Creative Director
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Hi James, I have got a design question on the Shifter. If the shifter is supposed to be a martial the class the it should have IMO Simple and martial weapons. As it is a shifting class that does not have a class special ability to have its armor and weapons mere with it when it changes form. Then IMO it should have Simple and martial weapons and not have medium armor. The Shifter has the Monk Wisdom bonus to AC that is another reason for it not to have Medium armor as it would loose that bonus if he wore medium armor.
I hope this does not violate the one question rule I am really more interusted in the first part weapons and armor the second part is more of an observation on my part.
The shifter is indeed a martial class, but it's specifically NOT one that uses manufactured weapons. Its focus is intended to be on its natural attacks. As for its armor and weapons as-is, it's also intended to be a champion of druid faiths, so its weapons and armor stuff matches up with druid weapons and armor stuff.
Think of the shifter as the Green Faith's answer to paladins if you will.
Was Thassilon/the Runelords more or less the same in your homebrew, or were they changed/adapted a great deal for Golarion?
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Creative Director
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Was Thassilon/the Runelords more or less the same in your homebrew, or were they changed/adapted a great deal for Golarion?
They've been significantly changed for Golarion.
In my homebrew, there were five of them, and they were all necromancers; their ancient empire was the source of most of the undead creatures that continue to plague the world, with ghosts and a few other outliers being the only ones that predate their empire.
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Was Thassilon/the Runelords more or less the same in your homebrew, or were they changed/adapted a great deal for Golarion?They've been significantly changed for Golarion.
In my homebrew, there were five of them, and they were all necromancers; their ancient empire was the source of most of the undead creatures that continue to plague the world, with ghosts and a few other outliers being the only ones that predate their empire.
Did they exist in addition to Tar-Baphon, or end up taking his role in the setting?
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Creative Director
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Was Thassilon/the Runelords more or less the same in your homebrew, or were they changed/adapted a great deal for Golarion?They've been significantly changed for Golarion.
In my homebrew, there were five of them, and they were all necromancers; their ancient empire was the source of most of the undead creatures that continue to plague the world, with ghosts and a few other outliers being the only ones that predate their empire.
Did they exist in addition to Tar-Baphon, or end up taking his role in the setting?
Tar-Baphon was not from my homebrew. The main bad-guy necromancer in my homebrew was Zutha (who was himself not a part of the ancient necromancer league).
Who came up with the Nurgal/Nergal explanation in The Book of the Damned?
(I ask 'cause I love it...)
In the Return of the Runelords thread(and probably here, and elsewhere), you've said that the Runelord trilogy is one of the things you've been building towards/working on since pretty the beginning of PF(if not before).
Is there anything else that you've been working on for a long time that still needs to see completion?
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Creative Director
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In the Return of the Runelords thread(and probably here, and elsewhere), you've said that the Runelord trilogy is one of the things you've been building towards/working on since pretty the beginning of PF(if not before).
Is there anything else that you've been working on for a long time that still needs to see completion?
Paizo projects:
Nocticula's escape/redemption from the AbyssA Red Mantis vs. Skinsaw Cult novel set in Vyre
Personal projects:
Unspeakable Futures
Numerous fiction projects ranging from short stories to actual novels
A collection of Call of Cthulhu adventures based on scenarios I've created for PaizoCon
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Paizo projects:
Nocticula's escape/redemption from the Abyss
A Red Mantis vs. Skinsaw Cult novel set in Vyre
both sound like great Ap Ideas to me
As for my question how much influence do paizo staff have in the comic lines since I'm seeing a fair bit of groundwork for Return of the runelords being done by that product line?
I know this techincally counts as multiple questions, though I was hoping due to their related nature, it could pass.
I couldn't find information for it, but what's the religion for some of the iconics.
Namely, Lirianne, Quinn, Yoon, Erasmus, Meligaster, Rivani, Hayato, Shardra, Zoba, Hakon, Estra, Aric?
Is there a hard list on what races can and cannot produce crossbreeds with other common humanoids? Not counting those that can breed with anyone of course, such as dragons, angels, fiends, etc.
Bastards of Golarion had a side bar about this mentioning Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings were all genetically incompatible. Meanwhile Hags, Vampires, most Fey, Gillmen, Ogres, and Skum were all given a pass.
Mostly this was of interest to humanish races not mentioned in the splat book, such as Nagaji and Kitsune, for the sake of the Racial Heritage feat. As a DM I can okay any race just by saying they had a half-dragon half-X ancestor or their grandfather was experimented on by a wizard, but I'd like to know if there are actually possible examples of such half-breeds out there rather than snowflaking it in. (For example, I'd never greenlight a Goblin or Kobold ancestry because that's just silly)
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Creative Director
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Paizo projects:
Nocticula's escape/redemption from the Abyss
A Red Mantis vs. Skinsaw Cult novel set in Vyre
both sound like great Ap Ideas to me
As for my question how much influence do paizo staff have in the comic lines since I'm seeing a fair bit of groundwork for Return of the runelords being done by that product line?
In fact, neither of them is gonna be an Adventure Path. The Nocticula thing works better as a big standalone adventure for very high level play, while the Red Mantis vs. Skinsaw Cult novel is a novel. The thing that attracts me the MOST about making that story a novel is that I get to write and create the main characters in this case, which is the one thing I can NOT create if it's an adventure. :-P
We pretty much have 100% influence on the comic book lines. And write them for the most part these days as well.
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Creative Director
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I know this techincally counts as multiple questions, though I was hoping due to their related nature, it could pass.
I couldn't find information for it, but what's the religion for some of the iconics.
Namely, Lirianne, Quinn, Yoon, Erasmus, Meligaster, Rivani, Hayato, Shardra, Zoba, Hakon, Estra, Aric?
If we don't indicate an Iconic's religion in their Meet the Iconics, it's not a significant part of their character. That said most of them ARE religious to some extent, and we do have notes on who worships what, but at this point they haven't been made public. If at some point we do more with these iconics and it makes sense to nail down their religions in print, we will, but for now they remain unspecified.
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Creative Director
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Is there a hard list on what races can and cannot produce crossbreeds with other common humanoids? Not counting those that can breed with anyone of course, such as dragons, angels, fiends, etc.
Bastards of Golarion had a side bar about this mentioning Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings were all genetically incompatible. Meanwhile Hags, Vampires, most Fey, Gillmen, Ogres, and Skum were all given a pass.
Mostly this was of interest to humanish races not mentioned in the splat book, such as Nagaji and Kitsune, for the sake of the Racial Heritage feat. As a DM I can okay any race just by saying they had a half-dragon half-X ancestor or their grandfather was experimented on by a wizard, but I'd like to know if there are actually possible examples of such half-breeds out there rather than snowflaking it in. (For example, I'd never greenlight a Goblin or Kobold ancestry because that's just silly)
The hard list exists in that if two races can interbreed, we've said so. If we haven't said so, then they cannot.
Feel free to mix and match things as you want in your game, but officially, if we don't say, assume they can't.
What's Zova's alignment?
EDIT: Forgot to thank you for answering the previous question. Too bad statblocks don't have a place for deity/religion. Character sheets have them, but not statblocks.
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Creative Director
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The world of Golarian that you have worked hard to create and develop and the lore set there in has helped distract me when i need it and for that i thank you. Which leads me to ask; are there any fictional worlds you use to distract you when you need it?
The horror genre as a whole.
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Creative Director
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So it's thanksgiving weekend in the US, what are you thankful for this year?
My health and my family (although I don't get to see them as much as I want, with them being 800 miles south), and the fact that the big California fires didn't hit their homes (although a few of them did have to evacuate a few times).
For character creation reasons, I'm thinking about African weapons a lot lately. I tried to find martial weapons that would fit as ancestral weapons for my Oracle character with Mwangi ancestry but couldn't find anything culturally appropriate. so I started reskinning falchions as akrafenas, daggers as qolxads and so forth.
Is there some book that includes weapons of Garund (except Northern Garundi weapons like khopeshs) or is a book that includes equipment like that planned in the near future?
Have you ever tried to learn a fictional language?
('Fictional' in this sense meaning 'created for a fictional species or culture,' like Klingon, Sindarin, Dothraki, etc.)
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Creative Director
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For character creation reasons, I'm thinking about African weapons a lot lately. I tried to find martial weapons that would fit as ancestral weapons for my Oracle character with Mwangi ancestry but couldn't find anything culturally appropriate. so I started reskinning falchions as akrafenas, daggers as qolxads and so forth.
Is there some book that includes weapons of Garund (except Northern Garundi weapons like khopeshs) or is a book that includes equipment like that planned in the near future?
Check Ultimate Equipment for a lot of weapons inspired from around the world.
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Creative Director
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Are the deities that are about specific races like Aroden more about that species or more about the culture they personify? I.e.is Aroden more a god of humans; the species or humanity; the cultural and social system in which they live that could be equally embodied by a forlon elf or a dwarf raised by humans and such.
They're more or less about all their things equally.
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Pharasma takes a vacation, decides to spend a Year and a Day as a mortal. Who does she leave in charge of judging souls in the mean-time?Herself.
Sounds like it could be similar to Death of the Endless, from Vertigo Comics. The aspect of Death spends a day in mortal form every century or so. Death doesn't stop while this is happening, its just a part of her experiencing mortality.
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Creative Director
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Sounds like it could be similar to Death of the Endless, from Vertigo Comics. The aspect of Death spends a day in mortal form every century or so. Death doesn't stop while this is happening, its just a part of her experiencing mortality.Pharasma takes a vacation, decides to spend a Year and a Day as a mortal. Who does she leave in charge of judging souls in the mean-time?Herself.
Well... Death from those comics IS one of the primary inspirations for Pharasma (or at least, of Turthonir, who was what she was named in my homebrew).
Were any of the gods taken from your homebrew significantly changed for Golarion? For instance, I would never have guessed that Pharasma/Turthonir was partially inspired from Gaiman's Death, given Pharasma's stoicism.
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Were any of the gods taken from your homebrew significantly changed for Golarion? For instance, I would never have guessed that Pharasma/Turthonir was partially inspired from Gaiman's Death, given Pharasma's stoicism.
Rovagug was originally the god of the Darklands and fear and spiders, while Obox-ob was the main bad-guy god of devastation and whatnot. But since I got the name Obox-ob from 1st edition D&D's Monster Manual II, it made sense to give him back to D&D and have him be a powerful monster there... so when it came to giving some of my deities from my homebrew to Golarion/Pathfinder, I promoted Rovagug to do both roles.
Zon-Kuthon's association with Shelyn and the Shadow Plane is different from his incarnation in my homebrew. He actually predates the kytons, but since both were inspired by Clive Barker's Hellraiser they ended up a natural fit.
Abadar, Erastil, Urgathoa, Sarenrae, Norgorber, Desna, and Gorum all made the transition relatively unchanged.
James, is it possible for Lissala to have obediences ? If so, are they in a book currently, or will they be eventually?
Isn't she possibly dead? Or is she officially missing?
How do you justify Sorshen being the second strongest Runelord when enchantment is mechanically very underwhelming? A huge chunk of the bestiary is immune to mind-affecting. Even worse, she's (presumably) a Thassilonian specialist in enchantment, meaning she can't use necromancy and transmutation, which are arguably two of the stronger schools.
Don't get me wrong; Sorshen is bae, but I'm curious how she rose to power, kept it, and will be challenging when she eventually shows up in an AP.
Have you ever played a PC who invented a spell in-game (via the spell research rules)?
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How do you justify Sorshen being the second strongest Runelord when enchantment is mechanically very underwhelming? A huge chunk of the bestiary is immune to mind-affecting. Even worse, she's (presumably) a Thassilonian specialist in enchantment, meaning she can't use necromancy and transmutation, which are arguably two of the stronger schools.
Don't get me wrong; Sorshen is bae, but I'm curious how she rose to power, kept it, and will be challenging when she eventually shows up in an AP.
That's a lot of hyperbole. I'm not interested in an argument about which school of magic is the most powerful, because that's not a debate that I'm interested in trying to win. That's not how I play the game.
You don't need to mind control EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD. Just a few key players get you at the top of a pyramid scheme of power.
But beyond that, the fact that she's one of the strongest Runelords is not a factor of her rules, but a factor of everything about the character. There's more to the game world than the rules as they apply to PCs. Sorshen is not a PC. NPCs don't have to follow the same rules as PCs.
I doubt there's anything I can say to sway you to thinking that suddenly enchantment is the best, but that's not what I want to do with this stuff. I can only ask you to check out Return of the Runelords when it comes out and then make your own decision then. If you're running the game and it breaks your verisimilitude to have her be an enchanter, change it however you want.
Have you ever played a PC who invented a spell in-game (via the spell research rules)?Yes.
Have any of those PC-invented spells made their way into official text in a Pathfinder book?
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With the release of the shifter my curiosity about the Shades of the Uskwood has been renewed. With the relationship between Cheliax and Nidal being what it is, would Nidal offer the assistance of druids/hunters/shifters of the Uskwood as counter-insurgents for Cheliax? What would their relationship be?
On a similar note, is there published material on Nidal and specifically the druids near Pangolais?
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Have any of those PC-invented spells made their way into official text in a Pathfinder book?Have you ever played a PC who invented a spell in-game (via the spell research rules)?Yes.
No. The last time I played a spellcaster who got the point to be able to research spells was back in the early 3rd edition days, when I was playing in a game that started in 2nd edition and then transitioned over to a 3rd edition playtest and then ended before 3.5 came along. That would have been in Jim Butler's game, where I played a cleric named Ruvagog. Ha.
I played a cleric in Julia Martin's came after that, but she had the ability to make up spell effects on the fly using a variant sort of power so crafting unique spells was never a big draw. :-P
I don't THINK that Shensen ever researched spells in Jason Nelson's game; she would have been the other significant spellcaster I've played enough to get to that point, but she was more into social stuff than magic stuff.
Today, if I really want a spell in a game, I've got the power to put it into an official book to future-proof my class concepts. That's not cheating is it?
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Does the existence of the Starfinder RPG help or hinder the chance of there being another high-tech Pathfinder Adventure Path (like Iron Gods) or Pathfinder AP adventures being set on Earth or in Golarion's solar system, or does it make no difference to such Pathfinder adventures appearing?
It helps, because the popularity of Starfinder proves that there's an appetite for science fantasy. But that said, for most science fantasy plots going forward, it makes more sense for us to do them with Starfinder, not Pathfinder. We'll find out in time.
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Creative Director
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With the release of the shifter my curiosity about the Shades of the Uskwood has been renewed. With the relationship between Cheliax and Nidal being what it is, would Nidal offer the assistance of druids/hunters/shifters of the Uskwood as counter-insurgents for Cheliax? What would their relationship be?
On a similar note, is there published material on Nidal and specifically the druids near Pangolais?
They probably wouldn't. The druids of the Uskwood are pretty self-interested.
There's a softcover 64 page Nidal book coming out next year. The biggest thing we've done with those druids otherwise would have been a section in Horror Realms, but that's a GM book, not a player option book.
(That said, the Uskwood druids are better as NPCs anyway... your game may vary of course, but theyr'e not a key PC option that we focus on really.)