So, I'm turning ideas over in my head for a homebrew campaign, and while this question is gonna be very long-term, on the off chance my players get creative about this, what happens if Edicts and Anathema are pitted against each other?
Relevant example I may see coming: attempting to entrap the (currently planned to be) Asmodean Champion with a contract... to force him to grant a wish to them, and they wish to free a slave. Either obey, freeing a slave (breaking an anathema), or violate it (and thus break an anathema). (This is ALSO assuming they manage to leverage circumstances, the villain's pride, and Edict: Negotiate Contracts to your advantage against said villain to get him to negotiate with them in the first place).
Reposting the question for clarity: if my players manage to trap a religious-themed villain between two Anathema, what happens?
Building off the previous question, if a villain themed on undermining faith or his minions learn of a player character's faiths and tries to create situations against them, how should I guide them? (It's thematic to the villain, and in character generation, I'll level with the players that moral dilemmas including of that nature are a part of the campaign. They can handle it.) That is, if the player character rolls well on their lore (religion) check, then should I guide the player towards INACTION (fail to obey the edict, but do not violate the anathema), towards ACTION (sacrifice an anathema to fulfil an edict).
AKA, like that Church of Sarenrae tolerating the government allowing slavery in one area answer from back in 1E at least because they're between a rock and a hard place - they needed a war to solve it, but war would be worse. I can't find the post, though.
Reposting the question for clarity: If a religious-themed villain tries to trap a PC between anathema, or between an anathema and an Edict, and the PC is wise enough to know what to do in such a situation, how should I guide the player?
(And yes, I feel my group can handle this type of situation in the general case. Actual RP into the hacking and slashing at evil, not just the hack and slash.)
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1) Who created magus class for 1e?
2) I know that you dislike answering rules questions, but I am writing a bit of fan fiction so I'd like to get some things in order in my mind and I'd appreciate your input:
In your opinion, if the Bladebound Magus uses Teleport Blade (as standard action) in combat to summon the blade to his hand, does he provoke an attack of opportunity?
1) Someone on the Design team 10 years or so ago. Not sure who was the primary designer.
2) Whatever makes for a more interesting scene in the story.
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So, I'm turning ideas over in my head for a homebrew campaign, and while this question is gonna be very long-term, on the off chance my players get creative about this, what happens if Edicts and Anathema are pitted against each other?
Relevant example I may see coming: attempting to entrap the (currently planned to be) Asmodean Champion with a contract... to force him to grant a wish to them, and they wish to free a slave. Either obey, freeing a slave (breaking an anathema), or violate it (and thus break an anathema). (This is ALSO assuming they manage to leverage circumstances, the villain's pride, and Edict: Negotiate Contracts to your advantage against said villain to get him to negotiate with them in the first place).
Reposting the question for clarity: if my players manage to trap a religious-themed villain between two Anathema, what happens?
Edicts are things you should do. Anathemas are things you should NOT do.
An edict should be something you strive for, and try to do as often as you can. That means that sometimes you won't, but over the long run, they should be goals. As such, if you miss some now and then, no big deal as long as you don't make a habit of it.
Anathemas are essentially tests of your faith, and when you're presented with one you should avoid it.
It's much easier to fall from grace by ignoring or disobeying anathemas, in other words, than ignoring edicts.
If you trap someone between two anathemas, then they should focus on the greater one as they interpret it, and then atone or apologize or make up for the other one.
Entrapping someone in a no-good-choice situation is kinda lame, honestly. It's when you choose to ignore an edict or perform an anathema of your own free will that it really matters. Being tricked or forced to do one, be it by deception or magical control or by being forced to choose the proverbial lesser of two evils isn't the same.
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Building off the previous question, if a villain themed on undermining faith or his minions learn of a player character's faiths and tries to create situations against them, how should I guide them? (It's thematic to the villain, and in character generation, I'll level with the players that moral dilemmas including of that nature are a part of the campaign. They can handle it.) That is, if the player character rolls well on their lore (religion) check, then should I guide the player towards INACTION (fail to obey the edict, but do not violate the anathema), towards ACTION (sacrifice an anathema to fulfil an edict).
AKA, like that Church of Sarenrae tolerating the government allowing slavery in one area answer from back in 1E at least because they're between a rock and a hard place - they needed a war to solve it, but war would be worse. I can't find the post, though.
Reposting the question for clarity: If a religious-themed villain tries to trap a PC between anathema, or between an anathema and an Edict, and the PC is wise enough to know what to do in such a situation, how should I guide the player?
(And yes, I feel my group can handle this type of situation in the general case. Actual RP into the hacking and slashing at evil, not just the hack and slash.)
First of all, tread carefully with these plots, because the long-term result of this story tends to be you, the GM, destroying the trust you have with your players, and that lost trust is very hard to regain once you trick a player into ruining their character.
If the PC is wise enough, you should guide the player by telling them which option is the least fraught. Don't block a character's high Religion score with real-world miscommunication on the GM or player's behalf.
Entrapping someone in a no-good-choice situation is kinda lame, honestly. It's when you choose to ignore an edict or perform an anathema of your own free will that it really matters. Being tricked or forced to do one, be it by deception or magical control or by being forced to choose the proverbial lesser of two evils isn't the same.
Would it be less lame if it's delightfully ironic, that is: the players doing it to a villain who worships a god with the "Trickery" domain who revels in forcing people to do things (an Asmodean)? NINJA EDIT: That is, a god who I'm fairly sure would say his followers should know better than to get entrapped in the first place?
(And for the other answer, I specified that I'd level with them even in character generation about that being a thing. I meant to imply that I'd be clear with them that they'd want to be wise about avoiding traps of that nature. And the entire point of my other question was to advise them WELL, so that I could, for instance, tell a wise Sarenite: a lie is temporary, but the aid it will enable you to provide to those wounded refugees permanent. Or rather, to verify that I'd be correct in-lore to give that advice to the player. But since your answer to my first question included "It's much easier to fall from grace by ignoring or disobeying anathemas, in other words, than ignoring edicts," I'm not so sure about that advice any more.)
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Entrapping someone in a no-good-choice situation is kinda lame, honestly. It's when you choose to ignore an edict or perform an anathema of your own free will that it really matters. Being tricked or forced to do one, be it by deception or magical control or by being forced to choose the proverbial lesser of two evils isn't the same.Would it be less lame if it's delightfully ironic, that is: the players doing it to a villain who worships a god with the "Trickery" domain who revels in forcing people to do things (an Asmodean)? NINJA EDIT: That is, a god who I'm fairly sure would say his followers should know better than to get entrapped in the first place?
If everyone at your table is consenting and has fun with this sort of plot, then it's fine.
Was there ever something that you thought was pretty clever in a game you were running, and felt it was amazing... and then the players either A. Didn't buy 'into' the clever thing or B. Were completely oblivious to said clever thing until you pointed it out to them?
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Was there ever something that you thought was pretty clever in a game you were running, and felt it was amazing... and then the players either A. Didn't buy 'into' the clever thing or B. Were completely oblivious to said clever thing until you pointed it out to them?
Yes. Both.
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What are some pathfinder friendly puzzles you like?
Are you asking about puzzles in game play? I'm not a fan of them, honestly, and much prefer using methods like the research rules I leaned into for Malevolence so that the player uses their character's skills to help solve things.
Situations where the GM gives the players a handout that's a word puzzle or the like crash games. I play RPGs to not be me, and when a GM gives me some sort of logic puzzle that my character's stats can't help with, that's frustrating.
Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the question?
Happy Thanksgiving James! Thank you for engaging with us through this thread, and elsewhere. What's your favorite Turkey Day dish?
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What are the origins of it?What are some of your favorite Golarion holidays?I guess I'm partial to the Swallowtail Festival since it's the first one that I made up.
Just something I made up for "Burnt Offerings" that I wanted to have open the adventure in a memorable way but also give out some lore about Desna, who no one but me and my college gaming group knew of at that point. Based in part on various traditions where a cage of birds are set free to commemorate a moment, but by making them butterflies it makes it more magical and strange.
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Hi James,
Do fiends of fey origin exist? That is, fiends that formed from quintessence that was originally part of a fey? If so, how did they come about?
Nope. Evil fey who die and whose souls become fiends become one of the existing types of fiend, just like any other evil soul.
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Given that Golarion (and presumably other campaign settings like it?) has or at least in 1e *had* multiple creatures of very high level, such as Areelu Vorlesh (RIP, level 27), Sorshen (level 27), Tar Baphon (level 26), Alaznist (level 24 or higher depending on when in Return of the Runelords we're talking about), Arazni (level 26 before she ascended to full godhood), Xanderghul (level 28, I believe you said at one point), Old Mage Jatembe (level 24), at least a few great wyrm dragons (level 22), five or more kaiju (ranging from level 26 to level 30), and so on...that's of course ignoring Treerazer (level 25) and the spawn of Rovagug and other "otherworldly" creatures wandering around the setting.
Well, that's roughly the same number of level 26+ beings (with power equal to demigods) as the sum total of Hell itself. Which raises the question: from the perspective of someone like Deskari, how would you even begin to conquer a planet like this, where you have at least a dozen beings roughly equal to you in power, even with the help of maybe one or two other demon lords? I'm just trying to understand why this is a more tempting target than going 1 v. 1 with another demon lord or other archfiend, as opposed to 1 v. 12. The power density just seems enormous compared to the Abyss, where a single planet-sized layer would only have *one* level 26+ creature rather than hordes of them.
Demon lords range from level 26 to level 30, which is quite a bit more powerful than most of the NPCs on your list above... and keep in mind that several of them are dead or imprisoned or slumbering or super-localized.
But it's a necessary element for us, since we publish literally dozens of different 1st to 20th level campaigns. We need that many high level NPCs.
If it breaks verisimilitude for you to have that many NPCs in your game, the simplest solution for you is to pick and choose a few Adventure Paths or a few NPCs to serve your campaign's needs, and then remove the others, or at least downgrade them 10 levels or so.
As for why Deskari attacked? He's at the upper end of the scale, and of teh things you listed, one of them (Areelu) was his minion, 9 of them (the runelords, Tar-Baphon, Jatembe) are essentially inactive until their campaigns begin, several of them (Arazni and the kaiju and the spawn of Rovagug) aren't too interested in what's going on in the Worldwound, etc.
And on top of that, Deskari doesn't want to "conquer" the planet as much as just cause trouble.
But yeah, it's the result of us focusing our attention on Golarion. There's plenty more out there. We just don't write about those things. Or you can think of all the rest as all of the countless homebrews and settings published by other companies.
Did you prepare you thanksgiving yourself? Do you like to cook?
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Did you prepare you thanksgiving yourself? Do you like to cook?
I did Thanksgiving solo, so yup, did it all myself. I don't particularly like cooking, and I'm not very good at it. Turkey, gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, and pumpkin pie was pretty much it, all purchased in "heat it in the oven or microwave" packages from Safeway. The rolls were pretty intense, since they actually had to thaw and rise in a pan overnight, so that was pretty tricky.
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Since Outsiders can Fall/Ascend on their moral axis (Celestial to Evil, and a couple Fiends to non-evil), can this happen much on the ethical axis? I'm especially interested in the Angels here, given the non-Neutral Good Angelic Empyreal Lords (according to the Wiki) like Pulura and Tolc (CG), or Ragathiel and a couple others (LG).
Or, interpreting how Archives of Nethys's cites the Bestiary, is it just that Angels are *slightly* less bound to the Neutral part of the NG alignment than Agathions are?
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Since Outsiders can Fall/Ascend on their moral axis (Celestial to Evil, and a couple Fiends to non-evil), can this happen much on the ethical axis? I'm especially interested in the Angels here, given the non-Neutral Good Angelic Empyreal Lords (according to the Wiki) like Pulura and Tolc (CG), or Ragathiel and a couple others (LG).
Or, interpreting how Archives of Nethys's cites the Bestiary, is it just that Angels are *slightly* less bound to the Neutral part of the NG alignment than Agathions are?
In 1st edition, a typo/editorial oversight early on had angels being all good alignments rather than just focusing on neutral good (something that I'd intended from the start, with neutral good Sarenrae being the top tier angel in the same way Asmodeus led devils and Lamashtu led Demons), but some edition-leakage from D&D ended up with us not making that change.
In 2nd edition, we did make that change. Angels are pretty much all neutral good now, but we also kept all the established empyrial lord angels who were lawful or chaotic good as they were. Angels, as a result, are more prone toward drifting along the law—chaos axis, but when they do, it's almost ALWAYS because they're specific agents for a lawful or chaotic angel empyreal lord, not because they just happen to be more lawful or more chaotic.
But yes, shifts between law—chaos are just as common overall as good—evil. Which is to say, not very common at all. The reason you see more good—evil variations in print is because the concept of good vs. evil has had MUCH more representation in mythology, history, and literature than the concept of law—chaos, so when it comes to all of us doing stories, it tends to be the more familiar option to choose, I guess.
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So, who leads the other Outsider races then? I'm assuming the Whisperers/Oinodaemon WOULD lead the Daemons if he could (and the Horsemen collectively do), but what of Agathions, Archons, Azatas, Aeons, ... would Proteans even have a leader? I'm also assuming Pharasma for Psychopomps.
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So, who leads the other Outsider races then? I'm assuming the Whisperers/Oinodaemon WOULD lead the Daemons if he could (and the Horsemen collectively do), but what of Agathions, Archons, Azatas, Aeons, ... would Proteans even have a leader? I'm also assuming Pharasma for Psychopomps.
They don't all have deity leaders. One of my core design philosophies is to avoid and push back against symmetry, be it in dungeon maps or deity themes or so on.
Archons: Lots of different leaders, but there's no one "top tier" archon deity. Ihys MIGHT have been that back in the day, maybe, but today it's more like Heaven itself is their "leader" I guess. In time, I could see Iomedae assuming that mantle of leadership.
Angels: Sarenrae.
Aeons: Monad (although this is likely more of an idea than an actual entity—it's staying mysterious for now)
Psychopomps: Pharasma
Devils: Asmodeus
Daemons: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Demons: Lamashtu
Velstracs: Zon-Kuthon
Divs: Ahriman
Qlippoth: Rovagug (not that he's really active in leading them, nor are they particularly interested in being led)
The ones I don't mention don't really have one. Yet.
James, you and Chris Perkins are my two favourite adventure writers.
Have you and Chris Perkins ever participated in the same campaign? If so, what was it?
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James, you and Chris Perkins are my two favourite adventure writers.
Have you and Chris Perkins ever participated in the same campaign? If so, what was it?
I never got to game with Chris, as much as I wanted to. Back when I was at WotC, one of my weekly games I ran in the conference room there for friends took place after one of Chris's games, and I always marveled at the artistry of the maps and writing he left on the whiteboard. His handwriting looks like a font, and his hand drawn maps are among the best I've ever seen.
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Since demon lords and other outsider demigods exist on other planets, how much travel to other material planes happens among the high-powered folks of Golarion? I know Baba Yaga did a stint on Earth in Reign of Winter-should I be worried about an invasion by Tar-Baphon?
It's pretty uncommon. I wouldn't worry about it. We've all got more than enough to worry about here already.
Would Earth terrify denizens of Golarion?
Do you play with any significant house rules or optional rules in your P2 games?
Did Aroden know about the Azlanti Star Empire? It seems like they undermine his claim to be the 'Last Azlanti' in anything other than a literal geographic sense. They're too far away to be relevant to anything on Golarion prior to the Starfinder era, but still.
Also do pureblooded Azlanti still have OP stats in Pathfinder 2e? It seems like that's been depreciated now that New Thassilon is around and people of that ethnicity are available as potential PCs.
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Did Aroden know about the Azlanti Star Empire? It seems like they undermine his claim to be the 'Last Azlanti' in anything other than a literal geographic sense. They're too far away to be relevant to anything on Golarion prior to the Starfinder era, but still.
Also do pureblooded Azlanti still have OP stats in Pathfinder 2e? It seems like that's been depreciated now that New Thassilon is around and people of that ethnicity are available as potential PCs.
That's a Starfinder thing, not a Pathfinder thing. I'd say no, Aroden didn't know about them, and they don't really have any impact on Pathfinder at all, so it's a non-issue.
Azlanti are just humans. They're no better or worse than any other ethnicity. Just different.
To where would we put forth requests for the continuation of the adventures of Varian Jeggare and Radovan Virholt, updated to 2E?
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To where would we put forth requests for the continuation of the adventures of Varian Jeggare and Radovan Virholt, updated to 2E?
I'm not sure what you're asking for here, since these characters are mostly novel characters and thus not part of any game edition.
If you're just asking for 2E stats for them, then I guess over on the Lost Omens forums.
How would you advise a DM handle the worry that they may be making the setting too weird or out there?
For example, I’m taking a 3rd party AP-Sandbox hybrid where most of the major NPCs are human and other core races. Sure there are a few minotaur bodyguards and a gnoll slaver and a cult of lycanthropes and I’m thinking of adding an otyugh willing to trade magic items in the sewers. As I tweak the sandbox and hub city to suit both myself and my players and their characters, I find myself wondering “would a planetouched NPC be bad for verisimilitude? Would it be jarring for the setting? Am I overthinking this?”
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How would you advise a DM handle the worry that they may be making the setting too weird or out there?
For example, I’m taking a 3rd party AP-Sandbox hybrid where most of the major NPCs are human and other core races. Sure there are a few minotaur bodyguards and a gnoll slaver and a cult of lycanthropes and I’m thinking of adding an otyugh willing to trade magic items in the sewers. As I tweak the sandbox and hub city to suit both myself and my players and their characters, I find myself wondering “would a planetouched NPC be bad for verisimilitude? Would it be jarring for the setting? Am I overthinking this?”
Your group is the only one you need to worry about your game being too weird or not weird enough. I don't know your players, so I can't give you advice other than to chat with your players to find out what their tolerance is for that sort of content.