Creative Director
|
Hi James,
Feel free to pass on answering this due to the insanity of the Internet. But I am genuinely curious.
I personally enjoy DND 4e, in fact moreso than Pathfinder. Pathfinder is in no way bad and I do enjoy it however, and I own all the Pathfinder hardcover books.
1. You mentioned that 4e was not a game for you. What was the top thing, from a game system perspective, that you did not like?
2. You mentioned that 4e significant departure from the historical things in DND (origin of succubus, ignoring the cosmology) were a deal breaker for you. Do you believe that there is no scope for these moves from 35 years of tradition, or that 4e just went a way that you didn't like?I reiterate that I own thousands of dollars of Paizo product and wotc product. This is not intended to start an edition debate.
1) No comment.
2) No comment.
AKA: There's simply no way I can answer those questions without starting an edition war, either here or elsewhere.
|
Just one last trailer James, and while I share your anticipation for Prometheus and The Dark Knight, Gangster Squad is a very close third for me.
Did you like The Untouchables?
1) No comment.2) No comment.
AKA: There's simply no way I can answer those questions without starting an edition war, either here or elsewhere.
Understandable. Thanks anyway.
Are Yrthaks Magical dinosaurs? If so? Will there be more magical beast dinosaurs anytime soon? If not, Will there be any Magical beast Dinosaurs in pathfinder ever?That's something a GM can decide on their own.
In my opinion, though, no they are not.
Of course they're not magical dinosaurs, they're obviously magical pterosaurs.
|
|
Did you like The Untouchables?Very much.
I hope that link for 'Gangster Squad' worked for you, I believe you have to be signed in because I've sent Mark Moreland (who is proud of his film watching pedigree) and he said it took him to the YouTube sign in page.
It's about time we had another 'The Untouchables'.
I hope this link works for you, but are these aliens or dinosaurs or alien dinosaurs ??
James, I saw a few hundred pages up thread that you don't like many campaign settings that (and pardon my poor paraphrasing here) upset traditional expectations as far as the nature of fantasy creatures. But then I saw Darksun in your top 10 campaign settings (I setting near and dear to my heart). Personally I find Darksun upset a lot of basic race behaviors, completely reworks the underlying assumptions of magic for arcane and divine casters and redefine many classes and what they are. What is it about the setting convention defying nature that captured your interest and made it so enjoyable for you? Also I know you are not fond of Power point based psionic systems and psionics play a big role in Athas. How do you feel about that system. Its flavor and its mechanics?
|
Creative Director
|
James, I saw a few hundred pages up thread that you don't like many campaign settings that (and pardon my poor paraphrasing here) upset traditional expectations as far as the nature of fantasy creatures. But then I saw Darksun in your top 10 campaign settings (I setting near and dear to my heart). Personally I find Darksun upset a lot of basic race behaviors, completely reworks the underlying assumptions of magic for arcane and divine casters and redefine many classes and what they are. What is it about the setting convention defying nature that captured your interest and made it so enjoyable for you? Also I know you are not fond of Power point based psionic systems and psionics play a big role in Athas. How do you feel about that system. Its flavor and its mechanics?
Dark Sun is a strange beast. It's not something I would really think of as a fantasy setting at all, in fact, but a post-apocalyptic setting. It takes all the familiar D&D tropes and stuff and basically says, "How would this race/class/element change if it was in a post-apocalyptic setting?" and then supports that question with REALLY creative and well-written answers that I quite like.
Basically—the setting is so different that it caused changes.
For Eberron, though... that setting isn't fundamentally different from something like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk—it's specifically designed to be a setting you can play "standard D&D" in. Only you can't because they changed things around—not because the setting suggested changes, but just because they could. That doesn't sit well with me.
I've ALWAYS loved the flavor of psionics. That's why you see traditionally psionic creatures like intellect devourers and the like playing roles in many of the things I design for Pathfinder. I've just never liked the mechanics for psionic stuff. It's frustrating to have to learn different rules to do essentially the same thing a wizard or cleric does.
|
a question about the Will-o'-Wisp: why it has Acrobatics as a skill and it hasn't Intimidation?
As it is a flying creature wouldn't use its fly skill for all action in which a land bound creature would use his acrobatics skill?
Reading the entry of the fly skill he could not use it to avoid Attacks of Opportunity while moving through a threatened square, so maybe that is the reason.
Personally I feel it is reasonable, for a creature using flight as its form of movement, to allow and require the use of the fly skill to pass through threatened squares and in conjunction with fighting defensively.
I like to add intimidate to a Will-o'-Wisp skill list as it is a good way to generate that delicious fear n its targets.
|
Creative Director
|
a question about the Will-o'-Wisp: why it has Acrobatics as a skill and it hasn't Intimidation?
As it is a flying creature wouldn't use its fly skill for all action in which a land bound creature would use his acrobatics skill?Reading the entry of the fly skill he could not use it to avoid Attacks of Opportunity while moving through a threatened square, so maybe that is the reason.
Personally I feel it is reasonable, for a creature using flight as its form of movement, to allow and require the use of the fly skill to pass through threatened squares and in conjunction with fighting defensively.I like to add intimidate to a Will-o'-Wisp skill list as it is a good way to generate that delicious fear n its targets.
Because it's more appropriate for the monster to be quick and darting about and fast than it is for it to be a bully.
You still use Acrobatics when attempting to deny attacks of opportunity from foes when you fly.
I really loved the work you guys did with the Blood of Fiends! If my bard dies in the Jade Regent game I am playing (Heaven forbid, I love bards now!) I plan on playing an Onispawn ranger. I do have two questions.
1. What is the base Tiefling supposed to be in the Bestiary? None of the other fiends quite match with it.
2. Are the contents in the Blood of Fiends book available to use if I wish to make a Kytonspawn big bad guy in a free, non-profit adventure?
Thank you again for answering any questions. And I hope you enjoy Prometheus when it arrives next month!
|
Creative Director
|
I really loved the work you guys did with the Blood of Fiends! If my bard dies in the Jade Regent game I am playing (Heaven forbid, I love bards now!) I plan on playing an Onispawn ranger. I do have two questions.
1. What is the base Tiefling supposed to be in the Bestiary? None of the other fiends quite match with it.
2. Are the contents in the Blood of Fiends book available to use if I wish to make a Kytonspawn big bad guy in a free, non-profit adventure?
Thank you again for answering any questions. And I hope you enjoy Prometheus when it arrives next month!
1) The base tiefling in the Bestiary is the most common one. It's a mongrel; a tiefling that has a mix of all sorts of fiendish bloodlines. The specific variants in Blood of Fiends are rarer tieflings; ones who don't have a wide range of fiendish lineages. The majority of tieflings are the ones from the Bestiary though; they either had two tiefling parents or a tiefling and a human parent or something like that.
2) Pretty much all of our rules content is open content. The story stuff is not. You can use the rules all you want, but the flavor text and world content is off limits... if you use the OGL. If you use the Community Use Policy, you get to use world content as well but you can't make money off of it.
|
|
a question about the Will-o'-Wisp: why it has Acrobatics as a skill and it hasn't Intimidation?
As it is a flying creature wouldn't use its fly skill for all action in which a land bound creature would use his acrobatics skill?Reading the entry of the fly skill he could not use it to avoid Attacks of Opportunity while moving through a threatened square, so maybe that is the reason.
Personally I feel it is reasonable, for a creature using flight as its form of movement, to allow and require the use of the fly skill to pass through threatened squares and in conjunction with fighting defensively.I like to add intimidate to a Will-o'-Wisp skill list as it is a good way to generate that delicious fear n its targets.
Because it's more appropriate for the monster to be quick and darting about and fast than it is for it to be a bully.
You still use Acrobatics when attempting to deny attacks of opportunity from foes when you fly.
More than it being a bully I was thinking of someone playing with the psychology of its target.
Not flexing his non-existent muscles and saying "I will crush you" but being the unseen babau outside the door calling your name and saying "I am coming to you", getting you to see glimpses of it without ever seeing it fully till the last moment and so on.
I read that Diego and thought of this picture.
|
|
Two things:
1) Have you been watching Grimm? If so, what did you think of this week's Bigfoot episode?
2) How does one become a third-party publisher? More specifically, would applying for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License allow me to sell products on paizo.com, or is there another way to apply for that?
What would you think of a service where Paizo was all like, "Okay, we have WizKids Minis X, Y, and Z in our stock. We can trade our minis for other people's minis as long as they're the same rarity."
Could something like that ever happen? How likely is it?
|
Chief Technical Officer
|
What would you think of a service where Paizo was all like, "Okay, we have WizKids Minis X, Y, and Z in our stock. We can trade our minis for other people's minis as long as they're the same rarity."
Could something like that ever happen? How likely is it?
That's not really a James question, but I'll be happy to handle it..
Even if you assume that all minis of the same rarity have the same value on the secondary market—which they don't—shipping, packaging, and labor costs make that concept pretty much a no-go. We do have a program for buying people's D&D Minis, though, which we use to restock paizo.com with singles for that out-of-print line.... and I'm sure that once we start running out of a bunch of Pathfinder Battles minis, we'll add them to the program. (For now, though, we don't need any.)
So I have a Problem with this one. Not so much in the way of mechanics, but in the way of concept.
Why would a Barbarian lose their regular rage when under the urban barbarian archetype?
You're mixing up class design with in-character story/world coherency.
Nobody in-game 'knows' that some mechanical benefits were swapped out for others, there are just different characters with different abilities... How those abilities were gained may be flavored differently by the class/feat/template that granted said ability (training, racial heritage, divine intervention), but abstract class design doesn't really exist 'in-game-world'.
It does bring up the interesting case of an Urban Barbarian who multi-classes in Cleric/Inquisitor and gains normal Rage... whose effects don't stack with Controlled Rage (re: bonuses of same type), but the highest of all applicable bonuses do apply (you would just have to pay for the Rage Rounds of Rage/Controlled Rage separately, since they are distinct abilities).
|
Creative Director
|
More than it being a bully I was thinking of someone playing with the psychology of its target.
Not flexing his non-existent muscles and saying "I will crush you" but being the unseen babau outside the door calling your name and saying "I am coming to you", getting you to see glimpses of it without ever seeing it fully till the last moment and so on.
Also... I don't see will-o'-wisps being active in their torment, but more like observant. Why make an Intimidate check when you can lure a person into quicksand or a monster lair or just electrocute them?
|
Creative Director
|
Two things:
1) Have you been watching Grimm? If so, what did you think of this week's Bigfoot episode?
2) How does one become a third-party publisher? More specifically, would applying for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License allow me to sell products on paizo.com, or is there another way to apply for that?
1) Nope. Got too many other shows I'm behind on to start a new one for now.
2) I'm actually not sure how you go about selling products at paizo.com... that's a customer service question. But as for becoming a third-party publisher... spend money and publish. That's pretty much it!
|
|
Also... I don't see will-o'-wisps being active in their torment, but more like observant. Why make an Intimidate check when you can lure a person into quicksand or a monster lair or just electrocute them?More than it being a bully I was thinking of someone playing with the psychology of its target.
Not flexing his non-existent muscles and saying "I will crush you" but being the unseen babau outside the door calling your name and saying "I am coming to you", getting you to see glimpses of it without ever seeing it fully till the last moment and so on.
True.
My idea was born by GM a Kingmaker campaign with a 6 man group.They have stumble in a old Mivonian guard tower that is used as a lair by a will o wisp and they have holed in it to avoid an incoming snowstorm. The will o' wisp will do as he has found them in his lair and now I am thinking what it will do.
A straight attack will be out of character, luring them out difficult as they have seen its light while it was approaching and know they are in will o' wisp territory, so going around like the image Odraude linked, scaring them from outside, killing their horses (poor beasts, in my others campaign they usually end as roll fodder when left outside a dungeon for long periods) and so on.
Probably Kingmaker is a one of a kind kind AP and campaign where the intimidating will o' wisp could work side by side with the more commons kind that try to lure you into a deadly situation.
Now, a question:
I am toying with the idea of adding a the Fey template to some will-o'-wisps in that campaign. As you know there is some background reason why that can be possible in hat AP.
You think that it will be interesting and appropriate or it will be better to "reskin" the templated will-o'-wisps giving them a different name and making them some kind of fey creature?
|
Some spells and abilities that create the shaken, frightened, and panicked conditions are listed as fear effects, while a large number are not.
Would a spell or ability that renders one immune to fear effects allow them to be immune to the shaken, frightened, and panicked conditions, even if the source was not listed as a fear effect?
That link led me to my watch later files on Youtube.
Same.
|
Creative Director
|
Now, a question:
I am toying with the idea of adding a the Fey template to some will-o'-wisps in that campaign. As you know there is some background reason why that can be possible in hat AP.
You think that it will be interesting and appropriate or it will be better to "reskin" the templated will-o'-wisps giving them a different name and making them some kind of fey creature?
Well... "Fey" is a monster type, not a template... but there's more than fey in the First World so I sort of think they're fine as they are. Especially since they're a pretty famous monster in the game... change them too much and they'll lose their "star power," especially if you have players who've played the game for a while.
|
Creative Director
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
James how is this newly filmed creature related to Cthulhu?
Since for whatever reason that link doesn't work for me... it's related to Cthulhu in that it is hard to find and might not exist at all in the first place?
|
|
James how is this newly filmed creature related to Cthulhu?Since for whatever reason that link doesn't work for me... it's related to Cthulhu in that it is hard to find and might not exist at all in the first place?
Hmm sorry James, I think the old iPad just signs me into YouTube automatically, the same way it's auto correcting all my words right now, if you care to take a gander, just do a YouTube search for weird sea Cascade Creature. It's fascinating to look at midway through.
Greg A Vaughan would like it.
: )
Is it this video?
|
|
Well... "Fey" is a monster type, not a template... but there's more than fey in the First World so I sort of think they're fine as they are. Especially since they're a pretty famous monster in the game... change them too much and they'll lose their "star power," especially if you have players who've played the game for a while.Now, a question:
I am toying with the idea of adding a the Fey template to some will-o'-wisps in that campaign. As you know there is some background reason why that can be possible in hat AP.
You think that it will be interesting and appropriate or it will be better to "reskin" the templated will-o'-wisps giving them a different name and making them some kind of fey creature?
You have added a Fey creature template in Bestiary 3:
Creating a Fey Creature
“Fey Creature” is an inherited or acquired template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature. A fey creature retains the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
So you feel that it will change it too much from the original.
My problem is that a Will O' Wisp is relatively easy to defeat once you know what it is. It is not the kind of creature that will travel in group and while it will often live as a parasite of other creatures that do its killing for it, it will not collaborate with them.Any suggestion on what could be an interesting partnership for a will o wisp, someone or something with which it would have a reason to collaborate beyond the basic "I will lure potential targets toward you"?
I wonder some things on reincarnation.
1. It scrambles race, should it also scramble gender?
2. James, are you a Dr Who fan?
3. Could a witch that was close to death use the Forced Reincarnation hex on herself to be reborn in a new body, similar to how the Doctor does it?
Can an empowered mirror image spell create more than 8 images?
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
|
Is it just me, or does Charlize Theron's character in Prometheus look an awful lot like a female version of a David-type android?
Also, the Tengu image from last Tuesday's ARG preview is one of the coolest pieces of art I've ever seen. Can we get more Qadiran/Kelish Tengu in the future?
|
Is it this video?
Is that an underwater Cloaker?
Are there Underwater Cloakers in pathfinder? Cause after seeing that I sort of want some.
Is Nidal literally shrouded in eternal night, or only figuratively? I've seen fluff that implies each in different books.
|
Creative Director
|
You have added a Fey creature template in Bestiary 3:
Correct. A fey creature template. Not a "fey" template. May sound like semantics, but that one word is pretty important in not confusing me when you're talking about things like the fey creature template...
So you feel that it will change it too much from the original.
My problem is that a Will O' Wisp is relatively easy to defeat once you know what it is. It is not the kind of creature that will travel in group and while it will often live as a parasite of other creatures that do its killing for it, it will not collaborate with them.Any suggestion on what could be an interesting partnership for a will o wisp, someone or something with which it would have a reason to collaborate beyond the basic "I will lure potential targets toward you"?
Changing a will-o'-wisp with the fey creature template changes it, yes.
As for what monsters work well with them... pretty much ANYTHING. But particularly monsters that draw out kills. Ettercaps and giant spiders are good—victims can remain stuck in their webs and traps for a long time for the wisp to feed on.
|
Creative Director
|
I wonder some things on reincarnation.
1. It scrambles race, should it also scramble gender?
2. James, are you a Dr Who fan?
3. Could a witch that was close to death use the Forced Reincarnation hex on herself to be reborn in a new body, similar to how the Doctor does it?
1) That's up to the GM. It doesn't in games I run.
2) No.
3) Dunno. Depends on the GM.
|
Creative Director
|
Is it this video?Is that an underwater Cloaker?
Are there Underwater Cloakers in pathfinder? Cause after seeing that I sort of want some.
There were things like that in Fritz Lieber's Lankhmar stories, and that means that I like them... so perhaps!
|
Creative Director
|
Is it just me, or does Charlize Theron's character in Prometheus look an awful lot like a female version of a David-type android?
Also, the Tengu image from last Tuesday's ARG preview is one of the coolest pieces of art I've ever seen. Can we get more Qadiran/Kelish Tengu in the future?
It's not just you.
Probably.
|
Creative Director
|
Is Nidal literally shrouded in eternal night, or only figuratively? I've seen fluff that implies each in different books.
Nidal's day and night work the same as anywhere else for the most part. There's probably some small scale eternal shadowy light spots here and there, but they're not that big. For the most part, the "shadow over Nidal" is a metaphor for Zon-Kuthon. Just as the darkness in "Age of Darkness" is a metaphor (the actual physical darkness caused by Earthfall probably only lasted a few weeks at most).
What are the statistics for worshipping Paizo a an deity/pantheon?
Or you, for the matter?
(could be a very fun character idea...)
|
|
I wonder some things on reincarnation.
1. It scrambles race, should it also scramble gender?
2. James, are you a Dr Who fan?
3. Could a witch that was close to death use the Forced Reincarnation hex on herself to be reborn in a new body, similar to how the Doctor does it?1) That's up to the GM. It doesn't in games I run.
2) No.
3) Dunno. Depends on the GM.
Wanna add that Dr. Who fans should check out Reincarnated Druid.