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Dear James Jacobs,
Why are quality halfling miniatures so hard to find?
+4 bonus to hide
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Rod of wonder. That thing rocks.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!Well, I'll be interested to see how that challenge turns out.
Do you have a favorite magical item, excluding weapons and armor?
Mine is the Necklace of Adaptation. So many uses, in such a small item
Always loved it. Like the cloak of comfort from the Forgotten realm supplement on magic.
I have a passion for the magic items that privilege comfort or everyday utility over flashy magical power.A question about the Easter Eggs. We will never know the story behind the statuettes/belt buckles and so on with entwined succubus and other erotic art figures that we find in several AP?
The belt buckle in the first Kingmaker adventure has just been enchanted by the owner in my campaign.
I see that my players always like the art objects with a line of description. Most of the time they keep them as a memento instead of selling them.
There's at least one... Mark Moreland's playing a catfolk in the "Lost City" half of my "Sands of the Scorpion God" campaign, which takes place in eastern Osirion.
*Dances with the kittens in joy*
I think you leaked something, James!
Something that I thought of, with the Catfolk, are they the offspring of a Sphinx and an ancient Hero, a race belonging to a demi-god or 'lost' God, or the result of Anthomorphosise (spelling?) Animal breeding true (and getting some Human/Halfling DNA into the mix to have upped their intelligence)?
Or does this fall into the 'just because' basket? I ask because I know a player in our group who saw the artwork and just .... this idiotic grin spread across her face, and the rest of us just groaned aloud. I suspect our Jade Empire game will become a lot more anime than wuxia ...
When you buy the PDF of Bestiary 3 like I did, can you copy/drag the pictures in any way to Photoshop without the black background behind the otherwise white pictures of the monsters?
When I copy a picture from the PDF and I paste it in anything (word/wordpad/paint/photoshop) I get this irritating black background going on, is it illigal or something to copy these pictures? I want to print them for my own or is that illigal too?
My real question is how do you remove the black background or in which program do I need to open the copied pictures to have the normal monster pictures without the black background?
What do you consider as recommended reading for adventures and modules to inspire GMs?
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Where in Golarion are Girtablilu commonly found? Osirion? Katapesh? Southern Garund?The northern Garund Desert, particularly in Thuvia and Osirion.
That's right next door to Rahadoum. With the clash in beliefs between the Rahadoum and Girtabilu being very pious, that would be a fun place to have a few tribes of them.
Herr Doktor Jacobs:
Has the printing press been invented anywhere on Golarion? If yes, for how long and just how widespread is its use?
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Happy Birthday!
With the announcement of 5em wouldn't it be a great time for Paizo to do a Mythic Rules Open Playtest?
What cool product are you looking forward to Paizo releasing in the fall of 2012?
Do you foresee putting out a hardcover of prestige classes, or even a "Prestige Classes of the Inner Seas" Chronicles book?
Since it's what do you want most off your Amazon Wishlist??
Oh! Happy birthday!
Creative Director
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A question about the Easter Eggs. We will never know the story behind the statuettes/belt buckles and so on with entwined succubus and other erotic art figures that we find in several AP?
The belt buckle in the first Kingmaker adventure has just been enchanted by the owner in my campaign.
I see that my players always like the art objects with a line of description. Most of the time they keep them as a memento instead of selling them.
Yes... the mystery of where those pieces of jewelry come from will be answered by the end of this year.
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Creative Director
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There's at least one... Mark Moreland's playing a catfolk in the "Lost City" half of my "Sands of the Scorpion God" campaign, which takes place in eastern Osirion.
*Dances with the kittens in joy*
I think you leaked something, James!
Something that I thought of, with the Catfolk, are they the offspring of a Sphinx and an ancient Hero, a race belonging to a demi-god or 'lost' God, or the result of Anthomorphosise (spelling?) Animal breeding true (and getting some Human/Halfling DNA into the mix to have upped their intelligence)?
Or does this fall into the 'just because' basket? I ask because I know a player in our group who saw the artwork and just .... this idiotic grin spread across her face, and the rest of us just groaned aloud. I suspect our Jade Empire game will become a lot more anime than wuxia ...
I didn't leak anything. "Sands of the Scorpion God" is the name of the campaign I'm running for the editorial staff. They finished off the "Shadow Under Sandpoint" campaign, the party (consisting of 9 players) split into two groups, and both groups are now in Osirion doing similar adventures. One's playing through Gary Gygax's "Necropolis" (which Necromancer Games updated to 3.5, and which I have updated to Pathfinder), while the other group's playing through "The Lost City" (a MUCH older adventure—module B4—for the basic game set); both of these parallel campaigns are grouped under one name: "Sands of the Scorpion God." It's not a product or upcoming AP.
Catfolk have nothing to do with the Anthropomorphic Animal spell; we actually haven't said where they're from yet, but they aren't from a spell.
The primary reason why we put catfolk in the book in the first place, in fact, was because they were probably the MOST requested new race. Folks love catfolk, even if they do tend to be a somewhat polarizing race choice.
Happy Birthday James Jacobs!!
edit: Since it is the *ASK* James Jacobs thread: when is Merisiel's birthday?
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Creative Director
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Are you one who likes to be the center of attention on your birthday, or do you prefer it not be made a 'big deal'?
(I'm the latter, but seems I am by far the minority on this one.)
With each successive birthday I have, my desire to be the center of attention on my birthday decreases. And since said desire to be the center of attention was never that big even at its height... yeah.
Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone! Now let's get back to more important stuff—QUESTIONS!
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Creative Director
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When you buy the PDF of Bestiary 3 like I did, can you copy/drag the pictures in any way to Photoshop without the black background behind the otherwise white pictures of the monsters?
When I copy a picture from the PDF and I paste it in anything (word/wordpad/paint/photoshop) I get this irritating black background going on, is it illigal or something to copy these pictures? I want to print them for my own or is that illigal too?
My real question is how do you remove the black background or in which program do I need to open the copied pictures to have the normal monster pictures without the black background?
I believe you can manipulate art without picking up the background with certain programs, yes. And from what I hear, it works better when you use Macintosh based programs, or when you've got more skills than I do with art programs at manipulating background colors and the like.
That said, we don't specifically go out of our way to make it easy to extract images from our PDFs, on purpose. We don't WANT folks to grab that art and spread it around. Extracting it and putting the art into a document you're using at home for your group is fine, as long as you're not publishing those documents (either on paper or to the internet on a public website or in a PDF or whatever).
So... as for how to remove the background... that requires different programs and/or different skills at using things like Photoshop. There's plenty of other folks on these boards who have their own different solutions—I'd go seek them out. I'm fortunate in that I don't have to do that at all: I can just go onto the server and get the original art as is if I need it for a personalized handout for a game. :-P
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAMES!
Now go have fun instead of hanging out with your fangirls :D
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Creative Director
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What do you consider as recommended reading for adventures and modules to inspire GMs?
Any and every module. You can learn how to be a better GM, how to write better adventures, and find inspiration in ALL modules. Even the bad ones can teach you, in that they can teach you what NOT to do.
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Creative Director
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*from an unreliable source* Happy Birthday, oh dino-lord!
how will you be spending today?*and probably should ask if it really is JJ's birthday today..
(Yes, it really is my birthday today.)
I'll be spending today working on the Hardcover Rise of the Runelords book, perhaps staying a bit late to work on some freelance, then going home to watch a movie and/or play Skyrim or something like that. In other words... nothing fancy or new... although there are some folks here who are trying to get me to go out for dinner. We'll see!
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Creative Director
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Herr Doktor Jacobs:
Has the printing press been invented anywhere on Golarion? If yes, for how long and just how widespread is its use?
Yup! We actually talk about the printing press on page 257 of the Inner Sea World Guide. As for how long it's been around... for quite a bit.
(The main reason we put printing presses into the setting is PURELY because that gives us opportunities to build in-game player handouts that look neater than just hand-written notes.)
Happy Birthday!
*Gives an elven cake*
What cool product are you looking forward to Paizo releasing in the fall of 2012?Shattered Star Adventure Path!!
CHEATER!!! ;)
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Creative Director
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Do you foresee putting out a hardcover of prestige classes, or even a "Prestige Classes of the Inner Seas" Chronicles book?
I do not see us putting out a hardcover book of prestige classes, for 3 reasons:
1) We've pretty much had our fill of hardcover books that are nothing but class option books.
2) The design team doesn't really like prestige classes—they MUCH prefer archetypes.
3) Prestige classes are MUCH more better and more interesting when they have world flavor to play with—that's not something that they'd be able to do at all in a hardcover rulebook.
SO: For all those reasons, I could very easily see us put out a "Prestige Classes of the Inner Seas" type book... although with a less clumsy title.
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Creative Director
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Since it's what do you want most off your Amazon Wishlist??
You sneaky little... ahem.
All of it! That's why it's on my wish list in the first place! (Although I did just remove the Logitech universal remote, since it won't work with Playstation 3... thanks a BUNCH, Sony! Grumble grumble.)
1)Wich do you like better Twilight Zone or Outer Limits?
2)What are your favorite to least(listed in order) favorite of all the creature types?
3)Are there any monster abilities as a player or DM that you do not like?
4)Are there any monster abilities that find very interesting or strange?
5)Wich do you like better the Adams family or the Munsters?
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Creative Director
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CHEATER!!! ;)What cool product are you looking forward to Paizo releasing in the fall of 2012?Shattered Star Adventure Path!!
Actually, not really. Since even including the unannounced products we'll be releasing in Fall of 2012, of which there are PLENTY... The Shattered Star AP is STILL the one that I'm looking forward to the most.
Do you foresee putting out a hardcover of prestige classes, or even a "Prestige Classes of the Inner Seas" Chronicles book?
I do not see us putting out a hardcover book of prestige classes, for 3 reasons:
1) We've pretty much had our fill of hardcover books that are nothing but class option books.
2) The design team doesn't really like prestige classes—they MUCH prefer archetypes.
3) Prestige classes are MUCH more better and more interesting when they have world flavor to play with—that's not something that they'd be able to do at all in a hardcover rulebook.
SO: For all those reasons, I could very easily see us put out a "Prestige Classes of the Inner Seas" type book... although with a less clumsy title.
Can has hardcover book of new options in general? A whole bunch of alternate rules (a la Unearthed Arcana), more archetypes, more toys for Fighters and Rogues, more spells, more templates, more magic items, and other such toys? It doesn't even need a theme. I just want more archetypes and an Unearthed Arcana-like selection of optional rules.
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Creative Director
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Question: Why do you call the "death knight" a "grave knight" in Pathfinder? No one owns the death knight name do they?
Two reasons.
1) Grave knights do different things and have different powers than death knights. They're similar, but not the same.
2) (And the main reason): The idea of an undead knight as a d20 monster template called a Death Knight is part of Wizards of the Coast's intellectual property—it's not part of the SRD. Further, since the monster's tied to one of WotC's most popular and well-known bad guys (Lord Soth, from the Dragonlance saga), it's part of their intellectual property that they'd be (rightly) very protective of. While the phrase "Death knight" can be used for whatever reason... it's not something that a RPG company should or can use to present an undead knight that's fallen from grace and works like a template. That idea is certainly something that an RPG company can do... but if they DO they need to do two things—give it a different name, and give it different flavor and powers, if only somewhat different.
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Creative Director
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Can has hardcover book of new options in general? A whole bunch of alternate rules (a la Unearthed Arcana), more archetypes, more toys for Fighters and Rogues, more spells, more templates, more magic items, and other such toys? It doesn't even need a theme. I just want more archetypes and an Unearthed Arcana-like selection of optional rules.
We just did three of these books. Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Combat, and Ultimate Magic ARE what we have to say in the category of "Class option books." There'll be some class options in the upcoming "Advanced Race Guide," but that book's more of a race option book than a class option one... and what we've got planned after ARG is even LESS of class option.
We're very concerned, frankly, with rules bloat. Doing one class option book after the other gets us to Rules Bloat really quickly. Furthermore, we want to be able to support our expanded class options in our Campaign Setting and with other books—that's why we frontloaded them into our rulebook line—so these books will be out and available at the START of the edition's life cycle, giving us the rest of that life cycle to support and have fun with those options.
Furthermore... an "Unearthed Arcana" style book that presents a bunch of SUPER optional ways to play the game isn't something we're really interested in yet. We'd rather drop in those experimental rules as portions of other books (like how we introduced the words of power rules as a chapter rather than as their own book).
Frankly... class option books without heavy flavor text and ties to campaign settings bore me to tears. I much prefer reading, writing, and designing world content, adventures, and story-related stuff. So, asking me for more class options is an uphill battle.
Actually, not really. Since even including the unannounced products we'll be releasing in Fall of 2012, of which there are PLENTY... The Shattered Star AP is STILL the one that I'm looking forward to the most.CHEATER!!! ;)What cool product are you looking forward to Paizo releasing in the fall of 2012?Shattered Star Adventure Path!!
I was kidding, since you didn't reveal anything that way, however very cool to hear you are that excited for it.
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Creative Director
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1)Wich do you like better Twilight Zone or Outer Limits?
2)What are your favorite to least(listed in order) favorite of all the creature types?
3)Are there any monster abilities as a player or DM that you do not like?
4)Are there any monster abilities that find very interesting or strange?
5)Wich do you like better the Adams family or the Munsters?
1) Twilight Zone.
2) Outsider, Aberration, Fey, Undead, Dragon, Magical Beast, Humanoid, Monstrous Humanoid, Vermin, Animal, Plant, Ooze, Construct.
3) Yes. As a player, I hate rend. Rend has killed far more of my players than any other special attack. As a GM, though, none come to mind.
4) Yup. Most of those that aren't universal monster rules.
5) I'm not a fan of either, so I can't say.
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Happy Birthday James!
As to my question, I find it increasingly difficult to write Dragon encounters, these incredibly intelligent, potent creatures deserve Mastermind status but are often relegated to "bouncer" acting as muscle for a more powerful BBEG. Can we see a new Draconic nemesis in an AP?
Curse of the Crimson Throne Spoiler
I hope we see lots of Dragons in Shattered Star, or at least one Dragon archnemesis in the near future. :-)
I don't know where to ask, but someone from Paizo should answer this topic.
Can has hardcover book of new options in general? A whole bunch of alternate rules (a la Unearthed Arcana), more archetypes, more toys for Fighters and Rogues, more spells, more templates, more magic items, and other such toys? It doesn't even need a theme. I just want more archetypes and an Unearthed Arcana-like selection of optional rules.We just did three of these books. Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Combat, and Ultimate Magic ARE what we have to say in the category of "Class option books." There'll be some class options in the upcoming "Advanced Race Guide," but that book's more of a race option book than a class option one... and what we've got planned after ARG is even LESS of class option.
We're very concerned, frankly, with rules bloat. Doing one class option book after the other gets us to Rules Bloat really quickly. Furthermore, we want to be able to support our expanded class options in our Campaign Setting and with other books—that's why we frontloaded them into our rulebook line—so these books will be out and available at the START of the edition's life cycle, giving us the rest of that life cycle to support and have fun with those options.
Furthermore... an "Unearthed Arcana" style book that presents a bunch of SUPER optional ways to play the game isn't something we're really interested in yet. We'd rather drop in those experimental rules as portions of other books (like how we introduced the words of power rules as a chapter rather than as their own book).
Frankly... class option books without heavy flavor text and ties to campaign settings bore me to tears. I much prefer reading, writing, and designing world content, adventures, and story-related stuff. So, asking me for more class options is an uphill battle.
THIS! This is why I love Paizo. This is what other RPG companies have failed to get. I even think Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic went a bit too far into rules bloat territory. It makes it much more difficult to police PC power with too many options. Designers often don't have the time to think of every possible power combo when they add new crunch, or either have no desire to instead leaving that to GMs to police. The more optional rule books there are leaves GMs with more work to do or just to ban the books from the table. The selling point for Paizo is that busy, adult gamers with jobs and significant entertainment cash can have most of the work done for them and then just enjoy the game.
Never loose this philosophy.
I do not see us putting out a hardcover book of prestige classes, for 3 reasons:1) We've pretty much had our fill of hardcover books that are nothing but class option books.
2) The design team doesn't really like prestige classes—they MUCH prefer archetypes.
3) Prestige classes are MUCH more better and more interesting when they have world flavor to play with—that's not something that they'd be able to do at all in a hardcover rulebook.
SO: For all those reasons, I could very easily see us put out a "Prestige Classes of the Inner Seas" type book... although with a less clumsy title.
Put me down for a copy if you do. I love love love me some archetypes (did I mention I love archetypes?), but sometimes a good, flavorful prestige class is just the thing to center a build around.
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Creative Director
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Happy Birthday James!
As to my question, I find it increasingly difficult to write Dragon encounters, these incredibly intelligent, potent creatures deserve Mastermind status but are often relegated to "bouncer" acting as muscle for a more powerful BBEG. Can we see a new Draconic nemesis in an AP?
Curse of the Crimson Throne Spoiler
** spoiler omitted **
I hope we see lots of Dragons in Shattered Star, or at least one Dragon archnemesis in the near future. :-)
There's a powerful dragon in Shattered Star—she's not the main bad guy, but she's pretty close to being the main bad guy.
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Creative Director
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I don't know where to ask, but someone from Paizo should answer this topic.
If you think something's broken or needs a FAQ clarification or something like that... post it and/or hit the FAQ tag on the thread. That's what the FAQ tag is for. Just because we don't acknowledge every single question with a "We're working on this now" reply doesn't mean we're ignoring it. Further... there's a LOT of FAQ requests, and it's irresponsible to reply to them in a way that would only further confuse things, so we tend to adopt a slow and steady, get it as right as possible on the first try approach for dealing with FAQ requests.
I don't know where to ask, but someone from Paizo should answer this topic.
I assure you there are far greater issues than that that should be fixed.
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THIS! This is why I love Paizo. This is what other RPG companies have failed to get. I even think Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic went a bit too far into rules bloat territory. It makes it much more...Can has hardcover book of new options in general? A whole bunch of alternate rules (a la Unearthed Arcana), more archetypes, more toys for Fighters and Rogues, more spells, more templates, more magic items, and other such toys? It doesn't even need a theme. I just want more archetypes and an Unearthed Arcana-like selection of optional rules.We just did three of these books. Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Combat, and Ultimate Magic ARE what we have to say in the category of "Class option books." There'll be some class options in the upcoming "Advanced Race Guide," but that book's more of a race option book than a class option one... and what we've got planned after ARG is even LESS of class option.
We're very concerned, frankly, with rules bloat. Doing one class option book after the other gets us to Rules Bloat really quickly. Furthermore, we want to be able to support our expanded class options in our Campaign Setting and with other books—that's why we frontloaded them into our rulebook line—so these books will be out and available at the START of the edition's life cycle, giving us the rest of that life cycle to support and have fun with those options.
Furthermore... an "Unearthed Arcana" style book that presents a bunch of SUPER optional ways to play the game isn't something we're really interested in yet. We'd rather drop in those experimental rules as portions of other books (like how we introduced the words of power rules as a chapter rather than as their own book).
Frankly... class option books without heavy flavor text and ties to campaign settings bore me to tears. I much prefer reading, writing, and designing world content, adventures, and story-related stuff. So, asking me for more class options is an uphill battle.
Rules bloat is one of the things I liked about 3.5. Whatever you wanted, there was an option for it.
Happy Birthday James.
And I can't wait to see what you and Paizo have up it's sleeves for the rest of the year, any chance of a very vague or one-word hint you can give about one thing that is unannounced?
I don't know where to ask, but someone from Paizo should answer this topic.If you think something's broken or needs a FAQ clarification or something like that... post it and/or hit the FAQ tag on the thread. That's what the FAQ tag is for. Just because we don't acknowledge every single question with a "We're working on this now" reply doesn't mean we're ignoring it. Further... there's a LOT of FAQ requests, and it's irresponsible to reply to them in a way that would only further confuse things, so we tend to adopt a slow and steady, get it as right as possible on the first try approach for dealing with FAQ requests.
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.K, and sorry for bothering you with this... I need to pay more attention to stuff like that.