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On a previous message in here, you had stated that J2: Guardians of Dragonfall is not canon. In particular, Dragonfall itself.
Today, I was reading the Dragons of Golarion major article in Rise of the Runelords 4: Fortress of the Stone Giants and there are a few major sections that reference Dragonfall.
1. The "I Shall Then Be Apsu" sidebar.
2. The Dragonfall sidebar.
3. The Magic of Draconic Death section.
4. Psychology section.
5. Final Flight section.
Should this entire article be ignored as canon?
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I also noticed, in the Pathfinder Journal section of Fortress of the Stone Giants (pg. 74), Eando Kline writes on Erastus 3rd, 4707 AR that King Eodred II is recently deceased. Eando Kline is obviously imagining things, because the Adventure Background in Edge of Anarchy clearly states that the adventure begins in 4708 AR at the earliest. And Eodred is not dead at the beginning of the adventure.
I assume people point out contradictions in the published work all the time in this thread, like the Darklands Revisted one the other day. What are some standout "the book is wrong" stuff that you can recall?
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I noticed on a facebook post that Ron is running a Execution Curse game and you are one of the players. Sounds awesome, these office games allways sounds like they would be a blast!
1. What character are you playing?
2. I recall you saying before that you haven't had a chance to play much PF2 since it came out, now that you have how do you enjoy it as a player?
3. AS a developer for the AP line is it hard to play in a office game like this when you already know the outcomes of the adventures?
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Hi, James Jacobs hope you're having a good day. I've got a small question for you maybe it's the inner power gamer in me or maybe it's just how I see things and think that doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm asking with archetypes like Stonelord and or inspired blade that abilities that once used charisma such as lay on hands for the Stonelord or charmed life for a Inspired Blade. Using a different mental stat like wisdom modifier for Stonelord since building it discourages charisma losing spellcasting and Divine Grace, while the other lets you use both int and cha for panache pool so why not use int or cha for Charmed Life to better fit the builds?
I bet there is a balance reason I can't think of but it always felt odd to me that archtypes seem to change the stats used but leaves something like that.
That question is better asked of the Design team than me.
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On a previous message in here, you had stated that J2: Guardians of Dragonfall is not canon. In particular, Dragonfall itself.
Today, I was reading the Dragons of Golarion major article in Rise of the Runelords 4: Fortress of the Stone Giants and there are a few major sections that reference Dragonfall.
1. The "I Shall Then Be Apsu" sidebar.
2. The Dragonfall sidebar.
3. The Magic of Draconic Death section.
4. Psychology section.
5. Final Flight section.Should this entire article be ignored as canon?
That article is no longer canon. Parts of it have indeed been carried forward, but you should look to more current articles about dragons for canon, and not reference an article that's over a dozen years old and 2 game editions out of date.
Keep as much as you want for your home games. You as the GM get to decide what is and isn't canon for your table.
For us, at Paizo, and thus for anyone we hire to write for us, that dragon article in Fortress of the Stone Giants is outdated. Our most up-to-date information about dragons would be the "Here There Be Dragons" article in Pathfinder #147, the third adventure in Age of Ashes Adventure Path.
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I also noticed, in the Pathfinder Journal section of Fortress of the Stone Giants (pg. 74), Eando Kline writes on Erastus 3rd, 4707 AR that King Eodred II is recently deceased. Eando Kline is obviously imagining things, because the Adventure Background in Edge of Anarchy clearly states that the adventure begins in 4708 AR at the earliest. And Eodred is not dead at the beginning of the adventure.
I assume people point out contradictions in the published work all the time in this thread, like the Darklands Revisted one the other day. What are some standout "the book is wrong" stuff that you can recall?
Keep in mind that when we were doing those first 6 volumes of Pathifnder, we weren't sure if we'd be in business long enough to do a 7th volume. And we were making all the world lore up as we went. I'm proud of what we did, and proud of the fact that so much of what we created "stuck" and became fundamental parts of the Pathfinder experience, but some of that stuff has oopsies in it. The Eando Kline fiction that says King Eodred II is dead is incorrect, for example.
I prefer not to wallow in "the book is wrong" sort of talk, because the best way to move on from errors is to accept them and admit to them and then go forward with the new information. But the more I bring up errors of the past, the more they continue to take on lives of their own, particularly for non-rules flavor elements.
From a customer viewpoint, the best option is to start with the most recently published information and then work back in time. If you see something in an older product that contradicts something we put in a newer one, then you can take the newer information as the correct information.
If you (or anyone) asks me in particular about a contradiction or possible error, I'll always be honest and forthcoming and admit errors and tell you what should be more correct, but I'm not gonna do the work for you and codify the errors for you. ;)
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If you (or anyone) asks me in particular about a contradiction or possible error, I'll always be honest and forthcoming and admit errors and tell you what should be more correct, but I'm not gonna do the work for you and codify the errors for you. ;)
Maybe I should rephrase the "the book is wrong" thing. I didn't mean it as negatively as it sounds. Even with hundreds of eyes looking over every single frame in a film or TV show, you still get Starbucks cups in Westeros. And often this stuff, like a Stormtrooper bumping his head, makes it more endearing.
Without asking for a giant list of lore errata, do you have any fun blooper stories where you didn't notice something until after print?
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I noticed on a facebook post that Ron is running a Execution Curse game and you are one of the players. Sounds awesome, these office games allways sounds like they would be a blast!
1. What character are you playing?
2. I recall you saying before that you haven't had a chance to play much PF2 since it came out, now that you have how do you enjoy it as a player?
3. AS a developer for the AP line is it hard to play in a office game like this when you already know the outcomes of the adventures?
1) I'm playing Wrin Sivinxi, a tiefling sorcerer with the fey bloodline and the Animal Trainer background.
2) This is the first chance I've had to play the final game, but have only played one session so far. It was fun, and I felt like I was playing a sorcerer the whole time through and not only for the first few encounters and then having to play a commoner with a crossbow or something like that.
3) It's not hard for me, no. In part because I wasn't the developer of Extinction Curse—I know the basic plot, but not the details. But also, I've had 30+ years of practice playing characters in adventures I've read, run, or even written, and I've gotten pretty good at managing the divide between player knowledge and character knowledge. And in the end, one of my FAVORITE parts of playing is seeing how the group of players get together and work together and how their characters interact. It's kinda like the feeling you get watching one of your favorite movies with a friend who's never seen it before. You get to re-experience seeing the movie for the first time through them; it's the same in playing a game with someone who's never played that adventure even if you wrote or developed it.
When Xin and his followers came to what is now Northwestern Avistan, were the Varisian and Shoanti peoples already there, or are they descended from Thassilonians? If they are so descended, are their languages descended from ancient Thassilonian?
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Without asking for a giant list of lore errata, do you have any fun blooper stories where you didn't notice something until after print?
This is a better question to ask elsewhere on the boards—ask other customers and readers and gamers. There's not much "fun" to me at public errors. I doubt the folks working so hard on Game of Thrones were happy that the coffee cup got into the scene. Sure, somewhere down the line they can laugh about it, but if I were them, I'd like to remember all the great stuff rather than the mistakes.
There are errors that get into print in EVERY product. And it's already really tough for me to look at something hot off the press with pride in a job well done if there's an error. I'm my own harshest critic, in other words, and I've been told I'm pretty unfair at how I cope with errors I should have caught. They're valuable learning experiences to keep in mind to avoid making the same mistakes in the future, but I don't feel the need to publicly list my lessons or dwell on them more than I already do so.
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There are errors that get into print in EVERY product. And it's already really tough for me to look at something hot off the press with pride in a job well done if there's an error.
I think you're doing an amazing job. Golarion is the most consistent on-going setting I'm aware of. What you and your team has done is absolutely revolutionary. Any amusement I get out of finding anything is because it's so damn rare.
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There are errors that get into print in EVERY product. And it's already really tough for me to look at something hot off the press with pride in a job well done if there's an error.I think you're doing an amazing job. Golarion is the most consistent on-going setting I'm aware of. What you and your team has done is absolutely revolutionary. Any amusement I get out of finding anything is because it's so damn rare.
YAY Thanks for the kind words! They really do help!
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I want to second the fact that Golarion is a ton of fun and I really like playing in it, but also just reading about it.
As for a question, what are you currently working on? I assume you finished bestiary 2 by now.
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I want to second the fact that Golarion is a ton of fun and I really like playing in it, but also just reading about it.
As for a question, what are you currently working on? I assume you finished bestiary 2 by now.
Bestiary 2 has been off to the printer for a bit now. Currently, I'm doing more creative direction work and less development work. Jumping in here and there to provide more text, to adjust things, to provide advice, etc. as needed, as well as working on some things that haven't yet been announced.
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In a previous interview on Paizo Twitch, it was mentioned Amanda Hamon wrote some Pickled Ear employee backstories that had to be cut for space. Based on the way you both talked about it, they seemed amusing. What were they?
Just some fun soap-opera style relationship shenanigans that the PCs had to navigate and untangle in order to get the help to help.
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Bestiary 2 has been off to the printer for a bit now. Currently, I'm doing more creative direction work and less development work. Jumping in here and there to provide more text, to adjust things, to provide advice, etc. as needed, as well as working on some things that haven't yet been announced.
How intertwined is setting and rules development when a new edition comes out? How does a typical week compare now, to a week prior to 2E Dev?
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When you first read linked adventures in the TSR days did you ever imagine anything like APs as a product? Especially a continually ongoing storyline spanning over 100 volumes?
Mega-adventures existed and the B1-B9 compilation, but nothing like this. What was the inspiration for the format?
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How intertwined is setting and rules development when a new edition comes out? How does a typical week compare now, to a week prior to 2E Dev?Bestiary 2 has been off to the printer for a bit now. Currently, I'm doing more creative direction work and less development work. Jumping in here and there to provide more text, to adjust things, to provide advice, etc. as needed, as well as working on some things that haven't yet been announced.
One doesn't exist without the other. A typical week now compared to a typical one where we were gearing up for 2nd Edition is fewer overtime hours, fewer stress dreams and panic attacks, and more time to enjoy free time. Although the upcoming Kingmaker book is gonna put many of us (particularly myself) back into that mode in about a month, alas.
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2) There is a troll in Kaer Maga in adventure #3 who has a clearly-correct prophecy. How can that happen in the Age of Lost Omens?Even a stopped clock is right twice a day (AKA If you have enough theoretical prophecies bandied about, eventually one will end up "predicting" the final event simply out of chance), but also, the troll in Kaer Maga's prophecy isn't right because it's a magic divination but because of time travel and paradox stuff going on, so it's not really a prophecy at all.Thanks! - I somehow hadn't caught the time-travel aspect of the troll prophecy.
I'm reminded that I also had a time-travel question from Return of the Runelords. One central reason the party go to Xin-Edasseril is to learn how the timeline was altered by comparing their own historical knowledge with the records there. For some of the timeline alterations (Xin's activities, the runelord schism) it's easy to see how that works. For some others (Alaznist learning more about sinspawn, the Oliphaunt being transported forward in time) one can come up with a story (maybe there are records of the sinspawns' exploits that are less impressive than the party's historians remember; maybe the Oliphaunt is recorded as having rampaged through Xanderghul's legion rather than disappearing). But for two events it's really hard to see how the library could help:
- Alaznist sabotages the Cyphergate - but Karzoug doesn't notice, and he doesn't get around to using it before Earthfall so the sabotage doesn't come to light.
- ALaznist traps Sorshen in the Everdawn Pool- but that happens *during* Earthfall, so it's hard to see how anything relevant to it could get into Xin-Edasseril's records.
Am I missing something about how this is supposed to work?
(Just in case this comes across as critical: I think Return of the Runelords is *wonderful*. I want to understand it as well as I can before using content from it.)
Before the PCs access the uncorrupted Xin-Edasseril records, their own minds have been comprimised by the time distortions and wounds. Once they see the older, uncorrupted records, their own memories adjust and transform and allow them to remember things they shouldn't, more or less. So even though Sorshen getting trapped happened after the Everdawn Pool, by adjusting their memories by "resetting" them in Xin-Edasseril, the assumption is that the high level very knowledgable PCs regain memories of this new timeline as if they had learned that information in their own pasts before going on the adventure (or even during it). In effect, memories that would have existed if the PCs hadn't been affected by the time wounds pop into their heads.
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When you first read linked adventures in the TSR days did you ever imagine anything like APs as a product? Especially a continually ongoing storyline spanning over 100 volumes?
Mega-adventures existed and the B1-B9 compilation, but nothing like this. What was the inspiration for the format?
I've always built my homebrew campaigns in this format. I didn't write everything out in detail, but I always had outlines for the campaign when I started things. Sometimes I'd stitch published adventures together in ways they weren't intended. Sometimes I'd use short published series of adventures. And sometimes I'd actually write longer adventures.
The plots for Serpent's Skull and Curse of the Crimson Throne, for example, were more or less plots I first ran for my homebrew (although in both cases the plots were shortened—the original Serpent's Skull covered levels 1 through 8, while the Crimson Throne one took off thereafter and covered levels 9 through 16, and that was followed by one from levels 17 to about 22, using Epic Level Rules, that focused on a plotline that hasn't yet been turned into a Pathfinder Adventure Path).
The inspiration to link adventures into larger stories for me comes from older D&D series of adventures, such as the two-part Desert Nomads series, the Slavelords series, or the Dragonlance modules. But for me, the first and most important inspiration was how they linked together the three giants modules, the drow modules, and the Lolth module. When they republished these seven adventures a few years later as "Queen of the Spiders" (still my favorite D&D adventure ever), it pretty much proved the concept to me that you can link adventures together to form a story that's greater than the sum of their parts.
The first APs we worked on were back in the Dungeon Magazine days for D&D, and their popularity was shocking—they pretty much single-handedly saved Dungeon Magazine from being cancelled, to be honest, and for a while, the public popularity of Dungeon eclipsed that of Dragon for the first time, if feedback from readers and reviews was to be believed. In a way, losing the D&D license was the best thing that could happen to the Adventure Path format, since it forced us to focus on the one thing we KNEW folks wanted—long, campaign length adventures. The continuing popularity of Adventure Paths is what kept Paizo afloat long enough for us to do Pathfinder.
As for spanning over 150 volumes (we passed 100 years ago!), that's as much a result of all of the Adventure Path customers sticking with the format for over a decade, so thank you all!
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One doesn't exist without the other. A typical week now compared to a typical one where we were gearing up for 2nd Edition is fewer overtime hours, fewer stress dreams and panic attacks, and more time to enjoy free time. Although the upcoming Kingmaker book is gonna put many of us (particularly myself) back into that mode in about a month, alas.How intertwined is setting and rules development when a new edition comes out? How does a typical week compare now, to a week prior to 2E Dev?Bestiary 2 has been off to the printer for a bit now. Currently, I'm doing more creative direction work and less development work. Jumping in here and there to provide more text, to adjust things, to provide advice, etc. as needed, as well as working on some things that haven't yet been announced.
*offers hugs*
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Who would you say is more powerful,yog-sothoth or pharasma?
They're both equally potentially more powerful than the other, depending on the story one wants to tell about them.
The "power level" of a deity (as opposed to a demigod, which has a stat block) is set by fiction, not rules.
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Is there a symbol in Golarion like the Red Cross (or Crescent), or the caduceus, that communicates that medical care and/or divine healing are available at a location?
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The process of a qlippoth lord becoming a demon lord is a unique and variable one that depends on a wide range of factors that are unique to the story for each case. Granting spells to clerics isn't a part of those stories, though.
Oh, like how deities change alignment, like Nocticula and Achakek did. Speaking of…
On the Pathfinder Friday stream a few weeks back, you mentioned that you currently have no plans for Lissala. I'm disappointed because she's probably my favorite deity in all of Lost Omens. I interpret her story of becoming evil as one of how power corrupts and noblesse oblige quickly becomes mere privilege and entitlement.
My question is, How and when did Lissala become Evil? I've read and heard conflicting information.
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Is there a symbol in Golarion like the Red Cross (or Crescent), or the caduceus, that communicates that medical care and/or divine healing are available at a location?
No. The closest analogy would be the symbol of Sarenrae or another deity associated with healing. There's probably an alchemical symbol for healing as well but it's not widely used outside of alchemical formula books.
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Has the 1E term for outsiders changed? Isn't it 'immortals' now or something?
There is no term for "outsiders" as a general category for 2nd edition. The closest would be "extraplanar creatures" but that only works if you assume that you're speaking form a Material Plane viewpoint. You could say "Outer Planar Creatures" or the like, I guess, but that excludes all the rest.
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The process of a qlippoth lord becoming a demon lord is a unique and variable one that depends on a wide range of factors that are unique to the story for each case. Granting spells to clerics isn't a part of those stories, though.
Oh, like how deities change alignment, like Nocticula and Achakek did. Speaking of…
On the Pathfinder Friday stream a few weeks back, you mentioned that you currently have no plans for Lissala. I'm disappointed because she's probably my favorite deity in all of Lost Omens. I interpret her story of becoming evil as one of how power corrupts and noblesse oblige quickly becomes mere privilege and entitlement.
My question is, How and when did Lissala become Evil? I've read and heard conflicting information.
Soon after the Runelords rose to power, so a few thousand years before Earthfall.
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Soon after the Runelords rose to power, so a few thousand years before Earthfall.The process of a qlippoth lord becoming a demon lord is a unique and variable one that depends on a wide range of factors that are unique to the story for each case. Granting spells to clerics isn't a part of those stories, though.
Oh, like how deities change alignment, like Nocticula and Achakek did. Speaking of…
On the Pathfinder Friday stream a few weeks back, you mentioned that you currently have no plans for Lissala. I'm disappointed because she's probably my favorite deity in all of Lost Omens. I interpret her story of becoming evil as one of how power corrupts and noblesse oblige quickly becomes mere privilege and entitlement.
My question is, How and when did Lissala become Evil? I've read and heard conflicting information.
Why did she become Evil?
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With the new 3 action system of P2 has any thought been given on making transforming weapons, a la Trick Weapons from Bloodborne?
My guess is no. I don't think anyone on the Design team plays Bloodborne, or any Soulsborne games.
A transforming weapon is certainly an interesting idea, and there's a lot of potentially interesting stuff you could do with those with the 3 action system, for sure.
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Why did she become Evil?
We did an entire article about her in Pathfinder #65 that, if I remember correctly, has more info on her, but I can't remember the details of it off the top of my head since that was like half a decade ago and I haven't really done much with Lissala at all ever since.
Part of my issue there is that she's ALWAYS been a lawful evil god in my view, and the whole confusing bit about it was introduced in the early days sort of by accident as we weren't as organized in presenting and curating information about the setting. Unlike some other cases where we did some unfortunate missteps that were flat-out errors that we've since corrected, though, this one gave Lissala some interesting personality and history so we ran with it. That is to say, folks other than me ran with it, so I don't have all the details in my head as a result.
So this came up during a discussion with a fellow GM, did Alderpash survive? If he did then what is the ex-runelord doing when Sorshen and Belimarius are active on Golarion?
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But this makes no sense if a god is required to cast divine...Alas, Darklands Revisited is wrong. (That book got kinda rushed through production and never got a creative review pass from me, unfortunately; there's some info on gugs and urdefhans that's wrong too, for example.) They primarily worship Zevgavizeb, to the extent that he's known as the "God of the Troglodytes" among other names. It's certainly possible for a xulgath to worship a qlippoth, as is the case for any other creature, but not to an extent that it should have been mentioned in print. The Extinction Curse Adventure Path will have a lot more information about xulgaths and their religion that's more accurate.Do xulgaths commonly worship demons or instead qlippoths?
Darklands Revisited says qlippoth, but the ones in Extinction Curse are demon-worshppers, according to the Pathfinder Friday stream.
It did always seem weird that qlippoth lords grant spells to mortals despite the former's hatred of the latter and all their sinning.
How do qlippoth lords grant spells to mortals without going the way of Mazzmez or Cyth-V'sug and becoming demon lords?
Qlippoth lords granting spells to mortal worshipers is somewhat akin to Outer Gods or Great Old Ones doing the same. The act of "granting spells" is in large part a relic from D&D, first of all. It's not the deity that gives a cleric their spells. It's the cleric's faith that gives them their spells. A deity doesn't have to consciously grant spells at all, and doesn't even need to know there is someone praying to them for it to happen. The clouds don't know if an ant drinks from a drop of rain that fell from them, after all.
The process of a qlippoth lord becoming a demon lord is a unique and variable one that depends on a wide range of factors that are unique to the story for each case. Granting spells to clerics isn't a part of those stories, though.
There's a connection to the god, and that's required for a cleric to gain their power. When a god dies, that connection is broken. The source of a cleric's magic is their faith, but faith is not enough to power itself to grant cleric spells. If it were, then there'd be an infinite number of deities, because you'd only need one person to have faith in a deity they invented and it would appear. That's not how clerics work.
A religious character can worship a dead god and gain powers if they're of a class whose powers aren't directly linked to a deity—that's a good role for a divine sorcerer, for example. Or even a wizard or monk or rogue or barbarian. But for a cleric, that's the way it works.
Honestly, if you want to imagine those spells are in fact given to clerics directly by the gods, that's fine too. It's largely a philosophical flavor element as to how it goes, so feel free to adjust as you wish. Personally, to me, I don't have a problem envisioning how that works with faith being the source of a cleric's power and that faith breaking if a god dies. That's just my opinion, and other explanations work just as well if the logic works better for you.
Not interested in keeping on a debate about the topic though. This thread is for questions and answers, not back and forth discussions. If you want to discuss the philosophies of how clerics gain their spells, that's a great topic for a different thread. I might or might not look in on said thread if it starts, and a day or week or month or year or decade from now, I might change my opinion. Or I might not.
Is shamanism and the juju pantheon still an important part of the Lost Omens campaign setting? I was a bit surprised not to see them referenced in Gods & Magic.
Also, was Sarenrae’s smiting of Ninshabur a violation of the divine non-intervention rule? Do gods tolerate other gods getting personally involved if they’re just going after Rovagug and his cults?
Loving Gods & Magic, James. Congrats on zack you’ve done with Nocticula especially. She’s really become standout.
Although the upcoming Kingmaker book is gonna put many of us (particularly myself) back into that mode in about a month, alas.
I'm assuming you can't talk specifics, but can you give general impressions on how much the requested fan input will have on the final product? (But if you can talk specifics, that would be great.)
So this came up during a discussion with a fellow GM, did Alderpash survive? If he did then what is the ex-runelord doing when Sorshen and Belimarius are active on Golarion?He's still locked away in the Abyss and has no real impact on Golarion.
Thanks James! I guess this also means he was not redeemed?
How do Irori, Nethys, and Urgathoa feel about each other? I had the idea of worshiping them as a pantheon of Ascended Masters, since they all achieved Divinity through their own means.
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Is shamanism and the juju pantheon still an important part of the Lost Omens campaign setting? I was a bit surprised not to see them referenced in Gods & Magic.
Also, was Sarenrae’s smiting of Ninshabur a violation of the divine non-intervention rule? Do gods tolerate other gods getting personally involved if they’re just going after Rovagug and his cults?
Loving Gods & Magic, James. Congrats on zack you’ve done with Nocticula especially. She’s really become standout.
Shamanisim is. Undecided on juju. We didn't have enough room to include everything, so don't take something not being in the book as indication that it's been excised forever.
Sarenrae's smiting of Ninshabur in the ancient past is one of several examples of why that "rule" of non-intervention exists today. It wasn't so much in place the further back you go in time. And remember, the PRIMARY reason why deities don't do this in the current era is a game play thing—it removes agency from your PCs if folks assume that they don't have to do anything because the gods can just fix things.
And thanks for the kind words about Nocticula's story, although I'm not sure what "zack" means... I'm old. Is that some hip new radical slang? :-P
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How do you perform real world mythology, religion, spiritualism research?
Maybe it sounds weird saying "real world mythology". What I'm trying to ask is how you research spiritual practices done by real people as opposed to viewing / reading works of fiction inspired by these practices.
Very carefully. And we try to make sure that when we do include things like this, it respects the traditions, and if there's a strong element of that faith or tradition still active today, we often shy away from it entirely. Often we'll have experts in respective fields read through the words to ensure we're not being insensitive or ignorant about how we present things, and we still pay attention to feedback from customers and readers when the books our out so that we can learn from mistakes we make going forward.
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One of my players is taking the eldritch guardian archetype for fighter gaining a familiar and one of this archetypes features also gives the familiar all combat feats the fighter takes even if the familiar does not meet the feat’s prerequisites. They are also planing to have the familiar take the mauler archetype. I know the familiar does not gain the fighters staring proficiency as those are class features not feats but if the fighter picks a exotic weapon proficiency feat the animal would have that. I know most animals like a pig and such could not use the proficiency since they lack hand and such but what about animals like the monkey who have hands. Just going by the organized play FAQ for familiars I would say no but something in the animal companion section makes me think maybe. The homunculus companion granted by the promethean alchemist archetype gains weapon proficiency as described in the archetype and so can use weapons. Both a monkey and homunculus are in the biped with hands section so do you think all biped with hands could use a weapon it has a proficiency with if they acquire it from a archetype feature? Beyond that should any familiar that can grasp/carry a weapon be allowed to use a weapon it has proficiency with if they acquire it from a archetype feature?
To me, having a familiar take an archetype is kinda non-sensical. Familiars aren't supposed to be combat allies; that's a better role for an animal companion.
That said, you've asked a LOT of things there that seem like it boils down to you asking permission from me to let a player do something in an Org Play game. I don't get to make those calls for home games (that's the GM's responsibility) or Org Play games (that's the responsibility of the campaign leaders). In cases like this, though, my general advice is this:
Save the experimental and unusual character builds for home games where a single GM has the authority to decide if something strange is okay for their game, and aim for characters that don't stretch the rules so much in an Org Play scenario that your character build threatens to shut down progress in play as everyone argues about whether or not it's "legal" or you end up having to wait months for the already super-busy Org Play team figure out how to address the corner case.
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Creative Director
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Although the upcoming Kingmaker book is gonna put many of us (particularly myself) back into that mode in about a month, alas.I'm assuming you can't talk specifics, but can you give general impressions on how much the requested fan input will have on the final product? (But if you can talk specifics, that would be great.)
About the same as for the previous compilations for Runelords and Crimson Throne on average, but that means "more" since Kingmaker will be a much bigger book. I haven't had a chance yet to look at exactly what Legendary Games has done with the product and won't until the end of the month, when they kick their completed work over to Paizo and I start the process of the final development of the words.