Did you have any involvement in the development of the playtest rules? I know you had previously expressed that you would have rather done Clerics very differently in Pathfinder and at least some of that appears to have found its way into the playtest.I gave a HUGE amount of feedback for the rules during multiple stages, but I didn't actually do any of the development work on it. The cleric changes are indeed something I wanted to have happen, for example.
Are there any other suggestions or additions that you offered that ended up in the playtest?
Okay, so for an rpg that is not also a boardgame, what do you see as the purpose of the rules, like why have the rules? Any particular traits of the rules you see as essential to achieving that purpose?
I'm meaning the rules in general, like freeform vs rules.
If we didn't name them in Curse of the Crimson Throne or in Guide to Korvosa, chances of us naming the rest are very remote. Name them as you wish!Dear Mister Jacobs,
I know there are several Arbiters at work in Korovsa, but only three are ever named. Are there others that might show up or be filled in later or is that something a clever GM can do?
I guess my second question is: Could one possibly have a replacement for Zenobia Zenderholm as a senior Arbiter if one wished or would there be someone unnamed that wasn't considered senior if one wanted to update/add more to list of Arbiters?
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Okay, so for an rpg that is not also a boardgame, what do you see as the purpose of the rules, like why have the rules? Any particular traits of the rules you see as essential to achieving that purpose?
I'm meaning the rules in general, like freeform vs rules.
An RPG is open-ended and requires a GM to adjudicate and run the game as an impartial judge.
A board game does not.
The purpose of rules in an RPG is to justify the "G" in that acronym... otherwise it's just roleplaying.
Rules give the GM and the players a framework to base things upon, to simulate elements of a world that are beyond the control of a player, and to give the players guidelines for what they can or can't do.
When I was a kid, I'd make a sword out of a stick and with my friends or sisters would play like I was out in the wild fighting dragons or goblins or whatever. There were no rules there, just a story we made up in our heads as we went along. It was still VERY entertaining, but it wasn't a game. It was the "play" part of Roleplaying Game with out the "game" part of it.
One is not inherently better than the other.
I personally quite enjoy roleplaying in a freeform method without rules getting in the way. I also quite enjoy roleplaying WITH rules. Enjoying one does not mean you can't enjoy the other, nor does it mean you can't enjoy both in the context of the same story. I've had entire sessions of various RPGs go by without a single die being rolled or a rule being looked up and had a BLAST doing it.
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Are there any other suggestions or additions that you offered that ended up in the playtest?Did you have any involvement in the development of the playtest rules? I know you had previously expressed that you would have rather done Clerics very differently in Pathfinder and at least some of that appears to have found its way into the playtest.I gave a HUGE amount of feedback for the rules during multiple stages, but I didn't actually do any of the development work on it. The cleric changes are indeed something I wanted to have happen, for example.
A lot. Not gonna really get into them though here, because I'd rather folks focus on the playtest as it stands, not as it might have been.
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I guess my second question is: Could one possibly have a replacement for Zenobia Zenderholm as a senior Arbiter if one wished or would there be someone unnamed that wasn't considered senior if one wanted to update/add more to list of Arbiters?If we didn't name them in Curse of the Crimson Throne or in Guide to Korvosa, chances of us naming the rest are very remote. Name them as you wish!Dear Mister Jacobs,
I know there are several Arbiters at work in Korovsa, but only three are ever named. Are there others that might show up or be filled in later or is that something a clever GM can do?
Zenobia shows up in the role she does for precisely 2 reasons—she's one of the few we've named, and she had an illustration in the first book; she was, in effect, the most famous.
If in your game a different arbiter is more appropriate to fill the tragic role she plays, then by all means change the arbiter.
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Was talking about line for what happens in event if PCs survive all the waves in one of the playtest adventures, I assume it was error considering what was final enemy on the final wave.
But yeah, another question: So dryads and harpies were stated previously to be female only, but then hell's vengeance and one of pathfinder society 2e playtest scenarios introduced male member of both of them. Is paizo planning to avoid single gender races and monsters in the future?
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But yeah, another question: So dryads and harpies were stated previously to be female only, but then hell's vengeance and one of pathfinder society 2e playtest scenarios introduced male member of both of them. Is paizo planning to avoid single gender races and monsters in the future?
The world is a very different place today than it was a decade ago, and among other things it's become more than apparent that some of the old "traditional" roles played by monsters who were inspired from historical or mythological resources have had some pretty gross and backwards-thinking elements.
Harpies are a good example, since the word "harpy" itself is so associated with misogyny today and likely came into being for similar reasons. The concept of a half bird, half human creature that's evil and lures people to their death is a strong one, and by having there be male and female harpies we're hoping to move away from the idea and implication that "women are dangerous."
There will remain a few creatures that are single gender races—and in most of these cases they'll in fact be single gender races who have an oppositional gender equivalent (such as succubus/incubus, or possibly nymph/satyr), but going forward, if we DO have single-gender creatures, we will be taking pains to make sure that they're not single-gendered specifically due to a fear of that creature's gender—be it female OR male.
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There are many parts of Golarion not yet detailed, like the continents of Casmaron, Vudra, Arcadia and Sarusan. And lower half of Garund.
Will these places be detailed in Pathfinder 2?
*Edit: And would already published places like Tian Xia be updated?
(Sorry for the extra question)
The Inner Sea region will continue to be the focus of our setting, but we'll continue to explore beyond that map to other continents not only for the remainder of 1st edition's cycle (one of the adventures in Tyrant's Grasp, for example, takes place in Arcadia), and all the way through the next edition as well. In part it'll be driven by customer desire, and in part by our own interest, but there's nothing about 2nd edition that makes it impossible to keep doing the world the way we have been.
Short answer: Some yes, some no, same as in 1st edition. Golarion's a big place, though, and I doubt we'll EVER reach a point where we've detailed it all.
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But yeah, another question: So dryads and harpies were stated previously to be female only, but then hell's vengeance and one of pathfinder society 2e playtest scenarios introduced male member of both of them. Is paizo planning to avoid single gender races and monsters in the future?The world is a very different place today than it was a decade ago, and among other things it's become more than apparent that some of the old "traditional" roles played by monsters who were inspired from historical or mythological resources have had some pretty gross and backwards-thinking elements.
Harpies are a good example, since the word "harpy" itself is so associated with misogyny today and likely came into being for similar reasons. The concept of a half bird, half human creature that's evil and lures people to their death is a strong one, and by having there be male and female harpies we're hoping to move away from the idea and implication that "women are dangerous."
There will remain a few creatures that are single gender races—and in most of these cases they'll in fact be single gender races who have an oppositional gender equivalent (such as succubus/incubus, or possibly nymph/satyr), but going forward, if we DO have single-gender creatures, we will be taking pains to make sure that they're not single-gendered specifically due to a fear of that creature's gender—be it female OR male.
Thank you for the answer. What category do Medusa and Lamia belong in btw? Can we expect male members of them at some point or will there be counterpart to them?
Hey James,
What are your thoughts on how to "handle" friendly NPC loot in APs? Should the party be compensated for not murderhoboing said NPC (for the amount that they would have gained by killing them)? Or should they kill all friendlies when they're no longer useful to claim their loot?
Are APs written with the assumption that the party will acquire the wealth held by friendly NPCs, or no?
Thanks, as always, for your response.
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Hey James,
What are your thoughts on how to "handle" friendly NPC loot in APs? Should the party be compensated for not murderhoboing said NPC (for the amount that they would have gained by killing them)? Or should they kill all friendlies when they're no longer useful to claim their loot?
Are APs written with the assumption that the party will acquire the wealth held by friendly NPCs, or no?
Thanks, as always, for your response.
The assumption always is that friendly NPC loot is not going to end up in PC hands, because the point of the NPC is to be a helper and friend, not a victim to loot. In some cases, a friendly NPC will give one of their items to the PCs as reward; this'll be detailed specifically in the text.
A party that kills every NPC isn't really one that's playing an Adventure Path. They're playing serial killers, and the GM should adjust the loot handed out as appropriate and perhaps consider not running something with a plot, I guess.
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Thank you for the answer. What category do Medusa and Lamia belong in btw? Can we expect male members of them at some point or will there be counterpart to them?There can be male medusas and male lamias.
Honestly this sounds like good change. Come to think about it, will this also apply to Hags and Changelings in general? "Hag" is pretty insulting way to say "Old Woman" and whole thing of how Changelings come to be has always been rather creepy
Dear James Jacobs,
If in the previous example, the pcs kill NPCs all the time, and thus make themselves serial killers, does that mean they might end up being either co-oped by Lamashtu or the Night ripper? Also does this mean you start using Horror Adventures?
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Regarding the Mordant Spire and Acavna.
How do the other gods feel about mortals living inside the corpse of one of their old friends?
Did Acavna's soul ever make it to the graveyard?
The other gods haven't said, and calling it a corpse is kinda not accurate anyway.
Her soul has been judged, yes, but what that means is unrevealed and likely won't be anytime soon.
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Honestly this sounds like good change. Come to think about it, will this also apply to Hags and Changelings in general? "Hag" is pretty insulting way to say "Old Woman" and whole thing of how Changelings come to be has always been rather creepyThank you for the answer. What category do Medusa and Lamia belong in btw? Can we expect male members of them at some point or will there be counterpart to them?There can be male medusas and male lamias.
Hmmm the forums ate my edits... the short version is:
We don't have an answer yet for this but I'm looking into it and hope to make a change so that we don't have a "hag" monster while preserving the idea somehow in a way that retains its creepy factor. Looking into it.
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Dear James Jacobs,
If in the previous example, the pcs kill NPCs all the time, and thus make themselves serial killers, does that mean they might end up being either co-oped by Lamashtu or the Night ripper? Also does this mean you start using Horror Adventures?
It most likely means the PCs end up just going to the Abyss or Hell or Abaddon in the afterlife for an eternity of punishment, and get no reward at all. Your GM gets to make that call, but in my opinion, a party that does that is disruptive and disrespectful of the game and the hard work the GM and the world creator has put into crafting the game and thus don't get rewards for being jerks.
It doesn't mean you start using Horror Adventures. Nothing in the above situation is "horror". It's just obnoxious.
Note that this changes ENTIRELY if the players and GM WANT to run a game where the players kill everyone, in which case you're kinda playing a different game than Pathfinder is made for, so what you do is up to you and I'm not gonna be able to give you advice.
Which writer/developer(s) created Dahak? I only just realized that his name is one letter away from Dahaka, the most infamous of the Zoroastrian dragons. Given that Dahak and Arhiman were both implicated in the creation of the Azi wayyyyyy back in Legacy of Fire, I can't imagine that is a conincidence.
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Speaking of, will we hopefully get to see the Azi again? I really like those (in addition to Linnorms).
My guess is never. Not everything we do ends up being something we want to continue doing. There's just not a lot of in-house interest in doing more azi stuff. That might change in the future if we get a different mix of developers in, but for the moment... every time I've brought the subject of doing more azi or repurposing them... the interest level in house has been, "Nah, let's do something else."
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Which writer/developer(s) created Dahak? I only just realized that his name is one letter away from Dahaka, the most infamous of the Zoroastrian dragons. Given that Dahak and Arhiman were both implicated in the creation of the Azi wayyyyyy back in Legacy of Fire, I can't imagine that is a conincidence.
Dahak wasn't "created" by any of us, but picked up from mythology.
Hello there, i was wondering are PC's able to purchase cracked and flawed ioun stones? I haven't seen any rules that you couldn't but i want to make sure.
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Dear James Jacobs,
I heard a rumor that Todd Stewart is doing another planar book. Is that true?
Some folks have sought to speculate based on books announced in passing at one of the GenCon seminars but which don't have official product threads here yet. Understandably prior to that and prior to authors being announced on said book or books, I cannot confirm or deny.
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Some folks have sought to speculate based on books announced in passing at one of the GenCon seminars but which don't have official product threads here yet. Understandably prior to that and prior to authors being announced on said book or books, I cannot confirm or deny.Dear James Jacobs,
I heard a rumor that Todd Stewart is doing another planar book. Is that true?
The question is, since you didn't ask one in the Ask James Questions thread, Todd, is how should you be punished? Perhaps by teasing that there's oinodaemon stuff in the last Return of the Runelords adventure, and then making you wait until January when that volume is published to find out if I'm telling the truth or not? Hmmmmm.
Can you punish all your writers that way.
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The question is, since you didn't ask one in the Ask James Questions thread, Todd, is how should you be punished? Perhaps by teasing that there's oinodaemon stuff in the last Return of the Runelords adventure, and then making you wait until January when that volume is published to find out if I'm telling the truth or not? Hmmmmm.Some folks have sought to speculate based on books announced in passing at one of the GenCon seminars but which don't have official product threads here yet. Understandably prior to that and prior to authors being announced on said book or books, I cannot confirm or deny.Dear James Jacobs,
I heard a rumor that Todd Stewart is doing another planar book. Is that true?
That's terribly mean! :D
I feel like I should know this... but does Paizo have open call for freelance writers, or is there a specific time of the year when submission drives are done? I'm angling to submit anything yet, but I am planning ahead.
(Also, Oniodaemon tease? I will be terribly disappointed if this is not true, that would be awesome!)
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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What was the mood in the office with the site down a whole week? Aside from the obvious mad scramble and panic from the IT staff to fix it, without the forums to read and respond to, did people find themselves unusually productive, or going through withdrawal like the rest of us were?
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I feel like I should know this... but does Paizo have open call for freelance writers, or is there a specific time of the year when submission drives are done? I'm angling to submit anything yet, but I am planning ahead.
(Also, Oniodaemon tease? I will be terribly disappointed if this is not true, that would be awesome!)
We don't All of our published products are outlined and concepted in-house and then we assign them to established freelancers or to hand-picked new authors. We don't take unsolicited submissions.
(And if it's not true, then it's Todd's fault for not asking a question! Mwa ha ha.)
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Dear James Jacobs,
I had a question that I could not find the answer for in any of the current pathfinder rules on magic items.
Supposing I'm holding a spell trigger item and activate it, but immediately apply quicken spell to the spell being cast. Can the action to activate the spell trigger item then become a swift action?
Rules questions need to be asked in the rules forum.
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What was the mood in the office with the site down a whole week? Aside from the obvious mad scramble and panic from the IT staff to fix it, without the forums to read and respond to, did people find themselves unusually productive, or going through withdrawal like the rest of us were?
There was nothing we could do in editorial to help fix the site, since that was entirely in the hands of the tech team. From my stance, the mood was a mix of frustration at not being able to help and relief at the break from the often toxic posts on the boards which lead to increased productivity.
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That's terribly mean! :DThe question is, since you didn't ask one in the Ask James Questions thread, Todd, is how should you be punished? Perhaps by teasing that there's oinodaemon stuff in the last Return of the Runelords adventure, and then making you wait until January when that volume is published to find out if I'm telling the truth or not? Hmmmmm.Some folks have sought to speculate based on books announced in passing at one of the GenCon seminars but which don't have official product threads here yet. Understandably prior to that and prior to authors being announced on said book or books, I cannot confirm or deny.Dear James Jacobs,
I heard a rumor that Todd Stewart is doing another planar book. Is that true?
And another non-question results in me teasing the potential of at least one more Daemon Harbinger being statted up before we switch editions.
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Can you punish all your writers that way.I would have, but you didn't end your question with a question mark, so alas I cannot. Only Todd.
James, will Paizo at some point kidnap me and send me to a hidden Pathfinder black site in the Pacific Northwest where I'll be put on a caffeine drip and made to write 200k words about daemons and proteans, including the secret backhistory of the Oinodaemon, the myriad truths of the Watching Se7eN of Galisemni, and the coffee preferences of Trelmarixian the Lysogenic Prince?
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James, will Paizo at some point kidnap me and send me to a hidden Pathfinder black site in the Pacific Northwest where I'll be put on a caffeine drip and made to write 200k words about daemons and proteans, including the secret backhistory of the Oinodaemon, the myriad truths of the Watching Se7eN of Galisemni, and the coffee preferences of Trelmarixian the Lysogenic Prince?Can you punish all your writers that way.I would have, but you didn't end your question with a question mark, so alas I cannot. Only Todd.
That was the plan, but we nixed it when you didn't ask questions earlier on the thread. Take that as good news or bad news as you wish.
Do you have any idea how many smiles this thread has plastered across my dour visage over the years?
And for a non-rhetorical question...
In addition to the Hellknights and the Blackjackets, are there any mercenary organizations of particular repute in the Inner Sea?
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Do you have any idea how many smiles this thread has plastered across my dour visage over the years?
And for a non-rhetorical question...
In addition to the Hellknights and the Blackjackets, are there any mercenary organizations of particular repute in the Inner Sea?
At a post count of 72,740 before you made that post, my Super Accurate Smile Quotient Universal Assessor Temporal Calculation Helmet tells me that you've been plastered 14,548 times, which is a pretty good ratio overall, I think.
There's lots of mercenary organizations in the Inner Sea region. A glance at the groups alone mentioned in Adventuer's Guide that I'd count as mercenary groups (with varying adjustments to the definition) beyond these would be the Aldori Swordlords, the Aspis Consortium, the Gray Maidens, and the Lantern Bearers. I'd also include groups like the Ulfen Guard, the Risen Guard, and more.
Any thoughts or opinions on the latest Castle Rock episode if you saw it?
Still processing... Like Inception levels.
Are you able to tell us if there will be another First Edition hardcover before the launch of Second? Planar Adventures was a very good read, but I'm dying for a hardcover Dragon Empires Guide. Or even another hardcover AP. *cough*Kingmaker*cough*
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Are you able to tell us if there will be another First Edition hardcover before the launch of Second? Planar Adventures was a very good read, but I'm dying for a hardcover Dragon Empires Guide. Or even another hardcover AP. *cough*Kingmaker*cough*
The next hardcover will be the Core Rulebook. We have no more hardcovers in the works for 1st edition Pathfinder.
I remember reading awhile ago that the two pieces of criteria that had to be met for an updated hardcover of an AP was that the majority of the books had to be out of stock and that the original AP had to be from before a major rules change (it was worded better than that, but at the time meant that it was made for 3.5 rather than Pathfinder).
Is there a decent chance that, since Kingmaker will meet both of those after PF2 is released, that we'll get an updated version of the AP? (Possibly with some of the modifications to the story that are being introduced in the CRPG?)