I'm looking to do a video on Brevoy and in my research I found what appears to be a contradiction. Can someone please clarify?
On page 61 if Stolen Lands (book 1 of Kingmaker) it states that Myrna Rogarvia is daughter of Choral given to Nikos Surtova in marriage. On page 63 of the same book it states that Myrna is daughter of Nikos given to Choral in marriage. What is truth? Did I misunderstand something?
That's a source that's well over a decade old. I suggest looking at newer publications to see if we cleared up the contradiction–I don't know if we have, though.
It's pretty obviously an error we simply didn't notice during editing. And this is the first I've heard about the error, to be honest (my focus on that book was the adventure side, not the articles), and it's possible no one else has noticed.
Considering that Choral was later revealed to be a dragon, though, Myrna should be Nikos's daughter since she's not a half-dragon.
Thank you! I know it is a dated source but I couldn't find an answer in Lost Omens Legends or anything else. Thank you for the clarification
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Without getting into what the in-setting explanation for the death of Aroden is...
What is it like when you tell it to new team members?
Do you tell them? Does it get a reaction? Do people wait to ask or do they ask right away?
I sometimes tell fellow employees my theory, yeah, but not always. I generally wait until they ask. It does get a reaction.
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I sometimes tell fellow employees my theory, yeah, but not always. I generally wait until they ask. It does get a reaction.Without getting into what the in-setting explanation for the death of Aroden is...
What is it like when you tell it to new team members?
Do you tell them? Does it get a reaction? Do people wait to ask or do they ask right away?
Who asked the soonest after showing up?
How long did it take Luis Loza? (I listen to him on know direction)
Not sure... been working from home for a year and a half or so now, so everything's all distorted. I'm honestly not sure any of the folks who started in the past few years have asked, or even know that I'm willing to share the info, or if they're even interested since they might prefer their own story.
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As for what Jason was drinking? You'd have to ask him, but no, it wasn't booze.
I didn't think it was booze. But there were times his can blended in with his background, which looked really cool on the stream.
Band of Bravos ended pretty much when Payton left?
Now that the US is somewhat opening up, are you all back in the office yet?
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As for what Jason was drinking? You'd have to ask him, but no, it wasn't booze.I didn't think it was booze. But there were times his can blended in with his background, which looked really cool on the stream.
Band of Bravos ended pretty much when Payton left?
Now that the US is somewhat opening up, are you all back in the office yet?
Yup. Payton was pretty much a one-person show who ran the whole of all our streams, and when he left to pursue other opportunities, all of that more or less got reset when those responsibilities shifted to other people.
We're not all back in the office. I'm still working from home. We just this week started to have a few folks head back in. Of course... the warehouse crew has to work there, so they've been in the office all this time.
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Do Mortics age?
I've done zero work on mortics, so I'm hardly an expert on them, but if I were, I'd have them age, and as they grow older they'd creep toward full undeath and a loss of their self into monsterousness, so that a mortic who doesn't want to die and become a monster would need to seek out special rites or whatever. I like the idea of them having tragedy built right into them.
But again, I didn't create them and haven't developed them and really don't know much about them.
Have you seen the recently-released Nicholas Cage film Willy's Wonderland?
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Have you seen the recently-released Nicholas Cage film Willy's Wonderland?
Yup; saw it pretty much the weekend it came out. Apart from Cage's performance the movie itself was disappointing; for the subject, it should have gone for a MUCH more over the top presentation. It felt too safe and boring, but Cage's performance kept me interested enough to watch the whole thing.
Hi James! Hope you held up ok in this crazy heat we’ve been having!
When a non-mortal and/or supernatural creature that lives its entire existence on the material plane (let’s say a dryad or other fey creature, just as an example) dies, what happens? Do they have a soul and is it sent to the boneyard for judgment? If your head-canon differs from the “official” answer, I’m more interested in learning your head-canon.
Thanks!
Some material, especially on the older side of things, have painted Vudra as a place with a lot of psychic magic. Is that still the case?
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When a non-mortal and/or supernatural creature that lives its entire existence on the material plane (let’s say a dryad or other fey creature, just as an example) dies, what happens? Do they have a soul and is it sent to the boneyard for judgment? If your head-canon differs from the “official” answer, I’m more interested in learning your head-canon.
Thanks!
Same thing that happens to any other living creature with a soul. That soul goes on to the afterlife.
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What been some of your favourite visuals of monsters and their abilities you've seen or done in game? Tabletop or vidya.
That'd be limited to video games, since tabletop visuals are just pictures and minis and the like. And my favorite visuals in video games of monsters these days are generally boss monster reveals from the various souls games. Although Resident Evil Village had some great visuals of monsters, that's for certain!
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Will the Kingmaker 2nd edition have romance options with NPCs?
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Will the Kingmaker 2nd edition have romance options with NPCs?
Not scripted in, no. Unlike a computer game, we don't need to create those options. If the players and GMs want that sort of thing to develop with ANY NPC, they can explore that. The companion NPCs in particular will have plenty of information for their goals and personalities.
That said, for the companions in particular and also for some other NPCs, there are pretty extensive influence building elements that detail how those NPCs react to the PCs. It's much more detailed than just making Diplomacy checks.
Same thing that happens to any other living creature with a soul. That soul goes on to the afterlife.When a non-mortal and/or supernatural creature that lives its entire existence on the material plane (let’s say a dryad or other fey creature, just as an example) dies, what happens? Do they have a soul and is it sent to the boneyard for judgment? If your head-canon differs from the “official” answer, I’m more interested in learning your head-canon.
Thanks!
Thanks! So in your cosmology, does every creature have a soul? Would the answer to the previous question be the same if the creature in question was a devil or an angel or another supernatural creature of that order?
(For context: I’m asking this question to help me brainstorm ideas for my own homebrew setting.)
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Same thing that happens to any other living creature with a soul. That soul goes on to the afterlife.When a non-mortal and/or supernatural creature that lives its entire existence on the material plane (let’s say a dryad or other fey creature, just as an example) dies, what happens? Do they have a soul and is it sent to the boneyard for judgment? If your head-canon differs from the “official” answer, I’m more interested in learning your head-canon.
Thanks!
Thanks! So in your cosmology, does every creature have a soul? Would the answer to the previous question be the same if the creature in question was a devil or an angel or another supernatural creature of that order?
(For context: I’m asking this question to help me brainstorm ideas for my own homebrew setting.)
Every living creature has a soul. Things like devils and angels do as well, but their souls and minds and bodies are one thing; they're not separate things, and as such, when they die, there's no afterlife for them. They just recycle into the quintessence of the Great Beyond.
Every living creature has a soul. Things like devils and angels do as well, but their souls and minds and bodies are one thing; they're not separate things, and as such, when they die, there's no afterlife for them. They just recycle into the quintessence of the Great Beyond.Same thing that happens to any other living creature with a soul. That soul goes on to the afterlife.When a non-mortal and/or supernatural creature that lives its entire existence on the material plane (let’s say a dryad or other fey creature, just as an example) dies, what happens? Do they have a soul and is it sent to the boneyard for judgment? If your head-canon differs from the “official” answer, I’m more interested in learning your head-canon.
Thanks!
Thanks! So in your cosmology, does every creature have a soul? Would the answer to the previous question be the same if the creature in question was a devil or an angel or another supernatural creature of that order?
(For context: I’m asking this question to help me brainstorm ideas for my own homebrew setting.)
Thank you! One last question: how do you personally draw the line between a supernatural creature that has a fused soul/body/mind and one that doesn’t? Obviously a subjective judgment, just interested in your thought process. For instance would a fey creature that lived its entire existence in the First World be more likely to fall into likely the first category or the second?
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Thank you! One last question: how do you personally draw the line between a supernatural creature that has a fused soul/body/mind and one that doesn’t? Obviously a subjective judgment, just interested in your thought process. For instance would a fey creature that lived its entire existence in the First World be more likely to fall into likely the first category or the second?
In 1st edition, that category of creature was called an outsider. That category doens't have an overall name in 2nd edition but the creatures are still there. The things that petitioners turn into, essentially. Fey are fey, not outsiders.
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Considering that Choral was later revealed to be a dragon...........When did that happen? (Think I remember a bit in the after the campaign in Kingmaker where a dragon claiming to be Choral shows up but dont recall it actually being confirmed to be the case.)
It was always the intent, and we talked about it first in the "Continuing the Campaign" for Kingmaker over 10 years ago.
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Rumor is you're a fan of horror. Have you read (or watched the series based on) The Expanse by James S. A. Corey?
Horror is my favorite genre, but I'd categorize The Expanse as science fiction, not horror. Although there's certainly some horror in there. I've seen all of the show and have read the first few novels.
Thank you! One last question: how do you personally draw the line between a supernatural creature that has a fused soul/body/mind and one that doesn’t? Obviously a subjective judgment, just interested in your thought process. For instance would a fey creature that lived its entire existence in the First World be more likely to fall into likely the first category or the second?In 1st edition, that category of creature was called an outsider. That category doens't have an overall name in 2nd edition but the creatures are still there. The things that petitioners turn into, essentially. Fey are fey, not outsiders.
Got it! One more question (sorry): how would you answer the previous question without relying on meta considerations like creature type? Put another way, what is it about fey that makes them not-outsiders (they are native denizens of another plane, after all). Or what is it about outsiders that gives them this property of soul-body fusion? Or why are some extra-planar creatures outsiders with soul-body fusion while some aren’t?
Just looking for metaphysical justifications for these distinctions to ponder! If you’re not interested in diving too deeply into this, no worries!
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Got it! One more question (sorry): how would you answer the previous question without relying on meta considerations like creature type? Put another way, what is it about fey that makes them not-outsiders (they are native denizens of another plane, after all). Or what is it about outsiders that gives them this property of soul-body fusion? Or why are some extra-planar creatures outsiders with soul-body fusion while some aren’t?
Just looking for metaphysical justifications for these distinctions to ponder! If you’re not interested in diving too deeply into this, no worries!
I'd still quantify it as "things that petitioners turn into." Life that exists on the far side of death. Fey are natives of the First World, which is the "first draft" of the universe, so they're not so much "from another plane" as much as they are "from before this plane."
I'm not interested in doing a deep dive into the metaphysics, since that sounds too much like work to me, and this is technically a vacation day... plus I prefer to avoid designing new lore on the forums anyway.
Check out Planar Adventures from 1st edition for more details, I guess.
Got it! One more question (sorry): how would you answer the previous question without relying on meta considerations like creature type? Put another way, what is it about fey that makes them not-outsiders (they are native denizens of another plane, after all). Or what is it about outsiders that gives them this property of soul-body fusion? Or why are some extra-planar creatures outsiders with soul-body fusion while some aren’t?
Just looking for metaphysical justifications for these distinctions to ponder! If you’re not interested in diving too deeply into this, no worries!
I'd still quantify it as "things that petitioners turn into." Life that exists on the far side of death. Fey are natives of the First World, which is the "first draft" of the universe, so they're not so much "from another plane" as much as they are "from before this plane."
I'm not interested in doing a deep dive into the metaphysics, since that sounds too much like work to me, and this is technically a vacation day... plus I prefer to avoid designing new lore on the forums anyway.
Check out Planar Adventures from 1st edition for more details, I guess.
Thank you! I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. Enjoy your day off!
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for a Exploiter wizard who took bloodline development
The arcanist selects one sorcerer bloodline upon taking this exploit. The arcanist gains that bloodline’s 1st-level bloodline power as though she were a 1st-level sorcerer. The arcanist must select an ordinary bloodline with this ability, not one altered by an archetype. As a swift action, the arcanist can expend 1 point from her arcane reservoir to bolster her latent nature, allowing her to treat her arcanist level as her sorcerer level for the purpose of using this ability, which lasts for a number of rounds equal to her Charisma modifier (minimum 1). She does not gain any other abilities when using this exploit in this way, such as bloodline arcana or those bloodline powers gained at 3rd level or higher. If this ability is used to gain an arcane bond and a bonded item is selected, the arcanist can only use that item to cast spells of a level equal to the level of spell that could be cast by her equivalent sorcerer level (limiting her to 1st level spells unless she spends a point from her arcane reservoir). If the arcanist already has a bloodline (or gains one later), taking this exploit instead allows her arcanist levels to stack with the levels of the class that granted her access to the bloodline when determining the powers and abilities of her bloodline.If they had a level of crossblooded sorcerer, would the italicized part supersede the bold part and allow it to progress crossblooded sorc, or does it not work for crossblooded sorc
II'm not seeing any question marks in your entire post, so I don't know what you're asking. That said, it very much looks like a super-detailed specific complex case of rules interactions using all sorts of 1st edition content that I've not really thought much about for years. Even when we were still doing 1st edition stuff I avoided answering rules questions here becasue they almost always caused more problems than they solved.
As a result, my standard answer here is: ask your GM, because they'll be able to provide the best answer for their game, and if you play in PFS, consider instead playing a less complicated character and save the complex one for a home game.
If instead this isn't a question so much as an attempt to get me to provide errata... sorry. I don't do that.
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Are there any famous wizards (or spellcasters in general) in Golarion that are associated with Dinosaurs?
There's probably some mentioned in Extinction Curse, which I neither read nor developed, and only played to 2nd level before the pandemic shut that game down.
None that I've included in the setting immediately come to mind, other than cultists of the troglodyte's demon god.
In part because I'm sort of timid when it comes to going whole-hog in on dinosaur content, because I've been picked on/mocked a lot about my love of dinosaurs in RPGs, and have had to be self-conscious a LOT (like, in every single Bestiary we've published) about my desire to spend a few pages on dinosaur stat blocks.
So I've kinda learned to avoid trying to put too much dinosaur content in content I actually write. I'm kinda getting there on Lovecraftian content too, to be honest, although since that sort of content is less "real world" and more baked into the "DNA" of the game from the very start of D&D's creation, I guess I've had less mockery/teasing about it from other writers and employees than for dinosaurs. It's not zero, though.
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I can say that one of things that happened in wrath of the righteous book 4 was players' wizard summoning colossal t-rex to chomp on the certain gladiator ;P (and later a dragon)
Aka, please have more dinosaur wizard content ;D
Anyhoo, certain early 1e module has efreeti upon dying become spectre/ghost/spirit that thanks players and tells them info before moving on, is that lore error or something that is actually possible?
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*nods*
I can understand being reigned in on Bestiary content but characters would be a whole different story ^w^
I think you said you didn’t play the Battle for Azeroth expansion for WoW, but did you see the art/videos of the Zandalari and their dinos?
I haven't seen that art. I stopped playing WoW midway through the expansion after the one with the panda people, I think. Ironically, the whole reason I started playing Warcraft in the first place was for the dinos. "You can play an elf with a dinosaur pet? Yes please."
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Anyhoo, certain early 1e module has efreeti upon dying become spectre/ghost/spirit that thanks players and tells them info before moving on, is that lore error or something that is actually possible?
That's 100% legit. You can still become a ghost if you're an efreeti, or any other thing that has a body and soul that are one. It's a LOT more rare though than for us mortals to ghost up.
Mr. James Jacobs,
In your estimation is Alterself or supernatural effects that act like it, a strong enough magic to allow species that can't normally produce offspring to produce offspring?
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Mr. James Jacobs,
In your estimation is Alterself or supernatural effects that act like it, a strong enough magic to allow species that can't normally produce offspring to produce offspring?
That'd be a question best answered by your GM.
In games I run, if this came up, I'd make a decision based on what was right for the mix of players in that group. That decision would change for other groups, as needed.
It starts to get kinda creepy and gross and awkward quickly though, so the best bet is to say no, it doesn't allow this.
One of my favorite parts of your writing in 2nd edition is seeing your creativity with monsters (a certain undead monstrosity in Malevolence comes to mind).
We know you're a fan of demons, dinosaurs, and horror monsters, is there another type of monster you're a fan of, or have become a fan of that we don't really know about.
Keep up the good work!
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One of my favorite parts of your writing in 2nd edition is seeing your creativity with monsters (a certain undead monstrosity in Malevolence comes to mind).
We know you're a fan of demons, dinosaurs, and horror monsters, is there another type of monster you're a fan of, or have become a fan of that we don't really know about.
Keep up the good work!
Yay; thanks for the kind words! Not sure which undead monstrosity you're talking about in Malevolence though... there's a lot of weird undead stuff going on there! :P
I'm not sure that there's a type of monster I'm a fan of that folks don't really know about these days, since I've been pretty vocal about monsters I like for the past two decades or so that I've been writing RPG content. So many monsters exist because of horror anyway, so "horror monsters" pretty much covers everything.
I guess the whimsical monster category is one that I'm not as well known for maybe? I do love doing encounters with monsters that are kind of goofy and strange that engender roleplaying encounters more than fights. Tangletop from Abomanation Vaults and Ezramalkin in Malevolence are two good examples. I've got another one coming up in Kingmaker that resulted from a significant rewrite of a new monster that's mostly my design based on an initial idea from a writer that took the idea of a "first world drake" in a direction that didn't really mesh with the adventure or our design philosophies for drakes, so other than this monster being a high-level dragon from the First World, that's another "dangerously whimsical monster" design. And Wes Schneider still makes fun of me for the zeugelak from Lords of Madness, which never really caught on for D&D the way some of my other creations like kaorti or ulitharids did, but which I still have a fondness for all these years later.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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When a character has an ability like favored enemy, which applies to certain creature types only, how do you rule that it interacts with disguises, including magical ones like disguise self, polymorph, etc.? Does the ability trigger no matter what, or only if the PC recognizes the true form of the target? What if the target is changed into a creature type, but normally wouldn't qualify?
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When a character has an ability like favored enemy, which applies to certain creature types only, how do you rule that it interacts with disguises, including magical ones like disguise self, polymorph, etc.? Does the ability trigger no matter what, or only if the PC recognizes the true form of the target? What if the target is changed into a creature type, but normally wouldn't qualify?
Your GM gets to make that call.
If I were your GM, I'd say that since favored enemy is an exceptional ability, not a magic one, it's 100% dependent on being fueled by your ranger's hatred and knowledge and training against said enemy. If a favored enemy is disguised in a way that your range doesn't know what they are, then the ability wouldn't trigger, regardless of what sort of disguise or magical shenanigan they had going.
Whether or not your ranger believes what he's attacking is a favored enemy or doesn't realize it at all is a judgment call your GM has to make, typically one based on a result of your Perception or some skill check.
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Hey James! I've been reading through Mwangi Expanse a lot recently — love what ya'll have done with this book. Next to Legends, it's probably my favorite Pathfinder book. Between those two, I was wondering: as creative director, how big of a role does Legends' inclusion play into your vision for the Lost Omens setting moving forward? Is there a conscious decision to try to include these characters in modules and adventure paths whenever possible? Can we reasonably expect a Legends character or two to show up in most new adventures?
I'm excited about the idea of Inner Sea storytelling renewing a focus on developing familiar characters, in addition to regions (which usually seem to be the primary recipient of change during adventures).
Thanks for all the incredible reading you've published over the years. Getting lost in your worlds is my favorite pastime these days. :)
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Hey James! I've been reading through Mwangi Expanse a lot recently — love what ya'll have done with this book. Next to Legends, it's probably my favorite Pathfinder book. Between those two, I was wondering: as creative director, how big of a role does Legends' inclusion play into your vision for the Lost Omens setting moving forward? Is there a conscious decision to try to include these characters in modules and adventure paths whenever possible? Can we reasonably expect a Legends character or two to usually show up whenever a new adventure is introduced?
I'm excited about the idea of Inner Sea storytelling renewing a focus on developing familiar characters, in addition to regions (which usually seem to be the primary recipient of change during adventures).
Thanks for all the incredible reading you've published over the years. Getting lost in your worlds is my favorite pastime these days. :)
Lately, with all the content we're producing, and with me having spent most of 2020 working on Kingmaker, my role as Creative Director has been pretty light—mostly a case of "We have amazing developers; let's let them run with these books!" I've done outline reviews, provided advice here and there (my primary advice for the Mwangi book can be summed up as "This is a neat bit of flavor—let's add a bit of rules to support it and show how that flavor works in the game"), and then did an approval pass on the final book once it was all done. Pretty much the same for Legends.
The whole point of Legends was to show off our important NPCs, and to get a wide range of TYPES of characters in there as well, be they allies, villains, or in-betweens. Each and every one of them were selected (along with the several dozens of NPCs who didn't make the final list because the book couldn't be 600+ pages) could show up in an adventure or other story in the future, and in fact, some of them are already on schedule to do so in upcoming adventures... or have already appeared in them.
Greetings Mr. Jacobs,
To what extend do you think, that the followers of a deity know of their gods personal ambitions/general agenda?
Or those of other faiths, with a high knowledge religion result.
For example, the Night Queen Eiseth wants to take over from Moloch as general of Hell's armies, to conquer heaven, is what i read.
Lately, with all the content we're producing, and with me having spent most of 2020 working on Kingmaker, my role as Creative Director has been pretty light—mostly a case of "We have amazing developers; let's let them run with these books!" I've done outline reviews, provided advice here and there (my primary advice for the Mwangi book can be summed up as "This is a neat bit of flavor—let's add a bit of rules to support it and show how that flavor works in the game"), and then did an approval pass on the final book once it was all done. Pretty much the same for Legends.The whole point of Legends was to show off our important NPCs, and to get a wide range of TYPES of characters in there as well, be they allies, villains, or in-betweens. Each and every one of them were selected (along with the several dozens of NPCs who didn't make the final list because the book couldn't be 600+ pages) could show up in an adventure or other story in the future, and in fact, some of them are already on schedule to do so in upcoming adventures... or have already appeared in them.
Gotcha. In any case, really looking forward to seeing what you've done with Kingmaker (and Absalom, as I recall hearing you wrote a lot of content for that book alongside Erik?).
Are cut Legends characters supposed to be secret? If not, who would you have liked to see make it in the book?