Creative Director
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This is the longest I have seen you not post. Is everything okay?
Everything is as okay for me as things can be these days. I'm still healthy; my immediate family down in California are all doing well (most of them live in regions that were among the first in the nation to get government-mandated shelter in place orders, and the first case of coronavirus to hit my sparsely populated but rather large home-county was unexpectedly close to Point Arena); and I and my coworkers are fortunate enough to be able to (mostly) work from home and work for a company that's got all our backs and is making "keeping everyone employed" a primary goal in these awful times.
That said, the reason I've not posted here in a bit is because no one's posted questions, so that makes me worry that most of those who normally post questions here are having a tougher time than normal.
Stay safe out there, all of you! I'd give ALL of you hugs, but...
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Creative Director
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No it’s not okay, no one has asked the Directorsaur any questions (till now)!
Would you have any interest in Animal Crossing?
YAY! Rysky's alive!
The last Nintendo console I bought was a Wii, and I played it for about 2 hours before never ever using it again. No shade at those who love Animal Crossing at all! But it's not really my thing.
Between PC, Xbox, and PS4, I've got plenty of video game action going on, in any event.
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Creative Director
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Yes I is!
*hugs the Directorsaur*
*nods* I didn’t know if you had gotten into it due to the fossil collecting you could do in the game (I’d recommend looking at the museum if you can find any good videos, it’s rather gorgeous).
Speaking of games, have you beaten Nioh 2?
Yup! Just beat it earlier in the week and moved on to Doom Eternal.
I'll likely be going back to NG+ Nioh 2 at some point though!
Here's a question I've been mulling over ever since I started playing Pathfinder.
One of my favorite settings in AD&D was Spelljammer. Paizo took a one time stab at Spelljammer with an issue of Dungeon, but then never went back. I was curious as to why? Were the sales on that issue poor? Was it simply because Erik Mona wants starships not spellships?
I am just now starting in a Starfinder game because it's much closer to sci-fi than fantasy. Is there an of Starfinder to recommend to closet Spelljammer fans that don't have a game to scratch their itch?
The obvious answer is "Starfinder", but I want spellships and goofy deckside fighting.
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Creative Director
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Here's a question I've been mulling over ever since I started playing Pathfinder.
One of my favorite settings in AD&D was Spelljammer. Paizo took a one time stab at Spelljammer with an issue of Dungeon, but then never went back. I was curious as to why? Were the sales on that issue poor? Was it simply because Erik Mona wants starships not spellships?
I am just now starting in a Starfinder game because it's much closer to sci-fi than fantasy. Is there an of Starfinder to recommend to closet Spelljammer fans that don't have a game to scratch their itch?
The obvious answer is "Starfinder", but I want spellships and goofy deckside fighting.
Spelljammer was never as popular as the more standard fantasy settings. I guess it didn't help much that Spelljammer was the D&D setting I was most disappointed by; it was too jokey and silly for my taste, so that certainly impacted the chance of a Spelljammer adventure showing up in the era of Dungeon in which I was involved as an editor (issues 103–150).
Starfinder is your best bet, I think, to do a d20 style Spelljammer, but don't expect me to provide much advice or support for game that involves goofy deckside fighting. When it comes to comedy, I much prefer in-world humor and whimsy as opposed to Spelljammer's tendency toward pop culture riffs and puns and anachronisms.
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Yes I is!
*hugs the Directorsaur*
*nods* I didn’t know if you had gotten into it due to the fossil collecting you could do in the game (I’d recommend looking at the museum if you can find any good videos, it’s rather gorgeous).
Speaking of games, have you beaten Nioh 2?
Yup! Just beat it earlier in the week and moved on to Doom Eternal.
I'll likely be going back to NG+ Nioh 2 at some point though!
Yay! What was your favourite moment from the game?
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Creative Director
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Yay! What was your favourite moment from the game?
Hmmmm...
That's probably a tie between the visuals of how the monastery level changed as you drained the waters of the lake, and the cutscene just before the kamaitachi boss fight.
My greatest moment of personal triumph, though, was finally beating Lady Osakabe. That was a tough fight for me.
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Yay! What was your favourite moment from the game?Hmmmm...
That's probably a tie between the visuals of how the monastery level changed as you drained the waters of the lake, and the cutscene just before the kamaitachi boss fight.
My greatest moment of personal triumph, though, was finally beating Lady Osakabe. That was a tough fight for me.
Hehe I love that cutscene pshpshpshpsh
And *nods* what about the Boar? He was tough for a lot of people apparently but I didn’t have much trouble with him or Lady Osakaba (Kasha on the other hand before I figured out to keep aiming for the wheels even after the crystals broke...)
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Creative Director
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And *nods* what about the Boar? He was tough for a lot of people apparently but I didn’t have much trouble with him or Lady Osakaba (Kasha on the other hand before I figured out to keep aiming for the wheels even after the crystals broke...)
The boar was kind of a non-issue for me. Ninjitsu probably melted that boss but however the fight went it wasn't notable for me enough to build frustration memory, I guess. The second hardest boss fight for me was the snake.
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And *nods* what about the Boar? He was tough for a lot of people apparently but I didn’t have much trouble with him or Lady Osakaba (Kasha on the other hand before I figured out to keep aiming for the wheels even after the crystals broke...)The boar was kind of a non-issue for me. Ninjitsu probably melted that boss but however the fight went it wasn't notable for me enough to build frustration memory, I guess. The second hardest boss fight for me was the snake.
*nods*
He wasn’t really an issue for me and Odachi either.
Evil noodle that Boops you with the snoop (and a wonky grab hit box)
Have you got a new favourite Yokai after completing the game?
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Creative Director
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Oh, the spider pot lady from the first game? What did you like about her?Have you got a new favourite Yokai after completing the game?Not really; nothing in there dethroned the jorogumo for me.
OH! I was assuming you were talking about all the yokai ever, not just Nioh ones. I just like spider monsters.
So by that logic, the giant spider bull was my favorite in Nioh 2.
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Oh, the spider pot lady from the first game? What did you like about her?Have you got a new favourite Yokai after completing the game?Not really; nothing in there dethroned the jorogumo for me.OH! I was assuming you were talking about all the yokai ever, not just Nioh ones. I just like spider monsters.
So by that logic, the giant spider bull was my favorite in Nioh 2.
Ah gotcha, and my bad.
Was it because the Gyoki was Kaiju-ish? I hated fighting that one >_<
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Creative Director
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Oh, the spider pot lady from the first game? What did you like about her?Have you got a new favourite Yokai after completing the game?Not really; nothing in there dethroned the jorogumo for me.OH! I was assuming you were talking about all the yokai ever, not just Nioh ones. I just like spider monsters.
So by that logic, the giant spider bull was my favorite in Nioh 2.
Ah gotcha, and my bad.
Was it because the Gyoki was Kaiju-ish? I hated fighting that one >_<
That's a part of it, but also because I liked the look of him, and I liked that it was an inhuman monster; I much prefer bosses in these games that are monsters rather than just people.
But also I loved how it was a sort of unexpected climax to the mission; you defeat the guy, but then there's this weird sound in the distance and the mission doesn't end. It was a cool, unexpected development in the story.
I've been working on building a setting for running pf2 games in (it's a long term passion project) - I feel like I should be getting a lot done during all this isolation (especially since the office I normally work in has closed) but I've not done anything for it since work shut down, despite all the extra time.
Any advice on how to get myself back into the habit of working on a project?
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Creative Director
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I've been working on building a setting for running pf2 games in (it's a long term passion project) - I feel like I should be getting a lot done during all this isolation (especially since the office I normally work in has closed) but I've not done anything for it since work shut down, despite all the extra time.
Any advice on how to get myself back into the habit of working on a project?
A couple of tricks I do to get myself writing:
1) Sit down at the computer at the same time each day and write for an hour; doesn't matter what, as long as it's on topic. Don't feel pushed to work on whatever it was you left off on; if you're blocked, choose a new topic. It helps if this hour of writing is earlier in the day when you're more awake rather than in the evening when you're tired out.
2) Decide on an achievable goal, then reduce that by a bit and do your best to hit that goal by a certain time. For example, if you know you can do 5,000 words a week with ease, set yourself a goal of 3,000 for that week as a minimum. Feel free to go above that of course, but by setting easier goals, you avoid forcing yourself to write to your average rate when you're on a downturn on inspiration.
3) Take a break and immerse yourself in your genre of choice, via gaming or reading or movies or whatever. This helps you to recharge your imagination.
4) Play as a player, not as a GM. And not necessarily in the same setting or rules system you use for your project. I find that GMing a game and preparing adventures or lore or rules inspires me to want to play, but also being able to turn off that responsibility and just playing as a player inspires me to want to do the GM side of things.
AND FINALLY: For this specific situation where you find yoursel fwith a lot of extra time, two bonus bits of advice:
Bonus 1: Don't beat yourself up for not wanting to work on your passion projects. It's a scary time, and that changes our interests and creative energy levels. Try to engage that time instead with pets or online with friends or reading or exercising or cleaning house or anything else, but don't worry that you're "wasting" time on your project by not working on it. 'Cause here's the secret: All passion settings like this will NEVER be "done." I've been working on my own passion project on and off (a post-apocalyptic RPG) for nearly 20 years now, and it's nowhere CLOSE to being "done." Neither is Golarion or Pathfinder, for that matter! So try to let go of the idea that you have to finish your project. Coming to that decision with my post-apoc game, "Unspeakable Futures," has been a load of my mind and makes it more fun for me to step in to work on it now and then, even if it's been months or even years since I've last worked on it.
Bonus 2: Schedule time! A passion project is important, as important as sleeping or work or dinner, I think. And as such, it benefits from having a time scheduled for it. Set aside a period of time, 5 days a week, that you're "at work" on your project and adhere to that schedule. Don't go overboard though! If you're not working because your office is closed, then maybe just swap the hours you were spending at the office over to your project. And go back to advice #1 above—if you're stuck on something, don't stay there. Do something else. Stuck designing a class for your setting? Write an adventure for it instead. Stuck on building a nation or a town? Design some magic items instead. Stuck working up rules for a new organization? Draw some maps for taverns in your town instead! And maybe at the start, since we're all gamers... you could even generate a die rolling rubric to help set that day's goals... like this:
1: Design dungeon maps.
2: Design wilderness encounters that involve a randomly determined creature.
3: Work on an organization or religion.
4: Create a new monster that lives in a location very different from the last monster you designed.
5: Generate a random letter; start expanding on a town or nation that starts with that letter in your setting.
6: Build up a random table to generate your own NPC names, ship names, tavern names, dragon names, rumors, whatever!
Hope some of that helps, but in the end, the BEST advice I can give is to not beat yourself up too much for not feeling the energy to work on your setting. It's YOUR setting, after all. It'll still be there, ready for you to build more on no matter how long you take to get back to it!
Hey directorsaur! Glad to hear you and yours are doing okay. I've just started running a game of Strange Aeons on Roll20 -- had the first session last week ... I'll spoiler the context and question:
They just finished the first area (i.e. got out of the basement and killed the couple of dopplegangers so they were allowed into the chapel by Winter and company).
So one of the PCs is a werewolf-kin skinwalker and the other players don't know, they just think he's a human. He'd like to have his first in game transformation be a surprise at a point with good roleplay potential for the group. Definitely want it to happen relatively early in book one, my thinking was maybe when they discover their personal files and he reads this about himself, or maybe during the nightgaunt encounter since it's a really tough fight, they're outside, maybe a yellowed moon is coming through the mist.
Anyway, I was wondering if you had any advice on the matter?
Thanks as always, this is one of the best threads on the site.
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Creative Director
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Hey directorsaur! Glad to hear you and yours are doing okay. I've just started running a game of Strange Aeons on Roll20 -- had the first session last week ... I'll spoiler the context and question:
** spoiler omitted **
I created the plot and outline for Strange Aeons, but I didn't write any of the adventures or develop them, so I don't really have much detailed advice to offer... but maybe the werewolf's lunar link is to a different world? One that the group won't visit until the 3rd adventure, perhaps? And I'd be remiss in failing to point out that there are actual beasts on the mooon... moon beasts, as they were... that could maybe have some sort of link to the werewolf?
I've been working on building a setting for running pf2 games in (it's a long term passion project) - I feel like I should be getting a lot done during all this isolation (especially since the office I normally work in has closed) but I've not done anything for it since work shut down, despite all the extra time.
Any advice on how to get myself back into the habit of working on a project?
A couple of tricks I do to get myself writing:
Thank you so much for all of the helpful advice! I will try and set myself some kind of routine and to be a bit kinder to myself in general. You are the best!
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How does Pharasma regard people who spontaneously arise as borai and varculaks: undead by classification, but also technically "alive enough" that magical healing works normally on them? Would she advise them to self-euthanize as soon as they're able to, or would she acknowledge it was their fate to undergo such a transformation (especially since it's not their fault they ended up like that)? I know Starfinder's lore isn't quite YOUR area of expertise, but Pharasma lore IS, and I imagine even post-Gap her stance on undeath has not changed much, considering the only reason her church HASN'T launched a crusade against Eox to purge it of its undead masters is logistics.
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Creative Director
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How does Pharasma regard people who spontaneously arise as borai and varculaks: undead by classification, but also technically "alive enough" that magical healing works normally on them? Would she advise them to self-euthanize as soon as they're able to, or would she acknowledge it was their fate to undergo such a transformation (especially since it's not their fault they ended up like that)? I know Starfinder's lore isn't quite YOUR area of expertise, but Pharasma lore IS, and I imagine even post-Gap her stance on undeath has not changed much, considering the only reason her church HASN'T launched a crusade against Eox to purge it of its undead masters is logistics.
I have no idea what you're talking about here. I don't keep track of everything we publish, but I've never heard of borai or varculaks. I wasn't consulted at all for how these things would work in Pathfinder. I'm the creative director for Pathfinder, not Starfinder, and as such, sometimes the story direction for Starfinder goes in different ways than does Pathfinder. Sure, there's some shared proper nouns and stories, but that doesn't mean that Pathfinder and Starfinder HAVE to happen in the same universe/timeline.
After all, most of Stephen King's stories take place in the same setting (Earth) as does "The Office" and Batman and "Cloverfield" and "There's Something About Mary" but that doesn't mean they all share the same continuity. Sure, someone could go into those stories and make up things or stretch lore to make it fit a home-made version where all of the stories are in the same continuity, but that's not what the makers of those stories intended. That's kinda the same for Starfinder and Pathfinder. They both share a lot of things in common, but they aren't in the same exact canonical continuity. In part because we didn't want to put one setting in a position of superiority over the other, so that both settings could make the decisions they (and their creative directors and developers) preferred to make.
To be honest, I've gotten in a LOT of world lore arguments and conflicts with the Starfinder team verses what they want to do with the setting and what I'd do with it, and in pretty much every case, my take is to let them know how it works in Pathfinder and then step back and let them decide how they want to handle it in Starfinder.
The Gap exists for more reasons than just a story element. In theory, it helps folks to compartmentalize the two settings. They are similar in a lot of ways but they are not the same.
AKA: Pharasma is my area of expertise... but only as far as her lore goes in Pathfinder or my home campaign. I don't really know what they've done with her in Starfinder. Turns out, being creative director for Pathfinder is already a full-time job, and when you stack that next to another full-time job I do as a developer for adventure paths and things like the Kingmaker hardcover, that doesn't leave me much time to play at doing a third full-time job as a creative director for a different game.
That's why Starfinder has its own creative director.
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On the subject of Spelljammer/Starfinder, one of my favorite wonky Spelljammer products was a bunch of cardboard fold-up ships from that setting. Has there been any notion of making something like that for Starfinder? (Or even fold up castle or ruin encounters for standard Pathfinder, similar to the cut-out castles that would show up in Dragon magazine once in a blue moon? I think issue 121 had one of them...)
I have no idea if there's any market for that sort of thing, or if the costs are prohibitive, or I'm the only weirdo who liked them... :)
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Creative Director
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On the subject of Spelljammer/Starfinder, one of my favorite wonky Spelljammer products was a bunch of cardboard fold-up ships from that setting. Has there been any notion of making something like that for Starfinder? (Or even fold up castle or ruin encounters for standard Pathfinder, similar to the cut-out castles that would show up in Dragon magazine once in a blue moon? I think issue 121 had one of them...)
I have no idea if there's any market for that sort of thing, or if the costs are prohibitive, or I'm the only weirdo who liked them... :)
Not that I know of, but I'm still not the Starfinder Creative Director so I'm not sure what goes on in their meetings...
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Is Kingmaker hardcover version gonna be more similar to CRPG or AP plotwise? There were some changes crpg did that were good, but I overally liked AP's plot's details better :/ I mean either way I think kingmaker ap would benefit from heavy rewrites, but I don't really think crpg was faithful adaption, which itself is okay, but I hope the changes don't get backported to hardcover upgrade.
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Creative Director
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Is Kingmaker hardcover version gonna be more similar to CRPG or AP plotwise? There were some changes crpg did that were good, but I overally liked AP's plot's details better :/ I mean either way I think kingmaker ap would benefit from heavy rewrites, but I don't really think crpg was faithful adaption, which itself is okay, but I hope the changes don't get backported to hardcover upgrade.
The new version will include an adventure based on the computer game's opening in the Aldori Manor, an adventure based on the Season of Bloom, and an adventure based on the Cursed King final chapter, and a supplementary book will contain all the information to incorporate the computer game's companion NPCs into the story, but the primary focus is on the tabletop plotline. Some of the content added in the computer game (for example, having the companions function as full party members) doesn't make sense or work for the tabletop game.
The hardcover version will always side on "what's best for tabletop play" over things that it takes as inspiration from the computer game.
Hm. What is outside of the multiverse?
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Creative Director
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Hm. What is outside of the multiverse?
That's the question some folks want answered, but I don't think they REALLY do, because they'll inevitably be disappointed and/or ask for what's outside of that.
Better as a mystery that's only barely hinted at in various books.
Hi James, I'm hoping you don't mind if I ask another question going back down memory road. I'm working on updating the 3.5 Demon Lords with 2e Domains and have gotten stuck on Obox-Ob.
I've given him Decay (in place of Entropy), Destruction, Nightmare (because obyrith), and Tyranny (I can think of few things more tyrannical that the Prince of Demons). They don't quite feel right to me though. Would you do anything differently for him?
Thanks as always!
Bonus Obox-Ob question: while I was digging through wikis looking for inspiration, I saw some references to Obox-Ob as a demon of poison in addition to vermin, but for the life of me, I don't recall where that came from. Was that part of your intent for him?
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Creative Director
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Hi James, I'm hoping you don't mind if I ask another question going back down memory road. I'm working on updating the 3.5 Demon Lords with 2e Domains and have gotten stuck on Obox-Ob.
I've given him Decay (in place of Entropy), Destruction, Nightmare (because obyrith), and Tyranny (I can think of few things more tyrannical that the Prince of Demons). They don't quite feel right to me though. Would you do anything differently for him?
Thanks as always!
Obox-ob was the main bad-guy god in my homebrew. In said homebrew, Rovagug was the god of nightmares and the underworld. Since I "sold" Obox-ob to WotC, I couldn't use him for the big bad deity in Golarion, and when Lamashtu took the roll of the goddess of monsters, it made sense to transition Rovagug to the vacancy left by Obox-ob's departure from the pantheon.
So, if you want to do the real old-school Obox-ob, just use all of our Rovagug lore and swap out the name.
Those four domains sound good to me, tough, for the 2E version.
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Creative Director
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Bonus Obox-Ob question: while I was digging through wikis looking for inspiration, I saw some references to Obox-Ob as a demon of poison in addition to vermin, but for the life of me, I don't recall where that came from. Was that part of your intent for him?
He's intended to be the "boss" evil deity. I went into his history in my homebrew in the previous one, but he's always in my mind been the one evil deity that's the worst of the worst.
The name "Obox-ob" first appeared, as far as I know, in the 1st edition D&D Monster Manual 2. In that book, Gygax published a list of "other" demon lord names, among them many that he drew from mythology, many he just made up, and a few that did both. As far as I can tell, the word
"Obox-ob" is one that he made up entirely out of the blue. It was a name that intrigued me for its mysterious nature and creepy sounds. I've never really been able to find out more about the name, and as far as I know, until I started doing stuff with the name in 3.5 D&D, there was nothing else about him. I'd love to know more about the source of the name, but so far, it seems like it was just something Gygax made up.
(Which is, incidentally, why I "sold" the name to WotC. While all the lore about Obox-ob was content I'd made up and was based on my homebrew's years of lore, the name itself was from Gygax. So I felt it was just right to give it back and then some to D&D.)
How do adventuring wizards learn spells? There aren't many opportunities to visit a library while adventuring in the wilderness, plus magic had to start somewhere, so where do wizards learn spells from?Whether or not there are many opportunities to visit a library depends 100% on the nature of the campaign the wizard is on. Not every wizard spends their time always in the wilderness, as even a casual glance at the adventure paths we've published prove. Beyond that, wizards learn magic by leveling up, by discovering scrolls and spellbooks, and by researching.I'll elaborate. Whether the adventure path is urban intrigue or wilderness exploration a wizard will learn, on their own, just about any two spells they want per level. This is in addition to scrolls and spellbooks. These spells can be anything, regardless of what they themselves have cast or even witnessed.
So, in terms of in-setting flavor, how would a wizard research magic absent any references? And what is leveling up from a character and story perspective?
Without references? A wizard is limited to the spells they'd learn by leveling up or by those they research on their own. We don't yet have rules for spell research in 2nd edition, as far as I know, but in previous editions that plays out like an author writing a novel–except instead of a novel, a spell is what's being written.
From a character/story perspective, leveling up is "getting better at something you practice at doing."
(Oh dear, I forgot to continue my thread and got everyone worried.)
Lemme try to clarify some more. I'm not asking about researching spells according to as-yet implemented research mechanics. How would a wizard research the 2 spells/level they get based on only the magic they cast or witness?
(Also, I'm doing well under quarantine. Calmer, actually, since staying indoors, online, and solitary isn't so stigmatized at the moment.)
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Creative Director
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Lemme try to clarify some more. I'm not asking about researching spells according to as-yet implemented research mechanics. How would a wizard research the 2 spells/level they get based on only the magic they cast or witness?
It's basically the result of being wizardly for the previous level. Like all class abilities, they have to "pop in" at the point you level up, because it's a game, but in-world without rules in play, it'd be more gradual. Like how if you exercise every day, at some point you'll get healthier.
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Creative Director
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Can the previous "female only" creatures like medusa, lamia and harpies still have children with people of other ancestries? (I'd guess it works the same "children are of mother's ancestry" way it worked in 1e if answer is yes)
Nope. Creatures can procreate only with others of their own ancestry. We'll say so in the monster's flavor text if there's an exception.
Of course, with magic, anything is possible, but that's really only an excuse there for folks who want to create a one-off unique hybrid NPC.
Feel free to open the floodgates of hybridization between monsters in your home game as much as you want, of course, but for Pathfinder the baseline assumption is no to this question.
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Which alignments would you give Daoloth, Glaaki and Eihort?
Daoloth = Chaotic Evil (at one point I might have said Chaotic Neutral, but based particularly on his plans for the world in Ramsey Campbell's rad recent "The Three Births of Daoloth" trilogy, Chaotic Evil for sure)
Glaaki = Neutral Evil
Eihort = Chaotic Evil
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Are there going to be new lovecraftian creatures in 2e?
Yes. Always. There's a few new ones I'd call "Lovecraftian" in the 2nd edition bestiary, in fact, like nilith and the quelaunt.
If you meant "updates of actual monsters invented by Lovecraft" as 2nd edition monsters, then also yes. Most of which won't be "new" if you're familiar with the 1st edition monsters we did, though.
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Creative Director
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Gods are usually ranked in a divine hierarchy, from newly ascended godlings to almighty creator gods of unfathomable power.
God: Taking a position atop the divine pyramid, gods command near unlimited power and resources. Their mortal congregations are large and (usually) well funded.
Demigod: Demigods still possess a great deal of power, though often in subservience to another god or simply inferior to the power of a full god.
Quasi Deity: The weakest rank of divinity, many quasi deities are recently ascended mortals who attained their deific powers through ritual apotheosis, or planar natives who have amassed divine power of their own.Hey now, wait a second . . . that can't be right! Planar Adventures and Lost Omens Gods & Magic say that deity is the lore term for specifically the unstattably powerful beings, and god is the umbrella term that includes deities, demigods, and quasideities. Which book is right? And how come the GMG puts a space in the middle of 'quasi deity'? LOG&M's glossary writes it as one compound word: 'quasideity'.
And who do I email to suggest these discrepancies for correction in case their source books get 2nd printings?
Actually, Gods & Magic's glossdex gave me another question that's been itching at me:Demigods are always level 26 or higher.A quasideity can be any type of being and is always level 25 or lower.. . . Huh. Always? This strikes me as an odd change from Planar Adventures, which said a quasideity could be any level at all. I'd figure it must take more than just leveling up for a quasideity to become a demigod--but G&M's new definition makes it sounds like leveling up could necessitate being redefined as a demigod.
This definition leaves me puzzled as to what to now call PF1-era, three-domain Arazni. PF1 called her a CR 26 quasideity, but the assumption that the terms 'CR 26' and 'quasideity' are antonyms would lead me to believe that Arazni must either have actually been 25th level that whole time, or that she must have been not a quasideity but a demigoddess the whole time.
I get that PF1 CR doesn't always exactly line up with PF2 level, and that every aspect of the campaign setting isn't purely and strictly defined by roleplaying game mechanics, but this little thought exercise does leave me scratching my head.
In the future, please simplify your posts. One good tactic is to limit them to one question per post; I don't mind seeing a lot of questions, but when they're all lumped into one post with quotes and extra commentary, it makes it more complicated for me to reply, since I have to scroll back and forth and re-paste text, and hopefully all of this doesn't kick my answer onto a new page when I am replying so I can avoid having multiple tabs open to make things even more complicated. It's really a time management thing; if folks keep their questions simple and one per post, I can answer questions more efficiently here, which is really helpful when I get a lot of them at once and I only have a few moments on busy days to jump in and reply.
That said, I'll do what I can to answer your questions here... this time! :-)
Which word is right depends on the edition. In 1st edition, deity was the term for the top tier divinity. We changed that to god in 2nd edition; not my favorite since it's a gendered term and we have gods AND goddesses, but I guess since we also used demigod folks felt it was fine.
I can't say which spelling is correct by the Paizo style guide (that's a question for the editors), but my personal preference is with a hypen: quasi-deity. Whether it's spelled quasi-deity, quasi deity, or quasideity though doesn't impact the information the sentence that uses the word is conveying, so it boils down to a minor and relatively harmless typo in this case.
The best place to post typos and other things that might need fixing in new printings is in the product thread. Not in an enormous thread of tens of thousands of posts in an "off topic" corner of the boards that not everyone in the company keeps track of. :-P
As for the numbers... again, it depends on the edition. In 1st edition we were sloppy and slapdash about the CR scores for demigods and quasi-deities, in part because "quasi-deity" didn't actually get defined until Planar Adventures, and in part because we didn't have good communication or internal sources that laid out the "rules" for what CRs the different categories inhabited.
With 2nd edition, we get to restart from the beginning, and since we know getting the information for these levels is important for internal consistency we aimed to get those values in print ASAP, rather than waiting for the tail end of the edition cycle to say something that has to be couched in "usuallys" because the previous 9 years of the game had no centralized direction on that topic.
For what it's worth, my original intent was to always have it break down as it does in the 2nd edition rules; quasi-deities are level 25 or lower, demigods are level 26–30, and gods are beyond rules and don't have stats or levels at all.
If I'm adapting an adventure path for a solo campaign, should I have the player make up other characters of have NPCs tag along?
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If I'm adapting an adventure path for a solo campaign, should I have the player make up other characters of have NPCs tag along?
That's up to you, but when I've run solo campaigns in the past I've always included a few NPC companions for the player character. Not only does this help keep the game's action economy going and help prevent incapacitation or unconsciousness from being unduly punishing, but it helps to give the game a sense of relationship building that's missing if you don't have a group of PCs constantly interacting. In fact, depending on the real world relationship you have with your player, this can let you get into some really interesting/fun/unusual PC/NPC relationships that would be a lot more awkward to roleplay out in a group! (Of course, player and GM consent remain, as always, the number one thing to keep in mind!)