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That makes a lot of sense. I was never really clear about that in D&D. Thanks!
Since I know you're a fan of redemption arcs, are there any varieties of fiends that would be "easier" or "harder" to redeem from a player perspective? Seems like demons and devils are easier, or at least have more redemptions so far in published material (such as Arushalae, Ragatheil, and Nocticula), but what about oni? Or daemons? Qlippoth seem like they'd be the most difficult...
Nope; they're all pretty much equally difficult to redeem. Don't mistake us publishing redemptions for some of them but not others for an indication of how often that type gets redeemed; that's more an indication of what types of fiends various authors prefer telling stories about combined with the fact that we very rarely do fiend redemption stories, so you only get a few.
Hey James!
Boyfriend and I have been having an ongoing discussion about Xanderghul and simulacra. I think he'd be into using them due to how much he loves himself (more Xans = probably his wet dream) and only trusts himself to be capable of doing things (a la initially trying to wield Baraket himself).
Bf maintains that Xan wouldn't be into using simulacra because he has to be the best Xanderghul around, and having multiple Xanderghuls would mean that, possibly, one might be better than him in some way or another, since Xanderghul-prime is so awesome.
(The fact that simulacra are half level of the caster and "under your absolute command" [spell text] seems to be moot for the bf when I bring that up, and I can see where he's coming from because Xanderghul-prime's ego is big enough that he might come to this conclusion.)
Thus, I'm here. How do you reckon Xan would feel about making/employing simulacra of himself?
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Hey James!
Boyfriend and I have been having an ongoing discussion about Xanderghul and simulacra. I think he'd be into using them due to how much he loves himself (more Xans = probably his wet dream) and only trusts himself to be capable of doing things (a la initially trying to wield Baraket himself).
Bf maintains that Xan wouldn't be into using simulacra because he has to be the best Xanderghul around, and having multiple Xanderghuls would mean that, possibly, one might be better than him in some way or another, since Xanderghul-prime is so awesome.
(The fact that simulacra are half level of the caster and "under your absolute command" [spell text] seems to be moot for the bf when I bring that up, and I can see where he's coming from because Xanderghul-prime's ego is big enough that he might come to this conclusion.)Thus, I'm here. How do you reckon Xan would feel about making/employing simulacra of himself?
He's super evil and one of the most prideful, arrogant NPCs in the setting. Make of that what you will.
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Would the same be true of fiends of different type within a species? So for instance, a succubus is likely to have many more nonviolent interactions with good-aligned creatures due to its job of infiltrating society, has the ability to feign niceness, and is just less ugly than, say, a hezrou (I would guess even good-aligned characters can fall into the trap of body-shaming and "if it's ugly it must be evil"). Would that combination of factors mean that there are more redeemed succubi than hezrous, if only because mortals are more likely to give them opportunities for redemption?
Redemption is a factor of the incredibly rare individual, not an entire type of fiend.
And considering what a succubus represents, the idea that they'd have more nonviolent interactions with mortals seems ridiculous. Humans seem much more comfortable and accepting of violence than sex, after all.
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On that note, is the morality of fiends baked-in? Is the reason they're harder to redeem than an evil mercenary because they live in hellish realms, have perpetrated atrocities for centuries, and gain social capital for being awful, or is it more like in D&D (especially 3.5) where fiends are just made of pure Eeeeeevil? Or is it something else entirely, like someone's moral compass locking in once they die, so evil people literally cannot change?
They are manifestations of their specific types of awfulness, and are supernatural creatures that generally lack free will because they're the results of souls that have themselves been forged and flavored by a mortal's free will. The whole point of a fiend or celestial or monitor or any of those things that we used to call Outsiders but today don't have a single easy word to collectively refer to them as is that they're physical incarnations of philosophical concepts, pretty much. They're harder to redeem because they are fundamentally different forms of life than mortals. A person's moral compass doesn't "lock in" once they die. But once that person's soul is judged and sent on to be transformed into what it will become in the afterlife, it turns into a petitioner which is not a mortal creature—it's a fundamentally different supernatural form of life that lacks many things that mortals have and gains many things that they don't.
Put another way: A person who has an evil thought can be redeemed, as they don't have to act on that thought. But the evil thought itself is evil—if something changed that thought to something not evil, it wouldn't be an evil thought anymore; the evil thought would have vanished to be replaced by something entirely different. Fiends are essentially evil thoughts made into physical creatures, and thoughts don't themselves have agency to change themselves. They can be changed by those who think them, but if that thought were to be magically pulled out of a person's mind but still remain a thought, then no one could change them. Except under exceptionally specific rare circumstances involving the meddling of gods or that even more powerful force—ther writer's will.
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Thanks! So essentially, good and evil aren't just philosophical ideas in someone's head, they're actual objective forces that define the cosmos (to paraphrase from the Pathfinder SRD).
In that case, I really hate to ask this because it sounds like a bad-faith argument, but I seem to remember Gygax in AD&D saying something along the lines of "if you redeem an evil creature, you should immediately kill it so that its soul goes to one of the good-aligned planes, and to prevent it from backsliding."
Obviously the "you can't be trusted not to backslide" thing stinks of not letting people live their own lives, but would someone who cultivates good-aligned people (much like devils cultivate and corrupt souls in Cheliax) before having them murdered to fuel, say, the petitioner legions of Heaven be a good person? Or at the very least producing a net good despite being an evil person, by diverting all that quintessence and all those souls to a good realm?
I apologize for asking a really creepy question that sounds suspiciously like a bunch of real-world cults...
Good and evil are both philosophical ideas AND actual forces. Law and chaos and neutrality are as well. That's what we get when we quantify those five things as alignments, and then use those things to build rules off of. ;-)
Gygax's take on immediately killing a redeemed creature sounds gross, foul, unforgiving, and barbaric. No thanks. The whole point of redeeming something is that forgiveness exists and allows a redeemed thing to continue to exist. If not, then there's no incentive for ANYONE to seek redemption, since if there's no forgiveness and no opportunity to learn and grow from past mistakes, then why bother even trying to change in the first place?
I'd quantify the "we redeemed it, let's kill it instantly so that it goes on to fuel its proper afterlife bucket" as a pretty strong (and very villainous) lawful neutral attitude, OR a pretty strong (and just as villainous) lawful evil attitude where the perpetrator was using pedantry and concern troll tactics to undermine and damage the actual prospect of forgiveness.
As for real-world beliefs; the real world isn't a game we wrote; alignment doesn't really work in the real world, any more than wizards casting fireballs or dragons larger than whales being able to fly around.
Is there any relationship between the Monad and the Outer Gods? The Monad is supposed to be both inside and outside the multiverse, and I think it’s been said that the OG’s are also outside of it. Is the Big M one of them, or is it something greater/lesser than them?
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Is there any relationship between the Monad and the Outer Gods? The Monad is supposed to be both inside and outside the multiverse, and I think it’s been said that the OG’s are also outside of it. Is the Big M one of them, or is it something greater/lesser than them?
None whatsoever. Those two things come from entirely separate real-world inspirations, and thematically have VERY different goals in the game with storylines and themes that really are at opposite ends of the scale.
Do dragons have any notable, principle enemies (or natural predators)? I'm running Age of Ashes and my players are hunting for ideas and allies in some upcoming stretches, but I don't have any idea what to tell them!
Player parties aside, are there any particular foes of dragons that you think make a really compelling battle, standoff, or friction against them?
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Do dragons have any notable, principle enemies (or natural predators)? I'm running Age of Ashes and my players are hunting for ideas and allies in some upcoming stretches, but I don't have any idea what to tell them!
Player parties aside, are there any particular foes of dragons that you think make a really compelling battle, standoff, or friction against them?
Dragonslayers would be the most notable enemies of dragons, with a secondary category of "powerful entities who get ahold of orbs of dragonkind or other anti-dragon artifacts." Which is kind of the entire plot and background of Age of Ashes.
If your players are hunting for allies against dragons, they should have a hard time of it. That's the point. Dragons are supposed to be scary and intimidating, and finding out that there's not a lot of obvious choices for things that hunt dragons is part of that.
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Mr. Jacobs,
Thanks for helping create the fascinating Lost Omens setting, I really enjoy exploring it.Is there a Mythos entity that deals with posessing corpses as a means of propagation? Nhimbaloth is more concerned with the creation of incorporeal undead, Yog-Sothoth is about spawn through procreation, and Xhamen-Dor is a plant...fungus thing?
Not that we've published, but the mythos has been explored for a century in various stories. Of the ones we've published as part of Golarion, I'd say that Hastur and Nyarlathotep probably have the most elements of "possessing the dead," but the nature of the Mythos is such that you can pretty much tell that story with ANY of them if you want.
Did Old-Mage Jatembe and Aroden ever meet?
Hello. I come to this thread in shame, for I told a friend I would ask you about this but I did not.
Do Combat Manuevers count as a melee attack? Can they be parried by the Swashbuckler's Panache Parry Riposte ability?
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Hello. I come to this thread in shame, for I told a friend I would ask you about this but I did not.
Do Combat Manuevers count as a melee attack? Can they be parried by the Swashbuckler's Panache Parry Riposte ability?
No need for shame, since I generally don't answer rules questions here. My standard suggestion for rules clarifications is to go with your GM's ruling, since that'll be the fastest and most accurate way to get them for your table.
Personally, I'd rule at my table that maneuvers don't count as melee attacks for the purpose of a swashbuckler's abilities but I could be convinced otherwise if a player brought a logical and well-reasoned and respectful argument to the table.
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Reading through Malevolence at the moment. It's REALLY GOOD. Really enjoying it. Love the atmosphere, the Caul, the Birds! Can't wait to get a chance to run a group through this.
I have a question about
Also do they have the full semi-constructed skeleton look or are they more of a dissociated red mist until "activated"?
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Reading through Malevolence at the moment. It's REALLY GOOD. Really enjoying it. Love the atmosphere, the Caul, the Birds! Can't wait to get a chance to run a group through this.
I have a question about ** spoiler omitted **
They'd be at chest height and the full look.
What kind of character creation tips would you suggest for Malevolence? What would help guide the group to have the resources to be prepared without guaranteeing they will be able to guess everything that is going on from those suggestion?
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What kind of character creation tips would you suggest for Malevolence? What would help guide the group to have the resources to be prepared without guaranteeing they will be able to guess everything that is going on from those suggestion?
There's a little bit of everything in there for all sorts of classes, but the biggest advice would be to build characters who don't have too many overlapping skills, and bring lots of healing and recovery magic/options. And don't be afraid to run away.
Have you seen Blood Red Sky on Netflix?
James, I've been watching Band of Bravos (again) -- never gets old. Would you know or remember what feat was it that allowed Roark to get panache and have the enemy flat-footed vs him? I've been trying to find it but can't seem to.
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James, I've been watching Band of Bravos (again) -- never gets old. Would you know or remember what feat was it that allowed Roark to get panache and have the enemy flat-footed vs him? I've been trying to find it but can't seem to.
I dunno. We did the whole show from our separate homes during the pandemic, so there wasn't a lot of opportunity to share character sheets.
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Hi James,
Earlier in this thread it was asked what happened to the souls of Nocticula's good-aligned/Redeemer Queen worshipers before she became chaotic neutral and was still a demon lord. The answer was that they went to the Abyss, and that life is hard being a heretic.
Obviously this no longer applies to Nocticula...but what about in reverse? If you have a bunch of evil-aligned followers of Shelyn (who weren't being granted spells, since I presume Shelyn unlike Nocticula has no desire to change alignment) who believe more in the obsessive side of love, what happens to these heretical followers? Do they go to one of the evil-aligned planes on death? Or is it like what used to happen with heretical Nocticula worshipers (but in reverse) and they get a free pass into somewhere quite a bit nicer?
They'd go to one of the evil planes to get punished. Shelyn is a good deity and doesn't grant power to evil worshipers... so those who claim to worship her and are evil are not heretics—they're blasphemers. I would probably say they'd end up going to Abaddon and get hunted and eaten by daemons, since that's the "opposite" of Shelyn's neutral good stance.
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So was the damnation of Nocticula's former followers to the Abyss a function of Nocticula seeking redemption and extending them power in the first place, then?
It's the result of the complex methods by which Pharasma judges a soul. When a deity changes heart and their followers do not, they're no longer followers of that deity. If they're stubborn and continue to worship a no-longer-existing version of that deity, then they damn themselves.
It's not a function of Nocticula seeking redemption. It's a result of a follower failing to adjust and learn from their deity and either not changing their ways to keep following them or else abandoning that deity and seeking out some other thing to worship or believe in. It's the result of a worshiper's arrogance and stubbornness, not the result of a deity "tricking" a faithful worshiper into damnation.
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Ah, sorry, I think I was unclear there. What I was referring to was a post from a while back, back when Nocticula was still a demon lord, and someone asked what happened to followers of the cult of the Redeemer Queen who died then (again, when she wasn't redeemed yet). The response was this:
"What happens to heretical Nocticulans can vary, but most of them probably end up being punished in the Abyss or perhaps lost to the Maelstrom or hunted on Abaddon. A few, though, who were particularly devout or focused in NOT being chaotic evil may well even end up adrift in Elysium. It really varies, but in most cases it's not a pleasant afterlife for them to look forward to. There's a certain element of being a martyr involved in any sort of heresy."
So what's the difference between a good-aligned follower of Nocticula back then who is damned as martyr for their faith and the evil-aligned follower of Shelyn who gets cast into Abaddon in spite of it?
Nocticula is actively heading toward a redemption, and as such supports those who were able to read between the lines or were wise enough to see what was coming or whatever and had started to worship her before the actual change. Redemption is an ongoing process, not a click. There's a significant transition time during which heretics who worship her in the forward-progressive way are accepted by her as worshipers and are granted spells and are not punished in the afterlife.
The difference is that Shelyn is NOT on a downward spiral toward evil, and therefore someone who's evil and claims to worship her has no righteous ground to stand on whatsoever; they're just blasphemers.
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So I posted this in the rules questions part of the forums but realized that no one probably looks at them for 1st edition anymore, so James Jacobs is my last hope hail mary shot at an answer.
Can quicken metamagic be used with the errata for wild arcana/inspired spell mythic abilities to make it a swift action casting time.
Ask your GM. I didn't really answer rules questions much here even when 1st edition was the active edition, because me answering rules questions confused folks who thought that since I'm the creative director my answers are "official errata" and some folks got frustrated and complained that my answers made it look like Paizo "didn't have its house in order" and I got feedback from management and fellow employees to avoid answering rules questions here. Considering how some folks would "weaponize" my "in my campaign" answers and turn them into tools to use against their GMs' rulings or to fight back and be disruptive in org play games, that was good advice.
Sorry I can't help you, but your GM is really the best source for ANY rules question, regardless of game or edition.
All that said... if this were my game, I would not allow it. Especially since mythic rules already overburden the 1st edtion action economy with too many swift actions already. It makes the game too unsatisfying and needlessly complex to pile on so many swift actions when you can only ever do one per round.
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So I know with paladins redemption usually is a "click" or turning point moment (albeit usually part of an ongoing process) that can be blatantly obvious ("you killed a baby, that's the last straw, bam, you now register as evil and lose a lot of abilities and now start actually taking Good damage"). So if there were a 2e paladin repeatedly punching Nocticula in the face with Good damage, what was she doing when she would have stopped taking the damage? Was she saving a kitten or something? Murdering her 200th demon lord? Shaking hands with the Return of the Runelords PCs eleven thousand years ago (that one seems less likely given she was still chaotic evil until 4719 AR or so)? Or was it purely a mental thing?
If you want to get into super hyper-semantic timings of things like this, then there's no way a 2E paladin could do good damage to Nocticula, since her redemption took place before 2E was published. It happened near the end of Return of the Runelords, with hints being dropped in Planar Adventures and a few other products at that time.
Her transformation from demon lord to deity mostly happened off-screen as a result of my plans for that storyline to get resolved ended up not getting a devoted adventure or product focused on it, so feel free to decide for yourself when the "click" happened if it's that important.
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Sure, makes sense. Thanks.
In terms of redeeming qlippoth, what would be some motives a qlippoth might have to seek redemption? Of course it depends on the individual qlippoth, but given how much the alien nature of their minds is played up, I'm not sure I really understand what sort of thought processes would even lead to the idea of having a moral compass at all, let alone realizing you're on the wrong side of it and attempting to make amends.
The one that immediately comes to mind is a qlippoth that realizes its kind and its time are on the outs, and that there's no putting mortal sin back in the bottle, and as such would try to find a way to exist alongside of the fact that mortal souls are not going away anytime soon. And in pursuing this, the qlippoth might realize that there's more to existence than being "first and only."
That said... I wouldn't personally be interested in pursuing that story myself, or in setting it up as a story to explore in print, because I think qlippoth are more interesting as things that don't get redeemed. I know that I said in a previous post that one outsider type isn't any more or less prone to falls or redemption, and from a point of view that is NOT from any one writer's take, that's true.
But every writer will have their preferences, and that's a huge part of what drives us as to which stories we want to tell.
It's certainly possible for a qlippoth to seek redemption, but it's not a story I'm too interested in telling.
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Is there any in-world distinction between the fleshwarp player ancestry and the particular fleshwarps that are statted up as monsters?
The monster fleshwarps tend to be less varied in appearance. The PC ancestry is mostly about unique fleshwarps that don't share similar appearances—a PC fleshwarp is a custom-creation that can be anything you want it to be. That sort of variability makes for a very strong ancestry since it lets a player character build whatever sort of strange-looking thing they wanna be while still being part of the setting. Sort of the same how tieflings and aasimars work. And in that same case, the "monster side" of this category is less varied because a GM can always make as many new fleshwarps as they want, while at the same time having an identifyable look and theme for sinspawns and driders and so on is valuable in that it gives a more stable base to build recognizable foes from.
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Have you seen The Green Knight?
Nope. Haven't been brave enough to go see a movie in a theater since March 2020 and I went to see Invisible Man with a friend. Turns out a pandemic does wonders for making me prefer streaming options for movies. The next movie I'll be tempted to go see in a theater is Candyman, but I'm pretty sure I won't there either.
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I know qlippoth statblocks all have "abyssal" listed as their primary language spoken, but do or did the qlippoth have a language of their own before the creation of demons? There's a mention in the Book of Damned of black pillars in Yad Iagnoth that are marked with ever-changing qlippoth runes, for instance.
Qlippoth runes are left to be intentionally vague at this point, and are meant to be mysterious for now.