that would strike each as important ? I'm trying to get the flavours more distinct in my head.
With respectful suspicion.
Followers of the Green Faith see nature as being more powerful and primal than a single entity, even if that entity is a deity like Gozreh, and likely view such a notion as "humanoid arrogance and unnecessary anthropomorphism of a pure concept." Whereas worshipers of Gozreh take relief in knowing that there's at least a force of intellect and design behind nature, even if it's one who can't always be understood, and hope to achieve enlightenment or whatever by worshiping that force of design and intellect.
But in the end, they're aimed at the same thing—veneration of nature—and so they get along as well as any two other natural things do. Sometimes they're friends, sometimes they're enemies, sometimes they see the other as prey/predators, sometimes they don't regard the other at all.
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When will Pathfinder 2.0 come out?
There's no way I can answer a question like that without the internet getting all freaky, so instead... here's a cute animated gif of a lizard licking his eye.
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So, as per the write-up in the Ruins of Azlant article, Acavna is Chaotic Neutral.
Would you say her altruistic final act of taking the brunt of Earthfall would qualify to push her over the line into a Good alignment as her final act?
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So, as per the write-up in the Ruins of Azlant article, Acavna is Chaotic Neutral.
Would you say her altruistic final act of taking the brunt of Earthfall would qualify to push her over the line into a Good alignment as her final act?
Had she survived, perhaps. She didn't though, so it's kind of a moot point.
How late do you work on the weekends?
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How late do you work on the weekends?
Normally I don't work at all on the weekends. For a while a few years ago I was doing 60 to 70 hour weeks, particularly around the Rise of the Runelords hardcover time or during Kingmaker or Serpent's Skull...
But these days, the combination of us having a bigger staff and my own personal decision to preserve my time off as my own time to prevent burnout means that I don't normally work on the weekends at all.
Although this weekend and the last few I've put in a few hours here and there to try to get caught up a bit on some stuff.
NOTE: While posting to this thread is technically "work" I do so on and off whenever, including at night like this.
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here's a cute animated gif of a lizard licking his eye.
Dawwww, do you have any more cute gifs on hand?
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For both the oracle and the shaman who take the Heavens as their mystery the 20th level power includes "if you are killed you come back as a star child that matures over 7 days". What exactly is a "star child" it does not appear in any Beastiary and it seems to be specifically chosen wording without much explanation?
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So another question about Ileosa's infernal contract, this time about devil bounded to her:
"IN ADDENNUM shall the erinyes heretic ZANZINARIA"
I'm mainly curious at that "erinyes heretic" part, like does that mean Zanzinaria is heretic to devils or is heretic sort of a title or rank for devils or erinyes?
(also, when devil bounded creature dies, does anything happen to devil they were bounded to?)
James,
Thank you very much for answering my question. Have another one that just cropped up.
May I ask that the answer to CorvusMask's second question be put behind a spoiler, as I'm currently in a Hell's Rebels campaign where that might be an important plot-point?
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here's a cute animated gif of a lizard licking his eye.
Speaking of which, do lizardfolk lick their eyes like that or do they have actual eyelids that can blink?
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I just got my backer PDF of the Cthulhu Mythos and i'm loving it!
I especially like the inclusion of the Mythos Ghouls which brings me to my question, if I include both them and the paralyzing Pathfinder Ghouls in a game what would you suggest I refer to the two creatures as so as to not confuse my players?
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here's a cute animated gif of a lizard licking his eye.Dawwww, do you have any more cute gifs on hand?
Nope. When I need them, I just do a google search. Something like "Cute lizard animated gif" or whatever.