Grrrrowl!
James,
Why is Jason Bulmahn such a tease with his facebook posts?
Creative Director
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Having never attended Paizocon or anything similar, is this kind of thing a regular occurance? How many games do you see at the cons? What's the atmosphere like and how long do they last? Sounds like it'd be really cool.Are you running an Unspeakable Futures game at Paizocon? If so, I haven't found it on the list, and would certainly want to bid a 4 on it if it's there.I'm not running one this year.
PaizoCon happens once per year. There are a LOT more gaming conventions each year than that, but I only ever really go to two—PaizoCon and Gen Con.
I usually run 2–3 games at PaizoCon, and zero games at Gen Con.
The atmosphere is energetic, exciting, overwhelming, exhausting, and stressful (although that last bit only really applies if you're working the event—I would assume stress isn't as much a thing if you're a guest, but it certainly could be).
PaizoCon lasts 2 and half days. (Gen Con lasts 4 days.)
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Hi James.
What type of action is the kensai's perfect strike?
Spend an arcane point is usually swift action or immediate action and is always written, but in this case not. Therefore the perfect strike does not count as action?Perfect Strike (Ex)
At 4th level, when a kensai hits with his chosen weapon, he can spend 1 point from his arcane pool in order to maximize his weapon damage. Don’t roll for damage—the weapon deals maximum damage. This affects only the weapon’s base damage dice, not additional damage from sneak attack, magical weapon properties, spellstrike, or critical hits. If the kensai confirms a critical hit, he can instead spend 2 points from his arcane pool to increase his weapon’s critical multiplier by 1.
This ability replaces spell recall.
The spending of a point to utilize this ability is not an action in and of itself. It's part of the attack you make, and doesn't count as anything on its own.
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Anything (that you can talk about) exciting you this year for Paizocon?
Talking about and showing off the Rise of the Runelords hardcover.
Meeting Richard Pett.
Getting all six of the authors along with the cover artist of Rise of the Runelords together in one room.
Running a couple of games (one set in Sandpoint and one for Call of Cthulhu).
Revealing what the Adventure Path after Shattered Star is.
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Will something likes this ever be introduced into pathfinder?
Hwacha
Aura faint conjuration and evocation; CL 5th
Slot – Price 31,000 gp; Weight 275 lbs.This wagon is filled with 50 iron tubes in 5 rows of 10. Each tube contains something that resembles an arrow, but fills the tube. When a command word is spoken, the arrows are launched out of the tube, as if fired from a bow. The hwacha is a siege weapon used for both offense and defense. It has a minimum range of 100 ft, and a maximum range of 400 ft. The hwacha can be tilted to alter the angle of the launch by using a crank. The one aiming the hwacha is also the one who must speak the command word; if anyone else speaks it, nothing happens. By using a move action, the hwacha’s angle of launch can be altered by up to 50 ft, by using a full round action, the hwacha’s angle can be altered by up to 150 ft.
Once launched, the one aiming the hwacha must make an attack roll against AC 10; this attack roll is only modified by the aimer’s base attack bonus, plus his intelligence modifier. No feats, spells, or abilities modify either the attack roll or damage roll. Treat the hwacha as an exotic weapon for proficiency. If the attack roll misses, the hwacha’s target area deviates by 5 ft per point missed; roll 1d8 to determine the direction of deviation. The arrows fired by the hwacha rain down in a 10 ft radius circle. Those within the hwacha’s area of effect take 5d6 points of piecing damage and must make a DC 14 reflex save for half damage.
The hwacha conjures new arrows in the tubes on the following round, with the arrows fired disappearing a round after being fired. The hwacha can be fired once a round, on the aimer’s turn.
Construction
Requirements Craft Magical Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, abundant ammunition, fireball Cost 15,500 gp** spoiler omitted **...
HWACHAAAAAA!
Maybe!
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Creative Director
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hey James
dimensional hop is a spell-like ability and as such provokes Attacks of opportunity upon activation. It is clear that moving in this way, through threatened squares do not provoke, but it becomes unclear to me if the activation, is also excluded seeing at you use a move action to activate it?
has the movement already begun upon activation?
reference:
"Dimensional Hop (Sp): At 8th level, you can teleport up to 10 feet per cleric level per day as a move action. This teleportation must be used in 5-foot increments and such movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. You must have line of sight to your destination to use this ability. You can bring other willing creatures with you, but you must expend an equal amount of distance for each creature brought."
The act of activating Dimensional Hop provokes an attack of opportunity, but the movement you do does not. So... when you activate the ability, it triggers attacks of opportunity as normal for being a spell-like ability from any creatures that threaten you... but then if you move 30 feet west, and in so doing move by 6 different creatures, you do NOT provoke from those creatures. It's over-explained, in my opinion.
If you suddenly found yourself in Golarion, what's the one entity you would try hardest not to p*ss off?That would change by the moment depending on the situation, but if I had to just choose one... I guess that would be Pharasma.
Good idea. She's probably especially grumpy because she doesn't like cake.
First let me say that I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys add to Thornkeep.
I'm a little confused by the Sipping Demon ability of the Hungry Ghost Monk. After reading it several times, it looks like the temp hit points should stack. Otherwise, I don't see how you could max out the temp hit points at your monk level. Not many creatures have a 36 Wisdom at 13th level.
Am I reading more into this than was intended?
Who's Erol Otus?An excellent and very evocative artist who left a pretty enormous mark on the early D&D artwork. He's still working today, too!
May I also add that unusually amongst fantasy artists he plays DND and recently was DMing at a Dallas convention.
Do you know of many other artists who game James?
Do you have much say in the look of Pathfinder James?
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First let me say that I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys add to Thornkeep.
I'm a little confused by the Sipping Demon ability of the Hungry Ghost Monk. After reading it several times, it looks like the temp hit points should stack. Otherwise, I don't see how you could max out the temp hit points at your monk level. Not many creatures have a 36 Wisdom at 13th level.
Am I reading more into this than was intended?
(again... when you ask questions about things not from the core rules, I appreciate having you indicate where those rules are from—saves me the time of hunting them down...)
In the case of the Sipping Demon power, the temporary hit points you gain do stack—it doesn't implicitly say so in the text (although it should), but it implies it by listing a "maximum temporary hp value" that, at 13th level, would be impossible to attain if these temp hp did not stack.
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Who's Erol Otus?An excellent and very evocative artist who left a pretty enormous mark on the early D&D artwork. He's still working today, too!May I also add that unusually amongst fantasy artists he plays DND and recently was DMing at a Dallas convention.
Do you know of many other artists who game James?
Do you have much say in the look of Pathfinder James?
I think that the vast majority of the artists we use do not game. There are some who do, and certainly some who, even if they don't game, understand the game. But for the most part, most of our artists don't game, which is why we have the iconic characters (for example), so that we can avoid having artists illustrate wizards wearing armor and the like.
I have an awful lot to say about the look of Pathfinder—I write a lot of the art orders (which decides what gets illustrated), and I have the ability to request changes to sketches or even the ability to kill art that doesn't match the look of the world. I'm not the ONLY one who makes those decisions... but I'm one of them and there's not a lot of us who have that power here at Paizo.
When it comes time to autograph your nearly 1400 copies of Thornkeep, will you sign your full name with a flourish, or will you invent a J-squiggly-S signature for the sake of avoiding carpal tunnel?Ugh. That's a lot of signatures.
Legibility will quickly deteriorate.
Mayhap you still have time to commission a custom Treerazer or Tom Rex stamp to use in place of signing?
Hey James
Do you use House rules in your PF games? if so what?
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Thoughts?
None. I tend not to watch You Tube links at work, and then forget about them once I get home.
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Mayhap you still have time to commission a custom Treerazer or Tom Rex stamp to use in place of signing?When it comes time to autograph your nearly 1400 copies of Thornkeep, will you sign your full name with a flourish, or will you invent a J-squiggly-S signature for the sake of avoiding carpal tunnel?Ugh. That's a lot of signatures.
Legibility will quickly deteriorate.
Ha!
Cool... but that's cheating! If folks are eager enough to give Goblinworks 300 K bucks... the least I can do is sign a big stack of books. Even if it does take a day.
Thoughts?None. I tend not to watch You Tube links at work, and then forget about them once I get home.
A guy built a hand held flamethrower that detects the position of his hand and increases or decrease the flame shooting out of his palm as needed.
My first thought was: "Bracer of Burning Hands, that's about 2 - 10 thousand depending on construction."
ah... ignore my post. found your answer to that in a search.
but i would like to change my question.
you said in a post about succubi being stronger than inccubi
because the Abyss itself is a feminine place, as opposed to Hell being a masculine place.
i found the idea that the abyss is feminine and hell is masculine interesting ..
can you expand on that?
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you said in a post about succubi being stronger than inccubi
because the Abyss itself is a feminine place, as opposed to Hell being a masculine place.i found the idea that the abyss is feminine and hell is masculine interesting ..
can you expand on that?
Wes and I expanded on those themes for 64 pages each in the first two Books of the Damned, in fact.
Wes would be the one to talk more about Hell being masculine, but since the Abyss itself is so fecund, and in a way a living thing that can spontaneously manifest life, that's in and of itself a pretty feminine thing. On top of that, the boss demon of the Abyss, Lamashtu, is a female and a mother figure (she's quite literally the Mother of Monsters).
ah... ignore my post. found your answer to that in a search.
but i would like to change my question.
you said in a post about succubi being stronger than inccubi
because the Abyss itself is a feminine place, as opposed to Hell being a masculine place.i found the idea that the abyss is feminine and hell is masculine interesting ..
can you expand on that?
Seriously?
Abyss: Chatoic bunch of demons that fight for power and only the strongest prevail. Those with the power, rule, and prey upon the weak in however they please.
Sounds like a bunch of men.
Hell: Conniving bunch of Devils that seduce people with power and gifts, slowly twisting them to their every whim and turning them into little more than meat puppets that strive to fulfill your every desire.
Sounds feminine to me.
James, I think you got your two places mixed up.
First let me say that I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys add to Thornkeep.
I'm a little confused by the Sipping Demon ability of the Hungry Ghost Monk. After reading it several times, it looks like the temp hit points should stack. Otherwise, I don't see how you could max out the temp hit points at your monk level. Not many creatures have a 36 Wisdom at 13th level.
Am I reading more into this than was intended?
(again... when you ask questions about things not from the core rules, I appreciate having you indicate where those rules are from—saves me the time of hunting them down...)
In the case of the Sipping Demon power, the temporary hit points you gain do stack—it doesn't implicitly say so in the text (although it should), but it implies it by listing a "maximum temporary hp value" that, at 13th level, would be impossible to attain if these temp hp did not stack.
Thank you for the quick reply. I will remember to include a reference in the future. Sorry for the added trouble.
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Creative Director
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ah... ignore my post. found your answer to that in a search.
but i would like to change my question.
you said in a post about succubi being stronger than inccubi
because the Abyss itself is a feminine place, as opposed to Hell being a masculine place.i found the idea that the abyss is feminine and hell is masculine interesting ..
can you expand on that?
Seriously?
Abyss: Chatoic bunch of demons that fight for power and only the strongest prevail. Those with the power, rule, and prey upon the weak in however they please.
Sounds like a bunch of men.
Hell: Conniving bunch of Devils that seduce people with power and gifts, slowly twisting them to their every whim and turning them into little more than meat puppets that strive to fulfill your every desire.
Sounds feminine to me.
James, I think you got your two places mixed up.
Could we have reversed it so that Hell was feminine and the Abyss was masculine? Perhaps. But as it stands, we did not. Hell is actually a rather misogynistic place—all of the rulers there are men and the most powerful devil of all is a man—there are no female rulers in Hell, after all—the closest there are there is a category of rulers known as "Whore Queens." Whereas in the Abyss... the two most powerful demon lords are both women and the entire plane itself is arguably the source of all life.
Again... the first two books in the Book of the Damned line goes into a lot more detail about this. Far more so than I can go into here.
James, I think someone wants you to buy him/her the Book of the Damned.
Can Outsiders make babies with another Outsider (like a Demon being born of two Demons parent)?
I have the book, I just never really read through it all.
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James,
Perhaps you know the answer: Isthis article from the Blastr website talking about Vic and Lisa?
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I just don't think it's possible for a use activated version. I'll tell you, a quickened version is a very bad idea. You get to make an attack as part of the spell, and since you're making a swift action version, the user would still get a standard and move action left. So one could use a quickened version and get a free attack, then get their full attack off afterward.
Probably best if I just make it a command word item, though I didn't want to do that as I liked the idea of combining it with a charge.
A charge is a full round action, so to combine Bladed dash with a charge you need a quickened version of it as James said.
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Creative Director
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James,
Perhaps you know the answer: Isthis article from the Blastr website talking about Vic and Lisa?
Could be...
So how much crap do you get from Lisa and Vic for not being a big Star Wars fan?
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Creative Director
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So how much crap do you get from Lisa and Vic for not being a big Star Wars fan?
None. Likely mostly because I don't flaunt that in front of them. I don't mind that other folks like things, and that doesn't compel me to go after them for liking things I don't. I just stay quiet and don't get involved in most discussions of things like Star Wars or Dr. Who or Superman or other similar topics with which I am not interested in.
So how much crap do you get from Lisa and Vic for not being a big Star Wars fan?None. Likely mostly because I don't flaunt that in front of them. I don't mind that other folks like things, and that doesn't compel me to go after them for liking things I don't. I just stay quiet and don't get involved in most discussions of things like Star Wars or Dr. Who or Superman or other similar topics with which I am not interested in.
Smart man. :)
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Creative Director
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Excluding Pathfinder; what are the Paizo's crew top 5 rpg games to play?
Does either Vic or Lisa run star wars games at Paizo?
There are no Star Wars games going on right now that I know of at all. And I can't vouch for others since I don't know their preferences, but my top five PUBLISHED tabletop RPGs would be:
Tied for first place: Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu
3) 2nd edition Gamma World
4) 1st edition AD&D
5) Star Frontiers
If I take out the word "published" I'd add my own game, Unspeakable Futures, to that list and kick off Star Frontiers.
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Creative Director
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Since Golem is not an independent type or subtype, would a Golembane Scarab Detect/Ignore DR of any Construct? Or does the scarab only work against constructs with golem specifically in their name?
Nope. Golembane scarabs only affect golems. AKA: creatures listed in Bestiaries under the heading of "Golem" that have the word "golem" in their names.
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Excluding Pathfinder; what are the Paizo's crew top 5 rpg games to play?
Does either Vic or Lisa run star wars games at Paizo?
There are no Star Wars games going on right now that I know of at all. And I can't vouch for others since I don't know their preferences, but my top five PUBLISHED tabletop RPGs would be:
Tied for first place: Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu
3) 2nd edition Gamma World
4) 1st edition AD&D
5) Star FrontiersIf I take out the word "published" I'd add my own game, Unspeakable Futures, to that list and kick off Star Frontiers.
Didn't I say excluding Pathfinder? :P
Now I'm going to search what Star Frontiers is... Thats a new one for me|
Creative Director
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Excluding Pathfinder; what are the Paizo's crew top 5 rpg games to play?
Does either Vic or Lisa run star wars games at Paizo?
There are no Star Wars games going on right now that I know of at all. And I can't vouch for others since I don't know their preferences, but my top five PUBLISHED tabletop RPGs would be:
Tied for first place: Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu
3) 2nd edition Gamma World
4) 1st edition AD&D
5) Star FrontiersIf I take out the word "published" I'd add my own game, Unspeakable Futures, to that list and kick off Star Frontiers.
Didn't I say excluding Pathfinder? :P
Now I'm going to search what Star Frontiers is... Thats a new one for me
Well... excluding Pathfinder I guess I'd add D&D 3.5 onto that list. With Call of Cthulhu soundly occupying the "favorite" spot at #1, and 3.5 at #2.
Excluding Pathfinder; what are the Paizo's crew top 5 rpg games to play?
Does either Vic or Lisa run star wars games at Paizo?
There are no Star Wars games going on right now that I know of at all. And I can't vouch for others since I don't know their preferences, but my top five PUBLISHED tabletop RPGs would be:
Tied for first place: Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu
3) 2nd edition Gamma World
4) 1st edition AD&D
5) Star FrontiersIf I take out the word "published" I'd add my own game, Unspeakable Futures, to that list and kick off Star Frontiers.
If you run 1st or 2nd edition Star Wars it incorporate the starfighter rules from Star Frontiers. (or at least you could use them with it)
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Creative Director
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If you run 1st or 2nd edition Star Wars it incorporate the starfighter rules from Star Frontiers. (or at least you could use them with it)Excluding Pathfinder; what are the Paizo's crew top 5 rpg games to play?
Does either Vic or Lisa run star wars games at Paizo?
There are no Star Wars games going on right now that I know of at all. And I can't vouch for others since I don't know their preferences, but my top five PUBLISHED tabletop RPGs would be:
Tied for first place: Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu
3) 2nd edition Gamma World
4) 1st edition AD&D
5) Star FrontiersIf I take out the word "published" I'd add my own game, Unspeakable Futures, to that list and kick off Star Frontiers.
Bleh. Would rather play Star Frontiers from top to bottom.
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Creative Director
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Is whats written in the Thassilon section of lost kingdom Spoilers for what happens in Shatterd star. Specificly
** spoiler omitted **
There may well be some spoilers in that section, yes. To a certain extent. It's not a 100% accurate spoiler.
But yeah... the Campaign Setting line does periodically include adventure spoilers. That's nothing new. They're aimed at GMs, primarily, after all...
Bleh. Would rather play Star Frontiers from top to bottom.If you run 1st or 2nd edition Star Wars it incorporate the starfighter rules from Star Frontiers. (or at least you could use them with it)Excluding Pathfinder; what are the Paizo's crew top 5 rpg games to play?
Does either Vic or Lisa run star wars games at Paizo?
There are no Star Wars games going on right now that I know of at all. And I can't vouch for others since I don't know their preferences, but my top five PUBLISHED tabletop RPGs would be:
Tied for first place: Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu
3) 2nd edition Gamma World
4) 1st edition AD&D
5) Star FrontiersIf I take out the word "published" I'd add my own game, Unspeakable Futures, to that list and kick off Star Frontiers.
Top Secret it is then! ;)
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Is whats written in the Thassilon section of lost kingdom Spoilers for what happens in Shatterd star. Specificly
** spoiler omitted **
There may well be some spoilers in that section, yes. To a certain extent. It's not a 100% accurate spoiler.
But yeah... the Campaign Setting line does periodically include adventure spoilers. That's nothing new. They're aimed at GMs, primarily, after all...
I dont suppose you would be willing to say what part is not 100% accurate?