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Ah! thank you for this amazing reply (especially with the date of first occurrence and timeline).
It almost sounds like that wasn't something biological in nature, and more like an actual demon lord using his god-like powers to mold that evil elf into something different (i.e. that was the 'why' I was asking about: who or what was behind the transformation).
It makes sense that biological drow could be any alignment they want depending on the environment they grow in. Going into the future, do you think there could be room in the setting to create a new type of elves to differentiate those 'turned evil elves' from the 'biological drow'? (I believe we have elves, drow, aquatic elves so far; please correct me if I'm wrong).
Edit: or if not a new elven subrace, perhaps a template of some kind? I have also pondered about the in-game effects of forlorn elves in Golarion.
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Will Planar Adventures answer the question of why spellcasters don't visit the celestial planes more often? If not, then...why don't they?
Because the game is built around the assumption that you're heroes fighting monsters and villains, and that central storyline isn't well supported by the good planes.
It has nothing to do at all with in world elements, and everything to do with the kinds of stories folks want to tell.
Complicating this fact is that if the good planes are supposed to be GOOD, then the conflict element has to arise in many cases from evil invaders. The more you do the storyline of "This guy thinks he's doing good deeds but is not and you as good guys have to confront him" works fine on the material plane, but not on a plane where the gods should have good all worked out. The more of those storylines that take place on good outer planes, the more those stories erode the whole concept of those planes.
If we had a game where it wasn't so unpopular or controversial to have bad guy PCs, you'd see a LOT more adventures set on the good outer planes. That's not the game we have, nor are those the stories we typically want to tell.
So, no. Planar Adventures won't "answer" this question, because I don't think it's a question at all.
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Going into the future, do you think there could be room in the setting to create a new type of elves to differentiate those 'turned evil elves' from the 'biological drow'? (I believe we have elves, drow, aquatic elves so far; please correct me if I'm wrong).
Edit: or if not a new elven subrace, perhaps a template of some kind? I have also pondered about the in-game effects of forlorn elves in Golarion.
I'd rather not. There's plenty of "types of elves" already.
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Bah. Only James Jacob can answer my earthshaking questions.Being a 49 year old man with old people eyes ive set out on collecting all cleric spells from all pathfinder sources and im in the process of converting it to a pdf with Large Print. My question is i want to have it printed out from a publisher in hardcover format , is this allowed ? If so could this be self published for sell for anyone with eye sight problems such as myself?
Yes, this is allowed. If it's for your own personal use. If you want to distribute it, you have to either comply with the community use rules or the OGL rules.
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James,
do you think playing a cleric of a peace deity is hard? how would you handle a such a PC?
Yes, I do. The game's core concept is a combat simulator. Playing a character who wants to avoid combat in a game like this is hard, because you're not really playing the game as intended. I generally don't allow players to play characters whose whole plot is to be disruptive—and a character who's all about avoiding combat is as disruptive to gameplay as a paladin in a group of chaotic neutral rogues, or an assassin in a group of all-good characters. It's not only disruptive, but it's often a symptom of a belligerent player who enjoys ruining the game for others rather than enjoying the game as a team exercise.
If you're running a game with only one PC, then it can work fine. And if the entire group is composed of characters who seek peaceful solutions and don't want to fight, then that works fine as well.
That makes no sense. I know d20 at it's core is a hybrid.
Do you not believe in the value of d20 for games more about "pure roleplaying" goals, with players/characters that are protagonists but not heroes, nor authors?
Will Planar Adventures answer the question of why spellcasters don't visit the celestial planes more often? If not, then...why don't they?Because the game is built around the assumption that you're heroes fighting monsters and villains, and that central storyline isn't well supported by the good planes.
It has nothing to do at all with in world elements, and everything to do with the kinds of stories folks want to tell.
Complicating this fact is that if the good planes are supposed to be GOOD, then the conflict element has to arise in many cases from evil invaders. The more you do the storyline of "This guy thinks he's doing good deeds but is not and you as good guys have to confront him" works fine on the material plane, but not on a plane where the gods should have good all worked out. The more of those storylines that take place on good outer planes, the more those stories erode the whole concept of those planes.
If we had a game where it wasn't so unpopular or controversial to have bad guy PCs, you'd see a LOT more adventures set on the good outer planes. That's not the game we have, nor are those the stories we typically want to tell.
So, no. Planar Adventures won't "answer" this question, because I don't think it's a question at all.
...
I don't mean in the sense of raiding the celestial realms, or fighting wayward celestials. I mean why don't spellcasters relocate there? They seem like better places to live and work.
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That makes no sense. I know d20 at it's core is a hybrid.
Do you not believe in the value of d20 for games more about "pure roleplaying" goals, with players/characters that are protagonists but not heroes, nor authors?
What makes no sense? I'm not sure what you're referring to here. If it's the question I answered about it being difficult to run a Pathfinder game for a group that includes a pacifist, then what's to make sense of? If you have 4 players in a group and 3 want to play an action-packed high-fantasy game (the core assumption of Pathifnder; hence its focus on combat-related stuff), and 1 wants to avoid all of the action scenes, that will be difficult.
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I don't mean in the sense of raiding the celestial realms, or fighting wayward celestials. I mean why don't spellcasters relocate there? They seem like better places to live and work.
Maybe to you, but not to everyone.
Never mind the element that traveling to the other planes is a costly and rare stunt, that even many spellcasters won't be able to do. Don't let the power curve of the standard PC distract you from the average NPC, who generally doesn't have the drive or resources a PC does.
And those who do? Who DO relocate away from regions we focus our stories on? They're not there in the regions we focus on so we don't really spend much time talking about them. Doesn't mean they don't exist. If you want a lot of spellcasters moving to the good planes as a place to live and work in your game, go for it. That's not really a plot point of value to stories we do adventures about though.
From the above,
...If you want a lot of spellcasters moving to the good planes as a place to live and work in your game, go for it. That's not really a plot point of value to stories we do adventures about though.
It could be. Needing to go find an expert is not an uncommon theme, and if all the best experts are on good planes, a trip there seems reasonable to me to include in a story. A major plot arc it could be just to aquire the means to go find that expert.
Anyway, back to my question,
What makes no sense? I'm not sure what you're referring to here. If it's the question I answered about it being difficult to run a Pathfinder game for a group that includes a pacifist, then what's to make sense of? If you have 4 players in a group and 3 want to play an action-packed high-fantasy game (the core assumption of Pathifnder; hence its focus on combat-related stuff), and 1 wants to avoid all of the action scenes, that will be difficult.That makes no sense. I know d20 at it's core is a hybrid.
Do you not believe in the value of d20 for games more about "pure roleplaying" goals, with players/characters that are protagonists but not heroes, nor authors?
Your core assumption of pathfinder makes no sense. D20 has always had combat as one part of a pair. Considering "grand action heroes" as the core assumption seems like ignoring a whole half of what d20 was designed for.
Combat might be the most visible, but the rules for environment, skills, and secondary things like carry capacity are so numerous that claiming combat as the majority of rules is dubious at best. Granted, combat is most discerning and visible part of the system, but hardly the focus of the whole system.
It also seems rather limiting on available story themes. Lots of stories are told where the protagonists are anything but heroes. I'd even venture to say that the best stories with heroes are stories where the character start off without being heroes and act heroic simply because no one else will.
So, do you not believe in the value of d20 beyond combat centric games?
D20's ability to satisfy players of differing desires in the same group for example. Do you not see that as a good thing tk support in the rules?
How important is the power of belief on Golarion? With disciples doctrine we got a chain of feats about rejecting the authority of the gods so passionately that divine spells just fizzle on them. what does that say about divine magic and divinities?
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James,
do you think playing a cleric of a peace deity is hard? how would you handle a such a PC?Yes, I do. The game's core concept is a combat simulator. Playing a character who wants to avoid combat in a game like this is hard, because you're not really playing the game as intended. I generally don't allow players to play characters whose whole plot is to be disruptive—and a character who's all about avoiding combat is as disruptive to gameplay as a paladin in a group of chaotic neutral rogues, or an assassin in a group of all-good characters. It's not only disruptive, but it's often a symptom of a belligerent player who enjoys ruining the game for others rather than enjoying the game as a team exercise.
If you're running a game with only one PC, then it can work fine. And if the entire group is composed of characters who seek peaceful solutions and don't want to fight, then that works fine as well.
Thanks for the answer!
Is that why none of the core 20 are explicitly deities of Peace?|
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So, do you not believe in the value of d20 beyond combat centric games?
That's absolutely not what I said. I said the Pathfinder game focuses on combat, not "The d20 system can only produce combat centric games." Pathfinder is NOT the ground zero of the d20 system–it's an iteration of the central mechanic to produce a combat-focused fantasy themed game.
The d20 system is VERY robust, and it can be used to create a huge range of games. Including ones that don't focus on combat.
That's not Pathfinder, and that was what the original question was asking about. Please don't take an answer to one question as an answer for every question.
If you ask me about Pathfinder I'll answer about Pathfinder. If you in FACT want to ask about the central d20 system mechanics and functionality, you need to ask about THAT instead. It's frustrating to try to do my best to answer a question when the person asking it is doing so in a confusing way, be it intentionally or not.
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How important is the power of belief on Golarion? With disciples doctrine we got a chain of feats about rejecting the authority of the gods so passionately that divine spells just fizzle on them. what does that say about divine magic and divinities?
Faith does not "power" the gods. That's a Forgotten Realms/D&D thing.
The power of belief and faith lies in the person having the faith or belief, even if those beliefs are "the gods are not real." Faith allows a group/religion/philosophy/whatever to grow its numbers and thus grow its influence in a region or world, and allows the members of that group to exert more influence as a result of their increased size and reach. But it doesn't enhance or detract from the gods themselves.
A divinity's who has zero or one worshiper could be as powerful or more powerful than one who is worshiped by every creature in existence. A divinity's power is separate from how widespread and strong its church is.
The feats that protect you from divine magic work not because they're blocking a deity's power, but because your faith and belief in no deity protects you from such attacks. It's similar to how demodands work with their anti-faith powers in flavor (although quite different in rules effect).
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Is that why none of the core 20 are explicitly deities of Peace?
In part, yes. In my homebrew, Sarenrae was the goddess of peace and redemption and angels and good. When I "sold" her to Paizo, though, we had to compress deities. My homebrew has about 50 core deities or thereabouts, so for several of them, I compressed them together. Sarenrae got merged with my hombrew sun deity and the healing deity to become what she is in Pathfinder, and I think the end result is much more interesting. It makes her a more well-rounded deity, and allows for her to still have peaceful non-combatant worshipers but also worshipers more appropriate for the classic adventuring party.
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Is that why none of the core 20 are explicitly deities of Peace?In part, yes. In my homebrew, Sarenrae was the goddess of peace and redemption and angels and good. When I "sold" her to Paizo, though, we had to compress deities. My homebrew has about 50 core deities or thereabouts, so for several of them, I compressed them together. Sarenrae got merged with my hombrew sun deity and the healing deity to become what she is in Pathfinder, and I think the end result is much more interesting. It makes her a more well-rounded deity, and allows for her to still have peaceful non-combatant worshipers but also worshipers more appropriate for the classic adventuring party.
Thats very interesting!
Thanks for your time =)
Are immediate actions considered as actions prepared?
Can I use an immediate action in reaction to an event?
For example, can I cast Emergency Force Sphere to block an enemy attack?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/e/emergency-force-sphere/
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Nexo, I'm not James, but respectfully, he has said many times to put rules question in the rules forum. We don't want to piss off James and we want to limit our posts to one non-rule question per post.
Please click here for the rules forum.
James: do all ex-familiars, companions, etc. become unique creatures judged by Pharasma or is there a cosmic highway bypass to say, Elysium for them?
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Are immediate actions considered as actions prepared?
Can I use an immediate action in reaction to an event?
For example, can I cast Emergency Force Sphere to block an enemy attack?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/e/emergency-force-sphere/
Rules questions need to be asked in the rules forums so that folks can FAQ them and so that the designers will see them.
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Nexo, I'm not James, but respectfully, he has said many times to put rules question in the rules forum. We don't want to piss off James and we want to limit our posts to one non-rule question per post.
Please click here for the rules forum.
James: do all ex-familiars, companions, etc. become unique creatures judged by Pharasma or is there a cosmic highway bypass to say, Elysium for them?
Thanks for the post, but don't worry about covering those for me. I don't mind repeating myself. And thanks for at least asking a question at the end of it! :-)
There's no cosmic highway bypass. Everything with a soul gets judged. Animal companions and familiars... and plain old normal animals, for that matter, follow the same route. I suspect that the less sapient souls might end up doing the reincarnation train or simply become raw quintessence in the outer planes once they're judged, but they still have souls.
Dear James Jacobs,
Do Night Hags practice fishing in the River Styx when they go out fishing for souls in the River of Souls?
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Dear James Jacobs,
Do Night Hags practice fishing in the River Styx when they go out fishing for souls in the River of Souls?
The River of Souls is their prime hunting ground, particularly where it winds through the Ethereal Plane. That's where souls are the freshest.
So, you see Pathfinder as having a narrower scope than d20, rather than being a refinement in total?
If that is the case, how would you feel about a complementary system that refines those other elements that Pathfinder doesn't focus on, perhaps even able to mesh with Pathfinder for a broader coverage/focus? Would you look at such a system as potentially useful for your own games?
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So, you see Pathfinder as having a narrower scope than d20, rather than being a refinement in total?
If that is the case, how would you feel about a complementary system that refines those other elements that Pathfinder doesn't focus on, perhaps even able to mesh with Pathfinder for a broader coverage/focus? Would you look at such a system as potentially useful for your own games?
All d20 games have a narrowed scope, in that the raw, d20 mechanic itself is not associated with any flavor at all.
And absolutely I see that expansion systems are useful, and in fact we do that already, quite often. Some such systems appear in things like the Adventure Path player's guides. Others might show up in books like Ultimate Intrigue. One that comes immediately to mind is the relationship rules I designed for Jade Regent.
As you want to tell stories for any game, if the story goes beyond the core game's rules you need to expand on them as needed.
But we already do what you're asking for when we need to.
Who came up with the Hellknights?
Nexo, I'm not James, but respectfully, he has said many times to put rules question in the rules forum. We don't want to piss off James and we want to limit our posts to one non-rule question per post.
Please click here for the rules forum.
James: do all ex-familiars, companions, etc. become unique creatures judged by Pharasma or is there a cosmic highway bypass to say, Elysium for them?
Rules questions need to be asked in the rules forums so that folks can FAQ them and so that the designers will see them.Are immediate actions considered as actions prepared?
Can I use an immediate action in reaction to an event?
For example, can I cast Emergency Force Sphere to block an enemy attack?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/e/emergency-force-sphere/
Forgive me, I always forget this detail.
Hi James,
When did Irori transcended to divinity?
For the 2e playtest, I'll be running Test of The Starstone. It'll be "play the story" style, because that is rather required for how I intend to run it, particularly considering passing the test will be unlikely and there is a lot of non-mechanical tests.
Are you interested in the concept?
Have any major details on the test you'd like to share?
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James, quick check - am I correct in remembering that the one book with a reference to Asmodean Paladins was an unfortunate oversight, and they aren't to be considered to exist (on Golarion, at the very least)?
Hope you have a good weekend.
NO.
To the ridiculous "Asmodean paladin" error that I wish would just go away, and to the prospect of now having a good weekend now that the error's back in my head. :-P
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For the 2e playtest, I'll be running Test of The Starstone. It'll be "play the story" style, because that is rather required for how I intend to run it, particularly considering passing the test will be unlikely and there is a lot of non-mechanical tests.
Are you interested in the concept?
Have any major details on the test you'd like to share?
A Test of the Starstone plot/adventure/whatever is sort of a no-brainer plot to produce at some point for Pathfinder. We'll do one someday, I'm sure.
I've been on and off thinking about what something like this would be in print, whether it's an adventure path or a hardcover adventure or a boxed set or whatever, but so far, the time and resources haven't been right to get it off the ground.
So, no... no details to share yet.
On that note was the Test of the Starstone something imported from your homebrew or did someone else at Paizo contribute that aspect to Golarion?
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On that note was the Test of the Starstone something imported from your homebrew or did someone else at Paizo contribute that aspect to Golarion?
That was something Erik came up with, as far as I know, specifically for Golarion. It didn't exist before then.
1: I play in a pretty large living world, where some players are getting to the point of high mythic along with level 20, and was wondering where the power scale between gods and "the height of mortal power" flavored by Mythic 10 lies. Most PCs in this situation are taking advantage of Divine Source, and declaring themselves gods by their own right, despite what I'd think is a significantly large power gap. Is such a being actually capable of physically harming a god, let alone one of the older ones like Sarenrae or Pharasma?
2: As a follow-up of the above, what are things that proper gods can do, that even these mightiest of mortals couldn't manage without a true ascendance, and probably some experience using that kind of power?
3: We've seen a lot of fluff for deific heralds, but there's often two other divine servitors left very undefined. Will there be any future fluff for secondary and tertiary divine servitors?
4: (a)It's stated that divine beings can't enter the plane of positive energy. What exactly constitutes the definition of "divine being", here? (b)Can mortals slap on some planar adaptation and enter the plane just fine?
5: Fluff for Chakras states the belief that Ki flows from the plane of positive energy, collecting in the body (for a gross sum-up). If Ki is a force of life, why would it continue to collect in an undead body, which seems to be the case of the Enlightened Vampire?
6: What precisely is the Kundalini Flow? If it flows from the ground below, my personal guess is that it's the essence of the material, and counterpart to Ki, which I then imagine is the essence of the spiritual. I could see how drawing that in and combining both would be strenuous, and have such results...
7: If Sarenrae was apparently an angel before reaching deityhood, what do you think might have caused her ascension?
8: If someone took the time to create a wholly new language, would Baalzebul auto-learn it, or send some minions to barter its teaching?
All I got for now, but I may be back for more! Thanks for your time, dude.
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1: I play in a pretty large living world, where some players are getting to the point of high mythic along with level 20, and was wondering where the power scale between gods and "the height of mortal power" flavored by Mythic 10 lies. Most PCs in this situation are taking advantage of Divine Source, and declaring themselves gods by their own right, despite what I'd think is a significantly large power gap. Is such a being actually capable of physically harming a god, let alone one of the older ones like Sarenrae or Pharasma?
2: As a follow-up of the above, what are things that proper gods can do, that even these mightiest of mortals couldn't manage without a true ascendance, and probably some experience using that kind of power?
3: We've seen a lot of fluff for deific heralds, but there's often two other divine servitors left very undefined. Will there be any future fluff for secondary and tertiary divine servitors?
4: (a)It's stated that divine beings can't enter the plane of positive energy. What exactly constitutes the definition of "divine being", here? (b)Can mortals slap on some planar adaptation and enter the plane just fine?
5: Fluff for Chakras states the belief that Ki flows from the plane of positive energy, collecting in the body (for a gross sum-up). If Ki is a force of life, why would it continue to collect in an undead body, which seems to be the case of the Enlightened Vampire?
6: What precisely is the Kundalini Flow? If it flows from the ground below, my personal guess is that it's the essence of the material, and counterpart to Ki, which I then imagine is the essence of the spiritual. I could see how drawing that in and combining both would be strenuous, and have such results...
7: If Sarenrae was apparently an angel before reaching deityhood, what do you think might have caused her ascension?
8: If someone took the time to create a wholly new language, would Baalzebul auto-learn it, or send some minions to barter its teaching?
All I got for now, but I may be back...
Please ask one question per post. I no longer answer wall-of-text lists of questions because it was getting out of hand with too many people posting complex questions.
And I prefer folks use the term "flavor" instead of "fluff," since the definition of fluff implies "material of no consequence" or "incorrect."
Please ask one question per post. I no longer answer wall-of-text lists of questions because it was getting out of hand with too many people posting complex questions.
And I prefer folks use the term "flavor" instead of "fluff," since the definition of fluff implies "material of no consequence" or "incorrect."
Sorry about that, and man do I feel awkward, now. I guess I'm most interested in the sixth, about what the Kundalini flow might be, beyond being known as what is used to awaken Chakras.
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Sorry about that, and man do I feel awkward, now. I guess I'm most interested in the sixth, about what the Kundalini flow might be, beyond being known as what is used to awaken Chakras.Please ask one question per post. I no longer answer wall-of-text lists of questions because it was getting out of hand with too many people posting complex questions.
And I prefer folks use the term "flavor" instead of "fluff," since the definition of fluff implies "material of no consequence" or "incorrect."
I can't really answer that question without knowing what context you're asking about. My best guess is that this is something that was mentioned in Occult Adventures, since a google search for "Kundalini flow" brings up some real-world yoga/meditation type stuff.
Of the 'core 20' Pathfinder deities, which do you think would be the most likely to, for the fun of it, take on mortal form for a week or two and try to get into some sort of minor adventure on the Material Plane? (with the caveat that they'd revert to their true form if 'killed,' of course)
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I'm curious, as result of Academy of Secrets, has default 2e Golarion headmaster gotten replaced due to events of it? I'm curious to see how they handled learning truth of the Breaching Festival.
Ask again in a year and a half, once 2nd edition has launched. I'm not answering 2nd edition questions of this nature on this thread yet. But once Gen Con 2019 is here, and MAYBE a little bit before that, I'll start answering these questions.
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Of the 'core 20' Pathfinder deities, which do you think would be the most likely to, for the fun of it, take on mortal form for a week or two and try to get into some sort of minor adventure on the Material Plane? (with the caveat that they'd revert to their true form if 'killed,' of course)
Probably Cayden Cailean, since that's what he's the god of in the first place.
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If you were able to lift any of the AD&D 2nd ed settings and incorporate it into Golarion, which would you choose (and why)?
When we first lost the license for Dragon and Dungeon magazine, I would have said Greyhawk, since that's the setting I have the most nostalgia for and it remains my favorite D&D setting to this day.
But today? After over a decade of building Golarion on its own without exporting D&D settings into it? I wouldn't incorporate any of them.