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Bards still have an uphill battle to get to the top of cool mountain... why would you do this to them?Will my GM murder me (or really though just the character) in my sleep for creating a Leo Getz character (Street performer bard with antagonize)?
If so, do you have any creative suggestions for him?
So I take it you're not a fan of Mr. Getz?
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James,
The term "free action" is used liberally in the books. Everything from dropping a weapon, to the monster ability rock catching. Sometimes it appears to be an action that you can only take on your turn, sometimes it is a reactive action that you take out of turn, sometimes it is grey on where it falls in a turn.
Unless otherwise stated in the ability (for example speaking), is a free action restricted to being taken only on your turn?
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It seem a bit counter intuitive. Wouldn't be the same that saying that a horseman could use the horse move during the horse turn, then dismount and move during his turn on foot?
If that is possible, how many "carried by other" movements we can do in one round? It seem the peasant railgun fallacy, if I have enough character in a row I can have them pick up the familiar, move 30' then then give it to another character that will repeat the maneuver, having it moving hundred or thousand of feet in one round.
The difference there is that the bat's not using the Ride skill to "pilot" the PC (and no... familiars can't do that). When you ride a horse, it functions more like a vehicle than its own creature.
Let common sense guide your heart in this case, in other words.
I fully agree with that, but, at least as far as the forum writers go, there is a lot of people that would argue for the silly interpretation.
Nope.
Have you tried Valkyria Chronicles?
It was the game that convinced me to buy a PS3. Squad level tactical game with a nice background story. If you can find it in a discount bin try it.
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This is silly but here goes. Some question I posted on Deviant Art:
1. What's your favorite song from a TV or show opening?
2. What's your favorite cartoon or anime?
3. What, for you, is a sign that you are in a solid romantic relationship?
4. How many of Shakespeare's plays have you read?
5. What video game have you spent the most time playing?
6. You meet a sociable brony on the street. How do you react/treat him?
7. Red or blue?
8. Fantasy or Science Fiction?
9. Deleted for obvious answer...
10. Do the physical needs of a person allow him to relate to people on a base level, what affects would the removal of physical needs have on his relating to other people, and what can he do to reduce or remove the adverse affects of this removal?1) Currently, the opening to Game of Thrones.
.
Aargh! Now I've got that going round in my head...
How excited are you about the Deluxe Edition RotRL?
Thanks so much for the previous responses!
1) What stats would you give First Son Kardinnyr Azrinae (drow or noble drow, alignment, class and level)? Judging from his picture on page 56 of Endless Night, I'm guessing that he specializes in some sort of whip like Allevrah does, to match the serpent theme Abraxas has going on?
2) What would you recommend happening to him (and House Azrinae as a whole for that matter) assuming that the Second Darkness adventure path has already come to pass, with the defeat of Allevrah and the meteor-summoning magic?
And as closely related questions...
2a) Is House Azrinae capable of maintaining it's status as one of the greater houses after said events?
2b) Does First Son Kardinnyr ascend to the rare status as the second male to lead a house in the drow city?
2c) Or do the members of the house who went into exile when Allevrah took power return and try to lay claim to the house, possibly killing Kardinnyr?
Thanks again, James!
Creative Director
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James,
The term "free action" is used liberally in the books. Everything from dropping a weapon, to the monster ability rock catching. Sometimes it appears to be an action that you can only take on your turn, sometimes it is a reactive action that you take out of turn, sometimes it is grey on where it falls in a turn.
Unless otherwise stated in the ability (for example speaking), is a free action restricted to being taken only on your turn?
Generally, free actions can only be done on your turn, but most GMs allow things like speaking to take place outside of this restriction. How many free actions you get in a round is also up to the GM to decide.
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Creative Director
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I fully agree with that, but, at least as far as the forum writers go, there is a lot of people that would argue for the silly interpretation.It seem a bit counter intuitive. Wouldn't be the same that saying that a horseman could use the horse move during the horse turn, then dismount and move during his turn on foot?
If that is possible, how many "carried by other" movements we can do in one round? It seem the peasant railgun fallacy, if I have enough character in a row I can have them pick up the familiar, move 30' then then give it to another character that will repeat the maneuver, having it moving hundred or thousand of feet in one round.
The difference there is that the bat's not using the Ride skill to "pilot" the PC (and no... familiars can't do that). When you ride a horse, it functions more like a vehicle than its own creature.
Let common sense guide your heart in this case, in other words.
Yup. The internet wouldn't be the same place without them.
James,
Have you ever played the game Okami? If so, what system(s) did you play it on and what did you think of it?
I recently saw a post of yours talking about how you weren't sure that even a perfectly balanced gunslinger could appear in Golarion. I'm curious about what cemented your opinion that they would be in Golarion?
HAI! Its kinda my first post on this forum so bear with me. I have a question about touch attacks. Ive seen all the post on those and i get the concept. You cast it as a standar, you can hold it as long as you want or until discharged, you can move freely while holding it and the action to deliver it is a free action. The part that still confuse me is the action to deliver it on any other round. Like if i cast touch of idiocy and miss it, what is the action that i need to take to try touching my target? is it a standar or a free?
PS : Sorry for the grammar, my english is not that good.
Hi James,
I just started a thread on Tips, Tricks and Ruleshacks for High Level (13th+) Play and other than shamelessly cross-linking your high-traffic thread, I really respect your opinion on matters high-level and otherwise.
Do you have any general advice—or favorite little tricks—to speed things along at these upper levels? I'm specifically looking to run the last chapter of Runelords, but even just generally, how do you cope with the sheer information overload that high-level play can cause?
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Creative Director
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I recently saw a post of yours talking about how you weren't sure that even a perfectly balanced gunslinger could appear in Golarion. I'm curious about what cemented your opinion that they would be in Golarion?
The fact that they ended up being pretty cool helped a lot. They're pretty tough, though... they're in Golarion, just not a lot of them.
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Creative Director
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HAI! Its kinda my first post on this forum so bear with me. I have a question about touch attacks. Ive seen all the post on those and i get the concept. You cast it as a standar, you can hold it as long as you want or until discharged, you can move freely while holding it and the action to deliver it is a free action. The part that still confuse me is the action to deliver it on any other round. Like if i cast touch of idiocy and miss it, what is the action that i need to take to try touching my target? is it a standar or a free?
PS : Sorry for the grammar, my english is not that good.
It's a standard action to deliver a touch spell.
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Creative Director
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Dear James, what does this button do?
*presses*
That's the one that makes one person somewhere on the internet suddenly concede that the argument they're in is over and that they lost and their opponent won.
Alas... the button's been broken for well over two decades.
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Creative Director
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Hi James,
I just started a thread on Tips, Tricks and Ruleshacks for High Level (13th+) Play and other than shamelessly cross-linking your high-traffic thread, I really respect your opinion on matters high-level and otherwise.
Do you have any general advice—or favorite little tricks—to speed things along at these upper levels? I'm specifically looking to run the last chapter of Runelords, but even just generally, how do you cope with the sheer information overload that high-level play can cause?
I've played lots of high level games... and without a doubt, the ones that run the smoothest are the ones that are organic. The ones where you get to high level as a result of playing from 1st level. By the time you get to high level, the GM knows the players and their characters, and the players know each other's characters. They've learned their characters and the rules incrementally, and are able to work together. They don't get confused by sudden rules changes as much.
A group that just sits down and starts playing at high level will ALWAYS run less smoothly.
General tips that I've seen folks use:'
1) Roll damage and attack dice simultaneously.
2) Precalculate all your buffs and bonuses on cards.
3) When it's not your turn, think about what you're going to do so that when your turn comes along, you're not hemming and hawing.
4) When you roll lots of dice, either just take average rolls, use a dice-rolling program, or roll before it's your turn so that you don't hold things up counting up your dice.
5) Keep the side chatter to a minimum, and respect your fellow players by not chattering all the time when it's not your turn.
6) Pay attention. There's lots going on at high level, and if you make the GM repeat descriptions, or if you don't pay attention to what the monsters and your fellow PCs are doing, you'll make things clunky on your turn when you keep having to revise your actions.
7) If you're the GM and you're running a big fight... and you know the monster has only a couple hit points left, and then someone hits it with an attack that would kill the monster even with minimum damage, don't wait for the player to calculate his damage. Just announce the monster was defeated and move on.
8) Remember that only saves and attacks auto-fail on a natural 1. Skills do not. If a person in your group has a skill that, even if they roll a 1, they'll still make the check... don't bother having the PC roll the skill check. This works particularly well for things like Acrobatics, Climb, Swim, and other skill checks that often pop up in combat.
9) Minimize die rolls. It's fun rolling dice... but each time someone rolls dice, they have to do math, and that becomes progressively harder as you gain levels. If you see a way to minimize die rolls, go for it. EXAMPLE: You could simply do away with iterative attacks and say everyone auto-gains the Vital Strike feat chain as they level up as bonus feats.
10) Don't be afraid to now and then give the players easy fights that they burn through fast. These not only help to keep things exciting, but it feels good for a player to put down a monster that was previously a super tough fight with just one shot.
11) MOST IMPORTANTLY: Don't be impatient. Accept the fact that at higher level, you'll likely progress more slowly. Do away with the "We must finish this adventure in a set, predetermined number of game sessions" if you can.
The earth breaker, a weapon listed in the Inner Sea World Guide, isn't listed in any of the expanded fighter weapon training groups in Ultimate Combat. Will it ever be categorized into any of the weapon groups? I'm worried about this being an issue in PFS organized play.
What are the odds, of a Pathfinder Tower Defense?
Could use the Iconics as Towers, defening Absolam. Maybe Seoni uses Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, Ezren Slows/Weakens, Kyra Buffs the damage or debilitation of Iconics in her area, Amira destroys creatures that are close to her, while Valeros can be set to switch between close and distance, Harsk would be a demon at range, and so on and so forth.
Might be a fun little game to host on the website or offer for DL for Smart Phones.
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Creative Director
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The earth breaker, a weapon listed in the Inner Sea World Guide, isn't listed in any of the expanded fighter weapon training groups in Ultimate Combat. Will it ever be categorized into any of the weapon groups? I'm worried about this being an issue in PFS organized play.
A classic example of how sometimes the rules team and the world team don't pay attention to what each other is doing, alas...
Not sure if it got into Ultimate Equipment. I hope so.
In any event, the Earth Breaker is essentially an upsized warhammer. As a result, it lives in the hammers category of weapons for fighters.
You shouldn't have any problems playing with an earthbreaker in PFS and having it count as a hammer in this way...
But this is also a good example of one of the disadvantages of organized play, alas... some character options that shouldn't cause issues end up causing issues because the GMs in the campaign don't feel as if they have the authority to make common sense calls.
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Creative Director
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What are the odds, of a Pathfinder Tower Defense?
Could use the Iconics as Towers, defening Absolam. Maybe Seoni uses Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, Ezren Slows/Weakens, Kyra Buffs the damage or debilitation of Iconics in her area, Amira destroys creatures that are close to her, while Valeros can be set to switch between close and distance, Harsk would be a demon at range, and so on and so forth.
Might be a fun little game to host on the website or offer for DL for Smart Phones.
Slim, but growing less so, I suppose.
What is your favorite Lovecraftian monstrosity, Elder God, or other entity?
Where would be the best place to put a Life sized Velociraptor statue?
On that note: Feathers. yes/no?
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1) Have you played Dragon Age 2? If you did, what do you think about it?
2) Do you think it is good idea to roll Intimidate, Bluff and Diplomacy into Persuasion?
3) Do you think that now is a good time to revisit Dwarves, because of The Hobbit?
3a) I really like how the Dwarves were done in Dragon Age. They feel more realistic to me than standard fantasy Dwarf. Are you inspired to do something like that for Golarion?
3b) If you are "the Elf guy", who is "the Dwarf guy" in Paizo?
Where would be the best place to put a Life sized Velociraptor statue?
On that note: Feathers. yes/no?
My wife insists that a raptor statue is an inevitability for our front yard, along with a top hat and cane.
Eventually, I think she plans on having seasonal outfits for it.
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Creative Director
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Where would be the best place to put a Life sized Velociraptor statue?
On that note: Feathers. yes/no?
It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, since wherever a life-sized velociraptor statue shows up, that place becomes the best place.
And I've seen cool designs with and without feathers. And I've seen terrible designs whit and without. I personally prefer feathers in moderation.
What is your favorite Lovecraftian monstrosity, Elder God, or other entity?Shoggoth.
Mine is Orville Redenbacher.
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Creative Director
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1) Have you played Dragon Age 2? If you did, what do you think about it?
2) Do you think it is good idea to roll Intimidate, Bluff and Diplomacy into Persuasion?
3) Do you think that now is a good time to revisit Dwarves, because of The Hobbit?
3a) I really like how the Dwarves were done in Dragon Age. They feel more realistic to me than standard fantasy Dwarf. Are you inspired to do something like that for Golarion?
3b) If you are "the Elf guy", who is "the Dwarf guy" in Paizo?
1) Yes. I liked it.
2) No, because the three skills do three very different things. By the same reasoning I don't think it's a good idea to roll short swords, longswords, and great swords into one weapon. Variety is what Pathifnder's all about.
3) Meh.
3a) I quite like how dwarves were handled in Dragon Age. Also how they're handled in the Witcher. The thing those two dwarves have in common is significant profanity—that's something we can't really do with Pathifnder due to the strange fact that tabletop RPGs seem to be afraid of incorperating mature topics.
3b) Bulmhan.
I apologize if this has already been answered in this (rather long) thread, but it didn't come up in the first three pages of search results...
Subject: Dark Stalker
Abilities in Question: See in Darkness, "Fog Cloud" at will.
Question: Can a Dark Stalker (or any similar creature) see through the Fog Cloud it creates via See in Darkness.
Context: I am assuming no, but looking for clarification.
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Creative Director
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I apologize if this has already been answered in this (rather long) thread, but it didn't come up in the first three pages of search results...
Subject: Dark Stalker
Abilities in Question: See in Darkness, "Fog Cloud" at will.Question: Can a Dark Stalker (or any similar creature) see through the Fog Cloud it creates via See in Darkness.
Context: I am assuming no, but looking for clarification.
Nope; fog is not darkness.
Nope; fog is not darkness.I apologize if this has already been answered in this (rather long) thread, but it didn't come up in the first three pages of search results...
Subject: Dark Stalker
Abilities in Question: See in Darkness, "Fog Cloud" at will.Question: Can a Dark Stalker (or any similar creature) see through the Fog Cloud it creates via See in Darkness.
Context: I am assuming no, but looking for clarification.
Thanks much!!
Where do cheetahs live in Golarion?
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Yup; Baba Yaga's race is not currently listed, in any event. So her daughters end up being classified as Kellids.And: Compsognathus. Or maybe archaeopteryx, although that's starting to skew out of dinosaur territory.Archaeopteryx is still classified as a dinosaur, I'm pretty sure.
Do the daughters of Baba Yaga take on the race of the father (since her own race is unknown)? I'm curious because I saw that in Inner Sea Magic,
** spoiler omitted **
Although I can imagine that there may not really be any "rules" involved for such a powerful individual.
Bit of a "Resurrect Sub-Threat", but...
...are Changelings (from the ARG) more accurate race-types for the daughters of Baby Yaga & Co. that Kellid? While I know her race isn't listed, it is pretty heavily implied at times she is similar to a hag (witch queen, tied to nature, utilizes evil fey).
James, can I ask if there are any plans to have more Wayne Reynolds art on Paizo products? Perhaps Adventure Path covers or something? I think the last one was Jade Empire...
Since the term grub is usually used for the larval stage of an insect; what is the adult stage in the Rot Grub life-cycle, and is it a horrible creature fit only for burning?
James -
What do we know about Taldan Royal Houses? Are there any listed in the canon? Do we treat them pretty much like British houses, post-empire? If a Taldan royal dies, leaving a bastard son, a legitimate daughter, a sister and a brother-in-law as his next of kin, who inherits? Can they contest?
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Creative Director
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Bit of a "Resurrect Sub-Threat", but...
...are Changelings (from the ARG) more accurate race-types for the daughters of Baby Yaga & Co. that Kellid? While I know her race isn't listed, it is pretty heavily implied at times she is similar to a hag (witch queen, tied to nature, utilizes evil fey).
Nah... Baba Yaga (not Baby Yaga) is not a hag, nor are her daughters. In order to be a changeling, you need to have a hag mother. There are certainly changelings in Irrisen... but the White Witches are not among them.
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Creative Director
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James, can I ask if there are any plans to have more Wayne Reynolds art on Paizo products? Perhaps Adventure Path covers or something? I think the last one was Jade Empire...
Wayne does all our hardcovers. Now and then we hire him to do covers to books in the Campaign Setting line, as with Dragon Empires Gazetteer. And He'll be doing the Shattered Star Adventure Path Covers.
So... Yes, there are plans. :-P