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What was the reason for including the Egyptian pantheon in Pathfinder considering you generally only take parts/inspiration like with Lamashtu, Asmodeus etc.? Because it's intrinsically liked to an Egyptian feel as opposed to maybe the Vikings/Ulfen?
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What was the reason for including the Egyptian pantheon in Pathfinder considering you generally only take parts/inspiration like with Lamashtu, Asmodeus etc.? Because it's intrinsically liked to an Egyptian feel as opposed to maybe the Vikings/Ulfen?
A few reasons.
In a very very early product, when we were still finding our feet and trying to figure out how to develop Golarion, one of those earlier products mentioned some of the Egyptian pantheon deities in context with Osirion. In hindsight, I kinda wish we hadn't done this and had instead used that energy to do more early development for Nethys and Pharasma, who are now (and should have been back then) MUCH more important characters in our setting.
Then, when we started planning out Mummy's Mask, we had to decide if we wanted to ret-con out those mentions, or figure out a way to go with it and explain how those deities were part of Golarion but not so much any more. Rob McCreary and I had several discussions about it and the end result, that they were there in the past but then moved on to another world appealed to us. Especially when you consider that the other world their faiths moved on to was Earth, when you compare the timelines of Golarion to the timelines of Earth; the point at which these deities stopped being active on Golarion and their mythologies began on Earth syncs up pretty well.
Further, we were both fans of the Egyptian pantheon, and a lot of the mythology of the way the afterlife worked was a great inspiration for more Mummy's Mask lore and backstory, and so we decided to go all-in on incorporating the pantheon into Golarion's history. To a certain extent, the big deity article we did for Mummy's Mask was as much an experiment for our own curiosity as it was to see how customers reacted. Said reaction from the customers was—average. No one hated it, some folks liked it, but it wasn't as overwhelming an embracing as other things.
Going forward, we've decided to go back to the original plan of picking and choosing deities from mythology to add in to Golarion rather than do entire pantheons, with the exception I guess of the Lovecraft mythos.
And at this point, with several hundred deities to pick and choose from, there's not really a compelling urge for us in house to keep growing that collection. We'd rather start building out the stories about the ones we already have mentioned. For example, we're over a decade into the game and still haven't done a big meaty article about Droskar, one of the very FIRST deities we created for the setting.
AKA: There's plenty of brand new deities and demigods for us to explore and develop that interest us more than covering ground that other games and the real world has already done.
Hi James, I'm hoping you can shed some light on a question regarding Natural Attacks using Str or Dex to hit. I notice that several creatures in the bestiary which have high Dex and low Str seem to use Dex rather than Str to make their Natural Attacks. They don't have Weapon Finesse listed as a feat so I thought it might be a special circumstance for Natural Attacks but I can't find anything in the Combat or Universal Monster Rules to explain this. Do these creatures have Weapon Finesse and it just isn't listed? Or do Natural Attacks generally use whichever Ability score is higher for the creature? I thought I'd read about this before, but it came up in a game and I can't find it.
http://legacy.aonprd.com/bestiary2/badger.html#badger
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Hi James, I'm hoping you can shed some light on a question regarding Natural Attacks using Str or Dex to hit. I notice that several creatures in the bestiary which have high Dex and low Str seem to use Dex rather than Str to make their Natural Attacks. They don't have Weapon Finesse listed as a feat so I thought it might be a special circumstance for Natural Attacks but I can't find anything in the Combat or Universal Monster Rules to explain this. Do these creatures have Weapon Finesse and it just isn't listed? Or do Natural Attacks generally use whichever Ability score is higher for the creature? I thought I'd read about this before, but it came up in a game and I can't find it.
Those creatures you're looking at are generally really little creatures. That's a standard rule for very little creatures, otherwise a snake, for example, would never be able to hit when it attacks someone who walks by them. I'm not sure if we've actually put this into print somewhere, but it IS a design philosophy we follow when presenting stats for creatures of Tiny size or smaller. It helps keep them viable.
Gotcha. Thank you.
Made some enlightening statements concerning Mummy's Mask and the Osirian pantheon
That's interesting to hear, thanks! And makes me want to check out Mummy's Mask. Unfortunately that has never been translated to German as far as I know and I don't really like running adventures and simultaneously translating.
Which brings me to the question: do you think it takes away from the experience if your work is translated to another language?
Like would you say Pathfinder APs are best consumed in their original version? Or do you think it doesn't matter?
(I for example much prefer watching series and movies in their original language, but it's kind of hard with RPGs as a medium if not all players speak English well...)
Are there any specific deities who like to push the boundaries of the "non-interference in the mortal world" edict (Iomedae seems to have tried to see the limits, in some manner, during Wrath of the Righteous) and is this something Casandalee and Nocticula would struggle with upon becoming new divinities?Yes, and when they do, they'll show up in adventures or adventure paths*. It's not something Casandalee or Nocticula would struggle with though.
*Age of Ashes spoiler!
Can we get a hint about who the deity(ies) may be? Alignment, domain, name; whatever you can give.
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Which brings me to the question: do you think it takes away from the experience if your work is translated to another language?
Like would you say Pathfinder APs are best consumed in their original version? Or do you think it doesn't matter?(I for example much prefer watching series and movies in their original language, but it's kind of hard with RPGs as a medium if not all players speak English well...)
I don't. I think that translations help to make the experience be even more available throughout the world, rather than stranding the experience in one language and thus shutting out a HUGE amount of potential gamers.
It's the job of the translator to take a work in one language and turn it into another. Translation is not JUST swapping out words between languages. It's also about translating the voice of the writer, the theme of the work, and so on. If you get a great translator, they do so flawlessly. If you get a terrible one, then that does suck for the original author but it doesn't damage the original work. Since I only speak the one language, I can't personally go through and vouch for how well each of our various translations do, but that's not my job, and I have to trust that we do our best to secure the best translators for the task when we license out those opportunities.
As for movies and films and series, I also prefer watching in the original language but I rely in those cases on subtitles, which is the same thing. Great subtitles capture the essence of the theme and dialogue and all that, but awful ones that are lazy or filled with typos or whatever can ruin a movie that's otherwise brilliant.
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Can we get a hint about who the deity(ies) may be? Alignment, domain, name; whatever you can give.Are there any specific deities who like to push the boundaries of the "non-interference in the mortal world" edict (Iomedae seems to have tried to see the limits, in some manner, during Wrath of the Righteous) and is this something Casandalee and Nocticula would struggle with upon becoming new divinities?Yes, and when they do, they'll show up in adventures or adventure paths*. It's not something Casandalee or Nocticula would struggle with though.
*Age of Ashes spoiler!
The deity in question is:
Mr. James Jacobs,
Have you ever had anyone come up and start talking to you in song lyrics?
Is there some kind of QA-position at Paizo who approves translations or do you leave that completely in the hands of the publishers of the translated versions?
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How are the following treated/viewed in Rahadoum:
Bards
Totemic Barbarians
Druids/Rangers/Hunters
Sorcerers/Bloodragers/Arcanists of obvious Outsider/semidivine lineage
Oracles
Summoners
Witches
Shamans
the Diabolist philosophy
The Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye
Mediums
Mesmerists
Occultists
Spiritualists
This is all assuming no overt deity-worship or divine patronage (I hesitate to even ask about Sarkorian God-Callers...).
Can we get a hint about who the deity(ies) may be? Alignment, domain, name; whatever you can give.Are there any specific deities who like to push the boundaries of the "non-interference in the mortal world" edict (Iomedae seems to have tried to see the limits, in some manner, during Wrath of the Righteous) and is this something Casandalee and Nocticula would struggle with upon becoming new divinities?Yes, and when they do, they'll show up in adventures or adventure paths*. It's not something Casandalee or Nocticula would struggle with though.
*Age of Ashes spoiler!
The deity in question is:
** spoiler omitted **
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Hi James,
I have a couple questions regarding earth elementals and the Elemental Body spell. I was using Elemental Body recently to earth glide up a hill. However, my GM ruled that without tremorsense I wouldn't be able to perceive what was around my exit point, and I was promptly pancaked by a frost giant when I emerged. This leads me to two questions:
1. Does an earth elemental have means (besides tremorsense)of perceiving activity in the world around it while earth gliding? Or am I effectively blind if I earth glide without tremorsense?
2. Would adding tremorsense to the earth elemental form of the Elemental Body spells be a reasonable home brew addition, with its radius getting wider for more powerful versions of Elemental Body? Or was that deliberately omitted from the spell for game balance reasons?
Thanks for your time!
Rules questions aren't answered here; you need to ask them in the rules forum. Sorry.
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Is there some kind of QA-position at Paizo who approves translations or do you leave that completely in the hands of the publishers of the translated versions?
It's pretty much left in the hands of the translators. No one at Paizo speaks all the languages the game is translated into. We trust our licensors to do a great job, and when they don't customers let us know and we handle those situations as they come up.
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Thank you for your long-term design work. My biggest wish for PF2 is that the rules are as simple as possible to reduce the controversy. In the usual game, we often argue about a rule questions for a long time, which both causes a bad game experience and wastes game time. Just as the rules questions of PF1 are constantly being raised, and we are constantly discussing it, we hope to reduce such controversy. Although you may think that this requires full communication with GM to solve all problems,but we will encounter various kinds GM on the network. this debate has consumed us too much time.
No matter how simple rules get, the internet will argue over them. So temper your expectations there.
One thing we ARE trying to do is change the "Players get to run the game" mentality that 3rd edition unintentionally started. We're trying to empower the GM to be able to make rules decisions and rulings as best works for their game, and trying to train players to respect and trust their GMs in this manner. It's how an RPG should work, after all.
If you find arguing over rules is taking up too much of your time and ruining the game you want to play for fun... I'd suggest taking a step back and looking at whether or not RPGs are the right hobby for that particular mix of players, or at the very least have a frank talk with the others and try to come to an understanding that one of the GM's jobs is to make the decisions, based on their expertise and player feedback, and the players, while they can certainly raise concerns, should be ready to accept a GM's ruling.
People who only want to argue in a team-based activity like a tabletop RPG aren't good for the game in the long run.
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How are the following treated/viewed in Rahadoum:
Bards
Totemic Barbarians
Druids/Rangers/Hunters
Sorcerers/Bloodragers/Arcanists of obvious Outsider/semidivine lineage
Oracles
Summoners
Witches
Shamans
the Diabolist philosophy
The Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye
Mediums
Mesmerists
Occultists
SpiritualistsThis is all assuming no overt deity-worship or divine patronage (I hesitate to even ask about Sarkorian God-Callers...).
Please keep questions away from walls of text or lists. This is techincally only one question, but it's something I can't answer to your satisfaction without providing multiple answers.
THe short version: If you worship a god in Rahadoum, they hate you. If you don't, they don't hate you (for that reason, at least). All of the things you list above COULD worship a deity or could not. It's a case-by-case basis, not a one-size fits all.
What accomplishment of your's (or several of them) are you most proud of?
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What accomplishment of your's (or several of them) are you most proud of?
Making goblins something folks are simultaneously afraid of and adore.
Going from 370 pounds down to 180 pounds and then stabilizing (more or less) at about 225 pounds.
Getting an adventure published in Dungeon magazine #12 back when I was in high school.
Getting a chance to work with some folks in the industry I've idolized for decades, like Sandy Petersen.
Pardon my question if this is answered in the Return of the Runelords AP, but I sadly don't have the money to buy it to look through it.
How are differing time lines treated by the story and world building that you all do behind the scenes vis-a-vis alternate gods for each timeline or not?
I realize in a home game I can do what I want with time line stuff, I mostly just curious how you all conceptualize it when building the world behind the scenes.
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Pardon my question if this is answered in the Return of the Runelords AP, but I sadly don't have the money to buy it to look through it.
How are differing time lines treated by the story and world building that you all do behind the scenes vis-a-vis alternate gods for each timeline or not?
** spoiler omitted **
I realize in a home game I can do what I want with time line stuff, I mostly just curious how you all conceptualize it when building the world behind the scenes.
The gods interact with time differently than the rest of us. Their interaction with it is however you want it to work in your game, including impossible things. For example, a cleric who goes back in time to a point before their deity was born (say, to ancient Thasislon while you worship Cayden Cailean) finds that they can still pray to the deity and gain magic and cast commune and all that.
How you handle alternate timelines in your game is up to you—but take care, since it's easy to put years of work into a timeline and then have to throw all that work away simply because the timeline changed.
For Return of the Runelords, all of the alternate timeline stuff happens offscreen, and the assumption is that the PCs fix it. It only really impacts part 6 of Return of the Runelords, and that adventure is pretty much all focused on the PCs and what they do to fix it... not at presenting a brand new campaign setting to adventure in.
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I can understand the teamwork game you want to achieve. But the rule that "the law is an instrument full of people's rights" gives us the rights we can get and the behavior we can do, but vague rules can ruin this. In particular, we have to face different GMs in PFS. Generally speaking, PFS is not a game full of house rules. So I think the rules should be as clear and simple as possible.
We argued for Dazing spell and Persistent spell Aqueous Orb for two hours last night. One thought that the spells that have effects for each round should start with Dazing and Persistent every round, but the other thinks that there is only one effect for the first round of a creature. We studied CRB and UM, but we can't convince each other.and finally we know the GM has never read the spell, and relies on the today's feeling to judge the spell effect.
Please keep posts here to questions. Furthermore, I'm not interested in arguing about arguments.
And that said, it almost sounds like you'd have more fun playing a home game and not a PFS game so that you can do more experimental and unusual combinations of play where a GM who has the power to set rules and interpret things for play for their table has that advantage.
Hey James,
I'm kinda surprised there's no Psychic domain that grants a cleric spells from Occult Adventures.
Is there a particular reason one was never created, at least in the campaign setting side of things? (as I realize you may not be able to answer for the general rules creation team).
Pardon my question if this is answered in the Return of the Runelords AP, but I sadly don't have the money to buy it to look through it.
How are differing time lines treated by the story and world building that you all do behind the scenes vis-a-vis alternate gods for each timeline or not?
** spoiler omitted **
I realize in a home game I can do what I want with time line stuff, I mostly just curious how you all conceptualize it when building the world behind the scenes.The gods interact with time differently than the rest of us. Their interaction with it is however you want it to work in your game, including impossible things. For example, a cleric who goes back in time to a point before their deity was born (say, to ancient Thasislon while you worship Cayden Cailean) finds that they can still pray to the deity and gain magic and cast commune and all that.
How you handle alternate timelines in your game is up to you—but take care, since it's easy to put years of work into a timeline and then have to throw all that work away simply because the timeline changed.
For Return of the Runelords, all of the alternate timeline stuff happens offscreen, and the assumption is that the PCs fix it. It only really impacts part 6 of Return of the Runelords, and that adventure is pretty much all focused on the PCs and what they do to fix it... not at presenting a brand new campaign setting to adventure in.
Thanks! I had been planning to do some offscreen timeline stuff, which got me curious about how you all thought about it when designing stuff.
As a follow up to my above,
If one were to create a homebrew Psychic domain, which Golarion deities/outer/elder gods would posses it?
Mr. Jacobs do lesser divinities, such as Empyreal Lords, have their own holy texts?
What accomplishment of your's (or several of them) are you most proud of?Making goblins something folks are simultaneously afraid of and adore.
Going from 370 pounds down to 180 pounds and then stabilizing (more or less) at about 225 pounds.
Getting an adventure published in Dungeon magazine #12 back when I was in high school.
Getting a chance to work with some folks in the industry I've idolized for decades, like Sandy Petersen.
Congratulations on all of that! And fingers crossed you can extend this list for yourself much more in the future :)
What are some things you think Paizo as a whole can be proud of?
(doesn't have to be a complete list of course, only some examples. I know you don't want to deal in hyperbole)
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Hey James,
I'm kinda surprised there's no Psychic domain that grants a cleric spells from Occult Adventures.
Is there a particular reason one was never created, at least in the campaign setting side of things? (as I realize you may not be able to answer for the general rules creation team).
Integrating new domains into established deity lists is clunky and problematic.
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As a follow up to my above,
If one were to create a homebrew Psychic domain, which Golarion deities/outer/elder gods would posses it?
There's like 400 divinities to choose from, and since in my head a deity grants 5 domains and a demigod 4, in order to pick ones who'd hand out a Psychic domain I would have to remove one they already had.
So... it's not something I'd do. Better to just keep Magic as the catch-all domain category for this.
And as for subdomains, I'd not do that either. I was not a fan of having "Arcane" and "Divine" as subdomains of magic in the first place, to be honest. I would have rather had different, more flavorful subdomains for Magic that didn't cleave so closely to the two established types of magic back then.
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Hi James,
Was just curious what the relationship is between the River of Souls and the River Styx... Are they the same river just at different points in the journey, is the River Styx just one of many tributaries that feed the River of Souls, or are they both independent ways to reach judgement based on some criteria of the soul?
The river of souls isn't a "real" river, whereas the Styx is. They're separate things both inspired by the same symbolism. The River Styx in Pathfinder isn't anything to do with judging souls at all; it's more about transporting souls.
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Do you know yet what is state of Pathfinder Tales canonicity in 2e? Like is ancient lizardfolk city of Kutnaar (from Through the Gate in the Sea) a thing?
They are part of 2nd edition's canon, but not a big part of it in that we'll continue to generally not cross the proverbial streams between novels and game materials, because the two lines have different needs and had different teams running them and we don't really have anyone on staff anymore who has institutional knowledge about the novel line as a whole.
I heard that in Second Edition hobgoblins will have a whole new outlook. It means that mean those various hobgoblin arts in Ironfang Invasion will be obsolete. Is there any chance for Paizo to republish Ironfang Invasion or other old adventure path using Second Edition rules? I really wish there is.
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I heard that in Second Edition hobgoblins will have a whole new outlook. It means that mean those various hobgoblin arts in Ironfang Invasion will be obsolete. Is there any chance for Paizo to republish Ironfang Invasion or other old adventure path using Second Edition rules? I really wish there is.
Yes, hobgoblins in 2nd edition have a new look that makes them look like they're actually goblinoids and not just dumpy half-elves with sharp teeth and blue-gray skin.
We won't republish an entire Adventure Path just to "update" the art in this way; that'd be a HUGE waste of money and resources.
A big part of updating editions is that it gives us a chance to restart and refresh things that we weren't really happy with on the first time... be it rules, world flavor, or art.
Sigh. That would mean I will never be able to see General Azaersi that looks like a proper goblinoid instead of a dumpy half-elf with sharp teeth and blue-gray skin. Paizo has already republished Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne to update the rules, so I thought there is a chance for other adventure paths as well. Am I missing something? Because I thought Second Darkness will be the next.
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Sigh. That would mean I will never be able to see General Azaersi that looks like a proper goblinoid instead of a dumpy half-elf with sharp teeth and blue-gray skin. Paizo has already republished Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne to update the rules, so I thought there is a chance for other adventure paths as well. Am I missing something? Because I thought Second Darkness will be the next.
That doesn't mean that at all. "Not republishing Ironfang Invasion just to update art" is NOT the same thing as "We will never illustrate General Azaersi again ever."
We haven't announced any additional Adventure Path compilations, nor have we ever said we were doing Second Darkness next.
You once said you are not satisfied with the arts for Vault Builders and Vault Keepers. Can I anticipate whole new arts for them in Second Edition as well? In other words, is the possibility not zero?
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You once said you are not satisfied with the arts for Vault Builders and Vault Keepers. Can I anticipate whole new arts for them in Second Edition as well? In other words, is the possibility not zero?
You already got art I'm satisfied with in Ironfang Invasion. The art that I wasn't a fan of was the original art of them that appeared in Emerald Spire—that art style was not for me.
1. I'm wondering what was the reasoning for converting the age for Tieflings/aasamirs to regular folks and whether you want to either change it or keep it the same in 2e
2. Dhamphir seem to have a regular age rate, but when it comes to determining starting ages, it goes as if the race has the same age range as a gnome. What would the standard age range be for them?
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1. I'm wondering what was the reasoning for converting the age for Tieflings/aasamirs to regular folks and whether you want to either change it or keep it the same in 2e
2. Dhamphir seem to have a regular age rate, but when it comes to determining starting ages, it goes as if the race has the same age range as a gnome. What would the standard age range be for them?
1) That was the way we'd assumed tieflings and aasimars aged from the very start. The VERY FIRST adventure in Pathfinder, Burnt Offerings, features a tiefling whose aging is the same as the humans she lives among—if she really did age more slowly then the whole plot of that first adventure breaks. And then in Council of Thieves, we had a brother-sister duo, one of whom was human and one who was a tiefling who grew up at the same rate, side by side, as if they were both human. Giving them a different age category progression in the Advanced Race Guide was an error from the start that slipped into print because I wasn't significantly involved in that book's creation, and those who WERE working on it weren't familiar with the big stories about tieflings and aasimars we'd publised in the Adventure Path. It's one of the biggest reasons we've since redone how we do books, in an attempt to make sure that we aren't "siloing" one product from the other so that they don't end up being produced as if two different companies who don't talk to each other created them.
TL;DR: The reason was that Advanced Race Guide was wrong, and we errataed it to fix the error.2) That sounds like another error.
3) Please keep posts to one question per; makes it easier for me to reply to them.
Will there be any APs involving geniekin in the near future?