IANJ, but I believe your new interpretation is correct.
Creative Director
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On the elf subraces, I kind of agree. 2nd edition had High, Grey, Sea, and Wild elves, and then FR had Avariel (winged elves). That's enough IMO.
That said, what do you think of Avariel? Is there anything like them in Golarion?
Oh and on an unrelated note, I know that now with the creation of Tattooed Sorcerers in Inner Sea Magic Seoni would be one, but curious what bloodline is she (probably has been asked before)?
I quite love the avariel—I wrote the chapter about elves and avariel in "Races of Faerun" back in 3rd edition, in fact. There aren't any flying elves as of yet in Golarion—if any race is poised to be our "go-to flying race" so far, I'd say and hope it would be the strix.
Seoni is a "baseline" sorcerer—as such, she has the arcane bloodline. If only so she doesn't have to fire her familiar, Dragon!
Agreed. It's best to try to keep personal opinion or the like out of questions, if you want to avoid possible awkwardness... like asking a designer what he thought about something he helped launch with the initial design work. :-)1) What is your opinion about D&D's horrible Dragonspawn?What a way to lead a question.
You designed like hundreds of monsters i'm sure I can name a few I wouldn't like 8ter, but others are favorites of mine, there are only the few fan-favorites I mostly dislike, I just got the shocking thought of 10.000 dragonspawns in Bestiaries and it chilled my spine :p
I'm sure everybody will disagree with me, Dragonspawns are fan favorites and mostly I don't like fanfavorites :p
But I understand the point aswel, sometimes i'm just too extreme.
Sorry for that.
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I believe that:
A) A dwarf carrying more than their light load does take the check penalties for being encumbered, just like anyone else.
B) A dwarf who is suffering from those encumbrance penalties would only be able to Run at x3 speed.
Correct!
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Agreed. It's best to try to keep personal opinion or the like out of questions, if you want to avoid possible awkwardness... like asking a designer what he thought about something he helped launch with the initial design work. :-)1) What is your opinion about D&D's horrible Dragonspawn?What a way to lead a question.You designed like hundreds of monsters i'm sure I can name a few I wouldn't like 8ter, but others are favorites of mine, there are only the few fan-favorites I mostly dislike, I just got the shocking thought of 10.000 dragonspawns in Bestiaries and it chilled my spine :p
I'm sure everybody will disagree with me, Dragonspawns are fan favorites and mostly I don't like fanfavorites :p
But I understand the point aswel, sometimes i'm just too extreme.
Sorry for that.
In fact, I actually agree with you that the direction the dragonspawn went in was not something that worked for me. And in fact, I wasn't all that huge of a fan of the idea in the first place, or of making half-dragons such a key part of Red Hand of Doom... but I was brought in on that adventure at the last minute to finish off the adventure that Rich Baker started writing (He had been transferred over to the Axis & Allies team to handle an emergency, I believe, and they called me in to help finish writing the adventure he'd already significantly outlined and had written the first 25 % of...), and so my job on that adventure was to write what WotC wanted as best as I could.
Although I wouldn't have put dragonspawn in the adventure at all were I the one who was writing it from scratch... that wasn't up to me.
Of course... since then, the dragonspawn have lived up to their name—they've spawned all over the place.
SO! All my way of saying that I've got absolutely no hard feelings about your earlier post at all—I just wanted to remind you that when you post on a public forum that it's often not a bad idea to re-read things before you hit "Submit Post" when you're super passionate or frustrated or angry about something... cause once the Internet has it... it's gone!
Does the length of your arms negatively affect your daily activities? Is your keyboard ergonomically fitted for Tyrannosaur usage?
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Reading the 3.5 races of earth and races of wild, makes me wonder why elves and dwarfs dislike each other if there are basically everything is the same save for family vrs personal being the focus, is this still the case in pathfinder? or are the differences between dwarfs and elves much greater now?
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Seoni is a "baseline" sorcerer—as such, she has the arcane bloodline. If only so she doesn't have to fire her familiar, Dragon!So the artwork of her familiar merging with her tattoos that was used for the cover-art of Inner Sea Magic was basically a "What-If" image?
For those who haven't seen it.
Actually... when we first statted Seoni up back in the first Pathfinder AP or wherever it was, she was a 3.5 sorcerer and that meant she had a familiar. And so I gave her a lizard (a skink, to be precise), because I thought that a blue tail skink would look really charming next to her blue tattoos and because blue tail skinks live in Point Arena where I grew up and I was putting a lot of Point Arena stuff into those early adventures anyway... (OH! Also, "Dragon" is named after one of the family cats we had when I was growing up! Seoni, for that matter, was named after a friend of mine from junior high.)
But then, whenever we illustrated Seoni, we kept forgetting to put Dragon into the art with her. In fact... I don't know if we'd EVER illustrated Dragon with her.
And so the ability to turn your familiar into a tattoo was more or less invented PRECISELY to explain, in world, why you never see Dragon in a picture that show's Seoni. PRESTO! You do! He's just in tattoo form most of the time.
Huh. That was a weirdly over-informative answer.
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Reading the 3.5 races of earth and races of wild, makes me wonder why elves and dwarfs dislike each other if there are basically everything is the same save for family vrs personal being the focus, is this still the case in pathfinder? or are the differences between dwarfs and elves much greater now?
The conflict between elves and dwarves is not really a thing in Pathifnder or Golarion. If there IS any conflict... it's basically due to the fact that most dwarves are LAWFUL good and most elves are CHAOTIC good. So if anything... it's just alignments arguing.
But yeah... we don't really carry on the age-old enmity between elves and dwarves. It seeps in now and then probably because it's such a part of the shared idea of these guys, though. But that's not intentional.
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Seoni is a "baseline" sorcerer—as such, she has the arcane bloodline. If only so she doesn't have to fire her familiar, Dragon!So the artwork of her familiar merging with her tattoos that was used for the cover-art of Inner Sea Magic was basically a "What-If" image?
For those who haven't seen it.Actually... when we first statted Seoni up back in the first Pathfinder AP or wherever it was, she was a 3.5 sorcerer and that meant she had a familiar. And so I gave her a lizard (a skink, to be precise), because I thought that a blue tail skink would look really charming next to her blue tattoos and because blue tail skinks live in Point Arena where I grew up and I was putting a lot of Point Arena stuff into those early adventures anyway... (OH! Also, "Dragon" is named after one of the family cats we had when I was growing up! Seoni, for that matter, was named after a friend of mine from junior high.)
But then, whenever we illustrated Seoni, we kept forgetting to put Dragon into the art with her. In fact... I don't know if we'd EVER illustrated Dragon with her.
And so the ability to turn your familiar into a tattoo was more or less invented PRECISELY to explain, in world, why you never see Dragon in a picture that show's Seoni. PRESTO! You do! He's just in tattoo form most of the time.
Huh. That was a weirdly over-informative answer.
Interestingly, these are the types of anwers I like the most. It's is facinating to see inside the design process.
Interestingly, these are the types of anwers I like the most. It's is facinating to see inside the design process.Seoni is a "baseline" sorcerer—as such, she has the arcane bloodline. If only so she doesn't have to fire her familiar, Dragon!So the artwork of her familiar merging with her tattoos that was used for the cover-art of Inner Sea Magic was basically a "What-If" image?
For those who haven't seen it.Actually... when we first statted Seoni up back in the first Pathfinder AP or wherever it was, she was a 3.5 sorcerer and that meant she had a familiar. And so I gave her a lizard (a skink, to be precise), because I thought that a blue tail skink would look really charming next to her blue tattoos and because blue tail skinks live in Point Arena where I grew up and I was putting a lot of Point Arena stuff into those early adventures anyway... (OH! Also, "Dragon" is named after one of the family cats we had when I was growing up! Seoni, for that matter, was named after a friend of mine from junior high.)
But then, whenever we illustrated Seoni, we kept forgetting to put Dragon into the art with her. In fact... I don't know if we'd EVER illustrated Dragon with her.
And so the ability to turn your familiar into a tattoo was more or less invented PRECISELY to explain, in world, why you never see Dragon in a picture that show's Seoni. PRESTO! You do! He's just in tattoo form most of the time.
Huh. That was a weirdly over-informative answer.
Ditto. This type of behind the scenes is why I read this thread multiple times per day.
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Correct!I believe that:
A) A dwarf carrying more than their light load does take the check penalties for being encumbered, just like anyone else.
B) A dwarf who is suffering from those encumbrance penalties would only be able to Run at x3 speed.
Bah, further question.
I know the encumbrance penalty someone would take for carrying too much works like an Armor Check Penalty, but does the generic check penalty affect the person's attack rolls, like when they wear an armor that they arent proficient with it, or is it just a penalty to the skills?
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I know the encumbrance penalty someone would take for carrying too much works like an Armor Check Penalty, but does the generic check penalty affect the person's attack rolls, like when they wear an armor that they arent proficient with it, or is it just a penalty to the skills?
Nope. The generic penalty only affects skill checks based on physical ability scores.
I had a thread that seemed to dissaper off the mesageboards, what should I do?
In the Absalom Reckoning calendar I can't figure out which days of the iweek any particular day of the month is supposed to be. Was 1 Abadius, 4711 AR on a Moonday? I'm trying to make a calendar and there doesn't seem to be anywhere that actually gives this information! Inner Sea World Guide does not say.We don't really track things down to that level officially. The EASIEST solution is to start with any date, translate it into our real-world date, then build the calendar out from there.
So:
1 Abadius, 4711 = January 1st, 2011
Therefore, 1 Abadius 4711 was a Saturday. AKA a Starday.
But aren't leap days in Golarion every 8 years instead of every 4 years? Wouldn't that end up changing putting everything in Golarion back 1 day every 8 years?
Seoni is a "baseline" sorcerer—as such, she has the arcane bloodline. If only so she doesn't have to fire her familiar, Dragon!
Ah yeah forgot she had a familiar prior to ISM... What is Dragon? Mundane lizard, or is he special? I've always liked the idea of shocker lizards as familiars.
When you eat your Smarties do you eat the red ones last?
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I know you're a big dino fan, and the other day I was reminded of my favorite childhood book, Dinotopia. Did you ever read that?
Note: While writing this I decided to wikipedia the book and had no idea it spawned 20-some additional books to the series. I am shamed at my ignorance.
But aren't leap days in Golarion every 8 years instead of every 4 years? Wouldn't that end up changing putting everything in Golarion back 1 day every 8 years?In the Absalom Reckoning calendar I can't figure out which days of the iweek any particular day of the month is supposed to be. Was 1 Abadius, 4711 AR on a Moonday? I'm trying to make a calendar and there doesn't seem to be anywhere that actually gives this information! Inner Sea World Guide does not say.We don't really track things down to that level officially. The EASIEST solution is to start with any date, translate it into our real-world date, then build the calendar out from there.
So:
1 Abadius, 4711 = January 1st, 2011
Therefore, 1 Abadius 4711 was a Saturday. AKA a Starday.
Well I've already got my own solution worked out for that. If you're interested I'll be posting the calendar later today after all the holidays have been added.
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In another thread, you wrote:
We'll have some subsystems for the upcoming "Skull & Shackles" game (mostly for naval conflicts)... but after that, I suspect we'll stop doing that. The subsystems take an EXCEPTIONALLY long amount of time to get right and to integrate. The popularity of Kingmaker and its subsystems is mostly to blame for us going on to include similar subsystem elements.
Starting with Shattered Star, though... subsystem light the APs shall be.
(Prepares for backlash from those who LIKE subsystems...)
So here's my backlash:
While I'm okay with easing up on AP subsystems, I have to say that all of my favorite rules developments have come from the AP or Campaign Setting lines. I really believe that even generic rules benefit from being developed in a campaign context. At least, that seems to be my preference.
If not the APs, then where? Will subsystems become the province of the rulebook line exclusively? Mostly? Will the campaign setting pick up the slack?
On a related question, I've noticed that some of the campaign setting rules (I am a huge fan) involving prestige might accumulate enough to affect CR balance. I'm starting to consider treating prestige awards against Wealth-By-Level, assigning a GP value to special awards in order to preserve CR balance. Do you see a need for that kind of thing in a later iteration of the prestige point rules, or perhaps a later edition?
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I had a thread that seemed to dissaper off the mesageboards, what should I do?
If it was removed because the web team thought it was somehow inappropriate, you should have received an email about it.
Much more likely—it just got eaten by the boards. That happens sometimes; but less often than it used to. In this case, alas... there's not much to do but retype it. It's a good idea anyway for ANY messageboard if you'e writing a giant post to do so in a word processing program and then paste the finished post in later...
NOW... having an entire THREAD vanish... that's more weird. In that case, I'd email customer service and ask for advice.
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But aren't leap days in Golarion every 8 years instead of every 4 years? Wouldn't that end up changing putting everything in Golarion back 1 day every 8 years?In the Absalom Reckoning calendar I can't figure out which days of the iweek any particular day of the month is supposed to be. Was 1 Abadius, 4711 AR on a Moonday? I'm trying to make a calendar and there doesn't seem to be anywhere that actually gives this information! Inner Sea World Guide does not say.We don't really track things down to that level officially. The EASIEST solution is to start with any date, translate it into our real-world date, then build the calendar out from there.
So:
1 Abadius, 4711 = January 1st, 2011
Therefore, 1 Abadius 4711 was a Saturday. AKA a Starday.
If that distresses you, switch it over to every 4 years. I honestly wish that's what I'd done in the book in retrospect.
That said...
If your game goes for that long and your players notice that after several years your calendar's 1 day off... I'm jealous that your group is paying that close attention! :-)
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Ah yeah forgot she had a familiar prior to ISM... What is Dragon? Mundane lizard, or is he special? I've always liked the idea of shocker lizards as familiars.
Seoni is a "baseline" sorcerer—as such, she has the arcane bloodline. If only so she doesn't have to fire her familiar, Dragon!
Dragon is a blue-tailed skink—AKA, a plain old lizard. But a VERY pretty one.
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I know you're a big dino fan, and the other day I was reminded of my favorite childhood book, Dinotopia. Did you ever read that?
Note: While writing this I decided to wikipedia the book and had no idea it spawned 20-some additional books to the series. I am shamed at my ignorance.
I've looked at Dinotopia art here and there, but I never got into the books for whatever reason.
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So here's my backlash:
While I'm okay with easing up on AP subsystems, I have to say that all of my favorite rules developments have come from the AP or Campaign Setting lines. I really believe that even generic rules benefit from being developed in a campaign context. At least, that seems to be my preference.
If not the APs, then where? Will subsystems become the province of the rulebook line exclusively? Mostly? Will the campaign setting pick up the slack?
On a related question, I've noticed that some of the campaign setting rules (I am a huge fan) involving prestige might accumulate enough to affect CR balance. I'm starting to consider treating prestige awards against Wealth-By-Level, assigning a GP value to special awards in order to preserve CR balance. Do you see a need for that kind of thing in a later iteration of the prestige point rules, or perhaps a later edition?
I'll counter your backlash with a dose of reality:
The inclusion of complex subsystems (most recently, the nautical rules for Skull & Shackles, but those came on the heals of the caravan rules and the relationship rules) is a significant part of why the AP line is currently so behind schedule. Would you rather have complex subsystems or fewer APs a year because we can't keep that pace up forever and will burn out into rubble? :-P
We WILL continue to do subsystem stuff. now and then in the hardcover rules line, but also in the Campaign Setting line. There were several in Inner Sea Magic, for example. And there's a reputation system in Land of the Linnorm Kings. The difference between those subsystems and AP ones is that those subsystems don't have to be developed by the busiest people in our editorial department and don't have to be welded to the most complex monthly line we print.
Prestige is a relatively new method of rewarding play, and as such if you find that it's impacting your encounters in a way that's making things too easy... then you absolutely should be a bit more restrictive on how many points the PCs earn. As with gold and magic items, the amount of prestige that's right for any one game varies by game.
I prefer tradition. No arboreal dwarves or brooding gothy halflings in my games, as a general rule. When I DO break tradition, it's on a specific eccentric character by eccentric character basis.
On that subject of eccentric characters who violate their racial archetypes, what do you think of Belkar Bitterleaf?
But yeah... we don't really carry on the age-old enmity between elves and dwarves. It seeps in now and then probably because it's such a part of the shared idea of these guys, though. But that's not intentional.
One of the things I liked about Krynn, at least in the original AD&D 1E Dragonlance setting, was that an elf and a dwarf meeting in a tavern were far more likely to commiserate with each other about what a pain humans are than argue or shun each other. Dwarven craftsmen like Flint Fireforge were welcome in Qualinesti; humans not so much.
The elf/dwarf conflict goes back to Tolkien, but in Middle Earth it had a very specific genesis: the elven king Thingol was slain by a group of dwarves after he hired them to set the Silmaril his son-in-law had recovered from Angband in a necklace. The dwarves became entranced with the gem and refused to hand the necklace over when it was completed.
Also, on the off chance you haven't already performed this particular search yourself, which do you like best of the t-shirts here? After following the link, did you decide to order any of them? (I saw a guy wearing the one about push-ups at a supermarket the other night and immediately thought of you, so I asked him where he got it.)
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On that subject of eccentric characters who violate their racial archetypes, what do you think of Belkar Bitterleaf?
No opinion; I don't really read Order of the Stick and thus don't really know much about that character.
Also, on the off chance you haven't already performed this particular search yourself, which do you like best of the t-shirts here? After following the link, did you decide to order any of them? (I saw a guy wearing the one about push-ups at a supermarket the other night and immediately thought of you, so I asked him where he got it.)
Wow... that's a lot of T-rex. Thanks for the link!
I prefer tradition. No arboreal dwarves or brooding gothy halflings in my games, as a general rule. When I DO break tradition, it's on a specific eccentric character by eccentric character basis.On that subject of eccentric characters who violate their racial archetypes, what do you think of Belkar Bitterleaf?
But yeah... we don't really carry on the age-old enmity between elves and dwarves. It seeps in now and then probably because it's such a part of the shared idea of these guys, though. But that's not intentional.One of the things I liked about Krynn, at least in the original AD&D 1E Dragonlance setting, was that an elf and a dwarf meeting in a tavern were far more likely to commiserate with each other about what a pain humans are than argue or shun each other. Dwarven craftsmen like Flint Fireforge were welcome in Qualinesti; humans not so much.
The elf/dwarf conflict goes back to Tolkien, but in Middle Earth it had a very specific genesis: the elven king Thingol was slain by a group of dwarves after he hired them to set the Silmaril his son-in-law had recovered from Angband in a necklace. The dwarves became entranced with the gem and refused to hand the necklace over when it was completed.
(snip)
The Dwarves started out in the earliest versions of Tolkien's Silmarillion as evil or at least greedy and unpleasant. They gradually became less asocial, particularly following the Hobbit. Anyway, the legend of the magic necklace is from Norse mythology - the necklace of Brisingamen - and there the enemies of the dwarves are the Aesir - whom the alfar serve. Dwarves tend to be neutral with evil tendencies in my game world, and I have found this makes them more interesting, even as eccentric (good) PCs.
I know this sort of thing won't fly in a generic or standard fantasy campaign - though I'm curious, James, whether there's anything wildly different in your racial or monster interpretations within your homebrew from the traditional or Gygaxian worlds...?
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The Dwarves started out in the earliest versions of Tolkien's Silmarillion as evil or at least greedy and unpleasant. They gradually became less asocial, particularly following the Hobbit. Anyway, the legend of the magic necklace is from Norse mythology - the necklace of Brisingamen - and there the enemies of the dwarves are the Aesir - whom the alfar serve. Dwarves tend to be neutral with evil tendencies in my game world, and I have found this makes them more interesting, even as eccentric (good) PCs.
I know this sort of thing won't fly in a generic or standard fantasy campaign - though I'm curious, James, whether there's anything wildly different in your racial or monster interpretations within your homebrew from the traditional or Gygaxian worlds...?
My homebrew looks VERY similar to Golarion, as it turns out. The big difference in the PC race scene is that for much of my homebrew's several decades of existance, I've had a LOT of subraces for all races. And that's partially why I've come to prefer ethnicities over subraces—after seeing campaign after campaign of players being overwhelmed by options and tending to gravitate toward the familiar options, I realized that the best solution would be to have non-game-changing ethnicities who all share the same basic stats.
Whenever I wanted something brand new and not-traditional, I generally just made up a brand new race. Pugwampis, for example, were originally a PC race in my homebrew (although they were a lot more like Isle of Dread's phanatons than they were gremlins at that point), and I had a pretty robust system for what I called "kulgore" and "skavelings" who were essentailly humans who had demon blood in them—when Planescape came along and tieflings were introduced into the world, it took me about a decade to let the tiefling just eventually replace kulgore/skavelings in my homebrew...
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The inclusion of complex subsystems (most recently, the nautical rules for Skull & Shackles, but those came on the heals of the caravan rules and the relationship rules)(stuff cut for space and not related to my question)
Prestige is a relatively new method of rewarding play, and as such if you find that it's impacting your encounters in a way that's making things too easy... then you absolutely should be a bit more restrictive on...
Okay, nautical rules - available, included in 'Skull & Shackles'.
Hopefully not a silly question, but--
In which APs, or other Paizo products, do I find the caravan rules and relationship rules that you mention? And what subsystems are presently out there included in other APs, but not yet in one of the main rule-books?
Oh, and which book has the 'prestige' rules?
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The inclusion of complex subsystems (most recently, the nautical rules for Skull & Shackles, but those came on the heals of the caravan rules and the relationship rules)(stuff cut for space and not related to my question)
Prestige is a relatively new method of rewarding play, and as such if you find that it's impacting your encounters in a way that's making things too easy... then you absolutely should be a bit more restrictive on...
Okay, nautical rules - available, included in 'Skull & Shackles'.
Hopefully not a silly question, but--
In which APs, or other Paizo products, do I find the caravan rules and relationship rules that you mention? And what subsystems are presently out there included in other APs, but not yet in one of the main rule-books?
Oh, and which book has the 'prestige' rules?
Yeah; Jade Regent uses the caravan rules and NPC relationship rules; both are for free in the Jade Regent Player's Guide.
Prestige rules appear all over the place in the form of various factions we've presented, such as the Faction Guide or in the guilds/schools chapter of Inner Sea Magic.
Dragon is a blue-tailed skink—AKA, a plain old lizard. But a VERY pretty one.Ah yeah forgot she had a familiar prior to ISM... What is Dragon? Mundane lizard, or is he special? I've always liked the idea of shocker lizards as familiars.
Seoni is a "baseline" sorcerer—as such, she has the arcane bloodline. If only so she doesn't have to fire her familiar, Dragon!
Yeah not sure how I missed that above when you were talking about it, but thanks for answering again. :)
1) are there any gods worshipped in Casmaron that have no presence in the Inner Sea Region? (like with Tian Xia there was some overlap, but the "core pantheon" of Tian Xia wasn't exactly the same)
2) which gods from the Inner Sea have strong followings in Casmaron?
So, a guy on another site said he has a house rule that spellcasters can cast spells at least 2 levels lower than their highest spell level available for free, like cantrips. When I pointed out (I admit, sarcastically) how awesome that was that my fire mage could then throw a 10d6 Fireball every round who needs Meteor Swarm he told me how easy it was then to cast Fire Immunity making both Fireball and Meteor Swarm not that powerful. I countered with Disintegrate, Power Word, Kill etc. all being "free" in his house rule... and that I thought it made spellcasters WAY overpowered. He then said "Sounds like uniformed panic. Obviously." Then he said a spellcaster can carry an armful of wands and staves, so just remove the items and give them the spells at will. So, what do you think? Is it reasonable to allow a level 18+ wizard to cast all level 0-7 spells as many times per day as they wish?
Let me go out on a limb here - this guy on this other site is fairly young, as gamers go?
So, a guy on another site said he has a house rule that spellcasters can cast spells at least 2 levels lower than their highest spell level available for free, like cantrips. When I pointed out (I admit, sarcastically) how awesome that was that my fire mage could then throw a 10d6 Fireball every round who needs Meteor Swarm he told me how easy it was then to cast Fire Immunity making both Fireball and Meteor Swarm not that powerful. I countered with Disintegrate, Power Word, Kill etc. all being "free" in his house rule... and that I thought it made spellcasters WAY overpowered. He then said "Sounds like uniformed panic. Obviously." So, what do you think? Is it reasonable to allow a level 18+ wizard to cast all level 0-7 spells as many times per day as they wish?
IAMDNJJIAWSOF, however, this undermines the entire progression of power. Casters become almost infinitely more powerful than lower level casters that they most definitely shouldn't be. If everybody is always the same level and always fight equal CR battles(CR split between few monsters) then it could be ok. But that's a boring game.
It's one of those 'trying to please everybody' things. Hey, why not give everybody a vorpal weapon!?! I mean if everybody has one then it isn't overpowered! lol
Did you tell him that Fighters can't cast Fire Immunity?
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Let me go out on a limb here - this guy on this other site is fairly young, as gamers go?
No idea how old he is. Last thing he said before he ended the conversation on his end was about how broken the game already is so his changes can't break it worse than it already is when you can just make an armful of wands and staves, just remove the item requirement.
Did you tell him that Fighters can't cast Fire Immunity?
No, figured with his ending all of his posts on the subject with "Obviously" he didn't need me to point out something so obvious.
Is the Planet Stories line Dead? I've used these books to get a lot of inspiration for my homebrew settings over the yearsand I am hoping this is not the case. I also figured that if you didn't know, you could direct me to the person who would know.
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@Absolut: IANJJ but I think ditching the items and giving the spells for free may have other unintended effects.
In a normal game, that wizard with the mountain of wands/staves is going to have to worry about:
A) Carrying Capacity, and
B) Temporary over Permanent Power.
He just spent 30k on Staves and Wands?
When those are used up, he's out 30k, and the party members who did not spend their money on consumeables will have 30k better gear than him *FOR THE REST OF THE CAMPAIGN*.
I've never seen a party willing to give one guy a bigger share of loot to make up for him buying a ton of consumeables.
I've played in games where you can cast your lower level spells at will (Ghosts of Albion), but you typically have a much smaller number of high powered spells you can use - and magic tends to be much closer in power to melee.
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@Absolute:
In my experience, people who use the argument "The game is already broken" fall into three categories. A) They find one or two small loopholes and immediately declare the game broken. B) They do not like that options in the game are not balanced within a pin's weight of each other and declare the game broken. C) They are using the statement as a thin veil of protection against the fact that they know their creation is broken and are trying a last-ditch effort to justify it.
It is my personal opinion as a GM that those words mark someone who truly hasn't figured out RPG design yet, and that someone should probably be left alone to their own devices until they see how ridiculous their rule is by having a player blow them up in the face with it. And as a player, those words mean that the GM just invited me to do everything I can to topple their pretty little system. :)
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Hey James, I have a few questions about the minor goddess Sivanah.
In the old PF Campaign Setting, she was associated with six races, each tied to one of her seven veils: human, halfling, elf, gnome, aranea, and naga.
In the Inner Sea World Guide, this list was changed to: human, halfling, elf, gnome, cyclops, and naga.
Why the change from aranea to cyclops?
Also, when Sivanah appears as a naga, does she appear to be a particular kind of naga (dark, guardian, lunar, etc.)? If so, what kind?
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Creative Director
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Prestige rules appear all over the place in the form of various factions we've presented, such as the Faction Guide or in the guilds/schools chapter of Inner Sea Magic.Any chance of pirate and navy factions?
I have given up on fighter schools...
There is a pirate faction in the Faction Guide, yes.
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Creative Director
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1) are there any gods worshipped in Casmaron that have no presence in the Inner Sea Region? (like with Tian Xia there was some overlap, but the "core pantheon" of Tian Xia wasn't exactly the same)
2) which gods from the Inner Sea have strong followings in Casmaron?
1) Yes.
2) Haven't yet figured that out... aside from the obvious choices of Sarenrae and Rovagug.
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Creative Director
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So, a guy on another site said he has a house rule that spellcasters can cast spells at least 2 levels lower than their highest spell level available for free, like cantrips. When I pointed out (I admit, sarcastically) how awesome that was that my fire mage could then throw a 10d6 Fireball every round who needs Meteor Swarm he told me how easy it was then to cast Fire Immunity making both Fireball and Meteor Swarm not that powerful. I countered with Disintegrate, Power Word, Kill etc. all being "free" in his house rule... and that I thought it made spellcasters WAY overpowered. He then said "Sounds like uniformed panic. Obviously." Then he said a spellcaster can carry an armful of wands and staves, so just remove the items and give them the spells at will. So, what do you think? Is it reasonable to allow a level 18+ wizard to cast all level 0-7 spells as many times per day as they wish?
Take away the resource management of limited spellcasting for any spellcaster and you're not playing a game I would like to play or write for, frankly. Not a fan of this house rule.