Creative Director
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How do you, if at all, consider something "canon" to Golarion? Based on Lost Cities of Golarion, it seems Xin-Shalast follows RotRL continuity. Was that just so Xin-Shalast could be added and be given an appropriate timeframe for the book or is that where Golarion lies in the line of events?
Basically, has any AP or module made its way into Golarion officialy?
For the vast majority of our books, we assume that NO adventure's events are canon yet; this means that no matter when a person first discovers Golarion, he or she can run any adventure without fear that they'll already have been obsoleted by us. This means you can run Adventure Paths in any order, for example.
Now and then, though, we do toy with doing some things that assume adventures have occurred. The entry for Xin-Shalast in Lost Cities was the first significant example of us doing this. We did that because simply presenting Xin-Shalast as it was at the start of the final installment of Rise of the Runelords would have been a waste of space, really; it would have just parroted all the information we'd already given in that adventure. I suppose we could have just expanded upon Xin-Shalast to expand the city beyond what we did in that adventure, but that would mean that in order for anyone to use the Xin-Shalast material, they'd have to be familiar with a book that (at the time) was almost out of print. And since at the time we were building the book Xin-Shalast was THE big lost city of our world, leaving it out of the book would have looked like we messed up.
So we decided to do an experiment and run a part of that book with the assumption that Runelords had passed.
But for the most part, no AP or module has made its events into Golarion officially yet. THey're only canon to themselves... and in the case of the Xin-Shalast sixth of Lost Cities... to that sixth of that one book.
The upcoming AP "Shattered Star" will be our second significant experiment here... It's going to assume that the events of Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne have both taken place. It's not going to be a true sequel to either AP, but it'll take place in a Varisia that's seen the events of those APs play out.
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Creative Director
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Kelpie Questions:
1) Which Kelpie art do you like better, the kelp lady in Racing to Ruin or the strange undead-horse-minotaur in Bestiary 2?
2) Why is the Kelpie such a weak creature in the Bestiary?
Kelpies are always one of my favorite creatures, I was disappointed with the Bestiary version, sad they didn't put the Raging-To-Ruin artwork into the bestiary, its a much better (still too weak tho) version.
1) I prefer the seaweed lady version, but then I'm a traditionalist when it comes to most fantasy RPG monsters, and the first incarnation of a kelpie in D&D was a seaweed lady.
2) Because the actual power level of most monsters based on mythology can vary quite widely, the thing that ACTUALLY sets a monster's power level are the needs of the game. AKA: We needed the kelpie to fit that CR range for various reasons due to the spread of other similar monsters in the book taking up other power ranges. Fortunately... if you want a more powerful foe in the game, you can either advance their HD or give them class levels to buff them up... it's a LOT easier to make things more powerful in the game than to make them LESS powerful.
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Creative Director
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Do you read webcomics? If so, which ones are your favorites? If not, do you know of anyone who does?
/hoping to find mspa fans on the paizo team
I read a few... but generally not regularly. I usually binge read web comics. Dinosaur comics is one of my favorites (SHOCK!)
James Sutter's a big fan of web comics.
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Creative Director
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As long as I'm asking about old adventures, here are a couple more:
• What is/are your favorite adventure module(s) from original D&D, if you played any of the published modules for that game?
• What is/are your favorite adventure module(s) from the first edition of AD&D?
• Similar, but not quite the same question: if you had the rights to adapt and update any module or modules you wanted to from the aforementioned ancestors of Pathfinder to the PFRPG system and set them in Golarion, which ones, if any, would you choose?
These are not entirely idle questions, as I have copies of the majority of the modules TSR ever published for D&D and AD&D 1e, and I'm thinking about trying to convert some of them to run for the gaming group I'm putting together. Any suggestions you have for ones you think would fit especially well into PFRPG and Golarion would be welcome.
Favorite original D&D modules include: Keep on the Borderlands, Castle Amber, Isle of Dread, and The Lost City.
Favorite AD&D adventures from 1st edition: Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Queen of Spiders, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Lost Temple of Tharizdun, and Tomb of Horrors.
The adventure from Dungeon that detailed Baba Yaga's Hut. Plus all of the ones listed above.
I should have guessed The Isle of Dread, considering where much of The Savage Tide took place and who was the Editor-in-Chief of Dungeon and author of that AP's opening module. :-) I believe my friend Christophe has a copy of the French version of Chateau d'Ambreville, but that's one of the ones I never got my hands on. I'm rather fond of some of the later Expert-level modules, especially War Rafts of Kron and Skarda's Mirror, as well as the CM series (aside from the magic-user solo-adventure one and the elf-PCs-only one) -- some of those could be fun to adapt for high-level play. Where Chaos Reigns would probably take a party from levels 15 to 20 -- it might make a good followup for a group that's just finished something like Council of Thieves or Red Hand of Doom.
The first 3.5 campaign I ever played in featured a recurring villain named Raina, a gorgeous, charming (when you didn't know her yet), vicious, psychopathic, nihilistic fighter who carried multiple magic items that let her summon demons, as well as enough variously-enchanted daggers to make Merisiel jealous. When my mage did some divination to figure out who the heck she was after our first encounter, the DM informed us that she was "The Dagger of Tharizdun." The other three players, relatively new to D&D, all said, "Dagger of who?" just as I said, "Oh, $#|T!!!"
Here's wishing you and all the rest of Paizo a joyous celebration of any and all holidays you observe at this holiday-rich time of year, free of interference by any murderous mini-lop rabbits.
I have been searching these forums but can't seem to find the answer I am seeking so here goes:
I am running my group through the Kingmaker Adventure path, which my group is really enjoying, and I discovered a discrepancy that I can't seem to reconcile. using the Kingmaker kingdom building rules, each city block equates to 250 people.
In Kingmaker #4 "Blood for Blood" the Village of Tatzlford is described as a village but and adding up its city blocks would equate to 4000 people, which according to the Gamemastery Guide is a large town.
I know that population doesn't really matter from a game mechanics stand point, but this also affects my other cities/towns throughout the Stolen Lands in my campaign.
Another example is Varnhold, which while isn't given a stat block in Kingmaker #3, still turns into an instant small city once the PC's liberate and annex it (population wise).
Can you give me any advice on how to 'fix' these population issues?
Issues regarding population discrepancies and problems therein.
IANJ, however, this can be explained by the layout of the towns. The rules state a block is 250 people, but that probably assumes a more uniform civil planning. I.E. All the houses somewhat close together. Varnhold is pretty spread out, thus a smaller population in the same area.
It breaks down to a segregration of story and mechanics. Due to the fact that the rules state, "actual population numbers do not factor
into your kingdom’s statistics," I'd say you're safe to consider the same for cities. In essence, you are free to handwave to meet yours or the story's needs without ruining any of the gameplay.
Hey, that's funny! I have a minor Kingmaker-related question as well! Here it is:
Dear James Jacobs,
I'm GMing a game in my own campaign setting right now that is making use of the City Building / Kingdom Building rules. I have a play who, at the moment, is acting as the Magister for the kingdom.
Ever since the beginning of the campaign, this player has only been interested in one thing; making money. He rolled up an Alchemist, invested his money into expanding his formula book, took the feat that reduces your crafting cost for alchemical goods; the works. He's been talking about starting his own business in game, to which I've been cringing at trying to figure out how to successfully pull off (I've had to limit this guy on how much he sells potion-wise, because not only does he make sure to remind me that he's making potions to sell whenever we do time jumps, but he also tries to haggle with me when all I really want to do is move past the selling so we can get back to the adventures and stories at hand).
So, finally, we've come with a solution that seems promising; making a set of rules for running a business based on a modified version of the Kingdom Building rules. Now, I know that you don't really like looking at homebrewed stuff here on your thread, Mr. Jacobs, so I won't post what we've got here (maybe I'll put it someplace else when I feel like it's polished...). My question for you, is this.
Since I'm basically treating this business as a second 'kingdom,' how fair do you think it is that he (and his cohort) will have seats on the rest of the party's kingdom AND on his own, private business that is basically a kingdom in and of itself? I'm not digging the imagery that this guy and his cohort have two very demanding full-time jobs; especially considering that one of my players (who also has Leadership) has a cohort who currently doesn't have a spot in the Kingdom's leadership. Do you think that it's fair of me to say "Okay, we built these rules together. Now you have to decide which one of these two you have a direct, mechanical impact on."?
JJ's views on PCs and businesses are quite strong. If he wants to play Commoners and Coinpurses, he should retire his character as he is no longer an adventurer. Business leaders need to work full time, which conflicts heavily with adventuring.
Just make it a profession check.
JJ's views on PCs and businesses are quite strong. If he wants to play Commoners and Coinpurses, he should retire his character as he is no longer an adventurer. Business leaders need to work full time, which conflicts heavily with adventuring.
Just make it a profession check.
Then you could also make the argument that any PC who wants to rule a kingdom should retire, as he wouldn't be an adventurer anymore either. Seeing as James wrote the article on Kingdom Building, I'm interested in what he has to say.
Also, your point of "completely abandon your PC's idea of running a business" isn't particularly helpful considering I've already written the rules for it and intend on letting my PC run his business. If you can rule a nation with 1 week's worth of work per month, then you can run a successful business with the same amount of time too as far as I'm concerned.
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Merry Christmas James.
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Creative Director
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I have been searching these forums but can't seem to find the answer I am seeking so here goes:
I am running my group through the Kingmaker Adventure path, which my group is really enjoying, and I discovered a discrepancy that I can't seem to reconcile. using the Kingmaker kingdom building rules, each city block equates to 250 people.
In Kingmaker #4 "Blood for Blood" the Village of Tatzlford is described as a village but and adding up its city blocks would equate to 4000 people, which according to the Gamemastery Guide is a large town.
I know that population doesn't really matter from a game mechanics stand point, but this also affects my other cities/towns throughout the Stolen Lands in my campaign.
Another example is Varnhold, which while isn't given a stat block in Kingmaker #3, still turns into an instant small city once the PC's liberate and annex it (population wise).
Can you give me any advice on how to 'fix' these population issues?
How you "fix" the population problems is you pick which one you want and go with it, frankly.
Varnhold, Tatzlford, and most of the other cities in the actual adventures were NOT built using the city-building rules presented in Pathfinder #32, and as a result, there are the discrepancies you note. This is mostly on purpose since while at the time we HOPED folks would like the kingdom and city building rules, we had no idea they'd end up as popular as they have been. When we were building Kingmaker, we decided to sort of "quarantine" the city rules in their section; we included some bits of advice here and there on how to "translate" other cities like Tatzlford into that system, but mostly rely on the fact that the "one city block = 250 people" is really only meant to be a rough generalization.
As you note, population doesn't affect ANY game rules. Pick the numbers that make the most sense for you and your game and those are the right numbers.
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Creative Director
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Eric was so near, and yet missed us last year.... I can only tremble to imagine what you and Pett in a room together could accomplish!
What would it take to get you to PaizoCon UK?
An awful lot. I'm not a big fan of conventions at all. Don't like crowds, and I don't like the fact that they disrupt work schedules... We do an awful lot of monthly products, and taking a week or more off to do things that aren't directly involved in putting games together tends to stress me out an awful lot.
So... figuring a way out that I don't have to be so involved in the day-to-day work of building Pathfinder stuff and figuring a way out to cure my phobia/dislike of crowds/conventions would be a start.
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Creative Director
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Hey, that's funny! I have a minor Kingmaker-related question as well! Here it is:
Dear James Jacobs,
I'm GMing a game in my own campaign setting right now that is making use of the City Building / Kingdom Building rules. I have a play who, at the moment, is acting as the Magister for the kingdom.
Ever since the beginning of the campaign, this player has only been interested in one thing; making money. He rolled up an Alchemist, invested his money into expanding his formula book, took the feat that reduces your crafting cost for alchemical goods; the works. He's been talking about starting his own business in game, to which I've been cringing at trying to figure out how to successfully pull off (I've had to limit this guy on how much he sells potion-wise, because not only does he make sure to remind me that he's making potions to sell whenever we do time jumps, but he also tries to haggle with me when all I really want to do is move past the selling so we can get back to the adventures and stories at hand).
So, finally, we've come with a solution that seems promising; making a set of rules for running a business based on a modified version of the Kingdom Building rules. Now, I know that you don't really like looking at homebrewed stuff here on your thread, Mr. Jacobs, so I won't post what we've got here (maybe I'll put it someplace else when I feel like it's polished...). My question for you, is this.
Since I'm basically treating this business as a second 'kingdom,' how fair do you think it is that he (and his cohort) will have seats on the rest of the party's kingdom AND on his own, private business that is basically a kingdom in and of itself? I'm not digging the imagery that this guy and his cohort have two very demanding full-time jobs; especially considering that one of my players (who also has Leadership) has a cohort who currently doesn't have a spot in the Kingdom's leadership. Do you think that it's fair of me to say "Okay, we built these rules together. Now you have to decide which one of these two you have a direct, mechanical impact on."?
I do indeed think it's fair for you to say that. Once a player takes the Leadership feat, he needs to be mature about it and realize that he's doing something that makes game play more complex—and as such, he needs to be willing to work with the GM to make sure that cohorts and followers don't cause too much disruption to the game. ESPECIALLY in cases where cohort and follower management starts taking game play time away from other players.
Also, it might feel "artificial," but I also think it's okay to have the kingdom/business running elements play separately from the adventuring part of the game.
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JJ's views on PCs and businesses are quite strong. If he wants to play Commoners and Coinpurses, he should retire his character as he is no longer an adventurer. Business leaders need to work full time, which conflicts heavily with adventuring.
Just make it a profession check.
You could certainly just make it a Profession check...
But you're kind of putting words into my mouth. If I had a player that wanted to run a business (and I have had such players before) I prefer to find ways to incorporate that into the game somehow. Business leaders DO need to work at their business, but that's stuff you can do while the party wizard is crafting magic items or whatever. In the case of something like Kingmaker, where there's expected to be downtime while the players do things that aren't adventuring, having business stuff going on as well is interesting.
Back to Golden-Esque, you might want to track down a copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide II for 3.5 D&D. I wrote the section on how PCs or NPCs run businesses in that book, and so I like to think there's perhaps some good ideas floating around in there somewhere...
Merry Christmas, James (well, Christmas Eve, at least where I'm sitting).
In any case, I did have a question. Do you have a general idea of what classes the once-mortal (Aroden, Norgorber, Iomedae, Cayden Cailean, Irori, and Nethys) deities had held before ascending to godhood? If so, what are they? I understand that, as they are gods now, the answer to this questions has no bearing whatsoever on the current setting of the game, but I hope you will humor me.
I figure that levels really aren't an issue, since they'd all be at or close to mythic-level if they were able to either pass the test of the Starstone or find other means to ascend. I've got a few ideas myself and I was wondering if they seemed at all right to you.
Nethys: This guy have been a wizard seems like a no-brainer, though I was also wondering, since he encourages mastery of ALL magic, if he might have been a Mystic Theurge? Maybe a Wizard/Druid?
Irori: A monk seems likely.
Iomedae: Paladin, probably?
Norgorber: Rogue would seem the primary candidate, but I was also wondering if he may have been skilled in alchemy?
Cayden Cailean: This guy gives me a little more trouble. Would he have been a rogue? A fighter? A duelist?
Aroden: I. Have. No. Idea. This is the one I was REALLY hoping you could answer for me. Before he became a god, what did Aroden do. Yes, I know he was very talented, but it seems that even Aroden would have had to be bound by the rules of the world as a mortal. I often get the impression that he was an accomplished spellcaster, but the his favored weapon was the longsword (he's shown with one on the back of Inner Sea Magic, I think), and he was known to have used a shield. Was he an eldritch knight, a magus? A cleric of some long-forgotten Azlanti god?
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Favorite original D&D modules include: Keep on the Borderlands, Castle Amber, Isle of Dread, and The Lost City.
Favorite AD&D adventures from 1st edition: Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Queen of Spiders, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Lost Temple of Tharizdun, and Tomb of Horrors.
The adventure from Dungeon that detailed Baba Yaga's Hut. Plus all of the ones listed above.
Surely that exceptional list would have to include 'The Temple of Elemental Evil,' I could have sworn you've listed that proto-super module as one of your favorites.
Will we see a James Jacobs penned 'Baba Yaga adventure' before or after we see the Pathfinder Mythic rule book?
Just wishing you a Merry Christmas - only 4 hours to go where I'm at! :D
Oh, question :
So what gift are you hoping to receive (or will more than likely get) tomorrow for Christmas?
Happy Holidays!
-- C.
Merry Christmas.
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Favorite original D&D modules include: Keep on the Borderlands, Castle Amber, Isle of Dread, and The Lost City.
Favorite AD&D adventures from 1st edition: Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Queen of Spiders, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Lost Temple of Tharizdun, and Tomb of Horrors.
The adventure from Dungeon that detailed Baba Yaga's Hut. Plus all of the ones listed above.
Surely that exceptional list would have to include 'The Temple of Elemental Evil,' I could have sworn you've listed that proto-super module as one of your favorites.
Will we see a James Jacobs penned 'Baba Yaga adventure' before or after we see the Pathfinder Mythic rule book?
Can I suggest to add: Ravager of Time? It was a great module. All of the material from the TSR UK team of the time was high quality.
And Happy Holidays to you and all the Paizo team, James.
And a "god jul" from Sweden.
Merry merry christmas for everybody! :)
Questions about the Charybdis.
1A) Did you come up with that awesome design for them in the Bestiary 2? As its really the best design for the charybdis (as a non unique-creature) that i've ever seen!
1B) If you did come up with this model for the charybdis, what inspired you to create it that way?
2) Are there plans for giving Charybdis a place in a future edition of Adventure Path? Can't wait for it to have another cool art picture of charybdis in action against another creature or humans, and a story resolving around the charybdis as I really enjoy the Adventure paths!
Thanks for answering!
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Creative Director
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In any case, I did have a question. Do you have a general idea of what classes the once-mortal (Aroden, Norgorber, Iomedae, Cayden Cailean, Irori, and Nethys) deities had held before ascending to godhood? If so, what are they? I understand that, as they are gods now, the answer to this questions has no bearing whatsoever on the current setting of the game, but I hope you will humor me.
I absolutely do have a pretty solid idea of what classes ascended deities were before they became deities. Since ALL of them were above 20th level before they became deities, though, and since we don't currently know how the rules work beyond 20th level really, I can't pin down their exact level and class mix. But I can absolutely list their primary classes up until they hit 20th level.
Nethys: Wizard.
Irori: Monk
Iomedae: Paladin
Norgorber: Rogue
Cayden Cailean: Fighter
Aroden: Wizard. One who used a longsword and a shield. He wasn't an eldritch knight OR a magus. He was a badass wizard who, after 20th level, started doing SOMETHING that made his shield and longsword style work (a style that, I should note, isn't a good fighting style at ALL for a magus).
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Creative Director
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Surely that exceptional list would have to include 'The Temple of Elemental Evil,' I could have sworn you've listed that proto-super module as one of your favorites.
Will we see a James Jacobs penned 'Baba Yaga adventure' before or after we see the Pathfinder Mythic rule book?
Actually, that list would NOT include "The Temple of Elemental Evil." It might include Hommlett and the moathouse, but I'm actually not a big fan of "Temple of Elemental Evil." I do appreciate it as the first supermodule, for sure, and it's absolutely a blast to READ it... but every time I've run the adventure, it bogged down at about the 2nd level of the temple itself. It's just TOO much of a good thing, I guess. The 3rd edition re-visitation by Monte Cook actually has a bit of the same problem too. They're fun... but they're not what I would put on my top of all time list.
As for the Chaosium adventures... Things like "Masks of Nyarlathotep" and "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" are absolutely some of the best adventures ever written... but they're not D&D adventures so that's why I didn't mention them, and as CoC adventures, they don't translate well at all to a game like D&D or Pathfinder that's so focused on level-based character increasing game elements.
As for a James Jacobs Baba Yaga adventure... ask me again in a dozen months or so...
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Creative Director
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Just wishing you a Merry Christmas - only 4 hours to go where I'm at! :D
Oh, question :
So what gift are you hoping to receive (or will more than likely get) tomorrow for Christmas?Happy Holidays!
-- C.
Among my most-hoped for Christmas gifts would include a fancy new coffee maker, a Logitech universal remote, an iPad, some replica dinosaur fossils (or hey... REAL fossils), and some nice comfy slippers. I've asked for a theramin for several years but never got one, and now that I've got one on my iPhone I don't really need a real one really... :-P
And happy holidays back to ya!
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Creative Director
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Can I suggest to add: Ravager of Time? It was a great module. All of the material from the TSR UK team of the time was high quality.
And Happy Holidays to you and all the Paizo team, James.
Ravager of Time always looked like it'd be fun to run. It absolutely has BEAUTIFUL maps, and that in and of itself is almost enough to make me add it (and most of the UK team's modules) the best list, frankly. I love the style of those maps.
That said, though... I've never run Ravager of Time, and I fear that it's central concept would be one that might not work well in the actual game. It's one that might read well, but I'm not so sure it would play well.
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Creative Director
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Questions about the Charybdis.
1A) Did you come up with that awesome design for them in the Bestiary 2? As its really the best design for the charybdis (as a non unique-creature) that i've ever seen!
1B) If you did come up with this model for the charybdis, what inspired you to create it that way?
2) Are there plans for giving Charybdis a place in a future edition of Adventure Path? Can't wait for it to have another cool art picture of charybdis in action against another creature or humans, and a story resolving around the charybdis as I really enjoy the Adventure paths!
Thanks for answering!
I forget who actually designed the rules for the monster, but I did some SIGNIFICANT work on developing and re-designing the monster's rules and flavor to match the mythology and the art we got. As for the artistic design of the monster's look... that was the artist working off of our art order, which was (if I recall correctly) something like "Paint a big sea monster isopod-type bug creature that might live at the bottom of a whirlpool." It came out quite well... glad you like it!
As for whether or not it (or its buddy Scylla) are gonna show up in an upcoming Adventure Path... I'd say there's a REALLY good chance of that. Considering, if only, the fact that we've got the Skull & Shackles AP coming up next...
As for a James Jacobs Baba Yaga adventure... ask me again in a dozen months or so...
Merry Christmas! So you are writing part 6 then of the Irrisen AP;)
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Can I suggest to add: Ravager of Time? It was a great module. All of the material from the TSR UK team of the time was high quality.
And Happy Holidays to you and all the Paizo team, James.
Ravager of Time always looked like it'd be fun to run. It absolutely has BEAUTIFUL maps, and that in and of itself is almost enough to make me add it (and most of the UK team's modules) the best list, frankly. I love the style of those maps.
That said, though... I've never run Ravager of Time, and I fear that it's central concept would be one that might not work well in the actual game. It's one that might read well, but I'm not so sure it would play well.
I played it and it was fun, even if my character did met a bad end in it.
Partially it was the company, obviously.Having the latecomer thief-acrobat spend the whole last fight saying "Your powers can't done anything to me" and he making every save, every % percentage avoidance roll, saving even against no save spells thanks to his scarab of protection even with something like a +3 total to saves was a blast (the player was away at the start of the module, so his character was unaffected by the initial use of Nuala powers).
He even grabbed Nuala familiar and killed him putting it in the baptismal font of the temple (he was a imp and so susceptible to holy water).
At the end of the fight he was one of the two PC still operative and when her revenant husband shove up and a cornered Nuala has to choose in which direction she had to flee, she did run toward the revenant in fear of the character.
It was more than twenty years ago and they are still fond memories. :)
Happy Solstice-Themed Holiday, James Jacobs. (Christmas, Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Santa Claus's birthday, etc)
Are planar allies restricted to the same alignment as their deities? Or can they be one step away?
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Creative Director
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Happy Solstice-Themed Holiday, James Jacobs. (Christmas, Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Santa Claus's birthday, etc)
Are planar allies restricted to the same alignment as their deities? Or can they be one step away?
As a general rule, actual minions of deities are indeed the same alignment of the deity they serve. Not always though; there's room for variations.
Not what I said at all, of course.
As for a James Jacobs Baba Yaga adventure... ask me again in a dozen months or so...Merry Christmas! So you are writing part 6 then of the Irrisen AP;)
Well what fun would be not trying to decipher your hints, with wild guesses?;)
Merry christmas James
1)Top 5 favorite creatures from Bestiary 3?
2)Top 5 art from the Bestiary 3?
3)Favorite area/region of Tian Xia?
4)Favorite type of Oni
5)Favorite type of Azura
6)Favorite to least favorite of the five new races in the Dragon Empire Gazetteer?
7)Favorite playable race from the Bestiary 3?
James, those paladin codes in the Faiths of Purity/Balance/Corruption are amazing, and even though I know they're skewed towards LG or CE, I've been using them as guidelines for other followers of the deities. Is there a chance we'll ever see similar tenants for CG, LE, and N gods (and also Irori)?
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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The Halfling sling staff allows you to attack with the sling or use it as a club. How would a Halfling Sling Staff be enchanted? Does it get treated as a double weapon for adding enhancements – sling portion and then club portion? Would it be treated similarly to a spear and share one set of magical enhancements for multiple combat functions?
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Good day, James. May these letters find you in good health and happy spirits, in this, the merriest of seasons.
I'm asking your advice on a PC, to help link it to Golarion lore. I'm inclined to make an Aasimar sorcerer with a gold dragon bloodline, aiming for Dragon Disciple. So, I suppose the first question is whether an Aasimar sorcerer needs to take the Celestial bloodline. The second, more interesting question, is where might a gold dragon bloodline come from.
There's one obvious gold dragon currently active in the campaign: Mengkare. Does it seem plausible to you that a sorcerer might trace a bloodline to the lord of Hermea?
Or would it be more reasonable to have an ancestor in Nidal or somewhere else? (I can also imagine Aostralya mixing in with humans after the Convocation of Dragons went nowhere.)
Thanks for allowing me to pick your brain.
Good/neutral aligned ghosts running on Positive Energy instead of Negative?
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Creative Director
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Merry christmas James
1)Top 5 favorite creatures from Bestiary 3?
2)Top 5 art from the Bestiary 3?
3)Favorite area/region of Tian Xia?
4)Favorite type of Oni
5)Favorite type of Azura
6)Favorite to least favorite of the five new races in the Dragon Empire Gazetteer?
7)Favorite playable race from the Bestiary 3?
Thanks! Happy holidays to you as well!
1) Probably the jorogumo, giratablilu, moonbeast, titzimitil, and globster (all spelling is from memory, and I know I got some of them tragically wrong...).
2) Going 100% from memory, the ones I remember the most fondly are probably the giratablilu, the globster, the yithian, the tor linnorm, and the catfolk.
3) Dunno at this point, honestly. I still like them all quite a lot. Although it's cool to see Goka and Valashmai officially make the transposition from my homebrew world into print!
4) Yamabushi! (I'm biased a bit there, though, since I did the primary design for them...)
5) Dunno off the top of my head.
6) Vishkianya (or however that one's spelled), Catfolk, Ratfolk, Vanara, Suli.
7) Tengu, although the Samsarans come in close at 2nd place.
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Creative Director
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James, those paladin codes in the Faiths of Purity/Balance/Corruption are amazing, and even though I know they're skewed towards LG or CE, I've been using them as guidelines for other followers of the deities. Is there a chance we'll ever see similar tenants for CG, LE, and N gods (and also Irori)?
Those codes are more than just "skewed toward LG or CE" though... they're skewed toward a very specific TYPE of LG or CE. Note that there's several of them listed, and they're all of the same alignment, so it's not the alignment that makes them each unique. It's not even the deity that really makes them unique. It's how they function specifically as paladin codes.
If we were to do more of these types of codes, they'd have to be for specific organizations for deities—paladin orders being one such specific organization. We might do more of them for other groups some day... we'll ABSOLUTELY do one for Irori some day... but none are planned for publication anytime soon.
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Creative Director
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The Halfling sling staff allows you to attack with the sling or use it as a club. How would a Halfling Sling Staff be enchanted? Does it get treated as a double weapon for adding enhancements – sling portion and then club portion? Would it be treated similarly to a spear and share one set of magical enhancements for multiple combat functions?
The "club" aspect of a sling staff would have to be enhanced separately from magic, I suspect. It's primary use is as a ranged weapon, after all.
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Creative Director
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What alignments are aloud to torture enimes for their reasons, why.
Torture, in my opinion, is evil. If you torture someone, you're committing an evil act. Whether or not one act of torture is enough to change your alignment toward or to evil depends on a lot, though; on how heinous the torture is, on how often you do it, on the GM's interpretation of what is torture, and so on.
In any case, alignment itself doesn't allow or prevent anything. Alingment is a result of actions, not the cause of actions.
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Creative Director
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Good day, James. May these letters find you in good health and happy spirits, in this, the merriest of seasons.
I'm asking your advice on a PC, to help link it to Golarion lore. I'm inclined to make an Aasimar sorcerer with a gold dragon bloodline, aiming for Dragon Disciple. So, I suppose the first question is whether an Aasimar sorcerer needs to take the Celestial bloodline. The second, more interesting question, is where might a gold dragon bloodline come from.
There's one obvious gold dragon currently active in the campaign: Mengkare. Does it seem plausible to you that a sorcerer might trace a bloodline to the lord of Hermea?
Or would it be more reasonable to have an ancestor in Nidal or somewhere else? (I can also imagine Aostralya mixing in with humans after the Convocation of Dragons went nowhere.)
Thanks for allowing me to pick your brain.
An aasimar sorcerer can take any bloodline she wants. Celestial might make the most sense thematically... but she could take ANY other one, including undead or infernal or abyssal if she wanted. Draconic is certainly a fine choice.
A gold dragon bloodline makes the most sense from Hermea... but there are plenty of other gold dragons out there, both in canon and not yet in canon. If you want to be able to trace your bloodline to Mengkare... get your permission from the GM first! It might be more fun, in fact, to just tell the GM "My character has gold dragon blood" and let the GM build a storyline for you to uncover as the campaign progresses as regards your bloodline.