Creative Director
|
Hi James,
When you write a PC or NPC background, are you more likely to write their history first and let their personality evolve out of that, or do you come up with the personality you want them to have, and then fill in their background and history from there?
A little bit of both; sometimes I even stat them up first and let the rules help build history and personality.
|
Creative Director
|
How often do _you_ run adventures written by others? How much messing around with the printed material do you do if you do run them?
All the time.
And I mess around with the printed material a lot, if only because I love tinkering and because I often have fellow GMs as players who've read all the same books as me.
|
Creative Director
|
So now that we have Kaiju will Golarian have a "monster island" type place for them?
Do you have a favorite type(s) of dragon?
What is your favorite Godzilla movie(s)?
Is it safe to assume that the elder things are not the race of beings that created the vaults in the darklands?
What are the movies you are most interested in seeing this year? and next year if your thinking that far ahead?
Yes.
Yes—bronze.
This'd be a tie between the original "Gojira" and "Godzilla, Mothera, King Ghidorah Giant Monsters All Out Attack."
No. The elder things are in the top 3 of the list of likely creators of the Darkland vaults.
This year: The Thing. Next year: Prometheus.
Do you have a favorite type(s) of dragon?
Yes—bronze.
Is there a particular reason that bronze dragons are your favourite dragons?
|
Creative Director
|
Is there a particular reason that bronze dragons are your favourite dragons?
Do you have a favorite type(s) of dragon?
Yes—bronze.
I like their personality and art best. And have since 1st edition. And they live on the coast, which is where I grew up, so they're the most likely to live near Point Arena, California.
My favorite is the Bronze dragon as well.
So what are the other 2 canidates for creating the vaults?
James, what did you think of The Trollhunter?
Also, and this isn't a question; I figured you would appreciate it, I wanted to share a CoC experience with you.
My group is composed of basically a bunch of dedicated gamemasters and within our group each of us has his specialty. For instance, the guy that runs our Pendragon game has a degree in Arthurian Mythology and teaches English Lit at a nearby University. Our Tolkien guy can literally quote the Silmarillion from memory, etc.
Our dedicated Call of Cthulhu guy has a couple of psychology based degrees, is multilingual, well-traveled, and intimately familiar with the works of HPL and other Mythos authors. Recently, whenever one of our PCs would fail a Sanity Check he would hand us each a "Symptom Card". Cards he had specially made which featured a detailed description of various symptoms.
As the game progresses he occasionally takes an audit of our symptoms, then (and this is the best part) uses the DSM-IV to diagnose our insanities (if any).
This has had a profound impact on our game and I thought it was a stroke of genius. As a fan of CoC, and as someone who appreciates clever game-fu, I thought you would get a kick out of it.
For those interested: Go to DSM-IV.
|
Creative Director
|
You probably missed my question - do you prefer Magus or Arcane Duelist?
But I have another one: My character in friend's game just died and got reincarnated. The character in question is drow noble. Does he retain his spell-like abilities in his reincarnated form?
I did miss it. I've not looked into the magus and the arcane duelist enough to make a decision yet, though.
As for what a character retains after a reincarnation... that's actually really up to the GM.
In my case, this actually happened to my character Shensen in Jason Nelson's game; she was a drow (this was 3.5) who got reincarnated into a half aquatic elf. If I remember correctly, she kept her mental ability stat mods but that's about it; everything else (including SR and spell-like abilities) got replaced by the aquatic half elf stuff. Since I was pretty high level at the time, though, losing that stuff and also losing the +2 ECL adjustment was a pretty good trade.
In any case, it's really up to the GM what kind of things you lose or gain if you're a non-core race being reincarnated.
|
Creative Director
|
If someone was terribly intrigued by all your Cthulhu talk, what would be a good place to start with the roleplaying game?
If you're talking about the Call of Cthulhu game by Chaosium... getting their most recent Call of Cthulhu rulebook is the best place to start. It's actually got everything you need to run the game in the book, including several adventures and lots of advice.
|
Creative Director
|
Hello James,
First question: regards bucklers, the bashing property, and the rondelero duelist Fighter archetype (from the inner sea primer). I know that, following RAW, the Bashing property (a bashing shield ups the die size two steps) cannot be applied to bucklers. The thing is, I thought the intention was that Bashing would normally wasted on bucklers since you cannot shield bash with them. There is one notable exception to that rule - a Rondelero Duelist Fighter. Specifically, the Rondelero Duelist swaps bravery for the ability to shield bash with a buckler, and states that the buckler has the same damage code as a light shield. Now for the set-up before the actual question. You are the GM. One of your players has expressed an interest in playing as a fighter that learned to be a rondelero duelist by either growing up in taldor or learning about it from a taldan. Would you allow said fighter to acquire a magical buckler with the Bashing property if it was either created in Taldor or by a caster elsewhere that is from Taldor? (Note: I know how I would rule it, and your response to this will not affect the conversation I may have with my GM regarding this.)
More questions are coming
You still can't put bashing on a buckler. The Rondelero Duelist only gives you the option to shield bash with a buckler; it doesn't change what a buckler actually is. I would not allow the character to create a special bashing buckler as a result.
|
Creative Director
|
James--What do you think of the following picture: link here (safe for work, especially if you work at Paizo).
I like it enough that it's been sitting on my computer for many months. :)
|
Creative Director
|
James, what did you think of The Trollhunter?
It's great! It was the first movie I saw during the Seattle International Film Festival a month or so ago. One of the best movies of the year. GREAT fun.
Also, symptom cards for CoC are a really cool idea. Neat! You're pretty lucky to have a CoC keeper who's also a psychologist!
|
Technically, samurai and ninja ARE archetypes already. So if they can qualify for other cavalier or rogue archetypes because they still have the right abilities to swap out, they can pick up those archetypes as well.Actual archetype archetypes though? That's getting a bit incestuous... but maybe!
Hrm, I thought part of the point of having them be alternate classes (aka: extended archtypes) was so that they could have their own specific archetypes as well without being multiclassed with whatever the original base-class was. Either that or I invented that line of logic when someone asked me what the difference between an alternate class and an archetype was.
Either way, it would be interesting to see archetype versions of Ninjas and Samurai that couldn't necessarily be archetypes of Rogues or Cavaliers.
|
Creative Director
|
but the description says its about arcatecure not enginering deviceswhy do gunslingers have enginering as a class skill, what can they do with it?One of our base class design philosophies is that we want ALL base classes to have at least one Knowledge skill as a class skill if possible. For the gunslinger, engineering made the most sense as it's the most "high tech" of the knowledge options.
Still the most high tech of the skills even so.
what would the dc of making a silencer and a scope for a rifle and what skill would you use?
If I may attempt to field this one:
A "scope" would be similar to a "spyglass" (as in Core rules in the Equipment section); with similar cost, and similar level capability. You wouldn't be able to make something that works in the order of scopes we use these days (10 to 200 times magnification). You'd get 2x magnification as per the spyglass, which still effectively doubles your perception range. I don't think in a fantasy setting a mechanical option goes beyond that.
A "silencer" would be essentially impossible mechanically. Instead I'd look into a custom magically crafted item that creates a silence (as the spell) but only on the gun itself. It would still not hide the visual effects for firing a gun (and those are quite noticeable with these medieval-level guns). Big flash, plume of smoke.
So, I cannot speak for your GM, but with about 10000gp worth of equipment (for the scope and silencer) - I'd grant you double the perception range and a +5 bonus on your stealth check to remain hidden after sniping (the rule-based "snipe" action).
does the China Shop Dance
|
I placed this in another thread with no response so i was wondering if you could answer this Mr. Jacobs...
Will Paizo ever release their own printed, or pdf, conversions of the first four Adventure Paths? I do not expect them to reprint the entire series but maybe either a 32 page or 64 page conversion book, depending on space needed, for each of the first four that would help GM's run their AP's in a more organized fashion. I know for me that I REALLY want to play RotRL, CotCT, and Second Darkness but the fact that they are in 3.5 mechanics is a deterant. I have tried to find conversions that are well respected and liked but none thus far. I desperately want Paizo to make a reference book, just 64 pages tops, to play these fantastic AP's. I hope to hear back from you soon....your fellow gamer and friend -HJ
James what does this mean?
That’s you, drops of water. And you’re on top of the mountain of success.
But one day you start sliding down the mountain and you think wait a minute,
“I’m a mountain top water drop, I don’t belong in this valley, this river, this little dark ocean
with all these drops of water.”
Then, one day it gets hot, and you slowly evaporate into air, way up higher than any
mountain top -- all the way to the heavens.
Then, you understand it was at your lowest you were closest to God.
Life’s a journey that goes round and round, and the end is closest to the beginning.
So, if it’s change you need, relish the journey.
|
Creative Director
|
I placed this in another thread with no response so i was wondering if you could answer this Mr. Jacobs...
Will Paizo ever release their own printed, or pdf, conversions of the first four Adventure Paths? I do not expect them to reprint the entire series but maybe either a 32 page or 64 page conversion book, depending on space needed, for each of the first four that would help GM's run their AP's in a more organized fashion. I know for me that I REALLY want to play RotRL, CotCT, and Second Darkness but the fact that they are in 3.5 mechanics is a deterant. I have tried to find conversions that are well respected and liked but none thus far. I desperately want Paizo to make a reference book, just 64 pages tops, to play these fantastic AP's. I hope to hear back from you soon....your fellow gamer and friend -HJ
We have no plans to do a conversion booklet for older APs; there's plenty of conversion work done on these boards and elsewhere by fans, though!
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
James what does this mean?
That’s you, drops of water. And you’re on top of the mountain of success.
But one day you start sliding down the mountain and you think wait a minute,
“I’m a mountain top water drop, I don’t belong in this valley, this river, this little dark ocean
with all these drops of water.”Then, one day it gets hot, and you slowly evaporate into air, way up higher than any
mountain top -- all the way to the heavens.Then, you understand it was at your lowest you were closest to God.
Life’s a journey that goes round and round, and the end is closest to the beginning.
So, if it’s change you need, relish the journey.
It means that we should stop drinking water if it can talk and philosophize.
It means that we should stop drinking water if it can talk and philosophize.
Psssssh,James, you know Gamers only drink Mountain Dew, Coffee and Beer!
On a more serious note, I'd like to ask how you would personally rule a conflict between Anthropomorphic Animal and Awaken. Planning on throwing the 'Evil Wizard and his Beastly Henchmen' at the PCs in an upcoming campaign and I'm a firm believer in the credo that whatever the GM can do, the Players can do too.
Were you aware that a player can smush the Chirgeon and Vivisectionist Alchemist Archetypes together? Evil Dentist NPC Ahoy!
|
Languages.
I have always disliked the "common tongue" comprehensible in all the planet from day -10.000 to day 4.000.
Thankfully Golarion has Common (Taldan).
I suppose that it work in all the territories of the old Taldan empire and nearby kingdoms (plus the colonies of those kingdoms), not in all of the planet.
I would go a further step and differentiate Common (Taldan trade pidgin) from Taldan (language of the Taldan empire in his purest version).
So two questions:
- there is a commonly used trade language in the Jade Empire?
To make a comparison with China, from what I know, the written language was the same in all the territory, but the sound associated with the symbols were (and somewhat still are) very different and often mutually unintelligible.
- how comprehensible are the older version of currently used languages? Pre-Earthfall elven? Six thousand old Dwarven?
Even Taldan writings from the time of the Seventh Army of Exploration (2133) can be hard to translate for today (4711) speakers of common Taldane.
What rules do you use to adjudicate this kind of things? I usually require people to have a similar/modern version of the language and do some linguistic check, but adjudicating the difficulty in a consistent way isn't always easy.
|
|
Warning, long tirade about different species lifespan
For a short version you can read the bolded parts at the bottom of the post.
Checking the books for the thread about the "elves of Golarion" book, I did noticed this:
How long do elves live to? 700 years?
Average?
3.5/Pathfinder:
550 years, maximum 750
(note than an human has an average lifespan of 81 years and maximum of 110)Minimum age for a elf to be an adventurer
110 years, 1/5 of average lifespan and almost 1/7 of maximumfor an human 15 years (1/5.5 and 1/7.5)
what is most peculiar is the length of adulthood against lifespan
Elf from 110 to 175 years (1/8.5 of average lifespan)
Human 15-35 (1/4 of average lifespan)
An elf adulthood is proportionally way shorter than the human adulthood.
The problem is that most of a elf lifespan can be as a venerable character, up to 400 years against 350 years in the other age brackets.An human has lifespan of 40 years at most after he get to venerable age, 4/7 of all his other age brackets.
Trying to "fix" the "elves live forever" problem the 3.5 developer have created another monster "the elves are forever old". :(
Looking those numbers I find them a bit bothersome.
I can see giving the elves a proportionally longer childhood, but if we compare it to the "productive years" from the day they become adults to the day they become old it is is almost 1/1.14 of the whole period.
For a human if is 1/2.53
An elf that has a child the first day of his adult age, at 110 years, get to see him become adult when he is halfway between being middle aged and old, an human will still be and adult with several years of full vigour ahead.
To put it another way
Human get adult at 15 years, middle aged at 35, the length of adulthood is childhood x1.33
Dwarf adult at 40 years, middle aged at 125, the length of adulthood is childhood x2.125
Elf adult at 110 years, middle aged at 175, the length of adulthood is childhood x0.59
Gnome adult at 40 years, middle aged at 100, the length of adulthood is childhood x1.5
Half-elf adult at 20 years, middle aged at 62, the length of adulthood is childhood x2.1
Half-orc adult at 14 years, middle aged at 30, the length of adulthood is childhood x1.14
Halfling adult at 20 years, middle aged at 50, the length of adulthood is childhood x2.5
Elfs aren't forever young. They are forever middle aged or worse.
Dwarfs (and Halflings) are forever young.
Sorry for the tirade but this kind of small inconsistencies gate on my nerves more than "serious" matters.
I hope you can find the time to correct it somehow in future products.
The prospect to be venerable for half of their life will weight on elf spirits a lot, I think.
|
Creative Director
|
It means that we should stop drinking water if it can talk and philosophize.Psssssh,James, you know Gamers only drink Mountain Dew, Coffee and Beer!
On a more serious note, I'd like to ask how you would personally rule a conflict between Anthropomorphic Animal and Awaken. Planning on throwing the 'Evil Wizard and his Beastly Henchmen' at the PCs in an upcoming campaign and I'm a firm believer in the credo that whatever the GM can do, the Players can do too.
Were you aware that a player can smush the Chirgeon and Vivisectionist Alchemist Archetypes together? Evil Dentist NPC Ahoy!
First off... I don't allow the anthropomorphic animal spell in my game. Not a fan of it or its flavor.
If I did, though, I'd only allow it OR awaken work on a target, since both require the target to be an animal and the end result after either spell is cast is no longer technically an animal, therefore not something that second spell can affect.
|
Creative Director
|
I have always disliked the "common tongue" comprehensible in all the planet from day -10.000 to day 4.000.
Golarion does not work that way—Taldan has not been spoken in the Inner Sea region that long, really. But more to the point... if the PCs can't easily communicate with each other and the majority of the NPCs in the game, the game play itself gets frustrating and difficult. Having a common tongue that lots of folks use to speak to each other might not be realistic, but it DOES make the game actually playable.
- there is a commonly used trade language in the Jade Empire?
Yes; that language is Tien. It essentially functions as Tian Xia's "Common" tongue.
- how comprehensible are the older version of currently used languages? Pre-Earthfall elven? Six thousand old Dwarven?
Even Taldan writings from the time of the Seventh Army of Exploration (2133) can be hard to translate for today (4711) speakers of common Taldane.
Those languages remain comprehensable to modern speakers still, again, because of an ease of play issue. If you want to introduce "Old Elven" or "Ancient Dwarf" as new languages... that's fine, but remember that that'll make things progressively difficult to play. And in the end, tongues makes all language problems irrelevant soon enough that all that extra work might not be worth it.
Do you think that with the exceptional job that was done codifying D&D into 3rd edition, we lost some of the required ability to adjudicate the corner cases the way we had to in previous editions? Or at least many of the new people coming into the game don't learn it?
|
|
Warning, long tirade about different species lifespan...A lot of these topics you bring up actually have a relatively similar core conceit–that they're mostly glossed over in game play to avoid getting bogged down in elements of game play that not all players are interested in. Things like realistic language development in a game world or detailed examinations of how different life spans might impact a society make for interesting thought experiments, but not very interesting game play. So they don't get a heck of a lot of time in our game books.
You certainly raise some interesting topics... I just prefer to gloss over it in games I run so I can get to the adventure part of it.
Guilty as charged ;)
I still fondly remember an article on one of the first Dragon I brought (was the n. 82 I think), It was an article about the demography of long lived races against short lived races and the capacity to recover after a disaster.
It was very interesting in explaining why dwarves and elves don't need low birth rates to keep the population down. It was useful in explaining why humans are the dominant race in most game worlds.
I must say I miss a magazine with that kind of thought provoking articles.
Well, at least in my game I think that for consistency sake I will shift the minimum adventuring age of elves to 75 years and give them 2d% of years in the venerable age instead of 4d%.
It will not really change anything noticeable, but I will be more happy with it.
--
Unrelated question
Where is located the equator in Golarion?
I will start a Kingmaker campaign next fall (I hoped to start it earlier but the last sessions of the old campaign are a bit long) and I feel that Brevory climate should be similar to that of Poland and the Stolen Lands should have a climate similar to Ukraine.
What climatic conditions your group meet in the Iobarian campaign in which you are playing?
|
|
A flavour question, as the rule debate is running and I don't think you wish to be brought into it.
Bardic performance:
If a bardic performance has audible components, the targets must be able to hear the bard for the performance to have any effect, and such performances are language dependent.
On one hand I think most bardic performances need to be comprehended to work. A clear example is Henry V St. Crispin's Day Speech. If you don' speak English it will have no effect on you.
On the other hand we have the Scottish bagpipes. Thanks to a cultural and historical background they hearten friendly troops and demoralize the enemy (at least if the enemy is from a culture that has already meet the Scottish troops).
But if I am from a totally unrelated culture probably they will have little effect on me. A hideous sound and nothing more.
How do you adjudicate that?
Well, at least in my game I think that for consistency sake I will shift the minimum adventuring age of elves to 75 years and give them 2d% of years in the venerable age instead of 4d%.
It will not really change anything noticeable, but I will be more happy with it.
Diego - what I'll be doing in my games in future is give all races the same youth -> adult maturity range (IE, all start at 14) and then keep the rest of the charts the same. It never made any sense to me that if an elf was born in a human city the same year that a human was born, that elf wouldn't graduate high school (as it were) until the human's great grandchildren did. (Culturally, yes, it makes sense; but physically/mentally? Not really.)
Sir Jacobs, I was just reading over some Carrion Crown and was wondering....
In developing adventure paths which of these have proven to be larger restraints in regards to the amount of content you all can put in:
Deadlines/Schedules/Shipping Dates?
or,
Costs of printing/editing? (Including keeping the prices affordable for buyers)
-------
Also on a way, way more serious note:
What are the odds of us ever seeing: a Druid wildshaped into a Tyrannosaur, riding an enlarged Tyranosaur Animal Companion, summoning additional Tyrannosaur cavalry as a boss fight at the end of an AP?
Because I feel a glorious charge of Tyrannosaur (Tyrannosaurus?) is a decent avenue to explore. You know. Creatively.
Now, my fellow Orc Fanatics are probably warming up a cauldron of hot oil to boil me alive with for this, but if you were to redo Pathfinder (I'm thinking maybe a decade from now, perhaps longer given how strong it's going?) would you stick the traditional 7 races (Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Halflings, Humans.) or would you make a 'break', going for new races (Humans, other races such as Ogres, Tengu, Vanir etc etc) and thus allowing the crew at Paizo to get some new creative juices flowing?
Don't get me wrong, I love Pathfinder, and while I do not in any way endorse the loss of our one and only 'Monstrous' Race, the Half-Orc, I can see a RPG that drifts away from the 'standard', Humans/Dwarves/Elves/Other and risked untested waters with non-European based mythological races instead.
Currently trying to dig up some Krynn books and trying to convert them to Pathfinder (Which is akin to trying to find hen's teeth amidst a rampage of agitated Cockatrices.) and the concept of breaking that 'all races must be pretty' concept that has slowly crept into every fantasy/sci-fi I encounter. I get pretty sells, but g*~&*$n, Worf wasn't pretty and the bastard is in more Star Trek series than any other character!
Give us our Fuglies, dammit!
|
Creative Director
|
Unrelated question
Where is located the equator in Golarion?I will start a Kingmaker campaign next fall (I hoped to start it earlier but the last sessions of the old campaign are a bit long) and I feel that Brevory climate should be similar to that of Poland and the Stolen Lands should have a climate similar to Ukraine.
What climatic conditions your group meet in the Iobarian campaign in which you are playing?
The equator is located a few hundred miles south of the southern edge of the Inner Sea region map.
Brevoy's climate being similar to Poland and the Ukraine is about right.
It's the middle of winter in our Iobaria game (well, the tail end of winter now); it's been snowy and cold. I've essentially had endure elements running the entire campaign.
|
Creative Director
|
A flavour question, as the rule debate is running and I don't think you wish to be brought into it.
Bardic performance:
If a bardic performance has audible components, the targets must be able to hear the bard for the performance to have any effect, and such performances are language dependent.On one hand I think most bardic performances need to be comprehended to work. A clear example is Henry V St. Crispin's Day Speech. If you don' speak English it will have no effect on you.
On the other hand we have the Scottish bagpipes. Thanks to a cultural and historical background they hearten friendly troops and demoralize the enemy (at least if the enemy is from a culture that has already meet the Scottish troops).
But if I am from a totally unrelated culture probably they will have little effect on me. A hideous sound and nothing more.How do you adjudicate that?
Audible components being language dependent is kinda silly. I just ignore it in games I run, but since all the PCs will be able to speak each other's language anyway (unless you're running one of those frustrating games where they don't), it's not really an issue.
|
Creative Director
|
Sir Jacobs, I was just reading over some Carrion Crown and was wondering....
In developing adventure paths which of these have proven to be larger restraints in regards to the amount of content you all can put in:
Deadlines/Schedules/Shipping Dates?
or,
Costs of printing/editing? (Including keeping the prices affordable for buyers)
Costs of printing and editing don't really figure into content at all, unless you count the physical size of the book as being part of this process. In that regard, the fact that we have a physical limit to the amount of words we can actually put into any one single book is the number one constraint we have to work with in order to determine how much content we put into a book.
Another huge factor is that we generally want one person to be able to do an entire development pass on a single adventure, and since it generally takes 2 to 3 weeks for a developer to develop a typical adventure path installment, THAT more or less sets the upper limit to how long an adventure path installment can physically be. If we made our adventure path adventures much longer, we'd not be able to keep them on a monthly schedule at all.
What are the odds of us ever seeing: a Druid wildshaped into a Tyrannosaur, riding an enlarged Tyranosaur Animal Companion, summoning additional Tyrannosaur cavalry as a boss fight at the end of an AP?
Because I feel a glorious charge of Tyrannosaur (Tyrannosaurus?) is a decent avenue to explore. You know. Creatively.
As you probably know, I'm a huge fan of dinosaurs. So the odds of such a tyrannosaur-themed druid are pretty high. in fact, we had a sort of tyrannosaur type cavalry in the Savage Tide adventure path—although they were bodak tyrannosauruses ridden by demons...
Dear Mr. Jacobs
I have questions for a FREE MOD (like Zombie Panic, Sven Coop, They Hunger, USS Darkstar, etc..) using the Pathfinder rules.
If one were to make a FREE MOD using the pathfinder rules, would one need a license agreement with Paizo, with royalties to be payed, or would we be allowed to use the rules for free?
Would one be allowed to freely use the campaign setting, or would one need to make one up?
The reason for asking is that it was brought up in Plans For Pathfinder Computer Game and would like to see if the first hurdle can be passed (the hurdle of IP rights) and then proceed to making it in steps.
Sadly true, and thanks for responding to, now that I look at it after my fifth cup of coffee, yet another "Why didn't you make a campaign world exactly like what I wanted." post. Apologies for that.
I should not be trawling the Interweb at 3 in the morning, geh!