Time for me to add to the pile of Mythic questions! :D
So, I've read in a few places that even with the Mythic rules that Players won't be able to fight even lesser gods. Does this mean...
** spoiler omitted **
Mythic Adventures is meant to let players fight against demigods, but NOT deities.
** spoiler omitted **
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Pathfinder isn't designed to be a solo, or even a one on one game. It's designed to be a cooperative, team game.
It has been mentioned elsewhere that a character with mythic levels could potentially be suitable for attempting an AP solo. As the majority of my gaming these days is me at home playing with my wife (stop sniggering at the back), this is something that caught my interest. Is this a design goal for Mythic Adventures, a happy by-product, or something that you don't believe will come to be?
Good luck with your con-crud fort saves.
Mr. James Jacobs,
Will the Mythic rules have possible paths or adventure seed ideas for Divine Ascension?
Creative Director
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Spoiler:Thanks, I've heard Ydersius refereed to as both a god and demigod, so I wasn't sure which was the correct category for him before he was beheaded. There seems to be a lot of confusion on this subject for some reason, because one of the end games for Serpent's Skull makes a big deal out of the fact that you're having to find a way to kill a god. Ah well ;)
Until Mythic Adventures comes out, there really ISN'T an in-print "here's the difference between demigod and god," so that's why you've likely heard certain deities referred to as both.
In fact, the words "god" and "goddess" are more or less reserved to be power-neutral terms. If you're looking at the two categories that are associated with rules implications... it's deity (no stats ever) and demigod (mythic stats).
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Creative Director
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Pathfinder isn't designed to be a solo, or even a one on one game. It's designed to be a cooperative, team game.It has been mentioned elsewhere that a character with mythic levels could potentially be suitable for attempting an AP solo. As the majority of my gaming these days is me at home playing with my wife (stop sniggering at the back), this is something that caught my interest. Is this a design goal for Mythic Adventures, a happy by-product, or something that you don't believe will come to be?
Good luck with your con-crud fort saves.
It's a happy by-prodcut that I'm pushing harder and harder to make a specific design goal.
I would LOVE to some day have rules for creatures of that size. Mythic Adventures will hopefully have such rules, but in the grand scheme of things, those rules are pretty low priorities at this point for that book.With Mythic rules, will we see new size classes even larger than those currently in the system. Like Godzilla sized?
Is there any plan/hope to stat up Kaiju as mythic monsters instead of "regular" monsters? Or would you rather they be statted up the way current high CR monsters are.
What are the chances of having a "Mythic Bestiary"? (I imagine it kind of like the Inner Sea Bestiary.)
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Creative Director
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I meant how it effects the judgement of an undead raising Necromancer who isn't undead themselfs and destroyed undead.
Undead prevent a soul from being judged. As long as you're undead, your soul is trapped. That's why pretty much all undead are evil. Being undead throws a monkey wrench into the cycle of souls and life, and that's why Pharasma hates them.
A necromancer who both created undead and destroyed undead in life is likely to have sinned against something, since those two actions are pretty diametrically opposed. In this case, whatever sinn the necromancer committed (which would depend on his deity or beliefs) would determine his punishment.
But Pharasma is mature enough to not let her own personal opinions interfere with proper "sorting of souls" in the Boneyard. She might not like the fact that a necromancer who was a paragon of creating undead gets to go on to serve as a favored minion of Urgathoa in the afterlife, but she'll not arbitrarily send him on to punishment just to be petty.
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I would LOVE to some day have rules for creatures of that size. Mythic Adventures will hopefully have such rules, but in the grand scheme of things, those rules are pretty low priorities at this point for that book.With Mythic rules, will we see new size classes even larger than those currently in the system. Like Godzilla sized?
Is there any plan/hope to stat up Kaiju as mythic monsters instead of "regular" monsters? Or would you rather they be statted up the way current high CR monsters are.
Well if you push for it and they give you any gaff just tell 'em I said they should be a must-have!
I WILL stat out King Caesar!
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Creative Director
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Mr. James Jacobs,
Will the Mythic rules have possible paths or adventure seed ideas for Divine Ascension?
I hope so!
In fact, giving us rules that we can use to, say, some day do a "Test of the Starstone" adventure path, or to stat up a demigod like Dis or Dagon or the Horsemen of the Apocalypse is one of the things that I'm pushing the design team to include in Mythic Adventures.
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Creative Director
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What are the chances of having a "Mythic Bestiary"? (I imagine it kind of like the Inner Sea Bestiary.)I would LOVE to some day have rules for creatures of that size. Mythic Adventures will hopefully have such rules, but in the grand scheme of things, those rules are pretty low priorities at this point for that book.With Mythic rules, will we see new size classes even larger than those currently in the system. Like Godzilla sized?
Is there any plan/hope to stat up Kaiju as mythic monsters instead of "regular" monsters? Or would you rather they be statted up the way current high CR monsters are.
There will be plenty of places for us to present mythic monsters. Including in Mythic Adventures itself.
So, the chances are high.
So Casmaron (or at least Iblydos) in 2014 then? ;)
We'll continue doing more stuff for witches, but with the Reign of Winter Adventure Path on the horizon, that's why so much stuff is focused on Winter Witches for now—we're actually preparing some rules we need to use for lots of NPCs in that adventure path. The fact that players can use these particular rules is, to a certain extent, a side benefit.
The Winter Witches ARE awesome & I have always been a big fan of Ms. Yaga
I just want more Witch love :D
Thank you for spending time with us James & answering our questions!
James:
I asked earlier but I think you missed it. :)
Going back to the question I asked earlier about a tiny creature with a longspear is the tiny creature able to attack in his own square? My guess is 'no'.
Thanks again,
- Gauss
People who want RAW are only setting themselves up for frustration. The game does not play NEARLY as well when you don't give the GM the respect and trust to interpret and adjudicate rules.
If they're looking for "errata," go ahead and reference them to my original answer to your thread. If word from the Creative Director of Paizo doesn't do it for them, there's not much more I can do to help.
Don't mistake my nitpicking for sticklerish adherence to RAW. I'd never play without those words houseruled in (and until I found out they weren't, unwittingly played that way all along).
The problem arises when stuff like PFS is brought up. Technically, with this knowledge, you can't sneak attack using stealth in PFS (except during the surprise round; but then, you don't need to be stealthed for that).
Your opinion is the same as mine, in regards to how the game should be played in this instance. Sometimes, a highly valued opinion has no weight where the rules unambiguously disagree. PFS is one of those places.
One line in the FAQ of the Core Rules would be enough.
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Creative Director
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James:
I asked earlier but I think you missed it. :)
Going back to the question I asked earlier about a tiny creature with a longspear is the tiny creature able to attack in his own square? My guess is 'no'.
Thanks again,
- Gauss
Again, reach weapons on unusually sized creatures is weird. In this case, I would say no, though, a Tiny creature with a longspear cannot attack creatures in the square in which the Tiny creature is located.
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Creative Director
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People who want RAW are only setting themselves up for frustration. The game does not play NEARLY as well when you don't give the GM the respect and trust to interpret and adjudicate rules.
If they're looking for "errata," go ahead and reference them to my original answer to your thread. If word from the Creative Director of Paizo doesn't do it for them, there's not much more I can do to help.
Don't mistake my nitpicking for sticklerish adherence to RAW. I'd never play without those words houseruled in (and until I found out they weren't, unwittingly played that way all along).
The problem arises when stuff like PFS is brought up. Technically, with this knowledge, you can't sneak attack using stealth in PFS (except during the surprise round; but then, you don't need to be stealthed for that).
Your opinion is the same as mine, in regards to how the game should be played in this instance. Sometimes, a highly valued opinion has no weight where the rules unambiguously disagree. PFS is one of those places.
One line in the FAQ of the Core Rules would be enough.
You can sneak attack using stealth in PFS. The fact that some GMs don't feel empowered enough to let this work is a failing of the organized play environment as much as anything else.
Adding "one line in the FAQ" will certainly help a few cases, but the FAQ, and the Core Rules themselves, are BIG. And expecting every GM in every org play game to know all those rules is ridiculous. The only sane option is to expect GMs to be familiar with the rules and self-assured enough to run a fun game. I feel that the over-reliance on making sure EVERY SINGLE TINY RULE is correct in an org play game is bad for the program, since it causes many more problems than it solves.
In any case... these aren't questions. They're soapboxes.
So! Let's stick to questions in this thread. :-P
James, what's your favorite brand of soapbox? :p
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Chief Technical Officer
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everything i click on just shows to mid oct?
The Product Schedule page only shows products for which we have estimated arrival dates from our printer. Generally, this means products due out in the next two to three months—for now, that's to mid-October.
We generally announce products about six months in advance—for now, that's through January; go to the appropriate product sections and look at the "Preorder" tab to see those.
(We have *informally* announced products beyond January, but until they're formally announced, and have product codes, ISBNs, prices, descriptions, and at least mock-up cover images, they don't appear on the site.)
So Casmaron (or at least Iblydos) in 2014 then? ;)I'll let you know in 2014.
So late 2014 then , since if it was in the first half you would let us know in 2013!!! ;)
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I've run a search for all of your answers in regards to Celestial Servant - thanks for answering them all, those responses cleared up a lot for me.
A couple things that are ambiguous that haven't been asked yet - for the Celestial template, it grants "Smite Evil" and gives a very condensed description of what that does. Is this paraphrasing the Paladin's Smite Evil ability and is meant to act exactly like that, or is this a whole different same named Smite Evil that only adds Charisma to attack and HD to damage, without the DR bypassing and one time 2xHD bonus damage vs undead/evil dragons/evil outsiders and the Charisma to AC bonus of the Paladin ability?
Also, from the Celestial template, how do you apply the SR - it's supposed to be CR+5, but animal companions don't have a CR. Is it effective druid level (potentially modified by Boon Companion/Huntmaster), the companion's HD, or something else?
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Creative Director
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** spoiler omitted **Until Mythic Adventures comes out, there really ISN'T an in-print "here's the difference between demigod and god," so that's why you've likely heard certain deities referred to as both.
In fact, the words "god" and "goddess" are more or less reserved to be power-neutral terms. If you're looking at the two categories that are associated with rules implications... it's deity (no stats ever) and demigod (mythic stats).
Before I ask the question, just to help clarify what I'm asking, I like that deities don't have stats, and can't be killed by damaging their "HP" enough or something like that, so I'm not asking "why" that's the case per se.
What I would like to ask is, will there be anything in the mythic rules that will help GMs or just mythology lovers understand why gods are virtually invincible in this way, yet someone could be prancing about on their plane and yet said deity doesn't simply put a stop to it? I think it makes sense on the Material Plane to an extent, because that's a divine "demilitarized zone" so to speak, but for planar adventures, it would be cool to understand the implications there.
On a similar note, will there be any mention of how you would "defeat" a god even though you can't take them to direct battle, if you were their opponent, and why they wouldn't just reach out and snuff the life out of the greatest champions of their enemies when they are about to do the worst, even if it did mean interfering on the Material Plane? It seems like it would be easy enough for them to prevent the worst from ever happening. Are they always at odds with each others wills, etc?
Will anything like that kind of flavor and mythology in addition to the statistical rules be included?
There'll be some information about deities and the like in Mythic Adventures, but I suspect that more information specifically about deities themselves and how they work would be better served in its own book, particularly a book in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting line, where we can actually talk about the Golarion deities. Our rulebook line is "world neutral," and as such it's not the right place to go into great detail about world-specific stuff like Desna or Sarenrae or Rovagug or Asmodeus.
That said, advice on what makes mythic adventures, well, MYTHIC will be in the book, and that includes things like how to directly involved demigods and deities in your games.
everything i click on just shows to mid oct?The Product Schedule page only shows products for which we have estimated arrival dates from our printer. Generally, this means products due out in the next two to three months—for now, that's to mid-October.
We generally announce products about six months in advance—for now, that's through January; go to the appropriate product sections and look at the "Preorder" tab to see those.
(We have *informally* announced products beyond January, but until they're formally announced, and have product codes, ISBNs, prices, descriptions, and at least mock-up cover images, they don't appear on the site.)
thanks....a duh moment for me..
Theoretically, if Pharasma would lean towards one alignment on the G-E axis or C-L axis would it be LN, CN, NE or NG?
Does Pharasma dislike birth control or is she cool with it?
I suppose she'd probably lean toward lawful neutral, since judging souls is something that follows a super-complex set of rules. Of course, the fact that she writes those rules and changes them as she wants or needs would mean she leans toward chaotic neutral. At the same time, she's capable of showing mercy to those who deserve it so that would make her mostly neutral good... but whether or not that mercy granted makes the world a safer place is up to question and since she IS about people dying, she's probably more neutral evil.
In other words... she's neutral. Making her lean toward any other alignment starts turning her into another deity.
She is, as a result, neutral as regards birth control.
Hi James and thanks for the answers. They really help.
I'm currently playing a N cleric of Pharasma, but I decided to shift her to LN.She has caused me some problem from a role playing perspective, but with your answer I now feel I got a better idea of her and her god.
:-)
Thanks again.
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Creative Director
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I've run a search for all of your answers in regards to Celestial Servant - thanks for answering them all, those responses cleared up a lot for me.
A couple things that are ambiguous that haven't been asked yet - for the Celestial template, it grants "Smite Evil" and gives a very condensed description of what that does. Is this paraphrasing the Paladin's Smite Evil ability and is meant to act exactly like that, or is this a whole different same named Smite Evil that only adds Charisma to attack and HD to damage, without the DR bypassing and one time 2xHD bonus damage vs undead/evil dragons/evil outsiders and the Charisma to AC bonus of the Paladin ability?
Also, from the Celestial template, how do you apply the SR - it's supposed to be CR+5, but animal companions don't have a CR. Is it effective druid level (potentially modified by Boon Companion/Huntmaster), the companion's HD, or something else?
A paladin's ability to smite evil is a different ability than a celestial creature's ability to smite evil, and they thus should NOT be treated as the same power. The paladin's is better. ALL a celestial creature's smite ability grants is a bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls. Nothing else.
For animal companions, use the CR of the animal companion's master, which is always Level –1.
We'll continue doing more stuff for witches, but with the Reign of Winter Adventure Path on the horizon, that's why so much stuff is focused on Winter Witches for now—we're actually preparing some rules we need to use for lots of NPCs in that adventure path. The fact that players can use these particular rules is, to a certain extent, a side benefit.
I vaguely recall that the Snowcaster Elves are up in the areas up near Irrisen. I also recall that you answered a previous question I asked, that the Jade Regent AP was supposed to include more on the Snowcasters but that it was unintentionally overlooked. Will the upcoming Reign of Winter AP go into more detail about them?
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Creative Director
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Regarding past experience as a player:
What NPC were you most attached to as a player?
What NPC did you most detest in-character?
Hmmm... Mr. Skull was a pretty detestable character, but so was Balabar Smenk. Yeah... I'd have to nominate Balabar, especially since our PCs never got a chance to get revenge on him for the things he did to us.
Horseshoe was an unlikely candidate for a likable NPC, but I think the NPC I got the most attached to was probably Zary, a fallen angel whom my character Rowyn got involved with to the extent that she ended up preggers with a half-celestial kid.
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Creative Director
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I vaguely recall that the Snowcaster Elves are up in the areas up near Irrisen. I also recall that you answered a previous question I asked, that the Jade Regent AP was supposed to include more on the Snowcasters but that it was unintentionally overlooked. Will the upcoming Reign of Winter AP go into more detail about them?We'll continue doing more stuff for witches, but with the Reign of Winter Adventure Path on the horizon, that's why so much stuff is focused on Winter Witches for now—we're actually preparing some rules we need to use for lots of NPCs in that adventure path. The fact that players can use these particular rules is, to a certain extent, a side benefit.
There'll be information about the Snowcasters in People of the North. I'm not sure if they'll have any roles to play in Reign of Winter yet.
Any chance for a Dragon Empires NPC Guide?
While Tiamat is, of course, based on a real world ancient deity, the version that has been in D&D since the start is a 5-headed dragon. She's one of the most iconic creatures in the game as well, having appeared in LOTS of art and adventures, as a monster in the D&D Saturday Morning cartoon back in the 80s, and with a slight disguise as Takhisis in Dragonlance, one of the best-known D&D settings of all time. Pathfinder, and Golarion, are NOT D&D, but they share a LOT of the same inspirations and themes, and were we to do much more with Tiamat, we'd have to develop her as something other than a 5 headed dragon, since that incarnation of her is the intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast. (This is, by the way, the same thing that keeps us from doing much more with Demogorgon.)
Here's something I've often wondered about: if Demogorgon is hands-off for this reason, why do so many third-party publishers use Orcus in their works without similar reservations? Both are very loosely defined in Earth mythology and referenced merely in passing in adjacent lines of Milton's Paradise Lost, but I have yet to see a historical or mythological precedent for "fat, horned, cloven-foot demon with a big green skull-shaped wand" for Orcus any more than I have "a two-headed lizard-monkey demon" for Demogorgon. Why the difference in treatment from an IP standpoint?
On a scale of one to ten, how excited are you to start the public playtesting of the Mythic Adventures rules set?10
Which is also the scale of how nervous I am about it.
...
I'm also nervous because the same folks who say "Epic is broken but we love it!" are not going to give Mythic Adventures the chance to win them over because they'll make snap judgements and otherwise make up their minds before they try things out.
No worries. I may be vocal, but I will definitely be giving it a chance. Though probably not as an overlay for low levels ... that's definitely not how I roll :)
I would LOVE to some day have rules for creatures of that size. Mythic Adventures will hopefully have such rules, but in the grand scheme of things, those rules are pretty low priorities at this point for that book.With Mythic rules, will we see new size classes even larger than those currently in the system. Like Godzilla sized?
Is there any plan/hope to stat up Kaiju as mythic monsters instead of "regular" monsters? Or would you rather they be statted up the way current high CR monsters are.
Well, I'll keep my fingers crossed. But I can definitely see how that subject is almost worthy of a book in itself. In any event, this is definitely something I'm looking forward to - it's not the size that's the issue, it's the interaction with creatures of that size and ordinary-sized creatures and especially effects that's complex.
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As for mythic rules in general, I'm feeling a bit left in the lurch here - so far all we've got is some vague info about things that might be done. I know you guys are leery of posting stuff prematurely, but is there any chance we might get some sort of preview before the full bore playtest document is out, which won't be until a month or two?
Can casters grant themselves a saving throw against their own illusions, even though they know the effects to be illusionary?
Relevant quotes:
"A character faced with proof that an illusion isn't real needs no saving throw." (Core Rules)
For 3.5, Skip Williams stated this:
"The rules don't say so, but if you create an illusion that allows a saving throw for disbelief, you automatically disbelieve it (you know it isn't real because you created it)."
Another Night Hag related question. If it is indeed true that the union of a Fiend (Night Hag in this case) and a Humanoid (let's use a normal Human as an example) always results in a Half-Fiend, is it not true that the child of these two is a Half-Fiend Changeling if it refuses to turn into a Night Hag (assuming Night Hags actually spawn Changelings like other Hags do), and the child of said Half-Fiend would be a Changeling/Tiefling hybrid? I've been trying to wrap my head around this genetics puzzle for quite a while now.
I think the problem is that children of Hags are always Changelings, and the children of Fiends are always Half-Fiends...but what is the result of the blood dwindling (I ask since I am crazy and want to play a Changeling with Night Hag blood instead of Annis, Green or Sea Hag heritage)?
We're deliberately vague on how half-fiends (and half-celestials) come about, because the less we say, the more potential stories we allow. A night hag and a human who have a child can have whatever type of child the story you want to tell needs.
That said... night hags are NOT technically fiends. "Fiend" is a catch-all term we use for the evil planar "races" like daemons, demons, devils, qlippoth, rakshasas, kytons, divs, demodands, etc. Night hags are not in one of those race categories.
Last questions.
If Night Hags are technically not fiends, does that not mean that a child of a Night Hag will be a Changeling?
And if so, what alternate racial should a Night Hag spawn Changeling get?
What I had in mind was some variant to Fiendish Sorcery (related to Dreamspun and Daemon bloodlines)
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Creative Director
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1) LOL James, what's your superpower for answer pages of questions?
2) Can i have help here?
1) Got it after I was bitten by a radioactive rulebook.
2) Nope. I'm not a fan of armor as damage reduction rules, generally speaking. That said, if you want to narrow down and focus the specific questions and repost them here, I'll do what I can to answer them here.
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Creative Director
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Here's something I've often wondered about: if Demogorgon is hands-off for this reason, why do so many third-party publishers use Orcus in their works without similar reservations? Both are very loosely defined in Earth mythology and referenced merely in passing in adjacent lines of Milton's Paradise Lost, but I have yet to see a historical or mythological precedent for "fat, horned, cloven-foot demon with a big green skull-shaped wand" for Orcus any more than I have "a two-headed lizard-monkey demon" for Demogorgon. Why the difference in treatment from an IP standpoint?
Because when Necromancer Games decided to do the Tome of Horrors, they worked a deal with Wizards of the Coast to do open content d20 stats for a HUGE amount of iconic D&D monsters that, at that time, the brand manager for D&D assumed Wizards of the Coast would never get around to updating. Rather than consign these monsters to "limbo," he okayed Necromancer to update these older monsters—that's why things like bullywugs and grells and hook horrors and meenlocks and jermalaines aren't in the Tome of Horrors—they'd already been updated in Wizards of the Coast's "Monsters of Faerun" or "Monster Manual II," (both of which were closed content, which resulted in a weird chunk of classic D&D monsters never being made open content).
Wizards of the Coast was simultaneously in the process of working on the Fiend Folio (of which I was one of several authors), and in a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing, THAT book also ended up updating some of those older classic monsters, in large part because some of Fiend Folio's authors (me, Erik, and a couple others) were big fans of nostalgia.
And so that's why the original Tome of Horrors, which proudly claimed "None of the updated monsters in this book will be updated by Wizards of the Coast" was incorrect right out the gate... BOTH books, for example, had demodands and some other monsters.
In any case, and in hindsight, I (and many other employees of 3rd party publishers) are grateful that Clark Peterson and Necromancer Games was able to get as many D&D monsters out into the "open" as they did, because that means that today, Pathfinder and other games CAN use things like lurkers above, froghemoths, and Orcus.
Had Necromancer Games put Demogorgon into the first Tome of Horrors, chances are good he'd have HUGE role in Golarion. They didn't so he doesn't.
They DID put Orcus in, though. And since they made Orcus's stats and flavor text all open content... suddenly other game companies COULD use him as he'd been developed in D&D in their games. The same goes for a few other demon lords in the book, like Baphomet and Pazuzu. And Jubilex as well... although due to a typo in Tome of Horrors, you have to be careful to spell his name with the i AFTER the b, and not like this: "Juiblex" which is the spelling his name has had in D&D from the start.
Would the Eldest be candidates for demi-god-like-enemies in Mythic Adventures, or more like dieties? Just curious.
1) Got it after I was bitten by a radioactive rulebook.
Hah! Which rulebook was this? *is totally picturing a glowing PF Core Rulebook with teeth*