No. I am not a man. Having a male body does not make me male.
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.So, a female mind/soul in a male body? I feel like this sometimes
/ derailing topic
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@JJ: I have a "good" race/class idea; the "Mary Sue"... Would you slap anyone who seriously proposed that?
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No word on the comic other than whats in the press release? Curious for news on the creative team chosen for the book.
Also will it be original material or a narrative of an adventure paths......Rise of the Runelords would be pretty awesome!
Correct; no news yet.
I'm relatively certain it will be original stories—we're not big fans of crossing the streams, as it were, between adventures and fiction.
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Yes. I prefer games where your character can win or at least get a draw, but I have got the impression that you share that opinion, so I doubt that in your setting the characters will die/go irremediably mad/get changed into unspeakable horrors without a chance to avoid their fate like in more "traditional" Lovercraftians settings.
Probably I would not be a good GM in that setting as I don't have the right background, but I would still be interested as a player.
So, a question ....
How do you manage to keep a good balance in that setting between the "overwhelming forces from beyond" and player fun?
(note that I am not calling them "evil forces from beyond". From what I have read of Lovercaft a lot of is creations are totally alien to the human mind, so calling them evil or good is wrong.)
I do prefer to run games where the PCs are 20 point buy characters who end up with a LOT more treasure than the Core Rulebook predicts and who also end up earning additional boons and benefits from things like Harrow Deck readings or NPC alliances AND I use plot twist cards as a sort of hero point system. The deck is VERY heavily stacked in the favor of PCs in games I run, because I enjoy the story that a group of PCs build throughout a campaign a lot more than I enjoy PCs dying and suddenly forcing players to make new characters that could drastically change party dynamic and overall campaign flavor.
Furthermore, there's a pervasive interpretation on the internet that if something has Lovecraftian flavor, that flavor is "humans always lose, and the best they can hope for is to go insane before they die." Even in Lovecraft's stories that's not the case. In fact, in many of his stories, humanity DOES triumph—not completely and forever, but certainly in the context of the story itself. Some day I might just sit down and tally up what stories have bad endings for his characters and what ones have good endings. In any event, there's much more to Lovecraft's writing thematically than "you can't win so why try?"
I DO enjoy games where the players have a lot of bad guys to face off against—AKA, where the player characters have numerous chances to become heroes. And I do love using larger-than-life, particularly dangerous or vile NPC villains, because the bigger and badder the villain, the more heroic the hero is when he defeats that villain.
Even in Call of Cthulhu games I've played in or run the players usually succeed in their goals. Maybe not all of them succeed, but in a CoC game, if only one PC survives out of a group of 5 or so and the danger has been thwarted—that's a win for our team. Some of the player characters died, sure, but their death was not in vain. Even if an ENTIRE investigatory team bites it in CoC, that doesn't mean humanity loses—martyrdoms and heroic sacrifices are a longstanding tradition in storytelling.
Now, as to your question... How I manage to keep a good balance in a setting between "overwhelming forces from beyond" and player fun is that gameplay in "Unspeakable Futures" is more or less the same as in Golarion. In Golarion, there are overwhelmingly powerful bad guys—demon lords, evil gods, Tar-Bahpon, Baba Yaga, Runelords, etc... but even though those elements exist, and even though they CONTINUE to exist after any of our adventures conclude, I wouldn't say that in Golarion that the bad guys always win. Same goes for Unspeakable Futrers, only the roles of demon lords, evil gods, Tar-Baphon, and the rest are instead played by Great Old Ones, insane Artificial Intelligences, deathless powerful cultists, and frightening monsters of all sorts biological, tehcnological, and other-logical. Player characters in Unspeakable futures still pick races, classes, abilities, and the like as they do in Pathfinder, and gain levels the same way, growing more powerful as they go. The gunslinger class is adapted from one such class for a sort of window into what characters in Unspeakable Futures are like.
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Can you place these in the order from your favorite creature from the lists to worst creature on the lists.
Okay:
Linnorms/Chromatic Dragons/Metallic Dragons
Marilith/Glabrezu/Babau/Shadow Demon
Erinyes/Osyluth/Gelugon/Hamatula
Leukodaemon/Derghodaemon/Hydrodaemon/Meladaemon
Leng Spider/Drider/Bebilith/Corpsespinner
Black Scorpion/Skull Ripper/Crysmal/Scorpionfolk (note that if you replace "scorpionfolk" with Bestiary 3's girtablilus, the girtablilu goes to the front of the list)
Purple Worm/Remorhaz/Frost Worm/Stegocentipede
Glyptodon/Smilodon/Megatherium/Megaloceros
Marid/Efreet/Shaitan/Black Jinn/Djinn
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing/Trapper/Disenchanter/Adherer
Vouivre/Bog Stider/Skirk Nettle/Ukobach
Ahuizotl/Kelpie/Nuckelavee
Derro/Redcap/Quickling/Spriggan
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I'd argue that the elk in Bestiary 2 is not big enough for a moose, but that's just me - even if I do live in a part of the world where having a moose show up on the streets of a moderately large town/small city is not a big news-item.
I would agree, which is what the Giant simple template is for. (I actually prefer instead to manually increase monster sizes, though, rather than using the Giant simple template, which I prefer only to use in game play when something changes size when I don't expect it.)
I know I asked about Battletech upthread, but I forget if I asked this followup: what is your favorite battlemech and why?
Apologies if you already answered.
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I know that the Lamia-kin are going to be in the Runelords hardcover but for those people who will not get that product. Will they ever be in a hardcover bestairy? and are there more types of Lamia that have not been stated up yet?
We have no plans to reprint the lamia-kin like the hungrer and the kuchrima in a hardcover Bestiary at this time. Those who want those stats will need to purchase the Rise of the Runelords hardcover. (Or, since those stats will be OGL, they can wait to grab them from a fan site, I guess.)
There are not yet more types of lamia waiting to be statted up.
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Ever plan on doing more with BastardHall? You know, it would make for a wonderful high level module...just saying.
There are numerous areas in Golarion that are "pet adventure sites" of people who work here.
Bastardhall is one of Wes Schneider's pet adventure sites. He regularly runs adventures set there during PaizoCon. He may or may not decide to publish those adventures or otherwise expand upon Bastardhall in an AP or Module some day... but he's the one who gets to make that decision.
Will Paizo ever release a Pathfinder psionics system?
To be completely honest, I hope the answer is no. I love psionics, and I bought Dreamscarred Press's 3PP Pathfinder psionics system Psionics Unleashed, and will buy Psionics Expanded and Psionic Bestiary when they come out. The Dreamscarred psionic system is excellent, and I don't want to have to choose between it and a Paizo system.
Why was Paizo so against releasing a psionic system, anyway?
Also, I'm not convinced that a moose needs a larger size category than an elk. I think it just needs more hit dice and higher ability scores.
Marauder, because it looks so sleek and kinda like a dinosaur a little bit.I know I asked about Battletech upthread, but I forget if I asked this followup: what is your favorite battlemech and why?
Apologies if you already answered.
Not a question, but: Woo! That's my favorite too! And, as cheesy as Macross was, the original design mecha belonged to the coolest character in that series.
I'm considering getting something very close to this image as an upper arm tattoo. What is your level of approval?
Do ley lines exist in Golarion? At least, does belief in ley lines exist in Golation?
will there be any dinosaur minis
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Will Paizo ever release a Pathfinder psionics system?
To be completely honest, I hope the answer is no. I love psionics, and I bought Dreamscarred Press's 3PP Pathfinder psionics system Psionics Unleashed, and will buy Psionics Expanded and Psionic Bestiary when they come out. The Dreamscarred psionic system is excellent, and I don't want to have to choose between it and a Paizo system.
Why was Paizo so against releasing a psionic system, anyway?
Also, I'm not convinced that a moose needs a larger size category than an elk. I think it just needs more hit dice and higher ability scores.
Delving into psionics is no a very high priority for us. Because we don't like how 3.5 psionics work, we'd make SIGNIFICANT changes to it. (We'd change the name too; we'd call it something like psychc magic or the like.) Current fans of the 3.5 psionic rules would have a good chance of not liking that decision, and players who aren't interested in psionics are pretty unlikely to be interested in "psychic magic" or "mind magic" as well. So, it'd be a book that doesn't have an obvious audience, and perhaps a book that essentially has NO audience. So it's not a very smart choice of topic for us to build an entire subset of rules for, honestly.
As for why Paizo isn't gung-ho excited about psionics, there's plenty of reasons that folks would give. For me... I actually really love the flavor of psionics—I love the idea of magic you manipulate with your mind. I love stories like Firestarter and Carrie and the Necroscope saga. I'm very intrigued by real-life mysteries of things like ESP and mind over matter. But I do NOT like the psionic point system for the rules, nor am I a fan of how 3rd edition psionics made up their psionics rather than building off of established ideas. Class names like "soulknife" or "wilder" or even "psychic warrior" are meaningless. Especially when you COULD have used class names like "mesmerist" or "telekinetic" or "telepath" or "swamii" or the like.
Furthermore... when you look at literature, the type of magic presented by psionics does not normally appear in fantasy stories. It appears more often in horror or science fiction stories. As a result, psionics just always kind of feel out of place in a setting like Golarion. Of course... so do elements like the super-sciense of Numeria. If we ever develop Numeria more, we might do something there with "psychic magic" but it would probably not be much more than a sorcerer archetype.
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I'm considering getting something very close to this image as an upper arm tattoo. What is your level of approval?
With a 1 being complete disapproval and a 10 being "that's such a good Idea I'm gonna do it too!" I'd probably rate my approval at about a 3.
Because tattoos are permanent additions to your body, and the more "recent" a tattoo design is (and thus, the less time the tattoo subject has existed), the less I think adding it to a permanent part of your body is a good idea.
Put another way... if a piece of art or style of art has existed for 100 years (or more) and has remained popular for that amount of time, chances are good it'll still be popular 1 month, 1 year, or 10 years in the future, and a tattoo based on that art or art style will still look cool.
Something that's only been around for a few years or even just a few decades? Who knows if that art style is gonna be "cool" in another 10 years?
Also... robots and mechs aren't "organic" enough in my opinion to be good tattoo subjects.
Speaking of horror / literature...
When designing the alchemist, what sources did you draw inspiration from? Other than Jekyl / Hyde, of course.
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What are your thoughts on the Storoper variant monster from AD&D? I remember at the time it was pretty nasty if you ever encountered one, but don't recall seeing it make an appearance anytime since then.
Silly name, but it does tug at my nostalgia strings a bit.
It hasn't made many appearances since then because it never made it into any sort of open content product that I know of. As a result, it's more or less "locked in the vault" of Wizards of the Coast monster intellectual property.
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Do ley lines exist in Golarion? At least, does belief in ley lines exist in Golation?
We've not done really anything at all with ley lines in any of our products, and doing so now would feel like they were tacked on to a certain extent. So, at this point, my opinion is that no, ley lines don't exist on Golarion, nor are there ley line beliefs.
That could change though.
Will Paizo ever release a Pathfinder psionics system?
To be completely honest, I hope the answer is no. I love psionics, and I bought Dreamscarred Press's 3PP Pathfinder psionics system Psionics Unleashed, and will buy Psionics Expanded and Psionic Bestiary when they come out. The Dreamscarred psionic system is excellent, and I don't want to have to choose between it and a Paizo system.
Why was Paizo so against releasing a psionic system, anyway?
Also, I'm not convinced that a moose needs a larger size category than an elk. I think it just needs more hit dice and higher ability scores.
Delving into psionics is no a very high priority for us. Because we don't like how 3.5 psionics work, we'd make SIGNIFICANT changes to it. (We'd change the name too; we'd call it something like psychc magic or the like.) Current fans of the 3.5 psionic rules would have a good chance of not liking that decision, and players who aren't interested in psionics are pretty unlikely to be interested in "psychic magic" or "mind magic" as well. So, it'd be a book that doesn't have an obvious audience, and perhaps a book that essentially has NO audience. So it's not a very smart choice of topic for us to build an entire subset of rules for, honestly.
As for why Paizo isn't gung-ho excited about psionics, there's plenty of reasons that folks would give. For me... I actually really love the flavor of psionics—I love the idea of magic you manipulate with your mind. I love stories like Firestarter and Carrie and the Necroscope saga. I'm very intrigued by real-life mysteries of things like ESP and mind over matter. But I do NOT like the psionic point system for the rules, nor am I a fan of how 3rd edition psionics made up their psionics rather than building off of established ideas. Class names like "soulknife" or "wilder" or even "psychic warrior" are meaningless. Especially when you COULD have used class names like "mesmerist" or "telekinetic" or "telepath" or "swamii" or the like.
...
That actually makes me happy, because it means I won't have to choose between Paizo psionics and Dreamscarred's Pathfinder psionic system. Dreamscarred is specifically designed for Pathfinder, and it's excellently balanced. It's one of the best 3PP products out there.
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Speaking of horror / literature...
When designing the alchemist, what sources did you draw inspiration from? Other than Jekyl / Hyde, of course.
The primary source of inspiration was actually a video game: "The Witcher."
Jekyl & Hyde was also an inspiration, but so was historical alchemy stuff.
Really? I think I'll have to check that out.
It's after 2pm...
How many entries into RPGSuperstar were there this year? If you can't say/don't know, didya break a thousand this year?
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Furthermore... when you look at literature, the type of magic presented by psionics does not normally appear in fantasy stories. It appears more often in horror or science fiction stories.
James, have you read Julian May's Saga of the Exiles (Saga of Pliocene Exile in the US, I believe), and do you have an opinion on her treatment of psionic powers.
Personally, I now have great difficulty thinking of psionic powers in any other terms.
Follow-on question: Given that Paizo is unlikely to do a psionic book in the near future, do you think that there are any key psionic tropes that are currently unable to be replicated by either arcane or divine magic (i.e. could you currently build a 'psion' by deft selection of spells).
Also, I'm not convinced that a moose needs a larger size category than an elk. I think it just needs more hit dice and higher ability scores.
You realize that the elk in the bestiary is only medium sized? My original thought when I read the question above was "No way a moose is huge, large is just fine." But when I double checked elk, it's only a medium creature. That's a fairly large medium. A moose which has a 6 foot antler span, 7 to 9' in length, and weighs over 1,000 pounds is easily a large creature.
Also, I'm not convinced that a moose needs a larger size category than an elk. I think it just needs more hit dice and higher ability scores.You realize that the elk in the bestiary is only medium sized? My original thought when I read the question above was "No way a moose is huge, large is just fine." But when I double checked elk, it's only a medium creature. That's a fairly large medium. A moose which has a 6 foot antler span, 7 to 9' in length, and weighs over 1,000 pounds is easily a large creature.
Really? I thought the elk was large. Giant template it is. A moose needs to be large.
There are moose in New England, right? The RP I'm starting is in a fantasy analogue of New England.
Wikipedia says yes, but then again, it's Wikipedia.
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It's after 2pm...
How many entries into RPGSuperstar were there this year? If you can't say/don't know, didya break a thousand this year?
I dunno.
RPG Superstar is like a black hole. If you get too close, it sucks you in and you don't escape for a long, long time. Since I've got a lot of other responsibilities to handle, I've been avoiding almost all contact with RPG Superstar, leaving it to our awesome judges to deal with. I don't plan on becoming involved until the final round, where I'll step in fresh without any preconceived notions about the finalists and at which point I'll provide super-detailed and nit-picky feedback on their adventure proposals.
AKA: I'm not sure how many entries we got. Nor am I actually sure if we ever say how many entries we get.
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James, have you read Julian May's Saga of the Exiles (Saga of Pliocene Exile in the US, I believe), and do you have an opinion on her treatment of psionic powers.
I have not. I've actually never even heard of this.
Follow-on question: Given that Paizo is unlikely to do a psionic book in the near future, do you think that there are any key psionic tropes that are currently unable to be replicated by either arcane or divine magic (i.e. could you currently build a 'psion' by deft selection of spells).
There are well over a thousand spells in existence for Pathifnder. If you can't build some sort of "fake" telepath or telekinetic or whatever using those spells, I'd be stunned. Of course, it wouldn't be All psychic stuff All the time...
Frankly, I think we COULD do a "mind magic" book that covers the need for psionic-type stuff, from a flavor perspective, by doing nothing more than presenting some new archetypes and feats and spells. No new base classes required.
Why is it the $1 can of spray paint from the Home Depot(TM) bargain bin works better for priming minis than the $10-$20 cans of spray primer designed for the purpose?
Hey James, I just got my copy of Dragons Empires Gazetteer and I want to thank you and the rest of the crew for
Spoiler used in case some people wanna be surprised.
Question:
The current list of the Player Companion line is: Dragon Sea Primer, Pirates of the Inner Sea, Blood of Fiends, and Blood of Angels.
That is an awesome lineup!! Without revealing what the ones after Blood of Angels are, do you think the next few are going to be just as awesome as the announced four above??
Is it assumed all creatures in the Bestiaries exist somewhere on Golarion or the associated planes?
Since you're a Lovecraft fan, have you read any of the works by French poet, Charles Baudelaire? I actually read Baudelaire for a college class years before I started reading Lovecraft and wasn't really surprised to find Lovecraft a fan a his. I'm not a poet guru/expert, but I really enjoyed Baudelaire's work. I only wish I could read French because it's much more lyrical to the ear.
Also, have you read any of Lord Dusany and did you like it? Since he's supposedly another influence on Lovecraft, I picked up one of books a couple of years ago but didn't enjoy it like I thought I would. I thought it was pretty trippy but Lovecraft's dream cycle work I thought to be much better.
I imagine that you have had many memorable encounters both as GM and as a player. What was one of your favorite encounters from a GM perspective? What was one of your favorite encounters as a player?
And on a completely unrelated note to the questions above, There are several examples of Good aligned outsiders falling from grace and turning evil, but are there any examples of the opposite occurring?
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The current list of the Player Companion line is: Dragon Sea Primer, Pirates of the Inner Sea, Blood of Fiends, and Blood of Angels.
That is an awesome lineup!! Without revealing what the ones after Blood of Angels are, do you think the next few are going to be just as awesome as the announced four above??
Yes. Of course!
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Since you're a Lovecraft fan, have you read any of the works by French poet, Charles Baudelaire? I actually read Baudelaire for a college class years before I started reading Lovecraft and wasn't really surprised to find Lovecraft a fan a his. I'm not a poet guru/expert, but I really enjoyed Baudelaire's work. I only wish I could read French because it's much more lyrical to the ear.
Also, have you read any of Lord Dusany and did you like it? Since he's supposedly another influence on Lovecraft, I picked up one of books a couple of years ago but didn't enjoy it like I thought I would. I thought it was pretty trippy but Lovecraft's dream cycle work I thought to be much better.
I've heard of Baudelaire, but I've never read his work.
I have read Lord Dunsany, but not as much as I wish. He's an interesting writer—I've only read short stories of his so far, so I'm not sure how well he'd do in a longer story format...
Furthermore... when you look at literature, the type of magic presented by psionics does not normally appear in fantasy stories. It appears more often in horror or science fiction stories.
James, have you read Julian May's Saga of the Exiles (Saga of Pliocene Exile in the US, I believe), and do you have an opinion on her treatment of psionic powers.
Personally, I now have great difficulty thinking of psionic powers in any other terms.
Follow-on question: Given that Paizo is unlikely to do a psionic book in the near future, do you think that there are any key psionic tropes that are currently unable to be replicated by either arcane or divine magic (i.e. could you currently build a 'psion' by deft selection of spells).
ZMOG, I'm so amazed that anyone even remembers that title!
...Aiken drum?
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I imagine that you have had many memorable encounters both as GM and as a player. What was one of your favorite encounters from a GM perspective? What was one of your favorite encounters as a player?
As a GM: The one where I made a player fall backwards out of his chair with laughter. Ties with the one where I arbitrarily killed of Erik Mona's character in a totally unfair encounter in a Call of Cthulhu game.
As a Player: The one where my rogue Lavinia Ameiko's cohort, Chuko the kobold samurai, shamed one of the campaign's arch villains, another samurai, into committing sepuku. Ties with the time when Shensen lost her favorite sword to a hook horror's sunder attack 1 second after she released said hook horror from her mind control spell.And on a completely unrelated note to the questions above, There are several examples of Good aligned outsiders falling from grace and turning evil, but are there any examples of the opposite occurring?
Not yet that I can think of. Because it's easier to fall from good than rise from evil. THAT SAID, sounds like a challenge!
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The Erinyes are a species of devil, they're that common. I would think that ascended Devils or Demons would be rare enough so that each would be unique.I imagine that you have had many memorable encounters both as GM and as a player. What was one of your favorite encounters from a GM perspective? What was one of your favorite encounters as a player?As a GM: The one where I made a player fall backwards out of his chair with laughter. Ties with the one where I arbitrarily killed of Erik Mona's character in a totally unfair encounter in a Call of Cthulhu game.
As a Player: The one where my rogue Lavinia Ameiko's cohort, Chuko the kobold samurai, shamed one of the campaign's arch villains, another samurai, into committing sepuku. Ties with the time when Shensen lost her favorite sword to a hook horror's sunder attack 1 second after she released said hook horror from her mind control spell.And on a completely unrelated note to the questions above, There are several examples of Good aligned outsiders falling from grace and turning evil, but are there any examples of the opposite occurring?Not yet that I can think of. Because it's easier to fall from good than rise from evil. THAT SAID, sounds like a challenge!
The erinyes are indeed a species of devil... but the vast majority of them started life as an erinyes. Very few were angels before that—the first one was (and perhaps the first few were) a fallen angel, but that doesn't mean that they all are.