Creative Director
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** spoiler omitted **
I wasn't involved in that adventure path's writing or development, but the basic idea was...
Certainly in the dozen or so years since I invented her, other authors have done other things with her story that I hadn't anticipated (including at one point erroneously identifying her as a mummy rather than a lich), so her story has largely gone out of my hands so I don't have much of an insight into the "why" of this, other than that sometimes we make decisions for NPCs in the adventures for story reasons rather than rules reasons.
EDIT: I'm aware that that wasn't a question, I just wanted to state my surprise and give credit where credit is actually due.
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I have a question about half-orcs and the Shoanti.
Varisia, Birthplace of Legends makes it clear the Shoanti despise half-orcs and will attack them on sight.
But the Lost Omens Character Guide states “Some half-orcs are fortunate enough to live in societies that prize them; in the martial Shoanti and Ulfen cultures, for example, skin color is less important than the ability to heft an axe.”
So how do the Shoanti view half-orcs? Has there been any in-setting changes?
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Creative Director
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I have a question about half-orcs and the Shoanti.
Varisia, Birthplace of Legends makes it clear the Shoanti despise half-orcs and will attack them on sight.
But the Lost Omens Character Guide states “Some half-orcs are fortunate enough to live in societies that prize them; in the martial Shoanti and Ulfen cultures, for example, skin color is less important than the ability to heft an axe.”
So how do the Shoanti view half-orcs? Has there been any in-setting changes?
The Shoanti view on half-orcs is softening as they become more tolerant of them while the orcs themselves are growing less violent and awful overall. There's still lots of tension between the Shoanti and the orcs of the northeast Storval Plateau, but not to the extent that they'll automatically attack any PC half-orc that wanders into sight, for example.
What you're seeing in the Lost Omens Character Guide is our writing being less hyperbolic and more inclusive, in an attempt to at the very least "un-weponize" some of the built-in racisim (even if it's "fantasy racisim") in the game to make it more difficult for problem players to use that flavor to "justify" their own actions in a game.
AKA: Were attempting to "lead by example" in a case like this by showing that orcs and half-orcs can be loved as well.
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Is the lady on the cover of your adventure, Ruins of Gauntlight a Tiefling or a Ganzi?
(I ask cause of the mint hair :3)
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The 'Beyond the Borders' article in 'Pathfinder #107: Scourge of the Godclaw' presents how the nations of the Inner Sea react to House Thrune's war with the Glorious Reclamation. For instance, Rahadoum retakes Khari, the Gray Corsairs of Andoran disrupt the slave trade, etc.
Which, if any, of thopse events came to pass?
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Creative Director
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Is the lady on the cover of your adventure, Ruins of Gauntlight a Tiefling or a Ganzi?
(I ask cause of the mint hair :3)
She's based on a character I created first as an NPC In my office Whispers in Ravounel game, and who very shortly thereafter got promoted to one of my PCs—I'm playing her in an Extinction Curse game that, alas, got put on indefinite hold due to the pandemic.
She's an elf tiefling, but the hair streak doesn't come from her ancestry; it comes from her fey sorcerer bloodline.
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Creative Director
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The 'Beyond the Borders' article in 'Pathfinder #107: Scourge of the Godclaw' presents how the nations of the Inner Sea react to House Thrune's war with the Glorious Reclamation. For instance, Rahadoum retakes Khari, the Gray Corsairs of Andoran disrupt the slave trade, etc.
Which, if any, of thopse events came to pass?
None of them. They're potential events meant to spur GM creativity, should a GM want to keep going with their own game.
We've got other plans still in the works for Cheliax that are their own thing and may or may not be revealed in the years to come.
Are you aware that the "early firearms" pepperboxes and double barreled muskets were not invented until the 1830s? And that revolvers were the direct descendants of pepperboxes (by less than the time for one whole edition)? Meaning that we might see more examples of these "anachronistic" firearms in action (as partially evidenced by the Knight Reclaimant)?
Also, how do you think castle design will be affected by airborne tactics (like Korvosan hippogriffs or fly) or by cannon usage?
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Creative Director
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Are you aware that the "early firearms" pepperboxes and double barreled muskets were not invented until the 1830s? And that revolvers were the direct descendants of pepperboxes (by less than the time for one whole edition)? Meaning that we might see more examples of these "anachronistic" firearms in action (as partially evidenced by the Knight Reclaimant)?
Also, how do you think castle design will be affected by airborne tactics (like Korvosan hippogriffs or fly) or by cannon usage?
I'm aware, yes.
Deciding what is and isn't part of Golarion is only partially determined by when a thing was invented in the real world. A more important part is an aesthetic sense of what does and doesn't "look" good to me. Other things that are relatively recent inventions that we've put into Pathfinder include syringes with hollow needles (invented in 1844) and pianos (invented at around 1700) and quite a lot of sailing ships that weren't invented into the 1800s.
Furthermore, Golarion is not Earth. Compared to Earth's recorded timeline, Golarion is thousands of years in the future from where we'd be at today. Furthermore, the fact that magic's been around all this time means that how and when things (magical or not) are invented is pretty much up to us, not up to following the real world's timeline.
Golarion was never intended to be and never will be an attempt to be an educational treatise on the history of guns. There's plenty of real-world books that cover that topic. When we put guns (or anything) into the game, we choose what we choose for a lot of reasons, but adhering to Earth's timeline of invention is not a significant part of the calculus. What IS a significant part is "what feels right?" That's kinda my job—to decide what feels right for Pathfinder and Golarion.
Castle design isn't particularly affected by airborne tactics or cannons, since both of those methods of attacking castles aren't super common on Golarion. The Korvosan hippogriff riders are a significant and unique exception meant to give Korvosa a neat sort of unusual flavor, not to imply a standard for all cities in the world.
Are you aware that the "early firearms" pepperboxes and double barreled muskets were not invented until the 1830s? And that revolvers were the direct descendants of pepperboxes (by less than the time for one whole edition)? Meaning that we might see more examples of these "anachronistic" firearms in action (as partially evidenced by the Knight Reclaimant)?
Also, how do you think castle design will be affected by airborne tactics (like Korvosan hippogriffs or fly) or by cannon usage?
I'm aware, yes.
Deciding what is and isn't part of Golarion is only partially determined by when a thing was invented in the real world. A more important part is an aesthetic sense of what does and doesn't "look" good to me. Other things that are relatively recent inventions that we've put into Pathfinder include syringes with hollow needles (invented in 1844) and pianos (invented at around 1700) and quite a lot of sailing ships that weren't invented into the 1800s.
Furthermore, Golarion is not Earth. Compared to Earth's recorded timeline, Golarion is thousands of years in the future from where we'd be at today. Furthermore, the fact that magic's been around all this time means that how and when things (magical or not) are invented is pretty much up to us, not up to following the real world's timeline.
Golarion was never intended to be and never will be an attempt to be an educational treatise on the history of guns. There's plenty of real-world books that cover that topic. When we put guns (or anything) into the game, we choose what we choose for a lot of reasons, but adhering to Earth's timeline of invention is not a significant part of the calculus. What IS a significant part is "what feels right?" That's kinda my job—to decide what feels right for Pathfinder and Golarion.
Castle design isn't particularly affected by airborne tactics or cannons, since both of those methods of attacking castles aren't super common on Golarion. The Korvosan hippogriff riders are a significant and...
But it's not like spellcasters are so prohibitively rare as to make fielding them an impossibility. Hell Comes to Westcrown features multiple troops of arcane casters fighting the PCs, and arcane casters are explicitly a minority in the Glorious Reclamation. Why aren't more architects/generals taking this into account?
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Creative Director
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But it's not like spellcasters are so prohibitively rare as to make fielding them an impossibility. Hell Comes to Westcrown features multiple troops of arcane casters fighting the PCs, and arcane casters are explicitly a minority in the Glorious Reclamation. Why aren't more architects/generals taking this into account?
First, don't assume that what's relatively common among PCs holds true for NPCs. While it's just as easy/common for a PC to be a spellcaster as not, for the bulk of the world's NPCs, they are not spellcasters.
And Westcrown may be the location of a high level adventure in "Hell Comes to Westcrown," but it's not itself in an area where high level threats are commonplace enough over the course of centuries that the architects and generals would spend their time overcompensating their defenses.
And because if every castle could easily defeat and spurn magic, then magic feels less magical.
And because each of the regions in the Inner Sea area are meant to follow themes. While there's obviously lots of high level magic for players to play with in the game, we didn't want "baseline Cheliax" to feel super high magic. There's other areas in the Inner Sea Region where we have those themes, such as Nex. Castles there ARE built to defend against magic.
That's not on-theme for Cheliax, though. Maybe if we do an adventure set in Nex you'll get a castle that's built to defend against magic. Maybe.
But it's not like spellcasters are so prohibitively rare as to make fielding them an impossibility. Hell Comes to Westcrown features multiple troops of arcane casters fighting the PCs, and arcane casters are explicitly a minority in the Glorious Reclamation. Why aren't more architects/generals taking this into account?
First, don't assume that what's relatively common among PCs holds true for NPCs. While it's just as easy/common for a PC to be a spellcaster as not, for the bulk of the world's NPCs, they are not spellcasters.
And Westcrown may be the location of a high level adventure in "Hell Comes to Westcrown," but it's not itself in an area where high level threats are commonplace enough over the course of centuries that the architects and generals would spend their time overcompensating their defenses.
And because if every castle could easily defeat and spurn magic, then magic feels less magical.
And because each of the regions in the Inner Sea area are meant to follow themes. While there's obviously lots of high level magic for players to play with in the game, we didn't want "baseline Cheliax" to feel super high magic. There's other areas in the Inner Sea Region where we have those themes, such as Nex. Castles there ARE built to defend against magic.
That's not on-theme for Cheliax, though. Maybe if we do an adventure set in Nex you'll get a castle that's built to defend against magic. Maybe.
Yeah, baseline Cheliax is more "super fiendish magic>" ;)
For your first assertion though, I am not talking about PCs. I was explicitly talking about NPCs. And I assume The Glorious Reclamation was picking up casters from small towns/settlements they passed through, as supported by the second adventure in that path.
Which brings me again to the question: Why does nobody seem to take into account magic in sieges? Please prove me wrong using in-lore assertions.
What, roughly, is the total sentient (human and non-human) population in the World of Lost Omens? What percentage are human? (An example might be "there are 10 million sentients, of which 9,942,000 are human").
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Creative Director
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Which brings me again to the question: Why does nobody seem to take into account magic in sieges? Please prove me wrong using in-lore assertions.
Because Pathfinder doesn't have robust rules for mass combats and sieges, and as such we tend to avoid those storylines. The storylines focus on small groups of adventurers, so we focus what we produce in adventures and world lore to support that mode of play, rather than mass combat.
But again, and this is the last time I hope I need to say this, so I'll try to say it clearly:
Because the baseline assumption is that magic threats aren't nearly common enough to force that.
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Creative Director
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What, roughly, is the total sentient (human and non-human) population in the World of Lost Omens? What percentage are human? (An example might be "there are 10 million sentients, of which 9,942,000 are human").
Unrevealed. And likely never to be revealed, other than to say "Enough for us to tell all the potential stories we might want to tell into the indefinite future."
The majority are human. That might be a majority of 51%. Looking at most of the city stat blocks we publish, humans tend to sit around 70% to 80% though, so that's probably more accurate.
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Which brings me again to the question: Why does nobody seem to take into account magic in sieges? Please prove me wrong using in-lore assertions.Because Pathfinder doesn't have robust rules for mass combats and sieges, and as such we tend to avoid those storylines. The storylines focus on small groups of adventurers, so we focus what we produce in adventures and world lore to support that mode of play, rather than mass combat.
But again, and this is the last time I hope I need to say this, so I'll try to say it clearly:
Because the baseline assumption is that magic threats aren't nearly common enough to force that.
To your last point, with all due respect, that has been refuted over and over, even in the very example I gave with the troops of Reclamation wizards. I could also go on to talk about the Asmodean Inquisitor troops in Hell's Rebels, or about the troop literally called Hobgoblin Siege Alchemists in Ironfang Invasion (and yes, Alchemists are technically casters).
But I will accept your answer for the other reasons you stated.
I have one final question though: do Starfinder commlinks need satellites/signal towers to function or are they esoterically/magically independent of the need for them?
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Creative Director
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To your last point, with all due respect, that has been refuted over and over, even in the very example I gave with the troops of Reclamation wizards. I could also go on to talk about the Asmodean Inquisitor troops in Hell's Rebels, or about the troop literally called Hobgoblin Siege Alchemists in Ironfang Invasion (and yes, Alchemists are technically casters).
But I will accept your answer for the other reasons you stated.
I have one final question though: do Starfinder commlinks need satellites/signal towers to function or are they esoterically/magically independent of the need for them?
We're talking past each other, I think, so at this point since I obviously don't understand what it is you want out of Pathfinder castles, the best bet would be to move on.
I'm not the Starfinder creative director, in any event, so you'll have to go elsewhere for those questions.
Do the mythic rules replace the epic rules of 3.X and the CRB, or can they coexist? How would you recommend combining them (since I know a few of the high level mythic guys have levels over 20)?
Have you ever gone to work wearing something like this?
She's an elf tiefling, but the hair streak doesn't come from her ancestry; it comes from her fey sorcerer bloodline.
I'm also playing an elf tiefling. Do you suppose that they mature and age like elves, or is it more like half-elves? Or something else?
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Do the mythic rules replace the epic rules of 3.X and the CRB, or can they coexist? How would you recommend combining them (since I know a few of the high level mythic guys have levels over 20)?
They function separately, so they could, in theory, co-exist. I wouldn't recommend combining them at all, though. I have found the epic rules from 3rd edition caused far more problems than they solved. The two greatest ways they cause problems being:
1) They emphasize the "math gap" in characters and double down on it. At high level in 3.5, you're already risking situations where you can't build a balanced encounter for a party, since doing so to challenge one character results in an auto fail for others (particularly in the disparity between who can always make saving throws versus who always fails them).
2) Since the epic rules don't have a level cap, there's no framework for a world creator to build a world with any sort of internal structure. If you build a CR 40 monster, your players will eventually get to 50th level and mock that monster, even if at the time you built it you were trying to build "the most powerful monster in all creation." Level caps provide frameworks to contain worlds (and thus campaigns and adventures and characters) in, and without them you're only setting your hard work up for obsolescence.
NOTE: None of this means you can't build NPCs or monsters at levels above 20, of course. In fact, even if you cap your level where we do at 20, you'll HAVE to build foes at above 20th level in order to give your 20th level characters significant foes to battle.
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Creative Director
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She's an elf tiefling, but the hair streak doesn't come from her ancestry; it comes from her fey sorcerer bloodline.I'm also playing an elf tiefling. Do you suppose that they mature and age like elves, or is it more like half-elves? Or something else?
The whole point of a tiefling is so a player can have some creative control (within the limits of the GM's approval, of course) over their character's biology and physiology and all that. Anything is possible, in other words.
I would say that the average, in a case where the creator of the elf tiefling doesn't care or bother to decide for the character, that the baseline ancestry would determine how long they live and how quickly they mature.
Note that in 2nd edition, all the core ancestries mature at about the same rate, and there are no penalties for aging, so all of that stuff is largely reduced to flavor you choose for your character, rather than arbitrary penalties assigned to characters. I for one am glad to see the whole "You get weaker but smarter as you grow older." There are plenty of older dumb folks who can beat me up no problem. But more seriously, removing the hard-coded age adjustments is as important as removing gender adjustments for ability scores
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Creative Director
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How do I come up with a last name for a ghoran character without just recycling stereotypical elf surnames like "Oakamber", "Moonblossom" or "Willowleaf?"
By making up nonsense words, I suppose. Easiest way to do that is to take those names, spell them backwards, and then rearrange the vowels or cut consonants as needed so the words work.
So...
Rebmokoa
Mossolbonom
Faelwolliw
or whatever other word you choose.
Do the mythic rules replace the epic rules of 3.X and the CRB, or can they coexist? How would you recommend combining them (since I know a few of the high level mythic guys have levels over 20)?They function separately, so they could, in theory, co-exist. I wouldn't recommend combining them at all, though. I have found the epic rules from 3rd edition caused far more problems than they solved. The two greatest ways they cause problems being:
1) They emphasize the "math gap" in characters and double down on it. At high level in 3.5, you're already risking situations where you can't build a balanced encounter for a party, since doing so to challenge one character results in an auto fail for others (particularly in the disparity between who can always make saving throws versus who always fails them).
2) Since the epic rules don't have a level cap, there's no framework for a world creator to build a world with any sort of internal structure. If you build a CR 40 monster, your players will eventually get to 50th level and mock that monster, even if at the time you built it you were trying to build "the most powerful monster in all creation." Level caps provide frameworks to contain worlds (and thus campaigns and adventures and characters) in, and without them you're only setting your hard work up for obsolescence.
NOTE: None of this means you can't build NPCs or monsters at levels above 20, of course. In fact, even if you cap your level where we do at 20, you'll HAVE to build foes at above 20th level in order to give your 20th level characters significant foes to battle.
I mean, from personal experience, the game breaks past 18th level (or midlevels with MRs past 5), so the best you can do is let the players have fun with picking up and spinning castles and sniping foes from 5 miles away.
Back on topic though, what is the craziest 30th level character you can think of (just a very general build idea)?
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Creative Director
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I mean, from personal experience, the game breaks past 18th level (or midlevels with MRs past 5), so the best you can do is let the players have fun with picking up and spinning castles and sniping foes from 5 miles away.
Back on topic though, what is the craziest 30th level character you can think of (just a very general build idea)?
If you've got personal experience on how high-level play is problematic in 1st edition, then I'm not sure why you asked me for advice on how to merge Epic and Mythic. The best solution I have for folks having problems with high level play is to switch to 2nd edition, honestly.
I'm not gonna list a "craziest 30th level character build" because I haven't thought of Epic level rules at all for over a decade, and even if I had been working on them yesterday I'm not a fan of posting builds, since the internet is more eager, it seems, to tear apart builds and tell you how you did things wrong or don't know how to play the game rather than to look at the build and say "oooh interesting" or "That looks good" or even just "I would have done it this way but that's fine."
I mean, from personal experience, the game breaks past 18th level (or midlevels with MRs past 5), so the best you can do is let the players have fun with picking up and spinning castles and sniping foes from 5 miles away.
Back on topic though, what is the craziest 30th level character you can think of (just a very general build idea)?
If you've got personal experience on how high-level play is problematic in 1st edition, then I'm not sure why you asked me for advice on how to merge Epic and Mythic. The best solution I have for folks having problems with high level play is to switch to 2nd edition, honestly.
I'm not gonna list a "craziest 30th level character build" because I haven't thought of Epic level rules at all for over a decade, and even if I had been working on them yesterday I'm not a fan of posting builds, since the internet is more eager, it seems, to tear apart builds and tell you how you did things wrong or don't know how to play the game rather than to look at the build and say "oooh interesting" or "That looks good" or even just "I would have done it this way but that's fine."
To clarify, the point was to say that past a certain level, having fun is more important than tracking every little thing (though I guess you could say this for all times). To even further clarify, because players WANT to be able to pick up and spin castles and snipe people from 5 miles away at those levels.
By the way, how do you feel Epic feats would stack up in PF? Would they more-or-less translate well or not?
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Creative Director
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By the way, how do you feel Epic feats would stack up in PF? Would they more-or-less translate well or not?
Again, it's been well over a decade since I've looked at 3rd edition's Epic rules, so I can't really say off the top of my head. But my gut is that they wouldn't translate well since they were designed for a different play style than what we wanted to do in Pathfinder.
What would you recommend for stop gap until Epic or Mythic rules are released for continuing and adventure or AP?
Keep increasing your level (and proficiency) following a projection of the leveling table? For example:
21.- Heritage feat; Skill Increase
22.- Skill feat; Class Feat
23.- General feat; Skill Increase
24.- Skill feat; Class Feat
25.- Heritage feat; Skill Increase; Ability Boost
26.- and so on...
Just hand a bonus wildcard feat and a skill increase every 1000 XP to keep the expected power level in line? Something else?
Humbly,
Yawar
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Creative Director
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What would you recommend for stop gap until Epic or Mythic rules are released for continuing and adventure or AP?
Keep increasing your level (and proficiency) following a projection of the leveling table? For example:
21.- Heritage feat; Skill Increase
22.- Skill feat; Class Feat
23.- General feat; Skill Increase
24.- Skill feat; Class Feat
25.- Heritage feat; Skill Increase; Ability Boost
26.- and so on...Just hand a bonus wildcard feat and a skill increase every 1000 XP to keep the expected power level in line? Something else?
Humbly,
Yawar
If you'd rather keep playing the same characters, and the GM doesn't mind increasingly having to build everything for the game rather than use published content, then I'd recommend developing your own progression and trying it out. Get experimental, try things out, and work with your players so they understand that if something ends up being not fun you'll change it and that you'll let them rebuild their characters rather than stranding them on things that they once liked but no longer see as viable.
I'm not gonna offer suggestions here though. Something like this, in my opinion, is more fun if it's the GM doing the exploration rather than me.
Does Major Image allow for Speech? I have seen multiple times in APs where it was used as such. My every instinct tells me that RAI the writers of the spell intended for it to allow speech, but RAW I think the only way to justify it is to say that the "Sound, thermal, and tactile illusions are included line" subsumes the figment "speech requirement."
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Creative Director
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Does Major Image allow for Speech? I have seen multiple times in APs where it was used as such. My every instinct tells me that RAI the writers of the spell intended for it to allow speech, but RAW I think the only way to justify it is to say that the "Sound, thermal, and tactile illusions are included line" subsumes the figment "speech requirement."
Major image allows for the creation of sound. So yes, it can create speech. That's kind of the whole point of the spell, to make a believable illusion, and that includes things talking. Put another way, it's two levels higher than ventriloquism, which does create speech and is also a figment illusion, so if you wanna use that as logical proof, that works too.
But yes, the whole point is that you can make a talking illusion with major image. As you've noted, that's what we've done in our products, so that should tell you right away what we intend for it to do.
That said, even until 1st edition Pathfinder, illustions have been significantly subject to GM whim. If you're the GM, make the call and let your players know. If you're a player, then respect the GM's call.
Does Major Image allow for Speech? I have seen multiple times in APs where it was used as such. My every instinct tells me that RAI the writers of the spell intended for it to allow speech, but RAW I think the only way to justify it is to say that the "Sound, thermal, and tactile illusions are included line" subsumes the figment "speech requirement."Major image allows for the creation of sound. So yes, it can create speech. That's kind of the whole point of the spell, to make a believable illusion, and that includes things talking. Put another way, it's two levels higher than ventriloquism, which does create speech and is also a figment illusion, so if you wanna use that as logical proof, that works too.
But yes, the whole point is that you can make a talking illusion with major image. As you've noted, that's what we've done in our products, so that should tell you right away what we intend for it to do.
That said, even until 1st edition Pathfinder, illusions have been significantly subject to GM whim. If you're the GM, make the call and let your players know. If you're a player, then respect the GM's call.
Thanks for confirming this. However, I would like to know your exact views on the line that says "figments that make sound must specifically say they allow speech." Essentially, are you confirming that Major Image's text allows it to create speech as per RAW because of the reason I set forth?
(BTW I am talking 1e, and I need an answer to get GM approval)
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Thanks for confirming this. However, I would like to know your exact views on the line that says "figments that make sound must specifically say they allow speech." Essentially, are you confirming that Major Image's text allows it to create speech as per RAW because of the reason I set forth?
(BTW I am talking 1e, and I need an answer to get GM approval)
I'm honestly not comfortable with the idea that a GM needs my input to approve of a player's question or to provide a clarification. That kind of goes against the whole point of and value of having a GM to run their game—it should be that GM's game, after all, not mine, and I have no idea if the advice I give will be appropriate for any one other table.
I've learned that my answers have been "weaponized" before by disruptive players and then used against their GMs, to try to force advantages for player agendas that aren't good for their table, or to cause disruption on these boards or in Organized Play—often with people taking my answers out of context. In the most personally\t humiliating example, someone used me answering a rules question to imply that Paizo "doesn't have it's house in order" since my interpretation of a rule ended up not being the interpretation of someone on the Design team. Which resulted in me being told to not answer rules questions on this thread.
Now and then I do, still, especially when it seems like the answers are obvious, or I can present them fully in the context of "if it were my game, I'd do this..." responses, but it's always just a matter of time before it starts to veer back into the "weaponizing" category.
So, I'm done answering rules questions on this thread (again) for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for confirming this. However, I would like to know your exact views on the line that says "figments that make sound must specifically say they allow speech." Essentially, are you confirming that Major Image's text allows it to create speech as per RAW because of the reason I set forth?
(BTW I am talking 1e, and I need an answer to get GM approval)
I'm honestly not comfortable with the idea that a GM needs my input to approve of a player's question or to provide a clarification. That kind of goes against the whole point of and value of having a GM to run their game—it should be that GM's game, after all, not mine, and I have no idea if the advice I give will be appropriate for any one other table.
I've learned that my answers have been "weaponized" before by disruptive players and then used against their GMs, to try to force advantages for player agendas that aren't good for their table, or to cause disruption on these boards or in Organized Play—often with people taking my answers out of context. In the most personally\t humiliating example, someone used me answering a rules question to imply that Paizo "doesn't have it's house in order" since my interpretation of a rule ended up not being the interpretation of someone on the Design team. Which resulted in me being told to not answer rules questions on this thread.
Now and then I do, still, especially when it seems like the answers are obvious, or I can present them fully in the context of "if it were my game, I'd do this..." responses, but it's always just a matter of time before it starts to veer back into the "weaponizing" category.
So, I'm done answering rules questions on this thread (again) for the foreseeable future.
Wait, so does this render your earlier answer null?
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Creative Director
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Wait, so does this render your earlier answer null?
Huh? Why would it? HOW could it?
It doesn't, and I hope it doesn't come back to haunt me.
Note that me saying "I'm done answering rules questions on this thread (again) for the foreseeable future" is not me saying "I'm done answering rules questions on this thread (again) for the foreseeable past."
If you could snag the legal right to port any one alien race or group from Star Trek into Golarion, who would it be?
Assuming you're a Trekkie... if not, than from any major sci fi universe? Though leaving open that broad probably means you'd try to get the xenomorph on in. :)
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Why is it that each main type of fiend was a language (infernal, daemonic, Abyssal), and each main type of monitor has a language (requian, utopian, primordial), but all celestials share the same single language (celestial)? Is it just because of the prevalence of angels? did there used to be azatan or archonese language that was drowned out by the more common and known celestial language?
From a game design side, because asymmetry is more pleasing than symmetry, and the more languages you put in the game, the more complex things get.
From an in-world side, because the "forces of good" have traditionally worked better with each other than the neutrals or evils.
From a traditional side, because 3rd edition D&D started that ball rolling by giving devils and demons different languages but not giving the good side different languages, perhaps because at the start of that edition there weren't many different types of good outsiders in the game.